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Hercules re-invents the netbook again, launches 10-inch Linux- and A8-powered eCAFE originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The works by Zurbaran have been at Auckland Castle for 250 years Plans to sell off 17th Century paintings which hang in the home of the Bishop of Durham have been shelved after a £15m donation.
Church Commissioners said selling works by Spanish Baroque artist Francisco Zurbaran would have funded Church efforts in poorer areas.
But the donation by investment manager Jonathan Ruffer means the paintings can stay in Auckland Castle.
Commissioners also want the castle to become a major tourist attraction.
The paintings, which depict Jacob and his sons, have hung in Auckland Castle, in a room specifically designed and built for them, for 250 years.
In a statement, the Church Commissioners said: "It is intended that Auckland Castle shall become a leading public heritage site, bringing tourism and economic regeneration to the North East.
"The proposals have been made possible thanks to a £15m donation by investment manager Jonathan Ruffer.
"Discussions are now continuing with Durham County Council, the National Trust, the Department for Media, Culture and Sport, the Art Fund and the National Gallery about the broader future for Auckland Castle."
Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery, said: "It is excellent news that the Zurbarans remain in their historic home and that the castle will be more accessible to the public.
"We hope to be able to support this exciting venture in the future with loans from the National Collection."
Dr Richard Chartres, acting chair of the commissioners, said: "Jonathan Ruffer's generosity has made that rarest of scenarios possible.
"There is now an opportunity to create a leading arts and heritage centre in the North East."
Mr Ruffer's contribution was made through a new charitable trust called the Zurbaran Trust.
The Marlborough and Cambridge-educated financial expert will continue to chair his firm, but plans to spend more time in the North East helping people.
This article is from the BBC News website. � British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/uk-england-12913686
Census forms are being filled in the length and breadth of the UK but how hard can it be to count people, asks Michael Blastland in his regular column.
How wrong can the Census go? Not that I want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm. Actually, the reverse, I have a weird admiration for people who count people. They're grappling with one of the most fiendish problems - us.
The graph above is the most extreme example I know of what can go wrong. The graphic is from the US Census Bureau - an impressive outfit. It shows the attempt to find out how many people were aged over 100 at each 10-yearly Census - and it shows two figures.
The first, the enumerated, is the number who said they were over 100. The second, the preferred estimate, is the number the Census Bureau thought really were over 100.
What happened in 1970 is anyone's guess. My hunch is that it is 1970 and they were all on acid. "Yeah, I'm 100 man. I was 100 in the last life too."
Lies and mistakes
In truth, I don't know what went wrong. Maybe the form was confusing that year, though how hard it can be to ask for an age, or answer the question, I'm not sure.
Maybe new benefits were announced which encouraged people to be vague about their birth date. Maybe there was a TV show the night before the Census celebrating the hip lifestyle of the new centenarian, maybe an organised conspiracy by grey pressure groups to increase healthcare provision.
People who campaign for open data - the easy availability of official and unofficial statistics of all kinds - often hate the fact that the people who gather and release it like to present it their own way.
Raw data is hard to work with These campaigners say things like "just give us the data!" Whole conferences have chanted that phrase. I'm with them, but only so far. Raw data is hellish hard work. It includes lies and mistakes and gaps that require endless cross-checking, investigation, weighting and adjustment.
Can we just extrapolate from the data we gathered successfully and assume the same pattern applies to the households that didn't reply? Not necessarily. Maybe a fair proportion of those who didn't reply were all from one group, like young men who couldn't give a... maybe.
But how would we know for sure who didn't reply? How do you count the stuff that wasn't counted? That's why the real work of counting starts when Census day is done.
If the US Census Bureau had just given us the raw data in 1970, we could have produced some beautiful graphics about the astonishing, breathtaking, apocalyptic, budget-busting rise in the very old. Raw data isn't fact, still less is it information.
Problems and lies
So, in extremis, raw data might even produce something like 21 times too many centenarians. Sorting this out is often called data cleaning. Some react to that phrase as if it concealed the black arts of statistical fiddling. But it's usually just the recognition that counting people is tough - people who don't always co-operate, who lie, who are confused, who can't be bothered, who don't understand, who think it's hilarious to invent new religions, who lost the form, who…
Sure, the Census is an evil conspiracy to pry, so that they, whoever they are, can know all about us. Until you see raw data. A good antidote to the evil-empire view is to come face to face with real-life counting. You soon realise that governments know half as much as they like to pretend, largely because gathering information is a bigger, messier, pig-sty of labour and guesswork, than often assumed.
Which is why they do it. Because they know a lot less than you probably think and always will. Every source of data is riddled with problems. For a sound guide to the travails of harvesting simple numbers, try Data Generation, a book by David Hand, a great insight into a simple business.
So, done your form? How was it for you? Nothing, I tell you, to how hard it'll be for them.
