Interesting Links for 01-12-2011

[andrewducker]

• The BBC asks if a family can really live on £40,000 in an article that makes me _really_ angry.
  (tags: income uk salary spending bbc )
• Landlords Use Computers to Arrive at the Right Rental Fee
  (tags: rental housing computers )
• Evidence at the inquiry into journalistic practices shows that some journalists are just scum.
  (tags: journalism uk )
• How to report a strike -- a guide for the British press
  (tags: uk journalism strike unions media )
• A petition on the Government website to have MP pensions brought into line with the rest of the public sector.
  (tags: pension government uk )
• Fast jet stream winds cannot contribute much renewable energy after all
  (tags: renewables energy electric wind )
• Fahrenheit 451 becomes e-book despite author's feelings (Is that the smell of melting plastic?)
  (tags: RayBradbury Farenheit451 ebooks thefuture )
• Secret app on millions of phones logs key taps (Android, Blackerry and Nokia affected)
  (tags: android carrieriq surveilance privacy smartphones )
• UK Government opens up more data for free. Met Office, House Prices, Public Transport and more
  (tags: data open uk government )
• Rail line to be reopened between Oxford and Bedford. Nice to see new lines being opened!
  (tags: trains transport uk )
• Warren Ellis does an awesome Alan Moore impression
  (tags: alanmoore WarrenEllis )
• 11 Celebrities Who Were Secretly Total Badasses
  (tags: celebrities movies )
• A brief history of the universe.
  (tags: everything visualisation time )
• Researcher shows how to "friend" anyone on Facebook within 24 hours (and then steal their identity)
  (tags: facebook hacking Social_Engineering )
• Boy, 6, Charged With Sexual Assault for Playing Doctor, Parents Sue D.A.
  (tags: wtf usa sex law )
• The 5 Best Toys of All Time. I've played with all of these, and they're awesome.
  (tags: toys fun children play )
• HELLO THIS IS LIVEJOURNAL (a spoof of the current password phishing issues)
  (tags: livejournal funny passwords security BenWerdmuller )
• 'Aliens on Ice': The Review. Dammit, not playing in Scotland!
  (tags: aliens ice movies )
• Italian court: Online editors not responsible for reader comments
  (tags: italy law freespeech )
• The psychological effect that having a high security clearance can have
  (tags: politics knowledge intelligence security secrets psychology information )
• Spiritual practice as performance/art. That's something I can live with.
  (tags: religion belief science rationality art )

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

"I could easily impulse-buy a new car." And routinely buys a newish car every couple of years.

Right. This is why you find it difficult to live on a family income of £40K a year.

(Says a guy who drives a 15-year-old car he's had for the past 9 years.)

[andrewducker]

Yeah, that was the bit that made me very angry. Of course things are tight if you constantly buy horribly expensive things!

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

Yes, honestly! That was absurd!

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

and three package holidays a year.

ahuh

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

*ahem*.
quite.

whereas I have no money because I'm a student with a nasty crack habit.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Wow, you've got quite the collection of rage-inducing links this morning.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I swear the £40k article is a massive piece of trollbait; it's just designed to wind you up. The couple who regularly change their cars have no children, so of course they have plenty. And the family who are massively in debt are clearly misbudgeting. The financial adviser who points out that you can't pay two sets of school fees on 40k, well, no you can't, but almost nobody who pays school fees does so out of current income; they save from when the child is born and go into debt if necessary. And don't get me started on the family already in debt who are buying £60k of snake oil for their sick child.

Anyway, a more prosaic version of that article is 'If you're both earning, and you have 40k coming in, congratulations, it's the average household income for a family with two earners. You'll probably find things a bit tight from time to time, or even all the time, especially if you have large household debts, live in an expensive area, or have disabilities or several kids. Nevertheless, people on that income can get by, raise a family, run a car and have a hobby or two and a holiday. The secret of financial happiness is not fretting too much about the things you can't afford, and paying down your debt where you can.'

I did think the 5 Best Toys of all time article was awesome, though they missed out my kids' all-time favourite; Water.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I actually had the impression the journalist was implicitly mocking the "must impulse-buy new cars" people, but I think that was just me assuming... :)

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

I pay one lot of school fees out of current income which is pretty damn close to £40K - I didn't decide to go private until she was about to enter Primary One so saving wasn't an option. School is £10K a year and I consider it a worthy investment of my money. Everyone is different. I luckily entered the housing market when I was 20, so have 23 years of mortgage/property behind me which makes managing my income much easier. I'd prefer to see an article showing someone younger on a £40K income - i.e. someone who hasn't yet entered the housing market or is attempting to take that first step on the property ladder as that must be damn difficult these days. My first mortgage was a 100% one for £32,500. I worry most about what legacy I pass to my daughter as 100% mortgages don't exist these days and I guess you're looking at £100K+ mortgage to even get a basic place.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Very keen on new railway lines.

Particularly keen on East - West lines in the south of England. This is entirely personal as I spend at least one day a month trying to get from Bristol to Edinburgh via Chippenham and it can't be the right answer that this involves going through London.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, it's understandable that the earliest lines are spokes to the largest hub, but you'd expect other lines to come in later on that covered other popular journeys.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Dear lord, new cars and package holidays might be NICE but they are hardly ESSENTIAL. I've never bought either... (I waste all my wastable money on craft supplies instead, but I'm not about to claim that I NEED that money).

