Finally, after a marathon 372 hours (assuming 80 mins per episode) I have finally worked my way through all 279 of the excellent Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcasts. I started listening to them in the car when I was driving to Carpetright in Purfleet (a 125 mile daily round trip on the notorious M25) way back in July 09, and had been trying to cram as many episodes into my day as I could ever since.
I've really enjoyed it and learned a lot of interesting science facts and sceptical thinking tips. The only bad thing is now I'll only have one a week to listen to.
Thursday 25 November 2010
Wednesday 24 November 2010
Post Flood
Yes, it's a post flood. This is what's been on my mind this month, but I didn't quite get round to writing about at the time.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
Ned's Special Lemon Ale
At last the Holy Grail of ales has been found, which is to say, one that doesn't taste like beer. My clever brother produced a delightful Lemon Ale which is nothing like beer in the slightest and very lemony indeed. In fact it's very like Two Dogs although perhaps not quite as sour (which is a good thing I hasten to add.) Now I'm not sure if his intention was to go quite so far down the isn't remotely like beer route, but I'm glad he did. Sadly no photo, but just imagine a brown bottle with no label and the letter "L" hand written on the cap with a marker pen. Surely, you might think, such a great ale should have an equally impressive bottle to clothe it, but no, for is it not written that the Ale Messiah will be humble and glorious? No, it isn't... Well, I suppose given the preceding sentence that's not entirely true as I very much did just write that. But it's not written anywhere apart from here.
So well done Ned. Keep 'em coming.
So well done Ned. Keep 'em coming.
Commuter Fight Club
I've noticed over the last few months of commuting several incidents which almost became violent and one which actually did when a late middle aged gentleman, well, man had a fight with a young lady.
Now, it was a slightly unusual situation, we were on a small train that was totally packed, to the point that people were standing in the aisle between the rows of seats and the more open section by the doors was also full of people standing. The man in question was leading a procession of people who had obviously boarded the first carriage just as the train was leaving and who were in the process of walking through the train looking (fruitlessly no doubt) for a seat. The procession was halted when they came upon all the people already standing in the aisle. The man stood there for a bit, realised his quest was doomed and settled himself in the corridor. This wasn't good enough for the lady though and after a bit of huffing and sighing designed to indicate no doubt that she wanted to keep walking, eventually tapped the man on the shoulder and asked him to move. He, not unreasonably, pointed out that given the aisle was full of people and that there wasn't really anywhere for her to go (besides which given that it's only slightly more than one person wide, unless he sat on someones lap there wasn't much chance of her squeezing past even if there was somewhere for her to go.)
This wasn't good enough for the lady however, and she announced, rather aggressively I must say, that if he didn't move she would move him. So at this point of course it became a lot more interesting (and I wished I'd been videoing it!) He made some comment to the effect that he'd like to see her try, so she did! She launched a massive shove into his back, but he'd cunningly braced himself on the seats so nothing much happened. This just made the lady even more mad. There was a bit more shoving while the man tried to do his best impression of a traffic bollard. Unfortunately, seeing the kerfuffle, the people ahead in the doorway squeezed together a bit more, giving the people in the aisle room to shuffle forward so the procession started moving again. But just after they got going the man unexpectedly (and rather mean spiritedly) whipped round and shoved the lady hard, knocking her right off her feet and back into the person behind before turning and marching triumphantly on. Sadly, I never got to see what (if anything) happened after that.
Now generally I'd say the man didn't do anything wrong right up unto the point he needlessly pushed the lady back. He was right, there wasn't really anywhere to go and it wasn't his fault, the lady should really have just accepted it and been content to stay where she was but there was no need for him to push her over either.
So, what's the point of this? Well, I was wondering if the trains are designed in such a way that they somehow cause these kind of problems. I've seen another near fight between two guys sitting on a three seat bench over shoulder room. Again, it wasn't anyone's fault per se, it's just that the bench seats really aren't wide enough for three normal sized people to sit next to each other, although there was no need for the men to get quite so aggressive about it.
If you combine narrow aisles with narrow seats and too many people crammed too close together, are fights inevitable? If I've seen four incidents in four months, how many others are happening every day? Could it have been intentional? Perhaps there's a secret government plan to toughen up sedentary commuters by getting them to fight each other.
More importantly, has anyone thought of recording them?
Now, it was a slightly unusual situation, we were on a small train that was totally packed, to the point that people were standing in the aisle between the rows of seats and the more open section by the doors was also full of people standing. The man in question was leading a procession of people who had obviously boarded the first carriage just as the train was leaving and who were in the process of walking through the train looking (fruitlessly no doubt) for a seat. The procession was halted when they came upon all the people already standing in the aisle. The man stood there for a bit, realised his quest was doomed and settled himself in the corridor. This wasn't good enough for the lady though and after a bit of huffing and sighing designed to indicate no doubt that she wanted to keep walking, eventually tapped the man on the shoulder and asked him to move. He, not unreasonably, pointed out that given the aisle was full of people and that there wasn't really anywhere for her to go (besides which given that it's only slightly more than one person wide, unless he sat on someones lap there wasn't much chance of her squeezing past even if there was somewhere for her to go.)
