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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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 Posted -
11/01/2009
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06:04
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New Year, new topic. If you want to see the old one do a forum search for same title but 2008.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
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frankwilk
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Posted - 28/03/2009 : 07:54
Fusion will be the answer to a lot of the problems with regards power supply. I like the microwave to freeze things instantly. I also think sell by dates will become obsolete just zap your food and it will be safe to eat.
Weather
I think we will be able to make Rain to Order
Transport
Will be powered by electricity from Fusion
I also think a 140 year time span is to long to contemplate, if we start to measure things in 10 or 20 year spans we will be in for a surprise.
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy  |
frankwilk
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Posted - 28/03/2009 : 10:13
The England Football Catain is on £125,000 per week. He better watch out someone will be along to put his windows in !!!!!!!!! Suppose that puts the salary of the Dentist who is on £100,000 a year into focus.
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy |
Tizer
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Posted - 28/03/2009 : 12:47
Don't get me going on predicting discoveries and inventions! In the 1980s one of my tasks was to be creative in my role as a scientist in industry. The first thing I learnt is that companies (and countries) only need a very small number of creative people - what they need a lot of are the people who can put the new ideas into action, make the new machines to do the job. I could come up with new ideas but I depended on my colleagues who could "make things".
We spent time on developing concepts for `agricultural refineries' which would take in a whole crop, not just the grain, and process it all into useful products using e.g. disc mills instead of roller mills. The work was funded by the EU and one of the Danish people I worked for published a book about it - printed on paper made from ground up cereal stems. But the EU lost interest and nobody wanted to fund the work anymore. And now it's started all over again with the global warming worries motivating those with funds!
There are many exciting developments but the public doesn't hear about them. This is partly because the news media people are arts oriented and most of them only tackle science and technology if it has been made "sexy" (horrid description!). They will cover stem cells for instance because it is controversial, but miss lots of developments in new energy sources, new materials etc.
Here is something a bit `off the wall' and might interest even the media types. A group of New Zealand scientists are coding the early pages of Darwin's `Origin of Species' book into DNA, then inserting this DNA into an unusual bacterium which has high resistance to extreme environments including high-energy radiation. The idea is to make the information enduring, because these bacteria would be more likely to survive than other living cells or even most man-made materials. it sounds zany and you might think it's not very useful. But in fact it's providing new and useful information and experience for the scientists working with DNA and the mathematicians working with algorithms.
Another interesting one you might not have heard about. A new form of lithium battery based on lithium phosphate has been invented and it can be rechaged in seconds - yes, seconds! It will be not just more convenient for the mobile phone enthusiasts but apparently much more useful for autmotive engineers. But I don't recall the news media making a big fuss about it!
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 28/03/2009 : 13:11
One of the most significant developments of recent years, with enormous repercussions for everyday technology, has been the improvements in permanent magnet technology. How many people recognise that fact?
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 29/03/2009 : 06:52
I see Obama has brought Richard Holbrook back into the administration to 'sort out' Afghanistan. Holbrook did the same job for Clinton in the Balkans but never made it to secretary of state. I think Afghanistan might be a tougher nut than the Balkans.
Some commentators are comparing Afghanistan with Iraq but I think they may be missing the point. Mesopotamia was a relatively stable area and the cradle of civilisation with three kingdoms for thousands of years and the troubles started there when we (the Brits and Gertrude Bell) got a rush of arrogance mixed with greed and re-arranged it into Iraq with an imposed ruler so that we could more easily exploit it. Afghanistan is one of those transitional areas like the Balkans, Turkey and Mexico which sit on ethnic/religious divides and transport routes and are consequently wide open to trouble. We attempted to solve the 'Balkan Problem' after WW1 by rearranging the map and making defined boundaries. Look where that got us. The United States tried to get control over Mexico for the same reasons but in the end had to settle for Texas and an independent Mexico. Probably a good thing because it stopped it becoming another running sore.
Afghanistan as a country has only ever existed in the minds of the people who wanted to control it. It's actually a hotch potch of tribal areas which if left alone might possibly have reached an accommodation and amalgamated but due to the fact that everyone has fought over it for thousands of years has never become stable. If you think about it, two thousand years ago every country west from the old kingdoms of Mesopotamia was tribal. There were no homogenous kingdoms. It needed a thousand years of internal strife to get to the stage where it was sensible to amalgamate into a kingdom. The trouble spots of that area were created by constant outside interference from at least Alexander onwards. In the glory days of the empire Afghanistan was seen as a problem because it gave the Russians a land route to the East and India. Kipling's Great Game was played out above the Khyber Pass and never achieved any sort of settlement or buffer.
We are doing exactly the same thing now in Afghanistan. We have identified a problem, associated it with Afghanistan and decided we want to solve it by force. I think this is entirely the wrong strategy. The tribes should be accepted, 'democracy' forgotten and we should instead ask ourselves what the people want and how we can help them to get it. It may be that the most effective way of starting this would be to get rid of the knee-jerk associations with drugs and buy all the poppies off them. We are short of medical drugs. If this leads to economic improvement at village level and a measure of security stability will follow but it will be a long slow job.
