Friday 16 December 2011

Hitchens

So it seems Christopher Hitchens has died. Not good... The guy did some amazing work and wrote some very interesting books such as one called 'God is not great'. The guy has inspired many people i'm sure.

I'm quite unsure what to write my mind has gone blank and i just feel awkwardly sad. So here is the article from Vanity Fair for which he worked for for quite a while.


By Gasper Tringale.
Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. His matchless prose has appeared in Vanity Fair since 1992, when he was named contributing editor.
“Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centered and even solipsistic,” Hitchens wrote nearly a year ago in Vanity Fair, but his own final labors were anything but: in the last 12 months, he produced for this magazine a piece on U.S.-Pakistani relations in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, a portrait of Joan Didion, an essay on the Private Eye retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a prediction about the future of democracy in Egypt, a meditation on the legacy of progressivism in Wisconsin, and a series of frank, graceful, and exquisitely written essays in which he chronicled the physical and spiritual effects of his disease. At the end, Hitchens was more engaged, relentless, hilarious, observant, and intelligent than just about everyone else—just as he had been for the last four decades.
“My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends,” he wrote in the June 2011 issue. He died in their presence, too, at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. May his 62 years of living, well, so livingly console the many of us who will miss him dearly.

This article is from http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/12/In-Memoriam-Christopher-Hitchens-19492011




Monday 12 December 2011

Lovely and tidy

So i have tidied this page up and now have all relevenat blog posts copied over and now is the time to get finding something to blog about. I would have done more but i have been working all day...

Lets hope i find something interesting to type on here.

Maybe one day i'll get podcasting again or do some sort of youtube thing. I need motivation and inspiration first though i reckon.

 Have fun reading through these posts they are from last year to this year and are the only ones i found relevant from my old blog Skeptic Blog Of Doom.

Cheers.




But i can't swim! / Liquid space?

Sorry for my lack of blogging recently i have been busy and lazy when not busy.

I have a dead laptop and limited time to do stuff so thats my reason.

Ooh about the title it seems i came across an article earlier today which read: Early universe was a liquid.

and so i shall share this piece of interesting intrigue...

it is from Here!

Early Universe Was a Liquid, Nuclei Collisions at the Large Hadron Collider Show

ScienceDaily (Nov. 23, 2010) — In an experiment to collide lead nuclei together at CERN's Large Hadron Collider physicists from the ALICE detector team including researchers from the University of Birmingham have discovered that the very early Universe was not only very hot and dense but behaved like a hot liquid.

By accelerating and smashing together lead nuclei at the highest possible energies, the ALICE experiment has generated incredibly hot and dense sub-atomic fireballs, recreating the conditions that existed in the first few microseconds after the Big Bang. Scientists claim that these mini big bangs create temperatures of over ten trillion degrees.

At these temperatures normal matter is expected to melt into an exotic, primordial 'soup' known as quark-gluon plasma. These first results from lead collisions have already ruled out a number of theoretical physics models, including ones predicting that the quark-gluon plasma created at these energies would behave like a gas.

Although previous research in the USA at lower energies, indicated that the hot fire balls produced in nuclei collisions behaved like a liquid, many expected the quark-gluon plasma to behave like a gas at these much higher energies.

Scientists from the University of Birmingham's School of Physics and Astronomy are playing a key role in this new phase of the LHC's programme which comes after seven months of successfully colliding protons at high energies. Dr David Evans, from the University of Birmingham's School of Physics and Astronomy, and UK lead investigator at ALICE experiment, said: "Although it is very early days we are already learning more about the early Universe."

He continues: "These first results would seem to suggest that the Universe would have behaved like a super-hot liquid immediately after the Big Bang."

The team has also discovered that more sub-atomic particles are produced in these head-on collisions than some theoretical models previously suggested. The fireballs resulting from the collision only lasts a short time, but when the 'soup' cools down, the researchers are able to see thousands of particles radiating out from the fireball. It is in this debris that they are able to draw conclusions about the soup's behaviour.

