had some very good news
had some very good news this morning. full report towards the end of the week.
a very VERY late night,
a very VERY late night, featuring large volumes of alcohol, as well as Sarah, Fi, Helen, Steve, Kearn, Tanya, Tam, Paul F, Paul S, Daryl, Sacha, Ian and sundry others. not sure if wise to venture out again tonight, but will anyway.
why do people do this
why do people do this sort of thing? It irritates the hell out of me. What are they trying to prove, and to whom? Do they think they look clever? or hard? phooey. Go cheer up Marcia by sending her a nice friendly happy message.
what a long afternoon, with
what a long afternoon, with only the failure of the phone system for three hours to break it up (and it is still messing about now – bloody BT). guh. and now it is raining AGAIN, just in time for my walk home.
but, on the plus side, tonight I’m going to the pub for drinks with Fi and Sarah. fab!
You could almost shed a
You could almost shed a tear for the end of the Mir space station. I was just fifteen when the first section was launched, and I’ve followed it with some interest for all those years. I think that we underestimate the size of the feat of engineering that was Mir – we are all too ready to compare it with the shiny and impressive Space Shuttle craft, which we see on TV each time one is launched or lands. The millions of hours of experiments that took place, the knowledge that was gained of deep space through observation (clear telescope images long before Hubble was launched), as well as the experience gained by cosmonauts of long missions in weightlessness are more than worth every single rouble that was spent on the project.
The question that remains is “what now?” – the Russian space programme is cash-strapped to say the least. A few years ago it was conceivable that some of those people might have gone to work for NASA, but that organisation is also the victim of savage budget cuts. Which leaves the commercial sector. MirCorp are still floating about with lots of cash (I believe), and then there are the commercial satellite and communications companies. But with rapidly plunging stock values, you have to wonder if they have the resources for any serious investment. I think that we have just seen the end of one of the richest periods of space exploration, and we are about to enter one of the poorest periods since Gregarin.
clearly someone forgot the virgin
clearly someone forgot the virgin sacrifice this morning
another great name for an
another great name for an actual band that already exists: Large Mound.
don’t you wish you’d thought of that first?
“In the long term, the
“In the long term, the only sustainable competitive advantage is the ability to learn faster and more effectively than your competitors – and that applies to both organisations and nations as well as individuals” – Peters and Waterman, In Search of Excellence
How true.
clearly a virgin has been
clearly a virgin has been sacrificed somewhere, as the sun is now out, the sky is blue with those fluffy cotton wool clouds (cumulus is the proper term, I believe) and it is actually, dare I say it, quite warm.