Germany's Catholic Church Tax

Reports eminating from Germany recently suggest that Catholic bishops are demanding the witholding of sacraments and religious burials if the congregation do not contribute to the church tax.

The Daily Fail

Quite apart from giving some really abhorrent people the time and space to vent their poisonous spleens to the World, the Daily Mail in the UK has been well and truly caught out blatantly making things up.

The view from up here...

Somewhere over the Aurora Australis, way up high......


A time lapse video taken aboard the International Space Station of a magnificent natural event: http://bbc.in/psO1fL

Subtitles

In work we're lucky enough to have a flatscreen television in the canteen so we can watch whilst having a break. Unfortunately it's normally tuned to Sky News rather than BBC news (bit of a snob in that regard but at least it's not ITV).

One thing I really do like, however, is the occasional belly laugh I get due to the subtitles. For these live subtitles, most are produced using speech recognition software and are backed up by trained Stenographers to correct when things go wrong (which is fairly often).

Two recent examples that spring to mind are: "Now we're going to cross live to labia where there is heavy fighting" and "These girls are modelling Burkini's" (which is a gigantic clash of culturally significant clothing - I can only presume it's a burqa worn above a skimpy pair of knickers).

An update to the Sally Morgan blog

I've previously posted about Britain's self-proclaimed "best loved psychic", Sally Morgan. As an addendum, I spotted this interesting piece in the Guardian where an entirely believable accusation is levelled at her.

Now, in the interests of balance, I have to say that the claim is anecdotal, it's based on no harder evidence than Sally herself uses and it's written by a confirmed "Skeptic". With that in mind, read on...

Guardian piece: http://bit.ly/olX3Vs

If true, it would mean that it's not the spirits talking to her, it's Terry, sitting up in the sound booth...

Oh, to be in London in September...

Looks like a really interesting public lecture coming next month at Imperial College, London.

"Join Imperial’s Institute for Security Science and Technology for an evening of codes, ciphers and computers, as they bring together four leading speakers to take you on a tour of cryptography through the ages. From its beginnings in pen and paper to its future in quantum computing, the panel will discuss the science of secrecy in its many forms and then take questions from the audience."

http://bit.ly/pJz5J2

An excerpt from "Why does E=mc2?"

One of my more recent reads was this enlightening book by Professors Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw, both from Manchester University. In it, they try to talk through the theory of Einstein's famous equation and discuss topics like energy, mass, light, particle physics and the like in an accessible manner to help the lay-reader (like me!) understand the science behind this astonishingly simple and, to physicists, beautiful equation.

Other Universes

An interesting piece on the observational tests for the existence of other universes

http://bit.ly/pugJg1

The new Derek Acorah

Sally Morgan seems to have assumed the position of the UK's best known psychic recently with shows on satellite television and the like. Here she is with a recent appearance on BBC Five Live's Richard Bacon show in which the host's mother joins on the phone.

Charlie Brooker on Norway TV coverage

Excellent as ever:
http://bit.ly/nLQAM5