I can't understand why people are talking about unusual and costly methods of adding storage to our water system, or, even worse, methods of 'saving water'.

Low rainfall is NOT the primary cause of 'the drought', and this is accepted by the water regulators and DEFRA, who have told me as much. Rainfall has been low these last few years, but well within accepted variation.

What HAS had a major impact is the lack of reservoirs in the SE. In 2000 the increased population obviously required increased infrastructure, and this was covered in the water companies 25-year plans in 2004. 5 new reservoirs and three extensions were proposed.

ALL of these plans have been rejected at the planning stage by government inspectors, who claim that, if people could only use less water, the reservoirs would not be needed. The DEFRA 'Water Futures' plan (2008) states that per capita water usage will be cut from 150 Litres/day (this is a nominal figure, as it includes industrial and agricultural use) to 120 Litres/day. This is a 20% reduction.

So it is government policy that we use 20% less water. There is no justification for this, and there has been no debate about it. What makes it all the more amazing is that water passes by us in a cycle, and even when we drink it it none of it is destroyed. So it is not a 'scarce commodity' in any way - we could store vast quantities of it if we wanted and the total amount of water on the planet would not change one bit. When we talk about a 'shortage of water' what we really mean is a 'shortage of infrastructure'. And when we talk about 'saving water' what we really mean is 'making do with an infrastructure which is not providing enough..."

I have recently completed an economic analysis on the policy we currently have of requiring rainwater collection to be installed into commercial buildings. Gathering water, storing it as 'grey water' and providing a pumped dual pipe system to use it for flushing WCs is about 80 times more expensive than just letting the rain drop onto the ground, flow into a river and thence a reservoir, and then receiving it back again through the water mains.

80 times! This is as stupid as selling off all our gold reserves at the bottom of the market. Why are people accepting this?

Infinity or not?

"...Supplies of water on this planet are not actually without end - even the oceans aren't truly limitless - but they are infinite in a practical sense..."

This betrays some odd thinking by Lewis. It is true that the oceans are certainly not 'limitless', but we do not drink the oceans until they are dry.

Water moves in a cycle through us. The water we have drunk is not destroyed - it just passes through us back into the hydrological cycle. We can, and do, continue to drink the same water, and can keep doing so until the end of time. It will not, and can not, run out.

I would say that this means that supplies ARE infinite. Unless Lewis can tell me where the end of the line is on a circle...?

Just reverse the Prison Service and Social Services...

The standard suggestion is that the prisoners should be put in Old People's Homes.

There they would watch their assets drift away while they were confined to a little room and fed weak cabbage water twice a day by an uncaring attendant. If they complained about anything they would be fed drugs to keep them comatose.

Meanwhile, the old people could be put in jail. Here, they would have a little room for visitors, a TV, paid for by the government, heating paid for, free healthcare and prescriptions, laundry done on a regular basis and wardens checking on them every hour or so, to make sure they was not at risk of suicide, ill or in need of medication. They would get their own personal space, three square meals a day – as in a good, healthy breakfast, a tasty two-course lunch and a hearty evening meal, not to mention exercise several times a day.

If they were to fall over anywhere in the jail, there would be someone on tap to help them back on to their feet and make sure they weren't hurt.

All for no cost – and no need to change any part of the system....

Mars met station

There should really be a set of meteorological stations on Mars.

Needed for really understanding the environment, and will give a constant source of research data here on earth...

I hope that....

...the old compressor used Freon, and you just vented it to the atmosphere.

Current science suggests that the Montreal Protocol ban on Freon was a complete waste of time, as the chemical is not now thought to cause any 'hole in the ozone layer'.

The ban worked out very nicely for Du Pont, however, as it was just about to lose it's patent protection on this chemical, and now people have to use other, less effective chemicals which Du Pont DOES have a patent on...

Can anyone tell me....

...why the news items on Cameron's dive all say that this has only been done once before, but in that instance they 'stirred up the bottom sediment, and found it impossible to see'?

Because I can remember the Nat. Geog. report of Picards's dive. As I recall, they obtained pictures of a flat muddy bottom, and a flatfish of some description, before dumping their ballast (which disturbed the sediment) and heading for the surface. So they could actually see quite well...

Is this an attempt to belittle the engineers from 50 years ago to make Cameron sound a little better?

What's your favourite car?

"Yes, but if you did like cars, what would be your favourite?"

"The Humber Monoglot..."

... and the conversation proceeded along well-worn lines...

China vs Environmentalists...

There's actually lots of 'rare earth' minerals around - pretty much everywhere.

However, they are not in high concentrations, and need a lot of processing on the mining site. This is 'bad for the environment'(TM). Greenpeace would never let it happen in any western-controlled country.

So the Chinese have an effective monopoly - because our environmentalists are hamstringing our industrialists...

