Search the BBC archives around the time of the petrol panic and you'll find a story about Sharwoods, the indian food people, fuelling their vehicles on used cooking oil.
The curry houses and chippies of Britain are a vast untapped power source!
Seriously, there's nothing special about biofuel so why hasn't it taken off here with our high petrol taxes? Anyone know?
You can say that again. It would be nice if they could just be stable! Redhat 6.1 is unusable under Gnome. It crashes more often and in more ways than windows ever did. I've not tried KDE yet, perhaps that's more mature.
> No one gets it for free. Some get it un-metered, is all.
It would be nice to have the choice though. The same goes for ISP charges. For extremely limited usage per-minute charging as used by freeserve is a valid option. I would be much happier with Screaming.net if they offered a subscription based service rather than trying to get by on the few minutes of metered calls that you make. With a subscription you have a contract and a reasonable expectation of a minimum level of service.
>They're only doing it now because the CableCos are finally getting Cable Modems ready to run, and because the >Cellullar companies will be offering 4Mbps wireless starting next year at a flat rate, too
The cablecos have been promising cable modems Real Soon Now for ages. They are in much the same position as BT. In their local areas they have a monopoly. Why should they bother giving you internet access when they can just stick with selling TV?
I don't expect the mobile internet phones to be priced low enough to compete with BT for a long time - but at least there's real competition in the mobile market.
I too believe in properly funded Public Service Broadcasting, but I think the method of payment could be fairer. The licence fee is like a television poll tax.
We don't have HDTV yet and I've not heard of any plans to offer it. For most purposes PAL is good enough. I suspect TV companies would rather broadcast many low quality channels than one high definition channel. There are still plenty of places that don't have digital yet.
The significant point is that the local loop will no longer be monopolised by BT. This allows competitors to offer a better deal, and they will. Just look at the lengths screaming.net has gone to to offer unmetered access.
The Oftel document rejects option 4 in favour of option 2 doesn't it?
I wonder what local loop unbundling means for all the 'free' ISPs that have been popping up recently? They don't charge a subscription fee but make their money by taking a cut from the per-minute local call charges. I can't see this model working for much longer once telcos start buying control of the local loop and offering umetered local calls.
OK I know that the "from the xyz department" lines are just jokes, but I don't think it's a good idea to start rumours about someone being involved with _that_ organisation.
Susan has realy let memes out of their box. No more messing about in urban myths, traditions and religions. Memes are just as valid a replicator as genes with all the creative power that implies.
This book will certainly show you a different view of the world, even if you don't agree with it. It is a starting point for a new science of memetics, not the final destination. Much of it's content is speculation, but the arguments are persuasive and thought provoking. The final chapters on the nature of 'self' and 'creativity' deserve a book of their own really. You can't do such world changing theories justice in just a few pages.
I am looking forward to the articles and books written in response to Susan's ideas, as well as her next book on the subject.
I've seen the term 'freedomware' used in a couple of places. I think such a term could survive natural selection in the buzzword environment. It comes fairly close to expressing the intentions of free software and not as ungainly as 'libre software' or 'free (speech not beer) software'
Slashdot Mirror
Search the BBC archives around the time of the petrol panic and you'll find a story about Sharwoods, the indian food people, fuelling their vehicles on used cooking oil.
The curry houses and chippies of Britain are a vast untapped power source!
Seriously, there's nothing special about biofuel so why hasn't it taken off here with our high petrol taxes? Anyone know?
Alex
Like much of popular american history this story is much exagerated.
For a full debunking read http://www.ctssar.org/articles/price_paid.htm
Alex
Paragraphs, perhaps you've heard of them.
If you can't organize your thoughts then I'm not interested in reading them.
You can say that again. It would be nice if they could just be stable! Redhat 6.1 is unusable under Gnome. It crashes more often and in more ways than windows ever did. I've not tried KDE yet, perhaps that's more mature.
> No one gets it for free. Some get it un-metered, is all.
It would be nice to have the choice though. The same goes for ISP charges. For extremely limited usage per-minute charging as used by freeserve is a valid option. I would be much happier with Screaming.net if they offered a subscription based service rather than trying to get by on the few minutes of metered calls that you make. With a subscription you have a contract and a reasonable expectation of a minimum level of service.
>They're only doing it now because the CableCos are finally getting Cable Modems ready to run, and because the
>Cellullar companies will be offering 4Mbps wireless starting next year at a flat rate, too
The cablecos have been promising cable modems Real Soon Now for ages. They are in much the same position as BT. In their local areas they have a monopoly. Why should they bother giving you internet access when they can just stick with selling TV?
I don't expect the mobile internet phones to be priced low enough to compete with BT for a long time - but at least there's real competition in the mobile market.
I too believe in properly funded Public Service Broadcasting, but I think the method of payment could be fairer. The licence fee is like a television poll tax.
We don't have HDTV yet and I've not heard of any plans to offer it. For most purposes PAL is good enough. I suspect TV companies would rather broadcast many low quality channels than one high definition channel. There are still plenty of places that don't have digital yet.
Alex
The significant point is that the local loop will no longer be monopolised by BT. This allows competitors to offer a better deal, and they will. Just look at the lengths screaming.net has gone to to offer unmetered access.
The Oftel document rejects option 4 in favour of option 2 doesn't it?
Alex
I wonder what local loop unbundling means for all the 'free' ISPs that have been popping up recently? They don't charge a subscription fee but make their money by taking a cut from the per-minute local call charges. I can't see this model working for much longer once telcos start buying control of the local loop and offering umetered local calls.
Alex
In cities at least, bicycles are usually the fastest way of getting around - as proved by numerous commuter challenges.
Alex (taking things far too seriously)
OK I know that the "from the xyz department" lines are just jokes, but I don't think it's a good idea to start rumours about someone being involved with _that_ organisation.
Susan has realy let memes out of their box. No more messing about in urban myths, traditions and religions. Memes are just as valid a replicator as genes with all the creative power that implies.
This book will certainly show you a different view of the world, even if you don't agree with it. It is a starting point for a new science of memetics, not the final destination. Much of it's content is speculation, but the arguments are persuasive and thought provoking. The final chapters on the nature of 'self' and 'creativity' deserve a book of their own really. You can't do such world changing theories justice in just a few pages.
I am looking forward to the articles and books written in response to Susan's ideas, as well as her next book on the subject.
Alex
I've seen the term 'freedomware' used in a couple of places. I think such a term could survive natural selection in the buzzword environment. It comes fairly close to expressing the intentions of free software and not as ungainly as 'libre software' or 'free (speech not beer) software'
Alex
Option 4: guatamnlad looks trademark-infringingly close to the Debenhams logo (www.debenhams.com)
The database is broken, articles appear and disappear at random. Whether this message will appear or not is impossible to predict.
slashdot.org == a couple of interesting articles + many stupid flamewars + lots of bad spelling + the odd intelligent comment.
Windigo said:
... cite examples such as IBM's recent-ish patent on the wheel
Please can someone point me towards this.
Alex