Talking through my hat

Licenced Journalists?

2012-02-06T21:34:00.003Z

Is what Paul Dacre advocated at the Leveson inquiry today. I have a lot of ideas flying around my head about this. The whole inquiry is very interesting. I can't quite put my thoughts into a helpful prose format right now, so here's a snapshot of what I'm thinking.

Journalists needing to be "accredited" and card carrying in order to, well, be a journalist. I can see how this might increase standards, if you were no longer permitted to practise if you breached the industry's ethical codes badly. But, in reality, this seems like it would actually amount to an affront to free speech. The simple fact is that everyone is a potential journalist. I'm doing a form of journalism right now. Most people are when they write a blog. In fact, there are a large number of blogs which provide a far more informed, interconnected and honest appraisal and investigation than newspapers can or do. Newsprint is unfortunately dying, and the internet will play a major part in replacing print for many people. Bloggers are just as relevant and professional on the internet as journalists on the payroll of major print companies. Not forgetting the huge cross over between the two.
The crisis in journalism takes many forms. The one which has held the attention at the Leveson inquiry has been the intrusion into privacy that journalists have made in order to ply their trade. The problem is that no particularly good picture has been given of why journalists need protection from the law in some cases, because this intrusion is a fundamental part of the job. There are examples where journalists have seriously overstepped the mark, and others where they are borderline, with good arguments either way. Then there are the most important ones, where journalists have put themselves at some risk to obtain information which confirms a major story, whether that's uncovering corruption, or hypocrisy, or simply something which is clearly unfair and wrong in the world. This is why journalists do not have to reveal their sources, and it's also why journalists should sometimes be allowed to break the law to do their job.
A far more pressing problem for society is that journalism plays a vital role in an informed democracy and, frankly, if it isn't informed, it isn't really democracy. Unfortunately I think this is the situation we are currently in. Paul Dacre may be correct in his defence of his paper against the accusations of intrusion and illegal practices. But far more important is the fact that his paper misleads, omits and distorts in reporting on the world. And it's not alone. The one refreshing thing about the Mail is the general lack of an idol to suck up to. Unfortunately, this leaves the paper often in conflict with itself - of particular note are the cures/causes cancer stories. Newspapers love to play postmodernist when it comes to facts, at least when it's convenient.
The idea that journalists could be accredited in a similar way to doctors strikes me as odd. To get into a position at a medical institution you need very specific qualifications and experience. To be a journalist you need no such thing. Industry accredited qualifications are a useful start, but in reality they are woefully lacking in any real substance. Media law is clearly a useful and important thing for journalists to have a working knowledge of, but knowing the law doesn't make you a good, or ethical, journalist. Knowing how local and national government works is again an important subject, but it's only a small part of what's necessary for journalists to do their job well. What journalism needs is more specialists with useful industry experience who are well informed from the inside. The current practice of newsrooms which are understaffed, with too few journalists who have the specialist knowledge to report the stories they do to a tight deadline is a recipe for disaster. While a great number of everyday events can be reported fairly and accurately without a detailed knowledge of every aspect there are a great number which can't.
I can't think of the rest right now...

Fame and fortunes

2011-12-13T13:23:00.003Z

Well, not exactly. But you can see a pic of me on a route in Pembroke in December's Climber magazine, a whole page shot too! I actually read the article and missed the shot, even though I noticed a friend in one of the other photos.

First 7c

2011-11-14T10:29:00.004Z

This wasn't something I thought would be happening his year, especially when I was in and out of hospital for operations and check ups following a serious, climbing-induced head injury. Actually, until a couple of years ago I thought 7c sport climbing would be way beyond me. It turns out it's not and, in fact, I've got a lot stronger, fitter and lighter over the course of the summer and it's well within reach.

I did a route called The Obscene Toilet, so called because it links two existing routes, Obscene Gesture (named after the crux move) and The Toilet (no, not sure there). I only really got involved with this project by accident, having shown up at the Tor one day after being rained off everywhere else, and this was the only route dry and not occupied. I was quite surprised to get the moves on the first day, so thought it worth a return visit. In total it's taken me 5 short sessions (short out of necessity, it's too powerful for me to spend more than a couple of hours working on) and I got it done on Saturday. I felt it should have taken me a bit less time, but I found I was really nervous on the crux sequence, partly "over-arousal" and partly scared of taking the fall - the bolt is below your feet on the hardest move, so you fall a reasonable distance. Luckily I watched someone else on that sequence on Saturday, and they used one extra movement for it. I tried it that way and got the route done on the second attempt.

Chris Lockyer has some great photos of the route on his blog. It's not the best route in the world, but it was worth the effort. :-)

Facebookification

2011-11-07T11:20:00.002Z

Is that even a word? Here's an interesting piece on a growing trend in climbing: live updates from the route. We've grown used, over the last few years, to professional climbers regularly blogging about their climbing, including progress on projects which haven't yet been completed. This Facebookification is a little different however, now climbers are writing these blog posts and uploading photos while actually on the route, at least in the case of multi-day climbs.

ECHR

2011-10-24T10:21:00.002+01:00

There's an awful lot of nonsense talked about the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act. We've already seen the fluff talked at the Conservative conference about cats being a reason to grant asylum, with various newspapers trying to convince you that this is true or not.

Here's one from the Daily Mail: A man was allowed to remain in Britain, because he goes to the gym...

The thing about these claims is that, like many things in the news, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. You can read the ruling on this latest asylum seeker here. If you read it, which Sarah Bruce appears to have forgotten to do, you'll see he hasn't been granted leave to remain because he goes to the gym. Yes, he did submit this as a claim under Article 8 of the ECHR, but the ruling makes it clear that his case was not considered with "anxious scrutiny". That basically means he was entitled to a more detailed reply than he got, explaining the reason for rejecting each of his submissions. This ruling has nothing to with the gym.

The Human Rights laws we act under are imperfect, there's no doubt about that. But nonsense stories like this, which are little more than lies, do nothing to help the situation. In fact, this is a failure on the part of our media to perform their proper democratic function. This is far more dangerous and saddening that any dodgy asylum decision.

Charlie Brooker seems to get it.

Crap maths

2011-09-30T22:24:00.004+01:00

It's a shame when you spot newspaper stories which just jump out at you as hype and falsity. In these two cases the story itself may be broadly true, but they both contain large numbers which, frankly, are very obviously not true, yet are printed unquestioningly.

In the first the BBC claims that "more than 200,000 people in the UK may have fallen victim to criminals" on online dating sites. But the data they provide doesn't support this assertion in the slightest. It says 2% of the people surveyed "knew someone who had been targetted". That's 40 people in this survey of 2000. So where the hell does 200,000 come from? As usual in journalism, there is little indication of the sources to back up the big money assertions. There's not even an attempt to tell us how many people use dating sites or what proportion fall victim. Piss poor.

Next up, our usual suspect the Daily Mail, using the brilliantly leading term "admitted" about people who consider themselves to be homosexual or bisexual. Nobody in their story "admitted" to being heterosexual. In this story we have this gem: "Approximately 239,000 adults - 0.5 per cent of the surveyed population - said they were bisexual." I thought someone had just hit a few too many zeroes, but you can read the report here. What it actually does is scale up the sample size as if everybody in the UK had answered. In fact, only around 250,000 were actually asked the question.

Answers on a postcard, please

2011-08-13T16:27:00.003+01:00

Everyone's at it, it's this week's most popular sport - not rioting, but coming up with oversimplified reasons for it.

So far we have: It's because they're black/asian/muslim/other, it's because people on benefits are feral, it's bad parenting, it's societal breakdown, it's poor police relations, it's the cuts, it's Labour for putting us in a situation where we need the cuts, it's because there are too many atheists, it's because there are no moral compasses. I could go on, but it's hardly worth it - anyone who can't see that there's no simple answer to it doesn't really deserve your time.

My favourite argument is from A.N. Wilson in the Daily Mail: it's because there isn't enough religion. This is backed up by the fact that religion promotes self-evident moral truths, but if they're self-evident, what's religion for?

Death penalty

2011-08-06T19:08:00.002+01:00

The Daily Mail ran this as their front page story few day ago - stating that MPs will be 'forced' to debate the reintroduction of the death penalty, due to a new epetitions site set up to gauge what issues the public are most concerned about.

If a petition gains more than 100,000 signatures then it may well be debated in parliament. How many did the death penalty one have? 400 when I checked, in fact it wasn't even the top one any more.

I can't decide whether the Daily Mail believes that readers want the death penalty reinstated, or just wanted to stir up a fuss. There are so many petitions on the site for reintroducing the death penalty that I'm suspicious (Most of them have been rejected as duplicates now). At any rate, reintroduction of the death penalty would, conveniently for the DM, mean leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, and repealing the Human Rights Act to which they are so opposed.

Privacy 'law'

2011-05-02T23:12:00.001+01:00

An interesting piece in the Guardian about privacy laws vis-a-vis superinjunctions.

The Infinity of Nothing

2011-04-26T14:48:00.002+01:00

I've been pondering a lot lately on a part of mathematics which confuses and intrigues me: how can something be nothing?

In it's simplest form I'm talking about things which are infinitely unlikely, but not impossible. In probability terms this means they don't have zero probability, but the probability is also too small to be represented by a number. This has repercussions on the Infinite Monkey Theorem (it ha a lot to do with why I don't think it's true).

Imagine an infinite lottery where only one number will be picked - any number at all. Clearly all numbers are infinitely unlikely to be picked, but one of them must.

Here's an interesting piece on the Cantor Set - a set of numbers which is simultaneously of zero size, while having uncountably many members.

First Round, First Minute

2011-04-20T15:31:00.002+01:00

Chris Sharma has finally completed his project in Spain. The rumour mill suggests he's fallen off the finish of this route nearly 100 times! Here's a good clip showing a few of them. That mono move looks nasty!

Seizure

2011-04-15T13:09:00.004+01:00

As some of you may be aware I had a bit of an "incident" a few weeks back. I suffered a pretty serious head injury while rock climbing which caused an immediate seizure. I was out cold for a few minutes, and in a bit of a daze after that. I did a decent job of breaking my eye socket and am undergoing surgery to sort it out.

As a result of my seizure I was advised that I needed to inform the DVLA. After some trouble I located what I was told was the correct form to inform them of my seizure. The form didn't really seem to apply to me though, it was all about epilepsy. So I ticked the right boxes and popped a note in to explain that as this was a head injury the cause of my seizure is clearly not likely to reoccur while I'm driving. My licence was promptly revoked for six months and I was sent a load of information about epilepsy and driving. I'm not epileptic.

I'm a sales rep, I drive for a living, this is not cool. At any rate, it's in no-one's interest for me to be on the road if I'm not safe, but no-one seemed to think I was, although all seemed reluctant to be the one to confirm this.

A few calls to the DVLA (and a bit of ranting) and someone finally picks up that I'm not epileptic. I filled in the wrong form. So I get hold of the right form, which has no questions about a 'provoked' seizure. It asks if I've had an epileptic seizure, which I haven't. So this form doesn't tell the DVLA I've had a seizure, which is the only relevant thing I need to tell them.

Go figure.

The bugger, bugged

2011-04-14T14:07:00.003+01:00

New Statesman has an excellent piece from Hugh Grant, where he interviews News of the World whistleblower Paul McMullan.

I find McMullan's attitude to the privacy of public figures and celebrities disgusting. Journalist of course need the right to conduct a certain amount of underhand activity, where there is public interest, but there are boundaries - simply 'fishing' for stories by intruding on people's private conversations crosses them.

There really should be a public inquiry into this when the police investigation is over. The News of the World have effectively admitted liability by offering up a fund for compensation to those affected by phone hacking. But phone hacking is a criminal offence, this sort of tactic, no doubt designed to discourage further investigation, is deeply immoral.

Pleasure Dome 2

2011-04-06T15:22:00.003+01:00

I said I'd put a write up of my ascent of Pleasure Dome on here, so here it is! It's a bit melodramatic and I'm not very keen on it if I'm honest, but it was a pretty significant moment for me to nail this route on the first attempt, even if it was by the skin of my teeth!

Pleasure Dome, at Stennis Head in Pembrokeshire, had been a goal of mine for many years. I’d seen photos of the route long before I ever saw it up close – in the pictures there was a huge jug rail stretching right through this terrifying face. I was constantly on the lookout for routes to aspire to; I didn’t really have any climbing mentors, so guidebooks and magazine photographs provided me with an idea of where I wanted my climbing to go.

