Let's get this economy started!

Watching the news about the Cypriot plans to tax savings got me thinking that that's something that might actually work, but maybe not in the way they expect, so long as they are careful about which savings to tax (or at least tax most).  The thought actually started with Tory (and US Republican) claims that the tax breaks for the wealthy would help the economy as they are 'job creators'. 

That claim makes me hope that they are lying, or at least being disingenuous, because I'd hate to think that people so devoid of knowledge of how business works are running this country (although looking at the backgrounds of the Tory front bench makes me fear that they may be).  Anyone who has run a small/medium sized business (say 10 - 300 employees), or even just worked in one and taken an interest in where their pay comes from, knows that (with the possible exception of family members) you don't take someone on (i.e. create a job) because you can afford to.  You take someone on because if you don't you can't meet the volume of production your customers demand.  You have the fewest number of jobs that you can get away with, no more.  If you want to create jobs you first need to create the demand for the output of those jobs.  The great thing is that properly managed this becomes a positive feedback model where as more jobs are created they also create more demand.

Here comes how taxing savings, so long as the right sort of savings are taxed, might help.  Most savings are essentially dead money, the bank may leverage them to fund investments (if they were investing right now) or bolster reserves but other than that they sit there earning small rates of interest.  If Low Interest/High Liquidity savings were taxed (especially at the 40% rate proposed in Cyprus) that would incentivise the savers to stop sitting on them and spend them.  This would prime the pump for extra demand leading to job creation.  The difficult part would be keeping the demand in country so as to avoid the money simply going to China, India &c so helping create jobs there and to keep the keep the demand flowing long enough.

Nuisance calls from 01618149905

Had a number of silent calls from this number.  Just now they called again and I got a woman with a strong Manchester accent who told me that the company name was 'Versatile'.  In the background I heard typical 'call center' noise. I said I'd never heard of the company.  She said that the company did exist and was based in Manchester.  I told her I'd guessed that from the accent.  She acknowleded that she had a Manchester accent.  She said that they were regulated by the Ministry of Justice and the National Credit Database had shown that I was owed money from a credit agreement I had taken out.  I said "Please stop calling me.  Please remove my contact details from your system.  If you or anyone from this number calls me again I WILL contact the Information commissioner, I WILL get you fined." then hung up.

The number they called has been registered with the Telephone Preference Service for well over a decade.  I have made a complaint via TPS./

It seems that quite a few people are getting such calls and calls for different reasons.

ETA:  Had an email from TPS yesterday.  They have been unable to make contact with Versatile, they can't find any contact details.  They have parked the case.

Vocational training in schools

Yesterday the CIPD published an article on their site about a call for an alternative to A-Levels following recent results.  I posted a comment which they moderated (edited for length) but I feel they lost the link between the first two paragraphs they published, below if the full comment:

During the Olympics I saw a number of people questioning why a disproportionate number of Team GB and, in particular, Team GB medal winners were former Independant school kids. This reminded me of my own school days.  From age 10 to 14 I attended an Independent school on a scholarship.  when that school went bust I returned to the state school system attending a Secondary Modern.

At the Secondary Modern the school day ran from 09:00 to 15:30 with a 10 minute break mid-morning and an hour for lunch either 12:00 to 13:00 or 13:00 to 14:00.  The only sports were one hour of PE a week for half the year (the school didn't have the facilities for a whole year group to do PE at the same time).  The choice was Soccer or 10 pin bowling for the boys and netball or ten pin bowling for the girls.  The only vocational training was art, woodwork, typing (which was only open to girls, although I landed up doing it due to having Dyspraxia) and child care (again, girls only).

At the Independent school the school day ran from 08:30 to 17:30 with a 15 minute break at 10:30 and an hour for lunch at 13:00, 4 days a week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday), 2 days a week (Wednesday and Saturday) it ran, with the same breaks from 08:30 to between 16:00 and 17:00.  In terms of academic lessons we probably did a little more than a state school but not much.  The bulk of the extra time was taken up by sports (upto 11 hours a week), Combined Cadet Force (CCF, boys only) and vocational studies (all boys did at least 3 hours of woodwork a week and 3 hours of art/craft (which could include cookery, although in my time there only 3 boys (including myself) took the option); all girls did at least 3 hours of Cookery, 2 hours of typing (whilst the boys were doing CCF) and 3 hours of art/craft (which could include woodwork although in my time there only one girl actually took the option that I know of) a week).  Additionally there were compulsory hobby clubs for 2 hours every Thursday (during which boys could take typing, although in my time there I was the only one to take the option).  I understand that this was fairly common in the Independent sector.

