Curiosity and the exploration of Mars

As you've probably heard by now, the Curiosity rover landed on Mars yesterday morning (or the night of the day before yesterday, if you live in the Americas). This is the next big step in the exploration of Mars that has been going on for millennia. “Millennia?” You may ask. Yes, millennia, because the exploration of Mars didn't simply start with the first spacecraft sent there, but much before that. With its discovery, to be precise.

It's unknown who first discovered Mars, but what is known is that he or she lived thousands of years ago. The ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and Chinese all knew of the existence of Mars and the other four planets that can be seen with the naked eye a thousand years before Rome was founded. You see, as they observed the stars, they realised all stars moved a little each night, rising and setting four minutes earlier than the night before. But always by that amount; it was as if the sky was a giant sphere with light on it that rotated around the Earth very slowly. But seven things in the sky didn't obey the rules: there were the Sun and the Moon, but aside from them there were five bright stars that moved a little among the stars each night. The Romans called them Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, after several important gods.

It was thought that these five, the Sun, and the Moon, all moved in circles around the Earth below the stars. The Earth was in the centre of the universe, then you had the Moon, then Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond Saturn were the stars. There were some oddities that were difficult to explain like this, however. Mercury and Venus always stayed close to the Sun, for example, never reaching the opposite side of the sky. Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn did reach the opposite side of the sky, where they would be said to be in opposition, but once there they did a very strange loop in the sky over the course of a few weeks.

Mars was the most troublesome of the planets for this geocentric model: not only was the loop it made at opposition biggest of all three planets that did one, but it did many other things that perplexed ancient astronomers: it would stray off the path the other planets followed across the sky a little, and it would vary in brightness. One year, it would be brighter than anything in the sky except for the Sun, the Moon, and Venus. The next, it wouldn't be all that impressive, and all the other planets would get brighter, as would a couple of stars. It would also vary in brightness a lot during a year: all planets were brighter at opposition than when they were close to the Sun, but Mars showed much bigger variation than any of the others.

The big loop at opposition and the difference in brightness over the year were explained in 1543 when Nicolaus Copernicus published a book in which he claimed the Earth wasn't at the centre of the universe, but the Sun. The Earth was the third planet moving in a circle around it, and Mars the fourth. This would bring them very close together at opposition, much closer than Earth and Jupiter, for example, so by comparison they would be much further away from each other when Mars was on the other side of the Sun. The loops Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn made in the sky were a perspective effect caused by Earth passing those planets, and Mars made the biggest because it was closest.

However, Mars' deviation from the path of the other planets and its differing brightness across the years wasn't explained until 1615, when Johannes Kepler realised the planets didn't move in circles around the Sun, but in ellipses. Sometimes they got closer to the Sun, and sometimes further away. Most planets have an orbit very similar to a circle, but Mars' orbit is more elliptic than all others (except Mercury), getting about ten percent closer to the Sun at its nearest (which is called perihelion) than at its farthest (which is called aphelion). The difference in brightness was because in some years, Mars reached opposition while at its closest the Sun (and therefore the Earth), while in others it was at its furthest from the Sun.

During the 17th century, as telescopes were being pointed at the sky for the first time, Mars was found to look bigger at times when it was brighter and smaller when it was dimmer. This made perfect sense, of course, since the planet was sometimes closer to the Earth than at other times. The first details on Mars were being seen in this century and the next as well: white polar caps and dark spots on its reddish surface. It was found to rotate in 24 hours and 39 minutes, just a bit slower than Earth, and it had an atmosphere. Mars seemed a world that was a lot like Earth: the dark spots could be oceans, or perhaps forests.

In the 19th century, this view was confirmed even more as Giovanni Schiaparelli saw long, straight lines on Mars. Some thought these were canals built by the Martians to irrigate the dry areas of the planet. At the time, canals were a huge new product of technology, the Suez canal having just been completed while work had begun on the Panama canal, so canals were a big part of public consciousness. There were even ideas to help the Martians see us as we saw them, by bigging trenches thousands of kilometres long in the Sahara, filling them with oil, and lighting them on fire! A Mars-craze erupted, as it was considered very likely there was life on Mars by now. H. G. Wells wrote a great book, The War of the Worlds, about a Martian invasion of Earth, which was among the first science-fiction books.

