tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9501998236426513582024-03-14T06:15:31.693+00:00Yet another geek blogYet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-27489400078516623902013-01-04T20:21:00.000+00:002013-02-02T20:30:03.381+00:00Embassytown by China MiévilleEmbassytown by China Miéville
<img src="http://vincentchongart.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/embassytown-design.jpg">
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<h3>In Short</h3>
<p>
A story of mutual incomprehension that becomes a study of language itself.
</p>
<p>
The Ariekei are an alien race that speak like humans but do not need to learn to speak. The ability is hardwired into their brains. When one hears another, they perceive the meaning in the same way that a human perceives the blueness of a clear sky of the heat of a flame.
</p>
<p>
This puts the small human settlement on the Ariekei world in a very odd position. They have learned to understand and speak the Ariekei language but they cannot talk to them. When the Ariekei listen to humans (or even recordings of themselves) they only hear a noise. Not only do they not understand their own language, they have no concept of language at all.
</p>
<p>
<h3>Things to Like</h3>
</p>
<p>
Too often in science fiction, aliens are not really very alien and language is treated as a problem that is best ignored. It is wonderful that Miéville confronts both of these things head on and makes them central to the book.
</p>
<p>
The story is told as an account by the main character, Avice Benner Cho and her voice really adds to the incomprehension. Cho is a hyperspace traveller- something that cannot be described to anybody who has not experienced it. She talks about Ariekei as if talking to somebody who knows what they are like. So all the reader gets is references to the chitinous sounds of their walk or the retraction of their eye-coral. This lack of a proper description maintains their alienness.
</p>
<p>
This could have been a very dry and cerebral study. Instead there is an ingenious catastrophe that engulfs both races triggered by their lack of mutual understanding.
</p>
<h3>Things not to Like</h3>
<p>
Alas, Cho is not a very good story-teller. She gets muddled up, interrupts herself and changed track. This is good for her character, but it occasionally spoils the atmosphere. Particularly when horrible things happen because these are things that the reader is interested in but Cho does not want to talk about.
</p>
<p>
The plot is also a little simplistic. Nothing much happens at the start so that the reader has the chance to understand this strange world. Then disaster strikes out of the blue and there is a mad scramble to deal with it. The final resolution is ingenious and satisfying, but seems to happen far too quickly.
</p>
<h3>Things it is like</h3>
<p>
I honestly do not know what to compare this book to. (A recommendation in itself). However, other Sci-Fi that uses language as a central theme is:
</p>
<ul>
<li><cite>
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1857988825/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1857988825&linkCode=as2&tag=afterlife-21">The Disposessed</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=as2&o=2&a=1857988825" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />
</cite> by Ursula LeGuin.<br>
A colony of anarchists create an artificial language with no possessives of way of expressing ownership.
</li>
<li><cite>
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0141393041/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0141393041&linkCode=as2&tag=afterlife-21">1984</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=as2&o=2&a=0141393041" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />
</cite> by George Orwell.<br>
The state controls thinking by removing words.
</li>
<li><cite>
<a href="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=afterlife-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=1876756055&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr"></a>
Native Tongue
</cite> by Suzette Haden Elgin.<br>
Women have their own language to protect themselves.
</li>
<li><cite>
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0575094206/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0575094206&linkCode=as2&tag=afterlife-21">
Babel-17</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=as2&o=2&a=0575094206" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />
</cite> by Samuel R Delany.<br>
An artificial language is used as a weapon because learning it produces traitorous thoughts.
</li>
</ul>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-39682942380968111632012-09-02T20:55:00.000+01:002012-09-02T20:55:44.276+01:00Asylum of the Daleks<br />
<img class="LEFT" src="http://static.bbci.co.uk/programmeimages/944x531/images/p00xxl9m.jpg" width="472" height="265"><br />
<br />
<h4>In Short</h4>This cannot be faulted as s series opener. The daleks are re-introduced as a major power and made to feel dangerous again.<br />
<br />
<h4>Things to Like</h4>This is one of those stories with something for everybody. Long-term fans can play 'spot-the-dalek' and listen out for references to old stories. New fans can just enjoy the story that is pleasingly full of spectacle and mis-direction. There is even soap-style love story.<br />
<br />
The plot plays nice tricks with audience expectations. The old companions are yanked back in to series against their wills after we presume they are finished with and the new companion character made the subject of a plot twists that go completely against the norm and yet is signalled from the start.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>Things not to Like</h4>The asylum planet itself could have done with a little more justification. Daleks have never shown any squeamishness about killing other daleks in the past. Nor do they do so in this storey.<br />
<br />
Some things were done purely for visual effect rather than believability. For example, dalek agents can now erupt bionic implants. I am the first to admit that these are a million times better that the old 'dalek hats' ( <a href="http://media.avclub.com/images/articles/article/79/79710/resurrectionofthedaleks02_jpg_300x1000_q85.jpg">http://media.avclub.com/images/articles/article/79/79710/resurrectionofthedaleks02_jpg_300x1000_q85.jpg</a> ) but it makes no sense. The agents are supposed to be undetectable, not full of metal. How could they work as infiltrators otherwise?<br />
<br />
Similarly, the imprisoned break free of their chains. Very dramatic of course, but if they can do that then what possible reason could there have been for chaining them up in the first place?<br />
<br />
The 'Doctor who?' gag has also become overused. Perhaps it will be the ‘Bad Wolf’ of this series, but if not then it feels wrong to use it as a joke after the climax of the last series.<br />
<br />
<h4>Things it is like</h4><ul><li><cite>Resurrection of the Daleks</cite></li>
<li><cite>Revelation of the Daleks</cite></li>
</ul>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-45227382242305949872012-08-19T19:19:00.000+01:002012-08-19T19:27:49.569+01:00The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter<div class="RIGHT"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0857520091/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0857520091&linkCode=as2&tag=afterlife-21"><br />
<img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51ze194Vr4L._SL160_.jpg"><br />
Buy The Long Earth from Amazon<br />
</a><br />
<img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=as2&o=2&a=0857520091" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br />
</div><br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>In Short</h4><p>A (very) simple machine is suddenly invented that allows travel into parallel universes. An apparently infinite number of uninhabited and unspoilt Earths. <br />
</p><p>A lot of science fiction has dealt with the problems of things running out, space, oil, food, air etc. But how would we cope with plenty? What if we suddenly had infinite resources?<br />
</p><p>This is good “old school” science fiction. A single interesting idea is presented and then followed see where it leads. <br />
</p><p>This is clearest in the plot, which is almost entirely event rather than character driven. It is as if the authors just light the blue-touch paper and stand back. The machine is invented: so what happens then? The poor of the world simply leave: so what happens then? People can use the machine to go around walls and into locked rooms: so what happens then? Colonists do not see the point of paying taxes to another universe: so what happens then?<br />
</p><br />
<h4>Things to Like</h4><p>The sheer scale and grandeur. This is clearly as a 'pilot' novel for an ongoing series or shared story space. It is full of dangling story hooks and unexplored ideas.<br />
</p><p>I also love the plans for the magic machine. Expect to see them eBay soon.<br />
</p><br />
<h4>Things not to like</h4></p><p>The plot is stretched very thinly. It is forced to jump between far explorers, colonists and a transformed original world. This does not allow enough room for characters or drama.<br />
<br />
I hope that future visits to the Long Earth take the form of self contained stories.<br />
<br />
<h4>Things it is like</h4><ul><li><cite>The Saga of the Exiles</cite> by Julian May</li>
<li><cite>The Number of the Beast</cite> by Robert A. Heinlein</li>
<li><cite>Mostly Harmless</cite> by Douglas Adams</li>
</ul><br />
<br />
Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-66735344173662711332012-08-01T11:44:00.000+01:002012-09-08T11:45:58.924+01:00My Dear Watson by Margaret Park Bridges<img class="LEFT" src="http://ecimages.kobobooks.com/Image.ashx?imageID=INr6p5zVm0Sl2mFRO8OvHA&Type=Full"><br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>In Short</h3>A female Sherlock Holmes.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>Things to Like</h3>A simple idea that is immediately engaging. Firstly is lots of humour to be had in the difficulty of maintaining the disguise. Secondly there is some nice exploration of social attitudes to gender. Put simply, a person who is a woman is a woman first and and person second.<br />
<br />
Holmes and Constance Moriarty are two intelligent and resourceful women who have overcome the challenge in two very different ways. Moriarty has become a simpering vamp who manipulates men to make their power her own. Holmes sidesteps the problem by stepping into a male role.<br />
<br />
This seems like a ridiculous idea, but it is worth remembering that this was done in Victorian times (Margaret Ann Bulkley became Dr James Barry), and we will never know how often.<br />
<br />
<h3>Things not to Like</h3>There is not much Sherlock Holmes here!<br />
<br />
Holmes’ misogyny and brush with the cross-dressing Irena Adler are touched on but not given the attention that they deserve. Holmes despairing annoyance at how easily Watson is manipulated by Miss Moriarty is engaging enough, but the conviction that she is a murderess is based on nothing more that an instant dislike and prejudice towards the surname. This is not the Holmes we know.<br />
<br />
Worst of all is the inevitable return to female dress. There is nothing wrong with the idea that a woman can pass as a women in female clothes. Nor that she would then see a different side to people. But not that Holmes can just disappear by doing this. It is an essential part of the plot that when Holmes puts on a frock and a wig nobody recognises her. These are people who have known Holmes for years, are aware of Holmes’ skill with disguises and are actively looking for the missing detective. None of them looks twice at the tall striking woman with the severe nose who has suddenly appeared on the scene.<br />
<br />
<h3>Things it is like</h3><ul><li><br />
<cite>Without a Clue</cite> is a 1988 film in which Holmes is an actor hired by Watson who is the real investigator.<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00005RY7J/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B00005RY7J&linkCode=as2&tag=afterlife-21">Without a Clue [DVD]</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=as2&o=2&a=B00005RY7J" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br />
</li>
<li><br />
<cite>The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes</cite> by John Joseph Adams is a short story collection with many alternative takes on Holmes.<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1597801607/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1597801607&linkCode=as2&tag=afterlife-21">The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=as2&o=2&a=1597801607" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>
</ul>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-30509999432361104902011-11-16T18:34:00.003+00:002011-11-16T18:41:00.925+00:00Pavane by Keith Roberts<div class="RIGHT">
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</div>
<h4>In Short</h4>
<p>
A well crafted alternative history. The religious wars of the 16th Century were decisively won by the Catholic Church who then went on to increase their stranglehold over all aspects of society. We have a 20th Century inhabited by people who feel historical.
