I am not a political theorist, or even an expert in politics. However, I shall comment as little more than an outsider on these matters.
It occurs to me that politics in this country is fundamentally broken. New Labour stripped away any semblance of a right and a left. However, where New Labour succeeded was as an institution.
So the principle problem with right wing politics is the contempt that it appears to hold the electorate with. The outcome of right wing politics is logically to ensure a free market, however the means employed to get to this stage is to rely on fear and misinformation to coerce a public, viewed as fools, into submission. This can have the unexpected side effect of collapsing into totalitarianism when not balanced by democracy.
Conversely, left wing politics succeeds in that it does not view those who vote for it with contempt, but fails fundamentally as it has lost its moral compass. The foolish electorate, unfortunately, require morality to be spelled out. When a left wing government does this, it becomes right wing in that it will view its electorate as fools to be goaded but when it doesn't do this it can never succeed as no one will support a cause that has no morality.
Thursday, 11 February 2016
Tuesday, 22 December 2015
100 Days of Corbyn
So a lot of (most Conservative) people keep saying that Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable and ridiculous and he should step down.
May I ask, if he's unelectable, then why are you worrying? Why bother with a smear campaign if he won't win in any case? Unless you view the British electorate with such contempt as to think they are not capable of making decisions by themselves.
In fact if anything, the continuous rhetoric of how unelectable he is, the constant smears, surely show how much of a threat he actually is.
I like short blog posts...
May I ask, if he's unelectable, then why are you worrying? Why bother with a smear campaign if he won't win in any case? Unless you view the British electorate with such contempt as to think they are not capable of making decisions by themselves.
In fact if anything, the continuous rhetoric of how unelectable he is, the constant smears, surely show how much of a threat he actually is.
I like short blog posts...
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
"This Government makes me happier and happier." Said No Ordinary Man.
So the government is forcing more benefits changes on people. A new budget that will cut billions from those who are most needy in society. This naturally filled me with a lot of vitriol, so be prepared for a tl:dr.
Well I'm so glad that this government is going to put countless disabled and ill people through needless stress, heartache and suffering just to save a few quid. And all because, as a culture, we have decided that being disabled is a swindle to cheat the state after money.
Nobody asks to be disabled. Nobody wants to have to claim disability living allowance. It's not "for fun" or a swindle. Stop the rhetoric that it is. Just accept that people need to claim it.
You can't incentivise people into not being disabled like you can with people who are out of work through choice.
Somehow we voted for a government that actively discriminates against the disabled because it knows that they won't fight back or that if they do they won't be listened to.
I'm disabled. Like many people it is a cause of great shame and not a badge that I wear with honour - more a cross that I have to carry in a culture that kicks me to the floor more often than it helps me up. And changing the benefits that make life bearable; by putting people through unfair hoops and forcing them through bureaucratic targets, making then into statistics instead of people, this government is kicking disabled people to the floor once again.
And to add insult to injury, the Home Secretary has decided that questioning government policies is tantamount to treason. Disagreement makes one a "terrorist sympathiser".
I suppose this is hardly surprising when one considers the bed fellows but do we want to fall foul of a Saudi-Chinese system of state control and interference?
I am opposed to military action in the middle East AND to sweeping welfare reforms.
I am pro funding education, healthcare and the police.
Well I'm so glad that this government is going to put countless disabled and ill people through needless stress, heartache and suffering just to save a few quid. And all because, as a culture, we have decided that being disabled is a swindle to cheat the state after money.
Nobody asks to be disabled. Nobody wants to have to claim disability living allowance. It's not "for fun" or a swindle. Stop the rhetoric that it is. Just accept that people need to claim it.
You can't incentivise people into not being disabled like you can with people who are out of work through choice.
Somehow we voted for a government that actively discriminates against the disabled because it knows that they won't fight back or that if they do they won't be listened to.
I'm disabled. Like many people it is a cause of great shame and not a badge that I wear with honour - more a cross that I have to carry in a culture that kicks me to the floor more often than it helps me up. And changing the benefits that make life bearable; by putting people through unfair hoops and forcing them through bureaucratic targets, making then into statistics instead of people, this government is kicking disabled people to the floor once again.
