Scientific American - Is Religion Good for Society?

I know this is one of our favourite subjects here, so I thought I'd post this article from Scientific American.
Given the subject matter, it's surprisingly brief, mostly (I suspect)
because the research points in all different directions at once:

"independent scholar Gregory S. Paul found an inverse correlation
between religiosity (measured by belief in God, biblical literalism,
and frequency of prayer and service attendance) and societal health
(measured by rates of homicide, childhood mortality, life expectancy,
sexually transmitted diseases, and teen abortions and pregnancies)"

...and then again... "In general, religious people are more than three times more generous
than secularists to all charities, 14 percent more munificent to
nonreligious charities and 57 percent more likely than a secularist to
help a homeless person."

So there you have it: a definite maybe.

Scientific American - Is Religion Good for Society?

I know this is one of our favourite subjects here, so I thought I'd post this article from Scientific American. Given the subject matter, it's surprisingly brief, mostly (I suspect) because the research points in all different directions at once:

"independent scholar Gregory S. Paul found an inverse correlation
between religiosity (measured by belief in God, biblical literalism,
and frequency of prayer and service attendance) and societal health
(measured by rates of homicide, childhood mortality, life expectancy,
sexually transmitted diseases, and teen abortions and pregnancies)"

...and then again... "In general, religious people are more than three times more generous
than secularists to all charities, 14 percent more munificent to
nonreligious charities and 57 percent more likely than a secularist to
help a homeless person."

So there you have it: a definite maybe.

Engineering and Autism - or, why I should be going out with someone superficial

The inhouse journal of the IEEE, Spectrum, had this article in recently, which puts forward the idea that what we describe as autism is really only one extreme of a spectrum of behaviour, and could be brought on by selective breeding. As a possible reason for the increasing numbers of autistic children, it suggests that your modern engineer (or anyone with an analytical turn of mind) is more likely now to end up married to another engineer (or anyone with an analytical mind, etc., etc.), rather than the girl down the hall studying History of Music - and that two borderline autistic people are more likely to have an autistic child. " Among the children of engineers, autism and related
conditions are found twice as often as in the general
population, according to British
studies, and are unusually common even in the
grandchildren of engineers. Anecdotally, hot spots of
autism have been reported in major centers of
engineering, including Silicon Valley; Austin, Texas;
and Boston’s Route 128 technology ring."

This has the ring of truth to me. I can think of several people who I'd describe as borderline autistic, and they're all engineers. And as the gender gap in scientific and engineering disciplines slowly (oh so slowly) narrows, more people will marry those of similar persuasions - and I find it believable that this results in a kind of mental inbreeding.

But blimey, how boring to have to live with someone who just emotes and empathizes, and never creates anything.

Engineering and Autism - or, why I should be going out with someone superficial

The inhouse journal of the IEEE, Spectrum, had <a href="http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct06/4665"> this article </a>in recently, which puts forward the idea that what we describe as autism is really only one extreme of a spectrum of behaviour, and could be brought on by selective breeding. As a possible reason for the increasing numbers of autistic children, it suggests that your modern engineer (or anyone with an analytical turn of mind) is more likely now to end up married to another engineer (or anyone with an analytical mind, etc., etc.), rather than the girl down the hall studying History of Music - and that two borderline autistic people are more likely to have an autistic child.

This has the ring of truth to me. I can think of several people who I'd describe as borderline autistic, and they're all engineers. And as the gender gap in scientific and engineering disciplines slowly (oh so slowly) narrows, more people will marry those of similar persuasions - and I find it believable that this results in a kind of mental inbreeding.

But blimey, how boring to have to live with someone who just emotes and empathizes, and never creates anything.

Intelligent Design Sorting Algorithm

http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/intelligentdesignsort.html
via my little brother, this little gem of logic.

Recipe for one sort algorithm based on the theory of intelligent design.
Ingredients:
One very large fish.
One very small barrel.
Some sort of area-effect weapon.

As the great Tom Lehrer said, not so much preaching to the converted as titillating the converted. Made me giggle, though.

Sodaplay!!!!

http://www.sodaplay.com/
Years ago, when I was a student, we had hours of fun with this, and Andrew's amazing watch post reminded me of it. Basically, you build things out of... oh, no, forget it, just go find out for yourself. If you're into that sort of thing, it's a lot of fun, trust me.

Simon Norfolk, postwar photographer

(via BLDGBLOG)

BLDGBLOG's Geoff Manaugh interviews Simon Norfolk, a photographer, apparently.

Which is nice.

And would be the end of the story, but the photos themselves are incredibly compelling, and the stories they tell fascinating. Maybe as a result of his former career as a photojournalist, Simon concentrates on war - not the 'guy on a ridge in a turban watching a very, very far away explosion', but the air-conditioned supercomputers which design and simulate nuclear warheads, and the vast and silent arrays of surveillance aerials (check out the photos of Ascension Island, fantastic!) - and at the other end of the scale, the buildings that have been chipped and scarred by generations of bullets and shells. Not to mention the worn staircases of Auschwitz. It's an incredibly interesting interview, too. Highly recommended.

'Tis the season for Christmas wish lists

http://www.core77.com/ultimategiftguide/
...and core77's combines the deeply weird and the deeply wonderful in about equal measure. Not sure how many of these I'd really want to own, but there are one or two things I can drool over in that list.

My personal favourite:

The ubercustard you can hit with a baseball bat.

Gotta love d3o,
every designer's material du moment. Not only does it come in funky skiing
hats ( I soooooooooooooooo want one), but here's a little
demonstration of just how violent you can get with it:

NaNoWriMo: c'est tout c'est fini

http://www.bathyform.com/Uploads/Government_Joe_must_die.pdf

Presenting:
Government Joe Must Die


"Better than Dhalgren!" - Calum
"When I feel the urge to read a novel, I read this one" - Oscar Wilde
"I read this book, and satiated with emotion, I went to bed, and slept the sleep of the weary - and the saved." - Winston Churchill

Yes, I finished it. Half an hour ago, actually, so it's probably still full of spelling mistakes and all sorts (Word's spell checker crashed, which I thought was a rather rich bit of literary criticism coming from an application with a history of hanging out with giant animated paperclips).

Anyway, I need to walk away from it now for a bit, so I thought I'd post it now and let you all have a bit of fun. I'm pretty confident there aren't that many spelling mistakes in it. If there are any factual errors (moon sizes, Ring designations, etc.) then I couldn't care less, frankly - I wrote the thing in a MONTH, people. Get a grip. Likewise, if there are any gaping holes in the plot, then leave me at least a week to bask in the golden glow of my achievement before telling me, okay?

Brief summary: it's science fiction. It's set in the rings of Saturn. It's about a group of designers and architects who get caught up in... well, I'll let you find out for yourselves, shall I? It's heavily influenced by Bruce Sterling, and a book called 'Take Back Plenty' by Colin Greenland that made a big impression on me when I first read it, years ago.

I hope one or two of you will read it. I hope that same one or two of you enjoy it. Please give me lots of feedback of all sorts. The title is awful, I know, it's a working title, I couldn't think of anything better. The hero's name is Bernard, which I'm not at all sure about. Apart from that... well, see what you think...

And that's it, my contribution to NaNoWriMo: "NaNoWriMo is all about the magical power of deadlines. Give someone a goal and a goal-minded community and miracles are bound to happen. Pies will be eaten at amazing rates. Alfalfa will be harvested like never before. And novels will be written in a month." Big thanks to Calum for introducing me to the idea - I know you probably aren't checking your computer at the moment, buddy, but cheers. Hope you made it over that 50,000 word Finish line too.

Oh, it's going to be close.

44,200 words. Two days, ten hours to go. Oooh, bugger. I never thought I'd be worried about which time zone the deadline was in.

