Sometimes reality is as stange looking as fiction

Warning: full size image is 2.60 Mb

"Dust makes this cosmic eye look red. This eerie Spitzer Space Telescope image shows infrared radiation from the well-studied Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), which is a mere 700 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. The two light-year diameter shroud of dust and gas around a central white dwarf has long been considered an excellent example of a planetary nebula, representing the final stages in the evolution of a sun-like star.

"Spitzer data show the nebula's central star is itself immersed in a surprisingly bright infrared glow. Models suggest the glow is produced by a dust debris disk. Even though the nebular material was ejected from the star many thousands of years ago, the close-in dust could be generated by collisions in a reservoir of objects analogous to our own solar system's Kuiper Belt or cometary Oort cloud. Formed in the distant planetary system, the comet-like bodies have otherwise survived even the dramatic late stages of the star's evolution." - NASA

The best way to lower your environmental impact!

Don't breed!

It's the easiest, cheapest and most effective way to minimise your environmental impact.

More details about why this is a good choice can be found at the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement website.

Metska is a guard cat

Metska was standing beside me on the couch, when she started to growl. She was looking out the window and when I looked, I realised she was staring at some men climbing around on the balcony/awning of another part of the building. I've seen her growl at the front door when there were strange noises outside.

What a ferocious little cat I have. :)

Many Eyes

I just found this website called Many Eyes which does data visualisation.

I don't know how it will be of use to me atm, but it seems pretty cool. Maybe I can make a tag cloud using the metadata from all my photos.

Will you survive the zombies rising?

My results:

You scored as You might survive.

You've got a 50-50 chance of surviving the rise. You can boost your chances by working with someone who knows what they're doing and is willing to give you a hand with what you're bad at.

You might survive.		57%
You're zombie-chow.		29%
You will definitely survive.		14%

Will you survive the zombies rising?

NSW, I'm very dissapointed in you...

New smoking restrictions came in this week. I foolishly assumed that NSW had finally caught up with QLD where you're not allowed to smoke anywhere that food is served, indoors or out, and even to have a smoking area in a beer garden requires special and well controlled permits.

The new rules for NSW though just make all inside areas of pubs and clubs smoke-free, which while better than nothing is far from perfect. It pretty much means that if you want some fresh air, you have to stay inside. Which sucks, because in nice weather being outside in a beer garden, or al fresco dining is just loevly.

Local councils are allowed to make their own rules fortunately, and some like Manly and Mosman have said that al fresco dining on council land must be smoke free. Hopefully other councils will follow along. Imagine if Sydney City Council did? That'd be brilliant.

Ideally they'd say no smoking on the street in the city as well. Though I have noticed fewer people just smoking on the streets. Used to be you'd be walking around in constant smokey slipstreams, but now they are infrequent enough that you can dodge and weave around them. So, maybe these restrictions are already encouraging peopel to give up, reducing the number of people inspired to start and basically affecting how smokers feel about inflicting their smoke on other people.

It might be time to start work on making Lush keep their hayfever-inducing soap smells inside.

GTA4!

Nick just alerted me to the fact that a new Grand Theft Auto game is due this year. And there is a trailor for it and everything. Eagle eyed readers may notice I have added it to my wishlist, but since it will only be avilable on Xbox 360 and PS3, I'll have to add them as well.