Aye. This. Data collected improperly is not valid data. End of story.
What does "improperly" mean? Collected while in a state of undress?
Several years ago, there was a paper from a team of remote sensing scientists who showed that the algorithms for converting the satellite measurements into surface temperature were wrong. They were getting a deterministic error in the answers. (This also shows the difference between DATA and the interpretation of that data. The DATA was right, the interpretation was wrong. The data can also be wrong, but that's a different kind of error.)
"several years ago"? When?
"there was a paper"? Citation needed.
"a team of remote sensing scientists". Who?
" algorithms for converting the satellite measurements into surface temperature were wrong." Did they get the sign wrong?
What is *your* falsifiable hypothesis statement of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming?
1. Atmospheric CO2 is rising 2. The rise is due to burining of fossil fuels. 3. CO2 is a greenhouse gas - increases in CO2 in the atmosphere should, if there is no other effect, cause temperature increases. 4. Global average temperatures are rising. 5. No other mechanism has been found for the temperature rise.
How would I falsify any of these? By going out and trying to find out of they're, you know, false.
He's saying that he was happy when the Boston tea party forced the Bostonians to pay more for their tea, so people should pay more for their Rasbery Pi's.
(He seems not to have noticed that this is a UK project - Boston Lincs, not Mass.)
Actually, building materials (at least here in the USA) are dirt cheap.
Fucking well should be.
I've seen houses in the US built of plastic! Fuckers were all slowly falling apart as the UV degraded the PVC. The fake window wooden shutters were riveted to the fake wooden walls.
It's important to remember something here. This wasn't Google HQ, out in California. This was Google Kenya. Kenya ranked 154th (out of 182) in Transparency International's Corruption Index in 2011. It's not a country that is known for an ethical business climate in general;
Luckily for Kenya not everyone thinks like you:
I moved to Africa from the UK 30 months ago to be CEO of Mocality. When I moved, Kenya’s reputation as a corrupt place to do business made me nervous. I’ve been very happily surprised- until this point, I’ve not done business with any company here that was not completely honestly conducted. It is important for global businesses to adapt to local cultural practice, but ethics are an invariant.
Stefan should have purchased "website hosting" (which Google doesn't offer)
People keep saying this.
It isn't true.
Google (in association with Safaricom, Equity Bank and Kenic ) do offer "website hosting" as part of the Gkbo – Getting Kenyan Businesses Online - project.
1. Use heavy duty spoofing to do lookups that look like they're coming from Google's networks. 2. call people, pretending to be Google. 3. sell them Google products. 4. ???? 5. Profit!
Google in partnership with Safaricom, Equity Bank and Kenic announced today the Getting Kenyan Businesses Online (GKBO) program, an initiative aimed at thousands of Kenya SMEs, including sole traders, who do not have a website or online presence. According to Google, together with its partners, “GKBO will provide free or subsidized services to help businesses to use web and internet technologies. This includes supporting organizations that provide assistance for small and medium businesses, as well as other industry organizations that are aligned with the aims of the initiative.”
Caller Yes, um,
I’m calling you from Google Kenya. I’m (inaudible) [...] Caller: No, it’s absolutely free, free of charge. Ok, kuna fee kidogo, maybe ya hosting. Hosting part of it, utakuwa unalipia mia mbili kwa mwezi. (Translation: Ok, there’s a small fee for hosting of Ksh. 200 per month.)
Business owner:
Two hundred per month?
Caller:
Yah, which is not that much coz...(inaudible)... and we want to make business out of this.
Business owner:
So you charge two hundred per month for hosting?
This is what is called a "Keynesian stimulus program"[2]. It's purpose is to spend 300 billion[1] into the economy in order to inflate the national debt away,
Yes, just like the hyperinflation Japan has been suffering from since the 1990's.
I'm don't know much about taxes, so please someone correct me I'm saying something completely stupid, but I always thought that the VAT (Value Added Tax) that many European countries have would disfavor small businesses in favor of very large businesses.
