Archive for January, 2009

OK, so I was browsing the internet earlier, and typed something into Google’s search bar thing at the top of Firefox. All seemed fine until I clicked on a result and was told that it would be harmful to my computer. I hit the back button, and found that every result was giving that dire warning. Suspicious I typed in “google”: look at what I got for the first result.

Googleing may seriously affect your health.

Yesterday (20th January 2009) Sammy Wilson gave an interview on Good Morning Ulster, and was accompanied by Prof. Iain Stewart, of BBC fame. I couldn’t resist looking up his website, where he says, I quote:

Our climate is changing; there is little doubt that global warming had taken place in the last 30 years of the 20th century. However actual evidence (not forecasted computer models) now shows us that the earth has actually been cooling since 1998.

That’s what Sammy Wilson, Minister for the Environment, says on his own website.

His own rant, for want of a better world, against accepted science was at least somewhat divergant from that statement:

Well, first of all, if Iain, and those who take his view have a problem, if you look at the last decade, where the actually hasn’t been global warming even though there has been a huge climb in CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, and of course, that creates a problem for the people who take Iain’s view and it’s at the large number of variables which influence the world’s climate, and indeed, that this science is in its infancy, that I don’t think taht anyone can say with absolute certainty that CO2 emissions are the main driver and they are likely to be caught out as their own science develops, from signs that there are other factors which have influenced the world’s climate, and indeed, there is still a huge body of scientific opinion which takes the view that there are other drivers, including othe people in Iain’s field, who look at geology, study geology, and that… Geology is almost like the world library. The rocks, the sediments, the ancient soils and minerals, and

pollen; it’s like a book where by studying what happened in the past … [radio presenter cuts over] … and our ability to read those books is still limited.

An impressively unpunctuated speech. It worries me that the world’s environment should be left in the hands of people like Mr. Wilson. Scientific opinion weighs vastly in favour of CO2 being the current and principle cause of climate change.

Apart from what the above graph illustrates, the damning verdict of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published their findings last year, following an extensive period of review and interpretation. I can only find Mr. Wilson’s knowledge of the science of geology laughable, but in this day and age, his total ignorance of the issues which his office oversees are apalling.

There followed the reading of various text messages, the majority, allegedly in Mr. Wilson’s favour – It just goes to show one thing – Sectarianism can prove anything in Northern Ireland.

I am, however, looking forward to the lecture at MCB tomorrow, with Prof. Stewart, and Mrs. Foster, the minister for Enerprise, Trade and Investment. I will be photographing the great event…

OK, so maybe I should post the photos I’ve been taking: I’ll get on with it shortly.

Well, I was in Belfast today, took the camera with me (as always), and what did I forget? The memory card. So I got 1 RAW photo onto the internal memory, and a couple of JPEGs. Dad was at the library at Queens, and I walked back up to meet him, and snapped this photo. The weather was particuarly dingy, and it didn’t come out brilliantly. Fortunately a bit of HDR poking, and it came out looking… interesting. Since the 365 project is as much about trying out new things, I thought I’d do just that: so this became my first HDR which I’ve posted to Flickr. For anybody who hasn’t come across it, the building is the Main Campus site of The Queen’s Univerity of Belfast, designed by Charles Lanyon.

For the technical details of this picture, I used QTPFSGUI to assemble the HDR from an ORF file (Olympus RAW), and I played around with the different settings, then cropped in photoshop (to get rid of the litter in the flower bed straight in front of me).

When I was walking around Belfast today, I realised why Belfast steets seem so squalid compared to other cities. Apart from the shops, I have realised that it must be the number of man-hole covers. On Fountain Street I counted four together in a close group, and there were about fifteen in the whole (short) street – this on a pedestrianised precinct, with fancy paving. You’d swear that Belfast had the world’s most complex communication systems, all buried underground…

Ah… 365 days started today, and I spent most of the day trying to decide what to photograph. This is the end result; ortoned sweets… The weather today made it too dingy to get a nice photo outdoors. So, who knows what is to come.

I’m not a person for New Year’s Resolutions, but, I thought I might decide to do some things differently this year, or make sure that I get them done:

1. Take, upload, and show off one photograph every day (the Flickr 365 Project)
2. Get an A in five AS exams (Greek, Geology, Maths, Chemistry & Physics)
3. Learn to play the piano better
4. Finish off my astronomy website project (including choosing a final name for it)

Not only that, but I’ve also got a lot to look forward to:

• Learning how to drive – now I’m 17 I hope to be able to learn to drive this summer
• Applying to University – September 2009
• Completing two large photo albums of photos
• Going to Leeds in February
• Enjoying International Year of Astronomy 2009

And that’s just about all I can think about right now.