Britain's oldest mechanic is still working full-time - at the age of 99. Former Second World War Sergeant Major Buster Martin maintains a fleet of 100 vans for a plumbing firm, reports the Sun. He retired at 97 but he applied for his current job after three months because he found retirement 'boring'.
Former Second World War Sergeant Major Buster Martin maintains a fleet of 100 vans for a plumbing firm, reports the Sun.
He retired at 97 but he applied for his current job after three months because he found retirement 'boring'.
Want to save the planet? Wear your jeans two days a week, wash them every fifth day, and let them dry by themselves. Or better still don't wash them at all. And don't even think of ironing them. This is the conclusion of a report commissioned by France's environment agency on the ecological impact of a pair of denims. The study looked at an "average" pair of jeans - made of 600gm (1lb 5oz) of denim, lined with 38gm (just over an ounce) of polyester, with six rivets and a button, worn one day a week for four years, washed every third time in a highenergy machine at 40C and, in a singularly French twist, ironed before wear. ... It concluded that a French jeans wearer would damage the environment the least by buying denims made of cotton from a country not too far from Europe with strict anti-pollution laws. Machine washing, tumble drying, and ironing caused 47% of the eco damage the jeans caused - 240kWh of energy a year, equal to using 4,000 lightbulbs, each of 60 watts, for an hour. Dry cleaning was "an environmental disaster".
This is the conclusion of a report commissioned by France's environment agency on the ecological impact of a pair of denims. The study looked at an "average" pair of jeans - made of 600gm (1lb 5oz) of denim, lined with 38gm (just over an ounce) of polyester, with six rivets and a button, worn one day a week for four years, washed every third time in a highenergy machine at 40C and, in a singularly French twist, ironed before wear.
...
It concluded that a French jeans wearer would damage the environment the least by buying denims made of cotton from a country not too far from Europe with strict anti-pollution laws. Machine washing, tumble drying, and ironing caused 47% of the eco damage the jeans caused - 240kWh of energy a year, equal to using 4,000 lightbulbs, each of 60 watts, for an hour. Dry cleaning was "an environmental disaster".
Not that I wear jeans, but at last someone who speaks my language! And when I think that I get scoffed at when people see my unironed tee-shirts ...
How about: wear fewer clothes more often, wash them less often and don't iron them? guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
Residents unhappy about overcrowding caused by 3 million visitors a year The medieval hilltop town of San Gimignano, acclaimed as one of the jewels of Tuscany, is under such attack from tourism that local authorities are considering restricting the numbers of people allowed into the city at any one time. Three million tourists descend on the town, famed for its art-filled churches and picturesque skyline of towers, every year, surging through a cramped historical centre that measures only 900 metres by 500 metres. The influx has led to congested roads full of buses and cars and fears of environmental damage. It has also provoked complaints that traditional craftsmen are being edged out in favour of tacky souvenir shops. In an attempt to reverse the trend, town elders are to offer incentives to tourists to stay away during the busy summer period by promoting winter as an ideal time to visit, and offering discounted museum and gallery tickets.
The medieval hilltop town of San Gimignano, acclaimed as one of the jewels of Tuscany, is under such attack from tourism that local authorities are considering restricting the numbers of people allowed into the city at any one time.
Three million tourists descend on the town, famed for its art-filled churches and picturesque skyline of towers, every year, surging through a cramped historical centre that measures only 900 metres by 500 metres.
The influx has led to congested roads full of buses and cars and fears of environmental damage. It has also provoked complaints that traditional craftsmen are being edged out in favour of tacky souvenir shops.
In an attempt to reverse the trend, town elders are to offer incentives to tourists to stay away during the busy summer period by promoting winter as an ideal time to visit, and offering discounted museum and gallery tickets.
Financial Times - IBM chief calls for end to colonial companiesSam Palmisano, head of IBM, on Monday called on multinationals to evolve into a new type of corporation if they are to avoid an anti-globalisation backlash that leads to the election of governments hostile to the interests of big business. In a rare public intervention, Big Blue's chairman and chief executive writes in today's Financial Times that traditional multinational companies need to abandon their almost colonial approach to operations outside their home country. He cites as examples of this old-style method the way GM, Ford and his own company built factories in Europe and Asia but kept all the research and development in the US. nstead, he argues they need to move towards full global integration of their operations so as to stop the current unease about the forces of globalisation turning into an all-out assault on big business. The danger for multi-nationals that fail to change their thinking is that countries will elect political leaders who impose draconian labour regulations or try to constrain free trade.
In a rare public intervention, Big Blue's chairman and chief executive writes in today's Financial Times that traditional multinational companies need to abandon their almost colonial approach to operations outside their home country. He cites as examples of this old-style method the way GM, Ford and his own company built factories in Europe and Asia but kept all the research and development in the US.
nstead, he argues they need to move towards full global integration of their operations so as to stop the current unease about the forces of globalisation turning into an all-out assault on big business. The danger for multi-nationals that fail to change their thinking is that countries will elect political leaders who impose draconian labour regulations or try to constrain free trade.
Of course, now that that high-quality R&D can be done more cheaply in India, it's time to "decolonialize".
Well, I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Palmisano's global awareness contains a large self-serving component. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
On the one hand, R&D moving to India and China is good news for them, as it should boost their economy, bigger pay packets than assembly line or call centre work. It may also slow the brain drain from these countries.
But, where does this leave the comparative advantage theorists? Just what is going to be left behind in the more expensive "developed" world?
I long ago wrote a diary on comparative advantage (you could call it a first stab at "the irreversible thermodynamics of free trade", the Ph.D. dissertation I will never write ;-) which was well-received...
Here are our latest discussions of comparative advantage. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
It strikes me that I've read a lot about the mythic status of "Comparative Advantage" in connection with proof using simple game theory. Indeed, if you inspect the average college economics course you are almost guaranteed to find a very simple simulation set up to demonstrate how Comparative Advantage is real, despite its "counterintuitive nature."
(For myself I sometimes think that great play is made about the "counterintuitive nature" of Comparative Advantage in order to bolster it's mystique, but that is a discussion for another day.)
I seem to recall that you are in the simulation field to some degree at work. Would it possible to set up one of these "simple" demonstrations of Comparative Advantage, but add in movement of capital to that of goods?
Metatone, spell out the model you want to simulate in a diary, and I'll run the simulations. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
Stanislaw Ulam once challenged Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson to name one theory in all of the social sciences which is both true and nontrivial. Several years later, Samuelson responded with David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage: That it is logically true need not be argued before a mathematician; that it is not trivial is attested by the thousands of important and intelligent men who have never been able to grasp the doctrine for themselves or to believe it after it was explained to them. --Paul Samuelson
We may be living off the broken backs of the 3rd world, but few will accept a serious downgrading of their income in order to help out. It's the way people are. keep to the Fen Causeway
And if you don't have Sets you don't have mathematics as a necessarily Valid tool.
