Saint Magnus

Library of Dust

2012-01-19T10:42:00.000+01:00

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books]

This is a canister filled with human. Crazy human.
Sounds strange, looks strange = is strange. And somehow beautiful and disgusting.

The backstory is this; before WWI an Oregon state psychiatric institution (where they filmed Cuckoos Nest no less) cremated the corpses of patients that died but that nobody came to collect. They decided to store the ashes in copper canisters, one per patient, so they still had something to present to what ever relative that decided to show up. Or maybe just because even those deemed mad by society deserved some (although somewhat twisted) dignity in death.

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books]

What photographer David Maisel really has captured transcends merely moldy metal cans. What he has done, is to bring these terribly sad human stories to light. They have a chance one final time to be beautiful in a way. The chemicals in their ashes reacting with the copper and surrounding air, drawing maps of their instanity.

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books]

More: Bldgblog, David Maisel, David Maisel Library of Dust, Amazon.com Book link, Wikipedia for Oregon State Hospital

SOPA PIPA (blackout wednesday)

2012-01-18T09:17:00.000+01:00

R.I.P mr Jobs

2011-10-06T11:17:00.000+02:00

Climate update - Co2 rising, temp not following

2011-09-17T22:06:00.001+02:00

Despite what we hear from the ~~scientific~~ political camp the increase of Co2 in our atmosphere still doesn't raise the temperature to dangerous levels. The August reading at Mauna Lau reads Co2 at 391.7ppm but temperature second coldest this century. Enter graphs:

So from what we have learned from the press, the "scientists" that are getting their breads baked by IPCC and the politicians too lazy to read something longer than 18 pages, more Co2 means more Celsius.
So when more Co2 doesn't mean more Celsius? What do we do? More science?

Call me cynical but I think not, not yet anyway. This craze will die down soon enough. There isn't enough scientific data to support it but there are so many powerful men and women that has promised us to save the world by taking our money, and they will have to be able to save face and back gracefully out of this malarkey to make it a quick death.

Additional Links:
Monckton on Paul Nurses AntiScience
http://cei.org/news-releases/govt-fu...l-climate-data
http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...ick-j-michaels
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/05/27...ver-climate-st
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/214181/20110915/ivar-giaever-global-warming-climate-change-al-gore-ipcc-hoax-dissent-nobel-prize-winner-physicist-re.htm

Calm Before the Storm

2011-08-27T22:07:00.001+02:00

So it seems that the east coast of the US is gonna get hit by a severe storm. The subway is closing down for the first time ever, the largest evacuation ever and so on and so forth. This has gotta be extreme weather right? And you don't need a Nobel Prize or Academy Award to draw the line between the Man Made ~~Global Warming~~ ~~Climate Change~~ Climate Chaos and this new super-storm, eh! It's just that easy, isn't it?

More Co2 = death to all! I have the Power Point to prove it. PS I'll take checks, they absolves you from guilt

Believe it or not, but it turns out that the complex, chaotic system that changes temperature, moves water and creates clouds is more sophisticated than:
if add co2
disp fire earth
else
disp voodoo science

If we slowly backs away from the madness and take a sober look around into what the real scientist are saying, we may learn that we have less storms now than for over 2000 years, and that a little bit warmer global mean temperatures may yield less and less severe storms, hurricanes, typhoons and mistrals.

Also, there have been pretty funky weather in the past also, and that was before Co2 taxation made Al Gore a Billionaire

I absolutely believe there is a perfect storm here, and it's been blowing since 1988 when IPCC was formed to try to convince the ~~world~~ newspapers and politicians that the recent warming it had (probably) experienced since the last mini-Ice Age (really? The world warmed after a low period? And also, that's a bad thing? Like the year without summer was a good year for people, crops and everything?) was all down to the modern society's emission of carbon-dioxide by the burning of fossil fuels in power-plants and cars, trucks and boats.

The Perfect Storm
What can be better than a great threat to humanity which you can do something about by increasing taxes and government? It's the Perfect Storm, it's the wet dream for politicians to make them seem concerned and able. It's the wet dream for whatever passes for journalists these days, the have fodder for years and years writing about all the terrible things that are happening, will happen, can happen and what you (always you, not they. They are far too important to take the train, cycle or walk) can do to make that terrible threat go away.
And finally, it's the wettest of wet dreams for the scare mongers that lives on selling crises and themselves as the crusaders against everything evil; the fucking Marxist enviromentalists! Greenpeace, WWF, PATT, SocEnv and so on forever and ever.

Maybe the weather is affecting more people because we are more people?
In 1874 there where 946,000 people living in Cambodia, a country notorious for it's tropical monsoons and disastrous floodings. Today they are 15 million.
In 1870 the US had 38 million people, today it's close to 310 million.

140 years may seem like a long time for us, and that's what they want you to believe. Remember that mother Earth is 4.54 Billion years old (unless you take all your knowledge from one collection of badly written, loosely connected short stories called The Bible, but then again if you believe in that, what are you doing on the internet?) so it's just a blink of an eye. Should we stop society and bring back the dark ages because of this? I by "society" I mean Europe because India has always been excepted (oh the irony, I'm naturally referring to the railway engineer Pachauri who is also head of the IPCC), China wasn't bothered, Japan got sick of it, and the US have revised their standing since Mr Hope Obama "saved" the COP15 last minute somehow. Saved faces maybe...

Until scientists will be able to research further into this complex matter I will regard climate as a very complex and sophisticated chaotic system that we know very little about. Maybe CLOUD will tell us more?
Until we know, they can take their goddamn taxes and attitude and fuck off. Socialism never won, it just cost millions upon millions of lives and countless misery to lose.

Dizzy Moon

2011-08-19T20:46:00.000+02:00

Sex...

2011-08-12T22:45:00.001+02:00

.......or the birds & the bees at least (flowers and bees in Swedish)

Adora BatBrat

2011-08-08T13:00:00.000+02:00

Model: Adora BatBrat

Traffic

2011-08-07T20:59:00.000+02:00

You are not stuck in traffic...

..........you are traffic

La Belleza

2011-08-05T10:08:00.000+02:00

Emerald bearing beauty,

you have oceans in your eyes.

Velvet voiced angel,

the sirens seek advice.

Fair haired fairy,

a moonbeam in the night.

Pale skinned splendour,

did you dress in liquid light?

Smoke

2011-08-01T18:30:00.001+02:00

Andrei

2011-07-31T21:54:00.000+02:00

Terrorist Bombings in Norway

2011-07-22T19:00:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I really wish there was a hell, so you can burn for eternity.

Graphene

2011-04-02T12:16:00.004+02:00

In 2010 the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for their work on the material known as Graphene. So you'd suppose it's a big deal, this new form of carbon, and you'd suppose right. It is widely regarded as a material made of dreams forged by angels and sent to man to fulfil our destiny.

Background
In 1962 Hanns-Peter Boehm described single-layer carbon foils which got picked up Geim who decided to take a closer look at the flat 2D version of Nanotubes. He fought the general opinion that it shouldn't be stable in this form. He and Novoselov actually lifted off flakes from Graphite (which basically is sheets of Graphene stacked) with tape. After repeating this numerous times they eventually had an ultra-thin single-atom layer flake of Graphene that they placed on a silicone-dioxide surface.
Their research was published in Science in 2004 and describes the properties of Graphene, like the fact that electrons shoot through ballistically, travelling huge distances without scattering and by introducing a Field Effect Transistor, the properties could be dramatically changed

Field Effect Transistor in groovy colours

Why is it special?

Physicists are a bunch of lovely weirdos, from the reality challenged not-crazy Dr Sheldon Cooper (his mother had him tested) with poor social skills & fantastic intellect via sir Isaac Newton who discovered everything and had the dubious honor to star in the DaVinci Code to Willebrord Snellius who is only here because he has the most fantastic name ever.

