Tangential Ramblings

Sorry to all the astronomers out there; I take it back. I've just read up a little more on 2002 UB313 or Sedna as it's now being called, and done a few calculations.

The Earth's moon is about 382,480km away from Earth and 3,476km in diameter. (Interestingly, the Shuttle would have to go 400 times higher than its current altitude to get to the moon.) Resorting back to the good ol' inverse tan function, this means that the angle that your eyes would move between looking at the left-hand edge of the moon and the right-hand edge is around 0.52°, or 0.009 radians. Put another way, if you were out at sea (with a full 180° sky), you'd need 346 moons in a string to go from one horizon to the diametrically opposite horizon.

Now take our new friend Sedna. It's less than 1,700km in diameter and is currently 13,000,000,000km away from us. That means that its equivalent angle is 0.00000749° or 0.00000013 radians, so you'd need 48,047,887 of them to stretch in an arc across the sky. In other words, visually, it is 69,425 times smaller (in terms of width, not area) than the moon.

If you chose to look through your telescope at night, assuming you're on the correct side of the earth at the time, if you chose a single point at random to look at in space, there would be a 467,621,956,521,874 to 1 chance that you'd be looking at Sedna.

Well done for finding it!

It's been quite a busy week with work, which I almost always prefer to having little to do. Things are largely fun, yet challenging, and the next few months will hopefully continue in the same vein.

I did manage to catch the Shuttle launch earlier in the week, though. It never fails to impress me, despite there having been so many over the past 20 years or so. However, with the media attention (and that of Nasa) in the four days since the launch having focused on potential damage to the Shuttle, it seems as if this mission is turning into an investigation into whether the Shuttle is fit for re-entry as opposed to one focusing on other scientific endeavours. Some of the video footage available on the NASA website is pretty impressive.

Meanwhile back on earth, astronomers have discovered our solar system's tenth planet, imaginatively named 2003 UB313. Given the technology available to us nowadays, it seems bizarre that something so large could have evaded our detection for so long, particularly given that Pluto was discovered back in 1930. I know it's quite a long way away, but hey.

Google has got in on the space act, by providing a lunar equivalent to Google Maps. Zoom sufficiently far in, and you'll see that the moon is indeed made of cheese, which leads me on to the seemingly eccentric Canadian cheese-maker Luc Boivin. He believes that by aging his cheese at the bottom of a murky lake, the pressure and coolness will provide optimal conditions for a perfect cheese. I'd love a taste!

We just watched A Few Good Men on TNT. Good film (not great), tarnished slightly by the taming of the language geared to the family audience. Despite this, I find it hard to think of a scene as strong and memorable as the court interchange between Cruise and Nicholson. It has to be the best scene in a movie ever, but I'm happy to take alternative suggestions.

Well actually you didn't, but couldn't resist the title, given the subject matter.

About five years ago (while exiting Embankment tube station if I remember rightly), I wondered why hearing aids were so ugly. In a vain attempt to blend in with skin colour (as long as your skin is a sickly sludge colour), instead they seem to stand out. They always struck me as akin to the age-old National Health glasses in terms of their appearance.

Older people may not be too bothered about the look, but I figured that younger people who rely on the devices must feel very self-conscious. So, I mused, instead of trying to make them blend in, why not make them stand out? Produce them in bright colours with the option of skinning them to suit different outfits. The idea was sufficiently inspired to share with my now wife, but also sufficiently radical to prevent me from acting upon it.

Today, I read of the very same idea on (where else) the BBC's website. The RNID is teaming up with some design bodies to launch an exhibition to showcase new technologies and designer hearware. There's even a device with a remote control to block out irritating sounds. Could be useful in the office on occasions, and I'm sure my colleagues would concur.

I've finally got round to enabling Google Search, enabling you to find articles of old on this site, but also to search the world wide web at large. Hope you like it (over to the left).

Thought you might appreciate this card that I received for my birthday. I struggled to stop laughing at repeated points during the ensuing evening at the very thought of the card.

Caption inside: (please ignore Stephanie) Happy Birthday!

Today's news that the recent fatal shooting at Stockwell Underground station was unconnected to the bombings and the attempted bombings will come as a huge blow to both the police and the Muslim community, as well as the family of the murdered man.

The anxiety that is no doubt an undercurrent throughout London's transport network has been the cause of a seemingly innocent death. The British police, who are not renowned for their race relations, will face some serious questions over the next few weeks, and the Muslim community must be concerned about the possibility of racial stereotyping being the main driver - if a white man had acted in the same way, would he be dead now?

The fact that the man was wearing a large coat in the middle of summer, along with the allegation that he ignored the police's earlier calls to stop, would likely put him under some level of suspicion, but for him to die as a result seems so wrong.

Something quickly needs to be done about the security of the Underground to ensure that Friday's death is not repeated. If that means more security at ground level, then so be it. Given the extreme mentality of the guilty few, everything needs to be done to prevent them from getting into the Underground in the first place. How to deal with the analogous situation aboard buses is another story.

