How can a mere mortal give back to the empegbbs user knowledgebase?

Often, I think of questions that I know you all will have answers to. But what do you call a community member who always takes and doesn't give back?

Sometimes, I'll see a question that I hope to answer (ie: about Microsoft Office), but it already has multiple good replies. Curses, foiled again.

Does anyone else feel this way? Haha, help us to help you. Thanks everyone!

I think posting questions is giving to the community. We come here to have discussions and share information so if no one asked a question to start a discussion it would not be a very good bbs.

I must say I always feel a little guilty posting questions. I can't think of a single example where I've been able to give good solid advice.

Does noone here have ambitions to plant an orchard or grow veg (or anything else I might know something about)???

As a top question-poster, I can say that I frequently feel guilty that I can't contribute much in the way of answers to others' questions. I know I've been able to offer genuine assistance a few times, but the number of times that's happened compared to the number of times I've received brilliant assistance from the other folks here is very small.

So, in case I don't thank you good people enough in the many threads of questions I've started, I big thank you goes out to you all.

Those who answer the questions usually do so because they enjoy it, so don't feel guilty.

Not when I'm only a 5 minute walk to the local farmer's market...

Nobody is keeping a tally anyway so just answer if/when you can. Its all good.

You guys are the best.

I do but not until next year I think it's too late to plant anything outside.

It's never too late, and right now is a good time to be ordering fruit and nut trees. Do you know what USDA hardiness zone you're in?

I guess OR means Oregon, I know there are loads of great orchards round there but it's not the same, they'll never be able to sell the ripest possible fruit. If you have room in your garden grow a couple of fruit trees, maybe a Jefferson gage and something that'll pollinate it. If you get the Jefferson at just the right moment, warm from the sun, it'll be just about the best thing you've ever eaten.

tahir, maybe you can explain the label I saw on a watermelon recently. It stated "Fertilized with Honey". Am I to assume someone is out there pouring honey on watermelon plants?

I've heard of people putting vodka into watermelons, never honey. By either definition of fertilisation (pollination or nutrition) I've no idea what that would mean.

I just googled it out of curiosity and found this forum thread-
http://www.gardenbanter.co.uk/showthread.php?p=247471
Some interesting angles on honey/sugar as plant food.

I also found this info about bee poop!

Interesting, seems to refer to orchids though which aren't even remotely similar to watermelons

Sure it didn't say fertilized BY Honey?

http://www.harvestmoonranch.net/Honey.html

Now that would be interesting

What I find more amazing about this bbs than the seeming never ending pit of knowledge it contains is how we can take a perfectly normal topic like the start of this one, and turn it into something to do with watermelon and honey. Now that really is genius

I gave up long ago trying to answer any question, I just sit back and enjoy being part of this community even though the numbers do seem to be getting a little thin these days

Three cheers to us!!!!

Cris.

I do worry about that sometimes. This community isn't exactly based around a growing subject matter...

As others have said, participate how you can. It's about community, and not exact tracking with question and answer quotas.

I enjoy my time here, and I hope others do as well. I also don't mind hosting the site, as it's remained a great place to visit for over 10 years now.

Perhaps we need to take the same hint as newspapers. If they want to stop atrophying subscribers and get some new blood, they must give out Amazon Kindles. So maybe we should give out empegs, or some software emulated version?

Wait for it....

The empeg iPhone app.

New thread started

The Ipod/Iphone is a really nice bit of hardware; it's about time somebody wrote a music player for it.

Peter

I'm doing my part. I gave my spare empeg to a friend and even installed it in his Jeep. I know he's seen the bbs, but he's still in lurker mode...

He's loving the empeg.

I guess I'm a bit odd, never owned an empeg but just loved the whole idea and the people behind it seemed pretty cool too, started visiting the boards as soon as I became aware of their existence. Had my name down for a Mk I and a Slimp3 at the same time, I ended up going for the Slimp3 and a really dodgy brick of a portable mp3player (Neo???). Never like the Rio branding on later versions. Think I joined just before I bought my first Karma which, now that Peter's brought it up, is still a way better player than the iPod.

Why is it that companies that really know what they're doing on the product (robust, lightweight apps) like Psion and Empeg fail but Apple and MS with their huge bloated apps succeed?

Marketing.

Is that money to spend on, or an understanding of?

Both.

pca

So why are we such good innovators and poor marketers? And why has government after government failed to address this?

If, as I assume, you're talking about the UK, I think you may be pointing to the problem in your comment.

Why should the government be responsible for addressing a deficiency in a company's marketing department? The UK is practically a giant island-based police state and penal colony already. Increasing the reliance or expectations of the nanny state isn't going to make matters any better.

Besides, neither Rio nor Sonic Blue were UK based, and ultimately they let the ball drop, not the engineers who came up with the goods.

I honestly thought he was joking.

Ditto.

I conveniently forgot that

No I'm not joking. I believe we in the UK usually fail in extracting maximum value from our IP, it's kind of endemic, pointing maybe to the way that we run our educational and research institutes. At least part of it must be the educational system, that's why I think government needs to be involved. This is something that applies across all industries in the UK.

I visited our most famous fruit/tree research organisation last year, they were in pretty bad financial shape (have subsequently got rid of loads of people and now merged with another institute) the leader of the broadleaf timber development programme told us about their successful introduction of Europe's first cherry bred for timber, I asked what royalties were being generated, they said they didn't charge any on it. As far as I know there is no longer any public sector research into new orchard varieties in the UK, by contrast WSU in particular and a few other US institutes are investing heavily, but then they're good at exploiting their IP commercially.

Thanks for the vote of confidence

Didn't notice that bit, do you read the Daily Mail hybrid8?

Hey, come on, it's Bruno, who actually listens to the vast majority of what he says?

Or to something cultural. I think there's something ingrained in Britain that's very similar to the Swedish idea of lagom; this pitched-as-comedy but actually very insightful psychological analysis calls it cosiness, but I think it's talking about the same thing. A lot of British people get genuinely embarrassed at the idea of being very notably good at something.


That particular issue -- applying IP laws to living organisms -- is contentious in its own right, though; perhaps even in the US. Even if information doesn't necessarily want to be free, trees do. The only places where this very splendid work strikes a wrong note to me, are the ones where the author describes the patenting in industrialised countries, of drugs derived from traditional rainforest medicines, as "exploitation" but implies that it's not the patenting itself that's wrong, but that the patents aren't owned by the forest tribespeople.

