Tuesday 24th February 2015

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citizenJA
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by citizenJA »

AngryAsWell wrote:Some on twitter saying Amina Ali has withdrawn from Bradford West - found this
Labour campaign coordinator causes stir with ‘Baghdad Central’ remark on Twitter
don't know if its relevant
http://www.yorkshirestandard.co.uk/news ... ter-10301/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The only noise I can suss out thus far are from apparent Tweets from Galloway.
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by HindleA »

http://dpac.uk.net/2015/02/will-claiman ... -uc-claim/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


"Will claimant refusal to share their sensitive personal details have an impact on their UC claim?
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by StephenDolan »

Image

Between the 2010 stay aways and the Lib Dem loanees, the overall picture is quite upbeat.
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rebeccariots2
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by rebeccariots2 »

Aaah - so Heseltine says he doesn't consider being an MP is a full time job.

They are fully committed to their constituents apparently ... but still have plenty of time to pursue other things ... and the salary of an MP doesn't reflect a full time role.

Compare and contrast the 30 hours a week of community service they wish to inflict on young people who dare to be unemployed for 6 months ... in order to continue receiving the miserly youth JSA.
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rebeccariots2
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by rebeccariots2 »

An unspeakable obscenity, a Minister's rant at Ed and the riddle of scene cut by the BBC from Inside the Commons documentary
Anna Soubry threatened legal action and issued furious denial over claim
Row is around footage for fly-on-the-wall BBC Commons documentary
Comment that sounded like 'sanctimonious c***' was shouted at Miliband
It appeared to come from direction of defence minister - which she denies
When final episode aired on BBC Two last night, heckling was edited out

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ntary.html
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rebeccariots2
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by rebeccariots2 »

Daniel Newman ‏@DrDanielNewman 4m4 minutes ago
Heseltine says being an MP isn't a full- time job? I would respectfully suggest, then, that perhaps he wasn't doing it properly. #newsnight
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rebeccariots2
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by rebeccariots2 »

Britain Elects retweeted
Chris Hanretty @chrishanretty · 18m 18 minutes ago
The 7½ seats where @TheGreenParty votes might be the difference between Labour victory and Labour defeat http://www.ueapolitics.org/2015/02/24/g ... er-effect/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; … #newsnight
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citizenJA
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by citizenJA »

goodnight, everyone.
love
JA
Tubby Isaacs
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by Tubby Isaacs »

rebeccariots2 wrote:
Britain Elects retweeted
Chris Hanretty @chrishanretty · 18m 18 minutes ago
The 7½ seats where @TheGreenParty votes might be the difference between Labour victory and Labour defeat http://www.ueapolitics.org/2015/02/24/g ... er-effect/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; … #newsnight
It's not really that many seats, is it? Compared with the SNP threat.
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RogerOThornhill
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by RogerOThornhill »

rebeccariots2 wrote:
Daniel Newman ‏@DrDanielNewman 4m4 minutes ago
Heseltine says being an MP isn't a full- time job? I would respectfully suggest, then, that perhaps he wasn't doing it properly. #newsnight
Those sort of things are never a good idea to say even if they were true. Won't voters think "hang on, why are we paying you £67k for what we were told was a full-time job when now you're saying it's not?"

I know committee chairs get more money but I don't think that applies to committee members. Maybe it ought.
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ErnstRemarx
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by ErnstRemarx »

LadyCentauria wrote:
ErnstRemarx wrote:Hi all, bit of techosadness chez Remarx today. I noticed (finally) that we've not been receiving emails for a few days, and given that I've changed nothing and everything's plugged in securely, I tried the internet on the same machine to find that the TCP/IP stack had finally packed in on the old beast. So, after 7-8 years with it as our main PC (running a version of linux that was desupported in about 2010!) I've finally decided to move the email to the shiny Win7 machine and set it up on Outlook 2010. All quite sad. That little linux box has run flawlessly for years, if not quietly, and when an email settings file got corrupted bout 8 months ago, I could see the writing on the wall.

