Posts by Alfonso Vespucci
48 posts • joined Friday 3rd April 2009 20:46 GMT
Speenhamland
See what happens when you re-introduce outdoor poor relief?
The private sector sees a subsidy for low wages in the form of tax credits and responds accordingly - by depressing the wages of the low skilled.
My local supermarket has recently stopped using its own staff for Sunday opening and brought in contractors to save money. The workforce is divided between those who qualify for tax credits and aren't too bothered because their pay is topped up, and the new "undeserving poor", outside of the tax credit system who just have to lump it. Solidarinos? no chance. (apolgies to any Poles reading)
Pedants' corner
Please refrain from using octopuses as the plural. The correct plural is octopodes.
Thank you for your co-operation.
Can the Reg please find out
Has anyone reported the Primark buyer to the ISA yet?
Posted in Save DAB! Send FM radios to Africa
I've got 150 million trannies in my shed.
Well I exagerate a little, but off the top of my head i can list 12 analogue radios in the house, from cheapo efforts to high end units. Plus the one in the car, and one in the garage (see what I mean). This figure of 150 million seems a bit on the low side to me.
"well-intentioned as they doubtless are"
There speaks a man fully conversant with English libel law.
I don't like the new comments layout
but here goes.
Someone may already have mentioned this (see title) but that woman's ID card has been used for all the posters on the wall behind her. It must be a spoof article, surely.
Adapting to protest?
Adapting to liberal democracy more like.
couldn't give a toss
Until they improve the content I'm not going to waste any money upgrading the picture. You can broadcast "The Impressions Show" in HD but it's still not funny.
strange
I find the change in the spring far peskier as it means I have to be alerter earlier. Went to bed at 8:30 gmt last night.
Wow!
She's hot.
Cool
Really cool
On the BBC World service
there is a programme called "Analysis" which, due to it's short duration, appears in abridged form on the Virgin electronic programme guide.
If you insist
I love the smell of burning plastic in the morning.
This worked for me
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/g/2058902_pupils_watch_great_fire_of_london_model_burn
Poor girl
She was so hungry she gnawed off her left hand.
"even the electric car itself has rivals "
Horse, meet cart.
One man's "erotic"...
... Is another man's Olympic logo. It should also be noted that people have been successfully prosecuted for being in posession of child images taken from newspapers and similar sources. Not indecent in themselves, but surely only a nonce would have such a collection (do you see where this is going). And if anyone wants to test out the theory that images of naked children are not automatically "indecent", why not carry a photo of your naked kid in the scanner pose in your wallet. Better still, if you're a bit of an artist, why not a sketch? Then when the nice policeman asks you to identify yourself (do you see where this is going?).
de ja vu all over again
Back in the 90's, under the old student loans regime, there came a "tipping point" when the loan became greater than the grant and the grant wouldn't cover basic costs like rent and deposit. Anyone with a photo sensitive cell could see this coming, and not surprisingly, there was a big spike in students applying for the loan on day one. Were the student loan company ready, were they buggery. Today's students have my sympathy. Very expensive pig in a poke this university lark.
You can stick your Nostradamus up your ***
So you're telling me that in 1965 they predicted that 40 years in the future a TV show would be made about policing in the 1970s. That's bloody brilliant that is.
Posted in IOD: Slash UK.gov IT, save public cash
This looks riddled with errors
BSF is a £60 Billion project, most of it not IT. I think you should add at least 3 zeros to the £2.3m (depending on how quickly it's winding down). Likewise the NHS IT figure looks like it should be a b istead of a m. I would also respectfully suggest that current annual spend on consultants is a bit more than £2.2m. Otherwise very good. Not.
What Humphries didn't ask
was what will get you barred from taking a car full of kids to football training?
A conviction for drink driving 5 years ago?
A caution for posession of cannabis 10 years ago?
An acquittal for domestic violence?
A groundless allegation from when you taught in the 80s?
If the ISA is anything like the CRB in "erring on the side of caution" my guess is any of the above.
scanning? expensive?
Isn't that what internships were invented for?
Posted in Head shop rolls out disk size roadmap
If only they'd put a bit more effort...
...into storage media earlier
I might have been able to fit "The Lamb" on an SA90.
Damn your stretchy SA120s. Damn them all to Hell.
Bloody hell
Either that planet is tiny or that rover is enormous
@Overengineered
More likely overprocessed.
Posted in Swedish lesbians suck sperm banks dry
Guess the hack
Some headlines just scream Lester Haines.
