Exploding the legend

I am a bit late on this one given all the fireworks and general merriment of this month have past, none the less I feel the need to post a documentary the BBC did recreating the Guy Fawkes plot. (Background courtesy of Wikipedia for those not familiar with British history.) Except of course, they blow up their life-size replica Houses of Parliament. I didn’t record it when it was first shown 3/4 years ago so I was ecstatic when I found it on youtube, the quality is a little poor but it is phenomenal what that amount of gunpowder could have done.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Part 6:

Part 7:

Part 8:

Halloween special – Science of Candles

Welcome Wizards and Warlocks, something a bit special today (although I know I am a bit late with the Halloween reference) – my friend Louise pointed me towards this short youtube video explaining the science behind candles. It is rather interesting actually, so anyone with a love for science (or just pyromania) — enjoy :)

Monitor the LHC Experiment!

I found a great link to a couple of webcams that actively monitor the Large Hadron Collider experiment. There are currently two cameras available,

• Camera 7: looking at the Underground Experimental Cavern from the Saleve side.
• Camera 8: looking out of the window of the 1st Floor of the SCX building that houses the CMS Control room.

Below is just a screen shot, click through and take a look for yourself :)

Would almost pass as an advert for Command and Conquer Red Alert 3. :)

LHC Hysteria

I found a beautiful combination of headlines on the BBC news site a moment ago:

Classic..

Windows ‘Mojave’ Experiment

I have been saying it all along and this just confirms it. Microsoft took (presumably) a random group of people and showed them the Windows ‘Mojave’, the purported successor to the ‘current’ Windows. So, forget about 7 and take a look for yourself.

I can’t really say too much more without giving the game away, although part of me wonders just how random this actually was. Without wishing to be offensive, these people do look to be fairly PC-illiterate and it wouldn’t be too hard for Microsoft to manipulate the outcome. On the other hand, with the amount of ill conceived rubbish being circulated about Vista it doesn’t take too great a leap of the imagination.

EDIT: Just did a bit of reading and found out the test bed for this experiment was a HP dv2000 laptop with 2Gb of RAM. I had a dv2799 (for a short duration) and I know they are very capable machines (although the workmanship is terrible – I have 4 go wrong but never-mind), however not outside the realms of the ‘average’ consumer system. This is good as it at least makes it a fairly fair demonstration.

Battlestar Galactica – Season 4 Act 2

I can’t believe SciFi / Sky One went ahead with their plans to shelve the second part of the final season until 2009! Bah! Like a crazed junky, I am left clamoring for my BSG-fix – especially with the way the mid-season finale left things!

Anyway, despite being quite frustrated – here is a trailer for the final part of season four which goes a long way to rebuilding my excitement for the last segment, although interestingly, there is talk of another feature length film being considered.