learnteach: (Default)
learnteach ([personal profile] learnteach) wrote2009-12-28 11:23 pm

I can't make this stuff up...

From an article about the Labour gov's plans:

Lord Adonis believes that good design will minimise the environmental impact. “This will be the year of high-speed rail,” he said. “As a project it will define Britain for the 21st century. "


So...Britain will be putting in something started in the 1830's...that's the vision of the future.

Victorian times return!

The similarity is astounding

(Anonymous) 2009-12-29 05:10 pm (UTC)(link)
In every case in the technology article, the predictors are justifying financial decisions using predictions, and some were true--the computers as then designed by IBM were only good for ballistics, the initial copying machines were huge, the silent film actors were refugees from stage where they couldn't be because they had such terrible voices.

But to put your budget, the economic recovery miracle dream, behind a train?
When the normal one can get you from one end of England to the other in less than a day? It's not an improvement in any but the incremental time sense!

Bet big. Quantum computing. High speed fibre. Robot wind sail tankers. Cod breeding facilities. Elver nurseries. At least your failure will lead to new things, not old!