Graeme's

"Christian" nationalism

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:16:31 +0000

Unlike those trying to introduce the foreign ideology of “Christian nationalism” to the UK, I actually went to church today.In a very white area,the church was full of immigrants

Irrational philistine "education" has won.

Sun, 24 May 2026 16:04:58 +0000

I have just read a remarkably silly article in a popular news website. The apparently well educated author has decided her seven year old has to study towards job opportunities, and has reacted to AI by forcing the poor child to study “coding” (which AIs can do) instead of drama (which they cannot).

Tuition madness: are schools useless?

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 11:09:33 +0000

I got a spam phone call from a tuition seller, but it is a worrying symptom of the rise of tuition in the UK. He asked whether I had children at school, to which I truthfully, albeit misleadingly, answered “no” because I do not choose to send my daughter to school.

Teaching kids about money vs maths

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 10:28:27 +0000

People often say maths is useless in real life. it is boring, we do not use it, etc. We should teach useful skills to kids. I am writing this in response to a social media comment that kids should be taught about finance instead of things like Pythagoras’s theorem.

Does web design matter?

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 10:31:46 +0000

I recently visited the website of a amateur theatre company, and any web designer would say it is awful. Anyone with the slightest aesthetic sense will say it is ugly. As a user of the site, it is perfectly good and better than most sites a designer would like.

No progress in two and a half millennia?

Sun, 29 Oct 2023 10:09:22 +0000

This passage from (Pseudo-)Xenophon’s Constitution of the Athenians, the last sentence in particular, could have been written today, and it seems we cannot run things better now than then.

Racism is not one thing: experiences of different cultures

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 11:02:28 +0000

I have lived in two countries, and worked in another, on different continents, and been obviously ethnic minority in all three. I will start with my own birth certificate. It states my race. It states my parents races. This was regarded as normal and necessary until just three years ago.

Schools are failing, and flexible education is the answer

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 11:40:27 +0000

Schools have been deteriorating for many years, and lockdown hastened the crisis this caused - but the deterioration dates back many years, and the underlying cause is the stubborn focus on a Victorian model of education and the addiction to metrics. The solution lies in empowering pupils and parents.

Why CO? emissions will keep rising.

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 12:17:19 +0000

We have had many climate change agreements that have not changed anything. The greenwashing was inevitable and to be expected. This graph from Our World in Data says it all: there has been no change in trajectory.

Homeschooling tips from a home educator

Sat, 09 Jan 2021 14:05:07 +0000

My daughters were both home educated for many years (the younger one still is) and I want to share some things I have learned along the way with parents who find themselves temporarily home schooling because of lockdown.

There is no such thing as Home Education

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 11:57:11 +0000

The public view (shared by media and politicians) of home education often seems to be that it simultaneously means parents assiduously coaching children to get firsts in maths when they are 14 while simultaneously neglecting their education so they never get any qualifications. The problem is that they expect home education to exist in a way it simply does not.

You should not home educate because of covid

Sat, 12 Sep 2020 13:12:33 +0000

I am an advocate of home education, but I doubt one group of people currently switching are making the right decision. Not all, by any means: it depends on why and what you want.

Hodder CIE IGCSE Computer Science textbook corrections

Sun, 30 Aug 2020 16:24:37 +0000

My (then home educated) daughter used the Hodder Computer Science text book for CIE IGCSEs last year. It was good but we found a number of mistakes. It is still a current textbook so I am noting down some corrections.

The Geography of Covid

Sun, 21 Jun 2020 14:47:09 +0000

I cannot explain this map, but the clear division in compelling. A few lines divide the world into high, medium and low covid death rate countries and there are few exceptions in the high and low death rate areas.

Why we are never prepared for a crisis

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 12:13:52 +0000

From 2005 Sri Lanka has been well prepared for a tsunami, unfortunately it was entirely unprepared in 2004. From 2021 onwards I have do doubt that the world will we well prepared to deal with a pandemic. We are always ready to fight the last war..

