Exiled from GROGGS

Why I don't support the public sector strikes

2011-11-24T11:18:00.001Z

My first "proper" job (not counting the year I spent waiting to do what I wanted to do) had a final salary pension scheme. The retirement date when I joined was 60 - it had relatively recently been increased from 55. This is in a career in which a fair number of people end up having to stop on medical grounds before retirement date. Around 10 years into this job, the final salary pension scheme

Foreign exchange - what happened next

2011-10-21T09:26:00.000+01:00

To continue the story I started in the post below .... I noticed that the foreign exchange at Marks and Spencers also did a very good rate - in fact, over the counter, within two tenths of a cent of the same rate that I could get online at the post office. So I went there. They didn't charge commission. However ... they said that if I withdrew money using a Barclays debit card (debit card!!)

Currency exchange - what is good value?

2011-10-11T07:43:00.000+01:00

I'd always assumed that the cost of buying and selling currency was "much of a muchness" for your average person (ie. someone who is trying to get money for a holiday, rather than someone who is trading currency as a means of making a profit). Specifically, I thought that since I work at the airport and the exchange bureaux there did "a little bit more" for people who work there, I was getting a

Malinowski

2011-10-04T11:00:00.000+01:00

... developed the concept of the 'context of situation', that is, that language is only really comprehensible if we take into account the whole context in which it occurs; the interlinking between the language that is used and the setting in which it is used.Which about wraps it up for deconstruction.

More university fee stuff

2011-07-24T15:59:00.000+01:00

Here's a very helpful article from Money Saving Expert about how the new student loan setup will work. In related news, Open University have just announced a major increase in fees. At the moment, you get "points" for completing OU modules - a typical course is worth 60 points, and 120 points constitutes an undergraduate year. At the moment, a 60 point course costs around £700. This will

"One in a million is not a fluke ..."

2011-07-23T16:01:00.000+01:00

An interesting article on the BBC. It says that a five-sigma level of certainty is the accepted level in particle physics to claim a "discovery". Sigma here is standard deviation:The number of sigmas (or standard deviations) is a measure of how unlikely it is that an experimental result is simply down to chance rather than a real effect.To tag "five sigma" as certainty means that a one in a

Harry Potter 7b

2011-07-16T17:32:00.000+01:00

A few random thoughts - hopefully without too many spoilers .... Watching the film really did feel like the end of an era. Harry Potter, films and books, has been part of my life for a decade, and whilst Pottermore will doubtless offer interesting and enjoyable material, the narrative circle is now complete. Along the way, I've been introduced passim to Joseph Campbell, Jungian archetypes and

The Olympic ticket bid

2011-06-04T08:35:00.000+01:00

We didn't get any tickets either, having applied "within our means". Apparently, only 1 in 7 people didn't get anything. For myself, I think I know as many people who did as who didn't - though that may reflect the fact that most people I know would have been pitching for the cheaper tickets. With hindsight, we can see that the system favoured those people who ignored the advice and applied "

Solar power update

2011-05-13T18:30:00.000+01:00

Various snippets of news ... EDF have told us that the first FIT payment and payment for electricity supplied to the grid is about to be transferred into our bank account. A mere £19 or so, this being for the 45 units we generated from mid-December to the end of February - but you have to start somewhere. The reading was requested in March, and I sent it on 1st March - incidentally, just before

U211 versus deconstruction

2011-05-10T15:46:00.000+01:00

The OU course U211 "Exploring the English Language" continues to provide food for thought, and a drain on money as I buy books related to it. I've been interested by how "un-postmodern" it is as a course. The influential linguist Halliday developed a system called systemic functional linguistics, which intriguingly I brushed past as I was doing my computer science degree over 20 years ago, when

The FIT scam

2011-05-09T08:13:00.000+01:00

It sounds fairly scammy that the government should pay people for generating solar power, far more than the electricity costs to generate or that any company can sell the electricity for. However, this is a government scheme to encourage uptake of microgeneration of electricity. There was a grants regime before, and this has replaced it. And the payback time is still likely to be over a decade -

The morning after

2011-05-06T09:55:00.000+01:00

It may seem an odd thing to say, but I am not political - or at least, not party political - or at least, I haven't been party political up to now. I have fairly strongly (and apparently unsuccessfully!) backed the AV campaign. The fundamental reason for this is because I believe in weak government - government that takes place by consensus and co-operation between parties, rather than through

The Death of Osama Bin Laden

2011-05-05T09:32:00.000+01:00

Opinions seem to have been divided about this. For a fair number of people on Facebook, it was an opportunity for rather lame jokes - but then, some people tell jokes about most atrocities and appalling events - laughing in the face of grim realities, perhaps, at risk of rationalising something gross. Few people that I know reacted with the sort of triumphalism that was seen by crowds in the US

