h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>It's not just the CSA the new NHS records system has been a disaster<

The 'disaster' is that they can't clear the backlog. They can't do that because they don't have the budget. They don't have the budget because people in this country don't want to pay more taxes.

And I've already made my feelings about the exploiting of Stephen Oakes' death for political point scoring on another thread. It's despicable.

Hi Blues Shark,

Thanks for the info ref backlogs

Just for the record ,I am deeply sorry if you felt that my first post today was in any way exploiting the death of a police officer. I was trying to illustrate that the person already convicted for that crime was sentenced again yesterday, and that he should not have been in the country in the first place all.As such it was a 'political' post.

If I have caused offence to any other posters then I would withdraw my post if I were able to. Apologies.

Novo

Wandering Albatross

You make my point for me.

Would it not be better if your 11 cards could be reduced to ,say, 2 or 3. And is precisely because the immigration / illegal asylum were, or had been. under control That the debate has taken place.

Have you a better system you can suggest?

Novo

Actually, I didn't think you were attempting to score political points, as such, you were making a point which was really unrelated to the thrust of what has been said by the two main parties.

However, I do think a comment as made above is about whether or not ID cards would have prevented the tragedy is out of line. Both becauasse the answer is obvious and the question is facile.

In general terms one of the governments main arguments for the introduction of ID cards was that they would help to prevent terrorism ~ surely if that were truly the case they would not be waiting until around 2010 to make them compulsory.
I'm afraid that any half way competent terrorist will easily find a way round the system whilst ordinary people will be forced to carry (and pay for )a completely unnecessary card.
It will almost certainly not affect immigration one way or the other if criminal gangs can fake passports they'll figure out a way to fake ID cards.

I really do think ID cards are a political smokescreen and yet again kneee jerk policy making made even worse by the fact that any atttempt to introduce them, at this time, would be an IT disaster.

I apologise for any sensitivity associated with the tragic death of DC Oake but again politicians from the two 'main' parties are being opportunistic.

Why can't we have a sensible debate, i.e. one not fuelled by the tabloids, as to how we set up a fair and responsible method of controlling immigration. If we had an effective and equitable system the terorist aspects of the argument deminish. If we had the debate I would predict the outcome would not be ID cards.

I don't believe for one isntant that the answer to immigration or terorism is ID cards, and I've never claimed they were. I don't actually give much of a tinker's cuss about either and believe the contant reliance on them by the two major parties to be a case in point of lowest common denominator politics.

However, I would refer you to Novo's earlier post about the rights and responsibilities of citizens who wish to avail themselves of the states largesse.

I think it's time for a debate about immigration control, not least for some clarity, instead of the scare stories peddled by politicians and the media. The BBC Breakfast News did a "vox pop" with people on the streets of Swansea, who seemed unaware that there was a difference between migration and asylum, and hence quite justifiably worried about both. Does anyone else feel that we are incredibly badly informed regarding this issue?

I just can't help feeling that there's loads more to it that we've been told up to now, is it because we are more likely to accept ID cards if we are scared by the half truths?

Couldn't agree more about the scare tactics ~ we've debated immigration at lngth on other threads but i don't recall ID cards ever being mooted as a credible solution.
The media perpetuates the myth that asylum seekers and economic migrants and immigrants are all one and the same and the idea that we are not educating our children about what it truly means to be a refugee,displaced person or asylum seeker is tragic

Hi Blues Shark

I have just been reincarnated, having got myself locke out of h2g2.

Thanks for the generous referral.

How in the world did you manage that?

Hi Pixel

At my age it's easy!

I tried to retrieve my details to modify , entered the wrong password, thought Oh damn "it was......" TWICE .The secret question which popped up was meaningless to me ( I don't know anything about the subject of it) , so I could not get back in.

Decided reincarnationn might improve mt debating skills , if not my spelling!

It's never your fault it's the pc's.
When in doubt and when the ing thing drives me nuts then i always think of this quote ~
"Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window."
~ Steve Wozniak

Hi Gang,

This reincarnation business is a cracker - now I,ve done twice, and this should come back under my oiginal nickname!
Please stifle the groans...

Novo

now we all know who we arguing with again

Pixel - the new NHS records system has been a disaster.

On what do you base this claim ?

Someone said earlier that Computer Weekly had said the ID card scheme wouldn't work - what they actually said was that the planned implementation was flawed.

The technologies exist to provide a foolproof id system - however thw costs are prohibative, therrefore you have to decide what is an acceptable level of risk.

>The media perpetuates the myth that asylum seekers and economic migrants and immigrants are all one and the same<

Could we re-phrase that to 'Some of the media'. The fact that it is the majority still doesn't make it all. I doubt that The Guardian, The Independant and the Telegraph have been blurring those lines, and I'd guess the FT as well.

Morning Pixel And McKay

Yes Pixel ,you will be arguing with the same old s*d!

Can ether or both of you, or Blues Shark ,(who seems to know a bit about it) clear up the Misunderstanding about Database size / operation.

ID Cards aside, does the NHS HAVE the technical resource but inadequate programmes, or is it true to suggest that a National ID / Police/NHS cannot have a Db of large enough size because it is technically impossible.

I'm not referring to Computer Active here, I am aware that they have been wrong before ( not a crime). My own evident problems with computing would demonstrate that if the software was RIGHT ther is no reason why it cannot be done.

Novo

It's difficult to search Computer Weekly but here's an interesting article.

http://www.computing.co.uk/analysis/1149510

So far as I am aware, if a data warehouse is architected correctly, it can effectively be of any size. I have been hanging around Data Base Administrators and IT Architects for a long time now, and I would have thought that - given the correct analysis and the right toolsets - you could build just about whatever you want.

The problem with giant IT programmes is jsut that they are very very complex to plan and manage. There is another problem which is that the demand for technical and managerial IT skills has outstripped the supply of competent and professional people for decades, and that there are a large number of people who are - to put it nicely - completely cr@p.

Finally large programmes seem to involve two, three, five, however many separate vendors, (supplying the operating systems, supplying the databases, supplying the design, supplyin the labour, and so on), and sure as eggs are breakfast they will spend most of their time protecting their own backs and sticking knives in each other, and very little time actually working together to produce a product that works or a programme that runs to time or to budget.

IT programmes are very complex, they require a large number of highly intelligent tactical thinkers, and it takes strategic thinkers with the vision of Moses, the patience of Job and the cunning of Satan to herd them all together and get them to produce robust and reliable systems.

Ben