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  <title>Richard Kettlewell</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/</link>
  <description>Richard Kettlewell - Dreamwidth Studios</description>
  <lastBuildDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:28:03 GMT</lastBuildDate>
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    <title>Richard Kettlewell</title>
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  <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:28:03 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>academia.edu</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/631739.html</link>
  <description>&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/misc/aesthetics.png&quot; alt=&quot;email saying &amp;#39;The name “R. Kettlewell” was mentioned in an Aesthetics paper uploaded to Academia&amp;#39;&quot; /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well of course it was!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(On the other hand, the less said about the mention in a Copper Slag paper, the better.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=631739&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/631739.html</comments>
  <category>nonsense</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>1</lj:reply-count>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/631453.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Fri, 21 Nov 2025 23:05:11 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Foxes in my garden</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/631453.html</link>
  <description>&lt;a name=&quot;cutid1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;


&lt;iframe width=&quot;560&quot; height=&quot;315&quot; src=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/embed/7Zh9rOXovhk?si=IXEmtxsM1xs5xU-w&quot; title=&quot;YouTube video player&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allow=&quot;accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share&quot; referrerpolicy=&quot;strict-origin-when-cross-origin&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;allowfullscreen&quot;&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;

&lt;iframe width=&quot;560&quot; height=&quot;315&quot; src=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/embed/Aov1rXElbgI?si=-17Is0OdL8gh8Hu5&quot; title=&quot;YouTube video player&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allow=&quot;accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share&quot; referrerpolicy=&quot;strict-origin-when-cross-origin&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;allowfullscreen&quot;&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;

&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=631453&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/631453.html</comments>
  <category>animals</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>0</lj:reply-count>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/631282.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 18 Nov 2025 20:22:52 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Badgers in the garden</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/631282.html</link>
  <description>&lt;a name=&quot;cutid1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;iframe width=&quot;560&quot; height=&quot;315&quot; src=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/embed/FtX9JD_ywho?si=ZhbnboEZmhp54Zi1&quot; title=&quot;YouTube video player&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allow=&quot;accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share&quot; referrerpolicy=&quot;strict-origin-when-cross-origin&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;allowfullscreen&quot;&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;

&lt;iframe width=&quot;560&quot; height=&quot;315&quot; src=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/embed/_maG9BSAvpE?si=GZY83KROJGwqjGM2&quot; title=&quot;YouTube video player&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allow=&quot;accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share&quot; referrerpolicy=&quot;strict-origin-when-cross-origin&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;allowfullscreen&quot;&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;

&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=631282&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/631282.html</comments>
  <category>animals</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>6</lj:reply-count>
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<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/630936.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sat, 15 Nov 2025 22:20:00 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Found out who was digging in my plant pots</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/630936.html</link>
  <description>&lt;a name=&quot;cutid1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;iframe width=&quot;560&quot; height=&quot;315&quot; src=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/embed/uv0Ah1BFSd8?si=j_X-aLr70_sSDD37&quot; title=&quot;YouTube video player&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allow=&quot;accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share&quot; referrerpolicy=&quot;strict-origin-when-cross-origin&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;allowfullscreen&quot;&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=630936&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/630936.html</comments>
  <category>animals</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>3</lj:reply-count>
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<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/630606.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sat, 26 Jul 2025 16:42:04 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Flower or interstellar wormhole?</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/630606.html</link>
  <description>&lt;a data-flickr-embed=&quot;true&quot; href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/ewxrjk/54680519510/in/album-72157629923768352&quot; title=&quot;250701-1551.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54680519510_c1d604dc7c_c.jpg&quot; width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;533&quot; alt=&quot;250701-1551.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a name=&quot;cutid1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed=&quot;true&quot; href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/ewxrjk/54680520730/in/album-72157629923768352&quot; title=&quot;250713-1699.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54680520730_ce41ee1de7_c.jpg&quot; width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;533&quot; alt=&quot;250713-1699.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed=&quot;true&quot; href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/ewxrjk/54680421284/in/album-72157629923768352&quot; title=&quot;250709-1646.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54680421284_99fc6a3dda_c.jpg&quot; width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;533&quot; alt=&quot;250709-1646.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed=&quot;true&quot; href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/ewxrjk/54680193591/in/album-72157629923768352&quot; title=&quot;250707-093331.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54680193591_e9c10ef6fc_c.jpg&quot; width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;374&quot; alt=&quot;250707-093331.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=630606&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/630606.html</comments>
  <category>photography</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>8</lj:reply-count>
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<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/630376.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 09 Feb 2025 11:43:24 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>ISAs</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/630376.html</link>
