Don't Hold Your Breath

Is this irony or the most wrong-headed thing I've ever seen?

2010-12-10T21:21:00.004Z

I'm not making any promises to resurrect this blog permanently, so don't hold your breath. I just had to bring this to your attention*.

To be fair, we've made scant progress in addressing the perennially high infant mortality rate and the back-breaking toil of ploughing the fields just to put food in my mouth is a bit of drag, so I suppose the author (artist?) might have a point.

But still.

Think about it.

From here.

* "You" being my loyal readership that comes here every day in the vain hope that I'll resume posting sometime.

The Terminator's Grandad

2008-04-29T20:44:00.004Z

It has been my view for some time that we are now living in the Science Fiction era. Not just reading Science Fiction or watching it in the movies, but actually living it.

Check this out. Wow, wow, wow!

HT: Michael Nielsen

This one goes out to the one I love...

2008-02-14T00:01:00.001Z

Happy Valentine's Day, Skinflint!
Another from bt3a.

The Vampire Curve

2008-02-03T19:33:00.000Z

When it comes to comments on YouTube videos, normally I'm with Randy Munroe. However, I enjoyed this comment on this short lecture about the Laffer curve:

"The Vampire Curve" -- an economic video for vampires desiring to figure out how much blood they can suck out of their victims without killing them or reducing tomorrow's blood supply.

Via Cafe Hayek.

Presumed consent - why the fuss?

2008-01-19T21:16:00.000Z

If you don't want to donate, just carry one of these in your pocket.

From b3ta.

I'm buying more mirrors

2007-12-15T01:43:00.000Z

According to Tim Harford:

...each extra 10 minutes a man spends in front of the mirror will raise his wages by 6 per cent.

Andy's conversation with his boss on Monday:

When I first joined this company, I spent five minutes per day in front the mirror. Now it's up to an hour and three quarters. Isn't it about time this was reflected in my compensation package.

It mocked me. It shouted at me. It told me I was not worthy. In short, it jilted me.

2007-12-12T23:31:00.000Z

Via Boing Boing, I have just learned of a new art form. Go and read the Amazon reviews of the Bic ballpoint pen. Seriously. And milk too.

Irrational voters

2007-12-10T20:28:00.000Z

Comment of the week comes from Brad Hutchings on this post, after Bryan Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter is reviewed on Amazon by one of the book's protagonists:

So Bryan, did you invite this guy to the photo shoot for the paperback cover yet?

Can you spot the pun?

2007-11-29T17:06:00.000Z

I'm off work just now and too ill to leave the house. So, to fill time, I've finally got round to learning Lebesgue integration.

"Why are you learning Lebesgue integration, Andy?"

For too long, I've felt that I'm incomplete without it.

Boom, boom.

Tim Harford is my favourite writer these days

2007-08-04T08:10:00.000Z

I loved this:

...by grabbing tissues and toothpicks, they are holding back the forces of communism. I dimly recall – but have not been able to confirm - that Lenin held up free condiments as an example of the way goods could be free and yet not rationed. It is up to right-thinking people to prove him wrong by walking off with the entire stock.

By grabbing toothpicks, your friends are chipping away not only at bits of salad but at the ideological foundations of communism. They deserve your support.

Now, whenever someone offers me the opportunity to free-ride at his own expense, I can take him to the cleaners with a clear conscience, for the sake of our precious bodily fluids.

Dear Economist

2007-06-01T21:06:00.001Z

I've just sent the following cheeky email to Tim Harford:

Dear Tim,

I read with interest your most recent “Dear Economist” reply to the student concerned about his lazy economics lecturer.

You advised that were he to blow the whistle on his lecturer, he should keep it in-house, lest any potential employer find out and refuse to hire him on the basis that his degree is a sham. But isn't the efficient market outcome the one that would occur if all parties had access to all the information that is available, and by encouraging him to conceal the fraudulent nature of his degree you are imposing a cost on his future employer greater than the benefit the student would receive?

Why are you favouring the welfare of the student at the greater cost to the rest of society in this way? I wonder if your reply is revealing information about the details of your remuneration package. Do you, perhaps, receive payment directly from your correspondents? Will I be billed for sending you this note?

Apologies if my questions are too intrusive.

Regards,
Andy.

I'll let you know if he replies.

UPDATE: Tim Harford replies:

Dear Andy,
Good question, but I'm sure you have by now realised that "Dear
Economist" seeks to advise my correspondents, not save the world...
Thanks for writing.
Best
Tim Harford

DHYB quote of the day

2007-05-12T20:13:00.000Z

Don't worry. We're not going to stitch you up. We're not like the London police.

What's Andy talking about? He'll have to tell you some other time.

Highway engineer pranks

2007-04-25T20:57:00.000Z

A brief post at Transport Blog.

A one sentence rebuttal...

2007-04-23T07:22:00.000Z

...of the overcrowding argument against free immigration:

You might think of overcrowding as a spillover cost of population growth, but in fact overcrowding is not a cost at all, because it's one hundred percent voluntary.

Simply substitute "population growth" with "immigration".

That's from More Sex is Safer Sex, by Steven Landsburg. Buy this book.

Adolescence

2007-04-12T21:16:00.000Z

I don't think I've ever articulated this to anyone, but ever since I was an adolescent myself, I have believed that everything that everyone else believed about adolescence is utterly, utterly wrong. It's gratifying to find someone who can confirm my prejudices.

Via Arnold Kling.

I now believe that totalitarian tyranny in Britain is a near certainty

2007-04-05T21:16:00.000Z

Let me explain why.

First of all, some homework for you. Go and read this article by Robin Hanson at Overcoming Bias. In it Hanson ridicules those media stories about new fossil discoveries that are older than the hitherto oldest known fossil evidence for whatever. Quoth Hanson:

The public loves to hear a story of academics shocked, just shocked, by new findings. But there is an obvious bias: we hear lots of stories about data forcing estimates to be earlier, but hardly ever stories about data forcing estimates to be later.

Given continued new earliest fossil finds, it is quite unreasonable to estimate that the earliest behavior started about the time of the earliest known fossil.

The important point to bear in mind is this:

I should note that our best estimate for anything should always follow a random walk; any systematic deviation from such a random walk suggests bias.

Now, I first read 1984 in 1989 in my final year at school. One thing that was frequently remarked upon at the time was that the dystopia that Orwell warned about had not come to pass. If Orwell was trying to predict the future, he got it wrong. He may have successfully predicted the Cold War, but the state did not keep its subjects under constant surveillance, thought was still free and the people did not live in fear of being disappeared and tortured for petty offences against party dogma. My assumption, therefore, was that we didn't really have much to worry about, even though my English teacher did remark at the time that the world could still go that way.

In the years since, however, with the proliferation of CCTV cameras, the establishment of the National Lottery and the like in Britain, I have frequently been surprised at the extenet to which many of Orwell's visions appear to becoming true after all. Despite my surprise, however, I have always thought that although I may not approve of these developments, they will not lead to the nightmare of 1984. Rather than the people fearing torture within Room 101 in the Ministry of Love, the effects will be more subtle - wasted tax money on crime prevention schemes that don't live up to their promises, the frustrations and inconvenience caused by an obdurate bureaucracy. Perhaps a handful of people will have their lives ruined by corrupt officials taking advantage of their new powers, but it would only be a handful. The possibility that the state would systematically murder people merely for disagreeing with the party line would be remote in the extreme.

That was until I read this story. The most vivid image of 1984 that was burned into my mind was of the omnipresent telescreens and their perpetual barking. Whether it be the celebration of the increase of the chocolate ration from 80 grammes per week to 40 grammes, or a scolding for failure to show sufficient enthusiasm for your morning exercises, the telescreens were the source of an incessant din from which there was no escape. Not only that, but they were a two-way channel of information, used by the state to identify thought criminals. This is different from the way things were going until now - surveillance was a separate activity from propaganda. Even if the state could see what you were up to and send its jack-booted thugs round to kick your door down after the fact, at least the BBC wouldn't prod you in the back and scold you whilst your were happily endulging in whatever sinful pleasure the state disapproved of. You had the choice of switching the telescreen off.

But now, it appears, this is all to change. CCTV cameras are to be fitted with speakers, so that when an operator spots you committing "anti-social behaviour" (presumably meaning anything from p***ing in the street whilst drunk, to, who knows?, putting the wrong coloured glass bottle in the recycling bin), you will be suitably admonished for your sins.

I should make it clear that I don't think that this represents some sort of quantum leap in our progress towards the panopticon state. What is different is that it is, I think, the first such development that I have been aware of since I read Hanson's article about the fossil discoveries [Correction: No, it's not. I've just been reading my own blog.] and the thought struck me that whenever I read about such things in the news, I always experience surprise at the extent to which Orwell's visions are becoming reality. Perhaps with the exception of the collapse of communsim in eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War, I cannot think of a single major news story that has surprised me and would count as refutation of Orwell's predictions. My assessment of Orwell as a prophet does not appear to be following the random walk that it should do if it were unbiased. New evidence nearly always suggests that I have underestimated him.

In the light of this, I think it is now time to change my assessment of Orwell's prophecy. From now on, my default assumption will be that everything that Orwell predicted will come true. The intrusions of the CCTV cameras, the petty little rules enforced by bottom inspectors, biometric identity cards and the rest will be nothing compared to what we will eventually have to put up with. The state really will try to control every aspect of the language we speak, we really will have to join in the Two Minutes Hate with gusto and honest, law-abiding folk really will live in a state of perpetual fear of being hauled off to be tortured because their children have snitched on them.

Of course, my new assessment may well be an over-reaction and our future society will lie in some intermediate state between what I expected and what Orwell described. But as things stand, I cannot continue in my old complacency. Things are worse than I thought.

Understatement of the year

2007-04-05T07:21:00.000Z

From the BBC:

...a potentially embarrassing episode has been brought to an end...

A tale of two cities

2007-03-30T11:50:00.000Z

Last week, a friend of mine moved to Dublin. Another friend will be moving to New York soon. It is quite likely that they will want to visit each other. If so, they will need directions to find each other. Fortunately, Google Maps can provide the fastest route.

In the light of step twenty-three, I think now would be a good time to give up smoking.

(Via Catallarchy.)

Turnpike Trusts

2007-02-28T17:58:00.000Z

I have a post up at Transport Blog.

Oddly, the spell-checker in the Expression Engine blogging software complained about the word 'blogged'. Blogger's spell-checker doesn't have any problems with it, though.

Overheard in St Andrews tonight

2007-02-21T22:40:00.000Z

"Oh no! I've been waiting all this time for the commercials so that I could go and have a fag*. But this is the BBC isn't it? F****** BBC and its f****** licence fee. Don't they realise that some of us need commercials?"

"Welcome to Britain, Vince."

*Despite being American, he was using the term in its British sense.

What's going on in this country?

2007-02-19T21:28:00.000Z

Maybe my brain has been addled by too much wine tonight, but on reading this, I was shocked by this:

In the first government defeat, the Lords voted to rule out using sexuality, criminality and cultural or religious beliefs as grounds for diagnosing a mental disorder.

Naturally, I welcome any government defeat on anything, even a tiddlywinks match, but I'm still rubbing my eyes in disbelief that such criteria for locking people up could even be on the table. Sexuality I could just about understand, although not approve, since we've been there before. (But don't we now live in an era of compulsory tolerance of all sexual tastes that don't involve children or animals?) Criminality? Well, we already lock up criminals regardless of whether they are mentally disordered, so I'm not too bothered by that.

