Ed Dowding

Month: August 2008

Go Michelle!

This is a WONDERFUL speech by Michelle Obama: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7581511.stm

30% of the workforce will retire in 10 years.

As the baby boomers shuffle along the mortal coil, and the Polish trot home having turned lead (Pb) into gold, the workforce is going to diminish by 30% in the next 10 years. The question is, does this mean we have a skills shortage, an environmentally and economically healthy drop in demand and supply across ...

Driving abroad

Did you know that many insurers will automatically downgrade your insurance if you take your car over to Europe? If you didn’t, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Recent research from moneysupermarket.com found that 39% of drivers weren’t aware of this. Regulations state that insurers must provide the minimum level of third party cover in all ...

Funny as hell. Wait until the end!

Here’s a chap driving on Salvia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp2V6NXCkE0

Welcome the new robot overlords

Neat. http://www.image-metrics.com/

What is my role?

Ollie and I were talking a while back about how good it would be if we told each other more how we really perceive each other. But sometimes we find it hard, for all sorts of reasons. There’s an related post to be written about tarot cards, but, until then, I happened upon this way ...

We just have to change the game

http://seantevis.com/kansas/3000/running-for-office-xkcd-style/

Last FM

Last FM (www.last.fm) is awesome, and has been for years. I was just considering how MuxTape (www.muxtape.com) integrates with it, and if it would do anything cool with my Loved Tracks. But looking around I see they’ve gone one better / in a different direction. They now offer podcasts! How completely awesome is that?!? So ...

1.3m seconds to live

http://www.deathclock.com/dw.cfm?Day=22&Month=7&Year=1977&Sex=Male&Mode=Normal&bmi=-25&smoker=0 Bugger.

Effective States

I heard Ashraf Ghani yesterday on the Global Business podcast from the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/worldbiz/). There’s an interesting conversation about mobile phones and micro-funding in Afghanistan, amongst others. He has a kind of Yunis approach to the Economic Hitman problem, and has set up the Institute for State Effectiveness (http://www.effectivestates.org), which in turn has some good ...

Oxytocin news

Telling people about oxytocin is a particular favourite of mine, since I think we should all be aware of the factors influencing our feelings, especially if we’re about to make life decisions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin An interesting update to this was sent to me today, about a study in rats: “… these results suggest that oxytocin release, ...

Internet timeline

http://www.dipity.com/user/tatercakes/timeline/Internet_Memes/embed_tl?fs=1