We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Knowing my fondness for pictures of London’s Big Things, taken from irregular places, South African blogger 6k (a scroll down there is recommended) has just emailed me with a link to this Daily Telegraph picture, which is a view from near the top of London’s BT Tower, of such things as the Gherkin, the more distant Docklands Towers, and the now nearly completed Shard. Yes indeed, well worth a click and a look. I know I’ve said it many times before, but I love how, with this new internet thing they’ve installed recently, people six thousand miles away can email you to tell you about interesting things in your own back yard.
But the real story here is not the view from the BT Tower. It is what the view of the BT Tower is going to look like from now on, and why:
BT Tower press officer Ian Reed said: “The huge dishes are synonymous with the tower and it truly is the end of an era. With the introduction of fibreoptic cable, the satellites have been defunct for many years and have reached the end of their lifetime. People will remember the dishes from when they were children – they were responsible for 90 per cent of the TV shown in the country. They were a landmark and could be seen all over London.”
I had no idea this was going to happen. [LATER: And either the DT or Ian Reed has it wrong also. As commenter Roue de Jour explains: “They’re not satellite dishes they’re microwave dishes. They point to similar dishes on masts on a line-of-sight. Satellites are not involved in any way.”]
Here are a couple of before and after shots of the Tower, how it looked and how it now looks. And here are two shots I took of this tower, with its big dishes, in February 2006.
I wonder what will happen next? Will they just fill in the gaps with dreary windows and office space? Or will new and different high tech contraptions be installed? I fear and expect the former, but hope for the latter.
LATER: See also another amazing London tower picture, the very first one of these. Those are the Docklands towers.
Oh dear:
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is concerned that the Government has yet to make it clear how it will ensure that the UK has a seamless broadband infrastructure to avoid a divide between rural and urban areas, as figures show that for many small businesses broadband speeds aren’t adequate.
This is the latest incarnation of a story that has been running for years.
There are advantages to high population density. That is the reason cities exist. For telecommunications, the advantages are shorter wires and more customers per cell, so the per-user costs of broadband are lower. People in rural areas will have to pay more for such things. But why put up with such mathematical truths when there is subsidy to be shared around?
And by that I do not mean that someone has merely been printing stuff on a violin. The violin itself was made by a printing machine.
Here is a video of the violin not only being enthused about but actually played, by Simon Hewitt-Jones. To whom many thanks for the email that alerted me to this amazing object.
Nice comment at the Bishop’s, on this, about “Climategate 2”, from “simon” (4:35pm):
I so hate it when my vicar quotes from the Bible. I can’t take such quotes seriously as they are out of context.
Perhaps the institution of the Samizdata quote of the day should be abolished. Time and time again, we here quote quotes, out of context.
Not all of the snippets that are now doing the rounds of the anti-CAGW blogosphere strike me as being as damning as some of them are. But, if anyone chooses to wonder about the degree of wickedness revealed by any particular snippet, it is the work of a moment for that person to find the context, this being one of the features of the internet. Provided, in presenting your preferred snippet, you supply the means of inspecting its context, then you have at least supplied the means by which your interpretation of the snippet may be challenged. And some of the snippets are very damning indeed.
If you are caught saying you are guilty only half as many times as the prosecution lawyer says you have been caught, that still makes you guilty.
Earlier in the thread, Viv Evans (4:02pm) says:
This ‘out-of-context’ excuse is favoured and generally used by shifty politicians who try to defend their misdeeds.
Indeed. And shifty politicians is exactly what these people are.
I trust that simon and Viv Evans will forgive me for quoting them out of context.
Another for the Ain’t Capitalism Great collection:
Thanks to the advent of smart phone technologies, many of us already carry the internet with us everywhere we go. But now, scientists have created the world’s first wirelessly powered, computerized contact lens with an integrated LED display. That’s right – the same access to information afforded us by the technology in our pockets could soon come to us via devices that rest directly on our corneas.
Here.
By wearing a pair of such lenses, you could presumably receive stuff in 3D.
Inevitably, a lot more work will be needed to turn this dream into a reality. But, you know, … wow!
Say what you will about the environmentalist and Guardian columnist Mr George Monbiot – not, apparently, the prototypical moonbat but merely a moonbat – he does have integrity. I have no doubt his recent conversion to a belief in the benefits of nuclear power cost him many friends in the green movement.
This article will not win them back. In it Mr Monbiot and Justin McCurry write that
The Green party’s former science and technology spokesman is promoting anti-radiation pills to people in Japan affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, that leading scientists have condemned as “useless”.
