Andrew Oakley
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Andrew Oakley" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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11:59 pm
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Friends Only
My journal is mainly for friends only. You won't see any of the interesting stuff unless you get a LiveJournal account and I mark you as a friend. If you are one of my friends (or even just an acquaintance from long ago) and would like to have access, just email me andrew@aoakley.com with your LiveJournal username, your real name and other information I might recognise you from (nickname, photo, place/date where I met you etc).
I am a member of the Conservative party, an advocate of intellectual property freedom and rural society. If you don't want to hear these kinds of mainstream political views, do not allow me to post to your journal and do not read mine.
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01:29 pm
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Wiki wika
There is a suggestion that all Wikipedia articles must meet the General Notability Guideline which would make it much more difficult to add, maintain, re-introduce or prevent deletion of indie/alternative music articles. At the moment, the subject-specific notability guidelines, particularly the Music Notability Guideline provides some shelter against the GNG, and a proposal put forward to enshrine the superiority of SNGs in Wikipedia lore.
Please vote to support the proposal that subject-specific guidelines override the general notability guideline.
If you thought it was dumb that the Wasp Factory Recordings article got deleted, that'll be peanuts compared to the mass deletions that'll go through if they insist on GNG alone.
Now if only I had the spare time to research third-party sources for the WF article...
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06:13 pm
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I don't usually do memes but...
(via ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) the_axel)
[01] Do you have the guts to answer these questions and re-post as The Controversial Survey?
Self-evidently yes, but whether you'd categorise it as courage or bloody-mindedness is left as an exercise for the reader.
[02] Would you do meth if it was legalized?
I don't actually know what meth is, nor how it is "done", so no.
[03] Abortion: for or against it?
I'd discourage it, for a number of health and societal reasons which I am happy to discuss at length. I wouldn't want it banned, though.
I think the state should be able to discourage something without banning it.
[04] Do you think the world would fail with a female president?
I think the world would fail if it had a directly elected president of any gender. I'm against directly elected leaders; I think our (the UK's) parliamentary and cabinet system works well. The average person isn't well suited to picking leaders, they're much better at picking representatives.
[05] Do you believe in the death penalty?
I believe it exists, I believe it is an extremely poor choice for justice and I believe that it defines the borderline between civilised and uncivilised societies. Justice makes mistakes, and should have the ability to compensate those it fails.
[06] Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
I don't much care, I don't generally "do" drugs and I've only used it about four times in my life. If it came to a choice between keeping alcohol legal and legalising hash, I'd vote for banning alcohol and legalising hash. I still wouldn't "do" drugs though, as I hate not being in control.
[07] Are you for or against premarital sex?
For. I think you'd have to be fairly dumb to enter into a legally binding contract to stay faithful to one person for the rest of your life, if you hadn't already established whether that person worked for you.
[08] Do you believe in God?
I do not believe that any extraterrestrial intelligence has ever been in contact with the human race. Beyond that... I once had a row with a Hare Krishna on Glastonbury high street where I told him not to ask silly questions like that until he had defined what "god" was.
[09] Do you think same sex marriage should be legalized?
I'm happy for any group of people (including siblings) to make legally binding agreements between each other. I object to this being equated to the main goals of marriage, ie. raising children in a stable environment between their biological parents. If and when same-sex fertilitation becomes widespread, then I would support those people's legal agreements being named "marriage".
Therefore I support the idea of civil partnerships, but I don't understand why they are limited to only two people and why siblings aren't included.
[10] Do you think it's wrong that so many Hispanics are illegally moving to the USA?
It's disapointing, as a tourist and businessperson visiting the USA, that so few shopkeepers and hotel staff speak English. Beyond that trivial point, I don't have a well-formed opinion on American immigration.
[11] A twelve year old girl has a baby, should she keep it?
As opposed to throwing it away (it does happen), yes. Hopefully the baby's biological extended family will provide support. Failing that, people who are better qualified to judge should ensure that an appropriate level of support is provided, which will vary on a case-by-case basis.
Again, there's a huge difference between banning something and discouraging it. I'd discourage immature people from raising children, but I wouldn't ban it.
[12] Should the alcohol age be lowered to eighteen?
Eh? Do you mean raised to 18? It's already 5 here (UK, at home with adult supervision). From 16 you can drink (and, in Scotland, purchase) undistilled alcohol (beer, cider, wine) in restaurants with a meal if accompanied by an adult. From 18 you can buy and drink what you like.
