Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the ... th-drones/]Amazon envisions eventually delivering packages in 30 minutes via drones

(Apparently this was on 60 Minutes yesterday, but who watches broadcast TV any more?)

While "octocopter" is a silly name, at least somebody's working on flying delivery trucks. I wonder whether Amazon can lick the design issues - especially the endurance issue, which to me looks like a deal-breaker.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

"Goodbye" from the original recording of the Broadway musical Catch Me If You Can. This version is sung by Aaron Tveit.
It's my happy ending, now it's time to say goodnight.We can stop pretending, tell the spotlight man turn off my light.'Cause the show is done now, and it's time to leave the stage. Yeah!
The good guy won now and the band has no more songs to play.
It's a happy ending so I'll say...
Goodbye, Goodbye to all the make believe.
Goodbye there's no more magic up my sleeve.
There's nothing left to act up here, I'll take my bow and disappear.
No questions left for answering.
There's only one word left to sing - Goodbye.
It's a happy ending to the greatest show on earth.
Now the curtain's descending and I hope you got your money's worth.
Gonna stop the show now 'cause I wanna leave on top.
So get up and go now. 'Cause there's nothing left inside my head.
Everything that's left to say's been said
Goodbye! Goodbye to all the song and dance.
Goodbye! Off-stage I stand a better chance.
The show is through, the parts been played.
No standing in the wings afraid. No voilins or phony tears.
The word thats music to my ears is 'goodbye'.Well goodbye ... goodbye ... GOODBYE!
I'm not afraid of stopping, this end could be my start.
I wanna live a life and not just play a part.
I'll walk into the sunset, I'll sail across the sea,
the final word the last you'll hear of me, Of me...
Is goodbye. Goodbye to every night alone.
Goodbye, goodbye to lives I don't own. I'm tired of living on the stage.
A life that's only on the page.
Empty lies are in the past, I've tried before but here's the last goodbye.
Now goodbye ... Goodbye ... GOODBYE!
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

Happy Thanksgiving!
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

The Scarlett Pimpernel- Into The Fire!
  David walked into the valleyWith a stone clutched in his handHe was only a boyBut he knew someone must take a stand
There will always be a valleyAlways mountains one must scaleThere will always be perilous watersWhich someone must sail
Into valleys, into watersInto jungles, into hellLet us ride, let us ride home again with a story to tellInto darkness, into dangerInto storms that rip the nightDon't give in, but give upBut give thanks for the glorious fight
You can tremble, you can fear itBut keep your fighting spirit alive boysLet the shiver of it sting youFling into battle, spring to your feet boysNever hold back your step for a momentNever doubt that your courage will growHold your head even higher and into the fire we go
Are there mountains that surround us?Are there walls that block the way?Knock 'em down, strip 'em back boysAnd forward and into the fray
Into terror, into valourCharge ahead, no, never turnYes, it's into the fire we flyAnd the devil will burn
Someone has to face the valleyRush in, we have to rally and win boysWhen the world is saying not toBy God, you know you've got to march on, boysNever hold back your step for a momentNever doubt that your courage will growHold your head ever higher and into the fire we go
Let the lightning strikeLet the flash of it shock youChoke your fears awayPull as tight as a wireLet the fever strikeLet the force of it rock youWe will have our day, sailing into the fire
Someone has to face the valleyRush in! We have to rally and win boysWhen the world is saying not toBy God, you know you've got to march on, boysNever hold back your step for a momentLook alive! Oh, your courage will growYes, it's higher and higher and into the fire we goInto fire!Onward, ho!
//www.youtube.com/v/3ZXpo2WFbXA?hl=en_US&version=3&rel=0
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

A stealth destroyer. Wasn't that the silly gadget that drove one of the Bond movies from the '90s?

However, the balance of cool is restored by the name of its captain...

http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/ge ... try-125072
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

It hasn't been updated in a half-decade, and almost everything in it is so old it's fallen out of copyright, but - free music! (Including sheet music.)

