As Cliscep goes deep into endorsing WW2 analogies, with Gove as Goebbels just the latest, I propose Jaime Jessop as Captain Mainwaring: Mainwaring sincerely believes he’s fighting the good fight but what he says is totally counterproductive. This applies to James Delingpole’s tweets I embedded two days ago as well, in my view. Persuasive not. … Continue reading
Author Archives: Richard Drake
Bikeshedding and Baloney – Trump Edition
This was Jaime Jessop five days ago: It’s become a war now and it seems Trump is the only Western leader willing to fight it on our behalf – and his of course. They are gunning for him. Jaime was pointing to a Daily Mail story succinctly titled Twitter boss Jack Dorsey apologizes for blocking … Continue reading
Bikeshedding and Baloney 1
GIYF if you don’t know what the first word means. And now Google Is Your Friend is arguably what the first word means. Maybe the first word should have been bootstrapping. Sigh. The title came to me in the last few days as I thought about how each of us can best preserve our sanity … Continue reading
Climate, Covid, Brexit, Peace Prize
Some thoughts on the last week. Nothing controversial. Ahem. Climate Last weekend I rejoiced in XR losing hearts and minds so, for balance, here’s our favourite XR alumnus with friends: Nuclear for Net Zero? Well, it’s a lot better than any other version. IMHO. Feel free to disagree. Covid A couple of previous paragraphs of … Continue reading
XR crashes and burns as climate sceptic becomes UK trade envoy
Ok, I’m in optimistic mood. But this post is to give space to discuss the latest in the UK, both on climate and anything else people see as a crisis. Today: Extinction Rebellion facing ‘organised crime’ curbs Tuesday: Tony Abbott rails against Covid ‘health dictatorships’, saying some elderly should be left to die naturally Both … Continue reading
What a real crisis looks like
I want to argue that the Covid-19 pandemic looks like a real crisis in a way that man-made global warming (AGW) doesn’t. And that our aim as climate sceptics should be to make AGW look like a real crisis. Not to make AGW be a real crisis – that I think is not within anyone’s … Continue reading
Interrogating climate modelling
Whatever skills and expertise are required for that, Michael Gove thinks they are needed in the civil service and in government: That same determination to instil and cultivate deep knowledge should apply across Government. Too much current Civil Service training is about vapid abstractions such as ‘Collaborating Better’ rather than about what works in classroom … Continue reading
Too Much Progress
This evening I want to think about climate, covid and racism. Nothing too controversial then. In fact, let me generalise two and narrow the third. I wish to look at progress, real and perceived, in three key areas: environmentalism, public health and racial discrimination in the USA. My thesis is pretty simple. In 1 and … Continue reading
When Code Goes Wong
Many people across the globe are currently interested in the quality of code and, even more, the quality of results that arise from code. In particular, in the UK, Neil Ferguson’s epidemiological code, that seemed to influence the government’s decision to impose a lockdown, and, on this blog at least, the code that makes up … Continue reading
Did HMG succeed in its assignment?
Here’s the thing. In our earlier busy thread, Jaime Jessop was thinking like a Haskell programmer and John Ridgway a Ruby one. Perhaps even more fascinating, what was the government thinking? References: Wikipedia : Assignment (computer science) Demystifying Haskell assignment Ruby – Operators Basic Programming – Operators What’s New In Python 3.8 – Assignment expressions … Continue reading
