Yes agree. I teach Code Club in the UK and [in spite of a 40 year attachment to computing, I'm what they call a 'sad person'] I was wondering about forcing code down unwilling young throats. However, in the UK, Computing at School: http://www.computingatschool.o... broadens the area out to show, for example, that you can decompose and 'debug' non-computing problems.

So I think this blended approach of 'code' and 'code thinking' is a good way to go.

That's really 'fuck ouais' giving you 'fuck yeah' in Metropolitan French, anyway.

That's 'ici on fucking parle', please write it out a few hundred times on the walls of Paris. I'm not even going to start on hamsters, breath etc. etc. I have too much dignity.

But extremely cowly owl to choose ODF.

Yes, I agree. I've worked on/off as contractor for the BBC in the last few years. However, since I spend my time dissing them [without anonymity] I doubt that's still an option. The BBC seems to have whole departments labeled Wheel-Reinvention [Squarish Lab]. The last thing that went south was the Digital Media Initiative, after a multi-million pound failure this was renamed Don't Mention It.

That said, this thing is a brain-dead toylet [as opposed to toilet, a different, bigger, quite useful thing] born of Not-Invented-Here. I volunteer teach Code Club: https://www.codeclub.org.uk/ and this just complicates matters as a distraction. It won't run Scratch [Raspberry Pi will] or the sort-of of processing [as I understand it] that the Arduino will. It's not a progression in any sense, can't take expansions [as can Pi, as can Arduino].

My 'hope' was that it would make a good wearable, but as I currently understand, it's not really good for that either. Lilypad is probably better. Like most Brits, I really value the BBC, but it has lost its way somewhat at the moment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... for older folks like me. These were big balls though, fnnarr fnnarr [for those in the UK that know Viz: http://viz.co.uk/

Well exactly, and the Kardashians are more important than war or hunger, certainly.

Last year, I invented an extra control that would allow me to slap Clarkson, assorted politicians, cakes I disliked on cookery shows etc. etc. I called it tele-slap [tm].

Implementation is proving a little challenging, nothing that £20m of frothy VC money won't cure though. Watch this space, but duck.

Yes, agree, was this an advertorial for infoworld? To be constructive, the 'really bad' are SCADA, infrastructure, IoT and [on their list] vehicle hacks. Water supply, power stations including nuclear, train signaling, electricity grid and [Lord forbid] weapons systems. Except for 'car', none of those are included.

ATM hacks just throw pieces of paper around, doesn't really do any physical damage. Consider it to be redistributive.

It used to be said that 'when America [meaning USA, sorry] sneezes the UK catches cold'. So, as a Londoner, I'm not at all surprised. Probably some of this data [because it's not information] is being 'exported' too, the data version of special rendition.

At the moment our 'imports' are TTIP, private healthcare, GMO crops, US banks, mall-shopping as an activity, cops as thugs, empty celebrity culture, reality TV, US payday lenders [quickquid, for example, is US owned] gangster rap and US style gangs etc. etc. probably because we share a language and to some extent a culture. Two thousand Met [London police] carry arms now too.

Before I'm jumped on, there's lots of things I admire in the US but they are not the things that are making their way into the UK.

Sorry, should have been clearer, I think Microsoft are concerned that UK government is taking open source more 'seriously' than previously. I live in Newham [a London borough] that 'nearly' switched to Linux, however everyone felt that it was probably a bargaining position rather than a real initiative. Now I think they're somewhat 'ready'. The irony is that in Canary Wharf, amongst the investment banks, not exactly hippies therefore, are full of all kinds of open source tools.

Yes, exactly. Being old and cynical that was my thought too. Show source 'A' but compile from source 'B'. Then we'll truly 'experience their committment to transparency' won't we?

The good thing about this is that UK government has made some fairly strong statements about considering open source when purchasing, for example: https://www.gov.uk/service-man... and I think they're a little concerned.

I just discovered Minetest, I wanted a completely open stack so that I could modify deeply, if necessary. I do voluntary work with Raspberry Pi and the Minecraft Python API [very good!] in the UK. There's a place for all of us, people who want just to play, people who want to add/modify 'a bit' and people [me] who may want to modify deeply. It's a spectrum of uses and users, not a war amongst them.

Greece should never have been part of the Euro, in the first place: http://tinyurl.com/yzj8tzo

However the 'enthusiasm' of Goldman and probably the rest of Wall Street + [intellectually dishonest] desire from the EU Commission to have a great deal of buy-in [whatever the cost] pushed them in.

To declare interest, I'm a Brit, I worked for the commission for nearly ten years and for an investment bank in London. I don't admire or believe in either of them. I'm not a big fan of the euro, it connects everything and puts it [south and north, large and small] into a straitjacket. Indeed I'm a supporter of community currencies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... an idea that Bernard Lietaer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... also supports.

Greece is a mess, but basically this is warfare without guns. Maybe that's the future?

This reminds me of a joke that came out of the philosophy department in Oxford, about fifty years ago.

Student: Wouldn't you agree, Professor Strawson that everything is relative?
Professor Strawson: Absolutely!

In other news, please try not to put words into other people's mouths. It never ends really well.