Jun 04 2007

Out There Thinking for DHS

Category: Books,Personal — ChrisM @ 8:12 pm

The American department of Homeland Security recently called on the skills of respected SciFi writers to assist them in brain storming on new ways to defeat contraband smugglers, illegal aliens (of the human variety, at least publicly 😉 ) and, of course, terrorists.

A spokesman at the Homeland Security’s Science and Technology sector stated that “we need to look everywhere for ideas, and science-fiction writers clearly inform the debate”.

The writers attended a conference, were not paid and presumably had to pass internal security reviews before being allowed to attend

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Jun 04 2007

Google Adult Ads

Category: Personal — ChrisM @ 6:47 pm

OK, now that I’ve got your attention, please read on 🙂
Although the coverage is most in detail in America, Google Maps is still an impressive piece of coding, with so many uses made possible, due to the API Google have placed.
One of their own recent additions to the feature list is a new view – in addition to the traditional atlas map and satellite views, you can now, in some areas, go to a driving view. A large band of workers has been out and taken photos of areas from a drivers point of view.

Google Babes

Just as with the initial release, people with too much time at work have spent their hours looking for areas of interest. The photo above happened to be taken just as an advertising truck passed by, with an attention grabbing display!

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Jun 02 2007

The Call of the Wild

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 1:38 pm

The Call of the Wild – Jack London

Set amongst the heady times of the American gold rushes, the main character in this book is a dog. We see the dog well looked after, and enjoying his position as alpha male dog in his vicinity, and all seems well. Very quickly things take a turn for the worst – he is dognapped! (Hmm is that one word or two?)
Taken for his power, Buck soon discovers that many humans are not as king and well meaning as his old master. Slowly he begins to return to his most base instincts – he could afford to share food back in his comfy original home; when he ends up pulling sledges through harsh environments, he must use all his cunning, as well as his strength, to stay alive.
Without giving away too much, life does improve for Buck, as he is sold from one person to another, and eventually he settles down to a more sedate life with his new master. Until the indians arrive on the scene that is!

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Jun 02 2007

Martin Eden

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 1:27 pm

Martin Eden – Jack London

This is definitely a book for budding writers to read and try and take some heart from. The main character is actually a sailor, who sees a particularly one-sided unfair brawl starting. He steps and saves the honour, and possibly life, of a well to do young gentleman. As way of thanks, the gentleman invites the sailor over to his parents’ house for a nice meal.
Although Martin has an active brain, and enjoys learning more whenever he can, he feels out of place in high society, and his discomfort is not helped any when the sister of the man he saved turns out to be a charming, beautiful young lady.
Determined to better himself, Martin sets out to better himself, learning as much as he can in Maths (that is Math to my American readers ;>) and grammar, and hopes to go on to start earning some money, and respectability by writing books. He suffers a great deal of rejection, in both the literary and romantic sense, but perseveres.

Despite being written nearly a century ago, I found the style to be very readable, and could happily recommend to this anyone in need of a good book to read.

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Jun 01 2007

Alan Johnston Video Released

Category: Personal — ChrisM @ 2:48 pm

Just watching BBC World, and a video of the kidnapped journalist, Alan Johnston, has been released to the media.
He stated that he had been well fed, and not physically mis-treated.
He spoke of the actions of UK & USA government around the world, and how they were causing suffering.
There was indication where or, just as importantly, when the video was made.
The video was followed by a statement from his alleged kidnappers, detailing their demands. I’m not sure if they treated the audio track, used a woman or just had a high pitched person read their statement, but it sounded quite odd.

Whatever your view on America and Britain’s role in Afghanistan, Iraq & the backing of the Israeli state, Alan himself was never afraid to report the truth, and point out the injustices in the occupied Palestinian lands.

The mere fact that proof of his survival of the kidnapping itself is a good sign, but with no sign of when it was made, it is difficult to get your hopes up too high, just yet.

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May 30 2007

Ira Staying In Astana

Category: Personal,WordPress — ChrisM @ 9:55 am

Wow, luckily, she had not started packing yet, as her work no longer need her back in Moscow for a 3rd week. It will be nice to have her all to myself for once 🙂

Before I forget, I meant to link to another plug in yesterday. For anyone who hasn’t noticed yet, if you look at the bottom of the right hand side bar, you will notice a random picture is now displayed. It takes photos that I have previously published, at random, and displays the post title, and Alt tag for the image. You can download it here.

This post is NOT sponsored, in fact the reverse is opposite – I made a $5 donation to the plugin author, as I had been looking for something like this for a while. I didn’t want to have to modify any theme files. Oh, and if you check the (American) author’s gallery, you’ll see he has been to Almaty (just after the time Ira and I got married in Astana!)

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May 27 2007

Do Fish Drink Water?

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 9:38 am

Do Fish Drink Water? – Bill McLain

In a very similar vein to the Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze? book I reviewed earlier, the main concept is that people have asked Bill McLain a lot of questions over the years, and he researches the answers. Where permission has been given, he puts the Q&A on his website, and eventually made this book.
If fascinating facts to quizzical questions interest you, then this may well be the book for you. However, there is certainly an American inclination to the questions, and a few of the answers are either out of date now, or plain wrong. That said, it was an interesting read, and I mean to go and check his site out soon.

