A Few Rants And Raves

I see the prisons are full? This is a serious issue. The number of people in prison has reached a record 79,843, and in theory there are just 125 more spaces available.

The Lord Chief Justice has urged more use of community sentences, but is this the answer? It's not as powerful a deterrent as a custodial sentence, but there are those who say a custodial sentence is not always required. I disagree.

The public must be educated to distinguish between the "brutal, dangerous offender and the inadequate who offends to get money for drugs". I've never heard of the term 'inadequate' offender, have you?

Did you know the Hard Drive is 50 years old this year? With all the developments in memory technology you could be forgiven for thinking that the lowly hard drive is dead.

We have seen yet more growth in the technologies around it. The one terabyte drive is more or less here, we have perpendicular recording and they are getting smaller all the time.

Without Daniel Bernoulli we would not have a name for the effect that we rely on to make the hard disk work.

The Bernoulli Effect is what happens when a wing moves through the air - it floats. Just like an aeroplane's wing, the read head of a hard disk floats across the top of the disk.

"As the disk spins this lifts the head up off the media," explained Ian Keene of hard drive manufacturers WD.

He added: "Many people think the head is actually touching the media, but the distance between the head and the media is in the distance of 100 angstroms; to give you some idea of what an angstrom is, a human hair is about one million angstroms."

So, we have a spaceship above Mars, taking photographs of land based vehicles. Nasa's new orbiter at Mars has taken a spectacular picture of the Opportunity rover sitting on a crater's rim.

Amazing, but is this to prove we are there? Unlike the Moon landings, these encounters are pretty low key, but vitally important if we are to survive as a species.

But if we can photograph something on Mars, that is 1.5 meters across, why have we no photographs of the numerous landing modules, vehicles and equipment on the moon?

I see they're reducing the amount of coursework for GCSE's due to the cheating possibilities of using the internet, amongst other things.

It's nothing like when I was at school. But if I had reduced coursework and the internet at my disposal... I think we should be producing Einstein's at ever school.

But the internet can only give information, it can't give answers!

And ANOTHER advancement in medical science means we can now encourage bones to grow through tweaking of proteins and chemicals in the body. We're turning into an Frankenstein society!

And on a final note, a new Poiltical Debate channel is appearing on the Net! Unlike newspapers, radio and TV broadcasters in Britain are bound by strict rules on balance and impartiality.

But next week, a political channel threatens to turn these sacred codes on their head.

Enter, very much stage right, 18 Doughty Street - a new kid on the broadcasting block.

Instead of appearing on the television screen, this new political discussion channel, which launches next week, will be delivered through the internet.

They are recruiting people to produce their own 3 minute reports for inclusion. YouTube for Politics eh? Fantastic Idea!

As soon as I find anything, I'll post it under 18 Doughty Street. (Could have picked a better name for it though!)

Well, quiet on the news front, which is always a good thing. I'm off to do some gaming, for a change! Not been on for ages!