_chrismccreadie
Born on June 18, 2012•59 Karma
Off-topic but interested: It doesn't display correctly in Firefox (only renders a small segment of the space warp). Why is this?
At zoom level 6 (counting from 100% as level zero) you are viewing from inside the tunnel, but only just. At zoom level 8 (maximum), the view is almost at the center of the tunnel.
If I had to take a guess, the page fails to calculate the center of the viewport, using (0,0) as its target coordinate; but (0,0) is top-left.
If developers were at least given an opportunity to explain to their users why they are requiring certain information, consumers may be more willing to allow access. It seems to me many apps take a "lets grab all the info we can" approach which is extremely off putting.
iOS (and OS X) does this: when a permission is requested, the developer can provide a usage description string to explain what that capability will be used for: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Gener...
Note that on iOS permissions are requested to the user at runtime when the app tries to access a restricted capability, which helps understanding the request because it happens in the context of what the user is doing with the app.
Also, each one of them can be accepted or declined separately and turned on or off at a later time.
A typical case might be:
1. Developer releases free app
2. Users find it useful
3. Developer seeks to monetize, adds some mobile ad network libraries
4. Ad network libraries want the user's location
5. User's who liked the app now find themselves OK'ing a frivolous-seeming permission during an update, or they have to uninstall the app, potentially losing access to some of their own data.
And so we find our developer on the slippery slope. Putting the power to cause those apps to fail when they do dubious things in the user's hands means that developers would be more discriminating about their monetization partners, among other benefits.
If the app I downloaded said "Our free version requires your location due to our arrangement with our Ad providers" I would have at least known why they were wanting my location.
I know this doesn't solve the problem, people will still have the choice to either accept it (albeit grudgingly) or uninstall the app. What it does do however is acknowledge they are asking for permissions to a users data. If someone asks for my permission to use my car is it unreasonable for me to know why they want it?
In Android's case there is no way for them to know. The app either has the permission or it's not installed.
In iOS they do know. The user can give permission, not give permission, or can give it and revoke it later. Their analytics can then tell them what percentage of users are not giving them that info.
In any case, you as a developer could also choose to speak up and say to the network ad provider. "I'm choosing a provider that doesn't need more permissions".
[1]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732388430457832...
Edit: Sorry, silly formatting
Take a trip to North Lanarkshire and you can still see the impact that the closing of Ravenscraig has had on the area. No-one says the name Thatcher in Scotland, it has to be whispered. After having a successful independence referendum scrapped by a labour government she went back on the promise she made to the Scottish people about increased devolution for Scotland, instead turning her into a testing ground for some of the most unpopular Tory policies of all time.
This is in no way a personal attack on a woman who is now no longer with us. She was someone's mother and sister and my heart goes out to her family at what most people would agree is a terrible time for a family. However the words "respect" and "inspiration" when describing Margaret Thatcher is not a position that will be shared by many people in Scotland.
For many who simply wanted to continue their work as usual found themselves involved with the consequences of a dispute of miners. Ultimately people like to choose a side to blame for catastrophes such as the 3 day working week (due to power shortages because of the coal strike, electricity had to be rationed). How much hard did that do to other industries. My grandfather at the time an electrical engineer lost his job due rather directly to the 3 day week.
For people like them Thatcher was a good thing, ultimately it was not her fault that the unions did not want to compromise on closing mines. The reaction of unions towards a shift from being a publicly subsidised industry I don't think can be described in anyway as sustainable or even 'long term OK'.
I find it someone disingenuous of certain areas to blame the government for the result, when the unions often negotiated with such a simple all or nothing mentality. Ultimately blaming her after going all-in isn't right.
[NB Of course, I want neither!]
So yes - we were being held hostage.
For a start of your talking retail banking rather than trading banking?
All deposits were guaranteed up to £25k which is now £100k. Why the hell would a high street bank profit from cutting of ATM or chip and pin? Do you know how much merchant fees are!
Quite the opposite they do everything they can to make people spend more. Granted they aren't lending money as easily as they used too, but that was what created the mess we were in before.
They wouldn't have profited - if they hadn't been bailed out they wouldn't be operating at all (RBS was within 2 hours of closing up shop entirely).
Read Alistair Darling's autobiography for his account of the near disaster - it's really rather alarming to read.
I think you're a little bit confused between retail and commercial banking. It was the latter which was bailed out, not the former. A collapse in it wouldn't have stopped ATMs working, but would have quite likely had dire consequences for the global economy and businesses, simple things like an airline hedging their fuel price would have suddenly turned into an airline losing their money (depending on the product bought it might just be a premium or a the whole lot). In that one simple example imagine the main airlines going bust, owing all the money for previously sold tickets etc. That is the kind of doomsday disaster a collapse of commercial banking could have lead too.
The ATMs would still be there, there just might be no cash in them due to hyperinflation and lack of consumer confidence. However the retail banks would do all they could to keep operating.
As for reading Alistair Darling's autobiography, I don't really get why I would, the guy didn't really get round to doing anything, but had been a cheerleader for the team that deregulated much of the commercial banking industry. People forget that all Thatcher did was to open it up to people outside of Eton, Brown's light touch and continued deregulation helped encourage it to grow and grow.
If he says that the Government was worried that a collapse of RBS, HBOS and others might have led to the banking system ceasing to function in the UK then I'm inclined to believe him.
