A Clogwog in Oz » geeky stuff

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/

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.

rainy dog dangling morning

admin — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 06:16:26 +0000

went for an early morning surf towards kilcunda

looked at klicunda and there was no wave to be seen

so we ended up surfing at woolies.
2 foot, clean, rainy, quiet and just pleasant.

finished the morning with a nice breakfast at the killy cafe

thunder

admin — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:14:56 +0000

up

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:31:57 +0000

this evening i was outside with my daughter when she pointed up and with a loud voice said ‘MOOOOOOOON’, she has been fascinated by the moon from age 1 and it seems to only get more excited by seeing it hang in the evening sky.

the first time i looked at the moon through a cheap telescope, this obviously humongous object silently slid from one side of the ocular to the other as the earth rotated underneath it. it felt like a humongous spaceship or the death star. (i found out the hard way that the moon is way too bright to look at like that.. use a filter kids !!)

wolfram alpha tells us how big the moon is