Weekend Fun

Jeev and Neil came to stay - we had fun:

Big shout out to my man...

... who had his first fiction publication launched the other day. It's not on line unfortunately, but it was in an anthology of writing chosen from the classes and groups that have been studying at the city lit. It is an honour to be chosen, given the stiff competition, so forgive a little wifely pride! If we ask nicely, maybe some of his stuff will end up on line somewhere...

Acro-batty

Found by David - isn't this stunning?

Aberystwyth No2ID

I have another blog: Aberystwyth No2ID - visit & see how the fight against ID cards is going in mid Wales!

"I have pressure, you have pressure"

"Is my penis attached to your mother?"

Possibly the strangest thing I've ever heard.


For more elevated debate - don't watch that, watch this.

Guardian has a "Daily Mail" moment?

From the "Technically true but nonetheless slightly misleading" file:

"Jeanne Wilding dumped oil, animal corpses and broken glass on neighbours' drives while blasting out choral works depicting rape and murder in the middle of the night."

I heard these choral works on radio 4 this morning. The controversial opus? Carmina Burana. So yes - very distessing played throughout the night, as any loud music would be. But the "rape and murder" - surely only offensive if you happen to know 13th century monastic vernacular!

The Heroine Den, part 1

Emilie du Châtelet

The Son's of Owain Glen-Bap

One of the things I love about living part time in Wales is learning about their long and proud cultural heritage. See Lyewellyn's post. So that's why my sandwiches are served bent!

Scared of stalkers? Skip Shoreditch.

The transparent society is on its way it seems - cctv feed live into people's homes in Shoreditch, and set to go national soon. Come bundled with - I kid you not - the ASBO channel. Isn't it unlawful to name criminals under 16 anyway?

Grey Matters Ltd

I keep seeing this van in Aber:

It's possibly he funniest vehicle I've ever seen (but then again I am terrified of clown cars).

The text reads

Grey Matters Ltd

24 Hour Emergency Philosopher

Don't even think about it, call us instead!

• 
  Same day service within the M25
  


• 
  All thought considered from an inkling to a eureka!
  


• 
  10% discount when you mention Tarski's argument that the model theoretic characterization of logical consequence os more basic than its characterization in terms of a deductive system
  

I think that's funny - maybe I've been a logician too long...

Good morning Aberystwyth: a photo essay

Okay - there's this van, see. With a very funny decal. And I wanted to take a photo of it (as you do), but couldn't justify taking the camera for that reason alone (what if the van wasn't there? How silly would I feel then eh!) So today I inflict uppon you: "Scenes from a walk to work". If you're sitting comfortably, let's begin...

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The walk to work is steep - but the trees are in bloom and the weather's nice...

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In fact - it just gets steeper, the higher you go. There are times I'm convinced that Aber is just a cosmic joke at the expense of my cardio-vascular system.

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Still climbing - I was going to snap the field full of rather charming shep (they look rather sleek and modern now they've been shorn) but I guess it was their day off or something.

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At last - the money shot. This isn't the highest part of my walk, but the steepest parts are behind me now. This is where I usally pause, on the pretext of admiring the view - and a pretty good pretext it is too. I live at sea-level, just fyi!

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Campus itself is very pleasant, though definitely has that mid 20th century vibe about it. There is an interesting mix of cutesy little woodland paths and seriously brutal buildings - I keep thinking I've wandered into Center Parcs by mistake...

So that's where I am now - typing away when I should be working. Damn these blog thingies: how's a girl supposed to get anthing done?

(Un)scientific poll

A Channel 4 Poll seems to be angling for a payrise for me and my ilk. It doesn't even begin to look at some of the problems of HE/Research funding (the sumarily abolished RAE for example). At the present time 96% of respondents think we deserve more recognition and 91% would like to see us paid more - I'll be watching to see where this goes...

Xenu is my homeboy...

