Variety of public service announcements.

Computer started doing its disconnecting thing again on Thursday night and has been doing it continuously all over the weekend. BT engineer came out and after some faffing about we established that there was noise on the line - somewhere around the exchange, which has now been fixed. I didn't have much of a chance to test it because by this point it was 10am and I really had to come to work.

So apologies to anyone who is expecting an email/comment reply etc from me, I'm afraid you're just going to have to wait. If I don't get to it before the end of the week then prod me. I've not read much LJ over the weekend and don't intend to read what I've not already seen; comment here if there's anything important I should see. Specifically, I've not been reading behind cut tags, because when it takes a long time to get my friends page to load, the effort of getting another page to open just to read the cut text is far too much.

Have a look at http://www.livejournal.com/users/reddragdiva/169931.html if you're feeling charitable.

You don't need me to tell you to go and vote tomorrow if you're entitled to, so I won't bother. What I will say is that election pundits always get it wrong - so I'd say the result isn't going to be quite as close as everyone is predicting. I suspect that the people who aren't normally registered to vote but who happen to have registered to vote this time round will use their votes - what's the point of bothering to register (if you don't normally) if you're not going to vote? So I'm going to predict a Kerry win by a reasonable margin(Incidentally, I'm more confident he'll win in the popular vote than I am that he'll win in the electoral college but I think he'll make it there too).

Coffee in Borders will take place tomorrow - I'm guessing some people will want to go off for election-night gatherings at some point, but we can work round that. I really have got to start doing some Christmas shopping, so don't expect me at Borders until at least 6.30pm.

Advance warning - barring unforseen events, I want to go and give blood at week tomorrow, so I don't expect me at Coffee in Borders on the 8th Nov until 7pmish (the permanent donor centre in St. Margaret's Street is very good, but you do sometimes have to sit around for a while).

Now for a rant that's been brewing for a while. I don't like Big Brother. I feel it (and other programmes like it) exploit some of the most vulnerable people in society for our entertainment. I have watched episodes of it (when at friends' houses where it would be inappropriate to refuse to watch it), so I do know what I'm talking about. The people selected seem to be poorly educated, without jobs and lacking in wealth. They're not in a position to make a properly informed choice, because they have such a lack of skills with which to make that choice/the prize money is too great an incentive for them. I'm still a liberal, in favour of letting people choose what to do with their lives, including being humiliated on telly if that's what they want, but I do feel that the 'housemates' are being very much exploited by the production company and that this is a bad thing. This is one of the reasons why I don't watch Big Brother. My other reason being that it's really quite dreadful television.

And another rant - I was listening to Any Questions on Friday and one of the topics discussed was ASBOs, with the main reference being to groups of youths who hang around shops looking threatening, thus making people scared to go shopping. Now, there have been many occassions when I've gone shopping and seen groups of teenagers hanging round and yes, there've been a couple when I've felt scared, but I've gone for the thrust chest out, shoulders back, look where I'm going and walk purposively course of action. No one's going to mess with me. I don't look like a victim. I've also always dismissed my fear as me being silly. Groups of people hanging about is not per se something to be afraid of, and if I'm scared of them, then it's *my* problem, not theirs because they've not done anything wrong.

The point I'm making is that ASBOs have the potential to be used to criminalise otherwise lawful behaviour - we shouldn't be criminalising teenagers for hanging round local shops (note that I say 'hanging round' - if they are actually intimidating people with words or actions, then there is a problem that should be dealt with using the law). We should be looking at why we find such groups of people scary and reeducating ourselves.

Variety of public service announcements.

Computer started doing its disconnecting thing again on Thursday night and has been doing it continuously all over the weekend. BT engineer came out and after some faffing about we established that there was noise on the line - somewhere around the exchange, which has now been fixed. I didn't have much of a chance to test it because by this point it was 10am and I really had to come to work.

So apologies to anyone who is expecting an email/comment reply etc from me, I'm afraid you're just going to have to wait. If I don't get to it before the end of the week then prod me. I've not read much LJ over the weekend and don't intend to read what I've not already seen; comment here if there's anything important I should see. Specifically, I've not been reading behind cut tags, because when it takes a long time to get my friends page to load, the effort of getting another page to open just to read the cut text is far too much.

Have a look at http://www.livejournal.com/users/reddragdiva/169931.html if you're feeling charitable.

You don't need me to tell you to go and vote tomorrow if you're entitled to, so I won't bother. What I will say is that election pundits always get it wrong - so I'd say the result isn't going to be quite as close as everyone is predicting. I suspect that the people who aren't normally registered to vote but who happen to have registered to vote this time round will use their votes - what's the point of bothering to register (if you don't normally) if you're not going to vote? So I'm going to predict a Kerry win by a reasonable margin(Incidentally, I'm more confident he'll win in the popular vote than I am that he'll win in the electoral college but I think he'll make it there too).

Coffee in Borders will take place tomorrow - I'm guessing some people will want to go off for election-night gatherings at some point, but we can work round that. I really have got to start doing some Christmas shopping, so don't expect me at Borders until at least 6.30pm.

Advance warning - barring unforseen events, I want to go and give blood at week tomorrow, so I don't expect me at Coffee in Borders on the 8th Nov until 7pmish (the permanent donor centre in St. Margaret's Street is very good, but you do sometimes have to sit around for a while).

Now for a rant that's been brewing for a while. I don't like Big Brother. I feel it (and other programmes like it) exploit some of the most vulnerable people in society for our entertainment. I have watched episodes of it (when at friends' houses where it would be inappropriate to refuse to watch it), so I do know what I'm talking about. The people selected seem to be poorly educated, without jobs and lacking in wealth. They're not in a position to make a properly informed choice, because they have such a lack of skills with which to make that choice/the prize money is too great an incentive for them. I'm still a liberal, in favour of letting people choose what to do with their lives, including being humiliated on telly if that's what they want, but I do feel that the 'housemates' are being very much exploited by the production company and that this is a bad thing. This is one of the reasons why I don't watch Big Brother. My other reason being that it's really quite dreadful television.

And another rant - I was listening to Any Questions on Friday and one of the topics discussed was ASBOs, with the main reference being to groups of youths who hang around shops looking threatening, thus making people scared to go shopping. Now, there have been many occassions when I've gone shopping and seen groups of teenagers hanging round and yes, there've been a couple when I've felt scared, but I've gone for the thrust chest out, shoulders back, look where I'm going and walk purposively course of action. No one's going to mess with me. I don't look like a victim. I've also always dismissed my fear as me being silly. Groups of people hanging about is not per se something to be afraid of, and if I'm scared of them, then it's *my* problem, not theirs because they've not done anything wrong.

The point I'm making is that ASBOs have the potential to be used to criminalise otherwise lawful behaviour - we shouldn't be criminalising teenagers for hanging round local shops (note that I say 'hanging round' - if they are actually intimidating people with words or actions, then there is a problem that should be dealt with using the law). We should be looking at why we find such groups of people scary and reeducating ourselves.