The Mysteries of the Universe

There are some big questions out there. Why are we here? What's life all about? Is there a god?
The answer to that last one is fairly obvious (No, of course there isn't. Grow up.), but as for the first two questions, I've been pondering whether the human race will ever figure it all out.

I guess non-specific questions of life, the universe and everything can be answered to some high degree of uncertainty by philosophers and genius-like sci-fi comedy writers, but I hope to look at it all from a scientific standpoint. ...Unfortunately, I seem to have mislaid own my personal standpoint (of the scientific variety) the last time I went time travelling, but I can pretty much recall the view from it.


At the cutting edge of physical science there are mysteries that have been left unanswered (although I know we have people working on them):

• In the field of classical mechanics, there's What causes gravity? 

• In the field of astrophysics, there's What is the shape/size of the universe?

• In the field of quantum physics, there's the question Why does matter exist?

You may notice that these are all basically the same question. That question is How?
Or to be less succinct ... How did the universe form?
This is because all answers are easily revealed once you know the origin of the universe. Other big questions you may have thought of like How did life begin? can be answered with a simple sequence of 'cause and effect' that started when the universe began. Even little questions can be answered this way (although it isn't always necessary to go so far back): Can you explain Miley Cyrus' behaviour?... Well, first the universe came into existence...

Not only that, but I strongly suspect that if some genius (almost certainly not me*) is ever going to figure out the answer to just one of those big questions, then the answers to all the other questions will soon fall into place. And here's why (and how):
 

• The 'force' of gravity is caused by physical matter distorting space-time. All matter does this but no one knows how. They only know that it does, and that it distorts all space-time in the universe. I suspect the answer will be perfectly obvious once they've figured out how matter came into existence.

 

• Matter came into existence at the very beginning of the universe. We've currently got top men (and women) colliding particles under Switzerland to figure out what they're made of. In doing so, there may be some clue as to how they appeared from nothing. Which in effect is answering the question of how the universe came into existence.

• Once we have a scientific model for the origin of the universe, then we can figure out the shape of it, the size of it now, and where we are in it. At the moment we can only see a mere 13.7 billion light years away. We have no idea where the centre is, whether it's even viewable from where we are, or which way is up.

Personally, I believe in the omniverse theory. Sometimes. Ok, it really depends on which day of the week you ask me. But whether that's true or not, I believe the key to it all lies in matter. Specifically the nature of gravity/space-time.

You see, matter is this big mystery. It's stuff that the whole universe is made of, and it all sits in a 4 dimensional web of space-time (which incidentally, was also created at the birth of the universe). The two things are inextricably linked. Matter affects the whole universe and the whole universe is made of matter. They are one and the same. This is how matter came into being from nothing; it was all extrapolated from nothing, and the remnant of the 'nothing' that was left over, is the space-time continuum.

Therefore, to figure out the true nature of matter, is to figure out the true nature of everything.


But can it be done?

Science has come a very long way, in a very short space of time. I know that more hurdles will be overcome in the following decades which will give some clues to all this, as well as sparking new questions. However...

The answers are getting progressively difficult to obtain. Science is getting better still, but it's slowing down. I predict that if it's gonna happen at all, then the answers will start to flood in thick and fast, within the next 65 years. But after that, I don't think we'll ever figure it out.
Ask me in 30 years time, and I'll give you a more accurate prediction. But right now there's a 50/50 chance of us finding the answers in the next 65 years, though there's only a 10 percent chance of that.

* I'm so modest these days.

The Train Break Turbine

Here's a quick energy generating idea. As well as all the usual green ways of energy production, why not tap into the wasted energy of breaks on a train.

You'd still keep the breaking mechanism on a train as a safety measure for the driver (and also for slowing near bends), but primarily breaking entering a station can be done by 'break turbines'. These are just a number of large turbine wheels built under the sections of track approaching the station, which will connect with long strips of break pad under each carriage. The break turbines will be adjustable from the signal box, so that they're only there if a train needs to stop. The turbines can be lowered so that they don't affect through-trains not intended to stop at the station.

For trains that should stop, the whole thing will be automated. There will be sensors on the track that register the speed of a train's approach to the station. The computer then knows how much pressure the turbine breaks need to initially exert on the train. This pressure is then gradually released until the train comes to a smooth stop at the platform.

Every time a train pulls into a station, a turbine will be turned which will generate electricity. Imagine the amount of power generated if every railway and tube station had these turbines spinning every time a train approached a platform. Enough to power the trains? Probably not, but I imagine there'd be a lot more force there than in wind or tidal power.

Naturally it would take much time and expense to convert both stations and trains to this method of breaking and energy production. But once all up and running, I should think they'd easily pay for themselves within a year.

Also, it would be easier to include this genius idea within the designs of new trains and train lines, rather than retrofitting it to existing ones.

I really like the proposed idea of the almost-frictionless vacuum tube train system* that they're gonna build in the USA or Japan**. I hereby give them permission to use my train break turbine generator idea as part of it's design. Just let me know if you've any questions guys.


* AKA The vactrain. A genius idea that's so crazy, it's like the sort of shit that I'd make up.
** I figure one of these 2 countries is bound to do it first.

Perpetual Super Fluid Motion

Yep, I'm giving the old perpetual motion machine a third and final stab.

Before I explain it in detail, I'd like to remind everyone that I am not a mathematician or a scientist, and my understanding of theoretical physics is basic at best. So perhaps you can chalk this one up to 'great idea, but the numbers don't quite add up'. On the other hand, perhaps I've stumbled upon something that no-one else has, and would therefore need to seriously consider removing the negative adverb from the title of this website.

It's all about superfluids. As with all my 'genius' ideas, this one is fairly straight forward ...(and ill thought out).

If you cool helium down to at least 2 degrees above absolute zero, it becomes a superfluid. Superfluids have many interesting properties. One of these is that they have no surface tension, and will continue to flow at a thickness of mere atoms over itself, the effect of which means it can effectively flow up the side of a bowl. My idea exploits this property.

If a superfluid can crawl up the vertical side of a bowl with a minimum of encouragement, then I see no reason why the same substance can't flow up the lesser angled slope, of a hellical structure. A reverse helterskelter if you will.

If enough liquid helium we're to make this trip, then at the top, when it reached an appropriate shaped spout, it would fall through a traditional water wheel turbine. This turbine would produce electricity. The superfluid would then return to the shallow pool where it came from, then it continues the cycle of moving up the hellical tower.

Now, if enough liquid helium was used in enough helterskelter/turbine systems, then a greater amount of electricity can be generated. In fact there has to be an optimum quantity of superfluid per turbine for it to run most efficiently (cos you don't want a surplus of superfluous superfluids). On top of this, there has to be an optimum scale of the turbines to produce the greatest amount of power, as well as an optimum number of such turbines per squared metre to produce the most power by recycling the liquid helium as efficiently as possible. If you take all these variables and make this gravity-defying liquid powerstation (for that is what it is) as energy efficient as possible, then you'll have your solution as to whether super fluid perpetual motion is possible.

