Brian Clegg's Blog, page 150

When does a gift become a bribe?

A product I've never reviewedThe other day I got an email from a PR agency that was more like the sort of scam that originates from Nigeria. The email (I won't name the agency to spare their blushes) said:

I'm updating the finance database to ensure any future payments will not be delayed. Could you provide me your banking details, please?

Although I've had information from this agency plenty of times, I've never done any work for them. Scamming apart, my immediate thought when putting 'PR agency' alongside 'payment' was around the area of bribery. It wouldn't surprise me if those who read reviews suspect that reviewers are being given lots of goodies, if not downright cash payments, to write good things.

Now I've been writing reviews since the 1990s - it's how I started in professional writing - and I have to say that, on the whole it is all squeaky clean and above board. If the product has a low production cost (software, for example, only has the incremental cost of the medium it is distributed on), then chances are you will be allowed to keep it. And I admit this used to be quite good when I was reviewing business software costing £200 a pop. But in my experience hardware manfacturers hardly ever let you keep anything. Even getting your hands on a review product can be quite difficult, and then it's only for a limited time period.

Similarly I've never been sent nice Christmas presents by PR companies or manufacturers. (Hint.) Not that it would make any difference. It's true that when I did a lot of IT journalism, we often got given some goodies for attending a product launch or briefing (I still use my Windows 95 bag), but this seemed much more a thank-you for your time, rather than anything to influence what you wrote.

I'm not saying it never happens. When I was reviewing business software I did get one blatent attempt at bribery. Someone from a PR agency (I genuinely can't remember which) rang and said that they would like me to write an open review of a new product (i.e. not for a specific magazine) and as long as I made sure it was very positive they would pay me a four figure sum. I told the PR where to stick it, and he sounded genuinely offended and shocked that I would turn down what could only be seen as a bribe. He didn't quite say 'You'll never work in this business again,' but there was a hint of it.

That, though, was a one-off with what I assume was a bad penny. On the whole the only inducement to write something nice is the urge to please the nice PR people (or in the case of a book, the author). So I'm sure that the PR agency asking for my bank details wasn't intending to slip me a little something. Professional reviews are, on the whole, pretty upright things in the UK - and that can't be bad.

The mysteries of technology

As you may have gathered by now, I rather love my iPad and use it all the time. When, for example, I get sent proofs of my books to check through as PDFs, I tend to fling them over to the iPad and read them on there, as I find it much easier to read a document that way than on a computer screen. But the only danger is that you are at the mercy of the quality of the software interpreting the PDFs, which don't have as straightforward a file format as an image file. I discovered this recently when I was looking at the proof of a page from an illustrated book I've got out later this year. Part of one of the pages looked like this:

   You can see there's a statue of Galileo to the left and to the right, bleeding across to the next page is a strange bit of hieroglyphics like something out of the Da Vinci Code. Very nice, I thought, but what does it mean? 
So I sent a note to the editor, who came back swiftly, something to the effect of 'Isn't it obvious? It's Galileo's signature.' Well no, it wasn't obvious. But then I was struck with one of those IT inspirations. I thought I'd take a look at the same PDF on my computer. And this time, this is what I saw:

Now this is exactly the same file. All that I have changed is the device I'm looking at it with (and hence the software interpreting the PDF).

I'll continue to use the iPad to read PDFs as it is so much better an experience than doing it on a conventional screen. But in future, if anything looks strange, my first port of call will be to check what it looks like back on the old dinosaur machine.

At last I get rap

The other day I was listening to a bit of hard core, or possibly thrash metal, the way you do. At least, the way you do if your children insist on listening to Radio 1 sometime around midnight when you pick them up, even if they can't stand the music. And I had a bit of an epiphany.

For a long time I have struggled to articulate why I dislike rap so much - and hearing this stuff made me realize what the answer is. I didn't enjoy the hardcore/thrash sounds that were coming from the car speakers. It really wasn't my kind of thing. The closest you'll find on my iPod is somewhere between Van der Graaf Generator and Pink Floyd at their most destructive. But I could appreciate what I was hearing as music. It clearly was someone producing music, and what they were doing had obvious antecedents in the musical tradition.

