Archive for January, 2010
Gary Neville, the footballing Captain Planet
Posted by Powwownowgreen in Opinions on January 29th, 2010
[An artist's impression of Gary Neville's new eco-mansion.
Photo: MAKE ARCHITECTS OF LONDON]
This week I’d like to congratulate Gary Neville for again trying to do his bit for the environment by introducing some radical designs for a state-of-the-art zero-carbon house.
Known as an eco-warrior in the footballing world, the former England defender already drives a Toyota Prius hybrid car to training, probably to the amusement of his Manchester United colleagues. And now, after three years’ hard work, he and architect firm Make have submitted their designs for the 8,000 sq ft super eco-home on his Harwood estate.
According to the Telegraph, the new building is so advanced that the Government wants to use the scheme as a benchmark for all future zero-carbon developments. The home will boast the latest in green technology, including sourcing energy from solar panels, wind turbine and a ground-source heat pump. Plus, renewable energy produced by the wind turbine will also power Neville’s neighbourhood property and all excess energy will be supplied back to the national grid.
Although long-term we’re sure this is a positive move, it is worth questioning how much damage will be done just making this revolutionary house. How much carbon will need to be emitted just to transport and operate the diggers, cranes and powerful other machinery, not to mention all the travel to and from the site by the workers?
I guess we’ll never find out the exact figures, but I wonder how many years of zero-carbon living will Gary Neville and his family have to do to make up for all the carbon emissions that it’s taken to build the house in the first place. Let’s hope they like it!
All I think we do know is that it’s highly unlikely that Carlos Tevez will be the first name on the house-warming invitation list.
Why the big conspiracy?
Posted by Powwownowgreen in Opinions on January 28th, 2010
[image courtesy of Daniel Bos]
One of the delights of the internet is that no matter how obscure your interests, you’re likely to find somebody out there with the same interests as you. Whether river dancing, Eastern European gangster movies or plate spinning floats your boat, you’ll have no problem finding someone else out there who’s into it, too. It’s just one of the reasons the internet is so great.
Of course it also means that those with more controversial views can find others with the same beliefs. A view that they may have seemed ludicrous to them when it first popped into their heads suddenly gains extra weight once they find other people with views in line with their own, no matter how extraordinary. Their views are reinforced and soon a mass of ‘believers’ form.
And I can’t help feel that this is what has happened with a lot of climate sceptics. After a couple of experts backtracked on predictions made many years ago about the effects of climate change, many have been quick to call conspiracy.
For instance, this month the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change retracted a claim that the Himalayas’ glaciers will all have melted by 2035. While yesterday New Scientist said the IPCC needs to become more open to criticism because “its closed world of peer review is no longer possible, let alone desirable”.
The sceptics now have their ammunition, and now we have a whole faction hell bent on completely dismissing the idea of human-assisted climate change, despite it being a very real possibility, if not a probability.
Now the responsibility lies with the experts to make sure they don’t make the same mistakes again. They’ll no doubt be eager to make sure they get their facts straight before they release what will now always be heavily scrutinised information.
As the Government’s chief-scientific adviser Professor John Beddington said this week, scientists must be more open with their data and he admitted that recent unreliable statements about climate change have been “unfortunate.”
The key, I believe, for both theorists and sceptics alike is to keep an open mind. Nobody can yet be sure about the true effect human behaviour has on climate change and only assessing new scientific evidence both sensibly and methodically will ensure we really find out the truth in the future.
Cake Club Quarter finals 2
Posted by Stewart.Millard in Events on January 21st, 2010
This week saw the second quarter final with Nick and Zarah battling it out for a place in the semi finals, both cakes were amazing.
Zarah produced a lovely Chocolate Banana Cake (bottom) and Nick produced a Carrot Cake (Top one)
After much tasting and votes being cast we saw Nick Triumph to a 9-5 victory.
Next week we are due to have Carl and Mike fight for a place in the semi finals
Tune in next week for the result!
Powwownow implements new media gateway solution, delivered by Squire Technologies.
Posted by Casey Williams in News, Partnerships, Techie Talk on January 20th, 2010
Last year, Powwownow replaced their 10 existing Cisco Media Gateways with an SS7 Media Gateway, a one box solution from Squire Technologies. The change has reduced operating costs and lowered power consumption by 66%.
Looking to increase revenue and service levels, Squire Technologies BT approved SS7 Media Gateway provided a scalable single box solution that delivered carrier grade SS7 to VoIP interconnect.
“Simple engagement with no contracts and no billing is Powwownow’s ethic, providing millions of affordable and easy to use conference calls worldwide. Service levels such as these require maximum resilience and our existing fleet of Cisco AS5400s were extremely power hungry and challenging to manage – the SS7 Media Gateway supplied by Squire Technologies has provided us a seamless single box solution ” – Paul Lees, Joint CEO.
