The Simple Logic Of An Engineer or Scientist
Let’s face it we’ve got to generate more electricity in a zero-carbon way. Or should I say capture more energy?
One way to do this is to put photo-voltaic cells everywhere. But they are expensive and in many places can’t be used for aesthetic reasons.
So I was pleased to see in today’s Sunday Times, that a company, called Oxford Photovoltaics, is developing a solar cell that can be built into a window.
My Front Window
The picture shows one of my two front windows, which are actually glazed as many windows are by double-glazed panels that slot into aluminium or plastic frames. So to mount one of these sandwich glass photo voltaic cells could be a simple replacement.
I suspect too, that with a proper control system, the windows could be controlled to let the appropriate amount of sunlight through for lighting and warmth purposes. Most of the energy absorbed would become electricity, which could be fed back into the grid or used in the building.
The great advantage of this system, is that to be ready for it, when it is fully developed, you don’t have to do anything now except to ensure that all new houses, flats and offices are built to accept simple drop-in glazing panels.
This compny may not be the one that succeeds, but one definitely will.
Farewell Bin Hammam
Unlike Amy Winehouse, Mohammed Bin Hammam is still with us, even if FIFA have given him his just desserts. He has just been on Radio 5 and has said that everything he did was in line with FIFA policy. But then they are full of organised corruption. If you can, listen to a replay of the morning sports program with David Davies. I suspect none of the reasoned arguments, I’ve just heard went on at FIFA.
Now that we’ve said good-bye to Bin Hammam, how long can we sustain the farce of giving the World Cup to Qatar?
I wonder what odds I could get, that the Qatar World Cup doesn’t happen! Probably only very short ones, I would think!
Farewell Amy Winehouse
From my bedroom in Cockfosters, I could see Southgate School, which Amy Winehouse would attend many years later.
I can also remember my sister and the other girls at the school coming and going innocently in the road in front of the house.
Now, after a later life of abuse, the obviously talented Amy is gone. How many of the other boys and girls in her year have gone the same way? Probably only a handful, if my feelings are correct. This is based on the fact that most of my late son’s school friends are still here. And some have not been without drink and drug problems.
So when we remember Amy, let’s remember the good things, like her music and her success. And never ever think that her drink and drug problems are something to be admired.
Sadly, it seems that if you’re in the music industry, you attract those criminals, who want to sell you drugs, so they can have a large slice of your money.
More Bad News For Bombardier
Bombardier may think that as they’ve built the new Victoria line trains for London Underground, that getting the orders for the Picadilly and Bakerloo lines will be very much a follow on.
That was until I saw this proposal from Siemens. The trains would offer a bigger capacity, have a through walkway, be quite a bit lighter and use 20 percent less energy. They might even be air-conditioned. Incidentally this looks very much like a proposal I saw on the London Underground web site about seven or eight years ago, proposed by their own engineers.
Incidentally , Bombardier’s new trains for the Victoria line are not cracked up to what they should be, and I know quite a few passengers on the line, who prefer the old trains built in 1967.
So perhaps they lost the Thameslink contract because their proposal wasn’t technically as good as that of Siemens.
You have to remember too that the Thameslink contract was under PFI rules laid down by NuLabor. As the rating agencies reckon that Siemens are a better financial risk than Bombardier, the finance part of the deal was more expensive for Bombardier, so their proposal would have been more expensive. In fact their consortium would have been paying an extra 1.5% a year for financing the deal compared to Bombardier.
You Wouldn’t Want To Mess With Mary
I was alerted to this blog post by The Times this morning.
It’s all sensible advice and we need more Marys to come forward to give the crooks a good kicking.
Is Rick Perry Running To Be President of Iran?
They are made for each other, if The Times is to believed, as they are both convinced that the death penalty is the cure to all evils. I’m told it’s very good at stopping innocent peple becoming criminals.
The Iranians are using buses as scaffolds, which is a severe misuse of a noble piece of transport. Let’s make sure that none of London’s redundant bendy buses go to Iran, as they could be used to execute dozens at a time.
It’s about time, the British government and in fact the governments of all countries opposed to the death penalty, put some meaningful pressure on countries that still use this horrendous punishment.
Kim Kardashian Sues Over Look Alike
I gather that Kim Kardashian is quite famous. Perhaps it is famous for being stupid as she is suing a company because they used someone who looks like her, according to this report. She ought to thank the company for the publicity, especially as I don’t find the lady the least bit attractive. So perhaps she should sue The Times for showing a picture of her, that I don’t like.
You can rest assured that her lawyers will trouser a few dollars, so they will at least been paid well for their time.
We Need Rebekah’s Law
Popbitch is starting a campagn, so that we can all know if we have any former red-top editors living near us. Here’s the gist.
Rarely does Popbitch get on its soapbox
but recent events have stirred us up.
Inspired by the News of the World, we
demand the right for the public to know
if there are any ex-News International
execs living near us.
As the NOTW once said on its cover
“Everyone in Britain has a sex offender
living within one mile of their home”.
This is surely just as true of ex-
News of the World editors too.
And, like Mrs Brooks, we vow to name and
shame any politician who impedes our
crusade for tougher laws against
former red-top editors.
We need… Rebekah’s Law!
Come on, join our campaign.
It’s what she would have wanted.
I’m now getting very much towards feeling that all of this tabloid wrongdoing is all rather irrelevant and that stories like the multiple killings in Stockport and the financial problems in the eurozone are much more important.
I certainly won’t be venturing anywhere near Stockport or Greece in the near future.
The Neapolitan Line
The travel bunny on BBC Breakfast for London referred to the combined Metropolitan, District and Circle lines as the Neapolitan line today. It’s actually quite obvious as they are shown as a multi-coloured line, but why have I never heard it before?
The Anonymous Widower 