The Shard...

... from a low way away. About five miles, or thereabouts.

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How Much Would It Cost To Build A ‘Death Star’?

Lots, and that's just for the materials.

And since today’s cost of steel and rate of steel production (which is 1.3 billion tons per year), it would take 833,315 years and US$852,000,000,000,000,000 to produce enough steel to build the space station—about 13,000 times the worlds GDP

How Much Would It Cost To Build A Real Star Wars ‘Death Star’?
http://designtaxi.com/news/351699/How-Much-Would-It-Cost-To-Build-A-Real-Star-Wars-Death-Star/

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From Dell hell to Genius Bar: A customer service journey

I'm a bit of an Apple fan, I admit. I've had no direct experience of product failures so I haven't had to visit an Apple store myself to get something fixed but I've heard plenty of stories, all good. Here's a brief article comparing Apple with Dell; if you're thinking of buying a Dell, maybe you should ask yourself if you really need Windows:

With Apple, you can just tell: service is part of the product. It's not an afterthought, farmed out to subcontractors. Apple, clearly, takes a service call as an opportunity to reinforce the brand message, not just to fulfill a contractual duty to honor a warranty.

From Dell hell to Genius Bar: A customer service journey
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-57370642-250/from-dell-hell-to-genius-bar-a-customer-service-journey/

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CampStove - Electricity from Twigs

This is very neat:

> By converting heat from the fire into usable electricity, our stoves will recharge your phones, lights and other gadgets while you cook dinner.

A camping stove that charges your phone while you boil the kettle? Fantastic bit of engineering. If I ever go camping, I want to take one of these stoves.

Source: http://biolitestove.com/CampStove.html

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Government uses Localism Act to Overrule High Court

"By effectively reversing that illiberal ruling, we are striking a blow for localism over central interference, for freedom to worship over intolerant secularism, for Parliamentary sovereignty over judicial activism, and for long-standing British liberties over modern-day political correctness."

"For too long, the public sector has been used to marginalise and attack faith in public life, undermining the very foundations of the British nation. But this week, the tables have been turned."

via bbc.co.uk

The tables have indeed turned. The Government has made clear with this action that the rulings of the High Court can be speedily overturned, to the detriment of the non-religious majority, simply to reward the increasingly vocal, and politically sensitive (not to say continually shrinking), Christian minority.

Let's be clear. Prayers have no part in the formal business of a civic body serving a diverse and largely non-religious population. Councillors are welcome to pray privately, or before meetings, or even during them if they so wish, but there is absolutely no justification for making communal prayer part of the business of the council. It is not for either councils or central government to impose a religious element on a secular civic body.

This story will run and run.

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Italy plans to tax Vatican on commercial properties

Prime Minister Mario Monti has announced the Vatican must pay taxes on non-religious property, from which it previously enjoyed an exemption. The annual cost could be up to 720m euros ($945m; £598m) according to municipal government bodies.

Italy's Catholic Church has 110,000 properties, worth about 9bn euros. It includes shopping centres and a range of residential property.

via bbc.co.uk

Sounds reasonable, especially if the Church has blatently commercial assets like shopping centres.

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Apple’s iCloud Is No Dropbox Killer (It’s Much More) | TechCrunch

n testing the new iCloud integration in Mountain Lion, a file could be open in multiple locations – say, your Mac, iPad and iPhone – and when a change was made, it would appear almost instantly across all three devices in real time. You don’t have to wait for a notification, or reload the file.

via techcrunch.com

I like the sound of this. The current iCloud implementation in OS X Lion is pretty weak but it sounds like Apple are going to make it really useful from the next version. Editing in Pages on the Mac or iPad (or iPhone, for those times you really need to capture edits on the move) and switching seamlessly between the two is an extremely attractive prospect.

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Samsung's super-sized Galaxy Note changed my life | The TechBlock

This review of Samsung's new Galaxy Note made me laugh:

> The Galaxy Note’s tagline asks if the device is a tablet or a smartphone, but like a girl in Spanx, it’s so much more.

Full review: http://www.thetechblock.com/articles/2012/samsungs-super-sized-galaxy-note-ch...

I picked this up from the always entertaining John Gruber at Daring Fireball (http://daringfireball.net/).

