The horror!!
Road accident. Many casualties…
Click for larger view if you think you can take it 🙂
Kansas board of education shoots itself in the head
The Kansas board of education voted 6-4 today to adopt rewritten science proposals that mandate kids in Kansas are taught lies about how life on Earth evolves. Evolution is a fact. If that pisses off some fundamentalist christians whose faith is so weak that they can’t accept reality then tough. More details at pharyngula.org.
In better news all 8 of the board members who introduced a statement about “intelligent design” into the curriculum in Dover, Pa. have lost their seats in the recent elections. That case went to court and the Judge will rule in January whether it violated the US constitution separation of church and state clause. On the evidence presented it should be a major defeat for the ID movement. Once that happens then those kooks in Kansas should get sued big time.
Update: More info at New Scientist.
The Water Margin
I really loved the Japanese television adaptation of the traditional Chinese stories of the Outlaws of the Marsh at Liang Shan Po. Do not despise the snake for having no horns, for who is to say it will not become a dragon! 🙂 Completely by accident I had the TV on the new UK ITV4 station last saturday and what was just starting? Yep. Episode 1 of The Water Margin in all its grainy glory. No digital enhancement done on this. Doesn’t need it. It’s a wonderful story. Think I might have to invest in the DVDs.
“The Water Margin – Complete” (Fremantle Home Entertainment)
I used to have the 7-inch vinyl of the theme song with an English version on one side and a Japanese or Chinese version on the other. Don’t know where it is now though. Must see if i can track a copy down somewhere. If anyone reading this has a copy let me know.
More on Aerial
I’ve been listening to Aerial almost continuously since I got it yesterday. For about 80% of the time I’ve been playing the 2nd disk, A Sky of Honey. It’s brilliant. The singling is incredible. I’ve said it before, but what a voice. The instrumentation and arrangements are good as well. Who said concept albums were dead? good to hear Rolf Harris on there as well. Still have to get into the A Sea of Honey disk but that’s okay. It’ll be like getting another new Kate Bush album next week when I listen to that in detail.
I’m really happy. After 12 years this could have been a disaster, but it’s not. It’s bloody marvelous 🙂
Good Podcasts
Here are some Podcasts that I listen to regularly:
In Our Time (Melvyn Bragg – BBC Radio 4)
And this new one which has just started, and is therefore on probation:
Open University to deploy Moodle
This looks good. The Open University is to deploy Moodle to host its online learning environment. Hopefully, as this is open source, it’ll be platform agnostic and will work fully with Macintosh, and Linux, clients. Press release here.
Doing Presentations? Keep it simple!
I’m a great fan of minimalist slides when doing presentations. Just found a really nice weblog that covers this area called Presentation Zen. Lots of good advice and links.
Aerial – Kate Bush
Well. It’s finally here. Aerial from Kate Bush. Picked up a copy in Tesco at lunchtime. When I was going through the express checkouts one of the till operators and few checkouts away saw my copy and said to one of her colleagues, “That new Kate Bush CD has sold loads this morning”. So thats all good then. I haven’t really had a chance to listen to it from start to finish yet.
It’s split over two CDs. The first is called A Sea of Honey and the second is called A Sky of Honey. I have listened to the second disk more, both in the car and at home tonight. I really like it. There is a track called Sunset that is very, very good indeed. And Nocturn is also excellent. I’m sure I’ll be posting more about this over the next while, but first impressions are good 🙂
Periodic Tales
The BBC has a series of short audio pieces, from BBC Radio 4, about 10 different elements from the Periodic Table. Good stuff. You can listen to them here. The Tom Lehrer elements song is on the iTMS here.
Video Interview with Bill Gates
This is actually from September of this year but I’ve just found it. Interesting MSDN Channel 9 video interview with Bill Gates. He has some interesting things to say. The comparison of software development and biology as two hot areas for geeks is something I’d agree with.
Microsoft Certified Architect certification
Microsoft have introduced a few new certifications. They are outlined at the certification page. The Microsoft Certified Architect one looks quite rigorous. There are currently 2 tracks; Solutions Architect, which looks developer orientated, and Infrastructure Architect, which looks to be more more platform focused on servers, networks and delivery. it also looks like these new certifications will be hard to get. Good. The last thing we need is another raft of certifications that give us architectural equivalents of the famous paper MCSE’s.
The Q&A section at the Microsoft Certified Architect certification website is interesting reading. Looks like only about 25% of the required knowledge will be based on Microsoft technologies. From the web site:
Q. Does the certification cover only Microsoft Technologies?
Q. What competencies will the program address?
A. t the present time, it is expected that only about a quarter of the emphasis of a candidate’s knowledge will be on Microsoft-related architecture technologies; the rest will relate to general architecture principles and best practices that aren’t Microsoft specific. A candidate for the program will have to have a broad-based knowledge that extends well beyond Microsoft technologies. In addition, the non-technical skills domain that candidates will face throughout the process will be broad, including such knowledge areas as project management, decision-making, strategic thinking, and oral and verbal communication.
That looks very encouraging. Hopefully this’ll be a worthwhile programme that helps raise the level of professionalism in the IT industry.
The Snow – Adam Roberts
I really like the books I’ve read by Adam Roberts. I’ve just finished his book called The Snow. The basic premise of this book is simple enough. It starts to snow. It continues to snow. Everywhere on Earth. For a long time. This continues until the snow is several kilometers deep and everyone except for about 150,000 people are dead. The survivors were mainly related to the military and their bases, are snow experts who were skiing in The Alps (for example), or have been dug out of buildings under the deep snow by the new Food Miners who dig down to get resources.
The story is told from the perspective of 2 main characters whose paths cross a few times, and also by the device of government memos and reports. Early in the book there is an explanation of how it is possible for so much snow to fall. I don’t want to say anything more about that as it’d be a spoiler for anyone who wants to read the book. The ending wasn’t what I was expecting from the early and middle sections of the book. If you like character driven sci-fi you should check this out.
BTW Adam Roberts also writes comedy books under the pseudonym A. R. R. R. Roberts. For example The Soddit.
Human Papilloma Virus Vaccines
There is a really good article by DarkSyde on the Human Papilloma Virus, the recently developed vaccines (that studies show are 100% effective at stopping it causing cervical cancer), and the efforts of some religious groups to prevent a mass vaccination program. It beggars belief that I can still be shocked by the actions of these religious kooks. You can read the article at the UTI site.
KT Tunstall – Black Horse and the Cherry Tree
I came across KT Tunstall’s Black Horse and the Cherry Tree when browsing the video section of the iTMS. I’d never heard any of her material before. I really like this song. It has a really upbeat tempo and thumping beat. She plays most of the instruments on her music herself apparently. I bought the album. It’s good, but the Black Horse… track is my favourite.
Talk Science discussion group
A new discussion group has been set-up on Yahoo groups to provide a place for the discussion of various science topics.
The group is an off shoot of the DebunkCreation group. Any science related topic is suitable for discussion. Some things are off-topic however as they usually lead to flame-wars. The list description gives details but basically politics, religion& ethics are off-topic. We stick to the how questions of science not the why or should we questions.
You can join the group here.
New Kate Bush song
After a 12 year wait. The new Kate Bush single “King of the Mountain” was released to radio today. It got its international debut on Ken Bruce’s BBC Radio 2 show. It’s very, very good indeed.
I got my radioShark to record the show when I was at work. I then used Audio Hijack Pro to cut out the track from the rest of the radio show and save it as an AAC file. I’ve been playing it a lot this evening. What a voice. I stand by my statement from 2003.
Really looking forward to the new album.
Update: The new Kate Bush web site now has a snippet of the new track. And it is now available from the iTMS.
Recent additions
Recently I’ve added quite a few new artists and albums to iTunes. Almost all of these have been via the iTMS. Some notable additions are listed below.
The Killers – Hot Fuss. I love this album. One of the best I’ve heard in a long time.
Kaiser Chiefs – Employment. I bought this because somebody I know said it was good and I’d probably like it. They were right 🙂
Aimee Mann – Lost in Space. Came to this via a weird route. Was checking out the HD video examples at the Apple QuickTime site. One of the examples was Aimee Mann performing The Moth. Liked it so much I got the album.
Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand. Was loaned a copy of this as I’m going to TVital05 in Belfast in August and they are playing. Scissor Sistors are also playing and it was them I wanted to see. I’m actually looking forward to seeing FF more now. Really good album.
Patrick and Eugene – Postcard from Summerisle. Bought this after The Birds and The Bees was the free single of the week on the UK iTMS. Excellent stuff. Includes a ska/reggae cover of Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind.
Surveillance Ultrasound
I had the ultrasound that was mentioned in my last post a few days ago. As expected this was all clear. Lateral transfer of TC is quite rare so I didn’t expect anything to show up. Good to know for sure though.
And another one gone…
Had my 6th post I/O & radiation check-up today. Nothing unusual to report.
The lung x-ray that was taken at the last check-up was clear. Today the oncologist did an exam of my testicle, abdomen and also listened to my lung sounds. All fine.
He re-instigated the blood marker checks that were skipped at the last check-up (my markers were always normal) and ordered a precautionary ultrasound on my testicle. He also said I’d get another CT scan in 12 months.
So happy days then 🙂
Tori Amos – The Beekeeper
Brilliant new album from Tori Amos. Back to the quality of the early material. Much happiness!
I didn’t know this new album was out until I saw it in a banner advertisement on the UK iTMS. Tori Amos’s early albums were very, very good indeed. Her debut album, Little Earthquakes, was stunning with tracks like Crucify, Precious Things, Happy Phantom and Winter especially good. The next album, Under the Pink, was better than the previous one. Nearly all the tracks on this album were, and still are, brilliant. After this there were a few albums that were different! There were a few good tracks inter-spaced on the albums Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back. Venus did have a 2nd live disk with stuff from the early albums on it. Which was good. Some people loved those albums. I didn’t.
The album Scarlet’s Walk, which was released in 2002, was a step back towards the good material. The track Wednesday was very, very good indeed and a few others as well. The new album, The Beekeeper, is brilliant. I’ve listened to it about 15 times over the last few days. There isn’t a track on it I feel like skipping. Toast is my favourite. Closely followed by Witness, Parasol and Ireland. It’s all good though. You can listen to 30 second snippets at the album home page on the iTMS. There is a track on the album called Sweet the Sting that sounds very like it’s Alisha’s Attic performing it. Which is no bad thing.