Pogsurf

Bingo!

2011-12-09T17:01:00.001Z

Just knew my luck was going to hold out, and somehow I would coax some lovely person to hand to me a Darwin £2 coin. And here it is:

Turns out that Professor Michael Mendl, biologist and leading light at Bristol University Vetinary School, takes an interest in coins, as does Jerry Coyne, biologist and author of "Why Evolution is True." Prof. Mendl very kindly verified that this is a coin of the realm, and told me that his whole family are keen numismatists. His elder daughter is collecting Olympic themed 50p pieces, whilst his youngest daughter is the proud owner of a very rare Girl Guiding 50p coin, which celebrates 101 years of Girl Guiding in the UK.

I also understand that Mike's eldest child and son, has a Totnes pound note. I understand this may indeed be very rare, but it is way beyond my own field (inland piracy) and so I take little interest in the subject.

Warning: Sockpuppets are known to be operating in your area

2011-12-07T23:54:00.000Z

How can anyone even think of writing this sort of nonsense day in, day out? It is just taking serious blogging down the drain.

Spot the Thinker

2011-11-26T03:26:00.001Z

In a new feature for Pogsurf, we are holding a Spot the Thinker competition. Leave you answers below and you could win a cash prize, in the denomination of your choice.

It costs just 5p (five pence, UK) to enter this competition, but PayPal have refused to take money from an unlicensed, not for profit, no hope of profit, you can't even give it away blog, where the blog owner probably has a criminal record or harbours insane thoughts with malicious intent and no hope of redemption (their words, not mine), so we will just have to work something out. You could send it to your local donkey sanctuary or worse. These are the breaks that life brings, but in the end you just have roll with it, and live with your choices.

The compo~

_______________________ .
Clue:: it works just like the old newspaper 'Spot the Ball' comps. Go and ask your grandfather, he loves to talk about the olden days. I'm sure he'll show you how to mark the correct location with a Biro or sharp pencil, and then send it in with a SAE. That's if he can still remember how to do stuff or he's not dead, poor soul.

The un-Dynamic Duo

2011-11-25T09:02:00.000Z

After a lot of meddling by Richard Bartholomew, Tim Ireland was forced to issue the following statement:

I normally ignore ‘Pogsurf’, aka Martin Wiesner, who uses multiple/false identities to attack his political enemies, and now attacks me because I caught him doing it, but I will happily kick his straw man to bits before going back to ignoring his petty distortions:
To go on and pretend that medication belongs to someone else while including text saying people should be careful of me because they allege I take it (or have sometimes neglected to): THAT is what is damaging and dangerous.

I have to warn silly little Timmy, who is the newly appointed Akela for the 187th Guildford North cub pack, that if he even comes near any of my straw men, I will personally chop his bollocks off. I have never prentended that anyone's medication belongs to anyone else, and if you ever track down Bartholomew's arcane and obscure blog you will find that I actually offer the advice of taking the labels off of medication boxes after they have been used, in order to foil the activities of the despised junk mailers.

Enough of this nonsense, let's get back to some mainstream, proper British blogging.

Note to visitors: 'bollocks' is a slang term for testes or testicles

The Eagle Has Landed!

2011-11-25T08:24:00.000Z

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Pogsurf has the very great pleasure to announce that we have now created a single point of verifiable data, and it is our strong contention that the Eagle has landed. Pogsurf is thereby claiming to be the first blog on Earth, which has proved that their is life in outer-space.

We should like to welcome the Eagle, and all the creatures that live upon it, to planet Earth. For many years people on Earth have been studying the planet which the eagle explorers are believed to have come from. Well done to all the team, we have assembled an image which we believe our new guests might enjoy,, and to make them feel welcome. Please remember to be very polite to our new guests, otherwise we will simply find that they will eat us all! Not a pleasant thought, I think.

PZ's Big Slimy Coming Out Party

2011-11-25T00:11:00.001Z

The news today is that everyone's favourite sexist pig PZ Myers, has finally organised his very own coming out party, especially to celebrate his online misogyny. Watch out girls, as PZ elegantly applies the muzzle, he says:

"This is the WRONG BATTLE."

According to his view, Girls need to be seen, and not heard. As long as you are decorating the blogosphere, that's fine with ole squid-face, but if you start getting uppity, and want your own voice, You WILL BE SHOUTED AT!

Head over to Pharyngula if you enjoy being bossed around by a bully with a beard. Don't stay too long though because slimy squid mucus really does not come off your clothes.

You've Gotta Have Faith ...

2011-11-23T14:20:00.000Z

The real lesson I got from reading Richard Dawkins' God Delusion is that agnosticism is not a valid position. Whatever you do in life, you have got to make choices. Just as it is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all, it is better to take wrong choices and to be prepared to fess up your wrong choice when it is found out, than to never make any choice at all.

I found a simple example, which on the face of it seems to be a very low risk choice for me. A shop keeper in the USA displayed a sign in his window offending atheists. He later apologised (twice). Should I accept the apology?

Blaghag says yes: an-apology-to-skepticon-from-gelato-mio
Pharyngula says no: fair-weather-atheists-and-sunshine-skeptics

Come on, no agnostic type crap, it's all too far away, I never saw the sign, I'm an atheist but not really. Make a choice.

At some point in life you will have to take things on faith. To live a good life, you have to assume what other people say is being made in good faith, unless you have strong reasons for believing otherwise. I have no particular reason to believe of disbelieve what Gelato guy says is true. Live well, make that leap of faith, and trust him. I may live to proved to be wrong. Well just face up to that challemge when it comes.

I chose yes, and indicated as such on each blog. Now it's your turn to make a choice!

Real-time experiment on the nature of Truth

2011-11-22T13:29:00.000Z

There are two different versions of "the truth" running here and here.

Nadine Dorries is the MP for Mid Bedfordshire. Tim Ireland is a SEO consultant from Guildford. Tim and Nadine have a long-term disagreement, which they both occasionally discuss on their respective blogs.

On Facts

2011-11-22T12:47:00.001Z

Jerry Coyne is a biologist and author of the best selling book "Why Evolution is True". He runs a blog by the same name. He got into a discussion about the nature of facts, with a theologian Keith Ward, following a Guardian Comment is Free article of Ward's.

Jerry's blog is lively, with a well informed readership who share Jerry's passions for science, atheism and skepticism. It has an informal style, so readers can feel happy discussing the topic at hand, discussing side issues or taking part in witty banter, just along as things don't get too heated.

I have a bachelor of science degree in Maths and Philosophy. Don't ask me what the mark was, I only just survived to the end of the course after resitting my final exams. I would describe myself as an atheist, take a broadly scientific view of the world and enjoy thinking games, so when Jerry offered a specific challenge, I was interested.

He challenged:

"... I invite readers again to give me just one reasonably well established fact about the world that comes from “general philosophical views, moral views, personal experience and judgment” without any verifiable empirical input. By all means, ask your friends in philosophy and theology!"

From some dim and distant memory of my time at university, I knew there is a philosophical problem called the Other Minds problem. Put in a simple form it amounts to the claim is that any one individual can know they have a mind, but proving that anyone else, or other sentient beings like animals have minds, is somewhere on the scale of extremely difficult to impossible.

Before Jerry's challenge came along, I had done some preliminary thinking on this issue, which is recoded in a post I called: I think therefore I question. René Descartes had been a hero of mine when I was at school, for the following three reasons. He made a huge contribution to mathematics. Similarly, he made a huge contribution to philosophy. Whilst all the time, he knew the importance of practical tasks too. When I read:

"I entirely abandoned the study of letters. Resolving to seek no knowledge other than that of which could be found in myself or else in the great book of the world, I spent the rest of my youth traveling, visiting courts and armies, mixing with people of diverse temperaments and ranks, gathering various experiences, testing myself in the situations which fortune offered me, and at all times reflecting upon whatever came my way so as to derive some profit from it." (Descartes, Discourse on the Method).

I couldn't help but think he was a giant of a man, who really understood what it was to live well.

People who hold theistic beliefs sometimes claim that they should not be criticised for holding strong beliefs based on faith, because atheists hold similar beliefs, but they never acknowledge them. I used to think that was a nonsense claim, then I came to realise that I could only dismiss it if I had actually examined my own beliefs to see if that were the case. I was reminded of Descarte's "I think therefore I am", and I realised that my own formulation of an ultimate truth would come out differently.

Mine is:

"Something exists."

This of course is an utterly bald assertion, but I think it must have the property that it is true. It also lead me to the understanding that I did indeed hold a belief which I only hold through faith, and that is:

"I am not alone."

So now I do understand that I hold at least one belief through faith alone, and that I cannot criticise a theist who asserts this as a proposition. However, I strongly believe that my position is somewhat more credible than the person who says "I believe in God through faith". My leap of faith is extremely difficult for the theist to disprove, because it seems a necessary condition of being part of a social dialogue, so that they must believe that an almost identical claim is true for themselves (it differs in only the fact that they are the subject, clearly).

Having reached these conclusions, I hit upon a widely believed proposition that could meet Coyne's challenge, which cannot be proved as true. Because it is basically one of the building blocks of what it means to be a social animal, it at first seems very unpromising.

It reads:

"The “fact” is that there is more than one human in the world. I think that most of us establish this fact through personal experience and judgement at around age 3. Those of us who do not grasp this “fact”, to whatever degree, are given the label autistic."

Following further discussions at Ophelia Benson's FreeThoughts blog Butterflies and Wheels, I now realise that my understanding of what a "fact" was, was not complete at the time. This was the reason that I needed to place the word in quote marks in the above paragraph, to identify I was talking about a fact like thing, rather than a fact itself.A rather ratty conversation at Talking Philosophy, where I challenged the use of the term "fact" by another author, and along the way his understanding of what manners and morality were, did also help me to eventually concentrate on the precision of my argument, and not the relative merits of one or other's reputation or standing.

The conversation at Ophelia's blog is proving to be quite extended. This appears to be because Ophelia and a couple of others are interested in what I have to say, but have a growing list of questions as to whether my claims are consistent. I will blog further about this discussion on a later occasion.

Directing Anger

2011-06-18T20:15:00.000+01:00

Tom MacMaster has been a very naughty boy. He wrote a blog, created a fictional character, and some people believed that character was real. When people discovered that they had be deceived, they were cross. They were cross with MacMaster, claiming his fictional character had drowned out real voices, and that he had made it harder for some people to get an audience for their views, because people would be more sceptical of those who used pseudo-anonymous blogs as a vehicle for their campaigns.

Neither of these objections make any sense. In the age of 24-hour news coverage, and the internet, there is absolutely no lack of space to raise a campaign voice. There is no crowding out, because the space is effectively limitless. Ten, a hundred, or a hundred thousand fake blogs do precisely nothing to obscure the message of a lone blog from the wilderness. Similarly, because one unauthenticated blog was taken as real by such respected news sources as CNN and The Guardian, this does not make it any harder to authenticate blogs. It just shows that the authentication in this case was lower than it should be. It remains as hard or as easy to authenticate any particular voice as it always has done.

In the light of the Gay Girl in Damascus blog, lots of people have said how angry they are. Aren't they really saying how angry they are that they were fooled? In which case, MacMaster has done them a service. He has shown them that they should not invest their emotional energy into people who may or may not be real. There are plenty of real people to get emotional about. Anger about being fooled, is anger that should properly be directed back at oneself. You have fooled yourself, MacMaster just nudged you along the way.

No one is interested anymore in what MacMaster may have to say about lesbianism, or even Damascus. But the interesting story he has to tell is how you can make a character believable. The internet offers up a new and unique opportunity to write fictional characters who interact in real-time with real people. Post hoc claims that MacMaster's fiction had inaccuracies in it are not worth listening to, except to validate that you can get away with an awful lot if your character is in some way credible.

MacMaster did do something which was clearly wrong, when he used Jelena Lečić's photographs to adorn his blog. Flirting with people, whilst posing as another, is morally dubious behaviour, but is also probably ubiquitous. Lying to journalists might be considered wrong in some quarters, but journalistic training should ensure that journalists are ever vigilant, and should always be on their guard against propagating other people's lies. So MacMaster did do some things that were clearly wrong, but creating a piece of fiction is not a crime, and passing that fiction off as the truth is possibly within the bounds of artistic licence. The legend of Father Christmas would take a turn for the worse if we all had to regard it henceforth as an evil lie. It is not quite clear just yet what gifts MacMaster had to offer the world, in return for believing his fiction, but no doubt after a period of reflection that will become clearer. In the meantime, please enjoy my cartoon, which posits the limits of blogging fiction may not have been reached just yet. Enjoy!

