100 Posts

I was one short of the 100 for this year, so with nothing to say here is the 100th post.

Not sure I can better this in 2010, 10 posts a month for 120 a year maybe?

The 2009 new year felt like it was going to be a year to forget, and it probably was.

Hope 2010 is going to be better.

Happy New Year

Fractional Reserve Banking

Interesting article on how banks are allowed to distribute money and keep an expanding money supply.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve

This in essence is what drives inflation, allowing banks to only keep a fraction of their depositors money on call and the rest loaned out. It is a necessary evil to keep volumes of money available to drive the businesses. Still not something anyone ever really talks about or is that widely known.

PM Podcast 30 December

Back to the world's least listened to podcast. Gordon Brown's Christmas message.

It is very broad brush, first some crazy misplaced optimism:

• We are to expect a decade of growth and prosperity. Quite where this comes from was not expanded on. Perhaps springboarding off the 200bn debt we have taken on?

Next some truth economy:

• The financial crisis hit us hard because of US housing market and our reliance on the finance sector. No mention of our banks rushing to invest in American property lending to people who had no chance of repaying.
• No standing by and letting people fail, especially the young. Nice idea, works if you are a bank - but for the rest of us the government would stand by and see your house repossessed or your business fail because of lack of loan availability.

What was not covered:

• Public sector reform is mentioned, but in all honesty it needs to be much higher up the political agenda. We are entering an era where we are going to have to do more with less. I want to know how that is going to be done.
• No mention on taxes, how are we going to keep Britain afloat in the next 5 years.

We should not be shielded from any of this, after all we are the ones paying. I just hope the election brings some of these tough decisions to the front.

Film: Blade Runner by Ridley Scott

Over the years I've made several attempts to watch this film in full and never succeeded. I tried again and failed. It is a very good science fiction film, and has not aged at all badly since 1982.

The only thing that dates it slightly are the captions which say "2019", not far off now - but that is a little unfair.

So I got about half way through again, a moody Harrison Ford looking to retire replicants. It probably is one of his better performances, being as he was trapped in the middle of the first Star Wars franchise.

Maybe I will get it on DVD and make myself watch it as it does deserve that attention. Ridley Scott is also a great director with such close attention to detail.

Type 45 : Test firing failure

Interesting article on the register:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/02/type_45_viper_paams_fail/

About the trial failure of the main missile system on the 45, adding a delay to the programme.
It also puts forward the argument of buying a working system would have been a better idea, rather than developing our own. Of course developing our own, keeps jobs in the defence industries, and also to some degree our technical independence.

Still it could be a while before these ships could ever go to a war zone.

Tony Blair interview

The BBC have an interview with Tony Blair, where one the the excerpts is the fact that even if Saddam did not have WMD he would have been in favour of making arguments for regime change.

But this all points to the fact that he needed the WMD argument to get past Parliament and it is likely he did not really believe he did have them. So to mislead Parliament to "get them out they way" is scandalous, but not a surprise for Blair who did not take the place that seriously.

This is perhaps all to soften the landing in terms of the inquiry that is going on, where he is due to give evidence soon.

HDTV on freeview

HDTV is going to come to FreeView, trialing in 2010. A little surprising as it's a fragmented platform with little commerical drive. It is where the licence payers who do not want Sky or Virgin will seek refuge after the digital switch off.

On the face of it I should be pleased but it maybe compromised, bandwidth issues and not all of the freed up analogue spectrum being available for television use. At the moment the government would love another "3G" sell off of that space given the state of the public finances!

Film: Sudden Impact Directed by Clint Eastwood

I always wanted Clint to have made more of these, but it turns out there were 5 Harry films.

This one is perhaps the most obscure and dark, I did not see it all because of a recording mess up - but probably not a great loss.

It does not have so many trade mark Harry lines, something with which the first was full of. Maybe it got bogged down in character development, and probably began to take itself too seriously.

5/10 watch it if you're an avid fan.

Sting Stung on Newsnight

Sting was being interviewed on Newsnight and it was one of those rare occasions that an interviewer asks the question you want asked.

I remember seeing an magazine interview years ago where he was preaching saving the Amazon, in itself a noble cause. Problem was he was in his drawing room of his stately house, surrounded by mahogany lined walls.

So the interviewer was straight there, "what's your carbon footprint, I hear you have a 240 strong touring crew - how much resource does that take up?"

He dealt with it well enough, mumbled something about offsetting (an economic con if there ever was one). In all honesty I think the causes he promotes are worthwhile, just should probably think about his own carbon contribution occasionally.

Maybe Prince Charles too?

Film: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot by Michael Cimino

Another Clint Eastwood film from the 1970s. I'd never heard of it so thought I'd give it a try. Not bad, a bit of a road trip film with two drifters who look to perform a heist with two other ageing criminals.

Some good classic cars and sequences and a surprising ending with the death of Lightfoot.

7/10