Tuesday 30 September 2008

The Large HaveNot Collider or LHNC

or to put it simply one mans search for the elusive walletanium particle, my mate Chris up in North Wales is as we speak digging a large cylindrical tunnel using 4" PVC drain pipe from B&Q in his back garden powered by three fairy lights and a hamster on a wheel at a massive personal expense of £23.67p .... why I hear you ask?

Well he wants to know what happens nanoseconds before the big bill arrived, he intends to accelerate two of his ex friends at a breakneck speed towards each other and then at a predetermined point somewhere near his garden shed and just past his sea kayak collide them and see what happens nanoseconds before and after the collision to unravel the mysteries of the big bill

for those of you without a degree in parasitic particle physics, here is a dummy's guide to what he hopes to achieve.....

Walletanium is a parasitic particle which borrows protons from any neighbouring molecule, it has plenty of its own protons but prefers to borrow from a near neighbour to remain more positively charged thereby not reducing its own positive charge one bit, when it in turn needs to shed protons, the exchange of protons between these particles is very quick, it usually only takes several seconds and no longer than a minute for Walletanium to deduce it has no free protons by a process called "pocket patting" once "pocket patting" has finished it then slides up to the host particle (for example Lorisanium or the much preferred Christium) and following a set procedure of bringing its own protons close to it's own nucleus to give the impression that it doesn't have any protons to give, which makes it appear to be negatively charged, the host particle is then obliged to shed some of its own protons because Walletanium "appears" to be negatively charged.

Walletanium then goes on to seek out Beerium whereby it passes all it's borrowed protons over to the long chained molecule "barium" in return for several small short lived particles called "Beerium"... which it then takes back to the host and offers them around, giving the impression that it has in fact obtained the Beerium particles via it's own proton store, then smugly absorbs its beerium particle and the process starts all over again ...ad nauseum......

obviously this experiment is very important and will allow scientists for the first time to actually see the entire process from "pocket patting" to the very moment nanoseconds before the big bill

for the wider parasitic particle physics community it will answer the age old question just how tightly packed is a walletanium particle ? and how does it consistently manage to scavenge spare protons from its neighbours ?

This research will help the wider public as well who as we all know have at some time been hit by the walletanium particle and hopefully avoid its long term and in some cases damaging effects.

Next week I will be talking about the CSA particle which has the very undesirable effect of taking all of a particles protons and in some cases it's electrons as well even before the particle actually has any to shed, it then distributes the excess protons and electrons to completely proton rich particles within a large radius of its nucleus, currently believed to be in or around Liverpool and has been given the humorous name "The highway robbery" particle, the hope is that one day parasitic particle physics funded by Government money will be able to accelerate this particle so fast that it disappears up its own nucleus, but thus far the particle is so heavy and cumbersome and slow and expensive to track, it's unlikely to happen during my salary

Friday 26 September 2008

This is unbelievable

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7636577.stm

it's not for the faint hearted I warn you, but what an earth were these two women thinking ?????

Thursday 25 September 2008

Did we go to the moon

I've just had an old friend come up and visit, I was the best man at his wedding, and I've scarily known him for 40 years, sadly now he is divorced..... or is that gladly ? anyway we were chewing the cud and putting the world to rights like we usually did, but much to my dismay he firmly believes man didn't land on the moon during the Apollo missions of the sixties. in much the same way that I didn't catch a trout and he did (albeit a tiddler) we released it.... it was too small it would have barely made a sandwich let alone a meal....

Anyway he pointed out various things which have all been disproved but for your entertainment I will outline them here :)

1. No blast crater or any sign of dust scatter as was seen in the 16mm films of each landing

* No crater should be expected. The Descent Propulsion System was throttled very far down during the final landing. The Lunar Module was no longer rapidly decelerating, so the descent engine only had to support the module's own weight, diminished by the 1/6 g lunar gravity and by the near exhaustion of the descent propellants. At landing, the engine thrust divided by the nozzle exit area is only about 10 kilopascals (1.5 PSI) Beyond the engine nozzle, the plume spreads and the pressure drops very rapidly. (In comparison the Saturn V F-1 first stage engines produced 3.2 MPa (459 PSI) at the mouth of the nozzle.)