Is it any wonder that Independent schools turn out more Olympians and people with more rounded skill sets?

Based on my experience I think we should look to extend the school day, certainly in Secondary schools, keeping the academic hours basically the same and filling the extra hours with more sports and vocational studies.  Eleven hours of sports a week is, perhaps, excessive for most pupils but 5 or 6 hours a week would allow for a greater variety of sports to be tried and fitness to be improved.  Offering a variety of vocational studies, along side the academics, from the start of secondary would give all pupils (even those who eventually go the academic route) a firm grounding in useful work skills and allow those who prefer vocational to academic work to get a taste of the options.  Some time could also be allocated to developing cross subject skills such as debate, study skills, critical thinking, time and priority management, project management, basic finance &c.

The main thing from my experience that I would seek to avoid having repeated would be the gender divide in subjects.  Girls should learn at least the fundementals of woodwork and/or engineering and try Soccer and/or Rugby.  Boys should learn at least the fundementals of typing (or rather it's modern equivalents) and/or cookery and try netball and/or hockey.  If CCF (or similar) is on offer then it should be open to both genders.

If I'd won that £148million on the Euro lottery last week I'd be looking to set up a Free School based on just those aims.

Of course, another advantage of the longer school day is that parents don't have to scabble to get into work after doing the school run only to leave pretty much straight after lunch to pick the kids up again.

Spam sales call from 07720590063

Called, hung up when I answered then called again.  Asked to speak to the Three network account holder.  Identified company as 'Sprint Communications'.  Tried to sell me a renewal on my Three contract (which is up in November) and a new phone.  When I said I wasn't interested in renewing my Three contract he offered to transfer my number to a different network.  I pointed out that I already have a phone on a different network (some years ago my sister chenged to Three and I worked out it would be cheaper to have a phone on that network than to call in from my normal phone, she's now going back to the same network as my normal phone) and wasn't interested in keeping that number.  He tried to sell me a contract on another network again.  I repeated my reasons for not wanting to move to another network and after a while he accepted it.

I pointed out that the number was registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) so, as I have no relationship with Sprint he should not be calling me.  I asked him to have my number removed from their systems and from any lists they sell on or use.  He said he'd try.

Also reported this on Who Calls Me.

Now I'm off to shop them to the ICO.  I suggest others do likewise if they get a call on a number they have registered with TPS.

Giving bad news at work

Just listened to a podcast from Manager Tools called "Giving Bad News" about what to do when something goes wrong at work andyou've got to tell your boss.  Reminds me why I stopped listening to them.  Should have called it "The Career Suicide Podcast".

One of the key points they make is that when things go wrong you should own the responsibility and not blame anyone else, even if they're the guilty party.  They say your boss will understand.  Not any boss I've ever met, they probably don't have time to try to understand.  If you're standing in front of your boss and 'owning the responsibility' then you are responsible.  That's responsible as a synonym for 'to blame' and 'at fault'.  Other phrases that go with the word responsible in that sense are 'poor review at annual performance review time' and 'dismissed for under performing with predjudice and no references'.

About the only saving grace I heard in the podcast is that if someone's failure to do something is the cause of your work being late or incomplete then you should do all you can to make sure that the othr person doesn't fail.  True, but there are limits to what you can do.  You can remind people and chase them up but, unless you have role power over them, you cannot instruct them.  You certainly cannot countermand an instruction from the person who does have role power over them.