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/gram ... dex-e.html]The Virtual Gramophone - Canadian Historical Sound Recordings
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25099262]Sony files patent for 'SmartWig'
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

If the marriage had been any more martial it would have been a war. The architect, the woman known as Vendor hovered at the rear of the proceedings, her success tugging her fatigued face into a subtly satisfied saturnine smirk as she observed her cleverly orchestrated hybrid of sincerity and jocularity play out like the brainchild of a fervid trinity of Wagner, Tolkien &  Von Clausewitz. The real beauty of it was that the visual opulence and business actually distracted from a ceremony that was purposefully built to be straight forward enough as not to require the dress rehearsals that were impossible given the tighter than tight schedule ; and that wouldn’t have been possible without the whirlwind deals with Time LARP, Cake Space-Walk Caterers,  and the unsolicited borrowings from Shakespeare in the Void. She’d been a very busy dame.
Brynhildr Wandblume,  escorted up the aisle by a father Wotan trying desperately not to look tickled by his role and thus comporting himself in a grandly godish fashion, reflected on the event as her marital metals reflected the event that it was so much cooler than the mundane marital method that would have gone down if her wedding hadn’t been co-opted by the Patrol. Certainly her volks wouldn’t be nearly as in to it as they were in their roles as Germanic gods. As the pair’s promenade proceeded beneath a gently swaying canopy of heraldic guidons, the slow build majesty of Fugue State’s rendition of Das Rhinegold’s Prelude swelled electric guitar and ondes Martenot throughout the hall.
Before the sword stabbed Yggdrasil stood the Weld ethereal in flowing white Galadriels--cutout cleverly inserted--and down and to the side, cyan Siegfried, his tartan Highland clan...well his parents, anyway ; and his best, deeply hooded & cloaked, mystery-man.  
At the tree alter, at the final dying thrum of the martenot, the Weld commenced to prove that she was an exceptional love weld with an impromptu service incorporating a neat synthesis of all the patchwork paramilitary pomp.
“Marriage isn’t a scrap, a fracas, a battle.  It is a war.  A holy war. A  crusade.  A glorious struggle to preserve, to survive, to hold fast to the one truth that has brought you to this hallowed moment : that singly your lives were incomplete, partial, cursory, weak ; but together you will be fulfilled, total, thorough, unassailable.” The weld flung her arms outwards to embrace the assembled. “And that not only applies to the lives of Ramona & Donald but also to those of the Wandblume & Van Loan tribes. For a wedding is more than  the binding of couples : it is the uniting of tribes :  It is the inking of treaties : It is the forging of alliances : it is the fortifying of families. marriage is the true weaponized potential of love!” She considered the main participants with an ethereal gaze worthy of Cate Blanchett.
“ Are you, Ramona Wandblume prepared for general bliss alongside your martial counterpart?”

