After my fall down the Gamone stairs, just over a year ago, medical staff examined me to discover if there had been any brain damage, and they said no. Later, in Bretagne, I had several clear indications that my brain seemed to be working successfully. Above all, I found that my technical computing skills on the Macintosh were still perfectly intact (regardless of how family members looked upon this question).
I was still intrigued by the undeniable existence of certain traces of my accident in parts of my face and head, not to mention minor eyesight problems. For example, I have a document that presents an image of a part of my head (I won't provide details) containing a small "pool of muck" that flowed there after my accident. Obviously, I often asked myself how and when this "pool of muck" might disappear, if ever. That's to say, I couldn't imagine that it would simply dry up magically. Surely the liquid "muck" had to flow somewhere.
Well, believe it or not, there have been moments, quite recently, when I suddenly "picked up" an unexpected series of "movements" in my head, as if a process had started. It might continue for ten minutes, during which time I would remain totally incapable of deciding what was happening. There would be no unpleasant sensations, and certainly no pain. Only unexpected noises, like static in an old radio. Then the noises would suddenly stop, just as rapidly as they had started.
Today, I'm persuaded that I was in fact listening to various nerve-repair operations. Besides, these alleged activities have been accompanied, in more-or-less the same time frame, by clear demonstrations that my thinking and memory were returning to normal.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
To be "tired of" can indicate brainlessness
When I decided to leave Paris and move to the Dauphiné province, I had the ridiculous impression that I was becoming bored with the French capital. To be honest, it was William Skyvington who was becoming boring, not Paris. Samuel Johnson [1709-1784] illustrated this kind of situation in the case of the British capital.
I recently published a few stupid blogs about blogging. I soon realized that it was akin to saying that I was tired of London. So, I deleted those silly posts."Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual,
who is willing to leave London.No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life;for there is in London all that life can afford."
Silence of death
Today, I am Italy.
Human lives can be snuffed out in an instant, and the traces of an ancient village can be reduced to rubble.
Do we really understand anything whatsoever about our human existence? No, our brains are not powerful enough for understanding. But our eyes are strong enough to weep, and our voices, to cry.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Young Aussies killed in France in March 1966
When I moved to the Alpine village of Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse in the summer of 1993, I came upon an Australian tomb in the church cemetery, just opposite the building in which I had found a tiny flat.
It was the grave of two young Australian students who were killed in March 1966 when they were leaving the village in their car, bound for Grenoble. Blinded by the early-morning winter sun, they skidded off the road and rolled violently into the valley, a hundred yards lower down.
Two younger children — Jeremy, 11, and Claire, 10 — were attending a local school on the day of the accident. Here are two photos of the fatal corner that I took in 1993.
On that day of 7 March 1966, when the Alpine sun in the ancient monastic village of Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse blinded Christina and Nicolas, forever, one of the world's most popular songs was The Sun ain't gonna Shine Anymore by the Walker brothers.
On the web, today, you can find a short article about the accident from Melbourne's The Age of 9 March 1966. [Curiously, the article confuses the given names of the two brothers, Nicholas and Michael Jager.]
The children's father, Charles Henry Jager [1919-2008], was a well-known Melbourne cattle breeder and bookmaker.
Click to enlarge slightly.
The driver Nicholas Jager, 17, died instantly.
His sister Christina Jager, 18, died three days later,
in the Voiron hospital.
in the Voiron hospital.
Their 16-year-old brother Michael Jager survived.
On that day of 7 March 1966, when the Alpine sun in the ancient monastic village of Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse blinded Christina and Nicolas, forever, one of the world's most popular songs was The Sun ain't gonna Shine Anymore by the Walker brothers.
The children's father, Charles Henry Jager [1919-2008], was a well-known Melbourne cattle breeder and bookmaker.
Submarine leak
Let’s suppose you’ve just ordered an impressive automobile, made in France, and that you suddenly learn that detailed technical descriptions of the manufacturer’s electronic devices for automobiles have just been stolen. As a future owner of a product from that French manufacturer, you might feel worried.
