More than a drizzle of skywater, less than 60 watts of solar
stuff, much less than a Sandy of atmospheric movement and a definite lack of lack of
cold at the Castle this morn, the saga of the study has finally ended, all I
have to do now is sort out the three bin bags of “useful stuff” I have put to
one side.
Allegedly the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have taken
more than £18,000 in donations from Huawei, a controversial Chinese company
accused of posing a threat to US national security.
Apparently Huawei's UK arm paid more than £8,600 to send
executives to a networking event at the Conservative Party conference, in the
same week US politicians said its technology should be blacklisted from
American government systems.
The company also paid £10,000 to the Liberal Democrats to
sponsor a reception at its conference in Brighton.
Fuckwit U-Turn Cam has it seems secured more than £850,000
from donors who attended private lunches, dinners and parties at Number 10 and
Chequers between April and June 2012. The Prime Minister has also hosted a
dinner at Highclere Castle, the setting of television drama Downton Abbey.
Huawei, which denies any link to the Chinese state or posing
any security threat, says it attended all three party conferences, including
the Conservative business dinner in Birmingham.
A Conservative spokesman said the donation had been “fully
and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission”.
“Huawei attended a dinner for which, under Electoral
Commission rules, a proportion of the price paid was required to be declared,”
he added.
A spokesman for the Liberal Democrats said: "The Company
has donated to all three political parties, in our case sponsoring a reception
at party conference. The donation was declared and approved by the Electoral
Commission meaning it met all the criteria set down for political
donations."
Oh well, that’s alright then...
All prisoners in
England and Wales ‘could’ be banned from watching channels such as Sky Sports
in their cells, a government minister has indicated.
Offenders in
private prisons are able to access pay-TV channels for a small weekly fee, but
inmates in publicly run jails can only watch free-to-air ones.
The latest figures
available, for December 2009, show that 4,070 prisoners in contracted-out jails
had access to such channels in their cells - about 40% of inmates who were then
held in private jails.
Since then the
number of private prisons in England and Wales has risen to 14, while the
prison population has also increased.
The security firm
G4S - which runs six prisons - said prisoners did not enjoy an automatic right
to TV in their cells.
"The provision
of in-cell TVs... is a privilege which has to be earned," a spokesman
said. "Poor behaviour will result in its removal."
Oh well, that’s alright as well then-I can’t afford Sky stuff....
Hiroshima University-affiliated startup business Humanix has
recently revealed a three-wheel electric vehicle, called iSAVE YOU, which is covered
with an airbag-like cushion material that springs back to its original form
after absorbing impacts.
And you could own one for a mere 790,000 yen ($9,740 USD).
Professor Tsutomu, president of
Humanix, told Japanese magazine Sponichi Annex that “the car will be perfect for our
rapidly aging society and that there are already many requests for it from the
elderly and disabled.” The cushions covering the vehicle are made of a tent
fabric and sponge, and will absorb shock waves in case of an impact, protecting
both the passengers and pedestrians. The iSAVE YOU can run up to 30 km on a
single charge and can be recharged from any regular household electrical
outlet.
The iSAVE YOU vehicle can be registered as a Trike (a
bicycle with a light side-car) and it only requires a single, simple (almost
free) inspection and registration procedures at the Light Motor Vehicle
Inspection Centre rather that the regular, instead of the regular “Shaken”
registration which costs over 100,000 yen ($,1000+).
Spiffing, can’t wait, sooo excited….
Created by master chocolatier Andrew Farrugia, from Malta,
this edible train model has set a new Guinness World Record the longest
chocolate structure in the world. It measures a whopping 34 meters in length
and features every detail of a classic steam-powered chuff-chuff.
Unveiled at the “Brussels Chocolate Week”, in Belgium’s
capital city, this tasty masterpiece had everyone drooling. Made of 2,755
pounds (1250 kilos) of the finest Belgian chocolate, donated by chocolate brand
Belcolade, this 34-meter-long steam train replica took Maltese chocolate artist
Andrew Farrugia a painstaking 784 hours to complete.
Wonder how long it would take to eat it?
At least one law enforcement agency in San Diego is
currently using software developed by FaceFirst, a division of nearby
Camarillo, California’s Airborne Biometrics Group. It can positively identify
anyone, as long as physical data about a person’s facial features is stored
somewhere the police can access. Though that pool of potential matches could
include millions, the company says that by using the “best available facial
recognition algorithms” they can scour that data set in a fraction of a second
in order to send authorities all known intelligence about anyone who enters a
camera’s field of vision.
“Up to 4 million comparisons per second, per clustered
server” — that’s how many matches a single computer wired to the FaceFirst
system can consider in a single breath as images captured by cameras, cell
phones and surveillance devices from as far as 100 feet away are fed into
algorithms designed to pick out terrorists and persons of interest. In a single
setting, an unlimited amount of cameras can record the movements of a crowd at
30-frames-per-second, pick out each and every face and then feed it into an
equation.
Speaking to reporters with Find Biometrics in August, Rosenkrantz president
and CEO of FaceFirst said that the system is already in place in Panama, where
computers there process nearly 20 million comparisons per second “using a
FaceFirst matching cluster with a large number of live surveillance cameras on
a scale beyond any other system ever implemented.”“Within just a couple of seconds whoever needs to know receives an email containing all the evidence and stats about the person identified along with the video clip of them passing the camera so they may be approached then and there,” he says. …
That’s us fucked in a couple of years then….
And finally:
It all started at a photography convention in 1972, when Ken
Bannister, VP of a manufacturing company, passed out Chiquita banana stickers
to people he encountered. The goal, he said, was simply to get people's
attention and to make them smile. After all, what better way to garner a grin
than by using the fruit that's "shaped like a smile."
Soon after, Bannister started receiving banana-related
paraphernalia -- or "banana-phernalia" -- in the mail. Inspired by
his banana publicity, and eager to keep people smiling, Bannister then began
referring to himself as "Bananaster" and "T.B.," short for
"Top Banana." The nicknames stuck and "Bananaster"
eventually became the founder of the first ever International Banana Club.
Bannister received so much banana-phernalia that he decided
to open the club's first and only museum, the International Banana Club Museum,
in 1976. Today, the museum is home to 17,000 banana collectibles, all of which
have been donated by members of the club. Objects range from a gold-sequined
Michael Jackson banana to the world's only petrified banana. With so many objects,
the museum holds the Guinness Book of World Record's title of "World's
Largest Collection" devoted to one fruit.
Membership to the club is a flat rate of $15 and, just like Bananaster;
members can come up with their own nickname. Additionally, members can climb up
in social ranks; the more banana-phernalia one donates, the higher the
"B.M." (Banana merit) they are rewarded, such as PHB, Doctorate of
Bananistry Degree. Banana Club members are said to get extra discounts when
presenting their Banana Card Clubs in public, though a simple smile is what the
club strives for. And if the smile isn't enough, members can also brag about
their fellow famous Banana Club-ers: Jay Leno and former US President, Ronald
Reagan.
And their theme song:
And today’s thought:
Now that’s what I call airbags
Angus
