Easy targets.

Parents. Parents are easy targets. Anyone and everyone who should be controlling children blame outside of the home blame the parents. Schools blame parents. the police, blame parents. The establishment, blame parents. They are easy targets.

Don't get me wrong. Parents have a role to play, a huge role to play, in their children lives by being good model citizens themselves and by showing their children right from wrong.

But, it is those outside the home who should shoulder their own responsibilities. Especially the police.

In recent times the police through various rules setup in parliament, that are now backfiring (more on that further down), are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. They cannot touch children, they have to simply say "stop it" and hope they do so. Rarely do they however.

Teachers are weak now compared to those from 10, 15 years ago and certainly weak compared to the teachers from my childhood (1965-1976). The reason for this is they themselves decided to ban the cane, then the slipper, then any form of chastisement.

Now, those two establishments should both have a role to play in the formative years of our children but they abdicated that role themselves several years ago and now it is all coming home to roost.

Who do they blame? The parents! How can the parents be to blame when those two cannot and will not do the roles they had 30 or 40 years ago? They are to blame. Not parents.

There are, of course, some parents who should not be allowed children but the overall reason for todays problems with kids are young as 5 years old roaming the streets are those idiotic people from the late 70's and throughout the 80's who said NO_ONE should touch children. Amongst those where the teachers and the police.

Think about it.

Another bandwagon rolls on.

And on and on and on.

As a parent of 5 children, the youngest 6 months old and the eldest 22 years old I wrote this with a heavy heart. Heavy heart because as a parent of 5 children I cannot get my head around the fact they left their children alone in a ground floor flat whilst they buggered off to have their evening meal.

There is something that has happened in this case that no-one is seeing or if they have seen it they have not publically said it.

It has been over 100 days since that little girl who has doctors for parents went 'missing' and they are no closer now than they have ever been to accepting blame for what they did to their own child.

The Portuguese police have said they have ruled out the parents in their inquiries. But there is growing disquiet here in the U.K. that two doctors, who one assumes are intelligent people, could leave their own children alone in a ground floor room while they buggered off to have a meal a few hundred yards away. How they hoped to see everything and everybody that went passed that room full of little children only they know. Even with 100% clear line of sight they cannot possibly have hoped they saw everything. Human nature being what it is would ensure that every now and again neither parent was looking at that fateful room.

The parents have danced around the world drumming up 'support', but enjoying themselves all the same, for their missing child. They stayed on an extended 'holiday' paid for by others whilst their daughter remained 'missing'. The bandwagon rolls on and on and on. Not a day goes by without some report of the parents going off to yet another country.

It all smells of a setup that has gripped the world. A world where fools exist. A world where parents have hearts that hope against hope that the child is fine. Now, over 100 days later, that tide of goodwill is turning. Questions that where not asked at the beginning are now being asked.

What child protection laws in the U.K. can be used against the parents? You can bet your last penny that what happened, irrespective of the fact that a child has gone missing, was child abuse. Leaving children alone of those ages is illegal in the U.K. so if there is someway, some law, to throw at the parents it will be done.

One has to wonder if that is the reason why they have stayed abroad. Hoping perhaps that by the time they do come home all will be forgotten regarding their responsibilities for their children.

The Portuguese police have recently said that they now think the little girl is dead. I, as a parent of 5 children myself, hope they are wrong. But, that feeling of 'it is the parents fault' is digging deeper and deeper into the pit of my stomach and there are many here in the U.K., and possibly the world, who are starting to feel the same.

If my words here offend anybody then I am sorry. I am not sorry for that which I have written. I am sorry that you are offended by reasoned words.

Are they accountable?

For making the worlds people live in fear? I reckon they are.

Land locked newspapers and Internet based news outlets, far too many from both fields to list here but they are\all the same in this regard). They rarely note anything good. 99% of the news from those outlets is bad news. Another murder. Another knife attack. Another beating. Another robbery. Etc, etc, etc. Same sort of news reported day in and day out. None, and I do not include satirical news outlets for obvious reasons, have a 'Good News' or 'Feel good' page or pages or section. Sure, they may now and again, put out some article that is good news but the vast majority of news reported is bad news.

