Final Vinyl ? Everything Is Retro !

I decided to write this after reading a comment on an article which basically rubbished the current resurgence of vinyl records.
The main thrust of the piece was that the resurgence of love for vinyl recordings was driven by ' men of a certain age' reliving their halcyon days, and the piece pointed to examples such as boxed sets of Pink Floyd and the like.
Personally, I find it restores my faith in humanity to see records and cover sleeves back again - okay, disclosure - I am a man of a certain age , but I know many people, including millenials, who love the thrill of vinyl.
It's sad that most of the little indie record shops I used to frequent have gone the way of all things, especially with the encroaching 'homogenisation' of our high streets.
I give thanks for every indie shop that still trades , especially now.
It would also be too easy to bemoan the sudden interest in vinyl records by the supermarket chains, for instance - after all, they only ever stocked the top twenty and a dull array of reliable 'oldie' favourites (and let us not forget the Pick of the Pops albums which offered fairly bland cover versions of mainstream hits...)
Rather than decry the beginnings of a resurgence in old style music love , we should embrace it - and accept that here, in the 21st © , everything is retro.
It's just - weird to see the revival of what, until fairly recently, was the normal...

In the style of the old 'Dansette' players...

As the u.k. charts began to fill with novelty records and acts throughout the Eighties / Nineties , pop began to paint itself into the corner*, and when the Top of the Poppers had started covering punk songs, you knew the writing was on the wall.
And it wasn't graffiti .

In the UK, we can also blame shows like TOTP, with forced miming and bad choreography (although my rampant adolescent hormones were very forgiving).
There were many more issues as the industry grew top heavy with hangers - on and self-appointed 'taste-makers' (hello Mr Cowell).

Ribald and risque outside, nearly but not quite covers inside...

 I've written before on the subject , so I'm not going there again, but I'm genuinely pleased to see this resurgence of actual records , and a new appreciation of them.
After all, it can only be for the greater good - more vinyl pressing plants means more cover art so more print / repro places, more graphic designers, more jobs in record sales / distribution...basically more opportunities in an increasing creative market.

I don't consider myself an audiophile, and I won't slavishly buy everything committed to vinyl - not even by one artist, as I'm not a completist.
The medium is the message, though , and vinyl is tactile and real in a way that an mpeg will never be.

For me, the interest is in seeing how long the integrity is maintained - i.e., without the payola and coke - fuelled distortion that accompanied big music corporate f..kovers.

At the present time, it seems to be in the hands of those who remember the simple pleasures of album covers and their sleevenotes, which often added to the experience.
Of course, there is still the mainstream, with its dwindling côterie of ' stars' , a revolving parade of mix 'n' match personalities feted by brands.
Whether it's Miley or Gaga or RiRi or Taylor or Bieber or Murs, it's all a bit meh , if you ask me.
If anything, the current trend for the revival of stars from yesteryear keen to prove themselves outside of the rarefied corporate environs, is a welcome antidote.

Recent plugs have appeared in my newsfeeds showing excellent quality packages, in which the artwork is as much part of the experience as the music.. .
So let's hear it for hearing it , loud and proud.

 P. S....I know I said I'm not an audiophile, but I am worried about the heavy arms of the new decks - rumour has it that the Crosleys of this world will gouge your grooves, man.
So dig out the old school decks.
- and keep music live.

Lots of live stuff... pic© Uncut / M. Hunt, probably

* I realise that this is a shallow summary of a very complex thing, but this is not a dissertation.
 As I said at the beginning, this piece was 'inspired' by the negative comments of a troll on social media .
It's not supposed to be definitive, but it's my defence of the burgeoning trend for vinyl records.
Let's take them beyond the 'hipster' fad.

Newsflash! Ceres Resolved ...Or Not

False colour image to heighten drama...    ©NASA/JPL/Caltech

This is just a fast post to tie in with the official news from NASA that reveals the bright lights on Ceres are - salt.
Far be it for me to question  NASA , but is that it ?
I'm sure I saw another release that said it was a mixture of a salt (magnesium sulfate) and dirty ice thrown above ground by a collision - or multiple collisions.

