"What science cannot tell us, man cannot know."*
* I am not sure whether I am the author of this quote or not. If anyone knows who it is (maybe Bertrand Russell?) if it is not me, please let me know.
This page includes my ideas and speculations, and links to others.
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. . . Trains in Norway spooked by date
. . . Drunk driving: why is it still possible?
. . . Water supply: privatize it!
. . . Flight-data recorders
. . . Aircraft suicides
. . . Smoke in the cockpit
. . . Goodbye Quebec
. . . Dog rights (Page 12.)
. . . Foot and mouth casualties: dogs next? (Page 12.)
. . . Monarchy: time for Canada to end its dependence (Pages 14, 16.)
. . . Dope testing in sports: a bad idea (Page Doping.)
. . . Zionism is racist (Page 18.)
. . . More topics to do
Articles
Trains in Norway spooked by date
My thoughts on 3 Jan 01 were triggered by the following article:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Y2K Bug Strikes Norway One Year Late: http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,21149,00.html?partner=xdrive
The 13 long-distance Signatur trains – and 16 new airport express trains – refused to start on Sunday morning because the on-board electronics could not recognize the date Dec. 31, 2000, according to the newspaper. . .
Engineers temporarily fixed the problem by resetting the trains' clocks to Dec. 1. . .
~~~~~~~~~~~~
What can I say about the trains in Norway, and many other oddities of life, except that I could have told you so!
The number of stupid errors that are being made is interesting in that (a) there are not more of them, and (b) how easily predictable and avoidable they are.
For a few examples, visit the site of the Official Darwin Awards.
Let us take the case of the trains in Norway for a start. Does it reflect a more general problem -- namely how to count from 1 to 1,000, or even from 1 to 10, for that matter? About a year ago everyone was celebrating the inception of the year 2000. Great! But, they, and nations, officially, were also celebrating the advent of the New Millennium, except that they were mistakenly celebrating it one year early. Why not celebrate it ten years early instead? The Second Millennium of the CE (Current Era) (formerly known as AD (Anno Domini)) started just after midnight, 31 Dec 2000.
Why is this relevant to the trains in Norway? Because of a basic lack of skill in counting -- or, more precisely, in understanding our terminology about counting. People who claim that the New Millennium started a year ago perhaps do not realize that our calendar system has no date called year zero. The year before 1 AD is 1 BC. There is no such date as 0 AD or 0 BC, just as there is no such time of day as 12:00 am or 12:00 pm. That is why, for good reason, you will not see (or should not see) in plane and train schedules, any trip that starts or ends at exactly noon or midnight, at least not if it is to be given in numbers instead of words, such as "noon". If you are looking for the train that leaves at midnight, look for a time on the schedule such as 11:59 (or 11:59:59) pm or 2359 or 00:01 am. But why should that worry anyone? After all, there is no such date as 0 Jan 01, and although there may be a first day of the week, the week has no day 0.
I spent part of my career programming computers. In doing so, one sometimes has the luxury of having the following tradeoff. Choose a language such as machine language or assembler in which you have to tell the computer in the minutest of detail what to do. Or choose a higher-level language (PL/I, Fortran, or Visual Basic) with built-in "smarts" that understands a basic group of a few statements such as "create a list, C, of the products of the 100 numbers in list A and the corresponding numbers in list B". In an even higher-level language (APL), all one need do is code in C = A * B. In either case, programmers learn early to count on their fingers, no matter how esoteric their coding efforts are at times. They look for initial and final conditions. They look at seemingly simple statements in the program design specifications (which, ideally, should exist) to determine such things as "by definition, what is the first element in a list?". Secondly, when this gets translated to computer code, is the first element in the list denoted as element number 1? Not usually. Often it is denoted as element number 0. If one is adding up ten numbers labeled 0 to 9, which one is the first number? Number 0, or number 1? Maybe it's number 3 in someone else's scheme of things. Is the day 1 Jan 01 the first day of the month or the zeroth day? In the case of Norway, is 1 Jan 01 the 32nd day of Dec 00 for some purposes? Maybe it should be. Maybe not.
