the darkerside to rants

Saw this yesterday while strolling along Queen West.

I truly hope that they have someone else print them, otherwise this could lead to interesting flyers.

A while ago I heard about Nokia’s Lifeblog which on the surface seems to include a nifty idea of tying your cell phone (which most of us carry around all the time) with your life.

I just got reminded of it, because Warren Ellis got one and wants to play around with it. So I went back to the Nokia site (linked above) to investigate it a bit further.

First of all I have to say I think the software in and on itself is cool. BUT:

1. It is only available for Windows PCs (at least for now) thus it is utterly useless for me.

2. It just seems to be a “diary” it doesn’t seem to allow me to “tie” it (for example) into my website here and have the ability to instantly post to the server.

This is IMO a serious flaw. To make it really useful I should be able to send images and videos from the phone to the “lifeblog” (be it an app on my pc at home or public on the net). Maybe a “category” feature with restrictions would make sense. I could think of “friends”, “Public” and “Private”.

But as it stands, it seems I have to hook up the phone to the PC, download the images into the Lifeblog software and be done with it.

In essence it is like iPhoto for my PC, with the ability to also store Video clips I have taken with the phone.

But seriously, if I go through all that, why not just install Gallery locally and do it that way?

And the Nokia 7610 it works with isn’t really all that exciting either, though I have to admit a 1MP camera is nice, especially when comparing it to the one in my Z600.

Note, that he is not trying to flame
me or anything.

Ah, I like the fall. During fall they release some really tasty ales and beers here in Canada. Curtesy of the LCBO.

In today’s taste challenge: Black Wych from our goood friends at the Wychwood Brewery Company Witney. Located in the wonderful Oxfordshire, England, UK.

Wychwood Brewery nestles in the delightful Cotswold market town of Witney, on the fringes of the ancient medieval forest, the Wych Wood. The brewery is sited at the old Eagle Maltings, built more than 150 years ago when barley was malted for the town’s brewery. The founders of Wychwood Brewery, as well as being passionate about beer, were aware of the legend of the Wychwood Forest and decided to name the brewery after the ancient wood.

Why do I feel one step away from entering Hobbington?

But onto the beer.

The Website describes the taste as:

5.0% ABV. Black Wych is a beguiling traditional English dark stout, silky smooth, soft and seductive. A heady brew, which entices you to lose your senses and fall for the charms of The Black Wych

Which I have to admit it pretty bang on. Now if you think of a Stout you tend to think of Guiness or maybe Beamish, both very thick, nutty and strong beers. The Black Wych, although clearly a stout, is lighter than that and can be drunk a lot faster than any of those two. It is more like a very dark ale to me but quite tasty if you like stronger tasting beers. If you are rather a fan of the “light stuff” then better steer clear, this beer is clearly not for you.

Note: 4/5

Salon has an an article entitled “The State Department’s extreme makeover” in today’s issue and the text is rather chilling:

The realization that the same neocons who dismissed State’s accurate “Future of Iraq Project,” prepared before the war, may now take over at State in the second term is widely viewed inside the department as a threat to the very integrity of the country’s diplomatic first line of defense. Corridor discussion has turned desperate — maybe former Secretary of State James Baker will intervene, maybe former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft will talk to someone, maybe 41 will talk to 43.

State personnel are used to comings and goings of Democratic and Republican administrations, serving all equally and fairly. Not since Vietnam, however, has the U.S. diplomatic establishment viewed the future with such a degree of alarm. Retired U.S. ambassadors and diplomats have raised their own public concerns in signed public statements about the direction of U.S. foreign policy — but that concern pales compared with the quiet revolt brewing against a neocon takeover at Foggy Bottom.

After 9/11, Wolfowitz, Feith and his subordinate, Harold Rhode, recruited David Wurmser as a contractor from the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute to set up what became known internally as the “Wurmser-Maloof” project. F. Michael Maloof, neocon fellow traveler and former aide to Richard Perle, and Wurmser created a hidden intelligence unit, the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group, under Feith at the Pentagon. The purpose of the group was to end-run the CIA and create the rationale for invading Iraq. The parallel operations model was previously followed by Oliver North at the National Security Council and Elliott Abrams at State in their ill-fated Iran-Contra strategy. It should have come as no surprise that another neocon think-tank insider, Abram Shulsky, an Abrams colleague from their days as staffers to Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson, would end up heading up what became the Office of Special Plans, the secret intelligence unit at the Pentagon under Feith. The weapons of mass destruction disinformation that was fed to the president and to the American public came directly from Shulsky’s shop.

If we think about this….. The US already has made the world a much unsafer place with their politics. The “Beacon of Freedom” has already been diminished and who knows what will happen if Bush ever gets a second term.

This could get nasty and as much as I just wish that the US would move back onto their “Island” and leave the rest of the world alone, the chances for this are pretty much nil (okay, I am dreaming, they haven’t been there since at least 1939, but hey, one can dream, can’t one?).