"Graunchy"
31/3/2008
noun: A day spent making paperclip chains, which nonetheless one does not feel is wasted.
There is a light
30/3/2008
Well we're in... A new house, still largely full of boxes, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel - apart from anything else, as you can probably guess from the fact this post exists, we're online. (I had thought I'd be able to get away with zero downtime during the move, but it turned out that the server sitting happily at the old house, that'd been working perfectly for months, chose this week to fall over, while I wasnt there to do anything about it. So I've pushed the new server into action a bit more rapidly than I'd hoped - please drop me a line if something isn't working as a result.) I'm slightly aprehensive (if such a word exists) about my plans for my room, since both of the people with even vaguely artistic eyes are away, so I can't run my ideas past them, but I think it'll work OK. I'm certainly pretty happy to have made it to a room large enough to let me stop sleeping on a bunk bed... And all of the animals seem to have made the journey successfully too (with one glorious exception - I'm not at all sad to see the back of dillon).
So all told things could have been a lot worse... Though I'd have rather the earth hadn't stolen an hour of my sleep time last night ;-)
Guess what
19/3/2008
I can drive! Passed my test on monday, with 5 minors, which is really rather OK with me. I'm really no judge, though - I thought this test had gone far worse than my first (which, of course, I failed)...
This might or might not be the last post for a week or two - we're moving house soon, and in the process I'll be switching servers. If everything works as I plan it (fairly big "if", but you never now), the site will remain accessible all the time, but if you post a comment early next week it might get lost. (The comments are currently on one server, in the process of changing I'll copy them over to the other, but that will be a touch before this server stops being the live one. If you add your comment between the copy and the switch-over, it might be caught out).
Right, I'm off to drive to flute choir!
Criticising my own statistics
17/3/2008
There are of course a few flaws in just taking that "one fifty thousandth of a percent" at face value - the first being that I can never say conclusively how many more or less deaths there would have been if the campaigns I criticise were not in place, though it should be noted that it seems there's a far more effective way of avoiding attacks: you remember France and Germany, those notorious peace-mongers so roundly criticised by the US for failing to join in back in 2003? You may have noticed a distinct lack of terrorist attacks there...
The other thing you might prefer would be a less startling statistic as to your chance of dying in a terrorist attack at all, rather than in any given year. After all, for most people at least, the chance of dying this year is probably quite slim, so it's not so suprising if the chance of being killed in a particular way is remote. But your chance of dying is of course 100%, so maybe that's more use.
Starting with the 11.2 terrorist deaths per year, then. Taking the total deaths in the most recent year for which statistics are available (2006 - ONS (excel)) which totalled 502 600.
502 600 ÷ 11.2 = 44 900 (3sf)
So you have a 1 in 44 900 chance of dying in a terrorist attack
(1 ÷ 44 900) × 100 = 0.002 23 (3sf).
Turns out you've got about a one four hundred and fiftieth of a percent chance of dying in a terrorist attack. Now clearly that's much bigger than one fifty thousandth of a percent, but if you step back from that immediate argument, you'll notice that it's still ridiculously tiny...
Never enough
16/3/2008
- Printer tracking
- Echelon
- DNA database - stats and escaping
- And a police force driving the public apart
Still more worried about the one fifty thousandth of a percent chance of being killed in a terrorist attack in a given year?* Or are you, like me, more worried about the fact that you can never be quite articulate enough to explain why all this is so terrifying.
*Calculated as follows: 1) assuming the recent threat dates from the invasion of Iraq - almost bang on 5 years back (could have assumed earlier - sept 2001, for example - and that would make the risk even slimmer). 2) Assuming that the only terrorist deaths in the UK were the 56 (I include the 4 bombers themselves, again excluding them would only make the stats more damming) in the tube bombings in 2005. If I've forgotten any other attacks, it is a genuine error - please let me know. 3) Taking population of Britain as 60 million (ONS (pdf)).
56 ÷ 5 = 11.2 deaths per year
60 000 000 ÷ 11.2 = 5.36 million (3sf)
Thus 1 in 5.36million chance of being killed in an attack
(1 ÷ 5 360 000) × 100 = 0.000 0187 (3sf)
1 ÷ 50 000 = 0.000 02, thus risk less than 1 fifty thousandth of a percent.
A little music
8/3/2008
Before I start this I should point out that I'm not exactly a disinterested observer - 2 of my favourite people in the world make up half of the band, so I can't come at it from a purely critical perspective... And maybe, if Nick happens to read this, he might like to skip the rest of this entry - I know there's no point me trying to convince him
Anyway, I've just downloaded Good Dog's latest album, Blue Sky Dreams. I'd already heard "close your eyes", so I wasn't suprised when I found myself enjoying track 3. However, 8 tracks in I was suffering a little doubt: much as I love Ben and Joe, I knew they'd set this year apart for "band stuff", and I was worried that the pressure of needing to produce something had lead them to rush it a bit, whether they'd quite hit the mark with this, their third album. Then I heard "If I'm Honest", and everything changed.
I realised as I listened that (although I could hazard a guess) I don't really know who is the band's main lyricist. I certainly felt for him here, a feeling that of course could be down to him being a friend - I wont be able tell you to what extent that's the cause. At first I thought that the idea of someone only my age having that emotion to draw on was tragic, even if it did give them inspiration for the beauty of the song. Then I realised that my reaction is more a reflection of me having far less experience than I might, than of him having too much. And (tho I'm not qualified to say), perhaps he'd look back on the beautiful memories and be glad of them, even if the end was painful.
Anyway, a song that has added to the sum of human happiness, which is more than I can say I've achieved: download If I'm Honest yourself (right click & save target/save link), and see if you understand where I'm coming from, or if it's just me.
I don't like Rabies
4/3/2008
Had a rabies jab yesterday, and all was well at first... but as today wore on I've found my arm less and less capable of doing anything at all. This makes me a sad sexual harassment panda*. It was the second of 3 in the rabies series, and last week's seemed to be fine, which is odd. Tho thinking about it I was inexplicably grumpy the next day... In all I'll have had at least 8 different injections to go to Tanzania, and as an added bonus I'm paying for many of them. Not sure I like this deal. Especially since the rabies ones dont even give you an immunisation.
What I do like, though, is the video to Bad Day by REM... Q are playing their "20 best REM videos" or something, and I looked up and realised quite how well done it is. Them boys done good.
*It's a South Park Thing
PMQs
2/3/2008
Does anybody else out there occasionally watch Prime Minsiter's Questions? And if you do, do you find it quite as embarassing as I do? Of course we all know that it's always been a bit reminiscent of the playground, but it's not until you actually watch it that the extent of the car crash hits you. There is simply no chance of intelligent debate in such an environment. And that's odd, because the climate in the commons can be rather more mature, and sometimes wisdom even gets a look-in.
So why is it that when more people than at any other time are watching, when the boss should theoretically be being called to account, does the tone drop? Frustration, perhaps - essentially Prime Ministers have refused to give a single significant answer during PMQs for the last few decades, so MPs take what little comfort they can from shouting at them. Or group psychology - there's more fun, and hence social credentials to be had by barrackng a common enemy or figure of fun than by constructing a critical argument. So when the whole political mass is gathered together, such lines become more appealing.
Any road up, it doesn't look great as a showcase of our democracy... But then I suppose it's really an irrelevance. All the decisions are made over pleasant dinners at one of the palace of westminster's 23 dining rooms, so by wednesday noon it is literally "all over bar the shouting". The end of "punch and judy politics", as heralded by dear old Dave Cameron? Not for a few centuries yet...