Category: Musings

Climate warming?

What’s the truth about climate warming, e’rr change?

I will put my hand up to subscribing to the notion of humans having such an effect on Earth’s atmosphere that climate warming was likely, inevitable and could be the destruction of life, as we know it.  It seemed to fit the idea of mankind being disconnected from the planet and completely out of touch with the reality that our Earth is a fragile place, our atmosphere a (relatively) very thin ‘skin’ around our planet and few of us spare a second thought for protecting the environment for the generations to come.

earth-moon

But gradually the faint sounds of opposition to the ‘simple’ argument that man is screwing up the Planet have become clearer.  The latest is a very clear cry.

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Integrity vs Entertainment

It’s a funny old world …

Recently I was asked to run a detail lasting 4 hours in an Airbus simulator, for a film crew coming from Australia.

I was told by the training office that this was just operating the instructor panel on the simulator to help them get the information they needed regarding certain situations that would be explained in a television documentary to be aired on a Sunday evening weekly program.

A320 simulator 'cockpit'.
A320 simulator 'cockpit'.

Apparently the various people involved had visited Airbus, and were due to return to Australia for interviews with some of the major airlines operating Airbus aircraft.

I soon gathered that the likely scenario was to be the loss of instrumentation and automation as experienced by an A380 crew recently, and what might have been the case with the A330 lost over the Atlantic.

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The love of a dog

Dog love

The following is a guest post from Daniela Caride.  Daniela is the publisher of The Daily Tail, a Blog about her life with animals.  To use her own words, “life with three dogs, three cats, her husband and the countless other animals she meets.”

Daniela & Geppetto
Daniela & Geppetto

Dogs inhabit my very first memories. I grew up with dogs as part of my family. They, too, got goodnight kisses from Mom.

In my early years I realized dogs had their own traits, just like humans. While our old boxer China quietly roamed around the house looking for love, Colita, our crazy Dachshund, tried to pee on everyone’s legs. If unsuccessful, the green rug under the dining table was an agreeable option. I don’t blame him. It looked just like a big square of grass.

Read more of Daniela’s guest Post

Somebody forgot to tell the dogs!

A reminder about how dogs, just like their human masters, love an ordered life.

We live in a rural country village with some 500 people scattered around, and have the New Forest on our door step, so our two dogs, Millie and Summer, get lots of walks. They are nearly six now, and arrived here as puppies.

Like most dog owners, we are known because of the dogs.  The dogs sit near the five-bar gate during the day waiting to see if anybody will pass by and talk to them. The normal routine when I am home is to go out shortly after 6am for a morning walk, then they get another walk later during the day.

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Harvest Festival and “The Midnight Truce”.

An old Saxon church and echoes of world wars

Recently, the children from our small school in Breamore started their day with a Harvest Festival service in the old breamorechurch-350wSaxon village church which is over 1,000 years old.

Rural life has not changed much for generations.

The Breamore Estate, set in beautiful Hampshire countryside has some 300 inhabitants, many of them living in old thatched cottages. The main Breamore House is where General Patton stayed in the run up to the D-Day landings.

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Transformation

These are hard times for millions – transformation is the only practical option.

I’ve been working with most of my clients recently through painful transformation brought about by the recession.

An interesting metaphor really because, since the first wave of uncertainty in the UK banking system triggered panic, I deep riverhave been picking up on that uncertainty.

That uncertainty feels like it’s stalking the globe at the moment; one has been aware of an underlying fear that was difficult to name and source in me. It has been rather like a deep river in that whilst the surface feels slow moving, currents are moving things powerfully below.
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Postscript on reasonable men

In praise of thoughtful, articulate people who reason their way through life.

Let me say that I know no more about the person who is Neptunus Lex than anyone else who takes the time to read his Blog.  And after I justify the sub-heading of this Post I will give you those links to Mariner Lex.

If you have come into the topic just now, then you may want to read the two Posts on fate.

The first Post was published on October 6th, the second Post the next day.  In a sense, these Posts connect with the Carrier series by PBS that you can link to here.

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Septembers

How clear, crisp September days echo 1940.

I was born in London some 6 months before the end of World War II.  The echoes of that tragic event in human history rang around the torn roadways and ripped buildings of London for many years, certainly for sufficiently long that I was able to remember as a young boy, away on his bicycle, the bomb sites and and the gaps where once buildings had stood.

Sometimes, when the September weather is as it was during the Battle of Britain, it’s almost as though those echoes can still be faintly heard.  Maybe all Londoners over a certain age hear them?

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Richard Noble and a 1,000 mph car!

There are cars, fast cars, extremely fast cars and the Bloodhound SSC.

Thanks to a thread on Flyer Forums for this.

Richard Noble of Thrust SSC fame is at it again.  This time fitting a ‘car’ with the engine from the Eurojet Typhoon fighter.  The ambition is to break the 1,000 mph hour mark and up the land speed record set by Thrust SSC by more than 30%.  Thrust SSC set the world land speed record in 1997 at the astounding speed of 763.035 mph (1221 km/h) or Mach 1.02.

More details about the project may be read here.

One aspect of the engine caught my eye,

In the middle of the BLOODHOUND SSC is the MCT V12 800 bhp race engine which doubles as our APU delivering hydraulic power as needed, starting the EJ200 and of course pumping the High Test Peroxide EJ200(HTP) through to the Falcon rocket. The pump has to move a ton of HTP through to the rocket catalyst in 22 seconds and at 1200 psi.

As someone said on the Flyer Forums, “So they’re not going for maximum mpg then…”

By Paul Handover

Growth of eBooks

Expansion or replacement of the traditional book?

My guess is that most people still value the convenience and sheer pleasure of holding and reading a traditional paper book.  It is difficult to think of a more pleasurable activity than browsing the shelves of a book-store or library.  But the eBook also is carving out a valuable niche, it appears.

Thus it was a delight to come across a ‘store’ devoted to eBooks.  Based in Paris, that virtual store is called Mobipocket.  New to me but, perhaps, not to many others (I can sometimes be a little behind the new technology drag-curve!)

Nevertheless, a veritable labyrinth of virtual book shelves with prices often well below print prices.  Here’s the WikiPedia background.

By Paul Handover (who has no commercial interest in promoting Mobipocket, not even a cent is earnt if you click through.)