100 TB Club

The University now has 100TB (100,000GB) of storage on our Storage Area Network, and Dot Hill (our SAN supplier) gave us this cake to celebrate.

Slow travel

An easy no fly option for foreign holidays from Lewes is the Newhaven to Dieppe ferry. The crossing takes four hours, and the scenery can be somewhat uneventful. But what better way to fill the time than brushing up with French lessons? That's such a fantastic idea. OK, so you're not going to get very far if you've never learned any before, but it sounds like a great way to get into the flow and boost your confidence before you arrive.

Good News, Bad News

The good news is that Hazel Blears has approved LDC's Planning Application Committee's decision to permit Glyndebourne to build their wind turbine. Not only that, but as an added benefit to the environment the minister has added conditions that Glyndebourne should close their helipad (except for emergency flights), and take action to reduce the number of people arriving by car.
http://www.glyndebourne.com/information/wind_turbine/

The bad news is that Network Rail have decided that reopening the Lewes to Uckfield line would be technically feasible, but not economically viable. A particular shame in view of the above decision - which would have benefited the economic case for reopening the line.
http://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/roadsandtransport/roads/roadschemes/rail/default.htm

Legion Parking Services

One way to make an intrinsically unpopular service more acceptable is to appoint a respected organisation to manage it. NCP probably aren't that organisation.

A while ago, I heard that Cambridge City Council use the British Legion to manage their parking scheme. I've repeated the claim a couple of times, but can't remember where I heard it. So, I decided to find out for myself.

A Google search for "Cambridge parking enforcement" found this page, which refers to a contract with "Legion Parking Services". So, is this the British Legion, or has someone been misled by the name? Well, Googling for "Legion Parking Services" turns up their web site at http://www.legiongroup.co.uk/. Sure enough, "Legion Group plc is a subsidiary of the Royal British Legion Attendants Company Trust (RBLA), a registered charity with the aim of promoting employment opportunities for ex servicemen and women. "

Whether you see this as an opportunity to support and reward servicemen and women who have risked their lives for our country, or an way to turn swords into ploughshares, it seems like a pretty good thing to do.

Interestingly, they've been providing parking management services since 1928. Blimey - I guess the job must have changed a lot in that time!

The BBC are reporting that the Lib-Dems won only one council. In fact, we won four, and lost two. Liverpool was also reported as a loss, but we won exactly half the seats, and would have a casting vote. Technically, the result was no overall control, but then an "Independent Labour" candidate joined the Lib Dems, so now we have a majority of two.

I'm particularly pleased about that, having met a couple of our city councillors at conference in Liverpool. I stayed with a cabinet member (as part of a fund-raising B&B scheme), and we went out for drinks with Warren Bradley, the council leader on the Friday night. Here's a photo of me (left) with Warren. We exchanged stories about how exciting politics was in the 80s - his campaigns against Hatton's army sounded more hairy than my efforts at the peace camps.

Working for the enemy

Before the election results were announced, Ken Livingston offered jobs to his three main rivals. His losing the election shows us why he did that. It's easy to make the offer, the electorate think you're being reasonable.

But, if you take the job, then you can't really campaign against your employer at the next election. It's said that you can't win elections, you can only lose them by doing a bad job. Well, in that event, poor performance reflects on the whole team. So, in this example, Ken was invited back into the Labour party a few years ago. He accepted that invitation, and Gordon Brown's cock-ups have reflected on Ken.

Doctor Who's peak oil moment

Doctor Who explains why some solutions to Climate Change won't help with Peak Oil:


The two problems are closely related, and responses need to be carefully evaluated in terms of both (oh, and with land use, too)

Here's a quick list of some possible solutions, with their impacts (+ positive, - negative, = neutral) on the three problems.

	Peak Oil	Climate Change	Land Use
2nd Gen biofuels	+	+	-
Solar Arrays	+	+	-
Wind Power	+	+	=
CO2 Scrubbing	=	+	=
Reduce meat consumption	+	+	+
Coal to liquids	+	-	=