Pleasure Dome went straight on my list. I’d never climbed in Pembroke, I’d hardly done any real climbing at all, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t really know what the grade meant – E3 5c was certainly harder than anything I’d done, but there were jugs in the picture! I hadn’t really grasped at this point that a) Most routes have easier sections and b) You weren’t really allowed to rest on gear. Unfortunately as my climbing progressed the prospect of climbing a route like Pleasure Dome only became scarier, in part because I knew I was getting closer to the point where I wouldn’t have a good excuse not to try.

On every single trip to Pembroke over the next 9 years I went to Stennis Head “for a look”. I never got any further than that. I looked from below, trying to imagine what climbing the flake-line would be like. All I envisaged was struggling to place gear, getting pumped and dropping my nuts into the sea, before taking an almighty whipper into the overhung space beneath the route. Everything about it terrified me and I couldn’t imagine having the stamina to do it. My inspections from the small headland which projects to the side revealed a steep and blank upper wall. I had no idea what I’d do when I got there, arms exploding and legs like jelly with my rack discarded for Neptune to collect. But still the most terrifying thing about the route was that I knew I could do it. I knew I would have to do it.

I spent years tormenting myself with this. Whenever I get on a route that I know I’ll find hard I spend some time evaluating the situation. I try to work out what the gear will be, if there are any sections where I should just go for it, whether I’ll be able to recover at any rests and how the moves will flow. I try to allow some room in my musings for the unexpected; a hold is bigger than I thought, or smaller, or I can’t reach it. I build in a margin for error. I picture this in some detail, if you lean in close you’d sense my heartbeat quicken and the faint, sweet smell of perspiration, the kind that only fear can produce. I spent so much time visualising this route in so much detail that I developed a complete block, I was too scared to get on it. I thought it was because I was scared of the route – I was, but I was more scared of failing.

“Houseman had to get rescued!” said Coleman with a chuckle in the St Govan’s Inn. Shit. Houseman’s pretty good; better than me. It must be hard. Without fail, you will meet an ex-president in the St Govan’s Inn, this time one chuckling over the misfortune of another. More tales of epics followed, from running out of gear to falls so big and so terrifying that only a fool would really believe them. The whole adventure was starting to sound misguided. I was more scared than ever. I knew it was on.

The next day I felt sick. I’d climbed plenty of routes at this grade, but none of them looked as imposing as this, none of them ventured across that flake-to-nowhere above the small zawn, with its gaping, sucking waves. I was trying to talk sense into myself, it’s just another route, I wouldn’t be this scared of attempting something else. The fear that had built up for 9 years was bubbling away in my belly and I tried helplessly to quieten my stomach, and my mind.

I finally made the first steps onto the route. No turning back now, but before I reached the start of the flake I was reversing. I climbed all the way back to the ground. An off balance move had made me lose my nerve. Not even a hard move, just one which led to the flake, from which I knew I would not be able to reverse. I was totally consumed by a fear of failure to the point where I didn’t want to commit to it, I didn’t want to admit that this had to be the right time. I genuinely thought I might sack it off again, but I managed to calm myself down, climbed back to my high point and made one more move. I was gone.

The flake passed in a blur, the holds were so good I thought they might be an illusion. I felt Ishouldn’t stop, but the flake finished all too soon. I thought about resting. I want to say I slappedthe temptation away, but instead I led it to the back door, with an embarrassed apology, as if I’d accidentally invited it to this party knowing the whole time that it wasn’t welcome and was being shown the way out for both our sakes. I threw myself into the next, long move, made an awkward cross through and felt the tension building and my concentration waning as I reached the “rest”.

I knew full well that it wasn’t a rest. It’s a small, angled and sloping platform with a bulging wall above it. You can pause and think, but you can’t rest. You can just pause well enough to make you think it’s a good idea to stop. You know the crux is coming. You know plenty of people who’ve fallen off here, or just been too scared to continue. You know that there’s no way you can stay here forever, and that with each passing second your chance of success is diminishing.

I delayed failure for as long as I could. I placed a runner above me and returned to my non-rest, for no reason other than solace. There was nothing to be gained from this, and I knew it. I was becoming progressively more tired and I reached the point where I knew that if I didn’t do it now, I wouldn’t do it at all. I wanted the wall to swallow me as I sucked on my teeth and sensed the faint ferrite taste of blood.

I pulled past that runner, remembering the guidebook’s advice to pull slightly further right than the obvious line. “Watch me Alex!” No holds materialised. I was locked off on my left arm and scrabbling above with my right, but I could find nothing. In desperation I spotted a small edge further right still. It looked too small, my feet would be on smears. Was this really the route? I was too pumped, convinced there was no way I could use the hold if I could get to it. Yet just at the moment a strange calm passed over me. I seemed to finally enter a mind-space where I could accept failure – at this point there was no alternative, I would certainly fail if I didn’t try. I went for it, by now my muscles were responding slightly out of sync. I held my breath as I threw my weight rightwards, convinced that my motion wouldn’t stop until I swung violently back into the face below. But I stuck the hold. I pressed my tips into it, the last of my strength lasting just a fraction longer than expected. Two more moves and I was in balance, I could recover. It was in the bag. I looked up at the remaining 30 feet of climbing while placing my last quickdraw on a nut. Finally, I reached the small ledge, able to recover properly. I improvised to get myself some final gear and then froze. Expelled from my bubble all I could think about was the prospect of falling off the last, easy section. I chastised myself for wasting time and energy earlier, I was so pumped it felt like I had hotaches in my forearms. Eventually I climbed cautiously up the groove, desperately aware that I had nothing left.

I felt sick when I topped out. I’d never been so close to failure on something and yet still pulled it off.

I’d never cared so much about a route for it to matter like this. I would’ve felt cheated if it had been easy, but it was everything I’d been waiting for.

Ondrawad

2011-04-06T15:10:00.004+01:00

Adam Ondra is just 18. The Czech climber has already firmly established himself as the world's leading sport climber. Here's a clip of him onsighting a F8c+ in Oliana, Spain. Bear in mind this is his first attempt at the route (someone else has put the clips in) and that F8c+ is pretty damn near the pinnacle of sport climbing. This grade was first achieved in 1990 at Raven Tor (just up the road from my house as it happens) when Ben Moon made the first ascent of Hubble. Hubble has still only had a handful of ascents, notably from Steve McClure a couple of years back. While it's a totally different style of route, being short and power hungry, it gives you an idea of what's involved. I can only think of a dozen routes in the UK which are graded harder that Hubble.

The thing that strikes me most about this video is that he doesn't look like he's really struggling. Only one other person in the world has ever climbed this grade on the first attempt, Ondra has done it 5 times!

BD athlete Adam Ondra onsights Mind Control (8c+), Oliana, Spain from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

Steve Fuller

2011-02-13T20:39:00.002Z

At some point I was going to provide a more in-depth analysis of Steve Fuller's book Science: An Art of Living. The thing is, I can't bring myself to pick it up again. There was so much to fault in it that I simply don't have the time to bother. First there are all of the half-truths, which on their own negate any reason to argue with him, so numerous are they. Then there is the characterisation of science, self-contradictory as his version is. Then there is his argument that Intelligent Design should be considered science, even though we don't really seem to know what science is or what it should be.

So, rather than waste my time on him here's a bit of reading, which basically covers the salient points. First, AC Grayling's review of Dissent Over Descent.

Next up is Fuller's reply, with one particularly memorable line, concerning Plato among others: "...they would find the enterprise itself abhorrent – with its endless questing for an elusive yet uniquely comprehensive understanding of reality." I can only assume that Fuller has never actually read Plato.

Finally, Grayling's reply.

Gay marriage

2011-02-13T15:25:00.002Z

Plenty of newspapers are trumpeting the fact that "gay people will win the right to be married in a church" this week. While this is the obvious strapline to the story, the media have got their logic completely wrong on this one. Far from having the right to get married in a church, this actually give churches the right to offer civil ceremonies (and potentially weddings) for gay couples.

In other words, the Daily Mail have stirred up their readers into a hateful bunch of religious nonsense for no actual reason. There is no coercion here, religious venues will be able to offer this if they want, and not if they don't, just like virtually every other equality measure that has been touted as "one set of rights trumping another".

Climbing goals

2011-01-31T10:26:00.003Z

I managed to tick off one of my winter goals yesterday. It was the one I thought was least likely to get done - onsighting a gritstone E5. When I started climbing this wasn't something I imagined I would ever do, so it's a pretty cool one to have ticked off my list.

I climbed a route at the Roaches called Track of the Cat, it reasonably soft for the grade, but it's a spicy route to climb onsight because the last move, on tiny sloping footholds, is the crux, and if you don't manage it you'll fall most of the length of the route before you stop, because the gear is only just above half height (you can see the gear at the bottom of this photo). I was pretty confident that Andy could stop a fall from this move, it seems Andy was less confident, although he didn't say so until afterwards!

I also succeeded in climbing Wings of Unreason first go, this was a route that's been on my wishlist for years. It gets E4 in the guidebook, but it's really irrelevant what the grade is, most E2 leaders of average height could probably do it if they suck up the fear. The difficulty with this route is that the last move is a jump, with gear at your feet.

So next objectives are to tick a proper E5, rather than a short bold one, and to get that E6 done. I've been bouldering a lot lately, so I'm feeling pretty strong and my technique is dialed, I just need to get on with it!

An art of living?

2011-01-18T22:41:00.003Z

I've just finished reading Steve Fuller's latest book, which apparently provides a sympathetic account of what it might mean to live "scientifically". That is, if we adopted science to direct and inform every decision we make individually (although on Fuller's reading we have no individual status) and collectively.

Besides being a load of vacuous nonsense, half-truths, outright just-so-stories and unsupported misrepresentations his book is particularly interesting to me for a few reasons: Fuller appears to be a post modernist, of the social constructivist leaning, and has a scepticism of the benefits of science which is in some ways related to my own. This is interesting to me because although our views on epistemology appear to be broadly similar, our understanding of what this means for us in practice is totally at odds with one another.

The scariest thing about Fuller's book is his complete lack of any grasp of reasoned argument. He plucks statements from the air, generalises at will and seems to have a very poor grasp of what "science" actually is, let alone what any particular scientists have said or done. This man is a professor, he gets paid to reason. By me, and you.

More on this to follow...

Student fees

2010-11-10T17:57:00.002Z

I've been watching this story develop with interest.

Here's my take: The vast majority of people protesting about the removal/raising of a cap on university tuition fees are current students who won't be directly affected. Why are they protesting? They've got too much time on their hands... maybe they should keep their heads down?

I don't agree with raising the cap, because I view the current government's approach to tuition fees as regressive. A lot of shouting is going back and forth over which side of the commons is being regressive over this - the answer is both to different degrees (no pun). There is no way a raise in fees could be deemed progressive, it seems obvious to me that the people most likely to still go to university are those who have role models who have, and those who have money in the family as a safety net. Those without these - the poorest and most in need of equal opportunity - will not take the risk.

The next point is that while Vince Cable was opposed to a graduate tax, this is still what may effectively happen. People will leave uni with ~£40k of debt. They won't pay back until they earn £21k (then pay 9% of their salary above this). Great, but that means that even with the moderate interest of student loans these students will not be repaying more than the interest on their loans until they earn around £40k. So those who go into the higher aid jobs will be better off, and repay their debt, and then be even better off as a result, while those on lower incomes will in many cases never repay their whole debt. It effectively creates a 34% tax band for graduates (albeit one which is presumably wiped out after 25 years).

Balance It Is

2010-10-28T11:33:00.003+01:00

Here's a clip of Jordan Buys 'flashing' Balance It Is at Burbage South in the Peak District (this means he did it first attempt, but with prior knowledge, such as watching someone else, and in this case knowing exactly what gear he needed). This route is a long-term goal for me (it's E7). The first half is shared with an E4 which I did a couple of years ago. Then it traverses left to the arete and follows this to the top. Every move up the arete is pretty much my limit, and I couldn't do the move left to get established on it (18 months ago, I'm a bit fitter now). Physically the climb is probably beyond me for the next 12 months, but I'll be going back to have another look this winter to work on it. I'm hoping to push to headpointing E6 this winter, I've been on a couple to work at them. First on the list is probably Wall of Sound at Stanage, but other possibles include Slackers at Curbar and Barriers in Time at the Roaches. The other targets for the winter are a few E4s to onsight (first go with no knowledge of the route except where it goes) and I reckon with a decent updraft I could onsight a gritstone E5, but it'll be touch and go!

