There Is No Possibility of Reading Anything Interesting Here

TL:DR This is a lengthy article, so in summary: The negative and counter-productive comments by the European Commission (EC) are due to it having a public service that has direct policy making power and is unelected and unaccountable. I argue that urgent reform is required to remove those powers and to focus it upon the actual job of a public service organisation; policy implementation. Additionally the EC needs to be removed from the 'Brexit' negotiation process and the responsibility for EU negotiation must be vested with the Parliament and Council alone. The apparent EC view that it should be the pre-eminent power within the EU has resulted in the likelihood that Britons considering either a vote to accept the results of the negotiation or to reconsider membership have hardened their attitude, now being convinced that the last thing they'll do is fall under the effect of these arrogant mandarins. If the intention of the EC was to encourage th

Why The Hiatus? Recently the frequency of posting to this blog has dropped off markedly. Unfortunately, I suffer from a chronic health condition and over the past few weeks I've experienced a relapse. This has meant that day-to-day living has been difficult and I've not been able to write any posts. I apologise for not keeping up with my usual sparkling repartee, but circumstances currently dictate that I focus my remaining energies elsewhere. I hope to pick up the rate of postings as and when I can recover. The blog hasn't been abandoned. Thanks for reading.

Talking Heads Over the recent months and years we've seen many talking heads from the Web and advertising companies telling us that if we want 'free' services and 'apps' on the Web then we're going to have to accept advertising as the price for this. The increasing numbers of users employing various "ad-blockers" in their browsers are portrayed somehow as "evil" and are denying these companies a legitimate source of revenue. They warn users that if you deny this revenue stream then you'll have to pay, they argue. OK, I get it. Running and hosting Web sites doesn't come for free and most Web companies aren't charities; someone has to pay for it. There are many worthy Web sites out there that are run on a shoestring and use advertising as a way of 'keeping the lights on', as it were. However, if they and the advertising companies are wondering why more users are deploying ad-blockers and revenue is flattening out, then

On the 7th August the UK Government's Department for Digital, Media and Culture (DCMS) published a press release to the effect that they intended to strengthen the UK data protection laws to give individual citizens enhanced rights to determine what happens to their personal data on the Internet. You can read their press release here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-strengthen-uk-data-protection-law To quote from the DCMS GOV.UK Website the thrust of the enhancement to the law is: Public to have greater control over personal data - including right to be forgotten. New right to require social media platforms to delete information on children and adults when asked. What Is Proposed Broadly, this will mean that once the proposal is made law then: The Data Protection Bill will: Make it simpler to withdraw consent for the use of personal data Allow people to ask for their personal data held by companies to be erased Enable parents and guardians to give con

It's been a while since I last posted here for which, I apologise. Unfortunately, chronic health problems have sapped all of my energy (and will to live) recently and it's been difficult to concentrate upon anything other than the things necessary to get through the day. What to talk about? Given that my brain is particularly dull, maybe I should focus upon that old chestnut Brexit. Oh God! Really? Again? Well, yes; this is the topic that just won't lie down. It is the obsession of the country and certainly the chattering classes du jour and it's likely to be until we finally leave in June 2019. The major issue that I've got with it is that it's taking up the entire effort of the UK Parliament to the exclusion of all else. This includes actually running the country. What's staggeringly obvious is that we came into this process gloriously unprepared. The whole Brexit negotiation is rediculously under-rescourced and it seems that the entire Civil Service h

Firstly, let me apologise for the lack of posts on the blog recently. Unfortunately, a bout of chronic illness has altered my priorities, although I'll try to keep posting, if anyone's reading. Third Stone From The Sun With apologies to Jimi Hendrix, I'm focusing upon Earth and the place of the human species within the biosphere. There are roughly seven billion of us around and this number is projected to grow wildly by the end of the century. Put simply, that's a lot. We live on a blue-green marble, with the emphasis upon the blue bit, i.e. water. One of the stand out things about humans is being both primates and one of the Great Apes, we're remarkably good at dealing with and surviving in water. Unlike most primates and more like cetaceans (whales and dolphins) we exhibit the 'diving reaction'. That's to say, when we stick our faces in water, our blood pressure, breathing rate and pulse decrease rapidly and our heartbeat slows as our body sh

Although I'm very interested and engaged in the current domestic political process here in the UK, I'm conscious that a lot of my posts are covering political events and attitudes and I worry about becoming one of the myriad 'political commentators'. I have no intention of wanting to, or becoming one. The world has far too many already; most of them burning oxygen for no good benefit! To keep it light and to vary the post content, I'm going to sound off, this week, about an everyday observation that some of you might find amusing, but I guess, most of you won't. The Evils of Smoking Tobacco The UK has recently introduced new legislation to further regulate the sale of tobacco. That's a whole (or series) of posts in and of itself, but I'm staying away from politics this week. My observation is of a more personal nature. Since the new legislation has taken effect, the standard amounts that can be legally retailed in the UK has changed. It&

