Lake Constance lies at the far southern tip of Germany. It is one of Europe’s “great lakes”, a major stopping point for the Rhine river as it meanders its way from the Alpine peaks to the North Sea. We started our trip today in Lindau, a pretty island town on the north-eastern shore of the lake. From there it was a short boat journey to the city of Bregenz in Austria. We took a cable car to Pfander – a mountain that provided some wonderful views of the entire lake.
Short video below:
Yesterday I visited Ulm Cathedral in Germany. At 568 ft high, its steeple is the tallest in the world. The sense of space inside the building is quite breathtaking, and the view from the top is, well, you’ll have to judge for yourself how well I coped with it..
Fortunately, no humans were splattered on in the course of making this photo, but it’s the intention that I have a problem with.
(via NASA HQ)
Neil DeGrasse Tyson is unquestionably one of the best communicators that the scientific community has at the moment. He is an astronomy wonk and all of his talks on the subject are bursting with enthusiasm and passion for his chosen subject. When it comes to public outreach and inspiring new generations of scientists and science fans, I put him up there with Carl Sagan.
He was recently a guest on the Rationally Speaking podcast with Massimo Pigliucci and Julia Galaf, and he did not disappoint. In the podcast, Neil talks about Obama’s recent NASA announcement, and how it will shape space exploration in the coming decades.
Tyson states that no humans will be going to Mars any time soon. Major expeditions need major, sustained funding and this can only happen if at least one of three fundamental drivers are in place: the glorification of a deity or king, the search for wealth and the need for self-preservation. In essence, power, money and war. None of these driving reasons can currently be used to justify the landing of humans on the Red Planet.
I would note two honorable exceptions to Tyson’s rule: the International Space Station and the Large Hadron Collider. Both projects were monumentally expensive, but nevertheless none of the reasons outlined above were in place. Tyson notes that the end of the Cold War caused the US superconducting collider project to be cancelled in 1989, but this doesn’t explain why the EU persisted with the LHC as the end of the Cold War affected Europe to just as great a degree.
At the end of the podcast, Tyson discusses the recent movie Avatar and some of the movie’s more badly executed concepts. It’s a delightful discussion. I had to laugh when he talked about the creatures with their own USB ports..
This is a top-class podcast from a top-class communicator so if you get a chance, have a listen.
Rationally Speaking : Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Need For a Space Program
A few oldies and goodies.
First up, Homeopathic A&E. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen this.
Next, Crispian Jago gives us an out-of-body experience.
Brian Brushwood gives a talk on Homeopathy and magnet therapies
.. and not forgetting Dara O’Briain’s famous video on Homeopathy
My, how time flies. It’s my last day in Austin before I travel back to Europe. Mind you, I have an insanely short connection in Dallas later today, so I might yet live to eat my words.
It’s been a lot of fun. Good food, good company and friendly, down-to-earth people. Austin is a compact, sophisticated city; well worth a visit. And my, it has lots and lots and lots of bars. We took a dander down 6th Street last night – one of the highest concentrations of pubs and clubs on the continent. Wednesday night and things were humming.
Oh yes. My word for the week is geocaching – a kind of Internet treasure hunt activity that as captured the imagination of an American colleague of mine. A quick search of the Internet revealed a few geocaches in Cork, one very close by to my home, so you never know..
Next stop: Stuttgart, where I am reliably informed that it suffering record ice-age conditions.
The wonder of Twitter. I’m 7,000 km from Ireland at the moment and yet I probably heard the announcement about George Lee, leaving the Irish parliament faster than many of my compatriots. The excitement that this generated was tantamount to an explosion going off at the heart of the Irish political system. It causes no end of problems for Fine Gael, the largest opposition party in the state, and it calls into question the system’s ability to attract the brightest and best the country has to offer.
Successful politicians are grafters. They have an innate instinct for saying the right things to the right people. They have thick skins and they are comfortable in the heat of battle. Most of all, they will do everything possible to keep their constituents happy, helping them to sort out problems with leaking drains and noisy neighbours. They play an uneasy game, always attempting to balance their own needs for power and influence with the concerns of those who elected them. The longest lived politicians are not, perhaps, the best and the brightest, nor the most passionate about leadership and change, but those who know how to play the game the best. The result is a system where the best way to be become the leader is to be born into the right family, and to learn the craft at an early age.
So it is with most occupations in life, professional and amateur. There are rules, both overt and covert. You play them well, you win. You don’t need to be the best or the most able, just particularly well adapted to the rules of the system.
George was well adapted to the rules of journalism. He is an acute observer of politics and statehood, but it doesn’t seem as if the game of politics played to his strengths all that much. It’s a pity, because he clearly had a lot to say. He had passion and a desire for change. He was bright and articulate and he clearly has the abilities of a leader, as many listen keenly to what he has to say.
So we may complain about our politicians, but in reality they are normally only a product of the system that creates them. We can change the leadership or replace the government, but unless that system itself is changed, nothing of substance will happen.
My first ever podcast, “A series of spectacular events” has been posted on the 365 Days of Astronomy blog today. It recounts a number of memorable experiences that I had while looking upwards at the skies over the past few years: a meteor storm, an aurora and a space shuttle launch. Hopefully it will convey the power of astronomy to recreate that sense of wonder that we had in abundance as children.
I’d love to hear your feedback on this. It was a lot of fun to put together and I have a few other ideas in the pipe-works that I would love to turn into finished podcasts some time in the future.
Passive Impressions 
