Mortloch's game

2009 has been dubbed the international Darwin-year. Charles Darwin was born exactly 200 years ago, and 150 years ago the book was published that would revolutionize the way we look at and think about life. And since this little space is so generously given to me to talk about games, I want to talk about a game that shows evolution really does work.

“Oh, he’s going to talk about Spore, that new evolution-sim by that guy who did the Sims” you probably think. But no. I want to tell you about Spore’s primitive ancestor, back in the analogue age, when it was still a humble board game called “Ursuppe” or “Primordial Soup”.

“Primordial Soup” (1997) is a hard to come by boardgame by German game designers Frank and Doris. In it, up to 6 players grab strains of amoebes by their DNA and force them up the ladder of life.

The soup is divided in a grid, and each sector contains little wooden cubes, representing foodstuff. Each turn an amoebe is in a sector, it has to eat a certain amount of cubes, and excrete waste. Hopefully the overall current of the soup will take your amoebes out of it’s sector before it runs out of food and is just swimming in… well… you know, its own poop.

Because the distribtion of foodstuff is always changing, and there is never enough to go around, there is a real struggle for survival. Now, just like in real life, there are two ways to take on that struggle: multiply or specialize. Each turn, the player is given a certain amount of points which they can spend on either cell division or buying new genes. Having many primitive amoebes makes it unlikely that they’ll all be wiped out, but they won’t be very flexible. Having a few specialized amoebes makes them potentially very succesful, but low numbers make them more likely to go extinct if they run into some bad luck.

The key is balance. Just dividing and dividing and letting your amoebes float powerlessly through the soup won’t win you the game in the end. Neither will overloading on powerful genes, since the thickness of the ozone layer will vary throughout the game and the UV will burn away excess DNA. The trick is to select the right genes at the right time. Being able to at least excert some influence in the direction your amoebes are going is a very powerful gene: at least you have a chance to swim towards the rich feeding grounds and away from the latrine. Or you can select the frugality-gene, so your amoebes can do with less food per turn. Or evolve a tentacle so you can steal foodcubes from adjacent squares. Hell, you can even give you amoebes a Ph.D. It’s completely useless, but your amoebes will be the brainiest thing around for at least 2 billion years.

Somewhere halfway through, the game really comes into its element. There’ll always be a player who decides it’s time to step it up a notch: fed up with simple wooden foodcubes, she’ll equip her amoebes with specialized genes and intelligently design the world’s first predators. Her prey: the other amoebes! And here is where you’ll see evolution really works. In just a few turns, all the other players will have evolved some sort of defense, wether it is armour, spikes, or just the gene that allows an amoebe to swim away when attacked. A amoebe that can’t defend itself will be eaten into extinction. The game will be a real weapons’ race for a few turns; the carnivore evolving new abilities and the prey developing new ways to stay safe. If the threat is removed, because intense UV-light destroyed the hunter’s gene pool, all the defensive genes are shed too in favour of others since they no longer serve a purpose. Until the threat arises anew.

In the end, the size of your gene pool combined with the amount of surviving amoebes is calculated into the end-score. I most admit I can’t recall any spectacular end games. The game peaks at the moments the evolutionairy arms race is on and peeters out towards the end. Still, it is a vey fun game to play – even if only for the sheer amount of poop-related jokes you’re allowed to make – and it even teaches us an important lesson, namely: Grow big, sharp teeth, and grow them quickly!

Next week a double bill: Kremlin and RoboRally.

Here fishy fishy fish.

I would have shoved the fishing rod right up their.........

Dumb law day Australian style

Lets head down under, Tiddles roots are planted there, coming from down under I thought I would look up some of their silly and dumb laws, like all the countries and states I have mentioned in the past, Australia has some of their own also many many years old that need a little updating, lets take the first one for example, them move on to the silly and just bizarre.

