The Evolution of Fear

Again, sorry this is a long rant – I am in a bad mood. Comments are welcome though.

Once upon a time, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was renowned the world over for the way the population handled hardship and adversity. The “Stiff Upper Lip” was such a powerful stereotype it still endures today.

During the first three quarters of the twentieth century, the British Stiff Upper Lip was heavily put to the test. The century began with a hammering in Africa, followed by the loss of almost an entire generation on the fields of Flanders and the Somme. The interwar years were wrought with economic depression which was only relieved when the deaths of the second world war reduced the population enough for there to be more jobs. Entire cities were destroyed (Coventry) and most major population centres endured nightly bombing raids.

The end of the war only brought limited respite for the British handling of adversity. Crippled by economic debt and the ravages of the war, the Empire collapsed piece by piece. Britain was quickly over taken in the world power stakes by the upstarts (America for example 🙂 ), and to all intents and purposes became a secondary nation on the world stage. The somewhat anomalous status as permanent member of the UNSC is down to possession of nuclear weapons and nothing else. The break up of empire was accompanied by various military defeats (Suez, Korea), while the victories were sometimes hollow (Borneo, Malaysia). The apparent collapse spurred domestic agitators into more and more violence until by the mid 1960s, Northern Ireland was not dissimilar to Bosnia thirty years later.

Throughout this all the stiff upper lip remained. The ideas about what made “British” society were upheld and, generally, life went on. If you had proposed a national identity card scheme in 1970 you would have been laughed at for the rest of your life.

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Posted in Philosophy, Rants, Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

The wonders of commenters

As always, after reading an inflammatory post somewhere like the BBC or the Times, reading through the comments is even more entertaining, if equally infuriating. It shows that while there are significant number of people who realise the implications of the policies (i.e. they agree with me, that’s all I ask … 😀 ), there are a lot live up to the life rather than liberty mantra. As always the tried and tested “If it keeps us safe it is good” routines are brought out with sickening regularity.

Take this little chestnut from “Don Roberts, London” for example:

We live in world full of people who are determined to destroy our way of life and impose their own set of values, prejudices and beliefs on us not to mention kill as many of us as possible. I just wonder how those who freely oppose tough legislation would like to live under such people. Any law abiding citizen of this country should have nothing to fear from such legislation. If the price of our freedom is a little inconvenience, that has to be preferable to mass murder on our streets.

Where do I start with this… The first sentence is just a statement of the (apparently) obvious and bears little or no relation to what comes next. If this is true, it is true with or without the proposed legislation. The next sentence is funny. It is saying the poster wonders how those who oppose draconian, authoritarian states would like to live under a draconian, authoritarian state. Madness.

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Posted in Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The New State Of Fear

Long rant – not really atheist if you want to skip it!

Today’s headlines on the BBC news page are a touch disconcerting, even though they are pretty predictable. At the moment, the lead article is headlined “Brown plans new anti-terror laws” which shows that Gordon Brown is intending to take the reins of government with a firm hand. Sadly, this firm hand seems unconcerned with what is good for the nation, society or pretty much anything other than stealing the Conservatives thunder on the “Tough on Crime” issues.

Terrorism is a wonderful bugbear for UK political parties. We have lived with the constant spectre of terrorist attacks for longer than I have been alive now – I remember from my youth regular news items about bombings in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Guildford and the like. Every Christmas there was a new IRA terror campaign aimed at scaring people away from the shops. Litter bins were removed from public places. The troubles across the water in Northern Ireland were an order of magnitude greater, to the point at which attacks which only killed a few people were two routine to mention on the news.

During the years of the troubles (probably counted as late 1960s to the end of the millennium), all the UK political parties thought they knew how best to deal with the terrorist threat. There were more than just the IRA though, numerous Marxist, socialist, or other crackpot groups with some form of agenda had a go – the IRA (or Provisional IRA to be more accurate) were just better at it and got more publicity. Many methods were tried – increased military presence in Northern Ireland, decreased military presence, negotiations, “tough tactics” and even internment with out trial. Generally, most were unsuccessful and what seems to have been the most historically successful tactic seems to have been public acceptance. When the terrorists stopped getting media coverage they had to resort to more “spectacular” outrages, this had the knock on effect of removing the grass roots support they had in the past and eventually they began to run out of steam. Obviously, the US deciding to declare War on Terror probably played a large part, but by 2001 it was nearly over.

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Posted in Rants, Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Will the shame ever end?

To my eternal, lasting, shame I followed a link from Nullifidian’s tumblelog today to a site where you can take an “8th Grade Science Test” and I only managed to scrape a A-. Shocking.

Mingle2 Free Online Dating - Science Quiz

In my pathetic defence though, I did rush the early questions and I am fairly sure I know exactly what I got wrong (Damn those chemistry questions). It is still more than a little embarrassing though. I blame the wording of the questions…

[tags]Science, Nullifidian, Tumblr, School, School Tests, Tests, General Science[/tags]


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Posted in Science | Tagged , ,

Photoshopping Bodium Castle

It seems that I cant help but stay up late at night seeing what can (and can’t) be done with photoshop. If you are reading this on Planet Atheism looking for Atheist / free thinking content – sorry nothing to see here. I will keep this short and sweet though.

