We’ve now got her home and she’s amazing.

This is Herschel. Brian named her after William and I named her after Caroline. ;)

So far Rocky has been a bit interested in her, but not entirely convinced. There has been the odd hiss and a bit of growling. I’ve been keeping them apart for most of the time and occasionally getting them in the same room for a bit so he can get a good smell of her… It took Rocky three days to take a positive interest in Tiger, so we’re not doing too badly.

She’s 12 weeks’ old today and still has blue eyes. She’s got ancestors with pointed colouring on both sides, so we’re hoping the blue eyes stay. It’d be pretty late for them to change now; her brother’s have already changed.

She’s also got something interesting going on with the fur on her back. It looks like she’s got a kind of dorsal line dividing the colours.

Not quite as striking as Venus, the Two-Faced Cat, but it’s still pretty cool and it will be interesting to see how it develops as she gets older and her colouring matures.

Last week, Tiger, one of our cats, died suddenly.

He had gone to the vet for a routine dental clean and never woke up…The interim post-mortem report came through today and it looks like it was heart disease.

So, we’ve all been very sad this week… Well, George doesn’t quite understand and has been asking all kinds of questions “Did a baddie shoot him?” “Is Tiger all in pieces now?” “Can I see him?”

I contacted our other cat’s breeder to ask her some questions as he’d started to call out at night. I wanted to find out if she thought he might be getting anxious and if it would be better to get another kitten so he had a friend.

It turned out that his breeder (unexpectedly) had a kitten available. A girl. His half-sister. We met her last weekend and she’s beautiful.

From next week, I will no longer be the only female in the house. She and I are both going to wear our white knee-hi socks and eye patches together and rule the world.

**Update** For those who have asked, they’re Devon Rexes.

Photo taken on the set of Sunshine.

The other week I went out for lunch with a friend of mine. He and I worked together a few years ago (when I say “worked together” I mean “I did the web stuff for a film he wrote“). During the time we were working together we’d have almost daily, long, in-depth conversations about belief, religion, God, atheism, meaning, the Universe, the end of the Universe… we’d talk for hours. We’d have lunch and talk for hours. We’d go out for dinner and talk for hours… Because of our conversations, it was one of the most exhilarating and creative times I’ve ever had…

And then it was all over…

And right away I missed him… I missed him a lot.

Despite being married to someone who is on “everyone’s” dream dinner party invite list, I rarely have those kinds of conversations normally (it’s all real life and who’s doing the washing up tonight and where are you going to be next week and yes I’ll put the bloody top on the toothpaste tube if you pick up your damned towels from the floor…;), so, I openly admit, the end of that job left a bit of a hole in my life… We’ve stayed in touch, but since then he’s been writing and producing a few films and I’ve been having a baby, then raising it and, basically, going insane, so we’ve not seen each other for a while.

The other week he sent me a script to read and took me out to lunch to talk about it. (I loved it)

During our conversation I said, “… but I am socially awkward.” He said, “No, you’re not.”

“Yes! I go out to these events and parties and blah blah blah and I have the hardest time having conversations.”

“You’re not socially awkward. You just can’t do small talk.”

“Right. Exactly. But that’s what about 95% of conversations are in the real world and… I can’t do it. I’m such a loser.”

“Why would you want to be able to do small talk?”

“Because… that’s… what… everyone else does…?”

He smiled. I knew it was a stupid thing to say.

“You’re not socially awkward.”

Here are some of my attempts at “small talk” at parties and events recently:

“Hello!”
“Hi!”
“Great party!”
“Yea!”
“I wish it would warm up soon. It’s been so cold!”
“Yea!… erm…So…[clunky segue into the psychological manipulation used in religious cults and "personal development programs" or the female scientists who have been overlooked for Nobel prizes when their male colleagues have won or how ancient Egyptian doesn't have the same kind of past, present and future verb tenses as in English, therefore the concept of 'death' isn't something that happened to someone and now it's done, instead, it is something that continues happening forever in the future and how their language may have affected their view of reality and their culture generally…]”
“Annnnyway… I’m going to go get another drink.”
“OK!” [Smiles. Stands awkwardly on my own. Sips drink.]

