Cloudy, cold and calm at the Castle this morn, I went
berserk yestermorn and cleaned the windows and all the wooden floors and rugs
with my new super duper all singing all dancing steam cleaner.
I must admit that I was a whimsy sceptical of the claims
made by the manufacturer and the “user manual” is in Chinglish, but I am in
love with the 4bar humidifier, it has all sorts of gadgets-floor cleaning,
carpet cleaning, window cleaning, oven cleaning, tile cleaning, bath cleaning,
sink and tap cleaning and hob cleaning, the only thing it lacks is a widget to
get stones out of horses hooves.
And no I am not being paid to write this, I just thought I
would let you know, how good it is, and it costs about 20p per hour to run.
And while I was in the grounds doing the outside of the
windows I spotted this Azalea which has burst into life in the last day or so.
While his Maj looked on in bemusement.
Back in the 90’s the no nuts Tory Government decided that
Private Finance Initiatives were the way to go and that leasing ‘Orspitals and
other NHS stuff from Private contractors would save us oodles of loot, and then
shit for brains Labour reckoned it would be a jolly jape to expand PFI to all
and sundry including schools and roads thinking that even more dosh would
accumulate in the treasury coffers.
So here are some amounts that PFI has “saved” us.
Taxpayers are committed to pay £229billion for new
hospitals, schools and other projects with a capital value of just £56billion, between
1996 and 2010 deals done in the first five years were the worst value for
money, costing the Government £7.45 for every pound of private investment
raised.
The ratio then fell to £4.03 for every pound raised between
2001 and 2005 and then rose again to £5.43 in the last five years to 2010,
possibly because the financial crisis increased the cost of capital for private
firms.
In our dear old NHS: charges of £242 to put a padlock on a
garden gate at a trust in North Staffordshire, £466 to replace a light fitting
and £75 for an air freshener in Cumbria and £15,000 to “install a laundry door
following feasibility study” at a trust in Salisbury have been made.
Other charges include £8,450 to install an “additional
dishwasher” for a NHS trust in Hull, £962 to “supply and fix notice-board” at a
trust in Leeds and £26,614 for the “replacement of shower room doors” at the
Sussex Partnership Trust.
The Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition has
agreed 71 new PFI deals since coming to power. Alien reptile in disguise George
( if ignorance was brains I would be a genius) Osborne, the ‘Chancellor of the
Exchequer’, is currently working on an overhaul of PFI by finding for a cheaper
way of harnessing private sector money to fund public projects.
Allegedly The NHS will pay back more than £70bn on current
projections and the annual bill is due
to keep rising year-on-year for the next 18 years.
After that
contracts start coming to an end although the final payment will not be made
until 2049.
And apparently the
total cost of about 800 agreements according to the
latest
select committee is that the estimated cost for the government to get these
projects up and running is £64bn, and then £267bn in repayments to private
companies over the next 50 years. These figures can be calculated from the list
of all
public private
agreements published by HM Treasury.
That works well then.....
Researchers in Japan have smashed the record for wireless
data transmission in the terahertz band, an uncharted part of the
electro-magnetic spectrum.
The data rate is 20 times higher than the best commonly used
Wi-Fi standard.
As consumers become ever hungrier for high data rates,
standard lower-frequency bands have become crowded.
The band lies between the microwave and far-infrared regions
of the spectrum, and is currently completely unregulated by telecommunications agencies.
Despite the name, the band informally makes use of
frequencies from about 300 gigahertz (300GHz or about 60 times higher than the
current highest Wi-Fi standard) to about 3THz, 10 times higher again.
It is used principally for imaging in research contexts, as
terahertz waves penetrate many materials as effectively as X-rays but deposit
far less energy and therefore cause less damage.
Until recently, the technology required both to generate and
detect these "T-rays" has been too bulky, costly or power-hungry to
offer a plausible alternative to existing devices tucked within Smartphone’s or
Wi-Fi routers.
At the heart of the
team's 1mm-square device is what is known as a resonant tunnelling diode, or
RTD.
Tunnelling diodes
have the unusual characteristic that the voltage across them can sometimes go
down as current is increased.
RTDs are designed
such that this process makes the diode "resonate", which in the
current work's design means it sprays out waves in the terahertz band.
So now you know...