When we first went into Iraq I voiced an opinion that if instead of spending trillions of dollars on war we invested that money in aid and improvement of the infrastructure we would get a better and more humane result. I still hold that view and it wouldn't be a bad way of starting in Afghanistan. It would have at least one great advantage, the removal of the need for body bags.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
HerbSG
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Posted - 29/03/2009 : 17:24
Stanley I tend to agree with you, after all if they mistreat and beat their women, abuse young boys, train international terrorists, and grow more poppies than we buy (some tribal chief will always supply the drug market at a higher price), why should we care? Again I agree with you , as long as we do not allow floods of refugees into our countries. STOP interfering where we do not belong and stop accepting refugees with their problems and be selective in accepting immigrants. OH and stop spending millions on foregn aid, why should we be building dams in Afghanistan or opening and funding schools so that the "bad" guys can destroy them? Why should we care about training police forces that can carry on supporting corrupt officials, etc etc all of this when our young lads are being killed doing the "good works"? GET OUT is the right approach, leave it alone, and if neccessary go in later clean up, disinfect and carry on.
HERB
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Bradders
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Posted - 29/03/2009 : 23:25
HERB.......I think it might be a really GOOD IDEA , if you were to re-read what Stanley wrote........
Only this time ...............
......(words fail me !)
Edited by - Bradders on 29/03/2009 11:39:14 PM
BRADDERS BLUESINGER |
HerbSG
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Posted - 30/03/2009 : 03:09
Bradders, I have read what Stanley said, and I agree with it ..conditionnally. If there is something that I said that you do not agree with that's fine, we are after all entitled to our opinions, and I'm sorry that words fail you.
HERB
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 30/03/2009 : 07:06
No Herb, Brad is quite right. You have either not read what I wrote or you are just being obtuse. We are in debt to Afghanistan because of the way we have treated them over the last 150 years. This applies to the US as well. Many people have conveniently forgotten that it was the US who enabled AlQuaeeda and trained Oscar Bin Liner because they wanted them to be their agents in the area because they wanted the Russian attempt to dominate the region stopping. When Russia withdrew they ditched Oscar and walked away. Look how we promised support to the dissidents in Iraq after the first Iraq war and then abandoned them to slaughter. Russia learned their lesson and walked away, we should do the same as regards attempts at armed domination. As for migration, it's a fact of life, learn to deal with it. At the same time recognise that the best way to encourage people to migrate is to destroy their quality of life in their home country. Areas like Eastern Europe haven't recovered yet from WW2 and the aftermath. The Balkans are still suffering from the effects of the Versailles Treaty after WW1 and much of the Middle East has been made unstable.
Read your history about the US in the inter-war years. They tried prohibition, isloationism and savage cuts in immigration. Thanks mainly to FDR they got over this phase and eventually realised that they had to engage in what was happening in the world. As it happened, the only course then was world war. We are faced with an easier choice. The key thing is that the US emerged stronger than ever before. There is no valid argument for closing borders and protectionism. The world has moved on.
On a lighter (?) note. Imagine the scene in the Smith household when our Foreign secretary realised that her husband had been watching adult films bought with Commons expenses.... I'd have liked to be a fly on the wall. Quetsion is, who blew the whistle and how did they know? Did it leak out from the internet provider? A Tory mole in the Commons expenses department?
There is another thing. I was naive enough to think that a Mutual Building Society was heavilyy regulated and couldn't indulge in risky investments. Dunfermline BS has demonstrated than this is not the case. They have potentially £800million of exposure. Even older type institutions are not safe from the rapacious bankers.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
belle
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Posted - 30/03/2009 : 09:04
..'there may be trouble ahead'.....
Life is what you make it |
frankwilk
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Posted - 30/03/2009 : 09:13
On a lighter (?) note. Imagine the scene in the Smith household when our Foreign secretary realised that her husband had been watching adult films bought with Commons expenses.... I'd have liked to be a fly on the wall.
Quetsion is, who blew the whistle and how did they know? Did it leak out from the internet provider? A Tory mole in the Commons expenses department?
Stanley only a small point Smith is Home Secretary.
A Tory mole in the Commons expenses department?
Can't expose what is not happening why would it be a " Tory " and not some decent Civil Servant exposing corruption ??
Adult Films bought with Commons expenses.... He is an Adult so I can't really see the problem with that " any Film would be a problem"
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy |
frankwilk
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Posted - 30/03/2009 : 09:16
Bradders
We don't tend to use expressions like
Only this time ...............
......(words fail me !)
People read what they like to see, we do not have a history of glib responses on here. We do have one liners for fun, but not personal !!!!
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy |
frankwilk
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Posted - 30/03/2009 : 09:18
Just noticed I have passed the 2000 posts, gimmie a medal, gimmie a medal LOL
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy |
thomo
Barlick Born Old Salt
2021 Posts
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Posted - 30/03/2009 : 09:37
Congratulations Frank, please accept this digital medal for your enjoyable input. Herb, take heart, I agree with what you say. There is a culture of "its not so much what is said, as who says it" and I feel in no way whatsoever responsible for what has happened before I was born and therefore do not feel inclined to pick up the ticket. Dont give up, but dont get blackballed either.
thomo |
Tizer
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Posted - 30/03/2009 : 10:06
Monday morning and all is well on the Attention thread, life as usual, plenty of scrapping......uh oh..if Belle sings "there may be trouble ahead" it must be time to keep our heads down.
Sorry, Frank, no medals, if we give you one we have to give everybody else one otherwise they'll be upset and might make a fuss, you know how it is, don't hurt anyone's feelings. I know you've done realy really well to get over the 2000 mark but you have to make these sacrifices for the good of the poor strugglers down there less fortunate than you (hehe).
Bradders, you can come out now from behind the sofa!
On a serious note, the Today programme had the parents of the boy killed by the youth who threw the glass plate at him in a rage. They were interesting to listen to, asking why is everyone getting into a rage these days, and making the point we are all trying to go too fast and putting kids under too much pressure. Some will cope with it but those who don't wil end up dangerous like the youth.
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