Another interesting piece

At the Times on 'a league of democracies'

Part of the problem with such schemes of course is that democracy and liberty strange bedfellows at best, ad then there's this;

'The core concept, however, could not be starker. If you hold an election judged by international experts to be free and fair, you are a democracy. And if not, not.'

Why does the idea of whether or not a country is a democracy being decided by 'international experts' fill me with dread?

Sub hunting and airships

An interesting post at Brickmuppet;s place on anti-sub warfare.

Sadly things are even worse this side of the pond, with Nimrod MR4 still years behind schedule and over budget, and the final fleet cut to just 12 airframes! Sub hunting is too cold war to get much funding these days it seems.

Also, now the Viking is gone (and with the F-14 and A-6 retired years ago) a typical CAG is now,just F/A-18s and choppers. Seems like the USN is going down the same road as the UK too, I wonder how much longer until even the they can't afford to operate conventional fixed-wing carriers.

Congratulations to SpaceX!

Falcon 1 flight 5 a complete success.

As Rand says, next big milestone will be a Falcon 9 launch later this year.

I still think SpaceX would have been better off starting with a fly back system from the start rather than a recoverable, conventional booster design this is at least a step in the right direction, unlike NASA's useless Ares 1.

While on the subject of space, will be at the RAE again on Thursday for their Apollo 11 40th anniversary lecture. Will be taking notes and posting a report as soon as I get round to it

Californication

Via Instapundit, just found this fascinating analysis of the RHCP's Californication.

Californication was the first Chilli's album I bought back in my uni days (when my CD collection would fill one small box). None of their other work has appealed to me as much as this disk, indeed it is the only one I've bothered to put on my ipod. Had never really put much thought into the lyrics, but the video (done in the style of a Tomb Raider-esque RPG seems to strike home a lot stronger than the song itself.

Will have to listen to the album in full tomorrow

GA - Geijutsuka Art Design Class - 01

A cute girl sitting behind a desk with a puppet? Why I am I reminded of Lucky Star?

Just finished watching the first episode of this show, pretty much the only slice-of-life moe comedy this season.

The focus of this one is a school art class, which doesn't win any points for originality. I couldn't get into either Sketchbook or Hidamari Sketch, but will give it a try. Also not getting any originality points for the characters, I can't remember any names yet but so far (from left to right in the above picture) we have the quirky quiet girl (reminds me of PPD's Ichigo), genki girl (Kagura clone), glasses/overwhelmed girl (Miyuki/Osaka), another quirky energetic girl (Tomo with a hint of Himeko and the sensible girl (Yomi/Kagami)

Did like the quiet girls painitng in this shot, am hoping for dark gothic work from her (reminded of the artist on The Fast Show who'd go mad whenever the word 'black' is mentioned)

Another plus point- random stuff lying around in the backgrounds. Looks like a giant Buddha statue.

Most of the episode was pretty random, with no real plot to speak off. Lots of discussion of art techniques though.

Final random though- the way chibi Genki girl is 'riding' the eddy bear in the end sequence is slightly disturbing (is worse when its moving!)

Overall a so-so start, but will give another episode or two to settle in.

What I've been reading all evening.

This. (via a comment at Samizdata)

I remember suggesting to a friend after hearing of plans for a manga version of Das Kapital that someone should do a manga Atlas Shrugged or similar. This is a pretty good story so far (am up to page 48), and will be interesting to see how it ends.

Detroit Metal City live action movie reivew

Not inspired by Rocky, no sir!

Watched this movie last night.

Based on a manga and also animated as an ONA last year, Detroit Metal city is the story of a young musician who wants to be James Blunt but ends up as Marilyn Manson. The film shows how Negishi sets off from college to become a pro musician, and the trials he faces as Krauser II.

Compared to the anime Negishi is a lot less bipolar, and doesn't act as outrageous when not Krauser. The plot compresses most of the main episodes into only an hour forty five, so a lot of secondary characters suffer (the drummer only has a dozen words at most, and the pig of capitalism is absent). The manger only really gets to be super-filthy in 2 scenes as well.

Despite this the film doesn't come across as episodic too much. The main message is a bit cheesy too, -Neigishi carrying on as Krauser even though he doesn't want to because it makes other people happy, is a very Japanese one to me. I did like the way his Mum realises he is Krauser and how the girl works it out early on too (was kind of expecting a Spiderman-esque kiss in the amusement park scene!)

The climax of the film is the 'battle' concert between DMC and an American Metal singer called Jack Ill Dark, played by none other than Gene Simmons from Kiss. Watching Gene singing engrish style metal lyrics in english was quite amusing! (though I really don't see why the fansubbers felt the need to translate the japanese subtitles whenever someone is speaking english)

Overall I quite enjoyed the film, it did look cheap in places (esp the Krauser armor), but is good, dirty fun. B

Back to work again tomorrow

Have spent the last 3 days painting skirting boards, door frames, doors and other bits of woodwork. Still got a fair bit to do before the new carpet comes a week Saturday though.

Couple of quick links saw via Instapundit today- this one on the effect of US health policy on global health innovation, and at the other end of the scale this list of worst restaurant names.

Back to work tomorrow (though technically was only off work on Friday last week), will be a bit of a shock to the system no doubt (can't remember the last time I was off a whole calendar week!)