I think that university should be an education in life as well as accademia. People of university age should be able to take all risks as an adult.
Personally I hate drunk people and I hate the way alcohol turns nice people into unpleasant people. That has little to do with age restrictions and a lot more to do with the history of the UK (for example, the use of alcohol by the Vikings as a painkiller prior to battle).
Yet another example of discouragement rather than banning. The state should discourage drinking alcohol but it should not ban it.
[13] Should the war in Iraq be called off?
Yes. Monumentally poor decision, notably the lack of definition as to exactly what the goals were, especially given that the troops could be more usefully employed in Afghanistan where the actual Islamist extremists were.
[14] Assisted suicide is illegal: do you agree?
I both agree that statement of fact is correct, and agree that it should remain that way.
Furthermore, people should not be allowed to kill their pets for economic convenience, and by economic convenience I include veterinary costs (especially not with pet insurance costing a couple of quid a month). How's that for controversial?
[15] Do you believe in spanking your children?
Again, something to be discouraged but not necessarily banned. I'd only do it if my toddler would otherwise do something likely to be directly and immediately lethal, such as running out in front of busy traffic. I think it is highly unlikely to be effective once the child can conduct reason - the cut-off point being somewhere around 3-7 years old.
[16] Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars?
Absolutely yes. And a Union Flag for that matter. It's just a picture on cloth.
I wouldn't do it if it were one particularly special flag, such as one that had been used by veterans to mark Remembrance Sunday for the past decades. There's some 150-year-old flags in Gloucester Cathedral which have been used for precisely that, and I wouldn't burn those for any money. But I'd happily burn another flag with the same design.
[17] Who do you think would make a better president? McCain or Obama?
Of the USA? Dunno, not my country, not my problem. Obama does make a lot of vaccuous content-free speeches (reminding me of the "twirling, twirling" speeches from The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror VII"), and McCain seems a lot less extremist than Bush, so probably McCain. McCain certainly comes across as more intelligent.
Hillary Clinton would have been better than either of them, IMHO.
[18] Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
Oh good Lord no, anyone who knows me made up their minds about me years ago. You can't please everyone all the time.
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12:32 pm
[Link] | Ma jecli sidan! Wayaan doonayaa in aan gurigo tago!
(So, am I the only one to talk like a real pirate today?)
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09:07 am
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Voles be rising
 It's been a while since my last bizarre wildlife anecdote, so this is well overdue.
I've had a rattle in my Daihatsu Tonka's cabin fan since late winter. I'd assumed it was a leaf caught in the tubes. But the day before yesterday, it finally got cold enough again to want the cabin heating on, and guess what it barfed up in the right-hand blower? A vole. An entire desicated vole.
And the yesterday, another vole, in the left-hand blower.
Annoyingly, one of the voles is bumless, and the fan is still rattling, so I presume I'm due to have vole-bum barfed up at me any moment. Or the little blighters nibbled at the fan blades for sustinance.
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04:38 pm
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New games rig
Tests last night conclusively proved that my MS-Win2K games rig has a totally dead motherboard. Second-hand DDR266 Socket A/462 motherboards seem to be like hen's teeth, so time to upgrade.
Spods, what do you think of the following proposal?
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H 780G Socket AM2+ onboard VGA 8 channel audio
mATX Motherboard - £54.57 from Ebuyer
Comes with Nvidia Geforce 8200 graphics onboard, plus PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Socket AM2 2.6GHz Energy Efficient L2 1MB
(2x512KB) Cache Retail Boxed Processor - £42.41 from Ebuyer
Kingston 2GB DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory Non-ECC Low-Latency CL4(4-4-4-12)
- £34.12 from Ebuyer
Minimum requirement is it must be able to run GTA: San Andreas and Half Life 2 / Portal / Team Fortress 2 under Microsoft Windows 2000, all of which software I already have.
Initial budget is around the £125 mark.
Plan to use existing PATA IDE DVD-RW and PATA IDE 120GB hard drive for the moment, then buy SATA hard drive and PCI-E 2.0 graphics card at a later date. May also upgrade to MS Windows XP Home or Vista Home Premium at later date.
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09:28 pm
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Avoid all roads built by elves
A couple of friends have posted about GPS recently, bemoaning the typical number one frustration with GPS; namely, inability to distinguish suitable from unsuitable roads.