Peter

Contentious it may be but it is unfortunately the future, near enough all new fruit varieties are protected, e.g Pink Lady apples.

I'd love to somehow be involved in an "open source" breeding initiative, and I had hoped to be involved in (amongst other things) releasing the data of the National Fruit Collection (something that we've all paid for) but we didn't win the contract.

Now this is another thing, and one that I've considered, but we have so many immigrants, we can't all be constrained by our "British" cultural values. Can we? (Speaking as the product of immigrant parents)

I just call it as I see it, but I hope things do turn around. It has to start with the people and eradicating apathy. And it's a hot issue with me because I see the same attitudes here in Canada and fear we may be headed for the same outcome (I don't want to say "fate" here).

There are examples on a number of different scales of successful British entities, such as Virgin, Dyson, Arcam, Linn and Naim to name a few. Yes, most average people wouldn't recognize the last three.

Perhaps the current state of affairs has more to do with what the government is already doing rather than what they're not doing. Seriously, the Canadian government's (federal and provincial) fingers are sticky enough, but things are, IMO, far overboard in the UK.

While I agree with tahir in so far as government needing to be involved in programs to stimulate industry, I don't believe that the issue has been one of marketing. Nor would the government be able to effectively alter any deficiencies in that department. There's a lot of positive moves/changes that can be made if governments (any) better prioritized and focused their spending and efforts. In the UK however, the most visible just happen to be the expenses associated with keeping the populace under 24 hour surveillance and taxed into submission. Take for instance the TV "license" that came up in another discussion. Asinine.

So are you arguing that the BBC should be paid for by general-purpose tax monies, or that it should be disassembled or privatized?

How is the CBC funded?

Canada pumps a lot of money into TV and film besides the CBC. I've never looked at the CBC's books, but apart from any government fund infusions, they also sell advertising like any other network.

I don't have a problem with some tax money going towards the arts and helping the film and television industries in Canada. Our taxes are up there, but I do prefer having thing like this properly budgeted and pitted against other necessities in trying to balance those budgets. The absurdity of a "license" for owning a television however, in this country, would just be an obvious cash grab. Not that there aren't those here already, such as the $50 Permanent resident card that came into law a few years ago for resident status immigrants (full of loop-holes too). Then add to that employing people and a fleet of vehicles (in the UK) to track down citizens that aren't licensed... That was discussed previously as well if I'm not mistaken. Seems to me like a very backwards way to get some funds to the BBC.

Like I said, I have genuine fears for the way things have been slowly moving in Canada. Do you need to pay a licensing fee to a music royalty body when you rent a venue and hire a live band or play your own music? You do here. How much of that cash actually gets to the artists? My guess, after a plenty of internet searching, is next to nothing for Canadian artists and zero to international artists (which would generally make up the majority of performers of the pre-recorded music played at parties such as weddings, etc.) SOCAN is the organization here to collect these monies.

I see too much waste and too few people actually benefitting from these types of tax. And oversight and public disclosure are generally a joke.

Speaking however of privatization, I'd really like to see a private sector for alcohol sales here in Ontario. Wine and spirits sales and distribution is completely government owned and controlled while also being unionized. Disgrace. Beer sales are handled through a "private" corporation owned by a couple of larger breweries - no one else is allowed to sell beer. It's all taxed at least 100% and there's no competition/incentive for selection availability. Though considering how things are handled, we do have a decently broad assortment of products to choose from. It could be a lot worse. But of course it could be a lot better. If there wasn't still such a social stigma associated with pot, I'm sure we'd see government owned distribution and/or sales outlets. Especially considering Canada is one of the biggest producers around - and certainly the source or most of the pot in the US.

A very poor example to pick on. If the BBC had instead been funded from general taxation it would have been a target of massive cut backs every time the government of the time ran into trouble. As it is the licence fee has given the BBC ring fenced funding for the last 50 years.

Without the licence fee the BBC would have been very different. I for one think it has been well worth it.

The ends doesn't justify the means, I'm afraid, including in this instance. I should hope that something similar to the situation over there would never fly here. I believe it's an overt enough and a hot-button item that would see immediate backlash. But unfortunately many other issues of taxation, levies and loss of freedoms aren't and the Canadian populace is slowly becoming very passive and apathetic.

You can't know for sure the BBC wouldn't have done equally well or better with some other form of funding structure. I'm not speculating it would have, but that the format for funding, while it has allowed the BBC to flourish, is far from what I'd consider ideal. It would be interesting to look at the financial statements to see how it's all played out actually. I imagine there's been some time of serious wastage with the licensing scheme. Do they still employ people to spy on citizens to make sure they've paid the license fee?

I'll try to be as diplomatic as my British stiff upper lip allows here, but honestly Bruno I have bared witness to you talking straight out of your arse over the past few years but that statement really does take the biscuit.

I would rather spend my days in this penal colony than in a country where beating seal pups to death is practically a national sport. And yes I know you don't all do that, I was just applying the same narrow minded ill-informed view you have of our nation to yours.

I think the BBC is a very weak thing to pick out as part of the nanny state. It is part of our national heritage, and whilst sometimes I wonder just why the licence fee is so high, I wouldn't want a TV if it couldn't pick up the BBC as it is now.

Cheers

Cris.

What is non-ideal about the TV license? Only people who use it (given, nearly everyone these days, I would bet) pay it. You don't have people complaining about their taxes going for things they don't use, and it's not an infrastructure item from which everyone benefits, regardless of direct use.

Here, here. Glad I'm not the only one.



Yes we can, it's called ITV1. Unless you have intimate knowledge of UK television, why don't you simply keep your stupid ill-informed opinions to yourself. Or better still, start posting on digitalspy.co.uk where you can meet other fuckwits who spend all day spouting nonsense about UK TV.



You mean the people who simply write to home owners who don't have television licences but have recently bought TV's? Like the people who write letters to homeowners that don't pay their council tax, or people who don't tax their cars?

If you ever do come to the UK I hope you get turned away at immigration.

I apologise to other members of the board for this post, but I've had years of having to wade past posts made by this blinkered, opinionated, self-important gobshite.

Yea that's what I meant to say

Right, bowler hats back on now. Don't look 'em in the eye and all that.

Cheers

Cris.

I'd 2nd that. On the whole I like the BBC's output, but I do wonder if they should really leave the reality TV and phone in shows to the commercial networks. I also couldn't give a toss if they put people like Ross on ITV, I think the money would be better spent on ground breaking programs like Planet Earth etc...