Back from Leeds

And very tired.

Was a very intense 4 days 'oop north', but had a good time. The speakers were all very good (one used this video to demonstrate how to train which made me laugh). I learnt a lot, got schmoozed by sales reps, networked, all they usual conference activities.

Last night there was an excellent dinner at a casino in the middle of Leeds city centre (the course was held at a smaller campus outside the city), managed to leave the roulette table £9 better off.
Was a bit of a late night though (coach back was at 1), lot of bleary eyes this morning!

Even though I did get a Internet connection in my room I didn't use it much, far too busy. Through 2 long train journeys and in between drinking sessions I managed to watch the second season of Higurashi, will have more thoughts on that later on.

I did see this cool story this morning on life extension. Also saw was Steven Den Beste bitching about Kyoani again (seems to be recurring theme whenever he hasn't got anything better to say).

Finally I got curious after hearing another one of those compare the market adverts ion the radio I had a look and found there really is a compare the meerkat website!

Off work again tomorrow, planning to go order some new carpet for my dining room and gloss the skirting boards.

In Leeds

Made it here without a hitch. Room not bad, had to pay £5 to access the net from the room (the cable is a bit short but will do.)

Have been in the Student Union bar, sadly not student prices at the moment. Off to bed now

Off to Leeds today

For a 4 day course through work. Should be getting there 7:30ish (makes me laugh that the train tickets cost £77 return- my flights to Europe were only £60!). AM taking my laptop but not sure will be able to get online up there.

This weekend has been fairly quiet, more painting yesterday and dropped my brother off at the Hop Farm festival this morning. Spent last night catching up on new Haruhi (which really wasn't worth it), Hatsukoi Limited and tired new show Aoi Hana. More thoughts on them to follow.

Will be back Thursday, catch you later!

Armed forces day photos

Finally got round to posting my photos from last Saturdays Armed forces day in Chatham. Walked from my house thought the town to the dockyard, were quite a lot of people about (30,000 according to the news. Also had the PM there (you'd think with that many people standing in front of him with guns at least one would do the decent thing!), head of the armed forces sir Jock Strap (sorry meant Stirrup!) and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. (Was a bit of a who-ha in the press that there wasn't a more senior royal)

Day kicked off with a parade though the town leading into the dockyard.

Good to see the Gurkas out in force

Marching bands a plenty

Lot of veterans in the parade too

Ex-para judging by the berets

This sign made me laugh- Galvanising shop is now the University of Kent's School of Drama, Stage and Visual arts. Swords into ploughshares eh?

A Warrior APC

Were a lot of defence contractors hawking their wares here, never quite understand why- its not as if a member of the public is going to buy a tank.

Another marching band

HMS Ocelot, cold war sub is one of the dockyards 3 preserved warships open to the public (didn't go on this time as que was too long, and have done before)

Another preserved ship, HMS Cavalier, last WW2 destroyer. (3rd is HMS Gannet, a Victorian Sloop)

Veterans watching the ceremonies

Is there a Doctor in the dockyard? (no- but there is a police museum)

Another marching band, pipers this time

Eurofighter

A Chinook (wonder if its airworthy?)

The Duchess of Gloucester being shown round a field kitchen (who were giving away some interesting hot dogs- had never seen combined ketchup and mayonnaise before! Looked like stripy toothpaste)

Was a interesting exhibit in one of the tents on the future aircraft carriers.

Model of HMS Queen Elizabeth (will it become more than a model?)

Were a number of ex-military vehicles on display outside the covered slipways.

Scout car (Ferret I think)

A Land Rover 101

Sea cadets taking part in a gun-run tournament. Glad to see it still happening since the Royal Tournament ended. (quite a feet for teenagers too)


















HMS Argyll, type 23 frigate was the biggest RN ship present. Wasn't possible to take photo's onboard, but what struck me was how similar it was to the WW2 era Cavalier, all clunky switches and exposed wires. Most modern-looking kit was a navigation system that looked like it ran on DOS still. It was also a good 15 minute walk from the main dockyard in the marina.

The Battle of Britain Memorial flight flew past while was on Argyll's helipad. They did a number of circuits round the area.

Argyll's Lynx (mk 3 if I'm not mistaken)

Me posing with a mingun (where are some Somali pirates when you need them?

HMS Argyll from the shore, was cool but not quite worth the walk from the main dockyard to visit

An army truck

Joint sea-rescue demo by the RNLI and RAF

Royal Marines in a semirigid boat

A minesweeper (can't remember the name of the vessel)

A patrol boat sailing down the Medway

Army Lynx

RAF Sea King

Climax of the day was the Red Arrows flypast (literally, flew over once!)

Army Apache leaving. Overall was a good day, hope is held again next year. And now I'm going to bed (taken all evening to upload these photos as was also downlaoding the DMC movie)

P J O'Rourke interviewed by Reason

Video here.

An interesting article

in this weeks Spectator by Cass Sunstein, co-author of Nudge (which I need to find my copy of and read sometime soon).

It certainly seems true to me going to an event and talking to people with a similar viewpoint does tend to reinforce my views, I also find I tend to stay on the same websites/blogs and not visit ones that would challenge my opinions. On the other hand I spent 3 years at a very leftist dominated university and still ended up a classical liberal, so maybe there's more to it than peer pressure