"Hobbiests" who can install their own panels to code probably know where to gt them pretty cheap. There is a substantial difference between electrician in their off hours and the average homeowner.
Indeed -- a friend has just finished installing about £900 ($1500?) worth of PV panels at his mother's house. That cost is all the materials, but no time.
Last week it was producing about 800W on a bright day with some cloud, but this is in Northern England, so pretty much anywhere in the USA (including Alaska) would get a better return on the investment. My brother reckons it will take 5 years to pay off, and that's without getting paid for any unused excess power.
Uh huh. Germany, on a good day, can get 50% of its power from PV right now. That's like the entire state of California, or the entire state of Texas with enough left over to power all of Montana, Delaware, Rhode Island, and South Dakota, combined.
Installed and operating, today.
It's reality, not a pipe dream.
Europe has been discussing for decades that the Sahara Desert has enough sunlight to power Europe. The Arizona/NM desert is part of the US, why hasn't that happened yet?
Maybe not everywhere, but the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, etc would disagree, as well as plenty of towns elsewhere. (Also many poor countries.)
They'd also agree too. The population isn't some monolithic ideological bloc.
I don't think they would. I don't know where to start looking for direct evidence of that, but in Northern Europe, Germany etc the average age of learning to drive is increasing, the number of people actually learning decreasing, and the number of people owning a car decreasing. Car club use is increasing.
You wrote:
Putting cycle paths alone doesn't encourage people out of their cars*, you have to make the car journey less convenient, as is done in the Netherlands, Denmark, etc.
In other words, when people had a choice, they chose cars. That indicates cars are a desirable adaptation in the absence of meddling to the people who actually make the choices.
I see a fundamental inability to grasp the concept of "desirable". Sure, I can meddle in the costs and benefits of choices, to make other choices more desirable. But what is the point of doing so?
To make the cost/benefit to the individual making the choice more closely align with the cost/benefit to society as a whole.
As far as I can tell, the sole purpose of warping transportation so that bicycles are more desirable is to make quirky towns. There's no real value to it.
Somewhere where many people cycle rather than drive has - less air pollution - less congestion (faster journeys for those that do need to drive, buses, etc) - lower rates of motor vehicle injury/death - less expenditure on roads (fewer needed, slower to wear out) - more independence for children (and others unable to drive) - healthier people (lower cost, whoever is paying, and more productive) - lower fuel consumption (money and/or CO2, whichever you prefer) - less noise
And the practice is that bicycles just aren't that useful to people.
Maybe not everywhere, but the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, etc would disagree, as well as plenty of towns elsewhere. (Also many poor countries.)
Wide, high-speed roads
You mention one adaptation to humans right there. "Wide". And choosing high-speed roads instead of say, high speed bicycle lanes or rail lines, is another adaptation.
So...? I don't see how this means it's a desirable adaptation, or better than the alternatives.
Putting cycle paths alone doesn't encourage people out of their cars*, you have to make the car journey less convenient
Another problem with planned cities is forcing people to adapt to the city rather than the other way around. I see it a bit like software, if you have to break the functionality of the thing in order for it to be used as intended, then maybe you should change your intent instead.
The intention is that bicycles are used for shorter journeys (to work, shops, school etc), for health, environment and economic reasons.
Wide, high-speed roads didn't build themselves, and people adapted to them (with problems -- death and injury from accidents, earlier death from pollution, environmental damage, dividing communities, etc.)
Many British cities seem to be based on the use case "User can drive to work", rather than "User can travel to work".
A couple of them are accused of being boring, dull, or American-style (i.e. grid system roads), but they still work as towns. All of them have a purpose though.
One 'Eco Town' is being built, North West Bicester ("bis-ter"). The map I see still have long, straight roads. Putting cycle paths alone doesn't encourage people out of their cars*, you have to make the car journey less convenient, as is done in the Netherlands, Denmark, etc. The solar panels are good, but it would surely be better to add them on all new buildings, rather than just in this one village.
I don't know where you live but it sound like Britain which has a higher theft and petty crime rate than the USA.
Gun laws should strike a balance. Britain and the USA are both out of balance.
He lives in Denmark.
I live in the UK. The law regarding weapons is fine, the problem is the wide social divide between rich and poor.
I'd still rather live here, where the risk is having my phone stolen (with a low chance of injury), than in the US, where the risk is being shot after buying skittles and iced tea.
Aircraft fires are different than houses and vehicles.
The firetrucks are different and carry different equipment. I'm not even sure your typical city firetruck can manage to drive the airfield.
British firefighters are funded by general taxation, and have good-quality equipment. They can drive to the airport, probably without bothering to steer if they cared to...
I've read about volunteer firefighters in the US, which seems to be the norm? There are volunteers in the UK (though I'd not heard of them before I checked just now), but they aren't often called upon.
EU rules go some way to fixing that, for flights within/from the EU. After two hours, I think they owe you a meal [voucher], at some point they have to provide a hotel room (on a return ticket when you're stuck away from home).
The budget airlines can still cause a problem, but even they generally follow the rules while complaining loudly.
