ÐØRÇHÁ =^..^=

Building with whole trees

2009-11-06T17:45:52Z

Building With Whole Trees - NYTimes.com

'Starry Night over the Rhone'

2009-11-05T10:01:41Z

'For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.'
--Vincent Van Gogh

Click on image for large size.

'Portrait of a Girl' by Mikhail Nesterov

2009-11-04T01:01:33Z

Study for 'Youth of St. Sergiy Radonezhsky'. 1890-91. Oil on panel. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Olga's Gallery

Alfred Hitchcock film scenes recreated in Plexiglas and paper tape

2009-11-02T18:47:36Z

Times
2 Nov 09

The scene from Spellbound, made of paper tape on clear plastic - (Mark Khaisman/BNPS)

The monochrome world of Hitchcock’s Spellbound has been revisited in a new artistic medium — layers of brown parcel tape stuck on to a 4ft-high sheet of clear plastic through which light is shone.

The scene, taken from the director’s 1945 drama starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, was created by Mark Khaisman, who sells his works for up to $10,000 (£6,000).

Mr Khaisman, 51, from Philadelphia, previously worked with stained glass before switching to parcel tape.

“The work is made from layer upon layer of translucent packing tape, applied to clear Plexiglas and placed in front of a light box to give shadow and depth,” said Mr Khaisman. “My art is a conversation with light.”

Night Witches: Audio slideshow

2009-11-02T16:11:36Z

BBC
2 November 2009

**This is a really cool automatic slideshow of images of these amazing women. WWII is one of my interests, particularly aerial bombing missions. I love history. Click the link at the top of the photo to go to the BBC article where you can start the slideshow. Details for listening to the BBC Radio 4 programme are below.

Night Witches

Russia's three all-female air regiments flew more than 30,000 missions along the Eastern Front in WWII. At home they were known as 'Stalin's Falcons', but terrified German troops called them the 'Night Witches'.

Here - with the help of archive images - Radio 4's Lucy Ash tells their story, and discovers that their extraordinary exploits have inspired others decades later.

Images courtesy RIA Novosti, Getty Images, Anna Yegorova, Garth Ennis and Russ Braun.

Night Witches will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 2002 on Monday 2 November 2009. It will then be available for seven days on >>the BBC iPlayer.

Slideshow production by Paul Kerley

urbanaztec

2009-10-30T22:16:05Z

That is the username of an excellent artist on lj.rossia.org. I found Alex's art on a robot link which friended me, and I was quite impressed. I have permission to show you a clickable thumbnail, and I will make it go to his journal, but I am happy to report that now he also has a deviantART account where he is in the process of displaying his talent. It is located here:

urbanaztec.deviantart.com

I think you will be quite amazed at the intricacy of his art when you see the large version of 'Lamp'.

Click the picture to visit Alex's journal. Then once you are there, you can click this tag to see all his art on LJR.

San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Breaks

2009-10-28T21:03:38Z

View of the bridge in better times

**Read about the bridge at Wikipedia

'High winds caused a steel crossbeam and two steel tie rods to snap off the Bay Bridge's eastern span and fall to the upper deck, Caltrans officials said today as commuters unable to drive over the closed bridge jammed alternative routes and crowded onto BART in record numbers.

The three pieces were part of an emergency repair that workers made on the bridge over the Labor Day weekend after discovering a crack in a structural beam on the cantilever section. The repair held for just seven weeks, until the parts came crashing to the upper deck at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, damaging three vehicles and injuring one motorist.

Crews worked all night on fresh repairs after authorities closed the bridge, but Caltrans was giving no estimate for when the span might reopen. Local transit officials said they were being told to plan as though the bridge will be closed through the end of the week.

The National Weather Service said gusts in the San Francisco area hit 30 mph Tuesday. Caltans said that was enough to cause a 20-foot tie rod, which goes through load-bearing steel saddles on the cantilever section, to move back and forth, and eventually snap.'

Highway to Heaven or Hell?