In the case of Norway, one can only speculate as to why the train has to know what day it is in order that one can start it. There may be valid reasons, as a fail-safe system that assumes that if the train does not even know what day it is, then there may be other important things that it does not know, such as whether it has all of its wheels attached. Oh yes, we expect "things" such as trains and planes to "know" things, even more so than we expect your "smart" car to know things. My car (a 1987 Nissan Maxima) is quick to tell me in polite words that my door is open, when I open it up coming to stop in our driveway, at about 2 mph! We would hope that a passenger jet would be at least that "smart". Unfortunately for one plane a few years ago, the plane was not that smart. It took off with a door that was not completely closed, and encountered severe problems as a result. So my car is smarter, in one sense, than a $100 million plane? Why?
There is another, albeit less likely, possible reason for the so-called Y2K bug striking in Norway one year too late. It is commonly accpted that the "K" in Y2K means 1,000, so that Y2K means Y2000. However, as any machine-language programmer would know in his sleep, "K" in computer (binary) parlance means 1,024 in decimal notation, not 1,000. So, perhaps the systems people in Norway were a bit complacent in thinking that the bug would not hit until the year 2048? Just asking! Using Roman numerals might have helped, as then we would have called it the YMM bug!
On a more mundane level, we even have trouble telling what the date is. Consider the following notations: 11 Dec 00, 2000 Dec 11, 00/12/11, 11/12/00, 11.12.00, 11-12-00, and 12/11/00. They could all denote the same date, but how would you know which system was in use? And this is only in English. What if we tried it in French? My preference would be 11Dec00, but it is not likely to become a standard, if for no other reason that there still is no single standard in relation to what one would consider to be such a simple matter.
Just so that I am not bragging about things that have happened in the past, but which could have easily been avoided, let me propose ij some of the following articles some possible risks and how they could easily be avoided in the future.
Drunk driving: why is it still possible?
Why not have a "smart" steering wheel in every car that senses pH levels in the perspiration of the of the skin, and hence the degree of alcohol intake by the driver? It was invented years ago. One just drinks eight martinis, staggers to the car, starts it up, and drives away. Do you think that the driver is worrying about how tough the laws are on drunk driving? Not likely. Do they need to be tougher? No, they are already very tough. Besides, in spite of the laws, our driver is now merrily weaving down the road at a dangerously low speed of 40 km/hr in a 100 km/hr zone. For how long? Is there a policeman within 20 km? Not likely.
With the smart steering wheel installed, the driver might be on the road for about one minute before he hears a voice say: "You have had too much to drink. Please pull over and park the car now.". If the car does not slow down much, and very soon, the voice comes on again a half-minute later, saying: "I am cutting the ignition off in 20 seconds. Stop and park now. The car will be dead for an hour. You can try driving it again then. For now, have a nice nap!". An even smarter car might have already phoned the police, but without a Global Positioning System at work (which some systems have), how would the police know where the car is? However, in the system I envisage the police would not be needed.
What is to prevent the astute driver from wearing gloves, so that the dreaded steering wheel cannot detect the effects of alcohol? So he tries it. Much to his dismay, he gets about one minute into his cross-country drive, only to hear that voice again, this time, with a hint of sarcasm: "Crafty aren't you? Don't you know that real drivers don't wear gloves? I like drivers who perspire. Pull the car over now. You have 20 seconds of live car time left. Then take your gloves off and try driving again -- right away if you wish -- but you only get one more try at it before I shut the car down for one hour.".
You might also ask about people, such as diabetics, that have special skin chemistry that might not work properly with such a system. We could make exceptions of some sort, on the basis of a medical certificate. Perhaps the threshold level of the system could be adjusted by an authorized mechanic, for example, -- or more probably, a software engineer. In any case, it would be better than our present system. By default, now, anyone, no matter how drunk, can get into a car and drive away for miles or hours. Would some people manage to cheat the system? Probably -- with a great deal of effort. However, in our present system, everyone can cheat the system without any effort at all.
What is needed is not tougher laws. What is needed is very simple. All we need is a technical means by which it would be impossible to drive while drunk. This means has existed for years, thanks to a company in Florida. After all, we do not have a law that makes it illegal to carry more than one metric tonne of cargo on a bicycle! For the same reasoning, we would not need laws against drunk driving if it were an impossible thing to do. This is a case in which we should let technology prevent a problem. Instead, in our present system, we allow the problem to occur, and then try to get revenge by the use of courts, lawyers, and jails -- and at great expense.
