* Posts by Peter Dawe

41 publicly visible posts • joined 17 May 2007

Amount of meat we eat will barely affect future climate change

Peter Dawe
Flame

Bacon sandwiches yes, Cucumber no!

Cucumbers have massive water use and very high carbon footprint, using heated greenhouses and cool-train logistics. In addition, the wastage rate is one of the highest in fresh food 9 especially in the kitchen).

More importantly, the cucumber has virtually no nutritional value.

Its the salad muchers that are wrecking the planet!!!

EU lurches behind copyright free-for-all landgrab

Peter Dawe
Mushroom

IP IS Theft

Personally I see more benefit from the wholesale removal of the PRIVILEGE of state sanctioned monopoly on ideas, art work etc.

Inventors of the Wheel, Mozart, Shakespeare etc all happened BEFORE IP was thought of.

Open source demonstrates that complex ideas can still develop in an IP free world.

Maybe some things will not get created, but the break on creativity that the current rules cause is in my opinion much greater!

Climate scientists see 'tipping point' ahead

Peter Dawe
Pint

Party While You Can

Even if we knew what to do and when, there is no political will to fix anything!

So the only two strategies that are rational are:-

1) Prepare for the worse

2) Party while you can

BTW, Have you a 6 month food store?

Most people spend £100s insuring their house for fire on a 1 in 100year probability

In the last 100 years there were two world wars... and rationing. And 6 months basic rations costs less than £200 ( Plus another £200 for the beer)

Only global poverty can save the planet, insists WWF - and the ESA!

Peter Dawe
Mushroom

Euro crisis solves Climate crisis

Merkel Hollande and co are killing growth in Europe, so I guess they will be lauded as the saviors of the world

New Apple keyboard patent may spell trouble for Android

Peter Dawe
Pirate

Intelectual property IS theft!

Yet another example of the abuse of IP law. It is now so out of control the only solution is to totally abandon patent and copyright. Musicians will have to work for more the a few hours in a studio to make millions, Big Patent holders will no longer hold innovation to ransom.

OK there may be problems with movies, but I would guess product placement will solve that!

And most blue sky work is taxpayer funded anyway.

Nature ISN'T fragile nor a bossy mother-in-law - top eco boffin

Peter Dawe

Conflageration of ideas

I hate it when "opinion formers" conflagerate independent ideas to make a false arguments.

Yes, many Greens are misanthropic

Yes, Nature is robust, as in some DNA based life forms will continue to inhabit earth for a very long time

Yes, degradation of habitats have impacts on society

Yes, mankind is having a major impact on the global eco-system

Put these together and you always get.... "And do as I say!"

This applies to all sides of all arguments!

IPv6 networking: Bad news for small biz

Peter Dawe
Pirate

The can-do engineers left IETF nearly 20 years ago!

AS one of the Internet (IPv4) pioneers, I had the privilege to work with the pragmatic engineers who deployed and evolved the Internet infrastructure over the first 10 year. By the end of the first 10 years, the IETF and other standards committees were becoming stuffed with "Goers" who's role was to push corporate self interest, rather than the community interest. Most of the "Doers" gave up and retired to do work away from these stuffed committees. (E.g. Vint Cerf went off to do Inter-planetary Internet, ). It is ever thus!

The non-deployment of IPv6 has been in the interests of the corporate ISPs as it meant they could sweat their assets until they lie totally exhausted. (This is still the case!).

The truth is all we needed was to extend the IPv4 address space by 8 bytes! Simple!! But then the network hardware companies wouldn't be able to require all the infrastructure to be replaced. Guess who sits on many of the IETF committees?

I really dislike companies that work against community interests, but I guess it is ever thus

Good Luck

Peter Dawe

Founder and ex CEO PIPEX

Extreme weather blown away from unexpected direction

Peter Dawe
Pint

Party while you can, Prepare for the worse

Friday..., Lunch..., Beer...

Greenland melt threshold lower than thought

Peter Dawe
Mushroom

Culls

If the Climate does result in the need for culls, the computer record (of this site) will show who were deniers. I'm sure they will be held culpable!

If there is no problem, then no cull.

So keep denying! We know who you are!

The true, tragic cost of British wind power

Peter Dawe
FAIL

Re: A note on sea level rises.

Sea level is rising because of the expansion of water as it warms.

