Facebook logic

Facebook just sent me "Add a phone number to your Facebook account. 249 of your friends added a phone number."

Well if 249 friends do it, clearly so should I. What more compelling reason to do something than "because my friends do it".

I'm sure at least 249 of my friends follow some religion, smoke, cheat on their wives/husbands, evade taxes and lie on Government forms (some maybe do all of them!) so clearly I should do all of those too, according to Facebook.

Um.... no. I'll make my own decisions, thank you.

Blow those leaves!

In the before days (i.e. until about five years ago) leaves were swept up by a chap with a broom.  The operation was largely silent and the only energy used was derived from his breakfast.  Took a couple of hours.  You could chat with him while he worked, doubtless making his day brighter and easier to bear.

Nowadays we have modern technology.  Same chap, but now instead of a broom he has a leaf blower.  Powered by fossil fuels and thus adding to the planet’s carbon dioxide content, it makes a noise like a moped struggling to get up Ladder Hill.  No chatting – he has to wear ear defenders, so works in sullen isolation, cut off from the world around him.  And the operation still takes a couple of hours, during which time everybody in the vicinity is disturbed by the noise.  Especially if he starts at 6am.

Could someone please tell me in precisely what way this new technology is an improvement to human life?

Whale Sharks & The Castle of Otranto

Two of the new pages on Saint Helena Island Info.

This is the update announcement:

Whale Sharks are important to St Helena! They were previously discussed with Dolphin Watching but now have a page of their own: http://sainthelenaisland.info/whalesharks.htm.
We'd previously mentioned the mystery of the Castle of Otranto, but now we know more so it has a page of it's own: http://sainthelenaisland.info/otranto.htm.
The latest Wirebird census results are at http://sainthelenaisland.info/wirebird.htm#wirebirdcensus
Did Mattie John lose a plot of land in a card game? It seems the story may be true! Check it out at http://sainthelenaisland.info/characters.htm#mattyjohn
Photos of the finished Rock Rose were released recently. We have these and of the work-in-progress at http://sainthelenaisland.info/savedbuildings.htm#rockrose (and also a few of the work-in-progress at Teutonic Hall).
We have a very detailed map by the Royal Engineers from 1872. So detailed we can only show it in parts! See http://sainthelenaisland.info/maps.htm#historicmaps Excerpts appear where relevant on other pages e.g. http://sainthelenaisland.info/longwood.htm
Our newly discovered and named Seamount is described here: http://sainthelenaisland.info/geology.htm#seamounts

A NATION OF CRIMINALS

Here’s a little known fact to interest you.  EVERYTHING on St Helena is a Criminal Offence.

Elsewhere there are Crimes (murder, rape, theft, etc.) and Civil Offences -the Americans call them “misdemeanours”, which are less important things like being drunk in public, improper parking and speeding.

But not here.

On St Helena even minor offences gets you a criminal record.  Being caught doing 35 mph in a 30 zone gets you a Criminal record. Being caught peeing in the street gets you a criminal record.  On St Helena Trespassers CAN be prosecuted (elsewhere it’s a civil offence).

These ‘criminal’ offences have to go to court, with all the due process this entails.  Cases have to be made.  Defences have to be constructed.  Lay Advocates and prosecutors have to stand up and say their pieces.  Magistrates have to rule.  Records must be kept.  All of this is a ridiculous waste of time (and money) for the judicial system. 

It also results in people being declared ‘criminals’ for minor offences that no other jurisdiction would care about.  In the UK you get caught speeding: a few points on your licence for a short period and its forgotten.  Here you become a criminal, in the same bracket as a child-molester.

Does anybody benefit from this?  Maybe the police want it because then they can then point to the vast number of ‘criminals’ here to justify the large numbers of police officers they employ?  Maybe the justice system wants it because if they only had to deal with real crimes they would be mostly unemployed?  Whatever the reason, that doesn’t make it any less stupid!

If St Helena has any plans to become a modern society it needs to address this issue.  It needs the same dual-system used in other 21^st Century jurisdictions.  It will require some work, but it will create vast savings in police and judicial system costs that will more than repay the initial outlay.  And it will stop people who are caught relieving themselves in a back alley while on their way home from the pub from being branded as criminals together with rapists, thugs and thieves.

THE UNIFYING THEORY OF EVERYTHING.

Scientists have a problem with their theories. They want one set of laws that explains everything, but big things like planets operate to different physical laws to tiny things like sub-atomic particles.  There isn’t as much matter in the universe as there should be unless you invent “dark matter” which you can’t find. Is Schrödinger’s cat alive or dead? Heisenberg says we can never know where a sub-atomic particle was before we observed it and therefore moved it.

I have the answer, and it isn’t God. It’s Sod’s Law.

Planets do not behave like sub-atomic particles out of sheer cussedness. That’s also why so much of the matter in the universe is hiding.  If you want Schrödinger’s cat to be alive, it will be dead (and vice-versa). And wherever you want Heisenberg ‘s sub-atomic particle to be, it will be somewhere else.

From buttered toast falling buttered-side down to meeting red traffic lights when you’re in a hurry, Sod’s Law explains absolutely everything in the observable universe.

Watch for my paper at the next international physics symposium. (Which I won’t be able to present because the plane will be delayed.)

HM Prison, Jamestown

The Equality & Human Rights Commission has published the report of its enquiry into conditions in HM Prison, Jamestown.
Go to http://humanrightssthelena.org/news.htm to read more and download the report.
It will make tough reading for those responsible for managing our prison.

I wish to complain....

When I think something is wrong I complain about it, in the hope that if enough people agree with me the problem will be put right. This seems to me to be the best way to proceed. Whoever is doing it wrong may be completely unaware of the problems they're causing and, when it is pointed out, may change, making everybody happy.

It constantly amazes me how many people think I should not complain. They seem to think it's better to suffer in silence. This seems to me to be the most unproductive approach. How can anything be put right if nobody complains? If everybody had suffered in silence instead of protesting we would still have slavery, women would still be merely property, children would still be working in the mines and nobody would have any human rights. This cannot be the way forward.

Maybe the people who complain about my complaining should simply do as they advocate: shut up and suffer in silence! :-)