I admit it. My iPhone is almost permanently attached to my hand. I'm one of Them. You know the sort. The kind of person who walks along reading Twitter and walking into other people. The kind of person who watches the blue blob creeping along the map rather than looking out the bus window. Yes, one of those twits.
Join us. You will be like us. Imagine I'm Donald Sutherland in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". EEEEEEEEEE!
So in order to spread the word; here's a few of the dozens of apps that keep my eyes glued to that little black oblong. Not being paid for these recommendations! No links either, search for them in the App Store...
Twitterena - There are dozens of Twitter apps, some free, some paid, all with various features. This is my usual one, although you really have to turn off the default theme and put it to "twitterena plain".
Tweetdeck - The other Twitter app I use. It's very like the desktop version and can synchronise settings with it, so you can use your group lists and searches in both locations. However, if you don't use those features Twitterena is easier to use.
Toodledo - Apple, for some reason, don't have a to-do list application in the standard apps. While contacts, calendar and notes can all sync up with Outlook there's nothing for tasks. There's several web services and apps to fill the gap, and Toodledo does the job for me. An app on my PC syncs tasks with the Toodledo web service, and the iPhone Toodledo app syncs with the web service. Little bit fiddly but does the job.
TuneWiki - Weird little app that plays back music from your iTunes library or from various Shoutcast radio stations - so far so usual - but it also looks up the lyrics to whatever is playing and will highlight the current line as it goes past. So you can sing along with the actual lyrics, as opposed to the ones in your head... It also allows you to see who is playing what near to you. For example, someone in Broxburn is playing "Take it to the Limit" by The Eagles right now...
Starmap & GoSkyWatch Planetarium - Both are apps for the casual astronomer. Starmap is, to me, the better app but is more expensive (and there's an even more expensive "Starmap Pro" version which has more info for telescope users). For someone who just wants to be able to tell what is what up above them GoSkyWatch is pretty good, and is a lot cheaper (40% off for the International Year of Astronomy).
Skype - It's Skype, on the iPhone. Only works via a WiFi connection. Surprisingly handy in poor reception areas!
ISS Visibility & IridiumFlares - Both are just interfaces to http://heavens-above.com/ but are quick and easy ways to get data for your exact location without having to fiddle with the website.
Peggle and Bookworm - Note that I waited until these were on sale for 59p before buying them, because I'm cheap. Peggle is horribly addictive. Bookworm is also addictive to those who like Scrabble or Boggle. And yes, I do.
Ocarina - If it was just an ocarina you can play on the touchscreen it wouldn't be that good, but the genius is in the addition of a mode where you can see who else is playing around the world and listen to them as they play. The same author wrote "Leaf Trombone" which is even harder to play and also allows you to actively judge people as they play.
Anyway - small selection there. I worryingly have 8 screens of apps. I'm running out of room for apps now...
I have a problem. I need help!
Monday, 17 August 2009
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Blogaday 16: The Humble Art of Procrastination
So, it's the day after I missed yet another daily blog and also it's the day my better half went off up north until Wednesday. So I've spent a chunk of it on my own, having huge amounts of fun... seriously, massive fun. Totally.
Of course, I joke. Actually missing her quite a bit.
I actually spent most of the day avoiding cutting the grass. It's actually remarkably easy to do; with a little bit of napping, a short period playing Rock Band 2 (got my first "Flawless", 100%, only on "medium" mind you because I'm a weenie who can't use the orange button), a bit of random channel hopping between Mythbusters, Top Gear and the athletics you can quite easily fill an afternoon and an early evening. So the grass can wait until tomorrow.
As you can probably tell the writer's block is still ongoing...
Of course, I joke. Actually missing her quite a bit.
I actually spent most of the day avoiding cutting the grass. It's actually remarkably easy to do; with a little bit of napping, a short period playing Rock Band 2 (got my first "Flawless", 100%, only on "medium" mind you because I'm a weenie who can't use the orange button), a bit of random channel hopping between Mythbusters, Top Gear and the athletics you can quite easily fill an afternoon and an early evening. So the grass can wait until tomorrow.
As you can probably tell the writer's block is still ongoing...
Blogaday 15: Another Late One...
Almost half way through and I'm getting worse... not even a sniff of doing a blog yesterday. Admittedly I did end up unexpectedly cooking a barbeque.
The main problem, though, is I think I've finally hit a bit of writer's block. Which is a bit of a pain, as techincally I have two blogs to do today to catch up...
As well as the barbeque yesterday there was also a little trip to North Berwick for a fish supper, a walk on the beach, and a "99" cone. All was very nice, except that the walk on the beach was spoiled by the most unimpressive rock pools ever. I found one little anemone, and that was it. When I were a lad rockpools had little fish, and crabs, and anemones, and all sorts. Global warming, pollution, or just not very good rockpools at North Berwick? You decide.
Anyway, this is all waffle and not worth of the name "blog" - but whatever, it will do...
The main problem, though, is I think I've finally hit a bit of writer's block. Which is a bit of a pain, as techincally I have two blogs to do today to catch up...
As well as the barbeque yesterday there was also a little trip to North Berwick for a fish supper, a walk on the beach, and a "99" cone. All was very nice, except that the walk on the beach was spoiled by the most unimpressive rock pools ever. I found one little anemone, and that was it. When I were a lad rockpools had little fish, and crabs, and anemones, and all sorts. Global warming, pollution, or just not very good rockpools at North Berwick? You decide.
Anyway, this is all waffle and not worth of the name "blog" - but whatever, it will do...
Friday, 14 August 2009
Blogaday 14: Flying Cars and Robots With Bad Hair
From the title you might guess that this evening we have mainly been watching Blade Runner - to be precise, the initial workprint of Blade Runner (which I've had on the Final Cut box set for ages and never got round to watching).
For those not in the know the workprint of Blade Runner was legendary for many years. Basically it's the version of the film that was shown to test audiences twice, lead to the studio getting involved and - to many people - ruining the film. The added the explanatory opening crawl, the voiceover (by an obivously bored Harrison Ford) to make it more "film noir" and explain the plot to the less alert in the audience, taking out some of the pointers to Deckard's status, and - worst of all - adding the "happy ending".
The odd thing is that looking at the workprint now it's pretty much perfect. It needs a little tweaking, the music is a bit off, there's a few odd bits and bobs, but overall it's perfect. Every version since the original studio-bolloxed release, every director's cut or final cut or whatever, has been trying to get back to that version. Some day I want to track down the people who were there at the screenings in Denver and Dallas and ask them what the heck they were thinking. They saw perhaps one of the best SF movies ever made, in a form that was close to perfection, and trashed it so badly that the studio stepped in. It just backs up one of the rules I live by; Sturgeon's Law applies to SF, but it also applies to people. (The law is basically "90% of SF is crap; but 90% of everything is crap".)
What worries me is that Blade Runner is 27 years old. It's set in November 2019. In three months it will be 10 years to go. Come November 2019 I'm fully expecting flying cars and replicants. UFO let me down in 1980. Space:1999 let me down in 1999. 2001 let me down in 2001. Some day some SF film must get it right, surely?
I'm starting the campaign for the future that SF promised us, right here, right now. Flying cars by 2019 or SF fans will riot. Which no one wants, because it would be so pathetic...
For those not in the know the workprint of Blade Runner was legendary for many years. Basically it's the version of the film that was shown to test audiences twice, lead to the studio getting involved and - to many people - ruining the film. The added the explanatory opening crawl, the voiceover (by an obivously bored Harrison Ford) to make it more "film noir" and explain the plot to the less alert in the audience, taking out some of the pointers to Deckard's status, and - worst of all - adding the "happy ending".
