Grey (gray) elephant in the room?

Just because I left my house unlocked does not give you the right to walk in and look around. You are committing the civil offence of trespass. Provided you break or take nothing that is not a serious crime although I may be understandably jolly cross you came in uninvited.

Instead of a house let us talk IT systems; specifically let us talk U.S. defence (defense) and space agency IT systems. Systems you might reasonably expect to be quite secure. Not least, that if certain credible sources are to be believed, these systems are being probed and attacked every minute of every day. Culprits may include Chinese and Russian intelligence gathering operations, muslim radicals usw.

With all this going on who does the U.S. choose to pursue with extreme vigour for infiltrating their IT systems? Gary McKinnon, a British loner with Asperger's syndrome, who was, reputedly, searching for information on the U.S. government's knowledge of sentient extraterrestrials and their respective technologies. Given everything else going on in the world why would the U.S. Government be so keen to dissuade citizens of the world from seeking the 'truth' about UFOs and 'aliens'? And why aren't the world's press asking that bloody obvious question?

Where next?

Summer in the Yukon

You know how it is. You finally wear out the tape and think I really should get this on iTunes. Except it isn't there. So you track down a second hand CD and load it onto iTunes. No artwork. No artwork anywhere on the web apparently. There is now! Jane Siberry's "Summer in the Yukon" album exclusive to the UK. I have violated somebody's copyright - but only at 200x200 pixels.

A new thing of beauty

They say you never appreciate something until it is gone. And so it is with the action finder. For those who are not pro or semi-pro photographers those two words will be a mystery. What an "action finder" was was (sic) a specialist pentaprism finder for SLRs that allowed the focusing screen to be viewed some way back from the eyepiece window. Now by someway I don't mean metres - say 50 mm versus the normal <20 mm ...ish. Very good if you are wearing eyeglasses or safety goggles and if things are bouncing around a bit. Now action finders were expensive kit and I doubt many were sold. Not many photographers have ever needed one. These days DSLRs offer nominally the same capability with a live viewing mode - the reflex mirror from which the SLR gets its name is locked up and a subsampled view of the image formed on the chip is displayed on the LCD on the back of the camera. But LCD panels use power that action finders didn't and they disturb the viewfinder centric ergonomics. We get into camera phone territory when the picture taker is holding the camera away at arm's length rather than neatly, squarely, tightly to one eye.
The halfway twix the action finder and a conventional SLR viewfinder was the so called High eyePoint or HP finder. This offered a viewing distance of around 25 mm. If we can't have action finders back could we at least get HP finders. Here is a challenge to Nikon - want to make everyone talk about the D700x when it arrives? Forget the HD video mode - if I want a video camera I'll buy one. Yes, more pixels, take that as read, but NOT at the expense of frame rate - no worse than the D3x thank you. If you really want to blow peoples socks off get them from the left field. Get the real photographers smiling and nodding in agreement. Give us the D700x-HP. Make an already superb interface just that tad brilliant and prepare to make a lot of them.

All children, except one, grow up

and he died yesterday in Los Angeles.

There are predictions and there is precognition. Sometimes the latter is known as the gift. It is not one that you should wish for.

People without time (They made me do it)

Dr. Who, Donnie Darko, Quantum Leap, Time Tunnel. What do we understand by this? There is a certain fascination in the concept of time travel. Of course time travel is not as easy as the movies or authors sometimes portray it. For one thing there is the problem of your frame of reference. The earth is spinning on its access, falling about a distant start in the outer reaches of the Milky Way in an ever expanding (or so it seems) universe. So if you time travel for even a second who is to say you will not end up in Earth's molten core or the cold vacuum of space? NICE!
No one with any intelligence is inclined to believe in things until they experience them for themselves. This is a good trait. It tends to mean intelligent humans survive. You might not believe in ghosts - you will if you ever see one for yourself. Believe me - or not!!
So is time linear? Or is the reality of space/time somehow twisted in ways our puny human minds can barely conceive? What do we take as evidence of time being not so simple as we perhaps we thought? Predictions, where uncannily accurate, would seem to be evidence of something not quite right. If time is linear how can any of us peer into an unknown future? If we can, to what benefit? If we see something we do not like can we prevent it .. or does the sight of it mean it is as inevitable as the past is past?
I suspect at this point you thinking great, play with words, but do you have a point? Yes, I do. Forget the thought exercise how about a prediction - a nice detailed prediction - one that extrapolation could not possibly explain. Chance? Well there is always chance. James Randi, et al, take out Occams razor on the following: this prediction is made Sat 23 May 2009 that on or about 26th June 2009 a famous (possibly the most famous) and somewhat controversial singer/performer will die way before his time.

It sucks being President

Okay, by now the plans are drawn up, the options are on the table. The French tried it earlier and ended up with one dead hostage -with several very much alive. That looks like a good outcome and its upping the ante. Assuming you'll hit at the lowest hour we should all know what the President said in about four hours time. My guess is the Seals will take out the watch - all swift and silent like, and come on board. They have a choice - explosive entry: frame charge and/or stun grenades -or try to stay silent - NVGs, lasers, suppressed weapons. Either way the goal is to get one hostage out alive - the only one. If his captors die in the process - well so much the better. The 'maximum safety' option - 'they' should have gone somewhere else this morning - done something else for a living. Mess with the best - die like the rest. It is an important message, it is also a hell of a responsibility on the Seal team leader, his commander, and his commander in chief. One of the ideas behind elite forces is sheer wow factor. Bit of mystic, fearsome reputation, get it right it should be enough for the BGs to know you've left barracks. Brown trowser time, negotiations get realistic, people come out waving white flags. Unfortunately it takes a lot to impress these Somali boys. Wasn't it the US who bugged out sharpish shortly after that Black Hawk down incident? Somalia is a shite hole, sorry 'failed nation', no law worthy of the name. It you have nothing to lose, lots of wonga to gain, and, more worryingly, a track record of winning ..well worth a punt isn't it? I don't hold out much hope for negotiation, I put my trust in low penetration 9 mm ammunition. But then I was never likely to be a politician, I was the schmuck with the silenced MP5 waiting on the decision. Go Seals - for the sake of us all.

P.S. Am I the only who cannot resist crying "Arrrrrr!" every time the word Pirate is mentioned on the news?

Today's word is..

hiny

Sentiment Darling, Sentiment

Lyrics: Whole Lotta Love


You need coolin', baby, I'm not foolin',
I'm gonna send you back to schoolin',
Way down inside honey, you need it,
I'm gonna give you my love,
I'm gonna give you my love.

[Chorus]
Wanna Whole Lotta Love [X4]

You've been learnin', baby, I bean learnin',
All them good times, baby, baby, I've been yearnin',
Way, way down inside honey, you need it,
I'm gonna give you my love... I'm gonna give you my love.

[Chorus]

You've been coolin', baby, I've been droolin',
All the good times I've been misusin',
Way, way down inside, I'm gonna give you my love,
I'm gonna give you every inch of my love,
Gonna give you my love.

[Chorus]

Way down inside... woman... You need... love.

Shake for me, girl. I wanna be your backdoor man.
Keep it coolin', baby.