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Welcome back travellers! I hope you found the first installment as mind blowing as I did. (I'm not trying to big-up my ego there, I'm not fussed if you enjoyed the way I write, it's the content that completely blows me away!) Just to recap, I am trying to show why it is highly unlikely that any two randomly shuffled decks of 52 cards have ever been the same, even assuming humans could play with cards since the Big Bang! Wow! What a statement! In the last post , I showed how it's possible to count the number of ways of arranging n objects (this is called the number of ' permutations ' of n objects). Without going into too much detail, it works out that for n objects, there are n! permutations (where n! = n x (n-1) x (n-2) x (n-3) x ... x 3 x 2 x 1 ). This means that for a deck of 52 cards, there are 52! , or 8.07 x 10 67 permutations. This is a massive number, and is about equal to a tenth the number of atoms in the whole Milky Way! (This was my own ...

Ever get that feeling, half-an-hour later, when you think "I wish I'd said this "? It takes me a bit longer (about two days). I think what I have learned is that I shouldn't get drunk and start talking about maths. We were having a chilled-out night, having a few drinks and playing some board games. A pack of cards came out. And I drop the bomb: Did you know? "It is very unlikely that any two randomly shuffled decks [of 52 cards] will ever have had the same order in the history of the world – even if the world's population had started playing cards at the Big Bang" – Alex Bellos. Alex's Adventures in Numberland. pg339. I don't think the significance of this properly hit. Or maybe it did and I just couldn't answer the questions. "No, really? No way!" "Since the beginning of the universe?". I mumbled something about a number being followed by 67 zeroes, but I don't think the true awesomeness of this really hit. To...

So there's a really cool web diagram on the BBC website today. It is an interactive tool that shows the different levels of debt owed by countries, to other countries. It is sheer comedy to go round the circle, looking at the levels of debt owed by Greece; Spain; France; Germany; then the UK; and finally the USA. A little bit of explanation is given. But I would love somebody to make this make sense to me!

As if weekend television couldn't get any worse, ' I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here ' has started up again. What can we learn from watching a group of celebrities, or otherwise, performing 'terrifying' tasks in an isolated environment? The 'contestants' will be pushed to their extremes, both by the loneliness and conversely by the fact that they will never by able to escape the company of the others. The tasks will demand concentration, commitment and the facing of fears. Tensions will inevitably run high and conflict will occur. This makes for some excellent TV, or so I am told. The last decade of 'reality TV' probably hasn't told us much about being human, but perhaps it has inspired scientists to start questioning how we will ever travel beyond our own ' Pale Blue Dot '. If we were to send a manned space mission to Mars, the minimum distance that would need to be covered is around 50 million kilometres. It takes light 4 minut...

If you're kind of into maths, then Alex's Adventures in Numberland will totally blow you away. Even if you're not that interested by maths, the book is so packed full of exciting and fascinating 'dispatches from the world of mathematics' that you will find yourself testing some of the ideas. The book has linked me to some pretty amazing web pages that have found innovative ways of displaying a series of numbers. The first I want to link to is the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences . Way back in the pre-internet days of 1963, mathematician Neil Sloane started to collect sequences of numbers. Writing on pieces of card, he would diligently give reference numbers to all of his series. For example, the sequence of natural numbers (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10...) was given the label 'A27'. By the mid-nineties, the list contained over 5,000 distinct number sequences. Of course, then 'the internet happened', and Sloane now receives roughly 10,000 submis...

The other night was beautifully foggy. I've been meaning to take some 'Film Noire-esque' shots ever since playing, and loving, LA Noire . Unfortunately, I didn't have access to a hat wearing model, or to curling cigarette smoke, rising to meet the gas lamps. Anyway, my images are below. I'll probably upload them to my flickr account soon.

Sitting underneath a rainy and autumnal Manchester sky, below Oxford Road Station, the atmosphere in Sound Control was far from cold and negative. The venue was filled to bursting with fans, friends and parents, all of them growing with excitement. This was to be the final state of play from Pegasus Bridge . Supporting them on this last stand were The Cape Race and Morain . Upon arrival, The Cape Race were only one or two tracks in and already had the crowd jumping, singing and waving. The front man seemed to have an unlimited supply of energy, jumping across the stage, clapping along to his songs and belting the lyrics into the microphone. Songs that really stuck in my mind as giving me shivers were ' They're Young, They're in Love ' and their latest single, ' The Reprieve '. The passion with which every member performed was so refreshing to see. Too often, I find myself listening to music thinking that, in theory, the performers are talented, but that somet...

As the dust of our recent 'civil disturbance' settles I wonder whether it's time to start asking why some people got very upset with the way things were and why they needed to take to the streets in a fit of anger. Well, I don't think anyone knows. What really amazes me is how news channels and papers always want to find a 'quick fix' or an 'easy cause'. "The 'rioting' was caused by gangs", they say. And they can say this with certainty because there were plenty of gangs out on the streets, smashing and grabbing, shouting and punching, and, probably most importantly swearing at the authorities. "Fuck da police!", the gangs wrote on a wall in 10 foot high graffiti as a camera shot pictures for the BBC news at 10. "It must be them". Well, actually yes and no. Nothing this complex has such an easy cause. It's like trying to predict the weather in a couple of week's time by using the ideal gas equation (t...

