Just a small point. Heavy Goods Vehicles in the UK are taxed according to unleaden weight, but there are discounts for vehicles with more axles. A triaxle trailer is taxed less than a tandem because they spread out the weight more and cause less damage to the road. Now either it's my imagination or I haven't seen very many triaxles in the US. What's up with that? Is there no similar tax setup stateside?
It's a nice idea, but taxing fuel doesn't necessarily do anything to combat congestion. For example a driver in one city might have a short commute on a congested motorway. He won't use much petrol and hence won't pay much tax on it. On the other hand another motorist in a rural area might have a much longer commute on less congested roads. He ends up paying more tax even though he's causing less congestion than the other guy who pays less. That's why toll roads are so popular in Europe, they allow for the rationing of specific roads that may otherwise get congested.
Rationing by queue as opposed to rationing by price is something which ought to have disappeared with the Soviet era, and yet in many parts of the western world we still ration out limited roadspace on motorways at peak times by offering it all for free at the point of use and letting people queue up for them.
It is a lot easier to implement tolls on new roads rather than taking an existing "free" road and adding tolls to it, so it's good to see the Irish government putting tollbooths on the new motorways there. However I must say I'm impressed with the success of congestion charging in central London. I thought there'd be uproar from the automobile lobby, but the benefits of it seem to be getting a lot more attention than the downside.
This is something The Economist has just mentioned too. In this article they report how the music industry has lagged behind in adapting to the internet age compared to the movie industry:
"
Shipments of recorded music have dropped by 26% since 1999. The industry has responded with price rises, and so revenues have fallen by "just" 14%. ..... Meanwhile, music companies continue to look flat-footed compared with other industries affected by piracy, such as the movie business. Warner Brothers slashed the price of its DVDs a few years ago, spurring an upsurge in sales. A side-effect was that some DVDs ended up being cheaper than CDs, making the CDs, which are typically shorter and have no visual content, look distinctly overpriced."
That article also criticises the industry for failing to do anything to provide a decent legal alternative to file-swapping. The iTunes store is cited as a step in the right direction.
"The big picture is buying oil funds terrorists and forces us to deal with those I would rather have nothing to do with."
Exactly. So consume less oil, then you don't have to make any shady deals with unelected plutocrats.
"Public transportation is fine but you can't force people to use it. "
"Force?" What is it with you Americans that everything has to be about "force?" I never mentioned "forcing" anyone to do anything! Cities should be laid out in a way that makes it possible to access daily needs without having to drive everywhere. That means making them higher density, pedestrian friendly, and more economical to operate public transport in, thereby offering a choice of how people want to get around. As things are at the minute (at least on the West coast) people are "forced" to drive, and that is wrong.
"Your solutions will not work in the USA. It will get zero support form the people"
And the basis of this claim is what.....? Are you trying to tell me that tax breaks for energy efficient appliances will get "zero support from the people?" That property values in areas where pedestrian-hostile single-use-zoning has been abolished has not really gone up?
"So your choice do what is possible, do nothing or force people against there will to cooperate"
All this supply-side approach to the energy situation is completely missing the point. The issue is not "how do we exploit more energy?" The issue is "What is the best way to consume an amount of energy that we can safely and affordably generate?"
Let's take the oil situation that you mentioned. George Bush, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that it's a good idea to satisfy America's insatiable thirst for oil by drilling for more in the Alaskan wilderness. It's a bit like dealing with a leaky roof by putting a bigger bucket under the drip rather than fixing the leak. Reducing America's dependance on oil (foreign or otherwise) is more easily (and cleanly) achieved by reducing consumption. This means closing the unbelievably stupid loophole that exempts SUVs & light trucks from the same emission and consumption regulations as cars. It means planning our cities and neighbourhoods so that everyday things are within walking distance of each other rather than forcing people to strap themselves into a three tonne vehicle and drive two miles to the nearest "convenience store" every time they need to buy something as small as a postage stamp. It means campaign finance reform to stop the automobile lobby from blocking the development of public transport at every turn.
As for electricity consumption, it was once said that if every home in Britain were to replace an incandescent light bulb with a flurescent one, one power station in the country could be dispensed with. Tax breaks for energy efficient appliances (particularly refrigerators) are a lot cheaper, more effective and cleaner than finding new ways to pump more power into inefficient older machines. Renewable energy becomes a lot more cost-effective when you get more bang for your killowatt buck.
