Usual atmospheric conditions at the Castle this morn-wet,
cold, calm and crappy, the garden is in
need of more than a smidge of fettling, I am thinking of putting outriggers on
the Honda and his Maj is still bringing me frogs.
And just a couple of imperial units up the road aviation enthusiasts have launched a campaign
to erect a statue in memory of the first person to make a powered flight in
Britain.
Farnborough Air
Sciences Trust (FAST) (which used to be the Royal Aircraft Establishment before
“someone” sold it orf) hopes to unveil the memorial to Samuel Cody in
Farnborough, Hampshire, where his historic flight took place.
Cody died 99 years
ago when the aircraft he was flying broke in half.
FAST plans to
unveil a £100,000 statue on the centenary of his death next year and are
fundraising to pay for it.
The group have
already secured £10,000 from Hampshire County Council and Rushmoor Borough
Council.
Really pleased to
see that my bleedin Council Tax is going towards such a good cause.
If you want to know
more about the place where I was an apprentice way back in 1967 click HERE.
1. Take a hollow, spherical plastic capsule about two millimetres in diameter (about the size of a small pea.)
2. Fill it with 150 micrograms (less than one-millionth of a pound) of a mixture of deuterium and tritium, the two heavy isotopes of hydrogen.
3. Take a laser that for about 20 billionths of a second can generate 500 trillion watts – the equivalent of five million, million watts.
4. Focus all that laser power onto the surface of the capsule.
5. Wait ten billionths of a second.
Result: one miniature star.
Luckily this technology is available at the National
Ignition Facility more than a lot over to the left in Livermore California
where Leccy is a lot cheaper than here in Blighty.
The Otamatone DX, a new electronic instrument from Japan, is
becoming quite a hit on the Internet. Shaped like a musical note, it can be
played easily by anybody.
It’s as simple as this: Just slide your finger up and down
the stem and squeeze its cheek to produce your own music!
I can do the same thing with my arse.....
And billions and billions of dollars later NASA's Mars Rover
Curiosity has beamed back an image of its surroundings, showing a clear view of
the enormous mountain that it will clamber up in the next few years.
Mount Sharp is a giant Martian peak that rises 3 miles (5 kilometres) from
the centre of Gale Crater. The mountain's many geological layers are
particularly intriguing to mission scientists, as they could hold a record of
how the Red Planet has changed over time.In the newly released image, Mount Sharp is clearly visible in the background.
Worth every penny....
African grey parrots are smarter than your average two-year-old;
apparently researchers claim to have found that human children only do as well
as the parrots from about the age of three.
No other animals apart from great apes match the
birds' ability to understand noise-related causal connections.
Researchers tested six African greys housed in a
parrot rescue centre in Vienna, Austria.
During a series of experiments, the birds were
asked to choose between two closed boxes, one of which held a piece of walnut
and rattled when shaken. The other, empty container could be shaken without
making a noise.
The parrots showed they knew how to detect hidden
food rattling in a shaken box.
But much more impressively they also worked out -
almost instantly - that if a box was shaken and made no noise, the food must be
in the other container.
Choices were made by a parrot walking over to a box
and turning it over with its beak.
In similar tests, most animals - and even small
children - get confused about the way shaking and noise relate to the presence
or absence of a hidden reward.
I know some seventeen year olds that are still not as smart
as a Parrot....
And finally:
That’s it: I’m orf to give the sheep
text messaging
And today’s thought:
Unemployable get free tickets-Olympics.
Angus