Here's an example:

I was working on a project where I had a task to do.  It wasn't on the critical path but the task that followed it was so I had a firm deadline.  Before I could start my task a colleague on another team had to do another task on which my task was dependant.  Both tasks were a few hours each.  I couldn't do his task for him so ewas dependant on him doing his task.  As neither task was on the critical path there was a significant period between when we were assigned the tasks and the deadline.  In the time between when we were assigned the tasks and the deadline on his I'd periodically ask him if he'd had a chance to do it yet.  He'd responded not to worry it would be done on time.  A week before his task was due to be complete I reminded him of the deadline and asked if he'd had a chance to do it yet.  He just came back with don't worry it'll be done on time.  I spoke to my line manager and pointed out that I was concerned that he hadn't done the task yet as leaving it to the last minute ran the risk of something else coming up and preventing him from completing his task.  My line manager said to see him again if the task hadn't been done the day before it was due.  I also fired opff an email to the project manager, who didn't respond.  Each day I prodded my colleague with a reminder of the due date and askign him if he'd had a chance to look at it yet.  Each day I got a don't worry it will be done on time.  It got to the day before the deadline, still no joy so I tell my manager and email the project manager.  The dealine passes, I raise it again with my manager and with the project manager (who was, for a change, in the office and responded "What do you expect me to do about it?").  2 days after the deadline on my task my colleague finally does his task and notifies me right at the end of the working day so I have to stay late to do my task. 

Roll forwards about 9 months.  After a restructure we're all reporting to different managers and my colleague somes up to me and tells me what the situation was.  He had been specifically instructed by his line manager to not do the task until after the deadline.  Apparently she had had an arguement with my line manager and wanted to cast his team in a bad light by making us late on tasks.

Should I own the responsibility there?  Heck no!  That's an extreme example but it's rare a week goes by where I don't see or hear of a situation in our company, one of our suppliers or one of our customers where someone has failed on a task due to circumstances beyond their control.

In the podcast they say that bosses like it when people own the responsibility.  Of course they do, I expect lions are quite happy when a baby zebra wanders into the middle of the pride and lays down for a nap.  the bosses need someone to blame but are too busy to go looking, fortunately for them there's someone standing in front of them saying "I'm to blame.  It was me."

Differing prices of goods bought at different times

I use the excellent TheyWorkForYou site operated by MySociety to keep abreast of  what my MP, John Hemming, does and says in the House.  Today I got a notification that he had recived a petition regarding the purchase of a Citeron car by a constituent.  The situation, as I understand it, is that the constituent had ordered a car from Citeron before 1st April but collected it after.  On first April Citeron reduced the price of the car, the petitioner seems to feel that they should have refunded to him the difference between what he had paid and the new, lower price.

Whilst this appears to be very bad customer service by Citeron I suspect that the legal question here is when the contract between him and Citeron was formed as it is in that contract that the price will be set.  Is the contract formed when the order is placed?  When payment, or the initial part payment, is made?  Or is it when the goods are picked up.  I seem to recall that the normal milestone is when the payment, or initial part payment, is made, at that time a contract is formed.  If he paid a deposit ahead of 1st April and based on the higher price then the constituent probably locked in that higher price then.

Consider the reverse situation, if the price had risen on the 1st of April.  Would the constituent have claimed that he should pay the new higher price or, had Citeron tried to charge him the higher price, would he be claiming that as he'd ordered at the lower price and paid a deposit he should only pay the lower price?

Spam calls from 02034762589

Got a spam phone call from 02034762589 about 14:10 today to a number that has been registered with Telephine Preference Service for years, I checked and it's still registered.  The call is a recorded message saying that if I've been in a road accident I should press 1.  It doesn't identify the company it's from at all.

I Googled the number and found they seem to have been bothering quite a number of people today.

I went to the Telephone Preference Service website to complain but they won't deal with it because it's a recorded message.  They suggest contacting the ICO but the ICO website says that for phone calls you should contact the TPS.  Looks like there's a hole in the system that telemarketers are exploiting.  My MP, John Hemming, used to have an interest in combatting silent calls so I'm wondering if I need to write to him and see if he can suggest who would handle this or kick the appropriate person to make sure there is someone who will handle this?

