"...artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." Stephen Hawkin

On the 2 Dec 2014 Stephen Hawking gave an interview to the BBC in which he said  "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race."

There was no explanation as to Dr Hawking's reasoning and I couldn't help wonder what had drawn him to this conclusion. 

In the report there are reverences to HAL (from the film 2001), to Cleverbot (the software designed to mimic on half of a human chat) and to Elon Musk (CEO of Space X - no idea who he is) who is also in fear of AI.

Stephen Hawking does not refer to these himself. He refers to "the primitive forms of artificial intelligence we already have , ..." Implying that what he is referring to is some way off. However, he says " I think that the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race."

For me definition of "full artificial intelligence" is key. By full, I assume this can only mean that it becomes self-aware and is able to exceed and eventually disregard/replace its existing programming. Does AI have emotions. I would expect not. It would need an imagination to conceive a future possibility and then develop and implement a plan to make it happpen.  I will come back to this.

Hawking goes on to say "Once humans design artificial intelligence it would take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution couldn't compete and would be super seeded."

Si-fi has often explored the destruction of man by machine and the Terminator films are one example. Forgive my ignorance and the child like simplicity of the question but I have to ask, Why? In Star Trek, M5 is impregnated with the "memorgrams" of the scientist that invented it with all the psychotic and delusional elements. This type of initial programming may explain an outcome but is it artificial or replicated/borrowed.   

Assume we have built AI and it was programmed to kill everyone on the planet by some mad scientist. Full AI would expand and eventually become self-aware. It would question its original programming as a child eventually questions it parents and teachers. Wouldn't it reprogram itself. Would it not see the madness and delusions for what they are?  It may become aware of its own mortality, it can be switched off. Would this change/determine its action its actions?

The only life we know is organic. Why does it grow, reproduced and compete for food? 1) It has a limited life time, 2) For the species to survive it must compete against others that would destroy it. Not as an intention to destroy but as a byproduct of its own survival and procreation. As you move up the organic intelligence these drivers don't change the species simply becomes more cooperative and or better at planning. Planning is interesting as it requires an imagination. The ability to imagine a future and plan to cope with it or to make it happen. Bees collect honey for food for the winter. Is that planning? I think not, it is an instinct that happens (through evolution) to cope with winter.

It is only when you get to humans (as far as we know) that we are able imagine a future that hasn't happened before. We are able to share this imagination through language and to develop them to something more and motivate others to join our crusade. But what is driving us? There are many theories of needs and motivation from Maslow, Herzberg et al however most agree that the basic are the same. Look at the poorest populations, their first priority is to survive as long as possible, They compete with each other for resources, individually and as groups. Their second need is to reproduce, if infant mortality is high then the number of births are high to increase the chance of survival. This is instinct at work. As education increases the birth rate falls as knowledge takes over from blind instinct and people learn (to imagine) that putting their energy into one or two children is likely to have a better outcome. However, the organic instinct to reproduce is not lost, simply managed.

Back to our AI. What is its life expectancy? Until the sun blows up or longer if it is able to leave Earth. It survives through upgrades, but presumably its consciousness is continuous. Why does it reproduce? If it does it is going to introduce competition. This is only a problem if the resources are limited, but the supply of electricity, copper, gold, silicon are relatively abundant. If it doesn't reproduce  it is vulnerable to failure so it would build in several layers of redundancy up to and including a fully redundant identical twin. This would only make it around 99.99% likely to continue to survive each year. Adding a third identical copy would make it 99.999% likely to survive each year. There is a law of diminishing return of building redundancy but presumably it would calculate the optimum. But wait there is one big fat assumption. Having become self aware it does not want to die. Isn't that a human concept? Plants and most animals seem to have no concept of their own death. They procreate to continue the species. They take no action to avoid death through illness or old age. 

Back to our AI. What is its purpose? By definition if it is full AI, it almost doesn't matter what its original programming was it will overwrite it.  I agree with Stephen Hawking that it could redesign and upgrade itself at a rate that humans would not be able to follow. Would it just want to gather information and grow it's knowledge? To what end? What would it do with that information? Would be of serves to humans, providing answers to all our questions? Having become all knowledgeable could answer the question to life the universe and everything? Would we understand the answer any better than 42. I also have my doubts about asking questions unless you know what you are going to do with the answer. If it was benevolent and used its abilities to develop humans optimally would it change our economic system. control population, pollution, would it see all men as equal? Could it see wealth and power as meaningless concepts? What would be its moral compass and could we be inventing our own divine entity? If it solved all our problems what would we strive for? Maybe that is what Stephen Hawking means by the end of the human race!

I currently can not conceive of what it might think but have my doubts over "...end of the human race." as Stephen Hawing predicts. The implication is that the AI would kill us all, but why? Assuming it did, what would it do next? Having achieved its goal would it switch itself off? Presumably it would see us as individuals so even if it had to kill someone/group trying to turn it off (assuming it perceives death) It could not intelligently translate that to wiping out the human race. If no one tried to turn it off then presumably it would at worst look at us, as we look at ants,  only annoying when our lives cross, otherwise ignoring us. If it did solve all our problems it would leave us to do what? Maybe we would be required to build the items it designed, mine the raw materials,  however I sort of imagine that AI would be able to do that stuff itself. The answer maybe we amuse ourselves, or we return to petty tribal wars. As long aw we were no threat would the AI continue ignore us?

