Up & Away

What is the maximum distance humans could go from this planet with out current technology? I ask because I’m still fascinated with our need to spread across the stars (or realistically, the planets), as at the moment it looks as if we might have overstayed our welcome on this one, and if we want to eventually survive the death of the earth we’re going to have to be out of here before it expires. How much extra power would we need to get to the next solar system? Perhaps I should have taken physics instead of biology, at least then I would be somewhere closer to the answer to these questions.

If the ‘warp drive’ technology theorized this year is as promising as the term itself sounds (optimistic, I know), we may have a chance of getting somewhere further than at least Mars within a human lifetime, but then again, to truly make a planet our home, I imagine the amount of baggage we would need to carry around with us to allow us to terraform our landing spots would probably be a considerable drag on our speed (it would certainly give us a weight problem), and if we do not bring these, would it be possible to create a human colony where people live entirely in spacesuits when outside their crafts? That doesn’t feel very permanent to me.

Doctor Cubed

Welcome back, internet.

Just a quick warning to those of you who haven’t seen the most recent episode of Doctor Who, this could be considered spoilery, because it is. I’m going to be talking about something that could probably ruin the plot for you if you plan to watch it after reading this. Take that as you will, but let me remind you that actively looking for LOST spoilers ruined a certain twist at the end of season three for me.

After watching last night’s Doctor Who episode: ‘The Power Of Three’ I had to pause for thought. Not because Doctor Who is usually the most scientifically accurate program in the world, but I was a little taken aback by the mass defibrillation scene, because I was trying to get a sense of how much time had passed since the cubes started the whole mass heart attack thing.

I got the impression from the show that there was a significant amount of time between the cubes’ attack and the Doctor’s solution, perhaps I got the wrong impression, but if their heart attacks had actually stopped their hearts the defibrillators would be pretty much useless. If I remember correctly, you can use them to return the heart to a steady rhythm, but not start it back up again, because at that point you’re pretty much screwed.

If this happened quickly then it’s plausible, if not a little optimistic, but Doctor Who’s all about the optimism, hence why the dark backstory to the ‘dinosaurs in space’ episode was filtered down by ridiculously whimsical dialogue and Russel T Davies levels of cheese.

And as one of the few people who doesn’t seem to hate Amy and Rory, I’m going to be sad to see them go. that is, unless the new companion is in fact the dalek she played in episode one of this series.

Then I’d be impressed.

Get on it Moffat.

Late Nights, Late Mornings

I want to know what it is about the human body that means that when we don’t have scheduled work to do we go to bed ridiculously late and wake up ridiculously early. I don’t particularly like getting up in the afternoon, but I do like getting sleep, and when my body decides I should roll around at night thinking about stuff for several hours I do feel I have a duty to make up for that by missing the period of time that most people call the morning. In summertime it feels more like night, and I’d like to vote to rename it that until university starts again and I’m forced to get up at the time I want to be up again.

If I sound like I’m in two minds about this it’s probably because I am, although there’s not enough space in my skull for two brains so those two minds are probably both pretty stupid.

My suspicions go back to something I was talking about a few days ago, in regards to wanting to get more stuff done during the day. Perhaps we try to fit more activities in, knowing that we don’t have to limit ourselves to not feel like a wreck in the morning? We could probably solve all this by moving to a different planet where the days are longer, that way we’ll get longer days for fitting things in and longer nights to catch up on all the sleep we’ve been neglecting.

I doubt this solution is plausible but I’d like to think that in a couple of generations it will be. Personally if we don’t at least have a moonbase and a past mars landing by the time I die I’ll be very disappointed. Or at least I would be disappointed if I wasn’t, you know, dead and all.

Moon Flags, Flags On The Moon

My usual sources are refusing to load on my computer. Hrmm… looks like you’ve just got my brain to contend with here. Well, let’s see how well you cope with its questionable thoughts.

Here’s one for everyone who looks up at night, the flags the Apollo astronauts planted (all besides that from the Apollo 11 mission, as far as I can tell, which was apparently knocked over by the engine exhaust as the crew left the moon to return to our pale blue dot) are still standing. So for those of you who are looking forward to a long vacation on the moon, make sure to go over and stop by, because that’s a pretty amazing thing to know and it would probably be an even more amazing thing to see up close.

Scientists figured this out from shadows on the moon’s surface seen from the lunar reconnaissance orbiter (LRO for short, of course). These shadows are the result of the flags blocking the sun from hitting the moon’s surface (not that I need to remind anyone of how a shadow is formed) and to me they represent something about the awesomeness of the human spirit that just doesn’t capture the attention of the world as hard when there aren’t actually people going to other celestial bodies.

So can we go to Mars soon? Please?