After all the VAT is a compounding tax, and if a large business owns a big chunk of its own supply chain, that means it can probably avoid paying that tax dozens of times (if not hundreds of times) for every step it can refine its product without having to go through a third party.
Doesn't anyone know if my hunch is correct? or if I'm missing something?
No business pays VAT, or to be more exact, the VAT you pay on your raw materials is subtracted from the VAT you bill your clients.
I buy wood at 100EUR (+20%VAT), I pay my supplier 120 EUR. I make goods from that and sell them for 200 EUR (+ 20%VAT), my client gives me 240EUR, I give 20 EUR to the government.
If you do more of the refining steps in house you're adding more value, so you're paying less VAT on your raw materials and so you get to offset less of the VAT you have to bill for the final product.
For what it is worth, generational change does improve the attitudes in society over time. For example, 20 years ago you would not have seen major governments even pay lip service to the problem of global climate change
In 1988 (24 years ago) Margret Thatcher made speaches on climate change, championed the IPCC and personaly opened the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.
(Instructions for using TARIC can be found at http://www.sloanefox.freeserve.co.uk/taric.htm, some of the links seem out of date and it's got a bit of UK Europhobe editorialising, but it gives an idea of how to use it),
It's not VAT. VAT, as you point out is just a percentage of the price (so importing assembled goods you'd pay more VAT).
It's Customs duty:
Customs duty is a tax charged on importation of goods produced outside the European Union (EU). [...]
Customs Duty is charged as a percentage of the total value of the goods - that is the sterling equivalent of the price paid abroad.
To work out the percentage, each type of product is given a 'commodity code'. This tells you what the Customs Duty rate percentage is for that particular product, based on whether it's being imported or exported.
There are around 14,000 different classifications. The duty rate percentage for each may vary according to the country the goods come from. The average percentage is between 5 and 9 per cent, but it can be as low as 0 per cent or as high as 85 per cent.
To find out the Customs Duty rate for a product you can contact HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) VAT Helpline or the Customs, International Trade & Excise enquiries.
The UK customs duty appears to be based on the EU TARIC, so the choice of rates on particular goods may not be up to the UK (alone) to decide.
SECTION XVI MACHINERY AND MECHANICAL APPLIANCES; ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT; PARTS THEREOF; SOUND RECORDERS AND REPRODUCERS, TELEVISION IMAGE AND SOUND RECORDERS AND REPRODUCERS, AND PARTS AND ACCESSORIES OF SUCH ARTICLES
CHAPTER 84 NUCLEAR REACTORS, BOILERS, MACHINERY AND MECHANICAL APPLIANCES; PARTS THEREOF
8471 Automatic data-processing machines and units thereof; magnetic or optical readers, machines for transcribing data onto data media in coded form and machines for processing such data, not elsewhere specified or included
I'm not sure where components are - it's a real mish-mash.
That's funny, I find I need electricity after nightfall in order to see.
Then you go to bed and turn off the lights.
In equatorial Africa there is 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night. The sun rises at 6:00 and sets at 6:00.
You're probably right that during "prime time" (dusk till about 11pm) that there is continued power demand,
Boy, you go to bed early - My experience (Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire) is that most people will be asleap by around 2 in the morning,
I don't know for sure, but even though you are turning on your lights, you also have to remember that a lot of businesses are closing for the day, and turn out most of their lights, turn off electric-hungry equipment (computer, printing presses, manufacturing equipment, copiers, etc etc).
We're talking third world here - I think you're overestimating the power usage of offices and industry
Light bulbs tend to be a very low-power consumption source - especially as newer light bulbs get more efficient (although, I imagine people in developing nations are probably still using a lot of the old, cheap incandescent bulbs.
Lot's of horrible flourescent tubes in my experience
I think even a 100 watt bulb takes much less energy than a washing machine, commercial refrigerator, or stove/oven
You don't turn your refrigerator off at night!
