Category Archives: science

beliefs, medical, personal, science, thoughts

Things What I Don't Do

1 Comment

Over recent months I’ve come to realise that there are whole categories of things and activities which I just do not do and cannot engage with. These are things which the vast majority view as important, if not life critical. In general these are things which, contrary to majority opinion, I think are boring, actually not important or (in a couple of cases) just plain wrong. Here’s my controversial list of things what I don’t do …

[Aside: Before you lay into me, remember that these are my personal opinions.  I’m not saying they have to be your opinions too.  You are free to believe whatever you wish as long as you don’t expect me to join you!]

Golf. Pointless. Expensive. Over-hyped. Environmentally damaging. And time-consuming.

Boats. I never could relate to water. I hated learning to swim. Don’t even like putting my head under the shower to wash my hair. Something to do with being in control, I think. And anything to do with more than a small dingy is only standing under a shower tearing up £20 notes. Boring.

Twitter. I might take some notice when someone can really, rationally, explain to me what the point is. Actually totally unimportant. Just because we have the technology to do something doesn’t mean we should do it.

IVF. In my view this is fundamentally wrong. If a couple cannot have children then generally Nature knows there is some good reason they shouldn’t. I also suspect it is being over-used just because your modern girlies can’t conceive easily as they’ve all been on the pill for too many years. Again, just because we have the technology … And no, this isn’t sour grapes just because we don’t have children: we planned not to have children.

Stem cells. For me the jury is still out on this. Yes, I see the apparent medical benefits. But I’m not convinced it isn’t going to turn out to be something with unforeseen adverse consequences. And I’m also not convinced of the overall ethics. Again, just because we have the technology … But mostly I don’t do stem cells because I find it a deeply boring field of study.

Climate change / global warming. This is another which falls into the deeply boring bucket. I know the theory is that it’s important, and maybe it is. But as soon as politicians get involved there are instantly too many vested interests and parochialism. But for me it is just deeply boring, because it is so ubiquitous.

Africa. See comments above about things being ubiquitous and boring and the involvement of politicians. We (white man) has basically fucked up Africa over the last 2-300 years. Perhaps the most respectful thing we can do now is to stop meddling and let the Africans sort themselves out, like we should have done from the start. But most of all this is in my deeply boring bucket. I’ve been assaulted just too much about this over the years — I have issue fatigue.

Elephants. Well for me they just go along with Africa as being deeply boring and so over-done that again I have issue fatigue. Yes OK so they’re endangered. That doesn’t mean I have to take them to my heart. Similarly for polar bears; and even tigers are getting to that bracket.

iPod, Wii, xBox etc. See comment above about Twitter. Really what is the point? Just totally, totally, unimportant and irrelevant.

Mainstream classical music. Boring. Dull. Overdone. Tinkling audio wallpaper at best — especially Mozart and Haydn. With a very few exceptions. Some music pre-Bach or post-Beatles is interesting, but even then by no means all. And no, it isn’t that I don’t like music; I just hate what everyone else likes.

H5N1 Avian Flu. In general I find odd and emerging diseases interesting, in a forensic way, but this appears to have been blown up out of all proportion. More cynical vested interests? Politicians trying to frighten us to keep the great unwashed under control? I don’t know. But as it appears to have been a knee-jerk over-reaction — which does the scientific/medical community no favours — I can’t get interested. The same with H1N1 Swine Flu.

Cars. Oh dear. No, sorry guys, it isn’t necessary for everyone to drive and have their own car. Neither of us drives, we never have done. OK, I accept we live in a city, which helps, but we do OK without driving. We have a good relationship with our local cab company and give them a lot less money than we would spend on running a car. And we get a lot less stress and hassle — not to mention that not having a car is much greener. Again it is all down to politics and vested interests: we have to make and sell stuff to keep the world turning. Err … maybe if we didn’t do this we wouldn’t be in the climate change mess we are? Let’s put the money into decent public transport (and that includes taxi services, ‘cos you can’t run a bus from here to everywhere). Oh, and sorry, cars are deeply boring too.

Yes I know I’m mad; eccentric. Just remember: “blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light”.

current affairs, science

Flexible Working

3 Comments

Jilly, over at jillysheep, has touched today on the cultures which is part of current working life; cultures which mostly shouldn’t be there!  What follows is verbatim my comment to her post, reflectng my experience of this in a large IT company over the last 10-15 years.

