MacDailyNews Take: What’s perhaps surprising about it? The Danes probably want their computers to work instead of wasting all of their time working on their computers.
Kobie reports, “The Danish Police Department isn’t using Apple computers on the go, or keeping in touch with iPhones. No, the entire central command is now run by Mac Pros and Mac Minis [sic], with not a single PC to be seen.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, they just want their stuff to work. No biggie, unless you’re a magazine dedicated to those who value job security over doing a quality job for their companies. BTW, nice all-caps. Typical.
Kobie reports, “The Danish police force has been using Macs since 1996, running NeXTStep. But five years ago, the force needed to upgrade, as spare parts were becoming scarce… Running since mid-July, the new bespoke Mac-based system uses 25 Mac Pros and 73 Minis.”
“Because the system lets operators be more efficient, the Danish department uses a third fewer call takers than other forces in Europe. Shifts of six to eight people using 14 workstations are all the city of 1.2 million needs to take 800 to 1,200 emergency policing calls,” Kobie reports. “‘It takes a lot of human resources to… produce the same amount of call cards. We use eight people. In Kent and Surrey and Glasgow, they use 30, 40, 50,’ said Karsten Højgaard, Police Inspector. The force’s Windows-based systems didn’t allow for multiple calls to be open at the same time, and was slow to process data, so operators had to keep paper and pen at their desks ‘because the system can’t cope.'”
“‘We do not have paper and pens… that’s one of the major advances for Macs, they can handle a lot of calls at the same time,’ Højgaard said, noting over 40 can be open at once on the current systems,” Kobie reports. “‘We haven’t seen any other system that can do that,’ he said.”
“Aside from the daily operations setup, there are three other floors in the centre. One is a local datacentre, running Mac Xserve machines in a RAID 5 setup,” Kobie reports. “Another floor is for major policing operations, such as this week’s summit. It features more Apple [Mac] computers, hooked up to a series of massive displays, with 32 screens as large as 55in, so managers can keep an eye on what’s going on using maps, photos, and GPS to send resources to the right places. Data requests can be brought up, and video links patched in from anywhere.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart on ClimateGate:
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Islandgirl45” for the heads up.]
Wheres the Apple-TAX???
Yeah, and the Danes don’t think brilliantly designed devices are like clueless pageant queens.
“Trees are renewable, but much slower than bamboo. I’d like to know the effects of bamboo cultivation on the Chinese environment, though. We all know how those things tend to be taken care of over there.”
I am in the cabinet industry, and have been around wood all of my life, close to 40 years. I totally understand and support people around the world using the resources they have to provide for themselves. The Bamboo being used for the cabinets on the specific building project is very beautiful. My whole issue with using the Bamboo, is a matter of choice.
Yes the building owner chose to go for the LEED Platinum Status, but not because he is a Greenie. He made a business decision to bend over backwards and meet all of the demands, so that he could be seen as being friendly to the environment. He will profit from this, make money from future work, and get tax and utility rebates because he is going green.
What I have seen with this project is that people are letting the Greenies take over a large part of our daily lives, that it concerns me. In my eyes, this is the same way Political Correctness started. The same way the Anti Smoking started. And the same way the anti SUV movement started.
If you research the Green Movement, at least here in the USA, it started with busy bodies trying to figure out how they could lead people down a path that they wanted them to walk. Their goal is to have people do exactly as they want. They are using the carrot and stick method to encourage people to go green.
With the Climate Change Conference, they are going to stop encouraging, and start enforcing. I made the comment that it would be beneficial for the bureaucracies to use Macs, but maybe it would be better for them to stick with PCs, so it will take them longer to accomplish their goals.
Remember:
“Print this email
Trees are renewable too”
Slavery’s revenge.
Get it, yet, dumbasses?
…”Remember:
“Print this email
Trees are renewable too”
That is so immature. What is the purpose of printing an e-mail? Paper does not make itself; it takes energy, in addition to those renewable trees of yours. Not to mention, it takes man-hours. In order for you to print your e-mail, somebody had to waste time and effort to make that paper, and you had to waste your own time and money to buy it, and for what? Useless piece of paper that will be thrown away very soon (or recycled, whatever).
As I said, immature.
It is not immature. Printing emails is a political statement, the same way it is to not print them. I am actually very mature, because I am putting people to work, spurring further economic development. It is a waste of resources to just look at pretty trees, when they could actually be put to good use. Man hours is what the world wide economy needs. The Greenie Movement is the total opposite. They want to mandate that we only use certain materials.
I will compromise and start recycling the paper I print out. And by the way, I have not printed this thread, but maybe I will just to be immature.
“Print this email
Trees are renewable too”
You simply can’t be serious…..???!!!
@Nana
Thanks for the new word, but don’t misspell it, it’s marxist.
You are the scum, though.
Have a nice day.
Bartsimpsonhead – coffeeshops are in Holland not Denmark nimrod….
Someone is confusing the Danes with the Dutch.
Serious? Maybe. Do you understand that these people, the Greenies, want to put an end to technological advances, so that the environment is not harmed. The computers that you and I are using, would be abolished if they had their way. Not in the next few years, but that is what it would eventually lead to.
