Extreme Weather – again (by sarah)

Within the last week we have had high winds, snow that blanketed the landscape and and more torrential rain - we are once again on flood warning etc...

The water has been divirted from the waterfall yet here you can see it looks worst than normal with the amount of water running through it :/

the diverted water is running straight into the trout pool behind us - from the pictures ypou can see just how much it is churning:

the levels are really up again resulting in the river bank dissappearing under water - believe it or not there are flood defenses under there diverting the river :/

Gilbert Barbaras little statue that sits in the water cress pond has already been washed away and we are hoping is once again lodged in the weir.

The gully where the water came through to flood us before is still holding up but we are hoping that the work thats been done in the waterfall tunnel is going to hold - the tunnel is now held up with metal joists but as they said we almost lost the thing in the last flood - we are a bit worried as if it collapses we are lickily to loose our garage and possibly the end of our house :/

A new stream trickel has also started up around the side of the Mill - not sure it really comes out in the photo but this didn't happen last time.

Sigh - the last record of flooding of the Bakery is 1750 I think my bad luck field has kicked in here :/

Debugger is not a naughty word (by alaric)

Computers are famed for harbouring bugs, and the high rate of failures in software compared to other industries is a constant cause of embarrassment. I'd like to explore why this is, with an example. And what we might be able to do about it.

Note: Although a lot of the details of the remainder crash are unfortunately very technical, I have done my best to explain things in a way that lay people should be able to make some sense of. However, some things would require a lot of background information, in which case I've just plowed on without explanation. So if you come across things that you don't understand, feel free to skip ahead a bit; you shouldn't lose too much.

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Radiotherapy Begins (by sarah)

Mum's radiotherapy started on Thursday, I went to see her on Saturday which was the first bad day for her, the pain from the radiotherapy which is being done from an angle from her back to incorperate her lung just incase, had kept her up all night. She obviously is very tired and that is due to get worse, she will be going everyday for about six weeks. I'll keep you all posted as to how she is doing.

Dyslexics and Business (by sarah)

Barbara (Als Aunt) showed me an article that she thought might interest me from the Financial Times it was basically about people pushing their children to succeed and giving two year olds after nursery classes and stuff. It generally made me feel really sorry for the kids - then it went onto how one thing thats seen as a major handicap at school appears to give the suffers a head start in the 'adult world' ie dyslexics appear to make good business people (I would have written ontrapaner but I funnily enough cant spell it and I'm pretty sure it begins with e - oh well).

According to the article about 30 % of people with successful businesses would describ themselves as dyslexic (not sure what the result would be if they tested them all but it might be interesting). The thing is people seem so suprised by this when really what else is going to happen to someone who is generally above average intelligence but who is unlickely to get far or even get (due to application forms and tests etc...) a normal job?

The options are start your own business, become a criminal or both. I'm not being mean here about the criminal stuff studies showed in the early nineties (I think do your own research) that alot of those in prison for organised crime where showing dyslexic, ADHD or dyspastic tendencies - at the time I was really worried about this as I wondered if it ment I'd end up a criminal - organising crimes takes brains as does running a business.

The other thing with trouble shooting and finding new ways of doing things is that lots of dyslexics have to do this in their every day life - ALL THE TIME. We dictate rather than write things down oursleves, we colour code things in order to remeber what we are doing etc... this skills are exactly what you need to start a business (ok well perhapse not the colour coding but hey it still gets used alot). And hiding the fact you have difficulty with spelling etc... becomes a new and powerful tool when turned to marketing.

What I'd like to see is how large the data set was for these results and what exactly was asked - also does it tally cross culterally or is it limited to say the USA and the UK? The other intreging thing I noted was that the two men they had interviewed both had alot of children - 6 and 9 each - did the writter of the artical do that on perpose and if not do sucessful dyslexics have a tendency to have large familys in a society where successful people have fewer children normally?

The Royal Astronomical Society (by sarah)

Yesturday I went into the Royal Astronomical Society for the fisrt time though I had attended their talks before they had always been in the Geology building instead so of course that is where me an Becca initially went! Where we signed in and where we helped ourselves to coffee and buscuits - it was off course the wronge place which resulted in us having to rescue our bags and coats from the lecture theatre that was holding another set of talks by the RAS! Very embarrassing but as most of the poeple giving the talks had made the same mistake we didnt feel too bad.

