Oh my we've been out of commission for a while...

Sorry for the lack of updates over the whole year. I had when I had started the blog hoped to be posting fairly regularly but it seems that for a chunk of 2012 that was not to be. To cut a long story short, most of my time was eaten up finishing my research (which I have done and am now on my thesis) and I just honestly completely failed to give much thought to working on this blog. Well the year is now almost at an end, PhD is (hopefully) nearly finished and things seem to be settling down. With that in mind I'll be making a far more resolute effort to keep this up to date and to keep talking about things I think are important.

Secularism and Liberalism are under attack throughout the world

Please consider the following news stories;

At the Jaipur literary festival, Sir Salman Rushdie was due to speak, an opportunity for the people at the festival to hear one of the most important voices in the world of literature. This sadly was not to be the case. A handful of angry Islamic fundamentalists decided to kick up a storm over the issue. Fearing hurting the feelings of a set of religious nutters, the local government decided to not to let the great author speak. Nick Cohen (a man I disagree with on about as many issues as I agree with him on), has written up what is probably the best overview of the whole travesty. Effectively a spineless local government decided that appealing to a few vocal sections of the community (perhaps to prevent violence as they claim, perhaps to improve their standing amongst said community), is far more important than to defend free speech, art and culture. This is a dark time for the “secular democracy” that is India, instead revealing a darker side, one of barbarism, savagery and fear.

If that sort of thing could happen in a “liberal” country, one can rightly imagine that the situation is far worse in less liberal places. A journalist, Hamza Kashgari, has recently been deported from Malaysia to Saudi Arabia, where he risks facing the death penalty. His crime? A tweet considered offensiveabout the prophet Mohammed. This is of course only the latest, in an almost endless list of horrific actions taken by the Saudi regime. I know it is easy become desensitised to the actions of the regime given the countless stories we hear of the unspeakable actions, but just think, a tweet, 140 characters of text could cost a person his life.

Its nice to think that the “enlightened” west is beyond such small minded bullying, except of course it isn't. A few weeks ago a 16 year old American girl by the name of Jessica Ahlquist found herself inundated with abuse andthreats, including some against her life. What crime could she have done to warrant such treatment in the liberal, secular, tolerant United States of America. Arson? Vandalism? Burning something down after vandalising it? Well...Asking for a large overtly Christian prayer banner to be removed from school auditorium (and she was not the first person to object to the banner). Her campaign eventually led to a Judge ordering the banner taken down. The reasons for this should be obvious, a Christian prayer in the auditorium sends a clear message to those students who are not Christian: “This school has a Christian identity, it is superior to your faith or lack thereof” (A clear violation of America's many rules on the separation of church and state). Undoubtedly such a stance would have opponents, yet instead of a sensible debate and discussion of the issue followed by acceptance of a court ruling, what has instead followed was a barbaric display of bullying and intimidation. As with the banner, a clear message is being put forward: “Do not challenge us, or you will be tormented into silence”. And so that's how it is, instead of celebrating someone courageously standing up for the rights of minorities, people from without the community are doing what they can to destroy her. As an illustration of the level of cruelty being unleashed towards an innocent teenager, the Wisconsin State Journal reports that florists are no longer willing to deliver to her.

At least such things couldn't happen in Britain right? Wrong! Consider the case of University College London, a bastion of free thought and expression. Well when their atheist, secularist and humanist society had an issue of the popular webcomic; Jesus and Mo on their website, the University Student Union threw a massive strop and began strong-arming them to remove it. Rather than siding with freedom of expression, something that is supposedly sacred in academia, the union instead supported censorship, on the grounds that some Muslim students were offended by it (I'm going to go out on a limb and assume Christian students weren't too hot on it either). Do religious people have a right to be offended by webcomics or other publications that are critical towards them? Of course they do. That is the sort of debate that and discussion a student union should encourage. But trying to force a society to take down a popular webcomic link because some group weren't happy about what it said about their beliefs (as opposed to saying anything about them as individuals), is unbelievably craven. This case is important to note because, while the humanist society have faced harassment over a simple webcomic that criticised religion, religious societies have almost free reign to do as they please. There have been cases of religious societies at UCL bringing speakers who take genuinely homophobic, misogynistic and hateful viewpoints. Yet these speakers are welcomed with open arms and indeed criticism of them is condemned as an attack on religion. It is quite clear that in terms of freedom of speech, secularists are largely maligned against, at UCL (and quite possibly in the wider academic world as well).

These are only a few examples, yet there are hundred if not thousands of similar stories from around the world. Looking at the news over the past few weeks and months from around the world it is hard not to see a worrying trend developing. Specifically the almost relentless assault against secularism, liberalism and freedom of speech. These attacks stem exclusively from religious hardliners (for theirs is a thin-skinned god with some notable self esteem issues). But perhaps what is most worrying is the eagerness with which supposedly non-religious organisations or individuals enable of even encourage them.

