The beaver is a proud and noble animal

In Pasadena, Calif., the Christmases and New Years are seldom white, which is why one California Institute of Technology (Caltech) student thought it might be fun to add an unexpected snow flurry to the annual Rose Parade on New Year's Day. Wanting to ensure his impromptu dusting wouldn't scare anyone, the student first spoke with local police.

Instead of responding with a simple yea or nay, the police launched an investigation, recounts Thomas Mannion, assistant vice president for campus life at Caltech. Six different police departments and the Department of Homeland Security contacted the would-be prankster before authorities dropped the case.

As the US celebrates Halloween, a night of time-honored trickery, college campuses across the nation may find themselves the target of many a practical joke. What's changed is how these jokes are carried out. Cultural shifts have altered the boundaries of what's acceptable, and 9/11 has raised new security concerns. All of this has made administration-monitored pranking the norm for universities that wish to preserve the tradition.

For better or worse, the days of prank-first, question-later are gone. In an open letter to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology student body, which, like Caltech, has a longstanding history of pranks, Chancellor Phillip Clay wrote earlier this month, “We cannot deny the fact that what was tolerated in the past, and may even have been celebrated, is now viewed differently.”

In the mid-'80s, for example, MIT students hacked the elevator system in a campus building. When passengers pushed a button, the car delivered them to a random floor. While the prank, or hack, as they're called at MIT, has attained legendary status, Kirk Kolenbrander, vice president for institute affairs, says that now such a stunt would likely make waves.

“That's clever, but at the same time our society today would say that there are real safety issues if that elevator is needed in an emergency,” says Mr. Kolenbrander. “Our world has a different patience for those issues than it once did.”

Even among the student body, tolerance for tomfoolery has begun to change. Following complaints in 2000 from several students at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., about an annual prank where sophomores perform elaborate freshman room rearrangements such as turning a dorm room into a campsite, complete with sod administrators decided that rather than sacrifice their prank culture, they would refine it by creating a “no prank list.”

“There is an implicit assumption that when you come to Harvey Mudd that you are willing to be party to pranks against you and your room,” explains Guy Gerbick, associate dean of students. “We tell students during orientation, 'If you don't want to have certain things or yourself or any of your stuff pranked, let us know, and we'll put you on a list.' ”

Over half the student body has registered. According to Mr. Gerbick, most make specific demands, such as not to interrupt sleep or meddle with a prized guitar or stuffed-animal collection. Only about 15 students have asked for no involvement whatsoever.

At both Harvey Mudd and Caltech, students must get administrative approval before they perform pranks that way they can be left up for the entire campus to enjoy. When Mr. Mannion began working at Caltech 14 years ago, he was distressed by a decline in student pranks at the institution, which holds the No. 1 ranking on the all-time college prank list, according to the Museum of Hoaxes. Caltech took top honors for a 1961 Rose Bowl stunt, in which Washington students were tricked into proudly holding flip cards aloft to spell “CALTECH.”

Hoping to create a climate more inviting to high jinks, Mannion now counsels students about potential pranks, and, if he gives the OK, campus police and janitors are not allowed to stop the stunt. Caltech even has a $10,000+ fund to finance student pranks.

For university police on campuses with an established pranking culture, officers “walk a fine line,” says John DiFava, director of security and campus police services at MIT in Cambridge, Mass, In most cases, his department will not actively try to stop pranks, although if they see students trespassing, they will intervene.

“On one side of the equation you have a policy that says there are certain places with restricted access, and on the other side you have a tradition that's celebrated from all different quarters of the institute … and we're caught in the middle,” says Mr. DiFava. “It's a really tough position.”

Despite any potential friction they can create, Mannion argues that good practical jokes serve an important role in higher learning. “Pranks are great for all kinds of things: organizational skills, social skills, publicity,” he explains. Mannion wrote a letter of recommendation for a student applying to the Rhodes Scholar program largely based on abilities he demonstrated on a cross-country prank against MIT.

For Todd Gingrich, a Caltech senior who has flown all the way to Boston to prank MIT students, a good prank is an opportunity for students to demonstrate their technical skills in a creative manner. “It's a way to show that locking ourselves in our rooms and studying forever can actually lead to some practical and amusing results,” he says.

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“Obviously, there was no malice involved, but it has to be said that the US system does not inspire confidence.”

Source: Sky News

In January 1955, Homer Jacobson, a chemistry professor at Brooklyn College, published a paper called Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life in American Scientist, the journal of Sigma Xi, the scientific honor society.

In it, Dr. Jacobson speculated on the chemical qualities of earth in Hadean time, billions of years ago when the planet was beginning to cool down to the point where, as Dr. Jacobson put it, one could imagine a few hardy compounds could survive.

