Option paralysis

It is said (although, by whom I do not know) that Einstein favoured a very limited wardrobe and although he had enough clothes for every day, they all had the same appearance.

It is also said that he made this choice to avoid 'option paralysis'.

The concept is entertaining and understandable.  The only problem is that I'm not entirely clear whether Einstein actually said it.

Tariq Ramadan and the Charlie Hebdo problem

What is left to be said about the Charlie Hebdo crisis that unfolded in Paris earlier this month?  Perhaps not much, but it won't stop me.

So a gang of muslim cowards hiding behind their semi-automatic weapons kills twelve innocent people in an office and runs away.  This was somehow excused by the victims' 'crime' of depicting and ridiculing someone elses's non-existent prophet.  Few people recognise that nothing was written about Muhammed until about 200 years after he is supposed to have lived.  This makes his historical existence even less convincing than that for Jesus!

What's more, in what civilised part of the world does non-violent satire excuse a violent response?  

On the day after the shootings, BBC Radio 4 interviewed the 'islamic scholar' from Oxford, Tariq Ramadan.  I have heard him speak live and been amazed (and almost impressed) at how he twists sentences to convey a message that both Muslims and infidels are meant to think is wise and more-to-the-point 'harmless'.  This time takes the biscuit.  OK, he gently condemned the violence in Paris, but within a minute or two he was claiming that we should all feel responsible for what has happened.  Our government's involvement in Iraq - in his mind at least - has something to do with the cowards killing the journalists.

Call me naive if you like, but I thought the shootings were about the magazine being satirical and about the way the 'religion of permanent offence' chooses to try to dictate what free people in free countries are allowed to say about imaginary beings.  It was about islamic intolerance of the principles behind human rights and human dignity

Ramadan went on to claim that we're "all on the same side".

Let me assure you, Professor Ramadan, that I feel no responsibility for what has been done this month, and that I am on the same side as you on absolutely nothing of any consequence at all.  You can't excuse the violence in Paris.  They were islamic thugs behaving inexcusably by any objective standard.

Ten Commandments for a secular life

Bertrand Russell wrote his Liberal Decalogue  or ten commandments for a good life in 1951.

"The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:

1/  Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2/  Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3/  Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4/  When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5/  Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6/  Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7/  Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8/  Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9/  Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10/ Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness."

As I see it, these are still up to date and undoubtedly better than any of the versions of the ten commandments in the bible.  Yes, there are at least two radically different versions in the Old Testament, and a subset of them in the New Testament.

** Exodus 20: 2-17 and Deuteronomy 5: 6-21 are the basis of the common versions.  Exodus 34:12-26 replaced the first tablets after Moses smashed them but are very different.  In the New Testament it could be argued that only 5 or 6 commandments get mentioned at all.  (See Matt 19:18-19, Mark 10:19 and Luke 18:20) 

Sharia gets put back in its rightful place!

Unlike the USA, the United Kingdom has no '1st Amendment' to its constitution.  When it comes down to it, it has no constitution either.  People argue with me that a constitution would not help us in any way and that might be a moot point, but the net result is that there is no requirement for the separation of church and state.  Indeed, with the Church of England still performing the function of 'the established church' in England (although not in other parts of the Union) the prospect of such separation is a long way away.

Few would argue that the established church is much of a threat to morality and decency in England.  Its priests have generally behaved much better than their counterparts in the Roman Catholic Church and although it has an unfair and entirely undemocratic influence on the running of the government it is hard to find it as threatening to to justice and decency as Islam.

Last year, the supposed guardian of justice in the legal profession "The Law Society" decided unwisely to publish guidance for the preparation of wills which were compliant with 'sharia law'.  Now wasn't that a strange thing to do?  Sharia has no legal position in UK (thank God!) and those who agree to be bound by it are giving up the legal rights that they have under the real law.  The big problem is that the oppressive and self-elected 'leaders' of Islam have taken time and trouble to 'shelter' their followers from the truth of the legal rights that they do have.  Any guidance from the Law Society seemed to support this abusive relationship between Islamic leaders (all men of course) and the people.

