Music to resuscitate to

The story about the Bee Gees "Staying Alive" has been going around for the past couple of weeks, to the extent of cropping up on a popular news quiz on the BBC.

The NY Times article on the topic has a little more information than the BBC article I first read about it in. Those studying the idea - find a track that is sufficiently well known and has the right beats per minute to match the suggested chest compression rate - clearly had added a third requirement, which is applicability.

Or, to put it bluntly, if someone *has* to sing along while trying to resuscitate you, the Bee Gees "Stayin alive" at least gives a more optimistic slant on the chances of their success than Queen's "Another one bites the dust" does.

The great intellectual conspiracy

In what can hardly come as a surprise to Republicans, that intellectual Obama has been endorsed by a total of 76 Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry, Physics or Medicine.

Of course, as the Republicans don't appear to be in favour of wasting time and effort on careful consideration, investigation and study and prefer the fast action that is only possible by going with gut feelings - how can you be a DECIDER if you'll change your mind just because mere facts and evidence suggest you've made a colossal mistake - then they'll hardly be bothered by this 76-0 lead that the Obama campaign has in some of the greatest scientific minds alive.

And yes, this is my business. I'm in the free world, and Americans can't say it's not my business if they're going to keep using this "leader of the free world" line.

Stormy Weather

Why exactly is the BBC's weather forecasting so bloody awful?

OK, British weather isn't the easiest thing to predict, but given that there's been a great big giant band of rain slowly crossing the country all day, to be continuing to say it'll be dry in Nottingham is just complete rubbish. It's been chucking it down for hours.

Plus I'm also annoyed at myself for not going into town on Saturday and buying the rewaterproofing spray I need to get my waterproofs waterproof. D'oh.

Too much slime, even for a pitbull?

The Rovian slime machine has already proven far too much for Colin Powell, who has thrown his weight behind Obama, and John McCain himself has shown his discomfort at some of the negative emotions stirred up by the Republican Party campaign.

So who's the latest to express disquiet at Republican tactics... Sarah Palin.

Um. When the "pitbull in lipstick" starts second guessing the smears, it appears that even the Republicans have realised that Republican tactics are rather unpalatable to the US public...

Throw them out.

Here's a simple test for UK political parties wanting my vote - do they agree to this:

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

It appears the Labour party does not.

Italy deems the future to be too expensive

Italy has decided to take from the Universities to fund the bankers. In practical terms, the subjects that will suffer most are those which require a large number of support staff - in other words, technicians in the research labs.

Italy suffers distinctly in that research staff there are civil servants rather than appointed by the Universities themselves, and the past decade has seen almost no permanent recruitment. Instead, the labs are maintained by short-term contract staff. In Italy, these are nicknamed precari, acknowledging the precarious position of such a post.

Now they want to get rid of thousands of them. This is no way to run research. Italy is already well behind the likes of France and Germany in research expenditure per GDP. This will not help. I hope the Italian government enjoys the whooshing sound of Eastern European countries overtaking them.

Astroturfing forums

Now, I'm a cynical sort, so I may be prone to seeing things that aren't really there, but I tend to find that when I'm searching the web for comments on a product, I can often find forums that I find suspiciously eager to declare their love for one particular brand. While some brands are able to gather fanboys who will declare their love of the product of their own genuine fanaticism for it, others are otherwise so functional (e.g. a waterproofing spray) that you can't imagine them inspiring devotion.

So when I find a forum that discusses a brand only in the most worshipping terms, that uses the full product name repeatedly, and that links and promotes their website at every opportunity -

"BRANDNAME have a great competition on their website (link)!"
"I went to the BRANDNAME website (link) and registered straight away!"
"BRANDNAME is great!"
"BRANDAME is a friend, and it's a companion, And it's the only product you will ever need"

etc (alright, that last one is from a Tom Waits track), it doesn't look like the grass roots devotion that some brands have inspired, it looks like the astroturf of a company trying to fake it. And now I'm not going to buy their product either.

MTV gets rickrolled

Broadcasters who let the public vote for who wins awards often come up with a problem - the public just doesn't take them as seriously as the broadcasters think they should.

This trend ranges from BBC Sports personality of the year (which has also had rumours of Aussies voting for non-winning Englishmen to avoid ones who beat them getting the nod) to the religion section in the UK census getting the Jedi vote out.

Latest victims are MTV, who have found a surprise nominee for best ever act in their latest pointless vote.

A gay politician is still a politician

This is the sort of non-joined up thinking that makes me unsurprised that politicians let the economy get in such a mess.

The BBC quotes some Tory that Gays 'have a duty to vote Tory' - because apparently Cameron has stopped the party from selected only straight white men, but also because homosexuals are 'net contributors to the taxes because they don't have children'.

Right. And they all top themselves at 65, do they? While you don't want too many children - this country is currently in an environmentally unsustainable mode, and more people makes that harder to fix - you do want there to be a certain number so they can run the services and earn money that pays your pensions once you've retired.

