But in the end I have to agree with Elop that they were too far behind and the Microsoft partnership was the only way to let them catch up and yet stay distinct in the market (which would have been an issue with Android for Nokia).
So Elop was perfectly capable of killing 10+ departments but not capable of killing the 8 or so that were getting in the way of MeeGo Harmattan, easily the best phone OS in existence? This makes zero sense.
A proper CEO ie one about 10x better than Elop would simply have restructured the company to a more cohesive form.
"Actually, ISTR it was forced through by a dying Tory government who believe in privatisation as a matter of principle and were desperate to get the contracts signed to tie the hands of the incoming Labour government."
True, and the way they did it was beyond stupid. They had 3 options and chose the worst one:
They created a corporation, Railtrack, whose sole profit came from cutting costs... and gave it a monopoly over track maintenance and improvements.
Almost the first thing Railtrack did was massively underestimate the cost of upgrading this same line being bid for. They estimated £2bn. The final cost would have been £13bn. One presumes that, being guaranteed a bailout, they just didn't care enough to actually do a survey.
Several train crash disasters later, the new Labour govt nationalised Railtrack then converted it into a non-profit organisation called Network Rail. Unfortunately, a recent study has shown that Network Rail is 40% less efficient than even state run parts of EU train services. This is what's swallowing up most of the govt subsidy.
This recent study also set out a series of reforms that no-one understands, but Tories are believed to have hijacked the study and influenced its conclusions.
"Well, yes - because they would know that there is no point competing with a heavily-government-subsidised road system. You can't have taxpayer-funded roads and fully private rail in the same country."
If you exclude the massively greater road infrastructure, road users subsidise rail with something like £20bn a year left over.
Trains are just surprisingly inefficient. They are heavy and manned by a union that has held successive govts at gunpoint for years.
I sympathise with the LibDems mostly, but I think all political parties are cults so refuse to join them. I'm probably going to campaign for an independent mayor against the LibDem candidate.
"Yes, so? What data are you exactly giving away? When you register for a passport, the government already adds you to a database. I don't see what new data you are giving away to anyone with the digital ID scheme, be it the government or a third party."
In particular, you would be giving away the data that all these disparate records in different databases hold data on you.
I'm certainly not happy about the passport database, nor the fact they need to scan my passport even when I go through the free travel zone of the EEC. But one battle at a time.
"I don't know what you're talking about. BrowserID for example guarantees that your ID provider cannot track who you're giving the ID to."
Presumably it's up to your ISP, browser and websites to implement it properly.
In the same way, hopefully 3rd parties will be competing for data privacy and will take up similar protocols.
"Proof positive that NO2ID were a front of the Tory party all along."
Ahahaha, yet run by a left winger (Phil Booth). The threat posed by the party you presumably support was so extreme that party politics went out the window. It was both a glorious and terrified resistance movement.
"... with the dumb ass idea that private enterprise is to be trusted where government is not."
Depends which Govt really, doesn't it. The one that invents evidence to invade Iraq, locks up people for reading out the names of the Iraqi dead at the Cenotaph, passes two laws which can abolish Parliament with Parliament debating it probably isn't a good one to trust.
But we get to choose which third-party we trust. I just hope we get more of a choice than MS, Facebook and Google.
"Why would you need to give any data to anyone, other than proving your ID?"
Well if you want a passport with your name on it, they need to know your name, If you want to pay your taxes, rather than someone else's, they need to know which is your tax return?
"The system should be designed so that the "trust authority" cannot be able to track who you are giving your ID to."
True but that would depend on encrypting the data at the ID checkpoint as well as on the 3rd party's database, with no backdoors. Free choice of 3rd parties will hopefully take care of that.
"In particular, there is no need to put trust in private parties, it should be handled by the state."
Trusting the state is entirely the problem this proposal is avoiding.
Whichever third party I choose will have no other data on me, a track record for data protection and ethical behaviour, no ability to rewrite the law, no ability to coerce the media, no police, no secret police, no army etc etc.
What's to stop data collection via "one of the other robust means already in operation"?
Secondly, authentication is only part of the problem. Whether to pay your taxes, order a new passport or whatever, you need to provide identifying information.
