Status-Q

Useless fact of the day....

2011 is a prime number.

Only 13 prime-numbered years in the last century. Must be a good omen.

Actually, I'm rather tempted to write a spoof astrological-type book.

The Power of Primes, I'll call it. How ancient Greek mathematical concepts can forge your destiny!

I'll dig up lots of powerful correlations showing that prime numbers are indeed a good omen, and that non-primes are much more dodgy. There were no prime-numbered years during the two world wars, for example. The Sept 11th attacks happened in 2001, which was not a prime year, even though the surrounding 1997, 1999 and 2003 all were. Pretty sinister, eh? Yes, I think the first person to expose this hitherto-unknown law of nature could make a packet.

I shall set to work. I think 2011 will be a good year.

So will 2017, by the way...

As we shiver through what, for the UK at least, is a very chilly winter, it struck me just how much more unpleasant such weather would be without the wonders of modern heating systems. Lest we forget this blessing, I offer a small carol in honour of one of science's great achievements, which I would encourage you to sing as you go on your way, and share throughout your community... Pilot light, glowing light All is warm, while you're bright Round yon pipes, radiators and tanks For our comfort we give you our thanks And sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace.

Pilot light, went out in the night! Frozen toes at dawn's first light. The boiler's a new one, so how do we fix? Knew the old one and all of its tricks. Now the pipes will be frozen At Christmas, I'm starting to fear...

Pilot light, dark as night Who can help, in our plight? Give me a bonfire, I know what to do; Pressurised system? I haven't a clue! Plumbers are sure to be pricey Especially at this time of year.

Pilot light, once more alight! Found the instructions and they set us right. At the back of the filing drawer All that was needed for furnace to roar So, sleep in heavenly peace Sleep in heavenly peace!

Another nice TED talk from Michael Shermer, which will help you understand the world, or at least, understand how you understand the world. (Watch this one first if you haven't seen it it already).

Tilly explored the limestone shoreline at Birling Gap one evening recently. I used to play here as a child.

As if it weren't cold enough already at the moment, some friends and family gathered last week at my brother's place to make ice cream. Not being advocates of the Slow Food movement, though, we did it with liquid nitrogen...

Michael wrote an interesting account on the Digital Flapjack blog about the creation of his Fingerknots game for the iPad. Recommended.

However good the design of technology, though, some people will still have problems with it - as illustrated by this splendid clip I found on Michael's other blog.

(I'm feeling very inferior, having only one blog to my name at present).

Normally, I would expect to do some post-processing of the photo to create an effect like this... but it's much more pleasing when nature provides the monochrome for you! These intrepid kayakers were paddling peacefully past at this point, but earlier there was a dramatic and eerie sound as they cracked their way through the ice. My own kayak is inflatable, so not much good for icebreaking!

More pictures of the Newnham/Grantchester area in the snow can be found here.

My friend Jon Crowcroft told me recently that "On the Internet, everyone now knows you have a dog". I took the point, and will try to moderate my doggy posts: Tilly has been with us for a year now, so I should be over that annoying new-parent enthusiasm.

It did strike me the other day, though, as we strolled across icy fields, that I walk her about two miles every morning and Rose does the same in the afternoon. Tilly, when she's off the lead, runs at least a further three miles that we don't.

This means that over 12 months Rose and I have each walked further than the length of the British Isles.

Tilly, on the other hand, has run a distance roughly equivalent to the width of the United States, which I feel is not a bad achievement before you reach 15 months old!

OK. Proud father signing off now...

Everybody's talking about Wikileaks, so in general, I haven't. People like John are doing a much better job than I ever could.

There was some discussion on a couple of the Twit.tv podcasts about the heightened emotions directed at Wikileaks itself, though, and I thought they came to some sane conclusions, which were roughly as follows:

• The person who committed a crime was the original source, who is now being dealt with by the law
• Wikileaks did no more than any newspaper would have done if it got its hands on the material, and is no more or less culpable than the New York Times and the Guardian and others who have been republishing it.
• Wikileaks just did it more efficiently and for different, and some would argue, more honourable, motivations than a newspaper's. [This is the real novelty. People know how to interpret newspapers' actions.]
• Those hackers attempting to target organisations that failed to support Wikileaks are guilty of suppressing the kind of freedoms of speech and action for which Wikileaks stands.
• The big danger is that any measures brought in to 'deal with' Wikileaks could be used against the New York Times and the Guardian in the future.

That seemed to me a pretty good executive summary, but what a lot of fun debate is going on about these, and all the ramifications, especially as initial outrages give way to more careful considerations. They're all missing the real question, of course: who will play Assange when the movies start to come out?

The instructions for this pizza tell me that it's very important that I drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil on it before putting it in the oven. I'm not aware of having consciously drizzled anything before, but shall do my best.

As I pondered this challenge, it occurred to me that Drizzle sounds like the name of a dot-com company. I don't know what it would do - weather forecasting, probably - but it just sounds so right. "Hang on, I'll just upload it to Drizzle...", or perhaps "My free Drizzle account is about to expire - shall I pay for the full Downpour edition?"

(Well, it turns out, of course, that there is both a Drizzle.com and a Drizzle.org, and you can investigate them for yourself if so inclined.)

It's only a decade ago that we were pondering the name 'Google' with some amusement - it's a deliberate misspelling of "googol", in case you wondered, and even that was a bit esoteric.

We Brits sometimes joke about American English that "there is no noun that cannot be verbed", but it turned out to be very handy that the founders picked quite such an adaptable word and it has passed so easily into daily use. It's funny, though, to think that they could have picked almost any other random name and we would all now be saying, "Yes, I know about that, I Wiggled you before I came over".

OK, gotta go... pizza's ready...