The Green Movement would love to see us go back to the way it was before electricity, before cars, before technological advances that they see as causing harm to Mother Earf. Yes I spelled it the way they pronounce it.
It may not be their stated public goal, but when you favor punishing economies that use electricty, however it is derived, what do you think is going to happen. Instead of having more and more electricity to power the gadgets that we hold so dear, there will be less of it available.
Predrag, I do not know where you are in the world, but here in the USA, the news reports have said that the purpose of the 2 week Climate Change Conference is to find a way to extract more money from the wealthy countries, to give them to the poorer ones. Guess what, everyone along the way is going to take a cut, and the poor countries will stay poor.
Seriously, pick a poor country, and tell me what would be better for them. Stay poor and undeveloped, or actually being allowed to use their natural resources the way that the rest of the world has, and pull themselves out of their mess. Guess what, printing or not printing is a political statement.
If by printing an email will cause someone to have to cut down a tree, take it to a mill, do what they do at that mill, and then send a ream of paper to a store for me to buy, I am all for it. I am doing my part to spur economic growth.
And by the way, there are more trees now than at any time in the history of the earth. Not because we have set them aside to look at them, and preserve the environment. But because there is money to be made harvesting them at a profit. Plus we are now able to put out forest fires much more quickly, when they occur, as opposed to the time before the industrial revolution.
So here is the question, which is better? Having the technology to help preserve the environment, when lightning strikes, possibly causing some pollution, or having no technology and having to let the fires burn themselves out, and ending up with no environment at all?
The latest Gallup Poll pegs Obama’s job approval number at 47%. Down from 53% last month.
The latest CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows Sarah Palin now at 46% favorable. Up from 39% in mid-summer.
Republican candidates now have a seven-point lead over Democrats in Rasmussen’s latest Generic Congressional Ballot.
@RyanC
The green movement has nothing to do with forcing people to do their bidding. It has everything to do with an attempt to minimize damage that we humans have wreaked on the environment since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
As human population has increased exponentially, this becomes even more critical. It also has to do with use of resources and dwindling resources. So, with more people using more resources it’s crucial to try to minimize water, air and soil pollution, which are all interconnected.
We here in the US are insulated from how the majority of rest of the world lives. If we could suddenly cut world population in half, the problems would be less pressing. Since that ain’t-a-gonna happen we’ve got to leverage our technical abilities to try and minimize the impact each person has.
It’s a big shift. I liken it to the advent of automobiles. There were skeptics than as now. The horse and buggie people vs. the automobile people. Now it’s the automobile people who are on the way out.
The sooner we as a country jump on “alternative” energy and green materials and building practices (we certainly have the brain and industrial power to tackle it), the sooner we can learn to profit from it on a global scale.
Why NOT make every rooftop in the US generate electricity?
Otherwise we’ll end up like England: 2nd rate, yet believing it’s still 1890. We’re NOT going to be able to stop China!
Hash is NOT legal in Denmark – contrary to belief.
The police have had a war-on-drugs here for about 10 years and have been having a physical war with the Hash Pushers selling out of the squatter community of Christiania (old army base squatted for the past 30 years), The community itself used to strictly control the sale of “soft” drugs only.
This police attack has meant the spread of Hash sales to the Rocker groups and other gangster groups in the area, where there is no control at all, resulting in a daily shooting war over territory in the Copenhagen area. As a ordinary citizen of Copenhagen I DO NOT thank the Police for the daily fear of getting shot by accident, by a drive-by shooter….
Considering the Big Brother aspect of the new set-up they have made at the Central Police Station (which I have seen) not very happy they used macs – unreliable crappy pcs would have been better… just wondering what they are going to use it all for in a week, after the conference is over….
@Mr. Reese
I have been to other countries, mainly in Europe, and I have seen how those people live, and what they have allowed their lives to be or become. Yes, I am insulated by how the rest of the world lives. However, I am of the mindset or persuasion to export what the USA has, not import what they have or have had.
I would love to import nuclear power for electricity. THat is an alternative I would love to see.
I disagree that we need to jump on the alternative energy bandwagon, as I know we have untapped natural resources that are just sitting dormant. Why are these resources off limits? Greenies.
When the USA determines to do something, we do it right, and do it so well, that pollution is kept to a minimum. The USA also knows better than any other nation how to clean up messes. We should export that as well.
As far as rooftops generating electricity, that is a nonstarter, as our infrastructure is not set up to handle the load. It is nice to say that you are doing your part, but it is only feel good stuff.
You are also correct that we will not be able to stop China, but it is because we are not competing with them. We have tied our hands, so that we do not harm the environment, where they have said screw it and are supplying the world with whatever they can produce.
The Chinese are in the game to win, we are being nice.
Look at the USGBC, and LEED, and you will see where this is headed. It is a scam on a mass scale.
You know, when I sent in this story to MDN, I didn’t think of the Danish police using Macs as a partisan issue. Just that it’s cool a government agency is doing this, and don’t we wish all of them would do so?
I guess I should have realized MDN’s hyper-partisanship would twist it into a right-left argument.
