Government Cuts

It has taken a long time but the parties in the UK are now talking about the public spending cuts they are going to have to make to balance the books after having taken on huge debts to fund the bank bailouts.

Some things are now been thrown up as suggestions of things "we could do without". Top of my list at the moment:

• ID Cards - Let's not spend billions with EDS to not have this work. There is no point in tracking the law abiding!
• Trident - Either extend what we have in terms of lifetime, or develop the subs but only deploy them in some other role with no warheads.

So there is £30 billion without even really trying.

Byte magazine of yesteryear

I used to be a regular reader of Byte magazine, until it was killed off in the late 1990s. It was a good publication with a good range of articles and was my way of getting some real world computer industry knowledge whilst doing a computing degree that was a little theoretical and devoid of practicals.

It's the only magazine I have kept from that time, and I sorted through them the other day stopping to look at the 20th anniversary edition from 1995. One amusing article on a high capacity VOD server (something we are only beginning to see now!), that had 8GB RAID based drives per server. The storage capacity jumps have been huge since these days - and again are a case of hardware outpacing software developments.

There was a list of the most influential people, of course Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs both featured. This was all pre iPod and Mac re-launches so there was some concern for Apple post-Newton.

It makes you realise what a fast paced industry it is, although in some respects we ignore the past at our peril - that is a bad trait of software in general.

Film: Stand By Me by Rob Reiner

A iconic film from 1986 with some famous actors in childhood acting roles. The tragic River Phoenix and Will Wheaton.

The plot is a light boyhood adventure to trek out of town to track down a dead body that they had heard about. In some ways the plot does it's best not to get in the way of the journey and story of the boys (which is told reflectively by the older self of one of the boys who is writing his account).

A very good film, with some great memories played out that most will remember from their own childhood 8/10.

MOD Radio Comms

A good story on the Register about the withdrawal/supplementing of the bespoke developed Cormorant system with an off the shelf replacement called RADWIN that seems to be easier to deploy and is more robust.

The former has cost 114 million to develop. This is truly staggering that it is not up to scratch. Although operational needs can never be truly anticipated, surely robust and must work in harsh conditions could not have been that far off the list of things required.

This is probably another lesson for off the shelf adaptation where the commercial sector can do something better and more cheaply than a dedicated development.

Product Placement - The Saviour of Commercial TV

I had not realised that product placement was not allowed in commercial TV programmes. Although I know programmes are allowed a "main sponsor" mentioned at the beginning of the show.

I can remember the first piece of product placement I saw and recognised it as placement. It was a really bad Chevy Chase film called "Spies like us", a scene in the film so Chevy eating a certain brand of potato chip.

This is supposed to bring back revenue to cash strapped ITV, but the only formula for that is to make programmes that people will watch and then advertisers will want to target. Also there is the question of who benefits from the advertising deal, the production company or the broadcaster. It'll be interesting to see what sort of programmes begin to see advertising "inline".

Jam Tomorrow

Well today actually, my friend has been busy picking Blackberries and my mother made some jam out of it. Not quite mass production but it's a start to increasing our neglected manufacturing base.

Borrowing Down

I read a few months ago mortgages were being repayed at record rates.

Well some hard facts on that, total outstanding mortgates fell by 400 million in July, which is great news (although we do all collectively owe a lot of money still!).

Personal loans as well, down by 600 million.

Some doubters saying that this will stop money going into the economy - but surely falling debt is worth having for long term stability.