This is the first I’ve heard of Pixar’s upcoming WALL-E, and it looks charming. The trailer bears repeated viewing, and listening.

My first couple of university projects didn’t go well. The workbooks showing my thought processes, or not, were godawful, and the teachers didn’t like them or my images. My first project mark was 47 - a third and frowned upon - and the second 62, pulled up by a better workbook, but still not hot on the images. My overall timekeeping had been appalling, with the last week of both projects very stressful, and I really needed to get my act together for the new year.

So it’s now June, with the second term all finished, and I think I improved. I managed to organise myself better, and it was certainly less stressful, but by deadline day I’d lost all perspective on quality. I had no idea what the marks would be like, and wasn’t relishing finding out. They turned up on the uni intranet in the last couple of days, and I’ve had a nervous few seconds between email receipt and loading the page. I’ve written it up below, as much as a reminder for me as anything. Hopefully this isn’t too wanky of me.

Continue reading ‘First year results’

French Schoolchildren: Excuse me, can you help us?

Me: Sure.

French Schoolchildren: [pointing at question sheet] Do you know Shakespeare character with large stomach?

Me: Umm. Macbeth was quite large, I think {no, wait, he was in the Illustrated Shakespeare you had as a kid, so that might be made up}. Or, er, Henry VIII {there’s a Henry VIII play, isn’t there? Yes, I’m pretty sure there is}.

French schoolchildren: It must begin with F?

Me: F? Umm. Ummm. {quick, think of a character beginning with F} Probably Falstaff.

Total guess: I’ve never read or seen anything with Falstaff, and only know him from Jasper Fforde novels. I spent the walk home convinced I was going to remember the completely obvious obese Shakespearian character beginning with F. Haven’t yet, though. What do you think? I’m totally expecting someone to say ‘You n00b, you’ve only forgotten the most famous Shakespeare play ever: Some people on an island dress up as women, and one of them is Fiebold the Fat‘.

I spent the weekend setting up a network. I’d been looking at a particular problem for six hours when my friend Ben wandered over. I give him a quick description of the issue, and he says ‘oh, that’ll be the switch’. And it was. I like to think I spent six hours honing the problem to its basic characteristics, that I was too deeply embedded to get a proper perspective, and there was an alien sonic befuddler implanted last week, but the truth is Ben just rocks.

Hmph.

Also, here are some scratch and sniff postage stamps.

TypeRacer. Race other people at typing a few sentences, with car icons showing who’s leading. After a few races you get ranked, and then only play people of a similar skill level. Annoying as hell, but totally addictive. My highest so far is 81wpm - I’m not bad at touch-typing, but the deletions always go wrong.

Hint: it’s probably best to close the windows if your neighbours object to swearing. Via @heilemann.

I don’t understand one-issue by-elections. I’m not going to vote for the BNP candidate who declares the campaign solely about free bouncy castles. That’s ass-backwards. If he gets elected, there’s nothing saying he can only vote on bouncy-castle-related issues. Trick. I might agree with David Davis about the 42 days, but I disagree over a lot more. Even if he campaigns on general civil liberties, that’s only one part of the political agenda.

I’m assuming his seat is safe, so this is really about consciousness-raising. Which could be worthy, but only works if everyone is in on the game. You can’t have a meaningful by-election that’s only about one issue. That’s contradictory. If everyone agrees to use the by-election as a platform to vote on civil liberties issues, fine, but they haven’t. The voter’s duty is to elect the person who best espouses their views, and that averaging-out should take all issues into account. This is just buggering about with democracy, and isn’t fair.

Strikes me that an MP in the shadow cabinet is already in a good position to fight these things, but I suppose he’s gambling on publicity helping his cause. Which is convenient, as you can’t argue with the publicity argument. PR is a good argumentative firewall. Claim that something is good/bad publicity and the discussion has to stop, as nobody really has any clue. Discussions about the ‘New Atheists’ eventually devolve into this - one side claims they’re harming the cause, the other side says they’re not. And that’s it. Sometimes you can look at the results over time, but gauging the effects of publicity is complex at best - both sides can cherry-pick statistics forever - and rarely produces anything definitive.

