Mr Leary's Waste Flint Disposal Unit

(From http://atlas.ch/)

I can't start without some LHC stuff and the page above gives quite an insight into what is happening. There is also some useful background provided by the creation of 3D models which can be added to Google Earth. They have been added above ground to indicate the size of the constructions below. Discussing the LHC with a colleague yesterday, I was quite impressed with how much interest it has generated - (some) people seem genuinely interested in what this sets out to try and prove though my dad is surprisingly bored by the whole thing. Ornithology is of course his thing and physics falls short of being a proper science in his opinion. I am surprised he is not interested in the sheer engineering of the project though but maybe years of building big things (and knocking them down as well) has made him bored. One of his gripes is that it may takes years to discover anything. My feeling is that it has been hundreds of years since a scientist could make a discovery in the morning and announce it in the evening over drinks in front of the fire. Everything needs to be peer reviewed and placed in context and then published in obscure publications before the sleeping journalists manage to notice a slight increase in the volume of babbling around a particular subject and bring it to the attention of us plebs. And of course that is the way it should be - science wins by virtue of being so controlled and that is why you can have confidence up in the 90th percentile in most science.

As might be becoming clear I have a slight addiction to message boards across the web and of course the most diverting ones are the ones where I know there is going to be something that winds me up. It has been interesting watching the gradual increase in what I call meta-comments - comments about the comments. I am beginning to think that there can actually be meta-meta-comments and probably a continuous GOD-Over-Djinn-like elevation of same. eg. "I've noticed that the commenters to this board are divided into four main types - they are a) ......." - that sort of thing. Sometimes I feel like commenting at some particularly sad missive but I resist. Enlightened Ignorance! You can't beat it.


Talk of GOD Over Djinn has reminded me that I've just found out that GNU is an recursive acronym for GNU's Not Unix. Obviously developed by BRAM Recursive Acronym Man. I should try it I suppose.

Anyway, apart from Atom Smashing what else is going on? I was in general agreement with this piece in The Guardian about the lack of respect for UNESCO world heritage sites in Britain. I have to admit that I have not travelled in Europe since I was 18 months old (unless you count that week skiing in Bulgaria in 1979) but I do think that European cities try to have an integrated plan for their heritage. UK cities seem to allow haphazard development and while I like modern architecture I like consistency in development as well and if this means forgoing some avant-garde erection in favour of some bog-standard construction then I am all for it.

My mind is now a whirl of thoughts about the architectural mistakes of the 60s and 70s and how we have to live with them. I can't start to organise what I want to say about it and knowing me I never will. I am really impressed by the ability of some people to write pages of interesting stuff on one subject without getting bored. This is why I am able to write poems and not creative prose. One day I will choose a subject and write a proper essay on it. Actually having thought about it, if someone GIVES me a subject I'm fine even if the results are probably bland. Some structure is what I need.