Thursday 21 June 2007

New Games

Back when I had a lot of free time, I used to write online games. In an attempt to inspire myself to write a new one, I've written a little program that comes up with a randomly generated game title.
Here are a few of the highlights:

  • cuckoo bucket Tycoon
  • spatula trebuche world
  • surgeon bucket online
  • orange space mmorpg
  • plimsol stalker killer
  • cooker star rpg
  • stalker space
  • pimp war
  • pigs stalker

Friday 8 June 2007

Bernard’s watch

An interesting kid's programme that had little Bernard have an old watch with a little button on the top that allowed him to start and stop time as he pleased. What a brilliant idea. I certainly thought that I could have had a lot of fun with something like that. Bernard unfortunately for the viewer, was one of the most well-behaved, morally upstanding individuals that the world has ever known.

A watch that stopped time, and allowed you to move through it all as if everyone in the world was doing their utmost to look like a statue would seem like a goldmine for miss-behaviour. Stealing sweets in shops, taking a wander through military structures, putting buckets of water over peoples' heads. Not to mention that you could carry out the world's biggest bank job over the course of about a day, and it would look like everything just disappears.

But it is around here that I think the problems start. Poor old Bernard, using his watch for maybe 6 hours a day (6 hours for him at least), would have lived 6 hours longer than anyone else did that day. That's 25%. So when his friends of the same birth year are all celebrating their 12th birthday, poor old Bernard will look suspiciously like he's 15. And when he should be 50, he'll be looking more like 62. Poor kid.

But with this particular logical can-of-worms comes a much larger and immediate danger for Bernard other than just his rapid aging. I don't like to use detailed logic to belittle what is essentially a program to make kids imagine possibilities and then have them undermined by the authors strict opinions on morals. In this case though I feel that they have brought this upon themselves.

In one episode, Bernard gets asked a tricky maths question. Bernard clicks his trusty watch and wanders over to a fortunately placed calculator. But oh-no! He can't use it when he's frozen time because it takes time for electrons to move! ELECTRONS?! I think they maybe have selectively ignored a rather large chunk of science. Is the author suggesting that everything stops down to a sub-atomic level? Surely he realises that this would mean that molecules would stop moving and therefore instantly reach absolute zero? Poor old Bernard takes one click of his watch and instantly dies of the environment freezing around him.

But from this gargantuan breach of the first law of thermodynamics, or perhaps a creation of a new type of "potential energy" that the watch stores, making it the single greatest battery in existence, capable of storing the entire universe's energy and transferring it out instantaneously without transmitting it through anything else, there comes another problem.

If all molecules stop moving, then pressure would instantly drop to zero atmospheres of pressure. There would be no energy in particles, so all bonds break, all solids become gasses instantly and who knows how this would affect gravity?

So in summary, Bernard gets told about this watch, gets very excited about all the things he can nick, or just the skirts that he can look up and clicks the watch. All surroundings suddenly stop moving. "Wow" Bernard thinks "its work..." at this point he stops as his entire body has all of its heat sucked out through whatever he is in contact with. This is luckily short lived, as he is then subjected to complete loss of pressure and his entire body is blown apart into a gaseous substance. We can only assume that the watch somehow survives by its design, and so the entire universe stops and all energy is held in a tiny pocket watch, surrounded by a shroud of gas in a completely dark universe.


Not so funny now is it Bernard?

Friday 1 June 2007

Geography degree past paper

Geography Exam

SUMMER 2004

4 hours

REQUIRED – 256 pencils, ruler, answer sheet, chocolate

OPTIONAL - Calculators, text books, mobile phones and parents may all be used.



SECTION A

Answer any questions you feel like. Questions left blank will be given the benefit of the doubt and given full marks.

QUESTION 1

What is wrong with this image?







a) It has Cornwall drawn on it, which is not allowed by British law, as it scares the Cornish inhabitants, and many of them will try to climb into the map.

b) There is no water between Wales and Ireland.

c) The colours are incorrect.

d) This area has been selected for the establishment of a maximum security prison for 1000 inmates. This will require an approximate area of one square kilometre (100 hectares) and the employment of 250 staff and service personnel living in nearby settlements. Three locations have been identified as possible sites for development. Refer to these as Site 1 [GR270513], Site 2 [GR305485] and Site 3 [GR335516].

e) Nothing, I think that the notion of right and wrong is never objective and given such proves that the assumptions that you have on this subject are purely subjective. We must remember that all perceptions are merely actors on a stage and that only the stage itself is persistent. The basis of all reasoning is the mind’s awareness of itself.


QUESTION 2

What colour is missing from the official ASIRL (UK) guide primary mark II alpha pencil set shown below (Assuming that European Geographical statute c1995 par. 5 was still in effect)?








(pencils not actual scale)



QUESTION 3

The below image is not an actual photo. Given that you know the location, what do you think has been added? Those who have not been to London should be given the following extra information (if you have been to London please ignore, as the answer is contained within).

-There is no volcanic activity around London.

Those who are aware of London may begin reading again now.




















a) London has no busses

b) The time is not 3:40pm

c) It wasn’t cloudy when the photo was taken.

d) Big Ben is on a 1 in 3 incline, and is therefore impossible for it to exist in real life

e) Onion peel weathering

f) There is no volcanic activity around London (Its this one).