Jonathan's Blog

Reading more

Jonathan — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:52:23 +0000

For the last two years or so (roughly since I got a computer in my room…) I’ve not been reading as much as I used to, or feel like I ought to. Since I’m now a member (and Librarian — Oook!) of the Oxford University Speculative Fiction Group (OUSFG), which means access to a near-limitless supply of recommendations and books (of SF, at least, and why would you want to read anything else?), and there’s a vac coming up, I feel like I should fix that.

I also just found the blog of another OUSFG member, Matt (who’s leant me his Buffy and Being Human DVDs (there’s a lot of SF TV I ought to watch too, but I don’t need extra encouragement to sink hour after hour into TV watching)), who mentions setting himself a target of 52 books in a year. Challenge accepted.

A book a week seems like a lot, especially during term. But it’s probably less than I used to get through, and a book in two weeks during term seems reasonable, if I divert a bit more leisure time away from mindlessly surfing the ‘net and rewatching TV, which leaves roughly 1.5/week in the vac – also pretty achievable.

So: rules. 52 books by this time next year (end of 8th week of Hilary term, 2013-13-09 in muggle money). Anything I read for my degree doesn’t count. Anything I’ve read in the last 12 months or so doesn’t count. Following Matt, consecutive books can’t be by the same author. Hold me to it, Internet.

What am I going to read? I’ve still got a reading list from a couple of years ago – a lot of that is philosophy, which is part of the reason why that ground to a halt, but there’s some good stuff on it. I’ve also got ridiculous numbers of second-hand books I’ve bought but barely opened, and access to the OUSFG library :) (I’m using OUSFG’s list of Desert Planet Books for some suggestions). I had typed out a partial list below, but WordPress ate it and I can’t be bothered to retype it. Any suggestions (and I’ll only treat them as suggestions, unlike last time), let me know.

PS: No philosophy. I’m looking at you, Sean :P

Books read:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky, 2012-03-15;
Kick-Ass, Mark Millar & John Romita Jr., 2012-04-08; (OK, so this one’s a graphic novel, which feels a bit cheaty, but I think I might have to be a bit lenient to have any chance of doing this.)
Halting State, Charles Stross, 2012-05-11; Three books in two months is almost on track, right?

The American Dream

Jonathan — Thu, 05 May 2011 21:41:40 +0000

There was an interesting idea mentioned in passing in a discussion on class on this week’s Americana (worth subscribing to IMO) (26 MB mp3). It’s about 11 minutes in, but the discussion is from the start.

Basically, the idea of the American Dream means that working class Americans often vote against their economic interests, because they want policies that will help them “when” they’re better off, and so they paradoxically end up reducing social mobility. This is probably tied to the fact that (partly since class in America is almost purely economic?) almost everyone thinks of themselves as middle class.

False hope — through religion, through promises of wealth (or marrying a prince?) — is the opium of the people.

The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
Workers of the world, unite!

Why you should vote Yes to AV

Jonathan — Tue, 03 May 2011 22:00:34 +0000

(Assuming you can vote, that is. grumble stupid parents grumble born two months too late grumble….)

I did have 1500 words written here and I still hadn’t finished tearing the No campaign apart, but if you want a long and detailed essay, you can go elsewhere. (See the bottom of this post for reccomendations). So here’s a fairly brief explanation of why First Past the Post (FPTP) sucks, and why the Alternative Vote (AV) is better.

FPTP leads to tactical voting or disenfranchisement

That is, voting for someone you don’t really want to keep someone you loathe out. AV lets you do both: say that you’d rather have your favorite, but still express a preference for the lesser of two evils. For example, if you’re reading this blog there’s a pretty good chance that Labour would have been your first choice in the last election, but in my constituency the only two candidates with a chance of winning were Nick Clegg and $generic_tory. So you’d probably have voted Clegg if you could. Result: either your vote is worthless, or you have to choose between two pretty shit alternatives. FPTP sucks. (Yes, there are circumstances in which tactical voting theoretically makes sense under AV (as in any voting system), but these are rarer, and in practise you’re unlikely to have enough information about everyone else’s preferences for it to be worth the risk of voting tactically.

FPTP lets in people the majority of the electorate would rather keep out

It’s pretty easy, given the right seat, to get elected under FPTP with 40% or less of the vote, if the vote against you is split, even if the remaining 60% would all prefer a particular one of the other candidates to you. This tends to be a particular problem in the UK with Tories getting elected thanks to a splitting of the left-wing vote between Labour and the Lib Dems. That may be less of an issue in the near future, but the problem remains, and it affects all parties both ways to varying degrees in different places. (I suspect it’s a huge problem in Northern Ireland, with two large parties on either side of the intractable divide and a fifth bunch saying “can’t we all just get along?”)

AV is seeeeeeeemples squeak

Flowchart by Anthony Smith.

AV is slightly more complicated in terms of what you have to do to the ballot paper (although if you just want to vote for one candidate, that’s fine. You should even be able to do it with a cross). Emphasis on slightly. If you can’t understand AV, you probably shouldn’t be allowed near sharp things like pencils. AV’s an awful lot simpler, though, in terms of deciding how to vote.