However, around 1900 telescopes became better, and it was getting clear the dark spots on Mars were no seas, as they showed mountains and canyons in them. The canals turned out to be an optical illusion caused by smaller spots and craters lying roughly in lines. The concept of Martians remained a big part of culture and speculation for much of the 20th century, but for a few decades Venus was considered a more likely planet to harbour life by science. When the first interplanetary probes were launched in the 1960s, they were therefore going to Venus, but when they discovered that planet to be far more hellish than expected, Mars once again gained the spotlight. It was highly unlikely by now that little green men lived there, but there could be plant life or microbes on the red planet.

The Russians were the first to send probes to Mars. The first six, from 1960 to 1964, all failed; four of them before even reaching Earth orbit, and the other two while on their way to Mars. The Americans built two probes to Mars; Mariner 3 and 4, but Mariner 3 failed as well. It was almost getting suspicious, seven probes all failing before they got to Mars. Maybe the Martians existed after all and were protecting their secrets? Fortunately Mariner 4 launched perfectly, three weeks after Mariner 3's failure. It became the first successful probe to fly by Mars, and for the first time showed photographs taken of another planet from close by, showing a rough landscape full of craters and mountains. It also showed Mars to be harsher than expected: the atmosphere was very thin, providing only 1/150th of Earth's pressure. This also means the planet's heat easily escapes into space at night, bringing temperatures down below a hundred degrees below zero, though it also warms back up quickly when in daylight, sometimes reaching temperatures similar to a summer's day on Earth: 27 degrees. For the most part, its daytime temperatures stay quite a bit under freezing, though.

It made multicellular Martian life unlikely, as very few Earth organisms could survive long in conditions like that. But a subsequent set of probes launched in 1969, and managed to get into orbit of Mars, observing it for a while. They found structures that looked like dried-up riverbeds, and discovered the tallest mountain in the entire Solar System on Mars. It's called Olympus Mons, and is nearly 22 km high. With the discovery that water may have once flowed on Mars, it was clear the only way to find out more about the planet was to land on it.

In 1975, this was finally accomplished by the Viking 1 and Viking 2 landers, which each landed on the surface after making orbital photographs for a while. They each carried three experiments intended to detect microbial life if it existed on Mars. Two of them turned out negative, but a third was positive. The most common explanation of this is that life wasn't detected, but the third experiment set off by other factors, however, this is far from certain. For the most part, the Viking experiments proved inconclusive. Yet attention turned away from Mars, and this coupled with big budget cuts to both the American and Russian space programs meant Mars was mostly ignored for twenty years.

By the 1990s, it became possible not just to land on Mars, but to ride around there, so experiments could be done on many more places than just the single location the Vikings had been able to. The first such rover, Sojourner, was a small, cheap thing with few instruments on board, mainly intended to prove the rover concept was doable. In the next few years, three probes were sent to Mars: the American Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, and the first European mission to Mars, called Mars Express. These three probes researched and photographed Mars in greater detail than ever before, and found many traces of water on Mars: dried-up riverbeds and lakes, gullies, and even signs of ancient rainfall. Global Surveyor failed in 2006, but the other two are still in orbit and returning data every day.

Along with Mars Express, the European Space Agency had tried to put a rover named Beagle 2 on Mars, intended to find signs of life, but contact was lost with the rover during landing, and it has presumably crashed or otherwise failed. The Beagle 2 was intended to land in a rather strange way: by surrounding it with inflated balloons and simply letting it bounce on Mars' surface until it would finally stop, at which point the ballons would be deflated and the rover released. The next year, however, NASA landed two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, on Mars using the same method. These two mainly researched the geological history of Mars, including the period, long ago, in which there was liquid water there. Opportunity has done so for eight years by now, but Spirit became stuck in soft soil in 2009 and was eventually terminated the next year after many unsuccessful attempts to get it loose.

And now, finally, we get to Curiosity. Like always happens in science, the answers Spirit and Opportunity provided led to even more questions. And so the largest and most advanced rover yet was launched. Curiosity was lowered from a floating platform by a crane yesterday (no, I'm not making this up, that's really how it was landed. The balloon method was simply too dangerous to use with the car-sized Curiosity), and returned its first pictures not much later. It's intended to work for at least two Earth years (one Martian year), but will most likely continue to work for several years afterwards. One of the things it's going to start looking for is the building blocks of life. Its data will also serve to prepare a future manned Mars landing. Curiosity landed in the Gale crater, where there is a mountain called Aeolis Mons, which it'll be slowly climbing over the course of its mission, while examining many of the things it will come across.