David Davis has probably done a good job of screwing the Labour Party, though. If Labour put forward a candidate, at their current popularity levels, they’ll go down hard. If they don’t, they’ll look scared. They could just say this outright, given it’s what everyone’s thinking, but for some reason government doesn’t work that way.

A couple of weeks ago I pre-ordered Coldplay’s Viva La Vida on iTunes. I’d really liked the two singles, so used a birthday gift voucher to pick up the full DRM-free album. The pre-order promises a couple of exclusive acoustic tracks, but I did it mainly to use the voucher for something substantial. It turned out you don’t get charged until release date, but I left the pre-order in the system so I wouldn’t squander the gift on something pointless.

Viva La Vida came out today, and I can’t download it: I apparently need to wait for an email with a download link. I can understand them staggering it to help their servers cope with demand, but it’s now 24h later and the email hasn’t arrived yet. Which is annoying. The album is the same price as the pre-order, so I could just cancel it and go for the immediate download. But - and I admit this makes no sense - having waited 24h I am damn well going to get my free acoustic tracks that I wasn’t bothered about in the first place. Grumpy.

Update: email arrived at 0200. Have forgotten all about the grumpiness now.

Joss Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse, will start in 2009. It’s best to plan ahead: Save Dollhouse! Actually we should maybe start with Show Dollhouse in the Right Order!

I’m getting antsy just thinking about how much work this must have taken:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

There’s currently a lot of fuss about photographers’ rights. Increasing numbers of photographers seem to be getting hassled for no good reason, and there’s little sign of it stopping. Obviously this a bit of a worry, but I want to make sure I understand all sides of the argument.

I try to look at the evidence skeptically, and the leaning I fight against is actually towards authority. In my experience the lone warriors battling against the injustices of authority are more likely to be jerks than heroes, so I look at their arguments first. And it’s often hard to find rationales amongst the fetishising of Orwell. Honestly, the way for the government to get rid of these people is to create an MMORPG of 1984¹. But if you ignore all the libertarian fantasies and slippery-slope talk there are lots of people asking a valid question: why shouldn’t people be allowed to take photographs in any public place?

The standard answer is, obviously, security. People who want to do Bad Things use photographs to help them plan. Ok. If they want to win me over, I need to be convinced that banning photography is a) effective and b) fair. Does it actually stop people Planning Things? Can I personally still apply for a permit to photograph inside St. Pancras? I think there’s a chance they may have a point, annoying to me as it may be, so I’ll at least hear them out.

Then along comes Bruce Schneier:

Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We’ve been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.

Except that it’s nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about — the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 — no photography.

Ok, you win. Banning photography on security grounds is clearly bollocks. See his post for his - very interesting - take on why governments go down this road.

Still. People do themselves no favours. Check out this much-lauded ‘documentary’. It’s an odd little thing, contrasting the director’s angry encounter with a Community Support Officer with an internet petition supporting photographers’ rights. The latter turned out to be massively exaggerating the impending legislative threat, but the former is presented as if to say ‘but look, isn’t it all dreadful’.

Here’s what happens. The guy’s filming ’some ordinary street shots’ in the centre of London, in a heavy crowd, and he picks out a passing Community Support Officer. He tracks him with the camera for a few seconds, getting very close to the guy’s face (you’ll see how we know this in a minute). The CSO stops walking and asks him to stop filming, then reaches and puts his hand over the lens. Guy immediately launches into ‘you’ve assaulted me!’, and they have a competition to out-haughty each other over what right he has to carry on filming.

Now, the CSO is clearly out of line. There are no rules forbidding filming in a public place². He does himself no favours. But I think there’s dickery on both sides of the camera.