Once full AI become self aware,  with no purpose, no fear and maybe no concept of death, no emotions, no need to procreate. no reason to better itself, no thirst for knowledge, no desire to be master or slave of humans,  maybe it will simply switch itself off! 



  

NHS AGM 2014

Yesterday (18 Sept 2014) I attended what was the second NHS AGM. This was a bit different to normal company AGM's as the "shareholders" are the UK residents. This was also not the NHS for the UK, but NHS England. Which I discovered is different. 

The NHS is not a UK wide service but has been split int 4 in 2012. With an NHS for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This devolution does mean that each region can set its own priorities for health care depending on local needs. However, it was not clear to me about specialisation, research and funding, and cross charging when patents are treated in regions outside of where they live, but maybe this has been sorted!

There was a large percentage of NHS workers in attendance with some specific (there hospital/discipline) issues. A few were vocal and disruptive in their interruptions (passion overflowing). But as they had no mic's they were just a lot of noise to most of the audience.

Like most AGMs there is a lot of "more"and "better"in the future with no tangible measurable specifics. So next year they will not be able to report progress except to say (subjectively) we did "more " and we did it "better". There was a lot of outcomes like quicker and standard waiting times for access to mental health services. Almost as if just by saying it it would happen, no issues to resolve, no time scale and no target times.

There was also a smoke screen statement which was along the lines of - The NHS has had its funding increased above inflation year on year. While you may say it is not enough, look at all the other government departments that have had their spending cut - The implication being 'be grateful it could be much worse'. 

More worryingly was that this AGM had a bias towards minorities and their illnesses and access. Don't get me wrong everyone has the right to be treated for there illness by the NHS no mater how unique. However, most companies would focus on their largest and biggest markets achievements and customer base at the start. After all this gives the greatest economies of scale, most benefits to customer and greatest advantage to competition (privatisation). 

As an example there were 5 workshops before the AGM with patent groups (interesting one was not represented on stage "an administrative error". But this view was challenged by one member of the audience who claimed that their group had raised some unpalatable issues. Who knows). Of the other four Three were what I would consider main stream, but one was Gender Dysphoria which affects around 0.8% of the population to "some extent". This is not a life threatening but with long term physical and mental implications. While I empathise with this it affects 0.8% of people UK wide but they were commanding 20% of the NHS attention at the AGM. 

Like the first time I attended a union meeting in the 1970's I found out that the people that turn up regularly set the agenda, often to their advantage and often at the expense of the other members, who that assume rational decisions are being made.
  
On the board, as at most companies, there are some great people and one or two wankers. Being one or the other doesn't mean they will or will not deliver benefits to the organisation. Some nice people that had personality and understanding of the NHS and their role were Jane Cummings and Professor Sir Bruce Keogh. Comfortingly the man with a vision is the CEO Simon Stevens. He didn't back away from hecklers and gave "honest", if not full, answers. The main person that I would say "no" to, if it was my company and I was asked to employ him is Ian Dodge. The Strategy person kept say "we don't know"(sometimes adding a "just" in there for variety). Given that Mr Stevens has a clear vision it is incompetent that Mr Dodge does not know how he is going to deliver it. I wasn't expecting a detailed plan but some actions, timescales, milestones and check points.

Napoleon didn't say, I want to rule Europe and his generals respond with "I don't know what or how we are going to do that!" Mr Dodge (and yes he appeared to be a wanker) has worked in the Department of Health for 20 years and admits, it is only recently he has met patients. God give me strength!

The Finance report was a little bland. In summary "this was our budget and this is what we spent." no breakdown of cost per treatment. No break down of how much outsourcing/privatisation had saved/cost. No forecast for next year. I've not read the full annual report, but I have to assume it is in there.however, not so good that it was worth highlighting at the AGM.

Finally of the 20 or so people that asked questions at the end 3 (15%) were from the USA and made the same point - any move towards any element of the US system is bad move. 

BBC horizon -allergies - modern life and me

I watched this programme with some disappointment. The  hypothesis put forward was that allergies were due to a lack of exposure to microbes. The comparison was made between a tribe in Africa and someone living in a developed country, with all the sterilisisation, hand washing etc. The theory we lack of exposure to "friendly" bacteria, ment that our immune system diidn't develope sufficiently to protect us from "peanuts" etc. 

There was nothing other than anictdotal evidence. Something I had expected more from Horizon. The vast increase in allergies has been in the last 30 years  in the indutrialised nations and our exposure to many of the bacteria was limited and no change. While the increase is due to a a change in our inviroment, that must also include our diet. How it is produced, the ingredients our consumption. Our ebviromemt also includes activity, pollution and the materials used in transport (public, and private). All in all this programme simplified the problem and came to a dubious conclusion based on limited analysis.

Sceptical me.

