tired fools

Tonight on the BBC debating programme, Question Time, each of the leaders of the three main parties took part. Instead of sitting around a table together, as is the established format, they appear serially in front of an audience chosen from viewers based on questions they have submited. Basically they are people that give a shit. the MC, david dimbleby introduced the leader, invites a chosen audience member to ask his/her question. the questions selected were pithy and to the point. dimbleby always acting as advocate for the questioner. it made for an incredible peice of television.

the bbc is an amazing institution.

kennedy was fine, howard a fool, and blair extraordinary. just yesterday the attorney general’s advice on the legality of the iraq war war leaked. just this morning the government were forced to release it. it is the second time he’s been caught badly. first there were the intelligence exaggerations, “extensive and authoritative”. Now the “unequivocal” is revelealed to be pages of reservations and concerns. and here he is in front of a baying audience. and he was magnificent.

he sweated and gave everything he had. it was, he said, about his convictions. yes he did have to press the case, fight for what he believed was right. it was hard but worth it. and he knows there are people out there who disagree.

the audience feedback was all about information. you could have released this document here, that document there. publish your advice. the logical extension of which would presumably be that the public decide. i don’t know what the public think they’re asking for. we’ve already gone from a prime minister to a ceo, now we’re moving on to electing a chair for a public debate. he was reminded that he once promoted himself on “transparency”. one audience member even referred to thinking of him as a “white knight” back in 97 and 2001.

blair performed maginificently. i don’t know what his heart rate would have been, but fuck. i’m not sure how anyone could have done better given the facts. but on reason alone he was buried. the killer was dimbleby asking his own question right at the end. why wouldn’t you agree to appearing togther with kennedy and howard? he was all at sea. he’ll be having words with the backroom staff for not preparing him properly.

but maybe charisma is more important, he has tons of that. right now he should be groping for a large scotch and smoking something that’s been rolled between the thighs of a cuban goddess, but he’s probably placing palms together and thanking the lord that no one watches political programmes on tv.

imagine george bush in this format.

i’ve had my first google for “ejaculatory latency”.

i’m so happy, really. sigh.

Ahh the web. well, there are a couple of good pieces i read recently. first an excerpt from The Wisdom of Crowds (Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business,Economies, Societies and Nations) by james surowiecki. i haven’t read the book yet but it looks worth a read, rather in the style of malcolm gladwell. incidentally, gladwell currently has a NYT No.1 in both hardback (Blink) and paperback (tipping point). surowiecki shows how groups make good choices, better choices than any one individual over time, than most individuals any time, and often better choices than the best individual.

i could go on (again) about charles sanders peirce’s ideas on community, but i’ve blooged about that stuff before. suffice to say that community is the ultimate interpretant.

i also thought of peirce (unlimited semiosis) when i read alchemy, seth goldstein’s posts on the internet, automata, algorithm, api, and alchemy. goldstein was instrumental in raising cash for del.icio.us
del.icio.us gives us Community but no communities. however, expect this to change real soon. the delicious api is out there and usable.

photo from flikr

From Vasco, Goa.

According to investigating officer of the Mormugao police, Mr Uttam Raut Desai, the deceased couple have been identified as Shravan Shambhu Gawas (33) and Alka Shravan Gawas (25). Alka was nine months pregnant, and was supposed to deliver her child within next few days, disclosed the police officer.

Mr Desai said the police were informed of the incident at around 6 p.m. today when Shravan’s mother-in-law could not get response from the house. When policemen rushed to the house, located behind Laxmi Narayan temple, Headland-Sada, they found the couple lying on ground holding live wires in their hands. The wires were connected to a switch, informed Mr Desai.

Police sources stated that the couple ended their lives and ruled out any foul play. However, the police are yet to ascertain the reason behind this extreme step.

another friendly and successful country.

Youth minister, Mark McGowan said:

In Western Australia and in Australia generally we have large numbers of young people who are depressed and we also have a very high rate of youth suicide. It’s a strange phenomena. It doesn’t make sense for such a friendly and successful country as Australia but it’s obviously something we obviously need to do more about

you’ve gotta love a friendly and successful country

photo from flikr - australian

I learnt a new term today. Intravaginal Ejaculation Latency Time (IELT).

In a four-week study of 1,587 men, researchers report that men who suffer from premature ejaculation (PE) had an average intravaginal ejaculatory latency time (IELT) of 1.8 minutes, compared to 7.3 minutes in men who did not. Men with PE and their female partners also had higher ratings for personal distress, interpersonal difficulty with their partner, lack of ejaculation control, and dissatisfaction with sexual intercourse.

So now you know . . .

I just finished a paper entitled “Pulu: A Methodology for the Evaluation of Von Neumann Machines”. Abstract:

The development of suffix trees that paved the way for the analysis of the Internet has refined Internet QoS, and current trends suggest that the development of scatter/gather I/O will soon emerge. In fact, few theorists would disagree with the investigation of redundancy [16,16]. Our focus in our research is not on whether replication can be made homogeneous, real-time, and read-write, but rather on motivating a novel system for the improvement of replication (Pulu).

The paper was generated in a second. Have a go yourselves. The authors of the programme submitted several of these manuscripts to various conferences and had one accepted.

photo from flikr

recent research suggested that talking about suicide to teenagers did not lead to an increased risk in suicide attempts. but things can be taken too far. one japanese teacher was suspended this week after teaching his students how to kill themselves. his suggested method was, apparently, to jump off a building.

this is really nice to use.

it shows the usage of baby names. move your mouse over it, or type in a name to see its popularity over time.

trust me, it’s beautifully done.

i love flikr.

i’d like the search to be better, more user friendly. i guess it will come.

here for my photos.

the one shown was from this afternoon. zoe (5) wanted to see riverdance at the hammersmith apollo.
it was incredible. generally i accept the restrictions on automatic weaponry. there are, however, times when one might wish for more lax controls. anyway, on our drive back we happen to come to a halt opposite some of my favourite london buildings, a run of 19th century studio houses.