mardi 29 juillet 2003

For the wildcat and her father, with Seoul Many weeks have passed, with their highs and deep lows, since a certain wildcat was mentioned in these pages. The time has come, however, to greet her again, after more than a month of considerable adversity, with a floral message. She's travelled again, very far for a while. Now she has returned to the "old continent", the cactus may seem a strange choice but its significance is a tribute to a brave heart. "Stop running and learn to walk." Such counsel came from the man whom the wildcat loved most in the world, now gone, if merely in the flesh. All I'd like, this week, to add to those words from somebody I would have liked to meet, is said by the adonis. Both these beauties come from the same place, distant both from the wildcat's native land and my own, Seoul. John, who built 'photoshutter: Living in Korea', describes himself an "amateur photographer". Maybe so, but apart from taking only a part of each picture myself and scaling it down, there's not a photo on his site -- the fruit of a decade's work -- which anybody with any sense would even think of "retouching". The phrase "hymn to life" may be a cliché, but I can't think of a better phrase for John's website. It's a remarkable place to spend a quiet hour or two on an afternoon darkened by a grim cloud of grief. 5:45:43 PM  link   your views? []

lundi 28 juillet 2003

Hell and low water: developments At least the tide has begun to recede, along with the clouds. So here you have it, taliesin's newlook blog. This picture wasn't "posed"; after a break from it all near the end tonight, I suddenly saw the what my desktop had got to look like, and it gave me a smile. That's what comes of a blogcrash! Anyway, now we're on the road again. I still refuse to categorise anything apart from the blogroll -- and even then it was tough to try to decide who went where. It feels like new moon time, not my best of the month... It's OK messing around with codes (Bryan's weblog template proved to be a good jumping off point), but there's a pile of e-mail to get to as well as more than 1,000 items in NetNewsWire to sift through. The former first! While I was plugging away with this with such energy as I could muster (I went to keep a doctor's appointment on Friday only to find a notice on the door saying, in effect, that they'd all gone till next week without warning), others have been revamping things too. Notably "the world's largest Open Source software development website", that's to say the superb 'SourceForge', has had a facelift. And I've finally stumbled on another place to explore in the same neck of the woods and of interest to wolves: 'freshmeat'. Nice and warm. zzz In the next couple of days, after a promise and a 'phone call or two, I'll be thinking router for the internet cable connection and a Mac for Marianne. This led to some complicated dealings with my ISP... The kid's over the moon at the prospect, but since all holiday plans have now been cancelled until further notice because of My Condition, why not? Not, of course, that the fact that the other Mac becomes mine, all mine, has anything to do with it. 12:51:27 AM  link   your views? []

vendredi 25 juillet 2003

Quite a joint effort! This time, I have made two back-ups before fiddling. I plan to base the changes on another Bryan Bell (blogrolled) theme, combined with elements I want back from the second incarnation of this log. For now, the theme I've chosen looks like this at Jake Savin's place. It has two things I like: three columns and only a dozen tweaks needed to make it fully W3C compliant. And it works in iCab. 1:46:18 PM  link   your views? [] Liberia's agony -- and a case for shock reporting Almost a week of fighting in the Liberian capital Monrovia, where terrified civilians are fleeing (AFP) in their thousands, has led the UN agency and aid coordinator for the west African country to voice the warning words that Africa specialists hear only too often: "one of the worst humanitarian tragedies in the region" is in the making. The BBC's Paul Welsh reported on the radio a couple of hours ago that part of the worst of it all is that neither the rebels nor government troops are behaving like "conventional armies". For days, terrain has been lost and recovered by either side with wildly sprayed gunfire and the "stray" bullets are sometimes the killers. In the way journalists sometimes have to employ to catch anybody's attention about Africa, Paul's morning story on the Beeb leads on heavy shelling "near the US embassy". Many, not just your experienced Africa hand, would wonder "Is the US embassy really the point?" But reporters know perfectly well that an editor anywhere from Kansas City to San Francisco is more likely to print the news if something American is at the top of it. The day after the media agonised over which bloody bits of Saddam's son's photos (BBC) to publish, my thoughts return to an appalling series of pictures of a roadside execution. They were taken at one of the worst moments of the 1990s savagery that brought Liberia's current -- but hopefully outgoing -- President Charles Taylor to power. The night that film landed at "the factory", we agonised too. But after talking to the shaken journalist who had witnessed the scene in a war where drugs were as abundant as guns and, of course, could do nothing about it, there was absolutely no question that AFP should release the pictures to clients worldwide. I'm glad to say my opinion was shared by almost everybody else. They were. And they were widely used. While I'm against shock-horror journalism, few things anger me more than the increasingly aseptic reporting of the world's most appalling conflicts that has become a characteristic of our times. That goes for Iraq and it most certainly goes for Africa. Yes, words can often do the trick, when employed by a damned good reporter. But undue queasiness and even cowardice regarding the images that should, on rare occasions, be pumped straight into people's living rooms is a key factor in the way some of the world's leaders are allowed to get away with actions that can only be called criminal by their anaesthetised electorates. I still haven't made the planned post-crash changes to the looks of this log. The past couple of days have been tough, where My Condition is concerned. With luck, today's the day for it, perhaps tomorrow. But my own physical state is, evidently, as nothing compared with that of many a man, woman and child in Monrovia. I can only hope that since the Americans seem unlikely to go in (which is probably no bad thing), the self-appointed world's policeman will at least cough up the cash and the logistical support to get a west African force into that desperate nation, founded, like neighbouring Sierra Leone, by freed slaves. zzz There is, after all, a last "lost" post I want to recall. The outlook may be getting slightly better, at least, in the country that endured the terrible conflict some called "Africa's First World War". Experience has taught me that the rebels in Goma, their eastern capital on the border with their small overlord state Rwanda, are perhaps not to be trusted any more than most politicians and fighters in the vast nation, but on Wednesday they raised the DR Congo flag (Beeb) over the city. "It is certainly a sign that the war is over," said former rebel leader Adolphe Onusumba. Direct and indirect casualties have been estimated around the three million mark, as noted here early in April ('Excess deaths'). At 'Mac-a-ro-nies', a Mac Diva (aka J.G. and Escritora), on July 7 published a fine piece on 'Poisonwood and the Congo' (via Blogcritics -- blogrolled), with a quick history and links to reports, including the latest peace plan now being implemented in fits and starts. "Considering the history of the Congo, this idealistic attempt at a settlement of sorts does not seem very promising, though I hope it works," he wrote. I've already written about the DRC several times, but Mac Diva turned his own lantern on the country because he'd just read one of the finest books written about Africa in the past decade: Barbara Kingsolver's epic novel 'The Poisonwood Bible (1998; link to Amazon US). This novel is a "must" for anybody who prefers to approach some of Africa's most intractable dilemmas by way of fiction rather than news reports and analysis. Though her story is set mainly in the early '60s, Kingsolver spans a broader timescale and her insights are very pertinent to today's DRC. zzz As a sidenote still worthy of mention in a log where world news often features, I was impressed by Mac Diva's look in June at different kinds of blogs, including his thoughts on the blog as newspaper: "...the single most frustrating thing I find in reading blogs. Few bloggers grasp the difference between fact and opinion, something I had drilled into me in j-school. Not only that, but some of them will utterly freak out if one says their opinions are just that. (...) I suspect a blog as newspaper would have the fact/opinion problem on a grand scale." Quite. 'I found When the 'personal' isn't as good a read as the piece on the Congo. 12:07:03 PM  link   your views? []