What they all have in common though, is that they ponder things. That is basically thinking but with a pipe.

They have spent the better part of a century pondering the properties of Graphene but without something to study it was pretty much guesses and smoke rings

I've been pondering, Bilbo. What awesome wand I could have if we only could isolate a single atom layer of carbon

When Geim and Novoselov managed to produce a flake of Graphene the physicists could start to study it experimentally. And it shows unique electronic properties due to it's hexagon pattern. The electrons spread across the lattice and creates waves of electric charge known as quasiparticles. These particles can be compared to light photons but still retain certain characteristics of electrons (charge and spin). They have now been able to test the Klein Paradox thanks to Graphene, and that is in short that relativistic charged particles can tunnel through any energy barrier. And this is because these particles generate a ghost-version of the anti-particle. From there on it gets a little far out for us with normal minds, jobs and tobacco.

Cool, but what can we use it for?

Well, cooling actually. It dissipates heat better than copper. It also shows great promise to use in processors (doesn't everything that is being invented or discovered nowdays), transmitters and recievers (especially in the terahertz range), batteries, supercapacitors or other forms of energy storage.

Graphene is also transparent which opens up new and exciting possibilities, LCD:s, OLED:s or touchscreens.

It is also the strongest material ever tested with a plethora of materials it can replace when building strong light-weight stuff like cars, planes, space elevators or maybe buildings?

Graphene has also been used as a chemical filter, removing arsenik from drinking water has already been done and can we make cheap and easy-to-use filters that could change the lives of countless people around the world where clean water is hard to come by.

I may not be a scientist, designer, inventer, genious or heartless CEO but I do smoke pipe and ponder and I can see a future where a child in Africa is using his Graphene cup (GrapCup patent pending) to fill up with water in a nearby stream not thinking about the dead hippopotamus upstream leaking death. And while the cup itself clean the water it also access the internet and sends the homework to the transparent OLED in the lid, tweeting to his mates "guys, there is an enormous carcass here, let's blow it up" the filming them while it rains rotten hippo on the villiage elders and posting it on youtube. And there you are with your swiss armyknife that can open cans AND pick your teeth. Not so proud anymore, are you?

The lesson here kids is: smoke pipes, don't smoke cigarettes. Oh, and do science, it's awesome.

References

http://onnes.ph.man.ac.uk/nano/Publications/Naturemat_2007Review.pdf

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v6/n3/full/nmat1849.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene

http://static.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2010/sciback_phy_10.pdf

Tsunami in Japan

2011-03-11T11:39:00.000+01:00

hoping for the best

Congratulations Egypt

2011-02-12T15:39:00.000+01:00

FREEDOM

use it well

Illuminate me from above

2011-01-16T22:45:00.000+01:00

Illuminate me from above

let me walk a while in the sun

I’ve spent too many nights

with my mouth around a gun

Illuminate me from above

let me have my moment at last

let me live in the presence

and forget about the past

I’ve searched through my heart

I’ve sifted through bitter ashes

to find a sturdy part

a black box they find at crashes

I’ve fled to another world

to cut the cord that binds me

to this broken world

but somehow it always finds me

Illuminate me from above

point me out to the reaper

the shadows hide me no more

I’m tired of being a creeper

Light me up from below

if that’s where you want to send me

I’ve cursed enough to be welcomed

I’ve hated enough to be loved

- Saint Magnus

Unlit candles

2010-12-18T17:54:00.000+01:00

unlit candles makes me sad

Enya

2010-12-13T21:51:00.000+01:00

Okay Mr Moon, by all means unleash the night.

We are ready, our eyes are closed,

We welcome the embrace.

Enter, little star

you are most expected

onto our sky

Into our world

into our lives

into our hearts

I love the fall

2010-10-26T18:26:00.000+02:00

it's the answer to it all...

Darth Vader Jellyfish

2010-10-05T08:21:00.000+02:00

This is the Hydromedusa "Darth Vader" Jellyfish, or rather Bathykorus bouilloni.
It's a litte deep-sea jelly fish discovered around 2005 by Kevin Raskoff, and it wasn't just a new species, but a new genus! And for a nerd it kinda looks like Darth Vaders helmet, doesn't it?

Links:

Smithsonianmag.com
National Geographic

Films I recommend

2010-08-25T19:25:00.000+02:00

Mr Nobody

A fantastic fantasy, a beautiful piece of film making

Favourite quote: Promise me that when I die, you'll scatter my ashes on Mars.

Inception

Epic, this will rank among the greatest films of all time.

Do they come here to sleep? No, They come here to be woken up. Dream has become their reality! Who are you to say, otherwise?

Hot Tub Timemachine

Surprisingly amusing, and amusing in surprising ways. Not the expected jokes, felt fresh.
Favourite quote: You're married? No, not yet, she's nine.

Green Zone

Well made and any film with Matt Damon in it that I can watch without being irritated that Matt Damon is in it must be good.
Favourite quote: What the fuck you talking about? Of course it fucking matters! The reasons we go to war always matter! It's all that matters! It fucking matters!

The Ghost Writer

Cosy, though not scary or very exciting. More than worth the time though.
Favourite quote: He can't drown two ghost writers, for god sake. You're not kittens!

Taken

One long action sequence, and one awesome revenge-movie. Gore-fest with Liam Neeson, sounds strange? Yes but it works.

Favourite quote: If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

Trees

2010-08-25T18:52:00.001+02:00

Oh how I love and fear them

Now, already a memory

2010-07-20T12:58:00.001+02:00

Have you ever been gripped by nostalgia?
Have you ever felt that strong urge to travel back and revisit your old memories?

Youth is wasted on the young, as George Bernard Shaw said.

By janussyndicate

I sometimes feel too caught up in building new memories and a better future to appreciate the very now, because frankly that "now" is all there is. Everything else is just a chemical pattern in your brain that is a formed memory that changes over time, or a longing for a later "now" on the horizon.
Still, as you live the "now" every second of every hour of every day of every year of your life, it is already a memory. I quantify my "nows" into such small parts that they have already passed before I've been able to savour them.

I think that is why memories from my childhood and teenage years seem so attractive now, because they are like a movie I can sit down and watch with a drink and some popcorn. I can pause, rewind and edit them into a perfect stream of a blissful life.
That is why I think Youth Is Wasted on The Young. They live through my favourite memories without even knowing it, as I did. They create what I miss.

Today is the happiest time of my life, I'm sure of that. The memories I create now will be played, paused and edited by me 20 years from now. Will I still feel that I didn't appreciate them while making them?
Is looking back on the nearest part of your life with nostalgia a sign that life is constantly getting worse, because the best part of your life was just before now? Isn't that a peculiar paradox that you know your life is getting better while your nostalgia is convinced it's getting worse!

Time is nothing you shall try to understand, like flying in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. If you stop and think about it you will crash.

More quotes from mr Shaw that I think fits the subject:

- “We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing"

- “I want to be all used up when I die.”

- “Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

Silverstone 2010

2010-07-09T14:32:00.000+02:00

This weekend the F1 circus will come to a slightly revamped Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire in England (not far from Oxford)
It hosted the very first F1 race in 1950 and is an old airfield which has been transformed several times during it's long history. From the sixties almost square, dangerously fast track almost only consisting of long straights and 90 degree bends. In the early nineties it changed more towards the shape we recognize (and love) today. Well, this year premiers another alteration and the current format is this:

Pay extra attention to the Arena complex which looks promising but did catch out a couple of drivers this morning (Schumi among others). The incorporation of this complex also made the track 759 metres longer to a total of 5901 m. It now has 18 turns that will take around 1:32:3 to navigate, and the GP will stretch over 51 laps.