This is why I shouldn’t be let out of my house.

Anyway…

Our lunch continued and we spent the rest of the time talking about gender and how he sees it as innate and I see it as a social construct (which, of course, it is :). So when it comes to sexuality and what we find sexually attractive, intellectually we want to say we are attracted to people’s minds and personality, but if there are no innate gender differences then what is it that we’re attracted to that makes us “heterosexual” (or whatever)? Physical bodies or cultural conditioning- specifically cultural conditioning based on the fact that one sex can physically overpower the other? What exactly are we building our relationships on…? We had no answers only more questions…

And then our lunch was all over…

And right away I missed him… I missed him a lot.

Several weeks ago Roger Highfield from the London Science Museum got in touch with me to ask if I’d like to take part in the Great British Innovation vote. He sent me a huge list of potential choices, thinking I’d choose one of the “computer” ones.

I have to admit that my initial impulse when being asked to do something like this is to turn it down (hey, I’m busy), but the second I saw “Discovery of Pulsars” on the list, I wanted in.

I’ve been interested in Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s story for a few years now. She was a PhD student at Cambridge when she discovered the very first pulsar. A few years later, the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded for the Discovery of Pulsars. Burnell’s supervisor and head of department were given the Nobel Prize. Like Lise Meitner or Rosalind Franklin, Burnell’s scientific contribution was overlooked. And although she has gone on to become part of the British scientific establishment with great awards, titles and successes, I still believe her story needs to be told and she needs much greater, wide-spread recognition than she has. When people are asked to name a great living scientist, her name should come up alongside Higgs, Hawking, Penrose, Dawkins and Venter… (For an in-depth 30 minute history of her life and work, listen to the excellent Jim al-Khalili’s ‘Life Scientific’ interview with her here.)

That’s all great and good, but there is another angle to Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s story that is far less known and I think it’s a good one.

Some of you will recognise this album cover:

In case you don’t, it’s Manchester band Joy Division’s first album ‘Unknown Pleasures’. Here’s a closer look at the image on the cover:

The image was given to album designer Peter Saville by the band as part of a folder of reference material for the album design. It came from a page in the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy. I’m so into this whole story that I’ve got that book. See?

The image is eighty successive pulses from the first pulsar observed, CP1919. This is the pulsar Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered.

In researching this image I discovered that it had previously popped up in print two times before appearing in the encyclopaedia. The first appearance was in the January 1971 edition of Scientific American in the article “The Nature of Pulsars” by Jeramiah P. Ostriker. Yea, I’ve got that, too. Fans Obsessives of the image will be interested to see that it first appeared with a pale blue background.

The second appearance in print of the image was in a relatively obscure (judging by how terribly difficult it was for me to find and how ridiculously expensive it was for me to buy) 1974 graphic design book on data visualisation ‘Graphis Diagrams’. The image is now recognisably white on black.

In recent years this image has spawned a bit of a cult. It appears on clothing…

jewellery…

and tattoos…

… and it’s unlikely any of them have even heard of Jocelyn Bell Burnell…

There is far more to tell about the story of the image, Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Joy Division and that’s what I’m working on right now… In the meantime, here’s a great little interview with Peter Saville about the image.

Data Visualization Reinterpreted by VISUALIZED from VISUALIZED on Vimeo.

A couple months ago I did a talk for Ada Lovelace Day Live about the lack of women doing science on tv. I facetiously titled my talk “Making The Female Brian Cox”. It was partially based on the silly media idea that all tv science needs to be perfect is a female version of Brian. As if someone like Alice Roberts or Helen Czerski are simply just a knock-off version of the “real thing”. Offensive? Yea. It really, really is.

