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Well last night was odd. Thats all I am gonna say. I was actually going to write this post last night when I got back from Snobs, glad I decided against that cause the words I was going to use really should have been censored(!). Anyway a BIG happy new year to everyone, its 2006 now... I'm starting to become older and in just 8 days time I will 23 and as Blink say nobody loves you when your 23! Time to go against that! After last night I decided that my New Years Resolutions (I never make them but I thought what the hell for once) should be:


watch more football, drink more beer, play more sport, try my luck with more women, play more games ... oh and work harder (yeah right!)


Oh and I'm glad I was able to ring in New Year to a punked up version of Auld Lang Syne! Heck it was different, and quite cool. Happy New Year

I had [this] site pointed out to me this morning. Fourtunately I didn't need any of the advice on this page.. but might be useful as future reference...


That site, has quite a considerable amount of content some of which is actually quite thought provoking... especially [The Sexual Meaning of Halloween Costumes]... I wonder what that means about me, bloomin physcobable since over the years I have dressed in many different ways...

Time to get out and do some observing! The next meteor shower that promises to be a good one is coming our way on the night of January 3rd - 4th. There are a few problems though, if you are observing at the expected peak time (i.e. the time when there will be the largest number of meteors visible). This is expected to be at 18:30 UT which is a bit too early for the UK, though it does mean that its a little social but really reduces chances of seeing lots of meteors. The peak is anticipated to not last for very long either, which is a shame. You never know though, predictions can be wrong. The main reason is it bad is that the radiant (the apparent celestial origin of a meteoric shower) is low it will provide many problems in observing (the region is the now-discarded constellation, the Wall Quadrant). Either way, it will be an interesting night but its probably best for UK observers not to go out before about 21:00 UT when the moon will have set and thus not providing any illumination. If you spend long enough outside I'm sure you will see something! Do it, and wear something warm!

One of the jobs I do as the Secretary of the Federation of Astronomical Societies is to maintain their online listing of society events throughout the UK. I recently have started to fill a similar role for the BBC Sky at Night Magazine - my first piece is to be in the Feb edition, so watch out for it. I'm told their will be a photo of me in it as well, I'm less happy about that but it can't beat the one I included in the FAS Newsletter a few editions ago - thats one of my favourite photos (see below). Anyway on to the reason for me posting. If you wan't to know what is going on in the UK in terms of astronomy events then look at the [FAS Diary] which not only includes a comprehensive list of events for the coming month but for the next year. Oh and as for that image goes:

I've probably mentioned this band on here before but heck you really should give them a listen to. It is heavily disputed if 3 of the members of the band are actually Green Day but heck it doesn't matter they are cool. I actually reckon they are Green Day, there music sounds like Green Day at moments; though saying that it also sounds a bit more indie to me. I think it is really quite cool and def worth a listen. Shame that since Green Day rose to such huge fame (not a bad thing, they deserve it!) that there hasn't been much from this band. For more take a look at their [website]... oh and "I need a fix".

The Longest Yard is another funny that star Adam Sandler but this time with Chris Rock along it makes even funnier. I know lots of people who have no time for Adam Sandler but if you are after some nice light entertainment then this is definetly worth a watch. Ok it has the same sort of story line the underdog against the big bully and so isn't going to win any awards for being a soul searching film but it will make you laugh. Its about to be released on DVD and probably already available at the local blockbusters or other rental place. I personally saw it in the cinema during my summer holidays and was much better than I though it would be. This is actually a remake of the 1974 classic that starred Burt Reynolds who actually gets a part in this version. Oh and there are no "show me your boobies" references, damn(!).

...well not as often as previous US Presidents, take a look at [USAtoday]

Earthshine, now this is a cool effect to see and something that is quite difficult to photograph - well so I am told it is. I came across [this] image earlier today and I though it was worth a mention. You can clearly see the night side of the moon being illuminated by reflected light from the Earth. Oh and so you know what I mean by Earthshine: Earthshine is reflected Earthlight visible on the Moon's night side. It is often called "ashen glow". Anyway for more, like always, check out [Wiki]. I actually think that this would make the basis of a very cool undergraduate observing program, as you could determine the albedo (reflectivity) of the Earth for starters.

Heck, here we go, obviously not a box office smash but you never know now do ya! Oh and its only 48seconds long. I wonder if that will stop is progress. It is my first attempt at writing a script in the game "The Movies" which is well worth a play. Anyway its nothing special but something made me wanna post it. It does show you quite how good this game is!! Now to record my own sound track and heck we could have a film done in no time! :-) Anyway if you wanna download it and have a laugh at my pityfull attempt do it [here, 827kb]

No word can describe the natural beauty of the new Linux marketing plans...

