Archive for the ‘General Rambling’ Category

So, it’s that time of year again. It’s the time when everyone lies to themselves that they’re going to change their lives. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why, and quite frankly, I sympathise, and I’ve been known to make New Year’s Resolutions myself; actually, that’s what I’m here about, because I’ve decided to make yet another attempt at something I’ve now tried three times, with varying levels of success.

• Taking a photograph every day of the year.

I tried this the first time in 2009 – yep; three years ago. I got to early April and then decided that my exams would take up so much time that I couldn’t possibly keep up that rate of photography. Well, I’m much busier now, but I also regret that I’ve barely done any photography for the past six months. Therefore, I’m making a sort-of co-resolution:

• Carry a camera everywhere and always (within reason)

Now I’ll have no excuse not to take a photo where and whenever inspiration creeps upon me. I’m going to try and do something fancy with Facebook and other web stuff, partly because I’m aware that 365 projects are a complete Flickr cliche, so I need to make it a bit different. That, however, will have to wait, as I’ve not had a chance to work out exactly what I’ll do (or, moreover, learned how to update my Facebook Cover Photo via the Facebook API).

Otherwise I don’t think I’m making other resolutions; I know that there are a number of things I want to get done in the next 366 days (yep; I just realised it’s a leap year – that’s another photo I’ll need to take), including…

• Attempting to learn perl,
• Attempting to play tennis,
• Make something really cool (I’m open to suggestions!),
• Being more politically active again,
• Maybe learning a new (human!) language, or improving one I’m meant to know already (and don’t say English )
• Trying more things for the first time – and, I guess, blogging about them,
• Improving my list-making skills.

Not to mention learning lots and lots and lots of physics, maths, and astronomy.

So. 366 days then. It can’t be that hard. Can it?

Well, today’s a big day for many people I know. It’s A-level results day. That also means this is the most relaxed I’ve been in an August for… well, a long time.

Facebook, with its own bizarre attempt at sick humour thought it would be a good idea to tell me what I was thinking out loud on Facebook in 2010. Evidently I was nervous; I remember waking up at five in the morning to sit over the computer waiting to find out the results of two of my four A-levels. It was pretty horrible. In the end I managed to find out that I was going to Glasgow long before I found out how badly I’d done.

So, everyone getting results today, I sympathise, and certainly don’t envy you, but, all going well, life’s just about to start for you. On that note, I’ll finish up – that’s an entirely better blog post.

I frequently find myself annoyed when commentators on TV and in newspapers refer to things like the United States’ debt ceiling as being astronomically huge.

• US Gross Debt stands at around 14.34 trillion USD (1.424E+13) to those who prefer Scientific Notation.
• There are around 400 billion (4E+11) stars in the Milky Way (our Galaxy).
• starregistry.co.uk charges 49.95 GBP (80.84 USD, 8.084E+10 USD) to register a star

It seems quite clear to me that the US government could pay off its debt, and more, by selling off just 45% of the stars in our Galaxy, or maybe a few more if they want to undercut the competition. Now, how’s that for an astronomical number?

Well; it’s been one of those eventful weeks. The title of this blog post is written deceptively in the style of a self-help book. It’s nothing of the sort. It is instead all about the last week.

I had three exam papers this week – two astronomy, one maths – that was unpleasant. At least one of them suffered from the co-location. There’s not a lot to say about them beyond that though, so I’ll leave it there.

Sunday was good – it was Low Sunday, without the choir, making me feel doubly self-conscious singing out of tune as ever. The weather was great, and it felt more like Easter Sunday than Easter Sunday did somehow.
Most of the rest of the week was taken up by preparing for the aforementioned exams, but I did find time to resurrect my blog, to the point now where I’m bound to be annoying anyone on Facebook who gets alerted to the stuff when it’s synced over to there. There was plenty to blog about, including the business with Osama bin Laden, which I wrote after reading numerous other peoples’ reactions, and feeling slightly uneasy about their outright condemnation of either side’s behaviour.
I also got a little bit excited about the election. It’s the first one I’ve ever been able to vote in where there were real political parties fielding candidates, rather than the excuse for a system we have back in Northern Ireland. I was quite keen for a Yes vote, and was disappointed, if unsurprised by the result.

The only real news then, I suppose, comes from Saturday night. It was the closing concert of the RSNO season, and I was pleasantly surprised.
It was the first time I’d been in a proper concert hall for over a year – the last time was when my school was performing Eternal Light by Howard Goodall, and I was on the scarey side of the dais – able to see the entire audience of the Waterfront Hall. I should clarify, I was singing. Badly.  The two pieces played by the RSNO were John Adams’s moving, thought, and chilling On the Transmigration of Souls. This was counterbalanced by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. For £5 it was quite an evening. The chorus were outstanding.

Otherwise, it’s been a fairly normal week. I did however find out my blog is being looked at by people… I must go and tidy it up…

So, yesterday, as they say, was a washout.  I don’t think I need even go into it; but suffice to say very little surprised me.

