The case of the Phantom Phone Call
I’ve just come back from France - lucky me - to find a phone bill from Virgin Mobile with a large spurious call charge - unlucky me. It says I’ve called 07953968999 for 166 minutes!!! Which obviously I haven’t. Here’s the evidence:
So, no calls there that are 166 minutes long. In fact, I’m surprised how few calls I made in France (the roaming entry). Where did it come from then? A quick Google and it appears that 07953968999 is the WAP connection setting for Virgin/T-Mobile in the UK. But here’s the thing - I haven’t used WAP or any other circuit-switched data (as you see from the data calls entry). And the phone can’t automatically connect - there’s a confirmation button. So Virgin are trying bill me for a phantom call. How does that work? If anyone has any idea, please let me know.
Bringing Light into a Dark Age
So, the BBC were here at Daresbury Laboratory today looking at one of the accelerator projects I designed - ALICE. ALICE has been chosen as a new name for ERLP now we are doing experiments and extending what we want to use it for. ALICE is really good for preparing tiny bunches of electrons for all sorts of experiments - making X-rays using Compton backscattering, driving a Free-Electron Laser, and injecting test bunches into our new EMMA ring (which we’re building right now), which we hope will eventually make radiotherapy treatment of cancer much better and cheaper. Brian Cox will be talking about this on NW BBC later I think, and also talking about how the North-West has contributed to physics and nuclear energy. Remember, without Manchester University (where I studied) and Mr. Rutherford, we would have unsplit atoms, and therefore no nuclear energy to keep the lights on or many other things that need an understanding of the atom, like basically all modern science. Also, without Manchester we would also not have had the first proper computer.
Orbach on Orbach
Science magazine has an interview with Ray Orbach today. The important points he makes are these:
The US is basically pulling out of ITER. As often happens at this time, he’s keeping the accountants going at the expense of real work:
‘What we’re going to do is to keep the ITER project office’ (at ORNL)
We won’t do any physics, but will keep the typing pool. Great.
To those of you working at FERMILAB, he said:
‘…we preserved the Tevatron run. And in order to do that, the B-factory had to be shut down early at SLAC‘
In other words, be thankful you’re in a slightly more Republican part of the country. We stuffed those hippies on the West coast to save you.
And to the ILC people, he had this to say:
‘ I think now the high-energy physics community understands how Congress feels…. You don’t have to convince me. You don’t have to convince the president. It’s there. Now we’re talking about the American people.’
He’s saying that ILC hasn’t sold itself enough to the American people. Which is true.
Cults
An interesting news story today: A video has been leaked of Tom Cruise going on about his views of Scientology. I’ve posted the video below. I find it particularly interesting as it almost makes sense - but not quite.
Like many pseudo-spiritual or pseudo-scientific arguments I have seen, Cruise makes use of similar kinds of general statements to those of conventional religious systems - ‘helping people’, ’solving problems’, ‘linking cultures’ - but without ever going into specifics, or getting into the sort of detail that’s actually quite crucial to understanding the basis of their beliefs. Now, this video could have been edited to make Tom Cruise look foolish, but I believe that it’s been put together like this deliberately by Scientology film-makers.
Why make general statements like this? It’s because people like simple answers to problems., and headlines let us make snap judgements without having to bother about actually learning about an issue. This is why politics works. For example, Ian Pearson - the Science Minister - recently said ‘we have put up investment in UK physics by 13.6%’; it takes a little digging to work out that it’s all eaten up by complications such as FEC, VAT, fixed international subscription limits and so on. But voters care about headlines.
Similarly, when we think about religion it’s easy to pigeonhole people based on headlines about them. Scientology gives more traditional religious beliefs a bad name, because it plays on the headline-grabbing psychology which is hard-wired into our busy, subject-hopping brains. But consider this: if religious and philosophical belief were simple enough to work out in 5 minutes, then people wouldn’t have been arguing about it for thousands of years, which of course they have.
Ask yourself another question. Which book has undeniably had more influence on human history than any other? Obviously, it’s the Bible (or maybe you don’t believe that - but think about what other book has had such an impact). Now, whether or not you believe it’s all claptrap or think it’s good or bad, have you actually read any of it? Before you come to a premature judgement, read up on the subject, so you can make your own mind without headlines. But what do I know? I’m a Virgo and it’s well-known that Virgos don’t believe in astrology.
