All quiet out there

I was just rereading some old posts. Mine's a classic blog really, in that it's purely written for myself. I don't know if anyone else ever reads it - occasionally there seems to be a visitor from somewhere else, probably the MT List crew, who hangs around the site to read a few pages.
Funny really that keeping a diary that's theoretically accessible to half the world's population is probably less read than if you wrote in a book and put "Keep Off" on the front.
I like what I've put down on here over the last 18 months. It reminds me of things, it makes me think of things, it's coherent to me at least. There's a regularity here - no more than 2 or 3 weeks absence at most, that I don't achieve with any more serious writing. And it's written to be read, which is different - most of what I write currently is in such an early draft that it's not for reading - unless, of course, it's for my work. Alot of my work these days seems to be writing too, sometimes proposals, sometimes just carefully political emails.
Curious what the future will bring.
Well, being curious, what do I stumble across but this:

The Future Ground Based Air Defence System (FGBADS) is an integrated mixed and layered air defence system consisting of a Command and Control part (BMC4I) and a weapon system part (VSHORAD and SHORAD) for low and very low-level air defence. It is a “system of systems” with “plug and fight” quality. FGBADS has the capability for creating a Local Air Picture (LAP) and exchanging it with other air defence systems. Furthermore FGBADS handles Air Space Control and integrates the external Recognised Air Picture (RAP) into its own air picture. The sum of these capabilities means complete situational awareness in the most optimal form. FGBADS completely controls the usage of the VSHORAD and SHORAD weapon systems.

So WTF is this shit? Some mad fucking Command and Conquer geeks, or is this some real shit? I can clearly see this is something to look at when I'm in a more sober condition. First response ( and if you use the words "first response" they probably launch something or other) is that it's some sad wannabe Dutch action.

The net's a damn weird place. Wish we'd never let these looney's out to play.....

Spudjacking

Apparently there is not one single reference to spudjacking anywhere on the interweb thingy. So here's the first.
Having spent many less than ecstatic hours either grubbing in the semi-frozen dirt or half-frozen on the backs of tractors in the drk hours after school, helping harvest the magnificent potato, I think I'm entitled to at least raise the issue of spudjacking. Further digressions on agricultural heritage and child labour can wait till another time.
I'm starting to teach our kids about growing plants. It's a real simple thing, but gives them lots of pleasure. I suspect it might be useful knowledge for the future. At least if they understand that growing vegetables involves care and nurture and effort, be they relatively minimal for the return. (Animal farming is much more intensive, and if you remove the demands of intensive farming as well, then you start to understand that the old peasants might have had a reasonable amount of free time on their hands if the local lord of the manor wasn't hopgging it all with his stupid demands.)
Might even get them to eat their veg.
Only in dreams.
Work has taken off. Had a sort of new job at the usual place, and then not, in the last couple of weeks. Or rather, i have the new job, but as usual I have to do it for a year first before I actually get the job and the cash to go with it. Still, it's a really interesting thing to do - launch a new business effectively, and migrate a legacy business into the new online model.
Shame we manage to have timed this to coincide with baby number 3 arriving. It's been a while since a baby came into my life. I hope I can remember how to do things - it's a strange concept again, and I'm looking forward to it, but hoping that it gets the attention it deserves in my life. Everything is hard to fit in already, so I'm either going to be exhausted or underperforming or screwed up, or probably all three somewhere this summer.
Still, I'm pretty decent at hanging the different threads together, juggling the different balls.
Only in dreams.

Actually, in dreams in the last few days, i've been in a tornado, and been running through the mountains of Catalunya up by Andy's place. I'd like to go there next year. Might go StormChasing too if there's enough money with all this yuppie work.

Online TV

Today, I'm quite excited about being able to watch England play cricket. Live streaming TV online, via P2P application. The quality's not 100%, and the line falls out sometimes, but it's like the old days. It's the first thing for years that has reminded me what it was like online 10 years ago or more. That feeling of being in early on something very big kicking off. And of course I'm not in the first wave, but this is fairly new all the same. I don't yet know why, but it's mostly Chinese so far. Very cool, there's lots of sports out there. Which is a difference from a decade back: the geek quotient is high, but the uptakers are almost normal. Are geeks getting cooler? Are jocks getting geekier? Or - are we all nerds now?

