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 feel that this book was any weaker - it didn't suffer from "second book syndrome"; it has a good independent plot line. There are two parts in separate locations, but then, it is quite possible to divide even the Harry Potter books up into large almost separate chunks. There is an overarching narrative left hanging - but by the same token, it had its own plotline which did conclude.
That's not to say that I consider the book perfect. My quibbles are two-fold. Firstly, the issue that I had with the first book - too much cannon-fodder - hasn't changed. Too many people are introduced simply for the sake of being killed shortly afterwards. It wasn't quite as gory as "Hunger Games", and less time was spent building up our relationship with characters - but even so, I struggle with the sheer brutality of the book.
The other issue is that of suspension of disbelief. It irritates the socks off me when smug TV programmes show all the places where you can the film makers made a mistake and YOU CAN SEE that it's a film. I KNOW it's a film! But I come to see it because I want the film-makers and writer and cast to tell me a story. Similarly, I know that "Catching Fire" is only a story. But there are times when, despite the care that had gone into constructing the scenario, a part of me was just thinking - Naaaaah. It is this fact that, I think, means that Collins' books stand as young people's literature, when they came close to being literature with a dystopic vision in their own right.
However, I would still strongly recommend the book, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next in "Mockingjay".
Well, I must be the awkward one because in my opinion, this was the strongest of the "Hunger Games" trilogy. Having survived her own Hunger Games, and been snatched from the Quarter Quell, Katniss Everdeen finds herself being asked to become the figurehead for an uprising against the Capitol. But just how bad is the Capitol's rule? And is the alternative, offered by the head of the phantom District 13, much better?
This is a fine and subtle book, which has many resonances with issues that are live in our world - tyranny, media for entertainment, propaganda and news, the extent to which the end justifies the means - and this in itself makes it a good launchpad for discussion. On top of that, Katniss is not a simple, triumphant heroine. She is scarred as a result of the torment she has experienced at the hands of the system in the last two books. She is unable to choose between two boys who love her. The people around her are also complex - aspects of their characters which seemed almost by-the-by earlier in the series come to shape and define them, making clear their pathway in some surprising ways. People express dislike of the fact that as Katniss barely avoids total disintegration, we miss significant chunks of the story - but this is her story, not the account of the revolution. Like Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (The Ender saga), one could easily imagine a further series spun off from this one, filling in some of the other people's stories, but in the mean time, I was more than happy from a narrative point of view to live through Katniss's despair.
What of the criticisms I had of the earlier books? Yes, there are still a large number of people who die - but they are no longer "cannon-fodder" - simply placed in the story to be wiped out. Most of the deaths that impact Katniss in this book are no longer "incidental" - they have weight. And the other criticism - that too much of a demand was being placed on me to suspend disbelief - I also feel doesn't hold for "Mockingjay" in the same way.
Personally, I feel that this is the book that makes the series.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Job losses in the oil industry?
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 restriction in demand following the turmoil in the Middle East, the cost of its production hasn't substantially changed. Supply is largely regulated - both on a macro level (OPEC setting production quotas) and on a micro level (oil tankers reportedly delaying unloading to wait for the oil price to rise further).
The effect of the rise in oil price has been a huge rise in profits for oil companies - Shell alone made a profit of over £10 billion in 2010. Certainly whilst they are making this money, they are likely to continue to plough it back into R+D (creating more jobs), and higher dividends. Certainly the companies who have this money available to them are likely to use them as engines for growth of the company. But to say that jobs which might be created in the future are dependent upon such windfall profits is misleading. And I'm not convinced that it is better overall for the oil companies to keep all of that money than for the government to redistribute a proportion of it.
The real problem perhaps lies with the capitalist system that seeks above the welfare of individuals to return a profit. But since the underlying motivation of the capitalist system is to look after the money of those individuals, I suspect disentangling this lies far beyond the competence of any government - and most of the alternatives have proved themselves to be no better.
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 restriction in demand following the turmoil in the Middle East, the cost of its production hasn't substantially changed. Supply is largely regulated - both on a macro level (OPEC setting production quotas) and on a micro level (oil tankers reportedly delaying unloading to wait for the oil price to rise further).
The effect of the rise in oil price has been a huge rise in profits for oil companies - Shell alone made a profit of over £10 billion in 2010. Certainly whilst they are making this money, they are likely to continue to plough it back into R+D (creating more jobs), and higher dividends. Certainly the companies who have this money available to them are likely to use them as engines for growth of the company. But to say that jobs which might be created in the future are dependent upon such windfall profits is misleading. And I'm not convinced that it is better overall for the oil companies to keep all of that money than for the government to redistribute a proportion of it.
The real problem perhaps lies with the capitalist system that seeks above the welfare of individuals to return a profit. But since the underlying motivation of the capitalist system is to look after the money of those individuals, I suspect disentangling this lies far beyond the competence of any government - and most of the alternatives have proved themselves to be no better.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Will religion die out?
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 unleashed against it, in social terms, "no one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number." Once persecution broke out, what mileage was there in being part of Christianity? And yet within 300 years, Christianity was the institutional religion of the Roman empire.
Incidentally, although I'm writing this from a Christian perspective, the same could be said, I think, about the social dynamics associated with Islam in the early years, and for that matter the Mormons.
Secondly, the model is based on a social or utilitarian analysis of the role of religion. There are some aspects of religious observance that fit this - for example, religion as a cultural or national phenomenon. However, it is misleading to say that this is all there is to religion - it's the liberal secular approach to religion, so beloved of the comparative RE classes which shape our perspective in school, and it's all a census form (which was used for data capture in this research) can really pick up.
Whilst religious affiliation in the UK is declining (though the UK is not one of the nine countries examined in which religion is set to die out, apparently), this hasn't taken place uniformly across society. Social religious observance is, sure enough, seeing particularly strong reversal. But certain religious groupings are seeing numbers steady or increasing. And these have their own, "counter-cultural" or "sub-cultural" social dynamics, which makes it less likely that they will disappear.
I'm very interested in this research, and will probably read the paper fully. However, I suspect that reports of the death of religion are exaggerated.
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 unleashed against it, in social terms, "no one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number." Once persecution broke out, what mileage was there in being part of Christianity? And yet within 300 years, Christianity was the institutional religion of the Roman empire.
Incidentally, although I'm writing this from a Christian perspective, the same could be said, I think, about the social dynamics associated with Islam in the early years, and for that matter the Mormons.
Secondly, the model is based on a social or utilitarian analysis of the role of religion. There are some aspects of religious observance that fit this - for example, religion as a cultural or national phenomenon. However, it is misleading to say that this is all there is to religion - it's the liberal secular approach to religion, so beloved of the comparative RE classes which shape our perspective in school, and it's all a census form (which was used for data capture in this research) can really pick up.
Whilst religious affiliation in the UK is declining (though the UK is not one of the nine countries examined in which religion is set to die out, apparently), this hasn't taken place uniformly across society. Social religious observance is, sure enough, seeing particularly strong reversal. But certain religious groupings are seeing numbers steady or increasing. And these have their own, "counter-cultural" or "sub-cultural" social dynamics, which makes it less likely that they will disappear.
I'm very interested in this research, and will probably read the paper fully. However, I suspect that reports of the death of religion are exaggerated.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
More about where we are with solar power
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 measured outputs close to the maximum output possible of the inverter (2000W). The power tends to drop off after around 3pm, as the sun gets close to the treeline behind the house. Again, this should get better as the sun gets higher in the sky.
The most effective way of using the generated power would be for us to use as much of it as possible. We are paid (3p per unit!) for half the units we generate anyway, regardless of how much (or little) goes back into the grid, so we might as well use what we can.
Our house seems to have several "modes" of using power, and none of them really fit with the output of the solar system. During the day, the house tends to tick over at somewhere between 300W and 500W, assuming nothing much is happening. At night, once lights go on, it tends to sit between about 600W and 800W - though there's not much the solar system can do about that. As soon as appliances are on, this increases - but appliances rarely draw power continually, even if they need quite a lot. The kettle, for example, uses around 3kW - but only runs for a couple of minutes. The washing machine, ovens, the iron and so on can draw around 2000W, but not for the whole time they are on. The electric shower is by far the most demanding electrical thing in the house, but it's not used a large fraction of the time (fortunately!!).
So assuming the solar system is producing a healthy output, even having appliances on is not likely to consistently use all of its output. Unless a load of things are on at the same time, a significant amount of the power is likely to end up going into the grid.
However, on even a reasonably bright day, within three months of the summer solstice, the solar system seems to be able to cover the bulk of the "background" power use from say around 10am to 3pm - 1.5-2 units, and perhaps some of the use of appliances during the day. So we are trying to shift our behaviour - to put the dishwasher on after breakfast, to delay the washing machine and dryer to later in the day, or run it at weekends. The difficulty of managing our electricity usage to get the most out of the solar system during the daytime highlights how significant the feed-in tariff is in making the cost of the system bearable. Micro-generation of electrical power is an asset, however small, for the country as a whole. Whether it is worth 41p a unit is debatable, but without the FIT encouraging the take-up of such schemes, it would be hard for a person to justify its take up in economic terms.
The new option of a domestic fuel cell is potentially very interesting. This adjusts its supply of electricity to match demand - day or night - and when it can't supply enough, the grid supplies the shortfall. The grid will get a lot less from this form of micro-generation - but the proportion of a household's electricity that it is likely to cover would be substantially higher.
The most effective way of using the generated power would be for us to use as much of it as possible. We are paid (3p per unit!) for half the units we generate anyway, regardless of how much (or little) goes back into the grid, so we might as well use what we can.
Our house seems to have several "modes" of using power, and none of them really fit with the output of the solar system. During the day, the house tends to tick over at somewhere between 300W and 500W, assuming nothing much is happening. At night, once lights go on, it tends to sit between about 600W and 800W - though there's not much the solar system can do about that. As soon as appliances are on, this increases - but appliances rarely draw power continually, even if they need quite a lot. The kettle, for example, uses around 3kW - but only runs for a couple of minutes. The washing machine, ovens, the iron and so on can draw around 2000W, but not for the whole time they are on. The electric shower is by far the most demanding electrical thing in the house, but it's not used a large fraction of the time (fortunately!!).
So assuming the solar system is producing a healthy output, even having appliances on is not likely to consistently use all of its output. Unless a load of things are on at the same time, a significant amount of the power is likely to end up going into the grid.
However, on even a reasonably bright day, within three months of the summer solstice, the solar system seems to be able to cover the bulk of the "background" power use from say around 10am to 3pm - 1.5-2 units, and perhaps some of the use of appliances during the day. So we are trying to shift our behaviour - to put the dishwasher on after breakfast, to delay the washing machine and dryer to later in the day, or run it at weekends. The difficulty of managing our electricity usage to get the most out of the solar system during the daytime highlights how significant the feed-in tariff is in making the cost of the system bearable. Micro-generation of electrical power is an asset, however small, for the country as a whole. Whether it is worth 41p a unit is debatable, but without the FIT encouraging the take-up of such schemes, it would be hard for a person to justify its take up in economic terms.
The new option of a domestic fuel cell is potentially very interesting. This adjusts its supply of electricity to match demand - day or night - and when it can't supply enough, the grid supplies the shortfall. The grid will get a lot less from this form of micro-generation - but the proportion of a household's electricity that it is likely to cover would be substantially higher.
Where we are with solar power
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 grid in this way - which is pretty rubbish, but standard. In practice, the electricity companies aren't particularly interested in accounting for little bits and pieces, or metering it separately, so they simply pay 3p for half the units generated.
I sent in my first meter reading for FIT payments on 1st March - a hefty 45 units (kWh)! We certainly won't be getting rich on that. However, things have changed substantially since. In the week following this meter reading, we generated as much as we had in the preceding two and a half months. Yesterday - a clear day all day - was the first day when we generated over 7 kWh. The company that installed the system reckoned that we would expect to generate 1500-1600 units per year; to do this, we would need to generate an average of about 4 per day. The 5 day moving average is currently at around 2.5-3 units per day. As we get closer to the summer solstice, the performance of the system improves markedly - the sun is higher in the sky and therefore more intense; the weather improves so there is more sunshine; the days are longer.
The price of solar electric systems is also falling, as the availability of them rises following an increased demand. Sainsburys, in conjunction with British Gas, are offering a 2.1 kWp system from £10,000 - significantly less than we paid. It also sounds as though the government are interested in continuing to encourage the take-up of micro-generation by households - a report in The Times yesterday (paid for service, no link) suggested that the government was likely to cut the FIT offered for new medium and large installations.
