Krioma.net

I like to think I'm quite an 'ethical' (everyone has their own ethics and I wouldn't want to force my opinion on anyone else) person and I think that most of this has been backed up by reading of: http://www.ethicalstudent.com/. This is a very interesting website with some good links that provide some necessary reading if you are trying to be an 'ethical' person, in particular whilst a student. I know what life is as a student and its not fun since money is tight. At times it is a right bitch to try and be ethical as it can cost more, but it's worth it. If you don't believe me take a look at the ethical student website above.

I went to see the Four Brothers the other day. My friend Kat said "I hear its a blokes film", obviously I denied this and at first I almost convinced myself that it wasn't. Well that's when the guns came out. It is a good film and its not a typical "lets kick ass and shoot up the place film". It has a feeling to it and a reason behind the violence, well maybe. The overall reason why is a little vague in a sense but obvious in others - if that makes sense. The reason behind the why is a little daft but heck it's a good film. I enjoyed it, though not as much as I though I would have. Overall was this a blokes film? I'd probably agree it was, though not a typical one. Oh and as Kat said I do hope that Detroit isn't really like how it is perceived in films. If it is then I do feel sorry for anyone who lives in the bad parts, though I do guess that you could take anywhere and you will find somewhere "dodgy". Gosh, now I am sounding like a middle class moron - honest I'm far from that.

This is cool: [lego camera]

I've finally gotten around to posting some pics of the last few weeks. This includes pictures taken after the astrosoc freshers quiz which featured me and Ran singing along to "Gaybar" by Electric Six:





A few more can be found [here]

October 1st was the date of the second Federation of Astronomical Societies conventions I have helped organise. This years one was at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. It went well, we had about 70 people along - slightly lower than I would have hoped but it still went down well. Anyway the reason I mention this is because I have just gotten around to posting the photos for this:





More can be found [here]

Last wednesday I went out with Simon and a bunch of second years (some of whom I know others I don't). It was an excellent night, though I do have a bit of memory loss (about 30 minutes at a crucial part of the night!), it was great. Saying this I didn't fully remember the rest of the night (minus the 30 mins) until my friends told me the day after. Woops. Still it was fun and I think the start of the night was quite accurately displayed by Ran's facial expression in the below image:

Did I get any cool pics of last weeks solar eclipse? Nope, the cloud stopped us. Bastard weather.


Well at least I got one good image off my phone, a shame it was due to me pointing it at a webcast from Spain. I wonder who I can get to believe me?



A couple of other pictures can be found [here]

In the past two months I have seen more rainbows than I did, from what I can remember, during my whole time living in Selly Oak. The shocking thing is that is only 2! Rainbows are cool. And here is a picture of this one:

Fancy wiping your bum with the face of US president (sorry I mean idiot) George W. Bush well the Zhucheng Senke Paper-Making Co.Ltd. plant in China have the answer. Well according to [this] article.

I have seen some odd forum posts in the past, but this one (from the Royal Astronomical Society's forum) takes the biscuit.


"I still only like to do a common people, the fame is useless to me. I studying physics is only my interest and hap... At beginning, I had not thought I would write a paper Advanced gravity theory that is against to Relativity. Actually, I can't go back now, I even wanted to abandon my paper, but my paper has been known by all my friends, I can't go down the stage... But money is very important, because I am a fever on cyber products... I have no enough money to buy them... But little is enough, I don't need to be rich." by yu_wing_sin


I'm not sure what to say to that. It's a bit random really isn't it. I do like the title though "Doing a outstanding physicist is not good", making this into "Doing an outstanding physicist is not good" makes lots of sense. Well maybe, I'm a physicist an I can recommend not getting too close to our kinds, lol! Seriously we are good, real good as we know how the world works. So there, ha!

Last Thursday was the PPS (Poynting Physical Society) freshers pub crawl. It went down well with loads of people there! Since my job on the PPS committee is essentially to keep the website going I have just uploaded the pictures from this event, some of them are quite ammusing, take a look at [here]. Here are a few of my favs though:

Time for another [apod] image. This one is of Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka. This is essentially a picture of the belt of Orion, so for all of you who have seen it, this is what it looks like up close and personal. At the bottom is fantastic Orion nebula which encompasses a horsehead, which you can probably easily locate. Absolutely breath taking isn't it!



Credit: Digitized Sky Survey, ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator Color Composite: Davide De Martin (Skyfactory)

The other week there was a fantastic annular solar eclipse visible from Spain. I stayed in England due to work, however, we should have still got a good show but most of the UK was clouded out (see [old blog entry]). I did, the day after see some photos from the UK but I didn't seeanything to stunning. Saying that I just came across this collection - lucky person! The pics taken here are pretty stunning. Saying that though, it would have been worth a trip to Spain to see images like these (oh and I meant of the Moon / Sun and not of the Spanish dudes!).