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Militant secularisation threat to religion, says Warsi

Britain is under threat from a rising tide of "militant secularisation", a cabinet minister has warned.

Religion is being "sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere", Conservative co-chairwoman Baroness Warsi

via bbc.co.uk

I've said before that I don't think religion has any part to play in public life; I don't see a downside to politicians and other public persons relying on rational thought, experimentation and other science rather than superstition.

My new definition of "militant secularism", depeloped from comments by Andy Lewis (https://twitter.com/#!/lecanardnoir/status/169344711167971328) is:

A dogmatic refusal to burn, persecute, oppress or otherwise disenfranchise our fellow citizens

Baroness Warsi seems to have an altogether more exciting definition.

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Revolver Turbine Prototype

This could be the ultimate camping accessory for gadget lovers. Never again would your phone or tablet expire while you're stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Transported in a discreet tube, Revolver is easily set up. It can generate up to 35 watts of power from just a pleasant breeze—enough to keep a laptop charged, light up a lantern, or recharge a phone, camera, and other mobile devices—simultaneously.

I want one. Well, I would if I ever went camping. Genius (assuming it works).

frog Future or Fiction: Revolver Turbine Prototype
http://www.core77.com/blog/technology/frog_future_or_fiction_revolver_turbine_prototype_21740.asp

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NHS health reforms: Extent of McKinsey & Company's role in Andrew Lansley's proposals | Mail Online

The firm that hijacked the NHS: MoS investigation reveals extraordinary extent of international management consultant's role in Lansley's health reforms:

• McKinsey & Company paid for NHS regulator staff to go to lavish events
• Many Health and Social Care Bill proposals drawn up by the company
• Document shows it has used access to share information with other clients
• McKinsey also worked closely with previous government and on disastrous Railtrack privatisation under John Major
  

via dailymail.co.uk

I wouldn't normally trust the Mail if they wrote an article about how blue the sky was but this one, about the ongoing train wreck that is Andrew Lansley's health bill, seems to be a bit more reasonable than their normal Cure/Cause Cancer stories. Assuming it's accurate, it's contents suggest that we would be most unwise to pass this bill. The best course, given the opposition from all quarters, seems to be to bin the bill completely and return to a strategy of steady, modest, iterative improvement.

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Council prayers in summary | Andrew Copson

This is as good a summary of the Council Prayers "controversy" as you're likely to find anywhere. Having won this minor victory, are we able to press on with further separation of state and church? Next step, remove the Bishops from the House of Lords (although that's quite a big step - I suspect it might prove tricky).

http://andrewcopson.net/2012/02/council-prayers-in-summary/

(Source: http://twitter.com/andrewcopson/status/168612584822538241)

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Apple Rumor Patrol: New iPads And iPhones Coming Soon

The iPad 3 in March with a retina display, improved camera, faster processor and enhanced GPU all seem like good bets to me. A new iPhone with 4" display doesn't sound at all likely, partly because the iPhone 4S is only a few months old and partly because a 4" screen on a portable device just doesn't seem to fit with Apple's philosophy.

Apple Rumor Patrol: New iPads And iPhones Coming Soon
http://www.fastcompany.com/1815178/rumor-patrol-new-ipads-and-iphones-coming-soon

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Graham Norton on Star Wars vs. Star Trek

I think he's settled the argument...

Hilarious take on Star Wars vs. Star Trek | Crave - CNET
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57373570-1/hilarious-take-on-star-wars-vs-star-trek/?part=flipboard&subj=latest-news&tag=readMore

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Homeopathic paper remedies - Completely barking

I picked this up from Twitter (thanks: http://twitter.com/lecanardnoir) and it's difficult to believe it's real:

> Kind of a neat thing to do. Next time you (or your child) is on antibiotics (or any medication) and you want to energetically clear the negative effects of the antibiotics with homeopathy (and you don’t regularly see a homeopath), you can use a paper remedy.

A paper remedy? Basically the author suggests writing the homeopathic "treatment" on a piece of paper which is then left under the pillow. Fill your boots, as the say, but don't expect it to have any effect.