Thought for the day

2011-05-23T01:24:00.000+01:00

Theologians: comedians who get upset when people laugh.

Iconic Art

2011-05-20T14:41:00.000+01:00

Via Pharyngula I learn that today is Draw Mohammed Day II. Some parts of the Islamic world believe there should be a prohibition on the display of images of the Prophet. If you are devout, and you wish to refrain from doing something, then that's fine by me. But I am not, and so I don't feel I should be bound by your proscription.

In fact I'd go further than that. I think there is a tendency within some areas of the Islamic faith to promote the idea that it is right to spread Islamic ideas of devotion and purity using threats and violence. This includes the death sentence for apostasy, sexual transgressions and blasphemy. These are anathema to me.

However, as explained in my comment to Pharyngula, I don't believe I am quite ready to draw a picture of Mohammed. I am planning to do so this time next year. It did remind me, however, that I once did have a go at a piece of Christian iconography, and the reason I tried to paint it.

I have a friend from Bulgaria who gave to me a small icon painted by his father.

Up until then, I had always thought of icons as something from a very distant past. Of course all icons are painted by contemporary artists, no matter how far back in time you go, it is just the style which makes them feel old to our modern eyes. Thinking upon this made me wonder if I too could contribute to iconic art. My work appears below.

I've called it The Blue Maddona with Child (acrylic on roofing slate). The greatest compliment I received about it was that it reminded someone of a cartoon out of Monty Python. So here's to everyone who is considering contributing to the end of Islamic intolerance, to art, and to iconography!

Touched by His Noodly Appendage

2010-10-10T18:33:00.000+01:00

So there I was, in the bath, and I spotted the two eyes first. Then I noticed a perfectly formed basket of shiny spaghetti, and cradled in that basket was bottle of "Matey" bubble bath foam. It took me a little while to realise I was gazing upon the great Flying Spaghetti Monster himself, who was offering me a mermaid shaped angel to increase my bath-time fun. I never need to bathe alone again, I shall always know that the FSM is watching over me.

{I am submitting the above post to Bobby Henderson for official verification that this was indeed a confirmed sighting of the Holy Spaghetti Monster.}

Red Letter Boxes of North Watford

2010-10-09T12:05:00.000+01:00

The corner of Longspring, Bushey Mill Lane and the St. Albans Road. Some yobs wiv' attitude!

Google pwned by Pogsurf!

2010-10-04T14:10:00.000+01:00

Google don't like other people using logos from their collection. Except of course the one which is found on Wikipedia. Here we find that Google's main logo 'does not meet the threshold of originality'.

So, here on 28th September 2010, I do declare that Google has just been pwn'ed by Pogsurf.

The above image is the Copyright of Pogsurf, and may be freely used by all and sundry, Except Google. Please be WARNED that Pogsurf will defend its Copyright using the full force of the Law.

Battle of Britain Bicycle Fly-past

2010-09-27T03:22:00.000+01:00

Veterans of the last two World Wars will attempt a bicycle fly-past along the St. Albans Road, today.....................................................................................SCHEDULE IS:09.30 - assemble on the sunken wreck at the corner of Leavesden and Lowestoft Roads. De-brief and note weather conditions.09.35 - roll out to agreed destinations09.45 - arrive at CMHS HQ, Upton Road, for freelance Bombing Raid and tea coffee with friends/deadly foes12-00 - 2nd de-briefing, or free time for participants thereafter____________________________________________________________________________________EQUIPMENT:Biscuit tin plus small packet of edibles to share.Moustachioed disguise, or similar for ladies, so as to not look too suspicious.Treasured item to be left in the wake.Legal tender for bartering, gambling and flashing around.This is a first operation to see if Watford Crime Partnership can play nicely together, or whether are really just a bunch of disorganised Yobs. We will be going behind enemy lines, into a locked facility. Expect the unexpected. We shall count them all out and count them all back in again. We shall NEVER AGAIN surrender!

Word of the day: mulcted

2010-09-25T05:26:00.002+01:00

A quick tip for Global Jihadists and mental health patients who might suffer from 'a slight muzziness'

2010-09-25T05:00:00.003+01:00

I had quite a break-through yesterday, in my campaign to avoid a 'flame war' developing between the Universal Church of Orthodox Spaghetti Monster Fans and the Royal College of Psychiatrists' yoga club.The thing is, learn to tread very carefully as soon as you realise that your position is extremely finely balanced. My wife tends to type articles in longhand first, then slash and burn the deadwood out of her essays at a later date, I on the other hand, being a philosophical tight-rope walker, logician, and the world's first semi-professional Wobble-omit'rest, pedant and games-master, likes to take a Gamble.No one could give me odds on the recent High Court case in India with respect to ownership rights for Hindu and Muslim holy-places, so I couldn't place a bet. It didn't mean I wasn't interested, or even that I wasn't worried about being mulcted, it's just that particular high-wire must be so taught and so high I would have been sliced right through.

Wiff-waff finals: Today @ 2pm. BST

2010-09-25T05:00:00.002+01:00

Incredibly America and Great Britain, have not met in the finals of this semi-pro-am tournament, nor was it ever likely. Wimbledon bid to host the finals, this later being consumed by the corruption scandals. The outer Parisian subburb of Chorleton-cum-Hardy win now Host the Silver Cup.

Will Eric beat Larry to a pulp, squashing his fetid little corpse into a pox ridden hole, or Page thrash Schmidt using daring turns and twist, backed up with a back-hand as vicious as the legendry Tommy ack-ack gun?

Tune in live at 2pm. to find out. Ask at your local police station to provide precise time zone co-ordinates.

Watch out for violence - non predicted as yet.

Paddy Powers is offering 4/1 on a U.S.A. Victory, Ahoy shipmates!

Thought for the Day

2010-09-23T05:10:00.000+01:00

Education:
In a pupil/teacher relationship, only one can learn.
It is not the pupil.

DEATH & DESTRUCTION TODAY

2010-09-22T12:18:00.000+01:00

Go home!

2010-09-22T06:09:00.000+01:00

Home!

2010-09-22T05:50:00.000+01:00

Found near Wikipedia.

Tuesday child is ...

2010-09-21T08:48:00.000+01:00

A quick tip for Global Jihadists, and/or mental health patients who might suffer from 'a slight muzziness'.

I had quite a break-through yesterday, in my campaign to avoid a 'flame war' developing between the Universal Church of the Orthodox Spaghetti Monster fans, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists' now sadly defunct yoga club.

The thing is, learn to tread very carefully as soon as you realise that your position is extremely finely balanced. My wife tends to type articles in longhand first, then slash and burn the deadwood out of her essays at a later date. I, on the other hand, being a philosophical tight-rope walker, logician, and the world's first semi-professional scientist in the emerging discipline of wobble-om-metry (whilst always reserving the right to be a pedant and games-master) tend to blunder in and type with the precision of a blunder-bus. Both disciplines have their merits, learn to spot the difference with ease. I find that distractions can help. If your problem is mental in nature, try a spot of golf, if it's physical, theology might help. I used to play a bit of football whilst studying at university; the divinity colleges nearly always had the most aggressive sportsmen. They knew they we're right!

There's always enough common humanity kicking around to let people enjoy a bit of reverse polarity from time to time. Didn't you ever play games whilst you were in the cubs or the brownies? Game on!

In closing, if Freud thought that religion was an illusion, why did he claim that he could predict the future of it? I haven't read his book on the subject, just yet (nor have I asked him to sign it), but there's no reason to think it doesn't contain interesting insights, or knowledge, that might be useful elsewhere. Alternatively, pondering on what your own particular Nemesis might do in the same situation, is always instructive.

The face of a haunted man

2010-09-19T04:43:00.000+01:00

Musings Upon a Wonderful Creation

2010-08-03T16:06:00.000+01:00

I recently took a stroll to a country pub, with a small group of friends plus a dog. The dog was wearing a muzzle. When I enquired as to why, I was told that it had recently picked up the habit of eating dog shit.

That's a pretty unpleasant thought and you can see why any dog owner would want to break that particular bad habit. The thought of the dog licking you, or mooching around the kitchen after indulging in its scatological passion is enough to put anyone off their breakfast. Joy of joys I have to dog-sit this particular mutt in a few weeks time.

Unpleasant as the talk of faeces is, there is a profound sense in which humans, as part of the wider animal kingdom, are the daily creators of this wonderful thing called dung. Rich in bacteria, each "doing" shoots off down the sewage system, to join a nether world of unseen (and unsmelt) effluent. If you want to know the correct relationship between an all powerful Creator God, and a new universe, look no further than Man, trousers rolled around his ankles, sitting upon his throne.

It's not right for a man (or woman) to pay too much attention to their own business - once it has been released into the wild it becomes a taboo. Concentrate instead on a good digestion and a regular habit, then you will have done enough to set this new microverse of DNA and roughage spinning down the pan, and out into its own nascent world.

Much as I used to enjoy Channel 4's series "You Are What You Eat", if only to witness helpless souls being harangued by Gillian McKeith, I'd never be as daft as to try and follow her advice. It's not just that "@gillianmckeith is a poo-bothering quack" as twitterer eleanora_ succinctly puts it, it is also a fact that McKeith is offending the very laws of creation. When all is said and done, each and every one of us leaves behind a glorious trail of steaming turds. This is not to denigrate the wonderful work of professional sewage engineers. Anyone who helps expediate the evacuation of waste from my house to any anywhere else must be applauded. On the other hand, anyone who thinks you should defacate in a sandwich box then poke it around with a spatula needs their bumps felt.

In a funny way of thinking, this brought me around to the Pope. Andrew Brown at the Guardian wants us to design an anti-Pope t-shirt. I had a go, and then I realised I had quite mixed feelings about him. On the one hand, I think the superstition and pagentry of the Catholic Church is ridiculous. But on the other hand, the world would be quite a bit more drab without him. This is a romantic notion, that somehow I need other people's refined eccentricities to liven up my day. Perhaps I should be putting a lot more work into my own passions, and pay a lot less attention to the passions of others? Something to ponder, at least, the next time I am sitting on the lavvy.

Lost Worlds

2010-08-03T11:17:00.000+01:00

Interesting to note that Michael Bywater's Lost Worlds blog has itself become a lost world. At least it didn't just 404.

Bloody celebs!

2010-07-15T23:49:00.000+01:00

There I was, sitting peacefully in Watford High Street, sipping an 89p cup of tea from MacDonalds. Who pops up, but Peter "Bloody" Serafinowicz, all lost 'cos he can't find Watford Palace Theatre. Naturally I sent him on his way quick sharp.

Bloody celebs!

Adventures in Time Travel

2010-06-06T10:05:00.001+01:00

As observed by humans, time consists of three distinct phases: past, present and future. Moments in time, which were once thought to be universal in the Newtonian scheme, are now understood to be relative since the discoveries of Einstein. Two paradoxes about time travel appear to make it an impossibility. The first is that if time travel were possible, why haven't we seen time travellers from a later technological age travel back to our time? The second is that if you could travel back in time, wouldn't you be able to modify the events of the past, and so change the present day?

Both paradoxes can be debunked, but first I want to tackle the present "now", to show that its component is not just "time", but "space and time". An event which I personally witnessed will be used to illustrate this, but you can easily check the data for yourself. In 1999 I travelled to Kamen Bryag in Bulgaria to see the solar eclipse as detailed by this map. A solar eclipse as viewed from the Earth is the moment when the Moon obscures the Sun, and darkness is observed during daytime. The darkness typically lasts a couple of minutes, but this will vary according to how close you can get to the centre of the eclipse, and to where and when the eclipse occurs on the Earth's surface. Kamen Bryag was on the centre line of the 1999 eclipse, and is on the Black Sea coast, so it can be located as the mostly easterly point of landfall for the eclipse on the map.