1, You must have a neck to knee swimsuit in order to swim at Brighton Beach.
2, It is technically illegal to copy music from CDs you own onto your MP3 player or iPod... (technically illegal? and my ex is technically an arsehole but what can you do?)
3, It is illegal to read someone's tarot, or give them a psychic reading as these are forms of witchcraft.
4, Until the Port Arthur Killings it was legal to own an AK-47 but not legal to be gay.
5, It is illegal to roam the streets wearing black clothes, felt shoes and black shoe polish on your face as these items are the tools of a cat burglar. (maybe soon illegal to wear miniskirts as it is the known clothing of a street worker)
6, It is illegal to walk on the right hand side of a footpath. (as it should be ~rolls eyes)
7, Under Australian Communications Authority (ACA) regulations, a modem can’t pick up on the first ring.
8, Only licensed electricians may change a light bulb. (how many Aussies does it take to change a light bulb? obviously one and he has to be licensed)
9, Bars are required to stable, water and feed the horses of their patrons. (what about the poor asses? obviously I mean donkeys!)
10,It is illegal to wear hot pink pants after midday Sunday. (this should be illegal everywhere in the world, every day of the week!)

Silent Sunday

A sisters hope.

Have you not heard of it? well you can find out about it here.
A walk of 60km done within 2 days it is a walk for breast cancer, to enter it you need to pay an entry fee of 1500euro on which I plan on raising.
Taking place in October I have some time to raise the money. In the upcoming weeks I am getting together with a friend to make bracelets to sell to raise money for the walk, ALL money is going to the breast cancer walk.
I know many people dislike it, I do myself but I will be having a donate button on here soon so people can donate if they so desire, also there will be contact details if people want to buy some of the jewellery shown.
My past posts of bracelets are also for the breast cancer walk so check them out if you like

Francis Rodino

Francis Rodino, not only is he as handsome as anything (in my books) he is an amazing singer.
This coming weekend he will be releasing his CD and I can not wait. I have applied for his limited edition signed CD and I better get it or there will be some heads flying!
Francis Rodino was the first person I discovered on sellaband I was so impressed with the concept of sellaband that I joined and have been surfing and listening there ever since.
Francis is one of the 29 bands that has reached $50,000 and one of the 19 who has recorded an album, which mind you is released today!

My final words on this is, you really REALLY must listen to his work and here is my promotional work for him

Francis's website.
Francis on sellaband.
Sellaband (check it out tell them I sent you just throw them this link)
Francis on youtube (look closely you might see me, I mean if you knew who we were)

Francis, good luck know I will be by your side every step of the way, need help? just ask handsome.

Tiddle me this and Tiddle me that.

Having her times where she does not post, then weeks where she makes you pee yourself laughing, this weeks guest blogger is Tiddles, also known as Tracey(Shy), madness is her middle name and her blog (well one of them)

Thanks from the intro, now onto something all about me! Hhhhmmm ok lost for words, I am a Guest blogger seems so easy, I can blog about whatever I want, no limits so sure I would jump at it but now I am lost for words, have nothing to say.
Hi I am Tiddles, Tracey, Shy, I write and run about a zillion blogs, I am a blog-o-holic.
Ummm I am an Aussie? I am boring, though some think I am funny, for that you need to check out some of my blogs, I am a happily divorced and love my kid.
Errrr this is harder then I thought, guest blogging they say.
Well go check out my blogs, I really have nothing to say, you wait and see tomorrow I will have something to say and chew your ear off, apparently One2day said I can email them things whenever I like and they will post it, cool huh? why not you try it too.
So will you be next weeks blogger?

Ohh flock it (Mortlach's game review)

Two weeks ago, I saw this trailer for an upcoming game called “Flock” and the first thing I thought was: I know this game already! After some digging in the old archives, I came up with Sheep, a game from the year 2000. So at the start of the new millenium, I was herding sheep through lethal obstacle courses, and in 2009, I’m still herding sheep past probably just as lethal obstacle courses – only with better graphics.

