But When Is It?

I was using my favourite aircraft tracking site 360Radar when I noticed that they have built in the terminator into the view:

In this picture you can see the lines of the terminator, the line of the end of sunlight across the globe. But, it’s more complicated than that isn’t it? There are two lines and I suspect that one is the onset of sunset and the other is when the sun has dropped below the horizon. Rather, what happens is that the Earth rotates more so the Sun drops below the local horizon.

That gets you to thinking about sunset and when it is. According to Wikipedia, which is a perfectly good reference for most things scientific, sunset is the moment the sun dips below the horizon. After that there are different types of twilight!:

By TWCarlson – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

I hope this doesn’t over complicate issues too much for you all.

One of the things that humans like to do is have simple black and white answers for all problems. We can’t live in a society without rules. We need them to ensure we give everyone a similar set of values and guidelines. We use heuristics all the time. These are brain shortcuts so we don’t have to think about things from the very start. Stereotyping is an heuristic. It allows us to make quick judgements about people so that we don’t have to think too much. The problem is that stereotyping is wrong most of the time and our brain is wrong. Heuristics while brain efficient are mostly wrong.

The question “when is twilight” leads to a multitude of different types and times. Most things in society aren’t really black and white. There are always complications. There are always times when other factors seem important. We love these rules but often they need to be tempered by knowing the circumstances. The media like forcing that black or white notion, they like to implement simple thinking in society to make everything simple. Most people don’t want to think about things or over complicate them. Most people want a simple life where they don’t have to think or consider others.

It’s good to learn that we should always spend extra brain power thinking about the issues are reasons more. As the author Ben Goldacre put it:

I think you’ll find it’s more complicated than that.

April 9 2018

Amport House

I have just returned from a lovely couple of days away at Amport House in Hampshire. It’s a lovely setting near Andover where the Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre is housed. I spent time there on an ACO Personal Awareness Course. Although the course is based at the chaplaincy centre it is a non-religious course which is probably just as well for me as I am completely not-religious and verging on anti-religious. However, the centre made sure that my bedroom was closest to the chapel and my door was literally next door to the chapel organ.

There were a number of cadets there from all over the country. It was a good mix and they all got along quite quickly. This bonding does tend to happen as they already have a common interest. The whole weekend was non-uniform and first names only, even for staff-cadet relationships. This made it an environment suited for the discussions we had. The aim was to raise the personal awareness of the cadets in an intra and inter-personal way. They were tasked to think about dealing with others but also knowing themselves. I am sure all the cadets got a great deal from the experience and it is unlike any other course available in our pseudo-military organisation.

The house itself has been in the military since the second world war. It has always been used for the chaplaincy and is currently the centre for the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. The gardens were designed by Lutyens and Jekyll and are grade one listed, they are lovely.

Part of the garden was the oldest pleached limes in the country. These are lime trees which have been trained over many years to provide a hedge. These particular ones are designed so that courting couples could walk in privacy between the trees but the chaperones could see their feet and ensure they didn’t get too close to each other from outside the centre walkway.

It would have been nice to see these in bloom and leaved but maybe next time. On the whole it was a good weekend and I really enjoyed myself. Sitting outside during a break ready a book surrounded by such a wonderful setting was delightfully relaxing.

April 3 2018

Being Bored

I have spent some time recently learning to be bored. I guess what I really mean is trying to learn to give up social media and put my phone down.

[I’d like to propose that mobile phones are no longer called phones, or telephones. They are now Portable Digital Devices and I rarely use mine as a phone. These devices need re-branding. The name needs to change to reflect their usage. I suggest PDA. This is controversial because PDAs were used in the early 90s and they died. They didn’t succeed because mobile phones came and took over. That is capitalism or progress I guess. So, Portable Digital Assistants need a revival. It more accurately describes the function of the rectangle of black in your palm.]

There are four main reasons that I have opted to try and get bored more often. One is Brexit, then there is Trump along with all the “stupid” and finally there is All The HATE.

