Marconia, Minecraft 1.6.4 and Sim U Kraft

Although i've played a little of Minecraft 1.7.4, i've found myself going back to Minecraft 1.6.4 mainly for the mods which for some reason vanilla Minecraft seems to not give me as much enjoyment.

So i've ditched Minecraft 1.7.4 for a while whilst more mods are made and gone back to 1.6.4 and started work on Marconia with the Sim U Kraft mod, which i like a lot.

Below are some screenshots of Marconia, hopefully i will finish this map. I haven't put any custom structures on this map yet apart from the first picture which is the sandstone temple type thing.

Sometimes Less Is More

Sometimes in this world less is more, Men prefer their women to wear a minimal amount of make up looking more natural, some people like to live a minimalist lifestyle in their homes.

So why don't we live in a minimalistic world when it comes to taxation and corporate tax?

With the budget coming up on Wednesday and the media jumping up and down like a kid who loves playing on his trampoline, Chancellor George Osborne needs to get rid of his fears on taxation.

I can be quite honest in saying that Wednesday for George Osborne it won't be the baptism of fire he thinks it's going to be, Since taking office in 2010 George Osborne has learnt a lot about Economics and Finance, but as a politician he is still frightened to take some initiative on taxation, sure personal taxation has got a lot better and so it should be, but Corporate Tax is somewhat to be desired, Sometimes less is more in the world of business and corporations, less corporate tax means a company is more likely to stay in a country that gives them incentives to stay in the country.

When it comes to Corporate Tax it's a race to the bottom, the cheaper more value for money you're corporate tax is, the more you're going to get from it. Higher rates of corporate tax only give you a small pool of companies and those companies cannot shoulder the responsibility for employing people, the more companies you have the more the responsibility is shared, so having low corporate tax is attractive to companies that want to set up shop in you're country, the minimal amount of corporate tax will allow them to employ more people, thus taking more people of unemployment programmes

We have all the mechanisms in place, a low currency which was advocated by me, which we got, a low currency makes us attractive to invest in as a nation, we have extremely low interest rates, great for mortgage holders and those who can borrow from banks, we just need the corporation tax to come down to around the same par as Ireland and we're on easy street somewhat.

George Osborne got his baptism of fire 2 years ago, when colleagues of mine took the initiative on behalf of Economists and decided to shout Osborne Out in Parliament, From that budget day to now, i'm confident and have more confidence in George Osborne as Chancellor than i ever have.

The best thing about George Osborne is he isn't a Economist or Financier, so he was a blank slate for learning our methods and we've benefited from it.

With just over a year to go before the next General Election, we ask the Chancellor one more time and that is to reform corporate tax and allow more businesses into this country and to allow our existing businesses to grow.

To Rig A Energy Market or To Not Rig A Energy Market, That Is The Question? (Part 2)

In part 1 we learnt about the various ways our electricity and gas is made, so let's go back to the question at hand, should energy prices be fixed?

To me it seems like a complete waste of time, let's say you're with a energy company that has appalling customer service and standards, if you have fixed price market, who would you move to? You wouldn't necessarily move since there is no benefit to switching suppliers, the benefit is usually lower energy prices.

But for my local MP he seems to think fixing energy prices is a good idea, but let's face it, the person who puts on his leaflet that he believes his leader is right, is living in a dream world.

The leaflet didn't seem like he was concerned about high energy prices but was more brown nosing his party leadership and seemed quite needy for supporters. which is a massive turn off.

However the leaflet did point out the various schemes that Local Government is doing by buying bulk energy and selling it off cheaply to members of the scheme, it's a shame my MP and his party don't go about it the right way.

In the wider picture it's time to think outside of the box, we need to look at different technologies and test them to see which one benefits us greatly and reduces energy bills.

It will be talked about for years to come, but the government that enacts fixed energy prices will be the ones with egg on their face as the amount of players in the marketplace diminishes.

To Rig A Energy Market or To Not Rig A Energy Market, That Is The Question? (Part 1)

Everyone hold your left hand up if you think Energy Market Rigging is a good thing?

Now everyone who disagrees hold your right hand up if you think Energy Market Rigging is a bad thing?

You should have decided by now whether you want a rigged energy market or not.

Let's look at both sides of a argument that will rage until the end of time or at least until fossil fuels run out.

If you fix the pricing of energy it looks like a good thing doesn't it, on paper and i stress on paper having a flat fee for natural gas and electricity is a winner, especially when you want votes for a election. The real problem with energy market rigging is that it takes out any level of choice and competitiveness out of the marketplace. Also you take out the possibility of energy companies passing on savings when they purchase their energy cheaper which is dictated by market prices.

The market prices are predicted in a futures market not a equity market, energy companies work on the future prediction of stockpiles of gas and raw materials to generate electricity. So if you're wondering why your gas or electricity bill rises when the company is purchasing it's electricity at a lower price is because the prediction of future stockpiles might be lower than expected, which in turn generates demand and will push the prices up in the commodity market.