Get the full story here: http://crystalchild.wordpress.com/2011/08/20/homeopathic-paper-remedies/

(Source: http://twitter.com/lecanardnoir/status/168080149730967552)

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Edinburgh start-up to make whisky biofuel

A new company has been formed to commercialise a process for producing biofuel made from whisky by-products.

via bbc.co.uk

There's something deeply attractive about taking the waste from the industry of one of the world's great luxury products and turning it into fuel. Love it.

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Woman's infected jaw replaced

Science and technology just keep producing impressive new ways to put us back together.

An 83-year-old woman with a badly infect­ed lower jaw had the entire thing replaced with a 3D print­ed titanium/bioceramic repli­ca.

Woman's infected jaw removed, 3D printed replacement implanted
http://boingboing.net/2012/02/04/womans-infected-jaw-removed.html

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Bishops make a stand for human rights, sort of

Three bishops will this week lead calls for the Church of England to make a public statement standing up for the right of Christians to wear a cross.

via telegraph.co.uk

That's not really accurate, of course; the bishops are making a stand for the rights of their donors and paymasters, not for human rights in general. Personally, I don't mind people wearing crosses but couldn't they come up with a more positive symbol for their allegedly caring God? A symbol of torture, murder and death, especially if there's a corpse draped across it, seems like a very strange choice.

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Fungus Discovered That Will Eat Your Plastic Waste

Students returning from a field trip to Ecuador have found a fungus that eats polyurethane:

The fungi, Pestalotiopsis microspora, is the first anyone has found to survive on a steady diet of polyurethane

That's quite cool, especially considering the huge quantities of plastic that are currently floating in the sea or disposed of each year in landfill sites.

Fungi Discovered In The Amazon Will Eat Your Plastic | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679201/fungi-discovered-in-the-amazon-will-eat-your-plastic

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The Fireplace Delusion

I, like almost everyone I can think of with whom I've discussed them, quite like open fires but this article by Sam Harris has rather dented my enthusiasm for them. The idea that they might be bad for one's health isn't appealing at all and I would be tempted to reject such an unlikely-sounding hypothesis (possibly by shouting headlines that could have been written for the Daily Mail) if it weren't for the body of published evidence backing it up (article by Sam Harris: bit.ly/xAtWjB)

Damn you, evidence-based science, for over-turning another of my long-cherished beliefs!

The point of the article was to offer perspective to non-religious people trying to understand why others cling to religious belief in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. As such, I found it to be very successful and I commend it to you for your entertainment and enlightenment.

Sam Harris (@SamHarrisOrg) 2/3/12 3:04 AM How does it feel to be irrationally attached to a dangerous ritual? The Fireplace Delusion: bit.ly/xAtWjB

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Enthusiast pays £360 for a Single Snowdrop Bulb

Record prices are being paid for single bulbs and a lucrative industry is developing to satisfy the demand of the growing number of galanthophiles - or snowdrop fanciers to the uninitiated.

via bbc.co.uk

I was about to say that anyone who pays £360 for a flower bulb is clearly mad, then I thought about how much I spend on Apples and decided to keep quiet.

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Abu Dhabi Airport business lounge - an Orchard of Apples

I've got a couple of hours to kill between flights so, having showered and breakfasted, I'm sitting in the lounge observing my fellow travellers. There aren't many of us at 6:30 in the morning but the ones I can see are all using Apple devices (iPads and MacBook Airs seem to be favourite).

It's a small sample and, given my location, it's not really surprising that expensive gadgets proliferate but it's quite a big change from a few years ago when travellers all used PCs and BlackBerry devices of some sort. I was in Singapore for a couple of days last year. I spent a while browsing the electronics shopping malls and it's obvious that the market for smart phones in Singapore is really a market for iPhones. I'm have no idea of Apple's market share in Singapore but I couldn't find accessories, even simple ones like cases, for anything except the iPhone. Similarly, in Hong Kong I saw lots of non-Apple tablets in the stores but every tablet I saw in use, and there were lots, was an iPad. None of this really means very much, of course - maybe I just don't notice non-Apple devices or maybe I visit places where other Apple users predominate - but it's interesting to see so many Apple devices in use, especially when the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air were initially derided by critics who were confident they would flop.

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