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I’m not very practical when it comes to DIY. I’m more of a back room guy. I know how many things work and I know how to make things work but when it comes to drilling holes or nailing things together I’m better leaving things alone.
So I always look on in admiration when I see someone doing something spectacular. Either building their own home, car, boat or in this case, their own helicopter. Read the story here and see some crashes as well. 2 for 1.
As risk taking in Britain is being killed off by government with their rules and regulations it is good to see that the spirit is still alive abroad.
It may be in the joke pile now but if scientists stopped making data up about the weather and got down to some real science it could be in your toybox soon.
I’ve read before about men and women who have had their libidos increased or decreased after a trauma to the head or some form of brain damage, including tumours.
This article though actual changes things. It seems this woman was hurt in the pelvis and it has turned her libido on full power.
Now the reason this changes things is that it is a bit much to suffer brain damage to get a bit randy but tweaking nerves in the pelvis can’t really be compared. This leaves it open for scientists to perform research and develop a switch for the nerve that can be turned on and off by remote control. I feel a research grant coming on. Something useful and surely a field you could see yourself getting involved in.
Then items like the remote control above will be a reality. Racing for the remote control in the house will be more than just what TV channels to watch. It will be if we will watch TV channels.
Of course when the time comes and we are all off to fight in Crusades II, better known as Liberals Folly Part 2675, we will have a system set up that every minute turns the libido off. It will be much better than chastity belts.
In our next evolutionary step that nerve, wherever it is, will be triggered by thought.
Been playing about with Internet phones over the last few days and it has kept me busy. Good old reliable Skype seems to be having performance problems and doesn’t do conference calls to well so I was looking at some alternatives. This is one area where the cloud is giving clear benefits with neglible risk. VOIP is a tried and tested technology and has been around for a while now.
Seems there is quite a few of them out there now. Several VOIP providers are looking for our business. Although most are intended for use with handsets and little exchanges most will actually run from your PC, or Mac, as softphones.
Once I’ve found a good working softphone I’ll be switching to save some money. You can even have free phone numbers for your areas and with the providers being worldwide you can save quite a bit if you have family abroad.
If only the government had not cocked up the final loop which means no matter what BT are still in business. If you are unaware, for ADSL, BT hold the rights for the loop into your house. This means unless you can get cable or satellite or can afford Broadband dongles you have to have a BT line. Even if you only want broadband you have to have aBT phone and they are an atrocious organisation to deal with as well. One true leap forward would be to move this work to a more efficient organisation but like the BBC it seems protected.
Anyway, I have cable so I don’t need a BT line. If you have cable then I would consider getting rid of the landline and going VOIP. Although, as usual, there are disadvantages as well. The main one, probably the only, being that with no hardline if you have no power you are unable to make 999 calls. Of course with more mobiles it is less of a problem than it could be.
Anyway, the favourite at the moment is Sipgate. It came recommended by someone I’m working with at the moment. The softphone is actually pretty poor, actually poor does not describe it, but the hardware options look good and the cost savings will be significant. Well worth a try.
After my last article on ‘green’ cars for rich people I came across this article on ‘green’ vehicles that the inventor hopes will become a machine for the people.
I was looking at it and thinking that it looks really dangerous. It looks the sort of vehicle that if it was involved in an accident with a kid on a scooter it would come off worse. It’s low and awkward and I would suspect easily missed by traffic especially vans and trucks and buses never mind ordinary road traffic. Like a pedal bike not the way to go on our roads but by the looks of things that is what is being developed. It’s not a family vehicle but one intended for commuters. Although if you read the article it is all about road safety but how safe this could be after being run over by an 18 wheeler is something I don’t want to contemplate.
It seems that this then could be the vehicle I was calling for. The vehicle for the plebs. Something small, cheap and can go a million mileson an AAA battery. Just like the toy it is.
Where is my car of the future? A car similar to a small executive car about the size of an Audi A4 or an old Mondeo class. Electric powered and one we are used to seeing. One we are already geared up to see on the road. One that can carry a normal family and one that can be upgraded to exceed our current safety standards as well as it’s fuel efficiency and, if needs must, it’s green capabilities.
If this is the sort of car being pushed then I forsee a good market for second hand cars and another bail out for the car industry being required. I think I need to ‘invest’ in a couple of second hand cars now while they are affordable.
Whilst another bionic body part, fingers, comes available and gives hope to millions of people all over the world I wonder if there is going to be a massive rich poor gap around these items. With socialised medicine coming to ruin the US medical industry and with it already screwing everyone over here who is going to be able to pay for this. I can only see the rich affording it now.
Remembering that back in the dark ages, last week for most of the middle east, kids are having limbs amputated to make them better beggars whilst we will likely be taking less holidays in those parts partly because the whingey whiney greens don’t want us to fly and partly because we won’t be able to afford to. These people can’t get their arms put back on and I suspect that the bionics will be out of financial reach. So how will this impact on development. Why should anyone develop bionic limbs when the death panels, such as NICE (What an inappropriate name), will reject them for cost and we will never get the investors to buy in.
I see us at the edge of a precipice and I’m actually wondering if we are just going to meekly walk over the edge. It would be the end of our chance of advancement this cycle and it will be 50 years before the wheel will turn again and forward lookers are in power.
