Krioma.net

Here is how I get to this value. According to the US Census Bureau it is predicted that there are roughly 288 000 000 Americans in the country at the moment.

Now from CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/) it can be found that 115 409 172 people voted.

Anywayback to the calculation. So we have 172 590 828 people being idiots already, well we also have to count the ones who voted for George W Bush - they must have something wrong in their head!

Ok CNN again - 59 459 765 votes for George W Bush. So then this means that 232 050 593 Americans are stupid. Giving a percentage of the US populace to be: 80.5% - bloody hell!

Well I guess when that many of you are idiots then it makes sense to be run by an idiot.

Oh any questions or comments about this? Why don't you direct them to here.

I have been meaning to post about this for a while but haven't got around to it till today. The reason I remembered to post this today is that for some reason I was using Internet Explorer today and guess what happened. Yep I got a "browser hijacker" on my comp. Great! Luckily I have lots of anti-adware etc programs installed and so was a process of running the right one. In this case it turn out Lavasoft Ad-aware was the only one to work. Anyway's my point is - USE FIREFOX - it is faster, more secure, cooler and most importantly not MICROSOFT!

Have you got it yet? Remember download Mozilla Firefox - it is only 4mb!

Yesterday I was working on the NAM 2005 registration page at have now decided that not only do I like PHP but I think it is great. Everything I need to do can easily be accomplished. It has excellent functionality for what I need to do on the web. Combined with xhtml this is going to be how I will redesign my website. Yes I am bored of the current design. Time for a change I think. Probably won't get around to it for a while as I have too much work to do.

Today I had a rather energetic game of tennis with Tom - I feel great because of it.

Apart from that I have spent most of the day (apart from going to the Post grad open day) programming. I have got lots done - my user registration is more complex than ever and seems to work quite well. I also decided to do an online quiz to see how much I had picked up about xhtml without actually looking at any references. Either the test was easy or I learnt quite a bit as I go 17 out of 20. I reckon it was a combination of the two.



After I did the test I looked at the info on the site I did the test on. It was quite good. If you want to learn some XHTML go to: http://www.w3schools.com/xhtml/xhtml_syntax.asp

Hello, my name is Fred. I am suffering from rare and deadly diseases, poor scores on final exams, extreme virginity, fear of being kidnapped and executed by anal electrocution, and guilt for not forwarding about 50 billion fucking chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe that if you send them on, then that poor 6-year-old girl in Arkansas with a breast on her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her redneck parents sell her off to the traveling freakshow.

Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you and everyone you send "his" email to $1000? How stupid are you? "Ooooh, lookyhere! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid by every Playboy model in the magazine!"

What a bunch of crap!

So basically, this message is a big FUCK YOU to all the people out there who have nothing better to do than to send me stupid chain mail forwards. Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my apartment and sodomize me in my sleep for not continuing the chain which was started by Jesus in 5 A.D. and was brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the Mayflower and if it makes it to the year 2000, it'll be in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest continuous streak of blatant stupidity..

If you're going to forward something, at least send me something mildly amusing. I've seen all the "send this to 50 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a nickel from some omniscient being" forwards about 90 billion times. I don't care. Show a little intelligence and think about what you're actually contributing to by sending out forwards. Chances are it's your own unpopularity.

The point being? If you get some chain letter that's threatening to leave you shagless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's funny, send it on. Don't piss people off by making them feel guilty about a leper in Botswana with no teeth, who's been tied to a dead elephant for 7 years, whose only savior is the 5 cents per letter he'll receive if you forward this mail, otherwise you'll end up like Maranda. Right?

Now forward this to everyone you know. Otherwise, tomorrow morning your underwear will turn carnivorous and consume your genitals.

Thanks, Fred

Firstly site news! I hope everyone likes the new design.
I am very pleased with it. I think it looks nice and neat which I guess can be argued as a bad thing. I like it. I especially like the new now playing feature. I still have a few problems. These are mostly in IE and range from problems with sizing the page correct on small resolutions, this is also apparent in Mozilla but to less of a case - when I get change I will play with this - not for now though. The other problem is the "white space" issue with IE. For some reason if there are nested DIVs (I wont bore you with the code) present IE puts in stupid space. This is a problem with the majority of my blog posts. It will not be a problem from now one. I am going to go back and fix the problems when I can be arsed. If anyone spots any problems please contact me.



Today I started to work heavily on my project programming. I am stuck - I have decided to give it a rest for today. I am going to Warwick tomorrow so this should be fun! Well it is their open day, time to see if I can get on a PhD program! I want to stay in Birmingham but well I have to have backup options.



Finally yesterday I had one of the funniest lectures in a while. It was on SQUIDS - yes Superconducting QUantun Interference Devices. The titles was funny. SQUIDS can basically be used to measure very sensitive magnetic fields (fractions of the Earths - which is very small). In fact they could in theory be used to measure the magnetic field of your brain. That's when the first funny comment came from my excellent lecturer - "You can put a SQUID on brain to measure your brains magnetic field". This was followed by the term "SQUID ENGINEER"! And then finally him informing us of the problem they had with a logo (a picture of a SQUID) telling demonstration kits to American Uni's. This problem was that it was holding a beer and the Uni's didn't like this since they can't drink beer (legally) till they are 21! What a stupid law. Ok jibe at America over for today! Well maybe not... Condoleezza Rice ... enough said! Well maybe not I can't believe that this lying cow is now America's top diplomat. I think George W has paid her back for what she said about September 11th 2001! Bye bye foreign policy. ARGH!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4014961.stm

Today my dog Max died. It is like losing a best mate because at times that is exactly what he was. He was not just a dog but a member of the family.

