(Note to visitors: I am not American and this is not an American blog. Please check your cultural assumptions!)

I’m on a work/vacation road trip, but I’ve been unable to avoid the bad news coming out of Ferguson. And thinking about the wider societal questions that it raises.

How many of these fundamental principles principals of policing (emphases mine) are the police in Ferguson still following, either in practice or even just to the extent of paying lip service?

1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.

2. To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.

3. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.

4. To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.

5. To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.

6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.

7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

8. To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.

9. To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them*.

It seems to me that if they’re not committed to the Peelian principles, principals, then they’re not a police force: they’re something else. And the mind-set of a gendarme is not the mind-set of a police officer; it’s the mind-set of a soldier at war.

(Footnote: Yes, I am aware of the role of racism in determining the unadmitted objectives of American policing, and I believe I know what current events in Ferguson are really about (warning: dark humor alert). But what’s sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander and even if you’re not a member of one of the cultures on the receiving end of the jackboot today, the fact that the jackboot exists means that it may be used against you in future. Beware of complacency and apathy; even if you think you are protected by privilege, nobody is immune. See also Martin Niemoller.)

Assume it's really true that the NSA has no idea what documents Snowden took, and that they wouldn't even know he'd taken anything if he hadn't gone public. The fact that abuses of their systems by NSA officers were largely discovered through self-reporting substantiates that belief.

Given that, why should anyone believe that Snowden is the first person to walk out the NSA's door with multiple gigabytes of classified documents? He might be the first to release documents to the public, but it's a reasonable assumption that the previous leakers were working for Russa, or China, or elsewhere.

EXCITING DISCLAIMER: Sir, You Are Being Hunted is a game made by Big Robot, a small studio which I help run. I am also a founder and editor of this website. Had to mention that. Just so you know.

Anyway! I was just thinking that I should probably mention the release date of the PC game I am working on, on the PC games website I work for. That just seems to link up somehow. So here we go: it’ll be available to download and play on Humble Store and Steam on the 19th of August. Holy crap that is soon! It’s an ‘alpha’ though, so it still has a few months to go before completion, as we’re only about half way through implementing all the robots that hunt you, and have two more biomes to set up. There may be minor glitches, too, but on the whole we’re really rather pleased with it.

You can be hunted, you can be horribly murdered by robots, you can drink tea, and you can escape from the islands. It works. And I think it’s beautiful.

Just in case you’ve not been following my witterings about the project, let Let me tell you a bit more about it, below.

(more…)

The munar capsule descends, falling now at only a dozen or so meters per second relative to the surface. Its landing gear extend, as though heroically reaching for the gray, dusty ground. Below, the ground inclines at a mild but unexpected angle, and a decision must now be made. Either close the last few hundred meters or so to touchdown and risk the possibility that the incline is sharper than it looks and could capsize the lander, or attempt a lateral maneuver to reposition the landing site — risking the loss of precious fuel and the near certainty that I will somehow misread the navball and send the entire crew pirouetting out of control and into the side of some mountain.

It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.

This is the third munar landing attempt of the day. Let’s just say that the crew of the first two attempts shall live on as heroes in our hearts and minds. Specifically because they are not living on in any other measurable capacity.

The first Mun Monster Mk 1 — named by my nine-year-old son — did actually touch down, but the lateral movement of the craft along with, shall we say, questionable lander-design choices caused it to topple end-over-end and break apart. One lone Kerbal stepped from that wreckage onto the Mun, jetpacked around a while and then landed too hard himself. Mun Monster Mk 2 — well there’s no gentle way to put it. It crashed into the Mun.

Frankly it’s shocking that the crew of the Mk. III went anywhere near that death trap, though it does explain some of the expressions on their face during the flight.

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