The odd thing is that looking at the workprint now it's pretty much perfect. It needs a little tweaking, the music is a bit off, there's a few odd bits and bobs, but overall it's perfect. Every version since the original studio-bolloxed release, every director's cut or final cut or whatever, has been trying to get back to that version. Some day I want to track down the people who were there at the screenings in Denver and Dallas and ask them what the heck they were thinking. They saw perhaps one of the best SF movies ever made, in a form that was close to perfection, and trashed it so badly that the studio stepped in. It just backs up one of the rules I live by; Sturgeon's Law applies to SF, but it also applies to people. (The law is basically "90% of SF is crap; but 90% of everything is crap".)
What worries me is that Blade Runner is 27 years old. It's set in November 2019. In three months it will be 10 years to go. Come November 2019 I'm fully expecting flying cars and replicants. UFO let me down in 1980. Space:1999 let me down in 1999. 2001 let me down in 2001. Some day some SF film must get it right, surely?
I'm starting the campaign for the future that SF promised us, right here, right now. Flying cars by 2019 or SF fans will riot. Which no one wants, because it would be so pathetic...
Blogaday 13: It Had to Happen...
Well, yesterday was day 13 of my "blog-a-day" project and - as you may have noticed - I missed it. No real excuse. I could make something up but frankly I'd only be fooling myself (because no one else reads this, har har har).
Anyway. Here's what I would have written about yesterday.
I have a bit of a thing for chilli peppers. It's not just the tastes (and believe me on the plural, it's not just heat that chillies have; different varieties do have different tastes). The taste is important though - there's nothing better than some nice oven-roasted corn-on-the-cob with olive oil and strips of a Scotch Bonner chilli scattered over it. Mmmmm, corn. Anyway, what was I saying? Yes, not just the taste. Some chilli plants are quite attractive in their own right as houseplants, and even the most boring of them are enlivened by brightly coloured peppers popping up every so often.
So, here's a little list of recommended chilli pepper plants for growing at home... and at the end a plug for the place I buy mine from. Not getting anything for the link, darn it.
Scotch Bonnet - personal favourite for cooking. It's a pretty hot pepper so use sparingly, but the flavour is fantastic. Used a lot in Caribbean cooking; if it's jerked, it's got this in it. The plant is a bit leafy and boring, but the peppers are great. One to grow out-of-sight and use...
Purple Tiger - Great looking houseplant, it's got lovely variegated leaves (green and white) and white & purple flowers, then small purple chillies form. They taste not bad at all.
Thai Sun - Another good houseplant. Small dark-green leaves, white flowers and then small conical green & red peppers which point upwards. The peppers pack a fair bit of punch for their size!
Habanero - similar to the Scotch Bonnet in heat and taste. There's several varieties, the main difference being colour. Orange and red are the most common, but you can get chocolate, white, and pink. This is the one that tends to get used in hot sauces.
There are literally hundreds more chilli varieties...
One warning; if you are growing these as houseplants you need to warn small children (and adults) not to try one... they will do it only once, mind you.
Anyway, I get my seeds from http://www.chileseeds.co.uk/ - not the best designed site in the world (by a long chalk) but they send stuff out quickly and have 200 varieties of chilli to choose from. Try something unusual today...
Anyway. Here's what I would have written about yesterday.
I have a bit of a thing for chilli peppers. It's not just the tastes (and believe me on the plural, it's not just heat that chillies have; different varieties do have different tastes). The taste is important though - there's nothing better than some nice oven-roasted corn-on-the-cob with olive oil and strips of a Scotch Bonner chilli scattered over it. Mmmmm, corn. Anyway, what was I saying? Yes, not just the taste. Some chilli plants are quite attractive in their own right as houseplants, and even the most boring of them are enlivened by brightly coloured peppers popping up every so often.
So, here's a little list of recommended chilli pepper plants for growing at home... and at the end a plug for the place I buy mine from. Not getting anything for the link, darn it.
Scotch Bonnet - personal favourite for cooking. It's a pretty hot pepper so use sparingly, but the flavour is fantastic. Used a lot in Caribbean cooking; if it's jerked, it's got this in it. The plant is a bit leafy and boring, but the peppers are great. One to grow out-of-sight and use...
Purple Tiger - Great looking houseplant, it's got lovely variegated leaves (green and white) and white & purple flowers, then small purple chillies form. They taste not bad at all.
Thai Sun - Another good houseplant. Small dark-green leaves, white flowers and then small conical green & red peppers which point upwards. The peppers pack a fair bit of punch for their size!
Habanero - similar to the Scotch Bonnet in heat and taste. There's several varieties, the main difference being colour. Orange and red are the most common, but you can get chocolate, white, and pink. This is the one that tends to get used in hot sauces.
There are literally hundreds more chilli varieties...
One warning; if you are growing these as houseplants you need to warn small children (and adults) not to try one... they will do it only once, mind you.
Anyway, I get my seeds from http://www.chileseeds.co.uk/ - not the best designed site in the world (by a long chalk) but they send stuff out quickly and have 200 varieties of chilli to choose from. Try something unusual today...
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
Blogaday 12: Watching Meteors...
This is a placeholder blog - too busy watching meteors! Astonomy blog here later...
And now it is later! I did blog yesterday, honest, time on the post above was 11:59pm.
Reason for not doing a proper blog was that I was out on a hillside watching meteors and getting very cold, then in my back garden on a sun lounger watching meteors with a cup of coffee and getting less cold. The Perseid meteor shower was peaking last night and while I didn't see a huge amount - maybe 25-30 or so, all told - a few of them were spectacular. There will still be a fair few zooming in tonight, possibly a lot, so it's still worth going out. Have a glance at the Jodrell Bank Meteor detector - what you're looking for is brightly coloured blobs (perhaps not as spectacular as their highlights page, but it gives the gist) and if you see a few it's worth going out. Face roughly north-east (look for Cassiopeia, it looks a bit like a wonky-W) and lean back - deckchair, lounger, blanket on the ground, whatever. And don't worry about finding somewhere too "dark skies", if you can see a few stars it's fine - in fact, if you can see Cassiopeia then it's more than good enough.
And then wait. You may have to wait for a long time, and you will think you've seen a few by the time you actually do see one; the eyes play tricks. But then you will actually see one and you'll not mistake it for anything else. To make sure that you definitely have seen one look along the line of it and it will have appeared to have come from a point in the north-east, just below Cassiopeia - that's the constellation of Perseus, hence the shower is called the Perseids. The techincal term for that is the "radiant" because the shower appears to radiate from there. As to why it does - it's the same reason why when you're driving into snow it appears to be radiating from right in front of you. The Perseids are debris from a comet's tail sitting about minding their own business when the Earth drives into them, and just like the snow we see them radiate from our direction of travel.
You might be lucky and see other meteors too, other random bits of debris that just happen to hit the atmosphere. I saw two last night, and one of them was spectacular - slow, bright, and with a tail that took seconds to fade.
But what happens if you don't see anything? Well, why not look for other things? Look for satellites; they're bright and fairly quick moving and thanks to our modern world you'll see several an hour. Look for the International Space Station and Iridium flares - hurrah, I've already blogged on them. Look for the planets - there's a nice interactive sky chart at Astronomy Now or there's cheap apps available for many mobile phones and PDAs.
And here's a little project for later in the year; how to find a nebula without any kind of telescope. First you need to find Orion; check the charts above and you'll see that this is definitely a project for later in the year or early next. Anyway, Orion is easy to recognise; it's compact, distinctive and the three stars of Orion's belt stand out very clearly. Below Orion's belt are a couple of "stars", that often are used to form the sword hanging from his belt. If you look at them you'll see that they look a bit fuzzy. Congratulations, you've just seen a nebula. In particular, you've seen M42 - the Orion Nebula. In you have binoculars have a look - track down from the belt and you'll start to see a little bit of shape to the fuzz. With a telescope you can start to see colours and more shape. But if you have access to a space telescope (say Hubble) you can see this...