And to add insult to injury, the Home Secretary has decided that questioning government policies is tantamount to treason. Disagreement makes one a "terrorist sympathiser".
I suppose this is hardly surprising when one considers the bed fellows but do we want to fall foul of a Saudi-Chinese system of state control and interference?
I am opposed to military action in the middle East AND to sweeping welfare reforms.
I am pro funding education, healthcare and the police.
Thursday, 16 April 2015
Lab work, or what I did with my summer (2013)
This summer proved to be an interesting experience. For the first time, I was permitted to work in a research laboratory, doing experimental science. Not the stifled, predictable, has a correct answer work done in undergraduate laboratories but the open ended field of research science. I had agreed with Professor Andy Ellis of the University of Leicester to work in his laboratory over the summer, and the experiment was much more chemical physics, than physical chemistry. We were synthesising nanoparticles in helium nanodroplets. The first time I'd ever been able to do any such work and certainly an interesting experience.
The door to the "office"
The helium nanodroplet experiment is an interesting area of research. The droplets themselves are cooled to a temperature of 0.37K, and hence the helium is superfluid. This means two things, the first being that molecules are free to move about inside of the droplets and also that due to the low reactivity of helium they don't form interactions with the helium nanodroplet and thus provides a fantastic way of capturing and holding particles to perform tasks like spectroscopy. This is aided by helium's transparency to most forms of radiation. An off shoot of this is the fact that the size of the droplets can be controlled and thus the size of particles within these meaning that the helium nanodroplet systems provide a novel and interesting method of synthesising nanoparticles with very tight size control.
One of the first tasks we had to do was test the oven we were using to introduce metal into the helium beam. This was done on an ultra high vacuum rig to simulate the conditions that the oven would be operating under. This also ensured that most of the water that had built up on the metal surface would be dissipated by evaporation.
The oven in operation
The rig it was operating inside of
Eventually this was moved to the main rig. Normally, at this point I would show a picture of the main rig that was being worked on but unfortunately I couldn't find a good enough picture to show it off. It's a big piece of kit - kind of 2.5-3m long apparatus.
We produced nanoparticles fairly quickly containing aluminium. It was especially interesting to see these under a TEM however I cannot post them here as they are publication pending. Eventually we turned our attention to what we were seeing in our mass spectrum.
Now, a few years ago, some German scientists published a paper saying that aluminium atoms trapped in helium nanodroplets were separated by layers of helium and hence would not cluster together. Now, I know of work done that shows that excited electronic states of aluminium tend to the surface of the droplet and I also know of work done that shows that ground state aluminium does not. They had very limited evidence for their claim that these layers of helium existed. But one thing is certain, clusters would not be seen in the mass spectrum.
Yet, this is exactly what we saw!!! Imagine our surprise. Even more interestingly was that these followed a near magic number progression! Even more interesting. The findings were published then in the Int. J. Mass Spectr. in 2014 and my name was on the paper!! Hopefully the first of many scientific papers in my name!!
It was a great summer and I was keen to repeat the experience again! Even if there were some ups and downs.
We produced nanoparticles fairly quickly containing aluminium. It was especially interesting to see these under a TEM however I cannot post them here as they are publication pending. Eventually we turned our attention to what we were seeing in our mass spectrum.
Now, a few years ago, some German scientists published a paper saying that aluminium atoms trapped in helium nanodroplets were separated by layers of helium and hence would not cluster together. Now, I know of work done that shows that excited electronic states of aluminium tend to the surface of the droplet and I also know of work done that shows that ground state aluminium does not. They had very limited evidence for their claim that these layers of helium existed. But one thing is certain, clusters would not be seen in the mass spectrum.
Yet, this is exactly what we saw!!! Imagine our surprise. Even more interestingly was that these followed a near magic number progression! Even more interesting. The findings were published then in the Int. J. Mass Spectr. in 2014 and my name was on the paper!! Hopefully the first of many scientific papers in my name!!
