Time, not dark energy, may be causing the universe to expand
27 December 2024
Dark energy does not exist, and the universe, while continuing to expand, is not doing so in a uniform fashion. In other words, the cosmos may look more like a potato, rather than a sphere. This according to recent research by astronomers and scientists at the University of Canterbury (UC), based in Christchurch, New Zealand.
As if that’s not startling enough, things become truly mind boggling when we look at the nature of time in a universe that may be devoid of dark energy. Time, you see, is moving at different speeds, depending on the location. Within our galaxy, the Milky Way, a clock ticks more slowly than one that might be situated elsewhere in an empty region of the universe, say the mid-point between our galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy, which is two and a half million light years distant.
The model suggests that a clock in the Milky Way would be about 35 percent slower than the same one at an average position in large cosmic voids, meaning billions more years would have passed in voids. This would in turn allow more expansion of space, making it seem like the expansion is getting faster when such vast empty voids grow to dominate the universe.
Because there is more gravity inside a galaxy than outside, clocks will be slower. This is a concept called gravitational time dilation, which Albert Einstein predicted when he published the theories of special relativity and general relativity, early in the twentieth century. Differences in clock speeds may not be surprising then, but the UC research illustrates just how stark these variations might be.
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Albert Einstein, astronomy, physics, science
Pack plenty of books and take yourself into internal exile in 2025
27 December 2024
The introverts among us live almost permanently in a sort of internal exile, or a rich inner life, as Waleed Aly referred to it during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
But the idea of getting away from it all, without actually going anywhere, is gaining traction more widely, writes Jacqueline Maley, for The Sydney Morning Herald. This as 2025, and the greater uncertainty that many people are anticipating, looms:
In recent months, I have been reading about the concept of “internal exile” or “internal emigration’. The term comes from the Russian, “vnutrennaya emigratsia” and means a sort of travelling into oneself, to take comfort in small pleasures – often solitary pleasures of the mind, like reading, or listening to music, or gardening or making a pleasant home.
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books, current affairs, introversion, psychology, reading, trends
I’ll just be asking for you… Telstra’s 2023 Christmas advert
23 December 2024
Let’s flashback a year. Australian telecommunications company Telstra might have hit the right note with its Christmas theme advertising in 2023, by way of this ninety second commercial. The song excerpted in the ad is Oh Christmas, by Brisbane based duo Zefereli. Listen to the full length version here. It may not happen often, but sometimes the big corporates get it right.
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Australia, Australian music, music
Snow and heatwaves: this is Christmas in Australia
23 December 2024
Weather that is fine and not too warm seems to the Christmas Day weather forecast for most of Australia. But the days either side will be a different matter, writes Tom Saunders for the ABC:
The tumultuous week of variability will commence with a wintry Monday for the south-east, even cold enough for brief snow on the Alps, followed just days later by a blast of hot northerly winds and potential catastrophic fire danger.
Presently, day time high temperatures on this part of the east coast are forecast to be relatively mild. With the exception of Friday when the mercury is predicted to reach thirty-six degrees Celsius. I think we’ll be spending most of that day deep in the shade somewhere.
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Australia, climate, environment, weather
Shoot for the stars: Tim Teege wants to run a marathon on the Moon
20 December 2024
Hamburg, Germany, based web developer and long distance triathlete, Tim Teege is super keen to run a marathon the Moon. So much so, he wants you to ask any space agency worker type acquaintances you may have, to help him achieve his goal. Ask, and you shall receive, and the like.
Not to put a dampener on Teege’s aspirations, I wonder if he’s read Rhett Allain’s Wired article on the subject:
You can’t go out and jog around the Sea of Tranquility—you’d just start bouncing and floating.
But, as they say, where there’s a will, maybe there’s a way. The laws of physics notwithstanding. Yet here, at the quarter way point of the twenty-first century, the act of somehow being able to run on the Moon, should really be Teege’s only significant challenge.
Getting to the Moon — in this post 2001: A Space Odyssey world — should be as easy as boarding what ought to be regular commercial flights to Earth’s satellite.
The journey might cost a pretty penny, but that’s what crowdfunding is for. Instead, however, in what’s almost 2025, about all we have in terms of reaching the Moon, is NASA’s troubled Artemis program, which seems like a re-run of Apollo, yet appears not to be going anywhere fast.