From the map you see that I would have witnessed the height of the eclipse at about 11:12:20 am on 11/08/99. Since the Sun, the Moon an myself were perfectly aligned, you might expect that the time was aligned too, but this is not the case. We know that light takes about 8 minutes and 12 seconds to reach us from the sun. This means that an observer on the sun would not witness the eclipse at Kamen Bryag until 11.20.32 am (ie the time on Earth, plus the time it takes for light to travel back to the Sun). Similarly a witness on the Moon would not see the event until 1.3 seconds after an observer on Earth.

So three objects are aligned, but witnesses at each different place note different times for the alignment to occur. If I shout "now" at the moment of the height of the eclipse, we note that there is one shout of now at each observation point, and they occur at different times. Now is both a measure of space and time.

Travelling forward in time is trivial to demonstrate. I get in my car, and and I drive to Leeds. It takes about 2 hours. I have travelled through time and space to reach Leeds. How do I travel back in time?

This article was written in 2010. Suppose I want to witness Earth in the 1970's. Simple, I travel to a place in the galaxy which is 40 light years from Earth and I build a massive telescope to witness Earth from 4 decades ago. The truth of the matter is that in that part of the galaxy which is 40 light years from Earth, it still is 1970. The "now" which is 1970 Earth is a matter of both space and time.

Another example of travelling backward in time goes like this. Take a fantastically fast space ship and send it to a place which is 1 light year from Earth. Suppose that observed from Earth it took 4 years to get there. To the occupants of the space ship, it will have taken just 3 years to reach their destination (ie 4 years observed from Earth is 3 years travel, plus 1 year for the signal to travel, saying they have arrived). The ship then returns to Earth. From Earth the return voyage takes 4 years again, a total journey time of 8 years. To the occupants of the space ship, the return journey takes 3 years, a return voyage of 6 years. In other words, the occupants of the ship will have travelled 8 years into the future on Earth, for a journey time of 6 years. The occupants of the ship will have travelled forward in time 2 years. But all motion is relative, why not regard the Earth as having travelled, and the space ship as having stayed put? In which case the Earth will have travelled back in time by 2 years.

So what of the two time travel paradoxes? The first is mundane. Time travel is actually so commonplace we are are rarely able to spot it. We don't need to invent time travel, because we have been doing it all our lives. Move through space and you will reach a different time.

The second paradox is demolished when you understand that to observe a different time, you must be so far away that you cannot change the past. To observe the 1970's I needed to be 40 light years away. To try to influence the 1970's it would take another 40 years for my signal to arrive.

Should ITV hire bigot Paul Staines?

2010-04-30T19:03:00.001+01:00

from: Martin Wiesner
to: xxx@itn.co.uk
date: 30 April 2010 16:14
subject: Fwd: Do you know who you have got into bed with?

Dear ITN, I am informed by ITV you are people to contact here. Please read my original e-mail below, Martin

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Martin Wiesner pogsurf at googlemail dot com
Date: 30 April 2010 15:54
Subject: Do you know who you have got into bed with?
To: viewerservices@itv.com
Cc: info@rethink.org

Dear ITV,

The charity Rethink is right to be proud of its compact between the three main party leaders not to make slurs about other politicians mental health. As Dinesh Bhugra, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “This election may be a battle – but it should be a battle of ideas, not slurs. Candidates must be able to be open about mental health without it being used against them. Discrimination against people with mental health problems should have no place in society, and certainly not in politics."

http://www.rethink.org/how_we_can_help/news_and_media/press_releases/decision_to_ban_ment.html

Work to end the stigmatization and discrimination of people with mental health problems is important, and so I would expect to see the party leaders example being followed by others, including public bodies such as ITV. How disappointing it is to learn that ITV is in fact hiring one of the most unreconstructed mental health bigots to cover the election for them?

I am referring to Paul Staines, who blogs under the name of Guido Fawkes. Here is Staines boasting how he will be under contract to ITV on election night:

http://order-order.com/2010/04/30/wheres-the-election-night-party/

And here is an example of one of his juvenile tirades about the Prime Minister:

"Gordon was angry because he is a malevolent weirdo, unable to relate people like a normal human being, unable to interpret the emotional signals and body language that we all do instinctively. He is a
bonkers, not like an eccentric old aunt, but like a dangerously paranoid political psychopath."

http://order-order.com/2010/04/29/bonkers-brown-leading-labours-lemmings-over-the-electoral-edge/

I hope you can see the irony of the party leaders signing a compact hoping to bring to an end to mental health slurs, and you hiring the political blogsphere's worst proponent of it.

I look forward to receiving a reply indicating that you will not in fact be hiring this psycho-bigot. Should I not get satisfaction, I will of course look at ways of drawing this to other peoples attention via various new media.

Yours faithfully,

Martin Wiesner

Please don't laugh

2010-04-25T23:03:00.000+01:00

Please don't laugh at the funny man in the white dress. It makes him very unhappy if he is told that he is a figure of fun.

Laughing at him is "seriously offensive" according to the Daily Mail. Making jokes about him is "ill-judged, naive and disrespectful" as reported in the Guardian. In fact the BBC reports it is actually "despicable", which is co-incidentally Daffy Duck's ultimate retort. Are you starting to get a feel for how serious this is?

Fun with place names

2010-04-08T22:22:00.004+01:00

Spotted on tonight's episode of Have I Got News For You was this reference to Funbag Drive, Watford:

It's been mentioned in the Telegraph and the Express recently, so it must be true. Oh, and it appears in that oracle of truth and veracity, Wikipedia, too. Watford football fan and Twitterer Kerron Cross misheard it spoken of as "Funbag Crescent", and he asks "Where??".

Where indeed. Funbag Drive, Watford is on the telly, it's in our papers, in fact it's everywhere - except on a map. Google maps says (rather dolefully): we are not able to locate the address.

There are two other rude named places in the Telegraph/Wikipedia list which don't exist. Can you spot them? Or do you prefer facts which are copied from flaky sources and not checked before they are broadcast or published?

Banned!

2010-03-25T12:37:00.002Z

I was hoping to persuade my wife to accompany me to see tonight's screening of "Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)." Little did I know I only had to mentioned the magic word "banned" and the following text message came back:

"If its banned then def we must go! Xxxx"

Well done to Christian Voice for helping me to organise my social life. My tickets are booked, so now I can let everyone else know.

wobble-om-metry

2010-03-18T15:36:00.001Z

Tomorrows word of the day is:

wobble-om-metry

It's not in the dictionary just yet, but it will be by tomorrow.

True or false?

2010-03-16T15:10:00.003Z

Recently, Guido Fawkes turned down a cash offer for his blog. The offer was for a lot more than http://order-order.com/ is worth.

Is the statement above true or false? Answers on a postcard please, to the usual address ...

The passage of time

2010-03-14T05:36:00.004Z

An imagined conversation follows, between 2 sock-puppets, who are both part of me.

me: What was the most important thing you did yesterday?

i: I had a row with my wife. We made up later, after I had given her some flowers.

me: What will you do today?

i: Take my mother out for Mothering Sunday, and hopefully pop over to see my wife and I's allotment. As compensation, I will dress my best and will flirt outrageously with all the young women we meet. I am stunningly attractive, and women find me irresistible to talk to. On the other hand, most young men find me rude and abrasive. I like to keep them on their toes.

me: What are you doing right now?

i: Typing this, silly. What did you think I was up to? Run along and put the kettle on!

Curiouser and curioser!

2010-03-12T07:20:00.003Z

In the "Alice Through the Looking Glass" world of Paul {Pantie} Staines, this would be called a classic snop-couck. (Look it up in the dictionary, if you don't believe me!)

Yesterday's word of the day

2010-03-11T23:30:00.003Z

We are sorry we were unable to bring you yesterday's word of the day. This was due a large group of starlings nesting on the 45,000 kilovolt line near the electricity substation.

Yesterday's word of the day would have been: abdication.

Tomorrows Word of the Day

2010-03-11T20:53:00.000Z

"mulcted"

Public Access to Statistics

2010-03-11T09:07:00.003Z

A wealth of information on scientific investigation, human activity and current affairs is available through statistics gleaned via internet activity monitoring. I have always believed that governments and public bodies should make these widely available to the researchers of today and tomorrow. I have only recently realised there was an inconsistency in my own approach, and for this I issue an unqualified apology. We all learn new things throughout our lives, and so my change of attitude was brought about by the process of growing older, and being willing to make a 180 degree turn at short notice. I can recommend this approach, but I will not be held responsible for the inevitable mistakes of others.

Please feel free to browse the appalling low visitor statistics for Pogsurf. As ever I am always willing to listen to the candid remarks of others, whilst I reserve the right to ridicule those who disseminate silly ideas.

The full access point is via the link below:

http://my.statcounter.com/project/standard/stats.php?project_id=4130854&guest=1

Fascinating couple

2010-03-11T05:54:00.001Z

Professor Brian Cox and Bill Gates are both very interesting fellows. Curiously neither understands there is a perfectly good nuclear reactor found in every human stomach.

Official

2010-03-10T23:00:00.001Z

Queen to abdicate in about four days time.

Poem of the day: lift-off!

2010-03-10T05:58:00.003Z

There once was a man called Michael Finnegan,
He drew whiskers on his chin-again,
He wore Whiskas on his glynnegan,
Poor old Michael Finnegan, begin again, ...

Thought for the Day

2010-03-09T06:51:00.001Z

"The last of the time lords is really just the first of the slime lords."

Tuesday 9th March 2010

2010-03-09T02:22:00.002Z

Tuesday 9th March is a very special day. It has been declared "make a wish day". For one day only, you can make a wish and all sorts of very crazy things will become true. Try to make the most of it, and try to understand why life is such a complex mix of highs and lows, and you'll go on to lead a very long and productive life. Loose the plot, and you're heading for an early bath.

Remember to close you eyes and never tell a soul what your wish is. Things spoken out loud have terrible habit of being smashed to pieces.

Enjoy!

Accepted!

2010-03-07T20:52:00.001Z

£10 says he isn't.

Multiple Twitter Tweet

2010-03-05T23:26:00.004Z

There's a common misunderstanding that the psychiatric condition schizophrenia is connected with someone exhibiting multiple personalities. The etymology of schizophrenia doesn't help - in Latin, it means "split mind". Confusion is made possible by a very confusing name.

Multiple personalities and confusion are also a tempting offering in the nickname demotic of the internet age. Done covertly it takes the name of sock-puppetry. I don't know if the practice has a name if it is done overtly. But what is to be made of the following tweet?

RT @nadine_dorries: I've noticed that the London's posters get ruder as they get smaller. No, really. The ones in phone boxes are the worst.

Tim Ireland, through a twitter account called Nadine Dorries, retweets his own tweet, but this time through an account called Tim Ireland. Tim is pretending to be Nadine, and simultaneously he is pretending there is a second Tim. Or is it just Tim being Tim? If so, why use Nadine's name at all? I expect a psychologist could make a stab at what's going on here, but I don't think I've quite got the stomach to try myself.

As to the text, I think he (or she) is trying to make a joke. It doesn't really work for me the first time. The second time round it just seems weird. I don't know if the real Nadine Dorries (there is one, but she and Tim don't seem to see eye to eye) has recently pronounced on posters in London, and I wouldn't expect the "joke" to improve if I did learn the background. Jokes work best if we can laugh with people, not at them. It's hard to see if we are meant to be laughing at Dorries, at Ireland pretending to be Dorries, or Ireland pretending to be Ireland pretending to be Dorries.

Tim Ireland sets a great store by the fact that he is open about the internet accounts he creates. It is as if he sees openness as a substitute, or guarantor, for motive. I'd be interested to know what his motive is for his repeated attacks on Nadine. But given his propensity to "over explain", I don't expect I shall be asking him directly, any time soon.

Was I even there?

2010-03-04T13:07:00.002Z

On Friday, I attended the inaugural event of the Kingston University Debate Society, entitled "Is God a Delusion?". I was made to feel welcome, the debaters and the audience were interested and respectful, I learnt new things. Considering many factors, it is my judgement that it was a good event. I started to make notes about how I would write the event up, but then it occurred to me that I should report the event in a way which readers of this post may find unusual. Please allow me to indulge in a very short background.

