The Rewards of Victory (II)

Last time I left readers as I was leaving Interlaken by means of a time-travelling funicular. Something like that, anyway. From Interlaken we went to Zermatt, which I give huge brownie points to for being a town where cars are banned. The reason being that smog could obscure the view of the town's very famous and very pointy mountain. Bloody marvellous. An example to us all, if you ask me.

The very famous and very pointy mountain was not immediately visible because it was raining. Zermatt in the rain is... well, it's alright, I guess, but you'd be hard pressed to understand what all the tourists are doing there when they could be in the much larger, better-equipped Interlaken. Fortunately (we were only there for one night) the weather cleared up in the evening and I discovered how to take long exposures with my camera.

That was the view from the hotel room.

The next day the weather continued to time itself with... well, Swiss precision, but especially for us. We took a train to Gormenghast (OK, it's really called called Gornergrat, but they should change it for obvious reasons) where we discovered a second mountain observatory, again with no information for passing scientists on holiday, but this one overlooking one of Europe's most famous mountains. And some glaciers and whatnot too. Also, Rhydian continued his search for his falcon, now named Caruthers for reasons that escape me.

We also found that Swiss German is a downright strange language, featuring multiple place names with no less than 3 consecutive g's. What were they thinking ? Countdown in German must be a boring game :

"Consonant please Carol."
"Consonant please Carol."
"Consonant please Carol."
"Consonant please Carol."
"Consonant please Carol."
"Consonant please Carol."
"Consonant please Carol."
"Consonant please Carol."
"Consonant please Carol."

From Zermatt, to Chamonix. This time we had to make do without the efficiency of Swiss trains and catch a bus part of the way. That involved a transfer, in which we were unceremoniously dropped at a (closed) bus station and waited, with as much hope as expectation, for the second bus. It wasn't the prettiest - or driest - part of the expedition.

This minor bout of being stranded in the middle of nowhere was soon forgotten on reaching Chamonix, which is a very pretty town near Mt Blanc. We're still not sure if we saw it or not, because Mt Blanc may be nearly 5,000 metres tall but it doesn't have a particularly distinctive profile. In any case it was raining when we arrived.

The next day the weather once again co-operated with stoically un-British grace, so we went for a walk inside a glacier. Mer de Glace was actually a rather depressing place, because there are markers showing the level of the glacier at various years. Fortunately the view above the glacier is of Les Drus, which is surely one of the pointiest mountains in the entire world.

We then encountered our one and only spot of poor timing from the weather, as it was too windy to journey up to the summit of the really insanely high Aiguille du Midi cable car. We could only go to the halfway point, but no-one minded because everyone was completely high on mountains (terrible pun intended). The midway point turned out to be the most Skyrim-esque of all our destinations, and there is video of me tooting my souvenir Swiss horn to accompany the Skyrim theme on a mobile phone. Which I will duly post here when I have it.

Then we walked down to the Restaurant and the End of the Universe, or at least that's how I remember it, ate some cake and went home.

... except that we didn't go home at all. First, we went to Marseille - twinned with Glasgow. This is somewhat bizarre, because most of Marseille is lovely. The highlight was undoubtedly visiting the island of Frioul, a tiny, beautiful place that I'd like to buy, if I could.

In the distance the Chateaux d'If, home to Marseille's least interesting fictional prisoner.

And then this happened.

That would have been an absurdly perfect point to go home, but instead we went to Monaco the next day, although I don't know why. As far as I can tell it's a very small country full of yachts and soulless tower blocks. Can't see the appeal of it. In fact, I'm not going to spoil this post with any photos of it.

And then I went home and collapsed, and while I was still collapsed I went to Prague, but that's another story.

Oh, and if you're wondering, yes, Rhydian did find Caruthers. He was in Zermatt.

The Rewards of Victory (I)

Having escaped the madness of the tropical Americas, I proceeded almost immediately upon an absurd whistle-stop tour of Europe. First, Milan. Pretty place. Pretty people. Nice church. That's about all there was time to see though, because we left the very next day for Zurich.

I didn't have anything to do with the planning of this trip - I was 4,000 miles away and not at all certain I could go at all at the time - but apparently the purpose of a holiday is to do as much as possible in a short a time as possible and not to sleep, ever. That's, err, not quite my definition of a holiday, but never mind.

The train trip to Zurich was relatively forgettable, except for one building suffering from a silly mistranslation, and  the clear abundance of cranes in Switzerland. Building a two-storey house ? A 50m crane should do the job. Hanging some curtains ? There are smaller, more portable cranes available for that. I don't think we saw a single village without at least one crane.

