Is there life out there?

Is there life out there? (hums X files theme music)
 Scientists have been puzzling over FSB's (fast radio bursts) these bursts from outside our solar system all have multiples or 187.5.  First detected in 2007 just 10 have been detected, all have dispersion measures of multiples of a single number 187.5 ( I don't know what it means either)  however some scientists say the pattern is just 5 in 5000 of it naturally occurring.
 Some claim it's aliens trying to contact us, others think it's pulsars, if it's aliens with just 10 contacts in 8 years they aren't trying very hard to contact us.
 Don't get me wrong, I'm sure alien life exists, no seriously, it has to, the vast size of the universe and the trillions and trillions of suns and planets mean it's impossible for the combination of things needed for life to happen just once. And look at the varity of life on our planet. 
 Whether that alien life is intelligent and has flying saucers is another thing altogether, I'm just talking life here, maybe a litchen or a bug?, but trust me it's out there somewhere.
 To be honest I'm still looking for intelligent life here......

Instant everything?

The other day I was asked to buy some custard, now I always buy the tin of custard powder, it doesn't take long to make, keeps for ages and must make a gallon or so of custard.
 No, get the instant custard I was told, it uses no milk and is quicker...  Quicker than what?   Ordinary custard just takes minutes, hell even making it with eggs, milk, sugar and a vanilla pod doesn't exactly take long.  I mean yes, ok, if I had five minutes to live I might consider instant custard, but then if I had five minutes to live I'd probably think of something more important than custard.
 It's the same with everything, we have instant coffee, tea bags (some bloody awful) Instant self service tills, that are anything but instant because they don't work. We have a kettle thing that boils the water as you need it instead of boiling half a kettle full.  We scream in frustration if the Internet page takes more that two seconds to load, Daily fail take note your takes about ten bloody minutes!.
 But why the need for instant?  We mostly aren't that busy we can't wait five minutes for a cuppa.  Maybe thats why people are more stressed than ever before, we had to take time out to wait for the custard to thicken, or wait for the tea in the pot to infuse properly.
 So next time you fancy some custard, buy a vanilla pod, some eggs and caster sugar, and a bottle of milk, take your time and make proper custard. It'll certainly taste better, it'll take a bit longer but you can use the time to relax for three minutes. Who knows, you may live longer as a result.

Too much time on his hands

Alexander Klotz a student from McGill university has recalculated how long it would take to fall tight through the earth, old estimates claim 42 minutes, Alexander now claims it's closer to 38 minutes due to the earths changing density.
A few points Alexander.  One there isn't a hole right through the earth, and there never will be!  And two, you couldn't fall right through even if there was, something called gravity will stop you around the middle, otherwise all the people on the opposite side of the earth would have fallen off a long time ago.
Now Alex is obviously a clever chap, so maybe if he sets his mind to curing cancer, or predicting earthquakes it might be time well spent, but working out how long something impossible might take is a bit pointless.
He even worked out what speed you'd reach 18.000 mph, but again thats not taking into account wind resistance, so thats wrong as well.  Unless he knows of an airless gravity free tube through earth........

Robot Overlords (film review)

"Earth has been conquered by robots from a distant galaxy. survivors are confined to their houses and must wear electronic implants, risking incineration by robot sentries if they venture outside." IMDb

The story follows a group of young people who try to find the father of one of the group.
The film stars Gillian Anderson and Ben Kingsley and is set in present day England?Ireland.
 Personally I found the film slow, the CGI was well done, but it all left me with the feeling I was watching a children's film, possibly because the main cast are youngsters.
 The film was enjoyable enough, but not really my sort of film.

