Posts
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Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Friday, 4 December 2009
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
A good Apple parody advert for the Sun
via boingboing.net
Shame it's for the Sun, and also that it's supporting the wrong side in a losing battle (see buzzmachine.com for why), but I like this advert.
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Sunday, 29 November 2009
Intelligence Squared debate on the Catholic Church in full(?)
It seems that the videos I included in an earlier post on this subject were an edited version of the debate, not the whole thing. Here's an unedited (or at least, less-edited) version.
Intelligence Squared debate on the Catholic Church in full(?)
It seems that the videos of this debate that I included in an earlier post had been cut quite a bit. Here's the thing in full, or at least with less missing.
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Thursday, 26 November 2009
'The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution' by Richard Dawkins
I've just finished this book, and on the whole enjoyed it. It does seem slightly lacking in structure, with a rather unfocussed stream parts of the overwhelming evidence in favour of the 'theory' of evolution. Those pieces of evidence are fascinating though.
One important point Dawkins makes at the start of the book is about the confusion over what the word 'theory' means, quoting from the Oxford English Dictionary:
Theory, Sense 1: A scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena; a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment, and is propounded or accepted as accounting for the known facts; a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed.
Theory, Sense 2: A hypothesis proposed as an explanation; hence, a mere hypothesis, speculation, conjecture; an idea or set of ideas about something; an individual view or notion.
Those who reject evolution often do so in the belief that evolution is a theory in the second sense, when it is in fact a theory in the first sense, just like the 'theory of electromagnetism' or the 'theory of relativity.'
If you want to read the book, you can buy it here
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Monday, 23 November 2009
An interesting Radiolab episode on morality and how our brains work
Killing Babies, Saving the World
By Radiolab
November 17, 2009
To get this podcast started, Robert ambushes Jad with a question … a question we’ve all been dying to ask him since June 10th, 2009, when Amil Abumrad came into the world. But fear not, we didn’t do a whole podcast just to give the new dad a hard time. Robert talks to Josh Greene, the Harvard professor we had on our Morality show. They revisit some ideas from that show in the context of the big, complicated problems of today (think global warming and nuclear war). Josh argues that to deal with those problems, we’re going to have to learn how to make better use of that tiny part of our brain that handles abstract thinking. Not a simple proposition, but, despite the odds, Josh has hope.
Photo by: Flickr/ connieth
via wnyc.org
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Saturday, 21 November 2009
White collar crime and double standards
I strongly recommend you listen to the latest three episodes of Radio 4's Thinking Allowed programme, on the subject of white collar crime.While you might be worried about being stabbed or robbed in the street, the crimes you should really care about are the ones committed by people wearing suits, not hoodies. These criminals affect the lives of everyone and yet they are rarely punished, let alone censured. If you're not angry, you're not thinking hard enough.
Programme 1 | Programme 2 | Programme 3
Programme 1 | Programme 2 | Programme 3
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Book recommendations from the Book Seer
Read a book you liked and want to read other things like it? Want lots of recommendations but refuse to visit more than one site to get them? A fan of Victorian-style facial hair?The Book Seer might be for you.
Monday, 16 November 2009
TVCatchup on iPhone
It seems that the very handy (but somewhat misleadingly-named) TVCatchup is even handier than I thought. The site, which lets you watch live British TV via the internet (but not "catch up" on things you've missed), has an iPhone-compatible site too!
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
'Transition' by Iain Banks
Iain (M.) Banks' recent books have not impressed me nearly as much as his earlier work, but I'm always hopeful that he'll get back to form one day. His latest work, Transition
If you're interested in checking it out but are not sure if it's worth your money, the book is available in abridged audio form as a free podcast in iTunes.
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Friday, 13 November 2009
Thursday, 12 November 2009
'Stumbling on Happiness' by Daniel Gilbert
This is a book about the ways we experience, remember, and predict feelings, and the mistakes we make in doing so. It's not a recipe for the perfect happy life, but I recommend it.
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Is the Catholic church a force for good in the world?
I think it's pretty clear that the answer to this question is "no," but here is the motion as debated by Christopher Hitchens, Stephen Fry, Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop John Onaiyekan. Not much of a debate really, as there's little that can be said to refute the motion, but here it is:
You can watch the whole thing on YouTube here.
