Tutu & Bono

Shouldn't they be at a soccer match watching Kaka?

Probably Just SkyNet Testing Its Limits

Interesting article in Wired about a key logger virus persistently infecting the computers in Nevada controlling American military drones.  I guess the risk of drones using credit card information is pretty low, but still!  Possibly of greater concern is the idea that our drones are actually providing insurgents with television entertainment:

Many Reapers and Predators don’t encrypt the video they transmit to American troops on the ground. In the summer of 2009, U.S. forces discovered “days and days and hours and hours” of the drone footage on the laptops of Iraqi insurgents. A $26 piece of software allowed the militants to capture the video.

Oh ... great.  Better than HBO!

Here comes the travel ...

Summer is slow for my work, but fall is .... BUSY!

After some emails last week, my calendar is now booked into early December.  This week I actually get to stay in the Netherlands, and then in the following weeks it's Norway, America, Belgium, England, Belgium, Greece, and England.

Based on last year, that means some side-trips to France and Dubai are just out there waiting for me but not scheduled yet.  Think I need to buy some new luggage when home in Seattle!

On Singel Canal

My only question is whether they are pillaging whenever they get where they're going:

The Universe Is Just So Cool

The universe repels itself .... maybe it needs therapy.

Three astronomers won the Nobel prize on Tuesday for discovering that the universe is apparently being blown apart by a mysterious force that cosmologists now call dark energy. They are Saul Perlmutter of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., Brian P. Schmidt of the Australian National University in Weston Creek, Australia, and Adam G. Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

They were the leaders of two competing teams of astronomers who were trying to use the exploding stars known as Type 1a supernovae as cosmic lighthouses to measure the expansion of the universe. They were hoping to measure how fast the universe, which has been expanding since its fiery birth in the Big Bang 14 billion years ago, was slowing down, and thus to find out if its ultimate fate was to fall back together in what is called a Big Crunch or not. Instead, they reported in 1998, it was inexplicably speeding up, a conclusion that nobody would have accepted if not for the fact that both groups wound up with the same answer.

At the time, “We were a little scared,” Dr. Schmidt said. Subsequent cosmological measurements have confirmed that roughly 70 percent of the universe by mass or energy consists of this antigravitational dark energy.

Shark Sanctuary

According to the BBC, the Marshall Islands have created the world's largest shark sanctuary, an area the size of Mexico where trade in shark products and fishing for sharks is prohibited, and certain fishing gear that increases the risk of sharks being killed will be banned.

"In passing this [shark protection] bill, there is no greater statement we can make about the importance of sharks to our culture, environment and economy," said Senator Tony deBrum, who co-sponsored the bill through the Marshallese parliament.

"Ours may be a small island nation, but our waters are now the biggest place sharks are protected."

Where'd this great weather come from??

At home, we'd call this Indian Summer (unless that's not PC any more).  Beautiful weather this week, and a great time to sit on a terrace in the park and enjoy a cold beer and a book:

Vondelpark, sunbathers at the lake

Terrace at Netherlands Film Institute, inside Vondelpark

View from my table on the rail of the terrace

The terrace and Film Institute's beautiful building