BBC Blog Network

User Profile

novemberreign

Listed below are comments made by novemberreign between Wednesday, 26th November 2008 and Friday, 9th October 2009.

«Newer
Older»

Say hello, Wave... goodbye? 2:11pm on 09 Oct 2009 Thank you Rory, I always wondered what a bunch of doddery old self-proclaimed technophiles would look like in a group effort to program a VCR.

Wave isn't for anyone who can't wrap their heads around the concept of an old fashioned mailing list service displayed in bulletin board/social network format with drag n' drop access to files. It also helps if you have the social skills to comprehend that the elusive 'Wave' is achieved by having a naturalistic conversation where questions are asked, answered and opinions are shared. Think of a Wave as being in a packed commuter train carriage where, instead of ignoring each other, there's newspapers being passed around and you're all comfortable with each others' proximity and open attitude to not be too concerned about asking what the person next to you is listening to on their iPod, watching on their phone, if the book they're reading is any good and vice versa.

Grumpy old men pushing random buttons and slapping the box that "won't work" without taking the time to read the manual, ask what they want to DO with it, and how it would expand and enhance regular activities is an image that hasn't altered since the days of top loading Betamax players. And it's an image this pre-release test has only reinforced.

It's the equivalent of pouring a glass of orange juice on your cornflakes and blaming the silly fool who designed the glass and the other who made the bowl. Don't forget there's a human mechanism in the middle, Rory, and try not to get orange juice in your cornflakes again. :)
Perfect Storm 2030: Public attitudes 10:09pm on 25 Aug 2009 I walk and take public transportation. I recycle everything my local council can sell (which isn't everything that's recyclable). I use less than 3kw per day in power, buy only energy efficient appliances and I'm saving to have my roof tiles replaced with solar shingles.

I'm also vegan for animal cruelty reasons.

However, I smoke and take a long-haul holiday every 4-6 years.

The government would like to call someone like me as 'Waste Watcher' or 'Concerned Consumer' when the truth is I don't buy the flannel and hype of Man Made Climate Change. I simply recognise that we're living on a finitely resourced rock and when it's gone, it's gone and so is the human species. Man Made Climate Change is a vanity to persuade, coerce and guilt those who think themselves ethical and 'sharing' when they won't lift their noses from the trough as there's plenty for 'now'.

Tell these people we're in the natural cyclic preamble to the thaw-freeze that started the last Ice Age and they won't listen. However, telling them their cars, tropical fruit salad in January, Sunday roasts and power-hungry gadgets caused it - they will kneel obediently and say 'Yessir'. Government telling scientists that their mortgages for the next five years will be paid if they count carbon particles and reinforce the William Morris school of industrial thought is NOT impartial science.

Man Made Climate Change is the new religion and, like its predecessors, it's not followed by those in power who wish to foist it on the majority ("There's plenty for 'now'" will always be the mantra of elected officials and civil servants who skim the cream). It also makes an icon of Mankind's greatest vanity that nothing is more powerful than Mankind.

Climate Change, however, is very real and will shave a few billion off the world population totals. But that doesn't matter as the media, scientists and politicians only have an interest in apportioning blame on the species while population growth goes unchecked and industry, housing and food needs expand.

They aren't shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. The new puritan society weeps for the tree that was cut down to make the stable door.
Will Lloyds' chiefs resign? 4:31pm on 09 Mar 2009 I still can't see how this merger was permitted to go through without a gun being held to the heads of Lloyds TSB's directors.

The incentive of an 'increased share' of UK retailing banking is worthless when you consider half of HBoS's branches will need to be closed (the administrative costs and redundancy payouts from doing so will dwarf Fatcat Fred's pension), their position and reputation in the mortgage market is blackened beyond repair, unsecured personal loans don't exist any more and their corporate 'assets' fell into an accounting Hadron Collider. What 'retail banking'?

A merger with RBS would've been more practical (another crippled bank with black hole books), or using Northern Rock to annex HBoS as part of the BoE. Then asset strip and sell portions of both banks back to the private sector at a higher premium.

As it is Lloyds TSB will now be using the money they SHOULD be injecting as new loans and cash fluidity into the market to stuff up the holes in the HBoS colander.

By crippling Lloyds TSB to prevent an RBS/HBoS one-bank-in-Scotland situation, Brown has extended the recession.
HBOS: Strong men will weep 05:08am on 28 Feb 2009 What gets me is of our three banking terminal case, LloydsTSB HAD the best chance of reviving itself in the short term.

Then Brown forced it into a 'marriage of convenience' with HBoS. No need to strip HBoS's assets out and lock off the debt, too complicated, too little time as Brown was Saving The World.

Desperate to prove that the UK wouldn't see a Lehman Brothers, he mated the only viable banking organisation with the toxic timebomb and DIDN'T EXPECT IT TO GO OFF.

The issue isn't where HBoS's debts were the largest. It's why Brown and the FSA didn't suspend HBoS' operations; push a rug under the feet of its savers, put a line in to short-term debtors (defined as those paying their HBoS tabs) and cut the core defaulters out of the business before selling it along to LloydsTSB?

The core defaulters could then be handed straight over to the Treasury to have their payment terms renegotiated or assets seized. This, in turn, would've proven reasonably profitable for the taxpayer.

