And Then, Time To Be Scared…

   …be very scared. If all that’s going on in this goofy world right now, wot with wars, co-co, cost of living an’ such, is giving you sleepless nights of worry, here’s something I spotted in the ‘news’ today that really, really caps it all.
   And that would be? Well, it seems the universe in wot we live, that’s been expanding for a jolly long time now, could be going into contraction mode remarkably soon which would obviously be the end of it all. And that would include you, my little nest of vipers and me. Queue yet more sleepless nights of worry eh?
   Man, wot to do? You think it’s a tad early to start cancelling things like satellite TV contracts? Any point in her buying that new colander?
   Oh, hang on a remarkably short moment there; after giving it a proper read it seems their understanding of  ‘remarkably soon’ and ‘rapidly’, differ somewhat from mine;
According to their model, the acceleration of the universe could rapidly end within the next 65 million years — then, within 100 million years, the universe could stop expanding altogether, and instead it could enter an era of slow contraction that ends billions of years from now with the death — or perhaps the rebirth — of time and space.
   So nothing for me to do with any great urgency just yet then other than do all I can, rapidly, to prevent global temperatures rising by more than half a degree, but that’s only common sense…
   Well, so, just how tight is time then?
      

Quote;  Margaret Atwood.

“It's the end of the world every day, for someone.”

And Then, One I Like...

Firstly, I note the TV channels are wetting their panties again regarding the high temperatures presently being experienced over parts of Europe. Spookily, they seem to have missed informing their viewers that, a few days ago, an icebreaker heading North, had to turn back owing to unseasonably thick ice. That would be an icebreaker and NOT that  David Attenborough  fellow forlornly rowing about in a dingy rubber dinghy searching for the last little bit of free floating ice upon which is trapped the very last polar bear.

Okay, here we go; the MSM are, rightly, although a tad over the top, celebrating that flight to, walk on and flight home from the moon. Regarding the exploration of space, please enjoy one of my favourite bits copied, way back, from here. As previously stated, there really isn’t anything to this Blogging stuff once the gentle art of copy an’ paste has been mastered. Imagine the fascinating  TV program that could be built around this as part of their moon landing programs;

“Say friend, did you know that the US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet 8 1/2 inches?”
”That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?”
”Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.”
“I see, but why did the English build them like that?”
”Because the first railway lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.”
“Well, why did they use that gauge in England?”
”Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.”
“Okay! Why did their wagons use that odd wheel spacing?”
”Because, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.”
“So who built these old rutted roads?”
”The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The Roman roads have been used ever since.”
“And the ruts?”
”The original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by the wheels of Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for, or by Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.  Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet 8 1/2 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. And the motto of the story is 'Specifications and Bureaucracies live forever'. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war-horses.”
“So, just what does this have to do with the exploration of space?”
”Well, there's an interesting extension of the story about railroad gauge and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.  The railroad from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
“So a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was originally determined by the width of a horse's ass.”

Quote;  John Glenn.

“As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind: Every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.”

And Then, It’s Just Numbers...

I took a break from my DIY project this afternoon and watched one of those How The Universe Works programs. I find them absolutely fascinating even though they tend to make my head hurt as all the numbers are ridiculously huge and impossible for me to compute.

The episode I watched related to the end of the universe and it seems something with the bad boy name of black energy will be our downfall. I sat up and took better notice when it was mentioned that black energy will tear the entire universe and its contents, that’s everything, absolutely everything apart and it’ll all disappear in one second.

Damn, put the tools away; what’s the point? Then it was postulated that this process – not the final second bit  but the bit leading up to that bit – will start in a hundred trillion years from now. As dumb as I be I do know that a trillion is a lot of years but a hundred of they trillions? Damn, get the tools back out as I do believe I’ll have time to get the job done.

It later became apparent that, however badly my project goes, I’ll definitely have time to make it good as it transpired, if I took this in correctly, that the one hundred trillion years is just to get to the start of the period when black energy will start to do its thing and there’ll be a further ten billion years of stuff happening from then to progress to the next stage and then there’ll be a further period of stuff happening over another ten trillion years before we reach the final one second blink into nothing.

Like I say, absolutely fascinating stuff but exactly what we, or the clever folk who figured it out, are supposed to do with this information I’m not fully sure at this time. For sure a tad early to start making any preparations.

I’ve been here before and I’m here again as it does, however, give you pause for thought regarding what it’s all about and all the theories from cleaver people are really no more solidly provable than the idea that this is all just a blink in some kids computer game being played in some other dimension. The cleaver folk have no idea what caused the big bang, right? It’s it obvious to me that the big bang was when the kit powered up his ‘puter.

Tell you wot though, looking round at the world, that kids old man needs to get his ass up to his kids bedroom and tell him to give his head a good sharp shake ‘cause he’s just messing with us right now. The kid could, however, be running his dimensions type of Windows 10 and that would answer a lot of the questions regarding the mess we’re presently in...

And Thus a Saturday toon. Enjoy as you drift back and away.

Quote;  Douglas Adams.

“All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place.”

And Then Two Quick Observations...

