Revenge porn organizer imprisoned

Kevin Bollaert, living in San Diego was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment as operating a coercive business.

(This photo was provided by Photo AC.)

According to the court, he was managing a website exhibiting nude photos without the consent of the subject. The photographers had sent the photos attached to personal information of the subject anonymously. Then he requested money to those asking to remove the content. He is said to have got a total of 30,000 US$ from the victims.

The Guardian: Revenge porn website operator jailed

Obviously, his act is not acceptable. Even the lawyer for him admitted it.

Revenge porn is a relatively newly developed pattern of crime. Therefore, the legislation to restrict such behaviors has not fully established. On the other hand, the number of victims is rapidly increasing because of the easiness of committing it.

My past entry: Revenge porn

In this case, there are three types of offenders. Kevin is to be blamed first, needless to say. In addition, thousands of people sent the photos to him secretly. The lawyer claimed that allowing others to post the explicit material is not breaching the law. Nonetheless, it is no doubt that the providers had a malice, more or less, to humiliate the victims. If there had no providers of the photos, Kevin's "business" has not been able to launch.

The third offenders are the watchers. Many people are curious to see the nude of others. And some are stimulated by peeping behavior. Recently, a gynecologist was arrested by taking photos of the clients stripped at the physical examination. Also in Japan, there is a lot of porn categorized to peeping.

My past entry: Mass peeping by a gynecologist at Johns Hopkins

It is almost impossible to charge all of these offenders. However, it is not adequate for the prevention of further crimes only to crash the administrator of such porn site. It is inevitable to make a new rule of restriction against the providers and users of such harmful acts. Education for potential victims is necessary as many describing. It is awful that a tiny recklessness in youth may ruin your life.

Furthermore, the technology to delete a particular content immediately on the internet is expected to be developed, like being described in some Sci-Fi movies. But it is not realistic at the present. The characteristics of digital materials as not being expired is completely disadvantageous in this issue, ironically.

Thailand airlines banned due to security concern

Thailand airlines are now in chaos.

International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), an international audit, reported that it found significant safety concerns with the safety in Thai airlines companies. Considering this warning, Japan decided to refuse permission for newly charter flights of Thai airlines. Then, South Korea, China, and Singapore followed the decision of Japan.

Voice of America: China, Singapore Join Japan, South Korea in Scrutinizing Thailand Flights


Australia has not banned Thai airlines, perhaps because Thai Airways is the only company which regularly operates in Australia from Thailand, according to Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA). It is eager to keep in touch with Thai Airways for further investigation.

Thai Airways has been banned from flying to China, Japan, and South Korea over safety fears - so why does it still fly to Australia?

The Thai government accepts the suggestion of ICAO, and is planning to borrow military power if necessary to improve the safety of the flights. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will be invited to inspect operations of the Thai aviation supervisory agency to fix this situation as soon as possible.

The Wall Street Journal: Japan Clips Thailand’s Wings With Airline Ban

ABS CBN NEWS: Why Japan, China, Korea banned new flights from Thai airlines

This incident seems to be attributed to the compromised permission by the domestic regulators so far. It is possible that Low-Cost Carriers (LCCs) in Thailand had a difficulty to fulfill the safety standard of aviation due to the restriction of the cost.

I trust the safety of LCCs basically. But excessive cost reduction can sacrifice the margin of the safety issues, as I experienced myself. Being just after the tragedy of Germanwings, public concern to Thai airlines must be ignited. It is too late to reconsider after an accident occurs. I accept the decisions of some countries to ban Thai airlines, even if thousands of people would be affected.

My past entry: A particular reason for delay in LCC

My past entry: German airbus crashed in France

I have not used Thai Airways, but have heard that the first class of it was luxury despite being not so expensive. If having an opportunity, I would like to enjoy it. I hope that Thai authority will solve this issue soon.

Board game club activity in London

Very recently, I realized one of my dreams. I went to a game circle to play some board games with British and foreign players. It was an amazing experience.

As I wrote before, I am a board game lover. I had played games with my friends. But recently, I had no opportunity to enjoy them.

My past enty: Settlers of Catan, an excellent board game

My past entry: Catan championship at Kamata

There are several gaming conventions held in London. Almost everyday, I receive an invitation from Meetup, a web service for finding people sharing interests after registering.

Meetup

It was unfortunate that most events are held on the northern side of Thames river, distant from my flat. In this time, I visited a pub very close to me.

A dozen of players gathered there. Everyone was very friendly. I had no difficulty to understand the rules of each game because some people explained it in detail.