This has been disguised at the moment as the melting FLOATing Ice is acting like a giant ice cube in ones G&T. Once the Arctic floating ice stops shrinking, the sea rises (a lot) faster.

As some who lives in the Cambridgeshire Fens the worry isn't the loss of the house, but 50% of UK food production (by value)!

Arctic freshening not due to ice melt after all, says NASA

Peter Dawe
Thumb Down

Not one, but another

NASA seems to be saying that the salinity issue is not one consequence of climate change ( Artic melt), but another (Changes in the Arctic oscillation ). Definitely not NASA saying the climate isn't changing!

BTW, stereo-typing those concerned about the future as "Hippies" is totally inappropriate. Hippies tend to consider the moment, rather than the future and are often not rational, and Those concerned about the future are certainly rarely Hippies. and many base their concerns on scientific evidence

Local TV pioneers sought by Ministry of Fun

Peter Dawe
FAIL

Red TV

I owned and ran Red TV on Cable in the East of England for several years. We were watched by more people than nickodeon, However, the ad sales never exceeded the costs of the sales people!!!!

More fun than owning a Football Club IMHO but Local TV is a toy for rich fools

Earth orbit for £1,000? You must be joking

Peter Dawe

More data for sums

"Low-Earth orbit – As the name implies, this is the lowest altitude a spacecraft must achieve to in order to orbit the Earth. This is around 520 km altitude and spacecraft in these orbits circle the Earth once every ninety minutes or so. " - ESA

Peter Dawe

FYI Balloon height max

www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804911,00.html

An unmanned "sounding balloon" has risen to 140000 feet (26½-miles), breaking the altitude record for any man-made object except rockets.

Peter Dawe
Go

Can someone do the sums please, re energy cost

Ken or someone

So 1 MegaJoule to get 10g to 10km/s for orbit, how much to potential energy is needed to get to a viable orbit height?

Then subtract 10,000m or whatever the maximum feasible balloon height and velocity of equator..

How much energy now?

Now add the mass of the propellant needed...

My physcs is too rust to do it myself

Peter Dawe

Rockoon

Hmm

Fill balloon with cheaper and more buoyant Hydrogen, not helium, then use the hydrogen to power a LASER to remotely heat the rocket propellant.

Note at high altitudes we get rid of defocusing atmosphere and attenuation of LASER

BTW as the balloon is reusable the cost is zero according to your reported rules.

ISP proposes independent body to police copyright

Peter Dawe

IWF the place to do this

Internet Watch already have the infrastructure to do this. Just double their subscription charges!

Peter Dawe, Founder IWF ( retired )

Fukushima update: No chance cooling fuel can breach vessels

Peter Dawe
Grenade

Lack of Power

I heard one Japanese commentator on a TV interview say that the problem was a lack of fuel( to power the back-up generators to power the cooling systems). I guess they expected to use the power from one of the other reactors to power the shutdown systems of a failing reactor. Or the fuel leaked

Nice to know if its the story

IWF chief steps down

Peter Dawe

Job Well Done

As founder of IWF, I'd like to say Peter Robins did an exceptional job. He'll be difficult to replace!

Peter Dawe

'Smear agricultural land with human poo'

Peter Dawe
Stop

Cucumbers are worse than beef

Once again the "Greens" attribute veggies as the saviors of the world. But Cucumbers and most other veg are as bad as beef. This is because only Grains, pulses and roots are "good". The extreme is Cucumbers these have a massive environmental footprint but have negligible nutritional value!

Don't let China hold rare-earths to ransom again

Peter Dawe

Blame our politicians

Our politicians are meant to keep us safe. Security of resources ( Energy, food, minerals etc) are part of that security. Why are we not holding them to account? There are significant deposits elsewhere. Let not blame the Chinese politicians for looking after their population, when our politicians fail us!

The Oregon survivalists have a point!

'Go veggie to save the planet' UN, EU plans debunked

Peter Dawe
Coat

Cucumber the real villian

When looking at CO2 emissions one also has to look at the value of the "food"

Cucumbers are an eco-disaster. They are grown using heated greenhouses, transported miles in cooled lorries for ABSOLUTELY NO nutritional value!

Even broccolli comes out no better than meat, in the land-use/energy use stakes. when looking at calories, and there is a lot of protein in meat!

