Screaming like a girl...

Yes folks, I was unduly phased-out this morning by an embarrassing incident that saw me scream like a girl.

There I was, dealing with my morning emails having just arrived at the office, when an unnecessarily large spider fell from the bookshelf above and landed upon my keyboard in front of me.

Que the bit where I scream like a girl...

I zipped backwards (the joy of a chair with wheels) whereupon the dastedly beast leap onto the floor and pursued me across the office.

Well that really was the last straw, I wasn't about to climb on my seat! Now I should point out that I don't actually have a fear of spiders, at least normally sized ones. I'm also aware that I am famous for castigating youngers for killing insects/arachnids for no reason.

With great power comes great responsibility. To a spider, you may as well be a God. It would be the easiest thing in the world to squish it...but just because we can, doesn't mean we should. It is the enlightened option to use what you have (and the Spider doesn't) - a strategic brain - to capture the beast and then defenestrate it, which is to say, throw it out the window.

Of course, my usual choices of spider catching tubes were going to be no good for this chemically-enhanced monster, so it had to be a 1 litre beaker and my lab book. If I'd been closer to my carbon dioxide cylinder, I've have blasted it (knocks them out) and man handled it.

Anyway. Took some time for my adrenaline levels to steady. Sometimes I'm glad I have the office and lab to my own!

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United States of 1984

This was a rather shocking event that occurred in JFK airport, NYC. Full transcript here.

Raed Jarrar's Story - An outrageous incident at JFK. Go to Democracy Now! to hear more http://democracynow.org/

I went to JFK in the morning to catch my Jet Blue plane to California. I reached Terminal 6 at around 7:15 am, issued a boarding pass, and checked all my bags in, and then walked to the security checkpoint. For the first time in my life, I was taken to a secondary search . My shoes were searched, and I was asked for my boarding pass and ID.

After passing the security, I walked to check where gate 16 was, then I went to get something to eat. I got some cheese and grapes with some orange juice and I went back to Gate 16 and sat down in the boarding area enjoying my breakfast and some sunshine.At around 8:30, two men approached me while I was checking my phone. One of them asked me if I had a minute and he showed me his badge, I said: "sure".

We walked some few steps and stood in front of the boarding counter where I found out that they were accompanied by another person, a woman from Jet Blue.One of the two men who approached me first, Inspector Harris, asked for my id card and boarding pass. I gave him my boarding pass and driver's license. He said "people are feeling offended because of your t-shirt". I looked at my t-shirt: I was wearing my shirt which states in both Arabic and English "we will not be silent". You can take a look at it in this picture taken during our Jordan meetings with Iraqi MPs.

I said "I am very sorry if I offended anyone, I didnt know that this t-shirt will be offensive". He asked me if I had any other T-shirts to put on, and I told him that I had checked in all of my bags and I asked him "why do you want me to take off my t-shirt? Isn't it my constitutional right to express myself in this way?" The second man in a greenish suit interfered and said "people here in the US don't understand these things about constitutional rights". So I answered him "I live in the US, and I understand it is my right to wear this t-shirt".Then I once again asked the three of them : "How come you are asking me to change my t-shirt? Isn't this my constitutional right to wear it? I am ready to change it if you tell me why I should.

Do you have an order against Arabic t-shirts? Is there such a law against Arabic script?" so inspector Harris answered "you can't wear a t-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport. It is like wearing a t-shirt that reads "I am a robber" and going to a bank". I said "but the message on my t-shirt is not offensive, it just says "we will not be silent". I got this t-shirt from Washington DC. There are more than a 1000 t-shirts printed with the same slogan, you can google them or email them at wewillnotbesilent@gmail.com . It is printed in many other languages: Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, English, etc."

Inspector Harris said: "We cant make sure that your t-shirt means we will not be silent, we don't have a translator. Maybe it means something else". I said: "But as you can see, the statement is in both Arabic and English". He said "maybe it is not the same message". So based on the fact that Jet Blue doesn't have a translator, anything in Arabic is suspicious because maybe it'll mean something bad!Meanwhile, a third man walked in our direction. He stood with us without introducing himself, and he looked at inspector Harris's notes and asks him: "is that his information?", inspector Harris answered "yes".

