What would you do?
Baby mix-up case grips Russians
Two families in Russia sue their local maternity hospital for giving them the wrong babies 12 years ago, in a terrible mix-up.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Saturday, October 08, 2011
Quantitive easing solved one problem...
Quantitive easing solved one problem, it helped the banks shore up their balance sheets and stopped them going to the wall (plus it allowed them to keep paying fat bonuses). Now there is a threat to the UK banks from a Greek default the governor of the Bank of England has injected 75billion into the banks again.
What is getting me angry, is that he keeps saying that this will help GDP and the economy. That is just an optimistic side effect of helping the banks, if it happens at all. The banks are under no obligation to help the economy, they are getting money with no strings attached.
A direct cash gift to tax payers would have been better, the majority wouldn't have spent it on flat screen tv's like they would have done 2008, we've come a long way since then.
What is getting me angry, is that he keeps saying that this will help GDP and the economy. That is just an optimistic side effect of helping the banks, if it happens at all. The banks are under no obligation to help the economy, they are getting money with no strings attached.
A direct cash gift to tax payers would have been better, the majority wouldn't have spent it on flat screen tv's like they would have done 2008, we've come a long way since then.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Don't forget on Sunday it will be...
Don't forget on Sunday it will be:
12:34:56.78 9/10/11
For all us British calendar users.
12:34:56.78 9/10/11
For all us British calendar users.
Monday, October 03, 2011
Destroying homes
I just read a blog post about the tax and small businesses. A lot of it made sense, especially when talking about how politicians never talk about making it easier for businesses to start up and run their books.
However buried in the article (point 4) was also a point about how to lift the economy by bulldozing houses. In the USA I understand that a lot of home have been repossessed and are now owned by the government. These houses are creating a situation of over-supply and are keeping house prices low.
The authors solution to the problem is that the government destroy them for the good of the economy...
I am not sure what to make of that, I can see his point but it feels wrong to destroy an asset...
Thoughts on Our Federal Government, Taxes and Small Business and More « blog maveri
However buried in the article (point 4) was also a point about how to lift the economy by bulldozing houses. In the USA I understand that a lot of home have been repossessed and are now owned by the government. These houses are creating a situation of over-supply and are keeping house prices low.
The authors solution to the problem is that the government destroy them for the good of the economy...
I am not sure what to make of that, I can see his point but it feels wrong to destroy an asset...
Thoughts on Our Federal Government, Taxes and Small Business and More « blog maveri
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
The time-out proposal: A fix for the London riots
A solution to the lack understanding of consequences
Give parents the right to have their children taken away by the police for a short period of time, from an hour to over-night. A time-out as the Americans would say. Repeat offenders could even have to attend boot camps to teach respect and morals.
These time-outs would help police and parents build a relationship, it would show children what happens if you have a lack of morals.
It is not going to fix the current entitlement complex that the under-class have, but it will help the next generation.
Its workable in the sense that you can even get the PCSO to do a lot of the work.
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Copyright and Patents
In the computer industry there is a problem with software patents at the moment. Software patents are used to block competition and stifle innovation.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-patents-attack-android.html
Trivial ideas are allowed to be patented and something like a phone can have over 200 patents covering it. When people ask me what programming is, the simplest way I can describe it is that its just Maths. 1's and 0's, the closest people usually come to this is algebra in secondary schools. Maths cannot be patented but somehow software is.
The problem with this is that patents generally last for 20 years. Which in computing terms is disproportionate. The main supporters of patents and copyright (which is not the same as patents) is that these things create wealth and protect ideas. Which is true but only in a small part. Dysons idea for a new type of vacuum cleaner is great and a great example of how a patent should allow him be rewarded for that effort.
The problem is that now his idea goes from being rewarding him to allowing him to have a monopoly, which as Microsoft has shown, you don't need 20 years to do.
Copyright law is just the same, take films for example, there is a 70 year copyright on those from when the director dies:
http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law
In our modern "almost" capitalistic world, directors and producers will make back their money within a year. Its excessive to think that a work of art would be locked up for 70 + the remaining life of its creator.
I do not think we should get rid of either copyright or patents. However certainly we should reduce their duration, software patents should be banned, then 5 for normal patents and 20 year from the date of creation for copyright. This will help by not creating monopolies, by making those that create and innovate to continue to do so.