Once you've figured out the optimum measurements, quantities and ratios, then you need to figure out the optimum freezer configuration, (which is to say, the minimum power input needed to maintain the necessary near-absolute-zero temperatures).

So then... you've figured out the maximum possible power output for the most energy efficient turbine/helterskelter/superfluid configuration (A), as well as the minimum power input required to keep this machine constantly cooled at the most energy efficient level possible (B).

Then you just do the maths to see if the machine can power itself as well as produce extra energy...

A - B = C

If C > 0 then you've got yourself a pepectual motion machine!

You're welcome.

Beep Beep

I almost find it ridiculous that in this day and age, a new car still only has one beep sound for it's horn. A sound that is supposed to convey numerous messages to fellow road users, from 'Cheers mate!' and 'look out, I'm approaching the corner' to 'Get the fuck out of my way! This is my road!' ...and everything in between.  The only current difference between all of the above, is the length of the beeeep.

Cars should have more than one horn sound.

I'm not suggesting that you have a great myriad of polyphonic sounds, just three or four alternative beep sounds, which better articulate the sentiment you're going for.
For example, for a simple 'Thank you' noise, you're going to want a lighter meep-meep sound  - not too dissimilar to the horn on Postman Pat's van. You know the one. Everybody knows his bright red van. So Pat's got that one sorted already, but what if he's in a pile up? What if Ted's truck's broken down, and Pat's got an urgent delivery for the vicar? He's gonna want the extra aggressive grunt in his beep. If only to help him let of a little steam. Unfortunately he's only got that little 'meep' horn; It doesn't really do the trick when what he really wants to say is 'Yo momma!' to Ted Glenn.
This could have also been a contributing factor for Post Office workers who have been known to 'go postal'. Despite the inadequacies of Pat's van, it has been recorded for the record that he feels he's a really happy man. Mind you, that was before news of the Royal Mail's impending privatisation.

The multi-horned car is an idea I came up with many years ago. In the interim I've heard one or two other people mention the same idea to me independently. I definitely thought if it first though. Oh, what's that? You came up with the idea too? ...When was that?...  Oh really? Well I thought of it about five years before then.

The Size of the Universe

Whilst we're taking about what scientists don't know, dark energy isn't the only bollocks phrase they've invented to explain things they don't know. The other one is dark matter (not to be idiotically confused with anti-matter). This was invented to explain away the reason why they can't account for the massive lack of mass in the universe.

Again the answer is obvious. All the mass in the viewable universe only accounts for about 4% of all the mass there should be. The remaining 96% lies in the areas of space we can't see, because they exist more than 13.7 billion lightyears away. Cosmologists think this is wrong because they've misjudged the current size of the universe, by assuming that they know it's current speed. Mystery solved.

It just goes to show, if you make an ill-informed, half thought out assumption in one instance, it'll have a logical knock on effect for all the rest of your reasoning. Obviously all of my scientific arguments are flawless and impeccable, so there's absolutely no reason to even doubt their credibility. All have been scientifically peer reviewed by the equally genius and sound mind of my assistant Ziggy, the invisible time-travelling hamster.

The State of the Universe (aka Gravity Part V)

There's a fairly large question about the universe that cosmologists have been unable to definitively answer, and that's 'Why does the universe look like it does?'. An amazingly simple question, I think you'll agree, and it doesn't take a genius to come up with an amazingly simple answer to this question... or perhaps it does.

In the likely event that you're in the dark as to what the universe looks like, let me enlighten you. This universe (for it is probable that there are many) is comprised of a few hundred billion galaxies. These galaxies are not scattered completely randomly, but are instead spread out in a three dimensional stringy web-like pattern. A good analogy that has been made for this is a load of washing-up bubbles, where the washing-up liquid that makes up the bubbles themselves represent the galaxies, and the air within the bubbles represents the vast gaps of nothing in the universe.

Theoretical physicists have the problem that they don't know how the universe got into this state. Well, it seems pretty obvious to me. I mean, I'm no astrophysicist, but it's hardly rocket science: The galaxies remain in a stretched out web pattern because matter naturally distorts space-time, which has an instantaneous effect on the propagation of any and all matter relative to both the distance and the combined mass of any and all of the masses within the system. The net effect of all of this intergalactic mass is a sort of mass intergalactic net effect, and the appearance of the universe as it has been observed fits in exactly as predicted by the above model.

You probably realised that this is a description of gravity, but I really wanted to explain what is happening without confusing matters... and people seem to get confused whenever someone mentions the G-word. They think it's a force or something!  ...the idiots.

So what's the prob?
The cosmic boffins still have the issue of explaining why the universe is still expanding, when gravity should've started making it contract by now. They've attributed this to Dark Energy [cue mystical/scary music].
Dark energy is just a phrase they've invented, because they can't think of they're own explanation that doesn't involve magic, witchcraft, god or anything else made up.

It all seems quite self-evident to this genius: The universe is still expanding because the explosion that created this universe was bloody massive. You can't even begin to imagine how big it was. Sure, the effect of gravity has slowed the expansion substantially since the universe began, but that's small beans compared to how fast it was originally going at 13.7 billion years ago. Back then it was all relatively pretty close to the cosmic speed limit. So of course gravity hasn't put the breaks on fully. If/when that eventually happens, our universe will start to contract slowly. But then as time goes on, the speed of contraction will continue to accelerate... to the point that it will eventually reach a point (by which I mean a singularity) just at the point when the relative speed reaches the cosmic speed limit of the universe.

Improving the Capital - part 4

So tell us Jon, tell us how we can make London a less crappy place to live.

Why should I?

Because geniuses are few and far between and you're so awesome, I just know you'll have another genius idea to improve the capital.

You're right. I am awesome.

And with that, Jon stopped talking to himself, turned away from the mirror and returned to his antiquated electronic writing device to type out his latest idea in a most unconventional manner.

After a while he decided that writing his blog in the third person probably wasn't his greatest idea, and that hopefully nobody would notice when I reverted to the first person half way through a sentence....
Seamless!


So as promised...

Picture the scene.  You're a London local. You're in a tube station. You're on your way down the escalator towards the station platform. And because you're not an idiot or a tourist, and you understand the English language, you'll know you have the choice of either standing on the right or walking down the left side of the escalator.

If your not a small child or an elderly person or an American, then you'll have chosen to walk down the escalator as every able-bodied adult with even the loosest understanding of the concept of gravity should. But then you have two further types of people to contend with...

There'll be the usual moronic-foreign-elderly-child type of person who's stood on the left of the escalator.  You need to be patient with these, and ask them politely to move out of the way. Some people ought to know better, but it's quite hard to tell from behind which of the people are simpletons and which are just arseholes.