The SVI_MG 8000 SS7 Media Gateway replaced 10 existing Media Gateways with a much higher bandwidth STM-1 interface allowing us to reduce our power consumption by 66%. Squire Technologies worked closely with us to gain official BT CAT, NIF and NIT testing making the SS7 Media Gateway an approved BT interconnect product. Since the initial BT deployment the unit has been upgraded to provide further STM-1 interconnect at BT and to other European carriers.
“This was a very exciting opportunity for Squire Technologies and I would like to thank Powwownow for sponsoring us through the BT interconnect approval process. We look forward to working with Powwownow now and in the future helping them to support their continued growth in the Conference Calling market.” -
Simon Dinnage, Business Development Director, UK
About Squire Technologies
Established in 2001, Squire Technologies Ltd has experienced rapid growth providing Carrier Grade Telecoms Products and Services to the Telecommunication Industry worldwide with deployments in more than 50 countries.
Cake Club Quarter Finals 1
Posted by Louise.Rowlands in Events on January 15th, 2010
The first quarter final took place on Monday between Mark & Aurelie.
Mark made a chocolate cheese cake…
…and Aurelie made a tart with apple and dried fruit:
Both were delicious but Mark triumphed with 7 votes to 5.
I am away for the next two weeks and for this time Stew will be in charge of cake club.
I have had to make a slight change to the running order so Nick & Zahra are up on Monday.
11 January – Mark v’s Aurelie
18 January – Nick v’s Zahra
25 January – Mike v’s Carl
2 February – Louise v’s Jana
Cake Club Round Five
Posted by Louise.Rowlands in Events on January 15th, 2010
Many thanks to John and Zahra for making this weeks’ cake club a very eventful affair!
It was the first time we have ever had a hung jury with both cakes, and I am using that term loosely, gaining 5 votes each. We were forced to draft in Juha, Luiza and Chris as reluctant deciders.
In the end Zahra’s cake triumphed with seven votes to John’s six
Well done both, top marks for effort and taking part.
Zahra will now meet Nick in the last of our quarter finals.
The snow may be melting away, but the relevance of climate change remains
Posted by Powwownowgreen in Opinions on January 14th, 2010
[Image courtesy of Marquisa]
The recent ‘big freeze’ that has struck the UK and large parts of the northern hemisphere has pushed global warming right back into the spotlight (if it was ever out of it) and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the climate change sceptics are quick to use it as evidence of the ‘myth’ of global warming. Surely one of the most prolonged cold periods in recent British history surely suggests that the earth is not getting warmer? Well, according to this rather interesting Greenpeace blog, it has no relevance whatsoever. As they point out:
“Winters will always be colder than summer, and the possibility of snow will always be there. What climate change will likely influence is the frequency and severity of extreme weather events: droughts that would have been called “once in a century” might become “once in a decade”, or worse, “once a year”.”
So far no-one has presented that decisive evidence that proves climate change is indeed cause by increased and prolonged carbon emissions by an increasingly industrialised world but, even if you think climate change is a myth, surely there can be no harm in preparing for something that could turn out to be a certainty. Cutting down on your personal emissions isn’t hard and can only do good – for your bank balance, for a start!
A large part of the problem must come with the now dated expression ‘global warming.’ The phrase has needed a ‘re-brand.’ Scientists refer to it as climate change, not global warming, because their beliefs now claim that the damage to the earth’s atmosphere is more likely to result in unpredictable weather conditions, not just a rise in the earth’s temperature.
Many sceptics say that this supposedly freak weather is such a peculiarity that little can be done to prepare for it in the future. But who’s to say that this sort of weather won’t become the norm in the future? As the Telegraph reported this week:
“The floods in the Lake District last year were passed off by the Environment Agency as a ‘once in every 1000 years weather event’. Unfortunately, once in every 1,000 year events will start to occur with alarming frequency now that the effects of climate change are starting to be felt.”
And if so, how long will it be before the sceptics sit up and take notice and try to do something about it?
‘Snow days’ – perfect for a Powwownow
Posted by Powwownowbizfish in News on January 5th, 2010
[image courtesy of Lars Trebing]
The Met Office this morning warned that tonight the south of England could join our friends in the north by seeing several inches of snow fall – up to 40cm in some areas. In fact, there’s a good chance that by the time you read this you’ll be snowed in already.
If you’re off work, ’snow days’, as they’ve become known, are great. Building snowmen, hurling snow balls and making snow angels. Yes, even if you’re fully grown (don’t pretend you don’t). For those having to work, however, it can be a nightmare. You feel restricted. Travel is laboured at best and a non-starter at worst. You can’t get to the office to access your computer or your files and national productivity seems to grind to a halt.
But a snow day is the perfect time for a Powwownow. Meetings can be re-arranged and you can still catch up with work colleagues even if your car won’t budge. Productivity can continue.
It also means you can follow the good advice from the fellows down at the TUC by staying at home in the warm, avoiding the risk of slipping over on the pavement and hurting yourself or getting in your car and going ice skating.
In fact, the only place you’ll need to go is here.
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