Last year there was a proposal of a new tax to pay for rural broadband, they wanted to charge every landline £6 per year (regardless of if it was in the countryside or even used for broadband).
With the new government coming into power that got killed off.
However the company which would have received the money to invest has simply done what it should have done in the first place and increased line rental by 50 pence per month:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/19/bt_rise/
Of course we see that BT are now the bad guy as opposed to the government, which is probably how it should be. However BT are now going to pay tax on that extra 50 pence so the government got two things for abandoning one.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
F in maths rant
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6128/The-Ultimate-List-100-Facebook-Statistics-Infographics.aspx
My brother shared with me a link about Facebook. Which is an incredibly bad use of statistics and the reason why modern science is dumbing down. One of the diagrams is showing more single men than single women, this tells us nothing. Basic set theory would ask "How much are the two sets overlapping?", people do not join as a couple so why would you expect both halfs of relationship to be Facebook.
Does the information not point to single men using Facebook as a dating site? Rather than the implied men claim they are not single. Again I am making something up, like they do, its all meaningless.
Statistics are so badly abused these days, there should be a law that means you have to link to the actual data so someone else can verify a claim (80% of the population agree with me). The BBC news seems really bad at offering a percentage with only half an explanation.
I am trying to teach my children that advertising on television is a lie. You will not get whiter than white clothes, your teeth will not magically stop being sensitive, cars are not better for the environment because of a 2% reduction in emissions, cash for gold is a rip off, cash for phones will not get you £150 and you never save £250 on car, home or pet insurance.
I am now going to have to write a lecture on how people make up statistics for when they get to secondary school.
Sigh, where did all the cynics go?
P.S. To add the 2% that is bad for the environment is based on the fact that the manufacturing process produces a colossal amount of pollution.
P.S.S. The £250 saving on car insurance is impossible since my insurance is less than that and I suspect only twenty year olds would see reductions like that but that would be because of natural market forces not because of a better company.
My brother shared with me a link about Facebook. Which is an incredibly bad use of statistics and the reason why modern science is dumbing down. One of the diagrams is showing more single men than single women, this tells us nothing. Basic set theory would ask "How much are the two sets overlapping?", people do not join as a couple so why would you expect both halfs of relationship to be Facebook.
Does the information not point to single men using Facebook as a dating site? Rather than the implied men claim they are not single. Again I am making something up, like they do, its all meaningless.
Statistics are so badly abused these days, there should be a law that means you have to link to the actual data so someone else can verify a claim (80% of the population agree with me). The BBC news seems really bad at offering a percentage with only half an explanation.
I am trying to teach my children that advertising on television is a lie. You will not get whiter than white clothes, your teeth will not magically stop being sensitive, cars are not better for the environment because of a 2% reduction in emissions, cash for gold is a rip off, cash for phones will not get you £150 and you never save £250 on car, home or pet insurance.
I am now going to have to write a lecture on how people make up statistics for when they get to secondary school.
Sigh, where did all the cynics go?
P.S. To add the 2% that is bad for the environment is based on the fact that the manufacturing process produces a colossal amount of pollution.
P.S.S. The £250 saving on car insurance is impossible since my insurance is less than that and I suspect only twenty year olds would see reductions like that but that would be because of natural market forces not because of a better company.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Which word would you get rid of from the English language?
I would like to get rid of the word New. It is so annoying, its relative to a time, however when its used it is nearly never correctly expressed with a context.
Also if its written down it is even less useful. Advertising abuses the word and people creating documents to share are just as bad.
Also if its written down it is even less useful. Advertising abuses the word and people creating documents to share are just as bad.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Microsoft DOCX format Epic fail
In case you want to know why DOCX is crap:
This is a sample of what I have to deal with:
<span style="color: #595959;"></span><span style="color: grey; font-family: 'swis721 md bt'; font-size: 44pt;"> </span>
That's right, Microsoft thinks that you need colour on nothing, then you need font and colour on spaces. Now actually I am smart enough to know that in truth you want spaces to have a font so that if you wrote a sentence, then wanted to add a word and put in spaces for space you would need the spaces to preserve the font details. HOWEVER in this case that information is page wide, no need for the document to be littered with crap.
You could argue that its only ever read by computers so why does it matter, it matters because its not only read by computers, XML is a human readable format. If we didn't need that would would have just stuck the EDI Interchange documents (binary formats).