Colvile's "Reasons to vote no"

2011-04-28T23:14:00.000+01:00

"1. It makes politics mushier." Absolutely. It means that political parties can't do their own thing on the back of the vote of a minority of the popular vote. They are more likely to have to work with other parties. That sounds like a good thing to me. "2. It's the wrong reform." Absolutely. But it's all we're likely to get - and let's face it, are either of the two large parties likely to

The Cost of AV - and how come so few countries do it

2011-04-24T22:29:00.000+01:00

It has been suggested by the "No" campaign that the cost of the Alternative Voting system (AV) might be £250 million pounds. It has been suggested by the "Yes" campaign that this is rubbish, and indeed Chris Huhne, a Libdem minister, is muttering about legal action against the "No" campaign for the misrepresentation. £130 million was the estimate of cost for vote counting machines - which aren't

I don't want strong government

2011-04-22T16:36:00.000+01:00

I don't want government run by a party who can do whatever they think is best, with no regard for what the other parties think. That way lies the erosion of civil liberties. That way lies the introduction of identity cards, national databases. That way lies getting into wars for reasons that are not understood and agreed by the government as a whole. That way lies the ideological destruction of

The "No" leaflet

2011-04-20T13:56:00.000+01:00

... you know - the one that says "Keep One Person, One Vote"? Some reactions ... "None of your taxes have been used to print this leaflet" - in other words, there are people who have such strong vested interests in not changing the system that they are prepared to fund a campaign that costs millions. Who are they? And why is it so important to them? I think we should be told. "The cost of AV is

Saranam

2011-04-20T09:22:00.000+01:00

Saranam, Saranam, Saranam Saranam, Saranam, Saranam Jesus, Saviour Lord, lo to thee I fly Saranam, Saranam, Saranam Thou the rock the refuge that’s higher than I Saranam, Saranam, Saranam In the midst of foes I cry to thee From the ends of earth wherever I may be My strength in helplessness O answer me Saranam, Saranam, Saranam In thy tent give me a dwelling place And beneath thy wings may I

"A House Like a Lotus" - Madeleine L'Engle

2011-04-20T09:10:00.000+01:00

This is quietly one of the most extraordinary young adult books that I've read. Unfortunately it is almost as unavailable as a book is able to be - I was lucky enough to find a cheap secondhand copy from a seller in the US, which was shipped to me in a couple of weeks or thereabouts. Madeleine L'Engle wrote some of the books that I enjoyed most as a young person, and then enjoyed again as an

The behaviour of the PV system

2011-04-14T11:38:00.000+01:00

Some interesting and curious phenomena are coming to light (if you are a PV geek). Yesterday was the first time in a week that we didn't get close to 8 kWh. It was pretty cloudy all day, with occasional light drizzle. However, we still managed to generate 4.7 kWh - which is as near as anything to what we hope to see as an average for the year. Phenomenon 1: When it's cloudy, the PV system comes

On being a snob

2011-04-13T07:27:00.001+01:00

Max climbed down from the ladder, and refilled my cup. It was a special tea, smoky, and we drank it without anything in it. I liked it. I liked Max. I liked talking with her. At home, everybody (except my parents) was younger than I, and our conversations were limited. And at school, I didn't have any real friends.... Mostly, I felt I was walking through the scene, saying my lines reasonably well

Solar PV in spring

2011-04-11T22:02:00.000+01:00

We've had six lovely sunny days, generally warm, with largely clear skies. Trees have been covered with blossom and the bright green leaves of the new year. The output of the solar system has increased accordingly. On each day, we've generated around 8-9 units - a good result for the whole year would be an average of 5 units per day - and peak output has been 1600-1700 watts. The total output

Increase in personal tax allowance.

2011-04-07T16:39:00.000+01:00

"a significant rise in the personal tax allowance which will benefit around 23 million basic rate taxpayers"... £1000 per year tax allowance on which you aren't paying 20% tax ... that equates to £200 per year less tax paid ... which equates to £16.67 per month. Don't spend it all at once.

The jobs trap?

2011-04-06T12:20:00.000+01:00

The Times (don't bother - it's behind a paywall) says that Conservative MPs are turning on Nick Clegg because he is opposed to wealthy families securing "plum internships" for their children, particularly when he benefited from it himself. The Times describes this on its front page headline as a/the (no article was specified) "jobs trap". I can't see there being a problem myself, other than it

Solar update

2011-03-28T23:11:00.000+01:00

Today, the five-day moving average of electricity generated per day clicked over 5 kWh (and, for that matter, over 6kWh). We've had odd days when the amount generated has been up to nearly 8 kWh, but this has been the first time when the average has been consistently above the 5 unit point. The significance of this is that, to make the money that Rayotec claimed for the system, we need to

"The Hunger Games" Parts 2 and 3 - Suzanne Collins

2011-03-26T10:03:00.000Z

A nearly excellent book ... "Catching Fire" continues where "Hunger Games" left off. Without doubt, this is one of the most significant works of young people's fiction to have appeared in the last few years - with good characterisation, complex plot, moral depth, and enough of an interface with the real world ("Amusing ourselves to Death", literally) to stir discussion. Personally, I didn't

Job losses in the oil industry?

2011-03-24T22:39:00.000Z

Oil companies claim that tens of thousands of jobs will be lost as a result of a £2 billion levy on the oil industry in the UK to pay for general tax cuts. I'm not convinced. Nobody wants to pay more in tax than they have to, of course. However, the price of oil isn't based on what it costs to produce. It is a commodity, and whilst the price has been driven up as a result of speculation and some

Will religion die out?

2011-03-22T20:09:00.000Z

A model suggests that, in nine countries, religion is headed for extinction. A similar model has given realistic results in predicting the disappearance of endangered languages. Some quick thoughts. This model could not have predicted the appearance of religions. What social benefit was there, for example, in becoming a Christian in the early years? Even before the might of the Roman empire was

More about where we are with solar power

2011-03-20T23:01:00.000Z

Up to now, the peak time of electrical generation for our system has been roughly between midday and 3pm, when the sun is shining directly onto the panels. Increasingly over the last few weeks, as the sun has got higher in the sky, the solar panels have been reaching their "peak" earlier in the day. The peak on a sunny day corresponds to an output of between 1500 and 1800 W, though we have

Where we are with solar power

2011-03-20T09:10:00.000Z

What makes micro-generation worthwhile is the UK government paying a Feed-in Tariff (FIT). Every unit of electricity that we generate we get paid 41p for - this dwarfs the amount that we would save by using it ourselves (around 13p - though this is at a historical high). If we don't use electricity, it is given to the grid. In principle, we are paid 3p per unit for electricity returned to the

"One of our Thursdays is missing" - Jasper Fforde

2011-03-09T08:29:00.000Z

Well, I loved it, as always. The thread that has bound the series (TN1-5) together has, obviously, been Thursday Next, but given this, Fforde has not confined himself to a particular formula. The focus to begin with is on SpecOps, and only gradually shifts to the imaginative masterpiece which is Bookworld. In this book, another bold narrative shift takes place, in that "the" Thursday Next

I don't particularly like ...

2011-03-03T18:34:00.002Z

... the media influence of the Murdochs. However, in a capitalist society, people have the freedom to choose what they do with their money, whether they are paying 20p for an issue of the Sun or £12 billion plus for 60% of the company. Also ... ... At least this is "private" money, not "state" money. I didn't like the fact that Labour government "increases" in education spending were channelled

Surprised by Joy

2011-03-03T15:29:00.000Z

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best -- " and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. A.A.Milne - The House at Pooh CornerThe very nature of Joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting.

University fees again

2011-02-10T10:06:00.001Z

So the government's aim is that the new system for funding for degrees ought to be fairer. Nick Clegg defended the scheme before an audience of students. In effect, universities need to be given permission to charge the "full £9000", and this will be contingent upon them improving access for students with low income. He has also highlighted the fact that the country simply can't afford to pay

Combined heat and power - the way forward?

2011-01-26T17:46:00.004Z

Here's a demonstration of a domestic fuel cell, from Ceres. These systems behave like gas boilers from the point of view of generating hot water and heating, but have the added benefit of using the wasted energy to generate electricity, at a level of up to a kilowatt or so. This has the effect of reducing carbon emissions and also reducing the consumer's electricity bill. Ceres are in the

Solar PV - the difference a month makes

2011-01-26T15:59:00.000Z

It's not that loads has changed - the days since we had the solar panels installed have been predominantly grey - well, this is an English winter, after all. However, the system is responding differently already. Even on the greyest day, the panels seem to be generating power from around 9.30 to around 3.30, and we rarely seem to have the "zero output" days that we had for the first few weeks.

Religious freedom not dead yet ...

2011-01-24T08:01:00.000Z

... at least in the US. Martin Gaskell was the front-runner for the post of director of University of Kentucky's (UK, confusingly ...) MacAdam Student University, but as news of his religious commitments spread, it seems that opposition to his appointment did too. UK has paid Gaskell $125,000 out of court in return for dropping a federal religious discrimination suit. H/T Telic Thoughts

I think I disagree with my lecturers ...

