Friday Smirk

Classic J&M, humorously pointing out the hypocrisy inherent in the claims of many religious apologists who go down the track of using the actions of extremists both as a defence and at the same time a weapon of attack.

It's nearly Friday smirk

Unfortunate door placement - or perhaps an alternative fuel source?

Nice view

Up in town again today, had a meeting with a company in the "walkie-talkie" building on one of the upper floors so the view from the meeting room was spectacular. I must admit it was quite distracting and at quiet moments in the 3 hour session my eye's did wander over to the window. The shape of the building is such that the top is wider than the middle which is narrower than the bottom (or that's the way it looks) so the outside surfaces are concave. Back when the building was first built this caused all kinds of problems as reflected Sunlight was concentrated at a few spots on the ground and on one occasion even started to melt a car! 

From inside the building, the effect of this design is amazing, the windows in the offices are floor to ceiling so as you approach the glass and look down you cannot see any of the floors below you, it feels like you are floating above the street, quite disconcerting! The photo below is what this looks like although doesn't really do justice to the effect because of the reflection, I should have knelt down but this was a client meeting so decorum needed to be maintained!

I'm really hoping that this particular client does much more with our products as I love visiting this building, the restaurant/bar at the top is stunning and has an incredible view South across the river to the Shard and London Bridge. I get the impression that the different shaped buildings in London are starting to create something even more interesting than say the New York skyline (which I also love) where to a large degree the buildings are slightly more "boxy", variety is the spice of life after all!

Conference day

Spent the day in London at my company's annual customer conference, around 300 people from 150 companies turned up which was fantastic. As a guest speaker we had Lord William Hague who gave us all a talk on macro & geo-political risks. Fascinating stuff sprinkled lot's of nice little anecdotes from the corridors of power. Hague is such an articulate speaker, I reckon he spoke non-stop for around 60 minutes without uttering a single "um" or "err" anywhere. The main pillar of his speech was what he thought the three main historical events of our lives would be, as documented by some hypothetical historian of the future, the three he chose were.. The rise of China, The fall of the Iron Curtain and the usurping of the Industrial Age by the beginning of the Information Age. Hard to think of any biggies that might trump those three!

Scandinavian needles and beer

Excellent half-pint of a collaboration beer made by Wylam (Newcastle) & Fuerst Wiacek (Berlin) called "Like Robots", a pokey 6.8% double dry-hopped IPA juice bomb, really nicely balanced with complex hop depth; drank overlooking a tattoo bar in Copenhagen. We spent a good hour gawping at some bloke having a tattoo done on his arm, wincing every five minutes as his legs (which were all we could really see) twitched in spasm as he was obviously being painfully jabbed with the tattoo needle. Eventually he came out with his arm wrapped in cling-film, he seemed happy with himself and after a couple of scoops of this beer I was quite happy too! Fortunately watching this prickly experience didn't put us off a hearty dinner at a restaurant nearby called øl & brød which means "beer and bread" in Danish - the food was fabulous, but the restaurant empty, which was surprising considering how good the food was (I suppose it was a Tuesday night?) Anyway, below is a shot of the starter we had, unfortunately I didn't take any more foodie-snaps the entire evening, that's how good it was!

The law is a ass

WRT a grooming gang member, currently in prison... "Rapist given chance to see his victim's child"

... Really? Seriously? WTF? Someone needs to get fired over this surely?

Missionaries

There's what missionaries see when they look in their bathroom mirrors..

and then... 

There's what the rest of us see when we look at missionaries..

Uncle Sam's on Mars

Fantastic news last night, NASA have successfully landed their "Insight" robot on Mars. Confirmation was received at around 20:00 GMT last night and pretty soon after that pictures were being transmitted back from the craft of the surface of the red planet. The Russians we the first to successfully land a vehicle onto the surface (softly) back in 1971 with their Mars 3 explorer but it only functioned for a few seconds before being blasted by a violent storm. The Americans got the first real pictures from the surface with Viking 1 in 1975 and there have been several unmanned missions since then culminating in the "curiosity rover" launched in 2011 and still operational in 2018, it even took a "selfie" to celebrate (see below)...

Insight will focus on studying the internal structure of Mars and is loaded with experiments that look at its seismology and the temperature profile of its outer crust. The initial images are looking fantastic. It's amazing how imaging and computing technology has improved even over the relatively short period since curiosity was designed and built, pretty soon we'll have live'ish (because it takes 4 minutes for a signal to reach Earth from Mars) streaming via YouTube!

Apparently the first thing that the new rover found was a queue of Martians desperately wanting to make a trade deal with Britain, so that's nice..

