Sunday and other stupid statements from this week November 26, 2023
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All contributions welcome.
This column from the Observer.
David McWilliams offers the following gem:
The right has become left, and the left has become the right. Such blurring will continue
Libraries November 26, 2023
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Was in Marino Library for the first time in years recently, and it’s a gem. Hadn’t been in it since, gulp, the late 1970s. Small, 1950s or so in style with what appear to be the original wooden shelves, and a really good selection as well as some great presentations of books. And kudos to their Gothic section – no doubt inspired by a local writer of some repute. I was wondering how does it work with libraries that small. Do staff rotate in and out or would there be more than one person on duty there?
Political prints November 26, 2023
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Well here’s a site, thanks to Jim Monaghan for the link. Political posters.
EIRSAT-1 November 25, 2023
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Irish space news seems to be ramping up. Latest?
Ireland’s first satellite, Educational Irish Research Satellite 1 (EIRSAT-1), is set to launch into space within the next fortnight.
Having left Ireland in the hand luggage compartment of an Aer Lingus flight in October, the satellite is now in Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, ready to piggyback into space attached to Elon Musk’s Space X Falcon 9 rocket at the end of November.
The EIRSAT-1 mission has been driven by a team of students and staff at University College Dublin (UCD) for the past six years.
Pity about the Musk connection, but good to see Ireland involved in this area.
Ireland’s first satellite, a model 2U CubeSat, was developed through a European Space Agency (ESA) “Fly your Satellite!” student programme, and was also supported by a number of Irish Government agencies.
EIRSAT-1 has been built to detect gamma ray bursts, which can be studied to help understand the physics of the early universe, as well as to test a novel control software designed by UCD’s dynamics and control group, and to test the durability of protective coating technology developed by Irish space company Enbio.
Dr Rachel Dunwoody, payload and operations specialist for the mission, who also completed her Masters and PhD on the EIRSAT-1 project, said that it is an amazing educational opportunity.
“We’ve been able to travel to these state-of-the-art ESA facilities and run test campaigns, we convened with ESA experts, it’s just been a really amazing learning opportunity,” she said.
Dr Murphy said that the growing number of Irish companies that are working in the space industry are “hoovering up” their graduates.
The importance of satellites in a range of areas, the centrality of them to human civilisation, cannot be overstated. And important to Ireland to be involved in this. And more to come:
As EIRSAT-1 goes into orbit this month, UCD already has a number of other space projects in the works, including building of a new satellite triple the size of EIRSAT-1 led by Professor Sheila McBreen, and a cross-European collaboration to build a Compton Telescope in a Cubesat led in UCD by Professor Lorraine Hanlon, with Dr Murphy leading a spin-out study on how a swarm of Cubesat satellites would work together.
Meteor over Western Australia November 25, 2023
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If seen out of the corner of your eye, a meteor may appear to give off a flash of white light, similar to the way stars appear. However, meteors can appear in a variety of colors if viewing conditions are clear or if they are captured in a photograph.
“The color of light that the meteors produce depends on their chemical composition,” AccuWeather Meteorologist Dave Samuhel said.
“Different chemicals in the meteors produce different colors as they burn up while entering the Earth’s atmosphere,” Samuhel said.
For example, meteors made from primarily calcium will give off a purple or violet color, while those made out of magnesium will appear to have a green or teal color.
Space rocks smaller than about 25 meters (about 82 feet) will most likely burn up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere and cause little or no damage.
If a rocky meteoroid larger than 25 meters but smaller than one kilometer ( a little more than 1/2 mile) were to hit Earth, it would likely cause local damage to the impact area.
We believe anything larger than one to two kilometers (one kilometer is a little more than one-half mile) could have worldwide effects. At 5.4 kilometers in diameter, the largest known potentially hazardous asteroid is Toutatis.
This Weekend I’ll Mostly Be Listening to… ĠENN, Unum November 25, 2023
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Always risky getting an album based just on reviews and a quick listen to snippets of audio, but I was surprised at English/Maltese based group ĠENN (the Maltese for frenzy) and their album Unum, released not that long back, because I’d gone in thinking it would be one sort of sound and it turned out to be very different, if no less welcome. A four piece group of women, the album came well reviewed and taking a look at the cover I thought it might be electronica inflected, perhaps a bit downtempo, but listening to it I was blown away by the mix of different genres – psych, heavy rock, jazz, post-punk, hints of electronica here and there, Maltese folk perhaps and…er… space rock.
Opener Rohmeresse storms in like something Rip, Rig and Panic would have written if they’d decided to throw Nik Turner sax’s into the mix. Days and Nights has this big riffy bass/guitar. It’s an enormous sound, propulsive percussion – treading close to metal but not too close. A Muse (In Limbo) plays with noise and quiet but when it goes heavy it goes heavy. La Saut du Pigeon has some very Hawkwindesque sounds. Wonder what that’s about. But to bracket them in that particular category is too reductive. Take A Reprise (That Girl). Hawkwind never did anything like that.
There’s singing and spoken word passages – Calypso is a great example of the latter with a genuinely lovely melody and more saxophone. The lyrics are cynical and abrasive and sometimes so is the music. More than worth a listen.
Here’s a track by track run through by some of the members.
Rohmeresse
Muse (In Limbo)
Calypso
A Reprise (That Girl)
Day and Nights
ICTU call for solidarity on Monday November 24, 2023
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[The text of the document wasn’t showing on my phone earlier, so I’ve copied it into the body of the post. — Tomboktu]
24 November 2023
ICTU Media Release
We want to express our solidarity with the children and care worker viciously attacked in Parnell Square yesterday afternoon. Our thoughts are with them and their families at this traumatic time and we sincerely hope they all recover from this awful event. We also express our solidarity with the school concerned and all its staff, pupils and families.
General Secretary Owen Reidy said ‘We condemn in the strongest terms the unacceptable and outrageous thuggery witnessed on the streets of our capital city last night. We pay tribute to our wonderful Garda, Firefighters, ambulance personnel, local authority workers and our transport workers in how they have responded. They are an example of public service. No worker should be in harm’s way when called to work and last night they clearly were.
We condemn the looting and vandalism and are conscious that this behaviour from violent thugs has the potential to damage business and leave some workers in the retail and hospitality sectors in the city centre laid off or possibly losing their livelihoods. This is unacceptable.
We are calling on workers working in the city centre on Monday 27th November at 1 pm to assemble at the GPO to show their solidarity with all the people of the capital and to clearly denounce this violence and riotous behaviour in a solemn and respectful way.
We would encourage and ask the employers in the city centre to facilitate their employees demonstrating this act of solidarity during their lunch break were possible.
The scenes of violence in our capital were displayed right throughout the world and has done significant damage. We condemn the far right and racist-infused mindless and wanton violence and must say that this does not represent us as workers or as a country’.
IPSC defers Saturday’s Dublin march November 24, 2023
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Signs of Hope – A continuing series November 24, 2023
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Gewerkschaftler suggested this a while back and it’s as good an idea now as it was then. Whatever else those of us on the left need some hope, need some tangible achievements to hold on to, something that gives a sense of how things can be made better:
“I suggest this blog should have a regular (weekly) slot where people can post happenings at the personal or political level that gives them hope that we’re perhaps not going to hell in a handbasket as quickly as we thought. Or as the phlegmatic Germans put it “hope dies last”.”
Any contributions this week?
Dublin Communities Against Racism statement November 24, 2023
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The Cedar Lounge Revolution 