Just sent this to my MP in the hope that he will vote against the Healthcare bill.  I used 'Write to Them' so he should have received the email by now (well, presumably one of his people will have and will hopefully be putting it with the many other messages he receives on the same subject, hopefully all politely asking him to oppose the healthcare bill):

FOR THE ATTENTION OF:

John Hemming MP
Birmingham, Yardley

Monday 12 March 2012

Dear John Hemming,

please vote against the healthcare bill. If passed this will set the stage for the destruction of the NHS and decent healthcare in the UK. The NHS is the envy of people in many countries, pretty much all of them except those that have a similar system themselves. Something this good we need to keep.

It is apposite that it be called the Healthcare bill as the end result will be that we get bills every time we access healthcare. Also, please near in mind that the bodies that represent those working in healthcare oppose the bill, as do the rank and file of your own party, and there is no voter mandate from any election to pass this legislation. The only ones who seem to be in favour are the Tory party (and not even all of them).

We have seen from the US the horror that is marketised healthcare. Please keep us off that road. Please oppose the Healthcare bill


Yours sincerely,

Stephen

Recent behaviour by the Tory party does make me wonder if they've realised that they will lose the next election and they want to mess the country up as much as possible and make as much cash as possible so they can push off somewhere else and leave Labour to clean up their mess.

Pains of Moving House

I'll be moving house soon so I've been notifying the various people who need to know my new address of this and when I think I'll be moving.  Mostly it's worked out OK.  Gas, Electric, Insurance &c all no problems, over the phone, done.  Bank want a written form but I could request that over the internet and they'll change my details on all their systems.  Local council is a different matter.  I called their call centre and got through to someone who told me I'd come through to the wrong section (I'd selected for general enquirers as there didn't seem to be an option for change of address) and told me to try a different option.  I did and got the same person again.  Third call I got through to the council tax who could change my council tax details but nothing else.  They tried to put me through to the switchboard who they said might know who I need to talk to but they just put me through to a message saying the office is now closed.

I've written to the councilors for the ward I'm moving to, via Write to Them,  hopefully they'll be able to explain the problem and get it dealt with.

Dear Paul Tilsley MBE, Sue Anderson and Mike Ward,

I shall be moving to your word in the next couple of weeks (not sure of the exact date but the 19th is looking hopeful) from South Yardley.  This lead to the genesis of my query.

As I'm moving house obviously I have to notify the council of this so that council tax records, electoral roll &c can be updated.  I had understood, from publicity material I have seen, that a major goal of the Customer First transformation programme was to provide a single point of contact so that when a citizen's details changed they would just have to call the council once and all affected systems would be updated.  However, when I called yesterday I was notified by the call centre that I would have to call each department and notify them individually.  I have, so far, notified council tax (which took 3 calls to finally reach the correct team) but have not yet been able to find the combination of key presses to get through the IVR to the teams for electoral roll or libraries.

Was I misinformed as to the goals of the Customer First programme?  Was I misinformed by the call centre yesterday?  Is it just that the programme hasn't gotten around to joining things up yet?

Specifically on the updating of my council tax records I was disappointed that when I changed my address I had to give my bank details, twice!  Once to prove my identity and again to set up a new direct debit to replace the existing one paying the council tax on my current home.  I can understand having to prove my identity but given that I'm moving from one band A residence to another band A residence in the same city (same constituency even) so will be paying the same amount each month from the same bank account to the same local authority to have to set up a new DD seems nonsensical.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen

Going to work ill

It's cold and flu season again which, of course, leads to the question of whether one should go to work ill or work from home (if possible) or take a sick day.  Management, obviously, want us to come in even if we will infect the rest of our co-workers and devise policies that punish us if we do take a day sick.

I posted yesterday on my Facebook wall that a number of the staff sitting near to me at work had colds and were coughing a sneezing.  I said it didn't look good, I'd probably catch it from either or both of them.  One of my friends made an interesting comment likening being in the office with people with colds to passive smoking.  Both are injurious to our health.  Both are potentially life threatening (in particular where there are other factors involved such as age, general health and conditions such as diabetes or asthma).   Both carry a risk to third parties (smoke on clothes from passive smoking, secondary infections when we come home from work or visit friends and relatives).

Why then, do we ban smoking in the office but ban not coming to the office when ill?

