Sunday morning music

 

The late Denis Norden, appearing on BBC Radio's "My Music" quiz program, famously quipped that his favorite instrument was "Bagpipes, receding into the distance".  Fortunately, not everybody shared his opinion!

The previous record for the number of bagpipers assembled in one place to play the same tune was set in Bulgaria in 2012 by 333 players.  Enthusiasts in Australia decided it was time to set a new record, and they chose AC/DC's current tour of that country to do it.  The Guardian reports:

On Wednesday afternoon (12 November 2025), 374 bagpipers gathered in Melbourne’s Federation Square to play AC/DC’s It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock’n’Roll), setting a new world record just up the road from where Bon Scott and the band famously played the song on the back of a flatbed truck riding up Swanston Street 50 years before.

There's more at the link.  Here's how the record attempt went.

Looks like a good time was had by all.

Peter

"The Higher Education Bubble That Everyone Forgot About"

 

That's the headline to Jared Dillian's analysis of higher education in the USA at present.  Here are a few excerpts.

My generation, Generation X, the smallest generation, hatched an even smaller generation, Gen Z. The number of students going to college peaked around 5–7 years ago, has been going down ever since, and will continue to go down. Many colleges and universities simply won’t be able to survive. They’re businesses, like anything else, and the schools that have something to offer will continue to thrive, and others will simply wither and blow away. We’ll have far fewer institutions of higher education 10 years from now, and while that is regrettable in a sense, it is probably a good thing.

. . .

Demographers use “demographic cliff” to describe the sharp drop in the population of 18‑ to 24‑year‑olds that began after the Great Recession and is projected to continue into the 2030s. Because this age group makes up the majority of undergraduates, fewer young people almost automatically translates into fewer traditional college students, unless college‑going rates rise a lot.​

. . .

The question is: Will schools be competing on amenities, or will they be competing on the quality of education, or will they be competing on price? My guess is all three. Yes, for the first time in history, schools will have to compete on price. I think we’ve reached the apex of college tuition, and we’re headed downward from here. Not materially, but even if the cost of college remains constant, it will decline in real terms as incomes rise. Same goes for textbooks and room and board and everything else.

. . .

Given declining birth rates generally, 50 years from now, we could have half of the colleges that we have today. Nobody is thinking this far ahead, and nobody is preparing for it. If I were a university president, this would be top of mind—how to financially prepare a university for the day that enrollment is cut in half, building up financial reserves, and not building the indoor practice field.

There's more at the link.

I suspect he's right on the money.  When I look at how many administrators colleges and universities have hired over the past couple of decades (as opposed to lecturers and professors), I'm immediately struck by the huge increase in the former versus the relative (as a proportion of the higher education workforce) decrease in the latter.  All those administrative staff are leeching off the higher education budget without contributing anything, in education terms, to the purpose of that function.  When the only purpose of a function is education, and the demand for education goes down instead of up, what's going to happen to those who aren't contributing anything educational to that sector?  That's right . . . they're going to find themselves out of work.

There's also the question of how much instruction and teaching can be handled by computers and artificial intelligence systems, versus the old lecture style of learning.  High school students have already found they can learn far faster (and get a higher quality of education) through AI systems than through teachers.  Will that translate to higher education as well?  In many areas, I see no reason why not.

I'm currently reading "The Preparation:  How To Become Competent, Confident, and Dangerous", by Doug Casey and Matt and Maxim Smith.

The blurb reads:

Skip the debt. Build the man. What if you could trade four stagnant years in lecture halls for four years of adventure—emerging as a debt‑free EMT, pilot, welder, web/app builder, rancher, and entrepreneur all in one? The Preparation is the field manual for young men (and the parents who love them) who know the old college formula is broken and want a roadmap that actually forges competence, confidence, and real‑world value.

Written by three generations—legendary investor and bestselling author Doug Casey, entrepreneur Matt Smith, and twenty‑year‑old “beta tester” Maxim Smith—this book distills their hard‑won wisdom into a four‑year, 16‑cycle program you can start tomorrow.

