Looking Out To Sea

Is there a meaningful difference between

• someone who won’t vaccinate their child because it will give them autism
• someone who won’t vaccinate their child because it promotes promiscuous sex

And having asked that, what do you think about compulsory vaccination? I haven’t thought about it yet and I’m ready for bed. Comments please!

This is just a rainbow of hilarious (yeah, I went that far):

Campaigners on the Greek island of Lesbos are to go to court in an attempt to stop a gay rights organisation from using the term “lesbian”.

To think that there are genuinely straight Lesbians out there, and lesbian Lesbians too. Or is that Lesbian lesbians?

Either way, maybe this is the kind of thing the EU protected name committees should get involved in. You can’t have proper champagne unless it’s made in the Champagne region — and you can’t have proper lesbians unless they come from Lesbos! Ha, next I’m envisioning someone taking a pornographer to court for fraudulently labelled goods…

Still, the ambiguity must do wonders for their tourism. But finding websites for local companies must be a real pain.

Last week in The Herald:

Pupils show a lack of interest in computer studies

University students are being used to help rekindle interest in computing science courses in Scottish schools amid concerns for the future of the subject.

… The difficulty for teachers and local authorities stems from the difference between computing studies and ICT, the latter being more common in schools. Computing studies deals with technical aspects of computers and technology, while ICT teaches pupils the user side of technology.

This was certainly the case when I was at school — computing was taught by people who had no apparent understanding of the subject beyond the use of application software. So that was what we learned. Certainly nothing of the mathematics, programming or rich history of the field. (I started Standard Grade computing but dropped it after a couple of weeks when I read through the past papers and realised I stood a good chance of passing the two-year course without study.)

A day or so after that article in The Herald, two responses appeared on the letters page. The first, from the University of Edinburgh’s school liaison in the Informatics department:

Policy-makers at all levels need to understand that being able to “use” Microsoft Word or Google doesn’t make you a computer expert — it merely makes you just another consumer. If we want our children to be prepared for a better future than as readily replaceable call-centre fodder, then we need to understand that the wielders of tools are always under the control of the creators of tools, and that ICT is not computer science.

I don’t recall seeing the situation summarised with such clarity and conciseness before. This is exactly the problem (and what’s more, the problem isn’t even limited to computing or to Scotland).

What really iced the cake for me was the second letter on the subject that day, from a teacher at my old school. Mark Tennant wasn’t around when I studied there but he obviously knows what he’s talking about, and highlights some alarming turns:

Faced with falling numbers in a department that requires costly equipment and resources to run, it is hardly surprising that head teachers are choosing to close computing departments. I would, however, implore them not to take the easiest option, but rather work with the departments to re-invigorate their computing courses for pupils, right from the start of secondary school.

Even contemplating closing down computing departments seems horrifying from my view — but then, if the subject they teach is as dull as Mr Tennant makes out, what merit is there in keeping them open? It seems clear that the people in charge (of the curriculum and of the individual schools) don’t realise what computing should be about.

I wrote to Mr Tennant (tracked him down via his blog) to thank him for his letter and to ask him how I might help. He says (I hope he doesn’t mind being quoted):

If you are wanting to help out with the campaign then the best thing you can do is make some noise — make sure that you respond to any articles in the press, write to your MSP etc. Broadly, there are three messages we are trying to get across.

1. There is a difference between computing and ICT skills, and both are important to have in schools,

2. The computing curriculum is outdated and contains irrelevant content, but we aim to address this through “Curriculum For Excellence”

3. Head Teachers are limiting pupil’s options if they remove computing from their schools, and parents should be very concerned.

I will be writing to my MSP about this. If you feel as strongly I recommend you do the same. You can find out exactly who that is by inserting your postcode or address on the Scottish Parliament website.

I have a conundrum to lay out. Or at least, a question which seems to require some nuance in answering.

One the one hand, it’s poor form to rebut an argument without some familiarity with it. Recently Mark Ravenhill wrote a terrible piece about how “Richard Dawkins’ secular army must be stopped or future generations will be denied a source of inspiration” (that’s a direct quote, believe it or not) at the Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog. It’s painfully obvious that the guy hasn’t read anything of what Dawkins has written on religion — he erects and burns straw men with gay abandon. Most of those projected opinions are the opposite of what Dawkins states in his book. And it’s not the first time people have attacked his work at length without bothering to read or understand it. (Mary Midgley’s review of The Selfish Gene is a classic in this genre; you can read Dawkins’ extended rebuttal to it here.)

On the other hand, it’s a common argument from pedlars of pseudoscience and the like to claim they will reveal all the proper scientific details in their book. And refuse to be drawn on the matter unless you read their book. Which is to say, buy their book.

So the question is, what kind of argument is “read this book!” and should it be used with sincerity? When is it valid? In the first case, it’s obvious that if you’re criticising someone’s views you should have at least a reasonable understanding of those views. And yet many people will hide behind that, using the cost and effort as a shield for their weak arguments. I’m not spending twenty quid on Amazon every time I run across a crank with “revolutionary” ideas on physics, medicine or what-have-you. I feel that this doesn’t let them off the hook.

The middle ground exists, when the arguments are large and complex enough to fill a book but the proponent tries to condense them. If someone writes, say, a blog post to describe their ideas, is it reasonable to attack the contents of this post only — is it valid to argue against just the presented arguments? It seems disingenuous to think otherwise — there is no visible difference between someone who presents all of a poor argument and someone who presents the weakest part of a good argument. Both can claim their ideas get better explanation in their book. Buy my book!