Posted in Cops and ISP in paedophile data mix up
In the olden days
we might just have said "bloody unlucky but at least he can get on with the rest of his life"
Now we say "he's completely fucked-it'll be on his CRB/ISA forever"
Don't knock the .303
I'm still picking bullets from WWI out of my Butts
must think of something pithy
"Once this had been done and officers were confident that no offences had been committed the man was allowed on his way and no further action was taken"
I'll try a bit of boolean (IT angle). If the police are "confident" that you haven't committed an offence, they can still require you to identify yourself to them or face detention and "further action". That sounds like ID on demand. If this is how they're thinking before ID cards come into being, imagine leaving your house without one when they become widely available. Voluntary my arse.
Oh, and another thing
Wear down resistance to the abuse of police powers by harrassing those that have the balls to challenge it.
As it stands now, the answer appears to be yes
Actually the answer appears to be no.
This document: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/14-19/documents/CRB_checks_fact_sheet.doc
explains how vetting will be applied to employers and their staff offering work placements as part of the governments new diploma qualification.
In a nutshell, it won't.
Kids as young as 14 can be packed off to Brady's Widget Factory where a nice Mr Huntley will take them under his wing and tell them that there's a job at the end of it as long as they do what they're told. If not, they've already failed.
Don't get me wrong, I think all this vetting has got way out of hand. But if the Govt feels that everyone in a position of influence over children needs vetting, it ought to be consistent and not put employers' participation in diplomas above child safety.
Posted in US tactical bot has no taste for humans
As it's veggie, rename it
Humans (are)
Indigestible (to this)
Terifying
Laser
Eyed
Robo-raptor
...Or maybe...
Help
It's
The
Lavender
Eating
Recycler
You couldn't make it up.
http://www.medway.gov.uk/medwaycalendar
What else could we expect?
No Labour Home Secretary is going to cancel this even if they wanted to. They couldn't justify the waste of time, money and poltical capital. All they can do is wait until after the election and carp from the opposition benches that the Tories have "wasted" all the money "invested" in the NIS. And make groundless assertions that terrorism/crime/immigration/teen knifings etc ad nauseum would be virtually non-existant if only we all had ID cards.
Posted in That Digital Britain report in full
DAB. Great!
Now all I need is at least a grand to replace my analogue radios and a supply of 20Ah AAA batteries.
Don't think of it as an electric car- think of it as a self-propelled powerpack for your walkman.
a bit fishy
I put my name and town in and hey presto there's more than one of me on their database.
Two points:
I'm pretty sure there is only one AV in my town.
I don't own, and have never owned a mobile phone.
Otherwise, very impressed!
correcting 5 mistakes...
Then stop. Cuts down on marking time. And teaching time.
@Yorkshirepudding
I saw a noctilucent cloud in the late 80s, to the north at about 3 in the morning- it was a weird ethereal thing glowing white in an almost black sky. These days the only reason I'm up at 3 in the morning is if I need a wee so I don't bank on seeing one again. It's definitely a young person's game.
Smiley face to remind me of the late eighties.
UK at 2?
How can the French, with their truly independent nuclear deterrent and proper aircrft carriers spend so much less than UK. Is it all down to fighting unwinnable wars?
Oh dear...
Remember how this all started. Clean database, iris scans biometric photo and fingerprints, a national network of IPS enrolment centres, scanners in every port, airport, bank, hospital, doctors surgery, solicitors office and god knows where else, all connected in real time to the NIR (but not by the internet).
What have we got now. A photocard which might have your fingerprints and image encoded on a chip, but no-one will ever know because no readers exist. A card whose authenticity is established by flicking it. I'm not joking, according to official guidance it has a distinctive sound.
If anyone can ever find 2 in the same place maybe they could report back
@Tax
Road pricing- it's 2 for the price of 1 for the govt. They get to know where we are and they can fiddle with the rates as much as they like.
re. tax
They won't bother to tax the leccy, they'll just introduce comprehensive road charging.
to all those old hippies out there
Foxtrot was a warning not a manual, man.
Black Helicopter because it's the Watcher of the Skies
@ How does he know what they searched for
They asked the only person in the building who would know....
"OK Green. If you think you're so clever, how do you spell Shammy Chack Rab Batty?"
Has Jacqui got a database yet..
of people who don't have one?
Posted in Photocops: Home Office concedes concern
@ Daily Mail link
See how the officer who strikes him then drifts away from the scene as if it was nothing to do with him. Heavily armed school bullies.
Posted in Male chimps strike 'meat for sex' deals
Brings a whole new perspective to....
"Raw Meat 3"
Pass the mind bleach.
Posted in Male chimps strike 'meat for sex' deals
To coax with a piece of bread.
This reminds me of a poem a school friend of mine wrote. I can only remember the first 2 lines:
If I could coax a girlie into bed,
With nothing but a piece of bread....
Bloody Quisling
But at 26 isn't he a too old to become a minister in the next Labour government?
