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21 Nov 2006
What is light?

What is the point of side-lights exactly? The way I see it is, if it's (a) daytime, they are too dim to be seen; and if it's (b) night-time, you should have your headlights on! (Btw, you really should have your headlights on!). And before any smart arse chirps in with 'twilight', see answer (a).

Why do I give a damn? Well, my problem is that some people do actually find a need for this stage between off and on. These are the same people who, come the darkness, still hurtle round the country lanes with only their fricking side-lights on, seemingly blissfully unaware due to the fact that there dash is already illuminated.

So, I propose to ban side-lights. A separate switch for parking lights is fine, but on the stalk please ditch the the middle notch.


21 Nov 2006
What is life?

I find the definition of life as a "self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution," (What is Life? NS 18 November 2006) a surprising one to have gained credence.

Darwinian evolution can refer only to a group of entities and indeed many generations thereof. As such, if I were the last human in existence, I would not be considered as 'life' by this definition as I would no longer be capable of Darwinian evolution. GM crops which produce sterile seeds are further examples of non-life.

The mistake that has been made is to constrain all possible forms of life by the definition of the only example we know of.

I can envisage a planet where a freak occurrence in its sea of chemicals gives rise to a complex cellular system. The system grows by a mechanism akin to cell division. But every cell is the same as the last. Change is not necessary, for it resides in a nutrient-rich, stable environment, with no competition. Existence is a cinch. After millions of years it covers more than half of the planet's surface. Maybe one day it will cease to exist because it will have consumed all available resources. Is this system undergoing Darwinian evolution? No. Is it alive? Of course.

It's not hard to envisage such life, and many other wackier examples. So, it's not hard to realize that Darwinian evolution has no place in a definition of life.


1 September 2006
Goodbuy ads

Sony's attempts to combat the pirates and protect its profits (A spy in your CD? NS 12 August 2006) seem to be getting evermore absurd and flawed. I feel it's time for an entirely new approach, so allow me to offer my own (absurd?) suggestion: legalised subliminal advertising. For, with a new revenue stream linked to number of plays rather than number of original copies sold, Sony would be more than happy for their CDs to spawn like bunnies. Problem solved.

The idea could be extended to other media formats to solve more problems, such as: viewers fast-forwarding through TV adverts; and the Americans not being able to show soccer due to the limited advertising opportunities.

Most importantly, for me, it would alleviate a degree of consumer annoyance. I personally would happily run the risk of my brain being scrambled by subliminal messages to avoid sitting through the endless pre-movie ads at the cinema, or those dumped between songs on commercial radio.

Even the printed media could follow suit. Maybe Cosmo could garnier a few extra sales for its sponsors. Let's face it, a few smooth words spread amongst its fine lines and they too could say good buy to unsightly blemishes, and make those ad spots free – radical! (sic, sic, sic, etc.)


3 February 2006
Cheap is in

The web browser FireFox now claims around 30% of the market share against IE's two-thirds. This is an impressive raise to fame. It's particularly perplexing for users of other rival browsers that have been languishing in the single-digit percentages for some time. Opera is a little-known browser that, out-of-the-box, is superior in features to both FireFox and IE, and yet its market share is a humble 1.6%. Why? Oddly enough, fashion. FireFox has skillfully managed to acquire a 'hip' image. It's become the browser of choice for all mouse-touting rebels who want to 'stick it to the man', to cock-a-snook at the corporate institutions. FireFox is ‘open-source’, which has the same fluffy feel to it as 'environmentally friendly.' This means it’s community-developed, free software. Oh, and it's free, and you don't have to pay for it, and it's free. It seems that the zeitgeist is that any firm that expects actual payment for software (heaven forbid) is no less than immoral. But that's a story for another day’s blogging.

The point I'm fumbling my way towards is that the thing that is trendy in the software world is … being cheap. In the rest of the commercial world, fashion is all about prestige. It's about showing the world that you can afford an iPod, an Audi TT or a Quiksilver t-shirt. These things are expensive, indeed they are over-priced, and that is part of their appeal. FireFox is trendy for being free. Don't misunderstand me. I know that everyone loves free stuff. But free has never been cool before.

So is this sentiment going to spill over into the real world? Is value-for-money about to become cool?


26 January 2006
Trees Turn on Humans

It's no secret that scientific theories are only ever best guesses until people who can make better guesses come along. But you kinda hope that this is only true for cutting-edge, seat-of-your-pants science like quantum entanglement or human cloning; not fundamental, basic beliefs on which everything else in a discipline relies. Like, for instance, everyone knows that trees of good for the environment? That the Amazonian rainforests are a vital sink for greenhouse gases? There’s no question about that, right? Wrong! It has just been discovered that 10 to 30 per cent of the methane pumped into the atmosphere comes from ... wait for it ... vegetation. (Methane is a massively potent greenhouse gas, four times that of carbon dioxide.) Nobody even thought that ANY plants produced ANY methane. We just didn't notice. Now every climate model has been rendered, well, wrong at the very least. And the real joke is that Kyoto is just about to kick in and what is one of its key policies - yup, plantation of forests to mop up greenhouse gases!

Seriously, we're all going to die.

(See, News of the World, THIS is news … of the world!)

On a brighter note... Oh who am I kidding.

What this highlights, yet again (and I feel I must go Jeez! here) is the continuingly dogmatic nature of science. If fledgling scientific papers disagree with well-established ideas, if they challenge conventional wisdom, they won't ever pass peer review to reach an influential journal. (Check out Barry 'ulcer' Marshall's story for the best example of this). All this is not good - simple as that. Science should be a hot-bed of innovation, not a dusty mattress of hoary doctrine.


24 January 2006
Freedom of Speech Undermines Democracy ... Shocker

Contradictory as that headline sounds that's where we find ourselves. When I first heard that Sven Goran Ericsson was quitting as England manager due to media intrusion, I was once again utterly disgusted at the state of the British tabloid press. But it's not just the tabloids that are to blame. Responsibility must fall heavily on those people that buy the retched things. By doing so they are supporting a campaign of paparazzi intrusion and ritual humiliation of public figures. And when these public figures are leaders in our community then this action is putting the pursuit of cheap titillation ahead of the state of our country. Where was that ever predicted by the democratic philosophy?