For those who still resit the wonders of photoshop, this is an example of what it can do to an other wise dreary picture taken in poor weather. The source photo was, it must be said, pretty uninspiring. However after a total of 14 minutes in photo shop (most of that was waiting for the disk thrashings to stop, the source image was massive so the file was about 90mb) it now looks a lot more dramatic and is something people would actually want to look at.

Original Picture - Bodium Castle, 5 May 07 Photoshopped Picture - Bodium Castle 05 May 07

Yes, the effects are a bit over the top, I did get carried away with myself, and the low quality used to resize them into something you can download and view has impacted it a bit, but I am sure you get the gist of the point I am trying to make.

Digital photo editing rocks.

[tags]adobe, digital-photographs, digital-camera, digital-culture, Castles, Bodium, National Trust, Sussex, pictures, photoshop, photos, photography, photographs, photo-software, photo-effects, technology[/tags]


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Posted in Castles, Photos, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How Not To Spot a Liar

Again, more from the weird web department. This time, stumbling around the net brought me to a web page titled “How to spot a liar.” This is a page which explains how you can use eye movements, verbal constructions and blood flow to spot when people a lying. It is all packaged together well, and is generally an easy to read site.

The problem is, it is nonsense.

The bigger problem is that it is not pure, obvious nonsense, but the insidious nonsense which is latched on to some truth and then muddies the waters. Basically put the site discusses how eye movements can show which parts of the brain are being used, and how these parts of the brain have been (broadly) mapped onto construction or recall. That is about where it ends it’s relationship with reality.

For example, the site claims that when you ask some one a question, and they answer following a rapid eye movement up and to their right (your left), this means they are “constructing” the response and therefore lying. If they look up and left (your right) they are recalling the response and therefore telling the truth. As I said before, this is generally correct, but nearly half the population have this reversed. Makes using this a bit of a problem unless you know what you are looking for as you have an almost even chance of getting it wrong…

Add in to this the hazy use of recall and construct when it comes to answering a question and you can see that the most likely effect of taking this site seriously is to make you never know when some one is lying to you. Part of the art of getting a feel for deceit using clues like this, is learning how the question you ask influences the answer. Without that, even if you know which way the person looks, it wont help.

The examples given on the site are useful in this, and they highlight how the author of this post is turning slightly imperfect knowledge into a bad conclusion. This is the first example the author uses:
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Posted in Science, Society | Tagged , , , , , ,

Good but overly formulaic Dr Who

Normally, I find myself agreeing with Heather’s comments on Dr Who, however having been able to watch tonight’s episode on time (not as easy as you would think), this time I don’t. Well, I don’t fully agree…

Basically, I thought both episodes of this two parter were quite good. Dr Who has had a tendency to find it has good plot lines but the squash to make everything fit 40 mins really effects it. The breathing room these two episodes had showed in the plot development and subsequent deliverance. If the BBC had any sense (which, sadly, it doesn’t) then it would give Dr Who a longer run each year and allow every story to have at least two episodes. The pinnacle of Dr Who (Tom Baker, obviously) normally had around four episodes in which to deliver a story line. The difference is startling.

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Posted in Raves, Television | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

ID advocates never sleep

According to Matthew Taylor in today’s Guardian:

State schools could teach the theory of intelligent design in science lessons, the Church of England’s new head of education has suggested.

Well, where do you start on this?

In my limited understanding of Intelligent Design, it is not “science”. It cannot be considered a science using any definition that I can recognise. “That’s really complex, so someone must have planned it” doesn’t seem wildly scientific to me.

There was brilliant post on Pharyngula that pointed out that astrology is much more scientific than ID. At least you can falsify astrological predictions. (It always gladdens my heart when “real” scientists show knowledge of epistemology.)

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Posted in Philosophy, Rants, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Not a good Doctor Who

The natural order of the universe has reasserted itself. There will be no uncharacteristicallly pro-Doctor Who enthusiasm today. This week’s Doctor Who is just poor. (And that’s despite having Jessica Stevenson, who I admire on principle.)

For a start, it was basically the sort of cut-rate episode that shows the BBC has already spent up its effects money.

When all else fails, an Edwardian-style episode of any scifi is cheap enough because all the costumes are already there. But Edwardian sets and costumes are generally completely uninteresting. Your eyes turn away from them. You know what to expect, Upstairs Downstairs, and so on. The yawning reflex kicks right in.

An unwillingness to watch the screen tends to make you lose interest in the plot, so I have only the vaguest idea about what it involved.

The lighting has ceased to be interesting, either. And has partly given up trying to follow the laws of nature. There was at least one scene – where the doctor is supposedly talking face-to-face with his assistant – which you know was filmed at different times.