I have a couple of twitter accounts. In one of them I follow a few people and use it to communicate with friends. The other account is full of random people and politicians who I follow for the news and pictures of aeroplanes. Over the last couple of years I have noticed that my overall personal mood has reflected the level of crap I see on twitter. I would look at my twitter feed every hour or so and catch up with what’s happening. But quite often the anger, rage and shock supplied by people on twitter was reactionary. It wasn’t considered or sensible.

I would react emotionally. I would re-tweet people I follow. I would become annoyed and enraged at the injustices I saw. It felt like everything I held to be good about the world was deteriorating.

When you read tweets about what racist shit the foreign secretary has said, try to understand trump, see the hatred towards minorities, see the hatred of the religious, see the twisted responses by people with internet-balls, see the hatred and such low level of discourse, then you start to feel worried about the state of the world.

If you can’t manage a walk to the corner shop without staring at your phone, then maybe you need to stop and put it down.

I removed the other account on from my phone about a month ago. I also have stopped the side-bar on my PC from popping up with that twitter account. I try to get my news from a couple of websites and the radio.

I constantly worry that I am missing out on a gorgeous photograph of an airplane. I worry that something might be happening in the world that needs my attention. This is FOMO I guess. I understand the troubles of generations younger than me who have never known anything else. That constant connectivity to a world of opinion and thought. Here’s the news for you people: humans aren’t “built” to cope with all that. Also, and this might be news to you, getting bored is a good thing.

I will add some provisos to that last statement. Make sure your mental and emotional health is good before trying to get bored. You don’t want to end up in a cycle of bad thoughts while out and about doing nothing.

Our best ideas and processing comes when we are bored. We have the chance to think and ponder and imagine. We should learn to put PDAs down. For an hour at a time to start. Then we can increase that. I’ve tried to leave my phone in the other room. I’m almost at that stage when I sometimes can’t remember where my phone is in my house. I hope to get better at this over the next while. Keep a book nearby, you know a printed book.

It’s important to switch off. To chill out. To wander the streets/countryside while pondering.

March 22 2018January 29 2022

BAH!

On Saturday I went with a friend to BAHFest London. The Bad Ad Hoc Hypothesis Festival is a celebration of bad science presented as good science with graphs and everything. The London version is held at Imperial College and so this seemed fitting to spend my birthday in the grounds of a place I have spend previous birthdays.

After dinner out with Mazza we arrived in the Great Hall to be seated in the second row as we were running slightly late. I’ve not been to one of these before but I have been a fan of Zach Weinersmith for a long time as he writes the SMBC online comic. There are quite a few of these printed out and on the wall in the maths office. BAHFest was slated to start at 19:00 and so, this audience is one of the nerdiest I have ever been part of. An event about science in a science university at 7 on a Saturday! You have to go some to beat that for qualifications and jokes about i.

The host was Matt Parker and the judges are below, but Tim Harford was the one I recognised the most although only his voice. I have listened to his radio 4 show More Or Less for many years. The other judges were Lindsey Fitzharris, Dr Jen Gupta and Sydney Padua.

There was a keynote speaker, a cartoonist from France, Boulet, once the six bad ideas with good science were presented the crowd voted on them and the applause was rated using a sound meter. It was lovely to spend time in a geeky environment and have intelligent discourse.

For an example about the presentations one of the plans was how to mitigate or reverse the current global warming trend line of increasing temperatures by inducing a small nuclear winter. The discussion was then based on where to explode the nukes and it turns out that the middle bit of Canada where no-one lives was just perfect, forest with a low population. This idea was backed up with graphs and diagrams and calculations.

After the event the panel were available to sign books they had published. Mazza and I didn’t go to that. I’d already bought a couple of the books and have ordered another. The rational part of my brain tells me that having a squiggle of ink added to a book doesn’t change that book. The financial part of me is aware of the actual value people place on such objects.

Mark and I then went to the Student Union Bar. It’s just over Prince Consort Road inside Beit Quad. Both of us have Life Membership of the SU, mine is Honorary, I can’t remember if Mark’s is. I hadn’t got my HLM card though and Mark signed me in. Our purpose was to have a drink using one of the pots / tankards that live in the Traditional Bar. I had a choice:

Aerosoc Chair
Departmental Society Officer
Spanner Bearer
Deputy President Clubs and Societies

My tankard of choice would be Spanner Bearer but it wasn’t there! I’m not sure what has happened to it but I was a little saddened. So, I chose DPCS. I had a lovel ypint of an IPA and it was good. As far as I could tell the Traditional Bar hadn’t changed. The main bar was quite different and as we walked through it I can tell you there is nothing to make you feel old as walking through a student bar when you are in your mid-forties.

