Planet ALUG
Wayne Stallwood (DrJeep): Why Flash SSD use will continue to grow
Elisabeth Fosbrooke-Brown: Monday morning blues
So instead of travelling around in unattainable luxury, on the advice of M. Wallon I went to search for the wheel. It would save over 100 euros if I could find it. The tyre was almost new, too. I headed back up the RN1, looking over garden walls and knocking on the doors of houses alongside the road; talked to many people and even more dogs. Nobody had seen it. Nobody had heard anything around 3am on Sunday morning. Not even the dogs. Uncanny. People were very friendly, though, so it was a pleasant if unproductive few hours.
When I returned, the Ozzies were waiting outside the hotel with their bags. They are bored already and have decided not to wait for their car to be repaired. They tell me of a good restaurant by the golf course 500 metres down the road, but I'm too tired from wheeling up and down the hill between Nampont-St-Martin and Nempont-St-Firmin. They also tell me they had located wifi on the other side of the hotel dining-room, so I waved them goodbye and dashed off to fetch laptop and found that the dining-room is locked even though it's lunchtime: today I must be the only person who wanted to eat. I can easily do without a meal, but not finding the wifi was a real disappointment. Back to crappy daytime tv... but no! There is signal behind the dining-room under the trees!
So now we are up-to-date, and as it's started to rain on my keyboard I shall give up on this intermittent signal and go in search of some light literature.
Elisabeth Fosbrooke-Brown: Sleepy Sunday
I slept part of the day, chatted to people in the hotel and watched tv for the rest. Also at the hotel are three Australians whose car had broken down on the way to Calais. They're heading for Edinburgh where one of them is starting work next week; his partner has a job interview too.
The hotel is cheap-ish and comfortable and the staff are friendly, though the food is not up to usual French standards. The cheese in the salad was sliced plastic! What kind of clientele do they get?! There's no internet, and after many more phone calls it seems that I shall be here until Thursday. I should have picked up some of the books as well as the laptop.
Elisabeth Fosbrooke-Brown: Shall I ever get home?
On the RN1 between Boulogne and Abbeville the sound re-commenced. It rapidly worsened as I braked carefully. The steering felt odd. No, the steering felt very bad indeed. The car swerved all over the road, there was a horrible scrunch, a show of sparks worthy of an Ooooh!, and a screeching noise like an angle-grinder in a temper. I watched in horror as the rear left wheel overtook the car and bounded down the hill, bouncing into a wall and disappearing, and fought the steering and brakes to come to a halt as close as possible to the side of the road (and on the road, rather than in the woods).
The first thing to do was call the police. I hadn't quite parked tidily. They asked all sorts of difficult questions, such as what kind of car: of course they didn't recognise "Vauxhall", and I couldn't remember what it is in not-UK. They also wished to know where the car was. I hauled Chariot out and wandered down the road with mobile phone against ear, looking for a roadsign. In the stress I couldn't even remember the word for roadsign to explain what I was doing. They clearly thought I was drunk or daft.
A passing car stopped and the two occupants offered help. The policeman told me to pass the mobile over to them. It didn't help at first because they didn't know exactly where we were, either, but one of them stayed with me and my mobile while the other drove down the road to check. They were wonderful, remaining with me until the police found us (about an hour later). I was glad of their hazard lights when Bloo's battery died while I was up the road, having left on the headlights as well as hazards. To pass the time they searched for the wheel, while I phoned my breakdown insurance company.
Phone calls to various numbers in different countries were entirely without success (in the dark I couldn't find the piece of paper with the correct number and none of the numbers on the booklet connected to anyone able to help), but the gendarmes had ordered a breakdown truck. While waiting, they looked for the wheel. Eventually the breakdown truck arrived. All three gendarmes and the truck driver looked for the wheel.
The car was dragged, shrieking and digging in its heels, onto the truck. I remembered that neither of the bags I'd grabbed out of the back contained my toothbrush so a gendarme climbed up and found it in another bag. The gendarmes had a discussion over what to do with me. At almost 5am and in mild shock, I'd have said yes to a cell, but one of them knew a hotel just down the road: he phoned up and arranged it all. It really was only just down the road, and they escorted me there on foot, got me and Chariot up the steps, picked up the key which had been left on the desk, and then carried Chariot upstairs. I refused to stay in Chariot while they did this, which seemed to offend their macho-ness a little but I'm sure they were secretly relieved. They came in to check that the room was ok, and moved furniture around to make it more accessible. They were marvellous. Such a shame I didn't find out who they were or even which gendarmerie, because they should be thanked properly. I'll have to ask the breakdown chap.