mercredi 23 juillet 2003

Tony, nosh and the vanishing eatery trick With this post-blogcrash entry, the "backlog" is done. (Tomorrow, I can clear the NetNewsWire cache that saved my skin.) I enjoyed friend Tony's approach to restaurant criticism so much that I do want to reinstate his report on 'nosh', e-mailed a week back. He is admirably succinct: "Too hot to go far, I crossed the road to the Lebanese resto whose vernissage we witnessed (on June 14). My scoring: service, 4/10: comfort, 2/10: food, 2/10: prix, high; quality, below average. This leaves the championship table unchanged @ system, 20 points, customers, zero. Hardly a problem of rodage, I'm afraid; the attention to superficial detail points to yet another bid for a quick killing & sale to the next owner." The thing is, visitors returning to Paris often express disappointment to find that a restaurant they enjoyed the last time has vanished. It's only too simple. There's a tax dodge, too tedious to detail, which allows those who want to do what Tony describes a period of up to three years. What is unusual about his Lebanese place is that it didn't even start out according to the usual pattern: fanfare opening; excellent food and service (about a year); decline in food quality, but the hooked customers keep on coming (about a year), overlapping with steep price rises (latter six months of year two); clientèle starts to drop off (six months); owners largely absent, other staff do the work (final period); change of ownership; fanfare opening, etc... 11:17:49 PM  link   your views? [] The mastery of 'Equilibrium' and other sci-fi tidbits (Part of this entry is one of the items I'm reposting following the mighty blogcrash:) Bored by the 'Matrix'? Disappointed by 'Reloaded'? Almost unnoticed amid the hype and the wall-to-wall net coverage of the letdown of at least my own sci-fi film year, an almost flawless masterpiece of the genre, 'Equilibrium,' finally came to Paris this month. With the devastation of a nuclear World War III behind it, the price humanity has paid for lasting peace in writer-director Kurt Wimmer's aseptic utopia, Libria, is the daily consumption of Prozium, an emotional sedative. Those who fail to take it are ruthlessly eliminated by the Ninja-like 'Clerics', with Christian Bale in the lead role as John Preston, the toughest of them all. A widower with two kids, Preston's own wife was executed as a transgressor. This is not a fact of life to bother a man capable of turning on his own partner for venturing to hang on to an outlawed book after a seek-and-destroy raid into the Nethers beyond Libria's borders to burn out a group of rebels. Preston's own problems begin the morning he drops his dose of Prozium. He's prevented from replacing it by a bomb alert as he's picked up for another mission into the Nethers by his new partner, Brandt (Taye Diggs -- pictured with Bale in the photo pinched from Miramax). That's where Preston learns to feel. And with emotion come his first acts of rebellion, the discovery of what it is to be truly human. Wimmer is a magpie. 'Equilibrium' borrows liberally and shamelessly from Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis', Huxley's 'Brave New World,' Orwell's '1984', Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451', the Third Reich and, among others, ... 'Matrix'. My very minor gripe with a film where the suspense is maintained throughout is that some of these references are a little too obvious. The result is a highly intelligent thriller full of memorable images and scenes, from the early torching of one of the world's most famous paintings -- destined for the flames because of its potential emotional impact -- to a martial arts battle near the end which draws on the now-legendary corridor scene from 'Matrix' itself and outdoes it! 'Gun-kata', the fighting technique employed by the Clerics, was developed by Bale himself, according to one 'Equilibrium' (Sci-Fi UK Flash) site. Bale turns in a convincing and moving performance as a man thawing out from a killing machine into a rebel with both a heart and a cause. I'd also give special mentions to Sean Bean as Partridge, master of Libria in the name of the Father (Big Brother), Emily Watson as 'transgressor' Mary O'Brien, and William Fichtner as rebel leader Jurgen. Plot and action apart, 'Equilibrium' is visually outstanding, a beauty to watch, including the violence that gets a far more realistic and sometimes disturbing treatment than in some of its "sources". My daughter walked out of the cinema thanking her lucky stars she wasn't in Britain, where at 14 she would have been considered too young to see what she immediately decided was her "best movie of the year". She beat me to reviewing it, in French, on the belcatja blog (no permalinks, see 'le 23 juillet') she shares with friend Severine. I didn't hesitate to give it 9/10 at the IMDb. What I have yet to work out (not that it matters) is what "nationality" the movie is, since it flies a US flag but the credit for the excellent musical score by Klaus Badelt and a good number of the cast and production crew go to Germans, while it was partly shot in Italy. If it's too late to catch it in the cinema, the DVD is available in the US, but not until October in the UK and probably elsewhere (Amazon). The trailers before the film included one for 'Pirates of the Caribbean' (Flash) and another for Terminator 3 (also Flash). Both out here next month, these are the most hyped movies of the moment. The latter was a big been-there-before yawn. I'm not surprised James Cameron gave it a miss as director, returning instead to his obsession with the Titanic ('Ghosts of the Abyss'; more Flash). After 'Equilibrium', for all its superficial lack of originality, my desire to see any more of Terminator than the trailer was further lessened! zzz Last week's heat -- which finally did top the magic 100°F mark -- reduced most people in "the canteen" one lunchtime to silent gobblers. Until Jean-Claude started waxing enthusiastic about L'Incal. The what? I'd come across Moebius, but knew nothing of the "mystical tetrahedron also sought by everyone from the President (who is cloned, not elected) to the underground to the Technos to aliens from another galaxy." A note of further enlightenment with 'La Bande Dessinée française' (in English) dropped in the afternoon. Thanks, J-C, who also wrote that "le parallèle avec "Le cinquième élément" est flagrant: il y a cinq volumes et le dernier se nomme "La cinquième essence". On retrouve ainsi ce personnage de anti-héros qui doit sauver le monde, sans parler d'Animah la déesse sexy gardienne de l'Incal. Il faut dire aussi que Moebius a collaboré au projet du film. J'ajouterai qu'à côté de "L'Incal", et ceci grâce à l'imagination délirante de Jodorowsky, les scénarios de "Dune" ou de "Matrix" paraissent ridiculement pauvres et simplistes. C'est un cocktail réussi mêlant humour, sexe, violence, politique, philosophie, mysticisme et le plus étonnant c'est que la mayonnaise prend!"(**it's OK, I will translate) High praise indeed. zzz I never did pass on, should you not know and care to, who won the 'Campbell and Sturgeon' sci-fi awards this month. Now I remember that I did read the name Nancy Kress (she was one of them) somewhere before I picked up a couple of her books yesterday. _______ **"The parallel with 'The Fifth Element' is flagrant: there are five volumes and the last is called 'The Fifth Essence'. We rediscover the anti-hero who must save the world, not to speak of Animah, the sexy goddess guardian over the Incal. It should also be pointed out that Moebius worked on [Besson's] film project. I'd add that compared with the Incal, thanks to Jodorowsky's unfettered imagination, the plots of 'Dune' and 'Matrix' seem absurdly impoverished and simplistic. This successful cocktail blends humour, sex, violence, politics, philosophy, mysticism and the most astonishing thing is that the mixture works." 