Diminished responsibility

An article in the news today (link) made me question what the writer's assumptions are.

The basic assumption he makes is that there is a baseline level at which human beings are responsible for their actions. Go beyond the line and you become "mad", but stay below it and you're fine.

This is an absurd idea. Surely the mental capacity of humans varies according to type and on a continuous scale. To choose a dividing line between those who are mad and those who are not is plainly wrong.

What about temporary "madness". Someone can be completely sane most of the time, but occasionally flip out and do something completely mad. How does one judge their responsibility to their behaviour? Are they allowed to diminish their responsibility for specific periods or should their sane selves control their behaviour all the time.

Even those who inhabit the "sane" areas of behaviour are occasionally "mad". What about the person who is violent at a football match. They may well have a day job and responsibility, but somehow they lose their sense sometimes. Of course their behaviour is controlled by the law (if they cause physical violence and are caught then there are penalties (pardon the pun!)), but could they not claim diminished responsibility, either through alcohol abuse or sport-related euphoria?

The only fair way to deal with this is to treat everyone the same. The punishment should fit the crime so, for example, if a murder is committed then (unless completely accidental) the punishment should be the same for everyone regardless of their mental state. This gives an added responsibility on society to protect those susceptible to bouts of violence (for example) form hurting others.

The bigger issue for me is how to deal with the concept of free will. There is still a belief that humans act under their own volition - a kind of spiritual being who controls the body. This is nonsense and it's obvious to me that we are no more than a collection of cells which interact in immensely complicated ways to create the behaviour we experience.

If this is the case then it is arguable that we all have diminished responsibility. There is not one of us alive who can claim that it wasn't their biological structure that dictated their behaviour.

This line of thought quite quickly leads to ideas like eugenics and existentialism, however it's not one which should be shied away from. I readily accept that everything I do is in response to biological reactions cause by yet more complex biological reactions and interactions.

Unfortunately this argument is theoretical and, since I don't think it would benefit many of us if our society were to change into one which fully recognised this theory, is unlikely to be made real until the average intelligence of society increases substantially. In contrast, however, our society would benefit if it were to change into one in which its members were respected along humanist lines rather than capitalist, tribalist or religious lines.

For now there is another person's life wrecked (Kerry Barker) simply because our society (the morons who govern and administer us) cannot get its act together (or is too selfish to really want to).

Fela Kuti; a curse; and the proliferation of digital media

I am cursed with an almost stupidly wide-ranging love of music. I adore music by artists as diverse as "Fluff, fluff, fluff and Cuddlyness" to "Napalm Death". And I seriously like the music. It's not an affectation. My taste in music effects and is affected by my mood.

I have had this view since I was in my late teens when I was particularly interested in independent music, but also had a love of folk, classical, blues, jazz, heavy metal, rock, prog-rock, electronic and (some) pop music. There was a time, about 10 years ago, when I thought I knew all the music I was ever likely to need to know. I also had bought most of these recordings so my musical world seemed complete (and just a little dull). I was wrong.

As I get older my taste has changed slightly: I don't like as much pop music as I used to and I like more jazz and funk (I also believe that the vast majority of modern music is intrinsically inferior). Over the past few years I have begun to appreciate progressive rock much more and have recently opened a treasure-trove of music I had previously never heard of. Music from bands like Magma, Klaus Doldinger's Passport and very recently (yesterday) Fela Kuti.

Early-70s Afro-Beat and Jazz-Funk is something I have not listened to very much, but I find now that it's something I have definitely been missing. Some of the Afro-Beat stuff like Fela Kuti, Santana etc is mind-blowing! Even modern groups like The Budos Band are producing electrifying jazzy, funky, Afro-Beat-type music.

So I realised that there is a whole new world of music I have never heard before and that I enjoy immensely.

Not only have I found this new seam in the coalface of media, but the way that all media are transmitted and stored has been revolutionised in the last few years. I am slowly digitising all my music onto a home computer which acts like a media storage device and allows me to play music through any other computer connected to the home network (including my PS3!) (don't get me started on the licensing issues!!). I also download several albums a month from the Internet at little cost.

There are social implications of this proliferation of media which Max will experience. When I was younger I had restricted access to the music that I liked. Not only did it have to be bought from a real shop (!), but it was expensive and required specialist equipment (vinyl record player etc). When I wanted to watch a video of my favourite bands playing their music it either simply didn't exist or was unavailable or was broadcast on one of the four TV channels at 2.30am!

One particular time I remember trying to record the music from a live ACDC video that my dad had videotaped from the TV by sellotaping a microphone in front of the (mono) TV speaker and pressing play and record on the crappy tape recorder I had. This barbaric methodology is in stark contrast to the way Max will undoubtedly find media.

Youtube is something that has revolutionised the process and I absolutely adore what Youtube have done, but I wonder whether something has been lost by having so much information available so readily.

In any event I'm going to need new headphones soon (and probably new ears!!).

José Martí and Chrisopher Hitchins

I've been turned around fairly recently (not that I was ever completely anti-war: it's far too complicated to be only on one side or another). I am starting to believe more and more that the appropriate response to Islamic fundamentalism is not appeasement. It's far more complex than the situation Chamberlain was in in 1939 and there are certainly good arguments for and against I think.
Christopher Hithchens tells a good story about Barbary Coast pirates and Thomas Jefferson. This episode from history pits Islam against Christianity (link) more than a hundred years before the current conflict. The upshot is that the pirates blatantly used the Koran to excuse their actions of slave-taking since those slaves were infidels. This history of infidelity (sic) has been the cause (excuse) of many, many religious wars going back millennia, but is relevant in this argument because there's a feeling in the West that Islam is out to get the West and destroy all infidels. Is this really the case or, more likely, the few extremists who we hear about? It's a very complicated argument and the conspiracy theorists would have us believe that it's a neo-conservative plot to keep us afraid of Islam. Certainly in my experience I have met a few Muslims and they are generally the same as anyone else.

Is it me and my pseudo-Christian sensibilities or are Islam-led regimes more cruel and oppressive and naturally infidel-hating? I suspect that it's a bit of both, e.g. there are infidel-haters in all societies (Christian to Muslim too), however the Taliban are certainly more extreme.

In spite of my intellectual dilly-dallying my inclination is to mistrust a culture that places pressure on women to cover their bodies completely. How much of this is tradition and welcomed by some women is debatable, but it doesn't do a cause much help.

What impressed me this morning, however, is a statue of Jose Marti in New York (link). Marti was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who lived for a time in New York. He is a national hero in Cuba.

