Jun 28 2010
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“Snow” at Sydney’s Winter festival.
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When hell freezes over?
Well just Sydney CBD. An ice rink (along with a German beer hall of sorts) has been created outside the St Mary’s Cathedral (Catholic) in down town Sydney. The aim of the event is to attract more Sydney siders into the CBD on weekends.
The ice is man made, I’m not clear on how much this caper added to Australia’s green house gas emissions.
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Another shot of the Sydney Opera House being done up in lights at the recent Vivid Sydney festival.
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Update On Australia’s new PM
As well as being Australia’s first Welsh PM, Female PM and red haired PM. Julia Gillard is also an atheist, but not the first atheist Australian PM; we’ve had at least one other.
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No the Sydney Opera house hasn’t been graffitied. As part of the recent Vivid festival various patterns were projected on to the Opera House and other buildings in Sydney’s CBD. I’m not 100% sure but I believe that Laurie Anderson was responsible for the images on the Sydney Opera house this year.
Jun 26 2010
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How to waste a Saturday Morning.
Bought a copy of Visual Studio 10 and try install it on a 64 bit version of Windows 7. Fail, after a lot of mucking around and forum trawling (lots of other people having similar problems), uninstalling, removing stuff, updating, it still failed.
After several hours of cursing Bill Gates and the guy that replaced him I tried the Visual Studio 10 web install on the MS’ web site. Success.
Conclusion, Microsoft is shipping broken Visual Studio 10 DVDs; why else would they have a web install version?
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“ I actually had a call from Norwegian International Radio, and I asked them why they were so interested. His response was this is very foreign to us because we have appointed experts who deal with this and they tell our students what they’re going to learn and it never becomes political. And I said well yes, when you have a representative body it can become very political and controversial because you’re giving the electorate a voice as opposed to having certain people tell the rest of the country what they’re going to believe — like in a pre-Holocaust Germany… . Basically what they’re talking about is an appointed oligarchy of experts where the electorate has no voice.
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Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar, arguing it is better for bonehead partisans with zero education credentials to set public school curriculum standards because asking teachers and scholars for input would be like what the Nazis did in Germany during the 1930s. (via TFN) (via tart-tart)
By the use of Godwin’s Law I declare the Cynthia Dunbar the looser in that debate.
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“ Well, I for one am delighted that the government wants to spend $500 million on border enforcement instead of on education or unemployment benefits. After all, the real threat to our nation is the hoard of illegal immigrants sneaking across the border to work menial jobs so they can send their $1/hour wages back home so their families can eat.
— therodentqueen (via robot-heart-politics, sexartandpolitics) (via brave-slut) (via stfuconservatives) (via stfuteabaggers) (via jonathan-cunningham) (via ratsandcandy666) (via clitorisaurusrex) (via leafleaf)
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confusioninhereyes | ladivinacommedia | werewolves | youareawake:
U know me so well poster thing.
Jun 25 2010
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Super-complex organic molecules found in interstellar space.
Scientists from Instituto Astrofiscia de Canarias and the University of Texas have detected the presence of of the most complex organic molecule yet found in interstellar space, anthracene. The molecules are in a dense cloud about 700 light years from the Sun.
Molecules like athracene are prebiotic, and when combined with ultraviolet radiation, water and ammonia they could produce amino acids and other compounds essential for the development of life.
Two years ago another organic molecule, naphtalene, was identified in the same place. The thinking is that the scientists have found a star formation region rich in prebiotic chemistry. These findings suggest that a good part of the key components of Earth’s prebiotic chemistry could be present in interstellar matter.
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(via lauraowsianka)
I chortled.
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Scientists recently discovered a rare, solitary type of bee in Turkey and Iran that makes tiny nests by plastering together flower petals. Each nest is a multicolored, textured little cocoon — a papier-mache husk surrounding a single egg, protecting it while it develops into an adult bee.
To learn more, the scientists watched the busy mama bees. Building a nest takes a day or two, and the female might create about 10 nests in total, often right next to each other. To begin construction, she bites the petals off of flowers and flies each petal — one by one — back to the nest, a peanut-sized burrow in the ground. She then shapes the multi-colored petals into a cocoon-like structure, laying one petal on top of the other and occasionally using some nectar as glue.
