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Quick links to various main topics in my blog
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Simon's Blog - Hot news from the future!
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When you've run out of space in your brain, it's handy to be able to store thoughts somewhere else.
If you want to post a reply to anything hereabouts, you'll need to be registered and logged in.
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This is actually a starting point, but one that I haven't got round to starting for about 15 years :-)
When talking about the Great Year or Precession of the Equinoxes (the length of time it takes the direction of Earth's axis of rotation to revolve once around the sky - 25920 years or so), it's conventional for people then to go on and talk about the length of individual world "Ages" - when the Sun was in a particular sign at the Vernal Equinox - as 2160 years, a twelfth of a Great Year.
It's always been obvious to me that this must be wrong because the zodiac signs are not all the same size - some are small (eg Cancer) and some are large (eg Virgo).
Finally I've had a stab at estimating the correct lengths of the Ages based on the angular size of each of the constellations that lie along the Ecliptic (which is the path the Sun takes through the sky every year).
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Interesting article in New Scientist.
I particularly like this, in the 5D section:
"Seeing time as the fourth dimension made sense of Einstein's special relativity. The German mathematician Theodor Kaluza had even grander designs. In 1919, he sent a paper to Einstein in which he argued that by adding a fifth dimension to space-time, it was possible to show that gravity and electromagnetism were two aspects of one and the same force."
...because I've always had an inkling that gravity is a half-twist of magnetism.
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Just had a chap from EDF turn up on my doorstep to try to get me to move to them for my electricity supply.
Poor sod.
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Here's an interesting story - archaeologists have discovered the remains of a timber trackway near Belmarsh prison in London, with a carbon date of 6000BP (before present).
Buried in the report is a yet more interesting bit...
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ISS and STS-127 are docked, these are a couple of pics taken of tonight's pass at 22:10 BST from near Stonehenge.
Best viewed zoomed in.
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Had a chance to look at the plans and the model for the Airman's Corner visitor centre for Stonehenge this morning at Shrewton Village Hall.
In summary, I think they're "Satisfactory" (out of the available tickboxes on the comments sheet), but I was impressed by the chap from English Heritage who's in charge of the project and also the team from Denton Corker Marshall (architects).
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It's extremely depressing to read the comments being posted on the various Facebook groups that have been set up after the incident at the All Saints RC School where a teacher injured a pupil during a physics lesson.
Both sides have degenerated into posting vitriol.
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DutchMaster
I could have done with one of those to keep Hugo under control ;-)
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A guest on "In our time" on Radio4 this morning voiced an opinion I've been contemplating for a while now - that we're living now through the Earth's 6th mass extinction event.
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Overheard on BBC Breakfast this morning around 9am:
"Let's go over now to our PlinthMaster..."
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The majority of the follow-up postings I've seen about the solstice at Stonehenge have been talking about the amount of litter left behind by the so-called "Neo-Pagans" and "Earth-Lovers".
Hmmm - I suspect the majority were plain old partygoers with not much concept of paganism or earth-loving. Even the "official" druid contingent had a hard time getting into the circle for the dawn ceremony, as it was packed with people. Next year, flaming swords wielded by Arthur's Loyal War Band might be the answer...
However, one link I've seen leads to a set of pictures of other solstice celebrations around the world, where things are handled rather better it seems.
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*Assuming* that my dad's out of hospital (or at least is stable and comfortable) I plan to be going to Stonehenge for the solstice.
Open access starts at 7pm on Saturday night, so I'll be heading off around 6pm. Anyone else planning to go?
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Interesting snippet in the latest SPA bulletin - it seems that Betelgeuse's angular size has shrunk 15% since 1993 and that the rate of change is increasing.
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I made reference to this book in an earlier post, and 7 weeks after ordering it directly from Canada it's finally arrived.
At last, a book on archaeoastronomy from someone who actually knows something about astronomy!
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Notes from this year's conference.
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I found the instructions on how to assemble the necessary structure for the support of Quantum GIS to be somewhat daunting at first sight.
I'm used to installing Mac apps by simply opening up a .dmg file and either running an installer or dragging the app from the mounted disk image.
Once I'd got my head around the concept that all the talk of "frameworks" was about a set of support facilities that were prerequisites (info from the qgis-user list) that had to be installed first, I felt more confident.
Here are the exact steps I took, in case similarly nervous folks need some reassurance :-)
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One month in following the reorganisation of Wiltshire into a Unitary Council, what have we got to show for it?
Complete paralysis, that's what.
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Wandered up to Avebury this morning for the Beltane/MayDay celebration.
About 100 or so people there - unfortunately no sign of the Sun.
Photos...
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Very sad news that John Michell, pioneering thinker and architect of the renaissance in the appreciation of the achievements of our remote ancestors, has died.
Author of "The View over Atlantis" in 1969 which essentially started the "New Age" of earth mysteries and his collaborations with other authors on the concept of a unified ancient metrology based on a knowledge of the Earth's dimensions, his contribution to the enlightenment of the late 20th C is unparalleled.
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Göbekli Tepe stone circles.
Photos of the monuments of southern Turkey, which predate the earliest structures at Stonehenge by five or six millennia.
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Some serious study is now going on into this theory, with some interesting results.
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