The problem with the scheme as I see it is not the ID cards themselves.
The ID cards are linked to national databases and originally was going to store a massive amount of data on people, but now is *ONLY* going to include personal & biometric details, details of all other formal IDs (passports and licenses), Immigration data and a history of every time the id is used. The Home Office can also add to this list as they want.
Combine this with other eroded civil liberties such as:
Government pushing for 42 days detention without trial (down form the proposed 90 days, currently 28 days).
Our capital city, London has the worlds densest population of CCTV cameras with a nationwide average of 1 CCTV to 14 people.
A DNA database which includes anyone who is suspected of a crime (No samples purged even if later found completely innocent)
Restriction on right to protest through exclusion zones near parliament in which you require a permit in order to assemble
Legislation which will require ISPs and Telecomms companies to keep records of every internet and telephone communication
Anyone who says the UK isn't sleepwalking into an orwellian society is mad.
I appreciate that there are terrorists about who would like to do harm to our society, but we managed through the IRA troubles without all these laws. In fact when the government of the time tried to hold IRA suspects without trial in 1971 it only helped drive support for the extremists. Anyone think that Guantanamo endears western countries to muslims? If we erode our liberties we will end up in a society just as oppressed as those we oppose. The terrorists will have won.
Interestingly, A little under 40,000 people in the UK want Jeremy Clarkson as Prime Minister, and have signed a petition on the Downing Street web site http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/PMClarkson/. Ironic that the reason he got stung was trying to disprove the risk of ID theft after the recent child benefit data loss. I guess he really is suited for the job.
Well, the analogy was aimed more at explaining the *magical* process of turning 12 degree C water into 50 degree C water that a lot of people find rather difficult to understand.
Thank you for your pedantry.
As a side note:
Anyone with an allergy to citrus may at their own discretion substitute the orange squash in the analogy with any other form of diluted drink of preference.
I work for a company in the UK who installs road energy systems. Figured I'd finally register a slashdot account to respond to this article after lurking around for so long.
The pipes are filled with anti-freeze rather than water. We use a vegetable based anti-freeze because of it's non toxicity should it leak.
The system is divided into zones, or sections which converge to a manifold. Each zone can be turned off individually, so if someone does damage a section of pipe, it can be turned off without affecting the rest of the system. Anyone who has underfloor heating should have this in place too.
We combine the system with geothermal heating and cooling using boreholes. In the summer excess heat from the building, and from the road is 'dumped' into the boreholes raising the average temperature of the local ground. In the winter we abstract the stored heat which then lowers the temperature back down. The entire system is 'closed loop'. We don't touch the groundwater itself at all, although we do also install open loop geothermal systems.
Inside the building is a heat pump, which (as stated above) works like a fridge, but in reverse. Its basically just a Copeland compressor. It takes in large quantities of water at ground temperature, say 12 degrees C, and compresses that heat into a tank of water (heating it to say 45-50 degrees C) and the water that returns to the ground will exit at something like 6-8 degrees C. Different systems are designed to work with different temperature gradients, so be aware that those are simply example numbers. The larger the difference in temperature, the more efficient the system which is where the road energy comes in. Storing the excess heat in the summer means for example the average ground temp isn't the aforementioned 12 degrees C it's 15 degrees C instead.
A more layman style description can be made using orange squash. Imagine you have a large volume of orange squash. If you find a way to remove some of the orange dilute from the squash you end up with a weaker orange squash, and a volume of orange concentrate. The heat pump works on this idea, except with heat instead of orange squash.
On the whole, systems are surprisingly economical for commercial customers. In the UK installing a geothermal heating system will generally have a payback period of around 5 years when compared to a natural gas boiler. The extra benefit is that you also get almost free cooling with the system whereas with a gas boiler you have to put in extra chiller units. As a final economic litmus test...we are installing a road energy and geothermal system for a small medical centre in the UK ultimately paid for by the NHS, and I'm sure even those outside the UK know the NHS is pretty frugal.;)
Slashdot Mirror
Well...the tall bit might be closer to the mark than you think. There is actually a statistically significant correlation between height and job status (measured by seniority/management) one paper where this is demonstrated is (paywall) - http://www.springerlink.com/content/j886735267666r8p/ Also CEO salary has a correlation to attractiveness (irrespective of company performance) - http://www.hrmreport.com/news/corporate-salary-depends-on-attractiveness/
The ID cards are linked to national databases and originally was going to store a massive amount of data on people, but now is *ONLY* going to include personal & biometric details, details of all other formal IDs (passports and licenses), Immigration data and a history of every time the id is used. The Home Office can also add to this list as they want.