When governments talk about reviews to the system, they only seem to talk about locking things up further for the good of the economy, which makes me sad: https://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipresponse
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-patents-attack-android.html
Trivial ideas are allowed to be patented and something like a phone can have over 200 patents covering it. When people ask me what programming is, the simplest way I can describe it is that its just Maths. 1's and 0's, the closest people usually come to this is algebra in secondary schools. Maths cannot be patented but somehow software is.
The problem with this is that patents generally last for 20 years. Which in computing terms is disproportionate. The main supporters of patents and copyright (which is not the same as patents) is that these things create wealth and protect ideas. Which is true but only in a small part. Dysons idea for a new type of vacuum cleaner is great and a great example of how a patent should allow him be rewarded for that effort.
The problem is that now his idea goes from being rewarding him to allowing him to have a monopoly, which as Microsoft has shown, you don't need 20 years to do.
Copyright law is just the same, take films for example, there is a 70 year copyright on those from when the director dies:
http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law
In our modern "almost" capitalistic world, directors and producers will make back their money within a year. Its excessive to think that a work of art would be locked up for 70 + the remaining life of its creator.
I do not think we should get rid of either copyright or patents. However certainly we should reduce their duration, software patents should be banned, then 5 for normal patents and 20 year from the date of creation for copyright. This will help by not creating monopolies, by making those that create and innovate to continue to do so.
When governments talk about reviews to the system, they only seem to talk about locking things up further for the good of the economy, which makes me sad: https://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipresponse
Friday, July 29, 2011
I want to go Solar PV
Every couple of months I look at the cost of solar PV panels.
The current scheme in the UK is that you get a payment from the electric company for electricity you export to them, that rate is disproportionate to help the adoption of carbon neutral technology.
http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php
The above site indicates that a 3.8kWp system should create me 3350kWp per year.
The current FIT (Feed In Tariff) tariff for a system under 4kW is 43.3pence.
That means that the system (if I exported it all) would generate: 3350 x 0.433 = £1450.55
http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generate-your-own-energy/Cashback-Calculator
The energy saving trust paints an even better picture of the situation but allow depends on how much is shines outside. Now £1450.55 would pay for a home improvement loan over 10 years after which I get it all. My problem is that I cannot tell if the 3350kWp is realistic. Plus there is variables like the reliability and cost of inverters, the conversion rate of the panels (new ones are meant to be 17% efficient and the top site I left at 14%).
I need more data.
The current scheme in the UK is that you get a payment from the electric company for electricity you export to them, that rate is disproportionate to help the adoption of carbon neutral technology.
http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php
The above site indicates that a 3.8kWp system should create me 3350kWp per year.
The current FIT (Feed In Tariff) tariff for a system under 4kW is 43.3pence.
That means that the system (if I exported it all) would generate: 3350 x 0.433 = £1450.55
http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generate-your-own-energy/Cashback-Calculator
The energy saving trust paints an even better picture of the situation but allow depends on how much is shines outside. Now £1450.55 would pay for a home improvement loan over 10 years after which I get it all. My problem is that I cannot tell if the 3350kWp is realistic. Plus there is variables like the reliability and cost of inverters, the conversion rate of the panels (new ones are meant to be 17% efficient and the top site I left at 14%).
I need more data.
DVCS - Monotone to Git
I have been moving all my projects away from using the monotone version control software over to Git. Largely because monotones development has stagnated and there are lots more tools that integrate with Git than do with monotone.
For a while I have kept a cheat sheet of commands I used in monotone and their Git equivalent. I am moving a lot of my non-important documents to Google Docs and realised that this particular spreadsheet probably could do with being widely accessible.
So here it is:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtD6Xu8ZpvMgdDJ4UGtGMG95LXBLd3Jfc1ZITlBzNXc&hl=en_GB
Feel free to share, its probably of limited use as there were never many monotone users. I'll be looking to add a column for Mercurial soon as it would be nice to have it all in one place.
For a while I have kept a cheat sheet of commands I used in monotone and their Git equivalent. I am moving a lot of my non-important documents to Google Docs and realised that this particular spreadsheet probably could do with being widely accessible.
So here it is:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtD6Xu8ZpvMgdDJ4UGtGMG95LXBLd3Jfc1ZITlBzNXc&hl=en_GB
Feel free to share, its probably of limited use as there were never many monotone users. I'll be looking to add a column for Mercurial soon as it would be nice to have it all in one place.
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