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Listed below are comments made by paulcarps between Tuesday, 8th September 2009 and Monday, 30th November 2009.

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• Pressure on as top stars feel the cut 3:01pm on 30 Nov 2009 If the rumours about Tiger Woods are true then it's twice as extraordinary! I can't imagine the kind of work and dedication he's put in down the years to be this dominant in the modern era - but maybe this whole 'aura of mystery' he's cultivated is deeper than we thought.
  
  One thing though, has his aura of invincibility started to recede a bit. There have been a bigger spread of 'unknowns' cropping up on the podiums than I can remember in a long time. I don't actually follow golf that much, but for sure the rankings don't seem to reflect reality in the way that they do in, say, tennis.
• Bank reform: The radical way 1:50pm on 20 Nov 2009 I fear the use of the word 'radical' over recent months probably means that we will end up seeing some very poorly-thought out legislation eventually arising from this. Current legislation is the result of decades of slow correction and addition - throwing it out all to start anew is rarely the answer.
  
  To draw an analogy with the software world, rewriting the source code from the ground up in a 'radical' fashion will almost certainly mean forgetting the lessons that are enshrined in existing legislation.
  
  I think the real lesson hasn't been learnt at all - the banks aren't too big to fail, but they are too big to protect. We should have let them fall and cleaned out the system that way. As it is, we can look forward to decades of support for a discredited system
• Is marriage a dying institution? 2:00pm on 06 Nov 2009 It's nice to hear someone like Anthony saying things like that. I was reading somewhere where there was a quote that "in almost every other species in nature, monogamy is an aberration - not a given".
  
  Even if that's true it doesn't make it right that people should treat marriage lightly. Unfortunately, with all this kind of information out there on sites like the one Anthony mentioned, it's little wonder that people seem to be becoming less interested in genuine commitment.
  
  I've been married 17 years in March and it hasn't always been easy - but its worth fighting for, and I think more young people should follow Anthony's lead.
• Could we save billions by legalising drugs? 4:55pm on 03 Nov 2009 I couldn't agree more with the report (in fact, I blogged about it today in light of the controversy over David Nutt).
  
  While the cost/benefit analysis is never going to be clear cut, it's pretty obvious that prohibition has only served to create a whole raft of criminal enterprises.
  
  Whether people taking drugs is desirable or not, people are taking drugs. The law as is stands has been a colossal failure, despite incredible amounts of money having been thrown at enforcing it.
  
  It's just time for a different approach. If my kids are going to grow up and experiment with drugs, I'd rather they were going to buy something safely, legally and in a controlled fashion rather than chancing their arm with some streetcorner thug. Let's lose the moralising about whether using drugs is right or wrong and start to be a bit more clear headed on the issue.
• Day Two: Water or the web? 08:55am on 15 Sep 2009 "This country is short of lots of things - water, electricity, books for schools. But there is a great thirst for better connectivity - and who are we to say that they've got their priorities wrong?"
  
  Well without water they'll die, without electricity they won't be able to get the internet anyway, and without schooling they won't be able to read the internet even if they get it. I know we're not allowed to comment on other culture's priorities these days, but really this is a pretty fatuous statement to make.
  
  I can't find the link (although I've got a screen cap here) but Gordon Brown made a similar argument that the internet was as "vital as water and gas."
  
  The internet is a wonderful, wonderful tool You can (as the farmers pointed out) make vast strides in self-education from it. You can engage with people through social networks. But also, it is full of lightweight nonsense like bingo, dancing hamsters etc etc etc.
  
  So yes, internet access will ultimately transform the lives of countless Africans, but to even mention in the same breath as the need for adequate sanitation, irrigation, healthcare and education is pretty insulting to the memory of the millions who have died for the lack thereof.
• Susan Greenfield - is the web changing our brains? (Video) 1:42pm on 11 Sep 2009 It frightens me that this person is the director of the Royal Institution. Science is the observance of phenonema and the testing of explanatory theories for those phenonema through controlled experimentation. I respectfully submit that calling Twitter "banal" on the basis of a made-up anecdote about socks and thereby chewing the same cow's cud as scaremongering stories from the popular press hardly qualifies as noteworthy.
• Subtitles on BBC iPlayer Update 11:10am on 10 Sep 2009 I wrote about the subtitling technology issue recently (from an admittedly different perspective). In all honesty, I've had very little interaction with people with hearing difficulties but it seems pretty clear that a services that marries the iPlayer and subtitles can only be a good thing.
  
