Scientists invent the lightest thing ever....

Yes it is sitting on top of a dandelion!

Boffins have invented this "ultralight metallic microlattice," 100 times lighter than styrofoam. While there is no actual specific use for it yet... its worth it for the picture alone is it not?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/11/lightest-material-on-earth.html?track=lat-pick

A picture of a warsaw ghetto

I came across this picture just now. On my iGoogle home page I have 'what happened in this day in history' gadget.... So on this day:

"Nazis imprison 380,000 people in the Warsaw Ghetto." It is accompanied with the following picture...

It is a very telling image. I can say nothing that has not been said before of course, but what sticks out for me in this image are the kids. As my kids get older I realise what they understand at certain ages. And more importantly what they do not. Sure, a kid in this picture would understand that the soilders with guns meant bad news and that they (the kids) should just do what their parents were doing. But they do not understand the bigger picture.

It is just a really sorry image. A brilliant picture that tells a terrible story. A story that should have finished 60 years ago but never did...

Most Advanced Robot - I love you Asimo

Wow, look at this, it is fantastic and makes me actually happy to see it, he makes me smile - he is so amazing. Look at Asimo here running, hopping on one foot, and carefully opening a flask of juice and pouring it out. Brilliant and cute!

Asimo is a robot (well a series of robots really) that Honda have been working on for a few years. This video shows the latest that this amazing little robot can do...

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1264811886001/most-advanced-robot-ever/?playlist_id=162838

Earth calling Austin....

I have a land line number. I am going to X out some of the numbers so that stranger will not be calling me, but rest assured my number is something like 869XXX

However I like in county Galway so the area code there is 091. So my number is 091 869XXX.

Now Ireland is a country in a phone network, and Ireland needs to be identified by its own code. The code for Ireland is 353. So our number now becomes 353 91 869XXX, you knock off the 0 of the 091. Now to be more precise, our number is actually 0035391869XXX, the 00 is often not written in and is just replaced with a + sign, so you might see our number, if it were written on a website that needed to be able to be called from anywhere in the world it would be +35391869XXX.

Now take that a tiny bit further... some day people will colonise the moon. They definately will some day. And Mars... they definately will. So will Earth now have an area code? And the moon and Mars? And if so, will our moon be a part of the Earths area code? We might say, the Earth is the 3rd planet from the Sun, so Earths new area code is 03, so now my new number would be 0335391869XXX, or +335391869XXX.

But Mars would be 04... so if i had a business on Mars, and I wanted people to call me my number could be +4 XXX XXX XXXX XXXX

But what then of Moons? Should they have their own planetary area codes? Or should our moon be lumped in with our planet Earth? We have 1 moon so maybe our moon could be area code 01... so maybe if I were on the moon, lets say with my current number, it might be 0301 (see my planet, my moon) followed by my number... so it would be +40135391869XXX.

But then it get kinda complcated... ok, we have a nice clean planet. We have 1 moon.  Mars has 2 moons.. Phobos and Deimos. So if I were living on Deimos my number would be 040235391869XXX... obvious! But what if I were living on an asteroid on Saturn? Also, we are 1 sun in a galaxy of billions! And there are billions of galaxies!

Call my brother who lives in the delta quaderant! Now thats gonna be a phone number... but I hope we have skype.. otherwise the bill is going to astronomical!

Eyes Wide Shut

Hey blogger has changed its interface a good bit. I don't know if it looks different when the blog is published but from my side, where I am writing the blog it looks pretty cool! It told me that for example, my blog has had 4998 hits! Cool.. you are probably reader number 5000+. Nice....

Friday morning, I am feeling awake because last night before going to bed nice and early I did a good 20 to 25 minutes of exercise and had a shower. All that equates to a good nights sleep.

On the radio this morning I heard the piece of music, I was listening to Lyric FM by the way.... it is from Shostakovich - Jazz Suite No. 2. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=tSBRrvzTpGw

Depending on how much of a Stanley Kubrick fan you are you might primarily know it from his (what I now call good film when referneced from my minds eye) 1999 film "Eyes Wide Shut".The youtube link I have provided here shows fighter planes flying and blowing stuff up. But look at the planes, beautiful.  The footage is not the best, but still cool.

So thats it... talk again soon... and by the way, the piece of music is 3:42 in length. Take the time to listen to it. Its nice.