"Growing Call among Californians to Sack Plastic Grocery Bags
Plastic grocery bags are filling landfills, clogging storm drains and waterways, jamming recycling machines, harming marine animals and littering roadsides. Close to 90 billion are used in the United States (population 300 million) every year, while just 5 percent or so ever get recycled into another useful plastic product."

Our government hasn't even introduced a plastic bag tax yet - such a simple move and they can't manage that.

ENN: Environmental News Network | Sack Plastic Grocery Bags

"Hybrid Nanorod-Polymer Solar Cell
Imagine a barren, sunlit chunk of the Sahara the size of Sicily. Now imagine you've covered that area with solar cells. If you used your average off-the-shelf photovoltaic technology, which can convert 10 to 20 percent of the sun's energy into electrical output, you'd be able to supply the entire world's electrical needs."

Interesting new solar cell technology that might (with enough encouragement) find its way onto most of our homes.

"Although an endeavor on the scale of the Sahara example will probably always be prohibitively expensive..."

But why does that need to be the case? If every country put a few million into it (and that's peanuts to most European countries) I'm sure we'd get a long way. Surely its a far more useful way of spending money than, say, sending people to Mars?

Power: Hybrid Nanorod-Polymer Solar Cell

"Tornado homes could be bulldozed
Twenty people were injured as the high winds stripped houses of their roofs, uprooted trees, and knocked down walls. Houses hit by a tornado in Birmingham might have to be knocked down because they are so badly damaged."

Looking at the photos, its a wonder that noone was killed.

BBC NEWS | England | West Midlands | Tornado homes could be bulldozed

"Standards are bullshit. XHTML is a crock. The W3C is irrelevant."

This was written in January 2003 and it stands true even now. I agree completely. I'm currently trying to get a project to validate as WAI Level 'A', which is the lowest web standard for accessability. It has loads of tables, with many of their cells having set widths and varying alignments. Tags like WIDTH and ALIGN are not allowed so you have to use styles. So I make up some styles and it looks like I'm getting somewhere. Until I test it and find that even though it works in every known browser, it doesn't work in IE 6 under Windows - which is of course the most widely used (nearly said 'most popular') on the planet.

Semantic obsolescence [dive into mark]

"Taser arrests 'incredible risk'
Using a stun gun on a suspected suicide bomber was an 'incredible risk', Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has said.

It may have been that they [officers in Birmingham] were clear there wasn't a bomb. I don't know what the situation was."

Perhaps you shouldn't comment, then? Perhaps officers in Birmingham have cooler heads? Perhaps they think a suspect would be more useful alive than dead? Perhaps they still believe that a judge and jury should still be the ones who decide a person's guilt?

BBC NEWS | UK | Taser arrests 'incredible risk'

The Met Commissioner said late yesterday that ABC's photos were actually leaked by a foreign (presumably US) law enforcement agency.

"Warning over bomb pictures leak
Evidence on the London bombings leaked in America could harm UK-US relations, a leading US politician has warned. The warning from the chairman of the House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee follows the broadcast of pictures obtained by a US TV network. Pete Hoekstra said the images of a wrecked Tube carriage and a bomb hoard shown by ABC could cause suspicions.

America's relationship with the UK could be damaged if further information emerged which the British police were trying to keep under wraps, the congressman added. 'It's impossible to know how tight police are being with the details in London but if the investigation is put in jeopardy, that would be a tragedy.'"

Ah, knew there'd be repercussions from ABC's actions. Well said, Mr.Congressman.

BBC NEWS | UK | Warning over bomb pictures leak

High drama on the way home in the form of the most heavily escorted Police convoy I have ever witnessed - one van (of the kind in this photo), five or six police cars and a chopper overhead - heading North carrying, we can only assume, one or more of the London bombing suspects. And here's me with no camera ready (OK, so I was driving at the time).

"Implant chip to identify the dead
The carnage inflicted by bomb attacks in Egypt, London and across Iraq has raised the problem of how the authorities identify people in an emergency situation. One aid to identification advocated by an American company is the VeriChip, a small device containing a unique number injected into a person's arm."

Good grief - that's worse (infringement of civil liberties) than ID cards.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Implant chip to identify the dead

"Wireless hijacking under scrutiny
A recent court case, which saw a West London man fined £500 and sentenced to 12 months' conditional discharge for hijacking a wireless broadband connection, has repercussions for almost every user of wi-fi networks.

It is believed to be the first case of its kind in the UK, but with an estimated one million wi-fi users around the country, it is unlikely to be the last."

Interesting case. "Gaining unauthorised access to a computer is an offence covered by the Computer Misuse Act" is states - but if you're using just their connection to the internet, are you actully gaining access to their computer. Well, no, you're not, are you?

"...the person installing the network, be they a home user or a business, has ultimate responsibility for any criminal activity that takes place on that network." Well that is more clear-cut. That translates to "if you don't secure your network, and someone uses it illegally, its your fault". So anyone out there running a wireless network, broadcasting the SSID and without any encryption, it asking for trouble.

On the other hand, if it comes to court, how do actually prove that your network was secure at the time of the offense? There is no log of settings (that I've ever seen) and you could simply change the settings on the router after the event - noone would know.

If this law were carried over to car theft, if your car was stolen and used in a crime, you would be liable. Fortunately that's not the case. Yet.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Wireless hijacking under scrutiny

"US joins Asians in climate deal
Six major nations - including the US and China - have announced a pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The six also include Australia, India, South Korea and Japan - who, with the US and China, account for nearly half the world's greenhouse gas emissions. The US-led initiative promises to fight global warming through new technology, supplied to the countries in most need."

