Category Archives: science

beliefs, freedom of speech, medical, nudism, science, sexuality, thoughts

Pornography and Rape

I today came across an year-old post on Greg Mankiw’s Blog where he points to an article by Todd D Kendall of Clemson University. In this Kendall shows that the more easily pornography is available to the male population the lower is the incidence of rape.

It is also worthy of note that many published studies (I need to look then up!) have shown that teenage pregnancy rates are far lower in open, relaxed societies like The Netherlands, and significantly higher in more religiously repressed and restrictive societies like the USA.

I find this interesting as I have always maintained that if we had a healthier understanding and acceptance of desires, sexuality, nudity and our bodies it would have far reaching positive effects on our health and our attitudes. Bring children up to understand their bodies, their sexuality and to accept nudity as something normal and they will be more balanced as individuals; more able to discuss their inner feelings and worries; more at ease discussing their medical problems with their doctor. All of which has to be good, if only in terms of catching serious disease earlier and when it is more easily, and more cheaply, treated.

current affairs, science, thoughts

What we Value — Branding

I was interested to see a recent article in Businessweek showing the world’s top 100 brands. No I’m not going to list all 100, you can find the full article here, but the top five are:

A number of things surprised me about this. First of all that GE (General Electric) were in the top five. Secondly the significant difference in brand value between the first four and Nokia in too surprised at most of the entries. Perhaps not surprisingly I had at least heard of all the top 100 brands. I was surprised that Ford and Kodak had both fallen over 10 places in the last year. The top UK brand is HSBC in 23rd place, and the full list contains only 6 UK owned brands. Of course just over half the brands are US owned, followed by 10 which are German owned.

beliefs, books, freedom of speech, memes, science, thoughts

What is Your Dangerous Idea?

Steve Mirsky has written an interesting column in the”Antigravity” series in September issue of Scientific American. It talks about a book with the title What is Your Dangerous Idea? edited by John Brockman in which scientists and intellectuals pose what they consider to be dangerous (mostly intellectual) ideas.

Some of the ideas quoted in the article include:

The planet is fine. The people are f*^#ed … the planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.
The idea that we should all share our most dangerous ideas.
Test the hypothesis first posited as a child that a red towel tied around the neck will indeed confer the ability to fly.

Mirsky ends with

Bertrand Russell’s truly treacherous notion: “I wish to propose … a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe in a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it true.” The danger of ignoring this doctrine can almost certainly be found in the politics or world events stories on the front page of today’s New York Times. On whatever day you read this.

You can find the full article here.

So what is your dangerous idea? Add a comment to tell us! If nothing else it’s a fun game!

Oh, what, mine? Well let’s start with: Ban the motor car and the aeroplane!

amusements, current affairs, history, science, thoughts, topographical

Zen Mischievous Moments #132

From “Feedback” in New Scientist, 04 August 2007

Calendar chaos

[X] was, sitting at his computer, when the calendar window of his Microsoft Outlook office program started scrolling uncontrollably back through time. He watched, helpless, as it zoomed back through two world wars, past the Great Reform Act of 1832, the French revolution and American independence – stopping only in the 1760s when, he guesses, a frantic IT worker somewhere in the bowels of the famous London building he works in must have fixed the network glitch.

Naturally, [X] was intrigued to see how far back in time he could personally make Outlook’s calendar go. Trying to view even earlier dates, he got stuck at All Fool’s day 1601. Putting this into a famous web search engine revealed no special event in history that day. It did, however, provide a link to a “rather weird” website devoted to the work of a genealogist named John Mayer at www.arapacana.com/glossary/mb_mn.html. This notes that “Outlook provides a series of perpetual calendars covering something less than 2898 years, from 1 April 1603 to 29 August 4500,” but that users can manually scroll back to 1601.

Feedback’s further searches suggest that 1 April 1601 was declared the beginning of time by the authors of the COBOL computer-programming language …

Oh and for the geeks amongst you, Outlook 2003 will also let you schedule meetings during the missing days, 3-13 September 1752, when British Empire changed to the Gregorian Calendar.

One is left with just one question: Why?

amusements, science, thoughts

Zen Mischievous Moments #131

Giraffe’s necks and Golden Gate Bridge
[It seems] an appropriate moment to introduce readers to the unusual unit converter discovered … at http://www.weirdconverter.com/. This enables you to convert from one unusual unit to another. Sadly, in the “weight” section “male polar bear” is listed, but there is no baby elephant, only a fully grown one. Even so, you may be interested to know that one African elephant equals 12.24790343434 polar bears. There is also a “length/height” section which reveals, for instance, that one Golden Gate Bridge equals 720 giraffe’s necks.

[New Scientist; 28/07/2007]

books, medical, science, thoughts

Depressed

1 Comment

I’m tired. Horribly tired. Not coping. Don’t know how I’m managing to do anything. Having anxiety dreams. Depressed. Very depressed. Despite the anti-depressants. And it isn’t even winter when I know I do struggle. I don’t know why. Noreen says I’m doing too much; I’m always doing things which are “duty” and that I haven’t had a break in weeks. I guess she’s right, what with work, the Anthony Powell Society, sorting my father’s estate, and the trust, and my mother’s tax, and …

… and this weekend a very close friend died; the other end of the country. Well Victor was 82; he had heart problems and Parkinson’s; was old enough to be my father; and was my best man all those years ago. Although we talked only infrequently, I shall miss Victor; he was the nearest person I knew, probably ever will know, to being a true polymath. So now I must give time not just to his funeral (and that may mean taking the funeral service) but to his estate, because I am one of his executors, and I promised. (Oh and just as I did for his wife when she died a couple of years ago.)

But all I am doing is things which I have committed to do; it’s not as if I’m taking on anything new; but I still can’t keep up. At 56 I’m working harder than ever before, at a time when the system is no longer full of it’s youthful vigour – we none of us can do at 56 what we could at 26, leave alone at 16; simple biology.

So it’s no wonder I never get a break and I’m tired and depressed. And as Noreen also tells me I don’t spend any time “playing” – by which she means doing what I want to do, when I want to. How can I; there’s no time!

What’s the answer? A big lottery win so I can afford to retire? Sounds good. If only!