Perhaps my impression is wrong, but I get the feeling that, especially the US, but also most Western countries, regard struggle and sacrifice as high virtues and socialist ideals are valued strongly (even some communist ones). For a statue of this calibre to be placed in a foreign city speaks volumes about a country, i.e. the US's ideals are humanistic rather than spiritual; they believe in human endeavour and strength and heroic actions are valued more highly than anything else. This strikes me as particularly Christian and I wonder how compatible this ideal is with Islam (or Buddhism, or Hinduism either).

For now I have to stick with Western ideals because that's all I have ever known and I feel that it's more humanistic and valuable and will encourage the expansion of human knowledge (I am not saying that Islam discourages these things - far from it if you consider Algebra and Astronomy!).

Depression

Reports in the news (link) have indicated that the Hippocampus plays a leading role in some forms of depression. Further to this, exercise and movement can also help people feel less depressed. It's suggested that the reason for this is that the exercise itself is the aiding mechanism.

The Hippocampus is the centre in the brain mostly responsible for spatial navigation (link) which leads me to think that the depression/exercise balance is actually more of a depression/spatial awareness balance!

It would make some sense to me for there to be a biological imperative to keep our spatial awareness and knowledge of our surroundings up to scratch and hence any imbalance to this could lead to depresssion and cerebral problems.

It's an interesting thought anyway. I suppose I'd better go for a walk now ....

Logic, healthcare and gated communities part 1

Question 1: Is Evolution by Natural Selection a correct description for Nature?
Answer: No
Result: I probably can't get through to you so stop reading right now.

Answer: Yes
Result: Go to question 2

Question 2: Does Evolution by Natural Selection describe the survival of the fittest?
Answer: No
Result: Go read evolution

Answer: Yes
Result: Go to question 3

Question 3: Is perturbing the survival of the fittest against evolution and therefore against Nature?
Answer No:
Result: What you talkin' about, Willis?

Answer: Yes
Result: Go to question 4

Question 4: Is allowing the weakest in society to gain from the strongest a perturbation of the fittest (e.g. deliberately feeding the weakest over the strongest)?
Answer: No
Result: Don't want no more jibber jabber

Answer: Yes
Result: You believe that giving to the poor is unnatural


This is perhaps a little harsh because there are other factors that need to be considered and this is obviously grossly simplified. Are civilisation and charity a part of natural selection? By making our society better by sharing out resources to the weaker members are the fittest altruistically helping themselves and thereby fitting in with evolutionary theory by creating as better society for their descendants? Quite possibly in my view.

It would certainly be extremely right-wing and bordering on fascist or naziist to start to examine society and try to "help along" evolution by cutting off support for our weaker members (by weaker I don't just mean obvious examples like people with disabilities or lack of certain kinds of intelligence, it could also mean members who have genetic "faults", e.g. disposition towards violence etc).

In no way would I condone a change to the way society helps the needy (except for increasing it, in my opinion), however there is sometimes in the UK, perhaps inevitably, and running throughout all walks of life, an anti-fittest attitude. For example, it's common to knock those who are better at something; I remember distinctly feeling embarrassed about my intelligence at school and learnt to feel that to not care and to "dumb oneself down" (albeit superficially) was preferable to enable getting on with people; being labeled a swot (not that I was). It's not a well-known part of our culture, but I think it's definitely there in contrast to many other countries.

This was brought to my mind by recent news on the American health care crisis. About one fifth of Americans have either no health care or limited cover. This is an astonishing number and makes one wonder how this can come about. The thing that struck me is that there must be a pervading selfishness amongst many who have sufficient care that enables them to ignore the fact that a large proportion of their own society are so poor.

It then struck me that it's not a real selfishness, but of a feeling of survival of the fittest. America was founded on a sort of free-for-all society where the strongest did best. I think this attitude still prevails today to a certain extent, especially amongst Republicans, and it seems easy for them to look down their noses at the less well off because they think that they deserve it. This is not selfishness, but a specific decision to prejudge. More evidence of this is the increasing fracturisation in American society into those who have and those who have not. Gated communities are growing faster than ever and are most often desirable not for what's inside the gates, but what's outside the gates (e.g. the lower classes). The lower classes, for whatever reason, including, on occasion, their own ineptitude, have been denied some of the benefits and opportunities that the other tranches of society have profitted from. This places them on an uphill struggle made worse when others look down on them and hinder their progress.

In any event, whether the UK values its fittest or not or whether the US values its weakest or not, it can be argued that in the US and the UK there is a growing amoral sub-class with too few prospects and it's a fear of this that gated communities seek to benefit from (and they do).

The governments are just hiding from these facts. Crime is increasing and society is becoming increasingly fractured. No-one seems to be stating the obvious, honest reasons for any of this (I have certainly not heard it if they have).

I imagine the US will sort their healthcare out (when the Democrats assume Executive power), but it will certainly be a hot potato! I can't see what will happen in the UK. Supposedly we already have a left-wing government, but they don't seem too keen to address the problems of either the high crime rate or the issues causing them. I guess we'll have to wait for a right-wing government to clamp down harder on crime. In the meantime I'll be looking for a nice gated community somewhere (seriously).


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/08/31/do3101.xml
http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=4664
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2006/05/argument-wanted-universal-health-care.html

DNA

Q: Why are redneck murders so hard to solve?

I honestly don't know what the fuss is about (see this link). It seems obvious to me that we should have everyone's DNA on record so that in the event of a crime being unsolved the police can use this database to pinpoint (with some technical caveats of course) the guilty person.

I have many liberal and free-thinking views, but when it comes to law and order and crime I believe that the most important objective of society is to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. There are many philosophical and moral arguments about how we structure our laws and how society itself breeds criminals, but at the end of the day everyone knows wrong from right (and therefore knows what the law is, especially violent crime) that it's pure arrogance on the behalf of criminals to commit any sort of legal wrong.

The only argument I have heard against keeping innocent people's DNA on record is that it may be used for purposes for which it is not designed or authorised, but I would say that is a different issue and there should be legal, unbreakable rules governing the use of sensitive data like this which must make it impossible to use this data for anything else.

I would also be happy to hive the innocent DNA into a separate database so that it is only used for unsolved crimes and the guilty DNA is searched first (purely a technicality, but there has to be some sort of way to sell this better to the idiots in society who, perversely, have a vote).

In my opinion our DNA should be stored from birth. There are probably scientific benefits which we haven't seen yet to having this material available. In the future it will almost certainly be possible to clone a human from DNA samples. I believe that in the future our morals and sensibilities will change too which will allow us to consider cloning a dead relative for example. This may seem abhorrent now to some (not to me), but at some point this sort of thing will be quite normal. There are surely many other benefits from recreating sperm or eggs when infertility strikes prematurely to growing organs for transplant.