I am now officially in thrall to Micro$oft, but I least now I've got a silent machine and no need to switch between the two boxes. The PC is dead; long live the PC...
My condolences on the sad demise of your Linux box and my sympathies for having to live with Win7. However, you might be interested in getting adventurous with that machine and getting your hands on Windows 10. With a few exceptions, Win 10 will run on most things that are currently on Win7, if you'd care to join their Windows Insider Program in return for feedback. There's even about to be a way to get hold of their Office 16 but you'd need to sign a 'no disclosure' agreement for that one. Any road, have a look see at this page – there's a link to the Insider Program (and to the blog) at the foot of the page:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/about
Thanks - I might even risk that! I looked at Win8 and thought fuck off and haven't heard owt else since. Did they skip 9? They have a habit of avoiding disasters in that way.

Win7 has been OK for me, reminding me what I liked about XP, but I guess I should move on. My temptation is to go for a dual boot thing - Win10 (or whatever) plus the latest Ubuntu release, which I'm sure would run like a dream.
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by Tubby Isaacs »

Mike Smithson ‏@MSmithsonPB 5 mins5 minutes ago
YouGov/Times (London):
YouGov London poll for Times
CON 34 (+2)
LAB 42 (=)
LIB 8 (+1)
UKIP 9 (-1)
GRN 7 (-1)
This is probably bad news because it shows we're the party of snotty liberals and ethnics.
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by ErnstRemarx »

RobertSnozers wrote:Sorry if this offends anyone but I don't understand this 'politics of hope over politics of fear' mantra the Greens have. Sure it sounds good. Hope is good, fear is bad. But I don't believe it actually means anything. The Greens hope for a better world - don't we all? Don't they fear a worse world too? Is realism included in 'fear'? I am hopeful that a Miliband government will be less compromised and ultimately less disappointing than the Blair and Brown governments, and a hell of a lot better than another Tory government as well as simply the most likely alternative. I don't believe the majority of Labour supporters here do so for the sole reason that they are so terrified of a Tory government. At least concepts like 'fairness', 'equality', 'freedom' etc can be defined and quantified.
Well. quite. It's a crock of shit.
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rebeccariots2
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by rebeccariots2 »

Tubby Isaacs wrote:
rebeccariots2 wrote:
Britain Elects retweeted
Chris Hanretty @chrishanretty · 18m 18 minutes ago
The 7½ seats where @TheGreenParty votes might be the difference between Labour victory and Labour defeat http://www.ueapolitics.org/2015/02/24/g ... er-effect/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; … #newsnight
It's not really that many seats, is it? Compared with the SNP threat.
I think there are other marginals - like ours - where relatively small numbers of votes could make the difference - unfortunately.
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by Tubby Isaacs »

This isn't as good.
Mike Smithson ‏@MSmithsonPB 35 mins35 minutes ago
YouGov Sun poll has CON 2% ahead
CON 35%
LAB 33%
LD 6%
UKIP 14%
GRN 7%
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ErnstRemarx
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by ErnstRemarx »

TechnicalEphemera wrote:
RogerOThornhill wrote:
citizenJA wrote:Apologies - this link was posted within the latest outrages - what's the catch, Chancellor George?
Shooting Labour's fox?

As in "Labour can only talk about devolution...meanwhile we're already doing it"
So fucking what. It is the NHS budget they get to spend it on - the NHS. The clue is in the name.

The Tory party think if they treat the North like shit for 4.5 years and make a few meaningless gestures just before the election that they will be loved. They are in for a shock.
They're actually in for a very big surprise. As are UKRAP.
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rebeccariots2
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by rebeccariots2 »

Guardian one step closer to declaring themselves for the Greens with this piece from Zoe Williams?
Why Natalie Bennett should shrug off this ‘humiliation’
The Green party leader’s mistake was to try to answer a question, rather than describe her vision. But that won’t deter anyone near voting for her

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ion-vision
Couple of extracts from comments BTL - which is interesting and mostly damning of Zoe Williams' stance.
This article is nonsense. It's perfectly possible to have a highly radical vision that acknowledges the simple fact that things have to be paid for. If the Citizen's Income, or this housing policy, would require raising income tax to whatever amount or scrapping the entire armed forces or whatever, then fine. Nobody's saying that's wrong, because we haven't even been given the chance to decide whether it's right or wrong. So far, all they're putting forward is pie in the sky fantasies. If they answered some of these questions about where the money will come from, then people can decide. Maybe their supporters will consider it worth the trade off - in which case, fine.

The idea that we can overlook these most basic aspects of practicality in choosing our own government is just ridiculous. And by "practicality" I don't mean "adherence to the status quo" as Zoe suggests. I mean internal consistency, in whatever terms their vision wants to decide.

wightpaint Beatsong 2h ago
Exactly right - Zoe Williams may, nobly, be attempting to bring comfort to a woman in torment, but it's quite simply inane to suggest that a political party can put forward policies without also telling us how they're to be financed. You don't have to buy in to the status quo to do that - you can be as radical as you like. The article operates on a false premise, that the rules don't apply to the Greens because the rules are wrong: well, yes they are - but that doesn't mean you can pretend they're not there.

If Zoe Williams is to be believed, we don't actually have any right to be insolent enough to question the basis of Green policy - it's too grand, too sweeping, too radical to be subjected to such nit-picking. Or if she doesn't mean that, I don't know what she does mean. Does she, I wonder?
I think the 'internal consistency' is what I have been looking for in their various explanations - and not found so far.
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by LadyCentauria »

AngryAsWell wrote:
rebeccariots2 wrote:
AngryAsWell wrote:Kate Godfrey ‏@KateVotesLabour · 6 mins6 minutes ago
NHS cancer scanning bid £80m. Alliance bid £87m. Alliance win. Alliance subcontract NHS bidder £80m. Alliance pocket £7m for...

Zero work.

...and that scanner (if its at Christie, where I think it is) was bought with fund raising and public donation. Unless its been subsequently replaced.
If you're right - I'm fuming. :fire:
Fix us up with a 7m over priced contract - then do this
Greater Manchester is to be handed control of its ENTIRE £6bn NHS budget, the M.E.N. can reveal.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... ar_twitter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This stinks to high heaven.
I really don't like this. There was a referendum on having a Mayor in Manchester, wasn't there, just a couple of years ago – and the majority voted against it. In London, in 1988, we had a referendum on having a Greater London Authority (the London Assembly) with an elected Mayor – and that was carried with over 72%. Surely, the people of Greater Manchester should be offered the same choice – an Assembly and an elected Mayor? But that's not what's 'been agreed to' AFAIK. 'Someone' will be appointed as Mayor (with an eventual election that others can stand in) and given control of large budgets, now to include 6bn a year for all NHS services – which may, or may not, include Social Care and Public Health. So what happens if that's not enough and hospitals in the area carry on overspending – AKA spending what it costs to provide the services they have a Statutory duty to provide? And how do they then go about getting that budget increased for future years? And what happens regarding NHS England's responsibilities? Do they still have to do the oversight and monitoring, will they get extra funding to cover that? And what the F happens if it all goes tits-up?

It just strikes me as crazy. Are they going to do the same in London? Can you imagine giving that sort of responsibility to someone like bloody Boris!?

Ernst, I'm sure, will have a better insight than I do as to what is planned for Manchester, it being more his neck of the woods. And I know that Labour plans to devolve a lot of powers, responsibilities, and budgets, down to City/Region levels but I've never heard it suggested that the area's NHS budget should stand a part of that devolution, so what might they do?
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by LadyCentauria »

diGriz wrote:
rebeccariots2 wrote:
citizenJA wrote:Dave's trying to start a war.

