Ye Olde Nelson closed before I moved to Salford, and was already in a poor state when I started walking past it on the way to work. Now, it’s being pulled down, and I’m taking pictures every time I go past, a sort of disjointed timelapse of its disappearance.
I’m sure I’ve reported on a future of remote control cargo ships before. Rolls Royce have created a good looking, if under-acted, promo video about life in the control centre for this one, though.
There’s a tale of future piracy in this, I reckon.
Massive crewless cargo ships plying the world’s oceans may sound far-fetched, but Rolls-Royce has been working on the idea for a number of years now. In fact, the company says it expects the first remotely controlled vessels to sail into operation by 2020.
Source: Rolls-Royce sails ahead with plan for remotely controlled cargo ships
I’ve been on the couch for The Daily Rundown a few times in the last couple of months. Conveniently, they put clips up on YouTube, so I’ve created a playlist of ones that I’m in. Watch me be opinionated.
There’s a petition to Parliament to re-run the referendum, but with higher requirements for a decision (60% in favour, 75% turnout). As I write this, just under 3.1 million people have signed it. It’s unlikely we’ll get another referendum (and who wants to go through that again?), but it’s an gauge of the dissatisfaction with the way it all turned out.
And, if this Facebook post is genuine, it’s hilarious that it was set up by a Leave supporter, who thinks Remainers are behaving appallingly by agreeing with the sentiments he would have been screaming out if the tables were turned.
In case the post mysteriously disappears, here’s the text of it-
Oliver Healey – English Democrats
***CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE!!!***
Dear All
Re: EU Referendum Rules triggering a 2nd EU Referendum petition
This petition was created at a time (over a month ago) when it was looking unlikely that ‘leave’ were going to win, with the intention of making it harder for ‘remain’ to further shackle us to the EU. Due to the result, the petition has been hijacked by the remain campaign. Admittedly, my actions were premature however, my intentions were as stated above. THERE WAS NO GUARANTEE OF A LEAVE VICTORY AT THAT TIME!!! Having said that, if it had not been mine, it would have been orchestrated by someone on the remain campaign. However, since I am associated with the petition and before the press further associate me with it I felt the need to better clarify my position on the issue even if it looks bad. I am it’s creator, nothing more! The logistical probability of getting a turnout to be a minimum of 75% and of that, 60% of the vote must be one or the other (leave or remain) is in my opinion next to impossible without a compulsory element to the voting system.
I have been opposed to the bureaucratic and undemocratic nature of the European Union as an institution privately for many years and for all of my political career. I have openly and actively lent my support to both Vote Leave and Grassroots Out campaigns – why would I do this if I wanted to remain in the EU? I am genuinely appalled by the behaviour of some of the remain campaign, how they are conducting themselves post-referendum not just with this petition but generally. The referendum was fairly funded; democratically endorsed, every vote was weighted equally and I believe this was a true reflection of the mood of the country. To my fellow leavers, now doubting their decision please keep the faith, we will be fine just stick with it. I believe what we need to do now for the good of the country; is get behind the will of the British people, unite, issue Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon and move forward, with the process of leaving the European Union.
William Oliver Healey
Creator of EU Referendum Rules triggering a 2nd EU Referendum petition
Leave would have been truly awful and obnoxious losers. You can tell by the way they’re truly awful and obnoxious winners.
(Whilst I wrote this post, the petition went from 3.09 million signatures to 3.114 million.)
Oh well, that’s us fucked, then.
In the short term, it’s possible I’ll be a tiny bit better off, because the largest single day drop in the value of sterling now makes my few American book sales worth more. Of course, that’s going to be a tiny consolation when the inevitable slash and burn budget does its best to take away what’s left of everything that’s good about this country.
Almost immediately, the Brexiteers were saying that they hadn’t really promised all those things they promised. Which is nice.
Some people who voted Leave are trying to tell the rest of us that they didn’t mean it, really, and they’d take it all back if they only could. It’s hard to be angry at such stupidity.
The section of the Labour Party that lost the last two elections think that this is a great time to get Jeremy Corbyn out of the way, so they can start work on losing the snap election they hope will be called for November.
If anyone wants to set up a Kickstarter or Patreon that will ensure David Cameron doesn’t go a week without getting at least one email or letter that’s just a picture of a pig, I will try to scrape together some money to back it.
And if any Brexiteer wants to sneer and call me a bad loser, I’ll know that, if the tables were turned, they would have spent the day throwing the biggest toddler tantrum ever, whilst claiming that MI5 had stolen the result in some pencil based conspiracy.
The only problem with this book is that it was published in 2000, so I’m at a loss over what’s happened in the last fifteen years.
This is a fascinating wander through the roots of reggae, from the yard parties and sound systems most often playing blues and blues inspired local sounds, to the international reggae breakout of the seventies, and beyond.
It moves faster, and covers more ground per chapter, the nearer to (then) contemporary sounds it gets. The impression is that the author wasn’t impressed by the dancehall and ragga that were the dominant forms in the late nineties, and only grudgingly gave them any coverage. His tone lightens in the last chapter, as he detects a return to old-school values over sample driven pap.
The viewer has cropped some of the photos. Click through to see the full versions.
I did this interview for The Daily Rundown last month, and only just worked out where to find it. It’s a little segment on the inspiration for Sounds of Soldiers, and why it’s still relevant- maybe even more relevant- in the age of Trump.
Scientists in Iceland have managed to turn carbon dioxide emissions to rock, which would make true carbon capture a possibility.
Scientists working at the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant near Reykjavik, Iceland, were able to pump the plant’s carbon dioxide-rich volcanic gases into deep underground basalt formations, mix them with water and chemically solidify the carbon dioxide.When basalt — a volcanic rock that makes up roughly 70 percent of the earth’s surface — is exposed to carbon dioxide and water, a chemical reaction occurs, converting the gas to a chalk-like solid material. Scientists previously thought it wasn’t possible to capture and store carbon this way because earlier studies suggested it could take thousands of years for large amounts of carbon dioxide to be converted to chalk.
Of course, the proper answer is to stop using processes that create carbon dioxide, and move over to renewables. Announcements such as this are likely to be taken up by the pollution industry as a reason for them to keep on dsestroying the planet, on the promise that a technology may come along to undo all their damage. This could be useful in many ways, but this isn’t the silver bullet that’s going to save the world by itself.
The final paragraphs conjure up some interesting visions of geoengineering projects- sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere to bring the balance back down to non climate change levels. It’s the sort of thing I imagined happening in the backstory to the Mongrels series, as the AIs bring the planet back from climate catastrophe to some sort of stability.
Source: Scientists Turn Carbon Dioxide Emissions to Stone | Climate Central