Re: Scientific Theory

"mankind has a built-in superiority complex that makes us believe we must be responsible for everything"

The complex is not about mankind being responsible it is about others being responsible. Talking the talk and making a few pathetically ineffective gestures allows you to point the finger of blame at and feel superior to anyone who isn't doing the same. Saving the entire planet - what better subject for a willy waving contest.

Mankind's other big problem is the propensity to believe any old shite as long as enough others believe it - the foundation of all religion and look how popular that is.

Re: Understandable

"Do the thumb downers really want to die because someone else caused an accident?"

No they want to live because someone else didn't cause and accident.

Not having an accident doesn't hurt at all and is really inexpensive.

Re: Understandable

"Power to weight restriction"

Sure because we know how well that worked wiv youfs and gutless 50cc mopeds. The most important consideration being never to slow down because it takes so long to speed up again.

On the other hand sticking a metal spike instead of air bag in the middle of the steering wheel would be good - I'll have one if everyone else gets one too.

Re: Great article

"Shame el-reg has sharing options from 2005"

I wouldn't +1 or 'like' anything without being given the option to -1 or 'dislike' so take a downvote - dickhead.

Re: Luddites

"there are some genuinely interesting possibilities arising from replacing existing meters with smart meters."

When I am forced to pay 300 quid for something I expect to be assured of more than "genuinely interesting possibilities".

The reality is the main driving force behind smart meters is the desire to equip us all with personal guilt meters and the farcical notion that if only we knew how much energy we were using we stop using it.

Re: Concert spending

"overall effect is negative"

Or positive depending on your position being screwing more money out of people for some stuff is a plus or more people getting to consume that stuff for the same amount of money is a plus.

Re: Apple are not the only ones

"I wonder what they'd make of my driving licence, given that it's an old non-photo one"

Gees no wonder we have crap with ID cards and national identity registers when we have thinking like this.....

Do you think Dell or Apple are going send someone round to your house to look at you before shipping a laptop or whatever?

Re: Could someone please explain me this British anti-ID obsession?

"I would genuinely like to know. In most situations I have faced I would not have been able to open a bank account, get a mortgage, or start a new job without either"

The solution would be for the government not to require you to be identified for those purposes not to make identification easier in a mandatory from which would just allow the government to require you to be identified for a host of new trivial purposes for their not your benefit.

"a 5-year old with a PC could fake a banking statement and print it on A4 paper"

Yes but they can't fake a house at the fake address or fake bank with the fake name on their A4 paper. A fine example of the idiocy of thinking holding something (like an ID card) proves anything. The bank statement provides information which can be verified independently.

Re: @PatientOne

"What it cares about is being able to identify you when you come back the next day to withdraw some cash"

They are required to establish the identity of their customers to the satisfaction of the government. The government have access to every transaction with every financial institution in the country and demand they can associated each with an individual identity with some level of confidence. The banks care about loosing money and some have been fined substantial amounts by the FSA for failing to adequately identify their customers. This is all justified rather like the attempts to justify ID cards on bullshit grounds like fighting money laundering, terrorist funding, and tax evasion. But the banks do their dirty work and take the blame.

I went through no end of shit trying to adequately identify my GF to the satisfaction of the government via their bank proxy just to make her a secondary credit card holder (for which I as the primary holder would be completely responsible). She doesn't pay bills, she doesn't work or pay taxes, she doesn't claim benefits, she doesn't have or need a full bank account. She has a passport and driving license but that isn't enough.

As far as the government is concerned she isn't identifiable enough to be allowed to make financial transactions such as buying something with a credit card. The problem isn't lack of identity the problem is the chicken shit government requiring identity to support their surveillance of us all. The same with ID cards, and internet snooping.

Re: Seems counterproductive...

"but surely the point is that it's the authors/rights-holders decision to make"

Authors/holders only have rights the rest of us choose to give them.

Those rights are given for the benefit of the rest of us not them.

Consideration of how the application and extent of those rights might provide the maximum benefit to the rest of us are reasonable and welcome.

Re: I wonder how much of the opposition matches mine?

Dumb simplistic view which misses the point.

An ID card would serve no purpose other than to make every day life a bit more painful for everyone and provide the government with vast amounts of data. Cards can and would be forged. Biometric data on the card could and would be forged although for every day use biometric data on the card would never be checked against biometric data of the holder beyond glancing at a photograph.

So in order to prevent people getting things they are not entitled to everyone has to have, pay for and carry an ID card which will be required to be presented constantly for things as mundane as getting on a bus or borrowing a library book. Yet for the most part it won't prevent people getting things they are not entitled to because for the most part a forgery (and even better stolen ID) will do.

To be secure you need to check the biometrics of the person against a central database which can't (easily) be forged. For that you don't need a card at all. It would just be a key to indicate what database record the person is claiming to match, a number scribbled on a bit of paper would be adequate.

