Soliloquy

Networking (Social or other)

2011-12-15T15:18:00.002Z

After a self imposed moratorium from the now ubiquitous facebook I have had pause to think about the phenomenon that gets termed social networking. I glanced at a link on google+ from +Robert Llewellyn, who I found from his @bobbyllew twitter account, about the perceived political motivations behind facebook. I need to read it more deeply but as I scanned the site, one of the throwaway comments that resonated with my view was "people's need to collect friends and be popular, in the sense of an American high-school teenager. " I'm not sure why it needs to be an "American" teenager, perhaps they are better at it than the rest of the world.

This does appear to be borne out on all the sites I have seen, there are awards or rewards for becoming a super-user. On the sites I am familiar with, they publicly display your number of contacts/followers/friends as some badge of honour. We seem to actively feed that teenage need to be superficially popular. For many of us it doesn't matter if we have 500+ contacts of people who have very little real connection to us, the system is merely an address book that is maintained by your contact for you. Like Plaxo was before it became a virus. I realise that calling it an address book is a massive over simplification of a more complex modern phenomenon. As a society in the current era, we tend to be very distant from each other, not just physically but figuratively and online networking is probably feeding a need to feel part of a community, to feel connected to the lives of family and people with a shared interest. Still for many people a badge like 500+ does seem to be a status symbol to be displayed. Even in Google+ there are networks of people that seem to be collecting followers like trophies and are celebrating each others' apparent success in collecting vast numbers. I'm not sure what value it has, I have found that my twitter feed and my facebook wall have become so clogged with casual comments from people I have "collected" that I am missing messages that are more important to me. In theory G+ might provide an elegant way to handle this phenomenon with circles but I fear it may descend into the stream of chatter that I have found Facebook and Twitter have become.

So is it really networking? Networking itself is a fairly recent phrase, I remember being told I was a good networker and not having a clue what it meant. Obviously that may be more to do with my own knowledge but I do think it's a modern context for an older word. Making friends, making acquaintances, being generally sociable are all traits that have served people well for generations. These are skills we want our children to adopt as usually people fair better as a collectively supportive society (see comments on enlightened self interest). So why do we fear them collecting online connections in what sometimes appears to be an automated and systematic process? It could be that we are simply technophobic and I do believe that many are, especially those who read mainstream media reports that are designed to provoke emotion not debate. But many are not, like myself, in fact I have experimented with quite a few of the so called networking sites, but I still have some concerns over the "collectors". I think we need to teach new users the difference between a casual acquaintance who may be a useful contact in the future and who maintains their own contact details from a person who you merely wish to follow their views as they are expressed, to the vitally different "friend"; be that a close personal friend or a casual friend.

Pedigree

2011-11-15T13:17:00.001Z

Recently I have started building a family tree on ancestry.co.uk . It's turning out to be a lot of fun. One view is called your pedigree, like a prize bull or a Crufts winner. What is fascinating to me is that I am naturally predisposed to having an affinity with the name McDermott, my father's name, his father's name etc. My great grandparents, the earliest was born around 1880 and the most recent died in 1978 (I met at least two of them), like most peoples' great grandparents they had 8 different birth names. Each of these names is as influential on me as McDermott, so for posterity here they are:

McDermott "a famous royal and noble Irish surname" :-P

Gladden "the Old English C.7th word "gloed", probably means 'the people of the merry, joyful one'"

Sherman "this famous surname is English, it was originally an occupational surname for a cloth-finisher"

Chambers "is of French origin, and is an occupational name for an officer charged with the management of his lord's private living quarters"

East "is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is derived from the Olde English pre C.7th "east", east, and is topographical for someone who lived in the east"

Chawner "of early medieval English origin, and is an occupational surname for a maker or seller of blankets"

Bowyer "an English occupational name for one who made or sold bows"

Atkinson "This famous surname is regarded as being of Anglo-Scottish origins, although with Norman antecedents - Son of Adam"

So purely on the origins of my great grand parents' surnames I am, 12.5% Irish, 62.5% English/Anglo Saxon and 25.0% Norman/French.

Metagaming

2011-11-04T12:15:00.000Z

I'm guessing that most people won't have a clue what I mean. Not just in general but specifically to the title of this blog. My initial thoughts before writing this blog are to meander through the power of the mind, the placebo effect and then neatly on to having a pop and my board gaming buddies. At least one of my buddies is one of the few people likely to read my blog. Funny, this statement put me in mind of Bilbo Baginses speech at his n'hundred'n'nt'elevntieth birthday:

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

The picture is of tangential relevance only to the blog but over on my gaming blog, in order to find an illustrative picture to add "flavour" to the text, I tend to search google with the theme of the blog and use the preface "fine art". So this is an image of "fine art statistics". Nice.

Meta- can be used as a prefix to mean "beyond" or in some sense relating to the subject it prefixes. Metadata is an integral part of my working life and it appears metagaming is equally entwined within my social life and this got me thinking about how displaying results in an intuitive visual way, allowing us to truly see the trends, actually encourages us to want to influence them. For example, I currently weigh just over 13st (I use *st* as any US readers will need to get their calculators out and then remember whether its 16 or 14 for the multiplier and will probably give up - as I do when someone says 180lbs - doh) the mere fact of recording my weight makes me want to change it, thankfully I tend to forget and then about once per week I have a disappointing few hours whilst my brain endeavours to erase what I just saw when I stood on the scales.

[note to self, its long enough after the theft of your beloved Commencal Meta 5.5.3 to buy a new bike - quick before you burst].

I know that if I put up a chart and routinely measured my weight I would be motivated to make the trend move in the right direction.

Back to games.

A few weeks ago I programmed a spreadsheet to use an adapted chess ranking formula to rank the performance of my gaming buddies and me - more detail here - the existing method was not really capturing the performance overall. The method allowed me to enter the results for the previous few months and to display a performance ranking graph. What is interesting is that this does bring out the metagamer. One player has consistently won, or more accurately, consistently won when it mattered, and maintained his #1 Seed ranking since the very beginning. Now I must add that there are many inadequacies with the scoring system, for example if we play only games that one person does well at then they will rise to the top, this wouldn't happen in chess as it's the same game for each calculation of rank. It is like saying the top seeded tennis player will be determined only on the speed of his first serve - this would favour fast first servers. In the long run, as long as the games we choose aren't selected any differently due to the result, this should average out (regress to the mean) and there will not be a systematic bias towards a particular game type. But here in lies the problem, we are only human, one guy is winning so we should all try to beat him and choose games he is no good at! I'm not advocating this stance or accusing anyone of saying it,.... er .... ok I guess I am accusing anonymous of saying it but the point stands. We are only human, we see rankings and we start to want to improve them. We automatically want to play the metagame.

The placebo effect is real. Whilst it may not be a real treatment or any treatment at all the effect does exist. In many cases it can be put down to the added attention of the staff running a clinical trial but not always. It can be confounding factor in so called complementary medicine reported success. However, the fact remains that we have the power within our minds to affect our health. As a scientist, in a medical related discipline, I believe it is important to qualify that I am not advocating complementary medicine, just noting that we can appear to influence our own health/bodies. I found it tragic just recently to read that the fabulously intelligent and inspirationally creative Steve Jobs probably accelerated his early death by trusting in "magic" medicine.

We should all start collecting statistics about our health and recording them on a personal dash board. Then we wouldn't be able to help ourselves, we'd have to win - or go to the health professionals when we were clearly loosing.

Elemental my dear Watson

2011-10-30T11:57:00.000Z

xkcd

What is it that makes us want to study and learn? Recently I have been driving my nearest and dearest mad as I have decided to memorise the periodic table - I'm up to Phosphorus 15 currently, so a long way to go!

Why do some people have this desire to absorb knowledge more than others and also at different times in their lives? I remember going back to a reunion at my old school not long after completing an MSc in a maths related subject and my old maths teacher made some comment like "shame you didn't try harder at school". My defensive response would have been, "shame there was no one to inspire me", thankfully I didn't say this. I think I just wasn't as interested in learning as a teenager as I am now. Over the last few years I have been revisiting the basics, partly due to my kids going through the part of school where my brain was on autopilot but partly due the availability of information across all sorts of media. The chain of events that led to this current fad is one such modern parable.

A friend posted on Google+ that he had won a new iPad (not 2!), a "circlee" in his G+ circles posted a link to a blog where someone else had listed their favourite iPad apps, many readers of that blog had reviewed and commented on his suggested "best" apps, I liked the look of the elements one and so followed the shortcut to iTunes and downloaded it to my iMac. Within in a few minutes I was enjoying interactive, entertaining education on a topic that was my chosen area of study.

So is my desire to learn, a positively selective evolutionary trait, a mid life re-evaluation of what is important to me, a preoccupation with gadgets or perhaps a little of all of these. I'm not sure it really matters but I am certainly enjoying quenching this thirst for knowledge after walking in the desert for most of my early teens.

England, My England

2011-10-03T10:51:00.001+01:00

No, not the poem by William Ernest Henley, but a poem that surfaced around 2009 according to my scant research (JFGI). I received this just recently, considering my views expressed on this blog previously, it's no surprise I felt I needed to comment, so here goes:

English? Does it mean:

1. English the ethnic group?
2. England the Sociopolitical construct?
3. England the Geographic region?

1. The ethnic group is descended originally from Iron age Britons a celtic people who ultimately inhabited Wales, Cornwall and Cumbria following complete domination by the invading Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The Angles a Germanic Peoples from Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany, the Saxons from a broad region in Central Northern Germany and the Jutes a Germanic people from Southern Schleswig or Jutland Denmark, one of the 3 great Germanic tribes according to Bede ("The father of English History"). This was the origin of the ethnonym but later invasions by Danes (Viking expansion in the c.9th) and Normans (Norse Vikings from Normandy a fiefdom in the Kingdom of France who invaded in c.11th) also added many genetically similar peoples to the gene pool. English = Northern German / Viking.

2. The Kingdom of England existed from 927 to 1707, it was formed by Athelstan the Glorious, Grandson of Alfred the Great. It existed as a Sovereign State until the Acts of Union politically unified The Kingdom's of Scotland and England to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. Then in 1801 The Kingdom of Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another act of union to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State was established and an Act of Parliament in 1927 formed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Wales had been a Principality since 1284 until 1536 having been conquered by Edward I and then finally annexed in 1536 by the Laws in Wales Acts (1536-1542). England=Dominant Political Power in Britain

3. Geographically England is the larger part of Great Britain and is only 21 miles away from mainland Europe (Dover to Cap Gris Nez). If you look at google maps, London to Milan is a 765 mile drive and Milan to Messina in Southern Italy is 1252 miles. Geographically we are part of the same land mass that has only recently (in geological time) been separated by Sea. England = Parts of the archipelago on the west of the European landmass

The Flag:
The Union Flag (like the ensign the Union Jack) is made from the Cross of St. George representing England and Wales, the Saltire of St Andrew representing Scotland and the Cross of St Patrick representing Ireland. It couldn't be a better symbol of unity.

The Battles it mentions:
Agincourt was characterised by the strength and bravery of the English and Welsh Longbow-men.
Hastings was the death of an Anglo Saxon England and the Birth of Anglo-Norman England.
At Mons English, Welsh, Scots and Irish all fought and died under the Union Flag
At Arnhem English, Northern Irish, Scots and Welsh all fought and died under the Union Flag defending Europe from the tyranny of a fascist dictator from the heartland of our ancestors.

My Thoughts:
I do think though at the heart of this poem is a message that needs to come out. The inequity created by only Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales having devolved governments and the greater part of the nation not having any strong regional representation must be addressed by Westminster. Unfortunately the message can get buried in the mire of jingoism for a state that ceased to exists in 1707 and worse still, hostility and fear that fuels xenophobia, the very same notion that mobilised the Axis and triggered a staunch defence by the Allies in WWII.

I am a Briton and believe our nation is stronger with a strong Union. Devolved power to regional governments should create a fairer society allowing people to live in a subregion that has social and political harmony with their own views. I also believe that the only way that UK (of GB & NI) can continue to play a role on the world stage is by uniting with Europe in a stronger way than we do already. With the rise of Eastern superpowers our culture and society will be consumed by a world dominated by Eastern cultures if we do not. This is not a bad thing, its just a thing, but I would like the children of Britain to play a role in shaping European culture and in turn for European culture to continue to play a strong role in shaping the world culture of the future.

麻將 - Mahjong

2011-09-16T18:18:00.000+01:00

With my recent interest in traditional word-games it dawned on me that, as a family, we are more numerically inclined. Having said this there has been a pocket of interest amongst the younger members of the household in Scrabble but still numbers are our "thing". Anne and I started a discussion the other day about Mahjong and how as students we used to play with another couple we knew. This is traditional Mahjong, not the version that is often created on computer games which is some pair matching exercise. So after a brief search on 'tinternet, checking the veracity and authenticity of the vendor, we purchased a set. It has yet to arrive but as I was in the mood for kick starting the economy, I invested in one of Mr Jobs' Apps for the iPad. I nice little example of the game with a full explanation of the scoring, something I was struggling to remember. So I dived into my first game. It came back pretty quickly but the AIs were thrashing me relentlessly. After a few hands I was over 3500 points down. Pretty impressive, overshadowed only by the next achievement, a 7500 point win in a single game. I think I'll quit whilst I'm ahead.

Scrabbled

2011-09-15T15:07:00.000+01:00

Recently I was introduced by Dave to Scrabble on my iPhone. I am really enjoying it. So much so that I have hooked in (or been hooked) by 2 other pals. Scrabble is a great little game and is usually played around a board with a dictionary at hand to help resolve any disputed words. The iPhone app, works like sending a text message, you take your move and then in effect your opponent has 10 days to take theirs.

I know there are serious scrabble players out there but its fun to jumble the words and look for a high scoring opportunity and just play casually. Playing on the iPhone, or on the computer via Facebook and Words with Friends does provide a little dilemma however. I hadn't realised how many aids (for that read 'cheats') there are for helping solve your particular puzzle. There are some fascinating little apps, Scrabulizer being one such site that one of my pals pointed me to. All interesting sites but totally defeating the objective of playing the game. So other than occasionally browsing the "Q without U" words list and acceptable 2 letter words list I avoid these sites when taking my move.

What they have provided after taking my move is knowledge that there are many strategic options within Scrabble that I hadn't really considered. Access to the triple word square and leaving vowels next to a triple letter square (vulnerable to high scoring J's Q's and Z's) is far more important than getting a big word for example. I must admit though I have occasionally played a word to see if it was real, the app helpfully points out if you are mistaken - is that cheating?

