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When your kid - girl/boy friend - wife/husband the next time cries because of a scratch why not try something new.
Archie McPhee has a whole assortment of unusual band aids. From ninja, pirate to bacon & eggs and T-Bone steak bandages - there is one for every taste. And tears might go away more quickly with these specially shaped designer bandages.
Images (c) mcphee.com
Available from Archie McPhee for about USD 5 a box.
Australian company Solar Systems today announced that it is going to build the biggest and most efficient solar photovoltaic power station in the world in north-west Victoria, Australia.
The power station is estimated to provide 154 MW into the national electricity grid - enough to meet the annual consumption of over 45,000 homes.
Australian Treasurer Peter Costello announced a AUS 75 million grant to the project under the AUS 500 million Federal Government’s Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund (LETDF) program, which aims to foster competitive technology that will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The local Victorian Government will contribute a further AUS 50 million grant towards the expected cost of AUS 420 million for the large-scale solar power plant.
Solar Systems Managing Director Dave Holland is expecting that …the plant will make a significant contribution towards reducing Victoria’s environmental impact by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 400,000 tons per year…
The power station will use technology known as ‘Heliostat Concentrator Photovoltaic’ (HCPV). It will consist of fields of heliostats (sun-tracking mirrors) focusing sunlight on receivers. The receivers house photovoltaic (PV) modules, which consist of arrays of ultra high-efficiency solar cells that convert the sunlight directly into electricity. The heliostat control system, PV modules and cooling system are patented by Solar Systems.
Solar Systems has collaborated with US company Spectrolab (a Boeing company) to optimize ultra high efficiency space technology for earth based power stations. The resulting photovoltaic cell arrays are three times more efficient than typical solar panels. Solar Systems is claiming that it has reached about 35 per cent transformation efficiency and further cell efficiency improvements are underway.
The power plant is expected to start contributing electricity during 2008 and being fully operational by 2013.
With one of the worst droughts ever currently hitting Australia, that has already sent world wide wheat prices skyrocketing, the Australian government seems to feel more need to act towards reduction of CO2 emissions and global warming.
Australia is one of the countries that has signed but not ratified the Kyoto protocol.
Update (26-October-2006):
When we were preparing this post based on news from Solar Systems, Australian government and data from other sources, it seems that quite a few people around the world were creating stories based on the same news at that time. It has hit the front pages of news papers and online magazines since then and as most of these articles provide some other opinions or information as well, we thought it would be good to provide links:
Australian Herald Sun (25-October-2006)
ABC News (25-October-2006)
Yahoo News (25-October-2006)
BBC News (25-October-2006)
Greenpeace Australia (25-October-2006)
The Australian (26-October-2006)
A reader has asked us what the drought in Australia has to do with world-wide wheat prices, well Australia is the third-biggest producer of the grain and prices have risen about 80% for the year (mid October data)
A picture can really tell a story sometimes.
Don’t mess with these guys.
Great ad
Comment on Twenty Four says:
After various incidents of exploding computers, airlines banning laptops and almost nine million laptops / batteries having been declared faulty over the last weeks in IT’s biggest ever recall action, voices have been raised and questions asked if the whole battery technology as currently used in mobile phones and laptops is actually safe.
It seems that the industry has now started to look at alternatives and more important immediately is putting up quality assurance requirements that might have gone overboard to earn a few cents more.
If you’re interested to get some more in-depth information we would like to recommend you John Hockenberry’s 4 pages article in Wired - November 2006.
The full article is online at Wired (Building a better battery)
UK magazine Granta has a great article online describing how many writers are exploiting cliches and stereotypes when writing about Africa.
It is titled How to write about Africa and written by celebrated Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina. Worth reading
Some quotes:
…Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. Subtitles may include the words ‘Zanzibar’, ‘Masai’, ‘Zulu’, ‘Zambezi’, ‘Congo’, ‘Nile’, ‘Big’, ‘Sky’, ‘Shadow’, ‘Drum’, ‘Sun’ or ‘Bygone’. Also useful are words such as ‘Guerrillas’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Primordial’ and ‘Tribal’. Note that ‘People’ means Africans who are not black, while ‘The People’ means black Africans…
…Throughout the book, adopt a sotto voice, in conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-expected-so-much tone. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can’t live without her. Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset…
…Your African characters may include naked warriors, loyal servants, diviners and seers, ancient wise men living in hermitic splendour. Or corrupt politicians, inept polygamous travel-guides, and prostitutes you have slept with. The Loyal Servant always behaves like a seven-year-old and needs a firm hand; he is scared of snakes, good with children, and always involving you in his complex domestic dramas…
…You’ll also need a nightclub called Tropicana, where mercenaries, evil nouveau riche Africans and prostitutes and guerrillas and expats hang out. Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.
