____/ [H]omer on Saturday 01 September 2007 00:40 : \____
> Verily I say unto thee, that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
>
>> Edinburgh's Microsoft-based overhaul delivers ROI in 14 months
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | The two-year overhaul was carried out by BT using Microsoft’s
>> | Infrastructure Optimisation Model and is designed to give the
>> | council a future-proof IT infrastructure, as part of the council’s
>> | “Smart City Vision” for service improvement.
>> `----
>>
>>
http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/it-business/it-organisation/news/index.cfm?newsid=4899
>
> Yeah that's real "smart" of Edinburgh Council - waste taxpayers' money
> on a current and future dependency on Microsoft Malware. Idiots.
>
> Local councils in Britain (and especially Scotland, it seems) are
> notorious for wasting money on White Elephant investments.
Remember NHS? Wasn't it 12 billion quid down the drain for a failed project of
Microsoft partners?
> The two most infamous ones in my area was Aberdeen City Council wasting
> millions on "rebranding" themselves, by first employing a marketing firm
> to design a logo, and then deploying tens of thousands of road signs,
> billboards, letterheads and other stationary, etc. with that new logo.
> WTF!!! Since when does a /council/ need "branding"? It's not a
> /business/, it's a public utility. And the "logo" they wasted so much
> money on, was little more than a /tick-mark/ a la the Nike logo!!! Idiots.
They did *exactly* that in Manchester University. Obscene amounts of money
spent on a logo you could come up with in 5 minutes. Then came the
whole 'rebranding' campaign, which must have cost many, many million.
> The other one was when they decided to create an overpass on one of our
> busiest roads. They commissioned a bridge which was subsequently built
> off-site at a cost of millions, but come the day it was to be fitted -
> they discovered it was several yards /too short/, and had to scrap it
> and start again. What a bunch of morons.
They demolished the Maths Tower for no good reason. I bet they needed to 'move
the economy' and 'keep people occupied'. It took them *ONE YEAR* to just
demolish the tower, which hasn't even been there for many decades. Amazing.
They also destroy all the green areas now.
> There are many other examples. There was a time when Aberdeen used to
> regularly win the Britain City in Bloom competition every year, because
> of the miles and miles of roses along its roads, then after a change of
> leadership in the council, they decided to rip up all the roses and
> replace them with metal barricades, turning Aberdeen into something that
> wouldn't look out of place in a post-apocalyptic horror story. They've
> only just recently decided that maybe ripping up the flowers wasn't such
> a great idea after all, and they're now spending millions on planters
> (pots) all over the city. Meanwhile the taxpayer picks up the tab for
> all these flip-flop decisions.
>
> Bah!
I wrote the last paragraph before reading yours (replying as I go along and
read). So, yes, there's definitely this trend of mindless industrialisation
that gives no priority whatsoever to consideration like:
* How much in terms of emissions will this project cost?
* How much of nature do we eliminate here?
* How many manhours will this require?
* What will the taxpayer say?
I guess that Aberdeen won't be flooded any time soon, so the council will
continue doing its thing. Never mind if islands in the Indian Oceans have been
washed away by rising water levels and other countries now cope with refugees.
--
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Useless fact: sheep outnumber people in NZ
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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