Collecting and Organizing Voice Memos on iTunes [iPod/iPhone]

The drift towards war with Iran [FT.COM]

By Gideon Rachman

The question of whether a war will break out over Iran’s nuclear programme has been around for so long that it is easy to become almost blasé. In 2006 Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was already asserting dramatically: “It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany.”
This year, however, feels different. The threat of war is much more real. A conflict would begin with an Israeli bombing raid on Iran. But it would be likely swiftly to draw in the US – probably the UK and France, as well, and possibly the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia.

Israeli fears are driving the process. Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, has talked of Iran entering a “zone of immunity” – in which its nuclear programme becomes unstoppable – in the coming months. The Israelis are particularly concerned about plans to put Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities into hardened underground bunkers. Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, is said to believe there is a strong possibility of an Israeli attack in April, May or June.

But Israel is not the only factor. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are also obsessed with the need to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons. Barack Obama is still very keen to avoid conflict. But in a presidential election year, it is harder for him to rein in Israel. Britain and France – the two most important European military powers – are also seriously contemplating the prospect of conflict with Iran. Indeed, in marked contrast to the run-up to the Iraq war, the British and the French seem to be more bellicose than the Americans.
One European decision-maker recently laid out the possible cycle of escalation and counter-escalation. Israel would mount a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The US would not condemn the raid, while Europeans would speak out against the attack – but only halfheartedly. When Iran retaliated against Israel, the Europeans and Americans would come to Israel’s aid, with defensive measures: perhaps, initially, in the form of naval protection.

But it is also thought likely that Iranian retaliation would be aimed not just at Israel but also at western interests – and perhaps even at the Gulf states. That would lead to a much wider conflict. US air power would be used to knock out Iranian retaliatory capacity. Any Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would be swiftly challenged by the US navy, with some token European support. While the Gulf states could never support an Israeli attack on Iran, they might get involved in this second round of military action – if Iran were foolish enough to attack them first. All the discussion, however, is of the use of air and naval power. There is no appetite for sending ground troops.

Among some European decision-makers these steps are discussed with a calm – and even a hint of relish – that is slightly startling. So why the change in mood?

There are several factors. First, while Mr Netanyahu is not liked or trusted by his counterparts in Washington, Paris and London, Israeli and Saudi concerns about the progress of Iran’s nuclear programme are, to a significant extent, shared by their US and European counterparts.

Read the remainder of this excellent Financial Times article here.

Richard Dawkins fluffs - or semi-fluffs - a question on the title of Darwin's book...

The correct answer is: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

According to Wikipedia, the apparently controversial 'Origin' can be summarised as follows:

Darwin's theory of evolution is based on key facts and the inferences drawn from them, which biologist Ernst Mayr summarised as follows:[3]

Every species is fertile enough that if all offspring survived to reproduce the population would grow (fact).
Despite periodic fluctuations, populations remain roughly the same size (fact).
Resources such as food are limited and are relatively stable over time (fact).
A struggle for survival ensues (inference).
Individuals in a population vary significantly from one another (fact).
Much of this variation is inheritable (fact).
Individuals less suited to the environment are less likely to survive and less likely to reproduce; individuals more suited to the environment are more likely to survive and more likely to reproduce and leave their inheritable traits to future generations, which produces the process of natural selection (inference).
This slowly effected process results in populations changing to adapt to their environments, and ultimately, these variations accumulate over time to form new species (inference).

Makes perfect (and observable) sense as far as I'm concerned.

Carbon dioxide band in the Southern Hemisphere detected for the first time

Is global warming a myth?

Troubled Americans> Facebook Parenting: For the troubled teen

Personally the whole idea of a civilian carrying a weapon around and 'solving a problem' by shooting it is the sort of cavalier cowboy trailer trash mentality that too many unenlightened Americans are foisting on the world. Does it really solve problems, or does it teach that 'might is right'? Well, the pendulum swings, and when power shifts, careful of reaping the whirlwind. A better way of dealing with this would have been talking to his daughter in private, encouraging her...not giving her a lesson in spite and revenge. So she posted a message he didn't approve of on Facebook, he then did exactly the same. Kookoo!

