I Want To Be An Astronomer
I – for the record – do not want to be an astronomer. The title of this article is for those who do. I’m not saying I’ve never wanted to be an astronomer, though. When I was young I did want to be an astronomer. That was before I realised that astronomers and space pilots were different things. Once that happened I wanted only to be a space pilot. Looking at the stars was okay – television was awful when I was young – but I had my sights set on destroying them or using them as slingshots to break the speed of thought. But you – since you’re here – probably do want to be an astronomer and that means you’re not one now. First off, what’s daily life like for a typical astronomer? Algernon: Hi Percival! Doing a spot of astronomy? Percival: That’s right Algernon! That’s why I’ve got my telescope under my arm and a thermos of oxtail soup. And you? Have you just come back from astronoming? Algernon: Yes I have. I astronomed from the field beyond the farm. The trees keep light pollution down and I’ve been keeping an eye on the super cluster of black holes in Virgo for a friend who’s worried about them. Are you heading to the field too? Percival: Oh no! I like to astronom from the hill beyond the magic forest. The extra altitude means I can see the pulses from the pulsing pulsar in Pollux so much easier. Algernon: Well, have a happy astronoming Percival! Percival: Thankyou Algernon. Astronom well, yourself. A life under the velvet blanket of night, staring at the universe, with all the oxtail soup you can consume may sound as perfect as you’d always imagined but to be an astronomer you’ll need a couple of other qualities too. Easily Excitable In ye olden dayes of astronomy excitement occurred when a new planet was discovered thanks to the milling of a new, larger, smoother lens to fit into some rich playboy’s large, sparkly, brass cylinder. "Huzzah! A new planet just beyond Jupiter! I shall call it Georgeworld after the King and I’ll be knighted and … what’s that? Herschel’s already spotted it and called it what? He called it my what? That German fucker!" But the solar system is more-or-less mapped out now and the optics needed to spot a planet around another planet are unwieldy and leave no room for carrying a thermos. Subsequently, everything these days is pictured by computers, cleaned up by computers, and displayed on computer screens. Excitement, therefore, has been reduced to The Thrill Of The Pixel. Dedication An...
Danny Boyle Movie: Sunshine
For my intarwebfriend Gia … and to promote the new movie Sunshine by Danny Boyle, director of Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, the official website of which Gia has been maintaining during the last year … and because I – like bishops – love sci-fi … and because I can’t remember the last time I updated this site twice in one day … and for your viewing pleasure … Embed This Video | Visit Fox Searchlight Update New trailer released 9th March 2007...
Cooling Planet Earth
Climate change is big news; at least it’s big news in the circles I keep. Just the other day I was wandering around the Climate District – as you do – and overheard a couple of kids talking about ocean salinity levels. And while buying a weather machine from Tesco over the weekend I became engaged in a frank discussion of mean temperature effects on algae and the numerous knock-ons up the food chain with the checkout operator. I believe her name was Hayley and one of her false nails had fallen off. We have to stop the mean temperature from rising or we’re all doomed. More accurately, our descendants are doomed, and that’s the major problem. Nobody wants to change how they live now and by the time it becomes really, really important to change things now we will have reached and passed the oh bugger, too late point. We need thinkers outside the box. Enter Lowell Wood … one of the Pentagon’s weaponeer scientists, champion of X-ray lasers and cold fusion, right-winger, and part-time children’s entertainer. Last year, during the annual Scientific Square Dance and Sciencey News Symposium held in Aspen, the topic of discussion was "how would you stop the global mean temperature rise right now if you had to, and you do, you’re scientists damnit!?" Lowell Wood’s plan was outside the box. It was in another box entirely. A better-looking box, because the baddies always have the best looking boxes. You can read more about Wood’s plan here but, to summarise: simulate massive volcanic eruptions by burning sulphur and despositing it into the air over the poles, reflecting back sunlight, cooling the area below, and even regrowing the ice. Ingenious with a hint of diabolicism worthy of a James Bond villain. Some people liked it. Some people hated it. Some people phoned up their stockbrokers and asked them to invest heavily in Sulphur-U-Burn Corp on the off-chance it would be embraced. Wood’s plan was cheap, would work fast, and had only an 88% chance of making the situation worse with the upside that nobody need stop burning oil, driving eight cars, or chopping down the forests. In the shadow of that bombshell of a scientific plan for climate cooling a number of other "outside the box" ideas have been submitted by scientists who had hitherto been struck down with fear of being ridiculed by their peers. Operation Guano Borrowing from Wood’s plan the idea that reflecting back the sun’s heat will bring down the mean temperature of the Earth, countering the carbon dioxide levels’ warming influence, Operation Guano proposes an alternative – yet still natural...
