Updates from Andy RSS
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08:12:30 am on April 29, 2008 |
Have do you ever wonder what it would be like to be a big earning businessman? You’re not the only one, that’s for sure. It makes me ponder my own significance when companies such as Shell and BP announce $14.3 billion in combined profit for the first 3 months of 2008. I wonder: do these companies have a policy of giving back a portion of what they earn?
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08:05:18 am on April 29, 2008 |
Have you ever pulled up at a hotel and thought that it looked so decrepit that it was in actual fact abandoned? I’ve been there, but have yet to see anything as bad as these abandoned hotels. I would say, however, that many popular holiday resorts frequented by Europeans such as Costa Adeje in Tenerife are littered with abandoned shells. One other case that springs to mind is the area around Balangan on the Bukit Peninsula in Bali where they started building an entire resort in the middle of nowhere, which was, of course, abandoned. One wonders what these ‘planners’ are smoking: if it looks like people won’t spend their money then don’t approve it in the first place!
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07:57:22 am on April 29, 2008 |
Neatorama have a cool but rather strange post detailing 5 inventors killer by their own inventions. The list includes Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov, William Bullock, Otto Lilienthal, Thomas Midgley, Jr. and Franz Reichelt.
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03:58:47 pm on April 28, 2008 |
It’s more than eerie and positively weird, but there are new Dark Knight posters out now.
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03:54:19 pm on April 28, 2008 |
Ontario decided to subsidise solar energy in that energy produced from solar could be sold for 42 cents per kilowatt. They thought that contractors would build 88 kilowatts worth of solar-generated energy but now have 400 megawatts under contract. Build it and they will come, sort of.
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03:45:58 pm on April 28, 2008 |
Well I’m not sure about you, but I am quite partial to Star Trek. Voyager is my favourite series although I am fond of the later Next Generation. However, there are things about the show that frustrate me, namely the drone-like behaviour of characters and the notion that The Federation save humanity. Here’s some more reasons to get annoyed.
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03:38:00 pm on April 28, 2008 |
As a telecommuter I frequently had to make trips to clients just to show them a mockup of something new, a list of changes etc. It gets a bit tedious after a few times, and more than time wasting. However, there are ways round this problem: web conferencing. But there are all sorts of flavours of software, so what are the best web conferencing solutions? Personally I would agree with WebEx being best.
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03:31:47 pm on April 28, 2008 |
The launch of Vista has been far from perfect, some might even say disastrous. In fact, PC makers including Dell, HP and Lenovo are exploiting loopholes in their license agreements to continue to offer XP to customers. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Apple’s computer sales are growing 3 times faster than those of rival PC manufacturers.
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03:25:30 pm on April 28, 2008 |
In another sign of the shift in power from west to east India successfully launched 10 satellites in one go, a world record previously held by the Russians with 8.
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03:22:53 pm on April 28, 2008 |
Working for ‘the man’ suits a lot of people down to the ground: you do your work, you get paid ad infinitum. For others though, it’s a completely different story. Freelancers as they are known, work for themselves on an hourly or per project basis. It’s much more flexible but it’s also very unreliable, so if you have ever thought ditching the day job and going it alone make sure you are properly prepared. This list of tips for freelance success covers the basics well.
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07:54:02 am on April 25, 2008 |
When you take a break from work you probably imagine yourself lounging on a sunny palm-fringed beach, powder white sand below, a gentle tropical breeze blowing and a freshly made cocktail to keep things cool. That’s perfect for me, but apparently there are people who would rather do something more adventurous. According to reports one of the fastest growing things to do on an adventure holiday is going for a swim with sharks. Is it just me or should those 2 words, swim and sharks, be in the same sentence together?
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07:35:41 am on April 25, 2008 |
TorrentFreak reports that The Pirate Bay has surpassed 12 million users, which, given the huge publicity the site has garnered, isn’t very surprising. What caught my attention wasn’t the number of people giving the RIAA two fingers, rather the fact that they now have more seeders than leachers!
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05:17:54 am on April 24, 2008 |
As an avid surfer I’ve always had a fascination with waves, but not necessarily rogue waves. For years sailors have talked about the mysterious rogue wave, a wave so big that it can easily sink a ship. The worrying thing about these massive waves is that they can’t be predicted and therefore data on them is lacking. Until now.
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05:15:10 am on April 24, 2008 |
For a long time I have been frustrated by Adobe Acrobat and the never ending story of angst that comes with using it. Fortunately there are several very good alternatives to Acrobat out there, some of which are open source while others are freeware / shareware or paid. The moral of the story: if Adobe Acrobat is getting you down, find an alternative! You won’t look back.
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05:04:36 am on April 24, 2008 |
Fancy a change from Google’s sparse look? Try Searchme, a visual search engine. That’s visual as in you get screenshots of the pages rather than titles and snippets in your results. What makes it even cooler is how they used a CoverFlow’esque effect to jazz it up!
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05:00:33 am on April 24, 2008 |
Seriously, I am not the harbinger of crisis. However, one can’t help but notice the growing problems with food supplies around the world. As I blogged yesterday, Japan is facing shortages in certain foods. Last night news was trickling in about food shortages starting to appear in the USA, and more specifically Costco. Apparently the situation in some areas has got to the stage where grocers are restricting the amount of staple foods that can be purchased per customer. The problem is, such constraints only cause more hysteria, which exacerbates the problem further.
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03:22:07 am on April 23, 2008 |
The founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore (not the stargazing Sir Patrick Moore) details why he decided to leave the organisation he set up in a WSJ report. Here’s a snippet:
“At first, many of the causes we championed, such as opposition to nuclear testing and protection of whales, stemmed from our scientific knowledge of nuclear physics and marine biology. But after six years as one of five directors of Greenpeace International, I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs. Ultimately, a trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas forced me to leave Greenpeace in 1986.”
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03:15:58 am on April 23, 2008 |
There is a worldwide resource crisis in full-swing right now, and it’s coming home to roost. Costco are seeing customers stocking up on staple products as prices continue to climb ever higher. China has only 12 days worth of coal in their supply line. Japan is starting to suffer food shortages requiring their government to invest huge sums of money to keep the country fed. On the bright side, summer is coming.
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03:09:57 am on April 23, 2008 |
I do a fair bit of travel during the year, mostly short haul puddle hops lasting no more than a couple of hours. Occasionally we will go somewhere further away, which requires a longer flight, more hassle and less comfort. Thankfully some airlines take passenger comfort more seriously than others, as you can determine from this post ranking the most comfortable coach seats. The only airlines I’ve flown with in the list are BA and Singapore Airlines, with the latter trumping the former by some way.
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03:02:44 am on April 23, 2008 |
The BBC are reporting a strange attack at a Jedi Church in Wales involving a drunken Darth Vader and a Jedi Knight. It’s the stuff of dreams.