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Wednesday, October 8, 2008

This is the voice of the BBC

The BBC have released transcripts intended for use after a nuclear attack. Devised in the 1970s, the intention was to calm people and let them known that the BBC was still operative. Nowadays the populous is controlled through the exaggerated fear of terrorism. Have times really got any better?

Wikilinks: Rick Astley and Chillis

I haven seen any good examples of Rickrolling, though the event at a London railway station where the masses , chanted ¨Never Gonna Give You Up¨ must have been quite a memorable experience.

I never knew there was an international scale for measuring the relative strength of chillis. Many thanks to Wilbur Scoville for his efforts. I wonder if someone dreamed that up today whether they´d be given an IgNoble for culinary services?

2008 IgNobles

It´s that time of year again, including such gems as the prize for literature:David Sims for his passionately written study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations." ;)

US economic woes

What annoys me most about the current economic gloom is that the man on the street who may have lost his entire long term savings because of the greedy actions of a few Wall Street gamblers. He can´t get the loan he needs for a house or car because the banks don´t have any money to lend. The fat cats know the system and will have their arses covered of course, while savings and pensions suffer because of the crashing stock market. The little guy loses again.

Why is it that this happens every 15 to 20 years, the governments swear there will be reform and that it will never happen again, when we all know it will. Humans unfortunately are short sighted and greedy by nature. Let´s face it, they very term growth means you have to make more than you did last year otherwise as a business you´re not successful. This is one of the cornerstones of the economy, but surely it´s unsustainable?

The recent 700bn dollar bailout is needed to get money flowing again, so companies can pay their workers and make necessary investments to preserve their futures. I just hope it´s not seen as a way of forgiving the reckless investment bankers and that when this mess is finally over (I predict a recession in Europe to come around christmas), that the perpetrators are caught and hung out to dry.

Going Green

Nice to see some companies are taking responsibility for the amount of energy they use. Take Google for example who are planning on building data centres using sea containers and placing them in the sea for cooling and as an energy source.
What I didn´t expect was the US military taking a leaf from the same book and building a 500 megawatt solar farm in the Mojave desert. Don´t get me wrong, I think it´s a great idea and proving ground for large scale solar power generation. It´s just the idea of the military saying that they want to set an example for environmentally friendly initiatives is bit hypocritical.