But is it true?

Almost every year I get a phone call from a current student at my old college. They want to have a chat about the olden days, what you're up to now, how their course differs from yours etc. etc.  and it's usually a pleasure to talk to a bright young person who seems to be taking a genuine interest. Of course, it's all a lead up to a request for money and a few times I've even donated something to the college's funds, just enough to cover the pay that they've been getting to make the call, even though I really think that all students should get decent grants, like we did, and that the hardship funds shouldn't really be needed.

One year I was asked about our IT facilities and found it amusing to say "Well we were allowed into the library but had to supply our own pens and pencils". I could have added that when I was a research student I did begin to write a programme, on punched cards, to  work out something or other on the big computer in the Maths department but got so bored with the whole process that I found another way of presenting the data and never found out if my programme would actually work. 

Looking back it can sometimes seem incredible that we found out anything at all. How did I plan a trip to the Lake District from Bristol, and get hold of the Cumbrian bus timetables, without having an internet to use? For many years the very idea of being able to access huge amounts of information at the press of a button, the click of a mouse, from anywhere in the house, or even out on the street, literally felt like science fiction. Now, as we all know, it's commonplace.

If we were to divide the internet into two realms we could choose one of them to be "purported factual information", the other "entertainment" and that the social media contains a mixture of both. What surprises me, however, is that despite the ease of checking whether or not the things we post are true, or even could be true, they get posted anyway. So, as you could probably guess, I'm a bit of a Facebook curmudgeon. 

If someone posts something that I find surprising, and not so ridiculous that no amount of evidence could challenge it,  then my first response is to check up on the web and find out if its true, or if it could work, or if it could work and it's built like that then would it work. You get the idea.

Now whilst some skills, playing musical instruments, acting, being good at sport, are generally admired, and feted, others, like being a pedant for the truth, aren't. You don't please many people by challenging their thinking. Indeed, on a recent occasion when I questioned the actual existence of a supposed African tribe that punishes wrong doers by sitting around them in a circle and telling them about all the good things they've done, the final response I got was " Pedantic .. You are sad or wounded somewhere deep within I think ."

Given my background in Physics I have particular problems with postings about perpetual motion machines, or ones that make an unsung hero out of Nikola Tesla and confuse his ideas for the wireless transmission of electrical power with the idea that there's this hidden field of energy which, if only the big oil companies and the scientific establishment hadn't suppressed the knowledge of, would solve all our energy issues at a stroke. I've since realised that although I might be surprised by these things there are plenty of folk out there who find no conspiracy surprising. I suspect they've never tried to organise anything let alone a conspiracy. Can you imagine the diary secretaries of all these major players trying to fit the secret conspiracy meetings into already overloaded schedules?

Back in the days when we were obliged to chat to one another face to face and could respond with more than a like, share or troll, I remember that one of the participants in a conversation whose subject escapes me, a mathematics student, simply said "But is it true?"

In a feeble attempt to fight back against the anodyne aphorisms that often become internet memes I decided to make my own. 

I know, it could have done with a more relevant picture than a collection of lichen in the woods above Loch Ness.

Putting pen to paper

It's been a while since I wrote a blog post. I've still been churning out the odd post with a political purpose (e.g. The cost of sitting around in North Yorkshire) but the other sort, the ones that reflect on life and its mysteries, seem to have dried up. 

When I started this blog I knew from the off that it was really aimed at an audience of one. There was never any intention to garner a wider audience than myself and a few polite friends. After all, why would anyone really be bothered what I think when they've got so much to think about for themselves. 

A few years ago I found myself interested in the broad concept of memes. The two best books I read on the topic were Susan Blackmore's "The Meme Machine" (1999) and the more recent "On the Origin of Tepees" (2012) by Jonnie Hughes (note the punning title). Both of them seemed to demonstrate to me that cultural evolution can be described in similar ways to genetic evolution. That all an idea has to do to succeed is to get passed on. It certainly doesn't have to be true. My son, a social anthropologist, doubts the utility of this particular idea, looks disdainfully at me when I mention it, and so it's a subject that we now tend to avoid ..... But, after reading Hughes's book I was still left with one mystery "what's the genetic advantage in wanting to pass on cultural memes?" Why do we have the urge to tell each other stuff? Is it the loudmouth that gets the girl?

Being the sort of person who's attracted to science precisely because it allows you to say you don't know I don't feel any obligation to come up with a metaphysical answer. One day an answer will occur to me, and then I'll check it out and no doubt find out that someone else has come up with it already, but until then I'm not unhappy not to know..   Answers on a post card please.

Meanwhile, here's a picture of a dog swimming in the River Itchen near Winchester.

n.b. while its been well proven that students who do actually put pen to paper remember more of what they've written than when they bash away at a keyboard, this post's title really ought to be "Putting fingerprints on the keyboard". When nobody remembers what a pen is will we still talk about putting pen to paper ?

"Pulling the ice axe from my leg

I staggered on

Spindrift stinging my remaining eye

I finally managed to reach the station

Only to find that the bus replacement service had broken down

After wondering to myself whether or not it should actually be called a train replacement service

I walked out onto the concourse and noticed the giant screen seemed to have been tampered with"

The opening lyrics from "National Shite Day" by Half man Half Biscuit