Take the BBC web site at http://www.bbc.co.uk as a prime example. Every single day the report the same bad news. From home and abroad, same old tired format. They split the World up into sections and the U.K is further split up into smaller chunks so you can read more bad news about an area closer to wherever you are! Very thoughtful I am sure.

What is stopping these news outlets from dedicating some space every day to some good news to cheer up their readers? Nothing. Well, nothing except bad news is good news for news outlets as that, they claim, is what their readers want. But, as a reader myself of several of the top online news outlets I can state I would rather read about some good being done somewhere than read about yet another death or fire or plane crash or war or whatever is happening in a given BBC mandated area that is bad.

'Welcome to the Good News only section of the <insert news outlet here>'. Will we ever see something along those lines in any serious news outlet? I doubt it. Are the worlds peoples so downtrodden and nasty that all they want to read about is something bad like someone being killed or an areoplane crash that killed all 203 passengers or yet another country is attacked by the U.S.A. because that country does not conform to what the U.S.A. considers correct? I think not. I think, and this is world over not just in the U.K., that if the news outlets produce a page or complete section relaying only the good things that happen in this world, and there is a lot, then that page or section will quickly become the first page a user goes to.

Our society is bad enough these days without these news outlets reporting on things that make our society seem much worse than it is. I'll ask again. Why can they not set aside some space to report only good news. I bet you that that space will be widely read and will probably get more hits then anything else they report on.

As an aside, my dear old long dead Grandmother always held that the U.K. is no worse now and no more violent than it was in her youth during the 1926-1936 than it is nowadays. The only reason is seems worse is because nowadays news travels much faster, the police are better equipt and that people are more inclined to report crime against themselves or a crime they have witnessed. Was she correct? She had a habit of oversimplifying things in such a manner but if you read the statistics then she was not far wrong.

Are they accountable?

Newspapers, Internet based news outlets. They rarely note anything good. 99% of the news from those outlets is bad news. Another murder. Another knife attack. Another beating. Another robbery. Etc, etc, etc. Same sort of news reported day in and day out.

Take the BBC web site at http://www.bbc.co.uk as a prime example. Every single day the report the same bad news. They even split the country up into chunks so you can read more bad news about your area! Very thoughtful I am sure. Other, noteworthy, news outlets do exactly the same.

What is stopping these news outlets from dedicating some space every day to some good news to cheer up their readers? Nothing. Well, nothing except bad news is good news for news outlets as that, they claim, is what their readers want. But, as a reader myself of several of the top online news outlets I can state I would rather read about some good being done somewhere than read about yet another death or fire or whatever is bad.

Our society is bad enough without these news outlets reporting on things that make our society seem much worse than it is. I'll ask again. Why can they not set aside some space to report only good news. I bet you that that space will be widely read and will probably get more hits then anything else they report on.

I know this is oversimplifying things but I still think news outlets, be they online or in paper form have a lot to answer for regarding how our society sees itself.

My foray into the murky world of Operating Systems.

Or, A potted history of my computer usage.

I have used the Linux kernel and the same GNU based distribution since 1991. Yes, I was one of the masochists back in those days who saw Linus Torvalds work and the associated GNU tools as something radically different from what was quickly emerging as the default operating system ("OS").

I had previously used the Amiga OS, which was so far ahead in what it offered that even in todays OS world it would not be out of place. I started by foray into the murky waters of computers with a Commodore-PET, carried on through the C64/128 phase then the Plus4. Then along came the Amiga 1000. I immediately saw this machine for what it was and jumped on it. Over the following few years I went through the entire Amiga range ending up with what was their finest hour, the Amiga 3000 Tower.

By now it was 1991 at which time it had become painfully obvious the Amiga was going nowhere fast. Over the next few years I started looking at what else was available. IBM, and compatibles, where everywhere but lacked something I had grown used to having with the Amiga. Apple had machines out but they too lacked that something. Eventually, around 1996 and knowing nothing about them at that time, I bought my first and only pre-build IBM compatible machine which came with the awful MS Windows OS of that time. The OS itself stayed on that machine just long enough to download a Linux distribution, Slackware as it turned out, and install it. I have never used another OS on my main workstation since that time.

