Here online we can find space for full text of the letters and blog pingbacks that we don't have space for in print. This week people were mostly worked up about ecohackers and MMO, government websites and spam phoning...
ECOHACKERS Can the ecohackers save us? Umm - that would be a "no", then? Graeme Kerr, Walthamstow
>> We're quite worried that some attempts at ecohacking will be undertaken -- either by governments or by well-meaning vigilante billionaires -- but that the system dynamics, secondary impacts, and possible side-effects of whatever methods they choose may not be fully understood. The earth's climate is massively complex, with long, slow functions that ebb and flow, while simultaneously being subject to sudden, rapid cascades of change. If we try to mess with all that unadvisedly, we may be very sorry. crnano.typepad.com/crnblog
>> If those ideas [in the article] are infeasible then the ones about putting shit into orbit are the product of minds which resemble large bags of mixed fruit and nuts. FYI, it costs a little over £3000 per kilogram to put an object into low earth orbit and several times that for geostationary. And that was before oil reached $135 a barrel. My point is that dream-uber-techno-solutions simply aren't practical or workable. The only solution is George [Monbiot]'s: Reduce emissions now and pump all that money into expanding renewable generation capacity. punkscientist.blogspot.com
>> What I would like to know of course is who is funding these studies? I think we are beginning to see the first signs of the misappropriations of funds that has been started by our good pal Al Gore in diverting money that could be more WISELY spent on REAL issues. wobblingworld.wordpress.com
>> I'd really prefer we were a bit more certain of the causes of problems before we presumed to meddle with possible cures. junkk.blogspot.com
>> Freaky? I think so. But perhaps not as freaky as the alternative. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. linsdownunder.blogspot.com
POWER STRUGGLES The impression given is one of great current difficulties for data centre operators, yet considerable new capacity is now coming on line to meet the burgeoning demand for high quality data centre capacity in London. For example: TelecityGroup has just opened a new 25 megawatt, 5,000 sq metre site called Powergate in East Acton; Interxion has recently extending their London city site by 1,250 sq metres (the site is already supplied with 13 megawatts of power and has room for further expansion); Equinix opened a new 10,000 sq metre site in Slough in December 2007; Telehouse recently announced the first phase of a considerable expansion of their Docklands site. The London Internet Exchange is in the process of building new points of presence in these sites, emphasising their importance as carrier neutral data centres (a point your author seems to have missed completely). All these new sites and new capacity are offering state of the art facilities, with high power to rack availability (anything up to 5kW per cabinet and 20kW in high density zones.) This presents a much more positive picture, and although it is acknowledged that sourcing power capacity in London is not an easy matter, it is by no means the impossible situation that your article portrayed. Greg McCulloch, Managing Director, Interxion UK; John Souter, CEO, London Internet Exchange Ltd; Michael Winterson, VP Sales & Marketing, Equinix; Mike Tobin, CEO, TelecityGroup
>> the way that data centre growth is increasing means that with current solutions we're facing a losing battle. The last estimates I saw (from the US) was that data centre power was doubling every 5 years and the figures for the City are only marginally slower. Yet the reports of data centre gains tend to talk about one-off 15-30% power reductions. Clearly these sorts of solutions wont solve the problem in the long run (or even the medium term) - we need more and better answers (such as using the waste heat to warm buildings). thegreenitreview.com
BOOKS AND BOOKPEOPLE So Aleks [Krotoski] thinks that "static media [e.g. books written by a single author] is (sic) on its way to becoming a curiosity"? Hmmm, funny that Victor Keegan comments in the same edition on the ever increasing sales of books. I think the thing is that books and the whole social web blog thing have different strengths and agendas. If you want a virtually real-time melting pot of ideas, opinions and discussion (regardless of the fact that a substantial proportion spew uncensored from the brains of talentless, sycophantic, self-referential halfwits) then go for 'social media' (whatever that means). If you want to immerse yourself in someone else's fully realised and integrated vision of 'something' then you could pick up a book. And the beauty of the situation is that a single author could construct a believable world about the 'social media', for example, including the overwhelming diversity of voices that typifies this medium. I have my suspicions as to whether collaborative works could consistently produce unquestionably convincing worlds that people want to revisit time and time again. I'm not against the idea of collaborative work, not by a long chalk, I'm just against the idea that because a medium is new it must be a Good Thing, and all previous media are fuddy-duddy and soon to be superseded by the New. Anyway, books are crammed full of diverse voices all coexisting and conflicting; you could argue that at the core of the novel is heteroglossia itself. The linguist Mikhail Bakhtin defines heteroglossia as "another's speech in another's language, serving to express authorial intentions but in a refracted way". Blimey...sounds like social media... Matt Flanagan, Hebden Bridge
>> Nice to see a story [Vic Keegan] suggesting that everything isn't going to the dogs. iaplay.com
