Out Of Control

Conditions: Cold.

No Limits

A long, long time ago I posited on the speed of light, and whether it was an absolute limit or not. And I was laughed at, for being so naive. But if there is one thing I have learned, is that those who absolutely know something, are doomed to constant consternation. So when scientists at CERN announced that experiments they had been conducting show that Neutrinos were traveling faster than light, despite months of checking and double checking the results, I must say I felt a little bit better about the world.

The result could turn out to be an embarrassing miscalculation by scientists—or portend a leap into a science fiction territory where particles theoretically travel backward in time. While a confirmation of the finding wouldn't mean anything has changed about the universe, scientists' understanding of how it works would be thrown into disarray.

"It would be the biggest physics discovery in a century because we'd have to completely revise everything from subatomic physics to what we know about how the universe evolved," said Neil Turok, director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada.

Like many physicists mulling the development, Dr. Turok was skeptical. He said neutrinos reaching the Earth from a supernova explosion have been observed to be traveling at the speed of light, which doesn't agree with the latest finding. Other scientists questioned the setup of the experiment and whether statistical errors might have affected the conclusion.

- online.wsj.com/

Well of course now the wider scientific community has to have a go at interpreting the results, and who knows someone might simply have calibrated the wotsit the wrong way. But, I hope not. I hope the impossible is actually possible, and I hope the laws carved into stone by our forefathers are capable of cracking.




Film Review: Senna.

Considering it's subject, I figured a documentary about Ayrton Senna would not get much interest, so imagine my pleasant surprise at finding a completely packed cinema ready for a heady 2 hour exploration of the life and times of the great Brazilian Formula One racing driver. The Senna Prost wars was essentially what got me hooked on the sport when I was but a lad, and this doco encompasses that as it tells Ayrton's story as he joins F1 in the mid eighties, up to his dramatic death in the mid nineties. Now, F1 fanatic that I am, I already know Ayrton's story so it's perhaps a bit unfair to review how filmmaker Asif Kapadia has tried to tell the tale. But I figure most of the audience should have some idea too, so game on. Asif has constructed a very incisive, raw, and brilliantly human portrayal of Ayrton, touching upon the important points of his life and career, and using the footage available to best effect to really tell this tragedy, for it is a tragedy that Ayrton died so young, so violently, and so publicly.

That being said, I did have a couple of problems with the film. First and foremost is the lack of a narrator. It was a brave, and no doubt complicated, choice to use the various sound bytes of people to "narrate" the documentary, and it does work reasonably well. But I feel it simply doesn't explain enough, nor really inform and prepare the audience for the ups and downs of the decade of F1 racing we wade through. We really needed someone to help construct what was going on and better keep a good consistent tone. In a similar vein, I felt some important points were either briefly mentioned, or missed completely. A better appreciation of the time line, and a better summary of the races not only making up the championships, but also defining the battles and skirmishes between Senna and his competitors, would have helped immensely.

That being said, some of the background stuff shown was brilliant in how it really showed Senna's spirit, both good side and bad, and showed how the sport was and is ultimately made up of and run by human beings, with all their flaws and differences acting as spice to the meal. Of course one of the most flawed characters was Senna himself, and yet despite how cutting this film is about Senna's competitors, it never really offers up even a mild criticism of it's subject. Knowing as I do the Real Story of what happened back then, I think that's pretty unfair to essentially twist things to the detriment of the likes of Prost, Balestre, and even Michael Schumacher, who don't really get a chance for rebuttal. I understand documentaries can become very very political in order to get made at all, but frankly at the end I almost felt compelled to inform the audience on what was left out, as well as praise what was put in. Still, an incisive and emotional telling of what is ultimately a tragic tale of triumph. Four Wheels out of Five.


- Peace out

The Cold Skies of Indifference

Conditions: Cold, Crappy.

More Death From Above

Somebody put Bruce Willis on standby, because Nasa is warning that vast population centers across Europe and America are under threat from falling objects from space. However, this time the objects are actually man made

The $750 million (£468 million) Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) satellite, launched 20 years ago to study climate change, is set to breach the atmosphere within weeks.

In a new alert issued this week, officials warned pieces could land in densely populated areas on six continents including parts of Britain, Europe, North and South America and Asia.

Nasa claimed the risk to public safety from the “dead” satellite – which is orbiting just over 155 miles above the earth with an inclination of 57 degrees – was “extremely small”.

- telegraph.co.uk/science/

Since the satellite ran out of fuel in 2005, there's no way to alter the trajectory of the thing without firing a missile at it, which likely would only make the problem worse. Don't you love the cascading catastrophic event?



Film Review: Cowboys And Aliens

Another comic book movie, believe it or not, Cowboys and Aliens delivers exactly and only what is in the title. What starts out as a western about Daniel Craig waking up in the desert with amnesia and a thing on his wrist, and Harrison Ford as a big rancher figuring out where all his cattle have gone, turns into an alien invasion film when aliens start attacking a town in little attack craft that snatch people away. Naturally the town forms a posse and ride out in search of their kin. An uneasy alliance springs up between Craig and Ford, and with the help of Craig's wrist-gun-thing, and another shape shifting alien who wants to help, the posse form a plan to take out the alien ship and therefore stop these scouts from reporting back to their mother ship that Earth is open for business.

Jon Favreau has kind of a hit and miss approach to his films, and here he's delivered up another miss. See, films need more than a cool premise to actually work. Like Alien vs Predator, which already proved that just having Aliens in an action film isn't enough to make things interesting. It's always the characters that make a film work, but with Craig essentially doing a Cowboy Bond, all gun and no talk, and Harrison in full blown "Grump" mode, angry at each and every single thing that happens to the point where no one really talks to him, I can't really see the point in caring about any of this. And it's a shame because Harrison's character, a bitter general in the last war who hates conflict and all the waste of it, who is a cruel man, but mostly out of a deeply-hid kindness, actually seems pretty interesting. And, it's Harrison Ford for Indy's sake, just having him in a film is enough to make it watchable, the guy can do charisma in his sleep. But it's all too little, too late. We pull together a band of ruffians and a tribe of Indians, and attack the Alien ship.

Cue drawn out action sequence of men on horseback getting blown up by alien beam weapons, while Cowboy Bond and the woman sneak onto the ship, busy sucking gold out of the earth. It's difficult to really care when you have no idea what is going on. While the Aliens are impressive CG beasts, and the gun play is amusing, ultimately the film is a bit empty. Although it's perhaps foolish to look for some depth in a comic book movie called Cowboys and Aliens, we should expect at least some ideas, or at least some drama, in our spectacle. Is that too much to ask? Two wry grins out of Five.



- Peace out