Note: I had intended to post this article last week, but unfortunately I was unable, due to many appointments that I was obliged to keep. I'm 'late to the party' with this comment, but I hope that you'll consider it anyway. Thank you for your patience. An Historical Introduction Phyrrus of Epirus (c.318 - 272 BC) was a classical Greek General who won a costly victory at the Battle of Asculum. This is now referred to as a "Phyrric Victory" since he was quoted (by Plutarch) as saying: If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined. (Sorry for the hideous paraphrasing.) Phyrric Victories and Losses The General Election on the previous Thursday was labelled as what is referred to as a "snap election", since it was called by the Prime Minister at six weeks notice, which is a very short time as far as General Elections go. The result of the election was bizarre to say the least. To bring in Phyrrus'

Please use your vote this Thursday.  Apologies for the late posting. I was at the UK Games Expo this weekend and I've taken today to 'recover'. Right! If anyone out there in virtual space is actually reading this I was going to post an article on a completely different topic, but I've decided that the upcoming General Election is just too darned important not to spout my piece. So, here goes. The General Election is happening this Thursday, despite some doubt after the horrifying events in London on Saturday. I have one request: Use your vote and have your say. Do this on Thursday, if you do nothing else. I'm not worried about your views, it's just that if you don't vote, you can't have a say and you can't whinge about the result if you don't like it. I guess what I'm trying to say is: Use your vote. As the febrile campaigns have gone on (and on, and on) it's become clear that the result is likely to be far close

I was born 'out of time'; that's to say, thirty years too early. When growing up, I had an eclectic mind. I was interested in a lot of subjects and was fascinated by finding how lessons in one subject could be applied to a completely different subject. I loved exploring the connections. This meant that I pursued many subjects and didn't really concentrate on one to the exclusion to all else. I continued that throughout my higher education and try to do as much of this as I can in my working life.  My biggest successes at work have been when I can combine knowledge across sometimes disparate subjects to design innovative solutions and it's the part of work I enjoy most: It really doesn't feel like work. At least two of my bosses have commented that my chief skill is "...seeing connections that other people don't see..." (I paraphrase). The problem for me, is that I get to do so little of this kind of 'work'. Modern IT is still very silo-

Ever get that feeling of deja-vu? I do and I got it again this week. The reason that I got this distinct and unsettling feeling was the arguments around the need or desire for a second referendum on the whole 'leaving the EU' debacle. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron was the most vocal in calling for a second referendum and announced that this would be a formal policy of his party, if elected to Government. Immediately after this statement the inevitable, let's say, firestorm came his way. The sounds of knees jerking was almost deafening. I'm not going to bore you here with the way that I voted because what has happened, has happened. I put one of the reasons that the leave campaign won is the way that both sides approached the campaign. The leave side of the argument, to me, concentrated upon arguments that focused upon emotion : Vast additional money for the NHS instead of 'wasted' money to uncontrolled EU budgets; "Taking back con

You have until Midnight  tomorrow to register to vote in the General Election vote on June 8th. Make sure you have a voice. Without it, you have no say in the future direction of this country. From Rize Up UK If you need reasons why, check out Rize Up       The impact of not voting in the last referendum is summarised in this infographic. Although it does appear to assume that all of the non-voters would vote the same way, which they clearly wouldn't, it does quite starkly illustrate the impact of those denied a vote or abstaining. From Rize Up UK. Graphic showing the number of people eligible to vote that did not in the previous referendum.  Please; get up off your butt and register to vote if you haven't done so. Take part in our democracy.

I had a bit of an internal debate this week about what to write. Several things were occupying my mind. In the end, I've decided to move from the important to the mundane for this post. Well, it can't be serious all the time! I've been fortunate enough to own all three generations of Xbox; the original, the 360 and the One. They're the only 'Windows' machines I own (go Linux!). I wanted a games console that I could indulge in "couch co-op" with my mates and when I saw Halo, I was suitably blown away. "That's the one for me!", I thought. The rest is history and all three machines still run. About two months ago, I took the plunge, and got an Xbox One. While there's no doubt the hardware is superior to the 360, I have to honestly say my impression of the machine is "meh...". Really and truly "meh". This, I think is purely down to the interface and the user experience (UX). My impression, and yours may be differen