When the prospects of a Liberal Democrat – Conservative coalition first began to become a practical possibility, rather than a theoretical one, I was initially horrified that the paint may have been flaking of my yellow vote to reveal the blue underneath. It was a popular sentiment. When I tweeted “If the Lib-Dems do team up with the Tories, it will be like a twist in a film when you realise one of the heroes is the bad-guy.” It was rapidly picked up and re-tweeted (forwarded) around the Twittersphere by over 160 people. Clearly many like me felt betrayed, and worried that all the talk of “A vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for the Tories” would turn out far more literally than they may have expected.

However, as time passed it became clear that options were few. While many of the left looked on at a prospect of a grand liberal coalition, the numbers would have been tight, and an already aggressive right wing press would have been attempting to destroy the coalition before parliament was even seated. It was also clear that several senior members of the Labour party were opposed to the proposition, raising the prospect that internal rebellion would seriously threaten the stability of an already precarious position.

The battle was enough to secure a key concession from the Conservatives though, matching Labours offer of AV. With that my most major opposition to the Lib-Con pact was abolished, although I hope the Liberals keep the pressure on to ensure that the changes go through. The situation wasn’t ideal, and I wasn’t about to pretend I was happy with it, but when the cards are dealt you have little choice but to play.

I still worry though. The Conservative party holds vastly more seats than its little pet bird, and I fear that they may get dragged into the fold. Sacrificing ideals for stability, for want of being heard, or for want of power. Furthermore, it is hard to deny the rightward drift of economic policy in the party over the past few years, and it seems possible that the shelter of the leafy boughs of the Conservatives will catalyse this further. Which leaves a problem, if yellow and blue become indistinguishable, either through incompetence or power-grabbing, where next?

Labour may seem an obvious choice, however their dubious record on civil liberties leaves me concerned. While a few back bench rebels still buck the authoritarian trend, the ability to vote for one of them will largely depend on which consistency I end up voting in.

The Greens are considerably to the left of most the mainstream parties, both socially and economically. However, the party occasionally allows its policies to be driven more by ideology than evidence, leaving a few dubious decisions in their science policy. Fortunately they do appear to be attempting to address these in response to criticism in response to their European Election manifesto. Additionally I can’t help but feel that some of their policies seem impractically naive, however this may just be a side effect of their considerable contrast from the mainstream parties. That said, after the election I discovered that my local Green candidate was following Ben Goldacre on twitter, something that had I realised before-hand would have likely persuaded to switch my vote to her.

So where does that leave me? If the AV vote system does get introduced, at least I will be able to vote for who I want, even if they are a minority party. I must admit I am unfamiliar with many of the other minority parties, although know I rejected the Scottish Socialist Party on the basis of their belief in an independent Scotland. (I rejected the SNP on similar principals) It also doesn’t help that most discussion of neo-liberal economics, Keynsian economics etc. just causes my brain to melt. To actually try and work out if it a) is ‘morally’ acceptable and b) will work, is sadly a bit beyond me.

And that’s that, an entry that tails of into navel gazing hand-wringing. How fucking Lib Dem of me. If you want to preach your party, you are welcome to do so in the comments. I’m genuinely interested.

(Note: First time comments will need to be approved manually. I’m not blocking, I’m just being slow.)

I also intend to try and improve some of the shortcomings of the theme over the next few weeks, and add a few functions. For example, as it stands the site looks somewhat less exciting in Internet Explorer than in most other browsers. I haven’t even dared test it in IE6 yet, partly because I don’t even have access to a copy. With WordPress 3.0 launching soon I imagine I will also try and adapt the theme to take advantage of any improvements made.

Of course, almost every blog in existence has some form of spam prevention, without it they’d soon be overrun. To avoid this they try and not look like spam, either by using generically applicable comments, or else by playing Consequences with key words. This can lead to some peculiar results.

I thought I’d reply to some of this spam. All comments have been cut and pasted, and usernames remain unchanged. Where appropriate URLs have been nullified to prevent the spammer getting any links, or benefit to their Google rank.

