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OTOH, they don't need complex map software, no steering necessary,

Many of the cities I've been that have trams really do have "steering" to worry about. Not that they have a steering wheel, but they have to identify a failure of the switching mechanism that has them turning when they shouldn't have, or vice versa. For example, in Munich, almost all the trams go by either the north or south or east side of the HBF, and they get switched into different tracks as the spread out around the city.

they always have the absolute priority of way,

"Priority of way" (right of way?) is a legal concept, not a physical reality. A tram that has the legal right of way and rams into a passenger car is still wrong.

They also don't care about snow or ice on the tracks.

Uhhh, what? And huh?

One example of their incompetence

https://www.manchestereveningn...

Surprisingly it turns out that geese aren't the only thing that travel in flocks.

Hammer-wielding gang attack man in his own home in terrifying raid
Armed police swoop after 'gang with baseball bats' attack house in Moston

How well do you think your skull would hold up against a gang using hammers or a baseball bats?

http://www.manchestereveningne...

Now I'm waiting for you to provide a link to that zombie apocalypse.

> If a guy is stealing your car, would you just watch him and let him do it? Or, you could threaten him with the gun, but both you and him know that you can't legally pull the trigger? So he continues to steal your car, and you can't do anything at all to defend your property??

I'm always amused by this American view, no it's not that I disagree with your point about defending your property, I actually agree with you on that, you absolutely should be able to go to whatever escalation is necessary to deal with the problem.

What amuses me is that you believe that without a gun you're defenceless, that you can't survive, that people can walk over you. I thought Texas of all states was supposed to be the state of strong patriots? When did you all become such pussies? How do you think we survive in places like the UK if someone tries to do the same?

I'll give you a hint - we call the cops, and in the meantime we confront them because guess what? the last thing most criminals want is to get caught in the act, and they definitely don't want their minor misdemeanour being turned into an assault or burglary. That's why despite the fact that 4 burglars could easily have overpowered one guy if they were thinking rationally and were planning to do so, when confronted by home owners things like this happen:

http://www.manchestereveningne...

Three of these guys in their physical prime in their 20s and 30s flee, and one is stabbed to death by the 59 year old home owner. He didn't need a gun, he just needed a pair of balls and the inherent zeal people have when defending their home and property - when someone breaks in they're on edge, when someone detects a break in they go into primal get the fuck out of my castle overdrive mode. The advantage will always be with the property owner if they confront the person.

I'm astounded that for all the hard man acts you folks in Texas like to put on that in the absence of a gun so many of you are apparently completely incapable of defending yourselves, your family, or your property. It's pathetic, how did you all become so weak and cowardly? Has a reliance on guns done this to you? What happens when your gun jams on the first shot? Do you just curl up into a ball, start crying and say "Please don't hurt me"?

We have much lower levels of crime here than you guys do, perhaps rather than your dependence on guns you actually learned to stand up for yourselves you wouldn't even need to put forward such stupid propositions as standing there and letting someone steal your car right in front your eyes.

How about rather than him knowing you can't shoot him so he steals your car anyway, he knows that he still might get the crap kicked out of him gun or not so flees anyway? You don't need lethal force, you just need to seem scary enough that they're not going to stick around, and when you're genuinely pissed at what they're doing, it's not hard to do that.

Yup, don't like fracking - it carries too high a risk of polluting my landscape, and quite likely turning a beautiful view into a rubbish-tip. In the UK, the government has even gone on record to say the extracted oil & gas won't reduce anybody's energy bills. It will, however, make a shit-load of money for some people who already have too much, and who seem willing to rig the deck to make sure they get their way.

Don't like nuclear fission power either - it produces *filthy* dirty waste, that we have no idea what to do with. AFAIK, not a single nuclear power station has yet been decommissioned and cleaned up anywhere in the world - quite a few are mothballed, while an alleged "decommissioning" process achieves almost nothing and stretches endlessly into the future at vast expense to the tax-payer (cos poor little private sector can't take the pain, so public sector has to take that task on, or private sector will take its ball home).

Both these technologies are amateurish, half-assed, ill-thought-out, poor examples of our abilities at this climactic moment of the 21st century, and I'm embarrassed to be a member of the same species that wants to do this crap. Come on ... we're capable of better than that.

