The Fall

I recently caught up with this excellent series from the BBC.
A serial killer and Gillian Anderson - what more could you want.
The Fall is a gritty BBC police drama set in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Gillian Anderson takes the lead as Stella Gibson, a Met Police Officer drafted in to evaluate a failing murder case. She soon ends up running an investigation to catch a serial killer. Anderson, as always, is brilliant in the role.
We meet the perpetrator of these horrible crimes right from the start. Jamie Dornan (of Once upon a Time fame) plays the sociopath in an unerringly creepy fashion. We see him trying to exist in his normal life, and also what he gets up to in the middle of the night. I dare you to watch this series on your own with the lights off, and not check that the doors and windows are locked tight afterwards.
Themes of how society judges women run cleverly throughout this series. Stella is assertive and sexually dominant, and is strong enough to challenge the male assumptions she encounters. It is also central to the way in which she approaches her work.
The Fall is well worth the watch. Anderson yet again shows her versatility, and brings us a character who knows she is flawed, and accepts it. Traditional detective plot-lines are mixed jarringly with serial killer psychology; this is done in a way that will leave you feeling dreadfully uneasy, and yet wanting more.

The Science Delusion

After stumbling around the web (as we all do) for perhaps too long, I came across a post regarding talks that TED had self-censored! Yes, I think if any sentence deserves an exclamation mark it is that one. Without knowing a lot about the TED organization, I had always enjoyed watching the remarkable and innovative lectures, and assumed that the ethos of TED must be one of open-mindedness and inclusion. And yet, this video had been retrospectively removed form the general TED feed:

Apart from the fact that this has sparked incredible levels of debate and outrage, the content of Professor Rupert Sheldrake’s is intriguing to say the least. He argues that Science has become bogged down with dogma, closed-mindedness and a fundamentalism which is akin to a religious belief. He had, of course, written a book on the subject. His examples sparked my curiosity, and a flitted over to Amazon and was reading his tome within minutes.

The Science Delusion (or Science Set Free in the US) expounds on Sheldrake’s idea that Science has been stifled by the belief that we already know how the Universe works. He goes through ten main tenets of modern Science, breaking them down step-by-step with convincing arguments based on published papers and testable hypotheses.

Here is a small example. In one chapter, Sheldrake challenges the idea that so-called Universal Constant always have the same value. Indeed, it turns out that between 1928 and 1945 the measured values of the speed of light (‘c’) were lower than they should be by 20 kilometres per second. Some scientist speculated that the ‘constant’ may be fluctuating, but the consensus was that such occurrences were done to ‘intellectual phase locking’. In 1972 the embarrassment of this episode was expunged as the value of ‘c’ was fixed by definition. In 1983, the standard unit of length, the metre, was redefined in terms of the speed of light. So, if any fluctuations of ‘c’ were occurring, it is now impossible to detect as the length of the metre would also change!

Sheldrake has theories which are far more outré and are classed as parapsychology. However, I challenge you to read this book. If you find yourself offended by the ideas he is putting forward, then perhaps you hold a belief regarding how Science, and the Universe, works.

And I would ask you, “Shouldn’t science be free of the dogma of belief?”

Chromebooks - why they might be awesome.

So, two weeks ago I bought a Samsung Chromebook. It was slightly on a whim; I had used one at work the day before for about five hours straight, and I suddenly understood the point. And now, after using it at home, at work, and on the train I can honestly say that it might be the best piece of tech I have ever bought.
Now, those of you who know me will know I do not say that lightly. I tend to be a bit of an addict when it comes to the next shiny new thing. I am a big gamer, so my main computer at home is a PC. I have never bought into the cult of Mac (so expensive, and marketed towards people who don't know any better...don't get me started) but I do own an iPad and and iPhone. After much experimentation, I just think that these are better that the other tablets and phones on the market at present.
And now, I have a Chromebook. I was so excited after I made the decision that I got good old Amazon to deliver one the very next day. For those of you who don't know, a chromebook runs Google's ChromeOS. This is basically just the chrome browser. That's it. Everything you do with the computer has to be done over the internet from within the browser. You can't install applications, and if you are not connected to the internet there is little point. But as long as you fully immerse yourself in the Google way of things, it is surprisingly easy to get things done.
So, firstly a few major plus points

• it starts up in less that ten seconds.
• it is about the size of a piece of A4 paper.
• it is very light.
• the battery life is about 8 hours.
• closing the lid puts it to sleep securely, and it starts up instantly when you open it again.

I had initially bought the thing to use at home for writing, but I soon found I was carrying it to work with me instead of the iPad. I can tether it to my phone, so even if I am on the train I can be connected. And a lot of the applications that run through the browser can actually work when you are offline. This includes Google Docs (the office replacement).
I will finish with a list of things I can't do on a Chromebook.

• Play games (apart from the very simple HTML5 games out there.)
• Draw / Paint. The apps do exist out there on the interwebz, but I have yet to get to grips with them.
• Access my ftp webspace.
• Not much else.

I feel more posts on the Chromebook and its apps are inevitable. It goes without saying that for most people it wouldn't do just to have a Chromebook as their sole computer. But as a laptop replacement, even an iPad replacement, I have been very pleasantly surprised.