Max Mosley Is Innocent

 Politics  No Responses »
Jul 242008
 

Or something like that.

To be more precise he has won his case against the “News of the World” for invasion of privacy.

The interesting thing about this decision despite the fact that it is not a landmark decision (previous court cases claiming invasion of privacy have been won in the UK), is that the complaints of journalists about it. They claim that the defacto “privacy law” that this is pointing to will undermine serious investigative journalism.

It may do.

But the media industry has long known that the actions of the muckrakers and pornographers of the gutter press is hugely unpopular with the thinking public. They have long had means of controlling themselves through an industry body, and have failed to control the seamier side of so-called journalism. State control of news media is abhorrent, but a lack of effective self-regulation will lead to that.

Of course the public has to take some of the blame here too. We need to stop buying newspapers whose principle content involves unwarranted invasions of privacy. Whilst many (including myself) don’t think much of Max Mosley’s actions in his private life, it should remain his personal business unless he is up to something that is illegal or has a significant impact on his public work.

Boycott the gutter press!

The Death Sentence

 Politics  1 Response »
Apr 272008
 

I have been reading a book that has renewed my interest in the use of the death sentence in various countries in the world. Not a great book by any stretch of the imagination, but I have been thinking about the use of the death sentence for many years.

After all I live in a country that refuses to use the death sentence and has for many years. Despite the fact that re-introducing the death sentence would be quite popular with the general population. Politicians have taken a moral stand that the death sentence is wrong no matter how popular it may be. Seeing politicians take a moral stand is something that by itself is quite unusual and something to be encouraged.

There are many good reasons why the death sentence can be thought of as wrong; there are even a few good reasons why the death sentence can be though of as fully justified. This post is about just one overpowering reason why it is wrong to impose the death sentence.

If it can be wrong for one man (or woman) to kill another on their own, why is any less wrong for a gang of people to kill another ? It may be argued that the state is not just some gang, but it is still a collection of men and women acting on behalf of a society. Each one of those individuals is prohibited from killing, but as a whole they are not ?

If it is wrong for an individual to kill another individual, then it is wrong for the state to kill any individual

I Smell Snake Oil …

 Politics  No Responses »
Apr 182008
 

I recently discovered one of the most entertaining web reads I’ve come across for ages … Bad Science which is a site dedicated to pointing out where the (mostly media) uses “Bad Science” or falls victim to “Bad Science”. The author (Ben Goldacre) is a medical doctor so most of the criticisms are in relation to medicine rather than science in general. But the debunking of rubbish media reports on (mostly) medical issues is worthwhile and done in an entertaining way.

It is interesting that many of the more foolish reports in the media have to do with bad statistics rather than bad science itself. That is I suppose not too surprising, as statistics seems to be widely misunderstood.

I have the advantage that many years ago I spent some time studying statistics, and many media reports have the effect of making my inner statistician jump up and down in fury shouting “Bullshit” over and over again. Fortunately he doesn’t shout too loudly or I’d run the risk of being shut away in a room with nice soft walls.

Statistics don’t lie, but they don’t always say what we think they do

I’m going to make use of an example relating to cannabis and an article publish by that paragon of excellent and accurate reporting, the Daily Mail. The article itself is here … scary isn’t it?

A report that has statistics that says that people who smoke cannabis have a 41% higher risk of schizophrenia, indicates that cannabis smokers are more likely to have schizophrenia than the general population. That doesn’t mean that cannabis causes mental health issues; that is an untested hypothesis. A quick uneducated guess at a number of possible reasons why includes :-

  • Cannabis use increases the risk of mental health problems (yes it is possible).
  • People with mental health problems are more likely to use cannabis than others.
  • Cannabis use makes existing mental health problems worse.
  • There is no link between cannabis use and mental health problems; the correlation is accidental.
  • The study that found a correlation between cannabis use and mental health problems is flawed and there is in fact no such correlation.

One of the biggest mistakes anyone can make with statistics is to take a link between two variables (a correlation) and assume that one variable causes another (cannabis use causes mental health issues). This is known as “Correlation does not imply causation”; stealing a Wikipedia example, there is a correlation between going to bed with shoes on and waking up with a headache. Sleeping with shoes on does not cause headaches, but drinking copious quantities of alcohol makes it more likely that you will sleep with your shoes on, and far more likely you will wake with a headache.

Near Spam

 Computing, Politics  No Responses »
Apr 072008
 

I loath spam; all those unsolicited emails that advertise herbal mortgages, pills that will lower the interest rate, and all those lottery wins from places I’ve never heard of. Of course everyone else does too.

But what about emails that are “near spam” ? Say you bought something online 5 years ago from some company or other, and haven’t been near them since (nothing that was wrong, you just haven’t gotten into the habit of buying socks online). Now of course, you receive this “sock newsletter” once a month. Now perhaps you were once interested, or on a very slow Sunday you like to read about socks. Perhaps.

Of course you didn’t just buy a pair of socks 5 years ago. You’ve been buying stuff ever since, and everybody is desperate to get your email address to push virtual catalogues into your over cluttered Inbox. You could go and visit the unsubscribe links to get your address removed from each and every list out there.

But someone told you once that unsubscribe links are dangerous because they’re used by spammers to verify addresses, and besides which it would take you days to get unsubscribed from all the rubbish. And of course just occasionally you take a peek at one of the emails and it has something in it you want to know … a special offer or something.

What is needed is a way of keeping “near spam” emails under control. A central place to go to indicate your preferences (“no near spam”, “just one a day”, “as much as you want to send me”, “don’t send me those stupid messages that tell me I have to use a browser to view this email”). I’m currently automatically filtering “near spams” into a folder where I can ignore them … which is something that the sales critters who spew them out certainly don’t want!

US Writer’s Strike: Something A Little Odd …

 Politics  No Responses »
Feb 032008
 

There is something a little odd about the Writer’s Guild Of America’s strike for a better deal on “residuals”. In fact there are a couple of odd things about it. Not that I am against what they are trying to accomplish … anyone who wants to fight the big studios for whatever reason has me at least half on their side before I’ve started to think. And what they are trying to get sounds more than a little reasonable.

The first odd thing is that the workers are trying to get a bigger share of the profits. Not a share but a bigger one! Now there are other industries where workers can sometimes get a share of the profits, but it is very rare. Now why is that ? It would seem both sensible and fair to give the workers a cut of the profits … after all profits cannot be made without workers to make a ‘product’. But perhaps the bosses are too greedy to cut their workers in.

I am sure an apologist for the corrupt capitalist system will claim that entrepreneurs deserve to be rewarded for the great risk they are taking when starting an enterprise, and that share-holders also deserve a reward for the risk they take. Maybe so, but workers also deserve some of the reward.

Of course the writers of the WGA are already more successful than many other workers; one suspects this is because they are on the “posh” side of the pool of workers. Can you imagine coal miners getting a similar deal ?

The other odd thing about the whole issue is just how much support the WGA seems to get in their strike action. The US is not the first place one thinks of as places sympathetic to organised labour. In fact you would expect to see large numbers of US citizens frothing at the mouth with outrage at cheek of the workers. Perhaps this is again something to do with how writers are perceived as opposed to coal miners ?

Or perhaps the bosses in this particular case are so widely hated that even their natural supporters in politics (the Republicans) do not want to be seen supporting them.

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