So why prevent our DNA from being on record? It seems that there are people who just want to hide from society. They're very happy to have the trappings of a modern, successful civilisation (bananas, TV, electricity etc), but they're not willing to pay the inevitable price for this: to be part of a society properly where everyone works together to prevent others from harming the group. People talk about Big Brother, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. As long as there are foolproof checks against data being used wrongly then what's wrong with having a Big Brother watching out for us all. Anything that prevents crime gets my vote.

A: The DNA is all the same and There are no dental record

Taxonomi

Being a geeky sort of database guy I come across problems involving data and information all the time. A classic example is the classification of objects or entities in order to store, search and manuipulate them. Relational Databases are very good at doing this, however they need to be used correctly. In order to use them correctly it's often necessary to categorise every entity with a unique number.
I mentioned to the wife a year or so ago about how it would be helpful to have a global categorisation for every object or entity on the planet (think of an object as a type of thing, like toilet seat or laptop or diamond). This would make our lives so much more easy if every kind of thing had a unique reference number. For example if you knew that you wanted a specific thing like a bracket to attach a toilet seat to the porcelain base unit and you were able to search through a catalogue, then you could pinpoint the reference number and take it with you to the local shop and purchase with ease the item you need instead of having to grapple with technical details with the local expert in the shop.

I was reminded of this idea by an article today. It only touches on the idea, but the fact that it is being mentioned at all has made me think about my idea again.

If there was a website that acted as a search facility and entity registration portal then I think that would be a good start. The amount of work involved in getting something like this to a usable point is huge and I really don't think it'll every come to anything, but it's certainly worth thinking about and for the sake of a simple website and some research I might just try it out .... The growth pattern for this project would be exponential (or certainly slow initial growth followed by huge later increases).


By the way: if anyone knows of a service already like this please let me know

Energy

The world is heating up and it's due to human consumption. That's the theory, but I am yet to be 100% convinced that it's not just "natural" fluctuation. There is certainly a lot of hot air (;-}) spouted about the subject and it's becoming a multi-billion dollar industry to manage the "crisis".
One of the chief arguments that bloated Americans (for example) give for their use of energy is that there's nothing to worry about since most inventions and discovery come from adversity and if we need a way to cool the planet then science and technology will provide it. You certainly can't deny that so much is invented in times of stress and need, but it's a risky premise, isn't it?

Apparently not. It would appear that we have no problems: our planet is teeming with free energy (we're all made out of the stuff anyway, aren't we?!) if this link is anything to go by. Also take a look at this!

I don't exactly think our worries are over, but it just doesn't make sense to me to panic about this since there's so much energy out there for the taking (long term affects aside: the planet is not a closed energy system and therefore we need to be thinking in global energy/entropy terms about our wind and solar panel farms).

What worries me more is that bureaucracy and inertia will hamper developing the multitude of techniques available (here's another one: link). It seems much more likely that we will be wiped out not from being too hot, but from being too lazy, stupid and officious.

I'm still going to recycle as much as I can, but I will continue to use energy as I have done (which already includes turning off lights etc). It can't hurt to be more aware of one's energy footprint.

Pigs might fly

Whilst I appreciate that I'm becoming more and more middle-aged and the trappings of middle age are becoming me more and more, specifically issues relating to law and order and society in general I have to protest, yet again, to my blog about the state of the legal system in the UK at the moment. Perhaps I am missing something and perhaps the press are misrepresenting the truth, but since this seems to happen with worrying and increasing frequency (see previous post) I have to think that it is really happening and our society is going mad! I remember my parents railing against similar injustices so perhaps it's just "my time" and there is no greater incidence of crazy sentencing or judgements than previously, but for God's sake (!), what is this about: link !!!
I have nothing at all against drinking and smoking and in fact I have nothing against any substance at all if used with care, but to drink 2 bottles of wine and smoke a shit-load of pot whilst looking after a child is, in my opinion, a criminal offence worthy of 12 months in gaol. This woman (whilst not deserving of that title) almost certainly deserves 10 years in gaol.
I guess I'm not privy to the information that the jury is privy to, but I cannot understand (my bad, of course) why a jury found her not guilty. What part of "imbibing oneself to semi-consciousness and allowing a dog to kill a child" did they not understand!
I can only imagine that the law has become so back-footed that it has to be outrageously obvious for any conviction to occur.

I have recently seen an interesting article which I balked at at first, but upon reflection began to believe it (if only partially): link.
I think another consequence of heading towards one's middle age is becoming more conservative. I have mentioned in this blog before about the rising anti-Islamic feeling in the West and how it's not necessarily a racist issue, but more one of respectfulness. This recent article reminded me of that and also made me think that perhaps it is right to react against change when it is only for people who seem to keep on taking without end. This is in no way a racist outburst. I feel strongly that we need immigration, but only with full integration. I don't think that many immigrants feel that way; it seems that immigration is fine, but integration is not. Of course it's not an easy issue and the incumbent population are more to blame than the immigrating one.

The onus is on the West to stand up for what it believes in. This is what George Bush Jnr et al think they have done, but they have done it in an underhand and calculated way. There has to be an honest and open discussion of what our values are in the West and once we can agree on that we have to stick to them.

.... and then pigs will truly fly ....

Murder

This is murder: link.

How anyone in their right mind can think that 1 year in prison is enough punishment is completely beyond me.

We have just returned from France, and whilst I don't have details of the French legal system and sentencing I get the feeling that they are more right-minded than the Brits who let people literally get away with murder.

This is an embarrasing and gut-wrenching disgrace that makes me want to leave this country for good.

Having us on!

That darn Stevie Wonder!! I saw this today and realised that he's been having us all on. He simply must be sighted else how could he do this?!! link

Haven't they got anything better to do ....

I wish I was 70 years old right now.

According to the BBC (link) not only are the aged community having tonnes of red hot, steamy sex, but they are on the Internet more than anyone else too! ("more than any other age group" according to the BBC again (link))
What I really mean is that I wish I had their free time and access to top totty and gigabits of bandwidth.
On the face of it I would assume that all this surfing is for crazy porn, but I suspect it's more likely to be gardening (naked of course) and pensions.

Just check out the interweb's search engine for the over 50s, however, (www.cranky.com) and you will see that the number 1 search was for... yep that's right: SEX!! The number 2 search was for Ed Sullivan so I'm a little sceptical that a) there isn't just one user of Cranky who looks up sex and Ed Sullivan all day and b) it's not complete rubbish!

BTW, whatever you do, don't look at www.granny.com

Future, schmuture

In the future humans will look back on this period as we look back on the Victorians. I feel that we are on the cusp (within my lifetime I hope) or a major scientific discovery akin to Einstein's Relativity theories which will provide some more answers in tying up the nature of the universe. Our theories don't quite cut it at the moment, but I feel like there's something big lurking under the surface of our current knowledge (a monster!!: link).