That kind of situation has just arisen in Australia concerning their massive order for French submarines. In a nutshell, the Australian press has revealed that a massive leak has been detected, apparently in India (?), concerning a model of the Scorpène submarine, manufactured by the French shipbuilder DCNS, and sold to the navies of India, Malasia, Chili and Brazil.
You might subscribe to The Australian in order to obtain an original article on this leak. Here are some extracts of this article that were sent to me this morning by a political contact:
The French company that won the bid to design Australia’s new $50 billion submarine fleet has suffered a massive leak of secret documents, raising fears about the future security of top-secret data on the navy’s future fleet.
The stunning leak, which runs to 22,400 pages and has been seen by The Australian, details the entire secret combat capability of the six Scorpene-class submarines that French shipbuilder DCNS has designed for the Indian Navy.
A variant of the same French-designed Scorpene is also used by the navies of Malaysia, Chile and, from 2018, Brazil, so news of the Edward Snowden-sized leak — revealed today — will trigger alarm at the highest level in these countries. Marked “Restricted Scorpene India”, the DCNS documents detail the most sensitive combat capabilities of India’s new $US3 bn ($3.9bn) submarine fleet and would provide an intelligence bonanza if obtained by India’s strategic rivals, such as Pakistan or China.
The leak will spark grave concern in Australia and especially in the US where senior navy officials have privately expressed fears about the security of top-secret data entrusted to France.
In April DCNS, which is two-thirds owned by the French government, won the hotly contested bid over Germany and Japan to design 12 new submarines for Australia. Its proposed submarine for Australia — the yet-to-be-built Shortfin Barracuda — was chosen ahead of its rivals because it was considered to be the quietest in the water, making it perfectly suited to intelligence-gathering operations against China and others in the region.
Any stealth advantage for the navy’s new submarines would be gravely compromised if data on its planned combat and performance capabilities was leaked in the same manner as the data from the Scorpene. The leaked DCNS data details the secret stealth capabilities of the six new Indian submarines, including what frequencies they gather intelligence at, what levels of noise they make at various speeds and their diving depths, range and endurance — all sensitive information that is highly classified. The data tells the submarine crew where on the boat they can speak safely to avoid detection by the enemy. It also discloses magnetic, electromagnetic and infra-red data as well as the specifications of the submarine’s torpedo launch system and the combat system.
It details the speed and conditions needed for using the periscope, the noise specifications of the propeller and the radiated noise levels that occur when the submarine surfaces.
The data seen by The Australian includes 4457 pages on the submarine’s underwater sensors, 4209 pages on its above-water sensors, 4301 pages on its combat management system, 493 pages on its torpedo launch system and specifications, 6841 pages on the sub’s communications system and 2138 on its navigation systems.
The Australian has chosen to redact sensitive information from the documents.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said it was important to note the submarine DCNS was building for India was a completely different model to the one it will build for Australia and the leaked information was a few years out of date. Nevertheless, any leak of classified information was a concern.
“We have the highest security protections on all of our defence information, whether it is in partnership with other countries or entirely within Australia,” he told the Seven Network today.
“But clearly, it is a reminder that, particularly in this digital world, cyber security is of critical importance.”
Influential senator Nick Xenophon said he would pursue the security breach when parliament returns next week.
Senator Xenophon, who leads a bloc of three senators, said Australia needed serious explanations from DCNS, the federal government and the Defence Department about any implications for Australia.
“This is really quite disastrous to have thousands of pages of your combat system leaked in this way,” the senator told ABC radio.
Sea trials for the first of India’s six Scorpene submarines began in May. The project is running four years behind schedule.
The Indian Navy has boasted that its Scorpene submarines have superior stealth features, which give them a major advantage against other submarines.
The US will be alarmed by the leak of the DCNS data because Australia hopes to install an American combat system — with the latest US stealth technology — in the French Shortfin Barracuda.
If Washington does not feel confident that its “crown jewels’’ of stealth technology can be protected, it may decline to give Australia its state-of-the-art combat system.
DCNS yesterday sought to reassure Australians that the leak of the data on the Indian Scorpene submarine would not happen with its proposed submarine for Australia. The company also implied — but did not say directly — that the leak might have occurred at India’s end, rather than from France. “Uncontrolled technical data is not possible in the Australian arrangements,” the company said. “Multiple and independent controls exist within DCNS to prevent unauthorised access to data and all data movements are encrypted and recorded. In the case of India, where a DCNS design is built by a local company, DCNS is the provider and not the controller of technical data.
“In the case of Australia, and unlike India, DCNS is both the provider and in-country controller of technical data for the full chain of transmission and usage over the life of the submarines.”
However, The Australian has been told that the data on the Scorpene was written in France for India in 2011 and is suspected of being removed from France in that same year by a former French Navy officer who was at that time a DCNS subcontractor.
The data is then believed to have been taken to a company in Southeast Asia, possibly to assist in a commercial venture for a regional navy.
It was subsequently passed by a third party to a second company in the region before being sent on a data disk by regular mail to a company in Australia. It is unclear how widely the data has been shared in Asia or whether it has been obtained by foreign intelligence agencies.
The data seen by The Australian also includes separate confidential DCNS files on plans to sell French frigates to Chile and the French sale of the Mistral-class amphibious assault ship carrier to Russia. These DCNS projects have no link to India, which adds weight to the probability that the data files were removed from DCNS in France.
DCNS Australia this month signed a deed of agreement with the Defence Department, paving the way for talks over the contract which will guide the design phase of the new submarines. The government plans to build 12 submarines in Adelaide to replace the six-boat Collins-class fleet from the early 2030s. The Shortfin Barracuda will be a slightly shorter, conventionally powered version of France’s new fleet of Barracuda-class nuclear submarines.
Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne said his officials believed the leak had “no bearing” on the Australia’s submarine program.
“The Future Submarine Program operates under stringent security requirements that govern the manner in which all information and technical data is managed now and into the future,” Mr Pyne’s office said in a statement.
“The same requirements apply to the protection of all sensitive information and technical data for the Collins class submarines, and have operated successfully for decades.”
That kind of situation has just arisen in Australia concerning their massive order for French submarines. In a nutshell, the Australian press has revealed that a massive leak has been detected, apparently in India (?), concerning a model of the Scorpène submarine, manufactured by the French shipbuilder DCNS, and sold to the navies of India, Malasia, Chili and Brazil.
Worker at DCNS
Scorpène submarine
Let me point out immediately that the Scorpène is not the model sold to Australia, whose order concerns the Barracuda submarine, quite different to the Scorpène. Not surprisingly, France and the French manufacturer DCNS will be carrying out an in-depth investigation into the Scorpène leak. For the moment, nothing indicates that this Scorpène leak might present the slightest problem to Australia's future maritime defence.
You might subscribe to The Australian in order to obtain an original article on this leak. Here are some extracts of this article that were sent to me this morning by a political contact:
Our French submarine builder in massive leak scandal
The French company that won the bid to design Australia’s new $50 billion submarine fleet has suffered a massive leak of secret documents, raising fears about the future security of top-secret data on the navy’s future fleet.
The stunning leak, which runs to 22,400 pages and has been seen by The Australian, details the entire secret combat capability of the six Scorpene-class submarines that French shipbuilder DCNS has designed for the Indian Navy.
A variant of the same French-designed Scorpene is also used by the navies of Malaysia, Chile and, from 2018, Brazil, so news of the Edward Snowden-sized leak — revealed today — will trigger alarm at the highest level in these countries. Marked “Restricted Scorpene India”, the DCNS documents detail the most sensitive combat capabilities of India’s new $US3 bn ($3.9bn) submarine fleet and would provide an intelligence bonanza if obtained by India’s strategic rivals, such as Pakistan or China.
