Monthly archives: August 2010

Strange conversion

This entry was posted in France Islam on by

It was the sight of peach juice dripping from the chin of a teenage French female nudist that led a Cambridgeshire public schoolboy to convert to Islam.

Really? That’s the sort of thing that would have made me want to convert to being French. But I never went to a public school, who knows how that could upend your priorities.

The moment is given a little more context later in the article

“In my teens I was sent off by my parents to a cottage in Corsica on an exchange with a very vigorous French Jewish family with four daughters,” Winter recalls. “They turned out to be enthusiastic nudists.

“I remember being on the beach and seeing conjured up before my adolescent eyes every 15-year-old boy’s most fervent fantasy. There was a moment when I saw peach juice running off the chin of one of these bathing beauties and I had a moment of realisation: the world is not just the consequence of material forces. Beauty is not something that can be explained away just as an aspect of brain function.”

It had quite an effect on him: “That was the first time I became remotely interested in anything beyond the material world. It was an unpromising beginning, you might say.

“In a Christian context, sexuality is traditionally seen as a consequence of the Fall, but for Muslims, it is an anticipation of paradise. So I can say, I think, that I was validly converted to Islam by a teenage French Jewish nudist.”

Nope. I’d still rather be French than religious. (And that’s not being snide. I’m fond of our Gallic neighbours. If I ever manage to finish a comic project it will be more suited to the French than US market. They make some very good films. Their pop music is awful, but their hip-hop is quite interesting. They also do interesting tax breaks for artists. Admittedly the Belgians make better beer, but nowhere’s perfect.)

Tiger- Part Nine

This entry was posted in Facts and Fictions Tiger on by

The vans took longer than expected to give up any secrets. After another couple of minutes waiting for the call back about the number plates Irwin walked over o the main counter of the kitchen and studied the chrome and black coffee maker which at on it. “Are you done with dusting?” he asked Gloria.

“Yeah.”

“Who else wants a coffee?”

Kay wanted to glare at him, but she had to admit that, now there was nothing to do, she really could do with a drink. She nodded assent just after Gloria. Irwin set about deducing how the machine worked and tracking down coffee. He tapped the previous load into the pedal bin and opened the fridge. There was a jar of coffee beans in one of the door shelves. This cued more searching as he looked for a grinder. He was very noisily reducing beans to powder and flakes when Kay’s phone rang.

She cradled the phone on her shoulder and pulled the netbook to her. Opening a text window she began tapping notes as she listened and nodded. “Okay, we’ll be on our way.” she finally said before hanging up. “Okay,” she announced, “we may well have a result. One of those vans has the registration number of a completely different vehicle. Better still, it was just spotted heading into Salford. The other has just been spotted in Ancoats heading back into town. They’re going to keep tabs on it just in case.”

“Can we get to Salford?”

“Not quickly. My car’s back at the station.”

“Take my scooter.” offered Gloria, “It’s just outside.”

“I can’t ride a scooter.” Kay shrugged.

“But I can.” said Irwin, “If that’s okay.”

Gloria considered this for a moment. “Okay, but you’re paying for any damages.” She picked up her helmet and gave it to Gloria. “This will Bluetooth sync with your phone so you can talk hands free as you ride. There’s a spare in the luggage box.” She gave Irwin her keys. “Go and catch some bad guys. I’ll secure the scene and then walk back.”

links for 2010-08-19

This entry was posted in Links on by
  • Climate sceptics mislead the public over hacked emails inquiry | Bob Ward | Environment | guardian.co.uk
    Self-proclaimed climate change sceptics are preparing to reignite the controversy over the emails hacked from the University of East Anglia, but there is clear evidence that they have misled the public about the significance of the messages.
    (tags: ClimateChange)
  • Why has extreme weather failed to heat up climate debate? | Bill McKibben | Environment | guardian.co.uk
    We've had so much record heat around the world lately that the records themselves are setting records: 17 nations have reached new temperature highs, a new record for records in a year. Pakistan hit (129F) 54C, a new record for all of Asia. Moscow had never hit 100F (38C) before; lately it's been a rare day when the mercury settles lower.

    Now scientists have confirmed what's been pretty obvious: the entire world has just come through the warmest six months, the warmest year, and the warmest decade on record. Following the hottest June ever, AccuWeather.com yesterday said July was the second hottest July recorded – and the warmest ever for land temperatures alone.

    (tags: environment politics weather ClimateChange)
  • BBC News – Disease threat to UK garden birds
    A disease that first emerged in the UK in 2005 has caused a severe decline in the number of greenfinches and chaffinches, according to researchers.

    In the worst affected areas, greenfinch populations have fallen by an estimated 35% and in 2007 about 500,000 birds of all species were killed, they say.