Potential Scam call from 02070597699

Just had a call from 02070597699. Very bad background noise, caller sounded like she had a Phillipino or similar accent. Asked if I'd enterted an online competition recently for an iPhone, I've entered a few so said yes. She said that this was just a courtesy call to tell me that the competition had now closed and I'd be getting an email soon telling me what I'd won. She then went on to say that everyone who entered the contest was getting some free lottery tickets and how lucky I was. I hung up.

The phone they called me on is a mobile on Three and the only people who have that number besides myself and Three are my sister and the Telephone Preference Service. I only have the phone because my sister has a three phone and it's cheaper for me to have another phone on Three than to call her on my main phone which is on Orange.

I called the number back and asked the person who answered the name of the company, she said it is BTD European Services. I confirmed the company name and hung up.

I Googled the number and found a number of forums where people reported that this is a scam. Apparently later in the call they ask for personal details to prove ID and for bank account and sort code details.

Many a true word said in jest

Not sure of the provenence of this:

Let's put the pensioners in jail and the criminals in a nursing home.

This way the pensioners would have access to showers, hobbies and walks.

They'd receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs etc and they'd receive money instead of paying it out.

They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly, if they fell, or needed assistance.

Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them.

A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell.

They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose.

They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counselling, pool and education.

Simple clothing, shoes, slippers, PJ's and legal aid would be free, on request.

Private, secure rooms for all, with an exercise outdoor yard, with gardens.

Each senior could have a PC a TV radio and daily phone calls.

There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to.

The criminals would get cold food, be left all alone and unsupervised. Lights off at 9pm, and showers once a week. Live in a tiny room and pay £600.00 + per week and have no hope of ever getting out.

There does seem to have been a major shift in the last decade or so, an accelorating one, to move away from public sector provision of care to private sector. Care was never well paid but now it minimum wage territory.

Happiness at work

BBC Breakfast are talking about a survey on what makes people happy at work. Usual stuff, apparently none of us are bothered about money but we all want regular feedback (not sure if the survey was deliberately biased, accidentally badly written or just totally fictional). I emailed int he below comment:

I think it varies from person to person, and from time to time for the same person, what makes them happy at work. It also probably depends a lot on the other pressures in their life.

For some people it's more money, for others it's a short commute. For some it's regular praise, for others it's varied and interesting work. For some it's the opportunity to meet people and work with them, for others it's the opportunity to shut themselves away in a room full of computers and only interact with people outside their immediate team by email.

Whilst much derided, more money may bring happiness as it allows you to support your family, finance activities that make you happy or support a charity or cause that is important to you. Money itself may not make you happy but what you can do with it does.

Probably too long (and too true) for them to read.

Very annoyed with Virgin Media

Each week end for the last few weeks my dial up internet has been failing. Either no dial tone or get engaged tone when I dial up. My phone and Internet are both through Virgin Media so I've been calling their customer service line. Calling at the weekend, when the problem happens, is a disaster as only their Indian call centre is on duty so it's 40 minutes navigating their IVR and on hold to finally get through to someone who can't understand my accent or deal with anything that isn't in their script, who eventually says they're passing me to someone who can resolve the problem then another 30 minutes on hold when their system finally drops the call. I finally got through this morning and spoke to someone with a faint Scottish accent who could understand my Brummie accent. She called up their internet support section who said I'd have to call them direct on the premium rate number. This was 08:14 (according to the clock on BBC Breakfast). I called the nujmber they gave me only to get a recorded message to say that their office doesn't open until 08:00 (i.e. about quarter of an hour ago). I waited about 5 minutes and called back but just got the same message.

I do think that there's something seriously wrong with making a technical support line premium rate. This is something that is clearly a problem at their end, I'm calling their internet dial-up number and getting an engaged tone. This should not happen, yet they want to charge me to resolve it!

Not happy, very annoyed.

Public sector workers and skills

On BBC breakfast this morning they had someone in who was talking about how public sector workers tend not to know how to sell their skills on the job market as well as private sector workers do. I emailed this in but as it's probably too long to get read on air I figured I'd post it here:

I have worked in both public and private sector over the past 15 years, everything from SME employing 50 people to big multi-national company or local council employing tens of thousands. The biggest difference I've found, in relation to skills, in comparing working in the public and private sectors is one of variety and career path.

