Posts by Scott Broukell 968 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Sep 2007
After the careful application with a miniature disc cutter hobby tool and some very fine sanding my Samsung is now very much octagonal - does that mean I can keep it please Mr Apples. (I've also been along to the local patent office, so there)
Logo - cos i was wearin me safety goggles wern it.
I understand that during the descent they dumped, at just the right intervals, several 25kg blocks of Tungsten. Whilst not wishing to detract from a spectacular science/ engineering achievement, the use of such 'ballast' in order to adjust the crafts position in flight / descent makes me chuckle somewhat and I am reminded of the art of ballooning. Its those simple Newtonian principles of engineering / science and their correct application that make this, as well as the LOHAN project of course, such blooming good fun to follow. Beer all round chaps.
I've been keeping a half a jam jar of Phlogiston on the top shelf at the back of the shed for some considerable time now, you know, just in case that held the answer to what they've been looking so hard for at CERN / Fermilab. Sadly it looks very much as if this might all have been in vein and that the jar and it's miraculous contents are now redundant. Any offers ?
.. so long as Murdoch / News Corp are compelled to clearly use / print the words "NOW PLEASE WASH YOUR HANDS" on any published material, digital or otherwise. That, in my estimation, is indicative of everything that has, and ever will, issue forth from News Corp et al - ARSE WIPE. Thank you.
Did you see what I did there "I knew it" - inuit - Canada (hehe).
Twas all a little tongue in cheek dear fellow, as was my earlier quip bout anthropogenic climate disaster, furnaces and the like. I doff my cap to anyone who takes such measures to limit their carbon hoof print whilst living in such hostile climes. Mine, in urban UK land, is comfortably small thank you very much, by which I mean we simply put more clothes on rather than turn the heating on/up etc.etc. It's the scenery that's lacking really :-(
Have a pint on me.
Weren't "strong indications" the reason d'etre for building the LHC in the first place. And if anyone announces further "strong indications" from the LHC team this week, won't it all mean that they've just been going round in circles - very, very big expensive circles !!
Are these phishing emails positively targeting Nat West and RBS customers alone ?
Or is it just a blanket phish going out to world and dog ?
If the former is the case I would find it rather alarming.
Sorry, but I couldn't see an answer to this in the article. To me it did seem to suggest the former scenario. Clarification would be good either way.
Quite so, folks do seem to have short memories. I remember either side of 2000 when I knew of many peeps getting crazy mortgages (for needlessly large houses), based on self-certificated earnings, having three, or more cars per family (Dads, Mums and Mums hand-me down(s) for the eldest kiddlet(s) etc.), taking at least three holidays abroad in very reasonable 3-star+ accommodation and being constantly urged by bankers (and politicians), to extend their borrowings even further at every opportunity. It was well and truly PART TIME and we ALL loved it, couldn't get enough of it. Only a few folk thought not to live beyond their means and ,very sadly, our gubbermint certainly DIDN'T.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction - the PARTY IS OVER. But we didn't complain or care to notice whilst it was in full swing did we. Saving funds in the good times is best practice is it not.
Poor old Greece is a particular case in point - the expansion of the Euro zone was pushed for by the banks and money lenders who knew all too well how nations like Greece would lap up every last bit of cheap money despite their inability, on paper, to pay it all back if it fell due. The Greek politicians at the time must have thought that the populace would forgive them cooking the books cos they would be too busy partying.
All that to say, no, the Keynesian approach to saving for a rainy day is way too late - it never even crossed out minds. Europe, especially monetary union, was only ever going to work if every nation behaved like Germany. Sadly the majority at 'The Party' lacked the sort of discipline required for such emulation.
Now every one is happy to kick the can along the road in the hope something miraculous might happen? - cos what's going on isn't even close to applying sticking plasters, let alone approaching fixing the results. No, I don't have the answers and I, like so many, must endure further belt tightening - a good job I'm used to it I suppose.
Don't bet with anything more than you can actually afford to loose and don't borrow what you can't pay back - simples.
