Room 311

see ya later

2007-04-23T12:51:00.000Z

Yo dudes, due to a lack of blogworthy things, impending thesis and general apathy I've decided to stop writing 311.

I may however write a few posts for insertwittytitle which is an interesting mix of science, internet commentary and homemade cool stuff

Au revoir

JPS

Cock of the north...

2007-04-10T22:28:00.000Z

Manchester United 7 Roma 1

Fantastic!

The funniest thing on youtube...

2007-03-18T23:16:00.000Z

...Look for any videos by JamesNintendoNerd - this guy reviews shitty NES games while swearing his head off - hilarious!

First bumble bee of the season

2007-03-14T13:24:00.000Z

We had a visit from a bumble bee this morning on the 14th of march. This seems a little earlier to me and NPR has confirmed our siting. It was a big fat fuzzy bumble bee too. He looked a bit miserable but after warming himself up in the window (and Jim providing him with water (!!???)) he looked fine and bumbled off outside.
It must be global warming.

paris photos what I took part 1

2007-03-09T00:46:00.000Z

Gay Paris

2007-03-07T13:49:00.000Z

Just to let you know I'm back from a most excellent long weekend in Gay Paris with Nicola. Photos will be appearing here soon.
I did all the stuff you'd expect - the eiffel tower, the louvre, arc de triumphe, notre dame etc;
some slightly less obvious but ultimately superior experiences like the orangerie and musee d'orsay
and some cool stuff like the catacombes (spooky shit!!!) and having a look round the rather seedy Montmatre at night.

In other news I've got an interview for a postdoc job at John Moores so heres hoping

Rejection

2007-02-28T11:54:00.000Z

I got a rejection email for a job at Cambridge yesterday. Nothing strange there you might think. Except I didn't ever get round to applying for the job! All I did was email the secretary and ask her a question about the postal application. How very strange!

same old same old

2007-02-22T10:41:00.000Z

I love watching Dragon's Den and last night was no dissapointment
However it is essentially the same script every week

"Do you have a patent"
"What stops someone else from copying it"
Bannatyne:"I would buy one but I don't know who else would"
"I want to hear your profit not turnover"

Q:"you want £100,000 for 10% of your business, so you reckon its worth £1M?"
A:"no, erm, yes erm"

Same story with Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares

"why have you got 20 main courses on the menu? cut it down to 6"
"Instead of all this poncy crap you should make good simple British pub food with locally sourced produce"
"See that simple looking bloke in your kitchen who peels the spuds - he's getting promoted to head chef cos he's passionate about food"

Hair today gone tomorrow

2007-02-20T14:55:00.000Z

Britney shaved her hair off and its turned into some kind of media feeding frenzy. She looks a bit like she should be in Alien 3 which is quite funny.

Anyway - the salon that cut it are selling her hair here

It looks gross - I read somewhere that hair is a very strange object in our collective psyche. We love it when its attached to our heads all glossy and shiney and smelling of botanics but when it is disconnected from the head we find it repulsive. I don't know why i'm just the messenger.

Mail dump

2007-02-20T11:56:00.000Z

Adrian Chiles, my favourite brummie host of working lunch (brings back great memories of being sat on my arse during the summer hols promising mum I'd get a job) and now match of the day has been sent a rather nasty "parcel".

This is disgusting behaviour and should not be encouraged however it did coin the new 311 phrase

"I wouldn't go in there yet if I were you, it smells like Adrian Chiles' mail box "

Like Tea used to be

2007-02-17T16:58:00.000Z

I love Yorkshire Tea, its the right mix of strength and flavour and I get miserable if I'm forced to drink the inferior Tetley, PG Tips or Typhoo. I always worry that I may be betraying my Lancashire roots by drinking something with Yorkshire in the title but when the tea's this good who cares buy me a white rose!

Look what I saw today in the Market. A yorkshire tea shortbread biscuit in the shape of a "T" with "Yorkshire Tea" written on it! Brilliant!

Being shortbread its excellent for dipping in tea as it will never get soggy and break and the taste is divine.

Thank you Taylors of Harrogate!

Mutton Jeff

2007-02-13T14:11:00.000Z

I had a rather embarassing experience in WHSmith yesterday. I was feeling quite rough after a weekend of merriment with my mates who'd come to stay so needed cheering up. I decided to go and buy myself the aspirational magazine GQ to look at the latest shoes, ties, suits, cars, technology I should own (obviously my scientist wages don't allow for such extravagance but hey I can look). On the front cover of said magazine was a young lady in a bra, so what? I hear you say.
I get to the counter at the front of a large queue of people and this happens

WHS: Dirty Mag?
JPS: Excuse Me!
WHS: Dirty Mag?
JPS: Erm yeah right mate (in faux sarcastic voice with red face)

Man hands me a bag.

Cue realisation that "Dirty Mag?" = "Do you want a bag" in his quick Geordie voice.

I scuttle off in pure shame

Acceptable behaviour

2007-02-13T12:34:00.000Z

Woohoo my paper has been accepted by the lovely people over at ApJ! I am now a 1st author! I might have a few pints after Jim2's play tonight.

Friday I'm in love...

2007-02-05T11:31:00.000Z

Went to Newcastle on friday night and a good time was had by all. Found a new bar I'd not been in before that was playing my kind of "darker" 80's music - Depeche Mode some more broody Kraftwerk and a bit of goth era Cure. Tried to find a club we'd seen on the internet but couldn't so we thought we'd finish the night in one of the more distinctly "local" bars, namely "Flares" the 70's disco bar. Without going into too much detail I would say that rather than being rough the punters had a certain oddness to them! There were lots of 18 year old lads with strangely shaped heads copping off with women old enough to be their grandmothers (I shit you not). Its always nice to see how the population with IQ<100 live but I wouldn't do it every friday!

A real Gem from the people over at Autodynamics

2007-02-04T01:42:00.000Z

I asked the AD forum about the velocity addition when 2 rockets collide... I received this reply from Lucy Haye, I'm sure you'll agree its a classic.