What happens next? Well, it partially depends on Curiosity's findings. It is likely Curiosity will be followed up with an even more advanced rover around 2020, which might finally settle the question of life on Mars. And by the 2030s, a manned mission will land on Mars, most likely after earlier manned missions to an asteroid and to Mars' moon Phobos. Several countries have plans for Mars missions: America and Russia, of course, but Europe, Japan, China and India as well. The most likely way for a manned mission to Mars to happen, however, is as an international mission. The International Space Station has proved big, expensive space missions are best performed through international cooperation, sharing both the expenses and the knowledge and expertise required. A manned mission to Mars will likely require such international cooperation to succeed. Once on Mars, there is the possibility they would stay for several months and conduct research rovers can't do; but there is also a different idea floating around: it could be a one-way trip. The astronauts could be sent with everything required to set up the first Mars base and stay on Mars, greatly reducing both the cost and difficulty of the mission, while immediately beginning the colonisation of Mars.

Well, that turned out a little longer than expected. I hope you enjoyed reading it, though, or otherwise stopped reading it when you realised you didn't enjoy it.

How much matter does the universe contain?

A single look at the night sky will reveal there's far more nothing than something out there. The tiny specks of light are stars, made of something, and the vast oceans of blackness surrounding them are nothing. The universe contains gigantic amounts of void, but how much, I wonder. To visualise this, I decided to picture all the matter in the universe clumped together. Not super-tightly, like in a neutron star, but still put together closely so that the density is 1 kilogram per litre: the density of water. The main reason I chose this density is, of course, that it makes it very easy to calculate. So if we pack all matter in the universe together like this, is the result larger or smaller than a single galaxy?


Before I answer this question, I should point out I will give large numbers first in the scientific notation, then give their name according to the long scale. I'm using the long scale because it's more sensible and because it's the scale I grew up with using. But for people who are more keen on the short scale (the one generally used in English-speaking countries) I will put the short scale name of large numbers in parentheses. A second thing I should point out is that I'll be using all the matter in the observable universe, not the entire universe.

First of all, we have to find out the total mass of matter in the universe. Wikipedia gives several estimates of the mass of the universe. I will be using the calculated mass based on the critical density, 1.53×10⁵³ kg, as it seems to be the best corresponding to our observations of the universe. Basing the mass of the universe on stars alone is silly due to the presence of dark matter, and assuming a steady state-universe requires the pretty big assumption that our universe is a steady-state universe.

So, since we assumed the density of water for our clump of all matter, that means it's 1.53×10⁵³ litres in volume. 153 octilliard (153 septendecillion) litres is unimaginably huge, so we'll have to use bigger units to make this more imaginable. Let's start with converting to cubic metres. Thanks to space being three-dimensional, a cubic metre contains not ten, but a thousand litres. So that means this clump of matter is  1.53×10⁵⁰, 153 octillion (153 sexdecillion) cubic metres in volume.

We can get closer to imaginable numbers by converting to cubic kilometres. Similarly to how a cubic metre contains a thousand litres, a cubic kilometre contains a milliard (billion) cubic metres. That means our clump of all matter is 1.53×10⁴¹, 153 sextilliard (153 duodecillion) cubic kilometres.

To get closer to home, we'll convert to cubic megametres. The megametre is a pretty rarely used unit, but it's equal to a thousand kilometres. The clump of matter has a volume of 1.53×10³², 153 quintillion (153 nonillion) cubic megametres.

To take another step, I'll now convert to cubic gigametres. A gigametre is a million kilometres, a bit more than a journey to the moon and back. We divide by a milliard (billion) and get 1.53×10²³,153 trilliard (153 sextillion) cubic gigametres.

We're still not using imaginable numbers, so we convert to cubic terametres. A terametre is a milliard (billion) kilometres, 1.5 times the distance from here to Jupiter. The clump of matter is 1.53×10¹⁴,153 billion (153 trillion) terametres. Hey, that's approaching numbers we use (on occasion) in our daily lives.

