… and the April, and the May.
The latest fundraising project for the Libel Reform Campaign is the Geek Calendar. The video below features a number of eminent scientists and science journalists explaining why the libel laws are so terrible, why science and medicine are particularly threatened, and therefore, why they agreed to feature in the calendar.
The Geek Calendar project is, I think, a fantastic example of a good idea that has been very well executed, with the help of new technologies. (To add a disclaimer lest the reader thinks I am sucking my own trumpet, the project was not managed by me – though as part of the Libel Reform Campaign I did get to watch the team in action at all stages.) The above video is a classic example of how a little forward thinking creates a significant amount of added value. The ‘geeks’ (including celebrities such as Jonathan Ross) were already being photographed – so why not do a quick interview while you’re there?
The Geek Calendar team have also been using behind the scenes imagery to build momentum for the project. At the other end of the production line, there have been several opportunities for us to spread the word and seed the #GeekCalendar hashtag via social networking sites – when the shop went ‘live’ for pre-orders; at the launch party last week; and when the calendars arrived through people’s letterboxes.
It also helps to have a strong constituency for the message and product. As Nick Cohen pointed out in April, it is clear that one reason that the Libel Reform campaign has been so successful in lobbying the government (both the Labour administration, and the post-election Coalition) is that there exists a community of technologically savvy, but also very motivated and passionate geeks, to drive the message forward. Earlier this year, Christina Odone labelled this group “the Lib Dem Spooky Posse of Internet Pests” after a forestorm of tweeting against her during a spat with former MP Dr Evan Harris. Over at the New Statesman blog, David Allen Green gives a little more insight into the ‘Skeptics‘ movement. These people would hate to be compared to the religious Right in the USA… but in their dedication to their cause, and their belief that their engagement can actually cause change, I percieve more than a passing similarity.
Category: Diary (Page 145 of 300)
Things that happen to me, or things I do
Arundhati Roy. Photo by jeanbaptisteparis on Flickr
It is interesting how authors are elevated to positions of moral authority in society. This is the reason they become particular targets for censorship when they stray from the socially conservative orthodoxy.
Two stories of writers being censored in India have crossed my desk (a metaphor for ‘appeared in my inbox) today. First, we hear that Rohinton Mistry’s book Such A Long Journey has been cut by Mumbai University’s reading list, adter complaint from Shiv Sena, the unpleasant nationalists who seem to be at the heart of most of the stories of intolerance that emerge from India. From the Guardian report comes this Tea Party-style rhetoric:
It is our culture that anything with insulting language should be deleted. Writers can’t just write anything. They can’t write wrong things,” said Rawale, who admitted not having read the book.
While Mistry’s right to free expression is clearly under threat here, he is not in the same position as Arundhati Roy, who may be deprived of her liberty in the near future. Reports from India suggest that Roy (who is the author of Booker winner The God of Small Things) will be charged under ‘sedition’ laws, for comments made about the conduct of the Indian government in Kashmir. In an English PEN press release I make the point that “laws of sedition are a sinster part of Britain’s colonial legacy – India should not be using such laws to silence debate.”
Continue reading
Here’s yrstrly participating in a TV debate on Political Correctness. The other participants were Robert Shibley from FIRE and Lenora Billings-Harris.
I am particularly pleased with the final point I made about “who reclaims” abusive language, previously formulated in a post on this very blog.
One disappointment was my failure to challenge to the host Peter Lavelle when he claimed that the Russian press do not feel pressurised to say anything bad about Vladimir Putin. I claimed that ‘political correctness’ was used in many countries to enforce the political orthodoxy of the ruling elites, including in Russia. Peter retorted that though there were states where that happens, he (working in Russia) was not living in one. On reflection, instead of shaking my head in disbelief (never effective on a split screen TV programme) I should have asserted that many Russian journalists would disagree with him.
I would also have liked more time to engage Robert Shibley on the censure of Christian groups on campus. Very often I think that freedom of (Christian) religion is used as an excuse for unfettered homophobia, and the ‘political correctness’ that responds is really just healthy counter-speech. Having said that, I think the discussion we had did go beyond the shrill superficiality of most debates on this subject. Take a look at the comments on the YouTube page for the clip – almost universally vile and stupid.
My election day story about a blogger and some supernatural goings on received mixed reviews. Some saw it as failed satire, while others enjoyed the ambiguity. It features a character I had previously put at the centre of a couple of unpublished stories. One (about an explosion in Jerusalem) is growing rapidly out-of-date, as the technology it describes becomes obsolete and the zeitgeist it tries to describe disappears into history.
The other is republished below. I’ve just read an article that mentioned ‘web-sentience’ and realised that this story, too, may become irrelevant if I do not publish without further delay. My other fiction you can read here.
(01)
When most people over-achieve beyond their wildest imagination, their voice betrays their desire to talk about themselves. They might be talking about some commonplace thing, but if you listen carefully, you can hear the eagerness to talk about What They Have Done. Eventually, they will find a way to drop their success into the conversation. It will as easy to them as dropping a lump of sugar into your tea. In both cases, you find yourself thanking them for their consideration, even if it is the precise opposite of what you desired.
But what was true for most people was not true of my friend Ebenezer, the prolific blogger. Continue reading
I am reading Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter. First published in 1979, the author discusses various systems – mathematical, visual and musical, which somehow manage to talk about themselves. This self-reference, says the author, is one of the key ingredients for intelligence.
Much of the book so far has been taken up with explaining some key elements of number theory, and Hofstadter includes lengthy digressions on programming, and loops of operations nested within others. It inspired me to find a BBC BASIC emulator and write a little programme that finds prime numbers. Here is what I came up with:
10 CLS
20 PRINT "LIMIT";
30 INPUT L
40 FOR N = 3 TO L
50 FOR D = 2 TO (N-1)
60 IF N/D=INT(N/D) THEN GOTO 100
70 NEXT D
80 PRINT N;
90 GOTO 110
100 PRINT ".";
110 NEXT N
120 END
This programme asks you for a number, and it will search for prime numbers up to and including the number you give. If it finds a prime, it prints it, otherwise it just prints a dot. I chose this method of output so that one has a visual representation of how primes are distributed throughout the natural numbers, and it is easy to spot Twin Primes.
Since we’re thinking about self-reference, I might as well make an observations about this post, which is that it will probably succeed in alienating everyone. Those with no interest in maths and coding will likely think I am being terribly geeky. Meanwhile, those who do take an interest in such things will scoff at the incredible simplicity of my coding ambitions. Already one wag in the office has asked me why I don’t print all the discovered primes in an array…
The output from my programme.