It was a great summer and I was keen to repeat the experience again! Even if there were some ups and downs.
Sunday, 29 June 2014
The secret life of students... Urgh.
http://www.channel4.com/info/press/programme-information/the-secret-life-of-students
"The three main components of university life at Leicester are partying, action and friends"
Thanks channel 4. Thanks for throwing the academic reputation of the University of Leicester into disrepute. Thanks for making university look like a drunken play pen for imbeciles. Thanks for perpetuating the misnomer that university is just three years of partying with studying being an annoyance on the side.
In my opinion, the three main components of university life at Leicester are studying hard, socialising with nice, decent people and teaching from world renowned academics. A notion of students just being into partying and fun and friends and blah blah blah raises the expectation of thousands to something truly unrealistic that will be shattered when they arrive.
I am particularly disturbed by the character by the name of "Aiden" who from his bio on this website is a lad, reinforcing a villainous stereotype that, from personal experience, makes university life not just horrible, but plain terrifying and can ruin the experience.
The sooner this can be over and done with, the better.
Oh and my biggest thanks goes to the management at the University of Leicester for allowing this to happen. Because TV shows always portray things in a positive light.
I'm hoping now that this will be surprisingly good, but I have a feeling that it won't be. Mostly because of the inherent mistrust of the media on youth culture. Any programme that shows "intelligent" young people as being morons will help aid this message that all young people are stupid and we shouldn't take them seriously.
"The three main components of university life at Leicester are partying, action and friends"
Thanks channel 4. Thanks for throwing the academic reputation of the University of Leicester into disrepute. Thanks for making university look like a drunken play pen for imbeciles. Thanks for perpetuating the misnomer that university is just three years of partying with studying being an annoyance on the side.
In my opinion, the three main components of university life at Leicester are studying hard, socialising with nice, decent people and teaching from world renowned academics. A notion of students just being into partying and fun and friends and blah blah blah raises the expectation of thousands to something truly unrealistic that will be shattered when they arrive.
I am particularly disturbed by the character by the name of "Aiden" who from his bio on this website is a lad, reinforcing a villainous stereotype that, from personal experience, makes university life not just horrible, but plain terrifying and can ruin the experience.
The sooner this can be over and done with, the better.
Oh and my biggest thanks goes to the management at the University of Leicester for allowing this to happen. Because TV shows always portray things in a positive light.
I'm hoping now that this will be surprisingly good, but I have a feeling that it won't be. Mostly because of the inherent mistrust of the media on youth culture. Any programme that shows "intelligent" young people as being morons will help aid this message that all young people are stupid and we shouldn't take them seriously.
Thursday, 15 May 2014
The hypocrisy of it all.
I recently watched this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU
Poignant. Non?
Yes, I hear you chorus back. Taking the moral high ground; how dare those humans make their way to the top of the food chain using their brains and technology. Fuck technology I feel you type. From a keyboard. On a computer. On the internet. Using electricity. Whilst drinking a cup of tea. That came from India. That was imported here using technology.
No. No one human can profess any degree of superiority over others these days with respect to the environment. We all live in a developed world. Any human who professes to be above any others; who takes an air of superiority based on nought but their own perceptions of how wonderful they are, does a great injustice to what has come before. To what has made them what they are today.
All of us. And I mean, all of us, owe our lives to technology. Destructive that it may be, but industrialisation has created a modern world that is safe, free from epidemic diseases, from mass slaughter of humans, from famine (let us face it, there is so much food in the world that the whole world could be fed. Greed means people in the developing world go hungry. Not lack of food. Greed of the west).
So if you must take exception. Please, attack the big businesses. The ones who proceed with this destruction. It is never too late to take action. But the wording is key here. Big businesses; multinational conglomerates MUST learn that what they do is not right. As long as people are squabbling over who personally has the best carbon footprint, they win. Unify against them for they count on injustice to drive their mills and feed their children.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU
Poignant. Non?