To think of one's descendants looking back on our current age with a sort of wistful patronage is slightly disturbing, but no less problematic than our forefathers' image of the future. Their beliefs in their own success and (especially late 19th Century) arrogance in their own knowledge are not too far removed from our current arrogance and beliefs. Science continually thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread, but time and time again (by very nature of the scientific method) is proved wrong when new theories come to light. This is the normal way to conduct science, but I wish that sometimes we would have more creativity and humility in the science I see.

On a slightly different future tip it is my belief that in the future all of humanity will be vegetarian. Exactly when in the future is difficult to predict, but I think that within 200 years or so. If this is the case why not make the effort now and be a bit proactive. My descendants would be proud that I was vegetarian at a relatively early period. When looking for moral guidance I often extrapolate humanity into the future and ask the question how would we do it in 500 years? If I can mimic that behaviour now then that is a truly advanced way to be. Obviously this is based on pure conjecture, but it's fun and, anyway, how else are we supposed to find a moral pathway?! Certainly not based on our history. In spite of the growing ills in society I still think that as we move forward in time we become more enlightened, educated and civilised.
How do I judge what our society will be like in the future? It's tricky, but there are some fundamental things that I think I can count on:
1. Technology will be far more advanced than can be imagined at the moment
2. There will be too many people on the planet
3. We will have harnessed practically endless supplies of energy
4. We will have colonised other worlds
5. Organised religion will have all but disappeared
6. We will have discovered methods to prolong human life well beyond the current limits

I believe that these changes will bring about grand changes in morality, including vegetarianism (if only for practical and health reasons or necessity(link)), but also things like violence and harm to others.

There is a long way to go and probably several wars and terrible events and, of course, this is all a little bit tenuous, but quite plausible. It's also a little bit "Star Trek", but I believe that this will happen within a few hundred years. Else as a species we are doomed!

... and it's not just me: link

I love slavery

Not so long ago approximately ten million Africans were captured and sold (sometimes by fellow Africans) to European traders (link). These people were re-sold and brutally oppressed in a foreign land for money and privelege. The terrible life these people lived was beyond comprehension and can only be viewed as a stain on humanity. Without this shocking period in history, however, we would almost certainly not have Jazz, Blues and therefore Rock and Roll and therefore no Beatles, no Genesis etc etc etc.

Of course I am being flippant. In no way do I condone the slave trade, however by the benefit of hindsight we can say that some good did come out of this event.
It's impossible to say what would have happened to music had slavery never happened. It may well have picked up African influences anyway, but in any event I doubt whether we would have the richness and diversity in music that we have now.

Of course we wouldn't have had James Blunt. Hmmmm ....

Vinegar and garlic

I like to cook. I hope I am fairly adept at most styles of cooking and can create dishes that I think are authentic and tasty from most cultures. One that I have always had trouble with is Indian cuisine. I have been cooking curries for years, but have never been able to make something that truly resembles my idea of ideal Indian food (e.g. from an Indian restaurant since I have never been to India).
Last weekend I think I cracked it! Gary Rhodes has a very good TV programme being aired at the moment based entirely on Indian cuisine and this inspired me to look up some of his recipes and try them out.
The programme seems to consist of Gary's incredulity when faced with a respected Indian chef telling him for the third time to add more garlic, chillies, onions etc. Gary seems to be stuck in a European mode and looks aghast when it's suggested that 12 chillies need to be added! Obviously this is a little bit calculated and in the end the food turns out fine and not too hot for Gary's delicate palette.

The basic problems I was having were not using enough onions, not adding spices in a paste, not using enough chillies, and not cooking for long enough and not using enough butter.
I still have some way to go to get the spices right, but the consistency and colour was spot on.
I also made some barbecued paneer which was stunningly good!

If anyone reads this blog and thinks they might feel generous enough to give me a gift then I would love a cooking tour of India as a present.

Another interesting fact to arise from Gary's programme was that the word Vindaloo does not mean crazy hot spicy curry to be eaten after having too much lager and testosterone. In fact it comes from Portuguese (via Goa) and means wine/vinegar and garlic. Therefore a proper vindaloo has hints of vinegar and garlic rather than copious amounts of hot chillies!

Two blokes dancing

Many ideas exist as to why we laugh. In my opinion it's much more complicated than most people think. If you try to analyse why things are funny it becomes difficult very quickly. Some things are not funny to some whilst being hilarious to others.

This amused me a lot today. Not only is it funny because of the visual aspect of these two dudes dancing together, but the setting up of the idea that there's a place where two grown men dance together on stage for the visual pleasure of a large crowd is not only ridiculous, but very funny (to me at least).

I have heard comedians describe aspects of their own humour this way too, for example the argument sketch of Monty Python springs to mind, although much more blatant in its premise.

This video is not just two blokes dancing, it's on a whole different level ....

N.B. On Ellipses: when used in an aposiopetic way there should be 4 dots (according to Wikipedia anyway!).

To hell with their rights

Perhaps it's a sense of injustice or vengeance, but stories like this: link, make me think that our society has to get tougher on the perpetrators of violent crime.
Every sane person in this country knows that violent crime is not only against the law, but immoral. How is it, then, that our society condones this behaviour by not sentencing in the most aggressive way possible.
I have sympathy with liberals who argue that giving harsh sentences does not stop the causes of these crimes (lack of opportunities, poor parenting etc), but that's missing the point. If we don't show society that acts of violence will effectively mean the end of the perpetrator's life (in real or effective terms) then we will continue to lose the battle.
Of course we need to offer more opportunities and make better our parenting skills, but these things take time.
For the moment there's yet another family destroyed by yobs who will perhaps be given life sentences. This only means 10 years in prison. THAT IS NOT ENOUGH!
Time and time again it is shown that our society wants tougher sentences, but the powers that be think they know better and rely on changes to society via government. THESE DON'T WORK! The average member of society is not intelligent enough to realise that we need to either increase the efficiency of our society's infrastructure (which means working harder) or pay more taxes. The effect of doing neither results in a degradation in society. This has been happening for decades.

I want to live in a society where there's no violent crime. I think we need to get very tough on offenders and to hell with their rights. I grow to hate politicians more and more each day...

Peregrine Winter

Johnny Winter is an albino blues guitarist from Texas. Texas is a fairly tolerant place, but I can only imagine the difficult childhood (if only trying to keep out of the scorching sun) Johnny must have had. His success is, I believe, in part, a response to his condition and his uniqueness.

