I just realised the mistake we've been making. We keep confusing James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis, with HP Lovecraft, the creator of Cthulu - easy enough to do, given their names.
That's why the Beaker Folk believe that if we keep burning fossil fuels, we'll be invaded by evil soul-sucking monsters. They'll all be really relieved when I tell them we're all going to die from food shortages, drought and rising sea levels instead.
Showing posts with label Bad Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bad Science. Show all posts
Monday, 18 June 2012
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Stripes
A great technical achievement for Burton and Young Keith. With a combination of pure geekiness and a bit of technical know-how, they've produced the first laser zebra scanning tunnel. Not the barcode labels produced by Zebra the printers - proper zebras. Stripy horses.
The theory is that, like human fingerprints and snowflakes, all zebra stripe patterns are unique. Therefore it is possible, given a laser or photo scanner, uniquely to identify all zebras.
Possibly unwisely, but on the grounds of keeping down the computing costs, they went for a laser scanner arrangement. Unfortunately this means they have to fit the zebras with sunglasses prior to pushing them through the scanner, which tends to slow the process down. Still, they've got the ability to capture the salient stats of every zebra they encounter. Now all they have to do is think of a use for it. Possibly as a self-scanning aid in a zebra supermarket, but we reckon that's a fairly limited demographic.
It's just worth noting that it doesn't work for penguins. Penguins are a lot harder to identify. I suspect this makes them better criminals than zebras, but that's a whole new piece of research.
The theory is that, like human fingerprints and snowflakes, all zebra stripe patterns are unique. Therefore it is possible, given a laser or photo scanner, uniquely to identify all zebras.
Possibly unwisely, but on the grounds of keeping down the computing costs, they went for a laser scanner arrangement. Unfortunately this means they have to fit the zebras with sunglasses prior to pushing them through the scanner, which tends to slow the process down. Still, they've got the ability to capture the salient stats of every zebra they encounter. Now all they have to do is think of a use for it. Possibly as a self-scanning aid in a zebra supermarket, but we reckon that's a fairly limited demographic.
It's just worth noting that it doesn't work for penguins. Penguins are a lot harder to identify. I suspect this makes them better criminals than zebras, but that's a whole new piece of research.
Saturday, 9 June 2012
When Bodies Collide
A former CERN scientist has written a steamy novel about physics goings-in
Their eyes met across a refraction grating. Or, at least, one of their eyes each did. The others ended up gazing at the floor and out of the window respectively. He felt a wave of excitement. Or was it a particle of excitement? It all depended how he looked at it.
"Ulrich", she said, "all my life I've only met dull scientists - geeks who sit around drinking cider and black and talking about the Claisen Condensation. Or those media physics types - the ones who think a flash of white coat is all it takes to melt a girl's heart. But with you - it's different. It's like we're...."
"Entangled? You know, wherever you go - wherever I go - we will always be in a correlated spin state. Nothing can keep us apart - not even the speed of light."
"But there's Erwin - you must know that I have to take his feelings into account."
"Typical of an expert in wave mechanics. Always interfering."
Her boson heaved. "You don't understand. It's not that I still have any feelings for him...."
"Julia - there are three people in this relationship. And that's not stable. We either need to lose one or gain another seven."
"No - it's all over between Erwin and me. It's just taking him a while to come to terms with it."
"But what about the presents he bought you? Didn't he give you a cat?"
"He did. But I never dared open the box."
Ulrich shook with rage.
"He sticks like gluon," he exclaimed. Who does he think he is - the God particle? At least that would explain why, when you were together, you never saw him."
"Ulrich - do I sense the blue-eyed monster?"
"Don't you mean the green-eyed monster?"
"Not travelling at this speed."
He swallowed hard, and looked at her again - the diffraction patterns making the depths of her eyes dance.
"I want this to be the real thing, Julia. Not just two protons passing in the night. And then, shortly afterwards, passing again. And again. And again. And...."
"OK, Ulrich. I get the metaphor. But surely the point of going round forever is that eventually our souls will collide. But will we then be one? Or will we instead shatter into a million parts - photons and gravitons and muon... muon... muon..."
"Neutrino?"
"Bless you."
Ulrich gazed recklessly towards the Large Hadron Collider, which seemed to epitomise the enigma that was Julia. She made his head spin. She was deeply magnetic. But was her heart super-cooled?
Their eyes met across a refraction grating. Or, at least, one of their eyes each did. The others ended up gazing at the floor and out of the window respectively. He felt a wave of excitement. Or was it a particle of excitement? It all depended how he looked at it.
"Ulrich", she said, "all my life I've only met dull scientists - geeks who sit around drinking cider and black and talking about the Claisen Condensation. Or those media physics types - the ones who think a flash of white coat is all it takes to melt a girl's heart. But with you - it's different. It's like we're...."
"Entangled? You know, wherever you go - wherever I go - we will always be in a correlated spin state. Nothing can keep us apart - not even the speed of light."
"But there's Erwin - you must know that I have to take his feelings into account."
"Typical of an expert in wave mechanics. Always interfering."
Her boson heaved. "You don't understand. It's not that I still have any feelings for him...."
"Julia - there are three people in this relationship. And that's not stable. We either need to lose one or gain another seven."
"No - it's all over between Erwin and me. It's just taking him a while to come to terms with it."
"But what about the presents he bought you? Didn't he give you a cat?"
"He did. But I never dared open the box."
Ulrich shook with rage.
"He sticks like gluon," he exclaimed. Who does he think he is - the God particle? At least that would explain why, when you were together, you never saw him."
"Ulrich - do I sense the blue-eyed monster?"
"Don't you mean the green-eyed monster?"
"Not travelling at this speed."
He swallowed hard, and looked at her again - the diffraction patterns making the depths of her eyes dance.