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Petition to make the Press Complaints Commission a public body
Britain's newspapers currently 'regulate' themselves via the Press Complaints Commission. This petition proposes that it instead becomes a public body:
Following the article in the Daily Mail on Friday 16th October by Jan Moir in relation to the death of Stephen Gately, the PCC received over 21,000 complaints; however the chairman the Code committee for the PCC is currently the editor of the Daily Mail Paul Dacre.
As the formula one boss Max Mosley said when giving evidence to the culture, media and sport committee at the House of Commons “"It's like putting the mafia in charge of the local police station. You can't let them regulate themselves."
The PCC was weakened by preferential treatment to the newspaper industry and it lacked sufficient powers to appropriately deal with cases. The government needs to abolish the current PCC and re launch the committee as a public body so the public can have faith in the PCC once again.
If you want to sign the petition, click here.
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Friday, 6 November 2009
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Al Gore, "carbon billionaire"?
So, it appears that Al Gore stands to make a large amount of money on his investments in green energy, possibly making him the first "carbon billionaire."
And he is actually being attacked for this, accused of promoting his views on global warming simply in order to make a profit. I strongly doubt that those who disregard the science behind man-made climate change would take kindly to the contrary suggestion that they do so for the sake of money, despite the far more compelling evidence.
Right-wing – and especially Republican – doublethink is getting more insane by the day.
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Ibis Reader and BookServer
Ibis Reader, an in-development digital reading system for a range of internet devices that provides access to books both online and offline
The shift from paper to digital books is (finally) actually happening, and will entail far greater changes and benefits than the shift from analogue to digital music ever did. I really hope publishers don't make as much of a hash of it as the music industry managed to. Things like Ibis Reader and BookServer should help them to find the best path.
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Scale: coffee bean, carbon, and Powers of Ten
For your consideration, a view of the relative sizes of a coffee bean and a carbon atom, and many things in between.
In a similar vein, Charles and Ray Eames' Powers of Ten.
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Nick Griffin on Question Time
So, despite protests, the BBC had the BNP's chief schmuck Nick Griffin on its last episode of Question Time. There were plenty of people protesting – quite rightly – against the hateful Nick Griffin, but there was also a lot of anger directed at the BBC for "allowing him a platform." If Peter Hain was right in saying that the BNP's (at least current) requirement for members to be "indigenous caucasians" makes it an illegal organisation, then they certainly should not have been allowed on Question Time. But if that's the case, why haven't their local council and european parliament seats been taken away from them, and why was this objection not raised at the time of the elections? Free speech is essential, and has to mean the right to say unpleasant as well as pleasant things, as so memorably put by Voltaire Voltaire's biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
But was the show a success? I think probbaly not – it was a bit of a shambles really. It might not have won the BNP many votes, but I can't imagine it lost them any.
§ Language evolves, and fighting this process is foolish, if not impossible. But I do have a problem with the idea that once a word has found a new meaning, the old one should be considered incorrect and worthy of attack. Nick Griffin described the result of immigration into the UK as "genocide," meaning, in the original sense of the word, what Raphael Lemkin called in 1944 "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves." The mass murder of a particular group can be included in this definition, but it is not the only feature of genocide. Of course, Nick Griffin is flatly wrong to describe as genocide the currrent evolution of British society, but the panel's main response came from Conservative life peer (and Nick Griffin's co-homophobe) Sayeed Warsi, who, rather than refuting his claim, simply took deep offence at what she saw as his misuse of the word. In popular use its meaning may have changed, but why did no one point out her misunderstanding?
§ A similar point came when a woman in the audience objected to the use of the phrase "Afro-Caribbean," prescribing instead "African-Caribbean." Perhaps she had heard the phrase "African-American" but not the phrases "Anglo-Indian," "Franco-Prussian," "Serbo-Croatian," "Italo-American" and "anarcho-syndicalist." It's a shame, for everyone's sake, that no one explained her mistake.
