Brian Clegg's Blog, page 115

Eddie the eagle

Apparently this is Eddie, though he sounds much
better than he looksWe have some great radio broadcasters in the UK, particularly on BBC Radio 4, but I think in many ways the unsung hero of the breed is Eddie Meyer who presents the 5pm news magazine PM.

What Meyer has, and I think it is fair to say none of his colleagues have to the same degree, is a wry sense of humour that comes through strongly, even though the programme can be covering mostly serious issues.

There was a wonderful example a week or two ago, which inspired this post. Meyer had mistakenly referred to Istanbul as the capital of Turkey (we all know it is Ankara, don't we folks?) - he apologised for this, which is fine. But then demonstrated why he is so brilliant.

A little while later he was introducing a reporter who was at a technology event in San Francisco. 'Now we're going to Bill Bloggs,' Meyer said (or words to that effect), 'reporting from San Franciso, the capital of Turkey.' No time for a double take, it's straight on to the item. But to the Meyer fan, it was a classic example of his genius. I honestly can't think of another serious current affairs reporter who would think of, or get away with, doing this. Genius.

Next Honours List, how about a gong for Eddie? He deserves it.

Image from Wikipedia

Where science meets woo

In my latest book, Extra Sensory , I look at whether there is a scientific basis for the likes of telepathy, telekinesis, remote viewing and precognition. When I tell people I've written this (and will be selling books at the Seriously Strange event), particularly those from the science community, there is often a sharp intake of breath. 'You don't want to get yourself involved with that stuff,' they say. I understand the response, but I think they are wrong.

It is easy to see why there is that sharp intake of breath. In a Facebook discussion of my book, where someone had generously recommended it, before long others were contributing with information about 'chi/qi' and even 'quantum healing.' There is a tendency to lump a lot of things together, not all of which sit comfortably with science. However this rather misses the point of what I'm trying to do with the book.

First of all I make the clear distinction of only considering the paranormal, not the supernatural. By this I mean I am looking at abilities that are outside our current understanding, but could have a natural, scientific explanation. So, for instance, I don't cover spirit mediums, whose claims are definitely supernatural. There is a grey area - ghosts, for instance, seen as the manifestation of dead people would be supernatural, but if they were instead a physical phenomenon (like the old 'stone tapes' idea) they could be examined as paranormal. However, I thought it best to draw the line as safely as possible and excluded them too.

What I then set out to do was to see if I could come up with an potential mechanisms for, say, telepathy to work, and to examine the evidence from the quite extensive academic work that has been done to try to discover and test such abilities. It is a fascinating, if frustrating tale, because it contains some very dramatic characters (Uri Geller, who gets a whole chapter, springs to mind) and an awful lot of fraud, bad science and statistical pitfalls.

There are examples of all three, for example, in the most famous early academic work by J. B. Rhine in the 1930s. Rhine did vast numbers of experiments, mostly for telepathy and clairvoyance. But there were clear examples where fraud could easily have taken place. Rhine used some very sloppy experimental conditions. Perhaps worst, of all, he had a tendency to misuse the statistics. A classic example is where Rhine comments on a particularly successful run 'The probability of getting 15 straight successes on these cards is (1/5)15 which is one in over 30 billion.' This is falling into the trap known as cherry picking.

You can see the problem with what Rhine is doing by comparing it with a similar response to a lottery winner. Last week someone in the UK won the Euromillions jackpot. The probability of doing this is 1 in over 116 million. Okay, not quite the same as Rhine's number, but impressive enough. However, we don't conclude that either the winner was clairvoyant, or that he or she cheated. Because there wasn't a single entrant. And similarly, by using that '1 in over 30 billion' number, Rhine was picking out a single set of results, based on the values of those results, from many thousands of attempts. This is, at best misleading.

I think it is important to take an unbiassed look at the paranormal that is neither a simple dismissal of evidence (there's a wonderful quote from Rupert Sheldrake, where he was to be in a TV show with Richard Dawkins and Dawkins is alleged to have said 'I don't want to discuss the evidence'), nor blind acceptance of woo. This is partly because so many people have experienced something that may be paranormal, but also because I don't believe it is scientific simply to say 'I would never look at something,' if it could have a physical explanation, dismissing it without considering the evidence.

You can get Extra Sensory as a hardback or a Kindle ebook from amazon.co.uk and amazon.com (and it is, of course, available from bookshops and in other ebook formats).

Letting off steam

Between the ages of six and my late teens I spent many of my summer Sunday afternoons playing with trains. You may be thinking at this point 'No wonder he's such a nerd, he should have been out in the fresh air,' but actually I was outside at the time. Because this was no attic train set.

