12.01.2007 - 11:24 a.m.

scientists are spending large amounts of money trying to work out fundamental aspects to the universe we live in by either

a) smashing things together and seeing what debris is produced
b) infering stuff by looking at the state of stuff that's arrived onto or near earth
c) guessing
d) guessing and then using really long maths to try and stop other people dismissing you out of hand
e) looking really hard at stuff a long way away and then guessing

the latest from some spaniards is that they've made ball lightning, or at least something that looks like ball lightning, it still looks pretty, kind of like a tiny glowing spherical gerbil that runs around the floor

See the little bouncing bundles of fun here

despite all this technological progress, the boffins still have yet to work out fundamental principles associated with ze law of Murphy. It can probably be argued that Murphy's law affects more people with more negative results that cosmic showers and superbnovas put together. Other people say that it's a natural outcome of our sloppiness and inability to plan effectively the potential outcomes of our slap/dash endevours and as humans we deserve everything that happens to us, the buzzword for the human race should be

'suck it and see'

two prime examples of this which happened over the last few days are below, strangely enough they're both concerned with shipping, but as my dear old great-great grandmother used to day 'stranger things have happened at sea'

example 1) a nuclear powered US attack sub in the Straights of Hormuz rear-ended a japanese oil tanker. Granted the Straights are both narrow and shallow with alot of ships passing through but this is no excuse. The US navy said that these things happen sometimes, submarines don't have windows, they could not confirm if the the sub was trying to surface at the time, although it's sonar was not actively working. From what i understand, US submarines have the best passive sonar systems in the world, they can hear whales farting miles away and there's always someone plugged into the sonar system, i'd like to think they were recreating an old Goon show sketch which went along the lines of

'land ahoy'
(crunching, splintering sound)
'I should have said that a bit earlier'

'captain, i have a solution of target noise source, classified 'juliet six' '
'thank you sonar, distance to target ?'
'two thousand yards and closing at a bearing of five degrees, his screw count indicates eight knots'
'chief, what's the depth ahead ?'
'charts indicate forty metres captain'
'ok, reduce speed to nine knots and make the depth thirty meters helmsman'
'thirty metres aye'
'sonar reports i've got a better solution on juliet six, distance now sixteen hundred yards,also report two new sources, designations juliet seven and juliet eight bearing fifty degrees and about five thousand yards'
-parp-
'chief, was that you ?'
'sorry captain, stewed apples for dinner, they always seem to get me like that'
'jesus bob, that is the worst smell i've ever encountered and i grew up on a chicken farm, take yourself to the medic immeadiately there's something wrong with you'
'yes captain'
'sweet mutha, that's really hanging around isn't it ? i can't take any more, helmsman take us up, we've got to open that hatch and get some fresh air in here, sonar, what's our distance to juliet six ?'
'nine hundred yards captain'
'that'll do, increase speed to twelve knots and blow the tanks'
'twelve knots and tanks blown, planes at twenty degrees positive'
'the screws are getting louder captain, his blade count has also reduced, revised solution makes his distance five hundred yards'
'i can't think with this stink, it's affecting my executive abilities, get us topside and open the bloody hatch'
'the tower's clear sir'
'that's good enough for me, clear the ladder, i'm outta here..............ah finally, the sweet smell of fresh.......oil ? oh shit !, FULL STOP, hard-a port, brace for impact
-crunch-
'oh fuck'

Almost undetectable

The story can be found here

example 2) The north sea in heavy seas, a bulk carrier with thousands of tonnes of fertiliser on board loses power after a big wave crashes into the stern and stops the engines, now drifting in strong winds it starts to head towards some gas platforms, given what terrorists can achieve with one tonne of fertiliser, a ship full has all sorts of potential, mostly ending with lots of little pieces of ship. At the last moment they get the engines working for just long enough to get some control before they die again, the carrier misses the platform by a couple hundred metres, which is still far too close for comfort.

i bet there were some concerned people on the platform, what can you do except watch ? the winds are too high for helicopters and the sea too rough for launches to clear the platform, it's unclear as to whether there was a walkway to a neighbouring platform, if there was you can bet people were already eyeing it up and shuffling sideways towards it.

Murphy remains triumphant, when it will go wrong it will always go wrong to the n'th degree, it's bad enough you lose power at sea but when the only thing you can hit is a gas platform you know someone's laughing at you, the sub/tanker conflagration was obviously down to bad management by the captain, it wasn't the sail that hit the tanker it was the bow so he was clearly too shallow and not paying attention, the navy say that the sub could have been 'sucked' up to the surface as the tanker went overhead due to the 'venturi effect' but if you captain an attack sub you should know these things, it's not like hitting an uncharted undersea mountain.

luckily i hope never to put myself in a situation where Murph can twist my innocent actions into something more newsworthy. Although we're probably not far from :

'man found suffocated by own tangled duvet after lying in one morning'
'man narrowly avoids being killed by explosion but is placed into a coma when an overflying duck is killed by a piece of shrapnel and brains him on the way down'