opportunity to raise a few brexit plan points?

Teresa May is having to deal with a few in-house politicians who are more about the politics than the practicalities of a Brexit plan.

The lack of the plan is already apparent. A plan would have a heading about legal and constitutional matters.

A plan would recognise the communication strategy to handle both the necessary outward communication as well as the secret stuff that really forms part of the negotiation fallback.

Most plans would also show a critical path through the series of events that are to take place.

We don’t even get the long and short of it. Instead we get Brexit means Brexit. Hard and soft. Per-lease.

Meanwhile the frog-man and others are stirring street fighting whilst Jeremy Corbyn, in his interview with the Sunday Mirror, said Labour could vote against triggering article 50 if the Prime Minister does not agree to Labour’s “Brexit bottom lines”.

Now we are hearing about the one liner motion to get Brexit through Parliament.

It’s a bit of a mess, really, which I’m sure other countries are watching with some quiet glee. Michael Moore references it in his Trumpland documentary as an example of unintended consequences, just before he shows the USA January 2017 with Trump video.

The actual Exit is also two separate things. There’s the exit itself, scheduled over two years. In effect UK gets back its legislation and does this initially by a quick Word ‘change all’ of all the headers and footers on the European stuff to make it UK-specific. Maybe delete the bit about cucumbers. Those changes will no doubt become an industry in their own right.

Whilst the busy-ness of that exit process takes place, there’s the other business of restructuring all of the relationships.

Canada took seven years to agree something with Europe and even then it was held up by a small bloc of Walloons who dug their heels in.

The UK has far more complications because of all the history and aspirations of the various countries in play. In particular, the French and the Germans have deep interests. For example, they both want part of the finance sector. Paris and Frankfurt are already bidding. Same with the cars. Brussels has already asked for the innards of the recent Nissan UK arrangement to be explained.

Benelux will continue to look for an angle. They house the Commission in Brussels. Luxembourg still does - ahem - specialised things with finance making its inhabitants one of the top 3 richest GDP per head in the world.

Netherlands is a trading nation also inside the top 15 GDP, with its strong ties to Germany and increasingly, for imports, to China.

The list can go on, but there, Mrs May’s politicians, at least I’ve started the Force Field Analysis for you. That’s another part of the Plan.

Mrs May also has to get the UK outside of the EU before the next election run-up due in mid-2020.

The EU’s quiet agenda will be to make sure that the UK cannot be seen to have gained any advantage from leaving the EU. It must appear to be worse off as a result. Otherwise the EU itself is threatened, particularly because of the currently restless members such as Netherlands, the currently fragile Italy and even France after their 2017 election which could feature Sarkozy vs. Le Pen.

Throughout this the EU of 27 members and 500 million inhabitants have the easier end of the negotiation. At its simplest they can just run down the clock. Complex international bureaucracies won’t baulk at the thought of a two year countdown.

Even with the UK vote last 23 June, it could be 30 March 2017 before the Article 50 button is pressed. That’s just over 9 months. And only one system in the process.

Then we get the negotiated transition. Mrs. May might be thinking five years. If Canada took seven years, then that probably becomes the new table stakes, despite there being a template already available from the Canadians.

Alongside it will be the payments that UK is expected to make to the EU. My guess is that they will expect something akin to the current net amount paid inside the EU to now be paid when outside the EU. The cost of exit becomes an ongoing fee equivalent to membership. As it is, Osborne mis-judged a projected budget surplus which has turned into prolonged deficit, with around a £25 billon hole expected by 2020. That is before any Brexit costs get added. Right now, Hammond must be working out how to spin this for the autumn statement.

It's also where the negotiating strategy needs more than one level. It should be possible for the negotiators to show something of the process to appease the critics without giving away secrets.

At a simple level there’s the structure of the negotiation itself. Alignment of goals is one interesting area. Remembering negotiation basics, there’s the useful grid to illustrate the tensions and the potential for gains and losses.

Then there’s the tiered approach to the actual negotiations, which may often include a fact-finding round before the real negotiations get under way.

Unpacking this stuff is hardly a secret, but can be a lot better than the ‘nothing contributed’ mentality of many commentators.

So here’s my example of a tiering, although I’m not going to introduce a starting point.

1. No concessions
2. No further concessions
3. Making only deadlock-breaking concessions
4. High realistic expectations with systematic concessions
5. Concede first
6. Problem solving
7. Goals other than to reach agreement
8. Moving for closure
9. Combining strategies

I can start to see a toolkit emerging.