And frankly I can't follow that!
And now it is later! I did blog yesterday, honest, time on the post above was 11:59pm.
Reason for not doing a proper blog was that I was out on a hillside watching meteors and getting very cold, then in my back garden on a sun lounger watching meteors with a cup of coffee and getting less cold. The Perseid meteor shower was peaking last night and while I didn't see a huge amount - maybe 25-30 or so, all told - a few of them were spectacular. There will still be a fair few zooming in tonight, possibly a lot, so it's still worth going out. Have a glance at the Jodrell Bank Meteor detector - what you're looking for is brightly coloured blobs (perhaps not as spectacular as their highlights page, but it gives the gist) and if you see a few it's worth going out. Face roughly north-east (look for Cassiopeia, it looks a bit like a wonky-W) and lean back - deckchair, lounger, blanket on the ground, whatever. And don't worry about finding somewhere too "dark skies", if you can see a few stars it's fine - in fact, if you can see Cassiopeia then it's more than good enough.
And then wait. You may have to wait for a long time, and you will think you've seen a few by the time you actually do see one; the eyes play tricks. But then you will actually see one and you'll not mistake it for anything else. To make sure that you definitely have seen one look along the line of it and it will have appeared to have come from a point in the north-east, just below Cassiopeia - that's the constellation of Perseus, hence the shower is called the Perseids. The techincal term for that is the "radiant" because the shower appears to radiate from there. As to why it does - it's the same reason why when you're driving into snow it appears to be radiating from right in front of you. The Perseids are debris from a comet's tail sitting about minding their own business when the Earth drives into them, and just like the snow we see them radiate from our direction of travel.
You might be lucky and see other meteors too, other random bits of debris that just happen to hit the atmosphere. I saw two last night, and one of them was spectacular - slow, bright, and with a tail that took seconds to fade.
But what happens if you don't see anything? Well, why not look for other things? Look for satellites; they're bright and fairly quick moving and thanks to our modern world you'll see several an hour. Look for the International Space Station and Iridium flares - hurrah, I've already blogged on them. Look for the planets - there's a nice interactive sky chart at Astronomy Now or there's cheap apps available for many mobile phones and PDAs.
And here's a little project for later in the year; how to find a nebula without any kind of telescope. First you need to find Orion; check the charts above and you'll see that this is definitely a project for later in the year or early next. Anyway, Orion is easy to recognise; it's compact, distinctive and the three stars of Orion's belt stand out very clearly. Below Orion's belt are a couple of "stars", that often are used to form the sword hanging from his belt. If you look at them you'll see that they look a bit fuzzy. Congratulations, you've just seen a nebula. In particular, you've seen M42 - the Orion Nebula. In you have binoculars have a look - track down from the belt and you'll start to see a little bit of shape to the fuzz. With a telescope you can start to see colours and more shape. But if you have access to a space telescope (say Hubble) you can see this...

And frankly I can't follow that!
Labels:
blogaday,
geeky,
meteor,
space,
the chances of anything coming from mars
Tuesday, 11 August 2009
Blogaday 11: Review of "Lie to Me"
Hugh Laurie must be annoyed. He gets the lead as a brilliant, all knowing but damaged doctor but has to put on an American accent. (Which apparently is very good, but sounds just wrong thanks to too many years of A Bit of Fry and Laurie and Blackadder). Tim Roth, on the other hand, gets a role as a brilliant, all knowing but damaged doctor (non-medical) and gets to keep his own accent, plus he gets to act more likably annoying and twitch more. On the whole, he wins.
For those who haven't seen "Lie to me" the basic principle is that Dr Cal Lightman (Roth) has spent umpteen years doing research into body language, human emotions, universality of facial expressions and fleeting microexpressions and has set up a consultancy group hired by companies, lawyers, the Government, and so on in order to establish - basically - whether people are lying or not. The team he's assembled has some interest (the woman he clearly has feelings for who can't tell her own husband is lying to her, the guy who is "radically honest" - telling the truth regardless of consequences - and the woman recruited from the TSA at the start of the first season who is a "natural" detector of lies, unlike the rest who are working from academic research) but the main joy is watching Roth interact with people, twitch at them, tell them exactly what they're thinking and generally freak them out. The plots can almost be ignored. It's been renewed for a second thirteen episode season (it was a mid-season replacement) and it deserves it. I'm not sure how long it can last though, but then again I thought that about House.
Weirdly, the program is actually based on reality, in a limited way. In particular it's based on the work of Dr. Paul Ekman, a researcher who in the 70s looked at remote tribes with limited contact with other cultures and asked them to form expressions ("show me what your face would look like if you met friends", "show me what your face would look like if we were about to fight") and found that the they were the same as in other cultures. Anthropologists of the time generally thought that expressions were cultural constructs, but Ekman's work put forward the alternative view - that expressions are biological in source - which is now widely accepted. He later went on to look at microexpressions (particularly in relation to truthtelling) and formed a coding system for facial expressions. So while "Lie to me" might seem farfetched at times it's not that far from reality.
Expressions - both how and why we form them and also how we perceive them - are still hot topics in psychology. Indeed, there's current research ongoing into how depressed people misdetect expressions (depressed people will tend to perceive more neutral expressions as negative, for example) and there's hopes that this may allow a more "evidence based" detection and classification of depression. There's also a lot of media noise about automatic detection of criminals and terrorists based on computerised analysis of live video feeds - I have some doubts about the feasibility of that one though.
So it's a hot field, and although "Lie to me" makes it seem much more glossy and precise than it actually is (for a start, that office is just too cool for academia) it doesn't misrepresent it too much. Plus, their habit of showing the microexpression they've just found on a subject on the faces of famous people is sometimes genius. On the whole, it's good - give it a try if you haven't already. (And see if you agree that Roth gets more and more twitchy through the first season. By the end he's almost jerking his head from horizontal to vertical and back again every time he talks to someone.)
For those who haven't seen "Lie to me" the basic principle is that Dr Cal Lightman (Roth) has spent umpteen years doing research into body language, human emotions, universality of facial expressions and fleeting microexpressions and has set up a consultancy group hired by companies, lawyers, the Government, and so on in order to establish - basically - whether people are lying or not. The team he's assembled has some interest (the woman he clearly has feelings for who can't tell her own husband is lying to her, the guy who is "radically honest" - telling the truth regardless of consequences - and the woman recruited from the TSA at the start of the first season who is a "natural" detector of lies, unlike the rest who are working from academic research) but the main joy is watching Roth interact with people, twitch at them, tell them exactly what they're thinking and generally freak them out. The plots can almost be ignored. It's been renewed for a second thirteen episode season (it was a mid-season replacement) and it deserves it. I'm not sure how long it can last though, but then again I thought that about House.
Weirdly, the program is actually based on reality, in a limited way. In particular it's based on the work of Dr. Paul Ekman, a researcher who in the 70s looked at remote tribes with limited contact with other cultures and asked them to form expressions ("show me what your face would look like if you met friends", "show me what your face would look like if we were about to fight") and found that the they were the same as in other cultures. Anthropologists of the time generally thought that expressions were cultural constructs, but Ekman's work put forward the alternative view - that expressions are biological in source - which is now widely accepted. He later went on to look at microexpressions (particularly in relation to truthtelling) and formed a coding system for facial expressions. So while "Lie to me" might seem farfetched at times it's not that far from reality.
