Comet McNaught in the Daganeese sky

Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) is currently visible in the low sky just after sunset – look in the direction of the setting sun about 5 minutes after the top of the sun clears the horizon.

Comet McNaught - 2

Comet McNaught caught between two houses. Taken with Tamron 70-300 mm lens at 300 mm on a Nikon D50. 1/4 sec exposure at f8.
The comet was only visible from my location for about 30-45 minutes, from sundown until it vanished behind the houses. I didn’t really get time to tune the camera settings to get best results, but I’m rather happy with this image.

Two years old and still no idea what I want it for

Affable-lurking is just over two years old now, it was never meant to be a blog, which is good, because it is arguably not one. One point two posts per month on average, and less than fifty comments in two years does not a successful blog make. I have one of those elsewhere, I post about my cats and thing, I get comments.

This was supposed to be  somewhere to try out stuff. I wish I could remember what it was I wanted to try out. Maybe I’ll revive the Amorphia project, ditch wordpress and run A-L on my own content manager system. Or maybe not.

Another end of an era

This morning at 05:30 the Open University broadcast its last TV program. I’ve fond memories of watching the programs in the mornings at the weekend when I was a kid. They are probably in no small part a reason why I ended up as a scientist.

I’d been planning to write more about this, but forgot. As it happens, the excellent Diamond Geezer has a fine post on the subject (which I would link to, but in my tea-less state I can’t work out how to link to a specific blogspot post – it’s on his main page at the moment though) here (thanks dg).

Dear Friend,

I write to you in closest confidence.

This morning while leaving the house I made a most marvelous discovery. Upon setting foot outside my front door I was buffeted and pushed around by an invisible force. Now being a God-fearing man I at first assumed the rapture was upon us and the end times were drawing near, however, neither recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, nor offering up my soul to Beelzebub made any difference to my plight.

Like a man possessed I twisted and turned and thrashed around seeking to lessen the violence upon my person. By happenstance I was fortunate enough to fall over and I lay close to the ground by a low wall. Hailuih! All at once the pummeling of my body ceased.

By good fortune and grace I, while sheltered, was able to observe several other poor wretches caught up in the violent maelstrom. I was able to witness the effect I had so recently been subject to being played out on those in my vicinity, some of whom appeared to be suffering moreso than I.

With time, the effect died away and I was able to leave the rude shelter that had so perfectly shielded me from the havoc. The street was a scene of disarray, litter was scattered hither and thither with nary a care for good order or recycling. Of the poor wretches I had observed but was unable to assist, there was no sign.

It has taken me most of the morning and a good deal of opium laced brandy to calm my nerves and formulate a theory as to what happened.

I believe there was some kind of disturbance in the All-around null-state that Invades and peRmiates Earthly creation (AIR for short). I further believe this may be the first recorded account of such a disturbance. As such it falls to me to name this natural wonder.

After much consideration (and the aforementioned brandy) I propose the appellation “wind” for this phenomena. I will need to work on the theory of this “wind” somewhat further before going to the Royal Society with my discovery, but I will first send a communication to the Editor of the Times to claim the discovery for myself.

I trust this letter finds you well.

cheers,
Dave

Recycled from a posting elsewhere earlier in the year

An update

Being unemployed should in theory give you lots of spare time. It’s a nice theory, it hasn’t worked out in practice – hence lack of updates here.

Job hunting happens and I’m keeping an eye on my old lab and things happening there, I see that two projects I’ve been associated with in the past or are directly related to my research have recently made the news, the test of the ATLAS Magnet at CERN and the report from research at the University of Rochester of the formation of Black Metals.

I worked for a period of two years in the ATLAS collaboration before drastically switching field and working with lasers for structuring materials. I’ll be following both these stories pretty closely in the coming months.