I could write about the uncouth youths terrorizing my street on the balmy summer evenings I would otherwise enjoy; or the neighbour who leaves a bright light shining into my garden all night (until he comes home from work at about 0:30). But instead I thought I'd post about SCIENCE!

What we have here is a photo taken of a typical (LCD) computer monitor. The camera is equipped with a circular polarizing filter, which is why the screen is dark – its light is polarized, and the filter is carefully oriented so that it blocks it.

Between screen and camera there's a star shape of several strips of sellotape, expertly constructed and gripped by m'colleague bjh21. The sellotape, because of the way it's made, does weird things to the polarized light. In one photo you can even see the screen through it. Nerdy people, such as myself, may enjoy reading this paper explaining how it all works.

Science. It's great.