Rosetta: The Most Daring Landing Ever Attempted

10 years ago, the Rosetta deep space explorer was sent off to begin its long journey into deep space. This journey was long, and along the voyage to the comet it had to get not one, but three gravity assists from earth and one from mars (Using the gravity of the planets to get to the right direction and increase its speed). After that, the comet went into hibernation for a couple of years, before finally embarking on the comet earlier this year. However, (If everything goes to plan that is) today will prove the be a historic event in the history of astrophysics and space travel, as this is both the first time that an orbital spacecraft has ever orbited a comet, and the first time that a lander has attempted to land on one. This could prove to be a historic day for earth and physics, as if the landing is successful, scientist will be able to know a large amount of information about how comets work, and whether they were the reason as to why our planet has an atmosphere and oceans. In fact, even before they have landed scientists have begun to find new and unexplained things, such as a strange noise coming out of the comet, which they believe to be a stream of charged particles coming out of the comet, however the exact reason is not yet fully known (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2830476/Listen-Rosetta-s-comet-singing-Scientists-baffled-mysterious-sounds-recorded-near-67P-ahead-Philae-landing.html, visit that link to hear the singing comet).

Today will be a day that will truly go down in history, and the knowledge gained from the comet should prove revolutionary. Remember to visit the live stream at: http://new.livestream.com/esa/cometlanding

The landing should happen around 3:30 PM GMT, and we should get the first images at around 5:30, as there is a several hour delay from the spacecraft to earth. Make sure to stay tuned!

Damian Bemben
Columnist

Remember what the Poppy Stands for.

If you follow the YJA blog, you’ll probably know that once every fortnight I do a generally light-hearted blog about current events and what’s happening now, but it wouldn’t feel right to do so on such an important date. Yesterday was the centenary of the First World War and Armistice Day. It was a day to remember the soldiers who have been killed in conflicts since the start of the First World War. But what many people forget is that it was not a day of patriotism. We honour the fallen, we do not honour the war. We remember the futility of war. We remember all who have fallen, not just British but all casualties of the wars, as apart from they’re leaders, not much was different from the soldiers on both sides of the trenches. 

When you remember the fallen, remember this.

The poppy grew on both sides of the fields.

Damian Bemben
Columnist

Fear and Laughter, how the internet is slowly devolving

Unless you’ve not yet got any sort of television or the internet, you’ve most likely heard of the current leaks happening on the internet. If you haven’t, then let me give you a very short explanation. A large amount of photos and videos, saved to the Apple iCloud and now Snapchat have been leaked on the internet, showing how unsafe the internet really is. I’m not here to say that it’s the people taking these photos who are at fault here, even though it’s not a great idea to trust random companies with your private photos.  The companies aren’t being blamed for this happening, as although they’ve been shown by most major news sites, it’s usually the fault of the “Hackers” that do it, instead of the company, which just breeds an aura of “There was nothing we could do about these leaks” and “We’re fixing it now that it’s happened”.

And before you say it’s a one off thing, this has been happening for a while now, and it’s slowly devolving the internet. For example, only after the credit card numbers and numerous private information got leaked from PlayStation a couple of years ago, was it found that PlayStation did not actually encrypt any of the numbers, along with the NSA leaks, where it was found that the United States government along with many others are spying on its own people, being given access to pictures, phone calls, internet history, pretty much anything that they wanted. And yet there was barely any outrage from people, as the internet seems to be for most politicians and world leaders a joke. I mean think about what happened when it was found that the white house was monitoring just its opponents! Surely the whole world should be a little more important?

But no, as the internet today is just seen as something that can’t be taken seriously at these moments. For politicians, the internet is just a tool that needs to be supressed, and with events like the leaks happening, it’s making people a lot more likely to agree with the government, as by disagreeing to not censor, you are seen as the same as the people leaking pictures and videos, the internet being put into one big bubble. But people don’t care, as currently, and rightly so, the only crackdowns made are for those doing illegal activities. But governments want more power over the internet, and people don’t care about giving them it, as it “Doesn’t affect them.”

The government won’t do anything while the majority care about the internet being censored. But luckily for them, it seems a lot of voters don’t care what happens. And that’s what will break our freedom of speech, not some totalitarian censorship or sneaky NSA spies arresting random people.

It will break from people not caring.

By Damian Bemben
Columnist

Why the Apple Watch marks the beginning of a customizable revolution

There’s no doubt that people love standing out. Whether it’s using fashion sense, personality or technology, people want to be different.

I’m by no means an apple fan, I don’t own any apple products, but I can’t deny the huge influence that apple has on the technology market. The IPhone revolutionised smart phones, the Macintosh having a giant impact on the customer market, turning people that use computers from people who invested a huge amount of time to get it working, with limited options for the average consumer, to putting computers in the “mainstream” so to say.