This wasn't good enough for the lady however, and she announced, rather aggressively I must say, that if he didn't move she would move him. So at this point of course it became a lot more interesting (and I wished I'd been videoing it!) He made some comment to the effect that he'd like to see her try, so she did! She launched a massive shove into his back, but he'd cunningly braced himself on the seats so nothing much happened. This just made the lady even more mad. There was a bit more shoving while the man tried to do his best impression of a traffic bollard. Unfortunately, seeing the kerfuffle, the people ahead in the doorway squeezed together a bit more, giving the people in the aisle room to shuffle forward so the procession started moving again. But just after they got going the man unexpectedly (and rather mean spiritedly) whipped round and shoved the lady hard, knocking her right off her feet and back into the person behind before turning and marching triumphantly on. Sadly, I never got to see what (if anything) happened after that.
Now generally I'd say the man didn't do anything wrong right up unto the point he needlessly pushed the lady back. He was right, there wasn't really anywhere to go and it wasn't his fault, the lady should really have just accepted it and been content to stay where she was but there was no need for him to push her over either.
So, what's the point of this? Well, I was wondering if the trains are designed in such a way that they somehow cause these kind of problems. I've seen another near fight between two guys sitting on a three seat bench over shoulder room. Again, it wasn't anyone's fault per se, it's just that the bench seats really aren't wide enough for three normal sized people to sit next to each other, although there was no need for the men to get quite so aggressive about it.
If you combine narrow aisles with narrow seats and too many people crammed too close together, are fights inevitable? If I've seen four incidents in four months, how many others are happening every day? Could it have been intentional? Perhaps there's a secret government plan to toughen up sedentary commuters by getting them to fight each other.
More importantly, has anyone thought of recording them?
Unhelpful Public Announcements
I've been working up in London now for about four months and almost every day the train is slightly late. What normally happens is we get to Woking and then just sit there for five or ten minutes before setting off again. Inevitably the guard or driver will make an announcement apologising for the delay which is because we are "waiting at a red signal."
Now, is it just me or is that announcement totally useless? It tells you precisely nothing about why we are stopped or how long we're likely to be stopped for. They may as well have just say "We apologise for the delay, it's because we've not set off yet, we expect to remain here until we leave. Thank you."
Now, is it just me or is that announcement totally useless? It tells you precisely nothing about why we are stopped or how long we're likely to be stopped for. They may as well have just say "We apologise for the delay, it's because we've not set off yet, we expect to remain here until we leave. Thank you."
The Ethics of Shoulder Surfing
I confess, I'm an avid shoulder surfer. I always snatch a sneaky look at the newspapers being read by the people sitting around me. Partly because my local train station obviously isn't important enough to get a delivery of free papers, partly because newspapers on the whole are messy and annoying (black fingers, lovely) and partly because I just can.
I don't normally bother looking at people's laptops though, not because I have concerns about privacy but because on the whole looking at spreadsheets and the like is rather boring. Yesterday though I spent quite a while doing just that. I was watching a woman from Capgemini working on a spreadsheet which caught my eye because it was about data flows and integration. Yes, I find data flows and integration interesting, what of it? Anyway, as it turned out it was fairly boring, but while gawking I did notice that she'd made a systematic error in the spreadsheet. Nothing serious, in fact it was quite amusing, she was referring to American security behemoth Lockheed Martin as Lockhead Martin. At first I gave her the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe it was some sort of jokey internal project name, but then she flicked to a PowerPoint that quite clearly showed she'd just screwed it up.
So the dilemma is, should I have mentioned it? Or even better, should I have tried to get her to put Headlock Martin instead?
I don't normally bother looking at people's laptops though, not because I have concerns about privacy but because on the whole looking at spreadsheets and the like is rather boring. Yesterday though I spent quite a while doing just that. I was watching a woman from Capgemini working on a spreadsheet which caught my eye because it was about data flows and integration. Yes, I find data flows and integration interesting, what of it? Anyway, as it turned out it was fairly boring, but while gawking I did notice that she'd made a systematic error in the spreadsheet. Nothing serious, in fact it was quite amusing, she was referring to American security behemoth Lockheed Martin as Lockhead Martin. At first I gave her the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe it was some sort of jokey internal project name, but then she flicked to a PowerPoint that quite clearly showed she'd just screwed it up.
So the dilemma is, should I have mentioned it? Or even better, should I have tried to get her to put Headlock Martin instead?
Another Phoebicdote
Yes, yes, I know I said I wasn't going to post anecdotes about Phoebs, but this is more so I don't forget about it than anything else.
The Lovely Hej and I were both in the kitchen and Phoebe was on her own in the lounge, not in itself an unusual or undesirable situation, she's pretty good at keeping herself amused safely. She'd been quite quiet for a while though, which does usually set alarm bells ringing because it normally means she's up to no good. Suddenly there was a shout of "Weeeeeee" from the lounge. Hayley was closer so ran in to see what she was up to, and found her sitting on a toy catalogue open to a page with a large picture of a slide. It turns out she'd been trying to slide down the slide in the picture! By the sounds of it, she thought she'd succeeded too.
The Lovely Hej and I were both in the kitchen and Phoebe was on her own in the lounge, not in itself an unusual or undesirable situation, she's pretty good at keeping herself amused safely. She'd been quite quiet for a while though, which does usually set alarm bells ringing because it normally means she's up to no good. Suddenly there was a shout of "Weeeeeee" from the lounge. Hayley was closer so ran in to see what she was up to, and found her sitting on a toy catalogue open to a page with a large picture of a slide. It turns out she'd been trying to slide down the slide in the picture! By the sounds of it, she thought she'd succeeded too.
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