With 2025 essentially only days away now, I shouldn’t be so indifferent. Big shoot for the stars ambitions and goals are what we need right now. Especially for this particular new year.
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2001: A Space Odyssey, physics, science, sport
W3C ethical web principles: web standards for a mature web
19 December 2024
A statement of twelve guiding principles for an ethical web, recently published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
The web is a fundamental part of our lives, shaping how we work, connect, and learn. We understand that with this profound impact comes the responsibility to ensure that the web serves as a platform that benefits people and delivers positive social outcomes. As we continue to advance the web platform, we must therefore consider the consequences of our work.
Comparable, to a degree, to the IndieWeb community’s core tenets. To me, the W3C’s ethical web principles seem like web standards for a more mature, established web, of the third decade of the twenty-first century. One objective of web standards was to build a web (specifically websites), that everyone could view and use uniformly, regardless of their browser, or platform (operating system). We have the technical side of the web down pat, hopefully, now it’s time to focus on ethics.
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The Tintin stories enter the public domain in 2025
18 December 2024
As a kid I loved the Tintin books. Although they might today be called a product of their time, I aspired to be like the intrepid boy-reporter, who seemed to do very little reporting. I have the red hair, and I write a blog so… Plus, I did write a few articles for a newspaper once. Sometimes people refer to me as a journalist (not always for flattering reasons however…).
So maybe I kind of, sort of, ended up like Tintin.
Anyway, the Tintin stories are among a batch of well-known cultural artefacts (could I refer to the Tintin comic books that way?) entering the public domain in 2025. The final, completed, story in the series, Tintin and the Picaros, was published in 1976, and creator Hergé died in 1983, meaning only some earlier Tintin works will enter the public realm for now.
But it makes me wonder. If the boy-reporter were still with us, would he still be writing for a newspaper? Or might he have capitalised on his considerable profile, and launched his own online publication. A super-famous blog. Such are the things I stay up late at night thinking about.
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books, comic books, graphic novels, history, Tintin
Coffee prices push toward fifty-year high
17 December 2024
The last few years have been bad for both producers and consumers of coffee. Extremes of weather in growing regions has resulted in diminishing coffee bean harvests, which has in turn pushed up prices. This is a topic I’ve been covering for a while here now, but it seems coffee is only going to get more expensive going forward:
On Wednesday, the price for Arabica coffee, the world’s most popular variety, hit its highest level in nearly 50 years, with a pound of beans (453.6 grams) listed in New York for US$3.20 ($5.02). The all-time high was US$3.38 ($5.30) for a pound of Arabica beans in 1977 due to snow destroying swathes of Brazil’s plantations.
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coffee, current affairs, economics, trends
Avid book readers have a different brain structure from other people
16 December 2024
In the same way the brain structures of introverts and extraverts differ, the same can be said for voracious readers of book as opposed to those who struggle finish books. This according to Mikael Roll, professor of phonetics, at Sweden’s Lund University.
The structure of two regions in the left hemisphere, which are crucial for language, were different in people who were good at reading.
It seems to me there is no stock-standard issue brain, they’re as varied as we are.
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Mocha Mousse 17-1230 selected as the PANTONE colour of year 2025
13 December 2024
We’re twelve days out from the big one, and high in the silly season, as the brevity of recent posts here may allude to. Otherwise, the major highlight has to be the annual announcement of the PANTONE colour of the year. As I wrote two years ago, this was a big deal during my web design days. Well, a somewhat big deal, as we were always on the lookout for new colour inspiration.
Anyway, the PANTONE colour for 2025 is Mocha Mousse 17-1230. Mocha Mousse. I can’t decide if that’s a dessert, or a hair product. Whatever, I’m liking it. Here’s how PANTONE describe the hue:
Simple and Comforting: A Soft, Warming Brown. With its sophisticated, earthy elegance, PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse can stand alone or serve as a versatile foundation, enhancing a wide range of palettes and applications—from minimalist to richly detailed designs—across all color-focused industries.
To whip up some designs featuring Mocha Mousse in your favourite graphics editor, here are some common colour generating codes. The HEX code is #9e7a68. If Red, Green, and Blue is your thing, use these values: R = 158, G = 122 B = 104. On the CMYK colour model, go C = 31%, M = 47%. Y = 49%, K = 18%. For the HSB colour system, go H = 20°, S = 34%, B = 62%.
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