Actually, "-ize" is absolutely not an Americanism - it is in fact correct spelling in either British or American English, whereas "-ise" is correct only in less formal British English.
It is sad that very few of us British seem to understand our language properly; almost no one here realizes that it is actually more conservative in British English to use -ize and not -ise. For example, go and look at an older copy of the Oxford English dictionary or the Times and you will see all those words spelled "-ize". I believe that even the newer editions of the OED, despite now listing the "-ise" forms, state that "-ize" is the preferred form.
To further complicate matters, the only words to which this rule can can apply are those which derive from Greek (and thus contain the Greek suffix "-ize" - this is the rationale for it being the more correct variant).
So for example "enterprize" and "capsise" are always just wrong in either British or American English.
OK, so this is now offtopic. But I think you misunderstood me.
Yes, the Hutton inqury is news, and very important news at that. But 1-2 months ago when Campbell et al. were busy writing to the board of governors before even Kelly's name appeared, that wasn't real news. It certainly wasn't more significant than troops being killed in the gulf and many other stories at the time.
My problem with the BBC in it is that I feel the BBC played the governments game. They wanted to assert their influence over public opinion and the nation, and perhaps prove their independence. In my opinion the BBC were just as responsible for raising the stakes as the government in continuing its campaign. They devoted huge amounts of airtime on their "upmarket" programs like Newsnight, the Today program, World At One, and so on to it. It was their top headline much of the time.
I don't know whether the government lied or not. The BBC says they did, over one small claim which I personally had never heard until the argument erupted. I don't think anyone has suggested that either the rest of the intelligence was faulty or that the claim was a significant factor in the decision to go to war.
On dumbing down, it may well be happenning across the spectrum. But with the BBC it's a far bigger problem because selling to the lowest common denominator is what the commercial press have always done. The point of the BBC is supposed to be that it's different. Why does the BBC seem to try to play this "commercial" game? Why does it seem that is it concerned over audience share to the point of making editorial decisions based on it?
Back on topic, I'm a bit worried that all their really good stuff --- that is, things like Hitch-Hiker's Guide, etc won't be included, because they already sell them -- on Video, DVD, CD, and Tape -- for exhorbitant prices, even in the UK. I have a feeling what we'll actually get (which will also be absolutely amazing and which I would love to see) will only be news archives, and older stuff. I suppose we'll see.
Actually it was Tony Ball, the chief executive of BSkyB, making a keynote speech at the Edinburgh Television festival, and he has also been saying this for a long time.
Although undoubtedly he is partly making these statements because of self-interest, I think he makes a good point. Firstly because the BBC is not supposed to simply compete with commercial channels. It is supposed to be aboutv public-service broadcasting and independent programming. I truly believe it is wasting public resources. It is still behaving as if it is the only broadcaster in the country, which it simply isn't.
If other free-to-air channels will broadcast such important things as US TV like 24 etc anyway, then it is a waste of public funds for the BBC to buy them, and this is essentially Tony Ball's point.
Personally I don't view the license fee as good value for money. Greg Dyke et al. have lowered the tone of its output significantly in recent years. The quality of news reporting has been significantly dumbed down. Sky News is now viewed by many people as being every bit as good as BBC News 24.
The reporting of the Iraq war may or may not have been biased against the government; I would much rather watch something which acknowledged its bias than smoething which, like the BBC, high-mindedly claims "unbiased reporting" when if you think about it no such thing exists. However, in the dossier affair in my opinion they have shown their true colours. It wasn't news. Pure and simple. Why did they give the argument between them and the government such prominence as they did (top story) when almost noone else was? Incidentally it was the Labour government, and not the Murdoch press that kept on about it.
I hope that next time the BBC's charter comes up for renewal the license fee is not kept. If you do not live in the UK and you like BBC programming, you should be aware that the World Service is already funded from general taxation (from the Foreign Office budget in fact), and that the cost of programming is significantly supported by selling it abroad.
This is a really good idea. You can extend it to make it even better though.
Part of the good thing about the erasure-correcting code approach is that if you use a big enough very low-rate code (although its quite tricky to do that with good CPU and memory efficiency) then you can have downloading from several servers concurrently without having to tell each server which parts of the files you want (just send random parts of the encoded data and theres a low chance of overlap from multiple servers).
