Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Feb 9, 2012, 4:11 am
Despite being a massive Hall & Oates fan in the ’80s, I wasn’t going to go to their show here in Sydney. It’s been years since I heard anything new from them, and felt a bit over it. But a good friend of mine is a big fan and wanted to go and that made me reconsider. So last night he and I wen...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jan 29, 2012, 5:51 am
I’ve just booked a hotel in Goulburn, NSW, for the second weekend in February. I’ve done this not because of a deep desire to revisit The Big Merino (yes, I’ve already been once), but because Goulburn hosts the Australian Blues Music Festival then. I don’t know any of the artists that are p...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jan 26, 2012, 9:53 pm
A great tribute to DIY science: two Canadian teenagers designed a balloon with cameras that ascended into the fringes of the atmosphere, recording cool images and then plummeting back to Earth. That link has a great video summary. Filed under: Canada, science Tagged: DIY science, space
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jan 25, 2012, 6:38 pm
Oh wow. I found an old friend. Back in the ’80s I belonged to mail-order music club Columbia House. I belonged several times, in fact; the presumptive plan was to join for their massive “several albums for a penny” entry deal, fulfil the minimum commitment of a few albums at full cost plus sh...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jan 23, 2012, 7:44 am
Cloud computing is using (possibly renting) computing power elsewhere via the internet. Quantum computing is using the seemingly-odd behaviour of quantum mechanics to do computations in parallel, thereby multiplying computing speeds. Some dudes have written a paper about research they’re doing i...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jan 23, 2012, 3:37 am
Last night was another Sydney Festival event: 41 Strings, an orchestral piece by Nick Zinner, guitarist of the rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, based on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I know that’s a lot of cultural references to take in at once, but bear with me. It was at the Opera House. It started with ...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jan 18, 2012, 2:46 pm
Last night was my third Sydney Festival event. It was a gig, part of the festival’s So Frenchy, So Chic series, and took place at the Keystone Bar at Hyde Park Barracks. I like that as a festival venue: it’s downtown and feels busy, and has a good mix of semi-indoor (in the tent) and outdoor ar...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jan 12, 2012, 3:46 pm
Last night was a hyper-joyful night of Sydney Festival folk music at the Enmore Theatre. The first act – which I did not know about – was of a style called Shangaan Electro, hyper-fast electro dance from South Africa. The group of four dancers and singers, and one DJ, carried on the most hyperk...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jan 5, 2012, 5:23 pm
The Woodford Folk Festival takes place in Queensland between Christmas and New Year’s each year. This time it was attended by a contingent of folk acts from eastern Canada (mostly Newfoundland & Labrador, though a couple from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island as well). I didn�...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Dec 31, 2011, 3:05 am
Starts With a Bang is my favourite science blog. Ethan does a great job of spelling out, in (literally) graphic detail, all sorts of difficult but fundamental topics. He’s very prolific and funny, too. Here are his top 10 science stories of the year, as described on his blog: We Think Our Univer...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Dec 23, 2011, 4:49 am
Earlier this week I went to a gig The Vanguard, in Newtown, for the first time. It’s a pretty cool little venue. First up was Matt Andersen, the massive Canadian blues guitarist I’ve already seen twice as he’s toured Australia. He displayed the same pyrotechnics as before; maybe a bit more, a...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Dec 18, 2011, 4:26 pm
The other week I saw Aussie one-man blues band Claude Hay and Canadian acoustic blues guitar wizard Matt Andersen. We thought they were good enough to see again, and so Sunday afternoon we drove down the coast. They played an early evening set at The Beaches, a popular pub in the seaside town of Th...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Dec 12, 2011, 1:17 am
From the AP: A private U.S. company will attempt the first-ever commercial cargo run to the International Space Station next year. NASA announced the news Friday, one year and one day after Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, became the first private business to launch a capsule into ...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Dec 10, 2011, 7:41 pm
We got an early Christmas present from my mom, who tipped us off to the fact that Canadian blues guitar wizard Matt Andersen was touring Australia. So last Thursday we took the train down to Cronulla’s Brass Monkey to see him. It’s a co-headlining tour of two stringed-instrument masters. First ...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Oct 23, 2011, 2:19 am
Check this out. This is not a special effect. This is a quantum effect, made possible by magnetic flux tubes through imperfections in a very thin superconducting film. Be astonished, then read about it here.   Filed under: science Tagged: quantum mechanics
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Sep 30, 2011, 9:29 pm
There’s very little that makes me as happy as a new Tom Waits album. The man has booze-hall jazz folk smoke for blood. I don’t quite know what that means, but it fits. Bad As Me comes out in late October. Pre-order it now. Listen to the title track right here. Filed under: music Tagged: Tom Wa...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Sep 27, 2011, 5:29 am
Last night was living legend night: Alice Cooper. I’ve never before seen the master of shock rock, the inventor of gig theatre spectacle, play live. But last night I saw a wrinkled, potbellied 63-year old do everything that rock ‘n’ roll is about. Nice hat. Image from sezzles via Creative Com...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Sep 19, 2011, 4:10 pm
I found this on Discover’s website: an Australian researcher has taught robots to make new words for new places they discover, and share those new words with other robots. That’s so neat. and eventually even learned to communicate and understand directions. Filed under: science Tagged: robots i...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Sep 18, 2011, 4:41 pm
