I’m a Pundit

Bacteria are the life force of this world, they help us digest, they breakdown our waste and of course they create our alcohol.

But Genetic experimentation has taken things just one step further this week.  Scientists have made and tested a bacterium that will eat a common produce, possibly even garbage,  and excrete pure petroleum.

Not only that but for all you Carbon footprint nuts out there this bug actually has a negative carbon footprint, that means that when these bugs are working they will infact consume more carbon than they excrete while creating the petrol. So could this really be a carbon reducing, garbage reducing, environmentally safe way to create petrol and remove America from foreign oil dependence?

Well yes, currently, ermmmm…. one catch though…

You would need a factory the size of Chicago to do so.

The good news is that the scientists who created the fuel pooping bacteria are working hard on refining the bug to increase its productivity and growth.  Who knows in a couple of years we could have home garbage disposal units that make petrol for us!

A man can dream…

written by Oli \\ tags: Environment, Future Technology, Gasoline Excreting Bacteria, Global Warming

For those people searching for the ‘right’ ISP to supply their Broadband Internet many will find the majority of ISPs offering Unlimited internet packages.   However many families are finding tehir internet access restricted, removed and even in some cases extra charges appearing on their internet bill.

This is all down to the ‘fair usage policy’. A fair usage policy is basically a small line in your contract that says while your internet is Unlimited you cannot use more than xxGB per month.

Suddenly things don’t seem quite so unlimited anymore.

The ISPs back this move saying it keeps things fair for all of their customers.  Some users abusing the system can slow down the network for everyone.

Now here I think is a very important point.  If I bought an unlimited usage product I should expect unlimited usage. The company should have the network to deal with this if it decides to advertise such a product.

If I hired a Builder to paint a mansion I would be very friggin upset if the builder only did half of it and then said He couldn’t paint anymore because then there might not be enough paint for the other houses.

If I went to an all you can eat resteraunt but was told I could only have half a plate of food so there was enough for everyone I would also be pretty damn annoyed.

So why the hell should internet service providers get away with unethically and misleadingly advertising products as unlmiited when they sometiems have usage limits as low as 5 gig.

Fortunately there is help available, there have been several casse where people have won full refunds and even damages for loss of connectivity because the Fair Use Policy was not well displayed and that the advertisements were misleading.

Lets take down the corporate bastards who decided to call limited unlimited!

written by Oli \\ tags: Advertising, Crime, Fair Usage Policy, Internet, ISP, Law

I read this article on CNets Crave today and was glad to see that none other than Harvard University have found that Violent games really do not have that much of an effect on a childs behavior.

Personally I have stood by this belief for a long time. I think Violence in a person is formed from their upbringing, their peers and their lifestyle. I think I first realised this when I was very young.

One of my friends at the time was from a devout christian family, his parents were so against violence that they even went as far as taking Red Alert off him when they found out it was a war game.

Of course from the outset he had an unhealthy obsession with guns and violence. The very shield that his parents ahd set up to protect him had infact driven him to explore the world of violence.

I am not sure how things worked out for him, his family moved away a long time ago. All in all though I think the fact remains that by preventing someone from experiencing and learning about the world around them can only ever end in disaster.

I think this is highlighted by several of the school shootings that have happened in the USA. These children do not talk about videogames or even violence on the news. They talk about how they were repressed, how they were kept off the team, how someone else got the girl.

The truth of the matter is that the personailty of these children was such that no matter what they would have ended up in some violent crime.

The fact of the matter is that the popularity of violent games is very rarely down to the amount of violence in it. It is down to the challenge, beating those around you and so forth.

Of course violence ina game is a factor, but its teh same factor that drives people to join the army. Should we get rid of our armed forces because they encounter violence, even if the majority are balanced, caring individuals?

I worry sometimes that the western world will become too nanny state. The Government will maintain a drakonian control and people will lose the ability to experience, we would become effectively no more than ants. Unable to do anything more than work.

In the UK this is already becoming increasingly apparant, whether you look at the new smoking laws, crack down on drinking, or harsh drugs laws. Then it pervades into your everyday life, telling you that you can no longer do DIY electrics in your home.

This government needs to rememebr that it is here to serve the people, not make people lead the lives it thinks they should.

Personally I think most laws are there to make you think before you break them, but so many people in our government are so now distanced that they do not realise that a multitude of laws are broken constantly every day by your average law abiding citizen simply down to common sense, not including times when people simply do not care whether something is against the law.

written by Oli \\ tags: Computers, Video Games, Violence

Net Nutrality is a very hot topic which is very conveniently looked over by the world media.