When I was young I was fascinated by the lives and ideas of many people. Among them I can remember Leonardo Da Vinci, Shakespeare and René Descartes. They were inspirational to me because they evidently had talents in many fields. When it came to choosing which GCSEs to study, I rejected the traditional split between arts and science, I wanted to do both. I was very good at mathematics, but when I went to university I struggled with statistics, and so I later managed to convince the Dean that I should split my time between maths and philosophy. I loved books, and this gave me the chance to read more. I am proud to say that I was the first person to graduate from Bristol University with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy, all be it at a pass degree only.

During one year of philosophy we tackled the philosophy of religion. My final essay, for the degree which I very nearly failed, was on the subject of self-deceit. Self deception is a fascinating subject to me: how can one part of you "know something", and yet another part not know? My studies were in the realms of deity and delusion, the subject of the Kingston debate.

Anyone reading this article has a desperate problem of evidence. Can you be sure I was there that night? Am I a reliable witness? Yet I know I was there with complete certainty. Ruwayda Mustafah, President of the debating society knows it too. We exchanged e-mails beforehand, and she was kind enough to bring me a cup of tea before the start. But others will struggle to understand if what I write here is precisely true. Professor Stephen Law, for instance, will know that I occasionally comment on his blog. Hamzas Tzortzis is unlikely to recognise me. To practically everyone else I expect I was quite anonymous.

To me, the question of "Is God a Delusion?" is almost equivalent to asking this: Stephen Law, Hamzas Tzortzis, Ruwayda Mustafah, Martin Wiesner and about 40 to 50 other people were present at the Clattern Lecture Theatre on 5th March 2010. Was God in the room too?

Even though I am an atheist, it may surprise you to hear that I think that the answer is both yes and no. This is not to say that both Law and Tzortzis failed to make compelling arguments. I found Law considered and thoughtful, as one might expect a Professor of Philosophy to be. Tzortzis, who is younger, and a practising Muslim, is both charismatic and engaging. Unfortunately, both speakers suffer from at least two common delusions, which I shall come to later. Before I do this I want to give just a little bit more about my own personal history, and of course try to set out the two arguments I saw laid before me.

Some time after leaving university, I had a breakdown. I suffered quite protracted periods of distress, and then I returned to a much safer place. I currently have a diagnosis of Bipolar I, although I hope to speak to my psychiatrist soon about a full discharge. What I am saying in a roundabout way is that I have had practical experience of delusions. Not many people speak openly about the delusions they suffer from, the stigma of mental illness is all pervasive. Unless you can express the hopes and fears about your own delusions, how can you hope to condemn or discuss them in other people?

The debate

Professor Law spoke first. He defined gods as "agents which are necessarily temporal beings". He questioned why if god is all good, there is so much bad in the world. He used the example of an imaginary distant planet, almost identical to earth, except the people there worshipped an entirely evil good. On planet "Eff", people questioned why there was "just too much good". Comparing the populations of Earth and Eff, he asked: "Which set of beliefs are more reasonable?" He couldn't answer that question.

Hamzas Tzortzis had the advantage hearing Law's arguments before replying. Tzortzis argued that "God makes sense of the meaning of the universe". When he spoke about the idea of the "big bang", he dismissed it as a possibility by saying "out of nothing, nothing comes". However to explain how God came before the universe, he said "this cause must be uncaused". He spoke quite rapidly, and I noticed he quoted very many references and sources. Tzortzis is certain that "God makes sense of the fine tuning of the universe". He felt that Law was not attacking the very God of the Muslims, stating instead that God is not good, but "God is just, god is wise, god is the one who punishes."

Both speakers were allowed to speak for a second time. Law described how his opponent was committing the Salesman's Fallacy - only two goods offered, the God of the Muslims or nothing, when in reality more options may exist. According to Tzortzis, Muslims are "going to be in paradise forever". Members of the audience were keen to ask questions at the end (I am always too shy!), which allowed the two speakers to agree on a couple of points, the substantive one being that the amount of good and bad in the world just about balances out.

In conclusion

So what of the two shared delusions that the speakers hold? The first one I have just referred to. Both believe that you can measure suffering, and having done so, that you can compare it to the amount of joy in the world. But where is the research? Where are the measuring tools, and the charts and the statistics that show that good is roughly equal to evil? Neither referred to such concrete science, so am I right in perhaps inferring that they weren't speaking literally, but that they meant that it feels as though good and evil balance out? So all we are left with is that they agreed that they both felt good and evil were at a balance. I disagree, by the way, I feel that there is always more good than evil, but I am not going to push this further here. I think we will all just have to respect our differences here.

Now for the second delusion. It's to do with the arrow of time. In the hall that evening, time was measured according to the Christian tradition, in hours and minutes, using a nominal date, near to the birth of Jesus as the year dot. Muslims use a different reference point, they would recognise the current year to be 1431. As a human, I have an internal before and after calendar, using my memories of experiences to determine where I was in time. Like most people in the UK I tie my experiences to a reference point called my date of birth, which has a lookup on the Christian calendar. But what is the date on the planet Eff?

Special relativity tells us that distant objects in the universe are separated from us by both time and space. When we the occupants of planet Earth meet the residents of Eff, we can set a new reference point, the date we met. In fact the arrival of people from outer space is likely to be such a fantastic occasion, that we will create a new calender around the event. I can back this up with an example from personal experience. In 1990, I visited Papua New Guinea. It is well documented that in the Central Highlands, a large group of native people were discovered around about the 1930's, perhaps as many as 1,000,000, who were previously unknown to the "outside" world. When I visited, local people often referred to the time before white men arrived as "before", and times after as "after". Once the shared event has occurred, we have a reference point. But at this point in time, before we have met the residents of Eff, how do we know that "today" here on Earth, is "today" on the planet Eff? The "now" that we find ourselves trapped in, only occurs when we meet. Our individual nows collide, and a shared experience occurs.

Having so rudely insulted our two speakers, by calling them deluded, I think it is time to draw this article to a close. Those of a religious bent inform our feeling of what a God is, and perversely those of an atheistic persuasion inform our intellectual understanding of God or Gods. Thankfully, the mysteries of the world are far deeper than any of us has the capacity to fully fathom...

Sing Hallelujah

2010-01-28T22:07:00.003Z

BBC Concert Orchestra and BBC Singers learning event

Various community choirs from Watford and the area - Kings Langley Community Choir, Gospel Arts Manna Community Gospel Choir, Watford Palace Theatre Community Choir, Watford School of Music Soul Singers together with conductor Tim Murray, 4 BBC Singers and 6 members of the BBC Concert Orchestra. They learnt and recorded the Hallelujah chorus in two hours.
Event Details

BBC Concert Orchestra/Singers Learning Event

Wednesday 18th December 2009, 7:30pm

Main Hall, Watford Boys School, Rickmansworth Road, Watford, WD18 7JF

* Visit the BBC Concert Orchestra's website
* Visit the BBC Singer's website

The I'm Feeling Lucky Alphabet

2010-01-28T00:14:00.004Z

No sense of irony

2010-01-24T01:41:00.002Z

News source

Octagonal Room

2010-01-18T09:35:00.003Z

You find yourself in an octagonal room. On each wall of the room there is one door. Seven doors are unlocked. One door is locked and you do not have the key. You want to get out of the room. You stand by the locked door and hope that it will open. This is what it means to be depressed.

Update on: Twaddlology

2010-01-13T23:56:00.004Z

Just checked on Google and there is just one entry for Twaddlology, my own definitive previous post. To get the ball rolling a bit, I've posted a comment on a Comment is Free article by Charlie Brooker - There's no hope left for Labour – apart, perhaps, from hopelessness itself.

Twaddlology

2010-01-12T23:33:00.004Z

n., pl., -gies.

The science that deals with twaddle and twaddle-like behaviour.
The foolish and prattish characteristics of an individual, group, or activity: the twaddlology of war.
Puerile tactical action or argument used to manipulate or influence another: He used poor twaddlology on his employer when trying to make the point.
Philosophy. The branch of epistemology that studies the nonsense, untruths and deceptiveness, and the relationship of untruths to logic and the mind.

Twaddlology - a word arrived fully formed, with its own definition and everything.

Iris drops off the radar

2010-01-12T00:16:00.005Z

The BBC's headline "Iris Robinson receiving acute psychiatric treatment" means that her status as a non-person has now been confirmed. Mrs Robinson can no longer speak for herself. After all, she might have said something which would be damaging to Mr Robinson's attempt to save his political career, and this was a risk that was not worth taking.

It is better for all the sane parties that the words of the insane are unheard, they may just spoil the party. Iris' dignity is as nothing compared with Peter's salvage operation, so Peter and the DUP are free to comment on her suicide attempt, affair, mental health and anything else which may just give Peter a scrap of hope that he can survive the political heat. Fortunately for Peter, Iris is already widely reviled and so elicits little sympathy. Iris has hurt Peter, so Peter need not worry too much if he now hurts Iris. No one will care. Except Iris. But then that doesn't count because she is mentally ill. Just one more loony, dropping out of sight ...

The Art of Not Knowing

2009-11-18T12:36:00.003Z

Source: http://www.hertspartsft.nhs.uk/_uploads/documents/recovery/hpft-workshop-the-art-of-not-knowing_2009.pdf

I think therefore I question

2009-10-09T08:58:00.007+01:00

For me, there are two difficulties with Descartes' ultimate truth "I think therefore I am". Leaving aside any translation issues because of the fact that the phrase was originally conceived in French, then later slightly reformulated when he wrote in Latin, my first difficulty is with the "I" component and my second is with the "thinking".

The "I" problem occurs because of Buddhist philosophy which suggests that the self is an illusion and that we all belong to one conscious whole. Whilst I have not personally undertaken the years of training in meditation that seems to be recommended to reach such a sublime revelation, nor had a Zen-like instantaneous insight to the truthfulness of the position, "I" doesn't need to be an immovable object. Why not just "something"? This would sidestep the issue of the self as an illusion, and depersonalise the content of my own truth.

The "thinking" problem can be put like this. Am I thinking that I exist, or do I just perceive it? In any case, to me, it is not the thinking which is the important element (from my own understanding, this may have been more so to Descartes), it is the existence.

So my own first certainty is: something exists.

Because I cannot conceive of a way that this could be false, I shall call it my ultimate truth.

Straight away a hurdle presents itself. Solipsism. Am I alone in my thinking or perception that something exists? Am I the only conscious being that exists, with everything else just going on in my mind? It is a desperately lonely position, awesome in its potential, and utterly frustrating in its execution. Essentially solipsists find themselves in the role of a diminished God. All seeing and all knowing, but with powers which are severely limited. Solipsism is a desperate position to take, and there may not be a rational way to escape it. It requires a leap of faith to escape the solitude. My first assumption is therefore to assume I am not alone. Not because it must be, but because it must be for my own sanity.

My first assumption is: I am not alone.

Because I need to assume this in order to lead a half-way decent life, I shall call it my leap of faith.

It is possible that I could enter into constructive dialogue about my certainty and my assumption, but I predict they will both be positions which it will be hard to drag me away from. I am sure, however, that a far more interesting dialogue could be achieved around the general form of my findings. I have one ultimate truth and one leap of faith. Is it possible that this could be a general formula which would hold for everyone? We might find that we vehemently disagree about the specifics of our truths and our assumptions, but do we all have exactly one of each?

To summarise my own position ...

Ultimate truth: something exists
Leap of faith: I am not alone

... and in explicit terms, my theory is this:

in order to live well, we each recognise one ultimate truth and one leap of faith.

Internet Karma

2009-10-01T10:47:00.005+01:00

Tim Ireland's past is slowly catching up with him. Today he complains to Mr Power via Twitter:

Westminster = small village. Dale telling political/publishing mates I'm a stalker makes it hard for me to ask tough questions.

Where did the phrase "stalker" in relation to Ireland come from? Is he right to complain that Iain Dale has been spreading this around Westminster? Tim Ireland seems to have a short memory because between 2003 and 2007 he ran a blog which, as he puts it now, was:

formerly dedicated to the gentle stalking of one of our finest Conservative MPs

Note only gentle stalking though, that must be fine. That's not like true blue plain vanilla stalking at all, is it? Tim has never done anything more than a bit of soft, gentle, teasing stalking with a feather. No wonder he's outraged, this Dale fellow is assassinating his character.

Unfortunately for Tim, Google's cache tells a different story.
It says:

Tim Yeo - The Weblog
A weblog dedicated to the stalking of Tim Yeo, one of our finest public figures ...