  <description>There&apos;s a story in a scurrilous rag about the possibility of &apos;axing or significantly reducing&apos; the cash ISA allowance (I think implicitly keeping the total ISA allowance constant). The idea seems to be to encourage more stock market investment by reducing the amount of cash savings that can be shielded from taxes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think even quite substantial cuts to the cash allowance would have relatively small impact, in terms of number of people affected. Based on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-savings-statistics-2024/commentary-for-annual-savings-statistics-september-2024&quot;&gt;September 2024 figures&lt;/a&gt; chart 5 the median annual contribution to cash ISAs is somewhere in the low thousands. The government could halve it and somewhere around 75% of existing ISA users would not experience any effect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Whether it would unlock substantial share investment is harder to say. From the same chart somewhere around 20% of contributors are putting the maximum, or nearly the maximum, into cash ISAs; these are the people who would be forced to choose between share investments or paying more tax on their savings (or attempting tax evasion, I suppose). Since share ISAs are already easily available (and account for ~60% of the total value of ISAs, s1.3 of the link above) presumably we are looking at the most risk-averse section of the population; the theory that they will switch to share investments assumes that they will prefer uncertain stock markets to certain taxes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The other point worth making is that (total) ISA allowances are in historical terms quite generous. &lt;a href=&quot;https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/621fa223d3bf7f4f04b2b6ac/ISA_Statistics_Release_June_2020.pdf&quot;&gt;At the start of the century they were £7000/year&lt;/a&gt;; today at £20000 they considerably higher than that in real terms (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator&quot;&gt;using the Bank of England&apos;s inflation calculator&lt;/a&gt;.) If the total allowance had kept track with inflation it would be nearer £13000 per year. So ISA users (of all kinds) have got a pretty good deal at present really.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/misc/ISA-allowances.png&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=630376&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/630376.html</comments>
  <category>money</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>0</lj:reply-count>
</item>
<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/630150.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 27 Oct 2024 16:49:18 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Books to give away to locals</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/630150.html</link>
  <description>&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/junk/giveaway.html&quot;&gt;https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/junk/giveaway.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Terms: you collect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=630150&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/630150.html</comments>
  <category>books</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>0</lj:reply-count>
</item>
<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/629892.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sat, 12 Oct 2024 10:59:12 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Fostering Dogs</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/629892.html</link>
  <description>Recently Abi and I have been fostering dogs on behalf of &lt;a href=&quot;https://support.woodgreen.org.uk/&quot;&gt;Woodgreen&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a name=&quot;cutid1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Teddy&lt;/b&gt; was introduced to us as a pure-bred spaniel which is obviously nonsense; there is clearly some poodle in there. He&apos;s about 3 years old.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed=&quot;true&quot; href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/ewxrjk/54060891186/in/album-72177720321125450&quot; title=&quot;240628-3117.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54060891186_d684e99c6e_c.jpg&quot; width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;533&quot; alt=&quot;240628-3117.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In theory he was going to be with us for about a month, and they did find some to adopt him quite quickly, but he got a grass seed stuck in his ear and subsequently developed in infection, which meant we kept him a couple of months longer while that was addressed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Teddy was quite a nervous dog, though he built up a lot of confidence while he was with us, probably due to being in a much calmer environment than his previous home. He never got over his fear of small children though he did make his peace with the vacuum cleaner.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;He was also incredibly cuddly, meaning his new owners&apos; requirements for a dog that would join them on the sofa and cuddle them while they watched TV was a good fit. He seems to have no prey drive to speak of, completely ignoring the squirrels in the garden.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/ewxrjk/albums/72177720321125450&quot;&gt;More Teddy pictures&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Hiccup&lt;/b&gt; was found as a stray and was about 13 weeks old when we had her, for just a week. While the ears say German Shepherd the tail says something else entirely.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed=&quot;true&quot; href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/ewxrjk/54060015832/in/album-72177720321111866&quot; title=&quot;240929-114818.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54060015832_7dd894ae1e_c.jpg&quot; width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;373&quot; alt=&quot;240929-114818.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;She&apos;s not quite toilet trained yet although it was quite noticable that almost all the accidents were on a rainy day. Like Teddy she&apos;s very affectionate; she also particularly loves hunting insects in the garden and did chase a squirrel at least once.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/ewxrjk/albums/72177720321111866/&quot;&gt;More Hiccup pictures&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=629892&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/629892.html</comments>
  <category>life</category>
  <category>photography</category>
  <category>animals</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>2</lj:reply-count>
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<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/629713.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 26 Feb 2024 17:27:24 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Making an effort to use my camera more</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/629713.html</link>
  <description>&lt;a name=&quot;cutid1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed=&quot;true&quot; href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/ewxrjk/53554178589/in/datetaken-public/&quot; title=&quot;IMG_2807&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53554178589_6ddb29fc5e_o.jpg&quot; width=&quot;900&quot; height=&quot;600&quot; alt=&quot;IMG_2807&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed=&quot;true&quot; href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/ewxrjk/53552984392/in/datetaken-public/&quot; title=&quot;IMG_2802&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53552984392_2e06f2b106_o.jpg&quot; width=&quot;900&quot; height=&quot;600&quot; alt=&quot;IMG_2802&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=629713&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/629713.html</comments>
  <category>photography</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>4</lj:reply-count>
</item>
<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/628092.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2020 13:01:58 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Turkish Delight</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/628092.html</link>
  <description>&lt;div&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/poll/?id=23886&quot;&gt;View Poll: An encounter with Jadis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=628092&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/628092.html</comments>
  <category>nonsense</category>
  <category>polls</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>2</lj:reply-count>
