Veri-fi-cation

I had an email from HMRC which said that my tax code has changed and would I like to check it? Of course I would, useful to know whether it had gone up or down for example. 

I jumped across to the HMRC Personal Tax website and was greeted with a new message. Instead of using the Personal Tax Gateway, which I'd spent hours taming, I was now asked to use another system called Verify. 

Hmm. Oh well, here goes. I had to enrol in the new system to prove who I was. 

It meant answering various questions on a Post Office website and then photographing an on-screen quick code. Then I had to 'scan' my passport. Both the paper ID page and then the electronic chip inside it - which required me to use NFC - near field communication. For that, I had to pass my iPhone over the front of the passport so that it could pick up the aerial inside the passport to transfer the data. That took me about three attempts.

Then, I was asked to take a selfie. It was like a photobooth though. The actual selfie took about 2 seconds after the button was pressed. So I had to take it again. 

The App then reassuringly informed me that I had uploaded (0) identity documents. I was on an adjacent iMac and so I could cross-check there and the actual documents had been uploaded, so I guess the App was only joking - like the prankster selfie thing.

Another aspect of the design was that the buttons to press when handling the iPhone for scanning and so on were placed in difficult positions on the screen to (a) see the image to be photographed and (b) to take the photo.

It's a bit of a bonkers design really. I decided to see what others thought of it, and I was alarmed to see that most people seem to be struggling to make it work - and some of them, like carers were more in need than I was to see my tax coding.

Olympus Zuiko Lenses on modern DSLRs (revisited)

 

I've spent the last year or so taking most of my photographs on an iPhone. 

It has been an interesting experiment and includes my holiday time in Florida, Sardinia and Iceland. 

The latest cameraphones are pretty good for blog-sized photos and the magnification isn't too bad either.

It is a trade-off between portability (iPhone) and heft (DSLR). I used to use a Trip 35 film camera and that was always reliable for most travel photography, so I guess I'm used to having to deal with the capabilities of the fixed focal lengths. 

The iPhone is wildly more flexible than the old Trip. The iPhone zoom goes from 0.5x to 10x, almost steplessly. I was inside a National Trust property recently and the iPhone could capture rooms better than my wide angle DSLR lens! 

But there's still some things I prefer about a proper camera. I still prefer to look through a viewfinder and when I'm taking any kind of 'show' pictures the DSLR is still usually better and I can manipulate the blurriness/bokeh of the picture instead of cheating afterwards(!)

Some years ago I posted a blog about using old SLR lenses with DSLRs and at the time I was using the lenses with a Canon 5D. The camera was massive and dwarfed the lenses. It worked pretty well, but I've updated recently and am now trying with a $25 Z adapter for Zuiko lenses on a full frame. 

This DSLR camera size is much more in keeping with the lenses, although some of those metal-barreled compact lenses are surprisingly heavy. So far it is interesting because with the Zuikos it is all about the manual settings. 

There's the handy aperture control on the lens (manual) and then the camera-based manual shutter speed and/or ASA settings to contend with. I know I can probably use a computerised zoom to a similar effect, but there's something interesting about working with prime lenses and especially with small primes like the one in the picture. 55mm and f1.2. Crazy. I don't know how much Nikon would sell something electronic for, but I'd guess here would be no change from £1,000. 

I progressively bought the fun lenses on eBay. I think I'm at eleven or more primes now and counting as well as three 35mm bodies by now (hint, the camera kits are often better bids than the individual lenses!) 

The reason I originally went for the Zuikos was that they were originally good lenses, suited for 35mm and nearly all of them were designed to be very compact and to fit a few in a jacket pocket. 

Check out the glass in the 50mm or 100mm and you'll see what I mean. I'll be experimenting some more over then next few days. Using the iPhone, I once more became used to jpeg editing, which isn't as clever as RAW for retaining detail in photos, but has still moved a long way since ye olden days. The jpegs are also consideably smaller. I notice a RAW nowadays can be around 40Mb for a single picture. Decisions, decisions!

redirection

Everyone speculates what is in the box, but like all good redirection, no one has asked about the backpack. And anyway, nowadays it doesn't take long to copy everything to the cloud or a memory stick. Even one on a keyring. Meanwhile the Hollow Men and Women go about their tasks while the floral dance continues. The new Downing Street press secretary Allegra Stratton is married to James Forsyth, the political editor of the Spectator. He works alongside the commissioning editor Mary Wakefield who happens to be married to Dominic Cummings.

The Cult of Clowns game is over

It looks like both the clowns and their respective circuses are reaching their endgame positions. In the White House everyone is making plans to quietly slip away. Melania has already mentally redecorated a couple of the alternative Trump buildings and ordered the removals vans. Scaramucci is planning his blockbuster book. A couple of the die-hard dinosaurs are wondering how they ever got into their current situations attepting to defend the indefensible. The legal profession is ready to make some serious money.

