“If someone says a rhinoceros is coming in two seconds, we worry. But if you say a rhinoceros is coming in 20 years, nobody moves.” — A Buddhist monk said this to Christopher Dickey on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, last week. (via newsweek)
(via newsweek)
[video]
inspired by the lovely idea here http://weknowmemes.com/2011/12/the-us-budget-explained-in-simple-english/ I wanted to show the UK budget in household terms. Somehow getting rid of those zeros make it much easier to see the ratios.
I got most of these figures from the sources below. I took the cuts from the Department expenditure limits from the Treasury, which say DEL is set to fall from £375.170 billion in 10/11 to £331.900 in 15/16, a cut of £43.27 billion or 11.53%. So thats 43bn over 5 years, or £8.6bn/year.
Let me know if you spot any mistakes!
sources
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/25/tax-receipts-1963
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100119735/new-statesmans-political-editor-is-wrong-about-the-debt-crisis/
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/total_spending_2010UKbn
uk government, defecit, spending, debt.
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“There’s no such thing as a poor urbanized country; there’s no such thing as a rich rural country.” — Edward Glaeser, cited by Robert Kunzig in The City Solution via National Geographic Magazine (via stoweboyd)
Funny, I thought most urbanised countries were bankrupt, or going that way pretty quick.
(via emergentfutures)
‘Downloading’ new skills into our brains like characters on The Matrix set to become a reality, say scientists
They have been studying how a functional magnetic resonance machine (FMRI) can ‘induce’ knowledge in someone through their visual cortex by sending signals that change their brain activity pattern.
Full Story: MailOnline
In case you missed it, Microsoft opened a can of worms in June when they were the first US company to finally admit that they would release data from any of their global datacentres if requested by the US goverment under the patriot act. This contravenes European data privacy regulations, and when you consider the kinds of data US companies hold (Lockheed Martin and the UK Census data for example!) it’s worrying.
The EC’s justice commissioner Viviane Reding met with German Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner last month, and it sounded promising.
We both believe that companies who direct their services to European consumers should be subject to EU data protection laws. Otherwise, they should not be able to do business on our internal market. This also applies to social networks with users in the EU. We have to make sure that they comply with EU law and that EU law is enforced, even if it is based in a third country and even if its data are stored in a ‘cloud’.
Now ZD Net have published the draft documents, due to be released in January 2012. They look good, and comprehensive.
If the new act is broken, member states’ data protection authorities will be able to impose sanctions, which can range up to a maximum of 5 percent of a company’s annual worldwide turnover.
More from zdnet here http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/european-data-protection-law-proposals-revealed/1365?tag=search-results-rivers;item5
(Source: europa.eu)
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For first time in 20 years, TV ownership declines. And households watch a record 59 hours 28 minutes of TV per week! Yes, PER WEEK!
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/30/3294024/for-1st-time-in-history-tv-ownership.html#ixzz1fgFSvRsO
Full Story: Kansas City Star
Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns - Telegraph -
As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.
Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis.
The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way.
(Source: futuramb, via emergentfutures)
(via kushandwizdom)
I do this every 6 months or so for a quick ready reckoner of EC2 prices.
Heres the standard on demand pricing
And here’s the price if you pay a reservation fee up front
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” — Oscar Wilde
Very happily working on our new product, for a bit.. then back to nappies :)
What percentage of earnings do public sector workers contribute to pensions compared with the private sector (from the spectator)