In a similar way, apart from obvious cultural or social influences, the name one chooses for a child can profoundly affect their future development.
The psychosocial affects of being called John and the implication that you'll meet many other Johns in your lifetime and possibly share classrooms, lectures, offices etc are marked in comparison with someone who has a more unusual name.
I have only ever met one other Cliff in my life and I think that has affected me and (although only slightly) given me a kind of uniqueness that I can take pride in.
I know there are many famous and worthy people who share names with many others, however if one is to give one's children the best chance of success (whatever that means) in their lives then choosing an unusual name is the best approach. How unusual to go is the next question and leads to mental turmoil between parents the world over who can't decide between Tarquin and Rainbow. I once worked with a fellow called Rainbow, which highlights one of the problems of having an unusual name: sometimes it can cause more hassle and be downright problematic.
So it seems there is a balance which needs to be struck between a name that is unusual, but also fairly well known. Cliff fits the bill on that score and I thank my parents for it. The name Max also fits.

Of course there are many factors that contribute to someone's life, but a name can have more of an affect that most people think.

Moving pictures

Some of my favourite films are (in the order they come out of my head):
The good, the bad, and the ugly
Groundhog day
2001, a space odyssey
A fistful of dollars
For a few dollars more
Once upon a time in the west
The hairdresser's husband
The Star Wars sexology
Lamb (Liam Neeson)
AI (mostly for the end sequence)
Cross of iron
Woodstock
Apocalypse now
Spinal Tap
Wings of desire
Until the end of the world
King pin
The thing
Being John Malkovich
Gladiator
Spartacus
Local hero
The shawshank redemption
Raiders of the lost ark
Back to the future
The usual suspects
The passion of the Christ
Citizen Kane
The silence of the lambs
Fight club
It's a wonderful life
The matrix
Taxi driver
Leon
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
Alien
Life of Brian
Monty Python and the holy grail
Das Boot
Forrest Gump
The Terminator
The Predator
The sting
The elephant man
Blade runner
Le diner de cons
Children of men
Ben Hur
Twelve monkeys
Ai no corrida
Sleuth
In the heat of the night
Sleeper
Bananas
The world, the flesh and the devil
Shine
Casablanca
Alphaville
The fly
Akira
Lawrence of arabia
Bridge on the river kwai
Ninotchka
The game
Annie Hall
The magnificent seven
North by northwest
Jaws
Independence day (up until the humans start fighting back!)
The sound of music
Little big man
Jurassic park
Shane
The kid
Angels with dirty faces
Get carter
Pulp
Time bandits
Good morning vietnam
The dead zone
Theatre of blood
The man who fell to earth
L'Atalante
Fahrenheit 451
Les Valseuses
Henry portrait of a serial killer
Man bites dog
Zabriskie point
First blood
Enter the dragon
Nosferatu
Twins
Flash Gordon
War of the worlds (1960s)
Planet of the apes
Tron
Rocky
The naked gun
Wayne's world
Greystoke: tyhe legend of tarzan
Twister (1989)
Trust (Hartley)
The unbelievable truth (Hartley)
Serpico
The godfather
Contact
The dream team (1989)
Money movers
Ghost dog: the way of the samurai
An american werewolf in london
Flaming creatures
Je t'aime moi non plus
Diva


There are indubitably more than this, but that's enough for now.

Bomb nearly rocks central London

A terrorist event was very luckily avoided yesterday in central London (link). What first struck me was the incompetence of the perpetrators. Imagine the effort it must have taken to train in the handling and correct use of the materiel and science behind making such a device; then purchasing the materiel (presumably in a clever and organised way to avoid detection); and then finally having the guts to go ahead and follow through with creating this terrible device and then driving it through the streets of London... only to leave it with the doors wide open, the lights on and gas escaping from it, making it such a visible bomb attempt. This poor execution (in the terrorists' terms) is an error that leads one to think that these terrorist cells are poorly organised (perhaps caused by the nature of their organisation).

There are numerous explanations, from obvious conspiracy theories implying that it was set up by the secret service, general incompetence, or that the terrorists didn't actually want to harm anyone and this was a warning to show how easily they could carry out such an awful act.

We live in truly terrible times. I fear for major cities over the next few years and the people who have to work in them (I myself am travelling to London next week, although I'll be steering clear of central London where I can).

In more general, theoretical terms it's clear to me that this kind of crime is an acceptable price that the general public are willing to pay for less taxes. It's common for people to imagine that this sort of thing will never happen to them and so they are quite happy to risk being involved in something terrible if it means they don't have to pay the taxes which would guarantee protection from terrorists (a very difficult thing to quantify, but imagine having 10 times the current police force involved!). I would be willing to pay more money to protect the general public, but politicians know that if they propose a tax rise then they will be voted out of power because of the fact that people will take this risk with their lives (albeit a very, very small risk). What really pisses me off is when our "leaders" say things like the top priority of government is to protect its citizens ("The first duty of the government is the security and safety of all the British people" G. Brown) since this is clearly not the case.

Bum DDT

I often need to validate entry to websites using the random text generator technology sometimes called CAPTCHA. Apart from usually being fairly unreadable they always make no sense and are not interesting at all. Today, however, I found this:



By the way I have found my favourite Wikipedia article ever: link. I love the juxtaposition of the two meanings in this article. LOL indeed!

Excellent News!

Following my rant about the lack of accountability in modern society a story about BBC directors made me happy today (link). These directors have not met their targets fully and have decided to give up their bonuses.

Really I think this should be the norm, however it is certainly a refreshing change and one that I hope will be followed by more and more people in future.

Well done!

Stereotypical penny-pinching Scotty?!

I was amused recently by the story of James Doohan's ashes being blasted into space and then lost upon re-entry to Earth (link). It seemed ironic given that the character he played in Star Trek (Scotty) travelled across the known universe and back several times and yet in real life he couldn't make it past low Earth orbit. It seems, however, that it was intented to return to Earth with a bang (although losing the ashes was not part of the mission).

What I found difficult to imagine was why he (or his family) decided that this low level voyage was appropriate. I had discussions with my wife about this where I was arguing that it can't be too difficult to go a bit further and leave the Earth orbit entirely, whereas my wife argued that it must be more difficult and hence more expensive and that was the reason they don't do it. After numerous discussions involving Escape Velocities and Return On Investment we agreed to differ. It seems, though (link), that we were both right. The aeronautical company that runs the space-ashes-blasting services offers different grades of ashes-blasting including the one that Mr Doohan opted for (Earth Rise Service), but also a Voyager Service which includes sending ashes out of Earth-Moon system gravity and into "deep space" (which probably means smashing into Jupiter). The difference in price is great, but you still have to wonder why $12,500 was considered not worth it and an ignoble return to Earth was acceptible.

Let's hope Messrs Nimoy and Shatner's ambitions for space travel are more worthy of their on-screen personae...

A non-parasitic woman has arrived

I had thought that perceptions of beauty and handsomeness changed over time, however seeing this article today (link) has made me re-think. Nefertiti, if this ancient reproduction is anything to go by, was a beautiful woman by today's standards (most people's standards in Western countries anyway) as well as by ancient Egypt's.