</p>
<h4>Things to Like</h4>
<p>
The detail is carefully built up to make the world very believable. Each chapter is a self contained story centred on a character from a different level of society. The most striking thing (to us) about this world is the way it has developed. People are allowed to develop existing technologies, but not invent new ones.
</p>
<p>
For example, they have steam locomotives, because they developed from steam engines. But, with no investment or research there are no railways. The locomotives are owned by private hauliers and run on roads that are directly maintained by the towns. The nearest thing to large companies are the guilds such as the one that maintains the network of semaphore towers but they are not free to do anything new.
</p>
<h4>Things not to like</h4>
<p>
The format makes it feel a little fragmented and lacking in overall narrative. Only towards the end to the different threads begin to come together and only at the very end does it ask questions about the nature of history and the way that it works.
</p>
<h4>Things it is like</h4>
<ul>
<li><cite>Ruled Britannia</cite> by Harry Turtledove (The Spanish Armada is victorious)</li>
<li><cite>The Warlord of the Air</cite> by Michael Moorcock (The British Empire never falls)</li>
<li><cite>Fatherland</cite> by Robert Harris (Hitler wins World War II)</li>
<li><cite>The Man in the High Castle</cite> by Philip K Dick (Ditto)</li>
<li><cite>Going Postal</cite> by Terry Prattchett (Because of the semaphore towers)</li>
</ul>
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<iframe src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=afterlife-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=B00351YEX0&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-65434539486037068362011-11-12T12:57:00.004+00:002011-11-16T18:27:46.450+00:00The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: War of the Worlds By Manly Wade Wellman , Wade Wellman<iframe src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=afterlife-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=1848564910&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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</div>
<h4>In Short</h4>
What Sherlock Holmes got up to when the Martians were invading.
<h4>Things to Like</h4>
<p>
A better premise for a steampunk novel simply cannot be imagined. Because the world of Sherlock Holmes is so familiar, the reader can experience some of the thrill in its destruction that the original readers of The War of the Worlds must have felt. The lesser known Professor Challenger is also bought into the mix and there is a wonderfully cheeky revelation about Holmes' private life.
</p>
<p>
<h4>Things not to Like</h4>
The authors have taken all this potential and done absolutely nothing with it. Separated and alone, Challenger and Holmes simply wonder around following the exact events described in Wells' book and understand them. That is pretty much it.
</p>
<p>
The bombastic and arrogant Challenger should be a joy to write for. But, as he is alone he has nobody to be bombastic and arrogant to. Holmes conducts no experiments, makes no deductions. He just understands what is happening because he is so clever. You would at least expect some sparks when the men are finally bought together, but no. It is just mutual appreciation.
</p>
<p>
Even the cheeky idea about Homes' private life is handled in the most boring way imaginable. The reader is just told what it is near the beginning of the story.
</p>
<p>
I suspect that the authors were just too timid to add anything, but in places it feels as if they are actually trying to be dull.
</p>
<h4>Things it is Like</h4>
<ul>
<li><cite>The War of the Worlds</cite> by HG Wells</li>
<li><cite>The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes</cite> by Arthur Conan Doyle</li>
<li><cite>Edison's Conquest of Mars</cite> by Garrett P Serviss</li>
<li><cite>War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches</cite> by Kevin J Anderson</li>
</ul>
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<iframe src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=afterlife-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=0553103539&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-20176344077625382692011-09-28T20:21:00.005+01:002011-09-28T20:42:44.903+01:00Anno Dracula by Kim Newman<div style="float:right">
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</div>
<h4>In Short</h4>
<p>
Dracula expanded into an alternative history. Overcoming the resistance detailed by Bram Stoker, the Count establishes himself in London and enthrals Victoria. Vampirism spreads unchecked through the aristocracy and then to all levels of society. As Royal Consort, Dracula is effective ruler of an Empire on which the sun will never rise.
</p>
<h4>Things to Like</h4>
<p>
Newman creates a pleasingly detailed world but does not let the detail overwhelm the story. He uses the device of mixing familiar fictional characters together with actual history. (This technique was first popularised by Philip José Farmer and later taken to extreme by Alan Moore in <cite>The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</cite>).</p>
<p>
Familiar events, such as the Whitechapel murders and the Indian mutiny, still happen but for different reasons.</p>
<p>
There is always some nice social insight to be had from the way that the vampirism exaggerates Victorian society. The expectational nature of the class system is made explicit. And because the ruling classes spend half their time in coffins they literally cannot see the world they rule. The only problem that they are aware of is a lack of obedience which needs to be addressed by placing more vampires into positions of power. Where they will stay forever.</p>
<h4>Things not to Like</h4>
<p>
Another problem is the Diogenese Club. This is the utterly dull and unsociable gentlemen’s club from the Sherlock Holmes stories. This works perfectly as a cover for a secret society and that is how Newman uses it. The problem, is that it is a secret society that absolutely every seems to know about. One of the main characters in the book is known to be an agent of the club even by people who know nothing else about him. It would have been far better to either keep the club in the shadows or used the masons instead.</p>
<p>
Another problem is that because vampirism is normalised, it loses most of its horror. There is shock-horror, but very little of the unsettling-horror of the novels that these characters came from.
</p>
<h4>Things it is Like</h4>
<ul>
<li><cite>Dracula</cite> by Bram Stoker</li>
<li><cite>The League of Extraordinary Gentleman</cite> by Alan Moore</li>
<li><cite>The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack</cite> by Mark Hodder</li>
</ul>
<iframe src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=afterlife-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=014143984X&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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<iframe src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=afterlife-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=1906727201&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-17019859394497099872011-05-22T12:21:00.003+01:002011-05-22T12:27:19.412+01:00The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0356500535/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il?ie=UTF8&tag=afterlife-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0356500535" title="buy from amazon">
<img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/5159sNA%2B3CL._SL160_.jpg">
</a>
<p>
An excellent piece of traditional cyberpunk. (It makes me feel very old saying that).
</p><p>
The structure of the book is pure William Gibson. It follows five characters of different political and social positions whose lives affect each other. This allows a whole world to be detailed very economically.
</p><p>
The novel asks a question that our society is currently unable to face up to: What happens when the oil runs out?
Obviously, a horrific drop in population and a shattering of political units as people fought over remaining food supplies.
What there is not (as lazier writers often assume) a return to the stone age.
This is because science does not disappear, it gets passed on like any other knowledge.
Technology does not disappear, there just is not any power to run it.
So, there are computers that are powerful enough to analyse a genome but they are powered by sewing machine treadles.
LED screens are shocking extravagances and the Internet is unthinkable.
</p><p>
The real villain, as always is human nature.
In the book, genetic engineering and capitalism form a toxic mix.
Nations wage war on each other by creating plagues that destroy crops and then selling the victims sterile grin.
But this is not inevitable.
There is a government minister in the book who understands that rebuilding trade links can bring peace and prosperity to the whole world. Meanwhile, a genetic engineer ponders how easy it would be to make humans longer lived and immune to any disease.
Interestingly, both of these characters are villains of the story.
</p><p>
The paradox of human nature is reflected in all the characters of the book.
They all refuse to give up hope and fight for survival. They just cannot help fighting each other at the same time.
</p>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-54046364424488641782011-05-03T22:45:00.005+01:002011-05-04T08:45:21.693+01:00Some Animals are More Equal Than Others<p>Honestly, I hate ranting political blogs just as much as you.
But I have now been sent two leaflets by the NO2<abbr title="Alternative Vote">AV</abbr> campaign that I just cannot
let pass.</p>
<p>I will not rant about the fact that they were sent by second class post to my full name which I never use.
</p>
<p>I will not rant about the fact that they threaten me with coalition governments as if this had not just happened under <abbr title="First Past the Post">FPTP</abbr>.
</p>
<p>But, this claim I will not let past:</p>
<h4>Under <abbr title="Alternative Vote">AV</abbr>, some peoples votes are counted more than others</h4>
<p>We have Eight voters and Three parties: </p>
<table> <tbody><tr> <th>Voter</th><th>Party</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Julian</td><td>Diagonal Party</td> </tr> <tr> <td>George</td><td>Horizontal Party</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Dick</td><td>Vertical Party</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Anne</td><td>Diagonal Party</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Timmy</td><td>Curved Party</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Quintin</td><td>Diagonal Party</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Noddy</td><td>Horizontal Party</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Enid</td><td>Vertical Party</td> </tr></tbody></table>
<h4>Results</h4>
<table> <tbody><tr> <td>Diagonal</td><td>3</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Horizontal</td><td>2</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Vertical</td><td>2</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Curved</td><td>1</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Total</strong></td><td><strong>8</strong></td> </tr></tbody></table>
<p>A clear win for the Diagonals. Hurrah!</p>
<p>Not so. Because the diagonals are still a minority. None of the parties here have 'made their case' to the voters.<p>
<p>
Imagine if this were a government.
Every time the Diagonals try to pass something the Horizontals and the Verticals vote against it. So everything depends on the Curved Party. If the curved Party votes for a bill it passes. If it votes against then the bill fails.