Thanks to the National Secular Society (and others), The Law Society finally saw the error of its ways at the end of last November.  Apparently "the Society had 'reviewed the note in the light of criticism' and they had 'withdrawn the note' and were 'sorry' ."

That gives two causes for delight.  The main one is that it is 'one in the eye' for creeping sharia and a blow for secularism in England.  The other is the rare opportunity to see a hint of contrition from the blood-sucking lawyers.  It is not often that we see that happen!

Read more at this NSS link.

Tolerances and complex problems

One of my favourite quotations gets a regular airing . . .  indeed much more regular than my blog posts have been recently.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

H. L. Mencken  (1880 to 1956)

Almost everyone laughs at that.  It sounds both incisive and frivolous at the same time.  I expect most people then dismiss it from their minds and would probably be delighted if they hear it again in a year or two without getting any more wisdom from it.

For me, after enjoying it and regularly using it while reviewing technical designs in a complex engineering environment it has taken on a extra layer of meaning.  It should be the motto of all practical engineers.  What most people don't realise is that the art of engineering is to make things that might be a little bit wrong but to ensure that they are right enough to function correctly.

Engineers call this 'tolerancing'.  Proper choice of tolerances in any design is the art of balancing performance against cost.  If you get the design too right you might not be able to afford to build it, or might not have enough time.

This is well illustrated by the old story about how to tell the difference between a scientist and an engineer. 

Stand them in opposing corners of a room, with an attractive member of the opposite sex naked (and presumably rather tolerant and open-minded) in the middle.  Tell them to approach that person by successively halving the distance between themselves and the object of their desire. Then wait.

The first one to leave the room will be the scientist, who has worked out that, in this way, you will never really get there. The engineer, however, has figured out that you will get close enough - for all practical purposes.

No through road

This is an interesting take on graffiti on road signs.  I've posted some Parisian road sign graffiti before, but this is a new one on me.  No through road for mythical characters here!

No through road for mythical saviours

Its interesting though.  When I see people wearing a cross around their necks I usually find myself wanting to ask what the T stands for.

Now I know!

More Parisian Graffiti

I have often featured interesting graffiti on Something Surprising.  Near the Pompidou Centre in Paris is this amazing face painted on a wall.  Is it graffiti or, given its location, art?

Graffiti or art - near the Pompidou Centre in Paris

My feeling is that it is too good to be considered as modern art of the type favoured for modern art galleries.

I'll settle for calling it good graffiti.

Physics on the Metro

Have you ever spotted how the air moves on metro trains?

On ordinary trains with short carriages there is often a flow of air through the carriage as the train moves along.  It brings blessed relief on those hot summer days!

But something different happens on those trains that are open from one end to the other, and the effect depends strongly on the number of people on the train.

One of those long un-divided trains on Paris metro line 1

If the train is fairly empty, you get a strong rush of air from the front to the back as it accelerates.  Quite often the train accelerates in steps, and you get repeated breezes of different strengths, correlating well with the driver's actions.  Then as the train slows down, the air rushes to the front of the train.

This shows that the mass of air inside the train has to be pushed to get it to speed up and slow down.  The push comes from a pressure gradient which is set up as the train changes velocity.  That gradient is established by filling one end of the train with more air, increasing the local pressure.

I had spotted this happening on a journey on an empty train.  The following day on the same metro line I was expecting to observe the same effect.   However, it happened to a much less noticeable extent.  What was different?  The train was full of people standing.  That meant that the air flow was significantly better damped.

The effect is also much clearer if you sit near the middle of the train than it is at the ends - obviously.  After a week of observations I think this is good(ish) physics.

On the other hand . . . on another journey I watched a roller skater walking down stairs (very carefully) and then rolling along the platform.  As he slowed himself down he spread his feet wide apart, lowering his centre of gravity.  To stop himself he brought them sharply back together, lifting his whole body a few centimetres.  It appeared to me at first sight that he had converted his kinetic energy into potential energy in doing this - but on reflection that is not consistent with conservation of momentum.  This wasn't good physics after all.