I played the games below:

Timeline: Music & Cinema (2013)
It examines your knowledge. You have to arrange the cards according to the year each work printed on the card was released. This task was a little difficult for me because some works were unfamiliar with me. The illustrations were beautiful.

Qwirkle (2006)
It looks like Scrabble or Domino. The players set the square tiles whose color or shape is the same as the next one. If a line of six tiles is completed, the player gain the bonus of "Qwirkle." It was abstract but serious game. Good attention and construction are needed. 

Love Letter (2012)
It is an easy-playing and quick terminating game. Each player draw one card and then play one. Some cards affect another player to force him or her to drop out from the game if effectively used. The last player remained wins the game. Luck and intuition are substantial in this game.

Dixit (2008)
It is a popular game stimulating your imagination. The dealer plays a card on which a strange picture is printed. Without showing the picture, the dealer says some description about it. The other players choose a card in their hands. Every card was opened after being shuffled. The players have to find which card was selected by the dealer. Interestingly, English language was no more a barrier in playing this game. The images of each player against some cards were quite similar. 

King of Tokyo (2011)
It is featuring Japanese SFX movies such as Ultra-man or Godzilla. You play a role of a gigantic monster to conquer Tokyo. You can take some actions in each turn. Your goal is either defeating all opponents or gaining 20 victory points. This fact makes you choose the strategy. Some players became eager to attack the enemies. I struggled to get victory points rapidly, but was defeated by another player just before the winning.

All the games were fun and all players were kind. I hope to come up again.

Concern about NHS investment in IT service

The NHS England declared to invest 78 million GBP for the development of healthcare technology this year.

According to the media, approximately half of the budget will be spent for the establishment of the integrated digital care fund, aiming the sharing health care information of each patient among medical practitioners. The other half will be used for the improvement of nursing care.

ITProPortal: NHS will invest £78m in healthcare technology this year

I am not sure how much the amount of the money invested has the impact on the medical IT industry. Seventy-eight million GBP is not a small, but I guess it will take astronomical expenditure for the complete establishment of the patient information sharing system all over the country. In Japan, some specialists have claimed the necessity of this kind of the system for a couple of decades. But the progress of the integration of the systems is quite sluggish.

Public hospitals are dominant in England, different from Japan, in medical practice. It seems advantageous to get along together with the introduction of a new system.

On the other hand, I think that there are many failures around the infrastructure in England. Most buildings in England are aged and may have several systems separated each other. In addition, maintenance in some systems seems inadequate. The PCs are frequently freezing in the hospital. Moreover, I could neither connect the internet nor call a phone in some rooms in a certain building, perhaps due to the thick walls. These factors will make the infiltration of the new system time-consuming.

My past entry: Fire accident at Holborn, London

The next matter is how to utilize the new system. As far as I have observed, several IT solutions have introduced in the services in England. However, some of them are not working at all. In some cases, I had to call for the help of an authority directly, because the online help desk was no use. It resulted in the increase of tasks rather than sparing the time. An electric medical chart system seemed not so functional. If someone added a new system to the present one, the situation would be deteriorated.

I think there is room for improvement of the management processes of each service. But, it is difficult to introduce a new scheme with keeping the conventional one also functional. It is a dilemma of IT system. It is far easy to construct a new system from the beginning. Perhaps, developing countries would acquire the gift of sophisticated IT systems in the near future.

Fire accident at Holborn, London

I am hesitating to continue to report the disastrous news, but this one is still influencing the life of many Londoners.

An electric fire accident occurred in a pavement at Holborn on April 1st, 2015. Big smoke rose from the block, forcing approximately 5,000 people to be evacuated.

The BBC: Holborn electrical fire causes mass evacuation

In spite of the endeavor of firefighters, the fire had been growing for 24 hours. Originally the fire was suspected to be started by an electric cable. Thousands of people suffered from blackout. Still now, electricity is not recovered in hundreds of flats.

The BBC: Holborn underground fire burns for 24 hours

The extinguishing activity is still rushing now. The blaze is under control, according to London Fire Brigade. The reason of the fire remains to be proven in detail.

The BBC: Holborn fire: Cause of blaze remains 'unknown.'

I knew the news through an email from King's College notifying that the Strand Campus was crippled. Fortunately, I did not visit there, so I was not involved. Some of my friends also did not know the accident.

I have not met such a huge accident ever before. In Japan, there are many disasters we encounter, such as earthquake and typhoon. But it is rare that a broad electric failure continues for days. I guess that a part of the infrastructure in London is so aged that there is a risk of an accident leading to mass disaster. It seems a big problem of the cities with a long history.

