The Four Ages Of Sand

They're here!

Look what's been falling from the sky: 

(Spotted by Alan)

"A man in Dorset has been left mystified after tiny blue spheres fell from the sky into his garden.

Steve Hornsby from Bournemouth said the 3cm diameter balls came raining down late on Thursday afternoon during a hail storm."

Of course, the Government is trying to cover up the reality:

'Josie Pegg, an applied science research assistant at Bournemouth University, speculated that the apparently strange phenomena might be "marine invertebrate eggs".'

Ha, they will be calling them weather balloons next! These balls are clearly extra testicle extraterrestrial.

More here: (Not the Full Story of course, because "they" don't trust us with the truth...)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-16754531

 

Reliant on a Robin

I'm desperate to make as much use of my Panasonic SD900 for bird filming, but the little buggers have a horrible habit of not standing still long enough for me to get all set up. Thank goodness I can rely on Robins; they are beautiful birds with stunning voices and, best of all, they are generally happy to pose for me.

This one was in a car park in Loughton. I had to film through the windsceen so assumed that the glass would distort the image but luckily it was so close that with a bit of tweaking in Corel VideoStudio Pro X4 (Contrast and saturation) the final result is really very sharp and clear.

Slowed to half speed.

 

 

Why men shouldn't write advice columns

A classic from Alan R:

Question of the week: can you capture the Moon, Venus and Jupiter in a single shot with a Blackberry?

Yes! (This is real time blogging, take a look outside now, it's quite a sight)

Jupiter on the upper left and Venus lower right.

EDIT: Oops, somehow I got the pic upside down...

Venus top left, Jupiter bottom right,

Surface of Mars captured in fantastic new images

Well spotted Alan.

If you're as old as me you'll remember when the best images of Mars were little more than fuzzy orange blobs. Ah how far we've come.

See here for more:

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/16741199

 

Moon Venus and Robin together at Dusk

Did you see Venus last night? It's the very bright "star" visible quite high in the sky in the direction of the setting sun. And to the left is Jupiter.

It's always wonderful to see the crescent Moon next to Venus at dusk but it's even better if you can add in a singing Robin.

The idea was to get the Robin with the Moon behind it in the same shot. Next time maybe. The video has come out quite nicely considering how little light there was:

 

The curse of the Kingfisher

Alan T regularly emails me to tell me he's seen yet another Kingfisher. I have a strong suspicion he likes to do this because he knows how much it annoys me that I almost never see my favourite bird.

Alan R has gone one better; he's now taking great photos of them...

Jealous? Not me.

I'd love to take my own shots of course, but nicking them off Alan's excellent blog, Seymour Birdies, is almost as satisfying:

 

Got to laugh!

This from Alan R:

 

Islington Council admits tree sign 'error'

  

The sign led to "laughter, grumpiness and indignation," said Nadi Jahangiri

A council has warned residents not to attach objects to trees - in a notice attached to a tree. Islington Council said the poster in Highbury Fields, north London, had been put up "in error" by a junior worker. It read: "Please do not attach or affix any structures or objects to the park furniture and trees at Highbury Fields including the benches and lamp posts." A council spokesman said it had now moved the notice to a nearby noticeboard.

The notice, which asked residents to respect the park and be responsible, was spotted by Nadi Jahangiri, an architect who lives nearby. He said: "A lot of people have been putting signs up on the trees about lost cats and so on with drawing pins - it really annoys me. "I walked up to it to rip it down, only to find it was telling people not to attach anything to trees!" He continued: "Lots of people soon gathered around laughing.

"There was lots of grumpy huffiness and indignation about our taxes being used for this. "If you want to stop someone doing something, doing it yourself is an odd way to go about it - but that's Islington Council for you."

A spokesman for the council said: "This was a mistake by a junior member of staff who thought they were doing the right thing to protect the trees. "Yesterday we removed the sign to a nearby noticeboard as intended."

 

 

brain-mind graphic

And ANOTHER thing about the Brain and the Mind is... ok I'm not really going down that route at the moment. Well not on the blog anyway.  The subject of consciousness, the Mind Body problem, and all that, is still very much on my mind though (or Brain; take your pick) and I've just started my Masters on the subject (post coming soon). But I must share this from Nick's blog, biotechnorati.

Remember my diagrams laying out the main positions with regard to the connection between Brain and Mind? (previous post)

Are Mind and Brain 2 different things?

Or 2 words for the same thing?

Or perhaps Mind is an illusion:

It feels like our mind has control over the body:



but Neuroscience suggests the opposite is true; Mind, whatever it is or is not, arises from the brain:



The 5 diagrams seemed to me to be the exhaustive list on the subject, but the more I read the more I began to wonder if the 2 concepts could be intertwined in some other way, a way that suggested a deeper interconnectedness between the 2 concepts.  The letters 'I' and 'N' are common to both words so I thought there must be a way to express this diagramatically, but I couldn't think of any way to do it. I mentioned it to Nick and then thought no more about it.  But Nick, unlike me, has a habit of following things through to their ultimate conclusion, and he has come up with this. I think it's fantastic.

I've searched online and can't find anything like it. Nice job mate!

See biotechnorati here for the full story.

 

Answer to "What is it? 243"

Well done to Ted!

Sun reflecting off an aeroplane.

Posted by: Ted Boatman | January 23, 2012 at 02:56 PM

I don't know who he is but he appears to have a Welsh email address...

It's an aeroplane flying past Venus at Sunset, which is not something you see every day.

The Zoom in the second half of the clip is 250X. The quality is rubbish at that kind of zoom of course, but the image stabilisation still does an amazing job. To get a usable image at 250X really is impressive.

 

 

And for those without Vimeo, here's a single frame:

What is it? 243

Treecreeper Magic

Treecreepers are common birds in woods and forests in the UK but they are extremely difficult to photograph because they are small, (5 inches from head to tail) and constantly flit about in the darkest parts of the tree. In fact a quick search of 4AoS suggests I've never managed to photogrpah one all.

But then came the Panasonic SD900! You just switch to Manual focus, open up the aperture and you're away. Here's a still from the vid:

And here's the vid:

 

Disproportionate or What?

Good one from Alan R. I have mixed feeling about SOPA but I do think some perspective is needed:

Answer to "What is it? 242"

 

Some great guesses this week, from Trifle to Scallops, but none close to the answer I'm afraid

It's...

Well, watch the video to find out (it's at the end)

I've been playing around with creative filters in Corel VideoStudio Pro X4.

Is the result great Art? That's not for me to say, but a metaphor for my work might be the vision of a young child taking its first tentative steps in a freshly mown meadow...

For busy 4AoSers or those without access to Vimeo, the answer is here too:

Question of the week: How can you think like Leonardo Da Vinci?

Any way you cut it, Leonardo was a clever guy.

Here are some the attributes/strategies of the great man which we could all emulate in order to think more like him:

Curiosità. Curiosità is an "insatiably curious approach to life and unrelenting quest for continuous learning".

Dimostrazione. Dimostrazione is "a commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistake".

Sensazione. Sensazione is "the continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience".

Cryptic. Cryptic is "a willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty".

Arte/scienza. Arte/scienza is "the development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination".

Corporalità. Corporalità is "the cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness, and poise".

Connessione. Connessione is "a recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena".

 

The full article is here: http://www.wikihow.com/Think-Like-Leonardo-Da-Vinci

It's all in the marketing

The Car Wash attached to our local Tesco needed a real punchy advert to pull in the punters. Here's what the marketing boys came up with.

That's why they get the big bucks!

As long as the Head Teachers are getting it right...

Alan spotted this:

374.AMc
Comment number 374 is an Editors' Pick
17th January 2012 - 12:26

I have been a primary head teacher for the past 12 years. I see a lot of comments against Ofsted but know this. These reports and grading’s have highlighted failing schools and those where improvements can be made. In the main the Inspectors offer very clear objectives and advice.
It's quite simple; those who work hard to improve their schools have nothing to fear.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16579644?postId=111451366#comment_111451366