Perhaps it was just a flourish in his performance after all.

Isn't physics fun?  It gets everywhere!

Hale and Hearty

Enjoying a visit to Paris, I like to spot words in French that have obviously migrated into English.

Eiffel Tower - just before it was evacuated on August 9th, 2013

This week's word is 'hâlé' (pronounced ah-lay in French), meaning bronzed or sunburnt.  I have no idea how to say the word in such a way as to distinguish it from the more common verb 'aller' meaning 'to go'.  I assume that context is king.

Surely is is the origin of the English word 'hale'.

Liberty - for the week

I'm away, enjoying a week of holiday.  Guess where I am.

Liberty, equality and fraternity

It looks as though I might be in New York, but instead I find myself in Paris again, seeing some of the sites that I have never seen before, and visiting others, like this one, that I have seen from the train many times.

This is a 9m tall replica of the Statue of Liberty, and it can be found on the Isle des Cygnes in the middle of the River Seine.

Replica Statue of Liberty in Paris, on the Isle des Cygnes

Having walked the length of Isle des Cygnes I didn't see a single swan.

Did you know that is where we get the English word 'cygnet'?

Prince Rupert's legacy

Watching a TV programme recently (which is something that I rarely do) I was reminded of the incredible properties of glass.  Can you imagine a glass bulb that will not break when you hit it with a hammer, and yet will explode violently in the event of another tiny intervention.

If not, you will be amazed by Prince Rupert's Drops.  Wikipedia has a good article on the topic (as you would expect), but this video is also spell-binding and explanatory!

Inverse topiary

Cruising down the River Thames, near Reading, I found that the graffiti artists have an unusual technique.  They cut away the ivy on a railway embankment wall to leave their friendly message.

Topiary as graffiti

BBC film crews

Having been somewhat involved with the workings of a BBC film crew yesterday, for a programme that will be hosted by Richard Hammond, I am left with a few observations about BBC film crews.

The staff all seemed to be polite, pleasant and reasonable people.  They even gave the impression of understanding what our technical staff were talking about - at least when they took the time to listen.  I was surprised to hear the producer asking one of his interviewees not to dumb it down so much - and this was for a science programme on the BBC.  Yes really!

I suppose this is not a proper science programme like Horizon.  Perhaps Sunday evening specials are allowed to present real science instead?

Another surprise was that they preferred to film in very low light, to the extent that most of the people who were trying to do a real job, operating a complex fusion machine, were complaining that they couldn't see what they were doing.  Most film crews from other TV stations including the independents can cope with the normal lighting conditions, but it will be interesting to see the difference when the programme comes out.  Perhaps it will be spectacularly better than average.

And yes - it is true that Hammond is not a tall man.

But the biggest surprise is that the film crew must have numbered at least a dozen people.  Like the last time I saw a BBC crew for a high profile programme in action, I wondered what most of them were supposed to be doing.  Not much, from all appearances!  Funded by the tax payer, it seems that they can afford to employ four or five times more staff than most other companies.

After all, these are times of austerity.

Thought-provoking video about Intelligent Design

What a thought provoking video about Intelligent Design, from The Thinking Atheist!

It ends up with this quote from Stephen Fry.

Stephen Fry on the subject of Intelligent Design

Something Surprising is back

After a break of a couple of weeks, a regular feed of posts will restart later this evening. 

Thanks for continuing to follow.

Another UK crisis - MPs pay

The UK Government has imposed a 1% limit on the increase of salary for public sector workers for the next three years, having already frozen pay for the last two years.  (At the same time thy increased pension contributions by 1.28% this year, leading to a net decrease in take-home pay while inflation is obviously raging.)