I'd also like to see some kind of feedback system, so us the viewers and licence fee payers could have some form of input into the direction of program productions etc... I'm not talking about control over what to commission more a general feedback loop of what sort of things the mass of public actually want to see the BBC making.

Having said that, for a non commercial part of the nanny state, they are doing a bloody good job of showing the rest how it's done with the iPlayer. So maybe we should just let them get on with it

Cheers

Cris.

Surely they still have ratings for the BBC channels?

Having worked in both the public and private sectors of UK broadcasting, I am glad the BBC exists.

TV companies like ITV only make programmes they know they can sponsor or sell advertising around. The BBC decides to make a programme based purely on individual merit.

In fact, BBC4, BBC2 and Radio 4 more than justify the £12 a month it costs me, not to mention all the online and news content.

Yea they do, but I don't really think that is a realistic representation these days. I don't know the figures but it's a very small sample size from memory. I'd like the trust to ask us the viewer in some kind of mass forum to collect views over a period of time.

Just an idea, not really very workable in the real world due to people trolling any feedback system put up on the net I suppose. Just look at digitalspy.co.uk for that.

Cheers

Cris.

Yes, and I'm sure it still has a bearing on whether a programme continues to be made or not. For the record, the BBC usually does very well compared to the likes of ITV1 and five.

Totally agree. Just wish we all had a little input into what is used to make that selection.

Look, the bbs has done it again! Take a simple question asked by Chris, turn it into something about honey and watermelon and then onto broadcasting in the UK. Love it!



Cris.

Too small if you ask me, there's about 3 sample households in the whole of Greater Manchester, so if all three watch Top Gear on a Sunday then everyone with a TV in Manchester watched Top Gear!



Ha! As an 'Industry Professional' (in my dreams maybe) I love reading Digital Spy. Some of the threads that crop up there are just so funny. I imagine a bunch of sad single 40-somethings still living at home with their mothers whinging that someone left a full stop out of a programme synopsis or that BBC 2 Wales went to black for 10 seconds.... then uploading a clip of it for other sad gits to look at!

I'm with you there! The BBC is one of the great benefits of being British.

Without it, your culture might be even more USA-ized than ours is over here, where we are overwhelmed with foreign programming from a not-so-benign neighbour. Which might explain my countryman's poor manners.

Cheers, and GSTQ!

Yep. Portland metropolitan area.


True, that, but it's still miles better than grocery-store varieties. But, if I want ultra-fresh, it's a 10 minute drive to U-pick strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and a few other berries I can't recall off the top of my head. One of my regular kayaking rivers has a take-out spot on what's called the Fruit Loop, too.


That does sound tasty.

At the moment, our back yard is mostly un-landscaped. We'd like to do something with it, but beyond some blueberries, and maybe some raspberries, I think we're going to stay away from the fruit trees. We don't have the time, or inclination to be gardeners. My wife tries, but our green thumb is... well... more a sickly yellow, than green. You know... the yellow that plants get just before they die. :-p

Regarding the TV license, I do think the process could probably be modernized a bit (after reading this explanation of the enforcement process). With the upcoming UK digital TV transition, it would be the perfect time to switch to some sort of encrypted broadcast, and send license payers a decoder card of some sort, similar to the cable and satellite access methods. This would cut down on the paper waste and cost to send 23.5 million letters, and 3.5 million in person visits from enquiry officers.

As far as the BBC is concerned, I do agree it is a great resource for the UK, and thankfully something that is shared with the rest of the world. Top Gear is one of my favorite shows currently airing, and I'm hoping the iTunes distribution is a sign that non UK viewers may have a chance to see it legally near the broadcast date.

Speaking of rude Canadians, I had a rather unpleasant experience just recently. We were up in BC, visiting my aunt. On our way back from the shopping mall (picking up some Canadian-style gripe water for a friend), we were sitting at a stop light. A guy on a bike rides past, sees our Oregon plates, and yells through our open car window "Fucking Americans!" As we passed him, we got a second "Fuckers" tossed our way.

Interesting, that. I never expected to be the target of such hatred, in my own country. Kind of shocking, really, especially when I realize that I've never been treated as rudely by Americans, for being a Canadian (though there's been plenty of bi-directional, good-natured ribbings).

Oh, and to throw my admin hat on for a little bit here, there is an ignore user feature of the site if you do find someone's posts disagreeable. I'd much prefer people use that, vs getting upset enough to leave the site.

Unfortunately at this point in time that would be practically infeasible. The majority of viewers have already got digital reception equipment of some sort, be it terrestrial digital boxes or satellite boxes.

Most of the hardware out there is either incapable of taking a viewing card or probably was never tested with a viewing card or has a broadcaster in control of it who would charge the BBC massively for use of the viewing card.

In fact the BBC (and ITV/CH4) have gone to great lengths to get their satellite transmissions unencrypted. Until recently they all paid Sky to encrypt their transmissions to ensure that only UK residents could receive their signals. Instead they have now moved to transponders that have a smaller footprint and can't be received as far across Europe as the old ones.

Totally, my primary media source is the BBC, people like John Peel, David Attenborough, Humphrey Lyttleton etc just couldn't have existed on a commercial operation. We've had a 20+ page discusion on BBC funding at Downsizer recently, to be honest I'm just stunned at how good value it is compared to the other shit out there.

Raspberries and blueberries need at least as much attention as a couple of fruit trees...(do love that expression "U pick")

Just realised only one of them is still alive

I hope I'm not a grumpy old man, but I have sent 3 complaints to the BBC in recent weeks, about aspects of their service!
In each case, I've then got a conscience and added a final paragraph to emphasise that these are specific to what is the very best broadcasting service available, I think probably, worldwide - and iplayer is the icing on the cake.
I very seldom watch or listen to commercial broadcasting, either radio or TV, and I regard the licence as a bit of a bargain.
In case you're interested:
1. Putting the BBC4 logo in the top left, specifically in a series of art programmes about the pre-raphaelite brotherhood.
2. Mucking the programming about during the Wimbledon Tennis, for no good reason: i.e. up to 1984 there were still viewers who couldn't get BBC2, since then there should be no reason to bastardise BBC1. I've always wondered about the British attitude to tennis: For 50 weeks of the year most people aren't interested and have no knowledge of the game, for Wimbledon fortnight the whole nation goes gaga, as does the beeb: Strange.
3. Scheduling "The Wire" three nights a week over four weeks, but re-scheduling the finale, the nail biting conclusion to make way for a preview of a golf tournament(Not a crucial game) starting the next day.