It turns out though, I live in one of the very few places in the UK which was in favour of adopting AV. Over at thurible.net, Kelvin Holdsworth – Provost of St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Glasgow – had this suggestion to make:

Here’s the Plan! Barracades all around the boundaries of the Constituency by dawn tomorrow. Declaration of the new Liberal People’s Republic of Glasgow Kelvin at noon from the steps of Kelvingrove Art Gallery Parliament Building.

The following policies to be enacted forthwith:

• All elections to be conducted by our revolutionary Alternative Vote system.
• The establishment of a Glorious Mass of Liberation to be Celebrated Annually if a suitable Cathedral can be chosen using the same Alternative Vote system.
• All Tenement Factors to be subject to Alternative Vote election monthly.

The search is now on for a Glorious Leader. Nominations are now open for the post of Emperor Democratically Elected Leader of the Liberal People’s Republic of Glasgow Kelvin.

All I ask… that we apply for EU Membership ASAP – it can take a while.

I have another exam in the morning, so again it seemed necessary to do some last minute procrastination.
I posted this rant on a friend’s wall a few minutes ago, but I’m moderately pleased with it, that is, for something I knocked off well after my pre-exam bed-time. I should clarify, the other people commenting on the same post were Laboury people too. Enjoy.

It concerns me slightly that most people seem to worry about AV because “it’ll hurt the Labour Party” or “those bloody fascists will get in”. In fact, they’re all the same arguments you could make in favour of gerrymandering.
I may find the BNP deeply distasteful, but I can’t see what right I have to dictate that they not be given power if that’s what the majority of the country favour on some level. I would, granted, emigrate to some nice, socialist country like the United States if Nick Griffin was made prime minister, but that’s my problem – not the voting system’s.
Maintaining an old-fashioned system in FPTP serves only to allow the larger parties – specifically the Conservative Party, but to a lesser extent, the Labour Party, to form large parliamentary majorities without winning the popular vote. In fact, it makes a Conservative majority remarkably difficult, thanks to the distribution of population in the UK. A fact which is normally born out in the popular vote, as it was in the 2010 General Election.

I also find it annoying when people say “Oh, you’ll get more hung parliaments under AV”. I’m not sure this is true, but if it is, that can only be a good thing. The present government is the result of a hung parliament, and is, by many accounts, hugely unpopular, but it’s putting the cart before the horse to suggest that the reason we have what is perceived to be a bad government is the fault of forced cooperation. As much as you may hate them, the LibDems have only served to dilute the Conservative agenda’s libido.

In summary, I’ll vote yes tomorrow. I’ll vote yes because the government needs to be reminded that the people have a voice in between General Elections. Ill vote yes tomorrow, because I’m not a puppet of the Labour Party.

I’ll vote yes if I can find the polling station.

Clearly it must be that time of the year again – I’m updating my blog with a wordy essay-ish post. Yes – I’m right in the middle of exam season, with one tomorrow, and two more later in the week, so now seemed like the right time.

I woke up this morning to see that I had a text message – it was from the BBCBreaking service on Twitter, and, to the bleary-eyed, bespectacled me at seven in the morning, I got quite a shock.

US team killed Obama, says Osama

I soon realised I’d got this the wrong way round, but was more ashamed at never having noticed the unfortunate sharing of 80% of the contents of their names.

Putting my glasses on I found out that crowds had gathered outside the White House, and were singing and chanting. It must be a sign that I’m becoming cynical in my late-teenage; my first thought was, “Well he’s won a second term”. Cynicism is, in my opinion, an asset, not an annoyance. After all, anything’s worth it if it makes you more dog-like.

So, there’s been a lot of talk about my part of the internet about whether that wasn’t a disgusting, horrible thing to do. I say, it depends.

On face value, yes, celebrating the murder of a murderer is no less sick than celebrating the murderer. If, that is, he was the murderer. So that’s a straight forward answer then. I suppose you’ve got to look at the whole thing in context though; are these people really celebrating the death of the man, or the ideas he stood for. I can’t help feel that it’s rich of people in the United Kingdom condemning the actions of those gathered on Pennsylvania Avenue this morning when, not so very long ago we had VE Day. No matter what your ethical position on the war in Afghanistan, or even your intellectual one, it’s hard to deny that the citizens of the United States of America have been put under considerable stress by the events of the last ten years – albeit mostly by their own government. Maybe they need a royal wedding to cheer themselves up – I certainly feel much better knowing that thirty thousand flowers were sacrificed for the occasion.

So… conclusion. I’m really not so good at these, but I suppose my opinion is something along the lines of “Don’t sneer, but don’t sneer at the sneerers either”.

Pictures now, words to come.

So, I’m on a very undulant journey back across the Irish Sea, escaping the cold of Strathclyde and Glasgow to the balmy heat of County Down.

It’s been an interesting thirteen weeks – from moving into my flat, to starting university, and finding my way around a fairly sizable city. Now it’s coming up to Christmas, and I’m starting to miss people back in Northern Ireland, including, of course, my family, pets, and piano, so I’m really quite excited to get home, but looking down my Facebook updates I’m realizing just how much I’m going to miss Glasgow for the next three weeks.

