IF: ‘Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation’: A slice of the web: BIG scarecrow: and how to kill a pumpkin.

A strange bright yellow thing beyond the blue bit in the sky at the Castle this morn, loads of lack of warm, little ex skywater and lavish amounts of atmospheric movement, the butler is stuffing fat, carbon neutral teenagers into the furnace at more than a rate of knots and the interweb thingy has caught a cold and keeps fading in and out, hence the late start.

Whilst dahn at the snotty, vomiting brat infested general medic’s surgery I had my flu jab and yes (I don’t care what “science” says) I have a temperature, aching limbs, a cough and the sneezes.

 

Old fart Ken Clarke

Has finally tipped over the divide between “normality” and politics, reckoning that his “new” post as monster without portfolio will give him the chance to “roam Whitehall, bestowing upon his younger colleagues “the benefits of my wisdom on a much wider range of subjects”, as “an elder statesman … I’m able to advise, put my oar in and contribute to a whole lot of policymaking, particularly the economy, particularly trade, particularly national security”.

And reckons that “If the economy comes right, we’ll sail home”.

 

And if we had some ham we could have ham and eggs-if we had some eggs....

 

Staying on the ‘alternative reality’ theme

 

 

According to physicists the universe may be a computer simulation, and to prove it they made a computer simulation of the universe and it looks sort of like us.

A long-proposed thought experiment, put forward by both philosophers and popular culture, points out that any civilisation of sufficient size and intelligence would eventually create a simulation universe if such a thing were possible.

And since there would therefore be many more simulations (within simulations, within simulations) than real universes, it is therefore more likely than not that our world is artificial.

Now a team of researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany led by Silas Beane say they have evidence this may be true.

In a paper named ‘Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation’, they point out that current simulations of the universe – which do exist, but which are extremely weak and small – naturally put limits on physical laws.

For instance, something known as the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin, or GZK cut off, is an apparent boundary of the energy that cosmic ray particles can have. This is caused by interaction with cosmic background radiation. But Beane and co’s paper argues that the pattern of this rule mirrors what you might expect from a computer simulation.

 

In that case...can we have a reboot please? Must be something to do with penguins being black and white TVs...

 

Want a bit of the interweb thingy?

 

Your wish could be fulfilled, just go to the Wayback Machine who are offering  about 80 terabytes of WARC files containing captures of about 2.7 billion URIs. The files contain text content and any media that we were able to capture, including images, flash, videos, etc.and ask nicely.

You could get:

Crawl start date: 09 March, 2011

Crawl end date: 23 December, 2011

Number of captures: 2,713,676,341

Number of unique URLs: 2,273,840,159

Number of hosts: 29,032,069

If you would like access to this set of crawl data, please contact Wayback Machine at info at archive dot org and let us know who you are and what you’re hoping to do with it. They may not be able to say “yes” to all requests, since they are just figuring out whether this is a good idea, but everyone will be considered.

 

Or; you could just get a life....

 

With Halloween just around the corner

 

And the prospect of gangs of badly dressed snotty nosed begging brats about to descend on unsuspecting householders, you might like to invest in one of these...

Or better still some boiling oil, a baseball bat and a Taser.

 

And finally:

 

Staying with the last night of October

 

Over in the backwoods of one of the United States someone called Hickok45 shows us how to kill a pumpkin.

 

You could add a bit of C4 to the list above...

 

That’s it: I’m orf to crack proto-Elamite writing system

 

And today’s thought:

Are we in Paris yet?

 

 

Angus

Not my problem; Spoon Numpty; Plastic punt; Trick or eaten; and Glow show

Bribble factor 10 last night, I think someone broke in and beat me with a baseball bat and then jumped all over me, the cat of course slept like a log so I shoved her in the fireplace.

It seems that Tone’s chances of becoming King of Europe are diminishing faster than the balance in my bank account, isn’t that a shame.

And

How is your Mandarin/Arabic? Time to brush up as the board of Icann voted at its annual meeting in Seoul to allow domain names in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts.

The move paves the way for the internet's Domain Name System (DNS) to be changed so it can recognise and translate non-Latin characters.

Should be fun.


First up:

Bad neighbourhood? Move out

From over the big wet thing in Columbus: Residents of one Ohio City are complaining that police officers are telling them if they're fed up with crime in their neighborhoods they should move out. At least two Columbus city council members have heard the complaint.

An aide to Councilwoman Charleta Tavares said she has received more than 20 calls. Councilman Andrew Ginther said if police are making the comments, they're neither acceptable nor appropriate, though he said he believes most officers want to be helpful.