Climate treaties cheat the environment.

Fri, 13 Jul 2018 11:06:35 +0000

Climate treaties suffer from a problem that is pervasive in our society. It is the same problem that is destroying British state schools, makes public sector out-sourcing fail, and cripples businesses. Once you set a numerical target, the metric becomes more important that what it measures.

Not just a CO2 shortage - the economy is broken

Thu, 12 Jul 2018 09:27:19 +0000

Shortages happen. A shortage of a gas that is vital to the manufacture of everything from beer to pain killers may look like just another unfortunate occurrence, but it is really a product of the way a “neo-liberal” economy works: globalisation and centralisation.

Django signals are evil

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 14:20:52 +0000

I was trying to figure out what a Django app was doing today. It turned out that the original developer had decided to monkey patch a third party app. I hardly need say that monkey patching is evil (i.e. a last resort), but one of the things I needed to check along the way was that there was no code being triggered by a (Django) signal, and the problems it causes are very similar to monkey patching.

Trump's immigration policy compared to the UK's

Sun, 05 Feb 2017 12:27:17 +0000

There has been near universal condemnation of Trump’s immigration policies, but it seems to be that they simply do in one stroke what most European countries have done incrementally. The UK is a fairly typical European country in this respect so lets see how it compares.

AirBNB hosts can block bad reviews - and my AirBNB horror story

Fri, 03 Feb 2017 11:42:51 +0000

If an AirBNB “host” needs to give a refund because the accommodation was terrible, they can block the bad review by cancelling instead of refunding. It does mean a 100% refund, but that is clearly preferable to bad reviews and AirBNB have confirmed that this is deliberate.

What has the EU ever done for us?

Sun, 05 Jun 2016 10:15:59 +0000

What has the EU ever done for us? Mostly, a lot of harm.

Consistently favoured corporate interests over public interests

The EU is far more insulated from public pressure than national governments but even more prone to listening to corporate lobbyists. It is not transparent enough about lobbying for us to even know what the real expenditure is, but we know it a lot. The greatest single case of this is in the supposedly free trade, but really corporate welfare, TTIP treaty which the EU is pushing hard, despite widespread public opposition. Who wants the treaty? Corporate lobbyists. It also binds countries permanently to particular policies, undermining democracy.

Taylor Swift on Apple Music - translated

Mon, 22 Jun 2015 05:41:21 +0000

As Taylor Swift seems to have difficult saying what she means, so I thought I would provide a plain English translation of what she has to say about Apple Music.

Beating Node.js with TCL

Sun, 14 Jun 2015 20:58:43 +0000

This is partly a reaction to people who talk as if Node.js is unique, and partly to test my code against something that has seen production use. There are all sorts of problems with doing this sort of comparison, and while I would have liked to compare more servers, used a better environment, performance tuned everything, done more measurements etc. but I think what I have done is enough to prove my point.

Python IDEs part 4: Liclipse and PyCharm

Wed, 06 May 2015 10:01:32 +0000

I have never liked the user interfaces of either Eclipse or Pycharm, so it is hard to be impartial. Liclipse, for those unfamiliar with it, is an Eclispe based IDE, that is a successor to Pydev. Both are proprietary, but prices are reasonable. After trying them again I still do not like Eclipse or Liclipse, but I do see the appeal of Pycharm.

Python IDEs part 3: Eric and Wing

Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:01:36 +0000

Continuing looking at Python IDEs, I have been trying Eric and Wing IDE. Both primarily Python IDEs (although Eric also supports Ruby), both are very powerful, but one is free and open source, while the other is proprietary and expensive.

Python IDEs part two: Ninja and Komodo

Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:01:38 +0000

Continuing my review of a number of Python IDE s, I am starting with two IDEs I already know I like: Komodo and Ninja. As I said in the first post before I have used both Komodo Edit (Komodo IDE is Komodo Edit with extra features).