Dr Christopher Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster, is championing a series of expensive products and services which, he claims, will protect people in Japan from the effects of radiation. Among them are mineral supplements on sale for ï¿¥5,800 (£48) a bottle, urine tests for radioactive contaminants for ï¿¥98,000 (£808) and food tests for ï¿¥108,000 (£891).
and
Launching the products and tests, Busby warns in his video of a public health catastrophe in Japan caused by the Fukushima explosions, and claims that radioactive caesium will destroy the heart muscles of Japanese children.
He also alleges that the Japanese government is trucking radioactive material from the Fukushima site all over Japan, in order to “increase the cancer rate in the whole of Japan so that there will be no control group” of children unaffected by the disaster, in order to help the Japanese government prevent potential lawsuits from people whose health may have been affected by the radiation. The pills, he claims, will stop radioactive contaminants attaching themselves to the DNA of Japanese children.
Regarding that claim, Monbiot and McCurry write:
Gerry Thomas, professor of molecular pathology at the department of surgery and cancer at Imperial College, London, describes his statements about heart disease caused by caesium as “ludicrous”. She says that radioactive elements do not bind to DNA. “This shows how little he understands about basic radiobiology.” Of the products and services being offered, she says, “none of these are useful at all. Dr Busby should be ashamed of himself.”
UPDATE: George Monbiot has also put up a blog post on Christopher Busby in the Guardian Environment section. There is fierce debate in the comments between pro-and anti-nuclear Guardianistas. Meanwhile the Green Party have made no statement on all this that I can see.
Yes, there are a couple of interesting recent postings up at the Adam Smith Institute blog, both involving falling prices and falling profits.
Tim Worstall writes about why the solar power business is not proving very profitable. This is not, he argues, because solar power is rubbish. It’s just that making the kit to capture it is not that hard, the price of such kit is falling all the time, and making that kit won’t be very profitable.
The other falling prices and falling profits ASI posting is by Sam Bowman, who links to a piece in the Atlantic Cities blog about how a sharp drop in the price of cocaine caused a similarly sharp drop in the murder rate in the USA, during the 1990s. The business stopped being nearly so profitable and became a lot less worth killing for. (The reason the price of cocaine dropped was that smuggling got cleverer.)
I have very little to say about how true either of these claims are. Mostly my reactions are: interesting! Can anyone here be any more informative than that?
I believe in legalising drugs no matter what. But if it is true that a freer market in drugs, and consequent fall in their price, already has reduced the crime associated with illegal drugs, then that surely strengthens the arguments that I can use to support what I already believe in.
As for solar power, is solar power really about to become economically rational in a big way? If so, how much is that reality talking, and how much the politically rigged and politically deranged energy market?
Yes, I know that there might be some room for doubt here, but an example I came across in the news pages of CityAM today clearly highlights how so-called environmental taxes are hurting the economy and costing jobs, often in areas already in dire straits:
RIO TINTO yesterday said new environmental taxes and red tape were partly to blame for the closure of its Lynemouth aluminium smelter in Northumberland, risking 600 jobs.
The mining giant said the smelter “is no longer a sustainable business because its energy costs are increasing significantly, due largely to emerging legislation.
It is thought that the coalition’s controversial plans for a carbon price floor, announced in the 2011 Budget, are being blamed alongside EU emissions trading and large combustible plant rules.
Earlier this month, the lobby group Energy Intensive Users Group said Rio Tinto was among dozens of firms asking the government for some relief from the carbon price rules.
An agreement has not been made in time for Lynemouth to remain open, though a government “support package” is due before the end of the year.
The government recognises the need to support energy-intensive industry,” said a Treasury spokesperson yesterday.
Personally, I think risking 600 jobs is pathetic. If the AGW alarmists are really that good, they should be looking to risk millions. They need to raise their game.
Sorry for the sarcasm, but you can see why this blog, along with others, gets angry about the lying and bad faith of those “scientists” who exaggerate their doomongering, and the politicians who embrace their ideas. It has consequences for actual lives.
Not a lot of news coming out but I found this news on the Polywell Fusion reactor testing.
500 shots so far. A long way to go, but Dr. Bussard’s concepts have now survived quite a lot of testing. There is probably a lot more interesting information behind the scenes, but the US Navy Office of Naval Research prefers they not talk a lot.
I wish them success because it changes everything for all of us if they do succeed on the final hurdle of creating a working fusion generator.
The world’s financial system, run by institutions that were a few short years ago considered to be too big to fail but which are now too big to bail, is collapsing. But, the making of mere things, not now nearly so fatally deranged by government imposed regulations or corrupted by government supplied moral hazards, continues to flourish. Will thing-making survive the financial turmoil of the next few years? Who knows? Meanwhile, it has been and it remains a good time to be alive and thing-using.
