Random
catdynamics | September 17, 2007Robert Jordan, author of the "Wheel of Time" fantasy series, and assorted Conan novels, died
I am not much of a fantasy reader, although I went through a phase of reading all the Conan novels (originals by Robert Howard, then the later sequels by de Camp and Carter and then Jordan, haven't looked at the third wave of graphic novels and movie tie-ins).
Occasionally, some friends would recommend a fantasy series, some of which I read (like anything by Guy Gavriel Kay) and others not so much (I may yet forgive the friend who recommended the Illearth series, maybe, but the "Bio of a Space Tyrant…
catdynamics | September 14, 2007Long and tiring friday, and we put the iPod to the test!
Oh, Mighty iPod, will Google have to pay out on the Lunar X-Prize?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Counting to twenty
The Crossing: Firebird: Introduction - Stravinsky
The Crown: I Will Never Be The Same - Melissa Etheridge
The Root: My Flying Saucer - Billy Bragg
The Past: Mammaborgar - Edda Backman
The Future: A Change Is Gonna Come - Billy Bragg
The Questioner: O Come, All Ye Faithful - King's College Choir
The House: This Is The Way
The Inside: Mate of the Bloke - Half Man Half Biscuit
The Outcome: (White Man)…
catdynamics | September 11, 2007more strange goings on in the general vicinity of the Middle East
Syria Comment has an interesting series on the Israeli Air Force strike in Syria.
Given how potentially provocative such a strike is, the line of news stories and diplomatic reactions is weird.
It is also worrying that Israel has minor mobilization, as allegedly does Syria.
The story now is a strike on weapons shipments from Iran, but the geography doesn't make sense.
In the meantime the ever unreliable DEBKA claims the USS Nimitz is heading back to the Persian Gulf after exercises in the Bay of Bengal - I don't like that, they…
catdynamics | September 10, 2007Everytime I hear "Jesus of Suburbia" I think they sing "am I just self-adjoint"?
catdynamics | September 10, 2007On saturday I spend a fair fraction of the day seeing a small plane endlessly circling over town, and the local fooball stadium
it was towing a large banner, advertisement for a major car insurance company.
I was idly wondering for most of that day, just why Geico was using Che Guevara's image to advertise itself...
It was the absence of the signature beret that finally clued me in...
I am sooooooo out of touch with contemporary pop culture.
PS: From comments
Too funny. Wish I had thought of it.
Viva la evolucion!
(looks like several variants available on Cafe Press and similar sites)
catdynamics | September 7, 2007Steamy, sultry friday, and we ask the iPod: what is going on with 2M1207B? Is it a mash up, as predicted?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Goodbye Blue Sky - Pink Floyd
The Crossing: Wide Open Spaces - Dixie Chicks
The Crown: God's Comic - Elvis Costello
The Root: Waiting for the Worms - Pink Floyd
The Past: Mr Jones - Talking Heads
The Future: The Space Race is Over - Billy Bragg
The Questioner: A Little Cat Cat Cat
The House: Il Pleut Bergere - Sien Diels
The Inside: Proud Mary - Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Outcome: Frosty the Snowman
Damn, it is!
As always, the…
catdynamics | September 6, 2007I know this is tiresome, but I find it interesting to play "what if..."
I'll get back to all science soon. No point in dynamic web logs if they don't respond dynamically to changing issues... eh?
So, what if the US wanted to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran, ASAP, either 'cause someone thinks they should, or because of some provocation they choose to accept as casus belli?
The US could do a cold start conventional attack with less than 24 hour notice, but ideally they'd want about 3 days to get ready.
More, if the Navy is in on it, subs and maybe carriers, need to be moved into place.…
catdynamics | September 6, 2007Hm, a flight of eight Tupolev-95 Russian long range bombers buzzed the North Atlantic,
oh, and Syria claims Israeli air force bombed their desert?
Zipped down the Iceland-Faroe gap, RAF and Norwegian Air Force scrambled to meet them.
Grauniad version here
US comment was that they didn't worry about "mothballed relics", transliterating from the Icelandic story on the incident.
These used to be regular incidents - training and probing radar and readiness.
But they were suspended for fifteen years, until this summer, now they have Tu's nosing about both in the Atlantic and Pacific.
In a totally…
catdynamics | September 5, 2007So the USAF took half-dozen nukes on an inadvertent roadtrip across the US heartland
careless that, but shit happens
no harm, no foul, as they say
The interesting question is why the 5th Bomb wing is shipping Air Launched Cruise Missiles to the 2nd Bomb wing?
The missiles are being decommissioned, notes the WaPo article, but that is subtly misleading.
The bulk of the ALCM inventory is armed with nukes, but the use of ALCMs in the last decade has been standoff conventional precision bombing by launch from B-52Hs, after the ALCM-B is converted to an ALCM-C - "C" for "Conventional".
There are,…
catdynamics | September 4, 2007Shocking news from Iceland: the foreign minister has announced the the immediate withdrawal of the entire Icelandic contingent from Iraq!
The Icelandic foreign minister, Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir announced that while she deplores the fighting in Iraq and expressing her full support for the Iraqi people.
The icelandic contingent is a NATO information officer working with the NATO training contingent in the 'Green Zone' in Baghdad.
He will be home by the end of september.
Iceland continues operations in Afghanistan.
(Seriously: bomb disposal and air traffic control, as well as development…
catdynamics | September 2, 2007The "Big 10" Channel just launched.
A channel dedicated to showing just the college athletics of the eleven teams in the Big Ten conference
That will include a lot of repeats...
I am slightly flabbergasted at a university consortium negotiating such a deal, it just doesn't seem quite right, just hope it is lucrative enough to be worth it.
They could not have picked a better opening weekend, what with PSU annihilating their opponents on a picture perfect afternoon.
But, the channel just keep showing the Appalachian State at Michigan University game over and over again.
It wasn't that good a…
catdynamics | September 1, 2007there are some interesting air national guard unit activations taking place
some for overseas deployment to places like the 'stans, support units,
there also seem to be new national guard activation for US internal security duty - "Operation Noble Guard"
nothing spectacularly unusual, but some movement
probably nothing, but the kos diaries unrest continues
catdynamics | August 31, 2007A cool autumnal friday, foreshadowing a cool weekend.
And we approach The Mighty iPod, with trepidation, and ask: Oh, Mighty iPod One, the hour of our doom approacheth - what will the outcome be at 4 o'clock on the 5th day of the month of September in the year 2007 of the Common Era? We gots ta know!
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh...
The Covering: Nice 'N' Sleazy - Stranglers
The Crossing: Are We The Waiting (live) - Green Day
The Crown: I Ain't Gonna Let You Break My Heart - Bonnei Raitt
The Root: Oh Well - Fiona Apple
The Past: Ode To Boy - Alison Moyet
The Future: I Wanna Be…
catdynamics | August 30, 2007kos diaries are buzzing about rumours that the admin will roll out casus belli against Iran
the current rumour is that we're in the pre-amble (cf recent Bush speeches and press stories), that they'll go into "not August any more" ramp up next week (after Labour Day of course), and gear for confrontation/incident/strike on-or-after Sep 11th.
Interesting.
Paranoid.
Possibly some truth to it.
Sep 11-13 are a good time for doing silly things, new moon, start of Ramadan, and start of major political turmoil in DC as reports, hearings and subpoenas all come together and Congress settles in for the…
catdynamics | August 30, 2007I finally obtained, and read, the last of the Harry Potterbooks
(no spoilers)
I did wander over to the old (spoilered filled) discussion at that haven of F/SF - Making Light, which was good fun, but one comment caught my eye in the endless discussion of matching up the wizard population to the size of Hogwarts class.
"What kind of society needs one school, one bank, one Ministry and 13 professional Quidditch teams?"
I know! The Færeyjar! - Faroe Islands
They have 50,000 people, fairly spread out in small villages.
Far as I know, they still have one bank (Landsbanki, natch), ok they seem to…
catdynamics | August 29, 2007 ...I was up late in a hotel in Chicago (ok, Evanston) flicking between the weather channel and CNN, watching Katrina, while trying to concentrate on the subtleties of cooling functions for cold ultra low metallicity gas...
Then I saw breaking news on CNN, it was not good.
Ended up staying up way too late, mesmerised by the sub-text in the reporting.
A couple of days later I flew out of O'Hare, right over the arc of storms that were squeezing the last little bit of gulf moisture from Katrina out over the Ohio valley.
Seeing the very rapidly moving high altitude clouds ripple over the Lakes…
catdynamics | August 27, 2007they got a new building
Turf Wars pt 7
Turf Wars: the end
Hah.
That is what they think... let me tell you, I was there, we chased those chemists out and took plenty of booty too.
Turf Wars: Epilogue
catdynamics | August 24, 2007Steamy hot friday and we ask the mighty iPod: what for the next 16 years?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Rudi, A Message To You - Specials
The Crossing: Travelin' Soldier (live) - Dixie Chicks
The Crown: (White Man) in Hammersmith Palais (live) - Clash
The Root: Sulk - Billy Bragg
The Past: Cadet Rouselle - Sien Diels
The Future: Winter - Vivaldi
The Questioner: Change - Melissa Etheridge
The House: Bob Wilson - Anchorman - Half Man Half Biscuit
The Inside: O zittre nicht mein lieber Son - Mozart
The Outcome: The Price I Pay - Billy Bragg
"Well I'd like to meet…
catdynamics | August 23, 2007I just can't help myself; I keep thinking it would be really neat to actually have Joy Division Oven Gloves