Update on Bill Adams for friends and family.

This is an update about my Dad, Bill Adams who is currently very ill in hospital and is intended for friends and family.
Steve Adams (Bill's son) sadams.uk@gmail.com

Currently (Saturday 2nd May 2015)

Bill is in St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey and has a very bad infection (sepsis) from a nasty skin ulcer.
He has been very weak for several days now and his body is having a big battle against the infection.
As one of the nurses said, it's like when you have a dose of flu and are weak, feverish and can hardly sit up.
This is why he has been out of contact over the last week-ten days or so. He has received many messages (phone & email) which we have passed on to him.

He has great care, the right drugs and good pain relief.

The medical staff have advised us it is a very serious condition for a man of his age and background health problems.
Obviously we are all very concerned for him and close family and friends are here and around now and in recent days.

Visiting

The medical staff have advised us that he needs rest and should not have too many visitors.

If you are thinking of visiting it would be best to coordinate a bit with either Sue or myself

Sue (Daughter): 07941 083235
Steve (Son): 07901 917 113

Moto X & the coming Age of Context

A couple of good articles by heavy hitting tech commentators around the recent Moto X announcement.

The Inside Story of the Moto X: The Reason Google Bought Motorola
THE INSIDE STORY OF THE MOTO X:
BY STEVEN LEVY

Google, the freaky line and why Moto X is a game-changer by Robert Scoble

The most interesting thing for me about all these gadgets/devices in recent years has always been the services. The amazing leaps Google has been making with things like Google Now and with the new Motorola phone (specifically: touchless control, quick capture photos, battery conservation, hands-free authentication) show the promise of the smart AI(like) knowledge about us (our activities, preferences, relationships and environment etc) combined with ever-smarter (sensors) and ever-more connected devices.

Exciting times... so long we find the energy required to keep powering this techno-progress!

it's the Long Emergency... gently coming into view.. spreading everywhere soon...

The global oil predicament, climate change, and other shocks to the system, with implications for how we will live in the decades ahead.
James Howard Kunstler The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century

Greeks turn to the forests for fuel as winter nears | World news | The Guardian: "Greeks turn to the forests for fuel as winter nears
As austerity tightens its grip, many of the middle class find themselves in a desperate struggle to make ends meet"

Climate change is happening now – a carbon price must followThe extreme weather events of 2012 are what we have been warning of for 25 years, but the answer is plain to see - James Hansen

We live in interesting (Media) times...

It's a very tough line between "press freedom" (see how some of the daft tabloids like to define "public interest") and ensuring powerful publications are held to account when they do "bad things" (it's sad their readers apparently don't boycott them - whatever they do).

There will be lots of arguing about "statutory underpinning" so that any regulator will have some teeth (e.g. currently Desmond's papers walked away from the PCC - showing how easy it is to just ignore it).

However.. today's piece by Emily Bell provides great context:

"Lord Justice Leveson more than once referred to the internet as "the elephant in the room". Leveson is in fact more like the tea hut in the elephant sanctuary by that measure. The scope of the work puts him in self-imposed isolation from what is happening in the wider world of information." 

http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/28/leveson-irrelevant-21st-century-journalism

If I vote for you - you won't win!

It seems I'm keeping up my near 100% record of never voting for a wining candidate in any election (Vince Cable in Twickers is the exception which proves the rule).
Impressive 13.3% turnout - way to go people!

North Yorkshire PCC election: Julia Mulligan winsConservative Julia Mulligan has been elected as North Yorkshire's first police and crime commissioner (PCC).
Mrs Mulligan, a former local councillor and school governor, beat Labour's Ruth Potter by 47,885 votes to 34,328 votes.
The result comes after a low turnout, with figures showing just 13.3% of the electorate went to the polls. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-20349102

Fashion Industry: Derivative nonsense or inspired retro-chic?

Jean Paul Gaultier S/S 2013 Channels Madonna, David Bowie, Boy George, Michael Jackson, Annie Lennox...