Waynes rating 6/10

Something different

Two pilots isn't enough

 Two pilots isn't enough!
 After the terrible crash this week where early finding suggest the co-pilot may have deliberately crashed the plane, some airlines have decided to add another crew member in the cockpit while one of the flying crew leaves to go to the toilet or whatever.  That actually means a steward or stewardess.  Well I'm sorry but that's just not good enough!
 You see while it's better than nothing, a steward or stewardess knows bugger all about flying the plane, that means the remaining member of the flight crew can do pretty much as he or she likes. The steward won't know if the person flying the plane has put it into a shallow dive, or starts venting the fuel or something subtle. And if the person flying does do something drastic they steward won't be able to try and take control either, and G forces means the captain or co-pilot who is off the flight deck may not be able to get back to it. So apart from looking out of the window they'll be pretty useless.
 The answer is simple, put another qualified pilot on board, he'll know if the person flying tries something, and he or she is trained to fly the plane so they can try and take control if something happens. It's also a good safety feature, if one pilot is taken ill for example you still have two left to fly and land the plane.
 I doubt any airline will do it though, you see pilots cost a lot of money to train and pay, although the wages might be less that you think.  But then again recovering the wreck of your shattered aircraft from the sea bed isn't cheap either. Sadly the "value" of the passengers lives is bugger all to the airlines. We're expendable as theres an almost unlimited supply of us willing to pay to fly on an airlines that put money before our safety.

Hazy sunset

Last week we had a really hazy sunset, I got a few pics but wasn't impressed much to be honest.

Building Noahs Ark. National Geographic

Good idea, shame they didn't actually try and build Noah's ark. 
 You see instead, despite the title "building Noah's ark" what they actually did was try to build a much earlier Babylonian ark based on a clay tablet that predates Noah's story by at least a 1000 years.  But sadly they didn't do that either. You see the ark described in the tablet is 62 metres across and round. What they built was 12 metres across and round, about 1/5 of the size it was supposed to be.
 You see the reason for this was it would have taken all the wood in Iraq to build the full size ark and they could never have been able to lauch it (assuming they could actually build it in the first place). So how exactly Noah with a few friends and family were supposed it do it is baffling
 So what National Geographic channel have actually proved is not how Noah built his ark. But that even with todays computer design, with scientists, historians, and with local Iraq boat builder skilled in the old hand working of wood that they still couldn't build an old Babylonian ark. 
 What next National  Geographic ?  How to build a small 6 foot pyramid out of house bricks?  How the to remake the cross of Calvary out of plastic?  Oh, I know, how the Titanic would have stayed afloat if it had been 15 foot long and made of balloons?
 Come on!  If your going to do something like that either do it properly or don't bother doing it at all. Lets face it all you've proved is that local Iraq boat builders can make a big coracle, just bigger than the ones they make all the time..  Big deal, they can't make one the size it says on the bloody tablet can they!

Richard the third

Unless you've been dead the last few days you'll have seen the ridiculous farce that's been taking place over Richard the thirds reburial.
Richards remains were found in a shallow grave under what is a now a car park, and what once was Greyfriars in Leicester.  He was was dug up without any of the fuss and pomp and ceremony by a man in a high vis jacket and hard hat. He was buried in Leicester cathedral with a totally over the top pantomime where his remains were taken back to Bosworth (where he was killed) and then back to Leicester on a gun carriage.
The fact he died in 1485 and was originally buried without any ceremony seems to have escaped the powers that be who decided to turn the whole thing into a massive state funeral at huge expense to the taxpayer.

Well the good news is that the thousands of police who were looking for the long dead Jimmy Savile and his possible crimes are now looking for the murderer of Richard the third (he was buried in a shallow grave remember) they are also investigating possible links between Richard and the deaths of Edward the fifth and Richard of Shewsbury (12 and 9 years old) who were murdered in the tower of London in 1483.
A police spokesperson may have said. "The link between Richard the third and the dead children is being looked into, but at the moment we're concentrating on finding Richard the thirds killer". Police say they want to speak to a 550 year old man wearing a jerkin and armour and possibly carrying a sword in connection with the murder.

End of the world

The end of the world is coming.....   Well eventually it must happen when the sun becomes a red giant, but I wouldn't panic just yet, theres a few million years it's thought.
 In the meantime heres my warning poster.

