Word of the day: firenado
August 22nd, 2016 by Roger Darlington
A firenado is a torrent of wind and flame that burns at extreme temperatures. Such whirlwinds form when a fire heats air above it and pulls in cool air at its base, creating a self-sustaining vortex.
The most likely location for such a terrifying phenomenon is the United States and Australia and, in the last few days, there have been some extremely large firenadoes in California.
More information here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
U.S. presidential election (32): what happens if Trump implodes?
August 21st, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Since Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump insulted the Muslim parents of a soldier killed in Iraq, his ratings have plummeted. He continues to make statements that confuse and denigrate and outrage. He has changed the leadership of his campaign yet again.
What would happen if Trump pulled out? This is still highly unlikely and, for supporters of the Democrats (like me), probably undesirable. But, if it happens, it is not simply a case of vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence taking over.
As this piece explains:
“Rule 9 of the Republican National Committee rules governs “Filling Vacancies in Nominations,” and stipulates that should the party’s presidential or vice presidential candidate leave the ticket for whatever reason, the hole may be filled either by a reconvening of the national convention or by the party committee itself. The vice presidential nominee is not given any preferential consideration.
Should the committee elect to fill the vacancy — a seemingly more likely scenario given the logistics involved in organizing a second convention — Republican National Committee members representing a given state are entitled to cast the same number of votes as that state was entitled to at the convention. If the RNC members from any state are not in agreement about casting of their votes, the votes of that state are divided equally among members of the RNC voting.
The final stipulation of the rule is that no candidate may be chosen to fill a vacancy except by receiving a majority of the votes entitled to be cast in the RNC election.”
If, as seems likely, Trump remains as candidate and resists his advisers’ efforts to persuade him to moderate his language and style, he could so tarnish the Republican brand that Democrats might do so well in the Congressional elections that President Hillary Clinton has more scope for meaningful change.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the movie “Me And Earl And The Dying Girl”
August 20th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
You’ll never guess what this film is about! Actually it has an unusually descriptive title, so I’m sure you know where we’re going with this. But the tale is told in a wacky way that holds the attention and in time engages the emotions. Check out my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the Italian novel “My Brilliant Friend”
August 19th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
My summer reading project is to complete as much as possible of the four works that make up the ‘Neapolitan Novels’, an acclaimed series by the Italian author Elena Ferrante.
This is a saga of the 60-year friendship between two girls from a poor neighbourhood of Naples after the Second World War: the narrator Elena Greco, known as Lenu, whose father is a porter and Raffaella Cerullo, known as Lila, whose father is a shoemaker.
I’ve just finished the first novel in the series called “My Brilliant Friend” and you can read my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the new movie “The Shallows”
August 18th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Not so long ago, I read a non-fiction book titled “The Shallows” which was all about the damaging effects of Internet [my review here]. The newly-release film of the same title has absolutely no connection with the book (although it features an amazingly good mobile connection on a deserted Mexican beach). Instead the movie is a taut thriller that works surprisingly well. You can check out my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
China launches the world’s first quantum satellite
August 17th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
You probably didn’t notice this but three weeks ago, in my latest column for the trade union Prospect discussing information technology issues, I wrote:
“… physicists have been using quantum mechanics to think about new types of communications systems. One idea is to use the power of what is called quantum teleportation – roughly, how to pass a tiny bit of data from one place to another without its having to travel through the intervening space. As of 2015, the record distance for a quantum jump was 150 km, the minimum distance between the ground and an orbiting satellite. So one day we might have a quantum Internet.”
In fact, this week China launched a satellite deploying this very technology. The media are calling it “the world’s first quantum satellite” and are highlighting that the intention is to develop hack-proof communications. You can learn more here.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
Remembering Martin Luther King
August 17th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
At this time of year, when I have few work meetings, I like to attend short courses at the City Literary Institute in central London. So I recently attended a course on Martin Luther King delivered by American lecturer Dale Mineshima-Lowe.
We learned many things including:
- He was born in Atlanta, Georgia on 15 January 1929 and originally called Michael Luther King Jr. When his father changed his first name from Michael to Martin, his name changed too.
- His doctorate was obtained in systematic theology with a dissertation on “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman”. An academic inquiry in October 1991 concluded that portions of his dissertation had been plagiarised.
- He married Coretta Scott and they had four children. There is a fair amount of evidence that he was human and had many affairs.
- His support for non-violent protest was inspired by the teaching and experience of Mahatma Ghandi and deepened by a trip to India in 1959.
- He had made the “I have a dream” speech before the March on Washington on 28 August 1963 and did not intend to repeat it, but was urged to do so by a colleague close to him as he neared the the end of his planned address, the last of the day.
- He was a significant factor in the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and was present when President Johnson signed the act into law.
- In 1964, he received the Nobel Prize for Peace.
- Although he is best known for his campaigns for civil rights and racial desegregation, towards the end of his life, he spoke against poverty and the Vietnam war.
- He was assassinated on 4 April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. We still do not know the identity of his killer.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
10 of the funniest jokes from the Edinburgh Festival
August 16th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Like a laugh? Not going to the Edinburgh Festival? Never fear – thanks to the “Guardian” newspaper, we have a compilation of 10 of the funniest jokes right here.
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
Why does the periodic table of elements look like it does?
August 15th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
At this time of year, when I have few work meetings, I like to attend short courses at the City Literary Institute in central London. So I recently attended a course on the periodic table.
What does the periodic table look like? Check it out here.
How many elements are there? When the Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev invented the periodic table in 1869, there were only 83 known elements. For a long time, the table consisted of 92 elements and, as I recall, that was the situation when I studied chemistry at school in the 1960s. Today we have identified 118 elements (four of them announced this year), although only 92 of them are naturally occurring on earth.
How are the elements grouped? They are organised organised according to their atomic number (the number of protons in an atom of the element) and then placed in 7 rows and 18 columns which are determined by the characteristics of the electrons in each of these atoms.
Now, when I was school (which admittedly was a long time go), we were taught that each atom consisted of a nucleus containing neutrons (no charge) and protons (positive charge) surrounded by electrons (negative charge) and the visual model of the atom showed the electrons as essentially the same size as neutrons and protons and moving in close, circular orbits around the nucleus, a bit like the planets orbiting the sun.
However, on this course our lecturer Gary Retallick painted a more sophisticated picture.
- First, there is a common analogy about the structure of an atom in which the nucleus is a fly in the centre of a sports stadium and the electrons are tiny, tiny gnats circling the stadium, so most of the atom is ’empty’.
- Second, electrons are so much smaller than a proton – about 1/1800 of the size.
- Third, electrons do not go round in neat circular orbits but, because of probability theory, more in the form of ‘clouds’.
- Fourth, not all electrons in any given atom are in the same orbit or ‘cloud’ – there are four energy levels (electrons can jump or fall between these) and each energy level can host a different maximum number of electrons – 2 in level one, 8 in level 2, 18 in level 3, 32 in level 4.
The combination of the atomic number and the deployment of elections in a given atom determines its physical and chemical characteristics and where it is located in the periodic table.
So, now you know.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (2)
Why is it Team GB and not Team UK?
August 14th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
It’s been ‘super Sunday’ today for the British in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro with the nation storming into second place in the medal table. But why are our competitors called Team GB and not Team UK? Surely Northern Ireland should not be missed out?
If only it was that simple. Technically our guys should be called Team Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, Channel Islands and UK Overseas Territories – as explained here.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)