This is just so obviously the right thing to do: use a bicycle to get urgently needed help to someone hurt in London’s Heathrow Airport Terminal 5!

The fully decked out National Health Service [...]]]>

A medic at London Heathrow Airport, Terminal 5 uses a bicycle to get help fast to people in need.

This is just so obviously the right thing to do: use a bicycle to get urgently needed help to someone hurt in London’s Heathrow Airport Terminal 5!

The fully decked out National Health Service (NHS) bicycle has several bags of equipment hanging off the front and rear wheels, a couple of bright flashing lights on front and typical reflective yellow colouring of the NHS emergency services. There’s probably a horn somewhere on that front handlebar too.

The smile on the medic’s face can’t help but make anyone feel better as soon as they arrive!

Only thing missing is a trailer hitch to hook up a stretcher.

Dear Apple,

RIP Steve Jobs.

I didn’t know the two Steves when at age 11 my parents let me spend my CAN$1000 on an Apple ][+ computer. I had been using a Radio Shack TRS-80 for a year and wanted to stretch my abilities more. Little did I know that the company the [...]]]> To: rememberingsteve@apple.com

Dear Apple,

RIP Steve Jobs.

I didn’t know the two Steves when at age 11 my parents let me spend my CAN$1000 on an Apple ][+ computer. I had been using a Radio Shack TRS-80 for a year and wanted to stretch my abilities more. Little did I know that the company the two Steves built would shape my career choice.

Not soon after the Apple ][+ purchase, I had mastered Applesoft and, with my friend Peter Luscher, wrote the code for a bulletin board system (BBS). These were the days of analog, acoustic modem couplers -- when everyone knew 'MODEM' stood for modulator/demodulator!

The ComputerLand store in Oshawa, Ontario let us use their secondary telephone line after store hours and one of the Apple computers to run the site. We had dozens of regular callers every night and became one of the areas most popular places to visit online.

Then, every third Thursday of the month throughout my teenage years in the 1980s, I participated in DRAUG - the Durham Region Apple Users Group - sometimes giving presentations to audiences which often included my school teachers!

My confidence and skills grew (and I upgraded to an Apple //e) to the point where I was able to land a contracting job in my mid-teens interfacing an Apple to a custom hospital staff attack alarm system; win countless science and computer fairs using programs I wrote (favourite being a telephone answering system using my Apple); and land a job at that ComputerLand store where things got started! I sold lots of Apple //e, Apple //c and Macintosh (but no Lisa) computers.

I went off to the University of Waterloo in 1988 and graduated 5 years later with first class honours in Computer Engineering.

Without a doubt, the two Steves created a company that made products which were powerful and easy to use. They opened opportunities for people where once there was no knowledge of the opportunities even existing.

On the occasion today of Steve Jobs passing: a thank you for all the effort he put into keeping complexity away and quality in. There were a few stumbles - like the Lisa - but without them, there wouldn't be the successes.

Cheers,

~Andrew~
Andrew Reeves-Hall
now of Whitchurch, Hampshire, UK
and brought up in Whitby, Ontario, Canada

I have fuzzy memories of the first shuttle launch over 30 years ago; and oh! how I wish the Western World would get a [...]]]> The challenge of building a long-lasting space ship consumed the Western World for decades – and inspired countless youth to put in tremendous effort to be an engineer or scientist.

I have fuzzy memories of the first shuttle launch over 30 years ago; and oh! how I wish the Western World would get a focus back on something marvellously challenging again, to boost our economies and inspire our youth once again.

Too many accountants, bankers, and lawyers are being allowed to set the priorities these days; and not enough people with scientific and engineering backgrounds.

Governments are falling over themselves to privatise this and privatise that. I think, though, that some projects (and ideas!) are just too big to be contemplated by business alone. A government with access to mind-boggling resources needs to set a course, set an inspiration, for BUILDING BIG things.

Where are the politicians with the guts to stand up and say, ‘Yes – I want to see us achieve this very difficult and challenging goal, and here is a bunch of money dedicated to doing that’?

Where a ‘bunch’ need only be as much to include some government led projects, and a gaggle of businesses feeding in supplies.

Along the way, mysterious things will happen. Things that bring benefits not even dreamed of.

Yes, I have two feet on the ground. There are serious financial issues facing many Western Countries. Bail outs. Debt Ceilings. These are serious issues and must be properly addressed. I agree.

Let us, though, tell our politicians over and over again that engineering and science matters. These are LONG TERM, not quarterly or election driven, goals.

And here’s a thought: maybe a long-term figurehead should be promoting these long-term goals?

In the UK, this could be the monarchy. Wouldn’t it be great if they took it on to provide the vision that stretched across the generations?

In the USA, it seems ex-business leaders might be the ones to do this (look what Microsoft’s Bill Gates is doing for example).

The media is needed to be on board with this too. It is so easy for reporters to just regurgitate the latest quarterly report or knee-jerk campaign.

NASA, I believe, was right to put outreach and media at the core of their operations. This created a culture of long-term thinking and inspiration.

Let’s encourage a cross-generational, higher plane of inspirational, multi-national creative building of BIG things.

The space shuttle – RIP: here are the bookends…the first launch and the last landing….

Big countries we know within a continent most don't

and if you have ever been baffled by terms like “UK”, “England”, “Commonwealth” and the like, then this video is for you (it even is good for those of us living [...]]]> I love this graphic of Africa – it is one very big place!

Big countries we know within a continent most don't

and if you have ever been baffled by terms like “UK”, “England”, “Commonwealth” and the like, then this video is for you (it even is good for those of us living here in England, UK):

Continuing my recent theme of creating mash-ups (here and here), here is one more, this time a ‘not-to-scale’ mashup inspired by the shape of the BBC/NOAA oil-slick forecast image for 16 May 2010 and the BBC/MetOffice ash cloud forecast for 5 May [...]]]>

Mashup of BBC images of oil slick and ash cloud forecasts

Continuing my recent theme of creating mash-ups (here and here), here is one more, this time a ‘not-to-scale’ mashup inspired by the shape of the BBC/NOAA oil-slick forecast image for 16 May 2010 and the BBC/MetOffice ash cloud forecast for 5 May 2010.

The slick is actually probably about one-tenth the size of the UK; and I believe there to be no volcanos anywhere near New Orleans.