Two papers detailing this research have been submitted for publication and posted on: http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1011.3914| and http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1011.3916|.

This research is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

Thank you people at CERN.



Ooh and a question do you think i should go to the QED Con or Blackpool Magic Con.... Hmmmm Indeed too complex a quandary for my mind alone.

Close Call Asteroid

 
I may be pretty late at seeing this but i apologise i have been at work.


Here be some kinda doom...

It seems there may have been certain doom tommorow (Monday 27/06/11) as there has been a giant asteroid spotted heading our way.

The space rock is going to just miss us but will reach within 11,000 miles of the surface. Apparently the telegraph states it as coming '23 times closer than the moon' to me that doesn't make sense, but anyway the asteroid will reach within 11,000 miles of the surface which is close enough to be spotted by some telescopes. Even if it did enter the atmospere an asteroid expert has said 'We are certain that it will miss us, but if it did enter the atmosphere, an asteroid this size would mostly burn up in a brilliant fireball, possibly scattering a few meteorites.' Which is good by me. This asteroid was only spotted wednesday in New Mexico and is only between 10 and 50 yards wide. Another asteroid has been spotted to come by on November 8th and from what experts say it is 400 metres wide weighing 50 million tons and is expected to fly within the moons orbit, this will pass by at a distance of 201,000 miles thankfully.
This one is the largest object to approach us so close that folks know about.

Phew... Article read from Here! To be honest though this original artice does make with the fear-mongering.

Facebook fan page

Pow!

This is simply a link to my facebook page i have made for my blog/podcast. I got bored so i thought why not make a page.

Cheers.

Bad Universe

I'm going to make this short. I watched the first episode of Bad Universe today and loved it. Its such a clever show and very entertaining just like any show that makes things go boom.
Phil Plait is also excellent in this and presents everything in chunks which your brain can feed on quite delightfully.
So yeah watch it, just a suggestion. Its too good to just pass on by. The fate of the world may be in your hands. Boom (Asteroid Doom)

Here is a sneak peaky thing from youtube. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlw5rQNEjHU] Now off to amazon to buy his book. Death from the skies!

Doomsday Ark (The Moon)

That name is just awesome and obviously points to something interesting. Well on my way across the internet finding something to blog about i found this article about how some plans being drawn up by the European Space Agency are being discussed to be put into motion.
The plans are for the 'Doomsday Ark' as you probably guessed from the title.
What i gather from this article is that this ark will be a collection of information and maybe some natural evidence of our civilisation and our planet and plenty of history. The basic version would just be sort of like a collection of hard drives containing information on DNA sequencing and sequences and things such as Metal Smelting and planting crops. ( This makes me wonder if anyone who found this used these hard drives why would they need to know how to smelt or plant crops when they at least have the technology to get to this info. Huh?!)

The ark would be buried on the moon just under the surface and another thing i just read on their is that the European Space Agency are going to experiment trying to grow tulips on the moon.... But using an enclosed artifical environment of course along with algae to help make with the photosynthesis for the plant to survive.
They chose tulips because they can be frozen and planted again with little nourishment. This will probably help to eventually try and sustain an ecosystem of sorts up there to possibly help with any natural evidence or specimens in the data vault. The vault will be maintained by robots and also helped along by scientists on earth through radio transmissions.
The European Space Agency say they hope to have a manned station on the moon by the end of the century. The vault though will be solar powered and the first should be on the moon by 2020 with a lifespan of 30 years and then the full archive will be launched is perhaps 2035. It just seems to remind me of the film 'Moon' if you haven't seen it yet go buy it, it should be nice and cheap now plus its a great film. Go and watch it.

Here is a Link to the article. Now i seem to be imagining the moon overrun by tulips and the moon one day being multi coloured. What would they call moon tulips if they were sold back on earth hmmm, Moolips, Toonlips, Moonlips, Toops, hmmm......

