I have been reading the Leeds Teaching Hospitals report on Jimmy Savile. Obviously, it couldn’t really be any more grim, and you’ll have heard the latest shocking revelations via the mainstream media and Jamie Kenny. But what about really sick and perverted behaviour? Here’s some for you. A hugely important theme in the report is…
Read More Genuinely evilSteve Randy Waldman appears to have independently rediscovered the idea of a low-trust society and to have quantified a transition point.
Read More trust no one except perhaps interfluidityThere’s a bit more on the war of Coulson’s Clearance here, from Robert Peston, who I seem to remember attracted attention back in 2011 as being oddly pro-Murdoch. I know the answer to why Coulson was not given top level security vetting in 2010. What happened was that Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood had decided…
Read More heywoood, always up to no gooodHere’s an interesting story of a Russian military intelligence officer deployed into Ukraine, apparently under plausibly-deniable cover, whose communications were meant to hide in plain sight among the chaotic noise of the Internet. Specifically, he’s a gamer and re-enactor in private life and he tried to use the channels of this subculture. Unfortunately for him,…
Read More The problems of Puffin Party securityPeople are asking about this. Did anyone ever get to the bottom of Andy Coulson’s security clearance? Or the vetting process to hire him? Messy stuff coming… — Mark Ferguson (@Markfergusonuk) June 24, 2014 Coulon was originally subject to a “security check” level of vetting, which wouldn’t have permitted him to see documents above SECRET…
Read More Recap: Andy Coulson, strap oneFollowing up on the Disgorge the Cash x John Seddon post, here is a really good discussion of Clay Christensen, pointing out that his real unique selling point is that he has a theory of innovation that asserts the authority of management, calming the fears evoked by the theorists who demanded worker empowerment as a…
Read More Disrupt the cashThis piece from Tom Watson is excellent. I can’t think of more than one other pol who understands mobile networks as well, and the other one knows more about fixed. Perhaps Watson is just well advised, but then picking good advice is a very important skill. On this strength, he’s the second best mobile analyst…
Read More #crimsontide is coming for your mobile billHere is yr open newslist. Materials have moved – they are now here and here for AFOE, as I’ve cut over to Pinboard.
Read More Open newslist 5This post responds to a request in the TYR open newslist J.W. Mason’s essay Disgorge the Cash! is a genuinely fascinating exploration of the way the whole apparatus of “shareholder value” functions to force management to, eh, disgorge the cash, and therefore to actually prevent improvement in favour of maximising the extraction of rent. The…
Read More Disgorge the cash.Here’s something from Municipal Dreams on the Dover House estate, Putney. Quote of note: This was a new working class whose living conditions and relative affluence combined with a self-conscious ‘respectability’ to create a more domesticated and private life-style, one that knowingly and happily distanced itself from the old intimacies of slum living. We saw…
Read More Monopoly is Bad. Competition is Good for All