Although the US has said that they will require VWP countries to start issuing biometric passports soon or else lose their membership of the programme. IIRC the deadline is OCt 2004 but it may have been pushed back. I know the UK is not expecting to start issuing biometric passports until 2005 at the earliest.
Also I believe the reports said that the fingerprinting and photographing requirements at US airports will be extended to visa waiver travellers sometime later this year anyway.
The uk.gov has been making noises for some time about using this sort of technology to enforce road pricing and speed limits. Whilst they'd lose revenue from speed cameras, they'd gain it from road pricing.
However, I can foresee this technology being *very* unpopular, and I can't help but think the uk.gov don't really understand what they could be setting themselves up for here.
Mr and Mrs Middle England are strange beasts: they'll happily put up with their every move being tracked by more CCTV cameras than just about anywhere else on Earth, and I have no doubt most of them will happily carry Gauleiter Blunkett's "entitlement" cards ("if you've nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear"), but stop them from exercising their God-given right to drive like lunatics at whatever speed they want, and it'll make the Poll Tax protests look like a minor grumble.
Ideally, I'd like to see the Revolution come to England for a more noble reason, but if does make the Revolution come to England at last, I'll be happy enough.
It's not just power that we put underground - the only overhead infrastructure you see in an average British street is BT telephone wires and then usually only the last bit from the nearest telephone pole to the home.
However, the downside is that what with utility privatisation and deregulation, we now have over 100 companies with a statutory right to dig up the roads as when they require. This means we often get cases of roads being dug up by company A, resurfaced and then a couple of days later getting dug up again by Company B. IIRC there are some roads in London that have been subject to works for more than 50% of the time in recent years.
The govt keeps legislating to make the utilities co-ordinate with each other (I remember working on the Street Works Act system for the local authority I used to work for back in the mid-90s) but it never seems to have much effect. The latest wheeze is "lane rental" - allowing utilities to dig as they want but making them pay for the economic cost of the disruption to traffic that they cause.
Mind you, I do think it looks nicer having everything underground. I find the overhead electric cables they have in the suburban US quite ugly.
It always used to be said that the NHS was Europe's second-biggest employeer after the Red Army. I know the Russian armed forces have been severly downsized since the end of the Cold War but I'd be willing to bet they're still bigger than the NHS.
The NHS is Europe's biggest *civilian* employer probably, though.
Er no, I meant at the terminals - X-Ray machines for scanning baggage basically (IIRC all baggage on the E* is carry-on but it's been a while since I've been on it).
You make a good point though. The first section of the high-speed (186mph) line from the tunnel to London recently opened and we've already had an attempt by the local low-lifes to push a car onto the track... Don't think it was terrorism though, just Kent.
I do think less is more when it comes to TV ads. Here in the UK we don't have anything like as many ads as in the US (although the proportion has been creeping up of late) and as a rule when the ads come on I'm willing to just wait for the break to finish. My fiancee, OTOH, is American, and if she has the remote she immediately starts channel-hopping when the ads come on, which usually ends up with me moaning that the programme must have restarted by now.
Mind you, at least here we do have channels without ads.
I've heard the thing about logging TV purchases before, but when our telly went bang a couple of days ago, we remembered our local Co-op supermarket had had TVs on offer and we got one there and we weren't asked our and address. We paid for it with plastic so presumably our address could be got from the bank, but I can think of lots of Data Protection Act reasons why that would be difficult for the shop or TV licencing people to do.
I think the OP was confusing Amtrak, the US's nationalised passenger railway operator, with the entire US railway network. Whilst Amtrak runs all over the US, it mostly runs over tracks owned by private companies that run freight services. Amtrak only owns the track between Boston and Washington (which incidentally is the only part of Amtrak that makes any money).
Rail freight, if done right, can be very profitable, especially for moving bulk materials like minerals over long distances, where rail is the most economical mode of transport by far.
Of course the private companies don't like the Amtrak passenger trains getting in the way of their nice profitable freight services which is why Amtrak has such a poor time-keeping record off of the BOS-WAS corridor.
Eurostar has airline style security because the Channel Tunnel is deemed to be a potential target. You can't just turn up and go, but the check-in closes only 30 minutes ahead of departure, so it's still faster than at an airport, and unlike Heathrow, Orly etc, the stations are right in the hearts of the cities they serve.
