sdunwoody

Using a custom library over Bootstrap would potentially offer them the following benefits:

* Full control over browser support (Government Agencies are likely to have to support older browser than Bootstrap for example would support).

* Full control over accessibility (as far as I know, Bootstrap is not entirely accessible).

* Ability to limit customisation to more closely fit any government style guide etc.

* Not needing to update the version they are using whenever Twitter drop support for older versions, as they completely control the development life cycle and how long they support each version for.

Possibly some other ones I have missed as well.

Would they have saved money in the long term by using Bootstrap? Quite possibly (although I think it is hard to say definitively, and I really doubt creating this library cost significant amounts of money).

Would using Bootstrap have resulted in sites that didn't look as nice? I highly suspect so.

I think we're very fortunate in the UK to have a great mix of wind/solar/tidal to utilise for power generation (although I don't think solar is as appropriate for our situation as wind or tidal). TBH I really wish our politicans would actually do more to advance both wind and tidal generation in this country.

But it still doesn't significantly help countries like Belgium or the Netherlands, or even Germany.

I'm actually very interested to see how Germany tried to decarbonise over the next couple of decades, as I think they've managed to get most of the low hanging fruit (for example, from what I've read, I don't think there's really anymore space for them to install offshore turbines without quite significant difficulties).

No offence taken, I'm happy to learn! It seems like I need to go and do more reading about this.

I suppose efficiency aside, the next big problem(s) would be of a political nature? Having no control over your power supply (which is hosted in a foreign nation) is quite a big geopolitical risk?

Let's take the UK as an example.

Densely populated, so there's not lots of "dark barren" land.

Energy consumption rises considerably in the winter, just as sunlight hours reduce, and the weather gets cloudier.

Even assuming there was lots of free surface area, I would assume that the extra number of panels would far exceed 20-30% when you consider the disparity in energy consumption alongside when it happens (after the sun sets, and before it rises).

The only way it would work is with a very large surplus of panels (quite how large I can only guess, but 20-30% seems incredibly optimistic to me), alongside a very significant storage mechanism. And even then, I'm not sure if that would insure against a severe cold patch coinciding with a few days of cloudly, dark weather.

Some countries yes, but what about others? The UK, Ireland, the Baltics (I was thinking of the Netherlands and Belgium too, although they don't strictly fit in the definition apparently) - not all of these countries have oil reserves or good sources of hyrdo/geothermal electricity.

I'm not an expert at all when it comes to this sort of stuff, but don't you lose quite a high percentage of the electricity generated when you move it over the vast distances needed for that to work?

Solar doesn't work that well the further you get from the equator.

Nortern Europe? Freezing in the winter (so lots of heating necessitating more electricity), and generally poor weather, plus the daylight hours can be incredibly short.

I'm not sure how solar works in places like this unless you massively overbuild (not exactly appealing, efficient, or environmentally friendly), and/or rely on electricity transported over vast distances (which I understand is not particularly viable).

There's obviously room for improvement here too yes.

Although I really really doubt anyone here would be arrested for having a doze on the pavement.

So I think the problem there is that the root causes of homelessness need addressing.

Moving all these people to a different city/town/location is not "solving" the issue.

I find it really nasty.

I visited Los Angeles a couple of years back, one of the first places we went was a McDonalds. Some guy was dozing sat at a table (with a coffee in front of him). A cop came up to him and told him he'd be reprimanded if he caught him napping like that again.

In all my life living in the UK I've honestly never witnessed something like that. It may seem minor, but seeing an armed cop come up to someone and reprimand them for dozing off? I have no idea why a waiter couldn't have dealt with that. It's not like the McDonalds was even full or anything.

On top of this, the advertising boards saying stuff like "No homeless shelter in our community, keep it safe!" was just completely lacking in compassion.

I think a lot of people out there just don't see homeless people as deserving of empathy. At least, that's the impression I get.

I also find it profoundly ironic that America is supposedly the "land of the free", but you can get arrested/in trouble for:

- Drinking in public (even in parks or at the beach) - Sleeping in public (apparently) - Jaywalking - Eating on public transport

I just don't understand all these weird and arbitrary rules they have out there.

This whole thing is pretty depressing (and would make me pretty angry if I lived in the USA).

But I was even a bit shocked in the first paragraph:

>He woke up to a police officer arresting him for violating the city’s ban on lying down in public places.

Is that legitimately something that can happen? If so, find it mind boggling that you could be arrested in America for falling asleep on the pavement/sidewalk!?

You could hold a similar debate on every service the government currently provides, and you would essentially end up with toll roads everywhere and parents having to pay exorbitant amounts to educate their children properly.

The BBC is similar to these things in the sense that it provides good value for the taxpayer, and contributes quite significantly to society (even if it doesn't directly effect you in the sense of you consuming their content regularly).

The BBC would face significant cuts if that was the case. It would likely end up at a point where the quantity and quality of content was reduced due to less revenue, which then would cause additional people to cancel subscriptions.

This would be quite damaging for the UK as the BBC is a great way of projecting soft power, plus it provides quite a lot of great resources (as has been pointed out in other comments).

I'd be more in favour of a system like Germany has to be honest.

Not read the article, but as a political aside, the licence fee is a big subject of debate here at the moment.

It was designed so that the BBC essentially had independence from the government, and as such, they could more easily be politically neutral (if they were funded directly by the government, there would be more pressure for them to cover the government favourably in news programs etc.).

Problem is that these days the licence fee is outdated with lots of people just watching Netflix/Amazon etc.

A lot of the "right wing" here also think the BBC has a left wing bias, which I think is a bit ridiculous really, as a lot of the "left wing" also think it has a right wing bias. But the consequence of this is that a lot in the current government want to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee. This would basically mean that there is no consequence to not paying the licence fee, and assuming the government didn't come up with an alternative way of funding it, it would amount to death by a thousand cuts for the BBC (which a lot of right wingers are actually quite open about wanting).

It's quite a tough problem in my opinion. Direct funding from the government would solve a lot of problems, but also make political impartiality a lot more difficult to achieve. A direct subscription like for Netflix would likely result in a significant drop in revenue.

Hard to see a good solution here.