- 10 cheap and cheerful city breaks – Some ideas for next years November trip…
- Schneier on WikiLeaks – “Just as the music and movie industries are going to have to change their business models for the Internet era, governments are going to have to change their secrecy models. I don’t know what those new models will be, but they will be different.”
- Publishers take note: the iPad is altering the very concept of a ‘book’ – The future of publishing?
- eclipse of 2010 – Great images of the recent eclipse.
- This case must not obscure what WikiLeaks has told us – Another good piece about WikiLeaks. The news about Assange is starting to obscure the real news.
- Live with the WikiLeakable world or shut down the net. It’s your choice. – “What WikiLeaks is really exposing is the extent to which the western democratic system has been hollowed out. In the last decade its political elites have been shown to be incompetent; corrupt; or recklessly militaristic. And yet nowhere have they been called to account in any effective way. Instead they have obfuscated, lied or blustered their way through. And when, finally, the veil of secrecy is lifted, their reflex reaction is to kill the messenger.”
Given the sub-zero temperatures that we’re experiencing in the UK, this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Chill,” is very appropriate. I can’t, however, really use one of the pictures I took earlier this week1 so instead this one was taken in January this year in our first snows of 2010.
I didn’t post an entry to last weeks challenge so there’s no need to feel bad for not voting for me(!).
- It’s not an arsenic-based life form – Apparently ET is not visiting any time soon but it’s still pretty cool.
- Julian Assange, defending our democracies (despite their owners’ wishes) – Nice piece about WikiLeaks and why, despite what some politicians will tell you, it’s a good thing.
It seems that the weather is not without a sense of irony1. In the year that is the hottest on record, in the UK we’re having a very early cold snap, complete with snow.
I did think that it was all archive footage, since the papers were full of coverage yet there was no snow at all in London. And then this morning the pavements were covered. When I went out for a bite to eat at lunchtime I took my camera with me…
It may be a silly idea, but that’s never stopped me before. Yes, travelling to Holland would be the thirteenth year where I’ve spent some or all of November out of the country.
I decided on The Hague for a few reasons. First, it would be short. I was starting a new job so I couldn’t take very much time off work. The Netherlands is just a short flight from London so there was no need to try to ask for a day off in the first few weeks! Secondly, I spent a few days in Den Haag in 2007. Unfortunately it was in December and I was working a little way out of the city centre. I wandered around after dark, looking for somewhere decent to eat but otherwise saw very little. It did look pretty, though, so I flagged it for a later visit.
Late to the party again, but I finally found what I think is a suitable image for this weeks PhotoFriday challenge, “Vivid.” This picture was taken so long ago that it’s actually on film (remember that?). It’s in Tromso, Norway. I thought the colours of the buildings and sky were very bright, deep and vivid contrasted with the snow.
- The religious excuse for barbarity – “No, we don’t respect your desire to needlessly torment animals because some hallucinating desert nomads did it centuries ago. We don’t respect it at all. You can cry that we are “persecuting” you if we stop you committing acts of cruelty if you want.”
- Penn & Teller – Penn (of Penn and Teller fame) protests the new TSA rules.
Having spent a good couple of hours looking around Kyoto I decided it was time to get out and head to Nara.
Actually it wasn’t nearly so dramatic. Nara is only an hour away on the train and it’s a much smaller, though culturally nearly as important, place. I’d be back in Kyoto in time for sunset at the Silver Pavilion.
Two things that immediately stood out were the long, shady lanes lined with these lanterns. The paths invariably had long lines of school children, some of whom would try their English on me. Even in fragments it was always way better than my Japanese.