At the risk of being declared a Supressive Person by the CoS[1], I want to share the love for the new man in my life: the all powerful, all thetan torching Xenu. Wrongfully imprisioned for attempting to deal with overpopulation in his home galaxy, he is now considered hateful by at least one quasi-religion (or at least by the members that shelled out at least 300,000 clams [2] to find out who Xenu and the Thetans are). The First Chirch of Xenu lets you know for free.

And if you aren't entirely sure why this whole Xenu thing is funny, have a listen to the man who invented, sorry discovered, the truth about Xenu here. To be fair - I think the original is slightly funnier than the parody - provided one hasn't paid £200,000 quid to find it out!


[1]Capitalist Organisation of Scammers - why who else would I mean..?
[2]If your jaw hurts right now - this may be why.

GGMotD [1]

OMG! Kittens!!

[1] Gratuitous girly moment of the day

It's only evolution but I like it...

Notes on the talk: "Why evolution is right and creationism is wrong".

On Creationists: "I don't mind if [they] burn my books... as long as they buy them first". - Prof. Steve Jones at the Royal Society, 11/04/06.

They said it would be popular, and boy they weren't kidding. Arriving outside the Royal Society at 5.30, the queue already stretched round the block [1]. By the time we got to the head of the line, the main auditorium was full, the overspill room was rapidly approaching full, and the queue still stretched around the south side if Waterloo Place and back out onto Carlton Square. A queue of rock 'n roll proportions. Not bad for a science talk on a rainy Tuesday evening - it restored my faith in man as rational being, to some extent at least.

The talk itself was fantastic - I've been to open lectures by Steve Jones before, and he is one of the most consistently engaging speakers I know of. He speaks uncompromisingly on matters of religion, sex and both the follies and the wisdom of human behaviour. Nevertheless, he is unlikely to face the same charge of arrogance that has been leveled at some critics of creationism: his talks are enjoyably peppered with humour and gentle self-deprication. Perhaps most impressively, he is able to explain complex ideas clearly to an audience of non-specialists in a way that is neither dry nor patronising.

I won't attempt to expound on the technical content - though I will retell one of his jokes at the end of my little panegyric. However, I will relate one thing that caused my jaw to drop. He showed some astounding data on the evolution of HIV, including the work of an intrepid researcher whose name I omitted to note but will try to chase. This researcher went to the DRC to hunt out "fossil viruses", samples of HIV from decades ago. The genome of the sample he found lends elegant support to theories of how HIV has mutated, where it came from and when. Seeing this data point, sitting right on the line where theory had predicted it should be was awe-inspiring and a moving testimony to the work of the scientists involved.

It struck me again, forcibly, last night that the work geneticists and evolutionary biologists do is often difficult, largely thankless, and sometimes (for example, virus hunting in the DRC), downright dangerous. They willingly sacrifice even cherished ideas for the sake of consistency with observed evidence. This is so far removed from the approach of the creationist and ID movements, both of which cherry-pick data to buttress their theories, that it appalls to hear otherwise intelligent people suggest that their ideas should be treated as somehow scientific.

Creationism certainly wasn't the main thrust of the talk, despite the wonderfully polemical title, but mention was made of the motives of "creation scientists" and "intelligent design" proponents who are demanding that their ideas be considered the intellectual equal of the study evolution. Prof. Jones mentioned the "Wedge Approach". The avowed aim of some of these groups is to have creationism (or ID) accepted as literal truth, but to use this as a "gateway drug" to encouraging the wholesale acceptance of biblical literalism. Suddenly the claim that ID is not a religious position looks even less tenable.

And now the promised joke - I'm currently on the train back to Aber so I'm looking forward to touting this one 'round the office this afternoon:

A welshman in Aberystwyth goes to a chinese restaurant. The (chinese) waiter, approaches the diner. "Nos da," he begins, and proceeds to take the order in fluent Welsh. At the end of the meal, the patron approaches the (welsh) manager and says "Well I never," (in Welsh) "However did you find a chinese man who speaks Welsh?" "Shhhhhhh", replies the manager, "We told him it was English".

