LOL

I never looked at it that way. 

Apple's iPhones and iPads are now certified for NATO classified data

Wow.  And just plain-jane iOS, too.  Out of the box. 

As someone who ran across (into?) "Secure Operating Systems" more than once, this is a big deal. 

Chuck Norris - The Eyes of the Ranger Are Upon You

Rest in peach, sir. 

The Eyes of the Ranger Are Upon You (Songwriter: Tirk Wilder)

In the Eyes of a Ranger, the unsuspecting Stranger, 
had better know the truth of wrong from night
Cause the rule of law and order starts at the Texas border, 
with the lone Star of the Ranger shining bright. 

For the Eyes of a Ranger are upon you;
Any wrong you do, he's gonna see.
When you're in Texas look behind you; 
for that's where the Ranger's gonna be.

In the Heart of a Ranger he'll never know the danger; 
from desperate men with nothing left to lose, 
the Ranger keeps on coming; so there ain't no sense in running, 
cause he's bound and sure to make you pay your dues.

For the Eyes of a Ranger are upon you;
Any wrong you do, he's gonna see.
When you're in Texas look behind you; 
for that's where the Ranger's gonna be.

When a Ranger's on your Trail, he won't know how to fail, 
and you can't buy him off at any price; 
so if you decide to ramble, and with your life you'd gamble, 
know where you are before you roll the dice.

For the Eyes of a Ranger are upon you;
Any wrong you do, he's gonna see.
When you're in Texas look behind you; for
that's where the Ranger's gonna be.

If you see him coming' round the outskirts of town, 
never take that Ranger for a ride.
For the Eyes of a Ranger are upon you;
Any wrong you do, he's gonna see.
When you're in Texas look behind you; for
that's where the Ranger's gonna be. 

Yes, that's sung by Chuck himself.

But this is the song that I associate the most with him.  R.I.P. 

GPS jamming in the straight of Hormuz

This is not surprising, but it is pretty interesting, especially the guy in Dubai where Google Maps puts him in the middle of the straight. The discussion about why the Iranians probably have not mined the straight is also pretty interesting.

Update on the Herculaneum scrolls

As background, I've posted several times on the Herculaneum scrolls, here here and here.  That last link in particular is a fairly pain-free Youtube video about what the Big Deal is.

And a Big Deal it certainly is.  In short: when Mt. Vesuvius buried the Roman town of Pompeii in 79 AD, it also buried it's more prosperous neighbor Herculaneum.  One of the (very) rich Romans who lived in Herculaneum was likely the father-in-law of Julius Caesar, and had one of the biggest libraries in the Empire.  The extreme heat of the lava flow carbonized the scrolls (books).  Researchers have been using CAT scans to image the carbonized rolls and have been applying AI to "unroll" the scrolls virtually and distinguish between carbon-based ink and just plain old scroll carbon.  They are starting to read scrolls that have been lost for 2000 years.

 Like I said, this is a Big Damn Deal.

If this interests you, there is a must read essay on what's been happening over the previous 18 months, the progress that's being made, and the challenges that are still present.  This part is really, really interesting:

So the central question has shifted from whether text could be recovered at all to whether it could be done routinely. At the current pace, processing the full Herculaneum library would take several years. The Vesuvius Challenge Master Plan, published in July 2025, outlines a series of steps intended to compress that timeline. These include improved surface extraction, deeper automation, and tools designed to reduce manual intervention at every stage.

According to Schilling, the problem is not that current methods fail outright, but that they require too much human steering.

“It’s not as fast or effective or cheap as it should be,” he told me. “Right now, we have solutions that work but that require human input.” What researchers want instead is a “global optimal solution” — a system that can isolate papyrus surfaces, unwrap them, and detect ink reliably across many scrolls without constant correction.

We're not there yet, but people are starting to figure out how to get there.  And it looks like there are a bunch of scrolls that were entirely lost over time that we will be able to read:

These scrolls are believed to contain Greek prose that largely vanished elsewhere, including philosophical works from the Epicurean tradition that were rarely recopied because they conflicted with Christian doctrine.

Very, very cool

 

An Open Source Intelligence assessment of the Iran war

Via a link from HMS Defiant (who is on quite a roll lately), this is a very interesting analysis of the war from Open Source Intelligence sources (i.e. non-classified published sources).  Very, very interesting indeed.

Turlough O'Carolan - various Irish tunes

Top o' the morning to you, and happy St. Patrick's Day (almost).  This is my traditional Paddy's Day post, mostly because I love the music here.

What is the "Classical Music" of Ireland? It's not (Italian) Opera, or (German) symphonies, or even an (English) homage to Ralph Vaughan Williams (who studied under an Irish music professor) "countryside music" in the concert hall. Instead, we find something ancient. 

We find something that easily might not have been.  Turlough O'Carolan (1670 – 25 March 1738) was the son of a blacksmith.  His father took a job for the MacDermot Roe family; Mrs. MacDermot Roe gave the young lad some basic schooling and saw in him a talent for poetry; when a few years later the 18 year old Turlough went blind after a bout of smallpox, she had him apprenticed to a harpist.  He soon was travelling the land, composing and singing.

This tradition was already ancient by the early 1700s.  it was undeniably Celtic, dating back through the Middle Ages, through the Dark Ages, through Roman times to a barbarous Gaul.  There bards travelled the lands playing for their supper on the harp.

This was O'Carolan's stock in trade.  He rapidly became the most famous singer in the Emerald Isle.  It is said that weddings and funerals were delayed until he was in the vicinity.  One of his most famous compositions - if you have spent any time at all listening to Irish music, you know this tune - was considered too "new fangled" by the other harpists of his day.  Fortunately, he didn't listen to their criticisms.

 

He married very late, at 50, and had many children.  But his first love was Brigid, daughter of the Schoolmaster at a school for the blind.  He always seemed to have carried a torch for her.

 

So why is this post in the normal slot reserved for Classical Music?  Listen to this composition of his, and you see the bridge from the archaic Celts to Baroque harpsichord.

 

And keep in mind how this brilliance might never have blazed, had Mrs. MacDermot Roe not seen the talent in a blind Irish boy and set him upon a path trod by many equally unexpected geniuses, all the way back to St. Patrick.  It is truly said that we never know what our own path will be until we set our foot down on it.

But his was an ancient path and he inherited much from those who trod it before him.  His "Farewell to Music" is said to be more in the traditional mold, and might have been appreciated at a feast held by Vercingetorix before the battle of Alesia.

This music is a bridge between modern and the ancient that disappears into the mists of legend.  Perhaps more importantly, it is a music that is still alive today, after a run of perhaps two and a half millennia.  

And it is a music where you still hear the yearning of a young blind man for his muse, Brigid.  That is a vitality that should not be exiled to a single day of celebration, even if it is for as illustrious a Saint as Patrick.  On this Feast Day of St. Patrick (almost), remember just how deep the roots of our civilization run.

(Originally posted March 16, 2014)

Paddy Treacy - Charlie's Bar

Country music is alive and well in the Emerald Isle.  Glór Tíre is a long running and highly rated country music talent competition on Ireland's TG4 channel.  The last season's winner was Paddy Treacy with this song.  It's Irish (for sure) but it is indisputably country.  I love this video - it looks like he and his mates had a blast filming it.