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.