"Hi, thanks for watching CT9, rolling news for the Saturn system. Top stories
today: the Hyperion anomaly continues to mystify amateur astronomers across the
system. So far, no statements have been forthcoming from any of the major
settlements on the subject of why Hyperion's density appears to have
dramatically dropped. Although no link has been confirmed, we're also receiving
reports that for the first time in one hundred and fifty years, Titan station is
refusing entry to all incoming vessels. In a statement, Government Joe said,
'this two-week closure has been necessitated by some indications of increased
biological contamination in Titan Station's systems. The results of our
continuous monitoring program are freely available, and show that at no time has
anyone been in any danger from these contaminants; this closure is a preventive
measure to stop the problem in its tracks.' However, experts have pointed out
that the closure is expected to end soon after Hyperion will have passed its
closest point to Titan, and are claiming there is a link between the two
occurrences.

"In other news, a
group of miners are trapped in Tibur Chasma on Dione,
after-"

The captain gestured
at the screen, and it went silent, leaving the vacuously pretty android mouthing
happily as scenes of disaster played out behind her.

"So Government Joe
has already started." Bernard commented.

"I'm
sorry?"

"On Miguel's plans
for Hyperion. Sounds like the first part of the plan is already afoot - all that
stuff about Hyperion's density sounds very much like Miguel's TMP idea." He
realized the man opposite him was giving him a patient look.

"I'm sorry?
Plan?"

"Oh." Briefly, he
sketched out Miguel's plan for Hyperion. "So the first part of it would seem
well under way. Maybe government Joe is going to use Titan station as a
marshalling yard for the construction crews on the second phase. Bit early for
that, though. I very much doubt they'll be ready to begin building properly for
another few weeks at least."

The Captain's brow
furrowed. "Hmmm... it sounds plausible, I'll grant you. But I don't know... it
still doesn't stack up right, somehow. Between you and me, scuttlebutt around
the mining fleets has it that Government Joe is screaming blue
murder, and beefing up Titan station's anti-collision
defences."

Bernard considered
this. "That's not so surprising," he said slowly. "I mean, any mistakes
with the earthmoving phase and it's quite likely that some loose stuff is going
to spiral inwards, down towards Saturn. It's inevitable that some of that may go
through Titan airspace. I'll bet the Inner moon governments are pretty
disgusted. Any pieces hit them, and Titan will be in for some serious lawsuits.
Miguel-" still just saying the name made his gut twist "- didn't budget for
that. Oops."

The captain tapped
his teeth thoughtfully with a biro. "Well," he said eventually, "it leaves me
with a problem."

"Yes, I can see
that."

"Really?"

"Yes, of course.
Titan was your next destination after Dione, wasn't it? So..." The captain was
shaking his head. "That's not your problem."

"No. That's not my
problem." He leaned forward. "You're right, I don't want to go to Titan. I
was under instructions to deliver that mystery ship to Titan, but that
was okay. I could leave it in orbit anywhere I liked. I could even park it next
to Titan Station, as long as I didn't try to dock with the Station itself.
Actually, I was planning to insert the ship into a generously wide orbit and
leave it there for Government Joe to pick up. But apparently that's no longer
acceptable."

"No?"

"No. It was fine
when there was no time pressure, but I've just received instructions from Titan
that change the original deal significantly."

Bernard considered
this. "You could ignore them."

He grimaced. "The
collective's legal system says not. I'm contractually obliged to follow these
new instructions, unless they endanger my ship or crew. Frankly, though, the
course of action proposed is not to my liking."

Bernard sat
patiently.

"Here's the problem:
Government Joe now wants this mystery ship delivered to Titan-Haut asap. Our ETA
now would be a few days before Hyperion's closest approach, which doesn't fill
me with confidence given all the stuff we've been hearing. Also, he doesn't just
want the ship any more."

Bernard's heart
sank. "He wants me."

The captain nodded
solemnly.

I yam what I yam (call for list)

I'm glad I'm a boy

 

 12

I'm glad I'm a girl

 

 9

I wish I was the other. They seem to have a lot more fun.

 

 4

In conversation, (especially eavesdropping on other peoples'), I often feel glad I was born a boy. It's a lot less hassle and, as someone who should probably remain nameless said, "never trust anything that bleeds for three days and doesn't die".

Now I love women, they're fascinating, noble creatures. But I'm sure glad I'm not one. Quite apart from all the biological fuss, there's the bewildering array of clothes they can wear (much easier if you're a guy), the still-shocking chauvinism they encounter in so many walks of life, and the endless barrage of cultural messages about the unworthiness of their appearance which they seem to have to endure.

So, a list: I (am/am not) glad I'm a (boy/girl) (because/despite of):

NaNoWriMo fragment #3

"We have a policy
with Big Red Ship Security. They're already looking for the Little Black Pig
system-wide. From the few shots we got, we reckon it's heading in-system,
possibly Janus or Pan."

Bernard shook his
head in disbelief. "It doesn't sound like Miguel. He really isn't smart when it
comes to people. He wouldn't have the first clue what to
do."

Bernie eyed him with
hostility. "Your pal has my girl hostage. I'm going to fucking kill him. Our Big
Red policy covers temporary weaponization of assets. Big Red finds him, tells us
where he is, and then I'm going to take the Tabitha and go and kill
him."

"Look, Bernie, I
understand, I know what it looks like. I was there, remember? I want to get
Annie back just as m- well, look, I want to get her back, too. I want to
help."

Bernie shook her
head at him in wonder. "I just don't believe I'm hearing this. Don't you think
you've caused enough trouble? You did your part just bringing him on
board."

He could see the
paranoia starting to spread behind her eyes. Wearily, he levered himself away
from the table. "Okay. Okay. But just listen for a second. I've been wracking my
brains thinking of places Miguel might go. I know he's visited Janus before; I
don't think he's ever been to Pan, or Enceladus. He-"

But she'd turned her
head away. Swinging her legs out, she batted herself away across the room.
Bernard was left, helpless, suddenly aware of the curious stares of the lunching
crewmembers all around him.

 

When he got back to
their quarters, Xin and David and the others were loafing around the cabin,
bored. Cold-shouldered by the Clown's crew, they'd ended up drifting back to
their bunks. Marcus had some specs on, and his hands poked listlessly at the
air, picking options in some menu only he could see. The others were reading, or
playing cards. Xin got up and gave him a brief hug as he slid the door
shut. 

"You
okay?"

He looked up,
surprised at her concern. "I tried to talk to Bernie."

She shook her head.
"Bernard..."

"She wouldn't
listen. I just can't believe that Miguel would do this. It's not like him to go
and do something so lunatic." He looked round at the raised eyebrows. "Well,
okay, it is," he conceded, "but not quite this crazy. And anyway, that ship was
way beyond him." He paused. Nobody would meet his eye. "What is
it?"

"Sit down." Xin
said gently. He sat.

"What's going
on?"

"Bernard," she said,
"The report Miguel heard? The one about the guy he stabbed being
dead?"

"Yes?"

She sighed. "It was
just some amateur murderwatch newsgroup. It was completely wrong. The guy's
recovering well - it was someone else that died, an eighty four year old who
happened to have the same surname. Some idiot was scrolling down the list and
got the two confused. We checked with the hospital. The newgroup moderators have
issued a retraction. Miguel's not a murderer at all, Bernard. He just
panicked, that's all."

Bernard stared at
her, caught between relief and horror. "I... no. Oh, no."

Xin caught his hand.
"Look, it's good news, okay? We just have to get the news to Miguel, talk him
down."

He was shaking his
head absently. "No, no, no. What a fuck up. I don't believe it. I just don't
believe it."

"Look, Bernie, it's
in the past, okay? Miguel's in trouble, sure, but he's not a murderer. We just
have to find him and talk him down. It'll be fine."

Pause. "Who else
knows?"

"Mikhail, a few
others. I don't think anyone from the Tabitha's crew have been told
yet."

He levered himself
up. "I have to go tell Bernie."

Xin caught his
jacket and pulled him back into his seat, shaking her head. "That's not for you.
That's a bad idea, you know that. Let Mikhail tell her. It'll be better coming
from him."

One for you stargazers: Celestia

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
In the course of my NaNoWriMo research, I came across this free package, and I've been having a lot of fun with it. There are several similar things, I believe, but basically it allows you to take a guided tour of the universe, zooming in and out, watching eclipses and daybreaks on any planet or body you care to mention. It's open source, so there's stuff being added to it all the time - I downloaded an add-on to give me more of the moons of Saturn, for obvious reasons.

