The Fantastic Mr Fox

No doubt after encountering the Fantastic Mr Fox on my travels he has to make it onto the list of Shining Knights.

Wolfram Alpha

Discovered a new essential tool - key for any adventurer - Wolfram Alpha, just have a look it does everything, http://www.wolframalpha.com/.

In summary: Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. You enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer. Based on a new kind of knowledge-based computing - this is the sort of stuff Blog Quixote things is brilliant.

Swine Flu

A new Shining Knight

A new Shining Knight, long may it last...

Olympics Commentary

Here are the top 9 comments made by NBC sports commentators so far during the Olympics:

1. Weight-lifting commentator: 'This is Gregorieva from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing.'
2. Dressage commentator: 'This is really a lovely horse and I speak from personal experience since I once mounted her mother.'
3. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: 'I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father.'
4. Boxing Analyst: 'Sure there have been injuries, and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious.'
5. Softball announcer: 'If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again.'
6. Basketball analyst: 'He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn't like it. In fact you can see it all over their faces.'
7. At the rowing medal ceremony: 'Ah, isn't that nice, the wife of the IOC president is hugging the cox of the British crew.'
8. Soccer commentator: 'Julian Dicks is everywhere. It's like they've got eleven Dicks on the field.'
9. Tennis commentator: 'One of the reasons Andy is playing so well is that, before the final round, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them... Oh my God, what have I just said?'

Liberty from collecting bio-metric data

A group of hackers has captured the fingerprints of the German Interior Minister as a protest against plans to use biometric data in e-passports. The latest edition of their magazine, Die Datenschleuder, contains a plastic foil that reproduces the whorls and swirls of Wolfgang Schauble's digit, meaning there are 4,000 copies of the politician's prints just waiting to be attached to someone's finger. Necromancers: those who advocate we are all tagged, gagged and fingerprinted.

Comment on Human Offices

http://www.usdesignstudio.co.uk/freerange.html

Politicians

Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind (George Orwell).

The Consultant

Dear Colleague,

I would like to take a rain check on that vision of yours, although I can hear where you're coming from. I think you have the suburbs of an idea there and you're heading for the high street. I would like to kick it around, find a window to consider it and cascade the information to some functional unit main players at the next steering group brain-storm workshop. I will then get back to you to arrange a salient convocation in an interface situation where we can touch base so that we are all singing out of the same hymn book and not act like a pork pie in a synagogue by throwing the baby out with the bath water and bring a successful scenario.

With regard to your work station relocation, I interfaced with the man with his finger on the button, He said that a monitoring committee would be formed, not to re-invent the wheel but to see if a roll forward situation could be established or in your case to get the bolder up the hill. It's priority will be to revisit your problem and to bring you up to speed as a matter of course, but at the moment we are in a no win situation and finding participants for a workshop was like nailing jelly to the ceiling so until a window of opportunity opens your problems remain parked. As you know at this moment in time your about as much use as a chocolate teapot, therefore until we can overturn this negative scenario by removing the rocks from the runway, your mission will be ongoing. You will have to carry on wearing the same cap badge while fending off the hoards with a bread knife tied to a broom handle and stay latched. Let us not forget that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

In short you will have to watch my lips, first time, every time. This will enable me to create a visibility project as an activity owner. I can then make a value added stats pack, flag it up, cascade it down and roll it out by the end of play today. This should enable you to stop acting as a shadow by fast tracking a user friendly menu driven option downstream. When push comes to shove you can run me up to speed before we see the bow wave coming on. As there is an enabling tool in train you must not try to eat the elephant in one go.

I will therefore take this one away and decide on a ball park figure in accordance with the benchmarks, targets and milestones you have been running past me. If you can pick it up and run with it I'll take that one away and hopefully avoid a drains up situation.

Regards

The Consultant

My last visit to Africa

Took this little snap last time while travelling to Africa.

Cloverfield

Watch Cloverfield.

