Posts by Rich of Observationz
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For one example, NZ (and other places, but we have it worse) have this growing chasm between "geeks" and "business IT".
The former (just as a for instance) have developed a poetic attitude that suggests, for instance, that even though a company's line of business systems require IE6, and would cost millions to upgrade away from this dependency, they will not support archaic browsers. (Despite the fact that the LOB systems are why the desktops exist, and the web is a luxury).
The latter refuse to take good technical advice or employ smart people, with the result that millions are wasted. A company of my acquaintance just dropped $2 million on the floor pursuing a development project and changing their mind after a year.
If the two sides would come together and solve problems, I'm sure this crap wouldn't happen. I'm fairly confident this also goes on in other industries as well.
(The one place I've worked in that seemed to avoid much of this was the investment banking industry. Perhaps the frantic pursuit of huge pay packets makes people more goal-focused).
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If you're interested in somewhere that technology *is* being used for effective direct action, see: http://sukey.org/.
What will be interesting is how quickly Apple ban the app.
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Farms? pah! How about power companies?
The Super Fund is a financial investor. It doesn't operate any differently to Prudential or the Canadian Teachers pension fund, for example.
Having enterprises of national importance owned by the fund doesn't mean they might not be run into the ground, or that the fund might not sell their stock. Nor does it provide any connection between the workers and customers of the companies and those companies.
Cooperative ownership of SOEs is the answer I prefer.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Andre Alessi,
I read it as him having "designed" the craft (designing in the sense of having some models, not something that could be approved and manufactured).
He then went bust owing people money and tried to fraudulently remove the companies assets (the designs) from the country to frustrate the liquidation process.
Simple fraud - stealing money from people by denying them the legal recourse to assets they were entitled to.
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I believe that in the UK earnings from businesses are ringfenced from those from employment, so you can't claim rental property losses against other personal income.
Also, at least a few years ago, there was an expectation that rents would cover mortgages, so you didn't actually make a loss.
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Meanwhile, another Tory gets the jail.
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i'm guessing "yaani" is Arabic for "yeah, nah".
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Christiaan,
Mesh network using Bluetooth/WiFi to relay messages between devices. Intrinsically low bandwidth, but hard to disrupt.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Simon Grigg,
True, I see the mobile phone as very important, and believe it will be seen historically as much more of a social changer then the Internet.
My technical point was that governments have a range of measures that they can use to restrict communications, including the Internet, with variable effects on the day to day workings of society.
It's likely that governments will seek to enhance those processes in an attempt to gain more control, and that a lot of these measures will be justified as resilience building. For instance, if you ensure that essential service providers (banks, utilities, food distribution) have access to "resilient" communication networks as described above, it makes it easier to switch off services to everyone else.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Simon Grigg,
I think it already has. The Vodafone call centre that provides broken-English speaking "service" for NZ customers is now out, because people aren't able to go to work. I'm guessing that's a typical white collar workplace.