Oh dear Tim, for four years you told Westminster, the world and his dog that you were "stalking" Tim Yeo MP. Now you are complaining that Iain Dale once used the word "stalker" about you, then thought better of it.

The political blogosphere does indeed have a "stalker" lurking amongst us. Tim, who loves nothing better than to use forensic techniques on the internet, has been hoisted by his own petard. There's nothing here that couldn't be checked with a few clicks or searches of your own. And by the way, it seems Tim Ireland is not beyond doing a little bit of gentle editing too, when it might suit his own version of events. Maybe there are a few tough questions that he should ask himself, before he is let loose on the luminaries of the Westminster village.

Idiot Watch: last update

2009-09-30T09:40:00.002+01:00

We have been overwhelmed by the number of idiots out there, and so have decided to make this the last one. Enjoy!

II

Big tent hots up as lovers entwine

2009-09-29T22:40:00.007+01:00

Bit of a bloggers love-in going on as Tom Harris and Iain Dale blow each other kisses across the ether. Harris says Dale is honest, principled and speaks his mind. Dale says he's very touched. Both men have built up blog audiences where people from across the political spectrum are welcome to express their views.

I've always had my doubts about Dale in particular, often he seemed to hide his political allegiance until things got heated. However the defining moment for me was during the American presidential election in November when Dale hosted a live blog-in which attracted mostly McCain supporters, but a sizeable proportion of Obama supporters too. A similar event hosted by Liberal Conspiracy attracted Obama fans exclusively. As Dale mentions, politics on the web can be a very tribal thing.

My own experience in real life is that local politicians will be intensely partisan during an election campaign, but then build personal relationships with opposing councillors to make working life on the council pass more smoothly. I expect a very similar process goes on in the House of Commons too. So in the spirit comradeliness which seems to be breaking out across the blogosphere, I too welcome Dale's inclusion on the Bracknell Tory PPS shortlist. But please remember to vote in David Young as a Green MP at the next General Election.

Mandy: Decorating tomorrows chip paper

2009-09-29T08:28:00.008+01:00

Click for bigger.

Idiot Watch: update

2009-09-28T09:54:00.003+01:00

Ladies and Gentlemen. Please remain calm. Another idiot has been spotted. Remember if you seen an idiot in the street or at a public event like a picnic or party conference, please do not approach them. It is best to let the authorities deal with them.

If we get any further sightings of idiots we will let you know as soon as possible.

Idiot Watch

2009-09-27T22:17:00.003+01:00

In these times of heightened security risks, please be on the lookout for idiots. They could be hiding anywhere, and threaten you with their signs. Here's what they might look like:

You have been warned!

Know me by my name

2009-09-27T08:23:00.006+01:00

I got my nickname in the following way. I was a bit rolly-poly as a baby, so my mum called me Podgy. This was later shortened to Pog: pretty much all my childhood friends and acquaintances knew me as Pog, some still call me it. When I opened my first email account with AOL, Pog had already been taken. Everyone was talking about the new phenomenon of "surfing" at the time, so I added surf as a suffix. The rest is history.

There's a big difference between calling someone by a nickname, and calling them a name. It is one of intent. One is friendly, one is not so friendly. Yesterday I called Tim Ireland out on his use of the term "idiot". In fact you could say that he makes his intent all too clear. It's not nice.

Tim also has a little gang of acolytes who like to follow his bullying ways. Their mugshots or "work" can usually be found here. (I notice Tim's own entry has now disappeared, probably because he is at the centre of some sort of "terrorist" imbroglio.) Except one that is. Beau Bo D'Or makes a good joke by showing a man who has just written "Julie Moult is a genius" on a steamy window, shown from an outside perspective which inverts the inscription. Like any good satirist his work can be taken in more than one way, thereby preserving an ambiguity over his own position. I usually couch against explaining jokes, but I wanted to make clear here that I don't think Beau Bo is demeaning Ms Moult in any way, in fact he's drawing our intention to the importance of perspective.

Matt Buck understands perspective too. After all, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Someone regarded as a nutcase by some, could be seen as a genius by others. Over at Liberal Conspiracy I have been frequently labelled a "troll", and Tim Ireland loves to remind everyone that I am a "sock-puppet". The answer of course is to take ownership of these bits of petty nonsense, and embrace the terms. My trolling usually takes the form of asking awkward questions, my sock-puppetry seems to have taken on epic proportions until one breathless commentator exclaims "he's posting comments bloody everywhere".

It is a curious feature of the human condition that those who rail against flaws in others often display that same flaw themselves. So it is that those who seek to exploit others perceived weaknesses are often vulnerable to the same kind of attack. Tim Ireland for instance is most uncomfortable about references to his own nickname "Manic". At item 36 of this bizarre instance of replying to a spoof list of interview questions, Ireland says:

And now that you bring it up, the nickname also dates from a more innocent time on the web, when there were fewer people around wanting to be a cock about it.

That's OK then. Or perhaps it's about time you changed your nickname. In fact I can't make my mind up about this, or whether he is really calling for the return of an earlier age of bliss on the internet.

As well as addressing Tim by name, we can also now address him by post. I know this because he wrote:

my home address has been repeatedly published online

and Sunny Hundal wrote:

a shadowy bunch of operators who are publishing his name and home address all over the internet

and Justin McKeating wrote:

and finally his home address made public on the internet

It's not exactly a secret, is it? In fact it is so widely publicised I am beginning to wonder if he about organise some kind of mail order business. I wish him luck in his new venture. I hope it distracts him from his name-calling campaigns. Maybe he should adopt a new nickname for a complete change of image. No idea what this should be, perhaps you have an idea? Answers on a postcard, please!

Gang warfare

2009-09-26T08:30:00.006+01:00

Yesterday I accused Tim Ireland of intellectual cowardice because he wouldn't debate the merits of sock-puppetry. On 26/11/08 [year corrected] I wrote in an email to him:

... Take a look at this picture Tim, and say what you see. If you really want to have a debate about sock puppetry, Hack's cartoon blog is exactly the right place to hold it.

http://hackcartoonsdiary.com/2008/11/25/of-socks-puppets-and-free-socks/

The day after I had invited him to debate the issue, he wrote that I was:

... currently dashing from website to website making a variety of attempts to confuse the Gilligan issue and/or mock Gilligan's accusers, without declaring (never mind discussing or defending) his own position regarding the use of multiple false identities.

The rub is in the phrase never mind discussing or defending. That was exactly what I had proposed the day before, and which Ireland has avoided for ten months. So not only is he a coward, he also tells lies about me.

Aside from not being a very great custodian of the truth, I am aware that Tim was once accused of behaviour that "smacks of bullying". It was to do with his online campaign to have Julie Moult labelled as an "idiot". Not only did he want to abuse her himself, he encouraged others to do the same. The latest example follows an an article Ms Moult wrote about Sarah Brown and twittering. The concept of bullying is of course dependent on the power relationship between the two parties. In the world of print journalism, Moult's articles get a readership of millions. In the world of blogging, Ireland's articles get an audience of perhaps thousands. Moult herself is not being bullied, but it appears that the world of blogging is being led by a would-be bully boy.

I want to offer a simple formula to help resolve this:

Either: Julie Moult is an idiot OR Tim Ireland is an idiot

My own preference is strongly for Ireland as idiot for the following reason. Whilst it could be argued that Moult writes articles which are shown to be false, she manages to hold down her job and is thus valuable to her employer. However, it is demonstrably true that Ireland writes articles where he seeks to demean others, and he gains no reward for this other than his own self-gratification.

Others may of course want to argue the balance the other way, but they have to overcome the passive-aggressive hurdle. This is that Ireland is using emotion to win his argument. Idiocy is not a current medical condition (it may have been once) so there is no objective test to determine that "Moult is an idiot", as Ireland claims. His argument is based on an objective view about the truthfulness of her articles, and a subjective opinion about Moult's corresponding worth as a human being. Moult has kept quiet about her opinion on Ireland. But her retort should of course be: "It takes one to know one!"

The case against Ireland is now mounting. In the last two days I have called him a pervert, a coward, a liar and an idiot. This is turning into an all out slanging match! Has he courage to face his accuser, or will he set his little gang of "liberal" friends onto me? I'm just about quaking in my socks!!!

On honesty

2009-09-25T08:50:00.012+01:00

It's sometimes interesting to reflect on how other people see you, so I took a look back recently at a post Tim Ireland wrote last November.

http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2008/11/martin_wiesner.asp

Most of the biographical information is surprisingly accurate, but Tim gets into a complete muddle about how to spell my surname by the end. The various accusations he makes are mostly bonkers. Clearly I am an unapologetic user of sock puppets, but it now emerges that Tim maybe is too (see item 19. here). The picture Tim refers to as NSFW was taken by my wife whilst on holiday in Italy last year, and showed me lying on a bed, naked, but with my modesty covered by a paperback book. Jennie Rigg got the "no socks" joke, put poor old Tim didn't. Sorry if you want a peek, I took the picture down not long after Tim saw it, but at least several days before his post.

Tim refers to my ribbing of him as "bizarre". Here's an extract of an e-mail exchange that followed:

Tim: Oh, really? Got any more naked pictures that 'prove' how open you are about your identity? Rhetorical question. Please don't send me any.

Martin: Pervert!

I think I riled him. The following day Tim published his main post and demanded that I respond to it. I don't take kindly to people writing a lot of nonsense about me and then demanding answers, so I declined.

In the post, Tim calls me a coward and a bully. I can't really make sense of much of the "evidence" that Tim produces, so I took this as water off a duck's back. However the day before I had challenged Tim to debate the merits of sock-puppetry under a relevant post at Hack's Cartoon Diary.

http://hackcartoonsdiary.com/2008/11/25/of-socks-puppets-and-free-socks/

Tim has never responded to this, and for this reason I accuse him of intellectual cowardice.

Having got my own accusation out of the way, I wanted to close by saying overall I find most of the exchanges between Tim and I as quite humorous. He seems so eager to cast me in a bad light he inflates his charges and lets his anger show through. Whether enjoying this is a good trait in myself is open to question. However, I won't let it worry me. I have no idea if Tim followed through with a threat to dob me in with the Green Party (I suspect they would have politely ignored his nutty accusations, as many others seem to do), but it does expose his tendency to expect others to fight his battles for him. If I get amusement by goading him along the way I suspect this is not an altogether bad thing.

A Short Poem

2009-03-09T18:14:00.001Z

Cats?

Cats!

Cats are like humans, but just turned inside out.

Car Crash Watching

2009-02-15T22:07:00.006Z

"Meanwhile, we can just watch this slow motion car crash continue to happen."

So says gossipologist Iain Dale about LabourList, whilst failing to provide a link because Derek Draper has said that Dale condones racism and won't apologise. Without the link, by what means does Dale think we shall be watching, or is he acknowledging that LabourList is already so well known it needs no introduction. In which case, why not link? Does he want us to watch, or is he suggesting we look away. Who knows, and even more aptly, who cares what Dale thinks?

Personally I would say Draper has done a great job getting "A" list Labour politicians to engage in a UK political blog, and seeking comments from as wide an audience as possible, whilst moderating the inevitable "monstering" that some right wing blogs feel is the correct way to address issues or bloggers of whom they don't approve. It doesn't make me want to vote Labour, or even to change my views on how Labour policies are being implemented, but it is clear that Draper's project is breaking new ground for a political weblog in the UK, and that Dale & Co are sore as hell about it. I've added LabourList to my blog list, if you are serious about bringing politics to the internet it is the way to go, and aren't all those nay-sayers just about as jealous as hell that they couldn't create something similar for themselves.

Filling In Time

2009-02-15T17:52:00.002Z

Not sure quite what I am going to type here, as I am just filling in time, waiting for a cup of tea to brew. It's almost as if I feel I don't want to write something, because I don't want my inner feelings to be examined, I don't want a reader to know how I am feeling, at this moment in time. Which is absurd, because a) I don't feel that bad, and b) I couldn't ever get to the point of fully describing how I feel.

Must go now as that cup of tea beckons.

Two Forty: What a rip-off!

2009-02-14T03:05:00.004Z

Woke up after tossing and turning in the bed for a while, and noticed the clock showed 02:40. Thought that I should try to get some of my thoughts down on the blog, as a way to bore myself back to sleep. Two people read this blog yesterday, so I fairly sure that Gordon Brown is not a reader. What a bastard, he can't even be bothered to read my blog.

