Greenpeace: Hypocritical, Self Obsessed Piss-Artists

What are they doing now? Terrorizing research scientists? Sinking oil-laden Japanese trawlers?

No

Something FAR surpassing previous levels of hypocrisy. It seems a small strip of England has been torn out, and replaced with….well, nothing. No kind of society I recognise. The place: Heathrow’s fringes. Reason: Campaigning against airport expansion.

My response: Target American car manufacturers, you clan of feckless halfwits.

• Public Transportation in America is in the dark ages
• The average litreage of the American car is the highest in the world
• Public transportation patronage is the world’s lowest

Heathrow airport expansion IS A GOOD THING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. Per passenger, per mile, the average aircraft (lets say a moderately loaded B744), uses about the same amount of fuel as a family car. If you’ve ever personally flown around Heathrow, especially in a light aircraft, you’ll understand how many aircraft are up there.

Let’s assume each airliner is carrying 200 passengers, and that the final approach holds 10 aircraft. We’ll also assume there are an additional 30 in various holding stacks and outer approaches. We’re talking about 8,000 flying over the Southeast, waiting to land.

Flying into Heathrow is like trying to tramp a bus through Manila at rush hour. For the time being, let’s assume the time is 10am. Heathrow, uncharacteristically, is running on time for all flights. We have 9R open, which is handling flights nicely.

A 737 coming in from Dublin touches down, and blows a tyre. The recognisable sudden stop, and blue cloud of smoke sends pilots miles back, right back into the air. Ten aircraft have gone from a fairly idle state, to pushing N1 to 70-80%, as they climb back up for the missed approach. ATC chatter squabbles as co-pilots vie for airtime.

Now those 40 aircraft have cancelled approaches while either: 9L is opened (closed because of people living there moaning about noise), or, a tow truck and fleet of bendies picks their way across the field to rescue the stricken 737. All in all, we’ll say this has added a 20 minute delay, overall.

So what we have, from that, are 8,000 people, flying for an extra 20 minutes. The math = A 747-400 is using about 10,000kg of fuel per hour (rough figures here). Divide that by five to get 20 minutes = 2,000kg. Multiply that by 40 = you get 80,000kgs. That’s 80 metric tons of fuel, for that delay.

80 tons of fuel for that delay

Now, I’m not saying aviation is a big player in global carbon emissions. In fact, aviation contributes just 2% of all carbon emissions. However, it is the hypocrisy of campaigners I’m answering today. For a start – campaigning against a marginal carbon contributor, and secondly, they’re campaigning against something which can reduce excessive fuel consumption.

The figures I’ve used are rough, and my maths skills are shocking, so 80 tons may not be accurate. It is however, indicative, and not far off the mark. That’s just a single 20 minute delay. Imagine delays of up to an hour, several times a month?

One response from the government has been to build a massive airport in the Thames Estuary. This will hold off congestion, reduce noise pollution considerably, and open up the land used by London airports. However, this is quite an unattainable project – given the necessary transport links needed. A whole new branch of motorway would need to be created, and despite the obvious environmental and social gains of closing Heathrow, and other London airports – this project would receive stiff resistance (from the same people opposing traffic at current airport sites).

 

From the perspective of someone who has fingers in the aviation pie: Forcibly purchase land immediately surrounding Heathrow, and move residents to a new, (and nice) housing development in the Thames regeneration area. Then, use the relinquished land to allow simultaneous use of parallel runways. In addition, airport facilities can be moved there, to allow more room for terminals, and thus prevent queuing for a parking spot. Or, do as they did in Tokyo – an airport is needed. Fuck off, if you don’t like it – kill yourself.

ABOUT TIME!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7582197.stm

Apple’s adverts are 90% bullshit. Take this example, you see ‘webpages’ (hmm) loading almost instantaneously, you see the images being rendered very quickly and smoothly. Firstly, my computer would have trouble trying to keep up with that. Secondly, 3G is slow. My 8MB connection cannot run that fast.

To be honest, Apple’s propaganda is 80% of the reason why I hate them so much.

That, and 10% coming from their users being mainly twats, and the other 10% down to their inferior software.

To be honest, I cannot really even begin to be bothered to comment on this overrated, overpriced, oversexed phone. This is what happens when you give technology to the technologically ignorant.

Green Credentials? Road Pricing?

I thought it is about time I lent my opinion on road pricing.

For the blissfully ignorant, the government is hiding behind their supposed “Green Credentials”, in order to milk some more money out of the massive cash cow that is the Great British Travelling Public. Well….more specifically car owners.

Now, yes, I use public transportation as-and-when I can. BUT, I have a driving license. I used to own a car, but now, I don’t. Mainly because of cost. To cut a long rant short, an OAP moaned about a lapse of judgement resulting in a DENTED BUMPER OUTSIDE SAINSBURY’S, and as such I have points and a colossal 3k insurance premium. Sod that.

