Posts by Thecowking 550 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jun 2009
Brian Cox is a lecturer in Astrophysics.
I can't stand the guy, but he does know what he's talking about when it comes to space and the universe. He explains things well for those who have not spent most of their adult life studying astrophysics (I'm told).
And Stephen Fry was Jeeves, who as we know, knew everything.
Spent many a hapy day there as a child and later as an astrophysics student.
The Lovell is awesome, if you can see it being repositioned, it's worth the trip alone. I did hear from people who did actual research there that you can walk under the "new" surface and along the old one under it.
Never done it, but if you guys can pull some press weight and get pictures...
Because it syncs across your devices, is minimal as can be and actually works really well.
I've spent some time trying out the alternatives yesterday but so far everything seems to think that a picture is worth a thousand words, but when it comes to a mobile phone screen, I'd rather have a scrolling list of headlines.
Feedly, I'm looking at you, that widget is awful.
Beijing, 2007, the metro there had a series of screens on the walls of the tunnel which displayed animated advertisments through the windows of the trains.
I quite liked them, from a technical viewpoint, because they matched the image changing to the speed of the train, it was very clever stuff.
I noted this earlier this year, USB plugs are clearly macro-quantum mechanical exhibitors of spin.
As spin half particles, they require 2 whole revolutions to be in the correct orientation.
This is why you can be wrong 75% of the time and it make perfect sense. It's also how you can rotate them through 180 degrees two or three times before getting it right.
Stand back! It's nearly real science!
.. of the universe and the whole solution to heat death and the start of the universe* was on a... panorama I think? recently and as an astrophyicist by training I was just utterly gobsmacked.
It was so... elegant.
It's as close as I get to a religious experience and I am still getting tingles when I think about it. It's quite humbling when you realise the gap between intellects who can come up with these solutions and yourself.
Oh well, I just hope that the human race keeps churning out minds like his.
*as I understood it, and I could well be out of practice, the universe will eventually cool to absolute zero (or close enough that quantum fluctuations are the only accelerating things) at which point space and time will have no real meaning since there won't be anything to distinguish anything from anything else. At which point everywhere is basically nowhere and so could be treated as a singularity which could then explode.
I probably mangled that thoroughly after 10 years away from university and not doing physics, but I think that was the gist of it.
The expanded universe has a plethora of great stories that would make good movies.
The NJA series alone would probably furnish us with a new trilogy of trilogies, and the later Yuuzhan Vong books would easily do the same.
The black hole as shield idea annoyed the helll out of me though.
I say that being able to spell privilege should be the first criterion of this privilege.
Also I love the idea that in a society of pure geniuses, we'd have all the factories and production lines stocked with people who would rapidly become incredibly bored and frustrated. And of course, it's all genetics that lead to crime, not social factors or education. Why is the government not funding phrenology research in this most vital of times?
I have to admit when I was at university I was young and I thought that breeding should be limited to the intelligent. I made two assumptions, 1) That this would be good for the world, 2) that it'd mean I got more sex.
I now disbelieve the first one and I know the second is false.
Oh to be young and dumb again.
And I will say it up front, the Souse has me drooling. I bet it's fair tasty.
Then again, I'm Chinese and as everyone knows, we'll eat _anything_.
I think the missus might have a few words to say to me if I started reducing offal in the kitchen though, she doesn't even let me have tripe steamed with ginger, honey and soy.
Bah! now I'm hungry!
(Also lamb's hearts are very easy to get in most super markets and roast up a treat)
But complaining that people can't open the start screen when you give them a keyboard which doesn't have an obvious windows key is silly.
I think the command key on a mac will act as a windows button but it's decidedly non-obvious.
Though as an ubuntu user, I feel the pain of the windows people, Unity is possibly worse than TIFKAM, I live in Gnome 2 still, and will do for as long as I can.
Singaporeans have exceptional English already lah, but the country itself is duller than a weekend in Bognor Regis.
Still, it's definitely worth a visit if you didn't spend most of your formative years hopping around SE Asia. (Malaysia,Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia: jungles Mountains, ruined temples, orangutans! Singapore... Oh look an electronics store.)
That someone found a way to get Martin Thunder ( http://www.wowwiki.com/Martin_Thunder ) on their character and used that to create the carnage.
@cave dweller
They were epic, not legendary. Quite fun though.
@mark 63, not really, it's not like it's a long way to run from the graveyard. Death in WoW, especially in PvP has next to no drawbacks, aside from a couple of minutes running back to your body.
How long? Not long.
I saw a guy do it in about 12 minutes last week.
He was using recruit a friend though (bonus levelling).
Just normally? A month, maybe 2, playing pretty casually, (no more than an hour at a go, perhaps 3 sessions in a weekend). It's nothing like a grind now. Which is good in some ways, but I did kinda like it the old way.
My Wenger bag has a chest strap but no waist strap.
It's not a great issue for me, though I appreciate the chest strap when I stop off to get some milk, beer, wine other heavy grocery on the way home.
My hiking rucksack has a waist strap, but it's a lot larger than my backpack.
It does indeed only have one padded pocket, but it easily has room in the same space at the back for a laptop/tablet in a padded sleeve, kindle goes in the front, phone slips in the top pocket (some kind of ipod holder thing, just right for a phone and the rest of the pocket space is great for pens, leatherman etc). then there's the main compartment which easily has the space for a change of clothes and lunch, and my cables for my chargers handily stashed in the net pocket at the top. then there's another compartment with yet another phone pocket, pen space etc which handily holds my bike lock. And on top of all that I fit a bottle of water in the side. I still have a pocket at the very front free and another side pocket.
Love this bag so much. Used it on three continents for 6 years and while the rubber in the little bungee things on the side is dead, the rest of the bag is still working well if a little scuffed. Cost me £15 in Morgan years back and I can't replace it. Not even with the Wenger messenger back I picked up this year.
Oh it's a fine normal measurement, but we need some kind of reg measurement.
So standard light up santa hours, for example, or perhaps an equivalent such as "That's as much energy as eating X fruit pastilles per minute for Y hours" or the like.
Actually fruit pastilles per minute for so many hours sounds like an excellent unit of measurement.
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