</p>
<p>Only Timmy ever votes for the Curved Party. And Timmy is a dog. </p>
<p>
This illustrates the fundamental problem of minority rule: <strong>The majority gets what the minority wants</strong>.
</p>
<h4>And Under <abbr title="Alternative Vote">AV</abbr>?</h4>
<p>Under <abbr title="Alternative Vote">AV</abbr>, voters are allowed to express preferences. If (and <strong>only</strong> if) there is no majority then the weakest party is removed and the vote is taken again.
</p>
<p>The voting is as follows: </p>
<table> <tbody><tr> <th>Voter</th><th>Party</th><td>
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Julian</td><td>1 Diagonal</td><td>
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>George</td><td>1 Horizontal</td><td>2 Vertical</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Dick</td><td>1 Vertical</td><td>2 Horizontal</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Anne</td><td>1 Diagonal</td><td>2 Vertical</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Timmy</td><td>1 Curved</td><td>2 Vertical</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Quintin</td><td>1 Diagonal</td><td>
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Noddy</td><td>1 Horizontal</td><td>2 Vertical</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Enid</td><td>1 Vertical</td><td>
</td> </tr></tbody></table>
<h4>Results</h4>
<table> <tbody><tr><th>Party </th><th>Round One</th><th>Round Two</th><th>Round Three</th></tr> <tr><td>Diagonal </td><td>3</td><td>3</td><td>3</td></tr> <tr><td>Horizontal</td><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>-</td></tr> <tr><td>Vertical </td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>5</td></tr> <tr><td>Curved </td><td>1</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr> <tr><td><strong>Total</strong> </td><td><strong>8</strong></td><td><strong>8</strong></td><td><strong>8</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>
<h4>Things to note</h4>
<p>The fist preferences are exactly the same to the first round will go exactly the same. But, nobody got 5 votes so the Curved Party is out. This is why <abbr title="Alternative Vote">AV</abbr> is being opposed by the likes on the BNP and the Communist Party.
</p>
<p>I have constructed this so that the winner is a different party to the one that one the first round.
The Diagonal voters claim that their votes have not been counted as much as anybody else's.
</p>
<p>Is this fair? Well, look at the totals under the 'Round' columns. Eight voters, eight votes. Every time.
Julian and Quentin may seem to have cast fewer votes those votes have been counted just as many times.
All they want is the Diagonal Party and in each round their vote went to the diagonal party.
</p>
<p>To visualise this, imagine that the voting slips looked like this:</p>
<table> <tbody><tr> <th>Voter</th><th>Party</th><td>
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Julian</td><td>1 Diagonal</td><td>2 Diagonal</td> </tr> <tr> <td>George</td><td>1 Horizontal</td><td>2 Vertical</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Dick</td><td>1 Vertical</td><td>2 Horizontal</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Anne</td><td>1 Diagonal</td><td>2 Vertical</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Timmy</td><td>1 Curved</td><td>2 Vertical</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Quintin</td><td>1 Diagonal</td><td>2 Diagonal</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Noddy</td><td>1 Horizontal</td><td>2 Vertical</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Enid</td><td>1 Vertical</td><td>2 Vertical</td> </tr></tbody></table>
<p>from this, you can have a stab at assessing the real levels of support for the parties:</p>
<table><tbody><tr><td>Diagonal </td><td>5/16</td><td>31.25%</td></tr><tr><td>Vertical </td><td>7/16</td><td>43.75%</td></tr><tr><td>Horizontal</td><td>3/16</td><td>18.75%</td></tr><tr><td>Curved </td><td>1/16</td><td>06.25%</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>The Vertical Party has won because it was able to reach out.
<strong>The majority gets what the minority wants</strong> has been replaced with:
<strong>The majority gets what the majority is OK with.</strong>
In other words, the Vertical candidate is a better representitave of the voters and that is the whole point of the exercise.
</p>
<h4>But...</h4>
<p>
But I only constructed a Vertical win because this is what upsets people about <abbr title="Alternative Vote">AV</abbr>. If the Diagonals had been able broaden its appeal just slightly then they would have won. The actual losers are the Curved Party. They, not the Diagonals are the ones that have had votes taken away from them for the sake of a better democratic result.
</p>
<p>
So, to repeat, none of the parties have 'made their case' and so none deserve a majority. Not even the Verticals.
<abbr title="Alternative Vote">AV</abbr> is not a perfect system. But it is a tangible improvement that fixes a bug in <abbr title="First Past the Post">FPTP</abbr> and gives us something that is closer to what we want.
</p>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-9642400483685427722011-05-01T16:14:00.003+01:002011-05-01T16:24:42.855+01:00The City & The City by China Miéville<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0330493108/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=afterlife-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0330493108" title="Buy from Amazon">
<img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41ogpDQ2DaL._SL160_.jpg" alt="">
</a>
<p>
The city and the city have always known about each other because they both occupy the same time and space. They are non-separated along their non-border by something they know only as "The Breach", a mysterious force they both fear and fear to be without.
</p>
<p>
If Philip K Dick had ever written a mainstream novel, this is what it would be like.
</p>
<p>
This is not a failing. PDK might have come up with the concept of the superimposed cities, but what China Miéville has done is sustained it and developed it. As the novel progresses, we are shown that the most interesting thing is not the separation of the cities, but the mental state of the separated citizens.
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
If I or one of my friends were to have a moments failure of unseeing (and who did not do that? who failed to fail to see sometimes?) so long as it was not flaunted or indulged in, we should not be in danger.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
To facilitate these every day actions of un-seeing and un-noticing, the citizens and the citizens dress in different colours, speak different languages and even walk and move differently. The mental habits then seep deeply into the citizens minds. We are shown the hippy Unificationists who believe that there is only one city. They see this with reason but are unable to see it with their eyes. Opposing them are the right wing Nationalists. They only want to see one thing but will never understand that this is only possible by having everything else to ignore.
</p>
<p>
This lays bare the whole concept of nationhood. The fact that it is both real and unreal, natural and artificial.
</p>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-34593040762406007082011-04-01T19:13:00.000+01:002011-04-22T19:21:45.469+01:00The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by John Joseph Adams<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1597801607/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=afterlife-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1597801607" title="buy this book">
<img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51XQSfgzbxL._SL110_.jpg" alt="">
<img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=as2&o=2&a=1597801607" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />
</a>
<p>
Difficult to give this a score because it is such a mixed bag.
</p>
<p>
Some stories strive to feel as if they are part on the cannon. Some stores are of the "Sherlock Holmes meets..." variety. Some twist the characters. Some really push the boat out.
</p>
<p>
They also treat the supernatural differently. There are 'Scooby do' plots where Holmes provides a natural explanation, Lovecraft type ones with true horror and ambiguous ones in which there is no single possible explanation.
</p>
<p>
Some reviewers clearly dislike this mix because it means that only a few of the stories are ones of the sort they like.
</p>
<p>
But for me, this is the great strength of the collection.
The fact that you have no idea what is coming next keeps it fresh right up to the very end.
</p>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-81761964769757476272011-01-25T20:53:00.001+00:002011-04-20T21:45:00.593+01:00Doctor Who: Coming of the Terraphiles by Michael Moorcock<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Terraphiles-Michael-Moorcock/dp/1846079837/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303242614&sr=1-1" title="buy from amazon"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51fpAyBS7PL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" alt=""></a>
<p>Spot on.<p>
<p>
Despite this being his first 'Who', MM immediately nails the 11<sup>th</sup> incarnation whilst at the same time making the 'Who' universe his own.
</p>
<p>
The Terraphiles themselves are wonderfully Wodehouse-ian. And there is a Universe-in-danger plot which is handled far better here than on screen.</p>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-81180311634881311372010-12-20T21:12:00.001+00:002011-04-20T21:36:14.680+01:00And Another Thing... (Hitchhiker's Guide, #6) by Eoin Colfer<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0141042133/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=afterlife-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0141042133" title="buy from Amazon">
<img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51gSAIzHswL._SL110_.jpg" alt="">
</a>
<p>
Panic Now, The Guide is back!
</p>
<p>
This is a very enjoyable read and it was great fun to be plunged back into Adams' world.
The characterisation of Arthur is a bit ropey but Ford and Zaphod leap off the page like old friends.
Colfer shows that he knows his stuff by tentative linking to different <cite>Guide</cite> continuities and even to <cite>Dirk Gently</cite>.
</p>
<p>
Frustratingly though, it is just too careful not to stray from the path. In places it feels like a Douglas Adams tribute. (In a way of course, it is.) With Adams, you never knew where you were going to be on the next page. This book has none of that attitude.
</p>
<p>
Of course, it is good that Colfer wants to embrace the fans and show that he respects the material he has been given.
But I hope that in the next book, he is confident enough to honour the spirit of Douglas Adams by letting his imagination of the leash a little more.
</p>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-35869422217370763872010-12-01T20:23:00.001+00:002011-04-19T20:34:13.036+01:00The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack (Burton & Swinburne, #1) by Mark Hodder<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Burton-Swinburne-Strange-Affair-Spring/dp/1906727201/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1303241070&sr=8-5" title="from amazon"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61OQ9lQW9HL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" /></a>
<p>A flawed masterpiece.</p>
<p>
I need to start by saying that this is an extremely enjoyable book. A real page turner. The characters are vivid, their world well drawn and the pace of the story never slackens. I look forwards to the next instalment.
</p>
<p>
But...
