The blackout in London, not long ago should be proof enough that the british grid is not perfect.
Concerns about long term blackouts in the future due to our
overreliance on gas for power generation have also been raised.
Just search the BBC to see that you really do need batteries in your alarm clock. Even if the supergrid stays up, you will always have local failures. (My power was intermittent this weekend, due to the bad weather)
People are already being shipped abroad (not to india, but france the netherlands etc.) in Britain for treatment because the NHS cannot cope with the number of patients on the waiting lists. Also some are travelling to countries like Poland for cheap cosmetic surgery.
Operations can and do go wrong and its not much good if your surgion is half way around the world when you get rushed into hospital. Also hospitals do plan for readmittance, which obviously they cannot do unless you are treated by them.
Also I'm sure I don't need to spell out the problems that will be encountered if the patient needs ongoing treatment.
In the UK when private operations go wrong the patient often gets dumped on the National Health Service.
P.S. If you want my opinion, the US could do a lot worse than get itself a National Health Service. Access to healthcare should not be based on the ability to pay or what is covered on your insurance policy (if you can afford one.)
Think of all that money they have spent building 70M radio antennas and custom radio gear when it is so obvious all you need are off the shelf Wifi cards and a couple of Pringles Tins;)
I don't know about you, but I expect my car to sort of be a bit like a swiss army knife. I expect it to be able to cart me easily around town and still be capable on the Motorway.
80% of my driving is local i.e. driving to work, supermarket etc.
The other 20% is longer journeys on the motorways and country roads, where I may be luggage. I would not like to be crammed into a matchbox with tinnly little engine.
Best solution I saw once to the problem of parallel parking, was a car with a set of small wheels which could be lowered when you wanted to park. They were mounted 90 degrees to the main wheels, so you drew up next to the place you wanted to park, dropped the wheels and "drove" in sideways.
Of course the Italians won't need this device, if the space isn't big enough they tend to ram the other cars until it is;)
They have produced a map of the visable universe. It is thought that if you travelled far enough you would end up back where you started as space is curved anyways.
It sure was! But the British public absolutely loved it, and it was an achiveable dream to fly higher and faster then anything else for most people.
I wish the govenment spent its millions on Concorde rather than building a big tent in London with no idea of what to put in it (think Millenium dome).
F.Y.I. If you want to see Concorde in the air your last chance is November the 26th, when the last one made will fly from Heathrow to Bristol, where it was built. It will do a flypast over Bristol and land in Filton Airport. (at Airbus UK).
Call me cynical, but is this just a way to effectively increase fuel tax and to keep the truckers off the governments back.
A couple of years ago in the UK there was a fuel crisis for a few days caused by truckers and farmers blocking the distribution depts and refineries. In little more than a day panicing motorists emptied every single filling station in the UK.
Since then we have seen the London congestion charge and the new motorway north of Birmingham will be a toll road (approx 6 pounds for approx 40 miles). Petrol prices have remained lower than the 86p/litre (approx 4 pounds per gallon) that caused the protests.
I somehow doubt the tax will hit the truckers anywhere near as hard as they will hit car drivers.
In britain, in the age of separate locomotive & passenger carriages, sometimes the carriages would go to different destinations. The train would be split at the station and one half of the train would continue on its journey. The other half would have an engine attached and proceed to it's destination. My folk's can remember this on the paddington - penzance train splitting and half going on to barnstaple.
Now the whole train is kept as one.
You are forgetting that train drivers are expensive (both in trainining and salary) . They also have strong unions (i.e. they wouldn't take kindly to your suggestion that they wait.)
Rail infrastructure is extreemly expensive. What you are suggesting would be better implemented as a coach network.
Slashdot Mirror
The blackout in London, not long ago should be proof enough that the british grid is not perfect.
Concerns about long term blackouts in the future due to our overreliance on gas for power generation have also been raised.
Just search the BBC to see that you really do need batteries in your alarm clock. Even if the supergrid stays up, you will always have local failures. (My power was intermittent this weekend, due to the bad weather)
and get 415V 3 phase :) excellant for laithes
Or 'We appologise for the delay, this is due to the wrong kind of Gravity'
People are already being shipped abroad (not to india, but france the netherlands etc.) in Britain for treatment because the NHS cannot cope with the number of patients on the waiting lists. Also some are travelling to countries like Poland for cheap cosmetic surgery.
