None of my Chrome installs on _any_ of my devices will show this as a home page.
Go figure!
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
East Enders
Today I have learned about pre-cambrian fossilised arthropod brains, seen how the angular projection of Voyager 2 is comparable to the size of an e-coli bacteria when projected onto the ground, read how the biggest star ever discovered is tearing itself apart and seen how a big piece of a russian meteorite has been found in a lake.
I have never watched an episode of East Enders or Breaking Bad and the last time I saw a game of football was in 1995 and that was to be polite to my neighbour.
Life is too short to waste it on crap when there are still a billion new things to understand.
I have never watched an episode of East Enders or Breaking Bad and the last time I saw a game of football was in 1995 and that was to be polite to my neighbour.
Life is too short to waste it on crap when there are still a billion new things to understand.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Doing the math
I'm sorry to keep harping on about this now but I have just had another sort of epiphany regarding math.
It seems to me that math has become the be-all and end-all of physics simply because making a mathematical approximation of something that works to n decimal places is deemed to be good enough.
Well, here's the thing. Schrodinger made a shitload of pretty math that describes electron orbitals. This math is fairly dense and difficult to understand. However, if you take a four dimensional figure with varying phase changes then you can exactly duplicate the result of those equations without ever having to resort to the pretty math. Which one is correct? The dense math because it looks cool if you can do it or the brute-force because it works?
I just wrote about fifteen lines of code that spits out graphical representations of electron orbitals and never goes near Schrodinger's equations.
Now then. When was the last time anyone actually saw an electron orbital in the flesh?
Atomic force microscopes are cool but they show little spheres.
It seems to me that math has become the be-all and end-all of physics simply because making a mathematical approximation of something that works to n decimal places is deemed to be good enough.
Well, here's the thing. Schrodinger made a shitload of pretty math that describes electron orbitals. This math is fairly dense and difficult to understand. However, if you take a four dimensional figure with varying phase changes then you can exactly duplicate the result of those equations without ever having to resort to the pretty math. Which one is correct? The dense math because it looks cool if you can do it or the brute-force because it works?
I just wrote about fifteen lines of code that spits out graphical representations of electron orbitals and never goes near Schrodinger's equations.
Now then. When was the last time anyone actually saw an electron orbital in the flesh?
Atomic force microscopes are cool but they show little spheres.
Conspiracy theory?
So I have given up using iGoogle as my favoured home-page and have gone back to my.Yahoo
The odd thing is that Chrome seems to ignore the fact that I have set my homepage to Yahoo!. Is this grounds for an anti-trust case?
The odd thing is that Chrome seems to ignore the fact that I have set my homepage to Yahoo!. Is this grounds for an anti-trust case?
Higgs Bogon
The Nobel prize for physics is as much of a disappointment this year as the peace prize.
The committee have awarded Peter Higgs for the prediction of his eponymous particle that "confers mass on matter"
Well, actually the results show a "particle", in an energy range that did not correspond to Higgs' first choice of ballpark figures and that has no recognised function. This is like awarding an explorer who declared himself to be looking for Yeti as the greatest Yeti hunter who ever found an ant-hill. There is no Yeti as yet but there is definitely a bump full of something.
So, the big question is: What are Higgs' Bosons made of? What is this "particle" and how can such a thing confer mass by making the things that contain it stick more strongly to the magical Higgs Field? BOGUS!
I can't believe in this stuff any more! I was such an avid science freak and wolfed all this sort of thing down as gospel but now I look upon it all with pity for a bunch of misguided and short-sighted people who are too busy slapping their own backs to see the real world.
We have physicists jumping up and down and peeing in their pants because of a data blip. All of the math that was done since 1926 is wrong! The first term of the first line of Einstein's equation was WRONG! DELTA T is BOGUS!!! There ain't no frikkin delta in t, get used to it!
The committee have awarded Peter Higgs for the prediction of his eponymous particle that "confers mass on matter"
Well, actually the results show a "particle", in an energy range that did not correspond to Higgs' first choice of ballpark figures and that has no recognised function. This is like awarding an explorer who declared himself to be looking for Yeti as the greatest Yeti hunter who ever found an ant-hill. There is no Yeti as yet but there is definitely a bump full of something.