I'm personally a fan of the OS map, trig-points-using-the-time-and-the-sun and local knowledge. That said, both the wife and I recently bought phones with GPS, and having also bought a Bluetooth MP3/CD car radio for all of 60 quid from Lidl plus a car mount, in preparation for our trip to France in September, I thought it would be amiss not to give it a try. ( Read more... )
  
On the first screenshot above, you see Garmin Mobile XT's avoidance settings screen. Next screenshot shows the final leg of the route from my house to the arse-end of Bristol Road in Gloucester with minor roads avoided, whereas the third shows the same route but minor roads permitted.
With minor roads permitted (third screenshot), the Garmin makes the same mistake as Nokia Maps and routes you over an extremely narrow swing-bridge at Hempstead which is frequently closed for hours on end. With it set to avoid minor roads (second screenshot), the route instead skirts closer to the city centre and avoids the swing-bridge entirely. The Garmin is, of course, smart enough to realise when minor roads are a necessity, and testing its calculation of a route to our proposed campsite in Brittany - which is at the end of a minor cul-de-sac with no alternative- correctly calculated the last leg of the route even when told to avoid minor roads.
Another very cool feature is ( Read more... )
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01:40 pm
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We have both types of music
What is the point of being a goth if you live in America?
Isn't it rather like being a British Country & Western fan?
I swear, I'll never understand this as long as I live. I've always considered goth to be an extension of Briton, Celtic, Germanic, Dark Age and Medieval culture. When I hear my favourite goth songs, I think of cathedrals in Gloucester and Hereford, castles in Wales, lumps and bumps in Somerset.
I also like some borderline C&W female singer-songwriters such as Michelle Shocked, who sings about Texas rather a lot. I've visited Texas and it was quite pleasant (provided I looked at it through glass from an air conditioned vantage point). But I still totally failed to empathise with any of her songs about her homeland, because I wasn't brought up there and hadn't spent long enough there to really understand it. Ditto old-school house/techno from Detroit; I like the music, but can't with a clear concience call myself part of the culture, as I just don't understand the wider historical and social context.
Is there a similar difference, I wonder, as far as non-Northern-Europeans are concerned, between being "a goth" and being "a fan of goth music"?
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12:06 pm
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Wasp Factory wiki page
As you may know, a whole bunch of Wasp Factory pages on wikipedia got deleted. The main reasons for deletion were a lack of good third-party sources and a lack of notability.
I am co-ordinating a total re-write of the Wasp Factory Recordings page, which will also include subsections on the label's bands which don't have their own pages (eg. Xykogen).
If you would like to help - particularly if you have a scrapbook of quotes and reviews from music magazines - please head over to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Evilandi/Wasp_Factory_Recordings
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02:23 pm
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UFechO
The Gloucestershire Echo demonstrates its high quality of journalistic research:
http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/cheltenham/Mystery-lights-UFO/article-201527-detail/article.html
http://www.cheltcoll.gloucs.sch.uk/pages/junior/images/latestnews/Celebr08!-Programme2.jpg
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10:39 pm
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Doctor Who, again
Doctor Who spoiler theories again... ( Read more... )
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10:29 pm
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Doctor Who
Spoilers ahead. Really massive spoilers for the NEXT episode (series 30 finale) and 2008 Christmas Special. No, really... huge. If you normally just click through to spoilers, you really might want to pause and think about this one. ( Read more... )
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05:20 pm
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Tomy My First GPL Patch
I've written a patch for the rather excellent Lock Keyboard For Baby program. As it stands, LKFB locks the keyboard on a Linux Gnome desktop (eg. Ubuntu, Fedora) until a password is entered.
My patch adds a --withmouse option, which locks the mouse buttons too (but not pointer movement, since I thought that having the pointer actually freeze might make people think their whole PC had locked up).
Result should be that we can use my laptop to play back videos for Annabel and Bad Things Will Not Happen if she taps the keys or clicks the mouse buttons.
I'm not going to leave Annabel alone with the laptop (last time I tried that, she tested the impact resistance of my new neoprene laptop sleeve, which she concluded was satisfactory for a drop of 1 metre onto Victorian clay floor tiles) - but I'd like to be able to sit on the other side of the room without constantly having to stop her fiddling with the keyboard and mouse/trackpad.
It's under the GPL (don't get me started) so if you're running Linux, help yerself.
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09:24 am
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Disability discrimination
Here's a thing. To use the phrase "colorbind" in politics to describe a utopian society in which there is no prejudice about the colour of one's skin, is particularly ironic, wrong and downright offensive given that colour vision deficiency affects one in twelve white males, and almost exclusively only white males.