What I hear when I listen to a rap 'song' has a totally different antecedent. Where those extreme forms of rock grew from heavy metal, which came out of mainstream rock, rap clearly came out of a child, standing on a kitchen table showing off. Saying 'Hey, this is me! Aren't I clever with all these words I can say? Look at me! This is my name. Aren't I great?'

The reason I've never understood rap is that I was thinking of it as music, rather than simply childish showing off. Silly me. Now I get it.

Standing on the shoulders of giants

With permission of the Institute of PhysicsThe seventeenth century physicist Robert Hooke has had something of a roller coaster ride of a history.

Although Hookes' law on the elasticity of springs has kept his name visible, he largely disappeared as a person in the glare of the spotlight placed on his indubitably great contemporary and rival Isaac Newton.

When Hooke re-emerged onto the world stage it became briefly fashionable to belittle Newton and big up Hooke's achievements. Now we have mostly got more of a balance. Hooke did do a remarkable amount in his own right. Yet the feud between Hooke and Newton was certainly not one-sided. In fact it started when Hooke dismissed Newton's paper on light and colour without even bothering to read it. And there is good evidence that Hooke had a tendency to claim other people's ideas as his own.

But there is no doubt that Hooke was a great experimenter, science populariser (his book of drawings of microscopic views is still stunning) and had some theoretical ideas that helped Newton immensely. For instance Hooke suggested using a pendulum to measure the acceleration due to gravity. And it was Hooke who realized that an object in orbit is freely falling towards the body it orbits, while at the same time moving sideways at the right speed to keep missing it. We know that Newton got this idea from Hooke because he wrote to Hooke that he had never heard of this hypothesis before. When the Principia was published, Hooke claimed that Newton had stolen his ideas, yet in letters between the two, it seems that Hooke had got as far as he could manage and was encouraging Newton to take his ideas further – something Newton certainly would.

Now the Insitute of Physics is celebrating Hooke's achievements in the rather imposing painting pictured here. It's an impressive work of imagination. Apparently the only known portrait of Hooke was destroyed in the early 1700s (possibly at Newton's instructions), so this image can only go on descriptions. We know Hooke had something of a hunched back and (in part as a result) did not come across as a particularly large man. It seems likely that when Newton quoted the remark in a letter to Hooke that if he had seen further it was by standing on the shoulders of giants, it was a bit of a dig, as Hooke was anything but a giant physically.

It's probably also worth saying that the artist, Rita Greer buys into the now largely discredited extreme view that Hooke's genius remains a surpressed fact thanks to Newton's hatred of him. She comments 'Robert Hooke, brilliant, ingenious seventeenth century scientist was brushed under the carpet of history by Sir Isaac Newton and his cronies. When he had his Tercentenary there wasn't a single memorial to him anywhere. I thought it disgraceful as Hooke did many wonderful things for science.' Note the emotive word 'cronies'.

But even though it's certainly not true that Hooke is regarded in a lowly fashion any more, it doesn't do us any harm to be reminded of this remarkable man. I find the idea of this being a portrait of Hooke when we don't really know what he looked like rather odd. It clearly isn't a portrait. But it is a powerful image to make us think about Hooke's achievements, and as such should be celebrated.

The portrait was hung yesterday at the Institute of Physics in London.

Food of the gods

It's Royal Society of Chemistry podcast time again.

What can you say about a substance that brings us back time and again to a favourite treat, but is poisonous to dogs? We're talking theobromine (literally food of the gods from the Greek), the main active ingredient in chocolate. In fact this close relative of caffeine is poisonous to all mammals to some degree - us included - but you would have to eat a very large amount to suffer. Cats are even more susceptible... but they don't have a sweet receptor among their taste buds, so don't care much. Take a listen and find out more.

