Ciaran’s Omnipurpose Blog

I saw this this evening and found it inspiring.

I think homeopathy’s nonsense. One very good reason is here. Dawkins also explains it well here. The key point about homeopathy is that it claims to cure like with like but at high dilution. The standard dilution is what is referred to as “30C”, and this means that:

since the least amount of a substance in a solution is one molecule, a 30C solution would have to have at least one molecule of the original substance dissolved in a minimum of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of water. This would require a container more than 30,000,000,000 times the size of the Earth.

I found this image on b3ta today and loved it so much I thought I’d host a copy of it here. Take a look.

It’s Winter Solstice today, which means that the days will now start getting longer until the Summer Solstice next year. Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry for Winter Solstice explains:

Since the event is seen as the reversal of the Sun’s ebbing presence in the sky, concepts of the birth or rebirth of sun gods have been common and, in cultures using winter solstitially based cyclic calendars, the year as reborn has been celebrated with regard to life-death-rebirth deities or new beginnings such as Hogmanay’s redding, a New Year cleaning tradition. In Greek mythology, the gods and goddesses met on the winter and summer solstice, and Hades was permitted on Mount Olympus. Also reversal is another usual theme as in Saturnalia’s slave and master reversals.

Does that sound familiar?

In any case, it was interesting to watch this “discussion” between Faux News’ Laura Ingraham and Annie Laurie Gaylor from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Who represents their position the best here?

Probably another symptom of my unavoidable brushes with the Daily Mail and LBC and the rest of them, but I get really riled up about people wishing the Death Penalty were reintroduced in the UK.

I stumbled across the following statement from Napoleon Beazley, which I thought was truthful and powerful:

The act I committed to put me here was not just heinous, it was senseless.  But the person that committed that act is no longer here – I am.

I’m not going to struggle physically against any restraints.  I’m not going to shout, use profanity or make idle threats.  Understand though that I’m not only upset, but I’m saddened by what is happening here tonight.  I’m not only saddened, but disappointed that a system that is supposed to protect and uphold what is just and right can be so much like me when I made the same shameful mistake.

If someone tried to dispose of everyone here for participating in this killing, I’d scream a resounding, “No.”  I’d tell them to give them all the gift that they would not give me…and that’s to give them all a second chance.

I’m sorry that I am here.  I’m sorry that you’re all here.  I’m sorry that John Luttig died.  And I’m sorry that it was something in me that caused all of this to happen to begin with.

Tonight we tell the world that there are no second chances in the eyes of justice…Tonight, we tell our children that in some instances, in some cases, killing is right.

This conflict hurts us all, there are no SIDES.  The people who support this proceeding think this is justice.  The people that think that I should live think that is justice.  As difficult as it may seem, this is a clash of ideals, with both parties committed to what they feel is right.  But who’s wrong if in the end we’re all victims?

In my heart, I have to believe that there is a peaceful compromise to our ideals.  I don’t mind if there are none for me, as long as there are for those who are yet to come.  There are a lot of men like me on death row – good men – who fell to the same misguided emotions, but may not have recovered as I have.

Give those men a chance to do what’s right.  Give them a chance to undo their wrongs.  A lot of them want to fix the mess they started, but don’t know how.  The problem is not in that people aren’t willing to help them find out, but in the system telling them it won’t matter anyway.  No one wins tonight.  No one gets closure.  No one walks away victorious.

The text was here. You can browse the text of other last statements on that site too.

A group, created for the purpose of getting Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” to Christmas #1, was recently removed from Facebook. It might not succeed, but the group claims to be raising money for charity and it’s a nice idea: let’s get some real music to #1 for Christmas instead of plasticky pop.

My friend Richard Wand blogged about this the other day here.

The main site for the initiative is here: http://www.ratm4xmas.co.uk/

I went to check up on this Facebook group this evening and found that it had been removed. I don’t know how or why. I can only hope that Facebook didn’t censor it. Never mind, there’s a backup group on Facebook, and I thought I’d put the information from it here before it too gets wiped.

Enjoy! Fight the Power! Download links to get this to the charts are at the bottom of the post!

It’s time for true music fans to make our voice heard – December 13th 2009 – The day we take Killing in the Name to the Number One spot in the UK charts. Simon Cowell and the X-Factor have controlled the Christmas #1 spot for 4 years, lets show him that putting out the same predictable monotonous garbage each year for a guaranteed Number #1 isn’t good enough.

To get this to Number 1 in the UK Charts it is important that you buy from one of the shops shown below, these are confirmed to count in the UK Chart. Other places like Amazon do not count so please use one below, will add more when they confirm chart ranking. Just click on the logos to be taken straight to the page where you can buy this track and make history!

LET’S GET RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE TO THE CHRISTMAS NO.1 SPOT THEN!

Q: So how do we do this then?
A: Take your pick(s) of the digital providers below. It should take you to the page where you can purchase your copy of KILLING IN THE NAME. in most cases it’s track#2 but check before you click!

DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT 6 OR 7 TIMES…IT’LL JUST GET ANNULLED IN THE CHART.