Combine this with other eroded civil liberties such as:
Government pushing for 42 days detention without trial (down form the proposed 90 days, currently 28 days).
Our capital city, London has the worlds densest population of CCTV cameras with a nationwide average of 1 CCTV to 14 people.
A DNA database which includes anyone who is suspected of a crime (No samples purged even if later found completely innocent)
Restriction on right to protest through exclusion zones near parliament in which you require a permit in order to assemble
Legislation which will require ISPs and Telecomms companies to keep records of every internet and telephone communication
Anyone who says the UK isn't sleepwalking into an orwellian society is mad.
I appreciate that there are terrorists about who would like to do harm to our society, but we managed through the IRA troubles without all these laws. In fact when the government of the time tried to hold IRA suspects without trial in 1971 it only helped drive support for the extremists. Anyone think that Guantanamo endears western countries to muslims? If we erode our liberties we will end up in a society just as oppressed as those we oppose. The terrorists will have won.
Interestingly, A little under 40,000 people in the UK want Jeremy Clarkson as Prime Minister, and have signed a petition on the Downing Street web site http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/PMClarkson/. Ironic that the reason he got stung was trying to disprove the risk of ID theft after the recent child benefit data loss. I guess he really is suited for the job.
Guess the brain has it's own built in nothl() function.
Thank you for your pedantry.
As a side note: Anyone with an allergy to citrus may at their own discretion substitute the orange squash in the analogy with any other form of diluted drink of preference.
Here's a link to our supplier's page with installation photos for those curious. http://www.invisibleheating.co.uk/photos-of-asc-installation-g.asp
The pipes are filled with anti-freeze rather than water. We use a vegetable based anti-freeze because of it's non toxicity should it leak.
The system is divided into zones, or sections which converge to a manifold. Each zone can be turned off individually, so if someone does damage a section of pipe, it can be turned off without affecting the rest of the system. Anyone who has underfloor heating should have this in place too.
We combine the system with geothermal heating and cooling using boreholes. In the summer excess heat from the building, and from the road is 'dumped' into the boreholes raising the average temperature of the local ground. In the winter we abstract the stored heat which then lowers the temperature back down. The entire system is 'closed loop'. We don't touch the groundwater itself at all, although we do also install open loop geothermal systems.
Inside the building is a heat pump, which (as stated above) works like a fridge, but in reverse. Its basically just a Copeland compressor. It takes in large quantities of water at ground temperature, say 12 degrees C, and compresses that heat into a tank of water (heating it to say 45-50 degrees C) and the water that returns to the ground will exit at something like 6-8 degrees C. Different systems are designed to work with different temperature gradients, so be aware that those are simply example numbers. The larger the difference in temperature, the more efficient the system which is where the road energy comes in. Storing the excess heat in the summer means for example the average ground temp isn't the aforementioned 12 degrees C it's 15 degrees C instead.
A more layman style description can be made using orange squash. Imagine you have a large volume of orange squash. If you find a way to remove some of the orange dilute from the squash you end up with a weaker orange squash, and a volume of orange concentrate. The heat pump works on this idea, except with heat instead of orange squash.
On the whole, systems are surprisingly economical for commercial customers. In the UK installing a geothermal heating system will generally have a payback period of around 5 years when compared to a natural gas boiler. The extra benefit is that you also get almost free cooling with the system whereas with a gas boiler you have to put in extra chiller units. As a final economic litmus test...we are installing a road energy and geothermal system for a small medical centre in the UK ultimately paid for by the NHS, and I'm sure even those outside the UK know the NHS is pretty frugal. ;)