Commentary – Page 2

Are you going to do half a job, like last time?

The Internet is abuzz with the repercussions of the attack on the US State Capitol building by right wing, white supremacist terrorists armed with bombs. Governor Schwartzenegger (himself Austrian) compared it to the Nazi Kristallnacht action and he’s right to do so.

Twitter, Facebook have banned Trump and accomplices. Parler, the latest right wing social media cesspool has been denied AWS processing time from Amazon and Stripe has started to deny transactions from the Trump Campaign.

What took you?

And we have the New Bar Association ready to expel Rudy Giuliani. And the PGA of America and Scotlands R&A ready to exclude Trump and his properties from their future matches.

What took you?

As the attempted Nazi coup of the USA has failed due the will of the people, the continuing coup of the UK continues, faltering only due to the ineptitude of the Prime Minister and his cabinet. The Allies were definitely front and centre in the onslaught. But while we may joke that these idiots are bad people and deserve the odd punch in the face, we have to recognise that we didn’t deal with them properly in the first place.

Demagogues like Oswald Mosley and Enoch Powell in the UK were not put down the way we should have and their interns continue on. You’ll note that some of the young interns from Powells days still serve as MPs in Westminster. My own MP in Lisburn, served as Powells junior. Powell was selected in South Down where, unsurprisingly, the UKIP managed to find a seat as well. Is there a problem in County Down that we simply have not addressed?

And in the US, in 1939, a “Pro-Americanism” Nazi rally was held in Madison Square Garden. 20,000 people attended. That’s 20,000 loose ends who went on to have kids, who then had more kids, indoctrinating them into a way of life that resulted in deaths at the State Capitol.

We have never dealt with the pro-Nazi members of the aristocracy here in the UK, much as the US never dealt with the white supremacy movement or the tens of thousands of active Nazis in their midst. And this is what happens. These people are well organised in a way that the Left cannot comprehend. While the Left are continuing to fragment themselves over rejoining the EU, or whether the plastic bag tax was sufficient; these monsters are designing new ovens. People ovens. They seed dissent through disinformation (yup, anyone denying Covid doesn’t take a lot of scratching to find references to the “great replacement”).

Trump emboldened these people. He made it socially acceptable to be racist in public, with no fear of censure. Is that what we have become on the Left, so willing to accept everyone as an equal that we allow the Extreme Right to do whatever they want? How many people do they have to kill before we stop wringing our hands about whether we are hurting their feelings when we put them in jail forever.

So, what the hell took everyone?

Why did it take so long? And are we all going to let them scuttle back under their rocks to re-emerge with greater numbers in another 50 years?

Hydrogen

I don’t think that hydrogen is going to be a satisfactory alternative. We need to get out of the mindset of choosing finite resources (we only have a finite amount of hydrogen on earth). We end up just moving the problem down the road. Remembering that the water on our planet is finite and it’s a thin skin on the surface of the Earth should be sobering. Remembering that every hydrogen transaction is lossy. And every hydrogen escape is a permanent loss to the planet.

It’s the same with nuclear. Hydrogen is not renewable, nuclear is not clean.

Much of the energy we use is tied up in cars – they’re horrendously inefficient. Not just in the energy conversion (~70% loss) but in the transportation of 100 kgs of human, we have to also transport 900 kgs of car (and that’s for an average one). So, when you think about it, only 3% of the energy we put in the tank is used to transport a human. Electric cars won’t save us from this – they’re a band aid (and they’re even heavier)

(I question the symbolism of Wrightbus in the photo. I question the commitment of the minister from a party of climate-disruption denialism. I question the use of hydrogen for storage – after all, it’s not like hydrogen under pressure has been a problem in the past.)

Take the long view. Build civilisations to last.

Is the 30% AppStore tax fair?

The AppStore is a software aggregator. It’s not the first, it won’t be the last.

About 100 years ago, in the early 2000s, I was buying software for my phone and Palm Vx. I used various software aggregators (Handango being one) and I remember what a rigmarole it was. You really had no idea what you were buying, sometimes a “sticker” set was nothing more than clip art and there was zero recourse if it didn’t work or if you wanted a refund. What’s more, Handango was a revolution in itself as it only took 40% of the cover price. Other aggregators for other mobile operating systems took 40-90%. You’re reading that right. If you got significant success, you ended up paying 90% of cover price to the aggregator. It was like the sliding tax rate but you were really just lining pockets rather than paying for roads and schools.

