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250 kWh per day.

That's an absurd figure approx 20+ times too high. Have a look at your electricity bill. The figure doesn't need to be estimated, the energy Co's & gov't will know exact figures.

see:
http://www.carbonindependent.org/sources_home_energy.htm

source:
http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file43304.pdf

Also see:
http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/01-02/RE_info/hec.htm

The above show the average house using approx 14KWh per day (UK), by switching to more energy efficient products, this could be closer to 10kWh per day. So by your figure of 5KWh/day per person we could be running Britain from solar power completely.... WOW!!!!!

Well, here in the EU at least you would be entitled to refunds for both your LCD monitor and cellphone regardless of warranty as all goods are required to be sold as "fit for purpose". Clearly neither of these products functioned to reasonable expectations and you would just return them to the store you bought them from.

On top of that, my statutory rights also allow me to return any product (working or not) within 7 days if they are bought "sight unseen", i.e. over the Internet.

It's 6 years max. Personally, I'd expect any electronic with minimal moving parts to last 6 years - the limitation should be down to the MTBF of the components, eg a Seagate Barracuda has an MTBF of 750,000 hours according to this site, which is 85 years! So, barring hinges on the screen, keyboard, DVD/floppy and connector failures and failures due to user clumsiness - that laptop should last the 6 years easily - or so I would argue if it broke...

Even according to the UK Government's recent consultation, about restricting Internet access of suspected filesharers, the figures of estimated damages due to software piracy is a staggering 144 times that of music, TV and films from filesharing:

The BPI claim P2P file-sharing costs the UK music industry £180m pa (2008) while IPSOS gives a loss in the UK for TV and films of £152m (2007). ... Figures for software - the biggest of the creative industries - are difficult to obtain, but it is estimated by the Business Software Alliance that the global business software industry suffers annual losses of some US$48 billion out of a total market of US$450 billion due to piracy. The bulk of these losses is caused by unauthorised copying of software within businesses, rather than by P2P.

( http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file51703.pdf )

So even though the Government has no reason to speak favourably of filesharing in this document, it still acknowledges that most software piracy is within businesses. So why does the BSA now focus on individuals and filesharing?

Note that even if we assumed every download was a lost sale(!), that means the upper bound for damages is $974 million for a six month period, according to the figure in the article, a fraction of the BSA's own estimate for commercial piracy damages, at $24 billion over six months.

the report also draws correlations between Internet piracy and the spread of malware such as viruses, trojans and spyware

Oh, and Government plans to reduce the bandwidth of suspected downloaders - thus making it hard or impossible to download the large Windows security updates - won't effect the spread malware at all...

Even according to the UK Government's recent consultation, about restricting Internet access of suspected filesharers, the figures of estimated damages due to software piracy is a staggering 144 times that of music, TV and films from filesharing:

The BPI claim P2P file-sharing costs the UK music industry £180m pa (2008) while IPSOS gives a loss in the UK for TV and films of £152m (2007). ... Figures for software - the biggest of the creative industries - are difficult to obtain, but it is estimated by the Business Software Alliance that the global business software industry suffers annual losses of some US$48 billion out of a total market of US$450 billion due to piracy. The bulk of these losses is caused by unauthorised copying of software within businesses, rather than by P2P.

( http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file51703.pdf )

So even though the Government has no reason to speak favourably of filesharing in this document, it still acknowledges that most software piracy is within businesses. So why does the BSA now focus on individuals and filesharing?

Note that even if we assumed every download was a lost sale(!), that means the upper bound for damages is $974 million for a six month period, according to the figure in the article, a fraction of the BSA's own estimate for commercial piracy damages, at $24 billion over six months.

the report also draws correlations between Internet piracy and the spread of malware such as viruses, trojans and spyware

Oh, and Government plans to reduce the bandwidth of suspected downloaders - thus making it hard or impossible to download the large Windows security updates - won't effect the spread malware at all...

Oh, and if you want to talk about what "most of the stuff" is, the bigger picture is that, even according to the UK Government's own documents (which if anything is going to be biased on the anti-filesharing side, as it is supporting a new law to disconnect suspected filesharers), the alleged damages from commercial software piracy by businesses is 144 times greater than the alleged damages from filesharing.

