On Privies and other stuff

Ever wondered where the name ‘loo’ came from for the toilet? Wonder no more.

"Ordinary people would use a chamber pot, and when they wanted to empty it, they would open a window and shout out 'gardez l'eau' - watch out for the water. Gardez l'eau became loo."

So says the BBC. Some other revealing information…

Some of the earliest built toilets in Britain are in the Tower of London, says Lucy Worsely, curator of Historic Royal Palaces. These are in the White Tower, built soon after the Norman conquest.

"The toilets, called garderobe, are all on the side away from the city so the subjugated Londoners wouldn't see the conquering Norman poo dribbling down the side of the walls.

"The name garderobe - which translates as guarding one's robes - is thought to come from hanging your clothes in the toilet shaft, as the ammonia from the urine would kill the fleas."

14th Century street names

• Give clue as to what conditions were once like
• Some still exist, like Gutter Lane, Staining Lane and Seething Lane
• Others renamed to hide mucky past - Sherborne Lane in EC4 was Shiteburn Lane

A fascinating look at British culture, ent Cap’n? (^_^)

fired!

Well, it’s happened. Mazin got his arse fired.

Samsung keyloggers–a matter of trust?

It turns out that the story about Samsung installing keyloggers in their laptops was incorrect.

The ’security expert’ in question [who ‘discovered’ the ‘keylogger’ while using VIPRE antivirus], Mohamed Hassan, holds many degrees including the initials MSIA, CISSP, and CISA, and is with the Norwich University Center for Advanced Computing and Digital Forensics. Yet he relied on a security product and the results as provided by the software, without properly investigating the matter further and before providing his results.

The 'false positives were generated by an empty directory created for the Slovakian language by Microsoft Live messenger (C:\Windows\SL). It is this same directory that is created when the StarLogger software is installed.

What was also disturbing was his report of a conversation with a Samsung employee who allegedly confirmed that a keylogger was being placed on its laptop computers.

The employee had confessed that the keylogger was installed to track the computers’ usage and performance.

The question is… do we go back to trusting Samsung? Me, I’ll still stick with Acer or HP.

WTF going on?

2 WTF situations jumped up in front of my eyes this morning.

• A harshly oppressive (my words) legislation curtailing the rights guaranteed by the Constitution: Gang Bill and the Bail (Amendment) Bill.

The legislation, which has a five-year sunset clause which will ensure it is reviewed after that period, allows for any child suspected of gang membership or offences to be detained for up to six days by police without charge. It also allows persons over 18 who are charged to be detained without bail for up to 120 days.

Membership of a gang is made a summary offence punishable by ten years imprisonment for first time offenders. Multiple offences will face an indictable offence and 20 years imprisonment. Police officers who aid gangs by leaking information or renting firearms face 25 years imprisonment as do persons who lead gangs.

Keep in mind, a ‘child’ in the Bill is defined as a person under 18. I’m not sure what the age of criminal responsibility is on the Rock (in England it is 10 years), but imagine a 10, or 12 years old being held for 6 days without charge.

• The ministry appointed panel investigating the circumstances of the death of 29-year-old Chrystal Ramsoomair at the San Fernando General Hospital will examine whether there were any breaches of protocols and practices were breached. The focus will be on systems and processes.

This to me is a ready made excuse to let the medical personnel involved in the death off the hook. Once more, MPATT and the medical fraternity wielding the big cudgel they built for themselves over the years. The same happened in the NCRHA after the death of a baby – all medical staff escaping unscathed.