Westbound Highway 92 (left) slows as commuters, at mid-morning, cross over the high rise section of the San Mateo Bridge into Foster City on Wednesday. Photo: Michael Macor

--Story from San Francisco Chronicle

The artist on his art

2009-10-28T01:01:54Z

Citarella - 2001 - Oil on canvas - By Richard Estes

"I think the popular concept of the artist is a person who has this great passion and enthusiasm and super emotion. He just throws himself into this great masterpiece and collapses from exhaustion when its finished. It’s really not that way at all. Usually it's a pretty calculated, sustained, and slow process by which you develop something. The effect can be one of spontaneity, but that’s part of the artistry. An actor can do a play on Broadway for three years. Every night he’s expressing the same emotion in exactly the same way. He has developed a technique to convey those feelings so that he can get the ideas across. Or a musician may not want to play that damn music at all, but he has a booking and has to do it. I think the real test is to plan something and be able to carry it out to the very end. Not that you’re always enthusiastic; it's just that you have to get this thing out. It's not done with one's emotions; it’s done with the head."

Richard Estes

San Francisco Street

2009-10-26T08:36:09Z

By Nancy Merkle

The Rise of the All-Day Pyjama Syndrome

2009-10-25T01:40:36Z

I saved these two pieces by Robin Livingstone, and I am glad I did as their original source links are now defunct (if anyone has any viable links, please let me know). I also had them on a blog which packed up and left me without warning as well, so this is why I archive whole articles. Robin is an editor at Andersonstown News in Belfast. He has a biting wit and sarcastic view of life which I find hilarious. He frequently writes under the guise of 'Squinter'.

I've posted this once before, but something Jadiem wrote reminded me of it.

NIGHT AND DAY IN YOUR PJs

12 July 2003
Squinter

The time has come the walrus said, to talk of many things, of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings...

And much as Squinter has tried to put it off, much as he has wrestled with his conscience over the advisability of bringing this particular topic on to a public stage, the day was always going to come when the truth would have to be told, and it is this: women in Ballymurphy/Turf Lodge don’t get dressed any more.

Now that doesn’t mean that they run about naked, or in their underwear. No, it means that they spend all day in their pyjamas. Nothing wrong with that, the cry goes up, everyone dosses about the house in their PJs occasionally, which is undeniably so. But we’re not talking about a lazy day off here, or an extended lie-in. Squinter was in Turf Lodge one afternoon last week – around 2.45pm, it was. And in one stretch of road he saw seven women going about their daily business in their pyjamas. Not standing at the door talking to the neighbour, not nipping out to pick up the milk – actually doing the everyday things that normally require a person to get dressed.

Two women were walking through Norglen Gardens, proceeding to who knows where with that peculiar shuffle that fluffy mules necessitate. Both sets of pyjamas were pink, silk(y) and baggy, both twentysomethings had blonde hair and big golden hoops in their ears, both had their arms folded with a ten-deck of Regal tucked in their armpits.

Inside a nearby newsagents another two women – one in her twenties the other perhaps 40 – were picking up a few items: the older woman browsing for a newspaper, the younger buying crisps and chewing-gum. Again, the pyjamas were silk(y) and baggy – one pair pink, the other yellow. Both had fluffy mules, big earrings and cigarettes.

Squinter was considering the import of all this when across the street another of the pyjama women hailed a black taxi and climbed in, which seemed much more shocking because she was leaving a district in which her mode of (un)dress was the order of the day to travel to another part of the city – the city centre, for all Squinter knew.

Because it's his job, Squinter has been making inquiries since he stumbled on this modern wonder and it appears that the phenomenon is not confined to Turf Lodge/Ballymurphy, although that would seem to be the epicentre of it. Pyjama Women are also to be seen, Squinter's assured, roaming the lower Falls.

Just as Margaret Mead's landmark 'Coming of Age in Samoa' redefined the science of anthropology, so Squinter's forthcoming 'Night and Day: Getting Up in Turf Lodge' is expected to send shockwaves through the staid community of people-watchers. A learned German professor has been engaged as co-author and he has already visited the area twice.

'Ziss is very interestink & a fine example of vot ve in ze business call 'Counter-Clothing Syndrome.' And it is not, as some people beleef, nihilistic or negative. On ze contrary, ze women in pyjamas zat I haff seen wear haff put on ze make-up and wear lots of rings und necklaces. In ze summer time zey haff sometimes even got shorts instead of ze long bottoms.'

_______________

Pyjama-mamas on fashion frontier

Squinter
8 June 2007
Originally from Irelandclick

Squinter wonders how many of the mothers of the super-smicks featured guzzling al fresco in Monday’s Andersonstown were sitting on the sofa in their jimjams watching Big Brother when their little dears were out roaming the street like packs of hyenas.