"I want this to be the real thing, Julia. Not just two protons passing in the night. And then, shortly afterwards, passing again. And again. And again. And...."
"OK, Ulrich. I get the metaphor. But surely the point of going round forever is that eventually our souls will collide. But will we then be one? Or will we instead shatter into a million parts - photons and gravitons and muon... muon... muon..."
"Neutrino?"
"Bless you."
Ulrich gazed recklessly towards the Large Hadron Collider, which seemed to epitomise the enigma that was Julia. She made his head spin. She was deeply magnetic. But was her heart super-cooled?
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Godliness on the Increase in America
I am heartened by reading the survey on American belief in evolution vs creationism.
For it turns out that more Americans are creationist than 30 years ago! The number that believe in evolution have also increased, and only those Laodiceans who believe in some kind of God-guided evolution have decreased.
What could be greater proof of our master plan? By making the rejection of evolution an article of faith, something the fools in the United Kingdom's so-called "mainline denominations" have failed to do, the Godly have forced people into making a choice. The primrose path of compromise that leads to perdition - rolling gently as it does, the third option between the narrow path that leads to blessing and the gap in the hedge that leads straight off a cliff - I tell you, that primrose path is no longer such an attractive route as it was! In America, to a greater degree than 30 years ago, we know the ones who are with us - and the ones who are truly against us.
Fools like the Archdruid next door would insist that this is not an either-or question. But then she also believes that, contrary to reason, subatomic particles can also be waves. She has sold out completely to the world - and now has had the judgement of discovering that, 22 years ago, she had a son out of wedlock. What more proof could she need that her views are wrong?
We of the godly must now press home the debate in this country. Is it God or evolution? One cannot have both.
For it turns out that more Americans are creationist than 30 years ago! The number that believe in evolution have also increased, and only those Laodiceans who believe in some kind of God-guided evolution have decreased.
What could be greater proof of our master plan? By making the rejection of evolution an article of faith, something the fools in the United Kingdom's so-called "mainline denominations" have failed to do, the Godly have forced people into making a choice. The primrose path of compromise that leads to perdition - rolling gently as it does, the third option between the narrow path that leads to blessing and the gap in the hedge that leads straight off a cliff - I tell you, that primrose path is no longer such an attractive route as it was! In America, to a greater degree than 30 years ago, we know the ones who are with us - and the ones who are truly against us.
Fools like the Archdruid next door would insist that this is not an either-or question. But then she also believes that, contrary to reason, subatomic particles can also be waves. She has sold out completely to the world - and now has had the judgement of discovering that, 22 years ago, she had a son out of wedlock. What more proof could she need that her views are wrong?
We of the godly must now press home the debate in this country. Is it God or evolution? One cannot have both.
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Noah's Ark Scientifically Proven
There are few things that cause myself and Eileen, the arch-heathen next door, to disagree more than the interpretation of Holy Writ in relation to the early years of the history of our world.
And I can tell you a great example of the near-atheism that she espouses. She has been quoting to me Steve Borthwick's blogpost in which he points out that all the water in the world could be gathered together into a ball 860 miles in diameter.
That being the case, says Eileen, how could the whole world have been covered in water to a depth of several miles, as the story of Noah's Ark tells us?
Both blind and foolish. Clearly, all of the people of the world in those days were gathered together in what is now the Middle East. And so all God had to do was gather up all the water in the world into one place. By creating, as Steve Borthwick has illustrated, a ball 860 miles in diameter, the whole known world would have been flooded - and Noah's Ark would have been raised up spectacularly above the face of the earth. Once the giant ball had dispersed back into the seas and ocean beds of the world, the people and animals could have begun their journeys out to their current locations. By attaching the kangaroos and wombats to surf boards while the waters were still receding, Noah would have ensured that these and the other marsupials were rushed off to Australia at high speed.
I sometimes wonder why people bother distorting science in this way.
And I can tell you a great example of the near-atheism that she espouses. She has been quoting to me Steve Borthwick's blogpost in which he points out that all the water in the world could be gathered together into a ball 860 miles in diameter.
That being the case, says Eileen, how could the whole world have been covered in water to a depth of several miles, as the story of Noah's Ark tells us?
Both blind and foolish. Clearly, all of the people of the world in those days were gathered together in what is now the Middle East. And so all God had to do was gather up all the water in the world into one place. By creating, as Steve Borthwick has illustrated, a ball 860 miles in diameter, the whole known world would have been flooded - and Noah's Ark would have been raised up spectacularly above the face of the earth. Once the giant ball had dispersed back into the seas and ocean beds of the world, the people and animals could have begun their journeys out to their current locations. By attaching the kangaroos and wombats to surf boards while the waters were still receding, Noah would have ensured that these and the other marsupials were rushed off to Australia at high speed.
I sometimes wonder why people bother distorting science in this way.
Friday, 4 May 2012
Worst Case Scenarios in Global Warming
Never ask me about worst-case scenarios. If, for example, you asked me what the worst-case scenario is for the melting of the Greenland glaciers, I'd reply that the worst case is that the melting goes into reverse, the Northern hemisphere is covered with ice, and we all freeze. That Al Gore would look pretty silly, then - so at least it wouldn't be all bad.
Or the alternative worst-case scenario is that the melting ice uncovers a hibernating nest of krakens and triffids, who take over the world with a race of telepathic Canadians. That would be pretty bad as well.
So when the Guardian tells us that the "worst-case scenario" for the Greenland glaciers may not be realised, I figure that this is, frankly, stating the obvious. The range of scenarios goes from best case (all the climate scientists are totally wrong and we're merely wasting our money) to worst case (loads of sea level rise and Husborne Crawley fills up with refugees from Peterborough and Walthamstow). There's a whole range of scenarios in between these two.
