2009 — 5 November: Thursday
Guy Fawkes already? Actually, we very rarely bothered with fireworks, though we took Peter along to the IBM Hursley display a couple of times. Ever onward. I took tonight's picture of Christa on one of our many visits to Netley and the Royal Victoria country park. It would have been in early 1983 on this occasion:
We'd bought the waterproof yellow jackets some years earlier during a wet autumnal visit to Guernsey, and only finally got rid of them a few years ago. They were not "breathable" so you tended to end up soaking wet whether it was raining or not. You probably didn't need to know that.
I now have both lunch and evening meal invitations. But I shall breakfast alone, methinks, in a few hours from now. G'night.
Fishy
From NZ (more accurately, via NZ) comes this unlovely piece of jargon ("from a serious online blog on international affairs") for a sunny morning:
It also requires identifying particular times where surveillance is most likely and certain optimal vantage points (called perches in surveillance jargon) from where a surveillant is most likely to operate when seeking to surveil a specific facility or event. This type of complex understanding of surveillance can then be used to help focus human or technological countersurveillance efforts where they can be most effective.
I gather he's railing against the "nouveau verb" to surveil. Though he may simply be deploring the use of 64 words to say "Concentrate your efforts on the likeliest times and lookout points." This at least is equally applicable to both the spy and the spied upon.
It's 08:42 and I've just feasted on yet more freshly-picked grapes. Far sweeter than the initial crop, too.
Ian, if you want real jargon, how about "Cattlestar Galactica" courtesy of Mr Murdoch's ever-reliable organ? (Source.)
Unin-Kleined
I'm listening to the discussion about Melanie Klein's legacy on "Woman's Hour". Entertaining tosh, if you ask me. Psycho-analysis? Psycho-babble!
Further babble
Linked from "Arts & Letters" is this odd piece about "Spaceship Jesus" which had, until this morning, happily passed me by. Source and snippet:
... feeding the paranoid delusions of people on the fringe of the fringe contributes to a dangerous climate that may provoke violence in a few individuals. And convincing folks that Armageddon is on the way, and all we can do is wait, pray, and protect our families from the chaos that will be the "prelude" to the "Return of Christ," is perhaps not the best recipe for political, economic, or personal stability, let alone social cohesion. It may also not be the best philosophy on which to build American foreign policy! The momentum toward what amounts to a whole subculture seceding from the union (in order to await "The End") is irrevocably prying loose a chunk of the American population from both sanity and their fellow citizens.
You think?
The silicon of Time
As I delve gently through the various archaeological layers of the house and its contents so I discover odd things from time to time. For example, a couple of days ago I unearthed an even older A/V system diagram (dating back to April 2001). For amusement, I've popped it here.
I went through a phase of interest in 3-D photography many years ago (even writing to the BBC with my proposal for a 3-D TV system back in 1968). So it was nice to hear (Dr) Brian May on the topic. Makes a change from his work as a member of Queen.