Those eureka moments

The original Apple Computer logoHistorians of science tend to downplay 'eureka moments' when a scientist suddenly has a great idea. 'Constructed after the fact,' they mumble into their beards. 'Real science isn't like that. It's a slow grind, a team effort. Fake memories. Blah, blah...' Arguably this says more about historians of science, and their lack of imagination, than real scientists. For while all eureka moments are certainly not true, I think many are.

To dismiss a couple of unlikely ones, I very much doubt that the original Archimedes jumping out of the bath story has any validity. And there's good evidence that Galileo didn't get a sudden understanding of gravitational pull while dropping balls of different weights off the leaning tower of Pisa. (The evidence for this is that Galileo never mentions it. It is only told by an assistant who was writing about Galileo near the great man's death. But Galileo was a superb self-publicist. If he had done it, he would have bragged about it.)

However I'd also like put forward a classic that I feel probably is true. Newton and the apple. I'm not saying that an apple hit him on the head - that is pure fiction - but I don't think it's at all unreasonable that seeing an apple fall sparked a chain of thought. Here's Newton's own words on the subject, related by the historian William Stukeley:

After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden, and drank thea [sic] under the shade of some apple trees; only he and myself. Amidst other discourse, he told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself; occasion'd by the fall of an apple, as he sat in a contemplative mood.

The fact is that there is strong evidence that humans tend to come up with their best ideas when they are not sitting at their desk trying to work, but rather when they are only half conscious of what they are dealing with. Perhaps on a walk (I get most of my ideas walking the dog), driving, or in Newton's case, sitting relaxing. It feels right.  So hands off, historians of science. Even if it wasn't true, this kind of story is useful as myth - but in this case there is every possibility that it was.

Image from Wikipedia

Just go away

Two words. Scottish independence. Please.

I'm sorry, I have no interest in keeping the Scots in the Union. The sooner they break off the better. Just think about it. No more Alex Salmond on UK television. It's worth it for that alone. No more Scottish MPs at Westminster. (It would be interesting if we had as few MPs of Scottish origin as they have MPs of English origin in the Scottish parliament. BTW, isn't Cameron a Scottish name?)

No more subsidies. No more need to fund postmen and medics and other vital services to go all the way to the Highlands and Islands. No more whingeing from Scottish politicians. (Actually there would be plenty of it, but hopefully it wouldn't make it onto our news.) Of course we'd lose out on North Sea Oil revenues - but it would be worth it. As would the mangling of the Union flag.

But please make it all or nothing. Any further devolution is no help. We'd STILL have all the whingeing. Still have their MPs at Westminster. And still see Alex Salmond.

It worked with the Americans. We've got on well with them (on the whole) since we've split. Please, let's have Scottish independence, sooner rather than later.

I talks detox

I'm writing this quickly before heading off to BBC Wiltshire to talk detox. They thought this would be rather a fun thing to discuss post Christmas and the New Year, and I'm delighted to oblige.

Detox is one of those subjects that really gets me irritated at the way manufacturers and health shops rip people off. As usually presented, detox is total rubbish.

Let's break it down. What does detox mean? Removal of toxins - poisons - from the body. What are poisons? Pretty well anything taken in excess of an acceptable dose. Water, for example, is poisonous if you drink enough quickly. A couple of athletes have died as a result of water poisoning. (I think it dilutes your electrolyte levels sufficiently that your nervous system packs in.) Your body has brilliant systems for removing toxins - your liver and kidneys, for example - but if you shove too much in, it will have trouble getting rid of the bad stuff fast enough.

So what should you do to detox? It's so boring, which is why they make up all this garbage to sell products. All you need to do is cut down on the crap you shove in your mouth. Less fat, less sugar, more fruit (but not too much as that has a lot of sugar in it) and definitely more veg. A touch of exercise. And you've got detox perfected. Resultant expenditure - probably negative after cutting down on fatty and salty treats.