Rocket exhaust gases expand much more rapidly after leaving the engine nozzle in a vacuum than in an atmosphere. The effect of an atmosphere on rocket plumes can be easily seen in launches from Earth; as the rocket rises through the thinning atmosphere, the exhaust plumes broaden very noticeably. To reduce this, rocket engines designed for vacuum operation have longer bells than those designed for use at the Earth's surface, but they still cannot prevent this spreading. The Lunar Module's exhaust gases therefore expanded rapidly well beyond the landing site. However, the descent engines did scatter a lot of very fine surface dust as seen in 16mm movies of each landing, and many mission commanders commented on its effect on
visibility. The landers were generally moving horizontally as well as vertically, and photographs do show scouring of the surface along the final descent path. Finally, the lunar soil is very compact below its surface dust layer, further making it impossible for the descent engine to blast out a "crater"

2. The launch rocket (Lunar Module ascent stage) produced no visible flame.

The Lunar Module used Aerozine-50 (fuel) and dinitrogen tetroxide (oxidizer) propellants, chosen for simplicity and reliability; they ignite hypergolically –upon contact– without a spark. These propellants produce a nearly transparent exhaust. The same or similar hypergolic fuels are used by several space launchers: the core of the American Titan, the Russian Proton, the European Ariane 1 through 4 and the Chinese Long March. The transparency of their plumes is apparent in many launch photos. The plumes of rocket engines fired in a vacuum spread out very rapidly as they leave the engine nozzle, further reducing their visibility. Finally, rocket engines often run "rich" to slow internal corrosion. On the earth, the excess fuel burns in contact with atmospheric oxygen. This cannot happen in a vacuum.

then we have the pictures especially this one of Buzz Aldrin in the shadow of the moon lander yet he is visible, how could this be ?


Well to put it simply the surface of the moon is made up of mainly silica which reflects light, and the moon is also very brightly lit because it has no atmosphere to hinder reflections so light is scattered rather evenly, so Buzz Aldrin was backlit but by the surface of the VERY bright moon, and he did after all have a VERY inconspicuous WHITE space suit on, you could do the same thing here on earth by standing in shadow but somebody holding up a white board to illuminate you with natural light, they do it all the time when filming you have probably seen them on film sets holding up white boards, which in turn reflects light so showing up in the camera, this particular myth has been busted wide open, when the exact same scene was recreated to test this, the team built a much larger scale (1:6) replica of the landing site, including a dust surface with a colour and albedo similar to lunar soil. The team then took a photograph which was nearly identical to the original NASA photo from Apollo 11. The team (Mythbusters) explained that the astronaut was visible because of light being reflected off the Moon's surface.

There are no stars in any of the photos. The Apollo 11 astronauts also claimed in a press conference after the event to have not remembered seeing any of the stars.

* The sun was shining. Cameras were set for daylight exposure, and could not detect the faint points of light.

The color and angle of shadows and light are inconsistent.

* Shadows on the Moon are complicated by uneven ground, wide angle lens distortion, light reflected from the Earth, and lunar dust. Shadows also display the properties of vanishing point perspective leading them to converge to a point on the horizon.


The astronauts could not have survived the trip because of exposure to radiation from the Van Allen radiation belt and galactic ambient radiation . Some hoax theorists have suggested that Starfish Prime (high altitude nuclear testing in 1962) was a failed attempt to disrupt the Van Allen belts.