I talked a bit about how ideas spread in the media e.g. crazy, squealing fans turn up at one of Brian’s talks, he mentions in a newspaper interview that it’s strange for a scientist to have squealing fans turning up at his talks, the idea that he has squealing fans spreads, people read about it in another newspaper and think ‘I’m a squealing fan, too!!!’, more squealing fans turn up, it’s written about some more and on and on.

I then pointed out how this whole discussion about there not being a lot of women doing science on tv was entirely focused on complaining (negative) about the lack of women rather than celebrating (positive) the women who are actually doing it already.

“Become squealing fans of other women!” I implored. “Turn up at their talks and cheer! Start a Fuck Yeah Tumblr! Make noise! Do something positive! People will listen!” I admitted that when I spoke to Maggie Aderin-Pocock after an event at the RI, I got so excited that I actually cried (I had been moved by her breastfeeding her daughter on stage in the middle of being interviewed). “Get so excited about these women that you actually cry!”

It’s too easy to complain about things, to bitch about something that someone else has done, to tell others they’re doing it wrong, to attack, to hate, to be motivated by jealousy. It’s a lot harder to put yourself into something, to invest your emotions entirely leaving no protective barrier and then to say “Here, I made this“…

… but the things that you create will be the only real things you leave behind.

Doing something doesn’t take intelligence or skill or talent. Doing something takes bravery. You have to face your fears and insecurity and doubt. You have to accept that you’re going to be attacked by people too cautious or too cowardly to do anything other than criticise what other people do. That’s scary. That’s terrifying. But doing it will make you feel alive.

(Most boring sentence ever alert) I pissed a few people off on Twitter recently for basically saying this. They were criticising something non-constructively and I basically said “do something or stfu” (as I mentioned on the Pod Delusion podcast today that’s what I think when I read YouTube comments as well…). I mean it though.

In our online connected world, we all have to feed the network. Create, connect. Create, connect. Create, connect. The good things will grow because people will care for and nurture them. The bad things will whither without any intervention at all. But if all you do is attack and criticise and hate and disparage, you will soon lose your connection to the network… because the bad things will whither… Create, connect. Create, connect.

As Matt said in his post:

If you’re choosing to use up some of your limited time on earth to denigrate others’ efforts and rubbish something (however deserving), you need to balance that by putting your own things into the world, too. […] [T]ake a step back and ask why you’re using your energy to put out negativity instead of creativity.

Make something.
Do something.
Create.
Connect.

I’ve been learning Egyptian hierogylphs for nearly a year now at the Egypt Exploration Society in London. So far I’ve only translated texts provided by my course tutor that have been either texts from monuments or specially written texts to practice things we have learned.

The other week I was at the British Museum and saw the book, ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit (hieroglyph edition)’, and thought it would be fun to transliterate it, then translate it back into English.

As I’ve only been learning hieroglyphs for a year, I’m bound to make some a lot of mistakes.

The books I am using to help me with translating are:
1. ‘How To Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs’ by Mark Collier and Bill Manley- this is a good starting point to learn heiroglyphs. It doesn’t have a complete sign list, but I use it for the odd thing like pronoun lists or verb forms.

2. ‘A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian’ by Raymond O. Faulkner – You can’t do without this if you’re doing hieroglyphs.

3. ‘Egyptian Grammar’ by Alan H. Gardiner- again, this is a requirement for doing hieroglyphs.

Another good book to have to learn hieroglyphs, but one I am not using to translate, is ‘Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs’ by James P. Allen.

Before I get to translating the book, I will very, very basically explain just a little bit about how hieroglyphs are translated.

Ancient Egyptians used hundreds of different hieroglyphs during the Middle Egyptian period (this went up to thousands later on). There are three different roles that hieroglyphs have. The first is as a phonetic representation of the sounds of 1-, 2- or 3-consonants (Egyptians didn’t write vowels) in order to make up words; the second is as an ideogram, so the hieroglyph of a face with a line under it would mean ‘face’ rather than simply the phonetic sound ḥr (which are the consonants in the the word for face); the third is as what’s called ‘a determinative’ – it clarifies what is being said.