Nobody paid much attention to the paper at the time, he said in a telephone interview from his home in Tarrytown, N.Y. But today it is winning Dr. Jacobson acclaim that he does not want from creationists who cite it as proof that life could not have emerged on earth without divine intervention.

So after 52 years, he has retracted it.

The retraction came about when, on a whim, Dr. Jacobson ran a search for his name on Google. At age 84 and after 20 years of retirement, I wanted to see, what have I done in all these many years? he said. It was vanity. What can I tell you?

He found many entries relating to his work on compounds called polymers; on information theory, a branch of mathematics involving statistics and probability; and other subjects. But others were for creationist sites that have taken up his 1955 paper as scientific support for their views.

Darwinismrefuted.com, for example, says Dr. Jacobsons paper undermines the scenario that life could have come about by accident. Another creationist site, Evolution-facts.org, says his findings mean that within a few minutes, all the various parts of the living organism had to make themselves out of sloshing water, an impossible feat without a supernatural hand.

Ouch, Dr. Jacobson said. It was hideous.

That is not because he objects to religion, he said. Though he was raised in a secular household, he said, Religion is O.K. as long as you dont fly in the face of facts. After all, he said, no one can disprove the existence of God. But Dr. Jacobson said he was dismayed to think that people might use his work in what he called malignant denunciations of Darwin.

Things grew worse when he reread his paper, he said, because he discovered errors. One related to what he called a conjecture about whether amino acids, the basic building blocks of protein and a crucial component of living things, could form naturally.

Under the circumstances I mention, just a bunch of chemicals sitting together, no, he said. Because it takes energy to go from the things that make glycine to glycine, glycine being the simplest amino acid.

There were potential sources of energy, he said. So to say that nothing much would happen in its absence is totally beside the point. And that is a point I did not make, he added.

Another assertion in the paper, about what would have had to occur simultaneously for living matter to arise, is just plain wrong, he said, adding, It was a dumb mistake, but nobody ever caught me on it.

Vance Ferrell, who said he put together the material posted on Evolution-facts.org, said if the paper had been retracted he would remove the reference to it. Mr. Ferrell said he had no way of knowing what motivated Dr. Jacobson, but said that if scientists look like they are pro-creationist they can get into trouble.

There is an embarrassment, Mr. Ferrell said.

Dr. Jacobson conceded that was the case. He wrote in his retraction letter, I am deeply embarrassed to have been the originator of such misstatements.

It is not unusual for scientists to publish papers and, if they discover evidence that challenges them, to announce they were wrong. The idea that all scientific knowledge is provisional, able to be challenged and overturned, is one thing that separates matters of science from matters of faith.

So Dr. Jacobsons retraction is in the noblest tradition of science, Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist, wrote in its November-December issue, which has Dr. Jacobsons letter.

His letter shows, Ms. Reid wrote, the distinction between a scientist who cannot let error stand, no matter the embarrassment of public correction, and people who cling to dogma.

Usually, you can set your watch by the cat's schedule. Last night, to throw a spanner in the works and to prove who's really master of the house, the little bugger decided to not come in when we went to bed.

We didn't think much of it when we went to bed, but when we woke up in the night to go to the loo and found he still wasn't in, we began to worry. And worry. And think about the worst. So at midnight, 3am and 5am, we were up and yelling as quietly as possible for the cat to come in. That's when we really started feeling the bad mojo – thoughts of the cat being eaten by foxes, run over by wild rampaging horses, or abducted by cat-eating aliens. You get the picture. We didn't get any sleep last night.

And the cat?

He ambled in this morning, shed a few slugs on the living room carpet as usual, wolfed down some food and buggered off outside again.

Bastard.

A bunch of pictures we took in Leicester a few weekends ago when the Grogans went to put flowers on Katy's grandmother's tomb.

All pics here: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/leicester_oct_2007/

  
  

A bonfire celebration in York, the home town of Guy Fawkes, has been banned on health and safety grounds, the local council said on Tuesday.

Thousands were due to attend the spectacle on the 402nd anniversary of Fawkes' failed plot to blow up parliament but York City Football Club was told their ground was too small to ensure spectator safety, a decision which left the head of the cathedral city's tourist board “lost for words.”

York Council's head of licensing, Dick Haswell, declined to be interviewed on Tuesday but in an emailed statement he defended the decision, saying it was made on health and safety grounds.

“Because the football club was proposing to hold a firework display in a certified sports ground, legally, they had to apply to York's Safety at Sports Advisory Group for a Special Safety Certificate,” he said.