The first practice saw Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull take the fastest time followed by Lewis Hamilton and Robert Kubica. Jenson Button finished way down in eight with both him and Ham trying out the new exhaust-blown diffusers (leading the exhaust under the car to help out the diffusers, similar to Red Bull)

Results after first practice here:

ESPN F1 1st practice results

Other links

Races & Circuits 2010
Crash.net

photons are bosons

2010-07-06T09:28:00.001+02:00

Two trapped charged bosons for different densities and temperatures;
PIMC simulation by Jens Böning

Physicists in the US have carried out an extremely precise test of the one of the cornerstones of modern physics – the idea that the two types of fundamental particle, bosons and fermions, follow two distinct kinds of statistical behaviour.

Physics tells us that fundamental particles come in two basic varieties: bosons, which have integer values of intrinsic angular momentum or "spin", and fermions, which have half-integer spin. Bosons include force-carrying particles such as the photon, W and Z and follow Bose–Einstein statistics. An important consequence of this is that many identical bosons are free to occupy the same quantum state, leading to phenomena such as Bose–Einstein condensates and lasing.

Fermions include the fundamental matter particles such as quarks and electrons and obey Fermi-Dirac Statistics. Identical fermions can never exist in the same quantum state, giving us the shell structure of atoms and, with it, chemistry.

Dmitry Budker and Damon English of the University of California at Berkeley decided they would test this principle, known as the spin-statistics theorem, as precisely as they could.

The researchers fired two green laser beams from opposite directions into a beam of barium atoms contained within an optical cavity, with the combined energy of a photon pair (made up of one photon from each of the beams) equal to the barium absorption energy. They found that when the frequencies of the two beams were very slightly different to one another this absorption took place, which they observed by measuring the photons given off by the barium's subsequent de-excitation. But they observed no such absorption when the frequencies were identical – demonstrating that photons really are bosons.

Read the whole story on:

Physicsworld

The De-icing Business's continuous mining machine

2010-06-23T18:26:00.000+02:00

photo: saltunion.com

Proverb I

2010-06-22T13:11:00.000+02:00

"Art is nothing without science"

Shutter Island

2010-05-29T09:31:00.001+02:00

Yesterday I saw the new Scorsese/DiCaprio collaboration Shutter Island.
The film is based on the novel by the same name written by Dennis Lehane, a 44 yo American author who has written some fantastic books, incl Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone and has also worked as a writer on The Wire.

Shutter Island was written in 2003 and was turned into a film by Scorsese and was released this year.
It starts out on a ferry with the main character U.S Marshal Edward Daniels feeling sick in his room before going up on deck to meet his new partner Chuck. The ferry goes to Shutter Island where the Ashecliffe Hospital is situated, a hospital/penitentiary for the criminally insane. And the reason we are given is that they are to investigate the disappearance of a patient out of a locked cell. Inside the cell Edward finds a note written by the escapee that points to a patient 67 (there being 66 official patients in the prison) which Edward then investigate while also (which is revealed later) seeking revenge on one of the patients that's guilty of burning his house down effectively killing his wife.

The movie is a Scorsese masterpiece in many ways. There are some fantastically beautiful scenes that pictures Edwards dreams that will take your breath away. The cinematography is always aptly done in Scorsese movies but I feel it has been lifted a notch in this film.
DiCaprio does a steady job portraying the troubled Edward Daniels, a WWII veteran that liberated Dachau and had his wife killed. Ben Kinglsey is a little bit on autopilot, but he has that persona (Like Anthony Hopkins) who can get away with it. I also like most of the music, especially Mahler is used very effectively.

All is not well though, There are also some continuity mistakes, hands that switches places between angels, papers that are ripped and the next second is whole again. The Auswitch sign over the Dachau camp. There are probably more that I didn't immediately recognize, but what I don't know doesn't bother be of course.

All in all, a good popcorn movie with a lot of talent involved.

Marina & The Diamonds

2010-05-18T19:53:00.002+02:00

A fantastic album has crossed my path once again. Sometimes you just fall into an abyss of strange but comfortable new water and I've totally fallen into The Family Jewels by Marina and The Diamonds.
The songs are crazy, bold, intelligent and surprisingly catchy.
It resembles Florence + the Machine, Regina Spektor, Bat for Lashes and Lily Allen with its no rules, fun, unconventional and inspired songs.

Marina is a Welsh girl with a Greek father who moved to London and used her quirky personality and brilliant mind to start the band that really is just her. The diamonds are the fans, and not the band. And she's cute as a button to...I'm obsessed with this mess that is Marina & the Diamonds.

Watch these videos

Mowgli's Road - Official Video
Hollywood - Official Video
Marina backstage at Glastonbury
Marina at the NME

The Door to Hell

2010-05-16T20:58:00.004+02:00

Derweze (or Darvaza) is a small village in Turkmenistan in the middle of a desert pretty void of anything interesting. Except that is where the Door to Hell is located.
Wait, what?

No, the other hell. This is only hell to people suffering from harp-phobia or vertigo.

The story is this; the area where Derweze is situated is rich in natural gas which to Energy Company Executives is like honey is to bees or face-painting tents are to hippies. What the geologists (or possibly satanists with a degree) chose to do was the same old thing they always do. They set up a drilling rig, maybe something like this:

After it was set up, they probably pushed the start button and poured a cup of coffee and started planning what they'd do with their enormous bonuses. What could possibly go wrong with building a massive structure over a swiss-cheese, gas infested rock and then put a big drill through it.

Right in the middle of the eternal Aston Martin vs Jaguar discussion the whole rig disappeared into an enormous hole leaving nothing but...well, actually just "nothing" on the surface.
The geologists stared at each-other in disbelief and ransacked themselves if it was their area of responsibility to make sure the drilling rig didn't fall right down a big fucking hole! After a silent nod of mutual agreement that it was probably somewhere in the fine-prints of all of their contracts, and possibly some rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock that all ended in a tie (somebody must stop choosing Spock) they all rolled up their sleeves and went to work.
As the ginourmous hole spewed out incredible amounts of Methane gas into the atmosphere they all agreed that if they tossed in a lit match the methane would start to burn off and Bob's your uncle.

This gas-find will selfcombust in five seconds, good luck Jim.

A cunning plan, with one little drawback; a slight underestimation of the amount of gas.
You see, it was back in 1971 they set it on fire and it has been burning ever since.

Yes, that is people. Possibly deciding to have some cognitive behavioural therapy to combat their harp-phobia

So what do you do with a big burning whole right in the middle of your normally hell-gate free little town? Make it a tourist attraction of course!

Links
Article & Pics from EnglishRussia
Tourism info
Abandonthecube

Off to Israel.

2010-05-12T09:46:00.000+02:00

My new sneakers first trip!

Death or Cake

2010-05-05T11:46:00.002+02:00

Laki - The Haze from Hell

2010-04-21T22:04:00.002+02:00

On the 8th of June 1783 Iceland opened up and started spewing out its guts all over Europe creating some horrifying months where they sky was red and the air was toxic to breath.

Ahhh, beautiful! Wait, what? *cough cough* Somebody invent gas-masks fast...

What became known as the Laki Haze in northern Europe was actually a combination of hydrofluoric acid & sulfur-dioxide that moved eerily through the streets of the highly religious parts of England and France, turning day into a perpetual reddish twilight, killing people and generally made life miserable for the hard working English, and wine drinking French. Remember that his was before industrial robots and tractors so there was a lot of hard manual labour, usually an exercise where you appreciate the fresh Enlightenment air.

Not invented, thankfully not industries either

The reason for this excitement was that rising magma collided with groundwater, creating phreatomagmatic explosions and simultaneously opened 130 craters that spent the next 8 months spreading death and terror over the neighbourhood. That sort of thing was frowned upon even back then, fortunately nobody had invented satellites either so they had no idea death came from Iceland, most people probably didn't know that there was an Iceland at all.

Not invented. Which was bad because no GPS:es meant people got lost all the time. But good because nobody had to spend a Saturday watching reruns of The Hills with their girlfriend.

In the beginning the Icelanders stood in awe watching 1400m high lava fountains, while the Brits brushed ash of their Frocks. Then started The Mist Hardships where 25% of the Icelandish population died in the famine that followed after their animals began dying of dental and skeletal fluorosis (tell your dentist that next time he tries to force fluorine-tables down your throat). Things got so bad they where forced to invent new dishes, like the scrumptious Book-soup where they actually boiled the pages that was made of animal skins. It's strangely absent from modern cooking books. Nigella, I have a top tip! Gimme a call.

A freakishly hot summer combined with a high pressure zone over Iceland meant that the poisonous, sulphuric air moved like a freight-train down over Norway, Czechoslovakia, Germany, France and ending up in Great Britain in only 6 days (which is much faster than a train actually, all trains being delayed by insurmountable obstacles like leaves and a small breeze).
And while English captains stood on shore cursing at the blood red sun, unable to take to the sea due to the thick mist, some 23 000 Brits died around them. That's around 100.000 in todays currency.

Besides being unhealthy to breathe the haze also caused weather worthy of a Roland Emmerich film.

Epic thunderstorms with lightnings that killed horses and men, hails that killed livestock and torrential rains.
What followed was a bitterly cold and cruel winter killing at least 8000 more than usual winters.

Not invented, which meant that the Greeks had to pay their own bills.

The British had excellent records over their dead which makes it quite easy to calculate how many more died during these months than normally. The French (being very French) didn't bother writing down such information though, they kept busy shouting at the haze, getting priest to exorcise it and probably tried to get it into a guillotine (killing things in guillotines being their national sport at the day)

Invented, which made some people shorter, and a lot of crazy French revolutionaries ecstatic

The extreme weather actually screwed up the French crops so much that the ensuing famine and poverty (as this was before the EU was invented the Germans wouldn't bail out the frogs) may have kick-started the French Revolution. Although, knowing the French, it would probably have happened anyway sooner or later.

This is not just meant to educate and amuse, but also to put the current ash-cloud into perspective. What small problems we are experiencing so far and what may come at any time. Today's society is much better equipped to deal with such disasters and that is thanks to the magic of economic growth leading to product development.

OLED Chandelier

2010-04-20T17:05:00.001+02:00

German designer Ingo Maurer have created a very futuristic and minimalistic Chandelier that wouldn't be out of place in a Sci.-Fi movie. It's also one of the new ultra-energy effective light-sources scientists are working on in the wake of the Climate-Change hoax.

Engineers at GE are working on panels of OLED which takes us one closer step to my childhood dreams; luminous wallpaper!

Soon we will indeed live inside a television. Bliss!

Gigi Radiators

2010-04-13T16:23:00.000+02:00

i-Radium have made some cool radiators for all you interior-design freaks out there.

Designed by Enzo Berti, famous furniture designer. Apparently.

Using infra-red heating these hot dudes are made from wood and makes you a lot happier than your old cast iron off-white Victorian ones did. And also kinder to your heating bill but will probably piss-off your cat as these are not easy to claim as a relax-area

They have also these Ikea-lamp analogues designed to blend into your other circular shapes (I'm guessing)

I like it! People who think out of the box, or rather those who say "what box?" makes this world evolve into what will become the space trekking, food replicating, alien interracial breeding future that the Sci-Fi channel has shown be will inevitably be.

My thoughts are with you Rzeczpospolita Polska

2010-04-11T20:22:00.000+02:00

Two hearts eats as one

2010-04-10T13:29:00.000+02:00

Food for Dinner

2010-04-09T11:01:00.000+02:00

Cooking with colour today!

Aerogel - Frozen Smoke

2010-04-08T00:48:00.000+02:00

Aerogel is the lightest solid material in the world, it's actually so light it's pratically air (0.003 g/cm³, only three times that of air) and it's basically a gel but the liquid is replaced with gas through something called supercritical drying.

So what can we use it for, beside holding a block of it on a couple of pretty creepy fingernails?
Aerogel has some particular characteristics among which is a very good heat insulator so we use it in windows and spacesuits. As it weighs so little it doesn't bulk you down like a couple of tartan blankies would. They are also notoriously bad in windows due to their lack of transparency.

Can you believe this little piece of heaven (more literal than usually) was invented after a bet?

That's right, back in 1931 Steven Kistler made a bet with his fellow ~~nerd~~ scientist Charles Learned over who could replace the liquid in jelly with gas without causing shrinkage. I know it sounds dirty but it's really not.

Aerogel did however play quite an anonymous role due to the difficulty and expense of manufacturing it. But in the seventies the French (believe it or not) needed a way to store rocketfuel in porous materials and a univerity in Lyon discovered the application of sol-gel chemistry to silica aerogel preparation. This process replaced the sodium silicate used by Kistler with an alkoxysilane, (tetramethyorthosilicate, TMOS)

After that it has, among other things, been used to detect Cherenkov Radiaton in Cern (with Aerogel prepared in Sweden, yay!) and NASA used it to absorb space dust (which is cooler than normal dust cause it has the word "space" in it)
Future uses may include absorbing kinetic energy, as in computers, cars or even bulletproof vests.

Is there anything jam can't do? Save a peanut butter sandwich, pimp a porridge, feature in erotic fantasies, inspire scientists to create frozen smoke. Jam is awesome!
And also Aerogel....

A 2,5kg brick supported by 2 grams of Aerogel

Links
EETD
Aerogel FAQ

Dream

2010-04-07T09:58:00.000+02:00

Last night I dreamt that water was pointless to drink,

because it's transparent. That it was like air!

And that the darker the drink, the healthier it is,

so I ended up just drinking Guinness.

News that doesn't make the news

2010-04-03T11:00:00.002+02:00

Large Hadron Collider - First Collision

2010-03-30T22:10:00.000+02:00

Remember this day, ladies and gentlemen. You will bore your children and grand-children with invented memories of it.

Earth Hour - Why I will not turn off my lights

2010-03-27T15:26:00.001+01:00

The so-called "Earth Hour" is upon us again. The WWF teams up with the UN to make everybody feel guilty that we've been able to make a pretty decent living for ourselves.
I know there are people that hates having fun, a lot of these (if not all) are religious in different ways and use some made-up religious rules to guide them safely away from everything that set off the dopamine. Whether it's catholic priest swearing off the most basic urge of all, that of procreation. Or if it's the Muslims that doesn't eat, drink or have sex (again with the sex?) while the sun is up for a month.

The Ramadan of the AGW church is the Earth Hour, where everyone in the developed world (we who have access to electricity because we invented it and made it affordable) shuts off our electrical appliances for an hour. It's supposed to be a symbol, unclear what it should be a symbol for. Maybe a return to the dark-ages where religion was law for many more people.

Black is the new black

Whether you believe in Man-Made global warming, that it will be a disaster and that it can be stopped doesn't really matter. Earth Hour is still just a farce, it doesn't save any electricity. It doesn't lower carbon dioxide emissions, possibly increasing it. It isn't any kind of symbol that makes you understand how it is to survive without electricity, as you can heat your pizza and make your coffee just before it starts and then download the tv-shows you missed afterwards. It's very easy to live without modern society when it's only for a short amount of time and you know exactly when it turns off and on.

But why am I against it? Am I only obstinate?

Well, yes I am but not only. I am also sick and tired of people trying to push their version of what's best for everybody down my throat. I am also incredibly sick of the stars of these opinions that fails to make any little sacrifice themselves. That does not compute.
For example, Al Gore took a private plane to Gardemoen to collect his Peace-prize, from Gardemoen airport he took the train in to Oslo to show his undying, real commitment to cutting carbon emissions. He couldn't be expected to bring his luggage on the train though, so it travelled in a separate Mercedes van. But it was a powerful symbol that he took the train, wasn't it?
The Scientologist and occasional "actor" John Travolta tell us not to fly, while owning his own 707 jumbo-jet (and 4 other planes) which he as a fully trained pilot fly himself from his own private landing zone in his backyard. And he does it because he loves it, like when we take our motorbike or convertible for a ride a nice spring Sunday.

John Travoltas house. I would if I could.

The supermodel Gisele Bündchen is all about Climate Change and is a spokesperson for Earth Hour, as well as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme. She encourages me to turn off the 9 lamps I have in my apartment, and she will hopefully do the same. In her houses. She has houses, with a plural "s". And apartments. And flies everywhere. But she is a symbol.

The sleepy popgroup Coldplay travels around the world on their big tours, sleeping on stages everywhere on earth but still manages to speak out against travelling. At least they planted a lot of mango-trees to suck up all the carbon-dioxide they released. Sadly they all died. Well, at least they tried. And it's a symbol.

And I don't mind any of these people doing any of these things, as long as it makes them happy. Just SHUT-THE-FUCK-UP about my life when you are much worse in every single aspect.

The problem isn't the solution

In Bangladesh there are villages with electricity, there are also villages without. The villages with electricity have a 35% lower mortality rate amongst children. In the villages without electricity there are children dying because they have Earth Hour 24/7/365. The problem is that they don't have access to electricity to cook and keep their food. The solution is more electricity, everywhere.
Earth Hour is about making the problem (no electricity) the solution. And the solution (more electricity) the problem.

That's why I will have a normal electricity consumption tonight, I will have a couple of lamps lit, I will have the telly on, the computer and the amplifier. I will still use less electricity than the average man, and far far far less than the average AGW Hollywood Saint.

The Codex Gigas

2010-03-25T18:44:00.000+01:00

Called The Devils Bible the Codex Gigas is a remarkable manuscript.
It was written in the early 13th century in a monastery in what is now the Czech Republic and is called The Devils Bible because of two things, one is that it contains an illustration of a Devil

a devil

And the other reason is the myth of it's creation.

The Myth

The Codex Gigas is rumoured to have been written by a doomed monk in the Podlažice Monastery that was sentenced to death for a crime too heinous to even be written down. Pleading for his life he promised the other monks that he would write one book celebrating the monastery and containing the answer to life, the universe and everything (which we all know now is 42 but they didn't back then). The other monks naturally scoffed and told him - "Okay, you have one night to finish it but if it's finished in the morning, we will wall your ass"
Knowing that walling actually meant being built into a wall with bricks and mortar, the monk got work writing at a speed that would make Ryoki Inoues jealous. When it became midnight, it was pretty obvious to the doomed monk that it would take a miracle for him to finish the book, he did what everybody in Hollywood does when the deadline is creeping up. He asked the Satan for help.
Satan being a pretty decent chap, showed up and finished the book wanting nothing more than 10% of all future revenues and the monks soul. A deal still regarded in showbiz today, as the best ever struck by any artist. So after Satan finished the book, our monk rose from his bath (probably, historians disagree) and added a picture of Satan in a sudden outburst of bromance.
The next morning the other monks came a-knocking, spatulas ready for some old fashion wall-in, but was met a by a beaming (and probably rose-scented, again historians disagree) monk with a finished Giant Book (Codex Gigas).

The History

It is still a great debate around how this enormous manuscript ever got written but we are fairly certain that it was written by one single monk called Herman the Recluse (cool but not as cool as Stephen the King, you do understand the "recluse" part) and that it was written in a Benedictine Monastery called Podlažice and that it was finished 1229AD. After changing owners frequently, once being owned by Rudolf II, it was taken by the glorious Swedish Army in 1648 (during the 30 year war) and since then it has resided in the National Library of Sweden.

Yes, that is a matchbox

Why it's awesome

It's absolutely massive, almost a metre high and half a meter wide. It's 22 cm thick and weighs in at around 75 Kg. The book weighs as much as me! (after I shed this holiday weight I'm carrying since x-mas).
Back then when you wrote a book, you wrote it by hand, dipping your quill in ink (which consisted of crushed insect nests) and continued to write. They haven't found a single mistake in the entire book and the ink and style is the same through it all.
New tests has shown that it would take about an hour to write one page, the decorated initials would take a couple of days each. And this is in a monastery life where you had lot's of other duties so you maybe had two-three hours a day at best, to write. Careful guesses approximate that it would take 20 years to finish it, but prefer to believe it to have taken between 25-30 years.

A big decorated initial

The Codex Gigas is the largest medieval manuscript. It's written flawlessly by one man over close to 3 decades. It combines parts of different scriptures not ever combined anywhere else. It has survived fires, wars, plunders and whatnots. It is mad and fantastic and awesome.

Links
Scanned Copy
NG documentary on Youtube
Hubpages

Scary Wednesday - Irukandji

2010-03-24T21:15:00.001+01:00

If you are small and live in the ocean you're pretty much fucked. There will be sharks, turtles, nosy divers, black smokers, moray eels and outboard motors everywhere just waiting to eat, poke and slice you into a million pieces. So you need something special to be successful, a gimmick if you will. Like Britney Spears who is s a pretty sucky singer, but compensate by not wearing knickers.

The Irukandji (Carukia Barnesi) is a jellyfish that's very small, very fragile and almost invisible as it swims in the ocean.

most venomous creature in the world

So it need something better than an absence of underwear to make it. And it has, and that is, as always; poison. Extremely potent poison, designed to catch fast moving fish and kill then in a heartbeat.
When you get stung by and Irukandji you initially just feel a mild pain that you will have no idea where it came from because the Irukandji is a little transparent devil far from the big hairy spider we featured last week. After an hour or so you start vomiting. Am I seasick? You ask yourself. Well, maybe you are but it wouldn't help if you where Captain Haddock himself, you would still empty yourself all over the Fraser Island coastline, making local birds pretty happy and local divers pretty miserable.
If you have the good luck to be close to the boat and be driven to hospital you will probably survive, although you will spend a week wishing you didn't. As the doctors pumps as much weapons-grade morphine straight into you veins as possible, you will still experience the worst pain you have ever felt. People are known to have asked their doctors to kill them to get over it. Yes, really
In the television show Super Animal a women says this:
""It's like when you're in labor, having a baby, and you've reached the peak of a contraction—that absolute peak—and you feel like you just can't do it anymore. That's the minimum that [Irukandji] pain is at, and it just builds from there."

It's called; the Irukandji Syndrome.
It's a lovely little state where you vomit, sweat profusely, cramp, kidney pain, burning skin, massive headaches, feel very agitated, you have a very high blood pressure and you heart pumps like it's trying to escape your body. Basically like Shane Macgowan feels every morning. But this lasts for days and days.

most hungover creature in the world

Very little is known about the Irukandji, partly because is nearly invisible, partly because it's very hard to handle. You can't even keep it in an aquarium cause it will break apart if it even touches the wall. It's not the rhinoceros of the seas, exactly.
What we do know is that it lives around Fraser Island north of Australia, they are related to other box jellyfish and they kill everything that touches it so they are probably lonelier than Mike Tyson.

When it stings the stingers that cover both it's tentacles and bell uncoils and millions of minute poisonous stingers (nematocysts) that travels in through you skin and releasing poison all the way through, even from the tips deeply imbedded in your flesh. Like you're gulliver but instead of ending up on the beach you find youself in a container of the Lilliputs discarded hypodermic needles. They also break off the Irukandji and continue to pump poison even after the initial contact is over. Bastard...

Oh, and there is no antidote.

Links
timsaxon
Youtube
Official Site
Discovery Channel - Killer Jellyfish

Smoke

2010-03-23T09:28:00.000+01:00

Like folded up dreams

Malin

2010-03-19T19:59:00.001+01:00

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent

- Lord Byron

Aston Martin Carbon Black Edition

2010-03-18T11:41:00.001+01:00

Some of my favourite words are "Aston Martin", "Black", "Carbon" & "Special Edition".
So if Aston Martin decided to make a Carbon Black edition of their beautiful DBS that would be pretty awesome. It would be like a peanut butter & jelly sandwich but with doughnut as bread and whipped cream on top. And you had it in a bathtub of custard. With Miranda Richardson and Kirsten Dunst. While Enya was singing in the background.