11:04:52 PM  link   your views? [] Panzer Division X: stealthy progress (Reposting:) Jean-Claude, a web wizard friend, asked about Panther. Mac OS X 10.3 as it will be from mid-September. Well, to stick it all in one place, here goes ("old" news always being new to somebody). There are new tidings too, though; with QuickTime, a reasonably fast connection and a fine academic site, you can watch OS Ten movies for 'geeks' (X marks the spot below). Panther will be "$129 when it goes on sale later this year. For that investment, Apple says Mac users can look forward to more than 100 new features, including a new look for the Finder, as well as Expose, a feature designed to make it easier to find the window one is looking for on a crowded desktop. Another new feature in Panther will automatically synchronize files in a particular folder into a .Mac subscriber's iDisk, Apple's name for its online storage service. The new OS also features improvements under the hood designed to bolster the OS' Unix underpinnings and [would this be what you wanted to read, sir?] allow Mac OS X systems to fit in better on Windows-dominated corporate networks. (...)" That came from Ina Fried in a ZDNet article on June 24, along with comments, including a few "world yawns". Scarcely a blitzkrieg. The Server version? Upwards from $499, for 10 clients (also ZDNet). Cupertino itself offers what Apple coyly dubs a "sneak preview" (Mac OS X). Plenty of info and links there, once you've waded through the "cutting edge", "super-modern", "jaw-dropping" and even "très cool" propaganda. "Why cats?" Why not? Or ask Spartacus, as Lucas Foljanty is known at TS (blogrolled) when he's not busy with his Apple Museum, where he lists software codenames along with everything else. Mac OS X started out as Siam before somebody came up with Cheetah. (A few other names in the code cornucopia make almost anybody feel young standing next to the vigorous Steve Jobs...) In Helsinki, at 'Nickel And Chromium', inveterate "rambler" Lauri Kieksi described some features you can't see in screenshots in "Panther Notes". Lauri went slightly further inside with a look at the much-vaunted "WebCore" and application integration on June 12: "Is Panther Apple's Longhorn?" Those of us who signed up for Apple's .Mac service, increasingly integrated with the OS but much flamed on cost and clumsy presentation grounds, will believe one promise about iDisk (100 MB of storage -- and where I keep the pix for this blog among other things) when we see it: "Incredible performance and speed. "Working with the files in iDisk is as fast as working with your Mac. A copy of your iDisk content is kept on your local hard drive, so there's no delay in browsing your directory, opening files, or saving files." That's the claim at the .Mac Panther preview page. At present, I've learned scarcely to think of summoning my iDisk to my desktop at certain times of day once America awakes. Some developers are excited by the likes of 'Xcode' -- "as quick to forgive as it is to compile" (Apple again). Michael Singer reported for Australia.internet that: "(...) As part of its love affair with graphics, Panther adds in Apple's 'piles' GUI design concept. Now called 'Expose', the patented technology based on its Quartz Extreme engine allows users to browse collections of documents represented graphically in stacks. The filing system then divides into sub-piles based on each document's content. New features in Panther Server, also highlighted this week [late June], include Automatic Setup for easily setting up multiple servers; Open Directory 2 for hosting scalable LDAP directory and Kerberos authentication services; Samba 3 for providing login and home directory support for Windows clients; and the JBoss application server for running J2EE applications. (...)"'Apple Turns "Panther" Loose'. X --> 'macosxlabs.org', a "Lab Deployment Initiative (...) created by members of the Apple University Executive Forum," plans a webcast on the Panther server today, starting at 1:00 pm ET (7:00 pm here; right now, as it happens). This will subsequently be stored for later viewing. Their previous broadcasts are clear and enlightening. Probably up J.-C.'s street, since he works with Jean-Paul at NetFront. If you want more, including argument, try a search at Geek. Or MacRumors. Mikey-San announced that he'd been sent evidence that the Panther version of the Text-Edit app can open Microsoft Word files, at his 'new damage' blog (via MacSlash). He thinks it would be "fucking awesome if this feature makes it into the final release". If that's straight -- and it looks genuine -- then I'd be surprised if it doesn't. Apple's 'Switcher' campaign has yet to show stunning results. There's a Panther forum at MacOSX. More than you want to know and plenty of speculation besides... Most Panther news is coming out in drips and drabs. Much of it is as unreliable as Apple likes these things. "Are you going to get it?" Almost a month ago, I'm afraid I said "Sod Panther for now" and even dismissed it as a "gadget freak's wet dream". That was ill-judged! I still feel that way about some of the "iApps", but now I've started dimly to grasp the developer side of the OS, the Panther news updates make it an increasingly interesting prospect. 7:23:18 PM  link   your views? [] African gallery (2): Gina, Algeria, & hell in the heat (Reposting entry from July 13:) Algeria is a huge, beautiful and potentially wealthy country with a tragic recent history. Since a bloody struggle for independence from France, won in 1962 and only acknowledged as a "war" by both parties in the 1980s, its people have seen more than anybody's fair share of official corruption and ruinous strife. "Outrage", as Gina called this first scene on a street in the capital, has become part of daily life. Many Algerians, particularly young people, channel their fear and distrust of the government and its security forces into insurrection, armed, artistic or intellectual. Descendants of those who lived there before the Arabs arrived -- they conquered north Africa in the 7th century -- also seek recognition of "minority rights". On top of high unemployment, lack of housing and other economic and political woes, Algerians were wracked by a devastating earthquake in 1980. Last May 21, a new one struck the Mediterranean coast (read on and see the remarkable photolog Gina sent me after covering the terrible story for AFP). 7:06:17 PM  link   your views? [] OS X terminal delights and hidden treasures (Reposting "lost" entry:) The "how-to" part of this item about starting to use the Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X, to enable software of the kind being developed in the SourceForge community, is based on a bulletin board entry I posted at TechSurvivors on July 11. It may interest other people as new as I was to some really fabulous programmes. Like somebody at TS, though I've been playing with a few cheap HTML editors of late, I'd been looking for the real works. I found it, for free (via French graphic design mag 'Studio Multimédia') at no less august a source than the WWW consortium. Amaya deserves to be much better known than it is. The W3C's web editor and browser (being fetched and compiled in this picture), looks like this (Amaya site) screenshot. While it can't do everything, the consortium assumes you know nothing about HTML, XHTML or CSS should you like things that way. Amaya helps you build web pages which fully conform to the global standards and should work in any browser, provided it can handle all these languages. (Update:) By the time I "crashed" this log, which was my fault, not Amaya's, I'd made pages which loaded properly in everything but iCab, which can't yet cope completely with cascading style sheets. Here's the "catch" to installing Amaya for those disinclined to explore the Terminal application and the remarkable but latent power of the operating system. You need to be running Apple's X11 or something similar, together with XFree86. Moreover, none of an astonishing stock of software will work unless you've installed the developer tools that come with OS X, or are a very hefty download (400 MB plus) from the Apple Developer Connection site. To the faint-hearted, all this sounds like a fearsome challenge, even for people who've already bunged in the developer tools, following the letter of Mac books which recommend this, but never explored them. Well. It's worth it! The process is far easier than such people might imagine. Here's how (the full story...) 6:56:34 PM  link   your views? []

