If they have any sense at all, (and I won't be surprised to learn they don't), the manufacturers would realise that this in fact will lead to wider uptake of their products by people otherwise locked into a particular 'system'. IE those previously constrained to Lego will look at other options and those in other systems like Fischer Technic might look at Lego.

If anything this should boost sales.

(the argument that in fact this will just cannibalise sales is unsound as people at a limit within one system are not likely to spend more on it, but having the opportunity to branch into other, (now compatible), systems will encourage ADDITIONAL spend).

cost per print?

Your analysis is all well and good, but you give no indication of the total cost of ownership. (Ie cost of replacment ink), and consequent cost per page of printing.

Given that for example HP seem to follow a 'loss leader' approach with their printer pricing, to lock you into buying their expensive ink refills, the price of the printer is a small proportion of the cost over the life of the device.

workplace comforts

Here in Norway, (working for a large American oilfield services company), we have a bowl of fruit provided in the office every morning.

There is also a couch on which to nap when necessary.

The canteen is a bit pants though, so we tend to head to the nearby client's office to use their discounted canteen.

If you treat people like children or animals, you can expect them to behave like it.

Respect them as individuals with specific needs however, and you will see them take pride and perform to the best of their abilities.

Revenge on cops

I shopped a copper the other day for parking on double yellow lines while he nipped into a convenience store.

After speaking to the assistant chief constable I was assured that all officers would be reminded of the importance of them being seen to obey the rules they are so keen to enforce.

Experiencing freedom

I was recently in South Africa. If you listen to just about anyone they'll tell you that SA is a dangerous and lawless place, where the unwary white man is liable to have his throat cut at any moment for a trifling sum.

I admit I felt uncomfotable in Johannesburg, but for the most part people were friendly and open, in a way I haven't experienced in the UK in years.

One aspect of life there that was particularly refreshing was the total lack of a sense of being monitored. No CCTV, no police in evidence in most places. People just didn't care what you were up to.

Clearly there is a down side to this, and I am possibly being naive, but the sense of relief and of the weight being lifted of constant surveillance was almost palpable.

For all practical purposes I am a law abiding citizen, why am I constantly observed and monitored in the UK?

I am seriously considering relocating to SA. I give up on the UK, it is rapidly falling into the hands of people who deserve nothing better than the open prison they seem determined to create for us.

Decentralised production reduces demand

One of the major benefits of PV Solar and micro generation in general is that the power is produced much closer to where it is used.

This is very important as a large proportion of the electricity generated, (and hence how much you pay for your electricity), is actually wasted in transmission.

An example is traditional coal fired power stations. At best they turn around 30% of the energy in coal into electricity.

At the point where you use it, a further 8% of that energy has been lost in transmission, IE coal delivers only around 22% of its energy to you home.

Clearly generating power where you use it reduces the demand dramatically, and reduces the need identified in this report for massive wind farms or whatever.

His biggest mistake is not recognising that far from reducing our usage of electricity, (which is acheivable as mentioned by other posters above), the much bigger issue is mking our distribution more efficient and decentralised.

Guess why the big power firms aren't very keen on this approach?

For information about practical application of micro generation on a large scale please visit the Woking counci site.

By using community sized space heating and PV solr this authority has made real inorads into achieving reductions in CO2 emissions in line with Kyoto agreements.

http://www.woking.gov.uk/environment/climate/Greeninitiatives

As someone else said, wading into the debate with misinformation dressed up as serious scientific research does little to progress the issue.

Back to the AI lab sir.

interim technology?

I am a bit confused as to the interest in hydrogen technology.

We generate electricity, to electolyse water, to make hydrogen, which is used to make electricity to drive the car.

Surely battery technology must be getting near the point where filling your car with electricity directly is the better option?

No distribution of gas, no complicated fuel cell technology, no risk of explosion etc.

Wikipedia-balance

Those of you slating Wikipedia as a flawed concept have obviously not taken the trouble to actually think about what you're saying.

A trend which seems to be on the rise in comments on El Reg lately, but I digress.

Wikipedia entries must NOT be opinion and MUST reference published work.

True some entries don't meet these criteria and might not immediately be flagged as such, but eventually someone will notice and mark the entry as needing citations or re-editing.

In cases where people continually revert the edit, the item can be locked, or certain users can be blocked from editing.