It did start me thinking about other games that have recently been recycled. Prince of Persia for PS3 was released in 2008; its predecessor, the Sands of Time saw the light of day in ’03 and of course it’s all directly related to the classic Prince of Persia from ’89. So three generations of Princes in 19 years; that does average out to about 9 years.

Looking back to further prove my point I found the game of GoldenAxe (X360 in 2008 and original in 1990) which, like some hereditary diseases, blessedly seems to have skipped a generation.

Some games are on a faster cycle. Sim City got released in 1989, then in 1993, 1998, 2003 and finally in 2007, by which time it had mutated into an unrecognizable and uncrontrolable freak.

Researching this did make me look back on the games I played when I was young – currently 30, so back in the day of the original Prince of Persia and SimCity, I was 11. Oh, the wondrous days of 1-colour screens (mine was orange, not green), floppy discs, bleeps and whistles for the internal PC-speaker and clock speeds that went up as far as a whopping 15 MegaHertz.

I even found a site with so-called “abandonware”. That’s software of which the copyright has been voided, so it’s free ánd legal to download. I’m not much for nostalgia, but playing Sierra’s adventure game Goldrush from 1988 – using a DOS-emulator and extremely reigned in computer - did take me back when life was simple. “Look around” You see a photo album on the table! “Open album”, “Take photo”, “Exit”

According to the theory of a 9-year generation cycle, Gold Rush3 should be released any moment now, but I’m afraid the entire branch of adventure games went extint somewhere in the 1990’s and all that’s left are the fossil remains, treasured by the people who were there when the adventure game ruled supreme.

Back to Flock. If it’s half as good as it’s precursor Sheep was, you’ll still have a ton of fun. And if it isn’t any good, well, you’ll probably will be able to find the original Sheep at the bottom of the toy store’s bargain-bin.

Next week: not sure yet!

A laugh a day.

I want to see this guy explain the damage to his car to the insurance agent.

Dumb law day (CA style)

It is time to start with some of the stated of America starting with California

1. It is prohibited to sleep in a parked vehicle.
2. One may not bring their dog to school. (explain this to a blind person)
3. It is illegal to own a green or smelly animal hide.
4. Bowling on the sidewalk is illegal. (why?)
5. Driving a herd of cattle down a street is against the law. (Mooooo)
6. It is illegal to spit, except on baseball diamonds.
7. You are not permitted to wear cowboy boots unless you already own at least two cows.
8. City Council order reads: “No dog shall be in a public place without its master on a leash. (I think this typo needs to be fixed that or the BDSM community is using it to its fullest)
9. Nobody is allowed to ride a bicycle in a swimming pool. (though it is a great party trick!)
10. No vehicle without a driver may exceed 60 miles per hour. (but officer)

Silent Sunday

A busy Silent Sunday.

I make jewellery it is very relaxing for me and this is what my work table looks like pretty much every day of the week.

Mad as hell!