Balance It Is from Adam Lincoln on Vimeo.

The Guth Vanchurin Paradox

2010-10-25T22:50:00.004+01:00

I've been trying to read up more on this. I wrote a few weeks ago about how I believe it's not a paradox at all, and is based on a very fundamental misunderstanding of probabilities and information theory.

However, not much seems to have been written about it critically (there are some blogs, like here and here). This strikes me as odd for one important reason: this was one of the central arguments of a scientific paper which was reported prominently in our national press, even making an editorial in New Scientist. MMR this isn't, no-one's life or health depends on the outcome here, but it makes a good example of another angle on the science v journalism debate. In this case the scientists have presented something which has a fatal logical flaw, and pressed that flaw to unlikely conclusions. The media have not done anything except report uncritically what was said - why would they need to when presented with "the world is going to end"!

Here's the premise once more:

You are asked to choose a sleeping pill from a selection.
Exactly half of the pills make you sleep for 20 minutes, the other half for 20 days (the timespan is arbitrary though).
The probability of the world ending is non-zero.
You wake up, and the fact that the world *could* have ended while you were asleep (but hasn't, obviously) means that you are very slightly more likely to have taken the pill that makes you sleep for the shorter length of time.
This is not a paradox because an event has happened, which provides you with information. Extremely unlikely events occurring tell you a lot, very likely ones tell you very little, but all possible events occurring, or not occurring, tell you something.

Guth and Vanchurin seem to think that the fact you have a 50-50 chance off taking either pill doesn't match up with the fact that your odds are no longer even after having observed that the world has not ended. But they don't match up because your information has changed. The world is more likely to end before you wake up if you take the pill which makes you sleep for longer.

Tasers in Swansea

2010-10-25T16:25:00.002+01:00

From The Sun, footage of police officers in Swansea using a Taser on a man resisting arrest in addition to landing punches on his head.

Two points: using a Taser at this range will not incapacitate, it will simply cause extreme pain, this is torture. Second point, the man does not appear to be armed, as such the use of force does not appear to be "reasonable", with particular regard for punching the suspect in the head four times.

On politics

2010-10-23T12:08:00.003+01:00

Here's a very goo illustration of why politics is a mug's game.

In sport we have rules, which although sometimes muddy, are arbitrated on by the same person who must investigate the rule-breaking. At least this calls for some consistency - if the referee says it's a foul, it's a foul, and the referee imposes the appropriate penalty.

Unfortunately, in politics the people calling foul are not the same people who impose the penalties (at least in terms of the consent to govern).

Science Journalism

2010-10-06T12:48:00.002+01:00

Martin Robbins on the problems with Science Journalism, in his Guardian Blog.

Unlicensed Tasers

2010-09-29T18:42:00.002+01:00

Amnesty International has published a statement on the use of the Xrep by Northumbria Police.

I'm afraid I don't agree with them on this point. There are good reasons why Chief Constables have discretion in the use of any means they feel necessary to resolve a situation, provided they are lawful, reasonable and proportionate. This does not give them free reign.

Unfortunately Amnesty are missing a very important point here: Firearms are not safe - far from it, they are designed to kill. Amnesty accept that police forces should have recourse to the use of firearms in extreme circumstances. The use of the Xrep on Raoul Moat certainly met the criteria under which chief constables are given discretion: in particular he met the threshold for the use of lethal force. This alone means that Amnesty should be praising the police for attempting to use an alternative to lethal force to resolve this situation. The Xrep may be unlicensed, but it is not untested. We have a very good idea of the effect the weapon could have, and issues surrounding its accuracy and efficacy are easily gauged relative to similar weapons.

Chief Constables do not have licence to use completely unknown weapons. They have licence to use their judgment about what should be permitted in order to resolve a situation. This judgment cannot, by definition, be exercised concerning complete unknowns. Unlicensed does not mean illegal.

The claim that the Xrep is far more powerful than a conventional Taser is somewhat ambiguous. The shock, while it lasts 4 times as long, is 100 time lower in voltage. I don't know the wattage unfortunately.

The Infinite Universe

2010-09-29T16:50:00.006+01:00

[Edit] I should, say I have no problem with the idea that time might end, nor argument with the problem of working out probabilities with infinities, only the assumption that these things are "paradoxes".[/Edit]

The Daily Mail has a story about how the universe has a 50% chance of ending in 3.7 billion years - because an infinite universe is not compatible with the laws of physics. I don't know if the latter is true, but the main reason given seems to be that in an infinite universe every possible event must occur and infinite number of times.

I've written about this before: it's the infinite monkey theorem rejigged, and also features in John Barrow's book.

The thing is, it's not right. It's perfectly possible for a universe to be infinite in time and space and not be party to all possible events. It's analogous to the claim that Pi contains all finite numbers. Why should this be true? If it were true, it would be true of all irrational numbers - that is, all numbers with an infinite non-repeating decimal expansion.

But this is patently not true, for a very simple reason. Pi contains all 10 digits at some point, just by chance. It doesn't have to though. If you can make an infinite non-repeating decimal with 10 digits, why not 9? In fact, if you can do it, you can do it with any number of digits greater than 1. Pi has a binary representation after all, 10 is just a number we happen to use. This is interesting though: since Pi has a binary representation (and necessarily must still have an infinite decimal expansion) then this binary representation is also an irrational number in a decimal (rather than binary) system. Yes, it's a different number, but we have just demonstrated the existence of a number which does not contain all of the possible finite numbers by definition - it can't possibly, since it's only made of noughts and ones. The interesting thing is that this number does contain a unique, finite string of digits for every single rational number.

Where's this going? Well, if an irrational number can have an infinite decimal expansion, and yet not contain all of the possible numbers, then we have shown that the idea that in an infinite universe every possible event must occur is false. An infinite number of different events must occur, but this is not the same.

More on this later, when I've had a chance to read more on the actual science behind the story.

[Edit] Ok, doing some reading now, here's the original paper. It seems to just jump straight to the point: "If it does occur in Nature, eternal inflation has profound implications. Any type of

event that has nonzero probability will happen infi nitely many times, usually in widely

separated regions that remain forever outside of causal contact. This undermines the

basis for probabilistic predictions of local experiments."

I think this assumption is wrong, as outlined above. The problem really is that an infinite set can be completely contained within another infinite set, while only being a tiny fraction of it. For example, the set of all integers contains the set of all even numbers. Both sets are countably infinite - i.e. they are the same "size", there is a way to pair up the contents of both sets such that every number has one and only one partner. But then it gets weird, the even numbers only account for half of the set, even though there are just as many. Even weirder, if we take the set of all rational numbers, again a countably infinite set, then the even numbers make up a vanishingly small subset of this, despite being the same size set. In fact, the size of the even number set in the rationals is effectively zero! Crazy.

Hopefully this outlines the problem of every possible event occurring infinitely many times - working out probabilities traditionally relies on saying, "So, how many possibilities are there? What percentage of those would produce result X?" But in an infinite universe we can't do this.

This is pretty quirky stuff though. It seems to rely on the assumption that we can't divide infinities by one another. I particular that we can't do this to work out probabilities. This is true, I can't think of a way round it. Infinities are pretty weird, if you picked a number truly at random, you would have done something impossible. Why? Because the probability that you picked that specific number is 1 divided by infinity, Zero! It can't be done, but clearly it can. Something must be wrong with our understanding of the nature of infinity in this context.

The Guth-Vanchurin paradox on page 12 of the paper is not a paradox at all. Here's the gist [warning]weird information theory outcome[/warning]: I assign a group of people (any number, even infinite) to either sleep for a short time (let's say, less than 10 mins) or sleep for a long time (more than ten minutes, no limit) with a 50/50 chance of being in either group. You wake up and ask yourself, "How long have I been asleep for? A long time or a short one?" The key is you have no way of knowing, yet, if time is going to end (or is at least possibly going to end) then you gain some knowledge - you are more likely to have been asleep for a short time, since some of those who are asleep for a long time may not wake up before the end of time. Ergo it's not 50/50 any more. But if time isn't going to end you are none the wiser. This is not a paradox, it is information theory. You have gained information, hence the probabilities change, this can happen in very unlikely sounding ways (see boy born on a Tuesday). The second case is if time ending is not a possibility - upon waking you gain no information, and the probability that you slept for a short or long time is still 50/50. Again, this is no paradox - no change in information = no change in probability, simples. What they are trying to say is that we must take a measurement to gain a probability, and that if time cannot end our measurement will yield a false result (since some people will still be asleep whenever we take the measurement). But they key point is that we can only take the measure of the entire, infinite time system here, which they haven't done. No paradox.

Really all this paper does is play on the fact that most probabilities we work out come from finite collections, where relative frequency of events is all important. This is true, but it then tries to leap from this case to the infinite, and loses its footing.

I don't believe we need a "cutoff" to work out probabilities involving infinities. For instance, I can guarantee my odds are 50/50 that a number I pick at random is even, even though there are infinitely many numbers which are odd.

I wonder if the whole thing is a piss take though? It just doesn't sit right.[/Edit]

See other posts on infinity below

Pleasure Dome

2010-09-07T09:46:00.007+01:00

I finally ticked off route that's been on my wishlist for years. Pleasure Dome, at Stennis Head in Pembrokeshire, is an E3 which weaves its way through some pretty imposing territory. The routes around it are all pretty hefty grades, and the line looks very unlikely. You can get a good look at the headwall from a neighbouring arete. I've been "having a look" on every visit to Pembroke for the last four years or so - every time it's just looked too hard, or too scary.

Anyway, I finally manned up and got on with it. It was a bit spicy, but mainly because I climbed a bit too defensively. I might put a better write-up on here later, since this was one of the best trad experiences I've had in a long while.

The Usual Suspects

2010-08-31T19:50:00.003+01:00

Black Diamond athletes Tim Emmett and Dave MacLeod climbed a new route on Sron Uladail on the island of Harris in the Outer Hebrides on Saturday. If you've got five and a half hours to spare you can watch the whole thing on BBC iPlayer.

This route weighs in at E9, so it's serious business!

Like Chris Hoy...

2010-08-24T16:01:00.004+01:00

Dave MacLeod interview. He's on BBC this weekend, Sky 990, attempting to climb Sron Ulladale with Tim Emmett, via a new route.

In other news, praying for sunshine in Pembroke this weekend to get started on my extensive tick list.

Ground Zero Mosque

2010-08-23T13:42:00.002+01:00

Here's Charlie Brooker in the Guardian, saying basically what I'm thinking about the Ground Zero Mosque.

Numberwong

2010-08-07T12:13:00.001+01:00

It seems that the Daily Mail aren't the only ones who make up numbers. The Home Office have been plucking some from thin air too.

Numberwang

2010-08-06T20:51:00.005+01:00

At least, I think this is what the Daily Mail is playing today.

They seem to be plucking figures from midair: First there's this story about Keiran Pluckett, an 8 year old with ADHD who drives his parents to distraction.

The health visitor immediately sent him to a child psychiatrist who came up with the ADHD diagnosis.
Whatever the accuracy of this, Kieran has become one of the 1.65 million British children labelled in this way, a total that has dramatically doubled in 20 years.

I'm not quite sure where Sue Reid has plucked this figure from - there are around 11 million children in the UK, around 3% are thought to have a diagnosis of ADHD, at a maximum it may be 5%, giving between 300 and 550 thousand children with a diagnosis. It is true that these diagnoses have shot up in the past couple of decades, they've far more than doubled, in fact. I can only assume that Sue Reid must have taken a figure of 550,000 Ritalin prescriptions from somewhere (don't know where) and thought she was being clever by knowing that 1 in 3 children with the condition have a prescription, but forgetting the fact that prescriptions are monthly, so the number of children on the drug is far fewer than the number of prescriptions.

Next up, some more Tasers:

The number of people being targeted is increasing all the time, and their use can now only rise further since the decision in 2008 by then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to fund an extra 10,000 Taser guns.
Up to 30,000 frontline officers will be armed with the new weapons. Some forces will only let fully trained officers use them, but many will give them to officers after 18 hours of training.