Online Shopping

2011-08-23T19:43:00.001+01:00

This is a salutary record of how we can all fall foul of what are apparently Internet sharks. Recently I decided to upgrade my ageing camcorder with a newer HD version. I had planned to use it for interviewing people professionally for a new web project and so decided to splash out on a semi-pro camera. The first problem you encounter when buying video equipment is the NTSC/PAL issue. For some reason, probably market protectionism, the different formats still persist. The first few vendors who had fantastic prices and were presenting the devices as UK, when further questioning was levelled at them, admitted that they were selling NTSC products. It was not trivial to avoid this trap. Not wishing to have to research this phenomenon further I decided it would be safer to buy a listed PAL product from the UK and pay a premium.

With an upcoming holiday looming I looked for a supplier who had a product in stock for a reasonable price. I researched a little about the websites that I found but eventually, evidently without sufficient research, I made the plunge.

Please see the following email exchange:

----- Original Message -----

From: James McDermott

To: sales@provisualworld.com

Sent: Monday, July 25, 2011 3:26 PM

Subject: Order MM09HE20000442

I ordered a camcorder from you 7 days ago (order number: MM09HE20000442). Is there anyway I can track the order. What is its eta. I am going away at the weekend and expected to have the device for then.

with kind regards

Jim

______________________________________________________________________________________________

On 26 Jul 2011, at 11:05, Pro Visual World wrote:

Hello Jim

Delivery is Tuesday next week

Regards Pro Visual World

 www.provisualworld.com

______________________________________________________________________________________________

----- Original Message -----

From: James McDermott

To: Pro Visual World

Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 11:20 AM

Subject: Re: Order MM09HE20000442

That is really disappointing, I'm sure the item was listed as "in stock" as this was one of my criteria for choosing your firm. Would someone be able to call me to discuss. I shall be out of the country from Saturday 30th July for 2 weeks. I would like to discuss

1. Paying for accelerated delivery

2. Collecting the device

3. Delivery to a location in France.

kind regards

Jim

Mobile deleted

______________________________________________________________________________________________

On 27 Jul 2011, at 10:16, Pro Visual World wrote:

Hi Jim

We can arrange for delivery to immediately upon your return

Regards Pro Visual World

 www.provisualworld.com

______________________________________________________________________________________________

----- Original Message -----

From: James McDermott

To: Pro Visual World

Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 12:41 PM

Subject: Re: Order MM09HE20000442

Dear Pro Visual World

Thank you for the response.

I am not sure I understand your business model, or why it takes 24 hours to get each response by email. I'm sure there is a sensible explanation. On the website it said the product was in stock but there was no mention of how long it would take for the delivery. In my view there is no reason why an item in stock cannot be dispatched immediately. I feel very let down by your service as we are about to go on an important holiday and I bought the camera specifically to record it. Thankfully I can use my old camera that isn't HD but your failure to provide clear information has significantly disadvantaged me.

I have offered 3 reasonable solutions that all involve additional cost to me that I was willing to bear to get the device on time and you haven't even done me the courtesy of responding to them. Instead you respond with a single sentence that can be misinterpreted.

Do you mean:

1) On my written return you will dispatch the camera to me immediately

2) On my actual return from France you will dispatch the device

If you mean (1) then I apologise sincerely and look forward to receiving the device tomorrow. If, as I suspect, you meant (2) then I shall be returning on Saturday 13 August. We have family staying at the house during the 2 weeks but they will be out touring during most days so it would be more convenient if it arrived on or after the 14th.

Sincerely

Jim

______________________________________________________________________________________________

On 28 Jul 2011, at 09:37, Pro Visual World <sales@provisualworld.com> wrote:

Hello James

We will arrange for the order to arrive with you on Monday 15th August

Regards Pro Visual World 

www.provisualworld.com

______________________________________________________________________________________________

On 17 Aug 2011, at 12:42, James McDermott wrote:

The product has not been delivered by 12:30 on the 17August. Is there a problem? Please supply the UPS tracking number

Sent from my iPad

______________________________________________________________________________________________

----- Original Message -----

From: James McDermott

To: Pro Visual World

Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2011 6:38 PM

Subject: Re: Order MM09HE20000442

No response within 24 hours as promised and no product delivered. The cash has been taken off my Visa card.

I have called

KamKorda Ltd

1 The Limes,

BURTON-ON-TRENT,

DE15 0NW

Tel : 01283 516630

www.kamkorda.com

but get the message to email this address.

Please respond as requested.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

On 19 Aug 2011, at 06:33, Pro Visual World wrote:

Your order is with PVW at Wakefield James

KK are our Logistics company

We will check your order James and email back today

Regards 

Pro Visual World

 www.provisualworld.com

______________________________________________________________________________________________

----- Original Message -----

From: James McDermott

To: Pro Visual World

Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2011 3:03 PM

Subject: Re: Order MM09HE20000442

Look. What is going on? You have had significant funds deposited to your bank account for a product that was listed as *In stock* this was over a month ago. If you are unable to complete this order as advertised please indicate.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Consumerrights/Situationsthatcanchangeyourconsumerrights/DG_183048

This link is to confirm to you that I understand my rights and that I am eligible for a full refund if the product hasn't been delivered within 30 days, as no delivery date was given. I should also warn you that if I seen no progress on a delivery. Minimum - Company name, delivery reference and confirmed date. Then I will be making an official complaint.

Mr J McDermott

______________________________________________________________________________________________

On 21 Aug 2011, at 07:59, Pro Visual World wrote:

Hi James

Your order will be despatched to you this coming week. The only reason for any delay has been the scarcity of this line currently

Regards

Pro Visual World 

www.provisualworld.com

______________________________________________________________________________________________

----- Original Message -----

From: James McDermott

To: Pro Visual World

Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2011 12:30 PM

Subject: Re: Order MM09HE20000442

Dear Pro Visual World,

I will take your offer at face value for now. I earnestly request that you send details to me immediately of the delivery firm but critically, the dispatch number or reference number.

I would point out that under my own interpretation of the Trades Description legislation and the The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) code of practice, your websites are currently breaking the law.

If I do not receive the product or the details I have requested by Monday 22 August 2011, I shall be forced to take further action. This email will be forwarded to my solicitor and to the Advertising Standards Agency in preparation for that action. Should you comply with my request I shall withdraw the action.

Yours sincerely

Mr McDermott

______________________________________________________________________________________________

On 22 Aug 2011, at 09:28, Pro Visual World <sales@provisualworld.com> wrote:

James

Your order will arrive with you on Friday.

We will provide tracking on Thursday

Regards 

Pro Visual World 

www.provisualworld.com

______________________________________________________________________________________________

----- Original Message -----

From: James McDermott

To: Pro Visual World

Sent: Monday, August 22, 2011 11:33 AM

Subject: Re: Order MM09HE20000442

Dear Pro Visual World

You have failed to provide evidence that the product will be delivered or the reasonable information I have requested. I find this suspicious given that it is now 6 weeks since you banked my money. Having said this, I am prepared to wait until Thursday this week to see if you are good to your word and that you will provide me with details of the delivery firm and the dispatch notification. I will postpone my notification to the Advertising Standards Authority. I would note that you still state on your website that you use UPS as a delivery firm. It is vital that you understand that our premises are difficult to find, only the larger firms that visit regularly know how to find us. Please confirm that you have provided the mobile phone contact number to them.

Please inform me if you anticipate any changes to your delivery schedule. I must warn you that should this go to court, I have saved screen shots of your website during my order process and I have stored all communications and the results of my investigations in to your organisation at companies house amongst other sources. I will state quite clearly now that if you are unable to fulfil the order as advertised please refund my money now and save us all the effort of legal action. If however you are able to provide a Canon XA10 AVCHD HD PAL with a 12 month Canon UK warranty as advertised then please continue.

Yours sincerely

Mr J McDermott

Sent from my iPad

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Pro Visual World
Date: 23 August 2011 08:36:05 GMT+01:00
To: James McDermott
Subject: Re: Order MM09HE20000442

Your order is despatching to you this week and we will supply you with tracking later this week
Regards
Pro Visual World
www.provisualworld.com

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Anyone like to give me odds that I'll have the camcorder by Friday?

Sundays

2011-08-21T13:28:00.000+01:00

Stood before me were three options each with their own merit each tantalising in their own way. First, a bean plucked from the Wahana Estate in Sumatra, the worn label telling me "A strong and aromatic blend". Second, a lighter shaded bean in a jar regularly refilled at Wallingford Tea & Coffee Company shop on Martin's Street along with the first. A higher caffeine content producing "Arabica coffee with body, flavour and finely balanced acidity". To these two stalwarts on my shelf I have recently added, Nairobi Java Houses' Kenyan AA, a gift from some friends who visited those distant shores this summer. I selected approximately 30%, 30% and 40% respectively and added to the grinder. The unpleasant noise was soon drowned out by the ringing pleasure in my nostrils of this magical blend. I charged the portafilter and gently tamped the coffee into its bed. Loading into my Rancillo machine I switched on the water and judged the flow to produce a consummate double espresso. I then attended to manufacturing the foamed milk essential for the breakfast cappuccino I had promised myself. At last the many months of practice had paid off, I seemed to create the frothing equivalent of my Sistine Chapel. I gently added the milk/foam combination to the espresso in one action and sat down. I inhaled. I slowly lifted the cup to my lips and drew in the first mouthful, careful to pour steep enough to get a hit of coffee. The day had started perfectly.

Opine, repine, supine

2011-07-25T14:03:00.000+01:00

When you think about buying a new car, don't they suddenly seem to be everywhere? To me it seems to be the same with a blog idea, I have an idea for a blog and then mysteriously I see the idea in many places. This latest idea centred around our right to express an opinion, our right to not like that opinion and to express that discontent and the need to overcome indolence and to raise a challenging opinion.

I read today on the comments field of the "Jack of Kent" blog that, like law, journalism is now not a profession it is a business. I understand this view and have much sympathy with it but I do believe that there are a set of governing principles and an expected behaviour that define any practice or profession. Perhaps the comment was more a wry statement of the extant philosophy adopted in the media rather than a de facto opinion.

Previously I have commented on my concern over society's ability to learn how to play with it's new toys. Johann Hari and the Independent for me are just the tip of the iceberg with journalism's failure. Note I said "journalisms" failure, I believe JH has made mistakes from which he can learn and for which he can atone, but the failure lies in the system. In general the news media don't seem to be leading and innovating with these radically different communication channels but perhaps that is the point. For a while at least, blogs, podcasts, twitter etc are the antidote to institutionalised news. Eventually though the lack of professionalism, the abundance of unsubstantiated opinion and the paucity of evidential facts will drive the users of these new tools to regulate themselves or at least find some way to evaluate the credibility of a blogger/twitter.

These new tools do appear to give unprecedented access to the champions. @daraobriain has just shy of 1/2 a million followers on twitter. Last Sunday at midnight, I responded to a comment by @billbailey where he expressed his opinion that The Apprentice was "a vortex of drivel" (a comment that has now been deleted from his twitter stream). My comment was based on several opinions that I have formed independently of, but seemed at least vaguely consistent with, Bill. (1) Dara is a good guy, (2) Dara is a funny guy, (3) the apprentice is a lack lustre entertainment show that has taken a moderately interesting idea and bastardised it into something quite disgusting. These are based on (for 1) I feel that the "true" Dara is glimpsed on many of his shows but to me a splendid part of his nature was captured in one scene in Three men in a boat. There was a sequence where he was admiring a cottage, not far from me, with unadulterated pleasure. With his lilting Irish accent he exclaimed "would ya look at that house". Nice guy. (for 2) I watch many of his comedy shows and laugh often. (for 3). I watched the first series and was entertained but felt slightly concerned that the programme was essentially a reality TV show, "I'm a pretentious wannabe, get me into here". I stopped watching and have caught some moments, especially salacious outtakes on other shows. So this was my comment: "Bill, we know Dara has to pay the mortgage, let's hope he doesn't give too much of his soul away". Exaggerating for comic effect I thought. I don't believe anyone has a soul, if they did, Dara would have a big one, and would have to give only a tiny bit away to work on the show :-) . I also accept that he is a professional clown and must earn a living. In his shoes may be I would do the same, I don't know the full circumstances but the fact remains, if I could afford not to, I wouldn't diminish my integrity by being associated with The Apprentice. It's an opinion, formed on scant evidence - I haven't watched it for years- I accept I may be wrong. What is fascinating is that I got a response., "@Jim_McD Give my soul away? Hosting You're Fired? I'm a professional clown. Christ, some people take this shit waaaaay too seriously." I'm not sure if the last statement was autobiographical but I certainly wasn't taking it seriously. Good putdown, you have to admire him. I can't help feeling though that I touched a nerve, still, the point that resonates the most is that a single twonk heckler in half a million audience got his opinion heard and responded too. What power we wield with this new toy.

Another dialogue on twitter brought opinion into the fore recently when one of the other heros (@mitchbenn 25,000 followers) got drawn into a debate with a nobody. Mitch was angry, articulate and right in the main. He teetered on the brink of righteous and then made this statement, "2. But you DON'T have the right to criticise my working methods because you have no idea what they actually are.". When someone says it tastes like poo, we all accept that this means it tastes like i imagine poo might taste - unless they said earwax, we all know what earwax tastes like, don't we? Mitch went on to say, "You said it was sloppy and not thought through. How do you know how much care and thought goes into it? Are you there?". Clearly, the heckler meant "it appears to have been" [that you didn't put enough work in]. He was wrong. He expressed an opinion on scant facts. Does he have a right to? My view is yes. Should Mitch have responded? well, I think yes; the visceral anger that fuelled his dialogue was intoxicating. Mitch is a fabulous lyricist and has a wonderful way with words. Does it matter that I don't agree with his defining point? I don't think so, I am starting to get familiar enough with these new toys to know that we get a very real response and occasionally, like real life, its not as polished as the old media. We must all learn to relish in the experience of unadulterated (edited) human thought. Go on, express an opinion, just don't expect anyone to agree.

Then the final piece that underscores but also threads through this soliloquy was @robinince 's piece in The Now Show last week. It seemed to be the essence of my own view on News Papers and all the News Media. I haven't read a newspaper for over a year - if not longer - I found it more and more difficult to distinguish opinion from news or fact or evidence based commentary. Robin's view; don't read a paper, read a book. Don't be lazy absorbing other's opinions, form your own opinion based on facts.