This article is from the BBC News website. � British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/magazine-12908132
Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_topstories/~3/1E0AosIcUKg/index.html
MakerBot's Interface Board Kit does PC-less 3D printing, turns your superhero fantasies into reality originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 22:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Microsoft keeps gunning after Apple's 'generic' App Store trademark, brings in a linguistics expert originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google Docs now on Jolicloud Desktop, Joli OS originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 04:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aberdeen hosts the bulk of the UK's North Sea oil industry Two more major oil and gas companies are considering shelving investment projects in the North Sea in the wake of last week's tax hike.
Scottish Gas-owner Centrica is understood to be reviewing its current and future developments.
Valiant Petroleum also said it has cancelled a project worth up to £93m.
It comes after Norwegian company Statoil said on Tuesday that it has halted investments in two new oil and gas fields worth up to $10bn (£6.2bn).
The Mariner field - being developed with Nautical Petroleum and Italy's ENI - and the Bressay field - owned jointly with Royal Dutch Shell - have combined reserves of 640 million barrels of oil.
Statoil is the majority investor and the operator for both fields. It has cancelled the award of an engineering and design contract for the Mariner field in response to the surprise tax rise.
"The proposed tax change in the UK significantly impacts the economics of these projects," said Statoil spokesman Baard Glad Pedersen.
Dame Anne Begg Labour MP for Aberdeen South“[The tax hike] was plucked out of thin air at the last minute to try and get the government off the hook”
"These are challenging projects, that are more marginal economically, so we need to evaluate how this tax increase impacts them and consider how to move forward from this."
The Chancellor George Osborne called the tax rise "perfectly reasonable" in light of rising oil prices, which would boost oil companies' profits, while answering questions from the Treasury Select Committee on Tuesday.
If the oil price falls below $75 per barrel for a sustained period, he promised to reverse the North Sea tax rise and to reintroduce the tax accelerator on fuel prices.
Mr Osborne denied that Statoil was cancelling its investment, saying the firm "just want to talk to us about their investment plans".
He pointed out that the new combined tax rate faced by Statoil would be 62% of its UK profits, compared with a rate of 78% levied by the Norwegian government in its home market.
According to Statoil's Mr Pederson, the two oilfields were first discovered 30 years ago, and were not developed up until now because the heavy crude oil they contain is expensive to extract and commands a lower price in international markets.
Statoil decided to develop the fields in 2007 at a time when the oil prices had risen substantially, making them economic to develop.
The oil price is even higher now than it was in 2007.
However, the company makes its investment decisions based on a long-term forecast that ignores short-term fluctuations in the oil price such as the recent run-up due to events in Libya, according to Mr Pederson.
He declined to tell the BBC what the long-term price forecast used was, and whether this was above or below the $75 threshold for the windfall tax promised by Mr Osborne.
Meanwhile two Scottish Liberal Democrat MPs rebelled against the coalition government's North Sea tax hike when it came up for a vote in the Commons on Tuesday night.
Malcolm Bruce and Sir Robert Smith - both of whom represent constituencies in Aberdeenshire, which hosts much of the Scottish North Sea oil industry - voted against the measure.
"It's easy to look at the bottom line and say that they can afford [the tax]," said Mr Bruce, speaking to BBC Radio Scotland.
"What is not acceptable is the sudden and abrupt change," he added, claiming the government had broken a promise not to change the tax regime it made to one firm when it decided to invest in the North Sea.
But the government is "sitting down with oil companies on a field-by-field basis" to ensure that economically marginal investments are not pulled as a result of the tax decision, according to Scottish Conservative MP Mark Menzies.
The government won the vote by 334 to 13, with most Labour MPs abstaining, and only the Scottish National Party voting against as a bloc.
Malcolm Webb Oil and Gas UK chief executive“The lost trust will take a very long time to rebuild”
The SNP had no problem with oil and gas paying its proper share, according to MP Eilidh Whiteford, but the government needs to make sure it is not disincentivising companies that are sometimes making a risky investment decision.
Two Labour MPs, Anne Begg and Frank Doran - also from Aberdeen - opposed the measure.
Ms Begg accused the coalition government of having "plucked [the tax hike] out of thin air at the last minute" and said the consequences on the less profitable gas industry had not been thought through.
Malcolm Webb, head of the trade body Oil and Gas UK, called for emergency meetings over the £2bn windfall tax on the North Sea oil industry, announced in the chancellor's Budget last week.
"The move has made companies rethink their plans to step up investment in the next few years, jeopardising tens of thousands of jobs as well as indigenous oil and gas production which will likely lead to an increase in the import of these fuels," he said.
"The lost trust will take a very long time to rebuild. Meanwhile, the industry has called an emergency meeting of Pilot, the government-industry forum established to help maximise recovery from the UK continental shelf, and also with the Treasury."
This article is from the BBC News website. � British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/business-12905225
