Latest happenings

So what have I been up to lately?

The planning for doing the West Highland Way is under way.  This weekend I'll be booking into two bunkhouses and that should be us sorted.  The training walks are already underway, and have been good so far.

The karate is going well this weather.  I'm averaging three classes a week, which is brilliant.

After the Easter weekend, I'm going to use the bike to commute to work again.  I've not done it since Hurricane Bawbag kicked in and trashed the country.

So, that's my State of the Nation at the moment.  Nothing new, but things are coasting along reasonably nicely.

Northern Lights from the ISS

Stunning.

Journey through a wormhole

So that was Kinross

Spent the weekend in Kinross, at the Green Hotel, and very nice it was too.  We spent most of the time driving round looking at castles and ye olde worlde things.
Total claim for the weekend was 2 castles, 1 round tower (in the Irish style - there's only two like this in Scotland.  The one we visited was in Abernethy), and a really cool pictish stone.

In the wee graveyard in Abernethy, we saw a wildcat, and got talking to a really nice guy from Skye who was visiting his sister who lives in Abernethy.

I'm seriously discovering how much I'm NOT a city person.  I could quite happily live in any of the wee places we visited at the weekend.  I especially loved the wee beach at Burleigh Sands.  (pic below).  So, come the lotterly win, and I'm outta here :-)

More cool science

Lego in the lab.  using Lego Mindstorm to make robots for use in the laboratory.  Seriously cool, and a brilliant excuse to get Lego on the Christmas list again.

Simple harmonic (and non harmonic) motion

A team at Harvard set 15 pendulums of different length in motion at the same time and filmed the result.  The website with the info is here

If you just want to check out the video, here it is below.  It's really pretty cool (from a geek perspective anyway)

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Play

While not the kind of music people would probably associate me with, I do have a liking for *some* dance/electronic/trance type stuff.  I've just re-discovered what an amazing album Play by Moby is.  It's totally awesome.  I got it when it first came out, and played it to death, and this is probably the first time I've listened to it in years.

It's so good when you go back to something on a whim, and it resonates.

If you've never heard this album (and how could you not have?), then do your ears a favour.  It's dance music for people who don't do dance music.  Remember, this is the guy who's also done hardcore (as in punk) stuff as well (Animal Rights).

So, what are you waiting for?

Buchanan Castle

Yesterday we headed up to Drymen to do a walk starting from the car park on Stirling Road, and heading out into the countryside, before looping back and into Drymen again.

The highlight of the walk is the spectacular ruin of Buchanan Castle.  In castle terms, it's not that old - it was built in 1854, and serves as the seat of the clan Graham.
During the war, the castle served as a hospital, and it's most famous patient was probably Rudolph Hess, as he was treated here for the injuries sustained when he crash landed in Scotland.
After the war, the roof was removed to avoid paying rates on the building, and as a result, the weather took it's tool on the interior, and gave us the stunning ruin that still stands today.

Buchanan Castle

The rest of the walk takes you out into some beautiful countryside.  We found a really nice spot to stop for lunch, next to a small waterfall on the Doghouse burn.

Despite the threat of rain, the weather was really nice, and when there was no shade from the trees, it was actually pretty warm.

I've put a route map up on the Walk Highlands website in case anyone fancies giving it a go.  It's as accurate as any of these "click on a map to plot your route" things is.  Apparently you can download the route for your gps if you want.

Anyway, a really nice 10k walk in a stunning part of the counrty.

My SF collection. The state of the nation.

I need to have a book cull.  Plain and simple.  There’s not enough  room on the shelves any more.

When this realisation finally filtered beyond the barrier in my brain that says,  “No!  You can never get rid of books”,  I started scanning to see just what (potentially) could go, and when I worked out what it was, it came as a bit of a shock.

Charles Stross, come on down.  You’re books and my bookshelf are about to part company.

Why is this a shock?  I’ll tell you.  Charlie’s books are a good read.  In fact, they’re a great read. BUT, will I be re-reading them?  Possibly not, so they’re prime candidates for eBay (unless anyone reading this fancies them, £1.50 each or 5 for £5 (I’ll list them later).  The reasoning behind their imminent demise is quite simple.  Although they are cracking reads – and they cover the whole spectrum of sf, from space opera to cybercrime and virtual worlds – they don’t give me the certain thing that the SF books I love do.  And that is a sense of wonder.  It’s not there.  I’m sorry Charlie, it’s not.  You’re books are very clever, but I can’t help feeling that there’s almost too much going on.  There’s no real sense of awe, and that’s what I loved about SF when I first picked up Asimov* and started reading.

Don’t get me wrong, I will continue to read your books as and when they come out, but as to whether they get permanent residence alongside the Moorcock, Heinlein and Reynolds, that will be decided on a book by book basis.

(* Asimov, for all he was probably the first SF writer I read, and still occasionally read, I don’t collect.  This is purely because, to me at any rate, his books come over as very dated now, whereas, there are others from the same period, who’s stories time has been kinder to.)

The next generation of manned spaceflight

Books of late

Just finished reading The Woman in Black, and really enjoyed it.  Good old fashioned ghost story, of the kind they jsut don't write any more. (well, obviously they do, or I couldn't have read this book, but you know what I mean)
Might have to dig out the M R James soon and give that a re-read.

At lunchtime today, I nipped into the library in GOMA, and took out The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham.  It's just one of a host of classic sf/fantasy/horror, that I should have read but haven't. So.... time to catch up then.

Kindle reading is currently A Game of Thrones.