vivweb01

  Followers of the now somewhat notorious hotel chain may have noted an item in the news recently regarding several instances of occupied room keys being issued in error to unauthorised persons. Rumours abound as to why this might have happened, citing lax hotel security policy, poor staff training, etc. However, an interesting alternative explanation surfaced recently on social media, based on the possibility that this 'lapse' wasn’t actually a mistake after all…. The theory advanced by its proponents is that in attempt to spice up their hotel offering, Travelodge’s Marketing Development Department (TMDD) have come up with a ‘blind date’ type scheme whereby rooms occupied by single travellers are selected at random and a surprise additional occupant, also selected at random, is issued with a second pass key. Presumably neither 'victim' is aware of what the hotel (or fate!) has in store for them.... This scheme is apparently designed to ‘make life more interes...

  Andy Burnham is in the process of finding out the true meaning of the word 'dilemma'...if he hasn’t already. His self-declared major policy objective at the party conference this week – to introduce a Social Care System free at the point of need – has introduced a degree of consternation into his party’s faithful, to say the least. Here’s why… Such a scheme for the UK would go much further than the scheme already introduced by the SNP in Scotland. The implication in Burnham’s speeches so far is that the English scheme would include residential care, and would not be means-tested. This would cost many billions (up to £18.5 Bn for a full scheme not including residential fees) to fund annually - which the Treasury simply doesn’t have right now. Burnham’s answer to this funding shortfall is to abolish the Pensions Triple Lock (i.e. the guarantee that the State Pension will rise annually by the rate of price inflation, wage inflation or 2.5% whichever is the higher), an...

As a postscript to this rather 'off the wall' suggestion, it's obvious that this government is no further forward than the last at solving the small-boats problem, having ditched their Rwanda plan immediately on assuming office and not really putting anything more effective in its place.  The belated returns agreement with the French, trumpeted so enthusiastically earlier this year, has so far only managed to deport a handful of illegals, at least two of which have already tried their luck again via the same route (and those are just the ones Border Force have actually detected). The cost of each removal is estimated at £56k. All the more reason to let the 'marine experts' have a go - I'm sure they'd find a way to disable an outboard motor just as easily as a fishing boat's rudder ! I doubt whether many others would risk the trip in a dinghy after that.... AI seems to have let us down in finding a lasting solution to this perennial problem so far, so why...

There has been much angst voiced in the media recently about the risks of AI being harmful to our species, most notably by the very people involved in developing it.... This is perhaps a reasonable 'gut' reaction to a technology which is developing faster than many of us expected, and has turned out to be a powerful and transformative tool in a number of areas already. Its very power could certainly create havoc in the wrong hands.... Personally, I’m not an ‘AI risk denier’ any more than I am ‘climate change denier’…both of these trends are now abundantly evident, and only the cognitively blind could fail to see the risks and accept them as fact. What’s important is how we assess and deal with them….and more to the point, how we act to mitigate, and preferably prevent, their worst effects. There are risks, certainly, in allowing AI to continue to develop virtually unfettered as we appear still to be doing now. We should of course regulate…and on a worldwide basis, with...