the iconography of michelle obama's purple dress June 8, 2008
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedThe New York Times suggests a symbolism for the purple colour of the dress:
it was particularly the color Michelle Obama chose Tuesday night that seemed symbolically rich, even if its message may have been so subtle as to be subliminal.
“I don’t know if that’s something they consciously thought about,”said Mr. Anthony, referring to the fact that purple is, as every schoolchild knows, created by mixing the primary colors red and blue.
But purple has other connotations – for example, it is associated with royalty, nobility and wealth – a colour redolent of leadership. I certainly don’t think she is preparing for a purple-wearing old age in this sense.
virtual world machinima June 8, 2008
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedIt’s intriguing that different vws work out differently as the background locations for machinima music videos. With WOW you get a sense of the characters in the songs, even if the characters’ movements and gestures are stock movements with little range. But the runescape characters are so small and the perspective on the scenes makes the characters seem so far away that there’s little hope of being able to relate to the characters in the songs at all.
runescape code monkey 2 June 8, 2008
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closed[post originally linked to video no longer available].
what about money June 7, 2008
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedThe FSA has a new website with financial advice for young adults, called what about money?. The Press Release announcing the website states:
In building the website, the watchdog has engaged with young adults and asked them what information they want, how they want it provided, and who they want it from. The site is broken down into life stages and subjects that young adults told the FSA that they were most interested in….
This young adults website has been developed in partnership with YouthNet — a charity with expertise in communicating with this age group — on some of the content. The site also links to the FSA’s main consumer website — www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk — which aims to cut out confusing jargon and give consumers the impartial facts about financial products and services, helping them to make informed decisions.
The website has forums for discussion, and links to online resources available at other websites. It is advertised as impartial financial information, but is not completely separated from financial firms. For example, the site links to resources at Get Safe Online, a site which describes itself as being “sponsored by the British government and leading businesses to give you free, objective advice”. One of the leading business sponsors is HSBC. I find the format a bit clunky – because they have decided to point readers to resources in various places rather than setting out information on the one site it isn’t very easy to find exactly what you might want to know. The moneymadeclear site is much better organised in this respect (many of the resources linked to are in fact here). But if millenials really aren’t into linear thinking, perhaps this format works for the target readership.
runescape code monkey 1 June 7, 2008
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closeduk banking regulation reform June 6, 2008
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedThe Chancellor in Parliament yesterday:
Yes, the banking reforms are necessary, but we have just finished a period of consultation and spoken extensively to banks and other institutions about the reforms that we need. We want to get the reforms right, and the overwhelming view of the British Bankers Association, which is working co-operatively with us, is that we can see where we want to get to. We need to get the detail right, but I intend to introduce legislation during this parliamentary Session. I hope that that legislation will receive all-party support, because the sooner we get it on to the statute book, the better. Of course, the Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008 that we put on the statute book following the taking into public ownership of Northern Rock will help, in that it provides powers that the Government and the other authorities simply did not have before then.
I’m sure we all feel a lot better now.
eu commission, transparency and toy safety June 5, 2008
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedThe Commission has published the final report of an expert group on Evaluating Business Safety Measures in the Toy Supply Chain. The fact finding exercise which led to the report was announced in a press release on what the Commission was doing about toy safety issued in November 2007. It’s an interesting report which raises some good questions, and makes a list of recommendations, including a focus on harmonisation of toy standards at the international level. There’s an issue about the need to make it easier for manufacturers of toys outside the EU to know what rules they need to comply with (this is, of course, a general issue about the limits to the usefulness of harmonisation initiatives):
Chinese manufacturers claim that it is difficult for them to fully understand the legislative approach in the EU whereby conformity with a certain harmonised safety standard does not necessarily mean the product is in compliance with all applicable safety requirements as set out in the legislation. Although efforts from the EU and the Chinese authorities, as well as the European toy industry, to inform the Chinese toy manufacturers about the applicable regulations and harmonised safety standards for toys in the EU have resulted in greater awareness, there is still a need to improve in particular the understanding of requirements that are regulated in nontoy specific legislation such as for certain phthalates and azo colorants.