The proper way to number prices in Britain is to keep the pence in multiples of five. £1.99 is just not on, £1.95 is far superior. The reason is quite simple, because for multiples of five, both you and the shopkeeper need only only handle silver. Imagine handing over two nuggetty pound coins, and getting back a single brown penny. How cheated you would feel.

The same goes for £2.40, of course. How much finer it is to demand 2 guineas, 7 shillings and sixpence, ha'penny, than two, thirty nine? My mum used to call the copper coins "black money" and Alison step grand father once told us a story about how he and the other kids in his neighbourhood would chase down the local squire in his horse and trap whilst shouting: "go on! throw us your mouldies!".

Must grab my cup of tea now, will write a little more in a moment.

£2.40 reminded me that our local Woolies lies empty. How do you get hold off one and open it back up? My local branch has been open my entire life, so its silly to think it could never make money again. My best bet is to run it as a small department store, something like Carrefour in France. You could even rip of the name and call it Crossroads.

Measuring Concepts

2009-02-09T23:54:00.003Z

Take two straight lines, which are infinitely long, at right angles to each other, and do not intersect. These are "Time" and "Space". If an observer (ie a conscious being who exists in space and time) wishes to observe any other "Concept", then to the observer it is as if the concept is a dead-straight line observed along its length. In other words, the observer sees the concept as a singularity. Imagine that the line of concept is under tension, created by a twisting between space and time. The "straight" lines of space and time will become distorted by the concept into curves, and the concept under tension will exist at the closest intersection between the space and time lines.

Space the final frontier debunked

2009-01-21T01:01:00.007Z

On concepts

Ever since 02 November 2001 16:25 I have been pondering upon the phrase "reallocating roadspace", which may seem like a very long time to contemplate two words, but this should never be seen as too long. In practice it first meant getting angry, then lashing out in a reply, then getting angry again and this second time trying to do something authentically creative with the pain in my brain. I created a fairy-tale to express my problem and to give it an airing to a wider public. I was once truthfully introduced to someones daughter as "an author" which made me feel very proud.

Letting go is the process of turning one idea into another. It is very fulfilling, worth encouraging and is the driving force behind all creative activity. In on sense it cannot be avoided, in another it always involves pain.

On first reading the phrase "if i can imagine it, it can happen" appears to lack sense. This is a common problem from readers who are not overly literal. Firstly the possibility of "if" is endless, "i" the observer, and "can" the enabler is equivalent to "if i can then anyone can", and secondly "it" means "can" is able "to create". Again avoid over literalism because even the pausing comma "," adds weight by waiting. Notice how I could also say adds wait by weighting. Therefore, a change of voice "is" a phase shift.

Any two concepts can be held in conjunction. The resulting tension is also a source of fascination. At this point (in time) I am imagining two infinitely long "curved and straight" lines, at right angles to one another, not intersecting, and curving towards each other due to the attractive force of a relating concept. The standard scientific model is to suggest that to measure something one needs a scale and a "fixed" point. In fact the point is nothing more than you the observer looking directly along one of the lines and observing movements of their subject upon a straight line. Both lines are curved because of the attractive force which happens to be a dead straight line connecting each curved line. Because of the symmetry of the design a "thinking being" can cause the necessary phase shift. If the two curves were to meet an annihilation would occur, because of the precise symmetry of the structure. When an observer fixes there attention onto any particular concept it is as though the direct line of sight is in itself causing a tension directly into the observer's eye. However because of perspective the tension to the observer is unobservable, the closer their attention the closer they are to observing a vanishing point. Other tensions in the structure cause the scale line to be observed as perfectly straight. The observer even believes that the observing line is intersecting the scale line, but this is almost always unlikely to be true.

Three concepts are needed, plus an "observer": one concept is unseen, but acts as the "sights" to line up the observation platform, one provides "tension" to draw the two curved lines together, and one provides the "scale" against which values can be measured.

The concept of time has been widely believed by humans for a very long time. The rotation of the earth, the sun and the "life" of the human provide the apparatus, the concept called "gravity" provides the tension. The concept of "earth" is curved because the tension with the sun drags it towards it. People assume the concept of time is "fixed", and so scientists use this as their line of observation. There is no reason why you could not look along a line of gravity, except the very difficulties of imaging you are at the centre of the sun, looking down on the earth, your observer becomes heat, your scale is angles and your measurement is quite tiring to think about.

To give two comparable examples, when a diver leaps from a high diving board and enters the water at vertical angle, his experience is very like a computer user "entering" a web page by clicking a button. The diver is not particularly aware of the moment of impact and is quickly immersed in a "new world" underwater. A web surfer can take part in the very same experience, but visually.

The key thing to do is to behave authentically. If you believe you have gone back in time by handling an ancient vase, you have. The qualia you experience are identical to those of a similar vase admirer from 2000 years ago. There is nothing "in time" which separates you in this case, the difference will only be one of environment. Reconstructed environments "feel like" the past, because that is exactly what the past "felt like" at the time, subject only to the usual problems of accuracy and measurement. If you literally want to live in the past you only have to take the trouble to construct your environment skillfully enough. This is by understanding that in pushing for something you will almost always make it less likely to happen, the only way to bring about a real change of environment is to have the patience to allow it to come to you.

The modern obsession with time is nothing but an obsession. If you obsess upon some other subject, then time itself dissolves as you increasingly look along it. To measure time you would just have to "set up" a platform from which observe something and be prepared to "dive in" to your subject. Darwin was fascinated by the concept of diversity, and he used the platform of time with which to observe it. Dawkins is fascinated by messaging, and so he watched messages over time, equally obsessed that time must be real. The concept of "now" can be both the now you experience in the mundanety of your everyday life, and the "now" which I hand to you by focusing in upon the topic I am trying to discuss and observing how other concepts behave, given the change of perspective.

The observation of Einstein's that space curves is not particularly special because everything else can curve too. The words and letters that you see in front of you are curved over time to bring into being a concept called language. Look along the line of a language and you dive in to culture. Dive into books and you experience the concept of reason. Dive into the concept of fishing and you experience the concept of waiting. The tension is created by not seeing the fish and not knowing when they will bit. Waiting provides the stillness that convinces the fish that the bait on the end of the line is safe to eat. By diving into the task of writing this down, I observe our cat now takes more notice of me. The stillness provided by the tension between wanting to get the content out, and trying to understand the concepts as they appear (through phase shifting) means that I become a source of fascination for our cat.

The anger produced by the authenticity of the Maze prisoners confinement with their own sense of experiencing injustice allowed them to experience life as a prisoner and not to be overly disturbed by the sensory experience of living with faceas. Contrast this with the very flimsy material nature of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and the implication is that there was an ease at which the inmates were led to the gas chambers. The chambers themselves would become objects of fascination, the experience of being gassed a relief from the deprivation of confinement. It is not that holocausts can be avoided, it is that they provide the fascination to attract people into them.

Living well means to accept that all living beings are making the same types of choices that you are, and to try to reconcile the difference between living in the world, authenticity, and living for the world, trying to improve it. Phase shift means that these amount to almost exactly the same things, and free-will gives you the option to choose which you will be at any particular point in time. When you shift the emphasis, you create a moment in time, and others can reference it. Yesterdays inauguration of Barack Obama was not so much his moment in time, the authenticity of the crowds, of experiencing euphoria and joy created, at the same time was counter-pointed by Obamas coolness under pressure and his ignoring the crowd to put on a performance. The fascination of Obama's stillness brought the crowd to him, the phase shift of the tiredness of standing forcing the crowd into the weariness of returning home. Probably only at the last minute was the stillness of home enough to bring them through the door.

The failure of liberalism is the same as the failure of a species to survive or a message to arrive. It is no big deal. Being tolerant is fine, but would you die for tolerance? Tolerance is the ability to phase-shift into another dimension, to make a choice. Intolerance is the ability to resist, to be willing to die for something, a real skill that adds colour to the world. Whatever we do we cannot escape from creating patterns of fascination and pools of intolerance, they are same thing but just authentically witnessed from different perspectives.

The arrow of time works both ways because evolutionary changes mean we create our own environments. Only authentic values such as love, hope, change, honesty, integrity, knowing ones sense of purpose are creating the world we live in, and destroying it again through tension overloading. Dignified indifference has a lot to be said for it, avoiding the annihilation of overbearing fascination.

Cloakroom Ticket Giveaway

2009-01-21T00:01:00.000Z

I love stamps!

Whilst out walking with my wife the other Sunday, and we came across a margarine tub full of stamps, so I have decided to become a stamp dealer. In order to further build up my own collection, I would like you to write to me in a hand addressed envelope, containing a return address. I shall endeavour to send by return mail a single cloakroom ticket, I have just 500 to give away.

In return for your kindness at sending me 1 used stamp, I shall become proficient in the following skills:

addressing envelopes
walking to the post office
purchasing the correct return stamp
affixing stamps accurately to the top right-hand corner of an envelope
walking home

There is no specific time limit for applying for this offer, but I would prefer that most of you wrote in before 22.06.2009. I firmly believe that someone in time will be daft enough to offer you money for your raffle ticket, or even offer a prize draw. If no one else comes forward, well I will just have to do it myself. I have deliberately not made my address public, so that adds to your burden. I make no apologies for this strange course of action.

Wishful Thinking

2009-01-20T13:23:00.003Z

It is unusual to write a review of a book before you have read it, but the world is full of strange and wonderful things, so there is no reason not to try. I tried eating a date today, but it was so sickly sweet it repulsed me. The world is a far better place for me giving it a go though.

Time and space travel have been freely available for a number of years now, thanks to the works of Terry Nation and the Hollywood blockbuster phenomena of action movies. But no one ever thought before that our historical philosophers like Berkeley, Mathers and Figgerson needed to trim their ideas down a bit, and put on a bit more muscle in their reasoning, until Stephen Law came along and wrote "The Philosophy Gym". Basically the technique is quite simple, pit these guys one on one in the hot, sweaty confines of a philosophical gym, and you can measure the success of their ideas by who manages to slough off the most pounds.

I recently bought Stephen's book because something was niggling me about the nature of time. For all the talk about evolution and Creationism, Dawkins always looked a bit uncomfortable on tv, and the religionists always look serene. How were we rationalists going to pack a bit more punch, and wipe the smile off their smug faces?

As an aside, the only religious leader I have ever observed in a rush is the magnificent Dalia Lama. Buddhists always have a great smile on their face, they are the only bunch I could honestly team up with. Without giving too much away, the ideas of random acts of kindness and endless re-birth have far more appeal to me, then the sanctimonious nonsense the rest of them peddle. Don't be too dismissive though, many Christian churches offer tea, cakes and jumble sales at knock down prices, and even Muslims suggest they are prepared to submit on most things. The Jewish faith offers a wealth of humour, and some contradictory arguments about whether Rabbis believe in God or not. The last religious festival that I seriously took part in was a Druid one at one of the Avebury stone circles a year or two ago. It was meant to be for the Spring Equinox, but as you know that came a little bit early that year. Sorry, what I meant to say was that due to unforeseen circumstances, our ceremony was a little bit late. However it is fantastic to meet with real people from history, such as Arthur Pendragon and Merlin. Don't get too close though as you'll find they carry a bloody big sword. Something to do with the Human Rights Act, I guess. Anyway, it's not surprise the Dalia Lama spends all his time rushing around, it is because all the other Patronisers get such an easy ride.

If you want sort out your ideas about time, trim off a bit off flabby reasoning, and buy a book that will really look good on your shelf, Stephen Law has definitely come up with the business. A word of warning though, leading existentialist Sartre only contributes by the lack off his ideas, although I guess Law is spot on with his (1905-80) estimate for Sartre's lifespan. Again as an aside, you should not infer from this that Sartre was -1,825 years old. In fact exactly the opposite! My copy of Law's excellent wikipedia of thought in action is soon going to get very well thumbed and battered. Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as sharing a middle name with my Dad, is missing from Law's book. I don't know if this is a problem, I can only presume he is still talking to that horse.

