This photo for last week’s WordPress weekly photo challenge records a milestone for our oldest daughter and her partner… their first family Christmas breakfast in their own home, and their last one before chaos the twins were born…
Unfortunately, if you remember from when it may have happened to you as a child, being turned upside-down is often neither a good thing nor much fun…
I was reading this article which opines that the US Army needs to get with the programme and starting issuing smart phones to soldiers to improve their access to information…yeah, nice but…
Where’s all the bandwidth going to come from? In fact, where is the cell net going to come from? Will the Army be relying on commercial/civilian networks in the host nation? will it be forced to develop and deploy its own portable cell networks?
The term ‘host nation’ implies that we will be continuing to engage in the type of warfare we have been doing since DESERT STORM i.e. with the semi-consent of the current governing body…where’s the cell net going to be if/when we return to good old-fashioned major combat operations?
Who’s making all these smartphones? Who’s going to guarantee that they don’t come with a hard-wired ‘go dumb in event of war’ function much like that the US was suspected of installing in military equipment it sells to potentially unreliable customers?
How will these phones offer the degree of security necessary when you really do want to keep something a secret? Similarly, what’s the lock-out going to be when one gets lost? And how will that be designed so that the security protocols don’t risk lives e.g. ‘please insert your 17 character alphanumeric password that must include upper and lower case, digits and special characters in order to access the emergency call for fire screen’…
How will soldiers maintain situational awareness and still be able to follow all the miltwits (take that anyway you want) on the smart phone screen…?
How will soldiers be able to recharge the damn things? Or will they just mean yet more batteries to be carried?
How will they connect with the range of current and legacy information systems and tools? Or will the Army just toss everything into the “…cloud…”?
Has anyone done a check to see if they will work in all areas of the world when boots may be on the ground? Or will ‘no service’ = ‘no war’?
How will the endless stream of updates and patches be applied in an operational arena?
I’m sorry but I think that the blingophiles need to think this through a little more. While the military development and acquisition definitely needs work, outfitting your Army at Radio Shack seems a sure way to set oneself up for a mighty fall against a smarter opponent who just needs to work out how to turn the lights off…
You've got to be kidding me!
I gazed in wonder (this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge) at the might of the Thon Brussels City Centre hotel ironing room…there are no irons or ironing boards in the rooms (less a dodgy trouser press) however “…guests may make use of the hotel ironing room…”…for a 29 story hotel with hundreds of rooms, what you see if what you get…and it’s not even a particularly good iron nor is it very clean – lots of brown gunge on the underside…
It’s a shame really as the rooms are really nice and a decent size although catching a lift is a bit problematic though: there are four of them but each is tiny and will only take three adults before the weight alarm goes off…waiting ten minutes for a lift is not unusual…
Nice big windows but the curtains leave a bit to be desired as they don’t block out the city night lights and one colleague staying on a lower floor gave the office girls in an adjacent office block a thrill when he climbed out of bed one morning!
Not sure if this is a place I’d recommend or not yet…
...great views from the 28th floor though...
Windows is the theme this week for the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge…this is a shot I took from our kitchen window a couple of weeks ago when it looked like spring had finally arrived – then it rained again…I was struck by this little chap’s bright plumage – he’s not something we see that often…and that’s the coollest thing about our windows where we live – we never know what we might see next through them…
I’m on the road at the moment, doing a loop up through Singapore to Europe and back over the next couple of weeks…arrived at our hotel after dark so didn’t have a chance to check out the view til this morning…and was presented with a lovely view of old Singapore…
Had a smooth flight over – is there anything else on Singapore Airlines? – managed to squeeze in four movies:
More giant machines beating each other up…good violent fun – four-engined V-22s (v-44s?) are very cool…
A lot of fun that doesn’t take itself too seriously – Tem Morrision dies early in the story (always a plus)…
Captain America is ripping good yarn and pretty true to the original ‘Cap’ story as I remember it…
The (at) last Harry Potter movie – kinda anticlimatic after all the hype and build-up to it – the whole ‘Luke, I am your father’ thing has been done before and let’s be honest about it, once it was down, any effect from using it again is largely lost…
Another long haul flight tonight but think I’ll be all nigh-nighs for most of this one…
‘Hidden’ is this week’s photo challenge and hidden in this collection of farmyard characters from the Kalgoorlie production of Footrot Flats is our youngest daughter..not too sure how impressed Mum was to get a letter from her yesterday saying she had a new role in which she was “...docked, shorn and mounted regularly…”
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I’ve been sitting on this one for a while…just hadn’t got round to posting it which is sad because this is an artistic achievement worth noting…Peter Zorn is a designer and publisher of paper models. In the early 80s, he designed and released his original large scale model of the iconic (even if you only ever saw it in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom!) Ford Trimotor.