</item>
<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/627464.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 17 Sep 2019 13:54:18 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Fabiatech FX5624</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/627464.html</link>
  <description>&lt;span style=&quot;color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;&quot;&gt;Does anyone want a Fabiatech FX5624? 1GB RAM, 2x gigabit ethernet, 4x fast ethernet, 600Mhz Celeron CPU, VGA, 2x USB, RS232, fanless. Currently no storage included but you might be able to talk me into including a 40GB SSD.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;margin: 6px 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-size: 14px;&quot;&gt;NB it is 32-bit only!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;margin: 6px 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-size: 14px;&quot;&gt;It has been the house firewall/router for many years but I&apos;ve now replaced it with something more modern.&amp;nbsp;&lt;span class=&quot;text_exposed_show&quot; style=&quot;display: inline; font-family: inherit;&quot;&gt;If I don&apos;t get a good offer I&apos;ll figure out how to ebay it or something...&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;text_exposed_show&quot; style=&quot;display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-size: 14px;&quot;&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;margin: 0px 0px 6px; font-family: inherit;&quot;&gt;Some pictures here:&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/sbl/#fx5624&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; data-ft=&quot;{&amp;quot;tn&amp;quot;:&amp;quot;-U&amp;quot;}&quot; rel=&quot;noopener nofollow&quot; data-lynx-mode=&quot;asynclazy&quot; data-lynx-uri=&quot;https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenend.org.uk%2Frjk%2Fsbl%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1HWXheGeRncSx31KljWvLIZVK9gAblZ1QkJyN-blJtM3N5gMaO67xCbjs%23fx5624&amp;amp;h=AT3mHn4HKeYNlxc91LXI2a8Sq8IXPKmm52wh_pBSYt_g98bzkATdi-8p5WhbQgI-A24Sr0snzF9ea4HPs1SNsaPsHT6KyRw1nxsFVg4udVPRa-oFbECkRqH2shGJ69HU8UuH1FXfAGqV0aarNejn0M4zJ1GXV0H0m46hvEg&quot; style=&quot;color: rgb(56, 88, 152); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-family: inherit;&quot;&gt;https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/sbl/#fx5624&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=627464&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/627464.html</comments>
  <category>forsale</category>
  <category>geek</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>0</lj:reply-count>
</item>
<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/627275.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sat, 02 Feb 2019 12:35:10 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Books, DVDs and VHS tapes(!) to give away</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/627275.html</link>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;These are all either duplicates or books that have failed a quality control filter. Don&apos;t worry, we still have two copies of the Lord Of The Rings.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Too many to type in, instead you get photos.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;a name=&quot;cutid1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/giveaway/20190202_121443.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/giveaway/20190202_121452.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/giveaway/20190202_121501.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/giveaway/20190202_121507.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/giveaway/20190202_121715.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/giveaway/20190202_121806.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/giveaway/20190202_121914.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the last image the VHS tapes are in the large boxes, as you&apos;d probably expect.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=627275&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/627275.html</comments>
  <category>book</category>
  <category>giveaway</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>5</lj:reply-count>
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<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/626704.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Fri, 01 Feb 2019 16:53:03 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Computer junk</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/626704.html</link>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;Our computer junk pile contains the following:&lt;/p&gt;  &lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.woc.co.uk/&quot;&gt;WOC&lt;/a&gt; PC. &lt;a href=&quot;https://ark.intel.com/products/22638/Intel-Desktop-Board-DG965SS&quot;&gt;Intel DG965SS&lt;/a&gt; motherboard. &lt;a href=&quot;https://ark.intel.com/products/29765/Intel-Core-2-Quad-Processor-Q6600-8M-Cache-2-40-GHz-1066-MHz-FSB-&quot;&gt;Intel Q6600&lt;/a&gt; 2.4GHz 4-core CPU. 4GB RAM. Onboard ethernet, VGA. No storage.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;WOC PC. &lt;a href=&quot;https://ark.intel.com/products/51857/Intel-Desktop-Board-DH61CR&quot;&gt;Intel DH61CR&lt;/a&gt; motherboard. &lt;a href=&quot;https://ark.intel.com/products/53418/Intel-Celeron-Processor-G50-2M-Cache-2-60-GHz-&quot;&gt;Intel Celeron G550&lt;/a&gt; 2.6Ghz 2-core CPU. 8GB RAM. Onboard ethernet, VGA (&amp;amp; DVI but it didn&amp;rsquo;t work last time we tried it). Wouldn&amp;rsquo;t boot to X in Linux (don&amp;rsquo;t know if this is a software or hardware problem). No storage.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Dell Optiplex 960. Variant unknown. Onboard ethernet. Onboard VGA &amp;amp; DP. Video card with 2x DP. DVD drive but no other storage.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Samsung SyncMaster 172v 17&amp;rdquo; monitor. VGA input. 1280x1024&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Dell SP2000W 20&amp;rdquo; monitor. VGA &amp;amp; DVI inputs. 1600x1050. Integrated webcam &amp;amp; USB hub. The green pixels in one column are always on.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Pair of DECT phones.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Keyboard, broken foot.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Keyboard, sticky control key.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Internal DVD drive.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;USB floppy drive.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Ancient mice.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Ancient PDAs.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Miscellaneous cables.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Even more miscellaneous computer junk than the above.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;  &lt;p&gt;Does anyone want any of it?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=626704&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/626704.html</comments>
  <category>giveaway</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>2</lj:reply-count>
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<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/626127.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sat, 26 May 2018 09:36:28 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>GDPR</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/626127.html</link>
  <description>&amp;nbsp;GDPR noise highlights (lowlights?):&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;UK Climbing sent me no less than five invitations to continue receiving their newsletter, or seven if you count the banner at the top of the most recent copy of it, which they sent me twice.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Runners up in the &amp;ldquo;repetition&amp;rdquo; category are ANSI, who twice invited me to accept their privacy policy, I think to continue to receive communications from them, though I can&amp;rsquo;t remember the last time they sent me anything.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;GitLab, who want me to agree to their new terms before I can use their site. What&apos;s odd about this is that AFAIK I don&apos;t use and moreover they&apos;ve sent to to an obsolete version of a unique address shared only with GitHub. I assume there&apos;s some rational explanation for this...&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Two messages in Finnish, one from a table booking service and one from a restaurant which I don&amp;rsquo;t remember but looks like the kind of place we&amp;rsquo;d have eaten at. I have no idea what they say.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;A recruitment company who have &amp;ldquo;worked with me in the past&amp;rdquo;. Not intrinsically implausible (the earliest mail I can find from them does claim to have first seen my CV at a point when I was looking for work) but I have no memory of having interacted with them in the past, much less of them finding me any work.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;A TSB GDPR (well, &amp;ldquo;privacy policy&amp;rdquo;) phish attempt, which is packing a lot of topical stuff into a single attack.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=626127&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