Zurich itself is a fairly forgettable place, certainly compared to the rest of Switzerland anyway. We stayed in an equally forgettable place, though to read the reviews you'd think it was swarming with writhing hordes of hookers. It isn't. It was a decent little budget hotel in a slightly seedy area. The historical part of Zurich is quite nice, though not magnificent.

Cranespotting is a popular Swiss pastime.

We didn't do a lot in Zurich apart from go on a very pleasant boat ride, and a Pink Floyd concert. These were separate events, as even Mr Floyd isn't crazy enough to have boat rides at his concerts. There was a small spitfire that crashed into the stage and exploded though, which is pretty impressive even to non Pink Floyd fans like me.

On the boat ride Rhydian accidentally started a meme.

Thence to Interlaken. Another train ride and some really freakin' blue lakes.

Interlaken makes Zurich look about as appealing as Splott.

Having endured somewhere with one of the least public transport systems anywhere in the world, I now found myself somewhere which surely has the most. Whereas Wales occasionally umms and ahhs as to the virtues of sticking a train up to the top of a mountain, Switzerland has no such petty scruples. Blessed with an abundance of mountains, the Swiss realised long ago that everyone likes mountains, but not everyone has the will or capability to climb the things. Why should they ? They're bloody enormous.

And thus you can take a really quite astonishing train ride to Jungfraujoch (young-frow-yoch), a.k.a. the Top of Europe, a.k.a. High Hrothgar. The Swiss also realised that people might like to get out, look at the view, have a cup of tea and maybe do a spot of hiking. Which is exactly what we did. I mean, for crying out loud.

Then we got back on the train until we reached Jungfraujoch itself. This is what made me unable to refuse this trip : the stupendous Sphinx Observatory, overlooking Europe's longest glacier, the Aletsch. I was first made aware of the Sphinx - by complete coincidence - just a few months ago by this article. While it's a good article, it's somewhat deceptive and there are several points I think should be clarified. After the pretty pictures, though.

Firstly there's the claim that the Sphinx is the highest-altitude built structure in Europe. This claim is repeated in many other places, but I don't see how it can be true - Aiguille du Midi goes up about 400m higher.

Secondly the article makes it sound as though the Sphinx stands in glorious isolation. Well... it does, but it isn't the only thing there. Far from it. It isn't even the main reason people visit (which is the stunning view rather than the observatory). There are cafeteria, shops, multiple viewing areas, an ice palace and outdoor winter sports facilities. It's really very civilized. What's really impressive is that it's all arranged so as nothing ever, ever spoils the view. Well done, Switzerland, well done.

In mid-September it was about -6 C, busy but hardly crowded.

Finally, the remoteness of the site the article describes isn't really that awful. Yes, getting to the summit and back is a full day affair from Interlaken. What that neglects is that the journey there and back again is full of jaw-dropping scenery. So the hours spent on the trains are absolutely a part of the experience, rather than something you have to slog through for a reward at the end.

If I had to describe Switzerland as succinctly as possible, I would call it scenery porn. It really is. The next day we went up the much-overlooked Niesenbahn funicular, based solely on a picture we saw (on the back of a beer mat) of an incredibly steep train virtually suspended in mid-air. This one, in fact :

And indeed, it is very, very steep.

The view at the top is as awe-inspiring as you would expect.

That same afternoon we went to visit the Reichenbach Falls, made famous by Arthur Conan Doyle as the place where Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty plummet to their mutual doom. It's basically a very scenic 250m drop waterfall.

The funicular to the base of the waterfalls probably wasn't as steep as the Niesenbahn, but it's all relative. On the train ride back to Interlaken, we decided to work out what would happen if the cable snapped. The answer ? We'd reach the bottom at around 88mph, just fast enough to travel through time with a flux capacitor. Back to the Future IV could certainly be an interesting film.

That's about it for Interlaken. Tune in next time (whenever that is) for more of Europe, in which the scenery remains so beautiful it should be illegal and the mountains get even pointier.

I Survived Puerto Rico And All I Got Was This Mildly Successful Blog

... and a bunch of other stuff too, but we'll get to that. Readers who only signed on because of the recent rut of graphics posts are going to be disappointed, because there won't be any of those for a while. This week, instead of making it rain planets, my goals are simple and few :

• Take the dog for a walk (check)
• Drink lots of tea (check)
• Eat cake (check)
• Get fish and chips from a chip shop (pending)
• Go to the pub (pending, it's only Tuesday for heaven's sake)

If the banner change and the above list didn't give it away, I'm now safely back in the exotic city of Cardiff, a.k.a. the place where they film Doctor Who. That means I'm no longer sweating profusely the whole time, can ride a bus instead of having to drive like a total loser, and can generally experience all the other delights Wales has to offer.