Then Everything Changed

The AppStore came along and everything changed.

It was hailed as a revolution. A single point of access, installed on every device, taking only 30% and people could trust the vendor – it was the same vendor they’d spent the last few years buying music from. What could be better. Developers would get access to millions of customers overnight, for a small fee which included a code-signing certificate and there were all these dev tools. Sure, it wasn’t perfect by any means and it still isn’t but it’s a damn sight better than it was.

So what’s the fuss?

Some vendors who rely on tight margin subscriptions aren’t happy with the 30%. They’re just pissy with it. It’s hitting on an underlying business model of tight margins. (I’m talking mostly about Spotify and Amazon but it would equally apply to anyone). Their models don’t work if Apple takes 30%. But even then they adapted to while I can’t buy a Kindle book through the Amazon app or the Kindle app, I can just pop onto the web site and it works fine. But it is a little bit of friction.

So, what’s to be done for sharecroppers who are happy to give away an app for free and then use the platform for promotion and distribution without contributing to the baseline? Surely most developers who charge a reasonable amount for their apps would be thinking “No….Amazon shouldn’t be getting a free ride at all!”. But instead it’s really focused the camera on whether Apple’s 30% is reasonable in this day and age.

What percentage would mollify the masses?

There’s really no right answer for this. Some people would only be content with 0%. Thinking that they bring so much to the Apple ecosystem that Apple shouldn’t be making money off the ecosystem. Others might think that 20% or 10% is a good number considering that storage, network costs and compute costs have dropped considerably in the last 12 years. Some folks are happy enough with the 30% but would like the option to offer their own stores, with their own payment systems or the ability to side-load content. There will, like Brexit, be no one single solution that would make everyone happy (and by everyone I include Apple here).

But it does feel like the time is ripe for Apple to rethink the model. To re-evaluate what makes developing on their platform so compelling and to reward those who have made great apps. Maybe it’s dropping the percentage for those who support universal binaries? Or who have switched to Swift 100%. Or those who stick to some other set of rules? Maybe those who do well should get a sliding scale?

Gruber and Gassee used to agree with the Apple Store but have things changed?

Betteridges Law Applies. As Ever

I’m a fan of Betteridges Law. This rule of thumb decrees that the answer to a headline question is always “no” and so I’ll have to apply it here.

Times have changed. Costs have changed. The market has changed. So maybe it’s time to cut developers a bit more slack.

Dear Government, Just Do One Thing….

Dear Government,

I’m really only talking to the Northern Ireland government here, but if the rest of you want to take a leaf, then do something about it.

Everything is “Covid-Paralysed”. I just see inactivity in every area. People holding their breath. It’s not good enough. We have to be pro-active. But as a “cultural hand grenade”, I figured I’d write a list of things our government departments could do while they’re waiting for society to re-open.

The Executive Office. – frankly, I have no idea what you do anyway other than argue and be ineffectual. This isn’t a personal dig – the EO has always failed to deliver. Look at the unspent social investment fund.
Department of Education. – We have been constantly training more than 200 teachers than we need every year and we have a large bank of supply teachers. So rather than having parents killing themselves trying to educate children, get your act together and use this resource. Yes, not everyone has and iPad or whatever, but that doesn’t mean you do nothing. Find out who needs resources and work together. Use the existing teacher pool, the supply teachers and the unemployed grads to deliver education over Zoom or your tool of choice and take the pressure off parents.
Department for the Economy. – Every skills program that can be opened over Zoom should be opened over Zoom. The lecturers are being salaried. We are in exceptional circumstances and much of it can be delivered over Teams or Zoom. So do it. Make it free and allow people to upskill quickly.
Department of Health. – Be honest, we haven’t yet sorted this crisis. So make sure there’s enough PPE, find more staff to re-open the wards force to close because of sick nurses and doctors and let’s beat this thing.
Department of Justice. – Start preparing law suits against employers who fired or made redundant workers rather than furlough them. And maybe a case against the UK government for wilfully endangering millions of people resulting in the deaths of thousands of people
Department of Infrastructure. – You know, I’m never going to step into a taxi and I’m damn sure it’s going to be a while before I’m on a bus or train. So change the narrative. Convert parking spaces into bus and bike lanes. Do it now while you still can. And while you’re at it, a Greenway from Lisburn to Belfast would cut down on traffic. Plan it now. Execute when lockdown opens up a bit.
Department of Communities. – it’s time for more parks, more leisure facilities, more public art (by local people, not half a million quid to somewhere else). You have a month before the summer starts properly. Are you going to watch the tourist industry completely fail? Get a move on.
Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. Take some leadership and sort out broadband. Thousands of families are struggling without connectivity and if Education get their act together then the families will need it. Do it now.