The leak will spark grave concern in Australia and especially in the US where senior navy officials have privately expressed fears about the security of top-secret data entrusted to France.
In April DCNS, which is two-thirds owned by the French government, won the hotly contested bid over Germany and Japan to design 12 new submarines for Australia. Its proposed submarine for Australia — the yet-to-be-built Shortfin Barracuda — was chosen ahead of its rivals because it was considered to be the quietest in the water, making it perfectly suited to intelligence-gathering operations against China and others in the region.
Any stealth advantage for the navy’s new submarines would be gravely compromised if data on its planned combat and performance capabilities was leaked in the same manner as the data from the Scorpene. The leaked DCNS data details the secret stealth capabilities of the six new Indian submarines, including what frequencies they gather intelligence at, what levels of noise they make at various speeds and their diving depths, range and endurance — all sensitive information that is highly classified. The data tells the submarine crew where on the boat they can speak safely to avoid detection by the enemy. It also discloses magnetic, electromagnetic and infra-red data as well as the specifications of the submarine’s torpedo launch system and the combat system.
It details the speed and conditions needed for using the periscope, the noise specifications of the propeller and the radiated noise levels that occur when the submarine surfaces.
The data seen by The Australian includes 4457 pages on the submarine’s underwater sensors, 4209 pages on its above-water sensors, 4301 pages on its combat management system, 493 pages on its torpedo launch system and specifications, 6841 pages on the sub’s communications system and 2138 on its navigation systems.
The Australian has chosen to redact sensitive information from the documents.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said it was important to note the submarine DCNS was building for India was a completely different model to the one it will build for Australia and the leaked information was a few years out of date. Nevertheless, any leak of classified information was a concern.
“We have the highest security protections on all of our defence information, whether it is in partnership with other countries or entirely within Australia,” he told the Seven Network today.
“But clearly, it is a reminder that, particularly in this digital world, cyber security is of critical importance.”
Influential senator Nick Xenophon said he would pursue the security breach when parliament returns next week.
Senator Xenophon, who leads a bloc of three senators, said Australia needed serious explanations from DCNS, the federal government and the Defence Department about any implications for Australia.
“This is really quite disastrous to have thousands of pages of your combat system leaked in this way,” the senator told ABC radio.
Sea trials for the first of India’s six Scorpene submarines began in May. The project is running four years behind schedule.
The Indian Navy has boasted that its Scorpene submarines have superior stealth features, which give them a major advantage against other submarines.
The US will be alarmed by the leak of the DCNS data because Australia hopes to install an American combat system — with the latest US stealth technology — in the French Shortfin Barracuda.
If Washington does not feel confident that its “crown jewels’’ of stealth technology can be protected, it may decline to give Australia its state-of-the-art combat system.
DCNS yesterday sought to reassure Australians that the leak of the data on the Indian Scorpene submarine would not happen with its proposed submarine for Australia. The company also implied — but did not say directly — that the leak might have occurred at India’s end, rather than from France. “Uncontrolled technical data is not possible in the Australian arrangements,” the company said. “Multiple and independent controls exist within DCNS to prevent unauthorised access to data and all data movements are encrypted and recorded. In the case of India, where a DCNS design is built by a local company, DCNS is the provider and not the controller of technical data.
“In the case of Australia, and unlike India, DCNS is both the provider and in-country controller of technical data for the full chain of transmission and usage over the life of the submarines.”
However, The Australian has been told that the data on the Scorpene was written in France for India in 2011 and is suspected of being removed from France in that same year by a former French Navy officer who was at that time a DCNS subcontractor.
The data is then believed to have been taken to a company in Southeast Asia, possibly to assist in a commercial venture for a regional navy.
It was subsequently passed by a third party to a second company in the region before being sent on a data disk by regular mail to a company in Australia. It is unclear how widely the data has been shared in Asia or whether it has been obtained by foreign intelligence agencies.