I was trying to look up the most infamous detox offender, Prince Charles' Duchy Herbals 'Detox Tincture' as an example, but they've gone all coy about it. The Duchy web page still tells us that for a mere £10 we can buy a little bottle, and that

Duchy Herbals Detox Tincture has been produced to help support the body's natural elimination and detoxification processes. It includes extracts of Dandelion and Artichoke, the latter of which is a well-known digestive aid, making it the ideal product to help kick-start your body after the festive period!

But if you click the link to the Detox Tincture page, you get take to page still called 'http://www.duchyoriginals.com/detox_t...' but that tells you about sheep shearing. Hmm. Maybe Prince Charles doesn't want to fleece us any more.

A toy to conjure with

When I was young I had an educational toy that was called something like an Electrokit (definintely not the Meccano Electrikit). It was a set of electronic components, each protected in a chunky housing with standard split-pin plug fittings at the bottom. You then got a series of circuit boards with appropriate sockets in and you could plug the transitors, resistors etc. in place to make up real working electronic devices.

I can't find a picture of the kit or the door, so here's
the Science MuseumAs far as I can remember, and I'm really dredging the depths of memory here, it was brilliant. I feel a real nostalgia for this kit. The ultimate thing you could construct was a radio, which was quite exciting, but for me this wasn't anywhere near as good as another project. The thing is, a radio was an everyday item, but you also got the chance to build something cool of practically Star Trek wonder.

Before I reveal what this project was, I ought to point out something I have since shown to my children at the Science Museum in London. I don't know if it's still there, but last time I went round this particular part of the mueseum I spotted an antique exhibit of an automatic opening door. The first time I went to the Science Museum, aged 6, this door with an 'electric eye' was absolutely mind boggling. You walked up to it, and it opened. Automatically. Like magic. I must have gone through it about a dozen times. This was the future. Really.

So given this context, here's my favourite project with that home kit. As well as the basic electronic circuitry you added a buzzer (and possibly a light) and a pair of wires. At the end of the wires was a little panel with a series of conducting bars. This panel broke the circuit - the buzzer didn't go off. But if the panel got wet, the water conducted electricity across the bars and the buzzer sounded, controlled by a transitor on the board.

So what you could do, for example, is tape the sensor to the side of the bath and leave it filling, careless not bothering to watch it. Surely it would overflow, causing terror and destruction? No! The amazing technology started to buzz and you could turn off the taps. Ah, joy, pure joy. This was twenty-first century living in the 1960s.

Picture from Wikipedia

Trying not to be Prejudiced

I'm a great fan of Jane Austen, and love a good detective story, so was delighted to get the P. D. James follow-up to Pride and Prejudice, the murder mystery Death Comes to Pemberley for Christmas.

It was quite eerie to start reading it, as I had watched the film adaptation of P and P with Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet just the evening before. It somehow made it particularly easy to immerse myself in the book - and I ought to stress that I'm not a picky traditionalist, so was not in any sense worried about what Ms James would do to the hallowed characters. (As credentials, I love Stephen Moffatt's modern day Sherlock).

Sadly, though, I can only be lukewarm about what I read. If I'm honest, P. D. James is not one of my favourite writers - I find her usual murder mysteries rather stiff and stilted. (In fact the best thing about the Dalgleish stories is the superb theme tune of the TV adaptation.) Although the Austen sequel is cleverly written, it seemed to lack that immense warm humour that is the absolute essence of Jane Austen. Elizabeth is little more than a bit part, rather than the central character. And at least once the author seemed to be using the book as a vehicle for her politics, when bizarrely the characters suddenly start discussing whether there ought to be a right of appeal in a trial (not available at the time), and how this would be absurd as it 'could presumably result in a foreign court trying English cases. And that would be the end of more than our legal system.' Presumably a pointed reference to European interference in UK justice.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad book. I was interested to read it to the end and enjoyed it. But I simply felt it lacked the energy and brilliance of an Austen, while it was too slow to develop to work as a murder mystery. Still, worth taking a look at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

To cheer you up a bit, here is that excellent theme music: