Excuse my emissions... No. Its for your own good

The motor industry are (understandably) not happy about the ever tightening emissions controls under which they find themselves. Increasingly stringent EU directives specify that volume car manufacturers must ensure that their fleet averages a CO2 output of just 130g/km. This is not much at all. Its a bit like asking a fat man, to come back in a month, 100Kg lighter. Achievable, but rather difficult. As a keen driver I too initially saw this as the end of enjoyable motoring, banishing one and all to the inexplicable dullness of Toyota Prius motoring (if indeed it can be called that).

Thinking about this a little more, I am however, now tentatively hoping, no, expecting, that these new restrict limits will have something of a positive effect for all concerned; mother earth, you, me, our offspring, and maybe theirs too.

You see, like our aforementioned anonymous fat gentleman, cars and also benefit greatly from improved efficiency, and one way to acheive this is to carry less weight.

In their ruthless search for CO2 reducing measures, the likes of BMW and Ford (something of pioneers in this area) started on a programme of efficiency measures including energy reuse, weight saving, even dynamically altering a car's aerodynamics based on its engine temperature. The rest of the motor industry are following suit, VW in particular, showing a marked reduction in emissions across their range.

So what does this mean for the motorist? Well it means your car will cost less to run, will weigh less and consequentially (we hope) handle better, all while (probably) maintaining, or improving power output through increased use of turbocharger technology which has matured significantly over the years. I expect to see an increase in the use of high torque electric motors either replacing or augmenting the output of a traditional external combustion engine over time. Downsides? Ok our cars might not sound as beefy as those big V8s and V10s but really, in this day and age, they don't really make sense when considering it's not ridiculous to see 250+ Bhp from a 4 cylinder engine.

Roll on efficiency, and let us all benefit from it!

The world revolves faster than you think

A couple of years ago, I was passed a copy of the cluetrain manifesto from a friend raving this will change how you think about your information on the web. I hate bold assertions like this as it sets up the subject matter to be a literary creation of Orwellian standard. Fortunately on this occasion he was vindicated.

For me, the core message of the book read something like

You, your opinions, and those of your peers matter. The speed and visibility of the web, now mean that this really matters to business. Most businesses don't realise this.

The Lefty, tree-swinging liberal in me took great delight in this message. For a long time, I have felt that advertising and media in general, was due a good shakeup. Media IMHO should be democratic, available, and free. Attempts to constrain it, create distortions (enter Daily Mail). I'm not against media organisations either. I believe they have their place in a future of fast comms. I digress however; the purpose of this post was this:

Amazon, forward thinkers, arguably pioneers of the first (commercially successful) cloud computing business, the vanguard of book distribution; an establishment shaker. Clearly a company I have viewed in a positive light, have now, through seemingly ignorant policy making and BBCesque inaction found themselves at the centre of censorship scandal. It amazes me that such a company can fall foul of the very essence of their success.

As @girlonetrack succinctly puts it

the lessons to be learned here are simple: don't piss off the web, or your reputation will be seriously damaged.