But cultural or religious beliefs? Isn't that tantamount to giving someone with a medical degree a license to have you locked up on the grounds that he thinks you're a bit odd? Or because you disagree with the political ideology that happens to be in vogue at the time?

Somebody tell me that their noble Lordships were merely correcting a mistake that the drafters of the legislation hadn't noticed. But if so, why is this being described as a "government defeat"?

Perhaps I should look at this again with a more sober mind.

UPDATE: It has just occurred to me that blogging whilst inebriated was not ruled out in the government defeat. I'm done for.

Car crash ready reckoner

2007-01-22T21:50:00.000Z

I have a post up at Transport Blog.

Your notation sucks

2007-01-21T11:57:00.000Z

Obviously I don't need to tell you about the blog war that is currently in progress between Tim Ireland and Guido Fawkes. I have nothing to say on the matter, I'm just enjoying the bun fight.

However, via a link in a comment on one of the posts, I came across this wonderful anecdote about the mathematician Serge Lang:

When attending others' math lectures, he was not reticent about telling the lecturer "your notation sucks"; this trait was reliable enough that he was successfully goaded into saying it at a lecture where he was then presented with a T-shirt bearing this phrase.

The offending notation, pronounced "Xi over Xi-bar", is written:

`Xi / bar(Xi)`

The usual caveats about the reliability of Wikipedia apply. By the way, getting that formula to come out properly requires a java-script, so it won't work from an RSS reader.

Made up fact of the day

2006-12-21T16:19:00.000Z

Before he became the Undercover Economist, Tim Harford used to advertise condoms on French telly. Or if he didn't, his twin brother did.

Who said economics was the dismal science?

(NSFW, apparently)

HT: Patri Friedman

The Tyranny of Google

2006-12-20T08:23:00.000Z

Maybe I'm being unfair and quoting a quote that was lifted out of context, but according to this:

Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett had earlier said the 45 minute claim was of "little relevance" and used only once.
...
The claim - that weapons of mass destruction could be used within 45 minutes of Saddam Hussein giving the order to do so - was "never used once" in Commons debates, she added.

So, from Hansard, 24 Sept 2002:

Mr. Frank Cook: The right hon. Gentleman has emphasised the fact that we must not get it wrong. The Prime Minister told us with great firmness today that Iraq has biological and chemical weapons that can be ready in 45 minutes, which is a fraction of the time that we have been discussing this issue. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that we shall be able to prevent Saddam from launching those weapons and making matters infinitely worse in the time when we are launching our first attack?

And there are more, seven of which preceded the war.

My Christmas shopping list

2006-12-16T13:12:00.000Z

I often give books as Christmas presents. Browsing new releases on Amazon for ideas, I came across Snowblind: A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade, by Robert Sabbag. According to Amazon:

This book recounts the activities of former cocaine smuggler and dealer, Zachary Swan, chronicling his outstanding scams...

Speaking of which, check out the price.

A really, really, really tough mathematics problem

2006-12-14T08:48:00.000Z

In the past I have been scolded for including too many equations in a blog posting. Well, I'm afraid I'm at it again. You'll need a Ph.D. to understand this. Click here, if you dare.

An interesting new interpretation of the Vatican's position on adultery and bigamy

2006-11-20T08:44:00.000Z

Did I hear this correctly?

Last night, I was listening to the radio, or rather, I was falling asleep with the radio on. It was Stephen Nolan's phone-in show on BBC Radio 5, and they were discussing some bloke who has fathered fifteen children by two different women. One woman is his wife, the other is his mistress. Both women and all the children are living in his home. He doesn't work, but stays at home to look after the children. His income comes from state benefits.

Seemingly, many of the children were unplanned. When asked why he didn't use contraception, he replied, "I'm a good Catholic."

Reconciling the gentleman's claim with the aforementioned facts about his lifestyle is left as an exercise for the reader.

Billions of Monkeys

2006-10-01T22:08:00.000Z

A few weeks ago, I was "on top of the Rock" in New York, taking pictures like this:and this:when I thought of Brian Micklethwait and his Billion Monkeys Project.

So, here are a few billion monkeys:

Another Micklethwaitism, a picture of a reflection of me taking a picture of a reflection of me taking a picture ... you get the idea. In fact, here are three:

So now you all know what I look like.

Vapour trails form the Cross of St Andrew over Manhatten:

And finally, the sky where the World Trade Center should be standing:

Gambling tips

2006-08-28T23:38:00.000Z

It is conventional wisdom in gambling circles that when playing Blackjack, you must never split a pair of tens, the reason being that twenty is such a good hand that you can only reduce your chances of beating the dealer by splitting. This conclusion depends on a couple of assumptions and if either of them is false there exist circumstances where you should split your tens.

The first such assumption is that you do not know which cards remain in the deck. However, suppose that is false and consider the following case. You have a pair of tens, the dealer has a six and you have somehow deduced that all the remaining cards that have yet to be played are tens. Obviously, when the dealer plays he will go bust on twenty six and, whenever you split your tens, you will end up with two pairs of tens on the table. Therefore, to maximise your winnings, you should split as often as the house rules allow. It is thus imaginable that a sufficiently skillful card-counter will occasionally split his tens.

The other assumption is that you are playing Blackjack to maximise your winnings, or equivalently, and more accurately, minimise your losses. Other goals are possible, however. For instance, if you are trying to optimise your celebrity status, then I recommend that you split your tens.

So. Thursday night. Andy is playing Blackjack and has a ten dollar bet on the table. He is dealt a pair of tens and the dealer has a six. It is Andy's turn to play.

"I think I'll split."

Dealer gapes at Andy: "That's a pair of tens. Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'm going to split those tens."

Gasps of horror from the other players: "Oh no, you never split tens." "You're splitting a winning hand. Are you crazy?"

"Yes, I am crazy. I'm splitting those tens."

Dealer: "Okay. But hold on. I have to do something." Yells at the top of his voice: "He's splitting his tens!"

A nine is dealt on the first hand. Stand on that. A ten on the next. Split, obviously.

A stunned intake of collective breath around the table.

"He's splitting his tens!"

An eight. Stand. A ten. Split.

The crowd are used to it by now.

"He's splitting his tens!"

This is a four way split, the maximum allowed. The next two cards are both tens.

Andy has a nineteen, an eighteen, two twenties and forty dollars on the table.

The dealer has a six ... sixteen ... twenty six.

Andy wins forty bucks to rapturous applause.

One born every minute

2006-06-24T09:10:00.000Z

I hope that the fine ladies who took out this insurance policy carefully checked the small print for any exclusions of damnum fatale.

A confession

2006-06-21T02:29:00.000Z

After ~~Graham Sharpe~~ [correction] an anonymous punter, of Inverness, and Gordon Brown, of Kirkaldy, I am the third Scot to admit publicly to be supporting England.

I expect now to be chased out of town on the end of a pitchfork.

Ancient traditions that really ought to be revived (Part 2 of a continuing series)

2006-06-12T21:47:00.000Z

During the last Egyptian dynasties, legal documents were sealed with the phrase, "As for him who shall disregard it, may he be fucked by a donkey." [1]

[1] Fairman, Christopher M., "Fuck" (March 2006). Ohio State Public Law Working Paper No. 59

I guess I should apply for a green card then

2006-05-23T21:52:00.000Z

Which country should you REALLY be living in?

United States of America

You're an American through and through. You like the idea of liberty and freedom, and enjoy watching the odd ball game with your trusty weener bun and your bud light. Sweet, dude.

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Other good choices appear to be Canada and Australia, depending on how much importance I feel like putting on skiing and beaches, respectively.

Via Freedom and Whisky.

A pic of me

2006-05-07T13:12:00.000Z

I looked like this when I was twenty. Honest.

From here, via Mark Holland.

Quote of the day

2006-05-07T00:16:00.000Z

Vince Vatter (are you still sure I can use your name?) on the death penalty:

I'd rather it didn't happen to me.

Brrrrrr.....

2006-05-01T12:48:00.000Z

...as reported from somewhere in the North Sea.

This morning, I was dragged out of bed at 4am to join the St Andrews Uni students in their annual May Dip. I was rather taken aback that, with the rather small Castle Sands and the staircase, the only means of access, which winds its way down the treacherous cliffs overlooking the beach, packed with nigh on a thousand eager participants, making it impossible for paramedics to get to any unfortunate soul who may have just been rescued from drowning, the Health and Safety Gestapo, who are normally so enthusiastic to inflict little miseries on our day to day lives, were nowhere in sight. I guess they are blissfully ignorant of this reverie. Moments of escape like this are to be relished. Please do your best to make sure they don't find out about it.

Here are a few pictures:

If you are in this picture and you would like me to destroy all copies of it, then I am open to bribes. Prices start at twenty quid.

But, frankly, if you're prepared to strip to the buff in full view of, maybe, a thousand or two onlookers, then you had this coming.

Sorry about the poor quality of the pictures, but by the time the sun had come up and the light was good enough, I had put my camera away and plunged into the sea myself.

Scruffy, bearded scousers

2006-04-21T00:48:00.000Z

My mole in the City has sent me this screenshot from an online training manual for compliance with money laundering regulations (click to enlarge):

Indeed. Whilst it is certainly true that most money launderers are scruffy, bearded scousers carrying plastic bags full of used bank notes, it will be the ones who aren't who will catch you out.

Endurance

2006-04-16T13:08:00.000Z

Yesterday, I bought myself a new pair of running shoes.

"Why did you buy yourself a new pair of running shoes, Andy?"

I have goals to achieve.

(Via Owen Barder.)

Lagrangian dynamics

2006-04-12T18:34:00.000Z

This was obviously a Junior Honours project of some undergraduate physicist somewhere.

Bird flu! Ten miles away!

2006-04-09T23:39:00.000Z

A colleague of mine had a bit of a cough the other day. I told him he should get it checked out, lest it be bird flu. My colleague lives in Anstruther and, sure enough, bird flu has now arrived in the UK, virtually on his doorstep, in neighbouring Cellardyke. I understand that this strain of bird flu is most lethal to people in their twenties and thirties, which means that I'm bang in the middle of the target age group. So, it looks like I'm not going to live to the end of the year.

Such annoyances aside, however, I am delighted by this news. It presents a splendid opportunity for creating mischief. We can now declare open season on all those pestilential nuisances that blight our lives. Let's get started then.

The seagulls in St Andrews are all infected with bird flu. Actually, I have no idea whether they are or aren't, but these f****** c**** seem to take some perverse pleasure in s******* on my car. Just make sure you tell everyone that the gulls all have bird flu. Irrational mass hysteria over the possibility would suit me just fine. For God's sake, think of the children!

Neds are notorious carriers of bird flu. No need to explain myself there, I think.

Buckfast tastes really great when mixed with swan's blood. Just in case the last one doesn't work.

I'll add more when I think of them. Feel free to add your own.

Thought for the day

2006-04-07T01:29:00.000Z

There's nothing quite like asserting your justly-acquired property rights for pulling rank when your flatmate complains that, by entering your own living room, you have ruined his seduction of a beautiful woman.

That is all.

Fancy a fag?