My view is additionally, once you have formed an opinion, don't hang on to it like the only piece of wood following a ship wreck. Keep revising it, researching it, testing it and listening to other's views and don't fear using new communication channels to do this.

Jingoism and Xenophobia go hand in gauntlet

2011-06-30T12:45:00.007+01:00

Is it more acceptable now to be jingoistic? I find it difficult to be patriotic, many would call me English – I would accept this if it was seen as a synonym for British but it is increasingly seen as the partisan group with some romantic notion of English as distinct from the other geographies that make up the British Isles. So I am British. If this is shorthand for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I say

Northern Ireland

but as recently as 1801-1922 this would have been shorthand for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and

Ireland

, from the 1801 Act of Union. In 1922, after the Irish War of Independence and the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the larger part of

Ireland

seceded from the

United Kingdom

and British was redefined again. Am I a patriot? I cherish what previous generations have achieved in the name of being British, I am embarrassed and apologetic for the atrocities that have been metered out in the name of being British, so I believe in that sense I am patriotic. I have empathy with the need to belong to a society, I also realise that resources need to be protected and managed largely since humanity seems destined to ignore the benefits of enlightened self interest; but does this need to naturally progress to the extreme? We seem to have a preponderance of patriots throughout our Union rattling their sabres in honour of disunity, of devolution. Can they not see that jingoism will inevitably lead to xenophobia, whipped into a frenzy by the rightwing press, to the degradation of society for all.

Its all in a name: I suspect my desire to be seen as British, as a descendent of the occupants of the British Isles, stems from my name.

James (in homage to James I of

England and Ireland

, VI of Scotland)

Richard (in homage to Richard I, Cœur de Lion, King of all England [oh, and a bit of

France

])

McDermott (in homage to Dermot mac Tadhg Mor, King of Magh Luirg (Moylurg), progenitor of the surname McDermott in Connacht, Ireland.)

Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics

2011-06-30T09:44:00.000+01:00

This much quoted phrase, with an inherent progression starting at a low point, developing to an even lower point and then ending with statistics, is (according to wikipedia) potentially un-attributed – or at the very least – avoided attribution.

On the today programme on radio 4 this morning, Francis Maude the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, was mauled by Evan Davis. The opponent in the debate was Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, who was on the show defending the apparently indefensible strike – he sat back and let Evan do his work. The weapon of choice for Evan you ask? Statistics. Or more correctly reported facts. Maude was quoting the Hutton Report, saying that pensions have been shown to eventually become unaffordable and that if we don’t act now with public sector pensions, future generations will have an unmanageable tax burden. Evan, having asked him if he had read the report, asked a direct question about an apparent misquote, saying he had used <Ctrl>+F to search for the word! He then went on to quote the actual numbers from the report that seemed to contradict the attributed “direct” quote. A bloodbath of squirming and smirking followed, where I was left feeling let down by the government minister but thoroughly impressed with the quality of journalism on Radio 4 – top job guys.

What's the point?

2011-06-23T12:03:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday, 10 November 2009 I put my first post on my new blog Soliloquy. It was called Existential Angst. In fact I toyed with calling the entire blog Existential Angst. This pervading theme may be a sign of my time of life or perhaps it’s the age in which we live: we are inundated with information and data streamed at us at such a pace it is virtually impossible to absorb, process and synthesise; we are destined to be standing like rabbits staring at the proverbial headlights of the information juggernaut. I have three major themes which I cannot seem to get enough time to digest the current perceived wisdom and to formalise my own view. The topics are quite broad (1) The nature of matter and the hypothesis of its creation, (2) The origin of human society and the resultant behaviours and (3) Exponential technological and biological evolution, the extrapolation of Moors Law and the Singularity

I feel like I am building three 10,000 piece jigsaws, each in a different room. I am running from one to the other completing one part and then dashing back to look at the previous one – often finding that a small portion from my last attempt is in the wrong place.

All three strands fit with the general theme and I wonder if its part of the nature of self-awareness that we must ask these questions.

On (1) I am intrigued by the celebrity presented view of Quantum Theory – packaged for the masses to consume – but feel that I have just scratched the surface and I want to know more. I have this instinctive awareness that there are monumental and potentially portentous discoveries happening right now that I will only have a chance to marvel at in wonder but never truly understand. I have bought a Quantum Mechanics text book but was shocked to find that I struggled to get to grips with the initial mathematics and physics – the very material I had studied and been examined on years ago.

On (2) I had completed .... you decide part 1, as an initial view of the origins of cities and city states, where apparently for the first time humanity decided to locate itself in a desired place and to defend that place and the resources it provided or represented. I was intending to research if the first example on the planet of a city, Jericho, was still one of the global hotbeds of civil unrest and what this means for our civilisation. If the descendents of those early inhabitants of the Levant who have migrated to Europe and the British Isles were not able to live closely together without the apparent need for demarcation lines and jingoistic sabre rattling from minority groups based around arbitrary geographic boundaries – what will our society become? I have idealistic Start Trek notions of a United Federation of Earth – am I the only one? Or are we descending into a densely packed tribal combat zone?

and finally, on (3), The notions and postulations of Raymond Kurzweil and his disciples are intriguing. Mathematically and logically they make sense – there is an elegant simplicity to the proposal that ensures that it seems like common sense – my cynicism alarm is still twitching. I’m not sure I concur with the proposed endpoint of this exponentially accelerating evolution but nevertheless it provides an interesting perspective on how we will see an accelerating introduction of life-changing technology. Critically it also provides a view of the life that our children might experience and will hopefully help us to prepare them better for their turn “holding the baton”.

And so, still no answers, only questions. The eventual epitaph of all humanity.

I think I may immerse myself in fiction for awhile and see how things have moved on when I resurface……

Wisdom, Justice and Love

2011-05-02T16:23:00.000+01:00

"This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love."

I have been listening to Linkin Park, A Thousand Suns and woven into this phenomenal work are some quotes from Martin Luther King.

Today we hear that Osama Bin Laden has been killed. That we are celebrating and cheering all over the western world at his death. I keep hearing the words of King resonating in my head. This is such a sensitive subject that I write about it with trepidation at what my expressed thoughts might understandably provoke but write about it I must. I think it is a travesty that life can be twisted and mutated into the cesspit of malfeasance that occupied the space that we call Osama Bin laden. Even saying this however I am saddened to hear that he was killed, that he was not ever brought to account. That he was gifted an end without ever understanding the tragedy of the world that his words and actions have caused. I don't mean that I wish for vengeance to have been visited upon him, although I could easily understand how his victims may desire this, but more that he was tried and held until such time as he understood the loss and pain of his victims or until his life ended naturally. To treat him and his life with the respect that he did not treat his victims. Surely this would engender a spirit of common humanity amongst his followers and his enemies alike. Crowing and braying like mindless beasts at the moment of the kill is as demeaning as it is futile and for me it cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.

The Royal Wedding

2011-04-28T13:10:00.000+01:00

I'm not an ardent Royalist. Seems like an odd thing to say since we are a parliamentary democracy albeit with a constitutional monarchy bolted on for the tourists. I suspect then my affiliation would likely be as a republican (note the small ‘r’). I don't particularly find it offensive to talk about the Royal Wedding its just hyped beyond any level of reality and is probably an anaesthetic to aid worldwide society to cope with the global meltdown. If I were to believe all I read then, as a subject of her majesty Queen Lizzie the second, I am to wish her prematurely balding grandson good fortune with his new social climber wife. But I don't believe all I read, in fact, I feel just a little bit disappointed with myself for delving into the murky depths of tabloid gossip.

So I genuinely wish William and Kate all the best for the future and any pressure they can put on the government or the establishment to relinquish all of this constitutional monarchy nonsense, that would be good too. Thanks for the day off!

Northern British

2011-04-25T12:41:00.001+01:00

I've struggled for a while to understand devolution, it's purpose, it's eventual aim. In one of my first blogs (I vote for the Romans) I displayed an affinity with a concept of belonging to a bigger geopolitical entity. Whilst I appreciate the need for more local government to represent the mood of the local community by such acts as raising taxes locally and distributing the benefit locally, I also understand the benefits of scale afforded a larger community for such things as diplomacy, military, finance, police, transport etc. I specifically avoided writing "Nation" here, since within our understanding of this word, nation; we confuse such concepts as culture, race, politics, religion and Land.

In my blog (An Ode to Joy) I explored my poor knowledge of devolution in the UK, eventually returning to the theme of a pan European Nation. A pan European nation is only a pipe dream when we don't have a single united nation occupying the British Isles. Recently I have been more irked when I see the media referring to Scotland or Wales in terms of them being nation states. This becomes even more irritating in any debate over public spending as both of the devolved parliaments seem to have domain over large centrally generated budgets and are spending these budgets in dramatically different ways to the majority contingent of the UK. For example, Scottish University students (what does this mean?) are not paying tuition fees. How does this work? The British Tax payers pay tax to the British government in Westminster. Westminster diverts a portion of this to pay for public services in Scotland (the Scottish Consolidated Fund). Scotland's devolved parliament manage to allocate some to pay for a few of Britain's university students to go to university. Which university? Scottish universities? What about other British universities or the Rest-of-the-World universities? Why decide to just send Scottish students to Scottish universities?

Surely this raises the question of fairness? at what cost are Holyrood making this investment? What are residents of Northern Britain going without so their young folk can go to a university in Northern Britain paid for by the British State? Southern British don't have this option. But aren't we all British tax payers, although the Scottish (Northern British) devolved parliament were given the power (by the British parliament in Westminster) to raise or lower their tax rate, they have not done so. Therefore, if this is a fair distribution of money raised through taxation then something must have to give in that region that is afforded the benefit. Presumably the per capita costs of local government are the same? I've read some reports that suggest it is lower in Northern Britain and others that say its much higher but I have not found the facts yet.

The Scottish (Northern British) devolved parliament website refers often to the "Scottish People" and the "People of Scotland". Assuming that in the modern era these are the same thing. The tribe of the Scotts didn't reach Northern Britain until c. 600 AD. So what defines a person as Scottish? Bloodlines? Surnames? Accent? Location of birth? Well no, none of these.

Two things define you as Scottish on the website of the Scottish Parliament. (1) You reside (pay tax) in the northern parts of our archipelago and (2) You are British Citizen. So, Scottish = Northern British.

Given this then, could I rent a house in a Northern British city say Glasgow, pay local tax and then be eligible to have my children's university fees paid by the state? £9,000 x2 kids x4 years = £72,000 actually wouldn't I be better investing in a property there?

Tricksey little ......

2011-04-02T12:39:00.000+01:00

That charming fresh faced innocence that we cherish in our children seems to be destroyed by one of two juggernauts as our lives skip along the path towards maturity. An engulfing cloud of credulity or a tidal wave of cynicism. "April the first" seems to polarize these sharply contrasting opposites. One camp sardonic and disbelieving about everything they read whilst another camp mind numbingly gullible. Me? I worked all morning and missed all the fun, thankfully. One rather incisive read about the media's failure to instil any confidence in the integrity of journalism and hence utterly failing to trick us on April 1st is here, or is it? you'll have to click to check.....

One Flu over the cuckoo's nest

2011-03-11T10:58:00.000Z

I'm going mad. Stuck in the house, sniffling and coughing. I swing from feeling like the proverbial typhoid Mary, to an overwhelming sensation of discombobulation. I have experienced that disconcerting sensation of observing your life and the world around you from the perspective of a third party. It's not all bad news, I have so far avoided daytime TV but the resistance is waining. Why does the influenza virus manage to persist? It serves very little purpose other than to make us feel wretched for several days or weeks. Last night I watched Wonders again with the fabulous Brian Cox and have been thrown into an existential crisis to which the only antidote was 2 episodes of Charlie Brookers, "How TV ruined our lives". During wonders, it became clear that the duration of self-awareness that life in the universe will have is infinitesimally small. So for this fleeting moment of awareness, this tiny experience of knowing itself through the existence of self aware matter, the Universe chooses to create flu. What's that all about? Well I've got time to sit and think about it. Nice.

Panoramic View

2011-03-03T15:05:00.000Z

I have downloaded a new app for my iPhone, Pano, on the advice of Tom. It is extremely simple to use in fact I would go so far as to say it was idiot proof. If any idiots find that they cannot use it, you are welcome to try to put a comment on this blog - if you can, but I suspect you will not as using the Pano is easier. In fact it's so easy I'm probably a bit guilty of over using it. However, this "panoramic" view does throw things into a different perspective, figuratively and literally.

Take the photo of my garden above, my intention had been to take a photo of the chickens for a friend, Mij - long story, I'll save that one I think. The photo does contain the chickens but also as you pan across you get to see the subject in the context of numerous other influences. Your mind fades out elements that are not of interest currently and focuses on those that are, whilst keeping some sense of perspective on those other elements. It is much more natural to us to view in this way, in our usual sight, we have a central area of vision and the peripheral vision is often only subconsciously aware of the bigger picture. My only concern with the way we view these projections is that they are just that, a three dimensional projection onto a two dimensional flat page and the resultant distortion can render the picture awkward and difficult to look at. I shall get much more practice and hopefully master the art.

Watching Will on his Xbox last night it struck me that console games would benefit considerably from the wrapped around image created from panoramic viewing, probably more so than 3D although 3D is pretty amazing on a console. I suspect then, that some kind of projector that would display an image giving you a sense of what lay just outside of your field of view would be a useful add on to console gaming.

Greed is good

2011-03-03T13:07:00.000Z

Is it? Is it really? Do we teach it? encourage it? revere it?

Greed takes hold of weak people and twists them into snarling sociopaths, shaped like human beings but missing some vital components of human existence such as; integrity, community, ethics.

It is possible, initially, to be conned by the facsimile of humanity as it is presented but scratch the surface and that shell, which echoes with the cries of futility, stands bare in front of you. Any endeavour, whatever its nature, will ultimately fail if it has at its core a selfish desire. The tragedy of the commons is no apocryphal parable, it is not solely an ancient moral, it is a truism. It is a breach of a fundamental tenet of our existence that some amongst us defile to the detriment of all.