Beats the face on Mars anyday

The human brain is great at pattern recognition. One problem is that it is so good, it sees things that aren't there. Apart from a dirt track, there's not a lot at the coordinates of 50.01,-110.11 that isn't natural, but...


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Gone to the dogs

The Kennel Club is getting a bit sniffy that the BBC dare broadcast a documentary to suggest that the Kennel Club's rules are not good for dogs.

The Kennel Club being - in my opinion - deluded about what they are doing (they think they are doing the right thing, but they're not) have even accused the BBC of being "biased against dogs".

Rubbish. The Kennel Club are not dogs, dogs are not the Kennel Club. One can be very pro-dog indeed and disagree with the Kennel Club.

You only have to look at photos of what the Kennel Club's ideas have turned the bulldog into. It's hardly a surprise that there could be health problems there. In the wikipedia article on bulldogs, it states that the Bulldog Club "In 1891 the two top bulldogs, Orry and Dockleaf, competed in a contest to see which dog could walk the farthest". How would a modern bulldog compare to the average mongrel in that contest?

Sir Tim looks at his creation

As the creator of html and thus the World Wide Web as we know it, Sir Tim Berners-Lee is entitled to a certain paternalistic view every now and then. Particularly when he has a point.

The web is a great means for exchanging information. This does not mean that the information is right. TBL was talking about the bizarre popularity of the claims that the Large Hadron Collider could produce a black hole that would swallow the Earth - he also highlighted the MMR myths, which have led to a resurgence of measles (and thus caused actual physical harm). He didn't mention climate change, but could easily have done - the web has a very different ratio between acceptors of the mainstream view : sceptics : flat out deniers than the science community has.

In practice, I'm not sure how the labelling would work. The Corporate Interests lobby in the US has shown time and time again its ability to set up seemingly academically based institutes to push their own interests. They'd be a danger that this could easily go the same way.

Llamas?

The Guardian has a regular series of entertaining/nitpicking criticism of Hollywood history films - or rather, points out how Hollywood doesn't really make the effort. Sometimes they've changed things because they think it'll make a better story - or at least a simpler one for their audience - other times... well, it's hard to know what they were thinking. Take one problem with Troy, listed in the latest article - the makers had banged on about their authenticity, but as the article says

it's hard to see why you'd go to the trouble if you're just going to fill the marketplace with llamas.

I imagine a historian has much the same problem with "historical" films as I have with "science" fiction films as a scientist - they use real thing utterly incorrectly just because they can't be bothered.

The Real McHoy

Every time I see a news article about this man, I just like him more. If he's not offered a knighthood, they'll be trouble...

His point on sports is particularly important - if Scotland wants to be independent, it has to be ready to be independent, which means funding everything.

Although having said that - if Hong Kong still gets its own Olympic Team, do you still have to be an independent country to have your own NOC?

Gloat

Well, I was always told it was bad manners to gloat. But then this is sport, and they are the Aussies, so I have to say - how's your big words now?

It appears that when the the British track cyclists, they win.

Great Britain - 7 golds, 3 silvers (all in GB 1-2s) and one bronze.
Australia - 1 silver.

Brett Lancaster, Crocodile Dundee, Dame Edna Everage, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Kevin Rudd - can you hear me Kevin Rudd? Your boys took one *hell* of a beating!

Never mind, you still have cricket, rugby league, and women's swimming as long as it is a less efficient stroke...

The Welsh Wonder

I have to say, I'm absolutely delighted at Nicole Cooke winning the gold medal in the women's road race. A bit annoyed I missed the finish - I'd been rowing and got home just in time to turn the TV on to be greeted by the UK national anthem. And although cold, wet and hilly conditions are probably what a Welsh cyclist does best in, there's no denying it was a well deserved win - and the first Welsh gold medallist since 1972.

Surprising news from down under

Far from the stereotype of the lager swilling Aussie who keeps reminding the English that the Aussies are better at sport because their cricket team won one of the two most recent Ashes series*, the Australians do actually have taste. In coffee, at least.

*They're also better at Rugby League, Rugby Union when it isn't a World Cup year (i.e the year that matters), swimming, and.. er... probably some other Olympic events you can pick up medals in that Britain hasn't also targeted.

Vaughan calls it time

Having lost his form, and lost to South Africa, Michael Vaughan has seen what he needs to do - not just be "rested" for a match, but stand down as captain.

Here's hoping after a break he makes a speedy recovery to form - England needs an elder statesman with the ability to bat as well as Vaughan has in previous years.

Smart pick, or lucky guess?

Whether it's because they do actually know something, or because even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day, the England cricket team selectors have actually managed to somehow recall someone and appear to have got away with it.

Collingwood, despite looking awful in the first innings, has got a 50 in the second. God knows how he's suddenly remembered how to bat, but it's exactly what England needed to prolong the agony have any chance, albeit very, very small, of levelling the series.

EDIT - Blimey, he's gone on to get a century. With a six. Who'd have thought he only needed to be dropped for one match to get his form back? Wonder who they should try that with next...

Random things you learn on the web #2

A Shih Tzu can get so excited its eyes pop out.

I mean, really, why continue to breed such a stupid creature?