It was noisy-ish. I grew up in SW London, not under the usual LHR flightpaths but every once in a while we'd have flights over us. Concorde was noiser than most aircraft, but not by very much, and it was distinctive. We always knew when it was Concorde going over, and we'd always run out into the garden to watch it fly over.
When I was a kid, sometimes the family would pile into the car and drive up to Heathrow and park on the roof of one of the car parks just to watch Concorde land (bet you couldn't do that today...) It was noisier than the more modern jets, but *quieter* than many of the earlier models. It was definitely quieter than the BAC Trident, I recall.
We did a more hardware-orientated version of this years back. We had old IBM green-screen terminals with keyboards that had removable keycaps. One April 1st we switched some of the key caps on one guy's keyboard. Subtle changes like sitching "N" and "M" and "D" and "F". Took him a while to twig.
Another one we did on a Windows 3.1 machine was "print screen" the desktop with Program Manager (remember that?) opened and set it as the user's wallpaper, then minimised PM.
Software systems can be unpopular
on
How Do You Punch In?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The only place I ever worked that had a flexi-time system and therefore needed clocking on systems used little mechanical clocks, one for each person which could only be switched on or off with a key. Unfortuantely, it was eventually found that a fault in these clocks made them a fire risk, and as the manufacturer had gone out of business they couldn't easily be replaced.
The management toyed with going for a software-based system, but this was unpopular with the staff as it was felt that the time it would take to boot up one's PC in the morning, logon to the mainframe (this was a while back!) and navigate to the timesheets system would cause, cumulatively, a lot of time to be lost to the staff's flexi-time accounts. There was also the issue of the system forwarding late clock-ons to Personnel (what we used to call HR back in the day), which again could have been unfair as you could have arrived on the premises on time, but might not be able to "clock on" for another five minutes before the hardware and software let you.
In the end, we just went to a paper-based system which worked fine.
Don't they also need data on how much each of those passengers ended up BEING a RISK?
Seems to me that the dataset they should be testing this against is UA and AA's passengers for September 11th, 2001. If the system doesn't spot the hijackers, it isn't working properly.
We have plenty of corruption in the UK, but we really don't have the pork-barrelling like they have in the US, although governments sometimes try to direct spending to marginal constitunencies, it doesn't compare to what goes on in the AMerican system.
Due really, as another poster has pointed out, to the executive's control of the legislature and the relative powerlessness of our MPs compared to US congresscritters (I love that word!).
In the UK our bills have a short title, which is what they'll be known as if passed, and a long title which sets out what the law is for. The bill may not contain anything that is not consistent with the long title. To allow enough flexibility to get around nit-picking, a bill's long title will usually end with "and for conected purposes."
Seems to work quite well. "Pork" is simply not a concept in British politics.
But if the public outcry against the "spy in your car" is as strong as I think it will be, it could put the kybosh on both the car tracking and the ID cards. Most people in the UK don't care about ID cards - "if you've nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear" but they *do* care about their god-given right to speed and drive like lunatics. Hopefully, people will realise that tracking via smart ID cards is just as invasive as tracking their cars.
the show's producers simply, and without warning, arranged for the entire cast to be killed in one gruesome and bloody ambush. After years of arranging narrow escapes for our favourite characters, this was just incredibly insensitive
Yeah, but it was realistic. Let's face it, if you're a dissident under a totalitarian regime, and there's no outside power with enough strength or influence to make your government think you might be worth keeping on ice for a while, that's exactly>/b> what will happen to you when you're caught, and kudos to the BBC for accepting the brutal logic of the situation and not opting for some wimpy happy ending.
Blake's 7 were doomed from the start, you knew they had to be, but it was watching them try to defy their fate that made the series so magnificent.
IBM employ some extremely good IP lawyers. In a previous incarnation I knew one well, and he was a very sharp individual. Combined his day job with leading the Liberals/Lib Dems from one member on the city council to two-thirds majority in less than two decades.
Indeed, I don't think the US in the jet age has produced any really *beautiful* airliners, like the Comet or Concorde. I've always liked the B727's looks, and the B747 is impressive, but not beautiful.
Slashdot Mirror
Although the US has said that they will require VWP countries to start issuing biometric passports soon or else lose their membership of the programme. IIRC the deadline is OCt 2004 but it may have been pushed back. I know the UK is not expecting to start issuing biometric passports until 2005 at the earliest.