Wait, so you're saying that at any time the bankers could have flipped a switch and magically the economy turns back on in a matter of seconds?
So no, we were not being held hostage.
They were greedy and incompetent and we let them do it. No holding hostage. No extortion. No protection rackets. Greed and incompetence and lack of oversight and deregulation.
I know they weren't literally gangsters - and as you say, we let them do it.
I grew up in Massachusetts. Cities like Lowell and Worcester are very depressed now because they lost what made them big - manufacturing. Should we have subsidized that industry despite it being overpriced and underperforming compared to its competitors? What about the horse and buggy industry when automobiles came around? The whaling industry once petroleum refineries started being built?
Those coal mines were outdated and inefficient. Unfortunately, the government subsidized them for far too long, which created dependence on them as well as the assurance that the jobs would always be there.
Sadly, there is displacement whenever there is a change. But it's far worse to cling to the status quo when it's blatantly impractical. We should be learning the opposite lesson from the hardship created by these mine closings - it's far better to bite the bullet and take the immediate effects than prop up an outdated system and finally get rid of it once it becomes too much to bear.
Easy. The coal mining industry could have continued existing for another thirty years, bringing huge losses each year, subsidized by the taxpayer. Like, say, in Poland, which is where you get your cheap labor from, and not the other way around, and the two facts are not entirely unrelated.
It was just the way of the future - the Southeast had lower labor costs, lower cost of land, and advantageous shipping arrangements. The cities just couldn't keep up, and they fell by the wayside.
And yes, it's pretty crappy to go to these cities and tell the people who are struggling there that their businesses deserved to go bankrupt or leave, but there's no other way to do it. The alternative is to subsidize them, and that ends up discouraging progress and also creating a culture of dependence on the government. After all, why invent new stuff if the government will increase the subsidy to keep up with your new manufacturing process?
Letting the free market purge badly competing industry is good for the country and also good for everyone in the long term.
The West was crippled by socialist excesses in the 1970s. There's a reason why Reagan and her won election in the same year.
So, bearing in mind the above, I'd say that overall Maggie was a pretty awful leader but she inspired a lot of good (but depressing) 80's music.
Churchill was pretty sexist, homophobic, and all the rest: but he is revered as an excellent wartime leader. Everyone can have significant character flaws and still be, at their core, a good person.
Whether Thatcher was an awful leader or not is certainly a point of debate. There are good arguments either way. She supported Section 28, didn't support sanctions on South Africa, Poll Tax - all of which were bad (I don't necessarily include the miners strike because, as I mentioned in another comment, those industries were fairly doomed anyway - the clashes with the unions heightened its notability. And, anyway, as many people love her for breaking the unions as hate her for it.). But then she did some good things for the economy, and pushed Britain to the front of the financial industry (I'd argue later leaders failed to execute on this strategy, but lets not get too bogged down in arguing merits). Lots of people love her, lots hate her; what they seem to share is how strongly they feel either way!!
So, six and two threes.
In retrospect, it seems like that did more benefit to the country than any of her policies did harm.
On that scale Thatcher is far from evil. Her economic reforms where necessary even if they left many worse off.
Might be worth mentioning that Ravenscraig had a very up to date seamless stainless steel tube rolling mill and brand new blast furnaces just completed when it was closed.
Seamless stainless steel tubes with mapped stress patterns 30cm in diameter and a few metres long used to cost my project about £300 to £400 a pop then. When the facility closed, we had to source from specialist mills in the then West Germany. £2000+.
(I spent some time in Shotts and Paisley around that time)
Ravenscraig steel works was, er, rather large so buying it up would require very significant capital. The rest of the supply chain was being disrupted at the same time.
Specifically with regards to the miners - that industry had been in substantial decline since the early 1900s and I'd suggest that whatever happened we'd still be looking at devastated areas today.
What happened, though, was as it all came to a head in the 80s, it also coincided with Thatcher's politics of forcing the trade unions to heel. Hence, clusterfuck.
(My interest/view here is academic; I've no real strong opinion on who was "good" or "bad", as I've no connection with what happened and so have no right to hold one)
Interesting buried metaphor there: treating them like disobedient dogs...
Of all the flights I have personally been on the only time there has been a real issue of passenger safety is when the drunk who wont sit down or or demands to get off the plane mid-flight and yet they continue to make alcohol available on flights.
[1]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290462/What-way-tre...
> Armed Forces rules state that a serviceman or woman can wear their uniforms voluntarily from their ‘residence to place of duty, irrespective of whether they travel by public or private transport, or on foot.’
EDIT: The article has a nice blurb about the difference between US and UK views of personnel in uniform.
It seems to me you are an emotional person. I consider myself the same, when my state of mind is gone, I'm worse than useless.
My advice: Get to the core of what is making you unhappy and fix it.
Please don't think that I am passing you're struggles off as a "shit happens, get on with it", quite the opposite in fact. A healthy body and a healthy mind. Well, I find that I can deal with parts of my body failing (I am getting older after all) but please don't underestimate the power of your mind. If you are unhappy with aspects of your life no "dream job" will fix it. Sure, people do get down when they are looking for work, it's a stress and a hassle but I suspect most people's unhappiness runs deeper than that.
Good luck with the job hunting. It would have been nice to see which GitHub projects you are working on (the feedback from the HN community alone would have been valuable).