Its times like these we need some nice friendly aliens to visit. Although I would settle for evil aliens that kill all our politicians before succumbing to the Swine Flu.
It seems that my ISP, as usual, is trialing some software to monitor torrent downloads as part of a concerted effort to clamp down on illegal users. Read here.
*cough* of course I don’t download pirated stuff myself but I do upload and download some stuff for personal use and share some data that is either out of copyright or copyright free.
However, I just don’t see how they find out exactly what is in each torrent. I suspect they will have to go with making guesses based on the packet information and details of the torrent itself gained from torrent sites. This meansI, and others, will get falsely tagged. Typical.
So, that leaves me with two options. I can carry on knowing my stuff is OK but risk getting identified as a torrent user and worth sending a cease and desist letter to or to stop using the torrent server and move back to FTP, HTTP or even old fashioned DVDs.
Because I don’t want a raid from SWEAT and my PCs impounded for six months while they plant child porn on my computers I’m going to stop using my torrent client for a while and share via FTP until some bright spark comes up with a new way to hide the file details from these nosey bastards. Funny how quickly things change and it takes these guys a while to keep up.
Yet another evolution of little robots that dance, recognise their owners and compete with them for porn on the net. Read here about the Nao.
Personally the sooner they stop putting all these smart gimmicks into them and actually get out with a working robot that simply does the cleaning, the gardening or even the ironing the better we will be. Why it needs to surf the web and dance is beyond me. I think that too many geeks in too many labs are having too much fun to want to finish these projects and come out with a working version that can be sold to the public.
To the execs at Toshiba, Sony and all the others with robots under development. I don’t want one that dances, competes with my porn bandwidth usage or talks back. I just want it to do simple household chores and give me less chores to do. So can you go down to your labs and kick these guys asses and get them working on robots that do the ironing, clean the car, do the gardening and boring stuff like that. You can also make some money out of it instead of pouring it down a black development hole.
I’ve tried to avoid Global Warming, or cooling or whatever it is now because there is not a lot to say.
My stance is;
1) The weather is changing.
2) It has since we had real weather on this planet.
3) Man does make a difference but nowhere near as much as we are told.
4) We can’t stop it.
5) Lying thieving politicians are using it as a way to steal more money from us relying on guilt to keep us paying.
6) Lying scientists and whingey whiney people are using it to push their own agendas such as funding.
7) We should adjust our behaviour where we can. I was recycling before it became compulsory on pain of death.
 We should look at developing technology that reduces our reliance on fossil fuels in a practical and cost effective way.
9) We should get all government out of it. Everything, and I mean absolutely everything, they touch turns to shit.
10) We should use facts not opinions to work out the way forward. No facts then nothing to worry about.
11) Facts should be available to all to examine and test.
12) If they can’t make a model with data from 10,000BC to 1980 that can predict the weather in 2000 then it’s useless for predicting the weather in the future.
Now I only go on this because I read a very well put together article on the scientific principles over at Bore Patch. Go read it and then think rationally. I know it’s difficult for most of the plebs on this planet but as you are reading my blog then I know you can do it.
Reading this article about the remote monitoring of offenders. It is to keep them out of jail, reduce costs and, more importantly, control them.
It seems pretty accurate from the figures quoted but I was dismayed to read a quote from an advisor to US judges that “We have to accept that some guilty people will go free and that some innocent people will be convicted.”. Err… He means that we can’t get these devices 100% accurate but we will treat them as if they are. No getting off just for being innocent.
In another statement in the article from Arthur Lurigio, who studies criminal justice and health at Loyola University in Chicago. “But I welcome the SCRAM because it helps people avoid jail and the stigma of jail.”. WTF? If they want to avoid the stigma of jail they shouldn’t break the law. It’s thinking like this that reduces punishment to a level that the risk is minimised and encourages crime. Do the crime but don’t worry about the time. It’s the wrong message to send.
Won’t be long before we have to wear them for everyday life. Let the government track you wherever you go, monitor how often you have a drink, have nookie and lounge around and no point in objecting to the results as itis rarely wrong and that means you are guilty. Then they can zap you remotely and collect your body from where it falls. Much safer than having to chase you as plod may trip. H&S comes first, except for you of course. Injuries from thrashing about as you are zapped are just so unfortunate but unavoidable.
Yet another high performance hybrid car that does 0-60 in 3.9 seconds, top speed of 150 mph and goes for 500 hundred miles without a charge.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of these whingey whiney people that wants to see the end of performance cars but I’m wondering when they are going to bring out an electric car for the masses. One that goes 0-60 in 12 secs, a top speed of 85 and a range of 500 miles on a single charge and will carry five people in comfort and are the same costs as cars are now. Only then will electric cars take off and people like us will buy them.
The rich among us can still get what they want in performance and it will always be so but in reality it is the plebs like us they want to be using electric.
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DIY
I’m not very practical when it comes to DIY. I’m more of a back room guy. I know how many things work and I know how to make things work but when it comes to drilling holes or nailing things together I’m better leaving things alone.
So I always look on in admiration when I see someone doing something spectacular. Either building their own home, car, boat or in this case, their own helicopter. Read the story here and see some crashes as well. 2 for 1.
As risk taking in Britain is being killed off by government with their rules and regulations it is good to see that the spirit is still alive abroad.