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...
That’s it: I’m orf to look for
goldfish in the moat
And today’s thought:
I hope u-turn Cam has the right clothes with him.
Angus
