Krioma.net

As I mentioned before I went to the Uni's observatory a couple of weeks ago. Me and Steve managed to take some images of galaxies etc. We still need to do some heavy processing but due to my nature of getting out my results as quick as possible I posted our first go at producing an image of the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51. I now I bring you our second galaxy - M94.





Now for a bit of background. M94 was discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 22, 1781. After the initial report Charles Messier observed it, determined its position and cataloged it on March 24, 1781. It is a Spiral galaxy and was classified Sab because of its extremely bright inner region (this is overexposed in a few of my images).

More astronomical images I have taken can be seen in my gallery. More information about this wonderful object can be found at: http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m094.html

Yesterday I went to see Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (we had to run due to central trains, argh!), a film I have been eagerly awaiting since I found out it was in production. It was good. It has been a while since I read the books and so couldn't quite remember if they had things right. It does seem that they have added stuff to it and removed some stuff. I won't say what, just in case anyone who reads this wants to watch it. My favourite scene involved wool and the Infinite Improbability Drive :-) - for those of you who don't remember what this is "The Infinite Improbability Drive is a wonderful new method of crossing vast intersteller distances in a mere nothing of a second without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace." The film's official website can be found at: http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/ - this flash heavy!

One final comment it was incredible - even worse than I thought it would be. But that's only Marvin's opinion.

Yesterday was great. I hoped we would do it but I had my doubts. I did think to myself it we were going to win then we would have to score within the first 10 minutes or so. I do wish, though,that they hadn't played so defensive from then onwards. Not good for the health of the fans! :-) Liverpool look much better going forward with the ball and they really should have took the game to Chelsea more. Well I can't complain as they did it, they won!

Oh and according to a BBC article: "Liverpool are set to face disciplinary action from Uefa after pitch invasions during Tuesday's win over Chelsea." Now that is crazy. Ok fair enough two people got on the pitch and maybe a fine would be justified but it should be small. If it is anything approaching Inter Milan's after their crowd trouble then I hope the FA say something. It would be prove that UEFA just think English football crowds are worse than the rest of Europe - which they aren't. We don't need huge barriers and anyway it was two Spanish muppets who ran on to the pitch.

Another thing I noticed last night was that Mourinho went on the field after the game to shake the hands of all the Liverpool players. I don't like his normally but that was a very nice thing to do. Shows he knows when he has been humbled. Oh and here is the celebration:

On Thursday night we went to see Maximo Park play at the Birmingham Academy 2. I have never seen a gig at the academy 2 before. It wasn't bad. It was just the upstairs room of the main academy - nothing special about it but it did have a closer environment than a normal academy gig. This was the secondMaximo Park gig I have seen after seeing them play at the Jug of Ale earlier this year (see this). They were excellent before and they did not disappoint. They even played a few songs that I haven't heard before. I think one was about the A19 but I am not quite sure. The crowd were most boisterous for Apply Some Pressure and Graffiti - there most recent singles and probably two of their more 'bouncy' songs - if that makes sense. I enjoyed their whole set and at one point I was getting nervous that they wouldn't play "The Night I Lost My Head" which is probably my favourite Maximo Park song but not by much. I really like lots of their songs. The gig was sold out so looks like they might be on the way of making it big.

Also playing was The Blood Arm - a very interesting American band. The lead singer has the charisma and style of a Swedish band called the Hives. Apart from that there aren't many similarities. I think I shall be looking out for this band in the future as they were very good. The other band, I think, was called the Research but I am not entirely sure. They were ok but I think suffered from not being the most confident. Worth a listen...

I went to see Kingdom of Heaven yesterday. This is a film about the crusades staring Orlando Bloom. It was quite good and had some good battle scenes with some impressive graphics. It did seem to miss something though, not entirely sure what but there was something missing. It is a Ridley Scott film and so I was expecting something good and I wasn't that disappointed. It was very enjoyable to watch and quite entertaining. If you like castles and medieval battles then this is one to watch. If you don't then maybe watching if for the personal side might be good. Either way there was something not quite right. Oh I shall also avoid going into a rant about the idiots who came in during the trailers and stood there looking lost.. right in my way. Muppets.

The University of Birmingham are in the process of a rebrand. At first I had my reservations about liking the design as they seemed to be going ultra modern with simple just "U B" slightly stylized and set slightly off the page. It now appears they are gonna go back to the old crests as well. I think it looks great.


