Remember that little economic apocalypse that happened a few years ago? You may remember it as the day your 401(k) dropped a digit or 3; those short sighted (w/b)ankers and middle management that essentially collectively said “You want some money? Sure, go ahead!” to the entire world and didn’t think about where it was coming from, while getting paid sums of money that would make Scrouge McDuck blush. Well, turns out they have been too greedy at home (no suprise).
Posts Tagged: economy
4
Aug 10
High-Frequency Trading Revolt, and Why its a good idea!!
25
Nov 09
Peter Mandelson… TV Producer, Spin-doctor, Politician, Tosser
For a man who’s title is currently Baron Mandelson, of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and of Hartlepool in the County of Durham, First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, President of the Board of Trade and Lord President of the Council, educated in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and is hotly tipped to become a major part of the Lisbon-Treaty-generated-unelected-cou-detat-european-super-parliment, you’d think the power-addicted, peace-process screwing, ‘shreud loaning‘ rat would leave well enough alone.
You’d be wrong.
Under the Digital Economy Bill, Peter… Sorry, BARON Mandelson has been given unlimited powers to extend penalties to (suspected, theres no real trials) illegal filesharers or copyright violators online. Similar to the much discussed and eventually culled french ‘three-strikes’ rule on filesharing (that Mr Sarkosy would fail), its once…twice…three times a bitch, as £50,000 fine would fall through your letter box (to be noted, this is per household, so thats one movie for mum, a e-book for dad, and a tune for Ann, and poor little timmy foots the bill). But Peter ‘The Baron’ Mandelson isnt done yet.
His powers, under this bill, are extended to that he can appoint whoever the hell he likes to keep an eye on you and your internet usage to catch right’s infringers (i’d say they should look inward for right’s infringement…) , and oust you from the network. No Trial, no Jury, hell, as far as I can read, you dont even need to know you’re under suspicion until your under-arrest. Then you don’t need to know exactly what your charged with, then you have no realistic way of knowing what potential punishment ‘The Baron’ will cook up.
And I mean ‘cook up’. In the bill there is no limit on fine amount or potential jail-time.
The icing on the cash-filled cake is that the the Government have already assured it’s success, by stating that ISP’s who are caught-not-catching copyright infringers will get (at least) £250,000 fines.
This kind of racketeering is shameful and pointless, and to add insult to injury to the internet-generation, the bill says nothing about providing computers for schools, guaranteeing broadband access for disenfranchised families and low-income areas, increasing governmental openess, adoption of Open Source Software in the public sector, cracking down on spams, scams, or credit card fraud. Nothing. Not a bit.
With such pressing matters already pushing Britian’s economy into the under-flab of international competition, what does this bill concern itself with? Ofcom is told to ‘observe’ more (umm, i thought that was their point?), Channel 4 gets public-service broadcast responsibilities (yay, more crap!), and expanding mobile broadband investment (because that’s going to be great for service in already served areas, such as LONDON).
And to finish the whole shambels off, a nice little ditty on compulsory age ratings on all video games…
To quote Cory Doctorow
why is it acceptable for the government to declare that some forms of artwork have to be mandatorily labelled as to their suitability for kids? And why is it only some media? Why not paintings? Why not novels? Why not modern dance or ballet or opera?
Stop the world, I want to get off.
8
Jan 11
Rant: Job Applications
Inspired by Barry Haughey’s recent facebook post;
Dear International Banking Conglomerates and other major employers,
I just spent 3 hours of my life writing custom cover letters, answering pointless assessment questions, and entering my ‘skillsets’ on 4 different occasions for an application for one job… Just gimme the bloody job already; you’re big enough and ugly enough to have been able to pick up all that infomation from either a) My extensive and detailed resume, b) my attached university transcript.
For companies whose bread and butter is data management and analysis, wise the hell up;
Why not just pull all the information from my LinkedIn page?
What about having a standardized assessment test that everyone can use, and do, ONCE, and then you pull their score from that profile?
What about taking all that time that people waste putting THE SAME INFORMATION over and over and over again, and using that time to, I dunno, study to get a better degree?
That way, you get the BEST candidates, not the ones who spray their CV’s around like a bedwetting ADHD-sufferring 5 year old.
Yours Exhaustedly
Andrew Bolster