I agree with your comments on working life. Flexibility should be a “no brainer” for most employers. It is 1991 since I worked in the same office as my immediate line manager; well over 10 years since I had my own desk; and 5 years since I went in the office out of routine. On average over my last year working I think I went into an office (not even my base office) just once a month. I could do everything from home with a laptop, broadband, instant messaging, phone, and audio-conferencing phone number (we didn’t even need video-conferencing!). In the rare instance I was sent hardcopy mail it was simply redirected to my home address; but 99.999% of everything (even payslips) was done electronically. And I was managing $5M projects with a team spread across the world – some of whom I never met face to face!

When you put the cost of the technology required against the cost of office space, employee morale (from increased flexibility), efficiencies, savings on travel (cost and time), etc. the payback is probably about 1 year, maybe less. Flexible and mobile/home working actually means you get more work done because people will do a bit extra here and there as long as they are trusted not to abuse the flexibility.

The killer is the long hours culture. And not just long hours in the office, but also people feeling that they have to work long hours at home too — evenings and weekends because it is always there. I used to regularly work a 50 hour week; easily done by starting a bit early, taking little time for lunch and working a little late. I was fairly disciplined about the hours I would and did work – and was still reckoned to be one of the most efficient and achieving project managers in the team! Anyone who needs to work 70 or 80 hours a week (and many of my colleagues did) is either very inefficient (=ineffective) or is being abused by their management with way too much work.

OK, there are of course jobs you can’t do remotely. Anything where objects, food, drink have to be handled (and that’s everything from factories and farms to hospitals and pubs) you need warm bodies on site. But that still doesn’t preclude flexible hours providing you can get the people scheduling right. But anything office based should be easily done from anywhere with current technology.

The challenge is the huge cultural change; let’s not underestimate that. Management have to learn to trust their people to do the hours to get the job done. The company has to be prepared to invest up-front in the technology (and some support staff); that’s an investment usually over several years but with significant paybacks in efficiency (not necessarily overall fewer jobs, just different ones). The people have to learn to do without the office; you have to find ways of allowing people to continue to have a virtual coffee together and gossip. People also have to learn to be trusted, which means not being closely supervised all the time and being a “self-starter”.

Of course, as with anything else, there are people who cannot hack the cultural change; who need the office because (typically) home is too distracting. And this is no respecter of age, gender, role or seniority. I know secretaries who happily work from home and senior directors who have to work in the office; and vice versa.

How the working word has changed even in the time I’ve been working! And what was the prime cause of all this? Ultimately I suspect the PC.

books, food+drink, medical, nudism, personal, photography, pleasures, quotes, science, thoughts

Outlook for 2010

2 Comments

Jilly over at jillysheep has prompted me to think about what I might want to achieve in 2010. This is not something I normally do, as I have always been content to drift with the tide and see what washes up.

But in 2010 I would like to:

  1. Win the lottery jackpot (minimum £2m)
  2. Lose 50 kilos (I keep telling you I’m hugely overweight)
  3. Do all the cooking (like I used to)
  4. Get the bathroom rebuilt (probably requires as a prerequisite)
  5. Get the house rewired (also requires as a prerequisite)
  6. Get the whole house tidy, uncluttered and clean – and keep it that way
  7. Get the two-thirds of the house which badly needs it redecorated (another that requires as a prerequisite)
  8. Go on at least three 2-week holidays, one railway-based, one to Europe and one naturist in the sun
  9. Travel from Thurso to Penzance by train.
  10. Have a good sunny summer and be able to walk skyclad all summer around my garden

That list was a joke! Yes, I would like to do all those things but the chances of achieving them are at best 1 in 14 million (ie. the chance of winning the lottery at any one attempt. If I win the lottery (odds over the year probably 300 in 14 million) all except , and #10 become relatively easy.

OK, so let’s be realistic. What do I stand some chance of achieving?

  1. Lose 15 kilos
  2. Get out to the shops (even the dreaded supermarket) at least once a week (ought to be easy now I’m retired)
  3. Cook 3 meals a week
  4. Go out to take photographs at least once a week (also should be easy)
  5. Write 2 weblog posts a week
  6. Get the heating fixed (like Jilly, we have an annoying intermittent and unsolved problem)
  7. Grow a year’s supply of chillies – on the study windowsill (given that we use a lot of chillies and said windowsill space is limited this will need a very prolific variety)
  8. Get my Anthony Powell Society work up to date, and keep it that way
  9. Get the sitting room and dining rooms properly tidy and inhabitable
  10. Rejuvenate my fish tanks
  11. Go away on holiday for 2 weeks
  12. Make some major progress on my family history (yes that’s vague; first I have to take stock of what I’ve got)

And if I actually manage to achieve half of that lot I should be satisfied.

