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What does the monkey know?
Pale Blue Dot
By David, May 4, 2010
This is the first picture of Earth taken from a planet beyond the moon.
It was taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, one hour before sunrise on the 63rd Martian day, or sol, of its mission. (March 8, 2004)
This picture is very similar to another, older photograph of Earth.
Twenty years ago, the Voyager I spacecraft was reaching the edge of our solar system. It had passed Pluto and had completed its primary mission.
Carl Sagan convinced NASA to spin it around to look back at our home planet and capture an image of a pale blue dot from six billion kilometres away.
Later, Dr Sagan eloquently put that image in perspective:
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
Image: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Texas A&M
The Tweed Run
By David, April 10, 2010
Today was a glorious day for the London Tweed Run.
What is the Tweed Run, you ask?
According to the website, it is a Metropolitan bicycle ride with a bit of style. Which means proper attire is expected. Tweed suits, plus fours, bowties, cycling capes, and jaunty flat caps are all encouraged
The first really warm sunny weather of the year happily coincided with the event so I boarded the No. 49 omnibus and made my way to Kensington Gardens where the 400 or so gentleman (and lady) cyclists stopped for tea.
The riders were indeed stylish with many jaunty flat caps, waist coats and pipes and no lycra, helmets or derailleurs to be seen.
It looked like a lot of fun. Check out the pictures in the gallery.
Sharkproof
By David, March 31, 2010
I may never go to the moon, but it’s nice to know that if I do my Speedmaster will still keep ticking.
I like watches. I particularly like watches that have some history or character about them. Watches that are designed for a purpose, not just to look good.
Omega have released a new version of their Seamaster PloProf. The standard Seamaster is a nice watch, good enough for James Bond, but the PloProf is like a Seamaster on steroids.
The first PloProf (the name comes from plongeurs professionnels – French for “professional divers”) was first released in 1970 and it was rated to the man-crushing depth of 600M. It also looked like no other watch. The crown was on the other side and under a protective shield to allow freer wrist movement and to protect against any accidental changes at depth.
At the 2 o’clock position is the orange bezel-release security pusher. You need to push this to move the bezel, again to prevent any accidental asphyxiation on the sea floor.
The new PloProf has all these same features as the original but doubles the depth to a giant squid-dwelling 1200M. You can also get it with a “Sharkproof” bracelet.
Nice to know that if you drop it in the bath, or get your arm bitten off by a shark it will still keep time.
Barcelona
By David, March 1, 2010
As you may know, I’m a bit of a Formula One fan and one of the benefits of being a McLaren team member (apart from the free earplugs) is you get the chance to go on things like pit visits at Grands Prix.
Last week was the final pre-season test for the 2010 Formula One season at the Circuit de Catalunya just outside Barcelona and McLaren had given me a couple of tickets which included a pit visit. So Andrew and I and Cathy and Ethan headed to Barcelona for a couple of days.
Despite a two hour delay at Heathrow and a Spanishly challenged sat-nav we made it to the circuit minutes before our scheduled pit tour. It was great! We stood in the McLaren garage while a stream of F1 cars entered and exited the pits and when Jenson Button rolled into the garage we got a really close look at the awesome new McLaren.
After the tour we spent a couple of hours walking around the circuit taking pictures. You can see the results in the gallery.
The next day was spent in Barcelona, mostly visting crazy Gaudi stuff like La Pedrera, Parc Güell and La Sagrada Familia. There are pictures of them, too.
So you think you can dance?
By David, February 13, 2010
Tonight is the final of So You Think You Can Dance, billed as the search for Britain’s favourite dancer.
The contestants aren’t bad I guess but for one of the most amazing dance routines ever filmed take a look at this clip from the finale of the 1943 musical Stormy Weather.
This film featured, among others, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller and Lena Horne, but just wait until 4:46 when Fayard and Harold Nicholas make their appearance.
Neither of the Nicholas brothers had any formal dance training but you can see from this clip why many considered them the greatest tap dancers of the time. Janet and Michael Jackson studied with them and Mikhail Baryshnikov called them the most amazing dancers he had ever seen in his life.
Fred Astaire said this “Jumpin’ Jive” dance number from Stormy Weather was the greatest movie musical sequence he had ever seen.
You do not have permission
Bernstein: Conductor & Interpreter
By David, February 7, 2010
I just got back from a screening of a couple of Leonard Bernstein’s films in the Purcell Room. As part of the season-long Bernstein festival (which the CCO is playing in), the Southbank Centre is showing films Bernstein made for the American Omnibus TV series in the 1950s. Apparently this is the first time they have been screened in fifty years.
Here are a couple of excerpts from the first film where Bernstein talks about the role of the conductor.
After explaining how simple the basic physical act of conducting is (the first beat is always down, the last beat is always up) he goes on to show how the conductor must be able to indicate an infinite variety of moods with just his right hand:
Once the character of beat is decided, the conductor must then choose the tempo:
The film ends with Bernstein rehearsing the orchestra in the last movement of Brahms’s 4th Symphony:
What a communicator.
TalkTalk declares email bankruptcy
By David, January 14, 2010
Looks like TalkTalk just declared email bankruptcy:
Dear customer,
Thank you for getting in touch with TalkTalk Customer Relations.
We have received an unprecedented amount of email enquiries and unfortunately are unable to respond to your email.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused and look forward to returning to our normal level of service as soon as possible.
Regards,
TalkTalk Customer Relations.
I’ve had companies completely ignore me in the past but I have never received a reply to an email saying they have received too many emails to reply…
Themocracy