Beer harms science

The report (or hypothesis) goes something like this…

One of the most frequent social activities in the world is drinking alcohol - around two billion are thought to partake - and Dr Tomas Grim, who is a behavioural ecologist at Palacky University, Czech Republic, decided to investigate, reporting the discovery that it harms science in the prestigious ecological journal Oikos.

It continues…

In Europe, most alcohol is consumed as beer, according to the World Health Organisation. “Based on well known negative effects of alcohol consumption on cognitive performance, I predicted negative correlations between beer consumption and several measures of scientific performance,” Dr Grim says.

The results being…

Using a survey of the publications since 1980 of avian ecologists from the Czech Republic, which has the highest per capita beer consumption rate in the world (157 litres each year, or 176 pints), he discovered “that increasing per capita beer consumption is associated with lower numbers of papers, total citations, and citations per paper (a surrogate measure of paper quality).”

(Source: The Telegraph)

In my opinion, this study falls into the “WTF” category, or even the “Total watse of research money” bucket. Whilst I accept that this report has probably been distilled and edited for the benefits of the newspaper’s readers, the hypothesis that nations drinking more beer produce less scientific work, or at least work of questionable quality, does not take into consideration such factors as social changes (Czech Republic got rid of communism at the start of the 90s), it does not question the number of scientists withing the country (how many have left to find better paid jobs elsewhere in Europe), or even the number of research papers being done on avian related subjects (the study of birds is surely not a top priority in this part of the world).

I can only conclude that this study hits those areas the study itself is looking at (i.e. quality) and this should be held up as another example of questionable science. It is almost self-analysing - “why is this study so bad”.

The totalitarian state

Yes, its a bit extreme to add the words ‘totalitarian’ and ‘UK’ into the same sentence, but it looks like “New Labour” has managed to get somewhat close to applying this moniker to a country that fought hard (and has only just paid off) to halt the advances of the fascist menace that wielded its sword across Europe during the middle of the 20th century.

Why is it now that this same country is the envy of all totalitarian countries with its network of spy cameras, its listening devices, its telephone taps, its spy in the skies, its gentle progression towards ever more central control, its gradual erosion of freedoms that took centuries to develop and still it maintains the outward impression of being a more liberal democracy.

High Def format wars

Yawn. As long as I can play my DVDs I really don’t give a stuff. The fact that the technology/movie industry is moving to yet another format so the collection of DVDs becomes outdated (so they can make more money) is a pretty terrible idea and (hopefully) not too many people will fall for this.

But anyway. There are a number of stories floating around about this great conspiracy idea that Microsoft are stoking up the format wars so that the big M can set themselves up as a HD movie distributor using online downloads. This would imply (if true) the MS is setting themselves up as being the “iTunes” of the HD movies, at the same time keeping movie bosses happy because there would be new user-contracts that mean you no longer have hard copies of movies and they will own what you do with it (new age DRM).

The downsides. HD-DVD and Blu Ray discs can hold 25GB/50GB of data. This means that a HD movie will be at least 20GB (to remain high def). If MS wants people to download HD movies and they even compress the files (reduce quality), the actual size of the movie will still be in GigaBytes. So first off, you will need a large hard drive to store just a few movies. Then you will need to have a decent enough internet connection to have any chance of downloading it (assuming there are no problems with download). Then you still will not actually own a physical copy of the movie - it will take generations to get over the idea of owning something tactile, plus the golden turd being that these downloaded movies will have DRM (haven’t anyone in the entertainment industry figured out that we, the people who buy their tat, want DRM free formats).

By the time everyone gets a Microsoft box to download movies, or hardware that will take such formats and play with no problems, or gets a fast enough hard drive, or just meets the minimum requirements, everyone will have either a HD-DVD or Blu-ray player. So lets file this under the heading “conspiracy - not well thought out”.

