Babydoll

I had the chance to watch Sucker Punch over the weekend (only released in SA on Friday) and loved every minute of it. The movie's opening sequence has no dialogue and it captured me right from the start with it's haunting music.

The film hasn't received the greatest reviews which I don't quite understand. Perhaps it's one of those that you either love or hate. Zack Snyder, the director, also made 300, Watchmen and Legend of the Guardians - all movies I thoroughly enjoyed.

Sucker Punch is about a young woman, Babydoll, who's thrown into a mental institution by her stepfather to get her out of his way. The movie follows her attempt to escape from the asylum. What's different is that to cope with the situation she envisions all her escape plans as these elaborate fantasies. The worlds she creates and the music accompanying it had me enthralled. I will definitely buy the DVD and watch it again. I read many criticisms that the best parts of the film - the fantasies - weren't real, but that's the point, isn't it? Dreams and fantasies are by definition larger than life.

I'll leave you with a quote from the film which has stuck with me (forgive me if I don't recall it exactly):

You think you cannot do this. You can.
You think you are not strong enough. You are.
You have all the weapons you need.
Now, Fight!

Buckets

While working in Limpopo (northern province in South Africa), I had to adjust to a lot a new things. Exploration geology is very much an outdoor experience and I got used to lots of sunblock and a t-shirt tan. Driving around in a 4-by-4 bakkie (truck) also became part of my daily life.

The exploration area I worked in is part of the Bushveld and is covered in lush shrubs and trees. The farms we were drilling on were mostly game farms with high fences and lots of gates between the different farms and even within one farm. Many of farmers kept their wild game separate from the typical farm animals like cows and rotated them between the different paddocks. This meant that you could be opening and closing 10 or more gates on the way to a borehole. Deciding who's driving and who's opening gates became a very strategic decision. Claims that I was always driving on the farm with the most gates have not been verified :-).

On the one day, I was particularly deep into the one farm at the furthest borehole. The day had started well and I was almost finished logging. When I looked up from the core at some stage, I noticed the most amazing clouds moving in from the horizon. The entire day had been very hot and clear blue skies, but suddenly a whole bank of dark-grey clouds were moving closer. I took a few pictures and hoped for cooler weather. I'm used to clouds with manners. You know the kind that slowly moves in, announces it's intent of rain and allows you time to get under cover. These clouds were definitely more arrogant.

I quickly rushed to finish logging with the idea to get off the farm and unto the main gravel road as soon as possible. But when I stopped at the first gate on the way out, buckets of rain came hurtling down. I struggled to keep the gate open with the wind gusting mercilessly. I finally grabbed a huge log and dragged it in front of the gate. By the time I got back in the bakkie, I was soaked through and pools of water were in the door of the bakkie and on the floor. This process was repeated at each of the 4 gates after that. The rain was so heavy that I had trouble seeing and the dirt roads turned into moving sand sludge. I hadn't realized that not only were Limpopo clouds arrogant, but also in a hurry. When I got to the last gate before the main road, the rain was completely gone and the sun was shining. A farmer passed me by and didn't understand how the hell I was soaked when the sun was shining. I just smiled and was glad he didn't ask if I were a geologist followed by the inevitable when will stop drilling chat.

After that I learned to simply sit quietly in the bakkie and wait out the rain. Much easier on my clothes and the bakkie :-).

A Modest Destiny

Sean Howard is the creator of Squidi.net. There you will find his webcomics, new games he's designed, a blog and various other interesting things. I started reading his webcomics quite a while back and was captivated. The webcomics use pixel art which gives it quite a specific style. Very cool.

A Modest Destiny is one of his webcomics and has the longest run. It's divided into 4 sagas or chapters. It's set in a fantasy world with quite a few main characters. In the beginning the webcomic was a simple hero story (or so it seemed) and hilarious, but as the story became more intricate so did the characters.

