vivweb01blog

I’m asking this question as a follow-up to my recent blog on the whys and wherefores of Big Tech software upgrades, and whether they are fair to the consumer.  As a frequent blogger, I regularly check the internal Blogspot tracking system to see how frequently my blogs are being viewed. Although the internal system is useful and has always been reliable, it is by its nature only there to provide basic tracking. It doesn't therefore provide some of the more useful features available via Google Analytics, such as where viewers are located and what screens they have viewed most often. I have a Google Sites website which is connected to Analytics and this does seem to have been effectively tracked over the past couple of years. When I first opened my blogspot account, indexing on Google occurred pretty quickly (unlike the Google Sites website which took them 15 months !) and an Analytics Universal property was created automatically and did start registering some hits. However, al...

  I first put out a blog on this subject in February prior to the latest budget. The aim of this was to put forward the arguments for some radical changes in the tax system which I thought were necessary in order to remove disincentives and stimulate growth. Many of the arguments still stand.   The following is an update describing the effects of the March budget, and the likelihood (or otherwise) that they will have the desired effect. It also reflects changes over the summer. ****** There has been much argument following the recent budget about whether the pension tax changes, which were aimed primarily at retaining senior NHS medical staff, are justified at a time when many other workers and less well-off pensioners are struggling with continued and rapid cost-of-living increases. At first sight it does seem that the Chancellor might have been overly generous to well-off pensioners, and it’s easy to see why many are more sympathetic to the plight of others lower down...

Editors note: I first compiled this blog in late 2022 in the aftermath of  the ignominious fall of Trussonomics and before the 'advent' of AI. Many of the ideas are still very relevant today, so a revisit with recent developments in mind is probably appropriate.... Introduction This has been a momentous couple of weeks all told, with more than the usual quota of economic and political U-turns, and probably more to come. The ‘new’ regime’s primary task now has to be to restore some sense of stability and prevent the economic meltdown which still beckons…. I’ll take the optimistic viewpoint and assume that the new team (whoever they turn out to be) somehow manage to pull this off over the next few weeks. I sincerely hope my optimism is justified, for all our sakes. Assuming they do, what then do we need to do ‘post-crisis’ in the medium- and long-term to improve our economic and social prospects as a nation, and avoid getting ourselves into a similar mess in the future ? ...

 As I suggested in my blog released in February  , a new upgraded vaccine has emerged in the form of a bivalent Covid19 product developed by Moderna. This has just been approved by MHRA for use in the UK. This is something of a milestone in vaccine development, since it is the first approval anywhere in the world of a vaccine designed specifically to mimic the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 omicron variants (in this case BA.1). This is not before time – all the current approved vaccines are based on the spike protein of the original Wuhan variant, which was   identified and sequenced by the Chinese way back in early 2020. Many changes have occurred in the structure of the S-Protein since then, making the Omicron variants 'look' quite different to our immune systems, and this has resulted in a considerable reduction in the effectiveness of our vaccines against the virus (although mercifully not so far in their effectiveness against its most serious manifestations). T...

  Have you suffered from problems with older phones, tablets or pcs not working following software and firmware upgrades recently ? Read on for a possible explanation of why it’s happened… It’s been apparent for decades that international 'Big Tech' firms such as Google, Apple and Microsoft have been collaborating with product manufacturers to ensure planned obsolescence for their combined products.  There are good commercial reasons for this – it makes them all more money. The last thing Big Tech want is for people to hold onto their old devices, rather than buying ‘nice’ new ones. The snag from their point of view is that modern tablets, phones and pcs are inherently pretty reliable beasts generally, and if treated carefully, can go on performing well for years or even decades. Consumers who take advantage of this longevity are, of course, anathema to the Big Tech firms and device manufacturers, who want as much product ‘turnover’ as they can get to ensure their profi...

There has been much argument and a marked polarisation of views recently on the question of what to do about that well-loved icon of British pre-history, Stonehenge. The principal issue seems to be the congestion on the nearby A303 (the ‘road to the sun’ as it often prosaically called) and how to relieve it.  Users of this busy single-carriageway arterial cross-country road linking the M3 with the A30 to the East of Exeter regularly endure tailbacks several miles long around Stonehenge during the peak holiday season. The fact that has been allowed to remain a two-lane road in this day and age almost beggars belief, and a relief road scheme is urgently needed. (see Figure 4) A bypass of some description has been under consideration for the last 50 years, but until very recently no progress had been made, due largely to the efforts of the environmental lobby. Several news outlets reported last week that the plans for a road tunnel, originally approved in 2020 then challenged in...