In a nutshell, Ceres could provide a new source of  health-giving spa waters...

The assertion is that it derives from some form of subsurface ocean (quite a common theme in our moons and smaller worlds , these days).
Estimates say that Ceres is approximately 25% water, most of which is locked in as subsurface ice, allegedly.
There seems to be a lot of discussion about the incredible refractive index (let's not forget that some of these areas are 6 miles across and glowing...)

So there we have it, and thank you for resolving the mystery, NASA.
Of course, this is not a full and defintive answer...

130 'spots' have been identified...

Atomic Clocks , Bucky Balls and Another Dawn

The ubiquitous 'they' have discovered that time moves forward , even at a quantum level.
This makes for vaguely depressing news for anyone seeking an elixir of eternal youth, in that you can't reverse the flow of the ageing process.
They are however, closer to identifying the mysterious trigger that sets this process in motion.
I love such tantalising information.
It holds a vague promise of greater understanding.
The very carrot that, when dangled before our nose, keeps us moving forward...
In the meantime, back to the anti-aging creams and Botox.

In the never ending attempt to control time, a new material has been created, using  Fullerene, also known as 'Bucky balls,' : in this case, carbon molecules containing nitrogen atoms.
The new variation can be used in atomic clocks, reducing their size and increasing timing accuracy.
Boffins at Oxford University have developed it, and media spin has declared it as 'the most expensive material' ever, at  £ 200 million a gram.
Emperors new clothes then - after all, at that price...

On which note , as we approach the festive season of 2015, how is your world shaping up ?
Personally, I had high hopes for the discovery of alien life in the inner solar system, and a resultant celebration of new technologies as we join our spacefaring companions in an era of endless,blissful, advancement.
Sadly, this has not proven to be the case, but I have cleared a path in the snow on my driveway for any wayward ufos.
Combined with the ufo landing pad on my roof , this should clearly notify any approaching aliens of my welcome.

Which brings us to the equally stultifying news that SETI may be a wholly inappropriate 'listening mode' for intelligent life, given that radio frequencies are inefficient and the maths involved in accurately detecting any signal from a distant star would be wishful thinking to say the least.
Personally, I'm not convinced that any intelligent race would be prepared to spend the time and ludicrous amounts of energy needed to send a signal a thousand light years away on the remote chance of someone intercepting it. .
The recent discovery of Fast Radio Bursts from beyond our galaxy which turned out to be a microwave in the next room , serves to remind us of the frighteningly mundane reality in which we operate (and almost certainly led to a fair amount of egg on the face of the astronomers concerned) .
I particularly like the fact that the mysterious FRB signals could not be detected - unless someone actually opened the microwave , interrupting the power cycle.
Alien contact - or half - heated breakfast?
You decide!
In fairness, all serious arrays of sky watching telescopes are situated far from population centres with their inevitable sources of light pollution: this, combined with extreme boredom and cabin fever might have the inevitable result of even the smallest stimuli  having a disproportionately huge effect.

Akatsuki orbits Venus                                  © JAXA

On a farewell note, the Japanese probe Akatsuki* has finally settled into orbit around Venus (after a delay of five years),  and is now connected to the 'Deep Space Network'.
Ensuing science based on atmospheric conditions may clear a path for proposed Venusian cloud cities...



* Akatsuki literally means ' Dawn'. So now we have Dawn orbiting Ceres , and Dawn orbiting Venus.

From the lights of Ceres to the plains of Pluto

Ceres Occator crater - closest view yet...

The indefatigable Dawn explorer is dropping (slowly, the Ion engines are fragile) to its closest point in orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, and hopefully a final solution to the true nature of those baffling lights.
We are told it will be in place for mid-December, so anytime now
From an orbit of 915 miles, it will drop to 230 miles , hopefully providing us with a final definitive moment when we can collectively nod knowingly, saying -'So that's what it is, hmmm'.
I suspect we'll still be none the wiser, but even so, it is a truly fascinating thing.
And to think it's on our nearest dwarf planet.
The closer we get, the more I am convinced that they are subsurface, molten sources, probably of intense heat, too.
If you check out the other images of Ceres, you can see many examples of similar, brightly coloured ejecta around the cratered surface.
I think it's a natural phenomenon of some kind - if it is an alien city, it's the equivalent of putting on every light in the city and shouting ' Here we are! Come and get us!'.
Which would be foolish on a cosmic scale.
Of course it could be a double bluff, and they want us to explore what appears to be a dead city...