MMO POPULATIONS Interesting article, but nothing really new. One small reference to SWG, which SoE ruined when they converted it to FPS-style targeting, took away the Jedi Initiate village system (and pissed off a whole bunch of both old-school Jedi - like myself, as well as a whole bunch of neo-Jedi who were a few months away from gaining their lightsabers). The questing and need for teaming to become a Jedi made sense, both in lore and game dynamic terms. If SoE had not made these changes, but had instead invested in graphics upgrades and content, SWG would still be going strong. My daughter's character was an old-school Twi' dancer, and thats all she did. She got taken on raids to dance, she made huge sums of credits in the canteens dancing in general or by special request. When the initiate village system began, she embarked on the Jedi path, respec-ing to Bounty Hunter so she could XP effectively. The end of that system and the new style of play and instant-Jedi status turned her off as well. So it's not just that WoW is so good (it has so many failings I can't count them all, and between me and my daughter, we have 5 level 70 characters, and years of experience), but also that other publishers have either had a possible hit and make brain-dead decisions, or brought out fatally flawed games which never had a chance. Take Vanguard for example. I championed this game to my Everquest guild, and got into early beta. I realized right away it would take more than my 4GB memory SLI 8800 GTX O/C water-cooled 3.8GHZ P4 1T Raid0 computer to make it run right. Thought I admit it looks quite stunning on that computer, nobody else I know can run anywhere near 10fps or better unless they dumb down the graphics to where they look terrible. And we aren't even talking about the dumb game design issues yet. Basically, this is another example of something which was going to be an important game which was destroyed by SoE. John and Anjelika (no post town given)
>> While other media either have a sort of "gosh, we'd better explain what an MMO is, and isn't it cute how dwarves run around with giant axes" kind of pie-eyed sensibility (and usually get it all wrong), and others are either deeply cynical or cynically shallow, the Guardian has been a source of good MMO coverage. dusanwriter.com
ICANN AND CANNOT The argument is made that a compromise is being reached and that the IGF can meaningfully address issues. Nowhere in the article is their mention of the following critical issues: - that IGF is a non-binding multi-stakeholder body with no decision making powers; - that greater clarity is required from the Mr. Desai on the UN Secretary General's process of enhanced cooperation amongst member states; Civil Society has repeatedly criticised the Composition of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) that mainly sets the agenda for the IGF meetings; -and, finally (and most) critically, the current governance arrangements of the Internet (with unilateral US Department of Commerce control) is illegitimate and unaccountable. On the latter it gives the distinct impression that strides are being made to improve the legitimacy of Icann, which may be true, but belies its illegitimacy. Is this a case of the UK pandering to the US line uncritically, again? Riaz Tayob, Polokwane, South Africa
FUEL CONT'D I have owned a Prius for just over a year now. I bought it to replace an excellent Eco Astra diesel. I did this for environmental reasons – the Prius has a much lower emissions figure and, I decided, better pollution credentials because of the danger from diesel particulates. In the Astra I never dropped below an annual average consumption figure of 60+ mpg, compared with Vauxhall's claimed 65 combined; in the Prius, despite Toyota claims for 65.7 mpg combined, my first year's average has been 51.11 mpg, which is disappointing. The car is fully maintained according to the Toyota schedule, with particular attention to tyre pressures and both my wife and I drive "ecologically". No doubt a Prius would be advantageous compared with an Espace. It seems to be less attractive in terms of fuel consumption even than Professor Hawley suggests, compared with a diesel. Whether its lower emissions and fewer particulates compensate for that is a matter of opinion. It is certainly a more comfortable and roomy car than the Astra. Tony Mitchell, Bedford
LETTERS... Tracyanne Barlow (Technology Guardian Letters, May 29) seems almost willfully to miss the point of your Shuttleworth interview ("Linux is a platform for people, not just specialists", May 22). Latching onto the mention that Canonical (Shuttleworth's Ubuntu service company) is still far short of breaking even, she trumpets that other companies have already made profits from Linux-related services. Shuttleworth, however, has been there, done that and got the space-suit. As your article mentioned, he sold his first company, Thawte, for $500m+ - which is why he can afford the global sharing of Ubuntu. If Barlow re-reads the article (or even just its headline), she may understand that the Ubuntu project aims not at profit but at giving the mass of humanity the option of doing without the currently monopolist operating system. Michael Graaf, Totnes
Please advise your correspondent Tim Lidbetter that he doesn't live in Kingston-on-Thames but Kingston upon Thames. I only hope his e-mailing addresses are more accurate! John McCarthy, Surbiton
GOVERNMENT WEBSITES I've been really trying to use the HMRC website. I first complained in December 2006 that it didn't retain any data that I input, when I logged off and logged on again the figures were no longer there. That fault still exists, but I can no longer be bothered to complain about it. I have only one employee, and it's much more convenient for me to manage her tax and national insurance online, but only if the site works. This year I managed to file my end-of-year return during a brief period when the site worked, but the P60 statement of earnings it produced was completely wrong, as it has been in previous years, too. I can't imagine I'm the only person having these problems. All I want is to issue my employee with her P60 statement of earnings, in line with my statutory duty. I've been passed around various helplines, but no actual help is forthcoming. It's particularly dispiriting as I could easily just give my employee cash in hand, but both she and I want to do the right thing, and HMRC is making it really difficult for us. Is there a potential story for you in the uselessness of the site and what lies behind it, I wonder? They're clearly not going to fix anything because I ask them to, but a newspaper article might shame them into action. Thalia Griffiths, Hastings
SPAM PHONING I've been receiving loads of calls in the last couple of years, I usually just put the phone down and let the 'computerised' voice carry on until they hang up. Recently I tried to talk to them to waste their time even more and press the '5' button but it immediately hangs up. Did your research ever show that pressing a button actually makes a charge or bill on your line ? Brian Duncan, Fife