Still it ment I got to see one of my favourite rooms again - there is just something about old libaries with their polished wooden book cases and wrought iron spiral stair cases that makes me drool (obviously not onto the books). The change of building however was not a bad thing as I discoved the RAS have fantastic pictures of nebulea and the like that wizz past the clear glass sides of their lift - yes I'm afraid we went and got coffee and buscuits there too - well we couldnt pass up free food and drink could we?

There was also a fantastic glass window which I fell in love with. I have never seen glass in a window done like this it had the glass textured into a swerl that was coloured sutley with pastel pinks and greens with geometic shapes frosted in - I didnt get to have a proper look at it unfortunatly - hopefully there will be a next time 🙂 Scientific and buetiful stained glass windows - it has me thinking again I'm afraid. One of the things I want to do when I have the time and the money is too learn how to do stained glass and maybe even glass blowing though I am a bit scared of that! I would like to put a stained glass window in the bathroom showinng a boat and a light house you see. But I was also thinking that maybe something on the doors at the end of Als office might look nice but I couldn't think what now my mind is a buzz with designs and seeing that window has shown me that glass pictures do not have to bee restricted to stain glass in the traditional bounded with leading type.

The girls toliets where something to behold as well with lots of purple and cascading taps!

I met up with a few of the people from the Natural History Museum and am happy becuase they say I can go back to the meteorites and to just tell them when I want to 🙂 I also bumped into one of my lecturess from Imperial as she was giving a talk on Chixulub.

The talks where on Impact-Driven Changes in the Solar System which of course included lots of sdtrobiology stuff - for those of you who don't know when I grow up I want to be an astrobiologist! There was stuff on mass extinctions, there was stuff on marine impacts, there was of course Charles Cockell who works on the microbial organisms in impact rocks (he's one of the people that helped me design my project for the MRes - the thing that had to go on hold becuase of how ill I was during the pregnancy). There was also stuff on using computer modiles to see what effect Jupiter has on asteriods and comets and weather or not it does act as a sheild to the Earth - I spoke to the PhD student who was working on this project which was great - well in fact he came to the pub with us as he was one of Beccas friends. I did unfortunatly keep asking him what where probably thinck questions ie when you say you changed the mass of jupiter in the modile do you mean you changed its volume as well or do you mean you changed its density? I had alot of these questions.

There was one interesting project that was trying to see what effect impacts had on various comet structures - this involved making balls of ice and then hitting them with projectiles from a gas gun - I like gas guns and have infact designed my series of experiments I would do with one of them - I might even have (with Alarics help|) designed my own version of a gas gun which I think is probably OTT.

There was even a talk on the contraversial Silver Pit impact structure out in the North Sea - I have to say I am not convinced too me it looked like circular fualting from an upwelling diaper (dome of salt or lower density material that pushes its way up a sort of giant flame structure like you get when sand is laid down over mud) that had then escaped. But there where spiral fualts down into the basin and I dont known anything about how they would form so I'm still giving it a chance even though it is lacking gravity anomalies etc....

There was even a talk on why certain comets have been flaring (suddenly appearing bright) and wheather or not this is due to impacts onto them or the sun melting bits of them and volitile gasses escaping from reservoirs just under the surface. I struggeled most with the talks on the comets but emensly enjoyed them and am thinking I want to find out more about comets now 🙂

It was very interesting and I'm slightly releived as I had worried that becuase I hadnt been to anything for almost three years I wasnt going to be able to understand half of it I was pleasantly suprised that the only ones I struggeled with where the comets which I have never really looked at (bar hale bop which I saw through a telescope once).

After the talks (we didnt go to the AGM) we went to the pub and talked about many things including how to make chain mail 🙂 There were three birthdays including mine 🙂

To celbrate we went to a Japanese place for dinner somewhere near Tottenham Court Road - I had a vegitable Bento which was really reallly nice 🙂 Though I avoided the green stuff I once mistook for gualcamole :/

I really enjoyed the day but have left my self with a sad ache over academia - I really really miss my rocks the fact that they where sky rocks or rocks that had been smashed up by sky rocks makes it even worse for me. I feel that due to the funding cuts in this sector I may well have missed my chance to be part of this world but I think I am going to try anyway.