I sent in my first meter reading for FIT payments on 1st March - a hefty 45 units (kWh)! We certainly won't be getting rich on that. However, things have changed substantially since. In the week following this meter reading, we generated as much as we had in the preceding two and a half months. Yesterday - a clear day all day - was the first day when we generated over 7 kWh. The company that installed the system reckoned that we would expect to generate 1500-1600 units per year; to do this, we would need to generate an average of about 4 per day. The 5 day moving average is currently at around 2.5-3 units per day. As we get closer to the summer solstice, the performance of the system improves markedly - the sun is higher in the sky and therefore more intense; the weather improves so there is more sunshine; the days are longer.
The price of solar electric systems is also falling, as the availability of them rises following an increased demand. Sainsburys, in conjunction with British Gas, are offering a 2.1 kWp system from £10,000 - significantly less than we paid. It also sounds as though the government are interested in continuing to encourage the take-up of micro-generation by households - a report in The Times yesterday (paid for service, no link) suggested that the government was likely to cut the FIT offered for new medium and large installations.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
"One of our Thursdays is missing" - Jasper Fforde
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 spends most of the book out of the frame, and the first person is now the Thursday Next character within Bookworld - or is it? - who has to see if she can find Thursday Next in time to prevent a genre war from taking place. The distinction is a little arbitrary, of course - the fictional Thursday Next is trying to live up to the reputation of the real Thursday Next - but it does make for different relationships with other characters. (Is the "real" Thursday Next any more "real" than the fictional one?! One of the many fascinating things about Fforde's books is that they raise such complex philosophical questions so playfully.)
The imaginative landscape is reconfigured - Bookworld is redrawn - and a significant number of the characters are the fictional versions of the "real" characters in the earlier book. This may be disappointing for those people who have grown to love them - well, I have too! - but better to stop before they become cliches, or worse, are unable to sustain a further book.
Given the quiet revolution, the story itself is as good as ever - a whodunit/thriller with plenty of red herrings and cliff hangers (hmm, I don't think we've met Cliff in these books yet), a fantasy world which is coherent to surprising depths, a huge amount of fun with language and literature, and everything falling into place only when I thought there was no way it could all be resolved in the number of pages that I had left.
In summary, another outstanding book from Fforde. But as before, come with a clutch to allow your paradigm to shift smoothly ....
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 spends most of the book out of the frame, and the first person is now the Thursday Next character within Bookworld - or is it? - who has to see if she can find Thursday Next in time to prevent a genre war from taking place. The distinction is a little arbitrary, of course - the fictional Thursday Next is trying to live up to the reputation of the real Thursday Next - but it does make for different relationships with other characters. (Is the "real" Thursday Next any more "real" than the fictional one?! One of the many fascinating things about Fforde's books is that they raise such complex philosophical questions so playfully.)
The imaginative landscape is reconfigured - Bookworld is redrawn - and a significant number of the characters are the fictional versions of the "real" characters in the earlier book. This may be disappointing for those people who have grown to love them - well, I have too! - but better to stop before they become cliches, or worse, are unable to sustain a further book.
Given the quiet revolution, the story itself is as good as ever - a whodunit/thriller with plenty of red herrings and cliff hangers (hmm, I don't think we've met Cliff in these books yet), a fantasy world which is coherent to surprising depths, a huge amount of fun with language and literature, and everything falling into place only when I thought there was no way it could all be resolved in the number of pages that I had left.
In summary, another outstanding book from Fforde. But as before, come with a clutch to allow your paradigm to shift smoothly ....
Thursday, March 03, 2011
I don't particularly like ...
... 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 to companies selected by the government, and this happened with no public scrutiny.
... I have more of a problem with the expedient "accommodation" of unsavoury politicians of other countries.
... it all pales into insignificance in comparison to what is going on in Italy
.
... At least this is "private" money, not "state" money. I didn't like the fact that Labour government "increases" in education spending were channelled to companies selected by the government, and this happened with no public scrutiny.
... I have more of a problem with the expedient "accommodation" of unsavoury politicians of other countries.
... it all pales into insignificance in comparison to what is going on in Italy
.
Surprised by Joy
"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 Corner
The very nature of Joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting.
C.S.Lewis - Surprised by Joy
Thursday, February 10, 2011
University fees again
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 tens of thousands of pounds for half its young people to go to university, particularly when a large number of the courses really add little in terms of economic value. No, university education isn't just about economic value: but neither is it about spending three years skipping lectures, buying cheap drink and ending up with a qualification that means nothing.
It looks as though the organisation tasked with ensuring improved access will be the Office for Fair Access (Offa). This has been their role hitherto - the introduction of higher student fees in 2006 had the potential for deterring good students (and indeed, I've worked with a variety of intelligent young people who chose not to go to university rather than accumulating debt). The BBC says:
To be fair, Offa doesn't represent a major burden on the taxpayer - they only seem to employ a handful of people. However, also to be fair, it seems unreasonable to assume that this government won't manage to improve access because the previous government set up a quango which didn't do much. There's also the possibility that, although there are inequities, the system is still "fair" - there is, after all, a difference between "fair" access and "equal" access. A large chunk of the issue is actually a problem lower down the educational system, in the inequalities in opportunities and achievement between state system and private system.
Once the can of worms is open, of course, it can't really be shut again - once we move down the line of students paying for their university education, we are unlikely to move back again. So if the system fails, that's that. However, given that the system we had was unsustainable, I'd rather see Vince Cable and Nick Clegg working on trying to make a new system feasible than George Osborne and David Cameron.
It looks as though the organisation tasked with ensuring improved access will be the Office for Fair Access (Offa). This has been their role hitherto - the introduction of higher student fees in 2006 had the potential for deterring good students (and indeed, I've worked with a variety of intelligent young people who chose not to go to university rather than accumulating debt). The BBC says:
Offa has the power to revoke the right to charge more and to impose a fine of up to £500,000 if the access agreement is broken.So an organisation set up with the aim of ensuring access (by the previous Labour government) has actually, apparently, not done enough so far. Certainly looking on this page at the chart comparing access to university for state sector free school meal/state sector non-free school meal/private sector pupils highlights the fact that not only do far more private school pupils go to university, but the proportion of them that go to the 30 most selective universities is way higher.
But BBC education correspondent Gillian Hargreaves said Offa, which was set up in 2004, had never imposed any such sanctions thus far, which raised the question of whether it would be sufficiently robust with universities in the future.
To be fair, Offa doesn't represent a major burden on the taxpayer - they only seem to employ a handful of people. However, also to be fair, it seems unreasonable to assume that this government won't manage to improve access because the previous government set up a quango which didn't do much. There's also the possibility that, although there are inequities, the system is still "fair" - there is, after all, a difference between "fair" access and "equal" access. A large chunk of the issue is actually a problem lower down the educational system, in the inequalities in opportunities and achievement between state system and private system.
Once the can of worms is open, of course, it can't really be shut again - once we move down the line of students paying for their university education, we are unlikely to move back again. So if the system fails, that's that. However, given that the system we had was unsustainable, I'd rather see Vince Cable and Nick Clegg working on trying to make a new system feasible than George Osborne and David Cameron.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Combined heat and power - the way forward?
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 process of getting their micro Combined Heat and Power boiler to the market place. Based on a quick trawl across the internet, there are a couple of boilers already on or close to the market which do this - the Baxi Ecogen, which is expensive (the boiler itself seems to cost around the £6000 mark) and relatively powerful (it is capable of providing 24 kW of heating for water), and the e-on Whispergen, which seems to be less expensive but also less powerful (around 12 kW of heating). I just checked our boiler - which is a combi boiler, so has to produce hot water on demand - but it's capable of an output of 30 kW. All the mCHP systems I've seen seem to work on the basis of using a hot water tank. Maybe the next boiler we get is going to require us going back in the direction of having a tank....
Ceres are in the process of getting their micro Combined Heat and Power boiler to the market place. Based on a quick trawl across the internet, there are a couple of boilers already on or close to the market which do this - the Baxi Ecogen, which is expensive (the boiler itself seems to cost around the £6000 mark) and relatively powerful (it is capable of providing 24 kW of heating for water), and the e-on Whispergen, which seems to be less expensive but also less powerful (around 12 kW of heating). I just checked our boiler - which is a combi boiler, so has to produce hot water on demand - but it's capable of an output of 30 kW. All the mCHP systems I've seen seem to work on the basis of using a hot water tank. Maybe the next boiler we get is going to require us going back in the direction of having a tank....
Solar PV - the difference a month makes
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.
There hasn't been a huge change in the sun. In the first month after the winter solstice, the noon position of the sun only gets three degrees higher in the sky, and the day gets less than an hour longer. However, it is evidently enough to take it closer to the light threshold at which the panels start to generate.
We have discovered that the panels weren't optimally connected to the inverter (the south and the west facing panels should have been connected as separate "strings" into the inverter, and they were in fact all linked in series), so Rayotec are coming back to rewire a section of the system. I'm hoping that they are going to find out how much it would cost to install the PC interface module at the same time. I don't know whether this will have a noticeable effect on the performance of the system. In theory, the output of the two different sections of panels can be optimised separately by the inverter: I don't know whether this is likely to give a 1% or a 10% improvement.
The peak output of the system so far has been just over 1000 W - it has reached that on four days, the first after the solstice being 9th January - and the highest total output we've seen has been about 2 KWh. The total output of the system since installation is a mere 13 units, though we lost a couple of days which ought to have been good as a result of our messing around with the system.
There hasn't been a huge change in the sun. In the first month after the winter solstice, the noon position of the sun only gets three degrees higher in the sky, and the day gets less than an hour longer. However, it is evidently enough to take it closer to the light threshold at which the panels start to generate.
We have discovered that the panels weren't optimally connected to the inverter (the south and the west facing panels should have been connected as separate "strings" into the inverter, and they were in fact all linked in series), so Rayotec are coming back to rewire a section of the system. I'm hoping that they are going to find out how much it would cost to install the PC interface module at the same time. I don't know whether this will have a noticeable effect on the performance of the system. In theory, the output of the two different sections of panels can be optimised separately by the inverter: I don't know whether this is likely to give a 1% or a 10% improvement.
The peak output of the system so far has been just over 1000 W - it has reached that on four days, the first after the solstice being 9th January - and the highest total output we've seen has been about 2 KWh. The total output of the system since installation is a mere 13 units, though we lost a couple of days which ought to have been good as a result of our messing around with the system.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Religious freedom not dead yet ...
... 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
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
Saturday, January 22, 2011
I think I disagree with my lecturers ...
... 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 variety of English should be privileged. That's the sense of the background reading - Crystal's "The Stories of English" emphasises the fact that the conventional narrative of the rise and rise of English disregards the fact that "standard English" is only one facet of the English language. Graddol's "English Next?" explores the issue that English is, in world terms, dominated by non-native speakers. And the opening chapters of the first book have been keen to emphasise that the prescriptive approach adopted to the language in spelling, grammar and pronunciation has only led to one of the expressions of English that we see today.
In discussing accents, however, I think the course goes too far. I am quite happy that in general, accents don't in themselves say anything about the intelligence of the speaker - I've known too many English speakers from all over the place to think otherwise. I'm also quite happy that RP is not a "non-accent".
However, in discussing accents, the focus has tended to be on aspects of pronunciation that are "neutral" - for example, glottal stops or dropping aitches ("ge' inside the 'ouse!"). There has been no discussion so far on the fact that a few aspects of accents quite often betray a level of ignorance of English, or illiteracy - for example, one feature that arises often is the use of "of" where "have" is correct in English (as in "I couldn't of"). The sense I get from the course is that it seeks, in quite a postmodern/pluralist way, to affirm all users of English, regardless of how the language is spoken. (In true postmodern fashion, of course, the language adopted for the course is itself standard English, and I strongly suspect that a response to the course that was not would be likely to raise eyebrows).
I'm trying to imagine how the writers of the course would respond to this issue. They might suggest that English is mutating so that "of" instead of "have" in this context will be considered acceptable usage. But if this is to take place, then sections of the rules of English relating to particles and verb tenses have to be basically disregarded, and in the fullness of time, this would be likely to tidily erode the comprehensibility of the language. They might suggest that there is a difference between an accent and an incorrect usage - but the emphasis hitherto has been that there is no "incorrect usage" - just different, and people need to swim with the tide in this regard. I'd be interested in hearing their thoughts on this.
Personally, for what it's worth, I think that whilst the prescriptive approach is wrong, and fails to take into account many valid expressions of English, the people who write the course are also wrong if they are saying that all expressions are equally valid. There is some discussion about the tone used for science writing, which has taken shape over the centuries, and the writers accept the requirements of the medium. More generally, whilst RP and Standard English have no right to a privileged position in the canon of English language beyond their usefulness as being most widely acceptable, I don't think that the substitution of varieties of English which undermine its ability to communicate can be regarded as progressive.
