It's bad when we pay the bankers massive bonuses, but it's also bad when we don't?
http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2011/10/27/uk-banker-bonuses-to-slump-tax-take-will-suffer-consultancy/
Fake News?
5 hours ago
Friday 28 October 2011
Tuesday 25 October 2011
The referendum
With all three main parties having a three line whip, I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that it got as many votes as it did.
I do find it really frustrating that the MPs who are there to represent our interests clearly don't give a crap what the people think. I know that those in government think that they are our rulers and that we should let them make all our decisions for us, but I had hoped that a few more of the backbenchers might be on the side of the people that they work for.
So I'm wondering what the next step is. Do we all just sign another petition (https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/356 looks like it's doing ok, at over 30k signatures already) and keep on making them whip their MPs, while noting carefully who slavishly obeys their political masters, so that we can actively campaign against them next election?
If anyone has any better ideas, I'm all ears!
I do find it really frustrating that the MPs who are there to represent our interests clearly don't give a crap what the people think. I know that those in government think that they are our rulers and that we should let them make all our decisions for us, but I had hoped that a few more of the backbenchers might be on the side of the people that they work for.
So I'm wondering what the next step is. Do we all just sign another petition (https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/356 looks like it's doing ok, at over 30k signatures already) and keep on making them whip their MPs, while noting carefully who slavishly obeys their political masters, so that we can actively campaign against them next election?
If anyone has any better ideas, I'm all ears!
Wednesday 19 October 2011
Those Neutrinos
There's a bit of a hubbub going on about the OPERA neutrinos and how they seem to have travelled faster than the speed of light. I don't know enough about relativity or quantum effects, but wondered if there might be a more simple explanation.
It's been suggested by some that maybe Neutrinos just do travel a little bit faster than light. Those people have referred to a supernova that occurred a little while ago, and pointed out that the Neutrinos arrived hours ahead of the light from the supernova, so perhaps Neutrinos are just a bit quicker and this is another example of that. The thing is, if the Neutrinos are just a bit quicker than light to the extent represented by the OPERA experiment, the Neutrinos from the supernova would have arrived here years ahead of the light, rather than just hours.
So I got to thinking that maybe that there's something between the transmitter and receiver used in the OPERA experiment that made the Neutrinos faster than light for very brief periods of that journey, and the same something lies between Earth and the supernova.
So we need something that there is a relative lot of between the OPERA transmitter and receiver, and a relative little of between earth and the supernova.
Could it possibly be matter?
The Neutrinos passing from the transmitter to the receiver for OPERA moved through the Earth. The Neutrinos coming to Earth from the supernova moved through space - an almost complete vacuum, but the key word is almost. Could matter speed Neutrinos up? If so, the relatively tiny amount of matter in space could have accounted for a 3 hour difference between light and Neutrinos over a sufficiently big distance (and the distance to the supernova was something like 160,000 light years).
Anyone know if that's at all plausible?
It's been suggested by some that maybe Neutrinos just do travel a little bit faster than light. Those people have referred to a supernova that occurred a little while ago, and pointed out that the Neutrinos arrived hours ahead of the light from the supernova, so perhaps Neutrinos are just a bit quicker and this is another example of that. The thing is, if the Neutrinos are just a bit quicker than light to the extent represented by the OPERA experiment, the Neutrinos from the supernova would have arrived here years ahead of the light, rather than just hours.
So I got to thinking that maybe that there's something between the transmitter and receiver used in the OPERA experiment that made the Neutrinos faster than light for very brief periods of that journey, and the same something lies between Earth and the supernova.
So we need something that there is a relative lot of between the OPERA transmitter and receiver, and a relative little of between earth and the supernova.
Could it possibly be matter?
The Neutrinos passing from the transmitter to the receiver for OPERA moved through the Earth. The Neutrinos coming to Earth from the supernova moved through space - an almost complete vacuum, but the key word is almost. Could matter speed Neutrinos up? If so, the relatively tiny amount of matter in space could have accounted for a 3 hour difference between light and Neutrinos over a sufficiently big distance (and the distance to the supernova was something like 160,000 light years).
Anyone know if that's at all plausible?
Tuesday 11 October 2011
Climate Change - why it bugs me
One thing that really bugs me about the whole Climate Change thing is the way everyone asks the wrong questions.
