Federalism and IT Governance

While considering the recent disposition of HMG’s re-organisation as it impacts the IT industry, I did some querying. I took the view that HMG has three domains of concern, regulation, macro-investment and implementation. Within implementation programmes, there is a massive problem of scale and probably divergent requirements.

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Ghost or something else

Another friend asks for advice I’m building a website. Ghost has been suggested, which led me to have a little look. This note looks at what I consider to be the critical selection criteria and make some notes about ghost and flat file CMS.

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Selling the Stamp Collection

I have picked this up as a project, certainly it takes up enough room and I haven’t looked at it for a while. I am quite looking forward to reviewing the UK and iron-curtain eastern European stamps. It was put together by my mum and her family and so it covers an extensive time period….

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Burnham on Manchesterism

Andy Burnham, the likely next leader of the Labour Party made a speech on Monday 29th June, from the People’s History Museum in Salford. I have linked to the Sky News video of the speech. I have captured the transcript and post it below/overleaf. This may differ from the speech due to inaccuracies in youtube’s…

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How does AI work?

Despite the many pages I have tagged AI, I need another to document my sources as I seek to understand how it works and why GPUs are required. This is by no way finished.

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Algorithms & safe harbour

The CJEU has been weakening “carrier immunity” also known as “safe harbour”, firstly in a case called X vs Russmedia but its come to light in my feeds recently, I am not sure why, important people have just noticed it. Here are some links …

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Middle class activism

I came across “Aspiring for Change: A Theory of Middle Class Activism” and wanted to clear the physical version out from my cupboard and so made this note. Others may find it interesting.

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Ilyayev

On the Norwegian Star, they had an art gallery featuring among others pictures by Ilyayev; they reminded me of Afremov’s style. Did he copy? See https://share.google/aimode/sOBHuvKuswSm4Sn4Q, seems consensus says no. Ilyayev’s inspirations predate Afremov’s work

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World Democracy Indices

I was pulled to return democraciness by some comments on the UK and the Copenhagen Criteria. I replied in this blog article, where I returned to Economist Intelligence Unit’s index and gave a nod to https://www.v-dem.net/ and Polity IV. See also https://davelevy.info/how-democratic-is-the-uk/ 2018. On quora I was pointed at some further indices that I had…

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Maastricht Convergence Criteria

Despite claiming to be an expert, I had not heard of the Maastricht Convergence Criteria which define a readiness to join the Euro. I asked google gemini to summarise its role. These include Price stability, Sound public finances, to ensure they are sustainable, Exchange-rate stability, to demonstrate that a Member State can manage its economy…

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Configuring services on my ‘Pi

The ‘pi currently runs ‘transmission’ and a web site, but I want to offer mail using Roundcube, and to run a python2 service i.e. planet venus in a docker container. Also next stop is diaspora!

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Sorcerers in 5e

I fancy a change. I am building a bookmark list and need a URL for meta magic and font of magic, 2014 rules. Who knows I might say more another time. …

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UK Democracy in 2025

Time to look at the Democracy Indices again. In particular the EIU are suggesting that democracy is making a comeback. They say, “democracy stabilises after eight years of decline”. Here are my notes and links …

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