In my "Agenda" of this blog today is about breast cancer. I have wanted to share many facts on breast cancer and get more people aware of the signs as it is taking to many lives silently. The facts I want to share with you have just flown out the window today because today I am mad, very mad!
My closest friend is fighting breast cancer, I was so blind to it, I knew people got it but I was always the person that said "yes it happens to others, no one I know has it and I do not as well"
While I was off stressing my way through a divorce and custody battle my closest friend found out she has breast cancer and she kept it to herself because she did not want me to focus less on my child and add stress to me. I understand her meaning was well hearted but I can not believe she went through things in the beginning alone.
My friend is a single mother, through her treatments of chemo she has on one occasion flat lined and on another passed out in her bathroom and was in a coma for 10 days. This lady is the strongest person I know. She actually fled to this country 15 years ago because of a political war where she was sexually and physically abused, her throat slashed and left for dead, she has slowly put her life together and now this!
You now have the back ground of the most amazing and strong person I know now to why I am mad! Yesterday she was meant to go in for her 3rd operation, this time it is to get both breasts removed, through all her fighting and chemo it has come to this. One hour before she left for the long 4 hour drive to the hospital she got a phone call that reminded her to take her bank card, wondering why she needed money she asked them, in which they replied "Well the operation is 20,000euro and we as your insurance company are only paying 5,000"
Being a single mother and now unable to work because of her "sickness" she does not have anything close to 15,000 laying around. The conversation ended there and it was only minutes later the phone rang again and it was the hospital TELLING her that if she did not have the 15,000 she can not have the operation.
Crying she called me and told me what happened, I am not a person you want to upset believe you me! There were phone calls made and there was a verbal lashing given (I love to use "big words" that make people us a dictionary)
Monday my friend has an appointment at a hospital where the costs we hope shall be covered.
I am so mad! it is not like she is going in to get cosmetic surgery, she is to have life saving surgery and to do so she has to have both breasts removed, already the mental anguish it is giving her as she is thinking without her breasts she is not a lady any more.
This lady needs a break and I am going to do everything in my power to make sure she gets her surgery at no cost and after it she needs a weekend away, even if it is at a villa park in a town close to where she lives she deserves it! she needs it!
All the jewellery I am selling on this blog all the money from the sales will be going towards her and her son, their medical expenses, travelling costs and if there is something left over a small weekend away, I WILL make this happen.

Slim Void is the band of the week!

I have been a believer on Sellaband for a while but have only just believed in 2 bands, I know it is sad but true. I have recently fell in love with a new band and here they are (Also a damn cute singer) I ask you all to click on their link here below and just listen to them I know you will love their music and if you want to be a believer and help them on their way to their dream. (find out how it works and how to be a believer here)

Slim Void are:

Anders Jektvik - Vocal and guitar
Ronny Jektvik - Guitar and backing vocal

Dan Åke Clausen - Drums

Jens L.Mortensvik - Bass

Who are Slim Void?

“We're a band from Norway that was formed in 2002 for the purpose of playing our own music. Everyone had been playing covers for years, but our own songs started to pop out in larger numbers, getting better and better all the time. And that's what it's all about of course; writing your own songs and expressing our own emotions. Not just plunking away on all those other already overplayed hits. There have been some ups and downs, of course. During those years we had to exchange both our drummer and our bass player due to different reasons. That slowed us down for sure, but now we're on track again. Stronger, tighter and better than ever! Slim Void isn’t a band about image and package. There's little glamour and glitz. We can't afford those things anyway. Slim Void is all about the songs and the music, and being a good live band which we finally have become after 4 years of playing concerts and rehearsing. A common conception in the music business seems to be that great songs and a good band isn't enough. We have to disagree firmly! Everything we ever liked was because of the songs, how they were sung and played, the music and the words. The important thing is how it makes you feel.”

Magnets

HELP, hear my cry.
If you have been following this blog you will see I have a guest blogger every week, you only need to write 1 blog for the week (more if you like totally up to you) for that week I will post your picture and link in the left of my blog. Already I am getting a good amount of traffic and in time it will only grow. If you would like to be a guest blogger for the week feel free to email me on one2day.day@gmail.com. Thank you
With all that said here is MyUtopia from Sand of Thyme
it is a well known fact he is a nutter so once again enjoy your stay Ut, readers even though he is a nutter and he is new to the blogging world he is doing well, go leave him a message tell him I sent you.

They're at it again, I don't know who they are but they're at it..... before you go to work tomorrow, it's vital, vital you check your car. What for? for MAGNETS!!
I mean how do they know that this is the day that your going to be late for work.... even just by a few minutes? What is it that gives them advance warning that you'll be just enough late so they can get round there while you sleep and fit them?.. Ok I know what your thinking, he's gone nuts... but it's true, they somehow know you'll be late for work, THEY get to your car and fit these high powered magnets, that force every car in front of you to drive at exactly 10mph below the speed limit. You think I'm crazy.... don't you,well OK, explain this to me, why is it on a 40 minute drive to work (that usually only takes 25 minutes) did every single car that was in front of me drive well below the speed limit, in perfect driving conditions?
There was a long stretch of road, nothing in front for miles, no junctions, clear visibility, was still dawn but bright enough, yet on a 40 mph stretch with no residential areas for miles (not unless you class the local bovine population as residents) was this guy doing 30?
I know , I know, I know, you're thinking, it's was someone elderley, it was someone of the female persuasion, nope it was some kid in his very, very, very early twenties, driving like his gran...... This I think adds further weight to my magnet theory!
Quick, this is an emergency, we need the Stig, or Clarkson anyone but James May (Captain Slow).

