Author: jhancock20

The BBC recently did some research into the “advertised” speeds of Broad Band around the world. This is interesting because we often hear and read reports in our media that Australia is a “third world” contry with respect to our broadband speeds.

There is a nice  little site called Speedtest.net that fives a real world assessment of your actua broadband speeds. How this works is that people from around the world use the site to perform a number of operations which result in a record of the real world connection speed of your connection. The site then collates all of these results and gives each country/continent a figure for average speeds.

Now here is the interesting part. The BBC survey only covered OECD countries and Australia  was seventh. Once you remove Japan, Korea and France which have extremely high rates due tio huge government sponsored programs we sit around average ADSL 2+ speeds, which is what one would expect.

On the other hand using the Speedtest.net result, we are the third highest continent, sitting behind Europe and North America we are the 38th country. This has to be a far more accurate list since it uses real users doing real tests. Our average speed on Speedtest.net is 4.43 Mb which is way below the top six countries and way below average advertised rates. To be fair the BBC method of using advertised rates is looking pretty sick when you look at Speedtest.net’s results. The problem here is – as will all measurements of this type – interpreting the results so that we can understand what this means.

Looking at the continent rates we are really not much below Europe and North America, being 5.6 Mb and 5.54 Mb respectively. I would suggest that this is a more realistic figure than the country rates since Australia more resembles a continent than a country in demography and topography. With the vast sparsely inhabited regions and the divers and scattered population we have a number of significant issues in covering the population with high speed broadband. When you look at countries such as Japan Korea and France and look at how their government subsidised programs and high population densities skew the figures then Australia is really not that far behind.

What about the government’s plan to subsidise a new broadband roll-out? The problem here is that we do not have the high population densities that make it cost effective so it will always be problematic and never measure up to Korea. However the benefit will not be in the direct return on investment but will be in the overall technological advances over all technologies. This is impossible to quantify and will be a long term gain.

In terms of overall standing I don’t think that we are that far behind and considering our problems in maintaining a broadband network we are doing quite well.  In my opinion we do not “need” a government sponsored plan to enhance our network but the investment now will have major long term benefits and we should not be so short sighted as to measure its viability in terms of immediate return on investment.

There is a rash of articles in the British media at the moment on MP’s expenses. It seems to be a popular pass-time to whinge and complain about the amount of money our politicians are costing us. True – the odd politician does rort the system and the has to be a level of control and oversight but this witch hunt that is taking place in the UK at the moment is typical of the media inspired feeding frenzy that they so much love.

The reality is that these people work extremely hard and are worth every cent they cost. Most of them are in it for worthy motives and don’t forget it is us who placed them there. It actually costs a lot of money to do their job and many of them could get far more in private industry. If they were in it for the money then they are in the wrong job.

I think it would be better to focus on policy – not on petty cash expenses – but that is a lot harder and not quite as popular.

The Blu Ray vs HD DVD battle was won long ago and the much more worthy format of HD DVD lost not so much by a fair and open competition but by the bullying tactics of the much bigger Sony Corp. How they were allowed to get away with that is beyond me. Clearly Noriyuki ‘Pat’ Morita’s tactics did not work in this case. The HD DVD format was more mature, required far less processing power and far cheaper. We are only now seeing Blu Ray players that are up to the technical requirements of the format – and even now there are constant compatibility issues, none of which existed with HD DVD. In theory the Bly Ray format was technically better but the implementation of that technology was far more inferior than HD DVD.

We have recently seen the outcome of the case in Sweden of the recording industry vs  Pirate Bay, round one to the recording industry. The recording industry claims that anyone who downloads a song or movie is stealing, a claim that I will not contest per se since it is a far more complex argument than they would have us think. But I ask you? Who is stealing from whom?

There have been rumours for a long time now regarding an HD format from China which was to compete with HD and Blu. It has now been  released  and the response of Warner Bros is to immediatly announce the release of  movies in the new format. However this format will only be available in China.

It appears that the movies will be around the US$10 mark in China. Now this is very interesting. If they are able to release all of these movies in China for $10 why is it that the same movies are $30 plus on Bly Ray? The players are also said to be 40% less than the equivalent Bly Ray player. The article says that the difference is in license fees. Note that the HD players and disks were also much cheaper than the equivalent Blu Ray players and disks. The reason given was the high license fees for the technology. So what is effectively being said is that because of Sony’s bullying and anti competitive tactics we are paying 2/3 more for players and three times the price for disks. The indication is that this technology will not be available outside China. Oh, there will be very good reasons for this but will anybody but those in the publicity departments believe these excuses?

