Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Rest in Peace
From BBC News: British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90… Sir Arthur's vivid – and detailed – descriptions of space shuttles, super-computers and rapid communications systems were enjoyed by millions of readers around the world. He was the author of more than 100 fiction [...]
One of those analogies you won’t forget
My colleague and friend Matt Revell has a nice summary of some of the reasons for rising domestic fuel prices in the UK at the moment. A phrase that particularly caught my eye was this one: Wind power, also, is not reliable nor particularly efficient and requires generation from other sources (coal, gas, nuclear, for [...]
All together now: *sigh*
For every prat like this there's an equal and opposite prat like this: The government faces a legal challenge for sending every secondary school in England a copy of Al Gore's climate change film An Inconvenient Truth. … A father from Kent, Stuart Dimmock, has lodged papers at London's High Court seeking judicial review. He [...]
T -9 Minutes and Holding
Well, the muse seems to have deserted me today, so it’s back to editing the Muse manuscript instead. I got through a chapter of edits last night – the dramatic bits were okay; it was the bits in between that needed refining – and I’m now at 77 out of 333 pages edited. You can [...]
Stupidity Breeds Stupidity
“Your species has the most amazing capacity for self-deception, matched only by it’s ingenuity when trying to destroy itself.” ~The Seventh Doctor, Remembrance of the Daleks The human race never fails to dismay me at times. Like when, following an amusing snippet in this week’s New Scientist’s Feedback section, I chanced to read the reviews [...]
Good.
BBC News: ‘Intelligent design’ teaching ban A court in the US has ruled against the teaching of “intelligent design” alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution.
How it Happened, According to Isaac
I don’t normally go in for posting other authors’ work, but I thought I ought to share this because, though I’m a great Asimov fan, I’d never read it before and also because I came to read it via /. and that almost automagically makes it worth sharing. I came upon this story after reading [...]
News from Deutschland
I’m barely struggling out of my early morning torpor at the moment but I thought that I should share this with you as soon as possible. According to recent media reports, the Altona district of Hamburg is currently being afflicted by a plague of exploding toads. According to the WikiPedia Entry: …numerous toads in the [...]
Creative Licence
New shuttle tank ready for lift-off “The [Columbia] accident showed that the tank’s foam insulation, necessary to keep the shuttle’s exotic rocket propellants as cold as minus 217 Celsius (-423 Fahrenheit)” Except that the fuel stored in the tank isn’t exotic in any way, shape or form. It’s liquid oxygen (in the forward half of [...]
Science Beckons
Brain chip reads man’s thoughts A paralysed man in the US has become the first person to benefit from a brain chip that reads his mind. This, after being very helpful and exciting to the people to whom it would be most useful – i.e. the paralysed – is seriously, seriously cool: He can think [...]
Toilet Issues
Am I the only one who finds the following line of this report about the next Russian Progress vessel going to the ISS slightly amusing? The station’s toilet, which recently broke, will benefit from new valves, filters, and fungicide. The day my toilet needs fungicide is, I fear, the day that I move house. With [...]
