Back in 1970, the French Government tested a heap of Nuclear weapons on atolls in the pacific. This photograph is allegedly one test on the island of Licorne.
This photograph looks so much like a painting it is amazing.
[From Licorne (Monoscope)]
Science
Archived Posts from this Category
I didn’t really get into the new series(es?) or Dr Who. I used to watch it as a kid, since I only had two TV channels, one of which was the ABC, and this, along with The Goodies and Monkey! were staples of my afternoon/early evening viewing. Then, later on, it was time for The A Team (which, along with Monkey!, I wasn’t really allowed to watch), and the original Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers and the like.
So, I wasn’t really that interested in watching Dr Who. Except apparently there is nothing else on any of the other stations at the time it is on, which is a Saturday early evening. So, in the last month, I’ve been tuning in. It just shows you how I don’t have a social life, too.
And the episode aired last night was fantastic. Statues that are really Quantum Assassins, that turn to stone when any living creature looks at them, so they look like statues. But if you look away, then they can sneak up on you, and kill you.
And the time travel aspect was cool. Closed loops of time, effect predating time. Timey-wimey stuff.
Looks like my Saturday nights are now booked. At least 7:30 until 8:15 p.m., anyway.
Mon 6th Nov 2006
Dr. Karl cracks a funny
Posted in the evening, filed under Biology , Humour , Radio and Podcasting.Dr Karl from ABC radio is a funny, clever man.
One of his recent podcasts/radio segments was called “Pluck for Luck,” and discussed four-leaf clovers. The funny thing he said almost slipped past my attention the first time around:
Stressors can come in a variety of forms. Drought, rain, aphids, Leprechauns, …
I had to listen to it again, just to see if I’d heard it right!
Mon 6th Nov 2006
Psychobabble Bullshit
Posted late afternoon, filed under Psychology , Radio and Podcasting , Rants and Raves.I listen to a variety of Podcasts, including All In The Mind, “Radio National’s weekly foray into all things mental,” and generally like it.
As I’m known to do, I take exception (or get annoyed) with particular segments. The two podcasts I listened to today irked me especially.
The first was a discussion of Placenta Brain, and the general consensus was that it doesn’t exist. I know of this phenomenon by it’s alternative name, Mummy Mind, and I have seen it in all of the women I am close to who have borne children.
The general theories go like this: somehow (possibly due to hormones) women become different during pregnancy, often exhibiting behaviours they wouldn’t normally, like leaving their car running when running an errand, and being surprised to see if running when they return.
I would go somewhat further than this. Bearing children permanently damages their minds. My sister, who was a perfectly normal, intelligent person, suddenly started making inane comments about all sorts of things. Something which she had not done before giving birth to my favourite nephew.
I had grown up with my mother making crazy statements (often obvious ones) and had just put this down to it being her. After my sister had her baby, if occurred to me that Mum had been smart in her youth (her school reports, and discussion with friends and family from that era confirm this) and had simply lost her marbles (not totally) after giving birth.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my mother and sister very much. I don’t profess that they are totally bonkers, just not as “sharp” as they used to be. And giving birth seems to be, for both of them, the turning point in their lives as intelligent individuals. More than just the impairment during pregnancy, I think it seems to linger…
•
The second podcast was an interview with a Jewish Psychiatrist practicing in Israel, and treating both Israelis and Palestinians. This seemed to set him off on a good path, but he started to throw in some pretty inane language himself, particularly some of the Jungian Jargon (Always Alliterate!!!) and I quickly lost respect for him. It’s the first Podcast for a long time I have skipped the end of.
His discussion of recurring dreams was a particular annoyance of mine: I can’t find the exact quote in the transcript, but it was something like:
The thing about recurring dreams is that they are telling the mind something. And the fact they repeat is because the mind “just doesn’t get it.”
I’m still of the impression that dreams have very little relation to reality. If we can see something in our dreams, it is only because we want to. Dreams are like “random events”, or spring cleaning of the brain’s circuitry. Any relationship to real life is only because there are all these events, images, sounds, memories, and our mind just attempts to fit them into what it perceives as reality. Forcing the facts to fit a theory, as it were.
Anyway, he started to go on with a bit of rubbish after that - I’d arrived home (hardest ride I’d had for a while, pretty much head-wind all of the way home, with a bit of a rise for the last kilometre or so), and often while I continue to the end, I skipped it.
•
Now, before I get too many nasty comments about the first part - please note that I’ve deliberately played it up a little. My family are not loopy (perhaps just a little, but that’s a whole other story). I’m merely stating the anecdotal evidence I have seen about cognitive deterioration during, and indeed after, pregnancy. And, I have some other cases, but I’m saving them for my paper on the topic… after all, Fraud, ahem, Freud, Jung’s mentor, based all of his theories on a handful of cases.
University of California (Berkeley) now has a whole lot of lectures available as downloadable audio. You can get Podcasts of them, or get them via the iTunes Music Store, Berkeley edition.
I’m not getting them as Podcasts, since the ones on iTunesU are already pre-tagged, and the courses I’m getting are not currently running, so I don’t need to automatically get new ones.
The only tagging fault I’ve found is that they are missing:
Remember playback position Skip when shufflingWhich I think are important for this type of thing.
I’ve also noticed some Podcast/downloads via iTunes can be paused and resumed, unfortunately, these ones can’t.
Finally, a neat point is that it automatically creates a new Playlist, and a new Playlist Folder.
Snow • Alex Lloyd • Black The Sun ★★★
Apparently, even some of the WoW boys who are on ADSL had some delays waiting for the update to download, and someone from my guild, who communicate regularly outside of WoW (we do all know one another in Real Life) posted a link to a website: http://www.cforce.org.
This site begins with three puzzles requiring a little bit of knowledge to solve: the first one took me a matter of minutes, although I had to use Google to find who actually said the quote. Reorganising the puzzle pieces was pretty simple, and my first guess (of Einstein, who died in 1955) was incorrect. The second puzzle took a little longer, but only because I didn’t have access to a 1 dollar bill. Again, Google helped out in finding out the latin phrases on the back. I didn’t bother with the date, as there were only a couple of characters used in this simple substitution cipher that were from this section of the key. Then, as there were a finite number of possible answers to the puzzle, I just tried several of them before I lucked on the right answer. I can’t even remember what answer I put in…
The third one took some thinking. Originally, I had tried one method, and for some reason got fixated on this. It wasn’t until I thought a little more about it, and expanded my ideas a little that I solved it. I had at this stage obtained a small audience of students, and they were very impressed with my solving of the puzzle. I can guarantee that in total, the three puzzles took me around 20 minutes to solve. And that was with some breaks as students needed assistance. If I’d been at a machine with a python interpreter installed, I probably would have done it in about 5.
(more…)
I can’t remember when I first heard of Freud. I think I didn’t really know enough about him while at school to make any decisions, other than the term Freudian Slip. It wasn’t until I was at Uni, and studying some Psychology that I came across him in any context. I read a couple of fairly biting criticisms of his work by people like Stephen Jay Gould, and haven’t really had any respect for him since then. There’s one quote I really enjoy, particularly since it nicely complements the Freud/Fraud similarity:
Everything Freud did that was new was not true,
and everything Freud did that was true was not new.
I learned something last friday, and I learnt it from some juvenile delinquents.
(more…)