There’s another tradition that if someone named before you on the pot comes into the bar then it is your duty, as the junior, to finish your pint and then buy that person a fresh pint and relinquish the pot. As I am the second person on this pot, the post being new a year before, there is very little chance that I get “potted”.

FYI, the Bolt Bearer pot is still behind the bar.

March 10 2018

Natural Consequence

Listening to the radio this morning and during the “What The Papers Say” section the presenters discussed an article in the Daily Mail. Now, clearly, anything in the DM is utter bullshit and should be ignored but I couldn’t help but be curious at the language the news BBC presenters used. It went along the lines of:

Councils are going to charge more for car parking . . . . . this will affect Sunday shoppers and church goers.

I’m not sure I agree with their assessment. I think it will affect people who want to park their cars. What those people do after they have parked their cars is entirely up to them. If you are using a service then you should expect to pay for it somehow, this seems a sensible approach to me. I’m don’t even want to get started on the righteousness invested in “church goers” as if they should have the freedom to do their religioning. I’ll shout this out later but going to church regularly doesn’t make you any more “moral” than the next person. May I kindly remind you of which system of moral belief has spent the last fifty years systematically covering up child abuse: step up the catholic church.

Councils charging more for the services they provide is a natural consequence of the austerity measures imposed on this country by successive governments since the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Local councils have had their central government funding cut massively and so they need to either raise more money by themselves or cut services. It’s ingenious because it keeps the anger at local politicians rather than those in Westminster as your local council has to charge more but it’s NOT their fault.

Austerity has royally screwed this country over and the natural consequence of less money around was Brexit. The Tories have imposed their version of hatred on the peoples of this land and will make us all poorer.

Just for amusement here are some quotes from the DM website article about the parking charges and my comments:

Motorists face steep hikes in parking charges to plug holes in council budgets.

True, but no explanation about why the government isn’t funding the councils.

Some town halls are bringing in fees on Sundays to catch shoppers and churchgoers.

Replace “catch” with “charge for services”.

A number of local authorities are in extreme financial difficulties with much of the pressure coming from the rising cost of social care.

Because we don’t want to help those who are less well off or damaged within society. We want to park for nothing. The pressure is coming from chronic underfunding and rising inflation costs.

‘The war on motorists has got to stop,’ said Tory MP Robert Halfon.

“WAR”. Ha ha. Making people pay for a service they use is considered “WAR”. Perhaps the Tory MP could argue for increased central government funding for the councils to ease the legitimate parking charges. I hadn’t noticed a “war” on motorists. I’d love to hear an expanded explanation about that.

Dover and Bristol are planning to reintroduce Sunday charges in car parks as well as on streets.

So why the fake outrage? It’s hardly a war is it if these charges were in place before.

‘When will councils recognise that growing their income depends on low-cost and accessible parking, not knee-jerk cash grabs from hard-working motorists?’

English councils made a £819million surplus from parking fines, fees and permits during the 2016/17 financial year.

“Cash grabs” interpreted means paying for services. “Knee-jerk” implies a sudden change and easy decision. I suspect that having to raise charges is the last thing the councils want to do but is a necessity. The £819 million figure is disingenuous as it includes parking fines and is spread over the whole of England. Let’s face it, if you park somewhere you shouldn’t and get caught then pay the fine. There is no distinction in the article about how much income comes from those who break the rules. This figure use is designed to increase rage at councils rather than place that anger where it is deserved. This is what happens when your media is biased. To balance this I will probably have to have a look at a left leaning newspaper and so I promise to do that at some time.

Ninety-five per cent of town halls plan to increase council tax next month. Meanwhile, bin collections, libraries, social care and other services have been slashed.

NO DISCUSSION OF AUSTERITY MEASURES IMPOSED BY CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.

