little bits of everything

It all started when I caught an advert on Radio 4 for a radio play of a book I'd just finished: I just finished the book #neverwhere by @neilhimself and I find it's on Radio 4 soon http://t.co/wcfcarhsYB #fb — Paul Morriss (@paulmorriss) December 20, 2013 @neilhimself is Neil Gaiman, the author of the book, and he retweeted my tweet. I was quite excited about it. My children found my excitement amusing, to which I would respond "1.9 million followers!", (that's how many Neil has, not me). I would freely acknowledge that not all of them saw it. 10 other people further retweeted it, 21 people favourited it and I got three new followers. A few people replied to me too. I didn't dare admit it was the first book of his that I'd read (apart from Small Gods which he jointly wrote with Sir Terry Pratchett). Before we visited family after Christmas one of my children said that I was bound to bring it up when we saw our relatives, but I promised that I wou...

Last night I borrowed the binoculars that one of my sons got for Christmas and looked at the moon and stars - the first time I've done that for quite a few years. Wanting to find out more I was looking at I've been wandering through some astronomy related web pages, mostly the International Astronimical Union (IAU) and found that: don't pay to have a star named after you - it's a con there appears to be no single master database of stars as you might expect, though there are conventions on naming there are loads of ways you can take part in astronomy and all sort of other fields science, from analysing things, to letting your computer do work when it would otherwise be idle the IAU are working on the naming of exoplanets (those outside the solar system)

Some people say that the Bible is a manual for life. I'm not so sure it's that clear cut. Suppose the manual for your washing machine was like the Bible. What would it be like? Genesis The birth and early life of the founder of the company. His/her first job. How they founded this small company manufacturing domestic appliances. Exodus How the company survived a recession and grew from strength to strength. How early washing machines were to be treated, the type of detergent that was suitable in those days. (However many of the rules for these early washing machines still apply to day.) Judges and Kings etc. After the founder dies (this is not an analogy, this is a washing machine manual), there are a number of takeovers by other companies. At the end of the process the company is experiencing steady growth. Songs about washing machines Lots of them, mostly written by one person. The modern age The first electronic washing machines with fancy electronic...

New words have been invented for the fans of people/films/TV programmes - so we have Twihards for Twilight, Gleeks for Glee and Beliebers for Justin Bieber. If scientists and engineers from the past were still around today what would we call their fans? We could have the Newtonians (not very clever), Coperniclan, Lacelovers (sounds a bit dodgy), Curios, Pasteurites, Brunelles. Any more?

Since our office move  I've been cycling to work from time to time instead of going on my motorbike. The new office is only slightly closer to home than the old one, but there was a hill at both ends of the journey, so I never fancied it. Now I only have a hill as I go home in the evening (which I'm walking up apart from the first bit). I only cycle when it's not raining, and it's not icy, and I don't have to be home promptly, and I'm not too tired. I'm the cycling equivalent of those people who only ride motorbikes in the summer so they keep their bikes nice and shiny. (I ride my motorbike all year round, apart from when it's snowy or icy on the main roads.) There are number of differences that have struck me between the two different modes of transport. Sound On my motorbike all I pretty much hear is the noise of the engine, and on roads when I can do 50mph (it's not a very powerful bike) the wind noise. I'm wearing ear plugs so the roar ...

Uncommon  is an interesting community. As well as the website that they're working on for paying members, there's a weekly newsletter. It asks a question each week and reports back some of the answers the following week. The question last week was "where are you a regular", so I wrote this: I'm a regular at church on Sunday mornings and fortnightly in the evenings. There's a bit in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that goes like this: "There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] suggests, and try it. [...] "If, however, you are lucky enough to have your attention momentarily distracted at the crucial moment by, say, a gorgeous pair of legs (tentacles, pseudopodia, according to phyllum and/or personal inclination) or a bomb going off in your vicinty, or by suddenly spotting an extremely rare...

So, Doctor Who. The BBC had related programmes last night on Radio 1 and Radio 2, but maybe the hype will die down now. I enjoyed The Show, mostly. I did wonder in the middle though, why aliens keep on choosing this country to invade, but maybe that's not the point. I was pleased to spot Christopher Ecclestone in the last few frames of John Hurt's regeneration. It may be because he doesn't want to take part in all the shows about the show, but I feel he gets overlooked. Although on the whole I enjoy Doctor Who, I'm disappointed that although we're in a Golden Age for TV drama generally, that's pretty much all we have for SF drama. Terry Pratchett made a comment in an interview how he wouldn't write for Doctor Who like it's done currently, with (and I can't quite remember the quote) leaving the clues as to the solution to the problem obviously at the start of the show. Maybe it's the all the story over in under an hour format that means you ca...