vivweb01blog

 Why are No-SC tariffs important and when are we likely to see them ? Our Electricity prices in UK are acknowledged to be the highest in Europe.  Despite this serious indictment, as discussed in a previous blog , the Electricity and Gas suppliers have continued to penalise low users by first re-introducing, then continually hiking up their standing charges (SCs) to hitherto unprecedented levels. This has hit many singles living on their own.   P articularly hard hit have been some pensioners, with the rapid increase in their fuel costs and a meagre state pension to exist on. An additional blow to pensioners this autumn was Reeves’ cruel indefinite withholding of their winter fuel payment, and a relatively cold winter so far, with some quite prolonged cold spells already.  Consumers generally have now wakened up to the fact that our energy charges are the highest in Europe, and have started to question the inefficiency and profiteering of the supply industry ...

AI development has continued apace since this blog was first published in June 2024, with little sign of a slowdown. Herewith an update for 2025.....   Introduction There has been much discussion, and not a little concern, voiced in the press and on social media recently about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the dangers it might pose for humanity.. How dangerous is it really, and what if anything can, or indeed should, we do about it ? First, let’s try to pin down what we mean by the term ‘AI’. The OED dictionary definition is: “.. the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages. ” This rather narrow definition focuses on the use of AI as a tool, to be used to enhance what we as humans already accomplish, rather than considering what a new ‘cohort of intelligent machines’ might do themselves in the future. Apocal...

  Editor's Note: I published this blog in March of last year in response to an upsurge in phishing emails and other hacking incidents. The recent UK government demand that Apple provide them with a bypass to their end-to-end encryption serves as reminder that our comfidential data is at risk. Whatever the outcome of this particular 'spat', (in which I suspect Messrs. Trump and Musk will soon become involved, given their roles as 'champions of free speech') there is only one way to ensure that your 'at risk' data remains hidden - encrypt it yourself. ....read on to find out how....... ------------------------------------------- Could my email be hacked....? Unfortunately, it's more likely than you might think that your email either has already been hacked...or will be at some point….here’s why. There are a host of opportunities for a would-be hacker to find a way into your email account, and some of the 'professionals' are really expert at it. ...

  As one of the foremost and incisive questions of our age, "When is Bins ?" deserves some attention…and hopefully a reliable and effective solution for the afflicted (i.e. most of us!). In days of old, life was much simpler when it came to getting our rubbish collected…. Most of us had just one dustbin. We put it out for the dustmen (as we affectionately referred to them in those non-pc days) on the same day each week, and with a bit of luck it got emptied the same day.  Life is much more complicated nowadays when it comes to dealing with our domestic waste. The advent of recycling and climate change awareness, which admittedly was a good move given our profligacy with the earth’s resources over the last 100 years, came in the late 1990s, and none too soon. But it has led to a plethora of different schemes for collecting, sorting and processing of our domestic waste, with very little standardisation between responsible Local Authorities (LAs) and their contracted colle...

  Introduction We all interact with the ‘net’ daily in one way or another, whether it’s via our smartphone, on a laptop or desktop pc, or just at arms length when using a service that involves internet data transmission of some kind. We are now arguably totally dependent on the internet's continued function to enable our increasingly complex everyday lives - our society just wouldn't work properly without it. This makes us vulnerable to cyber-attacks, or natural events which interfere with its infrastructure, as discussed in a recent blog on modern warfare How many of us really understand how it all works, though ? And do we really need to ? It is, of course, as with many modern inventions, perfectly possible to use the internet without having a clue about its internal workings. I suspect the vast majority of people do. Over the last 30 years or so the increasing complexity of life in general and our technology in particular has turned us into ‘passive’ consumers with lit...