Digital Dreams
Hi. I still use LJ, follow my friends and similar, but I've moved my main host to Dreamwidth, and crosspost everything here.
Mat Bowles. It's fully interoperative, the OpenID comment functions there are good and improving, and I follow everything from both sites without problem.
Mat Bowles. It's fully interoperative, the OpenID comment functions there are good and improving, and I follow everything from both sites without problem.
A new economy that works for families. Where men and women can choose how to balance work and home. That’s why Liberal Democrats are bringing in shared parental leave and more flexible working.This is a very cheering thing to see. I knew it was likely on the cards and was being worked on, but actually having it confirmed in the Deputy Prime Minister's conference speech is a very cool thing.
Because, basically, it's my idea and policy. It wasn't just me, but when I first took Jennie to conference she stwearded a consultancy session and suggested it to the policy working group that included people who're now ministers. At her next conference when she was a fully accredited voting rep, it was in the policy paper that working group created out of the consultations. Jennie swears it wasn't just her talking about it, but I wasn't there & I know she did propose it.
But we'd been talking about it at home in advance as it was something I felt would be very helpful, not just for our family arrangements but also to help solve ongoing disparities. Scarily? I first started thinking about it after Tim Worstall convinced me maternity leave was a big contributor to the gender pay gap issue, both irectly and through covert discrimination. So, there we go. A flagship policy that grew out of a conversation I had online with a former UKIP press officer and candidate...
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I called what the title meant ages back (and if anyone can tell me where I did it as it wasn't a post I can find I'd be very grateful), but the Wikihistory story is just brilliant *anyway*, so you should read it.(tags: Doctor+Who steven-moffatt)
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matgbs updated Delicious Glue script.
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I was going to link to this when I next did a linkdump anyway, but today the timing's awesome.
matgbs updated Delicious Glue script.
Absolutely FabulousAbsolutely Fabulous is 20 years old.
BBC One | 9, 16, 23 September
The cast reunite for three 20th anniversary specials.
Due to the popularity of this show we are operating a random draw for tickets.
You can apply for tickets at any time until Thursday 1 September at 4pm.
You can apply for a maximum of two tickets and one recording per household.
Good luck with your application.
All information is correct at time of publication.
I am coming to terms with the idea that in two weeks time I will become 37. I am coming to terms with there being junior Govt ministers younger than me. I am coming to terms with being served by people who weren't born when I was their age.
But Absolutely Fabulous is twenty years old? Seriously?
Back in 1936, renowned sculptor Isamu Noguchi was in Mexico working on a 72-ft-long public mural when he hit a snag: for some reason, he couldn't precisely recall the famous formula, E=mc². Rather than risk a mistake, he decided to seek advice and wired his good friend, Buckminster Fuller — a famed architect and great admirer of Einstein — for clarification.I find telegrams almost impossible to read (ALL CAPS SHOUTING IS HARD OK), so while there's a picture of the telegram and a transcription, I thought I'd try some CSS to get rid of the caps without needing to retype the whole thing:
That's Richard Buckminster-Fuller explaining Einstein in a few sentences. I now need to go close about 50 billion wikipedia pages on various related subjects including Fullerenes, carbon-nanotubes and space elevators. But I felt the need to shareEINSTEINS FORMULA DETERMINATION INDIVIDUAL SPECIFICS RELATIVITY READS QUOTE ENERGY EQUALS MASS TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT SQUARED UNQUOTE
SPEED OF LIGHT IDENTICAL SPEED ALL RADIATION COSMIC GAMMA X ULTRA VIOLET INFRA RED RAYS ETCETERA ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY SIX THOUSAND MILES PER SECOND WHICH SQUARED IS TOP OR PERFECT SPEED GIVING SCIENCE A FINITE VALUE FOR BASIC FACTOR IN MOTION UNIVERSE STOP
SPEED OF RADIANT ENERGY BEING DIRECTIONAL OUTWARD ALL DIRECTIONS EXPANDING WAVE SURFACE DIAMETRIC POLAR SPEED AWAY FROM SELF IS TWICE SPEED IN ONE DIRECTION AND SPEED OF VOLUME INCREASE IS SQUARE OF SPEED IN ONE DIRECTION APPROXIMATELY THIRTY FIVE BILLION VOLUMETRIC MILES PER SECOND STOP
FORMULA IS WRITTEN QUOTE LETTER E FOLLOWED BY EQUATION MARK FOLLOWED BY LETTER M FOLLOWED BY LETTER C FOLLOWED CLOSELY BY ELEVATED SMALL FIGURE TWO SYMBOL OF SQUARING UNQUOTE