In ordinary situations, the most likely case will be somewhere in between best and worst case. Of course, this doesn't make for good headlines. Which is why I'm not really writing this and you're not really reading this, as we all died of eating infected beef fifteen years ago.
So if I edited the Guardian, i'd rewrite the headline as "Worst-case Scenario was never likely to happen" or "Scale of Worst-case scenario downgraded to slightly less-bad". Which, if nothing else, shows you why I don't edit the Guardian, I guess.
Saturday, 28 April 2012
Placing the Blame for the Financial Crash
At last the BBC has found the real cause of the Crash, and the resultant travails in the world economy. It wasn't the bankers, and it wasn't the politicians. It was in fact the mathematicians.
I've always suspected the mathematicians. While the Chemists were slaving in the Dantean conditions of the Dyson-Perrins lab, and the future Prime Ministers were playing tennis or trashing restaurants, the mathematicians would simply not bother getting up till tea-time, slop around in cable-knit sweaters, then get drunk and set fire to themselves on electric bar-fires. They were clearly unable to accept responsibility, and would sit around until the early hours plotting, as it turned out, revolution.
We shouldn't underestimate the power of mathematicians. Jealous of the ability of Physicists to attract the oppostie sex; without the ambitious intensity of a PPE student; not being in a subject that had the potential for explosive catastrophe like Chemistry, or smirking at the fate of the Younger Despenser - what wry amusements did mathematicians enjoy?
Well, it turns out that all along they were planning the downfall of the economic system. As time went by, the complexity of trading systems were such that computers were used, rather than the gut-feel trading that we see in documentaries such as "Trading Places". The basic foodstuffs on which the whole world depends were made dependent upon futures options, derivatives, options on derivatives - the real world where farmers grow wheat, which people buy and make bread from, was submerged under increasing depths of ever more complex financial models. Yet the computers that crunched the numbers that underpinned the models had the ability to decide who had grain and who had not; who lived and who starved.
And everyone was forced, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or his number.
Oh... sorry, I seem to have gone all apocalyptic there. Now, I'm not saying that mathematicians were in the power of the Dark One. But it does seem to me that somehow, like a thousand geeky Sorceror's Apprentices, the mathematicians set upon the world something which the capitalists thought that they could use, but which they couldn't control. If computers are able to manage who owns the food supply, they are literally able to decide - in their blind, uncomprehending way - who lives and who dies.
It is an irony perhaps that a world that started through a Word could be brought to ruin by a Number. I don't really know what to do about it, though - unless perhaps we all get allotments?
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Celebration of the 22nd Anniversary of Gruinard being Declared Anthrax-Free
It strikes me that's the test of whether you put your trust in science or not.
22 years after they declared Gruinard to be anthrax-free, I'm happy to believe the scientists that it's true. I bet that there's not an anthrax spore on the island. Completely free.
But I still wouldn't actually want to go there.
22 years after they declared Gruinard to be anthrax-free, I'm happy to believe the scientists that it's true. I bet that there's not an anthrax spore on the island. Completely free.
But I still wouldn't actually want to go there.
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
The First Deadly Sin of the Internet
It has not, it is fair to say, been my most prolific time for posting on the Internet. I've just been so busy. There's the day job, the White Horse, the creating amazing worship aids for the Community - it's all go. When you get the chance finally to go online, what little bandwidth Eileen is prepared to allow the rest of the Beaker People from the wi-fi is always occupied by Burton Dasset, uploading transcriptions of ancient railway timetables. For instance, I'm currently downloading that old electro dance classic, New Order's Blue Monday. It enjoys its thirtieth anniversary next year, which makes Eileen feel very old. However me starting the download enters its tenth anniversary next week, and it's starting to make me feel old as well.
It is my suspicion that Eileen's hogging of the electron flow is all down to vanity. Social Media is a terribly addictive drug, and I reckon that she's been trying to see how her ratings, on the hundreds of different platforms that measure how popular you are with your fellow-sad-ones. And so I thought, vanity being a sin, that I would test out a gadget on the community network to help her resist.
Basically, it's a Chrome or Firefox add-on that just sits in the background. Every time you check to see if one of your tweets has been re-tweeted; or go to Google Analytics; or jump to the Feedjit real-time view; or check your links on Wikio; or put your own name into Google to see if you've been mentioned, it puts a subliminal image of a budgie up on your screen. Budgies being the most vain of animals - constantly looking in those little mirrors - the idea is that your subconscious realises that you're getting just that little bit too budgie-like, and you check your self-centred ways. I didn't bother producing a version for iPad or Mac, cos let's face it -some people are beyond help.
So anyway, I popped in to see Eileen to find out whether the app has worked, but I didn't really get any sense out of her. She just rang a little bell for ten minutes, and then went off to get her supper. I wonder why she's got so keen on millet all of a sudden?
It is my suspicion that Eileen's hogging of the electron flow is all down to vanity. Social Media is a terribly addictive drug, and I reckon that she's been trying to see how her ratings, on the hundreds of different platforms that measure how popular you are with your fellow-sad-ones. And so I thought, vanity being a sin, that I would test out a gadget on the community network to help her resist.
Basically, it's a Chrome or Firefox add-on that just sits in the background. Every time you check to see if one of your tweets has been re-tweeted; or go to Google Analytics; or jump to the Feedjit real-time view; or check your links on Wikio; or put your own name into Google to see if you've been mentioned, it puts a subliminal image of a budgie up on your screen. Budgies being the most vain of animals - constantly looking in those little mirrors - the idea is that your subconscious realises that you're getting just that little bit too budgie-like, and you check your self-centred ways. I didn't bother producing a version for iPad or Mac, cos let's face it -some people are beyond help.
So anyway, I popped in to see Eileen to find out whether the app has worked, but I didn't really get any sense out of her. She just rang a little bell for ten minutes, and then went off to get her supper. I wonder why she's got so keen on millet all of a sudden?
