Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category

A few people recently raised the question “why is A-Soc celebrating Darwin Day? It is just an excuse to have a go at religion?”

Of course, it isn’t. But it could seem to many people that were are advocating the link between Darwinism and atheism which Dawkins seems to suggest.

This I believe is probably a misconception. Dawkins does talk a lot about evolution and atheism for two reasons. Firstly, learning about evolution was the thing that pushed Dawkins into atheism. It was the turning point that he renounced his Anglican upbringing and joined the ranks of the infidels. Secondly he believes that Darwinism allows you construct a coherent world view without a god (which was difficult to do before evolution). This does not mean however that he advocated an inherant link between the two.

But I’m getting off the point. The reason we celebrate Darwin Day is not because of any inherent link between Darwinism and atheism (for which I believe there is none, as I demonstraited in my speech evolution – it’s a fact showing how evolution could be reconciled with modern theology so it seems silly for us to argue over it).

The real reason is that Darwin represents somewhat of an ideal, at least in legend if not in reality, of an open minded free thinker. Despite the fact his work and research was leading him away from his beliefs he remained true to the principles of science and reason and kept his mind open to new possibilities. That, is what being a free thinker is all about.

Watching season 18 of The Simpsons it is rewinding me why I love the show so much. It’s still fresh and original, it’s still laugh out load funny, indeed while I love the old episodes I could see how the kids could easily make a case that it is now better than ever. Well worth a watch.

Having been backward compatibility testing my Web 2.0 apps without JavaScript I have several times now forgotten to turn JavaScript back on before heading off to browse some other websites. It’s interesting to see which websites work and which don’t.

Facebook is the notable website I have spent the most time on and it’s a fairly mixed bag. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t. For instance you can poke someone back without JavaScript but you cannot accept or reject requests without it. Netvibes (rightfully so probably) didn’t work at all without JavaScript. WordPress seemed to work fine for the most part though I didn’t do anything other than start typing this post.

Which led me on to thinking, will we reach a point where you need JavaScript? Whether or not you agree with the increased use of JavaScript on the web (aka Web 2.0 really, and don’t get me wrong, I do agree with it, that is just my token comment to keep Mr. O’Shea happy :p), it is happening. The question is, how far will it go? How long will people keep writing code backward compatible with non-JavaScript? Indefinitely or have they already stopped doing it? Something to think about.

It seems the uncultured masses are taking over these days. Even traditional heavens such as university campuses and (if you can consider anything that is less than 4 years old, traditional) Facebook are now awash with quote unquote riff raff communicating with each other in text speak and showing each other pointless videos on their £10,000 phones which have everything but the ability to do voice chat.

Whether I myself fall into the category of Philistinism is a whole different debate. I’m not one for the material you would find in an art gallery though my love for art is passionate when you switch the specific area to for example motion pictures or CSS.

What I want to talk about here is the positive side effects we experience from the prevalence of Philistines in our society. I often comment on how much I like the fact that brainless movies from Hollywood sit on Tesco’s shelf for £10+ a piece while I recently acquired 2001 for the delightful price of £3 while Donnie Darko and American Beauty were also available for £2.

It occurs to me though that this applies to a wider social context. For example, while I was down in London I spent a day looking around the British Museum which was a fascinating experience. How much did I pay for it? Nothing. It’s free. Like almost all museums in the UK (much to Owen Johnson’s annoyance having just successfully integrated the entry payment system into every other system at the Royal Armories in Leeds :D).

The question then is this – would all these museums be free if people were arriving on mass at them all? I somehow doubt it. The cinemas are opening up massive multiplexes to deal with the load of customers waiting to pay £6 a ticket and an extra £10 for a popcorn bigger than their body mass while one of the most famous museums in Britain has no queues to be seen.

As I said, my guess is that if museums were as popular as say cinemas or sports events, there would probably be an entry fee. Maybe I’m wrong and the government would continue to fund it which would be nice but I think the principle is more important. After all, you pay what, £30-40 to go see a sporting event? The same for a music concert with a famous artist. Which such prices, charging the same for entry to the British Museum doesn’t seem unreasonable. But of course, due to the general attitudes we have, if they did, few people would go.

It’s a similar situation with public libraries. They’re completely free to use. Would this be the case if everyone uses them? There is an even stronger case for rebutting my answer of no here as this is case of public education but that’s not to rule it out – DVD rental companies be it instore at Blockbuster or online with Love Film charge what, £5 a movie or £15 a month.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule – for example, the theatre is no cheap excursion but then I’m not sure how popular demand would affect prices there. They generally play to full houses anyway so unless we’re going to get stadium-sized theatres (which I would think would somewhat ruin the experience) the laws of supply and demand may drive up prices.

