Record Arsenal signing Mesut Ozil is looking like excellent value for his 42.5 million pounds transfer fee – he set up all three goals for Arsenal in yesterday’s 3-1 home win against Stoke City (Ozil's home debut match, no less) which put the Gunners top of the Premier league after 5 games of the new season. Nice!
Monday, September 23, 2013
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Space, the final front ear
Here is a very nice blog about could-have-been, should-have-been space missions that never happened: Beyond Apollo
Saturday, September 21, 2013
View Talay 2a Condo, Jomtien Beach, Pattaya, Thailand
The condominium development named in the title of this post is, according to my wife Su, the best place to rent or buy a condo in the Pattaya area, and I have to say that I agree with her. She should know after all, because she is Thai and lives in the area. Read her unbiased post about it in her blog here:
Condominium advice for Pattaya and Jomtien Beach, Thailand
Condominium advice for Pattaya and Jomtien Beach, Thailand
Friday, September 20, 2013
Apparently we're all aliens
This article is very interesting, especially if you misread the title at first glance: Organisms ‘originated from space’
Thursday, September 19, 2013
New videos added to my YouTube channel
With reference to my YouTube posts in June this year and also July 2010, I have added 24 more new videos into my YouTube channel over the past two days, so there are now just over 300 great videos in my channel in total.
The new videos include trailers, movie clips and featurettes from Pixar's "Monsters University", Disney's "Planes", Illumination's "Despicable Me 2", Disney's "Frozen" and Marvel's "Thor: The Dark World". And if you're interested, there are over 100 free Flash online games based on these and other movies and cartoons in the Dan-Dare.org and FlashyOnlineGames.com websites.
The new videos include trailers, movie clips and featurettes from Pixar's "Monsters University", Disney's "Planes", Illumination's "Despicable Me 2", Disney's "Frozen" and Marvel's "Thor: The Dark World". And if you're interested, there are over 100 free Flash online games based on these and other movies and cartoons in the Dan-Dare.org and FlashyOnlineGames.com websites.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
MarioWebGames.com and SonicWebGames.com
This is a belated follow-up to my post back in April about MarioWebGames.com and SonicWebGames.com, this time featuring some actual games from the two sites that can be played straight from here:
MarioWebGames.com
Mario's Adventure 2
Bullet Bill 2
SonicWebGames.com
Sonic Match-It
Sonic Chaos Crush (Sonic Breakout)
(See also here)
MarioWebGames.com
Mario's Adventure 2 Bullet Bill 2SonicWebGames.com
Sonic Match-It Sonic Chaos Crush (Sonic Breakout)(See also here)
Monday, September 16, 2013
FlashyOnlineGames.com game recommendations
Expansion of FlashyOnlineGames.com to include more and more high-quality Flash online games continues at a rapid pace. Below is a series of posts in my FlashyOnlineGames.com Blog listing many of the best games now in the site which I thoroughly recommend you to take the time to try out - I promise you will be pleased you did:
Disney Flash online games
Pixar Flash online games
Flash games based on TV cartoon shows
More Flash games based on classic cartoons
Sonic and Mario games
Classic retro computer and arcade games
Disney Flash online games
Pixar Flash online games
Flash games based on TV cartoon shows
More Flash games based on classic cartoons
Sonic and Mario games
Classic retro computer and arcade games
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Wow - Mesut Ozil was a good buy for Arsenal!
With reference to my post earlier this month about Arsenal signing Mesut Ozil: it took the German midfielder just 10 minutes in his Arsenal debut game today (a 3-1 win away to Sunderland) to notch up his first goal-assist for the club when he set up Olivier Giroud for Arsenal's first.
Given that Ozil was also involved in almost everything else Arsenal did going forward, it seems he was indeed a very good buy. Still, it's very early days yet. Fingers crossed he will keep today's form going and going!
Given that Ozil was also involved in almost everything else Arsenal did going forward, it seems he was indeed a very good buy. Still, it's very early days yet. Fingers crossed he will keep today's form going and going!
The Ig Nobel Prize Awards 2013
This article in Yahoo! UK yesterday made me laugh so much when I first read it, and I'm still getting minor after-giggles an hour later while starting to write about it here!
Wacky Ig Nobel prizes show the funny side of science
The tongue-in-cheek Ig Nobel awards were handed to dozens of scientists, including those who confirmed drunk people think they are more attractive and studied the onion enzyme that makes us cry.
The Nobel prize spoof honors achievements "that first make people laugh and then make them think," according to a press release. The Ig Nobels invite real Nobel laureates to confer honors on serious scientists for work that is generally only unintentionally funny.
There is also a peace prize, which this year was jointly awarded to the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, for making it illegal to applaud in public, and to the Belarus police "for arresting a one-armed man for applauding."
