The new "Boris Bus" in London is a diesel hybrid. There are I think 8 of them on the road at the moment, with a lot more on order.
In the town I live in, the local bus company has rolled out diesel hybrids to about 2/3 of their fleet. I believe that is one of the highest proportions of hybrid buses in the country, but nevertheless diesel hybrids do exist and are shipping.
You have petrol stations that don't sell diesel? The petrol station I went to earlier this afternoon in the UK had two diesel pumps for every petrol pump.
In the UK, fuel prices over the past couple of years have jumped from about £1.00 per litre to £1.40. Now, if you go on the motorways outside of peak times, they are pretty much completely empty. People are driving less because of the price of fuel.
In the UK, diesel is about £1.40 per litre whereas petrol is about £1.35. Diesel does still work out cheaper in terms of pence per mile, but it is more expensive per litre. The taxes on both are the same.
The biggest improvement in Windows 7 (or rather Vista) is the sudo-like interface for running things that require elevated permissions. It is much better than the su-like interface in Windows XP which doesn't always work, or having to log out and log in as administrator.
If you are looking for the worst managed company, Kodak must surely get a mention. They are being driven out of business by a new technology, digital cameras, that they actually invented.
I think most people in the UK understand that there aren't any 4G networks yet and therefore won't be able to use it on them at the moment. What they don't necessarily understand is that the iPad won't work with the 4G networks in this country when they are rolled out.
Text to 911 could be useful in the following scenarios
You have a medical emergency that leaves you unable to speak or hear things You are in a location where it is too noisy to hear a phone conversation You have been kidnapped etc, and want to call for help without letting your attacker know
In the UK, while the headline rate of tax is 20%, by the time you add all the other taxes, it works out at about 46% of income. National Insurance is 12%, and that is basically another income tax. Sales tax is 20% on most things. Road fuel taxes are about 80% (including the 20% sales tax above). Alcohol taxes are typically about 70% (again including the 20% sales tax). Property taxes are typically about £1000 to £3000 per year depending on where you live and the size of your property. TV Licence is £145.50 per year. Road tax varies from £0 to about £500 per year depending on the car you have.
They do levy sales tax on goods and services provided by companies outside the EU. However Google (and iTunes/Amazon etc) funnel the sales through Luxembourg which is in the EU, and has a lower sales tax rate.
Google is profitable overall. Is there any particular special reason why they are making a loss in Austria? A legitimate reason might be that they are spending lots of money in advertising to establish it as a new market, but I don't think that is the case. Google's European HQ is in Ireland, so it can do things like massively overcharge Google Austria for Patent / Trademark royalties, costs of shared group services and so on to move the profits out of Austria to Ireland where the corporate tax rate is much lower.
When I set up a computer for someone, they typically ask me to "change the internet to google", which means setting the home page on their browser to google.co.uk, not changing the browser to Chrome.
They then type everything, even urls into the google search box and select the appropriate link. If I remove the address bar, they probably wouldn't notice.
Metal has value because you can use it to make useful things, not because someone says it has value. Dollar bills have value because the government will accept them for payment of taxes.
The definition of deflation is an increase in the value of money relative to the things you might buy with it. If the economy grows, and the money supply doesn't grow with it, then you get deflation.
I am 25 minutes from London by train, but we had the digital switchover a while back. It is only people who actually live in London that had their analogue signal switched off.
They've had this system in the UK for about 10 years now. People do sometimes sell their phone on ebay and report it as stolen. What happens is that once the new owner shows the evidence that they bought it on ebay, the seller gets prosecuted for insurance fraud.
I very rarely see a hybrid car in the UK. Most new cars in Europe are diesel. It varies by country, on average it is just over 50%, but in France, 90% of new cars are diesels.
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The new "Boris Bus" in London is a diesel hybrid. There are I think 8 of them on the road at the moment, with a lot more on order.
In the town I live in, the local bus company has rolled out diesel hybrids to about 2/3 of their fleet. I believe that is one of the highest proportions of hybrid buses in the country, but nevertheless diesel hybrids do exist and are shipping.