Expressions - both how and why we form them and also how we perceive them - are still hot topics in psychology. Indeed, there's current research ongoing into how depressed people misdetect expressions (depressed people will tend to perceive more neutral expressions as negative, for example) and there's hopes that this may allow a more "evidence based" detection and classification of depression. There's also a lot of media noise about automatic detection of criminals and terrorists based on computerised analysis of live video feeds - I have some doubts about the feasibility of that one though.
So it's a hot field, and although "Lie to me" makes it seem much more glossy and precise than it actually is (for a start, that office is just too cool for academia) it doesn't misrepresent it too much. Plus, their habit of showing the microexpression they've just found on a subject on the faces of famous people is sometimes genius. On the whole, it's good - give it a try if you haven't already. (And see if you agree that Roth gets more and more twitchy through the first season. By the end he's almost jerking his head from horizontal to vertical and back again every time he talks to someone.)
Monday, 10 August 2009
Blogaday 10: D:Reams.
And by that I mean actual dreams, not the band that Professor Brian Cox played keyboards for.
I find dreams fascinating from two points of view. Firstly, as a psychology student; dreaming is terribly poorly understood. There are dozens of hypotheses for why humans (and animals) dream, and right now any of them could be right. The "garbage collecting process" hypothesis sounds good to me as an IT person, and it's the explanation that was most common as I was growing up, but it's falling out of favour these days. About the only common consensus is that Freud was probably wrong (but like most things in psychology even that might make a comeback). It's all linked to the question of consciousness, and that's a question that's more philosophy than science at times. Terribly, terribly deep.
Secondly, I find them fascinating because I don't do it much. Well, rather, I almost certainly do the same periods of R.E.M sleep as everyone else (2 hours total I believe) and probably do dream during that time, but I very rarely remember anything. To me I go to bed, fall asleep and wake up in the morning with nothing inbetween. Even when I do have a dream I remember - maybe a couple of times a month - they're not that exciting.
For example; from last night. I dreamt that some friends and myself were in Oban. (I have no idea why). For some reason they took a taxi from one side of the town to the other, but I decided to go round the back (by the swimming pool). I passed a tourist information sign about something called "AquaCats". What that turned out to be was a huge dumper truck with massive balloon tires that was designed to be amphibious (naming must have come from SnowCats I presume). A firm was offering trips up a huge massively steep hill in the back of this thing, which looked like good fun actually. As I'm watching, I look to my left and see Neil Gaiman with - I think - Dave Gorman.
And that's it. No appearing naked in front of huge audiences. No forgetting to take an exam. Instead I go to a town I don't really like much and see people with similar last names (both of whom are on Twitter; wonder if that's the link?) watching an amphibious dumper truck take people up a hill. One guy did fall out, but he was fine apart from getting his trousers dirty. It did look like a health and safety nightmare though.
Other people have fantastic flights of fancy, but I get slightly boring travels to Oban (there isn't any other kind, har har har, sorry Obanites). If Freud was right and dreams represent my repressed urges and desires then you'd have to stretch that dream above quite far to get to anything even vaguely worthy of repression!
Anyway. Sweet dreams folks. Enjoy them if you have them and pity those of us who don't!
I find dreams fascinating from two points of view. Firstly, as a psychology student; dreaming is terribly poorly understood. There are dozens of hypotheses for why humans (and animals) dream, and right now any of them could be right. The "garbage collecting process" hypothesis sounds good to me as an IT person, and it's the explanation that was most common as I was growing up, but it's falling out of favour these days. About the only common consensus is that Freud was probably wrong (but like most things in psychology even that might make a comeback). It's all linked to the question of consciousness, and that's a question that's more philosophy than science at times. Terribly, terribly deep.
Secondly, I find them fascinating because I don't do it much. Well, rather, I almost certainly do the same periods of R.E.M sleep as everyone else (2 hours total I believe) and probably do dream during that time, but I very rarely remember anything. To me I go to bed, fall asleep and wake up in the morning with nothing inbetween. Even when I do have a dream I remember - maybe a couple of times a month - they're not that exciting.
For example; from last night. I dreamt that some friends and myself were in Oban. (I have no idea why). For some reason they took a taxi from one side of the town to the other, but I decided to go round the back (by the swimming pool). I passed a tourist information sign about something called "AquaCats". What that turned out to be was a huge dumper truck with massive balloon tires that was designed to be amphibious (naming must have come from SnowCats I presume). A firm was offering trips up a huge massively steep hill in the back of this thing, which looked like good fun actually. As I'm watching, I look to my left and see Neil Gaiman with - I think - Dave Gorman.
And that's it. No appearing naked in front of huge audiences. No forgetting to take an exam. Instead I go to a town I don't really like much and see people with similar last names (both of whom are on Twitter; wonder if that's the link?) watching an amphibious dumper truck take people up a hill. One guy did fall out, but he was fine apart from getting his trousers dirty. It did look like a health and safety nightmare though.
Other people have fantastic flights of fancy, but I get slightly boring travels to Oban (there isn't any other kind, har har har, sorry Obanites). If Freud was right and dreams represent my repressed urges and desires then you'd have to stretch that dream above quite far to get to anything even vaguely worthy of repression!
Anyway. Sweet dreams folks. Enjoy them if you have them and pity those of us who don't!
Sunday, 9 August 2009
Blogaday 9: Festival City
It's August. It's Edinburgh. It's Hell On Earth.
Yes, it's the Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe again. And that means that, as an Edinburgh resident, I have a moral obligation to whinge bitterly. There are many reasons for this; first, the centre of the city becomes a quagmire of pavements packed with people, leafleters and - worst of all - street theatre. Second, bars start charging London prices rather than the usual already inflated prices. Third, having a nice lunch out becomes impossible due to ravening hordes. Fourth, the tickets cost a bomb so we never get to anything.
But the worst thing is this. In August, Edinburgh is the centre of the arts and entertainment world. The other eleven months of the year we get almost nothing. Most tours - music, comedy, whatever - play Glasgow, and sometimes Aberdeen. Edinburgh... not so much. The BBC does lots of Fringe coverage but the rest of the year they don't even have studios here any more.
Last year we went to one Fringe show (a stage production of Terry Pratchett's "Mort"). This year we have no plans to see anything... well, not true, I spotted today that Jerry Sadowitz has a gig on in the Playhouse and he does happen to be my favourite offensive close-up magician. I suppose you could argue that we should take advantage and go to more stuff rather than whinge about the other eleven months but here's the thing; the tickets for a "top" Fringe show cost about the same as a gig anywhere else, but the shows tend to be shorter and are often in temporary venues packed to the very limits of capacity, where you're herded in like cattle and have to sit in overheated and muggy rooms on seats that make the average village hall look well equipped. It's not actually that pleasant an experience. So you pay the same to see a show that a few months later other people around the country will see a longer version of in a nicer environment. You see the point?
Anyway, I'm just being grumpy. The Festival brings fame and money to our fair city, and lord knows they need to play for those trams somehow. But still... wake me up when September comes.
Yes, it's the Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe again. And that means that, as an Edinburgh resident, I have a moral obligation to whinge bitterly. There are many reasons for this; first, the centre of the city becomes a quagmire of pavements packed with people, leafleters and - worst of all - street theatre. Second, bars start charging London prices rather than the usual already inflated prices. Third, having a nice lunch out becomes impossible due to ravening hordes. Fourth, the tickets cost a bomb so we never get to anything.
But the worst thing is this. In August, Edinburgh is the centre of the arts and entertainment world. The other eleven months of the year we get almost nothing. Most tours - music, comedy, whatever - play Glasgow, and sometimes Aberdeen. Edinburgh... not so much. The BBC does lots of Fringe coverage but the rest of the year they don't even have studios here any more.
