Sometime it is hard not to become abusive at the idiocy of Government
departments. The utterly bizarre decision of the Valuation Office Agency
(yes indeed; who they?) to treat ATMs as separate businesses (EDP Aug
29) and thus hit them with an entirely spurious business rate charge
defies description.
These devices are attached to the business (even inside) and do not do
anything but provide bank customers with access to their money. They add
no value to anything and have effectively saved the banks (who did their
best to bankrupt us remember) the need to have local offices, local
employees and provide any sort of service to their customers.
Should there be any charge accruing from the existence of ATMS it should
better be levied on the bank to offset the vast cost to us all of saving
them from their own stupidity.
We should all write to our MPs immediately before our local shops have
been wiped out by this Government's austerity philosophy,. which is the
prime cause of this be assured.
MORE HERE
Saturday, 29 August 2015
Friday, 24 July 2015
Is there life in Labour?
Struggling what to write today. Labour's continuing failure to realise they have five years in which to establish a new social contract based on fair play or the new Planet 'Earth', found a mere 1,400 light years away and 1.5 billion years older than our own dear ball of mud and water.
Settled on the latter as more realistic than the former.
So (sorry other pedants) , this possibly amazing discovery emphasises only too well the problems of seeking other life in the universe. Isaac Asimov wrote a book that included the facts (Only a Trillion, sadly out of print). Those of the right age will know that apart from being a great sci fi writer Asimov was a mathematician of some renown. So here is the conundrum...
Dealing solely with this new planet let us suppose it did develop life that behaved like us (i.e. allegedly intelligent). And that it took about the same length of time as on earth to reach a technological standing. This would have happened about 1.5 billion years ago... enough said.
Now let's suppose it took a lot, lot longer and the resultant creatures survived long enough to be interested in other worlds (like us). And that sometime in the last 1,500 years they discovered radio transmission. The resulting signals, if strong enough, might be arriving any time soon. Sadly, assuming we spot them and de-code them our response will take 1,500 years to get back. Bit like BT then. This will make conversation difficult.
But Asimov realised another problem with the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. It is not just distance that is against us - time is a bit of a bugger too.
It has taken us about a million years to get to the point where we can either destroy ourselves or avoid catastrophe. That is a matter of one 4,500,000th part of the life of our planet and less then one 15,000,000th part of the alleged life of the universe - so far. Let us be generous and assume we can hang in for another million before evolution or catastrophe overwhelms us (that asteroid with our name on it is out there right now). For us to find even the beginnings of life that we can recognise it will need to be around during our tenure of this bit of the universe. Likely? Not terribly.
Indeed, on a par with the Labour party getting back in the saddle and winning the hearts and minds of the British electorate...
References:
Asimov - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
The book - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_a_Trillion
Earth 2.0 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33641648
SETI - http://www.space.com/29990-stephen-hawking-intelligent-alien-life-initiative.html
Labour's chances - among many - http://labourlist.org/2015/06/is-andy-burnham-most-likely-to-boost-labours-election-chances/
Settled on the latter as more realistic than the former.
So (sorry other pedants) , this possibly amazing discovery emphasises only too well the problems of seeking other life in the universe. Isaac Asimov wrote a book that included the facts (Only a Trillion, sadly out of print). Those of the right age will know that apart from being a great sci fi writer Asimov was a mathematician of some renown. So here is the conundrum...
Dealing solely with this new planet let us suppose it did develop life that behaved like us (i.e. allegedly intelligent). And that it took about the same length of time as on earth to reach a technological standing. This would have happened about 1.5 billion years ago... enough said.
Now let's suppose it took a lot, lot longer and the resultant creatures survived long enough to be interested in other worlds (like us). And that sometime in the last 1,500 years they discovered radio transmission. The resulting signals, if strong enough, might be arriving any time soon. Sadly, assuming we spot them and de-code them our response will take 1,500 years to get back. Bit like BT then. This will make conversation difficult.
But Asimov realised another problem with the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. It is not just distance that is against us - time is a bit of a bugger too.
It has taken us about a million years to get to the point where we can either destroy ourselves or avoid catastrophe. That is a matter of one 4,500,000th part of the life of our planet and less then one 15,000,000th part of the alleged life of the universe - so far. Let us be generous and assume we can hang in for another million before evolution or catastrophe overwhelms us (that asteroid with our name on it is out there right now). For us to find even the beginnings of life that we can recognise it will need to be around during our tenure of this bit of the universe. Likely? Not terribly.
Indeed, on a par with the Labour party getting back in the saddle and winning the hearts and minds of the British electorate...
References:
Asimov - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
The book - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_a_Trillion
Earth 2.0 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33641648
SETI - http://www.space.com/29990-stephen-hawking-intelligent-alien-life-initiative.html
Labour's chances - among many - http://labourlist.org/2015/06/is-andy-burnham-most-likely-to-boost-labours-election-chances/
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