By the way, the internet is vulnerable in my flat these days. I am not sure it is attributed to this fire. Many people are more suffering than me. I hope the restoration will be accomplished as soon as possible.

Air Canada accident

Unfortunately, it is not a joke.

An airplane belonging to Air Canada made a troubled landing at the Halifax Airport, causing at least 25 passengers injured on March 29, 2015. It made an abrupt landing, to skidded off the runway

The Telegraph: Air Canada plane crash lands injuring 25

It is quite fortunate that nobody was killed. Nonetheless, this accident could influence the mind of the passengers as a traumatic event.

The aircraft was also Airbus 320, the same as the crashed one last week in France. It seems mere by chance that the accidents occurred subsequently in this type of airplane, because the previous one was attributed to the intentional move of the co-pilot. The reason of the present case is still yet to be clarified.

The pilot will be investigated to reveal the figure of this accident. I do not believe that this pilot was also mentally ill. Perhaps, it is due to some mechanical dysfunction or human error.

The Globe and Mail: Air Canada pilots to be in the spotlight in Halifax plane crash investigation

After a sensational incident, similar cases tend to attract public attention. Then, we misinterpret it as if there are many similar cases occurred at the same time. In fact, there are always lots of silly cases unreported in many regions.

However, the air traffic accident is rare. The cases having caused the injury to the passengers are usually reported. I feel the number of incidents in this industry may be slightly increasing. If so, cost-cutting competition among the LCCs can contribute to it. Of course, the number of the flights is increasing, making it difficult to take control upon each flight.

I am not sure the safety standard of the airplane should be reconsidered immediately. A Deep investigation in each case is to be prioritized. The next step is to share the information of the results within every airline companies not to repeat the similar accident.

Google Psychiatrist launched: loosing my job

What I had worried was realized. I am in the peril of losing the job, as well as most of my colleagues.

Google announced to have a limited launch of a new service, named "Google Psychiatrist." It is available experimentally in some states in the US now.

Google Psychiatrist: New solution to improve your mental health for free

This service equips a kind of Artificial Intelligence to play a role of a psychiatrist. When using it, you have only to input some symptoms you are suffering from and answer some questions. Open description form is also available, in which you can write your current status, such as "Since two weeks ago, I have had a sense of guiltiness. I feel unhappy and extremely tired. Perhaps the main reason is a conflict with my boyfriend."

Google Psychiatrist then analyzes the information obtained from you, referring numerous academic literature including case reports, and finally gives some candidates of clinical diagnoses. The result is basically based on DSM-5, published by American Psychiatric Association. Indeed, APA has been collaborating with Google in the development of Google Psychiatrist.

In addition, Google Psychiatrist proposes you some solutions to overcome the burden of your mental illness. It recommends some medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, and self-help groups.

I am not sure how accurate the decision of Google psychiatrist is, as far as looking through the press releases. Google seems to be serious to make it work as a part of clinical psychiatry. The negotiation with FDA and some authorities in the US to get the permission of legalizing Google Psychiatrist as an alternative of real psychiatrists is now in progress.

A chief programmer of Google Psychiatrist team said at an interview that psychiatry was the first target to utilize Google's AI technology in the medical science, because there is a considerable variance in the quality of psychiatrists. It is an annoying comment. He also told that Google Psychiatrist would be much beneficial to developing countries because the shortage of qualified psychiatrists is quite serious in some regions in the Southeast Asia and Africa.

To be honest, I forecast such a situation in the past. However, it will be realized earlier than I expected. If this service is authorized and becomes common, many psychiatrists will lose their jobs. Some academic associations such as groups of psychoanalysts published an opposing comment against Google Psychiatrist, saying that the human mind is still too complex to interpret by a computer.

Google Psychiatrist should be banned: Statement by APSA

On the other hand, some health insurance companies are welcoming Google Psychiatrist. It is no doubt that they expect to reduce the expenditure for psychiatric care.

Psychiatric cost in the future

There is another discussion about it. Google is suspected to develop a tool for psychiatric testimony. It will equip CCD camera, and voice recorder, and some bio-metric devices including electroencephalography. Attached on Google Psychiatry, it can distinguish the person who is malingering from mentally disordered, according to some media. This awful tool, named as "Google Inspector" will be installed in the next year.

Google tell the truth: Amazing plan of revealing the lie

It means that, not only forensic psychiatrists, but also public prosecutors, will be fired in the near future.

Accidentally, the current issue of Nikkei Business describes AI in the future. I was impressed by the articles. Furthermore, the future is now. I have to seek another job opportunity than a psychiatrist, perhaps.