If you don’t know what that is, you must not be into computers…so I’ll tell you.  It’s a $25 (or $35) computer, smaller than a credit card – though thicker – that uses an ARM processor (like in most mobile phones and tablets.)

The whole thing only uses 5W of power, and runs Linux (at least for a start.)  There’s videos of it online running XBMC (popular media server software) and doing all sorts of interesting things.  There’s also an addon (already) called the Gertboard that will let you control devices and motors and so on.

What I like the most about it is that I could put a computer – a fully-capable computer – anywhere I could supply 5W of electricity.  I could control things with it, take pictures, really do whatever I wanted.

To a lot of people, the Raspberry Pi represents a cheap computer.  And though that is certainly true, to me it means more of a chance to hack stuff together.  5W isn’t a lot of power – it’s low enough to run on battery power and/or cheap battery backup power, it’s small and it’s very capable.

Besides all that, it doesn’t run some strange embedded operating system that nobody uses – it run Linux – so there’s an absolute ton of software already out there for it.

To me the represents a new opportunity to hack.  To play with a new system and see what you can make it do…see what you can make it control or where you can make it fit.  For me, this brings back memories of sitting in a friend’s basement (you know who you are, Pete) with his 300 baud modem to see what it could do and how far it could go.  Those wild-west days of whatever went that passed from our consciousness a long time ago.

So it’s not just a chance to play with a new toy…it’s the chance to actually learn something new, and maybe even to invent something.

We truly do live in interesting times.

And though I suppose it makes sense, as they’ve been unable to keep up with the digital photographic revolution, it’s going to be sad to see the old girl go.

My whole life, the name Kodak has been synonymous with photography. From the Super 8 movies my Dad shot of us as children, to the film and paper used for my high school pictures, to the Kodachrome slides I shot in the 90′s, Kodak has been with me the whole way.

Of course, the advent of the digital camera has seen the end to all that, and I knew in my heart when I bought my first digital camera – a Canon S10 Digital Elph with all of 2.1 Megapixels – that the day would come when ‘classic’ photography would go away.

Yes, there are still niche markets for things like reverse-engineered Polaroid film (The Impossible Project) and there are still people out there creating daguerrotypes, but the mainstream went digital years ago and there’s no going back.

One thing that’s changed and that most people don’t realize is why people take the pictures they take. I remember when ‘the camera’ only came out for special occasions like Christmas and birthdays, and of course you took it on vacation. Just about every picture of me as a child is of me at Christmas, on my birthday, or somewhere on vacation.

Comparing this to the pictures we have of our kids, all of which are digital, you can see a real difference. Sure, we have the birthday shots, and we have the Christmas shots, but we’ve also got loads of Easter shots, playtime shots, walking-down-the-street shots – we’ve got shots of the kids doing just about anything you can think of, and we’ve got thousands of them. Pushing the button on a digital camera costs nothing, so there’s no disincentive to taking another shot, or another 100 shots.  Though the subject of the photos is as important as it always was, the photograph itself is a worthless commodity item because it’s just so cheap to create.

Add to that the ever-decreasing price of global data transmission and you get services like Facebook. Yes, Facebook, where not only do I get to see pictures of what people are doing or where they are, I can easily see them while they’re still on the slopes or wherever it is they are while they’re still there.  It also lets me see critical things like what people are about to eat for dinner…or what their dog ate for dinner.

Because pictures are so cheap to create, we’re snapping the things at an alarming rate. I can’t find any numbers that look credible to me, but I don’t think it would come as a surprise to anyone if it were that 10 billion digital pictures were taken every day.

And because the things are so cheap to create, we don’t put the same value on them that we used to. Pictures are disposable things now – valueless things that exist only as a stream of digital bits – and that’s how we treat them.

I also worry about keeping our digital photo library backed up, but that’s another article.

It’s a real shame, too, because negatives and slides are tangible, valuable objects that have stood the test of time.  And you’ll never just stumble across a hard disk drive in a shoebox in the back of the closet.

Flash em' your Coppertone tan!

So Kim Jong-il is finally dead.  That can’t be a bad thing, right?  Perhaps Hennessy will get cheaper now that one of their biggest customers has stopped placing orders?

Maybe not.

As I write this, a spectacle the likes of which probably hasn’t been seen in a generation is unfolding in Pyongyang to put the DPRK‘s “Dear Leader” to rest.  It’s really too bad that when he died a big hand didn’t come down from the sky – plastic bag wrapped around it – to scoop him up and discard him like so much dog refuse.

Or perhaps he could be turned into Soylent Green to feed a few of his long-suffering people.  Alas, that stuff’s made out of people – so this piece of crap wouldn’t qualify.