2006-03-25T01:57:00.000Z

Tomorrow, Scotland takes another small step on the road to being a miserable little tyranny, as the much yearned-for smoking ban comes into force. Henceforth, it will be illegal to light up inside a private business where the owner has allowed access for members of the public.

Not to worry, though, for even miserable little tyrannies present their business opportunities. And so it is with pleasure and pride that I can announce the opening of the Don't Hold Your Breath Speakeasy. If you're desperate for a smoke, then just come to St Andrews, walk into the front shop, tell the assistant the secret password and you will be taken to a secret basement where you will be free to puff away to your heart's content. Bootlegged liquor will be available too.

Don't worry about being busted, for the local constabulary have been bought off with suitable bribes. Indeed, given that the Bobbies round here aren't exactly pictures of health, I imagine they will be patronising the establishment themselves.

Just one thing, being a non-smoker, I really don't like the smell of tobacco on my property. It means you have to keep the windows open for days afterwards, which isn't pleasant in the Arctic climate of the East Neuk. So, would you mind if I asked you to smoke outside? Thanks.

Brokeback Mountain...

2006-03-20T21:46:00.000Z

...is surely the most over-rated film in a generation. Bryan Caplan summed it up best.

If you want to know the plot, but don't want to lose two valuable hours of your life that could otherwise be spent, oh, cutting your toenails, then click here.

Comedy

2006-02-12T01:53:00.000Z

I've just discovered that the Yanks think that the Brits are snobby about thier sense of humour. This had never occurred to me before. Hitherto, I had merely assumed our senses of humour are different, albeit overlapping in some respects. But no, apparently, when it comes to humour, we can be quite snobby.

This revelation happened after I recommended that a Yank friend of mine read the funniest blog on the web, but warned him that it might appeal to a Brit more than a Yank.

Euston Square, by the way.

I am stunned

2006-02-10T23:17:00.000Z

Here are the first couple of paragraphs from the frontpage of the St Andrews Citizen today:

A group of students rescued after being cut off by the tide at the Eden Estuary last weekend have made a plea for more warning signs along the West Sands.

However, St Andrews Coastguards have pointed out that there is a fine line between keeping the public informed of danger and infringing on civil liberties.

I cannot remember the last time that I heard someone in authority suggest that a safety measure might be a bad idea because it might infringe civil liberties.

"People do also have a responsibility for their own safety. We have had a case where someone complained because we didn't have a sign up warning people that the tide came in and out twice in the day and other times when people have pulled up signs as they infringed their civil liberties."

Savour the moment. It will be a long time before it happens again.

Burn the witch

2006-02-03T01:30:00.000Z

I took this picture a few hundred yards from my home in St Andrews. The cliff faces onto the North Sea. Along the top run the Scores which overlook St Andrews Bay. The water at the bottom of the cliff is known as Witches Lake. Early in the seventeenth century, if someone was suspected of practising witchcraft, she would have her thumbs and big toes tied together and she would be thrown off the cliff into Witches Lake. If she drowned, she was innocent and presumably her soul would ascend to Heaven. If she survived, she was a witch and she would be punished appropriately, usually by being burned at the stake. One year in the nineteenth century, following a storm, human bones were found washed up on a nearby beach.

Until today, I used to spend a few moments each day contragulating myself and my fellow Westerners that between then and now, our ancestors had had these wonderful ideas that became known as the Enlightenment, so that anyone who dares to be different, or questions the prevailing wisdom of the rest of society, can sleep soundly in his bed, secure in the knowledge that the idolator, the heretic and the blasphemer has a right to be that way and that if his hysterical neighbours choose to persecute him for his eccentricities, then it is his neighbours and not he who are the criminals and will receive the punishment of the law. So, every now and then I would find myself shaking my head in sadness at the occasional news story from the Middle East that some ayatollah has called on his followers to execute an author for writing a book, or that Danes are being threatened because a cartoonist has drawn a cartoon.

But occasionally one encounters something that shakes one's worldview to its very foundations. And so it is tonight that I come home from the pub, very slightly drunk, switch on the broadband and find that Natalie Solent, Natalie Solent, the very priestess of Enlightenment Blogging, the one who once complimented me on the soundness of my adherence to Enlightenment values, has deigned to commit the most unspeakable of heresies that a patriotic Briton could ever utter. Now I realise that the Muslims and our earlier ancestors had it right. If anyone would care to arrest this foul woman and bring her to St. Andrews, I will be first in the queue to push her into Witches Lake.

Your attempts to invoke the Gruneisen gambit will not work, Natalie.

Bethnal Green.

Get out of that one, if you can. I have you cornered.

Your move.

Footnote for pedants: I reserve the right to correct spelling and grammar mistakes once I have sobered up.

Footnote for the weak of faith: Of course Mornington Crescent has rules. I once spent an evening explaining them to my father. A cursory glance here should make them clear.

Footnote for ignorant Yanks: You're just not going to understand this. Get over it.

Footnote for fanatics: I reserve the right to delete this post on receipt of any death threats.

I'm not sure if I should be talking about this sort of thing

2006-01-31T00:51:00.000Z

Somebody in Pennsylvania has just visited this blog after googling for "why is it bad to hold in your bodily fluids". Ever the curious one, I wanted to know what sort of company I am keeping, so I googled for it myself. I am currently ranked fifth on that important topic. Otherwise, don't go there. Believe me, it's not the sort of thing that you would want your wife or servants to read. And wash your hands afterwards.

An optics puzzle

2006-01-26T21:18:00.000Z

Go and have a look at Mark Holland's pretty picture of the Sun, then come back here.

Now, the Sun is about one hundred and fifty million kilometres away and the earth is only about twelve thousand kilometres in diameter. Therefore, the Sun's rays that shine upon the earth should be very nearly parallel. However, in Mark's picture, the Sun's rays are nowhere near parallel.

Why?

UPDATE (29/01/06): The puzzle's been solved. Here's the winning comment, courtesy of Mike:

I would tend to say that it is due to nothing more than perspective.

Just like looking at a chess board from table height, the lines seem to go towards a vanishing point, so should the rays seem to "narrow" towards the sun.

UPDATE (12/02/06): Patrick wonders

Hmm. OK, so it's perspective but that just gives us another puzzle. When I look down a set of railway lines (for instance) I don't have to be told that the lines are parallel. But here (kinda sorta) I did. Now, why is that? Would it have been any different had I been standing where Mark Holland had been standing?

This is a harder question, since it isn't really about optics, but is about psychology and how the brain processes information - a subject that I know almost nothing about. I can, however, make a few points that might be worth bearing in mind:

1. Stereoscopic vision.

Try this experiment. On a clear night, look at the sky and pick two stars at random. Which one is closer? You won't have a clue. If the stars were all painted on a dome one light-year away, rather than ranging from a few light-years to thousands of light-years away, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

This illustrates my first point. Your stereoscopic vision is a useful tool for judging distances, but it only works for objects that are fairly close by.

With a railway line, you can easily tell that the tracks that pass under your feet are only a meter or two away, but the tracks that vanish into the distance are hundreds of meters away. Your brain is therefore provided with the information to deduce that the tracks are parallel.

In Mark's picture, however, the parts of the Sun's rays closest to you will be, perhaps, ten or twenty miles away, whilst the parts farthest from you might be hundred of miles away. At those distances, your stereoscopic vision doesn't provide any clues that your brain can use to deduce that the Sun's rays are parallel.

2. Other visual clues.

When you look down a railway line, you might see other objects - buildings, people, trees, animals - that you already know look big when they are nearby, but are small when they are far away. In Mark's picture, there are no comparable reference points.

3. Are you really sure that you didn't need to be told that railway lines are parallel?

Perhaps you did, when you were a child, and have incorporated that memory into your knowledge, but have forgotten that you had to be told. For instance, I can remember being taught about perspective when I was eight, and the teacher used the example of railway lines disappearing into the distance, but she didn't mention that the same logic applied to the Sun's rays. I can well imagine that my knowledge that railway lines are parallel are due largely to that lesson, or to other people repeating the point, but not making the same point about the Sun's rays.

My quiz results

2006-01-08T01:23:00.000Z

You are a
Social Liberal
(81% permissive)

and an...
Economic Conservative
(88% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Libertarian

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Obviously it isn't very accurate, otherwise it would have returned 100% permissive in both categories. What has the question "Something like the theory of Natural Selection explains why some people are homeless" got to do with liberty? And what are they doing calling economically permissive views conservative? Haven't they read Hayek?

For my one law as despot, I decreed that tailgaters be shot dead on sight.

Via Arthur's Seat.

A problem

2005-12-22T17:53:00.000Z

Shortly after publishing the last post, I realised that I had subtley confused a couple of distinct issues. Rather than edit the post, I thought I'd set it as a problem for the readers. Can anyone spot the mistake?

Diamonds are the perfect Christmas present

2005-12-22T10:53:00.000Z

I hate Christmas. It's so inefficient. This is a view I adopted years before I bothered to learn any economics, and it is gratifying to know that professional economists agree. Tim Harford has been offering some helpful advice on how to reduce the deadweight loss of Christmas. Here are a few of my own thoughts.

As a recipient, it's easy. Get over your endowment effect. Work out how much you value each gift - i.e. the maximum amount you would be willing to pay for it. Auction each gift on eBay, using your valuation as the reserve price. Any gifts that you don't sell are worth keeping.

If the recipient of your gifts has adopted the above strategy, then giving gifts is easy too. In this case you want to minimise your search costs. So, walk into the nearest shop, walk up to the nearest shelf and buy the nearest item on that shelf. This procedure can easily be modified to satisfy any budget constraints you have imposed on yourself.

Otherwise, things are a bit more complicated. I think it's worth noting that the deadweight loss of gift-giving need not be as high as you think. Marginal value declines as the quantity consumed increases. So, if you give a gift valued at £40, but costing £50, the recipient can reduce the quantity that he buys for himself until the marginal value has risen back to £50. The solution is therefore to give gifts that the recipient purchases regularly. Things like cars and washing machines are bad - it's hard to reduce your purchases if you only buy a new one every few years. Things like soap, toothpaste and bacofoil are good. ["But that's so unromantic," you protest. Tough. I'm trying to make you more efficient, not get you laid.] Also, try not to give so much that the recipient acquires an abnormally large stockpile - there's an opportunity cost in the lost interest you could have earned by putting the money in the bank - and try to avoid goods whose price you expect to fall before the recipient replenishes his stockpile. It might be worth avoiding perishable goods too - a week's supply of milk seems stingy; a year's supply of milk will mostly be poured down the drain.

If you are really serious about reducing the deadweight loss of Christmas, then give gifts that have been produced by a monopoly. Without perfect price discrimination, monopolies sell their goods at a price above marginal cost. So, for example, Microsoft might sell a copy of Windows at, say, £150, when the marginal cost is only £10. A consumer who valued Windows at £50 would be unlikely to buy a copy, but if he did, his net loss of £100 would be more than compensated for by Microsoft's net profit of £140. In the interests of economic efficiency, this is obviously a purchase that should be made. If your recipient shares your goal of eliminating deadweight losses wherever he finds them, then this opportunity may not be available, otherwise, it's the perfect answer to your Christmas shopping problems.

