Weather balloons could be used to provide mobile phone and broadband services to rural Britain. An American company called Space Data has already used small phone masts attached to balloons to provide wireless internet access to remote areas. The group has supplied military and commercial clients for four years but is now preparing to link with broadband companies to offer services to residential customers. Space Data has patented the service in 41 countries and is now considering the US as a potential market. The service uses a small transceiver attached to a balloon which then rises to an altitude of 30,500m after it has been released. The company says that one balloon can beam a signal to an area equivalent to 80 mobile phone towers. The service does have one drawback, the balloons only last for 24 hours before bursting which means a constant supply has to be released to maintain the connection and the radio equipment on the burst balloon has to be retrieved by a team using location devices.

A restaurant owner in Michigan has created what could be the world’s biggest hamburger. The burger weighs 60.9kg (134 pounds) and contains beef, bacon and cheese. It took around 12 hours to make and takes three men to flip it. If you want to order one it would cost $350 (£178) and the restaurant requires that you give them 24 hours notice. That’s a lot of meat.

Spurs beat Chelsea by 2 goals to 1 today to win the Carling Cup. As a long time Spurs supporter I must admit that my expectations were not really that high. Although I thought there might be a slim chance of winning I did think that Chelsea would prove to be the better team. This coupled with the fact that Spurs have not won a major trophy since 1999 made me think our chances were not that great. However, I am pleasantly surprised and although it has been a long time coming, it really is a good day for Spurs. And for all you Chelsea supporters out there, let me just say “TWO ONE”. He he.

It is likely that beer drinkers will soon see the price of a pint of beer hitting the £4 mark. The drinks industry is facing huge rises in production and distribution costs meaning it will soon have to pass these increases onto the customer. A pint of beer currently costs around £3.20 on average but some sources predict prices could rise as much as 60%. The price could be increased still further if there in an increase in beer duty in next months budget.

I found this article called learning to smoke. It’s about a forty six year old man called Tom Chiarella who decides to do a thirty day experiment on the effects of smoking. Having never smoked a cigarette before he started the experiment, the article makes interesting reading. It charts Tom's progress from non smoker to someone who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day. At the start of the experiment the cigarettes induced vomiting and coughing but by the end he finds he enjoys smoking and starts to crave his next cigarette. When he does finally quit at the end the experiment he experiences withdrawal symptoms being unable to think and suffering an endless headache.

I find the article interesting because as a former smoker myself and someone who regularly smoked more than a pack a day, I tried quitting the habit unsuccessfully for four years. Eventually I threw out any cigarettes I had left in the house and went cold turkey. Although that worked and I have now not been a smoker for about eight years, I still get that craving every now and again and have to admit to having had at least five cigarettes during this eight year period, in moments when I was rather drunk. That said, I could never go back to being a smoker, and find that now I cannot stand the smell of cigarettes. Whilst the article was very interesting, I can’t quite understand why someone would want to undergo an experiment like this when kicking the habit is so difficult.

Further to my article about the proposed changes at eBay it appears some sellers are planning a week long boycott of the auction site. Sellers are angry over higher fees and other policy changes which mean they can no longer leave negative feedback for a buyer. According to eBay sellers this means that they cannot keep track of scammers and untrustworthy buyers. The new policy changes went into effect on Wednesday.

I remember commenting on an article last year that criticised the amount of packaging on Easter eggs. The article pointed out that some Easter eggs contain as much as 52% packaging which is not only poor value for money but also bad for the environment. With Easter eggs once again filling the supermarket shelves I came across this article that suggests some companies are now trying to cut down on the packaging used. Cadbury in particular are trying hard to cut the amount of packaging it used in a bid to become more eco-friendly. They have launched a new range of eggs that come wrapped in foil without a cardboard box. This means that it uses 75% less plastic and 65% less cardboard. The move is part of the firm’s effort to reduce its environmental footprint and Cadbury’s claims it will save more than 2,000 trees as a result. I would certainly purchase the version with no box, all I’m really interested in is the chocolate inside.

I don’t eat chocolate very often but when I do I like to have something a little bit special. My husband came home the other day with a selection from Hotel Chocolat. It is called a Peepster Box and contains four of what they call their mini slabs. The mini slabs are as the name suggests small slabs of individually wrapped chocolate. The pack I had included one each of Belgium chocolate, milk chocolate, honey milk chocolate and dark chocolate. I have sampled all of them and still can’t quite decide whether my favourite is the milk chocolate or the honey milk chocolate. Mmm chocolate.

I read this article about a talking pet bowl. The idea behind it is that you can record a ten second message for your pet. The bowl will then detect when the pet is within six inches of it and trigger the message. According to the makers of the device which they call chatterbowl, once the animals become used to it they will deliberately set it off to hear their owner’s voice. They also say that “The message should encourage your pet to eat”. Encouraging my cats to eat has never been a problem, if I ever have to leave them with automated pet feeders the food is always gone by the time I get home.