But unless any of this technology actually exists, this deal does nothing.

"Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the new compact is non-binding, with no enforcement mechanisms."

Completely worthless. Just some flag waving by the US to try to convince the world "yes, we are concerned and we are doing something" in the wake of the Edinburgh G8 summit.

"They have also made clear their concern that climate change should only be addressed without harming development or economic growth."

Unless climate change is addressed, develpment and growth are not going to be an issue to anyone.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | US joins Asians in climate deal

"Nine more held by terror police
Anti-terror police have arrested nine men in Tooting, south London.

The first suspected 21 July attacker to be held, Yasin Hassan Omar, was arrested in Heybarnes Road, in the Small Heath area of Birmingham, at 0430 BST on Wednesday.

A Taser stun gun was used by officers during the arrest and it is believed a rucksack the 24-year-old was carrying was thrown out of a window by officers."

Bit of a change from being shot 7 times in the head. That officer and his family have been sent on a holiday, allegedly paid for by Scotland Yard and 'personally authorised' by the MET Commissioner. Whilst they condone his actions, I can't help thinking that they have quitely issued instructions that it not happen again. Meanwhile, the family of the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes are now threatening to sue. A total of 8 shots would be described by a judge, in other circumstances, as a 'frenzied attack' and the shooter would be looking at 20 years.

Meanwhile, US broadcaster ABC has published a set of images they have 'obtained' - probably illegally, and certainly not with official consent - showing damage to Underground trains and some unexploded bombs. Cheque book journalism rears its ugly head, I suspect.

BBC NEWS | UK | Nine more held by terror police

"Consumer choice in school plans
Wider choices for individual pupils will be the priority for the next phase of education reforms, says Education Secretary Ruth Kelly. This will mean an emphasis on parental choice and individual learning - and will raise questions about how services are delivered by schools. 'Choice and personalisation' will be the key themes of a forthcoming White Paper on schools, says Ms Kelly. This could include funding transport if pupils needed to travel further."

That's all this government seem to be capable of saying when it comes to education - "choice, choice, choice". If all schools were up to scratch, choice wouldn't be an issue. Kids could then just go to the schools closest to them. Wouldn't that make a lot more sense?

BBC NEWS | Education | Consumer choice in school plans

I failed to attend either cricket or motocross events this weekend. Was too busy Saturday for the cricket (fitting the extra fan in my computer - see below) and it rained rather a lot Sunday.

"Sometimes We Suck
We'd like to apologize. The last few weeks have been pretty brutal for the Flickr team. Switching hardware platforms on a live site with hundreds of moving parts that's serving thousands of requests each second (literally) is hard. Unpleasantly hard."

You can tell these guys don't work for a for-profit organisation. For-profit organisations do not apologise like that. No way. Not unless they're up before a judge. But just how long will it be before they are taken over by a for-profit organisation. And then how long before the staff are pensioned off to be replaced by industry-standard non-caring clones?

Later...
Ah, they are part of a for-profit organisation - Yahoo - yet they appear to have been allowed to keep their independant identity. How refreshing.

FlickrBlog

Monitoring temperatures

Monitoring temperatures
Excellent freeware system monitoring software Everest has a temperature window that includes the temperature of the CPU, motherboard and hard disks (sadly not the graphics card GPU) and lists the CPU and any case fans that have the extra speed-monitoring wire. The new fan appears as 'chassis'.

Fan place

Fan in place
Photo uploaded to flickr 23 Jul '05, 1.15pm PST by hockeyshooter

Side panel re-fitted to the case, showing its grille on the outside, plus a row of extra ventilation holes along the top edge. The fan blows partly onto the two hard disks and partly feeds extra outside air to the graphics card, which is what, we think, had been causing the system to freeze. Given there were already two 80mm fans blowing into the case and the only outlet was through the PSU, I've drilled a row of holes along the top edge of the side.

Fan in place

Connecting fan
Photo uploaded to flickr 23 Jul '05, 1.15pm PST by hockeyshooter

Connecting the fan to the motherboard via a 3-pin connector. The extra wire allows the motherboard to measure the fan speed, which in this case doesn't change since its not thermostatically controlled.

Punching holes

Punching holes
Photo uploaded to flickr 23 Jul '05, 1.15pm PST by hockeyshooter

Having had my main desktop PC at home jam up, and concluding it was down to overheating, I decided to fit an extra fan to the case. I chose an Akasa 'Ultra Quiet' 120mm fan from overclockers.co.uk who I've used a number of times before. This shot shows me using a Q-Max punch to make eight 25mm holes in the side panel.

This post won't make any sense unless you're into HTML and validation. For three years now, embedding either Flash or QuickTime into a web page has resulted in a page that will not validate under HTML 4, the reason being that the <EMBED> tag, that you need to use to make the movie appear under Netscape-based browsers (like Firefox) is not part of the HTML 4 language (for no readily explained reason). After much fiddling, I've found a workaround, and that is to not put the <EMBED> tag directly into your page but to add it client-side using a JavaScript document.write - unfortunately I cannot post an example script because Blogger (very sensibly) won't accept it. Instead I've made a posting to the Macromedia 'Flash General Discussion' forum, title 'Doc Type for Flash' if you want to look it up.

Of course, if JavaScript is disabled on a client machine that's using FireFox, you won't get the movie, but my project makes extensive use of JavaScript anyway, so they probably wouldn't get as far as viewing the page if they'd turned it off.

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