The Realm of the Possible: Inventing a New City

After DRIVING past the new “death trap” paint on the Sydenham Bypass that’s meant to be a “cycle lane”, I am comforted to see that some cities have leaders who are prepared to re-make the world as we would like it, and not just rely on what has been past. .

Seattle to permanently close 20 miles of streets to traffic so residents can exercise and bike on them

Nichola Mallon, our Infrastructure Minister, isn’t being advised on what’s in the realm of the possible. It’s the problem with that department (and in particular Roads Service). When you ask a road engineer on what would solve a problem, they think in terms of roads.

I tend to think of the realm of the possible extends from impossible to impossible!

So how do we get people cycling and walking more?

Is it impossible to make cycle lanes which are more than paint?

No, plainly not. Here is a part of the Sydenham Bypass with a kerb! This would make cycling much safer. So, why is the department so happy with a line of paint? If we have it for part of the Sydenham Bypass, why not all of it? Why not extend it to Bangor and Ards?

Is it impossible to close BT1 to private street traffic?

No, it’s not. In fact, a lot of that is in the Regional Transportation Strategy including deflecting traffic from hope street straight to the Ormeau/Cromac area via a new road at Bankmore Square. Essentially the only cars in the centre outside of emergency services and buses, should be taxis and disabled vehicles.

Is it impossible to turn every non-disabled parking space in that area into cycle lanes to protect cyclists from buses, lorries and taxis?

No, obviously. We will see a decrease in traffic overall after the pandemic passes as a lot of people-intensive businesses will be re-looking at their leases for commercial property (some large businesses are closing multiple sites and having their workers work from home because working from home can improve productivity (as long as the kids are at school!) If you think about it, all of the streets in the CBD of Belfast are host to “car corpses”. Cars which are driven in and just lie dead all day. Our streets are littered with them. What are the knock on effects of that?

So we don’t need as many parking spaces? Or commercial parking lets? Or office buildings?

No, we really don’t – so that frees up huge amounts of space for cycling and pedestrians. Think of the lives saved from cars not careening into people.

What about those offices? Will they lie empty?

Well, Belfast City Council has been trying to square the circle of getting people to move into the centre of the city, but there just hasn’t been the space. So, if we are talking about maybe a million square feet of unoccupied office space right now and perhaps up to five times that in two years, that’s a thousand 1000 sq ft apartments now, and 5000 in the next decade. That solves the “Belfast is a graveyard” problem every evening as well as fostering small business in the city centre – including the eateries in the city which really deserve a bit of an uplift after the runaway rates and Covid-19 related collapse.

Thousands more living in the city would be a massive uplift for the city economy. And we have the space.

Are there other things we can change?

Of course, with decreased traffic and more reliance on public transport, we don’t need that M2/Westlink Exchange upgrade. That’s a waste as it is, it’s doubly so after the pandemic. We could invest that in live/work apartments in the city centre. We could invest in arterial segregated cycle lanes from four quarters of the city as well as dedicated cycle freeways along the M1, M2 and A2. With the decreased pollution of decreased traffic, Stockman’s Lane might be bearable to cycle through.

Anything else?

Well, I’m always going to say “free public transport”. The fact that it would decrease pollution and particulate matter, reduce the burden of road repairs on the taxpayer, increase social and economic mobility for just about everyone, equalise some of the society and put cash in the pockets of low and middle income workers is just the tip of the iceberg.

We have an opportunity to change the city and be an exemplar. Wouldn’t it be great to be proud of Belfast for things that were great and that worked? Stuff we could boast about that was good on a global stage and not just “better than what we deserve”. Can’t we aspire to greatness as a city? Celebrate our best and brightest?

Rather than a ship that sank, forty years of civil war and an alcoholic footballer?

#NoOneLeftBehind #RuralUrbanDigitalDivide

Bridging the digital divide means guaranteeing access to adequate broadband

It is easy to assume NI is digitally connected and everyone has a smart phone or computer at home. The reality is this is not the case and many homes are forced to choose between buying larger data allowances or buying electricity and food.