The number of households enjoying weekly rubbish rounds has plummeted by a third since 2010, the National Audit Office revealed this week.

OK, and this is important because? . . . . . . .

There are three paragraphs defending the action and it would be remiss of me to neglect to mention them.

Martin Tett of the Local Government Association said: ‘Local authorities remain on the side of hard-pressed motorists, shoppers and businesses and do not set parking charges to make a profit.

‘Car parks cost taxpayers money to maintain and improve and any surplus is spent on essential transport projects, such as tackling the £12billion roads repair backlog and creating new parking spaces.

‘To protect such provision, and in the face of an overall funding gap that will exceed £5billion by 2020, councils are being forced to make difficult decisions.’

These are followed directly by a paragraph telling of charges increasing in Bournemouth. The overall “reporting” in this article is designed to keep people angry, to keep them annoyed at “social costs”, to keep them thinking that motorists are hard workers and shouldn’t have to pay for these things. This is social engineering on a massive scale and it keeps happening in EVERY article in the piece of shit newspaper and website. The DM claims that the web version is an entirely separate entity but as Private Eye points out they both share the same executive editor.

The DM and Express along with other media have used their positions and influence over the last 12 years to engineer a social divide, to encourage hatred, to encourage an insular approach. They are the scum of this country. They are the ones fostering hatred towards people who are different or have needs. They promote the entitled view they so desperately mock.

It is time for me to stop or I’ll end up in a full blown rant and that’s not needed on a Saturday morning. I’ll leave you to ponder the use of language by our media.

March 2 2018March 4 2018

Oh, I’m Soooooo Grateful

This has made me so angry:

The royal family is ALLOWING some SCUM (public) to attend a shindig within the GROUNDS of a shitting castle.

The language in this news article and the way it has been reported on the radio implies that WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL. Fuck them. I am not grateful. I don’t care that two people are getting married. I don’t want to live in this bullshit hierarchical society.

Oh, the NORMAL people are being chosen by the Lord Lieutenants. Woopee-fucking-do. At least we now know whose cock you’ll have to suck to get an invite.

All of this royal family OBN reporting is an utter waste of energies. All it does is fuel the social beliefs that those people are better than everyone else. It reinforces that this society exists and class exists for a reason: that the public can’t be trusted. These nobs are born into their place in the world and so the rest of us had better get used to it.

Viva La Revolution

March 2 2018

Lo-Tech

I clicked on a click-bait type link on Twitter a few days ago and watched a video for the Light Phone 2. It’s a lovely looking basic phone that does phone calls, messaging and alarms. This has got me thinking [a rare event I know!].

Perhaps it would be good to just have a phone. A device designed to make phone calls. Send the odd text message. Not a lot else.

This morning as I thought these things I felt a sense of release from the pressure of modern communication. There was a release growing. The freedom to be away from connections. The freedom to not know what is going on.

So, I’ve been looking at basic phones. I have a plan to use a basic phone. To get one and leave the smart phone at home and just have the basic phone. Get rid of the connections to the world. A chance to be free when I want to be.

I can edit this website at home. I can use a camera to take photos. I can read a book. I can removed myself from the constant drivel and pain that following the news brings at the moment. This is looking like a very real prospect for me. A chance to recapture my freedom and to learn to live my life again. And I say that as a committed tech follower.

February 28 2018

It’s No Collapse

“Oh it all falls apart when it snows”

“An inch of snow and Britain can’t cope”.

Bullshit.

Firstly: We’ve had plenty of warning that there was going to be snow. It wasn’t a surprise.

Secondly: People should have been prepared for the roads to become bad and for transport to be cancelled. BECAUSE WE HAD WARNING.

But, why doesn’t anything work when it snows?

Because you don’t spend LOADS of money on services that are going to sit idle for 360/365 days of the year. If you want everything to work “just fine” when there’s a lot of snow then bloody well pay for it. It will cost a lot of money. It just doesn’t make economical sense.

Hopefully, many services have plans for getting through the snow. Hospitals and emergency services are important and I somewhat suspect that they HAVE plans. Being forewarned about the snow means those plans can be enacted.

Simple really.