Yes, I hear you chorus back. Taking the moral high ground; how dare those humans make their way to the top of the food chain using their brains and technology. Fuck technology I feel you type. From a keyboard. On a computer. On the internet. Using electricity. Whilst drinking a cup of tea. That came from India. That was imported here using technology.
No. No one human can profess any degree of superiority over others these days with respect to the environment. We all live in a developed world. Any human who professes to be above any others; who takes an air of superiority based on nought but their own perceptions of how wonderful they are, does a great injustice to what has come before. To what has made them what they are today.
All of us. And I mean, all of us, owe our lives to technology. Destructive that it may be, but industrialisation has created a modern world that is safe, free from epidemic diseases, from mass slaughter of humans, from famine (let us face it, there is so much food in the world that the whole world could be fed. Greed means people in the developing world go hungry. Not lack of food. Greed of the west).
So if you must take exception. Please, attack the big businesses. The ones who proceed with this destruction. It is never too late to take action. But the wording is key here. Big businesses; multinational conglomerates MUST learn that what they do is not right. As long as people are squabbling over who personally has the best carbon footprint, they win. Unify against them for they count on injustice to drive their mills and feed their children.
Sunday, 24 November 2013
Science ruins everyone's fun
On browsing facebook this morning (something I question my rationale for doing every time I log in, I guess it speaks to my inner egotist) I noted that one of the "trending" posts was a girl blabbing on about "Ancient crystal pyramids under the bermuda triangle."
I am sceptical, instantly of any such claim, especially when such a claim makes a point like these crystal structures must influence ocean currents (which, oceanographic studies show there isn't any "interesting" current features around the area), that we don't know how they got there and hence why science must be wrong and the nuts must be right; and finally that there is absolutely no evidence of these structures even existing.
My inner rationalist leaps to attention, and I am struck with an overwhelming urge to post every tiny bit of logic at this person and their ridiculous followers (who I am certain only approve of this, not because they agree but because they like the person posting). I could cite tons of studies done and work on the subject. But my hands are halted. Previous experience has taught me that people don't like their opinions to be challenged. They tend to see it not as an attack on their opinion but on them personally. As a scientist, I am used to people attacking my ideas but we come to accept that most other people in the world don't.
And this raises my main point. Science is forever seen as "ruining everyone's fun" with it's logic, and rigorous testing. I mean, how dare it sit there with any authority over unfounded and potentially harmful opinions that are often spouted out of the mouths of people with absolutely no credentials (a mail order PhD is not equivalent to a real PhD which takes 3 or 4 years of solid work to complete).
I read recently that a boy in Calgary died due to his mother's belief in homeopathic medicines. The cause of death more worryingly was a strep infection. A mild, curable infection that certainly hasn't been a death sentence in the western world since the days of the 1800s. And for what, so that this innocent child's mother could have a level of moral superiority over her friends who support "big pharma" and don't understand nature or the holistic methods that pre-date logical and rational chemistry by nearly 200 years.
The whole "natural" notion, (or Organic to the uninitiated) makes me sick. Science merely harnesses nature to do our bidding. If it couldn't happen in nature then it can't happen in the lab. It's merely a probability of likelihood. How many animals for example have evolved transition metal based touch screens. None, because it's not feasible. But it could still potentially happen. The notion that if it doesn't happen in nature then it's not good for us is likely founded in the unethical practices of the past (which to a lesser extent continue to this day) but I raise the point that selling you a drug with side effects for a large sum of money is far better than selling you some "magic powder" that is in reality sugar for a large of sum of money when it comes down to treating diseases.
But people don't like to be questioned on their decisions. Especially when their decisions are not logical or rational. They like people to blindly accept them. A friend of mine once made a claim that alcohol could help treat liver disease. I asked for a source. He told me he didn't need one, and then linked me to a dubious website on holistic medicine which cited various "new age" magazines as it's references. What I found more concerning is that this is man who studies a science course alongside myself, who views pharmaceutical companies as little more than pill pushers but is not afraid to take unknown substances sold to him as class A drugs which are synthetic chemicals, and are still made in even more unethical ways.
