SEE: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/13/smart_meters_not_so_smart/page2.html
]]>For More: http://www.tomsmithonline.com/index.html
]]>I was watching the London Marathon and saw one runner dressed as a chicken and another runner dressed as an egg. I thought: 'This could be interesting'.
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SEE: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/13/smart_meters_not_so_smart/page2.html
]]>Now Dave the Dreary said "Never worry!
Just open your mouths and say you are sorry
not 'Oink! Oink! Oink?'"
But all he got from the snouts in the trough
was "Oh by Gordon, we've not got enough,"
and "Oink! Oink! Oink?"
If it amuses you, do feel free to pass it on. 
Munzly the Hermit
Dante and Beatrice by Henry Holiday (1839 - 1927)- Painted in 1883 and in full size print format displayed on the wall in our front hall throughout my childhood - gives me a weird feeling every time I look at it:
My mother had it on the wall because it was by her standards, "pleasantly pornographic," except she had a more polite way of putting it. It was in a heavy dark oak frame traditionally hung on a chain from the picture rail, above a large dark oak blanket box with a galleon carved on the lid, and the box was flanked between a pair of dark oak Jacobean style chairs with high carved backs and barley-twist legs. Altogether a most romantic ensemble that must certainly have coloured my young imagination.
Repeat of previous blog for new readers.
If you ever endured music lessons at school, don't you wish they were like this....
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The Classic View of a Routemaster
Click on the image for a great website with lots of pictures
(and a sound track - so may be slow loading)
Repeat of previous blog for new readers.
Following my posting of a cute picture of the Singer Roadster, here's a driver's dream of an altogether more serious nature:
Repeat of previous blog for new readers.
My grandfather, whose tall tales often appear in this blog, was briefly the owner of one of the larger Singer motorcars, nothing like so cute and chummy looking as the illustration below.
SINGER ROADSTER
Artwork by Peter McKercher - click image for more data
My grandfather's Singer was a late 1920s saloon and seemed comfortable and well mannered, at least at first. Being a young man at the time with wife and son to impress, he decided to set forth on a trip from Norwich to Holt. He made that choice because there were then a number of features along that road that made it ideal for testing the performance of a new vehicle: A long section of straight road, some nice winding bits with tight bends and the steepest hill in Norfolk apart from Kett's and Gas Hills in Norwich.
The advantage of the hill on the Edgefield approach to Holt was that there was a good downhill run, then a thrilling humpback bridge to test the suspension (not to mention the alimentary stability of the passengers) then the hill itself, a long straight climb of almost eighty feet. Yes, I know, but this is Norfolk!
The Singer car company had always managed to promise more than it could deliver. They named their 9hp (850cc) small sports tourer the "Le Mans" when it stood no chance of success, or even qualifying for entry in such a race (eventually they did get there but only by designing a larger car with a 1.5 litre engine. They finished 7th and 8th in 1934.) The saloon bought by my grandfather seemed fine on the straight, not too bad on the bends, fairly well damped on the bridge, but abysmal on the hill.
Too much bodywork, or too little engine, was the verdict. They did get to the town of Holt but only after discovering that reverse gear had a lower ratio than first, which brought them to the summit, but wrong end first. It must have been very tempting to have flipped off the handbrake, coasted back down the hill and gone home. I suspect it was only an urgent need to sample Holt's excellent collection of teashops, that kept them on course.
Previous blog repeated for new readers.
It is not getting any smarter out there. You need to come to terms with stupidity and make it work for you.
Frank Zappa
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]]>QUANTUM theory just seems too weird to believe. Particles can be in more than one place at a time. They don't exist until you measure them. Spookier still, they can even stay in touch when they are separated by great distances.
Einstein thought this was all a bit much, believing it to be evidence of major problems with the theory, as many critics still suspect today. Quantum enthusiasts point to the theory's extraordinary success in explaining the behaviour of atoms, electrons and other quantum systems. They insist we have to accept the theory as it is, however strange it may seem.
But what if there were a way to reconcile these two opposing views, by showing how quantum theory might emerge from a deeper level of non-weird physics?
If you listen to physicist Tim Palmer, it begins to sound plausible. What has been missing, he argues, are some key ideas from an area of science that most quantum physicists have ignored: the science of fractals, those intricate patterns found in everything from fractured surfaces to oceanic flows (see What is a fractal?).
Take the mathematics of fractals into account, says Palmer, and the long-standing puzzles of quantum theory may be much easier to understand. They might even dissolve away.
It is an argument that is drawing attention from physicists around the world. "His approach is very interesting and refreshingly different," says physicist Robert Spekkens of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada. "He's not just trying to reinterpret the usual quantum formalism, but actually to derive it from something deeper."
An amazing trick invented by dolphins - see REUTERS
]]>Echoed from TDG http://www.dailygrail.com/
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]]>More HERE
]]>APOPHIS
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Of course, any cowboy car-maker can offer a great warranty, if they know they'll be gone in a couple of months. Hee-hee! 
1. Polarization:
2. Schrodinger Equation:
3. Planck's Quantum Action:
More: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Making_sense_of_quantum_mechanics
and Text versions: http://commonsensequantum.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html
Above: Painting of Saturn as imagined from its moon Titan (1944)
Below: The imagined surface of Mars (1949), showing the persistence of the 'Martian Canals' ideas of astronomer Percival Lowell in the late 1800s.
Both paintings by Chesley Bonestell (1 January 1888 - 11 June 1986)
]]>Echoed from TGD - a great source of alternative ideas.
]]>I thought they represented their constituents, but if their votes are known to their fellow MPs and their party officials, then they have to toe the party line even if that is not the way they know their constituents would have wanted them to vote. Surely a secret ballot would be more democratic?
]]>Antikythera mechanism
Read more: http://www.newscientist.com
]]>It outlines Einstein's distaste at Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and is a good starting point in realising that the universe is far, far stranger than can be imagined.
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I can't help wondering if the Great Library of Alexandria might have held some early thoughts on what we now call the Quantum World.