"Dear JP:You have not idea on what your are talking about. You have not idea what the Sumvelocity equation means for. You have not idea what the concept of Constantlight velocity means in the Sum Velocity Equation!!! You are inventing anequation , which doesn exist!!!!!!You need to consult an specialist doctor in mental problems because your brainis not working normally.Lucy Haye"

It seems "I have not idea what I'm talking about"

Autodynamics Carezani David de Hilster

2007-02-02T11:29:00.000Z

Apologies for the strange name of this post its just that I've been looking more into Norris's favourite pastime baiting the people over at Autodynamics. This is essentially a cult run by by a guy called David de Hilster that claims that modern physics (particularly relativity) is incorrect, lepton number is made up and the neutrino doesn't exist! He is also making a film about how his mum has disproved Einstein, so he is therefore nuts!

Their strangest claim is that if 2 cars are travelling head on into each other both with speed v, Instead of hitting each other at 2*v they hit each other at 1.41*v which is utter bollocks!

Anyway join their yahoo discussion group and give them enough rope to hang themselves with

I gotta get me one of these!

2007-01-23T14:26:00.000Z

Its like the thing off the end of Aliens! If I had one I 'd use it to throw a mother Alien out of an airlock!

Shark Tales

2007-01-23T09:41:00.000Z

A story from the beeb

An Australian diver has escaped from the jaws of a Great White shark which had grabbed him by the head.

"Eric is a tough boy, he's super-fit," his friend and fellow diver Dennis

"But I would say that would test anyone's resolve, being a fish lunch."

"He was actually bitten by the head down, the shark swallowed his head,"

Mr Luobikis said his friend "pushed his abalone chisel" into the shark's head, managing to wrestle himself free before the shark swam away.

This sounds a bit fishy to me. It "swallowed his head"??!!

Channel 4 keep your heads down!

2007-01-22T09:48:00.000Z

This week Channel 4 has dominated the media at home and abroad for alleged racist bullying in the Big Brother house. Because of this Channel 4 has had some pretty negative publicity.

So imagine my surprise last night when I started watching Channel 4's latest reality TV show "Shipwrecked 2007 the battle of the islands"...
...There's a girl on there called Lucy who when interviewed about her views said:
"I don't like fat people or ugly people" ok not exactly pc but its not the end of the world
"I don't like foreigners" hmm entering dangerous water
"I think they should bring back slavery, although it'll never happen which is a shame" Hang on a minute! Have Channel 4 gone mad?! Surely they'd like to keep there heads down for a few months?

Channel 4's website says:
"She has extreme views due to naivety and living a sheltered life." Oh thats fine then, silly me.

I might complain to Ofcom for fun:) "Disgusted of Durham"

Convert human years to animal years

2007-01-17T16:57:00.000Z

People will say such things as "my dog is 14 but thats 98 in human years". This is a bit stupid but I see where they are coming from. Yesterday me and Jim did some web research and found the conversion for several animals.

1 dog year = 7 human years
1 horse year=2.2 human years
1 mouse year=34 human years

for cats its much more interesting as its non linear:
http://cats.about.com/cs/healthissues/a/agechart.htm
How and why these people worked this out is beyond me.

armed with this information we can now quote dog years in horse years eg "my dog is 14 but thats 31 in horse years"

The Referee's a ...

2007-01-12T11:57:00.000Z

... very nice person actually. just got my first referee's report back on my red sequence build up paper and it seems very reasonable. Hopefully I'll be able to tidy it up in line with the comments over the next few days and then re submit. Its all quite exciting for a 1st time author such as myself!

Morrissey sings eurovision

2007-01-09T13:20:00.000Z

In other news Morrissey everyone's favourite indy shoegazer and misery spreader has been asked to perform the UKs Eurovision song! Can't wait!

back in black

2007-01-09T13:16:00.000Z

Hello, i'm back in Durham although I should be in Hawaii. Unfortunately I was ill and couldn't travel so I now have the fun of trying to claim my money back for the flights. Luckily I'm not missing much as the skies of Hawaii are full of cloud. One upshot of being ill though is that I'm now only 14st 12lbs and well on the way to becoming thin!

How to break into a car...

2006-12-20T09:50:00.000Z

... nicola just locked herself out of the car (through no fault of her own). Mr AA man came round and made her sign a "sorry if we destroy your car" form so I was expecting him to smash the window or something. Instead he just got 2 pieces of cheese wedge shaped plastic and a piece of wire and opened the door in under 5 mins with no damage. Now I'm not going to say exactly how he did it but use your imagination and never park your car outside my house HAHAHA

seasons greetings to one and all!

2006-12-19T16:01:00.000Z

Veggie Boffins

2006-12-15T14:53:00.000Z

Apparently vegetarians are more intelligent than normal people. This along with my favourite study into coffee giving you lung cancer is surely just another example of a selection effect. Although IQ should be independent of poverty, deprivation etc it isn't because if you live in a privileged environment you can squeeze a few more extra IQ points. This is simply due to the fact that with a better education etc you are more likely to be used to a logical way of thinking. IQ scores improve with practice (even tho they shouldn't so with a few goes on different tests the less privileged people would catch up and equal the more privileged). So to complete this circle I will suggest that more privileged people are likely to be vegetarians which I think is a reasonable generalisation from my personal experience.

quote:
"Men who were vegetarian had an IQ score of 106, compared with 101 for non-vegetarians; while female vegetarians averaged 104, compared with 99 for non-vegetarians."

The more misogynistic amongst you may notice something else about the stats but we won't go there:) by the way average IQ is 100.

Christmas is coming ...

2006-12-15T10:50:00.000Z

Yes thats right its all getting a bit festive in the department: Xmas parties, free booze, kissing under the mistletoe (thankfully not in our 99% male dept), virgin births etc.
There's definitely a nice atmosphere about and I'm looking forward to tonights festive toast to lord gambrinus.

I was going to mock up this nativity picture up with faces of people from the dept but life is too short - have a go yourselves if you like.

London Calling...

2006-12-11T12:11:00.000Z

I was in london for the royal astronomical soc. young astronomers meeting. Caught up with some people i'd not seen for a while and watched some good talks. It was interesting to watch a broad range of talks. As our department is almost entirely cosmology I was shocked to see people giving talks on the planet jupiter (whatever that is).

Here is a picture of a Rodin sculpture called "the gates of hell" outside the royal academy of art. Its based on Dante's Divine Comedy - very cool.

dalsim shaping up

2006-12-10T13:49:00.000Z

why do things just look better on a mac? here is a screenshot of the latest incarnation of dalsim... this is mainly for the benefit of rob and craig. version 1 is round the corner.

here comes the rain again

2006-12-05T15:25:00.000Z

it's raining, so we have constructed a playlist by searching for all songs in my library with rain in the title... we have 10 songs to depress us on this wet december day.

a powerful enemy

2006-12-04T16:31:00.000Z

swiftly taking advantage of opportunity pays dividends in this game. live by the sword, die by the sword. earlier on, i became the owner of a nintendo famicom - the prize of responding quickly to my email.

i was quickly vilified my my peers, and informed that i had made some powerful enemies. one fellow astronomer seems particularly upset - despite my assurances that this device would be shared, with the prospect of some nights in with the boys, playing the console long into the night. after all, where's the fun in playing with yourself?

apparently this did not suffice... i note here in clear view of the world that i will be the bigger man and relinquish said device, should the parties concerned wish it. that's all i have to say on the matter.

thanks, sherlock

2006-12-04T12:39:00.000Z

what is it with the bbc lately? Psychopaths' brains 'different'

Sunday Sunday

2006-12-04T11:52:00.000Z

apologies for the amount of cultural posts on 311 at the moment but culture has been following me around for the last few weeks. Went to the Xmas market on palace green yesterday - lots of nice stuff but it was windy and the huge marquee we were in was making loud "I'm about to take off" noises so we went back into town.
In town we were just in time to see a huge dragon made of hub caps with 4 drummers housed within it. It seemed worth a look but I was worried it might be some god awful youth/drug addict project or something. I'm a drummer so I found it highly entertaining to see 4 talented drummers going at it at the same time. From the outside it may have looked a bit too much like Stomp but it was actually very good. It must be quite difficult to have a band entirely made of percussionists because one of them has to take the lead and we are all megalomaniac tubthumpers. they were accompanied by space aliens on stilts, see fig. 2.
This was weird but nothing could prepare me for what happened in Marks and Spencers. A whole cabinet full of Beetroot that was on offer! How much Beetroot do they think we eat?! This is the most Beetroot I have ever seen!

great, but where's my flying car and hoverboard you promised?

2006-12-01T16:52:00.000Z

straight from the horse's mouth:

"Researchers for at least two decades have used acoustic levitation to suspend light materials without a container. Wenjun Xie, a materials physicist at Northwestern Polytechnical University in China, has previously used ultrasound fields to levitate globs of iridium and mercury, very heavy materials. Now the scientist has performed the feat with live animals. From the story: 'Xie and his colleagues employed an ultrasound emitter and reflector that generated a sound pressure field between them. The emitter produced roughly 20-millimeter-wavelength sounds, meaning it could in theory levitate objects half that wavelength or less.' Apparently the ants, spiders and ladybugs endured the trick just fine, but the fish didn't do so well due to lack of water."

The Booze Brothers

2006-12-01T14:47:00.000Z

Its friday afternoon and all thoughts turn to the pursuit of lager (or pale ale).

More Found Art

2006-11-30T11:44:00.000Z

Jim2 bounded into the office last night stuck a pen to my monitor with blutak and declared it a piece of found art entitled "pen blutak". Here it is. I might go one step further and claim that as it is blutak-ed to my monitor then it is now my artwork entitled "monitor blutak pen" - my seminal work on the futility of existence of an artist in a world of plagarism and technopunk horse cabbage.

Am I Sister Wendy or something?

2006-11-29T12:23:00.000Z

The ICC (posh bit of department) has always had some modern art installations on the staircase and in the coffee area to varying degrees of success. We've just had a new batch which is a bit better than the previous lot although I'm not quite sure what hints at female nudes have to do with astronomy. There is a rather obvious attempt at pure laziness by one artist who has painted a black canvass entitled "space alien" or something, pretentious and shite at the same time. However imagine my surprise when I saw this at the top of the stairs, its called "radio banana". I'm not sure what else to say really.

YALS (yet another lovely sandwich)

2006-11-28T13:54:00.000Z

when i came back from my trip, i was shocked to see that the baker's oven had transmogrified into a greggs. panic set in as i realised i may never see one of my beloved mango chicken sandwiches again.

all is not lost, today i saw a lone 'roll' in their cabinet - some sort of christmas themed filling: turkey, stuffing and cranberry. that final touch is a stroke of genius -- cutting through what might otherwise be quite a stodgy mixture. i love a good stuffing, and you can't go wrong with some moist turkey. i snapped it up in a hurry, and wasn't disappointed... absolutely delicious. my only worry? this is a seasonal sandwich, and not likely to be around in a few months. get it while you can.

late edit -- joy of joys, there is also crispy bacon in here. does life get any better than this?

Polonium 210

2006-11-27T16:38:00.000Z

A Russian ex secret agent was poisoned with the isotope Polonium 210. Is this the first time an isotope number has been given in a news story along with the name of the element? I think so.

Wikipedia says:

"This isotope of polonium is an alpha emitter that has a half-life of 138.376 days. A milligram of ²¹⁰Po emits as many alpha particles as 5 grams of radium. A great deal of energy is released by its decay with a half a gram quickly reaching a temperature above 750 K. A few curies (gigabecquerels) of ²¹⁰Po emit a blue glow which is caused by excitation of surrounding air. A single gram of ²¹⁰Po generates 140 watts of power.^[1] Because it emits many alpha particles, which are stopped within a very short distance in dense media and release their energy, ²¹⁰Po has been used as a lightweight heat source to power thermoelectric cells in artificial satellites. A ²¹⁰Po heat source was also used in each of the Lunokhod rovers deployed on the surface of the Moon, to keep their internal components warm during the lunar nights. Some anti-static brushes contain up to 500 microcuries of Polonium-210 as a source of charged particles for neutralizing static electricity in materials like photographic film ^[2]. Polonium-210 was used in the fatal poisoning of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006."