Some people find that outrageous.  Others consider it to be an fair and inevitable way of balancing the books.  But whichever camp you might be in, I suspect that we are almost all in agreement that it would be grossly unfair if Members of Parliament (MPs) are awarded any increase in salary higher than that.  And yet, this is what they tell us we should expect.  In fact they might be awarded an increase of more than 10%, because (at the second attempt) the independent body that reviews their salaries has deemed that they are underpaid.

Neglecting the fact that many of them have second and third paid jobs, along with fairly generous expenses allowances and long periods when Parliament is not sitting, which world is this independent panel living in?

Somehow, it appears that the government is powerless to prevent this inevitable increase.  Exactly why that might be the case is completely unclear to me.  In my view, the MPs should:

• Do the job that they are paid for - full time, like the rest of us - and yes that sometimes means working late with little appreciation and for much less money than MPs already receive.
• Not have additional salaried posts.
• Definitely have their salary increases capped - as after all, they are public sector workers too.  

Its easy isn't it?  It is just like telling another public sector worker that they have achieved the highest level of achievement in their role which might give them a rise of a few percent in normal times, but that in spite of that their pay rise is capped at 1%.


Failing that, I can see the potential for one of the biggest protest marches ever seen in London.  I will be there, whatever else might be happening that day.

Will you?

Further comment:  38 Degrees is obviously lining itself up for a goo campaign on this topic.  Participate in their consultation by following this link.

Skeptical about Skeptoid - go for green instead!

The Skeptoid podcast has been one of my favourites for two or three years, and Brian Dunning's analyses of the topics that he covers generally have my trust.  One or two things might have influenced my views about Dunning recently, but setting aside accusations of fraud that have echoed around the skeptical community (if indeed it really is a singular community) in this week's episode I think he actually has a couple of things dangerously wrong.

He was talking about laser pointers.  Are they really dangerous?

Obviously the answer is that some of them are indeed a hazard, but I have to point out that his reasoning to determine which are safe is far from my own understanding of the topic, and advice from laser safety experts.

Dunning's approach was correct in pointing out that the human eye is more sensitive to green light than red, but his conclusion was the opposite of normal thinking.  The reason might be that he has incorrectly assumed that increased sensitivity (i.e. ability to perceive the smallest amounts of light) correlates with sensitivity to damage (which it does not).  The brightness of some green pointers is truly scary, but not all of them are actually dangerous.

Damage to the eye is caused by power, not by apparent brightness.  OK - you might have a coloured spot in your vision for longer if the light seems brighter, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you have damaged your retina.  On the other hand, infra-red lasers can easily blind you without seeming bright.  Indeed they can do their terrible damage invisibly.  (I work with people who operate IR lasers which would only be eye-safe at a distance of 20,000km by they way.)

In fact, the science in the above claims should be interpreted in this way.  Green pointers appear brighter than red pointers for the same power.  So a red 1 mW laser pointer seems surprisingly dim compared with a green pointer of the same power.  To compensate for this, people are tempted to buy higher power red pointers.  You might need tens of milliwatts to compete with 1 mW of green.  This is where the danger lies.

Brian Dunning's conclusion that you should never use a green pointer is misleading and potentially dangerous.  You should use green wherever possible, but just ensure that its 'peak output power' is less than 1 mW, not the 1 to 5 mW that Dunning recommended.

Then you can be certain that your audience's eyes will be safe.  You should still avoid shining the light direct into anyone's eyes though.

Small note:  There is a theoretical potential failure mode for green lasers, where they go to even higher power.  If you spot your pointer getting much brighter then you should get it tested.  In my own experience they seem to get dimmer with time, but this is only a matter of statistics (and perhaps ageing eyes?).

New RDFRS newletter revealed

The Richard Dawkins Foundation(s) for Reason and Science (RDFRS) have released a newsletter, the first one being available here.  (As you might know, there are two RDFRSs.)

Being a fan of Richard Dawkins and his work (as many of you will have spotted a long time ago) I eagerly clicked the link to see what fascinating information it might contain.  Richard has such a good way of spotting interesting things and presenting them in accessible ways.  I thought there was a good chance that it would be another thing that I would subscribe to, but unlike many of the others that I almost dread having to read, this one was going to be something that I would be eager to see.

