Random Developments

It is a little known fact that the first computer used to play music in world was the Australian-built CSIRAC (initially know as CSIR Mk1), in 1951. The computer was then in Sydney; after it was moved to Melbourne (in 1955), mathematician Thomas Cherry (after whom a building in the University of Melbourne was named) developed a system that allowed the use of musical notation to program the pieces to be played.

Earlier today, The Music of CSIRAC, a book telling the story of these first experiments, was launched in Melbourne. The book comes with a CD containing 16 pieces played by CSIRAC. It is a great book for anyone interested in computer history; it can be ordered online from the publisher or from Amazon.com.

After a very tense match, Australia beat Uruguay and qualified for the 1006 World Cup finals. Uruguay won 1-0 in the first match, in Montevideo, which required Australia to win at home by at least two goals to avoid extra time and a penalty shoot-out.

I have to admit that the Australian team surprised me. They were clearly nervous at the start of the match, making several dumb mistakes and allowing lots of free kicks (which is especially dangerous, as a foolish foul is what gave Uruguay its goal in the first leg). But, after 30 minutes, when the coach replaced one of the midfielders with Harry Kewell, Australia started moving forward and scored very quickly, in a beautiful play.

From that moment onwards, the game was Australia’s. The Uruguayans seemed tired, and the Socceroos pressured them during whole of the second half. Uruguay was only a threat on quick returns, and a major threat at that, but they failed to score on all attempts (with a few good saves by Australia’s goalkeeper).

The only problem for the socceroos was actually scoring: they took to long to shoot the ball, and they did it from too far away or with little accuracy. They still scared the Uruguayan goalkeeper quite a few times, anyway. Despite the pressure, regular time ended 1-o and they moved to extra time. The final thirty minutes were a little more balances, with good attack from both sides, still with Australia having a little more edge. A little too much at times, though: they had five or six offsides during extra time, all of them correctly pointed by the referee. Extra time ended with no goals, and it was time for the penalty shoot-out.

The hero was, undoubtedly, the Australian goalkeeper, who saved two shots; one of them right after a missed shot by Australia’s star scorer, Mark Viduka. At the end, 4-2 Australia, and the 83,000 people present in the stadium started a party that would last the whole night.

With Australia qualifying for the World Cup finals and the success of the A-League, it looks like soccer is taking off in the country. No one realistically expects great results in Germany, but you never know: Guus Hiddink, Australia’s coach, is the man who lead South Korea to a finish among the top four team in 2002. To repeat what was in the player’s shirts last night, never say never.

Two new models of passenger jets are doing very spectacular flights this week. The new 777-200LR landed this morning in London, coming from Hong Kong, to set the new distance record for a non-stop flight for its class: 21,601 kilometres in 22 hours and 42 minutes. The previous record for this weight class was for a 747-400 flying from London to Sydney in 1989 (17,038 km), and a 777-200ER has the record in a different class for a flight from Seattle to Kuala Lumpur (19,044 km) in 1997. A very interesting description of what it takes for a distance record to be accepted is in Boeing’s Flight Test blog, as written by a member of the crew.

At the same time, Airbus is showcasing its own giant passenger jet, the A-380. It landed in Singapore today, coming from Toulouse, and will tour Australia as part of the celebrations of Qantas’ 85th anniversary; Qantas will be one of the first airlines to receive the new jet, starting in 2007. Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane had their airports upgraded to allow the plane to land; Melbourne opened its first two-level boarding bridge yesterday (Singapore Airlines, which will receive the first units, will fly to Australia with it).

The A-380 will be in Melbourne next Monday, but I don’t think it will not be open to the public; I couldn’t find any info about that in Qantas’ website in fact, Qantas is asking anyone who is not travelling on that day to avoid the vicinity of the airport, to prevent traffic congestion. In Sydney, it will fly over the harbour on Sunday, but I don’t think it will do an exhibition pass over Melbourne.

While most people tend to focus on Mars when thinking of exploring planets in Earth’s neighbourhood, the European Space Agency is taking some time to move in the other direction by sending a probe towards Venus, our other neighbour.

Of all planets, Venus is the most similar to Earth in terms of size and gravity, but its enviroment is even more hostile to humans than that of Mars. It is dominated by a runaway greenhouse effect that keeps surface temperatures above 400°C and a pressure 90 times greater than that of Earth. Its atmosphere is composed mainly of carbon dioxide and is permanently clouded, hiding the surface from view (and, probably, keeping the temperature lower than it would otherwise be). One other unusual feature of the planet is the orientation of its axis, which is tilted so much that the planet rotates in the opposite direction as compared to all others (except Pluto, which is always an exception, and Uranus). Also, the rotation is so slow that one local year is equivalent to less than two local days.

ESA’s Venus Express was launched yesterday morning (Australia time) from Kazakhstan, and will reach Venus in 162 days, on 21 April 2006. The probe is expected to remain in operation for two Venusian days (that is, approximately 15 Earth months) and to make several measurements of atmosphere dynamics and temperature distribution, trying to infer clues about the characteristics of the surface.

The former Soviet Union was the pioneer in the exploration of Venus, with 16 Venera probes launched between 1961 and 1983. Venera 3 was the first man-made object to land (or, more accurately, crash) in another planet, and Venera 4 the first to send data from an alien atmosphere. In all, the Venera probes returned an impressive amount of data, including chemical analysis of soil samples, surface images and video, and even sound recordings. Unfortunately, due to the severly hostile enviroment, none of the probes lasted for more than a few hours on the surface.

Venus Express is expected to help us understand the workings of the Venusian climate and, hopefully, of the origins of its greenhouse effect, without which it would have an enviroment not very dissimilar from ours. Since we may be starting to deal with a (much smaller) greenhouse effect of our own, Venus may teach us many lessons in the future.

So I heard that Coca-Cola will stop producing Vanilla Coke (as well as the diet version) worldwide starting early next year (”world”, in this context, is the USA, the UK and Australia, as far as I know; is it available anywhere else?). The reason? Declining sales. (they will supposedly introduce a “Black Cherry Vanilla Coke” instead, but in the US only)

And I have to admit that I’ve been seeing less and less of it in the supermarkets. Is there no one else out there who likes it? I would feel tempted to start one of those online petitions to get them to change their minds, if I didn’t think those things are ridiculous.

Anyone else? Anyone at all?

(quick update: Coca-Cola Australia says that they have no plans to phase Vanilla Coke out. Good!)