Now, here's the clever part: you use IP Multicast with multiple sources spoofing the same sender address. This means that (a) you save quite a lot on bandwidth since many P2P clients will be downloading the same source file (this is important since a big reason many ISPs and Universities have banned P2P is the bandwidth); and (b) it is MUCH harder (not impossible, but hard enough if you are not an ISP or a router at the very end) to find out who either the source or the destination is.
I don't know if anyone has thought of this idea and tried to implement it. Someone should; maybe I'll give it a go when I have time.
PS. There is a sparser and more CPU-efficient solution than VanderMonde matrices, look for Low-Density Parity Check codes.
Citizen? Aren't you folks in GB subjects? God save the Queen, and all that.
No. See, for example, this page on the site of the Australia British embassy.
You are right. In the UK, the government can outlaw people with red hair if it wants, and there is not a thing that anyone can do about it. There is no supreme court to go to to fight bad laws.
Just because it's not called the Supreme Court doesn't mean there isn't a highest court of appeal (which is all the US Supreme Court is). There is. It's the House of Lords. Like every other court of appeal in Britain and America, its job is primarily to decide on matters of law, not on the merits of legislation or the verdict reached in the case (unless there was a problem with procedure or there is new evidence).
And (notwithstanding the present government's efforts to do away with them) we have Jury trials and the principle of double jeopardy.
No written constitution. No bill of rights.
No we don't have a single codified document called a Constitution. But, we do have a Bill of Rights, passed in 1689 during the Glorious Revolution, on which the american Bill of Rights was in part based. It mainly concerns itself with defining the separation of power between monarch and parliament (and limiting the monarch's power). In addition we have Magna Carta which guarantees some basic rights like due process.
Only recently has the UK been forced to obey some kind of written code on human rights, by virtue of its being a part of the EEC.
Wrong again. Britain acceded to the Council of Europe (the treaty organization from which the European Court of Human Rights derives - note that this is NOT the same as the European Union, EEC or any of its predecessors) nearly 50 years ago (the treaty came into effect on 3rd September 1953). Furthermore we are a signatory to the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
All this having been said, the UK is more free than the USA. Its hard to believe, but it really is true. Statring with the absence of an SSN here, the british are free to travel, theier driving licences dont have pictures, and you can say whatever you want, whenever you want.
The driving licenses do have pictures - and have had since (if memory serves me correctly) 1998. The new photocard driving licenses are almost always considered good enough ID to prove you are of legal age to drink (18). Many people saw them as the beginning of a national ID card scheme by the back door.
We do have social security numbers - everyone is supposed to be sent a number on their 16th birthday or before if they ask (you need one to work legally and to claim benefits; and also for some other things like reciprocal healthcare arrangements in the EU).
And of course we still have laws against treason, the various incitement laws, very prosecution-friendly libel and slander laws, the blasphemy law (still on the books but not sucessfully used since the early 20th century), and the Official Secrets Act to name but a few which have effects on free speech. In my memory at least once a year a major newspaper has had a High Court injunction put on it by the government to prevent it publishing a story considered embarrassing to the government (although these have often later been removed on appeal), and several important trials are effectively conducted in secret due to reporting restrictions - eg the David Shayler case.
Until the 1960s if you wanted to publicly show a play the Lord Chamberlain's office had to approve it and could first censor it (a tradition which went back at least as far as Shakespeare's time).
The compromises here are gentlemens agreements. There is a flexibility here that doesnt exist in other countries. Britain doesnt look free on paper, but in reality, its a very, very good place to live.
I would have to disagree here. Britain is a free country because it is a stable country. There has not been a successful invasion since 1066. The laws and systems of government have evolved and many hard-fought battles for freedom centuries and decades ago have been allowed to settle in over time. We have a pretty independent judiciary and had a very independent upper house (although it will in future be all-appointed by Blair from what I hear), and a constancy in our current long-serving monarch who has seen 10 Prime Ministers in her time. We have a reasonably competent and professional (if perhaps self-serving) civil service. We have had relatively good economic fortune over the last two centuries or so (as a nation), 500 years of falling levels of crime and have been a major player on the international stage meaning we could shape the world more to suit us.
In America, these things are simply not there - so there are things like the constitution to protect the people from their politicians instead.