Operations can and do go wrong and its not much good if your surgion is half way around the world when you get rushed into hospital. Also hospitals do plan for readmittance, which obviously they cannot do unless you are treated by them.
Also I'm sure I don't need to spell out the problems that will be encountered if the patient needs ongoing treatment.
In the UK when private operations go wrong the patient often gets dumped on the National Health Service.
P.S. If you want my opinion, the US could do a lot worse than get itself a National Health Service. Access to healthcare should not be based on the ability to pay or what is covered on your insurance policy (if you can afford one.)
Think of all that money they have spent building 70M radio antennas and custom radio gear when it is so obvious all you need are off the shelf Wifi cards and a couple of Pringles Tins ;)
Wow, sucide by Slashdot.
Philip
For anyone wondering who this Prescot Person is, here is a picture of him when he's not in a Jag.
Yes, but it does include the M4 bus line, designed specially so Prescot isn't held up when the bus gets busy.
Ooops it looks like Booble made a boobie.
Philip
Must be someone working on the WINE project then ;)
Which is another reason tramps and strong spirits are inseperable
wow, this mirror got posted twice, karma whoring anyone ;)
I don't know about you, but I expect my car to sort of be a bit like a swiss army knife. I expect it to be able to cart me easily around town and still be capable on the Motorway.
80% of my driving is local i.e. driving to work, supermarket etc.
The other 20% is longer journeys on the motorways and country roads, where I may be luggage. I would not like to be crammed into a matchbox with tinnly little engine.
Best solution I saw once to the problem of parallel parking, was a car with a set of small wheels which could be lowered when you wanted to park. They were mounted 90 degrees to the main wheels, so you drew up next to the place you wanted to park, dropped the wheels and "drove" in sideways.
;)
Of course the Italians won't need this device, if the space isn't big enough they tend to ram the other cars until it is
seconded, if it ever gets finished
They have produced a map of the visable universe. It is thought that if you travelled far enough you would end up back where you started as space is curved anyways.
This may be due to the characteristics of the DC motor that they are using.
No, you should put the printout on the photocopier and boost the copies to the max allowed. When your internet goes down simply press start.
It sure was! But the British public absolutely loved it, and it was an achiveable dream to fly higher and faster then anything else for most people.
I wish the govenment spent its millions on Concorde rather than building a big tent in London with no idea of what to put in it (think Millenium dome).
F.Y.I. If you want to see Concorde in the air your last chance is November the 26th, when the last one made will fly from Heathrow to Bristol, where it was built. It will do a flypast over Bristol and land in Filton Airport. (at Airbus UK).
Call me cynical, but is this just a way to effectively increase fuel tax and to keep the truckers off the governments back.
A couple of years ago in the UK there was a fuel crisis for a few days caused by truckers and farmers blocking the distribution depts and refineries. In little more than a day panicing motorists emptied every single filling station in the UK.
Since then we have seen the London congestion charge and the new motorway north of Birmingham will be a toll road (approx 6 pounds for approx 40 miles). Petrol prices have remained lower than the 86p/litre (approx 4 pounds per gallon) that caused the protests.
I somehow doubt the tax will hit the truckers anywhere near as hard as they will hit car drivers.
Look at the bright side, Bruce Willis will drill it AND he won't be coming back.
In britain, in the age of separate locomotive & passenger carriages, sometimes the carriages would go to different destinations. The train would be split at the station and one half of the train would continue on its journey. The other half would have an engine attached and proceed to it's destination. My folk's can remember this on the paddington - penzance train splitting and half going on to barnstaple.
Now the whole train is kept as one.
You are forgetting that train drivers are expensive (both in trainining and salary) . They also have strong unions (i.e. they wouldn't take kindly to your suggestion that they wait.)
Rail infrastructure is extreemly expensive. What you are suggesting would be better implemented as a coach network.
If you want the room to turn and look at your phone record "free money" and play that as your ringtone.
Brilliant Linux has needed somethink like this for a long time. Thank you Borland!
Oh no, now we shall need a utility to set the clock every time we change time zones.