2012 — 6 December: Thursday
With all the radio financial pundits' chatter1 after yesterday's "budget in all but name" I was oddly reassured to see IBM's little dollop of deferred salary (aka pension) payment trickle into my account. I can now afford a candle (for heat and light) and, with luck, next month I'll be able to afford a match to light it with. Meanwhile, the tea is fresh and the porch thermometer insists it's already only -4C. There's an excess of thick-looking frost on roofs and cars out there.
And yes, Christopher, that's the correct plural of "roof" despite what you think. The OED (which is never, ever, wrong even for a moment) singles (should that be 'plurals'?) it out as one of six words ending in "f" that don't take "ves" in their plural form:
The belief held by the chief dwarf that there was a gulf required proof.
There are probably others, but it's too cold to go out looking for them. Brrr!
Was David Icke right?
With his ideas on lizards...
Quantum Probabilistic Structures in Competing Lizard Communities
Almost two decades of research on the use of the mathematical formalism of quantum theory as a modeling tool for entities and their dynamics in domains different from the micro-world has now firmly shown
the systematic appearance of quantum structures in aspects of human behavior and thought, such as in cognitive processes of decision-making, and in the way concepts are combined into sentences. In this paper,
we extend this insight to animal behavior showing that a quantum probabilistic structure models the mating competition of three side-blotched lizard morphs. We analyze a set of experimental data collected
from 1990 to 2011 on these morphs, whose territorial behavior follows a cyclic rock-paper-scissors (RPS) dynamics. Consequently we prove that a single classical Kolmogorovian space does not exist for the
lizard's dynamics, and elaborate an explicit quantum description in Hilbert space faithfully modeling the gathered data. This result is relevant for population dynamics as a whole, since many systems,
e.g. the so called plankton paradox situation, are believed to contain elements of cyclic competition.
I always suspected the universe could be explained in simple terms of rock-paper-scissors rather than an infinite tower of giant turtles all the way down...
I'm sure Orlando Figes is a literate chap. So why did he just pronounce "prob-lematic" as "probe-lematic"? Most off-putting. Nor did I much care for his choice of Scriabin. Still, it takes all sorts, as dear ol' Dad used to say. Flippin' heck, it's only 19.4C in my living room. Is that legal? I suppose I could always close a window.
Trump ca(r)d
I mentioned having watched Anthony Baxter's excellent documentary "You've been Trumped". But I'd somehow missed the fact that Trump (or one of the myriad minions) must have complained to the BBC about it. Can't think why anyone would have felt any need to do that. But then I can't think of any compelling reason to give such a chap any mercy, either. Just my personal opinion, of course :-)
Money and power are not quite sufficient to form a decent human being.
After (belatedly) prepping...
... my next crockpot, I've just discovered Monday's automated reply from my MP — I'd mildly made the following suggestion:
It's horribly apparent that self-regulation of the media is nowhere near enough. For goodness sake... you've paid for this report. Now implement its sensible recommendations
... has today changed into a well-written, thoughtful, and surprisingly lengthy "hand-written" email reply, followed by a little further follow-up to my slightly tongue-in-cheek response. I'm actually very pleased. A reasonable-sounding Tory? Golly! I must be mellowing.
As it's now nudging freezing, I shall celebrate with a spot of lunch. [Pause] Followed by a delicious cup of coffee and a chat with my bungalow-dwelling neighbour to put the world to rights.
The icing on...
... the cake that was the US TV show "The 'L' Word" was definitely its accompanying music. As I was re-watching it recently I decided to investigate whether this music was still available. Which is why my good friends Nagiry GmbH in Zug, Switzerland (just down the road, perhaps, from the Gnomes of Zurich?) have sent me a 4xCD box set of music used in the first three seasons for a very reasonable sum.
Well, £15-16 including shipping strikes me as more than fair. That's just a few pence less than I paid in 2003 for my US DVD copy of Steven Shainberg's "Secretary". The Blu-ray replacement copy of that has just checked in at £6-02 all the way from Amerikaland:
I was tickled by a bit of the back-cover blurb:
... but soon, in between typing, filing and coffee making, Lee and Mr Grey embark on a more personal relationship together, crossing the lines of conduct that would give any human resource director the vapors!
Yes, I don't recall the IBM office being quite like that. But then, I tended not to linger longer than I had to.
Just call me "Heath Robinson"
Unless it gets really cold, I have no need to run the gas 'plasma' fire we fitted2 down here over five years ago. Since CO fumes are not an issue if there's no actual combusting going on, I've now put a couple of slabs of the polystyrene packing from the TV stand to good use by wedging them at the side of the sofa to close off the ground-level extra air vent that the gas fitter insisted we had to have. Its only effect is to let blasts of Arctic air in at ankle height, and I can do without that at this uncharming time of year.
I've just checked: at 23:25 it's a balmy +5C out there. G'night.