Oct 15 2008
I’m now officially registered as a resident of the Wendy House in Reading Borough and entitled to vote. Hoorah!
Next year I can re-register by text, free-phone or internet. Very helpful.
3 of your thoughts on electoral audit
Aug 06 2008
The US the tax year runs from January 1st to December 31st. The UK Tax, fiscal, year runs from April 6th to April 5th based on 18th Century ‘quarter days’ when servants were traditionally hired and ’rent’ was gathered from the predominantly non-home-owning population and, of course, the introduction of Tax to support the Napoleonic wars. Those darned French. The UK corporate financial year runs from April 1st to March 31st, something to do with not loosing money when the Gregorian calendar was introduced.
I think of my P60, provided by my employer as being like my US W2.
Do not destroy
The P60 helpfully announces this instruction in bold type on its authority-imbued graduated pinkness.
2 of your thoughts on do not destroy!!
Jan 07 2008
My out of date, useless, passport is on its way to be renewed in the UK with a covering letter and supporting documentation explaining the scatty circumstances that lead to the requirement that it be renewed in the US while I’m resident in the US and the exceptional travel circumstances that made this virtually impossible.
My ancient UK drivers licence was sent to be renewed to comply with legal requirements that it show your current address. I don’t have the new-fangled UK photo-driving licence. The DVLA didn’t renew it, rather they are holding it hostage until I’ve applied for a photo-licence. I needed proof of ID to apply for the photo-licence, original documents only. Luckily my birth certificate counts as proof of ID. Birth certificate, driving licence and passport all in the mail at the same time. Risky? Asking for trouble? I’m so reckless, living life on the edge.
To buy a new Wendy House I need a solicitor. During previous UK Wendy home purchases the solicitors were happy to get cash for their services. Now they need, yes, acceptable ID. All my acceptable ID is being renewed.
write the first thought on acceptable ID
Dec 07 2007
An End User Licence Agreement (EULA) is the long legal agreement presented to you before you can use a specific software service. Wikipedia says:
“The enforceability of an EULA depends on several factors, one of them being the court in which the case is heard. Some courts that have addressed the validity of the shrinkwrap license agreements have found some EULAs to be invalid… … No Court has ruled on the validity of EULAs generally; decisions are limited to particular provisions and terms
I suspect that end users rarely read or, and even more rarely, understand the implications of the EULA. This undermines a EULAs validity beyond merely establishing a common-sensical understanding of software use. I have no idea what a common-sensical understanding might be except perhaps privacy of the individuals’ information and the service providers intellectual property. I would value seeing an introduction of readable, understandable, short EULA’s. Eulas that are actually designed to communicate to potential users rather than covering the legal-butt of the service providers.
Given that the software providers MUST know that their users DO NOT READ and most likely DO NOT UNDERSTAND the provided EULA, merely providing a requirement to accept before progressing is INSUFFICIENT safeguard for either the service provider of the user.
A google search on the phrase “guidelines for producing understandable EULAs” did not find any such guidelines. In my opinion the software and legal industries are morally obliged to produce short, succinct, clear EULAs otherwise a Nation’s court systems wealthy users will have to pay, through expensive disputes, to establish the precedents that may be limited to nation, state, laws rather than developed for the general good of people who I suspect behaive in a consistent way when dealing with EULAs. Less empowered people will pay through loosing their privacy and rights through lack of awareness of what the service is actually costing them. Recently a friend on facebook invited me to join a group called ”Against Facebook integrity rape“. The group’s point appeared more generic to EULA’s generically, treating facebook as a specific case. The group description says:
Automatically people who join facebook accept a 13-page legalcontract. This contract in short makes ALL your info, pictures and EVERYTHING you do on Facebook their property.
You don’t have to accept this. If enough people empty their photoalbums and only have a protest or nothing as profile photo, then perhaps they will react. Also if enough people join this group and mail Facebook that this slave contract isn’t OK that would help to keep pressure on them.
I chose not to join this group because I object to the groups unwise choise to use of the terms slave and rape to describe Facebook’s EULA agreement. This choice under-emphasizes the extreme negative experience of slavery and rape, the absolute lack of free choice available to slaves, in a EULA people have CHOSEN to publish information that could be used in (EULA detailed) ways that are more akin to the experience of THEFT than RAPE where there is no consent. Understanding how your information, writings, pictures, held by a service will or wont be subject to proliferation, republishing etc is a fundamental civil rights issue that deserves the attention of people equipped to make good decisions on behalf of normal , click and explore rather than read essays, software users.
Why hasn’t it happened already?
Has it happened and I missed it?
Dec 01 2007
In the US car ownership is established with a Title. When you sell your car you transfer the title to the new owner. Loosea’s title has gone AWOL. I looked everywhere, honest. Luckily a swift check online produced a form for declaring her title lost and releasing it to a new owner. My signature on the slightly confusing form had to be notarised. The Notary had to ask for a second opinion about what should be filled-in. All turned out well in the end. Hoorah, despite my relocation induced scattiness Loosea will get to go to a new home, across the road, the house opposite, she’s a bit of a home-body
write the first thought on notarised lost title
Nov 29 2007
Condensed recap of the story so far, I
The new stuff:
“I am, today, in the country of application and will be at the time of issue.” This says to me that when I get to the UK I can only renew my passport in the UK. This is at odds with the ditsy-person renewal requirement of only renewing in the Washington DC office where they have my 10yr passport-2. I can’t renew in the US because I discovered this requirement 5 working-days before I am due to fly to the UK, insufficient time for passport renewal US-side before I repatriate. I phoned the Washington British Consular and passport services who charge at a rate of $2.45 per minute for the luxury of talking to a real, expert, person. I explained my situation and the passport expert said:
OH, that is a tricky one
Then put me on hold to discuss the options with other expert people. We made some decisions that will get me to Britain on the day that I sell my home here and 2 days before I start work there. I suspect this is not over yet. Stay tuned.
1 inspirational thought about complicateder and complicateder
Nov 05 2007
Because my home is going to be visited by lots and lots and lots of people many of whom will be thinking about buying a house and some are nosey parkers and one may be a nefarious evil doer, I have hidden my passport.
Hiding passports is a risky thing if you need to travel soon and you are prone to losing them. I’ve sent myself an email telling me in coded language where I have hidden my passport. Gosh, do you think I’ll lose it again? The passport?
write the first thought on hidden passport
