Random thoughts

Hmmm, not encouraging thoughts...
Women warned - babies best before 30

Internet was out at home due to virus crunching laptop. Fingers crossed that things are fixed now, but need to get full virus updates and scanners and put on CD and tranfer over, rather than connecting to net to download...Seems obvious when you think about it.

This lead to election results being followed onine from a friends place. Online results much better and less fussed over and commented to death than the TV coverage. SBS and ABC coverage of the results as of ~7pm was abismal as they put National well ahead, only just mentioned that was only 10-15% of the vote, didn't mention any figures other than National and Labour, and ignored the fact that the earliest votes counted are from the rural backwaters with small numbers of people voting (faster to count), so are generally not indicative of the final results...

Good weekend for books. Couple Laurel K Hamilton for $2 each at Trash and Treasure ($2 is a reasonable amount for that popcorn:) and a larger collection of books from a fatal combination of bookshop and cafe in Braidwood. George R Martin, #3 Fire and Ice series and a stack of historical non-fiction incl a 1st year text on Archaology, Norwegian history up to Viking era, quotes from Winston Churchhill...

Rain on Sat, but was good for rock shifting on Sun. Shifted a lot of rocks. Get to put them in the right place next Sun.

We do have a very big Viking tent. You tend to forget this until a) you have to move the fabric and sunbleach it, b) you lay out the frame for sticking rockes under.

Got home just in time for 3/4 of a very good documentary on SBS on the history of Light - "Light Fantastic". (Unpacked car during the Arab guy, since didn't know it was on:(), Bacon, Descarte, Newton:). Next week, they look at Lens - Galeleo etc. Must tape the next 3 in the series.

Edit:
The SBS listing says:

This four-part science series explores the phenomenon that surrounds and affects nearly every aspect of our lives but one which we take for granted, light. Greek and Arab scholars, and later Europeans such as Descartes and Newton, all tried to understand light to gain a better understanding of God. Tonight's first episode examines how much of modern science's origins came from the desire to penetrate the divine nature of light. Presented by Cambridge scholar Simon Schaffer. (From the UK, in English) (Part 1)

And the Lost Worlds doco before it was the first of a 3 part series on ancient warfare: " ANCIENT DISCOVERIES - ANCIENT WARFARE"

This program is the first of a three-part documentary series that travels back to the classical world to re-examine the amazingly advanced technology of ancient world in the areas of weaponry and shipping, as well as how these ancient civilizations used and harnessed power. The ancient Greeks and Romans developed cutting edge war technology and created fearsome weapons that paved the way for modern warfare. Some of these sophisticated and lethal machines include hand-held flame throwers, a type of missile that could shoot arrows at staggering speeds, the little-known steam cannon said to have been created by Greek mathematician Archimedes. Besides sinister machines, the ancient Greeks also used what was known as 'Greek fire', the napalm of the ancient world, but one of the most lethal war machines ever seen was the colossal Helepolis, or 'city taker', the most sophisticated siege machine in history. Modern-day engineers reconstruct some of the fascinating machines like that of the steam cannon invented by Archimedes, 200 years BC. (From the UK, in English, Greek and Hebrew, English subtitles) (Part 1)

Anyone tape it?

Ooh This one is funny:)

When I’m not in prison I’m an astronomer

The attitude of the other astronomers is that there’s no point to studying solid objects. You might as well be a geologist. The offices of astronomy departments around the country are frequently filled with gripes that somebody is wasting valuable observing time on the Hubble looking at rocks.

Curiously, from a stellar spectroscopist view, the planetary stuff is far better funded and is the "in-thing". Especially protoplanetary disks and solar system formation. The stellar people appear lower on the heirachy now. Strange...

No snow here but we are about to get rain, and there are possible thunderstorms forecast later this afternoon.