hatmandu

http://www.biggrandejatte.co.uk/smallbeds/?p=2078

I was going to publish this article here, but he deserves more than mere pseudonymity. It should explain some of what I’ve been up to recently, anyway.

There are a lot of rants going round my head at the moment on the theme of science, knowledge, ignorance, learning, information literacy, and what makes a thing worth knowing. I am emphatically not claiming any expertise in any of these things. At the moment I'm just writing around things I observe and trying to draw lines between them.

Today's irritation (I wish these things were the bit of oyster-grit around which a pearl forms, but I fear they're actually just the bits of shoe-grit around which a hole in your sock forms) was this popup 'poll' (advert) from Shell which pasted itself like Bill Stickers over the article about cycling which I was trying to read:



"Biofuels Can Be Produced From A Wide Variety Of Biomass Sources. Which Of The Following Do You Think Is Most Viable?"

Now, there are questions where people's opinions are the most important data you can gather, assuming you want to know the answer to the question in the first place (for example, "What's your favourite colour?"); and there are issues where people's opinions are a useful part of the picture even if there are other things which can be measured or taken into account (for example, "What do you think of our new website?"); and there are issues where there are actual facts which can be brought to bear on the question, and people's opinions aren't actually very useful or interesting except maybe as part of a general knowledge guessing-game (for example, "Which do you think is taller, the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Eiffel Tower?").

Then there are poorly-defined questions where people's opinions are utterly useless, like this one. Look, if you want to know which biofuels are more efficient (in terms of, say, energy generated per weight), this is something you can measure. If you want to know which biofuels can be grown most efficiently (in terms of, say, yield per area), or are the most hardy (most likely to grow in adverse conditions), or are the least polluting when used as fuels (in terms of ppm of pollutants), these are things you can measure. If none of these are what you mean when you say "most viable", you're going to have to define the terms of your question a bit better. The only context I can think of in which people's opinion would be the most important factor here is if you were trying to measure which biofuels would meet with the least public resistance; for instance, whether people would feel happier about running their cars on palm oil, or human bones, or rabbits.

Now I know this is an advert, and adverts want to provoke a reaction, because no publicity is bad publicity. But the advertisers know that this sort of thing makes people want to click on it, want to record their opinion. And, on the other side of the screen, there seems to be no shortage of people who want to hear the opinions of ignorant people -- often in preference to hearing the opinions of experts. "Let's find out what the man on the street thinks," we say. When it comes to something which is manifestly measurable and testable, I don't actually give an atom of biomass what the man on the street thinks; I want to know what the person with the tools to measure it, the expertise to interpret the measurements, and the eloquence to explain it thinks. In my examples above I've doubtless missed a lot of sensible scientific questions that could be asked about biofuels; the point is, I can pick half a dozen more meaningful questions to ask (assuming you want to get a meaningful answer -- and then we're back to begging the question again) than the one in the poll, but I wouldn't be asking the internet. This is more like the sort of questions that get asked on the BBC website's Have Your Say (which, as you probably all already know, is best viewed through the hilarious bile-coloured glasses of Speak You're Branes): none of which are actually questions, even if they're phrased as such. They're not looking for an answer; the point is quite simply to let people Have Their Say. The content of what they're saying is irrelevant; they might as well just say "Please type in the idiot box" or just "Your bile here".

I think there's a kind of amateurism and maybe even primitivism at work here: a sense that the opinion of "the people" is somehow more real, more authentic, and hence more important than the opinions of "the so-called experts" (who are, of course, still people, but are somehow cheating by actually knowing stuff about stuff). addedentry says (my armchair research assistant!) that it's the ideal of democracy taken to its extreme; he may have a point. I don't know where it comes from (and I'm not trying to answer all the questions here) but I want it to go back there. I think there's also a sense that Being Heard is vitally important -- which in many contexts it is -- whether or not you have anything to say.

In a sense, I guess that's the human condition: shouting into the void to try to prove to yourself that you exist. Thank Dawkins it's Friday!

