Brits are Big Time Boozers

First they set outstanding records for SMS use. Now this:

Alcohol-related illness in England has soared over the past 10 years, an analysis of medical data showed on Friday.Hospital admissions for alcoholic liver disease more than doubled to 35,400 in 2004-5 from 14,400 in 1995-6, according to a report from the National Health Service. Admissions for alcohol poisoning rose to 21,700 cases from 13,600 over the same period. goes here full story here

And all this even before the World Cup.

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One in five has a portable MP3 player

One in five Americans over the age of 12 now own a portable digital music device, and one in 20 of those quizzed said they possessed more than one. full story here

This new Ipsos Study makes it hard to refute the massive shift in media consumption going on around us.

With that many devices out there and the means of transmitting to those devices available to anyone with an Internet connection, you have to wonder just how many days are left for traditional linear ‘real time’ broadcasters.

The study does give radio some hope though, lots of those polled say they’d like a satellite radio or FM receiver in their MP3 player.

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Scully Watching Over Me

Sitting at my desk, look up and to the right…divine inspiration.

Stay Cool, Save Money

This story about Google and their rejection of high end servers, all the while saving money by making their own servers more energy efficient, is totally fascinating.

Rather than waste the electricity and incur the additional costs for cooling, Google has power supplies specially made that are 90 percent efficient…One-third of the electricity running through a typical power supply leaks out as heat full story here

This approach reminds me of the work Loc Dao did in our early days of putting CBC programs online. Loc used to always build his own servers, not to save on heat, but mostly because he found the brand names over priced and lacking the kind of goodies he wanted to see in our gear. He was right. His boxes kept us going at half the price of the brand name stuff, until we were forced by the IT folks to use the ’standard’ stuff.

Clearly you need some smarts and lots of skill to go down this route, but it’s great to get a glimpse of how this can still be done at an enterprise the size of Google.

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They Can’t All Be Talking about Soccer, Can They?

If you think you’ve got a text-message-jones, you’ve got nothing on the average Brit.

SMS-loving Brits sent a record-breaking 3.3bn text messages in May - representing a daily average of 106m or, by our reckoning, roughly 1.76 missives per day for every man, woman and child in the land.     full story here

The Register article suggests with all the soccer hoopla, June’s SMS numbers might be even higher. 

Here in Canada, with telco’s collecting a dime on every message, that would translate into 33 million dollars in revenue.  

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Spam Phrase of the Day - June 25, 2006

“Salvation Army Custard”

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Cooking Up a Special Muffin

One of our clients has launched a Muffin Contest. 

If you’re good in the kitchen and you’ve got a fabulous muffin recipe, you could make your muffin famous.

Capers Community Markets is looking for a signature muffin to be part of their new store on Cambie Street.

And there are some great prizes for the winners.

Details here.

Personally, I like a hearty muffin first thing in the morning. When I was working an office job Eileen used to make these ‘meal in a muffin’ muffins that would keep me going all day.  I also like to decapitate them, eat the bottom first, then savour the head.  But that’s just me.

 

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