On the other hand, the whole exercise doesn’t seem to be a model of transparency. The report does not identify an author, nor does it list the members of the expert group. It states:
This report reflects the results of an evaluation project undertaken under the direction of an independent expert group with the support and technical assistance of the European Commission. The contents of this document do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission and are in no way an indication of the Commission’s future position in this area. Neither the Commission nor any person acting on its behalf can be held responsible for any use that may be made of the following information.
And:
An ad hoc expert group was established providing independent advice and consisting of representatives of the main stakeholders including manufacturers, importers, retailers, test laboratories, consumers and Member States. The Commission provided support and technical assistance to this group.
The Commission published one press release about Commissioner Kuneva presenting the report, and another press release which gives some information about the members of the expert group which states:
The group included following experts:
* Helen Amundsen (ANEC/BEUC)
* Wim Berkel (Dutch Food and Product Safety Authority)
* Jerome Billot (Carrefour)
* Alf Cash (Mattel)
* Natale Consonni (Istituto Italiano Sicurezza dei Giocattoli)
* Linda Crane (British Retail Consortium)
* Brian Ellis (Toy Industries of Europe)
* Ton de Koning (Dutch Food and Product Safety Authority)
* Daryl Scrivens (HASBRO)
* Sanda Stefanovic (SGS)
It’s not clear whether the “the group included” language is just eurospeak, or whether there were other experts also included who are not listed. And why make it anything other than really easy to find out who the experts were?
more weird uk government youtube videos June 5, 2008
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedA couple of weeks ago the UK Government invited comments on its draft legislative programme for the next session, including via a youtube video with the title “The Prime Minister Launches “Your Voice””. The Prime Minister barely appears here:
consultation in the eu June 4, 2008
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedIn order to respond to the EU Commission’s consultation on an EU consumer safety mark it is necessary to specify whether you are “A consumer, professional user (e.g. hair-dresser, carpenter, doctor, etc.) or professional in the supply chain”, “An enterprise / enterprise association” or “A market surveillance or customs authority”. Presumably the distinction between the first two categories is meant to be between individuals and firms, even though enterprises could be enterprises comprising users of products as well as producers. If you pick the consumer etc route, identifying yourself with greater detail is optional. You have to say how much attention you pay to a range of issues when purchasing products, including safety, price, place of origin, and brand. And then there’s a question about which of these issues matter in the context of a strange set of products: mobile phones, ladders, light bulbs, teddy bears, computer game consoles, bicycle helmets, saucepans, carpets, t shirts, office chairs, shampoo, cheese, electric kettles, drilling machines, and cars. Perhaps I am missing something, but safety isn’t an issue I worry about when buying t shirts, and with respect to other products in the list I care quite a bit about environmental and ethical/social issues that the survey isn’t concerned with. So I didn’t submit a response.
british citizenship consultation a figleaf? June 3, 2008
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedThe other day the Law Society of England and Wales responded to the UK Home Office’s consultation on British Citizenship, The Path to Citizenship. The introduction to the response is quite disturbing:
The Law Society welcomes this opportunity to comment on the Government’s proposals regarding reforming the immigration system. However the Society is concerned that this consultation does not represent a genuine attempt to consult the public on the proposed changes to British citizenship, as we understand from recent correspondence that UKBA is already preparing to implement the proposals notwithstanding the fact that the consultation is still open. This calls into question the genuine nature of the consultation process.
Generally it’s a pretty critical response (with wording like “fundamentally flawed” cropping up as in “the proposed route to citizenship is fundamentally flawed”). And there are more criticisms relevant to the question of how Government manages consultations:
The Law Society responded in substantial detail to the Home Office’s initial consultation on ‘Simplifying Immigration Law’ in August 2007. The Home Office had suggested that, by the end of 2007, more concrete proposals relating to the simplification of immigration law would be published for further consultation. The Law Society, therefore, is disappointed that the proposals now published so belatedly in the consultation document are very general in nature and non-specific with respect to the details of their content. Since it is the Law Society’s understanding that the proposals of this chapter are to be included in a draft bill to be published in the summer, it is disappointed that the general nature of the proposals in the consultation document makes it impossible to provide meaningful comment which would constructively inform the preparation of a draft bill.