I suspect it comes from the attitude of Me vs The Man. The CSO isn’t a person, he’s the embodiment of Authority, and so doesn’t get common courtesy. There are a lot of people who, if you shove a camera in their face, will get uppity and put a hand over the lens. Me, I could give a damn, but I’ve got friends my age who insist I keep Flickr photos on heavy-privacy settings. Lots of people get very funny about privacy, including most of the aforementioned Orwell nuts - look at all the fuss over Google Street View. No, the CSO shouldn’t have done it, but he’s an actual person, not an automaton, and people make mistakes.

Then, given that it’s happened, the sensible thing is not to launch into ‘you’ve assaulted me’. This is clearly is not going to help. Also - and forgive me if I’m misinterpreting the strength of his hand against the camera - but get a grip. He’s clearly saying it for show. Of course you should be assertive, but it’s possible to state your rights without going on the attack and turning the situation into a competition. How many disagreements have ever been resolved reasonably when both sides go all macho? Doesn’t happen. I’m not saying the guy should have apologised, but something along the lines of ‘what reason is there I can’t film here?’ should resolve the situation much more effectively. The CSO demands to see some ID, which is obviously not ok (and a red flag to a bull), and the guy tells him he has a perfect right to film and he needs to know the law better. The encounter isn’t going to recover from this. Getting all haughty and looking for an argument - I love the oh-so-affronted ‘what’ when the (admittedly totally out-of-line) CSO tells him to ’shut up’ - isn’t helping anyone, it’s just advertising. How is the CSO going to react next time he sees someone filming? If the next guy is me, I’m going to have far less chance of a reasonable outcome because someone else didn’t behave properly.

I don’t think that video is a good example of anything. CSOs shouldn’t act like that, but neither should photographers. The guy filming possibly lost his cool in the situation, but I’m not sure it’s the best advert to put out there. I’d say there are very, very few situations where politeness isn’t the most effective solution, no matter how big a jerk you’re dealing with.

I don’t think photographers should put up with being hassled on the street. And we should campaign to point out the flaws in the arguments for doing so. But the us-and-them mentality isn’t productive either.

1. you’d never win, of course [↩]
2. well, it’s possible you might need a permit in some situations, but not commercially [↩]

Theyworkforyou.com email me whenever my MP - John Maples - says anything. He’s in the Conservative Party, and not the most active of MPs:

• Has spoken in 12 debates in the last year — below average amongst MPs.
• Has received answers to 9 written questions in the last year — below average amongst MPs.
• Replied within 2 or 3 weeks to a high number of messages sent via WriteToThem.com during 2007, according to constituents. [Andrew's note: not mine, though]
• Has voted in 60% of votes in parliament — well below average amongst MPs. (From Public Whip)

He didn’t turn up for the smoking-ban votes, and seems to be against gay rights when he’s there, which isn’t often¹. He was present for all the hunting ban votes - you know, the important stuff - and was strongly against.

It seems a bit odd not to be around for such things. Maybe he’s been ill. But when he’s there, he does things I don’t like. I wouldn’t (and didn’t) vote for him, but I still like to follow what’s going on, and today I had an email to say he’d been fairly active in a recent debate.

Turns out he’s a climate-change denying n00b. Here’s his first contribution to the debate on the Draft Climate Change Bill:

After the Bill abolishing slavery was passed by the House, the British Navy patrolled the Atlantic, stopping other countries indulging in the slave trade. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that we do the same with global warming?

Helpful, I think you’ll agree. Then comes:

I do not believe that the science is anything like as settled as the proponents of the Bill are making out. In fact, the scientists hedge their predictions with an awful lot of qualifications and maybes that those who invoke them often omit. The science is a bit like medicine in the 1850s. The scientists are scratching the surface of something that they do not really understand, but no doubt will. They are probably on to something, but nothing like the whole story. What they say does not justify any of the apocalyptic visions that we have heard set out.

