Could it be that some signs are quantumly determined, collapsing to a state of true or false when you observe them? Based on his observations, Neill Jones thinks that it could.
He gives the example of a sign outside his house saying “No dog fouling”. Every time he has looked at it, he says, it has been true. This is also the case with another “No dog fouling” sign on a building a couple of streets away.
On the other hand, on Salisbury Plain in the south of England, where there are regular military manoeuvres, there is a sign by the road saying “Tank crossing”. This, says Neill, has collapsed to false every time he has looked at it.
There are, however, further complexities to this phenomenon. Some signs avoid a quantum collapse altogether, Neill notes. Take the “Gap ahead closed” sign he saw recently while driving up a dual carriageway (divided highway). If there was a gap ahead, he reasons, then it wasn’t closed. If it was closed, then there wasn’t a gap ahead. So the sign failed to be either true or false and was merely self-cancelling.
“Maybe I should get out more,” Neill suggests. “But then I’ll only find more signs. So maybe I should stay in more.”
[New Scientist; 22 August 2009]
Quote: Types of People
There are 10 types of people in the world:
those who understand binary, and those who don’t.
those who understand binary, and those who don’t.
Garden Meme
Garden Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.
This week’s Flickr meme is to find 12 things you would plant in your garden. As usual here’s my rather liberal interpretation of the theme:
1. Old Roses
2. Woodland Glade
3. Herb Garden
4. Big Koi Pond
5. Blackberries & other soft fruit
6. Chillies
7. Scented Geraniums
8. Bamboo
9. Fruit Trees
10. Flowering Currant (Ribes)
11. Walled Vegetable Garden
12. Pine Trees
Except for #1 and #10 which are mine, as always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.
1. Apothecary’s Rose, 2. Spring arrives in the woods, 3. Herb garden, 4. Koi Pond, 5. September Blackberries, 6. Chilli plants, 7. Scented Geranium, Walsall 13/09/2008, 8. Kyoto bamboo, 9. magic fruit tree, 10. Flowering_Currant, 11. The Vegetable Patch, 12. Buttermere
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys
Dinner Party Meme
Dinner Party Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.
This week’s Flickr meme is to imagine your ideal dinner party. Which 12 famous people / people from history would you invite? Here is my rather curious set of bedfellows:
1. Anthony Powell; English novelist and man of letters has to be my first choice!
2. William Byrd; Tudor composer and recusant
3. Samuel Pepys; Restoration diarist
4. Richard Feynman; hugely influential physicist
5. Galileo Galilei; another hugely influential and brave scientist
6. Dalai Lama; always calm, always measured and always laughing!
7. Terry Jones; formerly of Monty Python but also a first rate medieval historian
8. Mick Aston; archaeologist and eccentric
9. Alice Roberts; incredibly bright, multi-talented medic, and very sexy
10. Susanna Reid; another incredibly bright and attractive young lady who’s a BBC TV newscaster
11. Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll); Victorian mathematician and writer of Alice in Wonderland
12. Leonardo da Vinci; another hugely influential artist and scientist
Why so few girlies? I don’t know. I’m sure there must be more in my brain!
As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.
1. ANTHONY POWELL, NOVELIST, AT HOME IN SOMERSET, 28 DECEMBER 1983., 2. William Byrd (c. 1540 – 1623), 3. Samuel Pepys memorial, St Olave’s Church, London, 4. Richard_Feynman, 5. Galileo, 6. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, 7. terry jones, 8. Time Team in Salisbury, 9. alice roberts, 10. susanna 15, 11. lewis carroll was kind of cute, 12. vitruvian man leonardo da Vinci
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys
Pizza Meme
My creation, originally uploaded by kcm76.
This week’s Flickr meme … we’re each finding 12 slices of glorious pizza! Here are my 12, in order: Green, Cat, Sweets, Knitted, Onna Stick, Mouse, Black, Catnip, Nude, Fruit, Bento, Purple. And for a wonder not a pretty girl in sight this week. 🙂
As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.
1. Green & White Pizza, 2. Bad Cat Got to the Pizza First, 3. Who ordered pizza?, 4. knit pizza, 5. Pepperoni Pizza on a Stick, 6. mouse pizzas in detail, 7. Black Bean Pizza, 8. mouse pizza, 9. Pizza Man!, 10. Fruit pizza, 11. Pizza Boy, 12. purple pizza
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys
Sox Meme
Sox Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.
This week’s Flickr meme … It’s laundry day here so it would be fun to check out other people’s laundry on Flickr! So this week’s meme is to find 12 pairs of fun socks! Here are the contents of my washing machine …
As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.
1. Curiouser and Curiouser!, 2. Smileyface toesocks, 3. thigh high socks, 4. 6252 Stripe Thigh High W/Strawberry And Bow, 5. Japanese School Girl, 6. 133/365 – Rainy days and holey socks…., 7. Odd Sock, 8. Rainbow of Christmas Stockings, 9. marigold knee socks, 10. sock and roll sushi, 11. Pink toe’s in stockings, 12. fairy girl in tutu and legwarmers
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys
Graduates to get gap-year money
This is the headline on a BBC News item this morning.