</p>
<p>
But the author seems to have stumbled into Science Fiction without any understanding of science and this frustratingly weakens the book. The re-imagined Victorian era is peppered with utterly random creations - brain transplants, coal powered helicopters, dogs that understand postal addresses - that have had no effect on general society and have not been developed from anything. Indeed, they are just 'invented' as needed by individual scientists. The culmination of this is a character who has had a clockwork 'analytical engine' grafted into his brain to improve his intelligence. This would be a wonderful image in a Lewis Carroll style fantasy or an allegorical story. But seriously asking the reader to consider that a brass-cog desk calculator could be attached to a human brain (let alone that either would be improved by this) undoes too much of the author's good work elsewhere.</p>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-24743649915072372732010-04-30T10:11:00.001+01:002010-04-30T13:35:32.045+01:00This blog has moved
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Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-40152969564789327202009-10-20T16:59:00.004+01:002010-04-30T17:54:07.973+01:00Are Paper Books Economically Viable?<img src="http://www.anothergeek.biz/blog/images/ereader1.jpg" width="200" height="249" alt="">
<p>
This week, online seller Amazon announced that it would begin selling books in the form of one-off copies printed onto paper.
The question is, is this a viable business model or just a passing fad?
<p>
<h4>The New Format</h4>
<p>
When the new format was announced, there was much puzzlement.
A modest library, of say 1,000 books, currently fits onto a memory card the size of a fingernail.
In the new format it would take up a whole room.
Who would want that?
</p>
<p>
For booksellers though, there are many advantages to the new format.
For example, because copyright only lasts for a limited number of years the vast majority of all the books every written are now out of copyright.
This is why the electronic versions of these books are free.
But you can print and sell a paper version for the same price as a new book and just keep the money that would be paid to the author.
</p>
<p>
There is also the issue of re-selling.
Paper copies are not only damaged by the reading process, they eventually rot even if they are not read.
They can also be, lost, burnt or even stolen.
As a result of these things, consumers will eventually be in the position of having to buy a new copy <em>even though they have already paid once</em>!
</p>
<p>
This has already led to speculation of a backlash from authors and consumers.
</p>
<p>It is my opinion though that there is an even greater flaw that will sink the new format: piracy.</p>
<h4>Piracy</h4>
<p>
Quite simply, because of the nature of the new format there is no possibility of Digital Rights Management.
Forcing each customer to add their name or photograph their copy is all very well, but who would police it?</p>
<p>The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that sooner or later these paper copies will change hands. People will sell books to each other and <em>not one single penny</em> of this sale will go to the publishers, let alone the authors. The owners will sell the books on to reduce clutter and get some of the purchase money back. People will buy them because not only are they they are cheaper than legitimate copies, but there is no delivery delay. There may even be people who lend, share purchase price or just give copies away. Either of these is a lost sale (and therefore a theft) from the publisher. And let us not forget that this sort of thing funds terrorism. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I foresee that this problem can only get worse. Somebody who has purchased a pirated book is less likely to have any moral qualms about selling it on. Even now our children and young people might be being exposed to sinister 'book clubs'.</p>
<h4>The End of Publishing?</h4>
<p>Experience of MP3s has shown that the more pirating occurs, the more acceptable it becomes. So, although pirated books my start out as furtively exchanged black-market items they will eventually become common place. Charity shops would of course avoid them but not all shops will be so ethical. I predict that criminals, operating from small premises in obscure side-streets will eventually sell them openly!</p>
<p>It is even possible to imagine the nightmare scenario of a 'Public Library'. Allow me to explain. This would be a building containing legitimately purchased copies of books that anybody could go and read. Once established, their popularity would be such that Police and Government would have no choice but to look the other way. If only one of these were successfully established they would spread to every city. So many people would have access to them that the entire publishing industry would collapse. </p>
<div class="LIST">
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8314092.stm">Are we due a wave of book piracy?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/arts_entertainment/books/how+can+publishers+limit+ebook+piracy/3391502">How can publishers limit e-book piracy?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.abebooks.co.uk/">Pirated Books</a></li>
</ul>
</div>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-22639302185042394372009-04-23T11:14:00.002+01:002010-04-30T17:55:02.527+01:00Caprica Review<p><img src="http://www.anothergeek.biz/blog/images/cylon.png" width="319" height="367" alt="Cylon" /></p>
<h4>What do you do with a show that everybody likes but nobody watches?</h4>
<p>The HBO series <cite>The Wire</cite>, is now famous as a gritty and shockingly realistic study is the drugs war in the United States.
But when it launched, it was described as a 'cop show'.
The writer, David Simon, says that this was a <q><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/feb/10/broadcasting.tvandradio">necessary Trojan Horse</a></q>.
The new series <cite><a href="http://www.scifi.com/caprica/">Caprica</a></cite> is billed as a 'family drama' a necessary Trojan Horse for science fiction.
Why is this Necessary?
Because 'genre' programs still find it almost impossible to break out into the mainstream.</p>
<h4>Battlestar Galactica</h4>
<p>In 2004 the pilot for the new <cite><a href="http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/">Battlestar Galactica</a></cite> emerged in a blaze of glory.
It was a little ponderous and it seemed to have more characters than it knew what to do with but it was full of drama and left you wanting more.
As a pilot should. But, as the series progressed, it became obvious that it was something special.
Nothing stood still and nothing could be taken for granted.
The characters were deepened and dissected and forced into situations that destroyed the audiences preconceptions about 'goodies' and 'baddies'.
Some of the characters grow and change, some are damaged, and some destroyed. Rewatching the pilot today, it is striking that none of the people are really who we believed them to be.</p>
<p>The fans loved it. Critics loved it. The viewing public watched <cite>American Idol</cite> and the studio began to get very upset.
There were two problems that just would not go away:
</p>
<ul>
<li>The name of the show is <cite>Battlestar Galactica</cite> and memories of that old 1970's show just will not die.</li>
<li>There are space ships in it.</li>
</ul>
<p>The quality of the show simply could not translate into viewing figures because these two issues prevented people from watching it in the first place.
Hence <cite>Caprica</cite>, the trojan horse.
</p>
<h4>Is it a good Trojan Horse?</h4>
<p>
Indeed it is.
The colony of Caprica is the state of California.
It never looks like California, but it always feels like it.
</p>
<p>
It the pilot, as much of the plot as possible is focused on the characters from the two families that will be the backbone of the series.
(A tried and tested soap formulae).
For example, although the families are from different planets (Caprica and Tauron), this fact is only used to give their characters an ethnicity.
Capricans tell us that Taurons have a distinctive smell because they eat dirt and father has to explain to his son (who was born on Caprica) why his family changed their Tauron name.
So, we never see Tauron and the information we are given about it tells us more about Capricans.
</p>
<p>
This promises to be a show that people can tune into and not even notice that they are watching science fiction.
</p>
<h4>But will it give me my <cite>Battlestar Galactica</cite> fix?</h4>
<p>
Only time will tell, but indications look good.
</p>
<p>
The family dynasty structure is well suited to long story arcs with lots of twists.
From the start, expectations are ambushed and nothing is as simple as it seems.
Rich teenagers from the a posh school are fodder for a terrorist recruiting cell.
The scientist grieving the death of his daughter has a day job designing intelligent weapons.
</p>
<p>
The pilot is also happy to deal head on with the fact that the 'baddies' believe in God while the 'goodies' do not.
(The first series of <cite>Battlestar Galactica</cite> was so squeamish about this that it cut it out.)
</p>
<p>
The fact that it is a prequel does not rob it of any tension.
It is set 50 years before the parent show and all we really know is that there will be a war in 10 years.
In fact, it will be interesting to see how this war is dealt with.
It is difficult to believe that they a so optimistic as to think that they will reach it a rate of one serial per story year.
Will it be a grand finale? Or will they put off doing it at all until ratings flag?
</p>
<p>
I want more.
</p>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-25530435197423908942009-01-13T22:17:00.003+00:002010-04-30T17:55:39.984+01:00Fluorescent with Rage about CFL Bulbs<img src="http://www.anothergeek.biz/blog/images/bulb.jpg" width="300" height="464" alt="">
<h3>Incandescent light bulbs increase your heating bill.</h3>
<p>My New Years resolution was to stop getting would up about idiotic science stories in the press.
But if I read one more time that incandescent light bulbs reduce your heating bills then they will be able to plug me into the national grid.
</p>
<p>The <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1107290/Revolt-Robbed-right-buy-traditional-light-bulbs-millions-clearing-shelves-supplies.html">Daily Mail</a> has declared war on energy efficient light bulbs and this bizarre myth seems to be everywhere:
</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7722181.stm">John Wright</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/profile/?userid=13773033">Cleverchileboy</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/09/boxer_china_energy/comments/">Mike Moyle</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/profile/?userid=13773058">Pcoleman</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2547585.ece">Steve Glenne Smith</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/profile/?userid=13773029">Andystopps</a></li>
</ul>
<p>It was even reported as a fact in a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jan/07/lightbulbs-daily-mail">pro-<acronym title="Compact Flourescent Lamp">CFL</acronym> article in the Guardian</a>, although here it was only thought to be true if no lampshades were used.
</p>
<h4>So Here Comes the Science Bit</h4>
<ul>
<li>Incandescent bulbs are energy inefficient.</li>
<li>Therefore they are hot.</li>
<li>Therefore they heat your room.</li>
<li>Therefore your heating system needs to do less work.</li>
<li>Therefore, (if we ignore the cost of running the bulb), your bills are lower.</li>
</ul>
<p>The bit in brackets you will only read here.</p>
<h4>What does 'Efficiency' Actually Mean?</h4>
<p>It can mean many things. In this context, it is a measure of how much of what you want you get for your money.
So, I have a bar-heater and a light-bulb and I measure how much heat and light they give me for every pound I put in to the meter. My bar-heat gives me 10 units of heat and 1 unit of light and my light bulb that gives me 1 unit of heat and 10 units of light.
</p>
<p>What is the cheapest way for me to heat my room to 20°C?
Obviously the bar-heater is 10 times cheaper.
So, for the very lowest bill possible, 100% of my heat must be bought from the cheapest source.
If any of my 20°C is bought from anything but the cheapest source then the cost will be higher.