No "bleeding heart wooly hippie liberalism" required. Just a good look at the big picture and a sensible approach to incentives on _both_ sides of the supply/demand equation.
Here's that post in human-readable format, although I must confess I haven't read it. Hey, our filesystem's down and I'm bored, okay?
Dear Sir/Madam:
I am Mr. Darl McBride currently serving as the president and chief executive officer of the SCO group, formerly known as caldera systems international, in Lindon, Utah, united states of America. I know this letter might surprise your because we have had no previous communications or business dealings before now.
My associates have recently made claim to computer software worth an estimated $1 billion U.S. dollars. I am writing to you in confidence because we urgently require your assistance to obtain these funds. In the early 1970s the American telephone and telegraph corporation developed at great expense the computer operating system software known as Unix. Unfortunately the laws of my country prohibited them from selling these softwares and so their valuable source codes remained privately held. Under a special arrangement some programmers from the California university of Berkeley did add more codes to this operating system, increasing its value, but not in any way to dilute or disparage our full and rightful ownership of these codes, despite any agreement between American telephone and telegraph and the California university of Berkeley, which agreement we deny and disavow. In the year 1984 a change of regime in my country allowed the American telephone and telegraph corporation to make profits from these softwares. In the year 1990 ownership of these softwares was transferred to the corporation Unix system laboratories. In the year 1993 this corporation was sold to the corporation Novell. In the year 1994 some employees of Novell formed the corporation caldera systems international, which began to distribute an upstart operating system known as Linux. In the year 1995 Novell sold the Unix software codes to SCO. In the year 2001 occurred a separation of SCO, and the SCO brand name and Unix codes were acquired by the caldera systems international, and in the following year the caldera systems international was renamed SCO group, of which i currently serve as chief executive officer.
My associates and I of the SCO group are therefore the full and rightful owners of the operating system softwares known as Unix. Our engineers have discovered that no fewer than seventy (70) lines of our valuable and proprietary source codes have appeared in the upstart operating system Linux. As you can plainly see, this gives us a claim on the millions of lines of valuable software codes which comprise this Linux and which has been sold at great profit to very many business enterprises. Our legal experts have advised us that our contribution to these codes is worth an estimated one (1) billion u.s. dollars.
Unfortunately we are having difficulty extracting our funds from these computer softwares. To this effect i have been given the mandate by my colleagues to contact you and ask for your assistance. We are prepared to sell you a share in this enterprise, which will soon be very profitable, that will grant you the rights to use these valuable softwares in your business enterprise. Unfortunately we are not able at this time to set a price on these rights. Therefore it is our respectful suggestion, that you may be immediately a party to this enterprise, before others accept these lucrative terms, that you send us the number of a banking account where we can withdraw funds of a suitable amount to guarantee your participation in this enterprise. As an alternative you may send us the number and expiration date of your major credit card, or you may send to us a signed check from your banking account payable to "SCO group" and with the amount left blank for us to conveniently supply.
Kindly treat this request as very important and strictly confidential. I honestly assure you that this transaction is 100% legal and risk-free.
SCO CEO McBride
Anybody know how big a wake this thing produces? This is a big issue, the Stena HSS had to have a speed limit imposed on it in Belfast Lough because the fishing boats in the nearby villages were getting buffetted about against their moorings and damaged. Same for Loch Ryan. As far as I know, Stena are thinking about sailing to Cairnryan instead of Stranraer now because of this. The speed limit in the Loch is cutting the competitive edge that the HSS has over the slow boats.
Merging in the US is so difficult because of the cloverleaf junctions that don't allow a long acceleration lane and force traffic coming off to cross the path of traffic merging on. Solution? Roundabouts. They solve both problems.
Coz developing the technology to deflect asteroids costs money. Unless the public is alerted to the danger, they're never gonna approve their tax dollars being spent on something that they think is unnecessary. It also strengthens the case for manned space flight. Short-sighted economists question the need for manned space flight, but until we become a space-faring race, we're gonna be on the brink of extinction every time a decent sized rock passes by.
Lost in space Aug 27th 2003 From The Economist Global Agenda
"Those investigating the fate of Columbia say they know the causes of the accident. This will be no comfort to those wanting to improve human access to space
AUGUST 26th saw the publication of a report that could become a milestone in the history of human space flight. After seven months of deliberation, and having read more than 30,000 documents, conducted 200 formal interviews and dispatched 25,000 people to search for debris, the board investigating the loss of the space shuttle Columbia revealed the reasons for the accident, and its recommendations for preventing another one.