If a single fire means they can't do landings and takeoffs that seems like a poor design. It sounds like an easy thing for trouble makers to exploit
LHR didn't have snowploughs available a couple of years ago (it's not that common for it to snow here, but the other London airports all had the necessary equipment).
However, there are only two runways, and they only have one plane landing at a time, so enough firemen to cope with one plane on fire doesn't seem unreasonable. For something bigger (plane crashing into the terminal building?) the normal fire brigade would presumably help.
My manager had an email forwarded to her from a user's manager last week.
At the bottom was a bug report from 2009, a response from me saying I'd fixed the problem and the new version would be deployed overnight, and then a yearly update on the problem sent between the user and their manager -- nothing involving IT at all.
It turns out I did fix a problem, which matched the description from the bug report. I didn't fix the user's problem.
The user also had another 10 problems written down, and were waiting until the 2009 problem was fixed before reporting them.
Hopefully they'll be more careful about the law than is the case in the UK -- where the age of consent is 16, but the official guidance to the police is not to worry about consensual relationships between similarly-aged teenagers below that. It's better to have that in the law, like in Germany (where, AIUI, lower ages are permitted so long as there's not too much age difference).
Slashdot Mirror
Putting a WRITER on bank notes is weird. Stamps fine, but money should have Statesmen on them.
The queen is on the other side. The current £10 note has Charles Darwin on it, but the figure is replaced every 10 years or so.
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/current/default.aspx
couldn't care less
Jesus H Christ! Someone actually got this right, instead of writing "I could care less", or it's bastard cousin "I could give a damn".
Sorry to interrupt. Just needed to get that out.
99% of British people will say "couldn't". "I could care less" is an Americanism (Americanizm?).
By far, the single biggest reason I prefer Vim to Emacs is that I can do "Esc" with Ctrl-[.
The same combination works for me in Emacs. Meta is escape, alt, or Ctrl-[.
"Hobbiests" who can install their own panels to code probably know where to gt them pretty cheap. There is a substantial difference between electrician in their off hours and the average homeowner.
Indeed -- a friend has just finished installing about £900 ($1500?) worth of PV panels at his mother's house. That cost is all the materials, but no time.
Last week it was producing about 800W on a bright day with some cloud, but this is in Northern England, so pretty much anywhere in the USA (including Alaska) would get a better return on the investment. My brother reckons it will take 5 years to pay off, and that's without getting paid for any unused excess power.
PV is a hippie pipe dream.
Uh huh. Germany, on a good day, can get 50% of its power from PV right now. That's like the entire state of California, or the entire state of Texas with enough left over to power all of Montana, Delaware, Rhode Island, and South Dakota, combined.
Installed and operating, today.
It's reality, not a pipe dream.
Europe has been discussing for decades that the Sahara Desert has enough sunlight to power Europe. The Arizona/NM desert is part of the US, why hasn't that happened yet?
Even Alaska gets more sun than Germany. Map: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/08/germany-has-five-times-as-much-solar-power-as-the-u-s-despite-alaska-levels-of-sun/
Maybe not everywhere, but the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, etc would disagree, as well as plenty of towns elsewhere. (Also many poor countries.)
They'd also agree too. The population isn't some monolithic ideological bloc.
I don't think they would. I don't know where to start looking for direct evidence of that, but in Northern Europe, Germany etc the average age of learning to drive is increasing, the number of people actually learning decreasing, and the number of people owning a car decreasing. Car club use is increasing.
You wrote:
Putting cycle paths alone doesn't encourage people out of their cars*, you have to make the car journey less convenient, as is done in the Netherlands, Denmark, etc.
In other words, when people had a choice, they chose cars. That indicates cars are a desirable adaptation in the absence of meddling to the people who actually make the choices.
I see a fundamental inability to grasp the concept of "desirable". Sure, I can meddle in the costs and benefits of choices, to make other choices more desirable. But what is the point of doing so?
To make the cost/benefit to the individual making the choice more closely align with the cost/benefit to society as a whole.
As far as I can tell, the sole purpose of warping transportation so that bicycles are more desirable is to make quirky towns. There's no real value to it.
Somewhere where many people cycle rather than drive has
- less air pollution
- less congestion (faster journeys for those that do need to drive, buses, etc)
- lower rates of motor vehicle injury/death
- less expenditure on roads (fewer needed, slower to wear out)
- more independence for children (and others unable to drive)
- healthier people (lower cost, whoever is paying, and more productive)
- lower fuel consumption (money and/or CO2, whichever you prefer)
- less noise
And the practice is that bicycles just aren't that useful to people.
Maybe not everywhere, but the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, etc would disagree, as well as plenty of towns elsewhere. (Also many poor countries.)
Wide, high-speed roads
You mention one adaptation to humans right there. "Wide". And choosing high-speed roads instead of say, high speed bicycle lanes or rail lines, is another adaptation.
So...? I don't see how this means it's a desirable adaptation, or better than the alternatives.
