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I’ve been away on a late summer break to Turkey – first time visit. I was a little apprehensive about going as we left the UK three days after the recent bomb attacks in Marmaris and Antalya, in fact another bomb exploded in Diyarbakir in the east of the country while we were in Turkey, from what we could detemine, this was the work of Kurdish separatists.

However, we (my wife and I) had a very nice time at a friends’ apartment outside the town of Dalaman. Thousands of UK visitors to this part of Turkey will recognise Dalaman as the main airport that is used for all visitors to the resorts (coach journey of some hours I was told) of this part of Turkeys coast.

Might seem a strange place to go for a holiday, but once we were there and made a quick tour, we quickly realised that we were in an area of real Turkey away from all the touristy type places, but not too far away to visit places such as Göcek Dalyan and Fethiye.

Now I’m back I have a backlog of posts to make and will drop a few more posts on the holiday into the blog as I go along.

Tags: Turkey

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What is going on? It seems to me that the debate on the replacement Trident Nuclear is being cleverly hidden by the government amongst all the concern and comments about when Tony Blair will leave office, for example in this Observer article and this Guardian article.

I get the feeling that the Labour government wants to stifle any real debate on this subject, so that any Trident replacement simply rolls through on the back of some back door arrangement with the USA.

We cannot allow this to happen and every person in the UK must take reasonability to ensure that their own MP questions what the government is going to do about this. We (the electors) must be told all the facts for both sides of the discussion and how any decision is to be reached. You can find out your own MP by visiting this site and then email them for a response.

I am writing again to my MP, John Redwood to find what he thinks is the timetable is for the debate and when the vote would be, this will be my second letter. I’ll post whatever reply I get.
Tags: Trident, Labour Party, Liberal Party, Conservative Party

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Another BBC program to listen to… Driven by Oil, is it going to run out, and when?

Of course with any debate like this there are opposing views and different degrees of information, Life after the Oil Crash has some interesting images detailing oil production and usage. On the other side there are those that think it won’t run out!

It should be an interesting program, but on the surface I think that in the end we will have to find alternate means of energy to sustain us when, either the oil does run out or it becomes too expense to extract and process. But when will that be?
Tags: Oil production, Energy needs

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Finally, it look like the Bush Administration is at last going to have pay attention to Global Warming and its impending effect on the world. Professor John Holdrens recent comments lay the blame squarely at George Bush’s feet and accuses him of failing to cut USA emissions in light of substantial evidence that it is effecting World climate.

You can also hear Professor John Holdren discussing his comments on the BBC Today program (scroll to the bottom of the linked page to find the audio file).

With Ocean levels clearly rising [1] [2] [3] and some predicting that in the next 50 years whole areas of the world could potentially disappear under water, it is time that as the world largest polluter, the USA needs to get a grip and sort out their internal emissions control.

That’s not to say that it is only the USA’s problem. This is a world-wide problem that will affect all nations, including the UK and we must all work to get control of all types of emissions that effect the atmosphere.
Tags: Global Warming, John Holdren, Sea Levels

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I recorded the re-run yesterday of the filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet 9/11 documentary, it’s a fascinating piece of work about a momentous world event, that keeps you glued to the screen throughout its whole length.

I therefore await with eagerness, the screening of The Path to 9/11, a film that has already won praise at the Venice film festival. The Path to 9/11 is due to be shown on BBC 2 over two nights on the 10th & 11th of September. The film is based on the findings of the 9/11 commission and its investigation into what circumstance that led up to the attacks on the World Trade Center. Here are some background comments from Cyrus Nowrasteh, the writer/producer of the film.

It will be interesting to see how the film portrays the intelligence community and their lack of ‘foresight’ in understanding what was happening in the run up to 9/11. Conversely, I wonder if there will ever be a film about what information the Intelligence community had that lead to the Iraq war!

The Path to 9/11 film is already having an impact with comments coming in about pressure from former Clinton Administration associates wanting to down the film before it is even shown. Set your alarms as this is one film not to miss.
Tags: 9/11, The path to 9/11, Clinton Administration, Bin Laden, FBI, CIA, Al-Qaeda

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With security restrictions on cabin baggage now being somewhat relaxed, Laptops are being allowed back in Airplane cabins.