Quite a few, you have to think.

Not that every woman who leaves junior to school in her satin pyjamas and a pair of pink fluffy mules is a bad parent, it’s just that it would appear to be self-evident that women who don’t bother getting dressed are going to find it that wee bit harder to drive home the message to their children that a little self-respect and dignity goes a long way in life.

Children tend not to work that out for themselves until way past P3.

Squinter’s with Joe McGuinness, headmaster of St Matthew’s in the Short Strand, who wrote in the school bulletin about the reservations he has concerning mothers dropping off and picking up their children in pyjamas (the mothers, that is, not the children; although it can only be a matter of time before they don’t bother dressing their children either).

We’ve received a big number of texts on the subject, some of them in the paper today. A few have a go at Joe, far more back him up. Which is probably an accurate reflection of where society stands on the issue of women going about all day in the synthetic top and trousers that they spent the night in particularly a hot night in August wearing a pound shop made-in-Taiwan, avoid-naked-flame special.

Squinter has learned from an impeccable source (bloke down the pub) that not all pyjama-mamas are wearing garments that are a little bit manky.

It seems that some of the more discerning mums will change into another set of pyjamas if they detect a bit of a pong as they head out the door, or if the sweat is conducting the static electricity to an extent that endangers the life of parent, child, or both.

Not freshly laundered pyjamas, obviously – that would be too much work. Rather, they hoke about for a bit in the Ali-Baba basket until they find a pair from last week that don’t stand up on their own.
Quick squirt of Charlie and you’re out the door. Sorted.

Meanwhile, Squinter has been doing a little research on the subject in order to gauge whether pyjama-mamas are indeed part of the fabric of the community, and if so, whether they’re Egyptian cotton or polymerised acrylonitrile. Out and about, he asked a representative sample of 50 pyjama-mamas whether they routinely wear scrim-scrams to the following locations..

Hairdressers: 99% say yes, 1% say what’s a hairdressers?
Pub: 25% say yes, 75% per cent say only if the place sells WKD
Church: 10% say yes, 90% say it would be a sacrilege and a housecoat would definitely be worn on top
School: 50% say yes, 45% say a definite no, 10% say they’re keen for their kids to get a good education
Shop: 95% say yes, 5% say only when the hole in the wall is paying out double
Taxi/bus: 40% say yes, 60% say not until the DLA car is taken away
Work: (n/a)
Dole office: 99.999% say yes, .001% say only once a fortnight

Tell me Evil doesna live: Richard Ramirez - The Night Stalker

2009-10-23T20:08:05Z

Because this article came out today in the San Francisco Chronicle about 'The Night Stalker's' DNA link to yet another murder and rape victim, a wee 9 year old S.F. girl, I decided to post his story for those of you not familiar with Ramirez's reign of pure murderous terror.

Richard Ramirez - The Night Stalker

--A look into the rape and killing spree of Satanic worshipper and serial killer, Richard Ramirez, who terrorized Los Angeles in 1985

By Charles Montaldo

Ricardo Leyva a.k.a. Richard Ramirez (photo at left) was born in El Paso, Texas, on February 28, 1960, to Julian and Mercedes Ramirez. Richard was the youngest child of six, epileptic, and described by his father as being "a good boy," until his involvement with drugs. Richard admired his father, but at the age of 12, he found a new hero, his cousin, Mike, a Vietnam veteran and ex-Green Beret.

Ramirez Finds a Hero

Mike, home from Vietnam, shared gruesome pictures of rape and human torture with Richard, who became fascinated with the pictorial brutality. The two spent a lot of time together, smoking pot and talking about war. On one such day, Mike's wife began to complain about Mike's laziness. Mike's reaction was to kill her by shooting her in the face, in front of Richard. Because of Mike's war record, he was sentenced to seven years for the killing.

Drugs, Candy and Satanism

By the age of 18, Richard was a habitual drug user and chronic candy eater, resulting in tooth decay and extreme halitosis. He also became involved in Satan worshipping and his general poor appearance enhanced his satanic persona. Already arrested on numerous drug and theft charges, Ramirez decided to move to southern California. There he advanced from simple theft to breaking and entering into homes. He became very proficient at it and eventually began to linger in the homes of his victims.

