Scargill

According to the British Chamber of Commerce website, a report published by the University of Durham revealed that students may be more likely to choose to study ‘easier’ subjects, and not opt to study science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects that are desperately needed by employers.

Surely the answer is simple? Why on EARTH are we stupid enough to finance courses that this country doesn’t need? Microsoft technology courses cost the earth and I’m sure many courses in science and techn ology do also (unless of course you’re a no-hoper in which case they’re likely to be free). Surely the solution is to make science, technology, engineering and math courses extremely cheap or free (after all Britain PLC will benefit in the end) and charge the earth for courses that people take out of personal preference and which we don’t actually need.

Technology books are very expensive and yet I don’t ever recall seeing ways to get subsidies for these.

As far as I’m concerned we screwed our educational system the minute we went comprehensive back in the 70s and we’ve been going downhill ever since. Our position in the world stage pretty much reflects this.

In the future, with permanently rising fuel prices and intense competition from overseas, we will increasingly need people who can innovate, manage and sell hi-tech, advanced solutions to the many problems facing us. Less talk, more action and a desperate need for the left to stop trying to smother our potential best at birth.

I sat and watched “Politics today” at lunchtime and listened to the most appalling drivel about public transport as some gentleman living in cloud cuckoo land told us how the motorist should be paying to improve public transport.

HERE’S A THOUGHT, BUDDY – how about the people who USE public transport paying for it!! We’re too busy paying for FUEL!!!

We hear this nonsense all the time – get the trains on time and motorists will move out of their cars.

Here’s why I dislike public transport:

1. The plane
Since 9-11 the situation with planes has gotten worse and worse. The authorities insist on the ridiculous assumption that everyone, including middle-aged indigenous Brits are potential terrorists.

I ask you – when was the last time a middle aged indigenous Brit blew up or hijacked a plane? Even more so… when was the last time an indigenous British female hijacked a plane?Every insurance company on the planet works on statistics – which is why young males now get hammered for insurance – they’re the ones who have the most accidents – common sense as we all had less experience when we were younger! So why do we all get treated like criminals, resulting in boarding times of up to 2 hours or more, when only a tiny minority of people fit the profile of those who are likely to cause problems? I used to be able to rush to the airport half an hour before takeoff and sail through.

Flying used to be a joy – now it’s a chore. I fly only when necessary.

2. The train
I don’t think charging 180 quid for a one-way ticket to London is even remotely realistic – yet that or WORSE is the cost of a first class ticket to London from Newcastle. And what do you get for that? More room, free coffee and some nuts! I take the train to London – I drive everywhere else. I take the train because parking in London is a nightmare and I don’t like driving for 5 or 6 hours. There is no WAY ON EARTH driving would cost anywhere near that.

Why do I take first class? Because I don’t agree that in the main, second class is anywhere near acceptable. Those who DO take second class are either unfortunate enough not to be able to afford fist class – OR they seem to think it’s ok to sit in a closed room with no ability to open windows and enjoy the stink of alcohol as our friends from up North start drinking in London and keep doing so all the way up – if you you think that’s stereotyping – you don’t travel on that line. As for comfort I’m not partial to crowding so tightly you hardly have room to read a book never mind get some work done. There are times at peak hours when you have to spend the journey or part of it standing up as there are no seats – this is in a vehicle travelling at 130mph – imagine how much jelly you would become in an accident. No, not what I call acceptable travel.

If I want to spend my sober hours smelling alcohol I can easily do that by pouring some beer on the carpet in the car. I prefer to travel with the smell of fresh air and if I want to live dangerously I can just leave my seat belt unfastened and drive at 90mph on the hard shoulder.

Public transport should be safe, comfortable, cheap and free of the smell of alcohol, smoke and airborne germs. Today’s trains cannot manage this combination at all.

Regardless of which class you take, trains are invariably late. Of my last 3 trips, one was on time, one was 20 minutes late, one was 45 minutes late. Only the last one qualified for any kind of compensation and even then, not realistic compensation considering the potential hassle of ongoing connections etc.

3. Buses
I have not had the common cold or flu for years. There’s a reason for that! I drive from home to Newcastle all the time – it takes around 40 minutes – the bus would take half the day.

Our local rental property is sold, so now we start looking at the larger items we need to populate our cave in Spain.

It appears that electrical items are pretty expensive over there, so we’re shipping stuff, like a new hot tub and we’re taking a decent bed over that was at the rental property. We have a shipping company that does quite a reasonable job of getting stuff over there cheaply so that’ll include all sorts of furniture, tools etc. Maureen is doing Spanish lessons on Wednesday nights. I’m using recordings. We’re both still very much at the holiday phrases level – I guess it’s old age but they go in one ear and out of the other for me. I guess I’ll feel differently when I’m stuck in a lawyer’s office over there sorting papers in Spanish.

Meanwhile I’m concentrating on the technology. Because the place is so new there are no phone lines and unlikely to be any for some time so I looked at 3G, satellite etc but firstly I figured I’d do some tests here. I took my Vodafone 3G dongle out into the countryside in Northumberland, along with a router, laptop and Voip phone – it was a nice weekend so it was partly an excuse to get some sunshine. The verdict.. not a chance – 3G is sketchy here as it will be in Spain and without a 100% signal there is no way to make reliable phone calls. Next off was satellite – well, that’s out – a year’s contract whether you use it or not (we’re only going there for breaks) and the monthly rates are exorbitant – not to mention setup costs.

I then revisited a suggestion about “rural broadband” initially presented to me by the guy we met in Spain – turns out this is NOT satellite but a series of transmitters scattered about all over Spain. You have a small unit that sits on your wall – that talks to the transmitters. No setup charges, fair monthly rent, 500k in both directions. Not ideal but it’ll do! 39 euros a month. Not cheap but not a bank-breaker either.

Finally there was the issue of a phone – well, keeping a laptop on all the time is not really the answer… and I also was hankering for something for the plane – as my laptop is simply too large to open up in pheasant class – the way we usually travel… and then there are the Spanish lessons – I bought a little MP3 player but it’s too small to operate in the car so that’s off to Ebay.

Anyway, I didn’t want to spend a lot and I wanted something that’s easy to update. I stumbled across this little fellow – the Nokia 800. Wifi, Bluetooth, hi-res touch screen, large pocket size – Linux based and it has SKYPE and a camera (though SKYPE doesn’t yet support the camera – that will come) – what more could you want. There is already freely available 2008 software for it, I’ve installed it and it works a treat. The only thing it doesn’t have that it’s successor does is a Satnav and I already have a pocket one of those… so it’ll do my Spanish lessons, it’ll act as a phone and photo-viewer over there – and handy for flights as it’s small but not tiny like a phone. Oh, and it does streaming media so that’s “Riviera Radio” taken care of.

With the ability to handle up to 16gig of memory cards, I should just about be able to manage my music, lessons, some podcasts (I like to listen to the SETI podcasts when travelling) and still find room for a movie or two!! 4GB in use now, 16GB on the way tomorrow.

We’ve been talking about air-powered cars recently.. turns out an Indian manufacturer is bringing them out – using very highly compressed air. It seems also that the Americans are taking an interest also… see this link.

One of the issues with these vehicles is range – and so adding a petrol (or other fossil fuel) engine seems sensible but another problem is that of heat – or lack of it – so in the cold weather, the air simply doesn’t give out as much power… and that started me thinking.

Surely the answer is for the fossil fuel unit not to provide power – but to provide air compression – and heat. The fuel engine would feed a compressor – to generate more compressed air – and the exhaust would go through a heat exchanger in the air tanks – to heat up the air – and make it more effective – not to mention the fact that the fresh air exhaust from the vehicle would then be usable as warm air to warm the car!

At night, outside of the house, the car air tanks would of course be recharged by electricity – but as it gets near time to use the car, either the mains electricity, or the fuel engine – or both could be used to preheat the air. The fuel engine from that point on would only kick in when it was necessary to top up the air tanks or provide heat for passengers or both.

