One voiceover in the morning (relaxed), another in the afternoon (frantic) and then a briefing from an industrial designer for the launch of a fantastic new electrically powered vehicle. It's not a car, but if I tell you what it is, I'll have to kill you.

Just been skyping with an old director friend from a spa in Naantali, now I have to buckle down and get writing for other projects. If I'm a good boy, I'll watch some 'Being Human' later.

You can't be me, I'm taken

Meanwhile, in Britain, via Yves Smith, people have been digging into the details of the government forecast, and finding that it relies on the assumption that household debt will rise to new heights relative to income:

UK Office of Budget Responsibility

Why? Because the only way the economy can avoid taking a hit from government cuts is if private spending rises to fill the gap -- and although you rarely hear the austerians admitting this, the only way that can happen is if people take on more debt. So we have the spectacle of a government that inveighs against the evils of debt pinning all its hopes on an assumption that over-indebted households will dig their hole even deeper.

While the Bible may be one of the bestselling books of all time, it has its fair share of critics, from followers of other religions, to atheists stunned by the sheer brutality of the Old Testament, to those with little interest in endless lists of who begat who.

Now a fresh group is getting in on the Bible bashing, with the animal rights organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals suggesting that Christianity's holy text is "speciesist". Responding to news that the latest New International Version will use more gender-inclusive language, PETA vice president Bruce Friedrich, who is a Catholic, told CNN that the book will continue to use language discriminatory towards animals:

Vestas Chief Executive Engel Unveils New 7-Megawatt Offshore Wind Turbine

Vestas Wind Systems A/S today unveiled a new 7-megawatt wind turbine aimed at helping the Danish company vie with Siemens AG (SIE) of Germany for the biggest share of the offshore wind power market.

The new V164 machine is the first in Vestas's history specifically designed for offshore wind, Chief Executive Officer Ditlev Engel said in London. The turbine has more than twice the capacity of the V90 and V112 models currently made for offshore use by the Randers, Denmark-based company.

Video at Vestas's presentation showed the blades will sweep an area bigger than Wembley Stadium. The turbines will be taller than the London office tower known as the Gherkin.

"This is a product that will set new standards in offshore wind and the energy industry," Engel said. "The tower, the blades are going to be so huge that it will need a completely new manufacturing facility in a coastal location." He didn't say in which country that might be built.

Vestas and Munich-based Siemens are working to win supremacy in the offshore wind market. Of the 3,045 megawatts of installed sea-based wind capacity in Europe by the end of last year, 1,391 megawatts are from Vestas machines while Siemens has 1,357 megawatts, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance data.

The corporate PR can be found here

Wind power

keep to the Fen Causeway

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Global radiative forcing from contrail cirrus : Nature Climate Change : Nature Publishing Group

Globally, the long-wave radiative forcing due to contrail cirrus (after correcting the scattering component of the long-wave forcing from the model³⁰) amounts to 47.1 mW m⁻² and short-wave radiative forcing to −9.6 mW m⁻², resulting in a net radiative forcing of 37.5 mW m⁻².

...Assuming that the decrease in natural-cirrus coverage amounts to approximately one fifth of the global contrail-cirrus coverage (as we have found a maximum of 2% (1.5%) decrease of natural-cirrus coverage downstream of the areas of 10% (6%) contrail-cirrus coverage over Europe (US)), the feedback due to this change in natural-cirrus cloudiness would induce a cooling of approximately a fifth of contrail-cirrus radiative forcing, that is −7 mW m⁻². This estimate is very uncertain and further work is needed to more reliably quantify the feedback.

That leaves about 30 mW m⁻². Compared to the grand total of 1.6 W/m², that's still miniscule, though the Spiegel article says that it exceeds air traffic contribution via CO2 emissions. (Diagram below from Wikipedia, with "linear contrails" from data preceding this study.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

I ride through red lights when there is no need and it's safe to do so as well, so I have sympathy with the cameraman on this.

keep to the Fen Causeway

[Colorado Springs] has received 8.9 inches of snow since flurries began appearing last fall, which is 26.5 inches below average. A few more flurries or raindrops could fall today and Wednesday, but no significant precipitation is forecast for the last few days of the region's snowiest month.

Should no more powder fall in the city this year, it would rank as one of the driest on record. The city's least-snowiest winter came in 1945-46, when a paltry 7.3 inches of snow fell. The winter of 1907-08 ranks second, with 15.7 inches, while the winter of 2001-02 -- which preceded the Hayman fire that burned tens of thousands of acres northwest of Colorado Springs -- is third.

Much of the rest of the state east of the Continental Divide is under similar duress.

http://www.gazette.com/articles/springs-115338-imagine-snow.html#ixzz1I87XTG81

and the bloody thing has forced me onto firefox 4 so no tribext. Will have to reinstall the old version before tuesday

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.