Krioma.net

The poor homeless dogs in Birmingham will not be having a happy new year this year, guess why? Because Birmingham City Council decided to move the cities new year celebration from the traditional centenary square to Millennium point, just down the road from Birmingham City Dogs home! Now I normally have nothing bad to say about Birmingham as I think it is a fantastic place, but sometimes (quite often even) the city council make some very stupid decision that don't make any logical sense - the nature of politics I guess!

My thoughts go to the staff at the dogs home, I hope they enjoy the new year celebration as they are trying to keep these poor dogs calm. I think it is time for me to write to the city council.
For more info see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/features/2003/12/new_year.shtml

Now I have to be honest, I only recently (within the last two weeks) got around to watching the first two parts - due to missing the first one in the cinema and my girlfriend who having saw it not liking it never got round to watching it. However while I have been down in Maidenhead I have managed to watch them and enjoyed them.

The third part was no different I think I enjoyed it even more, probably due to watching it in the cinema - which I much prefer. I went with my girlfriends Mom and brother, now I am feeling like one of the family :-).

One thing I did notice that the price of the tickets for students at the UCI here was £5.50, now I am not sure if this is the standard for UCI cinemas as I normally go to the UGC Cinema (the one on Broad Street, Birmingham - a fantastic place) at that is £3.75 I believe well around that, much cheaper. Guess it is because I am down south!

Back to Birmingham on Saturday though.

I also found it funny that they went on about this person being arressted for about half an hour and then they only briefly mentioned the news that mistaken identities led to the Air France planes being cancelled. Would this be the FBI getting something wrong? Fair enough that they did and it is understandable that the planes should be cancelled but surely this should be as high in the news as the person being arrested? Again it seems like the media are stirring up things instead of calming it down like it would have been possible if they had said more about the Air France mistake.

For more about the Air France Cancellation see here (CNN) .

For more about BA Planes Cancelled see here (CNN) and here (BBC News).

It feels good to be back in Birmingham. I have had a great time down in Maidenhead but it feels so nice to be back in my own house with everything at hand, including my desktop computer. My laptop is good but it gets a little hot and is not as comfortable to use, plus games play much better on my desktop! :-).

I had an interesting day, including going for lunch at pub/restaurant on my way back in Charlbury, Oxfordshire. I love the area it is absolutely gorgeous and seems so laid back, I would love to live their in the future. Oh yes this 'restaurant' I went to seemed to have run out of lots of food which lead to them having only one veggie dish, lots of choice - it seemed even the salad came with meet - nice! However in its defence the waitress was quite nice about everything and the food once I got it was delicious.

I have been shopping on Sundays for the past four weeks at the very least now, guess it is becoming something of a tradition! Well I do actually like shopping on a Sunday, it is general quieter so it is more relaxing and as I am normally busy during the week it is nice to get away from Uni stuff.

One problem I have about shopping on a Sunday is the ridiculous licensing laws about Sunday trading, allowing shops to only stay open for six hours is ludicrous - and this is an improvement on how things used to be! Awful! Personally it wouldn't bother me too much as I would go shopping earlier but my girlfriend doesn't like to get up to early, especially on a Sunday. So we do not get there till it is late and living in Birmingham the shops stay open until 8 on a regular basis now (with the Bull Ring open), so you get used to that and when you go on a Sunday they all shut at 5pm ridiculous. I do wonder on how much trade the shops miss out on.

Yesterday was my birthday, I had a great day. Lots of cool gifts :-).

I went into lab and was surprised when my friends got a muffin and put a candle on it and sang happy birthday, lots of fun. We then went to the Gun Barrels for lunch where I was joined by a few other mates. We all had a nice relaxing afternoon and I ended up drinking quite a bit.

Last night I went over to Erdington with Alex and Katherine. This was so we could meet my family. We met up in The Charlie Hall pub (a wetherspons) in the town centre. It was lots of fun and it was nice to see all my family their. I got some cool things, including a scary Spiderman rocking head, a Star Trek pocket watch and Starry Night pro plus (v4.5). All my gifts are great! I had a go at Starry Night and it is much better than the previous version and has so many things to do. Will try it out more and then write a small review of it.