I don’t look the whole climate thing through a partisan lens. I think of it as something that affects our national security and financial stability, meaning the more dependent we are on oil we import from OPEC the more money we are sending to regimes that support terrorism. And the more money we spend on imported energy of any kind, the less we have to spend at home.
A couple other comments:
As far as rooftops generating electricity, that is a nonstarter, as our infrastructure is not set up to handle the load.
No, you missed Mr. Reee’s point. Solar panels on a roof are designed to generate electricity for that particular building, reducing the overall load on the system. It’s very rare that they could produce enough power to sell back to the power company.
We have tied our hands, so that we do not harm the environment, where they (China) have said screw it and are supplying the world with whatever they can produce.
Actually, you’re a bit behind the times with this statement. China’s air and water have become so filthy from the practices you describe, and so many of its people live in “cancer cluster areas,” that the government has started a major push into less destructive energy production. We’re behind them in that respect.
I would love to import nuclear power for electricity…I disagree that we need to jump on the alternative energy bandwagon, as I know we have untapped natural resources that are just sitting dormant.
Why would we need to import nuclear energy? We can generate it here, if we’re willing to pony up about $10 billion for each power plant.
Also, you may not have noticed, but the U.S. already has a ton of oil and gas rigs in offshore waters. It’s not like we aren’t already drilling those. We simply don’t have enough reserves to supply the entire country. Not in ANWR, not anywhere else.
That’s why reducing the overall demand for electricity matters. It’s not a “feel good” thing. It’s a U.S. national security and financial benefit “thing.”
It is good to see that there is proof that Mac’s are good for business. That being able to do more work with less people offsets the higher cost of installation.
MDN did make this a different debate. Complete reviews, not cherry picked statements, show that the emails did not prove a conspiracy. We have been giving our money to the poor countries by buying Saudi oil. They fund free education to poor countries that teach them Christians and Jews are evil and the US and Israel should be destroyed. The US needs new sources of power to make us economically stronger. The people who are making money on the current system do not want change. Remember FOX News is not American, it is Australian. Their interest not in what is best for the USA, but for keeping a corporate control of world power.
@RyanC
“And by the way, there are more trees now than at any time in the history of the earth.”
This is the most fatuous rubbish I’ve ever heard. Quite apart from the fact that Europe in medieval times was heavily forested but that has now gone for farmland, or that New York used to be woodland, vast swathes of the world’s largest forests, in the Amazon, the Congo Basin, Indonesia and Siberia, are disappearing every day.
There aren’t even more trees today than there were yesterday, or last week, never mind “at any time in history”. Try reading Jared Diamond’s book Collapse to find out what happens to societies, even in modern times, who use up all their natural resources, especially trees.
And when you spout this sort of crap, do you really think we are going to take any notice the rest of your arguments?
@Islandgirl
when I stated that our infrastructure could not handle the load of solar rooftop panels, it was from personal experience, in that the project I’m working on is going to sell this power to the local utility. This will offset their utility bill.
As far as China’s government and how they are making an entry into less destructive energy production, great. I did not know that the USA at any time had cancer clusters for very long. You do realize that the government their is communist right? The government decided to make the change not the people.
The USA is still a free country, and Americans would not stand for the pollution that China has been dealing with for many years.
@Malthus
I meant to say trees in America and not the entire world. I will have to find my source, and add it to my comments.
This is a fun debate, which I did not intend to sidetrack. However, this is not partisan, but ideological. It is great and wonderful that macs are being used where PCs have been. I would love to see Apple with a higher market share than it now has.
The debate is or should be about spending tax money wisely. I was only speaking from personal experience as it related to the conference in Copenhagen. It makes no sense for governments, including public schools, to use PCs. They are cheaper, all the way around, but total cost of ownership is much greater. Over the life of the PC. I would love to see Macs adopted, with the benefit of saving money. Every example that can be found does need to be posted. Maybe someone in government will take notice.
What a total waste of time and resources.
MDN and the US is always late with news from the rest of the world. Swedish Macworld had an article about the danish police in the August issue.
nice to see that the money of the big PR firms being hired by Oil companies is being put to good use… nice tactic co-opting the arguments of the green movement as your own, conspiracy? whew! Big Business which has a fatter wallet and has more to lose should global policies turn green and is more likely to be the perpetrators of the delusion.
At whatever (and then the rest of you Marxist scum),
I’m sure you’ve never made a typo jack ass. You liberals are sick people. 2010 and 2012 will be your doom. You’re going down hard. I predict people will start paying attention from now on and never vote you tyrannists in ever again. WE ABSOLUTELY HATE YOUR LIVING GUTS!!!!!!! Stay the hell out of our lives you sickos. This is completely about power hungry Marxists trying to grab as much control as possible and tell us, US citizens, everything and anything that we are “allowed” to do. How un-American can you get?????
Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama’s declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they’d rather have his predecessor. The closeness in the Obama/Bush numbers also has implications for the 2010 elections. Using the Bush card may not be particularly effective for Democrats anymore, which is good news generally for Republicans and especially ones like Rob Portman who are running for office and have close ties to the former President.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1209/Bush_closes_the_gap.html