One of my first solo drives, not trusted yet with passengers. The engine
is Lancashire Lad, one of the smaller models, but always among my
favourites as it was easy to drive and very reliable.My dad was a model engineer - his hobby was building these stunning working model steam locomotives. No 0 or 00 gauge here - we are talking 3.5 and 5 inch wide track, plenty big enough to carry 10 passengers behind. As part of the Rochdale Society of Model and Experimental Engineers (by its website, still going strong), most Sundays we would toddle up to Springfield Park where the society's track was and indulge in a wondrous time.

Of course my favourite activity was driving. The controls are very similar to the real thing, with the added complexity that you also have to do the fireman's job as well as driving, frankly the harder of the two. This involved keeping the fire at the right level - not too hot, but not damped down with too much coal, and the delicate job of balancing the water supply, tweaking the bypass so that you kept the boiler at just the right level. It was brillant, particularly when your passengers were a string of squealing girls.

To be fair, driving was a luxury. I wasn't allowed to do it until I was 10, and was usually limited to one hour's session (though I might get another in if I was lucky), but I also enjoyed being on the ticket booth, managing the platform, and even being on the dirty end, starting engines from cold (the smell of paraffin soaked charcoal used to get the fire started, and the whine of an electric blower, still brings this all rushing back) and raking out the ashes and cleaning them down after a shift. I even played in the park sometimes.

I suspect there were long boring bits and lots of rain-stops-play - we tend to forget those. But in the joyous recreation of memory it was always a sunny day with a couple of engines in steam and the sound of the whistle and the squeals as one of the trains rattled into the tunnel echoing in my ears.

Civil engineers? Nice chaps!

A long time ago, in a galaxy that bore a distinct resemblance to the Milky Way, I co-authored a book on business creativity called Imagination Engineering . It did quite well and it still sells today. This was when my colleague Paul Birch and I were first setting up giving training in creativity, and the main purpose of the book was to be the guide to our method. It described our approach to stimulating ideas and solving problems.
Something we thought that might be useful was to give some sort of simile or metaphor that would help us to describe and encourage the process of producing an enhancing ideas. We wanted it to be something that was all about pioneering, about boldly going and all that kind of thing. So we hit on the simile of civil engineering, saying our approach to creativity was like being the first to build roads and railways and structures out in a new and unexplored land.
To be honest, we don't use the simile anymore, as it got in the way more than it helped. One of the essential learning points of creativity is that you will fail sometimes. It's all part of the creative process. (Which is why politicians struggle so much with anything creative - they can only see failure as being a disaster. I think it is because they played too many competitive sports at school.) So that wasn't a problem - in fact it has helped us refine the approach.
Even so, the simile is still there in the book, which is why we were initially rather disconcerted, but then delighted to discover this in Yellow Pages:


Of course, the civil engineers we had in mind were the pioneering kind, not the kind that lay sewer pipes in Surbiton high street. But even so it was a salutary reminder that not everyone views things the same way. That was a genuine entry, by the way. It disappeared after a few years, presumably as a result of complaints from the Institute of Civil Engineers or some such body.
I wonder, has Yellow Pages or its equivalents ever carried any equally entertaining accidental comments on the topic advertised?

It's a fraction but my fraction

The way most of use computer programs makes sledgehammers and nuts a minor infringement on the 'getting the scale right' tally. Our requirements are orders of magnitude simpler than the programs' ability. 
Take Audacity, the impressively free audio editing program I use. It can do all sorts of exciting things. Just look at that huge menu of effects of which I use... one. The program comes in hugely useful when I edit the tracks recorded for my company's increasingly vast emporium of organ pieces and hymn accompaniments, but my routine is always the same. Read in a track, make sure the lead in and out are consistent times, wipe any audio before the playing, fade out the audio at the end. And save. Touching a tiny part of the application's capabilities.
Though it's not so extreme most of us also have a limited repertoire in more familiar programs, whether it's an office suite like Word, Excel and Powerpoint, or image manipulation. Just like Audacity, the image editor I use, Pixelmator, has vast power - it's rather like Photoshop without the diamond encrusted price tag. But I only ever use a tiny fraction of it.

So some people think that the answer is pared down, super-efficient programs that just do the essentials. The Mac world is littered with writing apps, for instance, many of which boast that they only provide the basics, clearing away clutter, helping you concentrate on the task at hand.

