Phligm Phlagm 2

[philmophlegm]

You don't need this laptop.

Trying to understand the EU's actions against Apple and the Republic of Ireland.

It's not shocking that professional employers judge applicants for client-facing roles partly on their appearance and their dress. What is shocking is that not only do state schools not teach this stuff, they sometimes don’t like it when employers try to do it instead.

Useful smartphone test. When I last bought a smartphone, I read lots of reviews, but one question that was never asked was “How good is it at making and receiving calls?”, that is “How good is it at actually being a phone”"?”

According to the latest Rowntree Foundation definition, someone in the top 0.32% of global incomes is now "in poverty". Muppets.

British WW2 propaganda posters.

Think you're good at Lego building? This guy is better.

If you were an American games company raising funds on Kickstarter for a new family card game "that combines speed, hilarious gestures, and your silly side for 2-6 players, ages 6+", and you weren't that familiar with politically incorrect British playground slang, what's the worst name you could come up with...?

"Nobody ever got sacked for buying IBM" …but maybe in this case, someone should have been.

When I was an auditor, this sort of clever statistical analysis was called a logic check. This is a good logic check on why American police might treat certain groups differently. (Hat tip to ford_prefect42.)

Archaeological evidence of a major bronze age battle in northern Germany c.1250 BC.

Comments

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

I have always been a little shocked at how *bad* smart-phones are at being PHONES. Near as I can tell, the pinnacle of "phone" was the convoy flip-phone. it was rugged, had a good long battery life, and would consistently allow you to speak to another person. It's been downhill ever since on that point.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I had a flip Motorola Razr v3, and that was a good phone. And you could open it in precisely the same way that Captain Kirk opens a communicator. I miss that.

[topum.livejournal.com]

I have heard auditors refer to what you call a logic check as analytical review a couple of times.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Yes, that term is also used. Although when I worked at a certain four letter Big 4 firm in Audit Support, we discouraged people from calling it that because of the potential confusion with "substantive analytical procedures". At my previous "Top 11" firm, we used "analytical review" to describe both, which was a bit sloppy to be honest.

[topum.livejournal.com]

I like the "Top11" ). The firm probably felt that it is too close to the top 10 to be a "Top 20" firm ). I wonder if there is a "Top 46" firm too.

Ah, I remember meetings at the International Headquarters office of that four letter Big 4 firm in Amstelveen related to a trade for their client. They have free milk for everyone there.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I've worked in the Amstelveen office for a couple of days. Enormous office given that it's only two (or maybe three?) floors high. I seem to remember that facilities staff used bikes to get around.

I've also worked at the firm's other international headquarters in Zug in Switzerland rather more often. That was a relatively small office, but it was the office where my boss was based and where the Cooperative of partnerships was registered.

[topum.livejournal.com]

I remembered it to be taller, probably four floors and some sections even taller than that. I remember that they were very proud of that building and those internal patio gardens they had there. In London their Salisbury Square and Dorset Rise offices were just a stone throw away from Goldman's Fleet Street office but Financial Services was in CW ( and I think all of them are there now).

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

You might be right about Amstelveen. It was only a couple of days there and it was all in one meeting room.

Yes, all of the central London offices are now merged into one purpose-built building at 15 Canada Square, Canary Wharf. Quite nice, but I'd rather work there as a visitor than permanently. (Too open plan for my tastes.)

Before 15 Canada Square, they had two floors of 1 Canada Square, plus buildings at Salisbury Square, Dorset Rise, an utter shithole with an onerous lease at Puddle Dock, a couple of floors of Bouverie House (just off Fleet Street), something at Blackfriars, something on Farringdon Street and possibly something else that I've forgotten. I think in my time I visited all of those. (In fact, I think I managed to do the full set of UK firm* offices with the exception of Newcastle and Cambridge.)




* Not the same as UK since Belfast was actually part of the Irish firm, not the UK firm.

[topum.livejournal.com]

I think I would buy a 21 inch retina macbook pro.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Not as good for gaming...

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

How much disposable income is poverty?!?

That's... Wow.

(Though good luck to anyone trying to find rent that low for a family house around here)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

To be fair, you live in one of the most expensive places on the planet. But yes, if anti-poverty campaigners want to be taken seriously, they need to avoid defining poverty as "richer than I am".

[andrewducker]

The JSRF thing is fascinating. Because what it seems to tell us is that the "Minimum Income Standards" that people, on average, think that everyone should have are actually unattainable for large chunks of the population, and therefore (presumably) a lot of middle-income/class people have no idea what many people's lives are like.

(Either that or they're answering with "_my_ minimum standard is x" and ignoring that many people will never get to that point.)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

It's reminiscent of those newspaper stories you occasionally see (because they tend to go viral) where a couple with a six figure combined salary complain that they are poor and don't have enough money to pay for [INSERT LUXURY ITEM*].



* Where LUXURY ITEM is anything from school fees for their four children (or for that matter, just feeding four children), fancy holidays, new BMW, fancy clothes, gym membership, large house in the nice part of town, yadda yadda yadda.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I reas an article around ten years ago from soneone who had been on a poverty action group with various politicians. Tony Blair had been to a meeting, and reportedly couldn't believe figures for mean & median incomes they had been given - really couldn't believe them, and was musing on what sort of error could have given rise to them.