So, the big question is: What are Higgs' Bosons made of? What is this "particle" and how can such a thing confer mass by making the things that contain it stick more strongly to the magical Higgs Field? BOGUS!
I can't believe in this stuff any more! I was such an avid science freak and wolfed all this sort of thing down as gospel but now I look upon it all with pity for a bunch of misguided and short-sighted people who are too busy slapping their own backs to see the real world.
We have physicists jumping up and down and peeing in their pants because of a data blip. All of the math that was done since 1926 is wrong! The first term of the first line of Einstein's equation was WRONG! DELTA T is BOGUS!!! There ain't no frikkin delta in t, get used to it!
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Nobel Peace Prize is bullshit.
Over the last few years I have been astounded at the Nobel Committee's unflinching and shameful pandering to political pressure and inability to nominate a peace-prize winner who truly makes a difference.
The nomination of Barak Obama, despite my admiration for the man as an intelligent force for progress in a country that needs progress more than most, was a weak and sorry excuse that made no mark on the world.
To ignore Malala Yousafzai in favour of a Qwango is worse than their refusal to award Mahatma Gandhi for his efforts. A girl who's life might so easily have been destroyed by religious extremism and who escaped that fate by such a slim margin to make a cause for the rights of simple respect and education for female children shouldn't be ignored. Peace is about people.
The nomination of Barak Obama, despite my admiration for the man as an intelligent force for progress in a country that needs progress more than most, was a weak and sorry excuse that made no mark on the world.
To ignore Malala Yousafzai in favour of a Qwango is worse than their refusal to award Mahatma Gandhi for his efforts. A girl who's life might so easily have been destroyed by religious extremism and who escaped that fate by such a slim margin to make a cause for the rights of simple respect and education for female children shouldn't be ignored. Peace is about people.
Goodbye to Google
I switched to iGoogle as a home page many years ago and have been using it every day and indeed every time I hit the web ever since.
Before that I had a Yahoo! page that I had various news and science widgets installed on.
Recently I've been looking for an alternative to my iGoogle page and logged in to my old Yahoo! one to find settings from a decade ago still there and still usable. It was like coming home to the farm and finding Old-Yeller romping down the drive to meet me.
Goodbye Google. Hello old friend...
Before that I had a Yahoo! page that I had various news and science widgets installed on.
Recently I've been looking for an alternative to my iGoogle page and logged in to my old Yahoo! one to find settings from a decade ago still there and still usable. It was like coming home to the farm and finding Old-Yeller romping down the drive to meet me.
Goodbye Google. Hello old friend...
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Back up at long last
Poor old Octogig has stood in a corner unused for about four months. Today I managed to get it installed at the hackspace and I have my own four square feet of desk!
The network is nice and quick so I updated the web site with some minor cosmetic changes and now I actually have Windows dev tools again I will be able to do some proper work!
The network is nice and quick so I updated the web site with some minor cosmetic changes and now I actually have Windows dev tools again I will be able to do some proper work!
Wednesday, October 09, 2013
2hack or /2hack = true
I just joined a hackspace!
I've been living in a tiny house for the last few months and I've been used to having a big workshop, a man-cave style shed and room to put all my projects and electronic junk wherever I liked.
I hadn't realised just how much actual room I needed for an electronic workbench, oscilloscopes, test meters, screens and dev kit!
There is a hacker-space near to me and so I've taken full membership and will have my gear installed including full logmein access to Octogig and all his development goodness before the weekend.
Ahh. I can feel the inspiration rising...
I've been living in a tiny house for the last few months and I've been used to having a big workshop, a man-cave style shed and room to put all my projects and electronic junk wherever I liked.
I hadn't realised just how much actual room I needed for an electronic workbench, oscilloscopes, test meters, screens and dev kit!
There is a hacker-space near to me and so I've taken full membership and will have my gear installed including full logmein access to Octogig and all his development goodness before the weekend.
Ahh. I can feel the inspiration rising...
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