Her face is lit with (a very high-contrast coloured shadow effect, so you can’t miss it) from the right. When the camera switches to his face, he is not lit from the left, In fact, it appears that his bit was recorded with a completely different set of lighting. So, as the camera switches from one to the other, she looks like she’s on set, doing her best to play the part, while he loooks as if he camera-phoned in some footage while he was on holiday somewhere.

Come on, if you must have totally dominating atmospheric coloured lighting, at least get the simple bits right. There are pedants out there…


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Posted in Rants, Television | Tagged , ,

Wonderful Web Weirdness

The internet is the most fantastic source of weirdness the universe has ever seen. I am, generally, at a total loss as to what is spoof and what is real, which could explain some of the posts on this blog…

Picture of floating home - Copyright 2005, Underwater Vehicles Inc. All rights reserved. http://www.sub-find.com/trilobis65.htmToday, I was innocently surfing the net when I discovered a “Floating Home” (see pic or original site). This is brilliant and I really do hope it is real.

Basically for a mere US$4 – 5 million you can get one of these submersible houses. Words can not do justice for how cool something like this would be (strains of Homer Simpson singing “under the sea” are reverberating through my head now), especially given modern house prices.

Looking around the site (albeit briefly), it seems this was actually published in Popular Mechanics in 2002. This makes me wonder why there aren’t a good few of this wonders floating around. Even in the poor UK, there are a lot of people who can afford to spend GBP2.5 million on a house – especially a six bedroom one like this claims – and getting a house you can move, dont have to mow the lawn and get to see underwater from strikes me as a major selling point.

Add in the way this looks like an ideal means for an island with limited land and an increasing population and I think Gordon Brown should get involved as part of his major social housing scheme.

Obviously there are a few downsides, I suppose. The commute to would could be a pain in the ass (but we should all be telecommuting or working in VR anyway – even China has got in on the act here but more of that another time) and I can imagine docking fees every time you want to go to the shop could be tiresome. Would this be outweighed by the advantage of being able to move your house to a warmer clime whenever the mood hit you? Probably.

The only insurmountable hurdle I can see would be piracy. Can the Flying Spaghetti Monster help here? 🙂

Still, I am willing to take the risk. If people can help me raise enough funds, I will buy a floating semi-submersible house and report back what it is like. Currently the fund stands at US$0.00. All donations welcome…

[tags]Housing, Gordon Brown, Pirates, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Virtual Reality, Society, China, Scam, Spoof, Floating House, Technology, Adventure[/tags]


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Posted in Society | Tagged , , , , ,

Theme Change

As mentioned previously, the site has undergone another theme change. Hopefully this one should address the problems people had with the older one, and present a nice, pleasant look and feel to the blog.

As with last time, all comments and feedback is more than welcome. Please let us know if you find anything wrong so we can try to fix it!

[tags]blog, Blog Software, Compuskills, Downloads, Site Admin, Technology, Style, Themes, WordPress, Webdesign, Web Design[/tags]


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Posted in General, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , ,

We will get fooled again

Oh dear. It appears the kidney transplant thing is now supposed to be a hoax… That’s a relief, anyway.

Well, I got taken in by it. Bah. Though, in the true academic tradition of self-defence by malicious referencing, I did quote the BBC – thereby passing the blame buck to a more authoritative institution.

Argh. No iI didnt even remember to do that. Oh shame.

Endemol programmes are still dross though.


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Posted in Society, Television | Tagged , , ,

Value of Camera Processing

Taking some snapshots today led me to thinking about the “value” of using the on-camera processing options to take pictures as Black and White or Sepia (or even low colour), rather than taking every shot as high colour and doing any processing in Photoshop. Now for clarification purposes, I do not have a “real” DSLR (Kodak Z650) so taking the pictures in RAW is not an option and therefore some camera processing is inevitable.

Today, as I was snapping some pictures of country houses and landscapes, I realised I was often switching between Black and White, Sepia and High Colour. Not a massively difficult task but time consuming – in some instances I was taking three pictures of each “shot” rather than a single high colour one.

Common sense was screaming out to me that I should just take the high colour, but the residual technophobe in me seems to distrust Photoshop, so I had to experiment a little. I took three shots of a fairly neutral landscape scene, black and white, sepia and high colour, then passed the high colour JPEG through photoshop and made copies in black and white and sepia. The only other PC processing these images have had is a pass through Advanced Batch Converter to resize them into something which can be shown here. Continue reading


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Posted in Photos, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Redesign

Taster of the new site theme - 01 June 07Another short note, the promised site redesign is under way – and hopefully nearly completed! The new theme should look quite similar to this screenshot here, notably with only a single sidebar, and ideally has taken on board most – if not all – of the feedback we have received.

If all goes well, the style will be changed before the weekend and we can settle down to more ranting about idiocy.

Thank you for your patience.

[tags]blog, compuskills, site-admin, webdesign, why-dont-you, whydontyou, wordpress[/tags]


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Posted in General | Tagged , , , , ,