Blood Bowl

Blood Bowl is a soon-to-be video game released on various platforms such as PC, Xbox360, nintendo DS and PSP. It is an adaptation of a board game by Warhammer that first say the light of day back in 1987. Watching the trailer for the video game made me dust of my old coaches trenchcoat and the game has grabbed me again, like it did when I first started playing it, over 10 years ago.

Blood Bowl is a board game version of American football, only the teams do not consist of just humans. There are orcs, several flavours of elves, mutants, undead, dwarves, and many more. Sometime even a hobbit team loses their way and ends up on the pitch.

The game is fast-paced and tactical, revolves around getting the right player in the right position for offense or defense. Oh, and it is quite violent. It ís called BLOOD Bowl for a reason. Teeth are rattled, skulls are cracked, and promising carreers are cut terminally short on the line of scrimmage.

A good coach plays a team for their strengths and tries to make up for their weaknesses. Elves, for instance, are masters of ball handling. They can run in, swipe the ball from under the opponents noses, pass it halfway down the pitch and make a mad dash for the opponents’ end zone. The trick is to get a big enough lead before the team is inevitably mown down and you’re left with too few players to mount any kind of defense.

Orcs and dwarves, on the other hand, grab the ball, turtle up, and fight their way towards the goal inches at a time, ideally scoring just before time runs out. All the while they are pelted by goblins being flung at them by the Troll on the opposing team – as long as the Troll doesn’t get confused and decides to eat his team mates slash ammunition.

Ganging up and kicking a player who is down is officially frowned upon, but it is in every coach’s playbook. Some teams even employ specialists just for the job; players who know every dirty trick in the book. They probably wrote the book, or ate it. Steel capped boots, knuckledusters, even the odd chainsaw is smuggled onto the pitch. Don’t get too attached to your star player!

Blood Bowl’s a game of skill and cunning. Playing to your strengths and minimizing risks. But sometimes, you have to throw caution to the wind and just go for it. Amazing plays are pulled off in the last seconds of the game to get that winning touchdown. Light and agile receivers go head to head with quarterbacks that put the NFL to shame in a sheer desperate attempt to recover the ball and score. Or a small group of stalwart defenders try to hold the line against insurmountable odds. A charging Minotaur will put a strain on even the best laid plans, to put it mildly. Sometimes the only thing your players can do is brace themselves and pray the Gods of Improbable Statistics haven’t left them.The greatest thing is that you’ll often find that BOTH coaches are cheering the players on who are resorting to heroic last ditch efforts.

It’s about as much fun as you can have with cardboard and pewter figurines. It’s a two player game (excluding spectators) and a match takes about 2 hours. The original board game, including playing field, rule book, dice and two teams – Orc and Human, will set you back about 50 euro’s, but it’s worth every cent. Or play over the internet with tailor made free software in one of the many online leagues. I coach several teams at Fumbbl.com, a great site with coaches from all over the world, with perfect training grounds for new coaches who need to learn the game until they are ready to guide their team onwards, to victory or death!

Let’s play ball!

Next week: Flock and the time it takes for a game to become retro.

Bad joke!

Ok today is "A laugh a day" and this joke is just silly,

One of Microsoft's finest techs was drafted and sent to boot camp. At the rifle range, he was given some instruction, a rifle, and bullets. He fired several shots at the target. The report came from the target area that all attempts had completely missed the target.

