You Might Well Roll Your Eyes
Thinking that Your Humble Scribe was banging on about Pink Floyd again, and you'd not be wrong, which we'll get to in a bit. First of all, however - that word again! - we're going to get down to appreciating the abilities and deficiencies of the AI art-generation program I came across recently. The prompts were "Matilda Tank" and the 'skin' chosen was "Surreal Art". Art!
This, frankly, young AI, is a Self-Propelled Gun, not a tank. No turret, you see, merely a barbette with a fixed gun. Once again, there doesn't appear to be a hatch or any vision-blocks or periscopes for the driver. Art!
Unless that strange hemi-spherical object projecting from the hull is the driver's head in a helmet?
Then there's the vehicle commander, standing proud at the back. Art!
He seems to be wearing a Brodie-pattern helmet, which implies he's a British (and/or Commonwealth) officer or NCO - because it was their duty to stick their head out of the hatch and spy out the land around them. Also, what cannot be missed is the gigantic moustache he sports, which can only have been grown over many years.
Whatever this AI does when creating a 'Matilda Tank', it CANNOT GET THE WHEELS RIGHT! Art?
They look as if they'd melted! Have they been travelling over fields of lava? The Technical Adjutant would have a cow! or, more probably, a whole herd.
ANYWAY none of this has to do with Pink Floyd and "Echoes", which is one of their best tracks, because I say so AND THERE WILL BE NO DISAGREEMENT. Art!
For those unaware, the track begins with a grand piano played through a Leslie speaker and a Binson Echorec unit, mimicking the sonar 'ping' of warships in the Second Unpleasantness. The supposed 'whale-song' section came about thanks to a wah-wah pedal being plugged in backwards by happy accident, which I've had to take on trust, not being up on the ways of wah-wah pedals. That title is the fourth in a sequence, going from "Nothing" to "Return Of Nothing" and then "Return Of The Son Of Nothing".
Sixteen years after the track had been 'laid down' as the hip jargon has it, Dave Gilmour's touring band complained that it was too hard to replicate on stage and could they do something simpler like "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"?
ANYWAY none of this has more than the sketchiest connection with the real meat of the matter. Art!
This particular smiling happy chappy is Captain Anders Puck Nielsen, whom as you can clearly see is an officer in the Royal Danish Navy, and whom works in their Defence College. Being Danish, his English is better than a lot of This Sceptred Isle's inhabitants.
ANYWAY Anders has a Youtube channel, where his vlogs are always done in civilian clothing so as not to imply the content has any official approval. These vlogs are always short and pithy, which is in marked contrast to some out there who like the sound of their own voice (a common affliction amongst DJs, I hear). Art!
In his latest vlog, Anders tackled the subject of why the Ruffian Black Sea
Anders was hoping to answer the question "Why is the Black Sea Squadron so vulnerable to naval drones?" with the comment that these drones are similar in size to a speedboat, and warships can deal with speedboats, can't they? so why not a naval drone?
Our wise Danish officer pointed out that a lot of people are equating aerial drones with naval ones, when the physics involved is totally different. Art!
What does the sea have? Waves! How do warships try to locate objects at sea? Radar! What happens when radar hits waves? You get - Art!
That's right. This kind of phenomenon on a radar screen creates what's called 'clutter', where the operators cannot distinguish between radar reflections from waves or any possible incoming sea-level threat. What you might characterise as a signal-to-noise problem. Anders was kind enough to provide a graphic example, presumably from his last tour of duty. Art!
This phenomenon extends outwards in a radius of up to one kilometre from the ship, meaning inside that range you're dependent on the Mark One Human Eyeball to detect the drones. Which is hard at any time, and especially hard at night. Anders puckishly also points out that these drones are made out of stealth materials that don't reflect radar well, that they are stealthy in shape and that they come in packs, though more akin to wolves than sharks.
In his professional opinion, the Ruffians would need maritime reconnaissance patrols to prevent this kind of drone attack, except they can't mount same as their aircraft have been falling out of the skies of late.
So there you have it. Echoes.
Whoops, I was accidentally creative a lot there. We need some short pithy items to balance things.
Fit Bit The Dust
Yesteryon my trusty - and well-worn - FitBit had dropped to 30% as regards battery life. It's a sign of old-age, the battery charges up a lot slower than it used to, and runs down quicker than it used to. What it is to grow old, hmmm?
After an hour of charging it still hadn't moved past 30%. Art!
Mister Clumsy has managed to break the charging plug and that's the end of this Fit Bit. Which is a pain. It was jolly useful when one emerged from the arms of Morpheus in the night and needed to check if it was worth going back to sleep or not. Plus, I timed all my breaks and lunchtimes with the Stopwatch function during the day, and how long the clootie dumpling had been cooking <sad face>.
"City In The Sky"
Super-Dingo meets Time Lord.
It was hard work, communicating with the
dingoes. They had no contact with or
concept of pictograms, so initially the Doctor made a mud model of a Lithoi. The pack bared their teeth at the crude
figure, so he knew they recognised it as one of the alien lizard
infiltrators. Next he drew a Lithoi in
the earth – yes, they understood that when he pointed between the two
differentiations. Then came a model of
a dingo, and here he had to stretch their intellect by indicating a sketched
dingo in the earth for each member of the pack, trying to get across the
concept of numbers. Then back to the
Lithoi; after an hour he could see that they didn’t grasp the particularity of
numbers but could distinguish relatively between “one”, “few” and “many”. According to the pack leader, there were
“many” “many” Lithoi.
Fiddlesticks!
he fumed. “Many many” as a dingo concept
might well translate into human mathematics as easily “hundreds” if not
“thousands”.
Well, he’d come here to find out what no
human being had managed so far: in-depth information about the alien intruders
lurking out in the distant plains, even if what he’d discovered was
unpalatable. His fond imagining that the
Lithoi numbered only a few dozen who might very well be intimidated into
departing Planet Earth if threatened sufficiently, began to recede into a faint
recollection.
Dog days. I can continue with canine puns forever, but in the spirit of mercy shall not.
Yes And?
As you should surely know by now, Conrad is a major curmudgeon, who will frequently dislike a thing on principle, simply because other people applaud it. Art!
No, I have not seen the original*. No, I do not intend to see the remake.
Conrad does not feel his life is any the poorer for either deficiency.
The Devil Take It!
Conrad has come across several references to a post-apocalyptic supernatural thriller named "Swan Song" which I have read several times, most recently a few years ago. Art!
Every image true
It's a looong read, a couple of inches thick, but it does manage to tie everything up by the end instead of requiring another three volumes (Justin Cronin looking at you). Conrad binned his copy a while ago after having read it and, because he's a curious fellow, wondered how much it would cost on Abebooks to purchase.
GOOD LORD ALOFT!
Egad, if only I'd known. I shall have to keep an eye open for it in charity shops from now on.
Finally -
First Bus app still not playing. They are DEFNITELY going to feel my thunderbolts when I take over.
* I always confuse it with "Dirt Dances" or somesuch other film with Patrick Swayze.
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