Favourite ticker entry “Libya recognizes Occupy-Wall-Street protestors as Amrica’s new official govt” RAP NEWS 9 – http://t.co/XMD6ORr4
Oct 03 2011
Favourite ticker entry “Libya …
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Sep 18 2011
If you’re #LGBT in Cameroon, 1…
If you’re #LGBT in Cameroon, 1 text can get you 3 years in jail. Go #AllOut4Alice & ask Pres @PR_Paul_Biya to act now: http://t.co/ZdZURgBq
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May 02 2008
Think You’re A Conscientious Shopper?
If so, you may find cracked’s article on ‘The Awful Truth Behind 5 Items Probably On Your Grocery List‘ informative.
Some of the products are reasonably well know for their potential human rights issues, such as Coca Cola as well as Chiquita and Dole bananas, but I’d not heard about the issues Iams pet foods were actively involved in, nor about Nestle Nesquik (though obviously Nestle’s record in Africa with baby milk already has them high on many people’s boycott list).
Anyway, have a read through, and see what our wonderful multi-national conglomerates have been up to this last past 1/2 century 🙁
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May 01 2008
Pirate Isolation Plan
No, not a serious piece on the issues mariners face in many areas of Asia and Africa, but instead links to a couple of articles on plans to punish those who download and share copyrighted material by withdrawing their access to the internet.
On one hand, we have the British government considering such plans, whilst members of the European Parliament have voted against (only just) such rules, at least at a Europe wide level. Individual governments will obviously still retain the right to put such policies into practice.
Even without any actual UK legislation in place, I know from personal experience that repeat offenders in Britain can find their ISPs cancel their account. Perhaps I know from being caught downloading movies or programs? Nope, part of my job a few years ago was to trace specific users (those who didn’t use PeerGuardian at least 😉 ) that were caught by organizations who scour Peer2Peer networks, looking for illegal copies of copyright material. However, all that would happen back then was if I found a specifically named file was still being actively shared by a customer, they would receive a warning. If the same person ignored the warning, or was caught with new files we were alerted to, their account would be closed. However, as we ran more than 100 different branded ISPs, all working on the same equipment, we’d often see the same people come back again, under a new ISP label 🙂
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Apr 30 2008
More Power Generation
Following on from the previous post, we have another article from the BBC on innovative ways to harvest power from activities people already carry out. This one is all about utilizing a potentially huge source of energy – children. As mothers everywhere will attest, kids can sometimes seem to run around all day, with no specific aim, and all this energy can now help charge electrical cells (batteries), to power lights etc. into the evening, where villages aren’t on a power grid already. Obviously remote locations in Africa where what the inventor had in mind, but the uses could well spread far and wide – in terms of eco-friendly power, you could create systems to light up childrens play areas in the west, without relying on conventional electricity systems, which involve burning fossil fuels, or nuclear power.
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May 27 2007
Recoil
Recoil – Andy McNab
The 9th in the Nick Stone series, Recoil does feel quite similar to other books in the series, but then again I read these sorts of books because I enjoy them, not to actually challenge myself intellectually or anything.
The main character is in Switzerland, recovering from his last book/job, and is coming to terms with losing one of his best friends. His rich girlfriend tries to help him re-acclimatise, but her father doesn’t help much.
The girlfriend works for a charity, and disappears off to the Congo, which concerns Nick. Cue lots of fighting and details on using weapons. Nick had been to central Africa some two decades past, and has some unpleasant flashbacks.
We have the normal army chatter, obvious bad guys, crooked Ruperts (commissioned officers), helpless innocents and large explosions. If you’ve read all his books, you will end up buying this, even if it is just more of the same; if this book doesn’t interest you, you’re not going to care about the plot repetition with only minor tweaks…
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