So, what would make the best Christmas present? I would like to suggest diamonds. They are, or at least have been historically, produced by a monopoly, de Beers, and are not as unromantic as bacofoil or Microsoft Windows. Having said that, it is worth bearing in mind that wherever you have a monopoly, you will have monopoly rents, and therefore rent-seeking. Thus, the costs of rent-seeking need to be accounted for when making your calculation. I have no idea how much that would be, but in some cases it might be all of the monopoly's profit. In the case of diamonds, it is alleged that much of the rent-seeking takes the form of some rather unpleasant African civil wars, in which the warring parties are fighting for control of the government and perhaps the right to tax de Beers's profits or sell the diamonds on to de Beers. But, if you can live with the possible marginal intensification of a civil war in Sierra Leone on your conscience, then give diamonds this Christmas.

Must try harder

2005-12-20T18:19:00.000Z

A colleague tells me he was reading his eight-year-old son's ~~school report~~ interim appraisal of achievement of key government targets.

"Oh look. It says you have an excellent vocabulary."

"What's a vocabulary, Dad?"

Important news

2005-12-14T22:31:00.000Z

David Friedman is now blogging.

Hat tip [what's a hat tip?] to Scott Scheule.

The real reason why...

2005-12-12T18:41:00.000Z

...Rooney and Ronaldo were tired during their loss in Europe.

Via email from my mole in the City.

The wisdom of our legislators

2005-12-04T23:56:00.000Z

Where would we be without the Scottish Parliament?

A few years ago in Glasgow, a couple of students living in a rented flat died in a fire. It was found at the inquest that they were unable to escape because there were bars on the windows. Now, it is an unwritten convention in the British constitution that every time there is a tragedy of some sort a new law must be passed. So, the Scottish Executive dutifully responded by passing the Houses in Multiple Occupation Order 2000 under the Civic Goverment (Scotland) Act 1982. Previously, local governments had discretionary powers to require landlords to obtain a license to let out their property if they had three tenants or more. The new order makes it mandatory, and to obtain a license, the property has to pass a safety inspection.

This is motivated by the desire to prevent tenants from being trapped in a burning house by bars on the windows. (Of course, it overlooks the fact that it would not have prevented the accident which prompted the legislation, as that property only had two tenants.)

Now I have come across this comment by a student at St. Andrews University claiming that the HMO license for her flat has required that bars be fitted on the windows, lest somebody might fall out.

I hope you are reassured.

Your homework for the week

2005-12-04T09:34:00.000Z

Is it immoral to count cards in blackjack?

Does your answer depend on the system of ethics you assume, eg. will utilitarianism imply something different from Kantian ethics?

Does your answer depend on whether your fellow gamblers are rationally accepting a negative expected return in exchange for the fun of gambling, or are helpless addicts, ruthlessly exploited by the casino?

Does your answer depend on whether your fellow gamblers are counting cards too?

What other assumptions does your answer depend on?

Show your working.

Hint: I'm going to have trouble accepting any argument that implies "yes".

Oh, bugger ... I've been caught

2005-11-08T01:17:00.000Z

(Hi, Vince.)

So, I'm watching telly, and my new flatmate is sitting there with his laptop a-top his lap, when, on a whim, he goes a-googling for information on some bloke we know. Foolishly I remark, "Do you not find Google a bit scary?"

"No. Why?" And before you can say "Two megabit wireless broadband", he's reading all the stupid things I've been saying on this very blog. Such are his googling skills that this blog was the number one hit on his first search for me.

Constructive criticism so far: I should blog more often (fat chance, although I have no doubt that you all agree), and my proposed rabies experiment should definitely be performed, even if it is a bit sick.

Vince denies that he has a blog, but as soon as I find where he keeps it, I'll let you know.

If Grange Hill had been set in Glasgow ...

2005-09-22T20:57:00.000Z

Natalie Solent directs us to Shuggy's blog, who recounts a wee stoushie in a Glasgow school. My father used to teach in a 'hard' school in Glasgow (it might even have been the hardest school in Scotland, but I haven't checked the league tables) and he would tell stories like this all the time. I once browsed through the pupils' memories board for his school at Friends Reunited and read - and I'm not making this up - a post that went something like "Does anyone remember the time that someone shot Mr. ***** in the leg? Oh, how I nearly wet myself laughing." (Obviously, I've tidied up the grammar a bit.)

Now, in case you're mystified why Britain's education industry has been deprived of my talents as a teacher, here are a couple of reforms either of which might encourage people like me to enter the profession:

1. Raise a teacher's starting salary to about two hundred grand. In that case I could afford to employ my own body guard, or

2. Grant teachers the right to expel from their classrooms, on a whim and with no right of appeal, any pupils of their choosing.

Meanwhile, Bishop Hill and Brian Micklethwait both blog about truancy. Truancy is one of those problems that everyone agrees the government should do something about. Earnest members of the audience ask the Question Time panel what should be done about truancy. Worthy Question Time panellists tell us all how appalling truancy is and why something should be done about it. The government pledges to spend billions of pounds doing something about truancy. Something is duly done about truancy.

My response to this is, as ever, calm, measured and thoughtful, and goes something like: Have you gone stark, raving mad? Did you really come up the Clyde in a banana boat? Are you deliberately trying to encourage children to murder each other? In my experience (and I did go to school, so this is not some airy-fairy theoretical analysis based on consumer utility functions and labour supply curves), the pupils most likely to play truant were the same pupils who, when present, would be most likely to knife the teacher. A class full of truants is, when the truants are doing their truanting, a peaceful class. When the truants weren't there, we would discover that the teacher would often have interesting things to say. I am firmly in favour of truancy. It is a much under-rated educational innovation.

Of course, when I express these views to my father, he always comes out with some blather about depriving children of their right to an education, but I can tell that he agrees with me, even if he won't admit it.

Play truant, play truant now.

Comment of the year

2005-09-06T16:40:00.000Z

I've never met Harry Hutton and he's never heard of me (probably), but I really need to buy him a drink sometime. Here he is, in a Samizdata comment, explaining the virtues of a flat rate tax:

I once saw a fight in a pub about Estonian flat taxes. This one guy was mouthing off about how iniquitous they were, not being progressive, and this other guy says, "Don´t be a c___. Tax revenues have increased," and head-butted him.
We all piled in on the side of the flat taxes guy, on the grounds that Estonian tax revenues have indeed increased.

Why do I find pub violence so funny?

Who is more evil?

2005-07-30T08:59:00.000Z

Usama bin Laden or a Colombian drugs baron?

On theoretical grounds alone, I would have said Usama bin Laden, who, we are told, wishes to foist Islamism on you, and, if you do not want his product, he, or his followers, will, given the chance, attempt to kill you. A Colombian drugs baron, on the other hand, is merely engaged in the innocent pursuit of trying to make money by selling you things. If you don't want his product, and don't interfere with his attempts to sell things to people who do, he will leave you alone.

(It is, of course, unfortunate that due to states' attempts to stamp out the trade in narcotics, the means of protecting the production and supply of drugs is more unstable than that for legal goods, and, therefore, the drugs market is much more violent than, say, the chocolate market. However, that problem has an obvious and easy solution. Go and read David Friedman on the economics of drugs and violence.)

Many people like to sneer at theoretical arguments. If you're one of them, then there is also some empirical evidence:

Usama bin Laden tried to buy a massive amount of cocaine, spike it with poison and sell it in the United States, hoping to kill thousands of Americans one year after the Sept. 11 attacks, The Post has learned.
The evil plot failed when the Colombian drug lords bin Laden approached decided it would be bad for their business — and, possibly, for their own health, according to law-enforcement sources familiar with the Drug Enforcement Administration's probe of the aborted transaction.

Like Jacob Lyles, I was also going to remark at how interesting it is that a private business will attempt to control the quality of its product, despite the fact that there is no quality control whatsoever required by the state, indeed, when the state is doing everything it can to prevent a high quality product from reaching its customers. However, it's not quite so clear whether this story provides compelling evidence for this point of view:

Although the drug lords would have reaped millions of dollars in profits by selling the cocaine to bin Laden, they knew that if his plan succeeded it might effectively destroy the market for their coke in America for years, sources said.

But that was only one reason they declined bin Laden's offer.

The other was their fear of retaliation from the U.S. government once its citizens started to die from the drugs, according to sources.

So, it appears that the U.S. goverment might try to control the quality of cocaine after all, or, at least, the drugs barons seem to think they might.

Another thing, just how effective would bin Laden's strategy "to kill thousands of Americans" have been? I think it's pretty unlikely that he could have ensured that the spiked coke would have reached its users simultaneously. Once the first victims had died and the news was out, the next batch of potential victims would be aware of the danger and in a position to take precautions. Could thousands of people really have been caught out by this plan?

Via Catallarchy and Enlightened Liberty.

I feel sorry for you folks who don't live in Fife

2005-07-16T18:26:00.000Z

Thanks to the visionary leadership of Fraser Thomson, head of environmental services for Fife Council, the good folk of ye Kyngdome of Fyfe are now protected from the menace of binmen wearing shorts, or binmen are protected from the menace of the odd scratch or two. Or something like that.

We've been crying out for this for years. "If only", we would say to each other, "we could stop binmen from wearing shorts. It's the one thing that is stopping Fife from becoming the thrilling utopia that is rightfully ours." And now, thanks to the should-be-knighted-for-this Fraser Thomson, Fife has become the thrilling utopia that we've all been pining for. We are now going about congratulating ourselves for the thrilling utopia we have created.

Come to Fife. It's a thrilling utopia. Not a shorts-wearing binman in sight.

(What the Hell has Simon Jenkins been moaning about? Doesn't he realise that we're living in a thrilling utopia?)

Economic illiteracy will harm our ability to cope with terrorism

2005-07-09T16:41:00.000Z

Like Mark Holland, I have very little to say about the London bombings that is neither trite nor banal. So, to get the trite and banal commentary out of the way, I shall tell you that, not having access to a TV, the Web or decent radio reception on Thursday morning, I had to deduce that there had been a terrorist outrage from three pieces of evidence: a rather odd text message from my brother at eleven a.m. asking, "Are you in London?"; my inability to reply, "No, I'm in Cambridge", or use my phone at all for that matter and the electronic information signs on the A14 that said, "Avoid London. Area closed." The whole of London? Closed? When I stopped at Peterborough, my phone was working again, so I called my mother, who confirmed my suspicions.

I'm not sure why, but for the next hour or so I was shaking with rage - not a good state of mind to be in when you're driving a car. Perhaps it's because, having passed through King's Cross twice on Wednesday evening, I was about eleven hours away from being caught up in the mayhem. Or if, as I occasionally do, I had decided to spend Wednesday night in London, I would have stayed at my friend's house in Maida Vale, which would have meant passing through Edgeware Road station on the tube to get to King's Cross on Thursday morning, uncomfortably close to one of the bombings. (Not nearly as close as this brave man, though.) Eight hours later, I drove past the scene of what could have been a second outrage, but, fortunately, was only a false alarm.

That, in a nutshell, is my experience of terrorism. And now for something less banal.

The Trading Standards Institute, the British Hospitality Association, Grant Hearn, CEO of hotel chain Travelodge and others are wrong to condemn hoteliers who have been cashing in on the bomb attacks. It appears to be a feature of disasters like this that many people will express outrage at those businesses who raise their prices in response to the sudden increase in demand for their services. The counter arguments are worth repeating. Click here to read Don Bodreaux's argument that allowing prices to rise is the best way of ensuring that scarce resources are allocated to those people who need them most.

