Tag: penguin

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Boardom

I went walkabout on Sunday with my niece and we spent the day wandering around 35 km around London with me boring her most of the time. We had lunch at the RAF Club and also saw a gig at Electrowerkz in the evening. One of the things I did was to show her around Imperial College and the student union.

In Beit Quad of Imperial College there is a place that used to be my office [it’s no longer an office] and also the union dining hall. Inside the hall are some honour boards and on there, my name! I have wanted to go back and get a photo of this for some time now and this proved to be the perfect opportunity.

Dep PresIf you look, you will see me in the 1994 to 1995 season, just after Charles Leary.

Honour Boards

Here’s a link to a previous communication about IC.

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Animals In Sport

This communication is going to be a little different. This entire website contains a lot of stuff written by me, most of it is pretty dull. I’m not really sure of my motivation but it’s something to do and it makes me feel modern even though I’ve been writing web pages since 1995 [Imperial College Student Union web site].

Over the last year or so I have been thinking about horse racing and whether it is morally justifiable to allow this to happen. I have slowly come to the conclusion that there is NO moral justification for humans to use animals in sport.

I dislike the idea that we, as a species, put ourselves on top of horses and then race them as hard as possible around a track and that it is then broadcast for people to watch as sport. I do realise that it is a huge industry and that many people rely on this for their livelihoods but that doesn’t get around the fact that I find it impossible to justify as a just thing. Horse racing is a hangover from a time when we were not a liberal society. I would argue that our society (esp in the UK) is largely liberal and we seek reason for doing things. I do not see any reason why we take large beings and race them against each other for the financial gain of ourselves.

Sport is for human pleasure and social cohesion so we can only use humans to help us create that. I do not see any reason why humans should be using animals for sport. I would happily sign a petition calling for the end of animals in human forms of entertainment. Sport is, essentially entertainment. It doesn’t matter who or what wins, we just use it as a distraction from the more important aspects of our lives, such as our moral duty to save this planet and ensure everyone has enough to eat and freedom to be what they want. [Deep breath] Here goes:

Animals should not be used for sport

I’m pretty sure that this also goes for greyhound racing, fishing, cock fighting etc. As I said, this topic is one that I have been thinking about gradually and so “pretty sure” means I am working through the arguments in my head and trying to decide on what is “right”. Just in case you are wondering, I do NOT need a god to help me decide what is just.

I am happy for humans to be used in sport. Having said that, we generally don’t have to “destroy” humans if they fall in a race. Yes, some sports people die for what they do and that is sad, but at least they were (hopefully) aware of the risks.

I am reasonably happy to grow animals for food. I like eating meat and poultry and fish. I am aware of the inefficiencies of us growing meat to eat and that is a problem I should think about another time. We specifically grow animals to kill and then eat. I understand that, morally, that is different from growing animals to use as ENTERTAINMENT. This does not make me an hypocrite, just in case you were thinking that. I’ll explain my rationality for you: growing and eating animals to survive as humans is ok, growing animals for entertainment is not. Whether it is justifiable to grow animals for food, given the energy constraints this world faces I shall deal with another time.

I do know that when I try to put my thoughts down in writing that I struggle a little to get my ideas across. This is because writing is not a natural thing for me. I also haven’t spent all my time covering every aspect of this communication because I haven’t got the time. What you are reading here is the condensed version, putting my argument as simply as possible and trying to justify it. If you have problems with what I say, I don’t care. Perhaps you will start to think about this and work out what your arguments are.

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Camera Flaws

I love my new Nikon camera. It takes great photos, is easy to use, has brilliant settings and feels great in my hands. It’s a great bit of kit.

I like my iPhone camera. It’s small, pretty much always on my person and, surprisingly, takes pretty good low light photos.

The problem is that my iPhone camera is getting on a bit and has flaws in every picture it takes. Normally these can’t be seen because there’s plenty of detail in those areas. However, when there is a steady area the flaws show up a lot. Just see this photo of Whitby and spot the problem areas.

Taken with my iPhone, hence the finger marks
Whitby

I’m not sure if these can be cleaned away or if they are internal. I also can’t be bothered to find out.

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Guardians Of The Galaxy

Awesome.

 

I loved this film. It had a perfect mix of beautiful, funny, space-stuff, action, characters and trees. I rated this film 10 on IMDB, however, see my ratings guide. I cant’ wait to see it again and also watch it with my family.

After the first few minutes I was worried that the rest of the film was going to disappoint me as the space scenes looked gorgeous. I was concerned that the quality was going to drop over the rest of the film. It didn’t.

 

 

 

 

There’s one big thing that annoyed me. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the film rather than censorship. The character played by Peter Serafinowicz is meant to use the word “asshole”. However, for what I can only consider reasons of censorship he says “A-hole”. It just didn’t fit with the rest of the film, especially when you consider the word “shit” was used a few times. What is it about “ass” or “arse” that can’t be said when the word “shit” is used anyway? It bugged me when it was first said and then the second time “A-hole” was used I just found it very strange. What a strange world we live in.

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Ongoing Works

This is a picture of a path at RAF Linton-on-Ouse. Either they ran out of money, expect people with very longs legs to use it or are just plain lazy.

Linton Path
Linton Path

Perhaps, as this base is where they train future fast jet pilots, it’s a lesson in looking forward and being aware. All I know is that I don’t understand how this could be considered logical.