The main findings of the report were well trailed. Since the "Oh my God!" moment when tests blew a large hole into a sample of a shuttle's wing, few observers have doubted that the accident was caused by a piece of insulating foam. Shortly after take-off this foam became detached, struck Columbia's left wing, and breached the craft's heat shielding. The friction of re-entry then melted the wing.
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board presented its report to NASA and Congress. The Space Frontier Foundation reports on space exploration and aims for human inhabitation of space. The race is on for the X Prize.
At first sight, one of the more troubling aspects of the report is that it seems that a rescue mission involving another shuttle, Atlantis, might have been feasible had the damage caused by the foam been recognised as dangerous. The mission's managers, though, failed to recognise that danger, and so the question of mounting a rescue was never raised. Scott Hubbard, a board member and director of NASA's Ames Research Centre, says the best estimate of the actual damage is that the hole in the wing was 25cm (ten inches) across, plus or minus 50%. That could probably have been detected by pointing the camera of a military satellite at Columbia, if anyone had thought to do so. All told, there were at least eight missed opportunities for discovering the damage, according to the board. But at every juncture the programme's structure, processes and managers resisted new information.
That sounds damning. Yet those who smugly ask, "why were safety warnings ignored?" might care to pick through malfunction reports from the previous 112 shuttle flights to see the benefits that hindsight brings. In them, they would find mention of half-a-dozen crucial pieces of hardware that have repeatedly faltered or failed, and have defied attempts at repair.
As an experimental vehicle, the shuttle is a collection of accidents waiting to happen. There is no obvious reason why it was foam debris that eventually caused a fatal accident, rather than any of these other problems. So it is not enough, says Harold Gehman, a retired admiral who acted as the board's chairman, to identify the widget that failed, fire the people closest to it, then fix the widget. For it is not merely the widget and its managers that are to blame. Instead, there is a need to look at NASA's whole culture and organisation. That observation, too, is no surprise. But having it in black and white may, at last, cause something to be done.
The plan that fell to Earth
According to John Logsdon, another member of the board, and also director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington, DC, NASA's organisational problems include a 40% budget cut over the past decade; the assumption that the shuttle was an operational (rather than an experimental) vehicle; uncertainty over the future of the programme; pressures to finish construction of the international space station (the servicing of which is the shuttle programme's current excuse for continuing); and the absence of a robust safety programme.
The heart of the problem, though, is that the shuttle is a bad design, full of compromises, too risky, hopelessly optimistic and trying to be too many things to too many people. In order to gain approval for its construction, promises were
But what happens when Quebec, British Columbia, the Yukon and Newfoundland & Labrador leave Canada, Scotland and Wales break away from England, more Balkan regions declare their independance, the Spanish regions break Spain into four, Iraq gets partitioned, and Texas secedes from the USA? Is 256 always going to be enough for all the countries?
Does the book explain how Iceman travelled? As far as I can tell a stream of water shot out of his hand and froze instantly in what just happened to be a perfectly smooth track that was strong enough to support him no matter how long it got. And he always managed to have enough momentum to slide along it, was this momentum an undocumented feature of his power?
Slashdot Mirror
Just a small point. Heavy Goods Vehicles in the UK are taxed according to unleaden weight, but there are discounts for vehicles with more axles. A triaxle trailer is taxed less than a tandem because they spread out the weight more and cause less damage to the road. Now either it's my imagination or I haven't seen very many triaxles in the US. What's up with that? Is there no similar tax setup stateside?
Rationing by queue as opposed to rationing by price is something which ought to have disappeared with the Soviet era, and yet in many parts of the western world we still ration out limited roadspace on motorways at peak times by offering it all for free at the point of use and letting people queue up for them.
It is a lot easier to implement tolls on new roads rather than taking an existing "free" road and adding tolls to it, so it's good to see the Irish government putting tollbooths on the new motorways there. However I must say I'm impressed with the success of congestion charging in central London. I thought there'd be uproar from the automobile lobby, but the benefits of it seem to be getting a lot more attention than the downside.
Exxccelent!
All this supply-side approach to the energy situation is completely missing the point. The issue is not "how do we exploit more energy?" The issue is "What is the best way to consume an amount of energy that we can safely and affordably generate?"
