Posts by Dave Bruce

Virtual assistant backlash imminent so buy them anyway

Re: Speech Recog is Dystopic

"talking to a PC for thirty minutes you realize that typing is a lot less effort"

Not necessarily so for those with pertinent disabilities, esp those who "train" their VR software.

Australia gets its site filter at LAST

"in spite of there being no scientific research that wind farm noise endangers health"

There's been a deal of research and a significant body of evidence produced on the effects of "wind farm noise" on health. See e.g. Dr Pierpoint's "Wind Turbine Syndrome" of 2009. You're entitled to criticise or dismiss that evidence but to suggest there isn't any hints of advocacy, not competent journalism, especially in a piece on a completely different topic.

Utilitybidder gets disconnected by developer

Jarndyce v Jarndyce

Speaking from personal experience, Tron's post is perhaps the most concise, the most articulate and the most accurate summary of the UK's two legal systems I've ever read. Each is worse than the other.

Many thanks.

The utilitybidder developer has learnt at least one thing from this sorry tale - possession is nine-tenths of the law. Whispering into a debtor's ear is soooo much more effective if you're twisting it at the same time.

Google and friends scheme offshore windmill army

Re: im sick of NIMBYs # ↑

"Well would you prefer barely being able to see some wind turbines off in the distance or a honking great bit nuclear plant down the road from your place."

And I'm sick of semi-literates banging on and on about energy issues they know nothing about.

Nuclear power supplies base load. (Look it up.)

Wind power cannot supply base load and cannot function without fossil-fueled backup either. You still need a "honking great bit nuclear plant" and/or coal- and gas-fired plants no matter how many windmills you build.

The nuclear vs wind power dichotomy is at once a mantra for the ignorant and a catchphrase of the vested interest. That's why so many politicians love it.

How I rebuilt Europe after the Berlin Wall collapsed

Labour Theory of Value

"Marx was correct: the value of an item was the value of the labour that had gone into its production. The first copy of a piece of software had all of the labour that had gone into specifying, writing, debugging and so on. So that first copy had a high value."

An amusing piece - but, with respect, you seem to be confusing Marx's notion of Value with that of Price.

As you suggest (It was actually illegal to sell it at any price higher than that.), it's a common mistake.

There's gold in green: profiting from climate change

Been there, done that . . .

An equally pernicious scandal has been running since 2002 - The Renewables Obligation, meant to encourage "clean, green" electricity generation. Set to cost consumers £1,000 million per year until 2025 (with government planning to extend it to 2035), it too is an artificial market.

The scheme is meant to enable Britain to "play its part" in "saving the planet" but there are no mechanisms for measuring whether emissions are actually being cut. No one really cares.

Advsors on the scheme were seconded to the (then) DTI by the wind-power industry, initally for two years but eventually for six, leaving only on retirement and with a gong.

Meanwhile, the same industry is paying members of Greenpeace and similar groups to discredit those who object in any way to wind-power construction projects. It makes the pharmcos look honest.

See e.g. page 19 of "Strange Bedfellows" (http://www.swap.org.uk/index.asp?pageid=86553)

Dave