* The Moon is ten times higher than the Van Allen radiation belts. The spacecraft moved through the belts in just 30 minutes, and the astronauts were protected from the ionizing radiation by the aluminium hulls of the spacecraft. In addition, the orbital transfer trajectory from the Earth to the Moon through the belts was selected to minimize radiation exposure. Even Dr. James Van Allen, the discoverer of the Van Allen radiation belts, rebutted the claims that radiation levels were too dangerous for the Apollo missions. Dosimeters carried by the crews showed they received about the same cumulative dosage as a chest X-ray or about 1 milligray. Plait cited an average dose of less than 1 rem, which is equivalent to the ambient radiation received by living at sea level for three years

* The radiation is actually evidence that the astronauts went to the Moon. Irene Schneider reports that thirty-three of the thirty-six Apollo astronauts involved in the nine Apollo missions to leave Earth orbit have early stage cataracts that have been shown to be caused by radiation exposure to cosmic rays during their trip. However, only twenty-four astronauts left earth orbit. At least thirty-nine former astronauts have developed cataracts. Thirty-six of those were involved in high-radiation missions such as the Apollo lunar missions.

2. Film in the cameras would have been fogged by this radiation.

* The film was kept in metal containers that prevented radiation from fogging the film's emulsion. In addition, film carried by unmanned lunar probes such as the Lunar Orbiter and Luna 3 (which used on-board film development processes) was not fogged.

3. The Moon's surface during the daytime is so hot that camera film would have melted.

* There is no atmosphere to efficiently couple lunar surface heat to devices such as cameras not in direct contact with it. In a vacuum, only radiation remains as a heat transfer mechanism. The physics of radiative heat transfer are thoroughly understood, and the proper use of passive optical coatings and paints was adequate to control the temperature of the film within the cameras; lunar module temperatures were controlled with similar coatings that gave it its gold color. Also, while the Moon's surface does get very hot at lunar noon, every Apollo landing was made shortly after lunar sunrise at the landing site. During the longer stays, the astronauts did notice increased cooling loads on their spacesuits as the sun continued to rise and the surface temperature increased, but the effect was easily countered by the passive and active cooling systems. The film was not in direct sunlight, so it wasn't overheated.

* Note: all of the lunar landings occurred during the lunar daytime. The Moon's day is approximately 29½ days long, and as a consequence a single lunar day (dawn to dusk) lasts nearly fifteen days. As such there was no sunrise or sunset while the astronauts were on the surface. Most lunar missions occurred during the first few earth days of the lunar day.

4. The Apollo 16 crew should not have survived a big solar flare firing out when they were on their way to the Moon. "They should have been fried."

* No large solar flare occurred during the flight of Apollo 16. There were large solar flares in August 1972, after Apollo 16 returned to Earth and before the flight of Apollo 17.

There is so much more evidence such as the 300 KG of moon rock, unlike ANY rocks on earth and much older than anything we have on earth, then of course there is the Russian element, do you think for one second the Russians would not have exposed the Americans as liars given the chance ? of course they would, it would have been a massive propaganda boost for their country, but for every solid bit of evidence you produce to a "flat earther" ;¬) they come back with ever more ridiculous claims, but that is the beauty of conspiracy theorists there is simply no telling them, and probably the ONLY way to convince them would for them to be landed next to the landing sites themselves so they could touch them with their hands.... then and only then would they believe



to be honest, with all the overwhelming evidence that we did in fact land on the Moon, I find it very hard to believe that anybody these days can think differently... but live and let live.... unless of course you are the man on the Grassy Knoll ;¬)









Sunday 21 September 2008

Patrick Moore eat yer heart out ;¬)

As you can see I have managed to capture the Moon in all it's glory, unfortunately I didn't manage to set the time correctly on my digital camera because it wasn't just gone half past one in the afternoon when I took it, and I also only managed two photographs then my batteries died, so I gave up trying to get a closer photograph of the Moon, I took it through shadow boys telescope and simply held the camera up to the eyepiece on macro and thankfully because it does it's metering through the actual lens it was able to focus rather nicely on it :¬)



Well the weather is rather nice this weekend and has been since Friday, so nice in fact that I managed to take a few photographs outside the house from the decking of our valley



and as you can see I still haven't managed to set the clock on the bloody camera, but you get the general idea, it's pretty idyllic here when the weather is nice, something that has been severely lacking this summer, I have a friend coming up next week from Penarth, I've known him since I was five years old, I was even the best man at his wedding, sadly now he is divorced like so many of us are, people change, life goes on, his son Gareth is the spitting image of his Dad, the last time I saw him he was just above my kneecap running around in nappies.... time really does fly and it seems to accelerate the older you get.....