So, now comes my point. How is this not theft? For every movie downloaded they claim a loss of revenue of the RRP of that movie. Never mind that many of these people would actually never buy the movie anyway, or that because of the loss of definition the actual value is less than the DVD, or that you seldom get the extras, or that after seeing the download many of these people go and buy the movie for the extra features and quality, or that they are immediately deleted since they are broken or not what they thought. According to the article every time we spend $30 a disk $20 of it is going straight into the coffers of Sony, forget about the artists. Every time you spend $500 on a Blu Ray player $330 of that is going straight to the license holder – Sony.

So – I ask you – who are the thieves?

In othner words is guilty a superlative? Can someone be more guilty than another person?

Let me offer a for instance. Who is more guilty the person who goes into a supermarket, buys 50 items then puts a toothbrush into their pocket in order to not pay for it, or the person who piles 50 items into their bag and bulky clothing then walks out? In the eyes of the law they are both guilty, the punishment meted out may be different but the magnitude of the offense in no way affects the verdict. For instance you never hear the foreman of the jury saying “they are just a little bit guilty”.

In the case of the trial of the people who ruin the Pirate Bay  who were found guilty last Friday they asked why the prosecutors did not go after Ebay and Google and even ISPs who also provide access to copyright material. They answered that the majority of the material on the Pirate Bay was copyright whereas the majority of the links in Google were not. Does this mean that Google are no less guilty? The argument is a nonsense. If the Pirate Bay were guilty it is evident that Google would have to be found guilty since the principle applies equally to both. They both provide a service whereby access is gained to copyright material.

Now I am making no judgement as to whether I believe that the Pirate Bay is morally right or wrong. The issues are extremely complex and some of the judgements passed down in copyright cases are stupid to say the least. In fact many judgements in cases involving technical issues are highly suspect due to the lack of understanding of the judge of technical matters. Some of the statements made indicate that they are way out of their depth.

Having said that I believe that the people who run the Pirate Bay to a large extent are their own worst enemies. The Swedish law recently changed so that this trial could take place due to pressure from the recording industry and they knew that they were going to be taken to court for a long time. There were many alternatives – not all of which included shutting down the Pirate Bay.

On the other hand I do take issue with the recording industry and their tactics, many of which are illegal and most of which are immoral, if (barely) legal. The fact is that they are too lazy to do proper research and investigation and prossecute those who are really the violators of copyright. It is much easier to go after the Pirate Bay who in reality are small fish with large targets painted on their backs. Even when they do appear to find copyright violators they do not bother to verify their suspicions, they simply engage in extortionist tactics against people, most of whom are innocent.

Finally, who is it that the recording industry are representing? The guy who plays in your local bar, or the person doing the clubs trying to scrape together a living. I think not. They are really only interested in maintaining the profits of the large corporations who are as interested your average recording artist as I am in the AFL.

These people are just bullies trying to put a few more pieces of silver into their coffers. As for me I buy most of my material direct from the artist. I know where my money is going, to support the real artists who play the rounds.

While we are on the subject of movies, I was listening to a BBC movie program the other day and they were playing a game where they could change the movie completely by removing the last letter from the title. For example “No Country For Old Me” is about a person who is a stranger in his own contry. Or the trilogy of films about super grannies, “Bat Ma”, “Super Ma” and “Spider Ma”.

What about movies with alternative plots. “Oh Brother Where Art Though” is about a dressmaker’s quest to find the right sewing  machine. “Hamlet”, which deals with the daily lives of pepole in a quiet English village.

Over to you…

This idea came from and article in The Frodo Franchise which in turn was talking about a blog that used this technique.

The idea is to select random screen grabs from a movie and discuss those screen grabs and anything to do with the movie that comes to mind. It occurred to me that it would be an interesting exercise, so I am taking each disk (six in all) from the three films and taking three scenes from each disk. This first blog will take three screen grabs from disk one of The Fellowship Of The Ring.  The three I have selected using RANDOM.ORG are at 10, 20 and 98 minutes.

The first screen grab is at 10 minutes.

This is a shot from the party preparations where Bilbo is reciting what he is writing as he begins writing the story of the Hobbit, There and Back Again. Bilbo is talking about Hobbits and this is accompanied by scenes of Hobbit’s everyday life finishing with the preparations for Bilbo’s and Frodo’s birthday. They both have birthdays on the same day, Bilbo’s being 111 and Frodo’s being 33 which coincidentally is considered a Hobbit’s coming of age.

An interesting note is that the actor playing Bilbo, Ian Holm, played Frodo in the 80’s BBC radio adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings.

The narration by Bilbo is a nice warm sequence and a gentle introduction for what is to become later on a very dark story. It also introduces the curious creatures called Hobbits to those who are new to the story in an ingenious manner. It also underlines the upcoming birthday party.