I feel a certain degree of unease when I see people use this gambit, whichever side I agree with. It doesn’t help anyone’s understanding to say “you don’t know anything, away and read This Book”. I don’t like to see it used even when I agree with the people who use it. This may be an inherent dislike of unfree information, which is probably related. It’s okay to make a claim if you’re willing to reveal all the information that supports that claim. That seems as good a guiding principle as any.

A while ago — I’m pretty sure it was before the Christmas holidays, so on the order of months anyway — I sent a query to Boots’ Customers Services email address, asking about their Meal Deals.

I wanted to know where they got their meat and eggs, were they free range, ethically-treated or other appropriate category, and could they please think about adding this information to their website if not on the packaging itself.

The reply arrived today, after I’d long since given up.

All of our meat is sourced from approved suppliers, which are audited for quality and safety on a regular basis. Sources are always subject to change depending on season and availability. It is a not a requirement to be specific this is why the details are not on the pack.

I hope this information is of assistance to you.

In fact, no, this information is of almost no assistance to me. It tells me virtually nothing, or than the fact that Boots are keeping very tight wraps on the provenance of their food, so it can’t be all that great. Otherwise they would be shouting their hippy bona fides from the highest treetops.

“approved suppliers”

Approved by whom, for what purpose? This could mean nothing more than it’s legal for sale to humans in the UK.

“audited for quality and safety”

Again, no indication whether this auditing process returns good results or whether these suppliers are consistently threatened with losing their licence. It could be either.

“always subject to change”

This probably means they go with the cheapest supplier at the time.

Most disappointed. Though fearing the worst I have given up eating their meat-based sandwiches. And on good days, like today, I take in home made curry. ;-)

Helen just pointed out that ‘The Green Apple’, an ethical/Fairtrade craft store online, has been hacked by some Islamic fundamentalists. The main page currently has a “closed for maintenance notice” but if you click straight through to the store you see a protest page from some nutty religious group:

After thirty seconds the page directs you to some other site which is about the wonderful prophet.

From a quick look at the guy they’re protesting — Geert Wilders — I don’t really have any sympathy for either side. He seems like the Dutch equivalent of Robert Kilroy Silk (he even has the same daft haircut…):

Take a walk down the street and see where this is going. You no longer feel like you are living in your own country. There is a battle going on and we have to defend ourselves. Before you know it there will be more mosques than churches!

Oh no! More mosques than churches!

On the other side, the Islamofascists are no better. I feel quite happy denouncing someone who would hijack a third party website for their own pointless protest and then claim “sorry for the inconvenience. Our aim is not to harm your system”. Er, yes it is. It was an effective online shop before and now it doesn’t sell anything — what other meaning of harm do you want to use?

Bunch of nutters, the lot of them.

(You gotta shout the headline like Bruno! Bruno! to make it sound right.)

On Friday night we saw Juno, which was given the kind of advertising which would normally put me right off. Yet again. They did this with I Am Legend. Is there some conspiracy to make films appear even more rubbish than they actually are? I suppose it isn’t over-hyping them, at least.

Thankfully this one’s had a good word-of-mouth reputation so I was actually quite keen to see it. It’s great! Ellen Page is fantastic as the main character and the dialogue was something else. Occasionally you listen to some on-screen dialogue and it just seems so completely different and fresh and real. Tarantino can do it, as can Joss Whedon. And if this film is anything to go by, Diablo Cody has it too. It’s also got some great music. There’s a brilliant cover of Sea of Love playing over the birth scene.

It’s also been interesting to see the political reactions to this, which have been highly contradictory. The abortion lobby seem to view it as anti-abortion and the anti-abortion lobby are too freaked out by the horror of strong female characters and intelligent individuals making their own decisions to notice. Everyone is projecting their own imagined fears onto the movie… which is pretty much the same as people do in real life.

On Wednesday night we saw 4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile — ‘4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days’ — the story of a woman helping her friend get an illegal abortion in communist Romania in 1987.

I’m not sure what to say. I can’t really describe the great laughs you’ll have while watching. It’s a very numbing film. Don’t watch it for a first date?

Meanwhile, this is the 35th anniversary of the legalisation of abortion in the US, a law that the current crop of Republican candidates will be sure to repeal as part of their headlong rush to take the US back to the Middle Ages. Not that things are all rosy here — due to a strange quirk of jurisdiction our own abortion laws don’t apply to Northern Ireland. It’s still illegal to obtain an abortion there in most circumstances.

But if you want to see some gritty it’s-grim-oop-north drama about trying to get an abortion against the laws and norms of the society you live in, check out ‘4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days’.

Two stories popped up on my radar at about the same time, both about Facebook and social software. The first, by Clay Shirky, is a transcription of an excellent talk about group dynamics on- and off-line, and why communities need to be protected from themselves. There’s a lot in there that seemed familiar and self-evident, but at the same time I had never thought about. That was also one of his points — that we have probably all seen communities die in the same ways over and over again, but no-one is learning from this.

The other story is — to put it politely — a slightly unhinged rant in The Guardian about the dangers of Facebook and its ‘terrifying’ controllers. It’s not often you find yourself in the company of a bona fide conspiracy theorist, and it’s difficult to know where to look. Reading Tom Hodgkinson’s article is a bit like that. You know if you looked him straight in the eye you’d probably just burst out laughing.

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It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy:

The Top Gear host [Jeremy Clarkson] revealed his account numbers [in his newspaper column] after rubbishing the furore over the loss of 25 million people’s personal details on two computer discs.

He wanted to prove the story was a fuss about nothing.

But Clarkson admitted he was “wrong” after he discovered a reader had used the details to create a £500 direct debit to the charity Diabetes UK.

I’m pretty disappointed that they choice Diabetes UK and not, say, Friends of the Earth or some anti-motoring charity. That would have been the icing on the cake.