(Roughly) Daily

A New Zealand man has found confidential United States military files on an MP3 player he bought at an op shop in the US.

Chris Ogle, 29, from Whangarei, bought the player from an Oklahoma thrift shop for $NZ18 ($A14.50), and found the files when he hooked it up to his computer…

The 60 files on the player contained the names and personal details of American soldiers, including ones who served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There was also information about equipment deployed to bases and a mission briefing.

“The more I look at it, the more I see and the less I think I should be,” Ogle said.

Victoria University strategic studies director Peter Cozens said one of the first rules of military endeavour was to not give the opposition information that could compromise your position.

“This is just slack administrative procedures which are indeed a cause of embarrassment. It’s the sort of thing which ought not really be in the public domain, he said.

Ogle said the player never worked as a music player and he would hand it over to the US Defence Department if asked.

–The Age (Australia), January 26, 2009.  See also, TVNZ story here.

As we remove our shoes and empty our toiletries into a bin at airport security, we might type a birthday note to John Baskerville, English printer and typefounder, who was born on this date in 1706.   Among Baskerville’s publications in the British Museum’s collection are Aesop’s Fables (1761), the Bible (1763), and the works of Horace (1770).  And as for his fonts,  Baskerville’s creations (including the famous “Baskerville”) were so successful that his competitors resorted to claims that they damaged the eyes.

The Baskerville typeface

(or click here— with sound on…)

As we clear our throats, we might pour a cup of birthday tea for English mathematician, logician, photographer, and Anglican cleric, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson– better known as the author Lewis Carroll– born on this date in 1832.

“There is no use in trying,” said Alice; “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

– Alice in Wonderland (nee “Alice’s Adventures Underground,” then “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”)

Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll

And we might might spare a sympathetic thought for Dante Alighieri, who was exiled from Florence on this date in 1302… sympathetic and grateful, as it was on his subsequent wanderings that he wrote The Divine Comedy…

Dante, as painted by Giotto on the wall of the Bargello in Florence; the oldest surviving portrait of the poet, from before his exile

Happy Mozart’s Birthday!

source: Waxy

The Oscar nominations were announced last Thursday, which means that it’s time to start preparing one’s pool entries.  It’s also a good time to check in on who’s ahead in the seemingly eternal struggle between the MPAA and the Internet. (Hint: It’s not the MPAA.)

Over on Waxy, Andy Baio has posted the results of his on-going monitoring of piracy of Oscar-nominated films.  He’s just released updated spreadsheets with this year’s 26 nominees, for a total of 211 films from the last seven years. (Download here, or view Google Spreadsheets here.)

It makes interesting reading…  It took longer this year for leaked films to make it to the web, but more of them did– 24 of the 26 nominated in major categories (25 of the 26, if one counts camcorder recordings).

As we wonder whether it’s too late to say “goodbye” when the horse has already left the barn, we might ask Baz Luhrmann for a waltz, as we celebrate Australia Day, which commemorates the day in 1788 on which Captain Arthur Phillip organized and officiated at the first ceremony of the new British colony then called New South Wales. The American Revolution had deprived Britain of penal colonies; in the 1780s, the Mother Country was keeping large numbers of miscreants in overcrowded prisons and even on old ships (“hulks”). The discovery (by Captain James Cook) of the Great South Land, Terra Australis, or New Holland, as Australia was variously named, gave Britain a new “parking place”… and Baz the subject for his Oscar-nominated film.

Captain Arthur Phillip

Australia

新年快乐 !!!  (Happy Year of the Ox!)

As one settles into the post-Inauguration reality of the hard work of turning hope into reality, one’s thoughts might well occasionally take an escapist turn.

Here, with thanks to MK, NileGuide’s/Josh Steinitz’s list of the Top 50 Adventure Books of All Time:  “In no particular order, I propose my favorite reading list for inveterate travelers and adventure enthusiasts, regardless of whether that enthusiasm has its outlet by way of an armchair or an airplane…”

The first ten:

1. The Snow Leopard – Peter Mathiessen’s seminal work about a journey of (re)discovery to the remotest Himalayan region of Nepal
2. Wind, Sand and Stars – an ode to the golden years of flying and adventure by the author of The Little Prince
3. The Long Walk – an epic tale of escape from a Russian prison camp followed by a 2,000 mile walk to freedom (so unbelievable that some have questioned its authenticity)
4. Three Cups of Tea – everyone’s favorite book about a climber discovering his true calling by building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan
5. No Picnic on Mount Kenya – Italian POW’s reinvigorate their own humanity through adventure
6. A Soldier of the Great War – sure it’s fiction, but this story set in the Italian Alps of World War I can’t help but ignite the adventurous spirit within all of us
7. Seven Years in Tibet – the book is better than the movie (duh)
8. The Climb – get the perspective of one of the real heroes of the 1996 Everest disaster, the late Anatoli Bourkreev
9. Into the Wild – while the movie was good, the book was better still. Krakauer weaves in his own personal dramas to add perspective
10. The Worst Journey in the World – this polar adventure fulfills the definition of “epic” in every sense of the word

In the original, all fifty are replete with links…  and all eminently worthy of a wistful read.

As we fasten our seat belts, we might remark that sometimes adventure pays:  it was on this date in 1905 that the largest diamond ever found was unearthed at the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa.  Frederick Wells discovered a 3,106-carat diamond (which weighed 1.33 pounds) during a routine inspection. The”Cullinan,” as it was named, after the owner of the mine, was ultimately given to King Edward VII, and was cut.  The resulting stones include the Star of Africa, a 530 carat stone– the largest fine-quality colorless cut diamond in the world, mounted in the British Sovereign’s Royal Scepter– and the 371 carat Star of Africa II, mounted in the Imperial State Crown. Both are on view at the Tower of London.

The Star of Africa, the largest of nine stones cut from the Cullinan Diamond

The good folks at Gamu Toys in Japan are offering the ultimate celebratory souvenir of the New Administration– The Barack Obama Action Figure!

Accessories include the depicted microphone, stool, and flag; so far so good…  but they also include several sidearms and automatic weapons, a samurai sword and a light saber.

Update:  From the time that this post was composed to the time (early this morning) when it was uploaded, Gamu must have taken some heat…  The photos inserted below, which were linked to their site, disappeared.  Indeed, the entire page illustrating the arsenal available has gone:  the button on Gamu’s home page that led there (the photo elements is lift from a larger photo of our new President drawing a large automatic pistol from under his elegantly-draped jacket) is still present:

… but it’s deader than one of the bad guys that your appropriately-armed Obama action figure can annihilate.   The toy’s still available, but in a sanitized version, with or without the optional McCain figure (for those anxious to restage the debates)…  Ah, political correctness…

As we marvel at ingeniousness in popular culture, we might recall that it was on this date in 1927 that Alfred Hitchcock’s first film– The Pleasure Garden— opened in England…  a scant eight years before the first beer in a can made its appearance (on this date in 1935) in Richmond, VA.