Anyway enough of that sentimental clap trap, we intend doing some trout fishing at the river just across the field, if you look at the bottom right of the second photograph you can just see a second field, well the river is just beyond that field it's about half a mile away all told, about a 10 minute walk..... hopefully we will pull something from the river....

My parents are on a coach trip down in the west country for the weekend, they took the coach because my dad has just had eye surgery to correct something or other, and as usual my Dad just brushes off this kind of thing as nothing serious, I swear if he accidentally chopped his hand off on his band saw he would simply wrap up the stump in a towel and carry on until he finished what he was doing... :¬)

The money situation is pretty dire, but we will survive, and I am continuing my search for another job whilst I'm on my two weeks off, my ex on the other hand is going to get a very large giro off the CSA this month, which will no doubt make her smile, bless her little cotton socks, I sincerely hope it is spent on the children, just think if she had let me see the kids all those years ago she would have got her maintenance way before now, but her smile won't last long because the prospects of finding another job around here that pays anywhere near what I'm on now are slim to non existent.... so it may well be her last Giro for a while

Thursday 18 September 2008

Well I've finally had some time...

to update my company website, it's been lying dormant for months and months, so seeing as I am actually paying for the thing I thought it best to at least have something up there... it's nothing special (yet!) simply my company logo with a price list attached which I will update on a monthly basis at least until the development on it has been finished.... it may as well earn it's keep so to speak :¬)

It was a lovely day today a bit misty to start with, then all that got burnt off by the sickly and low in the sky sun and by the end of the afternoon it was quite balmy out in the garden, I even managed to strim the lawn (petrol of course my carbon footprint is way too small at the moment) in preparation for it's haircut hopefully this weekend (again petrol.... but with the size of our lawns it's not really doable on an extension by any stretch !!)...

I'm off with a friend of ours tomorrow we are driving to Newport they have bought a car off Ebay and she wants me along for the ride because :-

A) she is not very comfortable meeting a strange man with that amount of cash on her
B) wants to know if it's a clunker or not
C) her husband can't get the time off work
D) my diary was remarkable empty

I have a sneaking suspicion they have bought a Peugeot for one very sinister reason though, but it's no good I'm only qualified to fix 205's of a Duran Duran vintage, at least that's the plan and I'm sticking to it, besides I'm only a Haynes manual mechanic but I can even do the 7 spanner ratings !!! (I shall have to put that on my CV :¬) )....

I do intend to get to the river at some point and catch all the sea trout that are going spare at some point, but so far the weather has been against me amongst other things, so that is on the back burner at the moment, I have also got to clear the guttering as well, mainly because we have grass growing out of one part of it and I suspect it's not letting the water flow efficiently, I considered strimming it but I think that defeats the point ;¬)

onward and upward

Tuesday 16 September 2008

Home alone......

but busy cleaning and generally sprucing the house up, seeing as my impending redundancy is looming, I basically don't trust the company I work for to honour my holidays, so I've taken the whole lot in one go, which will backfire badly if they do find me a position within the confines of Swansea, but I'm not overly hopeful... so better to be safe than sorry :)

so for the next two weeks I'm a house husband, I really don't know what all the fuss is about, housework is easy !!! I've even had time to update my blog and make chicken soup :) mind you it has helped having Robert Miles's "Dreamland" blasting out at 450 watts, (which reminds me I must check the window seals on the double glazing in the office) .... although it does have an advantage in that all the spiders are deaf and can be crept up on and captured easily... we do seem to be getting rather a lot of the big hairy ones..... but shadow boy is the official spider catcher unless they are too big even for him then I'm called in... ;¬)

it's funny music it brings back the strangest memories, I remember who first introduced me to Robert Miles it was Brannan my mate from up in Leeds he gave it to me as a birthday present quite a few years ago now ( I don't think my ex wife and I even had a CD player at the time that's how long ago it was) it's a funny old world, I bumped into him on Facebook and we caught up with each other, he seems to be doing very well for himself, and good luck to him he worked hard enough for it along with his brother, I think he is in business with a company doing eco furniture or something now, who would have thought eh ?... anyway I digress, it's funny the memories music can dredge up, I was listening to the track "Children" from the same album and it took me right back to taking my daughters to school and my eldest always wanted to play it at full volume (or was it me ?) and we used to jump about when it got to the good bit about half way through, it made me smile but at the same time it made me sad, because it's just a memory nothing more.....