Meanwhile, I have some catching-up to do with people, and a few projects I couldn’t find the time for in term-time.

What a pointless blog post, but my first from a boat.

I often find myself thinking that I really ought to update my blog more often, or change the sort of things I write about, and yet I never quite get around to it. I’ve never really understood why – after all, it’s not as though I’m especially short on subject matter, what with the snow, being a physicist, and spending four hours on Wikipedia, linksurfing from North Korea to the list of the world’s tallest buildings. I could even come out in support of student protests, and fuel a fairly massive Facebook argument which would cause us all to ask that fundamental question – who would ever choose to join the Conservative Party.

That was all a little off-topic – presumably I’ve been drinking too much coffee, or maths has finally pushed me over the edge into insanity, but I actually have an idea for a blog entry.

For a while I’ve said that I’m not sure that the first-past-the-post system for electing representatives was terribly fair. It has obvious advantages in terms of simplicity, but only requires a candidate to be approved of by more of his electorate than any of his rivals – even if that’s only by one vote. The alternative vote system is an attempt to reduce this problem by producing a system where a candidate is only returned when they have a majority of preferential votes, but it’s still complicated, and produces a considerable over-simplification of national opinion.

This is where I see a much more fundamental problem with the system by which we elect representatives – the system of constituencies. There are 650 constituencies in the United Kingdom. There is a fairly large difference between the size of the largest constituency (Electorate: 103,480 persons) and the smallest constituency (Electorate: 56,085). That’s a difference of 47,395 people, meaning that Wirral West has 146% the power to decide the outcome of a general election as the Isle of Wight – another way of looking on it is that in Wirral West every vote is worth almost one-and-a-half Isle of Wight votes. It’s pretty hard to justify a system in which a voter’s geographic location should affect the outcome of an election (at least mathematically).

But what alternative is there to having geographic constituencies? After all, the idea of having a representative elected to protect the interests of a particular area of the country seems pretty sound – or at least it did in the past. The situation today is quite different to that when the current system was created. We have a fairly large degree of local government – in the form of councils, and indeed regional government (outside England). Many (if not most) of the issues debated in the Commons are pretty non-localized. Sure, they affect different areas of the country, but they affect them all in the same way, like changes in tax, tuition fees. So perhaps the answer is to devolve power to local councils, although this does little but shift the problem of election from the Commons to local councils, although it might be easiest, in sufficiently small council areas to simply have a system which elects the 15 (choosing an arbitrary number) most popular candidates to the council – with each council effectively being one constituency. This would leave Westminster in the role of a national coordinator – controlling how major issues should be addressed, for example the (national) budget, railways, healthcare, defence, international relations, I could go on, but I won’t, for the sake of (arguable) brevity. This is very much the model taken by the European Union, where problems which are better addressed on a continental rather than national level are coordinated centrally. It’s at this stage that I see a large number of people leaping, claws sharpened, at my neck. I can’t say that the EU is a perfect organization – far from it, but the concept is sound – only the real advantages have yet to be realized.

For such a system to work we would need a fairly large cultural shift. We live in what encyclopaedias like to call a democracy – a system where the people elect their leaders. This is true – I’d be a fool to try and say that people don’t have some say in how the country is run – but it doesn’t truly represent every person. The past few weeks have shown considerable evidence of this flaw, with the upset caused by the apparent and alleged u-turn of the Liberal-Democrats over tuition fee rises. Many of the people who voted for them did so on the understanding that they would prevent tuition fee increases, yet at the first whiff of power they seemed to abandon this principle. Whether or not raising tuition fees is the right thing to do is not the point – the political representation of thousands of people on this issue has been removed, for what in the personal opinion of a small number of LibDem MPs is “for the good of the country”. We effectively have some form of democratically elected oligarchy, which is able to get about its own personal business unencumbered by what the ignorant  hoi polloi thinks might be in “the good of the country”.

Addressing this issue is much harder, in a sense, than reforming how we elect our representatives. One option is to conduct regular referenda – technically possible (after all, ITV regularly manage such a seemingly impossible feat to select who has the ‘X-factor’), but whether they would be practical is another matter – the Commons has a great advantage in this respect, in comparison at least to plebiscite, since minor modifications can be made rapidly following the failing of parts of legislation, in order to achieve consensus. It could be potentially disastrous for some legislation to ‘ping-pong’ between legislators and the public for months if not years before achieving consensus.

There may be various ways around this, including allowing public consultation prior to a vote, but it still doesn’t eliminate the problem of people not understanding what they’re voting for. At the very least legislation would have to be compressed into bitesize, easy to understand format to present to people who have neither the time, nor the technical understanding, to trawl through a parliamentary bill. It occurs to me that this is the greatest problem with any of my idea – that people will simply not be bothered to read about what the change is, and won’t be interested unless it’s singing Westlife’s Greatest Hits, and being commented on by Simon Cowell.

So, true democracy.
Fairer? Yes.
Possible? Technically.
Practical? Maybe.
Likely to be seen in the next ten years? No.
It looks like we’re stuck with the system we’ve got, just like someone else’s chewing gum on your shoe – at least for the time being.