Well I now its time for the second leg of my 21st celebrations, to the pub (The OVT) and then on to Snobs.

Yes I found this out last night, here is what you need to do:

1) Go into Birmingham City Centre for your night out on a Saturday

2) Go to a club which is not on Broad Street (this is not necessary you could be on Broad Street)

3) Leave at around 2:15 a.m.

4) Grab some chips

5) Wait around in the rain for 30 minutes while you try and get a bloody cab home!

Yes last night was fun. Well it was great in the club lots of great music and I was a little pissed. I even got my butt felt up twice and not by Alex (my girlfriend of two years), so I was a little concerned but not bothered that this had happened - I just did the I'm not interested / I'm to nervous to do anything about it thing that blokes do. We decided to go chill out in the second room of Snobs, the first time I have been in there since the summer and I only went in there then to cool off, it was the height of the summer and the main room was packed and very hot. This rest time nearly ended up in us missing "I believe in a thing called love" by the The Darkness, however we only missed about half of it. The dance floor was packed but I was straight into the mosh pit. Fantastic The only thing missing from last night was that there was no Gaybar!

We decided to leave a little early, in the hope of getting a cab and that we were very tired but alas we did not find one for ages and it was pissing it down. So home I got at around 3am looking like a drowned rat.

Birmingham needs to invest in some form of public transport in the evenings, especially on Saturday. I am informed Liverpool does from my house mate, so why can't the second city?

Back to Uni, yes something real to do! Well I always have things to do but it is nice to get out and about doing things. It was nice to see all my mates that I have not seen over the holiday.

I started off the day with a nine o'clock lecture on the structure and evolution of galaxies, it sounds great however this course clashes with another one I want to take, Radiation and Relativity, so I am unsure witch to do. Saying that I can actually do the Galaxies course next year (with some extra material) and if I want to do General Relativity next year I have to do the Radiation one. So the answer is simple, just do the Radiation one, problem is I have not done any detailed maths in a year or so and am a little afraid that I will be left behind. Well it is my first lecture of this tomorrow so I will give it a go and see how it is and then decide.

Did some more lab today not making much progress, like always.

I have also had a play around with Starry Night Pro Plus, its great! Lots of brilliant features. I really love being able to download actually images into it.

Yet another Thursday, this one started with 3 hours of lectures. All were good, surprisingly! I am enjoying my Interstellar Medium course the most at the moment, which I am surprised about as this was the option I decided to take last!

Again I tried to do some more lab, all we need to do now is plot the velocities of the stars against time.

Astrosoc went well, I gave a talk on Taurus which can be found on the Astrosoc website (http://www.astrosoc.org.uk) and spoke about the occultation on Wednesday morning, no one seemed to impressed that we didn't see anything - like usual, but they all seemed to like the image of it courtesy of Jon Harper, SPA Occultation Section.

Time for something funny

I occasionally type strange things into Google and choose I am feeling lucky, normally has some funny results. Well today I decided to type in miserable failure and guess what it brought up? Mr George W Bush, the President of the United States of America. Now you might think that it was a website that was having a go at him, but no it was a white house page in fact it was this one: http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html

Miserable failure? Well I will not go into this in too much detail at the moment, if you know me then you know what I think. No matter what you think of him good or bad, all I can say is he is screwing with the environment and no one can justify those actions. Now I wonder if any one in the White House has noticed it, I think maybe time to change your marketing boys!

Today I decided to go along with my mates and play a game of football on the Uni astroturf pitches. It was lots of fun and a great game - even if we did get beaten 10 - 3. A shame but even though I am physically feeling the effects I thoroughly enjoyed it and feel great having done some exercise, hopefully we can make this a more regular thing.