Re: On art and games [Part 3]
Matthew C. Kriner
If you’re still on the fence: grab your favorite earphones, head down to a Best Buy and ask to plug them into a Zune then an iPod and see which one sounds better to you, and which interface makes you smile more. Then you’ll know which is right for you.

Thanks Matthew! I’m not sure how you knew I was in the market for a new MP3 player, as I’m pretty sure I never mentioned it in this post. What is interesting however is that you should make you comments on a post which is considering regional differences in gaming market and culture. You may be interested to know that for example, Best Buy doesn’t exist in the United Kingdom, and, for that matter, neither does the Zune. Did it occur to you that perhaps the reason I hadn’t done the bloody obvious thing of physically comparing the Zune and the iPod was because A) The Zune isn’t availible in this country and I am not interested in the support hassles importing would cause b) Because popping down the nearest Best Buy is considerably more hassle when a plane journey was involved. Y’know, for someone with the psychic ability to know I was going to buy a new music player, you should really brush up on your ability to work out that I don’t live in the US and aren’t a total mind-numbing idiot.

Oh, and for future reference, I went for the Sony Walkman X-Series.

Re:Tim Berners-Lee Has a Blog
Plasma TV kopen
This will get some interresting comments haha

Well Plasma, you certainly had some interesting parents. Mr and Ms Kopen must have thought themselves highly original with then name Plasma. However, I’m afraid I must disagree with you sentiments. It is not often that a four year old article about a fairly non-controversial topic picks up many interesting comments. For the record, if it does, your certainly wasn’t part of that trend.

Re: This Week’s Tweets
James T.
Considerably, the article is really the greatest on this notable topic. I fit in with your conclusions and will eagerly look forward to your future updates. Just saying thanks will not just be sufficient, for the extraordinary lucidity in your writing. I will right away grab your rss feed to stay privy of any updates. Solid work and much success in your business dealings!

It is a page of fucking tweets! I’m not one to knock twitter, but 140 characters can hardly be called ‘extraordinary lucidity!’ What have you been reading prior to now, YouTube comments?

Re:Merry Christmas
Mireille Clinebell

Sorry? You found this page on a dishwasher?

Re:This Week’s Tweets
Wonda Lynds
Do you know if there are any natural remedies for this?

For twitter? Perhaps you are confusing it with thrush? If so, I recommend steering clear of most ‘natural remedies’ and consulting your GP.

Re:This Week’s Tweets
Elda Amstutz
How fast can someone start to see the results from using it?

Twitter? Well assuming it is not overloaded its pretty much instant? Wait… is this Wonda again?

Re:Homophobic Censorship?
New Proxy
Why would you want to wait till you are out of school to unblock mysace? You can do it easily with a myspace proxy. Its pretty handy to have around if you need to do some unmonitored surfing.

Wait. People who are out of school use Myspace?

Re:This Week’s Tweets
Georgeanna Bisges
the blanket was Kos’s nickname for so long

And you told me that because?

Re: Political Compass
Regine Siverson
Great fight! Lovely to see Penn headkick Sanchez’s forehead open

Remind me never to be alone with you Regine.

Re:This Week’s Tweets
Marcos Shinault
Sorry, I really hate to ask this but do you have any advice on stopping spam? My sites have been getting hammered lately and i’m not quite sure how to stop it.

It’s called karma. Stop spamming other blogs and you may stop receiving it.

The following post was made by me on a message board, but I have reproduced it here in the hope that it may be of use to someone else. It already assumes that the reader is familiar with sites such as thetrainline and knows that advance purchase of tickets can save them a lot of money. Advance tickets are made available at some indeterminate time before travel and will often sell out quickly.

I’m assuming that when checking for advance tickets you are looking at the price for singles, rather than returns? If not you’ll want to do so, as thats where the savings are.

I’ve had a lot of experience trying to book cheap rail tickets, and it seems I’ve used a different method each time. However most of my tips are better suited for considering long distance travel. However, In case they are of use to anyone:

1) Megatrain.com is great for travel between major stations, assuming you are flexible about travel times. The also provide coach travel, which might be worth a look. Particularly consider it in concert with the next tip.