February 28 2018February 28 2018

Winter Views

The weather over the last few days has been stunning. There’s a load of snow around and the whole of the county looks stunning. It has rather messed with my professional plans but, hey ho, I’m sure I’ll figure it out. The opportunity of being at home in daylight has meant that I have been for a couple of tentative runs since fucking my right Achilles. I am still walking and the Achilles seems intact. Not sure when I’ll next have a run but I’m pleased with the results so far.

So, these are the details of one of my runs. While I have been out I’ve taken many photos. I think they are gorgeous:

The countryside is stunning and I think that a couple of sub-zero temperature runs is just the way to celebrate the gloriousness of the whole thing. Ever wanted to know what snow does to trainers? The trainers are old, but waterproof and actually reasonably warm. I did notice today though that the sole is coming away so once they are dry I am going to glue them (again)!

I’m not too happy with having the heating on full time but it is the only way to keep my house warm. I guess I’ll have to pay for it over the rest of the year.

I also took some photos with the DSLR. This morning there was mist over the valley and it all looked just bloody gorgeous.

There was a dog walker out in the chill.

This concludes my winter pictures, until next time!

February 17 2018January 13 2020

Boston – Not New England

I wrote about watching a film in Boston in this communication and I also mentioned the place when explaining how far you can see from Tattershall Castle. I went for a proper look around, just to see what this place was like. Boston made its fortune many years ago and some parts of this town show that age old wealth. I guess the main problem at the moment is that the wealth is no longer around. This town struggles somewhat.

While driving back after seeing the film the other night I got a little bothered by the canals and roads and the utter straightness of this place. There were roads which were perfectly straight for about three miles, it’s a strange sensation when you are from the south east of this country.

This view gives an idea of the canal/drain, not the river Witham, I particularly like the roads either side and the tree lined avenue. Also, the complete lack of safety barrier which I’m sure would be knocking around down in my usual haunts. My first discovery was driving out past the windmill, somewhat a surprise, and I drove back in using this route to see the windmill in the daylight.

After I got parked in the town centre I went on the hunt for stuff. Also, I wanted to see the Stump up close. There was an area next to the river where the old customs house stands with a buoy for display. This lump of red steel was an original from The Wash and looked pretty. Boston had an unusual tidal surge in the past and the buoy was nearly covered in water, giving an indication of how bad floods can be for towns.

Saint Botolph’s Parochial Church of Boston wasn’t open by the time I got there and I suspect that I wouldn’t have been able to climb the tower but I am keen to have a go. It’s always worth getting up high in any town, it lends such perspective to human geography. There were plaques around the church celebrating the pilgrims who had headed off to the new lands of America to practise their religion freely. This country got rid of them because they were so damn weird and so they were sent away.

The Stump is certainly impressive in this barren flat landscape. It stands proud.

I’m not sure if it’s me but I noticed some strange things around the town. I’m possibly being slightly snobby here and I will have to declare that I haven’t really been in any town centre for probably a year, especially during the day time. I just don’t go into my local towns. There’s no need for me to head into the town centres and so my data set is rather limited.

There were many people using cash points. There were queues for the cash points. This was around 15:00 hrs on a Friday and maybe that is what happens in many towns but for some reason I was surprised and thought it was odd. I’m happy to be told I’m wrong, that this is a common occurrence around the country.

There also seemed to be many people smoking. I rarely go anywhere with a huge number of smokers and I suspect that my experience is somewhat limited. I could even smell smoke on me when I was back in my car. If I was so bothered I would go into towns near me during the daytime to get some comparative data, but this is unlikely, I doubt I will go. I don’t care enough about being wrong to want to check. This general hypothesis is not important to me.

Here’s the stretch of straight road, almost 5 miles but with a very, very slight kink.

The longest part of this road had warning signs saying that the road was uneven and the speed limit was 40mph. This, is a good thing. The road was very uneven and any faster could cause losing control of the vehicle. I doubt this will be fixed as it acts as a deterrent to driving with excessive speed.

