The Blog - The Archive

   Taking time off at Lesa's house....

So, I'm not sure if I mentioned it, what with all the non-blogging, but I'm currently in the middle of taking two weeks off from Uni. As was to be expected, within moments of leaving, I get an email saying that the eMac I ordered in December has finally arrived. Then a few days later, Korinne emails me and says that I'm moving out of the astronomy students office and into the PhD student office, which would be fine except now there are a bunch of astronomy-PhD students starting in the astronomy office.

Oh well, I'll sort it out when I get back. Right now, I'm relaxing, catching up on my sleep and generally having a blast. On the weekend James and I went to Lesa's cottage up in the country, where we went bushwalking, played at archery (James is heaps better than me) and spent many hours bumming around reading books and doing other things that required little effort. At night, we sat around with Lesa and Peter, and drank alcomahol and astronomised. They have a great view of the stars up there, as the valley is shielded from a lot of the worst light pollution and it was a dark sky weekend (little to no moon). It had a lot of fun, and I think the peace up there, along with not having anything that had to be done, was good for me.

Labels: this was before tags

   OMG!!1!ONE!!...

Posting and You...

For all the plebs on the internet.

Labels: this was before tags

   To the girls who were fined for being kind...

To the two teenage girls who were ordered to pay about $US900 ($1,168) for the distress a neighbour said they caused by giving her home-made cookies adorned with paper hearts,

Don't give up.

Be kind to your neighbours. They aren't all crazy nutbars. Despite all appearances, most people appreciate kindness. Most people don't flip out when you do something nice to them. Most people don't take you to court over stupid things.

Heck, move to Australia. We like nice people here, and if someone tried a lawsuit like that, it'd get thrown out of court for wasting everyone's time.

Don't lose faith in people, okay?

Labels: this was before tags

   You can't find it because it's dark...

So, astronomers have managed to locate the rest of the ordinary matter in the universe. It's sitting in dark clouds of atoms and molecules in between galaxies. It doesn't do much, just sit there, quietly gravitating. I'm sure that from time to time some of it collapses and stars form, but really, it's quite boring.

But at least now we know where it is. Unlike everything else. Ordinary matter, what we know of from everyday life, makes up only 5% of the stuff in the universe, based upon what we know about gravity. No one really knows what the rest is, or much about where to find it, but they call it dark matter because we can't see it. Now that we've found the missing ordinary stuff, maybe soon someone will have a decent idea about what dark matter is and if it's doing anything on saturday night.

I'm heading over to the observatory tonight, can you tell?

Labels: this was before tags

   They're making it way too easy for me...

An American soldier is in trouble this morning because he declared to the media that "It's fun to shoot some people". If you're worrying that I'm taking it out of context, read the whole quote:

Lieutenant General James Mattis, who led troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, made the comments at a conference on Tuesday in San Diego.

"Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling," said Lt Gen Mattis.

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Lt Gen Mattis said during a panel discussion.

"You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how we win the War on Terror...

Labels: this was before tags

   Next they'll capture Barbie...


A photograph of what Islamic militants claimed was a captured US soldier may be instead a toy figure sold at US military bases in the Middle East, the toy's manufacturer has said... A spokesman for Dragon Models USA says the figure in the photograph resembles "Cody", an action figure based on US special forces soldiers fighting in Iraq. - ABC news

I'm sorry, but one has to laugh when they read something like this.

Labels: this was before tags

   Now what are they going to do with their time? ...

Oops, it seems that the Australian Army is running out of bullets. Yes, we can't train any new soldiers at the moment, because we don't have the bullets or shells to stock their weapons with.

Could this be the beginning of a new, more peace-orientated defence force? Or will our inability to fight back make us more prone to terrorist attack (twice nothing is still nothing, people!)? Only time will tell, but I foresee more money spent on more bullets to ensure this never happens again. More's the pity.

As an aside, wouldn't it be great if this happened to the Americans?

Labels: this was before tags