And people in 3rd world countries don't use electric stoves, it's gas or charcoal.
Anyhow, all the sources I've seen indicate that power consumption tends to peak during the day, and decrease at night. In the U.S., part of that is air conditioning, but even without a lot of AC, from what I understand, demand still peaks in the day, just not as high as when the AC units are going full blast.
In Europe the domestic peak is early evening (darkness, cold).
The big difference between US/Europe and Africa is the much smaller industrial usage.
Solar is a good peaking power source - the Sun's energy tends to peak around the same hours that human demand for electricity peaks (because people are doing business, and running washers, dryers, and stoves, which they don't tend to do after dark).
That's funny, I find I need electricity after nightfall in order to see.
And, because my electrictity is generated by nukes I do run my washing machine at night - it's cheaper.
I don't have a dryer - that's an insane waste of electriciy. The sun works really well for drying clothes.
Slashdot Mirror
Aye. This. Data collected improperly is not valid data. End of story.
What does "improperly" mean? Collected while in a state of undress?
Several years ago, there was a paper from a team of remote sensing scientists who showed that the algorithms for converting the satellite measurements into surface temperature were wrong. They were getting a deterministic error in the answers. (This also shows the difference between DATA and the interpretation of that data. The DATA was right, the interpretation was wrong. The data can also be wrong, but that's a different kind of error.)
"several years ago"? When?
"there was a paper"? Citation needed.
"a team of remote sensing scientists". Who?
" algorithms for converting the satellite measurements into surface temperature were wrong." Did they get the sign wrong?
Being called a climate skeptic is used as a dirty word by the "believers",
No. Deniers lie by calling themselves skeptics when they show no skepticism about their denial of the evidence.
Yes, I know, deniers is an insult. But it's also an accurate description.
What is *your* falsifiable hypothesis statement of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming?
1. Atmospheric CO2 is rising
2. The rise is due to burining of fossil fuels.
3. CO2 is a greenhouse gas - increases in CO2 in the atmosphere should, if there is no other effect, cause temperature increases.
4. Global average temperatures are rising.
5. No other mechanism has been found for the temperature rise.
How would I falsify any of these? By going out and trying to find out of they're, you know, false.
Talking of stupid:
Arguing that the Sun does not have any influence on the average temperature on our planet (as the IPCC did)
Embelishing your argument with out and out lies is pretty stupid.
He's saying that he was happy when the Boston tea party forced the Bostonians to pay more for their tea, so people should pay more for their Rasbery Pi's.
(He seems not to have noticed that this is a UK project - Boston Lincs, not Mass.)
Actually, building materials (at least here in the USA) are dirt cheap.
Fucking well should be.
I've seen houses in the US built of plastic! Fuckers were all slowly falling apart as the UV degraded the PVC. The fake window wooden shutters were riveted to the fake wooden walls.
It's important to remember something here. This wasn't Google HQ, out in California. This was Google Kenya. Kenya ranked 154th (out of 182) in Transparency International's Corruption Index in 2011. It's not a country that is known for an ethical business climate in general;
Luckily for Kenya not everyone thinks like you:
I moved to Africa from the UK 30 months ago to be CEO of Mocality. When I moved, Kenya’s reputation as a corrupt place to do business made me nervous. I’ve been very happily surprised- until this point, I’ve not done business with any company here that was not completely honestly conducted. It is important for global businesses to adapt to local cultural practice, but ethics are an invariant.
Stefan Magdalinski
Nairobi, Kenya
Stefan should have purchased "website hosting" (which Google doesn't offer)
People keep saying this.
It isn't true.
Google (in association with Safaricom, Equity Bank and Kenic ) do offer "website hosting" as part of the Gkbo – Getting Kenyan Businesses Online - project.
So, tell me how the scam works.