Blogging is such sweet sorrow

2011-02-20T09:59:00.000Z

We watched a "best of live at the Apollo" last night. It was funny in places but I was reminded of a quip on some other show saying ".... that was as thin as Michael McIntyre's material" (http://www.comedy.co.uk/guide/tv/michael_mcintyre_roadshow/press/) still it was light entertainment.
A clip of Ed Byrne was aired where he trotted out some amusing observations about the differences between men and women, still funny to hear them a second time, one such observation, posed as a question from men to women; "you know when you ask us what we are thinking....", well I won't just repeat the joke in writing, since without the lyrical southern Irish tones and the cheeky wink at the camera, it may fall flat. Suffice to say, men tink about nutten ;-)

Do we really think about nothing? I'm afraid to say it's not true in my head. It never stops churning over and over, analysing, questioning, postulating. The noise can be as suffocating as it is intoxicating. I rarely remember my dreams and I think it is probably because my brain is completely exhausted so, when I sleep, it honestly needs a rest. In fact my inner narrative is so profligate it has often deigned to share it's overflow with random expressions to anyone within earshot. I have, over the years, learned to curb this trait. How am I doing? I seem to notice this trait in others and tend to be more tolerant than many as I too hear the noises.

Reading other's blogs, as I do, I still question the purpose of my own. In general some blogs are review digests, some are issue related discussion boards, many others also seem to have a purpose. Not sure what the purpose of mine is. Is it just another valve with which to release the noise from my head? Is it a necessary chore that serves to allow the peace and quiet with which I struggle to surround myself?

Sent from my iPad

Requiem for Stevie

2011-02-13T12:41:00.000Z

Before this gets too morbid let me explain that Stevie was one of our chickens. When we had first released her from the box into our garden, before her wings were clipped, she had made a stunning bid for freedom. She ran like a headless ... well you get the message, she ran recklessly and then launched into the air and almost cleared the border to freedom but crashed spectacularly into a thorn bush and lay there bleeding, wounded and helpless. It reminded me of that immortal scene from The Great Escape with Steve MacQueen's attempt to jump the barbed wire. Hence Stevie was named. She took time to find her place in the pecking order but eventually it was just her and Goldie left as our pets.

This week, in front of the office window in our garden, Anne saw a dog savagely attack and kill Stevie. This was desperately sad as she had just established herself as a great little layer, the chicken I mean, and was a much loved part of the family, as with most pets.

The neighbours were mortified when they realised it was their little beast but the damage had been done. Yesterday I fetched 2 pals for Goldie and they are settling in to their new home. No names yet, although the Sussex Star - a White one with black extremities - immediately tried to establish herself at the top of the pecking order by launching into a spectacular hen-fight with Goldie. I'm thinking, Tyson!

Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fthagn!

2011-01-23T17:47:00.000Z

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, American poet and author of macabre short novels, was the man behind the Cthulhu mythos. I must confess that my only exposure to this world was a brief experience of the Call of Cthulhu role playing game as a student and more recently the collaborative board game Arkham Horror. The game ranks 54th currently in the BGG player voted rankings. One of the attractive elements of the game to me was the theme but also that it was collaborative and at the time the kids were favouring the many collaborative games in my collection. I suspect we may nurture competitiveness into our children, but thats a subject for another blog.

The first time my group of regular gaming friends played the game was not as successful as it could have been, due to it being late, me not remembering all the rules too well and there being an ennui invading the group whenever collaborative games are mentioned. This I think is a subject for yet another blog. To read Steerpike's view of the initial experience visit his blog. Since this initial outing the game has rarely seen the light of day and it's a shame as it may be better than we initially gave it credit.

Following a suggestion, I recently bought an app that assists the various dice rolls, card selections etc that are routinely made during a game of Arkham Horror - especially when solo. I also entered into a brief chat on Facebook with Stretchy (an alumnus from our local gaming group) about collaborative games and threatened to bring it to OxCon next weekend. So I have given the game a little run out this weekend. Here follows a game review, so if you haven't switched off already and aren't a game fan.... I should now :-)

Having previously played the game solo, instinctively I thought it would be very tough with just one character and so I chose two for this new solo-ish game. This had the benefit that the kids could dip in and out of the game. I was very lucky with my first two off-world experiences, the first events were both successful and the consequence of each was an immediate return to Arkham. I managed to remove the gates with just four turns passing. However, during four regular game turns four gates have materialised. In addition to the initial "free" gate that is given to "the ancient one", there had been five gates (and five out of 13 stages on the doom track signalling the arrival of the monster) and I had only managed to remove two! Victory conditions are, zero gates in Arkham and (n+1), i.e 3 gates as trophies (ie not spent to aid the war). Given that it would take four turns to destroy a gate usually (Turn 1: arrive at gate and evade/destroy monsters, then get drawn into other dimension and encounter event. Turn 2: move through dimension, have second encounter. Turn 3: move back to gate (ignoring monsters). Turn 4: destroy any new monsters and then destroy gate.

This doesn't take any account of moving to the gate and acquiring enough spells and weaponry to achieve the task, this could be at least 3-4 additional turns. So on average to destroy a gate you could be looking at a character taking 7-8 turns per gate. Meaning there will be 8-9 gates open as you try to close your first. Simply then, you may need 8-9 characters to win this!

This is not strictly true, since you can close and then seal the gate, stopping any further horror from manifesting in this location. So I guess 4-5 characters is the minimum so long as the first gates closed are also sealed. However another consideration is that, should you leave gates open then there is much more chance of a monster surge (a new gate being selected for a location that already has a gate) and this inevitably leads to the town of Arkham increasing the terror rating with all the bad stuff that ensues. Also more wandering evil stuff building up in the town is not good for character health.

This game is a real conundrum I think you must have to allow a certain number of gates to open as a party of you "tool up" and then try to all get to the gates and close them simultaneously. I think I will try to convince my competitive games crew to have another go at this collaborative game soon, see if we can't crack the code.

Sinophone

2011-01-19T16:38:00.002Z

I am not a sinophone, I think eventually we may all have to become at least partionally sinophonic.

I've been regularly reading articles on http://www.kurzweil.net/ with interest but today one arrived in my twitter stream that disappointed me.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/globa-accelerating-technologies-will-create-a-global-state-by-2050

So I have submitted a comment and I am awaiting its approval:

The “Global Language Snowball Effect”

I think some of the fundamental facts have been missed here. Chinese is (one of) the fastest growing langauge(s) on the internet (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm) , it is probably more likely that some derivative of Chinese will become the global language, if such a global language were to develop.

It was also disappointing to read the following:

” It will certainly not be Chinese, since the world will utterly reject China’s incredibly clumsy and stupid writing system”

From a non sinophone perspective this may be a much held view but is it really a sensible view. To express it in such a clumsy and inarticulate manner just detracts from what was quite an interesting premise. A small bit of research would show you the variety and richness of the languages that are similar to Chinese. A little further research might have shown you that despite your (and my) ignorance of the language it is a powerful analytic language that depends on sytanx rather than morphology.
I suggest this article is edited to remove what appears to be xenophobic content that adds little to the debate.

I wonder if it will be added?

Favourite Movies of all time

2011-01-12T16:21:00.002Z

Not such a simple question to answer. Over on Simon's Blog he commented on the recent film Inception and how good he thought it was - whilst flying on a plane. Level 1 of the dream if I remember correctly. Still it sparked a little discussion on movies and I realised I hadn't recently reviewed my own "Ten Favourite Films of all time" list. I wondered if Inception would make it on the list. Thus, I have just recreated my list and shall record it for posterity and ridicule here on my own blog. I used a system of brainstorming followed by directed selection. Simply put, I tried to recall any movie that had had an impact on me during my life, I filtered many at this stage - all remaining get an honourable mention. I suspect there is a certain amount of bias too, particularly if I had recently watched or discussed a move, but I tried to adjust for this. I then asked myself the question, "If I could watch only one of these movies in the whole of the next year and no other, which would I watch?". I also tried to adjust this for having watched recently. When I had selected one, I looked at the remaining list and asked the same question prefaced with "of those left, ....". During this process I remembered some more movies which either got added to the pool or noted.

Top 10

1) Twelve Monkeys

2) LoR(3): The Return of the King

3) LoR(2): The Two Towers

4) LoR(1): The Fellowship of the Ring

5) Blade Runner(All versions but the Final Cut is best)

6) Kingdom of Heaven

7) Pulp Fiction

8) The Matrix

9) Memento

10) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Brainstorm Others

Cube

Schindler's List

Saving Private Ryan

Angel Heart

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Training Day

A Beautiful Mind

Inception

A Good Year

Meet Joe Black

Blue Velvet

Goodfellas

The Dark Knight

The Shawshank Redemption

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Kick-Ass

Deja Vu

Nearly forgot

Starwars trilogy's

Terminator 2

Gladiator

Reservoir Dogs

Swordfish

Just about anything with:

Denzel Washington - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000243/

Russell Crowe - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000128/

Bruce Willis - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000246/

The Devil may care

2011-01-02T11:02:00.000Z

I like the new(ish) stats page on blogger. If I'm honest I like stats. As mentioned before (http://jims-soliloquy.blogspot.com/2010/04/big-brother.html), periodically I have a nosy at who, if any, are visiting my musings. I paticularly like the search terms that people have entered immediately prior to selecting my blog from the list presented by their search engine (not shown here). Anyhow, today I noticed the portentous count that had been reached for my UK total.

h-òg-mhaidne

2011-01-02T00:52:00.000Z

This year we spent the etymologically challenged hog-ma-whatsits at our neighbours. The gathering also included one of my great mates, Scrivvy. Now Scrivvy is what one might call a bit of a hoarder, and has the habit of producing, out of the hat, the most stupendous bottles of alcohol that he has kept next to the AGA for the last 10+ years and more often than not, asks my help to recover, decant, and consume said tipple. This year proved to be a little extraordinary. I'm not sure if you can see on the label in the photo but this bottle of Madeira was conceived in 1954.

The Scrivs brought the cheese course comprising Oxford Blue, another quite delicious Oxford soft white cheese and the olfactory assault followed by gustatory nirvana that is Stinking Bishop. With grapes and figs accompanying the cheese we were all set to excite the palette for this potentially phenomenal Madeira.

So yes, I'm a bit of a ponce when it comes to wine as evidenced by this innuendo stuffed video. Please enjoy this video of me already gently lubricated, as I over enthuse about this wonderful wine.

So finally, my verdict on the '54. Outstanding, honeyed notes with an undercurrent of gently flambé toffee. The complex flavours contrasted vividly with the cheeses - well worth the 56 years since the grapes were harvested. Happy New Year.

Janus Tendencies

2010-12-24T10:41:00.000Z

So today I had a quick tidy up of the blog setup and I remembered that I had stopped recording, on board game geek, the games that I have been playing this year. Shame really, I think there is a little Janus in all of us at this gateway to the new year and it would have been nice to examine the statistics like some latter-day sooth sayer and predict what it means about the changing nature of me and what may happen in 2011.

Note-to-self, must play (and record) more games.

No Crib for a Bed

2010-12-23T15:35:00.000Z

Last night we were lucky enough to be invited to stay for supper with some great friends following the annual Oakley Court carol service. After eating we were casually invited to play some cards. Fabulous. The crib board was produced and the games began. I took an absolute drubbing - not helped by playing against a Jedi Crib Master - "these are not the cards you're looking for".

Humiliated and dejected I decided to take on my iphone to claw back some self respect. During this first game, I was taking the lead and feeling very confident and then I was presented with this hand.

So obviously I could sit and work out the mathematical possibilities and the appropriate probability distribution but I was taking a, ahem, 10 minute break and so I made a snap decision. I would discard the 4 and the 3 since the resulting hand was worth 14 in its own right.

Blast, who'd've thought it, I should have kept the 4 and the 3. This meant that my hand is now still only worth 14 but if I'd thrown the 10 and a 5 into my crib I'd have had a hand worth 18 and a stronger seeded crib.

Adding insult to injury my crib was only worth 4 points but had I have thrown in the 5 and 10, it would have been worth 8 making my total score 26, a full 10 points more than my actual score of 16. I guess an implicit, Jedi like understanding of probability is what one must develop to make the more likely (to succeed) selection, repeatedly. Still I beat the iPhone - scant satisfaction though, as I know deep down that Master Sandy would have punished the choice mercilessly. I'll lay down my sweet head......

An Egregious Motor Car

2010-12-21T11:02:00.000Z

The OED defines egregious as outstandingly bad as a modern definition and remarkably good as an archaic definition. I think its safe to say the Bentley Packard in the link below fits this definition accurately. We may indeed be at the end of the epoch of the internal combustion engine and we may or may not believe that exhaust fumes generated by consumption of oil and its derivatives has set the environment on a cycle of terminal decline; what we cannot do is fail to marvel at the engineering phenomenon that is Mavis, the Bentley Packard.

I received a link from my cousin-in-law Mike, a fellow petrol head, to the following video and article from the Telegraph. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article and watching the road test and wanted to share. I only hope you can suppress your eco-guilt sufficiently to fully appreciate the inherent beauty of this gargantuan machine and the wonderful eccentricity of anyone wanting to build it.

Didactic or Polemic? You decide - PART I

2010-12-16T23:18:00.001Z

Not being a student of history, its often difficult for me to locate important events on a timeline and to see their relative importance and why they may have an influence on our lives today. The hypothesis that humans have a single origin was published by Darwin in 1859. There is significantly more evidence to support this theory today, apparently hominids diverged from chimpanzees 5-7 million years ago and a discovery within the last decade puts this nearer the earlier date. Modern humans, Homo Sapiens evolved in Eastern Africa 200,000 to 140,000 years ago and using genetic testing a much more accurate map of human ancestry and migration to all inhabited parts of the world is now available.

Apparently there is still much academic debate, which occasionally spills over to mainstream media, regarding the Recent African Origin (RAO) model. Around 60,000 years ago a group of 150-200 early humans made it out of Africa and proceeded to populate the rest of the planet. Ultimately surviving all earlier hominids that had journeyed out of Africa previously. Looking at the timeline at the top, in the last 800,000 years (80% of the last section of the 7) there were eight ice ages, each interspersed with warmer periods of around 10,000 years. The impact of the extreme cold on the planet does not only have the obvious effect, that of the ice sheets advancing across the northern hemisphere cutting off vital resources for these hunter gatherer communities, but also the locking up of water in these sheets meant that lower rainfall turned half the land between the tropics into desert. A torrid time then for the human race. About 12,000 years ago the last ice age was drawing to an end - temperatures rose, vegetation returned and animals spread into the former wastelands. The hunters followed. By this time in the Near East and Central America these humans had begun to develop new ways of producing food, farming had started. During the 150,000 years that preceded this time, modern humans numbered only in their millions and had migrated the globe foraging and hunting in small groups. This fundamental change in human behaviour signalled the start of the transition to modern society.

