A Timely Reform by Ian Ridley

Blog & web site of Ian Ridley

Less than 7 hrs to final Shuttle Flight

July 8th, 2011
Atlantis

Atlantis on launch pad awaiting the last Space Shuttle flight

The weather in Florida means there is only a 30% chance that the final Space Shuttle launch will go ahead at 16:26 GMT today. The launch is usually shown on both BBC News 24 and Sky News but you also watch NASA TV online.

Proof that Selini is Sicily

July 6th, 2011

I did my M.Sc. research dissertation on using NOAA satellite data to map lava flows on Mount Etna in Sicily. So I have seen a lot of satellite images of the island.

Watching a YouTube video of “Londo’s finest moments” from Babylon 5 Season 4 “Into The Fire”, the Centauri island of Selini is shown (as it is blown up by Mollari to rid Centauri Prime of The Shadows).

I thought Selini looked a bit familiar. A screen grab and transpose in the horizontal shows that it is a slightly altered version of this shot of Sicily. A check of the Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5 showed that I am not the first to notice the “strong similarity” of the fictional Selini to the real Sicily.

Celini screen grab

Sicily

Sicily

The swirl of cloud off the north coast and snow-capped Mount Etna are present in both images. The main differences seem to be that Malta has been removed and Messina has been deleted to widen the Straits of Messina between the island and mainland Italy.

It’s good to know my many hours research were not totally wasted…..

…and I wonder what the special effects dept. had against Sicily?

That Pensions Statement

June 17th, 2011

Why has the coalition gone public today with details of public sector pension changes?

The coalition say it is to stop details of their position leaking out and being misrepresented.

Some unions have said this is a desperate attempt to bypass union leaders and appeal directly to public sector workers.

More than likely the truth is a mixture of things. We know that the ATL and NUT chose to undermine the negotiations and balloted for strike action.

The negotiations may now be stalling although they were recently reported as being near to a deal.

I suspect that the talks have gone as far as they can and more unions have indicated they will ballot to strike. So the coalition have pre-empted this with today’s statement.

The most telling move was Labour’s silence on the policy itself. I thought the unions would be demanding more in return for getting Ed Miliband his job.