• The Inq

War. What is it good for…

IMG_0075

Indeed, what is war good for? Making money by the looks of things. Much like smoking is bad for you and you die of numerous related illnesses, the tobacco industry still makes a huge pile of cash every year out of selling cigs. And so it is that without war the arms traders would not make money, indeed without the threat of war and political insecurities there would also not be a market. (Makes you wonder how much trouble is stirred up by arms companies or those with interests in these companies).
The whole point of this moralising is that I am currently reading a number of defence related blogs and it is interesting to read about the kind of money that is being pushed around by governments on different projects, we are talking huge sums of money, a billion here a billion there…

• DID
• Air Attack

(As a post script, it has often crossed my mind that if all the people in the world who are causing trouble were stuffed into an arena and told to fight it out between themselves it makes you wonder what could be done with the money saved. But then who’d get the TV rights, that would cause more problems. Ho hum).

Ha!, I found this article too about war spending. Looks like I am not the only one thinking along these lines:

• What would 611 Billion buy

Customer Services - again

It takes just one week away from Prague, and a Pizza delivery, to put into perspective the poison that is the cult of a bad attitude “service” workers have. It contrasts greatly that even the, albeit somewhat superficial, attitudes that store clerks or waiters have in Chicago compared to Prague, I can even compare the attitudes favorably in the Western parts of Czech Republic, those areas that are directly under the imported, pleasant attitudes that influence that German tourists demand (i.e. in the Spa Towns). My point is the simple fact that it is so refreshing to experience a pleasant attitude when parting with my hard earned cash.

The waitress in the restaurant deserves the tip, she works hard for it, the store clerk has a pleasant two minutes passing the time of day, the people in shop don’t have the dejecting “I’d rather you weren’t here” look on them. This is what you get outside of Prague, so what is it about this place that makes them conform to the rigid requirement of general unpleasantness. The highlight of my first day back in Prague is the Pizza delivery girl muttering at me in disapproving terms because she had come to the wrong floor and had to go up one more floor to deliver the pizzas and in some way it seems to be my fault because I answered the door.

There is simply no need for this. It isn’t like this everywhere you go in the country so it is not a social attitude of the people as a whole. Yes, the day might be crap, but there is no need to share this feeling with everyone else. It doesn’t even apply to all major cities in the world - at least in my experience. So why does it have to be this way here. I take a deep breath and move on. It doesn’t have to be this way, stop it now people!

It looks like its not just me who has noticed the lottery based customer service experience, The Prague Post has a fabulous article all about this - so its not just me

The Prague Post (via Capharnaum)

Two years in Prague

I have been living in Prague for two years now. It has been an interesting adjustment. Not least given the fact that I have lived in many other countries, and principle cities for some time. On the face of things, Prague is a fabulous city. Much like all capital cities in the world it does not represent the country. You can’t assume that London = UK, or even represents England, it is a country within a country, and Prague is typical of that. So Prague is very different to Czech Republic, and so are the people who live here.

It has been said that Prague is the most progressive city of the “old” Eastern bloc, ex-communist countries. I can believe this. Bratislava, for example, does feel a long way off from where Prague is. But then Prague does have a lot more investment in comparison. It is also a place in perpetual turmoil and change. It is being dragged from the era of neglect, decay, and extreme apathy, into a new era, this is an era of progress, of civic pride, where buildings shine, the old faces of Prague have new life pumped into them, and change of attitudes lands heavily on the laps of unsuspecting peoples.

Times Atlas

Whilst I am not a great believer in pinning the blame for everything on global warming, the new imagery in the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World is interesting from the point of viewing changes in the natural world. It is all too easy to simply look at the Aral sea, for example, and say with total certainty the shrinking water levels is only to do with global warming. How do you factor in bad resource management, for example, or the diminishing supply of water to the lake. But these arguments aside, the atlas imagery is interesting to view the changing world.

• The Times

A bad case of self-rightousness

There are, supposedly, a number of internet sites that are increasingly turning to desparate measures to alienate users who decide to visit their websites. They are banning, outright, the use of FireFox. Why? Simply because of a plugin called Adblock plus. What Adblock does is removes adverts from webpages, essentially making the whole web page experience a damn site better. Now this does not seem to happen if you visit, for example, Google. Google Ads are still there regardless of where you are. However, these self-righteous idiots who decide to employ a wholesale ban on the use if FireFox users seem to miss the point.