2) Split tickets. For reasons that are beyond me, cheap advance tickets aren’t always available for the entire route, even on services with no changes. Try looking at splitting the journey. I’ve always had most luck when splitting at major stations, such as Birmingham. I’m not entirely sure of liability should you miss a connection on a split ticket. You’ll obviously avoid this issue is the two tickets are for the same service, although it’ll require you to change seats. In other cases I’ve got an open return for the second half of the journey, which has been short enough that its not a significant enough cost.

3) Buy from the appropriate website. Thetrainline.com is great for finding tickets, but once you know who runs the service you need, try looking at the operators website, as they may offer discounts if you buy direct.

4) Keep an eye on prices. Tickets are made available three months before the date of travel, however the cheapest tickets will not be available at this stage. Instead, the train operator seals a cat in a box with a vial of cyanide gas, which will be shattered by a hammer on the decay of a radioactive isotope. On the death of the cat the train operator also releases the cheap tickets. However, as no one can know when the cat dies without opening the box they instead end up resorting to the point at which they know they’ll be able to annoy the greatest number of people possible. Co-incidentally this ends up coinciding with the point of radioactive decay, as physics is shifty like that. To avoid being disappointed, check regularly. The trainline can actually notify you for popular routes. Once the cheap tickets are out the prices will slowly tick up as each price point sells out, however on journeys with multiple routes different operators will make their tickets available at different times due to their use of different cats. I’m not sure how the hell you are supposed to deal with this. I just stop looking at the prices the moment I jump in to buy a ticket and remain in ignorance.

4) Be flexible. Make sure you check every time, and every route, because the cheapest tickets are elusive and like to hide.

5) A tip which is probably not available to you: Buy a Railcard. You’ll save 30% and can regain your investment. But remember, when searching for tickets to also have a look without your railcard. Some tickets are stubborn and are scared of discount cards. This’ll sometimes mean that you need to buy the tickets separately if the return is cheaper with a railcard. Also, while you only get a Young-persons railcard up to the age of 25, you can buy one on the day before your 26th birthday and it’ll be valid for a whole year.

6) Goat sacrifices may help your cause. However the public transport gods are fickle. Prices may go up, as well as down.

Edit: Just thought I’d clarify, that all by talk of the advance tickets being sneaky tricksy buggers was not exaggeration. Often I have sat back distraught, thinking I’ve exhausted all avenues and will have to pay almost £100 to get to see my family. Then, just as I’m about to give up and throw it all in a tiny change in search parameters, such as using a different website (despite the fact they all go through the same system) and then suddenly a ticket appears for a tenth the price, with no obvious rhyme or reason why it didn’t show up before.

Oh, and be wary of clicking ‘back’ once you’ve selected a ticket. I did that once, and it seemed that it allocated the last cheap tickets to me, and failed to release them when I went back to change seating preferences. I then had to wait a tense half an hour while the system sorted itself out, during which it would just produce an error if I tried to select said tickets, even from a different browser. Finally the system reset itself. Seemingly the tickets I was initially going for had sold out in the meantime, but the band B cheap tickets were available for only a couple of pounds more, instead of the £20 more of the standard tickets.

In addition to the recommendations here, I’d also suggest playing with some of the fare finding features over at nationalrail.co.uk, it requires a bit of patience, and doesn’t always make it apparent as to exactly when the cheapest tickets are available, but should give you indications as to what prices you can expect for the route.

In other news, I have take todays and yesterdays photos for the twenty ten photo project, however will be waiting until I get my desktop set up again before I upload them.

I invite any further tips in the comments.

It looked quite exciting, although admittedly it wasn’t something I was entirely sure exactly how I’d end up using. The simple benefit of a communication system which fused E-mail and chat was obvious, especially when it was also media rich, something that is becoming increasingly important in modern communication. However, at the same time I realised that Google were providing a toolset, which would quickly offer up novel uses, discovered by those who used it. Just as my twitter account has morphed over time, and is now used for far more than just simple “I am eating a sandwich” tweets, so I could picture Google Wave expanding rapidly beyond some of the uses concieved of at its exception.

