The Hurler On The Ditch

A scientist whose wife has multiple sclerosis has developed a walking aid that has been shortlisted for an award...

"We found a way of transferring energy from the strong muscles in the thigh and back to the ones that weren't working."...

...The device consists of a shoulder harness and an elasticated cord connected the wearer's shoe.

...The next stage in the product's development was to have it tested by a larger group of people. The South-West MS Society helped by coming up with around 20 volunteers.

According to Mr Armitage, over a 90 day period their walking speed increased by more than 100%.

The volunteers also reported - though this was not measured scientifically - that the distance that they were able to walk increased by up to 600%.

10. "This time we got it right." The scary thing about this lie is that the engineer really believes it. Again. The problem is that "this time" occurs over and over again. I have great faith in engineers and believe that in the long run, they do get it right. It's just that in the long run, we're all dead.

In another twist to the publishing phenomenon, it was disclosed yesterday that the judge in the recent plagiarism court case included a coded message in his written judgment.

Contained within certain words, Mr Justice Peter Smith wrote certain letters in bold italic. On first inspection, there seems to be no pattern or reason why the letters are chosen and they could be easily viewed as a typographical errors. But Dan Tench, an observant solicitor at the London-based law firm Olswang, thought otherwise. “We’re not sure yet what it means, but we’re working on it,” he said...

Mr Justice Smith confirmed Mr Tench’s suspicions when he said the pattern was “something more than a typo”...The judge...said that paragraph 52 of his judgment would give readers a clue to the puzzle.

That paragraph reads: “I have set out at some length what in my opinion is an overall analysis of HBHG [The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail]. I have done that and will do the same further in this judgment in respect of DVC [The Da Vinci Code] because that is essential in my view to deciding this case.”The paragraph ended: “The key to solving the conundrum posed by this judgment is in reading HBHG and DVC.”

...In Mr Justice Smith’s coded judgment, the first nine digits obviously spell Smith Code: s,m,i,t,h,c,o,d,e,J,a,e,i,e,x,t,o,s,t,p,s,a,c,g,r,e,a,m,q,w,f,k,a,d,p,m,q,z.

Beyond that is anyone’s guess...

...Concealed in the earlier pages of the 71-page judgment are at least 38 single letters printed in bold italics. One page contains a total of eight single bold italics.

It is not clear whether the page or the paragraph that the italicised letters are hidden in is relevant to breaking the cypher.

The only upper case letter is a “J”. The judgment includes other italicised words, often quoted speech or names of texts, which have not been included in this list.

The most difficult to identify while scanning the text are the letters “c” and “i”, among others. This list is by no means exhaustive.

The first letters on page 5, if they are not an anagram, spell out the words “smith code J”. The judge is Mr Justice Peter Smith. Or maybe the J stands for “Jesus” or “judgment”.

Page 5 s m i t h c o d e J

Page 6 a e i e x

Page 7 t o s t

Page 8 p s a

Page 9 c g r e a

Page 10 m q w f

Page 11 k a

Page 12 d p m q

Page 13 z

A homeless woman in London has been living in a car since last summer. But by writing a blog she has put herself in touch with an international audience.

It's a tale of our time - about being cut off from everything around you but still connected to people thousands of miles away.

A woman becomes homeless, so she gets into her car and drives. Except she has nowhere to go - so she stays in the car, with all her possessions heaped in the back, sleeping in the front seats, parking in secluded streets...

...but this is the information age. And even though she doesn't speak to anyone, she can go into a library where she can access the internet and write an online journal - a homelessness blog - which she uses to describe all her unspoken experiences and feelings...

...So even though she has no one to talk to in London, using the identity of Wandering Scribe, she's exchanging e-mails with people in the United States - and the New York Times interviews her for its own story on homeless people living in cars. There's even talk of a documentary about her.

Here's a hypnotically captivating video of a congested street in India. The pedestrians, scooter drivers, impossibly tiny-car drivers, and huge-truck drivers seem to have ESP because everything flows so smoothly...

...Things to look out for:
* The pedestrian momentarily trapped between a car and a scooter
* The white car in the top right corner which goes the wrong way.

Mariposa resident Dave Givens makes a 186-mile drive -- each way -- five days a week to his job in San Jose.

The electrical engineer has been doing that commute since 1989, spending seven hours every day getting to and from work at Cisco Systems Inc

Givens is the "ultimate road warrior," according to Midas Inc. and drove home with its first-place prize in the nationwide search for "America's Longest Commute." Givens out-drove thousands of other entrants to take home $10,000 in gas money and a range of maintenance services and products.

"I have a great job and my family loves the ranch where we live," Givens said. "So this is the only solution."

On his long trek he said he listens to the radio, keeps his eyes on the road and drinks "a lot of coffee."

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German authorities are changing 150 locks at a nuclear power plant after its owner said they had lost keys to a security area, a ministry spokesman in the south western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg said Monday.
..."This has never happened anywhere in Germany before," the ministry spokesman said. "The keys have simply disappeared."