I had used NetBSD on my Amiga 3000 Tower setup since around 1990. Running it alongside the Amiga OS. It wasn't until around 1996 that I sold all my Amiga equipment and went full time into the Linux world which I have remained with ever since.

And that is my potted history of computer OS's I have used over the years.

I have said I started using Linux around 1991 and that is correct. Someone had given me an IBM clone on which had, if I remember correctly, MS Windows 1.0 or maybe 2.0, I forget. I ran this box alongside my Amigas for about 5 years, never upgrading it, save for an extra floppy drive and generally not doing much at all with it as it paled in comparison to my Amiga. Anyway, that OS, on the IBM clone. was quickly replaced with what was at that time the all new Linux kernel add in some GNU tools and a new OS was born.

What did the GNU/Linux combination have that the Amiga had that MS Windows, then and now, had that made me decide to use it? Freedom. Freedom to tinker with the underlaying OS and bend it whichever way I wanted to bend it. No MS OS has ever allowed for this and that alone made using the, any, MS OS a huge no-go for me.

Fast forward to today.

Through all of those machines and OS's I have been on a learning curve. Sometimes that curve has been steep, very very steep, and other times it has been easy. I am now the proud owner of several certificates which proclaim to the world I am fit and able to do all manner of IT related work.

I build all my own machines now as they work out cheaper that way plus one gets the ability to add-in whatever hardware one wants and often needs. Plus, I can tailor the hardware to ensure it works 100% with my choice of OS, which is GNU/Linux. Of course, today that tailoring of hardware is not really required anymore as GNU/Linux works with just about everything available, save for a few hardware pieces that tie themselves so close to the MS OS the coders and hackers cannot be bothered to create code that would make them work. If a hardware vendor is so short sighted they only make hardware that works on one OS then that hardware is not worth the time of day in my humble opinion anyway.

As a final note. If you enjoyed reading this and if you are located in Kingston upon Hull or at least somewhere close to it, and you are thinking of using a Linux OS within your company or as an individual at home, but the very thought of it is giving you nightmares, then feel free to contact me and if you want I will help you install a Linux based OS of your choosing. Perhaps you need someone to explain the finer points of the GNU/Linux OS versus MS OS, and there are many plus points for GNU/Linux over an MS OS, GNU/Linux is in 99.9% of cases cheaper to run and has no license fee mess to worry about, plus there is help everywhere on the Internet plus a few good GNU/Linux users locally who can offer guidance if you so need it. But the plus and minus things are best left for another blog post or possibly put somewhere on the Internet for all to see, read, inwardly digest and finally a decision made.

To my credit I have built from scratch upwards of 50 seat networks for various companies, that have at their heart a GNU/Linux based server. So, if you are such a person of company but are afraid of what GNU/Linux offers or perhaps the installation phase bothers you for some reason then feel free to contact me and we can perhaps have a chat about it. One thing you will find, be you an individual at home or the owner or manager of a small to medium company, GNU/Linux is not hard to install and with someone like myself at your elbow it will all become easy.

The savings that your company, be it a 2,4,16,32 or 64 seat one are not something your company can ignore or at least should not ignore.

As a side note and something that is, I am sure, always in your mind. I do not charge much, in point of fact I am confident you will find my services cheaper than most, if not all, of those who offer the same services, which is surely a plus for you. I charge nothing at all for email contact so what have you got to lose? Nothing, so go on. Contact me and let me show you the cost savings you can surely make.

Childhood and crime.

Can these two things be related? I think not. Taking my own childhood as a reference point and my adult life as another linking these two things not only appears stupid but can easily be debunked.

Admittedly, my own circumstances cannot be related to the wider circumstances but I can add in all my friends from my childhood as well.

For myself, I was physically abused by my father. This alone made me not so much as hit my own children as I am scared witless that I will turn out like my father.