Let's take the oil situation that you mentioned. George Bush, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that it's a good idea to satisfy America's insatiable thirst for oil by drilling for more in the Alaskan wilderness. It's a bit like dealing with a leaky roof by putting a bigger bucket under the drip rather than fixing the leak. Reducing America's dependance on oil (foreign or otherwise) is more easily (and cleanly) achieved by reducing consumption. This means closing the unbelievably stupid loophole that exempts SUVs & light trucks from the same emission and consumption regulations as cars. It means planning our cities and neighbourhoods so that everyday things are within walking distance of each other rather than forcing people to strap themselves into a three tonne vehicle and drive two miles to the nearest "convenience store" every time they need to buy something as small as a postage stamp. It means campaign finance reform to stop the automobile lobby from blocking the development of public transport at every turn.
As for electricity consumption, it was once said that if every home in Britain were to replace an incandescent light bulb with a flurescent one, one power station in the country could be dispensed with. Tax breaks for energy efficient appliances (particularly refrigerators) are a lot cheaper, more effective and cleaner than finding new ways to pump more power into inefficient older machines. Renewable energy becomes a lot more cost-effective when you get more bang for your killowatt buck.
No "bleeding heart wooly hippie liberalism" required. Just a good look at the big picture and a sensible approach to incentives on _both_ sides of the supply/demand equation.
You forgot the third reason. The "not invented here" lobby.
Here's that post in human-readable format, although I must confess I haven't read it. Hey, our filesystem's down and I'm bored, okay? Dear Sir/Madam: I am Mr. Darl McBride currently serving as the president and chief executive officer of the SCO group, formerly known as caldera systems international, in Lindon, Utah, united states of America. I know this letter might surprise your because we have had no previous communications or business dealings before now. My associates have recently made claim to computer software worth an estimated $1 billion U.S. dollars. I am writing to you in confidence because we urgently require your assistance to obtain these funds. In the early 1970s the American telephone and telegraph corporation developed at great expense the computer operating system software known as Unix. Unfortunately the laws of my country prohibited them from selling these softwares and so their valuable source codes remained privately held. Under a special arrangement some programmers from the California university of Berkeley did add more codes to this operating system, increasing its value, but not in any way to dilute or disparage our full and rightful ownership of these codes, despite any agreement between American telephone and telegraph and the California university of Berkeley, which agreement we deny and disavow. In the year 1984 a change of regime in my country allowed the American telephone and telegraph corporation to make profits from these softwares. In the year 1990 ownership of these softwares was transferred to the corporation Unix system laboratories. In the year 1993 this corporation was sold to the corporation Novell. In the year 1994 some employees of Novell formed the corporation caldera systems international, which began to distribute an upstart operating system known as Linux. In the year 1995 Novell sold the Unix software codes to SCO. In the year 2001 occurred a separation of SCO, and the SCO brand name and Unix codes were acquired by the caldera systems international, and in the following year the caldera systems international was renamed SCO group, of which i currently serve as chief executive officer. My associates and I of the SCO group are therefore the full and rightful owners of the operating system softwares known as Unix. Our engineers have discovered that no fewer than seventy (70) lines of our valuable and proprietary source codes have appeared in the upstart operating system Linux. As you can plainly see, this gives us a claim on the millions of lines of valuable software codes which comprise this Linux and which has been sold at great profit to very many business enterprises. Our legal experts have advised us that our contribution to these codes is worth an estimated one (1) billion u.s. dollars. Unfortunately we are having difficulty extracting our funds from these computer softwares. To this effect i have been given the mandate by my colleagues to contact you and ask for your assistance. We are prepared to sell you a share in this enterprise, which will soon be very profitable, that will grant you the rights to use these valuable softwares in your business enterprise. Unfortunately we are not able at this time to set a price on these rights. Therefore it is our respectful suggestion, that you may be immediately a party to this enterprise, before others accept these lucrative terms, that you send us the number of a banking account where we can withdraw funds of a suitable amount to guarantee your participation in this enterprise. As an alternative you may send us the number and expiration date of your major credit card, or you may send to us a signed check from your banking account payable to "SCO group" and with the amount left blank for us to conveniently supply. Kindly treat this request as very important and strictly confidential. I honestly assure you that this transaction is 100% legal and risk-free. SCO CEO McBride
Beats the hell out of "Anonymous Coward."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all Indycars also built in the UK?
