Libertarianism (by alaric)

I've long been fascinated by libertarianism. Creating social structures that are self-maintaining and do not require central control seems like a noble goal; things that are owned by organisations tend to end up either stifled by conservatism, destroyed by mismanagement, or fall into the hands of the greedy and end up taking advantage of everyone who has to use that service. The blockchain technology behind bitcoin is particularly interesting; it implements a form of democracy that requires no central body to hold elections and tally votes. Anyone can join the community of miners (although the cost of a sizeable vote is getting higher and higher with all these ASICs), and a proposed change will "become law" if you can convince the owners of enough of the mining power it's a good idea. This is vulnerable to somebody having enough money to buy enough mining hardware to dominate the system then being able to dictate their own terms to the world; but, fascinatingly, anybody who owns that much of the mining equipment will now have such a sizeable stake in the Bitcoin economy that it's very much in their economic interest to act in the interests of the Bitcoin economy as a whole - making it not vulnerable to abuse by the greedy; at most, it's vulnerable to abuse by the ideologically driven (somebody who's willing to spend a lot of their money just to destroy the Bitcoin economy).

However, "libertarian" has become a dirty word. A lot of the folks discussing decentralised social structures back when I first starting reading about them in the mid-1990s have turned into complete loons, ending up arguing for the replacement of every social structure by free-market economics, denying climate change, adopting evolutionary-psychology models of genetic competition to explain human mating behaviour in a way that fails to account for human free will and then allows them to justify misogynistic ideas, and so on.

Which is a bit of a shame. Can't we all get back to working out social structures that actually maximise individual liberty, rather than focussing on particular tools for that and elevating them to the status of worshipped idols?

I mean, free market economics is great in many ways. An ideal market will force suppliers to compete for the business of consumers, leading to better services and better prices. But that doesn't mean that abolishing government will lead to a Utopia as organisations scrabble to provide the best healthcare, protection from crime, social services, roads, and so on for the lowest possible price. Suppliers of products and services don't like free markets, as they introduce competition, and have historically shown great ingenuity and determination in disrupting the markets they sell into through anti-competitive practices. They will attempt to make their products hard to compare to those of competitors, lie barefacedly in advertising, use market leadership in one area to weight other markets (eg, Microsoft's use of its operating systems near-monopoly to bundle Web browsers that understood a different dialect of HTML, thereby pressuring the creators of web sites to target them to that widespread browser, thereby causing web sites to not work so well on competing browsers), and so on. Companies like Twitter, Amazon, Google and Facebook have a lot of control over the primary means we use to find out about and compare products and services to buy, so can easily give their own products an edge over their competitors.

Free markets only remain free (as opposed to capture by monopolies) when there's some body capable of setting standards through which comparable products can be fairly compared, enforcing advertising rules, and to stop monopolies. Left to their own devices, they stagnate.

High-profile libertarians seem to fall into a trap of hating government. They seem prone to sliding into extreme right-wing ideology; interpreting "using taxation to fund a welfare system" as "robbing me of resources I earned myself in order to fund people who, despite having the same opportunities as me, did not take them". They decry the compulsory nature of taxation as a removal of their individual liberty to choose to donate to charities or not, while failing to recognise that "were my parents rich enough to properly feed and educate me, provide me with adequate healthcare, and support me while I developed my business idea, rather than requiring me to go into the first job I was capable of as soon as I was educated enough to work at all" is hardly a good criterion for the fair distribution of the individual liberty this is all supposed to be about; they seem to fail to realise that we do not all have the same opportunities. Nothing is a better predictor of an individual's future economic success than the wealth of their parents. I see that as a terrible failing of society, and far more anti-liberal than having to pay taxes.

I suspect it's maybe just a "vocal minority" problem (Wikipedia lists many different forms of libertarianism than the far right wing stuff), but I think it's a shame that the actual search for individual liberty is being steamrollered by people who seem keen to enhance their own liberty at the cost of others'.

Ada Lovelace Day 2015 (by sarah)

Ada Lovelace was a victorian lady who loved maths, she was also the astranged daughter of Lord Byron the poet, she has a computer programming language named after her and a day... the day is to celebrate women in science and technology. A chance to tell their stories.

Me and Alaric have written quiet a few stories of women who have inspired us or we feel are essential to where our current modern tech and meds are.

We have covered innovation, science, engineering, computing, medicine and technology. We love reading the stories that pour onto twitter each year.

But... that is not what I want to talk about today - not the successes but the struggles. As one of the most dangerous thing is not being allowed to fail.

If you are the role model, or figure head, or just in an environment where some aspect of you like gender or race or disability is highlighted continually and you are fighting to maintain your position... there is no room to fail, no space to just step back and go "you know I could use a little help here" because as soon as you do that it becomes because of that difference that marker, that things that makes you not one of the boys. And all those who have helped you and believed in you will be let down.

But if you can't fail, can't ask for help without undermining your own position then you can not progress as smoothly or easily and when the stakes are high it adds to the stress.

Because failure becomes not a little set back but a full blown retreat - a being chucked out the door.

When you can be a lousy scientist and it's just because you are lousy (or need more training) and not because of your gender, orientation, disability... - then equality isn't reached - until then it is just another stress to add to catastrophic collapses and retreats from the world of science and tech feeding the "leaky pipeline" we hear so much about i.e. why there are less and less women as you go higher and higher in science and tech even though the numbers are up and have been up for a decade or more at the lower ends like A'levels and undergrad degrees.

This is one of the reasons I actually hate quotas (I am not saying they are not needed) - I've seen good arguments for them but my personal experience of them has been being told I am not actually good enough - "you're only here because you tick three different boxes, you fill three quotas" this is crushing and if you are not careful it makes you feel that perhaps you really do not belong. You try and hide what subjects you are struggling with rather than just getting help with them and if you didn't "tick the boxes" then it would be fine to ask for that help - ask for it whilst being one of these groups and get told "this isn't the place for someone like you" and you end up having to threaten legal stuff and that just makes it all extra stressful. And how do you know you if you were good enough to get in?

Cheer yourself up with some of my puppet comedy involving Ada (not for kids this one!).

Also I made pendants, and key fobs and badges using the pictures of Ada I had drawn and hot melt glue straight from the gun! They are not the best - they were the first attempt at this technique but the girls loved them 🙂

I was going to do cake but am saving that for the actual Bicentinnial in December.

There is also a colouring in sheet people are welcome too, which I produced last year.

And yes I am grumpy - I never felt as if I'd left science, I felt like it was taken away from me and worse that I had let down those who had invested in me. I actually dread trying to talk to those people again but life is crock full sometimes. Maybe one day....

The School Holidays Begin (by sarah)

It is that time of year again when there are no school runs and I have no completely free child time - Jean however is almost ten so I can work whilst she is around now. In fact at the moment she is helping me!

So we let Jean plan the first day of the holiday - it was without Mary for most of it as it was a pre-school day and they continue during the holidays.

We constructed a plan based on the sorts of things she wanted to do - namely Home School which she loves and I initially came up with when we were snowed in at The Bakery back in her infant school days.

We started with an American breakfast - Jean's school had done an Independance Day breakfast but the last term we have kept missing dates and time changing and the such like, probably due to my concussion. Jean was quiet upset about this so we investigated the sorts of things Americans eat for breakfast and decided it was a combo of a Canadian and Full English and set about creating our own probably very wrong breakfast!

This of course started with us grubbing up potatoes from the garden - I used the bags we had for moving (from Essex which then got used for lots of things but all had busted zips or handles etc...), to grow potatoes in - I am phasing this out as most of the bags have reached the end of their life, and we now have an allotment!

We were after the "new" white potatoes rather than the bigger potatoes and the pink/red potatoes so Jean kept checking with me she'd gotten the right type until I pointed out I was just grubbing up all useful potatoes as I needed to make a casserole with the turnips and beetroot from the allotment anyway.

We harvested an entire pot of tatties which Jean then selected the ones we wanted for breakfast - we went with sauteed potatoes rather than the chips we'd seen in some of the breakfasts as we just couldn't cope with the idea of chips for breakfast.

