Cheap printer cartridge replacements

I'm switching to MoreInks for my replacement printer cartridges as they are by far the cheapest I have found so far, and importantly the replacements they sell include the necessary chip in the compatible cartridges so you don't need to mess around for ages trying to pry the chip off the standard cartridge and onto the clone.

£3.99 for a replacement black cartridge (with chip) for a Canon printer, can't complain at that price, or a whole set of 4 chipped cartridges for £12.99

many thanks!

Craig

Susan Boyle and the local talent contest

OK, I thought I'd add this piece of local info for the millions of Susan Boyle fans watching her on YouTube etc.

Personally I think she's a brilliant singer, even more so that she broke the mould for what the judges expected a winner to look like.

However, it seems that despite an incredible voice and world wide fame even she seems to have struggled at my local social club's talent contest, so reports this week's Linlithgow Gazette, a paper from the same county as Susan Boyle.

As if that wasn't surprising enough, three other UK talent finalists have also failed to win anything in the local talent contest. They are: Michelle McManus, winner of the UK wide Pop Idol series 2, David Sneddon, winner of the UK wide Fame Academy on BBC and Andrew Muir, a top ten finalist in the previous Britain's Got Talent.

Good going that West Lothian has so many singers capable of reaching the top in UK talent contests, if only they could win at the Linlithgow Rose social club down the road they'd have it made!

Craig
An occasional singer who is #1 on Google out of 500,000+ pages...

Easter Holiday

Great weather and views in Elie, Fife & the world's best fish and chips a short drive away in Anstruther.
Craig

Fulltiltpoker.com, stickiest site on the Internet

Figures according to Nielsen on-line, February 2009. see here for full breakdown.

Craig, Web project manager, Full Tilt Poker.

Available from mid April for my next opportunity, LinkedIn.

Diomhair- The BBC documentary on independence for Scotland

Diomhair Part 1, Diomhair Part 2, Diomhair Part 3, Diomhair Part 4, Diomhair Part 5, Diomhair Part 6

Diomhair is Gaelic for "Secret"

Diomhair on iPlayer (no longer available)

This is a major eyeopener. Congratulations indeed to the BBC for broadcasting it. This story demands global coverage.

-original message-
Subject: Diomhair- The Secrets Out
From: David McCann <david.mccann24@btopenworld.com>
Date: 06/04/2009 17:59
Read my blog, make your comments, get the links to Youtube, and pass to all
in your address book.
http://www.scottishindependenceconvention.org/
David McCann
Secretary Scottish Independence Convention
24 Paton Street
Alloa
FK10 2DY
Tel 01259 211335

http://www.scottishindependenceconvention.org/

Tartan Day 2009

It's Tartan Day 2009 today.

For more information see Scotland's tartan day or Tartan Day USA.

Yesterday was apparently wear a kilt day, not forgetting 2nd April which was wear a kilt to work day. Make a note for next year!

For more information on Tartan Day, see the soc.culture.scottish FAQ, the first online guide to Scotland.

Craig

St Patrick's day fun

I like this, especially as I fly Aer Lingus twice a week to/from Dublin!

Aer Lingus Flight 101 was flying from Heathrow to Dublin one night, with Paddy the Pilot, and Seamus the co-pilot. As they approached Dublin airport, they looked out the front window.

"B’jeesus" said Paddy "Will ye look at how fookin short dat runway is".
"You’re not fookin kiddin, Paddy" replied Seamus.
"Dis is gonna be one a’ de trickiest landings you’re ever gonna see" said Paddy.
"You’re not fookin kiddin, Paddy" replied Seamus.
"Right Shamus. When I give de signal, you put de engines in reverse" said Paddy.
"Right, I’ll be doing dat" replied Seamus.
"And den ye put de flaps down straight away" said Paddy.
"Right, I’ll be doing dat" replied Seamus.
"And den ye stamp on dem brakes as hard as ye can" said Paddy.
"Right, I’ll be doing dat" replied Seamus.
"And den ye pray to de Mother Mary with all a’ your soul" said Paddy.
"I be doing dat already" replied Seamus.

