Almost a year ago, I posted a blog entry linking to a short MP3 recorded by Alec when he was in hospital in Lille, following his motorcycle accident. Ever since then, this MP3 has represented between 20 and 45% of the data served from geoffarnold.com. Last month, for example, it was retrieved 558 times for a total of 944MB. During the same time, Google Analytics reports that I had 2,007 visitors who visited 2,827 times and generated 4,239 pageviews – but none of these retrieved the page that linked to the MP3.
So who’s fetching Alec’s podcasts, I wonder? I can’t be bothered to dive into the HTTP logs, but I am curious.
The most important statue in Edinburgh
David Hume, of course.
It's not just American evangelical leaders that can be callous and stupid….
From the Daily Telegraph (via the New Humanist):
The floods that have devastated swathes of the country are God’s judgment on the immorality and greed of modern society, according to senior Church of England bishops.
One diocesan bishop has even claimed that laws that have undermined marriage, including the introduction of pro-gay legislation, have provoked God to act by sending the storms that have left thousands of people homeless.
This kind of “vengeful God hates fags so much that he’s willing to punish innocent people” stuff is par for the course from American evangelicals like Falwell and Robertson, but I thought Anglican bishops were a wee bit smarter. Apparently not.
Photos
The photos of the Dakota Forth Bridge hotel, Edinburgh, and the Firth of Forth are now up on my gallery. Actually, the last few pictures are still being uploaded: I’m only getting about 46kB/sec uplink speed, and since the JPEGs average 3.7MB it takes a while. I just hope that the transfer finishes before my latest £5 worth of WiFi runs out. (It reminds me of feeding shillings to the gas meter, over 50 years ago.)
"Gesture security"
Commonsense from Max Hastings in the Guardian’s Comment is free:
Pity anyone who must catch a plane or visit Wimbledon today, or indeed for many days to come. Following Friday’s London bombs and Saturday’s attack at Glasgow airport, security checks have intensified dramatically. Everybody engaged in what is now a vast industry wants to be seen to be trying harder.
It is another matter, of course, whether all the conspicuous activity that follows a terrorist incident adds a jot to public safety, to compensate for the huge economic cost it imposes. Most security precautions represent a charade. It is probably a politically necessary charade – we will explore that issue in a moment. But we should be sceptical about its practical value.
Indeed. My flight home next Sunday is due to depart from Heathrow at 3:05pm. I wonder: should I plan to get to the airport before or after breakfast?
Cruisin' the Forth
The weather started to clear up this afternoon, so I decided to explore the area a bit. I drove down to Hawes Pier (right underneath the south end of the Forth Bridge), and checked to see if there were any cruises going out. It turned out that the Maid of the Forth was going to be making the run to Inchcolm and back at 3:45, so I paid my fare (£1 extra for Visa/MC – is that legal in the UK?) and boarded a few minutes later. The (recorded) guide noted that Inchcolm was one of the driest places in the British Isles, because the clouds tended to build up over the shores of the Firth, and that was certainly our experience. We cruised down a sunny slot in the middle of the Firth, getting slightly sunburned while all around us was looking stormy.
Inchcolm itself looked fascinating: the 12th century abbey is in remarkably good condition. However, ours was the last boat of the day, and so we were only able to stop long enough to pick up the people who had gone out earlier on the “Cruise’n’Explore” package. Next time (if there is a next time) I’m going to check out the island properly; there are reportedly puffins nesting there.
Then it was time for the 45 minute run back to the pier, past the magnificent engineering of the Forth Bridge, and the small islands covered with seabirds. We got back at 5:15, and I decided to explore the old town of South Queensferry. As I reached the west end of the twisting High Street, there was a loud rumble of thunder. It was nearly a mile back to my car, so I started walking until the rain began, then ducked into the nearest pub. I got a pint of an undistinguished local bitter, and sat down intending to wait out the rain. Oops. There were several TVs mounted on the wall, and all were tuned in (at full volume) to the Princess Di memorial concert. I tried to ignore one particularly bad singer, and contemplated the pros and cons of republicanism.
