Interesting paper on why hydrogen is not the fuel for the future of automation as Clarkson believes.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-hydrogen-hoax
Posted in Travel
On my birthday I thought I’d post links to two amazing vids -
1 guys in wing suits jumping off huge cliffs in Norway and flying 2m away from the rock.
2 a new type of private aeroplane. Not green at all. http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1815813330/bctid5583629001
Posted in Travel
Fascinating Vanity Fair article on an aircraft head-on collision above the Amazon…
There were so many opportunities for the accident not to happen-the collision between a Legacy 600 private jet and a Boeing 737 carrying 154 people. But on September 29, 2006, high above the Amazon, a long, thin thread of acts and omissions brought the two airplanes together. From the vantage point of the pilots, the Brazilian air-traffic controllers, and the Caiapó Indians, whose rain forest became a charnel house, the author reconstructs a fatal intersection between high-performance technology and human fallibility.
I have never had any interest whatsoever in buying a new car. To me they are for getting from A to B. I confess Top Gear bores me totally. But I will be really tempted by the first real “plug-in” car that comes along.
Perhaps that car will be the GM Volt. Good article below on it’s development.
Posted in Travel
It doesn’t offer enough to justify the price difference. I live in the UK and the market is dominated by post-pay monthly bundles. These bundles rarely include video call as standard hence the marginal cost is very high. In my view the network provider (www.three.co.uk in my case) should try and use it as a differentiator as opposed to a revenue opportunity. For example on most of their bundles they give us 300 minutes a month to other phones on the same network. If I were them I would make video minutes the same as voice minutes for this allowance. That way I try and get my friends to join the network. As it is I used it a couple of times when I got my phone to try it out, thought it was quite fun, and then saw how much it cost me (because it isn’t included in the bundles) and since then I have not bothered to use it.
Posted in Travel
We recently bought this nifty device for school. It cost £140 but after playing with it for a while it is well worth it.
We were looking for an easy way to record children’s music and singing. The music teacher had been using a very old cassette deck but the quality of this is very low and distributing the material becomes difficult.
With this battery powered device (it also comes with an ac adaptor) you can record direct to mp3 or wav files from either the onboard mics or the line in to various qualities (i.e. mp3 from 48kbps to 256kbps). It records direct to an SD card that accepts the High Density format up to 16GB. The quality is great on the mics, it easy to choose from a 90degree or 120degree field or 2 channel surround or even 4 channel surround sound. I am yet to test the 4 channel mode but the others are very effective. Recording level can easily be set either before or during recording. The track can also be cropped with the device so you can easily cut pieces out. The line in recording records in stereo very effectively. It also has some little onboard bonuses such as a guitar tuner. All in all a great device well recommended.
For an example of the clarity of the microphones this is a recording of a humming game played on a Sunday afternoon…..
For an example of the line in recording click here.
Posted in Travel
Every so often you get a piece of kit which just hits the sweet spot and i thought I’d write about such an item. I treated myself to a nice little pressy recently. On my recent ski trip to Val D’Isere I conveniently managed to smash up my old 256meg mp3 player so after some web research bought the Sansa 2GB clip with radio. It is a truly great £30 spent…….. and I advise anyone who doesn’t need to carry their entire music collection with them to look into it.
First it is tiny, the picture below is actually something like 150% size. Which means it is very light and comes with a clip on the back so you can easily attach it to yourself. However the screen is very clear to read and gives you all the info you need. It synchs really well with WMP11 so if you want to quickly move songs on and off it is really easy. However if you just want to drag and drop files using standard windows it can do that too. It plays wma, mp3, wav and audible audio file formats which is perfect as long as you haven’t ripped your tunes in aac (apple format) or whatever proprietary format sony uses (or used to use).
It has an FM radio which you can record, and it has a mic so you can do voice recordings and memos or whatever. It also allows you to use it as a USB drive and store whatever excel, powerpoint etc files you need to…….
Best thing is cost £30 – so if you lose it or whatever it is not a disaster.
Yes it doesn’t play vids, or allows you to surf the internet or whatever but what it does it does really well. So if you haven’t bought into the Apple universe this is a great alternative.
Posted in Travel
Interesting article on Radioheads new album “In Rainbows” and the pay what you want model. I paid £5 for it – and I am very happy with it. No shitty DRM, no need to sign up to Apple inc itunes, 192kbps quality, standard MP3 encoding. In fact this is the first digital download music I have bought because finally the product was right. From what I know of the music business £5 is far more than an artist could hope to get from sale of a CD through a major.
This model is fine for the likes of Radiohead the question is how does a new band/artist make it. i.e. how are we going to get the Radioheads of the future? Without major promotion and backing even rock solid quality does not always come through the noise. Here a good example – Michael McDermott – I came across him by chance at a festival and his album is quality – for me he could be the next Springsteen but what chance without a major backing him?
Posted in Arts stuff, Travel
There’s a fascinating story in this week’s Economist on how it very nearly came about that London’s buses could have been electric powered right from the start of motorised transport in the city and by implication the world. The reason why it didn’t happen is not the 1st thing you might think of. Apparently in 1907 horse drawn still ruled and there were only 300 combustion engine buses which were widely disliked as being noisy, smelly and unreliable. There was also the London electrobus company with 33 buses powered by lead acid batteries and popular with passengers. They could go all morning on one charge and at lunch time they came into the depot for a new set of batteries. It took 3 mins for the battery set to be changed and off it went again for the afternoon shift. In 1907 the company went for a public listing in order to raise capital to buy many more buses and expand. Unfortunately it seems that the London Electrobus company had attracted some con artists to the management and they tried to siphon some of the public funds into their own pockets by way of buying bogus patents and paying over inflated prices for the buses.
These scams were quickly discovered and electric buses in the capital were not developed, instead the combustion engine versions gained popularity and the rest is history. The scammers had unwittingly sunk this new technology as well as the company. The ironic thing is that 100 years later cities are trying to reintroduce them in an effort to reduce CO2 emissions and clean up the city environment. Now if I had access to a time machine what if I could go back in time and prevent the con-artists from destroying the London Electrobus company…..
Posted in Travel
This web site is pretty interesting www.ted.com and it’s not just because Dad is called Ted either. Lots of talks/presentations by people with some interesting ideas. I posted a talk byRick Warren on my video side bar – but it’s not just about religion.
