Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern | The Daily Post

1930s US Army aircraft markings

Sunrise over the Plateau

Reflections in a window, Alexandra, VA

Lighty things at LAX

Slates on the roof of the bell tower of the Flanders Museum in Ieper. An accidental shutter click…

Iron fencing outside St Patrick’s Basilica, Oamaru

Light show on the roof of Fremont Street, Las Vegas

Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern | The Daily Post.

Throw the pin!!

Our morning routine during the week goes something like wake around 0610, jug on…shower, dress etc…breakfast and a cuppa in front of TV1′s Breakfast show – really the only morning show in town plus it has an onscreen clock for those that need to be out the door by a certain time each morning…

Some issues were discussion this morning that I thought worthy of further comment…

The Gilmore Grenade

A couple of weeks back, lowest listed National Party MP, Aaron Gilmore, lipped off at the staff in a bar in Hamner Springs when they refused to serve him. Although he denies it, accounts from staff and others in his party (dobbed by your buds, Aaron!!)  confirm that he threatened to get the Prime Minister to fire the staff member in question. Like, y’know, the PM just sits around like some sort of political Gargamel waiting to smite down any who dare to oppose his lowliest listed MP…

I’d never heard of this clown until the week before when he ‘starred” (not in the positive sense of the word) on Backbenchers, a local political talk-back session that screens every Wednesday night after Strike Back…which is not to say that I am a big fan of Strike Back or anything else derived from Chris Ryan but we have taken a bit of a shine to Elementary which screens just before it…A bit of a shine? Nah, let’s be honest about it – I prefer it over the overhyped pretension of Sherlock and the buffoonery of Robert Downey’s big screen Holmes AND it’s got not only a female Watson as a nice bit of contemporisation but it’s Lucy Liu who could also be described simply as a ‘nice bit’…

Anyway…back to clown boy…the topic for discussion that night was the passage of the same sex marriage act and the National Party representative aka clown boy was clearly unprepared and tried to bluster his way through the discussion – really he should just have had another pint and slid quietly under the table. So, it wasn’t really any surprise when news broken on his antics in Hamner Springs the following week. Since then we’ve all gotten to watch the Aaron Show as he has denied, apologised, denied again…I think it was a caller on Radio Live that suggested that the following night, Gilmore should have fronted at the bar, apologised (sincerely) to everyone and tossed a couple of grand on the bar…

Last night he announced his resignation from Parliament to a big sigh of relief from everyone – who says that the parties can not agree unanimously on anything? – but promising utu (revenge or payback) on ‘those responsible in his final speech today…while we all wait with baited breath to learn the contents of the Gilmore grenade today, my only advice to Clown Boy is “Throw the pin, Aaron!!“

Just get on with it now…

Before the 2011 election the Government announced its plans to create a national convention centre in central Auckland in partnership with Sky Casino – all the usual haters fired up at the time but now that Government has announced details of this project and the specifics of the relationship with the casino. Essentially, the casino will fund the construction of the convention centre – a projected cost around $420 million – in return for concessions to expand its number of pokie machines and gaming tables, and for some guarantee of protection from future anti-gaming legislation.

All the haters are in full cry again now, having squandered the last year and a half in which they could have sought to block the project. I’m not a big fan of gambling but I also don’t think that a few more pokie machines and gaming tables in the centre of Auckland is going to rip the fabric of the space-time continuum, certainly not when these and other forms of gambling continue to flourish across the country. If the Greens and Labour whiny-haters really wanted to do something about this, then instead of wasting the period from the flash of the initial announcements in 2011 to the bang of the confirmations this week, they could/should have:

Come up with their own plan for funding the construction of the convention centre – no-one really seems to think that this is a bad idea – noting the country is kinda broke due to the unforeseen need to rebuild a major city from scratch.

Developed their own comprehensive AND practical plan for reducing access to to gambling systems and machines across the country – including Lotto and the good old TAB.