§ One audience member pointed out that it was unreasonable to attack muslims and not christians, as (the christian) Nick Griffin does. He was right, but I think he meant that we should therefore go easy on all religions. I'd say that he had it the wrong way round: many of the attacks on Islam (such as on its misogyny, homophobia, and belief in fairy stories, for instance) are justified. We just need to get started all the other religions too.
If you missed the programme, you can catch it for a while longer here, or just have a look at cassetteboy's edited highlights:
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Friday, 2 October 2009
The Scandal of Trashing Britain's Brilliant Broadcasting To Please Rupert Murdoch
There is a scandal in British politics that is passing almost unnoticed in the night. It will alter the ecology of our politics – and our culture – in ways that will damage us for decades to come. There is one thing most British people think we do best: broadcasting. A recent ICM poll found that 77 percent think the BBC is an institution to be proud of, and 63 percent say it is good value for money. This makes the BBC by a long way the most popular public institution in Britain – yet both main political parties are lining up to happy-slap Auntie. The link between the license fee and the Beeb is about to be broken by a Labour government, and a Tory government will sweep in and widen the gap, while unleashing a snarling pack of Fox News-style hounds across the rest of the channels. And for what? To win the favour of a foreign right-wing billionaire.
Let’s start with the good news. The BBC works. For just £2.60 a week, the British get a package of the best television and radio in the world. We get the best comedies, the best drama, and the best news. There’s a reason why we have won seven of the past ten international Emmies, and the BBC News website is the most popular on earth. As soon as he took power, Nicholas Sarkozy asked how he could make French broadcasting more like ours. It is a model for the world of how to create journalism that isn’t contaminated by either corporate advertisers and proprietors on one side, or state ownership on the other. Three independent polls have found that a large majority of Brits would happily pay more for it.
Of course we can all find some parts of its output we don’t like. I can’t stand Jeremy Clarkson, Andrew Neil’s blatant editorializing, Chris Moyles, or bogus questions about whether Gordon Brown is popping pills. A right-wing bias still seeps into a lot of its news coverage: see the new book ‘Newspeak’ by David Edwards and David Cromwell for details. But other people will loathe the parts I love – In Our Time, Start the Week, Eastenders, Question Time, Lauren Laverne, Mark Kermode, BBC4. It’s a package: it’s impossible for every part to delight every individual. But when there are so many riches, we almost all find something to enjoy: a London Business School found that 99 percent of us use it every week.
Far from becoming outdated, the BBC model is more necessary now than ever. Commercial television is losing its ability to produce quality programmes, fast. Advertising money is leaking away to the internet: this week, for the first time, online advertising overtook TV ads in Britain. Revenues are expected to fall by 20 percent in the next decade, and to continue spiralling after that. As more of us get digital packages that make it possible to record programmes and fast-forward through the ad breaks, it will only get worse. Budgets for shows on commercial channels are in freefall. We won’t get good programmes for nothing again. The BBC is the simplest answer, and we are overwhelmingly happy to pay it.
So why would our politicians start trashing this system? Rupert Murdoch has long despised the BBC, for the simple reason that although it works well for us, it works badly for him. He can’t step in and make a profit by providing his import-filled alternatives, because we’re happy with what we have. So he has launched a long campaign through his newspapers to delegitimise the BBC. They relentlessly present it as poor value, biased to the left, and bloated. It’s not working with the public: the BBC is 9 percent more popular today than a decade ago. But he is determined to shrink the BBC to a feeble service like PBS in the US, producing worthy programmes watched by a handful.
Despite losing the public argument, Murdoch has another way to exert influence: his newspapers have long applauded the politicians who most serve his interests, and savaged the politicians who lag behind. It’s part of a long pattern that stretches across continents: anyone who wants to understand it should read ‘The Murdoch Archipelago’ by Bruce Page. In the debate about the Sun’s endorsement of David Cameron this week, many naïve observers have acted as if the newspaper is a pressure group with only the interests of the British people at heart, rather than the arm of a corporate machine acting bluntly in its own self-interest.
The Labour government began the bidding for Murdoch’s favour by proposing – for the first time – to break the link between the license fee and the BBC. From now on, a chunk of it will be given to other broadcasters like Channel Four and regional news providers. At first it sounds like a small and reasonable step – it will go to support valuable programming – but it begins a process that will bleed the BBC. You won’t be able to see so clearly where your money is going. Gradually, more and more money will be dispersed from the BBC by a Tory government eager to keep Murdoch’s favour, and the corporation will shrink back. As it provides less easily traceable value, it will be harder to defend the license fee itself – and Murdoch will win.
