Bright sparks, wow and a cute little thing

After last week's doom and gloom I thought I'ld better make up for it.
Driving to work early in the morning this time of year means that I'm in my car before sunrise. The day is breaking but the sun not up yet which results in vibrant colours. Nope, no pictures, I'm driving :-)

Two bright "stars" were clearly visible against the blue sky and these two "stars" were very close together making me conclude that they probably weren't stars as it were the only two heavenly objects visible (except for the moon). The next day they were still there but a bit further apart so I deduced that they had to be planets. But which? A quick internet search learned me that it was Jupiter and Venus:

Monday 18 August 05:45 (local): Venus is 11,9' north of Jupiter (-1,3m). They are closest at 07:10,at a height of 21°. The planets are in ENE about 8° above the horizon, 12' separation.

Those of you who saw it too may have marvelled at it just like I did. Staring at the infinity of universe always is very comforting to me.


Talking about the universe, here's a picture from astronaut Reid Wiseman currently serving as flight engineer aboard the International Space Station for Expedition 41. If that ain't "wow" I don't know what is...

The US celebrated Aviation Day this week. Wiki learned me that it was established in 1939 by Franklin Roosevelt, who issued a presidential proclamation which designated the anniversary of Orville Wright's birthday to be National Aviation Day.So let's celebrate as well with a picture from the unlimited Farnborough source. This time it is from this year's event, and I chose something that epitomises the joy of flying: the Starduster. It's a nice little homebuilt, if you want one, you can order plans and parts here.

And to get you into the right mood, here's the brave show it put up at Farnborough:

Do you have the stomach for it, promisses promisses and backfire

To all of you whom believe we are living in countries that defend the basic principles of human rights, freedom, privacy and democracy, please read this book: 'No Place To Hide' by Glenn Greenwald. I bought it in a whim and didn't regret it. Put all your prejudices and everything you heared about Snowden aside and read it with an open mind. Then draw your conclusions. But beware: you have to have the stomach to do it because reading it risks making you sick.





In the mean time Rasmussen, NATO's boss, tweeted this yesterday whilst there was unclarity about Ukraine and Russian fighting:

Things like that make me worry, really worry. They all hapilly come over to Belgium to commemorate the start 100 years ago of WWI and make speeches who horrible it all was, but they don't seem to grasp that they are playing with fire once again.


In the mean time on the financial markets, George Soros is making one big bet on stocks crashing. When people like him do that, people tend to take notice. When that news broke it became official that Germany and France are in a recession (not that they call it like that). The Portuguese bank which went belly up was bailed out by the taxpayers and broken into a 'good bank' and a 'bad bank'. Compare this with what Mr Barroso said 6 months ago: "Banks, not taxpayers, will carry the cost for their own mistakes". Right copy that Mr Barroso. Reality is yet again different from the statements and promisses made by politicians.

This is turning out a rather dark blog isn't it...

So let's brighten it up. One of my friends (@Arielshocron) posted some wonderful pictures of a Tu-22M on twitter. I know, it's a Soviet bomber. That's not why I put it up, I do this beacuse for us aviation nuts it is an emblemic airplane and a very beautiful one as well. I saw it only once back in 1992 in Farnborough. Here is the proof!

Just a question, social media prevents war, byebye US Dollar and some happiness

Lots has happened in the world since my last blog. And not much of it is good.
MH17 went down, Gaza is under attack, Libya becomes more unstable by the day, Syria goes from bad to worse,  Argentina was pushed into bankruptcy by a US court. I could write pages and pages about every single catasptophy but the net is already overflowing with propaganda and other nonsense so I won't.

Just 2 things before we move to another subject that maybe brings a smile on your face. If only people would smile more, we wouldn't be in such a mess.
First the serious stuff:
1. Just a question no mass media journalist seems to ask: if MH17 was shot down by a rocket, why is there shrapnell damage to various sections of the airplane? With all propoaganda (from all sides) that started flowing minutes after MH17 went down, I found social media (twitter, youtube) to be very useful as it quickly uncovered lies and misinformation that was (purpously or not) reported in mass media. With the 100 year commemoration of WWI it makes me think: if social media would hae been around in 1914, would the people have been able to prevent war from errupting? And the other way around, if social media would not have been around today, would MH17 and the mass media reports have pushed us helplessly into another period of cold war (at best) or war (at worst)?

2. On July 15, something happened that did not hit the mass media in our Western world and it should have as it will fundamentally change the world as we know it today. The BRICS set up their own "IMF", providing it with capital and undertaking to trade beteen them not in US dollars but through currency swaps. You can not overestimate the importance of BRICS telling the world "scr#w the US Dollar". The US will not take this lightly and if BRICS is succesful it will mark the beginning of the end of US (Dollar) world dominance. Here's an excerpt from the press release:
"We are pleased to announce the signing of the Treaty for the establishment of the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) with an initial size of US$ 100 billion. This arrangement will have a positive precautionary effect, help countries forestall short-term liquidity pressures, promote further BRICS cooperation, strengthen the global financial safety net and complement existing international arrangements.... The Agreement is a framework for the provision of liquidity through currency swaps in response to actual or potential short-term balance of payments pressures."

That were the serious bits, now for the smiles:

With my change of job I upgraded from an old cell phone (the boring stuff that can only make phone calls and send a text messages), to a smartphone. I'm still struggling to make the smartphone do what I want it to, making me wonder why on earth they call it a 'smart'-phone. And then I came across this:

And my new job brought me to Farnborough for business! First time I went was back in 1990 and 1992. As I said during a speech I had to give during a reception: in those days the stars of the show were a big twin engined airliner from across the Atlantic and some fighter aircraft from a country that had just opened its borders. Since then the world has changed a lot. In those days I could spend 2 full days taking pictures at the threshold of runway 24. This time, although being there for a week, I could only sneek out once to get some quick shots. But hey, I'm not complaining!