Archive for December, 2007
A Sapphic Ode to Pan scientiae
Dec 31st
Not a classical Sapphic ode, but I’ve plagiarised the metre and the first five words from Stephen Fry’s Example (a), so it’s close enough. Besides it’s not a proper personal blog without some bad poetry.
Let's hear it for the scientists,
Who seek the universe's cogs,
In rocks or stars or blastocysts,
Then write in blogs.
The 2007 edition of the Open Laboratory should be ready for the 2008 Science Blogging Conference. This means the nominations for The Open Laboratory 2008 edition will open soon and there tends to be an appeal for poems. There’s nothing like a good poem to open an anthology – and that’s nothing like a good poem. Take it as a challenge.
Egypt, Antiquities and Copyright
Dec 30th
Mickey Mouse Copyright Laws. Based on a photo (cc) Liber.
One of the advantages of being slow in writing is that you can look at what everyone else is saying about something. Often people will have thought about the same problem and already anticipated problems in your own line of thought, so you can avoid making a fool of yourself. Other times it’s a surprise, and this is one of those times. News from the BBC is that Egypt is ‘to copyright antiquities‘.
Egypt’s MPs are expected to pass a law requiring royalties be paid whenever copies are made of museum pieces or ancient monuments such as the pyramids and this law will apply around the world.
To a greater or lesser extent other bloggers think they can’t do this and they can’t enforce it. In contrast I think they can and they can. This isn’t just my very basic understanding of law. It’s also the fact that museums in the West have been doing this, more or less, for years. Below is where I make a fool of myself. (more…)
Rebuilding Bamiyan
Dec 25th
From Al Jazeera, the aftermath of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
Hardtalk
Dec 25th
I’m off to bed now with the intention of keeping an eye out for Santa. I’ve just caught the end of Hardtalk. If often do that and then discover I’ve missed and interesting interview, like this one with James Dyson. For Christmas Eve they were re-running Richard Dawkins.
Happy Hogswatch!
Dec 24th
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4H4ELpza0Y&rel=1]
Part two is here, but there’s 22 parts in total. Fortunately it is available on DVD.
Nero and the Comets of Doom
Dec 24th
Wonder or portent of doom? Photo (cc) Wonderferret.
Judith Weingarten at Zenobia: Empress of the East, has some thoughtful comments as a follow-up to The Star of Bethlehem Solved? in The Magi and Christmas. She starts by talking about Marco Polo’s trip to the east, and it’s a great example of how history can be a series of echoes from the past interacting with each other. She also raises three problems with Jenkins’ theory and two of them highlight how little we know about ancient astronomy. Her most serious objection is that comets are not stars, and Matthew would not have confused the two. It’s a very good point and strikes at the heart of the problem I have with some histories of ancient astronomy.
One reason that it’s reasonable to state that a comet would not be confused with a star is down to Aristotle. Aristotle puts forward his theory of comets in book one of Meteorology. He argues they’re caused by exhalations of the earth and exist in the sub-lunar realm. This would explain their unpredictability as for Aristotle the heavens were perfect and constant. Aristotle was writing in the 4th Century BC, but his ideas had great influence. More >
Atheism with one god less doesn’t work
Dec 23rd
Christian Atheism. Photo (cc) zorilla.
The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, has spoken out this Christmas against fundamentalism, including fundamentalist atheists. It’s the kind of message I agree with, or at least I would if I knew any fundamentalist atheists. I don’t know any. Fair play to Dr Morgan, he doesn’t name any so I may never find out who they are. Presumably it’s not a reference to Richard Dawkins because, for reasons I’ll show below, that would be a bit silly. It’s not surprising Dawkins gets ratty about it. But while Dawkins isn’t a fundamentalist, it’s possible one of his one-liners might explain where these fundamentalists come from.
Everybody nowadays is an atheist about Thor and Apollo. Some of us just go one god further.
Technically two lines, but it is a problem because this line doesn’t say what an atheist is. It’s a big point because there’s when you’re talking about Thor or Apollo there’s a difference in depending on whether or not you’re the sort of atheist who believes in gods.
An atheist who believes in a God? That’s the problem. (more…)
A Guided Tour of the Ghost Map
Dec 20th
An while poking around at TED following linking to Larry Lessig’s talk I found this short (10 minutes) talk on the John Snow and his map of cholera outbreaks in London.
Newgrange and the Astronomy of the Dead
Dec 20th
Entrance to Newgrange passage tomb. Photo (cc) Sophie Robson.
One of the problems with archaeoastronomy is that it’s quite hard to find an archaeological site where you can be certain astronomy was important. Even Stonehenge is problematic. A lot of people think it was related to sunrise or sunset at one of the solstices, but there’s no certainty as which one. Some people argue that it’s the midwinter sunset which is important at Stonehenge and the alignment towards the midsummer sunrise is a happy accident of geometry. As for other megalithic sites it’s often impossible to show that an alignment wasn’t due to chance. Statistical analysis of many alignments certainly show preferences for astronomical targets, but all archaeology is local and who is to say that, at any specific site, the result wasn’t due to chance?
Newgrange, a passage tomb in the Republic of Ireland, is one of the most compelling sites – if you want to demonstrate an interest in astronomy in the prehistoric British Isles. It is the strongest argument for an interest in astronomy, but at the same time one of the strongest arguments against reading ancient astronomy as an ancient scientific research programme. (more…)
More >Time to return to the OHP?
Dec 19th
Sheril Kirshenbaum has a post up on The Church of Mac and Apple Fundamentalism at The Intersection. As a recent convert to OSX naturally I’ll be buying a Kindle with an Intersection subscription on it and burning it in public. I’ll also write up my experience of switching in the New Year. In brief the hardware and OS are great, but iLife is a big disappointment. The reason I mention it is that you can flip round the Cult of Mac stereotype. Next year I’ll be giving a talk a place that only has a Microsoft PowerPoint PC for talks, and that’s not unusual. In academia it’s common to be told if you want computer projection it’s PowerPoint or nothing. This is a problem because, for the way I work, Keynote is far superior to PowerPoint. How do you convert Keynote shows to PowerPoint?
In a comment on the post Jon H helpfully suggests converting the file to PDF. That won’t work for my presentations as animations aren’t exported with the files. If I’m talking about the sun rising over the horizon I want to be able to show the sun rising.
But it has got me thinking. There are times when talks More >
