February 28th, 2006
With apologies to Alfred Bester for the title. Saw this on the Bad Astronomy blog. New Hubble picture of M101. It’s 170.000 light years across and contains a trillion stars. And that’s just 1 galaxy out of trillions. Click on picture for larger view. If that doesn’t make you stop and gawk at the sheer [...]
February 28th, 2006
Linda Smith has died. A sad loss. But hey, chin up. She was very, very funny whilst she was alive. Obituary here.
February 26th, 2006
Classic line from today’s Doonesbury. Damn those pesky facts getting in the way of faith. Reason most certainly is a bully when it comes to pointing out falsehoods.
February 25th, 2006
Much kudos to Pro-Test. It’s about time that the case for animal testing was put in a robust manner. Ultimately some things have to be tested in an animal model before human trials are performed. I’m all in favour of minimising the use of animals to the bare minimum but, at the present time, their [...]
February 24th, 2006
Astronomers using The Hubble telescope have imaged two additional bodies in the Pluto/Charon system. All 4 bodies orbit a centre of gravity that lies just above the surface of Pluto. Interestingly the orbits of Charon, P1 and P2 (as the new moons are designated) have a 12:2:3 orbital resonance. For each 12 orbits Charon completes, [...]
February 23rd, 2006
BBC Radio 4 will begin a 4-part dramatisation of Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods on 28th February. Should be good. The dramatisation they did of Pratchett’s Mort a few years ago was good. See the BBC Radio 4 programme page.
February 13th, 2006
Scientific American has started a podcast. The first one is available via links at their site. First impressions are good. It’s got subdued production values and gives you information without a lot of gee-whiz bells and whistles getting in the way. The TV show CSI gets a mild ribbing as well at the end of [...]
February 12th, 2006
Today is Darwin Day. We celebrate the life and works of one of humanities greatest thinkers on this day, the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth in 1809. This should be a public holiday. Let’s lobby our MP’s. Some other Darwin Day links: olduvaigeorge.com Pharyngula Click for bigger view (Source: Pharyngula)
February 5th, 2006
Seed Magazine has a podcast that seems good. Just recently subscribed so it’s still on probation. The Nature podcast has lived up to expectations. It’s essential listening. I don’t like the New Scientist podcast. It’s too glitzy.
February 5th, 2006
A guy I know, but haven’t seen for ages, arrived at my door the other day and told me his Windows laptop was displaying ads and stuff after his kid went to some site on the Internet. I was just heading into the office so couldn’t fix it. I’ve decided I’m not going to either. [...]
February 5th, 2006
Just what we need. Another religious person with an influence over our politicians. WTF do the interpretations of 3000 year old ramblings have to do with our actions in the 21st Century. Nothing in my opinion. Humanity needs to let go of all this religious nonsense and move on. I fear it might be too [...]
February 4th, 2006
If you are interested in astronomy, or just the night sky in general, check out Stellarium. Very nice. Click picture for larger view
February 3rd, 2006
Next week looks like it’ll be interesting for those of use interested in server virtualisation. Word on the street is that VMware will introduce a free mid tier product in the space they currently sell GSX Server in. Also it appears that NSI will be releasing a version of DoubleTake targeted towards replication of virtual [...]