(PS I made the last bit up)

Monday Mirth

Traditional..

Perfect

The price of bitcoin over the last four years. This must be one of the most perfect charts ever assembled, a perfect "bubble" in economic terms! Human beings are so herd-driven sometimes, both in ideas and actions, I must focus more on finding ways to exploit that fact. Anyone wager that we'll see $1000 dollars (the red line) again before the end of the year?

Automne drinks..

Tried a new beer last night while making dinner. It's a Saison from one of my favorite breweries called Burning Sky based down in Sussex. A Saison is a style of beer usually made with naturally occurring yeast (i.e. in the air) sometimes made sour and sometimes with fruit. This one was both sour and fruity, including blackberries and rosehips, it tasted delightful and was a really refreshing low-alcohol beer, highly recommended!

Friday Smirk

A highly relevant J&M this week in light of the story about the American missionary who traveled (illegally) to a remote island in the Andaman archipelago in order to "convert" one of the last remaining un-contacted tribes on Earth. The people living there are openly hostile to visitors and do not wish to be contacted, hence for many years now the Indian government prohibit people visiting. This is obviously for the safety of the foreigners but also to protect the indigenous people there from infectious diseases that they have no immunity to. When this latest bible bashing berk turned up they shot him dead with poison tipped arrows, no doubt satisfying all his most explicit sacrificial fantasies all at once.

I deplore the actions of this man, such arrogance, such delusion a truly ego-maniacal thing to attempt to do. He claimed to want to introduce them to "Jesus" like that's been a desirable thing for many native peoples of this planet! What actually transpired was that the people that met him on the beach sent him straight to "Jesus" instead. An unnecessary and pointless exercise for all concerned.

It was even more nauseating to listen to a lily livered Jeremy Vine on radio two this afternoon debating this topic and entertaining (far too politely) other Christian missionaries trying to turn this buffoon into some kind of "hero", he wasn't a hero, he was just another brainwashed idiot, not much better than the brain-washed idiots who flew planes into buildings in New York! Those morons died for what they fervently believed in too, affecting the lives of total strangers entirely for the worse. From my perspective there is very little to distinguish between them.

Mid-week mirth

Came across this letter on the inter-webs the other day, it bought a smile to my face.

Danish delights..

Just back from a flying visit to wonderful Copenhagen. Spent a very enjoyable couple of days with my wife sampling the culture, food, beer and shopping opportunities of the Danish capital. Loved the restaurant scene there, lot's of interesting things to try and some nice pocket-sized start-ups staffed by real food enthusiasts. The craft beer scene was amazing too, especially loved the Mikkeller bars and the general wide-spread availability of interesting and tasty ales, particular shout out to the Taphouse, an enviable 60+ taps to choose from from all over the world (the UK was well represented!) 

Visited some stylish museums and had a look around a couple of royal palaces, ate a ton of delicious food, all manner of things on rye bread as well as some slightly off-piste wine and cocktails in some very quirky but cozy back-street bars, so many to choose from that we never did make it to that mermaid statue thingy. I hadn't visited Denmark before, it's one of the few European countries I still had left on my "go-see" list, now I can't wait to return!

Riveting

Loving the new "Dynasties" natural history programme by the BBC that's airing on Sunday evenings at the moment. Watching the plight of Emperor penguins last night, absolutely riveting, holy crap those penguins certainly have a tough time of it, -60 centigrade and nothing but fish-fat and each other to survive.

Brexit kids..

Many seniors and six form pupils across Northern Ireland are staging a mass protest today. They are demonstrating against the hijacking of their futures by Brexit supporters, more specifically their stultifying influence on the current deal being haggled over in Westminster at the moment. They have a point and the impact of this upheaval in that part of the world is even more uncertain than it is here! For those of us that spent time in NI during the troubles, any notion of a directional shift backwards instead of forwards is distressing.

It's nearly two years now since the vote and many more youngsters have turned 18 since then but had no vote at the time because they were too young, as we know around 80% of 18-24 year olds voted to remain. These are the people who will be most affected by that decision because they will experience it for the longest period of time. They are the ones who will be bearing most of the consequences of that vote. Consequences that, as we now know, were based upon a crock of lies, delivered by a cartel of kippers and funded by shadowy figures who are totally unaccountable for the mess and division they have created. It's heartbreaking to see so much opportunity and potential for closer development and cooperation with European neighbors being flushed away in return for something that no one, not even the supporters of it, seem to be able to articulate in any way shape or form that cannot easily be falsified or ridiculed.

Gated

This looks like one of those Japanese raked gardens, or has the gate simply got WiFi?

Foolish

How the hell did we go from "cool Britannia" to "fool Britannia" in only 6 years?