The first thing one needs to do is transliterate the hieroglyphs into alphabetic symbols representing the different sounds. The ‘alphabet’ used for this is as follows:
3 – English sound ‘ah’
ı͗ – English sound ‘ee’
y – English sound ‘ee’
ˤ – English sound ‘ah’
w – English sound ‘oo’
b – English sound ‘b’
p – English sound ‘p’
f – English sound ‘f’
m – English sound ‘m’
n – English sound ‘n’
r – English sound ‘r’
h – English sound ‘h’
ḥ – English sound ‘h’
ḫ – English sound ‘kh’
ẖ – English sound ‘kh’ (like the German ‘ich’
s – English sound ‘s’
š – English sound ‘sh’
ḳ – English sound ‘k’
k – English sound ‘k’
g – English sound ‘g’
t – English sound ‘t’
ṯ – English sound ‘ch’
d – English sound ‘d’
ḏ – English sound ‘dj’

In order to read the transliterated words aloud, Egyptologists insert an ‘eh’ sound between the consonants so the little face symbol above ‘ḥr’ is pronounced ‘hehr’/'hair’.

After transliterating, you need to translate, which involves picking out the individual words. As ancient Egyptian didn’t use spaces between words nor punctuation, sometimes this can be rather difficult. This is why you need sign lists and dictionaries. As I am only providing a literal translation, I’m not even going to get involved in grammar or verb forms etc, which also isn’t the easiest. (Update 11/06/12: I am now attempting a translation into readable English.)

OK. Onto the translation.

I will only show the cover and the first page of the book (copyright, schmopyright), but will provide as much of a transliteration and literal translation (without punctuation etc) of the entire book as I can. If anyone finds any mistakes, let me know (via Twitter).

COVER

Line 1: sḏdt n
Tale of
Line 2: ptr sẖˤt
Peter hare

PAGE 1

Line 1:
wn pw sẖˤt nḏst 4 irw rn sn
Be this is Lives this/it hare small 4 (unknown) (shape?) names their

Line 2:
m fw3psy mw3psy
with(?) namely Fwapsy Mwapsy

Line 3:
sd mḥw ptr wn sn ḥnˤ
Tail of Linen Peter be they together with

Line 4:
mwt sn ḥr ṯs ẖr mnyt n
mother they upon sandbank under root of

Line 5:
cš ˤ3 wrt
cedar tree great great

Update June 10th
PAGE 2
Line 1
ḥḏ n rf t3 ḥḏ-n-t3 ḏd.n sẖˤt i3t (det. ‘old’) (det. ‘woman’)
Dawn (thus?) land said/spoke our hare old woman

Line 2
i mr-w 3 (det. ‘family’) (det. ‘woman’) di (det. ‘woman’) šm tn
Oh! My love Loves (unknown) (family of woman?) please go you (pl.)

Line 3
r š3 r w3t tn r pw im n tn
to country to road you that speak(?) (utterance? intent?) this is there (when?) together not you(pl.)

Line 4
nswt(?) šm r ḥrt-š in s3 grgr
but go to garden in Son of Gregor

Update June 11
PAGE3
Line 1
ir-n tw st3w r itf-tn
‘born of/whom made’ them crimes to/at/concerning father your(pl)

Line 2
im rdi n(y)-sw ḥm.t s3 grgr
when placed he belong to wife son of gregor

Line 3
m t srf
in bread warm

Update June 12
PAGE 4
Line 1
3s irf tn m ir dw.t
hasten (so)too you(pl.) with/from take action(?) evil

Line 2 nbt mk w r prt
lady/mistress See! I to go

Update June 13
PAGE 5
Line 1
ˤḥˤ n ṯ3i n s sẖˤt i3t
stood up (to?) (past tense. doh!) took up/seized snatched (to?) her(?) Old (female) Rabbit (Mrs Rabbit?)

Line 2
mnḏm šwyt s šm n s
basket sunshade go (she?)

