Posts by richard
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Muse: NZIFF Rant: A Diva's Place Is On…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
And the next person who really wants to bring up the norms of Tudor theatricals
Actually, you don't need to go back that far ...
-
I guess it just goes to show that high art like Space Battleship Yamato demands more of its audience than Macbeth did during its first run at The Globe :-)
-
Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’m interested. Could you explain it here?
To quote myself in the same post: “we are trying to figure out how the big bang would have worked if string theory is true, and whether the string theory version of the big bang leads to a universe with distinctive properties which might be observable when we look into the sky.”
How much more do you want ;-)
-
Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to Bart Janssen,
The problem is that most fields in science use a language that is almost unique. Even when English words are used their meaning is different from field to field. I liked the idea of appreciating science the way you appreciate art but the problem is in this case the art is in another language. Think of it as a great piece of literature written in Arabic. If someone shows it to you and says “wow this is amazing” you look at the scribbling and nod and smile.
I think this is a copout. I just listened to a technical talk on an aspect of string theory, and “superpotential”, “F-term” and “complex structure moduli” are not terms in regular use outside the field.
But any good science is part of a larger enterprise and this should be explainable, and is likely of interest to the wider community.
So you should at least be able to explain the broad field your personal efforts fit in to, even if your own activities are perhaps hard to explain. In the case of this speaker, he could say “we are trying to figure out how the big bang would have worked if string theory is true, and whether the string theory version of the big bang leads to a universe with distinctive properties which might be observable when we look into the sky”.
My sense is that most good scientists can provide this level of explanation,
Moreover, you should have a slightly stronger explanation which is understandable to a scientist who is not in your field, but knows something about the general area -- if nothing else, this probably describes the people on hiring committees and grant panels.
-
Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to James Green,
FWIW it’s worth, the title “Lord” is always concatenated with the surname, so he is Robert, Lord Winston [of XX], never Lord Robert or Lord Robert Winston.
Actually, when the Lord is the title held by the younger son of a Duke ("Lord Peter Whimsey") the correct usage is Lord Peter, rather than Lord Whimsey, if Dorothy L Sayers can be believed.
-
Southerly: One Hundred and Thirty-one…, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
was particularly baffled by how wherever you lived in relation to the university, that wind blew the same way in relation to your cycle route. Over four years, I lived south, southwest, and northeast of uni; coming or going, north or south, I was cycling into the wind. Perplexing.
Not just a case of "When I was lad I walked to school, and then walked home again. Uphill. Both ways." (Must admit I am all for David's idea, but hope that it includes supplying residents with hi-tech gloves. Still remember making it to 9 0'clock lectures from Bishop St in July, and not being about to move my fingers to take notes for the first ten minutes)
-
Congrats on putting this together. Nice, thoughtful piece.
-
Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Creon Upton,
It’s a bit like the old free-speech conundrum: the principle’s really only tested – and affirmed – when the matter in question is one where huge numbers of people, all invoking quite sound-seeming sentiments, believe that they are justified in forsaking it.
This site is largely populated by thinking people who basically believe in the fundamentals – rule of law, so forth. It behooves you, I believe, to consider not only that this is a situation where (as is always the case) an exception to the fundamentals should not be made on the basis of convenience or public mood or righteousness or anything else – but also that if we truly believe in what we say then this is the very situation where we should prove that we do.
However the right to free speech is not absolute. It is abridged (for good reason) by strictures on defamation and libel, by copyright, by legitimate confidentiality requirements (e.g. doctor – patient), obscenity laws, and the famous requirement that you abstain from yelling fire in a crowded theatre.
And in this context, it is hardly surprising that a military assault on a fortified compound should lead to a somewhat confusing narrative (did he hide behind his wife, was he carrying a gun?) in the immediate aftermath.
In a very real sense, arresting him has to be far riskier to the people doing it than shooting him from the other side of the room – and given the that their job was dangerous enough, just how much more dangerous do you want it to be? If it turns out that he was dragged out the back of his house and shot, you have a point – but there is a fairly broad range of circumstances between him actively firing at his would-be captors and clearly and unconditionally seeking to surrender himself where he could be shot rather than captured, without undermining the rule of law.
No matter how strenuously you support the rule of law, you have to set bin Laden’s right to a trial against the safety of the people you would send to arrest him. (And it sounds as though they did haul some prisoners away with them – and if that is true they didn’t simply shoot on sight.)
-
Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Richard Aston,
The US military will say and do anything – maybe if they can generate a big enough wave of acceptance of Bin Laden’s death it won’t matter if he is still alive – if he tried a video broadcast to say ” hey I’m still here” everyone would assume its a fake – case closed.
I am not alone in saying show me the bodyI wouldn't take pride in "not being alone" -- other people on the internet are insisting that the moon landings never occurred, and I recently received a pamphlet from a group of fundamentalist Catholics insisting that Galileo was wrong and that the Church (c. 1600) was right -- that the earth really was at the center of the solar system [I am a cosmologist, so the mailing wasn't entirely random]. I am pretty sure they had a website.
Lots of people are wrong on the internet, you know.
If Osama is really alive he will be popping up in a video a few days from now, holding a recent copy of Time Magazine and saying "Booyah". If not he is swimming with da fishes.
-
Technically speaking, I believe the draft still exists, in that American men are obliged to register for "Selective Service" at age 18 -- it is just that no-one is actually summoned.
It is something of a political compromise, but they could presumably save a few million by scrapping it -- given that they got through Iraq without a draft they can probably get through most things.