The Levant is an imprecise word with sometimes emotive definitions but in general it can be thought of to cover the area shown in the picture. I have chosen the picture that has a very arbitrary shading and uses ancient names for the regions comprising it, clearly modern day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories fall within this region. It is believed that the origin of the word is from archaic French and refers to 'rising' as the Sun rises in the East. This crucible of humanity is where 10,000 years ago these once migratory small groups of humans had advanced their agriculture sufficiently to allow them to remain in one location permanently. This is worth absorbing. After 7 million years from the split from chimpanzee, 200,000 years after modern Humans evolved, 60,000 years after migrating out of Africa, after beginning to domesticate animals and selecting genetically superior plants to farm, finally Humanity started to take root. Small villages with partially subterranean dwellings were clustered together in a community. Around 8000 BC then, during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), the world's first known town, Jericho, appeared in the Levant and was surrounded by a stone wall and contained a population of 2000-3000 people and a massive stone tower. It was a further thousand years before the inhabitants of modern day China would start cultivating rice and farming appeared in parts of the Aegean, it was not until c 4000BC before this reached the shores of Britain and maize was first cultivated in Modern Ecuador and Columbia around 3000BC. Tune in for part II, where I will explore what these pioneers in the Levant, our ancestors, did with all their spare time, now they were not hunting for food every waking moment.

New Year's Revolution

2010-12-07T19:48:00.000Z

As I have mentioned before the communication challenges that confront us all, with the advent of what is variously called social networking, Cyberspace, the Web, the Internet etc, are numerous and many people are struggling to come to terms with them. From businesses to the media to private individuals the struggle is evident. Some businesses can't cope with the onset of viral marketing the vast scale interconnectedness of their consumers.

The news media - in the 24hour constant reporting world - struggle to balance relevance and source verified factually correct reporting.

Finally the general public are swamped by the accelerating and rapid upgrading and introduction of new tools with which to communicate. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn are my current trio there are many more brands from which we can choose.

In all of these sites I am finding an increasing discomfort. It has been clear to me for some time that we are someone's product but the escalation of the disdain with which our information security and privacy are being handled I find increasingly frustrating. There must be a business model that supports a more safe, secure and open relationship with the provider. If so many people desire this type of facility I'm sure it can be provided as a low-cost fee for service type deal. I have started sketching out a business plan, not sure how to fund it? My New Years Resolution is to complete the plan and if it looks sensible to get it funded and build an alternative, who's with me? Comrade Jimbo, leader of the people's popular affront.

Share and share alike

2010-11-29T09:57:00.000Z

An interesting phrase, so obvious in meaning that you don’t have to think about it. This weekend I have been moved to think about sharing. In a previous blog I touched on “The Tragedy of the Commons” and “Enlightened Self Interest”, so philosophically at least I am familiar with the concept of sharing and sharing often being in one’s own best interest. I like to think of my self as a generous person, I never shy from the bar on entering a pub with a group; I like to make sure all people have their fair share or pay their fair cost. So why then, when I am asked to share a small piece of desert with my wife, am I moved to say “no”?

Logically this makes no sense, I bought a piece of caramel shortbread on Friday larger than I would normally have and when my wife asked if she could share a bit, my instant reaction was, “if I’d known that, I would have bought two pieces”. Clearly working on the premise that I would eat any of hers that she was unable to finish but ignoring the fact that the small 10% of the total piece that she was asking for was probably the same amount as the surplus on my piece over the average size – having indicated to the shop assistant to give me the largest visible piece. Obviously my life partner and mentor took the opportunity to explain my mistake and much later, when I had calmed down, I did feel the incongruity between my response to this request and my belief in Enlightened Self Interest. It is probably an infant behaviour pattern that has not yet evolved a more appropriate response mechanism in adulthood. Yes, I admit it, I was being a child.

An ode to joy

2010-11-18T00:02:00.001Z

“oo are yuh?”. I’m not sure really. May be that answer speaks volumes. How does one define oneself in the modern world? Is it by the nation state to whom we pay tax, to whom owe allegiance and in whose borders we reside? Is it some socio political class probably given a dreadful acronym by the marketeers? I’m not a DINKY, no really, I’m not. I’m not “Mondeo man” and last time I looked my pound was neither grey nor pink. Is it some racial or genetic label that defines us? I’m freckly, my hair has a sort of reddish tint, I enjoy “the beer” and I like swirly patterns, I must be a Celt. Really, has it ever been so hard to define who you are? I was listening to the news tonight, confident in the knowledge that I am British. I believe this to be short hand for a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This, I have been led to believe, is my country, and is the source of my nationality. So why do the BBC insist on presenting Scottish and Welsh stories as if they were a separate country. Short pause whilst I read the Scotland Act 1998. zzzzzz. Oh yeah, that's why, it's a separate country. What! was I asleep? Next you’ll be telling me Wales isn’t a principality and has it own government. Short pause whilst I read the Welsh devolution referendum of 1997. Oh.

So ok, Wales is its own country, Scotland is its own country, what about England? for that matter what about Yorkshire (population 2.2 million) considering that Wales has c. 3 million residents, is it that daft? How far will devolution go? Minority interests fragmenting the Nation. So we are devolving power to local government, in many ways this is a good thing. Local people raising taxes and deploying those funds locally but understanding they are part of a larger collective that must collaborate to survive but this is not how government works for us. So we are not creating mini nations. Scottish sailors wear the British army’s uniform and go to see on British aircraft carriers (for now), Welsh shoppers spend British pounds (it’ll buy you 1 Euro 15 cents today) and English or Cornish athletes sing the British national anthem. God save the Queen. Yes, I know we enter a whole new realm of confusion here, the Queen is English as she burnt some cakes once or was that Alfred, or is she Scottish since she is descended from James the I or is she Welsh from Henry Tudor. Actually she’s German, as evidenced by her clear descendency from George of Hamburg or French from our all time favourite King, Guillaume le Bâtard.

Sovereignty lies at the heart of it. Again though this is not as clear to me immediately as you would have hoped. Who has supreme power of authority in the UK? The Scotland Act deals with this in relation to devolution, clearly retaining sovereignty in Westminster but in reality will economy not drive this, will the size of the economy not dictate that not only will Scotland remain British but eventually Britain will become European?

So there you go, I’ve rambled for a while and decided I’m a Europhile. Shocking.

Forgive me ether it has been 2 months since my last confession

2010-11-09T23:58:00.000Z

Despite getting great satisfaction from SHOUTING into the ether, like some poor demented soul, I have been unable to put finger tips to keyboard for 2 months. Yes, I have excuses; yes, they are all perfectly reasonable; no, I am not happy about it; no, I feel powerless to change it. Well, until now that is. Unfortunately, I now discover that I have literally nothing to say. Actually, this is not strictly true, I have oodles to say but nothing appropriate to share on this medium. I have struggled to spend quality time with my family, I have hardly cycled, I have read very few blogs, I have missed some games nights, I have not rung my Mum and why have I forsaken all these things? Short pause whilst I try to grandstand the inevitable, yes you guessed it, like millions of other "saddos" I have allowed work to consume my life. One maxim that has defined my existence so far has been "Life is about the journey, not the destination". I feel I have been forgetting this of late fellow ether dwellers, so I herby vow to grab time back from work and share it equally amongst those pursuits listed above.... Look out for many blogs on these subjects in the weeks to follow.

Nose pressed to grindstone

2010-09-10T09:04:00.001+01:00

Of late my head has been so choc-a-block with stuff that I have found no time to read any fiction, no time to write and very little time to ponder life's great questions. I have managed to keep my hand in with a few boardgames and I have sporadically updated my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn sites. I am missing these simple pleasures, some would say luxuries. The holidays are finished, the kids are back to school and life is starting to settle down to it's normal rhythm. Just need need to get through the PhUSE annual conference and then it's the run up to Christmas.

Sent from my iPad

Bike ride on Dartmoor

2010-09-05T11:17:00.002+01:00

Matt Ridley: When ideas have sex | Video on TED.com

2010-08-05T23:39:00.001+01:00

Matt Ridley: When ideas have sex | Video on TED.com

If you can get past the attention grabbing title, this is actually a very interesting lecture. The premise is a simple one; communication, sharing, support are the reason why humans have evolved. Enlightened self interest. Stunning thought, there isn't a single person on the planet that knows how to make a pencil! Mining the graphite, harvesting the wood, manufacturing the tools to make it are all skills held by many people collectively but not in a single mind.

There can only be one.....

2010-08-02T13:25:00.000+01:00

... winner! Sadly, as with all competitions of true value, there can only be one winner. Yes, for those that have been interested - and I am under no delusions that this may actually only be Jason and I - the 10 game series has just finished and the old master has been declared the winner. 7-3

The student accepted the lesson graciously - whilst revenge plotting was evident on his face, gracious comments to the victor abounded.

Actually, this was a lesson in what gaming is all about. We both had a great deal of fun, the ante was "upped" with the publicising of the results, and ultimately the pitting of wits and friendly competition meant that we both focussed our endeavour on winning but making sure that the activity itself was thoroughly enjoyable. It was. I look forward to the next series in about 3 weeks. For this, I may just publish the results!

are you bored yet?

2010-07-30T13:17:00.005+01:00

Tension mounts, well for me at least, interest wanes, for Jason. A massive 4 wins in a row has set me up for "2 match points". All I have to do is win 1 or more of the next 2 games and victory will be mine. Of course if I lose both, then on goal difference Jace wins. I lose.

"In many ways you're both losers", anonymous

The Comeback kid

2010-07-30T10:20:00.003+01:00

Having managed to squeeze in two more games yesteday, the score now stands at 3 all. With an almost unassailable 60 points in goal difference - its all or nothing in the last few games of the series for Jimmy Mac!

What's that you're choking on Jace? oh a piece of humble pie.....

Lessons from Mary Shelly

2010-07-28T14:13:00.001+01:00

Two blogs in one day. There must be some drama. Well there is of sorts, for all us gaming types. I've coerced one of my colleagues to start playing board games, it may have been the bright shiny iPad (what still no product review?) version that drew him in but now he is in, well lets say he's hooked. After many games where the student has performed well and the patient but sage old master has coaxed and mentored him, and sufficient games were under the belt, the student declared its time to score - a true gamer at heart. This week we have set ourselves a challenge, play 10 games of Small World on the iPad and record the scores. In case of a draw we'll use point "goal" difference to declare the champ. Monday was a washout - too much work for both - yesterday saw us manage 2 games over lunch with a draw and Student up on goal difference. All fine so far. Today has been an humiliating defeat for the old master, 2 - 0 to the student. Faced with this stunning performance, the student was gracious, and courteous in victory and with self effacing humility reinforced the quality of the lessons he has received. Not. With taunting and jibing, and claims of "you're finished old timer", we have engaged in a little email debate. The scene is set, justice must be metered out, the universe must be brought back into balance. Game on for tomorrow :-)

Sent from my iPad

"Honesty makes people sad"

2010-07-28T11:50:00.001+01:00

To all my software development and project management pals. Being on the bow wave of technology and technology adoption by corporate entities can be tough ;-)

Check out more Dilbert

Its about time

2010-07-07T10:21:00.000+01:00

So I have had a self instigated moratorium on blogging for a while. Largely due to good weather (don't fancy being stuck at the computer for too long), good wine (couple of 'scoops' at the end of the day and I'm poleaxed), too much work (although I am conscious of the Steerpike maxim from my last attempt at this excuse - "you choose how much you want to work" - a little simplistic for my ethos but a grain of truth nonetheless) and too many end-of-term events. Anyway, with holiday season almost upon us I thought I'd better get this one off my, errr..., chest.

I've recently downloaded an app for my iPad (device review is long overdue - suffice to say 10:10) and it has pushed many buttons for me, the app I mean. I find a great satisfaction in knowing that mechanical watches with ever miniaturised and complex, accurate movements are manufactured - yes I love watches - I am also fascinated with Astronomy, thats the study of celestial objects not the study of terrestrial newspaper fillers. If you were confused by that reference you're probably a sagitarian - they always struggle with concealed irony. This app then, observatory, is designed for people like me - in fact its so perfect I sat there wondering for a brief egocentric-moment if I had actually commissioned it.

I'm not sure the purpose of the app is immediately clear, nor should it be, I have used it to marvel at the differences in various measures of time, to explore the heliocentric movement of the planets, to examine the "accuracy" of time at different points in history, to discover the position of celestial bodies at specific historic events and finally and most importantly to explore the physical, conceptual and philosophical nature of time. I have flicked back and forth between graffiti-pedia and the app grappling with the meaning of Solar Time, the Solar Day, Sidereal Time, The Equation of Time and now I am astounded by the complexity of evaluating what we simply call "a day".

Eventually, as is its wont, my mind drifted off to the subject of time perception. I remember reading that in reality our brain processes a sequence of images and uses "trickery" to make us believe we are seeing a continuous stream rather than this continual stream of separate stills. If one were able to process more images, one would in effect see the world in slow-motion (relatively speaking). This is one reason why we can't catch the fly with chopsticks, it processes many more images per second than we do. So where did this lead me? beyond the capacity to reason is the honest answer, so I was able to experiment - the app can "animate" the solar system with a number of different frequencies. Year, Month, Phase, Day, Hour and Minute. Enough for eons of experimentation. I'll publish the results when I'm done.

Sent from my iPad

The Battle continues

2010-06-17T18:37:00.000+01:00

The latest WotR session with Eric has proven one of the most challenging yet. Coming off the back of a series of morale bashing defeats Eric has managed to capitalise on having "normal" dice rolls and card draws. The game has started well for the Free Peoples of middle earth, after 9 rounds comprising 92 actions, the ring bearers are poised to be declared in Minis Tirith and they have zero corruption. The Shadow forces however are not making it easy for them, after a punishing onslaught of Uruk Hai, Rivendell has fallen. Isengard then turned its attention to Rohan, Helms Deep falling after a failed rescue attempt by Gandalf and the Rohirrim. The Shadow forces are mustering at all points, it is now a race against time for both sides.

Look out for a full report on my games blog.

Sent from my iPad (Which will be the subject of my next blog)

It's a Small World

2010-06-04T15:16:00.001+01:00

This 2-player version of Small World for the iPad

(Vyvyan: “yes we’ve got a bloody video” )

is one of the best Apps so far! I played 3 games at lunch today. I do hope they expand it to more players, the table top mode would probably cope. I wanted to write a review but this is better than I could do..

Check out my website!

2010-05-31T00:33:00.000+01:00

Just trying out writing my own webspace. Publishing to Blogger is a bit tedious.

Hi everyone,

I just updated my website and thought you might want to check it out. To visit, just click on the links below or paste the URLs into your browser.

