Norm Brainer's Solutions for a Greater Britain

There’s a campaign to save general election night as many places are whinging that they have to do more checks on the silly postal votes, or other petty excuses so leaving it till the next day.

Now postal voting in this way helps labour. The lazy get to vote, and your vote can be co-erced and you can’t be sure it’s secret. This is before any talk of fraud, and the dodgyness of that scottish by-election. So people are thinking it may be a ruse for labour to stuff the boxes.

Anyways, there’s a list of the ones that have decided already…. and so I converted it to a table of which party currently holds the seat

show’s it’s probably not a labour conspiracy-  I think they are too careful close to elections so that you forget how corrupt and evil they are.

Although it might be more useful to see if it’s the ones with the smallest majority where it lies… I couldn’t find the full dataset of majorities (anyone?) but managed to find the Key/Target Seat ones…
This is what the table looks like when those numbers are put in:

But I’ve seen too many numbers now to bother checking if that says anything, or if the numbers are right, so you may want to check the data

On a similar vein, I also think it should move to friday:

A move to Friday would be a good idea I think though as it means those that work away from home in the week can come back and vote in the evening, and those that are going away can do it friday morning. Probably helps with employing the counters and also means more people could stay up to watch.
Would also mean that those that do decide to count the next day would be less likely as they’d have to pay saturday rates, but also wouldn’t affect the stock market so much [if they did]

I had this idea way back when the banking crisis hit but I appear not to have written it down.

This could go along with having a BBC-Like Bank (although which should be democratised, just like the BBC should)  ie. a basic or even non-basic bank which is public owned which would provide services to those who are shunned by the other banks, and keep those banks on their toes.
… which I know mandleson said was a good idea, but I think it is (I wouldn’t trust him to do it right though)

Anyways… this bank would have a website, of course, but this site would allow plug-ins from other banks/companies/services.
This would allow you to monitor all accounts in one place, and also create accurate budgets – ie. a plugin from EDF attached to a smartmeter could update your predicted electricity bill every hour.

As it would be a large scheme, it would mean that almost companies would add their names so you can actually see what each payment is rather than the E OH EHJ JD PMT £9.99 that you see on statements that you have no clue.

Plugins from the supermarkets could maybe even link you to an online copy of your receipt, which using google-style magic, other shops can then advertise on this with like ‘heinz beans are 5p cheaper @ tesco’ or ‘our beans are Healthy, fairtrade and local @ Townton Local Stores’ – helping the website pay for itself and helping small businesses. It could also then provide nutritional information for say a Weight Watchers plugin, or environmental information for a plugin for hippies.

Just create a unified data-sharing platform and the possibilities are endless – just look at what html did in the first place.

Of course this shouldn’t be an ‘IT Project’ for government as they know not enough and throw too much money at it for it to be  any good. Whilst Google might do a good job,  they are probably getting too big now and so perhaps a British design competition to see who creates it and someone else to operate it.

There will also be data concerns so no data should be stored, or if it does, in an unaccessible way to anyone (including government, except maybe with a warrant) Information needed for each plugin to create each report/statement/budget should be pulled in as and when needed so there’s not one huge (and expensive) datastore which holds everyones personal info.
The system would be made so plugins can only provide information or perform transformations on it so they can’t just steal details for themselves, although things should be done with special “keys” so no account numbers are passed through anyway.

As it’s new year (um, last week – whoops)

Couple of predictions from the past which weren’t so, but then might be in the coming decade:

“There will be as many as 5 computers”
Although apparently a misquote from someone it’s getting on that way.
As computers get virtualised and all connected together they can be said to be just one computer. Even now with amazon web services you can boot a PC that doesn’t exist.

Whilst that will look like we are heading to a single one for The internet, I expect there will be separate international networks springing up – mainly probably to circumvent government controls. They’ll be able to control the piece of copper/fibre to the phone exchange but can’t control direct P2P wireless connections and the cloud these can form.

Photos steal a part of your soul
Some people think this now, but I expect it will be more common with privacy concerns and also more systems that can detect who you are from facial recognition – your face will be just as precious as your DNA and your Bank details

I was going to write more but then it’s all just obvious so if something happens and you didn’t predict it, ask me if I have and I probably did.

Well this decade is now drawing to a close (yes, really…. and it seemed like just yesterday we were planning the 2000 party)

….. and what a bloody waste of time that was.

Remember decades ago the Visions of the future or even the run up to the millennium parties where it was going to be the decade of huge progress….

…and what have we had since?