Then feast your eyes on this:

This is what the devil drives while on earth harvesting souls

This is the Aston Martin Carbon Black Edition.
It has the same wonderful 510 bhp engine as the normal DBS, with a touchtronic gearbox and is available in both Coupe and Volante (convertible) versions. There is also a V12 Vantage.
It has Obsidian black leather seats (of Kevlar) with silver stitching (hand stitched) and the car itself is handpainted (sort of) in a black colour that takes 50 hours per car to paint and quality check.
While you're cruising down the Stelvio Pass and you're getting tired of only listening to the glorious roar of the engine you must be insane, but if you are insane there is a brilliant 700w Bang&Olufsen stereo to drown out the V12 with Colony 5 (it's possible to listen to other bands but C5 is recommended)

This is pure art

So what's the price of this mid-life crisis? Well, nothing official yet but the rumour is 5% more than the standard versions which seem like a bargain with all that extra blackness.

Bespoke wheels

Beside the cosmetics and a few gadgets it's pretty much the same car as the normal DBS.

There is a 5,9l 48-valve V12 delivering a 510hp through the back wheels and will reach 100 km/h in about 4,2 sec.

It was launched 2007 to replace the Vanquish S and is designed by Henrik Fisker and sort of premièred in the James Bond movie Casino Royale.

Links

Wiki

Official

Scary Wednesday - Brazilian Wandering Spider

2010-03-17T14:47:00.001+01:00

So why is this scary? Because it’s an effing spider, of course. All spiders are the spawn of Satan and should have the common decency to stay out of everyones view.

This is my war face

This also extra scary because of several reasons,
First of all, it’s a wandering spider. That means it will fool you to think it’s less scary due to the fact that these spiders doesn’t make webs. And we all hate spiderwebs (except in photos with the morning dew covering it as the sun ascends),

Not so scary

but that also means that you have no idea where it is. It’s not confound to a large web inside a remote forest. Spiders in webs are also pretty particular on what they attack. If something too big (i.e. you) rips the web, it stays hidden and wait for you to curse, wipe the web of your face and continue with your day, only slightly more aware of your surroundings. When you are gone they set out to repair the damage and wait for insects to feast on. That’s a sweet deal between spiders and humans.

Deal breaker

The wandering spiders haven’t signed that deal though, they walk around and just wait for a fleshy human foot to sink their teeth in. Just for the hell of it…Oh, and they are nocturnal so you don’t even have a chance to see them. And during the day they hide, in your shoe or under your breakfast banana. And they have a leg span of 15 cm. And they attack everything that wakes them up with the ferocity of a demon with parent-issues.
But God can’t be so mean so that he made this angry, big spider that likes to inhabit the same places as humans poisonous, can he? That would be pretty sick of him, wouldn’t it?

Phoneutria Nigriventer

It would, and it is.
The Phoneutria Nigriventer is arguably the most poisonous on earth (and by that, probably on any planet).
6 micrograms of Nigriventer posion kills a labrat where it takes 110 micrograms of Black Widow poision to kill it's mate. They actually blend strong neurotoxins with serotonin. This shock and awe cocktail shuts down your nervous systems and cause intense spasm, tremors and incredible pain. And it inflicts you with priapism (It's what you get when you ask for Viagra in hell).

Next time you see a spider, I suggests RUN!

Links
Video
The Spider Catalouge
Pics of Wandering Spiders

Formula One - Bahrain

2010-03-15T13:18:00.000+01:00

Fernando Alonso Ferrari - © Getty Images

So here we are, the 2010 season under way and four world champions in competitive cars. All was set for a fantastic race, and all we got was a procession. The refuelling ban meant that there was no strategies at all.

It also meant that the drivers looked after their tires to the point of not daring to push. The first lap looked like a warm-up lap of GP2 cars, and it didn't get any better from there.

Sebastian Vettel started from pole in his RedBull Racing and should have easily won if one of his spark plugs hadn't broken which meant he lost a lot of power and was subsequently passed by Alonso, Massa and Hamilton and cruised home to a bitter fourth place.Worth noting is that his fastest lap was half a second faster than Alonsos.

The F1 poster-boy Michael Schumacher looked to be pretty well adjusted to F1 speeds in his Mercedes but was outpaced by his team-mate, it will be interesting if he will be able to get on top after 3-4 races.

To be fair, Sakhir is a funny track so the real test for these new rules will come on the 28th in Australia.

2009 Sakhir track

2010 Sakhir track

Australias Melbourne circuit is a more conventional track and the drivers have one race-distance (well, not Chandok, he managed just 5 laps over the entire weekend) in their backs so maybe they dare to push a little harder next time. Button said that he had been over-cautious with his tires so he at least, will be a lot braver next race.

Congrats Alonso (for the win) and SaintMagnus (for the win on the bet I put down). Sorry to all the F1 fans that should have seen an awesome race, but watched paint dry in 350 kph.

Vettel

2010-03-13T16:35:00.001+01:00

Red Bull Racing seem to have given Sebastian Vettel the car he has been waiting for. Tomorrow is gonna be extremely interesting. It down to this:

Who can conserve their tyres best
Who is fast directly in a heavy car with cold tyres
Who built the best compromise between low-fuel and high-fuel speed

Mercedes and McLaren (feels funny to separate these two) will be chasing the Ferraris and RBR:s in the end, I reckon. But my money is on Vettel holding it together.

The RB6 Racer

Movie Review - The Hurt Locker

2010-03-12T23:44:00.001+01:00

We (me and my superpartner) watched The Hurt Locker, partly because I was really interested in it. I thought I'd like it cause of the way it was filmed and that it felt like a documentary so you didn't have to sit and wait for the storyline to be played out before you. And partly because it won so surprisingly many Oscars.

We both felt it really delivered. It lacked the tedious clichés, it had A-list actors in small roles, it had brilliant actors in lead roles. It had the documentary feel with the hand held cameras without the seasickness of overly-shaky presence-hunting shots (hello Bourne 3). It also didn't bother with a film-school beginning-middle-end structure that "every story needs" according to all film school teachers I've ever met.
It sort of just continued, like you got to hang with the men for a while and then they went on trying to turn Iraq from a dictatorship to a democracy, and you continued with your life.
If you pull it off, it's awesome. And they did. With the direction, cinematography and acting being top notch, they certainly pulled it off.

People I've talked to say that it was a good movie but that it wasn't worth all the Oscars, I say; fuck the Oscars. It's all politics for retarded idiots and inbred ass-holes that only need to pat each other on the back to feel good about making millions of dollars every year to pretend to do stuff. It's the same with Live Aid, Live8, Hope for Haiti or whatever name of the event the Popstars/Actors/models/whatevers lend their names to and take their private jets to this week to feel good about themselves. Enough ranting :)

The problem I have with the Oscars are these:
In 1974 Al Pacino was Michael Corleone in The Godfather II. If you have talked film and roles with friends you have probably ended up talking Al Pacino, and probably The Godfather. So he must have won the Oscar, right? Wrong. So he must have had brilliant opposition then? Yes.
That same year Jack Nicholson did the role of his life as JJ Gittes in Chinatown. So he won then? No, he didn't. Cause the jury in all it's wisdom found that Art Carney was the logical choice for his role in Harry and Tonto (he sits on a train with his cat). I bet you and your mates haven't spent hours taking about that film! The key here is that he was due. He should have had it before so his time was up.