The Indians are 29-1 this season in games in which they've scored six or more runs. Sometimes I wonder how they concoct the statistics, but this proves just how reliant on stats American sport is.

Sad to see Andy & Sarah leave New York after their 2.5 year stint over here. Looking forward to the travel updates as they wend their way across America before heading home, but need the URL - Andy?

Nice, simple idea to be found at Tiny URL. Essentially, it's a redirection service, but it allows you to replace long, unwieldy URLs with more manageable ones within the www.tinyurl.com domain. Quite helpful when you're pasting long URLs into emails or IM conversations - it's usually the simple concepts that work best. It's also quite nice that the site's owner(s) has a penchant for unicycling, as found in their left-hand nav.

Two weeks after the London bombings, things must have been agony for those caught up in the attempted repeat today. And over in Jersey City today, there was a scare resulting from an unattended bag left on a bus.

Generally, people are more on edge, more alert, and more reactive to suspicious behaviour and packages than before. While walking across lower Manhattan this morning, I alerted a guy to a package that seemed to have no owner; it turned out to be harmless and attended, albeit at a distance.

Hopefully, the failed attempts in London today will lead to the culprits, both those with the detonators and those behind them. In the meantime, and probably thereafter, the inherent accessibility of public transport means that it will continue to be a prime target, particularly in London and New York. It seems the only way to confront it is through vigilance.

Well, today I reached the milestone of 32 - at around 5am this morning, if memory serves me. Quite a nice number all in all - 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2. I figure that if I'm lucky I've got a few x^y (where y >1) birthdays left: 36, 49, 64; if I'm really lucky 81. 100, 121, 125 and 128 are probably going to be a stretch.

Went for a celebratory haircut this morning, and what better way to start the day than with the following, back-to-back on the radio whilst being shorn: Amy Stewart's Knock on Wood, Kylie's Locomotion and Kelly Marie's I Feel Like I'm In Love. I couldn't help but walk out of the shop smiling to myself (and the outside world).

My Mum has been in town for the last few days, so have been entertaining her while she's here. (She may beg to differ.) On Saturday night we went to The Harrison, a swish restaurant on the junction of Harrison Street and Greenwich Street. If you read the hype, it has received some rave reviews. In my opinion, the food was good, not great, but the restaurant itself was very nice. The waiter was way too effusive, describing each of the dishes using overly long adjectives. I like to get a feel for a menu from the waiter, but it felt like we'd experienced each dish being cooked (and each wine being aged) before ordering.

Other than that, we've hopefully shown my Mum the New York experience. If you listed the things that we've 'done', it would be quite a short list, but I think that wandering the streets and taking in New York life can be much more fun than queuing for 2 hours to go up the Empire State Building, or going to yet another Natural History museum.

We went out to Arturo's with Andy, Sarah, Iloire and Haven the other night, and I was surprised to find someone (Iloire) who shared my love of punctuation, particularly given the derision with which it has been received among my co-workers. We were both enamoured of the semi-colon, a rarely used artefact that always brings a smile to my face when I come across it. It's nice to know that I'm not alone. It reminded me of an article I read some time ago on Joel on Software about potential confusion with punctuation.

Thanks to my wife for a lovely birthday present, btw.

It's been a hard week to be away from London. I certainly had no desire to be around for the bombings last Thursday, but I've felt a million miles away throughout the subsequent week, during which people have demonstrated their solidarity and been there for one another. London has shown its true colours since the attacks, and I was sad not to be able to show my support in person.

How cool is this? It's a clock that counts from 00:00:00 (midnight) to 24:00:00 (midnight), but only increments when it reaches a prime number for its six digits. So, it goes 00:00:02, 00:00:03, 00:00:05,...,00:01:03, right through to 23:59:51 (since 235,951 is prime). Apparently, there are 7,661 time-primes between 0 and 240,000, so the clock increments on average around once every five seconds. Unfortunately, it's (a) not very accurate, (b) a bit pricey and (c) quite ugly. But a lovely idea nonetheless.

Thanks to Rob for pointing this out :)

I've not made mention of the Tour de France as yet, but it's always a great event to watch - possibly the ultimate test of human endurance. Anyway, today's stage proved how far ahead of the rest Lance Armstrong is. Although he was held off the stage win by Alejandro Valverde, Lance blew away all of his serious rivals, with Jan Ullrich losing 2'12", dropping to eighth overall, over 4 minutes behind the American.

It was also amazing to see the closest ever finish on Saturday, with Pieter Weening winning by a 5,000th of a second.after over five hours of riding (0.0000011%). Nice.

Bush has predictably used the London bombings as further reason for the war on terror in Iraq. In reference to Al Qaeda, he stated that "When they are constantly on the run they can't plan attacks, so we and our allies will stay on the offensive." The worry about that tactic is that it seems to negate the need for an exit strategy from Iraq.

A lovely weekend in Connecticut visiting some friends in Westport. Great to see Jodi and Paloma after so long. We didn't really do much, which was the nice part - just catching up with one another and relaxing. We must do that more often.

And tonight, we began our pottery class, which was great fun! Messy and disorganised as hell, but kinda got the hang of things - hopefully there'll be something worthwhile at the end of week eight.