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 variety of English should be privileged. That's the sense of the background reading - Crystal's "The Stories of English" emphasises the fact that the conventional narrative of the rise and rise of English disregards the fact that "standard English" is only one facet of the English language. Graddol's "English Next?" explores the issue that English is, in world terms, dominated by non-native speakers. And the opening chapters of the first book have been keen to emphasise that the prescriptive approach adopted to the language in spelling, grammar and pronunciation has only led to one of the expressions of English that we see today.
In discussing accents, however, I think the course goes too far. I am quite happy that in general, accents don't in themselves say anything about the intelligence of the speaker - I've known too many English speakers from all over the place to think otherwise. I'm also quite happy that RP is not a "non-accent".
However, in discussing accents, the focus has tended to be on aspects of pronunciation that are "neutral" - for example, glottal stops or dropping aitches ("ge' inside the 'ouse!"). There has been no discussion so far on the fact that a few aspects of accents quite often betray a level of ignorance of English, or illiteracy - for example, one feature that arises often is the use of "of" where "have" is correct in English (as in "I couldn't of"). The sense I get from the course is that it seeks, in quite a postmodern/pluralist way, to affirm all users of English, regardless of how the language is spoken. (In true postmodern fashion, of course, the language adopted for the course is itself standard English, and I strongly suspect that a response to the course that was not would be likely to raise eyebrows).
I'm trying to imagine how the writers of the course would respond to this issue. They might suggest that English is mutating so that "of" instead of "have" in this context will be considered acceptable usage. But if this is to take place, then sections of the rules of English relating to particles and verb tenses have to be basically disregarded, and in the fullness of time, this would be likely to tidily erode the comprehensibility of the language. They might suggest that there is a difference between an accent and an incorrect usage - but the emphasis hitherto has been that there is no "incorrect usage" - just different, and people need to swim with the tide in this regard. I'd be interested in hearing their thoughts on this.
Personally, for what it's worth, I think that whilst the prescriptive approach is wrong, and fails to take into account many valid expressions of English, the people who write the course are also wrong if they are saying that all expressions are equally valid. There is some discussion about the tone used for science writing, which has taken shape over the centuries, and the writers accept the requirements of the medium. More generally, whilst RP and Standard English have no right to a privileged position in the canon of English language beyond their usefulness as being most widely acceptable, I don't think that the substitution of varieties of English which undermine its ability to communicate can be regarded as progressive.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Monitoring energy use
We've been using a Current Cost Energy ENVI-CC128
for 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 similar ease.
If you are displaying this visibly somewhere, the feedback on power usage will almost certainly result in you increasingly switching off unnecessary lights and appliances. This is how it is likely to pay for itself. We have notices changes in our behaviour, and in the event that you don't know which the expensive lights in your house are, this will remind you.
Now the not-so-good. The sticky pad which is supposed to support the sensor isn't strong (or alternatively, large) enough; our transmitter thingy has ended up falling off where it was stuck. The velcro join is fine; it's the sticky pad that doesn't hold the weight of the transmitter when stuck to a smooth plastic surface. Maybe I needed to press it on harder, but I'm wary of pushing too hard on the side of the consumer unit!
Most of the displayed information is, to be honest, a little over-the-top and limited in value. The bar graphs have no scale, so don't really offer much except a vague comparison. The "cost" indication is all very well - it can be set to what you are paying - but the sort of person who can make sense of the concept of electricity units is likely to also be able to make deductions about cost from those values.
We are generating some of our own electricity (with solar panels). Unfortunately, the means of measuring energy use is indifferent as to whether net current is flowing into or out of the house. During the day, when we aren't using much electricity, and the solar panels are generating, we become a "supplier" to the grid. However, the device assumes that this is power being used, artificially inflating the figures for the day. It's fair to point out that this currently isn't likely to be a widespread issue ....
Finally, there's the issue of software. The data from the device is output through an Ethernet connection - but a weird Ethernet connection, which apparently has to connect to a USB dongle - which means that if you want to use this with a computer, you effectively need to buy another piece of proprietary hardware. Other people have commented on the quality of this - their comments, in my opinion, make me wonder whether simply buying a more computer-friendly monitor might make more sense. Also, too much of the software is only available remotely - your power usage being sent to a server on the internet, rather than being analyzable by you. I don't think this is the best way of doing it, and again, my hunch is that there are other devices that are likely to be more user-friendly.
However, if all you are looking for is a power monitor which will encourage you to switch things off, and show you what is going on electrically in the house, this is an excellent little device.
for 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 similar ease.
If you are displaying this visibly somewhere, the feedback on power usage will almost certainly result in you increasingly switching off unnecessary lights and appliances. This is how it is likely to pay for itself. We have notices changes in our behaviour, and in the event that you don't know which the expensive lights in your house are, this will remind you.
Now the not-so-good. The sticky pad which is supposed to support the sensor isn't strong (or alternatively, large) enough; our transmitter thingy has ended up falling off where it was stuck. The velcro join is fine; it's the sticky pad that doesn't hold the weight of the transmitter when stuck to a smooth plastic surface. Maybe I needed to press it on harder, but I'm wary of pushing too hard on the side of the consumer unit!
Most of the displayed information is, to be honest, a little over-the-top and limited in value. The bar graphs have no scale, so don't really offer much except a vague comparison. The "cost" indication is all very well - it can be set to what you are paying - but the sort of person who can make sense of the concept of electricity units is likely to also be able to make deductions about cost from those values.
We are generating some of our own electricity (with solar panels). Unfortunately, the means of measuring energy use is indifferent as to whether net current is flowing into or out of the house. During the day, when we aren't using much electricity, and the solar panels are generating, we become a "supplier" to the grid. However, the device assumes that this is power being used, artificially inflating the figures for the day. It's fair to point out that this currently isn't likely to be a widespread issue ....
Finally, there's the issue of software. The data from the device is output through an Ethernet connection - but a weird Ethernet connection, which apparently has to connect to a USB dongle - which means that if you want to use this with a computer, you effectively need to buy another piece of proprietary hardware. Other people have commented on the quality of this - their comments, in my opinion, make me wonder whether simply buying a more computer-friendly monitor might make more sense. Also, too much of the software is only available remotely - your power usage being sent to a server on the internet, rather than being analyzable by you. I don't think this is the best way of doing it, and again, my hunch is that there are other devices that are likely to be more user-friendly.
However, if all you are looking for is a power monitor which will encourage you to switch things off, and show you what is going on electrically in the house, this is an excellent little device.
Friday, January 14, 2011
When to wean babies
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 children at around three to four months. None had seemed any the worse for it, and to be honest, by the time they were that age, they seemed ready to move onto something other than milk.
The report is interesting, as it explains the history of the six month recommendation. Ten years ago, the World Health Organisation advised that children universally be breastfed for six months. Breastfeeding is the best option for small babies, and clearly where access to clean water and safe and affordable alternative food supply is limited, continuing to do this while possible is a good idea.
Initially, Western countries seem to have largely ignored the advice, and it was only in 2003 that a health minister said that the UK would comply.
In actual fact, the case for and against starting weaning before six months is quite balanced, from a scientific point of view. Whilst breastfeeding reduces the risk of infections, there's some evidence of undernutrition in children who are exclusively breastfed to six months in Western countries (the BMJ references studies in the US and Sweden). In any case, a lot of children are weaned early and successfully regardless of the advice - the effect of such guidelines can quite often be to lay a burden of guilt and anxiety (or smug self-righteousness) on particular sections of the population (largely middle-class) when the guidance is simply ignored by the rest.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of Midwives and the National Childbirth Trust have lined up in support of current guidance. The comments from the RCM are interesting. Their spokesperson said:
However, this report has the effect of drawing attention to the fact that the six months advice was advice given with a world readership in mind, and is more to do with hygiene than scientific evaluation of nutritional requirements - and where it's down to that, the conclusion seems to be that the evidence is neutral. That, of course, should hardly surprise us - the world hadn't fallen apart before the WHO recommendations came along.
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 children at around three to four months. None had seemed any the worse for it, and to be honest, by the time they were that age, they seemed ready to move onto something other than milk.
The report is interesting, as it explains the history of the six month recommendation. Ten years ago, the World Health Organisation advised that children universally be breastfed for six months. Breastfeeding is the best option for small babies, and clearly where access to clean water and safe and affordable alternative food supply is limited, continuing to do this while possible is a good idea.
Initially, Western countries seem to have largely ignored the advice, and it was only in 2003 that a health minister said that the UK would comply.
In actual fact, the case for and against starting weaning before six months is quite balanced, from a scientific point of view. Whilst breastfeeding reduces the risk of infections, there's some evidence of undernutrition in children who are exclusively breastfed to six months in Western countries (the BMJ references studies in the US and Sweden). In any case, a lot of children are weaned early and successfully regardless of the advice - the effect of such guidelines can quite often be to lay a burden of guilt and anxiety (or smug self-righteousness) on particular sections of the population (largely middle-class) when the guidance is simply ignored by the rest.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of Midwives and the National Childbirth Trust have lined up in support of current guidance. The comments from the RCM are interesting. Their spokesperson said:
I believe that this ... plays into the hands of the baby-food industry which has failed to support the six-month exclusive breastfeeding policy in the UK.The fact that the baby-food industry stands to gain or lose has little to do with the medical evidence - it's more strongly suggestive of an anti-corporate bias in the commenter. Similarly, the fact that the baby-food industry hasn't supported a policy signifies little, particularly if the alternative, which they were able to make money from, seemed to work just as well. For what it's worth, the total income of the baby-food industry from us before our children were a year old was probably around £10 (with the exception of expenditure on formula milk - but that's another story). And there's always a risk of babies dying as a result of inappropriate young child feeding. There's a risk of babies dying as a result of all sorts of things. It's one of the depressing things about babies being born is that they are often born to people like us who are barely competent to do anything with them, and have to learn quickly on the job, generally under massive sleep deprivation.
There is evidence that some babies do die in developed countries from inappropriate young child feeding, such as the introduction of solid foods earlier before their swallowing mechanism is mature enough or they have fully developed the capability to cope with solid foods.
However, this report has the effect of drawing attention to the fact that the six months advice was advice given with a world readership in mind, and is more to do with hygiene than scientific evaluation of nutritional requirements - and where it's down to that, the conclusion seems to be that the evidence is neutral. That, of course, should hardly surprise us - the world hadn't fallen apart before the WHO recommendations came along.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
How good are Kindles?
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 - with the case we bought separately for it, it's the size of a small paperback. It stores up to 3500 books. In any case, you don't have to keep books on the device. Once they have been bought, they can be re-downloaded to any of your registered Kindle devices - my Android phones also have a Kindle reader on them. There didn't seem to be much point in putting the PC Kindle reader on my computer, but it's an option. We have lots of books in the house, though less than 3500, I think - the thought of being able to extend my library without needing more shelves is wonderful.
The Kindle itself is pretty small and light - with the case we bought separately for it, it's the size of a small paperback. It stores up to 3500 books. In any case, you don't have to keep books on the device. Once they have been bought, they can be re-downloaded to any of your registered Kindle devices - my Android phones also have a Kindle reader on them. There didn't seem to be much point in putting the PC Kindle reader on my computer, but it's an option. We have lots of books in the house, though less than 3500, I think - the thought of being able to extend my library without needing more shelves is wonderful.
Saturday, January 01, 2011
"Holy Child" ...
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?
Friday, December 31, 2010
Coalition politics
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 the fact that the departments of government were incapable of making competent spending decisions. They also, for political reasons, did nothing substantive about the appalling black hole in state finances that is the public sector pension deficit, whilst incapacitating the private sector pension industry. It used to be the case that public sector employees had worse terms and conditions than their private sector equivalents, but this was made up for with the pension. The balance shifted during the Labour government - not only did the public sector grow like topsy, so that there were many more people on state salary at the end of their period in government, but the terms and conditions improved at a faster rate than those in the private sector. At least, this is the perception. And through this period, the "productivity" in the public sector did not improve. Simply throwing money - my money! - at "problems" in education, health service, defence and so on did not fix the problems, and resulted in a bloated and inefficient state sector, that simply was not sustainable.
An example of this is what happened with university education. For ideological reasons ("all must have prizes") the government said that 50% of young people should go to university - with first degrees, at that stage, being largely paid for by the government. Needless to say, this was hugely expensive. But no real evaluation has been made, as far as I can tell, of the benefits of having three more years of "education" in general. There is value in doing a degree. Science and technology jobs need people who have learnt more than can be taught by the age of 18. And whilst it may be harder to determine the benefit to the economy of studying arts and humanities, there is, in fact, a need for people who are capable of higher level reflection and expression than is offered up to A-level standard. However, with respect to acquaintances of mine, none of these skills are obtained in a "degree" in Travel and Tourism, or Golf Course Management. If you want to learn about those jobs, just go and do them - don't expect the country to pay for you to study them.