I’m not excited by the watch itself, I’m not rich enough to buy it, and the Apple Watch “Edition” which includes a 18 carat gold casing is just a better way of putting a giant  “I’m Rich, Mug Me” target on you then wearing a giant gold medallion saying exactly that. What I am excited for however is the prospects that it brings to the table.

Sure, there’s been smart watches before, Samsung released the galaxy gear earlier this year to a very modest (to say the least) reception. The problem with it was that it looked, well it looked like something a cut and paste business man wears to his meeting, to match with his Bluetooth headset.

 

 

Apple have been really clever in how customizable the watch is. Similar to IPhone cases, you can customize the watch straps in a wide variety of apple owned mechanisms, through classic leather straps to magnetic straps, similar to IPad cases, and the clever thing that they have done is allowed it to be removable, meaning that if you get bored with your normal leather brown strap, you can just replace it with a better looking metallic one, or however you like. You can even customize the clock face.

And if there is anything people want, it’s to look unique. You don’t want to be another face in the crowd, you want to have something that says you. This is why I think that the Apple Watch is marking the start of a great revolution in personalised electronic equipment. Sure there have been others before, but usually personalisation is kept to a minimum, sure you can change the layout of your computer, but it’s still the same, sure you can have a new case for a phone, but you’ll only show it off to your friends once or twice and then they’ll forget about it, and unless you’re extremely unsociable, they won’t see it a lot.

The Apple Watch is the start of a personalised revolution in the both physical and online media. Whether it’s the best Smart Watch it’s left to see, but I’m expecting a lot more customizability in future brand new electronics, and who knows? Maybe soon enough we’ll have complete customizability, set any layout, icon; start up sound, even shape that you want, all it needs is an easy way to do it.

If you’re listening google, I’m expecting a share of the profits. 

Damian Bemben
Columnist

Backwards Britain

Backwards Britain is! But, before I go all Yoda, let’s get some perspective on this. Recently I have noticed that the government is more concerned with people coming into the country rather than the British public itself, along with the fact that Tax rates are ridiculous, jobs are being cut and Alistair Darling still hasn’t addressed his eyebrow situation. Nevertheless, all of this has happened before, well apart from the face hair.

Back then, in the 80’s, such companies as British Leyland existed. Due to the ridiculous management, the workers spent half their time churning out some fairly decent cars to start with, but slowly they became as about as interesting and exciting as a damp flannel, the Austin Allegro springs to mind, while the other spent on strike, they never really had a chance of succeeding in the motor industry. Especially when you consider the fact that Porsche had refined the brilliant 911 by that time and were using it to dominate any competition they could find. It was like comparing a hippo and a cheetah, or Eric Pickles, and a cheetah. You get my point. Besides all of this some important engineering breakthroughs were made. Yes they were boring, and I do mean, very boring, such as the first production car with obscured windscreen wiper spindles, and the first car with sixteen valves, four per cylinder ya’ know, were hammered together at the factory in Longbridge.  

Unfortunately, many British cars were like this, as Clarkson would say ‘ambitious but rubbish.’ The equivalent German rivals were much better machines. But, hang on a minute; all of this backward, unwieldy, terribly built boringness is a good thing, especially to the seventeen and eighteen year old. Not like I have been banging on about this for a while now but when I’m 18 my plan is to change my Corsa, which has developed another fault, for an MG MGF. I know that people will be frowning at this point but bear with me.

The reason I don’t want a German equivalent, such as a BMW Z3 or Z4, or a Mercedes-Benz SLK, well firstly it’s because of how much more expensive they are, but more importantly, it’s because they don’t have a heart. Now if you didn’t give up reading already some of you will now be thinking ‘oh don’t be stupid, a car can’t have a heart blah blah blah…’ These people are probably the people that drive around in or are close to these types of cars that don’t have a heart or soul. Don’t get me wrong, Mercedes’ and BMW’s are great cars and trust me I have driven them. Beautifully made and impeccably engineered to achieve unrivalled levels of dullness. I honestly do believe that some models you could use as medication. Put an ADHD overactive child in there and they would be asleep in minutes.

The MGF might not be as well put together as a Panzer tank with ten thousand airbags, or be as economical, or a medicine, but it has character. The driver can feel everything through the seat and the wheel, while the twin-cam K series Rover engine powers it along with style and passion. Its handling resembles that of the original Mini, you know, the one before the world went wonky.  Alright it has its foibles, such as the head gasket and hydro-gas suspension taken from the Austin Metro, a BL car, but then so did the classic Jensen’s. Occasionally during hard cornering, drivers would find that the oil pressure would drop alarmingly. But the engine would never blow up because more than likely the water pump would let go first. And, to be honest I see that as a handy safety feature.

So really, it’s traditional for a British car to go slightly wrong, but then so is it traditional to eat turkey at Christmas, getting married in a church, and having eyebrows the same colour as your hair. Just saying!