The third man, Mr. Harmon, asks inspector Harris : "can I copy this information?", and inspector Harris says "yes, sure". Inspector Harris said: "You don't have to take of your t-shirt, just put it on inside-out". I refused to put on my shirt inside-out. So the woman interfered and said "let's reach a compromise. I will buy you a new t-shirt and you can put it on on top of this one". I said "I want to keep this t-shirt on". Both inspector Harris and Mr. Harmon said "No, we can't let you get on that airplane with your t-shirt".

I said "I am ready to put on another t-shirt if you tell me what is the law that requires such a thing. I want to talk to your supervisor". Inspector Harris said "You don't have to talk to anyone. Many people called and complained about your t-shirt. Jetblue customers were calling before you reached the checkpoint, and costumers called when you were waiting here in the boarding area".it was then that I realized that my t-shirt was the reason why I had been taken to the secondary checking.I asked the four people again to let me talk to any supervisor, and they refused.The Jet Blue woman was asking me again to end this problem by just putting on a new t-shirt, and I felt threatened by Mr. Harmon's remarks as in "Let's end this the nice way".

Taking in consideration what happens to other Arabs and Muslims in US airports, and realizing that I will miss my flight unless I covered the Arabic script on my t-shirt as I was told by the four agents, I asked the Jet Blue woman to buy me a t-shirt and I said "I don't want to miss my flight."She asked, what kind of t-shirts do you like. Should I get you an "I heart new york t-shirt?". So Mr. Harmon said "No, we shouldn't ask him to go from one extreme to another". I asked mr. harmon why does he assume I hate new york if I had some Arabic script on my t-shirt, but he didn't answer.The woman went away for 3 minutes, and she came back with a gray t-shirt reading "new york".

I put the t-shirt on and removed the price tag. I told the four people who were involved in the conversation: "I feel very sad that my personal freedom was taken away like this. I grew up under authoritarian governments in the Middle East, and one of the reasons I chose to move to the US was that I don't want an officer to make me change my t-shirt. I will pursue this incident today through a Constitutional rights organization, and I am sure we will meet soon". Everyone said okay and left, and I went back to my seat.

At 8:50 I was called again by a fourth young man, standing with the same jetblue woman. He asked for my boarding pass, so I gave it to him, and stood in front of the boarding counter. I asked the woman: "is everything okay?", she responded: "Yes, sure. We just have to change your seat". I said: "but I want this seat, that's why I chose it online 4 weeks ago", the fourth man said " there is a lady with a toddler sitting there. We need the seat."Then they re-issued me a small boarding pass for seat 24a, instead of seat 3a. They said that I can go to the airplane now.

I was the first person who entered the airplane, and I was really annoyed about being assigned this seat in the back of the airplane too. It smelled like the bathrooms, which is why I had originally chosen a seat which would be far from that area.It sucks to be an Arab/Muslim living in the US these days. When you go to the middle east, you are a US tax-payer destroying people's houses with your money, and when you come back to the US, you are a suspected terrorist and plane hijacker.

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In defence of Atheism...

A fantastic YouTube video:

[Athiest]

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Having nice communication skills....

We received an application for PhD study from someone in India today. This is nothing new, we get hundreds of them. They all get filed in the bin because the page they're being referred from (www.findaphd.com) clearly states to contact the graduate school, and not the research labs, directly. So an inability to follow simple instructions is not a good first impression.

However, I mention this one as it particularly amused us. Now bear in mind this is supposedly an academic CV for a research science position. She started by stating, in huge letters, that her religion was CHRISTIAN (completely irrelevant/unusable information for such a CV). Under "Strengths", she had entered that she has "a nice communication skill", which is always useful, unfortunately nice is possibly the most redundant word in the English language. She said nothing more about this skill of hers, just that it was nice.