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  <category>nonsense</category>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/625745.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 28 Jan 2018 22:41:00 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Name this genre</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/625745.html</link>
  <description>Consider first &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCDIYvFmgW8&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCDIYvFmgW8&lt;/a&gt; &lt;i&gt;Weapon of Choice&lt;/i&gt;, in which Christopher Walken dances around a predominantly brown hotel, with occasional wirework flying and some good use of mirrors (you can just spot the camera rig if you look carefully). The lyrics have no particular connection to the video.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABz2m0olmPg&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABz2m0olmPg&lt;/a&gt; &lt;i&gt;KENZO World&lt;/i&gt;, in which Margaret Qualley dances around a predominantly brown (OK, verging on yellow) hotel, with some flying at the end (I don’t know what technique) and much better use of mirrors (they either did a better job of positioning the camera or edited it out). Also, laser fingers. If the singing means anything it’s not a language I speak, so I couldn’t say whether the lyrics are connected to the video. Anyway it’s very clearly inspired by &lt;i&gt;Weapon of Choice&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After that see &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QFvgHIJrEQ&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QFvgHIJrEQ&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;i&gt;Anna&lt;/i&gt;, in which Emma Stone dances around a substantially brown hotel¹, assisted by some quite buff sailors. This has less in common with the other two: the only mirrors are spotted are her shades, the only fx I spotted was a simulated roll, and the video does actually reference the lyrics at one point.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;¹ yes, it’s a ship, but it’s been permanently moored since the 1960s and functions as a hotel.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think the style and setting od these three music videos means they form a genre, although I don’t know what it would be called.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I’ve been wondering for a while whether there was anything else in the same genre, and recently ran into &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni75mYuwvlg&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni75mYuwvlg&lt;/a&gt; &lt;i&gt;Stay Awhile&lt;/i&gt;, in which Zooey Deschanel (in the company of M. Ward) dances around a residence rather than a hotel, with rather less brown (though it’s there if you look for it). On the one hand the lyrics don’t directly connect to what’s going on in the video, on the other hand the dancer is singing them. Instead of wirework I think the fx involve people in chroma key suites. I think there’s enough similarity here to say there’s a close relationship to the three videos above.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Does anyone know of anything else which might fit into the same category, or have a good name for it?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=625745&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/625745.html</comments>
  <category>music</category>
  <category>nonsense</category>
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  <lj:reply-count>0</lj:reply-count>
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<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/625520.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 15 Jan 2018 22:21:15 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Dancing in the Glory of Monsters</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/625520.html</link>
  <description>&lt;b&gt;Dancing in the Glory of Monsters&lt;/b&gt;, Jason K Stearns, ISBN 978-1-61039-107-8.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Congo war is sometimes compared to World War I, and the destructiveness and numerous actors do make the comparison somewhat attractive. But what it reminded me of was the US invasion of Iraq and its sequelae: a rapid and successful invasion with a clear goal of toppling an unmitigatedly unpleasant dictator who at first barely apprehended a genuine threat, but unsupported by any realistic planning for the day after victory, and followed by years of conflict raging from terrorism to open warfare drawing in multiple neighbouring countries.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The origins of the conflict can be read back along a number of lines. The Rwandan invasion of 1996 essentially represented the continuation of the Rwandan civil war subsequent to regime change, with the new government going after still-militarized génocidaires camped out in eastern Zaire (as Congo was called at the time); the victors of that civil war had in turn learned their craft as exiles fighting in Uganda’s previous internal conflict, something that explains Ugandan cooperation (Kagame spent a while as the head of Ugandan military intelligence for instance). Laurent Kabila, used by the Rwandans as a front-man to give the invasion the superficial air of an endogenous rebellion and chosen more because he was available than because he was well-suited to the role, on the other hand, was a classic cold-war superpower cats-paw, temporarily embarrassed by the end of the struggle that created him. But it’s also necessary to consider the ridiculously high corruption, fragility and long-neglected infrastructure of Mobutu’s Zaire, without which the Rwandan invasion might have been repulsed, or at least contained, or even completely avoided (a greater willingness to engage with the situation on the part of the West might also have had some impact at this stage too). And while it would certainly be wrong to let the kleptocratic Mobutu escape blame for the parlous state of the country he ruled for more than three decades, his Belgian colonial predecessors had left the country in an appalling institutional state, meaning that no good outcome was very likely in any case. And none of this is to mention the ethnic divisions in and near Rwanda which drove both its own civil war and much of the brutality in Congo itself, which although pre-existing were exacerbated by colonial meddling. At any rate, this was a complex situation and Stearns analyses it in exhaustive detail.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Stearns also traces the progress of the conflict, spending more time on interviews with and character studies of key protagonists than marches-and-battles history. In combination with analysis of the prevailing political system it’s clear that a lot of these actors were not acting particularly irrationally for the situations they found themselves in and the assumptions they had available. Within Congolese politics, for instance, anyone failing to play the game of corruption and patronage would simply lose out to those who did. Others were simply incompetent though: nothing in Kabila’s background had prepared him to run a country and he did a terrible job of it when he had the opportunity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Those assumptions were lethal. The invading Rwandans plainly considered their initial targets to be an existential threat and accepted no obstacles to their destruction. Mass killing bred not only mass killing, but also total disregard for the welfare of Rwandan civilians either fleeing with the génocidaires or locals who got in the way. This negligence towards civilians repeated through the war; another repeating pattern is that many of the books interviewees  appear to be convinced (whether through denial, or mendacity, or poor transparency) that the war’s numerous atrocities were entirely one-sided, something the testimony of survivors shows to be false. For all that hugely many of the deaths were not directly military in cause but rather less direct consequences of the war - hunger and illness that could not be mitigated due to the destruction of infrastructure, the terrible security situation, the pressing need to flee fighting, and so on.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A common analysis of the war starts from the looting of Congo’s mineral wealth, both through corruptly awarded contracts from the Congo government and by the country’s various invaders. There is indeed a sense in which it prolonged the war since much of it was simply a means to pay for continued military expenditure; but it seems to be a mistake to see it as a cause of the war. What is was not, though, was efficient; it was associated with no real investment (and sensibly so: it was a warzone) and Stearns estimates that it put back the development of Congo’s mineral resources by a decade.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This was an interesting read; I’d been loosely aware of the war in its later phases but it was not well-reported in the western media, so the book was an education. But it is also rather depressing. Congo was already in a terrible state in terms of infrastructure and institutions. The war took its toll on the former and did little to improve the latter. With Mobutu out of the way the country could have reversed its long-term decline from 1997 but instead the war meant it had to wait half a decade more. Millions of people died and many of those directly and indirectly responsible have complete impunity. On the smaller scale, the book does not shy away from documenting both detailed violence and the lethal privations suffered by fleeing refugees.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=625520&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
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  <category>books</category>
  <category>review</category>
  <category>history</category>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/625349.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 31 Dec 2017 12:52:11 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Terra Ignota 1-3</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/625349.html</link>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: 700&quot;&gt;Too Like The Lightning&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: 700&quot;&gt;Seven Surrenders&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: 700&quot;&gt;The Will To Battle&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;; all by Ada Palmer.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Several hundred years hence, the world is a very different place. Concepts of gender, religion, family, technology, law and the state have all been rewritten, in response both to cultural and technological changes and to past disasters. There is a lot of entertaining worldbuilding here, most of it revealed incrementally (although I was amused to see at one point that the author found a way to do a more-or-less plot-justified info-dump). &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Also revealed only gradually is the set of related challenges to all of these institutions, which collectively form the plot. A recurring pattern is that, despite superficially eliminating or mutating some characteristic of society, the underlying issues remain, either re-emerging in the light of events, or available to be exploited by the clear-sighted and unscrupulous (a well-represented demographic).&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;The bulk of all three books is written in the hand of one of the protagonist, though a couple of the others contribute occasional chapters; but while they do seem to be presenting the truth as they see it, they cannot be considered more than dubiously reliable, and indeed there is considerable in-world skepticism concerning some of their interpretations. Moreover their work is subject to censorship (at least some of it overt) from multiple competing interests, and to a (fairly sympathetic) editor. Nevertheless they do have considerable access, as part of their normal life, to many of the governing and cultural elite of their world (who form the primary focus of the story; indeed we learn very little about genuinely ordinary people beyond their mass responses to public events), meaning that despite these caveats they do at least seem to have a fairly good understanding of what is going on around them. Their style is wordy and emotional, and somewhat prone to tangents. I really enjoyed this, although it seems to be something of an acquired taste (N just found them smug).&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;The story is complex and somewhat twisty, with endless machination and intrigue as the various interests attempt to control events or turn them to their own advantage, and a couple of key institutions only revealed some time after their impact and influence has already impinged on the story. Most of the characters are distinctly larger-than-life, generally justifiable in terms of their background or the mechanisms used to fill the social or political roles they occupy, although a few intensely self-propelled individuals are clear outliers by the standards of the society they&amp;rsquo;re in, which doesn&amp;rsquo;t really know how to deal with them. The narrator tends to present them in, mostly, rather black-and-white terms, though does explicitly recognize in some cases that this reflects their personal priorities.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;The numerous factions do create an occasional weakness: occasionally, it&amp;rsquo;s necessary to enumerate through most or all of them, something that is handled much better in the third book than the second. By the same token the large number of characters and the connections between them can occasionally be a struggle, especially when some of them get very little stage time before late growing in significance.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;After reading the first volume I immediately bought the second, and pre-ordered the third at the end. But now I&amp;rsquo;m out of luck: the fourth volume is due in 2019, and although the framing presents them as distinct volumes with distinct purposes, this is really a single story, and with all the moving parts in the first three, and a semi-resolved cliffhanger at the end of the third, the gap is frustrating! I&amp;rsquo;ve made notes on what&amp;rsquo;s going on, but I suspect I&amp;rsquo;ll want to re-read all three extant volumes prior to starting the fourth anyway (and possibly within the next month anyway l-)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=625349&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
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  <category>review</category>
  <category>books</category>
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<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624906.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 05 Dec 2017 23:48:30 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Deutschland ‘83</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624906.html</link>