Time Travel Tips
We asked for your greatest tips for budding time travellers and you didn’t disappoint! Before You Go Research and wear appropriate clothing for the right time period. Multi-coloured prosthetic horns and plus-fours are popular now but I know for certain that they can panic the Aztecs. Juanita Boscovar, Mexican Imperial City Don’t take your address book on your trip. Everyone you know will be dead or won’t have existed yet and you will sink into a fugue should you become stranded and reminded constantly of this fact. Charlie Whimple, Cardiff Dig out a photograph of your mother or father when they were young and burn the image into your mind. Do not sleep with them. Don’t even kiss them. Ferdinand Rapscallion, Tunbridge Wells Check the labels on your clothing! Polyester is highly combustible during temporal insertion ionisation and screaming, burning, naked people do not make great first impressions. Juanita Boscovar, Mexican Imperial City There’s no need to worry about cancelling the milk before you leave as you can cancel it after you come back before you leave instead. Jeb Hologram-Jones, Cloud City Gamma Use an AI machine to extrapolate the elderly appearance of any future brothers and sisters. Do not molest them while they are in nursing homes. Ferdinand Rapscallion, Tunbridge Wells Always take out paradox insurance before you leave as you never can tell when the slightest change you make will rupture the temporal causality loop foolish human. Insur-O-Bot 3F, International Insurance Space Station Attend a finishing school and learn to walk and talk properly before travelling otherwise you may become immortalised as "that bumbling Hispanic twit from the future". Juanita Boscovar, Mexican Imperial City Health And Safety Take your own powdered water when travelling to the past as all the water supplies on Earth were riddled with caterpillars until the insect plague in 2209. Lord Terry, Nova Scotia If bitten by a Tarkesian Moon Wasp during Earth Invasion 3 pour ginger beer on the wound. It is as effective as more expensive remedies and you can whip up a Moscow Mule at the same time. Cheryl Wang, Moonbase Chekov Group sex with monkeys is safe now but apparently it wasn’t always the case so ask before you inadvertently spread a worldwide disease. Ferdinand Rapscallion, Tunbridge Wells People who look identical to you but with goatee beards are not necessarily evil twins and may be simply drunk versions of yourself from the future playing pranks so take a moment before stabbing them in the face. One-eyed Walter, Ward 6 Always take out invisible microbial necrosis insurance before you leave as ancient records may have omitted their presence in...
