Watching the closing ceremony in Beijing, you cannot help but being amazed at the imagination and quality on display from the Chinese.
It was thus with some dismay I watched Boris Johnson walk in with the Beijing mayor to wave the Olympic flag. An ill-fitting suit, unbuttoned, a bad hair-do (which admittedly is par for the course with Boris).
Then came the London welcoming presentation. Unimaginative, lack of messages, badly executed.
Embarrasing.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been spending a reasonable amount travelling by air. I have flown from London to Switzerland and back, London to Germany and back, London to Denmark (where I am writing this). I am astounded by the contrast in security procedure in UK and elsewhere in Europe. Sure, there are security controls in place in the rest of Europe – but none as in UK at present. In spite of vociferous complaints from the CEO of Ryan Air, the UK airport infrastructure has remained saddled with far more severe constraints levelled upon travellers.
So, upon what basis are these constraints imposed on UK originating flights? What is the new evidence uncovered that caused this sudden increased level of fear to be broadcast via the media? Well, according to sources the mixture was TATP, also described here, created from hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), acetone and sulfuric oxide.
Trouble is, this mixture is not exactly easy to handle, and is fraught with danger (hence the nickname “Mother of Satan”). I recommend reading this tongue-in-cheek article in The Register, or this one from Royal Society of Chemistry, or this one from another organic chemistry student.
I have some difficulty in accepting that it has come as such a sudden surprise to the UK authorities that this compound is capable of being used in such ways, after hydrogen peroxide was used as the primary driver in UK’s 30-year long post-WWII attempts at rocketry (eloquently described in the book “Backroom Boffins” by Francis Spufford). This article mentions the UK’s use of H2O2 as rocket propellant. It should be well known to the authorities how utterly impossible it would be for anyone to mix these components onboard a plane, as this article also points out.
A higher level political analysis on the possible reasons for the scare-mongering can be found in this article. This film in a similar way questions the real story behind the 7/7 attack on London.
I have been very remiss in not posting earlier about the best concert I’ve attended for a long while, last month. Jaime and I went to Hyde Park Calling and watched Roger Waters (and in the latter set) Nick Mason do a *lot* of great Pink Floyd tracks.
I took a few photos at the event, and got bits of ‘Wish You Were Here’ and ‘Great Gig In The Sky’ as video. The GGITS was admirably performed by a fabulous singer (either Katie Kissoon or Carol Kenyon). The delivery was equally emotive and powerful as Clare Torry’s original.
I am grateful for the pointer to one of the most amusing articles in recent past: the flared tempers of world chess championships!
Especially this article on the same subject is a must read, exceptionally well phrased! (more…)
In order to install Alfresco v1.2 I need to install Tomcat or JBoss. I chose Tomcat, and to that end found the jpackage.org repository of Java related RPM’s. (more…)