Site http://web.me.com/mc_dermotts
Games Blog
Archive

Take a look and let me know what you think!

Made on a Mac

The Costa Complaining

2010-05-26T14:28:00.002+01:00

Anyone who has read my Twitter Feed will know that I am a little obsessed with Coffee. Costa is currently my favourite of the big chains. As a fan of good service, good coffee and contractual consistency, despite having many other things to think about, I have recently become embroiled in a Costa related customer services shambles. You may be amused, and ultimately heartened, by the ensuing email chain……

________________________________________
Dear Customer Service

I currently use the Costa Coffee shop in Chineham near Basingstoke. I have a local 10% discount card that is valid for 1 year (sponsored by destination Basingstoke) and I have been using it for sometime. I recently got the new Coffee Club card in Oxford and decided to use it at the Chineham shop. Some staff have allowed it and some have not, on one occasion the response was quite terse – strange since the card is supposed to engender loyalty I thought – and so I called the customer services number on the card. I was informed that there was no problem with both cards being used simultaneously. When I told the staff at Chineham they did not believe me so I have mostly just ignored the card. This week one of the staff asked if I had the coffee club card and I replied I do but you won’t let me use it, he invited me to hand over my card and applied both the discount and the club card. The next visit this action was stopped by another member of staff, I explained that I really wasn’t bothered whether they scanned the card or not, as a regular customer it is important for me not to fall out with them and feel uncomfortable visiting the branch. I pointed out that I had called the customer services and been told that they can use both cards. Today she told me she had also called customer services and been told that she was correct and they should only accept one discount card. Promptly asking me which one I wish to use – the PERK card is 10% discount and the Coffee Club is 5% - my answer is obvious really. May I ask that you answer in writing which of the advice is correct?

Kind regards

James

Costa Fan

________________________________________

From: Natalie.OHara@Whitbread.com [mailto:Natalie.OHara@Whitbread.com] On Behalf Of Costa.Coffee.Club/Whitbread@Whitbread.com

Sent: 28 April 2010 15:54

To: McDermott, James

Subject: Re: Confusion

Thank you for your email to Costa Coffee. I apologise for a delay in a response.

I can confirm that you are unable to use both discounts together, as per the terms and conditions.

I apologise for any inconvenience.

Kind regards

Natalie O'Hara

Whitbread Guest Relations Team

________________________________________

Thank you Natalie.

May I ask to which clause in the terms and conditions you are referring?

Kind regards

James

________________________________________

Hi Natalie,

I have not received a reply yet to my email. I have reviewed the terms and conditions that are published on the website and I cannot see which clause restricts the use of the card. Can you help?

Kind regards

James

________________________________________

From: Lyn.Rolland@Whitbread.Com [mailto:Lyn.Rolland@Whitbread.Com]

Sent: 26 May 2010 13:41

To: McDermott, James

Subject: LR

Dear Mr Mcdermott,

I would just like to update you on the below. having looked into this in depth. Unbeknown to us, the terms and conditions should have been changed when we launched the card nationwide. I don't know if you were aware that we were trialing it in Scotland for a year, but we never changed the terms and condtions during the trail as we really did not know if the scheme would be a success. I therefore apologise for the confusion that has been caused. You will see now that the terms and conditions have been updated.

I am aware that you therefore lost out on some discount that you may previously been entitled to therefore I would like to add 200 points to your Costa Card if you would be so kind as to forward the full card number.

Regards

Lyn

Guest Relations Costa

________________________________________

From: McDermott, James

Sent: 26 May 2010 14:13

To: 'Lyn.Rolland@Whitbread.Com'

Cc: 'mc_dermotts@me.com'

Subject: RE: LR

Dear Lyn

Thank you for your response. The 200 points is very much appreciated. I was not aware of your trial in Scotland but I am glad Costa has now settled on terms and conditions for this loyalty card scheme that are consistently applied and communicated to all of the branches and franchises.

I do realise that managing the franchises with a central global brand must be a significant undertaking but as a regular user of Costa I am consistently disappointed with the response when I present any of the discount cards. I stopped at the M4 services franchise on Sunday and the response to my polite question about if they took the card was dreadful, in your role as guest relations you would have cringed. Thankfully the coffee was fantastic!

Thank you again for responding to my question.

James

Costa Fan

...and now for the whether

2010-05-17T14:44:00.000+01:00

Metoffice

Gone are the days where we can look forward to Michael Fish getting the weather forecast spectacularly wrong as the only point of interest for the weather updates after the news.

We may have to rely on this sort of chart for quite sometime before we choose whether to travel by air – oh I got that from the media so it may be totally wrong. However, it does make you consider what a world without air travel would be like….

No nipping to the US on holiday, no popping to Europe for a long weekend break. No pointless business meetings that could have been better organised. Actually, I think it’s a good thing that we are being made to consider our travel plans carefully before committing.

Beware what you wish for...

2010-05-10T11:56:00.004+01:00

Taking the BBC results table, which still has one constituency to declare, and using some Exel™ jiggery-pokery you get this table. That is, taking the popular vote and allocating the proportion of seats dependent on the proportion of the electorate that voted for that party makes interesting reading (don’t forget the rounding!). Bare in mind that I have not read any papers on how proportional representation actually works, or indeed if people knew that we didn’t have a first past the post mechanism would they vote differently? I’m sure they would. So this table is not necessarily representative of a PR Election but it does make you think about the level of negotiation needed to reach agreement.

Swing-o-meter

2010-05-07T11:18:00.003+01:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/2432632/UK-General-Election-2010-political-map.html

Given that we need a 19.5% swing to liberals to get a hung parliament, is there really any chance of electoral reform?

I tried to post this yesterday but forgot to press the go-live button on the blogger dashboard. Less than prophetic in the most depressing way. Don’t try pressing the reset map button, it doesn’t work. Unfortunately we have all voted and the count is coming in. After all the haggling and horse trading is complete the botched government that is left will almost certainly be a travesty to the Popular Vote. Liberal Democrats have 8% of the seats from 23% of the electorate voting for them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/

Bluebells and chaos

2010-05-04T07:16:00.000+01:00

I have spent a large portion of today looking at and photographing
bluebells.
This evening I have edited the photos and I have tried to publish them.
I have 2 applications for managing and editing photos on my Apple,
Apperture and iPhoto. Both seem to communicate with MobileMe but only
one with facebook, meanwhile tweetdeck seems to have used Tweetphoto
not Twitpic and I'm not really sure how I managed this before.
Is it me or has this been overcomplicated?
Sent from my iPhone

WotR CE - Game Review

2010-04-26T00:10:00.002+01:00

This isn't really a review of the game it's my description of how the game played out against Will. We have played WotR (and CE) a number of times now and Will is getting pretty good at handling the Shadow forces. We decided to add in the expansion rules and pieces to see what effect it has. This added Ents, Galadriel and Smeagol for me, the fellowship and Will, the Shadow, had the Dunlendings, the Balrog, Corsairs of Umbar and the Witch King: King of the Ring Wraiths at his disposal.

After our initial set up the first turn laid out some key strategic decisions for both of us. Will mustered the Sauron Nation to war very quickly and this allowed me to bring in Galadriel. I suspected an attack on Gondor so I had to get the fellowship moving, I would need some of the main characters in the South very soon. Galadriel's abilities in the main make you more confident to progress the fellowship and they whipped along in the early part of the game. In the first turn Will decided to bring in the Witch King - a decision that meant that the Balrog would be consigned to the later part of the game, if ever, showing that he favoured military might to hunting for the fellowship. He now had a decision, was he going to bring him in as the Black Captain - to provide support and strength to his ground troops, or was he going to bring in the new King of the Ring Wraiths and concentrate on hunting for the Fellowship. Yes, Will the warrior went for military might and brought in the Black captain and immediately started to threaten Gondor.

These few decisions set the course of the game. Will specifically didn't bring in Saruman as he didn't want to invite an Ent attack, I was keeping 2 of the very powerful Ent strategy cards in my hand and so this action held me back early on in the game. Will's main tactic was a massive and rapid attack on Gondor, via Minas Tirith and Lorien to remove Galadriel. With the new siege engines and mustering to Lorien within a siege I managed to hold on to the elves but after a devastatingly played "Denethor's folly" Minas Tirith was in jeopardy. Due to the rapid moving of the Fellowship, Gandalf the Grey managed to fly out of the fellowship and enter the besieged city but ultimately it fell and Gandalf was dead. The sting taken out of this assault Will struggled to keep the momentum up and I halted his onslaught at Dol Amroth on the coast. Most of Gondor was under Shadow control but I managed to get Strider and Gimli into Dol Amroth and Aragon was crowned King in time to devastate the Shadow forces.

With the remaining shadow forces sweeping from Minas Tirith across to Rohan (still not at war!) Aragorn tried a sneaky assault and went towards the coast around the mountains to come in to Rohan from the West. Will saw this coming and decided to muster Saruman to build an Isengard force to support the Rohan assault. Having stormed through the East of Rohan there was only Helms Deep and the fords of Isen left. However, Gandalf the White appeared in Fangorn forest followed swiftly by the Ents who stormed out to Helms deep and destroyed most of the Sauron forces that were now besieged in the recently fallen Helms Deep. The new Saruman force (weak because Will feared to muster as this brings in the Ents) tried to take Helms deep but was destroyed by Aragorn and Gimli with a large force of Gondor and Rohan units.

During this assault Will had started another army from the Southron and Easterlings to attack the Souther edge of Gondor with a view to sacking Dol Amroth. I managed to take Aragorn through the mountains with the Army of the dead and routed the Southrons.

With all this battling going on the sneaksy Hobitses had managed to reach Minas Morgul and had proceeded, with Golum now their guide, to the edge of Mount Doom and destroyed the Ring. During the battling Will had managed to get 8 VPs of the 10 needed to win and had seriously threatened the final 2.

Another great game of WotR CE and an enjoyable few hours with my son.

Obiter Dicta

2010-04-24T12:41:00.000+01:00

Obiter Dictum

There are several themes or threads running concurrently in my internal narrative at any one time. Herding them and focussing on the important ones is the eternal battle that I have fought my entire life - in fact if I'm honest it is my life. My personality has been described as a "Butterfly" and for this rare bit of descriptive parsimony I thank that person. On occasion I take a quick look at the external narrative, since in the modern era we have an accessible and apparently permanent record, and I gloss through my Facebook history, my Twitter stream and now the building archive of this blog. What strikes me is that the things I think were important to me don't appear in the records anywhere near as much as I would have imagined before taking a look. There are some elements that are censored for obvious reasons, very personal relationships, work and related private information has remained, well, private. Out of the other elements that I thought would feature more, games is at the top of this list. I play games once per week with a group of friends, I have collected over 100 board games I have introduced many friends and their families to a broad variety of modern board games. So to celebrate this, and in the spirit of keeping an electronic record, I have added a "widget" on the side bar of the blog to show recent games as recorded on the Board Game Geek website. I shall try to keep this up-to-date.

more art from Derek here

And another thing, currently I am trying to decide which way to spend my 0.17 of a vote. I have skim read the manifestos and, more characteristically for me, I have reviewed the manifestos on my iPhone. So I know what the politicians want us to think. I have listened to the media so I know what Rupert Murdoch wants us to think. I have endured the cringe fest of the live debates so I know which contestant I'd phone in for! but actually I have paid little attention to what I actually want. So I need to sift through the untidy bedroom of my brain and find the key issues on which I should judge each party. My current thoughts are:

1. A government and leader with statesmanly integrity and presence - showing the UK as a leader on the international stage.
2. Equitable, balanced governance steering the country with high levels of integrity displayed throughout.
3. For major issues like immigration and taxation: clear, fair rules consistent with an evolved, just and benevolent democracy that are policed openly.
4. Macro economic policies that ensure the wealth of the UK whilst we contribute to the global distribution of wealth.
5. Education and learning, not just vocational training, embedded at the core of our society.
6. Smaller central government, more power at a local level.

I've spent no longer than about 5 minutes drafting this list. It may seem like nonsense but these were genuinely the first six things to form more clearly out of the morass. I shall let them stew for a while before I settle on my final list, then I shall see which party measures up.

Jimmymandering

2010-04-13T16:18:00.001+01:00

Not sure if any one else has seen it or not, but there is a general election in the UK on 6^th May 2010. It’s clear that voter apathy has lead to poor turnout at general elections in the UK previously. This graffiti-pedia page has the UK ranked joint 25^th. My personal voter turnout has been just as poor, as until recently I lived in the constituency of Henley with such Conservative luminaries as Michael Heseltine and Boris Johnson – so I felt my vote would not make any difference either way against the swathes of Tory Heartlanders. Currently the MP is John Howell, no I’d not heard of him either.

Last year we moved home only 4.3 miles away from where we used to live. It struck me that we may just have moved far enough to be out of the Henley constituency and be in a position where at last my vote would actually count! So after a little bit of research I discovered I have indeed shifted from the Henley constituency to the Wantage constituency. With a renewed vigour I started to brush up on the political agenda’s of each of the main parties and then looked for the current incumbent. It turns out to be Ed Vaizey a conservative, onetime close pal of the neighbouring Cameron family until a recent faux pas. More conservative than Margret Thatcher, so again I think my vote has become redundant.

According to the Telegraph it would take a swing of 19.5% to switch from Conservative to Labour in Wantage – it would have switched to Liberals first clearly but still a similar swing is required.

This is the spread of votes at the last election in Wantage:

During my recent fervour of interest in government and politics I downloaded the 75Mb conservative manifesto, so perhaps I’ll précis it for you in the next blog.

Big Brother is watching you

2010-04-10T00:08:00.003+01:00

The ubiquitous reference to an authoritarian regime is perhaps overkill for this blog entry but I do feel kind of guilty. It is apparent, from most people that I talk to, that in general users of the internet are not aware of the level of information that is routinely collected on them and stored for posterity. Well, maybe we're all aware we just, in that typically human way, manage to ignore it somehow. We can switch off that conscious part of the brain and hide from big topics like death, homework, tax returns and in my case the dishwasher. My original intention for this blog was not an attempt to generate followers or readers but it does tickle me to think that others read it and I often look to see who has. Recently I had my first Hawaiian IP address. You can see on the map above there is a dot. I can zoom into this and show the detail, this map shows the last 100 unique IP addresses that viewed my site. If I paid money, there would be more detailed information available, so advertisers and others may well be getting significantly more info from each of us than this. I have had a different - and less user friendly - counter running since the launch of my site. Thanks to a tip from Simon. Currently, there have been 1066 unique hits and 1063 visitors to my site - excluding the IP addresses that I usually connect from.

