Monthly Archive for June, 2006

Shared frontline services

Published on June 16, 2006 in Government. 0 Comments

Two Scottish councils are planning to share front-line service management, as far as I can tell.

Science on a sphere

Published on June 15, 2006 in Science. 0 Comments

Nice fake-3D presentation of spherical things (like the earth).

I want!

e-gov roundup

Published on June 15, 2006 in Government. 0 Comments

Some e-gov related things:

Social exclusion is clearly in Cabinet Office.
Council FDs should be responsible for the council and community. A tricky ask, you’d have thought they have enough to do sorting the council out.
Good financial management is the only option for successful public sector reform. But she would say that, wouldn’t she?
LAs are to deliver £1.3bn in efficiencies in 2006/07 (as their forward look says) which is ahead of target. I haven’t done the comparison of forward and backward looks, now they are available.
Whitehall could save £500m a year doing HR and Finance properly. In the launch event, the Scottish Executive suggested that their shared services strategy was looking for £750m savings on £26bn total spend. Pro-rataed, this gives on £14bn saving on £500bn spend for England. We thought £40bn. Who can say?

Sharing the load

Published on June 15, 2006 in Government. 0 Comments

Summary Computer Weekly article on shared services across the public sector.

iTunes and artist profits

Published on June 15, 2006 in Reading. 0 Comments

Not good to be selling your tunes on iTunes, apparently. It could be as high as an 85% difference, sometimes.

OODA loops

Published on June 15, 2006 in Reading. 0 Comments

One to remember: observe, orient, decide, act. Neat. And explains JRobb’s “skating to where the puck is going to be”.

BBC who’s reading what

Published on June 14, 2006 in Reading. 0 Comments

Nice display of who’s reading what on the BBC News site. I guess this is potentially hoist by the idea that the top 10 become even more the top 10 through being listed as such.

Meteoroid hits moon

Published on June 14, 2006 in Science. 0 Comments

Not unusual, but there’s a very good video showing quite how rapid the hits are.

VLC for streaming

Published on June 14, 2006 in IT. 0 Comments

Quite why it took me so long to get to use VLC is a valid question. However, Anto tells me it does streaming, too. Schplendid.

Six great factoids

Published on June 14, 2006 in Reading. 0 Comments

Six lovely factoids from Charles Arthur – here is a cut-down summary of the ones I liked. Why not read them all:

Knife deaths are falling; surgeons treat attacks more effectively
Motorola got its country name field length wrong and ended up publicising Palestine and not Israel. Death threats ensued.
“News is stuff that I care about, and stuff that I want to pass on.” Thought provoking. Does that include objects as well as information?