What does 3D printing look like?

September 15th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

This video will give you a good idea:

Fancy a 3D printer for yourself? You can now buy one for just £1,600 for home use.

Can’t wait? Why not pop into a department store and obtain a bust of yourself for just £99 produced by the store’s 3D printer while you wait – check it out here.

But this is just the beginning of what 3D printers will cost and what they will produce. One day. they will be as common as the home paper printer – but much more versatile.

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The latest debate on American exceptionalism: Obama vs Putin

September 15th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

There is an notion – ill-defined, but important in political discourse in the USA – called “American exceptionalism”. The term has recently been used in very different ways by President Barack Obama of the United States and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

In his address to the American people on the situation in Syria following gas attacks on civilians, Obama stated:

“America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth. Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.”

In his article in the “New York Times” on the situation in Syria, Putin stated:

“My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”

Posted in American current affairs, World current affairs | Comments (0)

A review of the excellent new movie “Rush”

September 15th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

The Academy Awards season is still many months away, but I’ll be really surprised if Ron Howard’s new movie “Rush” does not garner a number of nominations. Check out my revierw here.

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Five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a short story partially inspired by that traumatic event

September 14th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

Five years ago this weekend, the American giant Lehman Brothers was allowed to go under, triggering a set of huge financial ripples which, all around the world, we are still feeling.

Four years ago, I started writing short stories and a lead character in my very first was a victim of the Lehman collapse. The story was called “Making A Difference” and you can read it here.

If you find that you enjoy my writing, you can access all 30 of my short stories here. Happy reading.

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What will other life forms think of humankind when they bump into Voyager 1?

September 13th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

It’s fascinating news that the first manmade object has left the solar system. It is, of course, the satellite probe Voyager 1 which was launched as long ago as 5 September 1977. Some scientists are still not convinced that its current position is really outside the solar system, but this is a technical argument that will soon be irrelevant.

The Voyager space probe carries a gold-plated audio-visual disc in the event the spacecraft is ever found by intelligent life-forms from other planetary systems. The discs carry photos of the Earth and its lifeforms, a range of scientific information, spoken greetings from people such as the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the United States and a medley, “Sounds of Earth”, that includes the sounds of whales, a baby crying, waves breaking on a shore, and a collection of music including works by Mozart, Blind Willie Johnson, Chuck Berry‘s “Johnny B. Goode“, Valya Balkanska and other Eastern and Western classics and ethnic performers.

Now I’m not at all sure that there are currently any other forms of intelligent life out there ready to access this material. Certainly we have absolutely no evidence to that effect. But, say that some alien came across Voyager today. What would it make of humankind? Already the the computers on board the probe have 240,000 times less memory than an iPhone. So these Little Green Men are going to think: “Gee, these guys haven’t even invented the smartphone yet”.

In fact, there is absolutely no chance of other life forms coming across Voyager any time soon. Although the probe is travelling at 11 miles per second, it will not reach the nearest star for another 40,000 years. Scientists do not belivee that any of the nearest stars can support life. So the probe will need to travel for many hundreds of thousands of years before there is any chance of it coming across another planet sustaining life.

Of course, that assumes that the other life form is sitting there waiting; it might have invented a form of space travel which enables it to come across Voyager in a lesser period of time. However, by then, humankind may not longer exist and the only record that we ever existed will be on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Depending on how long it takes for such an encounter to occur, Earth itself may no longer exist. And, if there are actually no other life forms around to pick up the Voyagers, they will simply travel on and on and on …..

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A railway station with more lines than usual

September 12th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

Today I used Victoria railway station in central London for one of my regular trips out to Snodland in Kent where I was chairing the Customer Challenge Group for South East Water. It is such a busy station that they’ve put coloured lines on the floor to indicate the direction to follow to find various features of the station. Of course, at the busiest times, you can hardly see the lines for people and, if you try to follow a line too closely, you’ll walk straight into people following one or more of the parallel lines. Such fun ..

Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)

Up to 10,000 visits to my web site

September 11th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

My web site – which includes this personal blog NightHawk and my professional blog CommsWatch – continues to receives a large number of visits, but the number varies by the day of the week and the month of the year.

This week, I’ve had a couple of days with just over 10,000 visits – something that hasn’t happened for two years [see this posting].

Around 47& of visits to my web site are to NightHawk, so many thanks for your support. Please spread the word.

Posted in Internet, My life & thoughts | Comments (2)

To what extent has Britain become a less politically committed society?

September 11th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

“Identifying with a political party is known to increase significantly the likelihood of voting for that party at election time … Traditionally party identification was rooted in social class … At the same time the Labour and Conservative parties took distinct positions on issues, mirroring their class-based support. As class self-identifications have changed and parties have reached out to non-core voters, we see a decline in partisanship and the power this once held when voting …

The proportion of people who identify with a particular political party has also declined over time. Over the past 30 years, we have asked people about this using a series of questions. [There is …] an overall decline in people saying they identified with a political party from around nine in ten people (87 per cent) in 1983 to under eight in ten (76 per cent) now. In 2012, one in five people (21 per cent) say they do not identify with any political party.”

This is an extract from a new study of social attitudes in Britain conducted by NatCen Social Research. You can access more information on the research here.

Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)

To what extent has Britain become a less Christian society?

September 11th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

“There is little doubt that a substantial change has taken place, with a marked decline in the proportion who describe themselves as belonging to a particular religion. In 1983, around two in three people (68 per cent) considered themselves to belong to one religion or another; in 2012, only around half (52 per cent) do so.

… this decline is in practice a decline in attachment to Anglicanism; in 1983 two in five people (40 per cent) said they were Anglican, and the Church of England could still reasonably lay claim to being England’s national church (and thus, arguably, to some extent its fount of moral authority). But now only 20 per cent do so.

In contrast, the proportion saying they belong to a religion other than Christianity has tripled from two to six per cent. Britain’s religious landscape has not only become smaller but also more diverse.”

This is an extract from a new study of social attitudes in Britain conducted by NatCen Social Research. You can access more information on the research here.

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