Catmachine

So here it is, 2012, everybody's going to die. Or at least that's what the doomsday theorists would have us all believe. But better not join them in this belief otherwise you run the risk of Professor Brian Cox calling you a nobber [ 1 ]. He's got a point though. There's absolutely no basis for the now widely held suspicion that the world as we know it will end on Friday 21 December 2012 - or even that anyone ever predicted that it would. This hysteria came about because this date does indeed appear as a landmark in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar which was used by the Mayans amongst other people. The date wasn't part of any prophecy however - it was merely the point at which the digits of the calendar (which was calculated in a rather complex and confusing manner using both base-17 and base-20) rolled over to 13.0.0.0.0. For the Mayans this was the end of an era - perhaps a bit of an abstraction seeing as it lay so far in the future, but the Mesoamerican...

One of the best things about being a child is that time lasts so long and that there is so much to do that one soon forgets about things. As described in the last entry , my parents entered a competition on my behalf, the first prize of which was a flight to America to see the launch of the next Apollo mission. Whilst it was true it was always at the back of my mind that I might win, in the meantime I just got on with other things. We didn't win of course but I don't recall not winning. The possibility just faded from sight. This didn't affect my obsession with space flight in the least. I was still hooked and for someone with such interests it was an exciting time to be alive. The odd thing is that I don't remember whether my interest in space travel was sparked off by my parents waking me up in the middle of the night to watch Apollo 11 land on the moon or whether the only reason they bothered to wake me up in the middle of the night in the first place was that...

I just entered a competition the first prize of which is a journey into space. I am under no illusions about winning, but it is nice to have these little possibilities hanging there in the back brain giving us cause to imagine just how wonderful would it be if only...  Millions of people do the National Lottery every week for instance and the chances of winning that are far less likely. So you never know, I might win. And of all the things I really want to do, number one by a long way has always been leaving the planet, if only temporarily. I dream about space travel on a regular basis and am eternally disappointed in the non-arrival of the future that was promised us in our childhood. OK so we have a different future, an amazing one that we could never have imagined back in the seventies. The internet, a whole extra dimension, has been added to human experience in the most significant technological development since Gutenberg and yet... It's not as good as space travel, is...

Readers of my recent blog entry about how reality is in all probability a computer simulation are quite right to feel sceptical. It's clearly a ridiculous notion, a clever bit of philosophical reasoning designed to invoke a paradox. Instinctively we know this. The Simulation Hypothesis goes against what we feel is the truth and as William of Occam himself carved with his famous Razor, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. The original words of Occam's Razor are in fact particularly astute in this case; pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate or in plain English, plurality should not be posited without necessity . Why hypothesize a multitude of simulations when one simple reality will do? It's just common sense. However, common sense isn't always right. The ancients believed that the Earth was flat - and you can see why. It feels like common sense. Down is down - it's where things fall to. The ground is clearly flat and the sky "u...

Nothing is real. No, that's not strictly true. To put it another way, everything is real. If it wasn't real it wouldn't be . The point I'm trying to make is that this world may very well not be the real one. Whatever that means. I'll start again. There is a theory that states that if it ever became possible to simulate reality in a computer, such a simulation would be indistinguishable from the real thing and any inhabitants of the simulation would be completely unaware that they were all simply part of a gigantic computer program. There is another theory that states that this has already happened. It's known as the Simulation Hypothesis and has been put forward by Nick Bostrom who is either a philosopher at the University of Oxford or (if his hypothesis is to be believed) a simulation of a philosopher at a simulation of the University of Oxford. The premise is very simple. If, hypothesises Bostrom, it ever becomes possible to simulate reality i...

All that talk of the Rockwell 8R that I indulged in last time reminded me of something I discovered way back then but never really shared with anyone until now. The next model of calculator up from mine was the Rockwell 18R which was a very similar device except that it had the benefit of a memory . Imagine that. Only the rich kids in school had calculators with memories . You'd have thought that what with my four function calculator being my proudest possession (aside from my clunky LED digital watch) I'd have treated it with kid gloves, but far from it. I was always obsessed with taking things to pieces. I'm not sure why - it's not as if prying the back of most machinery would have given me any insight into how it worked, but I used to do it anyway. Once I was convinced that if I swapped the connections for the aerial and the loudspeaker on an old valve radio I'd have built myself a radio transmitter. Anyway, I pulled the front off my calculator and was surpri...

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C Clarke My old iPod broke down irretrievably the other day. Well, I say irretrievably, but I'm sure someone out there knows how to replace the hard drive for a tidy sum, but in the meantime it's quicker and easier (and probably not that more expensive) for me to buy a new one. After all I've had it nearly five years - that's an eternity for a modern gadget. It was good to finally have a proper reason to visit the new Apple store in Churchill Square. It had been sitting there between River Island and the Build A Bear Workshop for a few months now, a tempting technological candy store for the kid in me. And now I was finally going shopping there. I decide to go for the middle of the range iPod Touch. With a capacity just over that of my previous iPod, I decided that it probably had what it takes for all my music and podcast listening needs. What I didn't realise was how many o...

It's that strange time of year again, when, due to the odd way I visualise numbers and dates , I start to get (santa) claustrophobia. There is something about the period between Christmas and New Year that feels the wrong size. The whole of the final quarter of the year seems to be a build up to the festive season, which whatever your belief system and curmudgeonity-level is at least a break from the day to day grind of everyday life and a chance to relax and recharge the batteries. What's more, if you're fortunate, you get over a week off work gratis without having to use up any valuable leave days. Then after the blowout of 25th December you crawl up through the trapdoor into 26th and realise there's nowhere to go. It's not so much another storey like the rest of the weeks have been, but the attic of the year, and not one that's been given a swanky loft makeover either - this is the old fashioned kind with bare beams, darkness, spiders, old cardboard boxes, ...

We've been living in the future now for almost twenty years, and I have to say it's been a big disappointment. Some people might say that the rise of the internet is something that we didn't predict and which has gone very well thank you and which has led to all those people walking around with iPhones - a mobile, portable entertainment and communications centre in their pocket. Isn't that futuristic enough for me? Frankly, no. Whilst I did make myself what I now realise was a toy laptop out of an old box file in 1973, drew a picture of a mobile phone ( see above ) in 1974 and always had a hankering for a wrist TV, to me the future was defined by one thing and one thing alone. Space. It's not surprising - one of my early coherent memories is being woken up in the middle of the night to watch Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, and I'm sure I got through more than one Airfix kit of the Saturn V and Eagle etc. Back then it was not unreasonable to assume that things wou...