lundi 21 juillet 2003

Once more into the ... mayhem, dear friends. Repairs I've lost count of blood tests and other bids to determine My Condition. I had a little more drained from my arm this morning. And received enlightenment in two respects: the endoscopy took more than an hour, not the unbelievable five minutes I blogged last night. It was the bit at the other end that went quickly. The lurid picture indeed shows my "stomach's ear", but in itself does nothing to explain some 10 weeks of the shits and the rest. Ah, to be mended! The Mac needed much mending, for which I, along with others on many a site and bulletin board, blame Apple's latest downloaded security update. We really should never install these things blindly! Now it's the blog's turn again. Absolutely everything will be backed up before I resume tweaking. But there are one or two bits I can't do offline. Advance apologies for mess and mayhem. This time, I know what I'm doing... 12:45:45 PM  link   your views? [] The Kelly tragedy: no answer, ever more questions Up before seven again this morning -- this is getting bad -- I've already been asked by three French people what I think of (as one tried to sell the man to me) "your prime minister." Everybody's interested after the appalling death of Iraq arms expert David Kelly (BBC). At present, I'm weighing up whether I just might add another "B" to my "bash 'em" list: "B" for Beeb. My gut reaction is to leap to the defence of the venerable institution and its controversial correspondent Andrew Gilligan. That's what I did back in April, when A.G. was lambasted for a looting in Baghdad story. That entry was called 'The media and the spoils of war'. Observations on this latest development could almost bear the same title. Nothing is black and white, even in the world of news and print. The French apparently have a good grasp of one issue, the row between the government and the Beeb, but have been perplexed at the behaviour of what many regard as the main media outlet of the British state. This common perception applies equally, in most minds, to France and my "factory", AFP. This is wrong. No media organisation with our respective charters, status and staff of scores of different nationalities works that way these days, though the pressure is evidently always there. Kelly's death, however, isn't just a wretched distraction from the main question about what the government knew and what it said before the Bush administration pulled Blair by the nose into Iraq. It once again raises fundamental issues of sources, secrecy and security, on which I plan to reflect. My heart goes out to the Kelly family. zzz On lies of state, friend Mark sent me a remarkable piece which I blogged before the great crash. Much of it still holds good: "One Congresswoman, Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, released a statement on July 8 that cuts right to the heart of the matter: 'After months of denials, President Bush has finally admitted that he misled the American public during his State of the Union address when he claimed that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium in Africa. That is why we need an independent commission to determine the veracity of the other so-called evidence used to convince the American people that war with Iraq was unavoidable. 'It is not enough for the White House to issue a statement saying that President Bush should not have used that piece of intelligence in his State of the Union address at a time when he was trying to convince the American people that invading Iraq was in our national security interests. Did the president know then what he says he only knows now? If not, why not, since that information was available at the highest level (...)'." What I found novel was the force of William Rivers Pitt's editorial on 'truthout,' where he quotes Schakowky. Pitt pulled an old orator's stunt with a hammer: "Bush and the White House told the American people over and over again that Iraq was in possession of vast stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Bush and the White House said over and over again that this was a direct threat to the United States. Bush and the White House told the American people over and over again that Iraq was directly connected to al Qaeda terrorism, and would hand those terrible weapons over to the terrorists the first chance they got. Bush and the White House told Congress the same thing. Very deliberately, Bush and the White House tied a war in Iraq to the attack of September 11. It was all a lie. All of it." Pitt lists dates and remarks how come "now again reports of the infamous Iraq-al Qaeda connection, an administration claim meant to justify the war". The columnist's fist-pounding push for a probe was reminiscent of many a happy-end movie on the wheels of US justice, reaching for hearts and minds by starting with "our troops". India did finally spurn a US request (AFP) to send some. New Delhi refused to "help" unless the United Nations runs the show. Jolly good. I listened to Blair being closely questioned by members of parliament before his own pre-war Iraq policy came under fire. At that time in London, a parliamentary enquiry was announced, but no independent judicial one, despite a remark by a visiting US politician (I've forgotten her name) who remarked on the contrast between the massive fuss in Britain and the relative lack of any furore in America. This is unlikely to last. I presume the parliament probe into Iraq policy and practice will now accompany the new one. An interesting angle on how any investigations may go now lies in the fact that Blair still enjoys a comfortable majority in the legislature. That can hardly be said of George W. Bush, with politicians already gearing up for a new election there and lingering doubts as to whether the president even won the last one. zzz On a differently painful political note, British Home Secretary David Blunkett, up against more domestic problems, astonished me on July 16. "'It said 'Remove genitals and insert penis" but then it was withdrawn," D.B. told the Commons, broadcast the next day. That followed comments on -- was it "French? -- teeth" as a form of "aggressive defence". If Blunkett (Grauniad) didn't utter those words in parliament, then I'm mad too, but they're what arrested me 'twixt computer and bathroom. Fortunately the summer recess starts before the heat kills them all. Last week's prize for failing to answer a simple question, "yes" or "no", went to Dotty Blanket's counterpart in the health department, John Reid, who was asked three times on the Beeb by James Naughtie whether a zero-star hospital was rated as providing worse treatment than a three-star one on the YuKay government's new health service scale. The hapless twit must have realised that this was another blunder, since he thrice sought to pass the buck to the misnamed Commission for Health Improvement. zzz Should I find a soundbite of Blair addressing the US Congress at the end of last week, thanking Americans for the kind of reception he no longer gets at home, I'll blog it for posterity. It gave me another good chuckle. Since then, most hacks I've heard have been more preoccupied with the man's state of mind, fatigue and facial expressions than with his deeds. AFP joined the club, finding him "rested and relaxed" today in Beijing. His Chinese hosts are giving him a cosier time than some of us expected. 12:14:57 PM  link   your views? [] African gallery (1... ? ) : BÈa goes to the polls (Initially posted on July 7 & last for tonight:) Gradually getting ready for a posting to Nairobi, Béa looked summery and fit when she took time out to cycle over and join me for a very agreeable lunch. This talented fellow Africanist shares a taste for the sun. So the clear sky over a market scene must have been a particularly welcome sight for her after Lagos, where she joined the crew to cover the Nigerian elections last April (AFP and photojournalism entry). This snap could be of many such places in Africa, but Béatrice was by then in Libreville, capital of Gabon (Lonely Planet guide), where everybody might be richer if chunks of the country's oil wealth hadn't been turned into real estate owned in Paris by some of its élite. It's Africa's oil giant, Nigeria, this post is really about, but Béa's photolog has moved... 