I can’t help thinking that with some clever engineering and simple programming this is a much better potential idea than electric hybrids.

Add to this the possibility of motorway-fuel stations offering compressed air generated and stored in huge underground tanks which themselves are topped up from nearby windmill power (already the M6 and other motorways have the occasional windmill nearby) – and you have the possibility of an infrastructure for generating compressed air from whatever natural resource is nearby (water pressure, wind-power, solar, whatever is appropriate) – hence making the air powered car a practicality.

I just hope someone, somewhere has the vision to push this as far as it can go..

We’ve been talking about air-powered cars recently.. turns out an Indian manufacturer is bringing them out – using very highly compressed air. It seems also that the Americans are taking an interest also…

One of the issues with these vehicles is range – and so adding a petrol (or other fossil fuel) engine seems sensible but another problem is that of heat – or lack of it – so in the cold weather, the air simply doesn’t give out as much power… and that started me thinking.

Surely the answer is for the fossil fuel unit not to provide power – but to provide air compression – and heat. The fuel engine would feed a compressor – to generate more compressed air – and the exhaust would go through a heat exchanger in the air tanks – to heat up the air – and make it more effective – not to mention the fact that the fresh air exhaust from the vehicle would then be usable as warm air to warm the car!

At night, outside of the house, the car air tanks would of course be recharged by electricity – but as it gets near time to use the car, either the mains electricity, or the fuel engine – or both could be used to preheat the air. The fuel engine from that point on would only kick in when it was necessary to top up the air tanks or provide heat for passengers or both.

I can’t help thinking that with some clever engineering and simple programming this is a much better potential idea than electric hybrids.

Add to this the possibility of motorway-fuel stations offering compressed air generated and stored in huge underground tanks which themselves are topped up from nearby windmill power (already the M6 and other motorways have the occasional windmill nearby) – and you have the possibility of an infrastructure for generating compressed air from whatever natural resource is nearby (water pressure, wind-power, solar, whatever is appropriate) – hence making the air powered car a practicality.

I just hope someone, somewhere has the vision to push this as far as it can go..

There was a time once when the nearest I would get to awards was to win one (very rarely I might add) – but it seems these days I spend a lot more time judging them.

A few weeks ago I was one of the judges on the Northeast’s first Digital Awards – the award dinner is coming up in a day or two so I won’t give the game away. It’ll be all over the Northeast press no doubt in a couple of days. As I write this I’m in a hotel in Cheshire for tomorrow’s judging of the “National Business Awards” – Small business section… and in a few weeks I’ll be taking up my (by now) customary role helping to judge Computing magazine’s Annual Awards. I’ve also done the same for the BCS and other organisations.

All of this takes some considerable effort and most of the judges do this for nothing (some, usually in the public sector actually get paid by their companies for their time) and sometimes in the heat of it all I’ve been known to think “what am I doing”… but of course the reality is that these awards help promote British business – they highlight the best in our up and coming entrepeneurs – and that has to be good – we should shout about our successes from the rooftops.

So often it seems that all innovation comes from a sweatshop in China or “somewhere in California”- it’s good to know that our own guys are beavering away and making a success of it – and even better to know that there are people out there arranging to ensure that their endeavours get the acknowledgement they deserve…

Anyone in the mood for some really DEEP stuff? If so, read on. I’ve always been pretty keen on the big bang theory, though I never could get my head around how you could get something out of nothing – as it goes against all the laws of physics which have worked so well for us in practice. The expansion I can handle – it’s the stuff popping out of no-where I’ve never really been comfortable with – of course if you’re happy with the notion of multiple dimensions it’s all very simple – our universe appearing as a constantly expanding bubble to us – is merely a manifestation of a universe with more dimensions.

Ok, where does that come from – the usual way to picture this is – picture a flat, 2 dimensional man on a flat, 2 dimentional universe – ie a piece of paper – he can see across in any direction but not up or down – so – if a large ball smashes through his piece of paper and managed to do that cleanly – what will he see? He’ll see nothing turn into a point and then into a line that gets wider and wider…. and then gets narrower and narrower – and disappears.

