Hulleye Comes By!

You aren’t going to read about this in the US press, they are too busy lying about everything they report. We have to read about it in a British newspaper. Goldman Sachs just took a $12B bailout package and have set aside $14B in bonuses for the executives.

Goldman Sachs is on course to pay its top City bankers multimillion-pound bonuses - despite asking the U.S. government for an emergency bail-out.

The struggling Wall Street bank has set aside £7billion for salaries and 2008 year-end bonuses, it emerged yesterday.

Each of the firm’s 443 partners is on course to pocket an average Christmas bonus of more than £3million.

The size of the pay pool comfortably dwarfs the £6.1billion lifeline which the U.S. government is throwing to Goldman as part of its £430billion bail-out.

As Washington pours money into the bank, the cash will immediately be channelled to Goldman’s already well-heeled employees.

This tutorial shows how you can set up an Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.

Occasionally it is a treat to remind ourselves how remarkable some of our most common gadgets are. A typical microwave oven ramps up the electricity from a 120-volt wall outlet to an incredible 3,000 volts or more and safely cooks food in just a minute or two, yet it costs less than a pair of good shoes. And we can watch the show through the handy window.

The key component is the magnetron. Although the name conjures up hardware from a questionable science-fiction movie, the sophisticated vacuum tube generates microwaves powerful enough for military radars (for which it was originally developed). Instead of a flame or electric coil generating heat that warms food from the outside, the microwaves penetrate food and create heat from within.

Keep reading at SciAm.