Saturday, 14 April 2012
Junky Moses Hallucinated the Burning Bush
Not my suggestion - that of Professor Benny Shanon, reported in the Daily Mail <- Caution - contains link to Daily Mail. Apologies that this is a 2008 article, but news travels slowly round here and I've only just seen the link.
Apparently the vision of the Burning Bush was a result of consuming a hallucinogen from the acacia tree. Likewise the reception of the 10 Commandments.
Let's not be silly, now. If Moses were stoned when he received the 10 Commandments, they'd have been stuff like:
I. Tune in
II. Turn on
III. Drop Out
IV. Take a chill pill, O Great Divine Being. Enough with the smiting, already.
V. Respect, Daddio
VI. Stop being so heavy.
VII. Stop being so heavy.
VIII. Thou shalt eat chocolate brownies on 6 days of the week. And the seventh shalt thou have the urge to eat cookies.
IX. Go with the flow.
X. Did I mention the brownies?
XI. If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
XII. Ringo? Ringo? How many commandments did you say we need?
Didn't happen, did it? Instead Moses produced 10 perfectly sensible commandments. And, of course, a load of other commandments that he couldn't fit on the tablets so he had to fill in later - stuff about mildew and donkeys and land rights.
See, if Prof Shannon's theories are right (and I've no reason to believe they're not - except they're clearly tripe and there's no evidence and he's a self-confessed taker of hallucinogenic substances) then it begs a question. Several, actually, but let's stick with this one. If he's right, then clearly the Exodus story must have pretty much happened as recorded. In which case how come the Plagues? Or does Prof Shannon reckon Moses got hallucinogen into the Nile water supply? I've got visions (strictly on coffee, not acacia) of Moses and Aaron, up above the First Cataract, pouring industrial quantities of acacia extract into the water like some giant 60s LSD love 'n" peace conspiracy.
In which case the Plagues are all hallucinations as well. Visions of frogs, locusts and blood-filled rivers make perfect sense. As does Pharaoh's abrupt change of heart when, waking up the day after Passover, he discovers his firstborn alive and well, and not transformed into a giant spider as he's previously imagined.
In which case the passage across the Reed Sea was just a stroll along the higher ground through the marshes, while the death of Pharaoh's army is due to them becoming convinced they can sea water-nymphs in the depths, and going in for a chat.
Oh yeah, it all makes sense now. The way they think God's sending them manna, when in fact they've wisely packed a forty year supply of Snickers. The odd belief that flocks of quail randomly appear in the night. The mass-hallucination when the Rock gives forth water - and thus the Children of Israel don't die of thirst. And the belief of the Spies that there are giants in the land of Canaan (Joshua and Caleb were fortunate at that precise point in having come down, so they could see the facts of the matter).
And it's no wonder it took 40 years to wander across the desert, is it? Every time they set off, Moses would want to bend over and look at the "amazing way, like, sand - it just runneth through thy hands, son of man!" And again, faced with a bunch of tripping desert warriors, it's unsurprising the Canaanites held out so well. Indeed, there's now an argument that what happened at Jericho was that Rahab invited the lads round for an Acacia session, and everybody just thought the walls had fallen down.
Just being sensible for a moment. It strikes me there are four possible explanations for the Exodus stories:
1) it actually happened, and the miracles were direct contraventions or suspensions of the normal physical laws.
2) It actually happened, and the miracles were remarkable timing events. And maybe the stuff about Moses" childhood and the sorcerers' staves changing into serpents was a bit of embellishment.
3) It sort of happened, and a group of Canaanite tribes, coalescing around a conglomerate belief in a god/gods called "El" and YHWH, took the Egyptian enslavement and desert escapes as a normative origin myth.
4) It was all made up., but used as a national origin myth because - once again - it was handy in welding a group of tribes into a religiously-coherent nation.
I'll leave it to you which you want to go with. But I"m just gonna say, it's not gonna be the drugs one.
Apparently the vision of the Burning Bush was a result of consuming a hallucinogen from the acacia tree. Likewise the reception of the 10 Commandments.
Let's not be silly, now. If Moses were stoned when he received the 10 Commandments, they'd have been stuff like:
I. Tune in
II. Turn on
III. Drop Out
IV. Take a chill pill, O Great Divine Being. Enough with the smiting, already.
V. Respect, Daddio
VI. Stop being so heavy.
VII. Stop being so heavy.
VIII. Thou shalt eat chocolate brownies on 6 days of the week. And the seventh shalt thou have the urge to eat cookies.
IX. Go with the flow.
X. Did I mention the brownies?
XI. If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
XII. Ringo? Ringo? How many commandments did you say we need?
Didn't happen, did it? Instead Moses produced 10 perfectly sensible commandments. And, of course, a load of other commandments that he couldn't fit on the tablets so he had to fill in later - stuff about mildew and donkeys and land rights.
See, if Prof Shannon's theories are right (and I've no reason to believe they're not - except they're clearly tripe and there's no evidence and he's a self-confessed taker of hallucinogenic substances) then it begs a question. Several, actually, but let's stick with this one. If he's right, then clearly the Exodus story must have pretty much happened as recorded. In which case how come the Plagues? Or does Prof Shannon reckon Moses got hallucinogen into the Nile water supply? I've got visions (strictly on coffee, not acacia) of Moses and Aaron, up above the First Cataract, pouring industrial quantities of acacia extract into the water like some giant 60s LSD love 'n" peace conspiracy.
In which case the Plagues are all hallucinations as well. Visions of frogs, locusts and blood-filled rivers make perfect sense. As does Pharaoh's abrupt change of heart when, waking up the day after Passover, he discovers his firstborn alive and well, and not transformed into a giant spider as he's previously imagined.
