Spring cleaning nuggets

I am spring cleaning at the moment, going through all my old scrap books and files, sorting them out and weeding them.

One of the outcomes of this is that I come across old notes that I cant even remember writing, a bit like the re-discovery of old masters.

So here is just a phrase that was written on a random scrap of paper:

"The path you take may twist and turn, it may lead you back to where you began or somewhere you never thought you could be"

Or a slight rewrite would be:

"The path you take may twist and turn, it may lead you back to where you began or take you somewhere you never expected to be. In the end the destination doesn't matter, what matters is how you spend the journey".

The Spending Review: A Personal Response

I am a public sector worker, I am not on the coalface but I hire the people that work on the coalface. I agree that cuts had to be made and they had to be deep. I agree that they had to cut the Public Sector borrowing requirement down to size but not eradicate it.

However, I have no doubt that the coalition has gone farther than it needed to, due to the Conservative ideology of smaller government.

I do believe that we needed to make an across the board cut of at least 10%. I don't believe any area should have been ring-fenced including however unpalatable the NHS and education. It is time to live within our means. A significant amount can be saved in the public sector through efficiency saving and getting rid of "nice-to-have" services that have built up in the last ten years without affecting core services. 10% is I believe a fair line in the sand.

I think the public sector pay freeze is right even though in real terms it means many poorly paid workers will find it much harder. Again given the extreme circumstances we find ourselves in I feel a pay freeze is preferable to loosing more jobs.

I think any additional spending should be frozen, what we don't have now we no longer need. A lot of commentators have compared the deficit to your own debt, when you have a debt you need to reduce it. I would compare the budget requirements to a household budget, when money is tight you don't spend it on new things or reduce spending on food to move to a bigger house. You make do with what you have got and so it is time to make do with what we have got. When the good times come again then we can look for new opportunities.

I would not reduce corporation tax, big business got us into this mess they can help us out of it. The argument that this is to stimulate growth is valid but public sector spending and public sectors workers also contribute to the economy.

I would not increase International development, again referring to the household budget, I like to give to charity but I don't give more than I can afford. As a country we may have a responsibility to the rest of the world and that is why I would not make any reduction in the budget for international development but it would be frozen.

I would not give a rise to the cabinet office for their "big society" work. "Big society" is a good idea but it doesn't not need that much money. I would prime the pump but not to the extent of £1.8 bn perhaps £0.5 bn would be more appropriate. Government cannot order you to volunteer but they can encourage you.

I would bring forward the pension age increase, it makes economic sense.

I would increase pension contributions, although I acknowledge it will be painful the current system is no longer viable for individuals, the country or the economy.

I would not freeze the science budget but as per all other areas cut it by the required 10%. Sorry scientists everyone needs to do more with less and no one can be protected under these circumstances.

I would get rid of trident, we have no need for a nuclear deterrent that we would never use saving us £20 bn that could be better spent elsewhere.

With some significant regret I would not expand the funding for energy and climate change projects. Again we cannot afford the "nice to do" stuff, when things improve they can go back on the agenda. For now the £2.9bn could be better spent elsewhere. I would if the figures allowed allocate £200m for the wind power projects and £50m for solar power and energy efficiency projects. This would help continue the push to a green and sustainable economy. In this area alone I feel we must move forward not back.

I would not scrap the index linking for rail travel, those without cars would be the hardest hit.

The NHS is tricky but I would enforce my golden rule of 10% cuts with a stipulation that savings must be made from efficiency saving and cutting red tape and not closing wards or hospitals. That may be very painful but I would also commit that when the good times come back the NHS would be the first in the queue and I would aim for funding increases to a level equivalent of 5% per year for each year they received no increase. Over the long term there would be no reduction in funding.

There are other areas I could go into but I think you can understand extrapolate my thoughts.

On one final note the average savings across the board for the government have been 19%. I have said across the board saving will be 10% with some significant extra savings made which should allow us to head towards the 19% target. In addition, I do not believe we need to totally eradicate the deficit. Some deficit is acceptable as long as it continues to reduce and does not get out of hand.

I recommend my plan to the house.

swiftcover.com

Having recently asked a question about why my insurance has gone up and getting a patronising response I thought I would paste it up on the internet.

From Zephyrist to Swiftcover customer service:

Can someone please explain to me why my monthly insurance premium has risen by 34% this year.

