What do you do when your computer crashes?
March 18th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Anyone who knows me in the real or the virtual world appreciates that both personally and professionally I depend massively on being connected to the Internet. So, if there is one thing which is guaranteed to raise my stress levels, it is a problem with IT.
Five and a half years ago, I switched from a PC to a Mac (Mini) and I have had no problems that a techie relative or friend could not sort out quite easily. Until now …
Over the last couple of months, my Mac has become slower and slower. Over the last few weeks, I have sought help from friends and professionals and every intervention has failed to solve the problem and meanwhile the computer has run ever more slowly.
Effectively my Mac Mini is now frozen. A click on an icon or typing a letter requires a full minute or so until something happens. Loading a web site takes minutes. The spinning coloured wheel is a permanent feature of my computer experience. Things became so bad that there was simply no way to back up in order to perform a full reloading of the software which might have solved the problem.
Techie friend one, techie friend two, Mac support in Greece (an American), Mac support in Ireland (a South African) all tried and failed and both the Mac guys advised that going to an Apple store would be a waste of time given the complexity of the issue.
So this morning I travelled into central London to visit an “Authorised Service Provider” called Amsys. A third tech professional – another foreigner – is now involved, so this time we have a Spaniard in the works. I’ve left my Mac Mini with them, paid £96, and wait to see what will be involved and how long it will take to be sorted out.
Meanwhile I cannot access most of my documents or my older e-mails, I cannot edit my web site, and I cannot send out my Thought For The Week. So please bear with me if you do not experience my normal level of responsiveness and involvement.
Thanks goodness I have an iPad and an iPhone …
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Word of the day: abiogenesis
March 17th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Currently I’m reading a fascinating but challenging book by Sean Carroll, an American theoretical physicist. It has the title “The Big Picture: On the Origins Of Life, Meaning Anad The Universe Itself”.
One of the subjects discussed is abiogenesis which the origin of life. The truth is that we do not have a single agreed-upon definition that clearly seperates things that are ‘alive’ from things that are not. NASA has a working definition but it may be that, in the future, we find something beyond Earth but cannot be sure whether it constitutes life or not.
Although we do not have a hard definition, we know that there is something called life and that plants, animals and humans here on Earth fall into this definition, although – especially in the face of scientific developments in medicine and robotics – we cannot be sure of the exact scope of the term.
Even more confusingly, we do not know how life on Earth originated and how life outside Earth might originate. There are all sorts of theories, taking the cell as the basic unit of life and hypothesising about metabolism-first or replication-first processes. Carroll is convinced that “There is no reason to think that we won’t be able to figure out how life started”.
What he is clear about is that “there is only one world, the natural world, operating according to the laws of physics”. So existence, whether at the levels of the sub-atomic world, our human-size world, or the whole universe itself can be explained completely and only by physics.
So no need or case for any metaphysical or supernatural concepts such as God, life-force, soul, spirits, afterlife, miracles, magic and the like. He accepts that there is still a great deal we do not know, but argues that we can only achieve knowledge through science. Those who argue otherwise have to provide evidence for the existence of metaphysical concepts and crucially explain how the metaphysical impacts the physical and can contradict the laws of physics with forces or processes that cannot be detected.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
A review of the new film “Hacksaw Ridge”
March 15th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Even 70 years after the end of the Second World War, there are amazing stories to be told. Hacksaw Ridge was the nickname for the Maeda Escarpment, a location on Okinawa Island defended ferociously by the Japanese against American attack, and this film depicts the heroic tale of Desmond Doss who saved an incredible number of lives in that assault.
What gives the narrative extra poignancy is that he was a devout Seventh Day Adventist and a conscientious objector who refused to touch, let along fire, a gun but overcame great prejudice to complete his training as a combat medic. He was credited with saving the lives of 75 infantrymen on the escarpment and while on the island he himself was wounded four times. He received the Medal of Honor for his bravery, the only conscientious objector to received the award.
As you would expect from formerly-disgraced Mel Gibson as a director, this work is firmly in the ‘war is hell’ category and immensely patriotic, but it is an astonishing piece of film-making. If you thought that the beginning of “Saving Private Ryan” was hard viewing, the second half of “Hacksaw Ridge” is much tougher with body parts and guts splaying all over the battlefield and many victims still alive with appalling injuries.
In the central role, British actor Andrew Garfield gives a convincing and nuanced performance that firmly enhances his career, taking him much further than the “Spiderman” franchise. Among the supporting cast, Hugo Weaving as Doss’s abusive father stands out in a role a million miles from his appearances in “The Matrix” movies.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The remarkable story of a four year old Russian girl
March 14th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Think you have problems? Four year old Saglana Salchak woke up to a family crisis in freezing Siberia and trudged five miles in thick snow to reach her nearest neighbour. You can read her astonishing story here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
“Love Actually” revisited – love it! (2)
March 13th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Some weeks ago, I did a blog posting about the 12 minute follow up to the film “Love Actually” which is being made for Red Nose Day on 24 March 2017. Today the “Guardian” newspaper has a report from the set of the mini sequel which includes this observation:
“[Hugh] Grant sips water and tries to catch his breath. He’s just shimmied his way around a bit of the set made up to look like 10 Downing Street, a grand marble staircase behind him hung with photographs of former prime ministers. His photo is among those on the wall, the actor today reprising his role as the Blair-ish PM who in the original film put aside duties of state to woo his secretary, played by Martine McCutcheon.