Another point he could have made is that the supply of any good or service is not a fixed quantity. The way to satisfy the sudden surge in demand for, say, beds for the night, as a result of an unpredictable event like this one, is to maintain a stockpile. So, for example, hotels, churches, pubs, even private homes, might store some collapsible camp beds and, in the event of London's transport stopping, they would set them up on spare floor space for the use by stranded commuters.

Now, if this stockpile is to be large enough to satisfy the demand during the emergency, then, during normal times, much of it will be stored away, being used for nothing. This imposes opportunity costs that must be paid for. Larger buildings have to be rented to store the stockpile, or alternative uses of the storage space will have to be abandoned, and there is also the lost interest that the business would have earned had it not maintained the stockpile and invested the money in the bank instead.

If businesses can only charge normal prices during an emergency, then they will be unable to cover the costs of maintaining an adequate stockpile. Imposing price controls on them, thus removes their incentive to keep a stockpile. The consequence of this is that there will be a shortage during the emergency, and many people will needlessly be deprived of a good, or service, that they are quite able and willing to pay for. I fail to see how this is a preferable situation to a temporary rise in prices, but where people's demands are met.

Predictably, most of the comments below the BBC's news story express outrage and disgust at the price rises. Many thousands were inconvenienced by the bombs. Those people who wish to ostracise or criminalise businesses who raise prices in an emergency are advocating a position that will make that inconvenience worse. Unfortunately, the handful of comments that support the price rises appear to amount to "That's capitalism. Get over it.", which, although the conclusion is correct, is devoid of any argument that should change anyone's mind.

Quote of the day

2005-06-19T17:15:00.000Z

I don't understand why journalists are making such a fuss about this.

So says Father Daniel, a Romanian Orthodox priest, who is accused of murdering a nun by crucifixion.

Now that's what I call art.

2005-06-15T17:00:00.000Z

Click here now. Don't say "I'll come back to it later", you'll only forget. Go there now. If you reckon you have time to waste reading my blog, then this is a vastly better spent five minutes than whatever it was you intended to do when you left. It truly is a work of genius. Like I said, go there now.

Via Chris Lightfoot.

A missed opportunity

2005-06-14T18:31:00.000Z

I've just had an offer accepted to buy a flat. If I had been a little more patient, and prepared to move out of St. Andrews, I could have bought 101 Main Street, Lower Largo. This property stands on the site of the cottage where Alexander Selkirk, a.k.a. Robinson Crusoe, was born, and comes complete with Robinson Crusoe's statue. It needs a bit of upgrading, apparently, but fifty grand for a flat and the statue is peanuts, and owning Robin Crusoe's statue would be kinda cool.

On the other hand, it would be a dreadful nuisance to have to wait to be rescued by a ship every morning before you could get into work.

Cyclotouriste is easy to get along with

2005-06-12T09:20:00.000Z

Find out why here.

Via Catallarchy and digamma.

This is the thin end of a wedge

2005-06-12T08:10:00.000Z

A few weeks ago, Richard, of Militant Moderate, when following up on the 1952 committee, wondered if I would use this blog to encourage would-be Tory voters to remember the Tories' muddle on the ID card issue before they cast their votes. I replied that I wouldn't. Anyone who's interested why should count the frequency of my posts on this blog. It's typically about once a month, maybe twice a month if I'm feeling frisky. I have no intention of changing that [How on earth do proper bloggers ever get any work done?], so I'm not going to start writing posts just because someone else has decided that I ought to. Now, Patrick Crozier has decided that I ought to write about the books I have read. However, since this is an infinitely more interesting subject than the general election, I'll make an exception. Just this once, mind.

How many books do you own?
I'm not sure, but not very many. It can't be much more than 500. Still, there's plenty of time yet to build the sort of book collection that every respectable gentleman ought to have.

Last book read
New Ideas from Dead Economists: An Introduction to Modern Economic Thought, Todd G. Buchholz. I had spent half-an-hour, or so, snoozing in the Cambridge branch of Borders - it has very comfy armchairs, you see. Free-riding like this always makes me feel a bit guilty, so I usually buy something from them whenever I do this. New ideas ... was the purchase on this occasion. I read it in a couple of days. It's a very nice account of the important ideas in economics, and the personalities behind them, and it should prove a useful tool in the careful induction of certain anti-globalisation acquaintances of mine into the realm of more sensible thought.

Last book(s) purchased
New Ideas... See above
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith. Liked the film, bought the book. Not read it yet.
Choice: The Best of Reason, Nick Gillespie (ed). Columns from the libertarian magazine.
Letter from America, Alistair Cook. I'm a devoted fan. I listen to his tapes every night to lull myself to sleep. I guess I've virtually memorised his tribute to Dean Acheson by now.
How to Lie with Statistics, Darrell Huff. A vital manual in the art of propaganda. Some of the references seem a bit dated though. I mean, nobody takes trade union leaders seriously these days, do they?
The Bourne Trilogy, Robert Ludlum. Great films, great books, even though by the time you get to the second installment, the plots are radically different.
Fountains of Paradise, Arthur C. Clarke. If space travel ever becomes safe and affordable, space elevators may be the way it's done. This is the book where the idea originated.
Lonely Planet: Scandinavian Europe, Glenda Bendure, Graeme Cornwallis (ed). Needed for backpacking last year. I'll show you my photos sometime.

Name five books that mean a lot to you
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell. Did I ever tell you that I am paranoid? It's all George Orwell's fault.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes. Probably the most exciting book I've ever read.
The Machinery of Freedom, David Friedman. I used to tell people that I was an anarchist, but didn't really mean it. Now, I tell people I'm an anarchist and this time I'm deadly serious.
University Physics, Francis W. Sears, Mark W. Zemansky, Hugh D. Young. I read this when I was fourteen and thought "this relativity malarky isn't as difficult as everyone pretends". At that moment, I decided I wanted to be a physicist when I grew up. And so I became one.
The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins. The finest popular account of the theory of natural selection available.

Honourable mention to:
A History of Torture, George Riley Scott. Not because it means much to me, but because whenever anyone visits my house for the first time and peruses the books in my living room, they will spot this book, take it off the shelf, flick through it and exclaim "Good God! What does that say about the sort of person you are?" Everyone does this, without fail, as if they've been programmed. I'm not sure what it says about me, but it certainly says something about human nature.

Five people to tag
You do realise that over 6 billion people will be required to play the thirteenth iteration of this carry on? I predict that it won't last.
Scott Scheule, Stuart Dickson, Bishop Hill, David Farrer, William Connolley. If none of them read this, then too bad.

Here's a joke about books:
If all the books by the Bronte sisters were published in a single volume, it would be called a Bronte-saurus. (Written by a colleague of mine.)

Hide your driving habits

2005-06-05T08:58:00.000Z

What do you do when the Government proposes a policy package that includes an idea which you favour (replacing fuel duty and Vehicle Excise Duty with a system of road pricing) and one that scares the willies out of you (another technological step on the road to a surveillance state)?

I know what it is like to be under surveillance, or rather, to discover that you were under surveillance after the fact -- not by the state, but by criminals. One morning, when I was a teenager, we discovered that our family car was missing from our driveway. The police recovered it the same day after it had been used as a getaway car in the armed robbery of a post office on the other side of the city. (One benefit of being the victim of such a crime is that it adds a certain cachet to a dreary vehicle like a Montego. When I started driving it, any ridicule at this magnificent specimen of British engineering would be met with the response "Mock ye not. It was once a getaway car in an armed robbery.") One of the policemen involved in the investigation said to us "I don't mean to alarm you, but I think it likely that you were being watched."

Think about what those criminals would have known about us. They would have known that, at our house, there lived some teenage boys who might come home very late at night at the weekends, but rarely during the week. They would have known that on alternate weeks, my father would be driven to work by a colleague and would leave the car at home. They would have known that the car was parked out of sight of anyone leaving the front door, and that if my father didn't look over his shoulder as he left the gate, he wouldn't notice that the car was missing. They would have known that the car wouldn't be used until later that morning, when, say, my mother would drive to the supermarket. She didn't discover that the car was missing until nearly 10am, by which time the armed robbery had already occurred. If, for the sake of argument, she had been a nurse working night shifts, her arrival home at 6am would have meant that the police would be hunting the robbers four hours earlier. With hindsight, it appears that we were the ideal targets for such a crime.

So, my knee-jerk response to the Government's plan is to think that it is a charter for armed robbers. I have no idea how many of us are suitable targets for such a theft. Perhaps, with enough knowledge about our habits, we are all suitable targets, but presumably some of us are better targets than others. By collecting detailed data on car usage, the state will be doing some of the robbers' work for them. Some of the information that would be useful to such a robber will be contained in that database. All that is then required is a suitable bribe to a corrupt bureaucrat with access to the database and, with a little data-mining, you could easily find out who is in the habit of not using his car until late in the morning. Steal that car, and the police are unlikely to hear about it until you no longer need it.

Of course, we can expect to hear some waffle about safeguards to prevent abuse of the data. Perhaps the detailed data will be promptly destroyed, and only aggregate data will be kept for the purposes of billing, or maybe the punishment for illegally selling the data will be boiling in oil. Even so, the idea is decidedly creepy.

It's not as if there aren't alternative technologies that would serve the same purpose, but without the violation of privacy. We could simply hand over cash at a toll booth. Or, if slowing down for a toll booth is too inconvenient, we could use pre-paid cards that use anonymous digital cash and respond to a radio signal from an automatic toll booth, without any need to slow down.

"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." I'd quite like to hide my driving habits, if that's all right with you.

Election Commentary

2005-05-08T10:57:00.000Z

I'm afraid that I don't have very much to say about the general election result, other than to note that the party advocating that the state should spend 42.4% of the GDP saw its share of the vote fall by 6.2 points, while the party advocating that the state should spend 41.9% of the GDP saw its share of the rise by 0.6 points and the party advocating that the state should spend 43.3% of the GDP saw its share of the vote rise by 3.1 points. (Those figures are subject to correction if I can ever be bothered to look them up.)

However, a couple of posts ago, I revealed that I intended not to vote, the reason being to provide myself with a means of introducing the subjects of rational ignorance and rational irrationality into my conversations. I kept my word - I didn't vote, but rather than bore you with the minutiae of the costs of gathering and analysing information, externalities, free-rider problems and so forth, I shall instead direct you to this little parable about the consequences of rational ignorance and rational irrationality.

Voter turnout and military coups

2005-04-25T22:24:00.000Z

In my last post, I wondered if there was any evidence that low voter turnout was a problem. Patrick Crozier has been thinking similar thoughts, and, like Patrick, I am convinced that it matters not a jot. What matter are the policies that the parties offer, and since they are trying to win an election by getting as many votes as possible, in a two party system, we may expect, to a first approximation, both parties to offer very similar policies that satisfy the preferences of the median voter [1]. If the parties are offering bad policies, this may be attributed, in part, to the rational ignorance and rational irrationality of the median voter [2]. Thus, if we wish to argue that high voter turnout is a good thing, we would have to show that the median voter of the set of all people entitled to vote is better informed and more rational than the median voter of the subset of people who exercise their vote. There is no a priori reason to suppose that this is so. Indeed, if we could encourage the view that if you take little interest in politics and economics, and spend little time trying to understand how policies would work, then it is perfectly acceptable and responsible not to vote, then we may even see the parties offering better policies.