Of course, the only real way to find all these uses is by using the thing, but at the moment Wave is still in its closed stages. Google have started giving out invites, although I imagine my somewhat late discovery of the application form, not to mention my admittedly limited skills in web development, have lead me to being somewhat low down on their list. Fortunately however, I managed to get hold of an “invite nomination” from Andrew Badera, whose blog I happened to stumble across by accident. Andrew was very kind to drop one my way, especially as I admitted to not being a regular on his blog, so I thought it only fair that I drop him a link in return.

I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the invite nomination, and should I get some invites of my own, I’ll make them available here, and via my twitter feed.

Update: I recieved my invite this morning. Unfortunately I don’t have anyone to talk to. If you have a Google Wave account, then feel free to wave at me.

It was obvious from the start that Derren Brown wouldn’t predict the lottery, and the failure to reveal the balls before the draw just made the whole situation blindingly obvious. As soon as he did that, the whole situation boiled down to little more than a glorified card trick.

Now, I’ll be first to admit I don’t know how he did it. That’s not any indication that the trick was difficult, but rather the fact it was so sodding easy. While Paul Daniels claims that he knew 99 ways of achieving it was probably a slight exaggeration,  several possible solutions occurred to me both during and following the show. Personally I favour the ‘split screen’ argument, having used a similar technique myself I know how trivially easy such things are. (Even if I was thwarted by an ill-placed mirror)

The split screen idea is also supported by movements seen within the balls as the results are read out, although a similar effect could also have been seen with other suggestions, such as those of a mechanical ball printer. Other possibilities include an augmented reality approach, digitally projecting the numbers onto the balls, although if such an effect had been achieved, it was remarkably effective.

The general point being however that there are a number of ways the trick could have been achieved, not even taking into consideration sleight of hand, which admittedly would have been difficult if we are to assume that the camera feed was genuine. No prediction, or fixing, was required.

Now originally I dismissed simple camera trickery, it seemed too much of a cheat, and seemed unlikely to take up a whole hour show. Then again, I couldn’t see how any plausible explanation could take a few minutes; therefore Brown was going to bullshit us. The trick and misdirection would continue into the explanation, as Derren led us on a merry goose chase. Unfortunately it appears that I only bothered to tweet this at the beginning of today’s show, which is still a darnsight better than Brown’s after the fact ‘prediction.’

It was obvious from the start that Derren was aiming to misdirect, firstly by implying that there was any psychology involved, and then by progressively misleading bouts of mathematics.  While I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that the lottery is truly random (such as some quantum events appear to be) any biases are going to be so minor, and external factors far more significant that any attempt at prediction will be impossible. To imply that crowd-sourcing would be ow any use in determining a random set of numbers is entirely misleading.

Which brings us from the impossible, to the improbable. The fixing. I don’t know if Derren hoped to convince his sceptic audience with this spiel, but we are fed a series of unlikely events which would be both illegal and unethical. While people indeed commit illegal and unethical deeds, they rarely do so publicly on national television.  Furthermore, to suspect that Camelot’s security is lack enough that a breach made in August could subvert a draw made in September is laughable.  Furthermore, there are 14 sets of balls, so I find it hard to imagine that this was the first time one of the alleged six was used since the claimed breach. Not to mention, I’m far from convinced that a 20g difference would be sufficient to entirely bias the draw.

While I’ve happily excluded the impossible maths explanation, leaving the improbable fix explanation, I’m sadly still left with a considerable set of downright more probable explanations. Had Derren’s numbers been revealed before the draw, then things would be different, and I’d probably be checking into exactly how long the broadcast delay is from lottery HQ. However just because Derren has given an answer, doesn’t mean I’m going to believe it.