Truly Terrifying - Patrick Henry College

I’ve just finished reading a truly terrifying article in this week’s New Scientist. Not the one about Ebola sweeping across Africa. Not the one about why the world’s poor will be the greatest victims of global warming. No. The really scary one is about home schooling. It’s scary because teaching your kids at home is an increasingly popular option in the USA, and it is strongly linked to the aggressive Christian organisations who are successfully lobbying nationwide against evolution and in favour of creationism.

Now I have no wish to upset anyone who might read this, but I absolutely draw the line at creationism, and so-called ‘intelligent design’. There are clearly a lot of very smart people (way smarter than me) who believe in it, but it simply makes my jaw drop that anyone can believe in the literal truth of the Bible. And the idea that the natural world somehow required an intelligent designer leaves me baffled. I regard it as intellectual laziness.

But enough of that - the ins and outs of the scientific debate are not scary. What I find truly scary, though, is the idea of places like Patrick Henry College, in Purcellville. It’s a college which requires its students to have a literalist belief in the Bible (even Leviticus? How?), and grooms them to be the next leaders of the country. And it does very well; in 2004, despite only being open for four years, it filled 7 out of the 100 internships in the White House, and provided six interns working for Congress and eight for federal agencies (including two for the FBI). Now this might be a flash in the pan, thanks to the religious fervour of the current incumbent at the White House, but I’m kind of doubting that.

On the other hand, the school clearly provides an excellent liberal arts education (with a strong emphasis on debating and rhetoric). These children are explicitly being groomed to lead the country. What’s wrong with having well-educated, focussed people running the country? Well, apart from the fact that it’s almost always people who are extremely well-educated but extremely narrow-minded that produce the biggest disasters in human history (Nazi Germany being the first example that springs to mind – extremely smart, extremely dogmatic, skilled in rhetoric and propaganda, democratically elected…), apart from that… apart from that, um… actually, do you really need an ‘apart from that’? Isn’t that enough? We’re talking about a group who are taught that global warming isn’t something to worry about because (a) God would never let something like that happen to his creation, or (b) it isn’t happening, or (c) it’s all part of the road to the Rapture, and should be welcomed (and maybe even hurried along a bit). And these are the people we want to lead the world’s only superpower? What makes me truly sick is the certainty that even if they did manage to wreck the world in search of the Apocalypse, and by some miracle we managed to get some precious few rockets off the planet to carry on eking out an existence somewhere else, they’d still find a reason to talk their way on board…

Official Seal Generator

http://www.says-it.com/seal/index.php
Here's one we haven't done (I don't think).

Generate your own, personal seal for use when you get knighted (if you're British - otherwise, just pretend you're about to become a registered charity or something, I don't know).

None of you will understand mine - it's a family in-joke, sorry.

So, what does your personal seal look like?

WorldChanging:Greenwich Emotion Map

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005261.html
This is intriguing: an emotional map of Greenwich (that's London Greenwich). A bunch of volunteers were issued with Biomapping devices, which I guess are like GPSs which measure galvanic skin response. The result could be a really useful planning tool, if you had enough people, but with a small number individual events dominate. Interesting to see a map of where people get agitated, but I can't tell whether they're excited-good or excited-bad.
Cool idea though.

Not bad - for a camera phone

Took the car at the weekend and headed North.Ended up in Dollar Glen - very pretty! Took these with my phone, but the yen for a digital SLR is strong now...

NaNoWriMo fragment

Strangely, I'm finding it difficult to write truly obnoxious characters. And I don't think there's really a lot of variety in my characters anyway - I'm too afraid of stereotyping to go overboard with the characterisation. In the meantime, I've only written 5,000 words in 7 days. Shit.


Landed and docked, she was a fat cylinder laid gently on top of an intricate jeweller’s scrapheap, one that sparkled with standby LEDs and semi-intelligent IR chatter. And the icing on the cake was the stumpy, single-piece pitched roof plonked on top. At least, that’s what she looked like from outside when Bernard called up the view. From the inside, she was a warm, fuggy chaos with alternating smells of play-doh, solder, and the acrid tang which always accompanied any sort of liquefied hydrogen system. Access panels of all shapes and sizes had been removed and haphazardly piled. It only took one clumsy knock to send the whole pile skittering and scraping across the gantry, as they discovered.
“Sorry ‘bout the mess,” Annie called over her shoulder. “We’re trying to track down a fault in the Inerts backbone. Faulty bus somewhere, I reckon. Minor problem, anyway, nothing life-threatening,” she added absently.
They ducked down a narrow corridor, with sealable doors on either side. “Boys on the left, girls on the right!” Annie called cheerfully. “That works, doesn’t it, numberswise?” she added. Bernard nodded as he squeezed past her. There wasn’t room for his shoulders and the bag, so he had to judo-throw his bag over his head into the narrow cabin. Miguel and David had already claimed the two top bunks, and had climbed onto them. Bernard tossed his bag onto one of the bottom ones. There was a muted series of clangs from somewhere off to their right, and a distant “Bugger!” It was another female voice.
“Annie,” Bernard poked his head out, to see her grin. “how many crew does the Tabitha Jute hold?”
“Our complement at this time is eight crew, six passengers, and a few tonnes of stuff.” Annie pronounced. “The good ship Tabitha Jute also runs a semi-autonomous AI, nine maintenance drones and fourteen von Neumann TMPs, of various types. Tabs?”
A mellifluous female voice came out of the air. “Annie?”
“These are our guests. You know who they are, don’tcha?”
“I do, Annie. Mr Sawyer, welcome to the SV Tabitha Jute. If you need anything, or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you.” Bernard replied formally.
“Same goes for me, too, of course,” Annie added. “Any questions, give me a shout. I’d appreciate it, though,” she said, raising her voice slightly so everyone could hear, “if you wouldn’t bother crew members while they’re discharging their duties. They’re sure to be polite, but a distracted man is sleepwalking to the Deep Freeze, as the saying goes. Okay?”
There was a scuffling noise at the end of the corridor, and high-pitched giggling. Annie yelped, dived across Bernard and dodged round the corner in an awkward, bent-over scuttle. “You two rascals!” she cried. “I told you to stay in the mess! What are you doing down here?”
There was more gigging, and she re-emerged with a tousled child under each arm. One shared Annie’s cloud of blonde curls; the other’s blonde hair was straight, with a fringe that bounced up and down stopped only just above his (her?) eyes. They struggled happily, giggling as Annie growled, and plonked them on the floor. “Mr Sawyer, I’d like to introduce our two youngest crew members; Pieter and Nabuko. Pieter, ‘Buko, this is Mr Sawyer. Say hello.”
Suddenly confronted with a big group of strangers, the two children managed to mumble “’lo, Mr Sawyer.” Pieter surreptitiously reached out to grip Annie’s trouser leg. She rolled her eyes, gave them both a gentle slap on the rump.
“Now git! Back to the mess with you. Where are Alan and Orestes? Pieter, where’s your brother? Honestly, those two. And you two! Go on, back to the mess with you. Ask Tabitha to put on Wonderland for you.”
The two kids ran, giggling. Bernard noticed that they both ran with their arms making rapid swimming motions, grabbing and hauling wherever they could. They were nimble and fast. It was a rapid, efficient, and curiously inhuman motion.
“Woo hoo!” Miguel whooped. “Fantastic. What a beautiful machine. I can’t wait. This is going to be a lot of fun. Annie, wasn’t it? Annie, what’s the langest trip you’ve done on the Tabitha Jute?”
Annie regarded him with amused toleration. “Well, we went right out to Kiviuq once, taking a shipment of Helenic champagne out there for a Border Raid party.”
Miguel looked suitably impressed. “Bet they didn’t let you stay for the party, huh. Too bad, I bet you’d have put them all to shame.”
Annie gave him a motherly smile, and patted his shoulder. “You’re a sweet man. I can see we’re going to get along famously. It’s gonna be a very pleasant sixteen days, I reckon.”