More by luck than anything else, my two bags contained toothpaste and clothes and debit card in addition to the mandatory random and unnecessary items (and the laptop, but that wasn't luck - of course I'd picked up the laptop bag). I'd remembered to hang on to the breakdown service booklet and to pick up the car information. However, I hadn't collected a hairbrush. That's going to hurt.
Chris Lamb: Four men in a mine
kumbunterland posed this question in the park yesterday:
There are four men in a coal mine. This exit is narrow so that no more than 2 men can exit at the same time. In addition, there is only one torch and they can't leave the mine without it.
Each man walks at a different speed. The first man takes one minute to exit the mine the bridge distance, the second takes two minutes, the third takes five, and the fourth takes eight minutes.
If two men walk together they must walk at the slower speed. For example, if person #1 and person #3 go together, they will leave the mine in 5 minutes. Then, person #1 could return back to return the torch to the others (taking another one minute) so they can use it to exit again.
The coal mine will collapse in exactly 15 minutes; you must find a way to allow all the men to leave the mine within this time.
Unfortunately, swi-prolog is broken on the N900, so I wasn't able to solve it right then:
solution(Men, Bound, Out) :- torchInside(Men, [], [], Log), totalDuration(Log, 0, Duration), Duration =< Bound, swritef(Out, '%w (%w minutes)', [Log, Duration]). % We use torch{Inside,Outside} predicates like a state machine. torchInside(A, B, Log, X) :- % Move two people from inside -> outside the mine combination(2, A, S), subtract(A, S, A1), append(S, B, B1), torchOutside(A1, B1, [S|Log], X). torchOutside([], _, Log, Log). torchOutside(A, B, Log, X) :- % Move someone from outside -> inside the mine combination(1, B, S), subtract(B, S, B1), append(S, A, A1), torchInside(A1, B1, [S|Log], X). % Utilities: totalDuration([], X, X). totalDuration([H|T], Acc, X) :- max_list(H, Max), NewAcc is Acc + Max, totalDuration(T, NewAcc, X). combination(0, _, []). combination(N, [H|T], [H|Comb]) :- N > 0, N1 is N - 1, combination(N1, T, Comb). combination(N, [_|T], Comb) :- N > 0, combination(N, T, Comb). ?- solution([1, 2, 5, 8], 15, X). X = "[[2, 1], [2], [5, 8], [1], [1, 2]] (15 minutes)" ; X = "[[1, 2], [1], [5, 8], [2], [1, 2]] (15 minutes)" ; false.I'm fun at parties.
Elisabeth Fosbrooke-Brown: Eileen Poulter
Eileen had a beautiful clear lyrical soprano voice, and her musicianship was astounding. She sang mainly early music, with the Deller Consort, the Purcell Consort of Voices, and with other singers like Janet Baker, Robert Tear and Ian Partridge. I was fortunate to have lessons with her for several years. She was very patient with me, although clearly unable to understand how I could fail to read the dots on sight, or be unaware of exactly how the music progressed through key changes without having to do the musical equivalent of counting on my fingers. Looking back at some of the things I achieved with her help I wonder if it was really me!
By the time of her 70th birthday she was already ill (she died not very long afterwards), and though she put together a marvellous programme and sang in a couple of ensemble pieces herself, she sang alto rather than soprano. It's one of the boasts of my life to say that I sang with her.
Elisabeth Fosbrooke-Brown: Dorkbot, Tim Hunkin, and Southwold
Inspired by the Great Hunkin's talk, I persuaded m'friend to go to Southwold Pier, which is a recently-constructed edifice following the time-honoured traditions of seaside holiday towns.
In the Under the Pier Show we had various adventures including travelling to the bottom of the sea via the Bathyscape, thumping bankers, and attempting to control fuel rods in the nuclear reactor. I cut a strand of hair and fed it to the Gene Forecaster, which calculated my expiry date as 2052; the 3D printout, when opened and eaten, left the message "YOU ARE HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION", which was most reassuring.
The right direction was towards the Water Clock (which I consider equal to the Orloje of Prague). After the half-hourly mechanically marvellous display, we went to eat in the excellent restaurant with its view of the waves. The only disappointment was that the Micro Bandstand wasn't in use.
Dorkbot Anglia Two will be on Thursday 16 September at Snape Maltings, Suffolk, IP17 1SP.