AV will not help the BNP

Under FPTP, the BNP could concievably get an MP elected with, say, 35% of the vote in one constituency (Caroline Lucas, albeit at the other end of the political spectrum, and probably less widely loathed, got elected with just 31.3% of the vote as a Green in Brighton) by finding a seat where the “not a racist nutter” vote is split more-or-less evenly between the three big parties. Under AV, they’d need 50% of the electorate preferring them to the next candidate. That’s much less likely to happen.

AV will not lead to pandering to BNP voters for second preferences either. (Let’s face it, this happens — for tactical first preferences — at the moment under FPTP). Simply, there are far more Lib Dems’ second preferences to be lost for Labour and the Tories than BNP second preferences to be gained by playing the racism card. Under FPTP, Lib Dems are probably (wild speculation here) less likely to vote tactically than BNPists, as they have more of a chance of election, so there may actually be less to be lost, so more pandering, under FPTP.

AV is a small change

On a national scale, AV will probably produce similar results to FPTP. (Gowers’s essay, linked below, has discussion of predictions (postdictions? alterdictions?) of the results of recent general elections under AV.) It matters on a constituency scale, though, that MPs have genuine support. AV is no more proportional in general than FPTP (a benefit to the Lib Dems is an effect on centrist parties, not small parties in general), so we shouldn’t expect any more hung parliaments or coalitions than we would get under FPTP (Australia, using AV for its House of Commons since forever, has had the same number of hung parliaments as the UK in that time.) AV does not [suffer the defects|have the advantages] (delete as appropriate) of proportional systems such as more power to small parties, more frequent coalitions and weaker government, and a loss of the direct link between 1 MP and 1 constituency.

Effects of a Yes vote

We get AV for future general elections (duh!). The Lib Dems may do slightly better in future (they probably would have historically, being generally preferred by both Tory and Labour voters to the other lot), but they’re in for a caning anyway, and I wouldn’t like to predict how things will go. The left in general will probably do slightly better, since splitting of the vote is generally a bigger problem on the Left than the Right. The prospect of further electoral reform is opened, both because the mood for change has been confirmed and because the Left is generally keener on it than the Right. We shouldn’t expect significantly more coalitions, or a significant change in minor parties’ share of seats (although the Greens, say, may be more electable in the long term). Nick Clegg gets a big smile on his face. Whether each of these is a good thing or not is up to you.

Effects of a No vote

Even if you voted no because you want (say) a proportional system, not AV, that’s not how it will be interpreted, least of all by the Tories. Bye-bye, electoral reform, for at least a generation. Tory governments with minority support are here to stay. David Cameron, George Osborne and the dinosaurs of old New Labour get big smiles on their faces. Again, whether each of these is a good thing or not is up to you.

A final plea

Don’t vote No to spite Nick Clegg. I hate him at least as much as you, but some things are more important. Firstly, to continue the tribal bickering, if you hate Nick Clegg, you probably hate Cameron and Osborne more. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face and give them what they want by voting No. Secondly, rising above the bickering, the results of this referendum will be affecting British politics long after Clegg is as distant a memory as the SDP (look it up) and that funny party broadcast with John Cleese in it. Don’t throw away the next fifty years for someone who’ll be kicked in the teeth and insignificant in four whatever you do.

In summary

FPTP is deeply flawed: it elects unpopular candidates and makes people choose between helping someone they like and keeping out someone they hate.
AV solves these problems nearly all of the time. It allows you to express your preference honestly without risking getting someone you really don’t like, it makes sure your MP is at worst seen as the lesser of two evils by most of the electorate.
AV is simple — the No campaign almost deserves to lose just for their incredibly patronising argument that “it’s too complicated for the proles to understand”.
AV will not help the BNP, will probably not increase and may reduce pandering to their supporters.
AV is a small step in the right direction. It does not introduce the controversial aspects of proportional systems.
A Yes vote makes elections fairer, leaves the prospect of further electoral reform at least no more closed than a “No”, and probably helps the Left and the Lib Dems slightly.
A No vote leaves our unfair system in place for at least a generation. This helps the Tories slightly.
This is more important than Nick Clegg and don’t you hate the Tories more anyway?

I deliberately haven’t addressed many of the No campaign’s stupid claims — I reccommend the first post linked below for comprehensive rebuttals of most of them, and I’m happy to take particular ones up in the comments if you want to.

Vote Yes to AV on May 5th for a fairer voting system.

Your vote matters. Turnout is going to be low, and young people are more likely to be pro-AV and less likely to vote. Change that, and make sure the result reflects what the country wants, not just what old people want. It’s your future at stake more than theirs.

Links:

If you’ve got the time to read 10,000 odd-words (and it’s worth trying to find that time), Timothy Gowers, a Cambridge (I’ll forgive him :P) mathematician, has a very good essay, taking a slightly mathematically-oriented look at AV vs. FPTP. His supplementary post deals with a few more points.
He also has a shorter (here meaning 5000 words!) post, making much the same points, but (slightly) more concisely — there’s also a summary in 24 points at the bottom of that post that you really ought to read.
Andrew has a post counting the No campaign’s lies, misleading statements and scaremongering.
Dan Snow explains AV and its benefits — and why we basically use it all the time — in this video or this image.
For a snappy explanation of why FPTP sucks, you can’t do much better than this, amusing interpretation of “parma violets” optional.
AV explained for cats!
Let’s AV a Beer has a compilation of videos, posters and articles making the case for AV.

If I come across more, I’ll post them here; feel free to make suggestions in the comments.

