Iran Earthquake
BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Iran quake toll could reach 50,000
Why do we kill each other? We have too many natural disasters to deal with.
Krioma.net
[The thoughts of Samuel George]
Random Stuff Archives
December 30, 2003
January 13, 2004
Hamster Car
I came across this image a while ago and only just decided to look at the file again! How cute!
March 15, 2004
Spain to leave Iraq
Well if it was al-Qaeda they have gotten to Spain. Firstly I do not think we should have invaded Iraq but that is now an old point, it happened our leaders may be war criminals but not much we can actually do I guess. However saying this we should now stay and help rebuild the country we helped to destroy. I do hope Spain do not succumb to terrorism. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3512144.stm Again a thought should go to the families of those who lost people in the terrorist attacks of last week - makes me think. What if that happened to New Street Station? I would be devastated. But life goes on as can be seen by the good turnout for the Spanish elections. |
Go home USA!
March 28, 2004
Mc Mars!
Well the below picture now explains the Mars resistance group see: [blog page]!
I bet ya if McDonalds could they would as there seems to be one everywhere you go - mildly annoying since they sell crap food (especially since I am a vegetarian).
Bronx Bunny Show
| This is something that I have only seen a few times, it has some foul language and crude content but I found it funny! So if you get chance to have a watch of this I would say you should. The shows main characters are Pimp-suited Bronx Bunny and foul-mouthed Teddy Tourettes. The show is a twisted public access-style adult education show. Quite funny, on one of the episodes I watched the phrase of the show was "skank-ho". Click on the image below to see more pictures of this show.
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March 29, 2004
Are the big boys scared!
| I was looking at a friends site and came across a link to a "competitive guide" about Open Office produced by Microsoft. It is basically a comparison between Microsoft Office and Open Office.
See: http://members.microsoft.com/partner/salesmarketing/opensource/discguides/OpenOffice.pdf I find it quite amusing that the worlds leading software company are that scared of open source that they have gone to this level, basically just slagging off open office. Personally I still use Word, but only out of habit. I do have open office installed and use it as often as I remember. There are many features I hate in Word and one of the main problems I find is its inability to deal with very large documents and its annoying little options that you have to turn off. On this document Microsoft keep commenting on how Open Office is not compatible with various features of Microsoft Office and so that is a bad thing. Is it? Surely if you only use Open Office then it would not matter? Even so I know where I am heading with my publishing needs and that is to LaTeX! |
March 30, 2004
Vampire for the 21st century!
Yes I have been procrastinating again! What did I come up with well I found a cool website which allows you to create your own avatar - might be useful for anyone looking to create one for free not using the pay ones available out there (such as the MSN one - even though you could easily just copy and paste the screen, but I did not say that!) Here is what I came up with - what do you reckon a vampire for the 21st Century?
He even comes with his own microphone, best be bluetooth (well maybe redtooth later if he is lucky - bad joke I know) to get the best use though! To do you own avatar using this system see: http://www.dookyweb.com/avatars.swf only problem it uses Flash. However this is one of the times when I think flash is useful. There are not many times when I do though!
March 31, 2004
Statue to get bigger breasts
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I thought this was hilarious (see below) and had to post it but alas the metro website does not maintain any sort of link structure it seems! This can also be found at: http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/03/29/poland.mermaid.remodel.reut/ I was unable to find a picture of the mermaid in question but it does seem to be featured on the towns crest!
See: http://www.ustka.pl/ustka.html From metro.co.uk website: Statue to get bigger breasts A STATUE OF the mermaid which is the patron of a Polish town is to get bigger breasts in a bid to boost tourism. We are now considering altering the mermaid slightly by making her breasts bigger The drastic plastic surgery comes after councillors decided that the mermaid's breasts were too small and her hips too wide. The mermaid's looks became a hot topic during talks in the city hall on a promotion campaign for Ustka, a small port on the Baltic coast, in which the town's mermaid shield was supposed to play a key role. 'There was a discussion about the coat of arms and one female councillor said jokingly that the mermaid's breasts were too small and that she was a bit fat,' a spokesman said. The joke became a serious idea when local and national media got wind of the debate, giving sleepy Ustka plenty of coverage. 'We are now considering altering the mermaid slightly by making her breasts bigger and making her leaner, the spokesman said. 'She will become more attractive and Ustka will gain publicity.' |
April 5, 2004
An April fool is still getting the fools!
| OK is it just me being a scientist but does the prospect of buying an infinite power supply off some website immediately doubtful that does not exist? Well I guess this has not been the case for everyone!
It seems that people are very interested in this, strange eh! Well I would probably give it a look but would be very doubtful from the title never mind the description! Good April fool, a shame people are still trying to buy this $200 piece of kit - idiots! I found out about this in an article by wired.com (always full of interesting stuff) see: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,62794,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 See this for the product: http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/looflirpa/zero.shtml On that note from thinkgeek.com's product range, I found a t-shirt I want:
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More funny hoaxes!
| OK it maybe past April 1st but guess I can now comment without people getting me! :-) OK here is a funny one from Liverpool FC: "Liverpool today made a record-breaking swoop to sign up three of the most exciting youngsters in world football."
See: http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N144422040401-1405.htm Also: Google Copernicus Center is hiring Google is interviewing candidates for engineering positions at our lunar hosting and research center, opening late in the spring of 2007.
Hehe me thinks not! See: http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html for the very interesting section of their site dedicated to this! :-) Good one guys! Also I think their GMAIL is a good idea April fools but it might not be! - At first I thought it was but now after reading this article by reuters maybe it is serious, interesting!
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April 6, 2004
Chemical 'bomb plot' in UK foiled
| OK it could just me being a complete an utter nutter but I sometimes get the feeling that all of this talk about terrorist activities seems to be more to motivate the population than to inform us. It's just the way it comes across sometimes, as if even the smallest thing that relates to terrorism is headline news. Yes it is important we know but the continue barrage of stuff seems to me like it might be just trying to put over that we are at risk continually and so shouldn't mind some of our rights being infringed on. Either way if that is the case or it isn't I do agree that Britain (and most of the EU) is a target for terrorist activities but well we always have and probably always will it is not new news - it is just a different group. I do have a lot of respect for the police officers who are working on this and I have to commend them on a well done job, I just wish the media frenzy was less. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3603961.stm for the latest terrorist plan foiled. |
April 7, 2004
A boy and his bird!
| No I am not talking about young love. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/2929261.stm and you will be able to see the story of how the jackdaw has been following this young boy around! I have to thank Alex for telling me about this hilarious story. |
April 9, 2004
TV all day in hospital!
Well before you couldnt get a TV in hospital now you can't even turn them off! See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3607531.stm
Bush, Iraq and Vietnam
| As you may have guessed by reading any of my posts I am not a support of the current USA Government and do not like George W Bush's policies. I think the thing that I find the most defining about his character is that he avoided serving in the Vietnam war and he keeps this quite - he may have landed a fighter plane (forcing the whole US Battle group of ships to move around so he could land it!) on an Aircraft carrier (USS Abraham Lincoln I believe see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2994345.stm) to signify what he thought was the end of the war in Iraq - how badly was he wrong!
On the aircraft carrier (USS Abraham Lincoln I believe), courtesy BBC website I do think this line signifies the whole George W Bush
Vietnam story is this: "Mr Bush avoided being drafted to serve in
Vietnam. " which is the last line of the BBC's diplomatic correspondent
Barnaby Mason article titled "Is Iraq another Vietnam?" see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3608473.stm
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An erie picture of New York
Ok it can take a lot to make me go wow! I am not the sort of person who easily gets moved by events, I can take them in my stroll quite easily.
One of the events in my life that has moved me is the September 11th 2001 attacks on the United States of America. No matter what you believe, if you think it was terrorists (I know the majority of people do), if you think it was a conspiracy of the USA government of any kind - be it that they did it themselves or there is / was an insider, all that matters was it was a disaster.
This event moved me. It moved everyone. I did not know anyone in involved or have any ties to New York but the absolute devastation I have never seen before in my life and hope never to again.
The reason I post is I was looking on the BBC website about the attacks and saw what I can only describe as (you may find shocking) but beautiful picture:
I can't describe this - there is just something intrinsically beautiful about this picture, I am not sure if it is the way the dust catches the light but it is beautiful. To find that such devastation can lead to beauty is reassuring in my opinion - life is beautiful and nothing is in vain. Life goes on no matter what - so does beauty. So bring it on - what ever any terrorists etc throw at us the beauty of the world will not be taken away.
April 10, 2004
Shaun of the Dead!
| What a film! I want to see it again!!!! Absolutely fantastic - British humour at its very very best! And that is all I am going to say about that apart from "Dire Straights? - Chuck it!"
Take a look at the films website, some fun stuff on there including a game! http://uip.co.uk/romzom/ |
April 12, 2004
Maid Marian anyone?
OK if anyone remembers the TV show Maid Marian and her merry men it is time to remind you of laughter and fun - if you don't then what were you doing with your childhood something constructive and not watching the TV ;-)
Anyways my mate Matt sent me this rather cool link earlier: http://robinofkensington.homestead.com/ and for all you who remember this then take a look and if you do not then well you better take a look and find out what you missed!
April 13, 2004
Looking into the 11th September 2001 Terrorist Attacks
| Ok lots have been said and are being said about what was known etc. What I think is of little or no significance and to be honest I can not tell you if Bush knew or not or if the Americans did it or not. Over some of my next few posts I will try and give useful comments on certain websites that well give evidence one way all the other. As everyone knows there are lots of conspiracy nuts out there but well these people should not always be totally discredited maybe one of them has it right. Ok I will start with a link that my girlfriend Alex sent me yesterday: http://www.infowars.com/
After looking at this website I realised that I had been there before but wasn't sure why probably was referred there when I was reading something. This site does have some interesting information and the author does quite heavily try to back up his points by quoting other information however I find this tactic hard to follow and means what he is saying is less meaningful. I would not call some of this more far fetching items trust worthy but they are interesting and I would give him a look. I did actually find one of his more recent articles "Condoleezza Rice is a Lying Schill for Her Terrorist Masters " very interesting and would suggest it is worth a read - again I am not saying he is correct come to your own conclusions. One thing I will say in relation to this topic is how scary does she (Condoleezza Rice) look on the picture of the page:
Now wouldn't you say you agreed to anything she said? Ok I was also told to take a look at David Icke's site: http://www.davidicke.com/ , ok again an interesting website but I would take this with well about a kilogram of salt - the guy seems like he may have taken too much acid in the 60s! He does have some interesting and funny stuff on his pages though, such as an article in which weapons of mass destruction are declared to have been found by Donald Rumsfeld and they turn out to be pea shooters, see: http://www.davidicke.com/icke/articles2003/waronpeas.html I will now try and dig out some of the stuff I have on
the attacks in more detail over the next few days but for now I will stop
and think about Tony Blair Publishing a dossier titled War and Peas (see
the above link to understand that one!) |
Taking the seriousness away from the investigation
| Some people may find any piss taking in relation to the subject of the September 11th 2001 Terrorist attacks on the USA slightly distasteful. Well yes I would agree but only in extreme cases a slight bit of humour and satire is always acceptable in my opinion. So here we go. It has emerged that FBI have been at fault and they have been heavily criticised over there actions before the terrorist attacks took place on September 11th 2001, I find this a little unfair but well I will not go into that at the moment (if you want to know more about this see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3622523.stm). One thing that has crossed my mind is that all the women involved in the recent discussions look so damn scary! Firstly there is Condoleezza Rice (did I spell that correct!):
As I said the other day, you wouldn't argue with her would you. I can just imagine it, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and her all sat in a room and she is proposing an outrageous scheme. I can see the other two looking at each other gone quick agree with her and then lets get out of here before she hurts us. Now I know I would not blame them for agreeing with her! Then there is, Janet Reno:
Now again I have to say run, run far away! The former attorney general well quite frankly scares me, but I guess there are those out there who like her: http://www.janetrenoishot.com/ - quite frankly a disturbing website! |
April 22, 2004
North Korean Rail Disaster
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After reading http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3649655.stm I am shocked and saddened to hear that 3,000 people may have died in this disaster. The true extent of this will never be realised if the North Korean government get their way which is again truly shocking. Just think about it - the same amount of people died when the Twin Towers collapsed after terrorist attacks on Sept. 11th 2001 and that had grief spread all over the world. I know it is hard for actual reports to come out of N. Korea due to the secretive nature of the country but even the small information that has come out is not top of the headlines - appalling. |
April 24, 2004
Building Collapse!
A building in Selly Oak suffered fatal damage today when its roof collapsed. The building in question is a games arcade: FUNSPOT, well not so much games but full of fruit machines. The damage has been that bad that it has caused the closure of the Bristol Road, a very important and busy route into Birmingham City centre, for most of the afternoon. It also means that more traffic is now going up my road - argh!! Luckily no one appears to have been hurt. The picture below was taken a few hours afterwards when the demolition crew had moved in: 
April 26, 2004
Blair is slammed by British Diplomats!
| See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3660529.stm Now it is about time someone stood up to Tony Blair and tell him that enough is enough of kissing George Bush's ass on the middle east. It is time that the UN not the USA take the lead in world events. For once the USA should listen to the rest of the world and it appears at the moment Tony Blair has the ear of George Bush. So Tony my message to you is, SHOUT DOWN IT! If you even need to dress up as a WASP and well you might get your message through (2DTV - a British comedy).
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April 27, 2004
Iraqi Collation Provisional Authority
| I came across the webpage concerning the provisional authority in Iraq today (in English: http://www.cpa-iraq.org/index.html). Now this is a strange website, for many reason - mainly since it appears to be a USA governmental site more than just a coalition page, for example at the bottom of the page it has links to FirstGov and the USA FreedomCorps etc. Some of the stories on the site just seem to be total proganda - well spin, it is quite amusing. Another interesting thing I found on the coalition page when you click on the in Arabic page (http://www.cpa-iraq.org/arabic/index.html) it still had the title Coalition Provisional Authority stamped on the top in English!! Now then who would need that? Or is it an attempt so that Americans who click on that don't get all scared that they are reading the evil arabic or something!! I have to say I love arabic writing, it is so flowed and beautiful - a shame I had a real problem with it after the very basic stuff. Here is the offending banner, just look at the beautiful arabic though:
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April 29, 2004
Scavenging and revising
| Today started off with me getting up and doing some Astrophysics of the Sun and that is how it ended! Then there is the middle bit, I got some work done - not enough but some. I also went into Uni so I could go scavenging around the now empty Nuffield building in which we are now allowed to go in and help ourselves!! I came out with quite a few lever arch files, some random books (including one in Russian) and some cables! Great fun. It is a shame though that all of this stuff is just going to be thrown away - I guess quite a lot of the useful stuff will be claimed though. I was also helping my friend Sarah with some html work she needs to do on Quantum Error Correction (boring theory stuff ;-) ) and as we were searching for images to use we came across this:
Now this is quite funny, I wonder if anyone has tried to contac the guy who owns the site to buy any of the objects, such other ones include: Duracell Ultra 6 Joule Time Transducucion Capacitor (TTC), Dimensional Warp Generator, 120 kilowatt portable fusion generator:
20 kilowatt portable fusion generator or my computer fan, well it looks identical to the later! The site this stuff came from is: http://www.davesplanet.net/ , a good but strange site! |
Time is running out
Well it has stopped for the Old Joe, the Clock tower central to the University of Birmingham Campus. I don't know why it has stopped but I would guess that it is just a mechanical failure. I know a few years ago that some research was done with it but I do doubt that this would be of any research purpose, it is just weird to see it not on.Here is a picture I took last summer of the clock tower:
I noticed that the clock wasn't changing on my way to Astrosoc to go observing, however since it was cloudy I was not expecting a huge turnout - in fact got 3 people (including myself) along so not a busy night. In the end we ended up going for a drink in Joes which was fun. Now time to get back to the revision - great!