My actual problem is this: I have a copy of his book, but I don't really know if Law the person actually exists. I want to get it signed, as this baby is going stratospheric, but I cannot rely on the post, especially the Watford sorting office. Should I wrap it in a parcel and send it by DHL? How can I be certain it will be delivered, and more importantly that I get it back as well. I can't really afford to let it go, as to be without such an important document for more than one second would, literally, wrench my heart out. How on earth does the book get signed and thereby authenticated by its author, without tearing the fabric of the Universe apart to do it?

The day the internet fell silent

2009-01-20T08:18:00.006Z

20.12.2009 - where were you that day? I know I am here, but where the Hell were you?

At last a bit of peace and quiet, sometime to knock together the final chart for my true love's thesis for identifying the best way to measure the effectiveness of neurological restoration for the people who are sadly afflicted with the condition named multiple sclerosis. Maybe her work is not currently as well known as, say, Ramachandran, with his bold claim of having only two selves, but evident lack of knowledge about the pantheon of Hindu gods, or even Dawkins, who is thoroughly enlightened, but at the same time is fighting the paradox that he has described the way that evolution began, but he has no prophecy for its eventual end.

Of course with my background in IT I find it easy to pit two scientists, one against the other, but someone with a lot more skill than I would be looking to answer the eternal central theological paradoxes: like was Christ really such an exhibitionist, addicted to pain and from where did Hilter learn the skill to choose the exact moment of his death? Maybe little maddie does live on, in the memories we take forward into our next re-incarnation?

Half mythical freedom-loving mystical bloody gay time-travelling eco-political liberal illiberal humanist scientists, who has ever heard of such a bunch of scaredy cats? This is the sort of thing people fight wars over! I was reminded of a joke I once heard:

"Knock, knock?
Who's there?
Nobody! Answer the bloody door yourself, you lazy fool!"

By way of a diversion, does anyone know if the placebo effect wears off? It is a widely held belief, but search as I can, the author of the thesis cannot be located. Sometimes I think you are all nothing but a bunch of time-junkies, with your continuous questioning of whether now is discrete or continuous. I know that everyone is a fan of Dr Who, Obama and Iron Man these days, but I am the sort of two-sides of the back of an envelope guy, who just sorts everything out with string and pencils (I know they exist, at least).

Here's a new qualia, as a gift to your brain. Don't send me one back, I'm never hungry until someone has made me very, very, cross.

Bats

Sound of one hand clapping? Don't make me laugh!
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's ma's a giraffe.
Because the Bishop was pissed,
And most other evidence finally de-glissed,
Our local Virgin service was chopped right in half!

Conflict resolution

2009-01-20T03:08:00.002Z

The Dalia Lama says we should trust in trust. What he means is that by being trusting, we are likely, but not definitely, to engender a reciprocal feeling of trust from our opposer.

Barack Obama's motto is "Yes we can". It has motivated millions of his supporters, so it surely has great effectiveness, but it can also appear trite.

The conflict in Gaza is a long running sore in international diplomacy. Any right thinking person would like to see it come to a peaceful conclusion. I would.

I trust you transcends the "we" of "yes we can". It reminds us that "we" can mean my enemy and I. So my message of peace to all the people caught up in the Gazan crisis is: I trust that we will all see a peaceful resolution to the crisis in Gaza. Don't forget that you and I, we all have a role to play in building trust. Please don't assume that I will make the first move, because our task is far too important for that.

Liberty fieldwork: effective use of swearing in a social context

2009-01-20T02:09:00.004Z

I have decided to close down the Guido Fawkes blog because the owners' cowardice offends me. Whilst Paul Staines declares he is a libertarian, this is a long way from his own philosophical position. If he were libertarian in his outlook he would be as keen to preserve my liberty, as I would be for his. Even the most simple interaction with Staines will show he is a guilt ridden coward, who lacks the courage to contribute to the political process.

I am always interested to hear other peoples views, and will of course modify my behaviour should others suggest fine tuning. If you would like to join in these sewerage operations, I suggest a light boiler suit, big boots and rubber gloves. You are likely to get filthy, but you can always contemplate a future hot bath.

Ireland v. Milton: Seconds out, round one

2009-01-19T20:06:00.003Z

News from t'internets: has anyone else noticed that Tim Ireland at Bloggerheads has accused Ann Milton MP of "fraud"? No idea why he should want to be so bold, but one hopes he has the necessary evidence to back up his claim (true, he's always got tons).

PS: I had mentioned elsewhere that I should be able to run a demonstration about 2 new kinds of counting on Tuesday 19th January. Apologies in advance because reality has impinged, and I am now due to go for a long walk in Abbots Langley, with my brother who is recovering from a back operation. We are expecting to investigate the footpaths that go near the intersection of the M1 and the M25 (toot if you go past!). I hope to be able to now do my demonstration on Wednesday instead.

Insight

2009-01-19T11:16:00.003Z

Insight is the process of rolling your eyeballs back round through 180° and staring directly into your brain. It is at once very painful, extremely difficult, and very frustrating; mostly due to the total absence of light in the area of your rear inner eye-ball socket.

Once you can do it you will probably realise that exactly the same effect can be achieved by moving your eyes about in the forward field of vision, and recording notable occurrences in your neural network. It doesn't hurt as much, until someone lands you with a very hard punch, simply for staring too long, or stretch the optic nerve beyond its natural limits.

Either way, thinking should be done at the time when the pain becomes unbearable.

Faith in time

2009-01-19T02:25:00.004Z

One of the reasons religious writers sound far more sane than the current crop of ultra-rational evangelical atheist scientists is that theological writers have a better handle on the concept of time than their scientific counter-parts. Time is used in such an entirely practical and sensible fashion within our everyday lives, that we are liable to forget that time in itself is a concept, and one which almost certainly pre-dates the concept of science and may even pre-date the ultra useful human concept of counting.

Take this example from The Guardian 31 May 1986, p28:

"I wouldn't wish the last two years on anyone." said Debbie Moore, chairwoman of Pineapple Dance Studios. "My daughter was totally paralysed for some months. My marriage broke up. There was a lot of criticism because the New York studios were nine months late and over budget. Fortunately that's all behind us now. The company is full of life and opportunities."

Most ordinary English speaking people would have little difficulty understanding the time concepts which were being referred to here. There are indicators of time in almost every sentence, except the last. I shall try and list them below:

last two years
some months
nine months late
behind us now

However, it appears there might be a few more subtle indicators of time, which have not been listed already:

5. I wouldn't wish
6. My daughter was
7. broke up
8. There was

In fact I am not even sure I have found all the more obvious ones yet. Now we have to overlay another time concept, which is that, by default, the entire statement was made in a "now" some time before the paper was printed.

9. sometime before 31 May 1986

Already one problem has occurred. I have had to refer to a time concept "now" which was not in the original statement, but has to be implied as existing. I have no definition for "now", except I know that I am here now writing this, and you will read this at some time in the future.

Now is such an obvious concept, that we rarely trouble ourselves to think about it. But when we do we have a great deal of trouble talking about it with any certainty. Are you reading this in the same "now" as I am writing this? Or are there lots of distinct "nows" which separate you from me? We tend to think of "now" in terms of my latter question, but if so we need to ask how we get from one "now" to another? And from that a very fundamental question arises: How many "nows" have just passed between my writing this sentence and the last? We ought to able to count them, surely.

I am not going to try to answer those questions, for now. I am still here now, typing out this blog post. I want to move on to what a scientist could say about all those identified time concepts which I have listed. Scientists like to talk about evidence, so say, what lengths of time or dates would a scientist say the above statement represents.

a period roughly approximate to two years, some time before 31/5/86
probably more than one month, most likely less than a year, but possibly greater. No greater than two years
nine months after the originally expected date
in the past

Another problem occurs here. "In the past" is neither a length of time, nor a date. I could have said "some time before 31/5/86", but "some time" seems like a very vague way to talk about time, particularly if that is the very subject of this piece. Can I define "in the past" without getting into the same problems which I fell into when talking about "now"? "In the past" is the thing which has allowed now to come about. I still don't know if I am living in one long now, or whether I pass between discrete uncountable "nows" to get from the past to now, but certainly all I experience is just being in one long now. Similarly, "the future" is the thing which occurs as a result of now. Does the future really exist? It doesn't just yet, but it will in time. Yet another problem, I can't talk about the future, without referring back to time, my subject. And when I get to "the future", it will become "now", certainly as I experience it.

I am going to set aside looking at the other items listed for now, because I want to go back to why theologians can talk about time with much greater ease than scientists. Here's a very famous first line from a book:

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

Three major religions, in all their varieties use this text, and so the knowledge of the phrase is very widely known and spoken with great authority. Some scientists and some people known as creationists argue about the literal worth of the text found within the Bible. In essence the scientists accuse the theologians of being "overly literal" and theologians accuse the scientists of not being able to interpret "the meaning" of the text. Because I am writing as neither a scientist nor a theologian, I shall introduce an even more literal reading of the line above, to try to take a look to see if there is actually an even deeper meaning hidden within.

The standard interpretation of the line seems to be that God came first, then he created two places called heaven and earth. I am deliberately going to over-interpret the meaning of the line, to see where it might go.

The first thing is an "in": by implication there must also be an out.
The second thing is a "the": by implication there must also be an "a".
The third thing is a "beginning": by implication there must also be an "end".
Then came "God".

In my "ultra-rational, ultra-orthodox scientific-theology" there are actually six things which preceded God, and we might also infer there was also some "space", so that would possibly make seven things before God. God no longer comes first, God comes sixth or seventh. I am not going to count any further, because it becomes quite hard. But I would just like to observe that "beginning" precedes God. Beginning is of course a central concept of time, it is the arising of the start of something over time.

I believe that a Buddhist theologian would not necessarily accept that time itself has a beginning. But I firmly believe that when Jews, Christians and Muslims assert "In the beginning God ..." they are laying out the foundations of the concept of time. I am fairly certain that Buddhists speak about consciousness not arising, meaning that there is no beginning or end to consciousness. I am beginning to wonder if a universe without consciousness could even exist. In a direct comparison to the Buddhist paradox of what is the sound of one hand clapping, what could a universe without some consciousness to be aware of it look like?

The scientists' problem is this: what evidence have you got for the fundamentals of time, or is it just something which you have always assumed existed in it's own right? Theologians might consider what meaning we have, if we are nothing more than consciousness arising from a profound sense of "I"; and did time pre-exist God, or did God invent time?

As a philosopher I am going to ponder on the question of why counting is not quite as easy as it seems at first glance, and as a mathematician is shall enquire as to whether true/false really counts as three.

Sick minded comment of the day

2009-01-18T01:03:00.002Z

"unilateral ceasefire"

Field Work: Free Speech on the Blogosphere

2009-01-18T00:13:00.004Z

Quick blog round-up

Currently banned at Liberal Conspiracy, Chicken Yoghurt and Bloggerheads. I suspect the usual issues with liberals. Semi banned at Guido Fawkes. Never quite sure what he's hiding, but he's hiding something. Donal Blaney seems to be talking to me again. He is sensitive to claims about misogyny.

Out of all of them Iain Dale has never actually banned me, even though I try as hard I can to be rude about him.

Iain Dale's Diary: When the Left Falls Out

2009-01-16T18:40:00.001Z

Via Iain Dale's Diary: When the Left Falls Out

and via Tim Ireland at Bloggerheads, I learn that Derek Draper has said to Tim "i am not accountable to you". Outrageous! Who the hell does he think he is accountable to? God?

Two Jokes Nailed

2009-01-16T12:08:00.004Z

Congratulations to Robert Marquand Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor. Referring to the inclusion of the word "probably" in the Atheist Bus campaign, he says:

"This led to amusement by atheists and believers alike ..."

Marquand is nailing on the head the very essence of a good joke, showing how atheists and believers were both stoking the runaway success of Ariane Sherine's advertising campaign.

I can't help contrasting the light-hearted, up-beat tone of Sherine's atheist campaign, with the pointed, hectoring tone of Sam Harris' "Letter to a Christian Nation". Maybe he has surveyed how many Christians have actually read his book, and finding the results a bit disappointing, he needs other means to prove his point. He is currently working on a True Lie Detection machine. Back in the Letter, Harris sets up a classic dichotomy in his opening pages, but then flunks it when he says:

"So let us be honest with ourselves: in the fullness of time, one side is really going to win this argument, and the other side is really going to lose."