British Thermal Unit (BTU), MBTU, MMBTU

A standard unit of measurement used to denote both the amount of heat energy in fuels and the ability of appliances and air conditioning systems to produce heating or cooling. A BTU is the amount of heat required to increase the temperature of a pint of water (which weighs exactly 16 ounces) by one degree Fahrenheit. Since BTUs are measurements of energy consumption, they can be converted directly to kilowatt-hours (3412 BTUs = 1 kWh) or joules (1 BTU = 1,055.06 joules). A wooden kitchen match produce approximately 1 BTU, and air conditioners for household use typically produce between 5,000 and 15,000 BTU.

MBTU stands for one million BTUs, which can also be expressed as one decatherm (10 therms). MBTU is occasionally used as a standard unit of measurement for natural gas and provides a convenient basis for comparing the energy content of various grades of natural gas and other fuels. One cubic foot of natural gas produces approximately 1,000 BTUs, so 1,000 cu.ft. of gas is comparable to 1 MBTU. MBTU is occasionally expressed as MMBTU, which is intended to represent a thousand thousand BTUs.

Natural Gas is measured in USD/MMbtu, the piece above explains what MMBTU means which is a unit of measurement for natural gas. The USD means United States Dollars, which is the currency natural gas is bought in.

For most people Natural Gas is the most and widely used commodity that is used in your home, of course if you use heating oil that is a refined product, you will pay a different price. People in rural communities use heating oil as they don't have means of piped gas to their homes that is for some rural communities.

There is a lot to go through before you can even approach this argument, another factor to look at is world events, world events can affect the price of natural gas considerably, especially if there is a issue where natural gas is being drilled. At the moment we have two options to drill for natural gas, offshore and inshore which is more commonly known as "Fracking". Where stockpiles are falling in offshore drilling, inshore drilling keeps stockpiles topped up. If we alone relied on offshore drilling for natural gas the price would be sky high as offshore stockpiles are in decline.

Electricity is generated in a number of ways, Wind Power, Coal Powered Plants, Biomass Plants, Tidal Power, to name just a few.

Most Electricity generated in the UK is by Coal or Wind Power and we've just started moving to Biomass.

Physical Energy such as electricity can be bought on commodity exchange such as ICE (Intercontinental Exchange), perhaps the biggest trading house for commodities.

Naturally when buying electricity from a trading house demand and supply will dictate prices, some are fixed prices on a monthly contract others are traded differently.

The general public isn't made aware of all these factors that have been mentioned in this post and we're not anywhere near debating whether a fixed energy market or not is viable, so i will let you digest this information in this post and part 1 and will see you in part 2.

"Metropolis" For Minecraft 1.6.2 Was A Work In Progress.

I played Minecraft 1.6.2 to death and i started creating my own world, not realising that Minecraft on the PC has a more expansive world than the Xbox version.

I'm releasing my unfinished version of "Metropolis" for Minecraft 1.6.2. Below are a few screenshots of the project with download link at the bottom.

Download: Download Metropolis 1.6.2.rar from SendSpace

You will need Minecraft Forge, all the mods i used are included in the package, install Forge first and then copy mods to "mods" folder in your Minecraft installation folder and copy folder "Metropolis" to "Saves" in your Minecraft Installation folder.

Taking The Luggage Rack...

It's officially AGM season, yesterday i had my first AGM and i've not had a AGM on a Saturday for a longtime. Anyway, i decided to take the bus to and from the AGM.

On the way to the AGM the bus was empty, i would guess that everyone goes shopping in the City early to avoid the crowds and queues, i'm not a Saturday shopper as i'm not good with queues, something i'm not a fan of doing.

On the way back the bus was full, i stood for a while, no problem in doing that, i then decided to not get in the way of people coming onto the bus with pushchairs to sit in the luggage rack, it was comfortable, it was somewhere to sit out of the way.

It was a enjoyable bus ride, i don't usually take buses as i'm driven around everywhere and i can see how reliant on being driven around i am, i couldn't take the bus all the time, it simply isn't viable, but since it was Saturday i thought i would use the bus.

It would seem in bus design we have started to design buses around open spaces for pushchairs and wheelchairs, which is a good thing, everyone deserves to travel and have a certain degree of independence. However we will need bigger buses to accommodate a growing population, it isn't the best thing to have to stand on any form of public transport, it will take significant investment and more subsidies to bus companies to meet the needs of people using the services and it's quite in demand.

In some cities travelling by public transport is a must, especially where the amount of traffic is such that taking a car is not viable, Hull doesn't have that problem, it has another problem, which is too high parking charges, which is the reason i wasn't driven to the AGM.

 If you're a aficionado of buses, below is a picture of a cool looking bus i found on Google: