Friday, March 07, 2008
Crims on the floor of the house
Some months ago I was sent an analysis of the criminal activity of members of the Canadian legislature. It seems that of the couple of hundred of them a suprising number had been convicted of all kinds of things. Smoking near a public lamp post, various forms of partner abuse, greivous bodily harm (where not included in the foregoing) and so on. All looked a bit grim, but then it was one of the ex-colonies. More recently, I was sent a similar analysis of our own legislature. Same catalogue of crime. But then I looked more closely and noticed that the list of crimes was exactly the same, although the numbers were differant. Which suggests some collusion in the production of these things. Are the same things crimes in both places? Do we categorise them all in the same way? And how does one find out? We don't have a register of criminal interests in the lower house, and while conviction in a criminal court is normally in public, I am not aware of any public list of the results of courts. That is to say, if one troubled to sit in every such court, every day, and made such a list oneself, one would presumably be free to publish it wherever one wished. Subject, perhaps, to our rules about convictions expiring after so many years, in so far as disclosure to potential partners, employers and the like is concerned. But the government make no such list available to all and sundry - although they do work hard to make sure they have one (with varying success). My point being, how were these particular two lists compiled? They might be right, but how do we know. Clearly a case for the compiler attaching a note on methodology to the bottom of the list - the length and turgidity (to go by the standard of such things in respectable magazines) of which might make the whole thing rather less amusing.
On a related note, I read in today's TLS that the Kyber pass is the key passage through the Hindu Kush, leading from the subcontinental plain into central Asia. By chance, I thought to consult the map (rather small scale, in the Britannica atlas. Must consult Google Earth). The Kyber pass appears to be well to the South of the Hindu Kush. So while I recall pictures of said pass showing it to be a grim place where a few well placed men with guns could stop large numbers of other men getting through and while it might be a gateway to Kabul, in the Southern foothills of said Hindu Kush, it is not a passage through. It all goes to show you should not trust something just because it is in print, even when printed in a respectable place.
And then just the other day in TB, after taking on some pints of the brown stuff, we were talking about stone age forestry operations. I recalled a passage I had read about experiments with stone axes and how hopeless they were. This was capped by someone reporting from a Timewatch programme, where they had made stone axes out of flint, making use of the services of the world's foremost authority on flint napping (University of Beccles & Bungay, I think), which did very well. They broke the odd axe shaft but got the trees down. Now both stories came dressed in respectable clothes and one might have hoped that both would be right.
The following morning I thought I would check. I thought I remembered the book in question and consulted the index. No entry for either stone or axe. In fact, not much of an index at all. Flicked through and, luckily, chanced upon the thing. The report was of extensive experiments in Amazonia, the result of which was that stone axes were an impossibly slow way to chop down trees, the consequence of which was that the stone agies did not get around to chopping down the rain forest. They went for some softer option like growing runner beans up the rain forest. Perhaps the answer is that there are no flints in Amazonia - this despite other people around there making extensive use of obsidian which I believe to be a flint like volcanic material, entirely suitable for making very sharp knives. Don't know about axes though.
Then I wondered about how one would make an index for a book of this sort - 300-400 pages about ancient Americans by a journalist. It would be a very tedious business in the olden days, but now with computers ought to be a lot less so. All you have to do is read the thing on-screen flagging up the bits you think ought to be indexed. A bit of flapping around while you tell the computer how this particular nugget ought to be indexed - under stone, axe, weapon, forest ecology or what, and on to the next nugget. The very cheap alternative of an index which did every word would have its points but apart from being bulky might not do the business. There might be far to many noise occurrences of stone to deal with.
All this on the strength of a rather fine lunch consisting of potato pie with curly cabbage and hot bread pudding. Not exactly slimming, but good gear.
On a related note, I read in today's TLS that the Kyber pass is the key passage through the Hindu Kush, leading from the subcontinental plain into central Asia. By chance, I thought to consult the map (rather small scale, in the Britannica atlas. Must consult Google Earth). The Kyber pass appears to be well to the South of the Hindu Kush. So while I recall pictures of said pass showing it to be a grim place where a few well placed men with guns could stop large numbers of other men getting through and while it might be a gateway to Kabul, in the Southern foothills of said Hindu Kush, it is not a passage through. It all goes to show you should not trust something just because it is in print, even when printed in a respectable place.
And then just the other day in TB, after taking on some pints of the brown stuff, we were talking about stone age forestry operations. I recalled a passage I had read about experiments with stone axes and how hopeless they were. This was capped by someone reporting from a Timewatch programme, where they had made stone axes out of flint, making use of the services of the world's foremost authority on flint napping (University of Beccles & Bungay, I think), which did very well. They broke the odd axe shaft but got the trees down. Now both stories came dressed in respectable clothes and one might have hoped that both would be right.
The following morning I thought I would check. I thought I remembered the book in question and consulted the index. No entry for either stone or axe. In fact, not much of an index at all. Flicked through and, luckily, chanced upon the thing. The report was of extensive experiments in Amazonia, the result of which was that stone axes were an impossibly slow way to chop down trees, the consequence of which was that the stone agies did not get around to chopping down the rain forest. They went for some softer option like growing runner beans up the rain forest. Perhaps the answer is that there are no flints in Amazonia - this despite other people around there making extensive use of obsidian which I believe to be a flint like volcanic material, entirely suitable for making very sharp knives. Don't know about axes though.
Then I wondered about how one would make an index for a book of this sort - 300-400 pages about ancient Americans by a journalist. It would be a very tedious business in the olden days, but now with computers ought to be a lot less so. All you have to do is read the thing on-screen flagging up the bits you think ought to be indexed. A bit of flapping around while you tell the computer how this particular nugget ought to be indexed - under stone, axe, weapon, forest ecology or what, and on to the next nugget. The very cheap alternative of an index which did every word would have its points but apart from being bulky might not do the business. There might be far to many noise occurrences of stone to deal with.
All this on the strength of a rather fine lunch consisting of potato pie with curly cabbage and hot bread pudding. Not exactly slimming, but good gear.
# posted by Jim @ 6:08 AM 
