Elephants.

Did you know that duel core processors come from elephants?

It's true. what you do is, right, take your elephant. It has to be a bull elephant, the hormones in the cows mess things right up, and the Bull has to be over three years of age, otherwise there is not enough magic smoke accumulated the the body of the bull. (by the by, I am still talking about elephants. Males and females are the same as cattle.)

So, You have your three year+ old bull, and you get a dirty great syringe One of the really really HUGE ones. It helps if you have a fairly fat elephant, because there is then a layer of fat between the epidermis and the muscle of the 'phant. This helps because the stuff you're after is much the same colour as the muscle but, is situated right underneath the epidermis. It also has some very strange properties wherein if you apply pressure to it, it turns into a liquid: kinda a reverse non-neutonian solid.

So you've got this odd liquid. About 5 ccs is enough for one processor here. Now you need to centrifuge it at about 14000 gravities for twenty-six hours.

The liquid will have separated into three distinct bands. the upper layer, about one cc, will be a straw yellow colour, and it may be cloudy. This is just plasma, carrying nutrients and stuff too and from cells. The bottom layer is about two cc and should be a reddy brown colour. This is the iron that this liquid we want seems to trap Discard it. And there may well be a white pellet in the bottom. This will just be the cells and the organells of the cells. Discard this too. It is the middle layer you want. It is a bright emerald green, which under pressure turns grey. With 5 CCs of starting liquid, you will have about 2ccs of this green liquid left.

So You've separated the liquid you want. now you need to centrifuge it again, for 36 hours and 20,000 gravities. After this you will have a colourless liquid and a grey pellet at the bottom. Discard the liquid.

Put the grey pellet in a mixture of sulphuric acid, iso-propyl alcohol and milk. Ensure the base of the container has the shape of the processor etched into it, and leave.

Eventually all the liquid will evaporate off and you will be left with a hard plasticy shape which you can put through the rest of the processes a processor goes through to become a processor. Magic, if you ask me...

And you thought that elephants were becoming extinct because of the ivory trade.

The productivity of moaning.

Company is a funny thing. Sometimes you crave it and other times you really really don't. Sometimes all you want is to be left alone to do your own thing in your own way at you own pace.

I have just shifted labs at my placement. I have gone from the biggest lab in the building, where we used a good three quarters of it to one maybe a quarter of the size. I had only just gotten used to where everything was: we moved there so our fume cupboard could be replaced, and now, having to find where everything is again and spending what feels like half my time apologising for getting in the way of the other people in the lab. Thing is, I hadn't realised just how much time I spent distancing myself from the rest of the lab: I would move to the furthest bench to do my work, and usually end up with my back to them all whilst I worked.

Thing is, in the new lab I physically can't. And I'm becoming more and more aware that I'm having to stop short of biting the heads off the other two placement students.

Don't get me wrong, I'm managing, most of the time, but sometimes it is hard. And when I'm not concentrating so hard that if I so much as think something else I'll lose count of the colonies on my plate and have to start again, I'm more than willing to interact with the others, help them out if they need it, and hold conversations with them (today it was history and the feasibility of empires)

How do teachers cope having to give all of their attention to twenty-five plus students at a time? I couldn't do it. I'm glad I recognise that now though, at one point I was thinking of going into teaching.

Why am I so antisocial at work? Maybe part of the reason is that we have moved and I'm having to re-adjust to where everything is and whats going on. Another part of it may well be that work has picked up and we're getting more jobs in more often now, and I'm more likely to be leaving at half five, six or even later than half two/ three o clock.

I think that the two have combined to feel like I've started a new job, and everything is all a little bit new and overwhelming again. Maybe when I've settled down in the lab I'm working in for the rest of the year it will get better.

And I'll stop being such a grumpy cow. And I'll not be so tired that I want to come in from work and curl up and sleep straight away, and actually be able to do something with my evenings.

I can always hope...