The Man from UNCLE 2015 (courious connection)

The man from UNCLE film due to be released soon has a curious connection. The film is directed by Guy Ritchie, who also directed the Sherlock Holmes films. Nothing strange there you say... Except there is!       You see the original UNCLE (united network command for law and enforcement) was founded to combat  THRUSH (WASP in the original pilot episode. but I digress)
 Now THRUSH stands for Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity, and thats the link between Sherlock Holmes and the man from UNCLE.  You see THRUSH was founded by Col Sebastian Moran after the death of his friend professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach falls, Moriarty was killed by Sherlock Holmes.  How weird is that!

Ghosts

I realised the other day that I'd done the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoor and UFO's but I missed ghosts, so to put that right here's a pic of a Ghost at Craig-Y-Nos castle theatre (well known as being claimed to be haunted).
 Note this isn't photoshoped in any way other than resized and slightly sharpened. The original image is shot on film and scanned in with the "ghost" there, it's really not added later in photoshop.  I'm not saying it it's a genuine picture of a ghost... just that it's not added digitally. ( I could do a much better job in photoshop) but in the film days it was harder to fake stuff like this double exposure.
 Now the truth is I have had a sort of paranormal experience once many years back. The story is long and complicated, but the basics were I was sitting on the kitchen floor of a darkened house (in the middle of the night)   I'd been doing the same thing for several months, and there were other people upstairs and outside in a car (a short distance away) From where I sat I had the kitchen window to my left and the front door to my right front, the door was half glassed with that frosted glass.
 My job was to cover the door and window waiting for a person who was expected to come in.  At some point I saw a figure standing between myself and the glass door. Now this wasn't a shadow from outside the door, it was clear and sharp, just a black silhouette. And it certainly wasn't the people upstairs playing silly beggars, the situation was too serious and we had weapons.  As I raised one arm to fend off any blows and raised my weapon the figure simply vanished. I didn't see it disappear, it was there, then it wasn't.
 I alerted the other people and we searched the house and grounds, but there was no one around, and no signs of forced entry.
 Now the strangest thing is I thought I was looking at myself, don't ask me why I thought that, but I did. Someone later told me I'd seen my Doppelganger, and that I was going to die soon, well that was 1970 something or other, so it wasn't that soon anyway.
 Was it my Doppelganger, or a ghost?  Well I'll never know, but keep in mind I was getting about 3 or 4 hours sleep during the  day and spending about 12 hours a night under incredible stress, sitting in almost total darkness. My theory is it's the mind playing tricks.  The real bastard was the people we were waiting for never really  turned up, several months wasted.  Well they did turn up but the police spooked them before they got close to the house and they backed off and left.

Things that drive me mad (part 3)

Information and shopping!

There was a time when you could pop down the shops for a tin of cat food and a bottle of milk, and the lady in the shop would say "good morning, lovely day", or " isn't it wet today ".   Now you need to answer twenty bloody questions and leave your dogs right rear leg and a DNA sample to buy anything in the shops.
 A little while ago I went into a shop in a big town near where I live to buy a memory card, this was a £9 item (keep that in mind)  The shop wanted my name address and date of birth before they could sell it to me. Why?. It's a camera memory card, not bloody plutonium!   I didn't buy the card, and I doubt they put it where I suggested, at least if they did it would have helped if they'd greased it first.
 It's getting the same in the supermarkets, you have to answer a series of time wasting questions while you try to buy a mars bar. Do you have your own bag?, do I have a store card?, did I know I can get 2p off a gallon of over priced petrol at the store?  What I can't get is the bastard mars bar, you have to be Martian, gay and over eighteen probably. I once watched a couple easily in their 30's being asked for proof of age to buy a bottle of wine.
 So here the answer, next time they ask if you have your own bag say "yes" then after they start putting the shopping through stop them and ask for a bag, when they say "I thought you said you had a bag?" say "I do, it's in the house".   Do the same when they ask for your points card, and if they offer you 2p off petrol ask "how do I get the car in here?", and then say "do I need another bag for the petrol?"

