I know a US/British dual citizen who flew to Pakistan via the US. For obvious reasons she didn't want to carry her US passport, but because she was interlining she had to, as US citizens have to enter and exit the country on their US passport.
Just to clarify, do you mean the Provos? Or are we talking all the dissident Republican groups since the Troubles? The Real IRA caused quite a few deaths too...
I think most British subjects haven't heard of it.
The NHS is not a government-run monopoly. We still have private healthcare here if you want to buy insurance (or buy it outright). I get private healthcare with my job, for example. It does mean that I'm paying for my healthcare twice though (once through tax and once as a perk).
The point I was trying to make really is that Death Panels are just an over-emotive way of saying that we can't pay to cure every disease, ever, period. No system can get around that. They'll all have to weigh costs and outcomes in some way. The only thing that changes is who is doing it.
Death Panels are real. I don't know what the fuss is on this score. We have a Death Panel here in the UK, which with a complete lack of irony we call NICE. Insurance companies run Death Panels, which decide what they're willing to pay for. And of course, in more individualised health care systems, like Singapore's, the individual acts as their own Death Panel.
Death Panels are mandated by the simple fact that our resources are not limitless while the number of ways human bodies can fuck up more or less is. Most people never run foul of them. They still exist though.
As a further proof, I point people to the UK's comprehensive spending review. Before the current crisis, we spent about the same servicing our national debt as we did on the whole of Defence. For comparison, that's about a fifth what the British Government spends on paying people not to work, in some form or other.
Man, when I get hit on my bike by a driver not really paying attention to the road, at least I'll have the solace that they finally managed to nail the tonality on 'putonghua'.
But our standard High Speed Train service runs at either 125mph (on the Great Western Line) or 140mph (East Coast or West Coast Mainline), which is significantly faster than anything in the US. Even those speeds mean that London-Manchester (e.g.) is much faster by train than by plane.
Er what? Europe was split into two roughly equally powerful alliances before World War One. Hence the Blackadder quote
Blackadder: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent a war in Europe, two super blocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side; and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast, opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way, there could never be a war. Baldrick: Except, well, this is sort of a war, isn't it? Blackadder: That's right. There was one tiny flaw in the plan. George: Oh, what was that? Blackadder: It was bollocks.
Which grew out of the European Coal-and-Steel Community, the goal of which was to integrate the economies of Europe to such a degree that war was unthinkable.
In that respect, the European Union is an amazing success story. A war between Germany and France is now genuinely inconceivable. How would it happen? How could the German Chancellor declare war on France without being laughed out of the building?
Second Law of Thermodynamics; the heat is probably of too low-grade to be used to generate useful electricity. The temperature gradient between ambient and the temperature the heat is being released at likely isn't big enough either. The ratio between Thot and Tcold limits the efficiency; the higher the ratio, the higher the efficiency.
See this Wikipedia for a reasonable discussion of this concept.
Bang on. I've been in my job for a whole two weeks; when my manager asked me what I'd been up to at the grad drinks I honestly couldn't remember everything. Not that I'm saying I'd have pulled out a form listing everything I'd done, just never underestimate how hard it is to keep track of what you've achieved.
In England we have no jaywalking offence, so if someone crosses the road far enough ahead of you for you to stop, then it is your responsibility not to hit them. Most of our town centre roads are capped at 30mph (20mph around schools), so it's basically the driver's problem.
Pedestrians have priority at pedestrian crossings when the signals are in their favour, zebra crossings at all times, and at road junctions without crossings if you start crossing before the car turns (this is specifically mentioned in the highway code).
The exception to this is motorways, where pedestrians aren't allowed at all. This is normally obvious to even the most fatally stupid of Englishmen.
Erm, I don't know where you learnt to drive, but I'm currently learning in the UK and I have to say that actually, it is your job. As my instructor commented yesterday, it's better to not crash than to be right.
I'm British too, before you start blaming me for the ills of our relationship with America!
Concorde had one crash, but flew so few flights with so few people that statistically it was more dangerous than the 747. In addition, the safety record was blemished by other major incidents that were hushed up by the airlines and airports. I know this sounds like a conspiracy, but my source on this was Private Eye at the time, who pointed out that Concorde had previously suffered the same problem as caused the Paris crash.
BA was the only liner to operate it at a profit, and even that is not certain as they didn't publish separate accounts for the service. The stats I've seen say £0.05b on £1b costs, which meant that the aircraft performed slightly worse than the average UK cash-only savings account at the time, with much higher risks. They only really made money in the boom years; not surprising as they're currently struggling to make sub-sonic business class work. As couchslug points out, people didn't want to pay for the service; it wasn't high enough value to justify the costs to them.
One other factor brought Concorde down; Airbus were going to stop maintaining it after 2003.