YES. Just YES.

...We Interrupt This Blog To Bring You A Review Of Condor Airlines...

My cunning plan to save money by choosing budget airlines Condor went without a hitch. Apart from the total of 20 hours of travelling involved, but that wasn't their fault. That was because of the Atlantic Ocean being quite large (continental drift has a lot to answer for). But for about the same price as a return ticket with most other airlines, I was able to haul both myself and all my accumulated belongings (about 80kg of stuff) back to Europe with minimum effort, and in a premium economy seat, no less.

No, you don't get to ride a condor. Anyway this is clearly an eagle.

I have to give Condor very favourable reviews. Expecting nothing but misery and sorrow from a budget airline, I was pleasantly surprised. My 4 large suitcases were checked in without incident. They didn't even weigh them very carefully, fortunately - because one of them was a couple of kilos overweight. The staff were every bit as polite and efficient as on any other airline, except that I was paying half the typical price for the privilege.

I was extremely lucky to have an empty seat next to me (in a row of two) so I had as much legroom and any reasonable human being could expect. Not that it did me any good at all, because I just can't sleep on planes, but at least I was not sleeping in relative comfort.

The flight came with an evening meal, which was excellent (compared to other airline food, with metal cutlery (!) and a very large piece of cheesecake) and breakfast, which was truly awful (cold flavourless meat and cheese with some kind of disgusting bread substitute that I strongly suspect was regurgitated by a chicken). Tea, coffee, and alcoholic beverages were provided liberally (unfortunately anything more than a single glass of wine on a plane gives me a splitting headache).

All in all, regardless of other reviews, I would deem them excellent. The one thing lacking was a personalised in-flight entertainment system. This has always seemed like the least important aspect of a flight to me. I'm perfectly capable of amusing myself for 9 hours (if only by bringing along my own entertainment system, to whit, a tablet) but I sure as hell can't create my own legroom. The marginal extra cost for premium economy ($200) on a 9 hour flight was absolutely worth the extra space. I'd definitely consider using them again.

... and now back to our feature presentation

Total exhaustion notwithstanding, there are were a few things that struck me very quickly on my repatriation. One was that the cars in Britain and Puerto Rico are now about equal in size. Every other trip I've been pointlessly aware that British cars are noticeably smaller than their American counterparts. No longer, though I can't really tell if it's because British cars have got larger (hardly likely since the roads are still the same width) or the American ones have got smaller (much more likely since they're more economical).

Another thing that I was instantly impressed by was the fact that everyone spoke English, but sleep exhaustion makes me very impressed by everything.

Other expected bonus discoveries include the fact that evaporative cooling works here, so I'm not drenching myself in sweat in a completely pointless attempt to stay cool. Not that you even really sweat much at 20C. Then there's the fact that at night it's so damn quiet. There are no crickets chirping. There are no dogs barking (well, OK, not many). There are no roosters. But most of all there are no coquis. God how I hate those stupid little frogs.

The coqui is a 2cm long whistling frog whose call sounds like, "ko-KWEE ! ko-KWEE !". And they are LOUD. Easily as loud as a person. Basically, they're a bunch of slimy bastards. A hundred in the distance are fine. One just outside a house is very nearly as bad as the equally ubiquitous roosters.

Now, I'm not saying Puerto Rico is a bad place to live, but if I was one of the original Taino settlers, I'd have been the first to say, "C'mon guys, this is getting silly." What I'm saying is it's a bad place to live if you're me. And I am me. Although really I should qualify this even further, because presumably if I lived in a multi-storey apartment in San Juan the roosters and coquis would be no more of a problem than if I lived in central London. So what I'm really saying is even simpler : call me crazy, but I don't want to live in the jungle.

One might therefore infer that I'm somewhat ecstatic about being back. This is not quite the case, mostly because of the travel exhaustion and five hours of jet lag. It's also somewhat hard for me to currently accept that I don't have to go back. It's a nice thought (not that there aren't things I'll miss), but I don't really quite believe it. But I'll leave that to another post.