“Unfortunately the ground was not large enough to provide the necessary distance between the area where fireworks could fall and spectators.”

The chief executive of York Tourism Board, Gillian Crudass, said she was “lost for words” at the council's decision.

“We are very much disappointed because it is a British tradition,” she told Reuters. “It attracts a lot of interest not just from local people, but also from visitors from all around the country who come for a short break — as well as international interest.”

A spokesman for the football club declined to comment.

Guy Fawkes was born in April 1570 in Stonegate, York and was in charge of executing the Roman Catholic plot to blow up parliament and the protestant King James 1 during the state opening of parliament on November 5, 1605. The plot was uncovered at the last minute and Fawkes was caught and executed early in 1606.

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Health & Safety has gone way beyond insane in this country. It's at the point where emergency services are told not to go into dangerous situations or perform acts that could jeopardize their safety. When you're a cop or a fireman, that's most of your job description… Especially for the firemen, who need to be trained on how to use a reclining chair for their rest-but-not-sleep^† periods and even moreso for the policemen who need to be trained on the proper way to ride a bicycle^‡.

Holiday light displays will probably be greatly reduced this year. Crippling insurance costs and absurd safety requirements mean many local authorities have abandoned their traditional lighting displays. Health & Safety insist that displays must be put up using specialized hydraulic equipment (not ladders, perish the thought!). Every surface to which a light is attached must undergo a rigorous 'pull-test' to make sure it is strong enough to hold a cable. Many councils have also been ordered to use a pressure gauge to test every bolt (!!!)which holds a cable or light fitting to a wall. Source: Daily Mail

I mean, for fuck's sake… Give common sense a chance?

^†The men and women of the Greater Manchester fire service have been told they can only rest in prescribed reclining chairs – and only after they have been trained to use them. Three experienced firemen are facing disciplinary action over “involvement in the use of unauthorised rest facilities”. They defied their orders to rest only on the £400 reclining chairs, which were installed as a replacements for beds in Greater Manchester's 41 fire stations last year. They are accused of breaking regulations by deciding it was more comfortable to use their own sleeping bags and bed down on the floor. Source: Daily Mail

^‡Police constables and community support officers who have less than a year's experience of patrolling on bikes have been told by the health and safety bosses at Greater Manchester Police that they must walk or use cars until a safety review is carried out because it was felt that that officers who have patrolled on bikes for less than 12 months did not have sufficient experience and road awareness to continue to ride. Source: Telegraph

Katy and I spent in excess of £10,000 last weekend.

First, we bought a car:

It's a 2003 Toyota Corolla 1.6 T3 with just a little over 20,000 miles on the counter. It's had 3 services and 2 MOTs and the body work is in fine shape. We just need to get the loan deposited in the account now and we can sort the final paperwork exchange next Saturday.

We drove up to Leicester because we just couldn't quite grasp the enormity concept of having bought a “new” car. While we were in Leics, we finally bought the plane tickets to go to Canada for the holidays (after much badgering from Katy's parents). We're leaving Heathrow on the 19th and coming back on the 30th-31st. It really is a pain that Zoom doesn't fly to Ottawa in winter because we could have saved about £250 per ticket – and flown with more leg room in the process!

Then, to top it all off, we also booked the hotel in Montreal where we're going to be spending two nights around the time of Katy's birthday. For those of you who know it, we're going to be staying at Le St-Sulpice, in the old port.

Now that the flights and the hotel are sorted out, we just know that Katy's parents going to start banging on about a full trip schedule for Ottawa and Montreal. They – and most specifically her dad – are complete planning freaks. They put Michel's parents to shame…

When we got back to Cambs on Sunday night, there were pictures of our new pussycat waiting for us in my inbox.

Isn't she just the cutest thing EVAR?

I don't know how we came to be talking about it, but we were on the subject of the social gaffes made by Prince Philip. Here are some, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Duke is well-known in Britain for cracking jokes during public visits that can come across as blunt, insensitive, and racist:

* Speaking to a driving instructor in Scotland, he asked: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?”
* When visiting China in 1986, he told a group of British students, “If you stay here much longer, you'll all be slitty-eyed”.
* “If it has four legs and is not a chair, has wings and is not an aeroplane, or swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.” (1986)
* To a British student in Papua New Guinea: “You managed not to get eaten then?”
* In 2002, he asked an Indigenous Australian businessman, “Do you still throw spears at each other?”
* Seeing a shoddily installed fuse box in a high-tech Edinburgh factory, HRH remarked that it looked “like it was put in by an Indian”.
* In 1987, he wrote in his book If I Were an Animal that “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.”