Ban Salads I say

The New Noah

Tough on e-vehicles, tough on the causes of e-vehicles

Peter Dawe
Go

Need to rethink transport from base up

First one has to question whether there is a need to travel so much. E.g. I could do my work from village just as easy as from a town office,

Second, Have dedicated tracks, then high speed, congestion free, accident free automated driving for the majority of the journey

Third put a power rail on the track so you only need small batteries for the last few miles, have high speeds and unlimited range

Fourth, make the thing VERY SMALL, Almost the old Sinclair C5, but better!

Should be able to turn them out for less than £1,000 each! in volume

Being light the track can be very cheap, and it segregates the light cat away from heavy old stuff.

My calculation indicate efficiencies equivalent to 500miles to the gallon.

It solve congestion too as they take a fraction of the road space.

One or two passenger (Tandem style) will do, You still use the family car and old infrastructure for family trips etc.

Deploy on a commuter route by commuter route basis.

Solved!!!

UK.gov backs ISPs on charging content providers, throttling P2P

Peter Dawe
Thumb Down

Tiered Service - There goes any chance of fast broadband

How do you increase profitability when your customers use all your supply on a all-you-can-eat service? Simple,

1) lobby the government and persuade them to implement a two class system.

2) Set the charges for the higher system at a level where the level of users just maximises your revenues

3) Use the low uptake figure to prove that there is no demand for a high bandwidth service.

4) Take the extra money and don't invest!

This is how the X.25 data services were run, until PIPEX offered IP bandwidth at 1/10th the X.25 prices

I also learnt that trying to beat the major telco lobby at politics is impossible.

Peter

Dutch plan 'Energy Island'

Peter Dawe

Free energy

Sorry the author is wrong, the amount of energy out CAN exceed the energy in!

The Island is in a tidal sea so pumping at low tide and generating at high tide will generate more energy.

I know this 'cos my company is promoting the Wash Tidal Barrier to do similar things in the UK.

Peter Dawe, CEO

Wash Tidal Barrier Corp plc

Rebel Nominet director calls for the heads of Chairman and CEO

Peter Dawe
Pirate

Don't resign

As someone who has tried to get the unaccountable accountable in a number of public and charitable bodies. I ask that Mr Davies does not threaten to resign. This hands the 'bad guys' a full victory, where as staying allows you to fight another day.

That the board believe that a director is there to protect the interests of 'the company' and not its shareholders shows the depth of corruption of thought in the Nominet board.

Stick it to them!

Hadron boffins: Our meddling will not destroy universe

Peter Dawe
Stop

The Last Time

...but that it what the physicists said the last time a LHC was turned on...13.75 billion years ago

" The experiment takes us back closer to the conditions at the start of the universe..."

Logical error...

On empirical evidence, the conditions for the creation of universes has a 100% chance of being 'unique' in its universe.

Windfall taxing big oil: how to make the gas crisis worse

Peter Dawe
Paris Hilton

Sloppy reasoning, undignified name calling

While Windfall taxes may or may not be justified, this article totally fails to address the arguments in a logical and coherent manner. One of the taxes included in the article include license fees for the extraction oil. I'm sure the author isnt suggesting the end of property ownership! In addition, the issue of windfall taxes are to address a market failure problem, Big Oil is an oligarchy with the market power to manage markets. There are also able to use transfer pricing to move profits around the world, to take advantage of local tax rates.

To call people who consider that there has been a market failure and wish to readdress the failure names, simply emphasises the authors dogmatic position.

Better quality please

Paris? 'cos of her energy policy

Trousers Brown Counterpoint: Is Gordon right?

Peter Dawe
Unhappy

Food subsidies

Just to point out that the subsidies that go to EU farmers does not enrich them. It goes to cheaper food prices and higher profits to the agrichemical business.

Typical return on capital of a farm in the UK is MINUS 5-10% for the last 7 years!

When the Kiwis removed subsidies farmers made just the same money!

Trousers Brown: Blighty faces 'food security' threat

Peter Dawe
Flame

Hypocracy

This is the same government that refuses to allow ploughing of the whole field because we might kill some bugs,

That announced that agriculture was not a strategic industry less than 12 months ago.