So they approached the runway with Paddy and Seamus full of nerves and sweaty palms. As soon as the wheels hit the ground, Seamus put the engines in reverse, put the flaps down, stamped on the brakes and prayed to Mother Mary with all of his soul.

Amidst roaring engines, squealing of tyres and lots of smoke, the plane screeched to a halt centimetres from the end of the runway, much to the relief of Paddy and Seamus and everyone on board. As they sat in the cockpit regaining their composure, Paddy looked out the front window and said to Seamus "Dat has gotta be de shortest fookin runway I have EVER seen in me whole life". Seamus looked out the side window and replied…."Yeah Paddy, but look how fookin wide it is".

Gaelic events in Edinburgh: March/April 2009

Info from Com-pàirteachas Gàidhlig Dhùn Èideann (Edinburgh Gaelic Partnership)


Sunday 01.03.09 – 12.30pm Weekly Gaelic service, Greyfriars Kirk, Greyfriars Place. Mr John A. Macmillan. (Cont: 225 1900).

Tuesday 03.03.09 – 7.30pm Gaelic Conversation Circle – SNP Rooms, North St. Andrew St. with Calum Cameron. (Cont: 334 7005)

Wednesday 04.03.09 – 7.15pm Ulpan tuition class, Tollcross Community Centre, Fountainbridge. (Cont: 664 2228)

Thursday 05.03.09 – 7.15pm Ulpan tuition class, Tollcross Community Centre, Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. (Cont: 664 2228)

Saturday 07.03.08 – 11.15am Family Gaelic Club, TollX Community Centre, Fountainbridge. (Cont: 07729 307487)

Friday 06.03.09 – 8.30pm “Bothan” at new venue - GRV, 37 Guthrie Street, Edinburgh with Mary Macmillan. (Cont: 07906 318561)

Saturday 07.03.09 – 7.30pm Comunn Tir nam Beann Ceilidh, St. John’s Church Hall, Princes St. with Gaelic singers Kirsteen Grant, Ian Maclean, Dougie Gillespie, Rena Gertz, Martin Gourlay & instrumentalist Robbie Greig. Piper - Neil McClure. MC – Dougie Gillespie. (Cont: 334 7005)

Sunday 08.03.09 – 12.30pm Weekly Gaelic service, Greyfriars Kirk, Greyfriars Place. Mr Neil Martin. (Cont: 225 1900).

Tuesday 10.03.09 – 1.00pm Gaelic Lunch Club, Mount Royal Hotel, Princes St. Speaker: Dolina Maclennan. (Cont: 07906 318561)

Tuesday 10.03.09 – 7.30pm Gaelic Conversation Circle – SNP Rooms, North St. Andrew St. with Calum Cameron. (Cont: 334 7005)

Wednesday 11.03.09 – 7.15pm Ulpan tuition class, Tollcross Community Centre, Fountainbridge. (Cont: 664 2228)

Thursday 12.03.09 – 7.15pm Ulpan tuition class, Tollcross Community Centre, Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. (Cont: 664 2228)

Saturday 14.03.08 – 11.15am Family Gaelic Club, TollX Community Centre, Fountainbridge. (Cont: 07729 307487)

Sunday 15.03.09 – 12.30pm Weekly Gaelic service, Greyfriars Kirk, Greyfriars Place. Mr Alasdair Macleod. (Cont: 225 1900).

Tuesday 17.03.09 – 7.30pm Gaelic Conversation Circle – SNP Rooms, North St. Andrew St. with Calum Cameron. (Cont: 334 7005)

Wednesday 18.03.09 – 7.15pm Ulpan tuition class, Tollcross Community Centre, Fountainbridge. (Cont: 664 2228)

Thursday 19.03.09 – 7.15pm Ulpan tuition class, Tollcross Community Centre, Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. (Cont: 664 2228)

Saturday 21.03.09 – 11.15am Family Gaelic Club, TollX Community Centre, Fountainbridge. (Cont: 07729 307487)

Saturday 21.03.09 – 1pm – 6pm Edinburgh Saltire Gaelic Choir – Gaelic singing workshop for phrasing, vocal techniques, harmony, Gaelic pronunciation etc. Duddingston Kirk Hall, Duddingston Rd.W. £10.00.

