Wired - December 1996

Whilst waiting for the Turkey to cook and for the family to arise, I was wondering what to do. Looking around the living room and the book cases and listening to an old radio show on Radio 4 Extra, I spotted my small collection of Wired magazines.

The first issue I have was publised in 1995, the last is 2000. The first December issue in my collection is for 1996, so here are some things that were 'cool' at Christmas in 1996:

1. Avocet Vertech Alpine wrist watch with that essential built in altimeter for mountain climbers.

2. The Tribal prototype snowboard/skateboard crossover, this had 3 wheels inline with spaces in-between to stand on.

3. Kodak Ektachrome film (advert) - cameras still used film. I think I bought my first digital camera a few years later.

4. Motorola Microtac 8700 mobile phone (advert) - Ah those were the days. Motorola were still a major digital electronics company.

5. Iomega Zip Drive (advert) - 100 megabytes on one floppy disc sized magnetic disc. Mind blowing!

6. Nintendo 64 to be launched in March 1997 - article suggesting it is the PC of the future. LOL.

7. Jargon Watch - COUA (Compulsive Use Of Acronyms) - Get it?
I might try using that one at work.

8 Swiss bank notes include counterfeit proof technology with microtext, watermarks and optical variable ink.

9. Swatch (advert) - Swiss anwser to the growing digital cultural. Cheap fashionable plastic watches.

10. Sega (advert) - Sega games now available on PC CD-ROM discs.

Carbon Isotopes and Climate Change

A while ago I explained the basics of Carbon Isotopes and how they help in understanding what is happening to our climate:

http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/is-all-carbon-same.html

Today Skeptical Science have posted a more detailed article about the subject:

https://www.skepticalscience.com/From-eMail-Bag-Carbon-Isotopes-Part-1.html


 

A little Brexit Truth...

The UK send approximately 43% of its exports to other EU countries.
Those same EU countries send approximately 16% of their exports to the UK.

What does this tell us about MPs that say the EU need us more than we need them?

Basically the loss of exports to the EU would have a greater impact to the UK than the loss of exports to the UK would have on the EU. The EU would find it easier to absorb the loss of the UK as an export market, partly because of the distribution of those exports across EU nations, the UK on the other hand would have a greater loss focused on it's own single economy.

Rapanui Clothing and The Expanse Season 3

According to Shohreh Aghdashloo who plays one of the lead characters in The Expanse, filming of Season 3 has completed. Yippee, just got to wait many months now before it is available in the UK.

Whilst I was reading the December issue of The MagPi I spotted an article about Rapanui Clothing based on the Isle of Wight. They make eco friendly clothing and were started in 2008, I have been following them on and off for about the same time, being initially impressed by their Bamboo T-shirts that were as smooth as silk.

There is a link to their web site in my list of links down the right hand side of this blog.

So why did Rapanui feature in a magazine devoted to the best selling computer in the world (the Raspberry Pi)?

Turns out that they started on a budget of £200 in 2008 and since then have grown greatly. They now have a factory in an old Coop supermarket and have developed a lot of their own custom manufacturing hardware using Raspberry Pi's. They even have an Alexa that employees can ask questions about production runs and other factory stuff. The really cool thing is that they even encourage employees to learn programming!

So basically it is an eco company that is driving innovation and changing the rules.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/your-photo-t-shirt-from-rapanui/