Redesigning The Ugly
There are lots of everyday common blots on the landscape, that are just downright ugly.
Take the electricity pylon. In all my years of travelling, I’ve never seen any that could be described as beautiful. If we didn’t want them to spoil the landscape, we’d bury them, as happens in most towns and cities.
However, there was a competition a few years ago with a £5,000 prize to find a better pylon. It’s all described in this report.
I’ve not seen any better ones yet!
So now it is time for the designers to look at the overhead lines used on railway lines. The thoughts and ideas are detailed here.
How many everyday objects can be improved by better design and materials?
Liverpool Gets The Puppets Out Again
In 2012, Liverpool staged the Sea Odyssey: Giant Spectacular to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.
On Friday, they’re staging another giant puppet show to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Great War. It’s reported here in the Liverpool Echo.
I wish I could go, but I’ve got to be here for my builders on Friday, which would be the best day.
You may question, if a free show like this is a good idea, as surely it costs a lot to setup. This is what Wikipedia said about the financial benefits of the Sea Odyssey.
An independent report into the impact of Sea Odyssey concluded it was the most successful event in Liverpool’s history. The report showed that 800,000 people took part in the event, which resulted in an economic impact of £32 million.
So it would appear that spectacular events are a good idea financially.
How much did Leeds, Cambridge and London benefit from the Tour de France? And after the Commonwealth Games, how many people having a holiday in Edinburgh, will now take the trip across to Glasgow?
What odds will I get on the French puppeteers turning up in Liverpool again in a few years time. Perhaps they’ll bring a puppet of Red Rum to the Grand National!
A 3D Map Of London
This 3D map of London is at the Building Centre close to Tottenham Court Road station.
Unfortunately, dalston is just off the map, But it was good nevertheless.
Africa’s Great Green Wall
The Sunday Times has an article today about the Great Green Wall. Wikipedia describes the project like this.
The Great Green Wall is a planned project to plant a wall of trees across Africa at the southern edge of the Sahara desert as a means to prevent desertification. It was developed by the African Union to address the detrimental social, economic and environmental impacts of land degradation and desertification in the Sahel and the Sahara.
The aims are wider than this according to the Sunday Times, with hopes that trees can be planted that provide useful crops and income, so that the men aren’t drawn to terrorism and general mayhem.
The article also talks about how Kew Gardens is being drawn into the project, because it has the expertise to make sure the trees germinate and thrive.
By the end of this year they hope to have planted 162,000 trees in 2,500 acres. The forty species include gum arabic, tamarind and desert date.
This project is one of the ways to help stop poverty in the poorer areas of the world, whereas the article is the reason to buy the Sunday Times today.
Putin sends a missile battery, whereas Kew sends in and trains botanists and gardeners.
Could This Be The Key To Hydrogen Power?
Jerry Woodall has form as a scientist and inventor as he developed the first commercially-viable red LEDs that we see in car brake lights and traffic signals.
Last night I was searching for something else and came across this video on YouTube. This is the description to go with the video.
The actual process: gallium and aluminum combining, add water. stir – bubbles of hydrogen with only white aluminum oxide. as demonstrated by John Woodall – Jerry M. Woodall, National Medal of Technology Laureate, Distinguished Professor of School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette.
To put it simply, you add water to aluminium doped with gallium and the aluminium combines with the oxygen in the water and the hydrogen is released. The hydrogen can then be used to power a small engine.
There’s more description here on phys.org.
It’s early days yet, but could this simple process be the key to hydrogen power?
I always remember in the Electrical Engineering Department at Liverpool University in the 1960s, we were shown one of the first lasers. In some ways then, it was just a scientific curiosity and people were speculating about how they could be used. Now everybody has at least one, if they have a CD player. Many people reading this will be navigating the Internet using a laser mouse, as in fact I am with a Logitech M525.
It may not use Jerry Woodall’s invention, but at some time in the future, you’ll just put water in the fuel tank of your car and just drive away, emitting nothing more than water vapour.
There are many problems to solve, but the internal combustion engine will be here hundreds of years from now.
Is Iceland Part Of The Solution To The Problem Of Russia?
