There is an interesting article from The Register on the possibility of a world pandemic:

You may think this is overblown. But discussion of the possibility of a flu pandemic has fallen out of the news. And as the security consultant Bruce Schneier says: “One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. By definition, ‘news’ means that it hardly ever happens. If a risk is in the news, then it’s probably not worth worrying about. When something is no longer reported - automobile deaths, domestic violence - when it’s so common that it’s not news, then you should start worrying.”

The risks posed by an outbreak of flu passed from chickens in the Far East, in countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, burst into the news in February. But now they’ve passed out of the news. Since then we’ve had more important things, like the Crazy Frog ringtone, to concern us.

Time to worry. And the scientists are. In fact, they’re edgier than I’ve seen them since the BSE outbreak was in its earliest days and people were wondering if it might pass to humans. Quite a few scientists stopped eating beef at that point. Oh, you didn’t know?

Now, their reaction is to write papers and watch what’s happening, very closely. If you read the scientific journals (we do, so you don’t have to) the articles are piling up. Last week the journal Nature pulled together an entire online resource on the threat of avian flu.

That’s the trouble with scientists. They get an idea into their heads - CFCs and ozone, carbon dioxide emissions and the greenhouse effect, the transmission of BSE to other species such as humans - and they worry away at it until they determine what the answer and the mechanism is.

I find the comments on the news and what to worry about are right on target.

I hope to write more about this later, but for now, I have to run.

…and I am working on converting the photos I took in Paris and Prague in the last two weeks to formats that web browsers can read, instead of the RAW format from my camera.

Here are a few photos from Prague to provide a foretaste (click on the thumbnail, which my current application makes look horrible, for a larger, MUCH better image):

I think this is the patron saint of hitch-hikers…

And in a former Warsaw Pact nation, the Commissar is still present…

Of course, we went there because of the history and beauty of the city, and we did find both…

More photos later when I’ve had time to finish the conversions.

One of the local theaters in Grenoble is now showing the version originale, so I can see it in English again.

I saw what is now termed the “original trilogy” at least twice each in the movie theater. I have seen none of the “new trilogy” more than once in the movie theater that I can recall at the moment, but this last movie is worth at least a second viewing.

So, no writing for around three hours. Hopefully I can write something when I return.

Could this apply to the hobby of blogging, too?

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
   -Bertrand Russell