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions – that’s just setting oneself up to fail, because they are always so unrealistic – so I’m not going to start this year and I’m not even going to commit to trying to achieve any of the above. They are what I would like to achieve. It’s a “wants list”, not a “must achieve or else list”. One reason I took early retirement was to get away from the incessant round of unachievable “must achieve or else” objectives. That way come madness and depression. 2010 is about relaxing and finding a life again.

Happy New Year to everyone!
Please don’t go out celebrating and get frostbite. 🙂

current affairs, science, thoughts

Thought Provoking Scientists

The current issue of Scientific American contains the usual thought provoking features from its four regular, heavyweight opinion writers. Here is a taster of each of their articles:

First, Jeffrey Sachs on the challenges of tackling birth control and food production in tandem.

The green revolution that made grain production soar gave humanity some breathing space, but the continuing rise in population and demand for meat production is exhausting that buffer. The father of the green revolution, Norman Borlaug … made exactly this point in 1970 when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize: “There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort.”

It is not enough to produce more food; we must also simultaneously stabilize the global population and reduce the ecological consequences of food production – a triple challenge.

Next, Michael Shermer on the psychological differences between conservatives and liberals.

[Jonathan] Haidt [psychologist; University of Maryland] proposes that the foundations of our sense of right and wrong rest within “five innate and universally available psychological systems” that might be summarized as follows:
1. Harm/care …
2. Fairness/reciprocity …
3. Ingroup/loyalty …
4. Authority/respect …
5. Purity/sanctity …

Self-reported liberals are high on 1 and 2 … but are low on 3, 4 and 5 … whereas self-reported conservatives are roughly equal on all five dimensions, although they place slightly less emphasis on 1 and 2 than liberals do.

Instead of viewing the left and the right as either inherently correct or wrong, a more scientific approach is to recognize that liberals and conservatives emphasize different moral values.

Thirdly, Lawrence Krauss on filtering out bias in news reporting.

I reflected on something I had written a dozen years ago, in one of my first published commentaries:

“The increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense uttered with impunity in public discourse is chilling. Our democratic society is imperiled as much by this as any other single threat, regardless of whether the origins of the nonsense are religious fanaticism, simple ignorance or personal gain.”

As I listen to the manifest nonsense that has been promulgated by the likes of right-wing fanatic radio hosts and moronic ex-governors in response to the effort to bring the US into alignment with other industrial countries in providing reasonable and affordable health care for all its citizens, it seems that things have only gotten worse in the years since I first wrote those words …

I worry for the future of our democracy if a combination of a free press and democratically elected leaders cannot together somehow more effectively defend empirical reality against the onslaught of ideology and fanaticism.

And finally the always slightly off-the-wall, zen-like Steve Mirsky on knuckle-cracking research.

Most known knuckle crackers have probably been told by some expert – whose advice very likely began, “I’m not a doctor, but …” – that the behavior would lead to arthritis …

“For 50 years, [Dr Donald Unger] cracked the knuckles of his left hand at least twice a day, leaving those on the right as a control …

Finally, after five decades, Unger analyzed his data set: “There was no arthritis in either hand, and no apparent differences between the two hands.” He concluded that “there is no apparent relationship between knuckle cracking and the subsequent development of arthritis of the fingers.” Evidence for whether the doctor himself was cracked may be that he traveled all the way from his California home to Harvard University to pick up his Ig Nobel Prize [in Medicine awarded in 2009] in person.

The good thing about all of this is that these guys are working thinkers and are tackling some really knotty issues; moreover they write clear and concise single page articles such that you come away not just understanding the issue but being able to form your own opinion, whether with or against the writer’s standpoint. We need more people like these guys: clear concise communicators with the vision to see the issues and the brain-power to tackle them head-on without recourse to vested interests and politics. More power to Scientific American for allowing them this freedom.

amusements, medical, memes, personal, photography, science

Smelly Meme

This week’s Flickr meme was to share 12 of our favourite smells. I thought we’d done this before, but anyway here’s a selection …

