Strangely Perfect

Block ACTA and Stop ACTA! Truly, our freedoms are at stake.  While notionally an idea to prevent copyright theft, it’s real purpose opens the floodgates for any undemocratic organisation to walk over our freedoms (such as they are) for which our forefathers slugged their guts out.  Read this, then either; walk away (wondering in a [...]

Ichinen Sanzen It (literally) means 3000 realms in a single moment of life.  This means that for any given moment your life is composed of everything; all thoughts, all history, all presents and all futures.  You only ‘sense’ things one at a time, yet they’re always there. I’ll soon be toddling off to the beach [...]

How Bad was Thatcher’s Recession compared to the Current Economic Slump? Q. Well, how would you find out, exactly? A. Surprisingly easily.  This graph here compares historical economic slumps with the current one, on a month by month basis.  It’s taken from the “National Institute of Economic and Social Research” (NIESR) website here.  Notionally, it’s [...]

New Jaguar XJ In common with most cars like this, it’s a lovely looking machine – a style marvel; sleek and vapid, mercurial. It’s also a waste of space and a waste of effort. It’s two tonnes of mass for a 400kg payload is pants.  An ecological disaster zone. Money for Old Rope Not only [...]

A Secret Shared: – Is Not  a Secret One Third of Second-Hand Hard Drives Contain Secrets This is the astonishing findings from research conducted by three Universities, from Wales, the US & Australia (see here). In an absolutely random sample of second-hand discs bought at computer fairs and places like eBay, 34% had secret, classified [...]

I subscribe to news from No10.gov.uk to get the latest view of events and policies from the highest elected position in the land!  In this post from the PM’s office, is a joint statement from our own and the Australian Prime Minister. My interest is piqued by the numerical incidence of the two words “peace” [...]

Computer Shopper Interview with Home Office Dawinderpal Sahota at ‘Computer Shopper’ magazine, part of the Dennis Publishing organisation, has published a fascinating interview that the magazine had with a UK Home Office rep on the subject of the government’s policy towards tackling child abuse websites. ‘Computer Shopper’ gave all questions in advance so that the [...]

Website blog stats can be very revealing. Someone in Australia recently did a search to find this website and another good return was this book on the Amazon website. If there’s ever one word or subject that attracts the eye is the word SEX.  Attach it to MACHINE and then  make it into a DIY [...]

CTC & Guardian [amazon-product align="left" alink="0000FF" bordercolor="FFFFFF" height="240" region="uk"]000728487X[/amazon-product]I’m indebted to this week’s CTC newsletter for pointing out an article by Ben Goldacre in the Guardian last Saturday (a week ago).   I’ve used one of Mr Goldacre’s articles before in some presentations I’ve done at work when pointing out the poor and devious ways [...]

Paul. This scan is from my old ETI Circuits #2 from the 70′s.  It’s about the best op-amp info you are likely to find.  With a bit of knowledge, these six circuits are an instant ready-reckoner and allow you to do almost anything! If you’ve no knowledge, they’re just squiggles on paper.  But then so [...]

Two days ago the USS McFaul (DDG-74) passed through the Bosporus en-route to Georgia to deliver relief aid. Now it’s arrived. U.S. Navy relief aid ship reaches Georgia & US warship reaches Georgian port. However, it’s a slightly under-whelming and bizarre effort that isn’t fooling anybody.  To make it sound good, the ship is reported [...]

I’ve will be resetting the links from my site in response to the news yesterday, also here and here, that Julius Baer has dropped their court order against WikiLeaks. Even Lying Judge Jeffrey saw the error, by reversing his previous idiotic, unthought knee-jerk decision. The BBC didn’t even bother reporting it. Well I can’t find [...]

Jillian has left on her first expedition of the year. This time it’s to Austria where she will be teaching English. Funnily enough, she went into various local bookshops to get a Rough Guide and a phrase book for the country – but there weren’t any. However, there were plenty for Australia, including a phrase [...]

Here’s something (link now dead – originally at http://72.232.216.38/manahmanah/44990/Nuclear_I_spit_on_you.html? ) I posted on an Australian blog that caught my eye. I just had to speak. Sorry. It’s about the various options for transport and other energy policies, paying special attention to Guy Negre’s air-powered car concept. This is the text as posted: The thing is [...]