Southern Hemisphere Moon

Die Antwoord stun David Letterman

I Fink You Freeky - Die Antwoord

Signal To Noise

Signal To Noise from Douglas Koke on Vimeo.

Why everyone should worry about Greece [via The Economist]

SHOOT: Perhaps the clamour about Greece has faded into a vague cliche by now, something to do with the words debt, default, Euro and currency. Sounds pretty harmless right? The Economist doesn't think so, hence the number of covers dedicated to a serious, and worsening financial mess in Europe. For reference, the European bloc of countries represents the world's largest trading bloc, it's GDP exceeds the USA. If the Euro fails, the world financial system collapses. It's that simple, and that terrible, and thus far, only platitudes are being used to defend against the rising tide of financial apocalypse.

May 1st 2010 The Greek debt crisis is spreading. Europe needs a bolder, broader solution—and quickly

 July 10th 2010 Yes: the European Union will thrive if its leaders seize the moment in the same way they did 20 years ago

 November 20th 2010 Ireland’s woes are largely of its own making but German bungling has made matters worse

December 4th 2010 The euro is proving horribly costly for some. A break-up would be even worse

 

January 15th 2011 The euro area’s bail-out strategy is not working. It is time for insolvent countries to restructure their debts

 March 12th 2011 This may be remembered as the week Europe began to split apart. One woman could stop that

 June 25th 2011 The opportunity for Europe’s leaders to avoid disaster is shrinking fast

 

July 16th 2011 By engulfing Italy, the euro crisis has entered a perilous new phase—with the single currency itself now at risk

 September 17th 2011 It requires urgent action on a huge scale. Unless Germany rises to the challenge, disaster looms

 October 1st 2011 Unless politicians act more boldly, the world economy will keep heading towards a black hole

 

October 29th 2011 This week’s summit was supposed to put an end to the euro crisis. It hasn’t

 

November 5th 2011 The markets are not the euro’s only threat. Voters may be too

November 26th 2011 Unless Germany and the ECB move quickly, the single currency’s collapse is looming.

The Economist in January:  If no deal is in place by March 20th, when a big bond payment is due, Greece will be pushed into a chaotic default, which would increase the risk that the country is forced out of the euro. That is a frightening prospect. The ensuing chaos and contagion could fell the single currency, not least because Europe’s governments have made little progress on building a “firewall” around countries like Italy and Spain.

Read more.

My First Writing Machine

True story, I got this hunk of junk when I was a wee teenager, closer to thirteen than to eighteen. Actually, I can't recall so much that it was ever given to me so much as that I was allowed to use it and then effectively (very effectively as it turned out) annexed it.

The crazy thing is that I started using this machine - known as a T Y P E W R I T E R - just as they were about to become extinct. Word processors were already around, and expensive.  And worse, something called a C O M P U T E R was appearing, which, people claimed, could do a lot, including typewriting, a calculating, and digital games (what's that) and a whole lot more.  But, even as the era on this machine was winding down, for a youngster like me, paper, typewriter ribbons and tippex (remember that stuff) was cheaper than a word processor and far cheaper than a computer, which required the machine itself, a separate TV like box, and a printer.  Really, replacing one machine with three, and you had to plug them all in and into each other?

Not that my Olivetti was perfect. I recall keys jamming into each other if I typed too fast. (Funnily enough, there's an equivalent for that sort of thing on some computers too...) I type mostly with two or three fingers, although I've since learnt to type with all. So getting the letters jammed up in those days happened A LOT!

That white tippex smears under 'Olivetti' in the above image - yeah, that was me.  I didn't just take this baby for a spin once or twice.  It got so bad, I remember being threatened that it would be removed entirely if I didn't simply 'STOP'.  On one occasion, when my brother was writing matriculation exams, I went to the far end of the garden and sat beside our aviary under a tree in order to allow him to conduct his studies within a modicum of peace and quiet.  Despite a lawn roughly 30 metres long, it wasn't long enough to drown out the CLACK CLACK CLACKETY CLACK, and despite my self imposed asylum at my Encampment For Writing, my brother insisted that:

a) he could still hear me
and less plausibly b) that it was still disturbing him.