What's proposed has actually been thought through a lot more than by you.
In fact as a former regional co-ordinator of NO2ID, I can point out that NO2ID were consulted and have approved this scheme.
We accept that there is a demand by the public to be able to easily authenticate/identify themselves for the purposes of govt services, many of which can be delivered online. Success of this scheme will deny Big Brother govts the opportunity to masquerade a future surveillance scheme as a benefit to the public.
As Britain was the first Western country to be subject to a Big Brother attempt, we have a lot of expertise to share. This historical document will hopefully form the basis of future constitutional protection around the world.
Notably, all data is held by a trusted third party. No govt can access that data without your third party disclosing it.
Compare this with forced interviews, forced fingerprinting, forced iris scanning, forced enrollment on a govt database (National Identity Register) designed to bring together your medical records, ANPR records, bank/phone/internet records, DNA and police records together into one automatic personal dossier on every person in the country. This was Labour's totalitarian scheme.
Whilst the Coalition's Communications Bill is more of the same, this third-party identification/authentication scheme is to be lauded and copied around the world.
If it took them any less than 18 months to build a new physical phone & UI for both Western and Chinese markets, ecosystem and make Mer primetime, we know it would be ignored by the market. The finished item has to be more or less perfect to get the right noises made. It has to have a perfect HTML 5 browser, perfect Facebook integration, perfect email & messaging...
Not to mention getting enough startup money, getting solid patents, avoiding spurious Apple patents etc.
This is down to: a) the watering down of the Bill by Tony Blair after entering office on a supposedly pro-democracy agenda. b) a deliberately underfunded Office of the Information Commissioner (£20m or about £1,200 per case to deal with stalling ministers, legal costs etc). If you're wondering why you're getting endless illegal robocalls, the same office is supposed to deal with it somehow.
Firstly, fructose doesn't spike GI which means it doesn't promote fat formation nor induce lethargy. Secondly, even the infamous HFCS has been shown to be no worse for weight problems than sucrose.
Reverting once or twice isn't a problem on Wikipedia.
If you're new, you have no chance.
If you're outnumbered, you have almost no chance. Unless you can persuade an arbitrator to back you up, tyranny of the majority is the primary influence on content -- which is why sockpuppets are so prevalent.
Whilst the under-reported initial neurotoxicity claims for MDMA were overstated, there remains evidence of problems. Wikipedia's article has a few links:
Few would vote "None of the above" because it would let Labour/the Tories in (delete as appropriate).
Indeed, our electoral system punishes third party candidates for merely standing. If people vote for you as a left-winger, you help the Tories win. If people vote for you as a right winger votes, you help Labour win. Somebody should make an ironic Flash game illustrating that perversity.
Sadly, the only chance in our lifetimes to stop permanent control of the country by the 2 big parties was lost in the AV referendum. We'll be lucky to see another shot at electoral reform before 2050.
Sure, I can believe as an NHS nurse she had lots of horror stories about how broken the system is. I can tell you lots of horror stories about how broken every company I've ever worked for is:-).
But (and I'm sorry to hear she passed away so you can't ask here) I very much doubt that she would have preferred to impose the US-style system on her patients, had she had experience of both systems.
I live in the US, and I'd pay double my taxes just to get a working NHS over here. Having experience of both systems I know what I'm talking about. It's the peace of mind.
If you've never had it, and only lived in the US system you won't really understand what I'm talking about. It's like trying to describe color (note the spelling there:-) to a blind person. But I'll try.
Imagine just NOT HAVING TO WORRY about healthcare or costs. Seriously - NOT HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT IT AT ALL. Ever. That's what the NHS brings to people's lives.
People over there complain about it, but that's because they also don't understand how truely disfunctional the US system is. They (people in the UK) have no concept of being made bankrupt and homeless by healthcare costs. They just can't imagine it.
The hilarity of the NHS is that public opinion varies depending on which govt is in power. The NHS doesn't change, hasn't changed for 50 years (apart from costing a hell of a lot more). But if the Tories are in, bad things "start" happening. Approval of the NHS dropped about 20% in the 2 years since Labour were booted out.
