I have been waiting for the expiry of the embargo on this story at midnight GMT.  I am now free to publish what I am confident will be a major scoop for scientificblogging.com


IPCC Says: We Give Up


In a shocking new publication - "IPCC: The Final Report" - the IPCC concludes that its study of climate is ultimately futile since so few people are willing trust its findings.

The 10-page report is available only on national government web sites - the IPCC site will be shutting down some time in the next 24 hours.

Random Noise #21 : World's Most Dry and Remote Area


How do you go about finding the world's driest, most remote area?


You could use a satellite, but that's exceedingly expensive.


You could send out questionaires, but that is unreliable.


Working on the reasonable assumption that you can't beat first-hand knowledge, I have worked out the following experimental method:


Start off into a remote region with just a bicycle and trailer with plenty of filled water carriers.


You will know you are in a remote area when someone points to the trailer and asks:
"What's that?"

Lego Turing Machine


I just came across a wonderful teaching aid:

Our success in implementing the Turing Machine as a physical device is exciting because the Turing Machine theoretical construct is such an iconic part of computer science. The Robotic Turing Machine is not in itself a practical machine, but it does illustrate the theoretical points made by Turing, and so could easily find application in the field of teaching. Illustrating the theory of a Turing Machine might be made easier with a physical machine at hand to aid in comprehension. Seeing a physical machine performing TM operations can be easier to follow than the typical java applet example and might give a better intuitive understanding of the TM theory.

More Snow Anyone?

We may get a little snow in England in a day or two.  Scotland, being in somewhat cooler climes, may get a little more.

Quite apart from the UK Met Office's ability - or lack of it - to predict weather, the current Arctic Oscillation trend, if continued, could lead to some surprise sprinklings of snow.

I can't predict who will get snow, nor how much.  Boston?  New York?  What I can predict, as a virtual certainty, is that if there is more snow we will see more inane questions from parochial northern hemisphere residents asking what happened to global warming.