Eastern Canada beckons....

Come to Western New York State...

Australia and Russia both are much more suitable...

Has anyone considered the possibility of Slough? Nestling between Hounslow and West Drayton, panoramic views of Runway Three, and access to a huge number of immigrant workers.....

There really is a simple single answer...

It's not complicated. You just need to do one thing.

Make copyright a right that can ONLY be owned by the original creator.

ALL the things that are wrong at the moment are wrong because copyright is able to be bought by a company and then applied for as many years as the company can manage to make a big fat profit. The actual original creator gets very little out of this.

If the original artist, musician or writer was the only person who could benefit, there would be no pressure to maintain these vast profits by tying down use, and companies would have to compete on value-added services.

Copyright was originally a 'bargain' between creative types and society. Society would give the creative types a limited monopoly on the results of their ideas, in return for being able to use the ideas freely after a set period of time. The fundamental concept here is that ideas should be widely and freely available, and that to gain this creative types should be looked after, so they don't have to hide their ideas.

What we have now are corporations who build lots of wealth on one idea, and don't want to relinquish it. That must stop, one way or another. There should be good provision made for the people who create the ideas, so that they are better off creating than hiding, but there should be NO ability for corporations to 'own' ideas. Let them compete on production efficiency, quality, service, and all the other things a corporation is good at. But don't let them own and suppress ideas...

Ditching the spooks?

"...In short, Rid suggests ditching the spooks: "If we put GCHQ in charge of cyber security, by their clearly secretive nature, they won't be able to put public pressure on businesses...."

Up to 1994 we had a Government commercial security team. In 1994, the spooks ditched them, and took over their budget. At the time, people in the know said that this was a mistake....

It's really quite simple...

We were told that the Earth was going to warm up dangerously due to increased CO2 levels, and given a scary set of predictions over the last 20 years.

The Earth stopped its rapid warming in 1998, and ever since the temperature has been essentially flat. Don't bother to claim that there still is a rising trend if you measure from the LIA - even the warmists have been forced to agree that the heat is missing.

Increased CO2 and flat temperatures happening together (indeed, they are now starting to fall) completely negates the CO2 warming hypothesis.

There still might be any number of dangerous environmental issues to address. There might be some kind of complex issue involving CO2. But the basic CO2 warming hypothesis is completely disproven. 15 years of flat temperatures simply breaks ALL the models.

So I am willing to listen to a new proposal for a mechanism whereby CO2 could be dangerous. But there is no point claiming that the original 'CO2 drives water vapour creates dangerously rising heat' mechanism is threatening us - because it obviously isn't.

@Gradewa

"However, as I read it, the question is given that we are operating off an assumption that ownership of a gun (and therefore the sale and advertising of said firearm) is neutral and its only bad people who kill with guns, doesnt the same reasoning apply to fileshareing.

.......

If a bad person goes to a gun shop, buys a gun and shoots someone you punish the bad person, not the gun shop or manufacturers. (Ideally, I know this isnt always the case).

However, if a bad person goes to a filesharing site and uses filesharing tools to breach a copyright, the only reason the site is punished is because its a bit difficult to catch the bad person.

It is, to me, a bit of a double standard."

An interesting argument. However, you could also view it like this:

If there is a general rise in some kind of wrongdoing, it is probably a good idea to address it. Take the example of rioting. You can address it directly - eg, by arresting rioters if riots are a problem, or indirectly, such as enforcing a curfew. The second of these punishes innocent and guilty alike, but it is easier for the police to enforce a general clearing of people than to identify individual troublemakers in a crowd.

In the same way, law-abiding gun owners and gun shops are subject to quite severe restrictions - you could call these punishments - because it is easier to do this than trace every individual who 'misuses' a gun. Sometimes, I am sure, gun shops are closed down if they have a record of providing guns in an illegal way and seem unwilling to change their ways. That is bad for the innocent customers of those shops - but it happens.

Similarly, people using filesharing techniques may be faced with severe restrictions amounting to punishment, and sites with a record of 'illegal' operation may be closed down, even if many people who use them do not break the law.

Of course, this assumes that laws upholding copyright are good, moral and necessary laws, like those prohibiting murder. I do not believe this - but if copyright law was an acceptable and valid law, then these actions would not be unreasonable ones for law enforcement agencies.

What should be being attacked is the very concept of copyright law - the concept that you can own and steal ideas...

The problem with Virgin is Throttling...

I have the 10mb service. That rate (if we ever got it) would be fine for my needs. Usually, I'm lucky to get 5mb. But even that is fine for general browsing.

The big problem, though, is the throttling. Occasionally, I need to download a couple of Linux distros or my son wants to download a Steam game - these can be 20Gb or more. If we download this, throttling sets in, and it can take a day to get the download.

There would be little point my going to a faster and more expensive connection just to up the throttling limit on the rare occasions when I need to download a lot. Mostly, I am a low user, but occasionally I would like the 10mb.

The trouble with throttling is that, for the small users, Virgin says you can have a fast speed and then takes it away from you when you try to use it. This has always seemed particularly unfair to me...

What would be gained...?

@Aimee

"What would be gained by a nation attacking a spacecraft going to Mars?"

Well, just as an exercise, let us construct a reasonably plausible conspiracy theory...

1 - The Americans have just recently built a small aerodynamic orbital craft. This has the capability of being launched in one orbit, then changing its orbit to another to match a target, then returning back again - all in a portion of an orbit while the target is out of view of its owners. So they have the means to undetectably deliver a short-range damaging high energy pulse to an orbiting target should they want to...

2 - NASA funds are being wound down, and the US are going to rely on Russian rocketry for launches for a while. A lot of people won't like this. In particular, there were a lot of 'spook' funds hidden in NASA budgets - these will be at risk. So there would be an interest in making Russian space technology (which, up to now, has looked superb) look unreliable. And, surprise, surprise, Russian space technology HAS suddenly started to look unreliable.

3 - No one wants to interfere with manned missions. The fallout and inquiries resulting from a failed manned mission would be uncontrollable. But the odd scientific or commercial package - there would be far less investigation of those. And a Mars mission, which presumably has the best Russian reliability built in - well, if that went wrong it would be a very good reason to keep NASA skills operational....

His noodly appendage...

...smiles on this upstart religion. Anything which increases the number of pirates is in accordance with our teachings.

How else will we maintain the much-needed dip in temperatures?

Arse...?

FECK!!!!!

Why are they doing this?

We already know that the world is doomed from computer models.

Actually getting real data tells us nothing more, and might <del>reveal</del> confuse the real situation.

Which is providing us with a lot of research money at the moment....

The trouble is....

...I have difficulty telling the difference between fraudulent mediums and your average politician....

I can't see...

...anyone making the obvious point.

That we are happy to pay the creators of music, films and the like. But we are NOT happy to pay middlemen who buy up the rights and then try to soak us for as much as possible.

When will Micky Mouse be out of copyright? All the creators of those early films are long dead. Why should someone be able to keep earing money from them?

Shurely Shome Mishtake...?

No one has mentioned climate change yet.

Could this be the first natural disaster NOT to be attributed to increased plant food?

Umm...

I am not a qualified pilot, but I can't help thinking that most of the comments above don't really address the major issue.

A lot of them say that Bonin should not have held the stick back and so Air France training must be faulty. I really can't believe that you can get onto the flight deck of any commercial passenger airline without a pretty clear idea of what to do in a stall. So I'm pretty sure that Bonin knew.

Though not a pilot, I am a well-qualified human being, with many years of living experience, and I think I recognise the major problem that affected Bonin. It's called 'digging a hole for yourself'. All humans experience it on occasions. What happens is that all your higher brain functions get put on hold, and you keep pursuing the one course that you are following. Usually with disastrous results, particularly if it happens during an interview (which is a very common place for me to experience it).

I think Bonin, spooked by his first experience of running into a tropical storm, reverted to a well-understood method of avoiding ground impact, pulling back on the stick. That was quite safe to do in 'normal law'. And there is no point talking about better UI or cleverer displays or better training at this point, because he was locked into this action. I suspect you could have slapped him and shouted in his face to let go of the stick, and he still wouldn't have. I know that when I'm ballsing up an interview like this I often know I'm going wrong, but it doesn't stop me carrying on regardless.

The only chance at that point was for someone to recognise what Bonin was doing. There was a possibility the Captain might have done - he was just starting to realise what was going on when they hit. So it is probably worth stopping having independent control movements with no signal between the control positions. But if you want to get to the root of the control problem here you will have to redesign the human brain....

What we need...

...are people who can solve the puzzle and NOT TALK ABOUT IT.

The first is no problem....

Dan Holdsworth is right ....

It really is quite straightforward.

Food is cheaper if it's created in bulk and then moved to where it's needed. If that was not true all the big farms just would not exist. In fact it's wider - any commercial items at all are best made on bulk.

So any tax on movement will have an impact of everything.

At any one time companies use the cheapest method of moving things. Including people. As we know, in many cases that equates to a truck. These are practically the only method of moving items in a country without a rich infrastructure. If you tax fuel you do not magically make money appear - the money comes from the extra price each customer pays cover the extra cost of moving things.

If this Professor really hates rich people, he should suggest taxing things only rich people do.

And so....

...what does all this guff mean?

Presumably....

...winning the case is not what SAS are after. What they are looking o do is tie World development down, and put them to the cost of defending a long court case.

Than you, Microsoft and SCO, you have added a new dimension to business competition....