The arrival of the
fish van from Aberfeldy qualifies as excitement in Dull. But yesterday the tiny
hamlet in Highland Perthshire was abuzz with anticipation, as details emerged
of a proposed international alliance with the American town of … Boring.
The plan to forge
formal links between the two communities saddled with the world’s least
inspiring names was suggested by Perthshire resident Elizabeth Leighton after
she stumbled upon the Oregon town of Boring during a cycling holiday.
Her proposal was put
before Dull and Weem community council, which represents the 40-strong
population, and an approach to establish formal cultural and friendship links
between the two communities is now being pursued.
Thomas Pringle, the
secretary of the community council, said yesterday that it was fantastic news.
“It’s certainly the talk of Dull. I think most of the folk who know about it
are more amused about the idea than anything else,” he said.
“And I’m not quite
sure what the reaction will be from drivers if we put up a sign saying ‘Dull
twinned with Boring’ when they drive through the village. Most of the cars stop
already when they just see the Dull sign.”
Mr Pringle, who
works in the oil and gas industry, insisted that, despite its name, Dull has
its moments. “We have been known in the past to have some quite nice parties,”
he said. “I belong to Aberfeldy and my wife and I moved out here about 18 years
ago and we love staying here.
“Dull may be small,
but it has a lot of history. The village was supposedly set up by one of the
abbots of Iona. There is a suggestion that the monks who established St Andrews
originally started here before going on to Dunkeld and then St Andrews.”
He continued:
“There’s maybe only a population of about 40 at the moment, but there are two
houses being built across the road from me, so it’s expanding. But we don’t
have a pub or a shop, although the farmhouse, one of the oldest buildings, used
to be an inn at one time.
“We have a fish van
that comes on Thursday … and that’s it.”
...........sorry, I dozed orf.
A scientific hypothesis about men, linking ring finger
length to exposure to masculine hormones in the womb, lacks genetic evidence,
says a new study.
In 1998, British researcher John Manning suggested that foetal
exposure to testosterone (and other masculine hormones, or androgens) might
explain why some men have notably longer ring fingers than index fingers. The
suggestion -- the Manning hypothesis -- has since been used to link
index-to-ring finger size-ratios to aggression, autism and other male-dominated
ailments or behaviours in more
than 500 studies since.
The 2003 study only
included 50 people and found a link between a mutation in the androgen receptor
gene and a low index-to-ring finger ratio, suggesting a genetic explanation for
the uptake of masculine hormones that, in turn, led to longer ring fingers in
some men.
But a pair of
recent studies has questioned this link -- one finding no link to aggression
and one finding no link to the mutation and finger length ratios. So, the new
study sets out to repeat the 2003 finding, this time with 152 men.
Overall, the men
averaged index fingers that were 95% the size of ring fingers, on both hands.
The researchers sampled the study volunteer's androgen receptor genes, finger
lengths and their current testosterone levels, looking to repeat the 2003
results.
In other words, size may not matter when it comes to ring
fingers.
Well....go finger....
Motorists in China have been left bemused by this traffic
signalling system, where officials installed over 20 sets of lights on a single
pole at a crossroad.
The baffling traffic light junction was spotted at a set of
crossroads in Chongqing City in China, and looks too confusing for even the
most experienced driver.
The system appears to employ well over a dozen sets of
conventional traffic lights pointing in all direction with no additional signs
to explain anything to frustrated drivers.
Authorities have explained, however, that the lights should
be ignored - because they were only installed for decorative purposes and do
not direct drivers.
Wonder how many members of the “authorities” went to Eton?
And finally on this very informative blog:
An Arabian horse named William got spooked during a
California beachside photo shoot Tuesday and swam a mile out to sea before
rescuers got to him and helped him back to shore.
Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Capt. Jay Irwin tells the Santa
Barbara News-Press (
http://bit.ly/LSknaq
) that the horse's white head looked like a seagull bobbing in the
water.
Owner Mindy Peters says the 6-year-old Arabian, whose
official name is Heir of Temptation, was part of a photo clinic on the beach
when it was spooked by waves and ran off.
Rescue swimmers assisted by the Santa Barbara Harbour Patrol
and state parks employees found the horse a mile offshore as darkness fell.
Should have named him Bob....
And today’s thought:
The gender gap.
Angus
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