The first figure is excusable: a Home Office press release from Jacqui Smith did say that "up to 10,000" extra Tasers were being funded. The actual figure was around 6,800. Why the Mail thinks 30,000 frontline (what does that mean?) officers will be armed with them I don't know. Maybe they think they're doing some clever maths again? To cover a 24 hour period police forces require 3 officers, but only one Taser, might be their logic. Hence 10,000 Tasers, 30,000 officers. But there are currently around 6,000 firearms officers who are also trained in the use of Tasers, and about the same for the non-firearms specialists (known as Specially Trained Units), and that doesn't look set to change dramatically. In fact, Derek Talbot (bottom of this story) told me just the other week that the police work to a 5% rule of thumb - 5% firearms and now 5% Taser officers. The next point is that 18 hours is the mandatory contact time for Taser training. An officer who has completed this and passed the exam has received full training.

How often to figures have to be repeated in newspapers for them to become accepted fact? Anyone who works in the media should know you shouldn't trust the media for statistics. It's usually not that hard to find them out at the source, so do it!

E9?

2010-08-01T18:43:00.003+01:00

I've just been reading Jack Geldard's blog, and he has some musings on why he feels driven to climb a particular route, despite the fact that it is an incredibly dangerous line. What will he really gain from accepting this risk?

I've never had any ambition to climb E9, it just seems off the radar. Although, to be fair, I never had any ambition to climb harder than E4 until I got a bit fitter and realised E4 isn't really that hard in the scheme of things. (That, and doing an E5).

I still haven't achieved my main goal in climbing though, although I seem to be getting pretty close. The goal has always been to be climbing E4 consistently. This year I seem to have been managing E3 consistently - the only harder lines I've tried have been on gritstone, which is always a little fickle. I'm more inspired by climbing bigger E4s, the big multipitch ones, 40m pitches and terrifying exposure, rather than an 8m gritstone anomaly (which can still be fun).

Jack questions why he is chasing a grade. My motivation has always been because of the routes. Climbing sport 7c means I'll be getting fitter, climbing E4 consistently means I'll have a chance when I get on the routes which inspire me the most. E4 was also the stopper in the Wye Valley in the early days. Routes at this grade required multiple ascents before they were freed of their aid - that made it sound like E4 must be proper climbing.

To date, I think I've done around a dozen routes at E4 and above. My goals for the next 12 months are to climb sport 7c (or at least 7b consistently and solidly) and to headpoint (prepractice before a lead) a gritstone E6 - I have a few in mind, we'll have to see which suit me. I have at least 1 E7 I'd like to try again as a more longterm goal. All of this is really just to measure fitness and mental strength though, to give me a guts to get on the bigger routes I want to do, and know that I'm not only fit enough, but I have something in reserve both mentally and physically.

Jon Venables

2010-07-25T16:40:00.004+01:00

I've watched this case with interest for a number of reasons. It's a test of how we consider the rights of criminals. It has reraised questions over whether Venables (and Thompson) should have been released when they were. (I have no real answer to that). It's raised questions over why he wasn't recalled to prison earlier, following minor offences concerning drunken behaviour and possession of cocaine - I find the right-wing press fantastically confused over this. Here's a young man who had spent the best part of his life incarcerated. On release he had to completely readjust to life, in a way none of us ever will. Regardless of his crimes that's no easy task, and allowing a couple of relatively minor offences to put him straight back into custody, for only a short period of time, only to be rereleased, is plainly stupid.

Here's an extract from a Mail on Sunday article interviewing James Bulger's mother. She has every right to question the way Venables has been treated, but we can't pretend the views of someone so closely involved in his crimes are a measure of how society should deal with them. It makes interesting reading, particularly this:

She said: ‘Jack Straw told me, “I am on your side”. To his credit, he listened to me and, seeing him face to face, an understanding developed. He said that a jury might be able to give Venables a fair trial even if they knew his identity before hearing evidence.
And he promised that if Venables was convicted, his new identity and sentencing would be made public.’

I find it hard to believe Jack Straw would genuinely make such promises, which are clearly contrary to the laws of our country. He may have admitted a feeling that Venables could receive a fair trial by jury - but our laws are very clear that reporting previous convictions during a trial is contempt of court, this clearly is too, unless that is he is tried before a judge. Venables' new identity will not be made public, it is protected under the Human Rights Act. Like any other citizen he has a right to life, and there are credible threats to his if his identity is known. A further offence, no matter what nature, does not remove this right.

More Tasers

2010-07-24T12:54:00.005+01:00

[Edit] This video is another shocking example of why the use of Tasers by police needs to be monitored and justified. [/Edit]
Still researching this. An interesting and slightly inaccurate article from the Daily Mail today. It questions whether Moat was killed by police, and includes much speculation, which is framed by his uncle's apparent qualifications as a munitions expert. All quite valid concerns I think, but marketed in the Daily Mail's "death to authority" manner. These couple of paragraphs trouble me:

The peace organisation, Amnesty International, says although the 'super-Taser' is marketed as a ' nonlethal' weapon, it is 'effectively a shotgun that fires electric shock bullets'.
It propels a four-pronged barb which digs into the flesh as a 50,000- volt electric shock pounds into the victim's body. It is so powerful it makes the muscles of a human target contract, so he becomes rigid and collapses on the ground.

A shotgun that fires electric shock bullets. Yes. Bullets which shouldn't kill you, like a shotgun. It is designed with the intention of being less lethal than a firearm, a claim which has been more than confirmed by the use of the X26 weapon in the UK. The Mail also gets the basic stats wrong on the Xrep. It only produces a 500 volt shock, not quite so newsworthy that. The effect is much the same though. The weapon doesn't have a 100m claimed range either - it's 100 feet (about 30m), that's quite a big difference.

Next up, police officer accidentally shoots someone in the groin. Tasers have a safety catch. Perhaps someone needed to remind this officer?

Taser abuse

2010-07-18T16:56:00.002+01:00

I'm currently researching and writing a lot about Tasers, specifically concerning how they are used in the UK, and whether we should be concerned about their introduction to non-firearms officers.

Here's a slightly scary video which demonstrates why many civil rights groups have been concerned by the weapons. This example is from the United States, where Amnesty International have documented some 334 deaths linked to the weapons. Tomorrow I am meeting Derek Talbot, ACPO spokesperson on firearms protocol, to find out why he believes such things won't happen in the UK. The use of the weapons here has, so far, been far more controlled than in the US. Should we expect this to continue?

Climbing an' that

2010-06-29T12:01:00.005+01:00

[edit] Dave has uploaded some photos and a report on his blog. To put things in perspective, he's climbed a lot of routes at this level, and several harder (many unrepeated) - as such this ascent may lack some significance for him, but it's huge news to many climbers, for whom The Indian Face still represents the pinnacle of climbing in terms of aesthetics, seriousness and, importantly, the fact that even very gifted climbers have turned away from it.[/edit]
Hot off the press: the rumour mill suggests that (Black Diamond athlete) Dave MacLeod has done The Indian Face, the infamous Johnny Dawes E9 on the northern flanks of Snowdon. This is seriously impressive stuff. The route was first climbed in 1986 and made headlines around the climbing world, and even made it into the Observer. Dave's is only the fourth ascent in nearly 25 years, the last two coming in 1994. It features climbing up a blank face with little in the way of reliable protection and many blind alleys. It's far from unusual for climbs at this kind of grade to feature very serious climbing, with a fall from the crux moves being unthinkable (on The Indian Face these crux moves feature sloping holds and irreversible climbing with the possibility of hitting the deck from 80 feet), but The Indian Face has developed it's own folklore. It's an hour and a half walk uphill, there are loose flakes, it's 50m long, so even if it's rehearsed (as every ascent has been) it's difficult to remember every sequence and, at any rate, you need to have some in reserve to improvise, because when you're strung out and scared some moves just won't work the way you did them on toprope. Nick Dixon, the second ascentionist gave his belayer, Neil Gresham, some interesting advice. Neil went on to make the third ascent a week or two later with Dixon's advice that "There comes a point where you can't get any more scared anyway" resonating in his mind.

Anyway, more lighthearted, this is pulled from Jack Geldard's blog:

Trad climbing:

Some hard ‘trad’ routes are easier than some ‘easy’ trad routes. Some routes are just way more ‘climbable’ than others and this often has nothing to do with grade.
Well travelled, clean, chalked trad routes can feel much easier than seldom climbed routes of the same grade.
Seating in your wires with a stiff tug can save your life. Especially if you use short, stiff quickdraws that can lead to your wires being lifted out by the rope.
Long, floppy quickdraws are usually best (see previous point).
Double ropes are basically twice as good as single ropes – in almost every circumstance. Use doubles. If you can’t belay with double ropes, then learn. If you can’t learn – trad climbing isn’t for you.
E3 climbers can usually climb E7 if they try.
Crack climbing seems to get easier the older you get.
There is a massive difference between routes on which you can die and routes on which you just get a bit scared. This becomes more apparent when you reach 25.

Sport climbing:

Short, stiff quickdraws are best.
But take a few long ones so you can extend key bolts to avoid rope drag.
It’s harder than trad climbing.
It becomes ever more appealing as you approach 30 years old.
4 days on a route isn’t very long.
Falling off can still feel scary, but you can also ‘redpoint’ falls. The more times you fall from a route the less scary it becomes.
I don’t really see much difference between steep trad climbing on reasonable gear and sport climbing.

General climbing:

Footholds don’t have to look like they are going to work to actually work.
Sometimes you need to pull harder/squeeze harder/push harder then it feels like you need to, to be able to do a move. This is hard to explain, but for example, don’t just stand on the hold, shove down on it hard with your leg muscles.
Climbing well is often about your mindset. This can be massively affected by the people you climb with. Choose them carefully.
Conditions really do make a huge difference, adding several grades if they are bad.
Finger skin makes a huge difference – just like conditions.

I thought this was interesting. It's certainly true. Although a few of them are things I've only really realised in the last year or so, especially that an E3 leader could climb E7 if they try hard. We'll see!

Sikh Firearms Officers

2010-06-09T20:38:00.002+01:00

Another curiosity; it had never occurred to me that the Association of Chief Police Officers might have a policy on this.

So here it is, just for the hell of it.

The basic tenets: To perform firearms duties you must wear a helmet - non-negotiable due to legislation. Obviously a potential problem for a Sikh, who can opt to wear a patka underneath or, if this is not acceptable, not do the job.

Muy caliente!

2010-06-09T13:06:00.004+01:00

Tim Emmett has succeeded on his project in Stennis Ford, Pembrokeshire. A fantastic effort on a well-known unclimbed line - now name Muy caliente! and graded E10 6c. Here's a clip of his attempts from last year. The first route he's on was climbed for the first time only a couple of weeks before. I was in Pembroke the weekend that Tim did the route, it's an astonishing face of rock, really inspiring. There are several routes on here that are on my wishlist, one or two of which I should be up to now.

Welsh Connections - Pembroke. Award winning short film - Rock Climbing from Bamboo Chicken Productions on Vimeo.

So, I'm never going to manage the second route, but the first one has stuck in the back of my mind... It's probably beyond me, unless I pull my finger out and do some serious training. One prospect which is feasible is the line to the right of Tim's new route: Ghost Train. It's hard, scary and reasonably serious, but realistically I'm probably close to fit enough to pull it off with some preparation. It's been firmly penned onto the 'next time I'm in Pembroke' list. Tim dropped me an email yesterday: "Get on it, it's not as hard as it looks!" Hmmm. The guidebook describes it as "audacious and serious". Tim's words: "it's a 7a clip-up", meaning you don't need much gear - there are only 8 runners in 150 feet of climbing!

Unreason

2010-06-07T19:35:00.003+01:00

There must be something in the air this week, if our newspapers' apparent lack of reason and insight is anything to go by.

First this, from WalesOnline. I think the headline says it all.

Someone needs to explain the difference between Causation and Correlation to Peter Hitchens. Asking the question: Good. Presupposed conclusion based on no real evidence: Bad.

Another one from the Mail. Again, the Mail brings us articles on interesting and relevant topics, but asks the questions in a loaded and incomplete manner. If nothing else, a great number of employees in our NHS are non-EU foreign migrants. It's all very well shouting about the young unemployed, but they aren't competing for that job as a GP, are they? I'd like to know how many of these non-EU migrants might actually be considered surplus to requirements - that is, how many genuinely bring skills we lack within our workforce? That could still have been a good article, but without that details it's really just propaganda. I particularly like this space-filler: "In October 1997, British-born workers made up 92.5 per cent of the workforce. By the same period in 2009, this had fallen to 87.1 per cent. Meanwhile, the proportion of jobs held by foreign-born workers rocketed from 7.5 per cent to 12.9 per cent - almost one in seven." Wow! A journalist who can do basic maths!

