Banner
Understanding The Voynich Manuscript #4

Understanding The Voynich Manuscript #4 If not Latin, then what? Please see the links at...

Understanding the Voynich Manuscript #3

Understanding the Voynich Manuscript #3 Plants and the moon. For thousands of years, people...

Understanding the Voynich Manuscript #2

Understanding the Voynich Manuscript #2 An i for an i ? Not nymphs: women! There are...

Understanding The Voynich Manuscript #1

Understanding the Voynich Manuscript #1 Tom, Dick and Harry explain a statistical method. ...

User picture.
picture for Hank Campbellpicture for Hontas Farmerpicture for Fred Phillipspicture for Tommaso Dorigopicture for Robert H Olleypicture for Payal Joshi
Patrick LockerbyRSS Feed of this column.

Retired engineer, 73 years young. Computer builder and programmer. Linguist specialising in language acquisition and computational linguistics. Interested in every human endeavour except the scrooge... Read More »

 Blogroll
Is Eyjafjallajökull Playing Possum?

Is Eyjafjallajökull Playing Possum?

Jun 09 2010 | comment(s)

Is Eyjafjallajökull Playing Possum?



Since the April and early May grounding of aircraft in much of Europe, the Eyjafjallajökull eruption has been producing - relatively - much less plume and appears to be dying down.  It is natural to ask: is Eyjafjallajökull playing possum, or does the volcano still pose a risk to European airspace?


Southern Iceland. Part of MODIS/ Terra image:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r01c03.2010153...

NASA Goes To The Arctic

NASA Goes To The Arctic

Jun 09 2010 | comment(s)

NASA Goes To The Arctic

NASA is sending a team of scientists to study the Arctic at close quarters.  I guess it's pretty hard to sample phytoplankton with a satellite.

NASA Icebreaker Voyage To Probe Climate Change Impact On Arctic
 
WASHINGTON -- NASA's first dedicated oceanographic field campaign goes to sea June 15 to take an up-close look at how changing conditions in the Arctic are affecting the ocean's chemistry and ecosystems that play a critical role in global climate change.
Murphy's Proviso

Murphy's Proviso

Jun 08 2010 | comment(s)

Murphy's Proviso To The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics


Notwithstanding anything stated to the contrary in the 2nd law;

The amount of energy needed to put right any accidental application of energy will always be significantly greater than the amount of energy used accidentally.

This simple truth popped into my mind today as I was writing an article.

It took a single inattentive click to accidentally delete almost all of the article and about three exhausting hours to remember what the heck I was waffling on about and to re-write the whole *$%* thing.


Murphy's Proviso demonstrates that the nearest anyone can ever get to perpetual motion is to become an obsessive-compulsive delete-key hitter.
Arctic Ice June 2010 - Update

Arctic Ice June 2010 - Update

Jun 08 2010 | comment(s)

Arctic Ice June 2010 - Update


This is an update to my article Arctic Ice June 2010, part of my ongoing series of articles about the Arctic.

The NSIDC ice extent graph shows a fairly constant and greater then average rate of ice loss over the last four weeks.

Arctic Sea Ice Entent June 07 2010 - NSIDC
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
.


In an article published May 06 2010 I wrote:
Paedocypris progenetica

Paedocypris progenetica

Jun 07 2010 | comment(s)

Paedocypris progenetica




Fish.


Fishy.

"I once caught a paedocypris progenetica this big!"
 


with infinite recursion.




Tip of the hat to uncyclopedia.
Wikipedia's Science 2.0 Article - I Call Poe

Wikipedia's Science 2.0 Article - I Call Poe

Jun 07 2010 | comment(s)

Wikipedia's Science 2.0 Article - I Call Poe


This article was inspired by Hontas Farmer's recent article and the subsequent comments: Science 2.0 - Darwinian Selection Of The Best Paper.