The full text is online at Granta
The long awaited Neuros OSD media center that was previously only available to a limited group of developers is now available for sale and in stock with ThinkGeek.
The OSD (”open source device”) is a replacement of Neuros’s DVR set-top box loaded with masses of new features. It can record MPEG-4 video from analog sources such as cable or broadcast TV receivers, DVD players, and so on, to flash memory or directly to portable media players like iPods or PSPs. As it also comes with an USB and Ethernet port you can also connect drives or use it as network storage.
More information:
ThinkGeek: Neuros OSD
If you haven’t heard enough about Enron, after strings of news in the press over years, Enron the movie, Enron the trial - now there is Enron (the email) Explorer.
The online tool let you explore email relations between former Enron executives and has a database of about 200,000 emails. Each email is also accessible in full text and categorized by themes.
While this is a shameless self-advertisement for Trampoline Systems Sonar platform, we believe that some people might still be interested to see.
And no, you won’t get your money back…
Anew version of Yahoo’s online bookmark service is now available. The service allows users to store bookmarks or favorites online to share them on different computers or with others. New features of the service include drag and drop support, folders to organize your bookmarks and improved search functions.
Tags can now be used as well to categorize bookmarks and linked web pages are cached online in case they become inaccessible. Based on the bookmarks stored other links are recommended that might be interesting.
Together with the new version of its bookmark service Yahoo has also upgraded and simplified integration with the Yahoo toolbar for Internet Explorer and Firefox. Users can now add a bookmark with one click to their online collection.
With its new bookmark service Yahoo has taken the next step in quietly transitioning towards Web 2.0 or social networking services while at the same time keeping its mostly mainstream users happy and allowing them to familiarize themselves with new interactive features.
Yahoo claims that it has currently about 20 Million bookmark users plus about 1 Million from the del.icio.us more advanced bookmarking service it has acquired recently. We expect that all three solutions Yahoo is currently providing in that area - del.icio.us, Yahoo MyWeb and Yahoo Bookmarks - to be integrated into one single platform soon. The later two already share some features between each other.
Yesterday Adobe has launched the public beta of Digital Editions, a new Flash-based reader of digital content. Digital Editions, built from the ground up as a lightweight, Rich Internet application (RIA), supports both the PDF file format and a XHTML-based reflow format that can adjust content depending on screen size.
The Digital Editions download is only 2.5 MB including Adobe Flash Player 9. The application will require the Flash player plug-in to run within web browsers (This feature is not supported in the current initial beta). The product is designed to support next generation digital publications that allow interactions by incorporating Flash and other rich media. With Digital Editions Adobe does not intend to replace the heavy Reader - PDF interactive forms, JavaScript, digital signatures, 3D, and annotations will not be supported - it might more likely replace Flash Paper.
The initial beta is for developers and (very) early adapters of the technology and not intended for end users / production. A set of ebook and graphics file formats that will be supported in the final version are not implemented yet- you can for example not read Google book PDFs. We suggest that you read the Online FAQ before installing this beta version.
Adobe Digital Editions is currently only available for MS Windows. A Mac version is under development and will be released soon. Adobe plans to have the final production version of Digital Editions ready in early 2007.
Today is United Nations day and it is the last for Kofi Annan. Let’s see what the next 365 days will bring for this planet…
…For the tenth and last time as Secretary-General, I offer friends and colleagues around the world my best wishes on United Nations Day. I have spent almost my whole professional life working for the United Nations – so this day, and the values that it stands for, will always be special for me….
UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan
More on the declaration of human rights:
LibriVox has put up MP3 files for the “Universal declaration of Human Rights” in more then 20 languages.
UNHCR has the text of the declaration in 365 languages
(English is included in case somebody in D.C. would like to read it or just listen to it)
Thanks to Boing Boing for the link to the audio files.