Britain to send military advisers to Ukraine, announces Cameron
Prime minister says service personnel to provide infantry training as well as advice on logistics, medical care and tactical intelligence

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015 ... t-48019385" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
He's playing to script then ... many of us have always thought he would try to up his 'statesmanship' credentials prior to the election ... and get involved in some military endeavour.
A nice photo opportunity for him.
In a tank. Wearing a headscarf.

Please, pretty please, Cartoonist Rowson – paint that image!
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Tubby Isaacs
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by Tubby Isaacs »

I've never heard it suggested that the area's NHS budget should stand a part of that devolution, so what might they do?
Take the heat off the government.

The London Assembly is far too weak to handle big devolution properly. The model was conceived as Mayor Branson/Sugar "getting things done".
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by HindleA »

rebeccariots2 wrote:Aaah - so Heseltine says he doesn't consider being an MP is a full time job.

They are fully committed to their constituents apparently ... but still have plenty of time to pursue other things ... and the salary of an MP doesn't reflect a full time role.

Compare and contrast the 30 hours a week of community service they wish to inflict on young people who dare to be unemployed for 6 months ... in order to continue receiving the miserly youth JSA.

Someone has compared it a family carer,despite utterations have a real terms cut every year.

https://carerwatch.wordpress.com/2015/0 ... recipient/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by LadyCentauria »

RobertSnozers wrote:I heard today details of an announcement on health funding that the DH were insisting 'to be made as close to purdah [i.e. The election campaign] as possible'. Hunt and co wringing as much advantage out of being in government as they can.
How worried should we be, on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is "Help!!!"? And how easy would this be for an incoming Labour government to overturn?
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by HindleA »

PAC report on UC

http://www.parliament.uk/business/commi ... ss-update/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by HindleA »

"Both the Department and HM Treasury now regard the live service as the programme’s de facto contingency, even though the Major Projects Authority told us last year that it doubted those systems were capable of handling the full range of claimants."
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by Tubby Isaacs »

HindleA wrote:"Both the Department and HM Treasury now regard the live service as the programme’s de facto contingency, even though the Major Projects Authority told us last year that it doubted those systems were capable of handling the full range of claimants."
Live service here means old style data input?
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by Tubby Isaacs »

Spending on the programme so far has been approved by the Treasury through a series of funding requests for specific activities. Over a year after the re-set, the Treasury has now signed off the 'strategic business case', the first of three stages in developing a full business case for the programme.
Hang on, I thought there was only one type of "business case" which had been signed off?
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by Tubby Isaacs »

Few rats to be smelt.
As the Department has justified this spending on the promise of benefits in the future – such as from higher employment - rather than on the actual delivery of benefits to date, we simply cannot judge the value for money of this expenditure at this stage.
Couldn't employment rates be improved by much cheaper carrot and or stick?

And it still doesn't work beyond a "live" service delivering a small number of the most basic claims. £340m written off on this too.
We were disappointed that the Department chose to fight a protracted legal battle to prevent the publication of its programme milestones schedules against which it could be held to account publicly
I think they claimed there weren't any milestones, didn't they?
How come this isn't a sacking offence, if so?
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by LadyCentauria »

Tubby Isaacs wrote:Tech Eph,

I've been looking for the HS2 journey times to and from Manchester. There used to be a very clear page. The HS2 stuff is now under gov.uk, and I can't find it anywhere.
Wikipedia has 1:40 after Phase 1, then 1:08 after Phase 2. They say:
The DfT's latest revised estimates of journey times for some major destinations once the line has been built as far as Leeds and Manchester, set out in the January 2012 document High Speed Rail: Investing in Britain's Future – Decisions and Next Steps, are as follows:[80] The intermediate timings given after the section to Birmingham has been built (Phase 1) are taken from an earlier document.[citation needed] Times given for Manchester and Leeds are for trains via Birmingham: until Phase 2 almost all trains from these cities to/from London will continue to use direct 'classic' lines.
This should be the document referred to, so might help you:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... next-steps

The same page lists related documents – but they'd need trawling through. Government Digital Services – simplifying the myriad departmental websites by making the user do the digging themselves ;)
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by HindleA »

@Tubby Isaacs
It is an unholy mess and dubious shenanigans throughout as you allude to.
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by Tubby Isaacs »

Thanks.