• Internet has got a bit bigger/Faster (except we had a 2mb connection  in 2000, now the best I can get here in central london is 7mb – 10 years progress?!)
• Phones a bit smaller (except they haven’t really- A few more features and less reliability though)
• TVs a bit thinner
• Google streetview
• Oyster cards
• New TopGear
• Terrorist/Paedo Paranoia explosion
• Unfair segregations of society and government sponsored discrimination in the name of “Equality”
• Blander pop music (ok, Tatu were ok – but that was 2003!)
• more speed cameras, more poverty, more crime, more taxes, more debt, less liberty.
• Less Happy.

80’s had the computer revolution, the beginings of mobile phones, the free market, microwaves, electronica, many channel tv.
90’s had the web,  text messaging, games consoles, digital tv with 24 hour news, the cones hotline and indie, grunge & britpop.

Was there even a fashion this millennium?

A decade signified by dullness and apathy – So little good happening that the BBC are nominating Madeleine McCann as a person of the decade (well, nearly), famous only for apparently being murdered and the huge hysteria because people believed the possibly made up story. They might as well have nominated Baby P. That was also typical of people thinking something was their business when it isn’t and only caring after it was too late  - just like how they want to punish bankers now and demand to see how much they’re earning.

OK, so there are a few things that make me think we’re living in the future like video advertising on tube escalators and iris scanning entry systems… but it’s surrounded by dilapidation in true “1984″ style.

We also have the blame culture brought about by Labour policies… so it’s not my fault that this decade was crap – must be the government’s fault – oh dear, they’ve shot themselves in the foot there.

Been using it for a while now but just like vista, there appears to be no English version.

It’s not as if it’s hard to do or there isn’t a Microsoft UK.

Their software is used in schools and councils etc who pay shedloads of our cash for licences. Best we get is a dictionary for the spell check.

Even Opera, the small, most-excellent Swedish browser company can do a British English version. Facebook even translate into Welsh or Pirate.

I guess with a PM who can’t even be bothered to spell correctly then they really is no hope that anyone is bothered.

You’d think I’d have better things to worry about, don’t I know there’s a war on?

There appears to have been a big hooha about Cameron suggesting there should be all women shortlists for conservative candidates.

Now, this is just so obviously wrong (why not all black, or disabled, of gay lists if he wants those to be representative too?) and so much like what everyone hates of the labour style of divide and conquer (put everyone in certain pigeonholes and then treat some different to others) that it was certain to kick up a fuss.

Has he done this on purpose to try and get a bit of life into the party?
If you take ConHome as an example, it had been getting a bit sleepy the past week but then it suddenly whirrs into action  along with the papers to loudly exclaim that it is not conservative, hence helping to define what conservatives stand for – a common reason for people sticking with labour is that they know they are evil but “don’t know what the conservatives stand for”.

Sure, DC will lose a bit of face on it but he’s popular enough to handle that and get it back.
He risks losing a few voters to UKIP, but they aren’t doing much recently and I’m sure when it comes to ticks in boxes, they’ll rather have redblue than redred.

Now there appears that royal mail will probably die of union afflicted wounds, I still think there needs to be some framework from government to ensure national coverage.

Eg. if it’s privatised then it can be said that who-ever gets permission to use all the red boxes, has the obligation to deliver to anywhere in the UK at least once a week.

The problem with delivery companies is getting people to do the “final mile”. My solution would be…. don’t!

Well, not really. I explain more in my comment on conhome the other day

Just like with broadband suppliers we should get to choose who does the last leg and this can be paid for by the sender or receiver.
I wouldn’t mind paying a monthly subscription so that my post and parcels are delivered the day they arrive before 9am, others could pay a lesser amount to get it in the afternoons/whenever is easiest, possibly days later.

Those that don’t pay can pick up at the post office, or will get it delivered if the sender pays.

Get local businesses like takeaways in on the idea and maybe you could get your post delivered for free when you order a pizza.

I had an idea like that for parcels and so set up the (non-functional) website Parcelbox.net – that one, you’d pre-book your delivery which would go straight to something like a petrol stn or shop then you’d get an email/sms when it arrives so you know when to pick up – stops the silly situation of the delivery company coming to your house 3 times during the day then you having to drive to their depot & take time off work!

Post and parcels can go to the depots of the national companies and  your chosen delivery company picks it up from there and takes it to their place for you to pick up, or deliver it to you – depending on what you’ve paid for.

Of course there’d need to be some system to organise & help sort legal/insurance issues which is what the government bit would be (although possibly privately run)

They tried it in finland and it works really well.