Such is the power of love in a Richard Curtis film that Grant had to dance out his romantic vigour by wiggling up and down the halls of Downing Street to a Girls Aloud song. There’s another dance in the sequel. As with most of the new scenes in Curtis’s followup, an incident or encounter from the first film is referenced, with some sort of twist catching us up on what has happened to the character, a decade and a half on.
Incredibly, in the idealised Curtisland of 2017, Grant’s fluent, moderate prime minister is still in power. It’s a bit of unashamed wishful thinking that’s heightened, on set, by the fact that the stairway photographs of real-life prime ministers include Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, but stop short of David Cameron and Theresa May, as if these premierships (and world financial collapse and austerity and referendums and dissolution) had never come to pass.”
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the new film “Kong: Skull Island”
March 12th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
It seems that you can’t keep a giant ape down and this is at least the fourth Kong movie that I’ve seen following the versions of “King Kong” released in 1933, 1976 and 2005. What makes this one different? It channels “Apocalypse Now” big time, setting the action just after the Vietnam War and deploying a group of GIs from that conflict led by a bombastic lieutenant colonel who insists “This is one war we’re not gonna lose” (yeh).
Stupidly they start by carpet bombing Skull Island in the same way that the Americans did Vietnam with the same effect, except that this time it’s not the Vietcong who are enraged but ugly, giant reptiles. I suppose another difference is that special effects have moved on, even in the decade since the last Kong movie, and there are some striking visuals and impressive CGI, but this effort is nowhere near as effective as Peter Jackson’s 2005 blockbuster.
The plot is minimal and the script often dire. Kong appears far too early and is not characterised as well as the three other films. And there is a massive waste of cinematic talent with the likes of John Goodman, John C Reilly, Tom Huddleston and Samuel L Jackson under-utilised and/or under-stretched, no more so than with the one female role where the talents of Brie Larson – recent Academy Award winner for “Room” – are squandered.
If you sit through endless credits, you’ll see a clip which appears to be setting up a sequel in which Kong faces off with Godzilla (apparently in a 2020 release). I won’t be holding my breath …
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the new film “Manchester By The Sea”
March 12th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I spent the first 23 years of my life living in what i regard as the original Manchester in north-west England, so I was always going to be intrigued by the title of this film. The small fishing town in Massachusetts is a character in itself and different scenes feature prominently in the cinematography.
In fact, by the time I saw the movie at the cinema, Casey Affleck had already deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his stunning – often understated – performance as Lee Chandler, a Boston janitor who has to return to his home town where he is astonished to find that, following the death of his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler), he has been given custody of his 16 year old nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges).
The story starts with winter scenes of Lee’s life in Boston and it looks like this is a man with immense attitude. Only later do we learn, though one of many flash-backs, that this is not attitude, but grief, guilt and white-hot anger. Affleck is rarely off the screen and gives a powerful and moving portrayal of a man that just cannot come to terms with his loss. This is not “About A Boy” (2002) where the youngster softens the man; this is more “Ordinary People” (1980) where deep pain has no ultimate resolution.
Among so many memorable scenes, two stand out: one in which very little is said and the music of Albinoni’s Adagio has rarely been more heart-rending and another in which Joe meets his wife Randi (Michelle Williams) when little more is said but grief is shown to be unbridgeable. Writer and director Kennth Lonergan has given us a genuine tour de force.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Mindfulness – and the reason for the raisin
March 11th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
A friend of my mine has become a trainer in mindfulness and wanted to try out a session with me. One of the exercises she used involved a raisin as explained in this short video:
The experience was strangely peaceful but a bit weird.
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
What do you think is the most popular section of my web site? It’s quite a story.
March 7th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
My web site – including my two blogs – receives around 4,000 visits a day or 120,000 a month or almost 1.5M a year. The blogs are actually the most popular locations, but which section on the actual web site do you think is the most visited?
It is, in fact, the section titled “Stories To Make You Think”. I’ve just added a new entry so now there are no less than 76 thoughtful stories, motivational tales, and pieces of wisdom from around the world. I believe that it’s one of the largest such collections on the web.
You can access all the stories here.
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)
Would a universal basic income actually work?
March 6th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Rutger Bregman is a Dutch economist who is causing a stir with his book “Utopia For Realists – And How We Can Get There” which is published in English this week. He has an article in today’s “Guardian” newspaper in which he summarises his case that “Poverty is not a lack of character. Poverty is a lack of cash.”
He puts the argument for “an incredibly simple idea: universal basic income – a monthly allowance of enough to pay for your basic needs: food, shelter, education. And it’s completely unconditional: not a favour, but a right.”
But would it actually work? Bregman has looked at the data from a little-known experiment which took place in the Canadian town of Dauphin from 1974-1979.
He insists that the result of introducing a universal basic income was that “the people in Dauphin had not only become richer, but also smarter and healthier. The school performance of children improved substantially. The hospitalisation rate decreased by as much as 8.5%. Domestic violence was also down, as were mental health complaints.”
You can find a review of Bregman’s book here.
You can learn more about the Dauphin experiment here.
Posted in Social policy | Comments (0)