The data seen by The Australian also includes separate confidential DCNS files on plans to sell French frigates to Chile and the French sale of the Mistral-class amphibious assault ship carrier to Russia. These DCNS projects have no link to India, which adds weight to the probability that the data files were removed from DCNS in France.
DCNS Australia this month signed a deed of agreement with the Defence Department, paving the way for talks over the contract which will guide the design phase of the new submarines. The government plans to build 12 submarines in Adelaide to replace the six-boat Collins-class fleet from the early 2030s. The Shortfin Barracuda will be a slightly shorter, conventionally powered version of France’s new fleet of Barracuda-class nuclear submarines.
Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne said his officials believed the leak had “no bearing” on the Australia’s submarine program.
“The Future Submarine Program operates under stringent security requirements that govern the manner in which all information and technical data is managed now and into the future,” Mr Pyne’s office said in a statement.
“The same requirements apply to the protection of all sensitive information and technical data for the Collins class submarines, and have operated successfully for decades.”
Deadly bagpipes fungus
When I was a child in Grafton, I started to dislike bagpipes of the Scottish variety. I simply found their sounds unpleasant. More recently, in Brittany, I met up with so-called Celtic bagpipes, and found them equally unpleasant.
I was therefore intrigued by a story in the French press of the death in 2014 of a 61-year-old British fellow who had inhaled for years a deadly fungus that had proliferated in his bagpipes. Click here to see the original article on this affair of fatal lung disease that has just appeared in the Thorax medical journal. Musicians can apparently encounter mortal molds in other wind instruments such as saxophones.
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
Changes that don't really change anything
As of tomorrow, an allegedly major event will take place in the French national media context. A new name will come into existence. But don't ask me to explain what exactly it means — along with what it doesn't mean — to common folk such as me.
As I said in my previous blog post, France is a complicated nation, and the French are a complex people. There's a tendency to use the time label of midday for two o'clock in the afternoon [popular saying].
Montebourg asks Hollande to drop out of the race
Incidentally, Montebourg hasn't defined and announced his candidacy in clear terms. That's to say, he hasn't yet declared whether or not he intends to participate in possible "primaries" in the Socialist context. Count upon the French to render their elections as incomprehensible (for outsiders, in particular) as you might possibly imagine. They're a fine nation, but a mixed-up people. They refrain eternally from speaking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They prefer to beat around the bush.
Monday, August 22, 2016
Google Chrome will drop Flash by the end of 2016
The total disappearance of Flash is a major announcement from Google. The only thing that annoys me personally is that I have several old Flash websites sitting around in purgatory. People such as my friend Natacha and me can of course survive comfortably without the survival of our antiquated legacy websites... but it's nevertheless sad to see them disappearing slowly but surely.
Sarko announces his presidential candidacy
Nicolas Sarkozy lors d'un rassemblement à Arcachon (Gironde),
le 23 juin 2016. (THIBAUD MORITZ / AFP)
le 23 juin 2016. (THIBAUD MORITZ / AFP)
This is the biggest non-surprise of the year. The former president Nicolas Sarkozy has written a book, Tout pour la France (Everything for France), in which he announces his intention to abandon his present role as chief of the political party Les Républicains in order to become a presidential candidate for next year’s election.
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Ecology candidate
Photo Guillaume Souvant.AFP
Cécile Duflot has just confirmed that she will be a candidate in the French presidential election of 2017. She speaks the truth when she says that the battle will be tough (in French, rude). For Cécile in particular. In her declaration, she praises a recent papal encyclical named Laudato si, but I see no praise for the individuals who recently made COP21 a grand success.
Jérôme Monod [1930-2016]
Friday, August 19, 2016
Richard Dawkins on language
Click here to see the article by Richard entitled Ban the voice-over.