Unfortunately Brown’s attempts at an explanation did little to endear me to him during the show, despite the fact I’m usually a fan. The fact he was spouting nonsense was obvious, which made me hope more and more for a strong pay-off. Derren Brown likes to market himself as a sceptic, and thus I hoped he’d build up to a clear crescendo, which illustrated his audience had been duped.  Parallels between the earlier practice ‘draws’ and the final draw (mainly that the result was revealed after the draw) made me hope that these factors would tie themselves into the great reveal, that we’d get a clear mention of why two camera-men were present when only one was necessary. Instead though we got yet another, albeit a marginally more plausible, shaggy dog story. Not only do I feel that Derren Brown did not reveal his trick, but he ultimately failed to demonstrate anything in the hour long show. Only in his last words, “I’ll tell them it was just a trick” did he bother to give any nod to the truth, a matter which probably passed by anyone who wasn’t already sceptical.

Ultimately I was disappointed with not only the trick itself, but with the explanation, which demonstrated little more than Derren’s ability to string people along.

The news seemingly originated from a press-release form the ‘Microwave Association,’ working in association with Heinz. Unfortunately for fans of beans and fancy USB gadgets the story appears to be, well, a load of old beans¹.

Even a quick critical eye will spot some key flaws. The average modern microwave has an output of 850W, with even weaker models outputting at least 650W. By comparison, the USB 2.0 standard provides a maximum current of 500mA, at 5V; which works out as a maximum power output of just 2.5W². The former figures should be familiar to anyone who has cooked something in the microwave, as the output is printed on the front, and you are expected to adjust cooking times accordingly. The latter meanwhile should be obvious in part to anyone who has hooked up a printer. While simple devices like mice can obtain sufficient power from a USB socket, the same can’t be said for more power-hungry devices such as printers, which need their own power supplies. Indeed, the power supply units of most computers aren’t certified to deliver 850W of power, with possibly only high quality gaming rigs fitted with a hefty enough PSU; even then, powering a microwave would leave scant remainder for the processor and graphics card.

So we’ve already seen that such a device would have to operate at a significantly lower power output than most modern microwaves. Such a device would be unlikely to be marketed as a novelty, and instead would be positioned to replace most standard microwaves. However is it possible that such improvements have been made, and we are in fact looking at vastly superior technology. In short, not likely, unless they have also managed to break the laws of thermodynamics in creating this miracle microwave.

In demonstrating how truly impossible their claims are we need to consider some physics.

The specific heat capacity of a substance is used to describe how much energy is required to raise its temperature; for water, this is given as approximately 4.2 joules per gram per kelvin. This means that for every gram of water, you must supply 4.2 joules of energy, to raise the temperature by 1 kelvin, or 1 degree Celcius³. Therefore, for a 200g tub of beans (which we shall approximate by assuming it is all water.) it takes 4.2 x 200 = 840 joules to raise the temperature by a single degree.

So how does this translate to our microwave? Well fortunately, the measurement watts tells us how many joules of energy are transferred each second. In other words 1 watt = 1 joule per second. So if we are to assume that our microwave is 100% efficient, that all energy it uses goes directly into heating the beans, we can discover how long it will take to deliver the required 840((And here is a good illustration of the inefficiency of standard microwaves. As by this calculation the beans should be ready in just under a second.)) joules to raise the temperature of the beans by a single degree. Simply divide 840 by 2.5 and… oh dear… 336 seconds. Five minutes, 36 seconds to warm the beans by a single degree. If you want them boiling hot⁴, then you are going to be waiting over 7 hours.

What bothers me most about this story isn’t the dubious nature of the original press-release. It was clearly constructed by marketing bods in an attempt to gain free column inches. In that respect it worked, and I’m only adding to the effect by writing this. What bothers me is the way the press regurgitated it, unthinkingly, unquestioningly, delivering advertisements as news. Not only this, but it is clear that in most cases, they didn’t even stop to pass a critical eye over it. This isn’t just churnalism, this is factually incorrect churnalism. When the media sacrifices its credibility in terms of fact checking, and ends up falling slave to marketing, what does it have left? And when we lose one of the key methods of fact distribution, of investigation and exposure, what do we have left? Blogs and citizen journalism go so far, but an effective and trustworthy media is is important for everyone; this story is only one of many that makes me wonder how much of one we have left.