Putting cycle paths alone doesn't encourage people out of their cars*, you have to make the car journey less convenient
Another problem with planned cities is forcing people to adapt to the city rather than the other way around. I see it a bit like software, if you have to break the functionality of the thing in order for it to be used as intended, then maybe you should change your intent instead.
The intention is that bicycles are used for shorter journeys (to work, shops, school etc), for health, environment and economic reasons.
Wide, high-speed roads didn't build themselves, and people adapted to them (with problems -- death and injury from accidents, earlier death from pollution, environmental damage, dividing communities, etc.)
Many British cities seem to be based on the use case "User can drive to work", rather than "User can travel to work".
The UK has lots of planned towns: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_towns_in_the_United_Kingdom (definitions of cities differ, some of them might count).
A couple of them are accused of being boring, dull, or American-style (i.e. grid system roads), but they still work as towns. All of them have a purpose though.
One 'Eco Town' is being built, North West Bicester ("bis-ter"). The map I see still have long, straight roads. Putting cycle paths alone doesn't encourage people out of their cars*, you have to make the car journey less convenient, as is done in the Netherlands, Denmark, etc. The solar panels are good, but it would surely be better to add them on all new buildings, rather than just in this one village.
*See Stevenage, an older new town with a great cycle path network, but also an excellent road network. Hardly anyone uses the cycle paths: http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/stevenage/
They already have Spanish: http://what3words.com/ducha.cheque.pileta
They already have Spanish words (click the flag).
We couldn't find any results for load.of.bollocks
They seem to have removed anything that could be rude in any way (e.g. 'balls').
http://what3words.com/many.many.spheres -- Argentina, near Uruguay.
http://what3words.com/chair.duck.late -- West of Brisbane.
Implementing that (more or less) was the main piece of coursework [pdf] for my (2nd year) C programming course. I wonder if they still do that...
I don't know where you live but it sound like Britain which has a higher theft and petty crime rate than the USA.
Gun laws should strike a balance. Britain and the USA are both out of balance.
He lives in Denmark.
I live in the UK. The law regarding weapons is fine, the problem is the wide social divide between rich and poor.
I'd still rather live here, where the risk is having my phone stolen (with a low chance of injury), than in the US, where the risk is being shot after buying skittles and iced tea.
They've only had that plane for 6 weeks...
http://holidaysjustgotbetter.thomson.co.uk/flights/dream-haul-has-arrived/
Aircraft fires are different than houses and vehicles.
The firetrucks are different and carry different equipment.
I'm not even sure your typical city firetruck can manage to drive the airfield.
British firefighters are funded by general taxation, and have good-quality equipment. They can drive to the airport, probably without bothering to steer if they cared to...
I've read about volunteer firefighters in the US, which seems to be the norm? There are volunteers in the UK (though I'd not heard of them before I checked just now), but they aren't often called upon.
EU rules go some way to fixing that, for flights within/from the EU. After two hours, I think they owe you a meal [voucher], at some point they have to provide a hotel room (on a return ticket when you're stuck away from home).
The budget airlines can still cause a problem, but even they generally follow the rules while complaining loudly.
http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights/air/
Odds that they didn't install the battery fix?
Nil? Would they be allowed to fly within the EU if they hadn't?
But there is! Scorch marks on the roof in front of the tail section.
Check it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23295115 [bbc video feed]
I assume some people can't access the video, or would prefer not to: http://imgur.com/DSuowjU
I think he means the airport.
If a single fire means they can't do landings and takeoffs that seems like a poor design. It sounds like an easy thing for trouble makers to exploit
LHR didn't have snowploughs available a couple of years ago (it's not that common for it to snow here, but the other London airports all had the necessary equipment).
However, there are only two runways, and they only have one plane landing at a time, so enough firemen to cope with one plane on fire doesn't seem unreasonable. For something bigger (plane crashing into the terminal building?) the normal fire brigade would presumably help.
My manager had an email forwarded to her from a user's manager last week.
At the bottom was a bug report from 2009, a response from me saying I'd fixed the problem and the new version would be deployed overnight, and then a yearly update on the problem sent between the user and their manager -- nothing involving IT at all.
It turns out I did fix a problem, which matched the description from the bug report. I didn't fix the user's problem.
The user also had another 10 problems written down, and were waiting until the 2009 problem was fixed before reporting them.
I thought this showed remarkable patience.
I knew I'd read somewhere about Spain's age of consent being 12.
It turns out they raised it to 16 just a few weeks ago: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/10089339/Spain-to-raise-age-of-consent-from-13-to-16.html
Hopefully they'll be more careful about the law than is the case in the UK -- where the age of consent is 16, but the official guidance to the police is not to worry about consensual relationships between similarly-aged teenagers below that. It's better to have that in the law, like in Germany (where, AIUI, lower ages are permitted so long as there's not too much age difference).
I think € is allowed.
And hardly limited to some cultures. Hell it's probably over 50% worldwide for men.
Americans, Muslims, Jews, and (for some reason?) Australians. Between a sixth and a third of the world's men.
It's rare in most of Europe and most of the rest of the world.