So - did it live up to my expectations?  Perhaps the existence of two separate but linked foundations, East and West of the Atlantic might make it difficult to choose the content.  There was quite a good article by Sean Faircloth who is a powerful speaker and writer, but apart from that there was a bit of advertising (which I accept as being necessary), mention of a new member of staff (yawn! who cares?) and a selection of other articles that failed to get my full attention.

All in all, I have to say that I found it surprisingly disappointing. 

Let's not give up on them too soon, as they might find their feet and decide which country they really want to talk to.  I don't really mind which one it is, as I do listen to a number of US-centric podcasts.  However, most of those give UK a greater degree of prominence than the first edition of this newsletter has done, from its American heartland.

Very little of Richard's flair and enthusiasm comes through just yet.  Please try harder.

Now if you want a really good newsletter, (which happens to be UK based), you could do worse than that of the National Secular Society, which you can find here.  I actually look forward to getting that one by e-mail every Friday.

Downloading consciousness?

Have you heard of the '2045 Project'?  I started to hear a few whispers about this fascinating and seemingly impossible idea recently.

Founded by a wealth Russian entrepreneur, Dmitry Itskov, in February 2011, the project aims to develop the technology required to download a human mind into a robot avatar, essentially extending life, perhaps as far as immortality.  By that time Itskov will be about 65 years old.

Interesting!  Apart from the obvious worry about choosing exactly the right moment to kill your real self and transfer your 'soul' (for want of a better word) into a machine, there must be no end of other moral implications.  Does the 'robot you' then have human rights?  Does it have the right to reproduce, and if so, what algorithms go into the production of the offspring.  Is there a way to make the mingling of computerised brainwaves sound like a romantic encounter, and if not, in what way could this being be described as being fully human?  And if the avatar offspring went through the terrible twos while it effectively inhabited an adult body, how would the parents cope?

I can't resist asking whether it forces God out of the picture too?  After all, which part of the new synthetic 'you' did God create?  Unlike the conventional type of 'intelligent design', the success of this project might demonstrate that ID is real.

If it happens in your lifetime you can decide for yourself.

Does Creation science have any convincing arguments?

Oxford Skeptics in the Pub hosted Peter Harrison this week.  He is based at St Andrews University (of which I am a graduate) so it was fun to have a chat with him.  His talk was about creationism.  As it said on the SITP site:

It’s easy to make fun of many creationist claims, but what are their strongest arguments?

Creationism often takes a lot of flak for the kind of wild claims made by hoards of ALL-CAPS creationists on blogs and YouTube comments. But of all the claims and arguments made by creationists, which are the most impressive? Do they pose a threat to creationism-denying scientific fields? Forget the usual tired canards. Peter has spent a year collaborating with top creationist organisations and groups to collate and bring to you their most powerful arguments yet…

So, I hear you asking whether any of the arguments were convincing.  He had asked them about both their evidence for creationism and in four of the five cases for evidence that the world is young (6000 to 10,000 years old).  The fifth organisation promotes old-earth crationism so it was not relevant in their case.

The organisations that he had challenged included Answers in Genesis and The Discovery Institute.  It seems that they have now ceased to cooperate with him after he shared his conclusions with them.  They didn't even appear to have used their best lines of evidence even while they were talking, but then again who is the best judge of that?

One thing did surprise me.  In his discussions with the 'Discoveroids', he had used the term 'creationist'.  I happen to listen to their podcast, ID The Future (which I decline to link to, as I have no desire to increase their Google ranking) on a regular basis.  They usually make a point that The Discovery Institute is there to promote 'Intelligent Design', and not creationism.  They say that there is a difference, although I have some doubts about that.

All in all, it was an entertaining evening with a great speaker.  It was only the second time that he has given that talk.  I hope he will get chance to use it many more times.