But let's take another step and convert to petametres, one billion (trillion) kilometres. I would like to give an example of how big this is, but there are few meaningful distances close to a petametre. It's 220 times the distance from here to Neptune, or a fiftieth of the distance from here to the nearest star (aside from the Sun). All the matter in the universe taken together is, if my calculations are right, 1.53×10⁵, 153000 cubic petametres.

While a hundred-and-fifty-thousand is quite a low number, we can use cubic lightyears instead. A lightyear is approximately ten petametres. Actually, it's 9,5 petametres, but considering how rough our estimate of the universe's mass was I think we can get away with rounding it to ten, thus putting a thousand cubic petametres in a cubic lightyear. One final calculation, and we get 153 cubic lightyears. A cuboid of five by five by a little over six lightyears. That's all the matter in the universe. Not only would it fit inside a single galaxy, if its centre was at the Sun's position it wouldn't even reach the nearest star. That's all the matter in the universe, everything else is void.

But where is all this void exactly? You might think the gigantic gaps between galaxies are where it is, but these are actually relatively small. The Milky Way is a hundred thousand lightyears across, though only ten thousand lightyeard thick, and the nearest big galaxy is at two million lightyears, only twenty times the Milky Way's own diameter. If we count dwarf galaxies the nearest other galaxy is much closer even. If you imagined the big galaxies as coins, they would be less than a metre apart.

The real distances that are responsible for all this void are the distances between stars. When I tried to give an example of the size of a petametre and failed we already saw there is a huge gap between distances within a solar system and distances between stars. Our Sun is 1.4 million kilometres across, but the nearest other star is more than four lightyears away. If we imagine the Sun as a grape in the centre of Amsterdam, the nearest starsystem consists of two grapes and a grain of pepper located near Brussels. And that's a good comparison for interstellar distances: a piece of fruit in every European capital. Those distances are mainly responsible for the huge amounts of void in the universe.

Time travel guidelines

If you have recently acquired a time machine, then please, read through these guidelines carefully before using it.

The Timeline

If you're going to travel through time, the first thing you should try to find out is the shape of the timeline. This is very important to know as a time traveler, as it will affect how causality works and what happens if you try to change the past.There are three possibilities, the Linear timeline,the Changeable timeline, and the Branching timeline, which I will each explain and what the results of attempting to make a grandfather paradox (killing your grandfather before your father was born, thus preventing you from ever being born to kill him) would be.

In a Linear timeline, past, present, and future are all one line, and when you go back in the past, you will have already gone back there, and since whatever you will do in the past will have already happened, you can never change it. If you attempted to kill your own grandfather in a linear time, you would fail, as you have evidently been born, so your grandfather apparently survived your assassination attempt. Or the man you thought was your grandfather was not actually your real grandfather. Either way, whatever happens was part of the timeline all along, and therefore you can't create a paradox.

In a Changeable timeline, you can actually change the past by going back in time. As a result, whatever you do in the past will have an effect on your present self. This is the only timeline where you can actually cause the grandfather paradox, as killing your grandfather would actually have an effect on you. While this timeline may seem the most intuitive, the fact that paradoxes could be created here seems to indicate it is also the least likely.

In a Branching timeline, the universe splits into two universes whenever someting happens, and one of the possible outcomes becomes a reality in each of the universes. Thus, when you go back in time you will arrive in a new branch of the timeline. If you tried the grandfather paradox here, your grandfather would die in the new timeline, but you would be fine since the grandfather from your own timeline was alive and well. Paradoxes would be impossible in this one too.

If you built a time machine, presumably you discovered the shape of the timeline during this. If you didn't, try this: leave your house for about an hour. When you come back, look into an empty drawer and make sure it is actually empty. Then, go 30 minutes in the past and put a sock in the drawer. Go back to the future (about an hour would suffice so you don't run into yourself), and check the drawer. If the sock isn't there, you're probably in a Linear timeline. You just have to worry about the fact that apperantly someone broke into your house and took the sock while you were away. If the sock is there, you are probably in a Changeable or Branching timeline. Repeat this experiment a few times to be sure. If you keep finding you actually made small changes to the past, you're now certain you are not in a Linear timeline. Finding out whether you are in a Changeable or Branching timeline will be a bit trickier, but there is a way that you can use for it.

