Thanks to Danielle Herbert and BBC News Online for the Headline
For one little boy a shoe box with gifts in it for Christmas , prepared and sent nearly 40 years ago helped him so much with the trauma of having to leave his home Country of Croatia and move to Sweden , because of the conflict in the Balkans. The boy never forgot that kindness.
All he had was a photo of the two children who had prepared the box and their location written on the back of the photograph, “Mold in Wales”. He put a message out on Facebook through a Mold Community Group and this time social media proved a positive influence and the family who had sent the box recognised their picture and got in touch with the boy who is 40 years old now. The children who sent the box have grown up now and it’s their children who want to keep the tradition of sending shoe box gifts going as they can see what a difference it can make.
Oh everything is so AI trendy now, we just don’t need people. However, I am intrigued about how a cheque (yes they still exist) is processed, if you are unlucky enough to get one through the post. I mean why can’t they just transfer it to your bank code by BACS. ( that would be just as secure). All you need is my account number and my sort code, and it would happen in a matter of hours.
Instead , the DVLA and the Tax People they send cheques. The nearest bank to us is about twenty miles away , to deposit they recommend using the mobile app.
Firstly I search how to deposit a cheque, I select deposit a cheque. It tells me to take a photo of the cheque.
“Hold the Camera flat” It tells me bossily.
The photo still wouldn’t work, and then it says try a dark background. What do you think I am a blooming photo studio. Frantically I search for something dark, but everything has print on it and I suspect will confuse the camera. I want it to read the barcode of the cheque , not the barcode to the latest bathroom suites from Wickes.
Anyway I found some light green paper which seemed to work, so after holding the camera flat and steady and hoping for the best. The app told me.
“Yes I can use the picture”
Well tickety boo! And then came the rather odd request.
“Can you check that you can read all the numbers?”
Well to be honest I had a John McEnroe senior moment.
“You cannot be serious! You are AI and you cannot read the numbers! I thought that was all you were interested in was numbers?” Needless to say I didn’t get an answer. Well to be honest I didn’t have my glasses and so I couldn’t read the numbers but decided to press send anyway as I was fed up.
The next instruction was don’t throw away the cheque as you won’t be able to upload another photo of it and will have to deposit at a bank if this is the case.
Well typical, so I put the cheque away somewhere safe , so if I need it I’ll probably forget where it is.
I really would have liked to spend the money , it was a small windfall really, I thought I’d just make sure it cleared before I did. So for three days I checked my app, and it was “in pending” and hadn’t cleared. After three days it cleared.
My suspicions were aroused. Computers don’t take three days to do anything, humans do, perhaps afterall AI needs a human to check things. Particularly when there is money involved. I think the Banks think so.
Thanks to John Bowden and the Independent Online for the Headline.
I never really trusted polls and now even less. Apparently the candidate who really had no chance and was a poor third in the election anyway. Commissioned a poll to say they were a lot more popular than they were and to make things worse the pollster fiddled the figures to make it look like the candidate James Fishback looked more popular than he was.
Have no fear James Fishback was not elected and also The Polling Aggregator (whoever they are ) said it would not use the particular poll company in its analytics in the future( would we know?)
This headline struck a chord with me as I have an allotment and enjoy growing all sorts of fruit , vegetables and some flowers on it. There are successes and lots of failures, there’s hard work preparing the soil and there’s the idiosyncrasies of the weather.
The land the allotments have been set up on is part of a large school playing field, but increasingly land around the allotments is being used for Housebuilding. I do wonder , if the land will become too valuable and as the Headline says we will be turfed off to make way for Housing. I hope not.
The article is very sad as the process to remove the people who were growing on their allotments began in February, they were given six months to vacate the plots. Anyone who grows their own fruit and vegetables , knows that August is a busy harvesting period and now the people have been forced to abandon the things they have grown. Despite appeals , the landowner’s agent is insisting that the plots be vacated .
Thanks to Mal James and the Space Daily Editorial Team and Space Daily for the Headline.
There are a lot of landed gentry in England and Wales , who do not want common people wandering over their lands, we also have a lot of bridleways, right of ways and also a protest group called Right to Roam who work to ensure the access that exists at the moment is not further reduced.
Scotland, however, has open access laws , similar to Finland and commonly known as the right to roam. This allows walking, running, cycling , horse-riding, wild camping, climbing and water sports like canoeing or wild swimming. The proviso is leave the land as you found it and do not invade people’s privacy.
Fishing and hunting is a bit more tricky, there are licenses for certain activities that need to be obtained. The shared expectation is that people experience the countryside without causing damage or disturbance. No off road vehicle racing or indeed snowmobiles which scar the land.
Ownership need not regard access as potentially damaging and the Countryside and it’s benefits should be accessible to all. In Finland (and Scotland) it seems to work well.
thenotsomightyom 