But therein lies the rub. What is the task? What are the basics? Because, while I only use a few features of Word, they are my features. The features that are important to me. I've been involved with PCs since the very beginning and many of the early word processors didn't have a word count feature. It simply didn't occur to the developers - why would anyone want to know how many words there are in a document? And that was fine from their viewpoint. In fact most business users don't really care. But if you are a writer there are two certain facts. First, you need a word processor. Second, it needs to be able to do a word count.

As a writer you don't need most of the fancy layout abilities. When someone asks me how to do a page border or why fancy table layouts aren't working I hoot with amusement. I don't care. These aren't my features. But for others, they are essentials.

So next time you hear someone moaning about 'feature bloat' and how ridiculously over-complex applications are, and how the developers need to get back to basics, raise a quizzical eyebrow. 'Yes, but whose basics?' you should say. And feel suitably smug.

Shaping the past

In my project to scan all my old photos I have just come across this little number from circa 1917.


 Before anyone adds a sarcastic comment I should add that I was not around in 1917, but the picture is of great interest to me as the young lady reclining at the front in her exotic harem pants (but jolly sensible shoes) is my grandmother, Annie Clegg (though at the time Annie Pickersgill, as my grandad was still just her sweetheart, fighting in the First World War).
This is some sort of pageant organized by the local vicar, the Reverend Oakley, best known probably for his rather entertaining book of local legends In Old Days, which features the story of the Clegg Hall boggart that I replicate in my article on Clegg Hall.

I don't have any great observations or wise words about this photo - but I find it fascinating, not just in terms of my seeing my grandma in a whole new light, but those others. What became of them? Are their families still in the area? What kind of lives did these girls on the edge of becoming women have?

I hope they were happy ones.

The plans are on display

One of the best bits of The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (and there are, indeed, many best bits) involves the development plans that result in the demolition of Arthur Dent's house. When he complains, he is told the plans have been on display for the last nine months. Yes, points out Arthur, they were in the cellar, which had no lights or stairs, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.

I felt something of this coming back to me when I decided to follow up just what was going on with the form I was kindly sent by the 'World Trade Register' for my company to be listed on their website.

The form kindly tells me that 'Updating is free of charge', and I should only sign if I want to place an insertion. Okay, what does that actually mean? There is no mention on the form of any charges incurred if I do sign, but in the small print it tells me that signing the document means I accept the terms and conditions on their web page.

Okay, I like a challenge. So I went to the web page and sure enough I am told that 'by sending an order the customer accepts these terms' (though the signature part isn't mentioned here) and that they will be invoiced if they don't cancel in 7 days. Yes, an invoice. Because updating may be free of charge, but inserting certaining isn't. How much does it cost? Go down a few paragraphs and it is casually mentioned that the insertion fee for the first 3 years is €2,985. That's about £2,500 or $4,000. Not a bad profit for listing someone in a register.

Of course, this may be all of huge value to the companies in question, though it would make a very interesting business case. But what is without doubt is that the 'Updating is free of charge' (the only print in that section in bold, and the only statement in the covering email about charges) is at best misleading, and the indirect route via the small print to the terms and conditions page on the website is not what you might call the most transparent bit of pricing.

Somehow I don't think I will be signing up.

What does 'live' mean to us?

The Thursday before last I went to see a play that was being performed that evening in a London theatre. I was in Swindon. This was the NT Live presentation of The Audience. The play itself was on in London, but we were watching it beamed into our local cinema.

I have to say, the experience was excellent. The play was very good and the visuals were excellent. They even had programmes, not to mention wine and beer for sale in the interval. And the staff were unusually attentive as we went out more like... well, a theatre than the local multiplex. So many thanks to Joe and Sarah for organizing it, as we would have never have got round to it.

It got me to thinking about the nature of seeing something live. With some kind of events, there is definitely something special about seeing it live, even if it is via a video link. It was interesting that someone I know online saw the same production from a cinema on the Isle of Man - and I had a real sense of shared experience, far more than if we had both just watched something on the TV. I think it is the immediacy and more real-feeling aspect of the location. Being in a cinema is a lot more like being in a theatre than sitting on the couch at home.

Increasingly I tend not to watch TV shows truly live. I'd say around 75 per cent of my viewing is either timeshifted using a PVR or streamed from Netflix. And that's fine. But there is something special about truly watching it live. The idea that it really is unfolding in front of you. Even the possibility that something could go wrong as you watch. It is why at the tender age of 14 I stayed up all night to watch the Moon landing. You just had to be there.