April 30, 2004
Outrageous actions
| Well yet again I am appalled by what people can actually do to each other in the quest for what some sick people seem fun. This time, well I bet many times before as well, it is the United States of America's soldiers. I just don't know what they think they are doing! And who in their right mind would do this and then take a picture of themselves doing it! At least show some level of intelligence, but I guess they are American soldiers so I think their level of intellect can not be too high. If you haven't seen the images, here is one (probably the least disturbing):
For more info and some more of these outrageous images see: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/10521577 |
More on those shocking images
| If you want to see the video footage from the BBC see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/video/40101000/rm/_40101165_prisoners13_adams_vi.ram Tony Blair has also announced condemnation of the acts (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3672599.stm), good now tell the Americans how they should act - i.e. the Geneva convention. I hope these soldiers now get put in prison themselves - it is no longer an excuse to follow orders. |
May 1, 2004
Turn of the sick British Soldier
| Well I thought our armed services were amongst the most humane in the world, guess it turns out that they may not be as good as I expected. Luckily it seems that it was only a one individual in this case and well in the armed forces you expect the occasional psychopath, even so I hope that all the criminal charges that can be brought on him are - of course the person may not be guilty as the pictures that the Mirror have published are not at the best angle which if is the case then the paper should produce a formal apology. I guess we will find out soon once the military investigation is completed. I do find this rather convenient that this emerged just after American troops were found to be doing worse acts. I do not know if it is my cynical side here but it does seem odd on how these pictures were immediately released, I would go as far to even speculate that the USA had something to do with the quick release of this images to soften the blow on how their soldiers are acting. This may be a little extremely but well propaganda and spin is a world we live in so to be cautious and maybe a little far fetched can help. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3675723.stm for more and the article from the Mirror: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=14199634&method=full&siteid=50143 |
Food time!
I was thinking I have never mentioned on my blog food, well apart from maybe the occasional I am going to eat pizza comment. As you may have guessed from the pictures I have posted I do like my food, I am not ashamed to say I do eat too much, doesn't help when your girlfriend is a great cook - in fact it makes it much worse! Being a vegetarian as I am you would have thought that I would find it easy to keep my weight down, well think again! There is such a huge diversity in vegetarian cooking and you have to remember that all the fatty things such as cakes and pizza do not have meat in (well some cakes use gelatine and of course no ham on my pizza!) so well nothing in that sense has changed. Here is one of my favourite breads (more like a cake!): http://elektron.krioma.net/cookery/tsoureki.txt a recipe by Alex. You may think that I am only mentioning it because I have done something wrong - well you would be wrong I really like this bread and would recommend that everyone give it a try. I personally haven't had to make it myself but it seems quite an easy bread to make. Also coming up soon is the national vegetarian week, 24th - 30th May - so give it a try eat something without meat in, I promise it won't kill you ;-)
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May 3, 2004
Is the Mirror lying?
We live in a world of spin and propaganda, we are never going to get away from that, that is just the way society is. I do not like it, I am sure you do not like it. All you can do is just well sit back and take things with a pinch of salt and maybe a little paranoia - no not to the level of putting a metal sheet on your head as this will not stop them from penetrating into your brain (what you need for that is to turn your room into one huge Faraday cage!). I can deal with spin, always putting the best on things, but well when it comes to falsifying stuff is outrageous. Well it appears from what the military have been suggesting that the Mirror, a dirty tabloid exploiter, has produced fake pictures. Ok they could be unwilling arguing that they are real but actually aren't, but I wouldn't put it past them to know. I have to say from the moment I heard about this and then even seeing the pictures I thought there was something dodgy about it. The pictures seem to perfect and what great timing. It is also not the way British soldiers act - we are the good guys. Ok there might be the occasional psycho but well it is just not the British way. See this BBC Online article about this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3680327.stm and here is the Mirror's rebuttal to claims. |
May 4, 2004
T-Shirt logo
I was just thinking about my t-shirt logo (one of my favourite t-shirts) whilst having a wash. I wonder what people in other countries would make of it:
In England I would probably expect a few reactions the mostly likely being he is wearing one of those greek letter T-shirts or a bit more involved would be well he is wearing a Pi - he must be a bit of a geek. Both normal responses for this county.
I wonder what it would be like in Greece for example, I bet I would be considered to be more than just a bit odd. How would you react to someone wearing a big P on their chest here, I know I would think that the person was a little strange at first. I wonder if this occurs in other countries at all. Well there is me being strange over! Time for bed so I can get up bright an early to do some physics which involves lots of beautiful Greek letters.
May 10, 2004
Caca time
Alex decided to dye her hair tonight using a product that is called "Caca marron" (chestnut poo). It is quite a vile mixture and as its names suggests it does look a little disguising - not me putting it in my hair though so I don't mind! It is a henna-based dye so as Alex says it is actually good for her hair - what ever you do don't get her started on this as she could rant on about this for ages. Why do I post this, because it has was quite humour watching her sit with this concoction on her head:
I bet I will not be popular for posting that! |
May 14, 2004
Mirror pictures are fake
Well the Mirror have been put in their place, they are liars. I thought they we're and guess what they are. It just from the first image I saw seemed wrong, something was not right. Unfortunately due the these lies the damage has been done, the anti-british backlash has already occurred and unless this news sweeps across Arab televisions stations there is no way this image of British troops will be removed. Yet again our troops have been vindicated in being the "nice guys" - well in comparison to the sick American troops they are. For more see: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/14/iraq.abuse.uk/index.html and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3716151.stm. Well at least the Editor of the Mirror has been fired (maybe he should be out of a cannon): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3716151.stm but I love the fact that they haven't even got it on the front page of their website, great. I just hope they do a big apology on the front page of their paper. Idiots. |
May 15, 2004
A nice wine - strange name
I really like this wine:
But just look at the name, Badgers Creek, I don't know why but it sounds funny. It is a reasonable name just a little strange and I could also go as far as a little off putting. Well what really matters is the taste and I have to say I really enjoyed this Australian red, it was not too heavy and had sufficient fruitiness to keep me happy. For £3 I will not complain either.
Different Generations of Mouses
First I use the word Mouses and not mice since it is a new word and so does not require the old convention. Yesterday I tidied up my cupboard and in there was basically a bunch of crap computer parts, lots that I will never use again and some which don't even work. So I got rid of the crap and kept the good stuff or have put it in to use for the Linux box that me and Matt are intending to use to control Astrosoc's Grubb Telescope. I also found some old mouses, and thought I would post a picture and do a quick comparison.
Comparison of these: Same basic design not much has changed the idea of buttons on the top. The way the motion is detected however has changed significantly from the annoying balls, which need constant cleaning, to the slick optical version (which uses doppler shift to be very accurate). Also a thing that has been developed is the wheel button, I don't know where I would be without one, when I use a mouse without one I just can not cope! (apart from on my laptop when I just use the scroll keys without thinking). Now that is really the only major changes in these designs, well it must be a good design then as it seems to do the job well. Many other contenders have come along such as track balls but they have all lost, thank god for that cause some of the designs are dire. Oh and there are also some funny mouses out there, including this Hamburger one I came across at some point, I didn't buy it but I found it - quite funny - how can you use this!
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May 17, 2004
Alex's Liam Gallagher impression
I was going through some photos that I took at Christmas and came across this one:
HEHE! Well I do think she is doing a good impression of the blokey in the background!! This is payback for her posting a picture of me laughing. |
May 22, 2004
Why??
Can anyone answer me this question, why would anyone do this (see below) to their otherwise good looking car?
Ok I can understand making your car look good or go faster but this just looks stupid, the guy who did this must be an idiot with no sense of taste. A wing on a car like that, you must be joking. I have seen one too many cars with this on, all I can say is people please think before you do that! |
May 27, 2004
Alex's hat
Umm, this girl gets up to some strange things. She made a bag out of used carrier bags and now she is making a hat. OK nothing wrong with that but she is using a product called stiffy to stifen the hat. Now I can come up with hundreds of jokes about this, but the best one I think was left for me to see with her hat this morning:
If you can't see it says "Wet Stiffy Warning" :-) |
June 21, 2004
Dog Toy or Marital Aid?
Alex, my loving girlfriend, posted this http://www.dogtoyormaritalaid.com/ on her website http://elektron.krioma.net/ yesterday. Now this is weird. Unlike her I got 3 wrong, I can't believe she got them all right. It is funny and oddly disturbing. I even managed to get 10 out of 14 on the hard one better than her as she only got 9! Haha I beat her. |
July 14, 2004
man files
You may or may not know if you type man followed by a command (e.g. man ls) at a Unix command line you get the manual for that command. This afternoon I speculated if there where woman files, but I guess all the would say would be "forget about it love, I am a computer leave me alone"! Well if I have offended half of the people out there I am sorry, I just thought that comment seemed funny in a completely sexist / egotistical way - have I paid back for my crime yet ;-) Anyway's I blame Matt for that comment since he brought up the whole topic of man files. |
July 19, 2004
Remember the Mr Men?
A friend of mine sent me an email with some funny Mr Men cartoons, well piss takes, in it. I have to say it takes me back and I think I could think of a few, but I will leave that alone don't want to groose anyone out. Here is my favourite from what he sent:
July 20, 2004
BT block child porn
I think it is a good idea to act about Child pornography as it is sick and disturbing but I am twisted by my beliefs of freedom of speech. No I don't mean freedom of speech to show child porn, I mean more along the lines of ISP's installing software that blocks websites. I personally don't think blocking is a good idea, yes it works - but only in the short term. These people can always setup again with a different site. What is needed is action against them directly, i.e. by tracing the source and getting the people behind it. I don't like the idea of blocking websites, especially since the same technology could be used to block other sites, for example anti government sites, or say pro Al-Qaeda. You may say that yes they should be blocked but surely we live in a democratic society and people are allowed there opinions. Heck we have a political party that is basically a racist organistaion (they claim not to be, but I am allowed my personal view) in the BNP so surely we should allow freedom of speech to everyone. Oh back to the child porn, well done BT you are actually doing something - maybe you should do some actual development of your company as well! Also take a look at this picture:
This picture is from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3786527.stm. This is the article about BT introducing their blocking software. Anyone see something wrong with the picture? Yes the fact that the person is plugging something in the serial port, gosh, that must have been taken 10 years ago when serial ports might (not sure if they were - maybe for the modem) have been used for internet communications. |
August 5, 2004
August Hail!
That's it, I am giving up with this countries weather. It is bloody hot and is hailing! How does that happen, surely it has to be cold for hail to stay as hail near the ground!
Damn weather. We are also in the middle of a thunderstorm, a bolt hit down the street and whole house just shook!! Scary. I'm supposed to go see I, Robot in a bit, hope the weather improves. Oh and to make it worse my bloody (sorry I mean wonderful) girlfriend is lapping up the sun in Greece! :-( |
August 6, 2004
A transsexual wins Big Brother - well done
At first I couldn't stand Big Brother this year and was not going to watch it. Last year I did not since I found it unbelievably boring. This year was different what I saw at the start was interesting and I got into it. Damn is what I thought at first. To be honest I do think it is a bit of a silly program, but so is Neighbours and Eastenders - we all get into certain shows. This year I got into this. I think one of the main reasons is that I am "on holiday" from Uni (well I am doing lots of other stuff but technically on holiday). All I can say is well done to Nadia, a transsexual, who has a huge amount of character for what she did. She should be commended. I have to say I didn't like her laugh and her who cigarette craving was very annoying but overall she should be applauded. Well done. Lot of guts. I would say it takes balls to do what she did, but that would be wrong. I guess it doesn't take balls to do what she did - just being a nice person is enough. I do hope that the previous comment didn't come across badly I meant it in a nice manner! |
August 9, 2004
Starship Troopers 2 and Blockbuster's Online Service
I have to say I know why Starship Troopers 2 did not make it to the cinemas in the UK - because it was crap. No other word better describes it. One good thing though, it has allowed me to test out Blockbuster's online service (see: http://www.blockbuster.co.uk) and I am impressed. The idea behind Blockbusters new service is you get movies through the post and then you send them back via the post. You pay I think £14 or so a month and get infinite films, with you being allowed 3 I think at home. I am using there free months trial - thought I had nothing to lose. I am quite impressed at the moment. I will see how impressed I am if I get any of the movies that are high up on my list soon. Oh you provide them with a list of films you want and they send out the ones highest in your list they have. Not a bad idea, just wonder if you ever get your top films. |
August 11, 2004
Women Sign
I was deleting some of my old files today and came across the picture below, made be laugh (in a complete male chauvinistic pig way of course - sorry):-P
August 12, 2004
Bristol Road Blockages, Bus burnt out
This afternoon as we went for Lunch we noticed lots of fire engine sirens. I didn't think anymore of it to be honest, until we walked down to Tesco to get some food. The police had the Bristol Road (one of Birmingham's busiest) blocked off and ahead of us we could see what appeared to be a burnt out bus. Yes it was a burnt out Bus! As I walked past it the smell was awful. It appears to me that the engine must have caught fire - not the first time I have heard this happening recently. Since I had my new camera phone on me I thought this would be the ideal chance to use it, here are the pictures I took:
|
August 14, 2004
Chinese dipping sauce
water |
A philosophy lecture
I can't remember where this came from, I have had it on my computer for ages, made me chuckle:
|
August 15, 2004
Burnt out?
The other day I took pictures of a burnt out bus on the Bristol Road (see: http://www.krioma.net/blog/archives/2004_08_12.html).
Yesterday as I was going into town I noticed that the actual advert says "Burnt Out?", how ironic!! I was originally tempted to write on the picture Burnt in front of the out but didn't get around to it, now I am on the hunt for a West Midlands Transport Bus with that advert on the side! |
An attempt at creative writing
I came across an attempt I made in the past at some creative writing, yes shocking me creative! Well I have looked at it and removed same obvious grammatical errors (unlike on here, I NEVER notice or remove them). Here we go I guess:
|
August 18, 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11
Last night me and Alex went to see this film. It was great. Not so much a film but more of a documentary. He went through all about George W Bush's family links with the Bin Laden's and also the steps leading up to the terrorist attacks on 11th September 2001. After this he went through all the crap that George W Bush has done since he was has been in power. What a complete moran George W Bush is. Some of the scenes of innocent Iraqi civilians was disturbing but very powerful. The cutting to american soldiers who said that the liked to put loud music on whilst they were fighting such as "The House is on fire" is even more disturbing. These american soldiers are mostly "kids" not older than myself - probably younger. With them listening to music I am sure they feel of it more of a video game than of life and death. They didn't seem to think about what they were doing, I bet if they did they would break down in tears. Some of the scenes of children with just raw bones left were revolting (well there was only a couple), but then the american soldiers attitude was like "Yeah it is hard to walk past all the dead bodies - they smell bad" - for crying out loud get a conscience. You are killing innocent people. You are war criminals. I reckon the reason the British solider's haven't had half as many problems as the americans is that they are trained well, aren't little kids and don't listen to loud bloody music whilst they are fighting! Rant aside, I saw the below poster at the cinema:
I wonder if the government actually believes that fake DVD fund terrorism!!! Sounds stupid to me, well there maybe some links. But what funds terrorism is terrorists supporters. Maybe for once the Government should not be so sensationalist. |
August 21, 2004
What Romance Movie Best Represents Your Love Life?