Yes I'm now officially hunting for brown dwarfs. They are hard to find but damn massive. Essentially they are objects that did not have enough mass to start fusion (some controversy about this so won't go into details). But they are illusive and not many have been found. They are interesting cause they can tell us interesting things about the formation of the rather large planets and nicely fit in the mass function between stars and planets. There are two types L and T. Anyway enough of this for a bit more info see [here].
Oh there is a good diagram (well I though it was! :-P) on [here].
I'm sure over the coming months I will rant on more and more about this, especially if I find one!! :-)

The other day I decided to just play around on the SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey) explorer pages. Wow! I know how detailed this survey is but when you just start looking at the images instead of the numbers it really hits home. Here is a portion of the sky about the central RA: 115.78059 DEC: 25.83573



and if we zoom in:



and further:



In this image there are countless (well you could count them all!) and loads of galaxies, wow! The beautiful thing is anyone can just go and look at the images, you can use the virtual observatory and do what you like with it. Take a look at: [SDSS SkyServer]

I get lots of junk mail and occasionally my mail filters don't block it out. One of them got through today, it was actually quite funny and almost cringe worthy. Take a look, oh and note the misspelling on the crucial part of the ad(!):

I am a 39 year old male and in good health and fairly fit, but realized a while back that sometimes I had a hard time maintaining an erection. I am single, but I do date a lot and I believe many times the problem was due to anxiety and pressure to perform with someone new.


I bought Vjaggra online [ED: Website Address I'm not gonna advertise!] and decided to give it a go.


WOW WOW WOW it kicked in after about 20-30 minutes and that was just perfect, as I knew where the evening was going. She is a beautiful woman with a great body and I did not think I needed it with her, but let me just say After the 5th time I am not kidding ;) she said: Please no more lol unbelievable.


It was like being a teenager over again. Amazing!

At last the Crimea are to properly release their album "Tragedy Rocks". I do hope it isn't too different, with lots of new songs. The reason I say this is brought this from a gig over a year ago (see: [old blog post] - this even got a mention on the bands website [this link])!! It's a great album and I do hope it sells well and they go on to greater things. They have a rather unique sound and I really like it. There is a review over at [DrownedInSound].
Oh and I saw them at Reading where they played a great gig, though they have changed some lyrics!! :O

You probably haven't noticed, hopefully you will now(!), that I have added a new feature to the site home page. It is a sunrise / sunset calculator. This is based on Birmingham UK (yeah, ok its aimed as a tool for myself!). Hopefully it will be useful for someone. I guess if anyone really wanted it I could put up a script that allowed you to enter your own coordinates (lat, long) and timezone. Sounds like too much effort at the moment. If you want it email me at: webmaster-[at]-krioma.net (you know what to do to make this into an actual email, I hope). Actually any comments can go to the above address. Nothing too rude I hope! The code for the script comes mostly from [external page] - so thanks to the dude who wrote it!

Ok the title sounds a bit cartoon (ok, daft!) but heck this is cool! I just came across the below image that was taken with the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) of Birmingham and the surrounding area. Its pretty odd, but even in this RADAR image you can still quite clearly pick out Birmingham. For more see [esa page]



Oh and I love the rather random text on their site (bit odd to include the background info!):

"This Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) shows English city of Birmingham and surrounding area. The city occupies the large brighter area to the south of the image, which also encompasses the city of Wolverhampton and the town of Walsall. The Birmingham conurbation in the West Midlands has been the centre of a large industrial area since the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. The area served as a centre for metal goods and was well served by numerous canals, many of which can be seen if we zoom into the image. These canals helped to transport coal into the city from the coalfields of South Staffordshire just north of Birmingham, and then goods out of the city. The surrounding brighter areas are further towns and cities in the Midlands region. They include; to the east of Birmingham there is Coventry, to the northeast Derby and Nottingham, to the north Stoke. "

A huge (16.3mb) version can be found [here]. On this you can even 'see' the city roads!

The other day it rained rather heavily but it left some rather purple skies across campus, I couldn't resist taking some pictures with my mobile phone:

A new Balti restaurant opened near me the other day, Witton Lodge Balti, so obviously we went along on the night of their grand opening! My dad seems to know the guy who owns it and this lead to us having a great time. I think I shall have to appreciate their cooking again, oh and the choice of veggie options weren't bad (which is good for me!). I do love a good Balti - which I think is a little obvious from my face in the below pictures:

The coffee lounge had a few odd visitors, who says cups don't have feelings. They were joined by Colin, I think thats what the name of this soft object is but I am not entirely sure (heck Colin, Dave and Bodo sounds cool). Maybe I have been staring at my computer terminal too much.....

We went for a curry the other night and look at the mess my mate Ran got himself into...tut tut, some people!





And if you think that was bad, I think Rowan got too excited when they brought out the family sized naan bread!

Possibly the best clothing advert ever!! BTW I wan't the trousers! lol (Note: not one for younger viewers, not that my site ever is).
Take a look at the movie [here]

Firstly I'm not talking about something you do after you have had a curry, though the idea of flatulence powered skating is humorous. I'm actually talking about something I came across on weather.com the other day. I've nicked the picture below (so I don't have to hot-link; image copyright Stuart Dawley).





Well I guess you have to try and enjoy yourself in anyway possible when a hurricane hits where you live??!! The full piece can be found [here]

I just came across what looks like a good scifi parody, [Star Wreck]. Guess what the idea is behind it. It is actually a full movie. I'm currently downloading it and it is about 500mb but there is a smaller version available. Essentially it looks like a star trek fan fiction film. So if you into that sort of thing your bound to enjoy it - I'll say if I don't! :-)