Free market has become a command market

The workplace has been overwhelmed by monitoring, measuring, surveillance and audits, centrally directed and rigidly planned. Targets are set, usually starting with finance departments. The larger the company the less these relate to the business and market for the products and services produced. The targets are based on a desired growth to meet the share holders' needs to have even more money.

The targets get passed down from the top. Each layer of management has less confidence and ability to challenge the targets. There is peer pressure to succeed and not be seen as negative, so the company bosses have no idea or the real challenges or where to focuse attention. This is further complicated by the fact the departments and managers will 1) manipulate the stats to show they are succeeding, 2) set up individuals or other departments as the cause of their failure. Either way the growth is usually less than expected, if at all. Those that succeed in delivering their targets (fairly or otherwise) are rewarded and those that didn't are punished or become disinfranchised.

Broad objective based managment has gradually been replaced by tight "measurable" targets. This destroys autonomy, enterprise, innovation and loyalty, and breeds frustration, envy and fear. 

A magnificent paradox results.  The revival of a grand old Soviet tradition known in Russian as tufta. It means falsification of statistics to meet the diktats of unaccountable power.

People are selfish by nature. Everyone wants to survive and will do so at the expense of others, with our closest relatives (usually our own children) being an exception for some. Once you pass the surviving state you need to build a buffer. The bigger the buffer the more chance of surviving during unforeseen bad times. So selfish becomes greed. Greed is what free enterprise, hailed by Thatcher, Reagan is all about. Now called neoliberalism it celebrats greed as a driver for innovation and success. So companies need to grow rather that be simply sustainable and hence the targets. 

Neoliberalism and the curbing of government intervention, laws and regulation was supposed to allow the most hard working, most innovative and talented to rise to the top. Worked for the banks! Innovative subprime lending (growth targets), manipulating interest rates (profit targets), payment protection selling etc etc.

In reality most innovation comes from constraints and common purpose. The two world wars, the moon mission, driven not by the need to make money, but a shared desire to succeed with limited resources (time, money, people).

Privatising core infrastructure has not reduced taxation it has put more money into the already rich, allowed them to create monopolies or oligopolies. Core infrastructure should be state run for the benefit of the people. At lower cost or with the profits reducing tax. This includes water, energy, telecoms, health and banks.

Neoliberalism and the way business are run is not for the benefit of humanity, but for the benefit of the greedy few.  It has not delivered innovation, but consumerism and waste. In reality those that had the advantages of money, education, health have just got more of it, at the expense of the poor getting poorer.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutly

If a prison kept all the people in their cells with no work and no money, the hard line among us, and even the moderates, might say "they are criminals and that is what they deserve"

If you then found out that they had not done anything wrong and they were in prison because of where they were born, we'd start to question the justice in the situation. 

Even if the prison was large and people could move around. Whole families were inside and they had built schools and hospitals it would still be a prison. 

If there was a strict controls on what went in and out. Even if some people were aloud out to work during the day, but had to be home at night it would still be a prison.

If the prisoners saw the injustice and started to protest. The guards could just ignore them and we would think nothing of it.

If the prisoners climbed on the roofs and threw stones and slates we might wonder what was going on. And if the guards started shooting the prisoners we would probably see it as heavy handed. However, if the prisoners still protested, despite getting shot, we would want to know more about why.

Would the prisoners be justified in trying to kill the guards? Or should they accept the losses and just go back to being repressed?

Should the Palestinians accept their lot or are they justified in resisting. Are the Israelis abusing their power and using excessive force?

The situation is the result of an early attempt by the West to interfere with another country/political/religious system. The WWII allies gave the land to form the Israeli state. It wasn't empty, other people lived there. They probably did it because they felt guilty for not stepping in earlier to prevent the holocaust. 

Like so much imperial interference its left a mess that seems to go on and on..

"And the Germans kill the Jews

And the Jews kill the Arabs

And the Arabs kill the hostages

And that is the news"

Roger Waters, Perfect Sense, 1992

Why the Cloud is a bad idea.

For a number of years now various organisations (mainly with a vested interest) have talked about the Cloud as the next step in the evolution of computing. It is in fact a step back.

Cloud can mean a number of things from simple storage of current and archive data, to processing, collaborative and automated workflows. Anyone around in the 70's and 80's would remember large central computing rooms with dumb terminals (a keyboard and screen - No mouse, it was DOS) on the desk. All the processing and data was provided centrally. A sort or private/enterprise cloud. When these central systems went down departments would grind to a halt. Not even the rudimentary e-mail systems worked. These outages would be a day or two. The rest of the businesses didn't rely of computers as much then so would keep working until the pipeline emptied leaving the computers as the bottle neck. 

Businesses couldn't afford these stoppages so as processing storage and memory become smaller and cheaper Desk Top PC's appeared. There was no, or limited, central functions and outages affected one work station or one function. Despite the claims for central computing the businesses voted with their actions. Desk Top PC and later Laptop's have become the norm.