After we played I went back into Uni to take some photographs of Astrosoc's telescopes for a new poster we are designing, however this killed me, but I am feeling better now but I do think it is call for an early night.

Today we had our first group studies meeting, it sound really interesting - we are doing an Extra solar planet finder project. However they put me in charge! I am sure I can do it, I am used to this sort of thing now.

I also had a meeting with my tutor, we are going to apply to do some research over the summer and he has suggested I do some work with Hubble images! Great, I can't wait, hope I get the funding now.

I have been busy doing stuff today. What with visiting a hotel for Astrosoc's annual dinner and doing lots of group studies stuff I am shattered, time for a game of FIFA 2004 me thinks!

I also came across a rather cool image today of spinning star imitating a black hole.

This is the first chance I have had to post today (well for yesterday I should say!). I have had an incredibly busy day. What with lectures, group studies and astrosoc - I don't know if I am coming or going. I think I spent 14 hours in the physics department today! Well at least I like it there. Lectures are ok, well I decided to quit Radiation and Relativity - I just couldn't get it. I think it was a combination of me not understand the lectures accent at all, not being able to read his handwriting and the course being very hard. Well it is a shame as I will miss out on GR (General Relativity) but I think I will have an easier time doing this and will get a better grade. I will (and have) enjoyed the lectures I have been to of the other course being run by Dr Raychaudhury.

Anyways away from Uni, it seems the American's are now having problems with their Mars Probe - Spirit. This planet is doomed, there is no chance life could have survived there if not even electronics can cope with it! :-)

See:

http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/040122anomaly.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3421071.stm

Yeah! :-) Well the other day I was interviewed over the phone by a representative of the Institute of Physics (IoP), I am their representative from my Uni. They were asking me questions about tuition fees and their new proposed£1,000 a year grant to help students going into physics!

See: http://physics.iop.org/IOP/Press/PR0704.html

Today was not my most productive, hopefully tomorrow will be better. I did what I needed to do and that was it, I think I just needed a day of just leaving stuff. Hopefully this will not continue tomorrow, I want to get this bloody lab report out of the way.

I did have a few funny things happen today, one was me and my mates Matt and 'Geordie' deciding to setup our own wireless network so we can sit in the coffee lounge in physics to play games! Now that's what undergraduates should be doing, sitting on their arses doing nothing! :-) Guess that does not apply to physics students.

Also today, a war started on the astrosoc forum between the Undergrads and the Postgrads, quite fun and stupid at the same time. At least in drags us away from IRAF.

Tony Blair is a git, no way am I going to vote Labour. I can't believe there are so many spineless people in our parliament.

Well all I can say is, my best wishes to the students of the future who have to cope with these fees.

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3434329.stm

Short sighted people below? I think so.

The Sun newspaper, well the first thought that comes to mind for me is crap.

My current thoughts on The Sun are as they always are, you are crap, you are filth and I hope you realise this, soon.

Their publishing of leaked extracts of the Hutton report was deplorable. For once can't the media not go over the top. We as members of the public do not want underhanded tactics. I will not buy a newspaper that breaks the law, it is not big, it is not funny, it is not good that they had the news. It is shocking, disturbing and someone should take them to court. There is a line and yet again, like many thousands of times they have gone over the line. Not just any line but the law. OK some laws really are silly but when it comes to matters such as the Hutton report, well anything that the Sun would publish, then this is not tolerable.

Yes I am having a go out the Sun. Some people may say that other newspapers are as bad. Yes I agree there are other "newspapers" (not much news in them! more like a magazine) like the Sun that are as bad. I am my anger at the Sun today because of what they have done today and what they have done in the past. My main example being the Hillsborough disaster.

On the Tuesday following the disaster, Kelvin MacKenzie, then editor of The Sun, used the front page headline, THE TRUTH, in huge letters. Under that were three smaller headlines: 'Some fans picked pockets of victims'; 'Some fans urinated on the brave cops'; 'Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life'.