Pure Evil

On June 28, 1984, his burglaries turned into something far more evil. Ramirez entered through an opened window of Glassel Park resident, Jennie Vincow, age 79. According to Philip Carlo's book, 'The Night Stalker,' he became angry after not finding anything of value to steal, and began stabbing the sleeping Vincow, eventually slitting her throat. The act of killing aroused him sexually, and he had sex with the corpse before leaving.

Savored Memories Fade

Ramirez remained quiet for eight months, but the memory he savored of his last killing had run dry. He needed more. On March 17, 1985, Ramirez jumped 22-year-old Angela Barrio outside her condo. He shot her, kicked her out of the way, and headed into her condo. Inside, was roommate, Dayle Okazaki, age 34, who Ramirez immediately shot and killed. Barrio remained alive out of pure luck. The bullet had ricocheted off the keys she held in her hands, as she lifted them to protect herself.

The Thirst for More

Within an hour of killing Okazaki, Ramirez struck again in Monterey Park. He jumped 30-year-old Tsai-Lian Yu and pulled her out of her car onto the road. He shot several bullets into her and fled. A policeman found her still breathing, but she died before the ambulance arrived. Ramirez's thirst was not quenched. He then murdered an eight-year-old girl from Eagle Rock, just three days after killing Tsai-Lian Yu.

Post-mortem Mutilations Become His Mark

On March 27, Ramirez shot Vincent Zazarra, age 64, and his wife Maxine, age 44. Mrs. Zazzara's body was mutilated with several stab wounds, a T-carving on her left breast, and her eyes were gouged out. The autopsy determined that the mutilations were post-mortem. Ramirez left footprints in the flower beds, which the police photographed and cast. Bullets found at the scene were matched to those found at previous attacks, and the police realized a serial killer was on the loose.

Ramirez's MO - Kill the Man Quickly

Two months after killing the Zazzara couple, Ramirez attacked again. Harold Wu, age 66, was shot in the head, and his wife, Jean Wu, age 63, was punched, bound, and then violently raped. For unknown reasons, Ramirez decided to let her live. Ramirez's attacks were now in full throttle. He left behind more clues to his identity, and was named, 'The Night Stalker,' by the media. Those who survived his attacks, provided the police with a description - Hispanic, long dark hair, and foul smelling breath.

Pentagrams Found at the Crime Scene

On May 29, 1985, Ramirez attacked Malvial Keller, 83, and her invalid sister, Blanche Wolfe, 80, beating each with a hammer. Ramirez attempted to rape Keller, but failed. Using lipstick, he drew a pentagram on Keller's thigh and on the wall in the bedroom. Blanche survived the attack. The next day, Ruth Wilson, 41, was bound, raped, and sodomized by Ramirez, while her 12-year old son was locked in a closet. Ramirez slashed Wilson once, and then bound her and her son together, and left.

His Killing Spree Terrorized Los Angeles: Ramirez's 1985 killing and rape spree continued:

• June 27 - Ramirez raped a 6-year-old girl in Acadia.

• June 28 - Patty Higgins, age 32, was beaten and her throat slit.

• July 2 - Mary Cannon, age 75, was beaten and her throat slit.

• July 5 - Deidre Palmer, age 16, survived being beaten with a tire iron.

• July 7 - Joyce Lucille Nelson, 61, was bludgeoned to death.

• July 7 - Linda Fortuna, 63, was attacked and Ramirez tried to rape her, but failed.

• July 20 - Maxson Kneiling, 66, and his wife Lela, also 66, were shot and their corpses, mutilated.

• July 20, Chitat Assawahem, 31, was shot and his wife Sakima, 29, was beaten then forced to perform oral sex. Ramirez then collected $30,000 in valuables, but before leaving, he sodomized the couple's eight-year-old son.

• August 6 - Ramirez shot both Christopher Petersen, 38, and his wife, Virginia, 27, in the head. Both somehow survived.

• August 8 - Ramirez shot Ahmed Zia, 35, and raped and sodomized his wife, Suu Kyi, 28, and forced her to perform oral sex on him.

On Aug. 24, 1985, Ramirez traveled 50 miles south of Los Angeles, and broke into the home of Bill Carns, 29, and his fiancée, Inez Erickson, 27. Ramirez shot Carns in the head and raped Erickson. He demanded she swear her love for Satan and afterwards, forced her to perform oral sex on him. He then tied her and left. Erickson struggled to the window and saw the car Ramirez was driving.

A teenager wrote down the license plate number of the same car, after noticing it cruising suspiciously in the neighborhood.

