Why do you use Microsoft? Is it for its great viruses or its monopolistic product?

It continues to amaze me that people continue to rely on Microsoft for such a large and important part of their work and leisure experience. At a time when people and businesses want to save money they should be installing Linux software which is free, stable and secure. Today the tech headlines noted that a …
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TV to change our world.

I came across a most extraordinary billboard yesterday.  It announced a number of planet saving cries such as: “love more”, “be vegetarian”, “go green” and purported to be from SupremeMasterTV.com.  I was so intrigued that I had to log on and see if it was true.  And it is.  SuprememasterTV is a global free to …
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Planet catastrophe looming – you must be the change now.

The World Watch Institute State of the world report 2009 focuses on the need to change systems now in order to avert destruction of our planet. Into A Warming World highlights evidence that climate volatility is increasing and the only solution is to redress the balance of carbon emissions. Humanity must absorb more carbon dioxide …
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Lords of Finance or blinkered old men?

This new book by Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance – 1929, The Great Depression, and the Bankers Who Broke the World, looks like a good read.  See the review by The Economist here, which concludes: These great central bankers were so wedded to a dogma that they were incapable of imagining its failure. Perhaps this …
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It’s free, yes, really free … the digital business model.

The BBC presents a review of the new phenomenon of free product made possible by the digital age.  Digital product can be given away or at least made available for free.  This is not the advertising gimmick of “buy one get one free” or similar, it is product given away free such as openoffice.org productivity …
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BT Notes – The end of the year.

The end of the year is just passing now. The winter solstice occurs at about noon (GMT) today (21 December). That’s the nadir of the solar cycle, when the angle of the sun is most acute on the axis of rotation of the earth. Today is the shortest day of the year in the northern …
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Hot and cold in the wrong places – Earth’s got pneumonia!

Maybe it’s about time for a reminder about climate volatility. Recently I browsed a set of satellite photos which illustrate the extraordinary pressure we are putting on our planet, evidenced by climate volatility. The first two show the wasting if the Humbolt glacier, the third shows snow covering the southern USA. (Click the images to …
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