After a while I couldn’t take any more of it, so I gulped down the rest of my beer and dashed through the rain to the nearest restaurant: an Italian place called Bella Vista. The vista certainly was bella, particularly when the storm cleared; the food was fairly good, though a little over-priced; and the service was OK – certainly better than the reviews suggested. No zabaglione, though – sigh. Afterwards I returned to my car, decided to trust the signposts ((For some reason I neglected to bring a map.)) and got comprehensively lost in a twisty maze of leafy lanes and “traffic calmed” villages. But it all worked out OK in the end; the strategy of heading for the coast and then aiming at the foot of the bridge worked tolerably well.
Once again, the photographs will have to wait until I can get Gallery Remote configured…
UPDATED: The photos are here. A lot of repetition, I’m afraid: I got mesmerized by the cloud formations, and the way in which the maintenance platforms on the Forth Bridge made it look “fuzzy”.
An eventful day in Scotland
Yesterday I took advantage of the weather to visit Edinburgh for the first time. I got the bus into the city, and headed up to the Royal Mile, intending to visit the Castle. As I approached it, I heard a pipe band, and saw red-uniformed soldiers escorting a car down the street from the Castle towards Holyrood Palace. I looked into the car, expecting to see some important personage, but all I saw was the Scottish Crown, resplendent on a purple cushion. Later on I realized that this was part of the ceremonial opening of the Scottish Parliament by the Queen.
Oblivious to this, I visited Edinburgh Castle, then headed down the Royal Mile towards Holyrood. By now the opening ceremonies were over, and a party had developed with crowds, music, and even dancing. The (controversial) Scottish Parliament building was open to visitors, but the line was long and I decided to get lunch. By now the rain was threatening, so I headed down towards Princes Street and ducked into the National Gallery of Scotland. While I enjoyed the collection, there was just one piece that took my breath away: the most moving Rembrandt self-portrait (of all the dozens) I’ve seen:
Now it gets a little weird… Before heading back to South Queensferry, I stopped at Waterstone’s to pick up a book I’ve wanted to read for some time: Nafeez Ahmed’s The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry. I ran across the street to the bus-stop through the rain that was now bucketing down, boarded a 43 bus, got back to the hotel 40 minutes later, turned on the television, and watched the unfolding coverage of the car bomb attack at Glasgow Airport.
Today I had planned to drive up to Stirling, but the rain and mist (practically fog) makes that an unattractive proposition. I think I’ll read my book, watch the French Grand Prix at noon (Massa on pole, Hamilton next to him – should be good!), and catch up with a couple of work items. And I’ll upload the photographs that I took as soon as I can; I’m wrestling with the configuration of Galley Remote. (The copy on my home computer is configured correctly, but of course I can’t remember how I did it! None of the obvious URLs are working for me.)
UPDATED: The photos are here.
Equivocation and conflation
Those who have worked with me have said that they can tell when I’m getting warmed up on a subject when I use the words “conflate” or “equivocate”. (Another colleague’s magic phrase was “tease apart”: when he started teasing apart your ideas, it was time to duck!) Although these two words are closely related, they have quite distinct meanings, and it’s unfortunate when people misuse them. ((Not, of course, as unfortunate as the misuse of “uninterested” and “disinterested”.))
To “conflate” is to mix up several distinct issues, often (but not always) with the aim of changing the topic. To “equivocate” is to use a word that has more than one meaning in a way that obscures the distinction between those meanings. Although this can occasionally be inadvertent, it is usually intended to confuse or deceive. Obviously equivocation can be used to achieve conflation, by using a term that is meaningful in each of the issues that you wish to conflate. However the words are quite distinct: one can conflate without using equivocation, and equivocate without seeking to conflate.
All of this was prompted by reading an excellent piece in Balkinization by Deborah Hellman of the University of Maryland School of Law, in which she analyzes an important point in a recent Supreme Court decision concerning race and school admissions policy.
In his plurality opinion in Parents Involved, Justice Roberts closes his opinion with the seeming truism that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.†The problem with this claim is that it profits from an important conflation between two different senses of the term “discrimination.†Sometimes to discriminate is simply to draw distinctions among people or things. For example, insurers routinely discriminate between potential insurance customers on the basis of the risk each poses of making a claim against the insurer during the policy period. Other times, we use the term “discrimination†in a critical rather than a descriptive way. For example, laws forbidding blacks from sitting in the front of public buses discriminate (read wrongly discriminate) against African-Americans. When we pay attention to the two senses of the word “discrimination,†we see that Justice Roberts’ claim is far from obvious. The way to stop discrimination (i.e. wrongful discrimination) on the basis of race is to stop discriminating (i.e. drawing distinctions) on the basis of race. Is he right?
It’s a good piece, which I recommend that you read. It would have been even better if she had written “equivocation” instead of “conflation”…
🙂
The essence of scriptural exegesis
The Barefoot Bum captures the essential moves in the game. A correspondent had spent considerable effort in describing a so-called “Message-Incident Principleâ€, which was supposed to guide the process of understanding the true meaning (or, perhaps, meanings) of scripture, and Larry summarized it thus:
- If the text fits your preconceived notions and doesn’t get you laughed at, it’s literally true
- If you can’t swallow the text, arbitrarily choose a metaphor to read into it
- If you have to swallow the text anyway, invoke a miracle to choke it down
In (or near) Edinburgh
I flew up from Dublin to Edinburgh ((Uneventful flight, Aer Lingus A320, 30 minutes late because of ATC delays at LHR.)) and after misunderstanding my directions and driving all around the airport (literally) I’ve arrived at my hotel: the Dakota Forthbridge, in South Queensferry.
It’s very trendy, and very comfortable. It’s extremely convenient: the Amazon.com office is two minutes walk from here. It’s also more than a little weird. From the outside, it’s a black Borg-like cube. The elevators (sorry, lifts) have chrome-framed “portholes” through which one can watch images of clouds boiling up against a blue sky. ((We’re not talking about fluffy white clouds drifting by; we’re talking about the kind of stuff that would cause a pilot to call ATC and request “immediate deviation 30 degrees left for weather”. If they’re intended to be restful, they fail.)) My room has a three foot high polished metal ampersand on the wall, and the chrome desk lamp is like a regular banker’s lamp but twice the usual size. There are no closets, cupboards or drawers; instead there are dark red alcoves hidden behind the headboard of the bed.
Annoyingly, Internet access is a £5/day extra, for which you must obtain a password from the front desk. Why do cheap hotels give you broadband for free while fancy places nickel-and-dime you? It makes no sense, and it just pisses off the customers.
More anon. Probably with pics.
UPDATE: (WARNING: Food porn alert!!)
OK, I forgive them everything – even the leather panelling with red stitching in the elevators. The restaurant is superb.
I ordered “roast lamb”, which turned out to be three loin chops, so pink that at first I thought “Oh, no! These are too rare even for me!”, but then they turned out to be quite perfect. They were garnished with wedges of grilled lamb’s liver, which worked very nicely indeed, and an intricate arrangement of thinly-sliced new potatoes, broad beans, and cranberries. Add a chicory and mustard salad and a glass of a Côtes du Rhône which quietly put California in its place, and finish with a cheese plate including three interesting Scottish cheeses and a stack of little oat cakes. (And of course the cheese demanded a nice glass of port.) The service was excellent, and almost every table was occupied, mostly by locals.
Wow.
UPDATE: The pics are here. If you squint at the screen of my MacBook, you’ll see that it’s displaying the picture that Crispin took of the Dakota, and that Clive mentioned in the comments.