Deathly Hallows part 1 – thoughts

Jonathan — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:19:59 +0000

The book is past the statute of limitations on spoilers, so read on at your own risk.

OK, the director and screenwriter clearly ship Harry and Hermione. Harry/Ginny is played right down — where’s the “birthday present” scene? OK, maybe ratings for that. But they talk to each other for about five seconds, and it isn’t Ron who interrupts them either. And there’s tonnes of gratuitious Harry/Hermione sexual tension that just shouldn’t be there.
There’s a scene where Hermione memory charms her parents. That gets about a line in the book. The film does it brilliantly. I thought we were in for more of an insight into Ron and Hermione, but Ron’s one-dimensional as ever and it turns out we’re only meant to like Hermione so we ship her and Harry.
Hedwig’s death is crap. She randomly swoops straight into the path of an Avada Kevada that wasn’t even obviously headed for Harry.
Where did the invisibility cloak go?
The film does far better than the book with Voldemort = fascism. Also, say what you like about fascism, but the architecture’s great.
Splinching is leaving behind body parts, not a few gashes in Ron’s arm.
Are Ron and Hermione official in the book? Because there’s barely a hint of that in the film. They hug as they’re changing back into themselves from Harry, and that’s it. Further evidence that this film should be regarded as a Harry/Hermione ship fic.
I shudder to think of the Rule 34 of multiple Harrys.
Where did the wedding go? We seem to cut straight to the reception, leaving the final moment of happiness and optimism that the wedding provides. There was room for thirty seconds of wedding in there.
Could they not have at least tried to paper over the massive plot-induced stupidity from the books that they always wear the locket instead of putting it in Hermione’s bag or something?
The effects are generally a bit OTT, but the scene where Ron confronts his fears to destroy the locket has them turned up to eleven when they need to be on about two. Swirling clouds with random lights, hordes of spiders, booming voices, phantasmal naked Harry and Hermione (with strategically placed clouds) making out (see what I mean about shipping?). As I read the books, that stuff is in Ron’s head. The effects turn it from Ron’s redemption into just another dramatic effects sequence. (They really don’t like Ron, do they?)
“Blackthorn, ten inches.” “Engorgio!“. Hey, maybe that’s why Hermione is so pissed off at Ron…. Anyway, lots of wand-based innuendo.
Hey, that’s supposed to be Griphook. You could, you know, remind us though, instead of expecting us to remember him from the first film. I’m not even sure he looks the same.
That’s Shell Cottage, where Bill and Fleur live. No need to tell us that to explain why they’ve just Apparated right next to a house, when they’ve been in the middle of nowhere all the rest of the time.
“Here lies Dobby, a free elf.” Where did that go? Instead, the film ends with some slightly homoerotic shots of Voldemort taking the Elder Wand from Dumbledore’s tomb then *ahem* shooting his magical lightning juice into the air (see above).
The film’s pretty short — slightly over two hours, and it didn’t feel like they’d cut very much from the book. I think they could probably have cut a few more gratuitous sweeping countryside shots and squeezed it all into one long film. Actually, though, to be fair, I’ve got a feeling Part 2 will be faster, and I think fitting everything into one film would be a push. (Youth of today, no appetite for six-hour films.)

Overall impression: Fairly good, and less annoying that any of the rest I’ve seen (that doesn’t include Half-Blood Prince).

Time Flies

Jonathan — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 22:57:11 +0000

I’m writing this on one of those seemingly interminable angsty nights, (sort of ironic) so it may not make a lot of sense.

Time flies when you’re having fun — it certainly seems true to me. I’m not sure about the converse, but see the above comment about interminable angsty nights. I’d say I’ve been generally pretty happy (barring the odd bout of angst (I’m writing “angst” a lot tonight)) since I got my act together with coursework early in Year 11 (not sure that was the cause, but it feels like a turning point), and I’m now going “was that really two years ago”? Looking back, I realise I’ve done a lot and changed a lot since then, but it’s still a shock that I’ve just applied for university, my friends a year above me are there already and relaying tales, my friends in my year are driving to school, turning 18…. Time’s flown. I’ve tried to make the most of it, and I think generally I haven’t done a bad job, except for this summer, where apart from a week’s camping in the Lakes I did almost exactly nothing, from a long list of things I wanted to do but never actually turned into a list (wherin lies my problem, I think), but there’s so much more I wish I’d done and was doing. I’ve got into the probably unhealthy habit of staying up late into the night at my computer, I suppose so I’m living a little more life. I spend quite a lot of time doing various not-particularly-productive bits and pieces, and sometimes I feel I’d like to cut down on that, but I generally feel like I need that downtime.

As I mentioned before, I’ve just applied to university. I’ve been back at school over a month, and it feels like I’ve hardly had chance to breathe. I really don’t have all that much time left at school, then the long summer holiday, then I’ll be at university. What scares me is this rush towards adulthood and middle age. Given the rate the last two years have gone, a four-year degree won’t feel that long, and then I’m looking for a job or a PhD studentship. Heck, the last 17 and a bit years haven’t felt like all that long. That long again (and it’ll feel shorter) and I’m practically middle-aged. OK, I’m just scaring myself now. But I really do feel like there’s so much to do and so little time. I’m starting to rethink my long-held belief that eighty or ninety years will be more than long enough for me. Heck, what I could really do with is a clone with a shared mind (also xkcd 105).

