Friday July 07, 2006

Blogging : 3 years

Just now, a chat with a colleague prompted me to look back into my original blog on JRoller. Blogging, at least the way I do it, serves as a kind of "online memory" for me. So I can point people at entries made in the past.

And I discovered that today is the 3rd anniversary of blogging for me. Here's the Hello World entry, which started it off 3 years ago, back on 7 July 2003.

So ... "Happy blogging to me, happy blogging to me, happy blogging to me-ee, Happy blogging to me!!"

lol.

(2006-07-07 17:26:48 SGT) [Musings] Permalink Comments [1]

Peak oil : energy & buildings

energybulletin.net -> fcnp.com :

In North America, we spend 90% of our time inside some building or other, where the temperature, moisture, and even the oxygen content of the air we breath are all kept at acceptable levels by cheap energy. During the last 50 years, cheap, abundant energy has brought major changes to our buildings. They have become taller, bigger, brighter and most have one thing in common: they now require massive amounts of energy to keep functioning. 99+ percent of the tens of millions of buildings in which we spend so much time are energy guzzlers and unless we can find some way to massively reduce their consumption of energy, large swaths of post peak oil civilization could quickly become very unpleasant places.

The first steps on the path to sustainable buildings are relatively simple and inexpensive : turn down the heat, turn up the air-conditioning and turn off the lights. The next relatively inexpensive step we will need to take is getting rid of the excessive lighting in our buildings, especially the incandescent kind. After adjusting the thermostat and unscrewing or replacing outmoded light bulbs, our journey to as-close-to-zero-energy buildings as we can get becomes more complicated — and a lot more expensive.

(2006-07-07 13:01:00 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

India Inc gets salary nightmare

business-times.asia1.com.sg :

Rapidly rising costs of employees are turning into a nightmare for companies in India. According to the 2006 Salary Guide put out by Kelly Services India, the country has the highest average salary increase of 13.9%, and IT industry workers have received the highest increase - 17.9% - across all five groups surveyed.

Due to high attrition rates and lack of skilled manpower, firms have been giving higher salaries to retain staff - not a good sign for sustainability. A study by IT research firm Gartner said that 'a lack of skilled workers over time will drive up labour costs as employees sell their skills to the highest bidder, thus eliminating the cost advantages'.

See also :

1. Rising salaries threaten Indian outsourcing industry
2. British energy company sparks concern over Indian outsourcing
3. Globalisation no longer a win-win situation

(2006-07-07 12:52:41 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

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