2015 — 21 April: Tuesday
And another sunny morning. This is looking more and more like Spring. My tulips — having popped up out of hiding — are a veritable riot of colour.
I've now...
... very much (re-)enjoyed all 40 episodes of "Game of Thrones" and am therefore naturally left wondering what to follow it with. Perhaps I should return to "Castle"? I stalled after the end of Season #4 and am thus now somewhat over two seasons in arrears. Or maybe I should take another crack at the only Austen1 that's so far defeated me every time I've tried it? Choices and decisions, heh? Better put the kettle on.
I'm both...
... bemused and amused (or in two minds?) about what can happen when Western consumerism and "go-getting" attitudes and lifestyles collide with, and in some cases are persuaded to adopt, aspects of Eastern mysticism.2 I remember chatting, for example, about mindfulness with Iris over one of our lunches not too long before her husband died, though I've yet to undertake one of the "retreats" or "workshops" on offer that she clearly enjoys.
I like, and am certainly well used to, the various non-linear ways my mind ticks and stumbles chaotically along. I thus tend to regard practices that seek to change it with the same disfavour with which I've recently learned to think about tinkering with my Linux system partition in mid-flight: probably not such a smart idea. But thanks all the same. (More here, coincidentally. Perhaps there's something in the water?)
The aliens...
... have landed!
Keep watching the skies...
I've just been...
... giggling like a loon while watching (on my Android SHIELD Tablet PC) a YouTube "GoT" roundtable 'examination' of the Season #4 casualties. Wonder how long it will take me to find the thing from BlackBeast? Not long, though it's probably better avoided unless you're, as it were, up to date. (Link.)
I read...
... about the US Navy choosing Linux (and 16 IBM blade servers) as the 'backbone' of its DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class "Stealth" destroyer (though only three are now to be built). Contrast that with the Grey Funnel line's choice, in the early 2000s, of a system based on the Windows 2000 platform. Torpedoes away!
Round and round...
... and round it goes. The Chilcot report into the steps that led up to the disgraceful invasion of Iraq in 2003 (recall all those non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction? all the "intelligence" gathered off the web?). A long-running game of "pass the parcel", it seems. This is from Hansard:
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con): Reverting to the subject of the Chilcot report, about which I have questioned the Prime Minister in the past, did my right hon. Friend note that our distinguished colleague Lord Hurd said in the House of Lords yesterday said that it was an absolute disgrace that it had not been published — a view that I certainly hold? Since it is absolutely well known by the cognoscenti that the report was completed many months ago, who — if the Prime Minister is helpless on this subject — is blocking it? Is it the Cabinet Secretary or Sir John Chilcot, or is it the White House?
The Prime Minister: I say to the Father of the House that I understand that the report is largely finished, but with every report such as this there is a process: we have to write to the people who are criticised and give them an opportunity to respond. This is now the process for all these reports, irrespective of which Government they are launched under. It is known as the Salmondisation process — although I am not quite sure why, as I do not think it has anything to do with the former First Minister of Scotland. It is not within my power to grant the publication of this report. It is independent and under Sir John Chilcot, and the process has to be finished — then the report will be published
Notice Tapsell's assertion was undisputed, and his question smoothly deflected. Perhaps it will appear in 2016? £9,000,000 and counting. Amazing.
It was inevitable...
... that, sooner or later, I'd end up snooping around the site that has FAQ entries like this:
And, browsing a one-page 'summary' of the beast that is LaTeX also served to remind me of the existence of a multi-platform text editor called UltraEdit that I'm now trying out on a 30-day free trial. My initial impression is that it has some idiosyncratic ideas about HTML highlighting. Research will resume, but not until after my evening meal.