“So, you think we’ll be okay on board the Tabitha Jute for three weeks?”
Xin groaned. “Two and a half. And I will probably kill someone.”
Benard swirled his drink idly. “Miguel…”
“Bernie, don’t even mention it. He’s going to be intolerable. My only consolation is going to be watching him trying to score with a lesbian collective. How long do you think it’ll take before he learns to stay out of spanner range?”
“I think Annie’s clocked him already.”
Xin snorted gently. “Yeah, I noticed that too. Well, good. And bad. Hopefully Lizabet will be enough of a distraction for him.”
Bernard wrinkled his nose, and looked away. Eventually he said, “I’m sorry to drag you into this, Xin.”
She leaned over. “Don’t be daft, Bernie. For a start, there’s good work to be had out of this. And hey, it’s further out than most people get to go! I’m looking forward to it, actually. I want to see the gas habitats. You know, the Floating World? I’ve always loved the idea of that. Actual flight, using pressure differentials to provide lift… fascinating.”
Bernie nodded. “It would be pretty special to take a flight in atmosphere. Titan’s coming along, now. I’ve seen some pretty impressive pictures of the outgassing from the South Pole.”
Xin snorted. “As long as we make it that far. Spaceships always seem so… insubstantial to me. It seems to me amazing that something so flimsy can travel such great distances on its own.”
Bernard raised his glass. “Well, then, to impossible journeys.”

The Tabitha Jute wasn’t actually going to Titan on her own. The little group of crew were actually part of a much larger collective, heading out on a seasonal migration to pick up some of the excess hydrocarbons mined during the Titanic winter to ferry back in to the inner planets. So they were to travel out to a rendezvous three days out, and join up with the collective’s heavy lifters, which would use their bigger, more efficient engines to boost the whole community out into an intersecting orbit with Titan.
“Those three days will be the worst.” David predicted. “After that, some of the crew will transfer to other ships, and there’ll be a lot more space to breathe in this shoebox.”
He was only half right. But it didn’t really matter by then, because by day three Miguel had already gotten into a fight with Annie’s long-term partner Bernie and landed himself in the ship’s brig.
“This is going to cost you extra,” Annie told Bernard sorrowfully. Bernie glowered from the far side of the cabin, a big bruise across one eye. “We had to make a brig, and that takes material and time. That means we’re one cabin down, and he’s made a pretty mess of that now, too. We’re not a rich collective, we’ve gotta make ends meet.”
“I’ll talk to him.” Bernard promised. “I’ll calm him down.”

Miguel’s cabin wasn’t exactly remote; it was next door to the one that Bernard was now sharing with just David and Marcus. The newly-spare bunk made the cabin considerably more comfortable. Miguel now had an entire cabin of the same size to himself, but nobody was complaining about that. Except Miguel, who couldn’t leave it. He regarded Bernard balefully. “Come in, please. Welcome to my humble abode.” He bowed sarcastically.
“’Gel, don’t be an arse.”
“Fuck off, Bernie. You’re not stuck in here twenty four seven. That AI has a sexy voice, but not a lot of conversation.”
Bernard sighed. “I talked to Thanet yesterday. He was asking for your input on a couple of things. That might take your mind off it.”
But Mguel’s mind wasn’t about to let go of the topic so easily. He grunted. “That bitch.” He mused. “Do you not think there’s something unnatural about this whole setup, Bernie? Four girls, four kids, no guys? That’s not normal. They need a man about the place.”
“Miguel…”
“Do you not think, Bernie? It’s only natural. They’ve just forgotten what it’s like.”

NaNoWriMo fragment

Strangely, I'm finding it difficult to write truly obnoxious characters. And I don't think there's really a lot of variety in my characters anyway - I'm too afraid of stereotyping to go overboard with the characterisation. In the meantime, I've only written 5,000 words in 7 days. Shit.


Landed and docked, she was a fat cylinder laid gently on top of an intricate jeweller’s scrapheap, one that sparkled with standby LEDs and semi-intelligent IR chatter. And the icing on the cake was the stumpy, single-piece pitched roof plonked on top. At least, that’s what she looked like from outside when Bernard called up the view. From the inside, she was a warm, fuggy chaos with alternating smells of play-doh, solder, and the acrid tang which always accompanied any sort of liquefied hydrogen system. Access panels of all shapes and sizes had been removed and haphazardly piled. It only took one clumsy knock to send the whole pile skittering and scraping across the gantry, as they discovered.
“Sorry ‘bout the mess,” Annie called over her shoulder. “We’re trying to track down a fault in the Inerts backbone. Faulty bus somewhere, I reckon. Minor problem, anyway, nothing life-threatening,” she added absently.
They ducked down a narrow corridor, with sealable doors on either side. “Boys on the left, girls on the right!” Annie called cheerfully. “That works, doesn’t it, numberswise?” she added. Bernard nodded as he squeezed past her. There wasn’t room for his shoulders and the bag, so he had to judo-throw his bag over his head into the narrow cabin. Miguel and David had already claimed the two top bunks, and had climbed onto them. Bernard tossed his bag onto one of the bottom ones. There was a muted series of clangs from somewhere off to their right, and a distant “Bugger!” It was another female voice.
“Annie,” Bernard poked his head out, to see her grin. “how many crew does the Tabitha Jute hold?”
“Our complement at this time is eight crew, six passengers, and a few tonnes of stuff.” Annie pronounced. “The good ship Tabitha Jute also runs a semi-autonomous AI, nine maintenance drones and fourteen von Neumann TMPs, of various types. Tabs?”
A mellifluous female voice came out of the air. “Annie?”
“These are our guests. You know who they are, don’tcha?”
“I do, Annie. Mr Sawyer, welcome to the SV Tabitha Jute. If you need anything, or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you.” Bernard replied formally.
“Same goes for me, too, of course,” Annie added. “Any questions, give me a shout. I’d appreciate it, though,” she said, raising her voice slightly so everyone could hear, “if you wouldn’t bother crew members while they’re discharging their duties. They’re sure to be polite, but a distracted man is sleepwalking to the Deep Freeze, as the saying goes. Okay?”
There was a scuffling noise at the end of the corridor, and high-pitched giggling. Annie yelped, dived across Bernard and dodged round the corner in an awkward, bent-over scuttle. “You two rascals!” she cried. “I told you to stay in the mess! What are you doing down here?”
There was more gigging, and she re-emerged with a tousled child under each arm. One shared Annie’s cloud of blonde curls; the other’s blonde hair was straight, with a fringe that bounced up and down stopped only just above his (her?) eyes. They struggled happily, giggling as Annie growled, and plonked them on the floor. “Mr Sawyer, I’d like to introduce our two youngest crew members; Pieter and Nabuko. Pieter, ‘Buko, this is Mr Sawyer. Say hello.”
Suddenly confronted with a big group of strangers, the two children managed to mumble “’lo, Mr Sawyer.” Pieter surreptitiously reached out to grip Annie’s trouser leg. She rolled her eyes, gave them both a gentle slap on the rump.
“Now git! Back to the mess with you. Where are Alan and Orestes? Pieter, where’s your brother? Honestly, those two. And you two! Go on, back to the mess with you. Ask Tabitha to put on Wonderland for you.”
The two kids ran, giggling. Bernard noticed that they both ran with their arms making rapid swimming motions, grabbing and hauling wherever they could. They were nimble and fast. It was a rapid, efficient, and curiously inhuman motion.
“Woo hoo!” Miguel whooped. “Fantastic. What a beautiful machine. I can’t wait. This is going to be a lot of fun. Annie, wasn’t it? Annie, what’s the langest trip you’ve done on the Tabitha Jute?”
Annie regarded him with amused toleration. “Well, we went right out to Kiviuq once, taking a shipment of Helenic champagne out there for a Border Raid party.”
Miguel looked suitably impressed. “Bet they didn’t let you stay for the party, huh. Too bad, I bet you’d have put them all to shame.”
Annie gave him a motherly smile, and patted his shoulder. “You’re a sweet man. I can see we’re going to get along famously. It’s gonna be a very pleasant sixteen days, I reckon.”

