Slashdot Mirror
UK Government to Shut Down GSM Networks
An anonymous reader writes "Mobile Gazette is reporting that the British government wants to shut down the UK's GSM networks next year and re-use the frequencies for gambling terminals and a new citizen surveillance program extending the use of the new compulsory ID cards. Although we should perhaps welcome the move away from old-style 2G mobile phone networks, there are perhaps a few worrying things about the new "Big Brother" citizen monitoring that the government is proposing to put in."
This has to be another april fools joke.....
Access Point Live Mapping Access Points with Google
The worrying thing is, I didn't bat an eyelid, and totally expected this from my government, until I got to the comments reminding me that it was April Fools Day... (Despite a full knowledege that it was April Fools Day, when I saw the words UK and Government in the same sentance I entered paranoia mode)
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
They'll never beat the ol' Spaghetti Tree Hoax of '57...
a pril/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/
Apparently the supermarkets sold out for fear of a shortage.
It's you... because as far as I know, it's not the 4th of January in the UK.
return 0; }
It wouldn't surprise me if I saw this story in a couple of years time, but not on april fool's day. We really are the lobsters slowly being boiled.
+5 insightful
The only reason not to believe it is because our government would never be able to roll it out so quickly, otherwise given the authoratarian and stupid nature of "New" Labour it hits quite close to the mark. Infact some official probably read that and thought "what a good idea".
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
If you're going to make up an April Fools hoax at least make it remotely plausible. Only a total muppet could believe this story.
You obviously don't live in the UK. It's a bit of a stretch, but not that much less believable than doing away with parliament next and have ministers pass laws personally.
April fool's day is a good day to bury bad news.
-- Cheer, Cheer, The Red and the White.
One example of this is the Texas State lottery, which exist under the guise of increasing funding to education. Of course funding for education, as a percentage of the Texas budget, has fallen considerable over the past 15 years even as lottery revenue has grown. So what is the new proposal? Well a official named Strayhorn want gambling machines. Now this is the lady that attempted to start the process of a state religion for Texas by attempting to rescind the tax exempt status of a church, the denomination of which has existed from the birth of the United States and in many ways reflects the values of our founding fathers, as many of these men had input in it's creation. Combine this with the fact that the demonination has no profit motive, unlike the megachurches that infest Texas, and one wonders if Strayhorn is primarily concerned with well being of the average Texan or the a personal campaign of religious zelotry in which those that disagree with her liberal view of gambling are ignored.
To be clear I am not concerned if people gamble or not. I do not see how we can justify lottery machines in an time when we no longer have cig machines. How can one say that we can enforce the 18+ limit on tickets any more that cigs? I am not sure that having gambling machines in every corner is a net benifit. Like illegal drugs it take money to feed the habit. But, at the end of the day, in a capatilist conservative country like ours, built on a the standards of minimal government and private enterprise, I suppose the government is in the best position to effecintly run a gambling bussiness.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Blair lied, cellphones died!
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
The UK thing is that if you are unprepared enough not to have played your joke before 12 noon, then you are yourself the fool.
Its all part of the tradition here in the UK, and why breakfast jokes are some of the most common, ie switching the salt and sugar and watching some poor b*stard spit their salty coffee. Mwahahahah!
Look it up on WikiPedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_fool
OrionRobots.co.uk - Robots From sol
Nonsense. Middle-endian dates are pretty much unique to the USA (which despite what some of the inhabitants seem to think is not "most of the world").
Apart from the USA, the rest of the world uses either DD-MM-YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD, both of which are much more sensible than the USA format.