Line 3
ẖr nhwt r pr rtḥy in
carrying/under(?) protection(?) trees to house baker fetch

Line 4
n s t p3t m wnšty 5
bread loaf in/from/namely(?) plum/raisin/currant 5

Update June 13
PAGE 6
Line 1
ist rf wn fw3psy mw3ps
(encl. part.) (encl. part.) lives/content(?) Fwapsy Mwaps

Line 2
y sd mḥw m sẖˤt nḏs
y Tail of Linen with/from/in rabbits small

Line3
t(det pl.) nfr bi3.yt (det ‘says’) sn h3 n
beautiful marvels say(?) descended

Line 4
sn r w3t/w3i tn r in nt bnrt
They towards road/start you(?) to get/fetch (belonging to) dates.

Update June 18
PAGE 7
Line 1
iw ms ptr m bin (det small) wr.t sḫ
Surely/Indeed Peter in/with/as bad (det small) great(very)
Line 2
s (det movement) in.f r š n s3 grgr
hurry/flee (by him? can’t quite get what in.f means) to garden of Son of Gregor
Line 3
ḥr ˤwy
immediately

UPDATE 18th June
My (attempt at a) translation into English directly from this text, not from the original book- “There live four small hares. Their names are Fwapsy Mwapsy Linentail and Peter. They live together with their mother upon a sandbank under a very large cedar tree.

Fwapsy Mwapsy Linentail- little, beautiful (marvelous?) hares- went down the road to fetch (their?) dates. Peter – a very bad little one – hurried immediately to the garden of Son of Gregor

I will continue update this with the transliteration, literal translation and “readable” translation of the rest of the book as and when I do it.

1. Brown Dog Gadget Kits
These are supercute, relatively simple (some soldering) DIY electronics kits.

2. Solar Print Fabric
Perfect for a child or a crafty type, solar print fabric from (the unrelated!) Cox & Cox.

3. Han Solo In Carbonite Silicone tray
How long have you wanted to make ice cubes, jelly or chocolate in the shape of Han Solo in Carbonite? Yea, of course, forever. Now you can.

4. Vintage Lightbulbs
I love Rockett St. George. At least once a week I go to their website to drool and dream about the day my house isn’t in a constant state of disarray. These lightbulbs are gorgeous, so is everything else there.

5. Lilypad Arduino Beginner’s Kit
The ladynerd in your life will LOVE this. Next year she can make you an email counting t-shirt for Christmas. Win win.

6. iNecklace and Heart Spark
The other night I wore my iNecklace to Brian’s talk at the RI. Everyone was going just a little bit crazy for it. Unfortunately, it seems the iNecklace is sold out (again). As of the 4th of December, they have 23 in stock! Get one quick! As of the 5th of December, they have 7 in stock! Unfortunately, it seems the iNecklace is sold out (again). Instead, have a look at the Heart Spark. I am currently waiting for mine to arrive. And I can’t tell you how excited I am about it….

7. SparkFun Arduino Beginner’s Kit
You’ve been hearing loads about Arduinos. It’s about time you jump in feet first.

8. Sugru
Stocking filler!! This stuff is soooo useful that you *need* to have some on hand at all times. That is all.

9. Lumiphone
A kit to make your own theramin-like Lumiphone, from UK-based Technology Will Save Us. They’re not wrong. (More Technology Will Save Us gear via Rough Trade East.)

10. Atari Wall Stickers
You know you want to…

Some other ideas that I didn’t put on Twitter:

*Fund a Kickstarter Tech Project In Someone’s Name- there are loads and loads of tech projects you can help out. For less-nerdy-more-booky, see: Unbound

* Someone asked me about kids’ electronics kits. My older son had a Hot Wires kit a few years back. My toddler currently loves playing with Squishy Circuits.

* Handmade books are excellent gifts. A few years ago I made my sister a handmade notebook which was part-blank pages and part-zombie survival guide. Here is an Instructables on making your own notebook.