The information from Erickson and the young man enabled police to locate the abandoned car, and get fingerprints from inside. A computer match was made of the prints, and identification of the Night Stalker became known. On August 30, 1985, the arrest warrant for Richard Ramirez was issued and his picture released to the public.

A Face Revealed

On August 30, 1985, an arrest warrant for Richard Ramirez was issued and his face revealed to the public. Ramirez, unaware that his picture was all over the newspapers, got off of a Greyhound bus, and walked into a liquor store. The woman working inside recognized him and began yelling that he was the Night Stalker. Shocked, he quickly fled the store and headed toward the heavily populated Hispanic area of east Los Angeles. A small mob had formed and were following close behind him.

Captured by a Mob

Ramirez tried to steal a car, but the owner was underneath it doing repairs. When Ramirez started the engine, the man pulled out from beneath the car and began chasing Ramirez. The mob that was in pursuit of Ramirez, now armed with steal rods, caught up with him. He was subdued, while some of the mob beat him, until the police arrived. Reportedly, Ramirez raised his hands to the police, begging for protection, and identified himself as the Night Stalker.

Endless Appeals

Because of the endless appeals on the part of the defense, the Ramirez trial did not end for over four years. One such appeal was to overturn the decision by a judge, for refusing to remove Judge Tynan from the case. In addition, defense attorney, Daniel Hernandez, suffered from stress, which resulted in numerous medical delays.

Haunts of the Charlie Manson Trial

During the trial, Ramirez attracted several groupies who wrote to him regularly. The trial scene had haunts of the Charlie Manson trial, with women hanging around, clad in black robes. When one of the juror's failed to show up one day, and was discovered dead in her apartment from a gun shot wound, many wondered if some of Ramirez's followers were responsible. But in actuality, it was the woman's boyfriend who killed her, during an argument that erupted while discussing the Ramirez case.

The Virgin Doreen

In 1996, Ramirez tied the knot with one of his groupies. She is 41-year-old Doreen Lioy, who has described herself as a virgin, prior to her marriage to Ramirez. Since death-row inmates are not permitted to have conjugal visits, then she may still be a virgin, not that anyone would care, other then Ramirez, who said her virginity is what attracted him to her.

Doreen Lioy believes her husband is innocent of the charges against him. Lioy, who was raised as a Catholic, respects Ramirez's Satanic worship. This was demonstrated when she gave him a silver wedding band to wear, since Satanic worshipers do not wear gold.

Sentenced to Die

On September, 20, 1989, The Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez, was found guilty on 43 counts in Los Angeles County, including 13 murders, and charges including burglary, sodomy, and rape. He was sentenced to death on each count of murder. After receiving his sentence, Ramirez responded, "Big deal," he said. "Death always went with the territory." and told reporters, "I'll see you in Disneyland." Currently Ramirez is in San Quentin Prison, where he sits on death row, until he is out of appeals.

During the sentencing stage, it was reported that Ramirez did not want his attorney's to beg for his life. It will be interesting to see if this same bravado will be demonstrated by him on the day he dies.

He has already outlived some of the victims that survived his attack.

Sources:

The Night Stalker by Philip Carlo
Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us by Robert D. Hare
Notorious: The Night Stalker: Richard Ramirez - The Biography Channel

Pie-splattered comedian Soupy Sales dies at 83

2009-10-23T19:20:35Z

By DAVID N. GOODMAN, Associated Press Writer
San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, October 23, 2009

Soupy Sales, the rubber-faced comedian whose anything-for-a-chuckle career was built on 20,000 pies to the face and 5,000 live TV appearances across a half-century of laughs, has died. He was 83.

Sales died Thursday night at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx, New York, said his former manager and longtime friend, Dave Usher. Sales had many health problems and entered the hospice last week, Usher said.

Soupy Sales, born Milton Supman

At the peak of his fame in the 1950s and '60s, Sales was one of the best-known faces in the nation, Usher said.

"If President Eisenhower would have walked down the street, no one would have recognized him as much as Soupy," Usher said.

At the same time, Sales retained an openness to fans that turned every restaurant meal into an endless autograph-signing session, Usher said.

"He was just good to people," said Usher, a former jazz music producer who managed Sales in the 1950s and now owns Detroit-based Marine Pollution Control.

Sales began his TV career in Cincinnati and Cleveland, then moved to Detroit, where he drew a large audience on WXYZ-TV. He moved to Los Angeles in 1961.