It would be easy enough to dismiss this as simply a right wing phenomenon but that is simply not the case. While many of those with fundamentalist views do find themselves on the right, they have always had more than their fair share of those on the left playing the role of useful idiot. Whether it is the so called liberals currently defending the misogynistic racist fundamentalist Ron Paul (Something Megan Carpentier covered excellently) to Ken Livingstone having embraced the homophobic, anti-Semitic hate preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi a few years back.

All fairly grim news, but in spite of this I do remain hopeful. Rather than seeing this as religious extremists winning I see this as their last desperate acts to retain power, a proverbial hail Mary pass. As science and reason challenge the more outlandish claims made by religion that fundamentalists rely on to justify their extreme views. Their time is nearly up and they know it, but that doesn't mean that they intend to give up easily.

Still Alive

Just a very brief update to let everyone know I'm still around and explain why this blog has been so quiet as of late.
In October last year my fiancee got a wonderful new job in Oxfordshire, and thus we had to move out of Liverpool (me staying in Liverpool by myself and commuting to Manchester was not really an option). Anyway I've since moved back to Dore for the time being (until I finish my PhD anyway). Long story short, the whole process of moving, settling back in, and various assorted PhD workload things pretty much prevented me from keeping the blog updated, a situation I do intend to rectify.
So just as a quick note, blog still around, more updates soon.

My Thoughts On OWS

Sorry about my lack of updates, life's been mad, but I thought I'd do a post on the Occupy Wall Street movement...

Unless your views on politics and indeed international news in general is a form of aggressive apathy, you have no doubt heard about the “Occupy” movement, that gripped first Wall Street, then the rest of the United States and now, the entire world (though its presence here in the UK, occupy LSX, at least from personal observation, seems  subdued at best, though they have managed to close St Pauls, surprising considering there is only about 200 - 400 of them camped outside it). The American right wing media have been quick to portray the protests as dedicated towards ending capitalism and populated exclusively by  unemployed losers who are also elitist upper middle class students (I assume this makes some form of sense in their minds). By the terms of the left wing media, this is a massive grassroots progressive movement that is entirely moderate  in its attitudes and actions and with a completely reasonable set of demands. The truth I strongly suspect is somewhere in between. Certainly, looking at the interviews, a number of the “occupiers” do fit the Damn Dirty Hippy stereotype while many others do not, indeed the movement seems to have more than its fair share of veterans, teachers, retirees and even (though perhaps unsurprisingly given the turbulence in the financial sector) a number of white collar  wall street/former wall street workers .`

                What many see as the reason behind the protests is the perception (rightly or wrongly depending on your point of view) of the overall unfairness of the current system. It is indeed hard to read the wearethe99percent’s tumblr and not be moved by some of the entries. Stories of students completely unable to cope with massive levels of debt and struggling to survive, of families forced to choose between affording health insurance or having a roof over their heads, of countless highly skilled professional’s completely unable to find a job, any job. Now obviously In spite of opposition, it is not hard to see there is genuine rage against a system wherein the exceptionally wealthy are treated very well by the political establishment whilst everyone else seems neglected and indeed in some cases even demonised by the same establishment.  This has obviously not been lost on the right who have rather unsurprisingly begun their own fight back. Opponents of the OWS movement have started their own movement “We are the 53 percent”, ostensibly to represent the 53% of Americans who pay federal income tax and therefore imply that many of the protesters do not (of course there is no evidence to substantiate this, and even if there were it is important to note that those who do not earn enough to pay a federal income tax do pay taxes in terms a sales tax and the perversely regressive payroll tax), yet their tales of “Well my life is tough too but you don’t hear me complaining” never fails to come across as a little petty by comparison to the heart wrenching stories from the former camp.

                Perhaps the opponents of OWS would have some credibility but for that fact that many of them were rather open and proud supporters of the tea party movement whom while campaigning for absolutely no government spending and policies largely prefaced by “I’m not racist but...” were also, rather ironically, massively opposed to the bailouts, TARP and what they saw as  “all the money in politics”. Yet the tea party were always a largely right wing phenomenon, and they saw no place for any form of government regulation of those very sectors, putting them at complete ideological odds with many of the OWS protesters. That being said it is impossible not to note the similarities between the two movements. Both started out as small scale grassroots movements that grew substantially and quickly (though a certain degree of the tea party’s growth can be traced to funding from groups  related to Koch Industries), as aforementioned, both object to corporate power and both want to see America taken in a different direction. Yet while the  tea party were always very goal driven with specific accomplishments in mind, this seems to be missing in the OWS protest. Some of the demands put out by those purportedly representing OWS seem hastily put together,  wildly optimistic and with no real plan as to how they would be push for them to be implemented (indeed some seem outright unimplementable). This strikes me as pointing to the movement facing a risk of hijack from anti-capitalists and those who want a complete top down system change as opposed to gradual evolution and realistic laws enacted to ensure fairness. This does not (from the interviews I have seen) seem indicative of the majority of protestors, who are instead far more interested in more interested in fairness and for the government to take some more active action in ensuring that they have access to vital services (such as affordable health care and social security) and for the banks to release more money to allow for jobs to be created (not an unreasonable request given that the banks were saved from disaster with injections of taxpayer money through various forms).  