* Combining a few of these together: a while back I funded my lovely friend Suw through Kickstarter for her handmade book project Argleton. You can now buy Argleton for your Kindle.

Finally, just a note. I turned off comments on my blog a while back because I was getting inundated with Brian-related stuff. Sorry. If you want to say ‘hi’ or comment on this list, I’m on Twitter. If you have anything you want to say to or about Brian, he’s on Twitter.

Along with the Protosnap, I also got a few Lilypad components- a coin cell battery holder, some LED ‘petals’ (I also got some “normal” LEDs), a button board to turn things on and some conductive thread.

Orignally, I discovered all of this because I was interested in the idea of making a finger on my winter gloves conductive so I don’t have to take them off when using my iPhone this winter. I started looking into where I could get conductive thread and stumbled upon this amazing world of geeky crafts.

About a month ago, I got very excited about Becky Stern’s LED shoe clips. I knew then than my sights were set far too low with the iPhone gloves. I wanted clothing that lights up…

So I found all the stuff, ordered it… and here I am…

I’ve done my very first soft circuit project. It does not involve the Lilypad Arduino. I’m still experimenting with that.

I was in M&S the other day and passed by this jumper. I was very excited because of the metal zippers. I thought I could use them as a switch. (Click to embiggen)

I’ve got a necklace I bought in Tokyo that I’ve never worn. I thought I might be able to use it somehow.

I sewed on a string of the small pearls and the small chain.

On one side, I sewed two little pads on either side of the zipper at the very top. When the zipper is fully closed, the circuit will be closed when the zip mechanism itself touches them.

I sewed the battery pack on the front. If you look at the big picture, you can see that I’ve sewn one of the positive connections down with conductive thread and run it to one of the pads next to the zipper. I’ve taken some conductive thread from one of the negative connections all the way round the back of the neck of the jumper to the other side to join up with the negative connections on the LEDs. I sewed the remaining two connectors down with normal thread.

I sewed on 5 white LED ‘petals’ in between the pearls and the chain. You can see the conductive thread- the top line is the negative connection, the bottom is the positive. I needed to keep it on top of the fabric because my skin is conductive (I am sewing on small bits of fabric over the zipper pads and anywhere else the conductive thread goes all the way through the jumper).

Notice the lights are off when the zipper is undone.

And on when it is zipped up.

I might be addicted to this already.

NOTE: If you are in North America, Lilypad stuff can be bought directly from Sparkfun and conductive thread is at Lamé Lifesaver.

I don’t really blog much anymore because I’m far too busy with life. I’m on Twitter, so is Brian, though my Twitter is far more interesting than his. For example, his last tweet was about how he’s flying to Chicago today. *yawn* My last Tweet was about how my chance to shag David Tennant was foiled by Paul McCartney sleeping on my hotel room floor. See? OK. It was a dream. But if Brian Tweeted his dreams they’d just be about carrying the groceries in from the car or putting some envelopes in the bin. Yea. Those are the kinds of dreams he has. He doesn’t have dreams where he’s about to shag Doctor Who, but a Beatle messes it up. Even if he did, he wouldn’t Tweet about them…

Anyway, if you’re looking for more Brian-related stuff I’ve got some photos on my Flickr and some videos on my YouTube channel (also look through my favourites for some more). You can also go through my archives here under either the Professor Brian Cox or the Dr. Brian Cox categories. The latter category goes back further.

And if you’re not at all interested in watching Brian’s programmes on Sunday nights at 9pm on BBC2, I’ll be on BBC4 at exactly the same time in a repeat of Electric Dreams. ;)

Brian’s Twitter
Facebook group
Website
Twitpic (where you can see photos from the filming of both ‘Wonders of the Solar System’ and ‘Wonders of the Universe’ which is currently being filmed)

Some photos from the eclipse in Varanasi….




First day of filming:

Ice cave in Iceland:

At Erte Alle:

Namib Desert:

Sahara Desert:

Mauna Kea:

Grand Canyon:

In the English Electric Lightning:

Recording the voiceover: