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Sprog Update

400% efficient

In case you missed it, an Irish R&D organisation called Steorn have recently announced that they have discovered an energy generator. Now, most “generators” are actually converters of energy (e.g. converting from energy stored in a chemical solution to heat, or electricity to motion etc.). Normally, such machines are less than 100% efficient (losing some energy, often to heat, in the conversion process). A machine which is 100% efficient could form the basis of a perpetual motion device (i.e. something which carries on doing a task, without needing any external energy source). Such a machine has been thought impossible. So widespread is this belief, that the US Patents office will not even accept a patent for such a device, on account of it being impossible etc. Steorn have gone one better than a perpetual motion machine, and created a device which actually produces energy out of nothing. They've apparently got close to being 400% efficient.
I like this.
I like it for many reasons:-
a) If such a discovery were true, it would be the most revolutionary discovery in the past 200 years. Or something. Steorn's website is more relaxed, saying: Steorn’s technology produces free, clean and constant energy. This provides a significant range of benefits, from the convenience of never having to refuel your car or recharge your mobile phone, to a genuine solution to the need for zero emission energy production.
b) I like it that it is contrary to everyone's belief. It is a bit like discovering that someone has a door in their cellar that leads to the moon.
c) I like the slight amateur-hour nature of the announcement. “We've had dozens of people with PhDs looking at it, and none of them have been able to find any flaws, but none of them will actually come out and say so”. This charms me.
d) I like the whole open-ness and honesty with which the company seems to be going about its business.
e) I like that there has been no attempt to have an IPO on the promise of this technology. I'm not really sure how anyone stands to make a great deal of money out of this announcement (unless it turns out to be true).
f) They are not a bizarre cult who claim to have cloned humans.

Anyway, there is a challenge to test Steorn's technology. You can register to take part (or just register to receive the results as they are made available).

Power Cut

During a power cut, the lights go out. You need to go and check the fuse box / circuit breaker. You know that it would be good if your fuse box was in a room with lots of natural light, perhaps by the window. This way, if you are lucky enough to have a power cut during the day, you'd be able to see what you were doing. However, as it is, all fuse boxes are in a dark cupboard under the stairs. By law.
In other news, scientists have found out that cows moo in regional accents.

Bedtime stories by Thom Yorke

Regular readers will note that I'm given to writing short bedtime stories (see Bat & The Teapot, How To Eat Grass, Nasalfilip and the tale of the Hollow Vicar, The lion who didn't like cheese etc.
However, it appears that Thom Yorke does the same thing. Sort of.

Eleven Questions for the Faithful

I've been reading Mike's Musings recently, where he has been putting forth a set of compelling arguments for the Trancendental Model*, whilst educating us on why the Countercultural Model** is badly flawed.
Yes folks, we're talking about Religion.

So, a quick round up of a few 11 questions (and non-questions) for folks who Have God.
1. Do you believe that your beliefs are the truth? (NB, when I talk about beliefs, I'm talking about (a) belief in scripture, creation myths etc, and (b) a belief in what I shall refer to as “the supernatural”, i.e. stuff that doesn't fit in with our scientific understanding of the world such as Heaven, Hell, God, Satan etc.)
2. Supposing you'd been raised in another culture, say the Amahuaca tribe of Peru (unless you are an Amahuaca, in which case, let's say you were raised as an LDS devotee from Utah), would you have had the same beliefs?
3. Supposing (as seems probable) that the Amahuaca version of you had a different belief system, would your Amahuaca-beliefs not be the truth? Or would they be slightly false? Or would they be well intentioned, but completely barking?
4. If you believe that your beliefs are the Truth, and your Amahuaca-beliefs are not the truth, then you clearly believe that your own religion is the right one, and that everyone else is wrong. Good luck to you - given the number of religions out there, you'd better hope you've picked the right one. Please shut the door on your way out.
5. I'm assuming that most intelligent people will have seen the obvious elitist flaws in #4, and will have concIuded that the Amahuaca-you would have beliefs just as valid and true as your own.
6. Assuming #6 is true, and assuming that having true beliefs is a Good Thing, then it would be good for you to expand your set of beliefs to cover both your current beliefs and also those of the Amahuaca-you. In fact, it follows from this that you would be well advised to adopt the beliefs of all religions (perhaps aside from a few really nasty ones like Satanism, or Catholicism).
7. Crumbs! That's one heck of a lot of beliefs to remember!
8. Unless, you decide that all of these beliefs are basically the same when it all comes down to it, and don't we all, you know, worship the same God by another name? (Actually, the Amahuaca worship trees and animals, so they might look at you a bit strangely at this point).
9. Or, unless you decide that all of these beliefs are a convoluted way to ensure that you behave as a responsible person who plays nicely in society.
10. In which case, if you are a nice person who plays nicely in society, but you don't have all of the baggage, how would you or society benefit from you discovering religion?
11. Or, is religion just a pleasant diversion to pass the time, which ultimately doesn't contribute much in and of itself? Like Big Brother or something?

Oh, anyway. 11 Questions & Non Questions. That's one more than there are commandments, so I'm happy. Time to sleep.

p.s. Apologies if this post causes any offence. But if it did, please don't visit this site.

*a leggy blonde with hypnotic teeth
** a leggy blonde who likes to enumerate civilizations

Facts about dolphins : An Apology

I have received some complaints that the recent post 'Facts about dophins 1-10' may have been based on some slightly shoddy research, and some of the facts may not have been entirely trustworthy. Doubts have also been raised about similar postings about Moles and Flies, Rest assured, reader, that I at no time intend to offend or mislead. As a token of my goodwill, please find an updated set of exciting dolphin facts (with an extra special 11th fact, as a special gesture to anyone who was upset by the earlier posts).

1. Dolphins are highly intelligent creatures. Their brain to weight ratio is slightly lower than a human, but far higher than a chimp. Dolphins are also far cooler than chimps.
2. Dolphins look like a fish, but they are in fact a mammal on the grounds of giving birth to live young. There is however, a sort of fish called a Dolphin, which is not a mammal, on the grounds of being a fish.
3. A dolphin has teeth, and sometimes likes to eat fish (some of which may or may not be dolphin - see #2)
4. Dolphins are very fast swimmers, swimming up to 25mph. They only travel faster than 60 mph when they get snagged up in a speedboat.
5. Many dolphins are grey, with black eyes.
6. Dolphins are great at detecting the temperature of bathwater
7. Dolphins typically live for around 20 years (but occasionally they live until nearly 50). They never live to 400.
8. Dolphins are not naturally good at walking, and tend to stay in the sea.
9. Dolphins have their birthday on the same day every year. Some humans celebrate dolphin birthdays, but dolphins rarely do (if ever).
10. Dolphins are extremely social creatures, and gather themselves in pods. They have a complex caste hierarchy, known as a podcaste.
11. Their characteristic whistling and clicking appears on lots of New Age meditation CDs. These are normally recorded on location, as dolphins do not like recording studios.

The authenticity and accuracy of these facts is guaranteed, and can be cross checked with Wikipedia

Facts about dolphins, pt 1-10

1. Dolphins are highly intelligent creatures, with a surprisingly large vocabulary of clicks and whistles, and a rudimentary grammar comparable to that used by chimpanzees. Leading marine lexicologists agree that their vocabulary is in excess of 600 “words”. They have over 150 words for different types of water.
2. Different species of dolphin have different dialects, and often have difficulty understanding each other. These dialects are distinct from the “accents” that dolphins from different regions are known to display.
3. A dolphin's teeth are not actually teeth at all - they are actually made of a form of hair and keratin (similar to a rhino's horn)
4. Dolphins are very fast swimmers, achieving such high speeds by leaping from the water in a series of dives, spending as little time as possible under the water. They have been known to exceed 60 miles per hour.
5. Dolphins are essentially blind for the first two years of their lives. Even in adulthood, their eyesight is far worse than ours, and they rely mostly upon hearing and sense of smell.
6. Dolphins have much in common with us in the way they raise their young. Some dolphins will take on the role of “teacher”, providing guidance to calfs on hunting, doing backflips etc. Others will take on the role of “guardian”, looking after several calves belonging to other parents.
7. Dolphins typically live for around 400 years, and are the only animal other than humans to recognise each other's birrthdays.
8. Dolphins are omnivorous, living on a diet of fish and plants. In the 1960s, Jacques Cousteau filmed the first footage of dolphins apparently “farming” patches of seaweed. Dolphins are therefore the only sea creature known to practice any form of agriculture.
9. Dolphins were around in their current form in the time of the dinosaurs, having been unchanges for around 120 million years. We now know that originally they descended from land dwelling creatures, similar to modern day horses.
10. Dolphins are extremely social creatures, and gather themselves in pods. They have a complex social hierarchy and are known to recognise a king.

More facts about these fascinating creatures next time.

Facts about moles

There are few things more British than the Common Mole (OK, Hugh Grant, Cups of Tea and homosexuality* notwithstanding). Yes, the Common Mole is probably our most famous export. As you may know, up until the 1850s, moles were not found outside of the British Isles. Their first recorded appearance abroad was in Hamburg in 1856, thought to have been brought in by merchant ships (usually by accident, though some records of the time suggest that many sea captains would include a mole on their boat instead of a cat).
It wasn't until as late as 1934 that moles were found in the Americas. Again, it is not clear quite how they got there, but most experts agree that the most likely explanation is that they tunneled their way under the Atlantic Ocean. Since first surfacing in a suburb of Boston, the moles have since spread their underground network far and wide across the whole of the states, becoming America's most populous tunneling animal (inspiring several tributes, including Aaron Copland's Fanfare For The Common Mole
Recent archaeological finds suggest that the tunnel to the US is unlikely to be the only submarine mole tunnel, and at least one partial tunnel to Australia exists - for whatever reason, the moles appear to have given up around 3 miles from Perth, and turned back. This is why, to this day, there are no moles in the Antipodes.
But, the Common Mole itself has an interesting history, and it wasn't always common. In Roman times, what we now know of as the Common Mole was known as Rattus Devonian, which later became the Western Mole, and was only seen in Cornwall, Devon and parts of Wales. At this time, another species of mole was most extraordinarily prevalent across the British Isles, and it was this species which originally carried the title of “Common Mole”.
Unfortunately the Common Mole's numbers dropped dramatically in the 1800s when its staple food supply (the housefly) was eroded, and the Western Mole started to spead across the country, taking over the vast subterranean network of catacombs and tunnels vacated by the Common Mole. In 1886, the Royal Soceity decided that enough was enough, and they renamed the Common Mole, imaginitively, to the Rare Mole, while the Western Mole took on the title of Common Mole. Throughout the 20th century, the Rare Mole's fortunes continued their slow steady decline, until the 1980s, when the last Rare Mole fell victim to Thatcherism, and its bark was heard no longer.
RIP, Rare Mole. We salute you.

• An interesting sidenote - Britain is the only country which is known to have a canon of homosexual poems for children, most famous of which is “rub a dub dub, three men in a tub”, which is about three men rubbing themselves in a bath. At the end of the poem, all three of these men are “outed”. It is left to the reader's imagination exactly what the butcher and the baker wanted with a candlestick maker.