So I think we have established ID cards are expensive, painful, pointless and a huge invasion of privacy, what more do you need to be opposed to them?

The huge joined up database pointlessly using the card as a key is a whole 'nother ball game' which I'm not getting into here.

Re: We told you it was shit

"show hidden files and show file extensions are now one click actions"

So cluttering the UI with options that I set once per install of the OS is supposed to be an improvement?

Re: Whilst I can see the value.....@TheBig Yin

"The EU tree huggers believe that if you have a real time energy or cost display, you'll use less power"

And even if they don't really believe that they think every one should have a real time display of personal guilt anyway.

Re: I love people who deny the basic laws of Physics...

"redesign a farm turbine and add a motor and loop"

So perpetual motion machines are the answer to global warming.

What we really need is motors powered by wishful thinking.....

Re: @Jaitch@AndrueC

" biggy is this idea that if you have a display somewhere visible you'll cut your consumption"

What I said years ago, eco green twat politicians can't resist the idea of forcing us to install personal guilt meters at our own expense.

Re: Where does the carbon go?

They could collect all the carbon from these Flüssigmetallblasensäulenreaktors and burn it in some of the new power stations Germany is building.

Solves the disposal problem, and reduces the amount of coal they have to dig out of the ground, the electricity generated can be used to power the Flüssigmetallblasensäulenreaktors there might even be some left over.

A solution every technically illiterate eco green twat will applaud.

Re: "But an Art History graduate is ideally suited to burger flipping, ..."

"learning things simply for the sake of expanding one's own mind become such a terrible thing?"

When they ask me to pay for them to do it.

You have a point, the world has room for a few people studying Irish history, I don't mind funding the brightest and most dedicated with my taxes. When idiot politicians aspire to sending everyone to university the majority better be study something more useful. The world doesn't need every 3rd person to be either a psychologist or lawyer FFS.

Re: Good

"PCs can get back to being the proper professional tools"

With a price tag to match - not so good.

Re: Leccy? No!!

"Germany now produces more than half of it electricity from solar alone"

I presume this utter garbage comes from a record set at noon on 25/05/2012 where half of the grid demand was provided by solar sources. So Germany did produce more than half the electricity it uses for a few minutes around noon one Saturday (less demand from industry) last year.

During 2012 solar provided a little over 5% of the total supply.

Re: Resale Loss

"is purchased initially in a digital form, it at that point, no longer holds any value and cannot be resold."

If it no longer holds any value how can anyone complain about it being given away?

Re: I am going to take an unpopular side here.

"but they have EVERY RIGHT to say you can't re-sell it"

No they don't. The only rights anyone has are given to them by the rest of us. Copyright was given to them by us for the benefit of us. Copyright is now so distorted and abused that on balance we would be better off without it.

It is only momentum, stupid and bought politicians that stop this happening, a compromise which brings copyright back into line with its original intention of benefiting us would be preferable.

Re: @Condiment

"There are these things called "accumulators"

Yes and the accumulators alone cost more than the costs of grid electricity they can charge and discharge in their lifetime never mind the additional cost of housing, supporting electronics and losses.

Re: Good budget I thought

"Something is only worth what someone will pay for it".

Something is worth what it costs to make. If someone cut down lemon trees someone else would plant them and make money from it.

" 'pretend negative equity' and into real negative equity, and that would not stimulate the housing market, it would destroy it. 90% of home-owners would never be able to move house."

I would love it if my house was worth 10 quid because I would go out tomorrow and buy a much nicer one for 20 quid. The idea that there is anything good about high or rising house prices is ridiculous. The only people to benefit are speculators, developers, and those moving down market all at the expense of the majority who are trying to get on or move up the ladder ^H^H^H^H^H^H treadmill.

Re: Good budget I thought

"If you make building new houses much cheaper, by ripping up planning as you suggest, then the value of houses would drop massively. This would push a huge section of homeowners into negative equity, and would probably worsen the recession."

The houses don't and never had that 'value' in the first place, why do you think mortgage lenders need 20% deposits? Because the few dumb or desperate people buying now are paying 20% more than they are worth. You can pretend you don't have negative equity by pretending your house is worth more than anyone will pay and wait a couple of decades for general inflation to catch up but that leaves all the 'economy' associated with building, moving, furnishing etc comatose. We are in the shit and need to dig ourselves out not wait for it to stop smelling so bad.

Re: Good budget I thought

"and I very much like the mortgage assistance and new home building changes, which should encourage more buyers, and contribute to growth"

I don't. Too late and wrong. Much of our trouble (and piss poor housing stock and following low quality of life) is due to decades of ridiculous and unsustainable property price inflation. Inflation fuelled by reckless lending and supply being strangled by planning regulation.