And here is the UB:

More can be found on: http://www.general.bham.ac.uk/brand/

WOW! That's about all I can say. We went to see it on Thursday and I was very pleased. It made up for the first one! I won't say more as Star Wars speaks for itself. This is definitely one that probably is best watched in the cinema. There was even to big cheers at the start, can't ask for more than that. Oh it also appears that Red Bull racing in Formula 1 have been taken over with the force for an advertising campaign this weekend - lets hope the force is with them. More: http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=32883 and http://www.crash.net/uk/en/picture_view.asp?cid=1&pid=186456

Yesterday I had my first exam, yes on a Saturday (I have two saturday exams this year!). It went well, I hope! This is my last set of exams during my degree (I only have 5 this year - yipee!) - it couldn't have come sooner. After 4 years of working hard in the summer term I am looking forward to not having to stress about exams next year. Things are going well with my revision, not as good as I would have liked. Probably because I had a good year last year, finding it hard to be motivated this year. I have 3 exams in 3 days at the end of the week (then the big piss up!) so I won't be posting on here regularly - something I haven't done for a while due to revision. Well on to the superconductivity, what's the Meissner effect again? :-( (btw the Meissner effect is basically the exclusion of flux from the bulk of a superconducting body [Wiki Link].

I just came across two rather interesting articles. The first one is about cloning, something I have little knowledge about but really should have some (time to learn some biology - I think not :-) ), the second is a rather interesting articles that involves Mongolia and a possible step back to the good old days (someone stand Stalin up?).

Cows
Communists

I can't quite believe what happened last night. At half time I was ready to walk home to do some revision (for today's laser exam!) but deep down I never give up hope. Liverpool in the first half played like the team I saw in January against Everton and on other various occasions of the season. They had no midfield, the defence was being overwhelmed. Then in the second half, everything changed. They got hold of the ball and put more than two passes together. I think the pivotal moment came when Xabi Alonso smacked one from about 30 yards that just went wide. This seemed to give them the confidence. The rest is history and I am sure you all know it. Two things that come to mind though. Was this the greatest final ever? Quite possibly one of the best. Was that Jerzy Dudek out there or Bruce Grobbelaar since Dudek took a few pages out of his book. Excellent. Liverpool champions of Europe!

If you haven't got a clue what I am going on about (have you been sat under a rock?) take a look at: [BBC Article] [BBC Article]

I noticed today that the new University of Birmingham Logo has made it into the news! [BBC Article] For a bit more see [Internal Link]. It also got on a more local site.

A friend of mine brought the my attention to the Phallic Logo Awards. I will let you come to your own conclusions on some of these, though Pontins doesn't seem like the family option anymore.

I have been revising for most of the day, well apart from my Lasers and Quantum Optics exam this afternoon and watching the celebrations in Liverpool. It has been truly wonderful, shame I couldn't go. Even the Queen made a comment ""Congratulations on your remarkable win last night"! Excellent. Lots of people have been saying nice things and it will help to bolster the campaign to get Liverpool to be able to defend their title. There appears to be an ever increasing list of coincidences this year with previous times Liverpool have won the title. More here: [BBC Article]

Also was this the greatest Cup final? This [BBC Article] has lots of good points. I think it was an excellent final but I don't claim to have seen enough, or being biased enough, to claim it was the best ever. At the least it was one of the greatest ever.

Oh and talking about the BBC, they have an interesting feature on their site where you can download a mask. This occurred for the Euro Championships. It appears that the one they are promoting the most at the moment is one of Dudek. I think he has now become a legend (get it here: [BBC pdf]), oh and its not the best pic:

The Feds have shut down EliteTorrents.org, supposedly one of the best sites in the torrent community, I personally have never used BitTorrent. The webiste now has a big warning from the Feds that goes something like this: "HAS BEEN PERMANENTLY SHUT DOWN BY THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION AND U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT

Individuals involved in the operation and use of the Elite Torrents network are under investigation for criminal copyright infringement".
Another one for the MPAA eh? (Motion Picture Association of America).
Some more info can be found here: [Reuters], [SlashDot.org], [Geek.com].
Oh and remember (probably only people from the UK will get this) that piracy funds terrorism, even when it costs no one a penny and that's a matter of FACT. :=)

...well JC (Jamie Carragher)!


Image by Nick Manning and is off the BBC website.

My degree is over. I had my last exam yesterday and now have the hangover to prove it! :-) My last exam was a Quantum Mechanics one, quite fitting that it would be a core physics course to finish on. I had 3 exams in 3 days so even though I tried to party hard last night I just couldn't - I was just too tired. Well that doesn't matter so much as I still have a few weeks around Selly Oak before the results are in to celebrate. I have just gotta find something to do now, expect some changes on the website. I'm very much looking forward (results pending) to starting my PhD in September but for now its time to relax and recover.