I've found that in the private sector, in all but the smallest of companies, you are usually quite restricted in the work that you do and the skills you are expected to apply. You are also likely to have a fairly clear career path in terms of knowing where you are and what skills you need to develop to move to the next level up.

In the public sector career paths are less clear and you are typically expected to pick up a broad range of tasks and skills quite quickly and to a fairly high level. many of the consultants I've worked with have been surprised at how myself and my colleagues have switched around roles with a project and between different projects.

I think the driver here is around the restrictions on hiring. In the private sector if you know you need someone with a particular skill set for 6 months then you'll probably negotiate funding from your manager for a temporary contract, hire someone through an agency and that's it. In the public sector it can take 3-4 months to get approval for a temporary contract, another 3-4 to have the job description agreed and checked by HR and legal then 2-3 months to do the actual hiring as even if you go through an agency you usually have to advertise publicly as well for equalities reasons. Usually much quicker and easier to just grab an existing member of staff and tell them that it's now their responsibility, if they don't know how they should just look it up on the web (in their own time) or buy a book (at their own expense).

If public sector workers have difficulty explaining their skills it's probably because they have had to develop, use and discard such a variety that it's more of a question of which skills they should be talking about.

Really the biggest skill a public sector worker has is adaptability!

Why I think you should vote Yes to AV

I have seen a lot of misinformation and disinformation in the media of late from those who oppose the proposed Alternative Voting (AV) system. I figured I'd post why I think the UK should switch to AV and people should vote yes in the coming referendum. First a little disclaimer...

A Little Disclaimer
Whilst I am a grassroots member of a UK political party this is by me as an individual, it has not been requested or endorsed by that or any other political party. I have been a member of various organisations that have used electoral systems similar to the proposed AV system and seen it in action, I have helped to run elections using the Single Transferable Vote system. I have read the leaflet from The Electoral Commission that has been sent to each household explaining how AV works. My view that the UK should adopt AV and the below is based on my own experiences and the information contained in that leaflet. I recommend that you read the leaflet.

I really do recommend that you read the leaflet
Seriously, it's a quick read and gives a very good explanation of the differences between the current system and the proposed AV system. If you haven't received yours yet, or maybe the hamster ate it, you can get a copy and even more information from here.

What is the current system and what is wrong with it?
The current system is called "First Past the Post". It's pretty simple really. Everyone has one vote and casts it by marking a piece of paper (usually with a cross) against the name of the person they want to vote for. After the polls have closed the papers are separated according to whose name has been marked and counted. Who ever gets the most votes wins. Simple and all well and fine and good where there's only two candidates or choices. You vote for one or the other (or you could spoil your ballot or just not bother to vote). There are a couple of really major problems with this system where there are three or more candidates (from memory there's usually around 7 or 8 in the constituency I live in) in that it often returns a candidate most people don't like (or at least would prefer someone else) and penalises minor parties.

Suppose there are 6 Candidates on the ballot. Candidate A receives 20% of the vote, candidate B gets 19.9%, candidate C 19.1%, candidate D gets 15.1% of the vote, candidate E gets 14.9% of the vote and candidate F gets 10%. Under first past the post candidate A is declared the winner. But just a sec, 80% of those who voted said they wanted someone other than candidate A. 80%! That's a lot, well over half. Also candidate B was only 0.1% of the vote behind candidate A, nearly as many people wanted them although slightly more wanted someone else (but not necessarily candidate A). OK so figures like that are uncommon and probably unlikely. What is quite common is the winning candidate polling only 30-40% of the vote and their nearest competitor being only slightly behind (i.e. marginal seats).

The current system penalises minor parties by dissuading their supporters from voting for them. When there are 6 or 7 or 8 or 10 or 15 (the maximum I've seen on one ballot) candidates then unless you think that your preferred candidate has a good chance of being in the top 3 you might think that you are throwing your vote away. You'd be right. Under the current system voting for a minor party candidate is the equivalent of writing "I am a fish" across your ballot paper. This means that a lot of people vote for a party they maybe don't like but dislike less than the other two parties in the top 3. Some candidates plays this up and and include in their election material "These parties have no chance here, don't vote for them. Vote for us else the [some party they think the voters will see as a threat] will get in." In my example above the party that candidate F belongs to might actually have quite a bit of support, maybe enough to turn that 10% into 20.1%. They don't get the votes because a lot of their supporters think they don't have a chance so vote for a different party, no-one ever knows how much support they really have because their supporters are afraid of wasting their vote and think that if they vote for the party they like that will allow the party they hate to get in.