2011-01-22T11:26:00.000Z

... and the course hasn't even started yet! The course is U211, Exploring the English Language, which is not technically due to start for another week or so. However, in a bid to get ahead, since I really don't think I'm going to have the 15-16 hours a week (!) that it claims I need, I've reached the section on accents, chapter 5 of the first book. The focus in the course has been that no one

Monitoring energy use

2011-01-21T13:04:00.002Z

We've been using a Current Cost Energy ENVI-CC128for a while now. Good bits first. It is very easy to fit - the device works (I assume) by electrical induction. The sensor has a clip which fits round one of your mains wires, and then communicates wirelessly with the monitor. It sets itself up automatically, and it is apparently compatible with further units, which can be added and set up with

When to wean babies

2011-01-14T09:32:00.000Z

Interesting news published today, in the British Medical Journal. We were slightly surprised when new parents that we knew of said they intended to exclusively breastfeed their children until they were six months old. Evidently, this was because we were out of touch with the current recommendations. In accordance with the prevailing advice when our babies were small, we had started weaning our

How good are Kindles?

2011-01-08T20:44:00.000Z

I saw a recommendation of a book by a friend on Facebook, with a link to the Kindle edition. I clicked through to that, and paid for it using one click, confirming that I wanted it sent to my Kindle. I picked up my Kindle and switched it out of "sleep" mode". By the time I'd done that, the book had been downloaded, and I was able to start reading. The Kindle itself is pretty small and light -

"Holy Child" ...

2011-01-01T20:35:00.000Z

For years, one of the most common hits on my blog has been from a person or people who have searched for the words of the Dudley-Smith carol, "Holy Child, how still you lie". Several times a week, I think, for years. Here's where it is referenced on my page. Just quickly ... if you are the person (or one of the people) who comes here as a result of such a search ... why?

Coalition politics

2010-12-31T10:20:00.001Z

The country was left in a parlous state by the previous government. Ed Milliband has charged that the cuts put in place by the government since the general election are "born of political choice". My perception as a taxpayer is that the expenditure and tax increases of the previous government was "born of political choice", and in over a decade of Labour government, they failed to get on top of

Best PV day so far

2010-12-25T00:12:00.001Z

Today was bright, though somewhat hazy for much of the day. However, it was still our best day so far from the point of view of collecting solar electricity. The peak output of our 2.3kWp system was 397 W, and the total power generated was 1106 Wh. I mentally batted around some figures, to see if I could calculate from this whether the estimates made by the installing company were reasonable. We

More PV information

2010-12-20T16:54:00.000Z

The scaffolding to put the solar panels up hadn't been removed yet, and hadn't quite been properly blocked. So I climbed up to the roof this morning and had a go at sweeping the five inches of snow away that was sitting on the panels, and stopping them from working. In combination with a slight thaw (2 degrees during the day) and doubtless the dark colour of the photocollector helping to warm the

Quick PV update

2010-12-14T19:48:00.000Z

I had a look at the data gathered so far - it was only on for a couple of hours fairly late this afternoon. The peak power generated was 181 W, and it has generated 90 Wh so far - enough to run an old-fashioned lightbulb for an hour and a half, in other words. I'm wondering now about whether it's possible to get the PC/Ethernet interface card added post-installation.

Solar panel installation - photos

2010-12-14T18:08:00.001Z

Under the stairs - big red isolation switch, and meter. Since we now have two sources of power, both the mains electricity and the inverter need to be switched off prior to any work being carried out. The solar supply feeds a line into the consumer unit, as far as I can tell. Incidentally, in the event of a power cut, or loss of AC for other reason (such as the main RCD tripping), the inverter is

Solar panel installation

2010-12-13T22:38:00.000Z

... this started happening today. The scaffolding team arrived last Tuesday. They had rung on Monday to say that they couldn't make it in on that day, but would come on the Tuesday. This was something of a surprise, since I was pretty sure they weren't due to be there till Wednesday. However, since they were happy to install it without our actual presence, it didn't matter that much. They rang

How exciting is "arsenic-based" life?

