岐阜: I've been doing some research

Being in Adelaide again, and having unlimited access to the internet, copious amounts of food at my disposal and a severaly reduced number of friends, I find myself doing some research on my new home for 2007. Here is what i have found kiddies (lets hope if convinves you ALL to come visit me!).

Before the prefectural system was established, the Gifu prefecture existed as two seperate provinces: the arable plain-land of Mino and the mountainous Hida. Historically, this region was renowned for sword-making, but now its major industries are fashion and aeronautical engineering (wooooo...i like the swordmaking better).

Within this prefecture there are many towns and cities, the most notable of these is Gifu City (Gifu-shi). This is where i will be working and living.






Like many cities, Gifu-shi has symbolic representations. Most of them are quite boring, though i like their symbolic animal: the Rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta).








Apart from being home to these fellas, Gifu also welcomes many local and foreign guests for its many festivals and attractions. Some of my favourite that i have learnt about so far are:

Cormant Fishing (Ukai): Gifu is renowned for a special tecnique of fishing practiced in the Nagara Kawa called ukai (or cormorant fishing). The method involves three fishermen who have trained their pet cormorants to fish using a system of leashes. This method is only used at night. You can watch the ukai from April to October every year!







Tejikara Fire Festival: The festival of a local shrine, held in April, sounds pretty exciting. I'll give you a quote from the Gifu Tourist Website: "a firework cascade suspended 20 meters above the shrine precincts is set off. Then with the sound of firecrackers echoing all around them, men wearing only loincloths make portable shrines, which they bear on their shoulders and dance wildly. These shrines also shoot streams of fire high into the air." Yay, loincloths and wild dancing, sounds like me!



Nobunaga Festival: On the first Saturday of October the people of Gifu celebrate the legacy of Nobunaga Oda, who aimed to unify the world based around the momumental Gifu castle. Ambitious man!










How exciting! More Gifu updates as i come accross them...

Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of
Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one
student was so profound that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the
Internet, which
is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.













Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following: First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell.

Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities: 1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting Oh my God.

join us

the time has come, Renee did say,
to talk of many things,
of departures, goon and politics,
of debauchery and flings.













inspired by jeff and liams oh so witty t-shirt we at woodstock are painting the house red; the political kind that is. come to our place about 7 on the 17th of december dressed as your favourite communist and party hardy....














the movement seems to be moving away from facial hair these days, but a good beard will not be turned away...



















this guy might be there...




















these guys said they might come...








there may even be some romance on the cards...

hope to see you all there