trigger

From today, a series of changes to the Irish Times Stylebook take effect

Ironic that to read this article I have to subscribe to the Enconomist.

This is exactly what happened here in Ireland in 2000. The market was deregulated overnight and there was a flood of new taxis on the roads.

Needless to say existing taxi drivers weren't very happy as a lot of them had paid around €100,000 for their license. They were effectively worthless after deregulation.

All this was great news for consumers of course. Before deregulation it was practically impossible to get a taxi in Dublin on weekend nights. I can recall queuing for hours in the cold and wet for the privilege of being dropped home.

The taxi drivers mightn't like deregulation but you can't hold the general public to ransom by operating a closed market. Of course the government should have handled the whole thing better by doing some sort of deal with the drivers who'd paid so much for licences thinking it was a long term investment.

Productivity and sheer balls. My on-the-side projects are pathetic compared to what this guy does. Even a quick glance at one of those LTE specs is enough to scare me a million miles away from a project like this.

> I have a great respect for people who perform great work for the sake of great work, and I would NEVER chastise them for not hungering for wealth

Absolutely agree. I think what irked the OP was that the rocket scientist was putting off getting married or becoming a dad because he didn't want the financial responsibility. Obviously we don't know if this was a priority of his but if it was he wasn't doing himself any favours by just giving away his valuable skills.