Source: http://www.berr.gov.uk/consultations/page51696.html

So if you want to talk about most of the stuff, why aren't we bringing in draconian laws to target where the vast majority of the problem is, instead of worrying about less than 1% caused by people downloading something using bittorrent?

There is a Government consultation, that is open for anyone to respond to. Please do - although it closes 29 September (Tuesday).

Otherwise this law will be decided by the likes of Lily Allen and James "fat fuck" Allan, who have nothing useful to add to the debate, other than using their fame to get media attention on the matter (whilst being a filesharing hypocrite of a pirate herself, in the case of Lily Allen).

Sadly I feel this is just an argument to moderation. The "restriction" method still has the same flaws, and also introduces some of its own. By compromising, all they're doing is rewarding Lily Allen for taking an extreme position, despite the fact that her arguments were very poorly made.

What about artists (or indeed, software developers, etc) who disagree with this law altogether? Supposing we decided to take an extreme position and say "Copyright shouldn't exist at all" - does that mean we should "compromise" by keeping copyright, but not having this new law?

The Featured Artists Coalition proposed: "restriction of the infringers bandwidth to a level which would render file-sharing of media files impractical while leaving basic email and web access functional."

However, this is technically impossible - consider, a single song is of the order of a few MBs in size. I know from my own experience of measuring my usage, that even casual web browsing can easily use up over 100MBs in a period of hours. Whilst at one time people managed with dial-up connections, it is not the 1990s anymore - websites have grown, based on the expectations that most people have broadband, thus even websites result in significant amounts of data being shared. Users would also be prevented from downloading legitimate freely available content, in particular software, which are typically also of the order of MBs or 10s of MBs in size. There is also the point that the web is becoming more dependent on media files such as video, and this will be increasingly true as time goes on - for example, news websites such as the BBC routinely have content in the form of audio or video. There are also many legal radio channels, that are used to present news.

Even more serious is that Windows Update requires 10s or even 100s of MBs of data to be downloaded, and this is essential for security updates. Similarly for security fixes in newer updates to other software such as web browsers. Therefore, restricting download speeds would not only harm the user, but would put everyone on the Internet at risk due to the increased threat of viruses and other malware. Such a move would be irresponsible.

The plans also unfairly discriminate between types of content. For example, a movie may be several GBs in size, a TV program 100s of MBs, and album 10s of MBs, and a single song a few MBs. Wherever the threshold is set, either it will be large enough that people can share songs, or too low, such that they cannot even access websites properly.

It is even more difficult with software, which can range from 100s of MBs in size, to just 100s of KBs. Clearly, reducing someone's connection so that even sharing 100s of KBs is little different to a complete disconnection. Yet a threshold that limits sharing of music and video would still allow people to share software. So this proposal does not seem adequate - as a software developer myself, I do not see why music producers are treated differently to software producers.

Reading the consultation (closes 29 September! Please respond!), it looks like the Government is seriously considering restriction of bandwidth as one of the measures anyway, before complete disconnection. Once again, policy will be shaped by those who are clueless about the technical matters.

(Yes, I never thought I'd be citing Windows Update's huge security downloads as a good thing...:)

Exactly (I submitted a story on this, but I think it's still lost in the firehose). It's depressing that so little of the mainstream media are covering this, instead still going with "Wonderful Lily Allen rallies and unites artists, and she closed her blog because people 'abused' her". She added nothing to the debate, just the same old tired arguments we've all heard before (you wouldn't steal from a shop; it's not free to make, how can it be free to give away? etc), it was like talking to a brick wall - she was completely obvlious to the point people were making when they pointed out her filesharing and plagiarism, instead she then retreated to defending it, whilst still saying it was wrong for anyone else to do it.

Her defence for filesharing mp3s was she "didn't have a knowledge of the workings of the music industry" - what, just like most of us, who don't work in the music industry at all?

Her claim about it being 5 years ago is nonsense too, as the mp3s were still being shared until she took them down *after* she was found out (ignorance is no defence of the law, and it won't be in this new law either).