It was one of her other "strengths" that caught our eye: "My Great and Almighty God".

Oh-K. She also entered "browsing the internet" as a hobby. Great. We all do it, but in reality it's actually a complete waste of time; it's nothing to be proud of. You may as well say "I play computer games".

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Film fun...

I'm going to be travelling around to see some good cinema in the next week or so, there's some good stuff coming up. Two that I really want to see are:



I hope this is another good one from Almodovar. It's the kind of quirky foreign cinema that I love. There's also the Edinburgh Film Festival, the tale end of which I may catch this weekend; there's a great deal of Brit film action going on this year.

I really want to catch The Lives of the Saints, which looks like a thoroughly excellent bit of gritty, urban Brit cinema. Set in North London, it takes of the Italian renaissance idea of taking ordinary lives and catapulting them into situations with a magical twist. Should be good.

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A Midsummer's Night Dream: Act 2...

What a fantastic play!

It drizzled throughout with just one torrential downpour (luckily at the intermission - see my video on YouTube). The set was great, staged within the cloister's of Kirkstall Abbey. Very atmospheric. MSND is one of my favourite plays, not only for the interweaving plot, but because theatre companies have some liberty to adapt the comedy, whether that be by stage craft or the occassional ad lib.

This was done to great effect by Mina Anwar and Wayne Sleep, who were both very funny. Wayne Sleep was a fabulous Puck and performed many rather impressive ballet forms for which he is known.

They had a live dog to play the part of "Dog", as part of the Mechanics story....however, despite being well trained, he was getting a littled pissed at the rain and started playing up. Then he proceeded to mount the leg of Starveling as he played "The Moon" in the Mechanics play....he gave the poor guy a right old shagging whilst the cast and audience cracked up in hysterics.
I'd highly recommend the British Shakespeare Company. You can see pictures of the cast performing MSND here (in Norway).

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A Midsummer's Night Wet Dream....

I'm off to see A Midsummer's Night Dream with my lady and an old friend today. It's part of an open-air Shakespeare festival being staged in the ruins of a 12th Century Abbey....right within the ruins themselves. Should be good....

....except it's going to piss down ;-(

Oh well, a typical English summer event then!

Confession
I have a confession. I've been two-timing with MySpace. *shock*. I have to say though, I vastly prefer the Bloggerdom, MySpace seems to be full of people who can't format a page, write in phonetics a lot, don't blog and are often overly zealous Christians, which I find more than a little tiresome. In fact, the only reason I still go back there is that some of the "friends" there are quite interesting....and I have a kick ass page. That aside, it's time to move on to my topic of the day, which today has been contributed by a just another mindless Christian thoroughly locked within the box:

"James 4:4 states, “Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” John states in 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” He goes on to say that the world and everything in it will come to end. Why place yourself in a no win situation? Living for the world will not get you anywhere. Living for Christ has eternal benefits. A pretty easy choice, huh? God and eternal life or the world and nothing. Why can’t you make this simple choice for your life? Just don’t pass this off as you do every other thing having to do with changing your lifestyle. If you are truly Christian you will willingly do anything to better yourself. Christians should have their eyes set on what is above, not on worldly things that perish. If you aren’t a Christian you just live a worldly life."

So what he's basically saying is fuck the world. What do we care. We'll just wait for something better. We'll just look in ourselves. As ever, the truly religious engaging their own egocentrism. Of course, this is all very well if you live in the Western world where all your material and energy needs are provided; where you have clean water on tap; where, if you're truly unethical, you can afford to not give a shit about the world. Meanwhile, they can be safe in the knowledge that at least they're ok, nevermind those countries whose "worlds" are suffering so that you can have your daily bread. I'm sure impoverished families farming on the edge of the Sahel in sub-Saharan Africa, or in southern Sudan, or the communities displaced by loggers or agro-velopment really get a warm feeling by being told to give up and wait for the better life that comes later.

