Thought I’d share another (vaguely) political whatsit with you today.
Theyworkforyou.com is a great resource for engaging with your local MP (or MEP, MSP etc…), seeing how they vote and how they compare with other MPs.
They’ve got a really interesting campaign on at the moment: Free our Bills!
Basically the idea is that UK parliament don’t publish the bills on which they vote in any sort of electronic format. This makes any sort of meaningful distribution absolutely impossible, which is ridiculous in this age of the internet. In addition to making distribution easier, theyworkforyou also have loads of other greta ideas for uses for the data - think email alerts and annotated explanations for a start!
If you need further selling on the idea, let me just say ‘XML’ and ‘open source’. Oh, and take a look at the site to see other interesting stuff.
Today I received a letter from Simon Burgess of Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven Labour abour “Our NHS”:
Click for a bigger (readable) version.
To which I felt compelled to reply:
Dear Simon Burgess,
I’m am writing to express my most sincere disappointment with your
latest mailing: “Our NHS - the next 60 years”.
Like its police-focused predecessor, your letter is the worst kind of
unsubstantiated spin disguised as consultation. Sentences such as “I
care passionately about the NHS.” are so empty that they serve only to
warn the reader about the rest of the drivel in your letter and, in my
case, almost caused me to stop reading altogether.
I eventually managed to force myself to continue reading your missive,
but my persistence was only rewarded with my worst fears… Not only was
there an unholy abundance of partisan political rhetoric (seemingly a
desperate attempt to prevent me from voting Tory), but a distinct lack
of quantifiable facts, targets or solutions.
As a long-time Labour supported myself, your campaign methods sadden me.
It symbolises the fall of Labour from an advocate of socialism and
equality to a shiny marketing firm intent only on ensuring its own
survival. The New Labour of 2008 seems to treat the general public as
some sort of moronic cattle placable by positive, yet empty, sentiments
and promises. Please have some faith in the voter; give us facts and
plans so that we can make informed decisions as to our parliamentary
representation.
Moreover, the name-calling and emotive language aimed at the
conservatives is also highly galling - I, for one, am quite capable of
not voting Tory, without the goading, thank you all the same… Your
attempts to rubbish the opposition come across as a childish, futile,
and wholly pathetic effort to salvage some of the good-feeling Labour
has managed to destroy in recent years.
My final quarrel is with the mailings themselves. My household received
no less than five of your letters this morning. Whilst I might question
the need for such mailings in the first instance, I would be prepared to
concede that you hold them in high esteem as vehicles for your
self-promotion - and that’s OK. No, the aspect I cannot forgive is the
sheer scale of waste. Would not just one letter to my house have
sufficed? Or otherwise, could you not have simply put the five
(identical) letters into one envelope? Is this really a responsible way
to spend party funds? Furthermore, what of the environment? Not only
have you wasted five sheets of paper and five envelopes, but you made it
needlessly difficult to recycle the envelopes because of your use of the
type with plastic windows.
My criticisms are not intended to cause personal offence - it is a sad
fact that the problem lies not with you, but with the modern ethos of
the party. I feel sure now that I cannot vote Labour again until these
fundamental issues are resolved.
I sign off then, as a disillusioned red, with perhaps too much time on
his hands.
Wishing you the best of luck in your campaign,
Tom Wright
PS *insert meaningless catchphrase here*
In the name of good sport, I will happily post his response here too.
Right kids, as you may have guessed from the title, todays post is a double-bill…
First up: You remember I posted a while ago about the correct alignment of toilet roll? Remember how important we discovered it was to have the free-end hanging over, rather than under? Well the other day at work, I saw this:
I’m just glad to see that there are companies in the UK that take toilet-roll safety & wastage seriously. I’m really quite chuffed to be able to say I work for them. Go Mothercare!
Next: When I was last in Leicestershire, I snapped this on my phone and forgot about it:
That’s right, the sign says: “Quicker Sales mean Bigger Profits - stock the UK Impulse top 6 sellers”.
A little bit of me died that day… Before that I had subconsciously believed in the innocence of ice-cream sales - surely no-one would want to sell pure pleasure for cold profit? Don’t they just want me to be happy?
Bet you’re glad I hit you with the good news first,
I ask you when you watch this, please look past the gaudy Americanisms and watch it all the way through. Please forgive the smultz and overstressed points. They can’t help it, it’s what they’re used to.
At the same time, watch it with a mind critical of the facts. I was aware of a lot of the stuff they mention before, yet much of it I’d heard ascribed to other causes or entities. It’s really hard to ascertain exactly what is fact, what is being covered up by the-powers-that-be and what is nothing more than the overactive imagination of conspiracy theorists.
All that aside, Zeitgeist is the culmination of a broad swathe of (the growing) alternate view of the world and is by no means a lone voice. Many of the points raised are self-evident and many more are neither denied or disputed.
The last point I’d like to make is that, regardless of how much of the movie you’ll walk away believing, by the end of it you’ll at least be thinking about the world in a much more critical way. And that can’t be a bad thing.
Tom x
PS Nods to Freddie for mentioning this when I last saw him.
If I ever need to really fill myself with a sense of wasted opportunity, despair and loathing, all I have to do is listen to Glitter and Trauma by Biffy Clyro for more than 1.5 minutes.
Here’s the track, so you can see (hear) what I mean:
That really pisses me off. It’s a beautiful start to a song, an album, or anything at all, but that fist 1 minute 30 seconds is the only Biffy Clyro that I actually enjoy. The rest of the song is shite and, after a cursory scan through the rest of their stuff, I have to say that it’s all much the same.
Which leads me to issue a musical challenge to the world. If anyone can take that first 1.5 minutes and build on it - allowing the little caterpillar to undergo its metamorphosis into a stonking song - then I shall give that person a large amount of money and my undying love.