I have already contacted the Microwave Association in the E-mail provided in the press-release, and have invited them to respond. I’ll update this entry as soon if I hear anything from them, and leave the comments open if they wish to contribute there. (Although I encourage you do do so via my E-mail, as that way I can be sure the response is genuine. Also, please bear in mind that comments from new users will be held for moderation, and may not get published immediately.)

1. See, you don’t have to be part of the tabloid press to make terrible puns
2. Power is the product of current and voltage
3. The scale of Celcius and kelvin is identical. Only the position of the zero position changes, with 0 kelvin being equal to -273.15 °C
4. Assuming room temperature 20 °C and a boiling temperature 100 °C

On Sunday, the UK elected two members of the British National Party to the European parliament.

Already, many words have been written by people vastly more knowledgeable and articulate than me. Members of both the left and right have expressed the disappointment, anger, and sorrow at such an event. On Monday, and late Sunday, Twitter swarmed with people discussing the result and its implications, and for most of the day BNP was the top trending topic, with many other related terms putting in an appearance further down the list. Blogger Anton Vowl considered how some of the failures of New Labour led to this situation, not through any particular success of the BNP but through the apathy of other voters. Others, in their frustration, threw eggs.

I shall not be re-hashing these arguments. They are elsewhere and the points have been made. I shan’t be throwing any eggs, our position against the BNP is stronger than that; we don’t want to re-enforce their delusions of martyrdom. I will however say this: The BNP don’t speak for me. They claim they represent average Britions; I’m British, they don’t represent me. They claim they wish to make Britain great, but in doing so attempt to destroy the things I love about this country. We are better than this. The BNP may talk of “stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration” but they do not do so in my name.

Anti-racism and fascism organisation, ‘Hope Not Hate’ is collecting signatures¹ to deliver to the European parliament to show that the BNP do not speak for all British people. If you feel that the BNP do not speak for you, and wish to make your feelings known you can find the petition here.

1. I sign this out of my own moral revulsions that I have become associated with these people by virtue of nationality. The petition is not an attempt to overturn the democratic process.

You’d think so anyway wouldn’t you? Except for some people, a change of one small detail, one which I have in fact neglected to even mention in full, would change the above situation from something which should be celebrated, to something which should be prevented.

Today the Californian Supreme court voted to uphold Proposition 8, a dark stain which had made Obama’s victory in November, somewhat bitter-sweet. For the 52% of Californian voters who gave their support to the legislation, gender is far more important than love when it comes to marriage. Seemingly “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” bears a footnote ensuring that it is somewhat tempered if you happen to love someone with the same genitals as you.

“The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”
-Earl Warren 1891-1974
Governor of California 1943-1953,
Chief Justice of the United States 1953-1969

Of course, America has been through this all before, albeit in a slightly different guise. It has been 42 years since Earl Warren, a Californian, overturned Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act, and ended race based restrictions on marriage throughout the US. I’ve borrowed a quote from him, which is as valid now as it was then, and I hope that he’d approve of its usage in this context, even if it would distance him from 52% of voters in his state, and countless members of his Republican party.

Worst videogame bosses ever? Email yr suggestions to gameswipe at zeppotron dot com. Make what you will of that email address.
10 minutes ago from TweetDeck

Brooker is no stranger to games journalism, as his career began back on the pages of PC Zone. He has also regularly mentioned various computer and video games in his column in the Guardian. The E-mail address also appears to be associated with Zeppotron, the production company behind both Newswipe and Screenwipe.
Brooker’s recent satirical and biting look at news coverage in the form of Newswipe was absolutely fantastic, both hugely entertaining, and damning in its criticism, proving to be one of the only television programs for which I will bother setting an alarm.
Exactly how the *wipe format will be adapted to gaming is unclear, as both Newswipe and Screenwipe focused heavily on the past week or so in television/news, an approach which is unlikely be be so suitable for the slightly slower moving world of gaming. Thus its possible that we shall be looking at a one off special episode, or a short series taking a more general look at gaming; certainly the E-mail request somewhat suggests the latter.

Edit: Wow! I should post breaking news more often, this post is only twenty minutes old, and its already brought in a load of visitors.