1. Use heavy duty spoofing to do lookups that look like they're coming from Google's networks.
2. call people, pretending to be Google.
3. sell them Google products.
4. ????
5. Profit!
On the flip side, Google don't sell hosting.
Well, in fact they do.
Google in partnership with Safaricom, Equity Bank and Kenic announced today the Getting Kenyan Businesses Online (GKBO) program, an initiative aimed at thousands of Kenya SMEs, including sole traders, who do not have a website or online presence. According to Google, together with its partners, “GKBO will provide free or subsidized services to help businesses to use web and internet technologies. This includes supporting organizations that provide assistance for small and medium businesses, as well as other industry organizations that are aligned with the aims of the initiative.”
http://www.kenyanlist.com/kls-listing-show.php?id=68124
From the call:
Caller Yes, um,
I’m calling you from Google Kenya. I’m (inaudible)
[...]
Caller:
No, it’s absolutely free, free of charge. Ok, kuna fee kidogo, maybe ya hosting. Hosting part of it, utakuwa unalipia mia mbili kwa mwezi. (Translation: Ok, there’s a small fee for hosting of Ksh. 200 per month.)
Business owner:
Two hundred per month?
Caller:
Yah, which is not that much coz...(inaudible)... and we want to make business out of this.
Business owner:
So you charge two hundred per month for hosting?
Please try to understand the meaning of the word "source".
This is what is called a "Keynesian stimulus program"[2]. It's purpose is to spend 300 billion[1] into the economy in order to inflate the national debt away,
Yes, just like the hyperinflation Japan has been suffering from since the 1990's.
Vraiment? Vous le trouve totalement inutile?
Well, that sounds wierd enough to be true.
I don't think this article is accurate. As far as I can see, integrated circuits don't currently incur any import duty either per gov.uk.
Yeah, that's what I thought the TARIC database was saying (but it's such a miss-mash I couldn't be sure).
So what the fuck are they talking about?
But, as some AC points out lower down, reading the TARIC database, or the UK customs copy at http://tariff.businesslink.gov.uk/tariff-bl/export/heading.html?export=false&simulationDate=11/01/12&id=8542000000&additionalCode1=&additionalCode2=&additionalCode3=&countryCode= seems to show that the duty on imported electronic components is 0%.
So what exactly is the problem?
I'm don't know much about taxes, so please someone correct me I'm saying something completely stupid, but I always thought that the VAT (Value Added Tax) that many European countries have would disfavor small businesses in favor of very large businesses.
After all the VAT is a compounding tax, and if a large business owns a big chunk of its own supply chain, that means it can probably avoid paying that tax dozens of times (if not hundreds of times) for every step it can refine its product without having to go through a third party.
Doesn't anyone know if my hunch is correct? or if I'm missing something?
No business pays VAT, or to be more exact, the VAT you pay on your raw materials is subtracted from the VAT you bill your clients.
I buy wood at 100EUR (+20%VAT), I pay my supplier 120 EUR. I make goods from that and sell them for 200 EUR (+ 20%VAT), my client gives me 240EUR, I give 20 EUR to the government.
If you do more of the refining steps in house you're adding more value, so you're paying less VAT on your raw materials and so you get to offset less of the VAT you have to bill for the final product.
It all evens out.
Government taxes have little to do with it.
Thanks for your input. Now why don't you RTFA?
For what it is worth, generational change does improve the attitudes in society over time. For example, 20 years ago you would not have seen major governments even pay lip service to the problem of global climate change
In 1988 (24 years ago) Margret Thatcher made speaches on climate change, championed the IPCC and personaly opened the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.
(Instructions for using TARIC can be found at http://www.sloanefox.freeserve.co.uk/taric.htm, some of the links seem out of date and it's got a bit of UK Europhobe editorialising, but it gives an idea of how to use it),
It's not VAT. VAT, as you point out is just a percentage of the price (so importing assembled goods you'd pay more VAT).
