Following on...

Blimey I've been trying to avoid you lot!

My surfing today has not really given me anything much in the way of inspiration; my Stumbles were such that it reminded me of Digg, insomuch as there were repeated items, promoted items and ever-present favourite items.

Additionally, I have spent far too long on Mafia Wars, to the extent of going there instead of here, under the premise of 'checking progress'.

I did try to do some niche researching, as I do still harbour intentions of trying something along that line. I checked the mail account created for such things, read some of the mini-course emails and visited a blog. Consequently, I then roamed wildly collecting more free memberships and ebooks. I then spent another hour tidying the downloads, unzipping them and creating folders for the content.

I started nagging myself that I should be doing this and not that, particularly as I was starting to feel tired. The odd thing is that I had already decided what the topic was. I may have been concerned that it was a little flimsy on the content front, but a short piece is just that.

I've been carrying this sentiment around with me (when Stumbling was much better) for about a week now...

"Getting on the internet is the most important thing that you will ever do. I cannot overstate this point. Get on the internet - now. Your livelihood, your happiness and your future is at stake. Staying away from the internet is the social equivalent of committing suicide."

It's from this website. It's very good and everything.

It made me think. The Internet is really good. Probably the greatest (not including lovers and babies and stuff) most wonderful single thing in my life.

At the same time I Stumbled that I Stumbled this too. For something listed as six years old it is eerily prescient of the disastrous situation we currently face with US (and probably other) telcos wrestling to gain financial control of the web. Them and the American government wanting to take over the licensing control. That's depressing.

Following on from my twin discoveries yesterday, I got to thinking. There it is, the greatest thing for the individual, irrespective of it's daft uses, the sheer power of the medium remains and if the power goes, for the occupants of post 2030 world, the internet will just be a legend.

Times online seems to take away any useful article. Despite Google referencing the articles, The Times 404s them. I tricked it, by going through an internal link to get to the content, but it 404d again today. No point in posting it. In fact, the web was unusually quiet on how much electricity was required to run the World Wide Web. There was stuff on the green footprint of a Google search and an interesting piece on why we'd be mugs to individually put anything in the cloud. But I didn't have much luck in finding a figure.

A figure that I could use to say '...it takes x much electricity to run the tubes.' Using a 'peak energy' type equation, roughly estimating when, rather than zealous censorious Pakistanis or idiotic cable-cutters, insufficient power will start making portions of the webbed world inaccessible.

That makes me really sad.

We better all get on this before it's too late.

I'm going to turn everything off and go to bed. I might just check on Mafia Wars first though.

Welcome to the disappointment.

Catch-Up Mash Up

Hello playmates.

BBQ

We have attended a BBQ a day late. We have visited a British Wildlife themed park that was particularly light on British Wildlife. We visited an ancient castle that was decidedly modern.

BANS

Eduardo has been banned for two games - which is a crock of shit. Expect me to rant about any act of 'deception' I perceive between now and the end of the season.

While milling around the news stand of the supermarket, waiting for Mrs NoozeHound and NoozeHoundette to pick their sandwiches I was reading the top inches of the papers, mostly the broadsheets but not exclusively. I read enough to make me wish I was on here with you rather than on a jolly outing.

BLACK-OUTS

I've webbed-up and read what there was on the (frankly disturbing) articles I read. Those deluded souls amongst you that have been here before may remember my alarm at discovering the concept of Peak Oil. One of the theorized repercussions of this were power cuts as a result of lack of expenditure on the maintenance and renewal of the energy infrastructure.

The article I read that rang the alarm bells first was in the Torygraph. On the web version it is little more than a warning from the government that the UK could see power cuts within a decade and a list of the power stations that are approaching their end of life. Yeah, stuff has a finite life expectancy. But this was explicitly one of the scenarios mentioned and this is less than a month later. Read it here.

BLUE DIAMONDS

The other news item I read was from The Grauniad and was equally chilling. Governments, as proved by the recent financial disasters among other things, are not really all that great at working with figures. Their predictions for sea-level rise are based on data from between two and four years ago. This would be fine were it not for the fact that the dynamic acceleration of glacial decline is increasing almost exponentially. So much so that some predictions put a 1 metre seal-level rise within 20 years. 2030.

If you read my shrieking at Peak Oil theory you may recall that 2030 is loosely the predicted time we collectively begin to career down the energy cliff.

So, from the article, 600 million people live in low-lying (read totally screwed by) sea-level flood risk areas. If these incidents start to occur, they will simply wipe out those populations. How will administrations with insufficient resources to feed, clothe, warm and illuminate themselves be able to mount co-ordinated rescue and relief operations for their own or even less likely their former friends homeless, tsunami, flood, famine, typhoid or any other disaster-hit peoples. I don't think they will.

Read this article, but click on the links to other supporting articles. The blue icebergs are beautiful, but I can't help thinking of them as harbingers of doom.

GREEN MACS

I read that Mac Dee's will never truly be able to claim green credentials. Having read in a real book the effects of Maconomics, I think it would probably be best if Ronald MacDonald stayed well away from organic farmers. If they source all their fruit and veg organically it will just screw it up for everyone else and squeeze the farmers 'til they go bust.

BEST OF APOCALYPSE

I Stumbled this.

The plot synopses are probably sufficient to give you nightmares. It is an excellent list, I intend to read them all. Then possibly top myself. I can't help thinking that I know where the unnamed world changing events are going to come from.

Welcome to the disappointment.