The simple screen dump of info from the Sitemeter site looks like this:

This hawaiian visitor was on a peak day..... (UTC -11hrs = 08:08:22 am Mar 31st)

Lest you misunderstand my motives here, I should probably add that what I am attempting to do in "broadcast mode" is what I have been doing to certain individuals on a 1:1 basis. Namely, inform them about the quantity, nature and automation of the data that is available on all of us. So there you go.

You have a little peek at me and I'm peeking back through the curtains ;-)

Grand National on Saturday

2010-04-09T14:43:00.000+01:00

I’ve just picked us a horse each at random from a sweepstake for the Grand National on Saturday!

Will	Big Fella Thanks (8-1)
Dad (Jim)	Vic Venturi (20-1)
Mum (Anne)	Backstage (25-1)
Ellie	Eric’s Charm (40-1)

Prizes 1^st £24 , 2^nd £10, 3^rd £4 , 4^th £2

Good luck McD’s J

Don't do the crime

2010-03-31T18:42:00.001+01:00

..... if you can't do the time.

So, I guess it's in some way inevitable with modern cars, no training for 20-25 years and a certain complacency that we all seem to acquire with driving. I've been caught speeding. The social acceptability of this crime is clearly changing. Depending on context and era, certain crimes are deemed acceptable one moment and then completely unacceptable the next. At some point in this nation's history, killing a Scotsman would have won me many accolades right now - unless he was in downing street, I'm guessing there would be a public outcry. During my lifetime, I remember chuckling with Pop (my grandfather) about how he seemed to drive better when he'd had a couple of beers! This would be unconscionable in today's society only 25 years later. Thus I hang my head in shame, I'm not proud, yes I was clocked speeding.

Before I go on, there is a brief anecdote about the actual incident that, should your opinion of me not be on the floor already, will make it fall further. For fear of turning into Ronnie Corbett I'll be brief.

I was heading to Basingstoke one morning, not far from my home, entering the village of Moulsford. This village has two schools directly on the main road, one of which Will went to for many years. Quite rightly the speed is 30mph, as I approached the village, as ever, I slowed to 30mph. When I rounded the slight bend I saw a mobile speed van parked in the lay-by. I checked my speedo, c. 30mph good, so I piously drove by with a self-satisfied grin on my face. I then proceeded to text as many contacts in my mobile phone as I could find who I knew would be driving through Moulsford. I have left this purposely ambiguous as to whether I was driving or not as the law on mobile phone usage has changed recently. Plausible deniability and self incrimination are not so comfortable bed fellows.

So it was with much swearing and protestation as to my innocence that I read the notice that I had been clocked doing 34mph on that very day!! After my ranting affirmation that I would take this to the European Courts for a ruling had subsided, eventually I was calm enough to discuss the document with Anne. There was an opportunity to opt for paying £60 to go on a "Speed Awareness Course". No need to tell the insurance company, no need to get 3 [more] points on my licence. It sounded too good to be true, just the catch of course - it was a 4 hour session. Still it had to be better than the points, right?

Actually, it was much better. Clearly, there have been many punters through the doors of this "voluntary" course. The course presenter was very good, he had heard it all, he knew what people were going to say before they said it, and he had all the answers. Interestingly I can honestly say the 4 hours flew past and I feel much better informed about all the nonsense that we carry around with us about speeding, speed cameras and road signage. I only hope that the shift in attitude that I have felt myself over the last few years has just taken a jump to a level that will help decrease road deaths. What was quite worrying was that many of the attendees when asked to select answers from a multiple choice quiz about the highway code, failed. If they were to take their driving test today, they would not pass.

Some thoughts:
In 2007 There were 247,780 road casualties in the UK. There were 27,774 serious (life changing) injuries and critically there were 2,946 fatalities. That is around 9 people every day die on our roads.
OK that's still better than the 70's proportionately. Today 3k deaths out of 34M drivers and in the 70's it was 9k deaths out of 12M drivers. We have improved from 9 deaths per 10,000 drivers to 1 death per 10,000 drivers but I don't think we should get complacent, that is still 9 people dying per day with the highest proportion of child deaths in Europe.

When the police attend an accident they have to choose from 54 categories as to what they think the cause of the accident is. 25% have excessive speed as the primary choice. Over 75% have it as one of the top 3 reasons. Speed is a major cause of accident and therefore death on the roads.

Roads are classified as Urban, Rural or Motorway there are some counterintuitive accident and death rates associated with this. Where do accidents occur? Motorway 4%, Rural 25% and Urban 71%. Where do people die? Motorway 6%, Rural 54% and Urban 40% The high rates of accident are simply related to the times that you are required to make a decision, on a motorway its rare in the town its common. When we make decisions we are prone to errors. The high rates of death in the town are the pedestrians, children and cyclist we kill. On the rural roads it's just the myriad inanimate and animate objects that we are able to hit at high speed.

Conclusions:
Attitudes to speeding are changing - mine most definitely has, your tax payers contribution to my course has paid off. Education and training surrounding driving is woefully inadequate - we should all be electing to do this type of course. The driving test and maintaining your knowledge of the highway code should be tested much more stringently and regularly.

War of the Ring

2010-03-26T22:25:00.001Z

I thought I'd honour the first outing of my new game by a little game review. I have played WotR for a number of years now, ever since Simon got it in the "secret Santa" over on BGG.

When I first heard about a collectors edition I - cue "Gollum like" precious comment - I thought I'd have to get it. Actually, the prestige and desirability of the game were not my biggest draws. The game developers had fixed many of the little niggles I had with the original version, oh and yeah they had crafted a beautiful case and hand painted all the pieces, to a good standard for volume production. They had increased the already monstrous board to one that now if you look closely you can detect the curvature of "middle" earth! Plus the cards are big enough for the failing eyesight of many of my aged friends to read.

So who to play? Simon, Eric or Graeme? I contacted all three to see who could be the "enemy" to experience this new game with me for the first time. Simon had unfortunately been sent to India by his employer to - er - drink beer, eat curry and watch cricket it would seem, so was unavailable. I took the opportunity to call him and discuss the missed opportunity and plan tactics for my eventual enemy. Graeme "Grima" answered the call first but was unfortunately delayed in London and so passed unwillingly. Thankfully Eric, who had played for the first time the day before against Grima with the old version, was up for the challenge. I'll take this opportunity to mention the Eric had beaten Grima in Eric's first game, primarily to pitch his credentials as a worthy combatant but also to rub Grima's nose in it ;-) nice win Eric. So, as ever with WotR, there was a brief discussion as to who would play the Free peoples.

As a balanced two-player game you are required to apply a different approach to playing each of the two warring factions. The mechanic for the shadow forces allows an infinite number of replacement units in reserve, additionally the primary win criterion for the shadow forces is 10 victory point based on the capture of free-peoples strongholds. There are myriad strategic options within this major option, such as divert effort to finding the fellowship and destroying them, or to harrying the Free-Peoples until they collapse, amongst others but in the main it is military might that wins the day for the shadow forces. Conversely, there are many more subtleties to playing the Free-Peoples, not that it is any more difficult, its just slightly more unwieldy until to rules are clearer. The finite reserves, the reluctance of the many races to join the war, and the significantly reduced actions along with the intricacies of the moving the fellowship makes the Free-Peoples awkward for the new-comer. It was decided then, Eric would wield the mighty sword of Sauron and I would guide the Free-Peoples of middle earth out of the third age.

By now it was around 9pm and this game takes an optimistic 3 hours under perfect conditions. It was going to be a long evening.

My preference for a guiding principal for the Free-Peoples is to focus on sneaking the hobbitses into Mordor and winning by destroying the one ring - The primary victory condition. The military victory for the Free-Peoples is to achieve just 4VPs but with finite resources and a game mechanic that mimics a reluctance to move to war, this is only really possible with an unobservant novice at the helm of Sauron's forces. Not being one to underestimate an enemy I avoided this obvious folly. My military stance is best described as proactively defensive - I looked at where Eric seemed to be gathering and I bolstered the defences at this point. Unfortunately, Eric had taken the "Might is right" mantra to heart and used the strategic element of his cards to devastating effect and poured out of Orthanc tower through the Fords of Isen and within a few turns had so devastated Rohan that this whole faction had been largely annihilated and what I have left is incapable of being mustered (past tense of recruiting military forces, not a misspelt condiment).

Meanwhile, I succumbed to deploying many of my cards in their less beneficial tactical capability in a desperate bid to aid my harassed troops - rather than reserving them for their more powerful but longer term strategic option. Accordingly having failed to stop the crimson tide in Rohan I now had very little support to stop it swarming though Gondor. I continued to try and progress the fellowship but took increasing risk, losing Legolas just outside Rivendell on the High Pass and Gimili took a bullet on the way into the relative safe haven of Lorien. If things weren't bad enough, The Southrons and Easterlings, massed on the southern boarders of Gondor waiting to pick the bones after the Mordor hordes had swarmed over Minas Tirith. Thankfully, Eric had an uncharacteristic poor play here and played Denethor's Folly, a card that significantly damages any Gondorian's besieged in Minas Tirith but allowed me an extra turn and I managed to ride Gandalf into the besieged city and destroy the cards effect. By now several hours had passed and we decided to pause. Competitus-interuptus. Eric has gained 4VPs and is currently besieging 2 strongholds in Gondor (a possible 4 more VPs). I have managed to get the fellowship to 1 space beyond Lorien with very little corruption (damage). Both of us are approximately halfway to victory and its anyones game still. The game is set to continue on Monday evening, watch twitter for updates on the score.

What always fascinates me about playing this game is the rich depth, the choices that are presented and the broad scale implications of the apparently simplest decision. Each card having bot a longterm strategic component and a shorter tactical usage presents the most fascinating game dilemmas. I feel I am really beginning to understand the rules of engagement and to explore various strategic options to beneficial effect - whilst developing my ability to engage tactically with elements of the game. The collectors edition has added some much appreciated gild but underneath this game is a pristine white lilly.

Just completed this walk 6.9k

2010-03-21T16:17:00.003Z

<p><a href="http://www.mapmyfitness.com/walk/united-kingdom/-cholsey/582126918796840885">21/03/2010 Route</a><br/><a href="http://www.mapmyfitness.com/find-walk/united-kingdom/-cholsey">Find more Walks in Cholsey, United Kingdom</a></p>

Self Awareness

2010-03-16T10:29:00.000Z

I find self awareness aids in marital bliss…..

This one’s for you darling.

Cartoon by Brian Barling - "Detect"

From: http://www.geekdo.com/

Communication

2010-03-09T18:31:00.000Z

Not a communication you understand, but communication in general. Which is a case in point. A written exchange of information can be very literal, expert writers are able to craft their prose to gently convey a subtext or to imply a broader and often less direct meaning. However, in the main we are pretty poor at this, especially if you compare our ability with the spoken word. Here we have a replete armoury of weapons to aid the communication, conscious or subconscious. Paralanguage has evolved over aeons to provide us with tools to inform and be informed by each member of our social group - a vital skill in survival. It is thought that modern humans developed language around 200,000 years ago. By contrast, the written language has arguably only been in existence since 3300BC.

This is a Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet from circa 5000 years ago and is one of the earliest known records of the written word. It contains a schedule of payments to workers made in beer. This is one of the podcast episodes in A History of the World. It has triggered some of the thoughts I am currently sharing.

It is not surprising then that in our rapidly accelerating evolutionary environment as we approach the singularity; we are experiencing some difficulty in the transition from traditional methods of engaging in social discourse. In my last blog I provoked an engaging discourse that suffered a little from not being face to face and also was diminished as it clearly wasn't a peer reviewed journal. Its really worth reading the dialogue in the comments between Eric and myself if you get time. I can't help thinking though that as we blunder and err our way through this proto-social-communication tool we are in some way chipping the cool wet Tigris and Euphrates clay.

Cultural Diversity

2010-03-04T19:11:00.000Z

Qu: Has the environment that promotes cultural and thus genetic diversity subsided? And what will be the impact on society and human evolution?

Genetic similarity of breading partners has long been associated with deformity and poor mental health, from the decline of the Pharaohs to jokes about Norfolk, this appears to be a truism. In order to ensure genetic diversity humanity has had to rely on a range of surrogate markers of "difference". You look different, or more specifically you come from a different migratory tribe or ever since civilizations have settled in particular location, you come from a different land. Often this desire for cultural distinctiveness, that I suggest is primarily to nurture the health of our species globally, has been misinterpreted as "apartheid" and we end up with the likes of Nick Griffin both socially and genetically. I believe the "Nick Griffin" effect is more to do with competition over resources. See previous blog about the tragedy of the commons and enlightened self interest. This type of person sees the immediate self interest of cultural identity, usually based around resources such as jobs, land, power, valuables or food — as the primary motivator for remaining culturally distinct. They do not see that identifying who you are is a way of advertising yourself to somone who is genetically different. Trade and social interaction with the tribe next door is apparently important for short term tactical reasons such as politics or resources, but has been vital for the diversity needed for the evolution of humanity. Professor Winston has produced some interesting documentaries looking at the reasons why humans subconsciously select a mate.

Living, as we do now, in the global village — where travel is cheap (albeit environmentally expensive), telecommunications are accessible and new media social interconnectedness is vast and growing, we have no need (or derive no competitive edge) to align ourselves to a tribe or locate ourselves permanently in a specific region. Will this create homogeneity of heterogeneity? So if competitive advantage is not a sufficient draw to keep us in culturally and genetically distinct groups, and technology is allowing as to interact socially over vast distances will we become more similar or more different? I can see a utopian humanity where we are one pan global race, the human race, with significant genetic diversity distributed evenly, not clustered, across the population. If this is our destiny, if cultural diversity will diminish and genetic diversity will become homogeneous what of society? Will politics and social governance structures become more global? I'll think I'll save that for the next post.

Sent from my iPhone

TINSTAAFL?

2010-02-19T00:53:00.000Z

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

The concept here could be, if someone pays for your lunch then there is an implied obligation to pay them back, clearly this is based upon the paradigm of value being some transferable commodity that can be encapsulated in notes or coinage of some sort or more accurately in today's world, digitised bank records and can be passed from one person to another. But, couldn't I buy you lunch and not expect you to pay me money back in return?

The concept could be broader and the obligation could be to give some value back in another form (you scratch my back, I'll buy you lunch) -- this mixed-metaphor still describes "no free lunch". But I would still maintain that I could buy you lunch and not expect my back scratched. I guess I should've put that in quotes!