In the meantime though, I think the practical solution is to keep up with work and try to have a bit of fun productive stuff — reading list and stuff, maybe NaNoWriMo — during term, and have busy holidays. I need to plan next summer far more than this one was, because it’ll be longer, I ought to do far more, and even my trip to the Lakes was a bit last-minutey and probably not quite what I’d have gone for if I’d have planned in time. I’m thinking of cycling in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and/or Germany (Paris to Berlin is probably waaaaaay overambitious but would be awesome), maybe working for a month or so, having an epic crunch of my reading list, I’ll need to prepare for university… see what I mean about needing two of me?

This was mostly written last night (relative to posting time). I wasn’t angsty by the end, but I wasn’t tired either :(

tl;dr: I’m getting old.

Womens’ uteruses are not the property of the state of Utah

Jonathan — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 21:20:37 +0000

A bill passed by the Utah House and Senate this week and waiting for the governor’s signature, will make it a crime for a woman to have a miscarriage…. In addition to criminalizing an intentional attempt to induce a miscarriage or abortion, the bill also creates a standard that could make women legally responsible for miscarriages caused by “reckless” behavior. Using the legal standard of “reckless behavior” all a district attorney needs to show is that a woman behaved in a manner that is thought to cause miscarriage, even if she didn’t intend to lose the pregnancy.

via Dan Savage.

Apparently this is in response to a case where a 17-year old girl who was seven months pregnant paid a man $150 to beat her up and try to induce a miscarriage. Read that again.

The problem isn’t just this batshit crazy law, it’s every batshit crazy law and policy which means girls can’t get an abortion without their parents being told — where that could well mean being disowned at best — being force-fed bullshit anti-abortion propaganda, probably having to find someone to drive them for hours to get to an abortion clinic.

It’s every batshit crazy law and policy which means teenagers don’t get told about contraception, because apparently if you tell a teenager not to have sex, there is no chance whatsoever of them having sex before they get married. It’s every batshit crazy law and policy which means even if teenagers know about the morning-after pill they probably can’t find a pharmacist who’ll sell it to them, because apparently even if your job is to sell drugs to people who need them, you don’t have to if you disapprove of their need.

It’s every batshit crazy parent who can’t accept that teenagers will have sex, that there’s nothing wrong with that, and that it’s a parent’s duty to make sure their child is informed enough that they can do it without catastrophic consequences; and who doesn’t make sure their child can always come to them if they need help. It’s every batshit crazy pastor who….

To all of them: PEOPLE FUCK. Men fuck women. Men fuck men. Women fuck women. Women fuck men. People who don’t identify with either gender fuck other people. Nervous teenage boys (and girls) fuck nervous teenage girls (and boys). And as long as it’s consensual, there’s abso-fucking-lutely nothing wrong with it. (Nothing wrong with masturbation either, really batshit crazy Republicans). And some of those nervous teenage girls fucking nervous teenage boys are going to get pregnant unless someone (preferably quite a few people) tells them to use condoms and makes sure they can get condoms. And unless you help them prevent pregnancy and STIs as a result, and help them if they get pregnant or an STI, guess what? They, (especially those nervous teenagers) are going to get pregnant and get STIs and their lives are going to be fucked up because no-one helped you.

Fuck you, conservative Christian Republican fuckwad idiots. Or rather, don’t.

HDCP Master Key

Jonathan — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 19:18:49 +0000

In order not to spring this on you without any indication of what it is *cough*Ben*cough*Sean*cough*, a brief explanation: this, originally posted as a pastebin, is supposedly the master key to HDCP, the DRM scheme that prevents copying of Blu-Ray discs and HDTV. Public availability of the master key basically renders the encryption useless :). (Cory Doctorow has a slightly less brief explanation.)

The point of mirroring this as widely as possible is to make legal threats forcing the takedown of the key pointless – you can remove it from sites X, Y and Z but you can’t remove it from a million tumblelogs, livejournals, other personal websites, desktop hard drives, flash drives, t-shirts (it worked for DeCSS), ….

So, even if you’re never going to use this, if you don’t like oppressive DRM making fair use difficult (and go-to-jail illegal in the US, and any other state it manages to push its copyright laws on, as it is trying to do), grab this text file of the key and keep a copy, ideally somewhere other people can get it. For the geeky (and in case you want to print it out and be able to check you’ve OCR‘d it back in right), the md5 checksum of that text file is 3e877e701eac3ff5b86e65722e378d61 .

If you’re posting it somewhere public, feel free to use or modify this post, which is released into the public domain, to help explain.

HDCP MASTER KEY (MIRROR THIS TEXT!)

This is a forty times forty element matrix of fifty-six bit
hexadecimal numbers.

To generate a source key, take a forty-bit number that (in
binary) consists of twenty ones and twenty zeroes; this is
the source KSV.  Add together those twenty rows of the matrix
that correspond to the ones in the KSV (with the lowest bit
in the KSV corresponding to the first row), taking all elements
modulo two to the power of fifty-six; this is the source
private key.

To generate a sink key, do the same, but with the transposed
matrix.