Over here, in Britian, people are escaping from the cult of Boris before it crashes to the floor. Lee Cain got out, partially destroyed by his nemesis. Now Cummings leaves, wanting to watch while the girlfriend of the Prime Minister sets policy.

A few of the slippery, leakey ones, like Gove, are lining up other people to blame and to wriggle their way upward. Even the Government's own typeface for Brexit has gone decidedly wobbly.

Blame the public. Allegra Stratton will no doubt have some spin to impart, but it'll be a tough haul unless she can ditch the Prime Minister as well. Watch for the oofle dust,

And then watch Matt Hancock on Newnight attrempting to talk his way out of a very bad day for the COVID numbers. Now he is talking about flying in vaccine to avoid border delays. But he does seem to live in a world of his own.

As we used to say in systems design 'Then a Miracle occurs'

Meanwhile, my clock, installed in September, is still ticking down.

Orange Crush

I suppose that Trump's departure will give Mainstream Media less to report upon, although perhaps the upcoming legal cases could provide an ongoing source of entertainment?

It is rumoured that Melania Trump has said Donny should give himself up accede gracefully at this point. 

I can see the moves. 

• concede 
• resign 
• appoint Pence as caretaker 
• get Pence to issue blanket immunity for all the Trumpsters from all forms of prosecution 

Or maybe there will be another way? 

I'm reminded of the Comic Strip where Robbie Coltrane playing Charles Bronson as Ken Livingstone defends the old County Hall from being stormed by the military.

Even Amazon's book suggestions are illustrative of the changing fortunes of the orange golfer. 

Let's see: Rage, Disloyal, Compromised, Hoax, Donald Trump vs The United States, After Trump - Reconstructing the Presidency.

I thought I'd take a second look: Where Law Ends, The Useful Idiot, The American Crisis, What Were We Thinking, Unmaking the Presidency, Traitor.

Hmm, it seems pretty universal.

back once again for the renegade master

So much for Big Data. If the poll of polls by the American pollsters can't even be close, then what's the likelihood that Big Data really works? Look at the election day chart - an 8 point lead on the part of the well-heeled pollsters.

I expect it is useful for managing the law of big numbers, which is another money-making scheme in its own right. It's little better than using the conversion rates when looking at advertising where the median CVR = 2.35%, top-quartile CVR = 5.31%. and top decile CVR = 11.45%. 

But that's the secret of Trumpian logic. Go Big, Go Loud, Get a good backdrop, Say what they want to hear and throw money at the problem. It seems to be working.

Halloween After Midnight - whack-a-mole

Coronavirus leaks are “running riot” across all age groups, a government scientific adviser has said before an expected announcement by the prime minister that England will go into lockdown next week. 

Downing Street leakers confirmed that Boris Johnson would hold a press conference late on Saturday afternoon, after scientists on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) told him Covid-19 rumours were spreading significantly faster than their worst-case scenarios. 

So rattled is Downing Street, that they have to reword some of it to make it look less like a leak (i.e. shuffle the order) - and to savagely rehearse Bojo on the detail. As it is Saturday, they can probably use the ruse of not wanting to announce it during a football match to push the time back. Amateurism.

This example of "taking back control", by the use of panicky measures will be demonstrated by the useless trio of Cummings, Johnson and Gove, although only Boris will get pushed forward. These statements fired from the hip during the weekend ensure that there is no sitting parliament available to comment on any of it. 

It cements into place my rumour of Bojo's pre-packaged exit from office on the 6th January, although many of his successors are equally terrible, but perhaps Cummings might also go in the aftermath.

And we can speculate that the entire latest announcement by Boris was leaked by one of his closest associates with failing judgement/eyesight and/or perhaps a ready supply of sharpened knives and/or easy access to tame journalists.

 If we are to believe the leak, then these 'Tier 4' measures will last until 2nd December (ie for a month initially across the whole of England).

If believed then they do fly in the face of what Boris has previously said and illustrate that he is operating entirely in whack-a-mole mode. 

By shamelessly leaking the list early to journalist Peston, it gives the Prime Minister a chance to prepare answers to some of the obvious questions about financing the schemes and keeping England ready for business. Next to be prepared, the Xmas rumours, but for now:

• All pubs and restaurants to close, though takeaways and deliveries will be permitted.
• All non-essential retail to close, though supermarkets won't have to follow the Welsh example of fencing off non-essential goods. 
• No mixing of people inside homes, except for childcare and other forms of support. 
• Manufacturing and construction will be encouraged to keep going. 
• Outbound international travel will be banned, except for work. 
• Travel within the UK will be discouraged, except for work. 
• Overnight stays away from home will be allowed only for work purposes... 
• Courts, schools, and universities will remain open. 
• Outdoor exercise and recreation will be encouraged. 
• Private prayer will continue in places of worship, but not services. 
• The leak says it will start at after midnight on Thursday. The regulations will be published Tuesday, and MPs will vote on them on Wednesday. 
•  Tier 5 when the schools and unis close isn't being discussed at this time. 

