Present Tense »

• Some weekend reading and listening

  May 23, 2008 @ 4:15 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  Have a good weekend, everyone.

  What would the universe look like in time ran backwards, asks Scientific American.

  Slate.com on the perils of running for US President if you have an unusual name.

  While climate change litigation be the class action of the future?

  The New York Times looks at the book 1001 Books To Read Before You Die and suggests that “death might come as a relief”.

  The blog Positive Boredom has some fine ideas. None of which succeed, but he shouldn’t let that put him off.

  I had meant to link to the Sky One Lost Initiative podcast earlier in the week. It really is top class. You can subscribe to it through the website here.

  Here’s some White Denim.
  

• Links

  April 10, 2008 @ 2:07 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  Kristine Lowe asks do journalists make good bloggers?

  Una on Hot Press: Giving a Voice to Idiots. Ouch, ouch and treble ouch.

  Jazz Biscuit. Guaranteed to be good.

  The paper’s science page has a piece on the Large Hadron Collider and how it might create a black hole, but some wonder if it might bring time travellers to us.

  Bubble wrap that you can pop forever.

• Press Release of the Day

  April 9, 2008 @ 12:35 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  From Astronomy Ireland:

  POP STAR SEARCHES FOR DARK MATTER AND MINI BLACK HOLES

  Dr. Brian Cox, formerly of pop sensations Dare and D:Ream is presenting this month’s Astronomy Ireland public lecture. While playing keyboards and touring the world singing such hits as “U R The Best Thing ” and “Things Can Only Get Better” he was also continuing his physics studies.

  Now working for CERN (The European Organisation for Nuclear Research) at “the largest refrigerator in the world” on the Franco-Swiss border, Dr. Cox will explain dark matter and descibe in laymans terms the work being carried out on behalf of the 20 member states of CERN and what new discoveries may come to light when the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is turned on later this year. Will the LHC create mini black holes or time portals when it is commissioned? These are some of the questions being asked by some of the 2,500 scientists working at the €10 billion facility

  From Pop Star to Particle Physicist, to find out how it’s done and what new exotic particles may be discovered come along to our April monthly lecture.

  Next month, Prof Yazz gives a lecture titled “The Only Way Is Up: The latest breakthroughs in anti-gravity technology”.

• The other Ted-fest

  March 4, 2008 @ 3:10 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  My train journeys have been made more bearable this week by bringing along some of the lectures available on Ted.com. There’s nothing like having your mind expanded, even while you’re being crushed against a door.

  Of the many highlights, may I recommend physicist David Deutsch on What Is Our Place In The Cosmos, the aptly-named Michael Pollan on what the world looks like if we assume that plants are in charge and Deborah Gordon getting down with the ants.

  In the meantime, for those of you who have enjoyed David Attenborough’s breathtaking Life In Cold Blood, here’s a short video in which octopuses do remarkable things. Seriously.

  

• Selection Box

  January 17, 2008 @ 9:19 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  - If there can be a Math Rock then there can be Grammar Rock. Here’s Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend.

  - Cloverfield is out in the States, and critics say it’s brilliant/rubbish.

  - Complaints about the UK press rose 31 per cent in 2007

  - McDonald’s drops plans to advertise on the front of school report cards

  - Are you just a brain floating in space?

  - RTÉ’s tradition for dodgy comedy goes back a long way. Here’s a 1970 Christmas Special, which packs two stunning punchlines into the first minute. Then skip forward to three minutes to see Dickie Rock’s comedy masterclass.
  

• Selection box

  January 3, 2008 @ 2:13 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  1. The latest Dublin Review of Books is online.

  2. Curry Chips is back. But the Dolores O’Riordan fans are not amused. (more…)

• Selection box

  December 21, 2007 @ 11:09 am | by Shane Hegarty

  The questions that Slate’s ‘Explainer’ didn’t answer this year.

  Shock news: some, but not all, people Google themselves, and other people

  The Onion cuts to the chase on the whole Harry Potter nonsense.

  P Diddy’s perfume is called Unforgivable Woman. Rejected alternatives: “Fallen Woman” and “Harlot”.

  Time may be running out. Literally.

  Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have had enough of the writers’ strike and are going back on air.

  Will Smith’s next movie is I Am Legend (read the book, it’s brilliant). Then it’s a “homeless superhero” flick that’s likely to be pretty terrible.

  Dublin looks very well today and this makes it look positively funky (I posted it in July, but I can show it now, so up it goes).

  (more…)

• Moon to Earth: “You’re blocking my view”

  November 15, 2007 @ 2:33 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  Beautiful video as sent back by an orbiting Japanese probe. It’s in cutting edge HDTV, of course, because it’s Japanese – although my mate’s dad was in Hong Kong last week and bought a couple of knock-offs of this probe at a market stall.

  Just think that on this blue and white sphere you can find all our hopes and dreams; all our successes and failures; dozens of people excited by Boyzone’s reunion; all of Twink’s angry phonecalls; acres of newsprint that feature the words “Lisa Murphy”; countless drones asking for an Americano because it sounds better than plain “black coffee”; a thousand types of fizzy drink each claiming to make your brain brainier; a million hours of television presented by Gerry Ryan; tens of millions of office workers wondering what chinos they should wear on “casual Friday”; one Jimmy Carr; and many many pointless babbling griping blogs.

  Oh, and a few wars.

  Did they fix a giant laser on that thing too?

  By the way, Australia is upside down in this video, which clearly reveals it to be a fake.

• …but Bertie Ahern’s neck has a half-life of 20,000 years

  October 25, 2007 @ 7:32 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  Alan Weisman’s book The World Without Us is a surprise bestseller in the States, with the public attracted to a book that begins at the end – the world after human extinction.

  The book’s website has some animation of how quickly your house would rot away, as well as a slide show/timeline of what would happen to New York if humanity disappeared. There’s also a flash timeline here, which says that our TV and radio signals will still be out in deep space long after the Earth itself is consumed by the Sun. Just think, Nob Nation will be our legacy to the universe. (more…)

• Kellogg’s response

  October 17, 2007 @ 1:23 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  A letter in today’s paper responds to my column last Saturday:

  Madam, – I write in response to Shane Hegarty’s feature “Pop goes the healthy ad slogan” ( Weekend Review, October 13th), which refers to information on our website regarding one of our most popular brands, Kellogg’s Coco Pops. (more…)

• Bad science, good quotes

  October 11, 2007 @ 4:40 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  Tenacious debunker, Ben Goldacre is interviewed in Mongrel by Larry Ryan. It touches upon several issues, including my professions often appalling approach to science and pseudo-scientific stories:

  My tenuous theory, which I think holds up to scrutiny, is that the media is run by humanities graduates who don’t understand science. They create a parody of science through the way that they present it, and then they critique that parody as if it was what science was really about. They create this idea that science is all about authority figures in white coats making sweeping didactic statements, and by making it about authority figures rather than evidence they open it up for bogus authority figures like Dr. Gillian McKeith Ph.D, or Dr. Andrew Wakefield [architect of the MMR scare in Britain]. They present the idea that science is about brand new discoveries, when in fact science is about the gradual emergence of new themes supported by a wide raft of evidence from different disciplines. It’s an example of how ill-suited science is to being covered in a news format, because new breakthroughs or amazing new experimental data in science, by virtue of being surprising and new, are actually very likely to be wrong.

• Selection box

  September 18, 2007 @ 4:51 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  Some links:

  Neurologist Oliver Sacks (whose book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat is a must read) has a fascinating piece in New Yorker about a man with a memory only seconds long.

  How much is a first edition of At Swim Two Birds worth? Too much.

  The chequered history of ‘History Rock’. Warning: this article includes the Cranberries lyrics: “He had perceptively known that it wouldn’t be nice/Because in 1980 he paid the price.”

  Geordan Murphy does a weekly Q&A for the BBC. This is last Friday’s. Can’t wait for this week’s thoughts.

  RTÉ webchat with David McWilliams, which, rather impressively, includes the question: “Are you away now for your dinner or will you be staying longer?, I have to go out.”

  New York Times is dismantling much of its pay wall.

  E-mail etiquette dissected.

  Derek O’Connor’s post-Blogorrah life continues with Maladjusted – a “one-act, one-man, tragi-comic tale of middle-aged despair and the ties that bind, both literally and metaphorically” – coming to Bewley’s Cafe Theatre from next week.

• Rock ‘n’ roll deaths: vaccine on the way

  September 4, 2007 @ 9:26 am | by Shane Hegarty

  Research has concluded that, in the first five years after chart success, rock n’ roll stars have a mortality rate three times higher than the ordinary person. European rockers who die young do so, on average, at 35 years old (seven years to go for Pete Doherty). US rockers wait until they’re 42. (more…)

• That’s no moon…

  August 28, 2007 @ 5:41 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  The original prop lightsaber from Star Wars is to be launched into space to mark the 30th anniversary of the “greatest movie event of a generation to have been subsequently sullied by the worst movie event of a generation”. (more…)

• 10am: Why God doesn’t exist. 11am: Mass

  August 21, 2007 @ 11:07 am | by Shane Hegarty

  The 13th European Skeptics Congress takes place in Dublin on 7-9 September. Should be an interesting event, although what they really won’t be able to believe is the price of a pint.

  Among the guest speakers will be the Guardian’s in-house debunker, Dr Ben Goldacre. His Bad Science site is always worth a read, and currently has the entirety of the first part of the recent Dawkins series, in case you missed it.

• Some links

  August 8, 2007 @ 10:40 am | by Shane Hegarty

  As humanity’s actions lead to the extinction of Yangtze dolphin, we can be next to die out if we follow the lead of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

  Sean Hughes tells the Telegraph that his Madeleine McCann joke was legitimate (more…)

• Dublin’s new sculpture: (insert witty nickname here)

  August 2, 2007 @ 9:22 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  You may have seen the announcement that Antony Gormley has been commissioned to create a sculpture that will be two-thirds the height of Liberty Hall, in the Docklands (actually in the Liffey, according to the Irish Times) and close to the Sean O’Casey bridge. What might it look like? (more…)

• Wi-Fi rots the brain

  May 29, 2007 @ 3:24 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  There’s a much-needed post on the Wi-Fi scare by The Guardian’s Ben Goldachre, in which he tackles the “science” behind Panorama’s programme on the “dangers” of Wi-Fi.

  Link: Wi-Fi Wants To Kill Your Children

• Some links

  May 23, 2007 @ 4:25 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  Al Gore’s office. Now, where did he leave the Democratic nomination application form…

  The demand for ethanol fuel is pushing up world food prices

  It was a lot of hassle to build the Port Tunnel, the universe would be long dead by the time we built the Large Hadron Collider in order to find out what it was like when it was a few trillionth seconds old?

  What to do with your day/life? Soon, you’ll be able to ask Google

  From The Onion, one for bloggers – and newspaper columnists

  On Saturday, I quoted Margaret Atwood as saying that you can’t take an eBook into a bath. Well, this gentleman took up the challenge – and proved her wrong.