(Cont: http://www.edinburghsaltiregaelicchoir.org.uk )

Sunday 22.03.09 – 12.30pm Weekly Gaelic service, Greyfriars Kirk, Greyfriars Place. Mr Neil Martin. (Cont: 225 1900).

Tuesday 24.03.09 – 7.30pm Gaelic Conversation Circle – SNP Rooms, North St. Andrew St. with Calum Cameron. (Cont: 334 7005)

Wednesday 25.03.09 – 7.15pm Ulpan tuition class, Tollcross Community Centre, Fountainbridge. (Cont: 664 2228)

Thursday 26.03.09 – 7.15pm Ulpan tuition class, Tollcross Community Centre, Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. (Cont: 664 2228)

Friday 27.03.09 – 8.00pm “‘S math sin” Ceilidh/Dance for Edinburgh Gaelic Community – Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh. Singers/musicians and Black Rose Ceilidh Band. Tickets from Ceilidh Culture Box Office (228 1155) or tickets@gaelic-edinburgh.net

Saturday 28.03.08 – 11.15am Family Gaelic Club, TollX Community Centre, Fountainbridge. (Cont: 07729 307487)

Sunday 29.03.09 – 12.30pm Weekly Gaelic service, Greyfriars Kirk, Greyfriars Place. Rev. Angus Smith. (Cont: 225 1900).

Tuesday 31.03.09 – 7.30pm Gaelic Conversation Circle – SNP Rooms, North St. Andrew St. with Calum Cameron. (Cont: 334 7005)

Wednesday 01.04.09 – 7.15pm Ulpan tuition class, Tollcross Community Centre, Fountainbridge. (Cont: 664 2228)

Thursday 02.04.09 – 7.15pm Ulpan tuition class, Tollcross Community Centre, Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. (Cont: 664 2228)

Thursday 02.04.09 – 7.30pm Lothian Gaelic Choir - Gaelic Singing Workshop with Kenna Campbell, Colmcille Centre, 2 Newbattle Tce. (Cont: 07818 067524 or http://www.lothiangaelicchoir.org.uk

Saturday 04.04.09 – 7.30pm Comunn Tir nam Beann Ceilidh, St. John’s Church Hall, Princes St. with 2008 Silver Pendant winner Lynn Phipps; Norrman Mackinnon (Gold Medallist), Ceitidh Smith, Angus Montgomery (accordionist), Scots singer Scott Gardiner, Highland Dancers & piper Neil McClure. MC – Angus Montgomery. (Cont: 334 7005)

Sunday 05.04.09 – 12.30pm Weekly Gaelic service, Greyfriars Kirk, Greyfriars Place. (Cont: 225 1900).

Tuesday 07.04.09 – 7.30pm Gaelic Conversation Circle – SNP Rooms, North St. Andrew St. with Calum Cameron. (Cont: 334 7005)
Wednesday 08.04.09 – 7.15pm Ulpan tuition class, Tollcross Community Centre, Fountainbridge. (Cont: 664 2228)

Airson tuilleadh fiosrachaidh mu ghnothaichean Gàidhlig an Dùn Èideann, cur fios gu Iain Macleòid, Oifigear Coimhearsnachd air 07906 318561 no post-d gu john@andarach.com.

For information on Gaelic activities in Edinburgh & to add your contact details to the circulation list, contact John Macleod, Gaelic Community Officer on 07906 318561 or john@andarach.com Weekly updates on Gaelic activities in Edinburgh now featured in the Stornoway Gazette (paper & website). See also http://www.duneideann.net

“’Is fheàrr a bhith lag, seòlta na bhith làidir, aineolach!”
(‘Better to be frail and perceptive than to be robust and ignorant!)

The Fred Goodwin pension problem

OK, so the Government and most sane people reckon that Fred's £16m pension reward for the biggest failure in UK corporate history is unjustifiable. I would agree it's an outrageous reward for the biggest fail ever in UK corporate history, however if it's in his contract what can be done?

