Interesting Links for 05-12-2011

[andrewducker]

• UC Davis Pepper Spray - What Really Happened
  (tags: police students occupy video protest )
• Anonymised NHS patient data could be given to private firms for science research - (devil, as always, in the details)
  (tags: data nhs privacy )
• Welcome to Armageddon, USA: A Tour of America’s Most Toxic Town
  (tags: usa toxic industry abandoned )
• What Clegg

Comments

[strawberryfrog]

I am reflexively sceptical of "anonymous NHS patient records" - given enough biographical data points, it's possible to uniquely identify a person and very effectively de-anonymise the data. E.g. the combination of your first name, date of birth and post code almost certainly uniquely identifies you. The dates that you went to your doctor are going to be similar.

Once people are identified that way, it can't be undone. It can be applied to old data - a classic retroactive privacy invasion.

[andrewducker]

I think I'd only be comfortable with it if it was done in aggregate, with numbers sufficiently large that a neutral third party of statisticians agreed that it was safe.

[gonzo21]

My driving concern is what do private health companies want this data for in the first place.

The only thing I can think of is to do mass profiling, and work out where profits can be made, with an eye towards the NHS being broken up.

[andrewducker]

You can learn huge amounts from datamining information and seeing what correlations turn up. There's an awful lot of basic research that could be done on a dataset that big.

Pepper Spray

[zornhau]

Would be a great name for a porn star. Just saying.

[philmophlegm]

If you reduce private sector high pay, you increase company profits by an equal amount. Personal taxation is taxed at a higher rate than corporate taxation, so could someone please explain to me how reducing private sector high pay helps the budget deficit?

[chess]

The 'company profits' don't just sit there, they have to go somewhere. The theory is that they would go into more investment, or into dividends or remuneration of other employees etc, some of which is more likely to find their way to less fantastically well-off people (if only via propping up their pension fund) who will then do more taxable in-country spending because less well-off people spend a higher proportion of their wealth domestically.

[chess]

(more investment is good because it produces growth, which even if it doesn't have a direct effect on tax income (which it probably does from extra sales) has an effect on how the markets view the UK as a credit risk, improving govt interest rates and thus also contributing to defecit reduction by reducing interest payments).

[philmophlegm]

That actually makes some sense to be fair.

Although I suspect that the main motive for the policy is to throw a bone to the sort of voter (all too common in this country) who is jealous of people earning lots of money, no matter how deserved.

[artkouros]

Good video of the pepper spraying event. The protesters should never have made it a contest between themselves and the police, it was supposed to be about Wall Street. A better plan would have been to leave, then come back the next day. And keep coming back.

[andrewducker]

The ones on the path were the ones directly between them and their vehicles. That's what the video shows.

[artkouros]

You should watch the video, then make up your mind. As I understand it, the squatters were blocking the way the cops needed to go. The cops told the protesters (collectively and individually) at least three times that if they did not move they would be subject to the use of force (because they were in an illegal assembly and impeding police). The least amount of force available to a cop is pepper spray. When I was a college kid they used tear gas and batons.

[gonzo21]

The better off under independance thing is interesting, I can't imagine anybody will be better off, given the massive cost of setting up all of the new insitutions we would need.

The SNPs plan of just borrowing the money we need calls to mind an Irish/Icelandic/Greek nightmare of a future.

I would, for sure, keep my money in Sterling.