The Return of Ramesses

Last year I borrowed a hapless kitten for two weeks with dubious name of Ramesses. Not surprisingly, Ramesses the Kitten was quite unable to live up to the standards of his more famous Pharonic namesake, Ramesses the Great. He fathered less (i.e. none) children, built less monuments (again none, though he did poop a lot), couldn't even understand the basics of riding a chariot and had about as much aptitude for commanding armies as I do for for playing Set (also none).

However, he was found to be far superior to Egypt's greatest ruler in many ways, not least of which is that as a trained astronomy cat he would naturally attack the wi-fi router with the rampant aggression that surely Ramesses I would have reserved for his Hittite foes, presumably because he hates all sources of RFI.

This year, Ramesses is on a mission of self-education. Being considerably older and wiser*, he has broadened his interests to include photonics (in this particular and unique instance among cats, laser pointers), robotics...

* Wiser meaning, "fatter" in this case.

Alarmingly, technology has advanced to the point where we can use
robotic cockroaches to entertain cats.

...and nuclear fusion.

Pet Smart presents : the home tokamak for cats !

He is, admittedly, somewhat more tolerant of the wi-fi router antennae. Perhaps, like the rest of us, he is simply willing to accept the sacrifice of a small part of the scientifically valuable EM spectrum in exchange by the massive convenience benefits bestowed by modern technology.

As befits such a prodigious polymath, Ramesses is clearly interested in everything and consequently his eyes are almost always as big as saucers. This makes him look continuously baffled.

He holds this expression more or less permanently. This means I
have absolutely no idea if he's bored, hungry, annoyed, perplexed,
tired, inquisitive, quite content, plotting to overthrow the Nigerian
government or just needs to pee.

He also reacts in the presence of anything : small pieces of dust, a light breeze, the continued existence of the floor, etc., with a sensitivity level that would make any gravitational wave detector vomit with sheer envy. I gave him the nickname of Ramecaesium.

All this cuteness comes at a price. And that price is that he's a bloody *!"£#?!$ awful nuisance. If he was a colony, he'd be the least likely ever to vote for independence. If I even go to the bathroom it's an instant and continuous series of miaows. At 4 in the morning he starts clawing at the door to the spare room to be let out, which basically sounds like a series of very loud thuds*. Then I spend the rest of the morning in a completely pointless effort to get back to sleep. That means I have no energy left in the evening to keep him entertained, which results in him biting me.

* If I leave him loose about the house he'll jump on me, which is even worse; if I shut my bedroom door then that seems to work but then I get no air conditioning.

Last year when he left I felt really quite lost. This time, after a month without anything approaching real sleep*, not so much.

* OK, a week of this was more because of the Single Dish Summer School for which there were at least some compensating factors. It's probably worth an entire post if I ever get around to it.

I love cats. Just not that cat. If I wanted a hyperactive animal who follows me around like a puppy and won't leave me alone the whole time, I'd have got a baby elephant. Or a puppy.

Minicebo !

One month ago I described my efforts to model the Arecibo Observatory. While I'd really like to use the electronic model for a whole bunch of different things - not least of which is to make an FPS level - the primary motivation of getting it laser etched in glass is now complete.

This crystal is about half the size of my gigantic Virgo Cluster glass brick, measuring 9x9x4.5cm and weighing in at about 0.8kg. That means it's roughly a 1:3000 scale model of its big brother and has a mass 1.5 million times less. The collecting area of minicebo is about 10 million times smaller than Arecibo. I'd guess that if we made an actual radio telescope this small, it would be the world's smallest filled-aperture radio telescope, instead of the largest.

Here's one we made earlier !

The etching company did a really great job of converting my untidy mesh into a sensible point-cloud that preserved all the important details.

This cube doesn't have its own light stand (yet), in these shots I'm just using the one I bought for the Virgo Cluster. Fortunately, 9cm light stands are really common and available from just $5.

I was particularly impressed that so many of the fine details were preserved from my original mesh. Even the individual girders on the platform are visible when you look closely.

Eventually, once things settle down (probably not any time before moving back to Europe), I'll make two versions. One will be a higher-polycount version with more modelled details, textures and lighting effects. One thing I'd like to do is show what the radio sky looks like above the telescope (like NRAO did for Green Bank). And possibly play with Blender's fluid simulator to recreate the end scene of Goldenye...

NO ! Not that bit !

The second will be a low-poly version which looks nice in realtime. That will be for some sort of interactive model. Maybe you'll just be able to look at the dish in 3D. Maybe it will involve an actual game. I suspect there are many uses I haven't thought of yet.

At some point down the line there will be bulk orders of these. Whether we can find some way to sell them to the public has yet to be determined. Anyone interested ? How much would you expect to pay ?