Andrew Sullivan and I both experienced the IRA terrorism in the UK during the 1970s, and the way the British government responded. Reflecting on the news from Gaza, Andrew writes: For years, IRA terrorists bombed Britain’s pubs and shops and eventually nearly killed the entire cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing. Those terrorists lived among…
Read More Responding to terrorismQuestion for all: What/when was your #firstflight ? Mine was an Aer Lingus Vickers Viscount turboprop, LHR-DUB, in 1961 # Question for all: What/when was your #firstrealflight ? Mine was an Aer Lingus Vickers Viscount turboprop, LHR-DUB, in 1961 # Turkish GP: Vettel chucks it all away and throws a tantrum. If Horner continues to…
Read More The week's twitterings – 2010-05-30A lovely snippet from one of my favorite aviation bloggers, Aviatrix Canada: A before-bed weather check reveals: METAR CYLL 240500Z AUTO 31012G19KT 9SM -RAUP OVC007 01/00 A2967 RMK SLP071 MAX WND 31019KT AT 0454Z The AUTO group indicates that human observers have gone home and robots are doing the reporting. The -RAUP group indicates that…
Read More "Stupid robots. Stupid weather."We enjoyed our visit to Pigeon Point Lighthouse in February so much that we went back there this morning. No elephant seal this time, but plenty of things to see. Check out the gallery here. I got a series of shots of a Sea Otter eating; they’re at extreme zoom, but still pretty clear. (DSCN0902-DSCN0910,…
Read More Sea otter and seals at Pigeon PointEarlier this month I was in Nice for the TM Forum‘s Management World 2010 conference. (It was a very useful show, and I’ll probably blog about the technical content as soon as I have time.) After the event was over, I found time to visit the Musée National Marc Chagall. Non-flash photography was permitted, and…
Read More The Marc Chagall Museum in NiceOver the last year, I’ve travelled to Shenzhen in China five times, and I’ve got it down to a fine art. On several occasions I’ve provided colleagues with a cheat-sheet on how to deal with such things as Shekou ferry tickets and immigration paperwork. But on my last trip I tried something new, and I…
Read More Spending a day in Hong Kong before your flightI just got home from an almost-three week business trip to Shenzhen and Nice. I had to bring my bulky work laptop along, and so I decided to leave my MacBook Air at home and use the iPad for all of my personal stuff. I brought along the BlueTooth Keyboard and VGA-out adapter; the camera…
Read More Three weeks on the road with a iPadAt the plenary at TM Forum #mworld2010 in Nice. We're invited to Tweet about it, but conference wifi doesn't cover the auditorium! #FAIL # NYTimes on Goldman Sachs http://nyti.ms/bOgsMk < institutionalized conflict-of-interest stinks; break 'em up # #mw2010 day 2: Profitable Cloud Services summit. Everybody declares "vendor agnosticism" but without effective standards how can this…
Read More The week's twitterings – 2010-05-23Back on Twitter, finally, after a week! Curse you, Great Firewall of China! Thank you, @publicvpn # Finally got around to configuring VPN on my iPad. Nice to rejoin the real web. It feels like the Great Firewall is more active than before # Sipping a pint of Boddington's at the "Yorkshire Pudding" on Shelley…
Read More The week's twitterings – 2010-05-16Here’s my review at Amazon.com of the new novel by Iain M. Banks, Transition: Insidiously exquisite, ultimately essential (5 stars) I’ve always loved Iain M. Banks’ science fiction novels, especially his “Culture” books with their huge sentient spaceships and breathtaking worlds. The Player of Games is a particular favourite. And Ive also enjoyed what I…
Read More Iain M. Banks: Transition