That’s kind of how I pictured the big bang – assuming we’ve always been here – and that we’re part of a larger picture we can’t see as we’re only capable of operating in 3 dimensions (4 if you include time).

Ok, kiddies version I know but with limited time to think about these things – that’s where I was heading until now.

My OTHER problem has always been the sun – how come it’s hotter above the surface than it is on the surface – and how come sun spots are cool!! If the sun is a huge nuclear reactor – surely when it spurts bits out they should be hotter and brighter than the surface and above??

Sadly as one gets older there seem to be less and less people to talk to about this stuff – but there is always the web.

Ok, so then recently I was sitting playing with STUMBLEOPON and I hit a theory of the universe from an electrical perspective… and BOY do things change.

If you’re interested in this stuff you REALLY should take a look at this video.

http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=4773590301316220374

The UK’s longstanding opposition to human spaceflight will be no bar to its citizens becoming astronauts, the European Space Agency (Esa) says.

Officials made it clear at the start of a recruitment drive in London that Britons were very welcome to apply.

Although a major Esa member, the UK currently refuses to fund human spaceflight, believing robotics to be a more worthwhile space activity…

So goes a recent BBC report.

In case anyone outside of the UK is in any doubt – let me be clear – it is ONLY our crappy socialist government that thinks this – the British people were never ONCE asked our opinion on this subject….. or maybe it’s just the BBC who’s record on defending British views isn’t exactly sterling… I’d just like to say that I don’t know ANYONE who’s against human spaceflight…. how many of you remember the various robotic flights other than the ones to MARS? Answer – no-one because we don’t really relate to this – despite timescales MOST of us relate to the guys walking on the moon because they were just frail HUMANs achieving something that no-one has ever done before – walking on another planet.

I get SO annoyed when people speak on my behalf without having the courtesy to ASK me first!! The more British people we get up into space – the more experience and knowledge we get – the better – SOMEDAY when we have a government with VISION, we may just take our OWN leaps into space – in the way that even third world countries are now working towards…

Ok, I KNOW I said Fantastic 4 was the best… but life moves on – Maureen and I just went to see Iron Man and I have to say I was REALLY sceptical – I mean, it looks great in the comics when you’re 3 – but how do you make a man in an iron suit look good in 2008 – well they did – fabulous movie – great special effects, marvelous music – just a shame they couldn’t have squeezed Jessica Alba in there though I appreciate that this probably isn’t a good time…

Want an escape for the weekend…. with nachos? – see IRON MAN.

Ok, so I picked a plasma TV. Why? Well, I went off to Tescos – mainly out of laziness. I could probably have managed a much better deal on the web but then there’s the postage on such a large item – and you have to be in the house to get the delivery etc etc… no, on this occasion I decided to “trade locally” (there’s an LG factory in the region – don’t know if they actually produce TVs there but hey – I’m a consumer – I just want the best for much cheapness…)

I bought an LG 42″ plasma. At first sight, if you stare at all the TVs in the store they all look pretty much the same – but try that from 45 degrees – most, but not all of the LCDs now look ABYSMAL.

So that was that decision – next decision – which plasma…. I’m into contrast – and by far the best contrast was from the TVs with shiny screens (as against the usual matt finish). So then it was down to resolution – and as even SKY doesn’t really transmit at that great a resolution I plumped for 1024 * 768. My only use for the TV other than as a TV is as a media system and that res is fine. The offer was £750 or thereabouts for just that WITH a hard disk to record your TV.

Of course I should have known there’d be a con – there always is. The system features the rather magnificently useless FREEVIEW, a hard drive to record TV – and a ton of inputs – the problem being – yes, you guessed it you can ONLY record from FREEVIEW – one of the reasons that some time ago I spent a tremendous amount of time picking the right PVR so I would not be trapped in this way – and despite all of that – they got me. The reasons of course are simple – recording hi-def SKY takes a lot better hardware than recording crappy old FREEVIEW.

Anyway to cut a long story short, the picture quality of the TV (LG) was that good I conveniently ignored the hard drive issue – and weeks later I’m still impressed.