Notice how the health policy discussion has changed? Nobody now even makes a gesture to the idea that the Virus is serious or life-threatening. Sometime in the last month or so, everyone accepted that it was the flu, unless you were unlucky, but then you can get unlucky with the flu as well.
Nobody thinks there is any `science’ behind lockdowns, social distancing and masks. Equally, most people accept that crowds, indoors, and / or poor ventilation encourage infection. Turns out that 75% of all infections happen in family homes, hospitals and homes for the elderly. Or halls of residence, which combine crowds and lack of decent air-conditioning.
We have accepted that there are four of them, locked in a folie a quatre, making stuff up as they go along. Doubling-down on actions that don’t work is the first sign of desperation. But then, thinking that you can legislate and penalise your way out of a public health event is the first sign of political madness. It turns out that the people in SAGE have lost the plot as well.
It should be obvious that all a lockdown does is temporarily halt the spread of any virus, unless you can lock everyone down, seal the borders and hold on until the last virus cell dies. Then you can't let anyone or anything in from anywhere else in the world without decontaminating it and them. Virus gonna virus. The only people who don't know this are SAGE and a bunch of professors whom I would not hire as a junior analyst.
I went up to London last Friday during the day. I obeyed all the rules. I caught a cold. Not the Virus. A cold. I don't need to say any more.
If there were dead bodies in the streets, the sounds of ambulance sirens throughout the day, hearses daily on every street, if our work-mates were falling before our eyes... there would be no need to make any rules. Those of us who could carry on with our laptop jobs would, and the rest could choose between death by bankruptcy or the Virus. It’s exactly because the Virus was not killing everyone in its path that Governments could do a ‘national lockdown with more holes in it for essential services than a sieve’ that kept far more of the economy going than anyone had a right to expect.
In other words, the politicians can only **** around like this because the Virus is not that serious. And that's what we all know in the back of our minds.
Thursday, 15 October 2020
Monday, 12 October 2020
Thursday, 8 October 2020
Loudspeaker Happiness and Soundstage - At Last
What, you thought I'd given up with futzing about with the speakers? When we last left, I had the balance turned over to the left as I faced the speakers. This stopped the feeling that the music was coming from somewhere around the back right corner of the room.
But having the balance wound over is not natural. So I went on reading hi-fi sites of dubious quality, until I ran across one run by an actual sound engineer who wrote like he had studied physics, and he said that my speakers needed to be at least 5cm from the wall but no more than a metre, as there was a dead zone between one and three metres from the back wall. Aha! So I'm okay with that.
Another said that my speakers needed to be at least three feet from the side walls. Fumbles for tape measure in toolbox. One was three foot from the wall, but the other was only 18 inches. Could that make a difference? I moved it.
Whoa! Suddenly the musicians were in the space between the speakers, not wandering down my right-hand wall. And I could return the balance to neutral, as God intended it should be.
The standard wisdom on placement has you the listener between the speakers as three points in an equilateral triangle. I can't do that in my room. But yet another article said, well, shelf speakers should be about 4 feet apart, but standmounts should be at least 8 feet apart. And don't forget a little bit of toe-in.
Grabs tape measure. Nearly six feet apart. Okay, what do I have to lose except my sanity? So I shuffled the speakers along the shelves by moving some books, tweaked a bit of toe-in, sat down and...
Oh yeah rock and roll!
You know when the reviewers talk about a tight, well-defined and clear soundstage and that thing where if everything is set up right, the speakers should feel as if they are not actually conveying sound?
It's all true.
I was streaming an Evelyn Glennie CD the other night, and I swear I could see every single shiny thing she was hitting, between the speakers. Mind you, that recording was probably mic'ed to within an inch of its life.
The music now stays between the speakers even if I'm concentrating on something else - though if there's a lot of sustained chords around Treble C, it does drift to the right.
I have no idea why I put up with that awful splashy, diffused sound I had before. Perhaps because I wasn't really listening, or perhaps I thought it was the gear, or perhaps I thought I would have to put baffles around the room. I did not believe that speaker placement could make such a huge difference.
But it does, and if you don't believe me, try it.
But having the balance wound over is not natural. So I went on reading hi-fi sites of dubious quality, until I ran across one run by an actual sound engineer who wrote like he had studied physics, and he said that my speakers needed to be at least 5cm from the wall but no more than a metre, as there was a dead zone between one and three metres from the back wall. Aha! So I'm okay with that.
Another said that my speakers needed to be at least three feet from the side walls. Fumbles for tape measure in toolbox. One was three foot from the wall, but the other was only 18 inches. Could that make a difference? I moved it.
Whoa! Suddenly the musicians were in the space between the speakers, not wandering down my right-hand wall. And I could return the balance to neutral, as God intended it should be.
The standard wisdom on placement has you the listener between the speakers as three points in an equilateral triangle. I can't do that in my room. But yet another article said, well, shelf speakers should be about 4 feet apart, but standmounts should be at least 8 feet apart. And don't forget a little bit of toe-in.
Grabs tape measure. Nearly six feet apart. Okay, what do I have to lose except my sanity? So I shuffled the speakers along the shelves by moving some books, tweaked a bit of toe-in, sat down and...
Oh yeah rock and roll!
You know when the reviewers talk about a tight, well-defined and clear soundstage and that thing where if everything is set up right, the speakers should feel as if they are not actually conveying sound?
It's all true.
I was streaming an Evelyn Glennie CD the other night, and I swear I could see every single shiny thing she was hitting, between the speakers. Mind you, that recording was probably mic'ed to within an inch of its life.
The music now stays between the speakers even if I'm concentrating on something else - though if there's a lot of sustained chords around Treble C, it does drift to the right.
I have no idea why I put up with that awful splashy, diffused sound I had before. Perhaps because I wasn't really listening, or perhaps I thought it was the gear, or perhaps I thought I would have to put baffles around the room. I did not believe that speaker placement could make such a huge difference.
But it does, and if you don't believe me, try it.
Monday, 5 October 2020
Photographs I'm Printing (26)
(old second-hand camera I don't think I have anymore)
I used to work for the company that ran the Riverbuses - now Thames Clippers - back in the day. So I was around the river Thames a lot.
Thursday, 1 October 2020
The Coof? Nobody's Listening Anymore
A former colleague of mine sent a message with a photo of Boris making his speech about how he fought off those who would lock us all down again, and how we needed to... blah blah blah
Under the photograph they wrote
"Is anyone still listening?"
Not me, I replied.
We've all stopped listening.
The other day in the queue for the self-serve checkouts, the big guy in the black mask behind me said "I can't wait for this to be over". I nodded.
Most of us know this has gone on too long and the measures are not justified by the facts. Some people are still scared, but some people will always be scared of something.
The handful of Ministers who used 100 different Acts of Parliament to pass 224 different regulations without a single vote are trapped in their own hysteria.
And we the people are twiddling our thumbs, waiting for them to catch up, like they were the huffing, puffing stragglers on a country walk.
Under the photograph they wrote
"Is anyone still listening?"
Not me, I replied.
We've all stopped listening.
The other day in the queue for the self-serve checkouts, the big guy in the black mask behind me said "I can't wait for this to be over". I nodded.
Most of us know this has gone on too long and the measures are not justified by the facts. Some people are still scared, but some people will always be scared of something.
The handful of Ministers who used 100 different Acts of Parliament to pass 224 different regulations without a single vote are trapped in their own hysteria.
And we the people are twiddling our thumbs, waiting for them to catch up, like they were the huffing, puffing stragglers on a country walk.
Monday, 28 September 2020
Photographs I'm Printing (25)
(Camera unknown)
Somewhere in Florence. What other country would have so many scooters in one place?
Thursday, 24 September 2020
Never Attribute to Conspiracy What You Can Assign to Stupidity, Ambition, or Cowardice
The problem is that the alternative narratives are mostly conspiracy theories, and in some cases pretty batty ones. Now I like a good conspiracy theory, and a good one is plausible.
One of my favourites is 'bureaucratic cover-up'. If you have ever worked in a bureaucracy, you will know that there is no need for anyone to arrange a cover-up of a cock-up. The people involved do it as automatically as they would arrange a working group to to delay a decision.
Combine the cock-up theory of history with the need of politicians and other members of the Establishment to maintain their position and privileges (and that's another motive no-one even needs to discuss), and you have a powerful explanatory tool.
The only reason we were in the shameful position of having a Prime Minister threatening his electorate with the Army is because of a half-robust broadband internet network in the towns and the wide availability of reasonably capable laptops. In 2000, there would have been no thought of sending people home to work, nor, I suspect would there have been in 2010.
Almost the entire Covid farce follows from the availability of high-speed broadband and laptops.
The rest follows from the fact that while politicians always were a bunch of morally-flawed people with latent personality disorders, once upon a time, even as recently as the 1970's, some of them were capable people with moral flaws and latent personality disorders. Now none of them are capable. Capable people can make much more money in other jobs, without needing to stain themselves with politics. Or university teaching. Or working in local or national government. There are no Civil Servants as capable as Sir Humphrey, though many may be as smug.
