Posts by Phil Parker

Shops are dead

The truth is that every person shops on price alone. Secialist shops in the UK at least will always struggle - on-line retailers will beat them on price 100% of the time due to lower overheads. I know plenty of people who would happily take a punt on an item without research rather than spend a fiver more to go an try the product and buy in-store.

In other news - the same people are moaning 'cos high streets are dying out.

Two words: Christopher Jefferies

Convicted by the media of murdering Joanna Yeates. Except it wasn't him, Vincent Tabak confessed to manslaughter and will be tried next month.

Was this designed at Peenemünde ?

Is it just me, or when you see this thing on its launcher, does it look like a V1 flying bomb ?

Top stuff though. Makes me wish I'd been clever enough for university.

What's more important ?

The trouble is the bloke who will be responsible for answering the FOI question and the the bloke responsible for calling out the gritters will probably be the same person - it was in the one I worked for. I suppose you can argue that entertaining the TPA is more important...

The main problem is that the gritter guy has to look at the big picture. If he needs grit at one end of the county then the lorries leave the depot and start gritting where required. This then leads to complaints (see above) that they aren't gritting. Of course not, they would use it all up within a few miles of the depot.

Also, as other posters have pointed out , the stuff only works in certain ways and at certain temps. From the reporting in the media you'd think they were sprinkling fairy dust such is the expectation.

Genius for the business

So you get a nice new job and the first thing the company says is, "You have to supply your own computer. Our IT department says the minimum spec is..." and you find that to cover their backsides they have over-spec'd the requirements and you're into a couple of grands worth of new machine.

And when it breaks down the IT guys deem it to be your problem not theirs as it's your PC.

Sounds like a great ploy if you are an accountant. Not so great if you a grunt.

e-mail

Anyone who doesn't stick the hyphen in e-mail should have an A-bomb dropped on them.

Blurry old plates

The aluminium on black plate on VW camper is blurred out OK so the algorithm must work a bit.

Hello Mr Chinaman, we are handing space to you.

Truth is that NO Western government can do space stuf anymore. They can't do long term (over 3 month) planning anymore because either the media start moaning nothing is happening for the money, or the fianancial world goes into meltdown and pisses it all away.

Also, we are so risk averse that they panic when someone gets hurt. Look at Apollo 1 - 3 deaths and yet they were launching again the next year. One lost Shuttle and they ground the fleet for 3. There are brave people out there who accept the risks are higher than driving (1200 deaths a year) and it's they who get things done. Good grief, there are even people happy to sign up for one-way trips to Mars yet we can't let them do this despite it saving half the budget for the jaunt, because we are scared of the lawyers.

The only people who can do this now are the Chinese. We might as well nail the doors up on Nasa's big shed.

Traffic police a good idea ?

On the face of it yes. When you get pulled over and fined by a bored copper because you forgot to indicated on a left hand turn, perhaps less so.

Be careful what you wish for...

Priorities ?

"But with the Cold War over and done with, attention turns more to home matters and instability back home, not to mention discontent over such things as health care and banking troubles. For many people, a Mars mission in this day and age would be like sending out for some milk and eggs while the living room carpet's smouldering. Priorities, man, priorities."

Well, we've not been to the moon for many years and yet we still have poverty, starvation and corrupt/incompetant bankers. Does anyone really beleive that if we don't do space then the money will be put into making like better & fairer for the rest of the world ? Of course not, it will be wasted on something else. At least with moon shots you feel that the human race is advancing in some way.

A bit of history

Compuserve was best known in the UK fo putting CD's on the front of pretty much every computer magazine in the 1980's. I remember hooking up the company laptop (Toshiba 386 model) to the web using a fax modem and surfing in glorious black & white !

Why not try it ?

I'm one of those people who actually like travelling by train - no hasstle, reading a book, listening to music and eating nice cake. Of course this refers to off-peak leisure travel not a commute which is often nasty (thanks John Major and all the right wingers who followed the great grey railway smasher). Every so often someone comes up with one of these trips and I wonder if you could actually do it ?

Imagine the face of the ticket collector when you point out that this IS the approved route !

re:@Chris

"There is no excuse for still running passenger services without any such technology and I would refuse to travel on any system which didn't have it fitted."

So you don't get in one of those nasty motor cars which can drive towards each other at a closing speed of 120mph (if neither is speeding) with only a painted white line to seperate them ? At least the tram driver doesn't have to steer. Mind you, as others have said, he still has to interact with road traffic so the automation process can't solve everything.

We can't do it

No Western government can do a project of this magnatude any more. After a week the press (some of whom can't even run a dancing competition) demand to know what has happened and why there aren't results NOW. Politicians get scared and start interfering then it all goes wrong as mission creep kicks in big time.

Only the Chinese can get to the moon.

Excellent idea.

It takes me back to the good old days when a basic knowledge of HTML was enough to make you a web guru and if you could put a animated gif together then you were teh God of Interweb.

Seriously though - haven't we lost something now all sites look the same. After all, they wern't all crap were they ?

Permission ?

AC said "When tv is filming they have to get permission from the people, or put up clear signs that filming is in progress, so that people who do not want to be filmed have the chance to consent or not. " - Really ? I've seen plenty of news camera crews out and about (used to work opposite a crown court) and never seen a sign warning about being filmed. They just use people in the street as background colour.

He/she also said: "There should at the very least have been clear dates published for when Google would be snapping their photos in each city. There is absolutely no special effort involved to do that." - So sending a letter to everyone who lives or simply could appear in the city is no effort ? At the very least you would need to heavily poster the area with this information, or do you think a special page on Google people could visit to look the details up would be enough ? Of course if you did this every Big Brother wannabee and idiot with a placard would then decend on the area to try and get themselves photographed.

Sorry, if you are embarased about spweing in the street, being photographed is the least that should happen to you.

It's a good idea that will never happen.

At present if you shop in a supermarket you are subsidising all those buying any alcohol being sold for less than the cost price. Simply stopping this, which is effectivly what is being suggested, cannot be a bad thing.

A happy side effect would be reducing the price differential between Tesco and pubs. The later wouldn't shed customers to "home binging". Just look at the numbers head into town at 10:30 or later in the evening having tanked up at home.

But I'd imagine the boss of Tesco has already been on the 'phone to Gorden a told him that this is a bad idea. GB has capitulated imediatly 'cos he's a waste of space.

Get Gerry Anderson on the job

As someone has said already. Gerry Anderson already has all the designs they need for this stuff. Can anyone suggest a more practial design than the Eagle and all the rest of the Space 1999 hardware ?

Good idea

I'm liking this idea. Now all we need is a Dalek family to move into Albert Square and I would start watching Eastenders...

Lifetime driving bans...

...are a good idea. It would force the middle classes on to public transport. Then perhaps the government would do something practical to improve it.

Seriously though, why is driving sen as a right not a priveledge ? That attitue is why this driver was allowed to kill someone and be back on the road in three years. It's almost as though banning them from behind the wheel is seen as more draconian than prison.

It's a good idea

Seriously - most people have no idea how much power different devices use. They probably don't bother to read the 'leccy bill properly as you don't really have a choice about paying it. I bet few have any idea what is making the numbers go up.

The most scientific solution is a visable meter in the living room but only geeks will want this and your avaerage punter won't understand the numbers. The flower works because it's simple to understand and people will get an emotional attachment to it. They will be proud to see it blooming. And when they switch the spin drier on will want to fill it so the flower recovers quickly rather than use lots of half-loads.

As a method of expaling the connection between cause (using power) and effect (higher bills/global warming) to the masses, this is brilliant.

There are good things too...

Anonymous - "Personally, I don't like the ban/tax/fine attitude this country has to solve all of life's problems. Whatever happened to education?" - there's no point. People in the UK don't believe a law applies unless they stand an 90% chance of being caught.

Anyway, while I firmly believe we don't dish out enough lifetime driving bans (think how public transport would improve if more middle class people were forced on to the bus) in this case can we wait a bit ?

You see I need a new rear bumper for my VW van. My plan is to keep an eye on my mirror in traffic, find someone on the phone and brake sharply. The someone will be a small, lone driver who will find a very angry 6foot 2 fat man screaming at them and dragging them out of the car. A deal will then be offered - give me £100 for a new bumper or we can talk to the Police, who will be told to request the appropriate mobile records.

So the idiot will be presented with a get out of jail card OR a chat with a copper who has been presented with an easy collar to improve his detection record.

In fact I wonder if it would be possible to restore a car by a series of in town bumps...

Spotted in Leamington Spa...

...on Thursday. No pic I'm afraid.

My mate Tim is anoyed because Google is barging in on his patch. All the time spent setting up this: http://ccgi.newsnet.force9.co.uk/vleam/showpage.php - will be wasted as everyone will go to the evil Google ! They wouldn't like it if he set up his own search engine would they ?

Voting rights

Look, if someone can't be bothered to get thier backside down to the polling station and write on a bit of paper then who cares what thay think ? No e-voting via mobile, or prizes required, just an acceptance that if you don't vote you don't get an opinion.

And you don't abstain by not going - that's no better than not turning up 'cos you don't want to miss Eastenders. A spoilt paper (not possible with e-voting) is an abstenstion.

It's not new

I have one of these in the loft designed for SLR cameras. It was at least 10 years old when I bought it a decade ago...