Dumbing down

I was listening to Ben Goldacre talking on Start the Week -- I don't know when it was broadcast, I was listening to it via the BBC's excellent podcast on iTunes, and he made a comment that pandered directly to my own prejudices. He said something along the lines of "the public get such rubbish reporting of scientific and technical issues because the media is made up of arts graduates".

Sorry, I just googled and found out that it was the episode broadcast on 19th January 2009:

DR BEN GOLDACRE attacks the media’s bad science reporting, claiming that it is a blot on the intellectual and economic landscape of this country. He believes that the lack of scientific knowledge amongst editors breeds cynicism, health scares and fashionable diagnoses.

[From BBC - Radio 4 - Start the Week]

I wonder, though, if it is actually worth trying to battle the education system and popular culture in order to educate the public any more? Perhaps a better strategy might be to tell them that there are UFOs and that crystal healing is real, and get them to behave in a better way. So instead of saying "you should get your kids the MMR because there is no scientific evidence to link it with autism, and because kids have started to die from measles again" we should tell them that pixies want them to get vaccinated, or whatever.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

De-evolution

I read somewhere that chickens are sometimes hatched with teeth, as long-disused genes are switched back on by genetic mistakes. Nature is rather hopeless at managing DNA, so your genome is packed with "junk" including old genes that went wrong when we were plants. I was thinking about this because on Oxford Street today I was waiting to cross the road when I noticed a youth standing opposite me. He finished a bag of crisps and then threw the bag on the ground in a defiant manner, glaring around at the midday shoppers as if daring one of them to rebuke him for his exuberantly disgusting behaviour. In itself, not an unusual occurrence in the Zimbabwe of the North. But he looked decidedly Neanderthal to me, the spitting image of our pre-modern human cousins as depicted in museum displays around the world. I started to panic slightly. Suppose three generations of the welfare state has reduced evolutionary pressures for fitness, intelligence and other characteristics to the level below which they can no longer aid natural selection! It would explain a lot: as the old genes are randomly switched on, they are no longer selected away. This could explain why the general population is getting fatter and stupider and also provide an appropriate backdrop to celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth (which I am learning all about from the "In Our Time" podcasts even as I type). In hundred years or so, the population may well become largely Neanderthal again in Britain, and by then scientists will be able to clone wooly mammoths, so everyone will feel quite a home.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

The dictatorship of the celebretariat

I was googling for something when I came across this phrase.

It's a dictatorship of the celebretariat

[From Big Brother meets Brother Tommy - The Scotsman]

The article was talking about Big Brother, in a context in which the use of phrase is very clever on multiple levels, which always appeals to me. That's because the article is about Scottish socialist Tommy Sheridan and it mocks the old phrase about the dictatorship of the proletariat. But anyway. I've decided that it should replace "Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense" as Britain's new national motto because it so accurately describes the state of the nation. The general public are quite unable to distinguish between the deranged rantings of celebrities (many of whom are hereditary celebrities, rather than celebrities in their own right), the deranged rantings of politicians, and anyone talking sense. When a BBC interviewer asks an actor who is playing a teacher about education policy, which I actually heard on the radio with my own ears a few months ago, you know the game is up.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Can someone who understands marketing please explain British Airways miles to me?

Since I'm trying hard not to moan about South West Trains after their sterling work during the recent snow event situation, I'm going to moan about British Airways instead, because being a Gold Executive Club member isn't turning out as wonderfully as I had hoped.

Now, I've long since given up trying to redeem by BA miles. They have no incentive value to me at all, because you cannot redeem them on any route during any time that you might conceivably want to use them (ie, in the school holidays). Thus, if you have a family, they are essentially useless.

Today I noticed an e-mail from BA putting forward an interesting and potentially useful alternative. If you book a flight, the e-mail claimed, then you can use your BA miles to get upgrades. That sounded interesting. We're planning on going to States in the summer, so why not go BA? In fact, as I suggested to my good lady wife, why not spring for World Traveller Plus seats and then upgrade to Club for a real family treat. So I called BA, with every intention of spending a couple of thousand pounds more with them that I would otherwise have considered. After about fifteen minutes of listening to recorded messages about insurance and various menus, I got through to a nice lady who explained to me that no upgrade seats were available on the route I was interested from the first date that we could possibly travel (23rd July) until the last date that we could possible travel (26th August). When I asked why, she said that (of course) it was the school holidays. As a result, I'm now more annoyed with BA than if they'd never sent me the e-mail in the first place. What's the point of BA miles? They are not an incentive to travel BA, and now they appear to functioning as a disincentive. I guess I just don't understand marketing, so I'm off to check out the Virgin website later on. After all, they do have hotter stewardesses, according to the advert.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Credit where credit is due

I'm the first to complain about South West Trains, so let me be the first to praise them today. I went down to Woking station and there was a skeleton service running to Waterloo, stopping at various places along the way. I got a seat, and it only took me 40 minutes to get to Waterloo. And on the way back, I only had to wait 10 minutes at Waterloo for a train back to Woking. It stopped at a couple more places, so took a bit longer, but I really didn't care because

1) It was neat looking out of the window at the snowy landscapes of Surrey and

2) Because the train had power sockets in Second Class so I was able to work all the way home. Excellent. I got a lot done and had a pleasant journey.

If I could get a comfy seat and a power socket every time I take the train into London, I would get twice as much done in an average week.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Ringing the changes

I got bored with my iPhone ringtone and got sidetracked into a couple of hours of agonising and experiment. At first, I couldn't decide between music and samples from 2001. The happy coincidence of being called Dave makes Hal saying "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" and so forth an obvious choice. But a bit of investigation revealed that you can only set the ringtone, you can't set other alert or warning sounds, not even incoming message sounds. So it was goodbye to Hal and I decided to go with music.

However, once I'd decided on music then I was a bit stuck. Obviously, a ringtone is going to say something about you, so you have to think about it very carefully. Do I want to appear old-fashioned? Boring? An individual? Quite a quandary. And you need to pick something that you will hear in a crowd and realise that it is yours.

Oh well. I've temporary settled on my modified "Back in Black" by AC/DC. (I modified it by editing out the very beginning couple of seconds, so that it goes straight into the guitar power chords.) But I can't decide whether to stick with it or whether to keep searching for the perfect ringtone. I used to use "London Calling" by The Clash, and this was an excellent choice, but I associate with my old phone and I feel that my iPhone should have its own distinct personality.

I came across an excellent piece of software, by the way. It's iToner from Ambrosia. You can drag any old music or sound file to it, even from inside iTunes, and it will convert it into an iPhone ringtone.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Fair trial

One of the strangest aspects of life in the cold, damp lunatic asylum formerly known as the United Kingdom is the "justice" system. Some of the reports of court cases, police actions and government strategies are utterly beyond parody. I imagine life as a satirist must be even more depressing than life as an investment banker at the moment, since it's impossible to make up anything more ridiculous than what is already happening. There was a case recently when a British judge let a defendant off because he (the judge) thought that the fact that the victim had identified the perpetrator in a police line-up would prejudice the jury.

he ruled that her evidence against a lout she picked out in an ID parade was so compelling it would unfairly sway the jury

[From Judge throws out robbery case: Victim is too honest | The Sun |News]

WTF? Why have an ID parade then? In fact, why allow the prosecution to bring any evidence at all, since presumably any evidence connecting the defendant with the crime would prejudice the jury.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]