In which case the passage across the Reed Sea was just a stroll along the higher ground through the marshes, while the death of Pharaoh's army is due to them becoming convinced they can sea water-nymphs in the depths, and going in for a chat.
Oh yeah, it all makes sense now. The way they think God's sending them manna, when in fact they've wisely packed a forty year supply of Snickers. The odd belief that flocks of quail randomly appear in the night. The mass-hallucination when the Rock gives forth water - and thus the Children of Israel don't die of thirst. And the belief of the Spies that there are giants in the land of Canaan (Joshua and Caleb were fortunate at that precise point in having come down, so they could see the facts of the matter).
And it's no wonder it took 40 years to wander across the desert, is it? Every time they set off, Moses would want to bend over and look at the "amazing way, like, sand - it just runneth through thy hands, son of man!" And again, faced with a bunch of tripping desert warriors, it's unsurprising the Canaanites held out so well. Indeed, there's now an argument that what happened at Jericho was that Rahab invited the lads round for an Acacia session, and everybody just thought the walls had fallen down.
Just being sensible for a moment. It strikes me there are four possible explanations for the Exodus stories:
1) it actually happened, and the miracles were direct contraventions or suspensions of the normal physical laws.
2) It actually happened, and the miracles were remarkable timing events. And maybe the stuff about Moses" childhood and the sorcerers' staves changing into serpents was a bit of embellishment.
3) It sort of happened, and a group of Canaanite tribes, coalescing around a conglomerate belief in a god/gods called "El" and YHWH, took the Egyptian enslavement and desert escapes as a normative origin myth.
4) It was all made up., but used as a national origin myth because - once again - it was handy in welding a group of tribes into a religiously-coherent nation.
I'll leave it to you which you want to go with. But I"m just gonna say, it's not gonna be the drugs one.
Thursday, 12 April 2012
On the Evolution of Thumbs / On t evolution f Fums
(An electronic text that has fallen through a wormhole from 1 million AD (After Darwin)
N so we kn c how the hmn race evolved fru t use f fums.
Twas t smrtfone made tlkin fru ur fums ez. N at 1st twas jst supplementary 2 oral comms. But wiv txt n Twitter (may its name b blessed) this all changed. Ppl dint need 2 speak ne more. Stead f fonin they'd txt. N then std of meetin up they'd tweet-up.
N when comms fru keyboard was more widely used than speakin t ppl best able to find mates was ones wiv dextrous fums. N so was competitive selection n the fums genes prevailed.
In fact by time ppl wd just txt each uva evn f they was sittin nxt 2 each uva there was a nu jump 4wd. A mutatiom arose where pls speech centres in their brains bekum more closely wired 2 their hands. Wiv no need 4 oral speech they lost the ability to use it. Spoken language woz last heard n a backward tribe of "Cockernees", in a place called Walthamstow, morn 500,000 yrs ago.
2day, freed from the thought-forms enforced by the tyranny of oral speech, we k express ourselves more beautifully thn those primitive Homo Nokians, r ancestors fm the distant past. But woy hv we lost? As r fums bk more dextrous, we k no longer push drawing pins in2 walls. We k no longer hold heavy objects like those brutes did - brooms or kettles. Tug-of-war is a game of the past. We must control all r liftin machines fru our fones. But we have gained beautiful, useful fums. In jst 1M yrs we hv kum along way.
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
America Floods the Moot House
Since the Great Drought was declared round here, it's done nothing but rain. Today, for the first time in what seems like a week, the weather dawns bright, the sun reflecting off the newly-filled ponds and the water flowing round and through the Moot House. Yes, it rained a lot yesterday.
Some would say building a place of worship at the bottom of a hollow, and then paving every bit of the hollow, and filling all the gaps with cement which thus made it impervious to water, is quite a good way to ensure that there's two feet of water in it after all yesterday's rain. And yes, diverting the brook under the floor for ceremonial purposes has also been cited as we investigated this morning's flooding.
But I blame Climate Change. American gas-guzzlers are responsible for our flooded Moot House. It is not my fault at all.
Saturday, 7 April 2012
The Android of Heavenly Love
I used to think, based on going on retreats, that to live in a community - such as the Beaker one, here, must be constantly wonderful.
All that structure used to enfold me - the set ours of prayer - morning, lunchtime, evening, night (but not so late at night as to prevent one heading for the pub afterwards). The sense of one-ness: of growing together. The profoundness of discussion: the open-ness of people's hearts.
But turns out it doesn't work like that in a real community. Because after a couple of years you know everybody's hopes and fears. You realise you can't live life at the heightened spiritual level of a retreat - you have to live, just as you always used to, in the hum-drum.
And the regular hours of prayer become a prison routine - dragging you out of bed when you really need sleep. And instead of people's best, holiest behaviour, you keep running into their normal, or even worst - when they're tired or frustrated or confused or bad-tempered or just stupid. In short, living in a Community, it turns out, is just like real life.
And that's why I've had Young Keith build me the X-45b Archdruidbot. It's not the first time we've built a robot simulacrum - after all, this Community has been in place for almost ten years - but it is the first time we've built one with Enhanced Christian Characteristics (ECC).
An android with ECC behaves just like.a real Christian ought, as opposed to how they actually do. It mostly has a very slight, beatific, albeit slightly blank smile. At times of boring worship, it can adopt an expression of intense piety. It has the great advantage, at times of early-morning or late-night worship Occasions such as Solstices or Equinoxes, that it can do without sleep, without getting shirty or forgetting where it lives.
The Robot Archdruid is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast, nor is it proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It delights not in evil but rejoices in truth. It always protects and trusts the Beaker People - always hopes and perseveres for them. It never fails.