The claims that she received "abuse" - or "vitriol" as the Featured Artists Coalition claims - is nonsense too. I saw the blog, and most comments (all that I saw) were polite and well argued. It was heated sure, but with her accusations of people being thieves, she gave as good as she got. Furthermore, she posted and offensive rant by James Allan in support of her, who referred to people as "tight fucks" and their girlfriends as "fat fucks". Why is this offensive and sexist rant being excused and ignored by the media, whilst instead they focus on allegations of "abuse" from random anonymous people on the Internet?

Oh yes, and the Government Consultation ends 29 September (Tuesday) - please repond, unless you want the debate to be run by people like Lily Allen: http://www.berr.gov.uk/consultations/page51696.html .

LOL - I liked this. I'm surprised the story hasn't made Slashdot (I keep meaning to submit it). For those who hasn't heard, Lily Allen joined in the filesharing "debate" by lobbying for the planned law to disconnected suspected filesharers from the Internet. She set up a blog (now deleted) to tell the Internet why they are wrong, making the same poor arguments that we've all heard before ("it's not free to make, so it can't be free, can it?")

Except she's now been exposed as a filesharing pirate herself - she made "mixtapes" of other artists' music (she admitted she didn't have permission), in order to promote her own career, and the mp3s were still on her (EMI owned) website until she was exposed.

She was also found plagiarising an article in her first blog post, without permission or attribution.

There's been some coverage in the mainstream media, but sadly most are only reporting "Lily Allen against filesharing ... and then shuts blog because of the abuse she received, poor her!"

So basically, it's okay for her to rip other artists off in order to promote her commercial career, as she "didn't have a knowledge of the workings of the music industry", but the rest of us are stealing when we download, and should be disconnected. As an open source software developer who bends over backwards to obey copyright licences (e.g., when I'm looking to include music in my games), I find it ridiculous that she lectures me on copyright law, and gets to lobby for a law I oppose, yet she's the one ripping off artists without permission, and evidently doesn't give a crap unless it's her own music. But when I criticise Lily Allen on her arguments on support for the law, I'm the one who gets labelled a "thief"!

Why isn't Lily Allen being hounded for being a "thief", or sued for millions? And given they were on EMI's owned website, are they going to have their Internet connection disconnected?

And whilst she whined about "abuse" she allegedly received, she was happy to post this offensive rant from James Allan.

The data would be anonymous, but serious repeat infringers would be tracked down through their computer ID numbers.

This must be some definition of the word 'anonymous' that I was not previously aware of.

Yes, quite. The whole thing is pure fascistic lunacy, that appears to have been drawn up by corporate lobbyists and Whitehall bureaucrats with no awareness of either the technical or legal ramifications of what they are doing.

Also, since the rate of progress of technology nowadays is so much faster than big business and government can respond to it, this scheme will be obsolescent by the time that it gets implemented.

I recently wrote to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in response to the pre-legislative consultation documents, and I would encourage other technically-literate Brits to do the same.

peak gas ...... is a ways off

Unlike crude oil, its unrealistic to trade and transport natgas around the world. Theoretically possible to move small quantities, but not enough to say, heat an entire country in the summer, or manufacture a countries worth of fertilizer. Storage of natgas is a bit problematic, compared to, for example, coal.

Peak natural gas in England was in 2000. The issue arrived in 2000 for the gov.uk. Any home or industry that uses natgas is pretty much economically screwed. Production has dropped about 25% from peak in 2000 to 2007 and the rate of drop will only increase.

Official .gov.uk figures at:

https://www.og.berr.gov.uk/information/bb_updates/appendices/Appendix10.htm

Each country will experience peak natgas individually. It is interesting watching the gov.uk scramble. Glad I don't live there (well, in addition to the 1984 style govt and financial meltdown). Watch them to see what will happen elsewhere, as politicians, like cockroaches, are pretty much the same everywhere.

You remove all saltwater fish from the world and the food problem we have now is going to look like small potatoes.

Well, soon we won't be able to cook fish (or anything) on gas stoves, so unless you like tiliapa / catfish/ carp sushi, you're pretty much screwed anyway. Won't be cooking the "small pratties" either for that matter. This is sounding like the monty python ham and eggs deal, I'd bake fish for dinner if only I had natgas to bake with, well if only I had some fish, then I could make baked fish, or however that goes exactly.