However, there is another argument that can be made. It is possible that high turnouts may help to prevent coups. A revolutionary leader has to enjoy widespread support, or else he may be faced with a counter-revolution. In a democracy, there is a common perception that the winner of an election is somehow morally entitled to rule. So, is it not possible that electoral turnout may signal to would-be coup-plotters how much resistance they may expect in the event of their enacting their coup, and so influence their judgement about whether it is worth risking it? With a high turnout, most people accept that the winner is legitimate and so any coup would be met with stiff resistance. With a low turnout, most people regard the election as a sham, and so a coup leader would be, in their eyes, no less a legitimate leader than any winner of an election, and if they can't be bothered to vote, they are even less likely to risk their lives to help put down a revolution. This is what I had in mind when I asked my question a couple of weeks ago.

I still haven't found any academic research into the consequences of low voter turnout (although, to be honest, I haven't spent much time looking), but I did find the website of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, where they have published turnout data for general elections around the world since 1945. If we are willing to select our anecdotes and commit the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, then we could point out that in Pakistan, the general election in 1997 that preceded General Musharaf's coup of 1999 had a turnout of 35% of registered voters (or 32% of the voting-age population (VAP)); in the Phillipines, Ferdinand Marcos's suspension of parliament in 1972 and assumption of absolute power in 1973 was preceded by a general election in 1969 in which only 13% of the VAP voted (due to a low registration rate - there was a turnout of 89% of registered voters); Ne Win led a military coup in Burma in 1962, the election of 1956 had a turnout of 35% of the VAP (52% of registered voters) (according to the BBC's timeline for Burma, there was an election in 1960, but IDEA's data appear to be incomplete); in Thailand the general election of 1946 had a turnout of 27% of the VAP (32% of registered voters) and was followed by Phibun Songkhram's coup of 1947; Chad had an election in 1997 in which 26% of the VAP voted (50% of registered voters) and in 1998, Youssouf Togoimi launched an armed rebellion against the government; Kenneth Kaunda turned Zambia into a one party state in 1972, the election of 1968 had a turnout of 32% of registered voters (50% of the VAP - out of a VAP of 1.9 million, only 3 million people were registered to vote); Idi Amin became ruler of Uganda in a coup in 1971, the election of 1962 had a turnout of 32% of the VAP (67% of registered voters).

Of course, an analysis like that should not be taken seriously. With a little more effort, I'm sure we could find examples of stable democracies that often have low turnouts at elections and a proper analysis would have to account for all sorts of other factors that might contribute to a situation that would result in a coup. I'd also bet that there is too little data to get a statistically significant result. Nevertheless, it does suggest that I'll have to be careful when I use my snappy response to any scolding I get for not voting.

Here's a joke about the downfall of democracy:
Johnnie Beattie, the Scottish comedian, is reputed to have attended a fancy dress party dressed in a soldier's tunic, with a single angel's wing on his back and udders dangling between his legs. When asked what he was dressed as, he said, "I'm a right-wing military coo." (It has to be read in a Scottish accent to work.)

Footnotes:

[1] Any differences in the parties' policies may reflect uncertainty as to what the preferences of the median voter are, deviations of voters' preferences from a strictly one dimensional spectrum, deviations from a two party system, collective irrationality of internal party politics etc.

[2] This doesn't mean that the median voter is personally responsible for the parties' bad policies: if he recognises his rational ignorance and rational irrationality and strives to correct them, he will merely join the sect of irrationally informed and irrationally rational cranks, and someone else, who nearly shared his original preferences, will assume the position of median voter. Only if large numbers of voters change their preferences will the parties' policies significantly follow suit.

Does a low turnout threaten democracy?

2005-04-11T17:13:00.000Z

In this general election, I intend not to vote. I don't promise that I won't vote - that's just my intention at this time. The superficial reason for my not voting is that every party has, as far as I can tell, at least one policy which I find objectionable*. That can't be a very good reason, however, because it's been true of every general election in which I have been able to vote, and this is the first general election that I intend to sit out. After much introspection, I worked out some time ago that my real reason for voting whichever way I did, was to provide myself with a conversational gambit. Last time I voted Conservative because I wanted to shock my friends. (It worked too - one friend was so shocked he assaulted me.) This time, I want to lecture my friends about the economics of rational ignorance and rational irrationality. Therefore, the logical choice is not to vote.

Inevitably this carries some risks. It is likely that I will encounter some self-important prig, who will berate me for my irresponsibility and how, if everyone behaved the way I did, democracy would come to an end. To this I have a snappy response: Can you name any examples of democracies collapsing as a result of a low voter turnout? Appealing though this strategy is, it potentially suffers from one flaw: the self-important prigs might be right. It would be terribly embarrassing if they then proceed to chime off a long list of democracies whose collapse was preceeded by a general election with a low turnout. Germany, 1933, perhaps? Or Chile, 1970? I have no idea. Unfortunately, a brief excursion into Google suggested that a much longer excursion would be required, so I'll take the lazy way out. Does anyone else know the answer to that question, or whether there is any academic research on the consequences of low voter turnout?

If you really think that low voter turnout is a serious problem, then read this.

If poetry is more to your taste, then here's a poem about democracy written by Scotland's greatest bard.

*UPDATE: When I wrote this, I had, in the back of my mind the thought that the UK Independence Party might be an exception. I have no particular objection to their policy of withdrawal from the EU. They are opposed to ID cards, as am I, and a while ago, when one of their spokesmen was on Question Time, he voiced the opinion that it was time to think about legalising drugs, which I favour. I had a hunch, however, that I probably disagreed with their immigration policy, but being rationally ignorant, I was too lazy to find out for sure. Now, thanks to Mark Holland, the fantastically camp entertainer, I am happy to say that I can withold my vote from the UKIP, secure in the knowledge that I not only find their approach to immigration objectionable, but downright despicable.

The nature of the Scots

2005-03-17T17:59:00.000Z

P. J. O'Rourke has this to say about the Scots:

Racial Characteristics:
Sour, stingy, depressing beggars who parade around in schoolgirl skirts with nothing on underneath. Their fumbled attempt at speaking the English language has been a source of amusement for five centuries, and their idiot music has been dreaded by those not blessed with deafness for at least as long. The latter is produced on a device resembling five flutes that have grown a piss bladder. Formerly, the Scots painted themselves blue and ranged far and wide over the British Isles, but good fortune prevailed and they were conquered by their betters. What passes for an alcoholic beverage in the dreary province to which the Scots have been driven has enjoyed a short vogue among fairies and advertising types, but this appears to be giving way to cocaine.

Good Points:
Attractive plaids.

Proper Forms of Address:
Scotty, Jock, legs, plaid ass.

An Anecdote Illustrating Something of the Scots Character:
In recent years, the small Scottish Nationalist movement has become so desperate that it's been kidnapping money and ransoming it for people.

What he says about the English is too obscene to be repeated here.

Via Radley Balko.

Googlewhack

2005-03-11T22:33:00.000Z

At the time of posting, this blog is the only page on the web which Google finds when you search for millihelens winston.

An old proverb

2005-03-10T22:18:00.000Z

If at first you don't succeed, you're fired.

Lou Grade, apparently.

The zombie as an extended phenotype

2005-03-07T21:22:00.000Z

A question occurred to me today: Why don't flesh-eating zombies ever turn on each other? It's not as if these creatures are particularly hygenic or well known for their personal grooming habits. What is it that gives them such a discerning palate that they must seek out fresh meat for sustenance, when meat, a few days dead, may be much closer to hand? Normally, when you see them, they hang around in large, frightening mobs to hunt down the living. You would think that some of them would spare themselves the bother and eat one of their own kind, yet you hardly ever see this happen.

The answer, of course lies in evolutionary biology. The most compelling interpretation of the Theory of Natural Selection is the neo-Darwinian synthesis, famously popularised by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. According to this view, Natural Selection acts upon the replicating units, meaning those entities which are copied from one generation to the next, namely the genes. Consequently, when attempting to understand an evolutionary adaptation, such as an organ or a pattern of behaviour, it is a mistake to consider the effect that it would have on the interests of the organism. Instead, what should be considered, is the effect it has on the reproductive success of the genes which are correlated with the adaptation. A heritable trait, which allows someone to live a long and happy life, will not survive many generations if most of the carriers of the corresponding genes are also rendered infertile. Conversely, the self-destructive sexual impluses of the male mantis may not serve the mantis very well, but they ensure that his genes are copied into the next generation.

Applying this to the problem in question, we need to identify the genes associated with the zombies' behaviour pattern. According to The Zombie Survival Guide, zombies are carriers of the solanum virus, which spreads via infected bodily fluids entering the bloodstream of a victim, such as by a bite. Thus, we should consider a zombie's taste for living flesh not as a source of energy, but as an adaptation, which aids the replicatation of the genes of the solanum virus. Seen in this light, it should be clear why zombies shun the meat of their fellows and seek out meat of the living: a zombie which tried to eat other zombies would be doing nothing to reproduce the solanum virus, as it would be trying to infect a victim that is already infected. Therefore, mutations of the virus which caused their carriers to eat other zombies would be out-reproduced by mutations which induced them to seek out uninfected victims. Hence, we tend not to see such mutations, and their associated behaviour patterns, in nature. Q.E.D.

This raises another question. Rabies is a similar virus, which spreads by inducing its carriers to bite other animals. Presumably the same logic applies. So, is there any tendency for rabid animals to preferentially bite uninfected victims? If we were to put some rabid animals in a cage with non-rabid animals, would the rabid animals leave each other alone and attack the non-rabid ones?

Go and read The Extended Phenotype by Richard Dawkins.

Just fancy that!

2005-02-15T20:23:00.000Z

A few years ago, you may recall, some vandal lopped the head off some statue of some politician to make some political point about something or other.

It was irreparably damaged.

BBC news online, 8 March 2004.

Headless Thatcher statue restored

BBC news online, 14 February 2005.

Something I didn't know when I got out of bed this morning

2005-02-15T19:40:00.000Z

Lamborghini make tractors, and have done so since before they made cars.

With its sleek, aerodynamc design and doing 0 to 20 in 9.6 seconds, this is the machine for letting everyone know that you own the road. Forget the humiliation of having some teenage boy-racer in a rusty, twelve-year-old Rover whizz past you on those winding country roads. Its massive wheelbase of 8 feet and cabin reaching 12 feet into the sky will virtually guarantee that no-one will overtake you ever again. Don't be fooled by the ... (cont. page 93)

By yon bonny banks...

2005-02-09T22:54:00.000Z

For those of you who hate maths, here are some views of Scotland.

Loch Lomond:

A view from the Rest And Be Thankful:

A bridge, just outside Inverary:

A silly little puzzle in Quantum Field Theory

2005-02-09T21:49:00.000Z

This is a problem which occurred to me, and I solved, during Tuesday lunchtime.

Let A(t) and B(t) be scalar field operator operators on a Fock space. The normal product, N(A B), and the time-ordered product T(A B) are defined in the usual way, and the commutator, [A,B], is a c-number. It can therefore be shown that

A B = N(A B) + [A+,B-] = N(A B) + <0|A B|0>

where A+ is the positive frequency component of A, B- is the negative frequency component of B and |0> is the vacuum state vector.

We also have Wick's Theorem for two operators:

T(A B) = N(A B) + <0|T(A B)|0>

How can we calculate the combination of time-ordered and normal products, T[N(A B)]?