Apart from that, its people are the most cultured and tolerant speakers of english on the planet.
No, he means shorting the stock at a price where the option is in-the-money; then exercising the call to cover the short.
In the circumstances (can't exercise the option immediately) it makes sense since he gets the selling price he wants to profit from the option (assuming he CAN short it).
While this is true, remember that the UK does not have an elected head of state (that's the Queen), and the Prime Minister is not directly elected (he is in fact asked to do the job by the Queen - although she invariably asks the leader of the largest party).
In theory one party can (and have several times in the past) get a large number of votes and a small proportion of seats in the House of Commons - however, MPs are elected in local constituencies (and do a lot of work on local issues or as representatives of constituents) and this "link" is seen as extremely important.
This can also happen in an "instant runoff" system. If one party gets exactly 50%+1 1st-preference votes in 100% of the seats, it will get 100% of the seats. The main complaint with "simple majority" voting against instant runoff is that it allows "tactical voting". However, from the sounds of it in countries where this happens the "voting cards" simply move the tactical voting powers away from the voters and to the politicians - surely not very democratic.
It's also unfair to assume that campaign strategies would be the same if the system were different. If the President of the US were elected on simple majority of a single vote by every US Citizen then campaigning in marginal states would not happen and instead there would have been a lot more effort to get the vote out from disaffected or lazy voters in "safe" states (why vote if the guy you want to win will get through easily anyway?).
The student elections in my university are run on instant runoff/STV, with the additional requirement that "Re-Open Nominations" (RON) runs as an additional candidate. This is even worse because where you put RON in your preference ordering (and if you rank other candidates) becomes an even bigger tactical voting tool. They also count the votes "by hand" (moving piles of ballot papers when preferences are reallocated) which is SO prone to error that I wouldn't be surprised if the wrong person won the presidency last year (the margin was only around 100 votes). If you didn't trust machine-counting last time, it will only get worse if you make the system more complicated because the manual alternative is probably worse.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, "-ize" is absolutely not an Americanism - it is in fact correct spelling in either British or American English, whereas "-ise" is correct only in less formal British English.
It is sad that very few of us British seem to understand our language properly; almost no one here realizes that it is actually more conservative in British English to use -ize and not -ise. For example, go and look at an older copy of the Oxford English dictionary or the Times and you will see all those words spelled "-ize". I believe that even the newer editions of the OED, despite now listing the "-ise" forms, state that "-ize" is the preferred form.
To further complicate matters, the only words to which this rule can can apply are those which derive from Greek (and thus contain the Greek suffix "-ize" - this is the rationale for it being the more correct variant). So for example "enterprize" and "capsise" are always just wrong in either British or American English.
OK, so this is now offtopic. But I think you misunderstood me.
Yes, the Hutton inqury is news, and very important news at that. But 1-2 months ago when Campbell et al. were busy writing to the board of governors before even Kelly's name appeared, that wasn't real news. It certainly wasn't more significant than troops being killed in the gulf and many other stories at the time.
My problem with the BBC in it is that I feel the BBC played the governments game. They wanted to assert their influence over public opinion and the nation, and perhaps prove their independence. In my opinion the BBC were just as responsible for raising the stakes as the government in continuing its campaign. They devoted huge amounts of airtime on their "upmarket" programs like Newsnight, the Today program, World At One, and so on to it. It was their top headline much of the time.
I don't know whether the government lied or not. The BBC says they did, over one small claim which I personally had never heard until the argument erupted. I don't think anyone has suggested that either the rest of the intelligence was faulty or that the claim was a significant factor in the decision to go to war.
On dumbing down, it may well be happenning across the spectrum. But with the BBC it's a far bigger problem because selling to the lowest common denominator is what the commercial press have always done. The point of the BBC is supposed to be that it's different. Why does the BBC seem to try to play this "commercial" game? Why does it seem that is it concerned over audience share to the point of making editorial decisions based on it?
Back on topic, I'm a bit worried that all their really good stuff --- that is, things like Hitch-Hiker's Guide, etc won't be included, because they already sell them -- on Video, DVD, CD, and Tape -- for exhorbitant prices, even in the UK. I have a feeling what we'll actually get (which will also be absolutely amazing and which I would love to see) will only be news archives, and older stuff. I suppose we'll see.