Trying Python IDEs

Mon, 20 Apr 2015 10:34:19 +0000

I have been using Geany for a while, because it is lightweight and has a nice UI, and it will be my baseline for this comparison, but it lacks some features I would like to have. The most important is good auto-completion, but refactoring support would be nice and real time linting even nicer. So, I made myself a list of IDEs (and extensible editors) that met my criteria.

Its not paradise, but lets not exaggerate

Sun, 29 Mar 2015 10:35:15 +0000

I can understand Ankie Renique’s frustration about people who think that living is the tropics and working as a remote freelance is idyllic, but her reaction is to pick on a number of minor issues, or those that say more about her than the country, rather than picking very real problems.

Open sources licenses still not understood (by Hiscox, at least)

Sun, 29 Mar 2015 08:24:53 +0000

Insurance company Hiscox has posted a misleading article on “the advantages and risks of open source software” in its “small business knowledge centre”. It is not clear who the article is aimed at, the explanations of legal issues are unclear, and the discussion of security issues irrelevant. They could have saved themselves from looking foolish if they had asked some with some technical knowledge and familiarity with the licences to review the article.

Fossil vs Git

Fri, 13 Mar 2015 12:33:43 +0000

I have used Fossil for version control for a few years, and I like it, but this recent comment on the fossil-users mailing list made me think about its limits:

we must agree Fossil [..] much easier and friendlier to use.

It is, and it is not. I do recommend it, and it does provide a a lot of functionality and it is easy to learn and use.

Why you should not use Wordpress

Mon, 06 Oct 2014 12:24:01 +0000

The appeal of Wordpress is obvious: cheap and easy, and lots of “developers” know it. The biggest problem with Wordpress is that something originally designed as a blog platform, has evolved general CMS features, and is widely used a development platform. The problems are that it has security issues, and is neither flexible nor productive when used a a development platform and cheap developers are not good developers.

The philistines are running the asylum

Mon, 18 Aug 2014 11:05:36 +0000

This post was sparked off by a comment a teacher made about the British government’s education policy, but the point I want to make is that this is the result of a globally accepted change in values. There is a link between education policy, how prisoners are treated, arts policy and more.

Tablets: anti-consumer and anti-innovation

Fri, 06 Sep 2013 06:52:41 +0000

Tablet computers (and smart phones) are bad. They are bad for consumers and kill innovation. They move power from the owner of the device to its manufacturer, and denying the use of a cheap base for research and development, the very base that made the tablets possible in the first place, and, if PCs follow suit, innovation will become much harder. They deny consumers choice, are sometimes impossible to update (a security nightmare) and are inflexible.

Smarterer - a broken recruitement tool

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 11:21:57 +0000

Having taken a number of Smarterer tests I find it scary that people use it as a recruitment tool. The tests are unreliable and meaningless. First, I will explain what is wrong about my scores — and I am complaining more about scores being to high than too low, so there is no personal grudge here. Then a few quick thoughts on the reasons.

Homeopathy is magic

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 13:36:11 +0000

When I say that homoeopathy is magic I do not mean it as a metaphor or analogy, I mean that its principles are a variation of those of sympathetic magic. The term sympathetic magic was first, as far as I know, coined by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough. He wrote:

The real purpose of DRM

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:45:25 +0000

Ian Hickson, maintainer of the HTML5 specification, argues that the real purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage over device manufacturers. Although this is true for some applications of DRM, in many cases the purpose is to lock customers to particular devices and services, and to raise barriers to entry against new devices and services.

How to fix the deficit, immigration and growth.

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:28:58 +0000

My idea, intended for the UK, but possibly applicable elsewhere, will generate a huge amount of government revenue, complete change immigration, and stimulate economic growth. The idea is a very simple: auction residence visas.

Takeover Panel claims copyright on regulatory information

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 05:50:42 +0000

The Takeover Panel (which regulated mergers and takeovers inn the UK) has sent me an email telling me that reproducing the list of takeover offers (i.e. a list of company names and dates) would be a breach of copyright, and that they would be unlikely to allow commercial reproduction except though “official news channels”.