One way is to write everything out explicitly. Let h denote the Heavyside step function, there being no theta on my keyboard.

T[N(A(t1) B(t2)] =

T[(A+)(t1)(B+)(t2) + (B-)(t2)(A+)(t1) + (A-)(t1)(B+)(t2) + (A-)(t1)(B-)(t2)]

= h(t1-t2) [(A+)(t1)(B+)(t2) + (A+)(t1)(B-)(t2) + (A-)(t1)(B+)(t2) + (A-)(t1)(B-)(t2)]

+ h(t2-t1) [(B+)(t2)(A+)(t1) + (B+)(t2)(A-)(t1) + (B-)(t2)(A+)(t1) + (B-)(t2)(A-)(t1)]

= h(t1-t2) A(t1) B(t2) + h(t2-t1) B(t2) A(t1)

= T[A(t1) B(t2)]

Another way is to use the identities stated above:

T[N(A B)] = T[A B - <0|A B|0>]

= T(A B) - <0|T(A B)|0>

= N(A B)

So, we have two ways of calculating T[N(A B)]. One way gives T(A B) and the other gives N(A B). They should have given the same answer, but didn't.

What's gone wrong?

UPDATE: Bishop Hill is worried that my equation count may be a little high.

Three things

2004-12-22T22:10:00.000Z

I've just found out via Jackie D and others, that it's the fashion to reveal lists of three things about yourself. Here's mine:

Three Names You Go By:
1. Andy
2. Andrew
3. Dr. Wood

Three Things You Like About Yourself:
1. Modesty forbids
2. Modesty forbids
3. Modesty forbids

Three Things You Dislike About Yourself:
1. Pugnacious
2. Arrogant
3. None of your business

Three Parts of Your Heritage:
1. Teuchter
2. Sassenach
3. Blue blood, via the bastard offspring of the Duke of *******.

Three Things That Scare You:
1. I'm not telling you that. Haven't you read 1984?
2. Didn't you ever wonder how O'Brien knew that Winston was afraid of rats?
3. It'll be printed on our ID cards before you know it.

Three of Your Everyday Essentials:
1. My house keys
2. My office keys
3. My car keys

Three Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1. Black jeans
2. A blue shirt
3. A water resistant watch

Three of Your Favorite Bands/Artists (at the moment):
1. Ella Fitzgerald
2. J. S. Bach
3. Ricky Martin

Three of Your Favorite Songs at Present:
1. Canon in D, by Johann Pachelbel
2. The Music of the Night, by Andrew Lloyd Webber
3. Master of the House, by Herbert Kretzmer

Three New Things You Want to Try in the Next 12 Months:
1. Learn to play the piano
2. Learn to count cards
3. I think I've tried nearly everything I want to do at least once

Three Things You Want in a Relationship (love is a given):
1. Cooking
2. Cleaning
3. No heavy lifting

Two Truths and a Lie:
1. I once went night-clubbing in Los Angeles with Aneka, who had the No. 1 hit Japanese Boy in 1981.
2. I once spent over £500 in one night in a lap dancing club.
3. I am a distant cousin of Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye and star of Have I Got News For You.

Three Physical Things About the Opposite Sex That Appeal to You:
1. Big, brown eyes
2. Long, dark, curly hair
3. Perhaps I'd better not say

Three Things You Just Can't Do:
1. Nod quietly, in feigned agreement
2. Watch people sticking needles in their arms
3. Drink more than five pints of beer in one night

Three of Your Favorite Hobbies:
1. Scuba diving
2. Skiing
3. Swimming

Three Things You Want to do Really Badly Right Now:
1. The washing up
2. Go to bed
3. Other than that, I'm quite content

Three Places You Want to Go on Vacation:
1. India
2. Brazil
3. Cornwall

Three Kids' Names:
1. Sine
2. Alasdair
3. Calum

Three Things You Want to Do Before You Die:
1. Solve Quantum Gravity
2. Witness a nuclear explosion
3. Conquer the known world

Astrology

2004-12-19T17:48:00.000Z

One of my party tricks is guessing people's star signs with astonishing accuracy. It's very easy. All you have to do is choose your target, identify a friend of your target who is likely to know such things and, when your target is out of earshot, ask the friend to tell you your target's star sign. At an opportune moment, you can then reveal to your target your talent for guessing star signs with astonishing accuracy.

"You're a Capricorn, aren't you?"

"Wow! That's amazing! How did you do that?"

"Oh, you know. There are one or two things that give it away."

Sometimes this technique works:

"When's your birthday?"

"The third of December."

"Don't tell me. You're a Sagitarius, aren't you?"

"Wow! That's amazing! How did you do that?"

"Oh, you know. There are one or two things that give it away."

Although, it's usually best to leave a gap of a month or two between "The third of December" and "Don't tell me. You're a Sagitarius, aren't you?"

So. Saturday night. A couple of girls in my company decide to try to guess my star sign.

"Gemini, isn't it?"

"No."

Recognising the opportunity, I single out the boyfriends of the aforementioned girls, and learn that they are both Cancer.

Later that evening:

"So, have you worked out my star sign yet?"

"Is it Pisces?"

"No, it's not Pisces."

"It must be Leo. You're definitely a Leo."

I can't help smirking.

"You are a Leo, aren't you."

"No, I'm not a Leo."

"Virgo?"

"Not Virgo either."

"All right, I give up. What are you then?"

"Scorpio."

I spring my party trick:

"I reckon you must be a Cancer, G. In fact, I think you're a Cancer too, N."

"Oh yeah, I know. It's so obvious, isn't it. We're both such typical Cancers, aren't we?"

????????

It's never fallen flat on me like that before.

Beautiful railway bridge over the silvery Tay

2004-12-15T20:35:00.000Z

Brian Micklethwait likes beautiful bridges. Here's a picture of one of the original beautiful bridges:

Click for a larger image (1M)

I took this picture from the top of the volcano in the middle of Dundee.

The Great William Topaz McGonagall wrote no less than three poems about the Tay railway bridges. Here's one of them:

The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay

BEAUTIFUL Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array
And your central girders, which seem to the eye
To be almost towering to the sky.
The greatest wonder of the day,
And a great beautification to the River Tay,
Most beautiful to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
That has caused the Emperor of Brazil to leave
His home far away, incognito in his dress,
And view thee ere he passed along en route to Inverness.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
The longest of the present day
That has ever crossed o'er a tidal river stream,
Most gigantic to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
Which will cause great rejoicing on the opening day
And hundreds of people will come from far away,
Also the Queen, most gorgeous to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
And prosperity to Provost Cox, who has given
Thirty thousand pounds and upwards away
In helping to erect the Bridge of the Tay,
Most handsome to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
I hope that God will protect all passengers
By night and by day,
And that no accident will befall them while crossing
The Bridge of the Silvery Tay,
For that would be most awful to be seen
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
And prosperity to Messrs Bouche and Grothe,
The famous engineers of the present day,
Who have succeeded in erecting the Railway
Bridge of the Silvery Tay,
Which stands unequalled to be seen
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Ding dong the witch is dead

2004-12-15T19:47:00.000Z

He's gone.

Jack Straw for Home Secretary.

I can't believe I just said that.

I'm not voting Tory

2004-12-13T22:30:00.000Z

My heart sank on reading this.

My next sentence was goint to be "I eagerly anticipate the forthcoming resignations of ..." followed by a long list of shadow cabinet ministers whom we could expect to resign. Sadly, the only one I could find expressing opposition to ID cards was John Redwood. (One of Google's hits for "ID cards" and "Theresa May" is a porn site, in case anyone's interested.) I don't feel inclined to do the same exercise for the junior front-bench spokesmen, although I do know that Alan Duncan is unequivically opposed to ID cards - he said so on Question Time the other week.

So, I eagerly anticipate the forthcoming resignations of John Redwood and Alan Duncan.

If you have any evidence of any other Tory front-benchers who have expressed opposition to ID cards, then say so in the comments.

UPDATE: Alan Duncan's book Saturn's Children is classified under Science Fiction & Fantasy at Amazon.

UPDATE: Apparently Oliver Letwin, David Davis and Tim Yeo had "serious reservations" about the new policy, with Michael Howard having to deny that Tim Yeo said the plans "stink". No signs of any resignations yet.

Peter Lilley is opposed to the new policy, and has always opposed ID cards, as you already new. Unfortunately, he cannot resign in protest. (Via Mark Holland.)

Poor old Boris. If only he had hung on for a few more weeks, he could have had a proper resignation.

Another mathematics joke

2004-12-05T21:21:00.000Z

This is shameless plagiarism from Vox Baby, via Catallarchy, but it made me laugh:

[T]here are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.

A slogan designed by a committee

2004-12-02T19:33:00.000Z

A commenter at Samizdata tells us that the slogan on the cars of his local police force is "Protect and Serve". Here is the corresponding slogan of my local police force:

Which one do you think suggests that the police know what they're supposed to be doing?

UPDATE: Mark posits the absurd conjecture that the members of the aforementioned committee are aspiring poets:

Are you sure they weren't just trying for a nifty rhyme?

I'm looking forward to "kicking hide in Strathclyde" and "keeping the streets from going mean in Aberdeen"

I refute it thus:

Of course not, Mark. The Great McGonagall was from Dundee, so such stirring poetry could only be found on the other side of the Tay:

Keeping robbers and murderers and felons,
And miscellaneous other villains,
At bay,
On the banks of the Silvery Tay.

Mind you, I suppose Burns could have supplied one for the west coast:

To a'guid Gentlefolk o'Ayrshire,
The Constabul'ry declares wi' Pleasure,
We shall dutif'ly guard your Treasure,
From Larceny,
By gien Villains in no ha'Measure,
The Third Degree.

Paranoid prediction for 2005

2004-11-28T21:51:00.000Z

P. J. Howard of Somerset is going to receive a 3 a.m. knock on the door.

Link via Peter Cuthbertson and Matthew Turner.

UPDATE: Are you paranoid if you believe they're out to get someone else?

UPDATE, 30/11/04: P. J. Howard's comment has now been removed from the Proud of Britain website.

UPDATE, 02/12/04: Apparently, I've been linking to the wrong Proud of Britain website. I should have been linking to this Proud of Britain website. So, if you're Proud of Britain, then go to the Proud of Britain website and tell everyone how Proud of Britain you really are. Childish, isn't it?

The Better Rent-Seeking Guide

2004-11-27T08:48:00.000Z

In last week's Spectator, Peter Oborne wrote about the Conservative Party's strategy for winning the next election. It is based on the observation that, roughly, there are three categories of voter: those who will vote for you no matter what, those who will vote against you no matter what and swing voters who may or may not vote for you. Any campaigning aimed at voters in the first two categories is a waste of effort, so it makes senses to concentrate on the swing voters, and, in particular, the swing voters in marginal constituencies. All of this is obvious and uninteresting. The story in Oborne's article is that the Tories have purchased a state-of-the-art database, called Voter Vault, and are going to use sophisticated statistical profiling to identify who the swing voters are, so that they can be targetted by canvassers and individually tailored campaign literature. The Tories' database, is supposedly better than Labour's, and was used successfully by the Republicans in the U.S. presidential election, hence the excitement.