Realistically, work isn't so bad. I'm enjoying it, and my supervisor isn't constantly on my back about every little thing. I just didn't realise I was so set in my ways. And that changing them would be so hard.

This post has turned into one giant moan. but I'm thinking clearer and feel more relaxed, so it was a productive moan. And it is the weekend. and I'm running the first session of my game come Sunday. I'm certainly looking forward to that. Spirit of the Century is full of shiny win.

I'll leave you with the thought that I have just looked up and seen AIDS, Ebola virus and Algal Scum staring at me from the mantle piece. And I think Ebola just waved.

Africa-sat Calling Earth...

Earth View from Africa-sat1
picture taken on the17th Aug. about 5ish in the evening.

Take a look at the link above. The earth. Taken from a satellite orbiting the earth. Now, when I saw it, it was in darkness, except for the creeping dawn line on the right of the picture. In other words, it looked like a crescent moon. And that got me thinking again of old childhood fantasies and wishful thinkings. Now, when I was younger, like many other children, I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to go in to space, work on the ISS, the Hubble, see the stars without atmosphere getting in the way (apparently, it's an amazing sight). And most of all, stand on the moon.

And, I saw that, and realised, actually, I still want to be up there. I want to stand on the moon and look at the earth, as it now, and I want to see it changing. I want to see what it will be like ten, twenty, fifty years down the line.

So many of us have dreams we give up without a fight. We dismiss them as fantasies and pipe dreams and carry on with what we consider reality with out a backwards look. Most of the time anyway. Sometimes you stop and think. What if... What if I had pursued my dream? Finished my A-levels, gone on to aeronautical training, applied to NASA or ESA? Where would I be now?

Well, a lot fitter for one and I wouldn't have had the chance to meet all the truly amazing people I have up here. Would it have been the right choice? what would I have done whilst I was groundside? And after I was too old to fly anymore. This crosses my mind sometimes, but usually it is just the silence, the beauty, and the fact that I can't imagine it that keeps it boiling away in the back of my mind. Maybe being in space is my pipe dream, but you can be sure, given the opportunity, I would do it.

But that's what dreams are for. To help us reach for more. To advance and evolve as a race and an individual. We just have to be sure that in reaching for our dreams, we don't miss what we have in our reality.

Grab your dream and hang on hard.
But be sure to keep a hand free for reality.

Cows that go moo in the night.

So. I've noticed that once again, my posts have gotten all irregular. I think that my inspiration gets worse in the summer.

Here's a little something to tide you over (whoever you may be... I'm not entirely certain the is a definite you, or whether you are just an amorphous blob, made of of a huge amalgamation of the world's population. And wether, which I was going to write earlier is actually a castrated ram. that made me giggle. Sheep using the internet.)

Molly ambled over to the the fence, browsing the grass as she went. She liked it by the fence, the dessert grass tasted more like chocolate and less like sweets over here. Peering over into the next field, where here friend Rachael was having a meal in the main course grass. Lasagna by the looks of it. She took another mouthful of the dark, rich chocolate and stiffened in surprise as her brain processed what she had seen.

'Rachael, but what have you got on your feet?!'

'Hya Molly, do you like em? I got the sheep to order them from e-bay for me. They swear that they'll make my milk better! Mind you, they also said that they would stop stormlight from hurting you. That's silly, stormlight doesn't hit us!'

Molly shook her head slowly, as she thought about it. Rachael always had been an odd one, never quite fitting into the herd, always willing to try new things. It had been Rachael who had made the man-carrier make loud noises and start trundling down the hill, much to the amusement of the herd, because watching the farmer run after it with his arms waving like that... well! Everyone knew that that would spook it more.

'The sheep you say? Hmmm. I wonder if they are trying to pull your udder. You do look silly you know!'

'Naw. Remember when I sat on that fox and stopped Louise's new lamb from being carried off? They said they owed me one.'

'Ah.' Molly chewed the cud, and thought again. 'Well, I guess they aren't to bad, for manhide. I never realised that people butchered farmerkind for their feet. Are they comfy?'