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May 26 2007

Life Continuing Probability Rises!

Category: Kazakh Driving,Personal,Pictures — ChrisM @ 12:30 am

Long term readers of this blog will remember from previous posts on driving in Kazakhstan that crossing the road, especially in front of our flat is a scary experience.
Well today I noticed that cars were seemingly randomly slowing down and even stopping on the road, with people crossing. As I couldn’t see a policeman anywhere, I couldn’t figure out what was going on till the daylight disappeared – it looks like they have installed a proper pedestrian crossing 🙂 🙂 🙂
This may not seem like much to any American or British readers, but trust me, go ask Mum, John, Nick, Dad or ChrisD if you need to hear just how much things differ over here… I’ve said it before, imagine a UK motorway with no central barrier, and even the zebra crossing at the other end of the road doesn’t cause drivers to stop – if you are lucky, they will slow down enough for you to wonder about the driver in the next lane across. No more 🙂

New Traffic Lights Installed On Sary Arka

Please excuse the low quality piccie, it is night time without a flash, and zoomed in – I’ll try and get a better quality picture tomorrow daytime. Slightly better quality picture now 🙂

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May 25 2007

The Difference Engine

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 12:40 am

The Difference Engine – William Gibson

Instead of the future this time, we have a book set in Victorian times, however Gibson (& co-author Bruce Sterling) has the Victorians achieving a lot more technological advances than happened in ‘our’ reality. As his earlier books are seen as the start of cyber punk genre, this book is similarly seen as one of the starters of the Steam Punk classification.
It took a while to get into (the jumps in narrative viewpoint can spin you out a little), and I felt the ending could have been compressed a great deal, however I’m still glad I read it.
The main split with our history is the acceptance of the multiple uses of analytical engines (though obviously mechanical, as opposed to electrical/silicone based), and therefore mass production of said items. Police (& therefore state) intelligence is compiled and used to curtail the activities of subversives, though those of high class are given a wide margin of error before any attempt to limit their activities.
Fans of American history may well be interested in this alternative playing out of events, which sees Britain strengthen their global position, to the cost of the USA.
The main aim of most of the protagonists within this story is to get their hands on a series of punch cards (that’s like a CD or hard disk drive for those unaware of how data used to be stored & processed) that don’t actually contain the routines that people assume.

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May 24 2007

UK Searches For Kazakhstan

Category: Kazakhstan — ChrisM @ 6:28 am

In case you care, here are this months top 100 searches involving Kazakhstan, for people searching from Britain.

kazakhstan
flight to kazakhstan
holidays to kazakhstan
kazakhstan hotel
kazakhstan map
kazakhstan adoption
in internship kazakhstan
helicopter kazakhstan services
kazakhstan embassy
kazakhstan flag
borat kazakhstan – impressively far down the list 🙂
almaty kazakhstan
car hire kazakhstan
travel kazakhstan
kazakhstan visa
weather in kazakhstan
kazakhstan airline
kazakhstan national anthem
kazakhstan jobs
education in kazakhstan system
kazakhstan woman
cheap call to kazakhstan
kazakhstan embassy london
cheap flight for kazakhstan
kazakhstan girl
lonely planet kazakhstan
where is kazakhstan
capital of kazakhstan
in kazakhstan search
kazakhstan fact
food in kazakhstan
football kazakhstan
anthem borat kazakhstan national
astana kazakhstan
jobs in kazakhstan
kazakhstan legislation
air kazakhstan
anthem borat kazakhstan
bird kazakhstan
kazakhstan airport
anthem borat kazakhstan lyric national
british embassy in kazakhstan
british embassy kazakhstan
kazakhstan currency
flower delivery kazakhstan
kazakhstan news
kazakhstan tourism
bank of kazakhstan
capital city of kazakhstan
kazakhstan history
time in kazakhstan
kazakhstan oil
kazakhstan property
kazakhstan tour
aksai kazakhstan
america benefit cultural glorious kazakhstan learnings make nation
chef in job kazakhstan
kazakhstan embassy in london
embassy of uk in kazakhstan
flower to kazakhstan
kazakhstan rocher yves
kazakhstan tv
almaty flight kazakhstan
atyrau in inspection job kazakhstan
china iran kazakhstan oil
kazakhstan culture
kazakhstan and economy
kazakhstan embassy uk
kazakhstan exchange rate
kazakhstan oil export
fitter kazakhstan mechanical
holidays in kazakhstan
in kazakhstan living
kazakhstan religion
flight to atyrau kazakhstan
national bank of kazakhstan
environmental kazakhstan law
holiday hotel kazakhstan state united
kazakhstan petropavlovsk
2 borat kazakhstan
anthem kazakhstan
coal kazakhstan mine
construction in kazakhstan
alliance bank kazakhstan
duty excise kazakhstan oil
environmental kazakhstan legislation
property for sale in kazakhstan
information on kazakhstan
kazakhstan lyric o
kazakhstan serbia
aktau kazakhstan
amazon kazakhstan
bane bo kazakhstan
call from kazakhstan uk
call to kazakhstan
card kazakhstan phone
country kazakhstan
country kazakhstan muslim
development in kazakhstan
tengiz kazakhstan

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