POLITICS: The global warming con

As the 'consensus' of 'experts' in the field are reported to have conclusive proof of man-made global warming I cast my mind back to middle school when we taught that the world was cooling and that the next ice age was coming. When I mention this factor, few seem to recollect this fact, especially the brain-washed masses that have swallowed Auntie Beeb's agenda based reporting.
However, my brother found this little nugget from a 1975 issue of Newsweek (it's a 300K PDF file) which talks all about how scientists are concerned about the cooling of the earth. Back then these people (presumably a similar 'consensus' of 'experts' that we are listening to now) were proposing ideas such as 'melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot' - in a bid to heat the earth up!
Why are people so readily convinced by the bad science being pedalled today that they are happy to roll on their backs and accept any manner of taxes our government introduces under the guise of caring for the planet?
I'm also shocked by the complete lack of reporting in the general media of the 'Manhattan Declaration'. Chances are, you won't have heard a peep about this (because the BBC and the rest of the European media are too lazy/stupid to report it or it doesn't suit their agenda) so here it is in full:

Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change

"Global warming" is not a global crisis

We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change,

Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;

Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

Recognising that the causes and extent of recently observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed 'consensus' among climate experts are false;

Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing, human suffering;

Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:

Hereby declare:

That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity's real and serious problems.

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.

That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.

That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

Now, therefore, we recommend --

That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as "An Inconvenient Truth."

That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.

Agreed at New York, 4 March 2008

Anyone else find it a little worrying the other side of this argument isn't even being considered this side of the pond? I do, so if I see Cameron Diaz banging on about unplugging my sodding phone charger one more time I'm going to leave every light in my house on all night just to spite her.

RANT: Plastic Bloody Bags

Why is the BBC so intent on spending every single news bulletin of late telling us how many plastic bags are on the planet? And how much it's harming the planet and how we are all going to burn in hell unless we take our plastic bags with us to the supermarket. What the hell do they want from me?
It's really simple - if the supermarkets used paper bags instead we'll all use them instead. End of problem. Except then we'll be mentally flogged for destroying the rain forests...

TECH: N95 8GB - short battery life?

I know battery issues with N95 & N95 8GB handsets have been done to death in the blogosphere but having searched about I was still sure my N95 8GB battery life wasn't up to scratch. My daily use after a full charge:

1. Every other day I download a podcast (20MB tops) over Wifi
2. I use my music player (in offline mode) each morning for around 30 mins
3. Each day I send about 5 texts (if that)
4. I make 5-10 mins of calls
5. I browse 5 mins (tops) on the net
6. I turn the phone off for around an hour in the middle of the day whilst I drive
7. I don't have any app running in the background.
8. Handy Weather updates every 8 hours for 2 cities over GPRS
9. Bluetooth is not on, nor is wireless scanning.
10. I am usually in either a full 5 bar 3G signal or full GPRS signal area.

My battery was always depleted before I get chance to turn the phone off in the evening. A few posts on various forums and it turned out this just wasn't normal and I was directed to install Nokia Power Profiler, a handy little app that tells you how much power your device is using at any given time. Running it on my handset in standby gave a reading of 0.31w. I had been told anything higher than 0.15-0.18 during standby was 'unusual'. Tried re-flashing firmware but it didn't change.

Then I stumbled on this post and thought about the fact that my N95 8GB was in a silicon case.

Long story short, the silicon case was pushing the camera button of the N95 8GB in constantly - creating a constant drain on the battery. One swift operation with a stanley knife and the offending piece of silicon is no more and my battery drain is a mere fraction of the previous levels (0.09 - 0.13).

Bottom line - if you have shoddy battery life and your device is in a tight case - try testing power usage without it. The case could be the problem...

TECH: Symbian - the good and the un-answered...

After spending a little more time with the Nokia N95 8GB I'm enjoying more and more of its virtues and discovering workarounds for some of its more annoying quirks. Here's a few tricks and tips I have picked up along the way and some recommended applications I've enjoyed using.

1. Nokia start up chime. You know the annoying handshake and music every time you turn on the phone? Turn it off in Menu > Tools > Settings > General > Personalisation > Tones > Warning Tone (set to 'OFF')

2. Make Nokia Maps quicker. Using the Nokia PC Suite 2 (get it at http://www.nokia.com/A4544040), download Map Loader and transfer the UK (or applicable area) map to your phone memory. This means each time you start the application, it doesn't have to download the info to the handset over the air.

3. Sky Plus from your mobile. It's a bit of a pain to set up, but head over to Sky and download the Remote Record application for Symbian. Once you've set-up your details with Sky you can browse the 7 day Sky planner on your handset and set programs to record. There's occasionally a delay (upto 30 minutes) but it's a great tool if you're out and have forgotten to record Match Of The Day.

4. Download podcasts direct to the handset. This is a big bonus for me. Rather than download podcasts to iTunes and then transfer to the N95 8GB via USB, you can just download over the air (WI-FI or 3G) direct to the phone. I do this most mornings. Once you've entered the feed address for the podcast, just pick the desired show from the feed list and within a few minutes: voilà!

5. Weather screensaver - there are a few decent weather applications for the N95/Symbian. Sadly, the best ones are payable (unlike iPhone that includes a great weather application for free). The best ones also allow the user to set the powersaver screensaver to weather - meaning instead of the usual time/date bar, you get a nice two day weather summary. Both the weather applications can be updated manually or at pre-defined intervals (it happens invisibly in the background and uses very little data - about 2K per city so using GPRS for connection is fine). The first recommendation is Handy Weather which is payable yearly, whilst the second, Micro Weather needs only a single payment. Both programs have trial versions you can try.

However, whilst the N95 is endearing is some ways, there are still some unanswered questions:

1. On the active standby desktop, the calendar reminder takes you straight to the detail of the entry - is there any way of making it go to a month view of the month in question instead?

2. I'd like another row of active standby applications. The limit seems to be 7. I'd like to see another row of user selectable applications below.

3. Occasionally my back light stays on after using the phone. I mess with the slider a little and eventually it goes to sleep - I'd like to know what causes this or if it's a known bug?

4. The camera quality is dreadful. It might be a 5 Mega pixel camera but don't let that convince you it is on a par with even a an average compact digital camera of 3 Mega pixel. It simply isn't. There also seems to be a lot of compression taking place on the images. Shots at the 5MB setting often weigh in around the 600k mark. Way too small for a decent quality snap of this size. It's hard to know whether the optics are fine and the compression is ruining the pictures or the optics just aren't up to par. Either way, the quality of the camera given it's specification is a disappointment. I hope a future firmware finds some way to address this problem.