London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked • Hacker News Board

Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked

#111

Post by scholia » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 11:25 PM UTC

astrodust wrote: post #92

scholia wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but it's not really a public park....

What the hell is this thing, then? Why is private money involved?

It's a £75 million project being set up and run by a charity, the Garden Bridge Trust, so it won't be publicly owned. It will be closed to the public when it's rented out for commercial purposes.

The FAQ says:

Over 65% of the capital costs to build the bridge will be fundraised from the private sector. More than £145 million has been pledged already and there is a business plan to cover the £2 million annual maintenance and operations costs. Transport for London and the Government have together contributed £60 million in total.

https://www.gardenbridge.london/questions-answers/fact-ficti...

The arguments for the public funding contribution are that commuters will be able to walk across it, and it will help regenerate the areas at both ends.

Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked

#112

Post by scholia » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 11:27 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #86

Wintamute wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find your comment somewhat alarmist, and lacking historical context. The City of London (from which the Temple end of the Garden Bridge starts) is many many hundreds of years older than the UK itself, and has always been privately owned and governed by shadowy, corporate and arcane processes. Traditionally even the Queen is not allowed to enter the City of London without the say-so of the Lord Mayor. This "private…

privately owned I think that's also misleading; it's not a 'corporation'=='limited liability company with shares'. It's not a "capitalist" institution, it's a pre-capitalist feudal institution that predates the LLC by centuries. It's an elected local body with an unusual electorate.

The bridge (if built) will be owned by a charitable trust, and government funding covers roughly one third of the projected cost.

Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked

#113

Post by ascorbic » Tue, Nov 10, 2015, 12:36 PM UTC

alexro wrote: post #48

ascorbic wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about "every country in the world" though. We're talking about England, where your definition has not applied since 2013.

You confusing legal with cultural. If you go around taking about marriage only few will think about gay relationship. And in any case there is simply no real value for gays to become 'married' other than getting a sticker.

I don't know what culture you're from, but culture is people, and support for gay marriage has increased massively in countries around the world, and is probably the majority in western Europe and North and South America. If by culture you mean "how things have always been done" then that's saying that public opinion never changes, and that slavery should never have been abolished, women never given the vote etc. Times change, and happily my culture at least is far less homophobic, racist and sexist than it used to be even 30 years ago. There are sadly still areas that are still very homophobic (parts of eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean, for example), but overall the momentum is in the right direction.

Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked

#114

Post by Robin_Message » Tue, Nov 10, 2015, 2:22 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #83

alexro wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it make more sense to change Visa laws to allow more flexible relationships? Would you then not need to be 'married' and just use your partnership status?

No, it doesn't. (Even if we were looking at it from the perspective of the country before same sex marriage was made legal.) Changing all the specific legal benefits, privileges, and obligations of marriage to be "marriage or partnership" makes less sense than changing the admission criteria for marriage. I mean, this is a tech forum, right, think about it from DRY perspective.

Amusingly (or not), the UK went to all the effort of introducing "civil partnerships" which involved exactly all that upheaval, about a decade before just introducing equal marriage, which then led to a load more effort to allow porting a partnership into a marriage, as well as leaving partnerships in place for those who do want one or already have one.