Science Questions (Summer Edition)
It’s time for another round of science questions and answers with neOnbubble‘s very own (receipts to prove it) resident doctor of knowledge, Doctor Ofknowledge, and – since it’s an achingly hot Summer and the doctor is sweating under his labcoat – we’re going to have a real special summer theme to the questions. Some of the answers too! If you want to submit your own questions to Doctor Ofknowledge then please use the form at the bottom. Enough introductory claptrap! Let’s learn! Martin of Birmingham asks … It’s freakishly hot and I’ve got a cold. What is snot made from? Your body consists of the four classical elements – earth, fire, water, and air – plus antibodies too small for the ancient Greeks to find. Their job (the antibodies; not the ancient Greeks) is to travel the vast tracts of your skin and deep furrows of your organs looking for germs. When germs and antibodies meet it’s murder! Just like Hart to Hart. At the end of the murdering the germ is chopped up and thrown off the body. However, your nose is full of hairs and when germs die in there they become trapped. Under a microscope snot is revealed to be the rotting corpses of trillions of cold germs. Saddam of Melbourne asks … What is the accepted scientific rule governing the wearing of Speedos in public? The rule is: it’s perfectly fine to wear Speedos so long as they are underneath three other layers of clothing and you are behind a wall. The wall must be painted with a lead-based paint and be constructed to withstand a tactical nuclear strike. A tactical nuclear strike must occur soon after you disappear behind the wall. Jessica of Utrecht asks … My leg is trapped in melting tarmac and I am awaiting rescue. Will melting roads cause more of a problem as the climate warms? I’m sorry to hear of your predicament Jessica. While the problem of melting roads will increase as each decade passes and the mean temperature of the Earth rises, the issue of people, vehicles, and pets becoming trapped will even itself out as the population moves away from travelling using streets and towards air transportation via personal jetpacks. Jetpack travel is not so popular right now as their high failure rate means certain death after a long fall but, with the prospect of nice, soft tarmac to land in, this mode of travel will become more attractive for future generations. Oscar of Sesame Street asks … Why do sewers smell more in the Summer? Alligator sweat. Sebastian of Ulan Bator asks … What did you...
Hottest Sci-Fi Babes. Ever!!!!
There comes a time in every man’s life when he sits down and compiles a list of the 10 hottest babes of science fiction. It’s not something we can help and, since it’s a pleasurable experience, it’s not something we care to consider controlling either. For me that time has come now. I’m not the first man to do this and I won’t be the last and I won’t pretend that every other man will agree with this list 100% either. But most will. Because it is that good. 10 Character: LaliariActress: Missi PyleTV Show/Film: Galaxy Quest Oh, that’s not right. But it is. Tentacles. Hot. 9 Character: Princess ArdalaActress: Pamela HensleyTV Show/Film: Buck Rogers In The 25th Century It was very difficult being a woman in the early 80s series of Buck Rogers. How any of them kept from rolling around in hysterics while the corset-wearing, white spandex-apparelled hero tried to hold everything in while sometimes conveying both of his emotions (smiling and not quite smiling) in a single scene beggars belief. Still, the show did feature a string of ladies for Buck to rescue or with whom he could enjoy romantic interludes. Everyone remembers Wilma, of course, but everyone with a functional libido remembers Princess Ardala more. She wasn’t as wet as Wilma, her spaceship was bigger, she was a Princess for freak’s sake. And can anyone say "scantily-clad lust kitten"? Well, I’m thinking it anyway. 8 Character: GuinanActress: Whoopi GoldbergTV Show/Film: Star Trek Hairy girls are not hot despite what the Germans think so it’s a step in the right direction that Whoopi has no eyebrows. More importantly, though, is that Guinan runs a bar. Can you feel your temperature rising? Yes, that’s the alcohol at work. 7 Character: Martian GirlActress: Lisa MarieTV Show/Film: Mars Attacks! What can I say? I like girls with big … hair. Ack ack ack ack ack. 6 Character: LyekkaActress: Louise WischermannTV Show/Film: Lexx Lexx just oozed sexuality so it would be almost impossible to omit it from any list of science fiction babes or hunks. For the ladies there was Stanley Tweedle and for the manlier sex we had a procession of lovelies to salivate over. I could have picked Zev and her blue pubic hair. I could have picked Xev and her lips to die for. But when it comes to selecting the hottest of the hots it simply must be the luscious Lyekka. She’s a man-eating vegetable in nearly anatomically-correct female form. She can’t get pregnant, can handle herself in a fight, and will be happy with an occasional watering and a fresh growbag every now and then....
Recent From Retro
-
The Women Of Kilobaud Computing Sep 26, 2016 -
-
-
-
-
Recent From Entertainment
-
Dance Music Triple Nov 19, 2016 -
-
-
-
-
Recent Comments