Seen in the News

[Tizer]

The mine is owned by Canadian gold mining corporation Kinross. I wonder if it was one of their vehicles or do they depend on local freelance truckers? Kinross
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Tripps, looking at your pics of your former work station I could imagine the ghost of Tommy Flowers hovering in the low-lit background. He would have loved it!

[Tripps]

ould imagine the ghost of Tommy Flowers hovering in the low-lit background

I had to look him up - and you're right. The place was originally manned by GPO engineers such as him.

[Tizer]

As you'll probably have guessed, I've been reading Sinclair McKay's book `The Secret Life of Bletchley Park'.

[Tizer]

An example of what happens now we've left the EU. This chemical was banned when we were in the EU - now DEFRA is allowing it to be used. I know the sugar beet growers need a way to protect their crop from virus attack but it shouldn't be by killing bees. This problem has been known for a long time and research should have been done to find a safer way to protect the crop...
`'Banned' bee-harming pesticide approved for use, despite expert advice' LINK

[Stanley]

Shameful. There is a school of thought which says that anything that makes sugar scarce or more expensive would be a good thing for the national diet. Instead, it looks as though commercial arguments have prevailed. Less pests on the crop and less insects to pollinate the plants. Brilliant!

[Wendyf]

A bit of good news for a change! Dave Ryding, the 35 year old Lancashire born skier who trained on Pendle ski slope, has won World Cup Gold in the Kitzbuhel slalom event. We'll done that man! (I'm a long term Ski Sunday fan, don't know why as I've never been on skis myself.)

[Tizer]

Well done for finding some good news, Wendy - it's getting harder to find these days! Here's a couple more good news stories...

From the BBC: `Figures from mortgage lender Halifax suggest there were a record number of first-time buyers last year, despite rising house prices and falling affordability...There were more than 400,000 people buying their first home in 2021, up 35% from the previous year, the Halifax said...A stamp duty holiday that started in 2020 saw house buyers rush to pick up properties - although first-time buyers were not part of this stampede...However, this meant a number of so-called "first-rung" homes came on to the market, which first-time buyers took advantage of in 2021, despite hikes in property prices.' BBC

Also from the BBC: Although the Tonga volcanic eruption sent an ash plume 35 miles high, Dr Richard Betts, the head of climate impacts at the UK Met Office, said Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai would not have the same effect as Mount Pinatubo did in 1991. That volcano dropped Earth's average global temperature by half a degree for a couple of years due to it injecting 15 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. (SO2 combines with water to make a haze of tiny droplets, or aerosols, that reflect incoming solar radiation.) "Pinatubo did have a noticeable effect, but the Hunga-Tonga volcano's emissions were more than 30 times smaller at less than half a million tonnes of sulphur dioxide, so we don't expect that to have a cooling effect, even though it made a huge bang when it went off," he explained. LINK

[Big Kev]

Robot Vacuum Cleaner Escapes From Hotel

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-c ... e-60084347

[Tripps]

A bit of good news for a change! Dave Ryding, the 35 year old Lancashire born skier who trained on Pendle ski slope, has won World Cup Gold in Kitzbuhel

Just watched it - very impressive performance (from one who knows nil about skiing ) Couldn't help noticing the grudging attitude of the commentator - when he was in the lead, and there were four more runs to go - "well the worst he can do now is to come fifth" !

No mention in the media today. I don't think he ticks any of the BBC boxes. Just a plain 35 year old English man.

Now If he had been half his age, and half Chinese and half Romanian, and born in Canada . . . .

[Wendyf]

Just what I thought when I read about his win.

[Stanley]

"don't know why as I've never been on skis myself"
You've perhaps got more sense than to strap two planks on your feet and throw yourself off a mountain Wendy.
Kev, I heard that news story and thought it was hilarious. I note it was found later hiding in a hedge.....

[PanBiker]

Robot Vacuum Cleaner Escapes From Hotel

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-c ... e-60084347

Our Jack has been installing and commissioning the IT kit in Finlays new school build in Silsden. Nothing to do with his firm but the general cleaning at the school is done by a fleet of robot cleaners which run 24/7 around the corridors and rooms.

[Tizer]

You've perhaps got more sense than to strap two planks on your feet and throw yourself off a mountain Wendy.