A police spokesman said the department addresses the complaints when it's given the name of an officer.

A police union official said he understands if officers are frustrated with crime. Fraternal Order of Police President Jim Gilbert said: "It's like the OK Corral out there."

Here’s a hint-get out of your nice warm police cars and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Give me the money or I’ll spoon you

From East a bit and up: Baffled bank staff refused to fork out cash when a robber threatened them - with a spoon.

The ginger-haired crook burst into the branch in Lublin, Poland, brandishing the cutlery shouting: "This is a stick up."

Staff and customers threw themselves to the ground until they realised the 'gun' was simply a stainless steel spoon.

The would-be robber fled empty-handed with the laughter of his 'victims' ringing in his ears.

But police are not taking the incident lightly and have launched an investigation into the attempted robbery.

Police spokeswoman, Renata Laszczka-Rusek, said: "It's a weird one but he broke the law and we want to find him

Forkin Numpty.

Bottle boat bangers

From over the salty thing and down a bit: - A team of adventurous environmentalists are preparing to set sail for Sydney in a catamaran made entirely of reclaimed plastic bottles.

They want to highlight the scale of plastic pollution in the ocean and the damage it is wreaking on a fragile ecosystem.

While the journey will be unpredictable, simply building a plastic bottle boat in the first place has been the greatest challenge.

San Francisco, the city by the bay renowned for its summer fogs and famous landmarks, is also a haven for yachties.

And inside a nondescript pier in the heart of San Francisco's waterfront, a team of environmental adventurers - led by the exuberant David de Rothschild - is building a boat out of plastic bottles.

It has been three years in the planning and sometimes seemed simply too hard.

"All my friend are like 'jeez, will you hurry up and build a boat?' But not a lot of people build a boat out of recycled plastic and whack plastic bottles along the side," he said.

"That's been the challenge - and the exciting challenge."

The boat's frame - made of recycled plastic - will be lined with 12,500 bottles filled with CO2 to help provide buoyancy.

"We are now standing on a material that is potentially a solution for the waste problem that is plastic PET bottles," de Rothschild said.

Plastic waste drives this 31-year-old descendant of a wealthy banking family, who is determined to make a difference to the planet.

"We were talking about a problem and not moving it towards a solutions. I hope it becomes a tipping point," he said.

Here’s a”tipping point” for the intrepid plastic travellers: What are they going to do with all the CO2 they are using for buoyancy?

Watch out, watch out there’s a Polar about

From over the briny and up a bit: CHURCHILL, Man. - Most trick-or-treaters are well-versed in Halloween safety: travel in groups, wear colourful clothing and only stop at brightly lit homes.

The drill is slightly different, however, for kids in a remote Manitoba town on Hudson Bay.

Youngsters in Churchill are warned not to dress in furry white costumes, to steer clear of baited traps stuffed with seal meat and to listen for the tell-tale sound of fireworks.

That's because these candy-seekers have more to worry about than ghosts and goblins. They need to avoid a different kind of predator on Halloween - the polar bear.

In Churchill - known as the polar bear capital of the world - Halloween falls smack in the middle of the busiest time for the iconic mammals. The bears are restlessly wandering around as they wait for cooler temperatures so they can head out onto the frozen winter ice.

Add to that streets crawling with about 300 trick-or-treaters and their tasty bags of treats. The combination could be deadly.

But Conservation, Parks Canada and RCMP officers have ensured everyone's safety for the last 40 Halloweens and this year is no different. Thirty of them will encircle the town and keep an eye on youngsters going door to door.

"It's a precautionary measure because the polar bear is a predatory animal," said Const. Mike Boychuk. "Our main goal is to have a safe community whether it be from humans or from bears."

School children get a visit from the polar bear patrol team to go over safety tips. On the day of Halloween, several conservation officers take to the sky in a helicopter to see if there are any bears nearby. As dusk descends, Mountie patrol cars and other emergency vehicles are parked around the town's perimeter with their lights flashing.

Other units patrol the town of about 1,000 and also look out for bears, while about half a dozen bear traps baited with seal meat are set up.

If a bear is spotted, said conservation officer Andrew Szklaruk, he and his colleagues are called in to shoo it away.

"We'll use our trucks, our horns sometimes and also 12-gauge shotguns with cracker shells and rubber bullets at times," said Szklaruk. "Our cracker shells are pretty much like fireworks. They're launched from the 12-gauge shotgun, go out about 200 feet and explode making a large bang."

That kind of ruckus is usually enough to make a bear think twice about entering the town, Szklaruk said.

