Real Life Sea Serpent - The Oarfish

Believed to be the backing behind many 'sea serpent' theories and stories, the Oarfish is an extremely large and long fish found in the Pelagic zone of seas or lakes. They are very rarely seen, despite being found in all temperate and tropical oceans. Just to stress, these things are freaking scary, look at this thing:

Source: National Geographic

Most of the Oarfish every seen have been found washed ashore, or floating on the seas surface dying. In fact there has only every been one sighting of the Oarfish in its natural habitat, which was discovered by scientists in 2008. The fish observed was estimated to be between 5-10m in length, and if you thought a dead Oarfish was unsettling, look at this footage of a live one:

In other news, recently 2 of these beasts have been found washed up on the shore in California, an extremely rare occurrence. Some locals even believe the Oarfish sightings could be an indication of an earthquake, but there's no telling for sure, and Geologists don't agree with this theory. The fishes found on Santa Catalina Island were 4.3m and 5.5m in length, which is nothing compared to their maximum size of up to 15m! There's no denying that these strange elongated fish are something to be marvelled at.

The Pillars of Creation, Amazing Space Phenomena

If you read my previous post about the scale of the universe then you will by now know that there's some pretty amazing stuff out there in the great beyond, and this is no exception. The 'Pillars of Creation' is a photograph produced using 32 different images from four separate cameras of The Hubble Space Telescope. The photograph shows large 'pillars' of interstellar gas and dust, located 7000 light years away in the Eagle Nebula. They get their name from the shape as they are in the process of forming new stars whilst also being affected by the light from nearby stars that have recently been formed in the Nebula as well.

From Wikipedia 

It was voted as one of the top ten photographs produced by The Hubble Space Telescope by www.space.com -  a title that was well appreciated by the creators of the photo, astronomers Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen. 

Using space technology, the clever people at NASA also figured out the Pillar's composition, consisting of cool molecular hydrogen and dust. The dust is being eroded by ultraviolet rays from nearby stars. Sadly, data suggests that the Pillars have been destroyed however we cannot yet see this. This is due to the fact that they are situated over 7000 light years away from the Earth, therefore we would receive information of their destruction 7000 years after the event had happened. NASA assume they were destroyed around 6000 years ago due to a supernova, as the appearance of the cloud suggests this. The destruction should be visible to Earth in roughly 1000 years time, however some scientist argue that the pillars could have withstood the shock wave and have undergone a more gradual erosion. 

from DailyMail

The Pillars are, or were, huge! They are predicted to be around 4 light years tall, meaning it takes 4 years for light from the top of the pillars to reach the bottom! It's hard to visualise how big this actually is, as we don't have rulers measuring 'Light Years' - however I'll put it this way to help it easier to understand:  4 light years is around the same distance to the next star system to us. 

I hope this post has interested you as it did me to write it. Feel free to share and check out my other posts! Thanks for reading. 

The Scale of the Universe

Not often contemplated by the average man is the scale of the universe we are living in. "It's a small world." is a well known quote, song and painfully boring Disney ride, however it's somewhat of an understatement. The real phrase should be, "It's an incredibly minute world." simply because, well, it is. Our earth may seem big to us, heck, even London seems huge to me even though its a rather average sized city in comparison, but in reality it is not. You most likely learnt in primary school, or in some physics lesson, that the Earth on which we live could fit inside The Sun around 1,000,000 times. Already we can barely comprehend the size The Sun must be. It seems small when we look at it in the sky, usually a ball no bigger than a 5 pence piece, however in retrospect it looks something more like this:

from Visual Learning Systems 

 So yeah that's a little scary. But that's only the start, you see. The Sun, one star in the billions in our Galaxy is not huge either. Its roughly average size, maybe a little on the small side. There are stars much bigger, and that's what's even more interesting. In this image here (too high resolution to properly show here) we can see that The Sun, 109 times bigger than Earth, is a mere singular pixel in the photo. We then compare that to the biggest star in the photo, VY Canis Majoris, and we have no words. Then you read this and I tell you that VY Canis Majoris is actually not the biggest star we no of. The award goes to complexly and lovingly named  R136a1. R136a1 is the single largest star known to man, and has a luminosity of almost 8,700,000 times that of The Sun. Its roughly 265 solar masses, which is a unit of measure meaning that it is 265 times the mass of our Sun (which happens to be two nonillion kilograms). That's rather heavy. Thinking about all this hurts, and it hurts even more when you realise that there is not only 1 Galaxy, there are billions and trillions, and these billions and trillions of Galaxies, filled with billions and trillions of stars and planets, clump together to make Super Clusters.

Super Clusters near to earth - From Wikipedia 

The idea of how small we are is actually somewhat painful. No longer will we be able to roam around like we own the place, well we do own the place but the place happens to be horrendously minuscule in the grand scale of things. After trying to comprehend all this your brain should be slightly aching, if its not I haven't tried hard enough informing you, but if it is, I know that feeling, bro. Like I said before, it's not a 'Small World', it's an incredibly minute world.

Google60 - Slowing Down Your Searches in Style

Although Google didn't exist when this 'art project' is set, the piece by Norbert Landsteiner is a recreation of the site in a 1960s theme. It allows its uses to conduct searches in a retro machine interface, based on a virtual IBM 360 System. You start by typing in what you'd like to look for, the machine then processes this information and slowly prints the page for you.

You are given 3 modes to pick, one is Text Search, the second Image Search and the third Get Latest News . This image option is interesting so give that a try on the site here. When searching for a query, the machine accesses its 'peripheral storage' - which is basically a tape deck. The user can control different settings such as volume of output, all with a distinct retro feel to them.