In 1992 Al Pacino was due, because the role he really was worth and Oscar for, went to somebody else who was worth it before, so he got it for Scent of a Woman (where he is blind, charming, drives a Ferrari and shouts everything and that is incidentally way he still shouts every line).

I also loathe the "Oscar" movies. You know those movies that you just know will be nominated even though they weren't especially good or popular. Like Chariots of Fire (students running on the beach to the music of Vangelis) who won the same year Raiders of the Lost Ark was released. May I be so bold as to say that Raiders pretty much changed cinema?
So the Academy can't recognize a truly great movie right before them, and they also lack the skill to recognize a future classic. So pretty much as useless as the UN.

In 1990 Goodfellas was released. That is the movie every director speaks about. It's at place 14 over the best movies ever on IMDB. It's so good that you actually remember it winning the Oscar. But it didn't, cause in 1990 the epic (and when I say "epic" I mean "personal insult to my backside forced to sit here and growing carbuncles to watch this putrid adolescense slush") Dances with Wolves *vomit sounds* won.

At least Pulp Fiction won, that one rewrote the book on how you make movies (and made John Travolta able to buy some new jumbojets he can fly around alone in telling people not to fly).
No wait, it didn't. Which isn't strange because it came out the same year as The Shawshank Redemption which is forever nr1 on IMDB (yeah I think the Dark Knight pushed it down for a couple of days but that's a parenthesis inside a parenthesis). So it lost to a really good opposition, at least. No, it lost to Forrest Gump ("life is like a box of chocolates" smilies and fake ping-pong).

And I must end where my hate started, when Saving Private Ryan lost to Shakespeare in Love.
When Saving Private Ryan was released in 1998 the art of war movies made a giant leap. It got the old veterans cry like school-girls. When Shakespeare in Love won the Oscar I cried like a school-girl because that was the night that I understood that even in fantasy-land, politics is just around the corner.

Stay tuned, tomorrow it's gonna be less angry and more Formula One.
Cheers

Links
http://www.cracked.com/article_18460_5-reasons-oscars-matter-even-less-than-you-thought.html
http://www.imdb.com/

Film Review - Sherlock Holmes

2010-03-12T17:19:00.000+01:00

Last night I finally got myself to go and see the new Sherlock Holmes movie by Guy Ritchie. Being a huge Sherlock nerd it was with anticipation and dread I seated myself and I must be honest, I didn't expect to like it.
But I did! It was awesome. Okay, it wasn't the slow costume-drama the Granada series with Jeremy Brett gave us, but let's be honest. Who would have wanted to see a 2 hour version of those episodes, no matter how much you absolutely love it.
I still feel Jeremy Brett did the best portrayal of Holmes ever, and that will never change.

I've read all of the stories, and to be honest they are not Nobel-prize material, and they are pretty short and empty of details. So that leaves lot's of room for interpretation, and this film; Sherlock Holmes, is Guy Ritchies interpretation of the classic old English superhero.

First of all the set direction and production design was fantastic. You became instantly transported into 19th century London, with it's dirty smelly back alleys and mix of beggars in scruffy clothes and the upperclass with beautiful dresses and suits. We even have a half-built Tower bridge, and the brilliant thing is that I was not once sucked out of the environment due to a bad CGI (hello Alice in Wonderland). I've later read that there was some small mistakes in the background but there was nothing obvious that really bothered you.

Sherlock is played by Robert Downey Jr here and it's a bit of a shocker, isn't it? An American playing the most quintessential of Brits? Well, it sort of works and it all comes down to this new take on the Holmes character they have chosen. Where Jeremy Brett almost always had every hair in the right place and was clean shaven, Downey Jr is a mess. His place is not even a creative mess, more a mess. But for me, it works!

Jeremy Brett - A clean cut SH Robert Downey Jr. - A scruffy Holmes

The movie also kept its momentum all the way through, I never once looked at my clock or let my mind wander. And I also thought it kept itself on the right side of silliness, and the homo-erotic tendencies some people found speaks more for themselves. It actually IS possible to make a modern film without making it gay, and gay doesn't make movies automatically good (hello Brokeback Mountain).

I also liked Jude Law as Watson, though the Watson-Holmes relationship was strange and different from what I've used to but totally believable. And the man looks good in a stache, what's up with that? Only Stalin, Kaiser Wilhelm and Magnum ever looked good in a moustache.

There are some plot holes and some mistakes but all in all a pretty sweet movie, and I wouldn't mind a second if there was ever a good script.

Lahar

2010-03-10T22:17:00.001+01:00

I was thinking on starting at least one reoccurring theme. And I thought that at Wednesdays I would write about stuff I fear. The plan is to also have one day a week to someone awesome. We'll see...

So we start this Scary Wednesday theme with a the Lahar. You may have heard of it, and you may think it's pretty scary. But the worst kinds of Lahars are nothing short of avalanches from hell!

A Lahar is like a mudflow, and that's not something you wanna find yourself in the path of. I mean even a normal flood can be pretty horrific when it come crashing down on you, and that is just water.
A mudflow packs a considerably harder punch due to what it consists of, like mud (duh), trees, unlucky bystanders, cars or whatever it swallows down the road. Mudslides crashes bridges my tearing their foundations apart by pure pressure, destroys houses and generally screw up everyone's day.

The bus will probably not arrive today

So a mudflow isn't a picnic, so what if that mudflow consists of pyroclastic material? Yes, pyroclastic, as in volcano! You see, lahars are volcanic mudflows.
They can move up to a 100 kph and it can be more than 1000 degrees C hot and flow more than 300 km. It's made up of molten rock, water, trees, hot ash, boulders 10 meters across and bombs. It actually grows about ten times as it speeds down the mountian and towards your house just with all the debris it picks up.
It's basically incredibly hot cement with the single purpose of killing everything.

This is the time of reckoning

As it hits a river the hot ash heats the water to a steam, which makes the pyroclastic flow move even faster on the superheated steam surface.

So this is one crazy-train from the twilight zone that will incinerate everybone in its path, asphyxiate everybody that dodged it with deadly gasses, crush all the buildings it will ever meet and eventually stop and cover entire cities all with a sort of hard cement that will never be home to life again.
So it's no surprise that Lahars are the most dangerous volcanic hazard there is, more people die of Lahars and Pyroclastic Flows than anything else the volcanoes can throw at you.

Links

YouTube movie of Lahar

Geology.sdsu.edu

Mars Trek

2010-03-09T15:44:00.000+01:00

So what are the problems of going to Mars? Well, first of all is distance. When Mars is at it's very closest to Earth, it's still 56 million km away, which is a pretty long trek by any-ones standards. But when it is at it's farthest from earth, it's 400 million km in the distance. So we need to build a pretty good spacecraft, which is what we are doing.

The Orion, built by Lockheed Martin. Designed by Nasa

to put people back on the moon and onwards to Mars

(Project Constellation)

The second problem is landing. Mars having twice the gravity of the moon, the spacecraft will be travelling at Mach 27 when it approaches Mars puny atmosphere. Heat Shields will slow it down to somewhere around Mach 2 and then we need some way to slow it down considerably more for a "safe" landing. And even when we solve that problem we're going to land pretty blind anyway, and probably in a big boulder-field with big mean stones just waiting to break a fuselage. So maybe elevators are the solution?

Sticks and stones may break my bones. Photo by Nasa Mars Pathfinder

So if we land, what then? Well we need pretty good spacesuits, the UV light passes right through the little remains of atmosphere that Mars still holds and would burn us to crisps if not properly protected, as does some sorts of ionizing radioation. Temperatures as low as -140C has been observed. Still the spacesuits would have to be a lot less cumbersome than those of today are, if the astronauts are to do some work there.

There are of course many other obstacles to over win, so why go? There are some reasons to choose Mars over other planets.

It is relatively close to Earth, it's the most like Earth, it has water ice, it's day (sol) is almost exactly as long as on Earth, it's almost exactly as big as Earth if you remove all oceans and lakes.