She then scrubbed them and chopped them whilst I started on the rest. Once that was done she mixed up the pancake mix, got plates out and general reminded me what I was doing! She also went to the shop to get three missing ingredients.

We used the flat bed sandwich toaster to cook the pancakes, this was the first time either of us had cooked this thicker type of pancake. It was fun and I put the coffee perculator on for me. Jean poured us juice.

She took a stack of ten pancakes so it would look like the photos! And she doesn't normally eat maple syrup but she poured it on. She made up a granola and home made yogurt mix too.

It was a HUGE breakfast - fresh sliced tomato, suateed potatoes, baked beans, 2 rashers bacon, 2 suasages, a fried egg, and 2 slices of toast! She basically ate the bacon and cereal and then nibbled on the pancakes all day. The rest did me and Mary for a meal each. 😀

We then learnt Latin, she did some at a language day at school and come home obsessed. She had a piece of paper she had already made notes on (mainly she observed that the Harry Potter series had used latin for the spells). When I say we learnt Latin, what actually happened was that I found a series on Youtube of which I followed the first lesson and then left her to it, she was on lesson 9 at the end with pages of notes.

I found her on google translate trying to check her own translation before she restated the vid to find out if she was right. Her translation was closer than google translates. I discovered I know random bits of latin - I assume from my Classical Civilization A'level. Later on I corrected Alaric's pronounciation as well coughs.

Then it was time for the first ever Stubby Marathon!

I am still struggling with reading and writing, I am using voice tech or just going really really slowly in short bursts. But it is easier for me to do long hand rather than typing and it is a writing challenge month so I looked around and thought "you know what I have a ream or two of lined paper and lots of pencils that haven't even been sharpened!" - BAM!!!

The idea?

It is a writing marathon that will last at least the summer holidays - me and Jean sit for at least an hour writing trying to wear the lead out in the freshly sharpened pencil. Each day we see who has used their lead the most - we re-sharpen the next day so the points are the same so there is a day to day winner and an over all winner (you can write outside of the allotted time and I can't write for very long at all and have to make coffee in the middle etc...). Jean has written 2 stories and twice as many pages as me so far. I am designing a medal for her 🙂

This summer is our marathon summer but more on that later.

I think we then mixed things up a bit by having our outside time and snack before we started on our hour of art. This was basically us working our way through various kits Jean's had for birthdays etc... WHY OH WHY are the instructions in kids craft kits so dire? I mean they really are bad and I think most people think it's the kids just not getting it but it really isn't - it's the instructions :/

It took me most of the hour and a very bad keyring, to remember some basic stuff that I could do before the concussion and have been doing since before I was Jean's age 🙁 This hour was frustrating for both of us but we decided to see it too the end and not jump kits and she at least made a lovely bracelet though with improvisation and not the technique that the kit was designed for!

She then played outside on the trampoline whilst I rested my brain, she then set herself up with her maths - these are GCSE level maths but with the questions in accessible easy comprehension which were ones my mum had for teaching those who had failed or not sat GCSE's the first time round. Some of them my mum had made herself and some were from packs provided by the college - the course was cut leaving my mum with all the teaching stuff and no one to teach 🙁

Then Al and Mary came home and we wizzed off to pick up some garden fairy lights which the girls put together whilst Daddy made dinner - they are bees and ladybirds and hopefully there will be a blog post on what we've done with the garden soon!

Mary went to bed and then Jean and Alaric played with the electronic kits and only got shouted at once by me for making the radio they'd just built too loud (issue was they couldn't work out how to control the sound level - or so they say!).

We forgot to practice the recorder which Jean was going to attempt at 9:30 but I banned!!!

So I think that was an epic start to the holidays - since I started writing this blog post she has been writing schedules and naming each day - this was Home School Monday. But we have also had:

Tidying Tuesday, Wet Wednesday, Friend Thursday and today which was going to be Allotment Friday but then got turned into Cinema Friday has actually been named Freedom Friday as she decided to go home with her friend for a sleep over instead and pointed out that me and Al (Who has a day off of work) do not have either kid with us today.