Whilst companies have the right to seek to avoid paying more tax than is necessary, I don't think that personal "tax dodges" can be counted under this heading. So it needles me to see Philip Green in the role of efficiency consultant to the government, for example. But what is the alternative? The civil service has failed to get to grips with how they ought to be spending money - they have shown themselves far too ready to make the sort of spending decision that would lead to serious financial problems if carried out at corporate or personal level - they have failed to grasp the fact that this is not, fundamentally, "their" money, and they should be behaving in an accountable manner with regard to its expenditure. If the only way to achieve that is to employ a money-grabbing capitalist pig to bang their heads together, then so be it.
With regard to the coalition, to be honest, I think you have to pretty much disregard what was in the manifestos of both of the parties in the coalition. Neither expected nor planned for the form of government that they find themselves in now. As a consequence, the policy choices that have been made bear little resemblance to the commitments that either had. The key questions as far as I'm concerned are: would I rather see the Conservatives in power without the Liberal party having some input into their policies? No. Do I want Labour back in power? No, not at all, not at the moment. Would I like to see the Liberals in power on their own? No, not really - they are too inexperienced. The coalition has had to make difficult and unpopular decisions - and this has resulted in some of the cracks showing. But actually, that's the sort of government I want! I don't want one political party able to do whatever it chooses, and not have to take into account the opinions of anybody else. The Conservatives did that for nearly two decades, on the back of around 40% of the popular vote. Then Labour did it for 13 years, on the back of around 35% of the popular vote. I would much rather see the Conservatives and Liberals struggling to work on things together on the back of 60% of the popular vote than anything else I've seen in my lifetime.
An example of this is what happened with university education. For ideological reasons ("all must have prizes") the government said that 50% of young people should go to university - with first degrees, at that stage, being largely paid for by the government. Needless to say, this was hugely expensive. But no real evaluation has been made, as far as I can tell, of the benefits of having three more years of "education" in general. There is value in doing a degree. Science and technology jobs need people who have learnt more than can be taught by the age of 18. And whilst it may be harder to determine the benefit to the economy of studying arts and humanities, there is, in fact, a need for people who are capable of higher level reflection and expression than is offered up to A-level standard. However, with respect to acquaintances of mine, none of these skills are obtained in a "degree" in Travel and Tourism, or Golf Course Management. If you want to learn about those jobs, just go and do them - don't expect the country to pay for you to study them.
Whilst companies have the right to seek to avoid paying more tax than is necessary, I don't think that personal "tax dodges" can be counted under this heading. So it needles me to see Philip Green in the role of efficiency consultant to the government, for example. But what is the alternative? The civil service has failed to get to grips with how they ought to be spending money - they have shown themselves far too ready to make the sort of spending decision that would lead to serious financial problems if carried out at corporate or personal level - they have failed to grasp the fact that this is not, fundamentally, "their" money, and they should be behaving in an accountable manner with regard to its expenditure. If the only way to achieve that is to employ a money-grabbing capitalist pig to bang their heads together, then so be it.
With regard to the coalition, to be honest, I think you have to pretty much disregard what was in the manifestos of both of the parties in the coalition. Neither expected nor planned for the form of government that they find themselves in now. As a consequence, the policy choices that have been made bear little resemblance to the commitments that either had. The key questions as far as I'm concerned are: would I rather see the Conservatives in power without the Liberal party having some input into their policies? No. Do I want Labour back in power? No, not at all, not at the moment. Would I like to see the Liberals in power on their own? No, not really - they are too inexperienced. The coalition has had to make difficult and unpopular decisions - and this has resulted in some of the cracks showing. But actually, that's the sort of government I want! I don't want one political party able to do whatever it chooses, and not have to take into account the opinions of anybody else. The Conservatives did that for nearly two decades, on the back of around 40% of the popular vote. Then Labour did it for 13 years, on the back of around 35% of the popular vote. I would much rather see the Conservatives and Liberals struggling to work on things together on the back of 60% of the popular vote than anything else I've seen in my lifetime.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Best PV day so far
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 are at 50° north (near enough), and since we are at the winter solstice (near enough) the Sun was at 22° south. That means the highest it gets into the sky (at noon) would be to an elevation of about 18°. In the summer, with the sun at 22° north, it will reach an elevation of 62°. Assuming the relative amount of incident radiation varies with the sine of the angle of elevation (from zero at 0° to 1 at 90°), the sun will be (0.883/0.309), 2.85 times more intense on the basis of its angle of elevation in the summer. With the sun flatter in the sky, its radiation will also be attenuated to a greater extent by the depth of atmosphere through which the light has to travel. The modelled estimate of a 1600-1700 W or thereabouts peak in the summer - around 4 times the level we saw today - seems to be a sensible ballpark. We shall see.
Happy Christmas!
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 are at 50° north (near enough), and since we are at the winter solstice (near enough) the Sun was at 22° south. That means the highest it gets into the sky (at noon) would be to an elevation of about 18°. In the summer, with the sun at 22° north, it will reach an elevation of 62°. Assuming the relative amount of incident radiation varies with the sine of the angle of elevation (from zero at 0° to 1 at 90°), the sun will be (0.883/0.309), 2.85 times more intense on the basis of its angle of elevation in the summer. With the sun flatter in the sky, its radiation will also be attenuated to a greater extent by the depth of atmosphere through which the light has to travel. The modelled estimate of a 1600-1700 W or thereabouts peak in the summer - around 4 times the level we saw today - seems to be a sensible ballpark. We shall see.
Happy Christmas!
Monday, December 20, 2010
More PV information
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 surface up, a lot of the snow and ice on the panels was removed. As a consequence, in some weak winter sunshine, we reached a peak power output of 134 W, and managed to harvest about 112 Wh - still hardly impressive, but a step up from the zero that had been generated in the last few days.
Some more technical details about the installation. It uses 10 x 230Wp Schott panels - it is thus a 2.3 kWp (kilowatt peak) system - and a StecaGrid 2010+ inverter. The efficiency of the inverter is pretty high - even at a 5% load, it is nearly 80% efficient; its published efficiency is given as 93.3%, which is the efficiency it achieves at 30% of its nominal power, 2000W.
Rayotec give a written quotation of the expected performance of the system. They estimate (based on a mathematical model) that the irradiation of the PV array over the course of a year will be about 16,400 kWh, and the amount of power generated will be around 10% of this, 1,683 kWh. This equates to about 729 kWh/kWp.
Some more technical details about the installation. It uses 10 x 230Wp Schott panels - it is thus a 2.3 kWp (kilowatt peak) system - and a StecaGrid 2010+ inverter. The efficiency of the inverter is pretty high - even at a 5% load, it is nearly 80% efficient; its published efficiency is given as 93.3%, which is the efficiency it achieves at 30% of its nominal power, 2000W.
Rayotec give a written quotation of the expected performance of the system. They estimate (based on a mathematical model) that the irradiation of the PV array over the course of a year will be about 16,400 kWh, and the amount of power generated will be around 10% of this, 1,683 kWh. This equates to about 729 kWh/kWp.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Quick PV update
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.
I'm wondering now about whether it's possible to get the PC/Ethernet interface card added post-installation.
Solar panel installation - photos
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 switched off, and waits for three minutes after power is restored prior to being re-energised.
The inverter, in the roof space. I may regret having it installed up there. The inverter generates and stores lots of data. Even in the fading light, there was something quite fascinating about watching the changing power output of the system. But I'd rather not sit in the loft and do that ....
Monday, December 13, 2010
Solar panel installation
... 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 again on Tuesday morning, to confirm they would be there at 11ish. We were both out at work by then. By the time we got home, the scaffolding was all in place.
Despite potential disruption due to weather, the roof installation team arrived at 9am this morning. The electrician rang at 9.30, to say he'd be there a little later - which he duly was. The installation has proceeded smoothly so far, the only slight complication being that the panels on one section of the roof don't fit in a tidy array, so three will be lined up "portrait" and two running along the bottom of the roof section "landscape". The panels aren't up yet, but the metal framework that will support them is.
As far as cabling is concerned, the inverter will be in the loft, mounted on a board next to the chimney breast. A cable runs from there close to the boiler and then down to the consumer unit area, using cable ties to fix it to the pipe that takes gas up to the boiler. A meter has been mounted, along with a meaty isolation switch - there will be photos soon!
The installation team have been pleased with how smoothly it has gone, and hope to have finished early - they are implying lunchtime, rather than school pickup time.
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 again on Tuesday morning, to confirm they would be there at 11ish. We were both out at work by then. By the time we got home, the scaffolding was all in place.
Despite potential disruption due to weather, the roof installation team arrived at 9am this morning. The electrician rang at 9.30, to say he'd be there a little later - which he duly was. The installation has proceeded smoothly so far, the only slight complication being that the panels on one section of the roof don't fit in a tidy array, so three will be lined up "portrait" and two running along the bottom of the roof section "landscape". The panels aren't up yet, but the metal framework that will support them is.
As far as cabling is concerned, the inverter will be in the loft, mounted on a board next to the chimney breast. A cable runs from there close to the boiler and then down to the consumer unit area, using cable ties to fix it to the pipe that takes gas up to the boiler. A meter has been mounted, along with a meaty isolation switch - there will be photos soon!
The installation team have been pleased with how smoothly it has gone, and hope to have finished early - they are implying lunchtime, rather than school pickup time.
How exciting is "arsenic-based" life?
The Guardian reported commentary on the discovery of bacteria that utilise arsenic thus:
Life has proved itself able to adapt to hostile environments, and to "evolve" to develop the ability to metabolise unusual chemicals, even including ones that don't exist in nature. In an interesting quirk of fate, this month sees the publication of the latest paper by Michael Behe, author of "Darwin's Black Box
" and "The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism
." In this paper (published in a peer-reviewed journal, please note), Behe reviews research on evolution at a molecular level, and demonstrates that most observed evolutionary changes represent loss or modification, rather than gain, of Functional Coded Elements (FCTs). The inference, which isn't drawn in the paper, is to highlight the gap between the claims that are made for evolution and what experimental work has actually been shown to be capable of.
That life is able to adapt to use arsenic in place of phosphorus demonstrates again how remarkable it is, how adaptable and well-designed (or well-designoid, if you like) it is. But the idea of "arsenic overlords" is more than a little premature.
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, carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus.To be fair, many scientists seem fairly conservative in their analysis. The most bullish commentary in the article comes from Professor Paul Davies, who says that the find is
surely the tip of a big iceberg, and so has the potential to open up a whole new domain of microbiology.Personally, I think this is an overstatement. Arsenic-based life didn't evolve separately, it seems - although the bacterium (known affectionately as GFAJ-1) can use arsenic in place of phosphorus, it actually thrives better in a phosphorus environment. Further, it didn't evolve as a separate lifeform - it has a place on the tree of life that all earthbased organisms are part of, being one of the class of gamma proteobacteria. And whilst phosphorus may be one of the "big six" elements, I suspect that arsenic is much more like phosphorus than any elements are like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen or sulphur. It is always quite remarkable to discover life at "extremes", but it doesn't really change our fundamental analysis of the requirements for life.
Life has proved itself able to adapt to hostile environments, and to "evolve" to develop the ability to metabolise unusual chemicals, even including ones that don't exist in nature. In an interesting quirk of fate, this month sees the publication of the latest paper by Michael Behe, author of "Darwin's Black Box
" and "The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism." In this paper (published in a peer-reviewed journal, please note), Behe reviews research on evolution at a molecular level, and demonstrates that most observed evolutionary changes represent loss or modification, rather than gain, of Functional Coded Elements (FCTs). The inference, which isn't drawn in the paper, is to highlight the gap between the claims that are made for evolution and what experimental work has actually been shown to be capable of.That life is able to adapt to use arsenic in place of phosphorus demonstrates again how remarkable it is, how adaptable and well-designed (or well-designoid, if you like) it is. But the idea of "arsenic overlords" is more than a little premature.
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Solar electricity
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 generate energy locally for a while - both hot water and electricity. Investigations into the costs using the sort of supplier through whom it was possible to get the government subsidies up to relatively recently has made me decide not to do it. The price seemed to be based on the money you would save over the lifetime of the equipment. Here's another way to look at it. If economically the systems were good, companies wouldn't be selling the systems: they would be buying land to install the systems on.
With the feed-in tariff, this has changed. For solar photovoltaic electricity, you have always been able to generate your own electricity, and sell unused power back to the grid (albeit at a ridiculously low price - it's far more worthwhile to use it to reduce your own bill rather than make money back). Now, to encourage people to take up the scheme, the government is also paying a feed-in tariff, which is a much larger fixed amount per unit. The consequence of this is that it is now worthwhile for companies to basically install the systems wherever they can, and use the feed-in tariff to pay for the system. So there are quite a few companies who are now prepared for you to have a system installed "for free" and get free electricity from it, in return for them collecting the government tariff.