Is this unfair? Yes, a little. You see, this isn't actually a Christian view, it's a parochial, brain dead, conservative Christian rhetoric. It's sad, it's bad, it doesn't actually help anyone and it means next to nothing to quote from 1600 year old tripe by a guy in a society where people vanishing over the horizon were falling of the edge of the world. Who'd not want to escpae such confinement?

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Pluto and worrying science...

There is a meeting of the International Astronomical Union this week, which amongst other things, aims to decide the fate of the “planet” Pluto. Is it, or isn’t it, a planet?

My opinion is that the appropriate definition of a planet is: an object that is “big enough to be spherical”, i.e. the gravitational force is great enough to overcome the material strength; this results in a spherical body, rather than an oblate, chunk of the like seen in various meteor disaster movies.

However, this incurs the slight problem of there being quite a number of spherical bodies orbiting our sun, roughly 20 thus far. Many of these are new additions, identified in the Kuiper Belt, but undoubtedly there will be many more as technology improves. One such object, 2003 UB213 (or "Xena"), is bigger than Pluto (itself smaller than our own moon) and this more or less sparked the debate.

So should we have 20+ planets? Well one suggestion is to split the planets into different groups, so your inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) become “Rocky Planets”, as they’re already known. The “Gas Giants” remain (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), but the controversial 9th planet Pluto would find itself grouped with the increasing number of “Icey Dwarfs”.

The alternative is to drop Pluto, and the other Kuiper Belt bodies, from planet status. This would be on the somewhat arbitrary basis of their being rather small compared to the other 8 planets in the solar system, and their consisting predominantly of ice. If you're going to start getting into what constitutes a planet, well that’s ropey territory given how different Earth and Jupiter are for example, and we’ve already set a precedent for what constitutes big enough – sphericity.

However, this is all by and by. I mentioned before "should we have", and "should we drop". This is not science. The thing that really worries me is that the reason no-one has settled on a definition has nothing to do with science. It has to do with something far less rational and logical. Faith. Belief. Emotion. History. All of these things have no business in the decision. We should be “indifferent” towards the results of a new standardised classification. I don't mean that we shouldn't care, but we shouldn't allow personal opinion to cloud the outcome.

Science is about revision and correction, irrespective of people’s beliefs and historical relevance. Yes Pluto was a great discovery, with a great story. Yes it captured the public imagination with its tightly held secrets and unimaginable distance from the sun; but unless we intend on turning planetary science into a new religion, it needs to be treated according to the science, and a few old, stubborn scientists need a slap in the face and told to wake up.

We should set a logical and scientific definition and then re-classify accordingly. If we get Pluto and a whole load of other planets, then fine – just more things for kids to remember – if we lose it, well it’ll still be there in the history books, just not in any new textbook that would call itself a science text.

Science has the greatest of obligations to make itself available to the public, to present wonders, but also the knowledge that enables the wonders to be understood in the proper context. However, when such wonders are put in the public domain, the onus is upon scientists to not get caught up in the Chinese whispers that augment the real science into something rather less scientific with which the public feel more comfortable.

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Mystified...

I mailed my bank to ask why I couldn't add a particular account, one entrusted to me, to my online portfolio. The response:

"In response to your query if an account is held in trustee that will have access to the account Online."

...is a little confusing. A single sentence! All be it flanked by the usual blurb of bank opening times and thanks for my mailing them. Can anyone spot the answer to my question?

Dare I mail them again?

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Hobnobbing...

My mother came to visit this weekend, so we all decided to trek over to Hebden Bridge where we heard there was a music and beer festival. Most of the afternoon was spent negotiating the tourist trap that is Hebdon Bridge, but come 4 pm we headed off to the gig, such as it was, for a spot of music and a drop of beer.

Despite appearances, and the prospect of spending an afternoon with die-hard socialists, The Trade's Club was an ok place to be. We were there to see Nell Bryden whom I'd heard on BBC Radio 2's Bob Harris Saturday Show at the start of July. I always note the names of artists I like, but was especially pleased to hear that she was going to be in The North this month, after the Edinburgh Festival.

