2012 — 14 October: Sunday
Happy Birthday to me, heh?1 It's a cool, bright, early morning and there's a lovely piece of music (a Stabat Mater — it's certainly mournful enough) warbling away as we approach 08:00.
Time for tea.
Which is more disgraceful?
A BBC radio director who asks a celebrity directly about the truth of sexual abuse allegations (sixty cases so far, by the way) and hears them scornfully dismissed as 'rubbish', a set of retired senior military chaps recorded covertly while boasting of their successful influence in obtaining military contracts in Whitehall, or a country where a young woman is targeted merely for suggesting that young women be allowed to attend school.
Stabat mater indeed.
Talk about under(ground)statement
From an interesting set of Qs and As:
The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management said geological disposal would be safer in the longer term than storage above ground e.g. because of the risk of terrorism. They also said that we
cannot rely on societies hundreds or thousands of years from now to manage these wastes safely above ground. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management's recommendations received
wide-ranging support. Geological disposal is also the preferred approach in most other countries with nuclear waste.
However, some people and organisations are not convinced about the long-term safety of geological disposal and oppose having an underground repository. These organisations include Greenpeace, Friends
of the Earth, Don't Dump Cumbria and Radiation Free Lakeland.
Mutant Ninja turtles, anyone?
Just (11:06) bade farewell to Roger, who popped round for a coffee and to deliver his birthday wishes for a "spiffin'" day. There's not much point having any other sort of day, really, is there?
Why tinker...
... when you can really screw things up? Case in point: the BBC's latest cretinous attempt at the 'radio' section of their web presence. If I wanted the iPlayer, the Beta iPlayer or, indeed, any other form of streaming, don't they think I'd be able to find it instead of making it less than straightforward to find simple radio schedules?
Did I say...
... high-end car designers are stupid? No, but...
Recall my thoughts while I was still using training wheels.
Speaking of recalling...
... it's quite hard for me to forget that my birthday back in 2007 also marked the last full day (and also a Sunday, as it happens) that Christa spent in this house — our home together for 26 years. That has a certain tendency to diminish the spiffiness quotient of this particular date. But this, too, shall pass. KBO. I'm now looking forward to a birthday meal out tomorrow evening followed by something entertaining in the moving pixel department.
And now a different type of recall: Brian's just told me that he's got a replacement power supply for my dinky little Raspberry Pi web server. They seem to have forgotten to glue it shut, or some such, and when pulled the case can separate from the bit that's plugged into the wall socket, with the usual risk of thus exposing 'live' componentry to over-inquisitive little fingers — not mine, I hasten to add. I've always tried not to expose myself to mains voltages. (Not always successfully.)