anyway stuff to do still got things to get done before Mein Führer gets home....... besides it's so loud in here I may well just go deaf, plus the pictures I have on the wall of my daughters are jumping about so I had better turn it down before the hamster dies of sonic shock :)

Sunday 14 September 2008

Well it didn't happen.....

But apparently it doesn't get switched to full power until October so a reprieve .... ;¬)

it's a bit mad really people are still talking about it and how some parents had terrible trouble calming their kids down because they thought it was going to be the end of the world... but there you go that's the power of the media, it's even influencing kids in primary school !! definitely a bad thing in my book..

The only other good news over and above not being sucked into a micro black hole is that Gordon Brown's leadership is looking a bit shaky at the moment, there are rumours of him being deposed in a "Et tu, Brute?" leadership challenge which seems to be gathering momentum amongst the cheap seats of the Labour party, I've got to be honest he was never elected anyway and he reminded me of some second rate understudy of Tony Blair waiting in the wings for his chance....not that Tony did us any good either !!! but I've never really been a fan of politics, they are a necessary evil but I try not to get too upset about who gets in, they are all as bad as each other once they have been in power for a few years, all promises and no substance, a bit like the help with insulating your homes, it's all a bit pointless this winter because there is a 6 month waiting list to get it done, by the time most pensioners get to the top of the list they will have to be chipped out of their Parker Knowles chairs !!

Lets hope it isn't a really bad winter because a lot of people are feeling the squeeze this year, there simply isn't enough salary at the end of the month any more :(

living and working abroad is looking more and more enticing, although there is little chance of it happening with us .... at this moment in time anyway.....

Money is definitely tight, and to quote a Simply Red lyric "too tight to mention" ... however..... it didn't help any, forking out for the kids to see their father down in Plymouth because he had car trouble it's been promised to be paid back but there is a mysterious silence, lack of contact and a definite lack of payment since, Well Andrea and I have said it won't be happening again, if the cash isn't up front they simply don't go until it is, we simply cannot afford to do it, and that isn't vindictiveness it's just fact !!

Tuesday 9 September 2008

My 201st post and maybe my last....

That is if we are to believe the media hype about the Large Hadron Collider @ CERN..... yes tomorrow they wind it up and turn it on, so we may all be sucked into a microscopic black hole originating somewhere in or around Switzerland :) cool !!!

I have found a rather amusing video from non other than CERN

I thought explained it rather better than I could, it made me laugh anyway :) what worried me was that one of the people awaiting results from the LHC is none other than Brian Cox !! the keyboard player from D:Ream turned physicist..... oh well "Things can only get better" I guess otherwise he will remain "Unforgiven" but as long as he doesn't "Blame it on me" everything will be ok in my world ( I think that about covers D:Ream's entire back catalogue ;¬)

anyway if you see a blog post tomorrow ...... the black hole didn't happen and I'm drinking coffee at work changing a password for some idiot who forgot his password two days ago even though he wrote it on his hand in biro..... sheesh


Oh and I've just remembered it's my ex wife's birthday today she was born on the 9th September 1960 (Bloody hell she is 48 years young today !!!) I always said if I ever traded her in it would be for a younger model ......well if you have tuned in Deborah Happy birthday and don't choke on your birthday cake.... :) or burn down the house with the veritable forest of candles ;¬) although I've heard you are good at blowing so the fire brigade probably won't be needed...... :) I won't bother sending you a humorous birthday card this year for two reasons but mainly because it's a case of mind over matter.......

A) I don't mind
B) You don't matter

(the really bright people will have noticed that I finished on a carefully crafted LHC pun)

:)