mssv

  • Spooks Yahoo

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    Someone has set up a Spooks YahooGroup to discuss the game. Amusingly, I can recognise least three of the twenty-two current members as Cloudmakers veterans.

  • Squirrels

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    Squirrels – are they really a force for good?

  • TV

    ·

    2–3 minutes

    ·

    2 comments on TV

    I was reading a thread on Metafilter about television when I realised that there are now two ways to look at it. You can watch television, or you can watch a programme. To me, ‘watching television’ treats television as an end in itself, whereas ‘watching a programme’ treats it as a means to an end.…

  • Firewalking

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    My answer to a firewalking question was published in today’s Notes and Queries section of the Guardian.

  • Trinity nuclear test

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    Anecdote of the day: Physicist Ted Taylor used a parabolic mirror to light his cigarette with the flash from the Trinity nuclear bomb test (from Rich).

  • Behaviour

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    Quote of the day: “The thing with behaviour is that we don’t know what subjects are thinking. I don’t know whether my rats are pressing the lever because they know they’ll get heroin – and I don’t know whether children will be surprised because they think ‘Hey, the laws of gravity have changed!’”

  • Revision

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    1 comment on Revision

    I won’t be updating this weblog regularly for the next couple of weeks, as my first exams are starting on Friday. Over the course of 14 days, I’ll have eight exams totalling 22 and a half hours. Surely there’s a better way?

  • Google

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    labs.google.com – various neat alpha-stage applications including Google Glossary (works fairly well for the technical terms I tested it with), voice searching and keyboard searching.

  • BA Festival of Science

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    With its magnificent riches, Trinity College has awarded me a grant to attend the British Association Annual Festival of Science this September in Leicester. It’s a five day long convention of British scientists covering all the different disciplines of science, and should be great fun. It’ll also give me an opportunity to check out the…

  • Segway on Moon

    ·

    1–2 minutes

    ·

    Crazy questions of the day: Would you be able to get air if you were riding a Segway on the Moon at top speed and hit a bump and could you pull off a ‘Mary Poppins’ by floating down from the top of a hotel with just an umbrella?