Category: Technology

There are graveyards, and graveyards!

The almost surreal area where aircraft are ‘laid to rest’.

The Mojave Desert is one of the places in the world where aircraft, both military and civil, are placed when they are at the end of their life, whatever that means.

Anyway, came across some nice material and wanted to share it.

In an earlier copy of Mental Floss Magazine (seriously) there’s a very good article about this area.  Fabulous pictures, by the way. (Both pics in this Post are from that article.)

Next this is a YouTube video using Google Earth in flyover mode:

Finally, a reminder that it’s not all about dead aircraft.  The Mojave Air & Space Port is also the site of the privately backed SpaceShip enterprise.

All in all, not your average place.

By Paul Handover

Remarkable people: Tim Smit

The Eden Project in Cornwall, England

To lead the project which took an old clay pit in a remote corner of the UK and converted it into a world class environmental visitor attraction is a tremendous achievement.

Homo sapiens? A game show!

Tim Smit had some fun with the business community at the 2009 Annual Convention of the UK Institute of Directors. Everyone, including he, was in their best business attire, but very few people could get away with crumpled shirt and jeans!

However, he has a serious message about the environment (1:55) and he knows a thing or two about people as well!

Monty Python: is there intelligent life on earth?

For fun, and on an Australian tack, Eric Idle is not so sure.

By John Lewis

Black holes, colliders and paradoxes

This is a very strange world that we live in.

It would be fair to say that my knowledge about what I am writing in this Post is minimal to the point of total ignorance.  So why open my mouth and prove it!  Because the conquest of fundamental questions about our world is not only an example of mankind at its greatest but also something of broad appeal.

That is proved by the continuing popularity of the BBC Television Series – Horizon.  In that series there have recently been two fascinating programmes: Who’s afraid of a big Black Hole? and How long is a piece of string? (Readers outside the UK will not be able to view these programmes.)

Here are the programme summaries:

Black holes are one of the most destructive forces in the universe, capable of tearing a planet apart and swallowing an entire star. Yet scientists now believe they could hold the key to answering the ultimate question – what was there before the Big Bang?

The trouble is that researching them is next to impossible. Black holes are by definition invisible and there’s no scientific theory able to explain them. Despite these obvious obstacles, Horizon meets the astronomers attempting to image a black hole for the very first time and the theoretical physicists getting ever closer to unlocking their mysteries. It’s a story that takes us into the heart of a black hole and to the very edge of what we think we know about the universe.

and

Alan Davies attempts to answer the proverbial question: how long is a piece of string? But what appears to be a simple task soon turns into a mind-bending voyage of discovery where nothing is as it seems.

An encounter with leading mathematician Marcus du Sautoy reveals that Alan’s short length of string may in fact be infinitely long. When Alan attempts to measure his string at the atomic scale, events take an even stranger turn. Not only do objects appear in many places at once, but reality itself seems to be an illusion.

Ultimately, Alan finds that measuring his piece of string could – in theory at least – create a black hole, bringing about the end of the world.

Read more of this strange world

The Moon and water!

NASA reveals that there is a significant amount of water on the Moon.

In a rather awful pun, NASA published update on the LCROSS Mission starts with the words, “The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.”

LCROSS
The visible camera image showing the ejecta plume at about 20 seconds after impact.

Anyway, the significance of the update is enormous.  As the NASA release goes on to say,

Scientists have long speculated about the source of vast quantities of hydrogen that have been observed at the lunar poles. The LCROSS findings are shedding new light on the question of water, which could be more widespread and in greater quantity than previously suspected.

Permanently shadowed regions could hold a key to the history and evolution of the solar system, much as an ice core sample taken on Earth reveals ancient data. In addition, water, and other compounds represent potential resources that could sustain future lunar exploration.

The BBC also reports the NASA data but, I am bound to say, in a rather more reader-friendly format.

By Paul Handover

Things aviation and the ‘wow’ effect.

Some stunning pictures.

Of the six active authors on this Blog, four have been or still are pilots.  Of course, only young Bob Derham is a ‘real’ pilot having been an Air Transport pilot for almost as long as Pontious Pilate (sorry, that’s an awful pun!).

Anyway, there has been a growing collection of some incredible photographs from odd sources around the Web and it seemed time to share a few.

Here’s a wonderful picture of an F-15C Eagle Fighter circling over the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida with Shuttle Mission STS 108 on the launch pad.

011129-F-1279W-025

See more aviation pictures

Against “Daylight Saving”!

An ancient idea may have run it’s course?

What is the purpose of “Daylight Saving”? [Interesting history of Daylight Saving on Wikipedia. Ed.]

clock faceThis week we are in a particularly interesting situation as we are in the middle of a one week separation between the dates when Europe and US change their clocks back to “normal” winter time. I.e. Europe changed their clocks back at 2am last Sunday and most, but not all, US States change their clocks back at 2am this coming Sunday.

This is even more confusing than normal. But why are we doing this at all?

Is it to save fuel, to save lives, to save time or to save something else?

In my humble opinion it is all nonsense!

“Time management” is a myth

Time is time! People say that they do not have enough time to do this or that, as if they have ways to make some more; and, of course, there is much talk about “time management”. Yet we all have the same amount of time and no amount of management will change that!

We are certainly able to manage the things that we try to fit into the available time.  That is, we can manage tasks, effort and so on. But, in everyday (Newtonian rather than Einsteinian) regimes, time is an inelastic independent variable. Fiddling about with the clocks and trying to “manage time” have no effect on the stuff whatsoever. Let it be!

There must be a better way!

Yes, I know! Some people make claims of wasted daylight or of the dangers to schoolchildren walking to or from school in the dark. These are valid areas of concern. If adjusting the times of business operations or schooling helps to deal with them, then by all means do so. But, for goodness, let’s not pretend the time is different.

By John Lewis

Lost for words!

Sent to me by Neil Kelly, a long-standing friend in Devon, England.

Wish I could add something witty to this, but I can’t!  But it does remind me of the saying, there’s no such thing as error-free software!

plane

P.S. the image is too small to read the copyright notice – anyone help out?  It would be good to credit it properly.

By Paul Handover

A Jet Powered Beer Cooler

A New Zealander, or Kiwi, demonstrates that a sense of ingenuity and humour survives ‘down under’.

It would be unfair for copyright reasons to reproduce this delightful story on this Blog, but here’s a picture to whet your appetite, so to speak.

engine1

Go to the website and enjoy.  Laughter guaranteed.

By Bob Derham

CERN

Is CERN investing in fundamental science or wasting money?

Frankly, any rational assessment of CERN must conclude that it is the most humungous and nonsensical waste of money at a time when millions or even billions of people are threatened by a) starvation and/or death from lack of water and/or b) flooding, burning or freezing caused by Global warming not to mention the wars that are inevitable as CERN LHCpeople (probably mostly in the Middle East, Asia or Africa) start to fight over scarce resources.

The billions spent on this rather esoteric and ridiculous research would be better spent on practical steps to save people and the planet. And, “yes”, I do know that basic research can lead to useful “products”, and I have nothing against research into, for example fusion power. But why we really have to know what happened in the universe one millisecond after it blew up is beyond me, especially given the cost.

Read more of this Post

Hire the attitude, train the skill!

Alex Cheatle
Alex Cheatle

How can we help you?

In a reversal of business models which are all too common, Ten UK sets out to help customers: what a novel idea!!

The following video describes the need to recruit and train staff who understand the real value and expectation behind asking:

What do you want in the context of … ?


Alex Cheatle describes what they do and how they do it.

Read the article on Real Business here.

By John Lewis