Police state, penal colony? We had a mower stolen in the village 3 years back and we're always asking for more police presence to discourage speeding motorists: Don't see much evidence otherwise!

That would be a huge step backwards IMO (and in fact I was thinking earlier about posting to say that one of the huge benefits we get from the BBC+licence-fee system is that our digital TV and radio isn't encrypted). I can run DVB transmissions into the back of my Linux PC and timeshift/distribute round the house etc. the full native MPEG streams, a whole mux at a time if I care to. I can't do that with Virgin Media cable TV, not even with the terrestrial channels: the whole thing is locked-down inside their own boxes.

Peter

Amen.

Especially when you compare it to the £21.50 a month I pay for Sky, exactly how much original programming do they produce ?

I find it amazing that the BBC manage to produce the content for and distribute Radio 4 for only £100M a year. That sounds pretty efficient to me, for the amount of content they produce.

The possibility of encryption of the TV services has been discussed numerous times over that last 20 or so years. There was even work done on analogue video encryption in the early 90's using line shuffling and rotation techniques similar to what Sky were using on their analogue platform at the time (BBC Select).

I was at Uni just at the time digital terrestrial TV was launched in the UK and there were many discussions on how that would be the right time to begin encryption of these services. Certainly under the reign of OnDigital and ITV digital this could'be been possible since 100% of the recivers in use at that time had the necessary CI slots and the platform owner had CRM infrastructure in place. However, since they went royally tits up the proliferation of CI-less boxes and TV's in the market has made something like much more difficult to achieve without people having to fork out more money. Also, the cost saved in 'policing' the licence would then need to piled into making sure customer accounts are looked after and ensuring the encryption systems aren't bypassed.

However, if the BBC did go the encryption route I'm 100% sure they would use a system that allowed people to use CAM's in whatever system they wanted (ie. a linux box), unlike Sky who make sure you're tied into their hardware.

However, you've still got to figure out a way of encrypting all the FM radio services as well as protecting all the online material being read by foreigners or people who haven't paid their dues!

Seriously, you don't have a problem with the proliferation of CCTV? ID requirements? Over taxation? Especially when none of it seems to be really stemming the tide of crime. How's all that social housing working out?

My comment may have been charged and hyperbolic, but seriously, you're going to bring up seal hunting in Canada as some type of defense or counter point against the rampant loss of freedoms and oppression by the UK government of its entire populace? I can understand if I had been talking about fox hunting.

I didn't pick on the BBC and I didn't pick on citizens except for saying that the country is allowing the state to take greater and greater control of everything. The BBC would benefit from funding from wider sources rather than a license applied at or post-retail on a small number of products. I find it hard to believe they don't receive money from elsewhere in the government coffers anyway. They certainly get a lot of financial backing from other corporations and even governments (like the Canadian one) for select productions.

Anyway, the UK as a whole has produced the vast majority of my favorite artists and a decent number of some of my favorite TV programs and films. Far more than have ever or will ever come out of Canada. Would I like to see the same measures of government and state over-control here? It would sure help with that angst and rebellion that fuels the fires of so many great artists, but no, I like being able to wipe my ass without a camera shoved in it.

England, Ireland, Scotland and even Wales, are places I very much want to visit, but I'll make sure to bring along my foil hat.

I don't even know whether you're serious or just delusional now.

I don't think either of those is a good idea. Now you're talking about making the BBC into a sort of subscription service which misses the whole point. It's a national resource that needs to be accessible by the whole population. Might a well just make it a specialty channel on your Sky box otherwise.

3.5 million in-person visits. Wow. I'm not sure anyone's mentioned it, but since this conversation has slipped back to the BBC anyway, how much exactly is the license fee? If you're going to mention a per-product fee, do you know approximately how much is collected from each household or per-capita?

I stand by my assertion that this type of arts spending would better be funded from other tax moneys while having some protections in place to make sure funds aren't diverted to new helicopters, etc. Immediately that would remove the overhead of mailing campaigns, signage, enforcement manpower and vehicle fleet.

Wow, this 'ignore user' thing works really well..... Ahh, back to normality.

It is £142.50 per year, per household with a TV.

? Yes, I'm the delusional one. Facial recognition cameras, Automatic Number Plate Recognition. Where else is this not only tolerated, but being proposed?

I'll have to apologize if my pointing out the obvious has offended anyone's sensibilities. I'll drop this thread if it can't continue to be civilized because this is the last forum I'd expect or want anyone to be using an ignore feature.

Anyway, this wasn't supposed to be about the BBC, and especially not why anyone would think I'm opposed to it. My line of thought started out regarding that companies shouldn't be, and don't need to be, reliant on the government to regulate or control an industry or the landscape to help them be successful. Nor do private companies need the government to assist them in marketing their inventions. The greatest successes in the business world today are proof of this, including as I mentioned, the UK's own Dyson (which seems to be kicking ass globally right now).

A government can quickly stop representing the people's best interests and is not going to be a panacea for all business issues, let alone personal ones. Nor *should* it be. There's a balance to be had and in many countries things are very out of whack right now. Even in Canada and the US, we need to see some additional regulation and involvement in some areas/sectors and less in others. I did say "business" issues as opposed to "corporate" because some corporations (or their lobbying groups) are already tightly wound with governments and affecting too many policy decisions. This situation is the opposite of the government running the business and in many ways even worse.

On a semi-related note, I just saw The Union last night. A documentary on the US and Canadian pot industry, with a large focus on British Columbia. I had some small niggles with it, but by and large it was well done, and the interviews were excellent. It brings up the regulation issue with regards to marijuana and of course food, alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs.

It is hard to see what other sources there could be except for subscription or advertising (given that they already get some from merchandising and selling program rights). And it you don't understand that the BBC would be ruined by adverts, then you don't understand what is great about the BBC.

So that's the same whether you have one or ten TVs in your house or one or ten people in the family?

BTW, I did mean wider sources of tax money for that specific comment.

It is the same no matter how many people or TVs there are (though there are some discounts for elderly and partial sighted people, I fact I think it is free if there is someone in the household who is over 75).



If it came from general taxation then it would have been cut back repeatedly and the BBC wouldn't be what it is today. The government of the day often doesn't like what the BBC gets up to and the structure of the licence fee goes some way to protecting it from government cut backs while still allowing a system that doesn't need to be funded from subscription or adverts.

Exactly what benefit do you expect there would have been by funding it from general taxation ?