This is a sample of what I have to deal with:
<span style="color: #595959;"></span><span style="color: grey; font-family: 'swis721 md bt'; font-size: 44pt;"> </span>
That's right, Microsoft thinks that you need colour on nothing, then you need font and colour on spaces. Now actually I am smart enough to know that in truth you want spaces to have a font so that if you wrote a sentence, then wanted to add a word and put in spaces for space you would need the spaces to preserve the font details. HOWEVER in this case that information is page wide, no need for the document to be littered with crap.
You could argue that its only ever read by computers so why does it matter, it matters because its not only read by computers, XML is a human readable format. If we didn't need that would would have just stuck the EDI Interchange documents (binary formats).
The EU Tax Office
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/05/what_volcker_thinks.html
What is interesting here is that in point 12 he talks about the eurozone coordinating on tax and spending.
This is the first time I have heard about this without it being immediately followed by "Never going to happen".
With Greece being bailed out by the other Euro members, it might seem fair to those bailing out the country that they help manage the payback. I could actually image France and Germany agreeing to a European Tax Office to collect taxes from all people in the Euro zone.
What is interesting here is that in point 12 he talks about the eurozone coordinating on tax and spending.
This is the first time I have heard about this without it being immediately followed by "Never going to happen".
With Greece being bailed out by the other Euro members, it might seem fair to those bailing out the country that they help manage the payback. I could actually image France and Germany agreeing to a European Tax Office to collect taxes from all people in the Euro zone.
Friday, April 09, 2010
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Goodbye Guy Kewney
His articles in PCW each month were a religion for me growing up:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/08/goodbye_guy/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/08/goodbye_guy/
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Why there are terrorists
Back after the September the 11th 2001 bombing I decided to look into the history of why anybody would crash a plane into a tower block.
The truth is no sane person would and that for someone to be driven to extremes they have to have been through extremes.
The western governments have fought by proxy for decades and now that has come back to haunt them. Governments would give training and weapons to foreign people to help fight oppression and communism. Then promise to help rebuild the country once they had one.
We are not at war currently, we won (according to George W Bush). So its quite shocking to see a gunship killing a group of people on the ground because the suspect one of them is holding a heavy weapon.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/06/wikileaks_gunfire_video/
Now I know that its important to police the population, you do not want them walking around with RPG's (rocket propelled grenades). However, this was not policing. It was murder, there was clearly not enough evidence as it was a camera that was being carried. If there is ambiguity it should be cleared up. 1 person was suspected of carrying a banned weapon but they all had to die by the looks of it.
I approve of gunships being used to support troops on the ground but not as the only means of policing.
This video is an example of why the western world is fighting a war on terror, because of our mistakes.
(on a technical note as I have worked on defence system, there is technology out there to recognise the type of tank or plane based on its silhouette or outline. A clever computer program could also do the same with a large weapon like an RPG, clearly the camera needs to be better but shape recognition is possible)
The truth is no sane person would and that for someone to be driven to extremes they have to have been through extremes.
The western governments have fought by proxy for decades and now that has come back to haunt them. Governments would give training and weapons to foreign people to help fight oppression and communism. Then promise to help rebuild the country once they had one.
We are not at war currently, we won (according to George W Bush). So its quite shocking to see a gunship killing a group of people on the ground because the suspect one of them is holding a heavy weapon.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/06/wikileaks_gunfire_video/
Now I know that its important to police the population, you do not want them walking around with RPG's (rocket propelled grenades). However, this was not policing. It was murder, there was clearly not enough evidence as it was a camera that was being carried. If there is ambiguity it should be cleared up. 1 person was suspected of carrying a banned weapon but they all had to die by the looks of it.
I approve of gunships being used to support troops on the ground but not as the only means of policing.
This video is an example of why the western world is fighting a war on terror, because of our mistakes.
(on a technical note as I have worked on defence system, there is technology out there to recognise the type of tank or plane based on its silhouette or outline. A clever computer program could also do the same with a large weapon like an RPG, clearly the camera needs to be better but shape recognition is possible)
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Earth hour
Somebody I work for had a new footer to his email this a few weeks back, promoting Earth Hour which is the plan that everybody at 8:30pm turn off their lights for one hour to show their commitment to climate change.
Now in the past I might have thought OK cool, someone is doing something. However to me this is epic fail (lower case for empasis), the fuel strikes back in 2001 were the same, the purpose was to not fill up or prevent those that could. However shortly afterwards the balance just returned to normal. It was a blip on history of time.
