vivweb01blog

There has been much talk in the press and on social media recently about the Government’s intention to roll out electronic digital personal identification  (eID) in the UK. As yet, the fine detail of the eIDs themselves, and the process of their implementation, hasn’t been presented. Reading between the lines, I suspect the leadership are wary of imposing yat another far-reaching measure in their usual 'bull in a china shop' fashion, and are testing the water before revealing any concrete plans or timescales.  Here are some thoughts regarding the practicability and implications of such a scheme, assuming that the end result is some sort of smartphone-based personal ID product. First, let’s consider its desirability for the average UK citizen. We are told that a personal ID card will assist us in allowing quicker access to all manner of benefits and other state provisions, as well as removing the cumbersome requirements for paper documents that are needed to prove ID an...

Editor's note: Herewith a reissue of an amusing aside I wrote in 2022 after experiencing a particularly perplexing series of announcements, most of which seemed to defy common sense.......enjoy ! --------------------------------------------------------- Pondering the recent article about the close down of the world’s largest online eBook library  by the US authorities earlier this year led me back to the question asked increasingly often nowadays:   “ Where has all our common sense gone ?” I thought this might be a good opportunity to take a light-hearted 'tongue-in cheek' look at the logic (or lack of it) underlying human behaviour. What is it ? First of all, what is ‘common sense’ – and how do we define it ? To start with, here's a bit of personal history to help 'set the scene'.... I can well remember from my early childhood the frequent exhortations I received from my parents in response to what I thought was perfectly reasonable behaviour: ‘…for g...

  We in the UK are undoubtedly a nation of dog lovers..... While I’m all in favour of the benefits of owning one of ‘man’s best friends’, and there are undoubtedly many, keeping a dog is no mean task, and really must be taken on responsibly….. When you aspire to dog ownership and actually take the plunge, you are effectively becoming that animal’s sole guardian, and are then legally responsible for its actions during its whole lifetime.  In one sense, this a more onerous responsibility even than adopting a young child, since in that case you would only be responsible for his or her well-being and actions until they are 18; and as individuals, they will become legally responsible for their own actions at age 16 under current UK law. A dog will never be legally responsible for anything it does…you are - until it dies, or you transfer its ownership to someone else. It has to be said that most dog owners are responsible people and ensure that their dogs are kept firmly on...

  A midst all the discussion about the perils of global warming, there has been no mention recently of when we might expect the start of the next Ice-Age.... This was a topic that hit the headlines some years ago and was all the rage for a year or two before fading into obscurity. It is probably no coincidence that this media fade-out coincided with the increased coverage in the media about global warming and its wider implications for our future well-being. But should we be so quick to dismiss the posibility of  a much cooler future ? There is now no doubt that our global climate is warming – and doing so quite rapidly. There is also little doubt that our large-scale release of greenhouse gases since the dawn of the industrial era in the early 1800s will have contributed significantly to this process. However, despite the views of some environmentalists, our planet's atmosphere is a chaotic and unpredictable beast, and the jury is still out on whether ‘man-made’ clima...

  Two new Covid sub-variants have recently been identified as responsible for a surge of new Covid infections round the world. These are giving rise to some concerns in UK, in that a comparable surge here could also lead to a significant rise in hospitalisations this autumn and winter. According to WHO data , Europe seems to be ‘leading the pack’ on rises in case numbers . We might reasonably expect this, now that we’re well into the N. Hemisphere Autumn quarter ,   when seasonal respiratory infections traditionally tend to start increasing again after the summer hiatus, and we're also one of the most population-dense continents on the planet. The good news is that the new variants, named Nimbus and Stratus , don’t appear to be significantly more lethal than previous variants. They do, however, seem to be even more efficient at infecting us than their predecessors. Stratus, also known as Omicron sub-variant XFG , and Nimbus ( Omicron NB.1.8.1 ) now have the stat...