What is Net Nutrality?

Basically Net Nutrality  is the protection of the internet from ISPs who are looking to blackmail every single internet website.

International Giant Virgin for instance has already stated that it will reduce bandwidth to it’s customers on websites that do not pay a premium in the near future, many other ISPs have also stated this as well.  So why not th big debate?  Most ISPs are owned by media corporate giants, go figure!

What would this mean to us users?  Well the general degridation of the internet, starting up a new internet business would be harder due to the new lack of bandwidth and many businesses would go out of business because they could not aford to be held to ranom by a multitude of network providers.

Imagine for instance you lived in the midle of nowhere, isolated but in contact by regular bus services.   Now imagine that the bus decided to only go to places that paid a premium, limiting you to comercial giants who could suddenyl afford to rip you off because you had no choice of going anywhere else and they had the excuse of paying costs to increase prices.  Sure you could walk to another place, but it would take all day!

The only option left would be to move house to somewhere with a better ISP.

Of course net nutrality doesn’t just stop at drawing awarness to bandwidth reduction, you may also find that in ISP could cut a site off, cut you off from other ISPs (Whch has already been done in Europe, causing an Uproar in World of Warcraft gamers who can no longer access the game because their ISP failed to reach a deal with another ISP on its Internet strategy)

Now imagine your ISP cut you off from all the news sites but its own, all the shops but its own, and so forth and so on.  The internet would be in danger of becoming sectioned, with most people being forced to use one single provider.

Now you could say that one ISP could stick to net nutrality and keep open bandwidth to all sites connected to it.  Now, just playing a theory here, what would happen if all the other websites turned on it and blocked it completely?

I have to admit the thought scare me.

written by Oli \\ tags: Internet, ISPs, Net Nutrality

We have heard a lot of, and i say this without hesitation, shite from an array of environmental parties since their inception.  Some focus more on realistic matters than others, but the fact rmemains that the majority jump on the latest bandwagon without even thinking of the consequence, such as the recent increase of starvation in teird world countries thanks to the Ethanol lobby.  Bet they didn’t factor in the reduction of Co2 produced by the death of thousands of children.

Recently however Algae has come to the front yet again, the small green scum on the top of ponds which has been touted as everything from food to fuel may now be getting government backing. When algae was first considered as a fuel it seemed a rather frivalous waste of money, however at the time oil was $20 a barrel, now it looks like it will not drop below $100 in quite a long time.  This has given both corporations and government a good incentive to review the possibilites of using algae for oil.

The good news about this is the huge reduction in side effects, and possible bonuses.  Algae will grow in very harsh conditions, including desert environments.  This leaves us not only with a fuel source which will slow down the current destruction of the rainforest, but could also boost economies in some of the worlds poorest countries.

And if that itself wasn’t a great bonus, it is also possible that wth sufficient research this could become a very valid source of food. While this may not end world hunger and poverty it could be a huge step in reducing it.

written by Oli \\ tags: Algae, Food, Fuel, Poverty

Bluray, Sony’s high density DVD technology that recently beat Toshiba’s HD DVD Format, claimed that its technology would be safe and uncrackable for ten years. Unfortunately Sonys ambiguous claim that matched Microsofts uncrackable Vista was short lived, after SkySofts AnyDVD software released a new version of their program which can now make back up copies of Blu-ray disks with the BD+ copy protection.

Sony have declined to comment on the blow to their security technology on which they spent millions developing.

This news comes as yet another damaging hit to Sony’s reputation after they released a security package for their MP3s which left computers severly open to hacking attempts leaving hundreds of thousands of people open to having their personal and bank details stolen. Sony has come under heavy fire from investors over their attempts to reduce copyright infringement, since the amount spent on the protection software is nearly as much as that realisticly lost from sales. Not only that but the restrictions and errors caused by the Protection software often leads to disatisfaction to the consumer market. Tension on this matter reched such a head in 2006 that a 10,000 person petition was signed boycotting Sony goods.

Sony recently was applauded when they followed in Apples lead of reducing anti compying systems when Apple revealed that figures on lost profits were unreasonable (while some people downloaded thousands of pounds of music it is unlikely they would have bought this much due to financial constraints)

Sonys decision to remove DRM and copy protection systems seems now to have been a mere publicity stunt though as they implement even stronger and more restrictive enforcement into the blu ray market.

written by Oli \\ tags: , BD+, Blu Ray, copy protection, Cracked, Digital Rights Management, DRM, Sony