Also what about Live Aid back in 2005, what a waste of time. People had a great time going to a concert and feeling good that they might be helping something, however did people really change? No, there is still suffering in Africa. 5 years and the majority of the people that supported that effort are doing very little to help now.
Earth hour is the same sort of short term plan that within a week nobody will be talking about. PLUS on the website it asks you to video, take picture and Twitter about it. Excuse me but all that hardware is taking up more power than the low energy bulbs I am turning off. Don't just think about your computer and camera, how about the servers that are running 24/7, the Internet routers all that is creating carbon emissions.
The problem is not awareness, everybody knows there is a problem (some deny we are the cause but that's different).
The problem is the lack of clean abundant energy.
There was a program on television a few years back. A business man set a challenge that he could make anybody a millionaire within 2 years. There was 2 stages to his plan which for the most part people fell at the second.
The first was to reduce outgoings, many people spend hundreds on takeaways or ready meals, leaving televisions on, throwing away things they no longer needed. Practically all the people in the show were thousands better off over the course of the first 6 months by watching where their money was actually going.
The second part was to do something with the money saved, hire someone to be an employee in a new business venture.
The businessman's premise was that you could only go so far with reducing. To truly move forward you needed to invest. Earth Hour should be about asking everybody in the developed countries to hand over $100
Now in the past I might have thought OK cool, someone is doing something. However to me this is epic fail (lower case for empasis), the fuel strikes back in 2001 were the same, the purpose was to not fill up or prevent those that could. However shortly afterwards the balance just returned to normal. It was a blip on history of time.
Also what about Live Aid back in 2005, what a waste of time. People had a great time going to a concert and feeling good that they might be helping something, however did people really change? No, there is still suffering in Africa. 5 years and the majority of the people that supported that effort are doing very little to help now.
Earth hour is the same sort of short term plan that within a week nobody will be talking about. PLUS on the website it asks you to video, take picture and Twitter about it. Excuse me but all that hardware is taking up more power than the low energy bulbs I am turning off. Don't just think about your computer and camera, how about the servers that are running 24/7, the Internet routers all that is creating carbon emissions.
The problem is not awareness, everybody knows there is a problem (some deny we are the cause but that's different).
The problem is the lack of clean abundant energy.
There was a program on television a few years back. A business man set a challenge that he could make anybody a millionaire within 2 years. There was 2 stages to his plan which for the most part people fell at the second.
The first was to reduce outgoings, many people spend hundreds on takeaways or ready meals, leaving televisions on, throwing away things they no longer needed. Practically all the people in the show were thousands better off over the course of the first 6 months by watching where their money was actually going.
The second part was to do something with the money saved, hire someone to be an employee in a new business venture.
The businessman's premise was that you could only go so far with reducing. To truly move forward you needed to invest. Earth Hour should be about asking everybody in the developed countries to hand over $100
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
A Jedi you are not
Just been crying with laughter at a clear moron:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/16/jobcentre_jedi/
I also consider the manager of the JobCentre a moron for apologising the man in question.
Basically he got kicked out of a JobCentre for not taking off his hoodie which he claimed that he was a Jedi and wearing a hood is part of his religion.
There are so many things wrong with that here are a few:
1, I know Jedi has been recognised as a religion (which I guess is ok) however the religion does not mandate the wearing of hoodies like in the case of Muslim women.
2, The guy was in a JobCentre, a place were people are trying to help you. Do you really want to get on the wrong side of the people that are trying to help you? That just proves his attitude stinks.
3, Jedi's are meant to be respectful and peace loving, his attitude is neither.
4, At the bottom of the article the reporter suggests that in future if any other Jedi's are ejected perhaps just a wave of their hand and the words "This is not the hoodie your looking for" would be enough.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/16/jobcentre_jedi/
I also consider the manager of the JobCentre a moron for apologising the man in question.
Basically he got kicked out of a JobCentre for not taking off his hoodie which he claimed that he was a Jedi and wearing a hood is part of his religion.
There are so many things wrong with that here are a few:
1, I know Jedi has been recognised as a religion (which I guess is ok) however the religion does not mandate the wearing of hoodies like in the case of Muslim women.
2, The guy was in a JobCentre, a place were people are trying to help you. Do you really want to get on the wrong side of the people that are trying to help you? That just proves his attitude stinks.
3, Jedi's are meant to be respectful and peace loving, his attitude is neither.
4, At the bottom of the article the reporter suggests that in future if any other Jedi's are ejected perhaps just a wave of their hand and the words "This is not the hoodie your looking for" would be enough.
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