Category: Science

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ADS-B

I’m interested in aircraft. I don’t know why it started but it’s pretty much always been there. I grew up near Stansted airport and I can remember seeing the Space Shuttle visit in the early 80s, I saw the 747 and Shuttle circle around from the primary school playing field. When I studied art at secondary school every picture of mine contained an aircraft much to my teacher’s annoyance.

Nowadays it’s easy to see aircraft on the web. I have the planefinder app installed on my phone and often tweet when I spot an A380. I only really tweet the A380 as it’s massive and extremely beautiful.

My aircraft thing also meant I travelled to Stansted to see Air Force One take off a few months ago.

28000
28000

I wanted to find a way to see what military aircraft are doing in the skies and I found a website called 360Radar who have this information. The site isn’t open to public yet and I emailed to see if I could get a test account. They said yes.

I like the site. I like the filters and information that I can see. This site relies on people sharing their MLAT data with them and they will offer a free account if you share data. They have a great comprehensive guide to setting up a system that is currently here. I ordered a small aerial and it arrived today. Within about thirty minutes of getting to the computer I was running the data server and sending information to the network.

I have a USB aerial picking up 1090MHz signals from aircraft. I then have a small program running to collate that data and form it into useful data.

Screen Grab of MLAT
Screen Grab of ADS-B Signals

You can see that I am picking up an aircraft over Cherbourg which I think is quite impressive. All of my aircraft are south of my position because my aerial is placed in a south window. I will look into moving the aerial to a more central, higher position in the house so that I can pick up aircraft all over!

Here’s another screen grab of the output from my aerial.

Another ADS-B Map
Another ADS-B Map

How it works

Many aircraft broadcast position information on 1090 MHz. This information comes from the aircraft’s navigation system but does not require the pilot to be involved in the operation of the system. The position of the aircraft is determined by GPS. This output information is called Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast. My little aerial picks this up and reads it. My computer then sends this information to a website which aggregates the information.

For aircraft that don’t output the ADS-B signal their position and direction can be known using multilateration [MLAT]. This involves two or more base stations and measuring the time difference between each station receiving a signal. It’s very clever!

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God Reaffirms His Commitment to the UK

Last night I had a few drinks at The Red Bull, a pub in my village. I say “my village” but really I mean the collection of dwellings in which I reside. The pub is nice, except it was expensive. I say “expensive” but I don’t really know, I don’t often drink in pubs although £8-50 for a wine and a bottle of beer seemed expensive.

Just as the sun was going down a very beautiful double bowed rainbow appeared in the east. It looked fantastic. I took some photos with my phone but they don’t really do it justice. I wish I’d had a better camera with me and time to play with the settings.

After a while it went weird. It looked as though the two rainbows had merged for form one large rainbow. I should point out it wasn’t raining and I couldn’t see any around so maybe it was cloud stuff or ice?

Covenant
Covenant

 

As I said, this picture doesn’t really do justice to it. The rainbow looked wonderful.

Closing In
Closing In

 

As for the west. It also looked truly wondrous.

Just Lovely
Just Lovely

The person I was with said that the rainbow was god’s covenant with Noah for the future of mankind. Well, that’s a nice little story. I’m not convinced he can do a great deal about the UK because we seem pretty much fucked.

I have seen that the titles for the last two posts seem a little like Daily Mail headlines and so I promise to change back to something more my style soon

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For God’s Sake Man It’s Only A Weather App

I recently saw that the Met Office had a new weather app. I think it popped up on the front page of the app store. I was interested as I’m quite fussy about my weather apps. Once you get used to one and the information it gives you it’s quite hard to change. Much like buying a new wallet, which I have to do soon and it fills me with dread. By the way, I don’t like the term “app”, I’m not particularly fond of the term “application”, to me these are programs and always will be.

Here’s the front page of the new app:

The new app had embedded video forecasts from the Met Office – these are not needed, I’m too old to care for video forecasts. Also, video on a phone is antisocial and useless, I can get the same information without the noise and movement. I think this may be a generational thing. I don’t need sound and people to inform me something that I can see in a diagram or map. It could possibly be why I also don’t like the news that is broadcast into our homes all the time [hint: change channel, which I do].

 

Here’s another view of the new app:

I’m not sure I like the days across the top. I think that’s mostly because I the older app [which is still available] had the days going down the screen. The worst part of the new app is the weather alert screen. This screen used to be a map with colours over it.

This is a good weather warning map. It tells me what I need to know. The new app just has text to read. I can’t be bothered to read it. The text is broken down into regions. I can be even less bothered to find my region and then decode the words. Oddly, I do like listening to radio weather broadcasts so maybe I’m just weird here.