If people use Wikipedia with the understanding that it is a quick way to find links to authoritarian publications then the misconception that wikipedia is the fastest way to a wrong answer will go away.

Don't let your guard down

I am always cheered by news of another nail in the coffin of the ID card scheme.

I dearly hope the whole rotten plan will be dropped once and for all.

However, I am deeply apprehensive that one way or another such marking and monitoring of the population will be introduced for our own good.

No matter how certain the demise of this scheme seems, please continue to support www.NO2ID.net campaigns until we can be certain that those in power have abandoned this terrible idea.

Just another cymnical ploy to raise film revenue

So, by acknowledging, nay celebrating, talentless performances etc. these awards drive those foolish enough to be sucked in, to go and see the films in question just to see how bad they are.

The Hollywood machine is so efficient it even makes us want to pay for it's self-acknowledged crap product.

Wouldn't it just be better all round to ignore these self-important idiots and do something more constructive?

@ John Benson:Experimentation

I agree with your sentiments John. Computers have spoilt us into requiring a GUI and for most people this is a barrier to understanding what's actually going on behind this.

One area that I think does offer an avenue of this kind of exploration though is PICs, which require an understanding of the principles of using writing and compiling simple code and using actual pin outs on chips to control ciruits.

As most people probably feel uncomfortable messing around with their actual PC it allows them to experiment knowing that at worst they'll fry a £2 chip.

These are pretty well supported for use in schools etc. too.

EG See:

http://www.mstracey.btinternet.co.uk/pictutorial/picmain.htm

@Iglethal

I can help you out there:

"Good guys", people that can afford them

"Bad guys", people that can't

So just another tool to maintain the status quo then.

not real so doesn't matter...

is demonstrably a fallacious argument in connectin with countless studies of child behaviour. (The classic is called the Bobo doll experiement), there is broad consensus in Psychology that children learn by imitating observed behaviour, they are then much more likely to exhibit violent behaviour having been exposed to it, (on screen).

Frankly I believe we need much greater 'censorship' of such violent images.

The ASA is also legendary for it's almost total uselessness. It very, very, rarely acts, nd due to the requirement that someone makes a complaint before it can do, it often acts after the event anyway, (eg the Benetton advert outcry of the 80's).

That it felt compelled to do so indicates that for once the limits had been so far exceeded that it had no alternative.

I agree that those adults who wish to engage in violent activities in a fantasy world should have the right to do so, (although I believe that even in adults such activities damage their judgement and behaviour), but I feel that much stronger measures should be in place to prevent children being exposed to such material.

The ASA was bang on here. For a change.

convicted, then what

on a related note, even when paedophiles have been successfully identiified and brought to book, we still don't have a coherent plan for what to do with them long term.

The issue is so emotive that noone seems to engage with it properly.

I have heard of several occasions when paedophiles, unable to control their impulses, have begged the authorities to take them into custody, but are refused as the system is designed to deal only with people who have committed a crime.

I'm pretty sure that the sex offenders register is counter to the human rights charter, but it's ok as these are sex offenders, (see wrongful murder of suspected kiddie fiddlers in cases of mistaken identity ad in finitum in register passim).

As far as I'm concerned this is a mental health issue, and mental health care provision is something we don't seem to do very well in the UK.

Demonising and criminalising some of the most damaged people in society and eroding our own civil liberties to do it is just plain bizarre.

No, wanton destruction, (flooding), on a scale unseen elsewhere on Earth

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i3/iceland.asp

Gotta live the little pixie.

Provocative...

if art has a point, (beyond merely decorative), then surely it is to provoke debate and thought.

Banksy's art does this in spades, as this thread demonstrates.

I'm not that happy that other less able 'artists' use his habit of using graffitti to justify their own daubs, but it's a small price to pay.

It has certainly helped to make Bristol a more credible centre of artistic creativity and as noted by a previous poster, seeks to balance the ton of corporate shit adorning OUR environement without our say so.

Iran Air 655

I believe it was later established that the civilian flight DID NOT carry a military transponder, but that the operator whose job it was to track flights in the vicinity of the American warship had inadvertently left his screen cursor on a military aeroplane which had taken off and was in flight at the same time as the civilian flight.

All warnings from the US to the 'military' flight were made on military frequencies which the civilian flight could not hear, and anyway were being addressed to a callsign different to their own, (the callsign of the military flight), so even if the civilian flight did hear the warnings, they would not have realised they were intended for them.

(they made no transmissions on the civilian frequencies, and again would have been addressing them to the wrong callsign anyway).

Similarly, the Iranian authorities, who one poster believes should have alerted the civilian flight, would also not have realised they were addressing this flight due to the confusion on callsigns.

Although the killing of innocents is of course a tragedy, and the ensuing retaliation of the PanAm Lockerbie incident are highly regrettable, the incident itself seems to be due to poor design in the system used by the operative to identify aircraft, and too much reliance being placed on a relatively junior rating in a highly stressful situation.

That being said, the civilian flight was flying straight and making a normal ascent for it's route, and if I recall correctly, whilst it did enter the vicinity of the ship, by the time it was shot down it was actually moving away from it.

@peter

'A post-apocalyptic RPG around the UK sounds like the best thing ever, speeding down real motorways done and straight into a small village in full 3D at 150mph. Kick in the post office door , take the money and reverse full speed down the high street.

Taking over towns with tanks and fully deformable props. Sniper battles in small Yorkshire villages. I hope someone does this.'

They do, it's called modern Britain.

I suppose there is a possibility that the sociopaths will act out their fantasies only online, but it seems much more likely that they will simply hone their skills for the real-world version, or else cease to be able to tell the difference between the online experience and the real world.

Surely you can come up with a more creative way of using such a resource?

The correct action is more important than any action

I have recently modified my position on global warming from outright supporter to generally pro-skeptic, this hasn't however changed my position on the issue of what the correct reposnse to the threat, (real or not), is.

It certainly is not to try to replace petroleum fuel with biofuel from oil-palm which as already mentioned threatens to herald the greatest ecological, habitat and species destruction ever seen, in one of the world's most species rich and ecologically threatened regions.

The argument against using food crops as there are people starving, however, is entirely bogus, where people are starving, it is nearly always due to political problems, (war, displacement, etc.), not a lack of food, even within the country in question, it just isn't being distributed properly.

Whilst I don't have a ready answer to the source from which our energy should come, (certainly not nuclear, which isn't even low carbon producing when reactor construction, fuel mining and transport and decommisioning are properly factroed in), I do feel that no where near enough effort is being made to curb demand.

And are we really relying on the oil companies, the very organisations that got us into this situation in the frst place, to come up with a solution?

ROTM

Do you reckon these fireman robots all have 'other' jobs, like housemoving etc?

Parody novelty item?

I think we should all mark at least one cd with 'CSA Confidential Parent Data' and casually leave them all over the place.

Could be quite a big Christmas novelty item.

vested interest?

How surprised are you that Virgin, (who offer an on demand TV service for 5 pounds a month), are not exactly falling over themselves to allow you to access streaming media from the beeb through your internet sevice.

Obviously in light of recent investigations into misleading speeds advertised for ISP services they have to show they are trying to improve the service to the majority.

That this 'improvement' for the good of the majority of users just happens to result in an incentive to buy another of their services must come as a terrible shock to them.

hmm, i'm more concerned...

about OAPs with wireless net acess, what the hell are they using it for?

Lower Peover

As a lad raised Macclesfield, I have actually driven through Lower Peover.

I have on more than one occasion smiled ruefully to myself as I go to relieve myself at the onset of one!

Naturally my partner has no inkling as to the cause of my amusement, and I haven't tried to explain.

(Paris icon, as I can imagine noone I'd like to experience one with more).

Not Nuclear

Arguments that nuclear is a clean and sustainable fuel are misinformed propaganda.

The energy required to build the station, extract the ore, reprocess it, transport it, plus all the associated low level waste disposal and high level waste containment etc. are far and above any notion of 'zero' output.

And of course there's the decommissioning and management of the site after it's useful life.

(Of course that's overlooking the obvious risk of leaks, explosions and contamination.)

The only argument for nuclear is to maintain a supply of weopons grade nuclear material, any other arguments are a smokescreen for this.

Sustainably produced electricity charging batteries or 'creating' hydrogen for fuel cell cars has got to be the practical way forward.

(Biofuels are equally a non-starter due to the vast amounts of energy consumed producing fertilisers, managing the land, transporting and processing the crop)