Some of my childhood friends where physically abused by their father and sometimes by their mother. I am not talking about the modern definition of physical abuse here I am talking about a beating that oftentimes left the abused physically unable to move for short periods. We all know what was happening but back in those days nobody cared about children or cared about their wellbeing. There were some that were sexual abused by their parents as well.

That said, back in the 1960's a child was still to be 'seen and not heard' and because of this attitude children often huddled into small close knit groups of likewise abused children. Adults, including those in a position to actually helping the abused child, did nothing. Even when told what was happening, they did nothing.

So, where I lived as a child abuse by parents seemed a normal thing. Children, such as myself, where made stronger in our adult life, not made into criminals as they now say happens.

Childhood and eventual adult crime have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. At least, not in the case of the children I grew up with as every single one, now in their late 40's and some in their early 50's, are fine upstanding citizens who have, mostly, children of their own who they would never think of doing what their parents did to them and  have certainly, to a man or woman, never turned to a life of crime because of what happened to them as a child.

The price one pays.

I run a news server for the local news group using population. I run it because I was asked to and because our local incumbent ISP stifled the one they ran before eventually closing those they ran. As the ISP run news groups where in the process of being strangled (no such thing as free speech for a twitchy ISP) it was decided to create our our own. First, a bulletin board (forum) was discussed and quickly disgarded then the idea was struck to start up a proper news Usenet news service. It was also decided at around the same time that I should create and run it. So, that is what I did. We made it username and password protected and created 4 news groups. Invited a few people in to it and that as they say was that.

I have always somehow managed to attract Usenet kooks. On the fully fledged Usenet server I have been followed around for years so it came as no surprise to me that within our private Usenet server I attained such a Usenet kook. Eventually, he was driven out, not by me but by other posters, much to my dismay. Dismay not because I missed him but because his removal went against the whole ethos of the private server. Still, driven out he was and that, I thought, would be the end of that.

Then out of the blue I asked 2 questions of a local lad on ICQ and instead of answering my questions he set off on a tirade any 6 year old would be proud of. What prompted this tirade? I am not sure but taking a guess I would think it was because I attacked his beloved Billion router as being crap (they are not but until this time it has always been fun to 'play' him over them). Added to this was the fact he had apparently done some 'research' on me by asking 'a few people not connected to the internet side' (of our incumbent ISP) about me. Apparently I have 'lied about a lot of things since we started talking'. Considering we rarely talk, he bores me, and considering I spend our time talking winding him up about various things his claim that I have lied about something came as no surprise at all. Plus, whoever he has talked to 'not on the Internet side' cannot be verified as he will not tell me names. All in all, he is, as usual, full of himself and also full of the warm brown stuff that falls from peoples arses.

Now, considering our incumbent telephone cum ISP has been trying to discredit me for years. I have made it something of a passtime to email someone there about many things, some things of which have rankled a few feathers over the years from front line teleworkers to boardroom level. I can only assume that whoever these 'few people not on the Internet side' are they where simply carrying on the 'let us discredit the guy' stance and sadly for this local lad, who is 17 years of age but that is no excuse, he has obviously fallen for it.

These 'few people not connected to the Internet side' remain a mystery to me as the local lad refuses to name names which in all honesty does not prove whoever said what was telling the truth. Further, his complete lack of skills in anything made him look an utter fool. Now, given the local lad is 17 or 18 years old and as far as I know has skills in not a lot and is known to spout utter crap at times and is even laughed at in some quarters I am not going to lose any sleep over his second hand claims.

Could his actions signify jealousy? I am not sure, however, I am much more well liked within our small community than he is and we all know how teenagers react in such circumstances. I have done many more things in my life time than he could ever hope to achieve. I have much better work skills in just about every area than he is ever likely to gain. I have work certificates, notably IT related, running out of my ears none of which he is ever likely to gain. Hmm, jealousy does seem to fit.

After talking with many other people within the private Usenet server group it seems this local lad is on a hiding to nothing. Still, it is things like this that make life interesting does it not? I think so. It is also the price one pays for providing a service such as the private news server.