Evening walk.

I had a short evening walk recently, I only had the compact camera with me and only took a few pics, this was about the best.

Margam park.

We went for a wander the other day so took a few pics.

Things that drive me mad!! (part 2)

Parking.

What annoys me with parking is mostly other people being inconsiderate.  Parking on or near a corner or junction for example. The law is quite clear, it's a minimum of 10 metres (32 feet).  Most people don't even know it's an offence to park facing the wrong way on the road side at night, you must park facing the direction of travel on your side of the road (so the rear reflectors show)
Also parking or even stopping to drop off a passenger requires you to turn off your headlamps, this is a problem in my area, people pull in on the wrong side of the road with headlamps on full blinding drivers coming the other way. Bloody stupid.
The final parking issues I have is parking spaces.  These really haven't kept up with the size of modern cars, now my car is big I'll admit, but some spaces are still designed for the bloody Ford Anglia, even the new minis struggles to fit these spaces.  Come on line painters and car park owners get real, how many bloody Ford Anglias do you get these days? Try measuring a BMW 7 series and make the spaces for that instead!

Things that drive me mad!!! (part 1)

Speed bumps!

Why the government and councils who are constantly complaining about traffic congestion want to slow the traffic down and congest it is beyond me.
 The fact is speed bumps simply don't work.  I'm sorry to all the speed kills idiots who think the speed bump is waging war on foolish driver, but the fact is your bonkers.  You see speed bumps only work on sensible motorists in the first place, these are the ones driving carefully.  They don't work on nutters because firstly the nutters don't care about damaging the car because it's probably not theirs anyway, and even if it is their car no 18 year old boy racer is going to be seen dead slowing down for a fuddy-duddy speed bump.
 No all your doing is wrecking the locals cars and causing suffering to anyone with a spinal problem.
Where I live the air ambulance has to airlift lots more people because the ambulances can't dive possible spinal injuries over the forest of speed bumps. Barmy or what!

Also in this category I'll add traffic calming, like the stupid chicanes where one car has to give way to the other where a perfectly good wide road is now single lane, just like it was in 1870 before the council spent a fortune widening it.  What you have here is a death trap, if one driver gets it wrong you now have a head on crash, how bloody silly is that.
 Then theres the weaving lanes painted on the road, great idea except it's a total waste of paint, most of the time people simply ignore the painted lines and drive normally, secondly in the dark and the rain you can't even see the lines most of the time. More money wasted then.  And how does making all the cars on the road zigzag like a wartime destroyer in U boat country make the road safer? Seems to me it's a lot less safe with everybody swerving about.

UFO time

Well I seem to have tracked down Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness monster, so it's time to find a UFO. Well that didn't take long did it!

Next week I'll  bring an end to world poverty, solve famine, and bring peace to the middle east... Or I may just wash the car instead.

Trains.

Heres some train pics from a few days ago, I've gone for some motion blur (in camera) to add to the feeling of speed.

Please don't play silly beggars near the railway, I'm behind fencing and I take great care when I'm near the lines.  You might be supprised just how quickly and quietly these trains can come up on you so care is needed at all times.

A few more sunsets

I know I'm taking a fair few sunsets, but the beach near where I live does get a nice sunset and it's a shame to waste it.

Loch Ness monster picture???

Well I did say I'd have a pic of the Loch Ness monster by last weekend but to be honest I've hardly got time to eat these days never mind take pics.
 Anyway heres my picture of the...  "Loch Ness monster"  Yes I know that looks like Pen-y-fan in the Brecon Beacons in the background, but honest guv would I lie to you?    I mean I don't even know what a lie is... What is a lie anyway???    Is this the face of a man who would lie to a lady..... (now I'm really counting on you all believing me at this point so here goes) The picture and the proof!!!

More spray pics