Posts by Tim Lennon

Amazon defies French courts over shipping costs

"Hardly a level playing field" - what online vs. bricks?

Steve, stores don't have to charge for delivery because the customer can go there to pick it up. When did you last visit an Amazon store to pick up your book? Amazon are welcome to bundle delivery cost with the book, but it seems pretty clear - you can't do anything to discount beyond 5%.

While some might consider the basic law anti-competitive, it has the benefit of making sure that towns actually *have* bookshops. As Fraser observes, the French have made their decision, and whenever I visit France (I used to live there, too) I do think that they might have some things right.

The fact that they don't do things our way doesn't *always* mean they've got it wrong ... even though they get it wrong quite enough without our help.

UK nuke-power plans leak early

Just a bit of business ....

We've clearly established that nuclear power is not economic in the UK (since if it were, the generating companies would have been queuing up), and that's why the Government needs to subsidise the blasted stuff.

However, like a lot of people, I'm really not that convinced by the argument that we should simply be splurging cash on more plants that nobody wants to live anywhere near. Whilst no-one's done a very good job of making the case for non-nuclear, non-coal, non-oil, non-gas generation, that doesn't of itself make a case for nuclear.

Chronos veers between being interesting and compelling, and purely misanthropic: most environmentalists aren't queuing up for the burning coal and wood at home argument (in fact I'm not sure I've heard that one from the environmental lobby at all), but they do believe that we can do better than just accepting that there's nothing anyone can do except build more nuclear capacity.

(Sigh) Still, anyone got an update on how the Swedes are doing with their commitment to get renewable and not use nuclear power?