Showing posts with label artificial life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label artificial life. Show all posts

Sunday 24 July 2011

Flash in the pan: U-Turn Cam’s Big Issue: Working the system: Toast: Hess on the move: and Flash mob planks:

The Sun has got his hat on at the Castle this Sunday morn, no wet stuff, no windy stuff and no nippy stuff, the study is empty of holiday computers, his Maj is busy in the garden unlike last dark thing when he crashed out through sheer boredom.


My thoughts go out to those in Norway who have lost loved ones, and to the family of Amy Winehouse who had a short, sad life.


It seems that we are not into those silent, ugly, Earth destroying motors that run on that stuff which comes out of three pin sockets.
Only 215 cars were bought under the scheme, which offers subsidies of up to £5,000 each, over the last three months.
Of these it is understood that around three quarters were bought by businesses, meaning that just over 50 were acquired by private motorists.
Since the launch of the scheme at the start of the year a total of 680 electric cars have been bought, bringing the total to 2,500.
The latest figures were released by the Office for Low Emission Vehicles, based at the Department for Transport.  

Shocking......


Apparently U-Turn Cam is going to write in The Big Issue about his upbringing and the advice his father gave him.
In an article for next month's edition of The Big Issue, which U-Turn is guest-editing, he also discloses advice his father gave him that could provide useful in the phone-hacking scandal: to remain optimistic "no matter how bad things are".
180 Cam wrote The Big Issue's regular feature, My Younger Self, in which contributors offer advice to their 16-year-old selves. Mr Miliband's defeat of his older brother David – long-seen as the future prime minister in the family – in last year's leadership contest is well documented. But similar fraternal tensions in the multi millionaire family are less well-known.
Talking about his older brother Alex, now a high-flying QC, Dave writes: "I lived in the shadow of my older brother. He was three years older, and was a huge success on the sports field and almost always lead actor in the school plays.
He writes: "A lot has been written about my background, but the great privilege of my upbringing wasn't just the wealth, it was the warmth. We all got on, we were all there for each other, there was so much love and support.


Someone fetch me a bucket-still it may be a useful contact for him after the next election...



And Top schools could see a surge in middle class dinner ladies as parents exploit new admissions policy loophole, a government adviser has warned.
Planned changes to admissions policy which will see children of school staff moved to the front of the queue could be exploited by sharp-elbowed parents desperate to win places at oversubscribed schools, it was claimed.
Chris Waterman, who helped draft the current admissions policy, said parents would go to "any length" to get their children into their first-choice school and would target any loophole in the new rules.
But parents already in part-time employment at schools said having their children at the school where they work was a fair reward for hard-working mothers.
Huma Imam, who works as a lunchtime supervisor and teaching assistant at Brookland Junior School, Hertfordshire, where her daughter Hibah is a pupil, said: "I think it is a good idea, for me it is easier.

 No comment......



The optimum thickness of the bread should be 14mm and the ideal amount of butter 0.44 grams per square inch.
The toaster dial must also be set to five out of six on a 900-watt appliance to achieve a temperature of 154C. Once the perfect slice has popped out it should be buttered immediately, sliced once diagonally, and then served on a plate warmed to 45C, to minimise condensation beneath the toast.
Study leader Dr Dom Lane, a consultant food researcher, spent a week toasting and tasting 2,000 slices to find the right cooking formula. He found if more or less than 216 seconds was taken to cook the toast it would lose the desired 12:1 exterior to interior crispiness.
The best bread to toast he found was a pale seeded loaf taken fresh from a fridge at 3C. And both sides had to be cooked at the same time rather than on one side to help “curtail excessive moisture loss”.
 

Crumbs......



The decision was taken after his grave at the family plot in Wunsiedel, southern Germany, became a shrine for neo-Nazis.
Hess was buried according to his wishes in Wunsiedel churchyard in Bavaria after his 1987 suicide in a Berlin prison aged 93.
His gravestone read "Ich hab's gewagt" ("I dared.").
But, because of neo-Nazis paying homage, including performing Hitler salutes in the churchyard, the Lutheran church council refused a request by Hess's descendants to extend a lease on the plot, local council member Peter Seisser said.


