Nature vs technology: A 'higher or lower' quiz

This week technology takes on nature in a series of head-to-head battles, as I pit nature against technology in a 'higher or lower' comparison. Round one is a battle of temperatures.

In the red corner...  The sun's core.
And in the blue corner...  The Large Hadron Collider.

Round 1) Temperature

The Large Hadron Collider, pictured yesterday,

One of the earliest scentific facts I remember being aware of is that the Sun is extremely hot indeed. I remember in a child-like way thinking, 'You definitely wouldn't want to touch it!'

However, another scientific fact I learnt a bit later on is that sub-atomic shenanigans can also produce extremely high temperatures. Scientists are always firing atoms and stuff at each other inside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), so how does the Sun's temperature compare with some of the experiments at the LHC?

Which is the hottest? The Sun's core, or the hottest temperature recorded at the LHC?

a) The Sun's core
b) Hottest temperature recorded at the Large Hadron Collider

Random thoughts

The planet Saturn ... still officially a planet.
Photo copyright of NASA. Used by kind permission.
#NotReally

This week the Charles Fudgemuffin blog features a random selection of thoughts and questions which don't really fit a standard theme. To give you a taste of what to expect, you may find random thoughts on time travel, farts, and badly named TV shows.

1) Planetary destruction

Twenty years ago, if someone had told you that in the year 2016 there would only be 8 planets, you would have assumed one of the planets was going to dramatically explode or disintegrate.

2) Weird security measures

Why do I have to prove who I am when I want to pay my bills over the phone? Do strangers ring up to pay my bills? And if so, why don't they let them?

The science of attraction

Love is in the air ... if the statistics are right! Statistical analysis of behaviour is just about the polar opposite of romance and spontaneity, but that hasn't stopped numerous scientists from analysing every aspect of love, romance and relationships.

Here are a few of their findings...

1) Fear increases attractiveness

A Valentine's Day card optimised for effective results.

This first scientific investigation was carried out on the Capilano Suspension Bridge (a wobbly, creaky bridge which can be quite nerve-wracking on a windy day), and was designed to investigate the effect of fear on a person's tendency to feel attraction.

An attractive woman approached single young men on the bridge under the pretence of asking them to assist in a psychology experiment. However, the real experiment came after the test, when the woman gave the men her phone number and invited them to call her if they wanted to know more about her research.

13 out of 20 men later called her, although obviously they were more interested in the attractive woman than her research. The experiment was then repeated in a safe environment (on a park bench) and this time only 7 out of 23 men called her; a drop from 65% down to 30%, suggesting a strong link between increased fear and increased attraction.

How to spot fake goods in Thailand

Spoiler alert: This week's blog post features fake bags, fake socks, and even fake shops!

As well as writing, one of my other favourite hobbies is travelling, especially to the tropical islands of Thailand, where you can find some incredible bargains in the street markets, with designer t-shirts, sportswear and other goods available for bargain prices which seem almost too good to be true.

And of course that's because they are too good to be true. If it seems too cheap to be genuine, then that's generally because it is. However, even without the tell tale sign of a cheap price, there are a few giveaway signs which can help you spot whether an item is fake or genuine, and I've highlighted a few examples below...

1) Open from 7am in the morning until...

As you can see from this first photo, sometimes it's not just items of clothing which are faked. Sometimes it's the entire shop!

7 Elephant. Open from 7 am in the morning until elephant pm at night.

At first glance everything appears to be perfectly above board with this 7-11 logo, but on closer inspection you may notice a very subtle mistake that the copyright infringer made when copying the 7-11 shop logo.

Five stupid sayings (part 3)

Previously on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog I've taken a look at various silly sayings found in the English language. There are many more stupid Engish sayings though, so here are five more, focusing on the themes of insect anatomy, poor Geography and unusual precipitation.

"Look at the knees on that bee! Wow! Amazing!"

1) The bee's knees

This is a weird English saying which refers to something which is excellent or outstanding. However, if you ask me, knees aren't particularly impressive, and if I was to be impressed by a pair of knees then I very much doubt that they would belong to a bee!

There are various theories on how this saying originated, but the most plausible is that the saying originated as 'the be all and end all'. This was then shortened to 'the Bs and Es', and if you say this really fast it sounds a bit like 'the bee's knees'.

So it's not as stupid as it sounds after all!  Although, admittedly it's still quite stupid.

Trivial 999 emergency calls (part 2)

...or trivial 911 calls, as they're known in the US.

"Yes, I have a bacon related emergency..."

As I've mentioned before on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog, some misguided people seem to regard the 999 emergency helpline as a general helpdesk for any random trivial query.

To highlight this problem, the Metropolitan Police recently published a list of some of the stupidest most time-wasting 999 calls they received during 2015. All of the following were genuine 'emergency' calls as reported by the Metropolitan police...

1) Emergency bacon

A hungry dude rang 999 at 4am on a Saturday morning to ask, "Where's the best place to get a bacon sandwich?"

2) "Help, I'm being arrested!"

One woman rang 999 to report that there were men in her house trying to kidnap her. The men were actually police officers who were there to arrest her.

A clever new system for any high-tech modern office

This week I'm going to highlight an illustration of why some top bosses should listen to their junior staff. I hope I don't sound like a technophobic old fogey going on about how great things were in the olden days when I write this, because I'm a big fan of modern technology and I totally appreciate the benefits that computers and electronic stuff bring to the world.

This article gives credit to a brilliant system found in some offices...

However, a recent incident at work highlighted that sometimes it's possible to make the mistake of 'technologising' things just for the sake of it.

To set the scene, at the company where I work we have a computerised 'work allocation system' whereby whenever you take a phone call, you take the details and then log into the system to allocate the task to the person who does that particular job.