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Your link is obviously written by someone with zero knowledge of what the models are actually for.

If you're expecting the One True Climate Model to nail next year's temperature every time, then get used to disappointment because there's far too much randomness and unknown variables to ever predict specific temperatures years ahead - if the ENSO cycle swings one way instead of another, or a largish volcano blows its top, observed temperatures will vary in ways the models don't even try to predict. Additionally, since our data is still incomplete, the many different models make different assumptions for values like climate sensitivity, or future human CO2 emissions, and all these models will of course give different results - the many coloured lines in the CMIP5 model suite.

But from an aggregate of all the models, we can get a very good idea of the long-term trend - the *general slope* of the line, not every wiggle. And you only have to look at a more up-to-date version of your link's graph to see that indeed, current observations are actually quite close to what the models predicted.

I'm happy for all the bots that got to compete this year, but I was a little unhappy on the preliminary round of this years competition compared to other years I entered. Only 4 entries can make it to the final round of the competition. There were 12 entries this year but 7 were disqualified due to contest management (Hugh Loebner) not having enough technical knowledge to get the entries working. Some well known bots based on ALICE AIML were disqualified, Cleverbot was disqualified, and my own Ultra Hal was disqualified ( http://www.zabaware.com/webhal ) Internet communication is prohibited so we all have to send the bots as self installing programs that can utilize the contests LPP protocol. My own bot is Linux based, which is a big hurdle for the preliminary round, but I sent it as a virtual box image to simplify it for contest management, but he didn't know how to deal with it.

But luckily there will be another competition this year as part of Alan Turing's 100 year centennial at Bletchley Park on June 23rd and recognized by the Olympics http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR445524.aspx Some of the disqualified bots including my own will be competing there.

Kevin Warwick was Mark Gasson's PhD supervisor and remains a close collaborator:

http://www.reading.ac.uk/sse/about/staff/publications/m-n-gasson-publications.aspx

Sodium.

http://www.nrn.com/breakingNews.aspx?id=382296

http://www.reading.ac.uk/foodlaw/additive.htm

http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?articleId=74056755&channelId=2951&buyerId=newsmeatcom&buid=3281

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-02/processed-foods-may-need-u-s-rule-to-limit-salt-cdc-chief-says.html

The Romans controlled salt for centuries without a war or revolt over it.

Meh, it's been done before - 10 years ago:

On Monday 24th August 1998, at 4:00pm, Professor Kevin Warwick underwent an operation to surgically implant a silicon chip transponder in his foream. Dr. George Boulous carried out the operation at Tilehurst Surgery, using local anaesthetic only.

This experiment allowed a computer to monitor Kevin Warwick as he moved through halls and offices of the Department of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, using a unique identifying signal emitted by the implanted chip. He could operate doors, lights, heaters and other computers without lifting a finger.

some testing of concepts for rovers is done using linux. For instance Reading university, who have been researching co-operative robotics with the aim of mars rovers building habitats, used netbooted gentoo linux.

http://www.arl.reading.ac.uk/

No, it's a crime to not give up your encryption key in the uk. Furthermore, it's the only crime for which the burden of proof is on the accused. Don't have a link to hand, but I believe it's the RIP act of '99. (commentary here)

I'm sure that it isn't - though perhaps that may not always be true - but the use of the computer as an aid to the mental process, and nothing more than that mental process, is forbidden. To forbid the use of a general purpose computer in this way is like saying you can hum a particular musical phrase quietly to yourself but you may not play it on any musical instrument. It is an absurd and unjust situation and utterly unlike the situation with ordinary patented inventions, in which the use of the invention and it's effect is quite obviously qualitatively distinct from the effect of simply imagining using it. You could stand on stage to give a musical recital and simply hand out copies of the score to the audience and ask them to imagine the music. They might not be very pleased but if you were an avant-garde composer you could probably get away with it. If you were a salesman in a shop and you handed over the design of a toaster instead of the toaster itself you would be taken away in a strait-jacket.

When you buy a musical instrument you do not then have to worry about what kinds of music you are allowed to play on it - what techniques and basic constructions you can use to create original music which you can also write down and freely distribute. And the fact that you can imagine the music just as well as if you'd played it aloud, shows that it too, like computer code, has the quality of being reproducible entirely by abstract mental processes - as do natural languages.

Likewise, I have every right to expect that my personal electronic computer - an instrument designed for the purpose of rapidly executing abstract mental ideas, expressible in computer programming languages, should be free for me to use in the way it was intended to be used (as an original invention in it's own right). Allowing ex post facto patenting of it's uses is as inane and unjust as that notorious U.S.patent on swinging sideways on a swing.

"I imagine that distributing a machine that implements the patent, or profiting from the execution of the patent on a commercial scale (a la the Amazon 1-click patent) would be required in order for there to be an issue."

Patents grant the right to exclusive _use_ of the invention; commerciality is not relevant, which is why free software and the foundation of the entire computing infrastructure I am pleased to rely on is threatened by them. And let's not forget that all this activity and freedom of legitimate use of computers is being forbidden for the mere convenience of a few large corporations and the community of patent lawyers. It is a disgrace and an outrage.

The nonsensical result is not to be found in any edge case but at the very heart of the matter - the offensive and unspeakably mindless notion that software ideas are justly and usefully patentable.

At Reading University, where I attend, there are several big labs running Windows. Used to be Win95, now Win2K. Anyway, the apps for the machines are on a central server(s) somewhere, as are user's home directories, email, etc. The machines are automatically kept in synch with a master copy of Windows somewhere.

I think that the server is *NIX, and the apps, etc. are brought over a Samba share to drive-letter N-O, or something. The drive is kept synched (or, it used to be under Win95, not sure now...) with PC-RDist.

Hope this helps, as the labs are quite speedy, and although you can change a lot of setings, etc, when the computer is rebooted, everything is reset.

Good luck,
lyceus./

It hurts all of mankind.

Does it hurt you to be unaware of who first thought of writing numbers as digits? The genius who came up with reliable procedures for adding them? The spectacular genius who generalized expression of fractions by numbers?

You know, I sit here in my office - knowing that outside my window, thousands of miles away, people are dying: Some by war, some by famine, some by sheer ignorance. Furthermore, I know that in some cases, these deaths and sufferings are occuring because of the ignorance and lack of understanding of others...

We humans should know at least where these things came from, if not specific identities. For example, I know that the first two things you mentioned, "Numbers as Digits" and "Adding Digits" most likely came from the Middle East, and that our word for Algebra comes from "the Arabic al-jabr". As for the last one, it pains me not to know where it came from, I am certain I could find it with a bit of googling, but I wouldn't doubt it came from the same region as well. Much of the math you speak of actually goes further back, but it is to the Middle East we must look to for our number system and for the number zero (0). These contributions are nothing short of amazing.

In a similar fashion, I tend to wonder how many people in the Middle East are aware of various contributions of Western society's great thinkers, scientists, philosophers, teachers, mathematicians, and medical doctors? How many of them are aware of things they might use every day, without which their standard of living would surely be lower than what it is today (I am thinking of things like automobiles and electricity, basic medicine, and engineering).

These things should bring us together - to cause us all, on every corner of the planet to think "We are human, we have made these things!". We should rightly be humbled by greater men than ourselves, and should strive to be like them or better. We should be proud that we, as humans, have explored our solar system and beyond! That we have stepped foot on another world, beyond our mere Earth.

I think of the photos of the Earth-rise captured by cameras that man invented, hand carried to another world in machines and suits built by man to keep him alive in a world utterly inhospitable to himself, daring it to take his life so that he could step down, and take one picture...

A picture - a world so fragile - and small - holding, as far as we know (though we, as men, dream - yes, we dream - of more...), all the life in the universe...

You know, as I just wrote this, I cried - I know I can't do anything about what is going on in this world - and I know that none of you can, either - not directly. I know that there are people that just don't care. I guess this is why I cried - because despite all of that mankind has achieved - from everything small to everything great - there are still individuals who exist who seem to be unable to look past their own petty self-interests and dream of the possibilities...

Maybe I am just a romantic optimist...

Yes it was in the Science Museum in London.
here.

what I *really* would like to see, if it's even possible, is a working model of Babbage's Analytical Engine

FYI, here is a review of a recent book entitled The Difference Engine by Doron Swade that addresses some of the issues you raise.

A collection of Babbage links is here.

His next experiment was similar but involved attaching the transponder to the epineurium (sheath) of one of the nerves of the arm- the idea was that the transponder would pick up signals (eg the axonal activity caused by touch sensation, or pain) and then that these signals could be sent to a computer and encoded as "patterns" (eg one pattern for holding a pen, one pattern for being pricked by a pin). These patterns could then be analysed and even sent back to the transponder, where it could now act as an output device, and cause the sensation that was encoded! There was even talk of implanting Prof. Warwick's wife with an identical transplant and putting them in continual communcation, so that for example, when Warwick stroked a kitten, his wife would hae the sensation of kitten-stroking.

Not surprisingly for those of us that have neurological/neuroscientific training, the results from this study have never seen the light of day. The ideas are flawed from top to bottom. Warwick's main mistake is that his second experiment has no relation to the first. The first (having a transponder that identifies individuals) is marginally interesting, if overblown (the transponder doesn't have to be surgically implanted to work) - his idea is "The chip implant technology has the capability to impact our lives in ways that have been previously thought possible in only sci-fi movies. The implant could carry all sorts of information about a person, from Access and Visa details to your National Insurance number, blood type, medical records etc., with the data being updated where necessary."

Im sure fellow /. readers find that scary rather than necessary!