I don't want to have loads of disadvantaged, poorly educated, children running about the place paying (somehow) for my state pension and healthcare thanks very much. I want to be able to do that for myself thank you. I want all children to get better educational opportunities and to have those from disadvantaged backgrounds better able to get themselves out of said disadvantaged predicament. Education certainly is a very key factor in reducing world population rates - e.g. by dint of allowing female children an opportunity to rid themselves of cultural and religious straight jackets that otherwise see them repeating the birthing machine lifestyles that their mothers and grandmothers suffered.
It matters little if wealthier folk have more children or not. What matters is having a stable, sustainable population which can do more for ITSELF and not burden the state / tax payers. Who need the money to fund their private healthcare and private pensions etc.
A Start to Confronting the Problem of Population Growth might be:
NO child benefit after the second child is born.(Medical exemptions for multiple births of course)
That way it's like a tax on children. Those who can afford it will be able to choose weather to absorb the extra financial burden themselves, and those that would otherwise expect the state to pay for their large families will need to revise their thinking and way of life. Who knows, with smaller families, the less well off might find that one or two kids actually prosper a wee bit better that 4 or 5+
And NO state-funded fertility treatment either - it's natures own way of controlling birth rates don't yer know.
Of course this would open a debate as to weather couples who choose not to have children should be rewarded in some small way ?
The overall savings on the government purse might not be that large, but, for example, the reduction in class sizes is there to benefit all.
Just thinking about efficiency savings, austerity and living within our means etc.
There would be less milk wastage as well.
maybe it's a state where the atoms constituent parts are restrained from adopting an alternative position / state - they remain locked into half the available conditions and therefore stable ? Dunno to be honest just guessing, which isn't the best scientific stand point I know. (pub science is fun but all too often fundamentally flawed - I remain open to clarification)
Don't the vast majority of 'Home' users want to see the Shiny Shiny Flashy Colorful bits that draw them into the whole Moth / Candle-light ting in the first place. So whilst a small army of support engineers, programmers, repairers and hobbyists can give out such advice, how many peeps actually take any notice when they get home, head any helpful text file reminders you put on their desktops, or change their user / browsing behaviour to reduce the risks? In my experience, maybe 5% - and even then you need to keep badgering them, if you have the time and inclination. So educating the masses is a very tough job, whilst offering them easy-peasy shiny icons and software / hardware, 'We've done it all for you, look!', solutions is going to win every time. So the same machines / peeps come back in all the time with infections and malware etc. Maybe we should just give up with the advice stuff and earn a living fixing the darn things.
Sorry, I dunno, I don't have the answers but I think I can get a handle on the symptoms. I'll take two asprin and go and have a little lie down.
So with all this water (ice) drifting around the two planet system, presumably all it will take is for enough to make touch down and liquify on either or both of the planets, then the arrival of some amino acid building block chemistry (unless those materials are already captured within the comet debris), and hey presto! - a new customer base, ready and waiting in 2 billion years or so!
I say we all 'friend' them now on FB and give them ID cards and banking/credit facilities - what, too soon ? But think of the sales advantages and profit leverage. Only 12 light years distant, surely we should start making contact with leafleting at the very least, that's a cheap, cost effective and easy way to reach out to new customers.
Dear Mr / Mrs green/blue algal Blob, did you know you could now get up to 30GB Wi-Fi broadbland and free unlimited weekend calls, (wait - what's their orbital interval, a weekend could be something like 1 Terra-month long!, better give that one some more thought).
In a democracy no government is "in power" they are elected into OFFICE!
Correcting this all too often made fundamental error what the medja continue with is urgently required, now, without a vote! Reminding politicians that they are "in office" would help remind all of us of the true function of democracy.
@dr2chase 11:40 gmt
Whilst I kind of agree that cars should be discouraged I don't think my focus was on rules of the road, rather on consideration towards each other. Rules are helpful to keep the system in a reasonably orderly manner. However, you are right to point out that the occupants of cars and lorries often fare better in collision with any softer road users involved.
There are, however, a number of studies which demonstrate that if you remove all the signage, painted lines and whatnot, so that the "road" space becomes shared, peeps will slow right down to avoid each other, take greater care and car / lorry drivers, for whom all that signage is really there to please, become demoted to the same shared level as every one else. That may be the way to go - the Dutch have tried this out in a couple of urban areas and found, so I believe, that RTAs are reduced as a consequence. And that peeps are less stressed to boot :-)
There is a growing number of peeps trying to use the roads and pavements, especially in cities, whether it be on foot or in all manner of motorised, or non-motorised, contraptions. I would suggest that this simply requires all those peeps to have greater consideration for each other in those circumstances.
Probably the best cyclists are those that also have, and constantly refer to, experience as car drivers and pedestrians. This works the other way too of course.
We simply need to have greater consideration for those around us. Look ahead and plan your next move whilst considering what those around you might do and the position there are in. I would suggest that the problems we perceive with other road users are, in large part, down to a growing lack of understanding and consideration.
If you use the road, abide by the rules of the road and give other users consideration – simple isn't it.
There are plenty of idiotic, inconsiderate, road / pavement users out there too, but I firmly believe that if we show greater consideration to each other, the lesson will be learnt remembered and passed on down the line as it were.
Probably the worst drivers / cyclists etc. are those that think they are the best and that they can never make mistakes.
Cyclists and motor cyclists are vulnerable on these congested roads, therefore they need to be handled with greater consideration. However, the complete disregard that many cyclists show to other road users or to the highway code is becoming intolerable to many other peeps. This does no good to our general perceptions about “all” cyclists, so let's keep it in perspective and give each other some care and consideration.
I'm not sure I would want to be propelled on a “Turbo” electric bicycle at (relatively) high speed through any of the urban / city-centre traffic that I have encountered recently, therefore I agree with the suggested limits imposed. Compulsory cycle tests, licensing, helmets and insurance cannot be a bad idea given both the levels of congestion and levels of skill now required to negotiate that congestion in a lawful and considerate manner.
"Privacy" thing, I couldn't agree more. In fact I would go further and include the entire internet.
But isn't there a way around this - Just create another FB account designed solely to impress and influence current / future employers. You could link "friends" with other peeps in the same areas of work who have also created their own alto-ego FB accounts. Then they could indulge in lots of mutual back slapping and congratulatory whatever to give the best impression. I dunno, just a thought.
And yet, if warming increases the amount of fresh melt-water from glacial reduction in the Arctic, does this not increase the chance of the North Atlantic Oscillation (Conveyor thingy) breaking down, thus plunging Britain into a mini ice-age, as opposed to an area of increased BBQ'ness ?
Is this great big system (Earths climate et al) not just going through phases of adjustment all the time in order to balance (relatively speaking) its temperature. And we are all tiny tings that will just have to adapt. And will that regulatory system of adjustment ultimately adjust our humin population as well, thereby reducing any impact from our own emissions n'that.
So should we care at all - just how much impact could all these climate protocols (nobody seems to give a sh*t about probably cos there eat into profit margins) actually have ?
I'm pretty sure it's not our private cars and patio-heaters that do the most damage if any, but rather the industrial processes that make the shiny shiny we are told we must have all the time.
mmmm ......
I understood that recent torrential rain storms and heat waves etc were largely due to meanders in the northern jet stream, becoming temporarily static, and the jet stream itself moving further south than is usual.
Weren't two meanders shown to be responsible both for the heat wave in Russia a couple of years ago (sucking hot air up from north Africa) and the Pakistan floods (drawing moist air off the Indian Ocean and causing precipitation when that same air cooled over mountainous regions).
Only asking.
I think you will find that with a managed, sustainable local population, which in turn, manages and replenishes fast-growing woodland stocks both for construction use and heating and cooking etc, that it is in fact a more humanly / environmentally friendly activity than importing diseased invaders to rape, pillage and plunder those and other resources for the sake of greed and individual wealth.
The islands of the UK were once festooned with huge tracts of lush forests and woodland until the local population took it upon themselves to start building vast amounts of timber-framed houses and, more pertinently, ships with which to sail across the seas and .......
Our world is a pretty big place and conditions for tiny peeps crawling around on it, at the interface with the surface and the ever so thin atmosphere where marvelous chaotic gaseous fluid systems create the ebb and flow of our climate with interference from external sources of heat, light and other emissions, are going to be dramatic at times, but probably reasonably stable in the main. If they weren't stable for the majority of the time, once the atmosphere became largely composed of methane, nitrogen and some oxygen etc we probably wouldn't be here would we ?
Although we can appreciate data sets taken from ice cores and tree rings, I doubt we will ever be able to accurately model what the climate was like hundreds or thousands of years ago because such data sets represent only a limited slice of the whole picture. It appears hard enough for us to determine if tomorrow will bring cloud, drizzle or heavy rain to any given area smaller than say Wales.
I've read studies that purport to show humans altered the climate / atmosphere when we began adopting an agricultural, more settled, life-style in the neolithic period. And we know about the potential material just one large volcanic eruption can put into the atmosphere. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that our more recent, industrial, emissions have played some part in effecting that same immense chaotic system.
I am more concerned about the health of the worlds oceans, which, of course, play a major part in driving the atmospheric machinery. But not so much the effect they have in that system, more the effect that increased acidity therein will have on our food chain! The oceans continue to absorb vast amounts of pollutants (man-made or other), which we blissfully ignore at our peril. We could probably adapt sufficiently to survive another ice-age or, alternatively, the desertification of most of Europe, but if the oceans become lifeless foul-stenching mega-sewers, we would find that adaptation, and hence our survival, far, far harder to achieve.
Come what may, something will have to give when / if things get tougher down here on the surface, it will inevitably have it's largest effect on the weakest and those least able to adapt. I am a great adherent of a self-managed human population, by which I mean individuals taking the responsibility to keep the human population at sustainable levels, because in the greater scheme of things, it brings benefits to the whole population - that's us, all of us, together.
I suggest that through our ingenuity, technology and by taking responsibility for both population and waste / recycling etc we could do a whole lot more to not only mitigate our industrial emissions, but put ourselves in a better position to react, adapt, change and possibly survive whatever might be heading our way in terms of climate change or oceanic catastrophe.
Currently, however, this would prove to be a difficult fit with our self-imposed model of global finance, consumerism and the severe dichotomy twixt the "must haves" and the "need to have" parts of our developed and under developed world population. What drives the present global financial system must have these two poles in order for the "current" of money to flow around the system and generate the energy of financial gain.
It has always amazed me just how humans managed to survive periods of glaciation in the past - tiny hand fulls of mesolithic peeps trekking thousands of miles to pastures new, or clinging on to life at the edges - truly awesome given their rudimentary technology. One can only imagine that their understanding of and sense of the natural world around them was far more finely tuned than is ours now - despite our wonderous technology. Of course these people also traded artifacts and goods and knowledge, but probably largely for reasons of sheer survival, rather than pure individual greed. (that quite possibly started a bit later).
- just saying.
For all of the peeps in dingy basements and that, might I suggest the introduction of copious office plants. Many species are more than happy with low light levels and even the emissions from office devices such as laser printers etc. They really can improve the working environment to great effect and you can take pleasure in pampering them, even though many are low maintenance - plants generally respond well to some acknowledgement of their being there - nice :-)
@PatientOne
The list could indeed have been tediously lengthy. I'm not against peeps having religious beliefs, so long as;
A] They don't abuse / indoctrinate the minds of children (under 16yrs) with those ideas.
B] They keep their religion to themselves, at a personal level at all times.
C] No religious leaders get automatic seats in any government institution of what should be an entirely secular state (UK).
D] They don't plead special treatment or what ever for any beliefs or practices they hold.
E] They actually demonstrate their supposed tolerance of each others beliefs /existence for once.
I could go on but no religion will ever get near any of the above and I just wish they would drop the whole anachronism and move from the neolithic age into the modern world. I don't believe you need this mass / organized stuff in order to have a morally just society that knows right from wrong instinctively. And one that is tolerant of peeps who hold those beliefs (see above), but at the same time teaches children about the entire global gamut of theism and atheism alike.
(just saying)
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