Forecast

*Sigh* I noticed a shop called 'Janice's Cakes' yesterday. Oh the irony almost.

In BC news, a fifth foot has washed up ashore. This one is different though, it is a left foot, obviously the police are working on finding out if it matched any of the right feet.

In New Scientist, not this week's mind, I'm far from caught up, there was an article about predicting when civil unrest will occur. Now the social sciences struggle to be recognised as being a science, but in my opinion, this study puts them firmly up there with the best of them. Well, maybe not the best of them, since that's Quantum Physics, but on the ladder at any rate.

A number of criteria were used, including poor healthcare, the level of democracy and the state's willingness to trade.
Previous trends are also indicators, for example, in Africa, any leader who has been in power for over 15 years is likely to face violent opposition, and thus, the February riots in Cameroon were forecast by experts at the University of Arlington, Virginia, in 2005, in spite of Cameroon having been relatively stable for a number of years.

As more and more precise data is fed into computer simulations, predictions have become increasingly accurate. The University of Georgia, is currently turning out predictions that come true eight out of ten times. That's more bloody accurate than reading the TV guide to find out what's on that night.

I find this impressive. I find it incredible that people behave so predictably, incredible and yet at the same time, totally credible.