Inbox: Banking on tech, ID cards, Oxbridge answers

The weekly Inbox column collects the best and most thought-provoking of the reader comments silicon.com receives each week.
Can tech avert another banking crisis? Many readers had a lot to say in response to silicon.com resident blogger Peter Cochrane's latest musings. ID cards yet again struck a painful chord with you, as driving licences came under the spotlight as potential ID card candidates. Last up, are chocolate death matches and bean counting enough to get you into Oxbridge these days? Read on below and find out…

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Peter Cochrane's Blog: How tech can solve the banking crisis
Like you, I have been watching the global banking fiasco with a mix of fascination and horror. Oh how the mighty have fallen, and how silly the masters of the universe now look.

'Recipe for disaster'
A recipe for disaster. There is a school of thought that blames the "algotrade" programs for the crash. Algotrading represents 40 per cent of the trades in the City and 80 per cent of trades on Wall Street. The trouble is the analysts have even less understanding of the risks than the seat-of-the-pants traders.

I have always felt the City was a version of Second Life, with no connection to the real world, and money treated like Linden [dollars - Second Life currency]. So blame the geeks for the crash.
Richard Sarson, Wimbledon

Fiddle-stats
Throughout history people have fiddled statistics and models to produce the results they want and this will be no different. Except that this time the models will make matters worse because people will use the (rigged) models to justify their stupidity.
Anonymous, London

Repeated mistakes
I do not agree with Peter, that we could make a tech model to run simulations and warn against developing trends. Firstly the vested interests are never going to allow it but secondly, if attempted, no agreement would be reached on how the model should be constructed or run.

It has been clearly established that each generation of traders think that they are smarter than the ones before them. Which is why they make the same mistakes - just in different areas!
Simon Allen, Hertfordshire

Unlimited growth isn't possible
A fairly basic problem is that we live in a finite world and all our economic systems are based on the idea of unlimited growth and financial people refuse to believe that unlimited growth isn't possible.

How much is enough?

So I don't believe there is ultimately a technical solution to this problem I believe a paradigm shift in financial modelling needs to occur where we aim for "steady state" or "sustainable" as opposed to "unlimited" solutions
Karen Challinor, UK

Peter replies
Karen - The business schools and accepted wisdom of both economics and politics certainly have a lot of blame to share here. Trouble is - no one seems to have a voice on the 'finite resources side' - they are mostly ignored. Sad and dangerous!
Peter Cochrane, London

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Are you an Oxbridge grade techie?
As well as getting top GCSE and A-Level grades, would-be computer science students applying to Oxford University have to sit a written maths test and undergo at least two interviews as part of what the university terms a "rigorous" selection procedure for its computer science undergrad courses.

Odds and evens
If the number of chocolate squares are even then you want to go first. If the number of chocolate squares is odd then you want your enemy to go first.
Anonymous, Earth

Far from the daily grind
The questions all sound rather stupid and totally impractical but I'm sure it's good for lateral thinking and appearing on University Challenge. There are no beans or poison in the daily grind of most of us techies...
Lever, Farnborough

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Get real!
No matter how many pieces... what has any of that got to do with the real world IT work place? No wonder I end up working with IT graduates who've got no idea about real world computing if that's the quality of questions asked! What a load of bull!
Matt, Staffs

Hollywood dreams
I agree with Matt, what has a potential James Bond scene got to do with IT? The nearest I have ever got to this was working for a graduate CIO who we called 'Jaws' because of his prominent silver dentistry work and his colossal budget ambitions which could have financed a film or two. After a short spell at the helm, he sunk without trace!
Radical Meldrew, Suburbs

Magic beans
The bean that is left is white.

Simple answer is that there are an odd number of whites that, by way of logic, are removed an even number at a time (zero or two). There are an even number of blacks that are removed one at a time.

Even if you are left with one white and all blacks and you are lucky enough to pick a black and a white then you'll remove one white and one black, replacing them with one white.
Adam Byrne, Cambridge

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ID cards on driving licences - 'law can't stop us'
A Home Office minister has mooted turning UK driving licences into ID cards, sparking accusations the national biometric database will be forced in by the back door.

Refusal to comply
It is simple - I will refuse to carry mine. I am British and live in a free country, even if I am arrested for breathing here. I object to having my personal information stored on a hidden and inaccessible database run by 1984 bureaucrats who know me but who I will never know.
Chris Tolmie, High Wycombe

Snooping privileges
The degree to which this government, national and local, is abusing its privileges to spy and snoop on the ordinary lives of ordinary subjects has to be stopped. Otherwise the Magna Carta and all it stands for becomes worthless.
Anonymous, England

Forceful thinking
"Nothing to stop us" and "nothing in law" kind of implies that they know people don't actually want or need this scheme and they intend to force it on us anyway.

Politician speak for "ner nerr ne ner ner we're going to do it anyway and you can't stop us".

We definitely need a new system of government.
Karen Challinor, UK

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