2010-12-13T14:24:00.001Z

The Guardian reported commentary on the discovery of bacteria that utilise arsenic thus: A bacterium discovered in a Californian lake appears to be able to use arsenic in its molecular make-up instead of phosphorus – even incorporating the toxic chemical into its DNA. That's significant because it goes against the general rule that all terrestrial life depends on six elements: oxygen, hydrogen,

Solar electricity

2010-12-02T09:35:00.000Z

A possible new strand to the blog - though it should be said that many other new strands have turned out to be very short. We're having solar PV panels installed in the next couple of weeks - assuming the foot of snow that is currently on the roof has gone in time - and I (obviously!) have a vested interest in seeing how this goes. I've been interested in the potential for using the sun to

Feminism - radical versus liberal

2010-12-01T13:54:00.000Z

Having done sciences at university I was never terribly politically "enlightened", so although I have grown increasingly sympathetic to feminism over the years (largely due to a growing awareness of the shortcomings of many men, including myself!), I'd never had any terribly coherent framework for understanding these beliefs on a more organised basis. One of the "blessings" of the book The

More nerdy fun with Google Instant Search

2010-12-01T12:47:00.001Z

Following on from my earlier post, it follows that every single concept that Google knows about can be defined by the number of letters of it that have to be typed and its subsequent position on the list. So here's a little challenge - kind of the opposite of Googlewhacking (remember that?). What is the largest number of letters of a concept that you need to type before a concept appears on the

Deathly Hallows 1 - reactions

2010-11-19T22:34:00.000Z

Well, I enjoyed this. I strongly suspect that even more than the other films, you might struggle with this if you've not read the books. However, it really brought the action of the book to life, and part 2 next summer seems a long way away. Whilst the principal actors (Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint) may not be the best, I feel (along with many other people, I have little doubt)

A sonnet - in honour of C*** H*

2010-11-15T20:38:00.000Z

A sonnet, Miss Jones said, I had to write On any theme or subject, great or small. I faced the mighty challenge without fright, Determined not to write mere dogger-all. I sat and sucked my pencil deep in thought, As up the mud-filled footpath traipsed my mind, In fast pursuit of muse, who me had taught The rules of iambs, feet and all such kind. But she had gone, long gone - my heart was broke -

Christians and Slavery - another snippet

2010-11-15T14:57:00.000Z

I blogged here about the fact that the accusation that Christianity should be regarded as somehow particularly complicit in the slave trade was unfair, tracing Christian opposition to abuse of slaves back to the 1600s, and Quaker opposition to the practice of keeping slaves to the mid 18th Century. I discovered that Christian opposition to the slave trade goes back yet further. In "The Stories

What website defines the letter?

2010-11-10T15:43:00.001Z

Using the set-up as described above (Google UK, Instant Search, signed out from Google account), typing a single letter, what is first on the top of the list of automatically generated websites? It turns out to be ... Shop Argos Broadcaster BBC Shop Currys Shop Debenhams Web service ebay Web service facebook Web service google maps Web service hotmail Shop ikea Shop john lewis Airline klm Um,

New Google metrics

2010-11-10T15:08:00.002Z

Using the Google UK page, and Instant Search, signed out from Google account, how many letters of the following words need to be typed before the target phrase appears in the automatically-generated list of options?Target phrase# Letters requiredPosition in list Lady Gaga32 Radiohead61 Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious68 youtube11 van Gogh310 evolution33 creation59 sagrada familia41 spotify18

Untranslatable words

2010-11-10T08:38:00.000Z

I only discovered Matador Network this morning, by virtue of a tweet from Lauren Beukes. I think this is probably the first time I've received a remote link (rather than an alert of new material) that I personally considered interesting from Twitter as well - I'm much more interested in people's original content; I know that I don't have time to keep abreast with the internet, and to try would

Commercial flying - the downsides

2010-11-05T10:43:00.000Z

Not a great deal needs to be said about the upside of flying as a career - those people that are considering it tend to be pretty driven, and I do think that I have a great way to earn a living. However, before you start thinking how lucky are the people who are doing it, it's worth considering some of the less positive aspects of it. - It costs a lot to get into - tens of thousands of pounds.

Ryanair spinning pilot salaries

2010-11-05T09:46:00.004Z

The Times yesterday (there's no point in providing a link, because it now exists behind a paywall. In any case, the quality of the report was low - a couple of quick phone calls to airlines to get their opinions ...) offered a report based on a press release by BALPA. The gist of the report was that BALPA claim that pilots are having to stump up tens of thousands of pounds to get onto the first

Bidrivals - caveat emptor

2010-11-01T07:39:00.000Z

The latest variation of Telebid/Swipebids/Swoopo is now advertising on Facebook, called Bidrivals. It's pretty much exactly the same as the others in the way it runs. You PAY for bids - 40p a pop, basically - whether you win the auction or not. This is the absolutely crucial difference with a proper auction. A quick look suggests that each bid that is received increases the price of the item bid