Go back in time 3000 years. Depart to the present immediately, to make sure you don't actually change anything. If you're in a Changeable timeline, your effect on the timeline should be negligible, and history will have played out just as you remembered it. However, if you're in a Branching timeline, your arrival in 989 BCE will have created a new alternate timeline where you have arrived in. At every small little happening in history, even the smallest, this universe split again, and you end up in the year 2011 CE in a random one of these universes. Thus, when you get out of your time machine in your new timeline's present, history will probably have happened vastly differently. By the way, this is probably a good moment to mention the fact that it will be impossible to return to our original timeline, though with many careful time trips you may manage to end up in a very similar one.

So now that you know the shape of the timeline, this tells you how careful you'll want to be in the past. If you're in a Linear timeline, you don't have to worry about changing the future, and only have to watch out for your own neck. If you're in a Changeable timeline, be very careful, as a single mistake can vastly change the whole world history, and you may find your own present gone if you are not very careful. Thanks to the butterfly effect, even a really small change could culminate into massive differences over a long period of time. If you are in a Branching timeline, changing the past means going back to a present similar to your own present will be difficult, but by traveling back even farther you can return to a present similar to the one you knew. 

Some things to watch out for

When you arrive, if your time machine does not have some way to tell you the date, try to find out the year. Don't go asking random strangers what year it is, though, as that question is considered weird. If newspapers are printed in this time, just look at the date on them. Or go into a store and ask to buy a calendar. If you're in the past, some careful references to historical events in casual conversation can help you pinpoint the date (And if an event turns out not to have happened yet and you're asked about it, just say it was just something minor in your home country).

Try to blend in as well as possible. When you're time traveling, try to wear something that will look not completely bizarre in most eras. When you arrive, try to switch it for era appropriate clothing as soon as possible. Looking at how most people around you dress can provide you with a good guideline.

Don't tell people you're a time traveler. If you're lucky, they'll think your nuts and ignore you. If you're only slightly lucky, they'll think you're nuts and lock you up. If you're unlucky, they'll believe you, kill you, and steal your time machine.

Don't act smug about your era when you're in another era. First of all, talking about your era strongly borders on telling them you're a time traveler. Also remember that you're a guest in their era. Acting condescendingly about their era is considered rude. If you're in the past, remember that change is gradual, and that to reach the situation of the world in your home era, it had to pass through other eras, and that your own home era may be viewed just as condescendingly in the future. If you're in the future, remember that they went through the present and went on from that. Presumably they have good reasons for changes made since your own home era.

Whether you're in the past, alternate present, or future, always wash your hands with ethanol or another bacteria killing substance. A squirtbottle of ethanol can be found in most labs and classrooms, and they presumably buy them from somewhere, so find out where and buy some to take on your journey. The past had many potent diseases that your lazy 21st century immune system will not be prepared for. In the future new diseases will have evolved that you will not have had yet, so you can easily be infected by them. There's also the danger of spreading your own germs around and causing diseases.

Interactions with Yourself

When you travel through time, meeting yourself should generally be avoided, especially in a Changeable timeline (Who knows how the timeline will change when your past self meets your present self). If you're in a Linear timeline and you can't remember ever having met yourself, then don't try it as you will not succeed and may in fact be run over or something before you reach your past self. Even in a Branching timeline it should be avoided, as meeting yourself is a great way to get into trouble. Meeting your future self can be considered somewhat safer, as both parties will be aware of the situation (you're in it and your future self remembers it unless your in a Branching timeline), and your future self will probably remember the encounter and thus be able to prepare for it, but I still discourage it.

To avoid meeting yourself, try keeping a log of where you were at any given time. This can also come in handy for many other reasons. Just make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands (Wouldn't want to make it too easy for Terminators targetting you).

If you HAVE to interact with yourself and can't hide your identity, there are some basic rules:

1: NEVER kill yourself. This one should go without saying, but aparrently it doesn't. Killing yourself is never a good idea, especially not in a Changeable timeline, where you will in fact cause a paradox. 

2: Avoid confusion between you. If you have a middle name, now is finally the time to use it. One of you (If it's the home era of either of you, that should be the guest) uses his/her middle name as a first name. Alternatively, you can try nicknames, numbers, or letters. If your in the home era of either of you, that person always gets first pick. If you both traveled to a year that's not your home era, just work it out like adults.