Which brings us neatly to the next screen from the 20 minute mark.

This is the long awaited party and the same banner features as in the last screen grab. The banner is under the “Party Tree” of which much is made in the book but would be completely missed in the film if you did not know the books. Tolkien had a life long affection with trees and his anthropomorphic representation of the trees speaks to this affection. For Tolkien the destruction of trees speaks of the dehumanising way that industrialisation had dominated his society. He was an ecologist before it was fashionable. The party tree represented the the essential bond between nature and humanity. There is a fleeting reference to this later on in the images in Guardrail’s mirror but it is much stronger in the books.

But for the moment the birthday celebration is yet another representation of the simplicity and earthiness if you will of the Hobbits. It also gives the film makers a good opportunity to introduce a number of important, and some not so important, characters and plot points in this complex story.

The final screen grab is from the 98 minute mark.

This is from the council of Rivendel. This is a pivotal point in the story. From Tolkien’s point of view this was a turning point for him where the story began to take on an entirely new dimension. It had been growing in his mind and from Bree to Rivendel and at the council particularly it grew from a neat sequel to The Hobbit into the epic it is today.

From the stories perspective it goes from a neat little tale of Hobbit bravery to a vast tale that encompasses all of the peoples of middle earth. Other races including elves, trolls,  men and wizards have alredy been introduced but it is at Rivendel that it all begins to meld into a cohesive story. Again the book has much more detail and far more exposition than can be put into a 12 hour series of movies but here Jackson does a great job of fitting in enough information to inform the viewer without either boring him or overloading his already bulging brain.

This particular scene is even more interesting since we see the beginnings of the seduction of Borimier. He is at this point arguing that the ring should be taken to Minas Tirith for use in the war against Sauron and here is portrayed with all the ambiguity that possesses his character. A great and noble leader of men which is the very thing that the Ring uses to corrupt. The ring is subtle and knows that it cannot use weaknesses but strengths to corrupt. It uses the very thing which makes us great and turns it against us. For Borimier it is his nobility and strength that the ring tempts him with – telling him that it can aid him  in his defense of the peoples of middle earth. This was the very thing which Tolkien learnt when he was in the trenches in World War II.  It is not a man’s weakness that is his downfall it is his strength.

This chant is heard a lot these days, especially when someone dares to express a contrary opinion. Have you ever been in a discussion where people are espousing their lack of belief and you happen to express a belief and there was a sharp retort similar to the above?

Cognitive dissonance is rife within the area of personal belief. It does not need to make sense. In my experience most beliefs are emotionally based and rapidly fail when subject to the searchlight of logic, and no more than amongst the so called experts, or academia. I have heard so much irrational discussion on such programs as The Science Show.

Let me talk a moment about morality. Who says what is right and wrong? What is the basis for our morality? It seems that Mark Parnell MP is the last word on morality. We need to all regard him as the final authority. The wise and esteemed Mark appears to think that parents have no right to expect that their children’s teachers at least adhere to a certain standard of morality in order to teach their children.

Sorry Mark, a person who teaches my children Maths and Science is far more than a Maths or Science teacher. They have a responsibility that reaches far beyond  the mere teaching of a subject. They should be a person whom I think can set a good example to my children, someone who can show my children how to live. If in my opinion the lifestyle one who spends time with my children is not one I wish them to emulate then it is my responsibility to ensure that they are not my children’s teacher. You do not father my children and you are not my children’s moral guardian.

You may think that you are society’s conscience but excuse me if I prefer my own moral paradigm in favour of yours. I prefer to not have your morality rammed down my throat.

There are many and varied views amongst scientists as to the existence and nature of some force that is behind nature that cannot be explained in terms of observational discovery, ie. science.

This article in New Scientist is quite interesting, especially since d’Espagnat received $1 M for his effort. But is it true that this”force behind nature” is inherently unknowable. There are a myriad of possibilities, assuming that it exists, as to what the nature of this “force” is.

I strikes me that the question that science asks is what, but in the end this really tells us nothing. Science provides a lot of rules, gives us some objective observations, and some great techno toys to paly with, such as computers, mobile phones and electric tooth brushes. But in the end science can never tell us why. We know that 1+1=2 but why does it? We know that the earth rotates around the sun but why? We know that the pressure in a gas increases in proportion to the temperature, but why does it. The great Australian broadcaster Prof. Julius Sumner Miller used to say in his broadcasts “Why is it so?” But could he tell us Why? He told us the what but never the why.