I have never seen a more life-like antiquity and it's a very stunning image and one that could certainly grace the cover of any fashion magazine these days.

I understand some of the psychology of beauty, including ideas like symmetry and averaging, but I had assumed that these were relatively recent ideas (mostly sub-conscious) and, like ideal body-shapes, varied with each civilisation. It would appear, however, that beauty is more constant than that and, in fact, hasn't changed much in a long, long time due to deep-seated psychological necessity (see this link for examples). In the distant past, to have "beautiful" charactersistics must have been relatively rare and therefore more desirable. Our brains have carried this idea forward to today (via the ancient world, including Nefertiti) and so today we still desire more perfect (i.e. not damaged or infected) appearances.

In our "advanced", Western civilisation, where there is little disease and certainly not much parasitic infection to worry about, it would seem that this idea of beauty is not necessary for propagation of genes (the very reason we have ideas like beauty and child-bearing/child-rearing fitness at all).

Some say that evolution is finished for humanity and that we have progressed beyond being controlled by it. I would dispute that idea entirely and even with the fact that we have technology that will undoubtedly change the way we evolve, it's obvious to me that even in the short term (hundreds or thousands of years) humanity will evolve, in unexpected and obvious ways (e.g. we will probably not evolve an extra finger so that we can reach the CTRL key on computer keyboards!!), but in ways such as moving away from the dependance on physical attractiveness, or wealth to find an appropriate mate.

This in turn would have profound affects on society. A civilisation not bound up in superficialities is a dream for some people and I believe it to be a reality for my great, great grandchildren.

Either that or they'll have a tummy pouch for keeping the TV remote in!!

It works!

My throat feels fine today.

Universal future machine: a catawampus detection gizmo

While I'm on the subject of super computers I'll get this thought experiment off my chest:

Imagine that there's no free will. Every action or inaction on the planet (or system) is entirely predictable because every action or inaction is generated by calculating machines. These calculating machines are the atomic and molecular interactions of our brains, plant cells etc combined with other affects like gravitation, quantum interactions and the information contained in these states, e.g. a newspaper headline, the comedy of a moving film etc etc etc.
In this scenario it's possible to generate a computer (or future machine) that, when programmed with all the available information (a seemingly impossibly large data set including the positions and states of every subatomic particle in the system combined with the ultra complex plexus of information and meaning, e.g. a definition of sarcasm, or hunger) would be able to predict the future of the system with absolute accuracy.

In my opinion this kind of computer is impossible at our current level of human understanding, but in an incomprehensibly-advanced technological society who knows?!

Combine this idea with my other theory about the intelligent life in the universe (not actually my theory, but let's say I agree with Frank Drake - link) which estimates that civilisations have already existed and evolved over millions if not billions of years past our current level of civilisation. It's likely, therefore, that there is a "society" in the universe that has the technology to create this computer. If so then they must have programmed it with the requisite data set, including all the subatomic detail of the system - in this case the whole universe - and therefore all of the data relating to our planet will be in the computer already.

I don't think of this computer as a physical beige box sitting on some desk somewhere (imagine pressing the reset button by mistake!!). No, I imagine this as a computing system interlinked directly with the entire universe. It would be impossible to load the dataset in a timely manner otherwise. How the output of this "device" is extracted wouldn't be some printout either. It would be inextricably linked with the very fabric of space-time. I imagine, therefore, that this output can be picked up anywhere in the universe providing one has the correct output tool. I think that this tool already exists, however it's not some kind of multi meter. It is certainly immaterial and probably a form of energy unknown to humanity. At times we interact accidently and strangely with this tool and this perhaps explains why I get so confused with things in life!!

The fact that I'm writing this blog on a Sunday morning whilst sitting in my dressing gown in front of the television showing Dora The Explorer (link) in a small town in the East Midlands of the land we call England has been predicted and analysed by some computer perhaps lightyears away from here, perhaps millions of years ago. Kinda spooky! It would also know what I am going to do next and could almost be considered universally omnipotent. There is a link to spirituality here, but I'll save that for another post, although considering that my future is already planned and predicted is there any point? If there's any other post to this blog then consider it a miracle of free will against fate!

The most interesting thing about this idea (and the mind-splitting implications) is that I believe it to be an inevitable consequence of current science.

Sideline question: at what point can a future machine give a useful output without knowing the whole data set? For example, can this computer produce an output of the future with just the knowledge of where every human being is located at a given time combined with an extensive profile of every human?

"Je calculerai pour que l'échec soit impossible"

Predicting the future is very difficult (except for Nostradamus), however I had a vision of a possible/inevitable future just now.

Sometimes it's possible to view a starting position and imagine an ending position. The transition of how that something becomes the end position from the start position is the bit that cannot be imagined easily. For example I can view a start position today of the internet as an enormous network of computers and at the same time humans are on the cusp of creating something like artificial life (see link) in a very rudimentary form.

The end position I can envision is one where a giant computer "brain" links with the internet to create an "intelligence" with access to the global wealth of knowledge that the internet will become (by internet I imagine the collection of wired computers with their firewalls removed; not just the World Wide Web). Effectively this will become a sort of super intelligence only limited by the hardware.

I have established the start and end points. How could this transition happen? I think it's inevitable that something very like this will happen. It seems likely that the internet will continue to grow and encompass more and more information (including CCTV, archive data, live demographic data etc etc) and in perhaps 20 years from now we will see a global information network unimaginable by today's standards.

The artificial brain idea is something more difficult to predict at the moment. It is hinted at in the IBM research that there are brain-like fluctuations generated without adding any structure to the network. I think that in 5 years time they will have hooked up a running brain model which will have brain-like charactistics and by adding neuronal structure there should be some "intelligence" created. At first this intelligence would be mostly involving learning strageties and data storage, but that's a fairly good approximation for life. A machine running a brain program is only limited by hardware and judging by the latest trends in information systems (see link) we are on the cusp of seeing a dramatic shift in the capability of hardware which will make silicon look like steam power. I predict that within the next 20 years graphene will be used in top-end computers.

So I predict that within the next 20 or 30 years someone like IBM (or probably Google) will have a graphene based enormous computer running a brain program that is permanently linked to an unfathomably complex global network of computers.

This is certainly the stuff of science fiction (see Alphaville's Alpha-60 and Terminator's Skynet etc), but within my lifetime I hope we will start to see something like this emerging. There are dangers with this and I certainly hope that they are being considered. Does IBM have a philosopher and psychologist in its R&D division?

(the blog title translates as "I will calculate so that failure is impossible" and is a quote from Alphaville's Alpha-60 (see previous post))

Whiskey catholicon

It's clear to me that the health industry (including so-called alternative therapies) doesn't really know how to cure us of our ills. I'll admit that for a large number of problems modern medicine (again, I include many alternative therapies) can heal the human body very well, however there are always people who heal themselves in many different ways. There is so much that is not understood about the human body and the way that the psyche can affect its workings that I am amazed when anyone claims to know something categorically.

