“Spray – Slow Down”, read the big illuminated warning signs above the motorway. It’s raining, and the M27 being badly surfaced as it is, is collecting enough water that every vehicle is sending up huge plumes of spray. People are slowing down, too. But they’re also driving closer together in proportion to the amount they’re slowing down. So they can’t see anything for the spray of the car in front. I’m wondering if the signs should read, “Spray – Keep Your Distance”, but what would I know?
Archive for October, 2003
Spray
Thursday, October 30th, 2003Unashamed Capitalism
Thursday, October 30th, 2003The director of the Guggenheim Foundation, Thomas Kren, was interviewed on the Channel 4 News tonight regarding the building of a controversial new museum in Rio. He said, (I’m quoting from memory):
It’s not my job to improve the standard of living of the people of Rio. It’s my job to make money.
It struck me that people don’t say that kind of thing on TV very much; they always try to sound like they’re serving everyone’s interests but their own. It’s refreshing to see some unashamed capitalism!
Heavens Above
Monday, October 27th, 2003Recently I stumbled across two rather impressive bits of free software that I was surprised I hadn’t heard of before. The first is Celestia, in their words, a “real-time space simulation that lets you experience our universe in three dimensions.” You can fly around the solar system by right clicking on a planet and selecting “Go To” from the context menu. Or you can use flight sim-like controls to set your speed and direction. You can visit stars and even distant galaxies in the same way. And there’s the celestial browser for searching through catalogues of objects including asteroids, artificial satellites like the ISS, comets, moons, planets and stars.
All the objects are lovingly rendered in Open GL. The viewpoint can be rotated and zoomed; time can be accelerated or slowed down; and orbits and constellations can be overlayed on the view. There’s really not much you could want it to do that it can’t do.
It strikes me as an extremely useful teaching aid, too, so forward the link to any teachers you know! Possible lessons might include a tour of the solar system; a look at the orbits of planets and the distances involved; the phases of the moon as demonstrated by looking at the moon from the Earth which casts an accurately calculated shadow; or a tour of the constellations including how they look from other star systems.
It’s even possible to download the orbits of new objects and add them in. For example, Selden has addons of near Earth objects that occasionally come alarmingly close!
The second program I discovered in a similar vein was XPlanet – which renders a real-time image of the Earth from space on your desktop. You can set the lattitude and longitude to view the bit of the Earth you’re interested and the shadow from the sun is drawn according to the current date and time. You can set it to update, for instance, every five minutes. Using Hans Ecke’s scripts you can even download an updated clouds image generated from satellite photos every three hours! It’s also possible to add overlays with information about satellite orbits, weather, earthquakes and volcanoes, all updated regularly from the web. Much better than boring, static wallpaper.
Both these programs are licensed under the GPL and both work under Linux and Windows.
When Things Just Work
Friday, October 24th, 2003My number one candidate for Rob’s TV advert of the Year Award 2003 until recently was the Honda “isn’t it nice when things just work” masterpiece. The full two minute version is a joy to watch. What makes it work so well is that this isn’t just a random contraption, but each element highlights a feature of the car: the automatic windscreen wipers; the spring loading of a handle; the remote controlled boot closing.
I was convinced it was computer generated because of the part of the sequence in which three tyres roll up a slope. I didn’t believe the story that it took over six hundred takes in a studio to get right (despite this being stated on the Honda web site). However, while searching around for evidence to back up my opinion I found a Snopes article that verified the story and explained the apparent mockery of physical laws:
The sequence where the tyres roll up a slope looks particularly impressive but is very simple. Steiner [head of television at Wieden & Kennedy, the agency responsible for the advert] says that there is a weight [in each] tyre and when the tyre is knocked, the weight is displaced and in an attempt to rebalance itself, the tyre rolls up the slope.
Knowing that the contraption had to be painstakingly assembled out of real car parts makes the advert even more impressive.
It has, however, been displaced from the number one spot, because last night at the cinema I saw the 118 118 spoof. “Isn’t it nice when things just work?” becomes, “Isn’t nice when a directory enquires service just works, 118?” “It is, 118. Very nice indeed.”
This is no rough and ready parody; references to the original abound: From the rotating lollipop in place of the rotating windscreen wipers, to the music, to the squirty water bottle in the face in place of the windscreen washer water. By paying tribute in this way it inherits everything that was good about the Honda ad, with the added bonus that it’s hilarious. No doubt both companies will benefit from the mutual publicity of such a crossover. 118 118 may not be the cheapest directory enquiries service, but their advertising agency deserves every penny!
Beatallica
Thursday, October 16th, 2003Thanks to ThePresentOccupier for this wonderful link to Beatallica. That’s right, it’s “Beatles tunes, done Metallica style.” And done about as perfectly as you could hope for, with an excellent Hetfield impression and exactly the right guitar sound. Fun for Beatles and Metallica fans alike!
Speed Limit Raised
Monday, October 13th, 2003Something truly astonishing happened on my way to work this morning. A section of road that for years has had a 30mph speed limit, despite it being well out of town and having few hazards, has had its limit raised to 40mph. The local authorities doing something sensible?!
My jubilation was short-lived. Further down the road, where once there was a national speed limit sign, there is now a 40mph repeater sign. Hmph. I suppose what annoys me about this is that I used to have great fun obeying the 30 limit, accumulating a convoy of impatient tailgaters, and then letting them eat tyre smoke as I zoomed off into the distance upon reaching the 60 limit. That fun is now over.
On the other hand, it does seem as if the changes reflect what everybody else already did; drive at 35-45 along the whole stretch. In past months I have noticed data logging equipment on the side of the road, presumably measuring everyone’s speed. If speed limits are to be set according to such measurements, this would be a Good Thing(tm).
A Very British UFO Hoax
Wednesday, October 8th, 2003More of a documentary about the building of a fake UFO than anything else, A Very British UFO Hoax nonetheless offered some insights into the nature of UFO sightings.
What was particularly interesting was listening to the reports in full knowledge of exactly what happened. For instance, the variation in descriptions of the craft as reported by different witnesses was huge. This is easily explainable by the lack of reference objects in the sky, but to know that it was a 25 foot saucer shaped helium balloon then watch people describe it as anything up to 100 feet across was fascinating. It just goes to show how unreliable eyewitness reports are. It’s a shame the programme didn’t spend more time exploring these issues.
However, the setup with multiple pilots taking over control of the radio controlled craft was clever and well executed, and great fun to watch.
Bank Robbery
Tuesday, October 7th, 2003Pretty much my stance on gun control is compressed into an amusing ten second animation by Rob Lewis of Stick Death. Many more flash animations and old fashioned Gif animations can be found therein.