You have petrol stations that don't sell diesel? The petrol station I went to earlier this afternoon in the UK had two diesel pumps for every petrol pump.
In the UK, fuel prices over the past couple of years have jumped from about £1.00 per litre to £1.40. Now, if you go on the motorways outside of peak times, they are pretty much completely empty. People are driving less because of the price of fuel.
The Skoda Fabia Greenline is a VW Polo Bluemotion with a cheaper interior.
In the UK, diesel is about £1.40 per litre whereas petrol is about £1.35. Diesel does still work out cheaper in terms of pence per mile, but it is more expensive per litre. The taxes on both are the same.
The biggest improvement in Windows 7 (or rather Vista) is the sudo-like interface for running things that require elevated permissions. It is much better than the su-like interface in Windows XP which doesn't always work, or having to log out and log in as administrator.
Kodak? They invented the digital camera, then tried to suppress it as it would affect their main business of selling film.
If you are looking for the worst managed company, Kodak must surely get a mention. They are being driven out of business by a new technology, digital cameras, that they actually invented.
I think most people in the UK understand that there aren't any 4G networks yet and therefore won't be able to use it on them at the moment. What they don't necessarily understand is that the iPad won't work with the 4G networks in this country when they are rolled out.
Text to 911 could be useful in the following scenarios
You have a medical emergency that leaves you unable to speak or hear things
You are in a location where it is too noisy to hear a phone conversation
You have been kidnapped etc, and want to call for help without letting your attacker know
In the UK, while the headline rate of tax is 20%, by the time you add all the other taxes, it works out at about 46% of income. National Insurance is 12%, and that is basically another income tax. Sales tax is 20% on most things. Road fuel taxes are about 80% (including the 20% sales tax above). Alcohol taxes are typically about 70% (again including the 20% sales tax). Property taxes are typically about £1000 to £3000 per year depending on where you live and the size of your property. TV Licence is £145.50 per year. Road tax varies from £0 to about £500 per year depending on the car you have.
They do levy sales tax on goods and services provided by companies outside the EU. However Google (and iTunes/Amazon etc) funnel the sales through Luxembourg which is in the EU, and has a lower sales tax rate.
Google is profitable overall. Is there any particular special reason why they are making a loss in Austria? A legitimate reason might be that they are spending lots of money in advertising to establish it as a new market, but I don't think that is the case. Google's European HQ is in Ireland, so it can do things like massively overcharge Google Austria for Patent / Trademark royalties, costs of shared group services and so on to move the profits out of Austria to Ireland where the corporate tax rate is much lower.
Look back to some articles a few years back on /. when they blocked a single page on Wikipedia.
People already do that.
When I set up a computer for someone, they typically ask me to "change the internet to google", which means setting the home page on their browser to google.co.uk, not changing the browser to Chrome.
They then type everything, even urls into the google search box and select the appropriate link. If I remove the address bar, they probably wouldn't notice.
Metal has value because you can use it to make useful things, not because someone says it has value. Dollar bills have value because the government will accept them for payment of taxes.
The definition of deflation is an increase in the value of money relative to the things you might buy with it. If the economy grows, and the money supply doesn't grow with it, then you get deflation.
Not so much of a surprise when you consider that they released a slab that initially couldn't do email.
I am 25 minutes from London by train, but we had the digital switchover a while back. It is only people who actually live in London that had their analogue signal switched off.
We do have a digital text service, but it is called Red Button, not Ceefax.
In the UK, the national sport is Football (en_US: Soccer), except in Wales, where Rugby is the national sport.
Yes, we have "Red Button" in the UK which does that.
They've had this system in the UK for about 10 years now. People do sometimes sell their phone on ebay and report it as stolen. What happens is that once the new owner shows the evidence that they bought it on ebay, the seller gets prosecuted for insurance fraud.
Here in the UK, diesel tends to be about 5p per litre more than petrol; and all petrol stations sell diesel fuel.
I very rarely see a hybrid car in the UK. Most new cars in Europe are diesel. It varies by country, on average it is just over 50%, but in France, 90% of new cars are diesels.