The Search for Traffic

Posted on by Bigglesan

Millions of blogs, so why read this one? I update infrequently, I don’t talk about any particular subject. But seriously, my ego would love to think that the occasional person found what I had to say interesting!

So I’m signing myself up at a number of places, and trying to generate a bit of traffic.

One of those places is Technorati, my profile there is here: Technorati Profile

I’ll add others as I go. In the meantime, have a browse, stumble my posts, and spread the word in your Facebook or MySpace.

Add to Technorati Favorites

Back Breaking Baggage

Posted on by Bigglesan

I was browsing through my Google stats and noticed that someone visited my site after looking up “baggage limit in china airlines Sydney”. Wow, what a bizarre search to return my website I thought.

Of course I do have an article talking about my experiences flying China Eastern Airlines. So obviously there’s a link, but what I find amusing, in my own quirky way, is that it made me think of the back breaking load I subjected myself (and the airline staff) to.

China Eastern Airlines has a maximum baggage weight of 20kgs for economy class travellers. When my bag was weighed on departure it came in at a whopping 31kgs! The check-in assistant didn’t blink an eye, she simple slipped a ‘Heavy, 2 person lift’ tag on it and sent it on it’s way to give some poor baggage handler a hernia. I was, quite naturally, relieved at not being asked to pay an excess baggage fee.

Returning from France I topped that even, with 32kgs! My carry on luggage luckily wasn’t weighed, because I estimated that to be about 25kgs all up as well. With camera, books, laptop and leather coat etc.

Did I get lucky? or are Chinese airlines a bit more relaxed about these things? perhaps it was the fact that on each and every leg of my trip the planes weren’t full. So they had a bit of extra capacity. Anyway, there you go. To the person that was wondering about weight limits, I hope this gives you an answer, albeit not an official one. if you want to check out their actual site and I realkly think they’re a fine airline to fly with, go here: http://www.flychinaeastern.com/ or here: http://www.ce-air.com/cea2/en_US/homepage

The end of the world as we know it?

Posted on by Bigglesan

It’s almost time for CERN to turn on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). On the 10th of Sept. 2008 they will shoot the first beam the whole way around this 27km ring. hell they won’t even be colliding anything when they first get the beast up and running!
The pseudo science, fringe dwellers and panic merchants have created quite a lot of hype about how this could mean the end of the world, or indeed the universe. Do you really believe that insignificant little man, on this insignificant little blue green planet out here in some backwater of the milky way can build a machine capable of destroying the universe?

LHC Open day 2008

LHC Open day 2008

Last night I watched a very interesting interview with Prof. Brian Cox on the ABC show Enough Rope. He equated the energy of a collision with that of a mosquito flying into your face. the trick is of course that this energy is being concentrated in such a tiny tiny space, in such an infinitesimal fraction of a second. Amazing things could possibly happen in that fraction of a second. Scientists postulate that they may be able to recreate conditions like those a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. Perhaps even micro Black Holes, Strangelets, or worm holes to other dimensions. But if we do see such phenomena, it will be on a very small scale, and it’s interaction with Earth will be negligible or virtually non-existant. All safely contained with systems that have been in planning and construction for over 20 years.

So what are the potential risks of the LHC? Well a Wikipedia article details some of the activities of the LHC, and another looks at the safety of the LHC. CERN themselves address the safety of the LHC. Really folks, there’s nothing to worry about, we’ve got more chance of blowing ourselves up with nuclear weapons than destroying the world with a micro Black Hole.

I myself am looking forward to the scientific discoveries that could be made from this ambitious experiment (or ongoing series of experiments). I’ll be watching live webcasts from CERN and leaving my brown paper bags for my groceries.

Acma Tap – Military Vespa

Posted on by Bigglesan



Acma Tap – Military Vespa

Originally uploaded by Gomisan

Wow, I am slack with my France blogs. Well here’s a quick update. As you know, I’m back. So it’s really just a photo upload update, I’ve put some images of the “Acma Tap” or French Military Vespa up on my Flickr account.

This scooter was primarily intended for airborne troops and had a 75mm recoilless gun mounted on it. Just the thing for traffic jams.

I had a great time at the tank museum, but really it needs a full day to explore and I was in a bit of a hurry as my mum and her partner were waiting outside with no interest at all in room after room after room of tanks.

If you ever get a chance, and are a fan of military history this is THE place to check out. I’ll post photos of some of the other tanks and vehicles there soon, I promise!

Photosynth

Posted on by Bigglesan

I’ve been keeping my eyes on Microsoft Photosynth for quite a while now. A pretty amazing bit of technology which I can see all sorts of possibilities for. Anyway, I’d neglected to check it out for a week or so and imagine my surprise when I visited today and found it had gone live with the ability to upload your own photos.

Basically, Photosynth allows you to upload a group of related images and it interprets them, combining them into a 3D mapped environment. So you can see a scene from multiple angles, zoom in on details, or watch a sequence of photos. It has to be seen to be fully appreciated.

I can imagine that soon software like this will also offer full 3D models of your scene, texture mapped. (Yes, I know such software exists, but not with this kind of ease of use).

Of course, I have already had a bit of a play, and some of my experiments are online for you to check out. I will also be taking a good look at my France photos to see if any suit being ‘photosynthed’. I’ve embedded an example below.