2014 — 20 July: Sunday
The Good Thing1 is that, generally, I have no need to download anything in the radio line from the Beeb on a Saturday. And my spy told me...
... mistakenly, at the moment, that I can expect their programme streams to be online once again. Still, there's no rush. We have a country ramble planned for later this morning. It's even become slightly cooler for us.
And the nights are drawing in :-)
What an unhealthy...
... dose of euphemism — "Biosafety Lapses", anyone? — exists (and is still to be found) in a (still open) Government Accountability Office review of "High-Containment" Lab facilities in North America:
As GAO last reported in 2013, after more than 12 years, GAO has not been able to find any detailed projections based on a government-wide
strategic evaluation of research requirements based on public health or national security needs. Without this information, there is little assurance of having facilities with the right capacity to meet the nation's needs.
GAO's past work has found a continued lack of national standards for designing, constructing, commissioning, and operating high-containment laboratories. As noted in a 2009 report, the absence of national standards means
that the laboratories may vary from place to place because of differences in local building requirements or standards for safe operations.
How many different standards do we need for "safe operations", I wonder? It would be a little ironic if inter-agency turf wars among bureaucrats on the other side of the Pond unleash one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They realise this stuff matters, right? And is dangerous. More here if you're feeling lucky. Suit up!
Meanwhile, Pakistan is currently still facing a polio epidemic — apparently those terribly reasonable Taliban chaps have taken against the vaccination of their children on well-reasoned grounds that it's all a Western plot. Gunmen have been having a busy time shooting "dozens of vaccination workers". And let's not worry about the lid not really being kept on Ebola in West Africa, shall we?
Technology...
... to the rescue? Gawd, I hope not. I remain unconvinced by anything but the direst of prospects for "algorithmic regulation". But then, I can (and do) barely use my one-year-old and hence probably completely outmoded smartphone, so what do I know? Beyond the fact that "they" can't track me if I leave the thing at home, and switched off. Even I don't know where it is most of the time. And there's little of interest on it beyond a list of all my DVDs and the photo of me and Chris...
... taken by Gill on Friday (and uploaded to Dropbox automatically by the phone as soon as it got back within range of my wireless network). Still, there's an interesting essay here.
I've just heard that a common cause of sibling fighting in Okinawa is over who gets to look after the elderly relatives — a much-prized duty. And "compression of morbidity" was a new phrase, too. Thanks, NPR. (Link.)
Somewhat later
We chose a loop around the John Lewis estate out at Leckford, starting just a few yards from "The Peat Inn" and finishing there — after a stickily humid six miles or so — with a necessary pint of cold fluid2 to make good some, at least, of the evaporative losses en route. The very route, in fact, on which I was riveted by an aggressive pheasant in days of yore. Six and a half years ago... My, how Time flies.
I was reminded...
... a while back by Lance Percival's calypso "Shame and scandal in the family" of the snappy dialogue in the 1999 film "Lake Placid". We watched this in the cinema and my NTSC DVD3 of it dates back to April 2000. The (highly enjoyable) film was written and produced by the lucky chap married to La Pfeiffer who also gave us (among much else) the sublime Boston Legal. So what?
Well, on today's walk Mike mentioned having had this film twice recommended to him during the last decade — not by me; I didn't know he was unaware of it — and had finally given in, bought, and very much enjoyed an imported Blu-ray of it. Of course, I had no idea a BD was even out, so my Amazon order has only just gone off to an outfit called 'Books2anywhereUS'. I gather the BD is locked to Zone A which, for a film of this vintage, strikes me as just plain dumb. [Pause] Better make myself an evening meal, methinks.