There are many scientists who want us to believe that there is no why. Yet others who think that the why can never be discovered. I find both of these positions suffer from the very moral issue that they accuse deists of. In my opinion it is the height of arrogance to say that there is no why, or that we cannot know. Just because they do not know does not mean that that knowledge is unobtainable. Because the ancient Egyptians did not know about electronics circuit theory does not mean it did not exist. It was merely waiting to be discovered. We do not know what has not been discovered because it has not been discovered. The discovery of microbes was waiting for the invention of the microscope. The world inside the microscope is so bizarre that no amount of human imagination could conceive of it before it was discovered.

My question then is, how does Einstein know that it is unknowable if he does not know it? This seems to be essentially irrational. To know that it is unknowable we have to understand enough about it to know it to be unknowable and if that was the case then we would know it. The most that could be said is that we do not know whether it is knowable. But d’Espagnat clearly does not know and this could be for a number of reasons. There may be no “veiled reality”. It may be completely veiled from human discovery, or it may not be yet discovered. We cannot say more that this.

What amazes me though is the arrogance of scientists who state uncategorically that this “veiled reality” cannot be a creator. How do they know? Is there some empirical knowledge that they have that they are not sharing with us? It strikes me that they are basing their view of “God” on some hypothetical idea that they have dreamt up based on a flawed understanding of some belief system that they heard about. For so called objective observers of nature they have some very emotional and subjective responses to the idea of a creator behind it all.

Let me suggest something here. What if God had reveled himself and that they had missed it altogether. Like someone who reaches the scene of an accident but only looks in the opposite direction as he passes the location. Is it valid for him to declare that there had been no accident? How is it possible to say there is no creator, and then to go on to say that it is arrogant, and/or ignorant to clam that there is and that he had revealed himself to man? The accident happened but their ignorance does not disprove of its existence. Just as with the creator, if I claim to know him who can say that I do not?

To my mind the only rational conclusion for a man to make who has not had the creator reveal himself is that he has no knowledge of him. Atheism and agnosticism are at best ignorant and irrational positions and at worst judgemental and immoral. It is better to stick to the principle that one does not know than to declare lack of knowledge as proof and prove oneself a fool.

This recent article in The New Scientist about a recent study that repeats an older study that researches how far people would go to punish a person who answers a question incorrectly.

The researchers seem surprised that people would go to the point of torturing people when authorised to do so. Do these people live in the real world? There is not much that people would not do given the circumstances. In my experience people in general have a fairly weak moral compass and will redefine their morality to suite their environment, especially if subject to enough peer pressure and given sanction to do so. There have been many examples in recent years of people behaving in immoral ways in response to external influences. People refer to Abu Ghraib as if it was some exception, but really it is the norm for such environments.

I am not referring to Muslim extremists, they are being wholly consistent. They may behave in ways that we consider abhorrent but at least they are being honest. No need to redefine the term torture for them. No need to engage in some convoluted reasoning  and complex situational ethics for them. Their philosophy is clear and simple. Whether we agree or not with their morality at least it is consistent. History is littered with one person’s shifting morality winning out over the defeated parties simple morality. Not only does the loosing side in a war have to bear the ignominy of being defeated in battle, they then have to be subject to the moral superiority of the victors. History is supposed to subjectively analyse events but when was history ever objective? Victors will use any meas at their disposal to justify their actions.

Modern man has made moral flexibility even easier with the abandonment of all things religious. One thing that religion does (I am not talking about culture here – please note there IS a difference) is provide a moral framework for our behaviour. One significant difference between the Muslim extremists and the US is that the US has abandened moral fundamentals for a moral flexibility that changes with the requirements whereas the Muslim extremists have a firm moral position.  Once you abanden religion you chan define morality however you like.

As a Christian my morality is based firmly on a clear belief system and my whole moral framework is based on the Christian paragygm. As such there is no room for the type of behaviour highlighted in the study above or in Abu Ghraib. I may disagree with the extremists but admire their moral consistency.

I think the only reason that the researchers were  surprised was they they failed to understand the basic concepts of morality and what drives man’s psyche. I am not at all surprised based on my knowledge of human nature. As the prophet said “The heart of man is desperately wicked”.

I discovered George MacDonald amongst my mother’s books when I was a teenager and found a fascinating world. I did not even know he wrote fantasy until many years later, and knew even less of his influence on 20th C Christian thought.

I can say that many of my ideas have been influenced both directly and indirectly on this man. Just two of the people that were influenced by him were CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein.

Today is the 184th anniversary of his birth and the Brander Library in Huntly, his place of birth, has digitised many manuscripts that they have placed online.

If you want to know why this guy was such a significant figure who still has a great affect on Christian thought today check him out.