On a short walk with my WiFi enabled Palm recently, I was amazed to find so many open wireless access points.
While some of these are in residential areas, most surprising was the number of businesses leaving themselves wide open. Whoever had set them up had gone as far as changing the SSID to the business name (making it even easier to see where the signal was coming from) but had failed to enable even simple security.
No doubt, these businesses will have a firewall on their internet connection, but having an open wireless access point is like leaving the back door to the shop open.
I drove past the new Spirit of Sport sculpture next to the Reebok Stadium this morning.
For something that’s supposed to be 21ft higher than the Angel of the North, it doesn’t look very tall, although the Angel of the North is raised up on a hill, rather than stuck in the middle of a roundabout.
Add to that the fact that this has cost over 300,000 pounds, not including the numerous times Bolton Council have dug up the surrounding road, changing the dual carriageway to three lanes and now back to two, causing traffic chaos and delays in the process. This, at a time when the council are whinging that they are 400,000 pounds short on the roads budget. No doubt, someone will point out that the money for the sculpture has come from some different pot, but it doesn’t solve the fact that money has been wasted on the surrounding roads for this.