The company who we have gone with, Rayotec, discourage customers from doing this. They point out that, given the amount of the feed-in tariff, you are actually better off borrowing money (if possible) to install the system, as you will recover the cost early in the lifetime of the equipment. The equipment has an expected life of around 25 years - their PV panels are made by Schott, who have a 24 year old panel on the roof of their factory, which is still running at 95% of its designed capacity. And with the feed-in tariff, the cost of the system can be expected to be repaid in around 10 years.
We are expecting a 10-panel system to be installed, which should give us a 2.3 kWp system. In addition to this, the system needs an inverter (which converts the DC output of the panels into mains frequency AC), and the gubbins to connect it to the mains and metering system. The scaffolding should be arriving within two weeks, and the system should be installed early in the following week.
I'll keep you posted, dear reader....
I've been interested in the potential for using the sun to generate energy locally for a while - both hot water and electricity. Investigations into the costs using the sort of supplier through whom it was possible to get the government subsidies up to relatively recently has made me decide not to do it. The price seemed to be based on the money you would save over the lifetime of the equipment. Here's another way to look at it. If economically the systems were good, companies wouldn't be selling the systems: they would be buying land to install the systems on.
With the feed-in tariff, this has changed. For solar photovoltaic electricity, you have always been able to generate your own electricity, and sell unused power back to the grid (albeit at a ridiculously low price - it's far more worthwhile to use it to reduce your own bill rather than make money back). Now, to encourage people to take up the scheme, the government is also paying a feed-in tariff, which is a much larger fixed amount per unit. The consequence of this is that it is now worthwhile for companies to basically install the systems wherever they can, and use the feed-in tariff to pay for the system. So there are quite a few companies who are now prepared for you to have a system installed "for free" and get free electricity from it, in return for them collecting the government tariff.
The company who we have gone with, Rayotec, discourage customers from doing this. They point out that, given the amount of the feed-in tariff, you are actually better off borrowing money (if possible) to install the system, as you will recover the cost early in the lifetime of the equipment. The equipment has an expected life of around 25 years - their PV panels are made by Schott, who have a 24 year old panel on the roof of their factory, which is still running at 95% of its designed capacity. And with the feed-in tariff, the cost of the system can be expected to be repaid in around 10 years.
We are expecting a 10-panel system to be installed, which should give us a 2.3 kWp system. In addition to this, the system needs an inverter (which converts the DC output of the panels into mains frequency AC), and the gubbins to connect it to the mains and metering system. The scaffolding should be arriving within two weeks, and the system should be installed early in the following week.
I'll keep you posted, dear reader....
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Feminism - radical versus liberal
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 Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles (The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series) - and there were many! It is another book I'd recommend - was a brief introduction to radical and liberal feminism in an essay by Anne Collins Smith, on the fact that the Harry Potter books "resonate with the values of radical feminism".
Liberal feminism, she explains, is grounded in the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Taylor Mill and John Stuart Mill. This holds that women are people, and should be treated as such. This draws inspiration from the Enlightenment philosophy, emphasising individual rights and responsibilities. As a reformed Christian, of course, I'd point out that individual rights and responsibilities are something that flow out of a recovery of a biblical view of humanity, and in actual fact whilst the Enlightenment might have popularised this perspective, it had neatly severed it from its epistemological foundation - as demonstrated by the impact of the French Revolution. But put that to one side for now ....
The liberal feminist view turns out to be "surprisingly problematic". When we say that "women are people too", we are in fact expecting women to conform to a pattern of behaviour established in a world where intellectual life has been dominated by male values. Liberal feminism then, argues Smith, leads to the possibility that women are expected to become "just like men".
Radical feminism approaches the issue differently. It holds that the
Smith then argues that, although there are relatively few strong female role-models in the Potter books, the values that lead to Harry's victory over Voldemort - love, interdependence, self-sacrifice - are actually "female" values - and that the agenda which is presented in Rowling's books is in fact consistent with a radical feminist agenda.
Again, I'd point out that love and self-sacrifice are, in fact, Christian values, as much as female ones - and community is something that the church should offer. In other words, a radical feminist should look at a church being "done properly", and find much about it which is consonant with his or her own values....
Liberal feminism, she explains, is grounded in the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Taylor Mill and John Stuart Mill. This holds that women are people, and should be treated as such. This draws inspiration from the Enlightenment philosophy, emphasising individual rights and responsibilities. As a reformed Christian, of course, I'd point out that individual rights and responsibilities are something that flow out of a recovery of a biblical view of humanity, and in actual fact whilst the Enlightenment might have popularised this perspective, it had neatly severed it from its epistemological foundation - as demonstrated by the impact of the French Revolution. But put that to one side for now ....
The liberal feminist view turns out to be "surprisingly problematic". When we say that "women are people too", we are in fact expecting women to conform to a pattern of behaviour established in a world where intellectual life has been dominated by male values. Liberal feminism then, argues Smith, leads to the possibility that women are expected to become "just like men".
Radical feminism approaches the issue differently. It holds that the
root cause of women's oppression is the 'sex/gender system,' a set of social expectations that force identities onto people in such a way that a person's physical sexual identification necessarily determines that person's personality, permissible social roles, and acceptable economic occupations. In a patriarchal society, these expectations will tend to privilege men and disempower women.Some radical feminists argue that our society would be better if people felt freely able to mix and match "male" characteristics (control, independence, competition)and "female" characteristics (interdependence, community, sharing). The greater adoption of "female" characteristics would benefit society as a whole.
"The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy," p.84
Smith then argues that, although there are relatively few strong female role-models in the Potter books, the values that lead to Harry's victory over Voldemort - love, interdependence, self-sacrifice - are actually "female" values - and that the agenda which is presented in Rowling's books is in fact consistent with a radical feminist agenda.
Again, I'd point out that love and self-sacrifice are, in fact, Christian values, as much as female ones - and community is something that the church should offer. In other words, a radical feminist should look at a church being "done properly", and find much about it which is consonant with his or her own values....
More nerdy fun with Google Instant Search
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 top 5 list of possible searches (as Google Instant now seems to have settled on this display format)?
Conditions - either Google.com or Google UK, not signed in: say the number of letters (1-12?) you need to type, and the position in the list (1-5) that your target phrase appears. The phrase your looking for does need to be on the list - if it doesn't show up at all, it's not there, and doesn't count. Answers in comments, please ....
There are nearly 39 million combinations of 7 characters (counting letters and spaces), and 1017ish of 12 characters - similar to Googlewhacking, I think you'll have to be pretty obscure to need much more than 7 characters - or for your actual target phrase to be masked by more common long possible search phrases.
"Susan Pevensie" required eight letters (and appeared fourth on the list). I think this is the first search I've thought of which has needed eight letters.
Conditions - either Google.com or Google UK, not signed in: say the number of letters (1-12?) you need to type, and the position in the list (1-5) that your target phrase appears. The phrase your looking for does need to be on the list - if it doesn't show up at all, it's not there, and doesn't count. Answers in comments, please ....
There are nearly 39 million combinations of 7 characters (counting letters and spaces), and 1017ish of 12 characters - similar to Googlewhacking, I think you'll have to be pretty obscure to need much more than 7 characters - or for your actual target phrase to be masked by more common long possible search phrases.
"Susan Pevensie" required eight letters (and appeared fourth on the list). I think this is the first search I've thought of which has needed eight letters.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Deathly Hallows 1 - reactions
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) that I have grown with them - they embody the characters they portray. The review in "The Times" was rather sniffy, particularly about Grint. However, they are more than sufficiently competent to allow me to suspend my disbelief - which should be the objective in a film.
A couple of really striking moments: the point right at the beginning where Hermione casts an "Obliviate" spell on her own parents - throughout, I felt Watson did a thoroughly good job of conveying the emotion of a young person comprehending the weight of what was happening to a greater extent, in some ways, than the boys; the way in which Hermione (again!) narrates the story of the Deathly Hallows, with a shadow-style animation; and, for good measure, the sequence with Harry and Ron on his return, and the horcrux.
There are plenty of shock moments - startling even when you know that they are coming - and even (considering the darkness of the story) a fair number of laughs.
Rowling Incorporated have done a very good job of bringing the books to life over the last 10 years or so, and whilst I am really looking forward to the final part, I will also be sorry to see the end of the Harry Potter era.
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) that I have grown with them - they embody the characters they portray. The review in "The Times" was rather sniffy, particularly about Grint. However, they are more than sufficiently competent to allow me to suspend my disbelief - which should be the objective in a film.
A couple of really striking moments: the point right at the beginning where Hermione casts an "Obliviate" spell on her own parents - throughout, I felt Watson did a thoroughly good job of conveying the emotion of a young person comprehending the weight of what was happening to a greater extent, in some ways, than the boys; the way in which Hermione (again!) narrates the story of the Deathly Hallows, with a shadow-style animation; and, for good measure, the sequence with Harry and Ron on his return, and the horcrux.
There are plenty of shock moments - startling even when you know that they are coming - and even (considering the darkness of the story) a fair number of laughs.
Rowling Incorporated have done a very good job of bringing the books to life over the last 10 years or so, and whilst I am really looking forward to the final part, I will also be sorry to see the end of the Harry Potter era.
Monday, November 15, 2010
A sonnet - in honour of C******* H*****
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 -
To distant regions there to learn herself.
All talent left my mind, my words did choke,
I barely managed to preserve my helf.
So any sonnet slight and naff will seem
Compared to this outstanding, beauteous dream.
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 -
To distant regions there to learn herself.
All talent left my mind, my words did choke,
I barely managed to preserve my helf.
So any sonnet slight and naff will seem
Compared to this outstanding, beauteous dream.
Christians and Slavery - another snippet
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 of English", by David Crystal, he quotes a sermon in Old English, by Bishop Wulfstan, composed in 1014:
I discovered that Christian opposition to the slave trade goes back yet further. In "The Stories of English", by David Crystal, he quotes a sermon in Old English, by Bishop Wulfstan, composed in 1014:
It is also no wonder that things are going badly for us since we now know very well that many men of long ago did not care very often what they did in word or deed. And the people, as it can seem, became very corrupted through numerous sins and through many evil deeds: through deadly sins and through crimes, through greed and through gluttony; through theft and through robbery; through slave-trafficking and through pagan vices, through deceits and frauds ...In actual fact, he wrote it in Old English - "mannsylena" is the word translated by Crystal as "slave-trafficking". However, in the 11th Century, at a point when the available documentary evidence is quite slight, it is worth noticing that even then slave-trafficking was clearly understood within the church to be worthy of reproach.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
What website defines the letter?
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, broadcaster tie-in? lotto
Web service msn
Shop next
Telecomms o2
Shop pc world
Web service quidco
Web service rightmove
Web service skype
Shop tesco
Web service utube [sic]
Telecomms vodafone
Broadcaster/web service BBC Weather - with Google's guess at local weather first
Broadcaster tie-in x factor
Web service youtube
Shop zara
The labels are assigned in relation to the origins of the website - whilst all the shops listed evidently have a substantial internet presence, they were established as "real world" shops, rather than e-tailers. There are nine such shops, and a further seven websites which are based on "real world" activity, and just nine which are fundamentally web-based activity. Boundaries are blurred, of course - the presence of shops on this list shows a significant internet presence, whilst entities like ebay and Skype have acquired significance on the Internet by changing the way things are done in the non-virtual sphere.
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, broadcaster tie-in? lotto
Web service msn
Shop next
Telecomms o2
Shop pc world
Web service quidco
Web service rightmove
Web service skype
Shop tesco
Web service utube [sic]
Telecomms vodafone
Broadcaster/web service BBC Weather - with Google's guess at local weather first
Broadcaster tie-in x factor
Web service youtube
Shop zara
The labels are assigned in relation to the origins of the website - whilst all the shops listed evidently have a substantial internet presence, they were established as "real world" shops, rather than e-tailers. There are nine such shops, and a further seven websites which are based on "real world" activity, and just nine which are fundamentally web-based activity. Boundaries are blurred, of course - the presence of shops on this list shows a significant internet presence, whilst entities like ebay and Skype have acquired significance on the Internet by changing the way things are done in the non-virtual sphere.
New Google metrics
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 required | Position in list |
| Lady Gaga | 3 | 2 |
| Radiohead | 6 | 1 |
| Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious | 6 | 8 |
| youtube | 1 | 1 |
| van Gogh | 3 | 10 |
| evolution | 3 | 3 |
| creation | 5 | 9 |
| sagrada familia | 4 | 1 |
| spotify | 1 | 8 |
| thermodynamics | 6 | 7 |
| coloratura | 6 | 7 |
Untranslatable words
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 lead to madness.