Kate Clifford sets out a cogent case against privilege in this article.

I remember sitting in rooms filled with civil servants crowing about how Northern Ireland had the best digital platform in the world.

A claim that was patently not true if you even took a second to survey the rest of the world.
A claim that was even more embarrassing when you excluded developing countries from your survey.

Society is feeling the effects of the digital divide even in areas which are well served with hardware and broadband. At home, my own broadband is creaking under the strain of multiple zoom calls, content delivery by iPlayer and YouTube. Imagine then being in an area poorly served.

The hardware issue is….also difficult. I’ve offered Raspberry Pi computers from my Dojo (and given away a couple) and also given away two slightly ageing Chromebooks – in an attempt to get people up and running. But a lot of content out there just isn’t accessible on more open platforms. It just won’t run on slower computers.

And don’t get me started on Classroom 2000.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel

One night during a global pandemic, comfortable in my privilege, I sat chatting to friends across the world.

We were discussing America. And how it might be time to take steps.

America is currently being besieged by rebels calling out for the execution of elected representatives. Their crime? Slowing the spread of the global pandemic mentioned earlier. This sort of thing gets you thinking; a dangerous pastime in any era.

These rebels, complete with wooden painted machine guns and spent husks of rocket launchers, are marching on government buildings, posing with their buddies and complaining at the lack of common services like hairdressing. It hardly needs to be said that while this service is easily done at home, it important to remember Thomas Jefferson “the tree of liberty must be refreshed time to time with the blood of patriots”. That said, Jefferson also put into his Canon, “Never trouble another with what you can do yourself”.

Jefferson also said: “The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster cruel vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging three headed beast like god one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes fools and hypocrites.”

Which I can offer no argument against.

But what’s the future hold?

It might seem a little hysterical but America is not well. The thesis goes:

If in November 2020, President Trump does not get re-elected to the highest office in the country, the outburst from loyalists will shake the very foundations of the Republic. If the angry white men can march, armed and armoured, on the Capitol building because they want haircuts, imagine what will happen when they’re told that Trump lost the election due to foreign interference. Liberals wring their hands, Conservatives make shells.
If in November 2020, President Trump does get re-elected, it’s possible to expect Washington, Oregon and California to begin secession. It’s been talked about before. The US has been a single country in name but never united politically or culturally. Whether or not you think the two party system is desirable or not, it exists. And if these states move to secede from the Union, even through a legal process, expect the military to be used to force them to stay.

The status quo therefore becomes totally untenable. Needless to say, conversations will begin again in the GOP about allowing a president to stay longer than two terms and with their control of the Senate and the Supreme Court, who is left to challenge them?

But as I said above, it may be time to take steps. Even while we recover from the grips of the pandemic, there will be a need to take in refugees from war-torn America. Gird yourselves.

COVID-19: The Pressure of Inevitability

This isn’t the first. This isn’t the last. It may be the worst; that remains to be seen. You would hope that modern medicine will out, but that takes time.

Pandemics

Around 500 BC, the Plague of Justinian killed 25-100 million people (about 50% of the population of Europe).

In the 14th Century, the Black Death killed 75-200 million people in Europe (about 60% of the population).

Between 1918 and 1920, Spanish Flu killed 17-100 million people worldwide.

Between 1877 and 1977, Smallpox killed 500 million people worldwide. And that wasn’t the first episode of Smallpox.

From 1960 to the present, HIV/AIDS has killed more than 32 million people worldwide.

Between 2009 and 2010, H1N1 killed nearly half a million people.

We are bloody lucky though. With a death rate of 0.3%-13% (depending on location and the demographic of the host), this is recoverable. But even at the lowest rate of 0.3%, that’s 240 Millie people worldwide. That’s the problem with big numbers.

The Power of Networks

Metcalfe’s Law is a concept used in computer networks and telecommunications to represent the value of a network. Metcalfe’s Law states that a network’s impact is the square of the number of nodes in the network. For example, if a network has 10 nodes, its inherent value is 100 (10 * 10).

This is the other problem with big numbers, things get very scary very quickly. You only have to look at the logarithmic graphs of the spread of the pandemic to get an appreciation of it. Log graphs make big numbers look like small numbers.