Anyway, that "experiment" (more like a beta test) doesnt logically lead to the second nerve implant. His lack of elementary neuroscience is evident here- peripheral nerve trunks are not good places to encode data- and if he did manage to "record" patterns for himself - how could he "play" them back on his nerves? A simple magnetic transponder? It would be like trying to email a GIF to someone by holding an industrial elctromagnet next to a bundle of phone-wires! And the thought that recorded patterns could be played back on another person's CNS using such crude technology is simply unbelievable.

Professor Warwick is regarded as something of a quack in the UK high-tech/neuro community, as this site, Kevin Warwick Watch, testifies. His research, however, does raise one or two interesting questions. His techniques and methods, though, are nopthing more than circus sideshows, compared to the excellent work with the mollusc neurons.

If there ever was an easily-renewable thing, it's microbes. It seems to me there was a mention relatively recently on Slashdot about "Gastrobots", as a small-scale example.

The idea of turning septic tanks into generators appeals to me. This sort of thing might also someday make an adjunct to methane-burning power plants in landfills.

Personally, I'd love to find a way to make the medium that the microbes grow in safe to drink - imagine, brew your own beer AND generate your own power at the same time! (This fuel cell runs on yeast...)

The original engine that was built by Babbage's engineer, Joseph Clement, consisted of about 2000 parts but was only a small portion of the envisionaged differential engine. The engine was never completed and most of the parts produced were later melted for scrap. The engine later built by the London Science Museum was completed in 1991. Information on this system can be found at the following sites ;

http://www.museums.reading.ac.uk/vmoc/babbage/
http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/on-line/treasure/objects/186 2-89.html

...electronic digital computer... Let's not be platform-biased.

Don't forget the work of Charles Babbage, such as his Difference Engine. I'm sure there were other computers before this one that still work (I think one of Babbage's still does).

I thought 4D was 'time', too. Until I read this intro to the 4th D. Here's a picture of a 4D cube(hypercube).

Later, while looking at the puzzle, I noticed and gave thought to the fact that you can move upwards to two different places, and still be going up. That, I think, is the more obvious basis for that being a 4D cube, layed out in 2D.

Here's an excerpt from the intro:

An introduction to the fourth dimension

Man has been fascinated about the possibility of there being more than three dimensions ever since he has understood the concept. Henry More (1614-1687) considered that spirits have four dimensions. H.G. Wells suggested that the fourth dimension is time in The Time Machine. This can be misleading in fact since time is somewhat different from the other three dimensions as we know them. Abbott's Flatland (1) is probably nearer the mark. He considers the life of a 2-dimensional square which suddenly has the chance to travel in three dimensions. This gives the square the ability to see inside objects in its 2-dimensional world, something it previously thought was impossible. Using this analogy from three to four dimensions, we would be able to see inside solid objects if we were able to break out of our own 3-dimensional world into the fourth dimension. Taking the analogy further, when a 3-dimensional object crosses a 2-dimensional world its inhabitants simply see an object appear from nowhere, grow in size, changing its shape in a rather odd manner if the object is irregular, and then decrease in size until it disappears again. In our world this would be the equivalent of an object suddenly appearing somewhere, growing in size, shrinking and then disappearing without trace. This may soung very disturbing but this is because we do not fully understand the fourth dimension.

I thought 4D was 'time', too. Until I read this intro to the 4th D. Here's a picture of a 4D cube(hypercube).

Later, while looking at the puzzle, I noticed and gave thought to the fact that you can move upwards to two different places, and still be going up. That, I think, is the more obvious basis for that being a 4D cube, layed out in 2D.

Here's an excerpt from the intro:

An introduction to the fourth dimension

Man has been fascinated about the possibility of there being more than three dimensions ever since he has understood the concept. Henry More (1614-1687) considered that spirits have four dimensions. H.G. Wells suggested that the fourth dimension is time in The Time Machine. This can be misleading in fact since time is somewhat different from the other three dimensions as we know them. Abbott's Flatland (1) is probably nearer the mark. He considers the life of a 2-dimensional square which suddenly has the chance to travel in three dimensions. This gives the square the ability to see inside objects in its 2-dimensional world, something it previously thought was impossible. Using this analogy from three to four dimensions, we would be able to see inside solid objects if we were able to break out of our own 3-dimensional world into the fourth dimension. Taking the analogy further, when a 3-dimensional object crosses a 2-dimensional world its inhabitants simply see an object appear from nowhere, grow in size, changing its shape in a rather odd manner if the object is irregular, and then decrease in size until it disappears again. In our world this would be the equivalent of an object suddenly appearing somewhere, growing in size, shrinking and then disappearing without trace. This may soung very disturbing but this is because we do not fully understand the fourth dimension.

--

Universities and private companies have been working to develop systems to automatically track and evaluate image sequences.

this link will take you to some research into tracking people in car parks.

The stuff I've seen can automatically detect car theives by looking at how people approach vehicles etc.

Its pretty cool stuff, but the wider implications are pretty scary espcially with the millions of cameras which line our streets here in the UK.