Then there's the tailgater. The teenager who runs down the escalator who then has to stop becuase you're in the way, and then continues just inches behind you. The city-boy with the stupid pointy shoes who has to leg it down three steps at a time. The businessman who absolutely must get to the platform in order to get the train that's waiting there, lest he miss and have to wait for the next train, all of 90 seconds later. Run businessman, run! Oh my god, I can hear the doors beeping already! Quick! RUN!!

Pedestrian tailgating is not nice. You can hear them coming, then you're ever conscious that they're just behind you.  No, I will not speed up for you. I usually walk faster than most people but I'm not going to speed up going down a staircase, let alone a staircase that's moving. Nor am I going to find a place to my right to move to so that you can go past. I like my personal space. Why are you in such a rush in the first place.

The solution of course is obvious. Have a third option; Are you going to take the stairs, the escalator, or the slide?

Fun for kids. Great if you're genuinely in a rush. Perfect if you find that walking speed plus the speed of an escalator isn't fast enough for you. There could even be an extra steep slide... just for thrill seekers and really impatient people.
If that's not fast enough for you (and let's face it, we're talking about the arseholes who always need to be some place 5 minutes ago), then you can choose the fireman's pole. No training given. Use it at your own risk.  And if your maximum acceleration due to gravity isn't enough for you, then I'm sure we can think up some sort of explosive upside-down human cannon.

London Bye Ta-Ta (Improving the Capital - part 3)

I've left London. Why? Well it is a horrible place to live. And yet millions of people have actively chosen to live there. Even people who were fortunate enough not to be born in Britain's capital. I can't understand it myself. In fact I'm surprised that I put up with the place for so many years myself. 

I wouldn't want to return (Not immediately anyway, and when i do it'll be hopefully just as an annoying tourist*). I haven't turned my back on London though. Not completely. Here's another idea that'll make the big smoke a less depressing place to live, to go along with my existing genius-like ideas of putting an invisible roof over Soho, and giving the London underground a colonic.

Cigarette Butt Fine

People who throw litter on the ground disgust me. If the litter happens to be a cigarette then I'm disgusted more so, on account of a cigarette's toxic nature. You people make me sick! I want to vomit on you, you vile smoke filled litterer! You know who you are. I hate you, and everyone you associate with I hope you all die of an appropriate throat or lung based illness! **

My solution to this social disease?... There should be an on-the-spot fine for anybody caught littering. They'll be charged a mere pound for regular litter and two pounds for anyone chucking a cigarette/roll-up on the ground. 

Any adult caught littering will be given the choice of picking up said litter themselves or paying the fine.

Now you may think that it can't be policed, but it can. With a couple of thousand recruits of undercover litter cops. They'll have the power to demand the money there and then. And people with have the choice of paying the fine immediately or if they can't then their details are taken and the fine increases to twenty pounds. 

This scheme will stop people littering the streets. It'll create jobs, money (which will go back into funding the litter-police), and a general sense of paranoia amongst your fellow man. No one will know who else is secretly a litter-cop. People can have this job full time and still hold down their existing job full time. It's a genius idea and one that I am surprised hasn't been instigated already. I mean, that's the way society's going isn't it?

More genius 'make London nicer' ideas to come.

* 'Pardon me, but could you direct me to lie-sester square?'

** I still feel like I'm sitting on the fence here. This is as polite as I get. After all, I never said the C word.   ...Either of them.

Glastonbury for Free

Back in the days when I used to frequent festivals (2005), I came up with an ingenious (and not entirely legal) idea of how to get into Glastonbury without buying a ticket or scaling a wall. The idea is to sneak into the festival grounds under cover of night, before any/all of the perimeter fences are erected. What you'll need to do then, is hide. In a hole in the ground. A hole that will be your home until the first day of the festival.

Obviously you'll need to have prepared this hiding place in advance. And as this hole will need a roof, I suggest utilising some sort of prefabricated wooden box, or even a customised skip, with all equipment and supplies you'll need stored within. That way all you'll need to do is sneak in, dig the hole, plant the skip, and then carefully lay the turf back on top so your hiding place is well hidden.

Here is an intricately detailed schematic* which I drew as the idea came to me:

 *You'll be forgiven for thinking that this looks like that scribblings of a 7 year-old with learning difficulties. I had originally intended to spend many weeks perfecting this design. However I was somewhat intoxicated at the time, and therefore the above 2 minute rendering is as far I got with this project before I got distracted by some shapes and bright colours.

Now clearly this is an almost-genius idea, but the smarter amongst you may have already thought of some potential flaws with it. The most obvious being that by not buying a ticket, and utilising this scheme, will you actually be saving any money?

Well I'm not so sure that you will. You'd have to arrive at Worthy Farm before the fences go up, which I understand happens at least 6 weeks before the festival starts. Are your really prepared to give up all this time and effort just to get into a music festival? Then there's the cost of skip hire for 2 months. Plus the extra materials needed to make it habitable (roof, water drainage system, air circulation, chemical toilet, etc). Then food supplies for 2 months. Then there's the cost/hassle of transporting the thing on a truck. Not to mention the expense of hiring a JCB digger for a night. Plus you'd need drivers for both vehicles to drive them back to remove any evidence.

On the other hand you wouldn't actually be paying any rent for the duration that you were there. How much money would that save you? ... So I don't know, perhaps it could be an economically sound plan.
But then there's always the risk factor to consider. I've got to be honest with you; there is a fair possibility of either prosecution or death.

Science Friction (Perpetual Motion's Nemesis)

These days I seem to be posting my ideas more infrequently. Which is to say, I've been posting my ideas more sparsely, with a higher rate of infrequency, and in fewer abundance. Which is to say, in plain English, I've been posting less inperiodically or more commonly less frequently more often.

It is for this reason that I challenged my genius brain to come up with an idea that will solve more than one of mankind's problems in one go. We're talking killing two birds with one stone. But I didn't want to stop at two. Anyone who knows me knows how I love to maim a multitude of feathered creatures with one projectile, but on this occasion I decided to leave them be, and just think about the problem I'd set myself. Well within 15 minutes I came up with a single concept that will help reduce humanity's social, environmental, technological, residential and economic problems. All you need is a few decades work on an international scale, in a large section of Antarctica.

(an area of 500km radius around the south pole to be exact)

Problem 1.
The prisons in [insert country here] are full, but people keep doing crimes.

Solution: Send all the world's prisoners (or all the lifers at least) to one massive prison on an island. Perhaps not such an original idea. It's like when the US used to send criminals to Alcatraz. ...or when the UK used to send criminals to Australia. (In retrospect we call all agree that the latter was a terrible idea).
A large prison will be built in the centre of the continent of Antarctica, which (when the prisoners have finished building it) will be escape-proof. Anyone leaving the prison complex to go outside is essentially committing suicide. This of course is illegal, and will be punished by 24 hours isolation in the cooler.
Once it's up and running, a vast majority of the worlds prisons can be closed.  ... and then converted into budget housing. I'm not suggesting people will live in cell-sized flats. (not everyone anyway) I'm saying you could knock though several cells and have an apartment that was made up of up to 5 cells. Luxury.