Also I believe the reports said that the fingerprinting and photographing requirements at US airports will be extended to visa waiver travellers sometime later this year anyway.
The uk.gov has been making noises for some time about using this sort of technology to enforce road pricing and speed limits. Whilst they'd lose revenue from speed cameras, they'd gain it from road pricing.
However, I can foresee this technology being *very* unpopular, and I can't help but think the uk.gov don't really understand what they could be setting themselves up for here.
Mr and Mrs Middle England are strange beasts: they'll happily put up with their every move being tracked by more CCTV cameras than just about anywhere else on Earth, and I have no doubt most of them will happily carry Gauleiter Blunkett's "entitlement" cards ("if you've nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear"), but stop them from exercising their God-given right to drive like lunatics at whatever speed they want, and it'll make the Poll Tax protests look like a minor grumble.
Ideally, I'd like to see the Revolution come to England for a more noble reason, but if does make the Revolution come to England at last, I'll be happy enough.
That sounds like far too sensible an idea to ever catch on in the UK!
It's not just power that we put underground - the only overhead infrastructure you see in an average British street is BT telephone wires and then usually only the last bit from the nearest telephone pole to the home.
However, the downside is that what with utility privatisation and deregulation, we now have over 100 companies with a statutory right to dig up the roads as when they require. This means we often get cases of roads being dug up by company A, resurfaced and then a couple of days later getting dug up again by Company B. IIRC there are some roads in London that have been subject to works for more than 50% of the time in recent years.
The govt keeps legislating to make the utilities co-ordinate with each other (I remember working on the Street Works Act system for the local authority I used to work for back in the mid-90s) but it never seems to have much effect. The latest wheeze is "lane rental" - allowing utilities to dig as they want but making them pay for the economic cost of the disruption to traffic that they cause.
Mind you, I do think it looks nicer having everything underground. I find the overhead electric cables they have in the suburban US quite ugly.
It always used to be said that the NHS was Europe's second-biggest employeer after the Red Army. I know the Russian armed forces have been severly downsized since the end of the Cold War but I'd be willing to bet they're still bigger than the NHS.
The NHS is Europe's biggest *civilian* employer probably, though.
Er no, I meant at the terminals - X-Ray machines for scanning baggage basically (IIRC all baggage on the E* is carry-on but it's been a while since I've been on it).
You make a good point though. The first section of the high-speed (186mph) line from the tunnel to London recently opened and we've already had an attempt by the local low-lifes to push a car onto the track... Don't think it was terrorism though, just Kent.
I do think less is more when it comes to TV ads. Here in the UK we don't have anything like as many ads as in the US (although the proportion has been creeping up of late) and as a rule when the ads come on I'm willing to just wait for the break to finish. My fiancee, OTOH, is American, and if she has the remote she immediately starts channel-hopping when the ads come on, which usually ends up with me moaning that the programme must have restarted by now.
Mind you, at least here we do have channels without ads.
I've heard the thing about logging TV purchases before, but when our telly went bang a couple of days ago, we remembered our local Co-op supermarket had had TVs on offer and we got one there and we weren't asked our and address. We paid for it with plastic so presumably our address could be got from the bank, but I can think of lots of Data Protection Act reasons why that would be difficult for the shop or TV licencing people to do.
because of someones fantasy in Whitehall.
s/fantasy/desire to make shedloads of cash by flogging off the analogue spectrum/
I think the OP was confusing Amtrak, the US's nationalised passenger railway operator, with the entire US railway network. Whilst Amtrak runs all over the US, it mostly runs over tracks owned by private companies that run freight services. Amtrak only owns the track between Boston and Washington (which incidentally is the only part of Amtrak that makes any money).
Rail freight, if done right, can be very profitable, especially for moving bulk materials like minerals over long distances, where rail is the most economical mode of transport by far.
Of course the private companies don't like the Amtrak passenger trains getting in the way of their nice profitable freight services which is why Amtrak has such a poor time-keeping record off of the BOS-WAS corridor.
Eurostar has airline style security because the Channel Tunnel is deemed to be a potential target. You can't just turn up and go, but the check-in closes only 30 minutes ahead of departure, so it's still faster than at an airport, and unlike Heathrow, Orly etc, the stations are right in the hearts of the cities they serve.
As I recall it, NASA and the JPL do use metric. It was the private-sector contractor that didn't.