One last thing. The new app has done away with proper weather charts. These actually mean something to me and I like them. They give an overall impression of what is really going on in the weather. Here are some examples of good stuff:

Day by day and then lovely extra information if you need it. There’s a page that will give hour by hour predictions too.

Look at these maps. Aren’t they pretty and lovely. They let you know what’s going on. The new app doesn’t have this. Which is a shame. I do get the feeling that sometimes things are “improved” to include lots of new functions but the reality is that they just fuck them up.

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Going Underground

Spent an hour under the Kent countryside one afternoon as I dived into the world of Chislehurst Caves. They are man made caves in the chalky hills. They are also quite impressive and a good place to go when you want to escape the summer heat and humidity. The tour guide was a bit cheeky but funny in the right way and he was knowledgeable, he was just the sort of person you want to show you around.

According to the guide Hendrix and Zeppelin both played the caves, which would have been amazing to see but I guess the sound would have been terrible. Although this was the late 60s and early 70s so you would have been smashed out of your head and not notice.

I would recommend this tour as it was good value and interesting.

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Impressive Tech?

So, I saw this the other day while waiting at a set of traffic lights.

Van
Van

I was impressed because the sign seems to imply that the van is “restricted” to particular speeds in different areas.

Restricted to me means that the driver can NOT go above those speeds when on those types of roads. I just wonder how it works. I will grant you that the tech for this already exists and I’m not entirely sure why it isn’t compulsory.

You can fit a vehicle with a GPS receiver and a set of maps so it “knows” where it is. This is connected to the ECU and hey presto, you can’t go faster than the speed limit allows. It should be easy enough. There might be some issues with travelling on the motorway over a bridge and the GPS thinks you are suddenly in a 40 zone but this can be worked around I am sure. I am not sure why these aren’t the law.

Anyway, if the van uses impressive tech then that’s brilliant. If the tech is a biological ape then that’s shit.

I’ve asked Sky. When I get a response I’ll put it here!

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Stupid Comparisons

The following picture was tweeted by BBC Radio 4 this morning as an explanation for the scale of the new Gotthard Base Tunnel. I have a few things to say but initially I would like to let you know that the genius of man never fails to surprise me. We have been so successful in being brilliant. The things we can do to overcome problems are stunning. An irritating by-product of this is that our ingenuity has also been used to create ever more bizarre ways of killing our own species.

comparisons

I have a few things to say:

  • I am not even aware of Nicaragua’s GDP and I care not a lot. How about comparing it to teachers employed, or even the cost of other tunnels. 12.5 billion seems reasonable to me in terms of EU budgets.
  • I have never understood the football field comparison. Surely people understand that football fields are roughly 100m long anyway. It’s not necessary.
  • This is the one that really bugged me. 4,000,000 cubic metres does NOT compare to a height. One is a volume and the other is NOT. Apart from reservoir engineers who can picture or comprehend this volume anyway.
  • Because I know exactly how much a freight container holds???
  • Why do I need a diagram showing me the distance between London and New York. They haven’t even used the Great Circle. I get it 3200km is a long way.

At least they didn’t mention double decker buses.

The ONLY comparison that should be made is country area and Wales because it leads to countries being described in KiloWales [thanks to More Or Less for that].

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Don’t Be A Dick

I am going to be hypocritical here. I am going to lecture about not being nasty and trying to keep the discussion calm and then I am going to rage about things on my most public of forums.

The big message and thing I try to remember is that when tackling the issues that I disagree with or know are wrong then it’s very hard not to be a dick. It’s too easy to get angry and want to shout at people. I have written about this before, I follow some people on Twitter and various other internets because I want to know the sort of things they are saying. I want to try to listen to their points of view and to see where they come from.

Don’t Be A Dick started with Phil Plait giving a talk at TAM:

Phil Plait – Don’t Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

I often have to remind myself of this. My instant response when reading tweets like these below is to scream FUCK OFF at these arseholes. I don’t think I am made for being nice when such hatred and misinformation is spread.

Ken Ham is currently building an ark in Kentucky.

Answers in Genesis use confirmation bias to “prove” the bible.

Matthew Lawrence is religious and believes hell is expanding.

The pope continues to seem reasonable until you realise that he won’t endorse contraception, gays or hand over kid-fucking priests to the police and justice system.

“Pastor” Alex Rivas should be all about love and forgiveness, unless you are gay or LGBT.

Lifeforce claim to cure many things using a method that doesn’t work.

Dana Ullman talks bollocks.

All these people are cunts.
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Screw

I walked along the river Medway today from Allington Locks to Maidstone town centre. I should point out that the river walk is delightful, I recommend it. The only issue was the obnoxious music beingplayed by the Beefeater Inn called the Malta Inn. Why they have to pump music outside I don’t know. It spoils the peace and calm of the river.