The Microsoft tech looked at his rifle and then at the target again. He looked at the rifle again, and then at the target again. He put his finger over the end of the rifle barrel and squeezed the trigger with his other hand. The end of his finger was blown off, whereupon he yelled toward the target area: "It's leaving here just fine. The trouble must be at your end!"

Dumb law day (Switzerland)

Here is dub laws again, today I am picking the country of the "Band/Artist of the week" which is Switzerland. I have to say it was very hard to find 10 Dumb laws.

1. In Switzerland every citizen is required by law to have access to a bomb shelter.
2. In Basle, Switzerland, in 1471, a cockerel was found guilty in a court of law for laying an egg “In defiance of natural law”. The bird was then burnt at the stake as a “Devil in disguise”.
3. At one time it was against the law to slam car doors in Switzerland.
4. In Switzerland it is against the law for men to urinate standing up after 10pm which is the same time that it is illegal to flush the toilet.
Switzerland
5. You may not wash your car on a Sunday.
6. It is required that every car with snow tires has to have a sticker on its dashboard which tells that the driver should not drive faster than 160 km/h with these tires. (Repealed 1999) However the highest speed allowed on national motorways is 120 km/h.
7. If you forget you car-keys inside the car and you leave the car open, you will be punished.
8. Clothes may not be hung to dry on Sunday.
9. It is considered an offense to mow your lawn on a Sunday, because it causes too much noise.
10. Though it is illegal to produce, store, sell and trade absinth (special alcohol), it is legal to consume it.

Silent Sunday

A helping hand

As stated in my first blog entries, This Blog will have something to do with breast cancer.
To people who know me, they know I make jewellery. Recently I have been making a lot of pink things with all profits going to Breast Cancer awareness.
The other night I found myself making bracelets and here is two of them. I did make a total on 7 different designs.

Tanja Dankner

All the singers and band that I use for "Band of the week" come from Sellaband. Sellaband is a brillant consept where you can become a "believer" where you invest/sponsor the artist so they can get into the recording studio.
This weeks Artist I have chosen has the voice of an angel, her voice hits a cord in me. Tanja Danker has the voice, the talent and icing on the cake she is also very pretty, his lady you have to listen to, she comes from Switzerland, her music is a mix of Pop, Rock, House, Soul. She has a song for every mood.

Growing Pains

This weeks Guest blogger has no photo yet **hint hint** This person is amazing! They have enriched and encouraged me at stages of my life when I thought there was no hope.
Sands of Thyme is only new to the blogging world, they are doing amazing and they even had time to write this for me. Go visit him and tell him I sent you.

Growing Pains

Oh to be a child again, Oscar Wilde may have had something when he said that "youth was wasted on the young". Today I got home feeling tired and not that I think of this a lot but wondering what it'd be like to go back in time and live even just one day as myself back when I was a child. Not to do anything differently, just play and have fun and not to know what it's like to pay a bill or worry about work and stuff. Nothing in particular made me think of this, just one of those random thoughts that creeps into my head and usually runs away in terror at what it finds in there.

This time however it settled down and stayed a little while.

I wonder which part of my life I'd like to go to, the time of my life back in Primary School, when I'd sometimes pretend to be sick so I could stay at home and get under my mothers feet while she did house work and I'd loaf around in my pyjamas watching cartoons and watch Television intended for a much younger audience than me (usually Bagpuss or Mr Benn), or my more rebelous teens when I didn't know what I wanted to do but when I did know, I would decide to do it and no-one else.

Well, don't tell the boss, but...... I reckon in memory of Oliver Postgate who died one month ago on the 8th of December I'm going to buy a pair of pyjamas, a copy of the complete Bagpuss series and ring in sick Monday morning and sit at home all day watching Bagpuss.

Call of Duty 5, World at War

It is the end of my first blogging week so tomorrow means a new Guest Blogger and we do things all over again but with different people. So what do you usually do at the end of the week? I love to play games and so do many other people I know.
Every Wednesday we will be having the han dsome "Mortlach" writing a little something about games so here is his first entry.