“Ja, ich bin!”
Are you, Donald Van Loan  prepared  to be Ramona’s ever faithful biumvir?”
“Etiam!”
Assuming that both replies meant ‘yes!’, the Weld continued : “Then by the power of the Love of the Cosmos, I hereby weld your two lives, your two pneumas, your two selves into the greater whole of the beautiful mutuality of matrimony! Seal the pact with the traditional  osculations!”
It was quite the kiss.
***
Ramona’s baby sister, all adorable six years of her packed into the cutest Rhine maiden  outfit ever thrown together in six hours, strew flower petals along with an almost equally adorable nix Pitchy as the newly welds paraded under the saber arcade of a Prussian hussar honor guard to the tune of Fugue State’s stately Metal rendition of the Wagner’s Treulich geführt.
***
The reception was a mad mishmash of Oktoberfest & Robbie Burns Day. Schnitzel & haggis fed the guests ; schnapps & single malts watered them ; alpine horns, bag pipes and Fugue State entertained them. None of it would have been possible without the considerable resources--human resources that Vendor  had at her disposal. Her operatives, with the exception of Starling and Lecter--she’d been busy enough with the Doe, and he’d been busy enough keeping her out of too much trouble ; and now they were actual wedding guests--were the waiters, bartenders, disc spinners, and caterers.
The only significant role outside of Vendor’s control was the best man. He he had emerged unbidden exactly at the moment, six hours ago, that Vendor had realized that all of her attempts to secure best men had come to naught. It was very odd, but then the Fen normality baseline was insane in the Dane membrane. So she ran the stranger, who never once removed his deeply hooded hood, through the best man test ; he  passed with the sort of knowledge that only a lifelong friend or family member could possess ; and Vendor hired him for the key role. And as she watched him perform, she was damn glad that she had...even though she still had no idea who he was.
Strider, the name Vendor had granted him, was, indeed, the best man. He commenced the revelries with a fantastically astute and pithy periodic tabulation of the groom that was as hilarious as it was touching. The maid of honour, an eleventh hour whisked-away Teachers’ college friend of Ramona’s, turned in a competent performance but even A. Lincoln & O. Wilde would have found the best mystery man a hard act to follow.
Then he was seemingly everywhere ensuring the fulfillment of his duty as the couple’s champion until at exactly the time that consensus had been reached regarding his de-hooding, he was nowhere to be found. He had vanished ; completely, concisely and compendiously.
Van Loan, busily agitating the dual antennae zones of Black Betty, his prized theremin, in concert with Fugue State’s speed waltz variant of the Blue Danube, was oblivious to the exit of his baffling benefactor.
The two fathers who had been deep in boisterous agreements regarding the virtues of pils over pale ales, hockey over football and hand tools over power tools leant as a unit in the direction of the newlyweds sitting across from them at the table of honour to direct the final potentially parentally perplexing problem : each queried his particular offspring with almost exactly the same terse question.
“Blue?”
“Grün?”
Within Ramona’s purse and Donald’s pocket the simplest gag imaginable had been prepared exactly for this inescapable moment. With a dramatic flourish, both he and his wife uncovered streaks of pink skin tone underneath the obviously blue & green makeups with pocket hankies.  With this final bit of clarification clarified, the obviously totally relieved patriarchs returned to the process of extending the new forged family knowledge base.
Donald whispered in Ramona’s ear, “I learned that trick from Jack Nicholson!”
She looked a trifle confused but it didn’t mess with her relief of having cleared--for now--the onerous task of attempting to explain ‘Wavium mutation to family that had already borne more than a few familial shocks.
***
That ‘night’, in the midst of Converse Cowpoke , Ramona figured it out : “The Joker! You learnt it from...” She couldn’t quite finish the thought for the activity.
A trifle breathlessly, Van Loan, below and mostly horizontal, giddily replied, “Ja, Herr Witzbold!”
The chemistry was superb. 

My graphics card seems to have given up the magic smoke, this time for real. I'm managing to limp by thanks to Intel's CPU-integrated graphics, but I've been looking into replacements. Since the system is now three years old, most of the components have since been discontinued; most Graphics cards these days are using PCI-e 3. While I could just get one and stick it in the older PCI-e 2 and pretend everything's fine, it's probably best I take the opportunity to upgrade the old things. If I were to get a new motherboard that runs PCI-e 3, I'd also have to I update my CPU to work with the new LGA1150 socket.
So the current items I'm looking at are:ASUS Z87-A mobo
Intel Core i7-4770K CPU
Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 GFX (likely from EVGA)
Anyone here have suggestions, horror stories, nerdgasms or other comments to add?
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI

A bit of an unusual post. To cut a short story shorter I picked up a 42 year old Minolta Hi-Matic E rangefinder in Washington DC about 3 weeks ago, and managed to get it working. I have, quite frankly, never used such an item before in my life, but I boldly went forth, confirmed that it was working and brought it it Eirtakon this last weekend to see what'd happen.

The results, as promised are Here on imgur. With the Doctor below as a sample.



They are - to be polite - not perfect. I'm not so much a photographer, as a fan of technology. There was no flash with the camera, so it was auto-adjusting its own exposure out a bit and some of them got a bit shaken. I also goofed on the focus from time to time. In my defense, it's my first time with anything like it - even film is a first-time for me.

Still, there is something of an eternal charm there that I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's just because I did it, or because 'analogue' or I don't know. Even when scanned off the prints at 300dpi because my scanner software breaks above that. They'll be around and viewable - if properly stored - long after any harddisk has corroded or mini-SD card has been eaten by the dog. And they look a lot better in person.

The real fun for me however was using a 42 year old piece of technology and having it work like a charm all day. I just went out there with the aim to use it as anyone would, ambling around taking a few shots and putting it to work for the first time in maybe a decade or more. There may be a dozen things wrong with these, but none of them can be blamed on the camera. It did exactly what it was supposed to do.

Getting some interesting pictures out of it was a bonus.

I'm glad I did it.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?