Apple - a stab in the dark

The Nokia, bluetooth, portable keyboard is designed to add keyboard capabilities to the Nokia N series (and others) range of phones. This is mainly because the phones do not have a keyboard, but have the capabilities that would require the addition of such an input device, for example blogging via the internet browser, sending eMails, writing documents.

Apple have recently started to sell the new style cordless keyboard that works using bluetooth. The Apple iPhone has a “soft” keyboard that most people seem to complain about. So if we were to make a small leap of imagination, it doesn’t seem too far fetched that a simple upgrade of the iPhone bluetooth capabilities would allow the usage of this new keyboard. It is also, for argument sake, not beyond any resonable doubt that the same upgrade would also allow the usage a bluetooth headphones, possibly in time for the iPod ver 6 with the same wireless headphone capabilities…?

Interesting dot joining, and possibly not all that mad.

More ill-conceived ideas of our time

The BBC iPlayer.

I signed up. I received my ID a day later. The website looked good. I was excited. I could watch BBC TV at home, catch up on the last seven days. Fabulous.

The first problem. What is there to actually watch? After going through all the programs available, I could only find one thing to watch. Being an ex-pat, it has been a long time since I was able to watch something on UK TV, the list of TV shows meant nothing to me. A few factual, documentary style episodes did look appealing, but most lasted an hour and I wanted instant gratification.

The second problem. Being an ex-pat.

You can only watch TV shows from the last seven days if a). You are currently connecting in UK and b). Ideally have a TV license. Requirement B can be overcome quite easily, one way or the other. Point A raises the following questions:

• If you are tech-savvy enough to go through the registration process, download and install the player, go through the second registration process and get to the point of actually wanting to download a show, the chances are that you already have a recording device at home. If there is something you want to watch you’d have set up the device to record.
• If you have a device to record then you can watch it anytime, maybe in a year or two when there is enough time.
• If you are in the UK and really want to watch TV on my laptop, then you would probably have a digital tuner for the machine. With one of these things it is possible to record the show directly on to the laptop and watch any time that is convenient.
• If you were still living in the UK, but went on holidays (or even worked) outside of the UK, then even though you are a resident, have a TV license, you can’t watch the show where you are because the BBC knows the computer is located outside the UK. Its part of their conditions.
• The chances are that if you knew you would be away and really wanted to watch “The Weakest Link” then you would buy recording device or you’d have Sky+.

The likely audience who will want to jump on to such things are either residents of the UK who are desperate to watch TV shows from the past seven days on their computers, or ex-pats, like me who seem to have this idealized vision that BBC TV is still the best since we haven’t actually watch any British TV for at least the last five years. Except we can’t. And that’s the strange thing, the audience is likely to fall into one of these categories and half can’t watch it. Most ex-pats would be willing to pay the license fee to watch BBC TV wherever they are.

At the end of the day we are probably being spared the torment of finally realizing that those “good old days” of BBC TV are best left as happy, deluded memories. Of the shows available, the good documentaries will be available on BBC World, the comedy will come to DVD and the rest are best left unwatched (or downloaded from other sources). How long will it be before the service is part of the digital Freeview boxes for the next generation of domestic viewing, or as a downloads to the mobile phone. Then the whole of idea of watching on the computer will becomes somewhat pointless. Except for us ex-pats who just don’t care how much it costs because we really would like to watch something different.

**Update**
Then the next problem is forseeing ISPs trying to extort money to cover distribution costs. I am not sure about this argument since the BBC is utilising a distribution system that already exists and the same argument can be applied to any popular website/service. If people are already paying for a distribution service they expect to be able to use this service as they like. If they need more bandwidth they pay for it. I am still not convinced that distribution of content using the internet, within the UK, is the right way to go. Using current broadcast systems can be leveraged for this purpose.

• Ars Technica