Alex sent me this link: http://quizilla.com/users/tweak23/quizzes, it is a quiz. And I ended up with the same result! Which was:
Interesting, eh! I wonder what they are trying to say. I reckon that it is fixed and the only answer you get is this one. Even so I am slightly disturbed :-) |
August 22, 2004
8 Mile and Bend it Like Beckham
Well some people might could be crazy for watching either of these films but to watch them both in one day most people would call me weird and tell me to get out of the house! Well in my defence I was working while I watched these films and I only watched them since I am taking advantage of Blockbuster's free month trial. There service is mostly good - very fast but not quite enough copies of movies, meaning I still haven't got one of the top 5 on my list. At £14 a month it is not bad, but as a student I don't feel I can justify this expense. As for the films, I have to say I (shockingly) enjoyed "Bend It like Beckham" - it has some quite funny moments and lots of scenes of women playing footie in their bra's for some reason (we all know why - get the men to watch it!). It had a good storyline and was well worth watching - shame about the title. As for 8 Mile, this was slightly disappointing. The story seemed to just stop, I felt like the story had lots to go. It was interesting and had some funny moments. Oh and Eminem didn't even sing "Lose Yourself" at any point, now I am really disappointed ;-). |
Herculympics
I just came across this rather cool game on the BBC website, see:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics_2004/herculympics/default.stm I think it requires flash but it is well worth the install. I have played it once and got a bronze with 3,250. Gosh it does require some physical effort on your fingers -takes me back to hours spent on similar games on my old acorn. Its a young mans game, this typing buttons fast ;-) It is lots of fun and I am sure the most adult of people will find the calamari crawl fun - in some way.
August 31, 2004
Alcohoroscopes
My mate Tom ('Grimey') e-mailed me this the other day, I think this is at the least interesting and I would say that it describes my personality well. I definitely like its analogue of me as a rock star! Oh I am a Capricorn. Oh I should also mention how I do think that horoscopes is bollocks. Oh there is that word again, I heard it shouted enough at Reading to last me a lifetime. Huge "bollocks" shouts would go over the whole camp site. I was even an instigator of it for 50 Cent though! :-) ARIES Drinking style Trademark cocktails Drinking buddies TAURUS Drinking style Trademark cocktails Drinking buddies GEMINI Drinking style Trademark cocktails Drinking buddies CANCER Drinking style Trademark cocktails Drinking buddies LEO Drinking style Trademark cocktails Drinking buddies VIRGO Drinking style Trademark cocktails Drinking buddies LIBRA Drinking style Trademark cocktails Drinking buddies SCORPIO Drinking style Trademark cocktails Drinking buddies SAGITTARIUS In vino veritas -- and, for Sagittarius, in booze blurtiness: When buttered, they'll spill all your secrets and many of their own. Tactlessness aside, Sagittarius is just plain fun to drink with. This is a sign of serious partying (what else would you expect from the sign of Sinatra, Keith Richards, the Bush twins and Anna Nicole Smith?). They're the people who chat up everyone in the room, then persuade the entire crowd to travel somewhere else -- like a nightclub, or a playground, or Cancun. Good-natured hijinks are sure to ensue (including a high possibility of loopy groping; spontaneous Sag is a brilliant booty call). Trademark cocktails Drinking buddies CAPRICORN Drinking style Trademark cocktails Drinking buddies AQUARIUS Drinking style Trademark cocktails Drinking buddies PISCES Drinking style Trademark Cocktails Drinking buddies |
September 3, 2004
28 hour day
I came across a website promoting a 28 hour day today, see: http://www.dbeat.com/28/ at the very least it is an interesting concept though it does seem flawed. It says that you would have more time to enjoyment. Well what would happen is the working day would become longer. Umm I think it is a crap idea but an interesting concept so fair play to the creator of this site - gave me something to think about for a while. |
September 4, 2004
Time for a Snickers?
Ok this is quite harsh, but then again it did give me a little giggle - more the play on the name I think than the subject material, hey don't blame me it was my mate Jordan (sorry to blame ya mate, but I ain't taking all the stick over this if there is any ;-) )who sent it me.
Now then, who remembers Marathon bars, before they became Snickers? I do.
He also commented on the Tim Wheeler (see [blog page]) incident with:
"Dude, you do not look anything like Tim Wheeler. At all. Ever. Sorry.: DJord"
Thanks mate, hehe!!
September 5, 2004
Commercial Space Shuttle
I came across this picture earlier:
from: http://arioch.unomaha.edu/~jclark/
Anyone order a McShuttle (TM)> How true is this, it is scary but I reckon that's what would happen if it went commercial. I guess that's a way to pay the escalating costs!
September 13, 2004
What super hero and super villain am I?
Well according to: http://www.liquidgeneration.com/quiz/moviehero_quiz.asp I am bloody Ellen Ripley out of Alien as the hero.
Not as bad as Katherine who turns out to be "i'm f****** frodo" As for the Villain, I am the same as Alex and Katherine. I was going to say that at least me and Alex have the evil villain in kind. Guess it is just a physicist thing. Oh I am Agent Smith, Mr Anderson. (according to http://www.liquidgeneration.com/quiz/villain_quiz.asp)
Oh I should mention these things are flash programs so only try and view them if you have a flash I guess. I have to say I hate flash on normal websites, but it has its place. It is good for animations. In fact the whole of the liquidgeneration.com site is flash, if you have flash and can be bothered to put up with it, it does have some funny stuff on it. It even has a game called Whose Boobs! (on my first go I got: Score: 3000, Rank: Master of Boobs; PERFECT SCORE!! Have you considered a career in boobology? ! hehe!). One final thought about this site, it has a section on "who'd you rather". One of these is "sexy vegetarians". hehe. |
September 15, 2004
Kerrang Radio and Morphology-density relation
After getting a load of reading to do for my 4th year project I turned to Kerrang radio for some background music and found out that this excellent radio station, once just limited to Birmingham is now available over the web. See: http://www.kerrangradio.co.uk/ I am very pleased, I love this site. Back to the Morphology-Density relation! :-( No seriously I like the topic of galactic evolution. :-) For more on the Morphology-Density relation try this paper (not for the non scientific though). At some point I am intending to do a specific astro section to the site so if and when I get around to it I will start to explain some of this stuff! |
September 19, 2004
Whistle spectrum
Today I came across, whilst sorting out some stuff, a readout of me whistling! So here it is!
Not the most interesting thing in the world - I thought it was funny that I had kept hold of it - probably with the initial thought of posting it!
September 23, 2004
The Physicists' Bill of Rights
My house mate Geordie (otherwise known as Andrew) showed me this http://www.geocities.com/gohhanpin/PhysicsHumor_right.htm today - it is brilliant. I think it quite accurately, well within systematic errors, describes physicists. Here is the bill of rights (more stuff on the above site): The
Physicists' Bill of Rights We hold these postulates to be intuitively obvious, that all physicists are born equal, to a first approximation, and are endowed by their creator with certain discrete privileges, among them a mean rest life, n degrees of freedom, and the following rights, which are invariant under all linear transformations: I. To approximate all problems to ideal cases. II. To use order of magnitude calculations whenever deemed necessary (i.e., whenever one can get away with it). III. To use the rigorous method of "squinting" for all problems more complex than the additions of positive real integers. IV. To dismiss all functions which diverge as "nasty" and "unphysical". V. To invoke the uncertainty principle whenever confronted by confused mathematicians, chemists, engineers, psychologists, dramatists, and andere schweinhund. VI. To the extensive use of "bastard notations" where conventional mathematics will not work. VII. To justify shaky reasoning on the basis that it gives the right answer. VIII. To cleverly choose convenient initial conditions, using the principle of general triviality. IX. To use plausible arguments in place of proofs, and thenceforth refer to those arguments as proofs. X. To take on faith any principle which seems right but cannot be proved. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
September 25, 2004
Kalashnikov vodka
I saw a link on a site today that said Kalashnikov vodka so I had to look it up and yes the maker of the AK-47 assault rifle, one Lt. Gen. Mikhail Kalashnikov, is now making vodka under the same name. I just hope it isn't as deadly. Grants is the exciting vodka (well it used to be) now Kalashnikov can be the deadly vodka I guess. See: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/09/20/kalashnikov.vodka.reut/index.html for more. |
September 26, 2004
X-com!
Yesterday I decided to get one of my favourite games ever out. This is X-com: Terror from the Deep. It is an excellent game. I was very shocked that it worked in XP without any problems. Well that's what I thought until I came onto the battle part. Leaving the battlescreen causes it to crash as XP doesn't have the right files. Damn. What to do, umm Google I think. I got on to: http://commanderx.xcomufo.com/downloads/important.html which had some very interesting information on how to get this classic game to work. One of these ideas was DOS BOX, http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/, this is an excellent piece of software and once I realised that I had to mount my drives, using: mount c c:\ to mount the c drive and that I had to do the same for the cdrom drive it worked fine. More info about x-com can be found at: http://www.xcomufo.com/ |
September 30, 2004
Mystifying images
The other day I saw a poster of what appeared to be a moving image and today by coincidence Alex was looking at one of these images on the web. In fact there are loads of these perception puzzles on this site http://www.scientificpsychic.com/graphics/ - be warned some might give you a headache! There are some more at http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/saishin-e.html including something similar to the one I saw the other day:
Copyright A.Kitaoka 2004 (February 25, 2004) |
October 13, 2004
Scissor Sisters
Time to get myself in trouble! Alex says she hates the Scissor Sisters. Well maybe hate would be too harsh but she doesn't like them and tells me to change every time I play them. Well I found proof that she actually listens to them! Today whilst being bored in the terminal room at Uni I looked at her website. What did I find? I found on her last played image that it was the Scissor Sisters! Look here it is:
Ok I was bored and am now!
October 20, 2004
Frequency
I just watched the film titled "Frequency", although the physics were complete and utter bullocks - how the hell can aurora allow CB radio users access to other user separated by 30 years I do not know. Thought it was quite entertaining and interesting as "crime" films go. Though for once I would like to see a film for a change which does not have a lovey dovey ending. Sorry if I have given anything away to people who wanted to watch it. I am just annoyed that every film I seem to see has this cheesy 70s rock style ending! |
November 5, 2004
Wonderful blue skies
Yesterday was wonderful, all morning the sky was wonderfully blue. I wanted to get my telescope out and go hunting for Mercury but didn't have chance. One thing I did see though was the wonderful Moon next to the clock tower, it was impressive.
Here was my attempt at taking a photo with my phone:
It is not great but if you enlarge it on the left hand side of the clock about the same height as the clock face is a white blob - the moon!
Now that wasn't the only cool thing I saw in the sky during the daytime. Firstly look at these wonderful cloud formations over the top of the Uni's Aston WEbb building.
As I walked around the back of the Aston Webb building I saw some wonderful vapour trails:
November 14, 2004
An excellent chain letter
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
November 16, 2004
Site, programming, SQUIDS and Rice
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
December 5, 2004
Bush stuff!
My friend Jordan sent me this (http://world-cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/11/30/bush.arrest/index.html) interesting article. Unfortunately this is not the case but makes for interesting reading.
As for George W. he has paid of his debt to Kelloggs for their support during his campaign for re-election, good to see he keeps his word about some thing's. (see: http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/29/news/newsmakers/commerce_secretary/index.htm)
December 7, 2004
bush arrested page...
It appears as if the article about George W Bush being arrested in canada was not only a hoax but on a hoax server... no longer available.. argh!
December 8, 2004
Speedy Santa
If you want to waste some of time that you should be working, in my case writing a project proposal, playing around then try this rather festive game: http://www.speedysanta.com/
December 15, 2004
Random info time!
Last night I kept sending Alex odd URI's. Now it was her turn.
This is what she came out with: Man dies because of "cooking" lava lamp -
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/11/30/lava.lamp.death.ap/index.html
Crows as Clever as Great Apes - very interesting.. -
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1209_041209_crows_apes.html
Homo floresiensis - dubbed "hobbits" -
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18498
Well they are all beating the odd adult material based ones I sent her! :-) No I sent her stuff about Comet Machholz, which I went on about a little too long last night!
Here is one of my own. Cassini does another flyby of Titan -
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/cassini/041214titanflyby.html
December 18, 2004
A new type of calendar
I was reading Alan Boyle's column (well blog) on MSNBC and was intrigued by the title of his latest entry "Remaking the calendar". So I read and it was an interesting article about calendar reform. The newly proposed one is called Common-Civil-Calendar-and-Time and is proposed by Dick Henry. I am not impressed by it.
If I am deadly serious I think this calendar is a waste of time and I just don't see the point. It has the same problems as the gregorian system and we don't get the nice change in days. Isn't it nice to have your birthday falling on the same day as they day you were actually born on? How about the fun that you can have because it is Friday 13th? I love to wind people up on those days! Also this idea of "Newton Week" is crazy. Basically an extra week just to cover up for the fact that the calendar is, like the Gregorian system, flawed. At least the current system doesn't have these extra "months" pop up from time to time.
He also wants to initiate this by 2006 - now the guy is being silly.
More:
+ Alan Boyle's article - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6699413/#041217a
+ Dick Henry's site - http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/calendarDir/calendar.reform.html
December 19, 2004
Birmingham - images of the past...
Today I found out that a new website full over pictures of Birmingham in the past has just started up. It is using Fuji Photo Film technology and seems quite user friendly. It has pictures that span many generations and they are all of good quality. Not only can you see them but by using Fuji's services you can get prints made. Don't think I will but I am sure there are people out there who would like some. Actually a few of them might be nice as a picture of the wall. One that would not be is of the Bull Ring as I remember it from growing up. It isn't the best for good quality pictures you can download but is a nice gallery.
The site can be found at: http://www.fujifilmtimeframe.com/index.php
Electric Cinema to reopen!
Birmingham's electric cinema has just reopened! In fact it did so on Friday. This is excellent news. I loved the old place. It has the real old cinema feel to the place. Well it was an old cinema! It has now been refurbished and given a full on art deco feel. As soon as my ankle is a bit better I think I will be taking a visit to their.
The cinema is Birmingham's oldest and opened in 1909 so is almost a 100 years old. It was such a shame that it shut down in 2003. I was really concerned that it would either get turned into a very modern cinema or something completely different (such as houses). So this news is very pleasing. One thing I doubt they will continue is the excellent email I used to get off them telling me about the films they were showing. They mostly show independent films and I saw the excellent Spider there. Ooohh I hope they still sell cakes!
More:
+ BBC Article -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/features/2004/03/electric_cinema.shtml
+ The Electric Website - http://www.theelectric.co.uk/
December 29, 2004
Tsunami from above
Firstly my thoughts go out to the millions affected and to the 100,000 or so lives lost during this unbelievable tragedy. The scenes are more reminiscent of a hollywood blockbuster than reality.
The full extent of the disaster can be seen on the digitalglobe website . The images displayed on this site are quite remarkable and the devastation can be well seen.
More:
+ DigitalGlobe - http://www.digitalglobe.com/press/images_media.shtml
January 2, 2005
Donate, Death Star and anti-Bush rant
After the latest bidding for the hearts of the world is taken on by America I did my usual looking around and laughing at the stories about George "if i just had one more brain cell" Bush. Firstly I reckon Jed "I fixed it Florida lets try Asia" Bush is being setup to be the next Bush inline for the Presidency. Why don't they just setup a monarch for themselves. Surely sending Jed and Mr "I swear I am black" Powell to the crisis affected area is going to do no good. I guess it comes down to the photo opportunity. Great.
Anyway - my thoughts go out to the countless people affect by the tsunami and earthquakes. I even donated some cash to oxfam. It was rather simple. If you want to do the same go to: http://www.oxfam.co.uk
Back to the anti-bush stuff. I also came across an excellent site selling some rather funny t-shirts etc today. I particular like a United States of Canada one which shows most of the USA as the USC, I guess, and then mostly Texas and a few other states as the USA. The site is: http://www.cafepress.com/beatbushgear/
Then while chatting to my mate Jordan on MSN (yes I use a microsoft product for something :-o ) he sent me a link to a story about a planned "Death Star". This is quite funny, see: http://www.bigfib.com/issue34/32world3-en.html
January 9, 2005
A haircut every 15 days
Yep that's what the North Korean's want their men to do. If they don't there names are publicised via TV (with their addresses) to name and shame them. Nice eh? I guess my semi long hair wouldn't go down well there!