Stopping here because this already overlaps slightly too much with the second half of the post about ignorance (which is still only in draft form mostly IN MY HEAD). Maybe one day I will marshall all this content into something more sustained and structured.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

It feels weird out there, bright but grey, like hot ash settling on stone. It's a storm-gathering day, all the streets hunched and hurrying and hooded. I slipped out into the drizzle to get a hot chocolate from the sandwich shop, warmed my hands on it as I carried it back to the office, more for the comfort than the heat. (It's no coincidence that "hot mug" has a "hug" wrapped around its outside.) I want to be at home with a warm drink and the crossword, but I'm doing the best I can on my own in the office: door closed, music out loud but on low. Eventually I'll have to cycle home in the dark and the rain, and I'll put it off until the building gets dark and echoey. In my waterproofs I feel like a boiler-suited B-movie alien, shambling wetly through the dark.

This isn't today's post, unless I don't get a chance to do another one, in which case I might just count it. I make the rules up as I go along, you know, and if I say it's time for a cup of tea, then it's time for a cup of tea.

http://xkcd.com/662/

Why do people display apparent pleasure -- and even pride -- in their ignorance?

(Like so many of my posts, this one's powered by irritation; and like many irritations, they were all on Radio 2.)

The first of these was perpetrated by Sarah 'TBW' Kennedy. Following a news item which mentioned the Taliban, she moaned, in her (thankfully) inimitable gin-sodden gurgle, "Why won't somebody tell me what the Taliban really want?" ... Well, let's see. Could it be because you work for the UK's flagship news and media organisation, and thus have access to current affairs reference resources that most people can only dream of? Could it be because they think that, even without all the BBC's resources at your fingertips, you could probably manage to type 'taleban' (spell it how you like, Google will figure it out) into the idiotbox and read (maybe even comprehend) some of the results? Could it be because, in short, you're an adult living in an age of unprecedented access to information, and "nobody told me" is absolutely no excuse for your continued ignorance on issues which involve actual factual content and where you have a desire for more knowledge? (This is, of course, begging the question. We'll come back to that.)

The second incident was perpetrated by Terry Wogan (yes, I suppose I do bring this irritation upon myself). Following a news article about a predicted increase in flooding in Wales brought about by climate change, Wogan cheerily chuntered "Why would it flood in Wales? Is there a scientific reason for it?" Well, I suspect that even the most green-crayon-fingered of climate change deniers would probably agree that there's a "scientific reason" for flooding: lots of water comes out of the sky, and doesn't drain away fast enough. Oh, you want to know why that happens? Well, my extremely dim memory of GCSE Science (I'm doing this without research, you know) is that the sun heats the ground, which heats the gases in the air, and then at higher altitudes they cool down, turn back into water, and fall to the ground. Or something. ... Oh, you want to know why that happens? Er, dunno. Physics. Most things are Physics, when you come down to it. Go and look it up. Eventually I guess you get back to the primum movens, and (I'm really handwaving now) you either say "God done it" or you say that it's Physics all the way down. Now, I suppose it's possible that Wogan a) is such a fundamentalist Christian that he believes that the only relevant cause for any occurrence is God -- that not a single sparrow (or raindrop in Wales) falls but that God wills it to be so, and/or b) is a less fundamentalist Christian who believes in chemical/physical cause and effect but believes that it is set in motion by God, and that by calling the 'scientific reasons' into question he's subtly challenging the atheistic orthodoxy of the age. (We'll come back to that, too.) Frankly, I just don't think he's that clever. (Maybe part of the problem here is that I'd rather believe that stupid people don't believe in climate change than that clever people are using their cleverness -- not to mention their mass-media platform -- to undermine the general public's understanding of climate change. But that's a digression, and not one that I want to follow up in a comments flamewar, thanks.)