I’ve become a fan of TV trivia show RocKwiz. It’s got everything I like: nerdish knowledge of rock ‘n’ roll, humour, live music, and a great host. So I bought tickets to see the Sydney taping of their Christmas Tour. Fun! Filed under: music Tagged: RocKwiz
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Sep 17, 2011, 5:21 pm
Bryan Adams catches a lot of shit. I would maintain that the reasons for this are not his fault. So last night I went to the first of three sold-out shows he’s playing at Sydney’s Opera House on his Bare Bones acoustic tour. Gary Breit and Bryan Adams. Photo from ASquall via Creative Commons li...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Sep 13, 2011, 5:36 am
Mister Justin is – as far as I can tell – a bloke in London. He’s releasing an album of acoustic guitar-driven tunes called With Daylight Still To Spare, and I think it’s pretty cool. The songs are based in six-string folk sounds. A couple of the album tracks are instrumentals, and Justin�...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Sep 11, 2011, 6:29 pm
I was never a gearhead, nor was I a toff, so I never watched Top Gear that much. I am an engineer, though, so when I saw a show called Engineering Connections on SBS I tuned in, even though it was prefaced as being presented by Top Gear‘s Richard Hammond. It turned out to be just my sort of show...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Sep 10, 2011, 6:45 pm
I’m not much for music festivals anymore. Gettin’ too old. Can’t be bothered for the couple of bands in the lineup I’d care to see. But when I saw that Harvest Festival is intentionally billing itself as something other than a sun-baked piss-up for teenagers – that is, a proper festival a...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Sep 9, 2011, 8:28 pm
I’ve seen TV nature programs before that showed this behaviour by humpback whales: by blowing a curtain of bubbles around a school of fish, they can trap and catch and eat them. The video below shows new data captured by American scientists who were able to slap data collection units on whales. T...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Aug 20, 2011, 6:33 pm
I have to admit the truth: I love gigs but I have not yet been to Sydney’s Annandale Hotel. On Friday night I addressed this terrible shortcoming. A couple of mates came with me to see The Beards, and I now have another trembling admission: I think beards are incredibly cool. The Beards just wan...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Aug 16, 2011, 4:37 pm
Google seem to be cementing their “mad genius” status. Not content with seizing control (i.e., buying Motorola mobile and therefore obtaining 30% of the North American Android market they kicked off) they seem fixated on mathematics. Last month they bid the digits of pi in the auction for Norte...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Aug 1, 2011, 7:23 pm
When I did my favourite 50 songs ever a few years back I don’t know how I missed these two. “Pump It Up” by Elvis Costello. Wow, this is the very definition of infectious. Those drums are tribal. Then the descending synth line hooks you and you are done. Dance, New Wavers.   “Don’t Bri...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jul 11, 2011, 4:09 pm
As a kid I worked the retail counter at my parents’ maple syrup business (very Canadian, I know). We’d total up people’s sweet purchases, take their money, and make change for them. Customer after customer, and I eventually got accustomed to doing this arithmetic in my head. I came to recogni...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jul 10, 2011, 4:02 am
A while ago I wrote a series of posts on the music that was, in my youth, formative for my eventual tastes. I’m now going to write some blog entries on the stuff that made me love science. One of the first thing that made me think about science was a huge, tome-like book of animals that lived on ...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jun 26, 2011, 7:24 am
Current electrical battery design uses the same cell for storage and discharge of electricity. A new design from MIT, however, separates the two mechanisms and stands to become cheaper and much more efficient. Look out, internal combustion. A radically new approach to the design of batteries, devel...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jun 19, 2011, 4:30 am
Clarence Clemons, the saxophone player who helped define Bruce Springsteen’s sound, the Big Man, has died of a stroke at the age of 69. This is him playing the “Jungleland” solo in 2009. Filed under: music Tagged: Clarence Clemons
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jun 12, 2011, 11:04 pm
From an article in Science, one study indicates that the reactions of teenage music listener’s brains may be better at predicting what songs will be a hit than by simply asking them which they like best. Two years ago, Gregory Berns, a neuroeconomist at Emory University in Atlanta, was on the cou...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Jun 1, 2011, 10:56 am
I was never a goth. I was also never a big fan of The Cure. Sure, I thought they were okay, but I never owned any of their albums until just last year. Too many of their tunes were simply gloomy, rather than moving, to me. But I came to appreciate their good stuff recently. By “good stuff” I ...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - May 29, 2011, 3:52 am
I used to play the trombone, so I’m tickled by this report: an acoustic shock wave has, for the first time, been filmed emanating from a trombone. It’s not super-visible; you might need to watch fullscreen to see it. Also, a warning: this will only be interesting to vibration nerds (and, possi...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - May 27, 2011, 10:23 pm
Vivid Sydney is this city’s annual festival of “light, music and ideas”. I can agree with the first two, at least, as I was down at the Opera House last night. There are coloured, moving projections of light all around Circular Quay. Lit installations and warm glows are everywhere you look do...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - May 25, 2011, 5:57 am
“It Hurts Me Too” is one of the most-covered blues songs, based on a song originally recorded by Tampa Red. I have versions by Elmore James, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton. It’s a great tune. First Aid Kit are a Swedish folk duo, two young sisters that were one of my favourite bands of last year....