I'm thrilled to rediscover my hero Dawkins joking once again about why ancestral giraffes magically developed long necks for the simple reason that they "needed" such long necks in order to reach up for leaves. I believe that many ordinary people, not familiar with evolution and genetics, would believe in that "need"... but I hope I'm mistaken.
A long-discredited alternative to Darwinism invoked ‘need’ as the driver of evolution: ancestral giraffes needed
to reach high foliage and their energetic striving to do so somehow
called longer necks into existence. But for ‘need’ to translate itself
into action, there has to be another step in the argument. The ancestral
giraffe mightily stretched its neck upwards and so the bones and
muscles lengthened and . . . well, you know the rest, O my Best Beloved.
The true Darwinian mechanism, of course, is that those individual
giraffes that succeeded in satisfying the need survived to pass on their
genetic tendency to do so.
Dishonest French TV shows
A popular fellow on French TV participates regularly in travelogues in which he gets filmed in the midst of local folk in all sorts of exotic places throughout the world. His friendly personality enables him (so it seems) to meet up with unexpected friends. He also has a taste for doing crazy things such as patting a wild animal.
In reality, these TV shows are dishonest, in that they've been assembled out of fake elements that were not at all spontaneous. I'll give you an example, so that you'll understand what I'm trying to say. Let's refer to this TV star as Fred. At one stage, you see Fred moving towards a group of locals, and asking them in French, with a friendly smile: "Can I join you?" Then you see the locals smiling back at Fred and saying something along the following lines: "Yes, please sit down. What would you like to know?"
Most French TV viewers would imagine that this guy has such a friendly personality that he can meet up easily with locals and communicate with them immediately. First, you must realize that, when Fred arrives in such-and-such an exotic place, he probably (?) can't speak the local language, and the locals surely can't speak fluent French. So, much later on, what French viewers seem to see on their TV screen has been totally contrived, well after the events, by a team of smart video specialists. It's as fake as false breasts, but the tricks are so smartly executed that most people fail to see that they've been tricked. In reality, the production operations would be carried out along the following lines:
1. The video director (let's call him Jacques) is in contact with a local native (let's call him Wombat) who understands a few words of French. Jacques asks Wombat to gather together a small group of locals who are prepared (no doubt for a small fee) to be filmed in a would-be contact and conversation with Fred, who might be thought of as a stooge (like the secondary actors in old-fashioned Chaplin comedies).
2. Once everybody is gathered together in front of a few video cameras, the director Jacques says to the stooge Fred: "Put on a big smile, say hello to the locals, and ask them if you can join in with them. Tell them that you would like to learn how to catch koalas." Easily said. Easily done. Smiles everywhere.
3. The director Jacques then calls upon Wombat, and explains: "Tell your friends to smile as if they're happy to meet up with our Fred. Then ask one of them to look into the camera and talk for a few minutes on the subject of catching koalas, saying anything that comes into his head." All this local gibberish will, of course, be replaced by everyday French in the edited video. The locals are then filmed, talking gibberish, and that's basically the end of this nonsense.
4. The director Jacques then says to Fred: "Let's imagine that these idiots have given you information on how to catch koalas. Let me film you now, smiling happily while you listen to their alleged explanations. Then finish your supposed listening by asking them, with a big smile, if koalas are dangerous animals that can bite you."
5. The director Jacques tells Wombat that he wants to film the locals once again, all laughing hilariously, and apparently making fun of Fred. Obviously, Jacques knows exactly how he's going to put together the fake conversation, once all the elements have been obtained.
6. My readers will have understood by now that Jacques will surely produce a sufficient stock of fake elements that will enable a video editor to put together a convincing would-be conversation between Fred and the locals. So, that's the end of my explanations.
I'm disgusted by this kind of fake TV, but it's an everyday phenomenon in France. If the cutting and editing are handled expertly, most viewers would fall into the trap of imagining that they're watching a real encounter between friendly Fred and a group of naive savages who are happy to teach him how to catch koalas.
