Robin's Blog

Archive for the ‘Short Interesting Things’ Category

The Feynman approach to small monetary compensation

I just shared this approach with some friends, and thought I’d blog it here too. When I get a relatively small amount of monetary compensation for something, I take the ‘Feynman Approach’ to it and buy something fun with the money, giving me a sense of satisfaction from the compensation (which, presumably, was to compensate […]

Blue Marble: From Apollo 17 to DSCOVR, an EPIC journey

NASA image ID AS17-148-22727 is famous. Although you may not recognise the number, you will almost certainly recognise the image: This was taken by NASA Apollo astronauts on the 7th December 1972, while the Apollo 17 mission was on its way to the moon. It has become one of the most famous photographs ever taken, and has […]

Small Notes from a French Country

My fiancee is studying in Lille, France at the moment, and I spent last week with her in Lille, including a two-day trip to Paris. During my time I noticed a number of interesting (or at least semi-interesting) things about life in France: Pedestrian crossings are scary! When the green man is shown it does not […]

Rats got unfairly blamed for bubonic plague

It’s amazing what gets covered in lectures when you’re studying geography… Today in my GEOG2006: Quaternary Environmental Change we were learning about extinctions during the Holocene (last 10,000 years ish). In a slight aside from the topic, while talking about the Black Rat (rattus rattus) and the Brown Rat (rattus something elseus) our lecturer (Tony […]

Wisdom and Knowledge

As part of my geography degree I am reading the book Computer Processing of Remotely-Sensed Images (very interesting, but quite mathematical in places). Anyway, in the front of this book there are two quotes. Not unusual you might think – but I find the quotes that have been used quite amusing. “I hope that posterity […]