However, the situation transpires that Brown had money pumped into the trading system; more money pumped into individually failing banks and is now writing a third cheque, with taxpayers' money, to buy up the core defaulters (who should've been locked off in the first place) under the pretense of an insurance scheme. In a few months' time I have no doubt he'll be writing a fourth cheque to pay out on the insurance these banks have taken out.

Gordon Brown's fallen for the world's biggest pyramid scheme.
Fred Goodwin to receive £650,000 for life 5:22pm on 26 Feb 2009 How is drawing £650k a year from a derailed gravy train any different to claiming £20k a year in benefits you're not entitled to?

How is writing yourself contract with a guaranteed income of £650k a year for life any different to putting your hand into your employer's accounts to gamble or have a 'nice' holiday?

The only difference that I can see is the latter, in both cases, will end up with their accounts frozen, assets seized and be the subject of a highly publicised court case from with HMRC and the Benefits Agency will emerge joyously with a conviction, and some of the money back.

As for the former? They endure toothless moral outrage, the upturned noses of disgust and talk of obscenity. In short, nothing too unpleasant.

The point I'm making is that the tools are already there for government departments and the House to deal with executive bonuses and payoffs proportionately. Members of the crisis select committee sitting back and twiddling their thumbs, while voicing their 'unhappiness', smacks of Victorian social deference.
Docking bankers' pay 3:37pm on 08 Feb 2009 I find it quite strange that Darling and Brown have chosen the moment to clamp down on bank excesses when the majority of the bonuses being portioned up are for bank workers on the lowest tiers.

They didn't rush to stop HBOS and RBS's lavish pre-Christmas 'socials' for the higher echelons, or put their foot down over Northern Rock's bonuses for high-level non-executives. But when it's a one-off £250-500 for someone who's earning the wrong-side of £25k a year - then it's an insult to taxpayers and 'inappropriate'.

Darling and Brown appear to have forgotten these people ARE taxpayers. They're the ones who lose the largest proportion of their income to government largess (taxation); are at risk of losing their homes due to negative equity, and are expected to scrabble around in what's left to pay their bloated utility bills WHILE plugging the shortfall in council revenue in council tax hikes caused by BoE dumping interest rates and Brown's sabotage of Icelandic banks.

About the only thing that's certain is, when they leave parliament for good, the first bank to appoint either of them to a consultancy or non-executive directorship is going to sink faster than Northern Rock.
Is Britain an Olympic superpower? 00:09am on 28 Jan 2009 If Britain is an Olympic Superpower, Australia will be lobbying the UN for a disarmament treaty; demanding bubblegum be added to Hoy, Wiggins and Pendleton's bicycle chains.

Not to mention downsizing Britain's naval capabilities by giving Ainslie a lilo...
When Hoy's bid almost hit the buffers 5:42pm on 11 Dec 2008 "Using a hairdryer, they heat it all up and, several singed fingers later, the repair's carried out: The rest is history."

In other words: they MacGyvered it.

Serious modification would've been to repair it so well that the bike was also capable of firing cabbages with an accurate range of 50 yards...
Twitter - the Mumbai myths 5:44pm on 02 Dec 2008 What it doesn't do is tell us what is true and what isn't - and that makes the work of mainstream media outlets and professional reporters all the more relevant.

More relevant than, say the BBC's constant begging to viewers for YOUR opinions, YOUR views, YOUR pictures, YOUR videos?

On the one hand you welcome 'citizen journalism', yet on the other there's an all too familiar 'leave it to the professionals' edge to your statements.

Is the Twitterisation of Mumbai any different to the BBC's confused reports on the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes at Stockwell or the chaotic scramble surrounding the July 7th attacks? Twitter simply replaces a new anchor with a server and allows people to post their own reports and comments.

How is that any different to the BBC forcing a camera lens up the nose of a passer-by and asking for their thoughts?

But as I searched through the Tweets, the picture got more and more confusing. Who were these people - Mumbai residents or people watching cable television in the United States? Could I trust what they were telling me about this breaking story?

Do I trust the anchors on News24? They're in a studio, far removed from any 'action'? Can I trust the quality of reporters who have time to prepare their report; yet can't seem to deliver a sentence without "Um, ah, er, um" between each word.

What your entire article comes down to, effectively, is: Don't believe a word you read on Twitter because the BBC haven't figured out how to clone this service yet.
The BBC licence free? 10:09am on 26 Nov 2008 If the licence fee was scrapped I'd celebrate! The BBC already gets £150 out of me a year in DVD sales.

Providing I could pay-per-event for sports coverage and pick up my DVDs for Ashes to Ashes, Robin Hood, Spooks and Doctor Who - NOTHING would make me happier than seeing Aunty waste away in her dotage.

Seeing News24, BBC3, most of digital radio, IPV 'ambition' and the exorbitant salaries of so-called 'BBC Talent' go up in smoke would please me no end.

The truth is the majority of people are fed up with paying the BBC a fortune to feather its own nest. When most of us are stuck on £14,000 a year, we don't take too kindly to seeing 'media professionals' raking in £20,000 for running a 'blog' or £6 million for making threatening phone calls.

The BBC should go pay-as-you-use and we'd soon see the obscene behemoth of Aunty cut down to size.

«Newer
Older»

^ Back to top

BBC MMVI

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

BBC.co.uk

BBC Blog Network

Find and talk to the BBC's bloggers.

User Profile

novemberreign