For some reason, many of my peers in this /. community seem to take umbrage whenever there is any criticism of any industrial process if there is some kind of "technology" aspect to that process. There appears to be a belief that so long as a process makes money and is technological, it must be undertaken, irrespective of the impact on this one uniquely precious planet that we have here. I will continue to try to understand this point of view, but I fear its exponents are blinded by the flashing lights.

Sigh.

UK Police already have something similar to this in that they've had aeroplanes constantly circling over various cities for the past few years. For example: http://www.gmp.police.uk/mainsite/pages/asu.htm and http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/226/226142_spyplane_warning_over_eid_celebrations.html

Of course, church leaders, business owners, and the police strongly disagree with the father's moral relativism.

Why "of course"? Church leaders, and even business owners and governments all encourage rampant over-breeding among the lower classes, along with a healthy dose of ignorance and reliance upon so-called moral "authorities" like this priest.

More poor people means more churchgoers, more recipients of government "services", and more "consumers". The negative externalities of overpopulation, crime, unemployment and needless warfare are passed on to the rest of society.

In modern civilization, when shocking numbers of people have no idea where food even comes from, they might as well steal it from grocery stores. It's not surprising that a priest would suggest such a solution. Crusades have gone out of fashion of late. And it is equally unsurprising that the church's solution would basically entail passing the problem onto others.

I think there was a band in the UK which filmed a public performance that way. They just applied for the footage after the performance.

The band claimed they obtained the CCTV footage.

But, they really didn't. It was just a publicity stunt:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1048686_band_in_the_frame

Apparently, it worked. Lots of people remember the video and the claim of how they got the footage. Very few seem to be aware that the alleged source was subsequently refuted.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1048686_band_in_the_frame

Check this out: high def, remote controllable cameras and microphones in the classroom, with the head teacher monitoring teachers' every move. The teachers have an earpiece where they get instant criticism of their teaching methods, live. Sound like job satisfaction to you? You couldn't make it up:
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/education/s/1100128_class_cctv_comes_under_fire

Check this out: high def, remote controllable cameras in the classroom, with the head teacher monitoring teachers' every move. You couldn't make it up:
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/education/s/1100128_class_cctv_comes_under_fire

Still not as bad as the women who doesn't understand that -5 is higher then -8.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1022757_cool_cash_card_confusion

What's depressing is that the clerk was fooled into believing she won too which means there is more then one idiot out there.

Thats sarcasm right?... cause, you know with stuff like...

Police have seized more than 25,000 cars in Greater Manchester since new powers to tackle rogue drivers were introduced last year.
More than 10,000 have been crushed.

And thats in "Greater" Manchester alone, which is about 3 million people or so... and that doesnt include just normally scrapped vehicles, or accidents.

Calculate that for various other locations in the world.

You mean like this:
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2008/10/02/cctv-cameras-installed-at-school-toilet-blocks-64375-21944943/

Or this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/506140.stm

O perhaps you meant this:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/235/235518_school_puts_cctv_in_toilets_to_stop_bullies.html

Or maybe you wanted a more technological look rather than local papers:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/19/school_cctv/

We already live in a police state. That much is certain, and the State's biggest accomplishment is not the camera on every street, in every office, every school, on every motorway. It's not the limitless wiretapping, the ability to have people "disappear" or to deploy troops in peacetime if the public decide it's time for a change.

No. The British Government's major achievement since 1997 has been that the majority of people do not realise we now live in a Police State.
Worse yet, the Government show no signs of slowing in their program; if anything they're accelerating it. Right now, they could put us under curfews and restrictions that make Nazi Germany seem "free", and they would have broken no laws However, the people would stand-up at that point.

No, the Government will act only when they have to; and when that fist is brought down upon the objectors and decriers, when people start disappearing into black-bags, never to be heard of again for "sedition" or "terrorism", it will be too late to stop them.
I am afraid of my Government and I am not the only one.

People shouldn't fear their Government. The Government should fear the People.

This video was discussed over at Metafilter a few weeks ago, where Ericb discovered that the video was just a PR stunt.