The BBC article can be found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4157121.stm
January 12, 2005
Earthquake's global effects
The Earthquake which has caused such huge human suffering has also changed our planet are a large (but also small scale). Large in that it has affected stuff globally but small in that they are only tiny changed. Take a look at:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/10jan_earthquake.htm And remember you can donate at http://www.dec.org.uk - if you feel the urge to.
January 24, 2005
Virtual Wingman
Now this is one for the scared computer freak out there. Ever got a girls email addy and wanted to send her a message but needed some backup? (probably not!) If so what you need is the virtual wingman. Give it a try at: http://www.arrivistepress.com/arrivistewingman.shtml alternatively you could just email her or walk up to her and ask her out..
February 4, 2005
The Childhood Goat Trauma Foundation
The Childhood Goat Trauma Foundation - take a look at their site: http://www.goat-trauma.org/ - if you are not laughing yet go specifically to their Goat Trauma in action page :-)
Build a better George W.
Here: http://www.ilfoglio.it/uploads/camillo/BuildabetterBush.htm is your chance to have a go at building a better George W.
February 13, 2005
This one is painful
February 20, 2005
Birmingham in the top 100 Uni's across the world!
It appears that the University of Birmingham (http;//www.bham.ac.uk), the Uni I attend, is in the top 100 Uni's across the world - according to: http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2004/top500(1-100).htm. Incidentally it is a respectable 93rd. Not bad - pretty illustrious list.
February 25, 2005
Michael Jackson's favourite
See: Wacko Jacko - you need Flash though. This was posted on a forum I am involved in and I just can't stop laughing!
March 4, 2005
HIV set to infect 90 million Africans
This makes some disturbing reading and reminds me of how lucky we are to live in the UK. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4317019.stm
March 5, 2005
Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age
Now this is going to make anyone feel a little inferior, well maybe not.
http://museumofconceptualart.com/accomplished/
At the age of 22 (same as me):
Charles Darwin set off as ship's naturalist on a voyage to South America and the Galapagos Islands.
James Joyce left his family, his church and his country for the European continent, in order to become a writer.
By 22, Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget received his Ph.D., published 20 articles, and wrote a philosophical novel that outlined many of the issues he would explore during his career.
Caresse Crosby became the first person to patent a brassiere, which was made of two handkerchiefs and ribbon sewn together.
The Greek orator Demosthenes, orphaned at age 7, took his guardians to court when he was 22 for misusing his inheritance. He won the case.
Olympic runner Herbert James Elliott, ranked by many as the greatest mile runner ever, retired undefeated at 22.
U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz won a record 7 Olympic gold medals.
Inventor Samuel Colt patented the Colt six-shooter revolver.
Cyrus Hall McCormick invented the McCormick reaper, which allowed one man to do the work of five.
Exploring Optical Phenomenon
After Prof. Inglesfield's talk on Wednesday I was very eager to look into the optical effects he described in detail. He sent me a link to: http://www.philiplaven.com/. This is a good site. Full of lovely pictures and also lots of physical / mathematical descriptions. Most of this is not for the non-scientific. His descriptions are quite good though, just ignore some of the diagrams! It is worth a look just to see some of the stunning photographs.
March 12, 2005
The Ebay Song...
I must thank a friend of mine, Clive, for drawing my attention to this quite funny song - http://www.geoffellis.com/ebay.html. It is a good (well interesting) commentary on Ebay - the world wide garage sale. Well maybe it isnt that funny but at least a litte odd.
Dog's false lead in murder case
Umm here is some fun from our American friends: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4334377.stm
April 3, 2005
Google's April Fools
If you missed Google's April Fools then you missed a treat. Google Gulp is what it is called, take a look at: http://www.google.co.uk/googlegulp/
April 14, 2005
Amarillo becomes poll soundtrack
According to BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4420385.stm
Tony Christie's cult song Amarillo is becoming an election soundtrack. Is anyone else a bit sick of this?
April 15, 2005
Who should you vote for? This will tell you
Take a look at: http://www.whoshouldyouvotefor.com/ it isa rather interesting webform that we take you inputs and give you a result of who you should vote for based on the manifestos of the parties. My result can be seen below and doesn't differ from what I thought would be the case. Come on the lib dems!
Who should I vote for?
Your expected outcome: Liberal Democrat
Your actual outcome:
Labour -4  | |
| Conservative -61 | |
 Liberal Democrat 86 | |
| UK Independence Party -29 | |
| Green 7 |
You should vote: Liberal Democrat
The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.
Take the test at Who Should You Vote For
April 21, 2005
Pope domain name
It astonishes me at what domains people hog at times, here is the latest example and it has divine implications.
April 27, 2005
Airbus A380 completes test flight
Is that a bird? Is that a plane, well yes it is - but it is damn big! The world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, completed its maiden test flight today. It has been said to be the biggest thing (not literally!) to have happened to european aviation since concorde! It was even watched by 50,000 - they should have sold tickets and made some cash! For more see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4488361.stm and here for the pictures.
April 28, 2005
Car crashes into bedrooom...
No not a downstairs bedroom!! Straight into the first floor bedroom. 
The really funny thing is that the police don't seem to understand how this was possible! Well they didn't earlier when I was discussed on BBC News 24 - looks as if they are going for "it hit the kerb" solution. Take a look at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/4493713.stm
Woman convicted of rape
...in norway - this is a landmark case: http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1027927.ece
oh and this is a landmark post - my 600th!
April 29, 2005
How to impress women and men
A friend of mine sent me this, I thought it was quite apt.
HOW TO IMPRESS A WOMAN
Compliment her,
respect her,
honor her,
cuddle her,
kiss her, caress her,
love her, stroke her,
tease her,
comfort her,
protect her,
hug her,
hold her,
spend money on her,
wine and dine her,
buy things for her,
listen to her,
care for her,
stand by her,
support her,
hold her,
go to the ends of the Earth for her.
HOW TO IMPRESS A MAN
Show up naked.
Bring food.
April 30, 2005
Make a difference - go out a vote on May 5th, a reason why!
This is probably the funniest flash animation I have seen in a long time. It includes all your favourite stars from modern politics, Blair, Bush, Coward (sorry Howard), Kennedy (legend!), Bin Laden, Blunket, Cooke and a few other suprises... If this doesn't make you go out and vote then I don't know what will. http://www.gbjab.com/
Oh I particularly like the intro with Bush and then the Howard rap! :-)
May 21, 2005
New Logo
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/
May 22, 2005
Cows and communists
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
May 26, 2005
UB logo in the news...
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.
Phallic Logo Awards
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.
June 22, 2005
Which nigerian spammer are you?
It's time to find out which nigerian spammer you are!
I ended up as:
To find out who you are visit: [BBSPOT]
July 2, 2005
Rachel Stevens Gets Fruity
Now this is what I call an excellent advert to promote men checking themselves for testicular cancer. Go Rachel! (thanks for the link Clive!)
http://www.rachelgetsfruity.com/flash.html
July 20, 2005
Star Trek's Scotty dies aged 85
A legend has passed on, I guess he has been beamed up. I noticed someone on the BBC site had commented "May you continue to boldly go where no man has gone before " which I thought was quite fitting. For more see: [BBC News]
July 26, 2005
Animal Crossbreed
This rather interesting collection of images was pointed out to me earlier. Gosh it is interesting. Some of the combinations people have come up with are so odd and rather impressive in terms of their photo manipulation skills. Some are definitely much more impressive than others but here are a few I personally like:
Maybe we will one day see similar creatures on alien worlds....or am I being a bit too scifi there!
For more see: http://www.worth1000.com/cache/contest/contestcache.asp?contest_id=3695
July 27, 2005
Church Sign Generator
Now this is worth playing around with.
[Church Sign Generator]
Write like an Egyptian
The second "text" generator of the day. Now you don't have to pay out when you go to Egypt to get your name wrote out for ya.
[Write Like an Egyptian]
ASCII Generator
Another generator, my posts are a bit 1-D at the moment. This one is truly text though. It takes an image and outputs ASCII. I came across this when I was looking at some source code (that if I am honest I don't have much of a clue about since I don't know much about ASP.NET) on [The Code Project].
For an example I took an image of my mate Tom (looking like a gangster) and converted it (there are loads of options):
Image:
The output ASCII as dots (ok they are small and I guess not far off pixel sizes - well probably quite a bit but give the same effect only on a large scale), it is an image because the ASCII was very large and this was the faster option for displaying on my site (it also didn't display correctly due to my style sheet, if you don't believe me just give it a go):
Oh and here is the site: [ASCII-Generator]
July 29, 2005
Tube Station Sign...
Interesting, oddly funny, not politically correct, probably a good thing to do and probably fake. Take a look at this sign:
This came from: [RRBBS]
Midlands... tornado lane?
Well maybe not quite but it there has been a few recently. Nothing really big though the one today injured 12 people and took out a curry house! "why oh why" the wicked witch cried as her chances of a narn bread and a vegetable balti for £4.99 went up in the air!
For more take a look at: [BBC], [Scotsman.com], [The Age]
August 24, 2005
Scammer Pay back time...
A friend drew my attention to [this] incredibly funny prank. It's long but definitely worth the read. If you don't fancy it just take a look at the front page image, I'm sure you will be intrigued to read it by that point.
September 11, 2005
Birmingham, its not shit
I got on to birminghamitsnotshit.co.uk as a brummie blogger. Yeah, and proud of it!
October 9, 2005
Pinhole Lego Camera
This is cool: [lego camera]
October 11, 2005
Doing a outstanding physicist is not good...
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!
October 24, 2005
Re: Dwayne's Just story
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!
October 25, 2005
Colin, Dave and Bodo
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.....
October 27, 2005
Now this is how to get me to buy clothes..
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]
October 28, 2005
Wind Skating
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]
November 1, 2005
Unfortunate URLs
I got this rather funny fwd today, though I'd distribute it for the masses:
People spend a lot of time thinking up their children's names. It's just a pity they don't always think as hard about their domain names.
Firstly there is Who Represents?, a database for agencies to the rich and famous:
www.whorepresents.com
Second is the Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views:
www.expertsexchange.com
Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island (Ed: I love this one!):
www.penisland.net
Need a therapist? Try:
www.therapistfinder.com
Finally we have the Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales:
www.molestationnursery.com
Smash My iPod
I don't own an iPod but if I did I doubt I would do what the subject line of this post suggests. The concept of the website: http://www.smashmyipod.com/ is clear:
"After we collect $400 in donations, we will take that money to a local Apple Store. We will purchase the iPod, open it right inside the store, and destroy it right on the spot. The whole thing will be shot on film, and displayed on this site. This is only a social experiment, for the entertainment of the donors, and visitors of this site. "
Sounds like fun...well it is to watch. Shame about the senseless violence and the fact that the $400 could have so easily been spent on something a little more constructive. Though I guess it gets the anti-iPod point over. Talking of that take a look at: http://www.anti-ipod.co.uk/. It has some funny stuff on it though some of it seems like a bit of a bitch fight. All fun.
December 4, 2005
Divorce Letter
Jord, thanks for sending this...
Dear Husband:
I'm writing you this letter to tell you that I'm leaving you for good. I've been a good woman to you for seven years and I have nothing to show for it. These last two weeks have been hell. Your boss called to tell me that you had quit your job today and that was the last straw.
Last week, you came home and didn't notice that I had gotten my hair and nails done, cooked your favorite meal and even wore a brand new negligee. You came home and ate in two minutes, and went straight to sleep after watching the game. You don't tell me you love me anymore, you don't touch me or anything.
Either you're cheating or you don't love me anymore, whatever the case is, I'm gone.
P.S. If you're trying to find me, don't. Your BROTHER and I are moving away to West Virginia together!
Have a great life!
Your EX-Wife
----------
Dear Ex-Wife
Nothing has made my day more than receiving your letter. It's true that you and I have been married for seven years, although a good woman is a far cry from what you've been. I watch sports so much to try to drown out your constant nagging. Too bad that doesn't work. I did notice when you cut off all of your hair last week, the first thing that came to mind was "You look just like a man!" My mother raised me to not say anything if you can't say anything nice.
When you cooked my favorite meal, you must have gotten me confused with MY BROTHER, because I stopped eating pork seven years ago. I went to sleep on you when you had on that new negligee because the price tag was still on it. I prayed that it was a coincidence that my brother had just borrowed fifty dollars from me that morning and your negligee was $49.99.
After all of this, I still loved you and felt that we could work it out. So when I discovered that I had hit the lotto for ten million dollars, I quit my job and bought us two tickets to Jamaica.
But when I got home you were gone. Everything happens for a reason I guess. I hope you have the fulfilling life you always wanted. My lawyer said with your letter that you wrote, you won't get a dime from me.
So take care.
P.S. I don't know if I ever told you this but Carl, my brother was born Carla. I hope that's not a problem.
Signed Rich As Hell and Free!
Magazines of the future..
Wanna know whats on the front of the magazines in 2105? You might even be able to find out the latest styles from Cosmo and if that doesn't interest you (I know it doesn't me!) you could take a look Sports Illustrated (trust me hell can freeze over!) or Maxim (or if like me you are a big of a geek check out Popular Mechanics!). Oh to see this you need to go to [Magazine Publishers of America] - oh it does need flash, but for once it is worth it!
December 12, 2005
Which Firefly character are you?
I'm not sure if I am entirely pleased with this...but what the heck! :-)
You are Jayne, the bravo of the group. You may not be too bright, but you got muscles and can hit a man in the neck from 500 yards with a bent scope. You send money to your mother and as much has you may dislike it, you're a hero.
Take this quiz!
December 26, 2005
Rock to a ruler...
An interesting conversation between a rock and a ruler...
oh and I took this off some website ages ago so I am not sure where it came from.
January 1, 2006
Advice for New Years Eve
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...
January 4, 2006
Schrodinger is half dead today
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.
January 10, 2006
Running in the rain, good or bad?
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. :-)
January 14, 2006
Furlong per Fortnight
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!
January 18, 2006
Just Google It?
Ever wondered what to tell people to do when they ask you questions... well just send them [this].
January 20, 2006
Greenpeace's friday the 13th...
[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.
February 1, 2006
It's cold outside....
and no there is some atmosphere, but it is definitely damn cold [here]
February 12, 2006
Paper Clothes
What the heck! I came across this concept whilst trying to track down "San Francisco"... [Paper Clothes]. The concept seems daft, though I do like ;-) "France's contribution to paper fashion was a bikini designed to disintegrate upon contact with water."
February 18, 2006
The start of an atomic explosion...
Wanna see something cool and scary.. [here] is what the first for milliseconds of an atomic explosion look like... now that is cool. Oh and rather scary. Oh and I was told about this today by a mate and another friend tells me that today (in 1967) is the day
J. Robert Oppenheimer died - one of the main men behind the development of this deadly weapon. Whenever I think of Oppenheimer I always think of his words: "'I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds". Quite nicely sums up what nuclear weapons can do.
February 21, 2006
Read the day away: Project Gutenberg
Want something to do? Something to read? Oh and wanna do this for free? Wel, I might have a suggestion for you and no it isn't go to your local library, though that is a good idea(!), it is go to [Project Gutenberg] who currently have 17,000 books that are free for you! I have come across this many times before but recently I have been reading a bit and love their service so thought I really should write about this. I'm currently re-reading one of my favourite books, HG Wells' "War of the Worlds"... beats the cinematic version any day... I get far more scared when reading this. The only problem I find is that it is not quite as relaxing reading off a computer screen but when I am running a simulation (my research, don't ask!) I find that its best to clear my mind and read, so this is not a bad use of my time (ok, maybe I should be doing physics all the time but sometimes you just need a break). Anyway go, read something good not my useless, meaningless words.
February 25, 2006
Search for pictures of Weatherspoons...
and u get my sister and her husband! Yes thats right, if you do a search on [Yahoo] for this you pull up a picture taken me during our Reading festival pub lunch! Bit random, and I can't even remember how I came across this little piece of randomness.
March 5, 2006
Astrosoc rocks...
March 13, 2006
3 hours to Pi Day, yay!