As a former member of the French Service de la Recherche de l'ORTF, which enabled me to make authentic science documentaries in France, England, Sweden and the USA, I dislike intensely this new kind of fake TV.
In reality, these TV shows are dishonest, in that they've been assembled out of fake elements that were not at all spontaneous. I'll give you an example, so that you'll understand what I'm trying to say. Let's refer to this TV star as Fred. At one stage, you see Fred moving towards a group of locals, and asking them in French, with a friendly smile: "Can I join you?" Then you see the locals smiling back at Fred and saying something along the following lines: "Yes, please sit down. What would you like to know?"
Most French TV viewers would imagine that this guy has such a friendly personality that he can meet up easily with locals and communicate with them immediately. First, you must realize that, when Fred arrives in such-and-such an exotic place, he probably (?) can't speak the local language, and the locals surely can't speak fluent French. So, much later on, what French viewers seem to see on their TV screen has been totally contrived, well after the events, by a team of smart video specialists. It's as fake as false breasts, but the tricks are so smartly executed that most people fail to see that they've been tricked. In reality, the production operations would be carried out along the following lines:
1. The video director (let's call him Jacques) is in contact with a local native (let's call him Wombat) who understands a few words of French. Jacques asks Wombat to gather together a small group of locals who are prepared (no doubt for a small fee) to be filmed in a would-be contact and conversation with Fred, who might be thought of as a stooge (like the secondary actors in old-fashioned Chaplin comedies).
2. Once everybody is gathered together in front of a few video cameras, the director Jacques says to the stooge Fred: "Put on a big smile, say hello to the locals, and ask them if you can join in with them. Tell them that you would like to learn how to catch koalas." Easily said. Easily done. Smiles everywhere.
3. The director Jacques then calls upon Wombat, and explains: "Tell your friends to smile as if they're happy to meet up with our Fred. Then ask one of them to look into the camera and talk for a few minutes on the subject of catching koalas, saying anything that comes into his head." All this local gibberish will, of course, be replaced by everyday French in the edited video. The locals are then filmed, talking gibberish, and that's basically the end of this nonsense.
4. The director Jacques then says to Fred: "Let's imagine that these idiots have given you information on how to catch koalas. Let me film you now, smiling happily while you listen to their alleged explanations. Then finish your supposed listening by asking them, with a big smile, if koalas are dangerous animals that can bite you."
5. The director Jacques tells Wombat that he wants to film the locals once again, all laughing hilariously, and apparently making fun of Fred. Obviously, Jacques knows exactly how he's going to put together the fake conversation, once all the elements have been obtained.
6. My readers will have understood by now that Jacques will surely produce a sufficient stock of fake elements that will enable a video editor to put together a convincing would-be conversation between Fred and the locals. So, that's the end of my explanations.
I'm disgusted by this kind of fake TV, but it's an everyday phenomenon in France. If the cutting and editing are handled expertly, most viewers would fall into the trap of imagining that they're watching a real encounter between friendly Fred and a group of naive savages who are happy to teach him how to catch koalas.
As a former member of the French Service de la Recherche de l'ORTF, which enabled me to make authentic science documentaries in France, England, Sweden and the USA, I dislike intensely this new kind of fake TV.
Humble French athlete
Statue of a naked man on Union Square in New York
[JUSTIN SULLIVAN / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP]
Thursday, August 18, 2016
We attach ourselves to familiar old objects
Early this morning, I was awoken by images of my old fountain pens that needed to be loaded with new supplies of ink. Now it's at least a quarter of a century since I abandoned forever the use of writing implements of that old-fashioned kind, before replacing them by ball-points, felt-tipped pens, typewriters and, finally, computers. But the name of the required ink, Quink, appeared clearly in my dream, along with its color and the appearance of its bottle.
I was so surprised by my dream that I awoke instantly and dashed to one of my desks, to see if I did in fact retain ink of that kind, and maybe even a few fountain pens. After a bit of hurried searching, all I found was an old forgotten box of plastic cartridges, but not the least presence of any kind of writing implement that might use such a cartridge.
In a state of bliss, I went back to sleep... and dreamed of nothing more. Later on in the morning, when I was soundly awake, I used my computer to check that this brand of ink still exists. My nightware is still functioning well.
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Australian refugee camp to be closed
Nothing makes me feel more like a biological piece of meat
Many TV observers of Olympic events are no doubt charmed when they see twin competitors holding hands as they cross the line.
To my mind, alas, an image of that kind is troubling. Those identical ladies are not simply cute ; they're clones. The situation becomes more troubling when we move to triplets.
For the moment, this situation has not reached alarming proportions. But, what would happen if we were to end up with a group, say, of four identical Usain Bolt clones ? Would gold medals have to be chopped into pieces, enabling each clone to take away a fragment?
I don't believe that this clone phenomenon, all on its own, will soon be responsible for ending the Olympics. But, with everyday annoyances such as dope, biased judges and (last but not least) Brazilian boos for non-Brazilian athletes, the end is probably near. Another trivial but slightly disturbing subject (but not necessarily a problem) is transgender athletes: individuals born as males who end up competing as females. The case of Caster Semenya, an 18-year-old South African female athlete, is disturbing, to say the least.
So-called “gender verification” tests were called for by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). They indicated an “unusually high level of testosterone” in her body. A newspaper revealed that a coach of South Africa’s runners is a former East German coach named Ekhart Arbeit. The former shot-putt champion named Heidi Krieger says that this fellow fed her so many anabolic steroids that she finally underwent an operation in 1997 that made her a male, now known as Andreas. Is that what we once knew as sport?
One of the most troubling events of all is when a once-champion athlete finds himself or herself beaten by a new-generation competitor. Emotions rise to an almost suicidal level.
For me, as a TV viewer, an annoying aspect of the whole Olympic show is that various sports have risen to a degree of technical complexity that often prevents me from understanding what is actually happening. Often it's no longer fun to watch a TV transmission of a sporting competition than I can hardly understand. For example, in a canoe/kayak race, I'm totally incapable of realizing whether a competitor has handled a "doorway" correctly. In a fencing duel, I never know who touched whom in an acceptable or less acceptable fashion. In judo, I have no idea whatsoever of who's winning and who's losing. In diving, I don't have the faintest idea of which competitor hit the water in the best style. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who gets bored by watching synchronized swimming, which has always appeared to me as a silly joke that has never made me smile let alone laugh.
In any case, the Olympic spirit has existed long enough, like competitive sport in general. It can't go on forever...
Meanwhile, here's a funny video of a loser:
I don't believe that this clone phenomenon, all on its own, will soon be responsible for ending the Olympics. But, with everyday annoyances such as dope, biased judges and (last but not least) Brazilian boos for non-Brazilian athletes, the end is probably near. Another trivial but slightly disturbing subject (but not necessarily a problem) is transgender athletes: individuals born as males who end up competing as females. The case of Caster Semenya, an 18-year-old South African female athlete, is disturbing, to say the least.
One of the most troubling events of all is when a once-champion athlete finds himself or herself beaten by a new-generation competitor. Emotions rise to an almost suicidal level.
For me, as a TV viewer, an annoying aspect of the whole Olympic show is that various sports have risen to a degree of technical complexity that often prevents me from understanding what is actually happening. Often it's no longer fun to watch a TV transmission of a sporting competition than I can hardly understand. For example, in a canoe/kayak race, I'm totally incapable of realizing whether a competitor has handled a "doorway" correctly. In a fencing duel, I never know who touched whom in an acceptable or less acceptable fashion. In judo, I have no idea whatsoever of who's winning and who's losing. In diving, I don't have the faintest idea of which competitor hit the water in the best style. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who gets bored by watching synchronized swimming, which has always appeared to me as a silly joke that has never made me smile let alone laugh.
As silly and boring as twirling...
Meanwhile, here's a funny video of a loser:
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