Give it up David...

2006-11-22T10:59:00.000Z

... The greatest illusionist since Sooty, David Blaine is up to his old tricks again

What a show off!

Art imitating shite

2006-11-20T10:54:00.000Z

Went to the Baltic art gallery in Newcastle yesterday thought it might be entertaining, I was wrong. I don't mind some modern art (after all those 2 words cover a very wide range of styles and quality) as it can occaisionally be thought provoking or at least fun. Not yesterday. Went to 2 exhibitions one by a bloke who painted stick men having sex with each other and animals, hmmm - quickly left this floor as it sucked majorly although it was funny watching art student types in cardigans with thick black rimmed glasses staring intently at this toss as if it had some sort of meaning:) The other exhibition was called 'spank the monkey' very funny guys yeah like a euphamism for masterbation, you crazy artists you. This was a collection of shite by 20 artists - some of whom, it said in the notes had never been exhibited before (you're joking really? I could never have guessed). The picture displayed here sums up all I hate about art. Its got a gun with a rose in the barrel. If sarcasm is the lowest form of humour then juxtaposition is the lowest form of art. I might send them a picture of a tramp sat on a million dollars would that be art? no it would be shite. 'irony' in the american sense of the word (ie not true irony) is another common use in art for retards eg a zoo with people in cages and animals outside feeding them hahahaha v funny you morons.
Other artworks in the gallery included pornographic pictures of a japanese chick which I spose was entertaining but probably not art and an anime video on a loop.
The worst part of the whole exhibition was the staircase between floors which was pretty much the only way to get up and down as the lifts were packed with prams and grannies (god knows why they were looking at this exhibiton). All the way up the stairwell were screens displaying people talking the lyrics of John Lennon extremely loudly with a phaser effect on their voices which actually made you think you were going mad. I think I'll go to a decent gallery next time and look at some photorealistic oil paintings of Jesus with perspective.

stranger in a strange land

2006-11-20T04:50:00.000Z

dear all,

firstly, apologies for my lack of activity. i've had a busy couple of days. i'll explain what i've been up to of late.

we left hilo last thursday, made the short hop to honolulu, and then ian and i went our separate ways. i flew in to LAX early friday morning and got a shuttle to pasadena, about 40 minutes away. i'm staying in a theological seminary, which is really very nice... unfortunately i arrived quite early, so my room wasn't ready. tired from having no proper sleep for a long while, i decided to find caltech. the receptionist drew me a quick map and i set off. it wasn't 8am yet, and already pretty hot. jeans were a mistake.

i quickly learnt two things:

there are no bends in the US
they give you a very short amount of time to cross roads

the first thing i learnt was to my advantage - it is pretty hard to get lost. the second took some getting used to. i eventually found the campus, and took a little wander round... very nice. i'll take some pictures tomorrow so i can show you. when i got to the astro dept, found an office to sit in, and got online. by this time i was pretty knackered, and in desperate need of sleep.

so i headed back to the seminary, and this time had more success checking in. my room is fantastic - a little kitchen, en suite, nice bed, tv. then again, i'm easily pleased. i had a little rest before having a shower (took me a while to figure out how that worked - plus i'm too tall for it), then it was time to head back to the dept for journal club and beers afterwards in the courtyard (can we start doing that here?). had a mexican in the evening, and slept soundly until 11am.

the next day i had a wander round pasadena... again, sweltering heat. i was recommended the huntington gardens to take a look at, so i took a walk down there - a pleasant cultural experience all round. nice gardens and some art galleries... again, i have some pictures. i walked back as the sun went down on california boulevard, casting long shadows of the palm trees, and catching the light in the ubiquitous sprinklers irrigating immaculate lawns.

once more i slept soundly. i will tell you more about the trip tomorrow, but right now i have to write a bit more of my talk... yikes!

oh yeah, here are a few tv highlights i have taken note of:

william shatner presents some sort of quiz show along the lines of deal or no deal. the tag lines are hilarious: "shat-tastic!" , ad infinitum
OJ Simpson outrage: he has written a book called "If I did it...", basically outlining how he would have done it 'if' he did it
every advert is about medication, or some sort of exercise equipment
things seem to be repeated even more than in the UK

as i say, more tomorrow. speak to you soon. j.

Oh dear...

2006-11-17T17:50:00.000Z

... this man thinks the Earth is hollow and filled with ten tribes of people - you can sign up to be on his journey to the centre of the earth in 2007.

traditional astronomy

2006-11-16T15:46:00.000Z

went outside with the night vision scope tonight, and caught site of some pretty cool stuff. by crudely pointing my camera through it, i got a few shots. here is one of orion. i have even labeled the stars and nebulae. the thin line you can see at the top is the freakin' laser beam from keck... it is very impressive to see it in action. will post some more photos soon.

here is the laser coming from keck, apologies for the crap shot:

Spider Webb

2006-11-14T14:25:00.000Z

Just been to an interesting talk on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Its basically a space based telescope to replace(ish) Hubble. Great idea to have a 6.5m optical/near infrared telescope in space. It will be able to get us a lot closer to answering many stellar and galaxy evolution questions (and find extra solar planets - what a waste of time that is!). My only issues with it are those of deployment and maintenance - It'll sit at the earth/sun L2 point which is ~1.5m km away. This means that if anything goes wrong we won't be able to go and fix it. Also because of its size it remains folded up in a very complicated manner until it reaches L2 where it unfolds like a beautiful flower (hopefully!). This unfolding exercise looks extremely complicated so I'm slightly worried that we're essentially throwing $4.5bn into the Beagle 2 bin.
It also seems to live on some kind of giant pink space mattress?!