Call of Duty 5, World at War

I like first person shooter games. Granted, I’m exceptionally good at them, but most of the time, I really enjoy them. Not so with CoD5, WaW. The multiplayer part is excellent, no argument there. People give it demerits for being CoD4 in a WOII setting, but I don’t see why that’s a problem. No, my beef with CoD5, WaW is that the single player campaign is just too damn hard. Even on the mediocre difficulty setting, it turns down to running into a field and dying over and over again until you’ve memorized where all the enemies will pop up. A few days ago, it took me over an hour to fight my way into the Reichstag. It got so bad that I actually felt I got angry at the game for making me go through all that crap over and over again. And now, I have the Concorde-syndrome: I’m nearly at the end so I don’t want to do it all again on Easy-difficulty, but I can’t go on because the bloody game won’t let me.

It did make me realize just why those WWII invasions always took so many soldiers. It takes about 500+ soldiers to get to the end of a corridor defended by enemies, just to be greeted by a room filled with more enemies. Only now it takes one soldier 500+ tries.

It is a good game. Buy it for the multiplayer alone. And start playing the singleplayer campaign when sticking needles under your fingernails has lost its charm.

next week: Blood Bowl

A laugh a day.

They say laughter is the best medicine so here is not a funny picture but it might make you smile.

Dumb law day

While going with the flow and seeing how this blog comes a long I have decided that Monday will be "Dumb law day"
Seeing my Guest Blogger is from The United Kingdom I decided to do 10 Dumb laws in England.

1, No cows may be driven down the roadway between 10 AM and 7 PM unless there is prior approval from the Commissioner of Police.
2, Divorces are outlawed. (makes you wonder huh?)
3, In the UK a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including in a policeman's helmet.
4, It is illegal for a woman to be topless in Liverpool except as a clerk in a tropical fish store.
5, It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British king or queen's image upside-down
6, It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament (I wonder what the punishment is, death maybe?)
7, All English males over the age 14 are to carry out 2 or so hours of longbow practice a week supervised by the local clergy.
8, It is illegal to be drunk on Licensed Premises (in a pub or bar).
9, It is illegal for two adult men to have sex in the same house as a third person.
10, The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the King, and the tail of the Queen

Silent Sunday

 
Not so silent and not so warm. It has been very cold lately here in the north, even the animals are feeling the chill.

Starting with the basics

While I was looking around for facts and figures on breast cancer 90 out of the 100 websites I read said the same, and here is how all websites started.

"Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women after skin cancer, and it is the second leading cause of cancer death in women. Regular breast cancer screenings increase the likelihood that you will detect any changes in your breasts or potential breast cancers early, when the chance for successful treatment is higher. For this reason, it's important to understand your breast health, so you can have an open discussion with your doctor or healthcare professional."

As I said earlier this blog will also have a lot to do with breast cancer even though what I just repeated is basic and simple words your might should boggle to know that 1 of you 4 ladies reading this will get breast cancer at some stage of your life.

Radius

I love music so once a week I will be telling you about a new band or singer that I think are up and coming.
I am a "believer" on the website sellaband.com they help put artists into the recording studio, to date helped 29 artists raise $50,000 and out of those artists 15 have released albums with more releases expected later this month.
how it works you can find it here.

This weeks artist is Radius, they are a band from Groningen, The Netherlands.

Radius are:

Johan Faber (vocals, guitar & keys)

Chai Stofkoper (bass)

Henko Messchendorp (drums)

Radius have 498 people who "believe" in them and through those believers they are well on their way to the $50,000 that will put them in the recording studio, As of today they have $33,270 in the kitty. I personally think these guys will make it.
I am a hypocrite as I admire them yet am not a believer of theirs, that will change as soon as this blog is posted!

What is One?

This weeks guest blogger is Gary from GaryJones


As it's the 1^st of the 1^st I thought I'd share some facts about the number 1. The following have been pulled from three different resources.