“So, you think we’ll be okay on board the Tabitha Jute for three weeks?”
Xin groaned. “Two and a half. And I will probably kill someone.”
Benard swirled his drink idly. “Miguel…”
“Bernie, don’t even mention it. He’s going to be intolerable. My only consolation is going to be watching him trying to score with a lesbian collective. How long do you think it’ll take before he learns to stay out of spanner range?”
“I think Annie’s clocked him already.”
Xin snorted gently. “Yeah, I noticed that too. Well, good. And bad. Hopefully Lizabet will be enough of a distraction for him.”
Bernard wrinkled his nose, and looked away. Eventually he said, “I’m sorry to drag you into this, Xin.”
She leaned over. “Don’t be daft, Bernie. For a start, there’s good work to be had out of this. And hey, it’s further out than most people get to go! I’m looking forward to it, actually. I want to see the gas habitats. You know, the Floating World? I’ve always loved the idea of that. Actual flight, using pressure differentials to provide lift… fascinating.”
Bernie nodded. “It would be pretty special to take a flight in atmosphere. Titan’s coming along, now. I’ve seen some pretty impressive pictures of the outgassing from the South Pole.”
Xin snorted. “As long as we make it that far. Spaceships always seem so… insubstantial to me. It seems to me amazing that something so flimsy can travel such great distances on its own.”
Bernard raised his glass. “Well, then, to impossible journeys.”

The Tabitha Jute wasn’t actually going to Titan on her own. The little group of crew were actually part of a much larger collective, heading out on a seasonal migration to pick up some of the excess hydrocarbons mined during the Titanic winter to ferry back in to the inner planets. So they were to travel out to a rendezvous three days out, and join up with the collective’s heavy lifters, which would use their bigger, more efficient engines to boost the whole community out into an intersecting orbit with Titan.
“Those three days will be the worst.” David predicted. “After that, some of the crew will transfer to other ships, and there’ll be a lot more space to breathe in this shoebox.”
He was only half right. But it didn’t really matter by then, because by day three Miguel had already gotten into a fight with Annie’s long-term partner Bernie and landed himself in the ship’s brig.
“This is going to cost you extra,” Annie told Bernard sorrowfully. Bernie glowered from the far side of the cabin, a big bruise across one eye. “We had to make a brig, and that takes material and time. That means we’re one cabin down, and he’s made a pretty mess of that now, too. We’re not a rich collective, we’ve gotta make ends meet.”
“I’ll talk to him.” Bernard promised. “I’ll calm him down.”

Miguel’s cabin wasn’t exactly remote; it was next door to the one that Bernard was now sharing with just David and Marcus. The newly-spare bunk made the cabin considerably more comfortable. Miguel now had an entire cabin of the same size to himself, but nobody was complaining about that. Except Miguel, who couldn’t leave it. He regarded Bernard balefully. “Come in, please. Welcome to my humble abode.” He bowed sarcastically.
“’Gel, don’t be an arse.”
“Fuck off, Bernie. You’re not stuck in here twenty four seven. That AI has a sexy voice, but not a lot of conversation.”
Bernard sighed. “I talked to Thanet yesterday. He was asking for your input on a couple of things. That might take your mind off it.”
But Mguel’s mind wasn’t about to let go of the topic so easily. He grunted. “That bitch.” He mused. “Do you not think there’s something unnatural about this whole setup, Bernie? Four girls, four kids, no guys? That’s not normal. They need a man about the place.”
“Miguel…”
“Do you not think, Bernie? It’s only natural. They’ve just forgotten what it’s like.”

Graphs

http://hyperculture.org/graphs/
Silly silly.



Still not as good as these, either:

NaNoWriMo - first blood

Okay. Well, it's bad, but the whole point is that it should simply be written, fast, without the time for worry over editing, or quality, or any of those pesky details... so here's the first thousand words or so:

Alignment Days tended to focus on the industrial, so it was no surprise to Bernard that the Hall of Mirrors was almost deserted. Stepping out of the lift into the muddy, mustardy light streaming through the windows, there was only one figure in the half-distance, a gaunt shadow contemplating the view and ignoring the cleaners who gave it – her – a respectfully wide berth.

Her reflection faced away from him in each mirror as he passed.

“Factor.”
She turned at his voice, and her face broke into a warm smile. “Bernard. Thank you.”
“What for?”
She smiled mischievously. “For coming. For humouring an old lady.” The humour was meant for him to share, although he found it difficult – when the person who controls how much air there is to breathe issues an invitation, acceptance would seem the only course.
Bernard bowed. “I’m always pleased to hear from you, Geneva.”
She harrumphed. “Quite.” Turning away, she walked slowly down the hall, her black cloak a ripple of mustard-yellow and black. Bernard tagged along, catching a glimpse of their reflection in one enormous mirror as they passed. The Factor was tall, thin - spindly, even. In the low gravity she moved elegantly, her black cloak billowing as she waltzed down the Hall like some gothic whisp from a New Romantic painting. But the muddy light of Saturn made her look old, and the black looked dirty. Bouncing along lumpenly beside her, Igor to her Bride, it simply made him look unwell.
She half-turned. “Bernard, let us sit here for a moment.” She gestured towards a bench. They settled themselves gently into it, and contemplated the view for a while.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” The Factor asked, matter-of-factly.
Bernard nodded. Of course it was; Dione’s Hall of Mirrors was famed for having the best view anywhere inside Ring F. Even now, when Saturn’s attitude meant that the light was dirty yellow rather than (Bernard’s preferred) royal blue, he could see three storms starting up in the upper atmosphere, each twisting streamers of white and green into massive, slowly dancing spirals. And beyond the horizon, he could pick out Helene against the spangled curtain of night, gibbous and jewelled with the distant sparkle of polished domes. And the Rings themselves…

“You built this.” She said.
He shook his head. “My group, built this.”
She frowned elegantly. “Bernard, are you not head of Selene Aversis?”
Bernard sighed. “Technically.”
“Were Selene Aversis not the primary contractors for this Hall?”
“Yes, okay, you’ve made your p-“
“Bernard, your design krewe designed this Hall. And most of Dione’s Eye, when you get right down to it.”
He said nothing. He wanted to say, no, this is Miguel’s work, purely and solely Miguel’s. It’s his best work. He was inspired. God knows we’ve carried him since, but this was all his.

Already behind schedule

Oh crap.

National Novel Writing Month started yesterday, and already I'm behinds chedule, having written precisely nothing.

So go away. I'm busy.

Already behind schedule

Oh crap.

<a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/"> National Novel Writing Month</a> started yesterday, and already I'm behinds chedule, having written precisely nothing.

So go away. I'm busy.

WorldChanging: WITTs, YOYOs, and Why Americans Don't Go Green

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005129.html#more
(Moom lights the blue touchpaper and runs away)

Seriously, though, there are some very interesting conclusions from this marketing report on Americans' attitudes to the environment. Not that I'd make sweeping generalizations about anyone who might read this ;) - but some of the points remind me of comments made about why people buy SUVs, in terms of acknowledging that most of our consumption is mediated by a deeply reptilian and nonrational part of our brain. In partricular, there were some interesting comments made on that subject in the comments after Jessica whatserface's thing on cupholders...

The place of cupholders in society

... holding cups, presumably.

Jessica Helfand rants about cupholders, and other decadent artefacts which are undermining our society's moral fibre (like manicures). It's a funny article, and I started out agreeing with her - my parents recently bought a new Volvo which had, if I recall correctly , SEVEN cupholders between FOUR people - but when she says that "it vexes me to think that design, in this context, is merely a support mechanism for increased comfort and added convenience" - I can't help thinking "well, isn't that what design is? A mechanism for making life easier?"

So anyway. I really just wanted to record the moment that the phrase "security beverage" entered the language.

What is Art Clay Silver?

http://www.artclay.co.jp/htm/what.html


It's cool, is what it is!

Apologies to an arty crafty people who have seen this stuff before, but I am intrigued. Art Clay Silver is a malleable putty made up mostly of pure silver particles, with added water and 'organic binder' (which with a name like that could be anything - the mind boggles, recoils, and boggles again). According to the sales blurb, it can be worked like ordinary modelling clay, but when fired in a kiln the water and binder are burned off, leaving something which is 99.9% pure silver.

Although a kiln (which I don't own) is recommended, there is a method described for firing it on a gas hob (which I do own - yay!). Strangely, though, using a microwave isn't mentioned...