1. First of all the government should realise that by trying to weasel around contract law and pension law by claiming back his legal entitlement, it opens the floodgates for all those hard-done-by benefit claimants that really need the government's support and are all too often eliminated from the basic money they need by government red tape. I know, I've had the chancellor of the exchequer tell me so personally (he used to be my MP). The government all to regularly hides behind legislation that results in the needy being denied money because of red tape (e.g. form says "please return this form within a month otherwise your claim may be delayed" without informing the claimant that the underlying legislation requires the form to be returned within a month otherwise the claim will be invalid and so on). If the government can twist and bend the legislation to get back some of Sir Fred's pension then it should certainly have a thought for the hard done by citizens of this country, struggling in a recession on a lot less than Fred's feather bed nest egg and who the government is all to happy to exclude from a basic minimum entitlement, despite paying national insurance etc. If the government can bend the rules to rake in money, it can surely bend the rules to pay it out to those who need it most.

2. If the government is adopting the new found stance of ensuring that failure isn't rewarded and that people don't want away from failure with large fat-cat salaries then we really need to question what example MPs are going to set. After all, Gordon Brown has presided over the biggest economic failure this side of the great depression yet in 2 years will walk away from that failure with a well paid job in the city and a pension that even Sir Fred Goodwin would enjoy. Surely if bankers are to be penalised for failure, the same rule should apply to the politicians which allowed the bankers to be so reckless in the first place. The buck stops with government. I'm sure the politicians that preside over failure would be a lot less keen on calling for Fred to pay back some of his pot if the same politicians were having their pension pot culled by the same percentage and for exactly the same reasons.

That's what I don't like about Labour. One rule for them and another one for everyone else.

Shoe on the other foot, Gordon Brown?

Banking observation

spot the odd one out:

Lord Stevenson, former chairman, HBOS Bank
Andy Hornby, former CEO, HBOS Bank
Sir Fred Goodwin, former CEO, RBS Bank
Sir Tom McKillup, former chairman, RBS Bank
John McFall MP, chairman, Treasury Select Committee
Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer
Sir Terry Wogan, presenter of the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show

It's Terry Wogan, the only one with a banking qualification.

Aer Lingus cheaper than Ryanair

How Aer Lingus is cheaper than Ryanair. This'll annoy Michael O'Leary.

This is my weekly flight, so these are real figures based on looking at the relative websites today and booking my usual route with my usual baggage allowance and my usual credit card. I have excluded seat booking costs from this as I don't need to choose my seat in advance. Both airlines of course are guilty for advertising headline air fares without including all the mandatory charges (including tax and any booking fees).


Cost Aer Lingus = £109.75. Cost Ryanair = £194.20
Aer Lingus markup over flight cost = 214%
Ryan air markup over flight cost = 285%

Ryan Air are not only more expensive for my journey option but there's no loyalty scheme and I would have to queue at the airport to pay the excess baggage fee.

Booking parameters:

Route Edinburgh - Dublin on 02 March 2009 (need to fly from Edinburgh as it's an early start)
Dublin - Edinburgh/Glasgow on March 06 March 2009 (can fly back to either Glasgow or Edinburgh, doesn't matter to me).
Flying with 17Kg of hold bags
Compared on Sunday afternoon, 22nd Feb 2009


Aer Lingus Edinburgh-Dublin-Edinburgh

Flight £19.99 + £74.99 = £94.98

Including taxes and charges (except the processing charge) = £141.75

Handling charge = £8
Total to fly = £149.75
Bag charge £20
Total to pay = £169.75

cost for mandatory extras on top of the flight cost = ((169.75-94.98)/94.98)*100 =78%


Aer Lingus Edinburgh-Dublin-Glasgow

Flight £19.99 + £14.99 = £34.98

Including taxes and charges (except the processing charge) = £81.75

Handling charge = £8

Total to fly = £89.75
Bag charge = £20

Total to pay = £109.75

costs for Mandatory Extras on top of the flight cost = ((109.75-34.98)/34.98)*100 = 214%


Ryanair Edinburgh-Dublin-Edinburgh

Flight £0.49+£49.99= £50.48

Including taxes and charges = £96.20

Add bag handling = £28.50

Add Mastercard fee £9.50

Add excess bag costs 2Kg (over) * £15 per kilo * 2 (per flight) = £60

Total Ryanair costs = £96.20 + £28.50 + £9.50 + £60 = £194.20

Even without the £60 extra bag charge, this is £134.20

The costs of the flight were £50.48.

