Wednesday, December 28, 2005

31536001

this is the number of seconds in 2005

so?

well
normally there are only 31536000
but this year
there is a leap second

you see time is measured in two ways
officially
UTC (coordinated universal time) is measured by atomic clocks, and is based on the vibrations of cesium 133 (i think)
but it is also supposed to be analagous with astronimical time UT which is based on the roatation of the earth
now they are both pretty much the same except for one problem

the earth is slowing
which puts UTC ahead of UT
so in 1972 there was a 32 second difference
they had a 10 seconde delay and then a further 22 one second delays until 1998 when they decided that
the two times could never be allowed to deviate by more than 0.9 seconds

so this year is the first correction of time since 1998

i'm not going to bore people with any more of this

although personally this is the coolest story i've read about in ages
time isn't time !!!
einstein would have loved it

but if anybody wants more techinical time data please ask
or check out
leap second on wikipedia
or on bbc news
or the domninion post
it's all over the place

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

i confess

yesterday

i sat down

i sat down and watched

i sat down and watched the




the babysitters club



i know

i'm not proud

but i watched it from start to finish

please forgive me

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Christmas Wish

that everyone will stay safe
have a peaceful holiday
and a new year full
hopes and dreams


xxx


---

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Thursday, December 22, 2005

quote

i think it was Voltaire
i'm not sure
but i like the sentiment anyway

'as high as you are seated, you are always sitting on your ass'


something to keep in mind i think

a timely reminder

there is a christmas story that always makes me feel a little bit teary and
proud at the same time
Francis Church
thank you for keeping the christmas spirit alive so long .....

---------


Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.




"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measure by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest man that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank GOD! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

----------

Francis P. Church’s editorial, “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” was an immediate sensation, and went on to became one of the most famous editorials ever written. It first appeared in the The New York Sun in 1897, almost a hundred years ago, and was reprinted annually until 1949 when the paper went out of business.

Thirty-six years after her letter was printed, Virginia O’Hanlon recalled the events that prompted her letter:

“Quite naturally I believed in Santa Claus, for he had never disappointed me. But when less fortunate little boys and girls said there wasn’t any Santa Claus, I was filled with doubts. I asked my father, and he was a little evasive on the subject.

“It was a habit in our family that whenever any doubts came up as to how to pronounce a word or some question of historical fact was in doubt, we wrote to the Question and Answer column in The Sun. Father would always say, ‘If you see it in the The Sun, it’s so,’ and that settled the matter.

“ ‘Well, I’m just going to write The Sun and find out the real truth,’ I said to father.

“He said, ‘Go ahead, Virginia. I’m sure The Sun will give you the right answer, as it always does.’ ”

And so Virginia sat down and wrote her parents’ favorite newspaper.

Her letter found its way into the hands of a veteran editor, Francis P. Church. Son of a Baptist minister, Church had covered the Civil War for The New York Times and had worked on the The New York Sun for 20 years, more recently as an anonymous editorial writer. Church, a sardonic man, had for his personal motto, “Endeavour to clear your mind of cant.” When controversal subjects had to be tackled on the editorial page, especially those dealing with theology, the assignments were usually given to Church.

Now, he had in his hands a little girl’s letter on a most controversial matter, and he was burdened with the responsibility of answering it.

“Is there a Santa Claus?” the childish scrawl in the letter asked. At once, Church knew that there was no avoiding the question. He must answer, and he must answer truthfully. And so he turned to his desk, and he began his reply which was to become one of the most memorable editorials in newspaper history.

Church married shortly after the editorial appeared. He died in April, 1906, leaving no children.

Virginia O’Hanlon went on to graduate from Hunter College with a Bachelor of Arts degree at age 21. The following year she received her Master’s from Columbia, and in 1912 she began teaching in the New York City school system, later becoming a principal. After 47 years, she retired as an educator. Throughout her life she received a steady stream of mail about her Santa Claus letter, and to each reply she attached an attractive printed copy of the Church editorial. Virginia O’Hanlon Douglas died on May 13, 1971, at the age of 81, in a nursing home in Valatie, N.Y.

Monday, December 19, 2005

headline of the decade

"Bush hails Iraqi anti-terror role"

"US President George W Bush has told Americans that Iraq is now a strong ally against terror and a force for democracy in the Middle East."