Next up: The Mail on Religious Education. This is basically a write-up of an Ofsted report. I was curious to see how accurate it was, so I looked up the report here. In truth, it's pretty much on the money. It delivers the verdict with more certainty and less context than the report, but that's to be expected. I can't find any support for the assertion that Christianity is being marginalised because of teaching about other religions however - which is the main angle of the story. The report does support the assertion that Christianity should be taught better and differently though. I thought this was particularly interesting:

􀂄 There were a number of specific weaknesses in the teaching about Christianity. Many primary and secondary schools visited did not pay sufficient attention to the progressive and systematic investigation of the core beliefs of Christianity.
􀂄 There were significant inconsistencies in the way humanism and other non-religious beliefs were taught, and some uncertainties about the relationship between fostering respect for pupils’ beliefs and encouraging open, critical, investigative learning in RE.

On the other hand, here's an interesting piece on denialism.

Interesting

2010-06-02T13:22:00.003+01:00

On hearing the news about Andrew Wakefield's GMC hearing last week I emailed Polly Tommey (4 times) at The Autism File, where he is a member of the advisory board, to see if the verdict changed anything:

Hi Polly,

We spoke last year when I was researching an article on children with ADHD and Autism and the lack of support young people receive when they make the transition to adulthood.

As a curiosity, does your organisation plan to continue to use Andrew Wakefield as a member of its advisory board? Obviously Wakefield has supporters in the thousands, and as a specialist publication in the area I'm curious to know whether you perceive your readership to be in support of his research and whether this is a view you seek to encourage or otherwise.

Are you likely to have an article from Martin Walker on the subject of the GMC hearing in the next issue?

Best regards,

Wil Treasure

Hi Wil

Thanks for the email. We absolutely support Dr Wakefield 100% and have just asked him to head the advisory board and become part of The Autism File team.

Hope you are well and many thanks again

Polly Tommey

Polly Tommey
Editor-in-Chief, The Autism File

Problem of the week

2010-06-01T21:40:00.004+01:00

This one has taken a bit of thinking. It's completely counter-intuitive, until you think about it the right way:

I have two children. At least one of them is a boy born on a Tuesday. What is the probability that I have two boys?

It's been doing the rounds on internet forums, and even made it into the Sunday Times. You have to ask yourself: what does each sentence actually tell me? Does it add any extra information? The first step is recognising how much information declaring one son contains. Quite a bit in this case. If I simply told you I had 2 children, I have a 1 in 4 chance of having two boys. Knowing that I have one son, we can now reassess that - giving me a 1 in 3 chance of having two boys. (Not 1 in 2 as seems obvious - think about the options, I have a 1 in 4 chance of having, in turn: A son and a daughter, a daughter and a son, two sons, and two daughters. Eliminating one of these equally likely options (daughter-daughter) gives me a 1 in 3 chance of each of the others. See: Monty Hall Problem)

The next step is to ask: What does knowing that one son was born on a Tuesday tell me? Not a lot, it seems. But this is deceptive, it actually tells you more than you think. Of course your son had to be born on a day of the week, and any day is equally likely. But knowing this fact means that we have one clear piece of information: If I have two sons, then clearly I have more chance of having a son born on a Tuesday, but how much more? I'll let you Google the answer for now, but it's surprising.

Carlsberg don't do Olympic mascots

2010-05-20T09:21:00.002+01:00

Evidently.

Dave New World

2010-05-13T12:01:00.005+01:00

Either no-one at the Sun has read Brave New World, they're banking on the fact that their readers haven't, or their headline writer is a secret leftie.

The Guardian had an interesting typo last week too. Freudian slip?

And another Tory fan saw this "Brave New World". Dave and Nick's that is (surely Dick or Knave depending on your perception).

Election pondering

2010-05-06T22:46:00.004+01:00

Here are some thoughts on our potential leaders, courtesy of Google:

Bad luck Nick.

Some other thoughts: what am I hoping for? At the very least, not a Conservative majority. I think my ideal scenario right now is that the Liberals and Labour win enough seats to form a majority coalition government. Gordon Brown gets the boot, maybe David Miliband gains the leadership, with Nick Clegg PM. Electoral reform is a key policy in the coalition's formation and we get another election on different terms within 24 months. Hmmm.

The liberal moment

2010-05-01T12:42:00.004+01:00

Plenty of left wing publications are talking about the 'Liberal Moment' right now. No wonder, but with a surge in support for the Lib Dems it's a little too obvious surely? Perhaps it's wishful thinking on the part of left wing politics writers. Of course the Daily Mail are keen to point out that even the Guardian has abandoned Labour.

I could've told you what the Guardian would write now 12 months ago. It was pretty obvious really. See here, for example. Labour had an opportunity to replace their leadership, surely the only way they could ever win this general election, and despite having an apparent lack of faith in Gordon Brown they stuck with him.

The ironic thing here is that any of the left wing publications defecting from Labour are not defecting at all. Labour do not represent their values. The left wing press is predominantly liberal, representing either social liberalism or liberal socialism, depending on your own viewpoint. Unfortunately Labour represent neither of these things.

Electioneering

2010-04-27T21:21:00.003+01:00

How many of us have actually taken the time to read the manifestoes of the major parties in this election?

No? Really? I'm not surprised - they're pretty hefty. Here's the Conservative's; all 131 pages of it. And Labour's; only 78 in this one. The Lib Dems have opted for a 14 page "Easy Read" manifesto. Although it does look like it was aimed at primary school children. Ok, so they do have a full one, a whopping 19 pages. Only one of which is blank.

The fact that most of us probably haven't read these makes a mockery of democracy. We all like to complain about politics and politicians. We love to moan when things go badly, but rarely notice when they go well. In making a decision about where to place our vote it is important that we are fully informed about the policies and characters proposing them.

For most people, myself included, the majority of their contact with politics and manifestoes comes through the media. In an ideal world this would mediate the propaganda which is fed to us in such manifestoes. In reality all it does is cherry pick from the data available and create propaganda of its own. There are systems which are flawed, and those which are simply broken. This is one of them. It hadn't occurred to me just how glad I might be to *not* be a reporter working through this election. Our newspapers are all intent on reporting the details of election campaigns based upon the pre-existing prejudices and political dispositions of their readership. It makes business sense, but it is a betrayal of struggles for democracy everywhere.

If you're still confused you can find a wealth of resources on the internet to help you find out which party best represents your views. VoteMatch is an interesting if slightly loaded way of getting an idea, in that it asks you about specific policies. Here's what it came out with for me. I'm surprised at how well it matches what I would have told you:

Free-Base

2010-04-22T16:25:00.004+01:00

Here's an article from the Daily Mail on Dean Potter's free solo of Deep Blue Sea on the Eiger. Dean used a parachute as 'protection' on his ascent - he's an experienced basejumper and it's a technique he's used with slacklining in the past.

But why is this story in there now? This ascent was 2 years ago, it made headlines in the climbing world then. The interview is only really about the ascent, and not about him and his motivations. The only hook is his lecture tour... The main thing which strikes me though is that the quotes appear to be made up. They don't ring true for an experienced climber at all. In particular this one:

So in the summer of 2008 I became the first man to free-base to the summit of the Eiger and return myself to the ground with my parachute.

But he didn't climb to the summit of the Eiger. Look at what he's wearing! The route is *on* the Eiger - it doesn't go to the summit. The videos even show that. I also can't imagine Dean would describe Deep Blue Sea as 'an incredibly difficult climb'. Most climbers would, but Dean has climbed far harder lines, and undoubtedly climbed lines of the same difficulty first go, if not unroped.

It might also be noted that despite the quotes about the lower, loose section of the climb Dean actually avoided the easier lower section by traversing in along a ledge.

Live climbing on the Beeb

2010-04-19T11:41:00.002+01:00

This was attempted a couple of years ago, in the Cairngorms, but it was rained off. Many climbers had been looking forward to it and figured it wouldn't be repeated.

But now Dave MacLeod and Tim Emmett will be attempting to climb a new line on Sron Ulladale for the cameras. Sounds good.

Both of these guys are sponsored by Black Diamond, one of the brands I administer.

El Chorro

2010-04-17T15:07:00.016+01:00

I just got back from a trip to the El Chorro gorge in Spain. The climbing there was fantastic, the weather was good and there was plenty of Tapas and a few too many beers. I'll write a proper report when I have time, but here are a few photos - more to follow, I took hundreds!

Curiouser and Curiouser

2010-03-29T21:48:00.001+01:00

I found this story in The Times interesting for a number of reasons which I probably shouldn't talk about.

Suffice to say I dealt with both Blacks and Sports Direct today ;-)

Titan

2010-03-24T12:35:00.002Z

I watched Wonders of the Solar System on BBC2 last night. Brian Cox was talking about how bizarre, and strangely earthlike, Titan is.

He was stood on a glacier in many of the scenes, and had in his hand a Black Diamond ice axe (the Reactor, to be precise). I work for the distributors now, so I have a few bits of geeky knowledge about such things. For example, his axe had been modified. It had a different adze on the end. I wonder if he had also changed the pick. I only ask because the alternative pick is also called... Titan.

The Moon

2010-03-23T09:54:00.002Z

I'm getting a bit slack on here. Can you tell I've started a new job?

So here's something for this week, a picture of the Moon I took from outside my house last night.

Luxemberg

2010-02-27T16:50:00.003Z

No, not a spelling mistake: An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has broken away from the Antarctic ice shelf, according to The Times.

I found this story very interesting, with the possible effects on our climate that such large icebergs could have. As ever, the comments section provides an interesting insight into the view and level of ignorance of the general population.

More interesting still, here's our old friend Andy Kadir-Buxton commenting on the story:

It is evident that politicans should be deciding when to adopt near-zero CO2 plans around the world, and not simply setting safe targets for CO2 emissions. The Kadir-Buxton Near-Zero CO2 Plan is self-financing, and just need politicians to run the implementation.

Well I never. Check out more of Andy's magic on his website.

Mono-doigt

2010-02-23T17:47:00.003Z

Here's a climbing video which even Muggles must be impressed by - just look at the state of those pockets!

IKER POU - DEMENCIA SENIL 9a+ (Margalef) from jordi canyigueral on Vimeo.

For those not in the know 9a+ is just about as hard as it gets, for the time being...

Dennis the, er, oh

2010-02-10T22:37:00.003Z

Not so menacing apparently. One article in the Daily Mail I have to agree with: toning down Dennis the Menace to make him PC is missing the point.

I grew up with the Beano, I still have more than 300 copies stashed in a box outside my bedroom door. The point of Dennis the Menace is that he gets in trouble, he's not all good, he's every 8 year old boy!

It's an old story really though, it's been written about in the Mail here among others.

Utilitarian nihilism

2010-02-09T22:25:00.003Z

When I get a minute I'll finally get around to explaining how someone who doesn't believe that ethical truths exist can be so opinionated about ethics. In particular, why would a nihilist endorse many of the ideas behind social liberalism?

This is a confusing topic, but one which for which I think I finally have a coherent answer.

The lottery

2010-02-09T19:46:00.003Z

I had a chance to listen to the Radio 4 Afternoon Reading today on the way home from work. It was great, but dark. I thought the simplicity in the story was brilliant.

You can listen here.

Fivers

2010-02-06T14:05:00.003Z

While I'm here: On Simon Mayo's show yesterday there was some discussion of why bank machines (and even non-auto tellers) don't give out fivers.

They had a guy from Bank Machine Ltd on (at 29 mins) to talk about how they have 'stepped up to the challenge'. He talked about how people really want to be able to take out £5, so they don't have to use their card and spend more than they mean to.

But this company clearly make cash machines which charge - who takes out £5 if you're being charged £2 to do it? It certainly shoots down his argument about overspending with cards.

Wasn't life great...

2010-02-06T13:44:00.006Z

...when Jim Carrey lived in that big bubble completely unaware of the outside world?

It stopped him from writing this complete tosh.

Yes pharmaceutical companies are enormously powerful and have been incredibly cynical in the past, and will continue to be in the future, but if Carrey really wants to support Wakefield he's missing the point.