Learning the Recorder (by sarah)

I'm relearning stuff at the moment due to the old whack on the head - so this mainly means I am colouring in but the girls want to learn the recorder and I have a hang up about the recorder...

Anyway to cut a long story short there is a Frozen recorder book on it's way to us and we have received a rather disappointing Elsa/Frozen "recorder" which is a crap plastic all in one moulded toy that is pretty useless but Mary loves it and it was stupid cheap so hey you get what you pay for (I was still narked if it says recorder - I expect an actual recorder!).

With panic I realised the book would probably be all music notation even though it says easy on it. I can't read music, I have a stab at learning it every few years but nope doesn't work. I normally just work things out by sound etc... this is actually what got me chucked out of my recorder class in school.

Apparently according to the then music teacher you can't be a musician without reading music. You can't play music. This crushed me. What had happened was that she hadn't noticed I couldn't read music, I was watching her and the other kids and working it out by ear and progressing nicely. Even when they started setting homeworks it wasn't too bad as it was nursery rhymes and I just worked them out but then... then they wanted us to do "proper music" story pieces as backing for singers or as part of the orchester. I did not know these songs, my parents were not into classical music - BAM a glass ceiling.

They were complex with different sized recorders - everyone else would turn up knowing the piece, after three weeks of this I knew that something had to happen for me to continue with recorder. So I asked my mum if I could have extra music lessons, she said yes and wrote a letter explaining the situation and that I could not actually read the music - could I have extra lessons (paid for) or did they know who to ask etc... to sort this out.

The letter was the death nell - in front of the enter wind section I was castigated - told that if I hadn't picked up reading music by now then there was no hope - I simply could not be a musician.

I left angry, and confused and crying, a hot mist of shame clouding my vision. I clutched my two recorders, one of which was basically shiny knew and the classic dark brown and cream, my nan had bought it for me as I'd moved up a group.

Being me I became kind of resigned and militant about this. I didn't really want to be playing the recorder anyway - I wanted to play the flute. Being a glutton for punishment I went along to the flute try outs. From my prospective it seemed to be going quiet well, I could get a sound out of the damn thing unlike the others in the room. But then the teacher took the flutist aside and hard the mutterings about not being able to read music, or writing for that matter and so on - I would like to add that I was also not the only child in the room at this point but I think the teacher had forgotten I could now hear properly as it was just after the second lot of grommets had been put in.

I doubt my pitch was perfect (I'm pretty sure it wasn't), I don't do sound as just a hearing thing anyway, I like to feel it, if I can't feel it I can't know if it will fit properly.

Anyway they came over to me and I looked up, "I'm afraid your arms are too short for the flute," he said.

"What about the picalo?" I asked - I was desperate to play the flute - this was because a blue telepathic animated character out of a cartoon series called Ulysses 31 played an epic flute made of gold and lights that she vanquished monsters with. Also I had curly hair - somehow I felt that meant I was destined for the flute.

He hesitated, "you have to learn the flute first before the picalo." He said gravely and I left the music room once more with the angry confused mist of shame and tears and snot.

My mother was furious but we could not afford flute stuff outside of the special schools programme.

Then because you know I never know when to quit I went for the choir in the final year of juniors with the same woman. But I was sick on the day the auditions were supposed to happen. When I got back there were four people out of the entire year who were too bad to go in the choir - they were the people I had extra reading lessons with in the special room.

I am a shy person. I was still determined, I was made to stand in the school hall in front of the entire year and given a piece of sheet music that the teacher knew I could not read. I didn't even know what the song was going to be. I was petrified, everyone knew I wanted to be an opera singer (it was down as part of my three fold dream which involved being a spaceman and archeologist so I could look at rocks - I thought as an opera singing I would get to design the costumes, write the stories and build the sets as well as doing singing, dancing and acting).

I recognised the song, I tried to sing, my voice stuck but then it unstuck and I started to sing.

The teacher loomed in putting her ear right in front of my mouth making comments. But I wanted to be in the choir so much I kept going.

She stopped the music, and announced I was in tune but too quiet and there was no place in the choir for people who couldn't pull their weight. Everyone knew how much I wanted to be in the choir. I don't know if I imagined it but at this point I was sure they were all laughing at me. My form tutor came and rescued me and sat on the stairs with me whilst I cried.

