What a Diversion

I am on my way to Riyadh and as and when I can I fly Emirates. I have done this trip before and the last time I did it the flight from Manchester was late so I ended up in an hotel in Dubai for 24 hours and that's bad because it meant that I got to the hotel in Riyadh at about 4 am but had to be at work at 8 am.

This time the Manchester flight was late again: it was tight but the connection was still possible. Possible that is until the captain said we have to hold BUT as we are running out of fuel and Dubai cannot accommodate us, so we were diverted to Sharjah.

We are at Sharjah now, refuelling. The Riyadh flight must be long gone. What was announced as a 45 stop looks more likely to become at least 90 minutes.

There are 489 of us on this flight so that's a lot of sorting out that someone is having to do.

DW

Berries

October in the countryside and there be berries abounden.

Blackberry and Elder are what I came across today.

DW

Delayed Cramp

When I go on a long flight it is not unusual for me to suffer cramp within 24 hours of such a trip.

This time the cramp stalked me but delayed its attack a further 24 hours. I just flicked my quilt with my left leg to go and get my morning coffee when SQUEEEEEZZZZZEE.

It hurt!

DW

Gangnam Style

Just to let you know that I am well down with the kids.

Before I went away last week, I heard gangnam style being played on BBC Radio 4 of all radio stations and they said it was taking the UK by storm. I saw the video on the telly a couple of nights ago and I think's it's well sick.

DW

Rubik's Cube: the power

First of all, I have never solved the Rubik's Cube but this morning I came across a young lad solving a 5 x 5 x 5 Rubik's Cube and wondered what the results look like for a 3 x 3 x 3, 4 x 4 x 4 etc cube. This is what I have found:

By size, I mean 2 represents a 2 x 2 x 2 cube, 3 represents a 3 x 3 x 3 cube and so on

By seconds I mean the fastest actual time I can find recorded for anyone having solved that size of cube

By SecPred I mean the predictions made by using the Power Function y = 0.0327x4.6187 determined from the trendline on the following chart:

Without having done any extensive checking, the actual data, albeit very limited, seem to follow a power function, rather like a learning curve; and the question is, can we use the actual data as the basis for predicting potential record solving speeds for existing and larger Rubik's Cubes? I created the following table, which is an extension to the table above:

Interesting ... for me anyway!

DW