I can’t let today pass without mentioned the release of Apple’s latest operating system, Mountain Lion. I’m not a fan of Apple, as you may have guessed from my blogs, but I am a massive fan of Felis concolor to use one of its names; It’s also referred to as Mountain lion (obviously), Cougar or Puma. It’s not one of the big cats you see regularly in Zoos in the UK, though I don’t know why not as it’s an incredibly attractive animal and one that is as much in need of our protection as any other big cat.
Unlike the software released by Apple which will number in the Millions in just one day of release, experts estimate there are only around 30 to 40,000 Mountain Lions left in the wild. Of course habitat loss has played a major part in the reduction in numbers but so has hunting. With the close proximity of nature to habitation, conflicts (whether out of fear of safety to people (usually a knee jerk reaction rather than a real threat) or livestock) are bound to occur and I’m afraid it’s the Puma that has faired the worst. Numbers are now bouncing back through Government intervention and whilst not out of the woods yet (though they are safer there) they are now classified as Near Threatened.
Reading the trade press today, it would appear that despite a plethora of new cameras and lenses released or announced this year, Canon haven’t finished there with rumours of another three digital SLRs to be released and more lenses including a replacement for the venerable 100-400mm lens which is the staple lens for many a hobbyist or professional alike. If these rumours are true it, Canon will have had a record year with 6 new cameras and 13 new lenses. I now have to work out to somehow parallel this with lottery wins so I can purchase some if not all of these camera… I might see if I can write a program to predict the winning numbers..*
*This will be based around the RND function, after all there is no pattern, no scheme – it is just random!
Andrew Skelton: 
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