It will go to early morning services for me, without complaint, and manage neither to offend nor be offended. And it won't get confused and do the liturgy in the wrong order, or forget everyone's names. I'm just a bit worried, though. If it's so totally perfect, isn't there just a slight chance they'll know it's not me?
Monday, 2 April 2012
The end of Spring
Normally we'd be celebrating the end of Spring as heralding the start of Summer. But marking it as the beginning of the following Winter is a bit unusual. The Met Office, however, have issued a "yellow warning" of snow. The only thing I can recommend regarding yellow snow is that you don't eat it, but in any case if the Met Office is warning of snow, I reckon swimming cossies and Bermuda shorts are probably the best bet.
It's not that I don't trust the Met Office, except of course that I don't. It just strikes me that it's a Government-funded agency in a spending contraction, with the opportunity to speak directly to the public. Which means that it's in the interests of the people who manage the Met Office to come up with newsworthy weather all the time. "A quiet few days" isn't going to stave off the cuts - but they need to, especially now they've all bought houses in Exeter when they previously lived in Bracknell. No, we need constant yellow, lime, puce or orange warnings - not red ones, of course, as that would imply something might actually happen.
No, my money's on a dull few days with a drop of rain. Not so much as to bring the drought to an end - as it's the longest drought since records began in the Cenozoic - and definitely not enough snow to justify a yellow warning. Call me an old cynic, but that's how I reckon it is.
It's not that I don't trust the Met Office, except of course that I don't. It just strikes me that it's a Government-funded agency in a spending contraction, with the opportunity to speak directly to the public. Which means that it's in the interests of the people who manage the Met Office to come up with newsworthy weather all the time. "A quiet few days" isn't going to stave off the cuts - but they need to, especially now they've all bought houses in Exeter when they previously lived in Bracknell. No, we need constant yellow, lime, puce or orange warnings - not red ones, of course, as that would imply something might actually happen.
No, my money's on a dull few days with a drop of rain. Not so much as to bring the drought to an end - as it's the longest drought since records began in the Cenozoic - and definitely not enough snow to justify a yellow warning. Call me an old cynic, but that's how I reckon it is.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Eat Nuts, Live Forever
I believe that Anonymous is one of Archdruid Eileen's more regular followers. He or she is always commenting on a range of topics on this blog, although she or he does appear to have a wide range of experience and views - surprising in one person. Perhaps Anonymous is a Renaissance Man or Woman?
But I am indebted to Anonymous for drawing my attention to the Sky reporting of the Red Meat Increases your Chance of Death story. Taking a wild Google of the contents - for my life is nothing if not lived on the edge - I found a similar story with ITV News - and a much better reporting of the details from the Guardian.
Let us compare the passages. First the sober, considered, wise words of the Guardian:
And now the wild-eyed ravings of ITV:
As Anonymous points out, the implication if I were to take ITV seriously would be that if one ate nuts five times a week, one would be immortal - unless it were a compound reduction, in which case one's chance of dying would still be less than 50%.
And to turn Anonymous's argument on its head, if I ate two rashers of bacon a day, I would be dead by Friday night.
The problem with science reporting, it seems to me, is that reporters do not do it very well. Although the Guardian recognised it is the rate of death, rather than death itself, that is being measured - it still does not help a lot. We could do with the time factor. Is that an increase of a fifth over a day, a year or a century? If a century, given one's chances of dying are all but 100% anyway, then eating bacon every day of the week gives you more or less a 200% chance of dying. You might think that worth the risk.
But I have to conclude that somewhere in there may be a grain of truth regarding vegetables being healthier than red meat. After all, it was a godsend for Daniel. I shall in future eat a diet of vegetables only. It may make me pale, skinny, uninteresting and a martyr to wind - but at least I shall live forever.
But I am indebted to Anonymous for drawing my attention to the Sky reporting of the Red Meat Increases your Chance of Death story. Taking a wild Google of the contents - for my life is nothing if not lived on the edge - I found a similar story with ITV News - and a much better reporting of the details from the Guardian.
Let us compare the passages. First the sober, considered, wise words of the Guardian:
"The findings show that each extra daily serving of processed red meat – equivalent to one hot dog or two rashers of bacon – raised mortality rate by a fifth.Conversely, replacing red meat with fish, poultry, or plant-based protein foods contributed to a longer life. Nuts were said to reduce mortality rate by 20%, making a case for swapping roast beef for nut roast."
And now the wild-eyed ravings of ITV:
"Each additional daily serving of processed red meat, equivalent to one hot-dog or two rashers of bacon, raised the chances of dying by a fifth.
Conversely, replacing red meat with fish, poultry, or plant-based protein foods contributed to a longer life.
Nuts were said to reduce the risk of dying by 20% - making a case for swapping roast beef for nut roast."
As Anonymous points out, the implication if I were to take ITV seriously would be that if one ate nuts five times a week, one would be immortal - unless it were a compound reduction, in which case one's chance of dying would still be less than 50%.
And to turn Anonymous's argument on its head, if I ate two rashers of bacon a day, I would be dead by Friday night.
The problem with science reporting, it seems to me, is that reporters do not do it very well. Although the Guardian recognised it is the rate of death, rather than death itself, that is being measured - it still does not help a lot. We could do with the time factor. Is that an increase of a fifth over a day, a year or a century? If a century, given one's chances of dying are all but 100% anyway, then eating bacon every day of the week gives you more or less a 200% chance of dying. You might think that worth the risk.
But I have to conclude that somewhere in there may be a grain of truth regarding vegetables being healthier than red meat. After all, it was a godsend for Daniel. I shall in future eat a diet of vegetables only. It may make me pale, skinny, uninteresting and a martyr to wind - but at least I shall live forever.
Monday, 12 March 2012
Red Meat does not increase risk of death at all
"Red meat increases death, cancer and heart risk," we are told by a BBC article.
