Randomness
Nothing much happening, but just thought I'd paste this hilarious clipping from Scuttle Bytes in the 'West Australian':
"Guess it's too soon to throw out human input altogether just yet. News from France this week revealed the lack of a human supervisor for the country's national weather forecastings ystem had led to a bit of a stuff-up after a small spider built its web on a weather sensor.
The unassuming arachnid's spot of home-building - on one of Meteo France's automatic weather sensors, which transmits its data every morning to a central computer without any human evaluation - promptly resulted in a snow alert for the western French city of Dinard. Apparently the spider web was covered with dew which crystallised overnight, leading the computer to diagnose a winter wonderland and suggest residents should start building snowmen.
"These things happen," shrugged a Meteo France spokesman. "Sometimes we have birds build their nests in the transmitters and distort the data."
Wonder what kind of weather forecast that throws up?"
In other news, while I'm in Melbourne next month, Australia will be able to celebrate having a population of 20 million. We've still got a while to go before we overtake the Canadians, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. And we've already left the Dutch behind in our post-natal smoke. :P
posted by Orderinchaos at 4:57 pm
6 Comments:
I wonder if the 20mil barrier will be broken by a birth, an immigrant or a person returning from a more-than-12-month-spell overseas.
How exciting!
1:58 pm
It could always be more fun - something like binary fission, for example, or someone randomly rising from the dead, or something. :P
1:58 pm
I would like to be 20,000,001 but I think if your wonderful country DOES allow me in (once I apply after my work requirement is met) I'll probably be something odd and no fun like 20,359,724. But I doubt they tell you:( wouldn't that be nifty if they did though...you could form little clubs with the factors of your number, or maybe the 'evens' would have a club and then the 'odds' or maybe this would just lead to more segregation...maybe it's all the better NOT to tell people...but I'm not people I'm Andrew so I'd like to know...(I bet you just can't WAIT till I get let loose in Oz...lucky for you I'll be Eastside...haha) Later
1:58 pm
hahaha :P Well I'll be eastside myself in December :P
and yes, it's just luck of the draw. like I got some crappy weird ICQ number when I signed up to that, but one of my friends got something like 166000800.
The other question is, what if 20,000,001 arrives just as some poor unfortunate dies just at that moment, does that mean that he gets stripped of the number and the next one gets it?
1:59 pm
hmm...do you think he/she could use it on their tombstone or would they be like "no he doesn't REALLY count" *YOINK* (gives to next person)...hmm...I don't know...in the US they'd have some Huge Banner and a ceremony and it would be some MASSIVE day...but I digress...and have no way to answer your question so I'm just rambling! hehe...
1:59 pm
Yes, indeed. "Today, it's going to rain birdcrap from the sky."
I really have to visit Australia one day. I still can't really imagine what it'd be like, although I know it'd be a slower pace of life than here (other than Sydney probably).
2:00 pm
Post a Comment
<< Home