BBC News


surely he may it may as well say

"Bush hails New York anti-terror role"
or
"Bush hails US Army anti-terror role"


i mean lets face it

there would be fuck all point in invading a country
inserting a puppet government that will do whatever you say
and for them still to be a terrorist threat
would there

god bless the 51st state
god bless the united states of america

Friday, December 16, 2005

king kong

hmmm

how can i say this?

ehhh

it sucks!!

crap script
hopeless cast
great effects but since we see them all the first time kong comes on screen
the wow facter wears off pretty damn quickly
poor human graphics though
everytime a person shared the screen with a cgi character they looked like a something out of a pixar movie

granted there were 4 or 5 great action scenes
but there were another 5 or 6 that should have been cut because they did nothing for the film except
show more effects

and for gods sake jackson
spend some time telling the story!!

ps don't tell anybody here i said this or i could possible get lynched

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

richter scale

and in case anybody is worried that a 5 sounds reasonably high on the richter scale
especially if a 7 or 8 is really really destructive
remember a 6 is 10 times bigger than a 5

for all you maths nerds, with thanks to wikipedia:~

The Richter magnitude test scale (or more correctly local magnitude ML scale) assigns a single number to quantify the size of an earthquake. It is a base-10 logarithmic scale obtained by calculating the logarithm of the combined horizontal amplitude of the largest displacement from zero on a seismogram. For example, an earthquake of magnitude 5 is ten times greater than one of magnitude 4 and an earthquake of magnitude 8 is 10(8 − 4) or 10000 times greater than one of magnitude 4.
Since the energy of an earthquake is proportional to the square root of the cube of the amplitude, each step of the Richter scale has an energy 103/2 (~ 31.6) times that of the previous step. So while a magnitude 9 has 10,000 times the amplitude of a magnitude 5 earthquake, it has a million times more energy.
The diminution of amplitude due to distance between the earthquake epicenter and the seismometer is corrected for by subtracting the common logarithm of the expected amplitude of a magnitude 0 event at that distance. This correction for distance is intended to make the local magnitude an absolute measure of earthquake size.
The magnitude of the earthquake, M, is given by:
M = log10A + 3log10(8Δt − 2.92)
where A is amplitude in millimeters and t is time in seconds.

earthquake

so i'm in bed last night
and my bed jumps

no really i thought that somebody had kicked it
and then it kinda rocked over and back for about 20 sec
i suppose like a pendulum until it settled back to where it started

and that was it
an earthquake
not scary except for the initial
'what the hell is going on?' moment

5.0 on the richter scale

http://www.geonet.org.nz/latest.html


rock on

racist comments

i know everybody has seen the racist riots in parts of sydney.

i don't know the backgroud or the reasons but nor do i care, you don't beat people up who look different to you, it's a rule
even if they were horrible ignorant people
you don't beat them up

now what concerns me most it i was reading the story on bbc and i read on down through the readers comments. when you read each comment you can recommend it ie. click on it and say you agree.

the comments that focused on the riot's being wrong received in general less than 20 recommendations
the ones in support of the racists received in some cases 3 or 4 times the amount of recommendations.
bare in mind these comments are coming from all over the world


read for your self

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?
sortBy=1&threadID=581&start=15&tstart=0&edition=2&ttl=20051213004652&#paginator


im worried
should i be

Friday, December 09, 2005

hmmmm

CSI
24
Special Victims Unit
Boston Legal

these are the tv shows i've been watching a lot lately

why?

is it because they're all about death, destruction and evil?

if i was to murder somebody

would the papers suggest that it was because of an unnatural obsession with murder?

would they?

well maybe

but i think it's because i don't have cable tv

Friday, December 02, 2005

...

it's windy
the wooden gate next door keep crashing together at strangely regular intervals
the sails over the car port are flapping and really if you close your eyes you can imagine they are real sails and you're out at sea
the pile of leaves in the corner of the garden are getting spread all over the place
the window in the front room is rattling a bit
my feet are cold
i had to go put a jumper on
no sun

it's windy

free speech?

http://www.prussianblue.net/fanmail.htm


thanks for ruining my morning

Thursday, December 01, 2005

on exercise

so i've started a get fit regime
i've haven't done any exercise in about 6 years
so i decided to take up running every day to build up a bit of basic fitness
so this is day two
and i've managed another 3 minute run before my lungs exploded
so it seems it's my aerobic fitness that is really awfull
oh well
i guess it take a week or so before your body realises that
your expecting it to do more than it's use to

i'll keep you posted
roll on day three