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If you ever meet anyone who works in the oil industry, you’ll be shocked at how cold and nasty they are. Money or what I call, ‘cold genes’ make for the devil’s business.

2 days ago on Arctic oil boom sparks the next great political and environmental battle 2 replies

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BS! Solar lamps are saving lives in Africa. Replacing polluting expensive dirty carbon fuel based lamps with something that is 100% clean and sustainable. Etc.

2 days ago on Arctic oil boom sparks the next great political and environmental battle 1 recommend

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Solution, easy: Don’t use anything based on oil. 1) Avoid driving or buy a Tesla. 2) Avoid plastics, buy wooden toys for your kids and don’t buy clothes made from anything but cotton, silk or wool. 3) If you do have to drive, do as I do, avoid specific brands of gas, for example, I consider Shell and BP unethical, so only fill up at Esso (who are less expensive to here in the UK, for some reason). Lesser of two evils. 4) DO all you can to get off the grid. Save power with LED bulbs, solar gadgets, reduce use of white goods. Do you really need that second freezer?

@lifemachine for latest sustainable living and green news.

2 days ago on Arctic oil boom sparks the next great political and environmental battle 1 reply 1 recommend

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That’s the biggest flaw with DropBox and why I don’t use it for my photos. Pity, as it’s other benefits are worthwhile.

3 days ago on Can fancy photos and lavish linking help Google+ take off? 1 recommend

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Don’t forget Dieter, everyone wants to lead the way, so unless a standard benefits everyone in the industry, not just consumers, it won’t happen. MIDI succeeded because it was useless on it’s own. But Google, like Apple with iMessage, want people to use their services.

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in

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David, valid points that I the clueless mad visionary am leaving to engineering who have solved all the crazy ideas I have thrown at them since 1983. Wish us luck! Ok, off to prep for Google I/O, London

6 days ago on Down with the data center: can a peer-to-peer swarm replace cloud computing?

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FINALLY! Thank you Verge! I have been preaching P2P/Adhoc networks to my team for over 12 years and in fact, we’re in the middle of doing all sorts of feasibility studies (my conservative team keep talking to me about latency and other issues, but I remind them we put a man on the moon in 1967 or so), so it is good to see that there are others who (as always with far sighted/controversial/cannot be done-yet concepts) are believers and/or doers, Space Monkey included. I’m calling it now (having made accurate technical predictions in the past and/or even developed them) that this tech IS the future.

Cannot say any more, but remember the hashtag #tuit or #ttuit. Cannot wait to reveal!

6 days ago on Down with the data center: can a peer-to-peer swarm replace cloud computing? 1 reply

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It would be a drop in the (frozen) ocean for a big oil company to fund their move.

6 days ago on Climate change threatens to destroy Alaskan village within four years 2 replies 2 recommends

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This be awesome as a set for a SciFi movie. They should have kept it quiet to reduce chances of people recognising it.

6 days ago on Taiwan's abandoned resort town and the future that never was 1 reply

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That is what they said (many times) before 9/11, oh, and even prior to the 1993 attempt to topple BOTH WTC twin towers by causing one to hit the other. Bomber parked truck in wrong place.

Bad things happen, unexpectedly, but not unexpectedly in context.

8 days ago on Apple reportedly inundated with police requests to decrypt iPhones 1 reply

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Yup. Agreed. With once exception, there is a nuclear bomb hidden somewhere in downtown New York City, and the only way to find out where it is, is to decrypt and iPhone.

Related, a short story I wrote in 1992:

http://visionaforethought.wordpress.com/short-stories/the-party/

(Finish it, you’ll like it. Most do.)

8 days ago on Apple reportedly inundated with police requests to decrypt iPhones 1 reply 1 recommend

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Cannot believe this, had the same idea, diving through rings, but for REAL sky diving! Dang.

11 days ago on No parachute required: Google develops skydiving simulator 'Map Diving'

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Apple could learn from Nokia how to do budget well. This could have been the iPhone nano. Nokia have taken what’s best about all top mobile platforms…

Responsive capacitive display (Apple)
Tight integration with cloud (Google/Android)
Timeline based content viewing (Sony Xperia Android skin)
Tough stylish case (Nokia!)

…and put it all into one tight budget device that costs 1/4 of most mid range smart phones and likely to survive being dropped too.

The display is too small for long term use by power users, but a great entry level phone for even the European market, not just emerging.

11 days ago on Nokia hedges its commitment to Windows Phone with new Asha platform and $99 phone 3 replies 21 recommends

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Sale here in the UK. We now have to pay realtors FEES for them to conduct reference and financial searches. I have been quoted £125 by on and £250 for another. I refuse to pay a penny for something I am going to pay for, if you get my drift.

Greed is bad, honorable capitalism is good.

Related…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/07/we-all-need-the-middle-classes

13 days ago on Urban Compass: can a startup finally fix the nightmare of renting an apartment in NYC? 2 replies

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ANAL BEDS? Clever! ;)

14 days ago on First 3D-printed gun fired on video, blueprint files available to download

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Cannot believe The Verge is publishing this.

14 days ago on First 3D-printed gun fired on video, blueprint files available to download 3 replies

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A very good point! Old school manufacturers will use this as an excuse to pay off special interests and have 3D printing firms (that like Tesla) are the way forward. As I say in my post elsewhere below this story, the Americans know how to ‘shoot themselves in the foot’ !

14 days ago on First 3D-printed gun fired on video, blueprint files available to download 1 recommend

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Am in favor of allowing Americans to bare arms (in particular in this warm weather*), but with back ground checks, and not in a manner like this. I just cannot believe how the US sets itself up for self destruction. Have you ever seen how children behave when given free reign? Or how a bitter social failure reacts when getting his hands on a firearm? And that is not including career criminals!

I love America, but why are you guys so stupid sometimes?

14 days ago on First 3D-printed gun fired on video, blueprint files available to download 1 reply 2 recommends

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Love the way it rockets away at the end.

My father worked on this technology at Imperial College in London – in the 50s!

I think it will be like Concord, for the wealthy, whilst the rest of us will travel sheep class on slower jets.

One thing, what happens if it hit something in the air at that speed?

16 days ago on X-51A WaveRider hypersonic missile successfully hits Mach 5.1 in final test 1 reply 1 recommend

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Dude, don’t worry, we will win in the end. The good guys always do!

17 days ago on Will big utilities kill the distributed grid?

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Spot on.

21 days ago on Does anyone know why Google bought Motorola?

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Yup.

21 days ago on Does anyone know why Google bought Motorola?

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Surprised at lack of reference to the Holodeck, or are Verger’s too young? ;)

21 days ago on Microsoft IllumiRoom is a coffee table projector designed for the next-generation Xbox 1 reply 2 recommends