So what's the alternative and why is it better?
The leaflet gives a much better explanation than I can but here's a summary. Same names on the ballot paper, same ballot box. This time rather than just putting an X (although you can still do that if you really want) you can now rank the candidates in order of preference. You don't have to rank them all, but you can if you want, you can just rank your top few and leave the rest unmarked. When the polls close the ballots are collected as before and sorted but this time according to who has the first preference marked on each (an X or a 1) and these are counted. If a candidate gets 50%+1 or more of the votes then they are the winner and the process stops, we have a candidate that more then half of the people who voted wanted. Quite likely there may be a candidate who has more votes than any one other candidate but less than 50% of the total vote. In that situation the candidate who got the least votes is disqualified an their votes checked for second choices. If there's no second choice then the ballots are discarded (i.e. put away, they're not thrown away) but those where there is a second choice expressed are added to the appropriate pile and to the total for those candidates. If one candidate now has 50%+1 or more of the vote then they are the winner and the process stops, if not then the candidate who now has the least votes is disqualified and their votes checked for second, third, fourth &c preferences. They will then be added to the pile (and count) for the candidate who got second preference unless that candidate has been disqualified in which case they will be added to the pile and count for the third preference and so on, papers with no valid preferences are discarded. This continues until either one candidate has 50%+1 or more of the votes or, rarely, there are no further preferences so no more transfers can be made.

The advantages of this system are that the winning candidate is almost always going to have been a high preference for over half of the voters (in my experience the winning candidate is usually one who was first or second in the first count) and it gives supporters of minority parties to express their first preference but still vote for a majority party (who they like but not as much as the minority party) as second choice so reducing the risk of the opposing majority party (who they hate) getting in.

But doesn't this mean some people get more than one vote?
No! I've heard this claim being made on TV by the 'No' campaigners. It's disinformation to scare people into thinking that AV is an attack on democracy. It isn't, if anything it promotes true democracy. Everyone still only has one vote and only one vote. It's that that one vote can be transferred to a second preference if the first preference comes last.

Might this let an extremist candidate win an election?
Possibly. Yes it is possible that a candidate from an extremist party could get in if they poll at least 50%+1 of the vote in their constituency. That is how democracy is supposed to work, the candidate who most people want to win should win. If you don't think a candidate should win then vote against them and get out and campaign against them. Get a blog, get a soap box, get active. That is how democracy should work. Also, bear in mind that an extremist can win with just 20, 30 or 40% of the vote under the current system so long as the rest of the vote is sufficiently fragmented.

Splitting PDFs

Had a bit of a change today. There's a report that produced weekly at work, as a PDF file, for all our projects. Basically a highlight/checkpoint report. Problem is that there's hundreds of projects and we don't want project managers to have to go through the whole list to find the one or two pages that impact them (they just won't). We were looking to split the file by project so each project manager would only have to look at the reports for their own project. Fortunately each project is bookmarked in the PDF so we had something we could split on.

I was tasked with finding a suitable product. After looking at a few dozen I finally settled on A-PDF Split. I particularly liked the way you can control the output filenames with macros.

NitroPDF was a close second but cost a lot more, fine if you want the extra functionality (it does more than split) but we didn't need that, and didn't have such good control on the output filenames. The majority of the other products were total 'dog with three legs', many just didn't work at all or threw up loads of errors. A-PDF Split does what we need and doesn't cost much. There's also a command line version for if you need to do offline batch processing, but there's no trial version of that so I couldn't try it.

Emailing councillors about missing drain grids

Emailed my local councilors (via WriteTothem):

Dear Daphne Gaved, David Osborne and David Willis,

I am writing to you about a failure of the council to deal with a dangerous situation in a timely manner.