Languages

Ever wondered why the English language almost always prevails over the French language when people have a choice about how they communicate..?

Friday Smirk

Hospital humor (found pinned to the front of a fridge in the staff rest-room), oh those surgeons, they're such wags... (click on image for larger version)

Turning the corner

Looks like Brexit is in it's final death-throws, the convulsions have started. Today we've had the following crap to absorb..

- Man who didn't realise Dover was so close to France and who supposedly was in charge of negotiating the Brexit deal says it's fundamentally flawed and resigns, you have to ask why he negotiated it that way then, what a tool.

- Toff who clearly wants to fleece as many people as he can by shorting the crap out of everything via his hedge-fund and then causing as much chaos in the market as he can, changes his mind about who he wants to lead his party, but says the rest of us can't change our minds via another vote. Who the feck asked for his opinion anyway?

- Crooked Tory politician resigns under the cover of "principal" expects someone to give a toss.

- The Ulster contingent are causing problems again, having created a raft of exceptions just for them, i.e. a population of just 2 million (slightly less than West Yorkshire) they've decided to not support a Government that gave them a fistful of cash to be supported. I'm beginning to seriously reconsider my view on Irish re-unification.

It's getting silly now, people's lives and livelihoods are on the line, we need a second vote and/or a general election, the whole damn thing requires a hard-reset.

The nature of evidence

I was listening to a debate between a theist and an atheist the other day on the YouTube and the subject of certainty came up. The theist did what theists often do and invoked the boogy-man of "doubt" That well worn trope of "you can't be 100% sure that there isn't a God" (heard that line so many times) Of course philosophers like Russell dealt with this argument years ago with his teapot argument but the fundamental problem is that most people don't understand what the attributes of evidence need to be for it to be considered to have any purchase on this question. Simply saying that "flowers" or "puppies" are evidence for God is insufficient, flowers and puppies are evidence for evolution and natural selection and the natural world, that's as much as we can say about them; anything else is a catastrophic misunderstanding about the nature of evidence or simply the usual leap of blind-faith. We can't be 100% sure about anything because Human Beings are not omniscient, but we can know things beyond a reasonable doubt. So, the best defense against this line of argument is to turn it around 180 degrees and ask the theist what their percentage belief that their particular God existing is, if they say 100% (which they usually do) you've got them banged to rights.

Check-mate atheists

Don't laugh, millions of otherwise reasonable people actually think this is a rational argument..

Confusion delusion

A lot of management and sales types get awfully confused over the word "design", when I tell people that I "design" software they often think this simply means deciding "what it's going to look like, colours and fonts etc.". It's a bit like thinking that all there is to making a car is sketching out the body-shape and deciding what shade of red it's going to be painted. When you confuse the engineering team with the marketing team or don't really understand what the difference is, you end up thinking that the same things motivate them, a fatal error and the ruination of many a promising project.

Over the years I've witnessed many an engineering offices housing dusty ping-pong tables and pristine unused games consoles whilst their network and server infrastructure are severely crippled because of lack of investment. When asked why their office is littered with such pointless and distracting trinkets, the response is often a shoulder shrug and the comment that no one talked to them about it. As any qualified technical person knows, it's easier to retain a good engineer by simply buying her a bigger monitor rather than a dart-board or indoor putting-green! The nature of software engineering (as opposed to jobs like marketing or relationship based endeavours like sales) is one where constant interruption and noise ruin the levels of concentration needed to achieve anything meaningful, sales people need inbound calls and lots of short (random) conversations to build opportunities and find new ones, engineers don't.

The only thing that really needs to be understood is that people are all different and different things motivate them, many managers delude themselves into thinking that what motivates them motivates all. In my experience, when it comes to many technical challenges, one size fits all isn't a good strategy for building a productive team.

Genocidal rain..

Got rained on during my lunchtime stroll today, luckily I took an umbrella with me so only got wet feet! A cool rainbow appeared at about half way round, it's amazing to think that according to Christianity, light didn't get refracted through water drops until around 2300 BC when a bloke called Noah built a big boat to protect his zoological collection from the genocidal tendencies of his imaginary God! Obviously, today we frown upon genocide as most of us realise that, from a moral standpoint, killing millions of innocent Men, Women and Children is much worse than getting wet! Although, there are still some politicians who struggle with such dilemmas..

..and again

Madam President

Congratulations to Alice Roberts, new President of Humanists UK.

Too factual?

Here's the Iceland (food shop) Christmas advert that points out the issues around deforestation for the purposes of planting palm oil plants. It's been banned for apparently being "too political"? Personally I'd have banned it for being "too factual", such is the zeitgeist these days..

The others..

Been interviewing young people this week for programming jobs, most of them are super-intelligent and keen as mustard, but others, wow...

Windy walks..

Went for my usual 5 km (52 minutes and 300 calories) walk at lunchtime, loving the Sunshine (as per the photo) but not liking the blustery wind much, had to stop about a dozen times to remove grit from my eyes! I hear rain is on it's way later so glad I made the most of the fair weather (12 Centigrade) to work up a moderate sweat before it gets here.

Friday Smirk II

Oh my God they killed Sulley..!

Friday Smirk

I've never met a Hindu, Jew, Atheist, Muslim or Jedi yet who has a problem with Christmas (a.k.a. 2 days off work in the middle of Winter)...

"Alternative" therapies..

Not new but I love this work from Crispian Jago, click on the image for a readable version.

America today

I see there's been another mass shooting in the USA, a dozen or so young people dead. It's been a whole 12 days since the last mass shooting there, I guess this is the new "normal" in America these days, an obviously perverse state of affairs that seems unrecognizable to many inside the country itself. We wait for the "thoughts and prayers" to do what "thoughts and prayers" usually do.

Adios Asia..

One small victory for reason over theocracy, Asia Bibi a Pakistani Woman who was charged with "blasphemy"and sentenced to death, has been released from prison where she has been held for the last 8 years. Upon the announcement of her acquittal there were many violent protests, religious zealots throughout the country called for her immediate execution, as they seem to love to do in that country. It's worth remembering that her only crime was that a bunch of Muslim Women refused to drink water from the same cup as her (she's a Christian) and later accused her of defaming the prophet Mohammed. It's well known that in Pakistan people often use the claim of "blasphemy" as a way of settling trivial personal disputes. 

Asia is now on her way out of the country and hopefully to a new life somewhere more enlightened and less medieval, we wish her luck.

Bible Barista bother...

Remember back in 2015 when Starbucks got themselves into hot-water from Christian nutters who felt their "festive-red" cups simply weren't Jesus'y enough, it was a source of much chatter among the twittering classes. Anyway, since then they've tried to come up with cup designs that were less controversial, and failed miserably, those of us on the secular side of this realised quite early on that the religious side was NEVER going to be happy no matter what they put (or didn't put) on their cups but for giggles here are the various objections over the years, summarized into a list.

2015 - Plain red, was not Jesus'y enough, clearly a war on Christmas.
2016 - A mosaic of 100 people drawn in a continuous stroke - clearly an attack on Christian values spearheaded by a company hell-bent on promoting a liberal-bias.
2017 - Snowflakes and a pair of holding hands - obviously gay
2018 - Four separate designs, what could possibly go wrong..?

I have a suggestion to keep these Christians happy, how about different Bible verses on the cups, what could they possibly object to? Here's my suggestion for the first one..

This is just my first suggestion, they go down-hill after this, probably enough to put you off your latte... :)

Climate pause..

Had to go into London this morning so up bright and early to catch the train into Paddington. I finished just after lunch and on the way back to the office I snapped this picture of an Autumnal Sun flickering through the falling oak leaves of a couple of trees by the station, so warm for the time of year and so peaceful at this time of day. Makes you want to hit the pause button on the rotational spin of the planet, unfortunately there's a few laws of physics (conservation of momentum for one) that makes that kinda undesirable..

Bonfire night

Happy bonfire night!

Friday Smirk

Human brains, wonderful simulation engines..

Football thuggery?

Just came across this horrific story on the BBC site, its about a football player called Neil Ruddock (see above) who claims that he deliberately broke the legs of an opponent in 1996. Many are calling for violence in the sport to have much harsher penalties, one commentator says "bans should be for weeks and months rather than days and matches", personally if this guy confesses to this act of thuggery and it's shown to be true then he should be locked up, like any other violent criminal. As for players who do similar things today then they should also be charged and convicted as if they'd committed the act on the high street rather than a football pitch, I can see no reason why the latter is somehow a special case; a life-time ban would be more appropriate IMO.

Sinful weather

J&M on the money as usual. It's a sad but true fact there are people (religious ones) who have received some of the best education this world has to offer and STILL believe shit like this..

No (wanna) go areas...

When you criticise Islam and someone says "but Christianity is just a bad" point them to this; it's also a handy list of countries never to visit..

Bah humbug

We executed a cunning plan yesterday, bought a load of chocolates and sweets on the cheap and then kept all the lights in the house switched off for the whole evening. Net-net is that now I have a load of sweets stashed for Christmas stocking-fillers and watched a whole film (The Dark Knight Rises) uninterrupted by feral trick or treat gangs, bah humbug :)