Gym and Tonic

2006-11-14T10:11:00.000Z

I like my gym, its a bit expensive but its well run and they've got a pool which is good for no impact exercise as my leg is still a bit weak after breaking it over six months ago. The only thing that concerns me slightly is the changing room etiquette. I generally take my trousers and boxers off at lightning speed before jumping into my shorts as I feel slightly uncomfortable standing naked in public. Perhaps thats just me and my insecurities however everyone else in there takes it too far the other way. They stand there chatting to each other letting it all hang out. Rather than any kind of homoerotica it seems that they are trying to intimidate each other by seeing if they can stay naked longer than the other guy. Very strange!

A change is as good as a rest

2006-11-13T14:32:00.000Z

I've changed my blogger name from John to JPS cos it sounds cooler

Yorkshire Tea

2006-11-13T10:27:00.000Z

Went to Harrogate yesterday, very nice place. It was on Channel 4s top ten places to live and mum and dad like it so we thought we'd check it out. Wanted to go to "the best tea room in the world" Betty's but unfortunately you had to queue to get in so we just bought a couple of cakes from their shop.
Going to Harrogate reminded me of a rhyme my dad used to say to me when I was little

'arry went to 'arrogate
'arry lost 'is 'at
'arry's mother said to 'arry
'arry where's your 'at
'anging in the 'all mother
'anging on an 'ook
'arry's mother said to 'arry
'arry 'ave a look

"You're as cold as ice...

2006-11-10T10:06:00.000Z

...you're willing to sacrifice" is how foreigner would have put it.

Up until around 7pm yesterday durham was experiencing the global warming Indian summer phenomenon every one's been talking about on the news (tree leaves still green etc). You could comfortably walk around in a T shirt and thin jumper/coat open. Last night I went out with my Tshirt and thin jacket on only to discover it was below freezing! Its still freezing today.

Brass monkeys as they say but lets see what "the internet" thinks:
"It has often been claimed that the "brass monkey" was a holder or storage rack in which cannon balls (or shot) were stacked on a ship. Supposedly when the "monkey" with its stack of cannon ball became cold, the contraction of iron cannon balls led to the balls falling through or off of the "monkey." This explanation appears to be a legend of the sea without historical justification. "

I wish I was a "legend of the sea"

john, have you been for a tom tit this morning?

2006-11-09T22:42:00.000Z

please interpret the title of this post as some compensation to the fact that i am not in the office, and john appears to be experiencing 'lewd behaviour withdrawel' ... that's the sort of thing that gets said in the office.

i have not abandoned 311, and i hope to furnish you with funny experiences i have on the trip... plus can i say, good luck for your talk (today?) john.

things are ok here, though i am feeling a bit rough... i'm topping myself up with a variety of 'tang' related 'juices' they have here at HP. i just had some fruit punch.... i filled up a cup with the substance and started drinking it down, only to notice that this stuff is concentrate, and i think you're supposed to add water. didn't taste too bad as it was. i added some token water anyway, just to 'fit in'

hope all is well that side, keep me informed of interesting events.

lonely office

2006-11-07T12:22:00.000Z

Jim's off to Hawaii and then on to Caltech so he's away for the next few weeks. It'll be a more subdued affair without him - much less banter and lewd behaviour.
In other news I hope Hubble hurries up and falls out of the sky before they get a chance to fix it cos I'm sick of waiting ages to download data and then spending even more time reducing it! I jest of course Hubble is an excellent resource for astronomy :)

the best book i have ever seen

2006-11-06T13:58:00.000Z

i have, perhaps, just seen the best book ever made. perfect coffeetable material. it was the Sun's guide to major scientific discoveries. basically, through the medium of the sun front page, all the major scientific and technological breakthroughs ever made are broken down into punch headline format. check it out in waterstones in town if you get a chance!

follow this link for some examples -- the book is called 'giant leaps'

You couldn't make it up

2006-11-06T10:10:00.000Z

We played pool against St Chads college last night. This is a college of vile rah types. We've played there twice before and it is always a grotesque affair as the team themselves are a bunch of the worst kind of undergraduate "I own the world and it doesn't matter if I fail my art history degree as mummy and daddy will bail me out" tossers. Anyway class war aside for a second (chip on my shoulder? of course not!) lets analyse the game or at least the activities going on around it. In terms of results we won but that doesn't tell the whole story.
We turned up and they had just begun drinking and were making the kind of noises General Melchett would be proud of. As usual they were dressed in their pool team rugby shirts with swimming goggles on and chalk on their noses.They play some stupid side game called "didge" which I assume refers to digits of booze they have to drink at the end of the match. Throughout the game you would hear "thats 10 didge" when one of them messed up.
In no particular order here are some of the more disturbing things they did:
Drop their trousers on mass and play in their underwear.
Jump out of the window on mass for a homoerotic "pile on" in the garden.
Get one member to hold a pint glass while another pissed in it (getting it on other blokes hand to much girly screaming).
A rather too sensual kiss between 2 of the players.
Eating a bic biro between them.

I have never seen a better advert for saving your money and sending your kids to comprehensive school. What a bunch of pricks.

De-mob happy

2006-11-03T16:44:00.000Z

Its friday night and I feel like a swift pint with my astronomy chums. Nothing too heavy as last nights whiskey club made me a little woozey this morning. My giant-dwarf ratio graph is looking nice and I've ordered some more data off Mr Hubble's big metal photon collector in the sky.

Beautiful Day

2006-11-02T10:29:00.000Z

Its one of those lovely crisp autumnal days today. The sky is perfectly blue, the sun is blazing but its also very cold and dry.

Pumpkin Party!

2006-10-31T20:34:00.000Z

With it being Halloween and all I carved a Pumpkin (Nicola helped). I've never carved one before, I imagine Mum was probably worried I'd stab myself in the eye with the knife. I've done a craig style photo blog of the carving process.

Thank you Pumpkin for bringing me joy!

My mother in law is so fat...

2006-10-31T11:37:00.000Z

...she went to cross the road, I swerved to avoid her and ran out of petrol!
...I had to take a train and two buses just to get on the her good side!
...she wakes up in sections!
...she's on both sides of the family!
...everytime she walks in high heels, she strikes oil!
...the only pictures I have of her are satellite pictures!