Have the sheer nerve to make those judgements out loud, and the need for elaborate conspiracy disappears. A converse of Asimov's Rule might be: any sufficiently stupid group action or decision is indistinguishable from a conspiracy.
If you stop thinking that the world is being run by smart people with stable personalities, and malign ambitions and flawed morals, then you don't need a conspiracy. Never attribute to conspiracy what you can assign to stupidity, ambition, or cowardice.
Whitty and Vallance don't say the things they say because they are conspiring to create Project Fear. Whitty's experience is with contagious diseases in Africa, which will lead him to think of zebras when he hears the sound of hooves, and Vallance comes from the pharmaceutical industry and wants a silver-bullet cure for everything. The man who caused the panic, Neil Ferguson at Imperial College, has never seen a virus he didn't think that culling thousands wouldn't stop. All three of them are willing patsies.
The truth is that the UK Cabinet could not stand the pressure from the press, and the peer-pressure from other governments who had already locked down. Weak-ass bitches.
It is fairly scary to think you live in a world run by dumb, often malicious, people with personality disorders. Even though the current situation has made it fairly clear that many of the Democrat politicians and elected officials in the USA are all of those things.
Over here, Nicola Sturgeon needs some quality time with a psychiatrist, Boris Johnson needs a while with a therapist, and Matt Hancock needs to grow the **** up? None of them understand that their job is not to tell us what to do. Their job is to oversee the large companies, and the institutions and organisations of the State, and stop them from cheating and swindling us. Oh and there's something about secure borders and putting the interests of the UK electorate before any other country's electorate. But I'm just old-fashioned, I guess.
One of my favourites is 'bureaucratic cover-up'. If you have ever worked in a bureaucracy, you will know that there is no need for anyone to arrange a cover-up of a cock-up. The people involved do it as automatically as they would arrange a working group to to delay a decision.
Combine the cock-up theory of history with the need of politicians and other members of the Establishment to maintain their position and privileges (and that's another motive no-one even needs to discuss), and you have a powerful explanatory tool.
The only reason we were in the shameful position of having a Prime Minister threatening his electorate with the Army is because of a half-robust broadband internet network in the towns and the wide availability of reasonably capable laptops. In 2000, there would have been no thought of sending people home to work, nor, I suspect would there have been in 2010.
Almost the entire Covid farce follows from the availability of high-speed broadband and laptops.
The rest follows from the fact that while politicians always were a bunch of morally-flawed people with latent personality disorders, once upon a time, even as recently as the 1970's, some of them were capable people with moral flaws and latent personality disorders. Now none of them are capable. Capable people can make much more money in other jobs, without needing to stain themselves with politics. Or university teaching. Or working in local or national government. There are no Civil Servants as capable as Sir Humphrey, though many may be as smug.
Have the sheer nerve to make those judgements out loud, and the need for elaborate conspiracy disappears. A converse of Asimov's Rule might be: any sufficiently stupid group action or decision is indistinguishable from a conspiracy.
If you stop thinking that the world is being run by smart people with stable personalities, and malign ambitions and flawed morals, then you don't need a conspiracy. Never attribute to conspiracy what you can assign to stupidity, ambition, or cowardice.
Whitty and Vallance don't say the things they say because they are conspiring to create Project Fear. Whitty's experience is with contagious diseases in Africa, which will lead him to think of zebras when he hears the sound of hooves, and Vallance comes from the pharmaceutical industry and wants a silver-bullet cure for everything. The man who caused the panic, Neil Ferguson at Imperial College, has never seen a virus he didn't think that culling thousands wouldn't stop. All three of them are willing patsies.
The truth is that the UK Cabinet could not stand the pressure from the press, and the peer-pressure from other governments who had already locked down. Weak-ass bitches.
It is fairly scary to think you live in a world run by dumb, often malicious, people with personality disorders. Even though the current situation has made it fairly clear that many of the Democrat politicians and elected officials in the USA are all of those things.
Over here, Nicola Sturgeon needs some quality time with a psychiatrist, Boris Johnson needs a while with a therapist, and Matt Hancock needs to grow the **** up? None of them understand that their job is not to tell us what to do. Their job is to oversee the large companies, and the institutions and organisations of the State, and stop them from cheating and swindling us. Oh and there's something about secure borders and putting the interests of the UK electorate before any other country's electorate. But I'm just old-fashioned, I guess.
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