The housing market (including all the 'economy' associated with it) is comatose and will remain so until prices have bottomed out and bear some resemblance to what it would cost to build. That won't happen till general inflation catches up with property inflation and measures to help buy new builds are just delaying it.

What he could have done (and should have years ago) is rip planning regulation to shreds providing lots of cheap land for large and efficient builds (instead of having to build shitty expensive hovels 2 or 3 at a time in tiny brown field sites). That would have bottomed out the property market quickly reviving the associated 'economy' and providing much needed housing. Best part is it costs nothing apart from whines from NIMBYS and those pushed into negative equity now (which is no worse than waiting for inflation to catch up).

My mother still gets tempted by offers of lots of money for half her back garden because it would likely get planning permission for a house (or god forbid block of flats) build. Her garden backs onto empty fields for almost as far as the eye can see. Half her back garden is apparently worth 200k while the same area the other side of her fence isn't worth 100 quid - so stupid you couldn't make it up.

Re: As daft as the test on Myth Busters

I commented years ago when the stupid mobile while driving illegal, hand free ok legislation was introduced :-

A twat with a mobile phone is still a twat when you take it away.

Re: More adverts, everywhere.

"Frankly I consider the use of ABP parasitic and attempts to justify its use arrogant."

While I consider attempting to force serving of ads to users who have clearly indicated a preference not to see them as attempting to defraud those paying for the ads.

Do you think if ABP fetched the ads but didn't render or hid them it would be less parasitic? Maybe it could even click on them and hide the results too.

can't deal with the idea of a motor vehicle not using gasoline

"car-centric bigots can't deal with the idea of a motor vehicle not using gasoline for motivational power"

No what we can't deal with is the approximate 10:1 difference in energy density between a cheap tin can full of petrol and a very expensive battery. We also can't deal with the lunacy of burning gas (a relatively clean high density easily transported fuel) to inefficiently generate electricity, and sending it across the grid to slowly charge very expensive low capacity batteries instead of burning it in the car.

"To me a religion shouldn't need to advertise itself"

Religion is belief in a load of bollocks. The more people believe the bollocks the more successful the religion is. All successful religions have mechanisms to retain and preferably increase the number of believers.

Believers funding television adverts to convince others to believe is a valid mechanism, as is paying detectives and lawyers to hound those who might cause disbelief. Perhaps you would rather they went around killing disbelievers - a mechanism employed by many religions, especially in the past.

Re: How many creatures do humans kill each year to feed cats ?

"We are an arrogant bunch of fuckers who think this planet, its resources and all its life is here for just for the purpose of us alone to exploit or kill for fun"

All life is selfish and will take whatever resource is available to sustain its continued existence. Life cares about itself and its genes.

'We' are not arrogant fuckers, a large proportion are stupid fuckers. As a social species we have developed and thrived on the basis that caring about others and their genes results in overall better care for us and our genes.

The stupid fuckers are the ones that feel this care for others ought to be applied to life forms which don't and can't provide any care for us in return.

Re: No, that's NOT what this means.

"Continuing to add more and more GHG pollution will only make habitability worse for those generations to come".

Firstly CO2 is not pollution, without it habitability of the planet would be zero.

Secondly how do you know habitability will be worse? What is the ideal global temperature for habitability?

Re: If it will cost "£1.8bn" to implement ...

"there are lots of reliable ways of saving a human live with £500k,"

In other parts of the world there are lots of reliable ways of saving a human life with $10.

for his freedom

His freedom to be arrested for burning a poppy?

To be honest I am surprised it isn't an offence to not wear a poppy for the 2-3 weeks every year. Every single face you see on TV for 3 weeks has a poppy pinned to it, an alien observer would think it the law.

It makes me puke, wearing a poppy is now meaningless.

Re: Elephant in the room @JP19

It isn't charged by regenerative braking (unless you happen to be at the top of an endless hill).

It recovers some of the energy which would go into the discs and drums of a conventional car.

Unless you drive with two lead feet conventional car discs and drums barely get warm most of the time, the potential for energy recovery is trivial.

Re: Elephant in the room @JP19

From http://www.eaa-phev.org/wiki/Prius_EV_Mode_Button

"The EV Mode Button is a standard part of the Japan and EU Prius but was not installed in the US versions, perhaps because of extended warranties in Ca due to AT-PZEV regulations and qualifications criteria."

The EV button knackers the battery. Couldn't meet stricter warranty requirements with it. I remember reading part of those warranty requirements was a 10 year battery life.

Re: Elephant in the room

The only way to get that kind of life out of the battery is not to use it much which is why the original Pious only used the middle 30% or so of the battery capacity and had no mains charging or battery only operation facility.

If people charge and use most of the battery capacity daily the battery will be knackered in 2-3 years.

Electric cars are shit because batteries are shit. The idea that we will increasingly burn gas to generate electricity to charge electric car batteries instead of burning the gas directly in the car is bat shit crazy.