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Yearly Archives: 2007

Supernovae: They don't make 'em like they used to

[image title="supernova" size="thumbnail" id="141" align="right" linkto="http://irrationale2.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/supernova.jpg" ]Back in the day, the universe could really belt out the supernovae — but no more. A new survey of monster stellar detonations shows that the more distant and ancient the explosions are, the greater their inherent brightness. This discovery has important implications for measuring the rate at which the universe is expanding, and therefore that weird space-making cosmological mystery called dark energy.

The ongoing Supernovae Legacy Survey, which led to the discovery, involves comparing the supernovae of nearby galaxies to those which can be spotted igniting up to nine billion light-years away.

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R2D2 Mailboxes? Awesome!

Old, but still cool. Hey, we get news a little slower downunder.

For the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, the US Postal Service enlisted a special little fellow to collect mail. R2-D2 mailboxes were deployed to cities all over the US to the delight of fans.

Fricken’awesome :)

Record price for 157 year old Bowmore

[image title="bowmore" size="thumbnail" id="306" align="right" linkto="http://irrationale2.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/bowmore.jpg" ]A 157-year-old whisky has sold for more than £29,000 (about $67,000), setting what is thought to be a world record auction price for a bottle of Scotch.

The Bowmore single malt, which was bottled in 1850, was sold at McTear’s auctioneers in Glasgow for £29,400 to an anonymous telephone bidder, beating the distillery itself.

The price, which included buyer’s premium, comfortably beat the pre-sale estimate of between £15,000 and £20,000.

The whisky, which was was sold on behalf of a private owner, is the oldest known bottle of Bowmore in existence.

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Telstra’s “Faster Broadband”

[image title="imatejasjam" size="thumbnail" id="309" align="right" linkto="http://irrationale2.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/imatejasjam.jpg" ]Telstra. Love them or hate them, they’re a fascinating group to watch. Since the beginnings of broadband internet, Telstra has been trying to function the same as any other business – make a product that only you can offer, convince people it’s the best thing since sliced bread, then sit back and watch the profits roll in.

Unfortunately for Telstra, this didn’t quite fit in with their corporate model – mainly due to old policies which were a hangover of the days when Telstra was a government organisation. When ADSL was introduced, Telstra was forced to allow other providers access to their copper network – the cornerstone of the Telstra empire. If they couldn’t control that, what did they have?

Now Telstra is concentrating on services which it doesn’t have to share with the other kids in the class. Namely, their Cable internet infrastructure and their 3G mobile network, NextG.
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Apostrophe Now!

[image title="apostrophetoo" size="thumbnail" id="369" align="right" linkto="http://irrationale2.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/apostrophetoo.jpg" ]Ah, the humble apostrophe. It’s been indicating omitted letters, showing a possesive case and pluralising our words for hundreds of years. All classic English literature contains a liberal use of this simple elevated comma, sometimes in variations which are no longer used (somewhere, o’er the rainbow!). It seems so simple to me, yet it’s something that many people seem to struggle with.

The apostrophe entered service in about 1533. It’s name was derived from the Greek “apostrophos” ([the accent of] turning away) via the French iteration, “apostrophe”. Essentially, the accent shows that a letter or two have been “turned away”, such as “it is” being contracted to “it’s”. It can also be used as a possesive indication, however this is actually a contraction as well, since the classic posessive indication was an -es on the end of the word. So instead of “Captain Cookes Fleet”, the e is stripped and we are left with “Captain Cook’s Fleet”.

Seems simple, doesn’t it? Well, no, it doesn’t. Which is why there’s a great movement of people who want to see it exiled from service.

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Preview: Guitar Heroes III – Legends of Rock

[image title="gh3wii" size="thumbnail" id="312" align="right" linkto="http://irrationale2.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/gh3wii.jpg" ]I’ll admit that I used to think that Guitar Hero was just another one of those “Do something when the flashing lights tell you to” sort of game, but recently I’ve become a convert. Guitar Hero is a fun game where you can live out your rock-god fantasies from the comfort of your own living room. And it’s about to get a whole lot more fun with the latest release. A hell of a lot more fun.

GH3 will be available on all colsoles (PS2, PS3, X360 and Wii), and each version will have it’s own wireless axe. The Wii version (the picture above is a mock-up of what it will look like) is a pluggable axe so you can add your Wiimote in, but there’s no word yet on whether it will use the accelerometers in game. The X360 version will be the first third-party piece of kit to tap into the X360s proprietary wireless system.

Trailer. Read on for the rest of the preview.

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Space-time warping found around Neutron Stars

[image title="binary" size="thumbnail" id="315" align="right" linkto="http://irrationale2.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/binary.png" ]Einstein’s predicted warping of space-time has been discovered around neutron stars, the most dense observable matter in the universe.

The warping shows up as smeared lines of iron gas whipping around the stars, University of Michigan and NASA astronomers say. The finding also indicates a size limit for the celestial objects.

The same distortions have been spotted around black holes and even around Earth, so while the finding may not be a surprise, it is significant for answering basic questions of physics, said study team member Sudip Bhattacharyya of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and the University of Maryland, College Park.

Full story at Space.com

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Preview: Overlord

[image title="overlord" size="thumbnail" id="318" align="right" linkto="http://irrationale2.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/overlord.jpg" ]There’s something fun about games where you don’t have to be a goody two-shoes. Dungeon Keeper was a barrel of laughs as you built an evil dungeon, filled it with traps and monsters and waited for the heroes to come wandering in. Evil genius was along the same lines, but instead of a subterranean dungeon, your evil mind was pitted against stereotypical bond-esque secret agents.

Overlord explores the same lines, but comedic evil is where the similarity ends. In Overlord, expect a fast-paced third-person action game, where you charge into battle and loose hordes of minions against your enemies.

There’s a great review over at AtomicMPC.

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Smoking: The Curious Pastime

As anyone who does not smoke will tell you, the act of smoking is a despicable thing which makes you smell awful, removes funds from your bank account at a frightening rate, and makes you incredibly prone to cancer and other smoking-related diseases.

However, as a smoker I have a completely different standpoint. I would like to say that this standpoint is not the result of a bias, but that would be a complete and utter lie. I do think, however, that there are a few points that need to be cleared up.

You see, the thing you non-smokers don’t seem to understand is that smoking is good. Really good. It feels wonderful on so many levels, and as a result, people want to do it as often as they can.

But that’s not the way it should be.

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Wii sales hit 100,000

[image title="wii-shirt" size="thumbnail" id="321" align="right" linkto="http://irrationale2.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/wii-shirt.gif" ]The Nintendo Wii already has the title of fastest-launch seller of any console released in Australia, and today it added another feather to its cap. Figures from industry tracker GfK Australia show that 100,000 Wiis have now been sold down under since the console’s launch on December 7, 2006 — the quickest a home console has reached the 100k mark in Australia.

The previous quickest-to-100,000-sales was the Xbox 360. The 360, which was launched in Australia on March 23, 2006, took approximately seven months to reach that milestone. The Wii took six months and two weeks.

With all three next-generation consoles out for months in Australia, the three majors have been busily beating their chests about how successful their individual products have been. Microsoft was the last one to boast, releasing figures earlier this month showing it had sold one million pieces of software in Australia.

And in other Wii news, Nintendo Australia has finally given an approximate date for the local release for Super Paper Mario. The anticipated game is scheduled for release in September this year, although Nintendo has not confirmed a specific date in the month.

Read more at the source.

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