New Dawn?

This is a rather interesting story which is not getting the cover that it deserves. 

Spacecraft successfully inflates in orbit

Bigelow have been working on this for a while and the hotel magnate has been shoveling a fair amount of his cash into this programme since picking up the rights to use the Transhab concept from NASA.

I have many many issues with this.  Not least of which the point that this is exactly the sort of technology that NASA ought to be funding/working with, it's a good thing that Bigelow have now demonstrated the concept, but without a method of getting people and equipment to the modules they are essentially of marginal use.

While he has offered a new space prize, $50M for a craft capable of delivering 4 to his space station, there are many question marks, at least in my mind, about this.

Billy Joel

Saw Billy Joel at Wembly Arena last night.  This is something M has wanted to do for years.  She had tickets for the 1998 concert where he was meant to be on stage with Elton John but he had to fly home sick.  So, this was what she wanted to catch up on.

Interesting concert, not bad but in two distinct halves and I'm not a huge fan of the Arena as a concert venue.  The first half was more a old stuff and jazz jamming session with his backing band.  A lot of talking to the audience and a lot of stuff I didn't really recognise, but which was really popular with a lot of the fan base.

Half way through he switch tempo and moved into the more famous stuff.  There were a couple of omissions but nothing I thought was serious.  He can certainly work a crowd well, better than pretty much anybody I've seen except for Jools Holland, who is a god when it comes to get the audience involved. (at least in my opinion).

He did just about 2 and a half hours non-stop with no support group, which I think was pretty good. 

It would have been much better at the Albert Hall though.

AKICIF

One of the problems... one of the many problems with downloading TV from the net for later playback is handling the god awful mess of codecs.

My current problem, which is apparently beyond my meagre skills, is playing Quicktime files on Windows Media.   Anybody have any ideas?  I have to do this in order to comfortable watch them on the home media centre and not arse around with the desktop and  the really dire Quicktime UI and/or be able to use the remote control.

Thoughts?

I can get the Video codec to play fine in WM but not audio.

Travel/Life ... Update/Forecast

Right ho... back off again on Sunday to Seattle on the Boeing/MS No49 bus.  Probably flying to Dallas at oh my god it's early o'clock on Tuesday, then back to Seattle on Wednesday.  Thursday night back on the No.48 bus.

I've a fun week of fire fighting to do - a few problems brewed in the time I was on holiday. Plus Ca Change and all that...

Next Saturday we're off to see Avenue Q, which sounds fun.

August is a tricky one.  My passport, only 3 years old, is falling apart and practically full.  So I'm planning to fast track a new passport and also do my US L1 Visa application, which we will also fast track.  I should get that through sometime in August and we can go and get the interview late August. So, no US visits during August.  However, I do need to go to Asia - so I'll have to do battle with the travel goblins and work out a sensible routing for Japan, Seoul and Taipai.  We will also need to start getting our affairs in order for a move.  Frankly, this isn't going to be fun, as we'll have to rent the flat out, store a load more stuff, work out shipping etc...

September - Maryse is possibly back in New York, so we might effectively move to the US for much of September.  I'll need to sort out a corporate appartment and all that jazz.

October - we've a week booked in RSA for Ms dad's 80th, so we have to do that.  Then back in the UK for a few days and we'll fly to Seattle some around October 14t - essentially for the next 2 years. 

Well, that's the plan.  There's a few hurdles to get through before that and it is a rather daunting thought.

In other news, I lost my house keys yesterday, so I have to go and get a new set cut.

Bugger.

This is not good...

I love our special relationship... don't you?

BBC NEWS | UK | 'NatWest Three' on flight to US

This is a tricky one.  What they did was certainly reprehensible, however, there are several important issues here.

1. They have been extradicted to a foreign country for an alleged crime commited in the UK
2. The authorities in this country did not consider it to be a legal issue
3. The allegedly defrauded group, NatWest Bank, did not consider it to be an issue
4. The treaty under which they have been extradicted is currently unilateral

The last point is the one that makes my blood boil.  We should, under no circumstances have unilateral treaties with foreign governments which give them the right to extradict UK nationals with essentially no evidence presented in a court.

Sending a minister to the US to ask them to ratify is simply not good enough at this stage.

FreeSat from Sky

Is a complete and utter waste of time.

That is all.  Move along please, nothing to see here.