The third incident was, surprise surprise, Wogan again (the reader's sympathy with my irritation will by now have long since expired!). Following a news item (do you see a pattern here?) about the Lisbon Treaty, he burbled (and I paraphrase because I can't remember the exact wording) "Everybody is getting in a state about the Lisbon Treaty but nobody knows what it is -- you don't know, I don't know, the people who are talking about it don't know." Well, sorry, Terry, but you're wrong: lots of people know. Some of them are paid to know a great deal about the Lisbon Treaty. Others know because they're interested: in politics, in law, in current affairs, in things which affect the world and society in which they live. Even I, with my relative ignorance about (and lack of interest in) European politics, know that it's something to do with reforms to European politics... a bit like the Maastricht Treaty? ... and is a Good Thing for human rights. Bleh, I'm embarrassed at how little I can articulate about it. But, like I said, I'm doing this without research, and I don't work for the BBC; I'm not surrounded by newsmakers and broadcasters, political knowledge resources, expertise. (Okay, I'm surrounded by expertise; but I still don't work for the BBC, and I'm neither asked nor expected to comment on the news.) I don't think I've even read any news articles on the Lisbon Treaty. I fail at current affairs. But if I wanted to know (and we'll come back to that, too) I could look it up. I could read the Wikipedia article to get a kind of overview; I could read (or at least skim) a couple of news articles and figure out the basic outline of what had just happened; I could read a couple of more in-depth news articles (preferably from different viewpoints -- the Economist and the Guardian would do here, no need to check out whether the Daily Mail thinks Lisbon causes cancer) and learn a lot more. But either way, I wouldn't cheerily proclaim my ignorance to my colleagues, and certainly not on national radio. I would admit that I find it hard to feel really engaged with politics at any level other than the local (which is not to say I have no interest in national and international politics, just that I find it big and confusing and everything you read about it is either very dry and academic or very partisan in ways which are not always obvious). I would also sheepishly admit that, for an educated person with access to all the information in the world (or at least the world wide web) I know embarrassingly little about Lisbon, Maastricht, the EU... oh wait, I did admit all that, back there. The embarrassment doesn't make the ignorance any 'better'; I feel (though would struggle to defend it) that the pride makes the ignorance worse; but rather than exercising moral judgements, I want to look at why people wear their ignorance so proudly and shout about it so loudly...

... but I don't have time to do that tonight. (To be continued in a few days' time, probably, as I may not have time to finish writing/keying the rest tomorrow or Saturday.)

Today Finlay took 2 x lifts, 3 x tube trains[0], 2 x regular trains[1], and a small down escalator, with minimal hassle. Bless him.

We did have some discussion on the train about where it is appropriate for a dog to lie. Finlay felt that right across the aisle was the best place. I preferred "in the footwell out of the damn way, dog". I won (eventually).

He wasn't wild about the down escalator (nearly refused to follow me on, then kind of half-lay-down across two steps & refused to budge until we got to the bottom, causing a small but understanding traffic-jam) but he was v brave and didn't seem flustered afterwards.

He and angelmine's Oscar *mostly* got on OK. There was some controversy around the fact that Oscar doesn't really like angelmine petting other dogs, and Finlay doesn't really like me petting other dogs. But no actual damage done (just some snapping and snarling), and we explained that *actually* it is up to neither Finlay nor Oscar who angelmine & I talk to, and they were on reasonable terms by the end. Plus there was a lovely long walk.

Finlay is sleeping the sleep of the tired dog now.

[0] The lift at Waterloo wasn't working in the morning, so we went back to Southwark & walked up.
[1] He has done this before but only for shorter journeys; this was 1 hr 10 min.

 
 "An artist should ruthlessly destroy his manuscripts after publication, lest they mislead academic mediocrities into thinking that it is possible to unravel the mysteries of genius by studying cancelled readings. In art, purpose and plan are nothing; only the results count."

-- Vladimir Nabokov

Quoted by Alexander Hemon in his review of the new Nabokov fragment appearing now with publishers' brass band fronting.  www.slate.com/id/2235023/


Of course Nabokov wasn't in the business of selling his drafts to collectors -- a nice source of income for those who need it.

