2013 — 22 June: Saturday
If forced to guess1 I'd say it's just about midsummer. Brrr.
Alas! I have a...
... disappointed searcher, stranded in my 'molehole' server log / fishing net. The term "goldfish gang" hadn't made it into my first edition of "Jackspeak"...
... but I would think there's been plenty of time for an updated edition since 1989. Might I suggest "brown trout" as an alternative?
Oddly, I haven't missed...
... Clintonian doublespeak, but this is a doubleplusgood example:
I believe the most important thing is that we have accountability. But I will say this — freedom and security are not incompatible; they're mutually reinforcing. I think you're more secure if you have more freedom. Therefore I think we should be on guard for abuses of the use of technology by our government.
Run that by me again. [Pause] Does it, I satirically wonder, fall foul of anything on this fascinating set of prosecution guidelines?
That German blu-ray...
... only took three days to arrive, so what about my SSD?
The Hollywood title, by the way, is "The Oranges". I think the German title is more usefully literal.
Oops!
Germany's Data Protection Commissioner says he's unaware of any permission for any data from secret surveillance of German citizens to be passed to our transatlantic cousins, and it's now suggested that GCHQ here is even snoopier than their NSA cousins over there. Golly.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
I spotted a nice Terry Pratchett quote a few hours ago: The innocent have everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like "The innocent have nothing to fear". (Found here.)
Once again, I...
... find myself somewhat undecided about "The Alternate Emerson Lake & Palmer" — the second CD of that 3-disc reissue from last year. And, while we're on the topic, where the hell have I put the 2008 re-issue of "Gaudi" by Alan Parsons? Beats me, chief.
It's a rotten...
... job, but time for my next encounter with my arch domestic Nemesis — the removeable plastic U-bend under the kitchen sink. It is, after all, precisely a year since I last scooped out the accumulated gunk. A mere 10 minutes later, all is — if not light — at least somewhere nearer to sweetness. I now need a cuppa, of course. It's 17:07 and I've just enjoyed my first "Car Talk" for a very long time.
My other domestic Nemesis has turned out to be the thermostat on the fridge freezer. Judging by the thoroughly solid nature of the intended food I have just removed from it,2 either I turned Mr Thermostat the wrong way or it's just toying with me. No matter: that's what my microwave oven is for. I shall merely turn it up to "11".
Anyone seen my chisel?
I managed nearly an hour of the film, but taking a break I find myself unworried at the prospect of not returning to it for a while.