James Sivill, 

Columnist 

year 13

Not One, But Two New iPhones!

After months of rumours and seemingly endless speculation Apple have finally revealed what we have been anticipating to see, the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C.

The iPhone 5C is considered to be a ‘cheaper’, more affordable option compared to the previous iPhone’s. Having a body coated in colourful plastic Apple reassuringly state, ‘Colour. Yet another reason to love an iPhone’. Coming in five anything-but-shy colours, suitably labelling it as the most colourful iPhone yet. Demanding you to make a statement with their new iPhone 5C coming in colours such as, blue, green, pink, yellow and white. The ‘cheaper’ iPhone 5C ironically comes with a lavishly steep price tag being £469, still being twice as expensive as the Google Nexus 4- an Android smartphone with comparable features.

The iPhone 5S introduces the start of excitable futuristic technology with a fingerprint identity sensor that lets you unlock the phone without entering a password. “It simply makes more sense to teach iPhone how to take a great picture rather than teach people how to be expert photographers.” Apple daringly declares, as the world’s most popular camera gets even better. Ultra fast wireless is another thing Apple hasn’t hesitated to howl to the public, as the new Phone 5S supports more networks than ever before. So now, even more of us can experience fast download and upload speeds, that’s if you purchase one. As well as costing near enough £549 the iPhone 5S is available in three elegant expressions being gold, silver and space grey.

Apple hope that this ‘less expensive’ iPhone  5C could aid them in competing with other handset companies, such as, Samsung and Nokia, as more than half of all smartphones sold so far this year were Android handsets.

So do you think you’ll be investing in the new iPhones? 

Lolly Atherton, year 13
Columnist

It's 'Simples'

Boys and their toys. Since the dawn of time, well machines anyway, men across the globe have found many things to indulge themselves in, rather than toiling away at work or trying to understand what their wives last rant was about. More often than not, and I’m guilty of this too, men would rather be tinkering away with their car or classic motorcycle that festoons their garages, leaving oil trails on the floor and has never seen a drop of rain.

Recently, in the summer holidays, I went away on holiday with the family. It wasn’t anything special, just to North Devon. But after a while of sitting in the cramped car with what appeared to be everything but the kitchen sink, I began to realise something. Before I could dwell on the thought I was asked to put a destination in the sat nav. But, really that’s my point. The amount of gadgets and gismos that are available in cars these days is just utterly bewildering. You can spec your motor with stuff like active body control, electronic brake force distribution, torque vectoring control and enough other pointless acronyms to sink a cruise ship. All of this means that when the humble gentlemen fancies a little tinker, he will go out to his car, lift the bonnet and find himself smacked straight in the face with complicated, unfathomable witchcraft.

Back in the day of my step granddad, the car was still in its infancy. But despite this, he took his first car, which happened to be a 1931 Austin 7, all the way from just south of London to Gretna Green, just over the Scottish border. After a day’s driving with a car full of mates, the little Austin rolled into Scotland with not one thing breaking or falling off. And above all, with no special computers, no special set ups, and none of those massive acronyms that no-one actually understands.

Most people wouldn’t even drive that journey today, even if they have the most luxurious executive limousine, packed full of enough computing power to launch a rocket to mars. Which begs the question, does all of the car bumph in the brochures actually help? Let’s face it, the more stuff there is, the more stuff can go wrong.

When I completed the last part of my Pass Plus, I had the great opportunity to drive a brand new Mercedes-Benz SL500. For a large luxurious car full of electronics, it has mind bending capabilities. Mash your foot onto the accelerator and the naturally aspirated five litre V8 bellows while firing all of its 432 rampant horsepower to the rear axle. The acceleration from 0-60 takes a mere 4.8 seconds, and topping out at 180mph if the limiter is lifted. The roof can be retracted electrically. It will even stop itself if someone suddenly decides that they want a rather closer look at the front end. All sounds great. But, it’s missing something. It doesn’t have a soul. The steering lacks feel, the power is diluted by the ESP and traction control, the acceleration, although blistering, feels almost automated. That’s probably due to the engine. Tuned for economy, it will never turn its exhausts into flamethrowers or tingle and vibrate as it speeds down the leafy B roads. Plus it turns itself off at traffic lights. There’s no theatre about it. 

All of this, I suspect, is why I prefer something with passion and soul. I would rather have something that actually feels like a car to drive, that pops and crackles on the overrun, spits flames during gear changes, makes your senses heighten and allows you to feel the road through your fingertips. This is why I prefer the older Aston Martins and Jaguars to BMW’s and Audi’s.

Land Rovers too are something that appeal to me. They are so simple to work on. This, after all, is what I’m trying to get at. It’s the simple things that keep us men amused, the simple things that let us tinker, and get us out of cooking the dinner.

By James Sivill, year 13

Columnist