1. Oops. I was forgetting the subtle differences in the rankings of high ranking government officials.
2. Um...was Enron at the time a larger energy company than Exxon Mobil ? And anyway, I don't know if they talked to Ronald McDonald - Dickey C won't tell us.
3. Interesting. Define price controls. Politicians of all spectrums fix prices...it's just as far as I can see the term "price control" is a political no-no in the USA. E.g. the minimum wage and steel and farm tarriffs are effectively price controls, but are not called that.
Sorry...from my point of view, if money influences politics it's corruption. Decisions should be made on their merits, not on who pays for the best access to politicians.
I hope this is reasonably on-topic, in that it relates to MS tying features together in what seems a monopolostic way...
I was trying to set up web-cams with my bro-in-law and started with MSN Messenger. After signing up for a Passport (guess I sold my soul...), I then signed in, but was prevented from broadcasting my Webcam. Why ? Because I run Win2k.
MSN Messenger informed me that in order for it (a stand-alone application, one would think...) to work with a Webcam I had to upgrade to XP.
So we just used Yahoo instead.
However, the more I think about it, the more it annoyed me...to get an application to work I have to upgrade the OS, when other vendors are perfectly able to provide the same features without the upgrade ? I suppose it's what they call great marketing...
Technology can provide many seemingly incredible weapons, but they're useless if they can't be relied on to work.
For example, I recall seeing somewhere that the Apache helicopter needed servicing so frequently it wasn't of much practical use...can anyone confirm/deny this ?
All current forms of power generation have serious problems. To say that nuclear power production is better than coal production is surely too simple a statement. For example:
Do coal fired plants increase background radiation, and thus, as suggested in the original article, increase likelihood of genetic mutation ?
If our primary concern is the toxicity of byproducts from burning coal, does technology currently exist to safely detoxify them, or at least prevent their release into the environment ? Is the same true for the byproducts of nuclear plants ? What happens if there is an accidental release or system malfunction ?
Do coal burning plants have to be sited next to large bodies of water to provide a heat exchanging mechanism, like nuclear plants do ? Does this requirement have any impact on the aquatic ecology in the vicinity of a nuclear plant ?
Slashdot Mirror
"all we have is iPlayer, which is a bit of a joke as far as most of its content is concerned"
Would disagree - think it's pretty fantastic...I VPN in from the US specifically for it and 4od....but then I am an expat who needs my Brit TV dose :-)
1. Oops. I was forgetting the subtle differences in the rankings of high ranking government officials.
2. Um...was Enron at the time a larger energy company than Exxon Mobil ? And anyway, I don't know if they talked to Ronald McDonald - Dickey C won't tell us.
3. Interesting. Define price controls. Politicians of all spectrums fix prices...it's just as far as I can see the term "price control" is a political no-no in the USA. E.g. the minimum wage and steel and farm tarriffs are effectively price controls, but are not called that.
Sorry...from my point of view, if money influences politics it's corruption. Decisions should be made on their merits, not on who pays for the best access to politicians.
Um, try the esteemed Thomas White.
And the "Energy Task Force" didn't get any input from Enron ?
(Well, Dick Cheney's not letting anyone know who they talked to, so we don't know).
And FERC's slow reaction to Enron gouging of democratic California was, um, co-incidental ?
Disclaimer: I pay US taxes but cannot vote, so corrupt government bugs me.
I hope this is reasonably on-topic, in that it relates to MS tying features together in what seems a monopolostic way...
I was trying to set up web-cams with my bro-in-law and started with MSN Messenger. After signing up for a Passport (guess I sold my soul...), I then signed in, but was prevented from broadcasting my Webcam. Why ? Because I run Win2k.
MSN Messenger informed me that in order for it (a stand-alone application, one would think...) to work with a Webcam I had to upgrade to XP.
So we just used Yahoo instead.
However, the more I think about it, the more it annoyed me...to get an application to work I have to upgrade the OS, when other vendors are perfectly able to provide the same features without the upgrade ? I suppose it's what they call great marketing...
Technology can provide many seemingly incredible weapons, but they're useless if they can't be relied on to work.
For example, I recall seeing somewhere that the Apache helicopter needed servicing so frequently it wasn't of much practical use...can anyone confirm/deny this ?
All current forms of power generation have serious problems. To say that nuclear power production is better than coal production is surely too simple a statement. For example:
Do coal fired plants increase background radiation, and thus, as suggested in the original article, increase likelihood of genetic mutation ?
If our primary concern is the toxicity of byproducts from burning coal, does technology currently exist to safely detoxify them, or at least prevent their release into the environment ? Is the same true for the byproducts of nuclear plants ? What happens if there is an accidental release or system malfunction ?
Do coal burning plants have to be sited next to large bodies of water to provide a heat exchanging mechanism, like nuclear plants do ? Does this requirement have any impact on the aquatic ecology in the vicinity of a nuclear plant ?