User:Mckinlayr

Welcome to this page.

Any stupid questions should be directed to the stupid author. (He has a tendency to make obvious mistakes and write in the third person!)

I also edit pages anonymously. Sometimes because I have forgotten to login, other times because I know what I'm writing is not formatted correctly and doesn't meet the exact letter of the wikipedia guidelines.

That is how Keira High School and Balgownie came into existence. It says great things about the wikipedia community that an ignorant fool like me can dump information in piles around the place and within days it is transformed into useful stuff.

What do I want to do?
See Europe by train all the way from Istanbul to Inverness.

Ride the TGV, Eurostar and Shinkansen.

Learn Spanish and spend a year exploring Argentina and Brazil.

Learn Mandarin and get lost in China.

Re-learn Japanese and visit Japan.

Build a Wind Turbine.

Design my own home and get someone to build it.

What I should be doing...
Enjoying my summer holiday freedom!

Topics of Interest
Climate Change

Peak Oil

British Nuclear Testing at Maralinga, South Australia

ECHELON

Xnu

Beos

Puppy Linux

Steve Wozniak

Theoretical Astrophysics

Astronomy, Planetary Sciences Software
Celestia

A 3D viewer that allows you to jump from planet to planet, star to star, galaxy to galaxy. It even simulates planetary atmospheres and rings so you can watch the sun rise from the surface of Mars, Titan, Jupiter or from onboard the ISS. On a large screen with a powerful computer, this software is cinematic. www.shatters.net/celestia

JMars

A 2D viewer that allows you to compare Mars maps and data sets. Runs in Java, loves at least 200Mb of RAM, needs a fast internet connection. Occasional stability problems. jmars.asu.edu

NASA World Wind

Very similar to google earth. Applies the data sets of JMars to 3D surface altimetry maps. Very smooth and easy to use. Windows only (uses DirectX and .Net) worldwind.arc.nasa.gov

SSSim Edu

A useful tool for simulating solar system events and producing live star charts. www.sssim.com/en

Google Earth

The Earth from above. No further explanation needed. earth.google.com

Stellarium

The night sky. The stars shimmer. The constellations fade in and out. The closest thing to night sky. www.stellarium.org/

Things, Places, Dates Related to Me
Keira High School my highschool from 2000-2005.

Balgownie, part of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia is where I have lived my whole life.

1987 The year I was born.

All computers should either be running Ubuntu Linux or Mac OS X.