A fun and fascinating talk by physicist Freeman Dyson from 2003 begins with George Washington at Princeton, and grow-your-own-cat [or dog] biotechnology kits, before moving on to astronomy. Specifically the possibility of life on the Galilean moons of Jupiter, and further afield – such as the newly named plutoid dwarf planet Makemake with its surface of frozen methane – rather than say.. Mars.. Via TEDtv, via the Professor.
Fair play to Iain, he managed to get over 2,200 people voting in his poll for the top Northern Irish blogs this year… We (just, I imagine) retained our top spot, with Splintered coming straight in at number 2, no doubt his pet subject du jour will have garnered him a lot of fans… I’ve [...] read our review »
I’ve been catching up on some reading, recently. Most pleasantly surprised by John Drennan’s latest opus from Gill and Macmillan, Cute Hoors and Pious Protestors… It’s early days yet, but I was struck by this paragraph, part of a dissection of Fianna Fail near the beginning: One of the more fatal consequences of our colonial [...] read our review »
What’s this got to do with Northern Ireland? Well, once those kits are readily available you could create little marching bands. Nanotechnology will provide the instruments. Then a march could be held in an alleyway avoiding all the public disruption.
Now that that is out of the way, I can highly recommend Tedtv. Awesome site for wonderful lectures.
I disagree, Joe.
It has nothing to do with Northern Ireland directly.
And is more interesting because of it. ;op
JC , I agree with PB- Anything not to do with NI has got to be more interesting by definition
. NI is thank christ not the centre of the universe and neither is the Republic 
That said Freeman Dyson is a rare individual .
‘heretics who question the dogmas are needed… I am proud to be a heretic. The world always needs heretics to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies
Freeman Dyson
Amen to that
Thanks PB For the links and JC for the reco on tedtv.com
I was being facetious guys; trying to forestall anyone else asking that question!
This geezer’s name is a thinly disguised anagram of ‘Andy Freemason’. Someone contact Jim Corr.
I know Joe.
Hence the smiley ;o)