Problem 2.
How can the world save money on the space program?

Solution: You'd have a lift into space. Yes, this isn't a new idea, not even by me. But it is an idea I came up with many years ago. I've adapted it though, so that the base of the lift is in the Antarctic (to capitalise on the very cheap/free labour among the local residents), and the counterweight at the other end is in a low orbit in space, but at an angle (of maybe 60°) from the base. The counterweight can make several orbits of the Earth each day in the opposite direction that the Earth is turning. The base in this new design however is actually anchored to a platform that moves around a large track with a circumference of approximately 3142km around the South Pole (again, built over many years by convicts). The speed of the platform around the track can be altered any time the lift needs to be used. Why the track? Well this is part of the answer to my third problem...


Problem 3.
How can we create renewable energy and stop burning fossil fuels?

Solution: This is also a question I've attempted to answer before. Albeit, not very convincingly. The idea was a very simple perpetual motion machine. And while that genius magnetic contraption has it's charms, I'll be the first to admit that it does sort of contravene Newton's third law of motion. Generally you can't create energy from nothing. You can only convert energy. Which is exactly what we're doing here. For all intents and purposes, this coasting Antarctic space elevator is a genuine perpetual motion machine. It would actually work. Why? Because it's not actually a genuine perpetual motion machine. But it almost is. The movement on the track will either turn a giant underground wheel, or turn a series of generator as the platform speeds round the track. The speed of the thing is determined by the radius of the track as well as the height of the counterweight's orbit.* It will never stop, so long as the Earth keeps spinning. A by-product of this ingenious suggestion is that (very gradually) the Earth's spin will slow down as a result of friction. The Earth's spin is slowing down very gradually anyway, but this machinery will increase this deceleration. However, it's worth pointing out that you won't see any noticeable effect of this for many hundreds of years.  ...probably.

Still, I'm always saying there aren't enough hours in the day.



*Assuming the counterweight goes round the earth just twice a day, and the track has a diameter of 1000km, then the base will be travelling at about 262km/h (163mph). For convenience this speed can be sped up or slowed down by decreasing or increasing the length of the counterweight's tether.

The Return of the Thin White Duke...

As those of you who know me know, I have always been entertained, fascinated and inspired by a young man named David Bowie. Perhaps you've heard of him.

He's one of those old fashioned all-round entertainers, but He's particularly fond of producing music. Timeless music (and decades of it), comprising of such a diverse range of sounds and ideas as to make you wonder which planet this talented genius came from. His genres of choice and artistic vision for each album has always been ahead of the curve (with the exception of 80's albums Tonight and Never Let Me Down, which were somewhat behind). He has influenced every recording artist you care to name in the last forty years. - Yep, every single one of them. (Yes, even them!)

His ability to foreshadow musical trends is astonishing even to me. Assuming that He hasn't stolen the keys to my time machine, the man truly is a genius. I feel honoured to be sharing a planet with Him.

But what's waxing lyrical about a fellow genius got to do with Jon's genius ideas? Very good question, imaginary reader. I'll tell you...


About five years ago, in the days when it had seemed that He may have retired, I thought up a fantastic idea for a David Bowie concept album. I also thought it would be a great idea to write a letter to tell Him of said genius idea. The concept was as follows: He should record an album of new songs, each song written and sung in the style of a different Bowie era. Not only that, but for the sake of authenticity, the appropriate instruments and recording technology of the time should be employed, as well as the appropriate musicians and producers for each era (assuming they're still alive. - No-one needs to bother exhuming Mick Ronson*). The whole album would be like a mixed alternative reality 'best of' album. It'd be called Evolution, or some such. Perhaps a naff title, but the more I thought about the album name, the more I realised that didn't really matter - It was the concept that was important.

There'd be a track from his hippy 60's era, a Man Who Sold The World style prog-rock epic, a couple of Ziggy-like glam-rock song, a plastic-soul number, a couple of Eno-written/produced songs, a new romantic song, a pop 80's hit, a song about goblins, a tin-machine-esque rock song, an experimental quirky one that sounded like it was from Outside, a drum'n'bass track, and finally a couple of contemporary tunes that sound like His more recent output. This was a great idea! Ok, maybe not the Tin Machine style song, but the rest of it's all good.

Two weeks ago Bowie released his first studio album since 2003. The Next Day is awesome. It's probably His best album in the last 30 years, and I'm not just saying that.
...Ok, I am just saying that. But if you give it a listen, I'm sure your ears (and eventually your brain) will agree with me, and then you'll be saying that too.




When you hear The Next Day for the first time it's quite obvious that some of the songs sound similar to earlier incarnations of Bowie. On repeat listens, you can pick out a different corresponding album from his back catalogue (from Ziggy onwards) for almost every song on the album. Have a listen yourself and I'm sure you'll agree. Some are more obvious than others though.



My track/album comparisons are as follows:

  1. The Next Day : Scary Monsters

   2. Dirty Boys : Lodger        

3. The Stars (Are Out Tonight) : Reality                                   
4. Love Is Lost : Heathen         
5. Where Are We Now? : Hours                          
6. Valentine's Day : Ziggy Stardust   
7. If You Can See Me : Earthling                  
8. I'd Rather Be High : Heroes                   
    9. Boss of Me : Diamond Dogs
10. Dancing Out in Space : Black Tie White Noise   
11. How Does the Grass Grow : The Next Day**                       
12. (You Will) Set the World on Fire : Tin Machine                                   
     (maybe. not so sure about that one^ I've never heard Tin Machine)
13. You Feel So Lonely You Could Die : Young Americans (maybe)                
  14. Heat : Outside

**Ok, I couldn't really think of which specific album sounds like track 11. It sort of encompasses lots of Bowie albums... which in itself make it quite typical of this album.

I know what you're thinking. And the answer is no, I'm not sure that I do have too much time on my hands. And also I realise maybe four or five of the tracks don't exactly sound like the album I've linked them to,... but some really do. Particularly tracks 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 14. They sound like giving them a retro album style was the very idea. And what a great idea it was.

So, did the Gobin King actually go with my idea? ... Well no, because I never actually wrote to Him. I mean, you've gotta ask yourself, am I even worthy to communicate with the great man?

So how come He ended up making an album that seems so close to my original genius idea, even though I'd never published this idea until now? Perhaps He did steal my time machine after all. Other than that, I'd say that it's more likely a case of great minds thinking alike; He must've come up with this genius idea on His own. I mean, it's not like He's omniscient.


*Thinking about it, Ronno would make a pretty good zombie.

