h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sounds like a lot of sun, for Cornwall. Is that a beach on the river, then?

The only sun I'm getting is in the garden. I do my own greenskeeping, and the weeds have been getting out of hand.

Oh most definately beach, I'm off again now high tide ghas passed. Ddi you have a chance to look at the pictures on Myspace?

Long trip to John Moores in Liverpool tomorrow, drop daughter off for freshers week and then the real work begins 3 years physical education for the BA(hons) and then a futher year teacher training, I think the 'left wing trendy, long haired, weirdy beardy, swivel eyed marxist ethos' in teacher training is largely a thing of the past since I went to University.

Oh! Thanks for the reminder! I'd meant to get back to checking out your camera workd. I guess FM got me distracted somewhere between then and now.

Nice blue highwayman's mask! The area where you live is just fantastic! I'm not sure that Ince castle is really so much a castle as a mansion, but it certainly looks to be in better condition than any of my family's castles.

The last shot I saw of the hereditary family castle had sheep grazing within its walls.

Thanks for the peek.

It's always good to share a few things whilst maintaining the mystique, you play me well enough as it is my friend without any spoilers.

Ince Castle is across the river form me on neighbouring estate of Port Elliot, a family home now, though originally just a simple round fort. The picture was taken from the ferry lane past the house. I do take an interest in the Palmerston fortifications around where I live. So delightfully non-PC in the functional descriptions, for example - all the trees and brush where removed from the area surrounding the forts to provide the "Killing fields", though as with your ancestral home, they provide nothing more savage or hostile than grazing herbivours

Sometimes it's fun to have the distraction/challenge of the self obsessed or times they are just a blinking nuisance

Borrowed from the 'What news story has your attention today' thread, though none the less interesting for a cosmologist as yourself,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/1384420/Mysterious-force-holds-back-Nasa-probe-in-deep-space.html

The answer's out there, Jim

Fascinating, but not unexpected. Once the Black Energy/Black Matter theories came out, we had to expect someone to drop the other shoe, eh?

But I would have thought that the more immediate concern would be this story!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8007015/Deadly-earthquake-could-strike-Britain-any-time.html

I have to take the stories with the proverbial grain of salt, though. The one about men choosing bodies over faces, for short-term romances, was somewhat misleading. Certainly some, maybe most, do; but I'm sure that the study came up with approximate percentages which I did not see reported. Perhaps its closer to 75-25, but not so global as the nearly 100% implied!

I do believe it's my go I must think on this further, how very neglectful of me

Never a problem! It has occurred to me that, by now, some hootooers must have died and given their fellows reason to wonder if it was something they did or said or other interests that drew them away.

I guess there's no way to really know the why, when someone has become silent.

That is true, I drift in and out as the whim and time permits. Sometimes it is fun to indulge a little verbal The likes of FM stop us becoming bored and complacent My personal favourites are those who preach from the moral high ground. I don't always disagree with what they say, but maintain the right of others to their own opinions - whatever they may be, right or left.

I doubt many would miss a assinine old anchorite like me least of all the universe and everything.

I did find out some interesting information, not based on statistics, lies and damned lies , to the effect the JET project at Culham laboratory ( I can recollect it being constructed had been successful and is now a basis for the design of INTER. I'm rather hoping you may know more of that

I did watch a fascinating programme last night about time travel, by Prof. Richard Hawkins. Some of the concepts of the fourth dimension were difficult for me to grasp, perhaps that's that's why I'm not a physicist

I probably know more about the tomato than the tokamak, but I remember when its development began sometime in the late 70s. I don't recall it achieving success, though.

Best I ever heard it do was about 70% of its minimum goal; but I guess that could be a success if you learn what you could try the next time.

You probably have no problem understanding that it would virtually eliminate the need for carbon-based fuels for energy production, and eliminate the nasty leaks and leftovers from fission reactors. Overall, a laudable thing, eh?

Could you have meant Richard Hawking? I'm unfamiliar with the name Richard Hawkins.

I've always been leary of the tendency science has to ascribe numbers to the dimensions. I guess the first three are common enough to us all that there should be no problem with ascribing them to our physical existence; but, after that, I'm never certain whether the fourth they may talk about is time or just another physical direction with which we are unfamiliar.

If you like, you're welcome to read my EG entry on Time as a bi-directional dimension. It may help a bit; but then, it could have you following the white cuniculus down the lepus hole.

Your quite correct, 'Richard Hawking' I do live in an area where 'Sir Richard Hawkins' is synomynous with 'Sir Francis Drake', both being buccaneers of equal standing

I seem to remember the primary problem with fusion reactions was the temperatures involved, neccessitating the fusion core to held within a magnetic field, I could be wrong

One of the most interesting aspects of Professor Hawking was the relationship between time and speed - already proven by the idiosyncrasis of clocks on GPS satellites - and the inevitable paradox problem

Some interesting new names for me to google when I have time - lepus hole etc.

I see we had another 'Near miss' if the newspapers are to be believed. Something the size of a double decker bus swept in closer than the Moon's orbit

I sure such keeps you gainfully employed, could have been a real day spoiler for Australia though

white cuniculus down the lepus hole I just realised you were very cleverly referring to the filming at my home, well it's not 'my' home the Nat Rust own it We merely keep the estates

Soooo many words for rabbits!
You'd think we'd have more words for dangerous, bus-sized meteors?

Just playing catch up after a week off, work keeps getting in the way I'll have something more intelligent to say soon Honest

Ah, work. My favourite part of the day!

Truly, as I get to work from home a lot. it's rather enjoyable.

There's only somuch navel contemplating one can do at home. I'm not wildly keen on the one way ticket to though

Well, if I were a young man again, and the females were kinda cute, I'd consider it!

I suspect, though, that I'm past the target age, and probably don't have the credentials to qualify.

My workday consists largely of baby-sitting an email inbox, with sporadic bits of work in Microsoft Office applications.

Could be worse. At least I'm not required to code in Fortran any more.

Only if you were still a mainframe analyst I forget the other mainframe language now, so long ago Cobol?????? Fortunately when I did my Management Information and Computing Systems module as part of my studies Bill Gates had just blesed the world with Windows 95, I can still do a bit of MSDOS, for fun, but largely I have forgotten things and been woefully surpassed by technology, both hard and soft About all I can do now to cope with H2G2

You do have an interesting ability to tap into things that interest me my friend Perhaps we are not so far apart in both age and views of the world, unlike our interloper FM doesn't seem to have found anything to berate you about lately