The Tories then upped the bidding. This summer Ofcom – Britain’s broadcasting regulators – found Murdoch’s BSkyB guilty of effectively pricing other companies out of the pay-TV market. David Cameron responded by saying he will quietly put Ofcom to sleep, scrapping most of its regulations. Then he gave Murdoch another bauble he has craved for decades: he is going to scrap all the political impartiality rules covering British television (except on the BBC). If Cameron succeeds, Sky News will mutate into Fox News, pumping its poison 24/7. Murdoch duly endorsed the Tories.
This quid pro quo is unspoken – there are no meetings in darkened rooms – but Murdoch is quids in nonetheless. His son James Murdoch has been at the forefront of trying to rationalize these grabs for profit. He called the impartiality rules “an impingement on the right to free speech.” This is based on a basic error. Your right to free speech – which is the closest thing I have to a sacred belief – doesn’t include the right to speak wherever you want. I don’t have a primetime show on BBC One to expound my views, but that doesn’t mean I’m being censored. Your right to say what you want doesn’t entail a right to say it on the public airwaves. They are a shared public resource, and it is right to regulate them in the public interest.
Murdoch Junior then claimed the BBC “penalizes the poorest in our society with regressive taxes and policies.” This is hilarious. If Murdoch is against regressive taxes, why has New International – which makes billions – paid no net taxation in Britain for over a decade? Why do his newspapers vehemently oppose moves to tax the rich more and the poor less? After this argument belly-flopped, he claimed the only “guarantor of independence [in broadcasting] is profit.” Perhaps he should visit Italy, where the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, owns half the TV channels, and makes them support his political campaigns.
Enough. We can’t tolerate a clandestine campaign to trash one of our great national institutions, just so a foreign billionaire can make more profit. Where are these politicians’ spines? Where is their patriotism?
via johannhari.com
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Spotify goes offline
No, we’re not turning off the music - we’re extending the popular ‘offline mode’ that is available on Spotify Mobile and bringing it to your computer!
Starting today, Spotify Premium subscribers will be able to select their playlists and set them to be ‘Available offline’. Those playlists will then be synced to your computer so you can continue to listen to your favorite tunes if you have a slow connection or even if you have no connection at all. Each computer will be able to store up to 3,333 tracks at a time.
To use ‘offline mode’ you’ll need to be running the latest version of Spotify and you may have to log out and back in for the feature to kick in.
So don’t let the lack an internet connection stop you from listening to Spotify - upgrade to Spotify Premium today and sync your music.
via spotify.com
Spotify just keeps getting better, making the premium option more and more attractive...
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Augmenting Aerial Earth Maps with Dynamic Information (augearth)
via youtube.com
We are going to have to rethink our ideas about the world and our place in it in pretty major ways in the coming years. The notion of privacy will also change beyond recognition before too long. I don't think this is necessarily in itself such a terrible thing.
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Stop blaming the poor. It's the wally yachters who are burning the planet | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian
about one sixth of the world's population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all
via guardian.co.uk
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
Waze
Waze does something similar to Google Maps (as I mentioned in an earlier post) but goes a bit further and is, in some ways, a bit cooler. It has some obvious drawbacks, but it looks interesting.
You can see how it works here.
via Boing Boing
Monday, 21 September 2009
Crowdsourced traffic information from Google
I hinted in an earlier post that I'm increasingly of the opinion that when I replace my iPhone it will be with a handset running a version of Android, not a new iPhone. Apple's strict control over what will work on an iPhone, and over how software can work once it's been blessed with approval just seems too restrictive, and prevents its phones from doing really cool things.
One of those cool things is the way in which Google Maps, when running on an Android or Palm phone (but not on an iPhone), can send information on the phone's location and speed to Google (where steps are taken to preserve privacy), and then the information is sent back to the maps app in the form of an indication of traffic congestion. Simple, ingenious and useful, this is a great example of the possibilities offered by modern, location-aware, internet-connected phones, and one that will only get better as more and more people get involved. But while the iPhone can display traffic information in its maps app, it cannot (currently) contribute traffic data.