For more on this campaign and the disaster see: http://www.contrast.org/hillsborough/

After my forum yet again crashed I have decided to change from the perl forum wrote by cutecast to a php forum. This has involved me spending a while getting my head around php. But well it works. Hopefully more reliable and has some cool new features. Guess I will have to watch it and see how it goes.

If you want to take a look at it go to: http://www.krioma.net/phpBB2/

Also take a look at the below picture, US President George W. Bush looking like I do during Quantum Mechanics lectures!

This is from a news article titled: "Bush wants 'facts' on Iraqi WMD"

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3445975.stm

The new PHP forum is still working well, which is good. I am slowly adding new features and making sure everything is work well, which it is - shocking!

I went bowling today with Astrosoc which was lots of fun. I managed a high score of 115, not too bad but not my normal 160+. It was very busy at the bowling alley at Broadway Plaza, Five Ways.

Today (1st Feb) also marks a year since the Columbia Shuttle disaster. Lots has been said on this and hopefully progress has been made. I am not qualified to comment on the progress of the investigation but I do believe that the only way forward is to build a new 'space plane' so that the shuttles can be phased out. It will be a shame when they do though, as they are great.

Having fun with crontab!

Yes another day and yet another task to do with my forum. Today to get crontab to backup my site, lots of fun. Better get back to it.

Fun with Virgin Trains

Well I am in Maidenhead with Alex's family. It is nice down here - good to get away even if it just so I can run around in London at Astrofest. I am sure I will enjoy it though - I better after the 1 hour delayed train and putting up with a very full and hot train. Not the worst treatment I have recieved from Virgin but it is still not great. Just for once I would like to see one on time, actually I did over the summer it was very strange.

Well today was a strange day. I have made lots of progress, finally getting my lab report complete and I also had a bit of a come down to Earth as I only got 29% on the General Physics exam I had last week. Maybe I needed it - time to do some work. This is possibly the worst grade I have ever achieved, but then again it was multiple choice and I do notoriously bad on those at the best of times. Well I guess I will learn from my mistakes.

On another thought, Blunkett announces 'British FBI', what a joke! I don't want to be like the USA. Well it is time for the media to get their pens out and give the government publicity for an unnecessary and costly program that will just basically merge the existing forces - what is needed in government is someone who realises that to save money you do not spend it on stupid things! More money for the police, not for stupid publicity stunts.

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3471195.stm

Today I found both my lectures really interesting, I normally find Dr Raychaudhury's interesting anyways but today along with my ISM course they were both brilliant - maybe because I put lots of effort into it for once, after I got my general physics exam result back I think I need to put the effort in.

Tonight I have been busy coming up with a talk on Mars that I am going to give as a stop gap solution to Astrosoc guest speaker being ill this week, it should be good - but I am slightly concerned since it will be the first talk I have used power point for - should be ok.

I also got my lab report (all 32pages) bound today - it looks so professional - am really pleased with it, hopefully I will get a good mark for it.

I also noticed that I haven't posted a nice picture for a few days, so take a look at this:

Credit: NASA

Probably the most brilliant and beautiful objects, the Earth. In comparison to the rest of the Universe the Earth is by far the most beautiful and outstanding object I know. It is a shame what we are doing to it.

Today I had two lectures, the second one finished at 12 but I still managed to sit around the coffee lounge of physics until 6pm when I went for dinner before Astrosoc. I have made some porgress today, not enough but some. I will try and work hard over the weekend.

I decided yesterday that I should put Linux on my desktop computer so I can dual boot it with Windows. That's when everything decided to start going wrong. I didn't anticipate any problems as I already dual boot between Mandrake Linux 9.2 and Microsoft Windows XP already and so thought this would not be a problem. Guess what it was. Long story short for some reason after the Boot loader had worked and I had been in both operating systems it decided to stop working. After 5 reinstallations of Linux and a few restore the windows boot loader attempts I managed to edit one of the files and got it to work, fun!