'They're not bad, Moll, Although I don't understand why they have this big hollow bit at the front of their hoof. It is most bizarre. But you're right. It is odd that people butcher farmerkind. I didn't realise they did it. I wonder what happens to the rest of him?'

'Hmm.' Molly thought some more. Confusing things, farmerkind. So confusing that it required fruit flavoured grass. She wondered off deep in thought, flicking her tail at Rachael as she left in absent farewell.

Later that day all thought of Rachael's manhide hoof coverings left Molly's head as their farmer came and herded all the cows into the top field, where, to their surprise, there was a new stormlight attractor. Sniffing the air, Molly noticed that there was rain on the way, and enough to make the chocolate grass field covered when the stream broke it's banks. Hmm.

That night was the heaviest storm that Molly or any of the other herdmembers could remember. the rain came almost horizontal, and the stormlight and the stormnoise came without pause, often hitting the stormlight attractor that stood looming over them.

A particularly bright stormlight filled the air all around them and everything went dark.

When the farmer went to check on his herd the next day after the storm broke, he was shocked to see them all dead under the new electricity pylon he had fought against for so long. All except for one cow who huddled next to the fence closest to him, and for some inexplicable reason, was wearing wellington boots.

Dreams

What do you get when you lose your dreams? Some say reality, others say despair and someone else once told me that to lose your dreams is to face extinction. Either as a race or an individual. Everyone has dreams whether or not they admit it. Where they are now and where they will be in a month, a year, ten years. I know I dream. A lot.

Dreaming is essential to the human race. If we couldn't dream, not only would we not drive forward, but we would also not be able to cope with the real world. It is like the pressure valve that lets us cope with the world when we have to.

Because no-one is truly content. It's true. Even if they think they are there is something, a drive, a dream or a sense of adventure. If they didn't have it they wouldn't bother getting up in the morning, nor looking after themselves.

I believe that without dreams we lose our fight, our drive to improve. To see new things, to talk to new people, to find new ways to look at old things, we'd lose our way forward. We may have dreams but we are inherently lazy. First we forage, then we realised that it is easier to put the plants where we want them, not where they just grow, so we started farming by hand. Then we saw the usefulness in draft animals, and eventually in engines. Ever more efficient, ever easier. Our drive to make things easier for us is what drives us as a race. Our ability to chase dreams is what drives us as individuals.

The two things go hand in hand really. The easier life is the easier it is to dream. The easier it is to dream the easier it is to lose the real world. And lose those who can't dream and fall through the cracks of the world.

Like anything I suppose, dreaming is needed in moderation. Too much water can drown you, and too much heat can burn. Too many dream can make you lose your way and forget the dreams you have made a reality.

Moving Day

Moving house is a strange thing. It means the end of one way and the start of another, a new beginning but also another ending. Now this can be a good thing, or a really bad thing.

I have just moved out of halls, and into my first house. Granted it is a student house, but it is a house nonetheless, and I find I am quite bewitched by it. Even more so that the house has three levels and I have lived anywhere with more than two, if you count a flat has having only one. I have a poky little bedroom, which is fine. In fact, the only problem I can see with it is that I cant reach the rail in my wardrobe. And that if I'm not careful then I'll, (and even more so for those unfortunates taller than 5”6') hit my head when going downstairs into my nice spacious kitchen.

Best of all, Archimedes and Screw aren't illegal any more. And they will never, ever have to go over the bumps in Storthes Hall again.

I'll miss Storthes, Not least the fact that when humanity got too much for me I could disappear into the woods for a few hours, or that fact that I could play at being all grown up without actually having to be all grown up. Now I have to pay bills. No, I'll miss the antics of the other students I saw, and the friends I made, and the security guards. When all you have to do is buy food and pay rent, well, it's like the paddling pool of real life. Yes. This year is going to be a corker all round.