All Hallows' Eve

2006-10-31T10:13:00.000Z

Well its Halloween. Normally this day passes me by completely with the exception of 16 year old scallies on BMXs knocking on the door wearing Scream masks demanding money. I keep a caldron of boiling oil in the upstairs window to deal with such ne'er do wells. Anyway this year I am planning to embrace the ghoulish autumnal festivities by carving a pumpkin face (possibly turning its innards into a hearty soup) and eating a pomegranate (they're in season). I'll put a CMB style photo blog of my pumpkin carving on here tomorrow.

lift madness

2006-10-30T17:12:00.000Z

john and i had to use the stairs today as we had 'overloaded' the lift. three UGs got in and pressed the button for level 2. john and i got in and were greeted by the shrill 'lift overloaded' message. needless to say we left in shame, and had to climb the stairs to 311.

interesting sky over 311

2006-10-30T17:02:00.000Z

looked out the window and saw a really nice cloud formation, red-hued by the sunset... tried to take a picture with my phone but it came out crap. you'll have to take my word for it. john'll vouch for me i'm sure.

A Question

2006-10-30T13:10:00.000Z

Would you be dissapointed if you died before the apocalypse? You can choose your own apocalypse style if you like for this hypothetical question. Jim and I were thinking along the lines of Mad Max or something. Important things to note you survive and probably humanity goes tribal/ferral. Its a violent world but you get to do cool McGyver/ A team style stuff to make weapons and vehicles to protect yourself. You could be a hero, a leader of men perhaps. Maybe there'd be opportunities to help beautiful warrior women repopulate there islands, who knows? How old would you like to be? you wouldn't want to be too old to appreciate the apocalypse now would you. Hopefully its before I'm 40.

Weekend review

2006-10-30T10:39:00.000Z

Friday night - went out for dinner with nicola and then met up with the astro boys in cuth's bar. One particular highlight being Jim2 relieving himself against the Cathedral. I'm sure God has rules against that sort of thing.
Saturday - Nicola went to Scotland so I was left to fend for myself - Went to the continental market in town and bought myself a huge frankfurter in a tiny bun which was tasty but made me feel rather self concious walking around (did it look gay?).
Saturday night - Went to Halloween party at Howlands with a couple of mates. We got talking to a girl - conversation went like this:
Girl: What do you do?
Vernon: Theoretical Physics
Andy: Theoretical Physics
Me: Observational Cosmology
Girl: Sociology

How many more conversations will I have like this?!

While at the party I was getting a feel for the calibre of this years new postgrad intake, I love postgrads cos they're a bunch of weirdo's: Crazy Europeans with american accents, Old men having mid life crises, Mega nerds such as myself, lazy historians doing one more year of Uni before they have to go and stack shelves in Tesco's, Norwegians who've done national service and loners who turn up to every event but refuse to interact with anyone. Image the horror I went through when I saw a group of pretty girls dressed as cats who on closer inspection had extremely posh accents. They were hanging round with a group of what can only be described as "Hooray Henries"- rugby buggering public school type guys. Needless to say I hate posh people, come the revolution they'll be first against the wall. I discover that these hideous people are some of the main players in this years postgrad intake - disgusting! Thankfully I cheered up when a German postgrad walked past on his own dressed entirely in a huge cardboard box with a washing machine door drawn on it :)
Sunday- won my pool matches

saturday scholars

2006-10-28T14:08:00.000Z

Me and Jim are both in 311 doing work today. On a saturday!

incredibly full can of coke

2006-10-26T14:20:00.000Z

normally when you get a can, the level of liquid is some way down from the rim. not in this coke. i got it from the can machine by the lift -- managed to splash all my work when i opened it. the level was right to the brim. here is a rubbish picture to prove it:

slow news day?

2006-10-25T13:05:00.000Z

news like this makes me smile: Pelican swallows pigeon in park [bbc link] ... reminds me of the time i convinced my brother that a seagull had seized and carried off a small baby in our local town.

Sore throat

2006-10-25T11:57:00.000Z

Yes that's correct I'm off work with "man flu" - my sore throat wouldn't let me have a decent nights sleep so I slept in and am now "working from home". See you tomorrow boys.

why we do it

2006-10-25T08:44:00.000Z

john posted a nice hst image he made below - showing off some nice cluster lensing effects. we're lucky in this job to be able to create pretty stunning images. yesterday's apod was a classic - the merging nuclei of the antennea galaxies. it's just an amazing image - only what you can't see in this zoomed version is the long tidal tails stretching back way out into space - pulled apart from the tidal interaction. i can't imagine not wanting to know how this stuff works:

magister physica

2006-10-23T16:42:00.000Z

Woohoo, i've finally graduated!!! Spent the weekend in Oxford bowing a lot, wearing silly clothes and drinking with my mates and their families, most excellent!
Here's a shot after the ceremony. I'm wearing rabbit fur!

The work what I do

2006-10-23T11:18:00.000Z

To illustrate my research into galaxy clusters here is a nice colour picture of the Abell 1703 cluster that I created from Hubble Space Telescope images. I'm interested in the big yellow blobs (elliptical galaxies) and unfortunately not the rather exciting looking blue spiral to the left.

help

2006-10-20T09:25:00.000Z

as many of the astro guys will be aware, rob and i just took delivery of some new, beautiful macs. i haven't been able to switch mine on yet because of a plug cock up. in the meantime i have been trying to think of a name for the machine. i am working on an apple theme (get it?). my laptop is called braeburn, and i want to find a decent apple variety to name the desktop. i'd be interested in your thoughts.

my short list at the moment is:

Criterion
Earliblaze
Firmgold
Foxwelp
Hawkeye Delicious
Knobbed Russet
Pink Lady
Maidens Blush
Novamac
Razor Russet
Seek-no-further
Transcendent Crab

what do you think? I like the very last one. don't know why.

that'll bring tears to your eyes

2006-10-19T13:24:00.000Z

john has just got some new contact lenses (i don't think they sent him the 8-ball novelty one he ordered). it got me thinking about a painful torture device - chilli coated contact lenses. ouch!

self organised criticality

2006-10-19T10:47:00.000Z

the other day john was playing with the sugar in the coffee room - trying to smooth the sugar into a critical slope against the side of the bowl. it reminded me of my condensed matter course. it was one of my favourite courses - very interesting and well taught. one of the things we looked at was self organised criticality. in the case of the pile of sugar, this describes the processes which force the slope to have some critical angle. you notice that there are little landslides that occur to make this happen. amazingly, this can all be described physically - and has applications in a variety of fields, in particularly earthquakes. here is a link to the site of my lecturer.

take a look at his other stuff as well.