So there you have it. The case of allowing the uncultured to continue to wallow in their Sky TV and chav’ed up Corsas.

Ok, so I’m sat in The Old Bar.

Ignoring the flashing games machine and table football to my left which is permissable in a pub I have two plasma screens showing different things, a large screen showing something else on my right, a bright neon air hockey table further to my right and music blaring out behind me.

Does anyone else miss the times you could have a quiet drink in The Old Bar?

Having had a bit of free time over the holidays it’s given me some time to do some proper reflecting and general thinking shall we say. It really makes me think about how I don’t have time to do enough reflecting during term time lol.

I’m a long way from having nothing to do. I’m trying to burn as much of my FYP as possible as well as starting to get some revision done which is going to get blitz next week while at the same time stoking the bank balance and working on a huge migration of almost every site in the Worfolk Online network to which any leftover scraps of time are donated to the odd bit of family time and trying to spend some quality time with my friends before they disappear back off to uni in January.

Still, there isn’t quite the pressure you encounter during term time. I don’t have to be up every single day for something. I don’t (to an extent) have meetings and appointments at set times, I can work and sleep as I feel. And it’s a very fine change.

I’m still not completely sold on this whole holiday concept though. It makes it hard to get things done when people aren’t working. Our modem denied on Christmas Eve and eBuyer are quoting next Monday on “next day delivery” (10 days away). That said, Christmas Day is a good day to get work done – I got a response from my server company in 4 minutes! Of course, support is always willing and ready but this was sent to the sales department so I was most impressed.

On a morning I wake up and flip open the laptop screen. I VNC into my desktop and turn off the movie I had playing last night. To take myself up I turn on some rock music at a decent volume. I then proceed to check my email, check Facebook and get a few other jobs done.

The problem is, where do I go from here. If I’m getting up at a decent time it’s still gloomy outside and I need to turn a light on. But this requires getting out of bed before I really want to. I then need to get dressed too.

With all our advanced wireless technology I feel these are problems I shouldn’t have to deal with. How can I further automate mornings so I don’t have to deal with them by getting out of bed? USB desk light perhaps? Do they make ones you can control from your desktop? That would solve step one. Now I just need some kind of robot…

Having read Kieran’s post which in turn leads on to Dan Zambonini’s post about which programming language gets you most sex it got me thinking. While it does, as Dan correctly points out, vary from situation to situation, you really don’t seem to be able to go wrong with Dot Net.

Think about it. People like myself and George we’re Python FTW. I generally use Python for my “real” programming projects (generally I just script so something that runs on my desktop is rare :p) because it’s fast. Just like me in the bedroom. While I doubt the same is true for George we both share the commonality of singledom. Admittedly George fairs much better than my own barron wasteland of a romantic life but bare with me.

How about say Kieran and Raby? Well Mr. O’Shea sold his soul to X-Lab for the summer writing in Dot Net (because secretly he’s just a big Microsoft fan boy :D) and is currently in a long term relationship with Heather that has gone as far as mystery weekends away so you know it’s serious. Meanwhile Raby is currently working for a year at CSC who code a lot in Dot Net after doing a summer intership of C#. The result? No shortage of ladies. Let’s just say, the girl in his profile pic isn’t his girlfriend ;).

Lessons learned? Getting laid starts with the Dot Net framework ;).

Is holding “ladies’ nights” at nightclubs descrimation? Apparently so. There is a lawsuit going on in the United States (ha, like I even needed to specify that) where someone has suited several New York nightclubs because he feels descriminated against by the discount entry and drinks offered to women.

It’s an interesting situation as when you look at it, it is descrimination. It’s hard to defend against that. But are their practical real-world limits to removing descrimination?

I ended up on the Wikipedia page for Brass Eye which just presents a brilliant picture of what a show it was.

The Capital Radio DJ “Doctor” Neil Fox, for example, informed viewers that “paedophiles have more genes in common with crabs than they do with you and me”, before qualifying his remarks with “Now that is scientific fact – there’s no real evidence for it – but it is scientific fact”. Viewers were also told by the then Labour MP Syd Rapson that paedophiles were using “an area of Internet the size of Ireland”, and by Richard Blackwood that internet paedophiles can make computer keyboards emit noxious fumes in order to subdue children (Blackwood even sniffed a keyboard and claimed to be able to smell the fumes, which he said made him feel “suggestible”); Blackwood also warned watching parents that exposure to the fumes would make their children “smell like hammers”.

You just couldn’t make it up :D. Have a read for yourself. Although if you really want to experience the brilliance of Brass Eye you need to watch it. And remember – cake is a made up drug ;).