You can read more about this here.
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Spotify searches
As its main selling point is the ability to play almost any music you're looking for, it's helpful to know how to search in Spotify. You can specify what you're looking for in the following ways:
- artist:
- album:
- track:
- year:
- genre:
You can combine these search terms, as in the example "genre:folk year:1950-1960".
And, in their ever-helpful way, Spotify have provided a list of all the available genres as a Google spreadsheet.
Posted via web from Sam Lewis
Spotify is the future
Thanks to another of my Drobo's funny turns, I haven't been using iTunes to listen to music lately, I've been using Spotify. And it has confused me – Spotify just seems to be too good to be true. It's library of music is vast (and growing), and (if you don't mind the adverts) it's free. If you pay (an extremely reasonable) £9.99 a month, you get the adverts removed, and the chance to listen to music on- and off-line on your iPhone or Android phone. And you use Android, you can even listen to music with Spotify while you're using the phone for other things, which is not currently possible with the iPhone. (This is one of what I think is a growing number of reasons to choose Android over the iPhone, but that's another story.) Sharing songs, artists, and playlists with friends or the whole world is so easy, it makes the days of borrowing CDs and making compilations on tape seem almost unbelievably archaic.
So, what are the drawbacks?
Well, you do of course need internet access. But if your connection is down, I think you'll probably cope with the lack of music. Radio does still exist, after all. And Spotify can buffer several gigabytes of data, so temporary network cut-outs shouldn't really be a problem. There are arguments against storing data (especially private data, such as email and documents), but the benefits of storing music on the cloud seem to easily outweigh the problems; storing and backing up a music collection is a job I'd be happy to pass on to someone else.
Spotify is an extremely simple app, and this unfortunately means that it doesn't yet seem to offer personal song ratings and smart playlists, so getting the best out of the huge library is less easy than in iTunes. But it might one day, and I don't think the current lack is too terrible.
At present, searching for some artists will produce a limited list, or nothing at all. This is of course a fairly major problem, but it's not one that cannot change in future. Maybe one day they'll have literally every song recorded in their library, and if the cost of that is £9.99 a month or listening to a few adverts, I think Spotify (or something like it) might just be the future of music.
Friday, 18 September 2009
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Jonathan Meades: Off Kilter
The wonderful Jonathan Meades is back on the telly for a brief series on Scotland. You can watch the first two (and soon, the third and final) episodes here, for a limited time.
I love his use of language, and his unflagging right-headedness – perhaps you will too.
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Monday, 14 September 2009
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Saturday, 5 September 2009
More on the mural: an update on my previous post
Mural no more? Well, no, not exactly.
In my last post, I linked to a story in the Hackney Gazette on the subject of a Banksy mural on Stoke Newington Church Street. I took the article at its word, and passed on the news that Hackney Council had "destroyed" the painting. I included the photograph from the article, which showed the mural surrounded by black paint, but basically unscathed. I'll admit that I didn't give much thought to the picture, thinking it was a document of the so-called 'destruction' before it was completed. If I had thought about it a little more, the lack of any workmen or ladders in the picture might have seemed a little suspicious. But surely it's gone, right? After all, the article seems to be saying that the mural has gone, a victim of Hackney Council's stated position "not to make a judgement call on whether graffiti is art or not." Well, no.
If you take a closer look at the photo (or the wall itself, as I did today), you'll see that there are a few light black marks over the mural made by paint rollers. Other than that, they have painted around the mural, not over it. Does it look less pleasant than before? Yes, probably. Would a completely black wall be a far better canvas for a new mural, council-sanctioned or otherwise? Yes, definitely. Has Hackney Council "destroyed" this particular mural? No, absolutely not.
So, my apologies. I will think a bit longer next time. This is clearly one of the dangers of instant blog posting. Hopefully I won't come to regret this one too...
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
Let The Right One In – a summary
Young love, falling snow,
Necessity of feeding,
And a life ahead.
Let The Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in): ****
Necessity of feeding,
And a life ahead.
Let The Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in): ****
Sunday, 12 April 2009
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