Given that colour vision deficiency affects so many white males, and is almost unheard of in females and other races without other significant related vision defects, one might quite reasonably expect that the only political parties who might take a positive interest in the subject of colour blindness would be white supremacists and the BNP.
As an extreme sufferer of deutan colour vision deficiency, I am of course unable to distinguish different types of Caucasian; for instance I cannot tell native Spanish people from native Pakistani people (although I might guess their religion due to dress). However I am perfectly able to distinguish Caucasian peoples from Afro-Caribbean and Oriental peoples, because their bone structure and facial structure is vastly different. Actual skin colour, I have observed (or rather, not), rarely seems to matter in racism.
Racism is a complex cultural problem that is not reduced by trivialising vision disabilities.
If I crash into Barack Obama's motorcade, it will be because I am "colorblind" and can't understand the Americans' stupid habit of mounting overhead traffic lights sideways.
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10:39 pm
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uk.people.gothic.archaeology
Clearing out two servers in preparation for a Linux upgrade unearthed this slice of net.goth history - a bunch of goth web pages from 1997, archived for offline use at the net.goth technical helpdesk at Whitby Gothic Weekend II, for which I also happen to have photos.
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03:27 pm
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Database design for All Things
Database design for All Things:
god
One-to-many relationship with:
thing
Methods:
makeThing(qualityOfConstruction)
Attributes:
greatness(default value: almighty)
thing
One-to-many relationship with:
brightAndBeautifulThing
greatAndSmallCreature
wiseAndWonderfulThing
wind
water
rushes
Attributes:
qualityOfConstruction (default value: well)
brightAndBeautifulThing
One-to-many relationship with:
flower
bird
sunset
morning
sun
fruit
tree
meadow
Attributes:
glowingColours (array)
greatAndSmallCreature
One-to-many relationship with:
bird
man
wiseAndWonderfulThing
One-to-many relationship with:
bird
man
flower
Methods:
open()
Inherits:
glowingColours
Attributes:
size (default value: little)
bird
Methods:
sing()
Inherits:
glowingColours
Attributes:
size (default value: little)
wingSize (default value: tiny)
( Read more... )
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01:22 am
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Boris wins
Cripes! Boris has won London mayorship.
I don't have much to do with London, so I don't really know the issues there. But in the long term I'm worried that Boris' win is actually bad for the Conservative party (of which I am a member) nationally.
Journalists talk of their surprise in Boris running a "gaffe-free campaign", but they're forgetting his secret; he simply stayed out of the way and let the people's dislike of the incumbent Red Ken manifest itself. I wonder whether Boris actually won, so much as Ken lost (and let's be clear; Ken didn't lose by much, considering the landslide losses Labour had seen elsewhere today).
The problem for the Conservatives is that this can't last. Boris can't stay quiet forever, and sooner rather than later I expect the gaffes to return. Don't get me wrong; Boris is a fine political speaker and has a number of heartfelt convictions that I agree with, notably around social issues, such getting rid of cotton-wool-kids attitudes and building more family-sized homes with gardens.
But is he a safe pair of political hands for a role so firmly in the media spotlight? No.
The worst case scenario is that Boris will let rip with a gaffe a couple of weeks before the next vote. One can only hope that he gets his tomfoolery out of the way now he's won London, and then returns to hibernation a good six months before any general election.
In other news, I'm sick and tired of Gordon Brown being compared to John Major. John Major called an early election, fought two and won one. Gordon bottled it from the start, refused to call an election, hasn't fought any and doesn't look likely to win a damned thing.
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10:38 am
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Election, revised
With all but a smidgen of the results now in, it seems that the LibDems haven't actually achieved as good a result as I had previously hailed. Whilst their share of the vote has massively bounced back - 25% today from the doldrums of 17% or worse in recent years - this hasn't translated into wins.
Cheltenham, it seems, was a blip; with only a handful of results left to declare, the LibDems won control of only one new council, and only 27 new councillors, giving them a total of 11 councils.
This compares poorly to the Conservatives' 240 new councillors and 12 newly won councils, a total of 62 councils.
Charitably, this only increases my respect for my old friend and newly appointed LibDem councillor, pwheeldon. I know he puts a lot of hard work into local politics, so for the LibDems to be within only a gnat's crotchet of taking overall control of Cheltenham is even more impressive.
It would seem that yet again, the LibDems are having problems translating their solid popular public base into actual seats under the First-Past-The-Post system. Let's not forget, a 24-25% share of the vote is very impressive; the LibDems had a chap on The World At One saying how the results confirmed that three party politics were back- and I agree.
The problem for the LibDems is that whilst they're reasonably good at being likable, they're not very good at winning.
No doubt their renewed ascendancy will result in renewed calls for proportional representation - and with 25% of the popular vote, I have to conceed that they have a point.
I think we have to seriously consider proportional representation in parliament. I wouldn't like to see the House of Commons changed in any way - I'd like to keep the "one constituency, one MP" system- I like knowing who my MP is- and I particularly want to avoid the awful mess that is the MEP "one region, half a dozen MEPs" that mean I have no idea who my MEP is.
That leaves the House of Lords.
I think we should introduce proportional representation into the House of Lords, whilst maintaining the primacy of the Commons (anything that the Commons passes three times gets passed regardless of the Lords so that we don't end up with Italian-style dithering). I'd be happy with any amount of PR in the Lords, from an introductory system of only a few dozen PR Lords, through to total replacement of all Lords.
This would not only make the system fairer to parties that can garner 25% of the vote that would otherwise fail to get power, but would also solve the problem of "cash for peerages". Political gongs would be gongs alone - it would make it impossible to get into parliament by reward alone.
What we need to keep in the Lords, however, is the element of meritocracy and experience. I think with PR this is acheivable; each party would select a list of preferred candidates, ordered by importance. I think that those lists would naturally list those with more experience and skills higher. The Conservatives would put employers high on their list, Labour would put tradesunionists high on their list, and LibDems would put... well, whatever the LibDems are skilled at.
Of course, it would still be possible for a candidate to be selected as a reward for duty (or even possibly donation) to the party; but they'd at least have been voted in.
Or am I being naive?
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10:38 am
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Congratulations, Councillor Brummie Paul!
Congratulations to pwheeldon who became the elected LibDem councillor for St Paul's ward in Cheltenham last night (full Cheltenham results).
Nationally the Conservatives did very well with around 44%, although it would have been difficult for the Conservatives to gain any more councils - they control the mast majority already.
I have to conceed that I would have thought the Conservatives would have made a stronger showing in Cheltenham and solidified their control of the council- previously a minority-run Conservative administration.
With 20 seats, the LibDems only need to persuade one of the independents to come on-side and they will achieve majority control. It will be interesting to see whether they can persuade one of the independents to actually join the LibDem party, or merely support the council.
Are the surviving independents all PAB, or genuine independents?
The result in Cheltenham is a worry for the Conservatives. Nationally, despite already vastly outnumbering all other councils and councillors, the Conservatives made a very strong showing. However, in the west of England, it was an extremely strong result for the LibDems, with little progress for the Conservatives. It would appear, from the Cheltenham result at least, that the LibDem power base of the South West is now expanding.
The oddity in the national result is a change in the typical "Conservatives take LibDems; LibDems take Labour" swing. Instead, we are seeing the Conservatives take Labour seats, and the LibDems, where they are already strong, solidifying their existing councillors by taking seats from anyone except the Conservatives, notably independents.
The LibDems do have a history of profligate public spending in Cheltenham, notably on public art. It will be interesting to see whether the new LibDem administration revives the Axiom or a similar replacement art centre, although this may come at a cost to the council tax payer.
One other interesting result was Kidderminster, where the Conservatives took control. Kidderminster has a strong heritage of independent politicians, in particular the Save Kidderminster Hospital Health Concern independents who have been very strong for a numbers of years, including an MP who was the only independent re-elected in 2005. Kidderminster used to have its own major hospital with Accident and Emergency, but this got closed and the resources moved 15 miles south to Worcester in 2000. Given that the Kidderminster district (Wyre Forest, which includes Bewdley and Stourport) is bigger than Worcester, plus the lack of road bridges on the river Severn meaning that it was a long journey for many people, the A&E unit was a major local concern. For the Conservatives to change their minority administration into an overall majority is quite an achievement here - especially given that the Conservatives are unlikely to re-establish A&E at Kidderminster.
We appear to be witnessing not only the collapse of the Labour vote, but also the collapse of the Independent vote. This could translate to some big majorities for Conservative and LibDem MPs at the next election.
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12:21 pm
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Battlestar Galactica Series Four SPOILERS
This post exists to discuss Battlestar Galactica series 4 episodes 1 & 2, which were broadcast last night on Sky.
SPOILERS AHEAD, both under the cut and in the comments. Don't say I didn't warn you. ( Read more... )
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