• A timetable.
• A list of major exit topics
• A list of major ‘new world’ topics
• A UK political Force Field Analysis
• An EU political Force Field Analysis
• A Rest of World Force Field Analysis
• Factfinding requirements
• A preferred negotiation stance
• A desired outcome
• A series of options
• Targeted outcome scenarios
• An approach to creating agreements

A defined set of phases for the process with durations and names like:

Stage 1 : Factfinding and strategy definition 6 months
Stage 2 : Initial exchanges 6 months

Stage 3: First Wave preliminary negotiation 3 months
Stage 3.1 : First Wave Options : 3 months
Stage 3.2 : Negotiation First Wave Options : 3 months
Stage 3.3 : Agreement First Wave 3 months

(Two Year Marker)

Stage 4: Second Wave preliminary negotiation 3 months
Stage 4.1 : Second Wave Options : 3 months
Stage 4.2 : Negotiation Second Wave Options : 3 months
Stage 4.3 : Agreement Second Wave 3 months

Stage 5: Third Wave preliminary negotiation 3 months
Stage 5.1 : Third Wave Options : 3 months
Stage 5.2 : Negotiation Third Wave Options : 3 months
Stage 5.3 : Agreement Third Wave 3 months

(Four Year Marker)
Stage 6 : Statement of degree of completion of Main Topics 3 months

Stage 7-9: Ongoing second tier topics preliminary negotiation 3 months
Stage 7-9.1 : Ongoing second tier topics : 3 months
Stage 7-9.2 : Negotiation Ongoing second tier topics : 3 months
Stage 7-9.4 : Agreement Ongoing second tier topics 3 months

(Seven Year Marker)

There’s a whole lot more to this, but the difference is, that it is about defining a structure and making a pragmatic start.

Oops. That’s probably not ‘politically’ correct

my bike is still quietly blogging its daily stats

A consequence of the recent unexpected Windows updates was that I fiddled around with my phone whilst waiting around for the lengthy update to complete.

I fixed one of those things that I'd been meaning to do for ages. It now means my bike simply logs its activity from the Garmin direct to the phone instead of via the PC or Mac and Wifi.

No biggie, but now when I press "Stop" on the Garmin, my bicycle immediately updates its statistics logged to Strava, Connect, Training Peaks and elsewhere, without me needing to do anything else.

103 mince pies miles to go

I'm approaching my cycling target for the year now. I decided it would be prudent to blast a few extra miles in October, because there is often a tapering off in November and December. It would be good to be able to say that the weather and conditions don't have any effect, but a combination of colder days, leading to slipperiness and then the mince pie and festive factor can mean that the two months of November and December become less than a single normal month for distance.

So far I've only had about four mince pies. That's two from a box and two mini ones when visiting friends in Cheltenham last weekend.

I'm sure they will already have had a negative effect on my aerodynamics.

loopy windows moment

My Windows computers run on Windows 10, which generally provides a good environment.

The challenge is around the revised update protocol it uses. Whereas the older Windows used to ask about updates, some versions of Windows 10 force system updates.

It can be annoying. It just happened to me in the middle of using the garage computer. It stopped in mid-flight and proceeded to update itself. Despite those 100% complete messages, it decided to reboot itself about three times and altogether took 15 minutes to go through all the machinations.

Given that the same machine had been switched on overnight the prior evening, it would have made more sense to do this kind of thing when the machine is clearly unattended.

A different rashbre related remote PC has attempted a similar update but stopped partway through.

It keeps rebooting and getting lost in the middle. Microsoft also removed the old "boot with F8" safe mode option, so the machine is effectively unusable now until I can physically get to it to work out how to rescue it.

The update appears to be linked to Windows 10 Version 1607 - the so called Anniversary Edition. Since release it has not taken long for forums and newsfeeds to show systems unable to complete updates, but also not able to boot because of the unfinished update, leaving them stuck.

This is where 'it all works perfectly in PowerPoint' springs to mind. Less so in the analogue.

whose vote is it anyway?

Alongside the luminosity of the bright orange arm waving candidate, we see the sometimes subtler machinations of the apparatchik alternative.

There's a currently building media narrative about what could happen if a few less expected states swing (in this case Georgia, Utah, Alaska).

The conspiracy theorists say that this is part of an electorate softening exercise. Less surprise if weird things happen.

Coverage includes Huffington Post, Bloomberg, Washington Post and -er- The Salt Lake Tribune, to name just a few. The Daily Telegraph, amongst others, has regurgitated versions of these stories here in the UK too.

Now a fun thing as a Brit when travelling very long straight roads in the US, is to tune into one of the shock jockey shows to pass a half hour. We don't really get anything as extreme in the UK. Someone like the colourful and highly Republican biased Alex Jones, who fronts Infowars and has been talking with analytics investigator Bev Harris about the potential for US election rigging.

There's two schools of thought on this. One involves the often old machines used as the basis for the vote. These are not used everywhere and are many designs.

There's plenty of stories, such as in the 2015 Brennan Report of having to buy spare parts for them on eBay (such as Zoom modems and Zip disks) and that many, including those in parts of high tech California, still use Windows XP or Windows 2000.

People imply they are insecure, have inaccurate touch screens and are difficult to audit end-to-end.

The second school of thought is the one for the recent shock-jock allegations. They don't really talk about the actual voting machines instead jumping to the other end of the system, where the big counting takes place.

The two features of a conspiracy suggested by Bev Harris involve (a) access to the centralised black box counting software and (b) a programming trick involving the conversion of integers to double precision floating point numbers onto which a gentle 'allocation' weighting can be applied.

Put simply, someone hacks into the central system and adjusts the voting skew using rounding from computerised fractional arithmetic.

The slightly nerdy story doesn't seem to get picked up by the mainstream US media, presumably because they filter shock jocks of whatever type.

It is still interesting to examine and may well get played after the results are in.

"Trust, but verify" as they used to say, or was it "Doveryai, no proveryai"?

reflections on piloting the future

I've now enjoyed watching all of the Charlie Brooker Black Mirror series. When I say all, I really mean all, because after series 3, Netflix drops back to the start of series 2 and then even back into the start of series 1.

I won't detail plots or characterisations here, more to say that there is a consistency to the near future incremental nature of much of the Brooker world. Each idea seems to fit alongside other ones in a way that meshes, a thought that isn't lost on the production team who provide little overlaps from one storyline to another. Not plot points, just hat-tip moments.

The ideas vary from that Series 1 story about a prime minister and a pig (long before the Hameron news bursts) the one about an X factor type show with accompanying meaningless work style processes then through virtual realities, nano robotics and many a reference to distortions of the social media experience.

Some ideas are ones that many of us may have thought about, (pay per not view, killer robotic insects, inside the machine, what happens when the x-system is down?) but Black Mirror stamps the pedal down to drive through impacts and conclusions for all of its scenarios.

I already mentioned hat-tips too. The new episodes have mainly gathered creative production sheens appropriate to their genre. There's the colour palette of Edward Scissorhands meets Desparate Housewives in one new episode. Various Hitchcock moments in another. Staccato 90 degree camera shuttering of a modern combat movie, coupled with the green/brown muted saturation of a shoot-em-up game in one about reality distortion.

The world view appears seamless, sounds right and kind of how we'd expect it to work, with sharp ideas alongside other throwaway moments almost worthy of whole episodes.

I'll have to give it a week and then watch them all again. And maybe take a few notes.

Meantime, here's a Tesla driving itself around a few road systems. Let's not forget how amazingly consistent American road junctions are, compared with the ones here in the UK.

San Junipero cops in the donut shop say...Way Oh. Of course.

That San Junipero 80s extended soundtrack, from Charlie Brooker, on Spotify. Waaa-Oh Way-Oh, plus a few of those synths that look like guitars.

cashless vanguard

The new £1 coin is being minted, ready for introduction in a couple of months. Like the old thrup'ny bit, it has 12 sides and the new coin is supposed to non viable to forge, compared with the ease with which current dud £1 coins are in circulation.

The old coin was 3/240ths of a £1, or worth just over 1p in today's currency. Its buying power by 1971 decimalisation was somewhat higher though, at about today's equivalent of 15p or three bob in old money.

So in buying power, that's 15/100th of a £1, a 12 times reduction in value over 45 years, or nearly 15 times reduction with recent currency fluctuations.

Maybe cashless society already has another meaning?

hoovering up robot data

I recently replaced the power supplies to my Drobo disk drives. These file servers each have 5 disks and one was starting to struggle after a reboot. Older disks seem to need a bit more oomph to restart.

Just for fun it's got me thinking about all these recent robot TV stories - Humans, Westworld and similar shows. I know, it's fiction, but I'm interested in the power needed for an untethered human-sized robot to operate for 24 hours. That's before it develops the m-m-minor g-g-glitches favoured in most sci-fi and by my Drobo (Data Robotics) disks.

So when sitting idle I consume about 80 watts, increasing to 100-130 watts for very light exercise, about 200 watts when cycling (according to my Garmin Edge 810) and up to about 500 watts for short bursts of time (also Garmin).

Distributing that power through a day I get to a figure of about 2900 watts, or 121 watts per hour. It is higher than Wikipedia says, but when I do a quick cross check of my figures with an average daily calorie intake, it gets to the following:

I've generalised these numbers so that they equate to someone consuming 2,500 Kcal per day. Coca Cola cans say people consume 2,000 Kcalories per day, but I suspect that the 2,500 Kcal is still a reasonable guess.