Realised that there is more to be in opposition than just attacking everything that the Government does – the continual bleating from David Shearer, the ‘leader’ of the Opposition is just irritating – we might as well bring back Winston Peters: at least he’s entertaining and, funnily enough, was canny enough to include an anti-pokie stand in his manifesto for the 2011 election…

Nutty is as nutty does…

Apparently, in a fit of rampant nannystatism, schools are Australia are banning nuts from school lunches to protect those with nut-based allergies…I kid you not!! Is this a clear case of schools abdicating themselves of even more responsibility when, if there ever was something that kids need some education on, it is dealing with potentially lethal conditions like this…wrapping them in nanny state cotton wool will only prepare them LESS for the real world…

And speaking of things in the real world…

Tossed

An interesting hype piece X-47B UCAS Launches the Next Era of Naval Aviation popped up on the FB feed this morning – and that’s all it is, more X-47 hype.

You can launch a 40 foot container off the end of a US Nimitz-class aircraft carrier so tossing an X-47 off the pointy end of a carrier is not really an achievement in itself. The real achievement and major step ahead for naval aviation will come when an X-47 lands autonomously on the blunt end of an aircraft carrier, catching the ’3′ wire and all that other good Maverick stuff (will be be equipped for the mandatory post-mission high fives?), as the business of carrier aviation goes on around it – so long as some dodgy Chinese fiend doesn’t pop an electromagnetic pulse just as the UAV commits to landing on the deck – maybe there should be an extra Phalanx under the ramp – just in case…?

Please, don’t get me wrong…I think that the technology going into the X-47 programme is way cool and probbaly heard the next full generational of unmanned aviation but…please…stop with the endless hype…

PS…if you want to have a credible blog site, Navy Live, grow a set and stop moderating your comments…

Lost?

How appropriate that the air port inside the Flight Test Center Airspace is Truth or Consequences Airport? Maybe we could have one called Put up of Shut Up?

Inside the drone economy discusses US plans to establish six UAS test flight areas within the continental UAS, and the current battle between the states to acquire one of these potentially lucrative areas. I just wonder, with our relatively clear and open airspace, domestically and over the big blue thing, whether we have lost an opportunity in attracting UAS-related technologies to New Zealand for test flight and other experimental activities…?

Survivor?

Fresh of the presses at Deep Diver Intel as I was typing this…for reasons unknown but bound to be scary, Global Hawk gets a US$555 million reincarnation to 2015…has anyone done any counter-UAS research on the effects of silver bullets, holy water and wooden stakes on aging technologies that just won’t die…?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Change | The Daily Post

These stairs were a Trademe score…I noticed them on the ‘closing soon’ page with 20 minutes to run and after a quick phone confab, we tossed in a bid for $2k fully expecting to be outbid by all the watchers ( the stairs are, after all, genuine rimu – and the spiral hand rail is a single piece) and were blown away to pick them up for the mere $600…

We were further amazed when we met the seller in Wellington that he had intended to only list them once – after being nagged into it by a friend – before converting them into firewood. He also threw in, at no extra costs. a complete set of rimu kitchen cupboard doors which had been destined for the firewood heap as well. Even so, he had meticulously itemised and numbered every piece so that the joiners were able to re-assemble it with no difficulty. They did have to take all the parts to their workshop some 55km away as that was the only place with a high enough ceiling to assemble and work on it.

Above you see us as the assembled stairs are delivered back to Raurimu, as we head-scratched and considered how to get them in through the front door (fortunately a double door) and into position (assembled, this thing wasn’t light!!). We managed though:

…and these are the horrible things that we got rid off in favour of the spiral – the drop down the central beam was a good metre or so – awesome with small children – NOT!!!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Change | The Daily Post.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture | The Daily Post

 

Two cultures at the same time, adjusting to learning all about electronics and stuff in a trade environment…

….while also learning a new green culture Wednesday nights

and weekends…

 

…not too many photos from those days, well before the advent of anything remotely digital (and affordable), relying on a little 110 camera…

…view from a Telecom tower ‘somewhere in Southland‘…

…’home sweet home’ somewhere in the Tekapo Training Area January 1984

Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture | The Daily Post.

 

 

My Little Life: Five Question Friday!! 5/3/13

1. What is your next home improvement goal?

In priority order….

BATHROOM!!!!!! BATHROOM!!!!!! BATHROOM!!!!!! BATHROOM!!!!!!