    (tags: nature)

Realtime Worlds collapses

This entry was posted in All Points Bulletin on by

The Dundee based video games company Realtime Worlds has gone into administration. I bought their recent release All Points Bulletin, which is effectively a massively multiplayer version of Grand Theft Auto. It’s fun, when my computer doesn’t fall over mid game. Later I shall see if the games servers are still running.

Update Brian pointed me to this analysis of what went wrong at Realtime Worlds.

links for 2010-08-18

This entry was posted in Links on by
  • Global CO2 emissions fall 1.3 percent in 2009
    Germany's renewable energy institute has calculated that global CO2 emissions fell 1.3 percent in 2009. The organisation, which advises the German government, pinned the credit for the fall on the global recession and on greater investment in renewable energy around the world.

    That investment rose slightly last year, from 120 billion euros to 125 billion euros, but the lag time between investment and the roll-out of new power generation equipment would mean that 2009 actually saw the benefits of prior increases in investment.

    (tags: ClimateChange)
  • The Chart of Fantasy Art Part 2: Urban Fantasy | Orbit Books | Science Fiction, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
    Every year we ask our summer intern to do a survey of cover art elements for the top US fantasy novels published in the previous year. This year we looked at covers from 2009, and compared them against 2008′s findings.
    (tags: books fantasy)
  • The Imminent Demise of Evolution: The Longest Running Falsehood in Creationism « The Word of Me…
    This claim is one that the young-earthers have been making. The claim is that the theory of evolution (or major supporting concepts for it) is increasingly being abandoned by scientists, or is about to fall. This claim has many forms and has been made for over 178 years. This is a compilation of the claims over time. The purpose of this compilation is three-fold. First, it is to show that the claim has been made for a long, long time. Secondly, it is to show that entire careers have passed without seeing any of this movement away from evolution. Third, it is to show that the creationists are merely making these statements for the purpose of keeping hope alive that they are making progress towards their goal. In point of fact, no such progress is being made as anyone who has watched this area for the last 40 years can testify. The claim is false as history and present-day events show, yet that doesn’t stop anyone wanting to sell books from making that claim.
    (tags: evolution)

Tiger- Part Eight

This entry was posted in Facts and Fictions Tiger on by

Gloria was sat at the breakfast bar with a digital camera plugged into a netbook and that connected to her phone. She was studying fingerprints and flipping back and forth to a rough schematic of the flat. “Was there any excitement?” she asked when Kay and Irwin returned.

“More like embarrassment.” Irwin admitted, “Do you have anything interesting?”

“Prints from four people- one child and three adults. They’re being run for me now. This one,” she tapped an image of smudged whorls and ridges, “is the one I’m most interested in. I found it on the tap in the bathroom and nowhere else.”

“We’ve got a couple of number plates being run.” Kay said as she pulled up a stool “Now I guess we just wait and see if any of this stuff tells us anything useful.”

The fingerprint result came back first. Gloria’s netbook pinged and they crowded around it to see what it said. When the file opened they all made little groans of disappointment. The print had been pulled from what was left of three stolen and stripped cars, but no name had been attached to it. Further details of each theft were included and, because whoever was on the other end of the message was thorough, a number of similar thefts. Before Irwin even had to suggest it Gloria was mapping the thefts to see if they were centred on any particular area.

“It’s quite a step from car theft to kidnapping.” Irwin noted, “And it looks like whoever’s organising this has subcontracted some of the work out to local talent.”

“But that doesn’t get us any closer to finding the wife and kid, does it.” Kay fretted.

“No, I guess not. Do you have anything for us Gloria?”

“I’m afraid not.” Gloria pushed the netbook away from her so they could all see the screen more clearly. The various car thefts were marked on the map as little stars, with the three which had donated prints in red with the rest in yellow. They were spread almost evenly over the map, the only pattern that could be discerned was clustering in the sort of area where more expensive cars would be more common. “Sorry.”

“Hey, it’s not your fault the thief goes where the best hauls are.” Irwin leant against the breakfast bar and crossed his arms, “Now I guess we have to hope that the vans can tell us something.”

If Morse were American- Drag Jag

This entry was posted in 1:1 custom car inspiration Jaguar Reference on by

Dragster Jaguar Mk2

Another image from Butch Pate’s Fotki galleries, which gave us the hot rodded prison bus last week. A Mk2 Jaguar dragster (or possibly even Pro Street car, it has the headlamps and indicators as a nod to street legality, and it looks like there’s a number plate on the rear and the Oklahoma equivalent of a tax disc in the window). I can’t imagine Morse piloting this through the sleepy country roads around Oxford. Unless he really needed to get to the pub, which was a quarter of a mile away, in about 12 seconds.