Not only am I having to pay bills, am responsible for my own place, and have gone from having six other people to make sure I don't do anything too blond, to one. I'm also going to be working. Like a normal person. From 9 till 5. For a whole entire year. I start Monday, which, by the time this will have been posted, will have passed, because I'm not getting internet till next Thursday. Yes. Next year, I get to pretend that I'm not a student and pay my bills, like a good little proletariat. Only with substantially less money. But then, students are always meant to be broke.

So. Now I have internets, I can finish it.

This past week has been a lot of fun. I've got a new house and a new housemate. I've had to learn how to live with a new person and how to work in a lab, and not work in a lab practical. I've learnt the different between the experiment not working and the product not working, making the experiment look like it wasn't working. And that hurrying to make sarnies in the morning is a bad idea unless you want the contents of the fridge on top of you and that if you are going to wake someone up, do so with a cuppa for them. They'll forgive anything for that. It is definitely still early days when it comes to the job; I'm looking forward to going in come Saturday.

Paperwork

I have decided that our country, glorious or not as the case may be, does not, despite evidence displayed every sunny day, run on warmth and the energy of the sun. Neither can it be run on chocolate, although there are certain females I know that would protest otherwise. So is it fuel? Oil? That's what we joined the war in Iraq for, isn't it? Well, nope, it isn't that either. I have come to the realisation, having followed in the footsteps of many who have gone before me, That our country is run on paperwork.

More precisely on the anger, annoyance and despair generated by those unfortunates trapped inside with a pen and a sheaf of paper in front of them. They say that everything has it's own level of vibration. colour, noise, radiation. So why not emotions?

Of course, different emotions would clearly emote on different wavelengths, so happiness and joy would broadcast on a much lighter wavelength, not packing as much punch, and so it is harder to get so much energy out of them. The darker emotions however, these are much heftier, and the amount of energy that can be garnered from them is somewhere in the region of 4 to 5 times more than those of the happier emotions.

And how do the government receive that energy? Like so much else, circles. Those giant radio microscopes on Jodrell bank (As an aside, my spell checker is insistent that Jodrell is in reality Scoundrelly) are actually emotion receivers, aided and abetted by satellite dishes everywhere.

They are also helped by the florist industry. How? Well, many flowers are the perfect shape to reflect small amounts of negative energy out of the home, and towards the nearest government receiver. Not only that, but when the finally die and have to be chucked, how many people aren't just a little bit upset that such pretty flowers are having to be chucked away, thus aiding the energy gain.

When the energy is received, it is sorted through a series of transducers, much like solar energy is and sent into the main grid. But that's the negative emotions. Surely if they are good for paperwork, the positive emotions have a place too?

They have. Ever felt so happy you could fly? Well time was you could. Witches on broomsticks and all that palaver. (Ask me someday and I may tell you the true reason witches used broomsticks. All I can say is ouch. Splinters.) Then the government realised that the happier emotions could be farmed as well as the darker ones. The Victorians truly were innovative. What did they use them for? Well they coupled them with the electricity gained from the unhappier emotions and then used them for lifts. The cables were just for show. Because if people realised, they would be incensed. There would be riot.

It has turned out, over the years, to be a secret tax. And as technology has progressed, it has been used not just for elevators, but escalators, planes, Anything that requires power to elevate a position. In Grecian times, Archimedes figured it out, hence the Archimedes screw. He wanted a hot bath without carrying it upstairs. It made him very happy, but he never managed to re-create it after the screw. A little boy called Peter figured it out too. And he flew away to a better place, but you all know that story.

This energy is still being collected today, and in it's own way channeled into the grid. But like the NHS, it was last structured in the forties and is trying to cope with over twice the number of people who were around then. So the system needs a restructuring before it can work to the full benefit of all concerned. At the minute, there are loads of little signs that it is giving under the strain. Lifts braking down, escalators stopping for no reason...

There is a whole secret world of emotions out there, and the energy they produce. Let them out, and maybe you won't be stuck in a lift next Tuesday, or find yourself in a power cut on Thursday evening. I know I'd find that preferable. But maybe you like the darkness between the floors?