If I had the money I would pay for it myself, I’m just saying, we could sell all our nuclear weapons to North Korea and go to Mars with the money!

Okay, maybe that’s not the best plan in the world but at least it’s something. We’ve got to get the money from somewhere right?

Okay, I’ve got a better solution, how about every American votes for Mitt Romney on the condition that he pays back all of his tax returns directly into a Mars mission? Mitt, I really don’t like you, but if this can get us to Mars I swear I’ll try and put aside our differences and I will shake your tax-dodging, Mormon hand.

A Gem From The Archive

Taking a look at my old facebook notes took me back to a time when I was more inclined to riff some poetry off the top of my head. Here’s a little piece I rescued from the archive that you might find an interesting read.

Singing the fabled siren song I fall unto your spell, your words so seductive and succulent it pulls me toward them like a pulsating star; alas the speed unto which I slip into the comfort sends me into a permanent orbit. I cannot bring myself to indulge in academy, the taste of the nova is far too sweet to stray from; I would indulge in creativity; but precious time feels but wasted on art when the real beauty is already in my grasp; and yet so far away I cannot touch. Speed saved me from a collision course to disaster, but speed results in the orbit; you cannot contact the star; you’ll forever observe, however without the unharbourable thought of my world to cease the star is never within reach. My interstellar dreams are but a mystery never to be revealed; the world around me is a snow globe in which I am cursed to slumber. One day however, the star will grow; and eventually the star will die, a supernova of acceptance, the shuttling debris containing within itself the essence of our dreams and what is yet to come; as the exploding star burst towards me I dissolve, one with the dust and plasma that was once my hopeless dilemma; now a galaxy of possibilities; and as comets zoom past our destructive miracle, their eyes move too fast to spot the smile hidden deep within the first effervescence of life; the wait was over, my dreams fulfilled; dreams are born anew in the aftermath of our warpath, but they are no dreams of mine. For I am now complete.

Sunday Hangover: Granny Rolls Mage

This may strike you as an odd thing to class as a segment but roll with me will you?

I return to the land of the living!

In a break between reading A Game of Thrones and delaying doing spreadsheets I have returned to the valley of the shadow of blogs; my favourite region of the republic of internet and a place that I visit every day no matter how infrequent the buses are and no matter how short the stay may be.

And I go here so much that my space bar has lost its matte finish and is now partially shiny.

Take that, aesthetics!

Luckily I haven’t played World of Warcraft for a few years or my W,A,S and D keys would have given in too.

I grieve for the many gamers around the world that have lost the knowledge of which keys they are pressing; especially if they have to lend it to their Grandparents.

How are they supposed to know which keys you use to run in World of Warcraft?

Perhaps Grandma likes to play death knight on weekends after she’s spent three hours checking her emails which seem to consist entirely of chain letters?

It’s not impossible, in fact I’m willing to bet that WoW Grandparents are on the rise.

That thought alone makes me want to subscribe to that honourable game again.

Cat & Cosmos

So at the moment there is a nyan cat in the way of a couple of the wordpress function keys.

This is somewhat pleasant, but mostly it’s just an odd glitch to have, it’s not like it’s even going forward, it’s just staying in the same place, running on the spot and shitting its own special rainbow, except now it’s constipated so no more rainbow for me.

And as much as this would probably take the biscuit as the most convoluted metaphor to be pulled out of my twisted little brain, it’s sadly literal.

Because in this age of the internet we have nothing better to do than watch the ones and zeros fuck up and raise a sceptical eyebrow as the results of this binary gang bang refuse to fly across the screen and distract you from whatever it was that you intended to blog about in the first place.

Anyway, here’s a little stick of poetry that I don’t believe I’ve uploaded before.

We are a small insignificant dot of space,
Woven within a web of time that only moves forwards,
It never looks back,
But you can, and you do,
That speck in the vast macro nothingness of space,
That brief glimpse into reality through the most improbable self awareness,
Evolution really did a number on you,
Because you can see what is to come,
But what you forget is that you’re not alone,
There are over six billion of us floating around a seemingly limitless cobweb of mostly nothing,
The most beautiful you will ever or could ever observe,
From the sharp, defined curves on a singular blade of grass,
To the marvel of looking up into the night sky,
And knowing that out there, there are other planets orbiting other stars,
And somewhere out there, another race could be thinking the same thing,
However unlikely that is,
We are stardust,
We are life,
We are the universe,
We are beautiful

The Perfect Crime…

As an alternative to persuading people to respect your rights as a human and the limits put on their rights to encourage people to give them wads of cash in exchange for misinformation and an easy way to ensure said peoples’ death before they can work out what the scam exactly was and sue accordingly, you may want to consider a rather humiliating form of murder.

First, you will need a really powerful rocket.

And you will also need to be incredibly persuasive.