I think the prestige of Concorde was the only thing keeping it in the air; the economics and usefulness of it were pretty marginal. The cool-factor was eroded at the Paris crash, and it started to look more like a dangerous piece of out-dated machinery than the ultra-modern jet it started off as, which meant that airlines were no longer willing to tolerate the poor returns on it as a sort of loss-leader.
We don't _need_ supersonic aircraft for passenger use, the public didn't want to pay for it, so Concorde is history.
That, and the fact that it was banned from flying supersonically over the US (ostensibly for environmental reasons), reducing the number of routes it could take dramatically, and the fact that it had that crash in Paris. Plus it was an Anglo-French project and the British and French flag-carriers were the only ones who could ever be persuaded to fly the damn things.
Have to say, I've looked at it in a bit more detail and am now less impressed. It's a good idea, but seems to be succumbing to FOSS geek syndrome (i.e. if it's a usability issue it's low priority) and there's a lot of buck-passing going on. Seems like they've missed the point of the exercise; all the usability issues are important and upstream problems are also Ubuntu's problem.
Not sure how this got insightful. Compare the number of Windows for Dummies equivalent books with Linux for Dummies equivalent books. The programmers are not normally the ones who write the books, so the money-incentive chain is not clear to me.
It does obviously exist for someone like RHEL, but making software difficult to use will force people to either use something else (no income) or buy a support contract (passing on the costs). The ideal case for RHEL is everyone using their software because it's easy and companies buying support contracts 'just in case' but never needing to use them.
To put your point as a car analogy; the FOSS world often feels like a car with an amazingly refined engine and one wheel; adding the other three would be boring and technically uninteresting busy work, so nobody does it. You end up with an engine that never breaks down and does 1E6mpg and not going anywhere.
What Linux needs is a user-friendliness consultant who is tasked to find all the problems that make the OS difficult for average people to navigate.
Interesting you should mention this as Ubuntu launch their One Hundred Paper Cuts project.
I've often thought it would be nice to have a version of Linux that had locked down settings, leaving relatively little choice, but guaranteeing everything to work smoothly.
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Yeah, because only a M$ shill would suggest that some people out there aren't entirely au fait with computers...
I know a US/British dual citizen who flew to Pakistan via the US. For obvious reasons she didn't want to carry her US passport, but because she was interlining she had to, as US citizens have to enter and exit the country on their US passport.
Er, I just renewed my passport and didn't have to give the government any biometric data.
As I'm also an Irish citizen, I now have two biometric passports sans biometric data.
Just to clarify, do you mean the Provos? Or are we talking all the dissident Republican groups since the Troubles? The Real IRA caused quite a few deaths too...
I think most British subjects haven't heard of it.
The NHS is not a government-run monopoly. We still have private healthcare here if you want to buy insurance (or buy it outright). I get private healthcare with my job, for example. It does mean that I'm paying for my healthcare twice though (once through tax and once as a perk).
The point I was trying to make really is that Death Panels are just an over-emotive way of saying that we can't pay to cure every disease, ever, period. No system can get around that. They'll all have to weigh costs and outcomes in some way. The only thing that changes is who is doing it.
Death Panels are real. I don't know what the fuss is on this score. We have a Death Panel here in the UK, which with a complete lack of irony we call NICE. Insurance companies run Death Panels, which decide what they're willing to pay for. And of course, in more individualised health care systems, like Singapore's, the individual acts as their own Death Panel.
Death Panels are mandated by the simple fact that our resources are not limitless while the number of ways human bodies can fuck up more or less is. Most people never run foul of them. They still exist though.
As a further proof, I point people to the UK's comprehensive spending review. Before the current crisis, we spent about the same servicing our national debt as we did on the whole of Defence. For comparison, that's about a fifth what the British Government spends on paying people not to work, in some form or other.
Man, when I get hit on my bike by a driver not really paying attention to the road, at least I'll have the solace that they finally managed to nail the tonality on 'putonghua'.
There's also the ludicrously named "London Oxford" terminal.
But our standard High Speed Train service runs at either 125mph (on the Great Western Line) or 140mph (East Coast or West Coast Mainline), which is significantly faster than anything in the US. Even those speeds mean that London-Manchester (e.g.) is much faster by train than by plane.
Ah, I understand better now. Thanks for the clarification.
Er what? Europe was split into two roughly equally powerful alliances before World War One. Hence the Blackadder quote
Blackadder: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent a war in Europe, two super blocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side; and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast, opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way, there could never be a war.
Baldrick: Except, well, this is sort of a war, isn't it?
Blackadder: That's right. There was one tiny flaw in the plan.
George: Oh, what was that?
Blackadder: It was bollocks.
Which grew out of the European Coal-and-Steel Community, the goal of which was to integrate the economies of Europe to such a degree that war was unthinkable.