On Wednesday 2nd February 2011 I noticed that the grids had been removed from a number of drains near my home,. specifically 2 on Medley Road near the corner with Gough Road and one on Tomey Road near the corner with Holte Road. Whilst two of these (the one on Tomey road and one of those on medley Road) had barriers around them (marked as belonging to, and presumably being put there by, Amey, the council's contractor for road maintenance and repair), one was just left open. This was logged and I was given a job reference number of 80035851110.

When there was no change by Friday (as a minimum I was hoping that someone would come and put barriers around open drain) I submitted a report to the council through the website FixMyStreet (http://www.fixmystreet.com/report/161865) on 4th February. We are now nearly 4 weeks from the initial report and the only change I have seen is that it appears that a bin sack has fallen or been put into the open drain and that the barriers around the open drain on Tomey Road keep falling over.

Could you please follow this up and at least have the issue with missing and insubstantial barriers be resolved.

Thank you


Stephen

If that doesn't work my only option will be Ed Doolan.

Economic Loss

Just sent this in to BBC Breakfast regarding an item they had on this morning.

If you look at the economies, such as India, that are now growing and taking work that used to be done here, the common factor seems to be training. For getting on for 40 years the Indian government has been pouring money into education and training. Indian universities now graduate more Computer Science Honours graduates each year than there are people working in the UK. Meanwhile our government is slashing education funding, raising the cost of education and cutting down or off financial support for students. Is it any wonder we're slipping behind?

Apparently a number of companies are looking for massive government investment.

Relativity and all that

Just watched a documentary about galaxies. They mentioned something called Dark Energy that acts opposite to Dark Matter. Apparently Dark Energy repulsive powers will eventually overcome the attractive powers of Dark Matter and cause galaxies to move apart faster than the speed of light. This reminded me of something I've never really been able to fully get my head around.

Suppose you are standing on planet A, you can see two other planets, X and Y in opposite directions (so if you drew a straight line from X to Y it would pass through a):

X----------A---------Y

X and Y start traveling away from you in opposite directions at 100kph. In the frame of reference of planet A each are traveling at 100kph in opposite directions, you might represent this as a vector of 100kph and -100kph in the X-Axis or X(100,0,0) and Y(-100,0,0). If one goes to the X frame of reference then we see A moving away at 100kph and Y at 200kph. Easy enough to model with a long straight road, two cars and a few of those speed guns the police use, maybe Top Gear will give it a go some day.

Speed (or velocity) is just distance traveled over time or increase in distance between two points (one designated as fixed in the frame of reference). So when we say that X and Y are traveling away from A at 100kph were actually saying that in the A frame of references the distance between X and A and between Y and A is increasing by 100km for every hour that elapses. In the X frame of reference The distance between X and A is increasing at 100km each hour and the distance between X and Y is increasing by 200km each hour.

Now suppose we increase the speed, in the A frame of reference, to 5.395x10^8kph. Back in the X frame of reference A is now whizzing away at 5.395X10^8kph and Y at 1.079x10^9kph. Thing is that if we increase the speed, in the A frame of reference, whilst in the X frame of reference the speed of A will increase the speed of Y will remain at 1.079x10^9kph because that is the speed of light in free space (c) and is the top speed matter can attain.

Now say we increase the speed in the the A frame of reference to c and measure the distance between our 3 planets (we'll call that T0) then measure the distance again an hour later (T1). Say at T0 the distance between A and both X and Y is 1.079x10^9km so the distance between X and Y will be 2.158x10^km:

X--------A---------Y

After one hour the distance, still in the A frame of reference, from A to X would now be 2.158x10^9, same as from A to Y, whilst the distance from X to Y would be 4.316x10^9km as both gave been traveling away from A at 1.079x10^9kph:

X--------------------A--------------------Y

In the X frame of reference, however, whilst A has been traveling away at 1.079x10^9 Y has also been traveling away at only 1.079x10^9kph, not at 2.158x0^9kph, as that is the maximum speed of matter. Therefore whilst the distance from X to A has increased to 2.158x10^9km to distance fro X to Y in the X frame of reference will be 3.237x10^9km:

X-------------------A----------Y

That's what confuses me.