3: Talking about avoiding confusion: have some sort of password to your own mind, which you can use to prove you are really the same person. Never tell this password to anyone, and never write it down, and if someone knows your password, assume they are either yourself or someone deeply trusted by yourself. This one will be more effective if you think of that password even before you even consider time traveling. Seriously, choose a mind password right now. Your future self may thank you for it.

4: If you're in a Changeable timeline, watch out for paradoxes. During interaction with yourself, these are very easy to cause. In a Branching timeline, try not to get your other self killed and/or in big trouble and/or with a completely ruined life/world. While paradoxes may not occur, that person is still you and you don't want that kind of stuff to happen to you, do you? In a Linear timeline, be careful not to do anything you can't remember while interacting with your past self. If you tried it, evidently you were stopped by something, and that something may actually be very dangerous to you.

Three is a crowd

Don't visit the same moment more than twice. While avoiding one other you is quite doable, avoiding two or more other yous will quickly cause a mess. There's also the problem that the chance increases that people who know you see you at the same time in different locations when there's more you's running around. Watch Primer. They went back in time across the same 4 days multiple times, and made a real mess. That's the kind of thing you want to avoid.

Danger

Speaking of Primer: time travel can be hideously complicated. Try watching Primer and understanding it the first time through. That's the kind of complicated you'll be dealing with. Time travel is an inherently complex activity, and should not be attempted unless your mind can keep track of it all.

Time travel is also an inherently dangerous activity. Even discounting the possibility of flaws in your time machine, danger lurks everywhere. The past was quite often a dangerous time, full of violence and diseases. In the present, you have to always be watchful of running into yourself (or, if that is part of your plan, to prevent trouble if you do, see the section 'Interactions with yourself' for that). If you go into the future, you never know what you might find, and if you're really unlucky you could end up appearing straight in the middle of a nuclear detonation. In a Changeable timeline, even a slight change in the past could forever change the present, and quite possibly not for the better. Any change in the past in a Changeable or Branching timeline could make it very difficult to return to the version of the present you call home. Your time machine could get destroyed or stolen in a different era and you;d be stuck there forever.

P.S.: I just thought of another handy tip: If you don't need to get to a specific date, but just a year, try going at Carnival or a similar holiday featuring people dressing up and lots of alcohol. Even if you completely dick up your attempts to blendin with the time, you won't stand out.

2011

2011 just started, so happy new year and all that. I kind of liked 2010 on a personal level, though it was pretty sucky on a global level. We had the Haïti earthquake, the eruption of that volcano on Iceland with the completely unpronounceable name and the ensuing mayhem, everyone going nuts about the football world cup (How can people find 22 millionaires running after a little ball so interesting?), Leslie Nielsen died, the Republicans won the American House of Representatives elections (I have no love for the Democrats, but at least they're better than the Republicans), the new Dutch cabinet is even more right-wing than the previous one, and the American plans for new manned missions to the Moon have been canceled (The one good thing Bush ever did).
Still, I had a lot of fun in 2010. I started playing Dungeons & Dragons, rediscovered the Pokémon games, read a lot of good books, went on vacation to Switzerland and saw mountains, and some more fun things. I just hope 2011 will be better.

The Second Great Monkey Island Race of 2010

December is always host to a number of traditions. Since last year, however, a new one has been added to December's traditions: The Second Great Monkey Island Race (The First one is in the summer). It all started last year when some cool people on TellTale Games' forums decided to celebrate the release of Tales of Monkey Island chapter 5: Rise of the Pirate God by playing a marathon of all 5 Monkey Island games, streaming it on livestream, and see who would be faster. Loads of people (Myself included) watched it on livestream and had lots of fun in the chatbox, but neither of the participants managed to finish the race, as the ~20 hours of straight gameplay meant gamers fell asleep on their keyboards and internet connections exploded.

However, a second and third race where done over the past year, spread out over multiple days these times, which I participated in too (Finishing exactly in the middle in both races). And now, a fourth race has started. The thread for it is here, and my own livestream, where I will stream each game as I play them (times can be found at the bottom of this post), is found here.