We weren't to be disappointed. She was immediately likeable, cracked the crowd up with a few quips and leapt into the songs from her latest album. Nell sings with a fantastic vocal range and her songs are quite soulful, but sung with a playful kick. She had to admit that they'd largely been driven by the string of breakups she's had as a result of her touring, though she was amused to note that when she played a gig back in her native New York, four of her ex-boyfiends all turned up and sat there scowling at each other.

Anyway, she found our table over in the corner we chatted for the best part of an hour. A really great girl, but having been on the road since April, is very much looking to get back home.

She was amused that I didn't hold back, as I invariably can't once I get going, as I delved into science, the geography of the uk, cultural observations as well as drilling her on good ideas for places to visit on my up coming roadtrip, which she was game to help me with.

I know, I know. Poor girl, lol. She had a lot to say about US domestic and foreign policies. She commented on her disgust at how NOLA was handled (she recorded her album there just before Katerina); one of her songs was a requiem for a woman she'd known there, and who'd died. She mentioned that she'd like to be challenged more in her interviews, where she is usually subjected to the same old glib questions, but as a magna cum laude graduate in English from Wellesley, she has a lot more to offer....but then it was time for curry.

Anyway, she's playing again at the Blue Cat Café in Stockport next week, which isn't far, so we'll go support her again over there. She's back in the UK touring in October, and with any luck, she'll get onto Jools Holland when she's over. She deserves the next break up in her career.

I duly bought her album from her, with a token scribbed inside, but given our mutual shortage of change...

....she owes me £1, which is a position I like ;-)

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Ramblings of a Scientist...

THE trickiest thing about writing an essay is getting it started. The next trickiest thing is blogging an essay, because no one reads long posts. This is invariably because people talk bollocks. With that in mind, I’ve decided that the best way to start it is to moan about how essays are difficult things to get started. Thus low and behold we’re here, we’re up and running, and now I can talk about what it is I wanted to talk about.

I’ve spent the last day and night with a good friend of mine, a friend with whom I can share candid discussion on many topics from science to society to sex. Thus, having being immersed in this environment for this time, I’m feeling thoroughly revitalised. So I spent this afternoon reading several books in Borders, taking the opportunity to get out of the muggy warmth outside, sit down in a comfy chair with some decent music and plenty of book choice [features that are rarely to be found together in any library nearby].

I started thinking about my blog and how it’s not really representing me terribly well. It has become somewhat artefactual, partly because I know my family reads it, thus I’m limited to what I can talk about and partly because I’ve found it difficult to communicate the things I’d like to talk about because the subject of these things, being science and philosophy, are never firmly set in my mind.
Once something is committed to paper, then it is in some manner fixed. However, my view at that time may not be my view in months to come. If there is one thing that make a good scientist, it is doubt; doubt about the level of ones knowledge and doubt about the subject, validity or factual correctness of that knowledge. Thus setting down any particular view is folly as it can only be based on my received knowledge at the time, with the appropriate amount of synthesis.

This is why I much prefer to speak to people face to face. It is far easier to iron out ones views and state of the art in a dynamic conversation. My reticence to write about such things is of course a little silly. There is plenty I can talk about in science and philosophy, without coming to regret my words. So I aim in future blogs to spend more time discussing what science means to me, in the hope that I can better understand this myself and, god forbid, I may even communicate some science to the outside world.

Last week, when I was walking with the same friend, a bird flew onto a slate wall in front of us. It was an amazing flash of yellow, it stopped briefly then departed. My friend asked me what sort of bird it was, but I was unable to oblige him with an answer because, like him, I am useless at bird identification. I don’t feel diminished by this admission, far from it, and I’ll tell you why: It is because I can tell you plenty about the rock that the bird landed on, the slate, how old it is, when it formed and under what conditions. I can tell you about the sort of people who mined it and the context of it being there. I can tell you about the biochemical constituents of the bird shit that the yellow bird left as it departed. I can tell you about the lice and mites that are likely to parasitise the bird, but what I cannot tell you is the name of the bird.

Well, actually I can, having since looked it up. It was a Yellowhammer. So why am I telling you this? Well I’m reminded of an excellent lecture by the Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, whom I hold in the greatest esteem. He mentioned once that knowing the name of something tells you nothing about what that something is, because that something will be called something else by someone in another country and something else by someone in another country and so on. All you’ll in fact know, is that this something is called five or six different things depending on where it is. As is the case with birds.

So from the name Yellowhammer, we do glean some information [information that we are not blessed with in other bird names], as we can in fact see that it is yellow, but as for the hammer bit, well, I couldn’t tell you. Thus merely knowing the name of something is so pointless that you may as well not know the name of it at all. It is false knowledge, and it is invariably designed, either consciously or unconsciously, to make people think you know what you’re talking about.

There is no rock that I can name that I do not know something about, but there are a great many rocks that I can’t name and about which I know nothing. What is the point of remembering the name of a rock if you can’t say any more than that, if only, at the most basic level, that this one is slippery when wet and this one isn’t. Sage knowledge if you happen to be a climber. I can say the same of identifying microorganisms, chemicals and metabolic pathways. I generally never know just names.

It is for that reason that apart form those few birds that we could identify, all unidentifiable birds were henceforth called Pelicans. They may as well be until we know something more about them.

Richard Feynman was once asked to talk about what science is, which is a hell of a tricky task. In a subtle way he answered it, but likely not to his satisfaction, nor to that of many others, but it communicated a feeling of what science is. We are fortunate, as a species, to be able to communicate. In this manner we accumulate and disseminate knowledge which becomes fixed in the species as a whole. This means that each new individual is not forced to learn a fresh the entire body of knowledge that will be necessary for a successful life; knowledge that once hard gained, could be lost due to untimely death or forgetfulness. Thus the rate of knowledge accumulation needs to out way the potential for forgetting that knowledge or dying before it can be passed on. This is called Time-Binding, apparently.

The only problem with this, Feynman continued, is that with all the good and practical knowledge accumulated and passed on, there is also a great deal of bad, corruptive and prejudiced knowledge passed on in a form of Chinese Whispers that continues down the generations. This disease, as Feynman called it, has a cure. The cure is doubt; some level of scepticism that leads the recipient of that knowledge to question its validity and therefore to set out to discover once again from new what the situation is, rather than just trusting the form received. That is what science is, at least as best as Feynman could conclude. I don’t disagree, even though it is not a complete definition.

The question remains, why are people so scientifically illiterate as a whole? Again, Feynman helps us out here by suggesting that it is because science is irrelevant. The process and development being largely outweighed by, and divorced from, the end products of science in the minds of the public. Perhaps a more interesting question he raises, is why people are able to stay that way without it worrying them at all, and why they are happy to do so when so much of the knowledge is denied them? It is for this reason that despite being in the 21st Century, as if that is supposed to mean something, things like pseudo-science exist. It is likely the fault of the scientists themselves really. Society detaches itself from the more complex or unpleasant things, trusting them to individuals who are deemed to be better suited for the job. They can just reap the benefits at the end. [Interestingly, Plato said the same thing of the Greeks some 2340 years ago, his disappointment that unlike the Egyptians, philosophy and mathematics were the the plaything of scholars and ignorance the plaything of the common man; whom he said were like pigs].

What we should be doing as scientists, is to openly discuss pseudo-science, which can only have the effect of forcing the pseudo-scientists, psychics and faith-healers into a position where they have to actually learn some science in order to defend themselves. Only the blindly faithful can argue a case without knowing anything of the other side. Perhaps in that action, they may realise that perhaps their knowledge isn’t so well founded. Perhaps they will have doubts, and as I mentioned before, doubt is where it all begins.

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A bit of fun...

This amused me greatly. Puerile, as we like it.

Chuck Norris Facts. My particular favourites are:

"Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs."

"There is no such thing as global warming. Chuck Norris was cold, so he turned the sun up."

"Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship."

and...

"Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice."

I know, I know. It's all very silly, but then, so is Chuck Norris.

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