I probably shan't be in England for it. Please go in my stead.
Jonathan McDowell: California here I come
I've got a few trips over to England planned between now and then which will give me an opportunity to see people before I go. Also I'll be at DebConf, where I hope to try and meet a least a few other Debian people from the Bay Area and pick their brains for advice about where to live & things to do.
This is something that's taken a lot longer to come together than I originally expected. I'm very glad it finally has, but obviously there's a degree of trepidation about the whole process. If I seem somewhat disconnected from reality for the next few months rest assured I'm sure I'll be back to normal soon enough once I've moved and found somewhere to live.
Chris Lamb: 10K Challenge: Week 1
Wasn't the best start this week, unfortunately.
- Monday — Rest
- Tuesday — This was my first morning run as I had something in the evening. Started well, but after a mile my calves starting hurting more than usual so I stopped. Was previously planning to get new shoes on the upcoming weekend but now planned to get them earlier - my current ones were clearly going to continue to cause problems.
- Wednesday — Found a swimming pool but happened to turn up just when an unscheduled 2-hour water polo lesson was starting. Couldn't really run because of yesterday so wrote off the day.
- Thursday — Got running shoes. I tried them when I got home and could feel they were a massive improvement but I could only do about half a mile due to Tuesday's issue. Had also walked about 5 miles that day which didn't help.
- Friday — Rest
- Saturday — Another write-off. I had put myself in a position where I only had 30 minutes sleep the night before and had a commitment in the evening so had to spend the useful part of the day snoozing. Fail.
- Sunday — I ended up doing just 2 miles as I didn't want to push it. As it turned out, this was really easy to do and Tuesday's issue had cleared up. Next week is looking more promising now.
Jonathan McDowell: SPI 2010 AGM & Board Election
Oh, and if you're a contributing SPI member please do remember to vote once voting is open!
Andrew Savory: Insult to injury
I thought I had won.
I've been trying to get back to Norwich for a few days now. I was due to drive back last weekend, but the heat was already too intense at 8am to justify sitting in a car for three hours, even with the air conditioning on. So on Monday night I took a look at train times, with a view to letting the train take the strain on Tuesday. Unfortunately, the cheapest return tickets would be £85.30 - far in excess of the £39 it costs in petrol to drive there and back.
After playing around with the various train websites for an hour or so, I hit the jackpot: a train leaving London at 06:25 and returning at 20:00, for a total of £24. If I took my bike and cycled either end to avoid using taxis, I could justifiably use public transport, save the planet, save money, keep fit and claim back four hours of my life with productive work and email rather than sitting behind a wheel pointing a ton of metal in roughly the right direction. Big saving, time regained, total win!
On Tuesday morning I called up and booked my tickets, including one of the precious 6 slots available for bikes on the train. I started emailing friends to make plans to meet for coffee. Everything was looking good. But I've mentioned trains and winning, you can tell where this is going, can't you?
I woke up bright and early at 5am this morning, showered, dressed, and hopped on my bike to Liverpool Street station. When I got to the station, I was slightly confused to see no train at 06:25 to Norwich - the only likely suspect was going to Diss. Uh-oh. As I collected my tickets from the ticket machine, I noticed one of the displays.
Trains to Norwich stopping at Diss due to overhead power line failure, with a bus replacement service.
I've been on enough bus replacement services in my time. The London-Norwich line must have one of the highest numbers of weekend engineering works of any line in the country, so it's somewhat amazing that the power lines could even fail. Anyway, the prospect of taking my bike on such a service was not appealing, to say the least. And cycling from Diss to Norwich would be about 25 miles, a bit more than I wanted to do at short notice.
So I queued up at the ticket office, and asked for a full refund on my now-useless tickets. The response was a masterpiece of the state of consumer rights in the UK, delivered with maximum glottal stoppage: "We don't give refunds for advance tickets, you'll 'ave to write orf to National Express innit". I explained that wasn't acceptable, and in return was told I could wait until 9am for a manager, but I wasn't going to get a refund. A form was thrust into my hand, and I was shooed away.
That's when things all went a bit Keith Waterhouse. The leaflet I was given to reclaim my expenses was a masterpiece of failed social engineering. I can imagine the Strategy Boutique meeting, held in some smokey office in London (the marketing folks couldn't get to Norwich for the meeting, obviously). "We need to rebrand the Complaints and Refunds form", says Brand Middle Manager #1, "it's too negative. Let's fill it with positivity and happy vibes." The rest of the brand middle managers nod in agreement, and, fired up on caffeine, start a free-thinking word association game on the whiteboard. "What about Frequently Updated Commentary/Knowledge/Education on Derailments?" says #2, "it's got a snappy acronym!". #3 chips in: "yes, our customers are going to be happy that only 1 in 10 of our trains is late or cancelled, so let's invite them to say nice things! How about 'In praise of good service'?"