If you like Monkey Island, you should definitely try participating or watching a few streams. The chatbox really makes it a fun experience, and sometimes times can be thrillingly close.

The times on which I will stream are:
The Secret of Monkey Island, Special Edition: 27 December, 19:00 GMT
Monkey Island II: LeChuck's Revenge, Special Edition: 27 December, 23:00 GMT
The Curse of Monkey Island: 28 December, 19:00 GMT
Escape from Monkey Island: 29 December, 19:00 GMT
Tales of Monkey Island: 30 December, 19:00 GMT

A very special day

Today it's 25 December. Of course, this is a very special day, that everyone should celebrate, including Platypus Pancakes: It's "Let's annoy colourblind people day"! Of course, especially for this reason, the entire site has been redesigned so that many colourblind people will not be able to read it. And for all you people who are living in the future, I'll keep that design for this one post. And for all you people who are living in the past... How did you manage to read this post?

I've been missing out on retirement money

Here is an interesting website called URLAI, which analyses the text on a given URL and provides statistics of who the writer most likely is. Of course, I couldn't resist it, so I tested this blog:

"platypuspancakes.blogspot.com is probably written by a male somewhere between 66-100 years old. The writing style is personal and happy most of the time."


I'm actually 19 years old, so that's way off the mark. The actual statistics show that my scores for each age group were pretty close together, though, so they didn't mess it up as bad as it seems from the statement.

Winter solstice

Winter solstice just passed (At 23:38 UTC, to be precise). That means the Earth has just passed the point in its orbit where the North Pole is pointing farthest away from the Sun, and as such it's the longest night on the northern hemisphere (And of course 21 and 22 December are logically this year's shortest days, with the Sun lowest on the sky thanks to that). From now on, the Sun will be getting higher and higher in the sky and the days will get longer and the nights shorter.

Yet, strangely, winter has officially only just started. I think it's kind of weird that the season we generally identify will cold and snow and the sort is actually the season where the Sun is climbing higher. This kind of weird placement of the seasons also means most of March is in the winter, even though the weather frequently can get very warm in March. If I had designed the seasons, I wouldn't have had them go from solstice to equinox or equinox to solstice, but I would have had the solstices and equinoces in the middle of each season: Winter would be from 6 November to 6 February, Spring would be from 6 February to 6 May, Summer from 6 May to 6 August, and Autumn from 6 August to 6 November. Like that, the seasons would follow the weather and the position of the Sun much better than the system we use now.

Anyway, spare a thought for the poor people living on the tropic of capricorn who now have the Sun shine from straight above them. Must be awfully warm, and frankly I greatly prefer the cold and snow we are experiencing over here.

A historic occasion

Welcome, everybody, to a historic occasion, as you will today read several phrases that, according to Google, have never been spoken on the internet before!

"there are actually intelligent people on the internet"

"their curtains were eaten"

"no mr potato heads were harmed in the making"

"set a platypus on fire"

"is there a faith healer in the room"

"jar jar binks rocks your socks off"

"i would die for my twitter account"

"twilight is not awful at all"

"strangled with an old sock"

"lived on a diet of giraffe meat"

"had his eyes poked out with commas"

"noses fighting crime"

"gandhi wielding a chainsaw"

"got eaten by a garden gnome"

"luxembourgers and witches"

It's a bit of a surprise to me that none of these were used before. Several of them would be quite amusing incidents. "gandhi wielding a chansaw" and "luxembourgers and witches" could make for great villains for some story. (The Luxembourgers hate the fact that their country is so small, so they team up with witches to turn every foreigner into the world into a frog) Others, like the ones about Jar Jar Binks and Twilight are of course not surprising at all.

Noble gases

And the results of the first weekly poll are in!

Poll 1: What is your favourite noble gas?

Helium: 1 (33,3%)

Argon: 1 (33,3%)

Ununoctium: 1 (33,3%)

Neon: 0 (0%)

Krypton: 0 (0%)

Xenon: 0 (0%)

Radon: 0 (0%)

Total votes: 3

Well, the clear conclusion from these results is that not enough people read this blog and/or voted in the poll. Hopefully, the new poll, asking what type of undead you'd prefer to become will draw more votes, so that we can finally get a statistically significant answer to these questions that mankind has so long pondered upon.