A Clogwog in Oz » blog

And time began seriously to pass

admin — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:44:27 +0000

when walking the dog i stepped on a few snails by accident. it was dark and its raining so there were heaps of them out on the footpath.

the snails here look a lot like the ones in the Netherlands, so i thought, they must all come from a similar place and have (very) slowly populated the whole world (or so the book of knowledge tells me )

how slowly ? how long would it be for a land-snail (population, i assume an individual snail might not make it in his lifetime) to go around the world ?

there’s a few different references on snails pace, but 1 mm/sec seems to be the most common one.
1 mm/s = 3.6 meter/hour for say 8 hours a night = 28.8 m/day = 10.5 km/year.

so it would take them 3816 years to do a lap of the world (40.075 km at the equator).

4000 years doesn’t seem that bad

energy theft

admin — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:53:44 +0000

battery technology is improving very fast at the moment, i just read about the new lithium-ion combination with carbon nano-structures and air-batteries that promise a 10 fold improvement on current capacity.
(http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/04/ibm-develops-air-breathing-batteries/ )

in a couple of years i can imagine a ‘current affair’ report that follows somebody from work to home to ‘out’ them as stealing electricity from work.

almost everyone has a phone charger at work, but i can imagine a suitcase full of batteries (and an apple for lunch) being used for some heavy duty energy transport.

so currently laptops have li-ion batteries at about 50W/h.. you’d fit about 20 of those in a big suitcase = 1 KW/h .. the new air breathing batteries will have a 15 fold increase in energy density = 15 KW/h in a suitcase.

at A$ 0.18 a KW/h at top tariff.. well.. i guess not a ‘current affair’ material yet… “man steals A$2.70 a day”

it’s only a matter of time.. and you heard it here first.

quitin’ time

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:35:53 +0000

Melbourne, Australia, seen from the ISS at night

admin — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:57:04 +0000

Melbourne, Australia, at night taken by ESA astronaut André Kuipers from the International Space Station with the NightPod camera aid.
Cameras mounted on NightPod track the movement of Earth as it flies under the Space Station. Night-time photographs are less blurred and captured in higher detail.

For more information on André’s mission to the ISS, and to see many more of his fantastic images, please visit: www.esa.int/SPECIALS/PromISSe/index.html

Credits: ESA/NASA

A Lonely Sky

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:40:12 +0000

A Lonely Sky from Nick Ryan on Vimeo.

http://www.alonelysky.com/

an old photo from 2006

admin — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 02:21:56 +0000

scary stuff

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:02:32 +0000

Biggest Teahupoo ever, shot on the Phantom camera

buckets of clouds

admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:37:16 +0000

“Goldfish Salvation” Riusuke Fukahori

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:50:57 +0000

Artist Riusuke Fukahori’s London debut exhibition “Goldfish Salvation” transforms ICN gallery into the world of goldfish. When struggling with artistic vision, Fukahori’s pet goldfish became his inspiration and ever since his passion and lifelong theme. His unique style of painting uses acrylic on clear resin which is poured into containers, resulting in a three-dimensional appearance and lifelike vitality.

This video gives you a glimpse of his amazing painting process.

happy new year indeed

admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 07:10:49 +0000

looked around rye first but it was a bit bumpy there

then ended up surfing the same place as last year at a little big bigger. very enjoyable at 3-3.5 foot. benny, roh, dave, jeremy, logger, phil and tom. mick showed up as well.