Of the OWS protesters, one subset who I do find it very difficult to muster any sympathy for are the liberal activists (and with that I am not just referring to the anti-capitalism morons) but rather those who I feel have a certain level of responsibility for the disastrous policies of the republican congress. Consider November 2010 when the democrats still held the house of representatives but were now facing a major threat in terms of the tea party. It was at that time that Obama truly needed their help and support to energize his base, but instead they largely shrugged him off, whining instead about Obama’s perceived failures (How getting 30 million people who were previously uninsured healthcare, pulling America out of recession and enacting financial regulation can be considered a failure is anyone’s guess). This rather selfish attitude was instrumental in the republican wins last November which led to the current Republican congress whose existence is built around rejecting anything sensible. At the end of the day, their president needed them to allow him to continue fighting for them and they turned their backs. Honestly they need to grow up and actually start fighting for their president rather than against him.

One thing that I do think odd and somewhat concerning is the efforts to internationalize the movement, or indeed the desire of people from around the world to jump in on the movement’s bandwagon. This seems off because it to a certain degree it seems to imply that the rather unique problems that are prevalent in the American system (lack of healthcare, extremely painful rates of payment of student loans, now social security) are global which they are not (case in point the UK, where there is universal health insurance and student loan repayments are not particularly severe , indeed becoming progressive in the near future). In fact the UK protests seem more about actual focussed opposition to capitalism as a concept and a rejection of any cuts with no middle ground (though for full disclosure I should state that I only read those views from various media outlets that might have likely had biases in this matter and their presenting of it). These are views that do not seem to be shared by many of the American protestors that have been covered on MSNBC and CNN and such and as a result there is a danger of them being associated with views they do not hold (as I mentioned earlier).

               

Whatever the case is,  one would have to be incredibly naive not to see that something incredibly profound is happening in the United States at the moment. What started as a small movement has grown in momentum and more importantly seems to have grabbed the public’s attention. Almost all polls now show the majority of Americans support the OWS movement whereupon a dismal 12% have a favourable view of congress (I’m fairly sure there are tropical diseases with higher approval ratings).  It would be utterly foolhardy of either party to ignore the movement and indeed many democrats have thrown their support behind it. Even republicans who initially tore into the movement have back-pedalled from their initial positions. What this does create is a genuine opportunity for the democrats much in the same way that the tea party (which gets less favour every minute) did for the republicans. If the democrats can engage with the demonstrators well the can hopefully turn the enthusiasm into electoral energy and ensure that next year they retain the white house and vote out republicans wherever possible .

Yves Cabannes and the Evolution of a Made Up Outrage...

Prof Yves Cabannes, the current Convenor of the United Nations Advisory Group on Forced Evictions (and professor of Urban Development at University College London) is unhappy with the current evictions at Dale Farm, and has spoken out about it. Reading the daily mail, particularly the columns by Richard Littlejohn and Melanie Phillips, one would be forgiven for thinking what he said was incendiary, that he launched a vicious attack against the British Government, Britain in general, equated Britain with Darfur, Zimbabwe and a whole host of other places, condemning great Britain under international law, shocking stuff I think you’ll agree. So did Prof. Cabannes actually say all that? Well have a look and decide for yourselves.

Short Statement: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14918520

Longer (and more detailed) Interview: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9590000/9590626.stm 

Right, so while, in the radio interview, he does (briefly) mention international law, stating three areas (ratified by Britain) which the evictions violate, a vast majority of his criticism is based on the British laws,  and his criticisms were not directed at the British government or indeed at Britain  in general but rather at a specific local authority, who he primarily claimed were violating, British land laws (Something I think it is fair, given his various positions, to assume he knows a fair bit about)...Hardly the UN using obscure forms of international law to bully Britain as a whole. 