Guardian's: 50 months to save the world – interactive

 Interesting looking resource:

"The world has 50 months to go before the dice become loaded against us in terms of keeping under a 2C temperature rise. We asked Guardian readers and public figures what they would do to lead us out of this climate predicament. From mass protest to pensions to personal carbon targets, here are their suggestions "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2012/oct/01/50-months-climate-interactive

I've read a couple, Rob Hopkins (Transition Towns Project) is as always sane, balanced and serious. He's a hero - kind of like a Tim Berners-Lee in that he has quietly created a movement/model which can be adopted/adapted golobally. Wouldn't it be great if it caught on like the WWW.

"The question here is "what should we do differently?" The answer is: pretty much just about everything. Nationally and internationally, while the scale and pace of climate change are accelerating, meaningful responses are dwindling. Part of our collective paralysis comes from the fact that we struggle to imagine a world with less energy, less consumerism, less annual GDP growth. What will it look like, sound like, feel like? Does it inevitably mean that you should start seeking out your cave on Dartmoor as we speak, and developing a taste for slugs? Of course not."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/01/50-months-rob-hopkins

Digging David Byrne and St. Vincent: Love This Giant

http://lovethisgiant.com/

I've been enjoying new David Byrne project Love This Giant - his collaberation with St. Vincent.


More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_This_Giant

I agree with this: "a skewed and funky instant classic."

The Independent's Andy Gill[21] and Simmy Richman[22] consider the brass instrumentation the greatest strength of the album with the latter declaring the work "a skewed and funky instant classic."

 Worth checking out. I've been listening on the great (yet audio quality challenged) Rdio.

Second Test

David Robert Jones, known by his stage name David Bowie, is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. Wikipedia

Test Post

David Robert Jones, known by his stage name David Bowie, is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. Wikipedia

Took Charlie and some of his friends to see Brave today.
Great fun - better than any of us had expected - well worth a watch.
Lovely short beforehand too.

Test Post on Blogger

Hoping this gets auto posted to G+

Happy 20th Birthday Linux!

It's in my phone, my PC, my laptop, our MythTV PVR, Charlie's netbook... It's Linux!

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/20th/

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="560" caption="Happy 20th Birthday Linux"][/caption]

Secret NI - Project X, Project Y

At the end of yesterday's R4 media Show [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012t97p] they mentioned "Project X, Project Y" - looking into ways ahead for NI in the UK, what to do with the various titles and how to merge things.

I found this blog post (know nothing about the author) which summarises it:

"Inside News International there are two secret projects: Project X, cut costs by 50%. Project Y, move to a seven-day-a-week newspaper. A couple of days before James Murdoch with Rebekah Wade in tow, accompanied by security guards, told staff at the News of the World it was being closed, two web addresses were registered for The Sun on Sunday. It is goodbye News of the World, hello Sun on Sunday."

So - before you celebrate the death of the awful NOTW

At the end of yesterday's BBC R4 Media Show special on the #NotW [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012t97p] they mentioned "Project X, Project Y" - looking into ways ahead for NI in the UK, what to do with the various titles and how to merge things.

I found this blog post (know nothing about the author or his connections) which summarises it:

"Inside News International there are two secret projects: Project X, cut costs by 50%. Project Y, move to a seven-day-a-week newspaper. A couple of days before James Murdoch with Rebekah Wade in tow, accompanied by security guards, told staff at the News of the World it was being closed, two web addresses were registered for The Sun on Sunday. It is goodbye News of the World, hello Sun on Sunday."

http://keithpp.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/good-riddance-news-of-the-world/

If true - why isn't this being discussed more in the press?

So - before we celebrate the death of the awful NOTW this might actually just be them bringing forward an existing plan.
There's a great rant about the topic from John Finnemore on yesterdays's Now Show - essentially saying we need to keep up the outrage & protest levels in order to show NI and management as not "fit and proper persons"  in the SKY takeover. Makes a good point.

BBC R4 Now Show S34 Ep5: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b012942n

F'Day: Giant Choc Bar and card with Cruyff shirt...

... the boy done good... :-)

(I'll even let him off the YOUR/YOU'RE thing)

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="333" caption="Fathers Day"][/caption]

More cartoon based server naming hilarity... [xkcd]

Following on from yesterday's inspired Dilbert is today's XKCD strip.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="740" caption="XKCD on Server Naming"][/caption]

Wally on Unix server naming [Dilbert strip]

Wally - after all these years - still got it!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="560" caption="Wally - after all these years - still got it!"][/caption]

Linus on "convenience computing"

Interesting comments on convenience vs complexity from (Linux creator) Linus Torvalds on emerging devices. For someone as key to the development and propagation of open and free software he is commendably relaxed about the philosophy/ideology - yet arguably has achieved more than anybody through the wide reach of his Linux kernel. Rest of the interview interesting too.

--Do you think about the notebook Chromebook Google? It is an irony of open source software have made an open system while leaving the user as "slave" of a single company?
--You really have a very negative world-view, don't you?
--No, I don't have a negative world view, I am just journalist! :-)
--Hey.. Much of my family are journalists (mom, dad, uncle, grandfather..)
--But it is not ironic?
--I don't think you need to be pessimistic even as a journalist. I'm not sure where chrome will go, but at the same time it's very clear (just look at all the cellphones and tablets), that most non-techies really don't want a general-purpose "computer" – there seems to be a fairly large base of people who really don't want to maintain their own computer setup, but want to get access to the most common things - web browsing, email, some text processing, photo management etc. And while tablets may be sexy right now, I think a lot of people do want the keyboard and mouse. Writing stuff on a tablet really isn't all that great. So I think a chromebook makes sense in that kind of area. Why would that make anybody a "slave"? It's about convenience. Are you a slave to the electricity company just because you depend on them (and have to pay them) making electricity available to you?

Source: marianoblejman.com

Rapture Day on 21st May!

I have to thank the Doonesbury cartoon strip for alerting me to this. If your non-sinning and righteous neighbours (think Ned Flanders) simply disappear on Saturday don't say you weren't warned!

The 2011 end times prediction is a prediction made by Christian radio host Harold Camping that the Rapture(in Christian belief, the taking up into heaven of God's elect people) will take place on May 21, 2011^[1][2] and that the end of the world as we know it will take place five months later on October 21, 2011.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_end_times_prediction

Lots of coverage of this in US media via Google News

UK Guardian touched on it yesterday

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Doonesbury"][/caption]

Refuse to be terrorised!

Interesting to see how news organisations report the arrest of 5 people near Sellafield and to watch it unfold via Google News (link).

The story seems to be: routine security procedure of well protected highly secure nuclear establishment routinely picks up people acting a bit suspiciously - as you would expect them to. Not many details have been released by the police - though it is mentioned in some reports that the 5 men are in their 20s and of Bangladeshi descent.

Some orgs though can't help but tell us we should feel terrorised!!!

e.g. "Nuclear terror alert as UK police arrest five men at Sellafield" and some love to make the link to OBL and AQ by stating things like "no link proven to AQ or OBL".

Of course it could prove to be a really huge threat to a nuclear plant by a well trained group of killers - maybe they were away on the day they did "don't wander into routine security patrols with cameras looking suspicious" training.

As others have said in recent years, and I'll repeat... If the objective of "terrorism" is to terrify the civilian population it seems you don't even need to have a credible plan or the means to execute it... rather you just need to feed a story to our media and we'll terrorise ourselves!

Looking forward to see if they are charged let alone convicted of anything serious.

interesting to see how news organisations report the arrest of 5 people near Sellafield (Nuke site).

The story seems to be - routine security procedure of well protected highly secure nuclear establishment routinely picks up people acting a bit suspiciously -as you would expect them to.

Some orgs though can't help but tell us we should feel terrorised!!!, e.g. "Nuclear terror alert as UK police arrest five men at Sellafield" and some make the link to OBL and AQ by stating things like (no link proven to AQ or OBL).

It could be a really huge threat to a nuclear plant.. yet if the objective of "terrorism" is to terrify civilian population... it seems you don't even need to have a credible plan or the means to execute it... rather you just need to feed a story to our media and we'll terrorise ourselves!

Looking forward to see if they are charged and convicted of anything serious.