Category: Social

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It’s Just Right

Once a fortnight is just about the correct frequency.

Private Eye is a fortnightly news magazine to which I subscribe. It’s possibly the only newspaper willing to spread the truth and print what is going on. It’s quite frightening really just how corrupt and dodgy most organisations and societies are. Maybe corrupt is the norm and I’m just hoping for an idealised society that can never exist? The other magazine I subscribe to is Scientific American.

In the same week that I receive Private Eye the Merseyside Skeptics Society release their podcast called Skeptics With A K. It’s a show about an hour long which features three normal (ish) guys chatting about skeptical items that interest them. There’s a bit of swearing and a reasonable amount of poking fun at people but it is very interesting and I learn a lot.

Both these subscriptions arrive in the same week and have for a few years, even allowing for the Christmas break they have. Each new year I wonder if the synchronicity will be altered but I haven’t found so this far. Perhaps it’s deliberate?

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Because We Are Stupid

So, in a DIY shop today getting some seeds to sow and I saw this attached to the petrol lawnmowers.

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Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand that some people are lacking a bit in the grey matter but SERIOUSLY? People are so moronic that we have to tell them to put FUEL in a petrol motor before using it?!
Someone stop the planet. It’s time for me to get off.

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Easy Research

Short one this. For a few years now I have become convinced that there’s an easy way to make discoveries and gain a PhD. Although this might be slightly controversial and I am prepared to accept my views are probably wrong, I do currently think that this is how some fields of research work.

Recipe:

  • Take a phase of life or social behaviour (grieving, riots, middle-age, becoming a parent)
  • Perform a survey of people going through this process or involved in these behaviours
  • Look through your data to find correlations or patterns (humans are very good at this)
  • Make up a causation-correlation statement or split the phase into sub-divisions
  • Perform another survey to confirm your results
  • Write up a PhD
  • Write a popular style book explaining your results and what people can do to fix themselves
  • All done!
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Screen Capture

Downloaded an app to the iPhone that controls my tv via the home network. All very well and good but there is also a screen capture button! Why? Who would need to screen capture a tv? Apart from writing this communication that is?

GT5:

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A New Fallacy

I would like to introduce a new logical fallacy into the world.

The argument from “PROFESSIONALISM”.

This argument is provided by those who wish to change organisations and structures. The conversation might go something like:

“We want to make you work 20 hours more in a week. As a professional you must agree that this would increase the time you have to work.”

Essentially it seems rather a hard argument to try and battle. If you are a professional then you want to do your job to the best that you can. You also think that you are open to change and improving outcomes. So, this “you should agree with me” approach seems rather hard to argue against.

My problem with this argument backing up changes in an organisation is that pretty much anything can be justified using the “you’re a professional and so would want the best for your sector”. This is why the argument shouldn’t be used. If your argument can be extended (a bit like the slippery slope) to back up anything then it invalidates the points you are trying to put across.

“You can’t disagree with these new standards as they surely improve what it is that is expected of you as a professional.”

Again this seems hard to argue against. But there is a counter argument to be made. As a professional I should be expected to do all that I reasonalby can to ensure that I work my best. There is a limit to what can physically be done and the expectation on professionals should stop before that limit is reached.

Time for the world to use arguments that really back up what they want to do. Some evidence wouldn’t go amiss either [not just anecdote].

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Stunning

This is an extremely beautiful picture taken a short while ago from the International Space Station. I will include some links and acknowledgements soon.

I found this because I follow Phil Plait on Google+ and in my RSS feeds. A link to his post here. Find the actual copy in here somewhere.

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The Price Of Love?

For Christmas I had promised WW a new overnight bag. A nice leather one. I did put a price limit on it though as I thought some bags got to silly prices. WW seemed happy enough with the price limit and we thought that she would be able to find something suitable.

There we were in House of Fraser in Bluewater and looking at the bags when we found one that was the perfect size, colour, material and type. In fact it was perfect. It was so perfect that when I looked at the price tag I thought about selling my car and trading it in for the bag, however in reality I laughed out loud and bitterly moaned that it probably only costs about GBP30 to make. I think the brand of the bag was Chloe, which means nothing to me. A price tag of GBP1195 was a touch steep though.

So WW is still looking for a bag!

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I’ve Seen The Future

Ok, now these are impressive. I was at the Kiddicare store in Thurrock, Essex and I noticed that the shelf tags looked quite a bit different to the card barcode things you normally get in a superstore or shop.
I looked a bit closer at these tags and was pretty sure they were LCD displays with some sort of stock count thing going on. While closely inspecting a shelf tag a store worker came along with a bar-code reader device and so I asked if the tags were LCD.

YES!

I also asked if they were radio controlled with real time stock updates.

YES! The stock tags update every five minutes.

I was so impressed with this use of tech that I nearly forgot what I went into the shop to buy. I have seen the future, and it will be.

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Magic Page

My #2 son likes reading books. Although that’s a touch inaccurate. Really he likes sitting on someone’s lap and getting them to read a book to him. He’s only 18 months so I think that’s forgivable.
I am pretty sure that he knows something that we don’t though. Whenever I get to the last page of a book he keeps trying to find another page. He scrabbles at the cover and tries to prise another page open. Now normally these are board books and so he can be forgiven for thinking there is another page, but I just ownder if one day a new page will open and create more of a story for him. I’d consider that magic.

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Testing Heaven And Hell

In my last communication I stated that I thought the difference between my two relative frequencies was not significant. I think I have now performed a test, but whether it is valid or not can be up to you.

If Heavy Metal focuses on the dark side of life then there should be many references to to Hell in the song title. Conversly, there should be only a few references to the term Heaven in song titles. If this is the case then it could be expected that the frequencies of each would be independent of each other, assuming the subject matter for songs is random and the use of words follows this.

My Calculations follow, but essentially I have found that, at a 5% significance level, the distribution of Hell and Heaven is random and that the frequency of hell is close enough to the frequency of heaven for this to be so.

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I am fully aware that I have really pushed the limits of my significance test and it probably doesn’t even work properly for this type of problem. But, my happiness about this communication remains about 75% (+- 3% for 95% confidence level).

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