From Gretel Robertson in the comments

I reckon there are 2 reasons as to why there is more autism and other related 'disorders' now. Definately the vaccines but also that these children are sensitives that generally cannot filter out the insanity that is growing in our species, all the bullshit, lies, money, pollution/vaccines/additives etc, corruption. It is too much for their senses. They are here to get us to stop and look at life differently. Open our hearts to compassion and understanding, to slow down and stop all the bullshit materialism, to get back to nature and work together. They and their parents are true warriors changing the world.

So people are autistic because of bullshit? What happened to kids being innocent? Why are autism rates in the US so high when kids in, say, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and Haiti would appear to have it a lot worse? In fact, what the hell is this comment about at all?

Fallible Science

2010-02-06T11:49:00.004Z

Simon Jenkins decries the absence of an official body which decides scientific truth in this column in the Guardian.

While I can't dispute the main thrust of the article - that science needs to be self-critical - I'm afraid I find the remainder of Simon Jenkins' writing on the subject of science a disgusting display of ignorance. I love the standard media portrayal of 'Science' as one entity, as if everything else were in a different part of the Venn Diagram altogether.

The real irony is that many of the things which Simon Jenkins wants to shout about are not strictly the fault of science, they are the fault of the way the public gain access to that science. Through the media. Through Jenkins.

What's this, then?

2010-02-01T12:14:00.005Z

I was asked in an interview a couple of weeks ago what my blog is about.

That troubled me. What the hell is this blog about? Instead, I described what I write about: Ethical issues in the media, the frustrations of breaking into journalism, the frustrations of being a graduate at the worst possible time for it, occasionally about articles I've read, or books I've read that I like, or not. Sometimes its a photo I've seen or a climb I've done. It's very often about What I Think. It's about What I Think of the way the news has been, or is being, reported. It's about What I Think about ethics in the real world, and about other people's value-judgments. Basically it's about all sorts of crap and perhaps seems a little directionless to someone who doesn't know me. Sometimes it's a bit ranty (lately...) sometimes not, I hope. It's about having a presence and a writing style to market; although recently it's been about writing for myself, perhaps a little too much, and sometimes to the detriment of the slightly cynical reasons for having a blog.

I suppose really what this blog is about is not What I Think. It's about What The World Makes Me Think, hopefully with an ironic sociological wink, since I'm also present within that system.

So if anyone asks in future I shall say my blog is about what happens when my mind and the real world collide. That sounds a suitably pretentious way of saying it's about sorting out all of the more interesting (to me) thoughts in my head into something slightly more coherent.

The Lost Generation

2010-02-01T11:27:00.003Z

I love Andrew Hankinson's piece in yesterday's Observer, because it's about me, and I'm a narcissist. (Not really, I just like that word).

I'd thought about writing a similar piece myself, but I was concerned that it might just be a personal rant about the situation I have found myself in post-university. I think Hankinson has done a much better job that I would have of giving the piece the right level of pomposity (because, let's face it, the current batch of graduates, myself included, do feel somewhat owed positions which reflect the amount of time, effort and money we have put into our own education - I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying...). He captures the frustrations of being unemployed very well - my experience of the Job Centre has not been one of joy, it has been one of almost complete incompetence (with a couple of notable exceptions) on the part of both the unemployed and those who are supposed to help them.

Take, for example, my "Intensive Career Search Session". I had to attend these every week after I'd been on JSA for 13 weeks. The first 'session' consisted of me showing up and a girl with a name badge tapping her computer before announcing: "There are no jobs, we're done for today." Great, thanks for that. You know, you could search outside Monmouthshire, since you're unlikely to find me a media position there and you should be aware that I am looking nationwide, since that's what it says on my agreement. And I don't even live in Monmouthshire! To complicate the situation I asked for a petrol expenses form. I wanted the £1.50 it cost me to get there back, but she couldn't even do that, and presented me with the wrong form.

Anyway, you might be getting the idea of why I didn't write this article. It all feels a bit too personal. So here's my favourite paragraph from Hankinson's:

Bright wants to make sure (through his creative industry coalition, New Deal of the Mind) that the Future Jobs Fund isn't simply about cheap labour. He cites Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal, which was formed during America's Great Depression, when writers wrote public pamphlets and builders built public buildings, rather than everyone immediately queuing for a shovel and pretending they never listen to Radio 4. He suggests today's unemployed graduates could be hired to collate Britain's oral history or work on similar projects. I ask about delivering pizzas.

I like the political sentiments behind this. There is a part of me which feels that if we're going to give people 50 quid a week (or 65 if they hit a slightly arbitrary birthday) and these people are capable of work why not make use of that? I suppose there's a danger of creating an unfundable mini-economy from it, but I'd happily be doing something to get my 50 quid. Anything to save banal conversation about my career prospects with people whose jobs I could do better myself.

I disagree with Bright on what he says later though. He argues that by forcing graduates down the ladder, to the pizza delivery boy's (sorry, person's) level we are just going to create a bottom tier of people who can't get any sort of job at all. But he's wrong, if my experience is anything to go by. In my case a degree (and MA) is a downright disadvantage for many jobs I would be happy to do - since it tells the employer that your heart isn't really in it, and you'll probably bugger off the second something better becomes available. Too true.

Quote me happy

2010-01-30T15:44:00.008Z

Peter L. Berger's book is full of choice quotes. I love his devious sense of irony, so here are a few of the best I've come across so far (out of context, but not dangerously so...):

Much American scholarly writing still reads like a translation from the German. This is certainly regrettable.

At the same time it is quite true that some sociologists, especially in America, have become so preoccupied with methodological questions that they have ceased to be interested in society at all. As a result, they have found out nothing of significance about any aspect of social life, since in science as in love a concentration on technique is likely to lead to impotence.

Intellectual barbarism seems to be fairly evenly distributed in the main scholarly disciplines dealing with the phenomena 'man'.

...there is much that passes today under the heading of sociology that is justly called barbarian, if that word is intended to denote an ignorance of history and philosophy, narrow expertise without wider horizons, a preoccupation with technical skills, and total insensitivity to the uses of language.

In fact, most sociologists have little more than a cookbook knowledge of statistics, treating it with about the same mixture of awe, ignorance and timid manipulation as a poor village priest would the mighty Latin cadences of Thomist theology.

But sociology consists of statistics as little as philology consists of conjugating irregular verbs or chemistry of making nasty smells in test tubes.

As a result, the sensible person reads sociological journals mainly for the book reviews and the obituaries, and goes to sociological meetings only if he is looking for a job or has other intrigues to carry on.

Perhaps the decisive event of man's history on this planet took place on a quiet afternoon in the year 2405BC when an Egyptian priest woke up from his siesta and suddenly knew the final answer to the riddle of human existence - and promptly expired without telling anyone. ... Nobody can possibly know, except perhaps the gods, and their communications appear to be regrettably ambiguous.

As the child continues to accept the reality of this world view, he continues to gather addresses - 'I'm 6 years old', 'My name is Brown, like my father's, that's because my parents are divorced', 'I'm a Prebyterian', 'I'm an American', and eventually perhaps 'I'm in the special class for the bright kids, that's because my IQ is 130'.

The ultimate and, no doubt, the oldest means of social control is physical violence. In the savage society of children it is still the major one.

An Invitation to Sociology

2010-01-29T22:08:00.003Z

Last week I was in Sainsbury's in Nottingham and passed a charity bookstall. I'm never one to pass a book by without opening its covers; I'd live in Waterstones if they didn't make me leave. So I had a flick through what was on offer and one book in particular caught my eye: An Invitation to Sociology by Peter L. Berger.

I love it! I've always had an interest in sociology, although I couldn't always have articulated it as such. I can't claim to be well-read in academic terms in the subject, but its basic tenets are thoughts which occupy my mind much of the time and it's an area I've wanted to gain more of a professional insight into for a while.

The thing I love most about this book though (besides the fact it cost me only 50p) is the unbelievably flippant tone with which Berger presents his subject. (I'll jam a few of my favourite quotes on here tomorrow.) He does a fantastic job of presenting sociology in a lively and fascinating way with a devious streak for presenting scenarios in a facetious manner, which is very much in touch with my own sense of humour.

Owl City

2010-01-29T10:18:00.003Z

I've been getting annoyed with Owl City's Fireflies which keeps getting played on Radio 2. Not that I don't like it - I do, but I'd like to hear more.

So I'm listening to Owl City on Spotify now. Pretty good. A little like Postal Service.

Where am I?

2010-01-28T20:19:00.004Z

This is unusual, it's been more than a week since I posted anything. I'm still here and I have actually written a few posts, but they all require a bit of thought to work and I'm lacking in mental capacities this week.

So here's someone else to look at: Enemies of Reason picks out a great juxtaposition on the Daily Mail's website.

It's truly terrifying the number of comments which are wholeheartedly in support of Wakefield. Also interesting to note that all of the Mail's photos have his supporters as a backdrop (perhaps that just how it was, but I was wondering). I did a lot of research into Wakefield last year. There was very little doubt over what the verdict from this hearing would ultimately be - he has routinely and aggressively pushed information with no genuine scientific backing. The British media are guilty for falling for it - this is very much "Telling stories not educating people", but as a professional his conduct has been appalling.

Unfortunately, those crying scapegoat have a point. Such is the nature of the human condition that even apparent rationalists will no doubt stretch the significance of this to further their own cause.

[Edit] Ben Goldacre has written a piece for the Guardian on this. It says all of the things I want to say (and some more) but with the added benefit of actually being very knowledgable on the subject.

And, for those who like their sources, here's the GMC's report. [/Edit]

Police and copyright

2010-01-19T14:08:00.004Z

While digging through the Association of Chief Police Officers' documents, freely available on their website, I came across this interesting line:

I presume that the Freedom of Information Act has something to do with it. [Edit] Scratch that - ACPO are not subject to the FoIA, they are independent. [/Edit]

My old school closing?

2010-01-19T11:43:00.002Z

According to the BBC up to seven schools in Powys may close because of budget contraints.

My old High School, Crickhowell, is one of them. They're bursting at the seams though, the school has been over its stated capacity for years and constant budget cuts have always been a problem for them. It's an excellent school though and it would be a real shame for the community to lose it - I'll be interested to see what options are being proposed.

Gerald Warner on science

2010-01-19T10:58:00.004Z

This is brilliant.

Gerald Warner, columnist, author and absolutist (apparently) denounces the idea of reliance on scientific advisors (Government 'scientific advisers': who needs these nuts in white coats?) and defends his case by ... quoting scientific studies. Oh, wait...

Also: Alexander Holmes picks apart Simon Jenkins' ignorance about Swine Flu, HIV/AIDS and BSE in the Guardian. Best line:

One might also be curious about where Jenkins came across the phrase "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence," which he calls a classic Rumsfeld-ism. In fact it is a misquote from Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World, where it is used to illustrate the dangers of arguing from ignorance.

Pwned.

Lastly, a thought which occurred to me on the John - Will Self's story about the Ur Bororo is in some ways akin to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which famously ends with: "What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence."

In other news:

2010-01-18T13:41:00.005Z

Today I will be mostly:

Researching the attitudes and arguments of academics in the field of non-lethal, less-lethal, occasionally-lethal and electric-shock-nervous-system-over-riding weapons. In other words I'm looking into what academic types have to say about the effects that arming our police force with Tasers might have (or has had) on our civil liberties, and whether this is a good thing, a bad thing or just a thing.

Making tea. I have just watched a perfectly good mug of tea go cold. I will not be placing my stricken cuppa in the microwave to reheat, because that's what Satan wants me to do. Instead I'm going to do the job properly, and make another cup of tea.

Acknowledging the fact that all of the books I've mentioned on here recently have been given to me by my Mum. Thanks Mum.

Wondering why I still haven't heard back from my job interview. Also wondering if I was too honest and if the conversation which ran past their minds was the same one that staggered through mine in the course of the interview. In addition to this I am wondering if, given the possibility that my honesty was taken at face value as honesty, rather than arrogance, would they want me? And is there a strange balance to the world if they don't? Since if they couldn't accept my honesty about my views why would I want the job anyway? Of course, this is reliant on the idea that they saw me as honest, rather than arrogant, and that the conversation was anything like I recall. I suppose honesty and arrogance aren't mutually exclusive, but I would like to think I'm the former, and if I'm perceived as the latter it's a shame, since being opinionated and (apparently...) confident is not the same as being arrogant - I would like to think of arrogance as holding strong opinions from a position of ignorance, with little regard for the possibility of being wrong. I know I don't fall into the last category, and am striving to achieve a position of anti-nescience - why else would you want to be a journalist?