6692d179032205 b4116a96425a7f ecc2ef51af1740 959d3b6d07bce4 fa9f2af29814d9
82592e77a204a8 146a6970e3c4a1 f43a81dc36eff7 568b44f60c79f5 bb606d7fe87dd6
1b91b9b73c68f9 f31c6aeef81de6 9a9cc14469a037 a480bc978970a6 997f729d0a1a39
b3b9accda43860 f9d45a5bf64a1d 180a1013ba5023 42b73df2d33112 851f2c4d21b05e
2901308bbd685c 9fde452d3328f5 4cc518f97414a8 8fca1f7e2a0a14 dc8bdbb12e2378
672f11cedf36c5 f45a2a00da1c1d 5a3e82c124129a 084a707eadd972 cb45c81b64808d
07ebd2779e3e71 9663e2beeee6e5 25078568d83de8 28027d5c0c4e65 ec3f0fc32c7e63
1d6b501ae0f003 f5a8fcecb28092 854349337aa99e 9c669367e08bf1 d9c23474e09f70

3c901d46bada9a 40981ffcfa376f a4b686ca8fb039 63f2ce16b91863 1bade89cc52ca2
4552921af8efd2 fe8ac96a02a6f9 9248b8894b23bd 17535dbff93d56 94bdc32a095df2
cd247c6d30286e d2212f9d8ce80a dc55bdc2a6962c bcabf9b5fcbe6f c2cfc78f5fdafa
80e32223b9feab f1fa23f5b0bf0d ab6bf4b5b698ae d960315753d36f 424701e5a944ed
10f61245ebe788 f57a17fc53a314 00e22e88911d9e 76575e18c7956e c1ef4eee022e38
f5459f177591d9 08748f861098ef 287d2c63bd809e e6a28a6f5d000c 7ae5964a663c1b
0f15f7167f56c6 d6c05b2bbe8800 544a49be026410 d9f3f08602517f 74878dc02827f7
d72ef3ea24b7c8 717c7afc0b55a5 0be2a582516d08 202ded173a5428 9b71e35e45943f

9e7cd2c8789c99 1b590a91f1cffd 903dca7c36d298 52ad58ddcc1861 56dd3acba0d9c5
c76254c1be9ed1 06ecb6ae8ff373 cfcc1afcbc80a4 30eba7ac19308c d6e20ae760c986
c0d1e59db1075f 8933d5d8284b92 9280d9a3faa716 8386984f92bfd6 be56cd7c4bfa59
16593d2aa598a6 d62534326a40ee 0c1f1919936667 acbaf0eefdd395 36dbfdbf9e1439
0bd7c7e683d280 54759e16cfd9ea cac9029104bd51 436d1dca1371d3 ca2f808654cdb2
7d6923e47f97b5 70e256b741910c 7dd466ed5fff2e 26bec4a28e8cc4 5754ea7219d4eb
75270aa4d3cc8d e0ae1d1897b7f4 4fe5663e8cb342 05a80e4a1a950d 66b4eb6ed4c99e
3d7e9d469c6165 81677af04a2e15 ada4be60bc348d dfdfbbad739248 98ad5986f3ca1f

971d02ada31b46 2adab96f7b15da 9855f01b9b7b94 6cef0f65663fbf eb328e8a3c6c5d
e29f0f0b1ef2bf e4a30b29047d31 52250e7ae3a4ac fe3efc3b8c2df1 8c997d15d6078b
49da8b4611ff9f b1e061bc9be995 31fd68c4ad6dc6 fd8974f0c506dd 90421c1cd2b26c
53eec84c91ed17 5159ba3711173b 25e318ddceea6a 98a14125755955 2bb97fd341cea2
3f8404769a0a8e bce5c7a45fb5d4 9608307b43f785 2a98e5856afe75 b4dbead4815cac
d1118af62c964a 3142667a5b0d14 6c6f90933acd3d 6b14a0052e2be4 1b1811fda0f554
12300aa7f10405 1919ca0bff56ea d3e2f3aad5250c 4aeeea5101d2ec 377fc499c07057
6cb1a90cdb7b11 3c839d47a4b814 25c5ac14b5ec28 4ef18646d5b9c2 95a98cc51ebd3b

310e98028e24de 092ffc76b79f44 0740a1ca2d4737 b9f38966257c99 a75afc7454abe4
a6dd815be8ccbf ec2cac2df0c675 41f7636aa4080f 30e87b712520fd d5dfdc6d3266ac
ee28f5479f836f 0bf8ee2112173f 43ae802fa8d52d 4e0dffd36c1eac 3cbda974bb7585
fb60a4700470e3 d9f6b6083ef13d 4a5840f02d0130 6c20ef5e35e2bf dad2f85c745b5b
61c5ddc65d3fc9 7f6ec395d4ae22 2b8906fb3996e2 e4110f59eb92ac 1cb212b44128bb
545afda80a4fd1 b1ffea547eab6b fac3d9166afce8 3fe35fe17586f2 9d082667026a4c
17ffaf1cb50145 24f27b316acfff b6bb758ec4ad60 995e8726359ef7 c44952cb424035
5ec53461dbd248 40a1586f04aee7 49ea3fa4474e52 c13e8f52c51562 30a1a70162cfb8

ccbada27b91c33 33661064d05759 3388bb6315b036 0380a6b43851fb 0228dadb44ad3d
b732565bc37841 993c0d383cfaae 0bea49476758ac accc69dbfcde8b f416ab0474f022
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AS results