Cost for mandatory extras = 166% extra on top of the flight costs.
Plus the bag charge its 285%

siliconglen on twitter

http://twitter.com/siliconglen

Still updating this blog but my whereabouts are more frequently updated on twitter. Thanks for following, Craig

Banking ignorance

I liked this quote from the recent Davos conference:

One top money market manager said: "If you believe that the world economy will turn the corner at the end of this year, or in [the first quarter] of 2010, I tell you we have not turned the corner, we can't see the corner, we don't even know where the corner is."

Once again, as I have said repeatedly on this blog bankers seem to be completely out of touch with customer service, a vision of improving the quality of their products and are constantly engaged in an endless cycle of making as much money as possible and no consequences for either customer service or indeed the global recession their greed has now caused. The above is simply another statement of their ignorance of the real world. Put the bankers into an environment where it's about more than just making as much money in a risky a fashion as possible and it's into headless chicken mode.

Still, one thing appears clear - the above quote does at least indicate that in the last year months they have learnt something about honesty.

Top tip for banks: Now is the time that you need to start thinking out of the box and investing in startups that have a solid business model which works in a recession. That's where you'll get the great growth rates, not in buying other banks laden with sub-prime debt (Royal Bank of Scotland etc take note)

Craig

Robert Burns, 250th Anniversary

Today marks 250 years since the birth of Robert Burns, the world's best known poet.

For details of what's on to mark this occasion, please visit Homecoming Scotland.

This year's Burns night marks the 15th year of publication of the first online guide to Scotland, available at The soc.culture.scottish FAQ pages where of course you can read all about Robert Burns. See also the comprehensive information on Wikipedia regarding Robert Burns as well as the complete works of Robert Burns on Burns Country. A particular favourite of mine is the song is there for honest poverty (for a' that).

Enjoy!

Craig

Richard Dawkin's letter to his ten-year-old daughter about belief

The wider this letter is distributed, the better.


To my dearest daughter,

Now that you are ten, I want to write to you about something that is important to me. Have you ever wondered how we know the things that we know? How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the Sun and very far away? And how do we know that the Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the Sun?
The answer to these questions is ‘evidence’.

Sometimes evidence means actually seeing (or hearing, feeling, smelling….) that something is true. Astronauts have traveled far enough from the Earth to see with their own eyes that it is round. Sometimes our eyes need help. The ‘evening star’ looks like a bright twinkle in the sky but with a telescope you can see that it is a beautiful ball – the planet we call Venus. Something that you learn by direct seeing (or hearing or feeling…) is called an observation.

Often evidence isn’t just observation on its own, but observation always lies at the back of it. If there’s been a murder, often nobody (except the murderer and the dead person!) actually observed it. But detectives can gather together lots of other observations which may all point towards a particular suspect. If a person’s fingerprints match those found on a dagger, this is evidence that he touched it. It doesn’t prove that he did the murder, but it can help when it’s joined up with lots of other evidence. Sometimes a detective can think about a whole lot of observations and suddenly realize that they all fall into place and make sense if so-and-so did the murder.

Scientists – the specialists in discovering what is true about the world and the universe – often work like detectives. They make a guess (called a hypothesis) about what might be true. They then say to themselves: if that were really true, we ought to see so-and-so. This is called a prediction. For example, if the world is really round, we can predict that a traveler, going on and on in the same direction, should eventually find himself back where he started. When a doctor says that you have measles he doesn’t take one look at you and see measles. His first look gives him a hypothesis that you may have measles. Then he says to himself: if she really has measles, I ought to see… Then he runs through his list of predictions and tests them with his eyes (have you got spots?), his hands (is your forehead hot?), and his ears (does your chest wheeze in a measly way?). Only then does he make his decision and say, ‘I diagnose that the child has measles.’ Sometimes doctors need to do other tests like blood tests or X-rays, which help their eyes, hands and ears to make observations.