In that respect, the European Union is an amazing success story. A war between Germany and France is now genuinely inconceivable. How would it happen? How could the German Chancellor declare war on France without being laughed out of the building?
Second Law of Thermodynamics; the heat is probably of too low-grade to be used to generate useful electricity. The temperature gradient between ambient and the temperature the heat is being released at likely isn't big enough either. The ratio between Thot and Tcold limits the efficiency; the higher the ratio, the higher the efficiency.
See this Wikipedia for a reasonable discussion of this concept.
I have to say, when I read this
Bragging used to work back when most people with power in an organization had absolutely no idea about technology
I thought of this.
Bang on. I've been in my job for a whole two weeks; when my manager asked me what I'd been up to at the grad drinks I honestly couldn't remember everything. Not that I'm saying I'd have pulled out a form listing everything I'd done, just never underestimate how hard it is to keep track of what you've achieved.
In England we have no jaywalking offence, so if someone crosses the road far enough ahead of you for you to stop, then it is your responsibility not to hit them. Most of our town centre roads are capped at 30mph (20mph around schools), so it's basically the driver's problem.
Pedestrians have priority at pedestrian crossings when the signals are in their favour, zebra crossings at all times, and at road junctions without crossings if you start crossing before the car turns (this is specifically mentioned in the highway code).
The exception to this is motorways, where pedestrians aren't allowed at all. This is normally obvious to even the most fatally stupid of Englishmen.
It's not my job as a driver to keep idiots safe.
Erm, I don't know where you learnt to drive, but I'm currently learning in the UK and I have to say that actually, it is your job. As my instructor commented yesterday, it's better to not crash than to be right.
I'm British too, before you start blaming me for the ills of our relationship with America!
Concorde had one crash, but flew so few flights with so few people that statistically it was more dangerous than the 747. In addition, the safety record was blemished by other major incidents that were hushed up by the airlines and airports. I know this sounds like a conspiracy, but my source on this was Private Eye at the time, who pointed out that Concorde had previously suffered the same problem as caused the Paris crash.
BA was the only liner to operate it at a profit, and even that is not certain as they didn't publish separate accounts for the service. The stats I've seen say £0.05b on £1b costs, which meant that the aircraft performed slightly worse than the average UK cash-only savings account at the time, with much higher risks. They only really made money in the boom years; not surprising as they're currently struggling to make sub-sonic business class work. As couchslug points out, people didn't want to pay for the service; it wasn't high enough value to justify the costs to them.
One other factor brought Concorde down; Airbus were going to stop maintaining it after 2003.
I think the prestige of Concorde was the only thing keeping it in the air; the economics and usefulness of it were pretty marginal. The cool-factor was eroded at the Paris crash, and it started to look more like a dangerous piece of out-dated machinery than the ultra-modern jet it started off as, which meant that airlines were no longer willing to tolerate the poor returns on it as a sort of loss-leader.
We don't _need_ supersonic aircraft for passenger use, the public didn't want to pay for it, so Concorde is history.
That, and the fact that it was banned from flying supersonically over the US (ostensibly for environmental reasons), reducing the number of routes it could take dramatically, and the fact that it had that crash in Paris. Plus it was an Anglo-French project and the British and French flag-carriers were the only ones who could ever be persuaded to fly the damn things.
Have to say, I've looked at it in a bit more detail and am now less impressed. It's a good idea, but seems to be succumbing to FOSS geek syndrome (i.e. if it's a usability issue it's low priority) and there's a lot of buck-passing going on. Seems like they've missed the point of the exercise; all the usability issues are important and upstream problems are also Ubuntu's problem.
Not sure how this got insightful. Compare the number of Windows for Dummies equivalent books with Linux for Dummies equivalent books. The programmers are not normally the ones who write the books, so the money-incentive chain is not clear to me.
It does obviously exist for someone like RHEL, but making software difficult to use will force people to either use something else (no income) or buy a support contract (passing on the costs). The ideal case for RHEL is everyone using their software because it's easy and companies buying support contracts 'just in case' but never needing to use them.
To put your point as a car analogy; the FOSS world often feels like a car with an amazingly refined engine and one wheel; adding the other three would be boring and technically uninteresting busy work, so nobody does it. You end up with an engine that never breaks down and does 1E6mpg and not going anywhere.
What Linux needs is a user-friendliness consultant who is tasked to find all the problems that make the OS difficult for average people to navigate.
Interesting you should mention this as Ubuntu launch their One Hundred Paper Cuts project.
I've often thought it would be nice to have a version of Linux that had locked down settings, leaving relatively little choice, but guaranteeing everything to work smoothly.
seems to have been around for a good while indeed.
Probably because it's several different episodes of genocide in different parts of the continent, each with different underlying causes and dynamics.
Though Jared Diamond would disagree about that last part.