Anyway, this article is about untranslatable words. My Portuguese/Brazilian acquaintances will be pleased to know that saudades makes the list (I think this is probably the most promoted untranslatable word! - it almost seems to be a matter of pride for Portuguese speakers, in a way that dépaysement, say, simply isn't for French speakers). Welsh acquaintances will perhaps be sad that hiraeth doesn't make the list. There are 489 comments which I didn't read, but I suspect they are further suggested contributions.
Beyond the list, the point at the end of the article is a worthy one - that the hardest part of learning a language isn't learning the rules, but understanding - nay, grokking - the concepts involved -
Anyway, this article is about untranslatable words. My Portuguese/Brazilian acquaintances will be pleased to know that saudades makes the list (I think this is probably the most promoted untranslatable word! - it almost seems to be a matter of pride for Portuguese speakers, in a way that dépaysement, say, simply isn't for French speakers). Welsh acquaintances will perhaps be sad that hiraeth doesn't make the list. There are 489 comments which I didn't read, but I suspect they are further suggested contributions.
Beyond the list, the point at the end of the article is a worthy one - that the hardest part of learning a language isn't learning the rules, but understanding - nay, grokking - the concepts involved -
developing an inner reflex that responds to words’ texture, not their translated “ingredients”. When you hear the word “criminal” you don’t think of “one who commits acts outside the law,” but rather the feeling and mental imagery that comes with that word.
Friday, November 05, 2010
Commercial flying - the downsides
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. If you don't succeed, that money is written off. Unlike all but the silliest vocational university degrees, half a pilot's licence has little transferable value. Furthermore, being a professional pilot is not a transferable skill. I know; I've tried.
- Whilst the technical knowledge you need to absorb and reproduce is not that complicated, there is a LOT of it.
- At the wrong time in the economic cycle, it is almost impossible to get the first job. In fact, you can end up paying more to get a job than you will be earning from it. Seriously.
- If you want two weeks of summer holidays with the family, don't work for an airline. If you don't want to work on Sundays, do something else. If you have regular commitments during the week, give them up. If you want weekends, forget it. Don't underestimate the significance of this. "That Friday feeling" exists - but not generally on Fridays. When your friends are getting married one every couple of weeks, you are likely to miss half of them with work. If your friends are doing regular jobs, their social activities will be geared around Friday and Saturday nights. Yours won't.
- The flight simulator is not "wow! What fun!" You are defending your job, every six months. If you fail too badly, you won't have a licence, which means you won't have a job.
- You have a medical every year. If you fail your medical, you won't have a licence, which means you won't have a job. There aren't many jobs in which you are challenged about how much you are smoking, drinking and exercising every year.
- If you break your arm, you lose your medical, which means you can't work.
- Whilst you may average only around 35 hours work per week (see my earlier post) with some companies, this masks some serious variations. The legal limit is 55 hours duty in any 7 days, 95 hours in any 14 days and 190 hours in any 28 days. Furthermore, when you've got up at or before 4 am, or got in from work after midnight, four days in a row, you seriously wonder if there have really only been 168 hours in the last week.
- You can't turn up to work with a hangover, and in fact for most of the week, you basically can't drink. You can't take a day's holiday at short notice if something comes up. You will miss half the things your children do at school. If delays mean you're missing an appointment, you generally have to put up with it (or organise the appointment better). The work you expected to do will probably be rewritten - more or less often, depending upon the airline - entailing occasional substantial reorganisation of arrangements.
Um, well, that's some of the stuff that nobody told me before I committed myself to this career. I hope it's useful....
- It costs a lot to get into - tens of thousands of pounds. If you don't succeed, that money is written off. Unlike all but the silliest vocational university degrees, half a pilot's licence has little transferable value. Furthermore, being a professional pilot is not a transferable skill. I know; I've tried.
- Whilst the technical knowledge you need to absorb and reproduce is not that complicated, there is a LOT of it.
- At the wrong time in the economic cycle, it is almost impossible to get the first job. In fact, you can end up paying more to get a job than you will be earning from it. Seriously.
- If you want two weeks of summer holidays with the family, don't work for an airline. If you don't want to work on Sundays, do something else. If you have regular commitments during the week, give them up. If you want weekends, forget it. Don't underestimate the significance of this. "That Friday feeling" exists - but not generally on Fridays. When your friends are getting married one every couple of weeks, you are likely to miss half of them with work. If your friends are doing regular jobs, their social activities will be geared around Friday and Saturday nights. Yours won't.
- The flight simulator is not "wow! What fun!" You are defending your job, every six months. If you fail too badly, you won't have a licence, which means you won't have a job.
- You have a medical every year. If you fail your medical, you won't have a licence, which means you won't have a job. There aren't many jobs in which you are challenged about how much you are smoking, drinking and exercising every year.
- If you break your arm, you lose your medical, which means you can't work.
- Whilst you may average only around 35 hours work per week (see my earlier post) with some companies, this masks some serious variations. The legal limit is 55 hours duty in any 7 days, 95 hours in any 14 days and 190 hours in any 28 days. Furthermore, when you've got up at or before 4 am, or got in from work after midnight, four days in a row, you seriously wonder if there have really only been 168 hours in the last week.
- You can't turn up to work with a hangover, and in fact for most of the week, you basically can't drink. You can't take a day's holiday at short notice if something comes up. You will miss half the things your children do at school. If delays mean you're missing an appointment, you generally have to put up with it (or organise the appointment better). The work you expected to do will probably be rewritten - more or less often, depending upon the airline - entailing occasional substantial reorganisation of arrangements.
Um, well, that's some of the stuff that nobody told me before I committed myself to this career. I hope it's useful....
Ryanair spinning pilot salaries
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 rung of the professional pilot career ladder, denying access to all but the wealthiest. (Hmm, that seems a familiar concept.) Frequently the "first rung" is almost at the level of an internship, with the new pilot earning barely enough money to cover the cost of the loans he or she had to take to get that far.
There is a safety issue here - Wikipedia on the Colgan Air crash points out...
However, what particularly annoyed me was a quote from the representative of Ryanair. I can't find the exact words - it's behind the paywall!! - but they said something along the lines of "pilots earn £150,000 and do 900 hours flying a year, which equates to 18 hours per week." This was published without comment from The Times, as the last word in the article.
I would suggest that this is quite naughty of Ryanair, and pretty gullible of The Times to accept the claim as it stands. I simply don't know what it is based on. The proportion of pilots earning £150,000 is negligible. The salary for a captain of a medium-sized jet aeroplane, once all benefits are taken into account, might be of the order of £100,000 - this quote from Ryanair already exaggerates this figure by 50%.
This is still misleading. Only around half of pilots are captains. The other half - first officers - earn substantially less, probably at best half that. And this is based on medium-sized jet aeroplanes and bigger. For people working for regional airlines, or flying turboprop aircraft, take another 30% off.
But what about that "18 hours per week on average"? Again, this is misleading. Yes, if you divide the legal limit of 900 flying hours per year by 52, you come up with an average of 18 hours per week. This would be barely 2 days work, one assumes! However, the more significant measure for pilots is the amount of duty hours they work. They don't arrive at work, sit in an aeroplane and fly, and then go home. Typically, the amount of time spent on duty will be 1.5-2 times the number of hours flown. So that's now 27-36 hours duty per week, on average - still pretty good, by a lot of people's standards, but nothing like the eyewateringly generous figure suggested by Ryanair. Of course, had they said "Our pilots earn an average of £55000 per year and work an average of 30 hours per week", this would hardly have made for such a dramatic soundbite. I suspect it would have been a lot closer to the truth, though.
It is still fairly well rewarded, but before you rush to judgment, there's more that ought to be said about the nature of flying as a career ....
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 rung of the professional pilot career ladder, denying access to all but the wealthiest. (Hmm, that seems a familiar concept.) Frequently the "first rung" is almost at the level of an internship, with the new pilot earning barely enough money to cover the cost of the loans he or she had to take to get that far.
There is a safety issue here - Wikipedia on the Colgan Air crash points out...
Safety issues examined during the accident investigation process, included pilot training, hiring, and fatigue problems, leading the FAA to issue a "Call to Action" for improvements in the practices of regional carriers.All companies have a responsibility to recognise that their objective isn't simply to make money, but to extend a duty of care to their employees.
However, what particularly annoyed me was a quote from the representative of Ryanair. I can't find the exact words - it's behind the paywall!! - but they said something along the lines of "pilots earn £150,000 and do 900 hours flying a year, which equates to 18 hours per week." This was published without comment from The Times, as the last word in the article.
I would suggest that this is quite naughty of Ryanair, and pretty gullible of The Times to accept the claim as it stands. I simply don't know what it is based on. The proportion of pilots earning £150,000 is negligible. The salary for a captain of a medium-sized jet aeroplane, once all benefits are taken into account, might be of the order of £100,000 - this quote from Ryanair already exaggerates this figure by 50%.
This is still misleading. Only around half of pilots are captains. The other half - first officers - earn substantially less, probably at best half that. And this is based on medium-sized jet aeroplanes and bigger. For people working for regional airlines, or flying turboprop aircraft, take another 30% off.
But what about that "18 hours per week on average"? Again, this is misleading. Yes, if you divide the legal limit of 900 flying hours per year by 52, you come up with an average of 18 hours per week. This would be barely 2 days work, one assumes! However, the more significant measure for pilots is the amount of duty hours they work. They don't arrive at work, sit in an aeroplane and fly, and then go home. Typically, the amount of time spent on duty will be 1.5-2 times the number of hours flown. So that's now 27-36 hours duty per week, on average - still pretty good, by a lot of people's standards, but nothing like the eyewateringly generous figure suggested by Ryanair. Of course, had they said "Our pilots earn an average of £55000 per year and work an average of 30 hours per week", this would hardly have made for such a dramatic soundbite. I suspect it would have been a lot closer to the truth, though.
It is still fairly well rewarded, but before you rush to judgment, there's more that ought to be said about the nature of flying as a career ....
Monday, November 01, 2010
Bidrivals - caveat emptor
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 for by just 1p, and increases the time available for the auction by 10 seconds. The effect of the price increment being just 1p means that the sale price stays lower for longer, encouraging more people to bid.
As with the other such websites, I would like to point out that this is NOT LIKE EBAY! Imagine a gadget - say a 21.5" iMac, as is at the top of their list at the moment - that eventually drops at £100. Assuming the starting price is £10 (for the sake of argument), that represents 9000 bids. At 40p each, that is £3600 in payment for bids. You may be the lucky winner and get the computer for the price of one bid plus £100. But there are a huge amount of losers who spent money and have nothing to show for it - and statistically, you are much more likely to be one of them. And the real winner is Bidrivals, who got loads more in payment for bids than the computer was actually worth. This is not an auction site! It's gambling. And as with all institutional gambling, the game is massively loaded in favour of the house.
One small concession Bidrivals have apparently made to real auction sites is a "Buy it now" option. This invites you to buy sell some of the items at what is roughly market price. However, it is also calculated to deceive. When you look at the auction price of (say) £100 creeping slowly upwards, and a "Buy it now" price of £999, the pressure to gamble on the lower auction price becomes even greater.
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 for by just 1p, and increases the time available for the auction by 10 seconds. The effect of the price increment being just 1p means that the sale price stays lower for longer, encouraging more people to bid.
As with the other such websites, I would like to point out that this is NOT LIKE EBAY! Imagine a gadget - say a 21.5" iMac, as is at the top of their list at the moment - that eventually drops at £100. Assuming the starting price is £10 (for the sake of argument), that represents 9000 bids. At 40p each, that is £3600 in payment for bids. You may be the lucky winner and get the computer for the price of one bid plus £100. But there are a huge amount of losers who spent money and have nothing to show for it - and statistically, you are much more likely to be one of them. And the real winner is Bidrivals, who got loads more in payment for bids than the computer was actually worth. This is not an auction site! It's gambling. And as with all institutional gambling, the game is massively loaded in favour of the house.
One small concession Bidrivals have apparently made to real auction sites is a "Buy it now" option. This invites you to buy sell some of the items at what is roughly market price. However, it is also calculated to deceive. When you look at the auction price of (say) £100 creeping slowly upwards, and a "Buy it now" price of £999, the pressure to gamble on the lower auction price becomes even greater.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Boggle(TM), Scramble(TM) and statistics
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 board and then also on the next board. This isn't something I'd particularly noticed playing Boggle - the reason probably being is that Boggle games are substantially slower. Did this mean that the algorithm for generating letters was "cheating", or was it actually to be expected?
The short answer is that it is probably to be expected, though there is a lot more analysis that can be done. Here is a page where the most likely words to appear in a Boggle game are listed. I am assuming this is reliable; it's based on a sample size of 50,000 boards. Notice that the most common 4 letter words will each appear on roughly 5% of boards; the most common 5 letter words will appear on roughly 2% of boards.
Furthermore, from the lower graph, the mode number of 5 letter words is around 8, and the mode number of 4 letter words about 28.
The probability of a common five letter word repeating, then, is roughly 1 - (1 - 0.02)8 - that is, around 15% of the time. But the probability of a common four letter word repeating is 1 - (1 - 0.05)28 - that is, around 76% of the time. The probability of a specific word repeating in successive games is much lower - even for a common four letter word, only 5% of the time. But it doesn't have to be a specific word - you just have to notice any word being repeated to think - "That's odd, I had that in the last game."
More geeky numbery stuff to come another time, I expect .... and H/T Sofia Knutson for the link.
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 board and then also on the next board. This isn't something I'd particularly noticed playing Boggle - the reason probably being is that Boggle games are substantially slower. Did this mean that the algorithm for generating letters was "cheating", or was it actually to be expected?
The short answer is that it is probably to be expected, though there is a lot more analysis that can be done. Here is a page where the most likely words to appear in a Boggle game are listed. I am assuming this is reliable; it's based on a sample size of 50,000 boards. Notice that the most common 4 letter words will each appear on roughly 5% of boards; the most common 5 letter words will appear on roughly 2% of boards.
Furthermore, from the lower graph, the mode number of 5 letter words is around 8, and the mode number of 4 letter words about 28.
The probability of a common five letter word repeating, then, is roughly 1 - (1 - 0.02)8 - that is, around 15% of the time. But the probability of a common four letter word repeating is 1 - (1 - 0.05)28 - that is, around 76% of the time. The probability of a specific word repeating in successive games is much lower - even for a common four letter word, only 5% of the time. But it doesn't have to be a specific word - you just have to notice any word being repeated to think - "That's odd, I had that in the last game."
More geeky numbery stuff to come another time, I expect .... and H/T Sofia Knutson for the link.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Tax relief on pension to be reduced
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 ways of evading - or at least, deferring - payment of tax for those people who fundamentally don't need the money to live on. In a fair number of cases, I would argue, people are making large payments (or getting employers to make large payments) into pension schemes because they simply don't need the money now. Forget the "people earning higher rate tax are extremely rich" thing: if you can afford for over £50,000 per year of what your employer is prepared to give you to go straight into a pension scheme - you know you are not going to need to spend it until you stop working! - then a) this is clearly money you don't need at the moment and b) your expectation of what you need from a pension in the future clearly has little to do with what you will need to live on when you are unable to work any more.
The fact that there has been none of the outcry over reduction of pension tax relief compared to what there was relating to child benefit and university fees is pretty suggestive of a silent "it's a fair cop" to me....
Paying into a pension currently represents one of the tidiest ways of evading - or at least, deferring - payment of tax for those people who fundamentally don't need the money to live on. In a fair number of cases, I would argue, people are making large payments (or getting employers to make large payments) into pension schemes because they simply don't need the money now. Forget the "people earning higher rate tax are extremely rich" thing: if you can afford for over £50,000 per year of what your employer is prepared to give you to go straight into a pension scheme - you know you are not going to need to spend it until you stop working! - then a) this is clearly money you don't need at the moment and b) your expectation of what you need from a pension in the future clearly has little to do with what you will need to live on when you are unable to work any more.
The fact that there has been none of the outcry over reduction of pension tax relief compared to what there was relating to child benefit and university fees is pretty suggestive of a silent "it's a fair cop" to me....
"English Next" - David Graddol
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 history. In the past, English was, to a degree, regarded as the language of "civilised discourse" - particularly by those who wrote its history - ie. largely English-speaking intellectuals. This forced most non-English-first-language people into the role of the "outgroup", since the process of language learning marks native speakers out as the "gold standard", and regardless of whether people were "selected" to speak English or sought to learn, they would always be likely to be distinctively worse at the language then a native speaker.
Various things have led to this changing. The widespread adoption of English as a second language, or in some cases even the use of English as the principle language of education even at secondary level, means that we are currently seeing non-native English speakers of all ages from primary school upwards being taught English - there are possibly as many as 2 billion English learners around the world. China alone produces 20 million more English speakers each year!
Such an explosion lies well beyond the ability of the traditional EFL or ESOL system to support. As a consequence, English is being taught increasingly by non-native speakers. Further, once English is largely known worldwide, spoken increasingly in homes and educational institutions and so on, the demand for English teaching will rapidly be transformed - the need will be for people who can teach English to small children, rather than adults, and as remedial tuition, rather than to the brightest and most ambitious.
The coming era will also be marked by ability in English not being related to accuracy according to native English standards, but by competencies in areas of relevance to the user. The privileged position of the native speaker will thus slip away. Furthermore, as the world population becomes more plurilingual (to use the Euro-in-phrase), it will become harder and more expensive for native English speakers to learn and become competent in other languages, which will (although Graddol didn't labour this point) make them likely to be regarded as the "backward" ones in the new world linguistic order.
Thought-provoking. I'm looking forward to this course ....
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 history. In the past, English was, to a degree, regarded as the language of "civilised discourse" - particularly by those who wrote its history - ie. largely English-speaking intellectuals. This forced most non-English-first-language people into the role of the "outgroup", since the process of language learning marks native speakers out as the "gold standard", and regardless of whether people were "selected" to speak English or sought to learn, they would always be likely to be distinctively worse at the language then a native speaker.
Various things have led to this changing. The widespread adoption of English as a second language, or in some cases even the use of English as the principle language of education even at secondary level, means that we are currently seeing non-native English speakers of all ages from primary school upwards being taught English - there are possibly as many as 2 billion English learners around the world. China alone produces 20 million more English speakers each year!
Such an explosion lies well beyond the ability of the traditional EFL or ESOL system to support. As a consequence, English is being taught increasingly by non-native speakers. Further, once English is largely known worldwide, spoken increasingly in homes and educational institutions and so on, the demand for English teaching will rapidly be transformed - the need will be for people who can teach English to small children, rather than adults, and as remedial tuition, rather than to the brightest and most ambitious.
The coming era will also be marked by ability in English not being related to accuracy according to native English standards, but by competencies in areas of relevance to the user. The privileged position of the native speaker will thus slip away. Furthermore, as the world population becomes more plurilingual (to use the Euro-in-phrase), it will become harder and more expensive for native English speakers to learn and become competent in other languages, which will (although Graddol didn't labour this point) make them likely to be regarded as the "backward" ones in the new world linguistic order.
Thought-provoking. I'm looking forward to this course ....
Monday, October 11, 2010
Thoughts on "How Fair is Britain?"
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:
Or put it another way. A house worth £850,000 per year would probably be let out for £2500 or more per month. That's an annual income of £30,000.
To live in a house worth that amount not paying rent or mortgage is equivalent to an annual income of somewhere between £30,000 and £70,000. A person may technically have no income at all, and yet the benefit of their capital would mean that they were still better off than somebody earning close to the higher tax threshold.
This is consonant with my intuitive feeling that wealth has a lot more to do with ownership of capital, rather than income. It also helps to explain why even though I am comfortably inside the 10% of top earners, I have never felt as though we were well off, compared to the sort of people at whom newspaper supplements are pitched - if we owned our house, rather than having a large mortgage, we would still not be close to being amongst the 10% most wealthy, according to this measure. And yet the removal of child benefit, the suggested increases in university fees, and tax rises are all based on income, not ownership of capital - they are not targeted at the most wealthy at all.
The headline in the Telegraph talked about how the "coping" classes were struggling - "coping" in the sense of coping with an aging generation of parents and an increasingly expensive generation of children - and suggested that one of the emphases of the EHRC was that continuing to place increasing burdens on this group of people would lead to a backlash or breakdown.
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 the top 10 per cent of the population is £853,000, almost 100 times more than the net wealth of the poorest 10 per cent, which is at most £8,800.No reference to income is made at all in the context of what constitutes a wealthy family here, and a little analysis of this shows why. If I had a mortgage for £850,000 (supposing such a thing were possible), the interest alone (at around 5%) would cost me in excess of £40,000 per year. To pay £40,000 per year, I'd need additional gross income of £67,000 per year.
Or put it another way. A house worth £850,000 per year would probably be let out for £2500 or more per month. That's an annual income of £30,000.
To live in a house worth that amount not paying rent or mortgage is equivalent to an annual income of somewhere between £30,000 and £70,000. A person may technically have no income at all, and yet the benefit of their capital would mean that they were still better off than somebody earning close to the higher tax threshold.
This is consonant with my intuitive feeling that wealth has a lot more to do with ownership of capital, rather than income. It also helps to explain why even though I am comfortably inside the 10% of top earners, I have never felt as though we were well off, compared to the sort of people at whom newspaper supplements are pitched - if we owned our house, rather than having a large mortgage, we would still not be close to being amongst the 10% most wealthy, according to this measure. And yet the removal of child benefit, the suggested increases in university fees, and tax rises are all based on income, not ownership of capital - they are not targeted at the most wealthy at all.
The headline in the Telegraph talked about how the "coping" classes were struggling - "coping" in the sense of coping with an aging generation of parents and an increasingly expensive generation of children - and suggested that one of the emphases of the EHRC was that continuing to place increasing burdens on this group of people would lead to a backlash or breakdown.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Child benefit and high earners
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 another £2500 income we won't have, compared to a lower- earning family of the same size. Incidentally, if I wasn't around, would my wife then get this benefit reinstated? I thought this government were the family-friendly lot?
And I really hope that the government does what it has muttered about if it gets the deficit down, and reduces the tax burden at some stage. The proportion of my income that is paid as tax is pretty staggering. People "in my line" working almost anywhere else take home significantly larger amounts of money.
Grumble grumble.
Also, that's another £2500 income we won't have, compared to a lower- earning family of the same size. Incidentally, if I wasn't around, would my wife then get this benefit reinstated? I thought this government were the family-friendly lot?
And I really hope that the government does what it has muttered about if it gets the deficit down, and reduces the tax burden at some stage. The proportion of my income that is paid as tax is pretty staggering. People "in my line" working almost anywhere else take home significantly larger amounts of money.
Grumble grumble.
Friday, October 01, 2010
Can I help you, reader?
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 Beukes herself pointed out that they were actually South African slang. She graciously avoided saying so, but I felt guilty of hemisphericist thinking - if I (white, English-speaking, Northern Hemisphere) didn't recognise a word, it must not exist.
Various options were considered to help non-SA readers overcome this. Electronic versions of the book could have mouse-over contextual explanations. A glossary could be added to the book. But upon reflection, the glossary idea was set aside. I think this is a correct choice. There is a place and time for breaking down or stepping through a text, and as was pointed out, there already exist plenty of resources that could help the reader analyse in more detail. But when a person is reading a book, one fundamental thing should be the pace of the read.
For a SA readership, the use of local slang would not interfere with the pace of the book. Non-SA readers have a choice. They could skip the book because they can't cope with the cross-cultural experience. If so, they risk isolating themselves from all cultures other than their own. Or they could accept the book on its own terms, something that represents a voice from another culture ("Framling"), either mentally blipping out the hard bits, and hoping it doesn't interfere too much with the plot, or where necessary accepting a slower read and researching the meaning.
Everything we read is at some cultural distance from us. In the USUK today, we have reached the stage where we accept things like "high school" and "parking lot" as congruent with our own culture, even though it would actually be unusual to refer to things as such in the UK. Other things have become indistinguishable ("shopping mall" with its "food court").
When we read other books, we find ourselves at different cultural distances from our normal lives. How much does the world of Jane Austen, say, or Dostoyevsky, or Ginsberg, really have to do with us? And yet, we become used to inhabiting those mental spaces, even comfortable. It is very unusual, and quite exciting, to have the opportunity to be exposed to something which by occupying a cultural space we've not visited before, really opens our minds to new ideas. It also shows that culture isn't homogeneous - that it's not the case that the whole world aspires to a kind of suburban American dream. I think this was one of the reasons I so enjoyed Beukes' books. To attempt to simplify this with a glossary, flattening the "Framling" ideas into our own cultural grid, would be a retrograde step.
My initial thought was that they were all made up, but Lauren Beukes herself pointed out that they were actually South African slang. She graciously avoided saying so, but I felt guilty of hemisphericist thinking - if I (white, English-speaking, Northern Hemisphere) didn't recognise a word, it must not exist.
Various options were considered to help non-SA readers overcome this. Electronic versions of the book could have mouse-over contextual explanations. A glossary could be added to the book. But upon reflection, the glossary idea was set aside. I think this is a correct choice. There is a place and time for breaking down or stepping through a text, and as was pointed out, there already exist plenty of resources that could help the reader analyse in more detail. But when a person is reading a book, one fundamental thing should be the pace of the read.
For a SA readership, the use of local slang would not interfere with the pace of the book. Non-SA readers have a choice. They could skip the book because they can't cope with the cross-cultural experience. If so, they risk isolating themselves from all cultures other than their own. Or they could accept the book on its own terms, something that represents a voice from another culture ("Framling"), either mentally blipping out the hard bits, and hoping it doesn't interfere too much with the plot, or where necessary accepting a slower read and researching the meaning.
Everything we read is at some cultural distance from us. In the USUK today, we have reached the stage where we accept things like "high school" and "parking lot" as congruent with our own culture, even though it would actually be unusual to refer to things as such in the UK. Other things have become indistinguishable ("shopping mall" with its "food court").
When we read other books, we find ourselves at different cultural distances from our normal lives. How much does the world of Jane Austen, say, or Dostoyevsky, or Ginsberg, really have to do with us? And yet, we become used to inhabiting those mental spaces, even comfortable. It is very unusual, and quite exciting, to have the opportunity to be exposed to something which by occupying a cultural space we've not visited before, really opens our minds to new ideas. It also shows that culture isn't homogeneous - that it's not the case that the whole world aspires to a kind of suburban American dream. I think this was one of the reasons I so enjoyed Beukes' books. To attempt to simplify this with a glossary, flattening the "Framling" ideas into our own cultural grid, would be a retrograde step.
"Zoo City" by Lauren Beukes
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: cyberpunk kind of covers it partly, but there's also some SF and fantasy/magic in there.
This is a world in which killing somebody results in you acquiring an animal "familiar" - think of Pullman's daemons in His Dark Materials - which in turn leads to you being stigmatised in mainstream society. However, these bonds strengthen your ability to do "magic" - I think! The first person (there's only one in this book, after the disorientating four in Moxyland!), Zinzi, has a sloth as her familiar, and the circumstances in which she acquired the sloth are only gradually revealed. Her magical gift is the ability to find lost items - things of emotional significance to a person she senses as being connected to them through a psychic thread, which she can follow to locate them.
When a client dies before paying her, she takes on the task of trying to find a lost teen popstar ... and it hardly comes as a surprise that there is more to this case than meets the eye.
It is set against a backdrop of political asylum, urban decay and civil unrest within Africa. It is pretty violent, and yet, as far as I can tell, reasonable in its portrayal of society, as modified by the existential changes that follow from this SF/fantasy premise.
What else is good? It's the right length - around 350 pages! The book comes with extras - an offer for a tie-in CD, some short stories based on Moxyland, acknowledgements which filled in some background. It's interesting to see how the new media have changed the process of writing - Beukes was assisted by various people online and IRL along the way, which leads to interesting echoey depths to the book.
Two niggles. Firstly, the castlist is quite long, and also SA slang terms were used liberally, which I found somewhat disorientating. I probably need to read it again to make sure I've untangled everything. And secondly, the book is very "of the moment" - Lady Gaga, the South African World Cup and a new iPhone being typical reference points. The downside of the largescale absorption of things like this from the culture is that it's fairly likely that a good number of them will, within a couple of years, look dated. That will be a shame - the writing in Zoo City merits a good shelflife.
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: cyberpunk kind of covers it partly, but there's also some SF and fantasy/magic in there.
This is a world in which killing somebody results in you acquiring an animal "familiar" - think of Pullman's daemons in His Dark Materials - which in turn leads to you being stigmatised in mainstream society. However, these bonds strengthen your ability to do "magic" - I think! The first person (there's only one in this book, after the disorientating four in Moxyland!), Zinzi, has a sloth as her familiar, and the circumstances in which she acquired the sloth are only gradually revealed. Her magical gift is the ability to find lost items - things of emotional significance to a person she senses as being connected to them through a psychic thread, which she can follow to locate them.
When a client dies before paying her, she takes on the task of trying to find a lost teen popstar ... and it hardly comes as a surprise that there is more to this case than meets the eye.
It is set against a backdrop of political asylum, urban decay and civil unrest within Africa. It is pretty violent, and yet, as far as I can tell, reasonable in its portrayal of society, as modified by the existential changes that follow from this SF/fantasy premise.
What else is good? It's the right length - around 350 pages! The book comes with extras - an offer for a tie-in CD, some short stories based on Moxyland, acknowledgements which filled in some background. It's interesting to see how the new media have changed the process of writing - Beukes was assisted by various people online and IRL along the way, which leads to interesting echoey depths to the book.
Two niggles. Firstly, the castlist is quite long, and also SA slang terms were used liberally, which I found somewhat disorientating. I probably need to read it again to make sure I've untangled everything. And secondly, the book is very "of the moment" - Lady Gaga, the South African World Cup and a new iPhone being typical reference points. The downside of the largescale absorption of things like this from the culture is that it's fairly likely that a good number of them will, within a couple of years, look dated. That will be a shame - the writing in Zoo City merits a good shelflife.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Passengers with wheelchairs
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 been criticised in some quarters because of this case. In short, the airline has expressed reluctance to carry wheelchairs weighing over 60kg for passengers, unless they can be dismantled into manageable sections. On the back of this, "all airlines" are being called upon to change their policy and make it easier for disabled people to fly.
Let's be clear about what is being asked of the airline. A chair that weighs 120-140kg weighs as much as seven heavy cases, and about four times the maximum permitted weight for passenger cases (and as much as two normal-sized people!!). It is also not designed to be manhandled - when it arrived from the factory or store, it would probably have been driven off a lorry, not lifted off. At the owner's house, it would stay on ground level. I have tried to carry one - with three other loaders - and it was almost impossible - as much as anything else, there are no handholds to facilitate it. They are built to move around using their own propulsion system. The passenger's chair is more expensive on its own than the luggage of the average family.
Travel is inconvenient for everybody: nobody really travels "their way" unless they are a millionaire. Airlines have arrangements in place to carry passengers with reduced mobility - including those who are paraplegic. Given this, it seems sententious to me to argue that the airline is discriminating against disability because it is unable to easily transport something that was never designed to be transported in the first place. It is as much the responsibility of the passenger to work with the airline and find out how they can be accommodated. Passengers with specific requirements who realise that they are making unusual demands and are polite about it are generally treated with respect, sympathy and consideration, and generally staff (and other passengers!) will do what they can to help out. People who are perceived to be making unreasonable demands as "my rights!" may get what they want in the short term, but end up alienating themselves from others and hardening attitudes against themselves.
However, there is an issue of "reasonableness". A certain airline has been criticised in some quarters because of this case. In short, the airline has expressed reluctance to carry wheelchairs weighing over 60kg for passengers, unless they can be dismantled into manageable sections. On the back of this, "all airlines" are being called upon to change their policy and make it easier for disabled people to fly.
Let's be clear about what is being asked of the airline. A chair that weighs 120-140kg weighs as much as seven heavy cases, and about four times the maximum permitted weight for passenger cases (and as much as two normal-sized people!!). It is also not designed to be manhandled - when it arrived from the factory or store, it would probably have been driven off a lorry, not lifted off. At the owner's house, it would stay on ground level. I have tried to carry one - with three other loaders - and it was almost impossible - as much as anything else, there are no handholds to facilitate it. They are built to move around using their own propulsion system. The passenger's chair is more expensive on its own than the luggage of the average family.
Travel is inconvenient for everybody: nobody really travels "their way" unless they are a millionaire. Airlines have arrangements in place to carry passengers with reduced mobility - including those who are paraplegic. Given this, it seems sententious to me to argue that the airline is discriminating against disability because it is unable to easily transport something that was never designed to be transported in the first place. It is as much the responsibility of the passenger to work with the airline and find out how they can be accommodated. Passengers with specific requirements who realise that they are making unusual demands and are polite about it are generally treated with respect, sympathy and consideration, and generally staff (and other passengers!) will do what they can to help out. People who are perceived to be making unreasonable demands as "my rights!" may get what they want in the short term, but end up alienating themselves from others and hardening attitudes against themselves.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Hari on Haiti
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
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 Ages") argued precisely that the "magisterium" of faith should be private, in contrast to science and reason-based knowledge, which should be the basis of public discourse. Inevitably, he did little in the way of epistemology to justify this position. Richard Dawkins goes further in his abhorrence of faith and religion - lumping all religions together with superstitions and anti-science, declaring them to be mental viruses whose influence is entirely parasitic upon society. There are other oft-quoted writers who argue that religion is required for good people to do bad things.
You have to be fairly dishonest (or ignorant) about history to cast out the beneficial influence of some parts of Christianity - though it would be fair to point out that Benedict didn't mention the Crusades or the Inquisition. Whilst I have some sympathy with the content of his speech, and the need for religious conscience to have an impact on public discourse, I would disagree with him when it comes to his suggestion that this discussion will in part be between secular authorities and the "Holy See" as he refers to it. I would suggest that Benedict is carrying out his own form of revisionism in claiming the benefits of dialogue of conscience as being derived in part from the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church frankly does not have a good track record in this regard. Christian conscience, in biblical terms, finds expression primarily in the individual voice reacting to secular powers. The Catholic Church operates as an alternative power (as, for that matter, do many religious organisations - cults, established churches, theocracies, even Calvin's government in Geneva), and it's the defence of that power and the attempt to reinforce that power that has led and continues to lead to abuses.
I believe people must be allowed freedom of conscience - this is a freedom that people over centuries have sacrificed their lives for, and is probably one of the most important marks of a civilised society. But I don't believe this means that institutions (including religious institutions) have the freedom to operate as alternatives to society. It was the sense that Catholicism was supposedly answerable to higher values that, in my opinion, allowed such things as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the abuses that Luther was reacting against at the time of the Reformation, and the abuse of cared-for children. There should be freedom of conscience, and a place for dialogue upon that basis, yes - but between the society and individuals, not between secular powers and religious powers.
Obviously, he did not name names. However, within secularism, Stephen Gould (in "Rocks of Ages") argued precisely that the "magisterium" of faith should be private, in contrast to science and reason-based knowledge, which should be the basis of public discourse. Inevitably, he did little in the way of epistemology to justify this position. Richard Dawkins goes further in his abhorrence of faith and religion - lumping all religions together with superstitions and anti-science, declaring them to be mental viruses whose influence is entirely parasitic upon society. There are other oft-quoted writers who argue that religion is required for good people to do bad things.
You have to be fairly dishonest (or ignorant) about history to cast out the beneficial influence of some parts of Christianity - though it would be fair to point out that Benedict didn't mention the Crusades or the Inquisition. Whilst I have some sympathy with the content of his speech, and the need for religious conscience to have an impact on public discourse, I would disagree with him when it comes to his suggestion that this discussion will in part be between secular authorities and the "Holy See" as he refers to it. I would suggest that Benedict is carrying out his own form of revisionism in claiming the benefits of dialogue of conscience as being derived in part from the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church frankly does not have a good track record in this regard. Christian conscience, in biblical terms, finds expression primarily in the individual voice reacting to secular powers. The Catholic Church operates as an alternative power (as, for that matter, do many religious organisations - cults, established churches, theocracies, even Calvin's government in Geneva), and it's the defence of that power and the attempt to reinforce that power that has led and continues to lead to abuses.
I believe people must be allowed freedom of conscience - this is a freedom that people over centuries have sacrificed their lives for, and is probably one of the most important marks of a civilised society. But I don't believe this means that institutions (including religious institutions) have the freedom to operate as alternatives to society. It was the sense that Catholicism was supposedly answerable to higher values that, in my opinion, allowed such things as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the abuses that Luther was reacting against at the time of the Reformation, and the abuse of cared-for children. There should be freedom of conscience, and a place for dialogue upon that basis, yes - but between the society and individuals, not between secular powers and religious powers.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The latest variation on "Telebid" ...
... 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 exactly as spelt out here. It is not an auction - SwipeBids are fundamentally not interested in the money they get for the item they are using as a "prize" - they get far more from the accumulation of "paid-for" bids. This scheme is nothing like eBay.
By all means play their game if you're feeling lucky. If you know what you're about, it's a better bet than the lottery. However, bear in mind that the better you do out of their website, the more other people are being screwed. That's not a characteristic of a real auction.
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 exactly as spelt out here. It is not an auction - SwipeBids are fundamentally not interested in the money they get for the item they are using as a "prize" - they get far more from the accumulation of "paid-for" bids. This scheme is nothing like eBay.
By all means play their game if you're feeling lucky. If you know what you're about, it's a better bet than the lottery. However, bear in mind that the better you do out of their website, the more other people are being screwed. That's not a characteristic of a real auction.
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