ethics

<<- Long term hopeful, short term worried

As I said in my blog post a couple of days ago, I’m very concerned about the new variant of SARS-CoV-2 that has been spreading through the UK and is now being found in countries all over the world. My main concern is that this could be what pushes our health services beyond the limit of what they can stretch to and, as a result deaths will jump up – and not just from Covid-19.

This is the first ever computer I used. The actual one. It is a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K. It was at the heart of a long, terrible family feud, the source of much angst, anger, and even fist fights. Blood was spilt over this machine. Literally!

Something has been bothering me for a while. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s been depressing me. It’s you. Well, many of you.

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<<<< Why we had to go into lock-down
<< What we could do to help ease social distancing

The UK government is now talking more in it’s daily briefings about what will come “next”, that is after we have seen the number of diagnosed cases & deaths continue to grow, plateau, and then fall. It will plateau & fall, so long as we all keep staying at home and limiting our social interactions. If we do not, we risk the virus spreading out of control again.

I often get into discussions about Women In IT (#WIT), even more so in the last 4 or 5 years with my growing involvement in organising and being at conferences. There is no doubting that the I.T industry is generally blighted by a lack of women and other minorities (and I don’t like referring to women as “minorities” as there are more women in the UK than men). Ours is mostly a white, male, middle-class and (especially in the Oracle sphere) “middle aged” world.

A few days ago I tweeted a copy of a “motivational poster”. I don’t normally like motivational posters but this one struck a chord with me as it was a lesson I took a long time to learn. Not everyone will be your cup of tea. Which is a very British (I think) way of saying you don’t like something or someone. “Ohh, that Mavis, she’s just not my cup of tea!”.

If you had a friend who always told you that your were the best, that you had no faults, and that everything you did was great – would you trust them? I know I would not. I am fully aware that I am not perfect(*). I used to see this sometimes in relationships too, especially when I was younger. One of them would be so desperate for their boyfriend/girlfriend to like them that they would never criticise the light of their life. The relationship never lasted as it was, well, creepy and false.

Today I saw some cracking photographs of a lighthouse. How many of us have at some point wondered if it might be nice to be a lighthouse keeper? The solitude, the scenery, the stoic fortitude in the face of the storm – quite literally. (Thank you Brendan Tierney for the photo I’ve stolen from him).

Nearly all of us have heard (or even used) the phrase “There is no such thing as a free lunch” and we know what it means – if something of value is provided for no up-front cost, you are paying for it in some other way. According to the Wikipedia entry for it the phrase could have originated from US bars that offered a free meal with a drink, but the meal was salty and so made you want to drink more. Now you know why some up-market bars offer free salty nibbles, it’s so they can sell you more beer and the extra profit is more than peanuts.

I nipped out to the local supermarket this lunch time to get stuff. I use one of those self-use barcode scanners to log all the goods I put in my basket (apart from the bottle of whisky I was stealing). I then go to the payment machine, scan the “finish shopping” barcode and try to pay. I can’t pay.