Tuesday 10 April 2012

Aunties high cost rail: Most money-least tax: Bubble houses: Mac flashback: and an Elephant on mars.


A slight lack of warm stuff at the Castle this morn, but Dawn’s crack was quite impressive and the big yellow thing is climbing into the sky.
The garden is looking much better with more than a whimsy of wet stuff and I have been ‘spring cleaning’ the large cupboards-yet another trip to the “recycling centre” in due course, but I did find a sundial which has lain in repose for about thirty years (since the 1980s) and will go into the ‘new corner’ of the Castle grounds-pics to follow.




According to the Torygraph the BBC has spent more than £2 million ferrying and flying staff and guests between London, Manchester and Salford in two years, despite promising to employ more people locally.
New figures show the public service broadcaster paid for more than 24,000 train journeys and at least 500 flights between the capital and the North West, where its new media centre is based.
The train travel bill totalled more than £1.84 million while air mileage cost licence fee-payers nearly £77,000.
The corporation’s bill for rail journeys increased by nearly 30 per cent in 12 months, the figures released under Freedom of Information laws show.
The statistics cover journeys made through the public broadcasters “central booking agents” for the financial years 2009/10 and 2010/11.
It covers journeys made by staff from all BBC departments and also includes travel undertaken by guests.


I can’t afford to use the chuff-chuffs anymore; still it is nice to know that Auntie is so generous...




Apparently alien reptile in disguise George (I have so much money that I need several bank accounts) Osborne is "shocked" that some of the UK's richest people have organised their finances so that they pay virtually no income tax.
George (oh god we have been rumbled) said he had seen "anonymised copies" of tax returns which showed him that some of the highest earners paid an income tax rate averaging at just 10%.
He said he would take "further action" but did not outline any new proposals.


At least not until he has managed to have a word with his accountants....




The Bubble Houses are two historic bubble or airform houses located next to each other in Florida.
Completed in 1954 by Air-form, the Bubble Houses were designed by Eliot Noyes using the airform monolithic dome system developed by Wallace Neff, which consists of reinforced concrete cast in place over an inflated balloon to establish the house’s shape.
The original interiors of the houses consisted of a bathroom and open concept living, dining, and kitchen area on the 569 square feet (52.9 m2) main floor, with a loft-style, raised sleeping space above.
They were built to sell for $6,500. Shortly after their completion, it was stated that more than 3,000 people had toured the newly constructed bubble houses.
The two bubble houses were featured in Life magazine in its February 22, 1954, issue, which described them as “both hurricane-proof and bugproof”.


Not “inflation” proof though.....




Last Thursday the computer security industry buzzed with warnings that more than a half-million Macintosh computers may have been infected with a virus targeting Apple machines.
Flashback Trojan malware tailored to slip past "Mac" defences is a variation on viruses typically aimed at personal computers (PCs) powered by Microsoft's Windows operating systems.
The infections, spotted "in the wild" by Finland-based computer security firm F-Secure and then quantified by Russian anti-virus program vendor Dr. Web, come as hackers increasingly take aim at Apple computers.
"All the stuff the bad guys have learned for doing attacks in the PC world is now starting to transition to the Mac world," McAfee Labs director of threat intelligence Dave Marcus told AFP.
"Mac has said for a long time that they are not vulnerable to PC malware, which is true; they are vulnerable to Mac malware."
Dr. Web determined that more than 600,000 Mac computers may be infected with Flashback, which is designed to let hackers steal potentially valuable information such as passwords or financial account numbers.
Hackers trick Mac users into downloading the virus by disguising it as an update to Adobe Flash video viewing software.

  

You have been warned....


And finally:



The image above is actually of the dried flood of lava over the Elysium Planitia volcanic region of Mars, as captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.


Wouldn’t want to have to clear up after that...




And today’s thought:

I hope u-turn Cam has the right clothes with him.




Angus

2 comments:

James Higham said...

Completed in 1954 by Air-form, the Bubble Houses were designed by Eliot Noyes using the airform monolithic dome system developed by Wallace Neff, which consists of reinforced concrete cast in place over an inflated balloon to establish the house’s shape.

That's rather interesting because boats are made with foam over a frame. It could be the way to construct in the future.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Nice to see that the Beeb is economising.