Anybody know how big a wake this thing produces? This is a big issue, the Stena HSS had to have a speed limit imposed on it in Belfast Lough because the fishing boats in the nearby villages were getting buffetted about against their moorings and damaged. Same for Loch Ryan. As far as I know, Stena are thinking about sailing to Cairnryan instead of Stranraer now because of this. The speed limit in the Loch is cutting the competitive edge that the HSS has over the slow boats.
Get a bicycle!
Merging in the US is so difficult because of the cloverleaf junctions that don't allow a long acceleration lane and force traffic coming off to cross the path of traffic merging on. Solution? Roundabouts. They solve both problems.
Coz developing the technology to deflect asteroids costs money. Unless the public is alerted to the danger, they're never gonna approve their tax dollars being spent on something that they think is unnecessary. It also strengthens the case for manned space flight. Short-sighted economists question the need for manned space flight, but until we become a space-faring race, we're gonna be on the brink of extinction every time a decent sized rock passes by.
Lost in space
Aug 27th 2003
From The Economist Global Agenda
"Those investigating the fate of Columbia say they know the causes of the accident. This will be no comfort to those wanting to improve human access to space
AUGUST 26th saw the publication of a report that could become a milestone in the history of human space flight. After seven months of deliberation, and having read more than 30,000 documents, conducted 200 formal interviews and dispatched 25,000 people to search for debris, the board investigating the loss of the space shuttle Columbia revealed the reasons for the accident, and its recommendations for preventing another one.
The main findings of the report were well trailed. Since the "Oh my God!" moment when tests blew a large hole into a sample of a shuttle's wing, few observers have doubted that the accident was caused by a piece of insulating foam. Shortly after take-off this foam became detached, struck Columbia's left wing, and breached the craft's heat shielding. The friction of re-entry then melted the wing.
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board presented its report to NASA and Congress. The Space Frontier Foundation reports on space exploration and aims for human inhabitation of space. The race is on for the X Prize.
At first sight, one of the more troubling aspects of the report is that it seems that a rescue mission involving another shuttle, Atlantis, might have been feasible had the damage caused by the foam been recognised as dangerous. The mission's managers, though, failed to recognise that danger, and so the question of mounting a rescue was never raised. Scott Hubbard, a board member and director of NASA's Ames Research Centre, says the best estimate of the actual damage is that the hole in the wing was 25cm (ten inches) across, plus or minus 50%. That could probably have been detected by pointing the camera of a military satellite at Columbia, if anyone had thought to do so. All told, there were at least eight missed opportunities for discovering the damage, according to the board. But at every juncture the programme's structure, processes and managers resisted new information.
That sounds damning. Yet those who smugly ask, "why were safety warnings ignored?" might care to pick through malfunction reports from the previous 112 shuttle flights to see the benefits that hindsight brings. In them, they would find mention of half-a-dozen crucial pieces of hardware that have repeatedly faltered or failed, and have defied attempts at repair.
As an experimental vehicle, the shuttle is a collection of accidents waiting to happen. There is no obvious reason why it was foam debris that eventually caused a fatal accident, rather than any of these other problems. So it is not enough, says Harold Gehman, a retired admiral who acted as the board's chairman, to identify the widget that failed, fire the people closest to it, then fix the widget. For it is not merely the widget and its managers that are to blame. Instead, there is a need to look at NASA's whole culture and organisation. That observation, too, is no surprise. But having it in black and white may, at last, cause something to be done.
The plan that fell to Earth
According to John Logsdon, another member of the board, and also director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington, DC, NASA's organisational problems include a 40% budget cut over the past decade; the assumption that the shuttle was an operational (rather than an experimental) vehicle; uncertainty over the future of the programme; pressures to finish construction of the international space station (the servicing of which is the shuttle programme's current excuse for continuing); and the absence of a robust safety programme.
The heart of the problem, though, is that the shuttle is a bad design, full of compromises, too risky, hopelessly optimistic and trying to be too many things to too many people. In order to gain approval for its construction, promises were
But what happens when Quebec, British Columbia, the Yukon and Newfoundland & Labrador leave Canada, Scotland and Wales break away from England, more Balkan regions declare their independance, the Spanish regions break Spain into four, Iraq gets partitioned, and Texas secedes from the USA? Is 256 always going to be enough for all the countries?
Does the book explain how Iceman travelled? As far as I can tell a stream of water shot out of his hand and froze instantly in what just happened to be a perfectly smooth track that was strong enough to support him no matter how long it got. And he always managed to have enough momentum to slide along it, was this momentum an undocumented feature of his power?