Knocking out the wall between the current shower and the rest of the bathroom; shifting the shower into the opposite corner of the bathroom and putting the bath in the area where the shower is now…

This wall goes and the bath goes in the new area;

…the windows are replaced by a full-length bi-fold or sliding door that  provides full access to the bush outside…

…seal up the sleep-out cottage by fitting clear roofing over the deck(ette) and mounting windows (currently in storage in the Chalet’s garage where the plywood panels are at the moment; flip the door so that it opens the other way towards the direction people approach from the Lodge; the cool bendy tree in the foreground will go as it has passed away and the deck will be extended  another metre or two….

…at the moment the dining room bifolds open out to nowhere: the plan is to put a floor level deck out here extending out as far as the gate post in the foreground and, in Deck Phase 1, to just past the kitchen window (to about where the bush under the pantry window is now; Phase 2 will see the deck extended to meet the spa deck steps and around the corner to the back door…if the ugly internet satellite dish can not pick up any decent TV channels it will go to as we know have fixed line broadband

2. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be? No religious texts (ie Bible, Quran, Torah, etc, etc)…

This is a toughy…I once spent six week in Vietnam with only one English book and no access to any bookshop selling books in English til my last night in Saigon…had to settle for many many re-reads of Vulcan’s Glory (I’ll add the text as there’s not mcuh as most people lack the fitness to click on the link anyways)

The novel focuses on a young Spock, a conflicted ensign, serving on the Starship Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike. Spock is having a difficult time dealing with his Vulcan heritage and how it conflicts with his duties as an officer and what he wants personally.

Spock soon becomes involved in a mission to retrieve the ‘Vulcan’s Glory’, a priceless gem long thought lost in a spaceship crash. It is soon discovered there is far more to this mission then readily apparent.

The novel focuses on the crew of the Enterprise from the period featured in the pilot episode The Cage. A younger Montgomery Scott also appears.

That was challenging, character-building even, but I survived with no (visible) scars…looking around the library now at all the books that I have read so many times, I am conflicted…I’m leaning towards a classic like George Lucas’ original Star Wars, or possibly Dean Koontz’ Watchers or Lightning…?

3. What is on top of your refrigerator?

Dog treats, soap crystals in case one of the dogs picks up any of the poison that the Department of Conservation persist in dropping everywhere , tea pot because it is handy and unlikely to get knocked off, bug zapper, token pot plant, random stuff up high and out of sight out of mind when the girls are here….

4. What are your favorite or most used phone apps?

My phone is not really app-compliant or -capable but it does has Lego Star Wars on it from the time when the twins were born and we were spending a lot of time hanging around in hospital waiting rooms…

5. What’s the one thing you hate most about your spouses job?

That they don’t recognise her for what she does, more so considering that THEY headhunted HER for the job…be nice if some of that recognition involved extra income but ‘thank you‘ also goes a long way…

via My Little Life: Five Question Friday!! 5/3/13.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: From Above | The Daily Post

Looking down on a novel and innovative mousetrap in A Department of Conservation hut near Mt Cook during a school trip in 1981…the beer bottle is wrapped in a sock to stop it rolling away and had a chunk of cheese jammed in the opening…the rest is simple physics…

As much as I aspire to always use my own images in these challenges, this time I can resist putting in a plug for my mate, Rowland at Hawkeye UAV who has combined cutting edge geospatial technologies with state of the art small UAS technologies for the ultimate in commercially useful look-down applications. In addition, this is largely base don Kiwi home-grown innovation and smarts…

This imagery is from a recent task over New Plymouth, New Zealand and over a clearly urban area which gives the lie to the know-it-all doomsayers that state that small UAS can not operate safely over urban areas…

…don’t forget that this is a 3D image – as you scroll it the perspective and relationships between features on the ground change…

…and all done from Hawkeye’s own AreoHawk UAS…

Weekly Photo Challenge: From Above | The Daily Post

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xRGOGvak-Pw]

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up | The Daily Post

Looking up at the Lindberg XF-91 that I built for the Unofficial Airfix Modellers Forum (UAMF) 2008Classic American Kits Group Build…the pilot has dropped his pencil and is just leaning forward to pick it up hence the white of his helmet being so far forward in the cockpit…