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - May 23, 2011, 4:07 pm
Last year I reviewed an album by UK musician Matt Stevens. I said at the time that Matt also had a band called The Fierce and The Dead. That group – which also includes Kev Feazey and Stuart Marshall – has just released their album, called If It Carries On Like This We Are Moving To Morecambe. ...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - May 22, 2011, 9:26 pm
There are two gigs coming up I’d love to see: Modest Mouse and The Kills. Unfortunately I’ll be out of the country at the time of both gigs. If you’d like to see either of these bands in Australia, you can get presales access to tickets here: Modest Mouse presale: 25 Jul in Sydney, 27 Jul in...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - May 15, 2011, 7:45 am
From the Guardian: Space engineers are planning to build the first extraterrestrial boat. They want to launch the craft towards Titan – Saturn’s largest moon – and parachute it on to the Ligeia Mare, a sea of methane and ethane on its surface. The robot ship would sail around this extraterres...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - May 13, 2011, 5:35 pm
I’ve been without a decent stereo for some time. I had a big, loud sound system when I lived in Canada. But when I moved to the UK many years ago it made no sense to bring and transform all those 120V components, so they went to live with friends. In the UK apartment sizes are smaller. And, th...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - May 12, 2011, 9:56 am
I got tickets today for what should be a pretty historic show by The Cure. Vivid is an annual Sydney festival of the arts and culture. I’m already going to see Spiritualized play their seminal space-rock album Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. Then it was announced that original mem...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - May 10, 2011, 4:18 pm
Once again, Randall nails it. At least, for the science nerds. HAW! Click to view embiggened original
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - May 9, 2011, 4:09 pm
I spotted this blog entry about some beautiful images of pollination captured on film (Punctuated Equilibrium is always a great science read). The video of bees, bats, butterflies and other pollinating animals has some great, hidden moments from one of nature’s systems of reproduction. Filed und...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - May 9, 2011, 12:11 am
American public opinion on man-made climate change swung wildly in 2008 due to a fiasco known as “Climategate”. MotherJones writes an excellent article about how it was allowed to happen. The trigger was the release of internal emails from the East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit (C...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Apr 28, 2011, 8:09 am
Most people are familiar with the story: if you see someone yawn, it makes you yawn. A twist on this can be found in a new The Thoughtful Animal ScienceBlog entry, though. Scientists aren’t at all sure why this contagious yawning happens. In fact, the data’s insufficiently strong for everyon...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Apr 18, 2011, 7:10 am
Terje Sorgjerd makes beautiful time-lapse videos. This one, which is making the rounds of science blogs, captures not only stunning views of the Milky Way but also El Teide, the highest mountain in Spain. The Mountain, posted with vodpod Filed under: science Tagged: Nature, photography, space
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Apr 17, 2011, 4:54 am
Several weeks ago I was looking at upcoming acts for some of the smaller local music venues I know attract good musicians. Notes Live in Newtown listed a Saturday night gig for something called the Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band. The writeup sounded like they were the legit deal from the US, so I bought...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Apr 13, 2011, 5:19 pm
Last Saturday was a sunny, glorious day. We decided to take a drive, and headed up to the Hawkesbury. We’d spent some time here last year and found it very peaceful and quite remote, despite being not all that far from the city. Our destination was The Settler Arms in St Albans, an old pub that h...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Apr 3, 2011, 4:41 pm
Whoops! Posting screw-up. I forgot to schedule the last post. Here it is, a day or two later than planned. The Maladies – This Wood and This Wire Sydney band who rock the blues. Sorry, no YouTube, but you can play it here. Well, that’s it, my entire 30 songs in 30 days challenge. If you thin...
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Tim D. posted an article on The Plummet Onions - Apr 2, 2011, 4:35 pm
Boney M – Rasputin This came out when I was 9 years old. The whole album created a big impact; our music teacher played it in class, and we learned many of the songs. Filed under: music Tagged: 30 songs 30 days
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