Home Hydrogen Fueling Station

A company in the UK has developed a hydrogen home refueling station that is capable of refueling cars from…erm…home. The unit they have developed is capable of producing enough fuel that will last the average car 40 km or 25 miles. Might not sound like much, but considering this is the first unit developed that is small (and presumably safe) enough to be used at home it is a step in the right direction.

Now this is an innovation I would really like to see work; granted the 40km is not a lot, but increasing this capacity would give you enough to maybe make the commute or short journeys and also reduce the dependency on oil and oil companies. However, I wonder how long it will be before the large oil companies will ‘disappear’ the company that developed it.

• BBC News

…and they did

Eurocrats in Brussels approved the law that essentially, depending on the way you interpret it, forces ISPs to enforce copyright laws…

The disputed text, which some are claiming is deliberately concealed within impenetrable legalese, states that national regulators - such as the UK’s Ofcom - must promote “cooperation” between access providers and those “interested in the protection and promotion of lawful content”.

• The Register

Euro-idiots about to vote on removal of internet connections

As Boing Boing puts it…

[Accessing the Internet] would last only so long as they avoided three unsubstantiated accusations of downloading music or video or software without permission.

This implies that ISPs do not have to prove you are illegally downloading and will cut off your access if they suspect you are an illegal downloader, whether you are or not.

What is worse is that the idiots sitting in Brussels are voting on this on Monday in a Telecoms package which has had this internet removal clause added by stealth. Is there any wonder why those people who get to vote on any EU constitution (or whatever they dress it up as) are voting it down; is there any wonder why citizens of the EU are so fed up and disollusioned by the whole beurocratic non-sense when ’secret’ clauses are inserted into laws that are only present because of lobbying by corporate interest groups.

Whilst I agree that copyrights should be protected, I do not agree that there is guilt without evidence which is essentially what this clause amounts to. What is more, this is yet another nail in the coffin of what the internet once was.

• Open Right Group
• Boing Boing

I forgot to add, lobby your MEP to ensure this doesn’t happen (if they can be bothered to turn up and vote); hmmm, does my faith in the democratic process seem somewhat dented.

10 Perfect Gadget

BoingBoing Gadgets has an excellent article all about the ten most perfect gadgets ever invented. They inlucde the wrist watch, the bicycle and printed money. I am not convinced that printed money can be defined as a gadget, but I would suggest that printed moey can be used to buy the other nine.

• Boing Boing Gadgets

As an aside I also want to link to Boing Boing TV’s “A Morning at Intelligentsia Coffee Part 2″

• BBTV

Dubai and the towers

Why does Dubai seem to get all the interesting buidlings, or more to the point why is it that only Dubai seems to actually build these interesting additions to its skyline. This is how it should be, a skyline that looks interesting and changes

The Dynamic Tower will constantly change shape and rotates using wind power. It will give the occupants whatever view they like whenever they like.

It also looks like there are plans for a tower is Moscow - this puts my previous statement into slightly invalid territory, but I would maintain the fact that Dubai is buidling these things whilst the rest of the world simply plans.

• Dynamic Architecture
• BBC News - with animations

Interesting Photo galleries

• Papua New Guinea

• Prague scapes

• Images of Prague

The working day

The working day:

• eMails
• Meetings
• Updating documents
• more eMails
• even more meetings
• Updating even more documents
• losing…will…to…live…

Why do we subject ourselves to this existence.

High oil prices are a good thing

Fabulous comment and observations from Chris Pummer…

the power source for today’s cars is little different than that which drove the first Model T 100 years ago. That we’re still harnessed to this antiquated technology is testament to Big Oil’s influence in Washington and success in squelching advances in fuel efficiency and alternative energy.

Given our achievement in getting a giant mainframe’s computing power into a handheld device in just a few decades, we should be able to do likewise with these dirty, little rolling power plants that served us well but are overdue for the scrap heap of history.

Wall Street Journal

Environment

Much as I like having a go at science and its tendency to protect it’s doctrines much like theology protects it’s, so we must look and question the doctrines of other groups who also refuse to look over the parapet and really see what is happening. Wired has started such an argument in it’s latest issue…

Winning the war on global warming requires slaughtering some of environmentalism’s sacred cows. We can afford to ignore neither the carbon-free electricity supplied by nuclear energy nor the transformational potential of genetic engineering. We need to take advantage of the energy efficiencies offered by urban density. We must accept that the world’s fastest-growing economies won’t forgo a higher standard of living in the name of climate science — and that, on the way up, countries like India and China might actually help devise the solutions the planet so desperately needs.

-Wired

Birkenhead Drill

An inspiring story I heard on a BBC (Daily Mayo) podcast…

Captain Edward Wright of the 91st Argyllshire Regiment told the court martial:[10]

The order and regularity that prevailed on board, from the moment the ship struck till she totally disappeared, far exceeded anything that I had thought could be affected by the best discipline; and it is the more to be wondered at seeing that most of the soldiers were but a short time in the service. Everyone did as he was directed and there was not a murmur or cry amongst them until the ship made her final plunge – all received their orders and carried them out as if they were embarking instead of going to the bottom – I never saw any embarkation conducted with so little noise or confusion.

HMS Birkenhead