Labyrinth Game

     You remind me of the babe

          What babe?     
               The babe with the power           
                    What power?                 
                         The power of voodoo                       
                              Who do?                             
                                   You do                                   

                                        Do what?                                         

                                             You remind me of the babe                               

It's one of the greatest stories ever told. It's a musical fantasy epic up there with other classic cinematic milestones such as Citizen Kane, Ben-Hur, Apocalypse Now and Look Who's Talking Too. It's certainly the greatest film ever produced by George Lucas. It features a mixture of ground-breaking CGI* and puppetry**, and it stars Jennifer Connolly before she was legal and some bloke called David Jones*** as the goblin king. But for some reason no one has ever had the foresight to turn Labyrinth into a boardgame...

[Clarksonian pause]
 

 ...until now!

 

 

Maybe the film didn't do so well on it's initial release to warrant a board game release. But it certainly deserves one now, given it's current cult status.

No, I'm not going to make it. I'll let some other idiot do that. But I was inspired to make my own interpretation of the Escher-esque room in the middle of the labyrinth (see picture below). Then I figured, if you had an accurate 3D model of that room then you can turn it into a 3D board game with the use of magnets. It'd be like the not-very-scary Ghost Castle from the 1980's, but with an extra dimension. It could be the simplest dice game; a race from start to finish, or it could be a more complicated affair, with various different marked routes around the room: There would be four players; Sarah, Toby (the baby), Jareth, and Jareth's magic balls ball.

Well?... Laugh.
(more pictures available in the Arts Hole)

The idea is that each player has a target player they need to land on to win.

Jareth's chasing Sarah,

Sarah's chasing Toby,

Toby is chasing Jareth's ball,

and Jareth's ball is chasing ...Jareth? No wait, that can't be right.

Jareth is chasing Toby,

Toby is chasing Sarah,

Sarah is chasing Jareth... oh hang on, that's wrong again.

There has to be some other way that fits in better with the film's storyline.

So,... Toby is chasing Jareth, Jareth's ball is chasing Toby, Hoggle is chasing Sarah, and Sarah is chasing Jareth's package.

*The owl at the start is genuinely cinema's first ever CG animal.

**For the film, director/muppeteer Jim Henson created some very realistic creatures. You'd never have guessed that the life-like role of Sarah's step-dad was created with pioneering animatronics.

***I've asked around at Hollywood, David Jones is apparently the father of the excellent film director Zowie Bowie.

The Speed of the Universe

"People often ask me about the universe..." says the daft-punk speak'n'spell robot voice controlled by supposed genius Professor Stephen Hawkings. Well people would ask him wouldn't they. But then people are stupid. Believe me I've met a few.

Today (and over the next few days/weeks) I'm going to tell you about the universe... (yes, I am aware you never asked). I'm going tell it how it really is and point out where current science has got it wrong.

First up, the speed of the universe.

 
It is currently trendy in cosmological circles to believe that the universe is expanding. Not only that, but expanding at an accelerating rate too.

This is nonsense.

The universe is not accelerating. It is definitely decelerating. Not only that but it's possible it could have come close to stopping expanding all together. You want proof? ... Gravity.

The effect of gravity generally makes matter attract other matter. This is why the universe is and always has been slowing down. If the effect of gravitation didn't exist, the universe still wouldn't be accelerating. It would just keep expanding at the same speed. That's Newton's first law right there; the law of inertia.

So what we have is an expanding universe that is not naturally inclined to speed up, even before we include gravity. Once we add effect of gravity to this universe as well as the resulting effect of friction, we have a universe that is definitely slowing down. As a result of gravity and friction in our universe, matter (particularly solid matter) generally doesn't like to be stretched.

Ahhh, you say, but what about the red spectrum shift that proves that all galaxies are spreading out and that the ones furthest away are getting further away faster?
You're not thinking fourth dimensionally!(as the creator of time travel will famously say). I agree those farthest galaxies are expanding toward the outer universe and they are expanding at a faster rate than the nearer galaxies. But you forget, those galaxies at the edge of the viewable universe are 13.7 billion light-years away. We're looking at that area of space the way it was 13.7 billion years ago. It's has taken that long for their light to reach us.

Now lets look at a relatively close neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda. It's only 2.5 million light-years away. Like all galaxies, it is getting further from us, but not at nearly the same rate as those at the edge of the viewable universe. When we view Andromeda, we're seeing it as it was just 2.5 million years ago.

Let's look at those (very approximate) figures again...

Edge of the observable universe as seen:  13,700,000,000 years ago.
The Andromeda galaxy as seen:                            2,500,000 years ago.

So in conclusion, things were flying about much faster a long long time ago, and things are flying about a lot more slowly more recently. Therefore:

The expansion of the universe is slowing.  Q.E.D.

Ha! In your face, Hawkings!

Also I should add that my claim that the universe has now almost come to a stop is based upon the the above fact, the known age of the universe, and the known effects of gravity.
I postulate that at this very moment, at the actual edge of the universe (that we cannot see), the current speed of those galaxies will not be much faster than the relative speeds of the nearby galaxies in the local vicinity.

Can someone get Professor Brian Cox on the phone, I have some news for him.

Battersea Power-Table

I was on the train in South London* a couple of weeks ago. I looked out of the window and wondered why the above item of furniture doesn't exist. It's a genius idea! And it's all yours. Someone's going to make a fortune with this one. Perhaps I should see if Ikea will produce a flat-pack version.


*Actually correctly pronounced 'Sairf Lahnden' by the locals.

The Future Of Home Entertainment ... (3D Trifle part 3)

This is one of those ideas that doesn't need any scientific explanation, and doesn't rely on non-existent technology or bad science. In short, it's one of my genuinely serious genius ideas.


Think of your favourite movie. How many times have you seen it? Ten?... twenty times? ... more than one hundred times? (seriously, give it a rest). Well you must know that film pretty well by now. Have you ever wondered what would happen if only that character didn't take that action. If only those characters hadn't gone that way or said that line. If they'd taken the blue pill instead, or had hired a bigger boat, ... then what? I'm talking about the alternative universe where the character survives. Where they still have the money, or they realise sooner that the other guy was a figment of his imagination. Or whatever. What I'm proposing, is that film makers should create their cut of the film and also film alternative scenes for if the action had taken a different direction. These wouldn't just be alternative scenes for dvd/blu-ray extras, but entirely new takes on the movie as dictated by the viewer. I'm suggesting releasing the theatrical version at the cinema, then when the blu-ray comes out, have an interactive option halfway through the film, or at the end, or in various places throughout. These options will let the viewer choose a variety of different actions or dialogue choices for certain characters to do, and in some cases they will radically alter the movie's plot. It'd be like those text adventure games or the role-playing books where at certain points you choose what happens next and turn to that page accordingly.

