Charging for the news

A whole bunch of papers have recently been talking about ways they can make money from their websites.  I've not, generally, seen good ways for them to do so.  Going pay-only means that you lose the vast majority of your subscribers.

The Economist, however, seems to have found a compromise that might just work.  Everything over 90 days is pay only.  And so is the main contents page of the print edition.

Which means you can see a page from the most recent issue if someone links to it.  And you can see a few major stories via the front page.  But if you want to find your way to the rest of it - you'll need to pay for it.  Which is just annoying enough that, if you're the kind of person who _wants_ to read The Economist on a regular basis you'll pay for it.

It strikes me as a good balance - nicely done.

GIP

Bathroom update

Plumbers arrived at 8am (it helps to live one street over from them) and had the tank bypassed and a new stopcock fitted by 8:40.  I only had a quick check that the shower now seemed to be working (which it does) before heading off to work, but I'm looking forward to having a working shower tonight.

They also checked all the taps and toilets to make sure they coped fine with the new pressure - and replaced a valve in the second toilet.  The toilets now fill in 45 seconds, rather than 3 minutes, which is lovely.

The damp experts are coming round next Wednesday to start excavating until they find the source of the problem.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Delicious LiveJournal Links for 10-15-2009

• US special forces tool up with plasma blades
  Sadly, not quite as cool as you might think. Still pretty cool though.
  (tags: technology medicine TheFuture)
• iPhone saves woman from bear
  Is there anything it can't do?
  (tags: iphone bears)
• 'Lying down' NHS staff reinstated - a victory for common sense
  Dismissal was over the top - what they needed was to be shouted at and then sent back to work.
  (tags: work law pranks)
• A new dimension for genome studies
  They've found how DNA is stored. Most impressive.
  (tags: 3D dna genetics biology fractal)

Something something oranges something.

[Poll #1471572]

Music round the house

Looking into music streaming systems and I'm feeling quite tempted by the combination of the 1.5TB Linkstation Live as a server and a Philips WAK3300 as the player.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Update

Julie ded of ill (strangely enough, said ill came on shortly after she emailed her paper off to her supervisors for approval).  I came home and was then joined momentarily by marrog and erindubitably who needed to print off sheet music for marrog to warble at her new choir.  After they left I woke Julie and we ordered pizza.

Pizza was devoured over Star Trek III: The Search For Spock.  Which I enjoyed, but felt was more of a linking piece than a movie in its own right.  Julie preferred it to Wrath of Khan, a judgement I shall lay firmly at the feet of the aforementioned ill.

And then we both had showers. 

Our first showers in the newly finished bathroom.

I have to admit I was feeling nervous about this - after all the fun and games getting the bathroom installed in the first place, my worries about the boiler, and then discovering that the cold water needed to have a bypass put in I was worried that it was _still_ going to be wrong.

Instead we've ended up with water temperature that's nigh perfect and enough pressure to blast you across the room.  Neither of us have felt this clean in a long time.  Certainly not since Julie moved in here and we only had access to the (rather feeble) electric shower.  It's fantastic.  Well worth the £3,000 that the bathroom ended up costing.

Royal Mail

It seems that the government and the management is fiddling the figures on the Royal Mail.

Read this.