Thing is, now that he’s gone, what can we expect from the “Great Successor” Kim Jong-un?

The first thing I expect is more of the same.  Sure, the kid’s gotten a taste of Western education and he might have had some ideas at some point – but absolute power corrupts absolutely and he will be no different.  Even I, if I had as many people kissing my ass as he must have, might become convinced that my derriere was the font of all knowledge.

The Six-party talks will likely be resumed before the northern spring, and I think anyone would expect renewed demands for rice, oil (both the cooking and burning kinds), et cetera.  All the usual suspects, and perhaps another thing or two chucked in just to up the ante a bit.  Maybe some Space Kimchi?

I also think we’ll see another nuclear test, and that we’ll see it sooner rather than later…perhaps even before the Six-party talks have a chance to resume.  We should also expect some sort of artillery barrage across the DMZ – perhaps even toward Yeonpyeong Island, naval exercises, massive troop movement and all that sort of stuff.  Maybe even another missile or three over Japan.

And, while they do all that, their state-run media organs will all be spouting vitriol at anyone who will listen.

It’s funny we always say “North Korea’s state-run media” when it’s all state-run there.  A free press is anathema to such a system of government – or whatever the heck you can call what they have.

Kim Jong-un (KJU) will want to do this not only to try to scare the pants off South Korea, but to solidify his own fledgling power – to show anyone that might take a shot at him that he’s not one to be trifled with.

I would think that DPRK has had the groundwork laid for another test laid for some time, and that Kim Jong-il was merely waiting for some point in time when he needed our undivided attention.  I think right about now would be a good time (at least in Kim Jong-un’s eyes) to get our attention, and nothing gets attention more than a nice seismic shock measured on the other side of the globe.

Of course, this will be young Jong-un’s first foray into International Brinkmanship, so we might just get the nuke test and nothing else.  That’s something that can be carried out with a smaller number of people than any of the other available options, and those people are probably so well taken care of that their loyalty is beyond reproach.

But why do anything at all?  Why not just sit tight?

The DPRK sustains itself through its adversarial relationship with, well, everyone else.  Right now, the West is focused on Iran and the Arab World in general.  The Arab Spring has seen revolution in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and almost Yemen, there’s ongoing protest and massacre in Syria and rebellion was violently crushed in Bahrain.  Even more governments – Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Morocco, Jordan and even Saudi Arabia have announced or made changes in an attempt to placate protesters.  Going back to Egypt for a moment, you’d think that giving Mubarak the boot would be enough but it certainly doesn’t seem to be.  I’m not on the ground there, but it almost seems like some Egyptians have made a quasi-occupation of protesting for the sake of it.  Not to mention that the USA has just pulled completely out of Iraq and they’re now almost-certainly headed for a renewed – and protracted – civil war that might see the leadership there move closer to Iran.  There’s a lot to be worried about over there right now.

So what is the DPRK to do to counter all of that – and it’s surely a lot – without expending too much effort or upsetting the status quo too much?  You guessed it – a nuclear test.

I’m going to go even further out onto my limb here and say that I think they’ll test a fusion device if they can manage it at all.  The bigger the bang, so the thinking must go, the more attention will be paid to them and the greater the concessions that can be extracted.  About that, I think they would be correct.  War on the Korean Peninsula is an unthinkable horror, and the South has more than enough money to keep buying them off.

Because, let’s face it, if you gave each of DPRK’s 1.2 Million soldiers a piece of paper and a straw they could still do enough damage to South Korea to completely collapse their economy and draw us all back into another war we can’t win.

Then again, I could be totally wrong.  Kim Jong-un could delay making major changes while he consolidates his power, and then he could spring some elections or a ‘peoples caucus’ or something like that – maybe even complete reunification with South Korea is a possibility.  I doubt that, but I still hope I’m wrong.

So hang onto your hats, folks, we’re headed back to the brink with these jokers.  The only question is how close to the edge they will push this time around.

And I wonder what he likes to drink?

I just love the “Imported from Detroit” line. Says as much about an industry trying to rebuild and reinvent itself as any tagline I’ve ever seen.

Sure, there’s some frank assessments of World leaders in there, and maybe some embarrassing stuff…like Gadhaffi’s cadre of hot nurses, and Silvio Berlusconi being up Putin’s arse about as far as he can get.  On the whole (pun intended) I think it’s giving us a peek into a place that normally us mere mortals would never get to tread.  It’s exciting armchair-espionage at its very best.