This is taken from [this] site, which has even more girls dressed up in Linux geer. Obviously some look better than others, like you would expect :-). Oh and this page includes higher resolution images, for your viewing pleasure. lol.

The man behind the deadly cat experiment is apparently half head today, well this is the day he died 45 years ago. Essentially the term half dead has to be a pun on his cat experiment where if you put a cat in a closed box with a radiation source you never know if it is alive or dead... not till you open the box but at that point you have change the experiement by making the measurement. Thus you might have killed the cat and it was quite happy inside the box till you opened it. Little sick I agree but very effective in describing some interesting physics.

I meant to do this when I redesigned the pages but I did forget. I hope that you like the new site layout, I think it is far neater and cleaner than the old one. I will always ahve a soft spot for the old design but I do feel that over time my designs are getting better and better. I particularly like the graphics I came up with for the banners on this one. Not only have I redisgned the main site I have also redone the [St. Martin's pages] as these pages were in severe need of a do over. The main pages are meant to be compliant with all xhtml / css standards and they mostly are, though there a few a problems. This is nothing running with the actual pages, well it is, but it is with the old blog entries. This is something that will not go away and I do not intend to edit 750 or so pages! Any comments to the below address (see page footer).

The concept of software developers coming up with Viruses and other malicious code has always interested me, I normally have put it down to paranoid conspiracy talk and that there are some good programmers out there fighting the evil demons. Saying all this I came across [this] interesting article which is mostly about a spyware "remover tool" called Spyware Cleaner (note: I really wouldn't use it, use Spybot or something), oh and SpyAxe (again, stay away!). This provides a really interesting discussion and really just puts across good evidence about these companies engaging in some rather dodgy buisness practices. If you want to know more about safe computing take a look at [this] article off the [PC-Pals] forum - some of the info is probably a little outdated but the core ideas and ethos you should have towards computing do not change over time!

Well, thats it, done. At long last I we have finished the new University of Birmingham Astrophysics and Space Research Group's website!! YAY. It was long and at times very annoying, but I think we are pleased with the final outcomes, oh take a look at the [ASR Site] if you really want. It took lots of effort and is, I think, a huge improvement over the old site! I have a few minor corrections to make but heck the main stuff is done. Now I can sleep at night without seeing php and css floating around the room!

The two principle scientists behind the development of what is now in the majority of imaging devices have been recognised by being given the 2006 Charles Stark Draper Prize, this is essentially the engineering equivalent of a Nobel award. Not bad, and they get a nice $500,000 award, which I'm sure will go down nicely. I do wonder what we would do without CCDs (charge-coupled devices; essentially convert photons (packets) of light into electrical charge) as we just use them in so many applications, though we could use CMOS or the more conventional photographic plate (though the quantum efficiency for these is crap and you don't get immediate output). More can be found in this [New York Times Article] and more info on the development of CCDs can be found on [Wiki].

Yep, well you can now and this is a good step forward for future space based missions. This is crucial for future space based interferometers, be it detection of gravitational waves or future optical telescopes. Anyway what did this? NASA's Messenger probe, which is currently on the way to Mercury, and a group station in the US. They exchanged laser signals and could lead to some cool new developments in space based communications. Currently it is microwaves that are used but in comparision to laser communications this is crap, you can get much better data transfer rates with Laser beams. Anyway more can be found in this [BBC article]

I hope [this website] is having a laugh and not taking itself seriously but heck the [article titled "Coincidence or Conspiracy?"] is utter coincidence, pretty interesting and at time compeling and interesting, well and scary that someone though of that. It does have a few funny comments and a few interesting statements but overall just cause you fold a piece of a paper in a random way doesn't mean you will start uncovering a code and a conspiracy!