Whilst entertaining such wild ideas, scientists have apparently proven that our reality is not a hologram, so - yeah, sorry to all the Matrix-philes and existentialists out there, but apparently reality is not an illusion.
Well, not a holographic illusion.

Meanwhile, Pluto continues to surprise with the latest high definition image downloads from New Horizons...

I'm amazed that this is a strip of land on a planet over 3 billion miles away...


Back on Earth...

'Nudol', Russian anti-satellite system

Russia has successfully tested its first anti- satellite missile.
The image above allegedly came from a Russian site - I especially like the blending of the hardline military vehicle with fluffy clouds and golden crops.
Seems almost peaceful...
This is proof that we are in a new era of space war - or at least the paranoid defence of our satellite capabilities.
This article makes for sobering reading.
For myself, I tend to think of satellites as GPS and mapping and such things - of course it's far more than that. Many nations are dependent on satellite functionality - business, military, communications, weather - so this is the beginning of overhead powerplay...groan.
Okay, so it's not the beginning - the U.S. already have ASAT, their own missile system ready - it's just that Russia and China have entered the fray.

This being the case, I just hope that the joint US / Russian Venus mission goes ahead, along with the proposed ESA/ Roskosmos moon mission - just to remind us all that we can work together and do constructive, forward looking things...

In other revelations this week, it is mooted that there was no Big Bang, and infact the Universe has existed forever . Whether I find this cheering or depressing is uncertain at present - the illustration of the man blowing up the expanding balloon / universe says it all , I think.

  So the universe expands, like a balloon - but who's inflating it - and what's out there?

Distant Galaxies and Nearby Nuts

M60 galaxy, with M60-UCD1 inset.      pic ©NASA,ESA, J. Seth

Far away, on the edge of our galaxy lies a teeny tiny other galaxy - except that this one (M60-UCD1) has a humongous black hole to outshine (in a dark sense) any other.
It has a mass of 21 million suns.
But fear not, it won't be devouring Earth anytime soon - it's 50 million light years distant.
On the other hand, we also know that the light we see from M60-UCD1 is showing us how it was 50 million years ago, so it could already be gone.
And the bottomless time distorting maw of the black hole could be looming ominously overhead, even as we speak.
Which is cheerful.
Sorry...

 Our night sky (viewed away from big cities and their light pollution), contains 4000 stars.
Which is quite a lot, if you ask me - but M60-UCD1 contains 140 million stars, of which 1 million  are visible simultaneously (if there was an Earthlike world there, and you looked to the night sky).

This is an artists impression of the galaxy M6 UCD1

On the similar but opposite end of the spectrum, we have Triangulum II , a really tiny ghost galaxy with a paltry 1000 stars - but the largest detectable quantity of dark matter.


To put the old space race in perspective, there was a nuclear powered spacecraft that was considered for travel to Saturn - in 1958 . It was known as the Orion project, and would have been propelled by exploding hundreds of atomic bombs ....

Oddly enough, the current craft for Mars is also known as the Orion, although its proposed use of nuclear fuel is a little less dynamic...
NASA have revealed their reluctance , however, to engage in deep space travel -
which, given the proposed 2030 manned landing on Mars gives cause for concern - personally I think the journey will be made by a commercial firm - SpaceX and Blue Origin seem capable, although almost certainly with a rather more cavalier attitude towards health and safety...
Recent announcements state the terrible risks involved, apart from issues like loneliness and 'cabin fever', the very real threat of meteor impact, cancer and fatal irradiation.