• 16 themed cycles—Medic, Cowboy, Pilot, Fighter, Hacker, Maker, and more—each built around a hands‑on “Anchor Course” that forces you to learn by doing, not by cramming.
• Earn‑while‑you‑learn design shows you exactly how to pay your way through each cycle and graduate debt‑free.
• Cost: roughly one year of tuition – yet delivers four years of marketable skills, global travel, and a network of do‑ers, not talkers.
• Foundational philosophy rooted in Stoicism and Renaissance thinking so you don’t just master tasks—you master yourself.
• Bullet‑proof curriculum: step‑by‑step schedules, book lists, online courses, and locations for every skill so you’re never guessing what to do next.
• Battle‑tested results—Maxim used the program to rack up EMT shifts on Oregon wildfires, fly solo over the Rockies, ranch in Uruguay, and sail the Strait of Magellan before he turned twenty.

The Problem: College now averages $140,000+ and often delivers little more than ideology, debt, and obsolete credentials.

The Preparation: compresses that money and time into a crucible that turns raw potential into a modern‑day Renaissance Man—one who can protect, build, heal, sell, and lead in a world being up‑ended by AI and economic turmoil.

If I were a young person today, looking at making my way in life but not yet certain what I wanted to do, something like "The Preparation" as an alternative to college would be very intriguing.  If I had a son or daughter, I'd certainly be making sure they read it, and considered it as a viable alternative to the current higher education grind.  At the very least, it would turn out someone far better prepared for whatever life could throw at them as the typical college or university student.  Remember Robert Heinlein's timeless advice:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

We won't get that from today's universities!

Peter

A whole new security headache for diplomats and politicians

 

If a country is ruthless enough, it can threaten the leaders of rival nations even far beyond its borders, as Ukrainian President Zelensky found out earlier this week.

Four "unidentified military-style" drones violated a no-fly zone on Monday at Dublin Airport as they flew toward the flight path of Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, according to Irish news outlet The Journal.

The flight carrying Zelensky landed, slightly ahead of schedule, a few moments before the drones flew at about 11 p.m.

The drones had their lights on, prompting security forces to suspect that the aim was to disrupt the arrival of Zelensky's plane into Dublin, the outlet said.

The drones, which reached the location where the Ukrainian president's plane was expected to be at the exact moment it had been due to pass, then orbited above an Irish Navy vessel that had secretly been deployed in the Irish Sea for the Zelensky visit.

The report said that, according to sources, the drones took off from the north-east of Dublin, possibly near Howth, and flew for up to two hours.

A lot is unknown at this point - who launched and controlled the drones, or where the drones are now.

The drones were "large, hugely expensive, of military specification, and ... the incident could be classed as a hybrid attack", Ireland's security services have found, according to the outlet.

There's more at the link.

I don't think there's any real doubt about where those drones came from, or who planned and executed the whole thing.  My only question is whether the miniature aircraft would have tried to actually attack Zelensky's plane, or simply disrupt its flight path.  I wouldn't put money either way at this point.  I think Putin is more than ruthless enough to eliminate his rival if the opportunity arose, but he might hesitate due to the diplomatic repercussions . . . or would he?  Enough of his internal political opponents have "fallen out of windows", or experienced aircraft "accidents", or whatever, that one can't be sure he has any real moral restraints at all - only practical ones.

What this means, of course, is that any politician or diplomat is vulnerable to the same sort of threat.  What if Air Force One were intercepted by drones sent by, say, Venezuela, or Mexican drug cartels (which can easily afford weapons-grade military-style drones, plus the explosives needed to turn them into deadly missiles)?  What if US transport aircraft ferrying supplies to an operation against terrorists or drug smugglers (e.g. in the Caribbean, or off Yemen) were threatened in the same way?

Nor is the distance between a potentially hostile nation and the aircraft concerned an obstacle, because (as in Ireland) drones can be smuggled into and through a country or countries relatively easily, particularly if disassembled.  Once used (whether successfully or not), the drones can simply be crashed into the ground and their explosives detonated, or directed to dive themselves into the sea or a large, deep lake nearby.  The odds of their being found, traced and identified are small.

This has the potential to make air travel in general, and in more dangerous areas in particular, a whole lot less safe.  I would say that ship, train or road travel might become safer, except that drones can intercept vehicles at sea or on the ground even more easily than they can those in the air.  I suspect that diplomatic teleconferencing might take on a whole new lease on life . . .

Peter

A pretty serious food recall

 

We've all read innumerable recalls of various products for different reasons.  Some are just ho-hum, same old, same old, and all that.  However, a recall of shredded cheese sold in 31 states is potentially much more dangerous:  so much so that I thought it deserved mentioning it here.