Or almost-normality -- you'll start to see these strange non sequitur comments, and wonder if you missed something, unless the BBS has figured out how to skip conversation branches, which it couldn't, before. If it has gained that ability, however, given the predilection on this board for threads to wander massively, and gloriously off-topic from the original post, you'll be missing some of the best the board has to offer.

I'd expect a more balanced and equitable distribution of the cost carrying, while at the same time likely being able to earn a greater amount of funding. Protections could be put in place to limit or negate the effects of the government-du-jour's ability to tamper with the funding, in the same way protections are in place now to prevent siphoning off those license fees to other interests.

I didn't know that they sold "The Daily Mail" in Canada!

We have more CCTV cameras than anywhere else in the world, but then, we're a very small, possibly overpopulated Country, it's probably proportional - they've never bothered me, and they've solved more crimes than DNA.

What ID requirements? if I lived in Holland I'd have to carry some identity, here not. It's being talked about, none of us want to see more terrorist carnage, and there's a price to pay.

Our top rate of taxation is 47% less than it was at one point in the 60's, but yes I'm concerned about the range of taxes that we have to pay: Particularly that global warming is a tax opportunity, rather than a social responsibility: But I suspect that that's no different to any other Country in the Western world.

We have crime issues, particularly lately knife crime, but our figures hardly lead the world in all areas and yes the latest figures are encouraging.

I'd comment on social housing, but I haven't a clue what you mean. Many people are enjoying the benefits of owning their own home, from the selling off of council houses, but that was 20 years ago.

If I have a concern, it's that, in the name of terrorist suppression, laws are introduced that we would say "too right" to and then a whole sub culture apply them for the wrong purpose: Councils use spy cameras for litter issues, boneheaded security men stop people taking photos in public places etc. Then the media get hold of it and blow it out of all proportion and people in foreign places grab totally erroneous perceptions.

Umm.... Canada?

Facial Recognition, Automatic Number Plate Recognition (heck, Canadian research on the subject even makes it in IEEE.

Remember, just because it's not publicized, doesn't mean it's not happening.


Too late... you've been plonked.

The only place I ever read the Daily Mail is (oddly) in my local takeaway curry place: it takes about as long for me to be properly horrified at each page of the Mail in turn, as it does for them to prepare that dangerously immigrant dish, the jalfrezi.

Is this actually the case? From reading The Register, it sometimes sounds like they've hardly solved a thing.

Payment in ID requirements, though, isn't a coin that buys us anything: all the 11th September people had valid ID, and all the 7th July people were British citizens. (I was going to add, "And the last time we had a sustained terror campaign in the UK we got by without monkeying with civil liberties", but then I remembered that whole Gerry-Adams-being-dubbed-by-actors thing.)

Does your curry house have the Mail too? actually all newspapers love to say violent crime is up, it's a great story. In fact violent crime has been falling for a decade.

Yes, exactly. If we really do need new laws for these new terrorists, which is not something I yet buy, then what I'd like to see is specific rules that they can only be used to combat terrorism: some kind of "fruit of the poison tree" arrangement whereby once a copper decides to use anti-terrorism legislation on somebody, they can't then use information gained that way to prosecute any other offence. (Well, except murder rape and GBH, I suppose.)

Peter

Is this the same rate for companies?
I think our sister division in the UK even has to pay a radio license if they play a radio on the shop floor.
...also, I was under the impression that the license was per receiving unit, but I guess I'm wrong.

BBC Radio licences for households were abolished some time ago, but if a radio is playing music on company premises, the Performing Rights Society are wont to claim that it's a public performance of the music, and attempt to stick their noses in the trough.

Peter

Yes I believe it is the same for companies.

However, you are mixing up two different issues. Your sisters company has to pay a licence cost if they play the radio on the shop floor because it is counted as a public performance. Therefore they have to pay for a licence to play the radio in public, this is separate from the TV licence and doesn't go to the BBC. I believe other countries have similar performance rights licensing schemes.

Thanks for the quick replies.
I didn't realize there was a difference between the radio and TV authorities.

"Public performance"- wow, that's quite a stretch. What if the company offered headphones? lol

Yes, there's a very similar arrangement in the US. It's not a governmental institution that collects the fees, though it is covered by civil copyright (or similar) law. I infer that it's not a government tax in the UK, either, but I'm not clear on that.

Edit: Here's an excellent overview of US music licensing.

That is correct.

No I was using it as an example of what a cock I thought you were being making your original comment. My point about seals is as misinformed and wrong as your opinion about the UK, that was my point!

As Godfrey says, I can't really say I notice any cameras. I have 4 up around my property and they have proved very useful to both myself and my neighbours. Mostly it is not useable as evidence as the Police always seem to find some kind of issue to why it can't be used, but I don't have it for any other reason than to see what went on myself. I never present anything to anyone until they ask for it, and I never check the system unless something has happened. I don't really see the big problem with CCTV to be honest.

No idea what you mean about ID requirements, can you explain how much worse off we are here in the UK than in Canada in that area ???

Cheers

Cris.

To be honest Cris, if you're expecting him to say 'I was wrong', you'll be waiting a very long time. Bruno is always right and if you don't agree with him, you're wrong. Plain and simple.....

So the labour party need look no further for Gordon's replacement....oops! I don't do politics.
My regret is that I've found Canadians to be really nice people, when in Canada, and I went with a rather naive perception that they resented us, because of the former Empire.
I can recall in Vancouver, having a drink with some who said that the only trouble with the Country is too many rules(laws), which is rather the perception that Bruno is trying to foist upon us.
Vancouver is one of the nicest places in the World, an old friend of mine went there to live and, I think, died happy there - I'd love to go again.

Obviously you are living in the very heartland of criminality. Aren't you concerned about your safety? What kind of a miscreant would expose his family to such rampant danger by living in these excruciatingly deadly circumstances? You should move somewhere safe, like Rwanda or Afghanistan.



tanstaafl.

I've been unintentionally economical with the truth, we had a poacher killed when his 4&4 rolled on him in the night: I can't understand why people take these risks for wild rabbits, it's hardly big game!

From the US perspective, most people here see an issue with CCTV in the UK due to the government controlling so many cameras in public places. This is likely due to the small government mentality that many here carry. I've never heard complaints about privately owned ones, and see quite a few cameras in stores, malls, and so on. Personally, it's not something I think much about, and find benefits with the CCTV cameras installed along the highways.

What was this thread about?

I think someone was concerned they hadn't done enough for the BBS community, so to make amends they started the best flamewar we've had in ages.