Dream Warriors

I found a site yesterday with an article that proclaimed that a psychologist had discovered people who play video games to be better in dreams.

Dream  warriors
With the ability to change things happening around them and have an unusual heightened awareness of the dream world around them. The scientist also says that this may help people with any mental trauma issues or even those who want to fight their nightmares.
Apparently gamers also benefit by having more memories they can take away from dreams which is pretty cool and according to the Psychologist may make gamers less violent to an extent. Hence the title this is so much like 'Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors' I believe the film was called that.
You know the one with the horrible cheesy 80's Dokken playing the soundtrack. So yeah thought this was an interesting article and always wondered why my dreams seem to fluctuate so much and i almost always end up fighting zombies. Here is a link Click me please!

Michaelanglo and the Cistine Chapel

Just read something on Scientific American about how Michelangelo hid anatomical drawings in the paintings on the sistine chapels ceiling.
And yes i was reading Scientific American and i am indeed English. My favourite thing from these drawings is an apparent voice box of God coming from the 'Brain stem of Man' which is so cool, what a clever dude.
Genius. Here is a quote from the site: 'Is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel a 500 year-old puzzle that is only now beginning to be solved? What was Michelangelo saying by construction the voice box of God out of the brain stem of man? Is it a sacrilege or homage?

I am not going to go into detail so here is the site.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=michelangelos-secret-message-in-the-2010-05-26

Okay sorry but the linking doesn't seem to be working. Cheers.

Sunday 11 December 2011

Sorting this out.

Ok so i have a few of my posts up these so far are from my old blog site at lhymas.wordpress.com

Check it out for links and more science and magic.

There will be more soon.

The Human Blockhead.

I am going to learn this today if i find any decents nails lying around the shed. Its the human blockhead i just found this awesome video on www.itricks.com of Dezrah performing his variation. The link to the youtube video is here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdp_9N4CTfw&feature=player_embedded

Now i am going to try to pop the video in here. Right here goes.... Okay second attempt.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdp_9N4CTfw]

Awesome thats sorted it. Enjoy the video here is a link to Dezrah's Youtubeness - http://www.youtube.com/user/dezrah

So check out www.itricks.com or get to the youtube link.

Right i am off to find some nails i may video my attempt at this too. Right see you soon.

Fish and Fake Snake.

Just a quick post i just checked out a site that had a list of prehistoric fish on it. Awesome looking animals but very rare and i probably won't ever see these but check it out.

http://bit.ly/ccSreM

And is this real i doubt it but a good attempt i guess. I know its from last year but i guess i'm late to it. Link under pic.

http://zuzutop.com/2009/11/photo-of-huge-55ft-snake-shocks-world/#3

Thats No Moon!

Read this the other day which i thought was pretty cool.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7695994/Largest-scientific-instrument-ever-built-to-prove-Einsteins-theory-of-general-relativity.html

Its about a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency to send three spacecraft into orbit of the sun to prove the existence of 'Gravitational Waves' predicted in Einsteins theory of relativity. Apparently it will be the largest scientific instrument ever built.

Einstein's theory of general relativity predicted that when large  objects such    as black holes collide, ripples in space and time flow outwards. These     ripples are called gravitational waves. Fun stuff.

It just seems to remind me of 'Thats No Moon'. You know what i'm saying right?...Right?

Ooh a hole in space

I wonder if there is like a space donut  somewhere to fit in there. Hmmm.


http://bit.ly/af9AQo


ScienceDaily (May 11, 2010)  The European Space Agency's Herschel  infrared space telescope has made an unexpected discovery: a hole in  space. The hole has provided astronomers with a surprising glimpse into  the end of the star-forming process.

Moving one blog on here.

Hey there this is the Skeptic Blog Of Doom. I am Luke and i am a Skeptic, an Atheist and a kind of Amateur Magician. I hope you enjoy my blog and hopefully there will be a flurry of random posts very soon. Have fun.