What about the economics of having such smart steering wheels? The last I heard (about five years ago) the manufacturer in Florida was selling these systems at US$900. What if such systems were mandated for all new vehicles sold? I suspect that the price could come down to more like $300 and still give the company a good profit. For those having such systems installed, do you think that the car-insurance companies would like to give you a reduction in car insurance by, say, $200 per year? They should jump at the chance, because it would probably save them $300 per year in damage claims. That's a pretty good return on no investment! And our taxes? We would not need as many policemen worrying about drunk drivers. We would no longer have lines of people appearing in court for drunk driving -- drunk driving would be impossible, except as rare exceptions, perhaps. So, less taxes needed for police, courts, medical care, jail space, ambulance services, etc. The only losers might be auto-repair firms with fewer smashed-up vehicles to work on. So, at each stage, we have people profiting from such a system.
Who would complain about lower taxes and lower insurance rates, not to mention fewer stupid accidents and human grief?
Why not farm out the total management and responsibility for water supplies to private companies, e.g., Coca-Cola or Molson? When was the last time that you heard of someone getting poisoned by E-Coli 0157 bacteria from a bottle of Coke or beer? I suspect also, that Coke would not tolerate for very long a water manager who did not know what a bacterium was and who drank rum along with his Cokes all day at work, starting just after breakfast! Walkerton and Ontario did, though. By the way, in England most water supplies are managed by private companies.
Why is it that, after every plane crash, investigators go rummaging through the wreckage to search for those cockpit data and voice-recorder boxes? Why are not those data already on a computer on the ground? After all, radio transmission was invented how many years ago now? Why could not the plane be always on the Internet with live transmissions, of not only voice and data, but video of the cockpit and other areas? Why, indeed, has that data not already been acted upon, both in the air and on the ground, to avoid the impending crash? Efforts of that sort are well underway in the UK, but not in North America.
You might also ask why these black boxes depend on external power to operate, with no battery backup. At a cost of maybe $10? Your home computer and answering machine have one -- to keep track of the time during power failures. Maybe we can't afford an extra $10 (plus $1,000 for installation?) on a $100 million plane? Or maybe nobody thought of it?
No, we are not ahead of the rest of the world in everything. We are behind Europe, for example, in the use of Digital Audio and Video Broadcasting, television picture quality, cell phones, smart cards, and parking meters that accept charge cards.
Why is it that a passenger can casually walk up the aisle of a Boeing 747 with 400 people on board, saunter into the cockpit, wrap his arms around the neck of the pilot in a half-Nelson, and start praying to one of his gods to help him kill everyone for the love of God? Or just plunge a weapon into his back?
You say that passengers cannot carry weapons onto the plane? It is easy to carry a deadly weapon on board, through X-ray security and all. I have done it. All you need to do is to consider what the definition of the word "weapon" is and do a bit of lateral thinking. I routinely carry onto planes a folding knife with a 3" blade, made of ceramic, not metal, by the way, that is sharper than fine steel, and not very visible on an X-ray machine. No problem. Some pistols are now made of plastic. More routinely, most people carry on board what could be very dangerous weapons, given just an ounce of lateral thinking. A knife with a 4'' blade might not get through security, nor a fingernail scissors (as the wife of one RCMP officer found out a few years ago), but you can easily get through with a far more dangerous weapon -- 7" long, with a steel-tipped point sharper than the points on many knives. It's called a ball-point pen. An even more dangerous weapon is routinely allowed on board -- a bottle of the finest red wine. A wonderfully heavy and deadly club, even if it is a dry wine! Or, smashed, a wonderfully sharp spear, more dangerous than a knife.
The reason that such dangerous weapons get on board is very simple: we tend not to speak of them as weapons. Oddly enough, however, as I once verified in speaking to an assistant Crown attorney at a party, a ball-point pen can be considered as a dangerous weapon under the law; its possession under certain circumstances can be considered to be a legal offence. Some pilot-interest groups have called for a ban on people carrying bottles of wine on board, partly for these reasons, but also because such bottles, stored in overhead compartments, pose a risk of falling on people in turbulent conditions. Also, it is not very economic of fuel usage to drag a bottle of wine along for 3,000 km instead of buying it at your local store! Efforts are underway in Scandinavia to ban the sale of tax-free items at terminals, partly because it does not make economic sense, and it adds to air pollution.
And why is it that a passenger can just walk up behind the pilot so easily? My modest proposals: The cockpit door should be reinforced and locked at all times in the flight, except for passage by authorized crew, or in an emergency. Each crew member should have immediate access to a loaded pistol. The captain and co-pilot and navigator should carry at all times on their hips a loaded pistol which they are authorized to use at the slightest sign of danger from a passenger or another crew member. What if the co-pilot wanted to commit suicide? It has been done at least once, and tried at least once. See my other message on a particular case. The plane should also have available a glue gun, paralyzing gas, handcuffs, leg irons (plastic), maybe Tazer stun guns, injectable tranquilizers, and netting and other restraints to calm down boisterous passengers and tie them up securely for the rest of the flight. We should not have to depend upon passengers contributing their neckties for use as handcuffs, as has been the case until very recently, and still is for most airlines.
One might well ask whether it would be safer for both pilot and co-pilot to carry loaded pistols or for neither one to carry one. Consider the case where the co-pilot wants to commit suicide. There has been at least one such case. One way to do it would be for him to wait until the pilot went to the washroom. I suspect that this is what happened in the case of EgyptAir. The co-pilot then takes the controls, switches off auto-pilot, and rams the steering wheel forward, putting the plane into a nose dive, reciting his prayers to some god or other or to Allah, in this case, all the while. The captain in the washroom would notice this immediately. Under present circumstances, he is faced with wrestling control away from the co-pilot. Under a two-gun scenario, he would be faced with returning to the cockpit with a loaded pistol pointing forward, to face a co-pilot with pistol facing backward. A standoff at the OK corral? But, you might ask, why would the co-pilot not just pull out his pistol and shoot the pilot to begin with, or himself, for that matter? After all, he had bought the gun the previous day and had it with him in his hotel room overnight. In the case of EgyptAir (I speculate, with some good supporting evidence), because the co-pilot does not want this to be seen as a suicide, so as: (a) not to dishonor his family, and (b) for purposes of life insurance. To make it more difficult for a co-pilot to pursue the surprise-shooting route, I suggest that each loaded pistol be kept in a special holster, such that, when the pistol is extracted, or a protective band released, an audible warning alarm would sound.
There have been several crashes in which the cockpit of a plane has been filling with smoke to the extent that the pilot cannot even see the control indicators, much less out through the window.
My modest proposal: a negative-ion generator. Many homes use them, including ours. It is simply a fine wire charged to - 8,500 volts in front of a metal backplane charged to + 8,500 volts. The wire emits electrons that get captured by particles of anything in the air. The particles, having become charged, then are attracted to the nearest surface, thus clearing the air very effectively. It is a simple device, using 4 ma of current, making no noise. It might even serve to keep the crew more alert, in that it keeps the air clean and electrically charged with beneficial negative ions. Such a device would load the plane down with extra mass equivalent to about a half of a bottle of wine.
It might be of advantage to have the total air supply of the plane subject to negative-ion injection, given that recycled air becomes more heavily laden with neutral and positive ions. -- a situation that contributes to: (a) significant malaise and headaches for about 15% of people"; and, (b) stuffy air (and thicker blood?) for all.
As for Quebec, the less I see of Quebec the better. It has become to me like an alienated foreign country, with repressive language laws, and laws of educational opportunities based on ethno-language racial discrimination that no modern society elsewhere tolerates. It is also a province of Canada, not a Nation*, in which I would not want to leave my car parked anywhere with its Ontario licence plates so visible. Ontario motorists venturing across to Aylmer and Hull, P.Q. learn this the hard way, with discriminatory ticketing of cars for the most minor of infractions. Those concerns, and the possibility of needing medical care in Quebec outside of Montreal in one's own language, lead me to prefer the more friendlier and safer land of Vermont and the USA in gerneral over that of Quebec.
* Although in the sense stated above, Quebec is not a Nation -- from another point of view, I have to agree with the separatists that, in another very important sense, Quebec is a nation, if one takes an important and accepted idea of the meaning of that word. A nation in that sense is a group of people bound emotionally together on the basis of strong affinities of race, language, religion, and culture -- usually accompanied by feelings of racial and religious superiority. In that sense, Quebec fits the definition, as do some other ethno-centric groups called Kosovo, Serbia, Afghanistan with the Taliban, Israel with its apartheid, and tribes in Africa. I do not want to live in a Canada in which any part of Canada is a nation in that sense. Not being pur laine, I would be a second-class citizen in Quebec -- even as just a visitor -- just as Palestinian citizens of apartheid Israel are treated as very decidedly second-class in Israel.
I agree with the main thrust of the following book by Reed Scowan: Time to Say Goodbye: The Case for Getting Quebec Out of Canada.