While driving around Boston I noticed some red signs marked “out ER”. I wasn’t sure what these were but a quick Google informed me that they are Evacuation Routes for when there is a high risk of flooding. This seems pretty reasonable to me. It is sensible to have these routes planned so that people are aware of how to escape. It’s also sensible to have plans in place, here’s a link to the Lincolnshire council explanation [this link was removed as the page location was changed, Jan 2020].

February 12 2018

Arch Enemy – Koko

Last night I popped into town to see the band Arch Enemy. They are a Swedish heavy metal band [melodic death if you are interested] and played Koko, a theatre style venue about a mile away from Kings Cross. Koko is within easy walking distance of my terminus and so I don’t have to worry about getting the tube or missing my last train home. There were quite a few times when, as a teenager, I got stuck in London because once you get the tube back from Wembley to Liverpool Street the last train has gone.

First band up were Tribulation. I wasn’t too sure what to expect as the last metal gig I went to was Gojira and I had an awful headache that night. I’ve seen mostly EBM stuff over the last few years.

My main comment about this band would be that if Spinal Tap have already represented your style of music then you shouldn’t be playing it. This band were like the world hadn’t gone anywhere or done anything for about 30 years. I fully expected a Stonehenge to come down from the ceiling. My notes from the evening describe this band as “gothic metal” and then “epic long boring metal”. It was all witches and stuff. It was a giggle I guess.

Next up were Wintersun. My notes are “surprisingly good” very well constructed songs and played well together. There was lots of gang vocals and ooohing going on in the songs. It wasn’t quite viking metal but it came close in structure. Quite a few songs were fast with lots of double bass drumming [which is fine except when it’s over-used like it was]. The slow song was shit, it irritated me.

At one point the singer was drinking from what looked like a disposable Costa cup and we could see the tea bag label sticking out! TEA!! The guy was drinking TEA. Whatever floats your boat I guess. It’s probably better than alcohol for the throat. Here’s a short clip of stuff:

Headliners were Arch Enemy. I didn’t write any notes about them at the time because I enjoyed the gig enough. They were a tight band and put on a great show.

The crowd was really up for the mosh pit and I was on the edge of it for a short while but it soon became apparent that my leg injury wouldn’t hold up. I did something stupid to my Achilles about three weeks ago and putting weight onto my toes is not a good idea. The way the mosh pit moved meant I was regularly stepping back to get my balance and this eventually would ruin my ability to walk. Also, by this time my back was hurting so sadly and like an old man I went upstairs to watch from above and rest my weary body.

I’m not sure if this is the first metal band I have seen with a female lead singer but apart from being slim and curved there wasn’t a great deal of difference between her and a male singer. The band played for a solid ninety minutes and overall I was very impressed. I’d see them again. A very good collection of songs. This gig rates about a 7 on the Smith-Parish scale of GR.

February 8 2018

EGWE

Last weekend was pretty busy. My cadets were taking part in the regional heats of a national competition. We decided to have a training day before and so headed to St Martins Plain on Friday afternoon.

Above is where the officers stay. The blocks are warm and good enough for a couple of nights. I wouldn’t really want to spend much longer than that there. To give you an idea here’s the inside view of a two-person room:

Yes, I do take a suitcase with me on these trips. It’s for holding stuff. I rarely have to carry things over distances so it makes sense to use it. The yellow lump is my boot polishing kit. You can’t see the carpet in detail but it is hard wearing stuff that also happens to be really sticky to fluff and stuff. Hoovering the carpet is a real chore! There is normally a single electricity outlet in these rooms so a multigang extension lead is a must.

After one night at SMP we got travelled to RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire. It was a journey of about two hours and Henlow was a place I hadn’t been to before. That Saturday night was spent in the Officers’ Mess which is a slight step up from the Army camp.

Officers' Mess Henlow — Officers’ Mess Henlow

Quite a few messes around the country look like this. They are lovely buildings with decent rooms and dining and drinking facilities.

The room comparison is obvious. I wonder where I’d rather stay?

Given these surroundings it’s hard not to want to live in a place like this. Lovely sofas and lovely prices.

Sunday morning we zoomed to RAF Halton for the cadets to take part in the Royal Air Squadron Trophy. They came second out of the contingents in the South East and so will represent the SE at the national finals in about a month.