I have done a little thinking and some research.
Clearly the title does not explain whether the consumption of red meat increases the risk of having a heart, or the risk to one's heart - although the article does make it clear that it is the latter. But the headline is definitely wrong in claiming that red meat increases death. I have done some back-of-a-cigarette-packet calculations. It is definitely 100% either way.
I have done a little thinking and some research.
Clearly the title does not explain whether the consumption of red meat increases the risk of having a heart, or the risk to one's heart - although the article does make it clear that it is the latter. But the headline is definitely wrong in claiming that red meat increases death. I have done some back-of-a-cigarette-packet calculations. It is definitely 100% either way.
Sunday, 11 March 2012
Forgetting to Save the Universe
There's just been an almighty bang outside the Moot House, and now there's the smell of a solid rocket fuel made - it would appear - from chicken manure and melted-down tea lights wafting round the place.
Rats. I knew there was something I was supposed to be doing after Midsomer ended.
Rats. I knew there was something I was supposed to be doing after Midsomer ended.
Von Neumann to Eternity
This message was received this afternoon from a future leader of the Beaker Folk of Alpha Centauri, beamed back through a wormhole in space and printed out on my old electronic typewriter. Clever, those future Beaker People. The typewriter wasn't even plugged in.
It's a touching and sobering thought. That simply by running round to the garage now with my cricket bat and applying a few handy cover drives, I can save the entire universe. And I'm not saying it's not tempting. But it needs some consideration. I mean, they're going to worship Drayton Parslow? In what sense do they think they've actually got a civilisation? And besides, Midsomer's on.
"No one would have believed in the first years of the twenty-first century that this world was about to launch something created by a man and yet not as mortal as one; that as men and women busied themselves about their various concerns, among them one was about to change the face of the galaxy. With infinite complacency they went to and fro over this globe about their our affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to other worlds of space as sources of raw materials, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of preying upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial humans fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, a man was looking that saw the universe, and his chance to make his mark on it.
The village of Husborne Crawley, I scarcely need remind the reader, is in the northernmost portion of what used to be called the Manshead Hundred, in the middle section of Bedfordshire. It consists of a number of scattered "ends", or hamlets, with the area around the parish church little more populated than any other part of the village. But in a shed there took shape the machine that would take over the universe.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the reason the Beagle 2 experiment failed was because the Open University team involved with it inadvertently launched a barbecue to Mars - leaving Beaker 2 itself in a shed waiting for the next decent summer's day. After its discovery in 2009, it was buried quietly in an orchard until Young Keith had a brainwave. Six months of hard work in the Beaker garage completed his design. And so it was that one quiet evening in March 2012 (it being more sensible to launch rockets at night, space being easier to see) the modified Beagle 2 took off from just behind the Moot House. There was a roar of kerosene and a smell suspiciously like that of an unlikely form of solid-fuel booster - possibly involving
chicken manure and the wax melted out of vast numbers of tea lights.
The first stop was a planned one - on an innocent, relatively un-noticed but metal-rich asteroid. Using solar panels to power its painstaking work, the Beagle 2 mined the raw materials to create a new copy of itself - Beagle 3. Each created one more - Beagle 2.1 and Beagle 3.1. Then Beagle 2.2, Beagle 2.1.1, Beagles 3.2 and 3.1.1. You get the idea. Each Beagle in turn was identical. And that was enough Beagles for now and so they kicked off into space using a technology so ancient and arcane in these days, that I can't be bothered to describe it. The next stop was the swirling planetoids of the Kuyper Belt, and a host of Beagles took form - in turn harvesting the raw materials to create the next generation, and then heading into the cold wastes of inter-stellar space.
From the machines we have managed to track down, we are fairly confident that Young Keith had worked out how to power machines from the fluctuations in the quantum field that exist even in the void - a trick we suspect he learnt while wondering how to find entertainment during dull sermons. Only this could explain the speed with which the Beagles spread themselves across the universe - or the litters of half-dead cats they left in their wake. The spread of these Von Neumann Beagles across the galaxy, although slow by the standards of a human lifetime in those days, was fast in cosmological terms. Wthin a few hundreds of Earth generations, unknown to those that remained behind, the Beagles were spread out like the grains of sand on the seashore, across the speckled vastness of the Milky Way.
So it was that, when we finally attained the stars in our own right, we were shocked to discover that the Beagles had got there first. And even more shocked by the rude rhyming couplet about Drayton Parslow we found laser-etched onto the side of each Beagle. We regard Drayton as semi-divine, and all Beaker Folk of Alpha Centauri dress in Armani and have little weasly moustaches in his honour.
But greater than these shocks was the discovery of the design flaw. Just as DNA can mutate, so the Beagles are not perfect replicas. If hit by a ray of ionizing radiation just as the bootstrap program is being downloaded from parent to child Beagle, the code can change. Most of these mutations are fatal - causing the Beagle to fly in circles, or just sit on the planet surface refusing to move - which we call an "adolescent". But one Beagle downloaded the killer gene, as you carbon-based lifeforms might put it.
Why Keith chose to have a boolean variable called "Lay_waste_to_entire_planet" in the Beagle's source code is a matter for the philosophers to decide. But as long as it was set to "No", no harm could be done. Just once let a Beagle have that field set to "Yes", and the game was over. From now on, Beagles would not stop harvesting material and replicating until none of the planet was left. And then the entire fleet would sail into the void to trash the next unfortunate rock. Since they spent much more time mining than their tame siblings, the Killer-Beagles reproduced far more efficiently. And since they spread so fast, they were soon hoovering up every planet in the Milky Way. No planet could remain unaffected as they swarmed across space, dismantling planets and then moving on.