My parents, both of them, came to his aid, and I was ordered to maintain Radio Typewriter silence forthwith, as well as for the remainder of my long suffering brother's exams.

To this day my sister recalls sleepless nights - for the whole family - when a young me, surfing waves of inspiration, would surreptitiously (well, not quite),  softly type a burgeoning masterpiece.
I remember weekends when friends of mine would hover at the door frame, urging me to join  them for a burger or some other escapade, and without turning from my machine, I'd promise as soon as I'm done with this (I promise).  Entire weekends were spent punching these round finger platforms, retyping an entire page after discovering, to my dismay, a glaring error that was beyond tippex, or a paragraph that needed to be drawn and quartered.  Sometimes the work would stop in the wee hours of a Monday morning, sometimes even later, and I'd arrive late at school with no better excuse than that I'd been writing.

Curiously, when I was given essays to write at school, on the occasion that I'd covered the topic before on my own, I'd have to transcribe a typewritten piece to handwriting.  Very quickly, my handwriting (something I won  innumerable gold stars for once upon a time) was going to blazes.  To give you an idea, the word 'the' started missing the 'h' and simply contained a a squiggle with a loop, resembling, I suppose, a spermatazoa suffering from a slight spastic colon in its midrif.  I faced off against numerous teachers who accused me of misspelling 'the'.  I suggested that I place the squiggle shorthand at the top of  a page with an = sign and a painstakingly perfect 'the' beside it, but no one would buy that.  I had to write 'the' and that was it.

But, I digress.  Eventually I wrote my first and second novels on this Olivetti. I soon found that I couldn't write unless it was on the Olivetti.  The deafening CLACK CLAKETY CLACK somehow solicited a constant stream of evocative musings, which were harder to come by in the unstimulating environment of a piece of paper and pen (which felt so arbitrary) or the somehow muted, disconnected experience of a computer (I type it here, it appears there, then I print it somewhere else as long as the system doesn't crash...Save, remember to save...).
So the second manuscript turned out to be partly handwritten, typed and word processed. Each transition took a horrible toll on my creative faculties, but somehow I adapted.   It took 2 years to complete, and I finished the damn thing on the morning of my matric Science Exam (which I passed, barely).

In those late high school years I owned a ZX Spectrum computer (one of the world's first computers), and a Commodore 64 with a printer and monitor (probably birthday and Christmas presents).  That last acquisition permanently ended my relationship with my First Writing Machine, and so it ended up gathering dust in my parents garage for the next 20 years.

Now, an antique, it is curious to pick the thing up.  It weighs more than a television. Its keyboard seems curiously elevated, like the side of a pyramid, and the whole device looks like about 10 notebook computers crumpled on top of each other, but yet, it remains a machine capable only of typing, and incapable of performing the simplest task (such as 'delete').  Caps lock it can do.  And typing in red, blue or black.  But you can't change a font. On the plus side, it doesn't need electricity to work.

As simple as this device is, it has a beauty about it, doesn't it, that many ancient contraptions have, and let's face it, modern devices lack.  You may gush about Apple machines, but if you think about it, it's enthusiasm over clinical white surfaces, sterile, glossy cubes and disks.  Do these machines have a soul?  Or do they merely entertain?  Are they merely functional?  Oh, that's an accusation that isn't fair, the Olivetti was built to be functional too.  As time goes by, our fondness for the old seems to appreciate.  Right now, some computer systems are being retired, like Windows XP.  I know I will miss that old processor, just like this one, with a fondness that came with using it plenty, and getting the job done. 

Nick van der Leek: Business Card with contact details including email and cell number

 

Real World Test Drive BMW 750Li x Drive 2010

Kate Beckinsale [PHOTOS]

Counterstrike - Global Offensive

Looks like some great upgrades to the old classic.

Callista [PHOTOGRAPHY]

Make 2012 Great - Tony Robbins

There are always two pains in life - the pain of discipline, and the pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces, regret weighs tons.

Euro Debt Crisis [INFOGRAPHIC]

via

Wild Coast [PHOTOGRAPHY]