Peter

Excellent, now who's going to see if they can block Brunos Daily Mail sub? (Does he get the News of the World on sundays too?). Our Indian Takeaway doesn't go for anything as racy as the Mail, we have to make do with the Essex Chronicle, the same scary headlines with even less substance.

Why did I think that the Daily Mail was a reputable newspaper? It looks like it's about equivalent to the New York Post. Is it also a Rupert Murdoch rag? I must have gotten it confused with the Daily Telegraph. The (New York) Daily News probably got mixed in there somewhere, too.

I don't know. Does anyone ever remember what a thread on this BBS originally started as?

Forbes has a graph comparing overall taxation rates as a percentage of GDP. The US is at 28.5%, Canada at 33.5%, and the UK at 35.9%, a whopping 2.4% higher than Canada, and almost the lowest rate in western Europe, after Switzerland, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain.

Well look at what happened with the 7/7 bombings, they were able to track some of the movements back and catch people etc... If I am in a public space I don't really see the problem, if they were outside my house filming my front door then I may have an issue.

Is it really that much different here in the UK? Doesn't every government operate some kind of surveillance in big cities etc...

Cheers

Cris.

Some times it feels good to get it out of your system. And sometimes there is national pride at stake.

So there you go Chris you have made a valuable contribution in starting this thread, without even knowing you were doing it. Granted it may not be that clear a contribution, but if you look side ways at it I think it counts. I certainly feel I have come away from this thread with a little more understanding on certain topics!

Cheers

Cris.

This is one element that Bruno seems to have right. There are (supposedly) far more CCTV cameras per capita in the UK than anywhere else in the world. (Admittedly, I don't have numbers.) It's clearly become part of your culture. In the US, wealthier retailers will frequently have surveillance cameras indoors, cash machines have cameras, and parking decks frequently have cameras. But there are very few cameras that randomly survey public areas. And the only cameras I know of that the government operates are traffic light cameras. (Well, they probably have some security cameras inside some government office buildings.)

FYI, the video cameras in ATM machines are High-def, but only record 40 seconds after a transaction. Found this out when we had a car broken into at work, and it turned out that since no one was using the ATM at the time, there was no video.

I think that was me actually!
Only today, here in Yorkshire, police were able to publicise a picture of a man wanted in a murder case, because he got on a bus with CCTV (We have an occasional problem with violence on buses).
That's fine with me!- I don't break the law, so I have nothing to fear.

The awful irony of my rounding on the good old Daily Mail only struck me in the small hours: I went to Vancouver(LA & SF) at their expense in the 70's, having won the trip as a prize at a trade conference!
I've been waiting for this thread to turn its malevolence to the health & safety gestapo, so that I could point you to my favourite clip

You're going to need to do better than that, because the first "study" that determined that was amazingly flawed. It involved the "researcher" taking a walk from their city centre office and scaling up the density to the rest of the country.

Despite that the same "study" was rehashed again and again in the media for years afterwards.

I think at this point we should point out that very, very few of these CCTV cameras in public spaces in the UK are controlled by central government. They mainly are under the control of: town councils, county councils, shopping centres, bus companies, train companies etc

Heck, those Daily Mail hacks are quick getting on to a story, are they lurking here?
Today's front page heading of the colour supplement:

"Bruno Must Die"

Personally I don't subscribe to this, he's entitled to his opinions and, at the end of the day, this thread has been both fun and enlightening.

...and it almost got you talking about politics

Heh. Until "they" decide that what you do is against the law. Until "they" decide to misuse data about you.

How would you feel if there was a policeman assigned to follow you around every day? How is this any different?

These are just the obvious arguments. There is a huge corpus of opinion on this subject from civil liberties advocates. Just google for "nothing to hide nothing to fear".

I think I touched upon that point

I've seen and read plenty along these lines, but I'd still prefer the cameras, and to trust to reason - otherwise your giving in to what you might call Robespierre syndrome, to take a lesson from history.
Incidentally, in this country I also frequently see and read of perfectly ordinary citizens calling for more cameras.

A (delayed) backlash against the draconian and partisanly vindictive authoritarianism of the Reign of Terror?

I am in zone 4 in a development with a 20k sq ft lot. They say to plant trees in the spring or fall so I was planning on doing a few next spring. I was thinking of just ordering a bunch of small ones from http://www.arborday.org then I won't have to worry about them all not making it.

We would like to do a garden too. I have really sandy soil so I think I would need to buy some or add something to mine. Maybe raised beds would be the best ?

Having visited the operations centre's for Manchester Council, Police and Highways Agency, it's nothing like Minority Report, in fact, if I had to draw a parallel to a film I'd say it was like Billy Baldwin's den in Sliver.... ie. 90's technology. I certainly didn't see the video equivalent of Echelon either.

The systems aren't connected, they're staffed by a rather lacklustre bunch of fellows (certainly not a 1:1 ratio to the number of people in Manchester) and the cameras are PAL quality at best. Those were the ones that are working, a sizeable chunk of the highways agency ones were out of action.

We have a dozen or so CCTV cameras at work which helped weed out the cleaner who was pinching stuff off people's desks. So I'd say that was worth having.

Similar happened in the US with the 9/11 attacks. CCTV cameras captured every one of the hijackers going through security at the airport. While CCTV in both cases provided valuable evidence for investigating what happened, it did nothing to deter the attacks. CCTV might do well for post crime investigations, but there are many conflicting reports about how much they help to prevent crime. This article says that the head detective of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office at New Scotland Yard claims that CCTV was only useful for solving 3% of crimes. Other stories claim much higher, so it's hard to say for sure.


It depends. Most of them I see in Austin are all traffic monitoring cameras tied in with the road monitors to help identify what is causing a traffic jam. These cameras are operated by the state department of transportation, and are the only ones I know of controlled by a government entity outside surveillance of government buildings. This story from 2007 talks about some cameras in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles being operated usually by the local police departments. The NYCLU currently has an open lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security about information regarding the systems in New York, as they worked with the NYPD to design it.


Even the ABC news article I posted above has the same stats in it, so it looks like a lot of places are using it as fact now. Channel 4 FactCheck looked into it and the methodology of where the numbers came from.

CCTV is definitely a useful tool for certain situations. But it's only one of many tools, and I would hope that most institutions using them realize this.

Unfortunately the article isn't very clear on whether that's 3% of solved crimes, 3% of reported crimes, or 3% of all crimes. That last would be an impressive and worthwhile figure IMO.