N51 17 14.3     E00 30 30.25

This is where I was when I spotted an awesome thing of engineering. On the other side of the river was a very large Archimedes Screw. I say large because I have never seen a screw this big before. I’m used to the screws that you can play on in kids water parks and things but this was impressive!

Archimedes Screw
Archimedes Screw

I don’t know what it’s there for. Obviously it raises water and brilliantly so but why just there? I am going to have to ask around to find out.

screw map 1

screw map 2

It can be seen using images on Google earth. I was hoping to have some company or website pop up and declare what it does but there was none. It is rather an object of wonder.

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Indigo

This is Part One of Bullshit Saturday.

Two weeks ago a flyer dropped through my letter box. It advertised the Indigo Spiritual and Holistic fair. I decided to go. This may seem a surprising decision given my very clear declarations here that religion is bollocks along with alternative (not) medicine. I thought it would be a good idea to try the dark side and visit, to see what actually happens at these events.

I struggled a little bit because I had to pay to get in the fair. This money would go towards organising more of these things, but my paltry GBP1.50 entrance fee probably would be much among the total takings.

I was actually excited about this. I wanted to see what manner of stuff is said and sold here. I also find it utterly fascinating just how much the human brain can deceive itself.

This fair took place in a small village hall. There were stalls and talkers in the main hall, the healing room was off to the side and there was also a room where talks were taking place. I will point out now that anything I quote in this communication will be a direct quote form a leaflet. I did not have the guts to actually talk to anyone, next time I will. I felt as though I had a massive arrow above my head saying UNBELIEVER or worse SCEPTIC. I was an explorer in a strange new world.

Workshops

There were four workshops planned for the day. They were titled:

  • Aura drawings
  • Colour Therapy
  • Guided Meditation
  • Tropic Skin Care

These seemed quite awesome. It would have been brilliant to attend some of these but not this time. I felt like a fish out of water. Next time maybe. However, a few words on each might be worthwhile. Aura drawings – bullshit, colour therapy – bullshit except that we each like certain colours, guided meditation – possibly bullshit, need to listen to the claims they make, tropic skin care – seems ok apart from some of the website claims.

Tropic Skin Care

Their website makes the following claim:

Our products contain the purest naturally derived ingredients and are free from harmful toxic chemicals.

ALL make up and creams are free from harmful toxic chemicals. It’s the LAW.

Colour Therapy

Maz provides information about colour therapy. I didn’t go to the talk but I did pick up a leaflet and I will quote from it now.

Did you know . . . . . Kylie Minogue painted her bedroom pink – the colour of love – to aid her recovery from cancer.

Now, I’m not sure I am surprised. A woman paints her bedroom pink. I would be interested to know how many women with pink bedrooms or who wear pink clothes or pink anything had died from cancer. Kylie also had a load of proper medicine. Also, pink is the colour of love. How very fortunate. How do you find out what colour represents which thing? Is it tested over time with a control group? How much pink do you need in your life? What shade of pink?

Here website is here, I have read it. Maz has an advance colour therapy diploma from the British School Of Yoga, not a basic diploma. Perhaps she knows more colours. Also she reckons she defeated her breast cancer through giving up medicine:

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 it was a major turning point in my life. My decision was to refuse all surgery and non-naturalistic treatment. I had previously worked as a Script Supervisor for TV and film, but when I was told of the ‘dis-ease’ in my body I immediately started to look at my life and make significant changes.

Note her use of the term dis-ease, alternative practitioners love it. I am glad she is cured but I question her choices. I would also like to know more about the extent of the cancer and what her physicians thought, we only have her word for it. I am now about to get inot full on rage mode having noticed something on her website.

I clicked on the tab that said read more about colour therapy.

Colour is simply light of varying wavelengths, and thus each colour has its own particular wavelength and energy. Each colour of the rainbow resonates with the seven main chakras in the human body, and understanding these colours and chakra relationships can be used to restore the balance of energy within the body according to where it needs it most.

Not quite rage yet, but if you invoke chakras then you are talking bullshit. It’s the next bit that is most disturbing.

What is colour therapy used for?

  • Treating cancer illness and disorder

This is wrong more ways than I can count. It is illegal to claim to cure cancer and she does not claim that. She does claim that colour therapy can treat cancer. I wonder what evidence she has to make those claims? She can fuck right off. Even more so that at the bottom of her page it says the following:

Marilyn Humphreys makes no claims to diagnose, treat, prevent, mitigate, or cure diseases  with any advice or product(s). Any health related information for educational purposes only. None of the information should be misconstrued as medical advice. The ultimate responsibility for your choices and their effect(s) on your health are yours and before applying any therapy or use of herbs, supplements, etc. you should consult your health care provider.