I will also, also be reading

2010-01-18T11:45:00.003Z

More Will Self:

I finished off the title story from The Quantity Theory of Insanity on the train yesterday. I have to honest - bits of it really dragged, but the main thrust is brilliant. I like the way it parodies academic debate as a quest for the story which leads up to the ultimate discovery of some objective truth about reality - in such a way that because the theory is so dense, or so wide-ranging as to be meaningless, there is distraction in the series of life-events which *must* have all been leading towards the moment of discovery.

Best of all I love the Quantity Theory of Insanity for the self-reference. If there is a sanity quotient for any group you can name then surely there is a group for which it cannot hold, since you could define the group as such? I'm unsure if it's deliberately analogous to Russell's Paradox, but I suspect it might be since Self mentions Gödel's incompleteness theorems in a different story.

I suspect Self would be interested in this article from the British Journal of Psychiatry: Proposals for massive expansion of psychological therapies would be counterproductive across society

SourceThatJob stop advertising internships

2010-01-14T14:54:00.004Z

As reported on DWPubSporadic.

I have noticed the increase in adverts for unpaid media positions over the past few months. Searching for a media job is frustrating enough, given the flood of marketing positions which try to barge their way in under a poor guise of 'PR' - Public Relations and Marketing are not the same thing.

SourceThatJob have taken a stance on this: they will not advertise unpaid internships any more.

It surprises me the number of places that are actually advertised for interns, and the length of time they expect people to give up, unpaid and with no guarantees. It's often months.

What other industry expects workers to spend so much of their early career working for free, and then offers them remuneration in employment which, when loans for education and training are taken out, is quite likely below minimum wage?

It's easy to be cynical about exploitation in the media. Easy because it happens, and is clearly, in many cases, more to the benefit of the "employer" than the "employee". But the media industry as a whole is struggling - there really isn't that much money to go around and emerging professionals need to gain experience. It's understandable that companies want to limit their own risks - I'd be doing the same in their shoes. They don't want staff who can't pull their weight, they really can't afford it since at many papers staffing levels are as low as they can possibly be. One jammed cog makes a significant difference in a machine that is rapidly leaking oil. That said I do believe the way many companies dress up their "internships" as dream jobs is wrong, and they should be more realistic about what they can expect from candidates.

There is an argument that the time-consuming barrier of experience sorts the wheat from the chaff. Only those who are dedicated will succeed in gaining the experience they need to land the jobs they want. But there is also a huge financial barrier for many - and that is something which the industry needs to address. The media industry needs to attract the best candidates and exploitative practices will have a very damaging effect on that.

I will also be reading...

2010-01-13T12:36:00.005Z

Will Self's The Quantity Theory of Insanity.

So far it's brilliantly dark and very loosely veiled satire. I particularly like Understanding the Ur-Bororo for being such a blatant and unrepentent assault on every society, sub-society, social group and clique that has ever existed, while at the same time catching itself in its own net. I love self-reference. This story isn't even really in the dystopian category - the Ur-Bororo tribe are simply too boring to be considered as such. The manner in which they consider themselves is a thought that has always struck me as particularly interesting - so many people become obsessed with saying or doing things of significance, but maybe, when it comes to it, everything is just small talk. So dark it's not.

This week I have been mostly reading...

2010-01-10T13:22:00.002Z

A selection of reading for anyone with a Sunday afternoon to kill:

Francis Beckett in the New Statesman on how the baby boomers got it wrong. It's a little epic, but keep reading. I like Beckett's writing.

David Mitchell on free speech, from the Observer. I like Mitchell's edgy sarcasm and he writes surprisingly well on serious issues in a slightly offhand manner. I think he gets it wrong about Jan Moir near the end though (although I like his wordplay). Moir's views were abhorrent to many and I suspect Mitchell's take on proceedings - that many people would like for her not to be able to say homophobic things - was probably correct. However, the real reason why Moir's article was so abhorrent was that it attempted to link a series of events and facts which were linked only by her own prejudices. Her writing was propaganda rather than opinion.

Actually, that's it for now.

Winter new routes

2010-01-09T17:43:00.002Z

It seems I'm one step ahead of the pros by reporting Malcolm and Steve Ashworth's ascent of D Route on Gimmer last week.

UKClimbing have a report on new winter routes climbed in north Wales and the Lake District. Some people have been very busy (and that's Malcolm in the bottom right photo I believe).

On libel

2010-01-08T18:42:00.005Z

It had to happen - especially since half the point of this blog (let's be honest) is to demonstrate to The Media that I should be part of them - I got picked up on a quote from my blog in an interview.

"In one post you describe our sub-editors as 'something lower than a monkey'. Given that you would be working with them, would you be prepared to stand in front of them and justify your comments?"

Coupled with: "Are you conscious of libel law when writing on your blog?"

Oops.

Actually, I said I would be happy to, since I didn't think they'd done a good job at all. I might not call them names though (and I had some quite good banter going with a few of them when I was last there). A lot of my interview today revolved around The Future of Newspapers. I felt the editing on this actually provided a very good illustration of the problems in the news industry - they need to take care to provide online content as professionally as possible, since that is where much of their future revenue will lie, one way or another. I am assured that the Media Wales strategy has this in mind.

[Note to self] Don't libel your potential employers or their employees in future.

Also, have just repeated libel. Hopefully with suitably flippant tone. [/Note to self]

Pi to a few extra places...

2010-01-07T12:16:00.003Z

I love the fact that Fabrice Bellard calculated Pi to 2,700 billion places not to ensure world domination, but just because he could.

But at the end of the article there is a statement which troubles me still, and I have written about on here before!

Pi is infinite and any string of digits, such as your telephone number, is found somewhere in it

I still don't believe this to be true, because the number of possible finite-length strings of digits is strictly larger than the number of digits in Pi, even though Pi is infinite! I'm convinced I'm right about this now. Although this is one case where the journalist hasn't necessarily got it wrong - there would appear to be mathematicians (John Barrow for one) who agree with him. I never did get around to writing to Barrow to see if he could explain why my intuitions were wrong.

The Indy going free?

2010-01-07T11:45:00.003Z

Roy Greenslade has posted an interesting blog entry wondering whether Lebedev, when he inevitably (speaking too soon?) buys The Independent, will take the drastic measure of turning it into a freesheet.

But would it work? The Independent famously raised its cover price to £1 before any of its rivals, a strange step I felt given their declining circulation, and very poor circulation compared to their three main rivals, The Guardian, The Times and The Daily Telegraph. But The Indy has been through some interesting times financially, it has made extensive cost-cutting measures and realistically needs to be bought out to avoid disappearing altogether.

So would this have a serious impact on the other broadsheets? I expect it might have some, for a time. Especially when other organisations are exploring the possibility of paid-for online content, in some form or other.

But the simple fact is, as Greenslade points out near the bottom, that The Independent simply doesn't provide competition in quality against its rivals. It's circulation is small partly because it caters for a niche market of the left-leaning population. They simply don't have the staffing levels to compete against the likes of the Guardian in this area. Metro succeeds because it's not a big paper. It's light reading for the commute - a completely different set of objectives to The Independent. They also succeed in localising their news and advertising. The Indy's strategy would need to be completely different.

It's strange to think that there was a time when the Independent on Sunday outsold the Sunday Times. I'll eat my shoes if that's ever the case again. Fan as I am of many of the writers at The Indy (including Johann Hari and Deborah Orr) the paper has gone downhill in terms of quality content in the last two years. Addressing that should be Lebedev's priority.

Lakes Winter Routes

2010-01-07T11:19:00.003Z

Here's a shot of my mate Malcolm on the First Winter Ascent of D route on Gimmer Crag in Langdale, the Lake District.

You can read more about winter climbing in the Lakes at Lakes Winter Climber.

Snowmageddon

2010-01-06T10:35:00.003Z

Someone with far more patience than me, Anton Vowl to be precise, has written an excellent takedown of the media's approach to snow.

I particularly like the Daily Express for its current stance on Climate Change. Who needs scientific consensus when you've got readers to appease? And anyway, clearly the Arts grads at the Express know better. Snow = no global warming, in the same way that seeing a penguin means it's winter, even if it's in the zoo.

Moments of genius

2010-01-05T11:36:00.001Z

What do you reckon is the single greatest moment of genius in human history?

Here's some food for thought from the BBC.

Creativity

2010-01-04T15:34:00.005Z

You what? Oh yes.

I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that I would make more time this year to create my own original content for this blog, rather than spending a lot of time reflecting on the contents of other people's websites.

But what the hell did that mean? Slightly dependent on my job situation, but here you go:

I want to try, once a week, to find someone interesting to talk to about something. Does that sound stupid? Here's how it works: I'll find someone - previously known or unknown to me - and get them to tell me a story about their lives. Anything. I'm going to start with my Nan, because she's pretty interesting and a has a host of wildly eccentric (but sometimes very coherent) views on the world and her many experiences in it. Some of these articles might be in video form, some as podcasts and others written as features. I want to speak to many of the well-known faces around Crickhowell and Abergavenny to create an archive of stories (not necessarily newsy) from the local people.

I will also be making the effort, at least once a month, to write a short story for my blog. If I'm inclined I may even venture into making some short films, but let's keep it simple for now ;-)

Once I start to get enough of these together I may finally separate my site out into the different sections. I will also attempt to get some of the articles published in the local paper, provided they put my web address in at the end (I think payment might be too much to hope for).

The difference between Tim and I

2010-01-04T14:45:00.007Z

The Guardian have run an article in their G2 section today where they get their features writers to do their dream job for a day and then wax lyrical about it.

It might surprise some to find that Tim Dowling - in possession of no shorthand skills, qualifications in media law or public affairs, or in fact any journalistic qualifications whatsoever by the sounds of it - sees being a local reporter, on £15,000 pa, as his dream job.

I sidled into journalism without really knowing what skills, qualifications or experience were required. By the time I realised just how underqualified I was, it was too late to give the money back. I have, however, always harboured dreams of having the benefit of training and a long apprenticeship.

Quite. I suspect he might think differently if he were in the position where he had a substantial student debt, combined with a slightly less substantial (but perhaps more significant) postgraduate debt and was facing the prospect (if he's lucky) of landing a bottom-of-the-rung position for a salary which he could have got straight from school in another job.

Don't get me wrong, I'd kick your teeth through your face for a job as a reporter. But I find it hard to believe that Tim Dowling genuinely views the modern apprenticeship of a local reporter - working for less money and unsociable hours and paying for most of his training - as his dream.

On the benefits of training, I learned an enormous amount during my MA. I learned important reporting skills, I learned about the intricacies of local and national government, I learned when you can libel someone, I learned what rights your sources have to protection. It was incredibly useful and interesting - for the media industry, to find a way of dispensing with the cost of training someone and reduce the risk of employing a no-hoper, by getting them to pay for it themselves with no guarantee of any reward at the end.

This is all starting look like a slightly foolish thing to be writing about when I have an interview for such a role on Friday. A quick type of my name on Google and I'm there, and here, in fact I'm all over the place. I hope they notice that. The stupid thing is that, for all that Tim Dowling's little tattle annoys me, I'm in there. I'm not particularly bothered by the pay. It's frustrating to be faced with a salary that is far below what you, even without a hint of arrogance, think you're worth. But if it were that bad why would I try? It's frustrating also to have a potentially strange and uncertain career path - if I were an engineer there are plenty of places to move up to, but with journalism there is the potential to lose sight of your original objectives in moving up the pay(step)ladder.

I suppose Tim and I are different in a fundamental way: He wants the training, the 'apprenticeship' (although I'm not convinced writing for free for many months constitutes an apprenticeship any more than it constitutes taking the piss, if you're any good at the job). I want the role for what I'd learn in it. The people I'd meet, the stories they have, and the stories they didn't even know they had. I want the uncertainty of what I will be doing in work tomorrow.

As a journalist every day is training. Every article you write could have been written in a thousand different ways. Every interview you conduct could have been conducted differently. Every day you find out new information - and it's up to you to decide what to keep and what to discard. Every action leads down a different path. And every day you learn. You learn to be better at your job and you learn more about the world. If you don't learn what the hell are you doing there?

I think what Tim might've meant was that he should get out in the street and talk to people. Even people in old dressing gowns cuddling cats. If he really wanted he could learn shorthand. He could learn media law. He could learn about public affairs and study the ethics behind journalism.