I suspect it was the same team of sharp-witted wags that put together the Compensation and Refunds page on the National Distress website, highlights of which include "a full refund will be issued at any National Express East Anglia ticket office (or any other National Rail ticket office) [...] certain discounted tickets are sold on a 'no change, no refund' basis". There's no mention on what tickets are sold on a no refund basis. I can only assume that advance fares fall into that category. Or maybe the staff at the Liverpool Street ticket office that refused to provide a refund are lying conniving bastards wanting to save themselves the job of filling out some paperwork. Or, more likely, both options are true. It's hard to see how the public interest is served with such a lack of transparency and Byzantine system. I guess that's the point: protect shareholder value for the rail companies, and tough luck on the punters naïve enough to use the trains.
The final moment of entertainment was provided upon calling the customer helpline to confirm refund methods. Upon explaining my situation, I was told I had to write in for a refund. I asked if I could just go into a station for the refund, but was told that it was not possible. The helpful lady on the phone concluded "oh, but you can pop into Norwich station and deliver your refund request letter by hand if you like?"
I politely pointed out I was not in Norwich - problems with the trains, you see.
Chris Lamb: 10K Challenge: Week 0
On Sunday 5 September I will be entering a 10K running event, probably the Middlesex 10K in Victoria Park.
This will be my first running event, so I've put together a training schedule based on a few sources on the web. Whilst nine weeks preparation appears quite conservative—I have been running for about 5 weeks already—I will be in North America for about a month of that with an unpredictable schedule.
Below is what I'm currently shooting for. Units are in miles, a hyphen indicates a rest day and "cross" stands for cross-training. I haven't decided what I'm going to do for that yet although swimming is tempting.
Tasks for this week:
- Complete week 1
- Get actual running shoes
Steven Rose: Unifying my address book (via Google)
An ongoing issue for many is address books, everyone has one on their phone, in their email client, in Gmail… or to cut a long story short, in a number of independent locations (usually with varying information across all).
A solution (of sorts) I have found, avoiding the caveats of using LDAP, is to use a combination of GoogleSync on my smart phone, whilst using the Zindus addon for Mozilla Thunderbird:
Using Zindus I can sync my address book from Thunderbird with my Google address book, this in turn then allows me to use GoogleSync to update the data on my phone. All three locations now have the same contacts, and with Thunderbird already using Lightning and Provider for Google Calendar, the same calendars.
This only leaves my default calendar on the computer to deal with, which generally speaking most of does not ever need to be mobile. In theory, I can now update one, and have the changes synced more or less automatically to the other two data sets. Problem solved, in a round about way.
A plus to all of this would be ”de-googling” the process, however.
Steven Rose: Ogg Vorbis > Mp3
Originally posted: April 8th, 2008 (15:26)
“What is Ogg?!” I hear you cry.
You will all be highly familiar with the format Mp3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3), as it is somewhat common in the world of digital music. You would think a widely used, compressed audio format would offer great benefits. Not entirely true, unfortunately, Mp3 is riddled with patents causing headaches for music distributors and also software developers alike. Permissions and more likely than not, money are needed to get anywhere. Ogg Vorbis, is entirely the opposite, open source. It is completely in the public domain, the entire source code available to view or use, thus allowing developers and anyone else to use it as they please, patent free and of course, free. It would also be your safest bet in avoiding any patent-based lawsuits!
I will be honest with you, I have known of the format for a number of years now, but for one reason or another shyed away from making the transition. I had many questions, much like you, the Mp3 user, has this very moment whilst reading this. What about portable players? What can I use to listen to it on my PC? Questions of that nature, at least. Nowadays even Windows Media Player can play Ogg with a simple set of DirectShow filters. I will post all relevant links at the end of this entry.
Vorbis.com-
We have a new Windows DirectShow based decoder thanks to our friends at Illiminable. These will let you play your Ogg Vorbis files in Windows Media Player, and other DirectShow based players.