After 2 December, the exit strategy is that different parts of the country will then have their local economies and behaviour governed by the existing Tiers, namely Tiers 1 to 3, depending on how serious the virus is in these respective places.

Edge, Red is up on Amazon

Here we go again with the second sequel to Edge. Nonspoiler: At the end of Edge there was a decision. Simplified, it was whether to press a Blue button or a Red button. Each generates a course of action and they are described in the two follow up books.

The Blue one is reasonably linear, but the Red one calls upon the history from the 22nd Century, described in Pulse.

They (Edge, Blue and Edge, Red) are not due for publication until 2021, but I might just release a few Advanced Reader Copies.

My latest Experiment: Writing It - A podcast by Ed Adams

The salmon of doubt

I recollect that today was the deadline for getting all that Brexit thing done and dusted. I suppose the SARS-CoV- 2 had anyway put an end to that deadline, but I suspect Boris is one of those people who love deadlines. Who love the whooshing noise they make as they go by. 

We'll all have plenty of time to stop and consider once the lorries have been placed on the motorways because slippy Mr Gove hasn't budgeted enough money to make it all work. 

The next motorway planned for closure is the M275, which leads toward Southampton and Portsmouth. Gove will be talking about rows of Portaloos along the roadside next (With still no master plan)

Then there are the actual negotiations. Boris has decided to keep banging on about fishing rights, which in the scheme of the Brexit deal is one of the smaller items. Not quite a Red Herring, but somehow similar in nature. A case of siting of the Power Station and siting of the bike sheds. (fishing in the rivers of life)

I understand its importance to this island nation and to the symbolism, but add to that the wind beneath Boris' sails and the trite answers he gave to the 1922 Committee the other day, and we can see that this is all headed to lack-of-detail-land (bring the beat back).

 The issues being kept quieter are the so-called level playing field, which implies that the UK must still adhere to EU concepts after separation. Not really taking back control, in other words. 

And State subsidies - not being allowed to provide domestic subsidies to any industry. So I can't help wonder if we are going to get the poor effects of Brexit. Lorry parks, random shortages, barriers to trade, but not be able to do anything about it - because we have been unable to take back control. (All bound for mu-mu land)

Computers for the rest of us?

I don't want to appear reactionary about some of the recent system changes forced upon us. There was the Blogger change that means editing a post is more cumbersome now. They have made it more like how one would edit on a smartphone.

If I edit in text mode it won't take the picture formats directly, but then when I switch to HTML mode I can see the vastly over-populated HTML that has been generated. 

It's just annoying and takes my 10-minutes per post regime up to 20 minutes. Not cool. I then have to break up my writing to create extra line numbers so that I can add the pictures to the post.  I suggest 'computers for the rest of us' needs to be re-launched.

I understand that everything has to be done in millenial-friendly 'blocks' now - which is what WordPress introduced via Gutenburg some time ago, but the effect is to add another layer of machinery between my thoughts and getting them recorded. I decided to use Divi to get around that in WordPress, but have not found something similar for Blogger.

I suppose everything is converging on the dumb formatting of Facebook, which runs everything into a single paragraph by default. It's all about the monetization isn't it?

Anyway, Mac Catalina attempts to protect from some of the worse excesses of sneaky developers, but it means that there's a few new safeguards that kick in. One is the Verification, which it will re-run on Excel and other Microsoft products after every update. I'm guessing it is a subtle way to remind us that there's serviceable word processors and spreadsheets in the native Mac Apps too, but sometimes MS Office compatibility has to be a 'given'.

Another new feature is the aggressive permission management by Apple. I noticed it first in Lightroom (I'm one of many) and to fix it I had to resort to command-line terminal and use of back-ticks (That's the key next to the Z on UK English keyboards). I looked at the lengthy fixes described in some of the posts and thought 'Nope, too many steps.'

Only by typing in the Terminal shell :  diskutil resetUserPermissions `id -u`  command could I get past the two error messages at the start of Lightroom. 

Some time ago I plonked all of my discovered weird start key sequences into a single document, which I keep in a plastic folder in a desk tray for that emergency use.

Here it is:

And I've added two actual Terminal commands now, just in case. The second one, to disable verification, is a blunt instrument - not recommended.

Flat chassis like a Corgi Toy

I remember Dinky Toys and Corgi Toys. They made small models of 1960s cars. The design was similar, with a metal base, a couple of long springs to give the wheels suspension and then different designs of body placed over the top.

Of course in real cars the monocoque construction came along and did away with chassis, so that later cars had to be modelled with more complicated underbellies.

But fast forward to now and there's an interesting development with electric cars. The motorised part is based around four wheel motors, with a central flat area which holds all the batteries. Add in some drive by wire steering and you have a design similar to the old Corgi Toy, only full-size.

It means a flat, sprung, steerable chassis could carry all kinds of top halves, much like the old Corgi Toy idea. And that's what they have been testing in the Israeli desert.