Guy and relative stuff 
A taxi driver in the UK named Guy Goma went to the BBC for a job interview. Wail waiting someone from the BBC came looking for Guy Kewney, and IT specialist that was going to say his about the conclusion of the Apple Computer vs. Apple Records lawsuit. They found Goma, he ended up on TV live. The taxi driver says his about the lawsuit. Must have been the strangest job interview ever. The video is quite funny.

thanks goes to bob's junk mail for this one - do also read his his "It's All Relative" as well:

If you take all the matter in the sun and compress it down to about 1/85,000 of its current diameter, you would come up with a neutron star about 10 miles in diameter. (Actually, you might need a little more than the mass of the sun.) But the process is a little more complex.

First, you'd need a supernova. That's essentially a star that explodes in a big way. Really big. Next, the matter from the supernova collapses into a big ball. Gravity makes this ball smaller, and eventually the neutrons, protons, and electrons re-arrange themselves into a stable isotope of iron, because it can handle the pressure. Up to a point.

Eventually, the protons and electrons give up and turn into neutrons and neutrinos, and the resulting matter collapses into a bunch of neutrons and a few other subatomic particles. I think most of the neutrinos fly away.

This star full of neutrons is called a neutron star. Its density is in the neighborhood of that of an atomic nucleus. The sun is over 800,000 miles in diameter. A neutron star typically has the mass of 1.5 or 2 suns, with a diameter somewhere between 6 and 12 miles. That's really dense!

If the mass of the collapsing matter is less than this, it turns into a white dwarf star. If the white dwarf collects some extra matter and grows to beyond about 1.4 solar masses, it gets really excited and goes supernova. If the collapsing matter is more than about 3 solar masses, it turns into a black hole. I haven't seen either of these things happen, but I'm pretty sure this is true.

A pulsar is a rotating neutron star that sends out pulses of radio signals. They've been observed for almost 40 years.

A team led by a guy from University of Manchester named Michael has been observing a double pulsar system, where two neutron stars are in tight orbit around each other. They orbit once every 2.4 hours and are flying around one another at about 600,000 mph.

Since the neutron stars are so dense, this does strange things to nearby space and time, at least according to a guy named Einstein. Michael and his team have verified this. They have observed that the delay caused by the curvature of space/time near the neutron stars (the Shapiro Delay) is within 0.05% of the predicted numbers.

I don't understand all the details, but I think this is the first time this part of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity has been confirmed by observation. Imagine what Einstein could have done if he'd had a programmable calculator!



http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 094623.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_stars

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sitemap 
Heman Chong got this cool sitemap - go to main page and scroll down. I wanted that too, so I followed the link on his page and got an image of this page. the problems came when I tried to make a jpg out of the java. I tried screenshot - could not find the clip board on my lap top, I tried to download and using Processing - but I did not get it right, so in the end I tried iMacros and ended up with something that frustrated me so much that I made drawing on top of it.
I am feeling fine again.


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nothing to do? 
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I have nothing to say, and I am saying it 
In an text I wrote about the art biennial in Lofoten (LIAF) I claimed that two of the earlier issues (the 1999 and 2004 one) was both a disaster. The text is in Norwegian language if anyone wonder.
The co-curator of both 1999 and 2004 LIAF - Norwegian artist Tor Inge Kveum replied (can be read in the same link as the text, just scroll down). Kveum claims that I am a lose cannon, and that it made him feel quite upset. But he was reminded on the English saying: Opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one. and that this is the way it goes when one publish harsh conclusions faster then arguments that are based on research and facts.

Now, this is not my best piece ever. And he did arrest me on the money flow from the state of Norway to LIAF. I am very glad he did that, because it
a) taught me a lesson
So now I am double-cross-checking my sources on that.

But, the way he called me a dilettante was not very sophisticated and clear. Obviously, he is really eager to defend his curatorial choices, as am I to attack them, but there is something that is bugging me about this, and that is:
what do you do when you argue with someone?


I have been thinking quite a bit about the way I attacked his festival and the way he replied to that (not to mentioned my 2400 words long reply were I claim that his last effort in 2004 killed every opportunity the festival ever had to become international acclaimed - in contrast was the review only 1500 words long).

and here is what I am thinking

In a situation of debate, think fast and write or speak slower then you think.

be true to your first reaction
- ask yourself why you react this way

Do start with acknowledge the good points made by your opponent.

Always make a point out of your initial critique, and repeat, if possible more elaborated, what your arguments and opinions are.

Remember that opinions are a part of the stuff we bread (stole that one from Roberta Smith) and not a part of our bodies. there are no way around your own opinions, but do treat them with respect, always respect your own as well as other opinions, and do not think that just because someone got a good argument, you have to agree with them.

There are no way, not even in a parallel universe that I would give Kveum right in his argument that his version of LIAF (called Human, Fucking Human) was a good exhibition with a mixed reception. As far as I am concerned, it did not get any reviews, not really. Daniel Birnbaum asked what is the difference between art criticism and propaganda and suggested that a mind being sceptic. I like that.

Now, I do not wish the person Tor Inge Kveum any harm, and I can believe that espescially the last festival he curated have been a drag (really bad organised, unclear structures, changing director at least two times just before the opening, hard and long evaluation process with the municipality owning the festival - and on top of that, me, more than two years after claiming that it sucked - big time).




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Art Review goes digital 
Art Review goes online and offers obviously subscription, because it is for free the first six issues if you register. That should mean that it is either cheaper than the printed issue or completely different to the printed issue, but both is a problem in general; if the printed and the online issue are different, then where do you place your best pieces? and if they are the same, why do people want to pay for the online version when things online in general is free of charge?

anyway, I signed up.


Register at www.artreviewdigital.com



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