That's pretty much how the make me feel too...

crap.jinwicked.com/2007/01/30/radiohead/

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow between the crosses,
row on row. We cannot even count our losses,
a generation scattered to the winds like seeds
on stony ground. The flesh grew into leaf, to bud,
to crimson petals (glibly signifying blood
to other generations' poets), faces turned
towards the sky. So many left, so few returned
to tell us what the petals meant, the mud
that silently obliterated, where it should
have fed (perhaps, in better times) the growing seeds.
Sharp retorts are laid to rest beneath soft mosses
in Flanders Fields, where poppies blow, between the crosses.



(with apologies to Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae)

The latest Attenborough series is so full of painstakingly acquired, excellent wildlife footage that it becomes impossible to appreciate each section - they're taken for granted because they're edited together. Like the Vienna Museum van Oudheden, a surfeit of excellence is underappreciated. The specialness of each species observation fragment, the effort it took to take is only glanced upon in the accompanying segment on filming - just only for one short section on one creature.

http://www.biggrandejatte.co.uk/smallbeds/?p=2089

When the weather isn’t miserable of an evening, the night-time commute makes for a good cycle. Before the light pollution in Witney really takes over the sky, the landscape is picked out in cool shades of blue-white: from the moon (when it’s around: it doesn’t make another appearance until the 17th or so) or from my weird bike lights. Non-halogen lights still feel wrong somehow: unhomely, or maybe just plain unheimlich.

If there’s no clouds, or high clouds, the night is like an arena, a vast stadium around you, a velodrome with you racing against yourself. You can almost imagine the echo of your chain over the black fields, rattling through the bare branches of trees and into the cracks in drystone walls. As the clouds descend so the imagined space contracts, until it starts to get wet and cramped like the walls of an unsalubrious club: a clingy, dirty damp. The sweat of wrapped-up cycling mixes with the clouds, as they creep closer and closer in, until the air becomes almost too warm, a pocket of sticky summer in the November chill.

Mostly, though, the evening cycle ride is an unenviable slog, the morning one more so. Both are more effort than they would be in January or February, even if it were darker or even icy. Some days it feels like November is burying me alive, every morning darker than the last, another shovelful of earth on the shallow grave, and there’s just too much to be done before December and we’re licenced to have fun. Meanwhile, my back is falling apart, my sinuses keep going crazy and all I want to do is eat chocolate and crisps and go to bed. As I’m still registered with a doctor some ten miles away then that’s probably as good a treatment as any.

'What we’ve tried to do with Windows 7 – whether it’s traditional format or in a touch format – is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics.'

Just as I said, only in this case it's straight from the horse's mouth.

http://xkcd.com/661/

I've written today's blog post on paper. I'm on a train. Will update tomorrow!

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

http://www.insidecolinshead.com/?p=355

ῥεῖα δ' ἀρίζηλον μινύθει καὶ ἄδηλον ἀέξει,
ῥεῖα δέ τ' ἰθύνει σκολιὸν καὶ ἀγήνορα κάρφει
Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης, ὃς ὑπέρτατα δώματα ναίει.
κλῦθι ἰδὼν ἀίον τε, δίκῃ δ' ἴθυνε θέμιστας

rheia d’ arizelon minuthei kai adelon aexei
rheia de t’ ithunei skolion kai agenora karfei
Zeus hupsibremetes, hos hypertata domata naiei.
kluthi idon aion te, dike d’ ithune themistas

So far there is nothing here that would trouble an agricultural story editor. I like “high-roaring Zeus”. But also so far it’s a bit like a number puzzle in a newspaper—if you don’t know something on one side of καὶ, then find the matching part of speech on the other side, and take the opposite. ἀέξει isn’t the familiar Greek word we know from auxin, say, but you can work it out from μινύθει.

   Go over to pgdf posting in theinferior4 and follow the links he gives to the amazing robots being built in Boston, which include a plan for a squishy robot -- soft-bodied and able to contract like a leech, but with legs like a millipede. No prototype on that one, but theo thers are up and (literally) running.  Very Uncanny Valley.  Comic, nightmarish, and wonderful all at once.