There have been several deaths or severe injuries in recent days on the Swiss and French ski slopes due to speeding skiers hitting people. One was a child killed a few days ago. Apparently there's been a big increase in the speedsters and the authorities are starting to use speed cameras.

[Stanley]

No doubt filming for their Facebook page.....

[Tizer]

Oh no, not more NFTs!...
`The Beatles and John Lennon memorabilia to be sold as NFTs' LINK
`John Lennon's eldest son Julian is selling several pieces of music history from his personal collection. However, he will keep the physical items as each piece of memorabilia will be sold as a non-fungible token (NFT)...NFTs are "one-of-a-kind" assets in the digital world that can be bought and sold like any other piece of property, but which have no tangible form of their own. The digital tokens can be thought of as certificates of ownership for virtual or physical assets. Traditionally, collectible items are seen as valuable due to their rarity, but digital files can be easily and endlessly duplicated. With NFTs, these items can be "tokenised" to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought and sold. As with cryptocurrencies, a record of who owns what is stored on a shared ledger known as the blockchain. The records cannot be forged because the ledger is maintained by thousands of computers around the world.'..

Julian is said to be keeping the physical items. If so he could make an endless stream of the same NFTs and they'd only differ by the number or whatever of the `digital certificate of ownership'. The more he made the lower their value would become and the one sold originally for tens of thousands of pounds could end up worth only £100 or less. It's like a pyramid scheme. Am I missing something here or is it just another example of how gullible and crazy our world has become?

[Stanley]

I have exactly the same queries about NFTs Peter. How can anyone be daft enough to pay money for something that doesn't exist? Include me out.

[Tizer]

This has been going on throughout the pandemic...
`Airlines flying near-empty ‘ghost flights’ to retain EU airport slots: Analysis from Greenpeace finds deserted flights are generating millions of tons of harmful emissions' [url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... port-slots]LINK[/url
`At least 100,000 “ghost flights” could be flown across Europe this winter because of EU airport slot usage rules, according to analysis by Greenpeace. The deserted, unnecessary or unprofitable flights are intended to allow airlines to keep their take off and landing runway rights in major airports, but they could also generate up to 2.1 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions – or as much as 1.4 million average petrol or diesel cars emit in a year – Greenpeace says.'...

[Stanley]

I can well believe it and the airports will not be rushing to rationalise the regulations because they'll be charging airport dues on every flight in order to stay in business.

[Tizer]

I hope someone will know how to switch this off once it starts!
`US lab takes further step towards nuclear fusion goal' LINK

[Stanley]

That system where lasers contain the reaction, is the one I saw in the experiment at Berkeley in the 1980s.
I wish them well, we need fusion badly!

[Stanley]

I see that at long last the instruction in the original Highway Code 'Turning traffic gives way to pedestrians' has been reinstated. (LINK)

[Tizer]

I doubt the new `rules' will do any good. People break the Highway Code all the time. On weekdays the T-junctions near our house have cars parked on them - when I point out to drivers that it's against the HC they just tell me they can park anywhere. The cleverer ones point out that it's not illegal. People are breaking speed limits all the time and most get away with it. I notice the cyclists are pleased about the changes - but they ignore the HC rule not to ride on footpaths and that's got even worse since the pandemic began.

[Tripps]

Seen in the Guardian. Ticks some boxes for this site. Character is from Discworld by Terry Pratchett via Jack Monroe.

, What say Stanley?

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money,” wrote Pratchett. “Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”

[Stanley]

The sums still add up David. I bought my Trickers almost 50 years ago when they were £14 a pair which was about half my weekly wage. I still have them and they are in as new condition because I have looked after them. The same applies to my brogues, It costs almost three times as much to sole and heel them as it did to buy them but they are still cheap. They look good, I was wearing them yesterday.... (The Crombie has been good value as well... )

[Tizer]

You're looking well Stanley and it's good to see you smiling!

Tripps, that Commander Samuel Vimes quote is from Pratchett's book titled `Snuff'. It's full of Vimes philosophy and is a very amusing read. Sam's wife, Lady Sybil, orders him to go with her for a holiday at her country estate. Sam is very much a city man, born and bred, and from a poor background. Sybil has got him used to some aspects of the world of the rich in the city but when he gets to the countryside he finds that the toffs are a different breed altogether. He also can't sleep at night due to the many strange animal sounds and misses the comforting background sounds of yelling and screaming that he's used to in Ank Morpork!