"We only live for so long, and then the moment's gone". I couldn't have put it better myself. The line is from Boa, the B-side of Pegasus Bridge's last single release, and it really helps to explain why the band are sadly deciding to break up. I think the most unfortunate thing about their final single release is that the two songs are by far the best that Pegasus Bridge have ever done. And that's not saying their other works left a lot to be desired; I loved their music from the very start. Between Succubus, cricket clubs and teenage angst way back in 2003 all the way through to receiving a free copy of Endscene at Poulton-le-Fylde station as I said goodbye to my ex-girlfriend three years later, I followed them excitedly. Then even after that, I couldn't stop listening to We Can Go Back and I'll Let You Know while I was lost at university, feeling alone and stupid on my degree course. I even got asked to play I'll Let You Know in Blackpool,...

As a brand new editorial assistant, I understand that I have a long way to go to really 'get' what Medical Communications is all about. I seem to have enough difficulty getting print items proof marked and sent to production. Or I get slowed down by a seemingly endless list of copyright permissions. Or sometimes I panic that I am not being legally compliant and so don't talk about my work. Today's Annual Company Meeting was great in the sense that I got to see my company as (a bit more of) a whole. There's a lot to this career I've picked. From proprietary websites to physician videos, and from good-old publications to conducting steering committee meetings via Skype-with-tassles (essentially). There really is so much that I could get my teeth into. And it's all really exciting! I think I would love to break away from the 'old-school' (but never-the-less important)publications, and into a more inventive, digital role. I'm looking forward to devel...

Yesterday, we voyaged to the Derbyshire Peak District, and knowing that there can be a lot of dry, scrubby moorland I almost didn't take my camera. After eating in a tasty tea-room we traveled to Longshaw Estate. Architecturely eye catching, with it's cubic, node-like construction, the Hall looked out over stunning scenery and would probably have made a great photo, especially with such perfect lighting conditions. However, I struggle in bright sunlight always setting the shutter speed to low, the aperture too high and ending up with a white wash! I really need to learn how to take photos in bright sunlight. I managed to get an OK picture of Longshaw Hall, using some grass in front of it to focus on. I wanted to take a rare picture of a place that will have had films and films of photographs taken. I didn't think this was a very good shot so I won't upload it, but it goes to show that it's always good to carry a camera, so as moments like this are not missed. The be...

Wonderfully challenging. But what should it be called? A documentary? An essay? A film? Why #allwatchedover wasn't trending on twitter the night it was aired, and #embarrassingfatbodies was, could possibly be due to the fact that to describe it in 140 characters would be a gross injustice. At times confusing, at other times interesting and at further times downright terrifying, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace tells the story of how 'machines' have changed us in the last 50 years. On one level it is a strangely beautiful documentary and it looks visually different to documentaries of it's type, of which I would include Horizon and perhaps even programmes like A History of Modern Britain. Rather than relying on lengthy, talk-to-the-camera pieces in exotic and/or culturally significant locations, the story is narrated by a face-less Adam Curtis and is set to the kind of stock footage you would expect to see being played in a Utopian mental asylum. As someone w...

Ant and Dec made a very poignant point at the end of last nights super-sparkly finale. "Thanks to all our contestants, to everyone who came to the auditions. Without you, there would be no show." I dream of the day that the doors open at the auditions and no-one remembers to turn up. Ant and Dec sit awkwardly on stools, the judges play music from happier times, the camera man films a pigeon eating an old kebab in the carpark. Eventually the boredom gets too much and everyone will slump out of the building. Last out would be the caretaker, who will turn the light off and say "well that's that then" before closing the door to the party forever. Britain has got so much talent. It's just that people are looking in the wrong place. Sure the next molded popstar to come through the show successfully is a reasonably good singer and I'm sure he and his family are very happy for him. But, within a year, I predict he will be sitting in a pub outside Aberdeen having...

If only science was as much fun as Portal 2! I have just finished this game and am finding it hard to imagine having fun on any other game again. Ever. From the makers of Half Life, Portal 2 shouldn't be such a surprisingly addictive, rich and fun game. Half Life provided more to gamers who were bored of blowing the limbs off of mindless AIs with the latest BFG (search for it on Urban Dictionary). Suddenly gamers were immersed in a new world, rich in both story, and real characters who popped up to carry you through the game. While the characters were all great, the science of Half Life obviously drifted into a fantastic, futuristic fantasy. However, unknown to the researchers at the fictional Black Mesa Research Facility (from Half Life), a rival company had been making break through discoveries in teleportation, and had even developed a so-called 'Portal Device'. When Valve introduced Aperture Science as a separate Science Research company into the Half Life universe they...