The comic's pie-throwing schtick became his trademark, and celebrities lined up to take one on the chin alongside Sales. During the early 1960s, stars such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Shirley MacLaine received their just desserts side-by-side with the comedian on his television show.

"I'll probably be remembered for the pies, and that's all right," Sales said in a 1985 interview.

Sales was born Milton Supman on Jan. 8, 1926, in Franklinton, North Carolina, where his was the only Jewish family in town. His parents, owners of a dry-goods store, sold sheets to the Ku Klux Klan. The family later moved to Huntington, West Viriginia.

His greatest success came in New York with "The Soupy Sales Show" — an ostensible children's show that had little to do with Captain Kangaroo and other kiddie fare. Sales' manic, improvisational style also attracted an older audience that responded to his envelope-pushing antics.

Sales, who was typically clad in a black sweater and oversized bow-tie, was once suspended for a week after telling his legion of tiny listeners to empty their mothers' purse and mail him all the pieces of green paper bearing pictures of the presidents.

The cast of "Saturday Night Live" later paid homage by asking their audience to send in their joints. His influence was also obvious in the Pee-Wee Herman character created by Paul Reubens.

Sales returned from the Navy after World War II and became a $20-a-week reporter at a West Virginia radio station. He jumped to a DJ gig, changed his name to Soupy Heinz and headed for Ohio.

His first pie to the face came in 1951, when the newly christened Soupy Sales was hosting a children's show in Cleveland. In Detroit, Sales' show garnered a national reputation as he honed his act — a barrage of sketches, gags and bad puns that played in the Motor City for seven years.

After moving to Los Angeles, he eventually became a fill-in host on "The Tonight Show."

He moved to New York in 1964 and debuted "The Soupy Sales Show," with co-star puppets White Fang (the meanest dog in the United States) and Black Tooth (the nicest dog in the United States). By the time his Big Apple run ended two years later, Sales had appeared on 5,370 live television programs — the most in the medium's history, he boasted. He had a pair of albums that hit the Billboard Top 10 in 1965; "Do the Mouse" sold 250,000 copies in New York alone.

Sales remained a familiar television face, first as a regular from 1968-75 on the game show "What's My Line?" and later appearing on everything from "The Mike Douglas Show" to "The Love Boat." He played himself in the 1998 movie "Holy Man," which starred Eddie Murphy.

He joined WNBC-AM as a disc jockey in 1985, a stint best remembered because Sales filled the hours between shock jocks Don Imus and Howard Stern.

Sales is survived by his wife, Trudy, and two sons, Hunt and Tony, a pair of musicians who backed David Bowie in the band Tin Machine.

'Pumpkin Madness'

2009-10-22T05:08:20Z

Hashi made this background on a programme called Bryce. Click the pick to visit his deviantART and download it for your computer wallpaper/screensaver. :)

bigcatpants.deviantart.com

Kow Korner

2009-10-21T04:42:45Z

By Perry Woodfin

'Blue Fox' Drive-in

2009-10-21T04:33:02Z

By Perry Woodfin

Cornhead at play. --New Hashi art!

2009-10-19T17:46:48Z

Just in time for Halloween! Click the pic to view the comic.

bigcatpants.deviantart.com

'Liquor Store Nocturne, El Cajon Blvd'

2009-10-19T06:56:39Z

I would have liked to post about 5 or 6 of this man's paintings. If anyone captures California's small towns, he does.

Tony Peters

'Algerian Oona'

2009-10-18T18:31:42Z

My friend Paul heard me say I wanted an outfit like the 'Algerian Girl' in the painting, so he made one for me. Look!

Algerian Girl 1888

2009-10-18T14:49:37Z

By Frederick Arthur Bridgman (at alloilpaint.com)

86,000 Iraqis killed since 2004, official figures show

2009-10-15T13:01:11Z

By Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad
15 October 2009

AT LEAST 85,994 Iraqis lost their lives between 2004 and 2008 because of violence, Iraq's government has said, in its first comprehensive tally released since the war began.

The report by the human rights ministry came out as part of a larger study on human rights in the country. It said 85,694 people were killed in the four-year period, and 147,195 were wounded during the same period.

An Iraqi man rushes his wounded son to hospital.

The toll counted Iraqi civilians, military and police. It did not cover foreign military deaths, insurgents, or other foreigners, including security contractors.