  I'm curious about the process of how the subtitles are actually put together. Do you think it would be possible for an effective 'live' transcription? I remember the days of old Ceefax live subtitles, which were obviously being done by actual people - with typos and misliteralisation creeping through quite badly...
  
  Anyway, I know that there's lots of transcription software out there (apparently really prevalent in the medical field where dictation is already automated to some degree) so could it be built into the iPlayer, and if so would the BBC license the solution to outside companies to help people with hearing impairments?
• The future is a merger 12:55pm on 09 Sep 2009 72,
  
  There is a good point in there about the distribution of R+D and risktaking actually and it is well taken. Funding for this sector comes mainly from venture capitalists where banks shy away from it in favour of corporate investment.
  
  However, there is a kind of logic there: VC money grows through spreading money across a lot of potential technologies and innovations - most of which come to naught. It is largely privately funded risk though (I hate to use the Dragon's Den as an archetype, but it will do for purpose). Typically, relatively small sums are invested in many businesses in the hope that one or two hit the big time.
  
  By contrast, a bank has to balance the needs of its millions of customers, its regulatory commitments, its asset-sheets and its shareholders. Therefore it is seeking relatively lower risk places to invest larger sums. Putting a billion into the shares of someone like T-Mobile makes perfect sense from this perspective: the chances of them going bust are small, and if they are subject to a takeover, the rewards can be massive.
  
  Now, where the current faultline lies is the point at which bankers start behaving more like venture capitalists (and also taking rewards on that basis). This has become unmeshed in the general cant about bankers and big business, but really has no bearing on mergers like this.
  
  Is it a perfect system? No - but then none are, and I can't see a viable alternative on the table.
• The future is a merger 09:36am on 09 Sep 2009 63,
  
  I'm not trying to "rectify humanity at every turn" or "stir" this blog - I was merely responding to post 54 which made the claim that mergers and acquisitions were among the worst crimes of recent times. Factually, they are not criminal activities and in terms of scale they barely compare with other crimes - points which 58 gracefully conceded.
  
  58,
  
  I know that the basis for some technology originates in publically funded science, but to characterise the private sector as lazily living off this stuff and not contributing is just overstating the case massively. Let's not forget that the light bulb, the railways, the internal combustion engine etc came from private entrepreneurs and investors.
  
  Is the ipod in that kind of league? Maybe not - but that is the kind of innovative use of infrastructure that publically funded programs just never result in. Why are so many Government IT projects light years behind their counterparts if the public sector is so innovative?
  
  Going back to the financial aspect of this, the money necessary to make investments in things like 3G or cable run into the order of billions. Hence, bigger companies are needed in order for those kinds of investment to be made - unless we are to trust everything to the State. And which, it is often forgotten, relies on money made privately for its income. The very money used for research and development comes from tax on private enterprise in the first place.
  
  It's a lot more yin and yang than I think you're allowing.
  
  The focus is very often on profits, but profits are merely revenues minus investments. Sure, some of this investment goes on marketing and big salaries etc, but no company can survive without investing in developing new products and services. Otherwise we'd be discussing this on Usenet on a 48-baud DSL connection.
  
• The future is a merger 9:01pm on 08 Sep 2009 "Mergers and Acquisitions are one of the worst crimes of recent times." (from a comment just above me somewhere) Except maybe... I dunno... the genocides in Sudan/Darfur, repression in Burma etc etc?
  
  Taking away that specious overstatement, the charge is that because many mergers fail to deliver what they set out to achieve (not "promise" to achieve) is just One Of Those Things That Happen. It's a risk that businesses who sign strategic deals, contracts or takeovers end up taking. Characterising that kind of thing as a kind of conspiracy designed to fleece the poor and feed the rich is just divorced from the reality of business.
  
  I know it's unpopular coming out to bat for big corporations in these benighted times, but it's the big companies who have the cash reserves and technical know-how to bring us innovations like smartphones, mobile broadband etc etc.
  
  And it is precisely the existence of such behemoths that creates the opportunities for smaller, more nimble businesses to disrupt and improve services overall. If you're unhappy with the service you get from massive companies, you're free to find smaller operators with more personal service. My mobile provider is 3 - still a massive company, but a much more responsive in my experience than the bigger fish.
  
  Right now, entrepreneurs are looking at new gaps that this merger will open up in the market, and ultimately it is these that create the danger of 'failure' - not something inherent in the nature of mergers/takeovers themselves. [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]

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