Arcoarena

The government have announced a plan to allow people to comment online about their public services. This seems like a sensible idea, an easy way to feedback constructive comments in order to improve public services. Well done the government. Except….

The flaw in this plan could very well be the general public as David Mitchell points out in his Observer column.  The related point to this post is that I’ve found out I’m not the only one who’s been forced to stop reading BBC News’ “Have Your Say” boards, and Mr Mitchell links to the excellent ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com, a collection of some of the most ignorant, racist nonsense that sadly seems to fill the HYS boards, with introductions that are probably just as offensive.

So, the correct way to complain. Well, I’m sure the Open Rights Group have a few ideas. I’ve signed up to their news feed and get depressed on a regular basis. The most recent post was about the introduction of e-borders, the scheme to collect passenger information for everyone entering and leaving the UK. The information required will be Name, DoB, Passport number. The UK Boarder Agency also says “We will also collect other passenger information, for example details of reservations and payment.”.

So to re-cap; Name, address, credit card number and the government’s previous record of data protection……nope can’t see any problem here

With Easter (rapidly?) approaching I thought now would be a good time to post some code.

So here’s how you calculate the date of Easter (in python as it happens)

"To Calculate the Date of Easter"
year = input("Which year do you wish to calculate the date of Easter for: ")
a= year % 19
b = year//100
c = year % 100
d = b // 4
e = b % 4
f = (b+8)//25
g = (b-f+1)//3
h = (19*a + b -d -g + 15) % 30
i = c//4
k = c % 4
l = (32+2*e+2*i-h-k) % 7
m = (a + 11*h+22*l)//451
n = (h+l-7*m+114)//31
p = (h+l-7*m+114) % 31
print "Easter is on", (p+1),"/",n,"/",year

The method is from “Practical Astronomy With Your Cacluator” by Peter Duffett-Smith (which I recommend for anyone with an interest in Astronomy). It is based on the fact that Easter Sunday is first Sunday after the 14th day of the lunar month (the nominal full moon) that falls on or after 21 March (nominally the day of the vernal equinox).

I was going to post my code to simulate an Enigma Machine, but I seem to have lost it, if  I do ever find it I’ll put it up.