Actually it was Tony Ball, the chief executive of BSkyB, making a keynote speech at the Edinburgh Television festival, and he has also been saying this for a long time.
Here's how The Times reported it, and here's how the BBC News website reported it.
Although undoubtedly he is partly making these statements because of self-interest, I think he makes a good point. Firstly because the BBC is not supposed to simply compete with commercial channels. It is supposed to be aboutv public-service broadcasting and independent programming. I truly believe it is wasting public resources. It is still behaving as if it is the only broadcaster in the country, which it simply isn't.
If other free-to-air channels will broadcast such important things as US TV like 24 etc anyway, then it is a waste of public funds for the BBC to buy them, and this is essentially Tony Ball's point.
Personally I don't view the license fee as good value for money. Greg Dyke et al. have lowered the tone of its output significantly in recent years. The quality of news reporting has been significantly dumbed down. Sky News is now viewed by many people as being every bit as good as BBC News 24.
The reporting of the Iraq war may or may not have been biased against the government; I would much rather watch something which acknowledged its bias than smoething which, like the BBC, high-mindedly claims "unbiased reporting" when if you think about it no such thing exists. However, in the dossier affair in my opinion they have shown their true colours. It wasn't news. Pure and simple. Why did they give the argument between them and the government such prominence as they did (top story) when almost noone else was? Incidentally it was the Labour government, and not the Murdoch press that kept on about it.
I hope that next time the BBC's charter comes up for renewal the license fee is not kept. If you do not live in the UK and you like BBC programming, you should be aware that the World Service is already funded from general taxation (from the Foreign Office budget in fact), and that the cost of programming is significantly supported by selling it abroad.
This is a really good idea. You can extend it to make it even better though.
Part of the good thing about the erasure-correcting code approach is that if you use a big enough very low-rate code (although its quite tricky to do that with good CPU and memory efficiency) then you can have downloading from several servers concurrently without having to tell each server which parts of the files you want (just send random parts of the encoded data and theres a low chance of overlap from multiple servers).
Now, here's the clever part: you use IP Multicast with multiple sources spoofing the same sender address. This means that (a) you save quite a lot on bandwidth since many P2P clients will be downloading the same source file (this is important since a big reason many ISPs and Universities have banned P2P is the bandwidth); and (b) it is MUCH harder (not impossible, but hard enough if you are not an ISP or a router at the very end) to find out who either the source or the destination is.
I don't know if anyone has thought of this idea and tried to implement it. Someone should; maybe I'll give it a go when I have time.
PS. There is a sparser and more CPU-efficient solution than VanderMonde matrices, look for Low-Density Parity Check codes.
You shouldn't be paying UK VAT on most books. (Although the delivery charges will attract VAT). See here.
This also means that importing books to the UK from amazon.com should not attract VAT, only customs duty and VAT on the shipping cost.
Also, books bought from amazon.com may not be subject even to customs duty depending on their value (mostly if they are worth less than £18).
No. See, for example, this page on the site of the Australia British embassy.
You are right. In the UK, the government can outlaw people with red hair if it wants, and there is not a thing that anyone can do about it. There is no supreme court to go to to fight bad laws.
Just because it's not called the Supreme Court doesn't mean there isn't a highest court of appeal (which is all the US Supreme Court is). There is. It's the House of Lords. Like every other court of appeal in Britain and America, its job is primarily to decide on matters of law, not on the merits of legislation or the verdict reached in the case (unless there was a problem with procedure or there is new evidence).
And (notwithstanding the present government's efforts to do away with them) we have Jury trials and the principle of double jeopardy.
No written constitution. No bill of rights.
No we don't have a single codified document called a Constitution. But, we do have a Bill of Rights, passed in 1689 during the Glorious Revolution, on which the american Bill of Rights was in part based. It mainly concerns itself with defining the separation of power between monarch and parliament (and limiting the monarch's power). In addition we have Magna Carta which guarantees some basic rights like due process.
Only recently has the UK been forced to obey some kind of written code on human rights, by virtue of its being a part of the EEC.
