Festive Musings, and why The Future is Now

I've been tweaking this post since Boxing Day, in the vain hope that I will suddenly become excited about something.
Gazing outside (there is a small window in this shed) , I notice how un-seasonal the landscape is .
It's really not conducive to the festive feeling.
The festive feeling manifests in many different ways -
One of my brothers, ensconced in a world of 24 / 7 sun and fun, sends photos of Santa hats and champagne on the beach , but whereas that normally conveys a sense of irony, this year, it is lost.
This year has no festive feeling.

There are no snowmen.
There is no frost on the ground.
It's not even proper bloody cold.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not overly attached to sub-zero temperatures and breath freezing in the air and scraping the ice from car windscreens.
But it makes a mockery of the seasonal cards with wrapped - up people scurrying through blizzards of snow , heading home, no doubt for a warming glass of festive punch .
I haven't even seen a robin, so normally associated with Xmas here in Blighty.

Robin pic from here     ©Andy Hay

With a sigh, I turn back to the pile of papers and printouts which litter my desk in the shed.
A piece about the new Star Wars film briefly catches my eye, as it is pinned by a dart to the noticeboard.
I shrug, doubting that my opinion would make a dent on the fannish slavering that surrounds the re-vamped franchise.
Best stick to what I usually do, then.
Perhaps if I wore a silly hat from a cracker, I'd feel more festive.


Seating myself before my trusty old Remington, I lean back, stretch, and crack my knuckles.
And so it begins...

As we head towards the end of 2015, fantastical research abounds all around us.
From a sci-fi app to predict future crimes  (shades of Philip K Dick) to the creation of matter from light ,we are spoiled for moments of wonder.
It's almost enough to melt my cynical heart.
Of course, there is no light without darkness, so this piece cautions against the Fitbit obsession.

We also have the ongoing Ceres and Comet 67p images arriving regularly and New Horizons still dutifully downloading images from the Pluto flyby in July 2015, some of which are being painstakingly fashioned into 3-d anaglyph images , courtesy of the dedicated people at planetary. org
I also hear rumblings of a projected meeting of quantum and relativity branches of physics.
As they are apparently in contradiction, hopefully any meeting will be on neutral territory.
Except, by dint of appearing in the area, it will no longer be neutral.
Oh well...

Space x returns !

On the practical level, I was pleasantly reminded that the future is now,  when I watched the footage of the first successful landing / return of a spacecraft  (okay, just a returning thruster, but even so - in one visual display, the commercial viability of re-usable rockets was displayed.)


Meanwhile back in the Inner Solar System...

On the auspicious date (well, Stateside ) July 4th 2016, the NASA  probe 'Juno' will enter orbit around Jupiter after a five year journey (New Horizons reminds us that it travelled for ten years before arriving at Pluto) - and butting in from somewhere out in inner space, the Japanese probe Akatsuki reminds us that it had to wait five years in limbo before it could retry its Venus insertion (pause for mildly offensive double entendre).

China continues to send data from Jade Rabbit, or Yutsu. still sampling lunar regolith  , from a new-ish crater in the area known as Mare imbrium (new-ish meaning 3 billion years old instead of 4).
The diversity of mineral content  tells us a tale of evolution beyond our own, apparently - ( the general assumption being that the moon was once part of Earth but separated when Earth was struck by a wandering planet about the size of Mars.)
It also tells us that large quantities of Titanium and Hydrogen 3 exist on the moon, so it has the potential for mining fuel for rockets.

Suddenly I am distracted by the sound of happy banter nearby, and I turn away from my musings on outer space.
It's not actually happy banter - it's more of a heated debate.
Specifically , it's the neighbours arguing about the sheer impracticality of hoovering up pine needles as opposed to the benefits of an artificial tree.
I sigh, and switch on the S.A.D. light.
'Tis the Season, after all...