In 1980/1981, when I started the design of the Ford Trimotor 5-AT, Steve Jobs was about 25 years old. Needless to say, “No computers were harmed while designing this model.”
For at least the last decade or so, it has been a hard-to-find collector’s item….cut forward to late 2010, as Peter Zorn tells it…
…one man (Ron40) sends another (Deckape) a 30-year-old book to build a paper model of an 80-year-old aeroplane. Then a dozen or so others chime in on the build thread, expressing interest in building one of their own.
After the build was complete, I chimed in with congratulations and kudos. It seemed that there was enough interest in scanning and making the original book available, so I gave permission. Another country heard from (Billy Leliveld) volunteers to do the scans and when he is finished there is more interest in having the model available in a working mode so individuals can color their own choice of liveries and… Yet another country heard from as (Rubén Andrés Martínez) takes on the monumental task of re-drawing the entire model and, as we are no longer bound by publishing signatures and can have as many pages as we care to print, has included almost all of the existing early liveries.
The nicknames refer to the identities of members of the Papermodelers.com forum, where the restoration and modern development took place…unfortunately Ron40 died just before the completion of the project that he had set in motion…
The final work of art is some 300+ pages (including a history of the model and the actual aircraft, detailed notes on each version and detailed instructions – each version only requires 30-40 pages to be printed) and includes liveries for eleven different aircraft including the aforementioned Trimotor from the early parts of Temple of Doom…plus full interiors for each version…
One of the things that constantly mazes be about the paper modelling community is its willingness to share its works and so, the restored Zorn Ford Trimotor 5-AT cost you nothing but a little time to register at papermodelers,com, make one post in the forum; and then the bandwidth to download it 0 it’s only about 30Mb i.e. less than your average movie trailer…After that you need a printer, some paper/cardstock, and some time to dedicate to building something not often seen these days…
Something a bit different as I try to get back into two or more ‘non-challenge’ posts a week…enjoy…
Mr Pickwick's
Opportunity is the theme in this week’s photo challenge…as described, the opportunity that presents itself where your reaction is either of the ‘…wish I brought the camera…’ or ‘…naturally, I had the camera (and after I finished my reps)…’ variety…
We’ve long been in the habit of always having a camera handy – and keeping it bombed up with fresh batteries: no more rechargeables for the camera, just good old fashioned, environmentally-unfriendly lithiums for us – and so don’t have too many of those ‘…and I there was, the Yeti poised in front of me, when the flat battery alarm frightened it off…’ stories…with animals and small children here, there are too many opportunities too good to miss…
So for us, perhaps, opportunity and cameras go together in a different way…we love nothing more than to have the time when travelling to stop in some little place and spend an hour or two exploring some pokey (the pokier the better) antique or secondhand (often the distinction between the two is in the eye of the beholder) shop and we use to camera to record objet d’intereste, sometimes just for curiosity, sometimes to compare with another, and sometimes just as a memory-jogger as to where what was seen if we decide to go back for it…
We last visited Mr Pickwick’s in Christchurch over Christmas/New Year 09-10 – at the time they were unloading a lot of stock in preparation for moving to a new smaller location in order to better compete with the new business model coming from entities like TradeMe …they used to be along Cashel Street in Sydenham, about halfway between the now Red Zone and the foot of the Port Hills…hope that move went well for them and that few treasures were damaged or lost in the September and February quakes…
I can, I can, of course, I can…a steam engine climbs the Raurimu Spiral…
This week’s photo challenge leads off…
“As far back as I can remember, I have loved taking and looking at photographs of doorways, paths, windows, and roads – these kinds of images have always invited me in and encouraged my mind to wander. What’s beyond that ornate door? Whose window is that? Where would I end up if I continued on that road? These are what I call ‘pictures of possibility.’