A crew member yells 'Iceberg! Right ahead!'.  What order do you relay to the engine room?

a. Full starboard.  Turn to page 101
b. Full astern.  Turn to page 57
c. All stop.  Turn to page 298

Decisions... decisions...

Obviously in some cases the decisions you make can make the story much less interesting. But it's nice to have the choice. Such interactive movies would only be feasible on blu-ray as a dvd would not be able to hold as much information as required in a film with multiple branches.


Where games and movies meet...

What I'm doing here is blurring the lines between movies and video games. It can still be completely movie like, but with a single choice in the 3rd act - (imagine if Ripley, Hicks, and Bishop decided NOT to rescue Newt at the end of Aliens ... The three of them would get away safely on the Sulaco. The alien queen wouldn't be with them and so Alien³ would never have happened!).
Or it can be much more interactive and more like a video game. I'm not saying shoot alternative scenes for existing movies, - although a retro-redo could be fun (somewhere George Lucas sits up and takes notes) - I'm saying new films could be shot in a way to make their home-market releases a lot more interesting. A plot could go a variety of ways but end at the same destination. Or a single line of dialogue could alter the final scene of a film. The possibilities are endless. Imagine a film shot from a character's point of view. Now if this character has a normal amount of dialogue, but say 5 of his/her lines which are pertinent to the plot are multiple choice lines for the viewer, then what you have there is an interactive POV movie.  ...but it is still a movie. It's not a game.    ....or is it? This is a concept for a movie that puts the viewer in the directors chair. But it doesn't need to be shot from a POV. The lines of dialogue don't need to be plot-oriented. They can just be alternative lines. It's an option that you could simply turn on or off in a menu setting before you watch the film. Having watched the director's cut of the film already you can then choose alternative dialogue/scenes before the film starts. This is the least interactive idea, and one that would be a fantastic extra on a blu-ray. In fact I don't know why no-one has done this already.

The plot thickens...

Now lets look at the flip side of the coin. I've talked about semi-interactive movies, now lets make video games more interactive-movie-like, and see if there is a line that can be drawn between the two.
Imagine a video game where you control the plot, where your actions and choices have a direct effect on the storyline (the Mass Effect series obviously springs to mind). Now if you minimised the actual playable part of the game and fleshed out the cut scenes to the majority of the playing time... then we're getting closer to the interactive POV movie outlined above. If this game was stereoscopic 3D and playing on a virtual reality headset with depth perception abilities (such as this one I've invented), then what we have is a 3D film with interactive game play. Now lets reel the game-play back even further. Lets say you have no control over what your character does... aside from half a dozen lines of dialogue a with multiple choices. You can't choose where you walk or what you do but the film/game is constantly interactive in that you can look around. You can turn your head 180 degrees and can choose at which depth you wish to focus (thanks to the aforementioned genius headset).  The resulting experience would be like a dream where you can't really control what's going on but everything around you is completely real. Imagine being Mr (insert colour here) in Reservoir Dogs. You'd have other character talking directly to you (or even punching/shooting you!) You could effectively watch a film from any character's point of view. Again, I'm not saying remake this film and re-shoot it from all perspectives. It's just an example of what can be done. This version of the game/film crossover can be filmed on real cameras (albeit ones with a 180 degree panorama and a large depth of field).

For the above to become a reality, the 'VR headsets in every home' dream will have to become a reality. It will be a gradual thing, but it will be the video-games market that will make this reality... err, a reality. Then we can have fun with interactive films.  Until then, films can still be 2D on a flat screen with a modicum of interaction.

Like I say, a game (or a movie) does not have to be shot from someone's point of view. It doesn't have to be completely interactive. There's a sliding scale between traditional games and traditional cinema. There is no clear dividing line. You could have a traditional movie experience in 2D, but still have decisions to make. The decisions could have been made before the film starts giving the viewer a totally passive experience again. On the other hand the 'film' could be shot with a completely virtual camera à la Avatar. It could be stereoscopic, photo realistic, 360 degree-spanning, first-person perspective at 48fps with the largest interactive depth of field, surround sound and total control over what you say and do in the virtual environment. How the hell you going to tell this from the real world? 

With the above tools, a director has more choices to make about the end product. Just when you thought that all movie plots had been done before, that every film has been sequeled, prequeled, remade and rebooted... Jon goes and puts a whole plethora of other options on the table. The possibilities for interactive movies are endless, and I predict they'll make the home entertainment industry interesting again in a way that 3D digital cinema could never imagine.

NotAGenius Interactive Stereoscope ... (3D Trifle part 2)

Finally I'm prepared to reveal to the world my genius virtual reality headset concept. It's a new VR headset that will revolutionise gaming and home cinema.... and it's so ingeniously simple, an idiot could've invented it. Ladies and gents, I give you ... the NotAGenius-Interactive-Stereoscope! 

Ok, rubbish title. But it's the idea that counts.

The new Sony* VR headset
(for illustrative purposes only - My concept is nothing like this. Probably)

The problem with existing virtual reality systems is that no matter how good the graphics and smooth the animation, it's still not quite as real as reality. One of the reasons for this is focal points. In the real world when you look at something in the distance, close up objects in your peripheral vision go out of focus. Likewise when you focus on an object close up, your distance vision is out of focus. In the virtual world either everything is in sharp focus (regardless of it's depth), or the programmer/director who created the environment has told the viewer at which level they are to look at, by forcing specific depths in to focus (you can see this in any modern 3D movie). My new interactive VR headset will remove this choice from the game/film creator and puts it back in the hands (or head) of the viewer. For example you will be able to play a first-person VR game where you can focus at any depth. The depths that you are not looking at go out of focus: This makes the users VR experience all the more realistic.

So how does it work?

It's as simple as the vacant expression that currently adorns your face. Inside the headset there are 2 little cameras looking though the screens to see each eye. Each camera can see at exactly which point on the screen the eye is looking at. From this input the system creates instantaneous meta-data that feeds into the output of the headset. The stereo picture that you see is altered instantly and accordingly to put the correct depth of field on to whatever you are viewing at the time. Not only will the system know what you're looking at by the position of an individual eye, but it will also take the position of both eyes giving convergence data that will corroborate the correct focal depth used when viewing a 3D image within the headset. These readings will be taken at least 48 times per second. Obviously everyones eyes are different, so a calibration needs to be done for each user. This only needs to be done once though, as settings can be saved and reloaded every time someone different uses the same headset.

But how can the little cameras see though the screens?

I'm glad you asked. The solution is as simple as simplicity itself, if simplicity had been personified, lobotomised, and christened Boris. The cameras doesn't actually look through the screens but through a two-way mirror. This mirror is at a 45 degree angle and the actual screens (above and perpendicular to the viewers line of vision) are reflected in the mirror. The inclusion of such a mirror in the headset (when shaped correctly) also allows for the appearance of a larger screen further away as opposed to a smaller screen close up. As people find it more difficult to view screens close up, this is another reason that makes the as yet un-patented NotAGenius Interactive Stereoscope headset more comfortable on the eye.