The way scientists use evidence to learn about the world is much cleverer and more complicated than I can say in a short letter. But now I want to move on from evidence, which is a good reason for believing something, and warn you against three bad reasons for believing anything. They are called ‘tradition’, ‘authority’, and ‘revelation’.

First, tradition. A few months ago, I went on television to have a discussion with about 50 children. These children were invited because they’d been brought up in lots of different religions. Some had been brought up as Christians, others as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs. The man with the microphone went from child to child, asking them what they believed. What they said shows up exactly what I mean by ‘tradition’. Their beliefs turned out to have no connection with evidence. They just trotted out the beliefs of their parents and grandparents, which, in turn, were not based upon evidence either. They said things like, ‘We Hindus believe so and so.’ ‘We Muslims believe such and such.’ ‘We Christians believe something else.’ Of course, since they all believed different things, they couldn’t all be right. The man with the microphone seemed to think this quite proper, and he didn’t even try to get them to argue out their differences with each other. But that isn’t the point I want to make. I simply want to ask where their beliefs came from. They came from tradition. Tradition means beliefs handed down from grandparent to parent to child, and so on. Or from books handed down through the centuries. Traditional beliefs often start from almost nothing; perhaps somebody just makes them up originally, like the stories about Thor and Zeus. But after they’ve been handed down over some centuries, the mere fact that they are so old makes them seem special. People believe things simply because people have believed the same thing over centuries. That’s tradition.

The trouble with tradition is that, no matter how long ago a story was made up, it is still exactly as true or untrue as the original story was. If you make up a story that isn’t true, handing it down over any number of centuries doesn’t make it any truer!

Most people in England have been baptized into the Church of England, but this is only one of many branches of the Christian religion. There are other branches such as the Russian Orthodox, the Roman Catholic and the Methodist churches. They all believe different things. The Jewish religion and the Muslim religion are a bit more different still; and there are different kinds of Jews and of Muslims. People who believe even slightly different things from each other often go to war over their disagreements. So you might think that they must have some pretty good reasons – evidence – for believing what they believe. But actually their different beliefs are entirely due to different traditions.

Let’s talk about one particular tradition. Roman Catholics believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was so special that she didn’t die but was lifted bodily into Heaven. Other Christian traditions disagree, saying that Mary did die like anybody else. These other religions don’t talk about her much and, unlike Roman Catholics, they don’t call her the ‘Queen of Heaven’. The tradition that Mary’s body was lifted into Heaven is not a very old one. The Bible says nothing about how or when she died; in fact the poor woman is scarcely mentioned in the Bible at all. The belief that her body was lifted into Heaven wasn’t invented until about six centuries after Jesus’s time. At first it was just made up, in the same way as any story like Snow White was made up. But, over the centuries, it grew into a tradition and people started to take it seriously simply because the story had been handed down over so many generations. The older the tradition became, the more people took it seriously. It finally was written down as an official Roman Catholic belief only very recently, in 1950. But the story was no more true in 1950 than it was when it was first invented 600 years after Mary’s death.

I’ll come back to tradition at the end of my letter, and look at it in another way. But first I must deal with the two other bad reasons for believing in anything: authority and revelation.

Authority, as a reason for believing something, means believing it because you are told to believe it by somebody important. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope is the most important person, and people believe he must be right just because he is the Pope. In one branch of the Muslim religion, the important people are old men with beards called Ayatollahs. Lots of young Muslims are prepared to commit murder, purely because the Ayatollahs in a faraway country tell them to.

When I say that it was only in 1950 that Roman Catholics were finally told that they had to believe that Mary’s body shot off to Heaven, what I mean is that in 1950 the Pope told people that they had to believe it. That was it. The Pope said it was true, so it had to be true! Now, probably some of the things that Pope said in his life were true and some were not true. There is no good reason why, just because he was the Pope, you should believe everything he said, any more than you believe everything that lots of other people say. The present Pope has ordered his followers not to limit the number of babies they have. If people follow his authority as slavishly as he would wish, the results could be terrible famines, diseases and wars, caused by overcrowding.