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I couldn't figure out what the "three trusted friend" things actually does. If it has a few common sense precautions against people using it stupidly, it's not a bad idea -- it may be better than a backup email address you'll forget about or a stupid insecure security question, for sites where you don't have any _too_ critical data. And would be useful if someone's suddenly rushed to hospital, or similar, if they can trust their friends to post an update without screwing up their account.

But in general, facebook have actively worked against common sense precautions. So long as you choose long-standing accounts of people you know well as your trusted ones, and the UI discourages obviously bad choices (eg. "if someone says they've lost their account, make sure it's actually them" and "don't choose an account you haven't seen for sure is who you think it is as trusted") it's somewhat unsecure, but not a bad choice. But the article gives the impression facebook does encourage bad choices like that, and I can't quite tell from the UI...

It makes a good point that most reasonably computer literate people have learned to spot really perfunctory fake accounts (even if it's somewhat populated with pictures and fake updates), but even quite savvy people can get taken in if they rely on looking at friendslists, but the fake account has trolled a bunch of less-savvy people first.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

It would make more sense if before you need the feature, you nominate several friends who are eligible for the trusted friend feature. Which then would be a bit like giving a spare set of keys to a friend. Rather than *anyone* you know having a set.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"How to report a strike -- a guide for the British press"

Agh, that's just perfect.

"Boy, 6, Charged With Sexual Assault for Playing Doctor, Parents Sue D.A."

Agh!

"Secret app on millions of phones logs key taps (Android, Blackerry and Nokia affected)"

Agh! That's just... even if it's really and truly intended as a purely technical troubleshooting measure, and NOT to collect everyone's personal information -- unless they've ALREADY got a good plan for why it's secure (encrypted, anonymised, robust against traffic analysis attacks, etc), then it's really not.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Agh, that's just perfect.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it (if enjoyed is the right word).

(And thanks to Andrew for linking it here).

[steer.livejournal.com]

That £40,000 pounds issue addressed something I've been thinking about. That level of income is not a million miles from my own -- I'm a single person in a modest flat (albeit in a ruinously expensive area of London). I widdle away a moderate amount of money on meals out (not extortionate ones but regular ones) and drinks... My level of "do not think about it" discretionary purchase is about £75... if it gets to £100 I stop and think "can I afford it this month, what else is going on, are there other expenses coming up... could I put this purchase off" etc etc...

A few years back anything over £25 would have hit this limit. As a student, anything over £10 would require "can I afford this" thinking.

When income has dropped I've found it hard to "scale back" this thinking (e.g. go back to considering £50 purchases).

I wonder how other people relate their income with the level of "don't even think about it" purchase.

[andrewducker]

I remember crossing the point where I could buy a can of coke without thinking about it. That was really the big one.

Nowadays I can have takeout without worrying about it, but more than one meal out per week would have me checking my finances, mentally at least.

I'd also be interested in how easy it would be to drop down a level.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I'll be honest, 40K GBP is on the low end of what I'd want to live on in London... we were earning that between the two of us when we lived in Bath and it was borderline to handle rent, travel to work (for one of us in Bristol)...

We could probably manage our mortgage in London on that, but it would be pretty tight.

Anyway - I tend to think about spending like that too... we're currently in the $50-$75 is ok area, anything over $100 needs to be thought about. Now I need to get my other half to think the same way :)

To be honest our real problem living in the states is finding cashflow to manage co-payments on mild but chronic healthcare issues which are currently eating $200+ a month in income.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

D'you think it's kinda suspicious that I can't get onto that epetition all day? :-)

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Why 40,000 GBP? Is that the median household income in UK?

[andrewducker]

I was assuming so, but Wikipedia says that's far too high.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

That £40,000 article made me twitch a lot. I would love to be even earning a third of that.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... the 40K thing is interesting. When we used to earn that kind of money, we drove a 2000GBP 8 year old Ford Mondeo and didn't take holidays and still didn't seem to have enough money :)

However, having earned that much and having earned an awful lot more. The real challenge is dealing with dramatic changes in income. As disciplined as you try to be, it's really hard to not let your income expand to meet your outgoings. You don't even have to think about it all that hard, even without new cars - you eat out more, at slightly more expensive places, your threshold for impulse spending goes up from $10s of $CURRENCY to $100s. You think about nicer holidays and all that... although package holidays are actually a bit of a rip off...

Retraining yourself from a certain spending level is one of the hardest things I've done.

That said. When we were earning lots I did buy a New Car - however - in my defense I'd never spent more than 5000GBP on a car before that, and it was REALLY cheap to be a buyer with cash in 2008...

[andrewducker]

I definitely spend more cash than I used to, and I'm aware that if things got tighter I could cut down again, but I'd definitely have to work at it.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

""We have too many cellphones. We've got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now," he [Bradbury] said."

Followed by: "NOW get off my lawn!"

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

I had a think after initial posting and actually, as a couple, we have never lived on less than 40k since we were both employed and it's never been easy per se.

That said, we've had a house needing 60k of mostly unplanned work, which probably makes us less than typical...

What I would say is that I earn more than 40k on my own and I'd still view 10k every 2yrs as madness with my particular priorities. My own car allowance for work is less than this and I earn a good deal more than a nurse.