Serendipity Archives - Creative Connectivity

The 2G / 3G / 70th Birthday Sunset

I have a friend who recently reached 70, having worked in and around the telecoms industry. Hallmark and Scribbler don’t have many cards aimed at that specific combination, so it felt like time to design a custom card. Being of that annoying engineering bent, I wondered what 70 would appear as in different number bases.

Imagine my surprise when I found that 70 in Base 18 is 3G, and In Base 27, it’s 2G. Both of which are being “sunsetted” around the world, as mobile operators refarm their spectrum allocation to increase revenue from their 4G and 5G networks. I couldn’t believe the coincidence. And so, a birthday card was born.

The UK ponders Proportional Representation

On Thursday 30^th January we are finally going to see a debate in Parliament about changing the UK’s “first-past-the-post” voting scheme, which will probably suggest some form of proportional representation, more commonly known as PR.

Two years ago, when it was looking pretty certain that the Conservatives would lose the 2024 election, I wrote an article suggesting that Rishi Sunak should devote his final term to bringing in Proportional Representation. If he had, we might have a very different Government to the one we have today. In 2024, Labour won the election, gaining 411 seats with 33.7% of the votes, The Tories slipped to 23.7% of the total votes, which gave them only 121 MPs. One reason for their poor performance was that the right wing vote split between them and Reform, with Reform picking up 9 seats for 14.3% of the vote. Had Rishi gone for Proportional Representation, and then found a way of working with Reform, their combined 38.0% of the vote would have given them 247 seats, compared to 219 for Labour.

Welcome to the year of PC landfill

Now that we’re into 2025, Microsoft is ramping up its reminders that we only have nine months of Windows 10 support left, so now’s the time to go out and buy a shiny new Windows 11 PC. The implication is that after 14^th October, when security updates for Windows 10 stop happening, every hacker around the world will be stealing your data, turning this into the new Y2K disaster. (For younger readers, Y2K was the belief that computers would stop working on Jan 1^st, 2000, sending the world back to the stone age.)

So, we all need to plan for the W10 Armageddon, whether you’re a PC owner, a hacker, or just the manager of the local landfill tip.

Arts Council England allocates £12.8 million for “HS2 – The Musical”

London. 1^st April 2023. Arts Council England has just announced its support for a new piece of music theatre, awarding £12.8 million for the development of “HS2 – The Musical”. This commitment showcases the Council’s policy of funding the Arts in joining and levelling up the country, reflecting and capturing the ambitions of the Government’s flagship HS2 project.

Christmas Slugs and other Festive Animals

It all started with a wooden crocodile, as is so often the case.

PR, not PM. The UK has a golden opportunity for Electoral Reform

While the Tory party seems to be fixated on finding a Prime Minister with a longer-dated “Best Before” label than Liz Truss, both they and the Labour party appear to have missed a more important point, which is that there’s never been a better time to effect electoral reform for the UK, but neither Party seems to have noticed, being too obsessed with the cult of premiership.

Recent events have shown that the current two party system is even more broken than Liz Truss’ economic vision, and whoever wins the current Prime Ministerial beauty parade is in for a stormy ride, but nobody seems to ask why it’s all going wrong, and what can be done about it.