I live 120 miles from one of the largest sporting events in the world and can see very little of it live because of broadcaster NBC’s policy. They save the big events for their evening show running form 7:30 to 11ish to maximize viewers and advertising money. Before now this has not been a problem, I get the Canadian broadcaster CBC and their coverage of…
Levein and the “men in Blazers”
There are two people I know that really care about Craig Levein’s appointment as Scotland manager – my dad and Steve from Prost-Amerika. Coaching Scotland today is something of a thankless task, there really is no depth or arguably true quality available for selection. After the Bertie Vogts disaster and Walter Smith walking out on the national team the Scottish FA needs some stability and…
First day back
It finally started getting noisy again. First test of the year is a rather nervous affair with a first day of school feeling about it. No one really sure what’s going to happen. Testing started in Valencia and the teams are making the usual “early to say much”, “everything went very well” and “very happy with the new car” noises one would expect. I had…
What’s next for NASA?
Just six years ago Bush talked about a new wave of space exploration that was designed in part to make NASA relevant in the eyes of the public. It was time to leave Low Earth Orbit, head back to the moon and perhaps onto Mars. Aerospace companies started setting up for a huge payday, engineers (including me) were excited by doing proper engineering research and…
Thatcher takes on the miners
In early 1984 McGregor announced the closure of 20 mines and the loss of 20,000 jobs. The reason given was to rationalize the public subsidy given to the industry by closing the most unprofitable pits.
The reimagination of unions
Arguably John Smiths biggest single contribution to making the Labour party relevant was getting rid of the trade union block votes and despite considerable trade union opposition establishing a policy of “one-member, one-vote”.
The impact of the highly improbable
I have just finished reading “The Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Black swan theory is used to explain rare, high impact events that were difficult to predict and leave some notable or significant legacy. The term “black swan” comes from the European conviction that all swans were white, and all historical data available backed this theory and therefore black swans did not exist. During…
Exhibit A – Concorde.
I was talking with a friend last night about beautiful machines, mechanical things that are more than the collection of their parts. Today we got in the car and visited what is for me “exhibit A” in this argument – Concorde. We drove to the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field; one of their star exhibits is Concorde G-BOAG. It sits there next to The…
The seats are being filled
Kubica has confirmed he will stay with Renault for 2010, hardly a surprising decision considering the lack of even remotely competitive options available. Decent drivers looking for rides in January have a certain air of desperation about it. Assuming he wanted to stay in F1 Kubica choices was limited to either staying with Renault or start over with one of the new teams. Assuming Jamie…
Time for a little reflection.
There has been time for a little reflection and I’ve got a few further thoughts on the draw – not to be unkind to any country, but if you could pick three countries to play in the first round, this is pretty close. USA are clearly the other quality team in the group and were arguably the best team in their pot. However it could…