7DIGITAL – £1.19P – track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-7digital

TUNETRIBE – 49P – track #2 – LIVE version (yes it counts)
http://bit.ly/ratm-tunetribe

TESCO DIGITAL – 67p – track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-tesco

HMV.COM – 79p (careful – this is track #1)
http://hmv.com/hmvweb
http://bit.ly/ratm-hmv

PLAY.COM – 70p – it’s the only track on the page
http://bit.ly/ratm-play

WE7 – £1.07p – track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-we7

iTUNES – 99p – track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-itunes

I have had the misfortune of listening to LBC whilst driving back and forth between my home in North London and a client in Gatwick, Sussex: a round trip of some 130 miles a day.

I usually flick between Radio Four and LBC when Radio Four starts a sports segment, Thought For the Day or when a politician starts to avoid answering a question in a characteristically condescending fashion. What I hear on that station is a shocking display of public ignorance. Quite often the target for the orchestrated “moan in” is some minority group or another and very often, the callers are incited to blame “Ooman Bloody Rights”. As in:

• Can’t cut benefits to people who need it because it’s against their Ooman Bloody Rights!
• Bloody strikers and their Ooman Bloody Rights! What about the rest of us who have to get to work, eh?
• Can’t discriminate freely against a minority group because it’s against their Ooman Bloody Rights! What about my rights be be a bigot!

The other specious comment they trot out is a real stinker. It’s usually deployed against anyone who seeks to defend our human rights, usually the right to privacy, when discussing things like DNA databases, stop and search powers or the ID card scheme:

If you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear

On the face of it, it seems to have merit. That’s why it’s specious: “Hang on,” you think, “that seems plausible in some way but I can’t put my finger on why I’m uncomfortable”. So I’ve given it some thought, and here are a few ideas:

• The 9/11 hijackers used their own IDs. IDs are ineffective.
• I have nothing to hide from the police, but I have reason to fear miscarriages of justice.
• We all have something to hide for innocuous reasons. It’s none of your business what I look like naked, what I wear in bed or what colour my pants are. That’s private.
• Our “Authorities” are people, just like us. Let’s assume for a moment that they in did hold all our personal information in one centralised place. How open to abuse is that? How easily could information be sold on? It happened to T-Mobile customers recently. How do we know it won’t happen again? We don’t.
• Usually the “Ooman Bloody Rights” argument is dusted off along with some nonsense about the European Convention on Human Rights being somehow deleterious to our British Way of Life. Quite why is beyond me. Allright, then. Leaving Europe aside for a moment, here’s Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
  

  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.

  That would be the same Universal Declaration of Human Rights that applies to us because it is Universal and the very same Universal one we decided to invade 2 countries in the last few years to make Universal on their soil.

• I might trust the Government. I have no idea what sort of Government will be elected in the future and what kind of laws they might enact. I might suddenly find that I do have something to hide or fear because of my political ideas, sexual orientation or ethnic origin. Yes: I’m digging up Hitler. How boring!

I've finally got round to upgrading to Wordpress 2.8 from Wordpress 2.2.

Please let me know if you see any teething problems.
I have to say, I’m very impressed with the new tool’s UI and it was relatively straightforward to complete the upgrade.
In future, the thing even upgrades itself automatically! Win!

In the meantime, here’s a picture of a kitten I found on YouTube the other day, and which my friend Carl also sent me, coincidentally. This is purely for scientific purposes, of course:

I've discovered Fallout 3 about a year late. This hasn't been a bad thing, really, since I was able to pick up the "Game of the Year Edition", which includes the expansion sets. The game has an incredibly compelling storyline and excellent visual and gameplay design.

I'm also using Windows 7, which I'm happy with, but have found that after installing the second disk containing the extra missionsthe game has crashed on startup. Every time. It's been really frustrating. I think I would have given up had I not played a good part of the way through the original game and found it so compelling.

After a lot of fiddling around, I've found the answer. The issue is that Fallout 3's executable file gets updated by the add-on pack. Once this happens, it can't handle some of the visual elements provided by Windows 7 (and also presumably Vista). To fix it:

• Right click on the executable (it's in your Fallout 3 folder, called "Fallout3.exe")
• On the pop-up menu, choose "Properties"
• Click the tab marked "Compatibility"
• Tick the last three boxes under "Settings".
• Run the game from the launcher – make sure you enable the add-ons under the data section in the Launcher.

I hope this helps. Finding a solution to this on the Forums was impossible. It seems there are a lot of issues with the Game of the Year Edition.

We've just returned from a 2 week trip to the USA. I have absolutely no idea what happened in the rest of the world because the news in the US is very introspective.

The big issue dominating the headlines at the moment is healthcare. 47 million people in the US have no health insurance and there is no universal state option like the NHS here in the UK. Personally speaking, I find this appalling and also disgusting when you consider that the USA has the largest singl-nation economy in the world.

For the life of me, I can't understand why average people are vociferously agitating against healtcare reform in the US? What's wrong with socialised healthcare when you have socialised police or firefighters or roads for that matter? Why were average people calling talkshows worried about losing a fundamental right of choice in healthcare reform when that choice quite often was to remain sick and die or become destitute?

I found this video on YouTube fascinating:

I love this tune. first heard it on a mix on my iPod on the train back home from a stint working in Liverpool. This is the original mix, apparently, but the Tiesto mix is also incredible: