mercredi 6 août 2003

Ping away, but don't pinch them "When I was in Ind-ya,..." You know you're really in for it each time Tony begins like that. ('s OK, chum, only teasing...) But when I was in India, even in the south, I never saw the like of what I've just seen. I simply had to go out and buy the wherewithal to make some more "mélange infame", the disgusting mixture so named by Marianne before she decided that even she quite likes the latest variation on the theme of Diet Lemon Coke, Schweppes and ... my secret ingredient. That thing on the wall outside the chemists' shop read + 42. I did stand there long enough to watch it do its date, time and temperature thing three times before I believed it, then it was straight down into the refrigerated bowels of Monoprix. 42°C, for anybody still fighting metric, is 107°6 F. zzz Don't bother with any "You said you like heatwaves; are you satisfied now?" 'phone calls, thank you. The media will be full of this tomorrow and predicting it as the pattern we should generally expect for years to come, like the increase in the number of big storms. I will post up those weather risks (Beeb) after all. They say, like other such advisories, that there should be less mélange infame (since it contains caffeine) and more water, but I'll settle for both. We will hear more from Britain about "the wrong kind of sun" and efforts to slow down the rail network even more than governments have managed so far, in order to stop trains flying off tracks that go ping in the heat. A clickable global warming map has been put on the web, with detailed 'Early Warning Signs', by, among others, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the World Resources Institute. The map's in Fahrenheit, but the explanations include the conversions. zzz I had a look at the Daypop Top News to see if the weather was firing up non-British bloggers too, but no. Iraq is still tediously top of the search list, and second comes Angelina's anger about absent nipples. Complaining after the surgery, the 28-year-old said: 'I wanted my nipples to be there to see.' Heavens, I felt for her! As deeply as any superheated male can. But I am sometimes ready to oblige. Or at least go halfway. To forestall questions: - she has covered the other one because she doesn't want it stolen again, - she didn't have her hair cut, she ungrew it (it's well known that Lara Croft is a time traveller), - Rotten Tomatoes was very mean-spirited to splatter her with a "36% rotten" rating, since she badly needed the money when she made 'Gia', - her boobs get a much higher Daypop rating than George Sr's pathetic little Bush (which is scarcely surprising since his daddy wasn't even imaginative enough to think of a different name for him), - the tattoo is still there (or so she showed told me in her undying gratitude), - the new "trackback" thingie that went in a little while ago was how Angelina ("Miss Jolie" to you, please) and me got it all back together again. The best, quick explanation of TrackBack I found on the web came in an excellent blog by a Muslim woman, but I'm not going to link to her veiled site in the same post as Angelina's teat. zzz Radio made tracking very easy for Userland users on Monday, for which we should thank Jake Savin (and Liz Lawley, who likes being pinged, but not more than once. Should I commit this sin, please be gracious and put it down to an inadequate grasp of the "tool", rather than the bug. I think my root has been updated, but today the inner workings registered "0 new parts" and the blood's gone to the head). 7:39:17 PM  link   your views? [] Next on the hotlist: planet-busters? "Freeman passed by 253 light-years. The second runcible caught him, dragged him back over the horizon and channelled the vast build-up of energy he was carrying ... only ... only this time something went wrong. Freeman passed through the cusp still carrying his charge. The Einsteinian universe took hold of him and ruthlessly applied its laws, and in that immeasurable instant he appeared at his destination, travelling the smallest fraction possible below the speed of light. On the planet Samarkand, in the Andellan system, Freeman supplied the energy for a thirty-megaton nuclear explosion; the atoms of his body yielding up much of their substance as energy." In other words, the engineer said "Beam me up, Mr Scott". And accidentally blew up the planet on arrival. If it was an accident; I don't know yet. Yes, I thought, after Stephenson. This will do me nicely, perusing my shelf and a few sets of opening pages for the next victim for review. Enough near-future forecasting, complicated writing and nanotech fiddling with brains and bodyparts for now. Give me another ordinary, straightforward space opera. Well. Neal Asher's 'Gridlinked' (2001, Pan, Amazon UK) is already proving neither ordinary nor straightforward. But he beat, say, John Courtenay Grimwood and Nancy Kress, into the nightly bill for the heat. More to come once I'm done. The extract, by the way, is no spoiler. Samarkand got plunged into a freezing winter on page 6, in the 'Prologue'. We haven't even met the "James Bond of Earth Central Security" yet. 4:37:59 PM  link   your views? [] More passion than strictly required There's been curious feedback from a couple of people who did indeed know about Mr G. and his Easter present plan. Charlie says it comes, partly, from his Dad. I have learned more about Hutton Gibson's passions and writings than ever I cared to be told! Since that's in among the other Urban Legends (Snope's home), it must be true. Only a little digging will take you to Gibson Sr's privately published explanation of why the Pope is not a Catholic. Hell, if you really need a cold shower, you can even go on 'ICE' and listen to the man tell you why income tax is unconstitutional and why George W. and that crew are "err ... Communist"! As for that film, it would appear that the son, as erudite as the father, has decided to dispense, probably, with subtitles. Unless the audience also master Latin and Aramaic, they may need to await Pentecost and the Holy Ghost. 3:29:48 PM  link   your views? [] Heat exchanges Rainer's decided he's a "bright". Not white, not quite a sight, not even alight, but a ... what? "One of the advantages of the word 'Bright' is that it allows a really simple and straightforward assertion. You state—'A Bright is a person whose worldview is naturalistic (free of supernatural and mystical elements)'.” (from 'Being a Bright.' Unlike him, I'll stay in my "(dark) closet" until such time as I have managed to work each and every one of the supernatural and mystical elements of my existence into Barrett's Embrace-All Understandable Theory of Intelligence and Functioning of Universal Laws. 'BEAUTIFUL' is only likely to take another seven minutes or so to complete. But not on a day when the Brits are chuntering on about global warming and have girded themselves for the "hottest day of the year" (authoritatively announced on the radio this morning). The temperatures there are approaching what they have been here for the past few days. Lee is back. And regretting it. Last night I was too busy lying down in my own oven under the eaves to respond to her 'You can't stand it' moan from Odessa Street. Well, I welcome her back. Since today she's heated again, I can only recommend that she drop down a floor or four and have a mutual commiseration session with Tony, whose place is (apparently) marginally cooler. With considerable courage, he braved it all the way just round the corner from here this morning for a medical appointment. Even though it was at 9:00 am, when I'm usually up and about but dangerously dysfunctional, the least I could do was put in a show of solidarity. For my trouble, Dr Marc recommended Vogalène for the bouts of nausea. By Jove, the chap was spot on! Sillily, I have had an unused packet of the stuff sitting in the bathroom for days. I thought it was only for vomiting. Fans are no use at all, not the two I've got anyway. You can't lie in the bath for ever. But Danone, whose products I think we're still supposed to be boycotting because of the scandalous way in which the food giant laid off loads of workers, unfortunately provides pharmacies with Adiaril. "Unfortunately" because it tastes far nicer -- which is saying very little for such a dose of salts -- than every other variation on the theme, which is theoretically to rehydrate babies and small children ... and people with things resembling My Condition. Guess what exactly the same kind of product is used for in Africa when it's as hot or hotter than it is here now? Oh, yes. 'BEAUTIFUL', while cheating, is a belated tribute of sorts to one of the finest MetaFilter threads, which, though fortunately deceased, is already legendary in some parts of the blogosphere. Some of my favourite bits were the excursions into Haiku. 2:31:56 PM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.