A Modest Destiny Wallpaper

A Modest Destiny ended on a bit of a cliffhanger a few years back when the creator took a hiatus. But, and here's the best news since they cancelled Egoli (SA soap opera), it's back! Sean Howard has announced that he's finished the 4th chapter and is posting it 3 times a week. Woohoo!

Seriously, read it from the start :-).

Ash Content

Coal is different from other commodities in how varied its uses are and how non-homogenous coal seams can be. For example, gold analyses are done to determine the grade (g/t) - how many grams of gold per tonne of rock you can extract. For coal, the analyses done are so much more and goes back to the seam's original depositional environment.

Coal is classified according to rank. An increase in rank means that the coal was subjected to greater amounts of metamorphism and burial which caused an increase in the organic carbon content of the coal. In other words, the longer and the deeper the plant material was buried under sediments, the more water and gas was pressured out so that mostly carbon remained. Coal rank increases from peat, lignite, subbituminous, bituminous to anthracite. Coal in the different classes or ranks differ in their chemical and physical properties. Also, the different coal types are used in different industries such as coal gasification to create fuels, combustion for energy generation or in the metallurgical industry as coking coal.

One company's plan to promote clean coal - singing coal! :-)

The typical and basic analyses done on coal is proximate analyses. The coal is crushed in a laboratory to get a representative sample and then the various tests are done. The proximate analysis consists of ash content, volatile matter content, inherent moisture and fixed carbon content. These are all given as percentages and add up to 100%.

Ash content is what remains after all the carbon matter has combusted - the inorganic leftovers. The volatile matter are the gasses released during combustion. Inherent moisture is the water within the coal particles and the fixed carbon is the actual carbon content within the coal.

The ash and volatile matter content give a very good indication of the coal quality. For specific purposes, the ash and volatile matter will be required to fall within a specific range. Consistency in the coal is important for efficient plant operations. Ash content and volatile matter will also show you if anything has affected the coal after deposition. For example, if any igneous intrusions have gone through or nearby the coal seam, the heat from the molten rock would have burnt the coal and so removed most of it's volatile matter. This will be evident in a lower volatile matter content and higher ash content.

Coal analyses form an integral part in understanding a coal seam and ensuring it's used for the most efficient purpose. People say working in gold and platinum is difficult due to the many faults and very deep shafts - I say try building a good forecasting model for a coal deposit based on endless tables of analyses! :-)

Zot!

I love sound effects. I remember reading a Calvin & Hobbes strip where Calvin was walking around making dramatic music and other sound effects. His answer at his mother's complete exasperation: "Everyone's life should have a dramatic soundtrack." (Apologies to Bill Waterson if I haven't remembered the dialogue correctly.)

Apparently, when Xena (Xena: Warrior Princess) was first aired, many websites popped up around the sound effects. Especially the sometimes overly dramatic ones when the heroes or villains flick their heads around or jab with a sword. And everyone has some song running in the background of their mind all the time. If that's just me, please don't tell me, ignorance is bliss :-).

But, I love sound effects the most in comic form. Each author has a different way of putting in sound. Some simply use the word itself (gunshot or whatever), while others use the standard ones (thud, bump and so on). The you get those that create new ones like Megan Rose Gedris.

Gedris, YU+ME creator, also made a webcomic with the coolest title ever. Wait for it ... I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space. Or LPOS for short (Rosalarian). The title already had me in stitches and the comic got even better. The art is old-style comic books and is very well done. As the title suggests, the webcomic is about a young woman kidnapped by space pirates. It follows their adventures through the galaxy and the different characters are very funny. One of the best scenes in the comic is when they show what a gaydar really looks like - friggin hilarious! What I also love about it is the unique sound effects. Zot! is one of my favourites and is what one of the weapons sound like. Thok! is what it sounds like when you kick a guy squarely between the legs.

Webcomic by Megan Rose Gedris

Tikka tacka is what my keyboard sounds like while I'm typing this :-).