Some times Slashdot teaches you something new. Today it is the Oxford Comma.

> They might be able to replace me with someone and pay then 1/2 of what I make, but they're not going to get my skillset.

"They" don't care, they've saved 50% of your wage (probably 80%). In fact, the bean counter who approved it has probably gone on to another company for double the pay already (claiming they've saved ££££), whilst taking the "bonus" for saving money with them.

And when it hits the fan .. http://www.computerweekly.com/...

There is actually an educational phrase you're grasping for here - it's called "differentiated learning" and doesn't need whole schools targeted at different sub sets of students. Maybe you need to do some reading on the subject to help inform yourself, or "independent learning" as it is generally called.

You also argue that not "Every Child is a Special Snowflake", ie every child is the same (the phase "snowflake" is usually called into case for uniqueness, ie every snowflake is different) . But then go on to classify smart kids as special snowflakes who should have their own "schools", so you seem to be slightly confused in your reasoning.

No, not really. Not being part of the EU would mean we would have to pay "export" tariffs - and say for example something that London is good at like "banking", would soon be "taxed" - money going from/to France would have a tariff, which would make London more expensive than say, Paris or Frankfurt. (which would eventually lead to companies relocating to the EU)

And indeed, if we then "tariffed" french wine in retaliation, well it would just be our "consumer" costs that went up, and the French wine maker would target Poland, as their product would be cheaper that Australian wine which does have a tariff in the EU.

And by not being part of the EU, we would have no say on what the levels were. As an individual country, we would need access to the EU more than the EU would need "us". You might argue that "we can set up our own trade agreements", but again, whut would anyone give the UK preferential treatment, we might be a large country but the EU, China, The USA are massive compared to us.

Yes, I can travel to any country in Europe without a Visa. Even better, when I get to Europe I can travel from from Spain to Slovakia without a passport. The only people demanding my passport, is the UK. I can fly to Ibiza, or the balearics, or Greece for my summer holiday without a Visa.

I can swap my Pounds for Euros, and travel from Spain to Slovakia without having to change another currency

I can buy a "Class One" banana in Tesco, or Sainsburys, or Aldi and know that they are all about the same size and weight.

We've not had a war against Germany since the EEC/EU was implemented. That's got to be a big bonus.

What, you mean like trade wars and tariffs? Are you suggesting that countries don't have trade wars, or impose tariffs?

So, I think the assumption, as individual countries already do impose tariffs and trade wars on other countries then there will be trade wars and tariffs imposed on the UK by other EU Common market countries.

When I read the post the first thought that came to me was "log files" - you mention date & time, a "number" of fields and "few" fields for reporting. It still sounds like a log file from everything that is said. Indeed, just change from POST to GET and you can use the web server logs :-)

But, why not build into the design that you may change the "backend" database without having to worry about what is at the backend?

Do you need a database to do what you're trying to do? Why not just write the information to a text file (csv or tab seperated?), and use other programs to query the data?

This sounds more like the Peter Principal effect, people are being promoted on their pas performance, rather than on what they will do. You're a good engineer, you'll make a good manager ...

Is your real name Ian Duncan Smith? That's his argument - they're not budgeting correctly.

It seems that the argument "Food banks are available so people use them" is as tortuous an argument as any other.

But that's okay, it sounds like you're in the "I'm alright, Jack" crowd, so you're alright. As long as you're alright that's fine, well done and good luck.

Yes, you would have thought that "education and retraining" should be the fundamental part of unemployment. But it's not, it's on job seeking.

Lets say you were a "coal worker" and you've been doing that for 25 years. When your pit closes the only thing you're good at is coal minining, but no other pits are open, so you now have a defunct skill set. Yet you still need to eat, pay rent, support a familiy so you no longer have a chance of retraining, but as you started working at 15 you don't have an education.

As your skill set is not transferable, the only jobs you can get are less robust ones - which means you'll be in and out of employment for the next 20 years until you retire, stacking shelves, picking fruit or whatever else you can get.

And capitalism itself needs a % of unemployment - if that unemployment isn't there then there is no opportunity to get new people in place.

Maybe you can wait until the people 10 years older than you retire - excepct there is no enforced retirement now so those positions that would have been forced open are no longer there, and even ifthey are why would someone employ an ex coal miner when they could get a straight out of school graduate that is at the same level as you ...

So what you're saying, is that the only reason food banks are used, is that they are there?

Maybe the other way is more true? There was a need for food banks, so charities intorduced them, as more people need them, charities are introducing more?

Oh, and most food banks require a "voucher" that is given to the person from Drs, social workers etc, you can't just walk up yo a food bank and demand food.

> required the input of five (was it only five?) major contracting companies

I worked in the NHS at this time, and there were originally 9 companies I think all working on the same thing, but working in different geographical areas - the idea was that the failure of any single company would not cause a major problem - indeed it was accepted that it would probably whittle down to 5. Of course that also fell to 2 companies doing it, which in the end weren't actually doing anything other than sucking up large sums of taxpayer money.

These system though were replacing all of the hospital MIS systems, so they were having to compete with systems that had been in place for years and had improvements and improvements, and didn't actually do a lot of things that users wanted - so they were having to run dual systems. I worked in a trust that was two merged trusts - and they had a different MIS in each hospital site.

There are words for this as well :homogeneous and heterogeneous.

And in their simplest forms... homogeneous simplifies commications, with the negative of locking you into one system. Heterogeneous makes it easier pick and choose "best" for each job, but you spend as much on effective interoperability as on each part of the system.

And you know it's been done over the phone when they ask for "sequel server".