Happy autumnal equinox!

Well, it seems that in the last few days that Google Earth has added high resolution images of my old home town of Bedford and the villages I grew up in….

• The house I grew up in (Houghton Conquest), 52 03′ 35.01″N 0 28′ 38.34W
• Secondary School (Rushmoor School), 52 08′ 38.44″N 0 28′ 55.99″W
• And the house I lived while studying for my ‘A’ levels (Wood End Lane, Pertenhall), 52 16′ 52.51″N 0 24′ 40.71″W

It’s surprising what you can see even if the resolution isn’t as high as many places, such as Rachel and Graham’s house, Ramtops (51 20′ 00.13N 0 50′ 27.41″W) where you can see individual cars.

The docks at Portsmouth are quite detailed.. you can see HMS Victory in its dry dock along with the mothballed HMS Intrepid and HMS Fearless, the old assault ships, moored next to HMS Ark Royal.

It’s a pity that the high resolution swaths don’t include Oxford, or Alec’s house or the school I studied my ‘A’ levels at (Kimbolton School), which is based in the castle Catherine of Aragon was detained in. Maybe they’ll come later

My sympathies go out to those millions of people affected by the hurricane last week which hit Louisiana last week. However, it was a disaster waiting to happen and a lot of the reasons have to do with human society’s stuborness and short-term interests. This is why:-
opinion peice

I was amused this morning by a quote from a potentially serious article in The Register from a Microsoft spokesman about a potential threat to Windows where a virus/worm may hide itself in the registry due to a quirk in the way applications read it:-

“Our early analysis indicates that this attempt to bypass these features is not a software security vulnerability, but a function within the operating system that could be misused,” the company said in a statement. “Microsoft is reviewing the report to determine further details and whether there is any potential impact for customers and will provide appropriate customer guidance if necessary.”

OK, so, it’s not a security flaw, it’s feature which naughty people may use.. So, that’s OK then, obviously.