How to swim breaststroke

A lesson in breast stroke - never realized importance of not moving and keeping the elbows flush with water surface - will try this later today

Car been pulled out of sea

Awesome sequence of piccies of a car been pulled out of sea..................................

Enterprising Students in Cambridge UK

Last night I went to Charles Ainger talk on Changing Ideas into reality. Very interesting although one suspects it went a bit over the heads of the students.

Interesting for me was Torberts four part of speech see here.

Also the circular concept of any action Purpose > Thinking > Action > Reflection > Purpose

Importance of credible competitors when dealing with large companies
Don't be cleverer than your clients (I wonder how do consultants operate?)

The concept of chauffagistes who sell warmth ie they keep your building warm as a service
and about coolth see here

He also mentioned the success of Indiagriline in helping poor farmers communicate directly to markets avoiding 'corrupt' middlemen.

Also about how JM got into the car exhaust catalyst market through going direct to political process rather than to car manufacturers

He also touched on different models of enterprise other than conventional plc such as co-ops and helping the folks at the bottom of the pyramid see here.

And when presenting the golden rules:-
Use language audience understands.
Don't hype
Rely on your enthusiasm

AfterwardsI tried to convince Shamus Husheer of CUE to set up a blog on each of their speakers.
S

Google Scholar

A new version of google for searching scientific papers and abstracts

Daily Kos :: The New Europe

A eulogy to the European Union from a USA viewpoint and a a view I totally support. The introduction of the Euro was truly remarkable and I, for one, miss not having it in the UK plus all the legislation emanating from Brussels is much to be admired. interesting thatFord finds that its Volvo plant is more profitable than its USA plants.

Gmail thoughts

I have to admire google and gmail. when I first got my account with them on April 27th 2004 the spam detection was poor (I diverted my geoff@cortexcontrollers.com address to my gmail - this was getting 150+ spams a day) detection was about 80% or so. However, recently the detection has improved remarkably.

Now gmail have released FREE POP support and email forwarding . This means I can now divert all my mail to gmail and then set my Treo to read the gmail account or have it forwarded to another private email address. Voila NO spam.

Only snag is how are google going to support the new service ( I notice they are using the word FREE, which rather implies to me that they will charge) - since I won't be reading ads anymore useing adsense. Maybe they will add some spam emails :-( or start charging.

Anyway at the moment its all joy!

Open source suggestions

A good list of open source software. Just downloaded NVu seemed very fast at importing my web page and easy to use it will be interesting to see if I can get my website more pda / phone friendly.

Tanks and McDonalds

A wonderful comment taken from here by Brian H "I saw a clip yesterday of a tank crewman saying, "It's a historical fact that the US has never gone to war with any country that had a McDonalds!" There you go, folks: the Big Mac Defense Shield!"

Or maybe it could be intepreted that the US military are expanding Big Macs influence.


Brian H | Email | Homepage | 11.08.04 - 2:54 pm | #

THE MESOPOTAMIAN

NutritionData's Nutrition Facts Calorie Counter

Neat way of finding out nutrition content of foods. Just needs linking to the bar code now!

BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time - mp3 download

What a fantastic idea, the BBC releasing radio programmes in mp3 format for IPOD users etc etc see BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time - mp3 download">here

Nanny Knows Best: Exposed, Nanny's Bribe Scandal

I wonder if Billy agrees with this "The exams, that they are being “hot housed” to pass, are worthless pieces of paper; that merely assign them to, at best, stacking shelves at the local supermarket." from here

Hiring the Best shop assistants

A great scheme for hiring shop assistants - Try and hire your best customers. At least they know the product see here