Makes you think - or should that be 'drink'?

Here are the words again thanks to The University of Adelaide, and an audio file. Grow into these trousers... >>

Weeing down my trouser leg #3 - The Inner Life of the Cell

Well...
What I was aiming to do: add my overview of this video and outline the controversy which surrounds it. But now I can't even remember the correct word to describe the whole process. Evagination I think. Please, someone put me out of my misery.








Here's the link again, it's awesome:
http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/anim_innerlife.html
Here's the home page.
And I really hope that Harvard don't take legal action 'coz o' this.
.....
What really happened: A relative of mine phoned wanting to borrow some money, and then spent an hour telling me how great his life was, poor lucky bastard.
.....
PS: extravasation Grow into these trousers... >>

Stonehenge revisited

Update to Stonehenge. Why I won't go back.

The Archaeo News site at Stone Pages (and the podcast) are even today describing the

"disgraceful visitor facilities, appalling traffic conditions and the poor environment at Stonehenge after the dramatic collapse of the tunnel and visitor centre schemes."

The collapse is not, I hasten to add, the tunnel 'under' the road I talked of last time but the collapse of talks proposing a 'road tunnel' to divert passing traffic off the A303 near Stonehenge. Improvements to the gift shop were also implied which might or might not have involved a second van selling ice cream or hamburgers (or both, can't remember), as dictated by the Office of Fair Trade and the Monopolies Commission.

Anyway... Idea scrapped:

"The back-to-square-one move follows the waste of £37.85 million of taxpayers' money on failed attempts to solve traffic and heritage problems at Stonehenge. After eight years of planning and controversy, the Stonehenge A303 Improvement Scheme was axed late last year."

However

"Culture Minister Margaret Hodge pledged to do everything possible to upgrade clogged roads and disgraceful visitor conditions at Stonehenge before the 2012 Olympic Games."

Well good'o, about time!

£37.85 million for nothing. English Heritage? Collectively we should hang our heads in shame.
----------
Thanks to 'Anonymous' for the comment, or I might not have gone digging and missed this. Grow into these trousers... >>

Stellar billiards for real

Thanks to The Bad Astronomer for pointing out this link:

Universe Sandbox - An Interactive Space Simulator

Be awe inspired but be warned, this is a real timewaster.

See what our solar system looks like:

Play with how gravity works. Turn it off, see how Newton was right. Quickly turn it back on and let the orbits settle down, see how Kepler was right before Newton. Bombard the solar system with dozens of planetary sized objects and watch them all miss and do nothing or fall into the Sun. Space is big, most objects are very very small.

Or do what I did, put a 100 solar mass black hole just outside the orbits of Eris and Sedna. Sit back and watch the fireworks.

After two loops of the black hole (Object 33) I noticed a little blurred streak emerging from the chaos:
Is this simulation trying to tell me something? Grow into these trousers... >>

Christopher Hitchens gets WATERBOARDED

Christopher Hitchens is a very outspoken anti-religion, pro-Iraq-war, defender of free speech for whom I have a certain respect (see below).

From The Guardian

Late last year, the writer, polemicist and fierce proponent of the US-led invasion of Iraq Christopher Hitchens attempted, in a piece for the online magazine Slate, to draw a distinction between what he called techniques of "extreme interrogation" and "outright torture".

From this, his foes inferred that since it was Hitchens' belief that America did not stoop to the latter, the practice of waterboarding - known to be perpetrated by US forces against certain "high-value clients" in Iraq and elsewhere - must fall under the former heading.

Enraged by what they saw as an exercise in elegant but offensive sophistry, some of the writer's critics suggested that Hitchens give waterboarding (which may sound like some kind of fun aquatic pastime, but is probably best summarised as enforced partial drowning) a whirl, just to see what it was like. Did the experience feel like torture?

Then I go find the original piece (Note: no link from the Guardian)
From Slate (this quote is on page 2)

"At a time when Congress and the courts are conducting important hearings on the critical question of extreme interrogation, and at a time when accusations of outright torture are helping to besmirch and discredit the United States all around the world, a senior official of the CIA takes the unilateral decision to destroy the crucial evidence."

This was a different argument. However, when asked by Vanity Fair 'if he would be willing' to endure simulated torture, Hitch said yes.



It is torture.

Meanwhile, below the belt is why I really like Hitch.


Christopher Hitchens was invited to debate at the University of Toronto on the topic 'Be It Resolved: Freedom of Speech Includes the Freedom to Hate.'
November 2006."

Part 1


Part 2


----------------------

PS:
Hitch, if ever I meet you I will demand you drink Tetley Bitter all night; but I'll cover your bar bill :)

Grow into these trousers... >>

Weeing down my trouser leg #2

Holroydian poetry.

The Evolution of Consciousness

I know!
I know that he knows.
I know that he knows that I know.
I know he knows that I know he knows.
I know that he knows that I know that he knows I know.
Oh! doG knows…

Grow into these trousers... >>

Only politicians could be so stupid

From today, in Holland, it becomes illegal to smoke tobacco in the coffee shops, says today's Guardian.

However, it remains legal to buy and smoke cannabis on the premises. So you can have a pipe, a bong, a chillum, hot knives or a pure spiff of marijuana. If you don't smoke you may enjoy cannabis coffee (doh), cakes, cookies, tea, fudge (thank you vicar*), bhang or just eat it raw.

But smoke it mixed with tobacco in a coffee shop and you are for the slammer mate!

"It's a bit like saying to someone you can go into a cafe and you can buy a beer, but you can't drink it there - you'll have to stick to whisky, rum and vodka," said Paul Wilhelm, owner of De Tweede Kamer, a popular Amsterdam coffee shop.

I'd say it was more like buying a short and not being able to have a mixer. Who drinks neat vodka for doG's sake? Oh! Oops, err... exit>>>
Take home message:

"It's absurd. In other countries they look to see whether you have marijuana in your cigarette, here they'll look to see if you've got cigarette in your marijuana."

Ludicrous.
------------
*hashish fudge - just the thing for the vicar's tea party. Grow into these trousers... >>

This has the right feelings - Oh Yes!

It's just not long enough...
--------
Tip o'the hat to PZ Myers yet again. Grow into these trousers... >>

"On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties;"

"And On the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection"

150 years ago today:

Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's ideas on the origin of species were jointly presented to the Linnean Society of London on July 1st 1858.


The Beagle Project has a long post on the history and importance of this day to science. Grow into these trousers... >>

Missing Glastonbury :(

Well, I missed Glastonbury Festival again, that's eight years now. And the weather wasn't too bad this time, despite my earlier predictions. I wanted to post more webcam images but the system went down due to 'electrical faults' (damp, I guess) and that snafued that!

However the BBC have lots of video (and no doubt YouTube will have soon).

I throw open a challenge! Compare and contrast:

Jay-Z - Saturday
















Neil Diamond - Sunday
















That 'they performed at different times of day' is not an answer.

Compare: Both these artists have put in a lot of hard work over the years, they are widely recognized and know how to pull and hold an audience.

Contrast: One of them shouts incoherently like a street drunk, the other could sing a bit when he was younger.

Comments? Grow into these trousers... >>