A very poor comparison as Peaker Plants only operate at peak demand so will naturally be more expensive than the baseload plants. The most important factor in building such plants is that they are able to produce the power when needed, regardless of weather which is something solar and wind power plants cannot guarantee.
Reliance on solar and wind will result in either increasing baseload capacity to the point you don't need Peaker Plants (an expensive option) or more likely accepting more brownouts when supply cannot meet demand.
They do not permit extradition of their citizens from the country and have a government and police force that are well integrated with organised crime so will have no problems with sticking it to American corporations.
Or after the U.S. apologises for the killing of all 290 passengers and crew aboard Iran Air Flight 655. An attack carried out by an American warship that was illegally in Iranian waters against a scheduled airliner in Iranian airspace.
It's safe to say that if any (weak) country blatantly shot down a US airliner in American airspace it would be taken as a declaration of war. But then what would America be without hypocrisy?
Strangely enough the sailors were actually awarded medals instead of facing a court martial.
The UK is far behind the USA when it comes to political corruption and accepting corporate control of our courts and politicians.
Our equivalent of the US Department of Justice is staffed by largely independent career civil servants who will happily leak attempts to buy policy. They stay when the actual politicians come and go and are resistant to political interference with their day to day work.
We have the equivalent of rabid ferrets for a national press who love nothing more than ripping apart politicians for the sake of a headline and regularly set the politicians up. The tabloids tend to tear into anyone with fame or political/economic power and once they draw blood the BBC and other broadcast media will finish off the 'victim'.
We also have a judiciary that regularly gives the government the finger by managing to interpret new laws in ways the politicians never expected.
Corporations that try to buy legislation/political power have sometimes gotten away with having an influence, but more often than not end up getting their balls handed back to them on a platter.
As a UK citizen I'd love it if the music industry tried the crude methods they use in the USA as the backlash against them would be entertaining.
In the long run only change in the USA can stop the cancer of the American media industry trying to remake the rest of the world in it's own image.
I seem to remember in the last gulf war a lot of civilians were killed when they took shelter in an old command and control bunker that the Iraqi military had vacated because it was no longer considered safe.
Unfortunately for the civilians taking shelter the bunker was still on a targeting list, either in error or just to be sure that it hadn't reverted to military use.
I would think these bunkers are likely to remain on secondary targeting lists for the same reason, but then maybe just the fact that they are now key Internet facilities would promote them back onto the primary list anyway.
Nonsense. Nobody is saying that Catholicism is a Mendellian trait.
Just that there are inheritable personality aspects that make on more likely to stay in a religion if you are born into it, or even to join a religious group in the right circumstances.
Homosexuality is complex too. It would not be shocking to suggest that effeminate men are more likely to be gay and vice versa. This can be related to hormone levels in the womb during brain development. Which is far more inheritable than a matter of "choice".
Anyway, what is choice but a product of our genes and environment? "Free will" just means we cannot see the mechanism that produced it.
Fails to explain cultures where religion of all types has shown a massive decline in followers.
Only a few generations ago in the UK nearly everyone went to church and most seemed to even believe and follow religion.
Now many of those churches have closed or been turned into bars. There are relatively few natives following religion now in the UK with the only growth being driven by immigration. Has the "gene" somehow disappeared from the people of the UK or is the idea of a significant genetic component to religion been over-hyped?
This isn't just the case in the UK as many parts of Europe follow the same pattern.
I think half the reason for having so many propriety designs is to force the consumer to buy expensive chargers and docks from the manufacturers. It has always been cheaper to go with a 'standard' design but where's the profit in that?
You can find the same situation with home printers where the likes of HP still likes reinventing the wheel if they can find a way of charging more for commodity hardware.
At the age of ~13 the school I went to (in the UK, under a Grammar school system) decided that 2/3 of the pupils didn't need any maths education beyond basic arithmetic so I and many others left school with a certificate in arithmetic that even the local college didn't recognise.
I then had to go to college and night school (over 3 years) to get the equivalent qualifications and knowledge that I would have had if I'd been lucky enough to be in the other 1/3 of the students in my school.
After 3 more years at night school I was able to go to university where I got a degree in Mathematics. All this despite the fact that teachers and schools had decided that I had no need for any maths education.
I've learned never to trust an education system that decides what skills a child needs at an early age. Schools should give student an education that broadens their choices, not deny those choice in the belief that they know what a child will need to know in the future.
The article reads like an attempt to stir up a panic and get loads of tax dollars thrown at a simple problem.
Once a drone is detected then they can easily be take out.
Home made ones that 'terrorists' might have are vulnerable to someone with a shotgun or a hunting rifle. I'm sure the first attempt to hit the White House with a GPS controlled drone will make good target practice for the snipers on the roof.
Larger and faster ones would stand little chance against someone chasing and shooting from a Police helicopter.
And the really fast ones, that even America doesn't have yet, they can be treated as normal foes and the air force can have them.
Care needs to be taken not to deploy defensive missiles that cause a greater danger than the attacking weapons. I seem to remember that when Isreal became a target for Iraq's missiles the Patriots used to hit them were nearly as dangerouse as the incoming Scuds to the people on the ground.
The real problem isn't the weapons to shoot the drones down, it's the ability to detect and track them. I doubt much of the USA is covered by radar that could track small drones flying at rooftop height.
But I think upgrading radar systems and air traffic control is a harder sell than nice expensive weapons.
In the UK journalists have never had a right to remain anonymous.
In fact there are only a handful of people with a right to remain anonymous when their identiy may be easily found out and these are typically rape victims or minors.
As to the blogger who is certainly breaching his own employment contract and may in fact be breaking the law by disclosing confidential information it is the height of arrogance for them to assume they are somehow above everyone else.
There is an assumption that a persons private life can remain private unless there is a "public interest" that overrides it, but a person's identity is not protected.
In this case there is a clear 'public interest' in the identity of a police officer who thinks confidentiality doesn't apply to them as otherwise how could you ever trust the police not to blogg about whatever you tell them.
Seeing as fabric skins have been used on aircraft since the Wright Brothers ( there are still tens of thousands of fabric covered aircraft flying today ) I can't see any practical problems with fabric covered cars.
Clearly many car buyers will worry that such a car might be less safe than a steel box, but proper research and marketing will reduce this fear.
The real plus point would seem to be the light weight and morphing ability. We can buy a the car pretending we are getting it because of it's fuel efficiency, when in reality we just think changing shape at the lights would be cool.
Stuart G
I'm not sure that the judge was restricting it to simply commercial purposes as Sony raised the following issue that the judge seemed to accept.
This is in section 35 of the judgement that can be found on the Court Service site
Sony also raises a claim under s. 296ZA. This provides a cause of action against the users of anti-copy-protection devices. It provides, insofar as material;
(1) This section applies where -
(a) effective technological measures have been applied to a copyright work other than a computer program; and
(b) a person (B) does anything which circumvents those measures knowing, or with reasonable grounds to know, that he is pursuing that objective.
To the extent that Mr Ball has himself installed Messiah2 chips and used the console so modified, there appears to be no defence to this claim.
If they had changed their vote to a negative instead of just abstaining then it might have some influence, but the Dutch chose to act as if their man wasn't at the vote.
This won't make any difference the UK vote on patents although the Eurosceptics might enjoy the idea of putting a spanner in the works of the commision on other issues.
I do wish people would make the effort to learn about the UN before holding it up as the solution to the worlds ills.
As anyone who knows about the UN will tell you the institution was created during WW11, largely by Britain and the USA, to deliver their respective goals in the postware situation.
Ever since it's formation it has been an undemocratic talking shop, a majority of whos members are equally undemocratic. For nearly the full 60 years of its existence it has been deadlocked by the opposing views of its members.
It's list of failings is considerably longer than it's list of achievments, and those few occasions when it has managed to do anything it has usually been at the behest of one or more of the 'major powers'.
Much as some people are fixated on the flaws in US foreign policy, the more sensible people also realise that the same ecconomic and military muscle they despise is also used to deliver change where no one else can. And as you will certainly not be among that group you might want to watch what happens to the current crisis in Sudan. You will find that the USA will deliver much more to resolve that crisis than any other country in the world.
No, the USA is a target for 'terrorists' because it has the power to make major changes in the world, or to prevent them.
For instance Bin Laden etc wants a change in Saudia Arabia, but he knows that unless the USA permits it then no change is possible. The same situation exists with regards to Isreal.
The only way to avoid being a target of terrorists is to be so weak that you are irrelevant to world affairs, but that also means you are too weak to make changes you want.
Weapons or hipocrasy makes no difference to terrorists. If you think otherwise remember that the same people who in the English speaking media carp on about 'human rights' tell a very different story in the non-english media. Lies and hipocrasy are common in all cultures, it's just the west that practices self flagilation on the issue.
I bought an ibook on the basis that OSX would give me a linux like experience without all the hassel you normally get trying to get a wintel laptop running under linux.