WorldChanging: Tracking Hasan Elahi

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005105.html#more
...and today's weirdness comes from (wait for it) a performance artist! Y'know, I can't help feeling that the performance artist tribe is one whose relationship to Darwin is inextricable and yet somehow uncertain - are they hurrying evolution along, or living in defiance of it?

Whatever.

In any case, an encounter between the FBI and a performance artist can have only one outcome. Hasan Elahi has been obsessively documenting his life ever since he was stopped in Detroit airport and questioned (equally obsessively) by the FBI. Since then, he's been constantly providing himself with an alibi by hacking his cellphone to talk to a tracking bracelet he wears on his wrist, and uploading photos of everywhere he goes. Apparently he once spent four days in Singapore without leaving the airport and clearing customs, leaving a four-day 'hole' in his official traceability - while documenting every minute of it online.

(oh, and in case you were wondering about the picture, I was watching "Belleville rendezvous" last night - fantastic movie. One review I read complained of its crude anti-Americanism, but apart from the fact that all the Americans in it are enormously fat, they really don't seem to take much part in the story, so I think whoever that critic was, he/she was talking bollocks. I thought it was superb, anyway. I particularly loved the stretch 2CV limos).

Putting your day to music

There are certain moments in my day which have songs inextricably linked to them. Two examples spring to mind:

1. When closing Unigraphics on the ol' CAD machinen, a dialogue box pops up which says "Do you really want to exit?" For some reason, that always plays in my head to the tune of "Do you really want to hurt me?" by Culture Club.
2. Similarly, we have a sandwich man who comes in during the morning to sell us sandwiches (actually we have two, but now isn't the time to get into the Riccarton Sandwich Wars). His cheery cry of "Sandwiches!" always starts me off singing "Sandwiches, da da da da da da da sandwiches" to the tune of whatever that song is that goes "hooray for Hollywood"...

Are there any parts of your life that seem to have attracted tunes?

Broken Angel

http://www.flickr.com/photos/onebadapple/sets/127493/show/
I guess this is probably a well-known landmark to any New Yorkers reading this, but it's the first time I've come across Broken Angel - the combined home and sculpture-in-progress of Arthur and Cindy Wood. They're now threatened with eviction after a small fire in the upper floors attracted the attention of the New York City Building department, so this collection of photos from their son may soon become a memorial rather than a living record. Let's hope that doesn't happen; while most of their art is not to my taste (which doesn't run to pigeon skeletons nailed to the wall), I think the house itself is fantastic.

SNAIL SHELL SYSTEM (these people are clearly mental)

http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/SNAIL_SHELL_SYSTEM/SSS.html
Is it a tent that rolls? Or a caravan that floats? I dunno, but the SNAIL SHELL SYSTEM (only available in capitals) tries to cover so many stools that it's inevitable it's going to fall between some of them. Personally, I'll be putting mine in the middle of a pond somewhere expensive, like Hyde Park.


Created by a group called N55, who seem to have shares in a firm making polyethylene stuff. Other interesting/loopy ideas include ROOMS (which are, um, rooms) and an unstable CHAIR. Crazy? Challenging? Inspired? I dunno, but for my money this is design as a political act, rather than a practical one.

...polyethylene's thermoforming, right?

One for all you stargazers: Cassini-Huygens images

(via Bruce Sterling's blog)

Wow. Look, it's Saturn! Seen from the wrong side!



Some pretty awesome composite images from NASA's Cassini probe are catalogued here. Apparently, this view of the planet backlit by the sun shows us rings that we never knew Saturn had, but you can go look at the catalogue for the proper sciencey stuff. For pure aesthetic attraction, this one is my favourite.

Photography: Thomas Weinberger

Via BDLGBLOG:

Just come across these photos from Thomas Weinberger. His subject matter might seem grim, but the results are almost luminescent, as if Heaven were an abandoned industrial site. Pesumably it's done with heavy dodging (is that right?), or some cunning overexposure - whatever, the result is certainly unusual.

Iritis

And I was doing so
well.

It's been what, six
weeks?, since I started taking the 6MP immune suppressant ex-chemo-drug, and
it's been going pretty well. As ever, still taking it pretty easy (um.. well,
except for a weekend of dashing madly around London trying to see everything)...
so no lacrosse or sailing. In fact, one choir rehearsal a week is proving a
sufficient challenge right at the moment. But I've been putting on
weight! I haven't done that since I was...um... I dunno, fifteen?
Maybe? And in the last month I've put on about 7 kilos, which is unheard of.
Admittedly, I've been pretty tired, and felt slightly queasy, which may or may
not be normal - but it's still better than the alternative. So I've been pretty
happy.

Until last Saturday,
that is. Last Saturday my left eye started to feel slightly sore, as if I'd been
wearing a contact lens for too long. Over the weekend it got gradually worse,
until yesterday I could stand it no more, and took myself off to the eye
hospital, where it turns out I have Iritis. Yup, it's not a made-up word ("I
have eye-itis?!"), it's a real illness. Personally, I always thought the iris
was the name for the hole in your eye, and I was wondering how that could be
inflamed - but that's just me showing my ignorance. Apparently iritis is often
linked to ulcerative colitis - your eye gets very red and irritated (just like
leaving a contact lense in for a couple of days too many), and bright lights
hurt.

So anyway, now I
have two sets of eye drops and an ointment to stick in as well (not as bad as
I'd thought), and my pupils are two different sizes. And it sounds like I'll be
that way for a couple of weeks. Really not sure if I should be driving (probably
not).

Having eye problems
does make you wonder about what would happen if you lost an eye, or worse. I did
get quite despondent; engineering and design are pretty visual careers, and right now I'm
having difficulty focusing on anything closer than about a foot away which makes
detail work doubly hard. But then, Gordon Banks managed to still be a
professional goalkeeper with only one eye, and if you can do that then pretty
much anything is possible, right?

Guardian: Tortured Canadian wins battle for truth

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1885684,00.html
Wow.

The Mounties shed their fluffy image, and turn out to be complete bastards.

(For those who aren't going to read the story, the guy wasn't actually tortured by the Mounties - they just lied about him to the Americans, who arrested him and turned him over to the Syrians who beat the crap out of him for 10 months. The RCMP have now apologized.)

via

IWOOT: Joint-the-dots calendar

Christmas is coming - yeah, I know, I know, it's ages away really. In fact, it's maybe a little premature to be even talking about the beginning of December, but since that's the time of Advent calendars, this is maybe a timely product*: a join-the-dots calendar! Scribble little notes on it, and as the month goes on you can join the dots to create a little friend for the month! NB joining the dots in order is necessary - no creatives please.


* how about that for a link?! Yes, my career as a jurnalist is assured.

One small step for a man, actually.

As the BBC reports today, apparently new analysis of Neil
Armstrong's famous words shows that he really did say "That's one small
step for a man", as he's often claimed. (When you
can get him to do an interview at all - the man is famously hard to pin
down).



I'd like to put the same question to you lot as the BBC are asking on
their blog: What would you have said if you'd been the first person on
the moon? At your current age, obviously, rather than the age you were
in '69.



I think mine would have been much less edifying than Neil's: something along the lines of "Holy Crap! I'm On the MOON!"

A conceit: the thoroughly modern chop

I've been fascinated by the Chinese art of the chop

ever since I first saw them. I love the colour, and the format. I think

it's something about its squareness that suggests to me a great density

of communication. My first headshot on Multiply was a chop I

lifted from a museum exhibition years ago. I don't remember much about

it now, except that it translated to something like "In vain do I try

to stir the senses."

But this density of communication is kind of wasted on me, as I can't
read Chinese and probably wouldn't be able to decode it even if I did.
So here's a thoroughly modern, machine-readable version.

It's a QR code. It's a little less friendly than the human one, admittedly, and too
impersonal to be used as a headshot. But I have found other uses for
it, as a graphical device. In its defence, I think it has another sort of interest for our
monkey-brains... the property
that all deeply complicated, abstract shapes have: that of almost, but
not quite,
coalescing into something familiar.

(Almost) the easiest way of making (half a) million dollars

http://www.onethousandpaintings.com/home/
You have to hand it to Sala (he/she?). It's the ultimate expression of the 'limited edition print', I guess - except they're not, they're all handpainted canvases, about a foot square. I like the notion of these having a different 'price' and 'value' at the moment of being sold.