Boggle(TM), Scramble(TM) and statistics

2010-10-27T21:30:00.002+01:00

I've been fiddling around with Boggle letters and trying to learn more about the statistics associated with them. This is partly because of a phenomenon I noticed when playing Scramble, which is a Zynga version of a Boggle-like game that can be played on Facebook. The phenomenon is that it seemed quite common for a word to crop up on successive boards - eg. the word "IRON" might appear on one

Tax relief on pension to be reduced

2010-10-18T12:06:00.000+01:00

Child benefit cuts and increases in university fees are going to hurt people who are going to struggle to afford it (I am really not happy with people taking on mortgage-sized loans before they have even started working, whether it's for a degree or for flying training). However, I think reducing tax relief on pensions is a good idea. Paying into a pension currently represents one of the tidiest

"English Next" - David Graddol

2010-10-18T11:45:00.000+01:00

Well, this was interesting. It's freely downloadable (duh!) and was suggested background reading prior to starting my next OU course, Exploring the English Language. It was a brief examination of how the English language has developed as a world language through history, and a suggestion as to how things may develop in the next few years. Graddol argues that we may be at a unique point in

Thoughts on "How Fair is Britain?"

2010-10-11T16:30:00.002+01:00

This report was written by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, under the chairmanship of Trevor Phillips. It uncovered some interesting facts (at least, as they were reported by the Telegraph). One of the things that struck me, following some discussion about what constitutes "extreme" wealth, was how this group analysed wealth. The Telegraph report said:The total net household wealth of

Child benefit and high earners

2010-10-04T16:00:00.000+01:00

The universal child benefit is to cease where one earner in a household is in one of the higher tax brackets. Well ... to be fair, we could see it coming, and it's not like we NEED it, I guess. However, while we're at it, are people earning above the higher tax threshold entitled to the state old-age pension? Should we get rid of that, too - another unnecessary universal benefit? Also, that's

Can I help you, reader?

2010-10-01T16:59:00.000+01:00

A little corner of Twitter fluttered with discussion about the merits of including a glossary in a work of fiction earlier today. It was related to my review of Zoo City, below. There were a fair number of words in Zoo City with which I wasn't familiar - slightly unusual in itself, as I do have a relatively large vocabulary, I guess! My initial thought was that they were all made up, but Lauren

"Zoo City" by Lauren Beukes

2010-10-01T12:46:00.001+01:00

From here. Having read Beukes' previous book, Moxyland, I was really pleased to have the opportunity to review this one. It didn't disappoint. Beukes is South African, and cut her writing teeth (as it were) as a journalist. Her command of writing is evident - it is a gripping and subtle read. More significantly for a novel, it is a work of strong imagination - labelling is a little difficult:

Passengers with wheelchairs

2010-09-20T09:42:00.000+01:00

There is no excuse for discriminating against passengers with disabilities. I believe that airlines and other transport services should not only do everything reasonably within their power to make their services available to everybody, but that this should be done without additional cost to the passenger who needs the support. However, there is an issue of "reasonableness". A certain airline has

Hari on Haiti

2010-09-18T09:02:00.000+01:00

I often disagree with Johann Hari, who writes for The Independent. However, if what he says about the role of corporations in Haiti and the complicity of states in the developed world is true, then he deserves to be more widely read, on this issue at least.

Benedict XVI - UK Tour 2010

2010-09-18T08:58:00.000+01:00

The transcript of the Pope's speech at Westminster Hall can be found on the BBC website here. He was arguing for the need for a society to continue to have a role for expressions of faith within public dialogue - that the relegation of religion to a purely private sphere is intolerant, and weakens society. Obviously, he did not name names. However, within secularism, Stephen Gould (in "Rocks of

The latest variation on "Telebid" ...

2010-08-24T22:20:00.002+01:00

... is upon us. It's called "SwipeBids" - extraordinary candour, since the company running it does pretty much swipe your bids. There are also nice stagey "blogs" promoting the site - here's one. "Due to high levels of spam", comments are manually filtered - though I strongly suspect that although my comment was not spam, it won't be appearing in the comment list. The model is pretty much

AirPort - self-assigned IP address for Macs

2010-07-29T19:13:00.000+01:00

We hit a snag with our Macbook. All of a sudden, it wasn't connecting to the wireless network. Upon investigating how "AirPort" - the wireless network client thingy - was behaving, we discovered that, although supposedly using DHCP to get an IP address, it seemed to have assigned itself an IP address which was totally not going to be on the network. A little searching came up with this

Leak of sensitive information!