It was noisy-ish. I grew up in SW London, not under the usual LHR flightpaths but every once in a while we'd have flights over us. Concorde was noiser than most aircraft, but not by very much, and it was distinctive. We always knew when it was Concorde going over, and we'd always run out into the garden to watch it fly over.
When I was a kid, sometimes the family would pile into the car and drive up to Heathrow and park on the roof of one of the car parks just to watch Concorde land (bet you couldn't do that today...) It was noisier than the more modern jets, but *quieter* than many of the earlier models. It was definitely quieter than the BAC Trident, I recall.
We did a more hardware-orientated version of this years back. We had old IBM green-screen terminals with keyboards that had removable keycaps. One April 1st we switched some of the key caps on one guy's keyboard. Subtle changes like sitching "N" and "M" and "D" and "F". Took him a while to twig.
Another one we did on a Windows 3.1 machine was "print screen" the desktop with Program Manager (remember that?) opened and set it as the user's wallpaper, then minimised PM.
The only place I ever worked that had a flexi-time system and therefore needed clocking on systems used little mechanical clocks, one for each person which could only be switched on or off with a key. Unfortuantely, it was eventually found that a fault in these clocks made them a fire risk, and as the manufacturer had gone out of business they couldn't easily be replaced.
The management toyed with going for a software-based system, but this was unpopular with the staff as it was felt that the time it would take to boot up one's PC in the morning, logon to the mainframe (this was a while back!) and navigate to the timesheets system would cause, cumulatively, a lot of time to be lost to the staff's flexi-time accounts. There was also the issue of the system forwarding late clock-ons to Personnel (what we used to call HR back in the day), which again could have been unfair as you could have arrived on the premises on time, but might not be able to "clock on" for another five minutes before the hardware and software let you.
In the end, we just went to a paper-based system which worked fine.
Don't they also need data on how much each of those passengers ended up BEING a RISK?
Seems to me that the dataset they should be testing this against is UA and AA's passengers for September 11th, 2001. If the system doesn't spot the hijackers, it isn't working properly.
Oh yes.
We have plenty of corruption in the UK, but we really don't have the pork-barrelling like they have in the US, although governments sometimes try to direct spending to marginal constitunencies, it doesn't compare to what goes on in the AMerican system.
Due really, as another poster has pointed out, to the executive's control of the legislature and the relative powerlessness of our MPs compared to US congresscritters (I love that word!).
In the UK our bills have a short title, which is what they'll be known as if passed, and a long title which sets out what the law is for. The bill may not contain anything that is not consistent with the long title. To allow enough flexibility to get around nit-picking, a bill's long title will usually end with "and for conected purposes."
Seems to work quite well. "Pork" is simply not a concept in British politics.
Of course.
It is our language, after all.
(my fiancee is both American and a linguist, so you can imagine how well that line goes down when I come out with it at home...)
Please, it's "the River Thames", OK?
But if the public outcry against the "spy in your car" is as strong as I think it will be, it could put the kybosh on both the car tracking and the ID cards. Most people in the UK don't care about ID cards - "if you've nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear" but they *do* care about their god-given right to speed and drive like lunatics. Hopefully, people will realise that tracking via smart ID cards is just as invasive as tracking their cars.
the show's producers simply, and without warning, arranged for the entire cast to be killed in one gruesome and bloody ambush.
After years of arranging narrow escapes for our favourite characters, this was just incredibly insensitive
Yeah, but it was realistic. Let's face it, if you're a dissident under a totalitarian regime, and there's no outside power with enough strength or influence to make your government think you might be worth keeping on ice for a while, that's exactly>/b> what will happen to you when you're caught, and kudos to the BBC for accepting the brutal logic of the situation and not opting for some wimpy happy ending.
Blake's 7 were doomed from the start, you knew they had to be, but it was watching them try to defy their fate that made the series so magnificent.
IBM on the other hand have given SCO nothing.
IBM employ some extremely good IP lawyers. In a previous incarnation I knew one well, and he was a very sharp individual. Combined his day job with leading the Liberals/Lib Dems from one member on the city council to two-thirds majority in less than two decades.
Indeed, I don't think the US in the jet age has produced any really *beautiful* airliners, like the Comet or Concorde. I've always liked the B727's looks, and the B747 is impressive, but not beautiful.
I'm sure America has produced a good-looking airliner
Yeah, the Douglas DC-3. One of the most beautiful aircraft ever built, IMO.