A charity 'Practical Action' claims use of technology to help people escape poverty; fair enough, a laudable aim. However, the recent announcement of a competition to win a Micro$oft Window$ portable computer, with Corel video editing software, was a surprise. It made me think less of the videos and more about a missed opportunity.

A prize to win a ( Read more... )

Whilst it was refreshing to see a primarily British energy charity comment about development of energy resources in Ethiopia, can't help but be amused at the omission of hydro-electric energy. The quoted DESERTEC initiative has been condemned by some as another "scramble for Africa II" analogous to the Berlin conference 1884; exporting energy to ( Read more... )

When poor, freely accessible resources become very valuable! Have found an e-book web site of predominantly engineering content, biased towards subjects of relevance/interest:

• Biomass Now - Cultivation and Utilization
• Progress in Gas Turbine Performance
• Biomass Now - Sustainable Growth and Use
• Thermal Power Plants - Advanced Applications
• Liquid, ( Read more... )

The issue of automatic data collation as described by pmr's blog post about a "content mine" reminded of a previous encounter about this topic via the recent World Bank open access week web seminar, which announced Dr Mietchen as an ASAP finalist with his Wikimedia media data importer tool. Seems that Dr Mietchen' multimedia extraction tool could ( Read more... )

It has been suggested in a recent University of Cape Town blog that the price of carbon is primarily a reflection of potential climate change (I say "potential" as a climate change sceptic, not that anthropogenic emissions will impact climate, but sceptical about how models describe these potential impacts. I'm not the only sceptic, which should be ( Read more... )

Replying to a blog-post in CAT (Centre for Alternative Energy, Wales UK), in which the complexity of biomass compared to other renewable energy resources is so often ignored by those with narrow agendas.

Firstly, disclaimer: am a biomass researcher, so expect such bias ( Read more... )

Had a quick laugh, about adapting to the cut in research funding: "Rich Scientist, Poor Scientist". Is there anywhere on this planet (Masdar excepted) where researchers are recognised (i.e. paid properly) for their skills?

OK, a quick break for a cup of tea, then back to the research grant application document...

In reply to a comment about the development of an Ethiopian hydro-electric dam, my opinion:

Egypt and Sudan should demonstrate ability to achieve co-operation with Ethiopia, as a good example of African natural resource management. The suggestion by Stockholm International Water is sensible. This type of co-operation should also be repeated for a ( Read more... )

It has been suggested elsewhere that open access publishing requires some sort of regulation. Scientific research is global, so how could a parochial regulator (e.g. in the UK) have any significant effect, unless researchers based in or recipients of funds from such a regulator are mandated to publish in regulated journals as a condition of the ( Read more... )

Recently read this post about the availability of 'Futurelearn', a MOOC developed by a consortium of UK universities (although a New Zealand university is also included).

The platform is disappointing; content is light and as usual, open source technology is ignored. Futurelearn decided to use Vzaar as the video host, but it is incompatible with ( Read more... )