Peter

And, one would assume, it will never be upgraded.

Also, don't get me started on the abortion that is the movie version of Minority Report. It's a complete bastardization of the short story, with a completely different, possibly diametrically opposed, viewpoint.

I'm sure it'll be upgraded. But upgraded to something that can automatically recognise and track every person it can see on each of it's cameras? God knows. So the chances to being caught by the feds walking through Manchester city centre while wearing a hat is pretty much 0% at the moment. The idea that I'm being constantly watched by CCTV in this country is nonsense. I'm walking past the cameras and it's possible that I'm being recorded, but will anyone actually ever view the video and say 'Yes, that's Andy Marriott, why isn't he at work?', no. I'm sure once technology advances sufficiently then the US government will install it everywhere as well.

The best way to track me would be to look at my debit card transactions, you'd then know where I park, where I fill my car up, where I do my shopping, where I buy my lunch etc. That technology is in place in every developed nation.

Minority report was the only film I could think of... although if we use TV shows, then the CSI franchise always manages to use massively advanced CCTV footage to catch their criminals.

Well, what about when your government does something you don't like and you protest about it? Then they aren't looking for you. They're looking for anyone near that protest at that time. Then they come and detain you against your civil liberties. After all, they had no problem spying on you all that time; why should they be concerned about whether you've actually done anything illegal or not.

This isn't science fiction. This happened in the US under Bush.

"Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte."

People that actually do forensics hate CSI because its making everybody think that they all can perform miracles. The courts and police services aren't happy with it either because according to CSI, DNA is king and you can do a test in about 30 seconds.

For CSI computers however, 9 enlarged fuzzy pixels will be enhanced to a multi mega pixel image which they'll then work out the reflections on a shirt button to show you who was taking the photo. Screw using that algorithm to enhance photos. I'd use it to compress HD quality video into a couple KB/s stream and become ultra rich overnight.

Zone 4 means frozen soil in the winter? In which case spring planting is best. Raised beds would be a good idea for veg beds, it's also much better to irrigate via some kind of leaky pipe system, waste much less and you can automate it. You get hot summers there don't you?

Not much variety for zone 4 on arborday, try this:

http://www.naturehills.com/catalog/fruit_trees.aspx?&zone=4

Apricots are easy as long as you can keep squirrels off them (they eat the kernels and discard the flesh), there are quite a few good apples and cherries too. You may be able to grow some chestnuts, and I believe there are grapes that will be hardy too, as long as you have some summer heat and enough good weather in autumn to ripen them.

Nah, you'd probably meet a similar fate as that of Jan Sloot.

Yeah it freezes in the winter and get's pretty hot in the summer. Also right now I only have direct sun because there are no trees. I'm not necessarily looking for fruit bearing trees just any trees that would survive and provide some shade / wind protection.

Come back from holiday and find this thread got very long. Amused me immensely

- me too, but it's a bugger to reverse the vasectomy

Ahem

That wasn't really what I was getting at, it was about there not being any shortage of footage from all sorts of sources in the first place.

Anything involving computers in CSI cracks me up.

20,000 square feet is enough to start messing with some pretty serious trees. Dawn redwood? Beeches? Silver birch? Aspen? All are claimed to be hardy to Zone 4.

Peter

I'm enjoying reading the comments here. The "Nanny State" topic is, of course, discussed widely. Just today I found some interesting reading over at Slashdot.

It is indeed, loads of stuff if you're not worried about fruiting. Sounds like a great opportunity to plant a little woodland.

Just had another look at the naturehills site, loads of trees and shrubs that are hardy there, some notable/useful ones:

Chinkapin Oak
White Oak
American Hornbeam
Linden
Kentucky Coffee Tree
Chinese Chestnut
Chestnut Oak
Lilac
River Birch (probably others too)
Star Magnolia (probably others too)
Crabapple

I reckon there must be plenty of honeysuckles, hawthorns, elders, maples, pines, firs etc that are hardy there too.

Ah, the UK press. There are a couple of ways of categorising the various publications. There's this comedy-standard view:

The Times is read by the people who run the country
The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think the country isn't run as well as it used to be
The Guardian is read by people who think they do run the country
The Daily Mail is read by the wives of those that run the country
The Financial Times is read by the people that own the country
The Daily Mirror is read by people who haven't got a clue who runs the country
The Express is read by people who think the country should just give up and play bingo
The Morning Star is read by people who think the country should be run by another country.
The Sun is read by people who don't care who runs the country as long she's got big t*ts

More relevantly:
- The Sun, Times, Sunday Times and News of the World are all Murdoch
- FT is part of a large publisher, Pearson
- Telegraph is owned by a pair of very litigious billionaire twins
- Express is owned by a pornography publisher
- Mirror is separately owned by a newspaper publishing group
- Guardian is separately owned by a newspaper publishing group
- Independent is owned by an Irish industrial entrepreneur
- Daily Mail is owned by a newspaper publishing group whose biggest shareholder is the founding family, now headed by a guy with a UK title who lives in France to avoid UK tax

The Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Independent and FT are the serious ones, though it's not unfair to say that only the FT is really serious and the others now contain more than a couple of pages of 'feature articles'.

Exactly. I mentioned previously that I didn't like what was being slowly tested in this country, because in some ways, the population is too passive, just like in the UK.

If anyone quotes back for Andy to read, this isn't about me (or anyone) being right nor wrong. This is opinion pure and simple. What I think is wrong are the actions of government in many cases. For the main points of this thread, those actions and implements that take away our privacy and freedoms.

In Canada the only automatic number plate identification system rolled out in a fully functional and production-level state is that used on the 407 highway. I believe it was invented originally in Portugal (though perhaps that was only the transponder portion of their system), but I could be mistaken. It's definitely from Europe.

As far as plate ID being introduced onto police cruisers, I don't really have a problem with that. Officers already routinely type plate numbers into their computers while driving around or stopped at traffic lights (I currently know a couple of police on two forces as personal friends and have known a handful of others in the past). What I don't want to see is a camera on every street corner with this implemented so that car (any car) can be easily tracked. Facial recognition in a single office is also a lot different than putting that tech into street cameras, again which can be used to track movement, even real-time.

For Cris, please find me some discussion or article or anything that makes an argument for the UK *not* being a nanny state, *not* having more CCTV that any other nation. I don't want to see Canada as the UK part 2, thanks, regardless of how well accustomed to the cameras you (or anyone else) have become or how little they're minded. I see that as a problem. Apathy is already a huge problem in Canada. We can't even elect a bloody majority government nor get a decent number of people to the polls. Most people don't give a rat's ass. A large number that do, only care enough to make an occasional grumble in conversation, but won't step up to do anything about it, like vote, make a call or write a letter.