It makes you wonder what a species of discrete individuals powering themselves and moving in an environment (as opposed to a giant spreading fungus, or other model) has to actually possess in the way of powers, senses, etc.  Depends on the environment, I suppose; but the models for these bots are clear (dog, bug, person).  Does the physics constrain? 

http://www.biggrandejatte.co.uk/smallbeds/?p=2071

I’ve been trying with little success to buy a birthday card in Witney for my Granddad. The town has three card shops of note, not including gifty-wifty craft shops which sell cards with hand-affixed twine and sticks for the cost of a takeaway. You’d expect three shops to provide between them at least one card that was inoffensive and broadly suitable for an eighty-nine-year old.

WHSmith has already converted its aisles to Christmas. I’d have been spoilt for choice of birthday cards had my Grandad actually been Jesus Christ; as it was, WHS yielded a busted flush. Clinton’s and Hallmark between them weren’t much better: although there was a bit over a dozen “Happy birthday, Granddad” cards to choose from, they exhibited a very bizarre phenomenon that might one day lead to a better academic understanding of the greetings-card industry. One card of the fifteen or so had a big bottle of wine on the cover; three assumed that as a grandson I had to be under ten years old; and ten of them had a bear on the cover.

Fifteen cards; ten bears. What link am I missing here, between granddads and bears? Some granddads are doubtless of a certain level of cuddliness, but they’re generally of an unreconstructed generation. How many of them would like to think of them as being defined by that characteristic, especially by relatives who might conceivably be in their thirties? I suppose that generation would have had bears as children, but what does that even mean? Do the card designers hope that, on receiving the cards, grandparents will only tangentially perceive the bears, and come over all nostalgic and Werther’s Original without really knowing why?

In the end I got the only card without a bear, childish scribbling or—and I only just remember it now—an elephant on it. It looked like a transfer off a helium balloon, all silver and tacky. Mum swears there’s a better choice in Preston, but then I think she quite likes bears. If only she was a granddad.

Firstly, for a while I've been having a problem with Snow Leopard on my Mac Pro in which it runs incredibly slowly every so often. It seems as if this revolves around Safari and/or Flash. In the forums I discovered that there are many other people having similar problems with Snow Leopard, mainly apparently relating to Safari and possibly Flash, so I hope this is something Apple have fixed in the new OS update they've released today. If not, I've got a few solutions I can try, such as removing old plugins and fiddling with Flash. This isn't great, but it's still early days for Snow Leopard and there are always teething problems with new operating systems.

Secondly, I was having weird problems with my iPhone in which it would start functioning incredibly slowly and third-party apps would not launch at all. I suspected this was due to storage so I freed up some space and the problems went away. The way that I freed up space was to untick the option to fill up remaining storage space with music. Since that option clearly causes problems, I have no idea why Apple put it in there. I'm sure it wouldn't have taken much testing to throw up the sort of problems I've been having.

Finally, Apple have done something in the latest OS update to prevent Snow Leopard from running on Atom processors, which means that many 'hackbook' users such as myself can no longer run the latest version of that operating system on their netbooks. This doesn't bother me too much in practice as I am quite happy with Leopard on mine and I wasn't sure if I could be bothered with all the hassle of trying to get Snow Leopard running on there. However, I'd love to know why this has happened. It could be that Apple have just added something which requires non-Atom processors, but I would have thought if that were the case then Snow Leopard would never have worked on Atoms in the first place. The other possible explanation is that Apple have done this deliberately to stop people from installing OS X on netbooks. If that's the case then it's very stupid, because Apple don't offer a netbook-class computer themselves, and if I can't run OS X on my netbook then I'm going to use something such as Ubuntu Linux instead (if I can ever get the bloody thing to boot), which is probably going to make me less likely to consider Apple products in the future...

Edit: It looks as though the OS update might have cured the 'Snow Leopard being slow' problem. Fingers crossed...