The Off Topic Topic

[DGuller]

Austrian ISPs have issued a press statement. They complain about the traffic caused by people using streaming services. They demand that platforms like Netflix, Amazon and Disney should pay up, because they generate significant revenue while using the infrastructure for free.

Though I kind of wonder what I'm paying my internet provider for, then. 

Cynicism aside, it doesn't strike me as an unreasonable stance.  Infrastructure is a public good, and allowing public good to be used without limit or charge for profit is a bad economic policy.  Right now it seems like there is more bandwidth around than anyone knows what to do with due to fiber, but I'm sure that's a temporary situation, and eventually usage will catch up to technology.

[Admiral Yi]

Cynicism aside, it doesn't strike me as an unreasonable stance.  Infrastructure is a public good, and allowing public good to be used without limit or charge for profit is a bad economic policy.  Right now it seems like there is more bandwidth around than anyone knows what to do with due to fiber, but I'm sure that's a temporary situation, and eventually usage will catch up to technology.

It doesn't have to be a public good.  It can be private, as in the US.

[The Brain]

Sounds horrible that someone is driving higher demand for their services.

[Sheilbh]

My favourite in British planning today - Brighton's Green council has made it mandatory for all new builds to have "bee bricks" which are bricks with little holes in them that bees can live in. Which is a great victory for helping wildlife - and they moved on to looking at bird bricks as well (I feel like some of the birds that live in the bird brick might just eat the bees that live in the bee brick but no-one's confirmed this yet).

It's since come out that bee bricks MUST NOT be mortared into walls because they need to be taken out and cleaned every couple of years or they get infested with mites that eat the pollen, kill the eggs and infect the bees. If you don't regularly replace/clean the bee brick then it becomes a biological sink that kills new eggs year-on-year and actually reduces the local bee population.

It's a sort of milkshake duck: everyone loves Brighton's new mandatory bee bricks, which are a lovely step that help the bees! - literally five seconds later - we regret to announce that the bricks will decimate Brighton's bee population for generations

I understand there's similar issues with the bird brick. I imagine the council is now urgently looking at how to make bee bricks NOT mandatory, despite what they've just said.

[The Larch]

Even being a dirty tree hugging hippie and working professionally on the field for many years, I've never ever in my whole life heard anything about such a thing as a bee or bird brick. 

[Tamas]

Even being a dirty tree hugging hippie and working professionally on the field for many years, I've never ever in my whole life heard anything about such a thing as a bee or bird brick. 

This island can be a weird, weird place sometimes.

[Sheilbh]

Even being a dirty tree hugging hippie and working professionally on the field for many years, I've never ever in my whole life heard anything about such a thing as a bee or bird brick. 

Bee brick:


Bird bricks are similar - a little bit bigger and only one entry.

[Tamas]

I understand the critical importance of bees, but I am not keen on living right next to a hive of them.

[HVC]

These look like they're made for solitary bees. They make little wooden homes for these guys. Cheap and easily replaceable. Council would be better off mailing them out every 3-4 years.

[HVC]

I mean if these were intended for bees that make colonies multiple entrances are dumb. Can't control predation, honey stealing or temperature with multiple entries.

[Gaijin de Moscu]

I understand the critical importance of bees, but I am not keen on living right next to a hive of them.

Yeah, I agree, especially as my wife is an insectophobe... It would be either her or the bee bricks for me

[The Larch]

I seriously doubt that the issue for bee conservation in the UK is a lack of places they can colonize.

[Sheilbh]

There's also bat bricks which alarm me because we have really strict bat protection laws. So it'd basically make knocking down any building with a bat brick impossible unless you can prove no bats use it

[Razgovory]

How much is it going to cost for someone to go around the city washing bricks?

[Tamas]

How much is it going to cost for someone to go around the city washing bricks?

As much as the Mayor's wife's cousin is not too ashamed to charge, I'd imagine.