The safety engineering prize went to late American researcher Gustano Pizzo, who invented a system to trap airplane hijackers, seal them into a package and parachute them into the hands of police.
A team from Britain, the Netherlands and Canada were awarded the probability prize for determining that the longer a cow has been lying down, the more likely it is it will soon stand up.
They also discovered that once a cow stands up, you cannot easily predict how soon it will lie down again.
The physics prize went to researchers who discovered that some people would be physically capable of running across the surface of a pond -- if those people and that pond were on the moon.
A joint award in biology and astronomy was given to a team from Sweden, Australia, Germany, Australia and the UK, who uncovered the fact that when dung beetles get lost, they can navigate their way home by looking at the Milky Way.
The study by researchers who confirmed drunk people really do think they are more attractive won the Psychology Prize.
A team from Japan and Germany tackled the age-old question of why onions make us cry and discovered merely that the biochemical process is "even more complicated than scientists previously realized."
The archaeology prize went to a US-Canada team who parboiled a dead shrew, swallowed it without chewing, and then carefully examined their excretions to see which bones dissolve inside the human digestive system.
It was the 23rd edition of the Ig Nobels, awarded at the uber-prestigious Harvard University in Boston.
The prize-winners, who travel to the ceremony at their own expense, were given 60 seconds for an acceptance speech, a time limit enforced by an implacable eight-year-old girl.
The ceremony also included the premiere of a mini-opera called "The Blonsky Device," inspired by the life and work of 1999 Ig Nobel Prize winners George and Charlotte Blonsky.
The couple invented a machine to aid a woman in giving birth by strapping her onto a circular table, which is then rotated at high speed.
(The awards are organised by Improbable Research.)
Wacky Ig Nobel prizes show the funny side of science
The tongue-in-cheek Ig Nobel awards were handed to dozens of scientists, including those who confirmed drunk people think they are more attractive and studied the onion enzyme that makes us cry.
The Nobel prize spoof honors achievements "that first make people laugh and then make them think," according to a press release. The Ig Nobels invite real Nobel laureates to confer honors on serious scientists for work that is generally only unintentionally funny.
There is also a peace prize, which this year was jointly awarded to the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, for making it illegal to applaud in public, and to the Belarus police "for arresting a one-armed man for applauding."
The safety engineering prize went to late American researcher Gustano Pizzo, who invented a system to trap airplane hijackers, seal them into a package and parachute them into the hands of police.
A team from Britain, the Netherlands and Canada were awarded the probability prize for determining that the longer a cow has been lying down, the more likely it is it will soon stand up.
They also discovered that once a cow stands up, you cannot easily predict how soon it will lie down again.
The physics prize went to researchers who discovered that some people would be physically capable of running across the surface of a pond -- if those people and that pond were on the moon.
A joint award in biology and astronomy was given to a team from Sweden, Australia, Germany, Australia and the UK, who uncovered the fact that when dung beetles get lost, they can navigate their way home by looking at the Milky Way.
The study by researchers who confirmed drunk people really do think they are more attractive won the Psychology Prize.
A team from Japan and Germany tackled the age-old question of why onions make us cry and discovered merely that the biochemical process is "even more complicated than scientists previously realized."
The archaeology prize went to a US-Canada team who parboiled a dead shrew, swallowed it without chewing, and then carefully examined their excretions to see which bones dissolve inside the human digestive system.
It was the 23rd edition of the Ig Nobels, awarded at the uber-prestigious Harvard University in Boston.
The prize-winners, who travel to the ceremony at their own expense, were given 60 seconds for an acceptance speech, a time limit enforced by an implacable eight-year-old girl.
The ceremony also included the premiere of a mini-opera called "The Blonsky Device," inspired by the life and work of 1999 Ig Nobel Prize winners George and Charlotte Blonsky.
The couple invented a machine to aid a woman in giving birth by strapping her onto a circular table, which is then rotated at high speed.
(The awards are organised by Improbable Research.)
Friday, September 13, 2013
Building a time machine “is possible” claims Professor Brian Cox
This interesting article appeared in the Yahoo! UK site the other day, although I only just read it. I really like the Professor, he's a very entertaining chap for a boffin!
Time machines similar to Doctor Who’s Tardis are possible, Professor Brian Cox said in a speech at the British Science Festival.
Time machines similar to Dr Who’s Tardis are possible, Professor Brian Cox said in a speech at the British Science Festival.
“Can you build a time machine?” said Professor Cox. “The answer is yes.”
There’s just one, tiny problem, Professor Cox says - if you can build a machine capable of time-travel, you can only travel into the future. You can’t come back.
Professor Cox also suggested that research at the LHC might uncover extra dimensions - thus, perhaps finally explaining how the Tardis is bigger on the inside.
Professor Cox, a Dr Who fan, is to deliver a 60-minute speech on Dr Who to be screened by the BBC on November 23 - tackling questions such as extraterrestrial life, travelling to other dimensions and time travel.