There, the gauntlet’s down. Go forth and make song!
Meant to do a proper post today, but got bogged down in a new challenge I’ve set myself. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see what I’ve been up to, but rest assured - I’m very excited about it! =)
Since the above isn’t really all that substantive, I’m going to take the chance to splurge some of the smaller bits and pieces that have been fluffing up my brain lately…
Firstly - I showed this to Pete earlier and he asked why I’d never posted about it…
Type “telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl” into bash, dos or whatever you call your command line
Sit back and relax
Profit?
It’s seriously geeky, but also incredibly amazing.
The other thing was this:
Which is also very geeky, and which I also highly enjoyed.
When I saw this on the BBC, I thought is was some sort of late April-fools thing. Alas no, it really has come to this…
Yummy.
This is the inspired work of the Local Government Association, whose press release says the ads are in response to a general under-appreciation of the work our councils do. Fancy another? Be my guest:
Wowee…
Not really sure why there’s a question mark on the second one… Does the young man doubt the efficacy of his local council? Surely not!
I must confess to hand-picking two of the more dubious posters. Generally I can imagine them as highly reassuring to the tax payers of the country. Good work LGA, and have fun at your conference this weekend.
Sorry for the lack of postage recently - I’ve been busy scuttling around the South. Saw Radiohead on Tuesday, which was nice…
But I’m back in Brighton now, and this post isn’t going to be about my southern scuttlings or my radioheaderings. No, this post marks the beginning of my productive summer and as such, is a comprehensive todo list of all the things I’d love to achieve before I start my third year. So, in no particular order…
Todo:
Make a documentary
With Dan, Tom and Ellie I plan to make a documentary about the increasing marketisation of education. Filming is gonna start early July, but nothings set in stone yet. If you want more information please get in touch.
Redo epicentre from scratch.
Epicentre is an open-source multimedia project which aims to connect people with events. The Sussex installation is a comprehensive What’s On guide for campus. The rebuild will be primarily a back-end redesign using symfony, but we’ll also aim to fix some niggling design issues. Get in touch if you’re a Sussex student who’d be interested in joining in, or if you’re interested in launching your own installation. Credit to Anya for forcing me to start this project in the beginning.
Officially start up the Students with Dependants association
There are loads of families on campus, but they currently lack any form of representation. I’m hoping to start a representative association (with an elected officer) which would receive funding for the union. Possible projects which the SwD association could take on include a toy library, a network of (CRB checked) baby-sitters or a campaign for better financial support. Get in touch if you’re a student with dependants, or if you feel like lending a hand with setting it all up.
Make some websites Mal and I are hoping to take on some web-design commissions this summer. So if you, or someone you care about, needs a beautiful, hardworking website please get in touch for a very reasonable quote.
Learn French
I took French as a GCSE and tried to use it whilst travelling in Europe, but my actual conversational ability is far from adequate. I really ought to get my act together and learn French - especially if I want to go and study at the Brain & Mind Institute at the French speaking Swiss university EPFL.
Form an orienteering society
Orienteering is great fun and an easy way to keep active. The Sussex campus (nestled in the south downs) is ideal for orienteering, but there’s no routes laid out nor any groups based at the university. We (Lisa and I) want to put markers out, get some maps (etc) and start organising outings. An inner-campus event would be great during freshers week to get newbies accustomed to the various buildings.
Pack to move house
My new house is rather splendid. I’m getting increasingly impatient about moving, but we’re not actually getting the keys til the end of August.
I’m counting on you all nagging me incessantly to make sure I get it all done. Please don’t let me get lazy!
If you’ve got any other ideas or want my help with a project you’re organising, please get in touch. Likewise, if you’re able and willing to help with anything mentioned above, drop me a line. You’re free to do this either in the comments, in person or via the contact form.
A great list of common objections to climate change and the appropriate responses. It’s usefully indexed into categories: Stages of denial, Scientific topics, Types of argument and Level of sophistication. This means there are lots of ways to find the objection you’re looking for and makes it really easy to visualise.
I believe it’s incredibly important to show that climate change is very real, that we are causing it and that we can do something about it. This sites great for showing anyone why their misconceptions are unfounded.
I guess it’s only really a stick if you’re a climate change sceptic… Otherwise, you get to buff up your climate change knowledge and get a free carrot to boot! About that…
When Terry Pratchett1 was diagnosed with a rare form of alzheimer’s last year, he decreed it to be an embuggerance. He went on to donate £500,000 to UK charity the Alzheimer’s Research Trust. Match it for Pratchett is a a spontaneous, grassroots, totally unofficial campaign by loyal readers from around the world to raise another £500k for the charity.
Pratchett points out (on the Alzheimer’s Trust Website) that research into Alzheimer’s receives just 3% as much funding as does research into cancer, despite them affecting almost the same amount of people.
For the neuroscientists among you… It took me ages to work out exactly what this “rare form” of Alzheimer’s was. Turns out he is suffering from posterior cortical atrophy (also know as Benson’s syndrome) which causes complex visual processing to progressively degrade. PCA is an unusual form of Alzheimer’s in that it affects motor tasks by reducing the persons ability to co-ordinate hand-eye behaviours - Alzheimer’s typically manifests itself in personality changes and anterograde amnesia.
And in case you need persuading to donate, have a quote from the man himself:
Personally, I’d eat the arse out of a dead mole if it offered a fighting chance2
So go donate, and spread the word. I’m off back to revision.
Tom
Footnotes:
One of my favourite authors of all time, creator of the amazing discworld series [↩]
Welcome to tdwright.co.uk - the personal homepage of Thomas (Tom) David Wright. Thomas is a student of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK.