So then that leads to the next question, where did the whole Darfur/Zimbabwe/random third world country thing come in to the picture from? Well here is where the leaps of logic go from striking into the territory of the truly bizarre. Apparently because forced evictions take place in those countries, and the convenor of the UN Advisory Group on Forced Evictions saw fit to comment on an issue in the UK, it somehow leads to the conclusion that the situations are somehow equal in the advisory groups eyes which strikes me as somewhat akin to saying “Well people who steal cans of soft drinks are put on trial, so are people who perpetrate multi-million pound heists, therefore the two crimes are of equal seriousness in the eyes of the law”, which is of course ridiculous. In fact in the radio interview, he specifically goes on to state that the forced evictions were very small in comparison to actions being taken in other parts of the word.

So to sum up, someone from the UN said something relatively innocuous, perhaps slightly controversial at a stretch, and from that commentators, took the statement completely out of context to justify their increasingly mad paranoia against the UN.

Oh for the record, I am personally not opposed to the evictions at Dale Farm, I believe property law exists for a reason and as such should be respected, but using this situation as a platform to attack the UN is just the height of ridiculousness.  

Thinking of programming? Visualise it!

I often talk to people who are interested in creating their own programs or apps, but find the nature of programming in general to be intimidating. Yet conversing with them, many of them seem to severely overestimate what is needed to get into programming. Many pretty much see, with larger programming projects, a massive block of code, creating which is somewhat akin to writing a novel in an unfamiliar language and think, from looking at many of the available basic tutorials that it would take a lifetime before they are able to attempt something large scale.

This is however not the case. Virtually every large problem can be broken down into smaller chunks. If a programmer is able to break a larger problem down into smaller problems and deal with them individually, it is often the case that there will be far less difficulty in solving it. Furthermore, if a programmer is able to solve one of the smaller problems solving similar ones becomes almost trivial.
Towards this end, in my personal experience there is one thing that should be done whenever facing a programming task...
Visualise it!

Specifically, try to visualise exactly what you want the final output of the program to look like. Writing down a description would almost certainly help in that regard. From that, try to figure out what all the different components to that output are, treat building each component as a specific task rather than trying to build the whole thing in one, ensure that you have generated a solid design document for your use (yes I know its painful). While there are many different ways people plan a project and different methods that people apply to solving the sub problems that turn up, it is utterly essential to have a clear, well defined view of exactly where you want to end up. After that, the how we get there becomes far more simple.

Also if anyone is just starting to look at programming and are interested in a good language, my favourite (and indeed the one I use whenever possible) is Python. It is a great language, very easy to learn, has a very gently learning curve and is incredibly versatile.
A great set of tutorials for the language can be found here.


At some point in the future, I would like to work on creating a detailed step by step guide towards tackling complex programming tasks...

Off the shelf intro

So now two years after the cataclysmic failure of my last blog I thought I'd have another go at it (or rather was gently prodded in this direction by a couple of friends). At any rate, as an opening post I thought I'd give a quick introduction in the not at all cliched Q&A format...

So what do you anyway?
I am a UK based computer science PhD student (this statement is accurate as of 18:52 5/9/2011).

What will this blog contain?
Basically it shall, assuming it doesn't end up mothballed like my previous blog, contain my thoughts on a wide variety of subjects that interest me. Primarily, I am likely to talk about politics, science and developments in the world of computer science. Whenever I discuss or criticize anything I shall always endeavour to ensure that my statements are accurate and evidence based.

Politics? Are you one of those Communofascioanarchosocialist types?
I have always had a passionate interest in the issues that affect peoples lives both nationally and internationally and have fairly strong opinions on them. I believe that in terms of politics it is very important to try and ascertain the fact behind the spin on many stories and that is something I hope to do with this blog
 In terms of my own personal politics I have fairly diverse views, indeed I've been described as centrist (which is the title I subscribe to), centre-right, libertarian and liberal. I am a fairly strong supporter of the current coalition government on many issues though there are some I am greatly critical of. If there was one party in the world whose view I almost entirely share it is almost certainly America's democratic party under Obama.  Looking closely at their record, the amount of positive changes they have brought when faced with very fierce opposition has been nothing short of inspirational.
Of course in terms of politics as John Maynard Keynes is disputed to have said;
"When the facts change, my views change with them"

And Science?...And Computing?
Love it! Can't get enough! I am perpetually fascinated by developments in the worlds of science and computing and will rant and rave about them at any opportunity. On the flip side of that I am greatly critical of pseudoscience, poorly done science and anything...unscientific. I am a firm believer in Carl Sagan's great quote "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof"

Anything else?
I will from time to time almost certainly post about my various other interests including games, books, comics and television...warning expect reviews of stuff from time to time

Why the name?
Just because you say it...

I apologize for the blogs current Spartan nature, I will develop it a time goes on...

Comments, criticisms and all forms of heated discussion are of course greatly welcomed. I do however want to keep this a fairly civil place and as such sexist, racist, homophobic or potentially libellous comments or links to sites that contain such content are likely to be deleted.