People 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 AllI want a Web standard for password creation and revocation. So does Larry Seltzer at ZDNet Zero Day, and points out that it would even make password rollover every x days acceptable.
Read More PasswordsBit of a while now, but I went to see Factory Floor in Hackney, and ran into an old colleague who wisely quit Informa Towers to join the GSM Association’s vastly better compensated service. Perhaps as a result, he dresses like a Northern dancer, head to toe Fred Perry, these days although he still doesn’t…
Read More Music.To follow up some points from this bit of ‘kipperology, the Grauniad recently interviewed Alan Sked. Of course he does his shtick about how there were no nutters or extremists in the gang when he was around, no sir. He also makes some reasonable points about UKIP being a sorry mess and there being a…
Read More SkedmarksPollsters suggested Labour must get 300 to 500 seats. Labour promised to get 150 seats. Labour got 300 to 500 seats. Suddenly the same polling says Labour must get 490 seats. Link two says the Tories briefed that they must get 500 seats. Could the figure of 490 be an effort to avoid quoting No.10?…
Read More earthquake prediction mastered at last