InternetPower.Org Bridport Index home page Don't Let the Power Go to your HeadSummary: The major fault that happens in any organisation is that people get hold of power and let it go to their heads. They go mad with it and do things way beyond the limits of sense - moves which interfere with the wellbeing of others and grossly exceed the legitimate use of authority. We will from time to time give an InternetPower.Org Despot of the Moment Award to the person or organisation who in our view is most visibly demonstrating this tendency at that moment. |
The Cost of EnergyEnergy costs are currently a hot topic in the UK (today being 24th February 2012). We've made an effort to cut through the haze by comparing, or at least trying to compare, the costs of keeping warm by various methods. Energy is rising in price and knowing the costs of different methods can help us make good decisions and avoid being caught out when suppliers try to make too much cash out of our need for warmth. By figuring out the costs and calorific values of fuels you can avoid feeling ripped off and take steps to keep warm at a price you can afford.
The Best Thing You can Do to Help Global WarmingStay in bed for one hour longer every day during winter... Reduce energy consumption - stay in bed - you know it makes sense Do you agree (how can you not...)? Send us your comments. Thanks. Update on 19th August 2011:According to BBC News gas prices are about to rise by 15%. Staying in bed is even more sensible. I'm writing this in bed now... Update 8th February 2012 - It's Winter and I'm writing this in bed... having found a wonderful artwork on Wikipedia - "The Bed" by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. You can find more about it here. The painting is housed in the Musee d'Orsay. Service Quality offered by AirlinesFor those who feel they have to fly, choosing the wrong airline can mean having a bad time. A straw poll of people I know (January 2011) gives these results on a scale of roughly 0 to 10 for overall satisfaction: CityJet - 8 BA - 6 when flying from LCY (London City), 3 from Terminal 5 at LHR KLM - 2. But VLM whkch is a subsidiary of KLM - 8 Ryanair - 0. Avoid. Update 19th August 2011: A friend who rarely travels abroad went to see her mum in Spain and chose the cheapest airline - Ryanair - and returned swearing she'd never do it again... The InternetPower.Org Energy Plan for the UK
Some people will have a hard time with this plan - but not the ones you think... Why? Because the trick is to use less. This does not make money, but it saves money. The greedy things are Car travel Air travel Kettles Cooking Space heating of empty rooms Making things we don't need _______We can solve the issue by travelling less and using less, by wearing more in the cold weather (each layer of clothing means comfort in about 3 degrees Celsius less, and less still if you are exercising or doing even light physical work). We will use highly localised heat sources to keep warm. This is where kettles are good - to fill hot water bottles. But the right kettle to use is one that sits on a woodstove... We will harvest biomass for heat. The volume of biomass that is produced naturally and without effort is enormous - and most of it rots. We need about 10% of that to keep ourselves warm... _______We will have fun using less. We'll get to know our neighbours - and learn to share (it takes learning, it takes attention to detail) - sharing land to grow things, sharing resources like cars and washing machines, sharing houses to save heating bills. Living with others makes sense - and does take some learning. _______We'll create new sources of power. These will include schemes to generate electricity from wind, tidal, solar and wave energy. At first it will seem that these sources cannot meet our "needs" - but they will. The Grid will move the power to where it's needed. New technologies, some unforeseen, will be developed - but not to satisfy the greed of individuals as has fuelled the development of the systems we have now. We already see the signs of a solar land grab... some with selfish motives, but many altruistic individuals are making moves to make power. There was a time when the wind moved everything that needed moving beyond the range of horses... and that time will come again. _______This written by PowerMonger on 27th November 2009 - the date on which "The Age Of Stupid" is being shown at Bridport Arts Centre, Bridport, Dorset, UK. Read about The Age Of Stupid on Wikipedia Here. ___________________________________________________Don't let the Power Go to your HeadWe have noticed that influential people get carried away and they let the power go to their heads - until the rest of us that surround them gang up and stop them. Examples include many political leaders, artists, performers and also other people who aren't in the public eye... so we have created the Despot of the Moment AwardThis is our award given from time to time to whoever has, in that moment, let the power go to their head. The Motto of the Award is: You can do anything you like as long as you don't wind anyone up. And the first Despot of the Moment award goes to... the cyclist who ran a red light today, the 10th September 2008, in Bridport town centre. It was about 11-40am when I crossed South Street and this wholefoodie type (like me) cycled brazenly across the line when the light was on red. He then hovered about in the middle of the junction (with East and West Streets) and as I was crossing East Street, with the green man showing, he came towards me and I said "Watch it! This is green!" He muttered something and carried on... across the crossing. I went about my business, and as I returned, I saw him again, wheeling his bike across West Street. I said "Not you again!" and he recognised me whereupon we had a right set to. I said "You went through a red light". He said "I was pushing my bike..." to which I said "You weren't when I saw you earlier, you rode through a red light". I'm not sure, looking back, whether he got it that I'd seen him ride across the stop line at South Street when the light was against him, he thought I'd only seen him at the point I spoke to him. But we dingdonged it all the way down West Street to the wholefood shop, whereupon he disappeared inside (fortunately I wanted something from outside) and hastily left as I entered, after he'd called me pathetic for giving so much energy to telling him off and not bothering with the real problems of the world, to which I said I was plenty bothered by other things and the one in my face was him riding through a red light and it was my choice to have a go if I wanted to... and I certainly wanted to. To see what a general problem this is, I entered "cyclists going through red lights" into Google and found loads of stuff - a lot of people all over the world are really annoyed with cyclists who think it's cool to run red lights, not knowing who they might knock over in the process... ...nor do they realise the costs they might suffer. On February 29th, 2008, Kiera Coultas was jailed by Southampton Crown Court for 4 years for driving at 45mph in a 30mph zone, and sending a text message while driving, at a time when she hit and killed a cyclist. And there in the report, plain for all to see, not that it got noticed much: "Jordan Wickington, 19, died from head injuries when he went through a red light (Our emphasis) and was struck by Kiera Coultas's car..." (from the BBC News Website - 29th February 2008 ). Cyclists, don't let the freedom and power go to your head! Please resist the temptation to cross the line at a red else you could pay the ultimate price - your life - even if you avoid injuring someone else. The second Despot of the Moment Award goes to Amazon (amazon.co.uk) for theatening their staff with dismissal if they get ill! Further details are here as reported by Times Online. It makes for horrible reading and I for one will not again buy from Amazon. Among things found out by The Sunday Times are: staff have to ask permission to go to the toilet; are not allowed sick leave even if they have a doctor's note; staff have to walk up to 14 miles per shift to collect items for packing; and they have quotas for packing which are often described by their own managers as ridiculous e.g. 140 Xbox consoles per hour. Amazon is reported to be "the most popular website" for Christmas shopping, and while their management, in a reply reported by Times Online, say (among much else): "We want our associates to enjoy working at Amazon.co.uk...", they do pay only 57p an hour more than the legal minimum wage - an hourly rate of ??6.30 per hour for a day shift. Congratulations, Amazon! Not only are you the favourite website for the UK's Christmas shoppers, you have won the Second Despot of the Moment Award from InternetPower.Org! May all our viewers have more fun supporting their local high street stores - preventing their destruction by the 21st Century slave-drivers like Amazon, Tesco and their ilk. Just remember that Tesco Eliminates Small Community Operated shops... And the bad news is I had no choice but to go to Amazon to get hold of one of those One Laptop Per Child computers.... The good news of this week, though, is that a friend of mine has applied for and looks likely to get a large increase in his holiday from 5 weeks to 9 in exchange for a pro rata reduction in his pay. Now that's what I call wisdom - a good use of personal power. |