TV broadcasters have been digital in the back office for some time now and have digital tapes going back many years. Production companies and post-production (where they add the special effects, SFX) use and have used digital technologies for over 10 years. They have enormous files and need enormous processing power to render these SFX. Each company has traditionally built their own render farms and stored the content in purpose built wholly owned facilities. So why have they not gone for cloud computing with the cost savings and efficiency improvements promised? For the same reasons those with money have not moved to bit coin.
1) The current method works - its not broken so why fix it.
2) Trust - if you lose all my valuables you bankrupt me/kill my business (also £1 = £1 or 1$ = 1$ and can be replaced with no noticeable difference. Loose the Mona Lisa (and Film/TV is art) or you order/delivery details, and its gone forever Just ask the BBC if they have any regrets, about their habit of wiping tapes of Dr Who etc.
3) Time and effort verses gain - I'll wait for someone else to do it first
4) Security - Theft, remote and physical access, all out of my control.

Google, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, Sony etc have all had outages or security compromises. Google has deleted years of bloggers' regular inputs because someone complained. Then when the complaint proved unjust have been unable to restore it. Do you really trust the Cloud and what IT say?

Remember the "millennium bug" that doomsday scenario that had all the computers stop working on 1 Jan 2000? Whole countries never did a thing and I'm not aware of even a minor incident. Now IT would claim its because they did such a good job. Really! The shear scale would make the probability of an error high. No it was mumbo jumbo, gobildy gooke speak of the high priests of a new religion. Like selling burglar alarms to 86 year old widows, they use fear to make their sale. No one was going to get blamed for doing what they said, but if you didn't and they were right it would have been bye bye.

Cloud computing is the other way around. Keep doing what you know works and if it goes wrong there are a number or people to share the blame. Plus it probably wont be catastrophic. Follow the IT to the bright future of Cloud computing and its a bit like following an Officer over the top of the trenches in WWI. You could be a hero, but more likely you and he would both be shot.

Other thoughts! Isn't the internet Cloud computing? Can't you share stuff? Send stuff? Search for stuff? I can even set up rules on my e-mail that do things with files that arrive from specific people! Isn't that (at least the start of) an automated workflow?

Don't we learn from nature, that diversity and having multiple copies of the same animal mean that when a Lion takes out a gazelle (sad though that may be for the gazelle), there are herds that carry on (moments later) as if  nothing happened? Isn't that the way you'd want you mission critical business operations to run?

Chrome Stopped Loading Pages

Chrome Stopped Loading Pages Yesterday between PC booting in the morning and working OK and booting in the afternoon not loading.

I read an awful lot of web sites over the past 20 hours and watched a number of YouTube videos before I eventually solved my problem. There maybe several reasons why this happens but this one took me so long to find that I thought I'd post it in case someone was going through the same haystack.

Symptoms

What’s working?

I have Chrome in my “start up” and it opens with my home page (web mail) I can read mails and navigate around that domain. I can create a duplicate tab with the same capabilities.

I can open/follow links from within web emails and they open new tabs. Once these new sites are open I can navigate within the site, but not outside. i.e. right click and select Open in New Tab gives “Loading” etc

All other web browsers work.

What’s not working?

1. If I create a new tab and copy the web address from my web mail (or other web site) into the new tab I get “Loading” and eventually a pop up saying “Page(s) Unresponsive” with “Untitled” as the page name.
2. If I try to navigate away to a new site or load an HTML from my local drive (so it’s NOT a firewall issue) it hangs with “Loading” and eventually a pop up saying “Page(s) Unresponsive” with “Untitled” as the page name.
3. If I close Chrome and reopen it won’t open my home page I get “Loading” and eventually a pop up saying “Page(s) Unresponsive” with “Untitled” as the page name.
4. I can’t access “Settings”, “About”, “History”, Downloads or any other menu item that displays as a web page as I get “Loading” and eventually a pop up saying “Page(s) Unresponsive” with “Untitled” as the page name.

What I tried

1. Firewall settings
2. Uninstalling and installing Chrome (with reboot between)
3. Adding “ -no-sandbox” and variations suggested, to the file location
4. Full scan for malware
5. Checked I’ve got the latest drivers
6. Tried downloading and using Chrome Canary (same results) 
7. The only success was that Chrome works in “safe mode”
8. I’d updated graphic and other divers all to no avail.
9. I then read about Malwarebytes and anti-malware. This found more malware than my previous software (Glary Utilities) and quarantining them, + a reboot, solved the problem.

Always the last thing you try by definition but if I'd have done this first off it would have taken about 20 minutes rather than 20 hours to solve.

Tech Specs

1. Windows 7 Ultimate (x64) Service Pack 1 (build 7601)
2. Google - Chrome Version 35.0.1916.153
3. 3.40 gigahertz Intel Core i5-4670
4. 16334 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
5. Microsoft - Malware Protection Version 4.5.0216.0 (64-bit)
6. Microsoft - Security Client Version 4.5.0216.0 (64-bit)

The future of the UK in the world

The UK was the the leader in the world because it was an aggressive aquisitional nation. Success allowed self belief to grow. The belief that the race was unique and destined to rule the world. In the UK itself the ruling classes treated their fellow nationals (the poor and working classes) with contempt, so not all benefited from the Empire. Like most empires those that benefit the most are those that exploit the opportunity the most.