But if the animal persists, a tranquillizer dart is used and the bear is carted off to "polar bear jail" - holding cells where the bear is isolated until it is released back into the wild.

The precautions seem to work. Few can recall a polar bear actually breaching the town's perimeter on Halloween since the program started in the 1960s.

What some people will do for a few free SWEETS.


And finally:

Does my bum look big in this?

From over lots of wet bits and down a lot: Glow-in-the-dark lingerie for the bedroom has proved to be an international hit, with the luminous bras and pants on sale worldwide.

The designs are the brainchild of Australian Jan Hawley.

Miss Hawley, 55, from Oxley Island in New South Wales, said the new designs are thanks to her two grown-up sons, who urged her to make the set raunchier than ever.

"When the lights go out, the lace on the bra and knickers glow beautifully, defining the tiny shapes of the micro G-string, bikini or triangle bra.

"It's very sensual and sexy. Blokes just love it."

Miss Hawley said the designs are skimpier than the original collection.

She said: "When we launched the company two years ago, it was to wear during the day and at work.

"This collection is easy to whip on, but even easier to whip off.

"The glow is to inject some fun into the bedroom. It's quirky and has novelty value and men especially like it."

The underwear is now being sold around the world, including America and several countries in Europe.

Miss Hawley said: "The success we've had has been remarkable. I started out with my husband James two years ago in a remote part of Australia and now it's a multinational business that shows no sign of stopping.

"We were moonlighting to begin with, coming up with designs across the dinner table after working a full day. Now this is our full time business.

Illuminating!


Angus

AnglishLit

Angus Dei-NHS-THE OTHER SIDE

Angus Dei politico

Beer baths; I dream of......; Spoon fed; No net; and Trick or Treat Etiquette

Bribble factor 7 last night, in the end I got up at 4am and fell asleep on the sofa watching the news, now I can’t get going.

And I am still having to use the touchpad because there hasn’t been any post for days, thanks Royal Mail and the CWU.







The Gov it seems is going to get tough on illegal file sharers; this is one of the unelected dark “lord Mandleson’s” ideas.

Initially pirates could have download caps imposed or have their bandwidth restricted.

If that did not prove effective in reducing illegal file-sharing, the government will consider disconnecting them from the network.

The Department for Business, Skills and Innovation said the legislation will come into force in April 2010, with the tougher disconnection policy introduced in the spring of 2011 if necessary.

ISP TalkTalk said the plans were "ill-conceived" and said it was prepared to challenge measures "in the courts".

"What is being proposed is wrong in principle and won't work in practice," the firm said.

Won’t matter Mandy will be looking for a job come spring next year.



And:






Peers are to face an expenses clampdown, the amount that peers can claim for overnight accommodation will be reduced and, for the first time, they will have to provide receipts in order to claim.

Peers can claim a flat rate of £174 for overnight accommodation if their main home is outside greater London.

But it is understood that that amount will drop to around a maximum of £140 - although the precise figure has yet to be agreed.

That really is going to force the poor old peers to downgrade hotels.


Now for the ‘normal’ roundup:



First up:

Don’t drink the bath ‘water’

Spa bosses in Starkenberg, Austria, claim that beer can treat skin conditions, blood circulation and can even help cure wounds.

The spa - part of a local brewery - contains seven 13ft long pools filled with beer which you can even ask to be served chilled or heated.

Bathers can try drinking the bathwater but head barman Markus Amann, 23, said: "I'd rather swim than swallow, as we have enough cold beer on tap at the bars next to the pools.

"These pools really can help some health problems - but if they don't work for you, you'll probably have drunk enough not to care about it any more," he added.

Beer bath bosses at nearby Schrammel reckon warm beer is the best for health cures and bathers sit in cut down lager barrels.

Meanwhile, even monks are getting in on the craze for health on tap.

Brewers of the distinctive dark Klosterbrauerei in rural eastern Germany have produced a spa supplement for customers to put in the tub at home.

"It opens up the pores. The yeast penetrates the skin and after 15 minutes your skin feels softer everywhere," said spokesman Dirk Vock.

Hope there are lifeguards about.

Nightmare dreams

A website about a mysterious man that thousands of people around the world claim to have seen in their dreams has become an online sensation.

The thisman.org site claims the picture was drawn by a woman, who says she repeatedly saw his face as she slept, for her psychiatrist in 2006.

She said she had never met him before in real life, but was able to picture him vividly, reports The Sun.


Her psychiatrist kept the pencilled picture on his desk and when another patient saw it, he too claimed the man had often appeared in his dreams.

The baffled doctor, it says, then sent off the picture to some colleagues who showed it to their patients - many of whom also recognised the strange face.