He couldn't, however, learn about people and the world as a local reporter does without doing the job. Sod the apprenticeship - journalism is about people. The formalities might provide the skeleton, but people are the lifeblood. Learning the skills to draw stories from a local patch is all about going out and talking and listening to people. It's not about forking out a small fortune to universities and providing free labour to newspapers.

And the award goes to...

2009-12-31T13:38:00.003Z

The most sensationalised story of the year?

So, a family parked at Pen Y Pass, the usual place to start a walk up Snowdon. They left the carpark for 2 hours with their young child who 'couldn't have been more than 2' and returned safely a couple of hours later.

Ok, so kids get cold, but they look pretty well wrapped up and the reporter doesn't even have a clue what they were up to!

I love the way the Daily Mail is anti-nanny state and yet can't resist peddling to their readers' prejudices even when this appears to be a contradiction.

Human Rights?

2009-12-26T14:20:00.004Z

Several newspapers are reporting on the 'effective gagging' of the press under the 'creeping' influence of privacy laws.

I find this story very interesting - the article they are using to push their argument is about a Premier League manager who visited a brothel. They say they cannot report this, at least not identifying the manager, because of the way verdicts have gone in privacy cases. Most prominently Max Mosley's victory against the News of the World. People's sex lives are considered private under the law. However, if they are breaking the law in doing so then there is clear public interest which should override this.

The really interesting thing is that the manager has been freely identified all over the internet. This was also the case with Baby P - in the digital age attempts to keep identities concealed for reasons of Contempt of Court or privacy are sadly insufficient. If you want to know something it isn't very hard to find it. It does beg the question - if this information is so readily available, why shouldn't the press be able to publish it?

But the tabloids are being slightly cynical about this in my view: If they had hard evidence that this 'unnamed' manager had been using prostitutes they could well go public with his name. It's ironic therefore that the previous judgments in this case prevent the tabloids from spreading rumours without foundation - they could really do with that the rest of the time, since the PCC has no powers to do anything serious about misrepresentation.

The Times

2009-12-22T15:58:00.005Z

I was going to post about the Tory's reaction to the 30 month sentence received by Munir Hussain for battering two intruders with a cricket bat. In fact, intruder is a very light term to use here - Waled Salem and an accomplice had broken into his home and threatened to kill his family. I think most people would understand the reaction, although the severity of the beating given to Salem by Munir and his brother left him with brain damage.

The Tory's reaction has unfortunately been pure electioneering. An Englishman's home is his castle, apparently, and an intruder is subject to whatever he or she may get. The problem is that there is a grey area over what constitutes 'reasonable' force in this situation - the Tory's would like to word it the other way.

The Times wrote an excellent editorial about this today and I think this is the most pertinent point:

It is not hard to understand why Hussain, after watching burglars ransack his house and tie down his family at knife point, should have responded with violence of his own. But an eye for an eye is not the law — and with good reason. Victims of burglaries do not have the right to assume the role of judge and jury, still less an avenging vigilante.
...
One facet of a civilised society is that justice is meted out by juries and judges, not by victims at the scene of the crime.

The Times did a couple of other interesting things today. There was a half-decent (although predictable) interview with Michael Phelps. An article on getting away from noise... with a strip across the bottom telling you the decibel ratings of everyday activities: Leaves rustling, 20 decibels, conversation, 60 decibels, Normal Baby Crying, 80 decibels. I'm pretty sure this was a time when that Normal baby didn't need to be qualified as such...

Then there was this article on the recovery of the sign from Auschwitz, which had an interesting sentence:

Its cynical wording [“Work sets you free”] raised the possibility that it had been taken for ideological reasons or at the behest of a far-right mastermind.

This makes no sense to me? Far-right mastermind? Masterminding what? Again, I think this is an unnecessary qualification - simply calling them a fascist would suit much better and be more accurate.

I also read the Abergavenny Chronicle today, my cousin and my uncle were on the cover. I have so many complaints about the way this paper is designed I can barely start: most of them are really very basic, like if you have a paper which is folded is half on the shelf for God's sake put the headline for the picture on the half which the (potential) customer sees. I'm really tempted to do them a redesign on Adobe InDesign before my trial copy runs out, lord knows they need it.

In other news: I have a record number of unique visitors, page views and time spent on my site this month. Cheers :-)

Welsh Christmas Traditions

2009-12-22T14:45:00.006Z

Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales has been adapted several times in various formats. It got me thinking about Welsh Christmas traditions (and I love the story) - there are some very strange ones, here are my favourites:

On Gwyl San Steffan (Boxing Day) it used to be traditional for young men to beat the exposed arms of single girls with holly branches until they bled. Nice. In some places this was extended to whoever was last out of bed - a great hangover cure I'm sure.

Another weird one is the Mari Lwyd (Grey Mare). A horse's skull is decorated with false ears and eyes and draped with ribbons and a sheet. It is carried about on a pole from door to door, where the party would engage in surreal breakbeat rap-off with the householders, in Welsh. Ok, so usually it revolved around reciting poetry and singing carols, but you get the picture. Once this battle (or pwnco) is won, the Mari Lwyd party (usually pissed as farts) are allowed in or, more likely, told to piss off. Unfortunately this is pretty uncommon now, but I'm told there is a village near Maesteg where you can still see it happening.

But here's a slightly more pleasant one, at least for those who sleep as deeply as I do. The Carolau Plygain involves a bunch of hardened Welsh nutjobs singing carols, usually in three or four part harmonies, between 3am and 6am on Christmas morning. I often try this one, but a little earlier on my way home from our traditional Christmas Eve pub gathering.

Nadolig Llawen all...

Times in Contempt

2009-12-21T12:29:00.004Z

The Times has been refused an appeal over their £15,000 fine for Contempt of Court. I think this is an interesting case, and I also think The Times has very good reason to feel aggrieved by this verdict.

Their story revolved around discussion of the workings inside a jury room - itself a pretty dodgy thing to report, but they had good reason as part of a discussion of the reliability of expert witnesses. There is definite public interest here, and in my view this is an incredibly significant problem in courts. We saw legislation last year to try to prevent the use of shaky 'experts', but it really didn't go far enough. There have been numerous cases where experts have swayed the opinion of the jury when in fact their evidence has either not been up to scratch, or has been missing important details.

I find it surprising that the Right to Privacy from the European Convention on Human Rights has been invoked here - The Times were careful not to name the jurors who dissented, and took legal advice before printing the story.

End of the decade

2009-12-19T11:43:00.007Z

It's the end of the decade, so I thought I'd contribute to the melee with yet another "Top 10 of the Noughties" list. So here are my Top 10 Tracks of the decade with a few covers for good measure (Click the names for the original):

1. Vicarious - Tool (In fact this is the opening track from my all-time favourite album - 10,000 Days) This cover from Adam Monroe is awesome.

2. Hoppípolla (Or Saeglopur) - Sigur Ros

3. How Come (Acoustic) - Ray LaMontagne

4. Let It Be Me - Ray LaMontagne

5. Reckoner - Radiohead

6. Such Great Heights - Postal Service (Use headphones for full effect)

7. Chase This Light - Jimmy Eat World (In fact could be any number of tracks from the same album)

8. World That He Wants - Jamiroquai (But Seven Days in Sunny June is good too)

9. Dig - Incubus (Ok, some cheesy lyrics, but a great tune) Adam Monroe evidently has good taste, since he's done a cover of this too.

10. Comfort In Sound - Feeder

As you might guess, these aren't necessarily the best tracks of the decade, but they're all tracks which have good memories associated with them. There are a host more I could include, from Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly to Turin Brakes. Deftones and Biffy Clyro.

Gareth Thomas gay?

2009-12-19T00:51:00.003Z

According to the BBC Gareth Thomas has come out of the closet. Surely this was the worst-kept secret in Welsh rugby?

My favourite memory from the old Arms Park is Thomas running the length of the field to score a try against Australia. I think it was the only score we had, every Welshman in the crowd on his feet roaring him on. Do they care if he's gay? Bollocks do they.

Jamming in the Name Of

2009-12-19T00:35:00.002Z

I'd not heard this cover of Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name Of until today. Nice.

Mr Oizo's effort. Reminds me of houseparties at the Palace.

New Year's Resolutions

2009-12-16T20:06:00.004Z

It's getting to that time of year again. I say that even as someone who doesn't usually make New Year's Resolutions, I don't really see the point in picking an essentially arbitrary date to start to change your life. Somehow this year feels a bit different though, and I feel it's a good idea to jot down my thoughts so that I can measure myself against them in a few months.

1. I want to learn to be a better photographer. This involves getting a decent camera, and a job to pay for it. While I don't expect to be able to compete with the best, it would be good to feel like I could be a successful photojournalist. It would also be enormously beneficial if I am anywhere near where I'd like to be in 10 years time.

2. To the same end I want to learn to make better videos. This really falls under the same category, as the crucial thing is getting a camera and making the effort to get footage to turn into videos.

3. Again in the same vein, I'd like to learn more skills with photoshop. Being able to use my new-found skills in photography to create graphics for the web (and for my own portfolio site which this blog will one day become integrated into).

4. On another note I have several goals for my climbing: I want to climb Dinosaur Heaven (F7c) at Wintour's Leap, Sardine (F7b+) at Raven Tor - not because it's the best, but because I've spent too many wet days on it already and it feels like a major milestone, being the hardest route I've come close to, while also completely out of touch with my normal strengths. I'd like to climb Great Wall (E4) on Cloggy, Sunlover (E3) at Trevallen and one of the big Gogarth routes. I'm still hopeful on Yosemite, but failing that a route on the Grand Capucin would be cool.

5. I've spent a lot of the last 18 months reflecting on other people's creations. It's something I'm prone to doing and while useful, especially as someone who is trying to learn how to be a better journalist and writer, I will make more effort in 2010 to produce my own creative output for this blog. To this end when I finally move away from home I won't get a TV (and should probably remove the Stumbleupon button from Firefox).

More to follow, but not so much New Year's Resolutions as reassessed life goals.

Adults

2009-12-16T18:37:00.002Z

Here's a cartoon which makes me feel good about the world.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

2009-12-15T21:40:00.004Z

I just finished this book. Wow. I have only two complaints: The first sentence, and the last two. Everything in between was genius. It appeals to everything which I love in literature - primarily a very black irony.

I love the way the tale is told with the erratically pedantic mind of a child. The world is constructed of rules and order, and it is Bruno's job to pick apart the reasons why rules apply to some and not others.

I love the way that it is brutal, without ever being obvious. All brutality is implied, and it's all the more poignant for it. It's a brilliant trick, and one I've talked about indirectly on this blog before - if the author doesn't tell you the facts then everything consistent with what you know could be true. There's no right answer and it's important that Bruno is not totally aware of what is happening. His ignorance is bliss, and it drives the tale.

I love the way that the horrific ending becomes clearer and clearer. We all know full well what will happen, and in the intervening pages you are willing Bruno not to do what you already know he will. The suspense created is incredible and terrifying.

I love the way the key phrases are repeated throughout the book, just enough. It helps reinforce the fact that Bruno is a child and his world extends only as far as his short memory - he has to use what little he knows to fill the gaps, but unfortunately he knows too little.

I love the ways that Bruno grows up during the book. But I hate the result.

This book ranks up there somewhere in my top ten list now, alongside Brave New World, We, A Thousand Splendid Suns et al. I might have to see the film now, I'm glad I read the book first. The way the book is told I can't imagine how a film could tell it better, it would surely be quite different? We'll see.

Off days

2009-12-15T13:26:00.003Z

I was just flicking through a copy of Wales on Sunday when I came across Claire Rees's piece on new BBC Wales weathergirl Behnaz Akhgar. This was the piece which involved the umbrellas which Claire figured she couldn't ask me to return to the store, since I wasn't a 'proper work-experience person'.

Chatty Behnaz, or Benny as she is to those who know her, started presenting the weather on BBC Wales last October and is now such a popular face she stands in for everyone’s favourite weatherman Derek Brockway on his off days.

Off days? Classic. (Sorry Claire!) But yes, Derek should be everyone's favourite, even on an off day. He's even better than Des on East Mids Today.

Scramble

2009-12-14T16:51:00.000Z

I had post I really wanted to write that's been buzzing around my head for days. Then when I sat down to write it everything sounded wrong. So I'll leave it for now and come back to it tomorrow.

In the meantime I'm off to see Paramore, as a guest of the band. Sexy.

Chris de Burgh and Seal

2009-12-14T12:31:00.000Z

Separated at birth?