Doing a little Googling, I ran into this PDF.

http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file30300.pdf

Only the neck and funnel of the tube are infused with lead. The only way to separate it is through smelting or electrolytic action. But the paper does seem to support what you just said. It's not economically viable to recycle lead from CRTs.

See, there's this thing called electricity. You get it from wind and solar panels.

Actually, you don't:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_the_United_Kingdom#Primary_energy_sources

Those figures are allegedly from 2007; the uk.gov web page that they're sourced from isn't there any more - probably because the department concerned has been renamed about three times recently.

Even the most optimistic target for 2020 only has 20% (or 33% of electricity assuming that transport can't get to 20% by itself):
http://renewableconsultation.berr.gov.uk/consultation/consultation_summary

If electricity could be generated by smugness, we'd be laughing, but unfortunately it can't.

This program:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/costingtheearth.shtml
is worth a listen if it gets repeated, if only for the inability of some of the motor show sales guys to answer vaguely technical (sub-GCSE) questions about the "green" cars that they were trying to sell.

You could consider the Loughborough bike a coal-powered motorcycle, but even then it's not the first:
http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/classics/bike.asp?id=3

Guess what, those working only 40 hours a day won't get anywhere.

Well, that all depends on where you want to go. Here in the UK\Europe, we think that 48 hours is more than enough. Most people work less.

with no government intervention whatsoever

Are you reading the same Slashdot as I am? It mentions several examples of Government actions.

I guess the Government consultation on the matter is also a figment of my imagination, right? As you seem incapable of reading summaries, let alone articles, allow me to give you the title: "Consultation on legislative options to address illicit P2P file-sharing".

have i gotten the more obvious ones sorted?

You missed this one.

I agree - for the lazy, the link is at: http://www.berr.gov.uk/consultations/page47141.html . Deadline is 30 October.

Whilst the Government don't have to listen, if a majority of responses oppose, it does make it harder for them to claim they have public support for such measures. And certainly, responding is better than just commenting about it on Slashdot :)

Complain to the BERR Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory (Previously the DTI).

What you describe is illegal in the UK. A dominant supplier may not do any of the following, tying in (forcing you to use one service to access another), prevent entry by competitors or mandate exclusive deals.

Sale of Goods Act Quick Facts

Subject: Sale of Goods Act, Faulty Goods.

Relevant or Related Legislation: Sale of Goods Act 1979. Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982. Sale and Supply of Goods Act 1994. The Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002.

Key Facts:

  Wherever goods are bought they must "conform to contract". This means they must be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality (i.e. not inherently faulty at the time of sale).

    Goods are of satisfactory quality if they reach the standard that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory, taking into account the price and any description.

    Aspects of quality include fitness for purpose, freedom from minor defects, appearance and finish, durability and safety.

    It is the seller, not the manufacturer, who is responsible if goods do not conform to contract.

  If goods do not conform to contract at the time of sale, purchasers can request their money back "within a reasonable time". (This is not defined and will depend on circumstances)

  For up to six years after purchase (five years from discovery in Scotland) purchasers can demand damages (which a court would equate to the cost of a repair or replacement).

  A purchaser who is a consumer, i.e. is not buying in the course of a business, can alternatively request a repair or replacement.

  If repair and replacement are not possible or too costly, then the consumer can seek a partial refund, if they have had some benefit from the good, or a full refund if the fault/s have meant they have enjoyed no benefit

  In general, the onus is on all purchasers to prove the goods did not conform to contract (e.g. was inherently faulty) and should have reasonably lasted until this point in time (i.e. perishable goods do not last for six years).

  If a consumer chooses to request a repair or replacement, then for the first six months after purchase it will be for the retailer to prove the goods did conform to contract (e.g. were not inherently faulty)

  After six months and until the end of the six years, it is for the consumer to prove the lack of conformity.

Q14. Where can I get further advice?

Contact Consumer Direct at: www.consumerdirect.gov.uk (Tel: 08454 04 05 06). Consumers in Northern Ireland should contact Consumer Line on 0845 600 6262.

http://www.berr.gov.uk/consumers/fact-sheets/page38311.html