Shredded cheese sold at major retailers, including Target, Walmart, and Aldi, has been recalled in 31 states and Puerto Rico, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The cheese, produced by Great Lakes Cheese Co. Inc., was initially recalled on Oct. 3 for containing metal fragments, which pose the risk of internal injury if consumed. On Dec. 2, the FDA updated the risk level to Class II, the second-highest, meaning the chances of serious health consequences are "remote," but there is a possibility of temporary or reversible effects.

There's a full list of affected products and brands at the link.  I highly recommend checking your groceries against that list, and getting rid of any that match.  Ingesting metal fragments is anything but funny - particularly if your kids are affected!

Peter

A new battlefield problem: Drone fiber pollution

 

Business Insider reports that drone guidance and signal cables are being strewn so thickly over the Ukrainian countryside that they're becoming a major hazard in themselves.  I've included some photographs from social media to illustrate the problem.

Small unjammable drones controlled by fiber-optic cables have become so integral to Russian and Ukrainian combat operations that they are leaving trails of cabling everywhere, turning areas of the battlefield into a tangled web.

As a counter to extensive electronic warfare, fiber-optic drones are becoming increasingly prevalent on both sides. And with sprawling cables stretched across the battlefield, soldiers are moving with greater caution.

"You see the little webs, and you never know — is it from the fiber-optic drone? Or it's a part of a booby trap," Khyzhak, a Ukrainian special operator who for security reasons could only be identified by his call sign ("Predator" in Ukrainian), told Business Insider. Mines and traps have also been prominent threats in this war.

. . .

Other video footage taken from the battlefield shows how fiber-optic cables crisscross like spider webs, sometimes only visible in direct sunlight or when viewed from a certain angle.

Soldiers can't always tell right away if it's a harmless fiber-optic cable or something far more dangerous, like a booby trap. This forces them to think carefully about whether they should call an engineer, destroy the web with explosives, halt, or proceed forward.

There's more at the link.

Those are worrying images, to put it mildly.  Imagine an infantry soldier having to walk through a meadow festooned with such cables.  It'd be almost as bad as barbed or razor wire, not in the sense of being cut, but in the sense of having to cut through almost every cable in order to make progress.  It would slow him down so much that he'd end up being an easy target for a sniper, or another drone looking for an enemy to destroy.  That truck looked like it was pretty much stopped because of fiber-optic cables wound around its wheels and axles.  Speaking from experience, you do not, repeat, NOT want your vehicle to be disabled like that where enemy fire can find you!

This has implications for us as civilians, too.  If such fiber-optic drones become commonplace in civilian use, or by criminals (e.g. the drug cartels) or the police, who's going to police up all the leftover fiber optic cables?  This could become a hazard to animals as well as humans.  There are all sorts of complications one can imagine.

I'm glad I'm not a young soldier these days.  Their chances of living through a war appear to be a lot less than mine did, in my day!  We may, indeed, be getting closer to the day when mortality rates become so high that actual combat is carried out by machines instead (robots, automatons, call them what you will), with human involvement limited to programming and maintaining the machines, and providing person-in-the-loop supervision.

Remember what Azerbaijan did to Armenia just a few years ago?  That war didn't involve one single fiber-optic drone.  Its drone technology already seems primitive compared to what we're seeing in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and developments are so rapid that even the latest equipment in the drone war will only be effective for six months to a year before it's superseded by something even more capable - and lethal.  Those drone cables strewn all over the Ukrainian landscape did not exist a year ago.  All those tangles were laid down over the past twelve months or so.  What's the betting that by this time next year, something else will have replaced them?  Who can say?  And who's going to clear up the debris already on the ground?  That may take years, and until it's done, crops can't be planted and land can't be fully utilized.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #1,127

 

Today's award goes to a particularly dense TikTok user who filmed herself committing a felony.  She threw a stolen gun off the Cross Lake Bridge in Shreveport, and then posted the video on social media.  That was a bad idea.

You can watch another brief video of the proceedings at X.com.  It's giggle-worthy, as are the comments about it from other viewers (you need to be logged in to X to view them).

Peter

A fascinating hunt for an emperor's jewels

 

I enjoyed reading an article in German magazine Der Spiegel about the jewels of the last Austro-Hungarian Empire ruler, Karl I, and how they ended up in a safe place in Canada.  Here's a lengthy excerpt.

It was the morning of November 1, 1918, and the end of his reign was nigh – that much was clear to Austria’s final emperor. His multi-ethnic empire of Austria-Hungary was rapidly disintegrating as crowds in the streets clamored for a republic. Given the direness of the situation, he turned to a loyal servant, Lord High Steward Leopold Count Berchtold and put him in charge of a sensitive mission. Emperor Karl I asked the count to secret the Habsburg family jewels out of the country.

