vivweb01blog

  A couple of years ago I attempted to answer the question ' Are we alone in the universe '.  At risk of appearing to be a 'glutton for punishment' I thought it would be useful to follow this up by looking at an even weightier and topical question - 'How did the universe start and how will it end ?'. There is a lot of argument about this currently, with the principal 'Big Bang' theory, until recently taken as gospel by cosmologists, now being challenged in the light of new evidence from the JWST. More evidence suggesting the presence of 'bio-signature' gases in the atmosphere of a nearby exoplanet has also caught the media's attention and promoted discussion about our place in the universe recently. Read on for a short 'journey into cosmology' to whet your appetite for the arguments to come... Introduction The Big Bang theory still remains the favoured explanation for the history of the universe amongst cosmologists. However, in the...

  Calling All DVD & Blu-Ray Fans.... During the past couple of decades I’ve amassed a sizeable collection of DVDs, and more recently some Blu-Ray discs. I’m unlikely to have time to watch all these now, and rather than go through the hassle of trying to sell them individually on eBay (and making next to nothing after eBay fees are deducted !), I’ve decided to be kind to the Environment and recycle them by offering them for sale for virtually nothing to any interested readers using this blog platform and my website (better than seeing them end up in a skip and adding to our landfill woes !). The discs are in various formats ranging from collections of 12 discs of a certain genre (e.g. Sci-Fi, Action, Drama), through double-sided multi-film discs to conventional single-sided discs. I'm happy to sell them with or without boxes - postage will of course be cheaper without. All discs have been checked and are playable, and many are unused, some are even unopened in their original w...

  Unfortunately it's more likely than you might think….here’s why. There are a host of opportunities for a would-be hacker to find a way into your email account, and some of the 'professionals' are really expert at it.  We’re all familiar with many of these methods, ranging from phishing emails designed to elicit personal info from you by purporting to be someone else, to the use of ‘easy to guess’ account passwords which never get changed. I won’t list them all here, but the results are worrying, particularly when it comes to more vulnerable individuals, or those who are not sufficiently ‘computer savvy’ to realise the dangers. One into your account, hackers can usually glean enough info to steal your identity. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), there were 1,291 publicly reported data breaches and ca 166 million victims in 2022 - if taken at face value, this means there's a good chance that hackers may already have access to your email account...

Last year  I took a look at various options that we in the UK might use for energy conservation as part of a wider review of our energy crisis and its consequences.  Since then, political parties of all hues have weighed in on the ‘greening’ debate and there appears to be a general consensus that we need to replace fossil fuels with renewables and nuclear for our energy generation and supply. The only dispute is over how quickly we should do it, and in the UK at least this is tied up with the pre-election tussle between the two major parties. (Sunak's recent 'go slow' initiative was designed primarily to wrong-foot Labour on their over-hasty introduction of Cameron's eloquently described 'green crap' and was I suspect largely based on the Uxbridge motoring electorate's by-election 'shot across the bows' against Labour in response to Khan's over-enthusiastic widening of London's ULEZ. It may in practice have given them few crumbs of comfort,...

  Introduction ‘Big Tech’, as the corporate technology giants are often collectively known, have a business model that is based on planned obsolescence. Their argument for defending this practice in the face of recent and growing worldwide concern about e-waste is that they are merely responding to consumer demand, and must therefore ‘innovate to survive’.   What they carefully avoid highlighting is that their products are designed to be replaced frequently,  are usually not ‘upward compatible’ and don’t allow easy upgrades or repairs to the existing product. This applies not just to hardware but to the firmware (i.e. chips) and software (i.e. programs) that invariably control it. Indeed, one of the most frequently used tools in big tech’s ‘obsolescence arsenal’ is introducing new software and / or firmware that is incompatible with older hardware. Moreover, upgrades are often installed automatically, with users having to take active steps to switch off auto-install to...

  I first published this in summer of '22 around the time of the mini-budget and the ensuing financial crisis, when prayer was back in fashion, particularly for those with risky investments...it remains relevant at a time when our uncertainties seem to be increasing, rather than starting to resolve themselves..... Introduction As is often quoted: ‘..there are only two certainties in life – death and taxes…’.   In the UK recently we have all heard quite enough about taxes recently, so I’ll focus on the former in this article, if I may, as a diversion from our economic woes. As we age, our thoughts naturally turn to the prospect of our own deaths – and what might or might not happen to us afterwards. Although death itself is a certainty for all of us, there is a surprising reluctance on the part of society to discuss its practicalities and consequences, both physical and spiritual.  In my view, this enduring taboo makes the subject more painful than it need be,  ...