But that's not all!

Oh no sir. For with this new technology it will be possible to create 3D feature films where the viewer can choose what he/she is looking at.


Whatchu talkin' 'bout, genius?

Well I'll tell you. Just like this new technology will make a video gaming experience even more real and interactive, similarly it will make a movie watching experience more real and yes, interactive. Imagine a film where the main action is in the foreground. Perhaps two people are talking in a bar. If there is nothing relevant happening in the back of this shot then the director will only focus on the people talking. With my new system a viewer (having seen the film already and bored with the foreground actors dialogue) can focus on whatever that non-speaking extra is doing in the back of the shot. It'll be like you're there. You can choose what you're looking at. Obviously such films will have to be specially made with a very long depth of field in order for every depth to be viewable.


So what use is it?

A writer/director of such a movie can put hidden 'easter egg' elements in their films. Be it a passing character or vehicle in the background that turns up later in the film or perhaps there is some background action that will only occur to you to focus on from the second time that you see the film. Also if you've got one of those movies by the likes of David Lynch,... you know the ones. The movies that don't really make any sense. Well you can have more 'clues' throughout the film. More depth, more clues, more weirdness for fanboys to discover, that not everyone will get, and then argue about on internet forums for decades to come. It opens up a whole new way of creating cinema. Cinema that's 3D, viewed within a headset, interactive, with hidden elements. Not only that but the interactiveness blurs the lines further between video games and movies. But more on that at a later date.


* Incidentally, if anyone at Sony or any rival company should like to employ my genius brain and make this genius idea a genius reality, please get in touch. I am looking for a more practical outlet to hone my ideas, and there's plenty more ingenuity where this came from.

Above Us, Only Sky... (Improving the Capital - part 2)

Recently I was reminded of a conversation I had a few months back. It was a conversation with a colleague in a public house (where all good conversations take place) in London's Soho. I can't quite remember how we got onto the subject, but I was challenged with resolving the traffic jam problems of the area. Initially my thoughts were to pedestrianize the whole of Soho, thus instantly solving the problem. Why would you need cars in the area.... in the day at least? Delivery vans could have limited access to certain main roads in Soho in the early hours of the morning, and any requiring a taxi during the day can easily walk to the nearest main road that surrounds Soho; You're never more than a 5 minute stroll from either Charring Cross Road, Shaftesbury Avenue, Oxford or Regent Street.

This explanation seemed unacceptable to my fellow-worker, as he insisted that traffic would still require access throughout the day. Fair enough. And with that brief, I mulled the problem over for a couple of seconds and proposed a genius scheme that if put into practice, would drastically alter the centre of London as seen from above. My solution would be a ridiculously expensive one (to the point that it would be cheaper to demolish all the buildings of Soho and build it again with better planning), but a solution that would ultimately work, none-the-less. What is required is that all the roads become pedestrianized, and new overpass roads be built above the main thoroughfares of Soho (Berwick, Wardour, Broadwick, Dean Street, etc.). With regular temporary parking areas and pedestrian access to buildings/streets below. This would enable easy delivery of goods and people alike to the very centre of the West-End, whilst keeping the original roads traffic free (with the exception of bicycles, push-scooters and hoverboards) for the safety of tourists, London trendies, media-types and sex-workers alike.

At this point the sharper amongst you may have spotted a problem with the above proposal (as did my slightly inebriated colleague). It was pointed out to me that with half of Soho's roads having roads above them, much sunlight will be blocked from hitting the streets. The obvious solution to this is a simple yet costly one. On the underside of every flyover, there will be special optical tiles. These tiles comprise of millions of optic fibres, the end of such fibres will run through the concrete to the road above to a corresponding tile. Light will hit the road surface above and be emitted from the optic tiles below. The ones above will not actually be on the road itself (otherwise the light would be diminished every time the shadow of a vehicle goes over it) but in fact on the side and central barriers, and on the top of intermittent posts that will double as lampposts after dark. The result of which is that during daylight hours, the sky will be visible from beneath the road. The road itself will not be totally invisible to look at, but at first glance it will be totally transparent. Also there will be no sight of any vehicles (and in the future when all are electric, no sound or smell of any cars either).

You may think this all sounds implausible, but the technology already exists to make such things 'invisible' by various means. At this point, my co-drinking co-worker seemed extremely happy with the solution that I'd given him; not only was he smiling throughout my description of a possible future, but the moment I said the word 'invisible', he laughed out loud and said 'Invisible roads'. Then he continued to laugh. He couldn't stop. Only to take a breath or repeat the phase 'Invisible roads!' to himself, which would get him started again. I can only summarise that either this man is also a genius and could not contain himself at the thought that no-one had come up with such an ingeniously simple solution to one of our capitals traffic problems, or that I had vastly over-estimated his cognitive abilities; this high-concept glimpse of the future was enough to short-circuit his brain, rendering him a simpleton. I fear the latter to be the case, as I've subsequently witnessed several outbursts of uncontrollable laughter from this man. Occasionally he can be heard to repeat the phrase 'Invisible roads' to himself, before laughing some more. Thankfully his basic motor functions do not appear to be affected and he continues in is occupation with seemingly no problems. But I can't help but feel guilty for the long term damage that I may've caused. A lesson has been learnt however: Ensure those seeking ultimate knowledge are ready for such, for to impart ideas on an untrained mind can have tragic consequences.

Oh, the woes of being a visionary genius.

Gravity Part IV: The Afterthought (It's All Relative)

Gravity! What is it good for?!... Absolutely nothin'! -Say it again!

Gravity! -Oh wait... no. That's 'war' I was thinking of. Yeah. No, thinking about it, gravity's actually quite useful.

So I really didn't want to have to explain this any further, what with having explained gravity away on three different levels:

My Theory on Gravity: Part I

Part II: The Sequel

Part III: The End

And thus far you can take all the above as absolutely true, and non of it contradicts it's self. No.... Not at all. Not really. Each one is a deeper understanding of the basic principle. (Although on the face of it, Part one kind of looks like a load of bollocks, but that's not to say it definitely isn't true, and you can't prove otherwise!)

Well this section (that i imaginatively call 'Part Four' )will give the most basic underlying reason why the gravity effect happens. It is the most basic, and beautifully simplistic cause of the 'force' that we call gravity. And it only occurred to me last week:

Gravity is an effect that happens to objects because all objects in space are falling.

This may seem like a circular argument for you may think that you cannot use the effect of gravity to explain the effect of gravity. But when I say 'falling' I mean travelling in space in whatever way/direction it happens to be travelling. All objects do this. It's the law of inertia; An object will never change it's speed or direction unless it is acted upon by another object/force. So all objects are constantly falling through space... constantly.