April 2, 2006
The most amazing juggling video..
Take a look at this video: [Google.Video].. wow!
April 6, 2006
How Jesus walked on water!
Take a look at this: [Floating Ice May Explain How Jesus Walked on Water, Researchers Say]
April 7, 2006
Chris Barrie Autograph...
Maybe I will maybe I won't... but I feel I am geeky enough to send of an SAE for one... see: [ChrisBarrie.co.uk]
How Geeky are you?
Take the test: [MSNBC]
I am very, I know I am... but still I thought I would take the best. In fact I got: Your score is 66 (61 to 102: Seriously Nerdy) - wicked! :-)
A couple of the questions if I could answer properly would probably make my score rocket much higher. The first is: How many functioning computers and laptops are in your home? It only goes up to 4!! well I have 4 in my bedroom!!! and in total 7 in my house! lol. The second is: 2. What kind of computer do you use at home? Well it gives a few options, I want the one that says home built windows, mac laptop, home built linux rig (with modified distro).... and windows laptop with linux on!
April 9, 2006
The Easter Bunny Hates You, Trust me.
Do you really think the Easter bunny likes you?? Well here, in the video linked below, is actual proof that most of the time he hates your guts and if you see him will do bad, bad things to you. [YouTube Video]
Scenes cut from Jurassic Park
The link below is highly funny but might scare young children due to the subject... muhahaha, look at it you know you wanna: [Oh No Jurassic Missing]
![[Oh No Jurassic Missing]](http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df9310/df931008.jpg){kind=link}
LinuxToons - Linux in main-stream cartoons
Funny list of Linux cartoons... very funny in some cases. I particularly love the Dilbert ones. Waste time looking at these [LinuxToons] well worth it!
April 10, 2006
iPod bunny costume
I'm going to throw another random link at you now.. sorry... but before I do here is my comment. The author states "iPod bunny costume is a fuzzy idea" lets just say I could replace the fuzzy bit with the word idiotic and it would state the truth. Though some might think it is cute how bloody impractical would it be to have that sticking out of your pocket! :-) At least the author takes this stance though is less harsh by using the word fuzzy! :-) .. at least it beats the "Lacy lingerie for the iPod" that she mentions! Anyway take a look at it: [news.com.com]
April 12, 2006
Saddam's tiger hand..
No idea what I mean, nope, nor did I ... read >> [Rock, Paper, Saddam]
April 14, 2006
Google game...
Lizzie sent me this today (miss ya babe! lol ).
Anyway the idea is you go to the [google search engine] and type in your name + 'needs' after it. ex: "John needs" and write down the first line of the description of the first website that appears, (it should say something like: "John needs a shave").
I got: Samuel needs to be watched at all times while you are home
Earth from Space Image of the week
ESA have an Earth from Space: image of the week section on their website and this weeks is just truely wonderful:
More info on the relevant ESA [page]
April 15, 2006
Her or Him James Blunt gets confused...
I was directed to this interesting, and somewhat weird, James Blunt "Beautiful" parody. It's pretty funny oh and here is the [Link] (please note this page contains an embed video, at the bottom is an option to download the mp4 file).
April 20, 2006
Something important will happen on the 4th of May
this is rather cool...
On The 4th of next month, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. That won't ever happen again in our lifetime. In fact it will be approx. 400 generations before it happens again.
May 3, 2006
Deep impact at the end of the month!
Yeah right, but if you want a fun / odd and damn right weird, read then take a look at: [deepimapact]. Here is a taster which might make you want to read it, btw as a scientist I think this is twaddle and not even good fiction (but thats why you should read it!), "it brings new elements of confirmation of the imminent cometary danger which threatens humanity and describes the conditions of its advent around MAY 25, 2006. " Oh and it is just another way of wasting some time, argh!
May 5, 2006
The *best* sandcastles in the world...
When I first saw these I couldn't believe that they were made out of sand.. but they are!! Take a look here: [Harrison Lake Sand Castles]
May 7, 2006
The 30-Second Bunnies Theatre Library
Take some quite bunnies and some great films and what have you got? A kickass website.. take a look at [angryalien.com] and watch some really short but rather cool bunny versions of some of the best films ever made! I especially like the King Kong one but the Pulp fiction one is damn funny as well!
May 10, 2006
Get your name in print*
*this may be computer generated.... [Newspaper Generator]
May 11, 2006
Sam and Steve Go Wild
Yep we did, as we walked across to staff house for a swift one last friday we encountered a big big beast:
Thanks to Emma for taking the photo and Al for manipulation... oh and it is on our office wall! lol
May 20, 2006
Is rum a contraceptive?
According to tesco it is! lol. Well maybe not, but if you look at [the register] you might see what I mean. It looks as if it is a bad search engine that sees DUREX in the description of the tesco brand dark rum
An evening with the Beckhams anyone??
Ummm, I don't want to... but look at the final bid, ouch! [ebay, where else!]... yep thats £103,000 of bollocks! lol.
bmail!
Wanna know what is going on in Brum, sign up for bmail! To sign up for this regular email service go to [bmail] and fill in the form
June 1, 2006
Postman Pat the Drug Dealer
If you thought Postman pat must have been on something in the first place then this piss-take will only go to verify this... [metacafe video]
Seamless pictures
Some really cool pictures that have you thinking, wow - well they did in my case... [haha.nu]
Brummie Translator!
Wanna know what the heck I mean at times??? Why not try this [Brummie Translator]... well it works the other way around, but it might help!
June 14, 2006
Astronomers go mad for the world cup
I came across the below image randomly on the web the otherday and so don't know who to credit the image to, but heck its quite funny... I just hope someone hasn't actually done this to their poor telescope - the local kids might come and kick it! lol
June 23, 2006
Super Multitasking Phone
Ever wanted a phone that literally does everything... [see the advert]
Rare "Rainbow" Spotted Over Idaho
Take a look at this fantastic photo, wow! [nationalgeographic.com]
June 27, 2006
Disabled space on the bus?
I was wondering how someone in a wheelchair could use the below space on a bus very easily? It has a big bar in the way!
Surely is in a rather awkward spot... on the left hand side of the bus is a section marked for pushchairs with no bar, I think the otherway around would have been better!
Disabled space on the bus?
I was wondering how someone in a wheelchair could use the below space on a bus very easily? It has a big bar in the way!
Surely is in a rather awkward spot... on the left hand side of the bus is a section marked for pushchairs with no bar, I think the otherway around would have been better!
July 3, 2006
Dr Who really is science fiction...
Last week in Dr Who they featured the completed olympic stadium At the time I thought it was a funny concept to see it finished!..... as if that would actually have been completed!
July 5, 2006
Snow this week in Brum?
I can confirm there has been no snow in Birmingham for a while but the BBC seem to think there should have been... [theregister.co.uk]
July 14, 2006
Police spoof magazine...
How to stop people getting wrecklessly drunk? Sounds like some sort of moral education lesson that you have at school (I think they used to call it PSME when I was at school). Eitherway it was boring and the whole point was to scare you into thinking something, which was done by the masses in some cases, was wrong and we shouldn't fall into that trap. Having a drink, and getting drunk occasionally isn't gonna kill you now is it? Well I guess it could, but if you are somewhat sensible and have decent mates it shouldn't. Anyway the police have come up with what could possible be the most effective way of giving people a shock. Tell them what happens, in a bit more of a real context. It is true people do fall over in a heap when they are drunk... some more often than other. In this spoof magazine they tell people to be "wearing nice pants" so when they fall over it is acceptable or something like that. Anyway I think the idea of being brutal in a joking context might work, well... ummm. Take a look at the [the guardian] for a much longer article on this and the appropriate links.... eitherway good on the police for showing ingenuity.
Rainbows and Lightning, wow!
"Lightning often occurs during heavy storms while rainbows are generally formed after the rain has stopped, making an appearance of both simultaneously relatively rare. " Sounds about right, but I would expect it to happen on occasions, probably more often that you would expect since you could have a rainbow close by after the thunderstorm with that continuing on further away.. anyway, some wonderful photos can be found on [dailymail.co.uk]
God works in mysterious ways!
There was a man who worked for the Post Office... whose job it was to
process all the mail that had illegible addresses .One day, a letter
came
addressed in a shaky handwriting to God. He thought he should open it to
see what it was about.
The letter read:
Dear God,
I am an 83 year old widow, living on a very small pension. Yesterday
someone stole my purse. It had £100 in it, which was all the money I had
until my next pension check. Next Sunday is Christmas, and I had invited
two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to
buy food with. I have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope.
Can
you please help me? Sincerely, Edna
The postal worker was touched. He showed the letter to all the other
workers. Each one dug into his or her wallet and came up with a few
dollars. By the time he made the rounds,he had collected £96, which they
put into an envelope and sent to the woman. The rest of the day,all the
workers felt a warm glow thinking of Edna and the dinner she would be
able
to share with her friends.
Christmas came and went. A few days later,another letter came from the
old lady to God. All the workers gathered around while the letter was
opened.
It read:
Dear God,
How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me? Because of your
gift of love I was able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends. We had
a
very nice day and I told my friends of your wonderful gift.
By the way, there was £4 missing. It must have been those thieving
buggers
at the Post Office.
Sincerely, Edna
July 28, 2006
C is for cookie
V is for vendetta, so logically C is for cookie. Take a look at this cool vid, better if you have seen V is for Vendetta....
Sonic does a Zidane...
Ok this is a small (and I dont know who created it so I can't give credit) but a very funny little annimation of how Zidane should have done it.. and look at the Italian turn into a cute animal:
I'm a computer character
When a computer character realises he is just that....
created by: [http://www.youtube.com/user/LittleSteveZodiac]
August 3, 2006
X-rays reveal Archimedes secrets
Fire X-rays at a piece of old book and what do you get out? Archimedes' wonderful work! Okay its a bit more involved than that and it wasn't just any pieve of paper! Take a look at [this BBC article].
August 17, 2006
Condoms with your newspaper..
..now that sounds like a good way of promoting safe sex and AIDS awareness doesn't it? Well thats exactly what is going on in India today. It is mostly aimed at the rural areas but stiill a very good idea. They are trying to distribute about 10,000 condoms a day! For more: [hindustantimes.com]
August 30, 2006
I pity the flight
Probably a bit of bad taste here, but still pretty funny:
August 31, 2006
ArtsFest
8th - 10th September... in Brum... looks like there might be soem good entertainment. Take a look at: [http://www.artsfest.org.uk/]
September 14, 2006
Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
The metro had an article about this the other day but if you didn't see it you can take a look at [Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists]... my hair isn't quite that good but give it 6 months and I might be good enough to apply. Lets just say some scientists have an odd sense of humour.. .but it is all fun. Go take a look at some of those hair cuts, damn impressive.
More amazing juggling!
Following on from the most amazing juggling video I had ever seen (see: [old post], here is another one - wow!! You really need sound for this one though:
September 15, 2006
Science Cartoons
I was reading Physics World and there a was a little piece pointing out some rather funny science cartoons, so I had to investigate. Take a look at them [here] I think they all are pretty fun but I particularly like the "Physicists from a tough neighbourhood." one.
September 16, 2006
19 September be International Talk Like A Pirate Day
September 19th be the day that you are supposed to say, arrrrr!! [www.yarr.org.uk] - so my landloving fellows have a few days to perfect it.
October 3, 2006
Decipher academic phrases
Take a look at this rather funny cartoon [phdcomics.com] and then you will understand exactly what scientists mean...
October 8, 2006
Album Covers Battle
Quite an interesting little video... thanks to Clive for sharing the link:
October 9, 2006
Rock, Paper, Scissors EXTREME!
Ever got bored of just the rock, paper and scissors (I can't say I really have), but if you have and want something completely over the top and confusing then maybe you should try RPS 15: [http://www.umop.com/rps15.htm]
October 22, 2006
Boy Scouts Learn about copyright...
ummm, now this really does have to be some form of propaganda.... [MPAA Propagana]
October 29, 2006
Tom dances... PPS event videos
PPS, the physics society here at Birmingham Uni does have a reputation of being just the social society, with lots of beer... well I think the current pres Tom shows why here, lol:
and if you are interested, there are others on the [ppsbham.co.uk] website.
November 3, 2006
Important Scientific discovery...
The most important chart you will ever see:
taken from http://themot.org/gallery/d/58721-1/pacmanchart.png
November 4, 2006
Ban the Bang!
I hate this time of year. I love fireworks but I hate the shite ones that people launch into the sky causing huge pollution and a really bad smell. It is nice to a point but what a waste of money. People can waste their money if they want but why do they have to do it on such a dangerous and destructive way? My dog is cowering at the moment and refuses to go outside to go the loo! I don't see the point in these fireworks, I'm going to a public display for £2 tomorrow and it will be much better than these ones. I think some form of ban would be good and there is a site with a vote for this, [here, infact], though I don't totally agree with their stance I do think they are going in the right direction.
UK Urban Exploration Forums
UK Urban Exploration Forums provide a different view on your environment, with some breathtaking pictures I'd definetely recommend it for some lunchtime (or even late sat night) viewing! Take a look at it: [28dayslater.co.uk]
November 25, 2006
PMS Survival Tips
I came across this great video on youtube, had to share it... :-)
December 9, 2006
Einstein Wrong
Now this is really random... I got an email the other day advertising some film about Einstein being wrong, well I thought I'd check out the website and it turns out it is a film that I can only describe as crazy! Once you start to look into the sight you determine, well I hope I have, that this is some crazy spoof that is slight odd but also quite funny. If you have a few minutes to waste and want to be a little confused then take a look at [www.einsteinwrong.com]... you should look at the bizarre trailer.
December 13, 2006
Y(?) bus
This bus seems to ask a nice question
December 17, 2006
War On Terror: the board game
A family game for 2 - 6 players, eh? Well I was given a link to the games website and all I can say is, what the f**k! Well I'm not one for being politically correct at all times but this does push the barriers, but in a funny way... if I can be arsed I might even order myself a copy.. take a look at it [here]
Secret Worlds: The Universe Within
Get a feel for the scale of the Universe... and how small you really are [Secret Worlds: The Universe Within]
December 22, 2006
Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006
"You saw the stories that dominated the headlines in 2006: the war in Iraq, North Korea�s nuclear tests, and the U.S. midterm elections. But what about the news that remained under the radar? From the Bush administration�s post-Katrina power grab to a growing arms race in Latin America to the new hackable passports, FP delivers the Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006. "
Take a look at: [foreignpolicy.com]
January 20, 2007
"Jade 'faces fight to save career'" - what career?
I was reading the BBC news website earlier when I came across this title ""Jade 'faces fight to save career'" - ([news.bbc.co.uk].
Argh, all I have heard via the media machine is this bollocks about some nobody. The bitch made her money from being dumb, not just dumb but ignorant. I swear this is Britain to a tea. Not the racist culture that has been suggested but the culture were the ignorant get it given to them on a plate. I am one for a responsible state were we care for each other and look after each other but not one were people sit on their arse doing nothing. Jade is "famous" for being a loud mouth idiot. Britain celebrates lack of education or attempt to better herself by putting her on the television were the other idiots vote for her (costing them money) to give to this idiot. ARGH! Much worse than this, I then have to hear about it in every direction... argh!
January 21, 2007
Buckets of blood readied....
Now I bet that got you intrigued? It did me... it seems that some people go to the limits to get in the history books. Shame I doubt he will be remembered, I have never heard of the guy before.. oh I should probably explain what the heck I am ranting on about shouldn't I? 
Well, here we go "Buckets of blood readied for Slovenian's Amazon swim" was the title I was met with on reuters earlier today. Of course I clicked on it. Quite an interesting article about how this guy, Martin Strel, who is going to attempt to swim up the Amazon. Better him than me. I would rather not walk there with all of those nasties never mind swim! Good luck to him though. Full article: [reuters.co.uk]
and his website can be found [www.amazonswim.com]
February 10, 2007
Interesting maths...
