Cold, clear and sunny at the Castle this morn, just returned
from the stale bread, gruel and pussy food run at Tesco, prices are still going
up.
Britain's health and safety watchdog has failed to meet more
than half of its own targets for workplace safety.
Some 243 accidents or injuries were recorded in the offices
of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) last year, an increase of 16 per cent
on 2009-10.
Nine were serious enough to merit reporting to the HSE’s
national database of industrial accidents and diseases.
In all, the organisation fell short on seven out of 11 of
its own targets on staff safety, according to an internal audit. They included
regularly assessing staff on how they used computer monitors, taking action on
risk reports within a month and providing “defensive driver training” to staff
travelling long distances by car.
Critics say its inability to meet its own rules is
indicative of the burden placed on employers by safety red tape.
Or it may be that those who want to work for Elfandsafety
are Numptys....
An Oxfordshire flying club is building a new squadron of 12 Spitfires;
Work has already started on one of the
Supermarine Mk 26B Spitfires at Enstone Flying Club, near Chipping Norton.
When completed,
each aircraft will weigh 810kg (1,782lb) and will be a 90% scale version of an
original three-tonne Spitfire.
Manager of the project,
Paul Fowler, 50, said the aim was to "keep the Spitfire legend alive
forever".
Twenty volunteers
are constructing the first Spitfire, but more volunteers are needed to build
the following 11.
Spiffing, but shouldn’t they have gorn the other ten per
cent....
The folks at NASA have rigged up a virtual fly through of a
really big crack in Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier.
Using data gathered by NASA's Operation IceBridge science
flight team, the agency generated an animated fly through over.
Glad my crack isn’t that big, but I suppose it is easier
than flying to Mars.....
Apparently For more than two centuries, the Fugate family
has lived near Troublesome Creek in eastern Kentucky. Many of them, in the
past, were blue.
As a result of inbreeding, the combination of a recessive
trait caused them to be born with methemoglobinemia, a rare genetic disorder that
turns the skin blue.
Ooerrr...
A company selling
the title of “Laird of Glencoe” for just £29.99 to buyers keen for their own
piece of Scottish ancestry has been accused of “making a mockery” of the
nation’s heritage and “exploiting” one of Scotland’s greatest natural
treasures.
Highland Titles,
based in the Channel Islands, offers plots of land measuring a square foot on a
750-acre area known as the Keil estate, and tells buyers that owning the land
allows them to adopt the title Laird, Lord or Lady of Glencoe.
Unfortunately it seems that the titles are meaningless and
that the land itself is nowhere near the famous glen. The Keil estate is 16
miles west of Glencoe on a spit of land that juts into Loch Linnhe.
Thousands of people across the world have purchased the
title since the firm, based in the tiny Channel Island of Alderney, bought the
land in 2007. It comes along with a Master Title Deed and some celebrities –
including Nelson Mandela, Kate Moss, Philip Schofield, Ozzy Osbourne and Liz
Hurley – have been gifted the title, or that of the Laird, Lord or Lady of
Lochaber, which the company also sells.
So it’s really laird of a very small piece of land somewhere
nearish to Glencoe-ish...
And finally:
Swedish imaging firm Scalado have just revealed their
'remove' technology which can be used to delete unwanted objects and people who
entered the frame.
The tech -- which is set to be shown off at Mobile World Congress -- takes a series of photos as people move around and then allows you to delete them with the composite photo filling in the missing background.
The tech -- which is set to be shown off at Mobile World Congress -- takes a series of photos as people move around and then allows you to delete them with the composite photo filling in the missing background.
A spokesperson for Scalado said: "When capturing photos
in a busy area, like a public square or a concert for example, it is often
difficult to get a clean shot without unwanted objects entering the frame.
"Now you can capture the shot anyway, and simply let the camera remove the people for you!"
"Now you can capture the shot anyway, and simply let the camera remove the people for you!"
And today’s thought:
Angus