Here's a non-fanatical view of the NHS: There's something beautiful about universal health coverage. If you at all care about poor people in your country, you can't help but be glad they get almost the same health coverage as the rich.
But the NHS is a massive state run monolith. And it is run TERRIBLY. Minister-led reorganisations are epidemic -- we are having our fifth in 15 years. It's not quite DOD-type wasteful but it's not far off.
A lot of staff in the NHS are there because they really care about patients. With most, it becomes little more than a job. As such, quality is extremely patchy and depends entirely on the culture in the hospital. Good management and the NHS provides as much quality care as anyone wants. Bad management and the NHS is shite.
But there are probably very few Brits who do not understand how much better then NHS is than the US' health system pre Obamacare. Yours is the absolute worst system.
The best system seems to be the Dutch system. It provides easily the most cost-efficient modern health service whilst being higher quality than the NHS.
I've done this for about 8 years following 2 discectomies 17 years ago. The main reason I do it is so that I moved rather than slumping in a bad postural position.
I would highly recommend it to anyone having back problems and who has bad sitting posture.
I frequently use the back of a 'slightly bouncy' IKEA chair to lean on and that stops me getting tired.
I do wonder whether a dentist style laid back chair with floating angled keyboard, mouse and monitor would be better, if weird.
Slashdot Mirror
But in the end I have to agree with Elop that they were too far behind and the Microsoft partnership was the only way to let them catch up and yet stay distinct in the market (which would have been an issue with Android for Nokia).
So Elop was perfectly capable of killing 10+ departments but not capable of killing the 8 or so that were getting in the way of MeeGo Harmattan, easily the best phone OS in existence? This makes zero sense.
A proper CEO ie one about 10x better than Elop would simply have restructured the company to a more cohesive form.
"Actually, ISTR it was forced through by a dying Tory government who believe in privatisation as a matter of principle and were desperate to get the contracts signed to tie the hands of the incoming Labour government."
True, and the way they did it was beyond stupid. They had 3 options and chose the worst one:
They created a corporation, Railtrack, whose sole profit came from cutting costs... and gave it a monopoly over track maintenance and improvements.
Almost the first thing Railtrack did was massively underestimate the cost of upgrading this same line being bid for. They estimated £2bn. The final cost would have been £13bn. One presumes that, being guaranteed a bailout, they just didn't care enough to actually do a survey.
Several train crash disasters later, the new Labour govt nationalised Railtrack then converted it into a non-profit organisation called Network Rail. Unfortunately, a recent study has shown that Network Rail is 40% less efficient than even state run parts of EU train services. This is what's swallowing up most of the govt subsidy.
This recent study also set out a series of reforms that no-one understands, but Tories are believed to have hijacked the study and influenced its conclusions.
"Well, yes - because they would know that there is no point competing with a heavily-government-subsidised road system. You can't have taxpayer-funded roads and fully private rail in the same country."
If you exclude the massively greater road infrastructure, road users subsidise rail with something like £20bn a year left over.
Trains are just surprisingly inefficient. They are heavy and manned by a union that has held successive govts at gunpoint for years.
Sorry, I've met enough defenders of Labour's totalitarianism to know they're ALL Labour.
Nope, but you're Labour.
I sympathise with the LibDems mostly, but I think all political parties are cults so refuse to join them. I'm probably going to campaign for an independent mayor against the LibDem candidate.
Yes because anyone concerned about totalitarianism is a Tory, got it.
"Yes, so?
What data are you exactly giving away?
When you register for a passport, the government already adds you to a database. I don't see what new data you are giving away to anyone with the digital ID scheme, be it the government or a third party."
In particular, you would be giving away the data that all these disparate records in different databases hold data on you.
I'm certainly not happy about the passport database, nor the fact they need to scan my passport even when I go through the free travel zone of the EEC. But one battle at a time.
"I don't know what you're talking about.
BrowserID for example guarantees that your ID provider cannot track who you're giving the ID to."
Presumably it's up to your ISP, browser and websites to implement it properly.
In the same way, hopefully 3rd parties will be competing for data privacy and will take up similar protocols.