I wonder if his machine will be able to us if his statement above is the truth, a lie, or maybe just a prophecy? Harris fits the role of a modern day Cassandra - fated to always tell the truth, but never to be believed. There must be a powerful moral in all this somewhere, but nothing is coming to the fore. Never thought though, that the best discussion of the whole subject was going to be found in Christian Science Monitor, wonders will never cease.

Sauce of Humour Detected

2009-01-13T11:58:00.004Z

Ah, poor sweet lamb, I seem to have upset Sunny Hundal. He says:

Furthermore, just to let you know all your further comments will be deleted, as they were in the past.

Looks like I have tested free speech to its very limits at Liberal Conspiracy. Afraid to name me or even say what I have done wrong, he's just cross with me. I had the temerity to argue the case that LibCon was both unconsciously humorous and unable to defend itself from a counter-charge of smugness. Never mind, I expect he'll get over it.

There's Probably No God: Now prove it!

2009-01-09T08:27:00.004Z

Stephen Law reports that a complaint has been raised to the Advertising Standards Authority about a current bus advertising slogan: "There's Probably No God."

http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2009/01/christian-complains-about-atheist-buses.html

Law is hoping for "fun". As a contributor to the campaign, which was mostly funded by private donations, I'm hoping my £10 will pay for a new bit of philosophy.

If the ASA decides the complaint may have legs, the question will settle around whether the sponsors of the advert, the British Humanist Association, can substantiate the "probably no god" claim with evidence, and so prove its truthfulness. Unfortunately for the BHA, philosophers have long argued that you cannot produce evidence to prove that something doesn't exist. In this case the BHA may need to go just one step further and provide evidence on the probability of something not existing.

In a wonderful inversion of Bertrand Russell's Flying Teapot problem, Stephen Green of Christian Voice's complaint about the ads has challenged humanists to prove to the ASA that a purported non-existent thing not existing is more likely than it actually existing. In doing so, he has unleashed the invisible pink unicorn, let his dragon out of the garage and is preparing to monster the humanists with spaghetti.

In my last post:

http://pogsurf.blogspot.com/2008/12/dawkins-scientific-delusion.html

I sloganised that:

God is 5 per cent do-good-ism, and 95 per cent comfort blanket.

and I have previously mentioned that I have a problem with the BHA on the grounds that it pre-judges its own activities as "good":

http://pogsurf.blogspot.com/2008/11/winterval-is-getting-earlier-and.html

So I suppose I can modify my slogan thus:

Humanism is 5 per cent do-good-ism, and 95 per cent comfort blanket.

How rude am I about people who claim to be doing good as a pre-condition for their own activities? I'm almost saying that humanists are just as misguided in their thinking as religionists.

If the ASA calls for it, in order to save the campaign, what will be needed from the BHA is an advanced piece of technical philosophy on why in fact there could be evidence for the non-existence of god, and then of course the evidence itself. Good luck humanists, I think you are going to need it.

Dawkin's Scientific Delusion

2008-12-31T08:37:00.004Z

I commented in Andrew Brown's thread about the doctrine of New Atheism without realising that an unholy row was breaking out between Brown, Dawkins and Dennett about comments used on the back of a book of Brown's. Clearly the battle to sell more books was taking a precedent over the merits of New Atheism, but along the way Brown did establish that Dawkin's does identify himself as a New Atheist, and presumably Brown is one of the old types.

My own summary, 1 out of 6 - it must mean I'm just one of those natural, old-style fouled up atheists after all was of course a reference to Larkin's imagined biographer's comments in the High Windows verse Posterity. I didn't at the time realise that Brown was an atheist, imagining his six tests were a believers attempt at defining the current crop of headline atheists and their militant tendency. Knowing now that he is an atheist himself, his list either looks like a very poor parody, or failing that, an actual attempt to define a movement. Dawkins' eagerness to sign up for such a movement is a bit of a worry, egotism starting to kick in where rationalism has run its course.

Dawkins makes no bones about wanting to raise consciousness about atheism. As such the God Delusion is a great call to arms for atheists. But Dawkins seems to give the notion that god is a delusion very short shrift in his own work. I can find only one reference, on p41 of the paperback version where he mentions it in the context of the book's title. At least he acknowledges here that the book's title is what he believes, it doesn't appear to be actually described elsewhere.

If you believe that many people are in the grip of a collective delusion, what do you do next? Could you be encouraging that delusion by writing about it? If you are a respected scientist, which I understand Dawkins is, could you be lending the delusion scientific respectability?

Wikipedia furnished me with just one example of a collective delusion, the Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic, but an instructive one none the less. In April 1954 residents in and around Seattle, Washington, USA began to notice more and more examples of car windshields being pitted or damaged. As the Wiki article concludes:

By April 15, close to 3,000 windshields had been reported as affected.

Finally, Sergeant Max Allison of the Seattle police crime laboratory stated that the pitting reports consisted of “5 per cent hoodlum-ism, and 95 per cent public hysteria.” By April 17, the pitting suddenly stopped.

So instead of books like Dawkins' that list the arguments for god and then knock them down again, like some sort of blended theological and scientific striptease act, maybe we just need, in the manner of Sgt Allison above, an unequivocal statement that god doesn't exist (which Dawkins actually baulks at), and a stab at killing off the rumour with a pithy jibe at the likely psychological cause.

Here's my go, but others are equally welcome to try:

God is 5 per cent do-good-ism, and 95 per cent comfort blanket.

Lost Worlds by Michael Bywater

2008-12-29T16:04:00.004Z

Finished reading this miscellany of the missing recently, which proved to be an absorbing read. Bywater blogs occasionally on the subject here.

One of the most interesting passages is on the subject of Corporations. Not yet lost, Bywater says they are:

... self-interested, manipulative, always the best, brook no competition, accept no responsibility, suffer no conscience, feel no remorse, present (via PR people, spin advertising and marketing) phony, superficial versions of themselves to the world and all in all are perfect Cleckley mimics of real persons.

Hence they are psychopaths.

Scary Weird Little Creatures

2008-12-03T12:27:00.004Z

The Australian Tourist Commission are keen to attract new visitors to their country (I was last there in 1987/88). Here's the viral video that they hope may just do it:

Closing Down Sale

2008-12-01T10:12:00.002Z

This blog is closing down in approximately two weeks time. If you would like to buy any of the images, or get in touch about any of the written work, please use:

pogsurf@googlemail.com

Many thanks for all your support over the past few months, Martin.

Thought for the day

2008-11-30T09:14:00.003Z

"St Patrick is reputed to have driven all the snakes out of Ireland, but does St Timothy have the will to drive all the sock-puppets out of the UK's political blogosphere?"

Statporn: November 2008

2008-11-30T09:07:00.003Z

Caramel Cameron: a man under pressure

2008-11-28T16:56:00.002Z

If Damien Green released some information which was in the public interest, as David Cameron claims via the BBC, where is that information now? What is it? Always the most profound of all epistemological questions, can the leader of the Bendy Jihad ask such a hard question. I doubt it, there's hardly a wrinkle on his puffy little face. He doesn't know how to fight a fight any more than I am the Duke of York.

號

2008-11-28T13:49:00.000Z

Friday Live Blog

2008-11-28T06:58:00.015Z

7.00 - Got my bowl of malt wheaties and a nice cup of tea and just waiting for the pips to go ...

7.02 - Malties taste fine, just got the malty/milk/sugar mix exactly right today.

7.06 - Heard two mentions of the word 'Stalinesc' today on Radio 4. I'm sure I used it myself not too long ago. Just checked via Google to discover just 109 hits, so its clearly not a very useful word. Off to read the paper now, so back in a bit.

7.55 - Sorry to be away for so long, was just dropping the editor of Watford Area Arts Forum a line, hoping to secure a place in which to display art in public. Only five minutes to go to the eight o'clock news.

8.09 - just noticed that Lord Mandleson has not arrived yet. Traffic on the M1 must be bad today. Perhaps he's busy in the office shredding documents.

8.11 - FORWARD - ISSUE 12 arrived at 8.01. I'll give you edited highlights when I get the chance.

8.13 - We've just heard that the live link to New York has gone down. Sharon says she is desperately sorry for her fans here in the UK.

8.15 - We are going carry on, even without the lovely Mrs Osbourne. We Brits, we just never give up ...

8.22 - CSIP - E-Bulletin 55 arrived at 8.08. There is a debate on Dizzy discussing "scariness" today.

8.35 - A couple of blips in the previous line, which have now been ironed out. Sorry it's not right to let standards slip, Pogsurf apologises to our normal readers.

8.41 - It's an extraordinary thing to see you very own real-time biographer tapping away over at Bloggerheads. I'm not sure about his writing style, looks more like handwritten notes to me, and I really hope the book has a happy ending. I must take him up on the whole Clarkson thing sometime..

8.55 - "(a pseudonym is often chosen for purposes of anonymity; only in some contexts are they separate concepts)" - this is good from Tim and it reminds me that I was reading recently of an Existentialist philosopher who published mostly under assumed names. I think he was driving home the point that the work will stand the test of time, and this unconnected to the reputation of the author. I am more familiar with the "Luther Blissett" project, having seen the real Luther Blissett play from the 3rd division upwards.

8.59 - Curious thought that it took me being thrown out of Sunlight Cops for Tim to realise that they had already created his dream. His "membership" has been stalled for ages, and I just think it's nowhere near worth the bother. I got thrown out and I really am happy with the Groucho Marx train of thought about membership and clubs. Dali too.

9.47 - Thank you everyone for watching. We are now going to move on to our live studio debate ...

Something to look forward to: Friday Live Blog

2008-11-28T06:28:00.004Z

Welcome news is that "Pogsurf" will be live-blogging right here from 7.00 am sharp, until 9.45 GMT. We hope to have newly ennobled Lord Mandleson here in the studio at around 7.35 am, as long a his car can make it through the ring road, and the lovely Sharon Osbourne, wife of Ozzy, will definitely hooking-up via a live-blog link from New York. That will be in the after 8.15 am slot.

Hope you can join us. We are really going to try and push the bounds of blogging by just using bog standard Blogger technology to achieve this wonderful feat. In the mean time I'm going to leave you with this great picture of Mr Bear, as he waits with huge anticipation for the big moment at 7 o'clock.

No Brainer

2008-11-28T02:53:00.004Z

Freedom at last

2008-11-28T02:16:00.004Z

Nicked off of Watford Area Green Party's website, but I'm sure they won't mind. Sucking their bandwidth like a whore sucks a cock. Three naked men, one crazy man's head, great big logo, spurting column of water, and a trio of concrete balls. Sums up my home town quite well, don't you know.

Just in case anyone reads this, I have spell checked it before publishing. Te, he, my real name is Wisnem ...

Sock no more

2008-11-28T01:56:00.002Z

I'll sock no more, if you two can give up being
dickheads for a year. Deal or no deal? ...

Got a problem? Use dynamite!

2008-11-27T23:10:00.002Z

"It's always dangerous ..." Is it? If so, what does dangerous mean?

Do nothing weather vanes are full of practical advice to justify why they are always idly flapping around in the wind. He could have said "It's not the right time ..." but what he implicitly means is: nothing can be done.

Danger means taking a risk, fighting for a cause, standing up for the things you believe in. To the bystanders and the idlers of this world, it looks quite dangerous. Its a job for adults - specifically big boys who you can trust with 10,000 volts, and Uzi sub-machine guns, and spanners, and drain rods. Of course what I mean is, people who get their hands dirty. People who train for a job, then do it. People with manuals and instruction lists and tools and grubby notebooks.

People who swan around in fancy cars, open garden fêtes, give speeches, promote their latest book don't generally fit the bill, excepting they may have played with big boys before they chose more dignified occupations. Just as an example, suppose you needed a Panzer tank driver in a rush, to fight your way through enemy lines. Who would you chose to drive it: Tony Blair or Norman Tebbit?

Dale means he's afraid to chose. He's out of the loop, he has no gossip to spread. He doesn't know what's going on. He never does, because he never really commits to a cause, and so people don't trust him. It could explain why he's so tetchy when he's needled. He just gives the first thing which comes into his head, instead of a more considered thought, based on some sort of expertise.

Got a dangerous situation which you want to make worse? Send for Dangerman Dale, and his little friend Motormouth Blaney.