2010-07-28T23:31:00.000+01:00

There was shock yesterday when a list of names, telephone numbers and addresses were unveiled at a press conference. The press conference was called by a security firm, to highlight security vulnerabilities of which the general public might not have been aware. "Obtaining such information was child's play!" exclaimed Mr Sturmin Ticup. "All we had to do was photocopy pages of a telephone

Ofsted and Mission Creep

2010-07-23T15:41:00.000+01:00

Nobody could really have an issue with the concept of an Office for Standards in Education. This was, I believe, something that came from the Conservative government of the 80s, with the aim of providing a national, centrally-defined standard for education, and undermining the left-wing agenda that dominated an educational establishment that was largely libertarian and socialist-leaning. However

Scamwatch - make of this what you will

2010-07-17T23:00:00.000+01:00

A new telephone 'scam' has arrived."I received a call from a 'representative' of BT, informing me that he was disconnecting me because of an unpaid bill. He demanded payment immediately of £31, or it would be £118 to re-connect at a later date. The guy wasn't even fazed when I told him I was with Virgin Media, allegedly VM have to pay BT a percentage for line rental! He realized I wasn't

Apparently ...

2010-07-16T21:57:00.002+01:00

I write likeLeo TolstoyI Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

The peace dividend, and other cuts

2010-07-16T10:09:00.000+01:00

Back at the end of the Cold War, we were told that one of the big benefits of negotiating a settlement of sorts with the Warsaw Pact would be the "peace dividend" - the money we wouldn't be spending on defence, which could then be ploughed back into tax cuts, or making ploughshares, or whatever. Even in my youth, this struck me as being something of a mixed blessing. £1 million spent on buying a

Avertible catastrophe?

2010-07-01T09:34:00.001+01:00

Report on the Gulf of Mexico oilspill here. Do the Americans really partly have themselves to blame?The Dutch know how to handle maritime emergencies. In the event of an oil spill, The Netherlands government, which owns its own ships and high-tech skimmers, gives an oil company 12 hours to demonstrate it has the spill in hand. If the company shows signs of unpreparedness, the government

A small leap (backwards) in dynamic networking

2010-06-30T15:13:00.000+01:00

I have a wireless network printer. Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS X all cope with the fact that the printer has a dynamically allocated IP address. They find the printer on the network, and send output to it, with no problems. Windows 7 doesn't. If the printer doesn't keep its IP address (as it is unlikely to, with about nine or ten devices all of which use the network and a somewhat flaky

The manglation of the English language - 126 in a series of 500

2010-06-11T10:23:00.000+01:00

On the back of a Sainsbury's voucher, it says "the code must be inputted into the checkout page ...". I grimace. Firstly, the word "input" was originally a noun, not a verb. Secondly, if it is a verb, then the relevant participle is surely just "input" - in the same way that one doesn't say "the food must be putted away." Thirdly, surely the whole point about "input" as a verb is that it implies

"The Medium is the Message"

2010-05-30T09:05:00.001+01:00

I don't know whether Marshall McLuhan's famous quote was ever intended to reflect upon the situation we have today with the media. It would be kind of comfortable to think that the news media were detached observers, providing information about the state of the world to people who would not otherwise have access to it. For at least a century, this has failed to work in the context of newspapers.

Fridge efficiency

2010-05-28T14:28:00.000+01:00

Efficiency of electrical appliances (and other things, for that matter) uses a scale of A-G, with A being the most efficient. However, the scale has proved to be inadequate - there are now also A+ and A++ efficiency scores. I wondered where this would end. A+++ - this fridge generates its own electricity A++++ - this fridge converts atmospheric CO2 into coal. A+++++ - DO NOT SWITCH ON! This

Visual Elements

2010-05-28T09:20:00.001+01:00

I've really enjoyed John Emsley's book, Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements- an eminently dippable book about the chemical elements. I had started work on a website which would hopefully capture some of the interest of the book, but then I discovered this one, which to be honest does a better job than I am likely to be able to, and which I therefore recommend. Oddly enough, I

Gender and colours

2010-05-17T13:38:00.002+01:00

The definitive subjective work on gender and colour perception can be found here. Courtesy of Randall Munroe of XKCD fame.

A quiet revolution

2010-05-13T14:28:00.002+01:00

The events of the last week have potentially revolutionised the nature of government in the UK. Things could have been very different. Gordon Brown could have held on until he was defeated with a no-confidence vote. David Cameron could have simply tried to form a minority government, or disregarded the Lib Dems. Both had the sense to realise that they simply didn't have enough popular support for

The case for electoral reform

2010-05-07T20:21:00.003+01:00

Conservative seats won: 306Labour seats won: 258Liberal Democrat seats won: 57Votes cast per Conservative seat: 35,021Votes cast per Labour seat: 33,338Votes case per Liberal Democrat seat: 119,397If the seats had been divided in proportion to votes cast:Conservative: 234Labour: 188Liberal Democrat: 149UK Independence Party: 20British National Party: 12Scottish Nationalist Party: 11Green: 6Others

A hung parliament - what does it mean?