It's also pretty spectacular with the highest mountains and awesome canyons, it's sky is red during the day and turns blue before sunset. So colonization isn't totally impossible, if improbable at the near future.

Another more important reason is to find the second genesis, if we find life there in any form, it's one of the most important findings mankind has ever done.

It could also be that it is the first genesis. We may all be martians who long ago, through a meteorite or by some other means, life on earth may come from Mars!

May be Martian.

And on that bombshell, I wish you goodnight. Tomorrow is Wednesday and that is Scary Day here on SaintMagnus.

Sick, tired and hopeless

2010-03-09T10:51:00.000+01:00

to paraphrase The Cardigans.
The bitter clutches of the common cold have finally caught me, so I have time to ponder things. Which is probably the most worthwhile thing you can ever do.

This mornings pondering is about Mars, the neighbouring planet. It is said that we are now closer to a manned landing on Mars than we where a manned landing on the Moon in 1961. And we all know that only eight years later Neil Armstrong put his hind-leg on the grey surface.

Mars

This afternoon I will write about some of the problems with going to Mars. It's too early and I'm to sneezy to be negative.

Picture: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Mars Rover Spirit (Jan 16 2010)

And the winner is...

2010-03-08T10:07:00.000+01:00

It seems like the Oscars became a little more interesting than first believed, would have been pretty boring if Avatar got all of 'em, right?
So here are the winners:

Best Picture - The Hurt Locker
Best Director - Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
Best Actor - Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
Best Actress - Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
Best Supporting Actor - Chrsitoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Best Supporting Actress - Mo'Nique (Precious)
Best Original Screenplay - The Hurt Locker
Best Adapted Screenplay - Precious
Best Animated Feature - Up
Best Foreign Language - El Secreto de sus Ojos

So I didn't get the movie right, but I'm happy for Hurt Locker. I did get what I wanted for Director, Actor, Animated and Foreign Language. And I guessed right on Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay and Adapted Screenplay.

The Academy Awards

2010-03-08T00:24:00.000+01:00

Here are my prediction on the Oscars

Category What I think will win What I want to win

Best Picture Avatar Up

Best Director James Cameron Kathryn Bigelow (Hurt Locker)

Best Actor Jeff Bridges Jeff Bridges

Best Actress Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) Gabourey Sidibe (Precious)

Best Supp. Actor Christoph Waltz (Ingl. Basterds) Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones)

Best Supp. Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy heart) Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy heart)

Best Orig Screenplay The Hurt Locker Up

Best Adap. Screenplay Precious District 9

Best Animated Up Up

Best Foreign Lang. El Secreto de sus Ojos El Secreto de sus Ojos

2010-03-06T13:02:00.000+01:00

unhook the stars

make them rain down on us

like the Gods own raindrops

Earl Magnus

2010-03-05T11:37:00.003+01:00

I was a friendly man that refused to take part in fights. A good Christian who ruled the Island of Orkney with my cousin Haakan.
However Haakan became a little envious of my popularity (instead of just basking in my magnificence).
Well, push came to shove and we decided to settle things in a duel, and when I say duel I don't mean the old man-to-man rapier nonsense. Oh no! Each man could bring 2 ships with the best hooligans available.
I arrived at the island of Egilsay, filled to the brim with confidence, God on my side and a hankering for blood only to find that I brought a knife to a gun-fight.
My devious cousin had brought 8 ships and forever ruined the art of respectful war for everyone.
I was offered two alternatives; exile or imprisonment. But before I could even make that choice the chieftains decided that only one Earl can rule Orkney and one had to be killed.
Haakon (being a coward) ordered his standard bearer Ofeigr to handle the execution, but he refused. Being a practical man Haakon told his chef Lifolf to pick his best axe and put it in my head.

St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall opened in 1137, built by Earl Rognavald to the memory of his Uncle; Earl Magnus. In 1917 a cavity was found in a column, containing a box with bones including a damaged skull.

These where the bones of St Magnus.

This history became a part of folklore on Orkney and the beautiful name "Magnus" became a popular name there. The founder of Highland Park whisky distillery bears this name, and it's rumoured that he is of Swedish ancestry

Highland Park Earl Magnus Edition 1

Earl Magnus Edition 1 is a 15 y.o. cask strength single malt (52,6%). The Whisky is a mixture of specially selected barrels, where the youngest is from 1994.

The bottle and the label is inspired by an old bottle from the 19-th century that's been in the distillery's archive.

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Golden honey, clear and bright.
Nose: Cedarwood and lemon. Mango chunks with hints of ginger and cinnamon bark.
Palate: Vanilla, balanced smokiness, milk chocolate and crystallized ginger.
Finish: Medium sweet with lingering spiciness.

Post Alice in Wonderland

2010-03-04T22:54:00.005+01:00

English actress as Alice - Fail
Fantastic CGI - Not often enough (and some where embarrasing)
Made me feel like a kid - Still a grumpy old man
Tea & Cake - Check (but could always be more)
Beautiful Queen - Fail
Stephen Fry - Check
Miranda Richardson - Fail (happy birthday yesterday)

Final judgement:

Breitling for Bentley

2010-03-04T16:21:00.003+01:00

Two of my many passions are Watches and Cars. They also have a long standing relationship with many watch companies releasing car-themed editions or car makers choosing luxury brands as a feature in their cars. Now Breitling are making a new series of Bentley watches in honor of W.O Bentley.

And it's a thing of beauty!

It has a perpetual calendar with the capacity to calculate an extra day in February during leap years.

As a further tribute to Walter Owen Bentley, the cover of the case has an engraving where the master car maker can be seen at the wheel of one of his racing automobile

the watch features around 700parts

Alice in Wonderland

2010-03-04T13:31:00.001+01:00

Tonight me and my Fermion are gonna sink into the new Tim Burton adventure.

Looks like it's gonna be sweet! Will miss Miranda Richardson as the Queen of Hearts, though.

Until then;Spotify and Alice in Videoland

Bubbles

2010-03-03T13:34:00.003+01:00

Okay, I just inverted the image cause with white background it fits snugly into the blog design. But this is just a first baby step towards a great journey of photographing bubbles.

My last grand plan was to photograph chimneys, but got bored after a couple. I still love the way the smoke slowly rises form them a very cold day though, almost defying physics (at least questioning it sharply)

But now, it's bubbles for a while. Until bored...

Tired at ten

2010-03-02T23:22:00.001+01:00

Tonight I was absolutely knackered as early as ten, what's up with that?
Well, here is the explanation: The day just got 1,26 millionth of a second shorter thanks to the earth quake in Haiti.
(well there is a Very Long Baseline Interferometry calculation going on but my bet is on shorter)

Men Who Stare at LCD:s

2010-03-02T22:36:00.003+01:00

Here in my Car - I feel safest of all

2010-03-02T14:06:00.006+01:00

It seems like Jeremy Clarksons pessimistic adieu to supercars on the last episode of Top Gear may have been a tad premature. Look what's in the pipeline!

Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera

Koenigsegg Agera

Porsche 918

Aston Martin One-77

In sync/Out of sync

2010-03-02T08:35:00.001+01:00

This morning I woke up 4 seconds before the alarmclock was set. = In Sync
Too bad I'd set it an hour late = Out of Sync

Blackberry Royale with Lemon

2010-03-01T19:39:00.002+01:00

It's gonna happen

And might I add;

It's going down

Pay or no pay, that is the question

2010-03-01T18:16:00.000+01:00

The geniuses I'm employed by forgot that I worked for them apparently.

All work and no pay makes Magnus a dull (and poor) boy.

Todays affirmation: "I am valuable and memorable"

Now is already a memory

2010-03-01T15:40:00.001+01:00

After careful thought, lot's of coffee breaks and general lazyness I've finally got my blog underway.
The plan is grand, so this moment is special. And when I press "post" it's already gone.
Now is already a memory