A few links worthy of varying levels of note forwarded by a good friend yesterday, which I thought some might be interested in. First of all, someone questioning the Universal Theory of Gravity. I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently well versed in physics to validate their statements or otherwise, but if someone else is sufficiently well educated, then some further commentary would be welcomed - it would certainly be a weight off my shoulders!

Next, a page that simply reels off 1,000,001 digits of pi. (Or pi to 1,000,000 decimal places.) I like that. It reminds me of Akira Haraguchi, who recently reeled off the first 83,431 digits from memory. The amusing part of the story is the fact that part way through, he lost his place and had to start again, and that he had to abandon a previous attempt as the facility he was competing in had to close for the night. It also reminds me of a poster you can buy for $83 that is merely a print of (2^25,964,951)-1, the largest known prime as of February this year. I'd quite like that poster :)

Finally, an article entitled Programmers Need To Learn Statistics Or I Will Kill Them All. While a little extreme in its sentiment, I think the message is primarily a good one. I've never really thought about performance testing as one following statistical models, but I suppose at the end of the day, there is noise that needs to be allowed for, and seemingly identical tests will result in a range of data that needs to be interpreted just like those in experimental physics or any other application to which statistics lends itself so nicely.

Shock and sadness on waking this morning at the four bomb blasts in London. Seeing the pictures of the bus in Tavistock Square, it seems remarkable that it only caused two fatalities. Thoughts out to all those who have been affected.

As the G8 summit continues, The Girl in the Café aired this evening, a very recently made Richard Curtis film based on the G8 summit currently underway, and the plight of Geldof and co. with respect to Africa. The film is quite beautiful, and focuses on the awkward, believable relationship between a civil servant and a quiet, yet outspoken younger woman. Although the political undertones are somewhat overdone, the film is certainly worth the time.

"As the newest recognised sport, darts, under the guidance of the British Darts Organisation, pledges its wholehearted support for the Olympic Games in London and would be proud to be considered as the host nation's 'invitation sport' in 2012."
British Darts Organisation chief Olly Croft

I can just imagine a Lakeside-esque picture of quaffing Brits behind world-class athletes at the oche. Genius!

What a great result. Just as it was all the sweeter last summer to be in America for their thrashing at the hands of Europe in the Ryder Cup, so the success of London over New York for 2012 can be savoured all the more being over here.

It will be good for London to host the Olympics, and will be particularly good for the East End, which will welcome the investment. The weasel-like Ken Livingston was quoted as saying "We'll give the world the best Games they've ever seen." They'll have some work to do to come close to Sydney's success and professionalism.

I had some pictures developed the other day, some from recent camera escapades, some from a film I found in a bag. The latter are from around 2002, I think. Below are some highlights. Click on the image for a closer look.

First, some of the older stuff:

Bryant Park:

Sky-writing above the Upper West Side:

Looking south down Sixth Avenue:

A suspension bridge on the way to Newport, Connecticut:

The last ever Concorde flight, over Clapham:

A marguerite in bloom in our garden back in London town:

And now some more recent additions.

JFK's memorial at the Arlington National Cemetery, Washington DC:

The Washington Memorial, Washington DC:

The White House:

Some views from the lounge window:

Enjoy!

What a beautiful day. And what better way to wile away some time on Independence Day than to try my hand at baseball. There are some batting cages just up the waterfront, so I popped on down to try my luck/skill. Below is a summary of the outcome.

From 45 45mph balls, I successfully hit (to varying degrees) 38, or 84%. Not bad, I thought. I then faced a further 30 balls, each racing towards me at 55mph and managed to hit 20, 67%.

A crude assumption would be that with every ten miles per hour increase, my average hit rate decreases by 17 percentage points. Under this assumption, I would get my bat to 16% of the slow 85mph balls of the Major League. With the 95mph balls, I wouldn't get a look in.

However, I sincerely believe that if I had started my baseball career at a younger age, I would now be in the middle of a $45m contract with the Red Sox. Who knows, and more to the point, who can argue?

Originally, I naïvely thought my renaming of comments links to "Something to say?" might prevent the comment spammers from having their say on my site. It seemed to work for around 24 hours, but then the spam only got worse. Then the other day, I trawled through all of my historic posts tagging spam as such to remove it from the offering. This seemed to fuel the fire, with more spam than ever arriving in the subsequent days.

Hopefully, we now have a strategic solution. A combination of technical expertise from Rob and a little futzing around in templates by myself meant that we successfully installed a plug-in meaning that all comments require an authentication code to be entered. The code appears atop a gif neatly taken from the side of the cab appearing at the top of this page, and is designed to prevent spam-bots from having their evil way.

Before researching this topic a little further, I thought the spammers wanted to put links on my site so that people may stumble upon them and click them, thus generating traffic for their own offerings. It actually transpires that their main aim is for search engines (specifically brybgr) to elevate their sites within their rankings due to the prevalence of links on other sites it crawls. Hopefully I've single-handedly succeeded in knocking them off the first page, making their search-result next-to-useless. Here's hoping.