Last year we went to one Fringe show (a stage production of Terry Pratchett's "Mort"). This year we have no plans to see anything... well, not true, I spotted today that Jerry Sadowitz has a gig on in the Playhouse and he does happen to be my favourite offensive close-up magician. I suppose you could argue that we should take advantage and go to more stuff rather than whinge about the other eleven months but here's the thing; the tickets for a "top" Fringe show cost about the same as a gig anywhere else, but the shows tend to be shorter and are often in temporary venues packed to the very limits of capacity, where you're herded in like cattle and have to sit in overheated and muggy rooms on seats that make the average village hall look well equipped. It's not actually that pleasant an experience. So you pay the same to see a show that a few months later other people around the country will see a longer version of in a nicer environment. You see the point?
Anyway, I'm just being grumpy. The Festival brings fame and money to our fair city, and lord knows they need to play for those trams somehow. But still... wake me up when September comes.
Labels:
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Saturday, 8 August 2009
Blogaday 8: IT Cynicism
It's been pointed out to me many times over the years that I'm slightly cynical.
This is not true.
I'm massively cynical.
There's a reason for this. I've been the IT "biz" for 15 years (that sounds wankier than it is), and before that I was an "amateur" since 1981. (Yes, I used a Sinclair ZX81 at school, and programmed it in lovely, lovely ZX Basic). So for 29 years or so I've been reading IT press releases, software manuals, and other IT documentation. I am therefore familar with both "translated from Korean via Japanese" Engrish... and lies.
It's often fun looking at press releases for upcoming software packages and looking for the places where the marketing department has got involved, and something that the engineers has said "might work if we sacrafice a goat or two" is suddenly top-and-centre in the feature list or - worse still - where a feature is obviously there just to please the marketing department. No names, no pack drill... oh damnit, Clippy.
Which brings me to Windows 7. Worryingly I'm not massively cynical about it. I really do believe it's going to be good. This is just about a unique occurance in my life. It scares me slightly. But I've run it on a few machines and haven't found anything terrible. It's quicker than XP is on this netbook. It's even fixed the biggest annoyance I had with Vista - the way that the "start" circle was slightly off the bottom edge of the screen. (Yes, of all the possible reasons to hate Vista that's the one that I'm most pleased they've fixed. I'm odd.)
So for once in my life I'm not 100% cynical about a software product. So I'm guessing I'm going to be disappointed beyond reason come October 22nd... Still, XP will still work for a few years yet, and Ubuntu does everything I need 97% of the time. A little disappointment is good for the soul.
This is not true.
I'm massively cynical.
There's a reason for this. I've been the IT "biz" for 15 years (that sounds wankier than it is), and before that I was an "amateur" since 1981. (Yes, I used a Sinclair ZX81 at school, and programmed it in lovely, lovely ZX Basic). So for 29 years or so I've been reading IT press releases, software manuals, and other IT documentation. I am therefore familar with both "translated from Korean via Japanese" Engrish... and lies.
It's often fun looking at press releases for upcoming software packages and looking for the places where the marketing department has got involved, and something that the engineers has said "might work if we sacrafice a goat or two" is suddenly top-and-centre in the feature list or - worse still - where a feature is obviously there just to please the marketing department. No names, no pack drill... oh damnit, Clippy.
Which brings me to Windows 7. Worryingly I'm not massively cynical about it. I really do believe it's going to be good. This is just about a unique occurance in my life. It scares me slightly. But I've run it on a few machines and haven't found anything terrible. It's quicker than XP is on this netbook. It's even fixed the biggest annoyance I had with Vista - the way that the "start" circle was slightly off the bottom edge of the screen. (Yes, of all the possible reasons to hate Vista that's the one that I'm most pleased they've fixed. I'm odd.)
So for once in my life I'm not 100% cynical about a software product. So I'm guessing I'm going to be disappointed beyond reason come October 22nd... Still, XP will still work for a few years yet, and Ubuntu does everything I need 97% of the time. A little disappointment is good for the soul.
Friday, 7 August 2009
Blogaday 7: One Week Down...
Well, this is my seventh daily blog... and frankly this one is being done very much at the last minute. Last night's was a rush job; this one is a frantic rattling on the keyboard with 1 hour 20 minutes to go to midnight...
Currently I'm watching the end of "Vantage Point", which is actually better than I expected. It's nowhere near as clever as it think it is, but it passes the time quite excitingly. Mind you, I have had a bottle of merlot and a shot of vodka, so right now almost anything would probably be exciting and entertaining. I fully expect a viewing of the most 70s of Open University programmes to be rendered a kaleidescope of fantasy. Even the black and white ones with blackboards.
Now currently catching up with "True Blood". Weirdly, the programme it most reminds me of right now is "Alien Nation". With vampires rather than aliens, and a lot more swearing and nakedity, and blood. "Alien Nation" had more freckles though, and the guy from "Robot Jox". So it all evens out.
So, what next? There's a whole bunch of DVDs on top of the deeveedee-er... "The King of Kong", "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers", "20 Million Miles to Earth", "Lakeview Terrace", "Black Sheep", "THX-1138", "Garth Merengi's Darkplace", "Casino"... not sure which one is best to watch. So I might end up watching none in a paralysed state of total indecision. Recommendations?
Brief interlude: picture the scene. In the kitchen. Making a G&T for my beloved. Open bottle of tonic. Explosion. Tonic everywhere. Laughter from the living room. Ten minutes cleaning up. Laughter continues. Sigh.
So by the time "True Blood" has been blipped back I think we're probably out of time for something else. Never mind, there's tomorrow. I fancy "Black Sheep". It's a horror, it's silly, it's from New Zealand - it can't be that bad, can it?
Signing off, covered in tonic and slightly sticky...
Currently I'm watching the end of "Vantage Point", which is actually better than I expected. It's nowhere near as clever as it think it is, but it passes the time quite excitingly. Mind you, I have had a bottle of merlot and a shot of vodka, so right now almost anything would probably be exciting and entertaining. I fully expect a viewing of the most 70s of Open University programmes to be rendered a kaleidescope of fantasy. Even the black and white ones with blackboards.
Now currently catching up with "True Blood". Weirdly, the programme it most reminds me of right now is "Alien Nation". With vampires rather than aliens, and a lot more swearing and nakedity, and blood. "Alien Nation" had more freckles though, and the guy from "Robot Jox". So it all evens out.
So, what next? There's a whole bunch of DVDs on top of the deeveedee-er... "The King of Kong", "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers", "20 Million Miles to Earth", "Lakeview Terrace", "Black Sheep", "THX-1138", "Garth Merengi's Darkplace", "Casino"... not sure which one is best to watch. So I might end up watching none in a paralysed state of total indecision. Recommendations?
Brief interlude: picture the scene. In the kitchen. Making a G&T for my beloved. Open bottle of tonic. Explosion. Tonic everywhere. Laughter from the living room. Ten minutes cleaning up. Laughter continues. Sigh.
So by the time "True Blood" has been blipped back I think we're probably out of time for something else. Never mind, there's tomorrow. I fancy "Black Sheep". It's a horror, it's silly, it's from New Zealand - it can't be that bad, can it?
Signing off, covered in tonic and slightly sticky...
Labels:
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Thursday, 6 August 2009
Blogaday 6: Total Rush Job
So it's come to this, a total rush job. It was bound to happen.
For a large chunk of today Twitter has been under a denial-of-service attack (as have a few other sites) so I was vaguely tempted to fudge a bit and say that I had this blog written well in advance but couldn't tweet the link. But no, I'm better than that (plus Twitter is back up, although a smidge slow still).
Worryingly, my first thought on finding that twitter.com wasn't responding was to do a search on Twitter to see if anyone was mentioning that Twitter was down. Slight fundamental flaw with that, but it's exactly what I do when any other site is acting up. Gmail being a bit odd? Search Twitter, and if there's 65536 people all tweeting about Gmail acting up then it's not just me...