I often do this…look at a side road or a farm track and wonder where it goes, what it might be like to explore one day , or maybe live along somewhere; or look at a window and wonder about the people who might live or work behind it…in this case, a steam engine on the Raurimu Spiral – commercial rail traffic here is all diesel-electric but occasionally a restored steam train will come along on a special outing – the steam plume is great for tracking the path of the Spiral which from here climbs through two tunnels and a complete 360 to emerge some one hundred and forty metres higher on the Central Plateau….in addition to the whole days gone by thing, I remember taking this picture and wondering about the people on the train…who were…where were they going…what little back stories filled each carriage…
Sometimes we come inside when we’ve left the TV on and there will be Kirk, perched in front of the screen attentively following every movement…He’s quite picky about what he watches, his favourites being ‘It’s Me Or The Dog!‘, ‘Country Calendar‘ and ‘The Dog Show‘ and only when there’s sheep or other dogs on the screen…he doesn’t get excited, just sits and watches…I often wonder what he’s thinking…what’s a Kirk’s-eye view of the world…?
I scored this idea from Children’s Books & More – perhaps a clue to the blogger is in the URL ‘passion 2 read’ – after they liked my Comfort post… Bookworm Traits I think that 46 traits is probably too much for one hit but here it goes…
1. People often find your nose in a book spending hours at the library or bookstore.
2. Amazon.com is bookmarked and frequently used when you can’t get to the library or bookstore.
3. Who cares about the next DVD release? When can I get the latest book release?
4. Books are on your Christmas or birthday list.
5. You’d rather read a book than watch television.
6. You argue that the books are always better than any movie based off a book.
7. You get a thrill when you open the book for the first time and feel its pages with the promise of a next favorite.
8. You smile when you see children reading rather than playing video games or watching television.
9. You cringe when you see watermarks, torn pages, and vandalism to books.
10. It’s normal to leave the house with some reading material.
11. It’s not a vacation unless you have a supply of books. (If not, you can always visit the town’s bookstore.)
12.You listen to more audio books than the car radio.
13. You dish out recommendations and welcome any in return.
14. You constantly add books to your to-read list.
15. You stay up past midnight to finish a great book.
16. After you finished the great book, you wish you slowed down to savor it.
17. You imagine meeting your favorite book characters.
18. You’d like to jump into your favorite book to fully experience it.
19. You don’t have enough shelves to hold all your books.
20. You analyze and discuss books with fellow bookworms.
21. You look forward to school and library book sales.
22. You ‘browse’ books in a bookstore and come back each week.
23. You read The New York Times’ Bestseller List for new books to read.
24. You have a bookstore membership for book rewards.
25. Rainy days are good reading weather days.
26. You enjoy any reading, even what some consider ‘junk mail’.
27. You feel lost without a book to read.
28. You love hearing stories read to you.
29. A long flight, car ride, or train journey is the perfect time to read a book.
30. You keep a journal of the books you’ve read and plan to read. (record books on goodreads)
31. You remember quotes and passages from your favorite books.
32. You compare individuals to characters in your book.
33. You have an endless supply of bookmarks and battery replacements for book lights.
34. You’re not afraid to laugh or cry while reading.
35. You read the book that made you laugh or cry again.
36. You spread the word to everyone to read a book.
37. You take literary trips that connect to your book. (Blog post about a children’s literature tour in New York, abroad a train for Agatha Christie’s Orient Express, visit Forks, Washington, for Twilight, explore Concord, Massachusetts, for Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, or even visit Hogwarts at Universal Studios)
38. You cook dishes similar to foods in books. (Blog that relates books and food)
39. You try skills and hobbies as characters in books.
40. You’re sadden when bookstores and libraries close.
41. You have difficulties picking just one favorite book.
42. You know that reading will never die, even with more e-readers and technology.
43. You feel bad for those who don’t enjoy a good book.
44. You wish you could talk to the author after finishing a book.
45. You attend book signings and author discussions.
46. You know that reading is your ticket to anywhere your heart desires.
This image sprang to mind immediately when I saw the title of this week’s photo challenge. The back story to it is in Jacks where I first used this image a couple of years ago. Kirk is a canine who very much likes his home comforts…most of the time he is just a big sooky-nana….
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