For now, I use public transport, and hire a car out for awkward journeys.

But anyway, back to topic.

Road Pricing

Road pricing is going to a more American (wtf) thesis of paying per mile driven. In their deluded minds, the government believes we will all sell our cars, get on the bus and have sex with a tree. Of course. I’m all for getting people on the bus (as it were), however this is simply ridiculous…almost abhorrent.

There is a disturbing practice among large companies, and especially the government, to kick the shit out of our bank account, then point at a picture of a globe and say IT’S FOR THE PLANET.

If, for example, I lived in London – I would CHOOSE not to own a car. London enjoys the safest, and one of the most comprehensive metropolitan transit network on the globe. No other city can compete in terms of moving people en masse. There is no need to own a car in London.

However, the whole country is not London.

I live in Somerset… now, here – it’s difficult to GET BY without a car. Many journeys calculated online instruct me to return home before I have left. For example, to get to Weymouth, I take 4 connecting local buses or 2 buses and 2 trains, both at 4 hours. If I leave on the first possible journey at 9am I have to set off home from Weymouth at 11am. Additionally, on average, journeys I make are far longer than an urbanites.

So tell me, how does road pricing work in this respect?

It’s the cities which suffer congestion and pollution issues, yet it’s them who will get the better deal should road pricing come in. Just to get into town for me is a 30 minute (£5) bus journey or a 20 minute drive. Imagine that everyday of the week getting to work and back. The average Londoner can still sit in their 4×4 in a traffic jam and get taxed far less than myself in a fucking Vauxhall Astra.

My Solution

For all the effort and adminstration, battling with the public and cutting through red tape, the government can perform my ideal solution to the issue.

We have the computing power to be able to represent the city of London, in its entirity, in 3D, and create 3D ‘no build zones’, to preserve the skyline. We have the computing power to enable any person to request instant advice on possible public transportation journeys from A to B. We know where everyone lives, who has a car, and where everyone works.

My point: Dedicate a large computer system to generate the Great British Commute, and cross reference with our public transportation information. Then, send out letters to commuters, informing them that they are killing the planet and can get to work in x minutes via methods a b and c. Possibly even work out what areas benefit most from public transportation ridership and hand out subsidies as necessary.

Secondly, we need to keep road tax, but introduce postcode based tax pricing. Reading to London commuters get hit harder on tax, say, an additional £100 a year, where people in the country receive an equal share of the net gains from the increases. Couple increased tax with cheaper public transportation and higher awareness, there’s no reason why car commuting would drop.

BUT WHATEVER YOU DO MR BROWN/CAMERON (lol), DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, INCREASE FUEL DUTY!! IT IS MAKING THINGS FAR WORSE!

I would not be surprised if Britain’s impoverished stance is inflamed by fuel tax.

Save The Fucking Planet!

Giving out free cavity wall insulation – good

Giving out free energy saving lightbulbs – good

Making it impossible to dispose of waste – BAD!

This is just a general attitude of the government at the moment – “make it as hard as possible for people to harm the planet, and they won’t, we can then all live in a Utopian world full of love and happiness”. I’m talking trash again – give people a tiny little black bin, enforce ridiculously tough rules, fine people who overfill bins, create a painfully complex recycling system, and suddenly…NO MORE LANDFILL

Yeah, right!

What you make instead, is a country where people hoard rubbish in their kitchens, vacuum pack their bins, and battle with maggots on the doorstep. Hardly a green world.

Of course I have an opinion for everything.

Create a seperate tax bracket with local councils for ‘community cleanliness’, applied to everyone in the country. Money collected would offset general taxation, so it’s not ANOTHER thing to add onto the monthly outgoings. Now, under that, would be ‘waste collection’, which everyone pays. Everyone also gets the option to have that slashed – provided they recycle x% of their total waste output. Granted, it means the binmen have to weigh everyones recycle bins and write it down, to be sent to the council offices for number crunching (but bin men do NOTHING these days, and council administrators are underworked and overpaid).

They have the wrong attitude:

IF YOU DO NOT LOVE THE PLANET WE WILL CRUSH YOU! (Never gets a good reception)

As opposed to:

Help us keep the place clean, and you will see the benefits (Same result, better reception, and better effectiveness)

Guess What Windows Doesn’t Want To Do?

Open Control Panel > Windows Update

Just sits there…hanging, as if it knows I am aiming for ’switch off Windows Update’. Bastard thing.

First Abandons Wheelchair-Bound Man at Exeter Bus Station

It was in the local paper this week (Well….was discarded on the side in the kitchen so I assume it’s this weeks), that a stroke victim was stranded at Exeter Bus Station for the region of two hours.

