However, now I am taking a look at the issue from the other side. In the back of my mind, I knew there were two sides to “authentic sources” and the Internet but the shock of that recent story skewed my internal debate. Here is a justification to support the need for anonymity. China’s Ministry of Information proposed a “real-name blogger registration system”. As if to demonstrate the problem …

The first meeting about the real-name blogger registration system two weeks ago was disclosed by the media, and it caused a stir everywhere.

Source: Zhao Ling (??)

I don’t have a good answer. How do we balance human rights ? It’s not right to allow one person to malign another behind an “identity cloak”. At the same time, how are people supposed to speak out against injustice if they will be persecuted and prosecuted.

I am in the process of restoring a turret clock originally manufactured by “Arnold & Lewis, Manchester, England”. I’ve been told it is circa 1880. Beyond that, I know nothing of the clock or the manufacturer.

A Friend of mine, expatriated from England, suggested I contact the public library in Manchester in the hopes of finding some additional information.

I am very curious about this clock as it appears to have been something of an “experiment” by the manufacture with many things changed or moved about in an attempt to either make it fit its intended building or to improve it function.

Any materials or suggestions you might have would be greatly appreciated.

Today, I received a reply. The library has a reasonable “research policy”. All the same, they did some investigation on my behalf. They wrote back …

I’m afraid I have not traced any information on this company listed in any of our catalogues or indexes. I did manage to come across them in a trade directory for Manchester from 1881, but being a directory, this lists only basic information:

Arnold and Lewis (successors to I. Simmons) goldsmiths, jewelers, silversmiths, chronometer watch and clock makers, electroplate manufacturers and diamond merchants, 7 St. Ann’s Square

There is no mention of the firm in Brian Loomes ‘Lancashire Clocks and Clockmakers, a standard work on the subject, nor in any other book on clockmakers that I checked. Loomes does indicate that he does not consider most firms after the 1860s to be genuine clockmakers, as most clocks by that stage were being imported from either London or abroad.

I’m sorry but this is the only information I’ve been able to come up with, and we are not able to undertake any detailed research for enquiries (see our ‘Research Policy’ as given on our website).

Rob Lewis
Manchester Information Co-ordinator
Manchester Archives and Local Studies
Central Library
St Peter’s Square
Manchester M2 5PD
web address: http://www.manchester.gov.uk/libraries/arls

While less information that I had hoped, it is right in line with my suspicions.

From what little I have found from my own research, I speculate that Arnold & Lewis made very few tower clocks. Their business venture  lasted from 1873 until 1910. The horologic indices of the time list them individually and together as manufacturing watches and time keepers.

Their turret clock works are accurate time pieces but at the same time are very basic and mostly a reworking of the typical ’state of the art’ for the time period. I have seen only one other picture of a turret clock by this manufacturer and it was an improved layout. This leads me to believe my clock is an early “experiment” on their behalf.

in the context of government documents, redaction (also called sanitization) generally refers more specifically to the process of removing sensitive or classified information from a document prior to its publication, during declassification.

The only issue I have with my blog is spacing in lists. There is a simple hack to address this. It takes advantage of bad behavior in how IE6 and IE7 interpret settings. If you prefix a attribute keyword with and underscore (_) only IE6 and earlier will notice it. If you prefix with the pound sign (#) only IE7 will notice. So, if you place the default first and then follow with the setting for IE7 and then IE6, you can adjust for the specific browsers.

.user_style {
    height: 0px;
    #height: 15px;
    _height: 20px;
}

In the above example, the first setting will apply to all browsers; the second setting will only apply to Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers; the third setting will only apply to IE browsers 6.0 and older.

addendum: I went ahead and installed IE7 on a separate machine. In my case, it turned out the tweaks for IE6 were also the same ones needed for IE7.

For me, there is something magical about blasting an old painted, rusted pieces of metal. You can’t really see the blasting material. What you see is the old paint and rust disappearing. It’s like watching a video of spray painting - but in reverse.

I love the process of placing a messy old object in the cabinet and after about 15 or 20 minutes of work, the piece comes out shiny and clean.

Ironically, the very next step is to paint the part again !

The frame was too large. It along with the pendulum bob and the 218lb drive weight are being done at an automotive shop with an entire room for media blasting !

ttd=11

He calls it an antique, to me it looks like the stage before a digital watch, what is it with Americans and “old” stuff

Now I discover Carl has purchased an Edison Disc Phonograph. I could has sworn he was part fo the iPod generation - what is it with Brits and “old” stuff ?!

In reading Kathy’s post, I now see more clearly than ever before, some of the danger in the web’s anonymity. In 2000, I listened to Walter Cronkite speak at Lotusphere. In his monolog, he voiced concern for “sources” taken as factual but with no means of verification.

If people were held accountable for their words as much as their deeds, I suspect a lot more thought would go into what people write in web forums, blogs, and the like. I strongly suspect much of what Kathy has endured would not have occurred.

I’m not proposing national identity cards and retinal scans at every mom and pop store or video surveillance every 10 feet. This country has a foundation rock that is personal freedom. the issue is when one person’s freedoms adversely effect another. With respect to anonymity, it definitely has its place - for example, protecting witnesses who report violent crimes

With Kathy Sierra’s story, the blogsphere has taken a serious blow. I hope those of us who truly belie in this medium find ways to promote a just, honest, and open medium. I commend vowe for his “full name and a working email address” policy.

My site is being spammed pretty hard lately (nearly 1000 this month) and I will soon enable more anti-spam features. If I could, I’d enable a “real user” policy.

I’m not interested in censoring free speech. I believe everyone has their right to say what they want. But, as in a court of law, the accused has the right to face his accuser - I think anonymity has it’s place but I’m not convinced it’s the proper bedfellow of free speech.

I’ll be thinking more about this over the coming days and weeks and I will watch and hope that Kathy Sierra will again return to the blogging world and share her talent with the rest of us.