Drag Jag Drag Jag Drag Jag Drag Jag Drag Jag interior Drag Jag interior Drag Jag

The United Kingdom Gravity Sports Association

This entry was posted in downhill silly on by

Every so often I get the urge to build a go-kart (the unpowered type, AKA a soapbox racer) and find a hill to speed down. It must hark back to sledging and plastic bagging down hills in my youth.

It turns out there is an association for people who race down hills with only gravity to power their rides. The UKGSA is our local chapter of the International Gravity Sports Association and officiates over race meetings in these isles. There are several different ways you can speed down hill. I’m not brave or foolish enough to want to get on a skateboard or street luge, and even gravity bikes are scary to me (though I could rustle up most of the parts for one from stuff lying around the flat), I want something with four wheels and a roll cage. Though not something as complex as the rides put together by Formula Gravity. And, remembering the sledging and plastic bagging again, I’d quite like to run my soapbox off road……

The School Run patrol

This entry was posted in Naked Bike Ride road safety on by

Bedford Borough Council is doing something drastic to make its roads safer- it’s taking on the school run. The council has invested in a car mounted camera system which can be used to patrol outside schools and record instances of bad driving, so selfish parents are going to start getting fines for dangerous driving.

Unsurprisingly, spokesmen for Big Brother Watch, Association of British Drivers and TaxPayers’ Alliance fail to get the point, basically whining that mums who break the law should be allowed to get away with it. School runners who park on double yellows are a danger, they put other parents’ children, and other road users, at risk, cause congestion and are promoting unhealthy and antisocial behaviour to their kids.

My only issue with the council is the impression they give that this will be an ongoing, multi year operation. They should aim to stop this sort of behaviour completely, so that the car can then be used to penalise those bastards who park in cycle lanes.

links for 2010-08-16

This entry was posted in Links on by
  • The slow, whiny death of British Christianity : Johann Hari
    And now congregation, put your hands together and give thanks, for I come bearing Good News. Britain is now the most irreligious country on earth. This island has shed superstition faster and more completely than anywhere else. Some 63 percent of us are non-believers, according to an ICM study, while 82 percent say religion is a cause of harmful division. Now, let us stand and sing our new national hymn: Jerusalem was dismantled here/ in England's green and pleasant land.
    (tags: religion atheism secularism schools uk)
  • Burn the Confederate Flag Day
    Burn the Confederate Flag Day is a protest against the right's exploitation of racial prejudice for political gain. We urge you to burn the Confederate flag, a long-time symbol of racial hatred, on Sept 12, the date when the racially-divisive Tea Party holds its annual hate fest.
    (tags: USA)

Voodoo Histories keep repeating

This entry was posted in Conspiracy theories Daily Mail iraq Tony Blair on by

I recently read Voodoo Histories: How Conspiracy Theory Has Shaped Modern History by David Aaronovitch. It’s an interesting book which clearly, though with much sarcasm, lays out the history of several conspiracy theories then debunks them. From the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to (in the revised edition I read) the fuss over Obama’s birth certificate, it takes apart the most popular made up histories of the last century.

One of the theories examined in the book is the “mystery” of the death of David Kelly, a conspiracy theory which has been dug up again by the Daily Mail. The in-depth and considered (“The Mail has a healthy scepticism of conspiracy theories.” insists a related editorial) drags up the same arguments as previous iterations of this tale. “Severing the ulnar artery couldn’t have produced enough blood loss to die from.” But only one mention of the overdose of co-proxamol painkillers Kelly took, enough to be fatal by themselves in most cases, and none of an existing arterial problem. “Kelly didn’t seem suicidal.” To people who knew him in passing and are looking back on the events with the whispers of foul play colouring their opinions. His wife, on the other hand, had noticed how depressed he was about his sudden unwanted notoriety. “The Government stood to gain from his death.” Now I’m no fan of Blair, and opposed the invasion of Iraq, but I can’t see any way that the slimy little bastard could have benefitted from Kelly’s death. If anything, the suicide kept the spotlight on the flimsy reasoning behind the invasion of Iraq far longer than if Kelly hadn’t died.

Of course, it shouldn’t be a surprise that a conspiracy theory wouldn’t die. I bet the Protocols are still considered real in certain circles. And it’s no surprise that the Daily Mail should be so intent on stirring it up. It’s just a shame that so much time is going to be wasted on this when there are more important things to be dealing with.

Tiger- Part Seven

This entry was posted in Facts and Fictions Tiger on by

The identity cards had checked out. The two mystery men watching the apartment block were on the lookout for a group they suspected of claiming benefits under various names. Kay and Irwin had holstered their guns and taken up residence on the rear seat whilst they waited for the confirmation to come through.