  <description>I&amp;rsquo;ve just finished watching Deutschland &amp;lsquo;83, which I think may have been recommended by someone here, though all I can say for sure is that it had spent some time in my bookmark folder of things to watch. At any rate, it follows the adventures of a rather unwilling but nevertheless remarkably successful East German agent injected into the West German army.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In some ways it&amp;rsquo;s a bit on the daft side; Rauch/Stamm is remarkably successful at plundering the Bundeswehr&amp;rsquo;s and NATO&amp;rsquo;s secrets (not to mention a couple of West German hearts) and nobody really tumbles to it despite him standing suspiciously near two major breaches. It also suffers a bit from the tendency of many of the characters to be needlessly horrible to each other, and there&amp;rsquo;s a couple of plot threads that require some fairly persistent stupidity, one rather less plausible than the other.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Still, it was an engaging watch and by the last couple of episodes I couldn&amp;rsquo;t wait and watched them back to back. The arc plot is based loosely on real events; an appreciation of some of the history of the era certainly helped although I suspect it would work perfectly well without that background. The score was fairly obvious in places (you will probably not be surprised to learn that 99 Luftballons turns up pretty early) but also had some particularly good choices.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jonas Ney was pretty good as Rauch/Stamm but for my money Maria Schrader, as the senior HVA officer in the west, put in the best performance, walking off with every scene she appeared in.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally, throughout the series, I found the HVA office interiors remarkably familiar, and eventually an establishing shot made me realize why: they&amp;rsquo;d filmed it in the Stasi offices, now a museum which N and I visited a few years back:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed=&quot;true&quot; href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/32798409@N02/15689076831/in/album-72157647865434911/&quot; title=&quot;Stasi Museum&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7534/15689076831_9a94263957_b.jpg&quot; width=&quot;450&quot; height=&quot;300&quot; alt=&quot;Stasi Museum&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=624906&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
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  <category>tv</category>
  <category>reviews</category>
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  <lj:reply-count>0</lj:reply-count>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624691.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 14 Aug 2017 15:06:32 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>What I saw at Worldcon 75</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624691.html</link>
  <description>&amp;nbsp;&lt;span&gt;&lt;p dir=&quot;ltr&quot; style=&quot;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Things I attended included...&lt;br type=&quot;_moz&quot; /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Appeal of the Bland Protagonist&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. I remember only that Robert Silverberg was fairly entertaining.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;The Long Term Future of the Universe &amp;amp; How to Avoid It&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. I don&amp;rsquo;t think we got as far as proton decay. Entertaining but I don&amp;rsquo;t think I learned much.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Polyamorous Relationships in Fiction&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. I think a fair few examples given but I don&amp;rsquo;t really remember much about this.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;What Science Can Tell Us About Alien Minds&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. This was largely a very well-pitched survey of what we know about minds and brains and their development here, with the implications for the alien underlined. Excellent.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;New, More Diverse Superheroes&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. Something that&amp;rsquo;s been improving lately. Many of the examples were familiar. Slightly surprised that &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimanarama&quot; style=&quot;text-decoration-line: none;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Vimanarama&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt; wasn&amp;rsquo;t mentioned, it can&amp;rsquo;t be that obscure?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;How to Tell the Ducks from the Rabbits&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. This covered some unpublished research modelling some perceptual effects we find in human vision. Ian Stewart is a good speaker.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Cyberpunk and the Future&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. Fairly rambling but quite entertaining and IIRC avoided the trap of falling into a laundry list of recommendations which can sometimes happen.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;New Publishing&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. A couple of models I didn&amp;rsquo;t know about (though &amp;lsquo;run publisher as a co-operative&amp;rsquo; doesn&amp;rsquo;t seem conceptually new) but I didn&amp;rsquo;t get a sense that any particular model was about to set the world on fire. Apparently ebook sales are declining as a proportion of the total, which surprised me.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Supermassive Black Holes&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. A quick survey of how black holes work (which didn&amp;rsquo;t contain many surprises) followed by some new stuff: the GR-aware visualization of a black hole made for &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Interstellar&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;, corrections to it involving red/blue shifting and the spin of the black hole, a further visualization of what you&amp;rsquo;d see as you flew into one (assuming you destroyed by any of the many hazards) and a project to radio image out galaxy&amp;rsquo;s central black hole. Another excellent science talk.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Hugo Awards&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. Very glad to see &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Monstress&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt; winning Best Graphic Story.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Beyond the Goldilocks Zone&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. Panel about the possibilities for exoplanets that sustain life. One point I&amp;rsquo;d not previously been aware of was that although Europa-style bodies might (hypothetically) have life in sub-ice oceans, there&amp;rsquo;s no realistic way of detecting this from a distance, meaning that more earth-like planets are a better bet for analysis. (The &amp;ldquo;goldilocks zone&amp;rdquo; is the range of distances from a given star in which planets can support liquid water on their surface, making them a good bet for life.)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Gender and &amp;ldquo;Realistic History&amp;rdquo;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. The panel largely surveyed past examples of groups and behaviors sometimes thought to have been absent or rare in the past. Interesting listening.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Exoplanetary Zoo and The Search for Earth 2.0&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. Another excellent science talk, this time on the detection strategies for exoplanets and the results they&amp;rsquo;ve had so far. There are a &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;lot&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt; of exoplanet discoveries awaiting confirmation.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Language Creation&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. David Peterson (famous for the conlangs from &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Game Of Thrones&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;) described the basics of making a convincing sketch conlang. A very entertaining speaker.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;The Singularity: Transhuman Intelligence in Fiction and Futurism&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. An opportunity for Charlie Stross to steal the show. Fun.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Bullets in Space&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. Basic orbital mechanics, done fairly well. The basic proposition is that ballistic projectiles are a terrible idea when fighting in an orbit; if they miss the target they are probably going to hit something you didn&amp;rsquo;t want them to.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Tomorrow&amp;rsquo;s Cool SF Physics&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. Enjoyed it but don&amp;rsquo;t remember anything else about it.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Designing Life&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. Fun discussion of biotechnological possibilities for modifying and creating life.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;Ideas Crossing the World: Japanese Adaptations of Western Fantasy&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;. In practice I think this mostly amounted to an opportunity for the panellists to entertain with their encyclopaedic knowledge of manga and anime.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p dir=&quot;ltr&quot; style=&quot;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;&quot;&gt;...there were other things but I can&amp;rsquo;t remember enough to say anything about them.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=624691&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624691.html</comments>
