Craig Sawyers

This is a not so funny incident locally around 10-15 years ago, where an elderly lady put the car in reverse instead of forward, and pushed the pedal. Shot back and pinned someone by the legs against a brick wall. Life changing injuries.

Usually nothing wrong with Chinese product, unless you pay top dollar. The actual FOB price will be rather low - which is why most of everything now comes from China. Top UK brand toaster and kettle here are both China made. Goes on and on....

That, good sir, is a thing of beauty!

Happy birthday Todd!

Wow! Really glad you are all safe. Our only brush with destruction on that scale in the UK was the hurricane that supposedly wasn't. On the BBC weather forecaster called Michael Fish said: "A few hours before the Great Storm of 1987 broke, on 15 October 1987, Fish said during a televised weather forecast: "Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way. Well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't!" When it hit, the severity of the storm, which was in fact the worst to hit South East England for three centuries, caused record damage and killed 19 people. From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Fish

Yes I know. But it is nonetheless exceptionally persuasive. There is a time oddity though. The AI Feynman talks about dark matter (which was around as a measured thing well before he died) and Dark Energy, which postdated his death. I'd clearly forgotten that Feynman died aged 69 (from cancer). Reputedly his last words were "This dying is boring"

Here's a fascinating (at least to me) series of lectures by one of my heroes - Richard Feynman. These are all about an hour long, and I was enjoying his engaging talks about diverse topics. For example, below. You get a flash at the beginning that I missed. But at the bottom it is Feynman Reborn, an AI Feynman, along with unmistakably his voice. There is a list of publications at the bottom (for example the Feynman Lectures on Physics). There is a series of these, and the only real hint that something is up is if you look at the background. I think that the authors of the AI Feynman left a really weird background to give a sense of the unreality of the superb AI Feynman.

I can't believe I'm going to bore you all about Newton. Although English, he wrote Principia and Optiks in Latin. An that is a real problem - translating back into English is a tickly thing, particularly the more fundamental stuff which is to do with what we learn as Newtons laws of motion at school. What is the precise translation of momentum for example? After that the translators have an easier job. Newton derived all his proofs in his long book Principia geometrically, step by step. He finishes off by meticulous measurements of the motion of the planets etc. At one stage he says that a chunk of the measurements was lost, but he can recall the basic idea behind the measurement. By "lost" he actually meant that his dog ate some of the sheets, or knocked a candle over and set fire to some sheets. Accounts vary. As professor at Cambridge University, his lecture course was so unpopular that no students attended. But part of his job was to give lectures. So he'd turn up and give the lecture to an empty theatre. In later life he spent most of his time studying alchemy. I'll shut up now

Sam Neill RIP. Aged 78 BBC NewsSam Neill, Jurassic Park and Peaky Blinders actor, dies a...The New Zealand actor, who was born in Northern Ireland, died in Sydney. He had recovered from cancer and "the loss was sudden and unexpected", his family says.

Ex conservative politician, recently defected to Farage's party dictatorship Reform, Ann Widdecombe, 78, was murdered in her own home a few days ago. A 28 year old white male has been arrested. Not extremist, not political - so it is currently unknown why he did it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Widdecombe RIP

That is a great loss. RIP David Hockney.

The Russia/Ukraine war just passed a milestone of running for longer than WW1

The glorious Natural History Museum in London. And like all museums in the UK, totally free entry.

And a happy belated from me too!

Can't see it. Imgur are still blocking content to those in the UK. All I see is a blue screen with "Content not viewable in your region" in it. Yeah, I know I could stump up for a VPN account to get around that. But I'm darned if I'll kowtow to Imgur's fit of pique against UK citizens.