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Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

This was a much better film that Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes which I watched at the weekend and was just not fussed by it. I went to see “Dawn” last night because it was the only thing on at the cinema worth watching and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to spend the time going. It was only after I looked at the IMDB Critics’ Metascore that I decided I would see the film because it had scored 79, which is pretty good.

The animation was stunning. The acting was stunning. I believe ape culture was reproduced accurately. I thought the whole film was a good piece. It showed just what assholes apes and people can be, this film could be attached to any of the trouble spots around the planet at the moment and used as an allegory. The film is worth watching.

This film is really about two groups who know little of each other and how they handle the first encounter. All of the behaviour is brilliantly human. It quickly descends into violence. Just look at human history and what we have done to each other over the years. Overall this is a sad film commenting on how crap humans treat each other.

SPOILERS
I had a couple of issues with certain points of the film. I was happy to accept intelligent apes, that’s the main premise. I wasn’t particularly happy with three people being able to get an hydro-electric dam working again after 10 years of non-service. That seemed rather unlikely to me, but it was a minor thing.

I was also rather unsure of Caesar’s final conversation with the man. I felt that Caesar wouldn’t have accepted that war was an inevitable part of the future. It didn’t quite fit with the rest of the film. It was exactly at the point that the two characters needed to stand up and be leaders and organise peace. Two cultures can exists next to each other but there has to be movement and discussion. There is always a need for negotiation. As an example I give you the fact that all the time the IRA were bombing the shit out of the UK in the 1980s the government [we do not negotiate with terrorists] were secretly negotiating with the IRA. It is the only way to make progress, to allow differing cultures to live together. Forgiveness needs to be learnt by all to allow healing and future cooperation.

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Official Photo

This is a copy of my official OIC graduation photograph. It shows me receiving my Commission scroll [the actual one unlike my degree ceremony] from the Group Captain.

commission

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Powered Flying Log

I know, I know. This is just another list of stuff!

So very true, but this is the biggie. This is why you join the cadets. If you want to see the other communications in this series then click here.

Just before I enter the list you may or may not be interested to know that aerobatics really messes me up. I positively enjoy the experience of aero but it will make me sick and turns me into a useless lump of cells for a few hours as my body recovers. I will go green and then white, I have headaches and everything spins for ages. After anything up to five hours later I will become very hungry, that signals the start of my recovery. I really enjoy flying and aerobatics but I just have to be aware of the consequences.

 

Powered FLying Log
Powered FLying Log

My total time is just over 21 hours. That’s not bad even if it includes two flights to Cyprus which I’ve counted because I was flying “on duty”.

I also recently had a flight in a Grob Tutor while on camp at Brize Norton. I got around a 40 minute flight, it was a much better experience than the chipmunk.

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It’s What Happens

I teach. It’s what I do. I teach teenagers. A lot of people I meet consider this to be a mad career. Teenagers are horrible. They wonder why I don’t teach younger kids. I teach because of a long series of accidents and uninformed choices throughout my life. However, after starting my teacher training in 1995 I found that I loved being in the classroom and working with kids. I consider myself utterly fortunate to have discovered a career that I enjoy so much. I have often said to myself that the day I “have to go to work” is the day I quit, at the moment I still get up every (working) day and “go to school”.

Teenagers are hilarious. They try to argue and make valid points, they are starting to learn the craft of putting together valid arguments and come to valid conclusions. Some can do this well, others take quite a bit longer. They often try to communicate their thoughts are struggle to do so. Daily I am involved in creating new thoughts and ideas and methods for explanation. This is great. It’s exciting and when the teenagers mess it up it’s just funny. I work with some of the brightest and [unintentionally] hilarious young people.

You’ll have to take this on trust but having a teenager try to explain his/her actions in a logical manner leaves me laughing (inside rather than in their face). Although my role is to teach mathematics I also aim to offer up techniques for questioning and finding out what really happens, how to get evidence, how to appraise arguments. I see this as far more important than the actual mathematics I teach. If I can help people seek their own evidence and make their own decisions then I have succeeded in improving their contributions to future society.

The title of this communication is “It’s What Happens”. I’d just like to point out that society seems to have a massive “downer” on teenagers.

Said Socrates [not the footballer]:

Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.

This is a quite well known quotation. It’s definitely gives the impression that we hate teenagers and have done for many years of society. There are often modern headlines in the newspapers and web-news-services where the implication is that modern society is going to ruin because of a type of behaviour of teenagers or young people. This is utter rubbish.

Here’s some cases of behaviour of the youth ruining society:

  • Pinball machines in the 1940s
  • Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 1950s
  • Sex and drugs in the 1960s
  • Punk in the 1970s
  • Alcopops in the 1990s
  • Mobile phones in the 2000s

Most of the people “corrupted” by these forms of behaviour are now the ESTABLISHMENT. I’m pretty sure that if you look hard enough you will see that society isn’t ruined. My theory is as follows:

People who write opinions and the news are jealous of teenagers. They don’t like the freedom, the care-less-ness, the risk taking, the fun that teenagers have. It reminds them of what they have lost and the dreams that have dimmed. It reminds them of mortgages, children and politics. They want to be young again.

The constant dislike of teenagers in the press is a constant of society, it will always be there. Are the youth terrible? Are the youth poorly behaved? No, not really. Teenagers are meant to be restless and care-free. It means they move on and develop in to fully functioning adults. It’s what happens.

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