Archive for March 26th, 2016|Daily archive page
Is old tech putting banks under threat of extinction?
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Source: BBC
You put your card in the cash machine but nothing comes out. The bank’s IT systems have crashed again.
But you need money fast, so what do you do?
It’s an unsettling scenario that is likely to become more common over the next few years as the big banks try to upgrade their IT systems, experts are warning.
Global banking giant HSBC is just one of several major banks that have had intermittent problems with their technology, leaving customers unable to access online bank accounts and other services. Bank of America, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ANZ Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest have all suffered similar issues.
And these system failures – or outages in the jargon – undermine confidence in traditional banking and encourage more competition from nimbler start-ups.
For the next five years – and we’re talking globally – every incumbent banking player who’s been…
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45 is NOT too old to want an easter egg.
Been a fairly productive week here. Had a visit from Mr and MrsC snr early in the week, MrC went nuts in the veggie patch, he’s been planting out a whole host of goodies. 5 rows of spuds, 3 rows of peas (including 1 row of his famous leafless pea), a row of mangetout and another 2 rows of broadbeans. Exciting stuff 🙂 Can’t wait to eat them.
MrsC went into full on haulage mode, clearing a huge amount of dead wood from the area I removed all the wire fencing from last week. There is a big clump of snowdrops hidden behind the mound, so I really need to separate and replant them in the wooded area. .
Between David dumping all the conifers from the wood next door and MrsC haulage, we have an absolutely massive pile of stuff to burn, but I’m holding off on a fire…
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Harry Clarke & Gustave Dore
Have you ever held an old book in your hand marveled at those amazing illustrations. How they were done and who did them? Here are some macabre illustrations rendering the Gothic and grotesque on paper and in our mind from early 19th century.
Harry Clarke (17 March 1889 – 6 January 1931) was an Irish stained-glass artist and book illustrator. Born in Dublin, he was a leading figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement. Here are some of his work-
Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré 6 January 1832 – 23 January 1883) was a French artist, printmaker, illustrator and sculptor. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving. Here are his illustrations for Poe’s Raven-
Guide to Politics
Austerity: Robbing the poor to pay down the deficit. Oh and it looks like some of that money went to the rich. Don’t know how that happened. So we haven’t really reduced the deficit as much as we said. Never mind.
Bankers: people who caused the financial crash until sufficient time passed for us to blame Labour instead. Great since now bankers are totally innocent we don’t have to work out how to stop them causing the next crash.
Blairite: someone who can’t work out whether it is politically smart to look irretrievably stupid by apologising for something you didn’t do. Very useful idiots on economic issues
Capitalism: what we’re bringing into disrepute.
Compassionate Conservatism: Look we’re not actually gassing any of the people we don’t like, are we?
Conservative Party: party round George’s after we have successfully reduced the income/life prospects of some group who don’t vote for us
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The Right To Be Forgotten – My research project
In late 2014 The European Court of Justice ruled that Google is required to remove links from search that are deemed no longer relevant or inaccurate. This ruling, also known as ‘The right to be forgotten’ means that monitoring content on the web falls on Google’s shoulders instead of on the sites that published these types of content.
There was and still is significant commentary both for and against this ruling amongst industry experts. In this research project I will be exploring weather or not Australian media and communications students are aware of right to be forgotten laws, and what views they hold.
It was during an episode of the MakeUseOf podcast that a difference of opinion between Americans and Europeans was revealed: The Americans argued that freedom of speech trumped everything, while the Europeans condoned at least some right to privacy.
Eli S surveyed nearly 300 Americans to get…
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Poetry (Day 86): Escalation
Escalation
The toddler hit.
I gave him a smack.
“Didn’t hurt.”
And he hit again
just to prove
he was still in the fight.
I raised my hand to retaliate,
but paused for a moment
to wonder where it all would end.
Would he deploy
nuclear weapons in response
to my more conventional warheads?
Or would this moment
lead to the cold war
of his teenage years?
$1.6 Trillion Current Value of Pentagon Procurement Programs
“DEFENSE ONE”
“$1.6 trillion. That’s the total value of the Pentagon’s 79 procurement programs,according to DoD’s latest Selected Acquisition Report.
And there’s good and bad news.
Let’s start with the bad: The Navy is canceling its Remote Minehunting System. The project has been delayed for years and its reliability has been called into question, Reuters reports. And here‘s a bit more from USNI News.
Better news: The F-35 is going to cost a bit less than previously thought. The latest Pentagon estimates peg the total project at $379 billion, down $12 billion from last year’s estimates. Also: the Air Force and Navy plan to fly their jets fewer flight hours each year. Instead of flying each plane 300 hours per year, they’re now looking to fly it 250 hours per year. What does that mean? Since the planes are built to last 8,000 hours, they’re now…
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Shallow Thinking 