Axis of Evil

Angered by Snubbing, Libya, China, Syria form Axis of Just as Evil

Cuba, Sudan, Serbia Form Axis of Somewhat Evil; Other Nations Start Own
Clubs Beijing (SatireWire.com) - Bitter after being snubbed for membership in the "Axis of Evil," Libya, China, and Syria today announced they had formed the "Axis of Just as Evil," which they said would be way eviler than that stupid Iran-Iraq-North Korea axis President Bush warned of his State of the Union address.

Axis of Evil members, however, immediately dismissed the new axis as having, for starters, a really dumb name. "Right. They are Just as Evil... in their dreams!" declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. "Everybody knows we're the best evils... best at being evil... we're the
best." Diplomats from Syria denied they were jealous over being excluded, although they conceded they did ask if they could join the Axis of Evil.

"They told us it was full," said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "An Axis can't have more than three countries," explained Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "This is not my rule, it's tradition. In World War II you had Germany, Italy, and Japan in the evil Axis. So you can only have three. And a secret handshake. Ours is wicked cool."

The Axis Pandemic

International reaction to Bush's Axis of Evil declaration was swift, as within minutes, France surrendered. Elsewhere, peer-conscious nations rushed to gain triumvirate status in what became a game of geopolitical chairs. Cuba, Sudan, and Serbia said they had formed the Axis of Somewhat Evil, forcing Somalia to join with Uganda and Myanmar in the Axis of Occasionally Evil, while Bulgaria, Indonesia and Russia established the Axis of Not So Much Evil Really As Just Generally Disagreeable.

With the criteria suddenly expanded and all the desirable clubs filling up, Sierra Leone, El Salvador, and Rwanda applied to be called the Axis of Countries That Aren't the Worst But Certainly Won't Be Asked to Host the Olympics; Canada, Mexico, and Australia formed the Axis of Nations That Are Actually Quite Nice But Secretly Have Nasty Thoughts About America, while Spain, Scotland, and New Zealand established the Axis of Countries That Sometimes Ask Sheep to Wear Lipstick. "That's not a threat, really, just something we like to do," said Scottish Executive First Minister Jack McConnell. While wondering if the other nations of the world weren't perhaps making fun of him, a cautious Bush granted approval for most axes, although he rejected the establishment of the Axis of Countries Whose Names End in "Guay," accusing one of its members of filing a false application. Officials from Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chadguay denied the charges. Israel, meanwhile, insisted it didn't want to join any Axis, but privately, world leaders said that's only because no one asked them.

Copyright 2002, SatireWire.

Author's note: Strangely enow, this SatireWire story lately has been zipping around the 'Net attributed to John Cleese. That's flattering and funny and all, but now I'm getting so many emails asking who "really" wrote it that it will make my life easier to nip it here. I apologize for any disappoinment, but the story was written by Andrew Marlatt.

Monopoly World Edition

Being a world-wide traveller I could not resist this. Monopoly is launching a new Here & Now World Edition and is inviting everyone around the world to vote for the greatest cities around the globe. The 22 cities with the highest worldwide votes will make it onto one global Monopoly board. So cast your vote here.

A Hillbilly for President?

Go Obama!

Sir Edmund Hilary

Today sherpas, mountaineers and a grateful nation (New Zealand that is) mourned Everest conqueror Edmund Hillary at a state funeral, more than half a century after he first stood on the roof of the world. Well they don't make them like they used to. A fallen hero and the embodiment of what being an adventurer is all about.
More about Edmund Hilary.

Poverty of the Mind

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable (Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De)

Dear God

Three Little Pigs

Because I spend so much of my time in a fantasy world this tickled me...

A teacher was reading the story of the Three Little Pigs to her
class. She came to the part of the story where first pig was trying to
gather the building materials for his home. She read: "and so the pig went up to the man with the wheelbarrow full of straw and said: 'Pardon me sir, but may I have some of that straw to build my house?"

The teacher paused then asked the class: "And what do you think the man said?"

One little boy raised his hand and said very matter of
fact like: "I think the man would have said -"Well, fuck me! A talking pig!"

Romance is in the air...

Microsoft and GM

At a recent computer expo COMDEX, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive -- but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.