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Ignoble Prize winners of the year. A TudoRama report on unusual research findings.

Every year, The Nobel Prize ceremonies are preceded by awards for unusual or even crazy research projects in the IgNobel prize awards.

These awards were created in 1991 by Mark Abrahams, editor of the annals of improbable research. He has been the master of ceremonies at all award ceremonies since the awards are presented for discoveries that cannot or should not be reproduced. 

However, the event has created its own mock-serious Ceremony. The prizes are presented by real Nobel laureate at Harvard University, followed by public lectures from the winners at the Massachusetts Institute of technology.

 This year, the IgNobel Mechanical engineering prize was awarded to work on reanimating dead spiders for use as mechanical, gripping tools. The team included Te Faye Yap and Daniel Preston from Rice University, Texas.

“ while setting up our lab, we noticed a dead curled up spider at the edge of the hallway, “ said Yap. “ our ‘Aha moment’ occurred when we found that spiders only have flexor muscles to contract the legs inward and rely on hydraulic pressure to extend their legs outward… we set out to determine whether we could re-purpose spiders after they had died of course as robotic components which we achieved by tapping into this hydraulic actuation mechanism” ...

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How to dispose of household trash safely when caught in a thunderstorm.  An educational podcast.

This is an educational podcast explaining step by step how to dispose of household waste if you are caught unexpectedly in a torrential storm as took place in Woodford Garden Village around 3pm one afternoon this week,

I was engaged in disposing of the week’s back numbers of the Guardian from their temporary place in a raffia basket into the blue bin positioned close to the front gate of the premises. Blue is the of colour wheelie bin for paper and cardboard. Non-disposable waste  is placed in the black wheelie bin adjacent to it. In my other hand I held an empty bottle of Budgeon’s finest bargain shelf Merlot (£5.99 special offer). This would take its place in the third of the wheelie triumvirate, the brown bin.

As I opened the door on my domestic mission, the skies darkened, and a flash of lightening was followed uncomfortably quickly by a prolonged thunder roll. One step forward, and slightly off balance from my uneasy loads, and I appreciated the force of storm that had ambushed me.

Vertical jets of  water pounded down on my unprotected head. I squelched my way onward as the waters oozed muddily up and out from the paving stones. Time stood still as I edged forward. The bottle slipped from my grasp as I tried to ease open the lid of the brown bin. 

At last I succeeded. I now had a hand free to complete the task of disposing of the Guardians into the blue bin. 

That was when the moment of inspiration arrived. I was able-handed again. And I saw what I could do make my return journey with some respite from the continuing storm.

I aimed myself in the general direction of the open front door and put the raffia basket over my head. It was a good fit in volume, a near cubic object without handles ...

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Caissa, the Goddess of Chess

My attention was caught this week by a reference in 'X, formally known as Twitter'.
The post showed a facsimile of a page from the work of Howard Staunton, one of the greatest of English chess players of all time. The post, purporting to come from someone appearing as a reincarnation of Staunton, reads as follows:

If you find the key to this position in five minutes, we shall think you a promising aspirant for Caïssa’s honours

Caïssa? Many chess players will not have heard of Caïssa, unless perhaps you are also a pub quiz enthusiast.

My introduction came by a casual remark some years in a report of a club chess game to our club members. I made a note of it and mentioned it the chapter 'May Caïssa be with us ' in the book The Double Houdini available from websites around the internet.

I reproduce the brief chapter here for those who have not yet caught up with this masterpiece
[Note to book readers: Do place this book on your reading club list TR].

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@deelomas
My daughter: Will you do my maths homework for me? 
Me: No love, it wouldn’t be right. 
My daughter: Well, just do your best!

@MaldenSaboteur
Places where I get a data signal:
• Gate of the Sun, Machu Picchu
• Volcanic Caldera in Dodecanese
• Out of sight of land in the middle of the Med.
• A little spot on a dirt track next to an anthill in Porthcurno.
And where not:
Wimbledon -> Clapham Junction (for 17 years) 🤬

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Blairism without Tony Blair. Can Labour pull it off?

September 6 2023

A few mischievous thoughts following Keir Starmer’s reshuffle of his shadow cabinet this week.

