Friday, February 17, 2012

Human Remains

We received this cargo receiving report today ...

Dear All,

Below is on board VK823/17FEB/2012

LOS - DLA

786-0001 0732                     Human Remain              01pc  @ 123kg

0024427                                UPS Courier
01pc  @  06kg


Acknowledge Receipt Pls.

Regards,

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Aphorisms XVI

“It is a curious thing that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.”

Evelyn Waugh

(Thanks to Futility Closet)

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

PayPal Scam?

Our company received this ... we don't have a PayPal account.

"Dear PayPal user,

As part of our security reasons, we regularly screen activity in the PayPal system. We recently contacted you after noticing an issue on your account.


We requested information from you for the following reason:


We recently received a report of unauthorized credit card use associated with this account. As a precaution, we have limited access to your PayPal account in order to protect against future unauthorized transactions.



Case ID Number: PP-503-472-569



This is a reminder to restore your account as soon as possible.


Please download the form attached to this email and open it in a web browser. Once opened, you will be provided with steps to restore your account access. We appreciate your understanding as we work to ensure account safety.


In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement, your account access will remain limited until the issue has been resolved. Unfortunately, if access to your account remains limited for an extended period of time,


it may result in further limitations or eventual account closure. We encourage you to restore your PayPal account as soon as possible to help avoid this.



We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your account. We apologize for any inconvenience.


Sincerely,

PayPal Account Review Department

------------------------------
----------------------------------
Copyright © 1999-2012 PayPal. All rights reserved.

PayPal (Europe) S.a r.l. & Cie, S.C.A.

Sociйtй en Commandite par Actions
Registered Office: 5th Floor 22-24 Boulevard Royal L-2449, Luxembourg RCS Luxembourg B 118 349

PayPal Email ID PP3573""























































































































PAYPAL SCAM?   








Monday, February 6, 2012

Stuff the Jubilee




Queen Elizabeth II "ascended" to the the throne on 6 February 1952 and is thus celebrating her Diamond Jubilee.

I remember her Silver Jubilee back in 1977 when I was a youthful 15 years old. We proudly pinned these badges, produced by the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party as part of their campaign against public sector budget cuts, to our school blazers. The school headmaster tried to prohibit us from wearing them!

It is as apt today as then! 

The Sky is Rising

The Sky is Rising - a detailed look at the state of the entertainment industry

Anti-ACTA Demo 11 Feb

London will see a major anti ACTA  demonstration on Saturday 11 February. Link here.

The Cost of Knowledge

Boingboing gave us an incredible collection of posts last week and there follows some links to these ...

Our first is to The Cost of Knowledge - a website protesting against the publisher Elsevier's restrictive policies on access to academic scientific knowledge. I cannot freely access anything published in Elsevier's scientific journals but am forced to pay an arm and a leg for the knowledge contained therein.

The Cost of Knowledge declares



1. They charge exorbitantly high prices for subscriptions to individual journals. 

2. In the light of these high prices, the only realistic option for many libraries is to agree to buy very large "bundles", which will include many journals that those libraries do not actually want. Elsevier thus makes huge profits by exploiting the fact that some of their journals are essential. 

3. They support measures such as SOPA, PIPA and the Research Works Act, that aim to restrict the free exchange of information. 

...and has an online petition asking you to boycott Elsevier.

The Cost of Knowledge also pointed me to Polymath - "a collection of links to information, opinion, activism, and other issues concerning the practices of research journal publishers".

Which then pointed me to this campaign against the US Research Works Act  ... "A recently introduced bill, H.R. 3699, the Research Works Act, would seriously threaten public access to federally funded research.

The bill would not only restrict internet access to articles published in scholarly journals and books; it would also severely hamper Creative Commons content.

Why is Open Access so important? Internet access to federally funded research allows people with medical conditions to stay informed about new studies and innovations.

Access also helps professionals, including doctors, to continue their educations by keeping up to date on the research literature in their fields.

In developing nations, Open Access is especially important, as institutions often don't have the funding to provide health care professionals with scholarly literature through other means."