• 1 is the the first natural number, the first square number, the first cube number, the different between two consecutive numbers and the multiplicative identity (when you multiply a number by 1 the number does not change).


• 1 is not a prime number; prime numbers have exactly two distinct factors.


• An ace is number one in playing cards. French playing cards are marked '1' instead of 'A'.


• A cyclops is a creature with one eye and a dromedary is a camel with only one hump.


• There is only one of lots of things. There is only one planet Earth, there is only one Atlantic Ocean and there is only one you. All of these are unique.


• Words beginning with uni- often mean there is one of something. For example, unicycles have one wheel and unicorns have one horn. Unisex means the two sexes appearing as one because they are indistinguishable by hair or clothing.


• The letters A, B, C, D, E, M, T, U, V, W and Y all have one line of symmetry.


• The international dialling code for the USA and Canada is 01.


• Mathematicians define a 'sphere' as the surface of a sphere, not a solid ball, so a sphere has 2 sides: the outside and the inside. However, there are also 1-sided surfaces!


• A Möbius strip has one edge and one surface. It is easy to make by taking a long strip of paper, giving it one twist and joining together the ends. Ask one of your friends to colour one side of the strip red and the other side green. This turns out to be impossible because the strip has only one side.


• Mono- can also mean that there is one of something. A monocle is an eyeglass with only one lens, and a monorail is a railway where the track consists of a single rail. Monochrome means using only one colour, like a black-and-white photograph. Chemical names often include mono-; for example carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas whose molecules have only one atom of oxygen.


• Hydrogen has the atomic number 1.


• Why 1=0! (pronounced "zero factorial")? Because 4! = 4x3x2x1 and 3! = 3x2x1. Therefore 4! = 4x3! In the same way 3! = 3x2! and 2! = 2x1! So it follows that 1! = 1x0! Therefore 0! must be equal to 1 or 1! would be 0... And so 2! would be zero and then 3! and so on.


• January has always been month 1 in Gregorian and Julian Calendars. Before around 713 BC however, March was the first month in the Roman calendar.


• Benford's law states that in a huge assortment of number sequences - in listings, tables of statistics, random samples from a day's stock quotations, a tournament's tennis scores, the populations of towns, electricity bills in the Solomon Islands, and much more, the digit 1 tends to occur with probability ~30%, much greater than the expected 11.1% (i.e., one digit out of 9). Dr. Nigrini gained recognition by applying a system he devised based on Benford's Law to some fraud cases in Brooklyn. The idea underlying his system is that if the numbers in a set of data like a tax return more or less match the frequencies and ratios predicted by Benford's Law, the data are probably honest. But if a graph of such numbers is markedly different from the one predicted by Benford's Law, he said, "I think I'd call someone in for a detailed audit".


• During any police lineup the suspects wear nos. 2 through 9 because it is considered too suggestive to make anyone display the no. 1!


• 1 symbolizes the essence of all phenomena, which is a single unity, before being divided. It represents also the contrast between essence and existence; the enduring and the ephemeral; the unity in diversity (one/many). According to Hopper, the first advance towards counting is with the use of words for one and for many, the differentiation from the self from the group. We still say 'numero uno' to speak of ourselves.


• "Taiji" (also termed as "Dayi" or "Taiyi"), in the Mystical Numbers of Taoism, represents the ONE, the Ultimate, the Order. The martial art known as "Taijiquan" based its movement's philosophies upon the notion of Taiji.


• In the English language, there is a word with just ONE vowel which occurs 6 times: indivisibility.


• The roots of the word one (un-, sim-) are hidden in the following words: inch, onion, ounce, primal, primrose, prince, simple, single, simulate, unanimous, unicorn, uniform, unify, union, unique, unit, universe; alone, any, lonely, only, none. In French: ensemble, oignon, premier, printemps, sanglier, semblable, sincère.

What interesting facts, mathematical or otherwise do you know that involve the number 1?