The Iraqi death toll has been a hotly disputed subject and critics across the political spectrum have accused others of manipulating the death numbers to sway public opinion.

As Iraq became increasingly violent following the 2003 invasion, it also became increasingly difficult to track such figures independently on a wide scale.

The most recent numbers from Iraq Body Count, a private London-based group that has tracked civilian casualties since the war began, puts the number of civilian casualties as of 14 October at 93,540.

A study by the World Health Organisation in 2008 put the figure at 104,000 to 223,000.

Most controversially, a study published in the medical journal the Lancet in 2006, put the death toll at 655,000 – using criteria that included 50,000 deaths other than from violence, such as those who died from disease and other causes related to the invasion.

The latest report was based on death certificates issued by the health ministry. Statistics from the initial months of the invasion in 2003 have been extremely difficult to obtain as there was no functioning Iraqi government during that time and the interim government was not seated until mid-2004. The report described the years that followed the US-led invasion, which toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein, as extremely violent years.

"Through the terrorist attacks like explosions, assassinations, kidnappings and forced displacements, the outlawed groups have created these terrible figures, which represent a big challenge for the rule of law and for the Iraqi people," it said.

The report also breaks down some specific numbers, saying 1,279 children and 2,334 women were killed. It puts the death toll of university professors at 263, judges at 21, lawyers 95 and journalists at 269 – some of the professions specifically targeted as the country descended into chaos.

The toll also included 15,000 unidentified bodies not claimed by their families and buried in special cemeteries.

Iraq's death toll continued to climb yesterday, when three near-simultaneous blasts struck the southern Shia holy city of Karbala.

At least six people were killed, Iraqi police and medical officials said.

A police official said the first blast took place at 4pm near one of the city's two major shrines. Two more explosions followed soon after at the second shrine.

Police said at least 40 people had been wounded in the attacks.

The casualties have been confirmed by an official at the Karbala hospital.

Both the police and medical official spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorised to release the information.

Despite a dramatic drop in violence in Iraq, insurgents continue to target civilians, especially Shiites and their shrines.

Letting Data Die A Natural Death

2009-10-11T18:38:31Z

**This article is funny, sarcastic and educational. Those of you with Sidekicks who wonder where your contacts went should read definitely read it. Anyone else who doesn't quite realise the value of the term 'backup' also needs to partake of this.

Nik Cubrilovic
TechCrunch.com
Washington Post
Saturday, October 10, 2009

The big story today is about Microsoft subsidiary Danger losing all T-Mobile Sidekick customer data from their servers. Danger is the company noted for the T-Mobile Sidekick, the revolution in cloud mobile, and most memorably, almost everybody living in 90210 having to get new phone numbers because of Paris Hilton. Valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers received a notice today from the company updating them on the "data disruption" problem. The good news is that data is no longer being disrupted. The bad news is that there is no data left to be disrupted.

This latest large-scale publicized data loss will surely lead to managers everywhere forwarding a link to the story to their IT departments asking "what are we doing so that this doesn't happen to us." It will lead to the issue of data loss and backups being written about ad naseum by technology pundits. Research companies will rub their hands together as they prepare new 80 page whitepapers with titles such as "How Companies Who Pay Us Money Can Prevent Your Data Being Lost" (complete with FDA "may cause drowsiness" warning label on the cover). Consultants will flock to their customers, pat them on the head, and reassure them that everything is ok because their project specification powerpoint shows that they included two of everything (and charged for it).

Backups are a hard sell. Most of us don't want to think about things going wrong (or put more colloquially, shit hitting the fan). Spending your Saturday afternoon staring at a progress meter that seems to be moving backwards is the polar opposite of fun. If there was a brainwave study of people in the process of backing up data, it would probably show no activity at all (but they could use the results to help calibrate the machines). Furthering the point of no interest, Google trends shows that while the volume of news stories about backups and data loss is increasing over time, volume from people searching about it is proportionately decreasing. We are only shaken out of this slumber briefly when there is an incident such as the one at Danger this week.

Like the death of a celebrity from a drug overdose, publicized data loss incidents remind us that we should probably do something about taking better care of our data. But we usually don't, because we quickly remind ourselves that backups are boring as hell, and that it's shark week on Discovery. Our previously well thought out backup and recovery plans are expunged as we scan the perimeter of the clinic for the shortest fence to jump over and bolt back to freedom.

