Author: Tim

Fact or fiction contradiction

The blurb of the book I am reading at the moment includes the following text:

“A remarkable story of heroism and adventure, of a boy who had to become a man too soon…. He would become father to his people. He would be Genghis Khan”

Now, the last time I checked Genghis Khan was a real person – specifically the fearsome ruler of the Mongol Empire around the year 1200. So, I am rather puzzled than in the front pages of the book there is the following disclaimer:

“This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental”

So how does that work then? Am I expected to believe that it entirely coincidental that the author imagined a character who had the same name, and who took the same role in the same general location as a well-known historical character? I don’t think so. The disclaimer is wrong – the author’s just lucky that Genghis isn’t still alive to take appropriate action against him because from what I have read so far, it wouldn’t be pretty…

Properly versus twice

Yesterday I attended the sixth of seven “Essential Leadership Skills” staff development courses that I am following. This one was on “Enabling People to Perform”. During the event the course leader gave a quote (without original source) that appealed to me…

Why do we not get time to do things properly when we do get time to do things twice?

To my mind this nicely captures a common problem that occurs in the workplace. things quite often have to be done more than once because they have to be completed in a rush and the outcomes are incomplete or in some way lacking. How better it would be to always make sure that there is enough time to do a job properly and, as a consequence, only have to do it once.

Contents page added

One problem with a “blog” web-site of this kind is that after a while old entries disappear off the bottom of the list and the only way to find them is to dig down into the Archive or browse the various categories. So, I thought it would be a good idea to have a page that was just a list of the different entries in timeline sequence (most recent at the top) and a few words on each describing what they are about. The list will grow as new entries are added and if I can find the time I will add direct links from each item in the list to the original entry. You can reach the Contents page via the link over to the right →

A tale of two oceans – the seas in 2050

Last weekend The Times newspaper carried various reports publicising The Times Cheltenham Science Festival. One of these focussed on the major threats to the world’s oceans including CO2 emissions, warming and acidification and carried a plea for immediate action. The report was accompanied by a nice graphic showing two versions of the seas in 2050 side-by-side. In the first of these, the major problems had been tackled and the oceans and the ecosystems they contain had “revived” and in the second, problems had not been solved and the oceans and ecosystems are “collapsed”. For each version of the oceans there are 15 or 16 points of note, either positive in the case of the “revived” seas or negative in the case of the collapsed” ones. The article is available online (The Times [06 June 2009]) and pleasingly, so is the colour graphic (either via the link in the article or directly via this link).

Reading list added

Since 2002 I have kept a list of all of the books that I have read. It is interesting to look back and see what I read and roughly when. I thought I would add this list to this site, so there is now a Reading List page (see link to the right) which I will keep updated each time I have a new addition. I still plan to write a short entry each time I finish a book – in fact there’s one of these over-due at the moment.

How to throw away £6.99 in one easy lesson

On my way into work each morning I walk past a branch of a major DVD rental company. Yesterday, a hand-written sign appeared on the door of the branch along the following lines:

“Donate at least £3 to [charity X] and receive a football worth £9.99”

I’ve been puzzling over the idea that lies behind this notice. If it was true, then everytime someone donates £3 and receives a £9.99 ball, the charity is missing out on up to £6.99 that it could have received if the store had sold the football for £9.99 (which, after all is what the ball is worth) and then given the proceeds to the charity. With the way the scheme is set up, the store or whoever is involved buys the football for amount £Y, gives it away for nothing (net loss to store = £Y), receives £3 in exchange (net gain to charity = £3) which comes from the customer (net loss to customer = £3). If the store had sold the ball for its true value and donated the profit to the charity then the net loss to the store = £0, the net gain to the charity = £(9.99-Y) and the net loss to the customer who bought the ball = £9.99. In the latter case the store gains (+£Y), the charity gains (+£9.99 – £Y – £3) and the customer also gains (they’ve given a bigger donation to charity AND, in effect, gained a £9.99 ball for only £6.99). So, given that my idea seems to be a WIN, WIN, WIN situation why doesn’t it occur? Simple, the ball isn’t worth £9.99 so no-one in their right mind would buy it at that price (I suspect that in fact it’s worth almost nothing), and the notice on the store door is untrue…