She has just told us that she refused medicine and cured her cancer. She makes claims that colour therapy will treat cancer. She can stop saying this shit for her own financial gain. I’m going for a breather before writing any more on here.

The Stalls

Here are my impressions on the stuff being sold at this fair. I walked around twice to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Again, I didn’t ask any questions, maybe next time. Also, I didn’t buy anything. I did have a cup of tea, but I bought no products.

Here’s my notes from wandering and writing what I saw being sold:

  • Crappy stone/semi precious stone jewellery
  • Motivational quotes on place mats
  • Pictures of unicorns, angels and wolves howling (lots of purple)
  • T Shirts
  • Hippy hair braids
  • Angel statues
  • Incense
  • Angel mugs
  • Minerals
  • Runes
  • A “real” witch selling herbs and stuff
  • Broomsticks and models of witches and wizards
  • Clocks
  • More angels

Lots of people had their faces painted, mostly because there was a face painter there, but this did add to the hippy atmosphere. Also, quite a few women had flower loops in their hair, it must have special properties or something.

There were people giving readings and I should do this next time. It seemed to be about GBP20 for the cheapest option but I am utterly fascinated with what they might say. The readings ranged from a psychic to someone reading runes, another with tarot cards and another with a computer telling you your life plan from your date of birth. This is all clearly bollocks but I am intrigued.

Another stall was offering aura photography and interpretation. Maybe next time but it is pretty interesting. Oh, by the way, you would think that if these people can capture the “aura” then science and medicine would use it so much for diagnosing and treatment. Hold on, what’s that you say? My doctor has never asked about my aura? Of course he hasn’t because your doctor knows bullshit when he sees it (or doesn’t). If your doctor mentions an aura to you, get up, leave, say “thank you” and never go back.

Leaflets

I am going to mention some of the leaflets I picked and ridicule appraise them.

Angels For You

This lady has psychic abilities and is priced “very reasonably”. Her leaflet claims she can perform “reiki” and use “Angelic oracle cards” along with her being guided by the “Angelic Realm”. Her website is no more. She doesn’t really make any specific claims in her website but she will:

answering questions with my pendulum

Such power should only be used carefully I am sure. Oops, I just found something amazing:

We also offer Crystal Healing; we place crystals on different parts of your body, corresponding to chakras, constructing an energy grid, which will surround you with healing energy.

I love the idea of an energy grid. It sounds like the National Grid, mini pylons spread over your body to align your “energy”. So, if you want to impress people explain what the actual definition of physical energy is:

The capacity for doing work.

This means that anything that has an energy can be used to power something, however small, and, more importantly, it can be measured. See that, MEASURED.

Chakras:

reiki_chakra

Souls Intention

This woman was giving readings from her computer. I expect that she has a program that spouts loads of saved Barnum statements once you enter a date of birth and where you were born. Apparently this format of soul reading originates from “The numerology of Moses”. I am not going to look this up.

Your soul plan is a blueprint for your life, a map to guide you on your own life path. Later the leaflet explains that our

Soul contract which, on a deeper level, we chose before conception.

So, before your father’s sperm entered the egg inside your mother your soul contract was in place.

This woman also offers reiki. Of course she does. But more importantly she offers the

Usui Skiki Ryoho Technique

I don’t know how many types of reiki you can have but apparently there is more than one. Not only all this but also Mindset Therapy.

Here’s an idea of her costs:

  • Souls Intention Reading 1 hour £40
  • Souls Healing Session 1 hour £30
  • Full Souls Intetion reading 2 hours £75
  • Mindset Therapy 2 hours £50

Perhaps I am in the wrong business. But then at least I have measurable outcomes.

Hags Hollow

This chap is a witch. Yep, full on witch with spells and shit. He will undertake a reading and include a spell for GBP30. If you want just a spell then that’s GBP15. He also offers apprenticeships, for £140 you can enrol in the full course that covers the following:

  • Introduction to Ancestral Magic
  • Protection
  • Witch Lore & Craft
  • Spell Craft
  • Healing
  • Prosperity & Abundance
  • Cursing & Dark Casting

Because nothing says caring that learning how to curse. Luckily this man will also remove curses. He also goes no to explain what witchcraft is and offers the following disclaimer:

Both of these belief systems crossover into one another and there is no right or wrong way to practise the craft. These are both general explanations and in no way a reflection of anyone’s personal beliefs.. Simply follow your heart and be open to anything that the universe presents.

So, no right or wrong way to practise something that has no measurable outcome. I’m glad about that.

I have so much material I will spread this over a few communications. I also hope to attend some more of these fairs in the future. They are enlightening [but not how people there would think].

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