Actually, I've strangely found that Twitter is a reliable indicator of how far down the spiral into hell the world has gone. If the trending topics are "Paula Abdul" and "Firefox 3.5.2" then the world is well. If they're "denial of service", "crashing" and "ATM hack" then we're a fair way down the spiral. One day I fully expect the trending topics to be "plague", "Armageddon", "nukes" and "cyanide capsules". I think that might be a clear indication that the downwards spiral has bottomed out. I'll be the one in the fail-whale T-shirt striking a pose against a blank wall to leave one of those neat shadows from Watchmen.
AngusR, blogging from the top of the stairs because he needed a socket.
For a large chunk of today Twitter has been under a denial-of-service attack (as have a few other sites) so I was vaguely tempted to fudge a bit and say that I had this blog written well in advance but couldn't tweet the link. But no, I'm better than that (plus Twitter is back up, although a smidge slow still).
Worryingly, my first thought on finding that twitter.com wasn't responding was to do a search on Twitter to see if anyone was mentioning that Twitter was down. Slight fundamental flaw with that, but it's exactly what I do when any other site is acting up. Gmail being a bit odd? Search Twitter, and if there's 65536 people all tweeting about Gmail acting up then it's not just me...
Actually, I've strangely found that Twitter is a reliable indicator of how far down the spiral into hell the world has gone. If the trending topics are "Paula Abdul" and "Firefox 3.5.2" then the world is well. If they're "denial of service", "crashing" and "ATM hack" then we're a fair way down the spiral. One day I fully expect the trending topics to be "plague", "Armageddon", "nukes" and "cyanide capsules". I think that might be a clear indication that the downwards spiral has bottomed out. I'll be the one in the fail-whale T-shirt striking a pose against a blank wall to leave one of those neat shadows from Watchmen.
AngusR, blogging from the top of the stairs because he needed a socket.
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Blogaday 5: Travelling to Mars for World Peace

For this blog you need to do some background reading. No, come back, it's really good!
First, look at the picture on the left. That's the Pale Blue Dot picture of Earth, taken by Voyager 1 from outside the Solar System. Now here's the reading; Carl Sagan on what the picture means. Read that, then come back. I'll wait.
Good, isn't it? Now that you've read it, get other people to read it. It's my firm belief that anyone who looks at that picture and reads those words - and understands them - is compelled to regard petty human squabbles as not worth a damn. Enough people think that and bingo, world peace. It's easy.

So what's Mars got to do with it? For that, we need another picture. This one is much more famous. It's Earthrise, taken during the Apollo 8 mission by astronaut Bill Anders. It's been called "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken" (Galen Rowell). It's one of many photographs taken on the Apollo missions that highlighted the beauty and fragility of our own planet. Anyone who's read "Moondust" will know that the astronauts themselves were profoundly changed by their experience; even Armstrong, not known for being anything but professional, said "It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small."
I don't think that it's a coincidence that the Apollo missions coincided with the mainstream acceptance of environmentalism. Just being able to see the planet from that distance, from another ball of rock... it focused the mind of everyone.
I think the Pale Blue Dot would do the same thing for world peace, but there's a problem. It's from too far away. It wasn't taken by a human being, it was taken by a small spaceprobe. It doesn't feel real enough for everyone to pay attention to it.

So that's why humans have to go to Mars; to stand on the surface, point a camera at the night sky, and take a picture of the bright and slightly blue point of light that we call home, just one twinkling star in the billions. Yes, it's already been done (Mars Global Surveyor has imaged Earth from the orbit of Mars, and the rover Opportunity has also seen Earth - see the image to the left) but not by a real human being, someone able to stand there and say "wow", then raise their hand and wave at all of us conniving and fighting and squabbling for resources on a bright blue speck that could be hidden by a fly.
And the best thing is, the words they need are already written. Read that bit of Sagan again; change it a little bit and it would work from Mars just fine. Get someone with a bit of oratory power to read it out live from Mars and the world could be changed. I don't think Sagan would have minded a bit of plagiarism for that purpose.
In the meantime; Pale Blue Dot. Spread the word.
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Blogaday 4: Moodychops
Sometimes you just have to admit that you're in a grump for no apparent reason, and any blogging you do is just going to have to reflect that.
Today is one of those times.
Thankfully any grumpiness I tend to have is of the generalised, non-specific, "slightly miffed at the universe in general" kind. In other words I'm a grumpy old man before my time. And it is before, thank you very much.
(And out of the corner of my eye I can see some delightful kiddiwinks hanging around outside; one move onto my lawn and they will be told to get off it.)
I'm in the sort of mood where I want the phone to ring with some cold caller trying to sell me double glazing just so I can get really sarcastic. Yes, I know it's not their fault that I'm in a grump, and cold calling is a hellish job, but part of me feels that they knew the risks when they signed on. Cold-call war is hell.
(I also made a policy some years ago never to buy anything from a company that cold calls, and never to donate to a charity that uses "chuggers". Thankfully no charity that I support has yet done so as far as I know. What charities do I support? Well, the Motor Neurone Disease Association or Motor Neurone Disease Scotland are high on the list - thanks for asking!)
So anyway. I'm in a mood, and this blog entry reflects that. I'm now going to go hug my wife, as she's one of the few things that gets me through the grumps. Love is putting up with your husband being moody!
Today is one of those times.
Thankfully any grumpiness I tend to have is of the generalised, non-specific, "slightly miffed at the universe in general" kind. In other words I'm a grumpy old man before my time. And it is before, thank you very much.
(And out of the corner of my eye I can see some delightful kiddiwinks hanging around outside; one move onto my lawn and they will be told to get off it.)
I'm in the sort of mood where I want the phone to ring with some cold caller trying to sell me double glazing just so I can get really sarcastic. Yes, I know it's not their fault that I'm in a grump, and cold calling is a hellish job, but part of me feels that they knew the risks when they signed on. Cold-call war is hell.
(I also made a policy some years ago never to buy anything from a company that cold calls, and never to donate to a charity that uses "chuggers". Thankfully no charity that I support has yet done so as far as I know. What charities do I support? Well, the Motor Neurone Disease Association or Motor Neurone Disease Scotland are high on the list - thanks for asking!)
So anyway. I'm in a mood, and this blog entry reflects that. I'm now going to go hug my wife, as she's one of the few things that gets me through the grumps. Love is putting up with your husband being moody!
Monday, 3 August 2009
Blogaday 3: Games Without Frontiers
Further down this blog there's a review of a Nintendo DS game. ("Time Hollow" - summary, it's good). So it's probably no surprise that I play video games a fair bit.
So here's today's ramble (knocked together at the last minute). What makes a good video game?
It's not flashy graphics. Most fun game I've played all year was "Chrono Trigger" on the DS, which is a 14 year old game. Yes, they added some animated video sequences but - honestly - I hated them and preferred the SNES sequences. Time Hollow is just a point and click adventure and that's a 20 year old genre.
Fantastic surround sound? Nah. I've never really cared about that, probably because I started playing games on a Grandstand console and a Sinclair ZX81 - neither known for amazingly realistic sound (or any sound at all in the case of the ZX81).
Is it a fantastic plot? Sometimes. Bioshock rocked heavily, and I enjoyed the F.E.A.R games for the plot much more than the gameplay. But then again, I spend a lot of time playing Peggle.
Is it engaging my brain? Well yes, I loved Professor Layton and I was a huge fan of Infocom adventure games. And there's Portal. But then again, there's Peggle...
So, what is it that make a video game good? Well, if I knew that I'd be working for a games company telling them how to make millions. You were expecting a revelation here? Nah. Besides, what makes a video game good is a personal thing. I'm sure some people reading this have looked at what I think is a good game and stuck their tongues out in horror.