It's Customs duty:
Customs duty is a tax charged on importation of goods produced outside the European Union (EU). [...]
Customs Duty is charged as a percentage of the total value of the goods - that is the sterling equivalent of the price paid abroad.
To work out the percentage, each type of product is given a 'commodity code'. This tells you what the Customs Duty rate percentage is for that particular product, based on whether it's being imported or exported.
There are around 14,000 different classifications. The duty rate percentage for each may vary according to the country the goods come from. The average percentage is between 5 and 9 per cent, but it can be as low as 0 per cent or as high as 85 per cent.
To find out the Customs Duty rate for a product you can contact HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) VAT Helpline or the Customs, International Trade & Excise enquiries.
The UK customs duty appears to be based on the EU TARIC, so the choice of rates on particular goods may not be up to the UK (alone) to decide.
The TARIC database is online at http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/dds2/taric/taric_consultation.jsp?Lang=en#
An assembled Rasberry Pi is probaly an "8471":
SECTION XVI MACHINERY AND MECHANICAL APPLIANCES; ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT; PARTS THEREOF; SOUND RECORDERS AND REPRODUCERS, TELEVISION IMAGE AND SOUND RECORDERS AND REPRODUCERS, AND PARTS AND ACCESSORIES OF SUCH ARTICLES
CHAPTER 84 NUCLEAR REACTORS, BOILERS, MACHINERY AND MECHANICAL APPLIANCES; PARTS THEREOF
8471 Automatic data-processing machines and units thereof; magnetic or optical readers, machines for transcribing data onto data media in coded form and machines for processing such data, not elsewhere specified or included
I'm not sure where components are - it's a real mish-mash.
That's funny, I find I need electricity after nightfall in order to see.
Then you go to bed and turn off the lights.
In equatorial Africa there is 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night. The sun rises at 6:00 and sets at 6:00.
You're probably right that during "prime time" (dusk till about 11pm) that there is continued power demand,
Boy, you go to bed early - My experience (Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire) is that most people will be asleap by around 2 in the morning,
I don't know for sure, but even though you are turning on your lights, you also have to remember that a lot of businesses are closing for the day, and turn out most of their lights, turn off electric-hungry equipment (computer, printing presses, manufacturing equipment, copiers, etc etc).
We're talking third world here - I think you're overestimating the power usage of offices and industry
Light bulbs tend to be a very low-power consumption source - especially as newer light bulbs get more efficient (although, I imagine people in developing nations are probably still using a lot of the old, cheap incandescent bulbs.
Lot's of horrible flourescent tubes in my experience
I think even a 100 watt bulb takes much less energy than a washing machine, commercial refrigerator, or stove/oven
You don't turn your refrigerator off at night!
And people in 3rd world countries don't use electric stoves, it's gas or charcoal.
Anyhow, all the sources I've seen indicate that power consumption tends to peak during the day, and decrease at night. In the U.S., part of that is air conditioning, but even without a lot of AC, from what I understand, demand still peaks in the day, just not as high as when the AC units are going full blast.
In Europe the domestic peak is early evening (darkness, cold).
The big difference between US/Europe and Africa is the much smaller industrial usage.
Solar is a good peaking power source - the Sun's energy tends to peak around the same hours that human demand for electricity peaks (because people are doing business, and running washers, dryers, and stoves, which they don't tend to do after dark).
That's funny, I find I need electricity after nightfall in order to see.
And, because my electrictity is generated by nukes I do run my washing machine at night - it's cheaper.
I don't have a dryer - that's an insane waste of electriciy. The sun works really well for drying clothes.
If electricity is that expensive in Nariobi send him one of those energy efficient spiral shaped CF-bulbs or a LED-bulb.
In my experience in Africa people tend to use flourescent tubes a lot. Not compact, but same energy savings.
/Yorkshire man/
You lucky bastard - my history classes finished with the tudors
/
(true story - the UK in the 70 s)