I’ll leave you with Tom in all his glory in edited highlights below. The full video is here.
[wp_youtube]ZQXLuWz6OqU[/wp_youtube]
Takeaway
A leaflet dropped through my door this morning informs me of a Chinese takeaway called ‘Ding Wong’ located in the centre of Warrington. This confirms something I have long suspected…
(here comes the punchline)
… there must be some Ding Wong in Warrington!
Blubbing
So, it seems that it doesn’t matter how senior a ball-breaker you are, if you burst into tears you can get your way. Hillary Clinton has just proved that, by blubbing on TV, and then winning the New Hampshire primary.
I wonder if I can get some overtime at work by bursting into tears tomorrow? I’ll let you know.
The Naked Civil Servant
I had a media training course at work today. I didn’t know much about it beforehand so I didn’t really pay much attention to the tutors or the bios that had been provided. However, as I listened to the female tutor, it slowly dawned on me that I had heard her sultry voice somewhere before.
Of course! It was Susan Alexander, BBC journalist and presenter extraordinaire, telling us how to talk to the media! How cool was that? And she was very impressive, and not a little intimidating. I no longer have a disdain for arts graduates - this one really knew what she was talking about, and was sharp as a tack. No bullshitting possible here. The reason I didn’t make the connection before then is that all of us compartmentalise our lives, and don’t expect to see things or people out of context: I would have had the same trouble if I had gone to sit down on the sofa in my living room and found the Queen sitting there.
But then I realised something else that had subconsciously stopped me from making the link from radio to reality: every previous time I had heard Susan’s voice I had been naked. Naked, because when I listen to Radio 4 at the right time in the morning I’m nearly always in the shower. I didn’t mention the naked thing to Ms. Alexander though: I thought she might find it weird.
Blutack
Blutack. That’s what we found today. Blutack.
No, not in the stationery drawer or holding up a student poster, but behind a curtain hook plate which was also fixed into our living room wall with Araldite. This is yet another piece of evidence of how much the previous occupants of our house were complete bodgers. We’re decorating the front room at the moment, and are coming across several of these little niceties, including the cable TV boxes and cables clumsily stapled to the skirting board, holes in the plasterwork cunningly stuffed with newspaper and lining paper cover - a very disappointing Christmas present - and other bits I won’t go into. But the Blutack is the best (i.e worst) one. I mean, who repairs wall fixings with Blutack?
We had the same thing upstairs in the back bedroom: one of the predecessors’ spawn had knocked a hole in the wall, which the parents filled with Blutack. Of course, removing the wallpaper to recover revealed loose plaster all over the wall, and a 1-day job turned into 2 weeks involving a skip, plasterer and 20 rolls of lining paper.
I hate bodgers. Why spend 3 quid and 3 minutes doing a crap job when you can spend 5 quid and 5 minutes and do it properly? Fortunately, my feelings of injustice are not impotent as the next-door neighbours are still good friends with ‘The Bodgers’, and I use each of these little finds around the house as an excuse to go next door to tell them about my DIY exploits. By the way, in case you feel sorry for ‘The Bodgers’, let me tell you that when they moved out they asked us - in perpetuity - to forward their mail to next door ‘ in case any still came after redirection’. It turns out they’d moved to a bigger house (in a cheaper area) but neglected to tell the school authorities, so they would still be eligible to send Jack and Chloe (not their real names, but something equally fashionable) to the ‘good school’. Ok, so you and I would play the system too, but I don’t like people trying to us me as a pawn in their little subterfuges.
Of course, I returned the school’s letters back to the school with ‘moved house’ written on them.
Harder better faster stronger
Happy New Year! My brother just sent me this: I don’t usually watch videos, but this one is great:
[wp_youtube]bl6RJyZdBSU[/wp_youtube]
New design for Corycia…
I got annoyed with the old design for my blog: it looked nice and clean, but was actually quite hard to read. I think this one is nicer. Please let me know if there is anything that can be done to make things easier to navigate.