Swansong

2006-10-19T09:24:00.000Z

Was it murdered? Had it died of natural causes? Where the police searching freezers at random in case of such an occurence? Why is this news?

I'd heard it was treason as only the Queen and senior members of Christ Church College Oxford (the royalist HQ during the civil war) were allowed to kill and eat them.
According to the internet "The Queen has rights to all unmarked wild swans on English waters, and asserts those rights on the Thames upstream as far as Abingdon. "

Although "It's entirely legal to keep, kill and eat your own swans, if you want to. But you can't take wild swans or their eggs to start your swannery"

So how would one get a swan to start a "swannery"? GM one from a duck and an albino giraffe?!
Very confusing!

I'm a livin' in a box...

2006-10-19T08:27:00.000Z

...I'm a livin' in a cardboard box!

Yes that's right Norris fits inside an iMac box!

Cyber stalker

2006-10-18T11:04:00.000Z

I think I've just found Prince William on Facebook. For those of you with an account type in the name he calls himself 'William Wales' - you will be treated to a picture of Wills and his ladyfriend, the best bit being that his network is Dartmouth the military college he is currently at. On his friends list is Kate Middleton his ladyfriend who also seems to be in the same network, perhaps they are living together on the base or perhaps it is a hoax by someone else who is there.

Tuesday weigh in

2006-10-17T10:54:00.000Z

Went to the gym last night and I currently weigh 15st8lbs 1 lb up on last week, hopefully will see some improvement soon!

please hammer, don't blog them

2006-10-16T13:26:00.000Z

i don't believe it -- mc hammer has his own blog on blogspot: http://mchammer.blogspot.com/

morbid but funny

2006-10-16T12:07:00.000Z

Death Clock lets you know when you're going to die. Just enter your details and it does the work for you. You can even download a screensaver or desktop clock that shows the seconds of your life ticking away:) I'm dying on march 8th 2055.

Sporting update

2006-10-16T09:12:00.000Z

My first pool match of the season was something of a disaster - my opponent sucked and kept trying to let me win, however I managed to lower my game even further so he sealed the victory. Some practice is in order I feel.
Off to the gym tonight.

Bill Bryson

2006-10-13T12:02:00.000Z

Went to see Bill Bryson do a bit of a book reading/ stand up routine at the Gala theatre yesterday afternoon. He was excellent and kept us rolling in the aisles for nearly 2 hours. I love his sense of charming observational humour and the way he tells the english how great they are for liking rich tea biscuits and scones etc. I think I shall be purchasing another of his fantastic books over the weekend.

Pass the port please Henry

2006-10-11T16:19:00.000Z

Ok I've got my dinner party list too.
1) Tony Blair - despite the fact that everyone else hates him I like the guy. I think he's a great speaker and has to put up with a lot of shit from everyone so I think he deserves to come over to my banquet for cakes and ales and some irreverant banter.
2) Henry VIII - By all accounts a bit of a nasty piece of work but I'm sure he could mind his manners at the table. He'd be having extra chicken legsand probably tossing them over his shoulder. I'd ask him if he thought there'd be so much fall out in the intervening centuries over his split with Catholicism.
3) Phil Collins - Great song writer and excellent drummer. I'd ask him how he can play and sing at the same time which i've never been able to do without playing out of time or only singing syllables on the beat. We'd probably have a drunken jam session with two drum kits later on.
4) Bill Bryson - Our Chancellor. I've got some of his books and I find his writing style a joy to read. He like a bit of pop science so we could have a chin wag about that but I'd mostly like to hear his stories of world travel.
5) Sandra Bullock - Eye Candy. I bet she's got a good flirty sense of humour and I'm sure Henry would fancy chatting her up and making her number 7.
6)JFK - One of the only men in history known by 3 syllables (BFG is the only other one I can think of and he's a fictional giant). Top bloke and a bit of a player, I'd want to know whether him and Marilyn got it on. I bet Tony would like a chat with him too.
7)Roger Penrose - I love all of that philosophy of mind with quantum mechanics type stuff he does so we could have a deep conversation during the port and cigars.
8) Harry Hill - The glue holding the party together. He'd make hilarious surreal jokes about chops and his nan. I'd ask him how great it must feel to be the only person able to make 'you've been framed watchable'.

Aleksey Vayner's video CV

2006-10-11T16:03:00.000Z

This man sent a video CV to some of the top financial corporations in the world. He is a wanker and as such I'm surprised they didn't hire him. In the video 'Impossible is Nothing' he lifts 495lbs, performs a rotating ski jump serves a tennis ball at 140 mph dances with a hot chick in a bra and karate chops through 6 bricks so that the bankers will hire him. Instead they put his video CV on the internet so people like me could mock him.

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=20878&in_page_id

my dinner party

2006-10-11T13:05:00.000Z

Ok, in response to rob's dinner party challenge, here are my 8:

Neil Armstrong - this man was the first to walk on the moon for goodness sake. Although he doesn't like to talk about it much, it would be nice just to see what kind of guy he is. Maybe we could chat after the cheese course.

Galileo - one of the original Big Boys... as a fellow scientist and astronomer, I'd like to see his reaction to how far we've come in the last few centuries. I'd be particularly interested in his take on the Current Paradigm.

Ian Banks - he is one of my favourite authors, and I think he'd make an excellent guest. I'm sure we could have a good discussion over a fine malt.

Sir Alec Guinness - one of my favourite actors, and a famously reclusive character. I'd like to have a one-to-one with him over a glass of cognac.