We're being taxed more and more each day, even as most people are being placated by a percentage drop in our federal GST. This country has no long term memory either. We're still spending millions of tax dollars dealing with a crooked past PM (Brian Mulroney), both in investigating his acceptance of illegal cash bribes, obviously not reporting them as income and now his legal costs.

Don't get me wrong, citizens of plenty of places have cause to be upset. Just look at how much money the US pisses away each year on military spending.

Anyway I know from a previous discussion regarding Google Streetview that Andy is all for cameras and doesn't think they're a privacy violation, so I understand why he has a problem with my opinions to the contrary. I've only added a new post because most people seem to be able to talk about this without a problem. And without pointing anyone out or making personal insults.

Now (Cris or anyone else) feel free to make observations about Canada, its government and people. I'll probably agree with most of your points anyway.

EDIT: Incidentally, this is what paranoid delusional looks like.

I'm afraid that's the way it's got to be, rolling news and the internet have taken away stop press news and in a way most of the content will be one form of comment or another, often dressed up as news stories.
Where the regional press go, particularly the weeklies is a more vexing problem: Do they have a role at all? The regional press is substantially paid for by what are called the three pillars of classified: Recruitment; Motors and Property - I would think that it's hard to argue that those aren't internet strengths, and probably all that's delaying the demise is that 42% of people in rural areas don't have an acceptable broadband speed, and 70% of the over 65%'s don't have internet access.

Did somebody say something?

Cheers

Cris.

A long time ago there was a show on Discover or some other channel like that. They would show actual operations without the big blured out areas like everything has now. One episode they showed a vasectomy reversal. After seeing that I can't believe anyone has it done. I'm not fixed yet even but I can't imagine getting that done and your not even guaranteed to be successful. I say adopt or get a donor.

Well 20K isn't really all that big by flyover USA standards but I should be able fit some trees in here. My plan was to get a bunch from arborday.org and plant too many so when some don't make it I will still have some. The trees they sell are small but they are cheap so I can afford to get a bunch.

So if you do a raised bed garden do you need to till somehow still ? How deep should they be ?

Small trees are MUCH better than big ones, they'll establish quicker and better. It's always a good strategy to plant extra and allow for wastage or thinning. You can achieve some great effects that way, an area of a nice birch planted densely will start looking good almost immediately, as they get bigger you can selectively remove to allow room for the others to grow. Weedkilling the planting area (before planting) and mulching after planting will ensure good survival rates, if you have deer/rabbits in the area you'll also need some kind of tree guards.

I've never grown in a raised bed but I reckon it's probably sufficient to turn over the top layer of soil/turf and then maybe 8" of soil on top of that? Might be worth weedkilling the turf first.

Back to the non arborial subject matter!

To recap, Robotic posted a link to a slashdot article about a guy who was having a private party, and was IMHO stupid enough to put it on Facebook and got 30 policeman turning up instead of 30 guests.

I've gone back to it, because today, as it seems to be every other day, there's an aricle about someone who did the same and 2-300 drunks turned up and trashed the place (googling gives you well on the way to a million, but, of course, many will be repeats).

So maybe the police were a little heavy handed, but what's wrong with them being pro-active? There was a very great risk that otherwise they would be turning up to a much nastier situation, calling for more resource.

The inference of the article was that the police were deliberately trawling Facebook, I find that a little unlikely, but if they were then that to me comes under imaginative crime prevention, not oppressive police state. I think it more likely that "they were informed by a concerned member of the public".

There are those in this thread that would take the opposite view, I think!

Oi! Trees is good.

I'm with boxer on this stuff, I can't see what I stand to lose by the kind of surveillance currently in place. As someone said a few posts back, there's a world of difference between data acquisition and the ability (or will) to do something useful with it. I'm more worried by the data that private organisations hold on me (banks, insurance etc)

Crime prevention? Don't you mean barbecue prevention? When things reach the point where people can be apprehended because in the opinion of the authorities they might commit a crime, then I will concede that Orwell was right. Can anybody say thoughtcrime? Have you watched "Minority Report" recently?

Far better and far less expensive than sending in the SWAT team, helicopter and all, would have been to have a single officer (armed with a two-way radio and without body armor!) come to the party, politely explain to the guests why he was there, and have him watch to see that things didn't get out of hand. He would most likely have been treated as a guest with the added benefit of favorable PR for the local constabulary.

I am aware that I live in a litigious society and for the most part am very much against such actions, but had this happened to me (here in the US) you can rest assured that at the very least some watch commander would spend the next six months or so directing traffic in Corncob Junction or some similar hub of activity, and it would be quite some time before he reattained the rank necessary to command anything or anybody again.

tanstaafl.

I think many of us are victims of the media's 'spin' that they put on such stories.
Without the full story, the headline takes priority in our minds. Even the 'complete' text of a report often overlooks or leaves out vital information (or is based on wholly ingenuous methods or data).
I read many of the comments for that Slashdot article and found many viewpoints- both informed and otherwise.
I posted the link to show that the concept of the 'nanny state' is very apropos and cause for much distress and misinformation (and distress about misinformation).

It doesn't take any imagination to see that populations are more controlled in today's world than ever before. The trends (the need to be controlled and the abuse of controlling power) are disturbing, to say the least.

Meaning you're principally gardening for the next generation and the one after, of course, but then perhaps if, like me, you work in an industry that's all about its two-week sprint cycles and six-month release cycles, that's part of the appeal of trees in the first place.

Peter

Not at all, and yes actually

By around year 6 or 7 a 1 or 2 yr old tree will have caught up with a 5 yr old tree planted at the same time. There's a lot of joy to be had in watching the landscape grow up around you; we'll be harvesting apricots, walnuts, peaches, almonds, chestnuts, apples, and pears from trees that we planted in Feb 2006 this year. Some of those trees are pretty sizeable now, and the way they've changed the landscape and biodiversity is well worth the effort.

The landscaping/planting we'll be doing around the new house (if we ever get started) will probably take 30 years to reach anything approaching maturity but it'll be looking quite good from year 3 I reckon.

Are they? Populations have always been controlled, whether by a tribal or religious leader, or some other method. I reckon more in the past than now, especially when literacy and hence any meaningful education was in the hands of very few.