2016 — 14 February: Sunday
Being1 of a slightly pessimistic outlook, I'm currently using a "bog standard" text editor (gedit 2.30.4) that comes along for the ride with Linux Mint 17.3 "just in case". You never know, I might have difficulty unregistering, moving, and re-registering my more habitual paid-for copy of UltraEdit. By forcing myself back to the standard toolset I can perhaps see what potholes lie in wait should I find myself booted out of Ultra's Universe.
Not that I can...
... do anything until the missing bits of hardware are delivered. And have been correctly shoe-horned into the unfeasibly tiny NUC case. What could possibly go wrong?
Those were the days
You can hardly expect the proprietor of 'molehole' to ignore a book review headed "Molehunt", even one from January 1987. Source and snippet:
A KGB officer in Washington might begin an average day by reading articles on defence and defence contractors in the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal, then move on to more detailed scrutiny of Aviation Week and Space Technology, technical magazines and trade publications. By lunchtime the information he has acquired would be sufficient to provoke an espionage trial if gathered in the Soviet Union, where even the telephone directories are classified.
Now fast forward a little:
Owen's Inquiry finished on time and within budget (it cost £2,249,381) in spite of his team getting, as he says, 'silkier and silkier', starting with two junior counsel but finishing with three QCs. Against most people's expectations, he concluded that the [Polonium] poisoning operation was probably approved by President Putin. The evidence is circumstantial only, but Putin is a Chekist, and proud of it. The Cheka was the forerunner of the OGPU, the NKVD (which masterminded the assassination of Trotsky), the KGB and the FSB. Ice picks in the head are too blatant.
Didn't Mrs Google know?
I could have...
... written this. But I didn't!
When I was at school I was forced to play lacrosse, a game in which tiny rock-hard missiles fly at your head and you must catch them with a stick to avoid a brain haemorrhage. I was regularly punished for not taking part more wholeheartedly.
(Link.)
Uncorrected myopia doesn't encourage enthusiasm for such jolly japes. But just you try telling that to one of the hulking brutes who thinks it's not a sport unless you risk death.
Extracting...
... a cynical (but oh, so, plausible) snippet from my current Kindle reading is made trickier by my not having yet bothered to put Calibre on to Linux, find the DRM-fixing module to de-toxify the Amazon binary, and hook up and transfer from my Android SHIELD Tablet PC to the "big" system the July 2015 book in question — a recent 99p "Daily Deal" that Brian kindly put me on to:
Covert support for the uprisings in eastern Ukraine was also logistically simple and had the added benefit of deniability on the international stage. Barefaced lying in the great chamber of the UN Security Council is simple if your opponent does not have concrete proof of your actions and, more importantly, doesn't want concrete proof in case he or she has to do something about it.
My emphasis.
The one history lesson I actually recall (possibly because, unusually, my headmaster stepped in to teach it) long ago examined the view Russia had perforce been forced to develop of the globe... basically, surrounded by potential hostiles everywhere they looked. Much more interesting (and far more relevant to the late 1960s) than whatever fusty medieval stuff was being thrust our way by the exam syllabus, that's for sure.
Confession time
Although IBM — whose hard-working HR folk seemed awfully keen on such things — went to all the time and trouble of subjecting me to a dubious Myers-Briggs personality-type "test"2 (a), I didn't even bother to file the "result" in my head, and (b), judging by this interesting piece on the fatuous farrago of pseudo-whatever, it's probably just as well. (Link.)
My Mazda beeped at me again as I was driving back from a mission of Marantz-related moral support — having taken over the microphone needed to carry out a surround sound setup adjustment — to draw my attention to the fact it was 4C outside. Didn't it feel me shivering? I think there's a good design case to be made for highlighting icons temporarily on the info screen to help you spot what's new. One tiny little snowflake sitting like a weird exponential alongside the "4C" isn't exactly eye-catching in the twilight.
Why I have few friends?
Not, I hasten to add, that this knowledge will change me much!
Network scientists have known about the paradoxical nature of social networks for some time. The most famous example is the friendship paradox: on average your friends will have more friends than you do.
This comes about because the distribution of friends on social networks follows a power law. So while most people will have a small number of friends, a few individuals have huge numbers of friends. And these people skew the average.
Recall Sartre.
For reasons...
... that may yet become apparent I have just reworked my A/V system diagram. I'd been looking idly at a couple of very tasty digital pre-amps, and a couple of HDMI switch boxes that will break out audio from the combined signal. I would, however, prefer to avoid spending upwards of £1,700 if I can! I'm once again using the Oppo Blu-ray player as a signal switcher.