King Arthur - one of my countrymen, and protector of the land. Not dead, but merely sleeping until a time when we are in great peril, it would be great to have His Majesty at the do. I'm sure he and Sir Francis would have a good natter about days of battle. I'd be interested to hear Arthur's take on the world situation.

Sir Francis Drake - this guy came from not too far away from my neck of the woods. What can I say - he circumnavigated the globe and beat the Armada. Fascinating dinner guest.

Richard Feynman - it was said of Feynman: "There are two types of genius. Ordinary geniuses do great things, but they leave you room to believe that you could do the same if only you worked hard enough. Then there are magicians, and you can have no idea how they do it. Feynman was a magician.". He was also a really interesting guy. An asset to the dinner.

Finally, I would have one of my distant ancestors (a great**6 grandfather for example), brought back at the same age as me. I'd like to compare notes on our lifestyles.

Sexism in the work place

2006-10-11T09:28:00.000Z

Come on guys this is the 21st century, we're never going to get a balance of the sexes in our department if this is the kind attitude displayed.

a sad day

2006-10-10T11:36:00.000Z

this blog is usually light hearted, and frankly purile on occasion. however, we do have our serious, reflective moments in 311... this is one of them. john and i were sad today to learn of the death of the young snooker player paul hunter, who has lost his battle with cancer. he was 27 years old. snooker has lost a great player, and our thoughts are, of course, with his family at this time.

Fat busting update

2006-10-10T09:50:00.000Z

Ok I've not updated you since I've been to Chile (or been to the gym!).

My current weight is 15st 7lbs (217lbs) which gives me a BMI of 26.4 which is too high.

Off to the gym tonight.

Wings

2006-10-09T13:44:00.000Z

We've just been listening to Paul McCartney and Wings doing Live and Let Die from the soundtrack to the Bond film of the same name. This reminded me of last thursday's whisky club discussion of our general appreciation for Solitaire played by Jane Seymour in said movie.

In other news me and Jim are still busy writing research proposals.

Hang on T'pau's just come on the 311 juke box, sweet

i'm so excited, and i just can't hide it

2006-10-06T16:18:00.000Z

it must be friday -- elton is booming out in 311, and there is much talk of our old friend gambrinus...

slog

2006-10-05T13:50:00.000Z

its a slow day today.... me and john have been making a lot of placing-a-hand-gun-under-our-chins-and-firing actions.

Clear Head

2006-10-05T08:44:00.000Z

I'm feeling as fresh as a daisy today and ready to face the world with a renewed enthusiasm. Had an idea about solving the Dark Energy problem but I'll keep it to myself so as not to sound like a nutter!

Hear hear

2006-10-04T11:11:00.000Z

i second that john... my head is still killing (more than last night) where i rammed it into the light fitting in the jug. i felt quite guilty about shattering it... but rob informs me that they were probably more worried about me filing some law suit. they were very nice about it anyway.

feeling a little dehydrated - why do we do it?

Self Inflicted

2006-10-04T11:08:00.000Z

The 311 boys are feeling a bit rough today after last night's quiz winning booze fest. We are currently listening to Jeremy Vine at low volume to soothe us. Current topic: should there be a code of conduct for beggars, bliss!

lovely sandwich

2006-10-02T12:40:00.000Z

it's not often that i'm moved to write about a sandwich, but let me extol the virtues of the M&S free range egg and ham roll. it's delicious. plenty of ham, and a nice egg mayonaisse. there is the inevitable salad, but this is an inoffensive few leaves of crispy iceberg -- this adds a little crunch and is quite refreshing. my one critism is the bread roll -- a few too many sesame seeds for my liking -- they go everywhere. otherwise, this is one of the finest sanwiches i have ever tasted. my tip: with a sandwich, you get what you pay for.

Stotts City, Missouri

2006-10-02T09:03:00.000Z

With a name like that it must be a shiney silver metropolis where the streets are paved with gold. Perhaps it is my birthright to be the King of Stotts City. I investigated further here.

How disappointing:

"the city has a total area of 1.3 km²
250 people, 98 households, and 63 families
For every 100 females there were 110.1 males.
About 26.2% of families and 24.6% of the population were below the poverty line
Stott city is known around Missouri for having a high number of its population turning into prostitutes."

AARRRGGHHH its a shithole!!!!!

icc mofos -- official update

2006-09-30T12:22:00.000Z

i'm sitting next to a mofo right now... rob informs me that the blog is experiencing technical difficulties, and should be back up soon.

ou est la icc mofos?

2006-09-29T12:16:00.000Z

where are the icc mofos? their blog seems to have been deleted. what news guys?

friday frivolity

2006-09-29T10:47:00.000Z

giant insect invades germany

Steorn Challenge update

2006-09-28T12:28:00.000Z

27th September 2006
Dear Applicant,

Re: The Steorn Challenge

Thank you for sending a synopsis of your academic career to Steorn. An outline of the process for the coming weeks is set out below.

We have set midnight on 5th October 2006, as the deadline for receipt of synopses from any applicants who have not yet forwarded details of their scientific backgrounds to Steorn. A shortlist will be generated from all the synopses received by the deadline.

From the 9th October 2006, Steorn will begin contacting applicants on the shortlist to establish their general availability as potential jury members. This part of the process should be completed in approximately two weeks. Thereafter, Steorn will commence the jury selection process.

We will provide you with a further update on the process in the coming weeks.

Thank you again for participating in the Challenge process.

Yours faithfully

Sean McCarthy

Please note that we will treat your information under the strictest confidence and that we are bound, in any event, by our obligations under the Data Protection Acts 1988-2003 in respect of same.

more evidence why a space escalator is needed

2006-09-28T10:31:00.000Z

this is an interesting article linked from slashdot regarding a test of the technology required for constructing space elevators. basically, a 60-day field test of a balloon platform with 100m tether got inundated with wildlife -- bats, birds, insects etc. these would surely interfere with the robots which would be required to climbe the tethers into space? what is needed is a space escalator -- wildlife would not be attracted to this machine of iron and rubber!

the wednesday weigh-up

2006-09-27T12:04:00.000Z

a lifetime without booze, or a lifetime without meat?