I think I have a very positive attitude (PMA) towards most things and especially my own body and it's ability to heal itself. Obviously I am ill on occasion, but I pride myself in the fact that it's less than most people and I put some of it down to my attitude (I am also slightly blessed with general good health). I also have some alternative remedies of my own, for example I take whiskey for a sore throat. The onset of a viral infection can have many symptoms and, seemingly, modern medicine has no cure for most of them. Perhaps it's a psychosomatic reaction that makes me think I can be cured by whiskey, or perhaps it's a general feeling of wellness accompanied by a wee tot, but in either event I very often think the home-spun, old grandmother's cure-alls do the trick as much as the "official" antidote. The history of medicine is really just a catalogue of science catching up with anecdotal restoratives in my view, so why bow to the modern physic machine? I think I'll stick with my tot and a good laugh.

The green, green everything of home

Push your imagination forward about 50 years. I think we'll be ready to create space-going vehicles with the capacity to travel at near light speeds and therefore would be able to reach other star systems in a reasonable time.

A very interesting news story today (link) made me think about the future and how human colonisation might work. Assuming our species lives another 50 years we might be able to set out on a journey to distant worlds. Let's say we can make it to Gliese 581 in about 30 years and colonise it. That would make the first humans born on another planet in about 80 years. They would be teenagers in about 100 years from today.

If they do not wear "corrective" spectacles then their eyes will develop very differently from their parents'. The sun around which Gliese 581 orbits is a red dwarf and therefore emits very red light, rather than a sort of yellow that our sun emits. This would mean that the cones in their eyes will be different so that they can see the detail on their native planet.

Imagine one of these people returning to Earth. How will their vision cope? Presumably they will see things very differently (probably everything will appear green since their red/green cones will have developed differently).

An interesting side affect of colonisation? Certainly it's something Star Trek never mentions!

More maths please, we're British

How we decide the prioritisation of state spending is a complex subject and varies according to many criteria, not least the political leanings of the incumbent government (or should that be recumbent!). Education is a complicated thing to fund because there needs to be consideration given both to the current state of education, e.g. teachers, blackboards etc, and the future needs of the society.

The future needs of our society seem to be slightly off kilter compared with the future needs of China's society if this news article is anything to go by: link. It seems that they are preparing their children for mathematical greatness whereas we are preparing ours for mathematical mediocrity. Of course, if you compare China's health service with ours it will not appear as advanced, however in twenty years, when those Chinese maths experts have grown up and had a chance to change their society I suspect that China will have a better society all round than we do.

It's natural pessimism to think this way, but one can't help it sometimes when you look at the potential of a country like China and what they're doing to educate their people for the future whilst we seem to be treading water!

More maths please!!

I think this has touched me especially today as I am on a bit of a maths kick at the moment. I am reading The Music of the Primes (backwards as it happens) and loving it. Sometimes I think I am close to grasping the underlying nature of numbers and how it relates to the Universe (see mathematical symmetry and Group Theory), but then I realise that my mind isn't wired in the right way. I doubt that anyone's mind is wired in the right way at this current epoch. There are, however, tantalising glimpes available today of some of the fundamental mechanisms of our Universe and they are both beautiful and shocking at the same time.

Now... what's that Pythagoras triangle thing again...

The intelligence of a Gardner (sic)

I have believed for a long time (since I was 17 and missed out on becoming a member of Mensa by two points) that IQ tests are not a very good way of testing general intelligence. It seems obvious that IQ tests only test a number of small areas of one’s overall intelligence. For example it’s quite possible for someone to have a very high IQ (based on logic, maths and English skills) and yet have a very diminished skills in other areas (spatial, social, musical etc). I think that IQ tests are useful in only assessing the particular types of intelligence like maths or English and also that there’s little correlation between these kinds of intelligence and an overall intelligence (whatever that means).

 

Having studied psychology at university I probably did come across Howard Gardner’s work before, but in either event I have re-discovered his work again today (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_intelligence). He has structured his ideas of the different types of intelligence into different groups and given them names. In my opinion this theory is excellent at trying to bring out the idea that the IQ test (over 100 years old and completely out of date, but worse still regarded by the public as worthy of what it claims: to be a guide to overall intelligence) is in need of change, but I think Gardner’s theory needs more work to standardise and structure the ideas of intelligence (I have only read the Wikipedia article so I could be completely wrong about that).

 

In any event it’s an interesting idea and one which needs to have more widespread acceptance in society. The idea that people have different kinds of intelligence and that each doesn’t have more intrinsic worth than another (e.g. it’s widely accepted that academic, mathematical or linguistic intelligence is better) is one which I think needs to be promoted throughout society. Further I think the way our society is structured, including the way we educate and value each other will, over time, change to reflect the fact that we are different and our individual skills should be enhanced and valued rather than stifled.

 

Gardner’s categories of intelligence are perhaps a little arbitrary, however. His Naturalistic Intelligence roughly equates to being green-fingered!

 

We're havin' a party

If any of my children ever tread this blog I hope they read this post perhaps the most. An interesting story in the news caught my attention today (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/6549267.stm). I remember when I was a teenager going to a couple of house parties and seeing some people out of control wrecking the host house in a very disrespectful way.
It always seemed naive of someone to invite complete strangers into their house to wreck it! The major reason to host such a party always seemd to me to be an attempt at increasing individual popularity, but almost always resulted in patronage and sympathy instead!
Something similar happened to someone very close to me and the consequences have never been forgotten (not quite as bad as the ones in the article today).

Suffice to say: do not have a party in my house! It's much more clever to go to someone else's house and let them clear up the mess!
;-}

I'll Pass

I passed my exam today! (70-431 MCTS Sql Server). I was shocked when I found out since I didn't really think I would. I am very chuffed. I am now a Microsoft Certified Professional and also a Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist. I want to move my career into serious database work, especially consultancy, so I think this is a very good first step into that area.

Catch Up

I'm slacking slightly on the post frequency (less than 2 per month at the moment!), so I really should pick things up a bit. It's not that I don't have much to say, it's more that I have been too busy to log in and write it out. This post is really just a bit of a catch-up.

I'm studying for my SQL Server exam this lovely long, sunny weekend. It's not nice being couped up having to digest this stuff, but it's going to be worth it!

We cut Max's hair yesterday. I had cut mine a week or so before after buying some fancy clippers and made a fairly good job of my own. Max's didn't turn out so well. It's OK for a little boy, but either his hair falls strangely, or Mum and I didn't think it through. It's difficult to do it properly as he moves and the hair irritates him, but it'll be better next time.

