Eco-Friendly Bio-Plastics
February 2, 2004Courtesy of Kirsty, a report of a plastic and clay composite which reduces hydro-carbon use. Also, use of feathers in plastic production has recently been reported. While we shouldn’t need further animal products to replace wood fibre use, clearly other fibre products could offer similar benefits, particularly hardy fibres such as hemp and flax.
Vegan Boots
January 29, 2004Being vegan, when I finally retired a pair of 8 year old Doc Martens, I was on the lookout for an alternative to leather. Materials science has progressed to the point that we no longer need to use animals for our clothing needs. Neither do we need petrochemicals for plastics; Henry Ford built a plastic…
Plants that detect landmines
January 29, 2004Wired has an article on a fascinating approach to landmine detection. The plant is genetically modified to react to nitrogen dioxide emitted into the soil by immediate vicinity landmines, thereby indicating their location. Hopefully such an approach lives up to it’s promise. This would not seem to address unexploded cluster bombs, which unlike landmines, are…
Outsourcing, Monopolisation, Stagnation
January 27, 2004U.S. technology pundits, analysts and political commentators have understandably lamented the outsourcing issue, that is, the rapid transfer of technology jobs to countries such as China and India. As Robert Cringley noted, the technology industry was the last U.S. industry left that had trade surpluses. If this industry does truly transfer it’s main centre of…
My, there are many bugs in the system…
January 23, 2004Clearly bugs are the toys d’annee for the Bush administration. First it (using the National Security Agency) partakes in bugging the offices and homes of diplomats of six undecided countries on the U.N security council as it was trying to push through it’s illegal invasion of Iraq. When Katherine Gun blew the whistle on this,…
Mad cow disease infecting humans in the U.S.A more than recognised?
January 23, 2004A very well researched, referenced and written article by an M.D., Michael Greger, on the argument that sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease could be the result of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) transfer similar to variant CJD, which is known to be caused by BSE infection. Sporadic CJD is much more wide-spread than the variant form, with many…
My dream laptop
January 21, 2004I use an Apple 2001 vintage G4 Powerbook about 15 hours a day. It’s great, but looking forward, here’s my realisable dream machine: Dual processor 2GHz G5s. 4Gb flash memory for the operating system. 802.11g (54Mbps) WiFi with wide spread coverage. No hard disk! Uses a distributed secure file sharing protocol, perhaps the Andrew File…
My daily news sites
January 18, 2004I’ve been checking Juan Coles blog a professor of Middle East history who speaks Urdu, Arabic and other middle east languages. He has some very informed commentary, particularly his monitoring of Arabic news sources.
The Presidents Space Program
January 15, 2004I support astronomical exploration but it is very clear that the idea of sending humans back into space as proposed by Bush yesterday is fundamentally flawed. It turns out the Bush administration has been in talks with Halliburton, Shell, and Baker Hughes among others about the provision of space exploration. There is considerable argument that…