During the recent emergency I’ve heard various stories about a number of digital thefts that occurred from peoples checked luggage during the height of the cabin baggage restrictions and in some cases not being compensated by their insurance companies – there’s a surprise!

However, another case came to light last week where the owner reclaimed his laptop from his luggage only to find that it would not switch on, after further investigation he discovered that the internals were full of condensation! The laptop was left off for a further two hours after which, it then came to life!

This reminded me of a similar incident that happen to me a few years ago. I had driven up to make a technical demonstration at the Sellafield site and in pre-laptop days we then took a very large floor standing Unix Tower with us, along with some external Disc Drives, cables, a 21″ CRT monitor – boy was that heavy. We (three of us) had a long drive and due to traffic, arrived quite late at our hotel. Not bothering to unpack the computer equipment from the car boot, we had a late meal and went off to bed.

The following morning, we arose to find an unexpected and severe frost on the car! On arrival at the site, we of course then discovered that we had been caught out by the same condensation problem! Despite a hours delay while we warmed up the equipment, we were luckily able to start the computers and make our demonstration. Needless to say we never let this catch us out again!

Although today’s computers are more robust that their predecessors, since that incident I’ve always traveled with a CD/DVD backup of my data (not in my PC case) just in case anything untoward happened. Condensation can do enormous damage to laptops,  if tough security restrictions come back again, manufacturers should make sure that users know what to do in case they are affected and yes the insurance companies will have to change their policies to allow for claims based on PC theft from checked luggage.
Tags: UNIX, Heathrow Airport, Security, Backups

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As we hear more and more about impending shortages of energy and the ongoing buildup of CO² emissions escalating global warming, I listened with interest to news articles on the BBC’s Today (scroll down to find the audio archive links for Maglev) program this week about a potential MagLev transportation system in the UK which seems to he attracting the attention of George Osbourne, the Shadow Chancellor.

Maglev, short for Magnetic Levitation has had a checkered history and has not been widely adopted in the past, the UK did have one of the first commercial operating Maglevs at Birmingham Airport for a number of years, but the technology was very temperamental and eventually it was replaced in 1995 by a less technological solution.

As the discussions continue about the use of newer and more efficient Maglev technology, real costs are being proposed for commercial lines in the UK for example £25 Mil. per kilometer for lines from London to Birmingham and London to Manchester. With proposed speeds 300/400 mph, these lines could be a serious competitor to domestic airline operation.

From an emissions point of view, Maglev certainly offers a much cleaner form of transportation for domestic use, though the generation of the massive amounts of electricity needed to run Maglev lines would need to be taken into consideration, perhaps another reason for Nuclear powered generation of electricity, cleaner than coal!

There is of course the question of funding and where the lines will run. It is unclear at the moment if there would be any government funding for the development of this type of transportation, so that will mean that private enterprise will have to stump up the money. I think thought that the building and planning permission will be the bigger hurdle to cross. Could the lines run on the same ground as current traditional railway lines, will new strips of land have to be carved out of the countryside? The UK is not known for quickly adopting new transportation schemes so it will be interesting to see how the proposed Maglev lines are received.

I think that Maglev offers a real solution to the current problems of traditional carbon-based burning transportation systems, it wont be cheap to implement, but it offers both a cleaner and more environmentally friendly answer to our future transportation needs.
Tags: Maglev, Transportation, BBC Today, Planning Permission

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The price of all types of computer memory chips has fallen dramatically over the past few years and this has been a big an advantage to all computer users. With the release of ever yet more devices that can use removable storage cards, MP3 players, digital cameras etc. the price of these types of cards have also dropped in price. But as I have discovered, what you think is a good bargain, turns out to not be so, when you look at the final price that you pay!

For example… I am off for a short break to Turkey soon and of course will take my digital camera (Canon IXUS 400) with me. Since I’ve had my camera, I have managed quite well with the 256 MB memory card that I bought at the same time of the camera, as I have generally had my laptop with me to download the images on a daily basis. However this time, for various reason I’m not taking my laptop with me – how will I blog?

Therefore, I thought that it was time that I purchased another memory card. So off to the Internet and soon I have some good prices for a SanDisk 512 MB Compact Flash Card. I am pleased to find that if I purchase two of these, the total price is less than I paid for the single 256 MB card three years ago, on average UK£11.00 each, apart from Argos online who want £35.00, I bet they don’t sell many!