FFWD Weekly - December 2nd, 1999: http://www.greatwest.ca/ffwd/Issues/1999/1202/book1.html Time to Say Goodbye: The Case for Getting Quebec Out of Canada. Reed Scowen has chosen this moment to argue that Canada should, once and for all, take the initiative and invite Quebec to leave Confederation.
Columnists - Ottawa Citizen Online: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/columnists/riley/991001/2935558.html If we shut the door on Quebec, some toes will be caught. Whether they vote Liberal or Parti Quebecois, most franco-Quebecers want a nation-state based on ethnic nationalism, a homeland for French-speaking Quebecers. Other Canadians, Scowen argues, see our country as a "civil association" in which diversity and harmony are emphasized, but no single group is favoured. Scowen makes no judgments; he merely lays out two irreconcilable visions. . . .
Opinion Canada (The Council for Canadian Unity): http://www.ccu-cuc.ca/en/op/archives/opv1n26.html Divestiture. Reed Scowen is a bilingual English-speaking Quebecer, who has caused a stir with his new book – Time To Say Goodbye – in which he calls on Canada to divest itself of Quebec. Here are some of his views on Canada and Quebec excerpted from his book: . . .
". . . the political values of that province are fundamentally and permanently incompatible with those of the rest of the country . . "
". . . Every effort to reinforce Anglo Saxon virtues, or impose a new definition of who we are, based on Asian values or the American way of life, is doomed to failure . . . "
". . . it is argued that French Quebec is typified by a Latin joie de vivre – but French Quebecers are no more Latin than their Norman ancestors. . . "
". . . The conclusion that I have come to after two decades of full-time engagement, is that Quebec is a not a community that a significant number of English-speaking people would choose as a place to live, work, and raise a family. This will not change because it’s the way the French-speaking majority wants things to be . . . "
". . . The only two parties in Quebec have a common ideology and govern in essentially the same way (...) The ideology of both parties is grounded in ethnic and linguistic nationalism . . . "
". . . Canada is not the home of the two founding languages, or even one of them, and the country has no need for a language debate. Some might feel that this alone justifies divestiture . . . "
". . . Federalism is supposed to be a two-way street. For Quebec it’s a one-way street. Every gain for the province is a victory, regardless of whether it makes sense. Every gain for the federal government is a humiliating defeat, not just for the government of the day, but once and forever for the Quebec people. . . "
In 1977 the Parti Quebecois introduced Bill 101. The law was intended to get rid of the English language in Quebec all together. a side effect, no doubt also intended, was to force English people out of Quebec. At that, it is partly succeeding. Among the laws introduced was the requirement for the francization of the workplace (to the extent that an English copy of Windows on a computer is illegal), the exclusive use of French on commercial and road signs, and limits to access to English schools.
English people in Quebec have been systematically discriminated against by the language laws for decades. Bill 86 gives the Quebec government the right to impose French-only signs wherever it sees fit. In 1993 the UN Committee on Human Rights said that Canada couldn't allow this kind of discrimination . Quebec is now threatening to re-impose an absolute ban on English signs by invoking the notwithstanding clause that permits it to violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. What good is a Charter that seems to offer rights, then takes them away?
Morty Grauer, owner of the Pointe Claire computer store Micro-Bytes, was served a warning letter from the Quebec governmenty, advising him that his company's home page violated the language law because it was English.
For how our southern neighbors view this, see: Worldandnation In Quebec, some take law as sign of discrimination: http://web2.sptimes.com/News/80999/Worldandnation/In_Quebec__some_take_.shtml This sign for Gwen Simpson's antiques shop in Knowlton, Quebec, has the same information in French on the other side, but the lettering is the same size on both sides. The law requires the French lettering to be twice as large as the English.
Quebec's Notorious Language Criminal!: http://www.michelsoucy.com/olf.html Am I a "Criminal" because of my English Web-Site? In PROTEST, I have ceased to offer Computer Tutoring Services in the province of Quebec. Of course, I don't expect the Quebec government to go bankrupt as a result of recieving less tax revenue that was generated from my services, but it's less tax revenue that they'll receive from* this* Quebecer! Michel Soucy.
Good for you, Michel! I look forward to the day when Quebec separates, then goes bankrupt. One or two more Olympic Games ought to do it.
The Quebec government is planning to consolidate smaller English-speaking suburbs into larger unilingual French cities.