The thing that’s totally changed my attitude are the revelations about North Korea, and how it is viewed by China.  We’ve always thought that China was a staunch ally of the DPRK, perhaps the only thing keeping it afloat.  And now we find out that the Chinese have had quite enough of Pyongyang, thank you very much.

They’re all for Korean reunification, as long as the New Korea was not aggressive toward them.  And, really, why would they be?  The Korean electronics powerhouse, now with more cheap labour that would be just so happy to have something to eat, right on China’s doorstep?  I couldn’t think of a more beneficial arrangement if I tried.

So we found that out through the cables, but that’s all rather unofficial.  But, of course, the Chinese have seen their chance and have now publicly stated that this is correct.

I’m now firmly in the camp that believes WikiLeaks is a force for good in the World.  If it forces a resolution on the Korean Peninsula – bloody or not – I believe we will all be better off.  (Yes, it might be bloody, but I don’t think any of us can reasonably say that it doesn’t have to happen sooner or later.)

Bye, bye, Kim Jong-il and Kim jong-un.  Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

What with the passing of Richard “Mr.” Blackwell a couple years ago and the loss of his worst-dressed list, the time is ripe for you to step up with a New Year’s list of the Fools You Pity.

Just think of all the hilarity you could give to the World every year with a list of those you pity the most.  Actors, wannabe actors, politicians, public figures, people who died in strange ways like that cave guy, The Queen…really, you’ve got limitless material there.

If you need help writing it, I can be available.  But please, whatever you do, do this.

Cheers,
Daryl

Since Robert Dziekanski was cruelly taken down by four RCMP officers with substantial assistance from such a Taser, I have been watching this with great interest.  And I say it’s about damn time.

For Taser to maintain for so very long that their guns are absolutely harmless to all simply defies reason.  Anything that can make someone involuntarily drop to the floor and writhe in pain cannot possibly be harmless, yet through aggressive litigation they have managed to silence law enforcement, courts, lawyers and even medical examiners.

Tasers were originally approved as a “less-lethal” alternative to the use of a firearm in disabling dangerous suspects.  I don’t know specifically when it happened, but somewhere along the way it became okay to zap anything that didn’t immediately succumb to a spoken word or two – whether they were a danger to anything or anyone, including themselves – became irrelevant.

For that irrelevance, I blame Taser.  They present reams and reams of research and evidence that they have bought and paid for as though it is the empirical scientific data it is not.  It only serves to reassure the people that use them that they will do no harm.  And if it will do no harm, what harm is there in zapping an old lady when she’s small and you’re obviously huge?

Not that it matters.  Our police do need something that is less lethal than a gun, and that thing might as well be a Taser.  It is less lethal, after all.  And I suppose I’d rather be knocked down with electricity than with a hail of bullets just about any day of the week.

But let’s at least acknowledge that these things are dangerous.  Let’s admit that they can cause grievous bodily harm, and let’s get the people who carry them to treat them with the same respect they would treat a firearm.  As long as the capacity to kill is there, it cannot be ignored.  To do so makes fools of all of us.

It does strike me that Big Tobacco did much the same thing for a very long time.  Cigarettes weren’t addictive, they weren’t dangerous, they just tasted great and made you a sexy cowboy or something.  Of course, now we know they were lying through their teeth the whole time, and I suspect the same sort of revelation from Taser in the years to come.

So, come on, Taser.  Fess up to these things being dangerous.  Sell them as something that is dangerous.  I’m sure Glock or Smith & Wesson or Colt or Browning or whoever doesn’t get sued when someone gets shot by a gun they made, so put yourselves in the same boat.  It won’t stop the police from buying them, but I suppose you might sell less cartridges for them as they would hopefully be used much less.

I used to watch Stompin’ Tom on the Tommy Hunter Show years ago. Brings back such good memories of the family crowded around the TV on a Sunday. I suppose everyone waxes lyrical about their “good ol’ days”, and these are mine.

And, for your viewing enjoyment, one of his masterpieces:

As I sit here right now, a wire-cutting machine is making its way through the riser tube on the top of the blowout preventer.  And through the cut that is being made, an absolute torrent of oil is coming forth.

Just a couple minutes ago @ 11:07PM:

You can see the oil starting to gush out past the wire into the coin-slot that has been cut.  It looks to be under rather high pressure.

11:11PM:

The notch hasn’t been cut much further in by now, but you can see that the amount of oil forcing itself out has increased dramatically.  And all this while the broken part of the riser continues to gush at seemingly the same rate as before.

One gets the sense that cutting off that kinked pipe is going to release an absolute torrent of oil, and they had better have that cap ready to go or this is going to be really, really bad.

11:14PM:

Even worse now.