Wrong again. Britain acceded to the Council of Europe (the treaty organization from which the European Court of Human Rights derives - note that this is NOT the same as the European Union, EEC or any of its predecessors) nearly 50 years ago (the treaty came into effect on 3rd September 1953). Furthermore we are a signatory to the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
All this having been said, the UK is more free than the USA. Its hard to believe, but it really is true. Statring with the absence of an SSN here, the british are free to travel, theier driving licences dont have pictures, and you can say whatever you want, whenever you want.
The driving licenses do have pictures - and have had since (if memory serves me correctly) 1998. The new photocard driving licenses are almost always considered good enough ID to prove you are of legal age to drink (18). Many people saw them as the beginning of a national ID card scheme by the back door.
We do have social security numbers - everyone is supposed to be sent a number on their 16th birthday or before if they ask (you need one to work legally and to claim benefits; and also for some other things like reciprocal healthcare arrangements in the EU).
And of course we still have laws against treason, the various incitement laws, very prosecution-friendly libel and slander laws, the blasphemy law (still on the books but not sucessfully used since the early 20th century), and the Official Secrets Act to name but a few which have effects on free speech. In my memory at least once a year a major newspaper has had a High Court injunction put on it by the government to prevent it publishing a story considered embarrassing to the government (although these have often later been removed on appeal), and several important trials are effectively conducted in secret due to reporting restrictions - eg the David Shayler case.
Until the 1960s if you wanted to publicly show a play the Lord Chamberlain's office had to approve it and could first censor it (a tradition which went back at least as far as Shakespeare's time).
The compromises here are gentlemens agreements. There is a flexibility here that doesnt exist in other countries. Britain doesnt look free on paper, but in reality, its a very, very good place to live.
I would have to disagree here. Britain is a free country because it is a stable country. There has not been a successful invasion since 1066. The laws and systems of government have evolved and many hard-fought battles for freedom centuries and decades ago have been allowed to settle in over time. We have a pretty independent judiciary and had a very independent upper house (although it will in future be all-appointed by Blair from what I hear), and a constancy in our current long-serving monarch who has seen 10 Prime Ministers in her time. We have a reasonably competent and professional (if perhaps self-serving) civil service. We have had relatively good economic fortune over the last two centuries or so (as a nation), 500 years of falling levels of crime and have been a major player on the international stage meaning we could shape the world more to suit us.
In America, these things are simply not there - so there are things like the constitution to protect the people from their politicians instead.
Apart from that, its people are the most cultured and tolerant speakers of english on the planet.
Why thankyou!
No, he means shorting the stock at a price where the option is in-the-money; then exercising the call to cover the short.
In the circumstances (can't exercise the option immediately) it makes sense since he gets the selling price he wants to profit from the option (assuming he CAN short it).
While this is true, remember that the UK does not have an elected head of state (that's the Queen), and the Prime Minister is not directly elected (he is in fact asked to do the job by the Queen - although she invariably asks the leader of the largest party).
In theory one party can (and have several times in the past) get a large number of votes and a small proportion of seats in the House of Commons - however, MPs are elected in local constituencies (and do a lot of work on local issues or as representatives of constituents) and this "link" is seen as extremely important.
This can also happen in an "instant runoff" system. If one party gets exactly 50%+1 1st-preference votes in 100% of the seats, it will get 100% of the seats. The main complaint with "simple majority" voting against instant runoff is that it allows "tactical voting". However, from the sounds of it in countries where this happens the "voting cards" simply move the tactical voting powers away from the voters and to the politicians - surely not very democratic.
It's also unfair to assume that campaign strategies would be the same if the system were different. If the President of the US were elected on simple majority of a single vote by every US Citizen then campaigning in marginal states would not happen and instead there would have been a lot more effort to get the vote out from disaffected or lazy voters in "safe" states (why vote if the guy you want to win will get through easily anyway?).
The student elections in my university are run on instant runoff/STV, with the additional requirement that "Re-Open Nominations" (RON) runs as an additional candidate. This is even worse because where you put RON in your preference ordering (and if you rank other candidates) becomes an even bigger tactical voting tool. They also count the votes "by hand" (moving piles of ballot papers when preferences are reallocated) which is SO prone to error that I wouldn't be surprised if the wrong person won the presidency last year (the margin was only around 100 votes). If you didn't trust machine-counting last time, it will only get worse if you make the system more complicated because the manual alternative is probably worse.