There's a lot of talk about "video games as art" - and my best argument for that is that everyone has different opinions, and everyone knows what they like. Voila, it's art!
So here's today's ramble (knocked together at the last minute). What makes a good video game?
It's not flashy graphics. Most fun game I've played all year was "Chrono Trigger" on the DS, which is a 14 year old game. Yes, they added some animated video sequences but - honestly - I hated them and preferred the SNES sequences. Time Hollow is just a point and click adventure and that's a 20 year old genre.
Fantastic surround sound? Nah. I've never really cared about that, probably because I started playing games on a Grandstand console and a Sinclair ZX81 - neither known for amazingly realistic sound (or any sound at all in the case of the ZX81).
Is it a fantastic plot? Sometimes. Bioshock rocked heavily, and I enjoyed the F.E.A.R games for the plot much more than the gameplay. But then again, I spend a lot of time playing Peggle.
Is it engaging my brain? Well yes, I loved Professor Layton and I was a huge fan of Infocom adventure games. And there's Portal. But then again, there's Peggle...
So, what is it that make a video game good? Well, if I knew that I'd be working for a games company telling them how to make millions. You were expecting a revelation here? Nah. Besides, what makes a video game good is a personal thing. I'm sure some people reading this have looked at what I think is a good game and stuck their tongues out in horror.
There's a lot of talk about "video games as art" - and my best argument for that is that everyone has different opinions, and everyone knows what they like. Voila, it's art!
Sunday, 2 August 2009
Blogaday 2: Ethics! (pt. 1)
This one is going to be a ramble on ethics. Come back, it might be interesting!
I'm currently in the final couple of years of an Open University degree in Psychology (while I was doing my Computer Science degree and hating it I kept muttering that I should have done Psychology instead, so I decided to see if I was right...)
Modern psychology has major, major issues with ethics. Participants (you shouldn't say "subjects") in modern day experiments have to be fully informed, briefed, debriefed, not distressed in any way, able to drop out at any time, and so on and so forth. It makes designing experiments quite difficult and explains why the Stroop Effect keeps showing up all the way through psychology courses - it's one of the few experiments that is easy to do and such a strong effect that you get actual significant results, but is also easy to ethically clear; there are no ethical implications with it at all. But it wasn't always this way, and a couple of classic experiments illustrate both why ethics is now a problem and why psychology experiments are now a little dull...
The first experiment I'll talk about is the Stanford Prison Experiment (the second I'll cover later in the month). This is famous enough that bad films have been made based on it, which is a sign of a true classic. There's not enough space to go into huge detail here but the Wikipedia article above gives a good summary, and has references. Basically, in 1971 researchers selected 24 volunteers (from a total of 70; they selected those they regarded as most psychologically stable) and randomly assigned them roles as prisoners or guards in a mock prison. The "guards" were given uniforms and mirrored sunglasses, the "prisoners" were given uncomfortable smocks and ankle chains. The "prisoners" were then arrested at home and processed as real prisoners would be (the local police helped with this part) and then put into the prison (the converted basement of a University building).
After only a single day the experiment was out of control; there was a minor riot on the second day and when false rumours about a potential breakout arose the guards dismantled the prison and moved it and the prisoners to a new, more secure, location. Sadistic behaviour arose in the guards (by the end it was believed that 1/3 of the guards had shown genuinely sadistic behaviour) and some of the prisoners began to show signs of trauma and emotional disturbance. Eventually after six days the girlfriend of the lead researcher, who had been brought in to conduct interviews with participants, confronted him about the appalling conditions of the prison and the obvious distress that some participants were in. The researcher realised that everyone, including him - he was the "prison superintendent" - had become too engrossed in their roles and he was allowing unethical and potentially dangerous acts to take place. He terminated the experiment; the majority of the "guards" actively expressed displeasure when this happened.
By the time the experiment ended fifty external people not directly involved in the experiment had observed the experiment. Only one raised any ethical concerns at all, and that resulted in the experiment being stopped.
The Stanford experiment is often quoted as showing that ordinary people can become, without great provocation, "bad" but instead it mainly shows that rational, sensible, compassionate psychologists can become so caught up in an experiment that they lose sight of the fact that their participants are not rats or pieces of data; they are human beings and they have a duty of care to them.
That duty of care is why there are now such stringent ethical requirements in the design and implementation of experiments. The Stanford experiment could never be carried out today in that form, at least by psychologists that follow the requirements of their respective governing bodies.
The second experiment I'll look at differs from the Stanford experiment in that the Stanford experiment was never intended to go in the direction it did; this experiment was ethically very wrong and was designed to be. But that's an experiment, and a closing argument, for another day...
I'm currently in the final couple of years of an Open University degree in Psychology (while I was doing my Computer Science degree and hating it I kept muttering that I should have done Psychology instead, so I decided to see if I was right...)
Modern psychology has major, major issues with ethics. Participants (you shouldn't say "subjects") in modern day experiments have to be fully informed, briefed, debriefed, not distressed in any way, able to drop out at any time, and so on and so forth. It makes designing experiments quite difficult and explains why the Stroop Effect keeps showing up all the way through psychology courses - it's one of the few experiments that is easy to do and such a strong effect that you get actual significant results, but is also easy to ethically clear; there are no ethical implications with it at all. But it wasn't always this way, and a couple of classic experiments illustrate both why ethics is now a problem and why psychology experiments are now a little dull...
The first experiment I'll talk about is the Stanford Prison Experiment (the second I'll cover later in the month). This is famous enough that bad films have been made based on it, which is a sign of a true classic. There's not enough space to go into huge detail here but the Wikipedia article above gives a good summary, and has references. Basically, in 1971 researchers selected 24 volunteers (from a total of 70; they selected those they regarded as most psychologically stable) and randomly assigned them roles as prisoners or guards in a mock prison. The "guards" were given uniforms and mirrored sunglasses, the "prisoners" were given uncomfortable smocks and ankle chains. The "prisoners" were then arrested at home and processed as real prisoners would be (the local police helped with this part) and then put into the prison (the converted basement of a University building).
After only a single day the experiment was out of control; there was a minor riot on the second day and when false rumours about a potential breakout arose the guards dismantled the prison and moved it and the prisoners to a new, more secure, location. Sadistic behaviour arose in the guards (by the end it was believed that 1/3 of the guards had shown genuinely sadistic behaviour) and some of the prisoners began to show signs of trauma and emotional disturbance. Eventually after six days the girlfriend of the lead researcher, who had been brought in to conduct interviews with participants, confronted him about the appalling conditions of the prison and the obvious distress that some participants were in. The researcher realised that everyone, including him - he was the "prison superintendent" - had become too engrossed in their roles and he was allowing unethical and potentially dangerous acts to take place. He terminated the experiment; the majority of the "guards" actively expressed displeasure when this happened.
By the time the experiment ended fifty external people not directly involved in the experiment had observed the experiment. Only one raised any ethical concerns at all, and that resulted in the experiment being stopped.
The Stanford experiment is often quoted as showing that ordinary people can become, without great provocation, "bad" but instead it mainly shows that rational, sensible, compassionate psychologists can become so caught up in an experiment that they lose sight of the fact that their participants are not rats or pieces of data; they are human beings and they have a duty of care to them.
That duty of care is why there are now such stringent ethical requirements in the design and implementation of experiments. The Stanford experiment could never be carried out today in that form, at least by psychologists that follow the requirements of their respective governing bodies.
The second experiment I'll look at differs from the Stanford experiment in that the Stanford experiment was never intended to go in the direction it did; this experiment was ethically very wrong and was designed to be. But that's an experiment, and a closing argument, for another day...
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Blogaday 1: Review of "Moon"
Before the review, here's what I'm up to with this. Just for the sheer fun of it I plan to do a blog entry every day during August. The chances are high that I will probably fail completely or put in some very short entries...
So anyway. "Moon". This is a tricky one to review because I don't want to give too much away about the plot, so I may have to talk about themes and styles and other artistic fripperies. For this, I apologise!
It's an unspecified time in the future. Earth has run out of energy but thankfully fusion power generation has been invented, requiring large amounts of the isotope Helium-3; rare on Earth, but more plentiful in the regolith of the Moon thanks to millenia of bombardment by the solar wind. Lunar Industries has built a base on the far side of the moon where robotic strip-mining harvesters churn through the regolith, extracting Helium-3 to be rocketed back to Earth. The base is pretty much automatic, but a single human worker spends three years at a time on-site to repair anything that the automatic systems cannot handle. His only companion is a boxy mobile computer system and - since a satellite in lunar orbit went down - time delayed messages from Earth relayed via Jupiter (as he is on the far side signals cannot get to him directly). Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is the current worker, bored into a state of almost Zen-like calm. His three years are nearly up, he is starting to see things, and then he crashes a lunar rover into a harvester because of an hallucination. Things get wierder when he regains consciousness back on the base.
Then the plot kicks in and I'll go no further...
This is an old fashioned SF film, and that's a good thing. At times it brings to mind 2001, Solaris (the original version) and Silent Running, along with small-screen SF such as Space:1999 - in fact, in many ways it has the feel of a season 1 Space:1999 episode, one of the Martin Landau single-hander ones when the cash got short. Don't expect fast-paced action, space battles, gigantic robots or big explosions; this is SF about ideas. It assumes certain technologies, assumes that humans will always behave like humans, and then projects forwards to see how humanity as a whole, massive corporations, and individual people will react in that situation.
For the SF fan, rather than the casual filmgoer, there is nothing really new here. I don't think any element of the story has not been seen before. However, it's refreshing to see some "hard" SF ideas on the big screen and handled with respect and seriousness. It's also refreshing to see SFX used to support a story rather than as a spectacle; given an aspect of the plot I can't mention it's fair to say that there's SFX used in probably 90% of the shots, but it's never "gee wizz".
It's also a film that isn't afraid to let the audience be smart. You'll probably work out what is going on before the protagonists do, but it doesn't matter. There isn't a big scene where what is going on is explained for those slower on the uptake. Indeed, the protagonists appear not to work out the whole story (the reason why, at the start, Sam Bell has started seeing things and why he gets ill later) - or maybe they don't mention it because it's not that important - despite being the reason why things are being done in the way that they are and hence the driving force of the film's plot.
As a debut feature-length film for the director (Duncan Jones; yes, he is, etc etc etc) it's massively impressive. Sam Rockwell is equally impressive. Given the tiny budget (reportedly $5 million) it must surely make it's money back at the very least. But given that it's many, many times better than some of this summer's alleged SF films (Transformers 2, anyone?) it deserves to make so much more.
If you fancy a bit of thinking rather than just some mindless explosionfest, go see "Moon". Show Hollywood that we're not just in it for rapid-cutting, loud yelling, and over-flashy CGI... please?
So anyway. "Moon". This is a tricky one to review because I don't want to give too much away about the plot, so I may have to talk about themes and styles and other artistic fripperies. For this, I apologise!
It's an unspecified time in the future. Earth has run out of energy but thankfully fusion power generation has been invented, requiring large amounts of the isotope Helium-3; rare on Earth, but more plentiful in the regolith of the Moon thanks to millenia of bombardment by the solar wind. Lunar Industries has built a base on the far side of the moon where robotic strip-mining harvesters churn through the regolith, extracting Helium-3 to be rocketed back to Earth. The base is pretty much automatic, but a single human worker spends three years at a time on-site to repair anything that the automatic systems cannot handle. His only companion is a boxy mobile computer system and - since a satellite in lunar orbit went down - time delayed messages from Earth relayed via Jupiter (as he is on the far side signals cannot get to him directly). Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is the current worker, bored into a state of almost Zen-like calm. His three years are nearly up, he is starting to see things, and then he crashes a lunar rover into a harvester because of an hallucination. Things get wierder when he regains consciousness back on the base.
Then the plot kicks in and I'll go no further...
This is an old fashioned SF film, and that's a good thing. At times it brings to mind 2001, Solaris (the original version) and Silent Running, along with small-screen SF such as Space:1999 - in fact, in many ways it has the feel of a season 1 Space:1999 episode, one of the Martin Landau single-hander ones when the cash got short. Don't expect fast-paced action, space battles, gigantic robots or big explosions; this is SF about ideas. It assumes certain technologies, assumes that humans will always behave like humans, and then projects forwards to see how humanity as a whole, massive corporations, and individual people will react in that situation.
For the SF fan, rather than the casual filmgoer, there is nothing really new here. I don't think any element of the story has not been seen before. However, it's refreshing to see some "hard" SF ideas on the big screen and handled with respect and seriousness. It's also refreshing to see SFX used to support a story rather than as a spectacle; given an aspect of the plot I can't mention it's fair to say that there's SFX used in probably 90% of the shots, but it's never "gee wizz".
It's also a film that isn't afraid to let the audience be smart. You'll probably work out what is going on before the protagonists do, but it doesn't matter. There isn't a big scene where what is going on is explained for those slower on the uptake. Indeed, the protagonists appear not to work out the whole story (the reason why, at the start, Sam Bell has started seeing things and why he gets ill later) - or maybe they don't mention it because it's not that important - despite being the reason why things are being done in the way that they are and hence the driving force of the film's plot.
As a debut feature-length film for the director (Duncan Jones; yes, he is, etc etc etc) it's massively impressive. Sam Rockwell is equally impressive. Given the tiny budget (reportedly $5 million) it must surely make it's money back at the very least. But given that it's many, many times better than some of this summer's alleged SF films (Transformers 2, anyone?) it deserves to make so much more.
If you fancy a bit of thinking rather than just some mindless explosionfest, go see "Moon". Show Hollywood that we're not just in it for rapid-cutting, loud yelling, and over-flashy CGI... please?
Monday, 23 March 2009
Watch the Skies
Time for some space geekery. Recently the International Space Station has installed the S6 truss and associated solar panels. (That's the sixth truss segment on the starboard side, and the last pair of solar panels - the fourth of four). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Truss_Structure for horrendous details...
What does all this mean? Well, all that extra solar panel area means that ISS now reflects a lot of sunlight, and under some conditions is now brighter than Venus. If you're looking in the right direction at the right time you can hardly miss it - something as bright as Venus moving pretty rapidly across the sky. Worth looking for, even with fairly light skies.
There's a number of sites that will generate sighting information for it. NASA has one at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/ - it uses Java. http://www.heavens-above.com/ will also do the job and also calculates Iridium satellite flares, another thing that it's worth looking out for. In both cases you'll need latitude and longitude for your location to get the best information; easiest way to get this (for me) is to go to http://www.streetmap.co.uk/, find your location and then click the "Click here to convert coordinates" link.
What does all this mean? Well, all that extra solar panel area means that ISS now reflects a lot of sunlight, and under some conditions is now brighter than Venus. If you're looking in the right direction at the right time you can hardly miss it - something as bright as Venus moving pretty rapidly across the sky. Worth looking for, even with fairly light skies.
There's a number of sites that will generate sighting information for it. NASA has one at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/ - it uses Java. http://www.heavens-above.com/ will also do the job and also calculates Iridium satellite flares, another thing that it's worth looking out for. In both cases you'll need latitude and longitude for your location to get the best information; easiest way to get this (for me) is to go to http://www.streetmap.co.uk/, find your location and then click the "Click here to convert coordinates" link.
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