Status-Q

Intriguing global stastistics.

Thanks to Simon for the link.

I was working away at my machine, vaguely conscious of noises outside, and as the whistles and bangs became louder I started to wonder what they were. After a fairly short pause, I realised that today was New Year’s Eve, but by the time I’d cottoned on to the fact, we were already into 2008, here in the UK, at least.

Ho hum. Definitely still a bit jetlagged.

Happy New Year everybody! Hope you have a great one.

John has returned to the topic of hats, an important one as the temperatures plummet. We had a little to and fro about this a while back… Golly, it was four and a half years ago…

One question I raised then, as yet unanswered, is why the term millinery, describing women’s hat-making, seems to have no male equivalent. Still a mystery… though I do now know that the word comes from ‘Milan’. Perhaps the early artisans of male headgear were in a location with a name less suitable for such adaptation. Luton, for example, used to be a big hat spot, I gather, but perhaps didn’t inspire the same fashionable frisson…

Well, I have a new hat-related question for you now: What’s all this about losing half of your body heat from your head? Or two-thirds, or three-quarters? Is this an urban myth?

I’ve heard variations on this theme all of my life, and often wondered whether one would really be comfortable walking around naked in mid-winter as long as one was sporting a decent balaclava, as this would seem to imply? I have not yet put it to the test.

And, given that your head is only about a tenth of your body’s surface area, if you were really going to lose two or three times as much heat from it as from the rest, each square inch of head would need to be radiating twenty or thirty times as much heat as a square inch anywhere else, which seems unlikely.

But perhaps you do lose most of your body heat from your head because, well, the rest of you is normally well insulated by clothes, so where else could you lose it from? I imagine I’d lose rather a lot of heat from my left clavicle too if I decided to adopt a daring mid-winter off-the-shoulder look.

All most mysterious, and I’ve always suspected it of being an old wives’ tale — probably brought into play when the story that a swan can break your arm with one beat of its wing no longer has sufficient impact. My minimal web searching would suggest that in most normal circumstances the head loses heat at about the same rate as everything else, but that the flow of blood in the scalp is not varied to the same degree to compensate for temperature, so under certain extreme circumstances, such as when exercising vigourously in very cold weather, you may lose a disproportionately large amount from the head.

Anyone have more authoritative knowledge about this?

In any case, being somewhat follicly-challenged, most of my hat-wearing is for the purposes of keeping off the sun, rather than protecting me from the biting winds. After my rather chilly walk home tonight, however, I may decide to branch out a little. Perhaps I’ll try that balaclava experiment…

My friend Neil Turok has won a 2008 TED Prize. Splendid news.

More info about Neil and the other prizewinners here.

A USB Cassette Deck. Now why didn’t I think of that…

A few days ago I posted a picture of the proofs of Rose’s upcoming book.

Those interested in seeing what the real cover will look like can see her agent’s page. This shows the UK cover; the US one, I fear, is likely to be decidedly inferior, but I think this one is good.

This week we received the first bound proofs of Rose’s upcoming novel.

These are just review copies; the final cover will be rather different. But it’s the first time we’ve seen it in a proper binding, and the idea of it actually being on bookstore shelves suddenly seems a whole lot closer to reality.

Now I have to get back to proof-reading the sequel…

You can find out more about The Blackstone Key and pre-order it from Amazon on Rose’s site.

A man in Bangalore was arrested and put in prison because he posted some disrespectful pictures of an Indian national hero on Orkut. This particular hero died over three centuries ago, but I guess he could still be upset, if you believe in reincarnation.

Now, there are some worrying questions here about freedom of speech in India, but they’ve been somewhat overshadowed by the discovery that the chap in question didn’t actually do it. The authorities went to Google (Orkut’s owner) for information on the perpetrator of this heinous crime. Google duly handed over the IP address, so they then went to the ISP concerned, who told them the user of that IP address, and he was promptly arrested and put in prison.

Unfortunately, the ISP, Airtel, seems to have slipped up and given the wrong information. After three weeks, this was discovered, and Mr. Kailash was released. The police are saying it’s not their fault, and that he should sue his ISP. Many of us have been tempted to sue our ISPs for a variety of reasons, but wrongful arrest isn’t usually one of them!

Anyway, there are some interesting lessons here for people like me who are dreadfully lax when it comes to campaigning about privacy issues. I’ve always said that I could never be a good conspiracy theorist because I don’t have sufficient faith in the competence of most authorities to construct a decent conspiracy.

But perhaps it’s the incompetence, not the conspiracies, that I should actually be worried about!

My friend Brian Lemaster, whom some of my readers will know, left the world of technology a little while back to join his family’s lumber business in Atlanta, which was founded in 1946.

Last week, this happened:

Fortunately nobody was hurt. At least, not physically.

But that must be an experience he and his family won’t forget very soon…

My thoughts are with you, Brian!

(As demonstrated tonight by Dr Tom Smith of Davas Ltd)

Start with a good opening slide:

This will help get the audience’s attention, if anyone turned up:

Explain clearly the theory behind your subject:

and reinforce your points, where possible, with some practical demonstrations.

Make them memorable.

Of course, if you chose the wrong career, say, accountancy, rather than firework manufacture and display, you may be at a slight disadvantage with some of these.