The picture was posted on the web - and within just two weeks has become one of the most visited sites online.

Thousands have now claimed to have seen the stranger in the night - however, critics claim it is all an elaborate hoax.




Here is the answer:

I know where DD’s spoons have gone

Some time ago DD over at Noclue was lamenting the fact that her spoons were being snaffled, after weeks of investigation I have found the answer:

Surgeons in Rotterdam, Holland, removed 78 different items of cutlery from Margaret Daalmans's stomach after she came to hospital complaining of stomach pains.

An astonishing X-ray taken before the operation showed dozens of forks and spoons trapped inside the 52-year-old patient.

"She seems to have been suffering from some sort of obsession and every time she sat down for a meal she would ignore the food and eat the cutlery," said one medic.

Daalmans works as a secretary in a local estate agents and told doctors: "I don't know why but I felt an urge to eat the silverware – I could not help myself."

Medics also revealed it was not the first time that she had been treated for eating the cutlery.

They said she has been diagnosed as suffering from a borderline personality disorder that left her with an urge to eat cutlery and she was now getting therapy.

The woman made a full recovery and is said to be responding well to her treatment for the obsession.

Any Dutch visitors lately DD?

America offline

The American government is being encouraged to prepare to block websites and Internet traffic in the event of a worsening swine flu pandemic that results in network congestion, a move that represents a potential end run around the agenda to regulate the World Wide Web.

A report by the General Accountability Office warns that a severe pandemic, or a worsening of the H1N1 outbreak, could result in 40 percent absentee rates at work and school, meaning that the Internet would be overloaded with people working from home as well as bored children sucking up bandwidth via online gaming.

Securities exchanges already have back-up systems to cope with such a scenario but the same cannot be said for general commerce, warns the report, adding that the federal government, specifically Homeland Security, should be given the power to block certain websites and regulate Internet traffic.

“Private Internet providers might need government authorization to block popular websites, the report states, or to reduce residential transmission speeds to make way for commerce,” according to a Reuter’s article.

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009, introduced by Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) And Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) in April gives the president the ability to “declare a cyber security emergency” and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any “critical” information network “in the interest of national security.” The bill does not define a critical information network or a cyber security emergency. That definition would be left to the president, according to a Mother Jones report.

Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, dismissed the entire premise of the Cybersecurity Act when she pointed out the fact that granting centralized power to the government to control networks would in fact make the stability of the Internet less safe, because allowing one person to access all information on a network “makes it more vulnerable to intruders,” she said. “You’ve basically established a path for the bad guys to skip down.”

During a hearing on the bill, Senator John Rockefeller betrayed the true intent behind the legislation when he stated, “Would it have been better if we’d have never invented the Internet,” while fear mongering about cyber attacks on the U.S. government and how the country could be shut down.


Big brother bollocks.

And finally:

Debrette’s guide to Halloween

With that wonderful night approaching at the speed of light Britain's authority on etiquette, Debrett’s issued its first guidance Wednesday on how to behave during the uber-American holiday.

Although the holiday originated with Europe's Celtic pagans to mark the end of summer - typically celebrated by bonfires to ward off evil spirits and children disguised as spirits of the underworld - it has only been recently that British stores have swelled with Halloween stock and trick-or-treaters have canvassed streets for candy.

"Good manners are very important," said Jo Bryant, etiquette adviser for Debrett's. "There has been a growing presence of Halloween over the past five years and we're receiving many more queries on how to behave."

Common questions are: Is it acceptable not to open one's doors to trick-or-treaters? How many times should children be allowed to ring a door bell before moving on? And can one forego a Halloween costume at a party?

Debrett's has posted its advice to the etiquette-challenged on its Web site.

"Trick-or-treat should be used as an ice-breaking formula, not a real threat. Halloween fun should never feel menacing," it says. "Children should not be too greedy - if they are offered treats, make sure that they don't take too many and that they do say thank you."

Other advice includes respecting people's privacy - don't repeatedly ring door bells for candy - and if you really don't want to be bothered by trick-or-treaters, it is perfectly acceptable to leave a bowl of treats at your doorsteps so children can help themselves.

"In this day and age, people have safety concerns and there is also a feeling that trick-or-treating can be intrusive," Bryant said.

Firkin right it is, I do not want snotty little gits banging on my door begging for SWEETS not “CANDY”, it is intrusive, it is annoying and if the little buggers want to get fat on SWEETS let their firkin parents buy them.

Angus

AnglishLit

Angus Dei-NHS-THE OTHER SIDE

Angus Dei politico