  <category>reviews</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>2</lj:reply-count>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624498.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 01 May 2017 19:35:34 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Malta</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624498.html</link>
  <description>Work sent me to Malta for &lt;a href=&quot;http://fc17.ifca.ai/&quot;&gt;Financial Crypto 2017&lt;/a&gt; last month. I&apos;ve already shared my domain-relevant thoughts on it with my colleagues, but thanks to the extra-mural parts of the conference program I got to see some interesting things on the island too.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/32798409@N02/albums/72157683282285305&quot;&gt;The full set of pictures are on Flickr&lt;/a&gt;; some highlights appear below.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a name=&quot;cutid1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Sliema&lt;/b&gt;. The conference was held in Sliema, which particularly on the edges was mostly modern buildings (of which many more are going up); the interior had obviously been around a bit longer. Still, there’s some visually interesting things to capture if you look for them:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/583.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/583.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Enormous trompe l&amp;#39;oeil mural in Sliema&quot; title=&quot;Sliema mural&quot; width=&quot;338&quot; height=&quot;600&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/379.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/379.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Reflected buildings in Sliema&quot; title=&quot;Sliema reflections&quot; width=&quot;338&quot; height=&quot;600&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/1126.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/600x600/1126.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Ginsberg graffiti in Sliema&quot; title=&quot;Sliema graffiti&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I’m uncertain whether the misquotation is deliberate.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It’s not exactly a beach resort; where it wasn’t harbour, the coast was interestingly eroded rock...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/2571.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/600x600/2571.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Unusually colored pool at Sliema coastline&quot; title=&quot;Sliema seaside pool&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;...plus some odd structures:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/1285.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/600x600/1285.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Odd structures at Sliema coastline&quot; title=&quot;Sliema seaside structures&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Valetta&lt;/b&gt;. The really interesting-looking stuff was across the harbour. This is the city of Valetta, built in the C16th to control access to the harbour, and thus in turn to control traffic between the easterna and western halves of the Mediterranean - a very live issue in an era when the Ottoman Empire was its height.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/1020.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;View of Valetta from Sliema&quot; width=&quot;600&quot; height=&quot;338&quot; align=&quot;middle&quot; /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We had a tour which included a visit to the co-cathedral of St John’s; the cathedral proper is in Mdina, which we also visited. IIRC the Baroque interior here is a C17th addition, the decor of the original Templar design was apparently rather more restrained (it could hardly be less so).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/3556.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/600x600/3556.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Interior of St John&amp;#39;s co-cathedral, Valetta&quot; title=&quot;Valetta St John&amp;#39;s&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The trompe l’oeil effect, with people’s legs apparently hanging down from the ceiling, doesn’t come across as well in a small picture as it did in real life, so you’ll have to take my word for it, although this detail might hint at one example of it:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/2951.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/600x600/2951.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Detail of trompe l&amp;#39;oeil art in St John&amp;#39;s co-cathedral, Valetta&quot; title=&quot;Valetta St John&amp;#39;s detail&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Marsaxlokk&lt;/b&gt; (&amp;ldquo;Marsa-shlock&amp;rdquo;). A fishing village, the boat shown here is pretty typical:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/2033.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/600x600/2033.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Colorful boat in Marsaxlokk (entirely typical for the area)&quot; title=&quot;Marsaxlokk boat&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Less typical was the collection of protest signs:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/2138.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/600x600/2138.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Boat decked with signs protesting something I didn&amp;#39;t look up&quot; title=&quot;Marsaxlokk protest boat&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On the same afternoon we had a boat tour round some rather nice coastal caves. Photography in a moving boat in a cave with only a cellphone was challenging but this exterior shot gives some idea of why it&apos;s called the blue grotto. There were numerous jellyfish visible, maybe 5-10cm across?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/1591.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/600x600/1591.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; title=&quot;Blue grotto environs&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Parts of the place reminded me of Sicily (the ubiquitous prickly pears depicted below) and other bits of England (BS1363, some of the Sliema shops, much of the spoken/written language), although the Arabic place-names contrasted sharply with this.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/3123.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/600x600/3123.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; title=&quot;Qrendi prickly pears&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The last site we visited was the megalithic temple at Ħaġar Qim (&lt;a href=&quot;https://forvo.com/word/mt/%C4%A7a%C4%A1ar_qim/&quot;&gt;approximately &amp;ldquo;Hajar Eem&amp;rdquo;&lt;/a&gt;). At well over 5K years old, I think this is the oldest building I’ve ever visited.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/2312.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/file/600x600/2312.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Inside the megathlitic temple at Ħaġar Qim&quot; title=&quot;Ħaġar Qim&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=624498&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624498.html</comments>
  <category>photography</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>6</lj:reply-count>