Regardless, it was a pretty good one all the same!

and it's since transpired that most of it was fake. Taxis generally don't have CCTV in them. Yet.

thrown off the bus by the driver even though he had a valid pass... so, yes public transport leaves a lot to be desired, but hell, that's what my bike is for. it sure would be good as well to incorporate some sort of IR sensore, so as for moving vehicles not to come to close to humans (be they on bike or foot). so long jojo

ROFL, I love that it took two corrections for someone to finally get it right. That's AWESOME. Apparently slash dotters English skills are second only to the English's math skills... http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1022757_cool_cash_card_confusion

This image was on the front page of the Manchester Evening News last night. It appears to be a teenager holding an AK47 and aiming it at the cabin of a crane. The kid and his friend were sitting on a railway station platform at the time, so the Greater Manchester Police were alerted. By the time they had got themselves together the kids had got on a train, so the GMP alerted the British Transport Police, who are responsible for security on trains. The BTP refused to do anything about it saying that it was a matter for the GMP. Let's just remind ourselves that this is a couple of kids wandering around on the train network with an AK47, yet two police forces can't get it together to do anything about it. That's how well cameras work.

Oh yes ... and don't bore us with complaints that you already pay gasoline tax. What you *pay* in unimportant. What counts is the difference between what's needed for upkeep and congestion management and what's currently available.

In the UK, we already have to pay fuel tax _and_ road tax, which is then supposed to go into maintaining the road system

If I pay my road tax, then surely I am part owner of the roads? To charge me first to build/maintain them and then charge for the privilege of driving to work on them is ludicrous surely?

Here in Manchester, they want to introduce the 'Congestion Charge' scheme in the same way they have in London. Research done by local papers suggested that >60% of people opposed it (link), and yet the local authorities voted 9 to 2 in favour of it. Democracy at it's finest

Sounds very similar and very old

Thursday, December 02, 2004 05:00 PM http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,118815-page,1/ar ticle.html
01 February, 2005 7:00 a.m http://www.livescience.com/technology/050201_skin_ printing.html
Wednesday, 19th January 2005 http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/143/ 143230_tailormade_skin_from_ink_printer.html

Come on get with it, i have already built my clone army using disposable printers thought it was common knowledge.

This article answers some of the questions raised here:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/health /s/227/227737_stunning_breakthrough_in_search_for_ blindness_cure_.html

Which government? Mine, yours or theirs?

Translation: you have no rational response, so you're going to play stupid. Unfortunately, your spin attempt is about as effective as a cat trying to bury a turd on a hardwood floor.

Nice analogy. We've drifted a bit here, but as a reminder, someone suggested that the good guys be allowed nukes, and the bad guys not. I pointed out that it's subjective as to who the bad guys are.

This is because there are no "good guys". Not one country in the world has got it right. And if it ever happened, that country would sink into the sea under the weight of everyone who moved there.

If I was "screeching" against the US government in Syria, I doubt they'd mind much. Same for the UK government, same for the Thai government (I live in Thailand). And yes, if I criticised the Syrian government in Syria. I might suddenly have a little more explaining to do. But you read the PATRIOT act, right? Sure, death is by a surprise bullet is probably worse than being held indefinitely in Guantanamo, but there's only shades of wrong here - no right.

So explain to me why America is morally superior and gets to play with all the nukes.

Because you can screech about the government here and not get an automatic bullet in the head? Just a thought.

Sure. You just get flown to Eastern Europe and tortured in secret jails instead. Or locked up without charge in Guantanamo. The USA have got a way to go on the morality front yet, I'm afraid.

The last time I checked the UK had plenty of nukes, too. Did you not know this or is it more deliberate stupidity? You can screech about the UK government in the UK as well, by the way, so it's also morally superior.

Yeah, unless you happen to be an Asian on an aeroplane, or a Brazilian on public transport. It's also turning into a police state, although not as swiftly as the US.

The situation in Pakistan, China, Iran, and North Korea is rather different. Of course, you know that as well as I do. It doesn't fit into your eeeeeeevil Amerikkka psychosis, though, so you chose to ignore that inconvenient fact.

I never said anyone was perfect - just trying to point out that the only people who think that America are the "good guys" are generally Americans. And that they're a minority, globally. If you want to arrange the nations of the world into "good" and "bad" sets, great - but be aware that everyone's idea would be different, and yours would not be the most popular.

Enjoy your screech, son, but do realize that sane people laugh at you. All the time.