Ubiquitous Data

Unfortunately it looks like January’s posts may have gone forever. The hard drive which held the backups is dead. I thought my backup system was pretty flawless but obviously not. Right now I’m pretty angry with myself as I like the continuous nature of my blog and now there’s a big gap in it – like I just vanished into a black hole for a while! If anyone happens to have a cached copy of the page from a week or so back I would be hugely grateful if you could send me a copy, even without images it would be great 🙂

If your wondering how the site is back up without a server then I should take this opportunity to thank AI Hosting for providing me with some space on their servers! If you’re looking for dead cheap hosting with good quality service look no further. They have a really useful admin interface which takes a lot of the hassle out of configuring everything and of course they have a much better connection than I ever had!!

As far as news from this week is concerned, up until Friday, it’s been a constant nightmare which I’m just glad is over! I’d love to know why everything which could have gone wrong technologically this week decided to do so just when I didn’t have the time to fix it! Last night I cooked quite a nice meal of lamb chops with roasted vegetables which turned out quite well considering I’d never cooked it before. The only mistake I made was touching the baking try whist it was in the oven resulting on a nasty burn on two of my fingers though luckily on my left hand!

Classic story on BBC News:

“Three German refuse collectors are to be sent on an Art Appreciation Course after accidentally taking down and incinerating a sculpture in Frankfurt, believing it was rubbish.”

I just love this sort of story as it highlights all that is so fitting about modern art – is it really art, and if so how do you appreciate it? In my mind a lot of so called ‘modern art’ is questionable at best, but then perhaps I just need to go on an appreciation course!

Here’s another article for the optimists out there:

“The universe is destined to end. Before it does, could an advanced civilisation escape via a “wormhole” into a parallel universe? The idea seems like science fiction, but it is consistent with the laws of physics and biology. Here’s how to do it”

Otherwise entitled, “What physicists think about over lunch”. Reminds me of the time I tried to test for parallel universes in my front room, can’t quite remember now if I actually found any!

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David avatar
Originally from the UK, David is product manager and wanderer currently based in Munich. Prior to this, he lived in Japan and China for over 15 years. He started Randomwire in 2003 to chronicle his travels and occasional musings. Feel free to drop him a line.

2 responses

  1. Kitty avatar
    Kitty

    😀 Well I guess he could certainly say he succeeded in making art that didn't look like art.

    I remain unconvinced by nearly all of the physics article but don't have enough knowledge yet to dispute much of it. It does remind me of an article in New Scientist ages ago about computers that could work out the answer to any problem instant because once it had worked out an answer it sent it back in time. That way the computer could just check its data bank find it had the answer and never have to work anything out. It was a perfect principal other than the inventor had no idea how to send the answer back in time just that is might be possible theoretically. A theory although fun and exciting is not much use unless an experiment can be performed to test the theory (I would say prove but that would imply I believe a theory can be proved true and I don't, it is only possible to prove a theory to be incorrect). As far as I am aware (and I could be wrong because I have been keeping up with developments less since I have started university) there are currently no predictions made by string theory clear enough to test or that gives solutions that contradict the standard model (although the standard model can’t be said to be a theory of everything). String theory as far I as I remember from what I have read does involve putting in a lot of random constants and physicists do hope to find a theory that explains itself and doesn’t need numbers entered from theoretical research. The other thing with string theory is you are starting to get to a theory that depends so much on abstract mathematics it takes the most advanced super computers in the world to work out the equations and solving them is almost impossible. The other point is although many of the things they suggest are probably theoretically possible according to the laws of physics actually carrying them out would be nearly impossible so I do have to confess I think the Universe and mankind is doomed. This could be tragic but instead of worrying about the end of the universe I would think the delicate balance of the climate required to give life on Earth (i.e. global warming) is a much more serious problem and one that will present trouble far sooner.

    Reply
  2. David avatar
    David

    Wow, you get the award for the longest and most in-depth post on my site ever!! If you want the position of resident Science journalist you're hired!

    I don't personally know a lot about physics (I last studied it at GCSE level!) but still I find it quite interesting 🙂

    Global warming/cooling/dimming (etc) is definitely a problem we should be worrying about rather than anything as far-fetched as this right now!

    Reply

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