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<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624251.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2017 23:41:14 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>I lik the bred</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624251.html</link>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;Lately I’ve been enjoyed some very daft poems about cows (and ancillary characters) by Ann Leckie and her fans.  I mentioned this to &lt;a href=&quot;http://emperor.livejournal.com/&quot;&gt;Matthew&lt;/a&gt; although I think a few other people might like them too, so here we are.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;a name=&quot;cutid1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Roughly in order:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155784013266/emotionsandgrahamcrackers-copperbadge-i&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155784013266/emotionsandgrahamcrackers-copperbadge-i&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155830850221/purrantula-my-name-is-catte-and-i-hav-found&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155830850221/purrantula-my-name-is-catte-and-i-hav-found&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155840379941/proudtortoise-roachpatrol-annleckie-my-name&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155840379941/proudtortoise-roachpatrol-annleckie-my-name&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155849516606/i-cant-stop&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155849516606/i-cant-stop&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155851031166/vassraptor-annleckie-my-name-is-soldier-from&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155851031166/vassraptor-annleckie-my-name-is-soldier-from&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155852367766/toosmallortootall-annleckie-my-name-is-ann&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155852367766/toosmallortootall-annleckie-my-name-is-ann&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155858032871/proudtortoise-roachpatrol-annleckie-my-name&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155858032871/proudtortoise-roachpatrol-annleckie-my-name&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155862925211/my-name-is-cow-masterpost&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155862925211/my-name-is-cow-masterpost&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155899399711/tweedymcgee-annleckie-my-name-is-breq-im-onely&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155899399711/tweedymcgee-annleckie-my-name-is-breq-im-onely&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155899413186/astercrash-annleckie-i-am-a-ship-my-name-is&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155899413186/astercrash-annleckie-i-am-a-ship-my-name-is&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155900124611/imperial-lik-the-bred-continues&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155900124611/imperial-lik-the-bred-continues&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155919645416/the-real-seebs-kingkilling-and-stormlight&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155919645416/the-real-seebs-kingkilling-and-stormlight&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155921830526/martinandtheirbooks-martinandtheirbooks-first&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155921830526/martinandtheirbooks-martinandtheirbooks-first&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/156013943626/allofthemeadows-annleckie-im-so-sorry-i-cant&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/156013943626/allofthemeadows-annleckie-im-so-sorry-i-cant&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/156045571056/eeddis-annleckie-my-name-is-awn-and-wen-its&quot;&gt;http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/156045571056/eeddis-annleckie-my-name-is-awn-and-wen-its&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=624251&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624251.html</comments>
  <category>nonsense</category>
  <category>links</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>0</lj:reply-count>
</item>
<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624121.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 15 Jan 2017 22:30:42 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Modern Mamluks</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624121.html</link>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;From Deep State To Islamic State: The Arab Counter-Revolution And Its Jihadi Legacy&lt;/b&gt;, Jean-Pierre Filiu, ISBN 978-1-84904-546-9

&lt;p&gt;This book analyses the background to, and aftermath, of the Arab
Spring: the military despotisms in Algeria, Egypt, Syria and Yemen,
with a lesser amount of material on Tunisia and Libya.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The question the book asks, essentially, is how the contests between
military oligarchies, street protesters, political Islam and violent
‘jihadi’ movements ended with the first of the above remaining in
charge, the middle two components crushed, and the latter successful
and destructive.  Filiu’s answer is essentially that the jihadists
were indirectly, and in some cases directly, supported by the
governments they supposedly oppose, both as a warning of chaos and as
“my enemy’s enemy”.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The most blatant example is Bashar al-Assad, initially providing
support for Iraqi enemies of the USA (including the local precursors
of IS) and subsequently emptying its jails of jihadists in order to
support its own propaganda once popular protests erupted in Syria.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The author also touches on Tunisia and Libya. In both cases the
dictator fell, but the outcomes were very different. The reasons can
be found both in the pre-revolutionary structure of the two countries
and in the subsequent political processes.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The military oligarchies are characterised as ‘modern Mamluks’,
alluding to historical military rulers.  In their modern form, the
author finds them excellent manipulators of both world powers and
their regional neighbours, successfully extracting support in the form
of money, weapons and oil; and vigorous defenders of their own
privileges; but poor rulers of their countries.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This is a pretty depressing book. The only remotely successful
entities in places like Syria are those that are prepared to burn the
country to the ground to keep or take control, and when compared with
the similar situation in Algeria in the 1990s, neither the ferocity of
the conflict nor the negligible Western response seem particularly
surprising.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=624121&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/624121.html</comments>
  <category>reviews</category>
  <category>history</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>0</lj:reply-count>
</item>
<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/623848.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sat, 31 Dec 2016 19:58:01 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Livejournal and Dreamwidth</title>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/623848.html</link>
  <description>I have now migrated to Dreamwidth. Future postings will happen here.
There might be crossposting, I&apos;ve not decided yet.

(2017-12: as it turns out, there is no crossposting.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=623848&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/623848.html</comments>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>2</lj:reply-count>
</item>
<item>
  <guid isPermaLink='true'>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/383.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Fri, 01 May 2009 12:40:08 GMT</pubDate>
  <link>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/383.html</link>
  <description>Hello.  &lt;s&gt;For the time being, &lt;a href=&quot;http://ewx.livejournal.com&quot;&gt;look over here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/s&gt; No, stay there.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=ewx&amp;ditemid=383&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; height=&quot;12&quot; alt=&quot;comment count unavailable&quot; style=&quot;vertical-align: middle;&quot;/&gt; comments</description>
  <comments>https://ewx.dreamwidth.org/383.html</comments>
  <category>links</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
  <lj:reply-count>0</lj:reply-count>
</item>
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