Random Developments

It is a little mentioned fact that cats are the sixth known state of matter (after solids, liquids, gases, plasmas and B-E condensates). They’re not quite solid, and get even less so in warm, humid days. Yesterday it really looked like ours was going to melt into the bathroom tiles (that was the coolest — or the least warm — place in the house, I guess). I should have taken pictures…

A few weeks ago I watched Tom Hanks’ IMAX documentary “Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D” at the Melbourne Museum theater. It is very good, even though it had to work around the fact that the original footage (as in, footage taken by astronauts) was, obviously, not made for IMAX and would look terrible if blown up to fill a 20-meter-tall screen. Some scenes were “reenactments”, using the whole screen and 3D effects, while in others they framed the original footage so that it was shown in a more reasonable size. It’s one of those movies that make you walk out of the room feeling “inspired”.

Now I already know what is the next one I want to see: “Roving Mars“, a Disney production about the two Mars rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, that have been moving around the planet for the last two years. It comes out in the US today, but there seems to be no release date for Australia yet. Oh, well. Let’s sit and wait.

On the subject of “beyond”, it looks like there is now a modified theory of gravity which incorporates quantum effects and that explains the Pioneer anomaly and does away with the need for dark matter to explain other phenomena. It still needs lots of work, though, so that it is able to explain other things already covered by the accepted theories. Exciting stuff, anyway.

Anyone in Perth? The Register is reporting that you can see a picture of a flying car in Google Earth (or Google Maps) right there in Perth. It does look like on, but it could be anything… (the shadow does seem to be in the right place, at least judging by the trees nearby).

So, if anyone could cruise by the end of Honour Avenue, in Point Walter, and see if there’s anything there that could look like a flying car when seen from above, that would be very interesting (of course, the satellite images are probably a few years old).

Depending on how old the images are, in fact, this could be related to the Destination Day of last year. Forrest Place is not that far away from the supposed car, especially if you’re flying.

From the BoM forecast:

Forecast for Melbourne Issued at 1050 on Tuesday the 24th of January 2006
(…)
Thursday
Fine. Min 19 Max 40

I fail to see what is “fine” about that.