2010-05-07T10:22:00.002+01:00

You may know already, in which case you are excused from reading this - and welcome to add comments, and correct me if I'm wrong.A hung parliament means that there is no individual party that has an overall majority of the seats. With 650 seats in the House of Commons, a single party needs to secure 326 of them to have a majority. Otherwise, all of the other parties ganging up together have the

Don't forget to vote!

2010-05-06T09:28:00.001+01:00

That will be all. Thankyou.

"How feminism [messed] up my love life" - Lori Gottlieb

2010-05-06T08:55:00.002+01:00

When I asked several women what "feminism" meant, I got a lot of responses that boiled down to having the same opportunities as men. But the more we talked, the more we came up against the fact that our needs are different and that we might not, in fact, want the same things. And when it comes to dating, we don't have the same opportunities as men, especially as we get older.This might seem

"The Devil's Casino", Vicky Ward - a review

2010-05-03T21:17:00.002+01:00

From here.This is the second time my attention has been captivated by a book about recent "American" history that has in reality shaped the world. The previous one was Standard Operating Procedure: A War Story, about the Abu Ghraib atrocities. As with that book, Ward has moved well past the headlines, into the personalities and events which shaped them. This is the story of the biggest bankruptcy

Facebook group does not reveal Disney's dirty secrets ...

2010-05-03T19:46:00.003+01:00

... but it may lead to your computer being trashed.

Brief review of "God's Undertaker" - John Lennox

2010-04-28T16:36:00.002+01:00

From amazon.co.uk.In an ideal world, people would read books that they disagreed with. The books would be so persuasive that people would change their minds, and the population would move quickly to an intellectual synthesis which worked. In the real world, people simply don't read. Those people who do read, read books which they agree with, and then chuck them at friends who either also agree (

40,000 visits

2010-04-28T16:13:00.003+01:00

A visitor from Mountainview in California became the 40,000th viewer of this blog (it's probably fair to say that in excess of 32,000 of those visits may have been me...). I don't know how they found it, or what they were looking for. However, thank you for stopping by, along with everybody else who has read any of my ramblings from the last 5 1/2 years.

The death of tactical voting

2010-04-28T07:45:00.003+01:00

I strongly agree with the Liberal party that the current electoral system has served the interests of the Labour and Conservative parties to a much greater extent than it has benefited the electorate. This has reached the stage now where, since both Labour and Conservative are pitching themselves as close to the midstream of the voters as they dare without alienating their sources of funding, it

Happy Shakespeare Day

2010-04-23T21:29:00.001+01:00

Not marble, nor the gilded monumentsOf princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;But you shall shine more bright in these contentsThan unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.When wasteful war shall statues overturn,And broils root out the work of masonry,Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burnThe living record of your memory.'Gainst death, and all oblivious enmityShall you pace

The "old politics" of a hung parliament

2010-04-20T13:10:00.002+01:00

David Cameron has decided to attack the Liberal Democrats, currently resurgent in opinion polls (see here for various relevant posts) on the basis that a vote for them would bring back the old politics of a hung parliament.The first thing that's worth pointing out is that if the electorate decide that the Liberal Democrats have a serious chance of forming a government, it is quite possible that

The ash cloud

2010-04-17T15:25:00.004+01:00

The volcanic ash cloud has generated a lot of hot air and serious economic fallout, but few facts of substance. Given what we have heard in the media, I am not convinced that the decision to close airspace completely was based on scientific analysis, but rather a manifestation of "nanny state" and the fear of being sued.We have been reminded repeatedly of the occasions in the last 30 years where

Francis Collins and ID

2010-04-07T11:09:00.002+01:00

Francis Collins is the director of the Human Genome Project - the project to provide a complete listing of the human DNA sequence, and identify and map the estimated 20,000-25,000 genes on human chromosomes. He is also a Christian, and has written a book called "The Language of God".He describes himself as a theistic evolutionist. He argues (contra creationism, ID) that there need be no evidence

Electric scooters/bikes for sale in the UK

2010-03-30T07:55:00.002+01:00

"It's not a toy!" As with cars, what I would be looking for is something practical - and practical in the suburbs means having a range of around 60 miles and a top speed of around 50 mph.As with the previous post, let me know if there are omissions, and I'll rectify them,NamePriceRangeTop SpeedCharge timeZippe scooterFrom £899 (sale)Up to 30 miles30 mph6-8 hoursG3000 LX£319530 miles42 mph2 hours