Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Best Thing From Spain Since Chorizo

I love this - http://huff.to/eLbiZN - This makes me feel positive about the future when such a lot of other things don't.  It shows the essential ability of humans to think through clever solutions for problems if they put their minds to it.  Perhaps if we all spent more time thinking about such solutions rather chasing fame, fortune or meaningless rubbish???  I wonder if Spain's economy would be in such a hole if it had focussed on clean energy rather than building ever more apartment buildings on a speculative basis that were not needed and couldn't be afforded???

Spousenomics

For anybody who thought the Wall Street Journal was just about business - http://on.wsj.com/dWqYGO

Monday, February 14, 2011

Don't buy the BS

If you think things were going to get better economically; think again. Read this well thought through article; more pain to come. http://linkd.in/f5nWe1

Saturday, February 12, 2011

History's Biggest Robbery

An excellent article on the finacial crisis. http://bit.ly/e8yaF3   

All-American Streetcar Boom Fuels Urban Future : NPR

All-American Streetcar Boom Fuels Urban Future

A prototype streetcar made by Oregon Iron Works gets to work in Portland in 2009.
Enlarge Don Ryan/AP

A prototype streetcar made by Oregon Iron Works gets to work in Portland in 2009.

A prototype streetcar made by Oregon Iron Works gets to work in Portland in 2009.
Don Ryan/AP

A prototype streetcar made by Oregon Iron Works gets to work in Portland in 2009.

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February 12, 2011

President Obama spent the past week talking about his plans to improve America's infrastructure. These speeches sometimes sound like something out of The Jetsons, when the president talks about high-speed rail, futuristic airports and nationwide, broadband Internet.

One growing part of America's infrastructure, however, has a distinctly 19th-century feel. It's the return of the streetcar.

Like so many urban development stories in America, this one begins in Portland, Ore.

Outside the famous Powell's bookstore, a 21st-century streetcar glides to a stop, opens its doors, and lets out a mix of tourists and locals. Modern streetcars have been running in this city for about a decade, and Chandra Brown lives right along their route.

"I love the streetcar," says Brown, who's lived in Portland for 17 years. "They had told me that there were no streetcars built in the United States, and I basically said, 'You're a liar, that can't be, honestly.' So I did some research after that and found out, yes, that was absolutely correct. There was no builder of modern streetcars in the United States."

As it happens, Brown is a vice president of Oregon Iron Works. Her company has been making bridges, boats and other heavy equipment since the 1940s. A few years ago, they created a subsidiary called United Streetcar. Now they are manufacturing the first American-built streetcars in more than 50 years.

The Oregon Iron Works factory is a cavernous space in a Portland suburb, where men with hammers are busy constructing a streetcar base. Seventy to 90 percent of the parts are made in the U.S.; seats from Michigan, upholstery from North Carolina, windshield wipers from Connecticut.

"It was 2009 when we finished the first prototype, made-in-the-USA streetcar," Brown says. "Now this little fledgling company is building 13 cars with $50 million-plus in orders." Those orders are all for cities in the U.S., too.

'Back To The Future'

In fact, the U.S. is in a streetcar boom. More than a dozen cities either have them or are actively planning for their development, Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer says.

"You don't have to be a large, metropolitan area to support it," he says. "Little Kenosha, Wis., has a streetcar. Little Rock has a streetcar."

I met Blumenauer in Washington, D.C., at a coffee shop on H Street Northeast. This is a gradually gentrifying neighborhood that is Stage 1 in Washington's planned streetcar route.

"What the skeptics, I think, forget, is that virtually every American city was designed around a streetcar," Blumenauer says. "I mean, the most ambitious plans for Washington, D.C., are approximately one-fifth of what the District had 100 years ago."

Blumenauer was a champion of streetcars years before his state started manufacturing them. He says they're green, they last decades, and businesses are more likely to set up shop along a streetcar route because they know it won't move the way a bus line might.

"So reintroducing the streetcar is actually back to the future," he says, "and this is what this community was about when it was coming together a century ago."

Not Necessarily A Magic Bullet

Critics of the streetcar craze say the mania is part of the problem. Brian Taylor directs UCLA's Institute of Transportation Studies and says governors, mayors and taxpayers all want flashy new projects, but sometimes those are not the best solutions.

"We're painting ourselves into a bizarre corner where we're not able to maintain our streets, we're not able to maintain the buses and the trains that we have out there, and we're focused on cutting ribbons in front of new rail projects," Taylor says.

He's skeptical that streetcars are the urban transit solution they're touted to be. "If the investment is tied in effectively to the rest of the transit system, it can be a very effective investment," he says. "If it's not — and there are cases where it has not been — then it's not."

On Monday, President Obama will unveil his new budget. He has already said it will call for rebuilding American infrastructure. That means more planes, trains, automobiles — and perhaps also streetcars.

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This is what we need to be introduced into London (and other cities). How much more pleasant would our city centres be if the main thoroughfares were devoid of cars and buses and populated with these instead?

Friday, February 11, 2011

Pointless Extravagance

If ever there was a sign of a society on the path to destruction, it must be when people are willing and able to spend €470 on a knife specifically made for cutting Parmesan cheese while others are spiraling further into poverty.

http://www.hemmerle.com/en/0/0-1-7-parmesan-knife/

Shame on you to anyone who has purchased this.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

UK faces US-style jobless recovery, says Institute for Fiscal Studies - Telegraph

UK faces US-style jobless recovery, says Institute for Fiscal Studies - Telegraph

This is an interesting article, well worth reading, but I would like to expand it. I believe that in both the UK and US that the fundamental problem is that most so called growth in employment over almost half a century have involved more and more people shuffling paper, serving drinks, checking targets, moving money, etc. etc. for a smaller and smaller number of people who are actually adding value. Of course there have been exceptions, notably in the field of information and communication technologies, but mostly we have just created an ever enlarging parasitic hoard. It reminds me of those period dramas like "Gosford Park" where regiments of servants, all with very specific roles, all serving the "master of the house", but no one really adding any value. the only difference now is that the servants are working in coffee shops, government offices and banks instead. That is not to say that coffee shops, government offices and banks are unnecessary, but do we really need quite so many employing quite so many people? I think the fallout from the recession that started in 2007 will be a realisation that we do not. the question will be whether the people who did (or would have) work in those "non jobs" can realign their skills and mindset to to find a more productive role?

The first brick removed from the wall

BBC News - Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice

I wonder how long before holders of media rights realise that in the modern, connected world of the internet that such parochial stances such as restricting viewing to a specific jurisdiction is as out of date as telex machines. I am all in favour of people being paid for creative and original content, but it is about time that the system became "smart" enough to be delivery system and jurisdiction agnostic and just deliver universal access with appropriate remuneration to the rights owner.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Start to think differently before it is too late

A message that we all need to take heed of.  The internet is turning everything on its head; not overnight but piece by piece.  Unless you embrace this new thinking, slowly but surely we will all find ourselves in the same boat as the bookshops and travel agents that saw Amazon and Expedia overwhelm their businesses.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/01/freelancer_uk_launch/