Lots in the news these days about climate change. Or, as the Yanks insist on calling it, Global Warming. I think I shall have to start hanging out on http://www.realclimate.org/ a bit more.
I can't shake some mistrust of this sudden adoption of the issue by the media, by the politicians. Even Bush getting on the bandwagon, and meanwhile signing a treaty with Brazil for ethanol takeup - which is potentially the deathknell for the Amazon. That photo of Lula hugging Dubya was sickening.
And I suppose the worry is that the talk is not about how we change society, but how we get round the issue of our environmental activities. It's not addressing fundamentals, but looking for workarounds. As an IT bod, I'm used to workarounds, but I'm all too aware that they're only postponing the ineviatble day of dealing with a failed system.
And I don't really trust much of the eco lobby. Lots of them are not my cup of tea. Others are essentially criticising one part of the system and not looking at it as an integral whole. I don't like the way the discussion about climate change is being divorced from the discussion about Peak Oil. I understand the point a mate made that politically speaking, the environmental impact of our society would not be made clear if predictions about climate change took into account the effects of the Peak Oil scenario. But I don't really go along with that point.
Apart from the fact that politics makes poor science, and poor science causes all sorts of problems, I also tend not to believe that two disasters cancel each other out. I think Climate Change and Peak Oil are going to be compound disasters, at least from the point of view of human society, at least from a Western point of view, and doging debate and rigging the political agenda isn't helpful, because then we're allowing the politicians to set the agenda and take over the debate and the realities are going to get obscured in bullshit about ethanol and Iranian nuclear capabilities and all the other bollocks that passes for justification and action.
I don't trust neoCons talking about alternative energy and I don't trust middle class eco lobbyists talking about changing the world. And I don't trust the RCP talking about Great Global Warming Swindle.
In fact, I don't really trust any of those groups talking about anything.


I wonder what's going on with the magnetic poles? Maybe it's time to reread Ken Kesey's Sailor Song...

Sport

Alright, it's funny. Being a married man that watches his sport. I don't know what happened. The weird thing is, my favourite ones to watch, with the exception of cricket, are winter sports that i don't do - namely skijumping and skating.
So I've just been watching the skating from Salt Lake City, and it was Sven Kramer at the 10Km, the Cruyff of skating. Absolutely unbelievable. I've never seen a top race like that with one guy - who was in 5th at that stage - getting lapped. Kramer was 20 seconds ahead of the next guy, and knocked something like 10 seconds off his own world record. Which he set the last time he raced 10km. I can't think of anything comparable in sport that I know of where someone is so far ahead of all other competitors. He's almost literally a lap ahead of the rest. And he's only 20. Of course, he might burn out before the next Olympics, but he seems to have a real basic sense of self - he still comes across as a typical 20 year old. And what he's doing is stuff that Tiger Woods or Roger Federer can only dream of - he's not lost a race all year, sets world records almost at will (and not the Sergei Bubkov adding half an inch sort of record, but pulverising them), and is king of the world.
Knowing the ways of the world, this will probably all end bad. Apparently he's already got a supermodel girlfriend, and let's hope he doesn't chase mediocrity like van der Vaart. Still, one of the pleasures of watching sport is the moment. Tonight, I shared an experience with Bart Veldkamp. Such a race, he said, you just sit back and watch with your mouth open, drooling, at the perfection of the moment.

Focus

Lots of things going on. Work is insanely busy, most people at work don't even know what's going on. I can't write about it either, lots of NDA stuff applying, and on the off-chance that I forget to delete my sig when sending a mail from my home address, I'd best keep it out of here.
There was a "controversial" docu on Brit TV last night, 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. Mum mentioned it on the phone this evening - as usual, she likes to test you on sensitive spots. I think I surprised her back though knowing that the guy who made the film was a nutter from the RCP.
World Cup kicks off on Tuesday. England warmed up in traditional fashion today by getting thumped by the Aussies.
And of course, got a pregnant wife, trying to get the book first draft finished, two kids going through kids' stuff. It's all busy times.
But it's enjoyable. I don't know that it's appropriate for me, but at least lately I'm using my mind a bit. There's room for more in there - I've started an audio lecture series on the history of Ancient Rome, and still need to sort out the Project Management certification. But it's weird, after years of relative flabbiness, the brain is still able to get into gear with minimal warming up. Kind of reassuring.
I've actually still got a bit of a headache today. This is what I get for drinking half a dozen pints last night? Man, I'm getting old quick ;-) So can't say I'm into much coherence here. Looking forward to having the laptop, then at least I can sit on the couch and do this...