What Was That?

I Find Myself Obliged To Hurry And Scurry
Forsooth! For I fell asleep last night, which one expects to happen, except usually in bed rather than in one's unfeasibly comfy chair, and which said sleep crept up sneakily, so I did not get to type any of this scrivel as of the 8th inst.  Thus this ante meridian I find myself writing retrospectively, because if I'd paused to hammer out these words at The Mansion, why - I'd have missed the bus.  So these lines are being created up in the 17th Floor, with a vista of the Pennines off in the distance, for Lo! (big on biblical exclamations this morning) are the heavens not dry today?

     Here an aside.  Back to Barca!  Take a gander at this and rest yer glazzies on it for a moment.  I think it's an auditorium; the facts are a bit fuzzy -

A concert hall.  Very possibly.

  - as I wasn't making notes at this point, merely relying on the Ho-Ho bus map to inform me.  And it's at home right now.  There is our faithful friend Google - <Googles             ineffectually> DAMN YOUR EYES GOOGLE! - which is no use at all.                                 

Then there was this -

This is obviously <Googles ineffectually once again and decides to make it up>* er - the solar power plant for the hidden Strategic Swarm Missiles lurking in their Gerry Anderson hidden silos beneath the bustling streets of Barca, ever-ready to launch in the event of a Mysteron attack -                                                                                                          

Something like that.Next!                                                                                                 

WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS!

This is the Torre Agbar, for those of you with a septic sump for a mind, and it is one of the dominating architectural features of the Barca skyline.  it is stuffed full of businesses, though you and I can go in and have a nosy on the ground floor if the fancy takes us.  They

illuminate it at night, which - if Art can put down that nuclear fuel-rod he's sucking           empty        

                                                                                                                     

Thus

Then it was off again, to that tourist magnet the Sagrada Familia, this being an internationally-renowned church designed by that scion of Barca, Mister Gaudi.  Art?

There you go

Apparently it's not finished yet, which Your Humble Scribe can believe, since there were a couple of honest artisans footling around on the outside with a Banging Machine (you         know what I mean - a piece of heavy plant machinery designed and intended solely to        MAKE A VERY LOUD BANGING NOISE).  This they then managed to break, in full view of many thousands of tourists, and were then reduced to hitting it with hammers, since they had a quota of banging noises to commit to?  One presumes.  Or perhaps they were just angry with it and were venting their hot Iberian tempers.  This was about the closest Darling Daughter and I got to the works of Mr. Gaudi, since we'd spent so long at the Zoo that when we turned off at the stop for Park Guell, it was about to close.                       

                Oh well. On our next visit, perhaps?  We did come across a scary store-end mural, however, so it wasn't an entirely wasted journey.  Art?                                           

They only have 3 fingers

     I think it's now time to be merciful and stop the Barca bombardment.  Don't worry, we'll be back tomorrow with MORE MORE MORE!

     Shelli, a work colleague, rashly enquired what the blog consists of.

     Scrivel, Shelli, pure unadulterated scrivel!  The finest nonsense created for your purulent eyes on a daily basis.  And we got over a hundred hits yesterday, so someone is reading this.

         

                                                                  Meet two of my biggest fans!

     Now, it only remains to hurl the parachute (weighted with rocks) out of the aircraft and then propel the motley after it!  Get on with it, motley - if Keanu and Arnold can do it, then it must be easy!**

Today's Title -
Comes from a passing acquaintance I made with a thought experiment yesteryon, calling itself "Roko's Basilisk".  Don't worry, it's nothing to do with either heraldry or Harry Potter.  It is everything to do with those lovable computer scamps AM (from "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream") and Skynet (from the "Terminator" franchise).

Maybe this character, too.

     You will, of course, realise that when I say "Lovable computer scamps" this is in fact code for "All powerful sentient AIs that HATE HUMANITY TO DEATH and what follows on from that" (nothing good).
     It seems that Roko proposed that, in the unbelievably distant far future of 2151 (if not sooner) there will arise a superintelligent Artificial intelligence, that will make Skynet look like a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K.

It was big in it's day

     This AI is the "Basilisk", because Roko asserts that it will retrospectively punish everyone - EVERYONE EVERY SINGLE ONE - who did not devote their entire lives to bringing about the existence of the Basilisk.  In fact, by simply reading these lines, you have just made yourself a target.
     This seems a bit petty to Your Humble Scribe, because how can a peasant in the Mekong Delta, busy tending to his oxen, possibly be held responsible for Not Inventing The Basilisk?  Or a Tuareg of the Sahara, wandering between oases?
     Or, in other words, pretty much 99.99999% of all humanity?
     Basilisk, you are over-ambition defined.

Art, you bafoon - I said no Harry Potter shizzle.

Finally -
I have been rewatching "The World at War", that splendid series that came out in 1973, which means it makes no mention of Enigma nor Bletchley Park, but which is pretty fair viewing for all that.  A good place to start, one feels.
     I have, of course, been watching the episode devoted to North Africa 1940 - 1943, which rather falls into the old "Rommel As Genius" trope.  This is the sort of thing that needs a lengthy rebuttal, and I've run out of lunch time to do any such rebut.  Maybe tomorrow!

Marshall "laddie", the smirking baddy!

*  I mean, who the heck ever bothers to check on this stuff?
**  Don't worry, motleys are pretty robust, not to mention bouncy.