Count Berchtold and his men retrieved dozens of pieces from the display cases of the Imperial Treasury in Vienna’s Hofburg. And in the chaotic days of the revolution, the emperor’s minions brought the riches safely across the border into Switzerland on November 4.

Among the pieces was the diamond crown of Empress Elisabeth (better known as Sisi), a cuff of brilliant-cut diamonds featuring a large emerald that Empress Maria Theresa used to wear for festive sleigh rides – and the legendary Florentine Diamond, a glorious, walnut-sized gemstone said to glow yellow. At 137 carats, it was said to be the fourth-largest diamond in the world. The only existing photograph of the diamond, a black-and-white image taken before 1918, shows it as part of a hat brooch.

Only three years after the clandestine operation, the treasure vanished without a trace. Since then, myths and conspiracy theories have swirled around its fate. It was stolen, said some, the Florentine Diamond cut up and transformed into cash. The rumors were myriad.

Now, though, those rumors can be put to rest.

. . .

At the center stands Zita of Habsburg, Austria’s last empress, Karl Habsburg’s grandmother. The grandson sketches the image of a brave, largely destitute woman, fleeing with her eight children.

The imperial couple eventually ended up on the Portuguese island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean. There, Karl I soon died of pneumonia.

Zita relocated with the children to the Basque Country and then to Belgium. Beginning in the mid-1930s, her eldest son Otto, Karl Habsburg’s father, rose to become an opponent of the Nazis. He was persecuted, and when the Wehrmacht attacked Belgium and France in 1940, Zita of Habsburg once again found herself on the run with her family.

They traveled through Bordeaux to the Spanish border, where hundreds of refugees were waiting to cross, but it was closed. A border guard, as Karl Habsburg tells it, recognized the former empress and allowed her to pass. "And then he asked who in the waiting crowd was part of her entourage and also needed to cross. And grandmother said: All of them.” Habsburg gestures expansively into the restaurant as though a long line of refugees were waiting there, desperate to cross a border in the Pyrenees.

And was the jewelry, was the giant diamond with them the whole time? That he does not know, Habsburg says. But in his narration, it isn’t difficult to visualize a delicate woman with a leather suitcase in her hand. In 1940, she resettled to Canada, in the Quebec City suburb of Sillery.

. . .

Christoph Köchert [co-owner of A.E. Köchert "Imperial and Royal Court and Chamber Jewelers and Goldsmiths since 1814”] in the sixth generation, is a man of gentile bearing.

On behalf of the Habsburgs, the jeweler recently traveled to Canada with a portable carat scale, a refractometer and an electronic diamond tester packed away in his suitcase. His task was determining whether the items in the safe were indeed those that had been missing for so long.

There is a note of reverence in Köchert’s gentle voice when he speaks of seeing the contents of the suitcase for the first time. "It was a sublime moment,” Köchert folds his hands, "possibly one of those you only experience once in a lifetime.”

Some of the pieces in the collection were made, augmented or worked on by his own forebears. He pulls out a photo of a watch set into a large, pear-shaped emerald with another emerald, ground wafer-thin, as its cover. Maria Theresa gave it to her daughter Marie Antoinette, who would later become queen of France and meet an untimely end at the guillotine.

There is a bodice bow of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds in the Hungarian national colors, once owned by Sisi. And there is the "stone of destiny,” that large, 137-carat yellow diamond.

"It is rare to see such a perfect stone,” Köchert says. It is extremely pure, he says, the color reminiscent of "a good Scottish whisky.” The cutter left the original surface in places on the edges. "This is one of the most famous diamonds in the world. The history, the craftsmanship – it is overwhelming.”

The diamond and the 15 other pieces in the safe are genuine, Köchert has no doubt about that. He has put it in writing in two authentication reports.

There's much more at the link.  It's a fascinating story.

Peter

In response to a reader comment on my first post today...

 

... what could I do but re-post his recommendation for this video clip from Johnny Carson?  I daresay it's what the social media user I mentioned in my first post would want, although without some of the more painful accessories.

Johnny Carson was a national treasure.  He retired a few years before I came to the USA, but I've thoroughly enjoyed clips from his golden years on NBC.

Peter

I think this would get massive support

 

From user Common Sensei on Gab:

I'd vote for that (and the representative[s] proposing it) in a heartbeat . . .

Peter