News (The Equality Party): http://www.equality.qc.ca/recent.htm.
And here is yet another sneer at Canada from Quebec.
Provincial government dubs Quebec City a 'national capital': http://www.vigile.net/00-1/capitale.html QUEBEC (CP, 12.1.00) In August, the Quebec government threatened to cancel $700,000 worth of financing to a group set up to promote the Quebec City area, after the group agreed to a clause in its funding deal with Ottawa not to refer to Quebec City as the "national capital."
There is one national capital in Canada and it is in Ottawa, federal minister Martin Cauchon declared at the time.
In fact, for me, Quebec is out, for all future trips of more than an hour. As for Montreal, the increasing grubbiness of its main streets -- in part, a sad legacy of the still huge civic debts of hundreds of millions of dollars outstanding from its suicidal hosting of Olympic Games -- has lessened its appeal to me. Toronto, not having learned from recent history, is now pursuing its own despicable pursuit of Olympic Nirvana 2008. Why it is so important to see whether trained rats or athletes can run faster or traverse mazes faster, I cannot imagine! However, the World Wide Wrestling Federation and Fox TV know the answer very well -- and profitably, too. Why don't we let them handle it, but without one penny of tax support for either the bureaucracy or the athletes? Welfare should be sufficient for the athletes. Their "accomplishments" contribute no more to society than sitting at home and watching TV, anyway.
We should help to let Quebec go its own way as quickly as possible. Then Canada can be rid of that embarrassment to human rights. Quebec says that when it separates, it wants to maintain a sovereignty association with Canada. Why, I ask? I thought that Quebec did not like sovereignty, especially as it has the name sovereign embedded in it. However, I am satisfied with the request of Quebec in wanting to maintain an association with Canada -- provided that this association is no stronger than our association with Paraguay or Russia. Why would we wish to have more than purely trade and diplomatic ties with a nation that is so obviously disdainful of Canada and of human rights. Then we can become an officially unilingual country.
Please go away, Quebec! The sooner the better! Join the Balkans -- they love ethno-religio-nationalism. You won't have to fly Canada's flag in that "good" company. Oh, and you might want to raise an army while you are at it. You will need one.
In July 2001 I spoke with the owner of a automobile service station which is part of a franchise of such stations called THE SPECIALIST. He had recently received an invitation for such owners from across Canada to attend a promotional meeting at its headquarters in the Province of Quebec. The one-page notice, in English and French, stated that additional details of the meeting were available as a separate attachment of five or so pages, but in French only. When he inquired as to whether an English version was available, he was informed that there was not, and that, furthermore, all proceedings and events at the session would be in French only.
In its consolidation of surrounding regions into the new city of Ottawa, it was decided to make the city officially bilingual. Across the river, the city of Hull, Quebec, is officially unilingual French.
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Traffic calming and speed bumps: why they are a bad idea
Stop signs: why there are too many
Honking horns: why?
Noise: why not eliminate it?
Parenting: it should require qualification tests and licensing
Clifford Pickover, at Pickover.com
One of the coolest personal
sites on the Web belongs to the noted physicist Clifford
Pickover. He's an interesting and intelligent guy, to
say the least, and he has an opinion on just about everything
under the sun. What's more, he wants to hear your views, too. His
site lets you contribute your own ideas and opinions about his
thought-provoking excursions into science, ethics, philosophy,
behavior, and, well, as I said, just about everything under the
Sun! Dr.
Pickover has written numerous mind-expanding books (which you can
buy from his site), and he continues some of the provocative and
engrossing lines of thought on his Website -- art, science, God,
consciousness, the universe, extraterrestrial life, quantum
physics, mathematics, puzzles, -- something for everyone. Cliff
Pickover has one of the better minds among our six billion
relatives. I for one am glad he's chosen to share it with the Web
world.
Read the views of Cliff Pickover. http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/home.htm
Clifford Pickover home page.
Halfbakery: http://www.halfbakery.com/ The place for anyone who has dreamed up a new invention or notion but doesn't know what to do next! (Added 8 Jan 01.)
Official Darwin Awards : http://www.darwinawards.com/ Darwin Awards celebrate the theory of evolution by commemorating the remains of those who improved our gene pool by removing themselves from it in really stupid ways. . . .such as doing a bungee jump 300 feet above ground with a cord 500 feet long. That took real brilliance! It is good for the human race that another such person is gone forever!
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You can e-mail me at waynerp@sympatico.ca