We also went to see Nanna, Shane and Sharon in Clumber Park. We hid some chocolate eggs in the wood and did an egg hunt with Max to find them. Afterwards we went to Harwell for a BBQ with Pops and Amie (Phil is in Romania). It was a very nice day.

Better get back to studying...

Hardcore text

How stupid do you have to be to setup to murder one's partner with the aid of a lover, but then to text message the details of the grisly event?! (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/6419643.stm)
It beggars belief that these two have not only brutally killed someone, but that they thought they wouldn't get caught by sending these messages, but also that he still denies it!
I suppose in a strange way you have to admire his pluck! He's either completely crazy (likely), has terrible legal advice, or is completely innocent.
I'll keep my eyes open for the verdict (in 6 months or so).

Different tack: I watched Alphaville today (in the brief moments when I wasn't working). It was a very interesting film. It's certainly stylish, but in a very strange French, low budget sort of way. It's either very badly written, imagined and directed or it's a work of utter genius. I'm leaning slightly towards genius, but only because I love French films (in all their pretentious, drawn out, deep glory) and also because the voice of the omnipotent computer Alpha 60 is the strangest, mesmerising French voice I have ever heard (actually a man's voice through a mechanical voice box). Oh... and Anna Karina looks great as well.

It's a miracle

Just like that scene in The Abyss, the decision to “give up” on someone who has “died” is not always a good one (see amazing, touching story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/6403389.stm). It strikes me that there is an enormous trust put in medical staff. The parents of this miraculous boy (and the sage nods of The Abyss crew saying “she’s gone...” or “it’s over... “) got it wrong. Why did they trust the opinions of doctors? I imagine these doctors are right perhaps 90% of the time in their jobs so perhaps on most cases they should be trusted, however sometimes the arrogance of the medical profession gets in the way of doing the right thing. Just because 99.999% of children who have heart attacks and lose consciousness for 30 minutes don’t come back to life does it mean that doctors should stop trying in all cases? The doctors know the statistics, but the parents don’t.

Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh on the medical staff who probably did all they could, but I can’t help thinking that I would be trying everything in my power to bring my child back to life even if it meant giving the kiss of life for a week. There’s always a chance. Isn’t there? Miracles do happen!

I think Shakespeare had it right (as he usually does) when he said: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (or something like that anyway), which I think means that there’s so much that is unknown to humanity and it doesn’t take much to have some humility and say that you don’t know something. There should be more of that in the world.

On a different note – this amused me today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Stool_Scale.
Especially the bit: “The United Bristol Trust and North Bristol NHS Trust, the largest NHS trusts in Bristol, do not use [it].”
Ironic?

Understand and improve

I am envious of people who have good technical knowledge of things. I am unsure whether this is something they have acquired through careful study, or by having an aptitude for this sort of thing. I think I do have an aptitude for technical things, however I need practical examples in order to remember them. For example I think I would be a good car mechanic, if only I had any experience of working with a car. It is purely the fact that I have not had exposure to hands-on mechanical experiences that I know very little about cars.

I believe that one of the hurdles to my problem is that fact that modern society has the desire for complex devices to have their workings hidden and therefore to work efficiently without needing any assistance from the owner. I expect that in my grandfather's day (and I know my maternal grandfather was good with mechanical things, not necessarily out of necessity) car owners were expected to be able to fix the basics without much tuition. These days manufacturers design their products to work without intervention and the general public don't want to be bothered with having to manage their devices: they should just work without intervention. I don't mind this attitude, however it does lead to a lack of knowledge in the user. Perhaps that's why I like the Hacking movement (especially Make magazine): it encourages people to tinker and understand their possessions as well as trying to improve and adapt what they already have.

Accountability

I have come to realise that the general lack of accountability in almost all walks of life in The West is responsible for the majority of our ills. I believe that if we were all held accountable for our actions then our society would be quite a lot better.

I am placing the blame for some of this on Christianity and some on general laziness. It seems too easy these days to forgive someone for something they have done wrong and to forget the problem than it is to punish or even recognise that there was some wrongdoing. (not that I am criticising Christianity entirely; just some aspects of it)

This isn't such a problem at the familial level of society, but much more of an issue in the way the country is run through corporations and government. The worst examples of this I find are in large companies and in central government… and there are so many examples that I don't know where to start. I expect to be coming back to this topic in the future as I think it's so critical to modern society and there are so many instances of abuse that I think it's always worthy of examination.

The inspiration this morning is the current Iraq war. I will predict that George Bush and Tony Blair will not have to be accountable for the disgraceful events that have taken place in Iraq in the last few years even though they are the heads of state of the two countries most involved. They will both ease out of government (or should that be slime out of government) and into their luxury lifestyles (including a library for George - what's he going to use that for!!) without having to be tried for war crimes. I'm sure there will be calls for prosecution, but there is nothing that anyone can do about it (unless we start a revolution - by the way I'm up for it).

The fact that George either didn't listen to his advisors, didn't have the right advisors or didn't have any advisors means that he was negligent. It seems obvious now that Iraq would descend into a civil war-type scenario and any expert would have been able to predict this. It seems amazing to be thinking that Saddam Hussein was in some way a unifying force and he seems almost benign compared to the savagery and pure evil taking over Iraq at the moment (it's heart-breaking to see what's happening there every day). Surely there is someone in the US government who understands the way that Iraqi politics and dictator politics has defined Iraq and would continue to define the country with or without US intervention.

Of course, I can see the reasons behind an invasion. I can understand the thought processes that sent the soldiers there and the way it was passed through the flimsy governmental checks to get there, however it is simply unacceptable for there to not have been the right people in the right place to tell George Bush and Tony Blair that if you do this then there will be worse carnage than before and it will be on your hands. How could they have lived with that?! But worse of all is how they will not have to pay the price and, in fact, they will end up being rewarded for instigating such a human catastrophe.

Another example is the Enron case a couple of years ago. How the people who "stole" that money haven't been shot is beyond me. If I was one of the employees who lost thousands of dollars while the company managers were taking millions (and I lived in a country where it is relatively easy to get hand guns) then I surely would have waited for one of these thieves to come home and then shoot him on his driveway. I'm genuinely surprised that that hasn't happened yet. It is criminal (actually it is literally criminal since there is an impending court case) that these crooks can do this. I know there is a legislative punishment coming to some of the top guys, but it's not enough. The subject of crime and punishment is an upcoming entry to this blog so I won't spoil it now, but I do believe that the punishment should fit the crime and too often it doesn't. Anyway, it's another case of accountability gone crazy. There are many, many more… from the silly company I work for, to the railway network in the UK, to Microsoft, to food manufacturing companies etc etc etc. Please, please, please can we start being accountable?!