AlunSalt: Ancient Science and the Science of Ancient Things A weblog focussed mainly on the science of the past. Thu, 16 Oct 2014 13:00:41 +0000 en-US hourly 1 This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site, subject to copyright and fair use. Association Thu, 16 Oct 2014 13:00:41 +0000 I really want a new Kindle. This makes no sense. I already have a Kindle, it works well enough. Certainly it’s fast enough to read from. The money I would spend on a new Kindle I could spend on books instead.

What I think has happened is association. When I think about buying a new Kindle I also think about having time to read a lot from it. You don’t imagine buying one of these things to leave on a shelf or lost in a drawer. So what I really want is more time to read. Amazon is probably pleased that I associate having that time with buying a new Kindle. I wasn’t conscious of why I wanted a Kindle, but now I know why I want it, it’ll be more books instead.

But not all associations are aspirations.

I’ve had bad whiplash recently, which means I’ve either not been getting to sleep or else waking up in the middle of the night with an agonising pain. Though one particularly bad night when I woke up, a phrase bubbled up from my subconscious:
Brought to you in association with MAOAM, the fruity chew.

MAOAM advert

I must really hate the adverts round The Big Bang Theory.

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English Votes for English Laws makes sense, so long as you don’t actually think about it Wed, 15 Oct 2014 16:52:52 +0000 Welsh polling station

It’s not always easy to work out what is or is not an English vote.

So it became apparent surprisingly quickly that the Union side of the Scottish referendum had no Plan A for if they won. The panicked offer given to Scotland has stirred up the demand for EVEL, English Votes for English Laws. EVEL is interesting because it highlights the problems there are with the union. The basic demand, for English representation for English-only affairs, is utterly reasonable. The problem is that no one really knows what the relationship is between England the UK.

There are a few problems with EVEL in practice. For a start it might be very difficult to find an English-only law for EVEL to apply. Roughly, funding for the Celtic nations in the UK is percentage of funding for England. If £100 is spent in England then Scotland is allocated £6, Wales and Northern Ireland £3 each, as a very rough approximation. That money is a grant from Westminster and the devolved parliaments decide how to spend it. But for England the budget for a service is allocated directly from Westminster. So here’s a hypothetical problem:

The government decides to abolish direct public funding for the NHS in England. Instead they set up a scheme for personal insurance with some tax credits for the poor, so NHS funding is cut from the public purse. Health is devolved so Celtic nations make their own arrangements, and can continue to publicly fund the service if they wish. Should Celtic MPs get a vote?

From one point of view this is an English matter, so EVEL applies. However, if it passes, there will be a massive cut to the Celtic nations’ budgets, because if England’s funding drops, so too does theirs. BUT it doesn’t follow that it’s their NHS that gets cut. The devolved governments could save their NHS at the expense of something else, like education.

This is an extreme example, but bear in mind England has defunded higher education study, which the Celtic nations have tried to preserve to some extent. It’s difficult to find a purely English issue that won’t have financial impact elsewhere because England hasn’t been uncoupled from the UK the way other nations have.

Another issue is that the current system embeds some English privilege and EVEL will fossilise it. Jeremy Hunt, the Health Minister for England, is in the UK cabinet. The Health Ministers for the other nations are not. So England gets to influence UK policy in a way that is shut to the rest of the nation. The same for education. The parochial education minister Michael Gove was inflicted on the rest of the nation on a regular basis, and steered national policy, despite speaking only for England.

Also if we have EVEL then why not WVWL, Welsh Votes for Welsh Laws? A lot of Welsh administration is from Westminster. For example S4C, the Welsh Channel 4, has been gutted from Westminster. Should English MPs have been barred from voting on that? Should votes on Justice and Tax for purely Welsh issues be limited to Welsh MPs?

Depending on how it is implemented EVEL is either so diluted that it makes a mockery of English representation or else increases the democratic deficit in the devolved nations. There are alternatives.

John Redwood has proposed an English Parliament. I’m surprised it’s suggested by someone inside Westminster, because an English Parliament would be a headache. It would represent 85% of the UK population and the relationship would be similar to that between Russia and the USSR. It’s easy to imagine a Labour government in one parliament at loggerheads with a Conservative parliament in the other. However, given the Conservative habit of infighting, even a Conservative PM and Tory First Minister could get into a major spat.