1. Christmas Spice
2. Sea
3. Baking Bread
4. Coffee
5. Old Roses
6. Lavender
7. Grapefruit Oil
8. Pine/Cedar Wood
9. Cherry Brandy
10. Christmas Roast
11. Sex
12. Bitter Almonds

1. Mulled Wine, 2. Danish North sea shore, 3. Fresh Baked Bread, 4. Within the crowd of coffee beans, 5. Jacques Cartier, 6. Lavendar, 7. Grapefruit Essential Oil Massage Candle, 8. The Buttermere Pines, 9. cherry brandy, 10. Roasted Turkey, 11. after SEX, 12. sunny almonds

And here’s my slightly off the wall version …

1. i always wanted a dog for christmas, 2. Sea of sin 04, 3. Woman of Bread, 4. There’s a rabbit in my coffee!, 5. Old Rose Socks, 6. Lavender Sky, 7. Grapefruit Moon Kickoff gigger, 8. cedar, 9. Cherry Brandy, 10. 7870 – vietnam – Roasted piglet snout, 11. Sex is Like Pizza, 12. The Saga of Peaches

As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr. Mosaics created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

beliefs, current affairs, freedom of speech, medical, nudism, personal, science, sexuality, thoughts

Taboo!

2 Comments

I’ve been thinking recently about our taboos. What I find curious is where we individually draw the boundary lines between what’s acceptable, what’s unacceptable and what falls in the grey area between. This is partly because some of my views are diametrically opposed to the norms of our society, but also because as a society, and as a collection of individuals, we seem to be sleep-walking into far too many important decisions.

We can probably all agree on a common set of things we think should be outlawed: child abuse, female circumcision, rape, gratuitous animal cruelty. And a set of things which are (generally) OK: sweets, alcohol, blood transfusions, prison for offenders. Although I know there are people who will abhor even these.

Most people would not discuss – and are not comfortable with – pornography, nudity, sex, bodily functions, incest or death. And then of course there are things which are for many on the borderline: animal cruelty for food (aka. abattoirs), abortion, stem cell research.

But this is not where I, personally, would draw the line. For me there is no problem with pornography, sex, nudity, bodily functions and I think even death (it is after all an inevitable consequence of life, at least as we know it). Incest I would say is borderline at worst and under some circumstances OK – why should a brother and sister not have a loving sexual relationship if they wish, as long as they remain aware of the possible dangers.

For me – and I stress this is just my personal opinion – there are far more important things to worry about and which I find at best questionable and at worst objectionable; some I would probably class as obscene – not a word I use lightly or often. The above list of common taboos is a good start to this list with most of them, at least some of the time, being in the obscene category.

However my questionable or unacceptable list contains other things most people find OK: IVF, male circumcision, genetic modification, airport expansion, a federal Europe, positive discrimination, religion, capital punishment, cosmetic surgery (for the sake of personal vanity rather than as a real medical necessity). And my jury is still out on stem cell research.

What I find interesting about this is not that I have different opinions (I’m an eccentric; I expect to have my own, different opinions) but that so few people appear to do likewise.

Society’s taboos, taken as a whole, are essentially the aggregate set of beliefs the majority of individuals find abhorrent – at least as enacted by the great and the good we elect to speak on our behalf and make law (politicians, religious leaders, etc.). It is only by people with differing opinions questioning and challenging this status quo which eventually results in the shift of the agreed set of taboos. Such is how we make progress.

All of this has so far left aside the more personal things. Do you have to be totally private, behind a locked door, in the bathroom or bedroom? Why is sex with the light on such a no-no? Are you OK with sleeping in the nude? As many will realise by now I am pretty open. We’re comfortable with social nudity – indeed any nudity. We both sleep au naturel and prefer it that way. Doors are never shut (except possibly to exclude the cats, and even that is rare). We actively dislike net curtains. We share the bathroom. In fact I think the only thing I have any possible hang-ups about is someone watching me wipe my arse – and even that isn’t a discomforting as it used to be. I was also wary of seeing my late father’s ileostomy – I felt this was intruding too far onto something private to him, although it didn’t seem to worry him; and let’s be fair it is not the most tasteful of things. Why I felt like this I don’t know; it surprised me. Indeed having been brought up to be slightly bohemian, think for myself and have my own opinions, I find it rather odd that I have any taboos at all.

As one of your “working thinkers” (to quote Douglas Adams) what I find distressing is that the majority of people don’t think about such things. There was a research finding a few years ago, which I now cannot place, that found 5% of people are unable to think; 5% of people can think and do so; the remaining 90% of people can think but just don’t. Even sadder is that many of this 90% are content to be told what they think by others, and that means mostly the tabloid press, politicians (who usually seem to have a vested interest) and religious bigots – plus a few cranky academics and do-gooders who manage to get “air time”. But then, despite the fuss some of this “silent majority” make, they probably don’t actually much care as long as someone keeps them in the credit card debt they’ve become attuned to.

Come on guys, wake up at the back! If you want things to get better you need to engage your brains and think through the consequences of your (our) actions. Think about the long term consequences of IVF, air travel, stem cell research. Use what brain cells you have; engage in dialogue with other people. Nobody asks that you are high-powered philosophical thinkers, just that you think as best you can about what is right and make up your own mind. If you then decide you’re happy with the consequences of these things, that’s fine. If you’re not, then you need to be heard. Doing nothing leaves those who do think to fight it out with those with vested interests – and the outcome may well not be the right one – or the one you actually want, whatever that is.

books, quotes, science

The Zen of Taxonomy

These ambiguities, redundances, and deficiences recall those attributed by Dr Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopedia entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. On those remote pages it is written that animals are divided into
(a) those that belong to the Emperor,
(b) embalmed ones,
(c) those that are trained,
(d) suckling pigs,
(e) mermaids,
(f) fabulous ones,
(g) stray dogs,
(h) those that are included in this classification,
(i) those that tremble as if they were mad,
(j) innumerable ones,
(k) those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush,
(l) et cetera,
(m) those that have just broken a flower vase,
(n) those that resemble flies from a distance.

[Jorge Luis Borges in his essay “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins”. Quoted in Finding Moonshine by Marcus du Sautoy]

current affairs, science, topographical

Tick … Tock … F***

1 Comment

Aarrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!

It’s flaming clock change day again!

I get really fed up with continually changing the clocks … forward an hour … backward an hour … forward an hour … ad nauseam.

Why? It isn’t necessary. It isn’t as if are at war now. And the myth that summer time saves lives has been exploded as just that: a myth. All it does is create an irritation and cost industry money. FFS why can’t we stay on GMT. We need to start a campaign:

Save GMT. It’s our cultural heritage.
medical, personal, science

Niffiness

Some while ago Hails, over at Coffee Helps, was mulling over smells. Nice smells. Nasty smells. And it set me thinking about the same. So here are some of my favourite and most detested smells; ten of each.

Nasty Niffs

  1. Sewers. As you’ll gather from this list I don’t have a “strong” stomach; I’d never have been able to work in the emergency services or medicine.
  2. Vomit
  3. Pernod; especially Pernod and blackcurrant. Disgusting!
  4. Stagnant water
  5. Unwashed people
  6. Rubbish bins
  7. Rotting meat and maggots
  8. Tobacco smoke
  9. Wet, humid buses; which I think is related to …
  10. New cars; that petrol, plastic and leather smell just makes me feel (travel) sick and “heavey”. Actually petrol on it’s own isn’t too wonderful either.

Nice Niffs

  1. Fresh coffee
  2. Grapefruit; especially grapefruit aromatherapy oil
  3. Christmas spices; that wonderful mix of cinnamon, clove, orange, pine etc.
  4. Church incense
  5. Wood smoke
  6. Fresh baking bread
  7. Lilies
  8. The sea
  9. Lavender
  10. Jasmine

It isn’t really surprising that most people have a fairly common set of abhorred smells as this is a biological design to make us avoid things which are potentially dangerous to health (eg. rotten meat) by making us view them as disgusting. But I’m always surprised at the things which people less commonly dislike — such as Hails’s dislike of lilies, or mine of Pernod. Similarly there are smells which it seems many people love; and here I’m thinking of baking bread (often used by supermarkets as an attractant) and coffee. Again why are some smells so commonly liked; I can see no obvious foundation in biology? What is it that makes us like or dislike something with no obvious basis in biology?

Smell is a surprisingly powerful sense, despite human olfaction being incredibly poor compared with most animals. So, yes, there are smells which bring back specific, pleasurable or not, memories and these will clearly influence our choices. But why the rest of them? As far as I know I have no experiential reason to like jasmine, lilies or wood smoke; nor to dislike Pernod. So why?

And why do some of use have “stronger” stomachs than others? Surely a “strong” stomach should be an evolutionary disadvantage?

What are your most loved and hated smells? And do you know why?