Size and Readability

Sometimes the 467 pixel width of this blog theme doesn’t allow me to present images with readable text. It is the same with the photographs I show. There is help at hand. Simply click on the offending image and you will be given a larger view.

Pollution

Faith and Science

Artwork

There was a large book publishing company which finally updated to the 21st century.

They computerised.

They computerised their accounts.

They computerised their typesetting.

They computerised their payroll.

Then they set out to computerise their art department.

Here they ran into problems. It was a decision of middle management that all art-work be in the same format. There were deep and meaningful discussions about PICT files and TIFF formats yet no one really knew what they were talking about.

Finally they imported a computer expert.

He talked about PNG’s and JPG’s were described as too Lossy.

Finally he suggested the Graphics Information Format. This seemed to fulfil all the required conditions so they thanked the expert and paid him up and sent him to do further nerdish things.

That was when all their computers crashed. To get the definition and quality required, the artwork files were far too large for the computer system being used by the publisher. A completely new and much larger system had to be installed at great cost.

The Board of Directors had to get involved so they sent a memo to Middle Management suggesting that they beware of geeks bearing GIFs.

There is an obvious moral to this tale of woe: beware of geeks bearing GIFs.

Seashell

I went to the beach yesterday. Found some interesting angles for sunshiny shots. Unfortunately it was very overcast and showery. It will be sunshiny another day.

As I was leaving, I spotted this.

A Loser

The local track racing and betting in the local town of Manor has recently fallen upon hard times.

It is easy to understand how people might fail to see the foolishness of betting on the ponies, but that shouldn’t be the case with some people.

Recently, I saw some real cowgirls at the racetrack, and to my surprise, these people that should know horses were constantly choosing horses that came in last place.

No matter what scheme they used, they seemed destined to choose only those nags which were ready to make into mucilage.

I guess it just goes to show that even cowgirls bet the glues.

Lollies for Grown-Ups

Looked Out My Window Today

No, I didn’t go overboard. Not that I couldn’t have. After all, some people do go a little bit overboard when they see a double rainbow.

Tuesday Tune

Outraged Bureaucracy

The whole world has now heard of those Afghan war pages which have been published by Wilileaks.

Predictably the leaks have been condemned as no Government likes to have its shoulder looked over. The reaction has been one of outrage that the pages, all 90,000 odd thousand of them, were not only published on Wikileaks but also sent to three news organisations in three different free press countries.

It is interesting that not one of those three press organisations was behind a paywall.

Jay Rosen from New York U Journalism Institute has had a few things to say on his blog PressThink. He describes the White House response to the leak as “unimpressive”, adding his own observations to the points made by the US government:

• This leak will harm national security. (As if those words still had some kind of magical power, after all the abuse they have been party to.)

• There’s nothing new here. (Then how could the release harm national security?)

• Wikileaks is irresponsible; they didn’t even try to contact us!(Hold on: you’re hunting the guy down and you’re outraged that he didn’t contact you?)

• Wikileaks is against the war in Afghanistan; they’re not an objective news source. (So does that mean the documents they published are fake?)

• “The period of time covered in these documents … is before the president announced his new strategy. Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the president ordered a three month policy review and a change in strategy.” (Okay, so now that we too know the basis for the President’s decision, that’s a bad thing?)

Just a comment to end with. There was a previous leak published on Wikileaks. It was a list of URLs which will be banned under the new internet filter being foisted upon the Australian people by the Government. To protect the children.  On that list was wikileaks itself!

The Very First Giant Kitteh

Recently there have been complaints that kute kitteh’s have been taking up too much internet time.

Very few people alive today remember when they tried to take over the world of television and there wasn’t even a LOL in sight.

Here is a history lesson about Kitten Kong!

A Night Out

Grandma’s Life

From “From London Opinion” magazine- January 1947

Gleefully burgled from Vintage Scans

God and Freedom

Reverently burgled from I Am your God

Sanity

Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting.
John Russell

You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.
Robin Williams (1951 – )

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.
Hunter S. Thompson (1939 – 2005)

Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
Henrik Tikkanen

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)

Howard Hughes was able to afford the luxury of madness, like a man who not only thinks he is Napoleon but hires an army to prove it.
Ted Morgan

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.
Seneca (5 BC – 65 AD), Epistles

Part of being sane, is being a little bit crazy.
Janet Long

Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting.
John Russell

The Death of Gods

Life for ordinary mortals becomes very dangerous when Gods die.

Throughout history there have been civilisations where rulers have been thought of as Gods.

Their deaths required the death of numerous of their officials, servants and slaves. Either sacrificially killed or interred alive with the departed.

The best known recent example was at the end of WW2. Their Fuehrer forced the German people to fight on in a glorious Götterdämmerung, that prophesied war of the Gods that brings about the end of the world.

While that, and most previous similar occurrences, have affected a relatively small part of the planetary population, things could well be different in the modern, much smaller world.

There are obvious dangers from small fanatical groups which claim a religion as their motivation but have lost touch with the God they profess to glorify.

Then there are potentially disastrous situations involving whole nations.

The current danger is from North Korea.

News reports in the past three days highlight this danger.

Firstly, on the 22nd of July, a report that  North Korea has called for a cancellation of joint naval exercises by South Korea and the United States, labelling them a threat to global peace.

Secondly, on 23rd July, an escalation of their stance was reported. “North Korea has threatened a “physical response” to planned joint US-South Korean military exercises due to begin on Sunday.”

Next, on the 24th, came a report that, “North Korea has threatened to use a ‘powerful nuclear deterrence’ in response to a joint military exercise involving South Korea and the United States.“

Just six hours later came intelligence reports that a “Bronze Kim Jong-il sparks rumours of despot’s end“

The possible death of the Korean “God”, the “Dear Leader”, could spark a Korean version of Götterdämmerung in which wild attacks on perceived enemies could be made regardless of the destruction that could be caused by any retaliation.

Then again it may be that a new leader feels he has to consolidate his power with shows of strength against those same perceived enemies, relying on sensible and humane behaviour from those attacked.

The North Koreans have recently sunk a South Korean naval vessel. If this is any indication of their recklessness, I fear the world is closer to a nuclear conflict than it has been for decades. And it may be just a day or two away.

I hope I am wrong.