Probably only interesting to me
George Monbiot has another fascinating, but rather frightening, piece on corporate tax avoidance, with these scary figures:
[Tax] avoidance now amounts to £25bn a year, evasion to £70bn, and outstanding debts to the tax service to £28bn: a total of more than £120bn. That’s roughly three-quarters of the budget deficit....
This news item1 surfaced earlier in the week, and I still can’t get my head round it.
The Treasury has published a letter which confirms that cancelling one of two aircraft carriers would have cost hundreds of millions of pounds more than building both ships. BBC...
Something I’d never consciously considered before — but on reading Jack Cheng’s article — makes a lot of sense.
Every object emits a habit field. When we sit down at the desk in our office to work, we shape its habit field into a productive one. When we sit down...
I am amazed to say that I agree with the Lib Dem, Labour and Conservative statements quoted on the BBC news article — this was a colossal waste of time and money. There are many better things the £50,000 could have been spent on — the only winners...
An interesting piece by John Morrison on the Guardian’s Bike blog which starts off brilliantly…
If I told you that the busy main road near my house was safe for polar bears because there is no record of polar bear casualties on it, you would probably think my reasoning was...
Update, I didn’t realise the blowout-preventer was the failsafe — but it failed!
I am amazed that there appears not to be a failsafe shutoff valve on the oil well on the seabed. Surely it would be a good idea that the top of the well should be sealed if there...
I noticed an article on the BBC news website under the headline “Council faces large crash payout”
Appeal judges have ruled that a council could be liable to pay a mother up to £500,000 in compensation after she crashed on a poorly maintained road. Sussex County Council had argued it...
This week’s superfood is—in a Homer Simpson style— mmm beer
But hurry, there will be another study condeming drinking beer next week!
Dr Claire Bowring, from the National Osteoporosis Society, said: “These findings mirror results from previous studies which concluded that moderate alcohol consumption could be beneficial to bones.
“However, while the...
I’ve been watching the fascinating series presented by Jim Al-Khalili, where he traces the story of how the elements, the building blocks that make up our entire world, were discovered and mapped
.
Like much of the content on BBC Four, it’s not as dumbed down as much some popular science...
Some links I have previously posted on twitter, with a bit more comment. These relating to the recent announcement of Apple’s forthcoming iPad tablet.
An interesting press-release from the UK Meteorological Office, on what is causing the current spell of colder than average weather conditions (reported in the media as the COLD WEATHER CRISIS).
But most interesting, is the second chart on the page, that shows global temperature differential...
Over a year after the public enquiry, it has been announced that the controversial upgrade to the Beauly—Denny transmission line has been given the go ahead. (BBC News article)
I want to state that am in favour of this decision, as it means that the north of Scotland can...
An interesting animation, which tries to explain the reasons behind the global “Credit Crisis™”. An American take on a problem that originated in America… The Crisis of Credit Visualized
Via John Gruber
Errol Morris at the New York Times has posted a fantastic photographic record of George W. Bush’s presidency.
During the last week of the Bush administration, I asked the head photo editors of these news services — Vincent Amalvy AFP, Santiago Lyon AP and Jim Bourg Reuters — to pick...
Another interesting article by George Monbiot in The Guardian (If an hour is a long time in politics, we must start thinking in centuries) which discusses the current economic and future environmental crises in terms of single term political goals.
Politics is the art of shifting trouble from the living...
Not the beginning of a joke, but a question asked (and answered) by ‘the man in blue’ in his post Handwritten Typographers.
Nice to see that some of them have handwriting that is nearly as messy as mine! They obviously spend too much time at a computer too…
via Daring...
An interesting piece on Wired.com about how Google’s Open Source Android Phone Will Free the Wireless Web.
As the article concludes, Google win whether Android is a success or not, just as long as it helps to get more people browsing the web (and Google.com) from their mobiles.
If the history...
As I was saying in my response to Simon’s post about SNP priorities, dualling the A9 is not the first priority, getting freight off the roads and onto the railways should take precedence. It appears that they read my blog!
It was announced this week that the...
There is an interesting article on the BBC News about the health benefits of walking outside amongst trees and greenery. The sad thing is that we have got to the point that people need to be told that this is good for them!
Link: BBC NEWS...
Only a day or so late, but pop over to seemikedraw.com to see the mystery of the resurrection explained (scientifically)
Courtesy of xkcd.com the definitive guide to kilobytes and kilobits…
There’s been a lot of confusion over 1024 vs 1000, kbyte vs kbit, and the capitalisation of each.Here, at last, is a single, definitive standard:
xkcd 394 – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language – By Randall Munroe
A really interesting article by Steven Pinker in The New Republic, on why we swear and why it is still taboo. TNR Online | What the F***?
Quite long, but worth the read IMO.
found via John Gruber/Daring Fireball
An interesting article about the (lack of) disaster in the response to the flooding across central England last week If this is a national disaster, I’m a tomato — Times Online .
While it does not solve the problems of houses at risk, it does put the floods into...
A couple of quite amusing anti-creationism posts seen elsewhere…
The “Creationist Periodic Table of the Elements“ made just for schools in Kansas, on the Official Richard Dawkins Website, via digg
Textbook Disclaimer Stickers to replace those being stuck on “science” books in schools in the USA, ranging from...
As far as I can see from the website, it is basically a fabric tent coated in concrete powder, with a plastic lining. To deploy, water...