The end?


And finally:
 


A group of people organized a flash mob to plank at 'The Bean' in Millennium Park.
It may have appeared like they were spontaneously lying down around 'The Bean,' but no, this was planned.
Hundreds of people RSVPed on Facebook that they'd take part in the "Planking at The Bean Flash Mob." 

The mind boggles.....



And today’s thought: I chose the path less travelled . . . but only because I was lost.

 Angus


Thursday 12 March 2009

THE RICH ARE GETTING POORER

From the Telegraph the poor old billionaires are suffering, their numbers have reduced by a third worldwide.

Those worth over £1billion fell from 1,125 in 2008 to just 793, as a combined $2.4 trillion (£1.74 trillion) was wiped off the value of their collective 2008 $4.4 trillion fortune.

As a result, the average billionaire saw their net worth fall from $3.9bn to $3bn in the yeThe annual survey of who's who and who's worth what in the upper echelons of the world's entrepreneurial classes, the just-released Forbes 2009 World Billionaires list reveals the damage that has been wreaked on the fortunes of many.

Warren Buffett, the richest man in the world last year with a fortune of $62bn, lost $25bn as a result of declines in the value of his investments, many of which are in the insurance and financial sectors which have been hardest hit by the global recession.
Taking his crown is Bill Gates, who, in spite of reclaiming the top spot in the annual Forbes survey after a year's absence, still saw his Microsoft fortune fall by almost a third, down $18bn to $40bn.

All together now-SHAME.




Also from the Telegraph 'Suicidal' man survives 180-foot Niagara Falls jump An apparently distraught man survived the 180-foot plunge over Niagara Falls on Wednesday, then resisted rescue attempts before eventually being pulled from the icy water to safety.

The American man was semiconscious when he was taken to hospital, suffering from hypothermia and a head injury. He later lapsed into unconsciousness and was listed in critical condition.

The man is only the second person to live through an unaided and intentional plunge over the falls. In 2003, another US tourist survived an unaided plunge over the Horseshoe Falls in an attempt at suicide.

At least 17 people – not including suicide attempts – are known to have gone over the falls.


Maybe someone is trying to tell him something.



Artificial life 'could be created within five years' - Telegraph Laboratories across the world are closing in on a "second genesis" - an achievement that would be one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time.

Prof David Deamer, from California University, said although building a new lifeform from scratch is a daunting task he is confident it can happen in five to 10 yeA synthetic, made-to-order living system could produce everything from new drugs to biofuels and greenhouse gas absorbers.

Opponents of the controversial research claim the technology could lead to machines becoming "almost human".

But there would be no safety issues for a long time as any initial organisms would be very primitive and need large-scale life support in the lab, reports New Scientist.

I don’t know, do we really want “artificial intelligence”?



And finally from the BBC A West Midlands sandwich bar worker who was prosecuted after footage of him stuffing lettuce up his nose appeared on YouTube has avoided a jail term.

Richard Benjamin Shannon, 22, of Castle Street, Brownhills, was ordered to do 300 hours of unpaid work for last year's offence at Subway in Brownhills.

He claimed the incident was a prank and the lettuce was discarded and not sold.
Walsall magistrates said he had avoided a jail term due to his "early guilty plea" and because he had shown remorse.

He was arrested after an irate woman hurled a chair at him after a recognising him in the clip on the video-sharing website, Walsall Magistrates' Court heard.

Magistrates' chairman Elizabeth Baugh, who viewed the video footage, said his actions could have merited a custodial sentence.

She told him: "Your actions caused great distress, not only to the public who consume this food, but also to the company.

"I think you have learnt a very, very serious lesson."

Salad anyone?

“If money be not they servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.” Francis Bacon

Angus

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