The Roiling Stones

I Shall Be Annoyed -
 - if any of you out there consider that to be either a typo or a spelling mistake.  If you are familiar with Conrad at all then you know he is the UK's Chief Spelling And Grammar Nazi, in his own head at least.
     So, no, we are not talking about the OAPs of AOMORR, for which read Old Age Pensioners of Adult-Oriented Middle of the Road Rock.  Where "Adult-Oriented" is deemed to be an insult, because apparently only young people can appreciate the devil's music*. I shan't bother typing out their name, you ought to be able to guess whom I am insulting describing.

More interesting than were-walnuts

     No!  Nothing to do with quivering elderly tax exiles, although there is a rock connection, for instead we are referring once again to - Danger Astronomy!

The neo-NEO
In case you've not been paying attention, I shall briefly recap about Near Earth Objects.  These are objects - the clue is in the name - that might, at some point in the distant future, impact Earth.  The planet would survive, Hom. Sap. perhaps not, depending on the size of what hits.  Already mentioned are various methods of blamming, boring or bending these objects to humanity's will, all based on the supposition that these objects are essentially a mountain in space.


                    Mountain                                                    Space   

  I did mention it wasn't quite that simple, didn't I?
     You see, some of these objects are actually a conglomeration of much smaller objects, much like a flying midden in space rather than a homogenous mountain.  Blasting them with gigantic nuclear explosions might very well shatter the integrity of the loosely-bonded rocks and create a shower of debris, rather than a single, easily-directed mass.  You would, in fact, create a roiling cacophony of stones.
     "Oh, foo, so what!" I hear you cavil.  "A lot of little rocks that will burn up on entry into Earth's atmosphere.  Pshaw!"
     Pausing only to observe that a little knowledge is a mightily dangerous thing, and to approve your knowledge of non-sweary English idiom, I shall explain further.
     An object of less than 35 yards** diameter will, indeed, burn up in the atmosphere of Earth.  What's the betting that, in a loosely-aggregated NEO of 0.6 miles** diameter, there are lumps bigger than 35 yards** across?  To quote the immortal Harry Callaghan, "Do you feel lucky, punk?"
     So, that dull as ditchwater method of the Gravity Tractor might turn out to be the best resolution of all, unless you want to witness the Biggest And Most Final Fireworks Display Of All Time.

Dull but worthy

It's Not All Greek
Indeed not, quite a lot of it is Latin, as in the questions on "Pointless" today.  Do you know the difference between "Lepus" and "Lupus"?  The clue is that you might well see a Lupus chase a Lepus, but never the other way round.
     Anyway, back to Greek.  There I was, taking Edna for a walk and out of nowhere Oscar (my subconscious) threw up the question "What does 'Syncretion' mean?"  See below.
     "Syncretism": meaning to merge different religions, cultures or philosophies, hence "Syncretion".  Derived from the Greek "Sunkretismos", meaning "To unite against a third party".
     Of course one question begets another and the next one was "Where does 'Synthesis' come from?"
     "Synthesis": Combining separate elements into a coherent whole, from the Greek "Suntithenal" meaning "To place together."

     "Concatenation":  To link together diverse elements into a series, which is pretty much the definition of BOOJUM! and which is "Spojeni" in Czech.

A whole lot of links

     There you go, the didactic element of our blog discharging it's responsibilities in a responsible way.

     
A Picture Portrait
If a picture tells a thousand words, I think this one would begin with "Awful" and end with <thinks> "Zoiks", as it expresses all the dismal dankness of a dim January morning.  Cold, grey and wet.  Art?  Depress us.

Extra-large for you to appreciate even more

     Conrad is willing to bore anyone who stands still long enough with the information that he doesn't mind it being cold, what he dislikes is cold AND damp.  Take the following photograph, as an example:

It would not focus any better than this, sorry!

     This is on the way home from the Pub Quiz, after a good inch** of snow had fallen.  Nobody else present on the streets, of course, as it is dark, late and cold.  What was rather charming is an effect that you won't get on a photograph:  the snow squeaking as I walked along the pavement - squeeeksqueeeksqueeek - like a family of misbehaving mice.  This probably disturbed and annoyed a few people who'd gone to bed early, but you have to make sacrifices for poetic beauty.

Oh yes - "Lepus" = "Hare" and "Lupus" = "wolf"

* Utter nonsense!  Doesn't prove a thing!
**  This is BOOJUM! - no metric nonsense when we can avoid it.