Pie Charts In The Plains, a set on Flickr.
Flying from Chicago to San Francisco today I was struck by the fact that there were bar charts, pie charts and many more visible everywhere.
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Garden Monster, originally uploaded by webmink.Spotted this vapourer moth caterpillar eating the leaves on one of my blueberry bushes. Glad it’s only 3cm long 🙂
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If you are a UK resident located in the UK (yes, Amazon really has bolted its service down that tightly here), there are free tracks by two of my absolute favourite artists available at the moment.
I ordered the new album Perfect Darkness [US] by Fink as soon as I saw it was being released (it’s out in 10 days in the US). I think his earlier album Distance and Time [US] is just brilliant, especially This Is The Thing [US], and find his stripped back, smoked bluesy sound captivating. You can get the title track from Perfect Darkness free from Amazon UK; sadly there’s only one track on mflow, Makers. There is actually a different Fink track free on Amazon US, Revolution.
On the other hand, as I wrote before, I’d assumed Lamb were roast, so to speak. I’ve been really enjoying the richer, smoother sounds on their comeback album 5 [US] and you can get a free track from it on Amazon UK, Last Night The Sky, with the strong yet beautifully uncertain voice and lyrics of Lou Rhodes. No free US tracks that I can find, sorry.
Obviously the links are going to corrode and the tracks will stop being free, so apologies if you found this with a search some time long after I posted it 🙂
Filed under: Music | Tagged: Fink, Lamb | 1 Comment »
I’m getting tired of all the news reports that are incorrectly accusing the News of the World of “phone hacking”. For goodness sake, haven’t we already covered this? It’s both inaccurate and unhelpful. Even the BBC are doing it and they ought to know better.
It is inaccurate because the activity does not involve access to phones but to the voicemail service they connect to. As far as I can tell, no phone system has had its integrity violated during this incident, only a voicemail system. Most likely the culprit just cracked the voicemail PIN – pretty easy stuff if you know how to dial in to the service.
It is also inaccurate because the term “hacking” is not correctly applied to the violation of the integrity of systems. Hacking is a more general term indicating that a system is being used in a way that was not envisaged by its creators, and can be used both positively and negatively. The term that should be used is instead “cracking”.
It is unhelpful because huge numbers of technically skilled people routinely engage in “hacking” as a positive activity, involving innovation and problem solving. Misuse of the term only with a negative connotation diminishes the contribution these skilled individuals make to society.
The correct term for the alleged activity is “voicemail cracking”. It’s time people learned the difference.
Filed under: Zeitgeist | Tagged: BBC | 4 Comments »
If you don’t like whingeing by frequent fliers, skip this post!
I spent all day Tuesday travelling back from Brazil on TAP. Having taken four flights with them (LHR-LIS, LIS-GRU, VCP-LIS, LIS-LHR) I feel partially qualified to say that TAP are not a great airline. To recite the litany in no particular order:
I tried really hard to think of some positive things to say here. So thanks to the great cabin crew on the LIS-LHR flight for redeeming things, and to the security checker at Lisbon who was lots of fun (and who I expect will read this as she has my card!). I actually missed being on United, if you can imagine that. I’d only fly them again if the fare was really cheap (maybe that’s a positive – they aren’t on my no-fly list!).
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I’ve been a fan of the music made by Lamb for a long time, but I’d assumed that when they broke up we’d not be hearing any more from them. Indeed, Lou Rhodes new solo career has produced some good music since then. But on the flight to Brazil, I saw in the TAP in-flight magazine that Lamb were back together and on tour – with a new album.
The album, 5 (that’s a US link – naturally it’s available in the UK too) seems to me to be a great come-back. Both musically and lyrically strong, it has a new smoothness to the music that harks back to earlier greatness plus an orchestral depth on many of the tracks that to my ears makes the new album my favourite Lamb so far. Very much recommended.
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Just ending a relaxing Sunday with friends in Brazil, who have these coffee plants in their garden. It’s getting close to the time the berries need harvesting, although as we discovered last time we tried it the work involved to make coffee from them is substantial. Anyway, watch out for news of FISL and more in the coming days.
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While the journey is a long one, I always enjoy visiting Brazil. Some of my best friends live there, and the whole place infused with a positive energy that’s unique in my experience. So I’m delighted to have been invited to speak at two separate venues next week.
The first is the University of São Paulo, where I will be spending Monday afternoon delivering a seminar called Open Source Concepts and Realities. I’ll explore some of the ideas you’ll find on my essays page, as well as hopefully engage in discussion with other attendees.
The second is one of the world’s longest-running – and largest – Free Software conferences, FISL. Held in the far south of Brazil in Porto Alegre (which means the mid-winter weather may prove a little colder than the name “Brazil” usually evokes), it is attended by a wide range of delegates from business, education and government. I’m speaking twice; on Wednesday at 9am, explaining the restructuring the OSI Board envisages for OSI, and on Friday at 11am delivering my keynote explaining why “Software Freedom Means Business Value”. I also expect to attend the meetups for LibreOffice (Friday at 1pm) and for people considering the Apache OpenOffice project.
If you’ll be at FISL in Porto Alegre, I’d love to see you – I already know that many old friends are there too. Please use my contact form if you want to arrange a meeting.
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It was with huge sadness that we discovered last month that our cat Toby had died suddenly in a neighbour’s garden. He was young and in perfect condition. He had breakfast, went out to prowl in the sunshine and the next thing we knew was many hours later when we received a call to say he’d been found, perfect, unmarked and dead. The vet said it was most likely a blood clot which had stopped his heart.
That sadness is mitigated by the arrival of a new member of our family today. Our usual cat-provider-of-choice, the Cats Protection League, had a one-year-old stray on their books, and we collected her this evening. T S Eliot-inspired cat-naming is now in full swing. I expect her to be faster and more reliable than any of her predecessors – she is, after all, Cat 6.
Filed under: Zeitgeist | 3 Comments »
Ever wondered why barbecues aren’t the staple of summer life for the British that they are for Californians? It’s because any time you try to plan one (like we have today, with a decent number of guests), the weather does this:
Filed under: Zeitgeist | Tagged: Party | 3 Comments »
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