If you want to convince said irritant to get on the rocket, I recommend promises of cake and/or boobies, that’s usually what draws these people in, or, if it’s Mike Adams, organic food and unvaccinated children.

Once you have your victim in the powerful rocket you’ll want to make sure nobody is watching and at the same time, that this rocket is powerful enough to propel your victim into deep space at the exact point you’re aiming.

I would recommend for this hiring experienced astrophysicists, engineers, and a lawyer with a taste for a good super-injunction.

Well I never said it would be cheap would I?

Get a super-injunction and David Cameron will place a giant screen with a picture of his big shiny face to hide the face that you paid lots of money to hide your secret and fund his next holiday in Malawi with the money he should have been spending on care services and on healing the divide between the rich and the poor.

Now, your ship should be good enough to keep your victim alive until they reach their destination, this will require you breaking the laws of physics so make sure your disbelief suspension is as well-oiled as you can get without damaging the reverse probability drive.

Once you’ve reversed the polarity of the neutron flow you can rest assured that your target will be plunged straight into a black hole, at this point, you will need to have installed that gravity-sensitive ejector seat you’ve been designing in your mother’s basement since you were six years old.

You’ve got to start early if you want this to work.

Once your target is out of the ship, heading towards the black hole and not dying from the lack of air pressure and oxygen you are ready for the humiliating spaghettification to begin.

Hit it Mr. Tyson.

Non-Sequitur!

We are stuck to the ground.

You know when something just hits you and you can’t stop thinking about it? Well I like to bathe in the knowledge that we live on a giant rotating orb in a vacuum and imagine myself turning it with my own movements as I walk, it’s an odd thing to do, but nobody can tell you’re being an idiot so you don’t get scalded for it, so in other words it’s fun, really stupid and a lot less risky than public masturbation.

There’s no real way to picture us hurtling through space however, it’s a lot easier for us to ignore this aspect because we can’t experience the feeling, thank to gravity sticking us to our beloved hunk of rock. And if we could we’d probably get dizzy pretty fast, and we would probably die out pretty fast as well, let’s just be glad physics doesn’t work that way.

Anyway, time for a non sequitur.

Why can I not find any books for biological sciences degrees?

The university website told me that I could order some literature and I assumed that meant a book of the course but no, apparently it’s just a leaflet.

So how then am I supposed to actually get my brain working again before I go back into education, I’m certainly not getting any cognitive stimulation at work, and no matter how much I can get into sciency things in my free time I certainly don’t feel cleverer than I did when I finished my A-levels.

So, where do I begin? Do I have to wait to start my course, a course that I ended up on because I managed to screw up my A levels so badly that I didn’t get any of my original choices?

I can only blame myself for that I know but it’s still pretty fail of me and I can rant about myself as much as I bloody please without anyone getting offended, and this issue still pisses me off in that it was me who did it.

But the fact that I can’t seem to even get a leg up here? Surely there should be some sort of a booster you can request?

Well if anyone happens upon one, let me know, because I’d really like to start learning again, staring at a wall from 9-5 really drills that into your head, well, my head at least, where I can drift off and think… I could be doing something useful and challenging instead of this and now I have to wait until October…

Well, I brought this upon myself, but the world is a nice place to be living in, at least in this particular segment of it, and I have a choice about whether or not to get paid or not, can you guess which one I’d rather do?

Doctor Who – The Vampires of Venice

Anyone that read my first blog post know how much I detest Twilight, and as such I was ready to hate this episode going into it, how could Doctor Who jump on the ‘sexy vampires’ bandwagon; but thankfully they didn’t. I wish that Stephanie Meyer had dealt with her vampire story in the same way. Robert Pattison unveiling himself to be a fish from space would have redeemed the whole saga for me, but unfortunately no, paedofilia, necrophilia and beastiality won the fight for her story. The story this week was hilarious, riddled with humour alongside some compelling guest protagonists, this was a great way to introduce the character of Rory to the audience.

It takes guts to reintroduce a small character into a central role, in the style of Mickey Smith it was pulled off well and there was no Nikki and Paolo feeling about any of it.

It was a light episode, mainly there to get the audience familar with Rory’s character, but reiterrated one of the big questions behind the character of The Doctor – portrayed without the capacity for evil, yet to save lives he must end lives, a fact which haunts him and drives him away from travelling alone, not happy being alone with his haunted mind he seeks the company of those he deems better than himself, fueling the close relationships between The Doctor and his companions.

Regardless, this episode surprised me with how well it was written and directed, not to mention acted and I feel that anymore I say will end up as pointless babbling praise. I really enjoyed this season, the first time I can obsess over it since Christopher Eccleston, although ‘The End of Time’ is also one of my all time favourite pieces of television. Bah, I knew this would happen…