Summer time ends with assorted floods, and raging fires wreaking untold carnage around the world.

In England, our politicians return to Parliament. Conservative leader Rishi Sunak has been beset with a battalion of bruising setbacks but has pluckily soldiered on with daily photo shoots. When these have hit the headlines they seem to have been inconveniently connected with political mishaps. A stop the boats initiative coincided with a surge in small boats crossing the channel. 
The latest unfortunate story is the case of the crumbling concrete. As schools braced themselves for the new term, a national moratorium was called due to the new public enemy No 1, 'Raac', aka 'Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete'. Schools are scrambling for ways to start term without placing staff and pupils at risk ...

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Is this the end of the Didsbury Literary and Philosophical Society?

The chairs grouped around the front of the Didsbury Deli stand empty and forlorn. The meeting place of the Didsbury Literary and Philosophical Society is deserted. Silence falls where once the voices of the Didsbury Lit & Phil members could be heard in deep discussion from early morning onward, most days of the week. 

What has happened? Have we witnessed some natural catastrophe, like the one marking the end of the age of the dinosaurs?

It is true that the group recognised its vulnerability to the ravages of time when it celebrated the hundredth birthday  of William of Sale Hall recently, at a nearby pizza parlour. By a majority vote, it was decided to invite a limited number of junior members provided they were accompanied by a grandparent or suitable grown-up ...

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Say goodbye to Twitter, welcome to XWTF

@Tudortweet
Cracked it. The new acronym. XWTF.
'X', Was Twitter, Formerly
Let’s hear it for #XWTF 

And here’s the first wit and wisdom from #XWTF

@lordbonkers
We won't return the Elgin Marbles to Greece, but they are free to bid for them on eBay

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The Creative Process In Chess and Everyday Life.  A training podcast by Tudor Rickards

This podcast is offered as an overview for aspiring chess players. I hope it is of particular interest to students of chess of all ages, and perhaps to a wider group of people interested in creativity in everyday life. 

I’ll summarise the key points in time- honoured style at the start and in the conclusions. Its main messages are based on those of a leading trainer, Mark Dvoretsky. His system encourages development of skills of finding candidate moves and selecting a preferred one each time you move. It also suggests ways in which the preferred candidate move can be discovered as quickly as possible.

So in summary, the thought processes which we are going to examine can be divided into two categories: 

1. methods of searching for a move and calculating variations; 
2. means of economising time and effort,  that is say, rational thinking

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Most Twitter users continue to refer to themselves as Twitter users and retain use the old terms of tweets, Twitter, retweet, rather than the new-brand X-rated, Musk approved terminology. TudoRama will try to avoid confusion until some satisfactory future resolution is reached , by using the nostalgic older vocabulary...

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England v Spain

The Christmas Lottery in Spain, known as El Gordo, the fat one, believed to be the biggest in the world, with payouts approaching two and a half billion euros, but with ways of sharing prizes to community levels. If Spain wins today their Christmas lottery win will have come early.

Sunday 20 August

I have to search hard in the print media for detailed background analysis of the Spanish team. I remember the team’s  4-0 loss against Japan. Like England, they scraped through qualifiers, and improved as the tournament progressed. 
Other similarities, both teams have been weakened by injuries and illnesses to top players. Both are in disputes with their national bodies. Both have the unity of a strong group of players from a dominant club (Chelsea and Barcelona). 

Spain’s standout player is the mercurial midfielder Astana Bonmati, candidate for the Ballon d’Or, but Batlle and Hermoso have also had powerful performances.

The coverage is on ITV and BBC. 
ITV’s build up is scheduled to last longer than the match, if no extra time is played.

 A minor story has emerged after Prince William, President of the Football Association  sends a sort of apology video for being otherwise occupied.  

Optimism is high in England although neutral commentators expect a very close match. But not penalties. I couldn’t face penalties, one English supporter said, reflecting unease beneath the display of confidence. 

I had joined in the guess the result game with the popular prediction of a win without any extra time. 

A simple warning. Spain has scored 20 goals to England’s 10 in the tournament of which 6 came in a single match, against China, and are considered the more lethal finishers ...

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