2016 — 9 November: Wednesday
Tempting though it is to make some comment on the US election, I shall not.1 I prefer the prospect of a stroll in a chilly wind, dodging rain drops. What sane individual wouldn't?
I'm sure it's purely coincidental, but the BBC Radio 3 music choices this morning are suspiciously soothing. And did Canada's immigration website really crash? Odd, surely?
I've never...
... had to contend with any part of the County Court Judgement system — I've only ever even been in court once, and that was as a juror — but this is not a heart-warming tale. Source and snippet:
The most frightening aspect of this case is the fact that a CCJ can be issued against someone without their knowledge... Last year 740,000 CCJs — 85% of the total — were signed off by courts to recover alleged debts in the absence of the defendants, many of whom, like you, owed nothing to anyone.
Oops.
I could be wrong...
... but I suspect the book reviewer here isn't a total fan:
My last visit was in July 1969 so what would I know?
I suspect...
... the time has come for me to disengage from the "news", if only for improved peace of such mind as I have left. I first heard the (to me) deeply cynical phrase "Perception is reality" bounced around in the IBM Hursley Lab Director's conference room in the early 1990s. Now IBM had some smart cookies in it back then, and doubtless still does, but — quarter of a century later — the "post-truth society" I now see and hear around me leaves me stone cold. As I get older, all I know for certain is that I know less and less about more and more.
So why is a post-truth, evidence-rejecting public so beguiling? Because, I'm afraid, it flatters timidity and easy populism. Big decisions are hard. Policymaking is not straightforward. There are always trade-offs, mitigating factors and politics to contend with and these are difficult to communicate. Facts and evidence are disruptive too. They don't always fit easily with scoring points or appealing to prejudices in debates about immigration, drugs or prison sentences. Sometimes they're just hard work to explain. The idea of a post-truth public is an excuse to run from all this.
Bellmania? Love it!
Automated parallel programming code optimisation for multi-core CPUs. Cool, or what? (Link.)
I try...
... to exercise both body and mind. So I followed today's six-mile refreshing wide-ranging chatting stroll with a bite of lunch, my laundry, and a 96-minute refreshing blast of Leonard Susskind trying to explain to me some of the stuff behind the horizons of black holes. Now my head hurts. I'm hungry again. My tea is stewed. And I forgot to empty the washing machine. But I know a bit more about EPR bridges.
Has Trumpkin the Toad nuked anyone yet, I wonder?