“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?

Posted by Rob Fisher as Driving at 8:59 PM EST

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The 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!

Posted by Rob Fisher as Introspection at 8:42 PM EST

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Recently 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.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Links at 7:55 PM EST

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My 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!

Posted by Rob Fisher as Advertising at 12:46 AM EDT

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Thanks 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!

Posted by Rob Fisher as Links at 10:45 AM EDT

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Something 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).

Posted by Rob Fisher as Driving at 10:49 AM EDT

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The welfare state sucks the lifeblood out of the country by punishing those who work hard to keep useless layabouts who, in a just world, wouldn’t be able to survive.

I said previously that Wife Swap was a shockingly awful programme. I was referring to the concept of getting two women to live in each other’s houses for ten days and trying to make good telly out of it. However, this particular episode has done a great service to the nation by highlighting what a disgrace the welfare system is. It has certainly sparked some considerable discussion.

Mark Bardsley worked for the council for 12 years. Then two years ago he was laid off. He’s been a useless layabout since then, managing only to produce two more kids. His wife Lizzy has never done a day’s work in her life. Their child benefits, carer’s allowances, income support, incapacity benefit and disability living allowances add up to £37,400 per year. That’s equivalent to a pre-tax salary of about £50,000.

Without being given money stolen from productive people, the Bardsley’s would not be able to survive and maintain their current lifestyle. They would either starve, or one of them would have to go and find some work. If the welfare “safety net” was not there, there’s a good chance that they’d have made different choices, have a different attitude towards work, and that thanks to the increased investment made due to lower taxes there would be more work for them to choose from.

As it is they are completely dependent on other people. They have no self esteem, thinking anyone who works for a living is a snob who looks down their nose at them. (They’re quite right, of course, I for one do look down my nose at them). The chances that all of their eight children will grow up with decent work ethics are remote. They’ll have learnt that working doesn’t pay, and they’ll become the next generation of tax burdens.

The welfare system is by no means a safety net. By punishing the productive and rewarding the lazy it creates dependents, their number swelling to consume the hand-outs available. It makes matters worse, not better, and should be abolished immediately.

Related Link: Be sure to read the Evening Standard’s breakdown of the Bardsley’s benefits.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 7:52 PM EDT

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As an experiment, watch the shockingly awful Channel 4 show Wife Swap tonight at 23.40, and then tell me what you think about the wonderful British welfare system.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 1:36 PM EDT

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More 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.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Reviews at 12:48 AM EDT

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Pretty 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.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Links, Self Defense at 9:55 PM EDT

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