Apart from that unexpectedd fun, it is good to have Linux on my PC, makes some of my Uni work much easier - but I will not get rid of Window, it is too useful. It is simple, well not that simple - it seems it as I know the insides and out on how to do things quite well now and I can not play any games in Linux, until I get WINE to work.

On the subject of Linux vs Windows I have come across some good cartoons:

© blumentopf

Next week both the AUT (Association of University Teachers) and the NUS (National Union of Students), of which I am a member, will be striking.

The AUT are striking about variable pay, they have also not had a pay increase in a while. These people are the most intelligent people in the country who have invested years and thousands of pounds in their education and what are they left with? - crap pay. They are payed much less than most professionals and for the job they do, teaching University students - not an easy one. This is a highly skilled job a surely they should be on equivalent salaries to other professionals. From AUT data it would seem that the bottom end of the salary lectures are earning about £20,000 - which in comparison to the money that these high qualified individuals could get in industry is pittance.

I wholeheartedly support their campaign.(click on the image for more info)

For the NUS we are going to strike against the further education bill that has recently been passed.

Don't think I will be getting much work done next Tuesday and Wednesday.

It does seem the Americans are very concerned about their terrorism. They even have a website called Ready.gov, so that you are READY in case of a terrorist attack.

I found this quite interesting if not funny in parts, so as this diagram:

Surely anyone with any sense would know this!

Yes I have a cold, well yesterday was worse than now. Trying to run a meeting when you can not hear is never fun and yesterday - well that made the 30 minute meeting I had planned spread out to an hour. At least we got the stuff sorted.

Astrosoc went well last night, was lots of fun - we had a great talk of a post doc from our Uni - Dr Ian Robinson on "Solar Flares and Platform Shoes" it was quite funny and had lots of cool movies of the sun in it.

And of course lots of wonderful pictures of the sun, like this:

Firstly if you are a student of the University of Birmingham then please vote in the forthcoming Guild elections (4th March), you may feel no matter what you do it will not actually change Guild policy - you could be correct, but if you do not do anything then of course nothing will change.

Secondly, lets fight variable fees!

Thirdly and this goes for everyone, use your local MP. These people are important. How do you expect you to get your opinion over if you do not use them. Since I am a student I always find it difficult to find who I should use, I generally go for my home MP. However recently I have found how good my local MP in Selly Oak is good for web based stuff - which I like.

See: http://www.lynnejones.org.uk

Well according to this test I am:

I think this may describe me quite well, to a point.

Take the quiz for yourself at: Quizilla (click on the link to do it)

I decided to go to the pub quiz last night at the Bristol Pear (a great place - they are the only pub in Selly Oak who have good music on - I would rather there was no music but at least it is good music). I do not go to the pub quiz that often anymore. It was great fun as we (me, Alex, Emma and Katherine) were joined by Eleanor. However having me and Eleanor there was no help as we came 2nd from last as always!

Yep I had another one of those awful exams again. Well it went bad, I revised more than I had for the last one and I think it has gone worse! It doesn't help when they ask you parts of Nuclear Physics that as an astrophysicist have not covered since it was in a course you did not do! It was not a hard topic as I came across it on Sunday doing practice questions they set us, but with everything I was trying to revise one extra thing to learn just was too much to squeeze in!

Fun, that's all I can say.

Apart from that today went well. I had a good afternoon and a relaxing evening, had a few drinks while I wrote up my lecture notes and then did some work on my group studies.

Oh and I install some extra Emoticons on the Krioma.net Boards. :-)

A brilliant film and it is even set in Birmingham.

From the start the you know what this film is about and that is about rude and crude jokes - just what I want in a comedy!

A friend even recently commented that the jokes reminded her of me and it was sort of like they took all the rude jokes I could come up with and put them on film. I have to agree with that, obviously some of the things that go on in that film are way over my rude brain but some of them are not.

I have to say the writers of this fantastic british comedy have to be commended for such a great film.