Ten reasons to use Linux

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 22:31:03 +0000

As Linux is already the leading server operating system, I am really only giving you 10 reasons to use Linux on the desktop (and mobile devices).

A quick look at Enterprise Inns

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 05:47:47 +0000

This is a company I have not looked at for a very long time. My interest was raised by a post on Expecting Value. The price to book value of 0.5 and reasonable PE (5× pre-exceptional earnings) it looks like a bargain, and sales of assets paying off its debt, but with some worries about low returns and constant downward revaluations of fixed assets.

The death of equity growth

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 13:36:32 +0000

Future returns on investments in shares will come less from growth in the underlying businesses and more from income. This means that ratings should be lower, and, in particular, we should expect higher yields.

Insider trading IS harmful, but legalise it anyway

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 08:38:46 +0000

The usual argument in favour of legalising insider trading is that it is not actually harmful (or even beneficial) to investors. I think that insider trading is extremely harmful and in-ethical, but it should be legalised anyway. My reasons are the difficulties in enforcing the law, and the probable effects on markets of legalisation.

How to eat healthily in one blog post

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 08:37:01 +0000

There is a whole industry telling people what to eat, and frequently selling the dubious benefits (from diet books, to health food). It seems to me that most of it boils down to some simple rules that are easy to follow, and some points of controversy (on which it may not be possible to decide what is best). I follow a simple rules that work very well.

Time to end a 400+ year old private monopoly

Wed, 30 May 2012 07:30:42 +0000

Is it right that a tremendously important literary work, also a work of religious importance to many, should be public domain throughout the world, except in the country whose people’s taxes paid for it? Is a 400 year old private monopoly, granted as part in order to further censorship something that should be maintained? This is exactly what has happened to the Authorised Version of the Bible (the King James Version), which, in the UK is still under a perpetual crown copyright, with a small number of private companies profiting from the letter patent or licences they have inherited to print it.

List of Django IDEs

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:12:31 +0000

I have a more detailed review of Python IDEs that is probably a lot more useful.

As requests for IDE recommendations on the django-users mailing list/Google Group, and as I assume that anyone developing with Django knows they should search for answers on the net before asking, here is a summary of the most often recommended options.

Twitter the productivity killer

Fri, 11 May 2012 09:49:41 +0000

Nothing can destroy my productivity the way Twitter can. There are a lot of potential distractions, especially the multitude available over the internet, but Twitter’s nature makes it far more distracting than web browsing, email or even other social networks.

The innovation slowdown IS a serious crisis

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:25:27 +0000

Rick’s latest post on the creativity crisis raises the possibility that the current slowdown in technological advance is merely a period of adjustment rather than a permanent slowdown. I have three reasons for remaining pessimistic.

The slowdown is historically unprecedented, not just part of a cycle.
The reasons for the slowdown are built into our economy and politics, so it cannot easily be reversed.
Even if this is just a temporary phenomenon, the results could still be catastrophic.

The greater fool effect outside bubbles

Wed, 02 May 2012 09:09:17 +0000

The greater fool effect is well established as a key mechanism that allows bubbles to inflate to ludicrous valuations: investors who know prices are too high keep buying. Prices can stay too high in a similar way outside a bubble: not necessarily massively over-valued or in the context of a broader market bubble.

An alternative to pharmaceutical patents

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:14:50 +0000

I have thought about this before, but a question my nine year old daughter asked me crystallised the idea. The (already existing) regulatory process can be tweaked to provide an alternative to patents that would make the market more competitive, reduce over-head costs of research, and reduce litigation costs and uncertainties.

God, suffering and science fiction

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 06:50:48 +0000

The old, and much debated, question of why a benevolent and omnipotent God would allow suffering has many answers, but there is a more intuitive grasp of one answer to be found in works of fiction (at least one by an atheist).