You have all the benefits of compressed audio, without the hassles of patents such as DRM, as an example. There is a plethora of media players and portable players with Ogg compatibility via codecs and plugins, a number also support the format straight out of the box. Having made the transition to open source operating systems, and also software in that respect, a number of months ago now, I felt that this was the next step. I feel that the play Ogg campaign is a very worthy cause, in need of much more support. I wholly agree with its mission statement:
fsf.org-
A campaign to encourage use of the patent- and license-free standard Ogg Vorbis as an ethically, legally and technically superior audio alternative to the proprietary MP3 format.
Here are the links to all the related material I promised:
- Free Software Foundation
- Xiph (Developers of the Ogg Vorbis format)
- Help getting setup listening to Ogg Vorbis
- Play Ogg in Windows (version 0.82.16930 – 22/02/10, be sure to check the Directshow project page for updated versions)
- The Play Ogg Campaign
Development:
Lets get more people using Ogg! Make the transition today!
Steven Rose: Testing YOURLS/bit.ly
What it says on the tin really, just testing some plugins and features.
MJ Ray: Doing Business the Co-operatives 2010 Way
On Friday, I was at this event in Plymouth. The basics of it are pretty well covered by John Atherton’s blog post. I led one of open surgeries on use of Social Media, which I’m going to try to summarise and expand into an interactive briefing note on the website of our co-op. If you’ve hints and tips, or questions you feel I should cover, please leave me a comment here.
Other than that, I was trying to help support the event (as I’m one of the steering group for co-sponsors Co-operatives SW), so I was carrying some kit around and videoed the Question Time. That and some other clips should find their way online next week, along with some other thoughts triggered by the presentations. It was a pretty interesting and productive day, worth the ticket price in my opinion.
Happily, we launched the new Co-operatives SW website from a train at 9am Friday because of some unforeseen events and it seems to be working fairly smoothly. Please be gentle with it. I like the Members News section, but then I would, wouldn’t I?
Elisabeth Fosbrooke-Brown: A sorry tail
Elisabeth Fosbrooke-Brown: Fête de la Musique
I missed Monday's rehearsal to go to the Fête de la Musique celebration in St Dizant's picnic area next to the little supermarket 1000 Frais et 1 Fred. Music was provided by Les Filadiers, the chantey group from St-Fort-sur-Gironde. The weather was still not good, but at least it didn't rain into the paella.
On the subject of paella, I'm allergic to shellfish so I'd phoned and asked if there was an alternative, to which the answer was no (they were catering for a huge crowd!) but Fred said the shellfish was being added at the end and she'd take out a plateful before the mussels and langoustines and giant prawns went in. Very kind of her, and I was pleased that she remembered in all the flurry.
I warbled along to all the chants marins, in vocalise because I didn't know the words, and eventually E-from-the-Welsh-valleys joined in. We finished the evening with M-f-t-W-v leading Cyfri'r Geifr, and E and I realising we couldn't remember the words of Calon Lân after the first two lines. A very jolly evening.
Andrew Savory: LinuxTag and WIPJam
(This post originally appeared on the LiMo Foundation blog)
A couple of weeks ago I went to Berlin for the annual LinuxTag event and to participate in the WIPJam running on the first day.
This was my first visit to LinuxTag, and it was interesting to compare it to FOSDEM, which I visited for the second time earlier this year. For those that haven't been, LinuxTag is an interesting combination of trade show, commercial exhibition, conference and community get-together. Apparently some 11,000 individuals were in attendance, which would make it almost three times the size of FOSDEM. But a combination of the much larger exhibition centre in place of FOSDEM's university campus, and being a 4 day event compared to FOSDEM's weekend, meant that it never really felt that busy. This is borne out by the speaking events - FOSDEM had almost 300 talks over two days, while LinuxTag only managed 231 across four. Much more leisurely! This turned out to be a good thing - it was handy to have some time to look around the show floor, hold conversations in the corridors, and generally soak up the atmosphere. On the whole, the LinuxTag talks seemed to be pitched more at introductory level, while FOSDEM felt more bleeding-edge and intensively technical. This seemed to suit the audience, which was much more mixed at LinuxTag.
The WIPJam on Wednesday turned out to be lively, with lots of good discussions. I really like the WIP format for these sessions - relaxed and informal with just the right amount of nudging from the organisers to keep things moving. Carlo and Thibaut did a great job of running the event, despite the blistering heat. I'd been asked to help facilitate discussion on "Cross Platform development - platform choices and mobile dev tools". We ran two sessions, both with more than a dozen participants, from a range of backgrounds including developers, researchers, industry luminaries and business owners.