I honestly don't think I can remember a time clearly when he was not present. I will miss him. (oh sorry Mom if you read this and upsets you - same to dad and melissa). Max aka Macca aka Maxwell and various other names that he has been called over the years was always a silly dog but a loyal one to. I remember a time when he bit a little shit after he kicked my dad. All I have to say is that Max was hard and at times a bit of a wimp. Whatever he will be missed.

As I write this (it won't be posted till I am home due to the lack of wireless infrastructure in the UK) I am sat on a rather comfortable Virgin Voyager train. I am on my way back from Reading. For once the train was actually on time. In fact it was actually at the train station when we got to the platform a whole 5 minutes early. I am shocked. This is a complete and utter opposite to my journey down to Reading. The train was a good 20 minutes late with no information being passed to the customers. The computerised announcement system did not once apologise in the fake way it does that the train is late. There was no information passed from the computer system apart from on the inconveinently placed screen to the customers. We waited on platform 1 of New Street Station as 4 other trains where put int he place of ours to then eventually 20 minutes late find that our train had been moved to platform 2 - great.

I even actually have a decent amount of space to work at. I even managed to get a table on the way down so I can't really moan about the environment of the train much.

Apart from that I have had a good weekend. On Friday night we relaxed at Alex's and I caught up on some of the work I needed to do. Stupidly I forgot to bring an important file and so was unable to work on my K-correction program (don't ask!)

Saturday morning came - time for me to go into the inhospitible environment that is London. How can I describe London? Well as a Brummie I have grown up in a big city environment and know what it is like. London is a different though. I think the best way to describe it is that it is Birmingham but on acid. It is by far the most uncaring environment you could enter. No one cares (OUCH: damn woman just hit me with her stupidly large bad as she gets on the train at Oxford). Apart from that London isnt that bad. The average time I have had to wait for a tube train was about 2minutes and so was able to get around very quickly. I also find the fact of going deep underground rather interesting.

One major problem is the lack of mobile signal but what do you expect deep undergound - maybe time for a few signal boosters to be added! Oh the protests about the "radiation"! Now that would be quite funny.

On the way down to London me and Alex decided to play with my phone, resulting in:

Back to my train journey. It is going well apart from about five minutes when we were moving at a pace I could walk at we seem to be moving smoothly. Good.

So then, why did I go to London? Well I had to go for a lengthy FAS (Federation of Astronomical Socieities) meeting. As always we made lots of progress and unlike most by staying at Alex's house in Maidenhead it meant that I did not have to get up at a ridicoulous time in the morning.

After the meeting we came back pretty sharpish as but me and Alex (who met up with a mate) could not be arsed with fighting around London any longer.

Another interesting weekend over... time to get back to programming or maybe playing Football Manager 2005! ;-)

Oh the sunset through the clouds at the moment is quite spectacular.

The other day I was informed of an article of our exploits for the Venus Transit. Oh I was shocked to find out that my department has also changed name. According to the Alumni magazine of the University of Birmingham we are now the School of Physics and Astrology! ARGH!

The Manchurian Candidate was an excellent film. I saw the trailer a while back now and heard about its release in the states and was very eager to see it. I went to watch it yesterday. I would highly recommend seeing it though I feel it might not have the same impact as it could have had around the USA Presidential election.

Gosh I am busy. I am in working really hard... for once. Astrosoc went well tonight got all the scopes out. We are going to buy a 10" one :-) As for being busy well I am kind of enjoying it. Well it is stressful at times and don't think I will get everything done (I will - that is my nature!) but I have to say I am learning lots. Well time to make a few changes to the RAS NAM 2005 user registration system and then off to bed. Don't you just love MYSQL - well I do.. at times!

While I was sitting around, not doing my Astronomical Data Analysis techniques assessed problems, I for some unknown reason started thinking about the issues of naming stars. In the past stars were named after gods and imagery. On occasions stars are named after people, such as Barnard's Star. This does not happen often though. Astronomers prefer to use catalogue numbers since it is much easier to use. Obviously names are appropriate for the brightest stars. I can imagine standing with a group of people observing and saying "look that's HIP 27989!". I am sure no one would be at all impressed but if I said "look that's Betelgeuse!" I am sure I would get a better response.


This actually brings me on to my little rant - star naming companies. If they are trying to pass on that naming the star is more than a novelty item then they are fraudsters. I can see that this would be a nice novelty gift but a word of warning to anyone thinking of actually purchasing the rights to a name - IT MEANS NOTHING! It will not be recorded anywhere apart from in the naming companies database. No Astronomer (amateur or professional) will ever use it. You are not likely to EVER see it. It is bound to be a star which is too faint to see with your eye and also very hard to see with a telescope. To see it you are bound to have to be a skilled amateur astronomer. So please don't do it if you really think you have named that star. If you want to spend money on this as a novelty then I am sure it would make a good present to the right person. Rant almost over :-)

The only people who can name stars are the International Astronomical Union . Oh a good rant on this topic can be found at http://www.enzerink.net/peter/astronomy/starfaq/. So I think star naming = fraud. Maybe time the astronomical community took action.

Last night was the Snow Patrol gig at the Birmingham Academy. It was absolutely wonderful. From the moment they came out to the contact music from close encounters of the third kind I knew that this was going to be special. They mostly played their latest album, "Final Straw", but they also throwed in some excellent older ones. The crowd were bouncing for most of the gig which was interesting as I did not expect the reaction to be quite as energetic. It was good though. It was definitely worth the money. One thing that wasn't worth the money was the rank Carling sold at the gig.


The support bands, "Morning Runner" and "the Gears", were good. Morning Runner were excellent with a nice combination of piano and guitars and The Gears were good with a few different styles and a bald front man getting into it like Jack Black wood - musically not the best but entertainment value had to be a 10/10.