Putin’s Russia is increasingly becoming a problem to the rest of the world, as the events in Ukraine show. I’ve also been to Poland recently and talking to Poles, some are getting quite worried about Russian intentions.
We may impose sanctions on the Russians, but the real problem with our relationship, is that many countries in Europe are highly dependent on Russian gas. Germany is especially dependent and has the direct Nord Stream link through the Baltic.
But how do we replace all of that gas?
We already have a Langeled pipeline from the UK to Norway, the Interconector to Belgium and the RBL pipeline to the Netherlands. We are also importing compressed natural gas from the Middle East. We may also see the benefits of fracking in the next few years. So as far as the UK and our near Continental neighbours are concerned, it’s probably a case of “I’m Alright, Jack”
Gas may be a cleaner fuel, than the coal the Germans are rushing to use, but it still is a fossil fuel, although it only generates about forty percent of the CO2, that coal does when you burn it.
On my trip to Iceland, I saw how you could use geothermal and hydro-electric power to create heat and electricity to power a country and energy consumptive industries like aluminium production and data centres.
But they could generate a lot more and that zero-carbon electricity could be plugged into the European electricity grid. A project called Icelink has been proposed that would link Iceland to the UK and onward to Europe.
There is even plans on the drawing board in other parts of the world, where electricity is used to convert aluminium oxide or bauxite to aluminium in a smelter. The aluminium is then transported to where you need more electricity and then burned in a conventional power station to generate that power. After burning the aluminium is turned into oxide, which is then shipped back to be re-smelted into metal. It sounds crazy, but get the designs right and it might well be financially feasible and considerably cheaper than laying an undersea cable.
Connecting all of Western Europe’s gas and electricity systems together will allow everybody to share resources to mutual advantage.
If we do bring Iceland into this network, it will all help to make Russia’s abundant energy unnecessary and give Putin the cold shoulder, he deserves.
A Dog Of A Film
The Times today gave the film Pudsey: The Movie, the score of zero stars. The review included this paragraph.
Given the half-chewed dog’s dinner of a movie that resulted, it seems likely that makers of Pudsey the Dog: The Movie decided to maximise their investment by getting Pudsey to write the screenplay as well
No wonder, it’s being advertised on a high proportion of buses. The busometer is never wrong.
My Tired Hotel
If there was one thing that spoilt my holiday to Iceland it was the hotel.
This picture sums up the hotel.
My Tired Hotel
It was tired and in need of a stiff makeover.
But there were some faults you just can’t excuse.
1. The shower was stuck on hot and unusable.
2. The gluten-free bread they produced was frozen and inedible.
3. They had a glut of Earl Grey teabags, so that was what you got in the room. I hate the stuff.
4. I had a top floor room, which suffered from top-floor-too-hot syndrome. They kept the fire escape open to try to cool the top floor.
But the biggest problem was that it wasn’t the city centre hotel I asked for and it was claimed to be ten minutes walk away. You might have been able to walk it to the centre in just over that, but walking back up the hill would have been a lot more for me.
If I’d have donre my research better, I wouldn’t have booked it, as some entries on Trip Advisor said that all was not well!
Reykjavik
I’ve put all the sundry pictures I took of Reykjavik in this post.
It is a city with more colour than I thought it would have and being by the sea, there is a lot of water.
In fact, don’t go to Iceland, if you’re not keen on water.
It is also a friendly city, as the locals always seem to be helpful and there is a fair amount of information and maps at important places.
I also used the taxis to get back up the hill to the hotel several times and I just used them off the rank and paid the meter. Unlike some cities I could name, they were clean and the drivers were efficient and knowledgeable.
An Aladdin’s Cave For Coeliacs
Marks and Spencer may have its problems, but the display for its gluten-free bread and cakes in Islington, is bigger than the whole gluten-free area in the Waitrose next door.
An Aladdin’s Cave For Coeliacs
I just bought a loaf and some cheese biscuits.
I have a feeling that despite the Islington M & S not being one of their bigger stores, I might find that in a few months time, I’ll go there first and then buy the things they don’t have in Waitrose.
I can only rarely buy clothes there, but I do use it as the delivery point from the web site. I don’t know about others, but I’ve had no problems with shopping on their web site.
The Anonymous Widower 