Professor Cox says that time travel is possible, and has already been done - albeit at a very small scale. The technology to accelerate something as big as a police box to near light speed does not yet exist.
Professor Cox says that, armed with such technology, “You can go into the future; you've got almost total freedom of movement in the future.”
To “travel” forward in time, you simply need to accelerate to speeds close to the speed of light, Cox says - as you get close to that speed, time slows down, but only for you, according to Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity.
“If you go fast, your clock runs slow relative to people who are still. As you approach the speed of light, your clock runs so slow you could come back 10,000 years in the future," said Professor Cox.
Cox said previously on Conan O’Brien’s chat show that travel into the past was “impossible”, saying, “You can travel into the future as fast as you like. You can’t travel into the past.”
But in his speech in Birmingham, the physicist went into more detail - suggesting that “wormholes” often used in science fiction as portals through time may not offer a simple way to travel into the past.
“In General Relativity, you can do it in principle. It's to do with building these things called wormholes; shortcuts through space and time. But most physicists doubt it. Hawking came up with the 'chronology protection conjecture' - physics we don't yet understand that means wormholes are not stable.”
Travelling between different dimensions, though, might be easier - a relief for the Doctor, for whom “transdimensional engineering” was a key part of the Tardis.
Cox says, “We look for extra dimensions at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). You can imagine extra dimensions in space, and that we are living on a sheet of higher dimensional space.”
Whether this explains how the interior of the Tardis is “dimensionally transcendental” - bigger on the inside - will perhaps be revealed in Cox’s speech on the 23rd.
Time machines similar to Doctor Who’s Tardis are possible, Professor Brian Cox said in a speech at the British Science Festival.
Time machines similar to Dr Who’s Tardis are possible, Professor Brian Cox said in a speech at the British Science Festival.
“Can you build a time machine?” said Professor Cox. “The answer is yes.”
There’s just one, tiny problem, Professor Cox says - if you can build a machine capable of time-travel, you can only travel into the future. You can’t come back.
Professor Cox also suggested that research at the LHC might uncover extra dimensions - thus, perhaps finally explaining how the Tardis is bigger on the inside.
Professor Cox, a Dr Who fan, is to deliver a 60-minute speech on Dr Who to be screened by the BBC on November 23 - tackling questions such as extraterrestrial life, travelling to other dimensions and time travel.
Professor Cox says that time travel is possible, and has already been done - albeit at a very small scale. The technology to accelerate something as big as a police box to near light speed does not yet exist.
Professor Cox says that, armed with such technology, “You can go into the future; you've got almost total freedom of movement in the future.”
To “travel” forward in time, you simply need to accelerate to speeds close to the speed of light, Cox says - as you get close to that speed, time slows down, but only for you, according to Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity.
“If you go fast, your clock runs slow relative to people who are still. As you approach the speed of light, your clock runs so slow you could come back 10,000 years in the future," said Professor Cox.
Cox said previously on Conan O’Brien’s chat show that travel into the past was “impossible”, saying, “You can travel into the future as fast as you like. You can’t travel into the past.”
But in his speech in Birmingham, the physicist went into more detail - suggesting that “wormholes” often used in science fiction as portals through time may not offer a simple way to travel into the past.
“In General Relativity, you can do it in principle. It's to do with building these things called wormholes; shortcuts through space and time. But most physicists doubt it. Hawking came up with the 'chronology protection conjecture' - physics we don't yet understand that means wormholes are not stable.”
Travelling between different dimensions, though, might be easier - a relief for the Doctor, for whom “transdimensional engineering” was a key part of the Tardis.
Cox says, “We look for extra dimensions at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). You can imagine extra dimensions in space, and that we are living on a sheet of higher dimensional space.”
Whether this explains how the interior of the Tardis is “dimensionally transcendental” - bigger on the inside - will perhaps be revealed in Cox’s speech on the 23rd.
Monday, September 02, 2013
No Suarez for Arsenal, but Ozil seems like a very good buy
Following on from my post in July about Arsenal bidding for Liverpool striker Luis Suarez - which didn't work out - Arsenal did finally spend some serious money on a true superstar, the totally awesome Mesut Ozil, in the final hour of the final day of the summer transfer window. Phew!
Here are a couple of great-to-read newspaper articles regarding the transfer:
The Guardian - Mesut Ozil can breathe new life into Arsenal's Emirates era
The Telegraph - Arsenal and United land Mesut Ozil and Marouane Fellaini late on transfer deadline day
Here are a couple of great-to-read newspaper articles regarding the transfer:
The Guardian - Mesut Ozil can breathe new life into Arsenal's Emirates era
The Telegraph - Arsenal and United land Mesut Ozil and Marouane Fellaini late on transfer deadline day
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