It occurs to me that this campaigning strategy should be useful not only for the politcal parties. We should expect most voters to be rationally ignorant and have only a vague idea of the parties' policies, other than those that are continually discussed in the media. On minor policy issues, therefore, the parties will have considerable freedom to choose their policies without threatening their support in safe seats. However, if the parties are targetting their campaigns at swing voters in marginal constituencies, then we might expect those voters to be much better informed about the parties' policies than average. It follows that the parties are likely to choose some of their minor policies to maximise their support amongst those swing voters, safe in the knowledge that they will not affect their support amongst the rest of the electorate. Consequently, the swing voters in marginal constituencies will have a disproportionate influence over the policies offered by the parties, and hence followed by the government.

Now, imagine that you are the member of some interest group that would benefit if the government pursued a particular policy. You might be a libertarian who wants the drugs laws to be liberalised, or an environmentalist who wants recycling to be made compulsory. Or you could be a businessman who wants a tarriff to protect you from foreign competition. Or perhaps you are just Paul and you want the government to rob Peter. How should you persuade the government to do what you want? You might lobby or bribe ministers and MPs, or give donations to party funds. Or you could mount a publicity campaign to persuade voters that you have a worthy cause and they should vote for a party that promises your favoured policy. If you adopt the latter strategy, the above analysis suggests that it might be more effective to target your publicity at the same voters that the parties are targetting in their election campaigns. Is there any evidence that special interest groups are doing this? Or, if this election strategy is only a recent thing, will we see the interest groups doing it in the near future?

It is sometimes argued that one cause of bad policy is that popular ideas tend to be those which can be expressed as simple, emotionally appealing slogans, which bears no relation to whether the ideas are any good. Thus, an interest group whose favoured policies depend on such ideas will have an advantage in mass publicity campaigns over competing interest groups who favour different policies, which can only be justified by sophisticated arguments. But this advantage is not so great if there is a small number of voters, or only a small fraction of them are important in an election. It's easy enough to buy advertising time to remind millions of people of your simple slogans every day; educating them with a sophisticated argument is not an option. With far fewer voters, the simple slogans are still as persuasive, but the sophisticated argument might just become affordable. If, for example, we were to send each of the swing voters identified by Tories' database a free copy of, say, Free to Choose, would we see the parties move to a more laissez faire economic policy? Or is that wishful thinking? Are the numbers still too large for that sort of thing to be feasible? Or would targetted campaigning become the bane of the swing voter's life and Free to Choose would end up in the bin with the rest of the junk mail, in which case we would be back where we started and the simple slogans would win through once more?

Twenty eight grand for a cheese toastie

2004-11-24T18:47:00.000Z

According to the BBC:

A decade-old toasted cheese sandwich said to bear an image of the Virgin Mary has sold on the eBay auction website for $28,000.

I don't know about anyone else, but I reckon it looks more like Greta Garbo.

Separated at birth? I think we should be told.

A physical paradox

2004-10-18T20:33:00.000Z

This one should interest scuba divers and physicists alike. I learnt it from a physics lecturer about five years ago.

You have a perfectly rigid jar, which is sealed and filled with a perfectly incompressible liquid. Within the liquid, at the bottom of the jar is a small bubble filled with an ideal gas. Since the gas is less dense than the liquid, it is buoyant and must rise.

However, since the liquid at the bottom of the jar must support the liquid above it, the pressure at the bottom is higher than the pressure at the top. So as the bubble rises, it moves from a region of high pressure to a region of low pressure.

But, the bubble is filled with an ideal gas, so as the pressure on it drops, it must expand.

But, the bubble is confined in an incompressible liquid within a rigid jar, so there is nowhere for it to expand into.

Therefore, the bubble can't expand.

Therefore, the bubble can't rise.

What's gone wrong?

Beck's mistress wanks pig on telly outrage

2004-10-07T20:24:00.000Z

That should send my hit-rate soaring. Read it all here. It's got pictures too.

Mark Holland huffs about the brewing scandal.

This caught my attention:

Loos — among celebrities acting as farmhands in the programme — donned rubber gloves after she was picked to stimulate the boar in a barn and collect its semen.

It took her ten minutes to fill a flask with nearly three quarters of a pint.

Three quarters of a pint! That's very nearly an armful!

More railway economics

2004-09-19T21:26:00.000Z

At Transport Blog, I have a brief posting referencing some articles on Ronald Coase and the railways.

The coming apocalypse and how to survive it

2004-08-19T20:58:00.000Z

You have probably noticed that many of my posts are entitled "Views of Scotland". If I had chosen blogging software which allowed me to categorise my posts, I would have included "Views of Scotland" as one of the categories. Another one would have been "The coming apocalypse and how to survive it". I have a morbid fascination with the notion of an apocalypse and I am determined, if at all possible, that were an apocalypse to occur, I should be one of the survivors. So, naturally, I have read the Preparing for Emergencies booklet from cover to cover. It's a bit of a disappointment. The old Protect and Survive booklet was a much better read, containing lots of fun things to do, like building a fallout shelter in your living room. To be fair, I suppose the emergencies in question, while nasty, fall somewhat short of an apocalypse, so the target audience is likely to include many more people than your typical apocalypse enthusiasts.

One book, which looks like it might be worth a read, is the Zombie Survival Guide, excerpts of which are available here. Having been scared witless by such films as Twenty Eight Days Later, and the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead, it comes as a relief to learn that

...the body of the undead is, for all practical purposes, human. What changes do occur are in the way this new, reanimated body is used by the now-infected brain. There is no way a zombie could fly unless the human it used to be could fly. The same goes for projecting force fields, teleportation, moving through solid objects, transforming into a wolf, breathing fire, or a variety of other mystical talents attributed to the walking dead. Imagine the human body as a tool kit. The somnambuli brain has those tools, and only those tools, at its disposal. It cannot create new ones out of thin air.

Snippets of information such as this are essential for reducing anxiety, so that what may, at first sight, appear to be a hopeless disaster, will in reality be a manageable ordeal.

For more on the coming apocalypse, read Brian Micklethwait's The Menace of the Apocalyptic Individual.

Heads I win, tails you lose

2004-08-09T20:57:00.000Z

I regret missing Crossing Continents on Radio 4 this evening. Here's what the Radio Times had to say about it:

8.30 Crossing Continents - Crossing Europe
8/8. Taking a Chance? Rosie Goldsmith meets one man who, in an unprecedented case in France, is suing his local casino after becoming addicted to slot machines. He says the casino should have prevented him from losing all his money and destroying his life. But should a casino bear such responsibility? In Switzerland, by contrast, a government sponsored scheme trains casino staff to identify problem gamblers and offer advice.

Here is the story in more detail.

Being of a mathematical bent, I am rather fascinated by gambling and am not averse to the occasional night out in a casino. I am also intrigued by possible techniques for beating the house. One of my favourite books is The Newtonian Casino about a group of physicists who built computers for predicting the outcome of a spin of a roulette wheel. I have also earmarked card-counting as a skill to learn sometime in the future. I doubt that I'll use it for real though - I'd rather not have my legs broken if I get caught.

This one man in France, however, seems to have hit upon a remarkable wheeze. Gamble all your money away, feign a suitable amount of distress, claim that you were suffering from gambling addiction, assert that the casino is responsible for your affliction, sue the casino and get your money back, hopefully more to compensate for your suffering.

Genius. I would never have thought of it myself. I sincerely hope he loses.

Views of Scotland: Scone Palace

2004-07-25T09:05:00.000Z

This is Scone Palace, home of the Earl of Mansfield, who was a minister in Thatcher's government.

Scone was also the coronation site of the kings of Scotland. Here is a replica of the Stone of Scone, upon which the kings were crowned.

The real Stone of Scone (or perhaps a copy, who knows?) was stolen by Edward I of England in 1296 and placed in Westminster Abbey, from where it was stolen again by some student pranksters in 1950. According to Glasgow University folklore, the stone which the police eventually recovered was not the real Stone of Scone (or even the copy that Longshanks stole) but a copy (or yet another copy) and the real Stone (or the copy that Longshanks stole) is hidden somewhere in the Glasgow University Union. In 1996, on the seven hundredth anniversary of the theft of the Stone (or its copy) by Longshanks, the Conservative government returned the Stone (or the copy that Longshanks stole, or the copy that the police recovered in 1951) to Scotland, where it now resides in Edinburgh Castle.

Imagine having a graveyard in your garden. Creepy, isn't it?

Here are some of the wildlife that wander the grounds of Scone Palace.

Here is a song about the Stone of Scone.

The Wee Magic Stane

Tune: "The Auld Orange Flute", Words: John McEvoy

O the Dean o' Westminster wis a powerful man,
He held a' the strings o' the State in his hand
And a' this great power it flustered him nane
Til some rogues ran away wi' his wee magic stane.
Wi a tooreli ooreli ooreli ay etc

Noo the stane had great powers tha could dae such a thing
For without it it seemed we'd be wantin' a king.
So he called in the polis and gave this decree
Go and hunt oot the stane and return it tae me.

So the polis went keekling way up tae the north
They hunted the Clyde and they hunted the Forth,
But the wild folk up yonder just pitied them a'
For they didnae believe it wis magic at a'.

Noo the Provost o' Glesga Sir Victor by name
He was very pit oot when he heard o' the stane,
So he offered the statues that stand in George Square
That the High Churches might mak a few mair.

When the Dean of Westminster with this wis acquent
He sent for Sir Victor and made him a saint.
'But it's no use you sending your statues down heah'
Said the Dean, 'but you've given me a jolly good idea'.

So he quarried a stane o' the very sane stuff
And he dressed it all up till it looked like enough,
Then he sent for the press and announced that the stane
Had been found and returned tae Westminster again.

When the thieves found out what Westminster had done
They ran aboot diggin' up stane by the ton
And for each one they finished they entered the claim
That this wis the real and original Stane.

But the cream o' the joke still remains tae be tellt
Fur the bloke that wis turnin' them aff on the belt
At the peak o' production wis sae sorely pressed
That the real yin got bunged in along wi' the rest.

So if ever ye come on a Stane wi' a ring
Just sit yersel' doon and proclaim yersel' King.
For there's nane wid be able tae challenge yer claim
That ye'd crowned yersel' King on the Destiny Stane.

Marginal Revolution comes to Scotland

2004-07-24T21:16:00.000Z

Why on Earth is an esteemed blogger such as Tyler Cowen coming to a backwater like this place? Haggis apparently.

His colleague, Alex, who is holding the fort, asks "What makes for good Haggis?" Tim Worstall provides an incomplete answer. I blogged about this last Burns Night. Click here for the recipe.

Here's a picture of some haggises in a shop window.

Perhaps Tyler may like to sample some of our more traditional fayre. If St. Andrews is on his itineray, I could recommend to him the Jahangir restaurant, which serves Indian food, or the Nahm Jim, which serves Thai.

Jahangir

Nahm Jim

Britain's private roads

2004-07-17T09:26:00.000Z

Over at Tranpsort Blog, I quote Don Boudreaux quoting David Landes on one of the reasons that the industrial revolution began in Britain.

Views of Scotland

2004-07-13T21:54:00.000Z

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club, St. Andrews.

Charing Cross Mansions, Glasgow.

Some of the vermin we have to tolerate in St. Andrews.

Do you sleep soundly at night...

2004-06-29T19:45:00.000Z

...secure in the knowledge that the good Mr. Blunkett is using all the powers at his disposal to protect us from the menace of international terrorism?

Read this and quiver.

Via White Rose.