"Proof positive that NO2ID were a front of the Tory party all along."
Ahahaha, yet run by a left winger (Phil Booth). The threat posed by the party you presumably support was so extreme that party politics went out the window. It was both a glorious and terrified resistance movement.
"... with the dumb ass idea that private enterprise is to be trusted where government is not."
Depends which Govt really, doesn't it. The one that invents evidence to invade Iraq, locks up people for reading out the names of the Iraqi dead at the Cenotaph, passes two laws which can abolish Parliament with Parliament debating it probably isn't a good one to trust.
But we get to choose which third-party we trust. I just hope we get more of a choice than MS, Facebook and Google.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/4/3453756/jolla-to-show-off-new-meego-based-os-in-finland-next-month
"Why would you need to give any data to anyone, other than proving your ID?"
Well if you want a passport with your name on it, they need to know your name,
If you want to pay your taxes, rather than someone else's, they need to know which is your tax return?
"The system should be designed so that the "trust authority" cannot be able to track who you are giving your ID to."
True but that would depend on encrypting the data at the ID checkpoint as well as on the 3rd party's database, with no backdoors. Free choice of 3rd parties will hopefully take care of that.
"In particular, there is no need to put trust in private parties, it should be handled by the state."
Trusting the state is entirely the problem this proposal is avoiding.
Whichever third party I choose will have no other data on me, a track record for data protection and ethical behaviour, no ability to rewrite the law, no ability to coerce the media, no police, no secret police, no army etc etc.
You should read this historical document the scheme is based upon:
http://www.amberhawk.com/uploads/LSE_surv_2.pdf
What's to stop data collection via "one of the other robust means already in operation"?
Secondly, authentication is only part of the problem. Whether to pay your taxes, order a new passport or whatever, you need to provide identifying information.
What's proposed has actually been thought through a lot more than by you.
You don't understand it. You give your data to a third party of your choice. The govt has no access to it.
In fact as a former regional co-ordinator of NO2ID, I can point out that NO2ID were consulted and have approved this scheme.
We accept that there is a demand by the public to be able to easily authenticate/identify themselves for the purposes of govt services, many of which can be delivered online. Success of this scheme will deny Big Brother govts the opportunity to masquerade a future surveillance scheme as a benefit to the public.
Secondly, the scheme complies with the Nine Principles of Data Privacy: http://www.amberhawk.com/uploads/LSE_surv_2.pdf
As Britain was the first Western country to be subject to a Big Brother attempt, we have a lot of expertise to share. This historical document will hopefully form the basis of future constitutional protection around the world.
Notably, all data is held by a trusted third party. No govt can access that data without your third party disclosing it.
Compare this with forced interviews, forced fingerprinting, forced iris scanning, forced enrollment on a govt database (National Identity Register) designed to bring together your medical records, ANPR records, bank/phone/internet records, DNA and police records together into one automatic personal dossier on every person in the country. This was Labour's totalitarian scheme.
Whilst the Coalition's Communications Bill is more of the same, this third-party identification/authentication scheme is to be lauded and copied around the world.
If it took them any less than 18 months to build a new physical phone & UI for both Western and Chinese markets, ecosystem and make Mer primetime, we know it would be ignored by the market. The finished item has to be more or less perfect to get the right noises made. It has to have a perfect HTML 5 browser, perfect Facebook integration, perfect email & messaging...
Not to mention getting enough startup money, getting solid patents, avoiding spurious Apple patents etc.
It took 4 years 1 month and 18 days to comply with the first ever Freedom of Information Act request:
https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/spyblog/2009/03/19/ogc-finally-publish-the-two-stage-zero-gateway-reviews-of-the-id-cards-programme.html
This is down to:
a) the watering down of the Bill by Tony Blair after entering office on a supposedly pro-democracy agenda.
b) a deliberately underfunded Office of the Information Commissioner (£20m or about £1,200 per case to deal with stalling ministers, legal costs etc). If you're wondering why you're getting endless illegal robocalls, the same office is supposed to deal with it somehow.
And in case anyone's feeling sorry for ministers, Freedom of Information Act also has exemptions for national security, harm to international relations/public affairs/any individuals' health:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_2000#Harm-based_exemptions
Firstly, fructose doesn't spike GI which means it doesn't promote fat formation nor induce lethargy.
Secondly, even the infamous HFCS has been shown to be no worse for weight problems than sucrose.
You'd be surprised how many errors in research papers go unnoted by reliable sources.
All too common. Editors can get away with ignoring Revert Only When Necessary.
All fair points. However, many articles are "owned" by people with an agenda.
I should have said If you're outnumbered by people with an agenda, you have almost no chance.
Reverting once or twice isn't a problem on Wikipedia.
If you're new, you have no chance.
If you're outnumbered, you have almost no chance. Unless you can persuade an arbitrator to back you up, tyranny of the majority is the primary influence on content -- which is why sockpuppets are so prevalent.
Whilst the under-reported initial neurotoxicity claims for MDMA were overstated, there remains evidence of problems. Wikipedia's article has a few links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mdma#Long-term_effects_on_serotonin_and_dopamine
Alcohol and ecstasy are known to cause brain damage directly.
Few would vote "None of the above" because it would let Labour/the Tories in (delete as appropriate).
Indeed, our electoral system punishes third party candidates for merely standing. If people vote for you as a left-winger, you help the Tories win. If people vote for you as a right winger votes, you help Labour win. Somebody should make an ironic Flash game illustrating that perversity.
Sadly, the only chance in our lifetimes to stop permanent control of the country by the 2 big parties was lost in the AV referendum. We'll be lucky to see another shot at electoral reform before 2050.
Sure, I can believe as an NHS nurse she had lots of horror stories about how broken the system is. I can tell you lots of horror stories about how broken every company I've ever worked for is :-).
But (and I'm sorry to hear she passed away so you can't ask here) I very much doubt that she would have preferred to impose the US-style system on her patients, had she had experience of both systems.
I live in the US, and I'd pay double my taxes just to get a working NHS over here. Having experience of both systems I know what I'm talking about. It's the peace of mind.
If you've never had it, and only lived in the US system you won't really understand what I'm talking about. It's like trying to describe color (note the spelling there :-) to a blind person. But I'll try.
Imagine just NOT HAVING TO WORRY about healthcare or costs. Seriously - NOT HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT IT AT ALL. Ever. That's what the NHS brings to people's lives.
People over there complain about it, but that's because they also don't understand how truely disfunctional the US system is. They (people in the UK) have no concept of being made bankrupt and homeless by healthcare costs. They just can't imagine it.
The hilarity of the NHS is that public opinion varies depending on which govt is in power. The NHS doesn't change, hasn't changed for 50 years (apart from costing a hell of a lot more). But if the Tories are in, bad things "start" happening. Approval of the NHS dropped about 20% in the 2 years since Labour were booted out.
Here's a non-fanatical view of the NHS:
There's something beautiful about universal health coverage. If you at all care about poor people in your country, you can't help but be glad they get almost the same health coverage as the rich.
But the NHS is a massive state run monolith. And it is run TERRIBLY. Minister-led reorganisations are epidemic -- we are having our fifth in 15 years. It's not quite DOD-type wasteful but it's not far off.
A lot of staff in the NHS are there because they really care about patients. With most, it becomes little more than a job. As such, quality is extremely patchy and depends entirely on the culture in the hospital. Good management and the NHS provides as much quality care as anyone wants. Bad management and the NHS is shite.
But there are probably very few Brits who do not understand how much better then NHS is than the US' health system pre Obamacare. Yours is the absolute worst system.
The best system seems to be the Dutch system. It provides easily the most cost-efficient modern health service whilst being higher quality than the NHS.
I've done this for about 8 years following 2 discectomies 17 years ago. The main reason I do it is so that I moved rather than slumping in a bad postural position.
I would highly recommend it to anyone having back problems and who has bad sitting posture.
I frequently use the back of a 'slightly bouncy' IKEA chair to lean on and that stops me getting tired.
I do wonder whether a dentist style laid back chair with floating angled keyboard, mouse and monitor would be better, if weird.