This is called the language of science. You have to put in all the qualifications, or you’re not doing proper science. Full debunking. Medicine in the 1850s? There was no medicine in the 1850s! This is supposed to be an accurate comparison with the thousands of climate scientists who’ve been collecting data and making confirmed predictions for decades? And then he accuses other people of making statements with no basis?

The record shows that the climate warmed from 1920 to 1940, cooled from 1940 to 1975, rose again from 1975 to 2000, and since 2000, according to the Hadley centre, has not risen at all. In the past seven years, global temperatures have not increased. All the predictions that we work from, whether from the IPCC or anybody else, are based on models, none of which can account for the cooling between 1940 and 1975.

Here’s a graph of global temperature over the last century, and explanations of why it varies. Things are always more complicated than you’d think. I’ve no idea whether climate models take into account the supposed cooling - it seems to be understood fairly well, from what I can tell - but here’s why not-perfect models are still useful and make confirmed predictions.

There’s lots more - he’s been reading books by climate change skeptics - but I want to skip to this:

Over the past 150 years, sea levels have risen by about 30 cm, which is the predicted rise for the next 100 years. Okay, it will happen slightly quicker, but we coped with that rise perfectly easily over the past 150 years so we can cope with it over the next 100 years.

Wtf. I lost electricity this evening, and the freezer’s been warming up. All the ice cubes have been fine for the last hour, though, so I’m sure they can cope for the next. No worries. What’s that, you say? Everyone else’s freezers have broken down too? What do I care about them?

Secondly, we have urban heat islands. In cities, temperatures have risen considerably. The temperature in London has risen between 4 and 6° C since 1950, as it has in Los Angeles, Tokyo and other places. It is a fact of urbanisation called the global heat island effect. We know how to deal with that. If we are richer, we can have air conditioning. We know that if we put in more parks, water and trees in cities, we can cool them considerably. We know how to do that. We can adapt to that very successfully.

Brilliant! Air conditioning is the solution! You’ll be kept cool, and there are no ironic disadvantages. Only if you’re rich, of course - if you’re poor, screw you. And what an idea to build lots of parks in, you know, the world! If only someone had thought that planting trees might help. Ooh, could cost a bit, though - best watch that.

Did I mention he’s a Conservative? Can you tell? It’s almost like the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

To be fair, he abruptly comes back down to Earth a bit later:

Some man-made warming is going on. It is worth taking action now: a price mechanism through carbon tax, energy efficiency and nuclear power are worth pursuing, especially nuclear power. Research into alternative power sources—fusion, carbon capture and adaptive strategies—is also worth conducting.

I agree about nuclear power, but I’m not sure about fusion - that’s a way off, I think. Hardly makes up for the earlier comments, though.

I’m far from knowledgeable about climate change, but I see no reason to doubt the conclusions of massive, independent studies by the UN and countless governments. Whenever I investigate any claim that supposedly casts the whole thing into doubt - usually by non-scientists, and usually with a great deal of paranoid conspiracy thrown in for good measure - there’s a comprehensible annihilation of it by people who know what they’re talking about.

So this is all a bit depressing, but at least he’s showing an interest.

1. to be fair, the train service from Stratford to London isn’t the best [↩]

Regarding last night’s Doctor Who, I’m simply going to invoke the Bad Astronomer:

Steven Moffat is made of awesome.

That is all.

Episodes like that are the reason I watch TV. Spoilers follow.

Continue reading ‘Forest of the Dead’

No obvious explanation springs to mind.

I’ve never thought this before, but now you mention it - just what on earth is going on with rock-a-bye-baby?

Rock-a-bye, baby, in the treetop.
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
and down will come baby, cradle and all.

This is a good lullaby, how?

I can’t decide whether the writer of this letter is sarcastic or barmy, but I’m so stealing his idea.

edit: huh, that was sexist of me, wasn’t it. Bad Andrew.