The [UK] government is to pay for graduates struggling to get a job to go on trips abroad […] It will pay for 500 young people under the age of 24 to travel to places such as Costa Rica and India to take part in projects such as building schools […] A government spokesman said he would not go into details about funding ahead of the launch.
OK this keeps them off the unemployed register. However, I have just one question. With what are the government going to pay for this? Cork buttons and rubber cheques?
Sounds to me like another NuLaba initiative which will turn out to be just empty promises. Let’s hope so anyway; the country can’t afford to pay kids to go jollying round the world.
Harrah! More Please!
There’s a wonderful article over on the BBC News site. Well the article isn’t actually wonderful, it’s pretty hack, formulaic BBC journalism about a TV show. It is the idea, intelligence, thoughtfulness and guts behind the programme which is wonderful.
The programme was on BBC3 last evening and follows a couple of teenage girls and their mums as they visit various people in UK and Netherlands so the girls can discover for themselves about whether they’re ready to lose their virginity. Clearly this had to involve a lot of very open discussion between the girls and the people they met (including a group of teenage boys who were asked some pointed questions by the girls) and between the girls and their mums. From reading the item (sadly I missed the programme) clearly the mums were struggling to cope – but cope they did and I get the impression everyone came out of it much stronger and better balanced.
But why does it need a TV programme to get people to do this? OK so not everyone will take on for themselves a 2000 mile journey. But everyone has a surprising number of local resources to draw on: parents, teachers, doctors, health workers, not to mention their friends, peers and relations. Why can’t people talk about these things? Openly? I just don’t get it. Everyone (almost) has sex in some form or another at some time. Sex is an important part of life so why not admit it and be open about it? Reading and writing are important in life and we get taught those at a very tender age, and hone our skills over many years – some more than others, but everyone improves and learns. So why not sexuality?
Hopefully this programme will be repeated, and repeated, and repeated. And used by schools. And parents everywhere. Maybe, just maybe, it will start the revolution in (most people’s) thinking about sexuality and their bodies that our society so desperately needs.
Incidentally one interesting fact which is often overlooked: Holland has the lowest teenage pregnancy rate and the lowest rates of sexually transmitted infections in western Europe. Britain has almost the highest. Despite a very open attitude to sex, teenagers in Holland start having sex on average one year later than in the UK. Why? Because the Dutch are pragmatic and willing to discussing sexuality etc. openly; they don’t treat it as dirty and hide it in the coal-shed like we do. I lived through the sexual revolution in order to do away with coal-sheds!
Parents and teenagers (even sub-teens) everywhere please note!
Thru' the Years Meme (2)
Thru’ the Years Meme (2), originally uploaded by kcm76.
This week’s Flickr meme is to pick things or events you remember from each year of your life – #1 through 12? it could be anything: who your best friend was when you were 6; your pet when you were 10; a teacher when you were 12; your favourite toy at age 3 — you get to come up with the item for each of the numbers … or just use random years here and there with the big highlights of your life! Here’s a second selection covering some key times in my life to date.
1. -2 weeks; I arrive 2 weeks early; I’ve been early ever since.
2. 11; I go to grammar school and get an excellent all-round basic education; we were stretched all the time; and it must have been one of the few co-ed grammar schools in the country.
3. 17; started going out with Jill, my first proper girlfriend; we broke up at the start of our second year as undergraduates.
4. 18; off to university in York to study Chemistry; glorious campus but not the formative years they are for many (they came later as a post-grad).
5. 23; I lose my virginity to Faith; she’s 9 years older than me, and taught me a lot!; yes I was a slow starter.
6. 25; somehow I’m awarded my PhD from University of East Anglia; and yes I’ve got one of these super velvet Tudor bonnets too!
7. 25; and I immediately start working for IBM.
8. 28; Noreen and I marry; we met in Norwich and have known each other for about 4 years, but have been going out less than a year — oh and we’re still happily married almost 30 years later (and long may it be so)!
9. 30; we buy our house just as mortgage rates go through the roof!
10. 32; I have an affair and glandular fever at the same time; Noreen knows about both! Duh!
11. 49; I’m one of the founders of the Anthony Powell Society.
12. 58; just waiting for retirement; so much I want to do outside work.
As always the photographs are not mine (except #9 which is) please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.
1. The Holiday Guests Arrive Early Singing Carols, 2. Leeds Grammar School, 3. Jill, 4. Heslington Hall, 5. IMG 088, 6. Congrats! You made it!, 7. IBM Hursley, 8. The House Opposite, 10. Eve – glandular fever test, 11. ANTHONY POWELL, NOVELIST, AT HOME IN SOMERSET, 28 DECEMBER 1983., 12. Two at the Shoreline
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys
Ye Olde Tea Drinker
Ye Olde Tea Drinker, originally uploaded by kcm76.
July self-portrait for Flickr 12 Months group.