I myself, have been trapped in that 60’s Brutalist throwback (Of course, I am not a fan of the Brutalist style, not least when it’s done on the cheap) for 3 hours after poor little Dart broke down somewhere in Exeter. This became apparent after a woman passed the 92 stand and asked: “Are you waiting for the 92 to Wellington? I have just got off it, it has broken down”.

This was after some 90 minutes of waiting, wondering, hoping, freezing (tits off), with the effects of food poisoning in full swing. Migraine, crippling abdominal pain, chronic fatigue, general shitty-tiredness, the feeling of impending death – what I didn’t have was the patience for First’s flimsy excuses.

Now, far be it for First to have a representative at Exeter Bus Station (which is Stagecoach dominated), or even for there to be a bus available to lease – we had to wait for the next. If I had known this I would have trudged back down the hill to the train station and handed over my life savings to get to Taunton.

Some 3 hours after arriving at Exeter Bus Station the familiar sound of the struggling Cummins diesel echoes through the station (filled with shiny new Tridents and Enviros). Poor little Dart squeaks to a stop and is immediately swamped by agitated travellers. We were beyond caring, so the driver got off lightly.

Anyway, I digress. My point is that I understand the agonising ignorance, the foot-numbing cold, the irritation at *those* chavs who insist on breaking every rule of de corum the English gent has so painstakingly constructed. And all this for a stroke victim… cannot be nice.

So why was this gentleman left waiting at EBS? Driver shortage? Traffic issues? Driver annihiliated by the Borg? No.

First had decided (in their unlimited wisdom), that they shall run the 92 Taunton to Exeter service with a high floor bus. The paper did not mention *which* bus, however, I am willing to hazard a guess that they ran it with one of their more ‘upmarket’ President deckers. The 92 is a heavy volume route, probably the busiest out of Taunton – linking Somerset with Exeter, for those who are too fucking stingy to get on a train.

This decker, despite being one of First’s newest buses on the fleet, has one of those central handrails in the doorway, and a few steps. Once you get inside, there are wheelchair spaces. But WHAT THE FUCK is the point if the disabled passenger can’t get on in the first bloody place? Remove the handrail, and have a ramp available to get the wheelchair to the platform. I know this is a DESIGN flaw but First BOUGHT it.

Additionally, the 92 is not a frequent service. It can be forgiven if a 15 minute regular service had the odd high floor bus – just a short wait for the next. However, you’d think that they would make absolutely sure everybody can get on the bus.

The regular buses on routes 22, 22A, 92 and 92A are ALX300 bodies Dennis Darts, as shown here:

They feature: An adequately sized engine, a decent seating capacity, kneeling capability (the air in the front suspension can be blown out to put the passenger door on the ground), and have no steps inside (apart from the back). They have 2 ample wheelchair spaces, 2 flip down seats and 4 seats with a lot of legroom. Apart from the obvious issue of a lesser capacity, WHY run a bus without these features? I’ve seen the 92 run with this bus 90% of the time, and apart from about 5 or 6 standing passengers, everyone gets a seat.

Probably due to passenger complaints about having to stand (OH the horror!), a disabled passenger was left without transport. Infact, the paper mentions he was driven home, with his wheelchair delivered the next day. I’m hazarding a guess that a Stagecoach employee did this of his own accord.

Just one criticism to the passenger: Apparently he was extremely pissed off. Well, you would be, but it can’t have been the drivers fault that he was given the keys to a bus which wouldn’t be able to carry someone from the fraction of a percent of the travelling public (out of Taunton anyway).

So I say to Stagecoach:

Without competition, you’ve created a top rate service in Devon – a fleet of modern buses on comprehensive routes and regular services. How about creating a little competition up here? How about showing first what a limited stop service actually IS? Or even what a new bus looks like?

Windows Update

If it’s not bringing a game to it’s knees (and then forcibly minimizing it to tell me I need to restart), it’s tying up my internet connection by downloading crap EVERY OTHER FUCKING DAY.

Why the hell do I need to download Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool when I have a bank of other antivirus/antimalware/antispyware etc on here?

Felt sleepy after work so left laptop on then went to sleep, expecting a message from someone, and so that I could see who had been talking to me that day.

No.

Windows Update had clearly decided to ‘help’ and ‘protect’ me by restarting the computer ‘for me’. Woke the computer up and it was locked. hmm. Logged in, nothing on the screen, apart from WINDOWS UPDATE INSTALLED NEW UPDATES, with that patronising green tick. Like when the dog is staring at you, sat next to a massive turd it has just laid in your living room.

If anyone even thinks of mentioning ‘mac’, I will find out where you live, and dig out your eyes with a toothpick.