It loses something for not being told in Prof. Jones' mellifluous welsh accent - for that you'll have to see the webcast.

UPDATE: As reported on the Register over 400 people were turned away last night after the rooms (plural - at least two) filled up! Rock with a side of roll please! (I know, I know, that was a 66% exclamation mark punctuation ratio for this paragraph. But see - here's some brackets, a hyphen four commas and three full stops. The punctuation is sane again, move along now please.)

She's Baaaaack

Yup - the world's most dilletante, non cat-related blogger is back, and in the coming weeks we'll be looking at the church of Xenu (It's my new religion - don't you dare thought-crime me!), freedom of speech (oh go on - you can thought-crime me), and my brand new robot army. But then I'll probably run out of steam once more... ho hum - why do recovering alcoholics have the most stamina?

If you're in town tonight can I recommend the Royal Society talk by emminent and highly charismatic (I'm married, not dead!) Prof. Steve Jones. Don't get there too early though - I'll be wanting a front row seat.

Ooohooohoooh - I just noticed there's a webcast:
Check it out.

Bad Auntie x

Bush surporters clearly deluded:

In the report "The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters", the Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) expose a clear devide between the world views of most Bush supporters and most Kerry supporters:

"A large majority of Bush supporters believe that before the war Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or a major program for building them. A substantial majority of Bush supporters assume that most experts believe Iraq had WMD and that this was the conclusion of the recently released report by Charles Duelfer. A large majority of Bush supporters believes that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda and that clear evidence of this support has been found. A large majority believes that most experts also have this view, and a substantial majority believe that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Large majorities of Kerry supporters believe the opposite on all these points."

"A large majority of Bush supporters believe that before the war Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or a major program for building them. A substantial majority of Bush supporters assume that most experts believe Iraq had WMD and that this was the conclusion of the recently released report by Charles Duelfer. A large majority of Bush supporters believes that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda and that clear evidence of this support has been found. A large majority believes that most experts also have this view, and a substantial majority believe that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Large majorities of Kerry supporters believe the opposite on all these points."

"Majorities of Bush supporters misperceive his positions on a range of foreign policy issues. In particular they assume he supports multilateral approaches and addressing global warming when he has taken strong contrary positions on issues such as the International Criminal court and the Kyoto Agreement. A majority of Kerry supporters have accurate perceptions of Kerry positions on the same issues."

This supports the argument that voters should have to prove some knowledge of the issues they're voting on before being given their ballot papers. The fact that the majority of Bush's vote will come from people who don't know what's going on in the world and don't even begin to understand what their candidate of choice stands for is pretty scary to me...

Grauniad does it for real...

As spotted by eagle eyed Kathleen Bryson: search text for "Guardain" (sic)

The original .

Tabbies' 1st meow!

Tabbies & Freelance Funkstress Downbeat Nick (stage name "Ginger Tom"?) at Bodrum, Stoke Newington on October 10th

Before:


>
Soundcheck - a little tense!

During:



Happy now!

After:


Are we in it for the money?

Major props to Downbeat Nick - we'll all miss her so!

Fame at last

So Tabby-Looking Cat (Dynamic duo Spud and myself, stage persona:"Marv") Played our debut a few weeks ago at the deliciously decadent and prettily pretentious Salon Pachyderm (which also featured the music of Padama, the literature of the polyvalent Ms Kathleen Kiirik Bryson and a film by the spectacular Dr Stumpf

Well now we go "pro". The funky Downbeat Nick has touched us and touched us good! October the 10th sees us support Zeff & Sulk, for a night of all original acoustic indie. Come cheer us on: If you don't like the music, the beer's great!

Two new choons - both festive in nature (quite a departure from the band who brought you such feelgood favourites as "Masochistic Me" and "Second Skin") - will get their global debut too. A momentous occasion all around!