I now have a years driving under my belt which must mean I am a safer driver and I haven't had any accidents this year. Yes, I did claim for a new windscreen which was damaged by the poor condition of the roads (pot holes) but that is not a fault of my driving and although I accept I wont get a no claims bonus this year I don't think I should be charged the equivalent of 3 new windscreens in higher premium charges.

Patronising answer from Swfitcover.com lack of customer service:

Dear Mr Caunt,

Thank you for your e-mail.

The reason for price increases is that the average cost of claims is increasing. This affects all UK car insurance companies.

These are some of the causes:

? Injury claims compensation is increasing.
? Increasing medical costs.
? Fewer cars are repairable.
? Parts are more expensive.

I hope this answers your query.

Commentary from Zephyrist

I haven't bothered replying, I don't see much point.

The True meaning of Christmas

Its at this time of year after the annual watching of a version of "A Christmas Carol" (Patrick Stewart as scrooge and Richard E. Grant living up to what his middle initial may well stand for - Excellent), the odd mince pie and a glass of your favourite tipple that thoughts turn to what is the true spirit of Christmas.

I also feel that I should either be a member of the royal family or a member of the clergy or indeed a well respected member of the fourth estate, passing judgement on what Christmas should be.

It is in a sense what you make of it. What it is not is another day on which to compare ourselves to other people to determine whether our Christmas has been success. Long ago I worked out that it is the lot of most of us that we will never be the best at whatever we do, there will always be someone who can do it better. The consolation prize as it were is that I and you can do whatever it is our way and there is no one in this truly wonderful world who could do it quite the way we could.

That is the little bit of magic inside all of us and we can use that magic to create a Christmas that is magic to us. We may not have the biggest turkey, we may all start fighting by 10 am in the morning and we may not get anything we actually wanted for Christmas but at least it is our Christmas with our family and we all bought the magic.

Christmas will never be perfect however much money or even planning goes into it. Often it is the small inexpensive gestures that we remember in the new year. What presents do you remember from Christmas past?

One thing I love about Christmas is the carols, you cant beat a good sing along and it is one of the many things I look forward to each year. It doesn't matter whether you can sing or just shout, it is a spontaneous expression of joy and certainly clears the cobwebs from the lungs.

Tonight on Christmas Eve everyone is preparing for the big day looking forward to whatever is special for them. Father Christmas is criss crossing the sky delivering presents to the children in time for the dawn of Christmas day.

It is this spirit of giving and the belief of universal love and peace that is central to the more spiritual side of Christmas. On one day a year we think of loved ones and strangers and look to make the world a better place in the coming year.

It is a beautiful place this world of ours.

To all my readers, Merry Christmas to you and your families. The joys of the season to you and yours.

Everything can be found somewhere on the internet where everything means 99%

The all mighty google search these days means that anything no matter how obscure can be typed into its search box and before you know it you are surfing through thousands of pages about some obscure tiny subject.

However, every so often I run a search on google which reminds me that even given the infinite large number of pages of the internet I still cannot find the one page I want.

When I was young probably around 15 years ago I went to the Scilly Islands and at the time I found a print which I just had to buy. Cant remember how much it cost. My parents bought it for me and it has been one of my most prize possessions ever since especially as my parents had it framed for me.

So one evening I am looking at this modern print which is a picture of Bishop's rock lighthouse in the moonlight in oils by J Wilson Hepburn. I think to myself I could use the *awesome* power of the search engine to find out more about this artist and see if there are other prints I would like.

So I pop along to google and type in the words "J Wilson Hepburn".

Google Search for J Wilson Hepburn

All you get is a few hints that there are indeed originals that have been sold at auction for not very large amounts but no sign of any prints.

Lot 33 - J. Wilson Hepburn - oil on board A view of St Mawes.

Lot 40 - J. WILSON-HEPBURN (XX): An oil on artist's board of the Fish Market and harbour of Mevagissey.

Bonham's - J. Wilson Hepburn, Moonlit river scene, oil on canvas, signed, 60 x 90cm. £94.

Just hints of things and the links don't really give you any further information.

Of course in searching it doesn't help that the surname is similar to "Audrey Hepburn"

Here is what I know I think he is a Cornish artist that painted in oils, I suspect in the late 1800's. Other than that I know very little.

If anyone could give me more information I would be very interested. If anyone knows of any prints or originals for sale I would at the very least be interested in hearing more. If anyone has the original of my print which I would guess is somewhere in the Scilly Isles I would be extremely interested.

Until I get this information and can post it on my blog I am afraid we must conclude that as of now the world is still larger and contains more information than the internet.

18 monkeys sitting at a keyboard

I have written a perl script that simulates eighteen monkeys each hitting one key either a letter of the alphabet or space key. They are trying to write the line " To be or not to be".

"Why?" I hear half the world scream, "For goodness sake, why? Think of the children!". Sorry slipped into a Simpson moment there.

Anyway I have written this totally geeky pointless script just because I can. It was a personal challenge to myself, can a mild mannered recruitment officer who knows a bit about perl write a script that will achieve this.

To explain the mechanics, I create a sequence of 18 random numbers between 1 and 27. Convert that all into letters or a space, then compare it to the text I want, calculate the percentage match and repeat until I get a decent match. For the maths bods out there the actual odds of hitting a perfect sequence are 18 to the power 27. In other words a really really really large number.

So anyway tonight I have been running batches of 2000000 iterations and outputting to a file every combination with a match over 7 letters.

Here are the results so far:

The highest ever match is 9 letters off a run of 200000000 iterations which just goes to show hitting the full eighteen letters could be a bit of a miracle. That run took 3 hours to do.

The interesting thing is that 8/9 letter is starting to make almost recognisable word patterns:

6533243 TULBEHXRBGMK EO BE 9
7596871 DO SJOR FOOUHU BO 8
15070898 AOSBH RQMNLT GO AA 8
41948431 TOPKGJCE ROTSTOJSE 8
83387651 TOEBOYXY UKT HP FE 8
131295542 NO BGVIR TPTGTX MB 8
123724196 TOIBXRY BENT TOWTE 8

I should explain the first number is the iteration, then we have the code sequence and finally the number of matching letters.

Ok so most of them still sound like the Russian or Japanese version of "to be or not to be" but bits are beginning to make sense.

Next experiment reduce the number of letters in the phrase to see if we can hit the high matches quicker. Maybe I will try "Out damned spot" but really I need something even shorter.

Intertwined colour lines: a fascination part 2

The spiders web that is Oxfords road network.

Intertwined colour lines: a fascination

I find myself strangely fascinated by coloured lines intertwined together, especially if it is a pattern based on something man made or familiar to me.

This is a hand drawn colour line copy of a 1914 clearing house railway junction diagram of the area around clapham junction (the big confusing area over on the left). If you want to you can compare it to the original over here on wikipedia.

Maybe I have discovered a whole new art form with which you can experiment with on any map or satelitte photgraphy, just drawing designs. Today the web tommorrow Tate Britain.

Earth Day - 22 April

Today April 22 is Earth Day and in the usual way I find out about these things it was because Google has redesigned their logo for the day.

According to wikipedia earth day is a day to inspire awareness and appreciation for the earth's environment. First observed in 1970 now it hardly breaks the news (at least round here, except google of course).

So lets take a second and think of something beautiful in our environment that we might want to protect for future generations.

For me the humble cherry tree and the humble bumble bee, two things that are natures marvels and without protection, life would be a little bit less bearable. I for one would not want to be old telling my grandchildren that in my youth we had cherry trees with blossom just like confetti and we had bees that went buzz and made honey. If that future comes to pass, as an old man I could not bear to speak of what precious things we took for granted and lost on the tarmac path to progress. In my old age I want to sit under the cherry tree letting the blossom fall against my wrinkled skin as the bees buzz round the granchildren and me. I would want to reflect on the sea change in the first few years of the 21st century that lead to sustainable growth policies which worked in harmony with nature.

Snow watch snow day

Wow for the first time since I moved to Oxfordshire I have been unable to get to work by public transport. It was touch and go yesterday with a bus finally turning up. Today the bus turned up got half way there and then the bus drivers says the service is being suspended due to the heavy snow and it was heavy and they would be turning back so we would not get stranded. I would think I must have been on one of the last running buses in Oxfordshire this morning. Services were suspended at 0945 and I think I got back about 0900.

"Updated 06/02/09 0945

All services except the Oxford Tube have been suspended due to heavy snow."

-Oxfordshire Stagecoach buses website.

So here I am having a snow day, so who knows what I will get upto. Probably more posts later.

The Review of 2008

Well what a year 2008 was, a grand total of 94 posts starting with the review of 2007 and ending with the great beaver escape.

With 94 posts I kept a nice solid average of 1.8 articles per week and although I was trying to get to 100 articles I didn't want to push it and I am very happy with the final result.

Snow watch continued through the early part of the year with lots of false starts and only the odd snow flake. However in November / December there were also some false starts making the 2008/09 season look slightly more promising.

In February I was woken from sleep by my first ever earth quake. In April I talked about my little theory of how really only one person is needed to decide a political election. In May one of my only two articles that month was an open letter to Steven Spielberg telling him how he could have done the new Indiana Jones movie Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) properly. In June there was a story about the first beaver dam in the UK.

In July I wrote about the rise of the urban shepherd. In August I wrote perhaps the best joke article of the year where I lampooned research about hearing pictures on the computer screen. In September I approached the entire range of subjects usually covered in my blogging including a playlet entitled "Single for Bicester Town". In October the credit crunch was really hitting hard and I wrote several articles about the capitalist economic model and the folly of chasing continuous growth. In November I wrote about the new tradition of the emergency Christmas box. Then finally in December just before Christmas I reviewed a heart warming best seller about mans best friend.

What a year it has been and what potential 2009 has for so much more.

Happy new year and have a good 2009.

Marley & Me

If you have ever loved a dog you need to read this book. It will bring back fond memories, you will laugh and you will cry. A book about a 97 pound bright yellow Labrador which grows from a fur ball to a force of nature. The book follows the ups, downs, heels and "incomings!" of life through the eyes and mostly tongue of a happy go lucky Labrador and the family that grows up around it.

Everyone that has every owned their own dog will find something in this book and everyone that thinks about owning a dog will find out what they have been missing.

I laughed and cried in this book, and one of my favourite snippets which just typifies a dog who just does what they want to, regardless, is when the dog features in a film. The whole scene is about a dog getting out the car with its family.

"Take one: The Van pulls to the curb. The instant the daughter slides open the side door, a yellow streak shoots out like a giant fur ball being fired from a cannon and blurs past the cameras trailing a red lead...
Take two: The Van pulls to the curb. The door slides open. The daughter is just beginning to exit when Marley huffs into view and leaps out past her this time dragging the white-knuckled and white-faced boy behind him...
Take three: The Van pulls up. The door slides open. The daughter exits. The boy exits, holding the leash. As he steps away from the van the leash pulls taut, stretching back inside, but no dog follows...
Take four ...The Van pulls to the curb. The door slides open. The daughter steps out. The boy steps out but with a bewildered look on his face. He peers directly into the camera and holds up his hand. Dangling from it is half the leash, its end jagged and wet with saliva."

- Extract from "Marley & Me" by John Grogan

I guess the one thing that everyone can see is their own dog in that. I remember Nobby the mad springer spaniel who would follow commands only if he felt like it, would get out of the car always first even if it meant jumping over everyone else in the car and who would always pull at his lead even if it was sometimes dragging you home when he was bored of walking.

I am so glad I finally got round to reading the book, I had been putting it off for ages, if you are doing the same then I urge you not to delay and pick it up now, you wont put it down.

To dogs and dog lovers the world over, cheers to best friends.

What was going on there then?

I was off on one of my irregular visits to one of the outlying depots. This time I have been doing a grand tour updating the local HR managers on some process changes we are making. I tend to do most of the work with my manager helping with the bigger bits. My manager is more than happy to delegate these meetings to me as I know exactly what is going on and can brief it with no problems.

So my boss delegated responsibility to me to arrange and give this briefing. So I contacted the manager and suggested we meet up. She kind of dithered about it so I left it a few days, it went a bit quiet and when I bought it up again she told me she had contacted my boss to arrange the meeting. My boss had already passed it on to me so we kind of said fair enough, if they need a bit more senior manager hand holding then we can go do it together.

So we get there my boss (female) and me (male) to meet this HR manager (female). My boss does a quick intro and then hands over to me as I know all the detail. So I am going through everything and any time the HR manager asks a question she addresses it to my boss. Its almost like the entire conversation is between her and my manager and I am nothing more than an audio tape. This was accompanied with her generally looking at my boss and using body language to focus on my boss and not me.

It was very disconcerting and if the sexes were reversed so that I was female with two males you might interpret it as sexism. I find it difficult to believe it was sexism but equally I find it hard to believe she didn't talk to me because I clearly know my stuff and my area of work. I have a good reputation around the organisation and am known for my thoroughness.

My boss and I did talk about it briefly afterwards but she was none the wiser and it had made her feel a bit awkward as well, because she is completely confident with my briefing ability and would have happily left it to me. She had already tried to convince the HR manager that I was completely competent in giving the briefing.

So I don't know what that was about but it will be interesting to see what happens in the future.

Christmas Box

I am all in favour of starting Christmas traditions and this one is one I am going to start this year.

To give a bit of background this comes out of several discussions about what I might want for Christmas. I like to think of simple presents for Christmas and I have fairly low expectations.

For my Christmas to be complete all I need are three things a good fiction book, a nice pair of socks and a bar of chocolate. As long as I get that I am content.

Christmas Box

This is a modern day version of a stocking.

1. The book must be a novel, no non-fiction allowed.

2. The socks must be nice and warm, no novelty or Christmas socks allowed.

3. The chocolate must be large and suitable for eating with the book.

No other items are allowed in the box. They must all be put in a box and wrapped up, outside decoration is left up to the gift giver.

Local news...Fast Ticket Machines out of use due to a recent spate of thefts (Chiltern Railways, UK)

This is the kind of petty criminality that really, really annoys me.

I use these machines all the time and they are really useful, you generally don't have to queue at the ticket office window which generally saves about five minutes when you are running for the train.

Well it would seem that some gang of petty minded oiks have decided that the machines are soft targets for breaking into and stealing the cash. Sadly, Chiltern Railways have done the sensible thing and replaced them with machines that will only take cards. Although this does mean they may now become a target for card scammers.

Plus thanks to this gang the machines have been out of action for weeks inconveniencing thousands of people. Its at time like this I like to think that karma will soon catch up with the gang and they get exactly what they deserve.

When petty criminality affects the way we conduct are lives to such an extent somebody should really do something about it. The question as usual is exactly who?

The end of the world as we know it..

OK may be not quite the end of the world but the end intellectual debate and the dumbing down of the English language.

I am designing some new assessment materials at work based around communication skills, part of the folio is some group discussions. These group discussions have now gone out to consultation with our partner groups and I am collating the feedback.

One topic included the world "eradicate", one comment has suggested that we use the word "remove" instead, as people may not understand the word "eradicate".

I am all in favour of not over complicating things, I started nodding and thinking what a good piece of advice that was. Then I had one of those record screeching moments where the needle is taken off the record scratchily (that reference probably lost 90% of the audience but I shall struggle on, if you are not sure what a record is try wikipedia). If someone doesn't know a word it is not cruel or unfair to use it or a reason for me to change it, that is a reason for someone to pick up a dictionary or use the internet to look up the meaning.

To me the two words have distinctly different meanings so I feel it is important to use eradicate. The English language is currently rich with many great words for all occassions, we should not reduce it to a language where there is only one word for everything. What next, get rid of blue and call it light black, where do we stop, eradicate is a good word and I say it stays.

"Say no to the eradication of eradication"

My point is that everyone, if they dont know something should take the opportunity to learn and look it up. It should never be that if people dont know something its the other persons fault for not using the right word. Individuals need to take responsibility, develop themselves and protect the richness of the english language.

Another comment was that I cant use a discussion topic about insurance because some people might not understand the concept. Well if they dont that should form part of the discussion and if they dont, why dont they? Insurance is virtually fundamental to several aspects of life and surely it is a fairly simple concept. Even if you cant explain how insurance works you know about premiums, claims and have a vague knowledge of risk. Again we shouldnt avoid discussing things because people might not know, the things people don't know are the exact things we should be discussing. Humanities job is to learn and develop, there is nothing wrong with ignorance if you do something about it, if you ignore it and hope it goes away then the only person you are failing is yourself.

End of moan, join me next week when I tell you about the new course I have been on, "Effective moaning for professionals". Apparently it even comes with roleplays.

I have been thinking...

I have been thinking about one thing that will change the world. I have a spare £1 in my pocket and know that there are 60 million other people in the UK that have a spare £1.

Effectively then I have £60 million to make a small change to make the world a better place. I have £60 million because while some will give none a lot of people will give more.

So one small gesture to create a big gesture, to change the world.

If you expand that premise to the world there are 6.7 billion people so £6.7 billion to make an even bigger gesture.

The question is what could you invest £6.7 billion in, to really fundamentally change the world for the better for everyone.

£1 to change the world 6 billion reasons to do it.

Notes:

There is a part of me that wants to write in a post ironic modernism type of way after the above article "Zephyrist Aged 10 and a half". There is a certain idealistic naivety to the article that the entire population of the world could unite to make one change when often charities struggle to get just a few people to donate money.

There is another part of me that says the only people that have ever changed the world are the idealistic dreamers. They dare to dream the impossible, somehow and no one quite knows how, it becomes possible.

Leadership is about creating new realities, drawing people in and breaking down barriers. Great leaders dream both the dream and of how to make it a reality.

One thing I do know is that if you never think of something or never say it out loud you have strangled the dream at birth.

The ten and a half reference harks back to childhood where nothing is impossible, all the bad things don't exist and we can do anything if only we set our minds to it. Growing up is about finding out there are barriers whether in skill or talent or just what seems like luck. However much we want something sometimes it just wont happen.

At times like that it is easier to get cynical and look negatively at things. There is no point applying for that job, I wont even get an interview and they are probably not looking for someone like me. However, if you don't try, how do you really know you will fail. Even if you cant imagine the possibilities, all of them are out there.

Maybe I can't change the world all by myself but maybe if I keep generating ideas someone will pop along, pick it up and run with it.

Our only limitations are the limitations we impose on ourselves.

Warning sounded on web's future (BBC)

Well it would appear that the BBC has finally worked out what the rest of us already know, you can't believe everything you read on the internet.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee (No I don't know who he is either, but with a "sir" in front of his name I am busy bowing down and tugging my forelock) has come up with the idea of a "trustworthiness" labelling system for websites.

Sir Tim has set up the WWWF, and to be fair trustworthiness is just one of his aims. He wants to make the web more accessible not just to those of us in the West. Sir Tim wants to expand the web beyond just text to reach those through the web who can't read or write. He also wants to increase mobile web browsing and the usage in Africa . Basically he wants to bring the web to the world regardless of wealth, ability, status and location.

A very noble endeavour.

My take on it is that we need to separate opinion from fact and make some attempt at peer review or evidence based labelling. If an article has credible supporting evidence or is more factual than opinionated then it gets a higher rating. Perhaps any news site could have assessors who are trained and vetted for suitability and experience, who can then rate articles.

The web is a very interesting place with every view represented but off the beaten track away from the main brands such as the BBC and CNN how do you know who to trust especially on the basis of one article. Trust can be easily built on a series of articles but on one short article it is more difficult to judge. This is where bloggers have their niche, they can earn trust and reliability from their readership but how many bloggers have internal standards or a code of practice.

Love Actually is all around

I recently watched Love Actually again on DVD. Its a good film but what I like the best is the intro sequence.

Sometimes I take a moment when travelling through an airport or train station and look around to see the love that is shown in the intro sequence, sometimes its even me getting the love.

Just once I would like the words to come over the tannoy just so everyone can have a look round and see the love, but for now it remains on DVD.

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow airport. General opinion is starting to make out we live in a world of hatred and greed but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often its not particularly dignified or newsworthy but its always there. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the twin towers as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge, they were all messages of love. If you look for it I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around."

- Hugh Grant, Love Actually intro sequence

New Google Chrome

So google have decided to enter into the browser wars. To be fair it was only a matter of time.

According to reports they have already captured 1% of the browser market share, I suspect due to the prominence of the download link on the google search page and that they are a reasonably trusted brand in the mainstream.

I for one wont be downloading, I like firefox and I love the culture and ethos behind it. I firmly believe in open source software and think it is about the true spirit of the internet. I do not want to get all my services from one provider especially one that seems to collect vast amount of personal data and web browsing habits for research purposes.

Google are good but I think in the same way we don't get internet explorer from Microsoft will be the same reason we don't get Chrome from Google. Firefox users like a bit of independence from any big monolithic company.

However competition is always a good thing and I would guess that some or all of the innovative new features in chrome will be built into the next version of firefox. Although in web browsing terms what would be really innovative these days. There are plenty of incremental evolutionary improvements but nothing recent has been completely revolutionary.