ONLY VARIABLE IN FORMULA IS SPECIFIC MASS SPEED IS A UNIT OF RATE WHICH IS AN INTEGRATED RATIO OF BOTH TIME AND SPACE AND NO GREATER RATE OF SPEED THAN THAT PROVIDED BY ITS CAUSE WHICH IS PURE ENERGY LATENT OR RADIANT IS ATTAINABLE STOP
THE FORMULA THEREFORE PROVIDES A UNIT AND A RATE OF PERFECTION TO WHICH THE RELATIVE IMPERFECTION OF INEFFICIENCY OF ENERGY RELEASE IN RADIANT OR CONFINED DIRECTION OF ALL TEMPORAL SPACE PHENOMENA MAY BE COMPARED BY ACTUAL CALCULATION STOP
SIGNIFICANCE STOP
SPECIFIC QUALITY OF ANIMATES IS CONTROL WILLFUL OR OTHERWISE OF RATE AND DIRECTION ENERGY RELEASE AND APPLICATION NOT ONLY OF SELF MECHANISM BUT OF FROM SELF MACHINE DIVIDED MECHANISMS AND RELATIVITY OF ALL ANIMATES AND INANIMATES IS POTENTIAL OF ESTABLISHMENT THROUGH EINSTEIN FORMULA
BUCKY
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How cool would this be? That China also expects international travel to be more and more common is indicative of movement in certain other areas as well. Would be great if it can happen, suspect logistics are going to be a headache though.
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Look at that change in fortunes-Nokia once taking a massive slice of smartphone sales profits, now making a loss on them and Apple clearly way out ahead.(tags: apple mobile-phones)
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I love this sort of thing, using the opening of a new fashion store to understand more about the dynamics of an environment.
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Follow up from the link the other day about the redesigned map, one of the reasons why changing might be a good idea.
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Still no luck in Edinburgh for Andi. She needs to tour the country and come to West Yorks.
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Actual sales figures as well as market share. Nokia's Symbian, despite the announcement that it's being canned, still outselling iPhone's and only a small drop in total sales. Android through roof, Windows plummetting, Blackberry up in sales, down in %age, to be expected. Hell, Samsung's new Bada outselling MS. App devs and companies advertising apps need to look at actual figures before going large on advertining their iPhone apps. Silly hype believing marketers.
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More analysis of the Motorola purchase, even if it's defensive purchasing, it still stinks that so many stupid software patents exist for competing ideas, utterly ridiculous setup that discredits the whole IP system.
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To stop the wall, Adenauer proposed a teritory swap. I think that goes nearer the top of my list of counterfactuals that're worth thinking about.
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Phil Plait goes into more detail on Fuhrer's images, worth a read
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Some absolutely stunning renderings of the planets, including some in scale to each other. Dodgy JS gallery makes seeing them in full size harder though, if you right click and 'view image' you should get the actual full size stuff, really worth it
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Ye gods, the patent wars continue.
matgbs updated Delicious Glue script.
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I've rewatched Starkey's train wreck of a Newsnight performance twice now, and I've read both Toby Young and Jerry Hayes defending what they thinks he meant to say. I suspect, actually, that they're right about what he was trying to say. But he used such racist language in such a dismissive and stupid way that he was, quite simply, wrong. Here's hoping he'll stop getting invited on shows like Question Time to rudely talk over every other panellist and refuse to let anyone else get a word in edgeways. If I never see him on TV again I'll be happy. Man's an arse.
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I like the existing map, but it can't half be confusing at times. Stations that're around the corner from each other look like they're miles apart, lines that go straight up actually curve around half of London, etc. And the Overground and other new additions look stupid on it. Why not start from scratch, apply the same basic principles, and see what comes out?
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"the defeat of Voldemort by Harry Potter may have been the easy part. Indeed, one might even say it was child's play. The hard work of postwar stabilization still lies ahead. " Not sure I agree with all of their proposed ideas, but I'm ten years out of date in the literature, perhaps readers with more hands on experience in the area might contribute an opinion?
