Surely, surely, surely the FAI can’t think that a home friendly against England is a good idea. After all,
the Republic of Ireland and England have not met since February 1995 when, with the hosts leading 1-0 through David Kelly’s goal, visiting fans rioted and caused he game to be abandoned.
Perhaps time and life shall prove me wrong.
It’s depressing that it’s hard to argue with Jim Kunstler:
Personally, I believe the age of Happy Motoring is over. Many Americans have already bought their last car – they just don’t know it yet.
Can culture change anything? Paulo wants to hear from you.
Apparently we’re related to kangaroos. Now I feel a little guilty about eating this distant cousin of mine in a pie one evening. Tasty, though.
A blast from the Lifehacker archives worth keeping close to hand: manage your online reputation.
Even the Department of the Taoiseach is going without a Christmas party. I guess this is Brian Cowen’s attempt to help save the public finances.
So very tired, but here we go:
A chaffinch map of Scotland: “The work looks deceptively simple, while in fact it is a cleverly multilayered combination of poetry, cartography, ornithology, linguistics, and maybe just a hint of Scottish nationalism”. I love the oddities of the internet.
Strip websites back to basics.
Like ice, penguins, clouds and atmospheric disturbances? Then you’ll love this selection.
I can sympathise with the Transformers. But Pokemon? Super-soakers? C’mon.
And if you haven’t had enough after that, try love, romance and other natural disasters.
Even Times Square is getting climate conscious.
Living in the shadow of past glory is not easy for some Egyptians.
Well that didn’t take long, did it, Blizzard?
It’s more a WTFland: a Soviet bunker in Lithuania that has been reopened as a tourist attraction.
As Environmental Graffiti notes:
Tourists pay 120 LTL (€34.75) each to step back into 1984 as a temporary USSR citizen for 2.5 hours. On entry, all belongings, including money, cameras and phones, are handed over and under the watchful eye of guards and alsatians, tourists change into threadbare Soviet coats and are herded through the bunker.
Experiences include watching TV programs from 1984, wearing gas masks, learning the Soviet anthem under duress, eating typical Soviet food (with genuine Soviet tableware) and even undergoing a concentration-camp-style interrogation and medical check.
Most of the ‘actors’ are ex-Soviet soldiers, although the bunker is designed for school groups so it’s not as bad as it could be. But still, would you pay for the experience?
I’m getting feeds reloading back as far as 2004. They’re isolated so far, but include the feed for this site as well as AFP and Slashdot. I may have to look in to using another feedreader.
It is one of those ideas that is so obvious it is difficult to imagine why somebody did not think of it sooner: a floating rig that collects wave, solar, thermal and wind energy.
One of these hexagonally-shaped islands could generate 250 megawatts (enough power for a small city), Michaelis said. Even more power is possible by mooring together several Energy Islands into a small archipelago that could include greenhouses for food, a small harbor for ships and a hotel for tourists.
Although the focus is on using the other technologies to help ocean thermal energy conversion, I think the idea could have plenty of merit even without this. It won’t be cheap, at about $600m per energy island, but it could pay for itself through desalinisation or aquaculture.
It would be important to ensure that such facilities do not interfere with marine life: with so many fish species already threatened, it would be stupid to run the risk of further depopulation (although I confess ignorance of fish stocks in tropical waters). There are also a great many dead zones in world waters, and I would be concerned that the pumping up of so many nutrients could create new ones; I’m sure such possibilities will be dealt with if such projects get funding.
It’s also unclear how far offshore these islands would be: too close, and public opinion will be against populating pretty sea views with technology.