Science isn't fun. I will accept this. There was once an age of discovery where the discoveries made were understandable to the general populace. But this day has passed. The recent discovery of the Higg's boson is a prime example. The Higg's Boson was big news. The "God particle" it was dubbed, but if you asked the general public, on the street, what on earth was the "Higg's boson" most wouldn't be able to tell you, or they would be able to make a comment along the lines of it being a particle in physics. Science is now very esoteric. Great discoveries like the Higg's Boson are important, but most people aren't going to understand it. Now, if you don't understand it, that's fine. But don't try and drag unsubstantiated claims about medicine and pseudosience into the argument. Science is complicated enough if it isn't having to fight off people who make ludicrous claims.
I am sceptical, instantly of any such claim, especially when such a claim makes a point like these crystal structures must influence ocean currents (which, oceanographic studies show there isn't any "interesting" current features around the area), that we don't know how they got there and hence why science must be wrong and the nuts must be right; and finally that there is absolutely no evidence of these structures even existing.
My inner rationalist leaps to attention, and I am struck with an overwhelming urge to post every tiny bit of logic at this person and their ridiculous followers (who I am certain only approve of this, not because they agree but because they like the person posting). I could cite tons of studies done and work on the subject. But my hands are halted. Previous experience has taught me that people don't like their opinions to be challenged. They tend to see it not as an attack on their opinion but on them personally. As a scientist, I am used to people attacking my ideas but we come to accept that most other people in the world don't.
And this raises my main point. Science is forever seen as "ruining everyone's fun" with it's logic, and rigorous testing. I mean, how dare it sit there with any authority over unfounded and potentially harmful opinions that are often spouted out of the mouths of people with absolutely no credentials (a mail order PhD is not equivalent to a real PhD which takes 3 or 4 years of solid work to complete).
I read recently that a boy in Calgary died due to his mother's belief in homeopathic medicines. The cause of death more worryingly was a strep infection. A mild, curable infection that certainly hasn't been a death sentence in the western world since the days of the 1800s. And for what, so that this innocent child's mother could have a level of moral superiority over her friends who support "big pharma" and don't understand nature or the holistic methods that pre-date logical and rational chemistry by nearly 200 years.
The whole "natural" notion, (or Organic to the uninitiated) makes me sick. Science merely harnesses nature to do our bidding. If it couldn't happen in nature then it can't happen in the lab. It's merely a probability of likelihood. How many animals for example have evolved transition metal based touch screens. None, because it's not feasible. But it could still potentially happen. The notion that if it doesn't happen in nature then it's not good for us is likely founded in the unethical practices of the past (which to a lesser extent continue to this day) but I raise the point that selling you a drug with side effects for a large sum of money is far better than selling you some "magic powder" that is in reality sugar for a large of sum of money when it comes down to treating diseases.
But people don't like to be questioned on their decisions. Especially when their decisions are not logical or rational. They like people to blindly accept them. A friend of mine once made a claim that alcohol could help treat liver disease. I asked for a source. He told me he didn't need one, and then linked me to a dubious website on holistic medicine which cited various "new age" magazines as it's references. What I found more concerning is that this is man who studies a science course alongside myself, who views pharmaceutical companies as little more than pill pushers but is not afraid to take unknown substances sold to him as class A drugs which are synthetic chemicals, and are still made in even more unethical ways.
Science isn't fun. I will accept this. There was once an age of discovery where the discoveries made were understandable to the general populace. But this day has passed. The recent discovery of the Higg's boson is a prime example. The Higg's Boson was big news. The "God particle" it was dubbed, but if you asked the general public, on the street, what on earth was the "Higg's boson" most wouldn't be able to tell you, or they would be able to make a comment along the lines of it being a particle in physics. Science is now very esoteric. Great discoveries like the Higg's Boson are important, but most people aren't going to understand it. Now, if you don't understand it, that's fine. But don't try and drag unsubstantiated claims about medicine and pseudosience into the argument. Science is complicated enough if it isn't having to fight off people who make ludicrous claims.
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