The British media do not get it and well they would not now would they! It is at points and obscenely adult film and well they are not allowed to like this sort of thing. No one is as it is too loud and crude to be an award winner - in fact I don't even reckon a typical American audience would get any of the jokes.

But well I think it is great and since it is set in good old Brum I was even happier, especially since I recognised where they where from the start! GREAT!

The last thing I have to say from this film is: "bees make honey and Ants make sugar... in fact all insects produce some kind of sweet substance" (or words to that effect - brilliant!)

I was going to post this earlier but have been busy (well at a pub quiz!).

Last night I decided to stay up for the start of the Formula 1 season. Since the race was from Australia this meant a 3:00 a.m. start here, well that was not too bad I generally go to bed at 2ish at the weekend so I was already for it. I was drifting before the start of the show but was ok. I watched the start, my flat mate went to bed - so I moved on to the couch. Next thing I know I am awake and watching the podium celebrations! Damn it, this meant it spoilt it for me later - as I would have watched it again at lunch time - argh!

Well as the F1 goes - the same as ever?

Courtesy BBC Sport

Hopefully both Williams and McLaren will get their fingers out for the next one. I was however very impressed with Renault - looks that minus launch control they are still as good from the start - great!

Courtesy BBC Sport

For more info on the race see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/3539193.stm

I have been quite impressed with their website on many occasions such as their feature which shows all bus routes but today I was taken back by a feature I have not seen before.

The feature I talk about is their Journey Planner (http://www.travelinemidlands.co.uk/cityplan/). This is brilliant, you can type in any address (from what I have found it does) and it gives you options if it doesn't recognize it. Once you are all sorted it displays your route for you with estimated durations extra. Wonderful!

Travel West Midlands must be commended on this feature and with a decent bus service like we have (most of the time) they are producing a great service.

At last I have gotten my group studies report written. It was only small but was starting to annoy me. It is done and now I can concentrate on tomorrow nights Astrosoc Annual Dinner! :-( , argh! At least I was able to get a nice new dress shirt and cufflinks. I am looking forward to it, little nervous though, should go fine I am sure.

Great news - proves the USA had no evidence to detain them - I wonder how many of the other prisoners they do not have any evidence for!

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3500156.stm

I don't object to people having loud music in there cars, fine I am sure I would as well. It does get annoying when people end up parking out side of your house listening to loud music louder than the music I am listening to!

I mention this because a few houses down the road there are some idiots with their car stereo on so loud that both me and Katherine individually thought that we must have left something playing when we went for dinner (in my case Winamp in her case the radio). Does seem as if someone further down the road has shouted out their window to tell them to shut up beating me to it and surprisingly they have - wonder how long that will last!

This time it is the PPS (Poynting Physics Society) ball at the Crowne Plaza, Birmingham. Hopefully this will end probably the busiest week of my life. This week I have been very busy with the group studies, now this is almost over (just the conclusion to do) I can relax.

Last night was great - at Astrosoc we had had a talk off Mike Frost titled "Jeremiah Horrocks and the Transit of Venus", it was great - one of the best talks we have had recently.

Now time to get the tux out again and get ready for what will probably turn out to be a good piss up!

And now time for something interesting..

Water at Martian south pole!

ESA’s Mars Express has detected vast fields of perennial water ice, stretching out from the south pole of the Red Planet! Yey!

See: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMYKEX5WRD_2.html

Today was for quite a lot of my friends their last lecture! It is rather strange to think that I will be one of the few continuing on the 4th year of the course (so we can get a MSci instead of BSc).

It was actually a day of ending, today was also the last meeting we are having for group studies, all that is left now is for the conclusion to be written and then the editing to be completed. This is not the end for me but at last I can see the end of the tunnel!

Also today I was quite perturbed to find out that it might be possible for the flagship of the Russian fleet to blow up at any point!

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3560249.stm

I also came across the Russian Navy's homepage: http://www.navy.ru/main-e.htm (in English), this is not the best of sites but has some useful and interesting information on it.