Not a great success as OSX isn't what it's cracked up to be. So now I've got an ibook running yellowdog. And as YD knows exactly what hardware it might have to run on it's been more stable than any of my other linux installations so far.
Was the Apple tax worth paying ? . . well the hardware is cute.
Loss of phone services in the situations the article describes is certainly inconvenient for the public, but hardly a disaster. Unless they were talking about the companies revenue.
I'd be more interested if they could find a way to set up fast communications networks when there has been an earthquake or such where good communications may really help rescue and reconstruction efforts.
But then in that situation you could certainly put more useful facilities on three trucks than a cell phone system.
In the UK where there are often objections to the location of masts the companies have become skilled at hiding them.
They are often disguised behind plastic mouldings to blend into the building they are bolted to and some of the more inovative companies have hidden them in clockfaces on church's etc.
From my window I can see one that has been disguised as a 'fat' street light, the only thing giving it away is the non-descript equipment box near the base.
The reason why this won't work is rather obvious too.
The average snowfall at the site is around 150cm per year, nearly all of which settles. This means even if you stopped the snow settling on the roof the surrounding area would be 150cm higher each year. Very soon your base will find itself at the bottom of a deep hole.
You're probably thinking of the USA base. Not too sure which pole it's at but it is based around a large dome.
The BAS base that this story is about is on stilts and is jacked about 3 metres above the surface to prevent the 80mph winds drifting the snow against it
The objection of the City Council is that drinks companies and others are paying a so called 'artist' to put advertisments when the companies know that they are not allowed to do this.
Readers outside the UK may not be aware that these companies have recently been tackled for their practice of flyposting their adverts on every flat surface they can find and this is their latest attempt to get around restrictions on where advertising can be put.
Therefore the real issue is not whether preventing someone being paid to put advertising slogans on walls is a restriction on 'artistic freedom'. The real issue is should big corporations be able to plaster their slogans on your wall in defiance of local ordinances?
That is exactly what they used to do in Spain under Franco.
The 'security' measures there funded themselves as most tourists bought the nice framed pictures of themselves coming off the aircraft.
Slashdot Mirror
A very poor comparison as Peaker Plants only operate at peak demand so will naturally be more expensive than the baseload plants. The most important factor in building such plants is that they are able to produce the power when needed, regardless of weather which is something solar and wind power plants cannot guarantee.
Reliance on solar and wind will result in either increasing baseload capacity to the point you don't need Peaker Plants (an expensive option) or more likely accepting more brownouts when supply cannot meet demand.
Set up in Russia.
They do not permit extradition of their citizens from the country and have a government and police force that are well integrated with organised crime so will have no problems with sticking it to American corporations.
Or after the U.S. apologises for the killing of all 290 passengers and crew aboard Iran Air Flight 655. An attack carried out by an American warship that was illegally in Iranian waters against a scheduled airliner in Iranian airspace.
It's safe to say that if any (weak) country blatantly shot down a US airliner in American airspace it would be taken as a declaration of war. But then what would America be without hypocrisy?
Strangely enough the sailors were actually awarded medals instead of facing a court martial.
Not a good idea in the UK.
The UK is far behind the USA when it comes to political corruption and accepting corporate control of our courts and politicians.
Our equivalent of the US Department of Justice is staffed by largely independent career civil servants who will happily leak attempts to buy policy. They stay when the actual politicians come and go and are resistant to political interference with their day to day work.
We have the equivalent of rabid ferrets for a national press who love nothing more than ripping apart politicians for the sake of a headline and regularly set the politicians up. The tabloids tend to tear into anyone with fame or political/economic power and once they draw blood the BBC and other broadcast media will finish off the 'victim'.
We also have a judiciary that regularly gives the government the finger by managing to interpret new laws in ways the politicians never expected.
Corporations that try to buy legislation/political power have sometimes gotten away with having an influence, but more often than not end up getting their balls handed back to them on a platter.
As a UK citizen I'd love it if the music industry tried the crude methods they use in the USA as the backlash against them would be entertaining.
In the long run only change in the USA can stop the cancer of the American media industry trying to remake the rest of the world in it's own image.
I seem to remember in the last gulf war a lot of civilians were killed when they took shelter in an old command and control bunker that the Iraqi military had vacated because it was no longer considered safe.
Unfortunately for the civilians taking shelter the bunker was still on a targeting list, either in error or just to be sure that it hadn't reverted to military use.
I would think these bunkers are likely to remain on secondary targeting lists for the same reason, but then maybe just the fact that they are now key Internet facilities would promote them back onto the primary list anyway.
Nonsense. Nobody is saying that Catholicism is a Mendellian trait. Just that there are inheritable personality aspects that make on more likely to stay in a religion if you are born into it, or even to join a religious group in the right circumstances. Homosexuality is complex too. It would not be shocking to suggest that effeminate men are more likely to be gay and vice versa. This can be related to hormone levels in the womb during brain development. Which is far more inheritable than a matter of "choice". Anyway, what is choice but a product of our genes and environment? "Free will" just means we cannot see the mechanism that produced it.
Fails to explain cultures where religion of all types has shown a massive decline in followers. Only a few generations ago in the UK nearly everyone went to church and most seemed to even believe and follow religion. Now many of those churches have closed or been turned into bars. There are relatively few natives following religion now in the UK with the only growth being driven by immigration. Has the "gene" somehow disappeared from the people of the UK or is the idea of a significant genetic component to religion been over-hyped? This isn't just the case in the UK as many parts of Europe follow the same pattern.
I think half the reason for having so many propriety designs is to force the consumer to buy expensive chargers and docks from the manufacturers. It has always been cheaper to go with a 'standard' design but where's the profit in that? You can find the same situation with home printers where the likes of HP still likes reinventing the wheel if they can find a way of charging more for commodity hardware.
At the age of ~13 the school I went to (in the UK, under a Grammar school system) decided that 2/3 of the pupils didn't need any maths education beyond basic arithmetic so I and many others left school with a certificate in arithmetic that even the local college didn't recognise. I then had to go to college and night school (over 3 years) to get the equivalent qualifications and knowledge that I would have had if I'd been lucky enough to be in the other 1/3 of the students in my school. After 3 more years at night school I was able to go to university where I got a degree in Mathematics. All this despite the fact that teachers and schools had decided that I had no need for any maths education. I've learned never to trust an education system that decides what skills a child needs at an early age. Schools should give student an education that broadens their choices, not deny those choice in the belief that they know what a child will need to know in the future.
The article reads like an attempt to stir up a panic and get loads of tax dollars thrown at a simple problem. Once a drone is detected then they can easily be take out. Home made ones that 'terrorists' might have are vulnerable to someone with a shotgun or a hunting rifle. I'm sure the first attempt to hit the White House with a GPS controlled drone will make good target practice for the snipers on the roof. Larger and faster ones would stand little chance against someone chasing and shooting from a Police helicopter. And the really fast ones, that even America doesn't have yet, they can be treated as normal foes and the air force can have them. Care needs to be taken not to deploy defensive missiles that cause a greater danger than the attacking weapons. I seem to remember that when Isreal became a target for Iraq's missiles the Patriots used to hit them were nearly as dangerouse as the incoming Scuds to the people on the ground. The real problem isn't the weapons to shoot the drones down, it's the ability to detect and track them. I doubt much of the USA is covered by radar that could track small drones flying at rooftop height. But I think upgrading radar systems and air traffic control is a harder sell than nice expensive weapons.
In the UK journalists have never had a right to remain anonymous.
In fact there are only a handful of people with a right to remain anonymous when their identiy may be easily found out and these are typically rape victims or minors.
As to the blogger who is certainly breaching his own employment contract and may in fact be breaking the law by disclosing confidential information it is the height of arrogance for them to assume they are somehow above everyone else.
There is an assumption that a persons private life can remain private unless there is a "public interest" that overrides it, but a person's identity is not protected.
In this case there is a clear 'public interest' in the identity of a police officer who thinks confidentiality doesn't apply to them as otherwise how could you ever trust the police not to blogg about whatever you tell them.
Seeing as fabric skins have been used on aircraft since the Wright Brothers ( there are still tens of thousands of fabric covered aircraft flying today ) I can't see any practical problems with fabric covered cars. Clearly many car buyers will worry that such a car might be less safe than a steel box, but proper research and marketing will reduce this fear. The real plus point would seem to be the light weight and morphing ability. We can buy a the car pretending we are getting it because of it's fuel efficiency, when in reality we just think changing shape at the lights would be cool. Stuart G
A post modded informative that actually is informative, that has to be rare on /.
I'm not sure that the judge was restricting it to simply commercial purposes as Sony raised the following issue that the judge seemed to accept.
This is in section 35 of the judgement that can be found on the Court Service site
Sony also raises a claim under s. 296ZA. This provides a cause of action against the users of anti-copy-protection devices. It provides, insofar as material;
(1) This section applies where -
(a) effective technological measures have been applied to a copyright work other than a computer program; and
(b) a person (B) does anything which circumvents those measures knowing, or with reasonable grounds to know, that he is pursuing that objective.
