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How can I not have discovered RightFields until now? Woohoo! This is like having FileMaker-circa-1990 integrated with Movable Type, only without the draggable front-end! I’m not exactly in heaven, but there are considerably fewer clouds where I’m standing right now and that smudge in the distance just might be gates of some kind.

Better a month late than never: NASA and ESA have released a remarkable video of the Huygens probe descending to Titan. Overlayed on the pretty picture are lateral and detail graphics and charts for signal strength to the Cassini orbiter. Best of all is the audio, synthesised from the rotational speed of the probe and the tilt of the parachute, with chimes and beeps for imaging exposures.

It’s a remarkable video, and not just for the wonder that it’s possible to collect this sort of data from a Saturnian moon: the superposition of data is glorious. I only wish the Quicktime was higher-resolution.

Note to self: really really really buy a copy of Tufte soon.

You know, I’d dearly love fusion power to be a commercial reality. Partly because it could solve an awful lot of problems, but mostly because it’s just plain cool. And it’d be a last hurrah for our technological mastery over nature driving our future, before we really had to buckle down and accept that we can’t do things that way any more.

So I’m pleased to see that Japan’s JT-60 tokamac has sustained plasma for over 28 seconds. That’s impressive, and it bodes well for Iter, the forthcoming international reactor that’s due to be operational near Aix-en-Provence by – da-da-daaaaa! – 2016.

This, note, is exactly the same project that I first heard about in lectures in 1989. Note also that Iter is not intended to produce any actual power – that’s for the next stage.

There used to be a joke about fusion power: ‘commercial nuclear fusion is thirty years away. Always has been, always will be.’ I wonder sometimes if that timescale is stretching. I also wonder if their construction planning includes provision for the oil running out.

Now there’s a thought – is it possible for humanity to reach a position where we know how to build a tokamac power station, but we don’t have the means to do so because we’ve run out of precursor energy sources? So we have to wait for reforestation, then reinvent the traction engine, and only then can we build the shiny new fusion plant.

Simon Shaps, Director of Television for ITV, spoke to the Royal Television Society on Thursday night. I wasn’t there, of course, but thanks to the transcript we can find out what he said.

Firstly, there’s a robust defence of television (viewing hours are up – though it’s not clear if this includes time watching DVDs – as are, apparently, advert impressions), and the obligatory knocking of the BBC vision of the creative future, “which appears to focus on virtually everything but making television.”

But the main thrust of his speech is about ITV’s approach. He wants to “win audiences and plaudits by being bold and adventurous,” to be a “channel that aims high, that does take risks, and is less predictable.”

There are a few lines that bring out the cynic in me, but the one that really sticks in my throat goes like this:

In Childrens we have launched a new channel which includes in its line-up more UK original content than all of our commercial competitors put together.

I’m sure somebody here will correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that the CITV channel currently includes no new commissions. That is, all the ‘UK original content’ is repeats.

But my central criticism is this – Shaps says nothing that producers don’t hear every week from commissioners. ‘We want more innovation,’ they say, ‘radical ideas,’ ‘we’re willing to take risks,’ ‘we want TV that people will talk about.’ Well… of course they do. But the plain fact of the matter is that, by definition, you can’t take risks without having a few failures. If you only take the sure-fire hits then, well, you’re not risking anything at all.

So, ultimately, I’m left scratching my head and wondering just what Shaps’ strategy really is. Because from where I’m sitting, it looks exactly the same as everyone else’s.

I have an aging, bashed-about Sony DV camera. It’s one of the domestic single-chip models, but it was carefully chosen, and I have a small selection of accessories for it – a half-decent wide-angle adaptor, a couple of microphones, mounts and clamps. If you’ve seen my shows, you’ll likely have seen shots from it – it’s not at all broadcast quality, but it’s ‘good enough’ for minicamera and point-of-view shots, so I’ve tended to clamp it in dramatic positions and not worry too much about it. It’s a handy thing to have, anyway – I’ve some lovely footage of my nephew, and having it to hand allowed me to do the pilot project which spawned this NESTA gig we’re now gearing up for.

It’s really not a good camera. I’d love something like the Z1 John’s just bought (though I’d really really like a Panasonic HVX-200), but this is what I have at the moment. Mostly, it’s good enough.

This does not, however, explain why, this morning, I loaned it out… to BBC Scotland. A chum there rang me last night and explained that they’ve run out of cameras – could he borrow mine?

Umm… what?!

Now, it’s not quite what you think, in that it’s not being used for a show. Nor even by the TV arm of the BBC. But still…

What do you mean ‘the BBC have run out of cameras’?

Magnificent catch by Cass Sunstein in the Washington Post: best guesstimates suggest that the total cost to the US of the conflict in Iraq is now $300bn and counting, which is basically the same amount of money as U.S. compliance with the Kyoto Protocol would have cost. In the latter case, of course, it’s a large enough sum of money to cause “serious harm to the U.S. economy” (President Bush).

Doubtless one can drive either figure in either direction, so the comparison will never be uncontroversial. And as Sunstein points out, the return is at least as difficult to assess as the expenditure (is the world safer following the removal of Saddam?). But still – are we reaching the point where even a fairly modest war is unaffordable? Or are we reaching a point where significant changes in the interests of reducing climate change are demonstrably cost-effective?

Retro as I am, I had to take my films into the lab to get them developed. I’m mildly surprised that’s still possible. Anyway, I have my piccies back from India. They’re all from the same morning – a terribly dusty day in Delhi – and they’re… well, meh. They’re OK.

See, the thing is, I hate my lens so much (it vignettes rather badly) that I just haven’t used the camera very much. And one really does get out of practice, it seems. In particular, my old Minolta is old enough that the viewfinder eyepoint isn’t quite large enough to work with my glasses, so I never see all of the frame. I used to be able to adjust for that, but for some reason with these films I’ve clipped too much off the foot of frame. I’ll have to check the negs and see if I really have, or if it’s dubious printing.

The real disappointment, however, is in the grab shots down the back streets of Old Delhi. Difficult circumstances, and the shutter speed just isn’t high enough (no great surprise – I was mostly shooting blind). It’s gutting because at least one of the shots is sufficiently clear to reveal that it would have been magnificent… had it not been shaky.

However, there are still some interesting shots, and a few with which I’m quite pleased. I’ll work out what to do with them in the coming days.

Before a bunch of you wade in with howls of protest – no, I’m not seriously looking for a job at the BBC. I was merely idly passing time browsing their jobs pages. And you know, they’re rather interesting.

Specifically, you can search jobs by area. Here are spot results from right now:

• Programme making: 11 vacancies
• New Media: 12 vacancies
• Journalism: 13 vacancies
• Business support and management: 41 vacancies
• Traineeship: 0 vacancies

Did I say ‘interesting’? My mistake. I meant ‘disturbing’.

Or maybe ‘cheap shot.’

Everyone’s favourite Mac developer, Brent Simmons, has finally lost it.

In related news: NetNewsWire 2.1 has shipped. It’s a doozy.

If you’re trying to get a handle on the post immediately below, here’s the overview pitch:

In the 1970s and 80s, Johnny Ball and his team at the BBC did a terrific job of inspiring British children towards mathematics, science and engineering.

That was then. But now, it’s 2006. Suppose you want to provide similar sorts of inspiration for children today: how do you do it?

Well, I made science TV for children for almost ten years (I actually made more series than Johnny Ball did), and this project is my first big stab at answering that question. I want to take all that video experience, mix it up with my general web geekery, and make something wonderful for the next generation of technically-minded children.

I now have half the funding I need. Who else wants in?