The hotter my bulb becomes, the more of my 20°C will be provided by it and the higher my bill will be.
</p>
<p>I need to spell this out:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Heat from anything but the cheapest source can only increase the cost.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<h4>So Why the Confusion?</h4>
<p>I can only imagine that people somehow believe that the heat from a bulb comes free with the light.</p>
<p>The lamp shade idea is presumably caused by the fact that you cannot directly feel heat being radiated through a shade.
But the bulb is heating the shade and the shade is heating the air so all the heat is still there.
</p>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-19248428992342910722008-12-08T17:59:00.002+00:002010-04-30T17:57:13.646+01:00Hot Air and Global Warming<p>When <acronym title="North American Space Agency">NASA</acronym> sends probes to other planets they are never asked to justify how such places can be real if they are unimaginably far away.
They are never criticised for wanting to study the atmosphere of Neptune rather than relying on common sense.
Nor do they have to deal with the idea that the very fact that they are trying to find out proves that 'science does not know everything' and is therefore a waste of time.</p>
<p>This, of course, is because nobody has ever been upset by anything they ever heard about Neptune.
When people hear about global warming on Earth, they hear lots of things that they do not like.
And too often their reaction is to just drown out the bad news.
</p>
<p>
An excellent example is the <a href="http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2008/10/roger-helmer-me.html" rel="nofollow">blog of Roger Helmer</a> a Member of the European Parliament.
I have picked this blog because it is a better summary of the position than rambling rants on the subject.</p>
<p>He makes the following points that I will look at one at a time:</p>
<ul>
<li>We have good records about the past environment.</li>
<li>The temperature rise over the last 150 years is consistent with the cycle for the last 10,000 years.</li>
<li>We see warmer and cooler periods every 1200 years or so.</li>
<li>The world is cooler now than it was during the Holocene Optima (sic), the Roman Optimum or the Mediaeval Warm period.</li>
<li><acronym title="Carbon Dioxide">CO<sub>2</sub></acronym> levels have been much higher in the past and there was no 'tipping point'.</li>
</ul>
<h4>We have good records about the past environment</h4>
<p>We do indeed.
But it is important to remember that there is no one single source of information.
They come from scattered locations and become less accurate the further back in time you go.
Nevertheless, the boundaries of error are quite well understood and you cannot pick and choose when to heed it.</p>
<h4>The temperature rise over the last 150 years is consistent with the cycle for the last 10,000 years</h4>
<p>There are places in Antarctica where it snows every year but never thaws.
The snow turns into layers of ice that preserve information (including temperature) about the time that the show fell.
Here are some data from two such places:</p>
<img src="http://www.anothergeek.biz/blog/images/recent-ice-core.gif" width="564" height="377" alt="Graph showing a 5 degree rise in temperature over the last 10 thousand years." class="CENTRE" />
<p>The x-axis is 'thousands of years ago' so the present day is on the left.</p>
<p>This graph does indeed show the last 10 thousand years has show a steep increase in temperature from -6C to 1C. Case closed.</p>
<h5>That graph looks awfully empty; what does the rest of it look like?</h5>
<p>The 10 thousand year window has been chosen very carefully to include the ending of the last ice age.
Take a look at the whole graph <span class="REFERENCE"><a href="#REF" title="Climate and Atmospheric History of the Past 420,000 years from the Vostok Ice Core">1</a></span>:</p>
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Ice_Age_Temperature.png" width="564" height="377" alt="Graph showing five ice ages over the last 450 thousand years" class="CENTRE" />
<p>
As you can now see, ice ages are regular events.
It is also sobering to notice that they last far longer than periods between them.</p>
<p>But the cycle covers hundreds of thousands of years.
There is nothing here that would be noticeable within the blink of a human lifetime.
So the one degree temperature rise in the last century is not 'consistent' with the seven degree rise in the last 10 thousand years, it is huge acceleration.</p>
<p>Another thing that you can see from looking at the whole graph is where we are in the cycle.
We are at a point of level-ish temperature, far closer to the beginning of the next ice age than the end of the last one.
So any increase in temperature at this point is a break in the pattern.</p>
<h4>We see warmer and cooler periods every 1200 years or so<br />
and<br />
The world is cooler now than it was during the Holocene Optima (sic), the Roman Optimum or the Mediaeval Warm period</h4>
<p>You can indeed see from the full graph above that the temperature line is a jagged one, not a smooth one.
But think again about the timescales. Glaciers advance and retreat, forests come and go.</p>
<p>
Here is a closer look at the las 12 thousand years, the flat-ish bit we are in now<span class="REFERENCE"><a href="#REF" title="Climate Reconstructions">2</a></span>.
</p>
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png" width="600" height="400" alt="Graph showing the end of the last ice age, a warm period 6 thousand years age and a gradual declide of half a degree." class="CENTRE" />
<p>This graph looks a lot messier because it shows data from more places.
This is actually better because it means that the average temperature (the bold line) is much more reliable.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What support is here for the claim that the Holocene(Climatic) Optimum was warmer than today?
You can raise the average by selectively ignoring colder data but that proves nothing because you can also do the opposite.
You could also argue that because the data do not catch any changes of less than three centuries then the temperature might have been higher.
By the same argument, they might have been lower.</p>
<p>Notice also, that the change from zero thousand years ago and 2004 is too steep to show at this scale, hence the inset.</p>
<p>Can we zoom in any further? Indeed we can<span class="REFERENCE"><a href="#REF" title="Climate Reconstructions">2</a></span>:</p>
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png" width="600" height="443" alt="Graph showing a 0.4 degree temperature variation over the last 2 thousand years" class="CENTRE" />
<p>Here, the x-axis shows years <acronym lang="la" title="Anno Domini">AD</acronym> so the present day is on the right.
At last we are on a comfortable timescale.</p>
<p>There have certainly been changes.
In the <abbr title="ninth century">9C</abbr> there were vineyards in northern Britain and in the <abbr title="seventeenth century">17C</abbr> public fairs were held on the frozen river Thames.</p>
<p>Again, there is nothing that suggests that the average global temperature approached today's level.
If anybody has any data to the contrary then they must present it.</p>
<h4><acronym title="Carbon Dioxide">CO<sub>2</sub></acronym> levels have been much higher in the past and there was no 'tipping point'.</h4>
<p>
When?
Antarctic ice has also recorded levels of carbon dioxide for the past 400 thousand years<span class="REFERENCE"><a href="#REF" title="Vostok Ice Core Data">3</a></span>:
</p>
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png" width="600" height="436" alt="graph showing that over the last 400 thousand years atmospheric CO2 has fluctuated between 50 and 300 ppmv but is now over 360" class="CENTRE" />
<p>None of the recorded levels are anything like the levels of today.</p>
<h4>What is not Said</h4>
<p>But the real problem with lists like the above it not what is said, but what is inferred. And the main inferences are that:</p>
<h5>If you can pick holes in the Greenhouse explanation then global warming is not happening</h5>
<p>
Facts generate explanations but they are not generated by them.
If you fall from a cliff you cannot avoid the ground by writing a witty critique of Newton's law of universal gravitation.</p>
<h5>If global warming is happening it is natural and therefore alright</h5>
<p>This is something we all need to be clear about.
There are six billion people on our planet.
We need to breath and eat.
We are utterly dependant on the ecosystem to provide these things for us and we are appallingly vulnerable.</p>
<h4>Says Who?</h4>
<h5><a name="REF"></a>Sources</h5>
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok_isotope.html">Petit J.R., Jouzel J., Raynaud D., Barkov N.I., Barnola J.M., Basile I., Bender M., Chappellaz J., Davis J., Delaygue G., Delmotte M., Kotlyakov V.M., Legrand M., Lipenkov V., Lorius C., Pépin L., Ritz C., Saltzman E., Stievenard M. (1999) <em>Climate and Atmospheric History of the Past 420,000 years from the Vostok Ice Core</em>, Antarctica, Nature, 399, 429-436</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/recons.html">Climate Reconstructions</a>. See also <a href="http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/fall04/atmo336/lectures/sec5/holocene.html">The climate of the Holocene</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok_data.html">Vostok Ice Core Data</a></li>
</ol>
<h5>Wikipedea</h5>
<p>The graphs I have used were contributed to wikipedia by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dragons_flight">Dragons filght</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming">Global Warming</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record">Temperature Record</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png">Carbon Dioxide Variations</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png">More Dragons flight graphs</a></li>
</ul>
<h5>Denialism</h5>
<ul>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/3982101/2008-was-the-year-man-made-global-warming-was-disproved.html">2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved</a></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/4061092/Greenhouse-gases-could-have-caused-an-ice-age-claim-scientists.html">Greenhouse gases could have caused an ice-age claim scientists</a> (but see also <a href="http://www.badscience.net/2009/01/the-telegraph-misrepresent-a-scientists-work-on-climate-and-then-refuse-to-correct-it-when-he-writes-to-them/">Bad Science</a>)</li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://co2sceptics.com/index.php">CO2 Sceptics</a></li>
</ul>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-18434530431723879742008-10-03T09:10:00.004+01:002010-04-30T18:01:29.157+01:00The War Machines are Here<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FTerminator-Sarah-Connor-Chronicles-Season%2Fdp%2FB0013IOE96%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Ddvd%26qid%3D1223398355%26sr%3D1-2&tag=afterlife-21&linkCode=ur2&camp=1634&creative=6738"><img src="http://www.anothergeek.biz/blog/images/terminator.jpg" alt="Terminator (copyright MGM Entertainment)" width="300" height="382" /></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=ur2&o=2" alt="" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; display: none;" width="1" border="0" height="1" />
<p>
As the war on Afghanistan gets messier, the boundaries of who is fighting who become harder to define and the tactics used, on both sides, become more and more desperate.
In the middle of all this, stories like this flare up and are then forgotten.
</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/02/pakistan.usforeignpolicy">Suspected US drone kills six in Pakistan hit</a><span class="PRINTONLY"> (www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/02/pakistan.usforeignpolicy)</span></li>
<li><a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g5k6lGPAZTdG4hdOkCLQ-L79WCLg">US drone strike kills eight militants in Pakistan: officials</a><span class="PRINTONLY"> (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g5k6lGPAZTdG4hdOkCLQ-L79WCLg)</span></li>
</ul>
<h4>A Robot has killed a Man</h4>
<p>
Yet again, we have crossed a line without even noticing.
I admit that it might not seem to be much of a line.
Booby traps and landmines have been killing people for centuries.
And attacks have been ordered on the basis of information provided by machines.
</p>
<p>
Nevertheless, we need to stop and think about the fact that the point of decision has moved.
A human being is dead because a machine decided to kill him.
The robot/drone was allowed to kill by human decision and deployed by human decision but the actual decision to kill an actual human was made by software.
</p>
<p>
I am not even going to get in to the fact that was done in a country that is not even part of the battlefield against an enemy that is not an army but an ill-defined mass of tribal, political and religious affiliations.
</p>
<h4>The Future</h4>
<p>
What of the future? More of the same.
Sending in machines rather than people is an irresistible idea so the machines will become more and more autonomous.
For symmetrical warfare this will result in battles being fought between machines. Possibly with helpless locals trapped in between.
</p>
<p>
But symmetrical warfare seems to have been left behind in the 20<sup>th</sup> Century.
What will be the effect on asymmetrical warfare?
In short, more terrorism.
These machines will be attacked where they are most vulnerable and that means taking advantage of the difficulty in distinguishing friend from foe.
More attacks will take place on civilian populations and in civilian areas.
</p>
<h4>The Three Laws of Robotics</h4>
<p>
So much for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_laws_of_robotics">Three Laws of Robotics</a><span class="PRINTONLY"> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_laws_of_robotics)</span>.
These were created in 1942 by Isaac Asimov because he was irrated by the fact that so many science fiction stories were lazy retellings of the Frankenstein myth.
To him, it seemed nothing but common sense that a machine capable of making a deadly decision must be prevented from doing so.
<q>Knives have handles</q> he said.
</p>
<p>
But for the foreseeable future, our relationship to robots will be this:
</p>
<img src="http://www.anothergeek.biz/blog/images/target.jpg" class="CENTRE" alt="targets." width="199" height="212" />
<p>
It is also worth remembering that a lazy re-telling of Frankenstein is still the most popular science fiction plot.
So nobody can say that we were not warned.
</p>
<h4>Books</h4>
<ul><li><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FI-Robot-Isaac-Asimov%2Fdp%2F0586025324%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1223659135%26sr%3D1-1&tag=afterlife-21&linkCode=ur2&camp=1634&creative=6738">I Robot</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=ur2&o=2" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li></ul>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com60tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-12923882076358624422008-08-01T11:16:00.016+01:002010-04-30T18:03:11.193+01:00Like Water for Octane<img src="http://www.anothergeek.biz/blog/images/escher_waterfall.png" alt="Self powered waterfall." width="300" height="371">
<h4>Water to Fuel</h4>
<p> Recently, my local news paper carried a story about a <a href="http://www.lep.co.uk/weirdnews/Lancashire-man-can-turn-water.4324920.jp">local man turning water into fuel</a>.
</p>
<p>
The article starts of fairly reasonably.
It even manages to avoid the dreaded words "water powered car", perhaps to avoid sounding like something from
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FLone-Gunmen-Complete-Tom-Braidwood%2Fdp%2FB000BTIPIE%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Ddvd%26qid%3D1218967099%26sr%3D8-1&tag=afterlife-21&linkCode=ur2&camp=1634&creative=6738">The Lone Gunmen</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=ur2&o=2" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />.
In fact the tone is so restrained that many people I know have been taken in by it- hence the blog.
So, lets work through it.</p>
<h4>Can you power a car by water? </h4>
<p>No. In fact all so called water powered cars produce water as a waste.
They are no more powered by water than a torch is powered by a flat battery.</p>
<h4>So what is happening here? </h4>
<p>Water is being split into a highly combustible mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.
This mixture is then added to the petrol in a car and burnt along with it to propel the car forwards.</p>
<h4>But that is the same thing!</h4>
<p>That is indeed what you are being invited to believe.
But the energy is not coming from the water.
</p>
<h4>The Science Bit</h4>
<p>The First Law of Thermodynamics states:</p>
<blockquote><p>You get nowt for nowt.</p></blockquote>
<p>The car is being propelled forwards by some energy.
The first law tells us that this energy cannot be coming from nowhere. So where does it come from?
It comes from the mains.
The machine splitting the water needs to be plugged in and the energy it takes pushes the car.
All that is happening is that your fuel bill goes down and your electricity bill goes up.
And where does the power for the mains come from? Burning oil.</p>
<h4>But it only takes as much energy as a light bulb!</h4>
<p>This figure is meaningless and irrelevant.</p>
<h5>Meaningless</h5>
<p>It is meaningless because it does not say how long you need to run the generator for to produce a given volume of gas.
Nor do we know how long a given volume of gas will run the car.
Remember, if the generator uses as much power as running a light bulb for a year to produce as much gas as it takes to push the car for a second then we could still make this claim.</p>
<h5>Irrelevant</h5>
<p>It is irrelevant because it does not matter.
The energy given to the car will always be less than the energy taken from the mains.</p>
<h4>The Madness Continues</h4>
<p>But wait; I have saved the best till last!
Mr Thompson goes on to say: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Something like this, maybe a little more compact in time, could be mounted in a car and you wouldn't have to refuel. You could drive along and produce the gas as you're driving. </p></blockquote>
<p>Now we are completely into the realm of magic.</p>
<p>
Several people I have showed this to take this to mean that a car can be built to run on nothing.
Let me bend over backwards and imagine the most reasonable interpretation of this sentence.
A unit like this could be fitted to a petrol powered car so that the motor generates hydroxy gas as you drive.
The hydroxy gas improves the fuel efficiency of the car.</p>
<p>Sounds perfectly reasonable until you remember that the energy making the hydroxy gas comes from the petrol.
The energy in the petrol is all you are putting in and that is all the energy you will ever get out.
Even if you could make the machine weightless and 100% efficient you still need to add the weight of the water (which was not there before). </p>
<p>In other words, a car with this device would never be an improvement on a car that did not. </p>
<h4>An Age Old Dream </h4>
<p>Machines like this have been imagined for centuries.
For example, it is perfectly possible to design and even build a water wheel that lifts buckets to return the water used.
But these machines never work because you can never get out as much energy as you put in. </p>
<div class="LIST">
<h3>Links </h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://waterpoweredcar.com/">Water Powered Car</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/unwork.htm">Other Perpetual Motion Machines</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics">The Laws of Thermodynamics</a></li>
</ul>
</div><!-- List -->
<div class="LIST">
<h3>Books </h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2Fs%3Furl%3Dsearch-alias%253Dstripbooks%26field-keywords%3Dvoodoo%2Bscience%26x%3D0%26y%3D0&tag=afterlife-21&linkCode=ur2&camp=1634&creative=6738">Voodoo Science</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=ur2&o=2" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FFlat-Earth-News-Award-winning-Distortion%2Fdp%2F0701181451%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1218967514%26sr%3D1-1&tag=afterlife-21&linkCode=ur2&camp=1634&creative=6738">Flat Earth News</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=ur2&o=2" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FBad-Science-Ben-Goldacre%2Fdp%2F0007240198%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1218967611%26sr%3D1-1&tag=afterlife-21&linkCode=ur2&camp=1634&creative=6738">Bad Science</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=afterlife-21&l=ur2&o=2" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>
</ul>
</div>Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-7040889602573059152008-02-16T17:10:00.008+00:002010-04-30T17:49:39.323+01:00I am a Web Page<img src="http://www.anothergeek.biz/blog/images/shirt.jpg" alt="Me wearing QR code" style="float: right" width="200" height="250">
<h3>(how I followed Max Headroom into Cyberspace)</h3>
<p>At the moment, if you are reading this on a mobile phone, then you are officially a Geek.
I can say this because the way to this page is a physical mobile object: me.
Sadly, it also means that the rest of the page will be of no interest you you because you already know it.</p>
<h4>The Portable Internet</h4>
<p>We are currently at a very interesting time in the development of the Internet.
Mobile devices with Internet access such as the iPhone are just hitting the mass market.</p>
<p>This does not sound very revolutionary.
Compared to a comfy chair in front of a 19<abbr title="inch">″</abbr> screen it sounds like a step back.</p>
<p>In fact, the user now has a very interesting property that they never had before- location.
And if web pages can also be given a location, or be made to respond to a location, then lots of interesting things become possible.
</p>
<p>Think about those handsets you get in museums and art galleries.
They give you information about the object you are next to.
Imagine if the Internet worked like that.</p>
<h4>How Do You Attach a Web Page to a Real Object?</h4>
<p>There are lots of ways.
The way I did it was with a type of barcode.
Like the ones you see on, um, everything.
Barcodes hold information which the barcode reader uses to examine a database.</p>
<p>What you need is:</p>
<ul>
<li>A web page with information.</li>
<li>A barcode storing the page's address.</li>
<li>A physical object to slap the barcode on.</li>
<li>A barcode reader to get the web address.</li>
<li>A browser to display the page.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Example: Attaching a Blog to a Blogger</h4>
<p>All I needed was a piece of Quick Response (<acronym title="Quick Response">QR</acronym>) code.
<acronym title="Quick Response">QR</acronym> code is 'big in Japan', which means that either it will be big here, or it will disappear without trace.
</p>
<p>Lots of software is available to generate <acronym title="Quick Response">QR</acronym> codes.
I used this one, which gave me this:
</p>
<img src="http://www.blog.logopolis.biz/images/qrcode1.gif" alt="QR code for this page" width="185" height="185">
<p>My next obvious step was to tattoo this onto my forehead.
Unfortunately, the tattoo parlor was shut so to make my deadline I had to make a tee-shirt instead.
</p>
<h4>The Clever Bit</h4>
<p>Now, the clever bit: getting from the tee-shirt to the blog.
This is possible because modern mobile phones are small computers that have cameras and browsers.
The camera sees the <acronym title="Quick Response">QR</acronym> code.
The computer extracts the web address.
The browser displays the page.</p>
<p>Actually, there is a little cheat here.
The phone needs software to read the <acronym title="Quick Response">QR</acronym> code which you need to know about and download.
But this is already very common in some parts of the world.
In Finland for example, this technology is used to tell people standing at bus stops when the next bus is due.</p>
<h4>Is this the Future?</h4>
<p>Alas no.
Two things will probably happen with mobile phones that will make the solution redundant.
The first is that Optical Character Recognition will improve to the point that the phones will be able to read printed text.
The second is that the ability of phones to know where they are will improve to the point that they will be able to search the Internet for pages that relate to them.
(Postcodes are already appearing in metadate to help with things like this).</p>
<p>But this technology certainly has the power to introduce the potential of the mobile Internet to the masses.</p>
<h4>Legal</h4>
<acronym title="Quick Response">QR</acronym> code is trademarked by <a href="http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/index-e.html">Denso Wave, inc</a>.
<div class="Links">
<h4>Links</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code"><acronym title="Quick Response">QR</acronym> Code</a></li>
<li><a href="http://qrcode.kaywa.com/"><acronym title="Quick Response">QR</acronym> Code Generator</a></li>
<li><a href="http://reader.kaywa.com/getit"><acronym title="Quick Response">QR</acronym> Code Readers for your phone</a></li>
</ul>
</div><!--Links-->Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-42786469814702152962007-11-05T16:17:00.004+00:002010-01-20T14:01:37.911+00:00Who's Afraid of Political Correctness?<img src="http://www.anothergeek.biz/blog/images/sheep.jpg" width="137" height="196" style="float: right" alt="Rainbow Sheep">
<p>If there is one piece of journalistic laziness that continuously astounds me it is 'Political Correctness gone mad' stories. I am not annoyed by the fact that they invariably turn out to be nonsense- I expect papers to contain stories like that. No, what annoys me is that otherwise rational people seem to accept them without question.</p>
<p>The basic premise is as follows. Somewhere in the world, there exists a vast left-wing 'political correctness' lobby who exert a sinister control over free speech. This is resisted by a few Lone-Voices-of-Reason who dare to speak out. I call them Lone-Voices because they all talk about themselves. Even as they cut and paste each others stories.</p>
<h4>Lets have a look at some examples.</h4>
<h5>Young Children now have to sing 'Baa Baa Rainbow sheep' because 'Black Sheep' is Racist</h5>
<p>Sometime around 1986 a number of charity-run nursery schools in Oxfordshire started increase children's vocabularies with the following exercise. Children sang the same songs over and over with different variations of words. In this song for example, the words 'boy' and 'girl' were alternated, and the sheep became happy, sad, bouncing, hopping, pink, blue, white and (yes) black.</p>
<p>Nobody quite knows how many nurseries used this exercise. But it may have been as many as two. And yet, a quick google will get you
3,040 Lone-Voices-of-Reason protesting against this example of 'political correctness gone mad'.</p>
<p>(Nursery Rhymes, by the way, have never had a standard traditional form passed down from the dawn of time. They have always been fluid and deliberately re-written by various people. Most of the ones we know today were heavily sanitised by the Victorians.)</p>
<h5>Christmas is being banned because it offends non-Christians</h5>
<p>There are so many versions of this that I cannot go into them all. So I will cover best known example: Winterval.</p>
<p>in 1998, the department of Birmingham City Council responsible for helping local businesses created some advertising material for a new marketing concept called 'Winterval'. This was a umbrella term for various celebrations that run from Hallowe'en in October to the New Year events in January. Using the umbrella term was much cheaper that making separate material for thing like Hallowe'en and Guy Fawkes night that occur very close together. The main aim of the exercise, of course, was to bring as many people in to the city centre as possible at the time when they were doing their Christmas shopping.</p>
<p>The media went into a frenzy, and all of the local papers reported the same story- Birmingham Council was banning Christmas. The implication was that this was done to avoid offence to non-Christians. Letters pages, radio chat shows and blogs often went far further and took it for granted that the Council has 'caved in' to Muslims.</p>
<p>All this despite the fact that:</p>
<ul>
<li>The Winterval material pushed Christmas as its biggest event</li>
<li>The money spent on Christmas through Winterval was <em>in addition</em> to the normal Christmas money</li>
<li>The Council's Christmas celebrations went on as normal</li>
</ul>
<p>One result was hostility for the council from local businesses. Why, they demanded to know, is the Council wasting our tax money banning Christmas? Don't they know how important Christmas shopping is to the economy? </p>
<h5>The term 'Brainstorm' is offensive to Epileptics so we should use 'Thought Shower' Instead</h5>
<p>This one is my very favourite because the very source is a 'political correctness gone mad' story.</p>
<p>In 2003, Liz Lightfoot of the Telegraph newspaper published <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/26/nedu126.xml">this article</a> which <em>denies</em> that the term 'Brainstorming' is offensive to epileptics.
She even goes as far as to contact the <a href="http://www.epilepsynse.org.uk/">National Society for Epileptics</a> to confirm that they have never heard of such a thing.
</p>
<p>
What is wrong with that? Surely she is working hard to de-bunk a myth.
Unfortunately, this is the myth.
The word 'Brainstorm' had never before been used to describe an epileptic fit.
No guidance existed telling people not to use the term.
</p>
<p>
Nevertheless, the story continues to gain momentum.
According to Wikipedia, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and the Welsh Development Agency both ask their staff to use 'Thought Shower' instead.
And I would not be at all surprised to hear epileptic fits called brainstorms.
</p>
<h5>Schools now have to say 'Whiteboards/Chalkboards' because 'Blackboards' is Racist</h5>
<p>Britons call them blackboards because they are boards that are (usually) black. Americans call them chalkboards because they are boards for chalk. The general rise of the use of Americanisms in Britain has caused a rise in the use of 'chalkboard'. At the same time, modern classrooms are now being fitted with the whiteboards (so called because they are white) that you get in offices.</p>
<p>This example clearly shows how a little genuine confusion is enough to trigger the template. </p>
<h4>The Template</h4>
<p>This is the template :</p>
<ol>
<li>Somebody decides to use a different word for something.</li>
<li>Therefore, they are being forced to change by Powerful-Them because of potential offence to Whinging-Them. (Sometimes, they are the same Them). </li>
<li>Therefore I (Lone-Voice-of-Reason) am being coerced by Powerful-Them too.</li>
<li>There for I will recite the magic spell "It's Political Correctness Gone Mad" and Whinging-Them will be confounded.</li>
</ol>
<p>
Notice that neither Powerful-Them or Whinging-Them have any input and do not need to even exist.
Notice also that no matter how many thousands of Lone-Voices-of-Reason scream the same thing in unison they cannot concieve of themselves as anything other than a dissenting mionority.
</p>
<h4>The Process</h4>
<p>So, somebody hears 'whiteboard' where they expect 'blackboard'. Somebody must have decided to stop schools saying 'blackboard'. That somebody could only be the Government. But why? Clearly because black people would be upset to hear the word black.</p>
<h5>Interesting</h5>
<p>A couple of very interesting things are happening here.</p>
<p>First of all, our Lone-Voice-of-Reason is standing up for the right to say what they like. But they are doing so by complaining about the fact that somebody else has chosen to say what they like. So, in their heads, what everybody should be saying is the same thing. </p>
<p>Secondly, only a racist would believe that black people would be offended by the word 'black'. The thought would never occur to anybody who had no problem with the fact that some people are black.</p>
<h4>What Happens Next? </h4>
<p>The crazy thing is that these stories often go on to have an effect. Put simply, there is no 'Politically Correct' lobby who decide changes in language. It fact, there is nobody at all who can decide or enforce this. Of course, there are lots of people who <em>try</em>- but they can only succeed by genuinely convincing a majority of people.</p>
<p>Instead, the language changes all the time because some people change the use of a word and other people like it enough to adopt the chage.</p>
<p>And who has the most influence? Not the 'Politically Correct lobby' because they do not actually exist. Not bloggers (even I do not read my blog.) No, lazy journalists read my millions of people have all the clout.</p>
<p>Imagine you are a blackboard manufacturer. You read that some people are offended by the use of 'blackboard'. This is not an academic issue: you could be losing money because of this. So, what do you do? Do you campaign to redeem the word? Of course not because you do not actually care. You just start calling them chalkboards. Not because Powerful-Them forced you, but because Lone-Voice told you about it. The same Lone-Voices who see chalkboards for sale and say "See! I told you so!" </p>
<h4>But Why?</h4>
<p>Two common factors in these stories are:</p>
<ul>
<li>That the the author is prevented from doing A because They are doing B ("A teacher calls it a chalkboard, there I am not allowed to call it a blackboard").</li>
<li>That some minority group is the ultimate reason for all this ("Why can't Muslims understand that they are living in a Christian country?")</li>
</ul>
<p>These account for the general tone of angry defensiveness of the stories. I think that there is a simple explanation. The authors <em>want</em> it to be true. To be more specific, the <em>want</em> the world to work in this way.</p>
<p>They want it to be true that if somebody says or does something then other people are some how forced to do the same. They want it so that by bravely speaking out they they too can wield this mysterious power.</p>
<p>They want it to be true that authorities are forced to act due to complaints from minority groups. They want it because they have so many complaints that need to be acted on.</p>
<p>They do not want to live in a world where people listen to opinions, observe examples and then decide for themselves what to do.</p>
<p>But, what are they frightened of? </p>
<h4>Bonfire Night</h4>
<p>I leave you with a traditional British rhyme to celebrate this time of year. If I walk down the street singing it I would probably be arrested. A clear case of 'Political Correctness gone Mad'. </p>
<blockquote>
<p> Remember, remember the Fifth of November,<br>
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot, <br>
I know of no reason Why Gunpowder Treason Should ever be forgot. </p>
<p> A penny loaf to feed the Pope <br>
A farthing o' cheese to choke him. <br>
A pint of beer to rinse it down. <br>
A faggot of sticks to burn him. <br>
Burn him in a tub of tar. <br>
Burn him like a blazing star. <br>
Burn his body from his head. <br>
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead. <br>
Hip hip hoorah! <br>
Hip hip hoorah hoorah! </p>
</blockquote>
<div class="Links">
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.antipc.co.uk/">The Anti Political Correctness Society</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.politicallyincorrect.me.uk/">Political correctness - the awful truth</a></li>
</ul>
</div><!--Links-->
<div class="ADS">
<h2>Advertisements</h2>
<iframe src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=afterlife-21&o=2&p=48&l=st1&mode=books&search=political%20correctness&fc1=FFFFFF<1=_blank&lc1=FFFD33&bg1=33CC33&f=ifr" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" width="728" height="90" border="0" frameborder="0" style="border:none;" scrolling="no"></iframe></div><!--Ads-->Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com92tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-18154857951118625772007-09-15T20:03:00.003+01:002010-04-30T18:03:53.660+01:00What is wrong with 'Click Here'?<img src="http://www.anothergeek.biz/blog/images/donotthrowstonesatthisnotice.jpg" width="192" height="256" style="float: right" alt="Do not throw stones at this notice">
<blockquote>
<p>Don't use "click here" as link text.</p>
<p class="CITATION"><cite><a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHere">Quality Tips for Web Masters</a></cite> <abbr title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</abbr></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Don't use "click here" or other non-descriptive link text.</p>
<p class="CITATION"><cite><a href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html">Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005</a></cite> Jakob Nielson</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Google returns 1.3 billion search results for the phrase ('click here')</p>
<p class="CITATION"><cite><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_here#_note-0">Wikipedia</a></cite></p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Too little of what is written on the web is written for the web.
Ideally it is written by somebody who knows the subject and then rewritten (I refuse to say 'repurposed') by somebody who knows about the web.
I am one of those rewriters and removing the words 'click here' is something I seem to do every day.
And I am forever explaining it.
And if I am ever over-ruled, it will be about this.
</p>
<h4>But users need help</h4>
<p>
Committees tend to be the worst offenders.
There is always somebody who insists that just because a user has
</p>
<ul>
<li>turned on a computer;</li>
<li>opened a browser;</li>
<li>used a search engine to find a site and</li>
<li>navigated to a page</li>
</ul>
<p>
it does not necessarily follow that they know how to use a hyperlink.
They will always demand the safety blanket of instructions for the link.
Instructions that appear anywhere but the link.
</p>
<p>
What is interesting, is that these are often the same people who oppose technology neutral phrases for disabled people because <q>there are hardly any of them</q>.
</p>
<p>
Yes, help is good.
But why is a hyperlink singled out as being difficult?
There is tons of literature about the fact that users do not scroll, but I have <em>never</em> seen instructions for a scoll bar on a site.
</p>
<p>We do not publish books that have 'please turn over' in the corner of every page.
We are not told by BBC 1 that to watch the programme on BBC 2 we need to change channel.
We do not need 'click here' on a hyperlink.
</p>
<h4>'Click Here' Wastes Space</h4>
<p>Whever 'click here' is used as the link text, it needs to be accompanied by an explanation.
Space is precious.
Compare these examples:
</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Click here</a> for the July Report.</li>
<li><a href="#">July Report</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>Once the link describes itself, the rest becomes redundant.</p>
<p>This division of the link and the explanation for the link is also inelegant because in forces you into using a particular phrase when that might not be what you want to say. </p>
<h4>'Click here' Wastes Ink</h4>
<p>A web page is still a web page if it is printed out.
No, that is not a zen riddle. A book is still a book if it is a <acronym title="Portable Document Format">PDF</acronym>.
Printers and screens are just two different methods of viewing the data.
So it is always a good idea to be as format neutral as possible.
</p>
<h4>Not Everybody 'Clicks Here'</h4>
<p>This always seems to come as a surprise, but not everybody accesses the Internet in the same way. Teenagers use their mobile phones, yuppies use <acronym title="Personal Digital Assistants">PDAs</acronym> and there are even browsers that read text aloud. So, links are 'followed' in a variety of ways.</p>
<p>Since the physical workings of the browser are nothing to do with the content of the page, there is not need for the page to refer to them. </p>
<h4>But everybody else does it</h4>
<p>The fact remains that 1,300,000,000 pages use 'click here' and I have just made it 1,300,000,001. Why?
Two big reasons are banner advertisements and standardisation.
</p>
<h5>Banner Ads</h5>
<p>Banner ads are everywhere.
Even on this page, I admit it.
More and more of them work on a 'pay-per-click' system so they scream 'click me'.
The sheer volume of all this normalises it.
</p>
<h5>Standardisation</h5>
<p>The same Jakon Nielson who complains about 'click here' also coined:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040913.html"><strong>Jakob's Law</strong> of the Internet User Experience: users spend most of their time on other websites.</a></li>
</ul>
<p>In other words, if everybody else does it so we should too.
In fact, when people do object to having their content rewritten, they often insist that they put it there because everybody knows that <q>that is the way you are supposed to write it</q>.
</p>
<p>This is the reason I have saved this point until last.</p>
<h4>Search Engine Ranking</h4>
<p>Do the people who are ranked fist for something worry about it?
Do they say <q>Everybody else is lower down, surely that means that I should be lower down too!</q>
</p>
<p>Oddly enough, the do not think that.
In fact, they are often in that position because they have paid good money for a Search Engine Optimiser.
<a title="Seach Engine Optimiser">SEO</a>s are people or companies that go through a site and make it as easy as possible for search engines to correctly index their pages.
</p>
<p>
Now, I mentioned disabled users above.
Search engines are the most important users of your site- and they are blind.
</p>
<p>Look at this example:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><code>Dogs are very important. For more information about them <a href="#">click here</a>.</code></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now, imagine that you are Google and that you need to know what the destination page is about.
What can it tell about the page from here?
Absolutely nothing.
</p>
<p>Now look at this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><code><a href="#">Dogs</a> are very important.</code></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The page is about dogs!
How do we know, because the text that links to it contains the word 'dogs'.
The association between that page and the search term 'dogs' is now stronger.
Not much stronger, but every little helps.
</p>
<p>
But let me emphasise this.
Small changes, like the removal of the words 'click here', make such an accumulated difference that people can make a living out of them.
Now, wouldn't it be easier if we all just stopped doing it?
</p>
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</div><!--Ads-->Yet Another Geekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13228777137925013304noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-950199823642651358.post-7468393650837134102007-08-15T16:46:00.002+01:002010-04-30T17:51:06.487+01:00The War Machines are Coming<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/War-of-the-worlds-tripod.jpg" style="float: right" alt="Martian War Machine" width="334" height="422">
<blockquote>
<p>And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. A flash, and it came out vividly, heeling over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish and reappear almost instantly as it seemed, with the next flash, a hundred yards nearer.</p>
<p><cite>The War of the Worlds (1898) H.G. Wells.</cite></p>
</blockquote>
<h4>The Tripods</h4>
<p>The war machines described by H.G. Wells were a vivid foretelling of the tanks that would eventually appear on the real battlefields of the Somme.</p>
<p>They also present an interesting biomechanical problem- how can a tripod walk?</p>
<h4>Why should a tripod walk?</h4>
<p>A tripod in the simplest stable supported structure.
It is also the only supported structure that is still stable if the legs are of uneven length.
Walking is the best way of moving over different types of terrain, especially rough terrain.
So, in theory, a walking tripod would be a very useful thing.
</p>
<p>
But in practice this is not so.
As soon as a tripod lifts a leg to take a step it becomes a distinctly unstable bipod.
It is probably significant that no known living creature has ever walked the Earth on three legs.
This contributes to the 'aliennes' of the war machines in <cite>The War of the Worlds</cite>.
</p>
<h4>The Problem Solved</h4>
<p>The problem has now been solved by researchers at the <acronym title="Robitics and Mechanisms Laboratory">RoMeLa</acronym> laboratories in the United States.
Their gait uses the the same leg to both push off and advance.
This solves the stability problem because the tripod 'falls' in the direction if the walk.
They have built an experimental robot called the Self-excited Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot (STriDER) to test this gait.
</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w3X8u9oCPY" target="nsvideo">Watch the full-size video</a></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XsaJwKKBYo" target="nsvideo">Watch the full-size video</a></p>
</div>
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<p>Interestingly, for this to work, the body needs to flip over which is probably not something a biological creature would do.</p>
<h4>War Machines?</h4>
<p>So, will I ever have one of these in my house pushing the vacuum cleaner?
Unlikely.
The research is being paid for by the military.
The <acronym title="Robitics and Mechanisms Laboratory">RoMeLa</acronym> video describes the robot carrying <q>Cameras, for surveillance of antenna for communication.</q>
If it can carry a camera, it can carry a gun.
</p>
<h4>Links</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds">The War of the Worlds</a> (Wikipedia)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.me.vt.edu/romela/RoMeLa/RoMeLa.html">RoMeLa Labs</a></li>
</ul>
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