You still with me?
Ok, so the reason these objects' trajectories are affected by other objects is all about the law of inertia. Without anything affecting it, a planet will always stay constant. ie. it will  not change direction, and (if it is moving) it will not accelerate or decelerate.

Although to say it won't accelerate or decelerate is wrong... as there is no such thing as absolute space or indeed absolute speed: If one planet goes past another there is no way to say which planet is moving or which planet is static. You can't say at what speed anything is ultimately travelling at.

At this moment, you may be sat still. ...but are you really? What if you where sat on a train, you maybe travelling at 100mph.    ...and the old lady walking up the train towards the buffet carriage might be moving faster (at 102mph?).
Even if you're not on a train, the earth is spinning which means you could be moving at about 1000mph. But this is just the speed you move on a daily basis, the earth spins (relative to the sun). What about the earth's orbit of the sun? You're actual travelling at a rough average of 66500mph. Except that's still only relative. You're often actually going faster than that, as the sun is travelling at immense speed around our galaxy. But then that is still only relative to the centre of our galaxy and the positions of the other galaxies. What about the speed at which all galaxies are travelling away from one another? That speed in itself is relative as we have no other point of reference. It is an assumption that galaxies are move at the same speed and this way we can backtrack and figure out the point in the universe where it all began. ...relative to our universe. I believe we're part of an omni-verse full of universes so far away that they're not nearly old enough for the light from their origin to even reach the outer edges of our universe. These other universes will no doubt be travelling at their own speed relative to our own in whatever direction, and again there's no way to determine how fast (if at all) each universe is travelling...

But I digress...
The idea behind my statement 'all objects in space are falling' is that the object don't deviate from their course. In fact relatively speaking, they don't necessarily have a course... or a speed. If you want to believe that you are the centre of the universe (as I do), then that's fine as there is no such thing as absolute space. Only relative space and relative motion exists. This ties in to the law of inertia. Objects keep their same relative position in space, and they keep their same relative speed that they're relatively moving at. ... relatively.

It's like water will always flow in the path of least resistance. Or to use an analogy that is unrelated to gravity: Light will travel in the path of least resistance, ie. the shortest route to it's destination. It's true that light goes in every direction, but if you were to obscure star a from direct view with a planet in the way, the light from the star can still bend around the planet to reach you. But obviously this only works to a certain point. If photons from a source can reach a destination, then they will have got there via the easiest route possible.
So... we're on a planet falling through the universe at an incredible relative speed to the rest of the universe. Luckily this speed is relatively diminished greatly by 1) being drawn to the large mass that is our sun, and thus making us seem relatively slower on a local level... and 2) our solar system is made relatively slower by moving approximately the same speed as lots of other solar systems that surround us in this spiralling whirlpool-like collection of solar-systems that we call the Milky Way.

This is what Gravity is. In actual fact, the universe isn't going at any great speed. There is just the relative differences from one thing to another. Mass affects and attracts other masses to a certain extent. But more so for masses that are travelling at a similar speed and/or in closer proximity. We don't float away when stood on the earth because of the size and proximity of the planet. It is our 'path of least resistance'. Even if we could float up in the air (and imagine if we were the size of an oxygen molecule for this) we wouldn't get beyond the stratosphere because we have a mass and still need to 'fall' in the path of least resistance. Such a path does not include leaving our atmosphere to go out into space that is relatively moving (it's not actually moving) a hell of a lot faster than we are. It'd be like joining a busy motorway via a T junction when everyone's going at 70mph in the slow lane, and you're driving a milk-float.

In short, a planet revolves around a sun because it does: It's either always been there, or has entered the sun's vicinity, and didn't have enough energy to continue it's original trajectory back into relatively-different-speed space. It would have altered it's course accordingly. Like if there was a fly in your car, and you're driving at 70mph. The fly isn't flying at 70mph. Then you open the window and if the fly leaves it doesn't continue at the same speed as the car. (though it probably goes a bit faster than it would normally fly in that direction for a short time).

To sum up...
You can call gravity a force if you want... but what is any force but an affect of some other phenomena? In this case it is caused by the relative difference between the speed you're travelling at, and the relative speed of your nearest local moon/planet/solar-system/galaxy/universe.*

*delete as appropriate.

Hooked to the Silver Screen ... (3D Trifle part 1)

There were always advantages of viewing a film at the cinema: You can see it in wide screen, in complete surround sound and in 3D (if available). Pretty much like in your living room then? Viewing the same film at home on a top-of-the-line home cinema set-up can rival a theatre experience; you can watch a film on blu-ray on an HD screen, in the correct aspect ratio, in 7.1 surround and also in 3D.

With every advance the cinema has taken, the home cinema has soon caught up. Although I will admit that regardless the size of your television, it still doesn't beat actually going to the cinema. A real cinema experience (particularly one utilising actual film projection) has always been preferential to spending a night in front of your TV.

This is why I'm slightly saddened to report that this will no long be the case. ...in the near future.

Yes, this soothsaying genius has predicted the collapse of film industry funding. Ever rising tickets prices and an increasingly better quality of home cinema will cause more and more cinema to close in the future. The film industry won't die though thanks to blu-ray and film download sales, and the video games market. (more on this later).

The clear advantage of a cinema experience over watching a film in your living room was you can see it in 3D. Well now you can do so at home, but there's still the problem that you have to wear 3D glasses to do so. This will always be the case in the cinema, but at home there are a couple of technologies for 3D television that have not yet been mass marketed to the masses. If I were cynical I would suggest that this is because the folks in the industry don't want the 3D home experience to be better than that of the cinema. Lenticular, glasses-free TVs have already been produced, some to greater success than others. I personally am holding off buying a 3DTV for the day when the 3D technology is perfected enough to warrant the extortionate price I'll inevitably have to pay. ...And that day's not far off. The 3DTV industry has to move as one though; we can't have a variety of different technologies out there... (technically we can, but why waste all that extra bandwidth and conversion technology).

There is one obvious aspect of looking at an object in real life that differs from that of a 3D object on a screen, and that is focal point. I talking about creating movies more interactive (and this is where the crossover into video games territory comes in).

In real life you look round a room and your eyes focus on something. Look at something in the foreground and then something in the background. You can bring both into focus, but you can't focus on both at once. Ever since Orson Welles popularised the effect of deep focus in Citizen Kane, films have looked amazing artistically, but less realistic compared to how we see things in real life. Wouldn't it be marvellous to view a 3D film in which your focal length changes depending on which depth you're looking at? Well I've designed just such a device to do that. It won't change the way we view films in general, but it will make the 3d home cinema experience a lot more immersive and therefore more realistic. The same technology could however completely revolutionise the games industry.

Orson Welles, showing off in sharp focus in the background. (Citizen Kane, 1941)

More details on this genius invention at a later date. For now I need to look into whether anyone else has had the same idea. Surely some other genius will have thought up the same thing independently. But that's only an assumption; therefore I wouldn't want to reveal any details too soon.