Microseisms rumble on

Back in the early 1990s when I was finishing off my PhD I was given office space in the Unit for Coastal and Estuarine Studies (UCES) at the then University of Wales, Bangor (in Menai Bridge). This unit was a centre for applied (contract) research and was based on a small island (Ynys Faelog) in the Menai Straits that was reached by a causeway. Anyway, sharing the building was a retired professor, Jack Darbyshire, who used to beaver away on his own little projects and delighted in collaring me to talk about one of these (relating to the formation of beach cusps). The primary area that Jack was interested in was microseisms (tiny earthquakes) that are picked up in seismographs. I can’t actually remember what it was about microseisms that interested Jack so much (he wasn’t the easiest person to understand being something of the classic mad scientist with an added very strong north Wales accent) but I was interested to see microseisms pop up again in New Scientist, Issue 2710 [30 May 2009]. Apparently, when ocean waves break they cause the crust to “hum” and they generate microseisms the intensity of which is related to the size of the storm waves. There is now an idea to look back at the extensive seismometer records that go back for almost a century to see whether there are detectable changes in this wave “noise” that can be used to infer changes in storm patterns due to climate change. This is of interest because the seismometer records go back further in time than good wave measuring systems. Perhaps I should have listened to Jack Dervyshire more carefully all those years ago.

What Sport Tells Us About Life

I’ve just finished Ed Smith’s “What Sport Tells Us About Life”. Ed Smith was a professional cricketer (who played a few times for England) but he has now developed a career as a journalist and writer. His book WSTUAL was much lauded in the media when it came out and, as someone who likes sport and likes analysis, it seemed to be very much my cup-of-tea. It is basically a series of essays about various aspects of sport and watching sport (cheating, money, leadership, coaching/management) which each try to connect with some  observations of how we lead our lives more generally. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t as interesting or insightful as I thought it was going to be. I think this is perhaps because there is no over-arching theme or argument. I particularly liked one section on how different people watch sport in different ways, within which there was a comment from the head of British Airways, who, when watching sport, focusses on the leadership that is taking place. He grew up in Australia and played cricket in a team that was captained by Rodney Marsh (who went on to be one of the greatest cricketers and wicket-keeper-batsmen there has been). He noted that Marsh (and others) were successful leaders because “They set people up for success by creating the right environment” (one that is confident, tough but always fun). I like that quote and I like the idea that the “right environment” should be one involving fun. That’s something I am going to try to hold onto in my own work.

Viking: King’s Man

Last week I finished reading the third and final book in Tim Severin’s Viking series – “King’s Man”. Tim Severin is best known as an explorer/writer/broadcaster who has re-created a number of famous voyages and journeys from history, but a few years ago he decided to enter the “historical fiction” market and wrote the first of his Viking series. Being a regular reader of other books in this genre (particularly those by Bernard Cornwell) I came across Viking 1 in a bookshop and since then I have acquired and read all three books in the series. Now, I think it is fair to say (and the fact that I have bought all of these books in discount bookshops provides some support) that Severin is no Cornwell – the books are readable and weave together fiction and real history well enough but they’re not especially well written or gripping. The aspect of the writing that amuses me most is that Severin clearly seems to get bored with writing the detail that accompanies large parts of the plot and every now and again he just decides to move the plot on in one big step. So, we get pages and pages of day-to-day detail and then, quite suddenly, the main character goes off somewhere and in the space of a few sentences a couple of years have passed or his female companion has been killed in a house fire or some such dramatic event occurs.

Sink or sink – there’s little choice in the Maldives

The Maldives are a set of low-lying islands in the Indian Ocean. 80% of the islands are less than 1 metres above sea level and the highest point is only 2.3 metres up. But sea level has risen 52 millimetres in the last 15 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted a rise of up to 59 centimetres by 2100 (not including glacial melting) and the most extreme predictions put sea level at 25 metres above current levels by 2100. So, it doesn’t take a genius to work out the for the Maldives it is not a cae of sink or swim but rather a case of sink – the only uncertainty relates to how long it will take to go under. It could be 50-100 years (IPCC) but it could be much, much sooner. What is to be done? There are various plans afoot that range from building artificial sea walls or a raised island to house the population or puting buildings on raised platforms. An article in New Scientist, Issue 2707 [09 May 2009] discusses the problem facing the Maldives and reveals that the current government there is also contemplating what, to me, seems like the most logical approach, namely to divert a large amount of the islands’ income from tourism into a fund to buy land elsewhere in the world to which the Maldive islanders can relocate at an appropriate time int he future.