“Well I don’t think anyone saw you waving your guns around.” the passenger, Paul, deadpanned. “We may still be able to carry on the watch.”

“What are you recording?” Kay asked.

“Comings and goings. It’s just about ascertaining who visits who could be worth further investigation.”

“Do you keep a log? People and vehicles in and out, that sort of thing.”

“That we do. Jim.”

Jim, the driver, was still brooding over a wet- and overheated if not burnt- crotch, so he wasn’t so talkative. He handed a notepad back to Kay.

There were three pages of notes. Starting at the end Kay found Gloria and then, up the page, Irwin and herself. She flipped to the second page and paused to tap a couple of likely notes- two vans, twenty minutes apart, which had parked in the side alley beside the apartments. The occupants of each vehicle had headed for the canal towpath and returned within ten minutes to put something into the rear of the vehicle then drive off.

Kay phoned the DI. “How’s it going on getting us some uniform?” she asked.

“We’ve got a couple of cars at our disposal, the chopper’s going to do a few circuits of the centre in case we need eyes in the sky and Armed Response are sitting in their Range Rover just waiting to play with guns. If we don’t get a result that can go on the clearup stats I’m going to owe some big favours. What have you got?”

“We’ve got a couple of number plates which might be worth running. Both white Transits.” Kay read the numbers off.

“Okay. Those should take five minutes at most. I’ll put out a call for them to be looked for but not stopped yet. I imagine we’ll want to angle weapons onto them just in case.”

“We’ll go and see if Gloria’s turned anything up.”

“Gloria eh? Say hello to her from me.”

“No sir, I won’t. You’re a married man.”

The Detective Inspector chuckled. “You exist to spoil my fun. Later.” He hung up.

Kay handed the notepad back. “Thanks for your help. And sorry about the guns, but this is that sort of case.” Irwin and she exited the car and walked back to the apartment building as inconspicuously as they could manage.

Other fiction by Ian Pattinson

Ruby Red– available as an ebook through Lulu.com or for the Kindle.

So Much to Answer For– available as print on demand or ebook from Lulu.com or for the Kindle as part of the Post and Publish collection.

Global Weirding– available as print on demand or ebook from Lulu.com or for the Kindle as part of the Post and Publish collection.

Sounds of Soldiers– available as print on demand or ebook from Lulu.com or for the Kindle as part of the Post and Publish collection.

links for 2010-08-15

This entry was posted in Links on by
  • Infernal Devices – Lady Clankington's Cabinet of Carnal Curiosities
    Lady Clankington, heiress and adventuress, is quite well-known for her appetite for the new and unique. Indeed, she was once the subject of quite a stir, for gentlemen known to be in her employ had been disappearing without a trace and horrors of the most frightening sort were left to the imagination. Upon later investigation, it was discovered that these individuals weren't even men at all!

    Due to her voracious desire for endless…adventure, her husband (an industrialist of some note) expired from exhaustion long ago. In a fit of frustration, Lady Clankington employed the genius of one Dr. Visbaun to create a cadre of strapping automatons that would finally grant her the only company able to keep up with her unending desire…for adventure. As brilliant and well-built as these mechanisms were, even these poor fellows kept wearing out.

    (tags: sex steampunk)
  • The world's largest tidal turbine about to be installed in Scotland – Boing Boing
    Sea water, which is 832 times denser than air, gives a 5 knot ocean current more kinetic energy than a 350 km/h wind; therefore ocean currents have a very high energy density. Hence a smaller device is required to harness tidal current energy than to harness wind energy.
    (tags: tidalpower)
  • The Mower Gang cleans up Detroit | freep.com | Detroit Free Press
    "I cannot believe that this has been abandoned in time," said Tom Nardone, founder of the Mower Gang. The small group of volunteers was standing on the Dorais Velodrome in northeast Detroit on Friday. The motto on their shirts said it all, "Winning Detroit's Other Turf War."
    (tags: bike)
  • A fish species that evolved to cope with colder waters…in just three years
    Evolution isn't generally considered a race, but no matter – the tiny stickleback fish is a clear winner. Faced with suddenly colder water, the species managed to adapt in record time – fast enough to potentially beat climate change.
    (tags: evolution)
  • Deadly stomach bacteria holds remnant of the world before DNA
    Until now, RNA was mostly dismissed as DNA's lackey, a messenger and intermediary between DNA's complex instruction manual and the creation of life's essential proteins. But Yale researchers discovered that the pathogenic stomach bacterium Clostridium difficile possesses more complex RNA structures that are able to detect molecules and control the expression of certain genes – abilities previously thought to be the sole domain of DNA and proteins.
    (tags: evolution science)