The Fantastic Mr Fox

No doubt after encountering the Fantastic Mr Fox on my travels he has to make it onto the list of Shining Knights.

Wolfram Alpha

Discovered a new essential tool - key for any adventurer - Wolfram Alpha, just have a look it does everything, http://www.wolframalpha.com/.

In summary: Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. You enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer. Based on a new kind of knowledge-based computing - this is the sort of stuff Blog Quixote things is brilliant.

Swine Flu

A new Shining Knight

A new Shining Knight, long may it last...

Olympics Commentary

Here are the top 9 comments made by NBC sports commentators so far during the Olympics:

1. Weight-lifting commentator: 'This is Gregorieva from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing.'
2. Dressage commentator: 'This is really a lovely horse and I speak from personal experience since I once mounted her mother.'
3. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: 'I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father.'
4. Boxing Analyst: 'Sure there have been injuries, and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious.'
5. Softball announcer: 'If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again.'
6. Basketball analyst: 'He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn't like it. In fact you can see it all over their faces.'
7. At the rowing medal ceremony: 'Ah, isn't that nice, the wife of the IOC president is hugging the cox of the British crew.'
8. Soccer commentator: 'Julian Dicks is everywhere. It's like they've got eleven Dicks on the field.'
9. Tennis commentator: 'One of the reasons Andy is playing so well is that, before the final round, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them... Oh my God, what have I just said?'

Liberty from collecting bio-metric data

A group of hackers has captured the fingerprints of the German Interior Minister as a protest against plans to use biometric data in e-passports. The latest edition of their magazine, Die Datenschleuder, contains a plastic foil that reproduces the whorls and swirls of Wolfgang Schauble's digit, meaning there are 4,000 copies of the politician's prints just waiting to be attached to someone's finger. Necromancers: those who advocate we are all tagged, gagged and fingerprinted.

Comment on Human Offices

http://www.usdesignstudio.co.uk/freerange.html

Politicians

Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind (George Orwell).

The Consultant

Dear Colleague,

I would like to take a rain check on that vision of yours, although I can hear where you're coming from. I think you have the suburbs of an idea there and you're heading for the high street. I would like to kick it around, find a window to consider it and cascade the information to some functional unit main players at the next steering group brain-storm workshop. I will then get back to you to arrange a salient convocation in an interface situation where we can touch base so that we are all singing out of the same hymn book and not act like a pork pie in a synagogue by throwing the baby out with the bath water and bring a successful scenario.

With regard to your work station relocation, I interfaced with the man with his finger on the button, He said that a monitoring committee would be formed, not to re-invent the wheel but to see if a roll forward situation could be established or in your case to get the bolder up the hill. It's priority will be to revisit your problem and to bring you up to speed as a matter of course, but at the moment we are in a no win situation and finding participants for a workshop was like nailing jelly to the ceiling so until a window of opportunity opens your problems remain parked. As you know at this moment in time your about as much use as a chocolate teapot, therefore until we can overturn this negative scenario by removing the rocks from the runway, your mission will be ongoing. You will have to carry on wearing the same cap badge while fending off the hoards with a bread knife tied to a broom handle and stay latched. Let us not forget that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

In short you will have to watch my lips, first time, every time. This will enable me to create a visibility project as an activity owner. I can then make a value added stats pack, flag it up, cascade it down and roll it out by the end of play today. This should enable you to stop acting as a shadow by fast tracking a user friendly menu driven option downstream. When push comes to shove you can run me up to speed before we see the bow wave coming on. As there is an enabling tool in train you must not try to eat the elephant in one go.

I will therefore take this one away and decide on a ball park figure in accordance with the benchmarks, targets and milestones you have been running past me. If you can pick it up and run with it I'll take that one away and hopefully avoid a drains up situation.

Regards

The Consultant

My last visit to Africa

Took this little snap last time while travelling to Africa.