I’ve been thinking recently about the innocence of youth. Since when is it a good thing? We adults like it: it’s nice to see children not knowing about horrible things in the world. Many of us look back fondly on the ways when we weren’t aware of the unpleasantness that pervades humanity. Why do we do this? Because we’ve been disappointed by life, and long for a time when we had it all to look forward to?

It seems astonishingly selfish to put kids through this sheltering just for our benefit, if that is indeed what we are doing. Is it good for them? They’re just destined for disappointment and disillusionment. Would it be better to treat children like adults while they are growing up? Would they then be able to deal with the world far better than we adults can? It seems unlikely to me that they’d just grow up depressed, as they’d have had no illusions to start with. This isn’t to say that they would just accept that the world is a nasty place and therefore be less optimistic; they could just be as happy as we were, but with a more worldly-wise attitude. Wouldn’t this be a good thing? Do apes / chimps shelter their children from knowledge of the world? Did our ancestors? How many other species commit suicide?

I don’t know, I haven’t really attempted to create a full argument in my head. I’m sure there are compelling arguments both ways. I read an article last week about this kind of subject - things that you’re not allowed to say in ‘polite’ company. It’s a fascinating read. Tell kids about sex? Good god no, that’s Just Wrong. And were you to you ask why, you’d be eyed with suspicion. It’s a victorian attitude that seems most bizarre to me.

Damn damn damn

I imagine it’s just me following this so closely, but:

Although the Mars Express orbiter will fly over the Beagle 2 landing site at 12.15 GMT on 7th January 2004, we have been advised by ESA that the resulting data will take some time to process and the outcome may not be known until 15.00 GMT.

In view of this, the press briefing in London and corresponding webcast will start at 14.30 (not at 11.30 as previously advertised).

News will follow on the website after this time.

NASA have released some extremely cool colour images from Spirit. I’m going to have to download the 40mb TIF (oop, it’s gone now, must have maxed out their bandwidth; hopefully it’ll be back later). I wonder how long that image took to transmit…the full resolution thing would take half an hour here, let alone across 90 million miles! It’ll be interesting to see what their infrared camera images are like. Different rocks emit different levels of heat, so you can tell a hell of a lot without going anywhere near the things. Any geologists reading? How come the nearby ‘sleepy hollow‘ isn’t full of rocks? Surely the winds are strong enough to cover it?

The Maestro data will be released tomorrow, according to the website. In case you’d forgotten, tomorrow is perhaps the biggest chance for Beagle 2 to contact Earth. If nothing is received then hope isn’t totally lost, but it’ll be a large blow. 12:13GMT…hopefully the 24hr news channels will be covering it. If nothing is received then there are longer communication periods from the 12th onwards, during which time ‘blind’ commands can be sent to the lander in an attempt to get it to maneuver into a proper position, or out from under a rock, or something.

SciScoop pointed me towards a slashdot posting by the Maestro team. What’s that, you ask? They’re the group that designed the software which is being used to analyse pictures and other data from the Spirit Mars rover. And you can download it, along with actual data from the lander. Highly highly highly cool stuff. They haven’t actually released any data for it yet, but they’ve promised to soon. The site was overloaded in minutes, such is the level of demand. I managed to download at maximum speed earlier, though. Sadly for dial-up users, it’s 38mb. I’m going to have a play later Don’t bother going to the slashdot posting btw, it’s the typical we-must-find-a-way-to-say-this-is-stupid stuff, which really annoys me (honestly, I swear if the big bang had been reported on slashdot they’d have just said it was a stupid waste of energy by out-of-touch higher authorities with their own selfish agendas.)

The first communication opportunity with Beagle 2 via Mars Express will be on Wednesday 7th at 12:13GMT. It’ll be broadcast live. Gulp. I’ve refused to say ‘cross your fingers’ up to now, as it’s stupid. But whatever helps. Cross your fingers.

Spirit landed successfully! Woohoo! I’m not quite sure why the pics are only in black and white atm, but hopefully we’ll get some nice high resolution images in the near future. Opportunity, Spirit’s twin, should touch down in a couple of weeks, I think. Sophisticated, expensive and mobile as these Rovers are, they’re still not as cool as Beagle 2. S&P are only capable of looking for ‘evidence that life could once have existed’ - ie. water. There are no instruments to detect biological organisms at all, which is kinda sad. They’re very good at geology, though, and being mobile is of course a Good Thing

Mars Express is in a slightly unexpected orbit, so won’t pass over the B2 landing site until Wednesday 7th. B2 should be now hopefully be in ‘Search Mode 2′, which to quote from the website:

“In this mode, the receiver is on for 59 minutes out of every hour throughout the Martian day, and the spacecraft sends a carrier signal five times in each daylight hour. During the Martian night, Beagle 2’s receiver will be on for one minute out of every five, but there is no carrier signal.”

However the first four passes over the landing site will only be 5-8 minutes long, which isn’t a lot of time to search or try to send out messages to the lander. Extended opportunities aren’t until the 12th or 14th. The full press release is here (04-01-04 @ 11:23 when it disappears from the main page).

I cooked tea for myself a few days ago and managed to eat a very undercooked steak and kidney pudding (it’s a long story), and have been feeling a bit rough ever since. Today it seems worse, annoyingly. I wish I could just be sick or something and get it over with. Of course, Kate’s had a bad cold recently, so it could just be the beginnings of that. Paracetamol seems to stop the effects, thankfully.

The Google Zeitgeist is pretty interesting, btw. I’m not sure why Japanese people are so interested in little squares, mind.

Articles that contain “the time to act is now” are generally sensationalist / nuts. This one, however, I found very interesting. The crux of it is that a scientifically literate populace is not only preferable but necessary in an increasingly technological world. I’m inclined to agree.

I always get a wake-up call when my friends come back for the holidays and talk about their ambitions and aspirations. They’ve spent the last three years getting a degree (as well as, arguably more importantly, experience of university life and coping by oneself) and now have a solid base from which to launch into whatever they like…whereas I have much less to show for it. I get moments of panic during which I wonder whether I’ve made a terrible mistake. I soon remember my reasons for not going to university, which although slightly muddled at the time do stand up in hindsight. However I mustn’t get complacent.

I don’t know whether it’s a good idea to judge myself against my friends…on one hand they are of a similar intelligence and background and it would be foolish not to see what and how they are getting on in life, as there is no reason I shouldn’t be able to do the same. On the other, maybe I should just do what makes me happy, as everyone’s different. But is that just cunningly disguised laziness?

One of my greatest fears is getting to old age and realising I’ve wasted my life. I often hear that people should make plans for where they want to be in five/ten years time. That’s difficult. In my experience the most exciting parts of life are completely unexpected…or perhaps that’s too narrow…maybe just unpredicted. If you make a plan and stick to it then of course that would be satisfying, but is it worth doing if it’s not enjoyable? Of course, you could aim for a solid bedrock from which to start climbing into the world, but I’m young, damn it, the world is still my oyster. If I don’t have loftier aspirations now who’s to say they’ll still be available in a few year’s time? Putting things off rarely works out. But planning invariably does…As ever, I imagine that somewhere between the two lies a stable lagrange point. I don’t think I’m mature enough to decide on any kind of career, so I’m going to have to work on the short term. That’s the plan for this weekend. I’ve got a few ideas, let’s see where they lead…This is kinda fun

Happy New Year!!!!