Inevitably, they eventually returned to the fragile earth itself, scooping up the metallic core, sieving out the metals from the magma, mining silicon from the rocks and the sands of the sea. They left behind a shattered husk of a planet, with only the British still clinging to their battered rock, making a cup of tea and commenting that it reminded them of the Blitz.
The once-flourishing human empire that spanned the stars is now demolished. The lights have gone out all over the Milky Way. There is not a planet left in the Galaxy besides our own. Only we are left - and then the Beagles will head out for Andromeda and beyond. Please, for our sake and that of the Universe - get out into Young Keith's garage before tea-time on 11 March 2012, and smash up the Beagle. It may alter the future of all space and time - but we will take that risk if you will join us in trying to save the Galaxy and the human race."
It's a touching and sobering thought. That simply by running round to the garage now with my cricket bat and applying a few handy cover drives, I can save the entire universe. And I'm not saying it's not tempting. But it needs some consideration. I mean, they're going to worship Drayton Parslow? In what sense do they think they've actually got a civilisation? And besides, Midsomer's on.
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Anniversary of the First Telephone Call (1876)
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
"Mr Watson—Come here—I want to see you"
"Welcome to Mr Watson's Helpline.
If you're calling to report problems with your transmitting apparatus, please press "1".
If you're calling to report problems with your receiving apparatus, then you won't hear this message.
If you want to upgrade to our 'Friends and Family' package, come back in 1998.
If you want to order a pizza, don't. It's Lent.
If you think "Mr Watson" is just a British-sounding name adopted by somebody in a Bangalore call-centre, you're probably right.
Since you won't have a touch-tone phone, please hold."
"Mr Watson—Come here—I want to see you"
"Welcome to Mr Watson's Helpline.
If you're calling to report problems with your transmitting apparatus, please press "1".
If you're calling to report problems with your receiving apparatus, then you won't hear this message.
If you want to upgrade to our 'Friends and Family' package, come back in 1998.
If you want to order a pizza, don't. It's Lent.
If you think "Mr Watson" is just a British-sounding name adopted by somebody in a Bangalore call-centre, you're probably right.
Since you won't have a touch-tone phone, please hold."
Saturday, 18 February 2012
The X-Factor Universe
I'm a little late catching up with Doug's rather nicely worked-out comments on the prologue to John's Gospel. You know how it is. Hearing that my phone was on an Android operating system, Burton went all "Blade Runner" on us and declared war on all smartphones, vowing to hunt them all down and replace them with nice, safe phones with circular dials. It took six days before the phones managed to out-think him and bring him to justice. Well, ten minutes to out-think him. They spent the rest of the time trying to re-program him to have a personality.
But what set me thinking were Doug's comments on the universe in which we live and its susceptibility to reason and what one could see as its "right" universal constants. Doug lists three views (one of which can be discarded out of hand) and the other two are thusly:
"2. Those patterns reveal that the universe is ordered according to mathematical ratios and scientific principles in ways which make it entirely open to rational investigation, but there is no actual reason the universe is reasonable. The ordered, proportioned and investigable universe is the result of a purely accidental, irrational and random chance."
3. Those patterns reveal a fit between the reasoning investigator of the creation and the rational nature of what is being investigated that make design, purpose and intentionality a more congruent understanding of the patterned universe. Some sort of Creative Reason behind the universe seems a more reasonable explanation both of the human capacity for reason, and the susceptibility of the universe to rational investigation."
Some scientists, of course, adopt a different explanation to this apparently innately anthopogenic universe, where by divine plan - if you like - the constants are "just right". Let me use the analogy of the Eyeballs in the Sky.
In the Perishers cartoon strip, you may remember, Boot the dog goes with the children every August to the seaside. While Marlon says stupid things and Maisie pushes the lads around, Boot goes off to see what the crabs are doing in the rockpool. The crabs, seeing Boot's "Eyeballs in the Sky" assume he is a divine visitation. Hymns are sung, the low are lifted high, the seers and leaders are brought low, civilisations are brought to an end and mildly dirty jokes are made. And then the kids go back to School, late, and the dog goes with them and it's all over for another year. The crabs wait for the Eyeballs to come again.
Now to the crabs, the rock-pool is their "Pooliverse". There's only one, and heaven is upwards. The rationalists among them have in the past, Babel-like, built towers of crabs to attempt to reach the Eyeballs to prove they are not divine, or pushed crabs holding onto sticks up out of the "Pooliverse", but these heretics always come to a sticky end and need not concern us now.
But of course, we - the clever, cartoon-reading omniscients in all this - we know there are other rock-pools, on that beach. Some will contain periwinkles or sea urchins. Others will have holes in them, so are empty - or they are too shallow and dry out in the heat of the morning sun. Or they are polluted by the outflow from the storm drains. But the crab's Pooliverse is in the Goldilocks zone, where the components are "just right". It may appear to the crabs that the pool has been designed for them - in fact, they just happen to be in the right place.
And so it is with the Universe, say these scientists. There are uncountable other universes - each one with its own sets of universal constants. In some the strong nuclear force is too week, and helium cannot form. In others gravity is too strong, and stars collapse into black holes as soon as they form. In others, the Humboldt's Constant is irrational, and penguins cannot fly underwater. And so, you see, we have no need of God to explain the "just right" universe - instead we have an X-factor multiverse, where the Leona Lewis set of constants go on to deveop life and perform at the Palladium, whereas the rather rubbish universes rail at the cosmic (but, I stress, metaphorical) Simon Cowell that they could have supported life, only they had a bit of a cold and didn't warm up properly. And nobody understands them because their speed of light is too fast.
And so we live in a just-right universe because where else could we live?
And, in between kicking Burton because it appears that the smart-phones have reprogrammed him as a member of JLS, it makes me think two things. One is - if that's the case, where did the just-right multiverse come from? And the other is - how come I'm here?
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