You can see the power of networks in this transmission of the disease. The more we were connected, the more we were able to travel, the larger the groups we congregated in; the more the virus would spread. Imagine how hard it was for the diseases to spread in the past (and thankfully for some like the Plague, we had antibiotics in recent years). But when something is being spread by rats, there have to be rats. This is spread by us.

We heard about other epidemics; Ebola, Zika, Nipah, SARS, Dengue fever – but most of them were in other places. People think we are being punished for whatever; for our arrogance? But this was inevitable. Viruses and bacteria have been preying on the world forever. They’ve killed millions before.

It’s ignorant exceptionalism to treat this as anything other than it is; inevitable

Journalists are happy. They can use the “beleaguered” word again.

Journalists are wetting themselves with the news that Apple’s sales have dropped 30% year on year. They think it’s the end of innovation at Apple, they think it’s that people are sick of upgrading or just don’t need new features. Really? It’s a couple of factors. Firstly, Apple has said multiple times that their growth … Continue reading “Journalists are happy. They can use the “beleaguered” word again.”

Really?

It’s a couple of factors.

Firstly, Apple has said multiple times that their growth market (China) remains very soft due to a continued weakness in the market but the trend for smartphone sales are down across the board (6% drop). Huawei might be on a rise (50% increase) but Samsung, Xaomi are all down too.

Secondly, this is Apple’s plan. They know that the appetite for new phones is changing – they’ll still produce premium phones for a premium market but they are really taking notice of the inheritance market – where a premium phone is handed down to another family member. This is why ios12 focused on performance – bringing the iPhone 5s (and later) back to life and offering cheap battery replacements. The 5s was debuted in 2013. There’s no other vendor treating aged phones like this. Apple finally realises that services – such as Music, TV, Pay…are the real growth regions globally.

The downturn in sales for other vendors with their short term upgradability and poor quality hardware will hurt them in the long run. But their sales will look good because people are forced to buy new. Their profits on the other hand…

e.g.

Apple profit for this quarter was $11 billion (down about 10%), Samsung was down 60% to $5 billion. And Samsung’s profits on their mobile business was considerably worse.

Journalists know that Apple stories are excellent clickbait. Apple fans always go to read and Android/Windows fans often go to gloat.

AirDrop – halfway there

Jason Snell writes on SixColors: With AirDrop, Apple has come up with a simpler way to pass files around. In doing so, it’s made traditional file sharing seem old and fussy. So my modest proposal to Apple is to take AirDrop and expand its powers. Let people in homes and offices use it to drop … Continue reading “AirDrop – halfway there”

Jason Snell writes on SixColors:

With AirDrop, Apple has come up with a simpler way to pass files around. In doing so, it’s made traditional file sharing seem old and fussy. So my modest proposal to Apple is to take AirDrop and expand its powers. Let people in homes and offices use it to drop files to each other, even if they’re not fortunate enough to be sitting right next to each other. Apple, you did your job and you did it well—I’ve utterly embraced AirDrop. But now I want more.

AirDrop is definitely half-baked.

Not only should I seamlessly (and without any need to accept) be able to send a file to any Apple device that I’ve got an iCloud login active – no matter where they are in the world, but I should be able to add iCloud IDs to my favourites list and send direct to people because I know their ID.

I try to avoid sending photos through email so I currently use iCloud Photo Sharing with the family – which is a workaround. I’d much rather have address book groups that I could iCloudShare to my hearts content.

And can we have Back To My Mac working again? Maybe add Macs to our locations in Files? I wanna be able to root around in my archives for files. Or put files in other folders other than desktop or documents in a simple interface.

Yeah, I’d like this on iOS but I’d be happy with it being in a new productivity focused padOS considering that I’ve moved my Mac from a slightly creaky MacBook Pro to an even freakier iMac 27″ since I got the iPad Pro 12.9. (Apple may not be pleased with me as I’m finding it hard to justify a Mac when the iPad does 90% of everything I need).

So, come on Apple. Help me get my productivity up to 100%

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Then Everything Changed

So what’s the fuss?

What percentage would mollify the masses?

Betteridges Law Applies. As Ever

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Is it impossible to make cycle lanes which are more than paint?

Is it impossible to close BT1 to private street traffic?

Is it impossible to turn every non-disabled parking space in that area into cycle lanes to protect cyclists from buses, lorries and taxis?

So we don’t need as many parking spaces? Or commercial parking lets? Or office buildings?

What about those offices? Will they lie empty?

Are there other things we can change?

Anything else?

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Pandemics

The Power of Networks

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