A thing I particularly enjoy using is my digital camera. However, my current camera feels a bit ancient, and I believe I could now get a better one. But which? In this posting I solicit advice on the matter.
Very roughly, there are now three types of digital camera. There are the little ones like face powder cases which people carry for fun, such cameras often nowadays being included in mobile phones. At the other extreme, there are the SLRs with a small mountain of lenses you can attach to them, for people who, facing the choice between life and photography, have chosen photography. And then there are cameras for people like me, who adore photography but who also want lives. What we want is the absolute best camera we can have, without having to swap lenses all the time.
Well, that’s how it sometimes seems to me. To be more polite to the SLR crowd, it may be more a matter of how they like to photograph, compared to how I like to. They photograph slowly and carefully and infrequently. I photograph voraciously and opportunistically, one moment snapping something right under my nose (like a mad safety notice), and the next moment wanting to capture something I spot in the far distance (like a big new tower with something else amusing in the shot between it and me – often involving a trick of the light which may vanish at any moment), and I never know which it will be until I see it. You can surely appreciate how annoying swapping lenses back and forth would be for me. What I want is one super-versatile lens, which I can either make erect or flaccid depending on distance, within about one second. For the SLR fraternity, artistic impression and precision of image is all. For me, those are good, but the point of the snap is what is being snapped. So long as you can see that okay, usually in a photo that I include in a blog posting, good enough, technically speaking, is, for me, good enough.
For several years now I have had a Canon S5 IS, and very satisfactory it has been. But now, things have moved on, and I can now get a technically much improved camera, with does much better pictures and has massively more zoom, hardly any bigger and while still not having to faff about with those lenses.
Those who think I am wrong and that I should get an SLR can comment away to that effect all they like, but I will pay no attention. What I want is comments about what I am now looking at. And what I am now looking at is two cameras of the sort that I have just described, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ150 and the Canon SX40 HS.
There are already an abundance of reviews of these two beasts on line, including even reviews like this, which compare the two head to head. But, I would love to know what our commentariat is able to tell me about this choice, before I go ahead and make it. → Continue reading: Which superzoom camera should I now buy?
Over a year ago, I mused about the possibility that the wristwatch might die out as a result of new technologies. For the moment, I give that possibility a fat zero. Although I can barely afford a beauty like this Patek Phillipe or Vacheron Constantin on my income, I have always been partial to watches. They are some of the oldest examples of Man’s genius for matching precision, practicality and beauty.
I was reminded of the greatness of the wristwatch by the fact that Geneva – home of the Swiss watchmaking industry – soon plays host to an annual fair showing of the finest watches in the world. Here in London, the Saachi Gallery in Chelsea hosts the SalonQP fine watch fair. Another chance for your humble writer to look at things he can’t afford.
Away from the glitzy world of uber-expensive watches, we should recall that this year is the bicentenary of the death of Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal who clashed with John Harrison. Harrison solved one of the greatest challenges of his age: how to make a clock so accurate and yet robust that it could be carried on ships at sea, hence making possible accurate navigation. Maskelyne, who took a dim view of the older Harrison’s views, is sometimes portrayed as a villain of this story, although the writer Nick Foulkes argues this is unfair (article is behind a paywall).
Anyway, if you are interested in this tale, check out the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, which has started a project to research the history of the British Board of Longitude. The makers of the fabulous time-pieces of the 18th and 19th Centuries played their part in forging the modern world.
And of course, there are famous watches in films, such as that square Tag Heuer that Steve McQueen used to wear, or 007’s Rolex Oyster. And I think it was Buzz Aldrin who wore a watch over his spacesuit: one of these beauties from Omega.
Yesterday, they closed off Regent Street, the famous central London shopping venue, to traffic, to make way for … some cars. I made my way to Regent Street, on the off chance of some photo ops, and was not disappointed.
There were E-Type Jags and Minis (i.e. real Minis – not the horribly huge German rehashes we see now), because both are celebrating their fiftieth birthdays this year:
And there were even more exotic vehicles, like this one:
If there was a sign explaining that, I missed it. Anyone? It looks vaguely familiar, as having been involved in something like a land speed record.
There were also new vehicles on show, involving various drearily alternative means of propulsion, but looking exactly like regular cars.
But the really old cars were something else again:
There were lots and lots of those. And it would be putting it very mildly indeed to say that I was not the only digital photographer present:
Nor was I the only digital photographer who was intrigued by many of the smaller mechanical details of these old cars:
The weather was rather grim, but the rain held off long enough for me to take all these snaps. Click on all of the above to get them bigger, and if that isn’t enough, go to my own blog, to see many, many more.
By the way, I’m not anti-German about everything they’ve done to Britain’s motor industry. I love what they’re doing with the Rolls Royce.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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