... well maybe not but some the answers are interesting anyway...
February 11, 2007
Student is given a stiff penalty
Firstly I hate the Sun so I would have never came across this article without other people (Hi Clive!)... anyway here it is... [cambridge don't do snowmen]. It appears that while we were all having fun making snowmen all across campus that is not exactly what was going on at Cambridge, oh well. :-) (note: not child friendly).
February 13, 2007
Arcade game photos..
What happens when you take long exposures of old arcade games? Well you get some cool pictures... [www.rosemariefiore.com].... who says gaming can't be beautiful 
March 4, 2007
Mario goes to Vice City
This is possibly the best vid I have seen on youtube in a while...
March 8, 2007
Uncyclopedia - the fun alternative to Wiki...
I don't know how I haven't come across this before but I didn't until yesterday. Uncyclopedia is basically the piss take of Wikipedia and is full of useless (and pretty funny) stuff. It can be found at [uncyclopedia.org].
A couple of funny quotes off their so far..
"Jesus, attempted to break Newtons third law, accidently creating Japan and other nuisances. Was seen on the set of Star Gate in 1989 lifting up the skirt of director George Lucas -- May lead to an upcoming episode."
In fact the whole star gate article is pretty funn [star gate]
"Windows Apocalypse - At the end of the universe, Microsoft will release an operating system that has no errors. That is why many people think that the universe will never end."
About David Cameron (leader of UK Conservative Party)..
"I was educated at a small school called Eton where I achieved reasonable grades, but these were good enough to study at my local university in Oxford. I may or may not have led a very quiet life at university. We probably shouldn't dwell on that fact. The same goes for my time at Eton. Nothing particularly interesting happened in my private life before politics (a private life which I'm perfectly entitled to, by the way) and nobody really cares about it anyway. I don't even know why I brought it up."
March 12, 2007
Robotic Beer Launching Refrigerator
Now I want one of these...
Robotic Beer Launching Refrigerator - Click here for more home videos
More info at [http://www.duke.edu/~jwc13/beerlauncher.html]
March 30, 2007
Emergency Info Worldwide..
Ever wanted to know what emergencies are going on world wide? Well you can with... [hisz.rsoe.hu/]... its rather interesting but also a little scary
May 1, 2007
Do sheep cause climate change?
I'm not sure about [this]... but I can see their point, damn welsh... 
, lol.... me thinks the date of the article is a big give away... oh well, it was a good theory for a while (shame good old George Bush thinks it is solid science... its been a while since I slagged him off on here...)
May 13, 2007
Rockets at the mailbox last weekend
Last weekend and the one before were so much fun. We took over the BBC Birmingham's public space inside the mailbox to build and launch air rockets. This resulted in me being quite tired after launching countless numbers of them! This was part of the celebrations for the 50th Anniversary of the BBC television show "The Sky at Night" - a show that is produced at the Birmingham centre. Over the course of four days some 2,000 members of the general public passed into our reaches! They were treated to a variety of fun activities that utlimately ended up with kids building rockets and having them propelled upwards by compressed air. Lots hit the ceiling but only one managed to wedge itself into the roof tiling. Woops! It was lots of fun.. if you missed out, watch out as we might come and do this again.
The event was put together by the BBC and the University of Birmingham Astrophysics and Space Research group (with lots and lots of help from Astrosoc, the University's astronomy society).
I took some quite cool vids of the rockets being launched and I'll get these put online soon....
More photos can be found [here].
May 14, 2007
Rockets at the mailbox: Video...
Not only did I take lots of pictures of rockets being launched during the event at the mailbox but I also took a few videos of the rockets being launched so, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,.....
Cunning Microsoft advert...
Good reason to go out an buy microsoft office? No, us Geeks would never get any
The Reason I use Ubuntu...
The Reason I use Ubuntu... its linux for human beings.. well see the picture, you will understand
oh if this inspires you to want to give Ubuntu linux ago, try [here]
May 16, 2007
Scientology: Religion or Cult?
Now this is a question I don't particularly want to address as you never know what could happen. Anyone who reads my blog regularly can guess my view on this... I have had my stress test and came out of it with a moist feeling on my hands that can only mean I sweated and caused the current of the detector to increase... anyway the reason I bring this title up is because of the recent BBC Panorama programme which I thought was quite interesting though it did not address the question at hand. Is Scientology a cult or religion? I don't actually think they went out to address this question but more to look into their activities. I was shocked what they found. If you want to watch the programme try [here]. Worth a watch. Their aggressiveness and complete disregard for laws and common human respect was awful. Nevermind if they are or aren't a cult - they are indeed a bunch of scary, paranoid, people. All I would say to anyone who is a scientologist or thinking about becoming one... have a look around and read the info that other people are telling you than just them. If you were buying a phone you would and this is a far more drastic decision.
High Voltage...argh!
Now this is a pretty cool and terrifying job... I couldn't see myself doing it but still it looks like he enjoys it...
May 19, 2007
Is this possible? Traffic light controller..
I can't believe this is at all true, though its pretty fun...
Change Traffic Lights With A Universal Remote! - video powered by Metacafe
May 23, 2007
The case of the disappearing teaspoons
In "The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute" one learns how strange scientists actually can be! Well maybe not, this article is definetly just for fun and itneresting to read, take a look [here]. Its quite interesting but I think it actually shows more about how cluttered people can be and generally office sociology than anything about the teaspoon fairies.. I think there should be much more discussion on that particularly phenomenon. Their main outcome is that they determine how many teaspoons are lost per year.
May 27, 2007
The Greatest Story Ever Told
The story of a little boy who grew up to be Jesus... oh and his cybernetic pal, Arnie...
Wi-Fi Wants To Kill Your Children
The BBC's Panorama show did cause a bit of a fuss about Wi-Fi didn't it? Well read a nice arguement against their "findings" [here]
May 29, 2007
The wrecking of British science
"If the world's future lies in scientists' hands, the answers are unlikely to come from the UK unless we reverse decades of political neglect" wrote Nobel laureate Sir Harry Kroto in a article for the Guardian newspaper last week. Shame its all true.
The UK is seeing a drain of people interested in science... and it has been noticeable over the years I have been at Uni.. more people now do "silly" courses than did when I started my undergrad.. what do they hope to get from this? Do they really think that a useless degree will help them in a future career.. a degree is a degree after all, it has to mean something doesn't it? Well this is not true for all degrees. It is well worth doing a subject if you have a natural enjoyement / interest in it but is it worthwile doing if you think it will make you rich? Possibly, some degrees might but most probably won't. They will put you in financial debt. Of course going to Uni is far from just about the academic education but it is not worthwhile going into it blindly.
Anyway, the article by Sir Harry Kroto (thanks to Lizzie's mom for pointing it out...) is well worth a read and can be found at: [education.guardian.co.uk]
May 30, 2007
German drives down subway stairs
had to be a woman....
"A German woman in Dusseldorf blocked the entrance to an underground station when she mistook it for a subterranean car park, police said on Wednesday."
For the full article see: [bbc.co.uk]
May 31, 2007
What College Major Are You/Should You Be?
BrainFall.com have a bunch of those online click an option sort of scripts and it tell you what you should be... so I decided to fill of their "What College Major Are You/Should You Be?" and I got:
It's a tie!
Your major should be part Computer Science. You like nothing more than spending long nights with friends in the computer lab... which is a good thing since that's exactly how you'll spend the next couple years.Your major should be part Business. You believe confidence is everything, and nothing's more important than a first impression. Success is measured in dollars and your attitude's going to make you very successful. All that's left is to choose which I-Bank to work for after you graduate.
Oh well I guess that is actually not to far from the truth.. but I did physics I'm not entirely a computer geek....
Turn the Guild Mermaid Fountain back on!
Looks like some other people are annoyed by the fact that the fountain that sits in the middle of the Guild of Students here at the University of Birmingham is never on! 
I've seen it on for a few weeks at a time and its such a lovely sight... its a shame its not on... The Mermaid Fountain was made out of bronze by William Bloye and is the centre piece of the Guild's courtyard, one of the best places to enjoy a pint in the summer Sun... this is what it can look like in the summer (photo credit unknown taken off Guild server):
If you are a Birmingham student and care join the petition [here] (just make sure you don't make any donations by accident...)
July 7, 2007
Beer!
Even the lego men like it...
July 9, 2007
GTA does Coke...
GTA does the coke ad... nah never - well here we are (thanks to Tom for posting the link on facebook - I had to share with more people).
July 14, 2007
iPhone blended!
I bought a blender today, the first time I have ever owned one.. but lets just say if I had an iPhone I would not be putting my blender anywhere near it... unlike this crazy man [Will it blend?] though his ebay auction for the blended bits is currently at $1,000 (US) so looks like he will make a nice profit...
July 27, 2007
System Administrator Appreciation Day
Today is the [8th Annual System Admin day] so we decided that we would thank our system admin in the astrophysics group at Birmingham with a nice suprise... ...
Floods and fires across Europe captured from space
Some quite fascinating (and possibly scary) views of the recent floods across the uk can be found on the [ESA website]
August 29, 2007
Low impact housing..
.. now this is a cool house, reminds me of what I would have thought a hobbit would live in... [http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm]
August 31, 2007
Mathematical Pi Song
I quite randomly came across the Mathematical Pi Song earlier, its not too bad... but then again its a bit geeky (but fun!) . You can listen to it [here] and credit must go out to the author [alltooflat.com] - well done!! The words can be found [here] if you have the urge to sing along.
November 22, 2007
Lost data on ebay
You may be aware that the UK government has lost two cd's containing 25 million people's personal info... oh well you might say but if you are cunning you might think that sticking them online might be a way to make some money: [theregister.co.uk],
December 7, 2007
Is Europe a country?
Hmm, not sure what to think of this (see link below).. don't worry its not me going on a rant about European politics (or someone else) - lets just say I'm going to let you decide on that, I'm just going to chuckle in a corner... [here is the link]
December 27, 2007
Scariest Santa, ever!
One of the fun presents I recieved at Christmas off my parents was a Christmas tie - they are normally quite cute and play some funky seasonal music but this one (though plays the music) is far from cute... its plain and simply scary! It even has the text "Do you want to sit on Santa's lap?" above the scary santa... look at it below, I'm sure you will agree (with the red flashing LEDs it would make children cry!):
January 8, 2008
Virus Alert... Al Yankovic style
This is an interesting, and pretty funny, video that explores how to deal with a virus alert on your computer...
March 10, 2008
The Holllow Earth Theory
Don't worry I'm not going to try and sell you some new theory about the Earth's structure - I'm just going to laugh . Lizzie forwarded to me a very interesting page about Agartha - the Hollow Earth. By interesting I really mean bloody hilarious! Its the most convoluted and scientifically implausible suggestion I've heard for a while. It is that good it is worth a mention. Here is a quick overview:
The hollow Earth theory holds that Earth is not a solid sphere but is hollow and has openings at the poles. Furthermore, an advanced civilization, the Agartha, exists within Earth. Their people include advanced spiritual and technological masters who sometimes foray into the atmosphere in their UFOs.
For more on this absolutely wacky idea take a look at, it will absolutely make you chuckle: [greyfalcon.us/Agartha.htm]
March 12, 2008
Spinning Woman Stripped Bare
By now you are bound to have come across the spinning woman illusion.. if not then you are probably one of those active people who doesn't use computer often (if so, why are you here? 
) .. or just does not get lots of messages forwarded to you by people whom are bored at work... anyway go take a look and all will be revealed.. [http://ofb.net/~whuang/imgs/spin]
March 14, 2008
Happy Pi Day!!!
If you didn't know, and if you didn't have you been sitting under a rock (), today is Pi day!! No its not food, and yes I can spell. Pi, the Greek letter, is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi = 3.1415926535... and today is March 14th, which if you follow the american calendar is 3.14 ... in the UK it is not so sensible as we have our calendar day.month... oh well, its the closest we can get as there is not 31 days in April. So go out, be a geek and wish everyone you see a happy Pi day... oh and an interesting article about this can be found at [bbc.co.uk]
March 29, 2008
A different kind of tour of the Earth
Astronaut Don Pettit, has put together a 10-minute movie of what cities look like at night as seen from the International Space Station. Don Pettit shot these images while he was Science Officer aboard ISS Expedition 6 about 5 years ago. Go watch... its well worth it:
(and if for any reason the embed image above does not work take a look at [youtube.com]
April 2, 2008
Some good april fools jokes
The web is always full of April fools and I'm sure you can find websites that list lots of them.. you probably already came across Google's Mars mission inconjuction with Virgin - Virgle.. you may have also seen the Google can see into the future project. My favourite ones of the days were one from the BBC - based on a documentary about Penguins (if you are a UK users, and within 5 days of this blog) go to [bbc] or take a look at it [aol video] (if you aren't any of these).
The other joke I liked lots came courtesy of Universe Today with its article "NASA to Burn Sponsor Logos into the Surface of Mars" - take a look[here].
Evolution...
A street side view of evolution... [see here].
April 3, 2008
Ubuntu @ home and in a can!
Well I finally did it I moved my main desktop machine over to boot only Ubuntu (been running it on other machines for donkeys), I'm not sure what the finally straw with booting windows and running X in it but something was and thats that. Ubuntu is a pleasure to install and use - I'll blog more about what I've got running and how when I get time but you probably don't need to hear this but for any of you windows fans out there I will try and convert... oh and if you still fancy using windows, well you can run it inside ubuntu (8second boot up...)
oh and if you are ubuntu fan.... now get it in drink form:
its pretty good cola.
April 7, 2008
Zombie Strippers!
I knew the day would come.. and it finally has! Zombie Strippers! I love the plot: As a secret virus capable of turning people into zombies is released into a Nebraska strip club, the club strippers struggle whether to accept the trendy transformation. It is going to be one of those films I can tell. Oh and it even has a porn star in it! Catch the trailer below (or at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkQCDfIe38)
Messing about with Ubuntu
I'm a bit unsure what the title of this entry should be and I'm a bit unsure about what I should actually mention. I had intended this to be a collection of things I did after I had installed Ubuntu on my machine. This could be, for some of you, the most boring entry you have ever seen. Hopefully some of the geekier readers will like this. I'm still not sure what is going to go here / if it will be of use for anyone. At least I will use it as a point of reference for myself. Hell that's what this blog is all about. It is about me being too lazy to keep detailed notes and diaries.. and hopefully to give some of you an insight into my mind and what I'm upto. Lets be honest I'm pretty sure my most dedicated reader is my Mom (hi Mom - trust me this entry is not one for you... but if any of this sounds better than that Microsoft Vista installation I dumped on you...!).
Oh well here goes. Hopefully this might inspire some of you to give Ubuntu a go, its simple really and to install you just pop in the cd and off you go...
Audio Visual
Probably the most important, lets get some metal on while we do the rest...
Sort out your soundcard...
Install Mplayer and Multimedia Codecs (libdvdcss2,w32codecs) in Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)
"MPlayer is a movie and animation player that supports a wide range of codecs and file formats, including MPEG 1/2/4,DivX 3/4/5, Windows Media 7/8/9, RealAudio/Video up to 9, Quicktime 5/6, and Vivo 1/2. It has many MX/SSE (2)/3Dnow(Ex) optimized native audio and video codecs, but allows using XAnim’s and RealPlayer’s binary codec plugins, and Win32 codec DLLs. It has basic VCD/DVD playback functionality, including DVD subtitles, but supports many text- based subtitle formats too. For video output, nearly every existing interface is supported. It’s also able to convert any supported files to raw/divx/mpeg4 AVI (pcm/mp3 audio), and even video grabbing from V4L devices."
Use amarok for your music! works great with your ipod... sudo apt-get install amarok - and you can use it with last.fm - and there are tons of scripts out there! [amarok]
Copying DVDs (note: this is for legit purposes...) - XDVDShrink: [XDVDShrink]
This and some important codecs can all be installed using Automatix2 - [Automatix2]
Mounting your disks...
How to fstab - [http://ubuntuforums.org]
The configuration file /etc/fstab contains the necessary information to mount the disk. This file comes read at the start of the system and can be modified only by root user. [ubuntu.com]
How to edit and understand /etc/fstab [tuxfiles.org]
I finally got it to work by setting up the fstab correctly and then chown the directory it was mounted so I owned it! This took me longer to think of than I would have expected, silly brain as it was a pretty obvious thing to do.
Reading NTFS disks, Ubuntu Gutsy did this for me ok but for reference [ubuntuforums.org].
Booting
Grubb issues, don't we love to hate it! :-D
How to restore Grub from a live Ubuntu cd [ubuntuforums.org]
Recovering Ubuntu after installing Windows - if you dual boot: [help.ubuntu.com]
(I'd suggest you don't dual boot.. well if you only want to use a few windows task or play simple games - if this is you then think Wine or booting windows in a virtual machine).
Run other operating system's inside Ubuntu!
Virtualbox, how to: http://howtoforge.com/virtualbox_ubuntu
Create and Manage Virtual Machines Using VirtualBox: [www.ubuntugeek.com]
Once installed remember to add yourself to the group that can use Virtualbox - if stuck try this page (note in French!): [doc.ubuntu-fr.org]
Windows apps inside Ubuntu
Wine is what you want, and irfan view rocks for image manipulation: [help.ubuntu.com]
How to run Windows applications on Ubuntu - [www.zolved.com] (this use a gui interface for adding packages, I'd recommend you use the above one which uses the commandline and apt-get, much faster if you can deal with the fear of not clicking...)
Mail
Copying over thunderbird files from Windows: copied over files and then edited profiles.ini so path was the old one...
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1
[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=b1na6jtf.default
.. open up thunderbird and there you go, all your files and settings! ref: [ubuntuforums.org]
Backup
Making system images - VERY USEFUL!! Why repeat all of the above and below ever again! Creating Custom Ubuntu Live-CD With Remastersys: [www.ubuntugeek.com]
Create, Recover and Automate System Images - the above did the trick for me so I did not use the below in the end but its worth a look at: [ubuntuforums.org]
How to create an ISO image, pretty straightforward but always useful to check! [www.tech-recipes.com]
Simple Ubuntu Desktop Backup with Backerupper - I haven't tried this yet, I have rsync scripts todo my backup in conjuction with crontab... [www.ubuntugeek.com]
Backup Ubuntu using rdiff-backup - I'm guessing this is similar to rsync, I haven't tried this yet. When I get chance I should add some stuff on rsync: [www.ubuntugeek.com]
Backup and Restore Your Ubuntu System using Sbackup - a GUI, I might run scared but this is probably very useful for the person who runs scared of the commandline :-D (I used to have that fear!) [www.ubuntugeek.com] (more on this at: [www.zolved.com])
Networking
How to open bittorrent ports from the command line: [www.ubuntugeek.com]
Ubuntu Firewall confusion, interesting posts about opening ports in ubuntu: [ubuntuforums.org]
Installing a firewall... I haven't done this - I have a hardware firewall and ubuntu does not have open ports: [www.linux.com]
Misc
13 Things to do immediately after installing Ubuntu - some are obvious and some seem already there, [linuxondesktop.blogspot.com] - I'm also recommend the ubuntuguide.org
JAVA - [www.javalobby.org]
Epiphany Browser - nice and light weight.. [ubuntu-tutorials.com]
Fonts - not really needed, but oh one likes to play... [ubuntu.wordpress.com] [www.zolved.com] and how to install Microsoft fonts, but there is some copyright issues - I haven't done this: [ubuntu.wordpress.com]
Enable Smooth fonts on Ubuntu Linux - [www.howtogeek.com] - I'm not sure this really made much of a difference!
XBOX 360 Controller, I'm still to try this one... [ubuntuforums.org]
Keyboard shortcuts - [ubuntuforums.org]
SKYPE - don't get me started, this is the only thing I'm having problems with (though its really the usb phone and not skype)! [help.ubuntu.com]
Interesting sites
[www.ubuntugeek.com]
[www.brunolinux.com]
[fullcirclemagazine.org]
[www.justuber.com]
What app do you need? [www.gnomefiles.org]
To all you wannabe converts, remember that Linux is not Windows! Its much better :D [http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm"]
How to get good help on linux forums, interesting read, [ubuntucat.wordpress.com]
April 14, 2008
10th talk in the Patrick Moore Series!!
I have to say I'm really proud to announce the 10th talk in the public lecture series that I'm one of the organizers of at the University of Birmingham...
Our next public talk is to take place on the 8th May at 7:30pm
The 10th "Patrick Moore" lecture
[www.talkandtelescope.org.uk]
Dr Mike Hapgood (Space Environment Group; Rutherford Appleton Laboratory)
"Space Weather and Lunar Exploration"
OPEN TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC
The talk starts at 7:30pm on Thursday 8th May
Poynting Physics S02 (LLT)
Snacks and tea in the Study lounge from 7pm before the talk
If clear, sky viewing with telescopes with the help of Astrosoc members after the talk
Talk synopsis:
The Moon is embedded in the space plasma environments that surround the Earth. As a result, it is exposed to a range of space weather effects including radiation, electrical charging and electromagnetic induction. These effects have profound implications for lunar exploration. Radiation is a health hazard to human explorers but also poses a risk to robots by disrupting and damaging electronic devices. Electrical charging of the lunar surface poses several problems. It is thought to be the primary process driving the transport of lunar dust above and across the lunar surface, so studies of charging underpin studies of the threat that dust poses to lunar exploration. Electrical charging is also a direct threat to systems deployed on the lunar surface since it may induce electrical discharges that can disrupt or damage electronic devices in those systems. Electromagnetic induction inside the Moon arises when it is exposed to large scale changes in the electric and magnetic fields embedded in the space plasma environment. It poses little or no immediate risk to exploration activities as the systems to be deployed on the Moon are fairly small, but it can be exploited as a tool for exporation of the lunar interior. The talk will review these effects and discuss how they change with the natural cycles of solar activity and the Moon's orbital motion. It will also discuss the Apollo experience of these effects and show how it influences of our current understanding. Finally, the talk will look ahead and highlight some important lessons for future exploration.
Speaker Bio:
Mike Hapgood is Head of the Space Environment Group at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. He has a long involvement in solar-terrestrial physics and space weather. He has worked on the ESA Cluster project for many years and is lead scientist for the ESA-funded Cluster operations centre at RAL. He has also led several ESA studies on space weather projects and is current Chair of the ESA Space Weather Working Team. He also served on the recent BNSC Space Exploration Working Group. His current interests include the impact of space weather on lunar exploration and the application of space plasma concepts in other astrophysical environments.
This series of talks is funded by STFC http://www.scitech.ac.uk/, (Public
Understanding of Science grant), and is organised by the School of Physics
and Astronomy http://www.ph.bham.ac.uk and the Astronomical Society of UoB
AstroSoc http://www.astrosoc.org.uk)
For more information about our outreach activities visit:
www.talkandtelescope.org.uk
May 2, 2008
Make your own pinhole camera
Now how cool does this sound... and make it out of paper!
[http://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/dirkon_01.html]
I must give this a try soon!
May 14, 2008
Astronomical Chocolate
How cool would it be to eat a chocolate planet... and no I'm not talking about your bog-standard Mars bar...
They look really cool, shame I doubt we can get them here... but you can in Japan - see [here], ok, it's all in Japanese, but you get the point...
May 23, 2008
IYA2009 Trailer...
The International Year of Astronomy 2009 has a trailer... so be prepared...
June 11, 2008
Women in Science...
L'Oreal are running a vote to find out who people feel is the most inspiration female scientist. There is some stiff competition and I'm not sure I can decide... take a look at [www.womeninscience.co.uk/] to vote.
A Fire Rainbow
I came across this really lovely image on APOD yesterday of an inverted rainbow! Take a look at [apod] for the picture and nice description of how this is formed.
June 26, 2008
Download Festival 2008
I know it was almost two weeks ago now but I've finally gotten around to having some time to write up on here what I thought of the [Download festival]. It was indeed my first time at this festival and I have to say I was very impressed. It was also the first festival that I have been to that we drop to and from every day. Donnington isn't too far from Birmingham so its easily feasible and is the first thing I was very shocked about. I was expecting since we were driving each day to have to wait in long traffic queues. Nope, it appears that the place was very well organised and the longest we had to wait was 10 minutes when we left on the second night, now that's not bad! Anyway onto the music...
Highlights:
- seeing Kiss, they were great showmen
- a certain song by Motorhead, this time I was not waiting for the young lady to come of the loo!
- HIM, they were excellent but I have to say I was really shocked by the numbers of people watching them, I guess they were all off watching the Offspring...
- The Offspring, we saw half of their set and wow they were great, shame they didn't really do much of an encore but then again we were expecting an half an hour extra gig off them after Kiss...
- The rock (and peg) game, see below for pictures - essentially a game of deception when you end up with about a ton of rocks in your bag.. well Alice did!
- Simple Plan, we caught about half of their set and they were great!
- The storm troopers that got me and Sean...
- Ash, solid set!
- Clean toilets... actually coming home to have a shower every night was very nice!
- Free Muller rice, "eat it cold, eat it hot, eat it free"... we had a lot of these.
- The crazy guys on bikes, wicked show (yep the guy is upside down in a ball in the second pic, at one point they had 3 guys in there!)!
- Lostprophets... great set, but I just don't think they are a headline act...
- Airbourne, great set... really got the crowd going!
- oh and meeting 001... we got a pic with Sean... I missed out :-(
Disappointments:
- seeing Kiss, they really disappointed me by not playing a certain song... they also went on a bit!
- the price of the food.. but what do you expect
- Incubus, they were good but I just didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.
- Kid Rock not turning up... oh wait I didn't care this is was a highlight! :-D
- having to put up with Sean the whole darn weekend!
- how cold it was on the first day... having to buy a new jumper.. not that I really minded!
- the fact that Lethal Bizzle was there... we walked past to have a game in the EA hub and he was on, there were lots of people there. I think a lot were booing but a number (more than the people who saw HIM) were jumping up and down... argh! If your band don't play their own instruments then get off the stage.
Saying all that, overall it was a great festival and it was a lot more spread out and relaxed than Reading... I think I will be going back to Download.. especially if they keep the quality of the bands like there was this year!
August 14, 2008
Home sweet, home...
... is not in Alabama! I'm from Birmingham in England (the original Birmingham!) but it seems our city council are destined to think we are actually in Birmingham, Alabama.... [Chiefs admit Brum skyline mix-up ]. Bloody idiots. Anyone who has lived in Birmingham for a few years would easily be able to tell you, though it looks like a city environment, that is not the Birmingham city centre skyline... oh and I think I have one of those leaflets somewhere!
September 13, 2008
Tumblr pages...
I've been trying out Tumblr as a means of bloging and I like it - I think I might attempt to maintain an astronomy blog over on their system for a while and see what happens... if you want to take a look at my fledgling new blog see: starrydude.tumblr.com.
A geeks way of travelling...
For me that means using the net to book hotels, flights, trains and getting maps off city council websites - but be cautious the one I got of Prague was missing the new tube stations... - very useful since our hostel was next to one of the newly built ones. Anyway, for some travelling is a whole lot geekier... [Wired HOWTO].
December 7, 2008
Liquid Nitrogen and the Banana
What happens when you put a banana into liquid nitrogen? Well... lets see:
(this definitely provided a nice distraction from the afternoon laboratory session )
OK, so that's cool.. but why does freezing a banana make it so brittle? Well... bananas have a large water content. As the banana is frozen this causes millions of tiny ice crystals to form. These form in many different spots and aren't very well aligned (this is called a grain boundary). The presence of many weak boundaries makes it very easy to shatter the banana. A good analogue is to think of ice. A big block of solid ice (so one large crystal) is much easier to break up than a bag of ice cubes that are all stuck together (if you don't believe me go give it a go!). Also, the freezing causes damage to the cell walls of the banana, making them much weaker than normal (and thus a reason why films likes Demolition Man will never happen... unless we make some massive progress in science).
December 11, 2008
World's strongest cream
... maybe not.
December 31, 2008
My 2008
I have decided to write a short summary on what I've done over the past year. Apart from a few damn annoying things (i.e. getting broken into and having some stuff stolen) 2008 was a pretty good and fun year. I'm going to link to old blog posts throughout this post.
As always the new year is closely followed by my Birthday celebrations, this year it involved an evening out listening to the Planets Suite at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. Was a pretty special occasion, especially now that I am a quarter of a century old!
On January 16th it was time for me to go half way around the world, a trip to India to do some observing with the GMRT (Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope). I like it out at the GMRT, the weather was hot, relaxing and I got lots of work done. The weather was pretty stunning with some fantastic sunsets:
I had a good week or so observing and I came back with a lot of data, about 100 hours which I still haven't fully finished the analysis of. Well I'm almost there, and I believe I may have actually detected something I was looking for (that would make a change, see later).
One of my favourite photos of myself throughout the whole year was taken during this visit:
More on my visit to the GMRT:
Sunset on the GMRT, So it begins.., First day of observations complete, Its so hot... or am I lame?, So what did you do on Saturday night?, A Sunday morning stroll, It's 7am... I've been up 2 hours - why?!, Its been a long day..., My friend in the control room..
February was a bit more of a relaxed month than January, well in the sense that I did not have to travel halfway around the world. Though there was the manic-ness of a talk in Cardiff, to Cardiff Astronomical Society, followed by getting the first train back at 5am to teach a lab at 9am. Lets just say I'm not sure the students got the best out of me that day! At least I was there, if only in body. I also took a trip down to London for a FAS meeting.. but I got there a bit early and so took the opportunity to go and have a look at the University of Birmingham built Spacelab 2 which now is sat in the Science Museum.
It was also my first chance to take a look around the fabulous refitted Royal Astronomical Society...
In March I was given the opportunity to talk to the British Astronomical Association on my work. Not bad really since I've only written a couple of papers. I spoke around my work with the title: "The search for radio emission from extrasolar planets". March also brought the Annual Poynting Physical Society ball, which as always was good fun! Another one of my fav photos of the year was taken...
I was also nominated for "Sir Arthur Clarke Award" in the category for "Best Student Achievement". Alas, I didn't win the award but it was really nice to be put forward!
Physics Ball, Nominated for "Space Oscar"
The start of April involved me rushing around to get research (with my conference proceedings from "From planets to dark energy: the modern radio universe" were published) done whilst giving a number of talks to astronomical societies, though it was quite a relaxed month. And it snowed!
The 10th talk in the series of public talks about astronomy that I have been organising since the first one took place too! I just hope we keep going...
April Snow!, 10th talk in the Patrick Moore Series!!, Conference Proceedings Published
May brought Lizzie's birthday and my chance todo some baking...
June was a fun month, probably not as much work done as there should have been really. I started off by giving a talk to AstrotalkUK about FAS stuff... take a listen [here]. Astrosoc took a trip up to Jodrell Bank, something we have been talking about doing since I was back in my first year as an undergrad, it was good to finally see this happen!
On the subject of Astrosoc, at the Annual Dinner this year I was awarded my lifetime members to the University of Birmingham Astronomical Society. Something that made me feel quite proud, for some reason I didn't blog about this - I normally love blogging about random crap that makes me look good :-D.
June also brought my first experience of the Download Festival. I have to say I was impressed and glad that I took the break from Reading for a change. In all fairness I'm likely to go back to Download next year instead of Reading. It was great fun and not as cramped and uncomfortable as Reading can be. Probably helped that we drove to and from everyday though... oh and Sean and I got harassed by some storm troopers.
Then of June took me and Lizzie down to Edgbaston to watch part of a county game and get some free food, I won a prize at the PPS ball. Couldn't moan it was a good day.. shame it started to rain! Typical English cricket!
Interview for AstrotalkUK,A trip to Jodrell Bank..., Download Festival 2008
July was truly fantastic and involved probably my most adventurous couple of weeks of my life - backpacking from Berlin down to Rome on the train. For some reason, probably the fact that I didn't have time I've never gotten around to blogging about this properly, so I'll try and fill in some blanks now.
So the trip started off on June 30th with a flight from the awful East Midlands airport to Berlin. The flight itself was nice and easy, though I want to avoid East Midlands airport at all costs in the future, bloody hell hole. Once we got to Germany everything as pretty simple - after a couple of trains we were at our hostel (the Generator), which reminded me of some old Laser Quest (bright blue and red walls with blue lighting). Was pretty cool and did the trick.
Our first full day in Berlin involved us taking the train into Alexanderplatz, I'm still not sure we actually paid for that journey... actually I don't think we did! Woops. We looked at the obvious and huge TV tower, took a look at a couple of Churches nearby.
We then walked down to the road the Berliner Dom, the main Cathedral, it costs us 3 Euros to go in and go up to the top. Was a pretty fantastic view, though the parliament building had a better view. Continuing on down the road you eventually hit the Brandenburg Gate (Tor). If was very busy around this, it actually looked like Euro2008 had been on display there. A short walk further down the road took us to the Parliament building, which has a rather cool, but odd structure on the roof. We didn't go in at this point as the queues were huge. We then took a short walk down through the park and ended up at the English Garden, which had a rather cool cafe in. Adam and I had a rather nice dark beer. After this we got back on the train and had a look around where the Berlin wall reaches into the north of the city - a very odd site. It was actually smaller than I thought it would be, but I could fully appreciate how foreboding it would have been.
Our second day in Berlin, and I was already tired so we got a day rail pass. We started off by going to the Parliament building. The queue was not too long though it was probably slowed down by Adam having his electrical tape confiscated (though he got it back later, he needed it too keep his shoe together!). The glass dome was impressive but I was a bit disappointed. On the way back down the road we were able to walk back through the Brandenburg Tor.
We then went down to the Jewish Memorial. I was not too impressed by the block, it was just a bit bland.. maybe the hot sun didn't help. The museum underneath however, was well, depressing - but I had expect that. This was followed up with a reflective lunch at Kamps. A short stroll down the road took us to the car-park that was believe to have been Hitler's bunker (well the location of). This was followed off by a trip to one of the most tourist heavy locations I've ever been to - Checkpoint Carlie. Very commercial - not sure it was worth the walk! From here we went to the museum das terrors - which was largely disappointing but then again it was only temporary and very very hot! We ended up back in Alexanderplatz for a look around a church - which was truly breathtaking. We ended up having dinner around there at a restaurant that just served potato based dishes, though the food and musics was good!
From Berlin we headed down to Dresden. I was very impressed with how easy the train ride was. We then took a walk around as we got down to Dresden for 9. This involved a walk around the beautiful Zwinger palace. Dresden is truly beautiful, well once you get pass all the big old communist looking buildings. We ended up having lunch in an Irish pub, we had to do this at some point during the trip didn't we?!
We left Dresden shattered, but rather happy and onto Prague...
My first impressions of Prague were very negative. Their international train station is a bit of a dump and their metro system, though rather cool, has the most annoying ticket machines that we came across on our whole journey. It probably didn't help that the place we was staying in looked, well lets just say a bit dodgy. It was fine once you were in there - a place to stay in the end and that's all that matter. Oh we also got rather lost getting of at the wrong station on our fist day of exploring and then the first thing we saw was some "young lady" selling drugs... good old St Wenceslas square!
Still though Prague was fantastic with lots of wonderful architecture, though a bit more expensive than we thought it would be.. oh and their clock is cool but didn't not beat the wonderful glockenspiel that was in the Zwinger palace! For more see Images taken in Prague.
From Prague we headed onto Vienna, on a rather fancy train - well a Eurostar so not that fancy but compared to the last couple much nicer... though not as much fun - as we had compartments up to that point! By this point I think I was feeling a little exhausted and luckily we had our own apartment to rest in. Vienna had some absolutely stunning building in it. Though I wouldn't recommend going on a boat ride down the river.. especially without a coat and it raining on you! The picture really speak for themselves... Vienna images. Our good friend, the monkey had fun too...
From Vienna it was to the home of sound of music and gorgeous Salzburg. Salzburg is the sort of place that you couldn't spend too long at if you wanted lots of things todo that you would get in a big city such as Berlin but was full of fantastic little places and was very relaxing. Since we had a long day there we ended up playing mini-golf to pass the time as we waited for our train... a night train down to Venice. Images of Salzburg.
The train journey to Venice was uncomfortable.. but at least I got some sleep. It was also 2 hours delayed, now that takes the piss really - up their with Virgin trains! Didn't help that there appeared to be no air con! It didn't get any cooler when we got to Venice but I'm sure we were fully expecting the heat, though we were completely shattered by this point. I actually wrote a blog entry about this, and so will direct to it, Venice.
After a couple of days in Venice it was time for us to split, with Adam and Maz going to Milan to go back to Brum for graduation and me and Lizzie to head on down to Rome. The train journey to Rome was fun and apart from a few small issues I had a great time in Rome... I think the scene of the year for me had to be walking out of the Colosseo train station to see the Colosseum and the Moon.. the first thing we saw in Rome (for more images see Images of Rome.
An easy flight was had back to the UK.
It was only a few weeks later that we were back off on holiday this time to France. I had a great time in the Loire Valley region of France. The weather was Sunny and the evening skies were fabulous (I've never seen the Milky way looking so wondrous, I reckon this was the first time I've seen the gas clouds). A short stay in France.
At the start of August, before the trip to France Lizzie and I managed to get on the TV, well Astrosoc did as ITV Central covered what we were doing for the Partial Solar Eclipse... Partial Solar Eclipse. Oh and probably the most adult thing that I did all year happened during August... I moved in with Lizzie... eek! View from my flat
September brought the University of Birmingham Space Day - which was hugely successful with over 300 people along. I was very pleased with this - a big step forward for our outreach activities. The FAS Convention was also held during Sept and the day went well with 150 people along, I stepped down as Secretary but now have the full job of organising next years convention. My second paper A Deep 150 MHz GMRT Survey in Eridanus was also published in Sept! Woop! I also started teaching a course at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens on astronomy... which is a nice escape from the day to day research and a way of taking a step back and thinking about the larger issues in astronomy. To link with this course I started a new astronomy blog... "Musings in the Cosmos" - http://starrydude.tumblr.com/
I also got to see Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company with Patrick Steward and David Tennant... absolutely wonderful!
Vale Fireworks were a big highlight in November, as always...
December was rather busy (I still haven't digested the past month) and bought a fantastic Lunar Conjunction:
In short though, 2008 was a great year - full of travels and at times hard work. I'm almost finished with my thesis so 2009 should bring some interest challenges and hopefully a bit more travelling!
August 3, 2009
Lower Johnston Canyon
A video of the lower Johnston Canyon falls...
August 17, 2009
The best piece of maths in a while - modelling zombies attacks
Some crazy Canadians have come up with a mathematical model for surviving a zombie attack. I fully support this kind-of research as we all know this is going to happen at some point 
. My preferred model is grab a big stick, nick a van and ram raid tesco... job done, maybe.... oh [here is the link to the research]...
March 16, 2010
This is cool: 1 Billionth Scale Ion Model Of Enterprise-D
This is probably one of the coolest uses of physics ever... [1 Billionth Scale Ion Model Of Enterprise-D] ... well maybe not very practical though.
March 25, 2010
Moon Dust by Andrew Smith
Moon Dust by Andrew Smith
Well I've finally gotten around to finishing off this book... and its not because it wasn't interesting its more because I'm easily distracted from reading. I have to say this was a great book. I very much enjoyed reading about the Apollo missions from a reflective viewpoint. I wish I had seen the Moon landings - shame they happened before my time. I'm not sure I see the point in going back, but I'd like to watch that kind of fascinating endeavour. Anyway, the book is a really good read and it was nice to find out what the eclectic bunch of astronauts are up to now - quite surprising really. There are some very interesting stories in this book and its all nicely put together and you can tell a lot of hearth and effort went into it. Its not a new book, but not old either... and I'd hugely recommend it to anyone who is interested in space travel and general science.
May 12, 2010
What's up with the UoB clocktower...
I was playing around on Google maps the other day, well I was showing off glorious Birmingham while ranting on about the general election to some North Americans, and I came across this rather odd looking "halo" on top of old Joe! It's obviously just some image processing artefact but still looks rather odd... (so I did a screenshot!):
July 12, 2010
More convolutions
So a friend of mine asked if I could produce the same animation I did the other day of the [convolution of two top hats] but this time of two Gaussians. Pretty straight forward really:
If you want to take a look at the code, see [gauss_convolve.py].
November 9, 2010
Flames vs Oilers video...
and here is the video...
(video might be slightly truncated to the right / in case link does work: take a look at the actual youtube page)
May 15, 2011
A review of my time in Canada
This coming Friday I leave Canada after almost 2 years working in Calgary at the [Institute for Space Imagining Science], University of Calgary. Apart from missing t'other one and family I've had a pretty good time here in [Alberta]. Canada is an interesting place, full of lots of different things todo. Not sure I could do it permanently though, there is just something missing. It could be described as culture or history but I don't think that's it. There is culture and though I don't really fit into the culture of Calgary (oil/cowboy town) its really grown on me. I do like lots about the place and the people. Heck, its not many places were cars stop for you when you are 20 metres from the road. I just can't quite place what makes me feel odd here at times, there is something but I don't know what. At times I feel that this is simply missing my family (and that has been very very hard throughout this) but I don't think its just this. Maybe its that feeling of missing home. Though I don't think it can just be that. Then again though I moved out of home when I was 18 for University I never did leave Birmingham. Could I just be missing Birmingham? That's definitely true, but I think something I got over after about 6 months. I've never gotten over missing my family but I think that's expected. I talk to t'other one everyday and my folks every Saturday and Sunday. This has made life bearable, because without Skype I'd have probably never come nevermind lasted this long. Anyway, I really just can't place what it is about Calgary that just doesn't feel right. I think I'd probably have the same feeling in any North American city though, the roads are just to darn big. Having 3 lanes going one way outside of my place just says that. Well there is a bit of a rant. Its not a rant I had planned though. I was just going to write about my time here in Calgary and some of the more fun things I've done, I don't want to bore you with the sad times and the anguish of missing people. So then... onto the highlights! These really don't fully span the fun I've had here... but a taste - my blog over the last couple of years is testimate to my time in Calgary. Oh I'm not even including the epic trip back at Christmas to the UK that went via Paris and I got back home from Canada on a boat.. or my time in Puerto Rico.
I've actually put together [50 highlights of Canada in a flickr album]... for the purpose of this post I'm just gonna cover 10 topics - and I think what I'll write about will embrace quite a few of the pics. These aren't in any particular order...
1. Snow and using it for fun.
Calgary is definitely an excellent place to live if you enjoy outdoor winter sports. It has its own ski hill within the city and is not far from tons of what I'm told are excellent ski hills. There is the problem, I can't ski at all. But when in Rome...
.. yep that's me get ready to try to snowboard. When my mate Christian decided he wanted to learn to snowboard and well I went along for the ride. For me it wasn't much of a ride and more simply FAIL. Yes I fell over, yes I couldn't get up on the board - apart from once when I feel down straight on me face. [I actually wrote a blog post about this]. I even gave ski's a go... and well that was more FAIL. Yes I completely wiped out getting on and off the ski lift - and when I got back down to the bottom and I fell off the magic carpet (a flat escalator to help newbies) I decided it was time to go for a beer. Oh a couple of months later a my mate Steve came over to visit me from England [we saw how its properly done]...
2. Mountains.
Calgary is wonderfully placed right next to the rocky mountains. Of course in the winter this helps the previous fun... but in the summer it means lovely hiking. I wouldn't say I took that too seriously, I've been for a couple of fun day hikes and been on a bunch of tours with [Brewsters] and saw/did some cool things. Including bears:
partially frozen lakes:
[Places with funny names] (yes this is called lake Minnewanka - pronounce it like a Brit and you will chuckle):
oh lots of mountains..
walking on a glacier:
oh and more snow / [freezing my face off on top of a mountain at -20C or something like that]:
3. Hockey.
During my time in Calgary I've become a fan of Ice Hockey (aka Hockey in Canada). Its a great game, full of excitement. Much better than playing Brett Hull hockey which absorbed a large portion of my time playing SNES. Of course the Canadians are as passionate about hockey as we are football. I think my interest really peaked when I was watching the Olympic coverage and Canada got to the final. Great afternoon watching it in Melrose on 17th Ave. Since then I've been to a bunch of [WHL and NHL games]. All I will say is GO FLAMES GO!
4. The Calgary Tower.
[I've been up the Calgary Tower on 3 occasions], I think spanning most of the day. Its always been fun, bit pricey but worth doing. The Calgary tower, though not the largest building, really dominates the downtown skyline. You can basically use it to find your way home too. I think it looks pretty nice at night and phenomenal when the giant flame is on.
5. A city full of nature.
Calgary might be ranked as one of the world's top eco cities but I don't think people give it the credit it deserves. I mean everyone laughed about that title and well given the size of the roads/cars its quite funny. Then you think about the fact that there is one giant provincial park inside the city and many lovely nature sites.. I've seen quite a bit of wildlife in the city.. include [deer] and [coyotes down at Fish Creek]..
6. The Cold
I've never been so cold in my life. I'm not quite sure how cold it has gotten to during my time here but I'm sure there was one day when it hit -40C. Now that's cold. I remember the first winter and every day blasted my new record for the coldest temperature I'd ever experienced. The second winter it was... "oh it's only -20C". I still thinks its odd thinking -6C is a nice warm day and having the urge to wear shorts. The cold weather does give some cool sites though.. and weird sensations when your nose freezes and your trousers (pants in Canada) go stiff within a minute of walking. Watching the [outdoor Heritage hockey game at McMahon Stadium].
7. Stampede
I don't think I really could have a discussion of my time living in Calgary and not mention the world famous [Calgary Stampede could I]? One giant rodeo with people partying for a week.. not a bad thing really. Still I was bemused by most of the activities that took place but I feel that I might have experienced something culturally significant.
8. Beer and Bars.
Who serves a pint like this?
Is what I thought the first time I had it. But yes having an orange in my beer has grown on me. I'll miss some of the excellent beers of Wild Rose and Big Rock. I've had some epic nights drinking their products.. so a big thank you to them! Oh and a big thank you to all the bars I've been to... special mentions probably have to go to the epic Blink Monk on 12th Ave (right by were I live) for the many many fun nights, Melrose (on 17th Ave) for the hockey nights, Kilkenny (up at Brentwood) for its epic happy hours and to the Yardhouse (on 17th Ave) for its epic veggie burgers and friendly staff.
9. Tim Hortons.
I didn't think I would be saying this... but Timmy's I'll miss you! Not many places were you can get an excellent donut and a coffee for around $2. I've spent many hours waiting in line-up for you. I hate to think how many hours are lost over the whole country waiting for Tim Hortons. Tim Hortons... open a few in England - I'll come!
10. Simply Calgary.
As I said before times have been hard in Calgary but I think I'll miss it. I'll miss my friends and I'll miss the city.. there is something about this place that has made a place in my heart. [Go Stamps], [Go Flames], [Go Hitmen], [Go Roughknecks], [Go Vipers]! There might not be much todo for tourists but if you ever go to Western Canada don't miss out on Calgary as you will be missing something.. I'm not quite sure what but you'll be missing something. Something tells me this city really hasn't blossomed yet - I can see myself coming back in 20 years and it being very different and well I can see this place being fantastic.
Oh and to all my friends here... thanks for making my time in Calgary the dogs bollocks. You lot rock!
Thank you Calgary.
oh and .... hello Cambridge.....
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