It could be argued that nothing is free and that ultimately someone is paying for it, whoever pays me sufficient money such that I can make my magnanimous gesture of a free lunch, ultimately paid for your lunch. I don't hold with this -- there are some natural resources that are in such abundance and are not (or should not) be under the control of an assumed authority to meter out. Resources that could be considered to be free for all. However this then brings us to The Tragedy of the commons, which argues that free access and unrestricted demand results in depleted resources through over exploitation, probably permanently.

The suggestion is that each individual realises that grabbing what they can for themselves, even when they know it will damage the whole supply, is in their personal best interest and so they cannot help themselves. In the modern solutions section of the graffiti-pedia page it starts its description as "in the absence of enlightened self interest....". This is the tragedy! Our default start position is, "absence of enlightened self interest". We assume that as individuals, governments, corporations and society we cannot take only what we need, we have to grab it all quick before it goes - bugger the rest of you. We cannot see that if we take what we need, dare I say it - take nothing if we don't really need to and leave it for someone else, that this is actually in our own best interest.

No one owns the internet. Ok, people charge us to get to it but eventually - as is starting to happen with telephone lines, that capital expenditure is written off and there is no need for the owner to generate income simply from using it. There is a continuous hum about free internet sites starting to charge, that commercialisation of the internet is expected, we naturally assume it has to make money. I don't. I hope the components that are free, remain free and that many other aspects become free. That corporations, governments and society realise that there is a phenomenal possibility for enlightened self interest in the whole world creating and maintaining free and open global dialogue.

I, I'm a little divided

2010-02-14T20:00:00.000Z

Why try to write it yourself when others have already said it and said it so much more effectively than you could ever manage?

I, I'm a one-way motorway
I'm the road that drives away
Follows you back home

I, I'm a streetlight shining
I'm a white light blinding bright
Burning off alone

It's times like these you learn to live again
It's times like these you give and give again
It's times like these you learn to love again
It's times like these time and time again

I, I'm a new day rising
I'm a brand new sky to hang
The stars upon tonight

I, I'm a little divided
Should I stay or run away
Leave it all behind

It's times like these you learn to live again
It's times like these you give and give again
It's times like these you learn to love again
It's times like these time and time again

Your opinion counts

2010-02-11T20:43:00.043Z

How much are we, or should we be, swayed by other people's opinion. There have always been opinion leaders.

In the Pharmaceutical industry we even have a TLA for them -- KOLs.

I think its part of the natural human condition to want to fit in, even if we are trying to fit into a remote tribe of geeks teetering on the edge of geekdom. No man, as they say, is an island. [A brief interlude and a search on the internet reveals] John Donne, the author of this poem, is "they".

So as much as we wish to form our own opinions it is inevitable that others influence them. The speed of that influence is noticeably quicker since the advent of social networking.

Many people are left stone cold by surrealist art - I find it quite liberating. Admittedly Fey Poem Coffee Break seems a strange title but this and the intriguing image gave me something to think about and pleased me. Is it art? Does anyone have a right to criticise it? or the artists right to create it? are you influenced by my opinion?

The following picture is one of my favourite pieces of my own art. Is it art? Possibly photography is just recording fact. I would maintain that in someway I orchestrated or composed it; some part of it is fortunate and "right place right time". I simply don't remember if I asked Ellie and the guys to stare in the water or if something had just caught their attention. I'm not sure if I was consciously aware of the striking juxtaposition of the weeping willow hanging soulfully into the Thames and the jagged stark tree jutting in menacingly from the side. I do know that I edited the photo, in my mind I can still see Will standing under the tree, I clipped him out, as he wasn't looking into the water. If you do like this picture, and I hope you do, were you influenced by my monologue?

So why all this bleating about "influenced by opinion"? Well, a mate of mine, Drew, put a very funny comment on Face book about "Dances with Smurfs" - a small amount of research identified this as a joke name for Avatar. Drew, whose opinion I respect, clearly thought that "Dances with Smurfs" is a less than edifying demonstration of James Cameron's artistic ability. His opinion was in polar opposition to my previous discussion on the subject. So should I allow my view to change, I must admit I stopped to think -- as I do respect Drew's judgement, and it has influenced me even though my feelings were clearly modified by the context of my viewing.

Clearly this is not about if either of us is right or wrong, but more the nature of opinion and the age-old instinct to create a consensus and if this is enhanced or influenced via virtual networking.

I would say that opinion is not a solid fact; it is context and mood sensitive and will evolve and age as all things do. A gut reaction can be more visceral and true to base nature but a developed savoured opinion can be more lasting and give a balanced view. So perhaps we are now more prone to circulating "gut feel" via networking sites and we will just have to get used to accommodating each other’s raw truth rather than considered opinion - my view was not considered I mean, I have no-way of knowing if Drew cogitated or evoked.

On Avatar then, despite its obvious shortcomings in plot and blatant simplistic moralising that is to be expected from Hollywood, I still believe it was a visually and aurally outstanding experience and a fantastic movie to share with the kids. It provoked some fascinating philosophical discussions about spirit and the meaning of self from the scenes where consciousness transferred from one body to another. I would still recommend it - just don't go and watch it with Drew yet, until I've had time to work on him.

Nothing to Say

2010-02-09T21:36:00.003Z

So I haven't written anything on my blog for a while. I suppose its because I don't feel I have anything to say.

“Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.”

A "google" search attributed this to DH Lawrence.

In this modern world, where the hive mind hums relentlessly, we don't need to rely on memory. Social networking media informs our opinions, "massively multi-user graffiti site", wikipedia, is the first repository we all visit for our research.

We are moving into a strange world where my claret coloured thoughts don't just meander aimlessly into the silent evening as I sip my Chianti - they get published, stark and glaring in their futility.

Will paralanguage ever effectively transition to cyber space?

It's a real weepy

2010-01-21T00:15:00.003Z

I went to see Avatar with the family at the weekend. I couldn't help a "Wossy" style review on Twitter trying to apply for the role of Film 2010 host. I still haven't read any reviews or any hype, I confess I actually thought it was something to do with a TV series that the kids watch and I have joined them occasionally. In fact it tuned out to be a fabulous movie and not related to the TV show at all. I feel that my response to the movie will be forever affected by one particular factor, that moved me so profoundly that I need to, "share with the group".

Not long after my daughter was born she developed a lazy-eye and a squint. She was very young when she was diagnosed primarily due to the vigilance and professionalism of the GP Surgery. This is her when she was in the middle of patching. A practice that in some cases can correct the problem. In Ellie's case it didn't and ultimately she needed surgery. In the lead up to the surgery, a traumatic experience for any parent, we were advised that Ellie would never have binocular vision. Her plans to be an airline pilot were thrown in to chaos but more importantly as a parent we were quite shocked that she would have a lasting permanent effect due to our intervention.

We had that unenviable situation of choosing the lesser of two evils. Over the years we have not made an issue of this deficiency in her vision, but in the main we have avoided buying "Magic Eye" books or going to 3D movies. Avatar was in 3D. We agonised and debated over the best approach - should we avoid making her feel different, will she get upset with everyone else going ooohh arrrrhhh? We weren't sure and in the end decided that we would explain the potential deficiency in her vision and then hope she could cope with the movie and want to give it a go. She did.

So the movie starts, I note that its not the same as the TV show and get thumped by one of the kids and soon we settle back in to an auditory and visual extravaganza. All the time my wife and I have one eye on Ellie to see her response. The story starts to evolve and, as I said on Twitter, its clearly a modern day parable extolling Eco awareness. In fact it is truly stunning visually and you soon find yourself absorbed in to the characters. We reached one part where we began to experience the elemental presence of nature as some supreme force for good. It was moving and slightly emotional, as spores from the tree of life were floating all around, they were literally (apparently would be more accurate) all around us and then in the soft light, with the pleasant tones of the melodic sound track caressing us, Ellie reached up and tried to grab one of the spores.

Gulp, I'm crying again writing this. Whats wrong with me I'm 41 and I seem to be loosing control of my emotions. Yes my daughter has 3D vision. Either binocular or more likely she has developed sophisticated coping mechanisms that allow her to perceive 3D. Either way she is able to make the most of the new wave of 3D entertainment that will come our way this year. I shall probably have to return to Sky HD in the near future. BT have got me for 12 more months!

Information Error

2010-01-17T12:28:00.002Z

There is a distinction between data and information. Similarly there is a distintion between information and considered judgement.

With data such as: total cost of the prison service and the number of prisoners currently incarcerated:-

We get information like: It costs £40,000 per prisoner per year to keep them in prison.

We then get opinions like: The death sentence saves money and Newspapers call for the the return of hanging.

Previously:

When someone has collected the majority of the pertinent data, if not all of the relevant data; they have agregated it and sumarised a balanced view of the available information; and then they have made evidence based judgements and drawn challengeble conclusions, then they can call themselves a journalist and they are worthy of having their report or article published.

You may not have liked someone's conclusion after they had given a subject this 'considered judgement' but at the very least you could evaluate their reasoning and formulate a plausible argument.

Recently:

The development of the pace and currency of 24hr "news" channels initially brought a concern about the emergence of erroneous stories. For me this has diluted a little now and my frustration is more centred around making "news" stories to fill the airtime - BREAKING NEWS: it's snowing in London

- rather than making news up.

In general, these stations have a prodution team and an editorial team ensuring there is a considered approach. They don't get this right all the time and I do wonder at the value of all the pseudo-news pumping out whilst they await a real news event. However this concern is nothing compared to the very recent phenomenen of rapid transmission of data, information and ill considered opinion on a worldwide platform via social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

I note here that I am fully aware that I am an accomplice in this global pumping out of "news" but hopefully you can see I am considering my role in this phenomenon. I became aware of the potential for poor judgement on misinformation by us (the general public) when I recieved a very well meaning email request to forward a photo of a kidnapped boy. It turns out, with a little research, that it was an urban myth and actually a spam email chain. Email though isn't as immediate or interconnected as social media sites.

Today:

Recently (as you know if you follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin) I've just started reading the Gruaniad on an app on my iPhone and there was an article about a Guatemalan lawyer having a post death video uploaded on to YouTube that surprisingly predicted his death. This article was in the technology section during the week. Yes, tech is one of my favourites, as is politics.

Apparently, he was murdered and at his funeral a video was played that had him predicting his death at the hands of a corrupt regime. Worldwide public opinion swung in to action and the Guatemalan President was nearly twittered off his perch and YouTube'd into iNfamy.

The dust settles, time passes, journalism investigates (and let's face it CIA covers-up and Politico-doctors spin) and we start to see a considered opinion that is opposite to our twit-gut response.

I don't wish to comment on the Guatemalan lawyer specifically as I have only read the linked article. I am concerned though that it is indicative of a trend in global media, of humanity's desire to achieve prescience. To be the first to know, to tell everyone that they new before, despite the need to consider facts and context prior to forming a judgement. I'm not sure this trend can or should be halted, I just hope as a society we are able to handle this new toy.

I would liken it to giving someone a box of matches. With the right guidance, it could be a force for good. Without advice, socially accepted norms and a desire to learn, and even without any nefarious motive- it could cause a destructive inferno.

Publication Bias

2010-01-10T11:27:00.002Z

Are journalists aware that their profession's propensity for choosing a fact to support their story is part of the theory of statistics? To be fair, it's a general foible of mankind, it's just that journo's do it with such volume. So clear is it that these "so called" peer reviewed quality journals are selecting positve results to publish, you have to adjust for it in any analysis of published data.

Outside of the scientific press this regurgitating of apparent facts to support whatever axe is currently being ground is sufficiently prevalent now that it is commonly considered as absurd. "Boffins say xxxx causes cancer shocker!" or "innoculation with xxx gives your kid nasty disease yyy instead".

It's no surprise then that we now hear that "if only the government had listened to the experts before Christmas and bought more Grit, we wouldn't be in this mess".

From the Daily Mail

Edmund King, president of the AA, said he had written to ministers on November 16 to warn about inadequate salt supplies, only to be accused of ' scaremongering'.

'I'm afraid what we predicted has come true and it is pretty scary on the roads out there and on the
pavements where people are getting injured.

Hey, I know, why didn't we create a European grit mountain in Surrey, then we'd have enough to make sure all the whinging daily mail readers were able to go to their Tuesday night whist drive. Oh, yeah that's it, we've got a European debt mountain to dwarf Everest!

What about all the other things people were saying before Christmas? If it hadn't have snowed and we'd spent £15 g'dzillion on grit mountains we'd have stories like "£15 g'dzillion wasted on grit, and pensioner starves" or "£15 g'dzillion wasted on grit, and immigrants still pouring in from Eastern Europe" or "£15 g'dzillion wasted on grit, and hard working tax payers don't get life-saving expensive drug".

I suggest that when it snows journalist should be forced to stop work and go and play in the snow like normal people - also it should be allowed to throw special snow balls with stones in the middle if the journalist is identifiably from the Daily Mail.

Rant over.

Christmas Games

2010-01-05T22:42:00.003Z

In a previous blog I discussed my belief that playing games was both for the joy of playing and to try to win. I have recently commented on Stephen Conway's facebook page (of the spiel) where he eloquently expresses his disquiet at a professional team that chose to loose, in front of a crowd of over 67 thousand fans, so as to rest their team for a bigger game - we get this in the UK too with premiership teams discussing etiquette for the squad that they should field for a league cup game. We also saw a year when Renault bosses allegedly instructed Nelson Piquet to crash to allow Alonso to win the Singapore Grand Prix. Its all cheating really

Surely games are "trial runs" of what we expect life to throw at us, a practice ground, if you like, and we are only cheating ourselves to bend the rules - excepting you need to make the game a gentler environment for newgamingfolk and kids.

I understand the motivation but when a (to remain nameless) family member declared about 1 hour into a game of formula de "put me where you like, I don't mind", to me, I felt a bit cheated. I appreciate that there are non-competitative types but if you elect to be in the game, my view is you should at the very least, try to win. The sibling rivalry that my brother and I adequately displayed left me feeling much more satisfied - despite the fact that I took too big a risk on the last corner and span off - it was a tense and enthralling challenge [and we managed to not fall out!]. let me assure you, the rivalry was fun, engaging and relatively good natured. Actually, we all enjoyed the game even my Mum, oops I mean the nameless, non-competitative family member :-o declared it was her favourite game.

William witnessed this, actually he came in a close second, so maybe he can fly the family colours next year and knock Uncle Rob into second place.