Once upon a time, 'being there' was cut and dried. Either you were there or you weren't. End of story. Now it is a continuum. There is really being there, there is being there in the sense that we were there at the performance of The Audience, there is being there live on TV and there is being there in a recorded TV broadcast.

Of course really being there is often best. If you take Wimbledon, for instance, the actual view is much better on TV, but I remember my only time at the real thing, seeing Jimmy Connors in his last ever semi-final, far more than anything I've ever seen on screen. But there is no doubt that with events like NT Live we are making it a lot easier to almost be there where it's not practical to do the real thing. And we got home by 10pm without an immense hole in the wallet. What's not to love?

BBC lunacy - official

The Supermoon will not look like this. Unless you
have a telescope. In which case, any full moon could
look like this.Yes, the BBC's science correspondents are lunatics - and it's not only the BBC that I accuse (in the original sense of the word 'lunatic' - driven bonkers by the influence of the moon). For once again we are bombarded with 'news' about the Supermoon tomorrow when, yes, it will be a teensy bit brighter than it was last night.

The night sky is set to be illuminated later by what will appear to be a much bigger and brighter Moon , screams the BBC tagline. Well, no, it won't. This is misuse of statistics, but those stats just happen to be hidden beneath weasel terms like 'much bigger' and 'much brighter'.

First of all, we have to ask 'much bigger' and 'much brighter' than what? The obvious comparison is with the night before, and I can confidently predict that the difference will be unnoticeable. But let's go all the way and compare the Moon's appearance this weekend with the way it is at its most distant and dimmest, because of course we can all remember what it looked like months ago. According to the BBC article, it will be 14% brighter than when it is at its furthest away. That sounds a lot, right? Let's compare with light bulbs. The light output of a bulb does not have a linear relationship with the power, but I have calculated that a 66 watt bulb is roughly 14% brighter than a 60 watt bulb. That's the kind of difference we are looking at.

Even more dramatic is the website's claim that the Moon will seem '30% bigger'. Of course this is a meaningless statistic as it doesn't define what is bigger, but let's assume this is the increase in area, as that sound more dramatic than the increase in diameter, and they are bound to use the most dramatic figure to add, erm, a sense of drama to a totally uninteresting event. The apparent diameter of the Moon is about the same as a 5mm punched hole held at arm's length. (Sounds ridiculously small? That's your amazing brain, fooling you.) To produce a 30% increase in area requires a 14% increase in diameter. So assuming my 5mm is the average between Supermoon and Weeniemoon, we are looking at around an apparent diameter of the Moon of the equivalent of about 5.3mm at arm's length at its biggest. Whoopie-doo.

The article compounds confusion by talking about the psychological effect that makes the Moon look much bigger than it really is when it is close to the horizon, trees or buildings as if this is an effect of the Supermoon, rather than something that happens whenever we see the Moon. Groan and double groan.

Altogether an appalling bit of work of which the BBC should be ashamed. They say 'We'd like to see your pictures of the supermoon' as if anyone could tell the difference between them and pictures of any other full moon.

Sadly, even properly scientific sources are going a bit bonkers over this, trying to get their moment in the spotlight (or Supermoonlight). Stop being naughty, people. It's a small effect of very little significance. Tell us some real science.

Image from Wikipedia

Contactless missed a trick

My trusty Oyster cardI haven't used contactless payment cards much. This isn't an aversion to using new technology - I love it - or worries about the security, it's just that the only contactless bank card I've got at the moment is a credit card and I pay for most things with a debit card. But seeing it in action the other day made me think that those rolling out the technology have (perhaps because of a vested interest) missed a big trick.

Like many others, even though I don't live in London, I have an Oyster card, the contactless payment method that is the most convenient way to use London Transport. It's a card you load up, then use - so effectively an electronic cash wallet. And it struck me, why don't contactless payment devices accept Oyster cards? It's the same technology, and with a bit of inter-connection on the back end so it could access your Oyster account, the card would become a cashless payment wallet. Great, for instance, to give to children with no danger of over-spending.

We have some experience of this in Swindon. When I first arrived here it was on the tail end of the trial of Mondex, one of the first large scale trials of a cashless payment system. Even though I was late to the game, I relished it. But Oyster would have huge advantages over Mondex in the way it is already well established in London, and with the flood of contactless payment terminals that is spreading through the land. (Contactless payment for car parks next, please, guys.)

For that matter, the Oyster system would be much better if it accepted contactless debit and credit card payments too, but that would be a bigger infrastructure change. Getting Oyster cards accepted as cashless wallets seems to me a much more practical possibility.

How about it?