To the extent that Mr Ball has himself installed Messiah2 chips and used the console so modified, there appears to be no defence to this claim.
Normal disclaimer IANAL
If they had changed their vote to a negative instead of just abstaining then it might have some influence, but the Dutch chose to act as if their man wasn't at the vote.
This won't make any difference the UK vote on patents although the Eurosceptics might enjoy the idea of putting a spanner in the works of the commision on other issues.
I do wish people would make the effort to learn about the UN before holding it up as the solution to the worlds ills.
As anyone who knows about the UN will tell you the institution was created during WW11, largely by Britain and the USA, to deliver their respective goals in the postware situation.
Ever since it's formation it has been an undemocratic talking shop, a majority of whos members are equally undemocratic. For nearly the full 60 years of its existence it has been deadlocked by the opposing views of its members.
It's list of failings is considerably longer than it's list of achievments, and those few occasions when it has managed to do anything it has usually been at the behest of one or more of the 'major powers'.
Much as some people are fixated on the flaws in US foreign policy, the more sensible people also realise that the same ecconomic and military muscle they despise is also used to deliver change where no one else can. And as you will certainly not be among that group you might want to watch what happens to the current crisis in Sudan. You will find that the USA will deliver much more to resolve that crisis than any other country in the world.
No, the USA is a target for 'terrorists' because it has the power to make major changes in the world, or to prevent them.
For instance Bin Laden etc wants a change in Saudia Arabia, but he knows that unless the USA permits it then no change is possible. The same situation exists with regards to Isreal.
The only way to avoid being a target of terrorists is to be so weak that you are irrelevant to world affairs, but that also means you are too weak to make changes you want.
Weapons or hipocrasy makes no difference to terrorists. If you think otherwise remember that the same people who in the English speaking media carp on about 'human rights' tell a very different story in the non-english media. Lies and hipocrasy are common in all cultures, it's just the west that practices self flagilation on the issue.
I bought an ibook on the basis that OSX would give me a linux like experience without all the hassel you normally get trying to get a wintel laptop running under linux.
Not a great success as OSX isn't what it's cracked up to be. So now I've got an ibook running yellowdog. And as YD knows exactly what hardware it might have to run on it's been more stable than any of my other linux installations so far.
Was the Apple tax worth paying ? . . well the hardware is cute.
That would certainly be a practical use for the 'new' blimps and airships they re-invent every few years.
They might even have general usage such as having the 'goodyear' balloons providing cellular coverage as well as being a flying billboard.
But I suspect these units must be pretty heavy if it requires 3 trucks to carry it.
Loss of phone services in the situations the article describes is certainly inconvenient for the public, but hardly a disaster. Unless they were talking about the companies revenue.
I'd be more interested if they could find a way to set up fast communications networks when there has been an earthquake or such where good communications may really help rescue and reconstruction efforts.
But then in that situation you could certainly put more useful facilities on three trucks than a cell phone system.
In the UK where there are often objections to the location of masts the companies have become skilled at hiding them.
They are often disguised behind plastic mouldings to blend into the building they are bolted to and some of the more inovative companies have hidden them in clockfaces on church's etc.
From my window I can see one that has been disguised as a 'fat' street light, the only thing giving it away is the non-descript equipment box near the base.
It is even less clear cut when some important sites restrict access to IE users for 'security' reasons.
I know some people will say you should just avoid such sites, but when they include the UK government's 'secure portal' it can be tricky.
The reason why this won't work is rather obvious too.
The average snowfall at the site is around 150cm per year, nearly all of which settles. This means even if you stopped the snow settling on the roof the surrounding area would be 150cm higher each year. Very soon your base will find itself at the bottom of a deep hole.
You're probably thinking of the USA base. Not too sure which pole it's at but it is based around a large dome.
The BAS base that this story is about is on stilts and is jacked about 3 metres above the surface to prevent the 80mph winds drifting the snow against it
The objection of the City Council is that drinks companies and others are paying a so called 'artist' to put advertisments when the companies know that they are not allowed to do this.
Readers outside the UK may not be aware that these companies have recently been tackled for their practice of flyposting their adverts on every flat surface they can find and this is their latest attempt to get around restrictions on where advertising can be put.
Therefore the real issue is not whether preventing someone being paid to put advertising slogans on walls is a restriction on 'artistic freedom'. The real issue is should big corporations be able to plaster their slogans on your wall in defiance of local ordinances?
That is exactly what they used to do in Spain under Franco. The 'security' measures there funded themselves as most tourists bought the nice framed pictures of themselves coming off the aircraft.