Monthly archives: January 2006

The fight goes on against Intelligent Design

This entry was posted in Creationism on by

Despite the recent ruling against the Dover, Pennsylvania, school board there are still some who would like to turn the United States into the world’s most backward developed country. They are particularly, and worryingly, active on university campuses.

I’d willingly sign a petition that called for ID to be taught in the right place- alongside all the other creation myths in some religious studies type course.

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Jatropha powered Le Mans

This entry was posted in Biodiesel on by

D1 Oils, previously mentioned as a top supplier of Jatropha curcas tree based biodiesels, is set to enter a car in the 2006 Le Mans 24 hours. The top speed from the modified Volkswagen engine is 200mph, compared to 215mph for petrol engines, but the team are counting on the greater efficiency meaning fewer fuelling stops.

D1 chief executive Philip Wood said apart from winning the coveted Le Mans gold trophy, the team’s other objective is to test the performance, fuel efficiency and emissions produced by different biodiesel blends during the trials.

“This is about demonstrating that low emissions don’t mean low performance,” he said.

“It is going to be of immense value to motorists who want to know that biodiesel will get them the mileage and performance they need while contributing less to global warming.”

via Foursprung and Jalopnik

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New Year blogging resolutions

This entry was posted in 100 Things on by

Over at Problogger Darren has opened the comments section for fellow bloggers to outline their plans/ resolutions for the New Year. I accidentally spread mine over two comments, and thought they should be reprinted here so you can catch me out on them this time next year-

Maintain the gradient of my earnings trendline. The numbers under the trendline are still quite low- a 30 day average of $2 a day across all income streams and all blogs- but the gradient is nearly 1 in 3 so if I can maintain that I’ll be making a (low) living wage by Easter.

I have a few projects lined up for the niche blogs to create original content and set them apart. I doubt I’ll get them all done, but they are-

Build a bike (or recumbent trike, I just bought some cheap plans for one) for the cycling blog- http://spinneyhead.co.uk/2wheels/

Get a crop from the allotment for the gardening blog- http://www.spinneyhead.co.uk/Dig/

Build lots of models for the modelling blog- http://www.spinneyhead.co.uk/Scale

Make some videos for the extreme sports blog- http://www.spinneyhead.co.uk/gravity/

And write a novel.

I also want to get a lot more contributors for my global blog Spinneyworld.

It’s a lot of stuff to do whilst keeping up with all the relevant news and doing a day job, but I’d rather aim high.

I think I ought to add- as people were asking about them this morning- attempt to complete more of the tasks in my Hundred Things list.

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