My numbers are only rough figures and an hour or so of cycling could skew the energy consumption upward. It's still enough for some further fun calculations.

Now assume a battery equivalent to supply the energy - i.e. a robot version of the same form consuming electricity instead of salads, spaghetti and cups of tea.

I use a couple of examples of modern high-tech batteries (from a Dell computer and from an e-bike) to gauge an average of around 130 Watt hours per Kilogram of battery weight. I'll leave clever mini reactors and insanium out of this for the moment.

The battery efficiency equates to a bizarrely heavy 22 Kilos or 50 lbs of battery weight per day to drive a human-sized machine doing human type things if the efficiency was 1:1. I suppose a substitute humanoid could be made of structurally light materials, although the design of a human already optimises much of this. Come to think of it, probably removing the 55% water in a human would be the biggest reduction in weight?

There's still a a big 'but' though. Most machine efficiency is considerably lower than biological efficiency.

As an example, a modern petrol car runs at about 21% efficiency after decades of honing. A 1:5 reduction in efficiency would drastically increase the battery need for a 24 hour human-shaped self-contained machine to 111 Kilos, or 245 lbs. Ironically there would also need to be fans and coolant to dissipate heat created during bursts of activity.

But I suppose we'd remove the water and make other redesigns. That's where non fictional untethered robots would operate very differently, by not needing to move around in the same way as a human.

I begin to understand why robots in Star Wars and other series are often shaped like industrial vacuum cleaners.

Thursday 13 brexit wrexit wannabe

The Spice girls know about those Brexit negotiation considerations:

So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha)
I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ah

1. The EU won't want the result of Brexit to make it look as if the UK has done better by leaving. Allowing UK to do well would mess up the politics and balance of whoever is left inside. 
2. Article 50 is only 268 words. It doesn't cover life after Brexit. At all. 
3. The EU are already indicating that they will want UK to lay out its exit negotiation points before they will respond. A case of who will blink first? 
4. There are already signs of some top UK industries looking for alternative homes, post Brexit. The City of London's dominant business springs to mind. The problem becomes that there is nowhere else attractive to site it. Yet. 
5. The UK civil service departments are slow at decision making and negotiation. 
6. The political classes are all looking at how they can pint fingers elsewhere. 
7. Activity and result are not the same thing. Like digging holes near to Hinkley is not the same as designing or building a power station. 
8. There is no plan. 
9. Even if a plan appears, it is supposed to be kept secret.
10. It is impossible to get all the things that were in the original Brexit claims. 
11. The EU will want the UK to pay for everything, like now. Spending less is unlikely.
12. A new guard of leaders will appear in the Eu and they will not want to acknowledge what their predecessors may have hinted at agreeing with UK. 
13. The Canadians have been negotiating for seven years with the EU and it is still not concluded. 
14. Even if the UK makes deals with non-EU countries, it is still further away and a less soft market than the EU has been. 
15. Tariffs may become secondary to changed legislation which could delay the introduction of new product and services to the EU. 

Now don't go wasting my precious time Get your act together we could be just fine I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ah

fly wrangling for movie buffs

I sometimes watch the credits of interesting movies. Occasionally I'll also do it for TV shows, although Netflix and similar jump starters can make that less frequent.

Westworld on Sky still plays out the full end titles. There's some interesting aspects to its CGI, not to mention the pianola music which features Radiohead amongst others. The clip at the top of the post is from the Westworld show (26 thousand hits) and the one below is the original song (38 million hits)

But there was one particular credit that got me thinking. Fly wrangler. Now there's a thing.

up the creaking committees without a brexit

One of the old sayings about committees is their ability to hide in safe detail. It's the story of the power station and the bike sheds, where the committee is better able to talk about bike shed placement than the big stuff. Or talk of plane marshalling paddles instead of the new runway.

The recent Hinkley Point situation is a good example. Sure, the negotiation was slowed down for a while after Cameron's crash. Ultimately, May/Hammond have signalled it to go ahead pretty much as envisaged.

That's with the unworkable design and over-expensive power bills for 30+ years after/if the thing actually gets built. Take a look at Flamanville, France which was started in 2007, has seen cost tripled, is six years behind schedule and may have to be dug out and re-built. Olkiluoto, Finland is 10 years behind schedule and has so far seen its costs triple. There's not a single working version of the planned EPR type for Hinkley.

It illustrates the worrying lack of negotiation prowess which could also be brought expensively to bear on the whole Brexit process.

The Heathrow announcement can be another example, which now gets kicked into a further two year committee stage.

Even the dastardly knight continues as yet with no real changes to formal status.

It all reminds me that there's other sayings about paddles.