Actually, I didn’t quite finish it…the reason that many of my shots of this aircraft are looking up at it is that while I was adding the markings, I reached for my trusty bottle of Mr Mark Softener (bottle with a bright green top) to assist the US national marking to settle closely over the rivets etc on the wing but picked up instead my equally trusty but in this case not appropriate bottle of Tamiya Extra Thin Cement (bottle with a bright green top) with the result that half the the star and bar marking instantly dissolved into a murky smear…

One of these days, I’m planning on stripping it back and finishing it off properly, doing a decent paint job on, or replacing the original pilot, and adding the undercarriage…some day…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up | The Daily Post.

To library or not to library…?

I woke around 4-ish this morning, couldn’t get back to sleep and so reached for my trusty Nook e-reader to pass the time…only to find that the charge had dropped below the critical point of usefulness. After tiptoeing through a darkened house, trying to avoiding stepping on sleeping Labweillers, I located the Nook power cable, and plugged it in – and found that it does not automatically switch on when connected to the mains and had to wait another 10-15 minutes before it decided it was powered up enough to be useful again…this I was a little dark on e-readers this morning…

We always watch Breakfast on TV1 as part of our weekday morning routine…cereal (muesli, porridge or Weetbix), toast and a hot cuppa being the other key components…one of the stories discussed co
mments made by a member of the Marlborough District Council  proposing that public libraries should consider dropping hard copy books in favour of issuing e-readers to library card holders and providing library services digitally.

Looking at their stats, you can see their point…while I don’t agree that councils should issue e-readers – this would be the same as Fatso issuing all its members DVD players – simply if you wish to use a service, then you need to invest in the personal/domestic infrastructure to employ that service. But the idea has merit: some public libraries are already e-lending e-books and one could see advantages for rural libraries that service a large geographic area with a relatively small population base who have to travel some distance to a physical library.

The biggest risk to such a proposal would be the need to ensure the security of the digital intellectual property of each book so that the digital protection couldn’t simply be stripped off. In theory, the same risk applies to traditional books but it’s not the same: copying or scanning a full book requires A LOT MORE effort than stripping the digital protection off an e-book. From this perspective, maybe it would be worthwhile for libraries to issue a proprietary reader that does not allow files to be transferred to other media. This might possibly be similar to the protected printing systems employed by Gremir and Word Of Tanks for their commercial downloadable paper models?

Assuming that all lending from public libraries goes digital (assuming a transitional phase for oldies and others that still prefer traditional printed books), does this mean the death of public libraries? I don’t think so – if anything, with some smart leadership (which might eliminate a number of councils) it could lead to more effective use of scarce resources (people and dollars) to enhance the reading and information assistance roles of a library; the public library of old may be the public I-hub of the future, providing a multi-lane on-ramp to the informational superhighway…

Ragged Bloody Heroes

 

21st Century Military Operations

Martin Dransfield also presented at Massey on his return from commanding the New Zealand PRT in Bamiyan Province in Afghanistan in 2010. That was an insightful perspective into aspects of that operation well beyond what has been reported int he media and I am sure that this one will be equally enlightening…

Centre for Defence and Security Studies Public Lecture

Colonel Martin Dransfield’s career has spanned five decades and has included tours to Northern Ireland and to the divided city of Berlin during the 1980′s, the Sinai as part of the Multinational Force and Observers mission, Timor as the second New Zealand Battalion’s Commanding Officer in 2000, and Afghanistan as the Commander of New Zealand’s Provincial Reconstruction Team in Bamyan during 2009 and 2010. He has just returned from a two year tour as the United Nations Chief Military Liaison Officer in Timor Leste, which culminated with the United Nations successfully closing down the mission in December 2012.

Based on these experiences he is well qualified to comment on today’s operational environment. Moreover, as New Zealand ends its missions to Timor Leste, the Solomon Islands and Afghanistan, Colonel Dransfield’s personal observations provide a useful insight into Joint, Multinational and United Nations approaches to operations. He will share these thoughts during a forum in Massey on 15 May 2013.