"Hey we can't all be good at everything, what if I told you you hadn't gotten onto the football team? You wouldn't be crying then would you?" we both knew I would never have gone for it as I was still learning to run without falling over at this point.

"I would." I said and she looked at me sitting there in her sports outfit she never took off - she knew me and sports, "if I'd tried out for the football team it would be because I wanted to play football so of course I'd be upset if I didn't get it especially if I was then told I was rubbish and would never be able to do it, in front of EVERYBODY."

She smiled and laughed, "Sarah you are amazing, you'll find away, it will be your own way, now come and see the stuff I've got planned for you lot, you're going to be so glad you aren't in the choir."

And I was - we made things and explored things, including creating our own papier mache puppets and sets. I am also still friends with two of the people who were in that group with me.

Of course I also then went and joined lots of choirs, and learnt the guitar and have sundry instruments in my house. Now I know I am not brilliant at music and I know I panic when ever technical stuff is mentioned but I love music.

These events did mar music for me though and looking at it now from where I am as an adult I feel that, that music teacher was most definately in the wrong. She was also my second year class teacher so I would have been 8? She was my least favourite of the junior school. I did revisit the school once before my work experience (which was in the infant school anyway), I made a special trip to her classroom to tell her how I'd been excepted into the choral society as well as having performed in a local performance of Joseph and his Dream Coat and so on - what I didn't mention was that I still wasn't having any school music or drama classes as I was still having to go to a special room to learn to read and write properly - I did however mention that I had been given a solo without being able to read music. I am glad I didn't know the term passive aggression as I would not have done this and I feel that in all honesty it needed to be done.

So back to the here and now as I am sure I've blogged about this story a couple of times before!

I have a recorder that I play merrily we row along to get children to sit down at readings and workshops. It turns out to be the only song I can remember since hitting my head though Jean says I could play lots of hymns (makes sense they are songs I would have known well enough from church to work out by ear).

Anyway she doesn't get recorder lessons at the school - she's had a bit of uke but they are not a big school and the teacher who could play, left... so I taught her merrily we row along. It took her about half an hour to master and remember and now she is playing it CONTINOUSLY!

Then I was struck by the panic - she was asking for other tunes and I can't remember any and I don't think I was particularly good anyway. That and the realisation that the book though saying EASY recorder would no doubt expect music reading skills... I turned to youtube.

I found this vid of Happy Birthday.

My dad was coming down the next day - it was his birthday - it took me 15 mins to get it down pat and I then remembered it in the morning for the kids to sing along to.

I was so proud of myself.

Jean is keen to learn and Mary has always loved the recorder 🙂

(She is now 4 and not the little thing in this video!)

The first thing that happened was my mum mentioned the teacher and we both had the same thought, if I can teach myself using youtube videos whilst suffering with the tail end of a head injury then how the hell did a qualified teacher stuff it up?

I realise I was a "special needs" kid but still... also there were like over 60 kids in my year - that is a 60 strong choir that was not a super duper choir so would 5 "bad voices" have made that much of a difference espcially if they were far away from the mics? And was it coincidence that we were all the "special needs" kids? I'd never thought on that connection before but it is there.

Anyway - I think I need to rest and then learn another song... well actually I am also setting up a section on here of educational stuff so Jean can find it when she wants to learn without me. It should also be useful to others and I may include links to good education workshop leaders etc... not really decided yet.

One last thing - it turns out I know random stuff about the recorder and sizes and stuff and got very defensive when Alaric suggested that only kids play them and that you never see adults playing them!

10 Years Ago…. (by sarah)

Ten years ago today Alaric got to the train station and thought "you know what I don't want to go to work today, my pregnant wife is very sick and in that hospital just there, I'll go and see her instead". This was an unusual thought for him, as it was he mostly worked from home and only went in once a week for meetings.

It was bizar behaviour on his part but something I am so glad he did. He held my hand as I sat on machines that monitored my vitals and then he went to get my breakfast. I think I fell asleep, something was going on, nurses were running past the door, Alaric came and with a nurse helped get me to the breakfast room with it's TV.

He explained a bomb had gone off, we watched the news as it unfolded with a sickening sense of relief, Alaric could have, should have been on that train. Then the panic as we realised that it wasn't one attack but several - that it was hitting routes we knew. I tried to phone my friends and family who worked in London. Unsurprisingly the networks were jammed - in hindsight we should have been leaving the phones for emergency stuff but we weren't thinking we just wanted to check everyone was safe.

Our Drs started to disappear as they left to help or be medical stand by, my parents turned up thinking they were going to have to tell their very ill very pregnant daughter that her husband was missing on one of the blown up routes. They had been trying to phone him, none of the phones were working.

They were angry with him in that way you get angry when a child didn't come when you called, and you imagine the worst. Then he got hugged. And then the maternity ward began to break down. They say there is no stress induced pregnancy but woman after woman came in with blood pressure problems or in labour or both. The ward filled, there were women on trollies in the corridor - we were not on the labour ward but one woman ended up in the advance stages of having her baby in the maternity ward with me. They pulled the curtains round her bed, she was calling for her husband - her parents didn't know where he was, he had not done an Alaric, he was either dead, injuried or stranded in a motionaless London.

There was not enough beds or staff and bloody foot prints appeared and stayed on the floor. I was bewildered.

After much trying we got hold of as many friends and family as we could, checking they were all ok. More than one had had a near miss, were sitting still in London, sitting on steps crying or telling me how eeri it was with all the traffic stopped, with the hush, and with everyone being kind. London is normally a free for all, pushing, rushing, ignoring the press of humanity but that wasn't what was happening. Everyone was milling, quiet and in shock, everyone knew they were the lucky ones.

Everyone had been expecting the attack since 7/11 in the US, in truth London commuters had been being a bit nicer to each other since that point all fearing that this day was coming. If your train was delayed by more than ten minutes and you had no reception but someone else did - they would lend you their phone to phone and say you were alive. This affect multiplied on the day, I did not really register the stories at the time - I was too ill and mainly wanted to know that the people I cared about were fine.

That is not saying that I had no feelings for those who weren't, it was horrific but I needed to know my friends were fine.

When he got home Alaric found we'd been added to shout outs, it was before the days of social media but we did have blogs and mailing lists and everyone was checking that we were ok. People were worried.

My friends and family were lucky, but mum's friend son - not so much. He's alive due to the carriage he got in but bar the shock of the actual explosion and minor injuries he then had to be escorted past the carnage. Last I heard he still hadn't gone back to work, not all the scars were physical ones, not all of them could heal.

Much later on I realised that it had been even more of a close call for our little family, if I had not been ill and in hospital then we could all have been on the train. It's a strange twist of fate and one that wedges inside me, that me almost dying potentially saved all three of our lives. I say potentially because we might have been late or delayed or I might have weed myself on the way to the station or a million other things, but all of those things are nothing but grace as was me being so ill Alaric felt justified in not going to work that morning.

Terrorism is a horrendous thing, life taking for political gain, for power, religion, to make a point, to drive the wedge... murder is the only name for it.

It was muslims that time but it followed a tradition of London bombs. Someone asked me how I could still travel on the tube into London - the answer, "The RIA didn't stop us, oil disputes in the 70's did not stop my mother, hell she even had her bank hijacked, so why let this lot?". They weren't all muslims like the RIA were not all the Irish, the point of the bombings was to divide, to make an us and them, sadly with some people they succeeded and that is sad. Muslims were killed on the trains and buses, muslim doctors came and aided people straight away - before anyone really knew what they were dealing with, weather those drs were putting their own lives at risk or not.

Terrorists don't really care who they kill, who they injure or maim, that's kind of the point of the bombs. Ever wondered why we don't have metal bins anymore?

Anyway that is all besides the point. Today there are people remembering loved ones who should but aren't still here and no amount of photos shown on international TV is going to heal the wholes in those families. Later today I am going to light ten candles - one for each year, for the yawning chasm of pain, for those who were lost and those that still bare the scars.