Frist-up is the news that it’s looking like Theresa May may get get to be the the countries new leader leader. If this proves to be correct, what lies ahead for us? Possibly a protracted period of Theresa Mayhem?  Ah shacks ma heed.

Second-up is the news that they’ve managed to navigate a small craft for five years, over a distance of one point seven billion miles, that’s one point seven billion miles, and get it into orbit round Jupiter. Meanwhile, on our little island on this insignificant chunk of rock we call home, we can’t manage to run trains to time and it’s rapidly becoming impossible to drive your car for more than a hundred yards without having to take evasive action to avoid risking the ruination of the suspension by plunging into a pothole. Ah shacks ma heed.

Quote;  William S. Burroughs.

“After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.'”

And Then, So Much Hurt...

In view of the recent revelations relating to ‘safe spaces’ for students and others, I just couldn’t resist loaning the below poster from Orphans of Liberty. Says it all does it not?

As documented elsewhere, it seems these timid folk are even traumatized and reduced to tears by chalk as some very bad parson chalked the word ‘Trump’ on some stone stairs. These precious little things should consider themselves lucky.

In my day we were also worried about chalk. Difference being the teachers back then had the uncanny ability to sense ‘bad’ behaviour while writing on the blackboard and the spooky ability to turn and fire-off the stick of chalk and hit the miscreant between the eyes or in the ear, dependant on the facial orientation of the target, with unnerving accuracy. And soreness.

This was bad enough but if naughtiness was sensed while the masters were cleaning the board, they were as deadly accurate with the board cleaner; and I don’t mean those little sponge thingies, I’ talkin’ those solid wooden-backed jobbies. Now that did grab your attention. And a headache.

                               

Looks like a block of wood, right? Trust me, on contact, with your swede traveling at speed, it felt like an iron ingot. 

All this resulted in many naughty boys practicing the art of ventriloquism so as to throw their voice so the fat kid at the back copped for all the missiles. The knock-on from this resulted with, at end of term, the fat kid at the back having a face resembling the lumpy side of the moon.

Safe space? Counselling? Give me strength.

Quote;  Tom Bodett.

“The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.”

And Then I Take A Nap...

Yesterday, whilst browsing for items of interest, I came across two items of interest.

Now anything too do with out there in space fascinates me. I know nothing of it and anything I learn won’t stay indoors. It’s probably the size of it all that twists me off. Goes on forever? Trust me, if you find this hard to grasp but fascinating, don’t, under any circumstances, contemplate the idea of ‘goes on forever’ as you lay your head on the pillow at bed time.

First-up point of interest was this piece relating to the sun and  solar flares. Seem these are pretty regular occurrences but wot the cleaver people are now saying is that it’s probably only a matter of time, any time, before the sun lets off a real beauty that’ll zap all life on Earth. I’m guessing the sun will get us before that dust bomb heading our way will. However, this seems to me to be yet one more reason to cancel the window cleaner. Really, what’s the point paying for that every two weeks?

Point of interest number two was a piece saying that taking a zuzz in the afternoon could lead to premature death. I mean, what can you say? As with all this sort of ‘research’, the headline says, “...research suggests.” The magic disclaimer – ‘suggests’. Let me tell y’all, my ‘research’ seems to suggest it’s the elderly, rather than the youngerly, who take an afternoon nap and the elderly are heading, sedately, towards the exit door anyway, right?  Anyhoo, may I humbly suggest that those researchers find something useful to occupy their time here?

So there you go. Me? I hope I’m taking an afternoon nap when the sun draws one off on us and I miss it.

Quote;  Will Shriner.

“I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.”

Roger Zelazny.

“Don't wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.”

And Then, A Fond Farewell....

Well, that’s it then. It’s been fun an’ all, but there’s little point in carrying on now so I’ve just popped in to bid you all a fond farewell.

The news isn’t good you see. A bunch, or should that be a telescope, of astronomers have noted that a giant cloud of gas is heading/returning to this Milky Way of ours at a speed of 193 miles per second and they estimate that when it runs into us the impact could be so great it may form something like two million new suns.
A colossal cloud composed mostly of hydrogen is racing towards our galaxy at astonishing speed. When it collides, say scientists, the explosion will be spectacular.

And we have utter nutters trying to stop Earth from getting two degrees warmer? Two million more suns? Man, it’s going to be warm. That’ll really give the enviro loons something to bitch about. Or can one safely assume it’ll be game o’ bogey for us and this rock? I’d say definitely end of, right?  Thus the farewell.

Hay! Wait an astronomical second there! I checked the piece again and it would appear we still have some time on our hands. Paragraph one says three hundred million years but further down, and also on another site, thirty million years is the quoted time before the collision. Purely so I sleep better, I’m going with the three hundred million year option. Seems I may be Blogging for a bit longer.

Here be dragons links;
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0129/Monstrous-gas-cloud-is-careening-toward-the-Milky-Way-When-will-it-hit

http://news.nd.edu/news/64074-giant-gas-cloud-boomeranging-back-into-milky-way/

Quote;  Roger Zelazny.

“Don't wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.”