John Rumm coughed up some electrons that declared:
I expect its a case of cost. Doing a web site that really works is not
cheap or easy. Many businesses selling "online" seem to have convinced
themselves that online should be cheap and easy and that is what they
expect to pay for!
I don't doubt it John. But what seems to escape these eejits, is the design
and implementation is largely a one off capital expense amortised over as
many customers as you can muster. You know that of course, but I had to say
it. Every website needs ongoing development and maintenance, and I doubt a
good website is *much* more costly to maintain and develop than a crap one.
OK, perhaps a fancy website with excellent descriptions and good seraching
and store integration takes more user input and more hardware, but again,
that's amortised over the whole operation. TS managed most of it bar the
good descriptions, which is odd, because I assume they produce their
catalogue electronically, so surely the lines data could just be shared
between catalogue and website. It's almost as if they expect you to browse
the web with catalogue in hand (web shows the page number by each item).
Same with government. There are lots of little things I've seen done
abroad and in different boroughs here that make me wonder: why doesn't
Kent or T
Wells council simply solve problem X with solution Y, especially where
solution Y is simple and cheap (or self funding)?
Not invented here syndrome probably...
Brains not invented here probably...
Like Munich: they leave bicycles everywhere. You phone up with your bank
card and pay a rental charge. They give you an unlock code. You ride bike
anywhere in the city. When you've finished, you lock the bike up
wherevere you please (sensibly of course). Perhaps that would be lethal
in London but there are plenty of UK cities that are largely traffic
calmed where it would be a great idea. Self funding too (at a level the
council can choose). Capital cost - bugger all.
Depends on how many bikes end up in the canal I suppose.
OK, I did cite Germans. Who for the most part seem to spawn less genetic
waste than us (thinking of the Bavarians and Franconians - can't speak for
the rest of them). But I assume if such a thing happens, they come knocking
on the door of the last card payer for that bike.
Our local scheme seems to be working better than many. Three wheelie
bins - full size grey one, slightly narrower one with purple lid, and
smaller green one. Food and garden stuff in the green one - collected
every week. Rubbish in the purple lid one, and recyclables in the grey
one (these two collected in alternation). Aside from a couple of funnies
like not putting sticky tape or envelope windows in the recycling it
works reasonably well. They take enough quantities of material for
recycling (including cardboard, plastic, and glass) that you can stick
most packaging in the recycling bin. The bulk of the collected stuff is
now recyclable (at least in theory - what thy actually do with it once
collected I don't know - as with many such schemes it was designed when
commodity prices were high). The only real problem with it is the bulk
of the three bins.
Sounds similar to Harrow. Down here, we've got the Allington
incinerator/generator plant gradually coming on line. They recycle
householder seperated waste (not clear if that's a mixed scheme or totally
seperated scheme) and burn the rest for electricity.
Not sure how we ever had an empire.
Coz an engineer inverted a way of keeping time at sea, and we could out
navigate all the other trading nations.
Good old Harrison for getting the ball rolling
But did you notice how
much trouble he had getting his prize for the H-4 despite meeting the
targets. Board of Longtitude = Administrators?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...ne_chronometer
It only goes pear shaped when
you let the administrators run the show ;-)
Smiting. That's what we need. Good selective smiting.
Cheers
Tim