I reach a new low in geekiness

YES! I AM KING OF GEEKS! BOW BEFORE MY INCREDIBLY ARCANE POINTLESSNESS!
Honest, it looks a lot better in real life. Almost attractive, even. But still, probably one of those things I shouldn't really do if I'm ever to have any pretensions of having a life. I'm too ashamed to actually tell you what the barcode says.

Transient but interesting

There's treasure everywhere today:

Clearing through my backlog of articles, I come across the fact that in the UK we throw away more food than packaging (courtesy of the deliciously named Soggy Lettuce Report). Really not sure whether to be cheered or alarmed by that. I guess, if the figures weren't so high, it'd be a good thing - less plastic going into the environment, more of our waste is biodegrabale, etc.

Then, via a roundabout route including Charles Stross' blog (which has some real gems on it, by the way), I find the rather wonderful news that IBM have a secret island hideaway - inside a computer game. In true Bond-villain style, Big Blue have staked a claim to an island inside Second Life, and are using it for business meetings. I'm surprised they didn't phone Pixar and offer to buy the island in The Incredibles.

Transient but interesting

There's treasure everywhere today:

Clearing through my backlog of articles, I come across the fact that in the UK we throw away more food than packaging (courtesy of the deliciously named Soggy Lettuce Report). Really not sure whether to be cheered or alarmed by that. I guess, if the figures weren't so high, it'd be a good thing - less plastic going into the environment, etc.

Then, via a roundabout route including Charles Stross' blog (yes, the science fiction writer), I find the rather wonderful news that IBM have a secret island hideaway - inside a computer game. In true Bond-villain style, Big Blue have staked a claim to an island inside Second Life, and are using it for business meetings. I'm surprised they didn't phone Pixar and offer to buy the island in The Incredibles.

Termites' air conditioning

Just clearing through some old 'off-topic' articles that come across my desk, and I came across this article, analysing termite mounds to see what we can learn about their ventilation systems, and what lessons could be applied to human buildings. The intention appears to be to marry up this knowledge with the latest in Rapid Manufacturing to create organically shaped systems in our buildings. Personally, I'm sceptical. Okay, so termites have developed a system which doesn't use electricity, but what it does involve (if memory serves) is an awful lot of scurrying about and carrying crap from place to place on the part of the termites. I can't see people being paid to stand in corridors, just to block the airflow. I'm sure some valuable knowledge will come out of this, but when it comes to the future of large buildings, I'll pin my hopes on CFD and genetic algorithms, thanks all the same.

Big art for your home

BetterWall is a site which rescues old vinyl museum banners and sells them on as art for your walls. And if it helps you justify your extravagance, then remember a proportion of the price goes back to the museum, and you're also helping to keep quite a lot of vinyl from ending up in a landfill somewhere.

Unfortunately they don't seem to have reached the UK, but if anyone has $500 or so to spend on me then I could pretty much cope with any of the ones on their site.

(Via core77)

Verbing

Yesterday I found myself commoditizing stuff. Unsure as to whether I was spelling it right, I went online and discovered that 2 out of 3 online dictionaries said it didn't exist. I also got pulled up for using the Americanized spellings of several words.

I admit I react badly to people criticizing my work at the best of times. And there have been times in the past when I would have reacted to other peoples' Americanizations in just the same way (didn't we invent the damn language in the first place? Harrumph). But my rather snippy reaction was as follows: a language is a living thing. A dictionary does not provide a definitive version of what the language should be, it's simply a record of how the language is being spoken. New words are added all the time (incidentally, is 'blog' not the ugliest word ever?). Phrases and words gain new meanings: my own particular bete noire at the moment is 'not fit for purpose' - it seems to have been pounced on by politicians, who are using it with gay abandon. And just as nobody uses the UK definition of 'billion' any more, we're going to have to come to terms with the fact that z's scrabble score probably needs to be devalued a bit as more and more words get '-ized'.

IWOOT (x): Street Art Shelving

Following on from Chris' post about graffiti-by-selective-cleaning, I just stumbled across these rather natty shelf units on Inhabitat. They're 'designed' by a guy called Ryan Frank, who takes plain boards down to Hackney and sticks them on walls in prominently graffiti'd areas. After a couple of weeks to 'mature', he takes them down again and makes furniture from them. It's another good example of 'less is more' in design terms - and I think it looks pretty cool.

Pecha Kucha night, Glasgow

Start:	Oct 12, '06 7:00p
End:	Oct 19, '06
Location:	Glasgow Lighthouse

Show-and-tell for grownups, basically.

It's INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!

Arrr. That it be. And I be nearly forgettin'. Avast, ye scurvy dogs!

It's INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!

Arrr. That it be.

Idea for a fringe show

(Note for non-Scottish people: the Edinburgh Fringe is a big festival of performance arts,

mostly - but not restricted to - comedy)

Having watched two handymen at work take half an hour to change a lightbulb, I'm figuring it would be perfectly possible to stage an hour-long show which would consist entirely of
stagehands fiddling with things. With the right sort of long-drawn-out comic
effect, I think it could work.

So far (i.e. in about two minutes), I've only got the second half of the show worked out:

Bob and Wayne mount an extremely rickety ladder, one on each side, in order to change a gel filter on one of the lights (sorry, no technical terms available). Potential magical-realist moment here, with flocks of spanners swooping across the stage?). As Wayne reaches behind himself to adjust a mounting screw, Bob hugs him round the waist for support. Wayne stops, and gives him a look. Bob looks bashful. Bob then retreats down the ladder to go fetch something. There's an almighty bang (preferably with smoke), the ladder collapses neatly onto the stage, and Wayne is left hanging there, looking very scared. Eventually he manages to hook a leg round the frame, but not without some impressive acrobatics, I'm thinking. In fact, he could heroically change the filter while hanging from his feet - that'd be good. Bob can throw him tools, in a little bit of a juggling act. At some point, however, Wayne's feet lose their grip and he is left hanging by his fingertips from the lighting rig. In the moment of terrified silence, the gel filter he's just heroically replaced flutters to the ground, watched in mute silence by our two stagehands. At this point, Bob walks to the edge of the stage, unties a couple of ropes, and lowers the entire lighting rig to the stage. Wayne can then drop all of eighteen inches and lie on the stage making terrified burbling noises. Bob steps over him and nonchalantly replaces the gel filter.

Hmmm. Maybe not. Never mind; as Thomas Edison said, "If you want to have a good idea, have lots of them."

Places to see before I die: Alang Beach

Ever since I first heard such places existed, the idea of
the Alang ship-breaking yards
has haunted my imagination
(scroll north - it keeps going for a while).
This is where the world's shipping goes to
die: one long beach where vessels are run aground, to be stripped down
and chopped
up by workers of all ages in the most horrendous conditions, using axes
and hammers and their bare hands.
I'm not sure how close I could get, as a westerner - but I'd sure like
to try and see it for myself. The image of this enormous beach,
scattered with these vast steel behemoths shimmering in the heat haze
of a thousand oxy-axetylene torches, while people swarm over them like
ants over a carcass...

Oi, Summer Girl!

1000 words of advice to design students, from core77's Allen Chochinov. And yeah, I said design, but some of it still applies to art students, I think. Particularly the stuff about getting off-campus and photographing your work.

Oi, Summer Girl!

1000 words of advice to design students, from core77's Allen Chochinov. And yeah, I said design, but some of it still applies to art students, I think. Particularly the stuff about getting off-campus and photographing your work.

Oh! Purdy! (vase)

Pretty vases! A little Dali-esque, if memory serves? From Little Wonder in Philadelphia, but distributed by a German company. So I don't know where they'll end up being sold. Nice, though. Thought some of you might like them.

And while I'm trawling the interweb, look at this! Holy crap! It's a sofa that turns into a set of bunk beds! Wow. I bet it's not very comfortable as a sofa, though.

Urgh

Why on Earth am I here? What am I doing with my life? How the hell did I end up here, doing this? More to the point, who picked up my life, 'cause this one sure doesn't feel like it belongs to me. And whoever's got it, can I have it back, please?