One of the key messages to come out of the discussion was that these developers are very much focussing on HTML5 to help solve their cross-platform problems. The message was "as much HTML as possible, only use native when absolutely necessary". A significant number of apps in app stores only use native to embed browser engines and provide a wrapper around HTML, combining the benefits of cross-platform standards-based development with the benefits of the app store delivery model. It would certainly be interesting to see some hard statistics that back up this perception.
We looked a bit at priorities for picking a platform, and the consensus was that reach, monetisation, tooling, openness and the availability of a vibrant support community ("fan boys") were key. A corollary of that was that no amount of openness or reach can make up for a platform that is simply too difficult to write for. There was also significant enthusiasm for multiple app stores to be available on each phone platform (a view I'm not altogether in agreement with as I think it will frustrate and confuse consumers). Developers also wanted "Babelfish for Apps" to help them with cross-platform development: a guide to how things work on each platform. For example, on Palm you have a swipe gesture to go back in apps, on Android you have a back button, on iPhone it's typically a UI element on screen.
Finally, the discussion group members were all conscious that we're entering a new era where we don't just need to worry about cross platform development, but also cross form factor. With the proliferation of mobile devices, netbooks, and the oncoming tsunami of tablet computers, good design and an MVC approach to app construction will only become more important. Cross-platform UI toolkits and frameworks will help, but design and testing will become increasingly challenging.
Elsewhere in LinuxTag, some of the highlights included:
- Paul Adams' talk on Kolab (it's great to see effort being put into a truly secure, open source cross-platform PIM solution).
- Chatting to the Cream Desktop Environment guys who had a slick demo, some neat ideas and tons of enthusiasm - I hope to see them get involved with upstream GNOME and getting their ideas more widely accepted.
- Most of the mobile sessions being packed, and some were standing room only. Several talks included lots of interesting Q&A at the end (for example "Mobile Development with Qt and Qt Creator") so the audience were not just interested but also very clearly engaged in the topics.
- Dirk's talk on MeeGo, which was interesting, informative, entertaining and included a risky live demo. Dirk was a great advocate for the platform, and spoke at just the right level for the audience.
Next year's LinuxTag is 11-14 May in Berlin, and there's a load more WIP Jams coming up in the future - catch one if you can.
MJ Ray: Budget 2010: take 2 (IT, Co-ops and Community edition)
I’ve been watching the June budget and pondering its effects on me, our co-op, co-ops in general and the wider community.
- IT Taxes
- I just want to flag this one up as a special interest: the telephone tax is killed off before it starts. Yippee! But now we get to wait and see how “the government will support private investment” to get universal provision of fast broadband. I’ve no problem with tax relief for the video games industry being scrapped - why should any type of software get special treatment?
- VAT up 2.5% to 20% from 4 January 2011
- This seems bad for everyone. It’s a bit less bad for our co-op because we have some international suppliers, whose sales tax rates won’t change, but we buy a lot from the UK too and it hurts all our workers.
- Personal Taxes
- The basic income tax allowance rise of £1,000 is welcome, as is restoring the pension-earnings links. More widely, the freezes in various things, increase in Capital Gains Tax and drop in cider tax all seem broadly good ideas. The housing benefit £400 maximum is a bit mixed - how bad it is may depend how lenders react when borrowers get into difficulty.
- Business Taxes
- At a time when a VAT increase is called “unavoidable”, it stinks a bit to cut corporation tax, extend the 10% capital gains tax allowance and raise the employers’ National Insurance threshold. Of course, our co-op pays none of those, so it also hurts us by giving our competitors an advantage.
- Business Incentives
- George Osborne said he wants to tackle regional economic differences, but the big change in this budget is bad for all existing businesses outside London, the South-East and East: National Insurance exemptions for new businesses. Once again, existing co-ops take it in the neck from another government obsessed with capitalism and employment instead of businesses and work. Meanwhile, increasing the Enterprise Finance Guarantee props up debt-laden business and a new Growth Capital Fund encourages capitalist businesses, while both appear useless to good co-ops at first glance. I don’t mind being ignored, but could we please elect a government which doesn’t actively hinder co-ops? Where’s the fabled “commitment to fairness”? Promises around the Green Investment Bank and Green Deal sound good, but are in the future.
- Council Tax
- Council Tax will be frozen for a year. I wonder if that applies to parish councils, because our village planned a cut after a one-year project-based increase last year. The Budget Document has pretty much no detail.
So, how was it for you? Have I missed some friendly changes?