The way that I see it, there are three questions being asked here:
(i) Is the climate changing?
(ii) Can we stop it changing?
(iii) Whose fault is it that it is changing?
I think this is very short sighted. We're missing several very important points. I'm willing to concede that the climate is changing, largely because it should be changing. Whether you believe it's because we're emerging from a little ice age or because of the crap we're pumping into the atmosphere, I'm willing to accept that temperatures over the last hundred years or so have showed a slight upward slope (although that does seem to be coming to an end for now).
What we're not asking though is what impact will a hotter world have on humanity (and stop claiming you're trying to "save the world" - the world would be just fine if the temperature was 50 degrees higher, it's humanity that would suffer, and humanity that we're trying to save). I've seen reports that a hotter UK would lead to less deaths overall, and not have any serious downsides. What other impacts would there be? Let's see what we can figure out, and then we can ask the next very important question: are the changes for the better overall?
Only if we decide that they're definitely not for the better should we then look to point (ii) above - can we stop it changing? But at the same time, we need to ask: Would we be better off by mitigating? People often refer to the Stern report, where I believe it was reported that we would be better off providing money to mitigate rather than preventing the changes. That means that if the sea levels will rise by x metres, it's better overall to provide money to build sea walls or move people elsewhere than it is to cripple our economy to prevent the warming.
If the world is warming (and I'm not saying that it's not), I believe that it cannot be 100% negative however you look at it. Plants will grow faster, less people will die of hypothermia in the winter, maybe we can generate more tidal/wind energy as a result of the changes, etc. What we need to consider is how we can use the positive aspects and deal with the negative aspects in the most efficient way, rather than to assume that any change is negative and nothing good can come of it (except the chance to raise lots more in taxes).
As to point (iii) above - whose fault it it? Who cares? If the climate is changing, we need to deal with it. If it turns out that mankind had nothing to do with the changes, we still need to assess how we'll be affected and decide how we want to deal with it. If it's all our fault, it changes nothing, except for the most loony of eco-loons, who would no doubt say that if it's a natural process, we should just let it happen and who cares if it affects millions of people...
The way that I see it, there are three questions being asked here:
(i) Is the climate changing?
(ii) Can we stop it changing?
(iii) Whose fault is it that it is changing?
I think this is very short sighted. We're missing several very important points. I'm willing to concede that the climate is changing, largely because it should be changing. Whether you believe it's because we're emerging from a little ice age or because of the crap we're pumping into the atmosphere, I'm willing to accept that temperatures over the last hundred years or so have showed a slight upward slope (although that does seem to be coming to an end for now).
What we're not asking though is what impact will a hotter world have on humanity (and stop claiming you're trying to "save the world" - the world would be just fine if the temperature was 50 degrees higher, it's humanity that would suffer, and humanity that we're trying to save). I've seen reports that a hotter UK would lead to less deaths overall, and not have any serious downsides. What other impacts would there be? Let's see what we can figure out, and then we can ask the next very important question: are the changes for the better overall?
Only if we decide that they're definitely not for the better should we then look to point (ii) above - can we stop it changing? But at the same time, we need to ask: Would we be better off by mitigating? People often refer to the Stern report, where I believe it was reported that we would be better off providing money to mitigate rather than preventing the changes. That means that if the sea levels will rise by x metres, it's better overall to provide money to build sea walls or move people elsewhere than it is to cripple our economy to prevent the warming.
If the world is warming (and I'm not saying that it's not), I believe that it cannot be 100% negative however you look at it. Plants will grow faster, less people will die of hypothermia in the winter, maybe we can generate more tidal/wind energy as a result of the changes, etc. What we need to consider is how we can use the positive aspects and deal with the negative aspects in the most efficient way, rather than to assume that any change is negative and nothing good can come of it (except the chance to raise lots more in taxes).
As to point (iii) above - whose fault it it? Who cares? If the climate is changing, we need to deal with it. If it turns out that mankind had nothing to do with the changes, we still need to assess how we'll be affected and decide how we want to deal with it. If it's all our fault, it changes nothing, except for the most loony of eco-loons, who would no doubt say that if it's a natural process, we should just let it happen and who cares if it affects millions of people...
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