You Must Remember This

I couldn't let this news story pass without comment. There is a startup business claiming that it will be able to store the entire memories within a human brain with a view to making them available after the death of the owner. This is the stuff of cutting edge science fiction. For example, Iain M Banks' Culture series envisages super-smart Artificial Intelligences of the future scanning the brains not only of humans but any other intelligent species to be found in the Galaxy and able to copy the data into new bodies, effectively producing eternal life. To have a company claiming to be on the verge of doing this today is thrilling.

Oh, hold on. There are a couple of catches. The first is that this is no more than an conjectural technique at the moment. They haven't actually recorded any memories at all. All they appear to be doing is making a map of the structure of the brain. But a scan using today's technology, such as MRI scans, is useless for recording memory - they would need the state of every molecule and the exact state of all the electrons moving between those molecules, something probably ruled out by the laws of quantum mechanics.

The second catch is a little more disturbing. Every reader of horror fiction, be they fans of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley or H. P. Lovecraft (and his many disciples) knows that any form of reanimation requires an undamaged brain. How gratifying to find that Nectome (for thus they style themselves) are reported in these words:

However, its current process requires a fresh brain.
The product is "100% fatal", the team behind it told MIT Technology Review.

Let us repair to the very top of the castle. Let us bolt the doors and mask the windows. There is a mighty storm brewing. The current is leaping from electrode to electrode. The bodies are strapped down and the scalpels are gleaming. It is surely time for that classic shout to echo across the rooftops

Spring Resumes

We had a difficult time of it last week as a combination of an errant jet stream and an Atlantic storm brought unseasonable cold and snow to much of the country. It's all back to normal now, with mild weather and that little hint of warmth in the air that means Spring is on the way. The days are lengthening rapidly and the light is brighter as the Sun moves higher in the sky.

For the first time in many years the aquatic facilities on the estate [pond out the back:Ed] are free from plant cover; last year I threw out the heavily overgrown beds of snake grass, irises and miscellaneous grass and weeds and have yet to replace them. The question is - will the much greater extent of open water attract back the frogs? We can only hope.

Let's Play 'Who to Follow' Bingo

I've previously commented on the way that Twitter thinks it knows better than you what should be displayed when you visit the site. On that occasion it was the utterly pointless "While you were away" feature that put older tweets in your face whilst hiding the current ones (the ones you actually want to see) further down the screen. Today we focus on a similar useless enhancement - the little side panel that has a selection of tweeters that, in Twitter's opinion and based on an algorithm they don't share with you, and which is titled "Who to Follow".

Why is this subject to my derision? It has never once suggested to me anyone that I wish to follow, not even fleetingly. Furthermore, there seems to be no easy way to remove it (although using the adblock addon has been suggested but having this app screws up other sites). Today it presented to me the names of three football clubs. Now, I do follow a certain football club. I am well aware of the other clubs in the league in which they play and if I want to follow them I can jolly well make that choice. Twitter obviously have a cunning plan. They presented to me today three clubs from a different league. Why on earth they think I would look at these mysterious names and wish to follow them, I have not the slightest idea.  You can delete one from the list but it then gets replaced by another. And each time it was another club from a different league.  After a lot of clicks it finally suggested to me something different - the Central Line of the London Tube. Yes, I can see the logic here. I follow the Metropolitan, on which I travel regularly. So naturally, even though as a Londoner I am thoroughly familiar with the entire structure of the transport system, Twitter assumes that I haven't a clue and randomly pulls out another tube line.

Anyway, the rules of Who to Follow Bingo are very simple. Select one of the useless suggestions and click on the little x to remove it. If what replaces it is just as useless score 1 point. If actually relevant and helpful deduct 2 points. First to 10 wins.

And there's a bonus game. See how many clicks it takes before you get a celebrity who someone you follow has chosen to follow as well. This morning I got Stephen Fry in about 20.

The Customer is King (snigger, snigger)

The latest business that is unable to tell the truth to its customers and chooses instead to dress up something unpalatable in lies and PR speak is E.ON. They have abolished the discount of £30 a year given to all customers who buy both gas and electricity without having a paper bill. They could have explained that, due to the rising costs of wholesale energy and that in order to keep their CEO and his cronies in the style to which they are accustomed, these increases are to be passed on. Unpleasant but truthful. Naturally they chose to wheel in their spin-doctors and the following emerged:

[the changes] ... make it simpler and easier for customers to understand our tariffs and compare them with other suppliers in the market.

Now, as far as I know all, ¹ of their competitors continue to offer a dual fuel/paperless discount (although this may cease to be the case as everyone gleefully follows E.ON's lead). In any case, it is one thing to make changes to simplify tariffs that leave customers paying roughly the same as before - if you hike the prices and try to disguise it by saying what a wonderful job we are doing to make things easier for you, then this is mendacity. What is more, they are the ones who chose to make the tariffs complicated and hard to understand in the first place, not their customers. How about apologising for that, at least?


1. [Has this been checked at all? Researcher, see me later: Ed]

Advice to Travellers: Don't!

The cold blast is continuing. Red alerts (danger to life) have been issued for some parts of the country and snow is severely hampering travel everywhere. We only had an inch or so overnight here in beautiful Ruislip but a lot more has been forecast. I usually take the tube to Finchley Road on a Thursday but, fortunately, my class has been cancelled. I say fortunately because here is the current status of the Tube (and one taken from yesterday when I also made that journey)

1st March 10:30 am

28 February 9:20am

Few of the reasons given for the problems mention the weather. It is the usual suspects of faulty signals and defective trains that dominate. Odd that two such awful days should exactly match two of the most difficult days, weather-wise, but you may draw your own conclusions.