Those who are organized and backup their data usually discover the later, larger, part of the problem -- restoring from a backup: Where did I put the backup? It's an old copy. That file I was just working on isn't there. It was never actually backing up. No software I use can read this stupid fucking format, etc. For most of us, by backing up, we are only setting ourselves up for a bigger failure down the road.

If you read almost any technology website or newspaper, you could be forgiven for thinking that "The Cloud" solves everything. When "The Cloud" is proposed as a solution to any problem most nod in agreement, not wanting to appear out of the loop by asking what the hell it even means. It certainly isn't a solution to backups ¿ as Sidekick users found out today, and ironically, as 7,500 users of online backup provider Carbonite found out after the company lost their backups (Carbonite can take some comfort in that they now rank very well for 'data loss' in search engines because of the incident. What do they say about bad publicity?).

In the Danger case, it appears from initial speculation that the data was lost because they attempted to upgrade a storage array without backing it up first. Here is a case of smart and rational people who do this for a living at one of the best companies in the world, and they didn't even bother making a backup ¿ so what hope do we have? Relying on the cloud as a backup didn't work, because somebody forgot to backup the backup. Roman poet Juvenal foreshadowed this very problem when he wrote "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (at least I think he did, hard to tell because there was no word for "backup" back then).

Storage technology does a reasonable job of keeping data intact, considering that it is only a spilt Red Bull away from not functioning at all. The methods used to store data are vulnerable to simple things such as a magnet, and we live on one of those (hint: The Earth). We have become far too reliant on something that is inherently unreliable.

Every systems administrator has at some point in their life experienced the sickening feeling of realizing that they have lost data ¿ and do not have a backup. It is so common that Eminem even wrote a song about it (Lose Yourself, about a sysadmin who when realizing he didn't have a backup decides it is time for another career (replace 'music' with 'man tar' in the lyrics for the full effect)). The sick feeling that all sysadmins have felt after losing data is because of the pressure and responsibility of the situation, sysadmins run the technology, and we expect technology to solve this problem.

The solution may be to do nothing, certainly not to panic. The biggest problem is that we hoard data. We produce more data and information than we ever have, and we are all vain enough to believe that the data we create is so fantastic that it should live on for eternity. Losing the contact list on your phone shouldn't be a problem ¿ you should know who your friends are anyway. If you are losing sleep because you can't find an old email you wrote, you likely have deeper issues to address.

Technology has spoiled us to the point where we feel nostalgic when we lose data that didn't really matter in the first place. If it did matter, a primal instinct would have driven us to do more to preserve, rather than rely on a sleep deprived sysadmin on the other side of the country. If you didn't care enough to take care of it yourself, then you didn't really need it. It is our misguided expectation of technology that causes us to panic when we lose data. The only people who have a larger incentive to preserve your data are those who are using it to target an advertisement at you, or sell you something.

Not only is a lot of this data not important, but do we really want to keep it? I certainly would not want a full account of everything I did in my youth sitting on a server somewhere. I am also certain that we do not want the record of our as a society time being documented and discovered by future civilizations based on Twitter messages.

Data experiences its own form of natural selection. What is important will survive, the remainder will thankfully fade away.

Image from ehow.com

'Five minutes to death'

2009-10-10T23:38:10Z

I just got the weirdest email written by someone who SEEMS to speak English, but I dun understand it. He is talking about death and blood and a bunch of other berserk stuff, but he mentions God several times. I have NO clue what he is going on about and there is NO way I am following the link he left at the end where he says:

This video recordings and instant death, and many wonder what you see and what I feel I have created this space their own information page I have written. Please see there, you will not believe.

Also you will help me, this article explain to my friend and amazing miracles. Send to other sites... everyone but everyone should know this... please let's unite.

Gumeç.

Uh, NO! I make it a point never to go to places where they are talking about instant death!

And of course, he has put it on msn's spaces.live.com --->The PERFECT place for bullshit.

Elvelandskap (River Landscape)

2009-10-10T08:23:02Z

By Fritz Thaulow

My favourite of Thaulow's pieces is this one I posted last year: 'Water Mill'

Cottage by a Stream

2009-10-10T08:09:44Z

By Fritz Thaulow

OMG! This is...

2009-10-09T00:06:46Z

NOT REAL!

Who knew? I thought it looked like a pylon doing jumping jacks. :)