Couple of transport stories today:

Selling the Dartford Bridge – well I don’t think it’s worth it, but if it is sold it should be for a decent price with safeguards that it’ll be kept in good order for x number of years but also there should be fines if there are tailbacks before the bridge (but not after) thereby meaning that at peak times you might find the cars are just waved through as it works out cheaper for the operators to do that.
I expect that if labour do it, it’ll be flogged off for the cheapest price for the operators (their mates) to stick their name on it run as few staffed booths as possible, put up the price and  let it rot.

In Boris news he is paving the way for a quid a mile to drive in London. How that would be implemented without costing more than it gets, I don’t know but he also mentions getting money for crossrail.
Now I might have said this before, but why not have a vehicle train for crossrail like on the eurotunnel. May cost a little more to build, but would be cheaper to do at the start rather than retrospectively. Drivers would rather pay to have their car taken quickly to the other side of London than to pay to sit in traffic so it would bring more profit to crossrail too.

Also on the tube, why not have a 1st class carriage at one end? charge a fiver or more a journey and have plush seats and aircon – just tag your oyster on the door of the special carriage. Quicker and cheaper than a taxi still. Can have headphone sockets or maybe even bolted down amazon kindle readers which can sell content – can be implemented quite cheaply and the profit can pay for the rest of us scummy people that use the tube.

Maybe the price could be displayed on the door/platform and then this varies due to capacity to ensure maximum profit whilst preventing people having to stand.

I was watching video extracts of the moon landing last night and realised that the sample in the tune is from the speech from the president that was made to the astronauts
“For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one”

Got me wondering what would happen if it was Britain now which had done it and our leaders/possible leaders/other were the ones to make the call…

Prime Minister Brown: (well, assuming he hadn’t wished them well in the first place as this would have cursed it of course!)
“This is a great moment that has only been achieved by the investment we put in: 30billions in year one, 40billions in year 2 rising to 60 billions in the final year and could not been achieved without the measures we put in which were all opposed by the party opposite”

Prime Minister Cameron:
“This is a great achievement, but we must not be complacent, we still have a long way to go & I shall be meeting with my core team later today to plan the mission to be the first on mars, and even if others get there first we will not let matters rest there “

Prime Minister Obama (Use your imagination!):
Well not sure what he’d say as his voice, accent and attenuation annoy me so I don’t listen but he say something weedy and the people will say it’s a big black victory and the BBC London news will go round to a random black person’s house and get them to speak about how black people couldn’t have done this even just a few years ago and ask why if we can go to the moon why has she been on the council waiting list for a bigger house for 5 years to house all her kids (who are under 5)

Queen:
“One is amazed by the staggering achievement and wish you well across the void of space” (with Prince Phillip in the background “Bloody amazing, y’know – I took a look at thier spacecraft before and it looked like some indians had wired it”, and Charles “oooooh too much carbon came out and it’s going to destroy the world in 92months”)

Guido Fawkes:
I was just drinking with them “Astronauts” just now, its just a set Look at the shadows, they are all wrong.

Anyone who has just woke from a few- year coma and took a look at the BBC News website this week might be mistaken that they’ve gone to The Register instead.

Along with stories about elecrtic cars coming soon, the main headline this week was an exposing in the way the government works and causing a resignation….by a blogger.
Today the main headline is about The Pirate Bay having the wrong judgement made against them – and it’s not just an ‘also ran’ story.

We have had technology stories in the past, but note how not once in the main story do they refer to people who use computers as a differnent species and explain to you what a torrent or blog is.

But the Pirate Bay ruling goes to show, that as we enter this new dawn we have to make sure that it’s not tainted.

Things are changing and we have to make sure they aren’t changed for the worse – A big opportunity to do something good happened last year with the recession and brown’s bailout to try and save his skin put us all in too much debt and we’ll be paying for that mistake for years.
The same as if the pirate bay owners do go to jail – next it will be Google they go after (after all, they link to copyrighted material too) – and who knows if they will be on the side of the people or the greedy copyright industries who want to profit from people who make no money from the material – We’ve seen how they side with them on youtube.

This is all about freedom of information – Information being news or multimedia, and just like the church didn’t like the printing press, it won out in the end and so must the governments and companies adapt to survive the new communications age.  There’s no room for protectionism and making criminals of innocents just because the world has changed and they haven’t.

Edit: oh, and just after I posted this, it seems the electirc car government proposal thing is all a big con too – media has changed and only takes a short while for them to be found out and for everyone to know…. adapt or die, boys.