Posts by Robert D Bank

NO...but ..but...NO.

I don't understand why they don't introduce phone voting as an option. Just a reworked a version of any telephone banking that's been around for decades would do it. You get sent a pin in the post or email and when you call in you can change it. After you've cast your vote you can call to verify it is as you chose and not been fiddled with, or even change it later up to a certain cut off time. Not 100% bullet proof obviously, still some could be coerced to vote a certain way in some households, and the deaf wouldn't be served by it. But most people including the elderly can always access a phone from anywhere.

so, roadworks until 2025...

tax should simply be rated inverse to the positive overall social gain the taxable entity provides, with the definition of gain being decided by the electorate

Open Banking...

oh the pain, the PAIN ....!

the simplistic language of the present day media over the last say, 5-8 years would probably reveal a lot if fed into these algorythms, just to see the very marked change as it occurred post 9/11. Russia bad. China bad. NK bad. Syria bad. Lybia bad. Iran bad. Israel good. US good. UK good. Fucking boring but a very strong reinforcing of stereotypes going on constantly with these 'close vectors'. And not by chance either. Add any 'name' to the good or bad vector as desired. Rinse repeat. It does have an effect, especially when no balance is brought into it.

Horse, door, bolt. The damage has already been done. Some data 'may' become a bit stale over time, but really it won't matter, there's so many other sources.

They should be FORCED to identify who the victims are, and who the benefactors are, and at the very least all be made to compensate the victims by at least the equivalent commercial value of their information on the market over their lifetime.

If they won't comply with handing the data over just hit them with an estimate that includes the effect on victims going forward for their lifetime, including the effects on their children. That might get their attention.

the whole thing falls on its arse when you have incompetent staff. In the rarefied Mgmt world they don't have to deal with the dickheads they've hired that have to be carried by the rest. This leaves precious little time to do the real work because you're hand holding, teaching fundamentals and fire fighting the fuckups they make. Most of the time you want them to do nothing as it's less painful. Oh yes, and I know, 'you should spend time training them and building systems that caters for the lowest common denominator so they can't makes mistakes'. Well FO, most leave quickly once they're rumbled, to be replaced by someone of equal or worse incompetence (but cheap) and the cycle starts again. In between you're having this DevPlops and all the other jizz thrown at you like it's gong to be a panacea for the stupid Mgmt decisions that created the problems in the first place, such as siloing everyone, not investing in training, constantly ratcheting down the budget

I've been to the US once for about 6 weeks in late 90's. Most people were pretty cool and easy to get on with.

But now post 9/11 with all the paranoia, intrusive monitoring and rampant xenophobia there I would NEVER consider going there at all. This kind of crap now being asked for on VISA applications simply reinforces that. They only reason they're doing this is because they're judging people by their own standards, in a country where 55k people are shot by each other each year, where those with money are the only ones that receive justice, where the government is corrupted by money and the electoral system is being gamed from within by big money interests, and healthcare costs can bankrupt even quite wealthy people.

I have travelled most corners of the world including some places that have real, unapologetically repressive dictator governments and never had any of this intrusive scrutiny, and most people were pretty cool and easy to get on with, just like the US.

The worst thing is the US pushing this attitude out to the world, insisting on other countries following the same approach. I haven't seen any evidence that this has made the world more secure, it has just made travel a pain in the arse at any border point. And the less contact people have with each other as a result of of reduced travel, the less they understand each other, the more they mistrust each other. But maybe that's the point, it's much easier to attack the unknown 'them' than a friend. Sad.

.

George Monbiot warned of this way back in March 2017:

http://www.monbiot.com/2017/03/08/use-it-or-lose-it/

and referenced this which in turn references events as far back as 2013. This article is a terrifying read, it really is.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy

I can see some real benefit here for disaster recovery sites and intra/inter-datacentre performance when it becomes available. It might become feasible to have a geographically split datacentre in an active-active configuration that could save a lot of money

given up

on almost any meeting involving colleagues from India because I can't understand at least 50% of what's said (or them understand me) because they speak to fast or too heavily accented, or they have a cold and sniff constantly, or they're in the street with feckin auto-ricksha horns beeping constantly or in an office with constant background noise. And if you ask a question you often have between several seconds and even minutes of silence, or nothing at all, especially if they have to own up to any mistake. For anything else it's just a faint 'yes' when you know they have no idea what they've said yes to. It feels like a large piece of life has been drained from your being.

You can be certain beyond any doubt when you get a 'series' of meeting invites hit your mailbox from a project that spans several hours/days and no clear agenda that sanity will only be preserved by diligent use of the 'X'. If you get sucked into it you'll discover it's a giant fishing expedition to pick everyone with any knowledge's brain so they can try and repackage it as their own 'brilliance' without any reference to those supplying the knowledge. It always comes undone and they then call on the same poor bastards with the knowledge to fix the resultant cockup.

There are some exceptions of course and I get on well with them, especially as they don't call meetings very often because they actually know what they're doing.

I am absolutely aghast that anyone thinks that it is productive using offshore people that have not been properly vetted. But I guess those that decide never have to work with them.

NOTE: I have reached this point after many, way too many, years of experience and it is making me ill. And most of the time I don't see it as my Indian colleagues fault, it is the moronic management that allow this to happen. They fail to see the nepotistic and fraudulent practices in recruitment in India, especially through 3rd parties. Those same moronic management also have a tendency to call a lot of meetings that they virtually have to press-gang people to attend.

Applicable

That's what I'd call it

As someone that couldn't code to save my life (and yes to lazy/stupid to learn as it's not an interest) it sounds interesting as a means to bring a great commercial idea to life, and maybe generate an income stream. In terms of the scalability, security and performance I expect Cloud providers might come to the party on that to help and bring more customers on board. You might see deals available where you get the service at a price offset by the Cloud provider taking a cut of your revenue stream. Both parties win on that score.

it's all about standards..

Security is so much easier when you have really good well thought out standards that are properly enforced. If you start from a position of excellent standards then you should be able to have much more generic security that is applied by default rather than having a bespoke approach every time.

Any function that is commonly used and that presents any security risk should be very closely scrutinised and managed by only very qualified and trusted people, and as much as possible isolated from bespoke code that calls the service. Sharp focus needs to be on identifying high risk areas and investing in that specifically so other users of that code know they're protected from creating risks and can concentrate on whatever they're creating.

NHS Brand value

given the determination to run the NHS into a wall so the inevitable privatisation becomes more palatable (forced by no choice) for the masses, the NHS brand will probably have a massive amount of value for the massive insurance or whatever corporation that will probably inherit it. Having some upstart like this having anything to do with it just wouldn't do, would it.

needs a live feed to change the status of the consent as you go...

fit-bit to app, yeah I'm up for it, fit-bit to app, I just want to sleep. fit-bit to app, I'm hungry (for food), fit-bit to app, I need a dump, fit-bit to app, nah..to many people on this train...

The ultra wealthy will see immense benefits in increased income, incredible medical advances, greater unfettered control over huge populations both financially, mentally and through physical means as a result of AI combined with elimination of regulations that don't serve their purpose.

If they themselves are 'enhanced' with AI and advanced gene editing they will effectively become a new species that others cannot compete with. They likely will view those without enhancement with ever more contempt, like we view animals now. They will happily watch 'humans' depopulate at a massive rate. The fit and strong may be retained for some amusement value.

Look around, that's been the model for quite some time even without AI. It has a thin veil over it called 'democracy' in some places (if you can afford it), but I think that veil will be lifted over the next 5 years.