That stop me using the best chemicals because they are out of patent and no one will pay for the testing,

That sacrifice hectares of land to the sea because they cant be bothered to rebuild the defences,

That drown square kilometers of grade one agricultural land Cambridgeshire so that a few birds get a comfy roost,

That today refuses to cull badgers to save dairy herds because of 'cultural issues'.

That supports increasing the UK population by allowing limitless immigration That supports fertility treatment for people for whom nature determines shouldn't reproduce

Are the ice caps melting?

Peter Dawe
Paris Hilton

Rational Behavior

Case A The world is going to pot - rational response - Party

Case B, Everything is OK - rational response - Party

Whats the problem:)

...who likes a party?

Research: Wind power pricier, emits more CO2 than thought

Peter Dawe
Dead Vulture

Tidal

The problem with tidal is that it effects the lifestyle of a few sea birds and mammals a little. And God help anyone with the audacity to suggest that the effect on man's life style is of any importance!

Peter Dawe

CEO, The Wash Tidal Barrier Corporation plc

Yes really!

Peter Dawe
Alert

No one has ever proposed a single technology solution!

To look at any type of power in isolation is purely an academic exercise.

Similarly, nuclear generation makes electricity at a constant rate - Say 1GW. But the UK load varies by hour, by day and by season.

We (will) have: Wind, Tide, nuclear, hydro, storage and chemical thermal (Gas, Oil, Coal and biomass)

We can also to some extent vary the load, both by efficiency and by timing use. They all have advantages, costs and limitations. It is the mix that provides the solution.

The tragedy is that this type of report undermines a good technology that can make a major contribution!

Noah

Gas crunch: Jatropha, kudzu, algae and magic to rescue

Peter Dawe
Unhappy

Numbers PLEASE

We use around 88million barrels of oil p.a.

.

How many square miles of weeds, solar thermal or other?

How many m3 of water

How many $m invested

What proportion of key non-sustainable minerals needed

per million barrels p.a. of course.

Then we can see if the proponents or the detractors are fanticists!

Peter

Biofuel backlash prompts Brussels back-pedal

Peter Dawe
Unhappy

EU Farms not lobbying for ethanol!

Please note that it is the processing industries, e.g. sugar, who have lobbied for ethanol quotas NOT farmers!

And don't blame farmers for the high prices, we're fined if we crop all our land! because of the EU's mad Common Agricultural Policy (madCAP tm)

The sooner politicians get out of detailed agricultural policy the better!

An arable farmer

Terrorist robots dissected - anatomy of a scare

Peter Dawe
Pirate

Hand yourself in at the nearest police station

Hi,

You have published information likely to be useful to a terrorist.

This is illegal!

Please hand yourself in at the nearest police station

Die for Gaia, save the planet?

Peter Dawe
Pirate

Rich because we don't have kids

Can I suggest a reversal of the causal relationship between affluence and fertility? Surely we have less kids to spend more on ourselves!

Generally, new immigrants don't learn this until the second generation

In rural communities, large families are there to do the hard work so Dad can drink beer all day.

All the people I know talk about 'affording' children.

BBC to put shows on iTunes 'next week'

Peter Dawe
Jobs Horns

Free TV on iPhone, why pay Apple?

Digital Video Recorders such as the Babel.TV can now transcode programmes to display on iPhone and post them as podcasts, to be picked up the next time the iPhone is synchronised to your personal iTunes server.

For personal use this is free and not illegal!!!

With a 750Gb HD drives being able to store 1,000s of hours of iPhone quality TV, costing less than £100 why will people pay £1s per episode to download via iTunes etc?

Peter

Freeview lobby cries foul on Ofcom HDTV plans

Peter Dawe
Thumb Down

wasted bandwidth

If bandwidth is Sooo short, why is it wasted with xxx+1 channels?

Just how many people do not have a tv recorder these days?

Public internet threatened by private telcos

Peter Dawe

Basic economics lesson needed by telcos

Commodiity products and services are governed by the simple supply and demand laws of economics. There are no super profits on commodities. Where a service has unique properties the supplier can enjoy some monopoly excess profits. As any Economics major.

This is like a salt manufacturer complaining that Egon Ronay make all the profit from his salt!

The pity is politician often fall for this special pleading!

NASA blows whistle on Antarctic Y2K (+5) meltdown

Peter Dawe

What Global Warming?

This article is merely refering to a factual observation, why are there 4 denials of global warming?

Is someone feeling guilty?