Brisbane, the city in which I live, is about to experience its worst flooding since 1893.

Residents are living in fear that the Wivenhoe Dam, a major water catchment upstream on the Brisbane River, might fail. If it does, it will be the end of my city.

Currently, Wivenhoe is releasing approximately 645,000 megalitres of water per day into the Brisbane River, in an attempt to stop the dam from failing entirely.

To put that in perspective, all of Sydney Harbour, one of Australia’s most internationally recognisable bodies of water, contains approximately 562,000 megalitres of water.

Even if Wivenhoe holds, by tomorrow and Thursday flood waters are projected to reach levels that haven’t been seen in Brisbane in almost 120 years, exceeding the peak levels of the infamous 1974 flood.

Elsewhere in Queensland, it is estimated that the total area of the state that has been impacted by flooding is larger that the area of France and Germany combined.

And the rain is predicted to continue.

More: Brisbane prepares for worst flood in 118 years (brisbanetimes.com.au)

There’s an email that has been going around for some time that claims that if you enter your PIN number into an ATM in reverse, the transaction will be successful but the police will be notified that a crime is in progress.

The alleged idea behind the claim is that you can comply with a mugger’s demand to withdraw money from your account, yet still notify authorities that you are in trouble.

I received another version of this in my email today:

If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse. For example, if your pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321. The ATM system recognizes that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine. The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location. All ATM’s carry this emergency sequencer by law.

This information was recently broadcast on by Crime Stoppers however it is seldom used because people just don’t know about it.

This is the kind of information people don’t mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends

Unfortunately, it’s simply not true. Typing your PIN in reverse into an ATM will simply have the same effect as deliberately typing the wrong PIN.

As explained by the Bankers’ Association Of Australia:

The PIN has only one function – to allow the customer to access their account – and it must be entered correctly each time and kept confidential.

If a customer enters a PIN in reverse they will receive an error message and be prompted to provide the correct PIN.

For more information: False information circulating on e-mail about PINs

FROM THE NEWS DESK: If you ever went to a costume party as Robin Hood or Maid Marion, you might be interested to learn that a farm that is linked to Robin Hood’s final resting place is up for sale.

All you need to take ownership of Mock Hall Farm, which has been in the same family for nearly 500 years, is somewhere close to £500,000, or approximately $800,000 US Dollars. I’m off to search under the cushions of my couch for spare change…

Link: West Yorkshire farm with Robin Hood link for sale

Dies Infaustus

I was already aware of an old superstition regarding the ‘unluckiness’ of Fridays, particularly in the maritime industry.

It was once common for sailors to believe that voyages should never begin on a Friday, and should this superstition be ignored, the belief was that the voyage would be cursed with bad luck throughout its duration.

This superstition was so common that in one maritime book from the 19th Century, Friday was given the unofficial Latin name, “Dies Infaustus”, or “unlucky day”.

Ignore At Your Own Peril

What I wasn’t aware of – until I chanced upon it while reading about maritime superstitions – was an early Urban Legend that exploited this dire fear of Fridays.

According to the Legend, the Royal Navy, incensed that sailors considered Friday to be such an unlucky day, decided to categorically prove that a ‘Friday’ vessel would be no more unlucky than any other ship.

To do this they commissioned a ship to be built – it’s keel was laid on a Friday, it was named HMS Friday, it’s launch took place on a Friday, and it departed on its maiden voyage on a Friday. In one version, the Royal Navy even went so far as to put a Captain James Friday in charge of the ship for its maiden voyage.

As you might expect of such a Legend, HMS Friday set sail on its maiden voyage… and was never seen again…

Mysteries of the Deep?

Of course, tales of mysterious events at sea were common for the time in which this superstition would have been at its height, and it should come as no surprise that a tale would be spun to ‘prove’ the truth of the unlucky Friday superstition.

Thankfully, this Urban Legend can be laid to rest at the bottom of the ocean, since the Royal Navy has no record of a ship ever being commissioned with the name of HMS Friday.

Having said which, a true believer would probably argue that all the records of the vessel’s existence would have been destroyed by the Royal Navy to hide the scandal…

Further reading:

• HMS Friday, Wikipedia
• Naval Friday 13th myth unfounded, BBC News

An article on the Salem News web site suggests that the mystery of the disappearances of ships and planes within the Bermuda Triangle is no longer a mystery.

While not a new theory in itself, the article reports the research of two Oceanographers into the likelihood that the disappearances have been caused by massive releases of methane gas from the ocean floor.

For the article: How Brilliant Computer Scientists Solved the Bermuda Triangle Mystery