What a game of football that was!! It is well what the FA cup is all about. Passion, pride and bloody good football. I'm a Liverpool fan and I am not one to criticise too much but at times our defense was bloomin' awful, but still, credit to Luton they played some wonderful football and after Cisse missed a penatly and they went 3- 1 up I didnt know what to expect. I though either this is gonna be a heavy, embarrasing loss, or we are gonna come back and its gonna be like Instanbul all over again. Yep it was the later. Liverpool woke up and with Sinama on the pitch played some wonderful football scoring some excellent goals. Anyway if you aren't a fan of football and want to know more take a look at this [BBC Article]

Today its my birthday, I'm 23. Starting to get to the point when it is less of a celebration and more of a number counting ritual. I don't mind cause it means I get gifts(!), and I get to go out and celebrate. It is now my turn to get the cheap night out, muhahahaha - well that might have to wait to the weekend now though. Too much work today. The only bitch is, that for the first time in my life I have to work on my birthday. In the past I have been as school or uni, but never actually had to work on it. Today, unfourtunately, I have to teach. I wonder how much use I will be come 5 when I just wanna go drink! :-)

This is something that I have worked out before and seen in general physics exams in the past, is a good question concerning flux encountered. Anyway take a look at this excellent [BBC Article] which covers all that you could want to know about it. :-)

Oh and I'm talking about from your website, we aren't quite at the point when you want to stop them from walking in to your house. No robots scripts are great if you don't want a certain robot picking up your site and indexing it incorrectly or if what I'm interested in (as I'm too lazy to be bothered by the previous) and stop robots from visiting certain pages; especially ones containing personel data. The last thing you want to essentially end up doing is allowing people to find all the info on one person via a quick google search. Anyway if you want to do this I suggest that you take a read of [robotstxt.org] which provides basically all you need to know to get this setup, its a very good page.

I have nothing interesting to post.. but something drives me to want to post now. So here goes... I'm sat at home after an interesting and at times dull evening. Work is well, and hard. Looking at the amount of effort I have put into things this week I'm quite pleased. The GMRT proposal is gaining momentum and I can see myself being finished with everything I can do quite early tomorrow, well I better be. Teaching is good, the first week is over for my 2nd year astro projects. I'm really looking forward to getting some results from my "age of a cluster" group and the solar rotation, though going slow (note the pun :-) ), is actually looking like something interesting could be done, especially since I have a bit of expertise in reducing the data once we have it. Anyway time for the random blog entry to end... sleep and then back to the radio astronomy....

We were discussing this term earlier in my office. I definetly think that we should adopted this as the new standard! LOL. Well maybe not, SI all the way (which essentially means metres and seconds if you don't know)! The funny thing is if you go to Google and type "furlong per fortnight in metres per second" you get:
1 furlong per fortnight = 0.000166309524 meters per second, obviously the correct answer. Don't you just love Google.. though I doubt I will use this conversion tool very often. Unless, however, it does catch on and we replace SI with it! Oh and if you have ever felt the need to know more about the measure of distance known as the Furlong why not try the ever informative [Wiki]... can't just big up Google!

... well this is what we have to contend with as Astronomer , damn light pollution.

Still though this is a quite remarkable image and also disturbing really. You can quite clearly see the West Midlands. I took this from APOD's archive. To learn more about light pollution see [Campaign for Dark Skies (CfDS)]

Here are two more wonderful astronomical images for you to gawp at...

Firstly the gas... well the Tadpoles of IC 410, well gas and dust taken from [APOD]:

Secondly...the supernova remnant Simeis 147. This is where the blast comes into it... cause that star would have gone bang with a nice big blast wave going out in all directions (again taken from [APOD]):

..of a pint, naturally :-)

Well it had to be done didn't it! Oh my new phone is great, I got a Motoroal Razr V3x, which probably doesn't mean a lot. It is a flip toppy like one.. the first I have had - hope I don't break it by playing with it - up, down, up, down... must get annoying after a while. Anyway it comes with a 2MegaPixel camera which means I'm even more tigger happy than I used to be - and it has a blinding flash. This blinding light is something I missed from my previous (not the last one) water resistance Nokia.. which had a touch in it - great for hiking but alas not camera in that one.

I went to snobs last night, when I get around to it I'll post some pictures as there are bound to be a few randomly interesting ones on there.

Well its back to me being on the observatory rota, I don't mind. I always love going to the observatory, though it does mean I never quite know what I am doing all the time - heck when do I ever know that! Anyway tonight was the first trip out to the Wast Hills Observatory tonight, was a just quick look over / check it all works. I was pleased cause it does! I'm well looking forward to getting my observing group out their, some really interesting stuff to do. I took a couple of pics so if you are interested this is what the Wast Hills Telescope looks like:

there are a few others here: [Image Gallery]

Ever wondered what to tell people to do when they ask you questions... well just send them [this].

Well I'm Chair of the University of Birmingham Astronomical Society again. This means lots to do in the little time I had spare. Heck I enjoy it so I won't moan! Though this does mean I'm now full of balti (we always have a balti after the AGM)... so time to lie down and feel full!

[Greenpeace] have missed the point on this one! It seems that they are confusion climate change with freak accidents! This video is nothing but shock tactics, and does not explore any of the issues that are at all important. I believe that nuclear power isn't the best idea, and I also believe that we need to invest heavily in renewalable power. Nuclear power isn't the future, thats a fact. However, the fact is we need power and heck its "cleaner" in terms of climate change than the conventional power generation methods (depends what you call conventional though, cause most use heating and turbines). The future is to be renewable and that involves the Sun!! Oh and unsightly wind turbines... but I don't mind them though they scare me, they are huge! Anyway I really think that it is unethical of them to introduce this shock tactic to a very hard to sort out issue. Plus the probablilty that a) a plane will crash and b) that it will hit the exact spot that a nuclear reactor is at, is well low! I bet there is a better chance that the dog in the video would bite that kids face off (I can be graphic as well). I'd agree though if a plane hit a reactor it would have dire consequences but their video suggests that it will have a bomb like ending, it just wouldn't as the reactor has already gone critical. It, however, would be very bad - putting radioactive material all over the place (and thats technical terminology!). I just don't think they have addressed this at all well. Maybe they should put forward the postiives of renewable energy and focus on why this is better! Heck we need lots of power and the way things currently are nuclear is the only realistic way, but we need to set it up so within 20 years we aren't relient and are working to a 100% renewable energy setup (which is unlikely, but you can dream). End of rant.

[Bye Bye Charlotte]... and come back Oscar Wilde and Patrick the Brewer!!! Please. Ash's latest album was great, but their older stuff is well, rather cool! I like their last album but you can't beat a bit of Petrol can ya! We need you Oscar, get back in the studio with them and be their inspiration and maybe even their Guru!!

Maybe... or maybe the subject material needs to be better! Take a look:

It will be 20 years since the first computer virus was written! Well it didn't do much harm, needing floppy disc (do you remember them!) to get around the place! Anyway, 20 years(!) bloody hell... it can only get worse. Take a look at this [BBC Article]

Well if you get February's edition of this magazine then you will be able to see my ugly mug in this months experts list... I'm not sure how much of an expert I am but heck I'm not complaining. I actually now come up with the society events section on a monthly basis and this is the first one, so I can't moan. Oh and don't moan at me if there are any errors in the list(!). For more info on the mag take a look at their [website].

Is this an astronaut? Well it would quite probably survive on another planet! It is an odd thought really, but this stuff is damn resistant and possibly quite useful. Take a look at today's [APOD] and you might find out why! :-)

Well it feels like I never left! Being back in charge of the University of Birmingham Astronomical Society is kinda cool. I enjoy the challenges it poses. It is always fun, especially when you have a committee who is energetic and eager to succeed. This is exactly what we will do. It is my first meeting back in charge tomorrow and I'm well looking forward to getting back up at the front and introducing our guest speaker, Dr Somak Raychaudhury. I remember being affraid of doing these introductions.. not this time. :-). [Astrosoc] will be my undoing I swear, I just spend too much time on it! Heck, now I'm posting about it. I need sleep.

For some reason earlier, I came across this [The Virgo Cluster of Galaxies]. This is actually a rather cool link if you wanna know anything about the Virgo cluster and is a rather interesting read!

...and I can't wait to see him back in a Liverpool shirt! It is great news that he is back at the Reds, lets see him net another 100! :-) Oh and even the [Wiki article] about him has been updated!

The Evangelical Christian Union, a previous member society of the University of Birmingham Guild of Students, has been derognised by the Guild and now has know way back into the Guild - unless it abides by Guild policies. This is a case of the Guild saying be democratic or get out. I think this is perfectly fine, the Guild sets its own laws, which are decided by a democratically elected council. No sub-organisation can have rules which go against this! The Evangelical Christian Union has been told to cahnge to conform or bye bye. I have no sympathy for their battle. If you want to have your own organisation that has these rules then fine, but you can't be part of another organisation that stands for democracy. I say this cause the consitution, as currently is, of the Evangelical Christian Union is not at all democratic. Sort it out people! You are supposed to be educated people. Oh and going and making press releases is just daft, what do you think that will do.... just make more students against you. This got press coverage in the Times and was also in [local media]. I believe the Guild of Students and the University have both made press releases about this, but I'm being too idle to hunt them down, sorry!

If I hadn't got it enough things to distract myself with instead of working now I have an excellent site full of crack C64 games to play... take a look at c64.com and you will be hapily suprised.