Jonathan — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:10:16 +0000

AS module results from May/June exams:

Philosophy Unit 2: 80/100 – A;
Maths: Core 2: 100/100 – A;
Maths: Core 3: 100/100 – A*;
Maths: Mechanics 2: 93/100 – A (Includes ~5% special consideration for getting a migraine — I think);
Maths: Decision 2: 90/100 – A, despite giving up half-way through with the afore-mentioned migraine (back-to-back exams FTL) — I think they must have more-or-less doubled my raw mark because of that.
Physics Unit 2: 120/120 – A;
Physics ISA: 54/60 – A;
Chemistry Unit 2: 140/140 – A;
Chemistry ISA: 56/60 – A;

Overall AS results including January modules and D1:

Philosophy: 180/200 – A;
Physics: 294/300 – A;
Chemistry: 293/300 – A;
Maths: Slightly complicated as which modules go into Maths and which into Further Maths all depends, but:
- Total of all modules taken: 760/800;
- I will get an A in maths even if I get 0/100 in C4;
- If I get ? 80/100 in C4 I will get A* in maths.

New tumblelog

Jonathan — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:08:25 +0000

My new tumblelog is up at http://mu.sinewave42.com, for stuff too long for a microblog post and too short for a blog post. Enjoy!

Introducing planck

Jonathan — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:57:01 +0000

I’ve been planning to build myself a computer since last summer, and I’ve finally got the parts list together. I should get it ordered within a few days, and then it’s build time. My box naming scheme is going to be Nobel Prize winners in Physics, and this one is called planck. Components are as follows:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black edition 3.1GHz, dual core (I believe our current family PC is something like a 3.2GHz dual core, but it’s a Pentium D, so, yeah.) Actually a quad-core with two cores deactivated, which can sometimes be reactivated. /me rubs hands in glee.
Motherboard: MSI 770-C45. A fairly basic motherboard, but it’s cheap and the reviews are good.
Graphics: HIS HD 5770 1GB
RAM: 2x2GB Crucial DDR3 1600MHz
PSU: OCZ 500W Mod XStream Pro
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB
Case: Antec 300
Cooler: Gelid Tranquillo
DVD drive: The cheapest DVD-rewriter eBuyer have
OS: Evil Corporate OS v7 Pro (Aquired for

North Korea – what the hell

Jonathan — Thu, 27 May 2010 16:22:49 +0000

What the hell have we been doing while North Korea turned itself from a comedy Stalinist dictatorship with a mad leader in charge of a ridiculously large military which occasionally exchanged small-arms fire over a disputed sea border into a comedy Stalinist dictatorship with a mad leader in charge of a ridiculously large military which torpedoes non-hostile ships across a disputed sea border, and has half-a-dozen-plus nuclear warheads and medium-range missiles to put everyone off doing anything about it? Seriously, what the hell. What. The. Actual. Hell.

We let a state run by an absolute nutter (and his dead father) aquire nuclear weapons in basically the last decade. And what did we do? Slap on a few sanctions which will not affect the ruling élite one jot. Nothing to stop it getting to the point where we essentially cannot take any action beyond token sanctions for fear of nuclear retaliation – the “they won’t actually use them” argument is unconvincing when it comes to Kim Jong-il.

Why? In a word, China. In a few more, China and its UN Security Council veto. But also a fairly serious lack of will to take any other route – a UN General Assembly resolution, over which China has no veto; or unilateral military action without a UN resolution, something neither the Bush Administration or the Blair Government were particularly averse to. OK, so there are some issues with taking unilateral military action (even just airstrikes against reactors) against a country with 1.21 million people in the armed forces, but the threat would have been an awful lot more persuasive if North Korea knew they couldn’t rely on their Chinese buddies to stop it.

The UN is fundamentally broken. It gives ridiculous influence to one outright undemocratic country and one Chinesely-undemocratic country. It is incapable of anything more than sending peacekeepers – if you’re lucky. International law prohibiting unilateral military action would make sense (not that it would stop Israel) if the UN were capable of authorising liberal intervention. But it isn’t, and so protecting people from dictators has to be done illegally, with the tacit understanding that no-one cares as long as it works; or not at all. If the UN is to be good for anything, it needs to be a club of democratic nations, dedicated to spreading democracy, via the barrel of a gun if neccessary.

If the UN had been capable of taking action against Saddam, which was needed and justified, we would have been able to do it in such a way that Iraq did not collapse into anarchy the moment his statue got dusted with the Stars and Stripes. It would have worked. If Bush and Blair are morally guilty, it is for failing to plan and implement an ordered replacement of Saddam, and for failing to protect civilians. An undemocratic state is an illegitimate state is no state, so they had every right to invade in the interests of the people of Iraq. But much of the blame also has to lie with the framework of the UN.

Liberal democracy is an ideal we should not be afraid to spread with the assault rifle and the targeted bomb, the paratrooper and the jet fighter. But we are, and that is why we have to be afraid of Stalinist personality cults spread by the hand grenade and the nuclear missile, the torpedo and the million-strong Red horde.

AS module results

Jonathan — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:24:57 +0000

I’ll do a proper post soon, I promise…

Anyway, AS module results from January exams (subjects listed in descending order of purity/awesome):

Philosophy Unit 1: 100/100 – A (duh): Woo-hoo!
Maths: Core 1: 97/100 – A;
Maths: Mechanics 1: 86/100 – A: slightly fail, but probably only one question messed up, not worth resitting unless I desperately need marks next year. I think I was a bit slapdash (read: cocky) in preparing for Maths, to be honest.
Maths: Statistics 1: 94/100 – A;
Physics Unit 1: 120/120 – A: Woo-hoo again;
Chemistry Unit 1: 97/100 – A.

I’ve also got 100/100 in Decision Maths 1 from last January. Pretty happy with those results, but I need to revise harder (read: at all outside lessons) for Maths in June.

I am a soon-to-be-published poet

Jonathan — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:24:51 +0000

Worryingly.

I entered a poetry competition advertised at school with something I cooked up in half an hour, and amazingly they’re mad enough to want to publish it. (OK, so they don’t seem to be too selective and I have a feeling most of their business model is selling to proud parents).

Here it is, in all its dreadful glory:

I thunder as I debate: bankers,
And their bonuses; and bay for blood.
I sing The Red Flag,
Cry out for socialism
But in my heart
I

New Year’s Resolutions again

Jonathan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:47:57 +0000

And in true sinewave42.com style, they’re late.

1. Keep a diary
I tried to do this last year, and I kept it for four or five months in total. I’d like to try again, and I’d like to try to keep it up for the whole year.

2. Blog more
Yeah. I tried to do this last year as well. Hopefully I’ll do a little better this year. I’m going to aim for a minimum one/month, but I’d like to try and do more.

3. Read some books
OK, so I already do quite a lot of this. But there are quite a few books I’d like to read, but need a bit of motivation to get started on, and I’d quite like to read some books I otherwise wouldn’t. I’ll post a partial list here, and I’ll keep an updated list as well, because I’m bound to think of others later.

On Liberty, JS Mill;
Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes;
Paradise Lost, John Milton (at least try it);
Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger;
Twilight, Stephenie Meyer (for teh lulz);

I’d also appreciate suggestions. If you comment below or otherwise contact me with a suggestion, and I can reasonably get hold of the book, I’ll make it a resolution to at least give every one a go.

There are fewer than last year, but hopefully I stand a better chance of keeping them. Hopefully.

Addendum, later that evening: As a corrolary to 2 and 3, I will try to review at least some of the more interesting books I am reading.

GCSE Results – only posted 3 months late

Jonathan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:14:25 +0000

Results first, then my predictions from before exams for comparison. Mainly as a matter of record given just how long it’s taken for me to get these up.

Maths: A*, predicted A*;
Statistics: A*, predicted A*;
English Language: A*, predicted A*/maybe A;
English Literature: A, A*/maybe A;
Core Science: sat last year: A*;
Additional Science: A*, predicted A*;
History: A*, predicted A*;
French: A*, predicted A*;
German: A*, predicted A*;
Food Tech: B (1 mark off A), predicted A*/A;
RE: A*, predicted A*.

Overall I’m fairly happy with my results, and my predictions were somewhat optimistic, but the B in Food Tech is a bit disappointing.

Thoughtcrime is…

Jonathan — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:47:20 +0000

Reading the GNU Project philosophy essays in your lunchbreak from testing proprietary software.

Microsoft Irony

Jonathan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:02:09 +0000

Microsoft (sorry, Windows in a vain attempt to reduce the risk of anti-trust suits) Internet Explorer 8 has “compatibility mode” (read incompatibility), to “improve the appearance of web pages designed for older browsers”. In other words: now we’ve built a standards-compliant-ish browser, we need a mode that makes it render like its older, non-compliant siblings because every site on the web serves bad code when it sees our user agent. Once again, Microsoft is hoist upon its own petard.

GCSE Predictions

Jonathan — Wed, 13 May 2009 09:20:23 +0000

It’s a little late, given I had my first exam yesterday, but here they are:

Maths: A*;
Statistics: A*;
English Language: A*/maybe A;
English Literature: A*/maybe A;
Core Science:

I am slain

Jonathan — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:26:06 +0000

http://achallengerapproaches.com/ With thanks (and a bullet in the post) to Sean, Ben and whoever else chipped in to the domain, and Jim who took the photo. I HAZ A MEME!

“Chemicals” – a rant

Jonathan — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:00:27 +0000

“Chemical” does not mean additive. It does not mean an artificially synthesised substance. It does not mean something with the potential to harm. It does not mean toxin.

It means a pure substance comprised of atoms or molecules. It is not a perjorative. Use “synthetic chemical”, “harmful chemical”, “dangerous chemical”, “carcinogenic chemical” (although the “-ic chemical” is redundant). Not just “chemical”. Water is a chemical*. Air is a mixture of chemicals. “Chemical” is not shorthand for “nasty industrial solvent”. Learn that.

*Dihydrogen monoxide

The problem with adversarial debate

Jonathan — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:10:05 +0000

I’ve been thinking about socialism quite

New Year’s resolutions

Jonathan — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:40:26 +0000

I have decided to give myself some belated New Year’s resolutions (an idea stolen from inspired by Sean and James R). Here they are:

1. Keep a diary in my Moleskine
Moleskines are beautiful. I probably won’t live up to that with my scribblings, but they’ll be valuable to me in years to come. I look back on the half-dozen diary entries I have left from previous years and regret not having written more.