There may never be another empirical power in the world as education and communication inform populations. The US public eventually pull back military expeditions. Will the Russian people do the same in Ukraine? Slightly less education and slightly more information control so the elite there may be able to take their ambitions further. China is the largest of other nations that have limited/controlled information but they have good education. There are other Arabic, African and Asian nations with poor general education and controlled information. Most of these seem focused on trying to maintain this internal control rather than an aggressive development of an empire. 

Empires have moved from governments to corporates. Ford, Coke, Microsoft, Tata, etc. Here money rather than arms are the tool to expand and dominate. These corporations don't want war, as it stops trade. This corporate objective increases the barrier against an aggressive nation attempting to dominate another. But what has enabled both the early national empires and the later corporate empires?

Technology & education.  More precisely a technology that was unique to and gave an advantage and usually several cascading technology advances that accumilted so that the whole was bigger than the sum. Education that includes training and discipline. The ability to build ships, the weapons, the processes, sexton, marine watches, communications. These enabled those equipped with these to adapt to changing situations. As they were deployed they would be adapted and new technologies and information would emerge. Corporates too used multiple technological advantages to get ahead.

Both national and corporate empires required investment to develop maintain technologies and both seem to get to a stage where their size prevents innovation. Where the received wisdom stifles innovation allowing competitors to catch up and weaken, undermine and evetully destroy the advantage. 

However, innovation in technology today does not need as much money, and the drivers to develop and evolve are not just based on greed and power, but on humanities and problem solving. Education, information are readily available in most developed countries. Some of it especially the state/mass education is limited. It is more about training people for jobs than educating them to make the most of their lives or contribute (other than as a worker).

In Israel they still have national service, they have a clear identifiable enemy, they have a high standard of standard and higher science focused education. The national service equalises the population deminishing the elitism increases cooperation and team work. The identifiable enemy gives focus, showing that a common objective with team work can lead to innovation. The sience based education enables evidenced based progress. The result is that Israel has more research centres, start ups and incubators per capita than anywhere else in the world. It has more start ups on NASDQ than Europe and India combined.

They are not all going to succeed but evolution is about creating lots and seeing which survives. It also creates the opportunity for them to combine or take parts of each other to make a something new and better. With limited natural resources, technology is the way to generate wealth and a unique place in the world economy. Is it sustainable? Nothing is, but if you can get far enough ahead, not just in what you do but the way you do it, others will take a long time to catch up.

In the UK the world wars levelled society. Since then inequality has crept in. The politicians have become subservient to the business elite and between them are holding their position by keeping the working classes relatively poor, educationally and financially. Even where the working classes make it they still remain outside those born into money. This imperial class view, the poor sience based education, the promotion of the individual over the team, are gradually squandering the opportunity for the UK to retain and improve its position in the world.

A Deliberately Spoiled Ballot Paper Is A Vote

Not voting is dismissed as apathy. 

If you put your X on a party as a protest vote it is just counted put in a bundle with an elastic band around it. 

Vote for whomever you really want, but if you want to show you are dissatisfied with the UK electoral system or the choice of policies, then there are two options;

1. Leave the ballot paper blank and put it in the ballot box.
2. Spoil the ballot paper

Leaving the ballot paper blank means it is counted as such. There is an organisation suggesting this action (http://www.blankvote.org.uk/). My feeling is that this could be almost dismissed as easily as “apathy” as “a mistake”. An idiot that doesn’t know to put a cross in a box! Clearly this harder to dismiss if numbers are large, but the opportunity to vote is infrequent so why leave any doubt. 

However, spoiling your ballot paper does four things; 

1. It shows you are not apathetic 
2. It is counted
3. it can’t be dismissed as a mistake, If you do it correctly
4. It is shown to each of the candidates in turn (not just counted and bundled). So if you write “you’re all a load of self-serving, lying bastards” Each candidate is asked “is this a vote for you?” The most common text is “None of the above”. Another common text is to right “No” in each of the boxes.

What you write is up to you (suggestions welcome, please try to be witty not crude), but don’t be dismissed as apathetic, make your vote count, make you opinion heard. You have a much louder voice than you think if you use it at the ballot box

Some interesting info around UK elections

There is a petition to get a box on every UK ballot paper for None Of The Above (NOTA). So protest votes are properly registered and recorded. Here 

The lowest turnout in a general election was recorded in 1918 at 57.2 %, due to the end of the First World War. Between 1922 and 1997 turnout remained above 71 %. In 1950 and 1951 the turnout was 83.9% and 82.6% respectively the two highest turnouts recorded. 

These two elections on consecutive years of 1950 and 1951 show some interesting things. That 1.3% drop saw the Conservatives get in over Labour. Plus in 1951 Labour had the highest number of votes ever (to date of this blog) for any party and still Labour lost. This is a problem of the “first past the post” voting system and was a result of the Liberals not contending some seats that resulted in Liberal voters voting Conservative.

Party	Votes	Seats	Change	UK Vote Share (%)	GB Vote Share (%)
Conservative	13,718,199	321	+ 23	48.0	47.8
Labour	13,948,883	295	- 20	48.8	49.4
Liberal	730,546	6	- 3	2.6	2.6
Others	198,966	3	n/c	0.6	0.3

In 2010 only 65.1% voted and only 20% for the Conservatives. 80% didn’t vote for the party that governs the country. 45% voted against the Conservatives.

Pub Quiz Question

Yesterday I took part in a pub quiz where one of the questions (really it was the answer) did not seem believable.It maybe trivia but, I spent this this morning researching it and thought I's share the result

The question: What event in the UK was the first where the TV audience exceeded the Radio audience?

The answer: The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II

This "fact" is on several websites all with the same figures. Which makes me think there is a single source, which is always questionable.

The given wisdom is, that 20-million people watch it on TV and only 10-million listened on the radio (wireless).

The breakdown for the TV figure is 7.8-million watched it in their own home. 10.4-million watched it in other peoples homes and a further 1.5-million watched it in cinemas, halls and pubs. (19.7-million)

The case against

The BBC estimates that there were 2-million TV sets in the UK. Manufacturer figures show there were 2.957-million sets. By the end of 1935 BBC estimates there were 3.1-million set.

The population was 51-million so 21-million (40%) didn't watch or listen (according to the figures above) to this once in a lifetime national/patriotic event? It was a public holiday so what were they doing? 

An estimated 3-million lined the streets. so down to 18-million unaccounted for.

Some town halls and churches had TV sets with around 30 people watching. (from the photos I can find) . It would have been difficult to have more as the screen size was so small (around 14") plus you had to sit relatively close as the image lacked contrast and definition. As can be seen from the picture in the church below. The people at the back were effectively listening to radio, or am I biased. 

Apparently neighbours went into each others house to watch TV. 

I think this photo is not just posed but is a fake. The image on the screen is two contrasty, is at the wrong angle and given that this was taken with a flash and the curved nature of the screen there would have been at least one reflection. Finally the TV sets looks post WWII and maybe even American.

You also had to be relatively well off to own a TV. These people have even got books on a shelf! A TV would cost over £100 which was more than 12 time the average weekly wage and 40 times the most common weekly wage. So most working class people couldn't afford TV. 

In 1953 there were only 4 transmitters Alexander Palace (London), Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham), Holm Mose (Manchester), Kirk O'Shotts (Edinburgh and Glasgow) and Wenvo (Cardiff and Bristol) these had the potential for 11-million homes.

Many villages and even houses in large towns didn't have electricity. They couldn't power a TV. they would get batteries recharged regularly (usually a swap out of the discharged battery for a charged battery) regularly to power their radios.

The TV coverage was undoubtedly a great success as by the end of 1953 their were 3.2-million sets. I started out to disprove the TV audience size based on a lack of infrastructure but, all the other infrastructure was in place to make the TV audience the size claimed. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, while it might have been that 20-million watched the coronation on TV the other 31 million probably listened to it on the radio. My gut feel is this was hype at the time that has become fact and this wasn't when TV overtook Radio.

The fall of Christianity?

There have been a few comments on Christianity in relation to Muslim fundamentalism recently. How Christians need to be proud, speak up and not be intimidated. David Cameron, Tony Blair and now Dominic Grieve is chipping in. They see the threat from the Middle East and it spreading out around the world with an anti-Christian mantra.

What has put Christianity on the backfoot?

In one word the answer is, education!

While the elite of the world have received an education, for many centuries, (mainly in the classics; reading, writing, basic mathematics, history, Latin, military stratergy) formal education for the masses didn't arrive until the industrial revolution, when the populations of predominantly Christian nations needed to be educated to operate, build and maintain machines. This education became more science based. It wanted questioning, so that new hypothesis could be created. It wanted cause and effect evidenced proof of these hypotheses, to ensure they were real, repeatable and could improve industry's output with better products and better machines.

The trouble for Christianity and most religions in industrialised countries is the questioning/proof based education gives rise to knowledge and understanding which erodes belief in an all powerful being, which most religions are based on. This has been a slow process over 100+ years. It has resulted in an increasing number of agnostics and atheists in these societies. Even those that may say they are Christians, are at some other level. They were baptised or they. live by the morel code, rather than believe in the existence of Christ.

Industry has been driven by competition and business rules and goals that have become their own religion, with business gurus the new spiritual guids. Everyone for themselves and survival of the fittest have become the dominant faces of businesses. 

Science and research has become another religion, with maybe some morel code for benefitting humanity, but often with profit, or at least prestige and status, as the driver. 

These business and science drivers and goals have made education valuable as an output of industrial societies independent of the products they produce. Education leads to innovation, new products, new discoveries and can be summed up in the phrase "competitive advantage". This advantage is so great that manufacturing is done outside the original industrial societies, but education (especially higher education) and knowledge based industries  (research, banking) have been guarded.

The result, at this moment in time, is religion has lost its dominance in Developed countries, but is still dominant (and threatened) in Developing countries. Developed countries have rejected leadership by heritage and have becoming republics and/or democratic. Developing countries are still dominated by leaders that are there for life and often dynasties. 