So I finally select a supplier (Amazon in this case) and go through the various add to basket, proceed to check out pages and suddenly find that the price has gone up by some, I am facing a shipping and handling charge of £9.00, which of course pushes the price of the purchase from £22.00 to £31.00! Further investigation of the extras show that the shipping and handling charge is £4.50 per item!

Bear with me… Lets look at what I’m buying here; a 512 MB Compact Flash Card per the manufacturer information measures 37 mm x 43 mm x 5 mm thick and weighs in at a mighty 20 grams (with its little protective plastic case), then by adding the obligatory blister packaging – the ones that you have to practically use an acetylene torch to get into – the size of the packaging then goes up to 180 mm x 130 mm x 30 mm and the weight increases to a massive 70 grams!

Finally, these items (2 off) then have to go into their final shipping container. This is a thin cardboard box measuring 250 mm x 180 mm x 110 mm, along with the blister encased Flash cards we have an a single sheet of brown paper (placed on top of the two blister packs, for what use I know not!), this adds a further 200 grams to the weight, bringing up a total weight of 270 grams! Why a Jiffy bag could not be used I am not sure.

So the next thing to do, is to find out what this would cost me to post to someone else? For some reason this package, although purchased from Amazon UK, came from a supplier in Germany! Looking at the Royal Mail’s overseas postage rates, if posted at the Airmail letter rate, the cost would be £2.89 and at the Airmail Small Packet rate, the cost would be £2.12.

So returning to my original point, if I’m being charged £9.00 for shipping and handling by the supplier and I could send the same package to Germany for £2.89 (maximum of the two Royal Mail postage rates) what is the £6.11 balance charge for? Is it the cost of the cardboard box and single sheet of brown paper (maximum of 75 pence I guess) ? Is it to cover the cost of someone putting the two blister packs into the cardboard box – if one blister pack costs £4.50 why does two cost double! – and seal it with tape and adding the address postage label on the box? The image included with this post, shows what the supplier paid for postage, nowhere near £6.11.

It’s a shame that what I had thought to be a bargain turned out to be somewhat less so, with the addition of these hidden charges – it reminds me of the so called taxes that airlines still add to supposed cheap airline tickets, but don’t get started on that again!

However, there is a good ending to this long whine. I complained to the supplier and after just 20 minutes received a full refund of the complete shipping charges! It would therefore seem to me that they (the suppler) along with Amazon UK (the supplier said that this was an Amazon policy) realise that they are charging too much for shipping and handling.

I don’t mind paying for delivery of goods and understand that all companies still need to make a profit. But please, wake up and charge a reasonable figure. If I had bought four of the cards, would it really have cost the supplier £18.00 to send the same package (into which they would have all fitted) to me. I think not!
Tags: Royal Mail, Amazon UK

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I heard the news stories yesterday about the sad death of Peter Woodhams, murdered by the hands of yet another street gang!

Now I read that “A senior Scotland Yard officer has apologised to the family for any hurt caused by the earlier inquiry” – referencing the stabbing that Peter had suffered at the hands of the same gang in January this year!

Perhaps apologies is not what is needed at this time, but a step up in Policing methods to bring all of the gang members who participated in this tragic incident to justice, now! The ‘Metropolitan Police London Gang Squad’ know who all the gang members are, all they (the police) need to do, is to go out and get them.

I wonder how many more incidents like this one are going to happen before the government suddenly realise that one of the things that we elect them for, is to look after us in a number of different ways, such as health care, defense of the nation and crime prevention.

Why, as we go forward through this first decade of the new century, do we still have have discussions about the number of police on the streets, the lightness of sentences for what seem to be major offences and an obsession with performance figures when people like Peter are still attacked and murdered on our streets.

Aplogises won’t bring him back, but serious action now, may prevent this sort of thing happening again, and again, and again!
Tags: Metropolitan Police, Gun Crime, Gangs

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You might not know the photographers name, but I’m betting you will have seen the photo at least once in your life, irrespective of your age.

Joe Rosenthal [2], the photographer who took what later on, become an Iconic image and replicated in the ground zero rubble of the 9/11 has died.

The story of how that special photo came about can be read here.

Tags: Photography, LA Times, Joe Rosenthal, 9/11

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