The other solution, to balance England against the other nations would be to divide it into nine or so regions of about 6 million people each. Might seem tidier, but maybe even less workable than an English Parliament. It wouldn’t make sense to divide London, so you’d have a massive urban state, much wealthier than the rest. A London first minister could cause almost as many problems for a PM as an English one, given the lack of interest from Westminster in places beyond the M25.

It would also be a thankless task to divide the regions. Even what look like easy divisions Lancashire & NorthWest and Yorkshire would be controversial because do you use the current division, or the historic division? There are a lot people unhappy that the modern border does not follow the traditional one. Does Lincolnshire belong with a Yorkshire authority, a Midland Assembly, or a Fenland parliament? Opinion in the county might vary depending on where you ask the question.

Even then there would be a divide between urban and rural needs in most of the regions. Birmingham might be geographically closer to rural Shropshire than London, but maybe not so much more culturally.

The killer would be when the Daily Mail discovers the effect being on the wrong side of a regional border has on house prices.

Sorting out English devolution is not a simple question. The answer you get will depend to a large extent on what you think English devolution is for. Is it about bringing democracy closer, or is it just a matter of keeping up with the McJoneses? This is something that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have been discussing for 15 years. It’s unreasonable to expect parties that have been committed to centralising power to develop a coherent policy for devolution in a few days.

EVEL isn’t an intentional slight any of the nations. It’s simply a symptom of an establishment that has ignored the world beyond Westminster and now is exposed as being unprepared for events that happened decades ago.

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I read The Martian by Andy Weir… Thu, 02 Oct 2014 15:55:50 +0000 and quite enjoyed it.

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I’m thinking about blogging in Welsh / Dw i’n meddwl am blogio yn Gymraeg Wed, 01 Oct 2014 10:59:00 +0000 English

I’m thinking about blogging in Welsh, but confidence and competence are a problem. I’d like to be able to practice Welsh, but Knighton is not a Welsh-speaking town. So, if I am to practice, writing is best.

I need to decide what write about. I get press releases from various astronomical research bodies. Translating exactly is difficult, but it’s not an exam. A rough outline is possible. It’s easier than thinking of something original each day.

Also I don’t know where to blog. Here, with two categories English and Welsh? Or on a new blog at WordPress or Kinja? My biggest concern is I will make mistakes. I like Gweiadur and Cysill Ar-lein, but they are not enough to overcome my ineptitude. That’s life. But it would be helpful to have a note saying “Please tell me if I’ve made a mistake.” Cymraeg

Dw i’n meddwl blogio yn Gymraeg, ond hyder a hyfedredd sydd problem. Dw i’n awyddus i ymarfer Cymraeg a dydy Tref-y-clawdd ddim yn siarad Cymraeg. Felly, os dw i’n mynd i ymarfer, mae ysgrifennu yn gorau.

Dw i angen i benderfynu beth i ysgrifennu amdano. Dw i’n cael datganiadau i’r wasg o gyrff ymchwil seryddol amrywiol. Cyfieithu yn union yn anodd, ond dydy e ddim yn arholiad. Mae amlinelliad bras yn bosibl. Mae’n haws na meddwl syniadau gwreiddiol bob dydd.

Hefyd, dw i ddim yn gwybod ble i blogiau. Yma, gyda dau gategori Cymraeg a Saesneg? Nei yn blog newydd ar WordPress nei Kinja? Fy mhryder mwyaf yw bydda i’n gwneud gwallau. Dw i’n hoffi Gweiadur a Cysill Ar-lein ond dydyn nhw ddim yn ddigon i orchfygu fy anfedrusrwydd. Mae’n fywyd. Ond byddai e’n helpu cael nodyn sy’n dweud “Plîs dywedwch i mi os wnes i wneud camgymeriad.”

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It’s a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’. It really shouldn’t be. Thu, 18 Sep 2014 10:15:08 +0000 Today is a chance for major constitutional change in the UK. If ‘yes’ wins, then the result would be a shock for both sides. Given the choice Devo-Max, Scotland would stay in the UK. A party with one MP in Scotland decided this couldn’t be an option as it would be a win for the opposition, so it’s a gamble all or nothing.

Roulette wheel with ball in thirteen slot

Cameron’s Scottish Policy. Photo: BigStockPhoto.

There’s various reasons it’s come to this, but one is that there is no provision for painless constitutional change in the UK. This is stupid.