...urgh. Not yet 9am, and already I'm riven by self-doubt. It's gonna be a bad day. Oh well - nothing for it but to crank up the Radiohead and knuckle down. Like the man said, some days you're the grasshopper, some days you're the ant.

Right now, though, I feel more like the slime left in the bottom of the washing machine drawer.

Urgh

Why on Earth am I here? What am I doing with my life? How the hell did I end up here, doing this? More to the point, who picked up my life, 'cause this one sure doesn't feel like it belongs to me. And whoever's got it, can I have it back, please?

...urgh. Not yet 9am, and already I'm riven by self-doubt. It's gonna be a bad day.

Prison - punishment or rehabilitation?

Should criminals be punished or rehabilitated?

They need to know they've done wrong, and the victims need to know their pain has been recognized. Therefore, punishment is vital

 

 8

I'd rather not be mugged again, thanks, and I'll trade in my savage glee at seeing them suffer if that's what it takes.

 

 4

This is silly. Obviously there's a happy medium. The current system isn't so bad.

 

 2

A thief should have his/her hand cut off.

 

 1

Given five minutes before work this morning, I can only find UK reoffending rates statistics for 10-17 year-olds. Apparently, in 2004, 41.3% of young offenders reoffended within a year.

Now I've had my car broken into a couple of times, but in my book that barely qualifies as being a victim of crime compared to some crime against your person, like being mugged or (God forbid) actual bodily harm. So my point of view is probably off to one end of the scale (the Bleeding Heart Liberal end, obviously - duh). But speaking personally, even if I was the victim of some sort of serious crime, I'd like to think that I'd prefer a rehabilitation policy to one of punishment. I'd like to think that, if you could absolutely guarantee that I would never be a victim of crime again, I'd be happy to see the criminal go unpunished.

That's a slightly misleading statement, because it links punishment and rehabilitation - and I think most of the evidence shows that there is no link. Some might argue that that is because the punishments we hand down aren't extreme enough - but we only have to look at Dickensian England and the origin of the phrase "might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb", to see that it doesn't stamp out crime. It might reduce the level, but it pushes the remainder to increased levels of desperation and violence. That's not good.To my mind, that condones a level of barbarism into society which is precisely the wrong direction for society to progress in.

Oh, and for the record, I do not believe that the state has the right to take the life of any of its citizens, for any reason. But that's not the debate I wanted to have. I want to concentrate here on the prison system, and what it achieves or fails to achieve. And what that says about us, and what we demand of it.

Okay, well, that's my rather facile opinion on the matter, thrown together in ten minutes this morning. What do you think?

(and Moom, having lit the blue touchpaper, retires...)

Prison - punishment or rehabilitation?

Given five minutes before work this morning, I can only find UK reoffending rates statistics for 10-17 year-olds. Apparently, in 2004, 41.3% of young offenders reoffended within a year.

Now I've had my car broken into a couple of times, but in my book that barely qualifies as being a victim of crime compared to some crime against your person, like being mugged or (God forbid) actual bodily harm. So my point of view is probably off to one end of the scale (the Bleeding Heart Liberal end, obviously - duh). But speaking personally, even if I was the victim of some sort of serious crime, I'd like to think that I'd prefer a rehabilitation policy to one of punishment. I'd like to think that, if you could absolutely guarantee that I would never be a victim of crime again, I'd be happy to see the criminal go unpunished.

That's a slightly misleading statement, because it links punishment and rehabilitation - and I think most of the evidence shows that there is no link. Some might argue that that is because the punishments we hand down aren't extreme enough - but we only have to look at Dickensian England and the origin of the phrase "might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb", to see that it doesn't stamp out crime. It might reduce the level, but it pushes the remainder to increased levels of desperation and violence. That's not good.To my mind, that condones a level of barbarism into society which is precisely the wrong direction for society to progress in.

Oh, and for the record, I do not believe that the state has the right to take the life of any of its citizens, for any reason. But that's not the debate I wanted to have. I want to concentrate here on the prison system, and what it achieves or fails to achieve. And what that says about us, and what we demand of it.

Okay, well, that's my rather facile opinion on the matter, thrown together in ten minutes this morning. What do you think?

(and Moom, having lit the blue touchpaper, retires...)

What is the messiest fruit?

Are oranges the messiest fruit to eat, or what? I always make a complete mess of peeling them. 

Rant: My internationality (we're back to Islam again, sorry)

Let me start by stating that I am very, very English. I drink tea. When I'm not drinking tea, I drink gin and tonic. I am strongly in favour of free trade. I believe that laws are there for the benefit of all and should be respected (except silly ones involving foxes). I think professionalism has ruined sport. In the face of angry confrontation, I may raise an eyebrow (just the one, mind). My response to a crisis is to put the kettle on. I have been known to fix my car using my shoelace.

But one thing I am not is patriotic. In fact, I would say I was a better European than I am a Britisher. The problems of my generation - global warming, the hole in the ozone layer, and now terrorism - are global problems, and it seems to me that nations and their interests get in the way as often as they help and protect (did I mention I'm strongly in favour of free trade?). So I find myself sympathizing with international bodies far more than with my own government.

So how can I be surprised by the attraction of the idea of international brotherhood, which Islam has so successfully promoted? Why should I be surprised if it is more attractive than the uncertain benefits of patriotism towards a poky little nation which even its most eloquent natives have difficulty in describing?

I also think there is something deeply English about living with uncertainty. We are, after all, one of the most agnostic nations in the world (not necessarily secular; just agnostic). We have a long history of scientific and technological advancement, and what is more fundamental to science than uncertainty? Even our parliamentary system enshrines enormous powers to a government which may have only won by the tiniest of margins (in other words, we may not trust them but we'll let them get on with it). And let's not get on to talking about the weather.

So how can I be surprised when young Muslims, seeking to make sense of their lives - seeking to create their own narratives, in the style of the narratives that they know, which are from Hollywood and Bollywood and are simple and black-and-white, turn away from being English?

And finally, if we're talking about narratives - who'd want to pin their colours to the mast of a country which seems to export villainy, in all its forms - movie baddies, imperialist history, or military equipment?

More medical stuff

Just realized how long it's been since I gave y'all a medical bulletin.
No doubt youj're on tenterhooks; Is he still on the Azathioprine? Has
he recovered from his ordeal? Will Bluebell win the 3.30 at Kempton?



Well, here are the answers: No; more or less; and, who cares - this is
the present, and it is up to us to make it as beauteous as possibl.
(one for you, there, Henry)



So I am no longer on the Az. Oh, no. Now I am on 6-mercaptopurine, or 6-MP as I
like to call it. I got a little freaked when I first started on it,
though, I must admit. I made the mistake of reading the little leaflet
which comes with the pills - you know the one, it's the one which lists
all the side-effects and normally reads like a complete A-Z of medical
history and is specifially designed to cause heart
palpitations, cold sweats, blurred vision, hairloss, etc... This one
was no exception, but best of all it started with the following
statements: "This medicine is a cytotoxin. It is used in chemotherapy,
and the treatment of cancer."

Hmmm.... is it used for anything else? Nope, nothing else was
mentioned. I got a little freaked at that point, I must admit.
Luckily, although colitis wasn't mentioned in the 6MP literature, the
Azathioprine leaflet mentions 6MP as an alternative, so I figured that
was okay. (Eventually, I checked with my consultant and it was fine. Of
course).



But anyway. I've now been on the 6-MP for about 3 weeks, and I've been
perfectly fine. Admittedly, I'm still just on the tail-end of the
steroid course which started way back when I was in hospital, so that's
gotta help. In fact, for the moment it's enough that the 6MP isn't
giving me any troublesome side-effects - I'm not actually expecting any
benefit from it for at least another six weeks. They say it takes up to
3 months to kick in, but my sister was on something similar for her
arthritis and it took longer than that for it to work for her, so I'm
expecting it to take a while.



In the meantime, it's not as if I've been taking it easy, what with
Festival stuff (and a little romance ;). So in generally, I'm a happy
bunny. I seem to be keeping up with everyone, which is pretty much the
only way I can find to judge my progress.