Those are times to London, I think. There used to be an excellent thing showing times to all sorts of places, including where trains would go only part of the way on the new high speed line. Even Cheltenham was featured! Though possibly to Leeds, not Manchester.

Unless there was a problem with those times, it looks like someone trying to make it look like the rest of .gov has said "get rid of that nerdy rubbish!" It was quite important because it's not widely understood that places not on the line should benefit.
Last edited by Tubby Isaacs on Wed 25 Feb, 2015 1:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by Tubby Isaacs »

HindleA wrote:@Tubby Isaacs
It is an unholy mess and dubious shenanigans throughout as you allude to.
I'm off to sleep now. Would be good to look at it tmrw.

Night all!
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by HindleA »

Gnight
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by HindleA »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31610232" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


"Very little progress on UC"
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by HindleA »

Meanwhile in Australia


http://www.theguardian.com/australia-ne ... e-shake-up" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Disability payment to be restricted in McClure welfare shake-up
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Re: Tuesday 24th February 2015

Post by LadyCentauria »

ErnstRemarx wrote:
LadyCentauria wrote:
ErnstRemarx wrote:Hi all, bit of techosadness chez Remarx today. I noticed (finally) that we've not been receiving emails for a few days, and given that I've changed nothing and everything's plugged in securely, I tried the internet on the same machine to find that the TCP/IP stack had finally packed in on the old beast. So, after 7-8 years with it as our main PC (running a version of linux that was desupported in about 2010!) I've finally decided to move the email to the shiny Win7 machine and set it up on Outlook 2010. All quite sad. That little linux box has run flawlessly for years, if not quietly, and when an email settings file got corrupted bout 8 months ago, I could see the writing on the wall.

I am now officially in thrall to Micro$oft, but I least now I've got a silent machine and no need to switch between the two boxes. The PC is dead; long live the PC...
My condolences on the sad demise of your Linux box and my sympathies for having to live with Win7. However, you might be interested in getting adventurous with that machine and getting your hands on Windows 10. With a few exceptions, Win 10 will run on most things that are currently on Win7, if you'd care to join their Windows Insider Program in return for feedback. There's even about to be a way to get hold of their Office 16 but you'd need to sign a 'no disclosure' agreement for that one. Any road, have a look see at this page – there's a link to the Insider Program (and to the blog) at the foot of the page:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/about
Thanks - I might even risk that! I looked at Win8 and thought fuck off and haven't heard owt else since. Did they skip 9? They have a habit of avoiding disasters in that way.

Win7 has been OK for me, reminding me what I liked about XP, but I guess I should move on. My temptation is to go for a dual boot thing - Win10 (or whatever) plus the latest Ubuntu release, which I'm sure would run like a dream.
Well, it might be worth having a look at a few blogs from people who are in on it. Mary Jo Foley's is here: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/
Or, from inside Microsoft, Terry Myerson's blog: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindow ... rymyerson/

Yep, there is no such number as 9 and every build for every platform (PC, tablet, phone, Hololens, even Xbox) will be called Windows 10. Rumours abound that they've become superstitious about odd numbers so it's a bit like skyscrapers not having a 13th floor... :raised eyebrow: Anyroad, they're rolling bits out "as and when they're ready" and they say they're tweaking as they go, using feedback from the Insiders. And, if you're going to experiment, no harm in going with your beloved Ubuntu, too. I'm willing to put a cream tea on you sending the whole machine Ubuntu in the end. Challenge?
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