Who wants a bet that Hipsters will start actually using this as their default search engine?

The End of The World 21/12/12

There's been a lot of hype over the past 2 or 3 years about the possible end of the world on the 21st of December 2012. There was even a highly unrealistic and painfully long action film made about the idea, based on the Mayan calendar. The idea of this sudden and random apocalypse sourced from the fact that the Mayan calendar, invented by the Mayans in case you were wondering, ends on the exact date of 21/12/12. This caused people who knew this to think that somehow the Mayans were superhumanly clever and somehow possessed the ability to see into the future, despite the fact that in the current age of technology we have today, we find this impossible. Anyway, so basically the monstrosity that is the Media and the viral nature of the internet caused this theory to super-size, and now has anyone gullible believing it. Of course, the majority of us do actually have some logical rational and understand that such an event is quite impossible. How could the Mayans have possibly predicted such an event and not our current scientists? The whole idea seems ridiculous, and I'm not really sure how anyone could possibly pull any truth from it.



If the world were to actually end I'd have a few issues

1) I wouldn't actually get to see my EPL Team Queens Park Rangers win a game this season..

2) I wouldn't get to eat the big chocolate you get in advent calendars

3) No Christmas

4) No New years eve mash-up (sophisticated party with one drink)

All in all I'm pretty solidly convinced that we'll still be alive by the 22nd, however I fear for those going to the Prodigy gig on the 21st. They most likely won't be alive due to extreme pre-apocalypse mosh pitting. Hope this post has helped you to be as bitter and pessimistic as I am.

In case you were wondering, here's what the possible world endings might look like:

lovely

realistic

is that the moon? seriously?

Top 10 Most Bizarre Deaths Ever Recorded

The term 'shit happens' comes to mind when reading these. Here's a list of downright hilarious deaths of some prominent figures in the past century.

1) VIAGRA Overdose
A Nigerian dictator named Sani Abacha died in his home from a VIAGRA-induced heart attack in 1998. The overdose was discovered to be prelude to an orgy.

2) Eaten by Classmate
25 year old Renée Hartevelt was killed and eaten by her classmate Issei Sagawa, who had invited her to dinner! Sagawa was deemed unfit to trial, and was extradited back to Japan. 

3) Hung like a Horse
Kenneth Pinyan, from Seattle WA, died of acute peritonitis after he engaged in anal sex with a horse. He was experienced in the event, however this time the horse was too keen, resulting in his death - and most likely the criminalization of bestiality in Washington in 2005.

4) Party Trick
Sherwood Anderson died after he tried to swallow a toothpick at a party, resulting in death from peritonitis.

5) Anger Management
The founder of famous Tennessee whiskey Jack Daniels died of blood poisoning after he kicked his safe in anger of not remembering its code.

6) Breaking Records (and necks)
J.G. Parry-Thomas was a British racing driver who died after his cars drive chain snapped and whipped into his cock pit, decapitating him. This happened while he tried to set the land speed record, which he actually succeeded in at the time.

7) Bored
Jerome Irving Rodale died when being interviewed on the Dick Cavett Show. He appeared to be asleep, but had actually had a heart attack. Cavett asked 'Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?' - the show was never aired.

8) ...and people say Wrestling is fake!
Owen Hart WWE wrestler, died when he fell 78 feet from a cable that was lowering him into the stadium from the rafters. He had been scheduled to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship that very night.

9) Wait.. that wasn't part of the act?
Tommy Cooper died on stage while performing magic at Her Majesty's Theatre. Many of the audience however, thought it was part of the act!

10) Fencing is meant to be safe!
Vladimir Smirnov was an Olympic fencer, who died of brain damage after his opponent's foil snapped during a match. The foil pierced his eyeball and entered his brain!

5 Reasons Why Public Transport Sucks

Living in the Capital of the UK, London, one of the only ways to get around as a teenager is via TFL (Transport for London). This consists of buses, trams, trains and underground trains. Up to the age of 16 one does not have to pay for these services, and it's a good job too considering the quality of them. However, I am now nearing the age where I will no longer be provided with free travel, and I'm not happy.

1) The seats - chairs are designed to be comfortable ways to rest so it would make sense that when in a travelling vehicle, one which you may be in for a while, the seats would be padded and nice to sit in. TFL redesign the meaning of 'common sense' by stuffing buses full of seats, giving you about as much leg room as a legless dwarf would require.

2) Aesthetics - Why does the Transport Minister seem to think that people who take public transport are colour blind? I'm no Gok Wan, but seriously, purple and baby blue? eugh.

3) Scheduling - Bus schedules are extremely vague most of the time. Many merely say 'Every 7-10 minutes'  giving you no idea whatsoever of how many minutes have passed since the last bus left. There's also a bus nearby where I live called the 455, and it just doesn't follow a time scheme any more. I've literally seen drivers sitting at the end of the road, reading the Daily Mail or smoking cheap tobacco, contributing absolutely nothing to society and making me late on a consistent basis.

4) Sundays - If you haven't read my Sundays rant yet please do. This is yet another reason why Sundays are god awful. Drivers decide because its their least favourite day (because everyone hates Sundays) they'd rather not actually do their job, and as a result, buses come about once every 2 hours.

5) Heat - The London Underground is renowned for its awful qualities. There's even a song about it: (Parental Advisory)

The trains are often unbearably hot, added that there are usually around 100 people surrounding you. Stay there for too long and its like being in one giant slow cooker.

As much as I appreciate the free transport at this current time, when I do have to eventually pay I wont be a happy chappy.