The unwritten constitution of the UK is a mish-mash of arrangements built over hundreds of years. The idea that something that worked a couple of centuries ago should be immutable is simply ridiculous. Communications, education, society have all changed. We are governed in a system which haven’t consented to and have little legal opportunity to change unless someone can manufacture a crisis. So we let problems fester till we lurch from one place to another.

Plaid Cymru are asking for ideas to govern Wales. I have one, but I’d be happy for any party to take it up for the UK. It’s this: There should be a constitutional conference every 25 years.

Too frequent and the rules become a free for all, but too infrequent and there’s no gradual evolution of the state and every change becomes a trauma. Twenty-five years is up for discussion but it’s close enough that a reasonably young adult could have hope of being consulted on their participation in a democracy. It also means that there is (relatively) recent precedent so the next conference isn’t a complete shock to the political body.

Moving fundamental political questions, like constituency sizes, how often should general elections be, how to the member countries relate to the UK, onto a scheduled basis would remove them from being laid down by an ad-hocracy.

Whatever the result today, it’s the payoff of a massive gamble by David Cameron who’s put everything on Red (White and Blue) and is hoping the right number comes up. There’s got to be a better way to manage a constitution than that.

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In the UK? Science (might) need You! Wed, 17 Sep 2014 22:00:36 +0000 This week I finally met my local MP for the first time. If I’d been on the ball I’d even have got a photo to prove it, but it’s just as well I didn’t as I was having an ill day, so I would have simply looked sick and sweaty next to him. Instead here’s some concept art you can pretend symbolises politics and science.

Back off, it's SCIENCE. Photo: BigStockPhoto.

Back off, it’s SCIENCE. Photo: BigStockPhoto.

The reason I was meeting him was an interview for the Evidence Information Service. I first heard of this back in March and thought I ought to do something about it. The idea is that while the civil service and parliamentary researchers can do a good job, they’re not experts on everything. It wouldn’t be sane to expect them to be. The Evidence Information Service is a proposal that there could be a system to provide MPs with expert advice on topics. The first step for such a service would be working out what MPs want and what they could use.

This is where you and I come in.

The EIS is looking for local champions to interview their MPs (and AMs if you live in Wales). There’s a questionnaire to see what it is that MPs are looking for. They already have plenty of people lining up to give them information. Is there a way that scientists can contribute more signal than noise?

This obviously isn’t March. I was busy at the time and things like this tend to get put off into the to-do list and then forgotten as more stuff gets added. The spur to sign up and get it done came via Kevin Folta. In particular the first image in this post.

It’s not reasonable to assume MPs and AMs will pick up my disapproval of poor science through some kind of psychic osmosis. There are many reasons why fringe ideas might get pushed. Sincere belief and misunderstanding is one. Another reason might be economic interest. Taking a small step to counter-balance this seemed more productive to me than putting an X in a box every five years, as a political action.

As it happens it was a reasonably painless exercise. The EIS provided a basic questionnaire, and Roger Williams made time for me at the local constituency office. As it happens Brecon and Radnorshire is the largest constituency outside Scotland in the UK, so local was a bit farther for me that it might be for you, but it was simple enough.

I can’t say what he said, as the results are going to be anonymised. But I did find him and his office very open and helpful. It’s a reminder of what a bad advert for MPs the House of Commons is. I certainly learned some things about how Politics works that made my head spin.

If you are keen for better science in politics, then it’s worth checking out the EIS welcome letter and seeing if you live in a constituency without a local champion. If mysticism in Westminster makes you grumpy, then you can at least be satisfied you’ve done your bit.

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Is ‘No’ campaigning to a London audience? Tue, 16 Sep 2014 14:08:15 +0000 It certainly was yesterday, with Michael Gove among the people campaigning against Scottish independence in London. It might be an example of where the Unionists have misunderstood both the opposition and their own campaign.

The ‘No’ campaign is a campaign against nationalism. It’s a campaign against quite a dated idea of nationalism. One of the successes of Scotland is that they have built a civic nationalism, so ethnic minorities aren’t excluded from being Scottish in the way that they seem to be excluded (or avoiding) being English in England. No doubt there are some Anglophobes voting to get rid of the English, but that’s nowhere near enough to account for the popularity of the Yes side. What independence offers is John Major’s catchphrase subsidiarity. It moves decision making down locally from a distant government to administration that has to sit in the mess it makes. Defence and foreign policy could be made at the UK level, but given we work within the EU and NATO there is something to be said for cutting out Westminster as the middle-man.

If the UK government had offered Devo-max, then there’s little doubt that would have won the referendum. The inability of Westminster to see it is problem in the UK that causing it so much trouble. Another problem No has is that it campaigns against itself. The form of nationalism they’re against is, in a different colour, the form of nationalism they cling to.

It’s difficult calling reasonable people British nationalists, because the phrase is so closely associated with being a member of the BNP (a fascist party, for non-UK people). However, when Cameron made his plea for the union, wrapped in the flag at the velodrome, he was being a nationalist. When Ed Miliband briefly flirted with the idea of posting border guards at Hadrian’s Wall, it was the act of a nationalist. That rally in London yesterday with Clegg and Gove? It’s nationalist.

Not only that, but it’s the dated form of nationalism that the SNP and Plaid Cymru have been moving from. The SNP and PC both want to manage most policy locally. Defence and foreign policy might be more difficult, but these are negotiated with the EU and NATO. Westminster isn’t going to unilaterally solve problems like Ukraine. So if economy and justice can be managed locally, Westminster looks like an unnecessary middleman. It’s an internationalist nationalism that makes Unionist appeals to people living on the same island look a bit tired and parochial.

However, the Unionists haven’t considered taking the independence movement seriously till very recently, because they thought it impossible. If they weren’t reacting to the Yes campaign then what were they geared to fight?

I’m wondering if the refusal to offer serious powers on the ballot wasn’t about Scotland, but about the other devolved powers. More power to Scotland, and to the Welsh Assembly, would inevitably lead to renewed calls for devolution in England. What powers would the London Assembly, and other regional assemblies, have? Whatever was ceded to Scotland could be demanded by London, and the greater the independence for London, the more difficult life becomes for the national government in Westminster. I don’t think there’s a conscious anti-regions campaign in Westminster, but a long held desire to accumulate power in the centre. It wasn’t enough for Westminster to win the vote, they wanted to concede as little as possible.

This is not a plan.

Even now, working out the relationship between England and the UK is being left to the fringe. The Barnett Formula the three leaders have pledged to uphold was a quick fix in for 1979. Scottish and Welsh devolved chambers came in 1999. There’s still no reform of the House of Lords beyond the 1999 bodge. For all the complaints that Salmond has no plan B, no leader of the big three parties has a Plan A for the Union if they win.

Win or lose, the Unionists need rethink how democracy works in the ®UK and that will mean moving outside central London.

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…and this is why you don’t use Google Translate for professional events Fri, 12 Sep 2014 10:45:51 +0000 The Swansea Bay 10k run is offering events for kids too. Including “the Dylan Thomas Mile and Mascot Race” or in Welsh “Dylan Thomas Milltir a Masgot Hiliol”

Race in the sense on running quickly would be Ras so what exactly is that mascot?.

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I’m more excited by Formula E than Formula 1 at the moment Wed, 10 Sep 2014 13:00:13 +0000 The first Formula E race is due at the weekend. On paper the FIA’s electric series isn’t a match for Formula 1, and the F1 racing has been good at the front. However when Virgin announced their driver line-up for Formula E, it underlined F1’s big problem.

Virgin Drivers

Virgin Racing press material.

The one on the left is Jaime Alguersuari. He was quite good racing in F1 in Toro Rosso and was sacked at very short notice for two even younger drivers. With a bit more notice he might have found another team and still be racing in F1 today. The driver on the right is Sam Bird. He came second in the GP2 championship, missing out on the title in the last race to Fabio Leimer, who also isn’t in F1. It’s hard to tell if he’s good enough for F1. Marcus Ericsson, 6th last year in GP2, has a seat with Caterham, where he’s doing nothing much — but that could be partly the car.

They are good drivers, and while F1 fans might say they’re not the best in the world, if you were drawing up a list of the best available drivers, these two would be on it. The Formula E teams seem to be hiring the best they can. In contrast if you look at the F1 grid, half the F1 teams have at least one driver who is the most profitable a team can hire, not the best. What keeps Alguersuari and Bird off the F1 grid is a lack of money, not talent.

You can say that about a quite a few of the drivers in Formula E. There’s a few ex-F1 drivers like Trulli, Heidfeld, Senna and Chandhok

Formula E testing

A Virgin car chases an ABT at Donington testing.

I’m not sure about the cars. They look the part, but it’s hard to be sure about speed. The times at the first test were slow, but there was almost a roadblock by the Old Hairpin. Buemi finished day five of testing 1m31.792s, and for comparison the lap record for Formula 4 is 1m31.603s. However, the Formula E cars won’t race on GP circuits, so headline speed might not be the issue.

The cars will race around street circuits in major cities. I tend to loathe street circuits. I’d love to see Singapore live, given the chance, but on the television it’s painfully obvious that you can’t sensibly overtake. I’m hoping the circuits will be wide enough that the Formula E cars will be able to overtake, and if the cars are more about acceleration than top speed, the lack of high-downforce corners might not be the problem that they are for F1 cars on street circuits.

Another feature is each driver will have two cars. They’ll race one for around 20 minutes, then swap car and the first will recharge while they’re in the second. This looks poor for electric cars, but I’m hoping that charge and recharge are one of the areas where teams will innovate in future years. Maybe this is somewhere Tesla could make a big difference.

The cars are 900kg, which is heavy. Innovation to make lighter and more efficient batteries would combine real-world value with better racing.

The tyres are interesting too.

They’re all-weather tyres, so if it rains there won’t be a rush to the pits for wet-weather tyres. The lack of a specialised dry tyre must cost speed, but it might have a bit more road-car application than the specialist tyres used in some other formulae. It will remove the random element of where you are on a circuit when the rain falls for picking up tyres (or having to queue behind your team-mate) but it’ll also reward the drivers best able to adapt to changing conditions.

Mike Conway testing for Dragon Racing.

Mike Conway testing for Dragon Racing.

The teams are a mix of new and familiar names. Dragon Racing and Andretti are known from American championships. Amlin Aguri are a revival of of Super Aguri, the former F1 team. Trulli is owned by F1’s Jarno Trulli, but Virgin are a different set-up to the Virgin F1 team, which is now Marussia. e.dams is an electric offshoot of the DAMS GP2 team. Mahindra say they’ll be including engineers working in Bangalore in their future cars, which makes a change from being a foreign-badged British team. Venturi haven’t been in F1 since 1992, but have plenty of current experience of building fast electric cars. ABT are familiar to anyone following DTM, and the Audi connection bodes well for them becoming full manufacturers. The other team is China Racing, managed by Adrian Campos who got Hispania onto the grid in F1, which was no small achievement. I’m hoping they’ll want to be developing their own car too.

I went to the first day of testing and it was interesting. The first day probably wasn’t the most impressive, but the cars were generally reliable so there was usually something on track. The sound is a cross between an electric underground train and a plane. Standing at the Melbourne hairpin, you could hear the car arriving before it appeared over the crest of the hill. There are plans to play thumping techno at the races. I can see why, if you think there’ll be no sound, but there is and it’d be a shame to lose it.

Bruno Senna tests his Formula E car.

Bruno Senna tests his Formula E car.

The pits are a problem. The cars are quiet so you need a warning when one is entering the pit lane. I understand that but the sound they chose is… poor. It reminds me of a wail you might get right at the start of a ghost train ride, so there was an element of “scream if ya wanna go faster!” whenever a car went past while another entered the pits. The noise is very camp too, so you could almost hear “Oooh! Get HER coming into the pits!”

The only serious reservation I have is FanBoost. Fans will be able to vote for their favourite driver. The top three will get an extra power boost during the race. It would be a shame if races were decided on popularity and not talent. Also even if the votes are fair, giving fans the vote threatens to bring the series to Eurovision levels of credibility. It’s an attempt to bring fans into the race and I can appreciate the intent, but I’m really wary of the execution.

On the plus side above you see videos embedded from the official Formula E YouTube channel. It’s like they actually want people to talk about what they’re doing.

If Formula E can balance rewarding the best teams in the championship with creating a viable business model for the other teams to develop to challenge for wins, then a championship I can see on the television and online will be far more interesting than a championship that I can’t.

If FanBoost is a major factor, Amlin Aguri will be pleased that they have the prettiest car.


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Y ‘Tour of Britain’ sy’n dod i Dref-y-clawdd / The Tour of Britain visits the Big K Tue, 09 Sep 2014 11:57:58 +0000 Tour of Britain
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