Posts by viscount 113 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jul 2014
If you had asked me a year ago whether visibility of what buses were arriving where and when would be helpful, I probably would have been lukewarm.
However, having recently consumed the service via mobile apps it is genuinely useful because you can decide which bus to take from which stop, or whether to walk or get a tube. It sounds trivial but for a city the size of London it's a big deal: there are so many bus users and each gets a little bit of benefit.
Good work TfL.
I think it depends on which point the paper was in its distribution. The fact that is handed out "free" eventually does not mean that the owner does not have rights to the stock in the vans, warehouses etc. It's a bit like if I decide to hand out free Snickers for a promotion that does not give you the right to make off with my whole stock from the warehouse.
If on the other hand the papers were taken when they were just left out for people to pick up then it could be an interesting legal case.
The recent Jenner Pepsi ad was widely mocked, but subsequent surveys have shown that, despite the "bad" publicity, perceptions of Pepsi's improved amongst those who watched it and saw the reactions. Private Eye was my reference but this story is similar:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/pepsi-ad-kendall-jenner-protest-police-commercial-backlash-prefer-brand-survey-morning-consult-a7682126.html
Firstly, Silver is not a pollster, he is a forecaster and he uses polls as input. Blaming him for bad polling is pointless.
Secondly, I followed 538 (Nate Silver) during the election and it was very clear that he and his organization gave Trump a substantial chance of winning (about 30% on election day) and with articles that reinforced that it was an outcome that could easily occur. A 30% chance is a substantial probability, so all those who were "shocked" at the result cannot possibly blame 538.
The media who were taken by surprise have only themselves to blame, not polls or forecasters.
Not using Facebook much, I was surprised by the commotion about "fake news". Given how well Facebook can suppress pornography, breast-feeding etc I am surprised they cannot solve the problem in a similar crowd-sourced way, which leads me to conclude that the numbers involved probably all that significant anyway.
+1 for the late David MacKay's "Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air", available as a real book or to read for free at:
https://www.withouthotair.com/
It shows how a future low carbon UK might work with real science and numbers. Great stuff.
It is not true that blocking special characters means the bank is not hashing or otherwise protecting passwords. More likely the banks want to avoid the confusion that occurs when people try to enter special characters on keyboards or characters sets that they do not usually use, and because it is a masked field they cannot easily tell they have made an input error. So they lock themselves out and cause havoc.
I am not sure he is "hated" all that widely: the left-wing commentariat make a disproportionate noise.
However, I for one for dislike his empire: I think it is bad for our democracy when one man has so much power over so many eyeballs in print, online and on TV.
I believe you are correct: this prosecutor was in the bureaucracy under the executive line, a bit like a civil servant. So the justice minister can sack him. That does not make it the right thing to do and exerts a chilling effect on future politically unpopular prosecutions.
An analogy with the civil service would be that a politician might be able to get a civil servant fired for incompetence (long shot) but would not be able to dismiss a civil servant for rigorously applying the law of the land.
Firstly, the journalists were neither arrested nor charged. They were put under investigation.
Secondly, your point about separation of powers is misleading. Yes, one hand should watch the other. But the way that it should work for a case like this is that the executive decides the law is wrong and changes it via the legislature, not that is sacks the independent prosecutor (as has just happened) because they do not like his individual decision. Alternatively the law is okay but the prosecutor got it wrong, which the judiciary would decide when necessary.
I go back to my question: today the German executive has decided it does not like a prosecution for treason. Great. Next week, they decide they do not like a powerful company or individual being investigated for tax evasion. Is that okay too?
It was probably wrong to investigate/threaten treason, but having the judicial process quashed by elected politicians is quite bad too. Operational police and prosecutory authorities should be independent of the executive.
On this logic, what else will politicians like to quash? Investigation of their mates' tax affairs?
It was one of Parkinson's Laws, roughly:
When a company or other organization is finally able to plan and build the perfect building for itself, the building best suited to its needs, that organization is in the throes of petrification and death.
Well worth a read even though over 50 years old now.
Totally agree: most apps seem to ask for a plethora of weird and wonderful permissions. As a normal user you have no chance of spotting a malware app, and Android does not allow the user to control what the app actually has access to on their phone.
Some apps do a great job of explaining why they need what they ask for (e.g. the BBC News app) but most make no effort at all.
Eventually there will be a huge scandal with a dodgy app and Google will need to rush out a change to allow granular control.
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