From different ends of the scale

Whatever your take on global warming (whether you see it as all a big pile of nonsense made up to frighten the natives, or whether you accept that humankind is hastening its own demise through its wasteful habits*), you’ll probably accept that with the rising cost of energy, it makes sense to try and use less. That way you’ll still be able to afford to feed your kids!

Over at Once Around The Blog, Skimmer’s talking about a new Green web-based community called Do The Green Thing. I took a quick look (I’m going back later for a better look round) and it looks like fun. Each month, they’ll set you energy saving tasks to do, to reduce your own carbon footprint and - if enough people get involved - make a major difference to the planet’s carbon usage. This month’s task is to “Do it in the dark” - whatever you’re doing, do you really need to put an electric light on?

You’ll also find lots of interesting little facts and figures, suggestions of things to do that don’t use as much (or any) energy and you can check up on how everyone else is achieving the current task. And if that piques your interest, you could also check out Skimmer’s Go Green for Gratis - 20 Tops Tips to see other easy ways to go green.

From the opposite end of the global energy spectrum comes news (via O’Reilly Radar, but I imagine its been covered elsewhere as well) that Google are to invest heavily (”tens of millions” apparently) in research into renewable energy sources in 2008. They are seeking to make renewable energy (wind power, solar, geothermal, etc) viable on a large scale and to do it at a cost that is less than coal. Their capital planning includes “investing hundreds of millions… in projects that generate positive returns”.

Alright, they will be focusing on US efforts - at least at first - but for a company with the reach and resources of Google to decide that the time has come to put our energy house in order makes the lip-serving attempts of Government’s across the world look somewhat less than impressive. Yes, they probably have an ulterior motive (but lets face it, they use a lot of energy so at the end of the day they may just want to keep their bills down) but with the rate we’re using up a finite supply of fossil fuels, we need someone to take a major stand. Google have volunteered.

*see Stephen Fry’s excellent article Getting Overheated for more on this debate

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All opinions in this blog are either my own or else they’re made up just to get a rise out of you and make you angry. Either way, they’re probably not very well thought out or expressed so do yourself a favour and don’t take the world so seriously.

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Tags: Energy, Green, Climate

I can remember when…

Having just been ripped off (again) at the petrol pumps, where I’m now paying the ridiculous price of £1.03 per litre, I got to thinking about the price that petrol used to be. And that, in turn, got me remembering other things as well. So I thought I’d put together a list (you gotta love a nostalgic list, eh?). Some are humorous (hopefully), some are serious and some are just in-between. Some may not make sense to you if you didn’t grow up in the 70’s and 80’s, but some are timeless.

I can remember when…

… there was a big uproar because petrol had gone over 50p a gallon

… you always had to have a good supply of candles for lighting as you couldn’t rely on the electricity seven days a week

… school dinners were free and didn’t consist of chips with everything

… if you didn’t wear tartan, you had to wear glitter

… there was a big uproar because beer had gone over £1 a pint

… you could get enough sweets for the weekend for 10p

… TV was only three channels, which weren’t on all through the day and which all shut down overnight

… it was safe to let your kids roam the streets after dark

… it was safe to let you wife roam the streets after dark

… people respected people in positions of authority, like police officers, teachers and politicians

… all this was fields

What would you add to this list? Let’s get a few more on here!

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All opinions in this blog are either my own or else they’re made up just to get a rise out of you and make you angry. Either way, they’re probably not very well thought out or expressed so do yourself a favour and don’t take the world so seriously.

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Tags: Nostalgia

Winter thoughts

I always start to suffer withdrawal symptoms around this time of year; when the mornings are dark as you’re going to work and when the evenings are dark as you’re coming home. When you start to feel the world contract around you, funneling down and down with you at the centre surrounded on all sides by darkness. That’s what winter feels like to me; everything coming to an end, hibernating, just wanting to sleep until the light returns in the spring.

Spring and summer are the very opposite. You feel the world expanding as the light returns and the weather (hopefully) improves. The air seems laden with promise - that this year will be a good year. All sorts of good things will befall you as you emerge from hibernation and take on the world again. The light mornings and light evenings fill you with hope and energy. You can breathe.

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All opinions in this blog are either my own or else they’re made up just to get a rise out of you and make you angry. Either way, they’re probably not very well thought out or expressed so do yourself a favour and don’t take the world so seriously.

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Milestones

This week saw two milestones achieved.

The first was that the new Veganicity brochures finally went to the printers. They’ve been in development for several months and at various points through the process it has seemed like they’d never be finished. But, if it’s not right now it’s too late! Of course, now that’s done it means that the website needs updating, there’s a trade version to do, all sorts of things…

The second milestone was that “The Educational Worth of Formula Student” - my friend Paul’s thesis for his doctorate - also finally went to print. This has been dragging on longer than the Veganicity brochure, as we did the first round of final formatting back in March of this year. Since then, it’s gone back and forwards to his supervisors and had bits added and bits taken away. I’ve read the thing at least five or six times and, whilst it was interesting the first time, I’m glad to see the back of it now (although not half as glad as Paul is, I’m sure).

What’s been made obvious to me over the course of the work on the thesis is that if Sussex University is typical of universities in the UK these days, it’s a wonder anyone learns anything. Two supervisors have - at least as far as I can see - worked tirelessly to contradict each other throughout the course of this project, and when it finally gets to adjudication they both get contradicted! Doesn’t give you much hope for the future really.

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All opinions in this blog are either my own or else they’re made up just to get a rise out of you and make you angry. Either way, they’re probably not very well thought out or expressed so do yourself a favour and don’t take the world so seriously.

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Tags: Veganicity, Formula Student

Time for a change

You know how you get bored with something? Well, I got bored with using Ocean Mist as the theme for the Wolf’s Howl.

I was updating my blogroll and realised that I had so much in the sidebar that I was losing some good stuff all the way at the bottom. So I looked for a three-column design and this was the one I picked. What I’ve tried to give you is stuff related to the Wolf’s Howl on the left and stuff related to other sites, etc, on the right. Then in the middle there’s some inane wonderings.

Let me know what you think about the change: if you like it tell me if it needs tweaking; if you hate it, let me know and I’ll consider going back to Ocean Mist.

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All opinions in this blog are either my own or else they’re made up just to get a rise out of you and make you angry. Either way, they’re probably not very well thought out or expressed so do yourself a favour and don’t take the world so seriously.

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Subscribe by email : : Read more Howling at The Wolf’s Howl @ BlogSpot

Tags: Change, Template