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How often do you use a computer?
Nearly all day, every day.
Posted on December 22, 2011 with 1 note ()
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What would your dream vacation be?
My dream vacation would consist of sailing to Tahiti on an ocean liner, then spending one year living in a hut on a secluded beach with my cat and an Internet broadband connection. Of course, all expenses would be paid by someone else. (I doubt any secluded beaches remain, cats are probably not allowed and nobody’s going to pay all my expenses.)
Posted on April 27, 2011 with 2 notes ()
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“The Cat’s Eye” No. 2
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On 26th April 1986, 25 years ago next month, an accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Державне спецiалiзоване пiдприємство) in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Українська Радянська Соціалістична Республіка) began a chain of events now known as the Chernobyl disaster. Although blame for the precipitating event was at first assigned to control-room workers, the actual causes were poor reactor design and a prevailing culture of bureaucratic secrecy which kept vital information from ever reaching those who most needed to know. A good albeit technical explanation of factors which brought about the accident can be found in the Portable Document File The Chernobyl Accident: Updating of INSAG-1.
Please click on the image to view its full size.
Many of the plant’s workers sacrificed their lives in heroic efforts to avert disaster following the initial explosions. Fault has finally been placed higher up the chain of command, where it belonged all along; but this reassessment came too late for those who were hastily and wrongfully accused of procedural violations and whose lives were soon taken from them by that silent killer, radiation poisoning.
Please click on the image to view its full size.
Panorama of the abandoned city of Pripyat
Sadly, residents of Chernobyl (Чорнобиль) and Pripyat (При́п’ять) were forced to evacuate their homes on only a moment’s notice. You can hear the evacuation announcement for Pripyat here. Pripyat became a “ghost town” nearly overnight and can never be occupied again.
Please click on the image to view its full size.
ICRIN > Home > Radioecological Information > Map
Hundreds of thousands of people from throughout the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик) converged on the stricken area and worked under extremely-hazardous conditions, in order to mitigate against the radiological catastrophe caused by the power-plant accident. Those courageous men and women are known as the Liquidators (Ликвида́торы) and deserve our respect for having placed the good of others above their own safety.
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Badge and medal received by each of the Liquidators
One far-reaching result of that power-plant accident has been the establishment of a Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone (Зона відчуження Чорнобильської АЕС). Let us hope a similar zone need not be permanently established in Japan! Let us also not forget the courage and dedication of the so-called Fukushima 50.
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Posted on March 22, 2011 with 5 notes ()
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tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INANIMATE OBJECT?
Well, tumblrbot, I’d have to say my favorite inanimate object is the comfy chair in the living room. It’s old and worn, like me, but it’s a good friend.
Posted on March 17, 2011 with 2 notes ()
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“The Cat’s Eye” No. 1
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CAT ISLAND
Have you heard any late news regarding Tashirojima a.k.a. Nekojima or Cat Island? It’s a relatively small place….
A number of buildings on Tashirojima were designed by manga artist Tetsuya Chiba, in honor of departed fellow-artist Shotaro Ishinomori. For more information, please go here.
There are more cats than humans on Nekojima! But what’s become of both species in the aftermath of those earthquakes and tsunamis is not entirely clear. However, an umbrella organization is helping domestic animals throughout the stricken areas of Japan:
Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support | Facebook
Welcome to a Facebook Page about Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support. Join Facebook to start connecting with Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support.
I’m hoping they’ll be able to reach Cat Island.
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Posted on March 17, 2011 with 5 notes ()
I've lived in various locations, both Occidental and Oriental. To begin with, I was born at New York city and lived a typical middle-class life during early and pre-adolescent childhood. This apparent Nirvāna abruptly turned about in 1956 when my father died and we, his survivors, moved to Miami in Florida. A comparatively bare-bones existence followed.
After flailing about uselessly during my first attempt at tertiary education, I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. During that walkabout I received free room and board in Texas, then on Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands and finally at Da Nang in the late Republic of Viet Nam. My job whilst enjoying Uncle Sam's largess was primarily that of a radio intercept analyst with the U.S. Air Force Security Service, which was re-named the Air Intelligence Agency subsequent to my enlistment. During this tenure in the Second Indochina War's combat zone I benefited from a moonlighting job with Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support, a subsidiary organization of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Upon receiving my release from active duty, a blessed event which took place on April Fool's Day in 1969, I moved to Portland in Oregon. This time I approached tertiary education with fervor, moved to Eugene in Lane County and received a bachelor of science degree from the University of Oregon School of Journalism in 1973. In between the curriculum's requirements, the after-classes Work-Study jobs and a job in Portland on weekends I was active with the Lane County Chapter of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
During the ensuing workaday-world era I held jobs "of increasing responsibility" in the journalistic media of magazines, newspapers, radio and television. The profession of journalism provided some fulfilling moments, but I was quite happy to retire from that circus in 1996. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, blessings be upon it, decided after all those years that I should at last receive a disability pension.
One of the most excellent undertakings during my retirement was a trip abroad in 2008: Canada, France, Iceland, the Netherlands and the U.K. I was able to meet, in real life, some of my best on-line friends! So that's about all there is to say. Thank you for reading this thumbnail sketch and best wishes to you!