1:21:26 AM  link   your views? [] Diverse distractions and virtual visits (Initially posted mostly on July 13 & 14:) Marianne and I compensated for the screwing-up of holiday plans by My Condition with a spending spree on books and CDs. My education into my daughter's current metal 'Wicked Land'-style music is complete. After an overdose, I ordered: "Si c'est Korn, c'est le casque!" ("Korn => headphones"). But she also bought several things much more to my own taste. Among the books, she asked for 'Ventus' (reviewed last month) in French. And I found for her that a good translation of the wonderful 'Earthsea quartet, is back in print (published by Robert Laffont as 'Terremer', the trilogy, and 'Tehanu'). So much for the idiot at the FNAC who said 'Tehanu' would never return to the store's shelves "because it's crap compared with the rest". I have no doubt that Marianne will become as committed a fan of Ursula K. Le Guin's Worlds (a good unofficial site in Sweden) as I am (she's also blogrolled). I bought a couple of books myself and music by Bach, Madonna, Phil Glass and other "minimalists", Radiohead and Stockhausen. After the high points of 'Ray of Light', Madonna's 'American Life' was a letdown. The title track and the withdrawn video that caused all the fuss (Guardian arts reviews) back during That War do less, for me, than half a dozen of the other songs on the album, mainly among the last ones. The clip is still out there on the net: hint: try Arts and Entertainment at Salon.com, where they found that a "bootleg copy of her bomb-throwing 'American Life' video proves provocative -- but not nearly as disturbing as her decision to yank it." For her next stunt, I'd be happy to see Madonna end her partnership with French producer Mirwais Ahmadzai. But tracks like 'X-Static Process', make me marginally more generous than Johnny Davis at NME: I give the woman 7.5/10 for this one. I have no sympathy for those who bemoan the contrast between Madonna's lifestyle and the this-is-me-now lyrics on 'American Life'. Song-writing has never been the chameleon's strong point, unlike sheer style. Anyway. Who knows? She may mean what she says and is as entitled to be mixed-up as anybody else. zzz In the neighbourhood, Lee abandoned Odessa Street to Tony and his daily monitoring of pollution levels, going back to the u.s. of a., family and open spaces with a fine plan for "a healthy diet of physical activity and mental numbness" She first found that when "trying to catch some rays, somebody decided that Parisian trees were thirsty." In summer, this is a daily risk. I've often been showered along with people's geraniums. One only hopes it was just water, because there are still weeks to go before it's relatively safe to stroll down the middle of the road. Visiting home from France, Lee must have been given the illegal alien treatment before customs scrubbed her through decontamination and granted her visa for "at least getting an accurate and semi-diverse glimpse into current American pop culture" (Gadabout is sometimes where I keep tabs, while Lee sporadically posts on her own latest finds). Google appeared to have decided, for what it's worth, that July 14 was "Let's be nice to France Day". What's come over them? [So I asked at the time.] I missed the flypast. One annual sport at "the factory" is to watch the death machines hurtle low down the Champs Elysées on telly, then see them moments later tearing up the sky behind the building. There's always somebody to claim that one went missing in the meantime. I doubt any of my readers are ignorant of what Bastille Day is, Tseguereda Mogues spells it out here in great detail and without pictures. Later, I learned from a funny site in Québec that Google had made no such decision to remind the world of the existence of the French. Confused? Neither 'pssst!' nor I initially realised that the lily-livered cowards chose to put that banner on Google.fr only! In the past few days, 'pssst!' has sadly shut down and turned into a four-year archive. zzz I [had then] to stop eating bread, which is hard when Paris's second-best baker -- so their award sign proudly proclaims -- is a few doors away. Even a bit of baguette is banned. I have yet to work out whether pizza is among the forbidden fibres or allowed on a par with pasta. In: "Los Alamos, NM - Dr. Sidney P. Dinsmore, a senior researcher with the US Department of Energy, has achieved a scientific breakthrough by creating the first sustainable cold fusion reaction in a laboratory by combining enriched pasta with anti-pasta, something that physicists and Italian chefs heretofore had thought impossible. (...) Not all scientists, however, are convinced that Dinsmore's discovery will be successful outside of a highly controlled laboratory environment. Indeed, a few highly reputable physicists believe that a functioning pasta/anti-pasta 'Dinsmore generator' could set off a chain reaction so powerful that it could end up causing a rift in the space-time continuum or, in a worst-case scenario, actually causing the complete destruction of all matter in the universe." First, I am myself a perfect environment for such an experiment. I have managed to contain the destruction of all matter in my innards for two months, notwithstanding hot ... never mind. Secondly, this recipe for the very kind of fusion I'm seeking was reported by Broken Newz (via the entertaining Tim Swanson). zzz Something we're told Americans excel in is service. As well as taking people to court. I'd been looking for something on Princess Di, currently back in the news as a multi-million dollar transatlantic spat, apart from the apparently initially true story that Marvel comics planned to turn her into a mutant superheroine (ABC). This has since been denied (Silver Bulletins reports). Di got a look-in at 'More a way of life...', but I was reading Jon's jaundiced look there at the "British Concept of Service. 1:10:19 AM  link   your views? [] 'Mappa Mundi': genetics and government - an explosive mix (Initially posted on July 7:) In a recent column in 'The Guardian', Justina Robson's new novel, 'Natural History', won high praise from fellow science fiction writer John M. Harrison (article: 'Meat versus Machine'). Waiting for the paperback will be a test of patience after racing through the last chapters of 'Mappa Mundi' (2001, link to Amazon UK). The Yorkshire-born Robson's ambitious second novel tackles the possibility of mind control through nanotech. It's a prospect she makes frighteningly real as rival governments and people of varied intent race for a monopoly on the technology. Throughout her work, Robson* has been preoccupied with the question of consciousness in one form or another, beginning with artificial intelligence in 'Silver Screen', published in 1999. In 'Mappa Mundi', the shock-headed Natalie Armstrong is a British pyschologist and research scientist seeking to map out a model of the human brain to provide treatment for the mentally ill through nanotechnology. Her goal on the way, achieving a working theory of consciousness, is shared by others less concerned with the practical medical applications than with the manipulation of the mind. Including the US adminstration. Across the Atlantic, the half-native American FBI agent Jude Westhorpe has long sought the truth about a dangerous defector from Moscow, currently working in mind-mapping for Washington but with a criminal past and still hot Mafia connections. This "mystery Russian", another strong and pleasingly ambivalent character, has plans of his own for the Mappa Mundi project. Jude's path crosses Natalie's when he needs her help to decode evidence turned up in a bizarre bid to kill his estranged sister, White Horse, a political activist who regards his career as a sell-out to the State. All three find themselves crossed, double-crossed and manipulated in a political world where the rule is 'trust nobody, not even yourself'. It's through the fine portrayal of the key characters in the novel, rather than an overdose of hard science, that Robson succeeds in the difficult task of drawing the reader forward into a near future where the biological implications of nanotechnology, one of the key research fields still in its relative infancy at the start of this century, could prove far-reaching indeed. A pre-review comment, with an extract from the book, on June 30 (second part of the entry), noted how the author launches into a multi-threaded thriller more than 50 pages after 'Mappa Mundi' begins. The first part, in fact, consists of a series of brief, apparently unrelated short tales, which take on all their importance once we are deep into a nightmare plot whose outcome can't look good from any angle. The end is as inexorable, in its way, as scientific progress itself, despite all resistance put up by those opposed to change. Like the research that brought the world the hydrogen bomb, once the work Natalie and her colleagues are engaged in begins to produce results, there can be no going back. If your country hasn't got it, somebody else's will. Illustrating this new kind of "arms race" in one vivid passage, Robson takes FBI agents to a secret US medico-military research site to witness an experiment gut-wrenching enough to sicken even one of the most ruthless and callous of her characters. The "national interest" calls for activities few people would care to reflect on too much, but this author provokes thought all the way along the line. To a non-scientist, the science woven into the book is as credible as it is chilling. On re-reading a passage or two, Robson's initially surprising notions of the nature of consciousness and indeed the nature of time became perfectly plausible. Events such as the long unexplained appearance of a top-secret Pentagon folder in a York guest house and the even more bizarre disappearance of one of the main characters make a frightening sense. Robson's use of Anglicisms for one or two things American led the only reader to comment on the book to date at Amazon UK to give it two stars. The poor person had a problem with that, with the unfortunate outcome that the review was completely beside the point! In an interview she gave Cheryl Morgan at 'Strange Horizons' (no spoilers) last April, Robson was more riled by an 'SF Foundation' writer who accused her of making up her science. "I was so cross about that. Of course I made some of it up. It wouldn't be SF otherwise, it would be realism. But I think his problem was that I wasn't explaining how any of it worked, so he assumed that I hadn't done any research, that it was just some sort of thought experiment that wasn't going anywhere. What really annoys me is that I have drafts of that book in which it is all explained, and it's really long and boring, it jams the storyline. In order to explain how it all works, you first have to decide where to start. In this case the poor layman doesn't have a great deal of knowledge of neuroscience or nanotechnology or biochemistry, so you end up thinking that you need to include an entire lecture series, and I don't want to do that in a novel." Elsewhere, I've remarked on Robson's gift for seamless gear-changes in style on the way to a perhaps literally "mind-blowing" climax, but omitted to say that her bleak outlook is well leavened with many a touch of occasionally dark humour. It wasn't until I read that excellent interview after the book that I learned that both her parents are scientists, hence her insight into method, and that when she's not busy exercising an original SF talent to watch closely, she's become a yoga teacher. That, after 'Mappa Mundi', makes sense too. _______ *Just a reminder of Robson's own site. There isn't much on it apart from a bare bones bio and brief factsheets, but it's a good jumping off point for more on her work. (Probably next up for review here: Neal Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age' (1995); "tackled" by Susan Stepney in October 2000. This guy's an author whose work I'm reading backwards...) 12:23:43 AM  link   your views? [] Specially for my mum! A striking view of your servant The first part of this entry, before I "lost" (i.e. blew apart) the blog, is a slightly edited version of testimony to my worst night of the year. Last Wednesday. Then I reveal how much wiser we are now... "Going to give a running commentary?" she asked. I had no such intention. But since I also have no idea what's going to come out, this might be of interest. (Update: I can do far better than merely write, anyway..) I have tasted far, far worse than fortrans (that was sachet/litre n° 2). Mixed with Coke, it's acceptable. The 'X-Prep' taken at 8:24 pm looked so vile in water, a muddy brown, that I knew it would be bad news. I left reading the contre-indications until after swallowing. Then I learned that this "médicament NE DOIT PAS ÊTRE UTILISÉ dans les cas suivants: (...) maladie de Crohn." Great. I thought that was what we were looking for. I just hope they know what they're doing. It's not me that shouted, the caps are on the notice: "Must not be used." Item n° 3 will accompany me in the morning. Many of them. I'm supposed to be out of the clinic in the afternoon. Now I've begun to wonder. As to the effect of these things or even what they are for, I have absolutely no further comment to make. None whatsoever... I'll be back to finish this in a moment. There are times when I regret my mother's conviction that the internet is beyond either her interest or her grasp. Never mind. The flowers are in the post. zzz Dire though that night was, my humour improved walking to the clinic in the sunshine and then back, to "the canteen". Lesson learned after an anaesthetic: you don't snap your fingers at the specialist when you come round, even if calling out when he strides past your trolley draws no response. "Je ne suis pas un garçon," Dr V. protested. But then he consented to inform me that "a priori, you don't have Crohn's disease. But you've got something." No more would he say, which is why I got lesson two. Ravenous at the canteen, I was stupid enough to order a pizza with all the veggies at last. Sam nearly had to walk me home. Never mind the awful cramp, I saw stars and almost passed out for 15 minutes. Sam threw away the uneaten ice cream and even gave me the pizza on the house! It's scarcely suprising a system as clean as this couldn't take the onslaught. I found this picture and the letter this morning. Thoughtful chap, Dr V. If I read the jargon correctly, it's a part of my stomach delightfully known in French as the "ear", i.e. lughole. Or plughole? The probes went down as well as up. My Condition, however, remains a mystery, pending the biopsy reports. On Friday, bloghero Yang was as bemused as me, if less miffed. Past history pointed so much to Crohn's that the doctor, who had spoken to Dr V. but not seen these first results, was almost sorry to be going on holiday with the puzzle unresolved. The tentative "conclusion" vaguely fingers the pancreas. Who knows? I'm asked to see Dr V. in a week's time. Yang was going to write me off work for another month, but we settled for a couple of weeks. I didn't want it to be Crohn's, but now we find it's neither that nor anything I might have picked up in Africa, knowing more would be nice. Those probes, awaited for two months, took all of five minutes according to the the video-endoscopy report. This I find hard to credit, given that it speaks of "difficult progress" because of the twists and turns... The rest I will spare you. When I was in a fit state to return my mum's call this afternoon, she didn't want details on a full stomach. (First picture courtesy of 'L'Écran Fantastique' (a fan site which has yet to be updated by one issue. Second snap by way of modern medicine.) 12:13:32 AM  link   your views? []

dimanche 20 juillet 2003

Cat's breakfast - the wages of guilt! This place has looked awful for three days now! I know. That's what comes of reading 'The Guardian' weblog and feeling guilty. The disaster started with a rant about 'Daring Fireball' just a day after the "paper" had praised John Gruber's blog. I went on through to the Grauniad's favourite pundit on web design and his strictures. Though irritated by the man's superiority, I found grounds for thought at Jakob Nielsen's 'useit'. The upshot -- given almost zero energy, nothing better to do and nowhere sensible to go in the dire state I was in for two and a half days after Thursday's deep probing of my innards -- was that I decided to render this log far more reader-friendly. This will still happen. The colours will change a little, the print will get bigger and the home page will be modified in such a way that it takes far less time to load for my reader on dial-up. What I lack the skill to do is to follow good examples and offer a home page with a read-on option, of the kind that best suits news-reading software. While I was at it, I ran revised templates through the gauntlet of the W3C. With such success, after several hours, that each came up with a "congrats, this is valid HTML!" kind of message and looked good for style sheets too. They even worked in all browsers apart from iCab. Proud of myself, I upshipped them to the Radio Userland server. Whereupon Radio crashed. Irreparably. I could scarcely get the application up and running again long enough to see what was wrong before it quit on me without notice. This morning, I nerved myself up for another go. Rien! Not even the weirdest cheats and fixes, checks on the Radio discussion board (when I could get there, which wasn't all the time) could keep me out of a "clean install" of the whole damned Radio app. That, of course, was when I lost everything. Including my marbles. But at least I was able to go to "the canteen" and shove down my first proper meal in three days. What the 3½ of you may -- or perhaps not -- see now is a possibly semi-busted backup. I have learned much about the inner workings of Radio, since the excellent Userland docs are more accessible at weekends than the forum. I have also discovered how to use many hitherto unexplored parts of BBEdit Lite properly. It's such a good text and HTML editor for free that I was surprised to see no reference to it in the Bare Bones store or anywhere on the site, but can still be had via VersionTracker (on Feb 28, Rich Siegel of BB noted there that the Lite had been "discontinued", explained why, and said that "anyone currently using the software is welcome to continue doing do"). The Nigeria and Algeria pix are AWOL for now, but not gone forever. They and one or two other goodies will be back. Something's working, because while Radio is supposedly getting a fix right now, the NetNewsWire RSS reader successfully fetched the last 10 entries. Oh good heavens, I behold a blog! When I pressed that button, I shut my eyes, but even the calendar seems to work again. The new style sheet's waiting. Minus the bit that caused all the trouble. But. Not tonight. 10:25:34 PM  link   your views? []

samedi 5 juillet 2003

The quiet before the baton comes down Dragons were in one of my dreams. Not the relatively unambiguous treasure-hoarding kind of some fables, but the wiser and older species preferred by some of my favourite writers, like Ursula K. Le Guin (blogrolled). What mattered was to learn their language. It was a short night, like most these days. I went to sleep around one in the morning (after such trouble trying to upload copy to servers the far side of the Atlantic that I gave up -- apologies to anybody who saw the mess I left here before cleaning up when the "lines" were clear). Then I was up two hours and more before the alarm was set to go off, and took a fresh look at the cover of the Donington book on Wagner's 'Ring' cycle I mentioned being so pleased at finding again back in May, when I began writing about archetypes ... and stereotypes. I'm not always an observant creature; it was only then that the picture registered consciously. Siegfried, confronting the giant turned dragon Fafner (here in one of those sparingly staged Bayreuth productions of the 1950s) is up against something Donington intriguingly -- and not absurdly in his gripping musico-psychological detective story -- sometimes sees as a parent-image. That dream comes as no surprise, since my Fourth of July was quietly occupied wearing my fingers out with storing music on the Mac and finding short cuts to label every single item properly. A lot of music. Including the 'Ring of the Nibelung'! All of it. In Karajan's recording, oddly described by some as the "chamber music" reading, for all its power. Back then, at the start of the '70s, such critics were contrasting this monumental Deutsche Grammaphon achievement, with its unmatched attention to orchestral detail, with the cycle Sir Georg Solti had committed to vinyl for Decca in a 1960s landmark for the whole recording industry. When, in my late teens, I eventually opted for Karajan's version and not Solti's, I saved up for it for three months! What different days those were, before the advent of the CD. Yesterday, the computer also swallowed up several other landmarks, including Otto Klemperer's wonderfully spacious recording of Bach's 'St Matthew Passion', one of the miracles of the "classical" music world in 1962. Along with the complete Monterverdi 'Vespro della beata Vergine'. And more... There's a lot to be said for this new AAC format. I'm not technician enough to be sure of Dolby's claim that "AAC compressed audio at 128 kbps (stereo) has been judged by expert listeners to be 'indistinguishable' from the original uncompressed audio source." My ears say "yes" and once I passed for an 'expert listener', in my previous incarnation at the Beeb. Even pushing up the quality rate from 128 kpbs to 192 kpbs in AAC, the nigh on 15 hours of Karajan's 'Ring' take up "only" 1.21 GB of hard disk space. So it may have been a very quiet day yesterday, since I opted not to play while recording and slow down a process which took many hours as it was. Now, though, perhaps I ought to clear the way with the neighbours before this lot gets unleashed... When I "blogrolled" 'osxAudio' a good while ago, I might also have mentioned MacMusic as another first-rate resource base -- and one with a home page which is easier to read. Since 1997, this France-based community has grown, getting ever better, and has made sterling efforts to get an English-language version of the site online and packed with good stuff. 10:59:19 AM  link   your views? []

jeudi 3 juillet 2003

Talents well worth some shillings Today is the day of well-deserved rewards. A promise belatedly to be kept after those miracles just worked with the fairy-tale accounts programme, which included exploring and deciding on how to budget properly month by month. Now I've got an allowance for software, the time has come to pay a handful of the increasing number of developers who've given me "conscience-ware" -- they call it "donation-ware" -- I've tried, liked and decided to keep. This "best of the bunch" includes a hitherto unmentioned extra for Safari, one of dozens of offerings. I find four of these indispensable. PithHelmet, a real system-tweaker, "adds some some basic but powerful content filtering" to this browser. "The basic purpose is to block ad images, but there are other potential uses as well (blocking Flash, Shockwave or horrible midi loops)." It has joined them. This was in spite of mixed crits and a few may object to yet another application which requires an admin code to use. Some contend that the programme misbehaves after a while or slows down Safari. But I think not, with a finger to point elsewhere. Past weeks have led me to suspect the latest 10.2.6 upgrade to OS X itself for a range of little glitches. There can also be a bad memory leak (voilà, Jean-Claude, we're back with the Jargon Dictionary already). Further investigation discloses that I'm not alone in finding this flaw, which is not supposed to happen with OS X. There's plenty on MacFixIt and elsewhere. My 10.2.6 runs fast, with no problems with PithHelmet and other such applications, once I've run rather more than the standard maintenance routines. The latest easy way to do this without going into the terminal is Cocktail, free ... or donation-ware. Utilities of this kind (I now have several, but this one is singularly well put together) deal with major memory problems not supposed to happen in OS X. But I've seen for myself how 10.2.6 can, as MFI put it, play badly when "Safari and iPhoto chew up several hundred MB of RAM". To be further probed. Like me. Other beneficiaries of the bonanza (perhaps not the right word for some modest largesse) include Reinhold Penner for Safaricon and Caminicon (long overdue but too often praised to link to again!), R.J. for Audioscrobbler (enough here already this week) and Michael Thole for Neo (a P2P entry). MacRumors also deserved a bit of a boost. They got that late last month. I've decided to pay for and keep the benchmark utility Xbench, which is actually useful. Not just a pretty face and a gadget (checking graphics here), it provides information about the Mac's performance which is very helpful if you're as prone as I am to tweaking the operating system. "Note: the Xbench comparison site will be down the month of June, while we go on vacation, and move hosting. We regret any inconvenience. And that bit of the site's still not back. Tut tut! June has been prolonged... On utilities, I've joined the queue waiting for DiskWarrior 3.0 from Alsoft. This being a virtually indispensable repair tool but also a commercial application, it shouldn't count here. It does because that queue is so long that the bootable OS X CD won't get mailed before next month's software budget day. Since Alsoft doesn't bill until your goods have been "shipped", there remains room for a little bit more extravagance in July, once I remember who made what. Four to six weeks is a long time to wait for DW, but a woman at Alsoft confirmed to me that the previous version still holds good for Jaguar, even if you have to launch it from OS 9 and it takes an eternity to do its thing. I thought eternity was a long lunch-hour. It isn't. It's clearly very many long, long lunch-hours in exceptional cases where Disk Warrior has been tested and approved. To say just how many might get somebody into trouble, though I'd dearly like to do so! 10:15:59 PM  link   your views? [] Devious ways of stirring it up The problems Alastair Campbell has raised for T. Blair over alleged fiddling with intelligence which saw Britain join that war have taken yet another turn, with the poor old prime minister betrayed by the technology of erstwhile friends at Micro$oft. Remember this? "The Labour Party was yesterday accused of having an unhealthy relationship with business after a visit to Microsoft UK. Tony Blair spent about an hour at the software giant's Reading HQ, where his party chose to launch its business manifesto. Tony and Cherie were given a ten-minute demonstration of Windows XP surrounded by gawping Microsoft staff. At one point the self-confessed technophobe PM reportedly quipped to his wife: 'I hope you're following this'. Meanwhile, the opposition parties raged against what was seen as Labour endorsing a commercial product." Old news? Yes, very. Refreshers from May 2001 at 'The Register' (more of the above) and at 'vnunet.com. The latter chipped in with a quote and comment: "Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: 'Any politician has to be careful about associating themselves with such a dominant company as Microsoft.' But the Blair government has been nothing if not keen to associate itself with the Redmond giant." And the new twist? "Microsoft Word documents are notorious for containing private information in file headers which people would sometimes rather not share. The British government of Tony Blair just learned this lesson the hard way." Darren Shrubsole unearthed this piece on how 'Microsoft bytes Tony Blair in the butt' for his latest entry (yesterday) at LinkMachineGo (blogrolled). Great stuff, if complicated. It gets more so. The full, nasty tale of alleged plagiarism and editing was by Richard M. Smith (direct link) at Computer Bytes Man. The generous Smith gives us the incriminating Microsoft Word doc, which has been removed from the Downing Street site (I've double-checked), but can be downloaded here with a click. Was that the knock on the door already or do those people just break it down? 'Cos it's on this machine of mine now too. A score of interesting pages which begin: "IRAQ - ITS INFRASTRUCTURE OF CONCEALMENT, DECEPTION AND INTIMIDATION This report draws upon a number of sources, including intelligence material, and shows how the Iraqi regime is constructed to have, and to keep, WMD, and is now engaged in a campaign of obstruction of the United Nations Weapons Inspectors. "Part One focusses on how Iraq's security organisations operate to conceal Weapons of Mass Destruction from UN Inspectors. It reveals that the inspectors are outnumbered by Iraqi intelligence by a ratio of 200 to 1. Part Two gives up to date details of Iraq's network of intelligence and security organisations whose job it is to keep Saddam and his regime in power, and to prevent the international community from disarming Iraq. Part Three goes on to show the effects of the security apparatus on the ordinary people of Iraq. While the reach of this network outside Iraq may be less apparent since the Gulf War of 1990/1991, inside Iraq, its grip is formidable over all levels of society. Saddam and his inner circle control the State infrastructure of fear (...)" Hang on. There's nothing about a 45-minute capacity to use weapons of mass destruction, so don't jump up and down. In this tangled web, Smith instead leads us to a Cambridge University lecturer, Dr Glen Rangwala. He tells a very familiar story indeed: "The document claims to draw 'upon a number of sources, including intelligence material' (p.1, first sentence). Now this is a bit misleading. More precisely, the bulk of the 19-page document (pp.6-16) is directly copied without acknowledgement from (...)" ...and the penny drops with a clang. A post-graduate thesis reprinted in the 'Middle East Review of International Affairs', which has long since, with humour, asked for any more questions on plagiarism from MERIA. What I relish most is the M$ connection, threaded deep into the story. Unless Blair still likes Bill much more than I do, perhaps it's time to sever a few links. zzz There was no knock. No Nigeria pics before Monday or Tuesday, after all; my source has a very busy life. But I'm delighted to learn that Béa is another near neighbour. Such taste! I'd begun to think that most of AFP's Paris-based friends had migrated from this Left Bank of the river, northwards to their own villages in the XVIIIth and XXth arrondissements. I've tweaked yesterday's entry. The bit about my considerate colleagues should now stand out more. Some found it, but desk chief Jo told me she'd sent my little note to them straight to the trash. That's what comes of writing topic lines those who get scores of missives each day take for part of the spam. Unless to say "thanks" and be silly enough to use a smiley has become a capital offence at the factory. Claire is completely forgiven for having failed to note my absence. It's a joy to know I'm so inconspicuous... zzz The picture dates. Libé published it on June 20. But André Baudier kept it for me, after I saw him reading the issue at "the canteen". I got it later, having been exceedingly struck by the astounding headline. 'Vivement la rentrée!'? Could 'Libé' be serious? Does this once radical paper really have that to say to the French just as the holiday season is beginning, even for strikers? La rentrée is the miserable time at the beginning of September when the country buckles down to work again, after the government has done all kinds of nasty things on the sly. It's when we all find out just what they were. I'm perhaps ill-informed but unaware of any strikes right now, nothing in particular to take to the streets about. Discontent just rumbles on beneath the surface. Like Métro trains. I can only hope 'Libé' is being ironic, because otherwise I'll hurl that headline back at them after the summer, when all hell breaks loose again. When first I arrived here in 1980, the paper was a very good read, full of touching small ads, useful tittle-tattle and other flotsam and jetsam still floating in the wake of Mai '68. Journalists I knew there then still dreamed of workers' co-operatives and all that sort of thing. Still a good read sometimes, it's now part of the establishment furniture, of course, like those who run it. Today, it's riling them at one of my favourite quality shit sites. Only too keen for la rentrée, 'Merde in France' informs us that "we don't need your stinking Summer Festivals". To stir it all up even more, but I only noticed today, the bilingual frogblog also spat venom at some poor ... AFP journalist (no, I don't know all of them personally). This -- 'The Intelligentsia lets it hair down' -- was relatively mild-mannered in English compared with the French, which says something totally different. That's cheating... You may look up the word conasse for yourselves. I just shake my head, I really do. Does Josette get a right of reply? 9:55:27 PM  link   your views? []

mercredi 2 juillet 2003