Recent revelations tell us that the humble water bear or Tardigrade has no less than 17.5 % of  its DNA adapted from other species ; the process by which it does so is unknown, but it surely makes them the prize candidates for deep space travel , with their resistance to extremes of temperature and lethal doses of radiation - they have already been to space (and seem decidedly alien after all) ...
On the other hand, shouldn't we be concentrating on Terraforming, right now ?
Certainly the Moon needs a makeover, what with all that greyness and corrosive moondust.

There is a new mission called Luna 27 which aims to establish a presence in the lunar South Pole  in 2020, so we should spruce it up a little...at least a shiny shopping mall or two.
Perhaps with Holsts Planet Suite as piped muzak.
I'm joking of course, but seriously - recent laws passed Stateside allow for the mining and possession of minerals occuring in asteroids.
This piece of unilateral granting of rights strikes me as a tad premature.
Do we know of any other body perhaps laying claim to mining rights or even ownership of our asteroid belt ?
I'm getting into Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy territory here, but let me pause to show this -

Bill passed recently in the U.S.A.

In my slightly naive way, I'm amazed that this is a real document .
Funny how reality is mimicking fiction on an almost daily basis now.
Just this morning , I was ruminating on the fact that we live in a world where The Man In The High Castle is a popular media show.

Original edition cover . Fair Use is invoked.

That such an obscure work by Phillip K. Dick should be fêted, restores my faith in humanity.
Then I get a rude awakening with endless news from the GOP rallies in the US, and I think how bizarre that reality Trumps fiction - in a cartoon way, almost.

To my mind, the evil spectre of modern Nazism was effectively lampooned in the film Iron Sky, in which a thinly veiled Sarah Palin - lookalike aims to lead the exiled Nazis from their hidden moonbase , on a warpath back to reclaim Earth.
Which was darkly funny.
Because it would never really happen...


Meanwhile, back in space...

The buzz at the moment seems to be around black holes - what they look like, how they grow, their potential for swallowing entire planetary systems, that sort of thing.
With this in mind, I share this download and print DIY  black hole game!
Fun for all the family - unless you lose the game and have to watch 'Event Horizon', with its grand guignol horrors , in which deep space exploration invokes a hellish reality . .literally.

In Closing...

 I am UK based and have been attempting to ignore the encroaching 'Black Friday' consumer thing - but Cards Against Humanity won the day for me, with their 'Nothing' sale, in which they sold absolutely nothing at five dollars a go, and raised over $70, 000 !
An admirable response to the lure of pure consumerist greed , except that I am also annoyed at my own failure to see the potential wealth inherent in exploiting irony. dammit.

The Dread Blank

That dreadline feeling...  

The image above is a collage I did, to show the feeling of impotent dread that accompanies approaching deadlines and 'writers block' .
Self-motivation is all very well, but sometimes I feel as though I should post a sign - 'gone fishing ', or somesuch - ' watch this space '.
I'm doubly anxious, as I foolishly decided to be gung - ho and join the writing challenge,  NanoWriMo this month, to bolster my writing ability. Ha!
Big fail.
The first thing I noticed was how sickeningly youthful everyone seemed and keen as mustard with those ludicrous word counts.
The proactive devices included constant pep talks via e-mail, and invites to forums and feelgood badges to mark every virtual mountain climbed and word count analysis and sage advice from Those Who Had Gone Before - they all combined to fire up my inner cynic -
' Hey, when I've finished doing all this, am I also expected to write 2000 words a day?'
In fairness, when I started, I was determined to write sequentially and coherently ;
which meant dotting the i's and crossing the T's
Bigger Fail.
That soon fell by the wayside, as I realised that there would be a further couple of months to 'fine tune' the Magnum Opus.
Which struck me as defeating the object a little.
So , I become even more cynical.
Then I just had to work on a new electronic nonsense (did I tell you that I occasionally make weird sounds ?)
After all, the Xmas Cash-In won't write itself.
I'll post a link when it's ready.
Ahem...
And oh, Xmas and Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and
Did I tell you that I am a World Class Procrastinator ?
Still, I wrote a stream of consciousness piece which I could concievably shoehorn into my space opera.
If  I introduce quantum mechanics and the idea of a parallel universe.
Where everyone speaks like a Monty Python character.
So, probably not then.
I've downsized my dreams.