Microsoft DRM circa 1998

Jonathan — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:12:52 +0000

I’ve just been installing Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 (I’ll give it a quick post by the end of the holiday), and was amused by the DRM:

I haven’t tried it, but I suspect that the process of making an installable copy is as simple as ignoring that notice and copying the contents of the CD. You don’t even need the disc in the drive to run it!

Oh, happy days. Now even the

42 Days

Jonathan — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:00:55 +0000

For those of you who don’t know (and either you’re foreign, in which case I’m amazed that anyone I don’t know personally is reading this thing; or you’ve been living in a cave without a phone line, computer or TV for the past six months), the UK government is planning to introduce the power for pre-charge detention for terrorist subjects to be extended to 42 days (from the current – and still too long – limit of 28 days).

The government claim this is necessary to enable the police to gather complex evidence (decrypting hard drives and the like) in a hypothetical situation where the country is facing a series of attacks. Let me rephrase this: The government want it so they can keep terrorist suspects out of the way rather than having to make a proper case.

Stopping terrorism may seem like a noble cause, and of course it needs to be done, but the ends do not justify the means. In abandoning our principles of freedom and habeas corpus we defeat the point of stopping the terrorists: we do their dirty work of destroying our society for them.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (the person in charge of deciding whether there is sufficient evidence to charge) has said that 42 days is unnecessary. Almost everyone right across the political spectrum agrees with him, apart from the gesture-politics-mongers of New Labour. I hate to agree with John Major, but in this case I do. If anything, this will just help terrorists with their radicalisation: “Look, the government wants to lock us all up.” Quite frankly, in 42 days, they could probably find evidence that anyone had committed a “terrorist” offence – I possess a copy of Scouting for Boys – useful for terrorist training in reconnaissance – , and as for those holiday snaps of London…

It is not just the powers, and their destructive effect on an innocent person’s life that I hardly need mention, it is so obvious, but the way they may end up being used – to stop peaceful protest. We have already seen police using powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act to harrass protesters who they know full well are not terrorists. What happens when these poweres are similarly abused.

The powers may help slightly in gathering evidence, but the price we will pay for them is too great. Labour as a working majority of 60-odd. That means only 30 or so Labour MPs need defy the government and liberty will be protected.

Another post to come soon on the “concessions” made by the Home Secretary to try and get the rebels on her side.

Holiday in the Lakes

Jonathan — Sat, 31 May 2008 15:12:21 +0000

It’s the half-term holidays, so I’ve been on holiday with my family from Saturday (24th) to Thursday (29th). We were camping in the Lake District on a very nice campsite just above Keswick. For the first couple of full days it was pretty windy, but we managed to get a couple of walks in, going up to 600-700 metres. It was pretty unpleasantly windy on top, but overall enjoyable. Tuesday and Wednesday were rainy, so we got very little done, although my mother and I got up Catbells on Tuesday, having seen the ospreys in Dodd Wood.

Wednesday was spent looking around Keswick’s four or so decent gear shops (and avoiding the dozen or so rubbish touristy ones) in search of rock shoes for my mother. I also got a new pair of waterproof overtrousers, since the old ones were halfway up my shins, and my dad got a new pan which is supposed to be about a third quicker for boiling water, which is perhaps a little exaggerated, but not by a long way. (An aside to those of you who aren’t outdoors nuts. Boil time is an important factor in camping, since the longer it takes, the more fuel it uses, and fuel is heavy, so minimizing fuel use is important for lightweight camping. We fill a Ford Focus estate and roofbox when we go camping, so you couldn’t exactly call us lightweight, but faster tea in the mornings is a very good thing.)

On Thursday we climbed Helvellyn, the third (or second, depending on whether you count Scafell and Scafell Pike as the same mountain or not) highest mountain in the Lakes (and, since the lakes are the only serious mountain area, England). We climbed up Swirrel Edge (to the right as you look from Red Tarn) and down Striding Edge (to the left). The scrambling wasn’t hard, but at that sort of height, it doesn’t have to be to get a decent adrenalin rush. Swirrel Edge was great, but Striding Edge was very busy, longer than you’d like it to be, and easier, so it wasn’t as interesting.

We drove home on Thursday evening, stopping in Catterick to wait half an hour in a small chippie for greasy fish and chips – not the greatest meal out I’ve ever had.

All in all, a great holiday.

Hello World

Jonathan — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:09:27 +0000

Welcome to my blog. Content is currently minimal (for which read non-existent). I hope to get a few pages and blog posts up within the not too distant future. The theme is not intended to be permanent, but will suffice until I write my own or persuade a friend to do it.

A little about me first. I’m a Year 10 secondary school pupil from the UK. I consider myself a geek, and my Geek Test score of 42.60355% suggests I’m entitled to do so. (Is it a sign of geekiness that I think a score that near to 42% should mean bonus points?)

I am a beginner bellringer, an activity which I very much enjoy, and an amateur astronomer, although I am far more interested in the physics than the actual observing.

I’m a keen Dungeons & Dragons player, and I am a DM for two groups at my school (and unfortunately not an actual player in any).

I am also an Explorer Scout, and I attended the World Scout Jamboree in 2007.

I am an atheist until proven otherwise, and politically I am a democratic liberal socialist, in that order of importance.

Hopefully this blog will be my soapbox, journal and platform for intellectual thought. Here’s to many years of posting!