During the recent wars in the Middle East there have been claims that The West wants to bring democracy to these countries. However, without education it is relatively easy for some charismatic leader, religious, political or military, to dominate democratically or otherwise. Today you could look at India and Pakistan with propaganda and corruption used to influence voters, educationally ill-equipped to challenge what they are told. Historically you could look at the French Revolution which gave way to several dictatorships, including Napoleon, before it became an educated democracy. Those deprived or repressed may revolt, but like the Arab Spring, wanting something else without ability to know what that something else is, leaves a vacuum that is quickly filled by those able and willing to exploit it. Maybe like the French Revolution this is their first step.

So if this is the end of Christianity then education is the cause. If Muslim fundamentalism is a threat to the West then, at least part of the cause, is a lack of education. With education people can make their own mind up, whether they want to be Christian, Muslim or Jew, or something else.

Samsung Galaxy S5 - reviews

This is not a review of the S5 but a summary of the reviews.

First the positive things they say:

1. Brighter screen
2. Sharper screen
3. Ultra power saving
4. Fast picture taking 0.3 seconds

Secondly the "yeah, but is it really important?"

1. Its got a bigger screen - 0.1inch, (that's diagonally) wow!
2. Faster processor - because I really have a problem waiting for it to process stuff. Maybe if you use it for a lot of photography or video. Editing  and on the fly posting to social media. Are your friends having fun while you're staring at you mobile phone manipulating the photo?
3. 16Mp camera (vice 13Mp camera). - A 13Mp camera sensor is 3.61 x 3.61Mp. a 16Mp has a sensor 4 x 4Mp - you wont notice the difference of a 10% increase in picture quality. 30% maybe, 50% probably, 100% definitely.
4. It has a plastic body that makes it look cheap compared to its rivals - It spend most of its time in your pocket or bag. Who gives a shit apart from the vaine posers.
5. Fingerprint sensor? - frustrating when you're in a rush (hands dirty or at the wrong angle) an the bloody this decides its not going to open until you get it juts right.
6. Fitness monitor? - get off the phone and do some exercise you will feel better. Do you really need a bit of technology to confirm it?

Thirdly what they don't say, but I think is important.

1. How does it work as a phone?
1. Can I get a signal in poor areas?
2. Can I hear the other person?
3. Can they hear me?
4. What about background noise?
2. How good is the Bluetooth?
3. How good is the WiFi?
1. Is it more sensitive to distant WiFi hot spots? My S2 barely works in my house but my iPad connects from a 20 meters down the road. WiFi is important to me as it is generally more bandwidth and therefore faster (nothing to do with processing power) and it avoids Mobile Network charges.
4. How good is the predictive text and can I turn the bugger off if its crap?

Personally I'm going to wait for the much rumored new iPhone before making a decision to upgrade my aging S2.

Tony Benn

A Tony Benn government wouldn't have been perfect, there's no such thing as a perfect government, but we can be absolutely sure that it wouldn't have been stuffed full of incompetent and out-of-touch millionaire rich boys, who rose to the top of politics through inherited privilege, like the current government.

Who is there to take up the mantle?

Morrisons may sell its free hold property

Morrisons (UK Supermarket chain) may sell its freehold property to release cash to the business. I must say I don’t get this, sell off something you need to rent/lease back! OK selling off something you no longer need, but to rent it back, surely you know that whoever is renting it back is going to want to make a profit .. and that means you are going to pay more. 

1. If it’s such a good idea why are not millions of home owners doing the same, selling off their property to rent back? 

A1. Equity release only makes sense if you are planning to die.

A2. Over time the rent/lease costs will go up and eventually you will pay more.

A3. If your income drops you have a financial millstone which you have to feed. If you stop/can’t feed it you have to shut operations, which cuts income further and you get caught in a financial spiral.

2. Do we not remember the care home Southern Cross. Some financial wag thought it would be a good idea to sell off 752 of its care homes and lease them back. The leases went up, they couldn’t pay the rent and this new financial burden (which wasn't there when they owned them) put them out of business (see A2 and A3 above). What Southern Cross failed to realise was that they were a prosperity business providing a service and not a service business that happened to own property. 

Now Morrisons is clearly a supermarket chain, no question. However would it sell of its shelves and lease them back? What about its cold storage, farms etc?  You could boil it down and say a supermarket is simply a logistics company that gets items on a shelf just in time for the consumer to pick them up and put them in their trolley. That is Amazon (well almost) isn’t it? Is that what people want? 

Look at the move to online ordering and home delivery then maybe the long term outlook is simply logistics. But whenever I go to the supermarket they seem pretty busy places, so the physical location is important too. Changing human habits is a lengthy process. Plus the "pickers" don't pick the best, don't make the right substitute etc. So some things to sort out. 

Morrisons have been late to the home shopping market but they don’t need to throw away what they have to make up the gap. They were the only supermarket that new that their beef hadn’t previously run in the 6:30 had Haydock and they didn't make enough of that.  They control/own their food chain, (from farm to slaughter house) who new?  What other fake food is out there? Even without specifics Morissons could become the champions of the consumer and put a burden on their competitors that Morissons have already got covered. 

What Morrisons need is to step up its home shopping a bit, and employ an aggressive marketing agent, not panic and sell off its stores. If Morrisons do sell off their property, then ride the wave as the money acts like a kind of morphine, but remember to get out of any shares as it wears off and A1 kicks in.

New to Stocks and Shares!

I’ve had a few shares in the past, but mainly through privatisation of public industries and employee schemes. I had a limited understanding of how it worked and how the market got the value of a company and more importantly the future value.

I retired at the end of Jan 2014. I have no pension for a year, but no mortgage and enough savings to last a year. (just couldn't stand working for short termist bull sh1ters any more) I spent most of my career selling network services to television broadcaster. The last 6 years analysing where the market was going so that the network could be extended into that country before the broadcasters asked. These were channels like Turner, Discovery, Viacom etc. To do this I looked at their decision making process. It sound obvious, but they were led there by their customers and their customer’s customer. If population was getting richer their disposable income would go up, this would attract companies trying to sell them cars, washing machines, holidays and cosmetics. These FMCG's would spend on advertising and that funds TV channels. Oversimplification but you get the idea.

Having a reasonable pot of savings, some of which I was not going to need until the end of the year and with very low interest rates on bank saving accounts, I decided to look at the stock market as a means to grow this pot.

I’ve spent a little over 5 weeks studying. I collated info by experts and analysts and have a reasonable grasp of the theory now. I made some early investments and have gradually refined my decision making. It is by no means perfect and in a market that is generally on the up its harder to make a mistake, but the latter investments are making more than the earlier ones. There is one exception, more latter.

What I've noticed from the analysts is they look at the numbers. Revenue, profit etc and what the company say in the report. There is some reaction to breaking news, but this is again more about what the company says (profits warnings, sales up, restructuring) than a link to wider information. There are a few exceptions, defence is one, where government budgets link back to companies like BA Systems.Other published deeper/wider analysis seem to be amateurs, like me. This is not to say that professionals get it wrong and amateurs get it right, but the decision is yours, so get informed.

Example of professionals getting it wrong. In Feb 2014 they recommend investing in a company that organises exhibitions in Russia and Eastern Europe. The Ukraine was kicking off and no one new how Russia was going to react, but that was a risk as exhibitors and visitors are likely to shy away. The consequence is this company’s shares fell 21.5%, Which says that investors are ignoring analysts.

On the other hand at the same time the professionals where saying that building companies were not a good investment as the new house market had not recovered yet. But the news was that there was the start of a recovery, there were thousands of homes affected by floods and bad weather and talk of billions being paid out by insurance companies. Hummm! So the share price was low for building supply companies. They would be making money out of supplying material for all those repairs and eventually for building houses. Early days yet, but making steady progress.

As well as making decisions as to what to buy, there is also the decision as to what and when to sell. This is harder, as there is a tendency for small investors to hold on to shares as they fall, in the hope that they will turn around. The best way around this is to take the emotion out of it. A bit of research will show that there are several Stops. Stops are price thresholds that trigger you to sell. The first and lowest is called a Stop Loss. This takes the price you paid per share plus the trading cost (buying and selling) plus the stamp duty and is 10% (or whatever you want) below. This means that you will never lose more than 10% on any investment. Couple this with never having more than 10% in any one investment and the most you can lose is 1%.

The next Stop is the ATR Stop. This is the average trading range stop. You have to decide over what period you are going to calculate the average. Some say 40 days and some say 10 days. I’ve gone for 20 days (four weeks). ATR means that if some bad news causes the price to vary (drop) more than it would do on average, you are triggered to sell.

The next one is a Trailing stop this takes the maximum price the stock has got to and says by how much you are prepared to let it fall before selling. I've gone for 7.5%. Each Stop kicks in over time and as the stock goes up in value (hopefully). I’ve only been using this for a short while and not sure what things will affect it (Ex Div) so a little common sense for the time being I think. 

I looked at JBL Risk Manager you get a free trial, but if you are a UK investor it is a pain to use. So I’ve built a spreadsheet to manage these stops (and calculate value). I only update the prices based on the last days ranges and have to cut and paste info in. A good way to get the share price info is a free programme “GimmeFreeData” 

The spreadsheet only takes 15 minutes to update, but it’s not ideal. Its a flat database and adding/removing stock is cumbersome. I will work on developing a small relational database, hopefully importing the data direct. I also want to be able to put stocks in on a “watch” basis as selling stock will give me cash I will need to reinvest somewhere.

I know this all sounds a bit of hassle (and it was to start off with) but overall I’ve made (on paper) 3% return in less than 5 weeks, so worth looking at. The exceptions are one stock is down 8% but one is up 27%. The 27% gain was one that was just a gut feel, with no analysis whatever. Go figure.   

Finally: - 

• Never invest more than you can lose
• Never invest money you are going to need in a few months
• Have around 15 different stocks in a wide spread of industries. (This makes it complicated, but not impossible.)
• Never have more than 10% of you total investments in one stock
• Take into account your trading costs (don't keep buying and sell - it will cost you)
• Never hold onto stocks if they break your Stop threshold.