I'm still quietly optimistic, however.
Hovering at 24,000 words...
Hey, there's a market for novellas, right?
Short attention spans, fast reads on the daily commute?
Good, because I hate those unwieldy six - book chronicles.


I digress - the purpose of this rant is to apologise for the lack of this weekly blog.
I hit the buffers.
Oddly enough, my original intention was just to post a notice about writers block, by way of apology.
So even this much is a bonus, yay! (waves ridiculously small flag).
Little victories.


Normal service will be resumed...promise!

The New Space Race , Venusian Landers and Old Arcade Games

Space is the new Gold Rush - or at least, Wild Frontier.
In the USA, congress just passed the 'US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act', which gives carte blanche to any rocket - fuelled entrepeneur seeking to mine gold in asteroids and suchlike.
We already have Dragon / Space X, but now we can add Planetary Resources, Blue Origin, and many others to the list.
Add to this, NASA are recruiting, so if you fancy being an astronaut, now is the time.
Not so much the Final Frontier as The Next Franchise then - although the lack of regulation may lead to some issues.
There is a whole subgenre of sci-fi films in which alien life forms are inadvertently brought to earth.
Perhaps we should complain, just in case.

Hubble, 25 years anniversary

In this age of online hyperbole and overused superlatives , these pretty pictures, mostly coming from Hubble, are genuinely mind - blowing .

Hercules A . Image revealed via two telescopes  ©NASA

The featured galaxy (the little white dot in the centre) is Hercules A, at the centre of which is a humungous black hole , with 2.5 billion times more mass than our sun.
Then of course, there is the distance through space in which the tails drift.
One and a half million light years, end to end.

Imagine the scene aboard a deep space craft -
"All that pinky reddishness - how much more ? "
"Oh...one and a bit million years if we maintain the current pace, travelling at 186 000 metres per second"
pause for mental calculation.
Resigned sigh.
"I'm done with pinky reddishness"

Infact, the colourful 'tail' was imaged from a radio telescope, so it is not in the normally visible spectrum for us mere mortals.
Plus, the above dialogue would never take place anyway, as Hercules A is one billion light years away,


Russia and NASA (not that NASA is a country, but really the alternative might be too shocking - yes, Russia and America, those old sparring partners of the Space Race, are to collaborate on a joint expedition to Venus - last explored by the Russian craft Venera 14* which was the first lander on another planet (for 57 minutes until it was simultaneously cooked and crushed at 865° F/ 90 x Earth Atmos ).

Fingers crossed for this bold venture.
Seems a little strange, though, particularly given that there are seemingly far more bounteous and hospitable worlds to be explored out there - but apparently they want to discover the whys and wherefores regarding Venus differing so much from Earth.
Being cynical and facetious, I hereby offer to save the billions of dollars the mission would cost by saying:
in my humble opinion, Venus differs wildly from Earth as it is much closer to an immense source of heat, and radiation .
There, puzzle solved - next?
Seriously though, it is believed in some circles that a cloud base could be created, floating above the Venusian surface, eradicating the unfortunate crushing pressure and heat (450 °C) at ground level.

Talking of probes to other worlds, here's a link to the actual descent of Huygens to Titan, one of Saturns moons. The Huygens landed in January 2005, and only lasted about an hour and a half (well, it was  -179° C , and Huygens didn't have a warm jumper), but its parent - craft, Cassini, is still up there, gathering data on the Saturn system.

Some dedicated person has created this very fab solar system infographic,free to download, laminate, and hang on the wall - ideal for any budding planetary scientist.

I'm feeling a little blank at the moment, so...
For lovers of free stuff and pointless things to do online.
Here , you can follow some retro fun links
Pointless light interplay online!
Actually, with small adjustments, you could create your own ' Dark Side of the Moon' style image...then you might want some ambient sounds to compliment it...

Retro games from this arcade online !

IN other news, the Oxford English Dictionary has declared an emoji as word of the year. the emoji signifies ' Tears of Joy' which in my book is three words, anyway. But such is the dumbing down of language. Or a universal solution to language barriers. I'm conflicted.

* There were other craft, but venera 14 was the only lander