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The interminable patent disputes with the higher end tech markets are really getting to me now, the whole area of law seems in major need of reform, two major trading partners are also suing each other for ripping each other off, etc etc. But to block sales of a product line without hearing or notification? Something wrong with that.
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If there's a sudden shortage in a commodity because, say, the wheatfields in Russia go up in smoke, then prices rise, partially due to speculators investing. But that rise in prices encourages more production of the commodity, seeing prices start to fall again and stopping massive peaks and troughs in prices. After a lot of reading around this, I've come to the conclusion that the futures market is actually a Good Thing within the current trade framework. This surprised me, but the evidence is clear(tags: economics speculation)
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A couple are, well, offensive, but most are well done and funny(tags: humour)
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Number one is two separate case studies, both ridiculously dull. Nice to see Britain punching above its weight in the stupid department again.
matgbs updated Delicious Glue script.
When I look back to what I've read about previous riots in London over the centuries, when I look at corruption scandals or financial collapses, it really does put into perspective how lucky we are and have been.
I mean, seriously, riots across all of London,
The bankers are finally brought down, not by deliberate deceit, not by active fraud or theft, but by incompetence and optimism.
Parliament is brought into disrepute in a corruption scandal. What over? A few grand on a duck house, a few grand over claimed on a mortgage, etc. Compare that to many other countries today? Compare that to corruption scandals in the past in the UK?
Moral decay? We've never had it so good.
Scary, isn't it?
ETA: Apparently there's been a death in Ealing that I had overlooked, the post is amended to reflect that.
One of the candidates, Chris Carrigan, has written some notes on the elections on the Reform groups site, which was founded in large part by activists heavily involved in the Yes referendum campaign who were very disgruntled with central leadership. I, broadly, shared those worries and concerns, and will be giving those involved, broadly, fairly high preferences, although nowhere near the order Chris has outlined.
Partially because Andrew Hickey has raised some concerns having read through the full set of manifestos already and noticed things I didn't. As I've said in the comments there, I know in some cases his concerns aren't justified, but can't say that for all the candidates.
So, I still need to decide my full running order, but the early ones are fairly close to fixed in my mind.
( 1 - Thom Oliver )
( 2 - Paul Pettinger )
( 3 - Arnie Craven )
( 4 - Jessica Asato )
( 5 - Andy May )
Up to now, all those I've listed have been pro reform of the way the ERS works, although the top two aren't on the Reform slate. My sixth choice? Is the complete opposite of a reformer. He's someone who's talents and abilities I have so much respect for that even if we do disagree on the future of the society, I'd want him to be heavily involved and giving the benefits of his decades of experience. I refer, of course, to ( 6 - Michael Meadowcroft )
To be honest, due to my knowledge of how STV and vote transfers work, I'm not sure after the last three I'll have much left to transfer on to others as I suspect and hope the last three I list will definitely get elected due to name recognition. Consequently I'm open to suggestions for my remaining preferences, I plan to vote for at least 15 people (the size of the Council), but a small fraction of quota after Michael gets on is likely largely irrelevent. Worth paying some attention to though, as I may be completely wrong and misread the field.
I'm also open to persuasion/suggestion if you know anyone else on the candidates list personally or politically and feel I've unfairly overlooked them. I may simply go with the order from Chris's above list, but I'm not sure how confident I am about some of those he favours. For example, Amisha Ghadiali is [one of] the only [two] visibly BAME candidates, and she appears competent, however her statement both on the website and in the ballot pack is riddled with typing and spelling errors, in one case her actual meaning is unclear. While I'm notorious for typos and similar, if I'm submitting something important for campaigning purposes, I always get a competent proofreader, that's just basic.
To most of you, of course, this is all completely irrelevent, as membership of the ERS is an unusual thing to say the least. However of my personal friends, the proportion involved is higher than the general population, and I welcome feedback from anyone with any interest or knowledge.
ETA: It's been pointed out in comments that I overlooked Eric Syddique when I wrote that line, it's now amended.
The Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra decided to flashmob the local station.
Introspection
I'm Mat Bowles, a Devonshire lad displaced to Yorkshire. I work at the local school, do some work online, campaign on issues I care about locally and nationally, and look after the house and family.This is a backup of my personal journal where I write about or link to whatever I've found that amused, intrigued or enraged me at the time. I'm a committed liberal, feminist and atheist, but I really like it when people can demonstrate I'm wrong, and have close friends with whom I completely disagree on some if not all of those points.
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