Of course, even in science, sometimes we haven’t seen the evidence ourselves and we have to take somebody else’s word for it. I haven’t with my own eyes, seen the evidence that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Instead, I believe books that tell me the speed of light. This looks like ‘authority’. But actually it is much better than authority because the people who wrote the books have seen the evidence and anyone is free to look carefully at the evidence whenever they want. That is very comforting. But not even the priests claim that there is any evidence for their story about Mary’s body zooming off to Heaven.

The third kind of bad reason for believing anything is called ‘revelation’. If you had asked the Pope in 1950 how he knew that Mary’s body disappeared into Heaven, he would probably have said that it had been ‘revealed’ to him. He shut himself in his room and prayed for guidance. He thought and thought, all by himself, and he became more and more sure inside himself. When religious people just have a feeling inside themselves that something must be true, even though there is no evidence that it is true, they call their feeling ‘revelation’. It isn’t only popes who claim to have revelations. Lots of religious people do. It is one of their main reasons for believing the things that they do believe. But is it a good reason?

Suppose I told you that your dog was dead. You’d be very upset, and you’d probably say, ‘Are you sure? How do you know? How did it happen?’ Now suppose I answered: ‘I don’t actually know that Pepe is dead. I have no evidence. I just have this funny feeling deep inside me that he is dead.’ You’d be pretty cross with me for scaring you, because you’d know that an inside ‘feeling’ on its own is not a good reason for believing that a whippet is dead. You need evidence. We all have inside feelings from time to time, and sometimes they turn out to be right and sometimes they don’t. Anyway, different people have opposite feelings, so how are we to decide whose feeling is right? The only way to be sure that a dog is dead is to see him dead, or hear that his heart has stopped; or be told by somebody who has seen or heard some real evidence that he is dead.

People sometimes say that you must believe in feelings deep inside, otherwise you’d never be confident of things like ‘My wife loves me’. But this is a bad argument. There can be plenty of evidence that somebody loves you. All through the day when you are with somebody who loves you, you see and hear lots of little tidbits of evidence, and they all add up. It isn’t purely inside feeling, like the feeling that priests call revelation. There are outside things to back up the inside feeling: looks in the eye, tender notes in the voice, little favors and kindnesses; this is all real evidence.

Sometimes people have a strong inside feeling that somebody loves them when it is not based upon any evidence, and then they are likely to be completely wrong. There are people with a strong inside feeling that a famous film star loves them, when really the film star hasn’t even met them. People like that are ill in their minds. Inside feelings must be backed up by evidence, otherwise you just can’t trust them.

Inside feelings are valuable in science too, but only for giving you ideas that you later test by looking for evidence. A scientist can have a ‘hunch’ about an idea that just ‘feels’ right. In itself, this is not a good reason for believing something. But it can be a good reason for spending some time doing a particular experiment, or looking in a particular way for evidence. Scientists use inside feelings all the time to get ideas. But they are not worth anything until they are supported by evidence.

I promised that I’d come back to tradition, and look at it in another way. I want to try to explain why tradition is so important to us. All animals are built (by the process called evolution) to survive in the normal place in which their kind live. Lions are built to be good at surviving on the plains of Africa. Crayfish are built to be good at surviving in fresh water, while lobsters are built to be good at surviving in the salt sea. People are animals too, and we are built to be good at surviving in a world full of … other people. Most of us don’t hunt for our own food like lions or lobsters, we buy it from other people who have bought it from yet other people. We ‘swim’ through a ‘sea of people’. Just as a fish needs gills to survive in water, people need brains that make them able to deal with other people. Just as the sea is full of salt water, the sea of people is full of difficult things to learn. Like language.

You speak English but your friend speaks German. You each speak the language that fits you to ‘swim about’ in your own separate ‘people sea’. Language is passed down by tradition. There is no other way. In England, Pepe is a dog. In Germany he is ein Hund. Neither of these words is more correct, or more truer than the other. Both are simply handed down. In order to be good at ‘swimming about in their people sea’, children have to learn the language of their own country, and lots of other things about their own people; and this means that they have to absorb, like blotting paper, an enormous amount of traditional information. (Remember that traditional information just means things that are handed down from grandparents to parents to children.) The child’s brain has to be a sucker for traditional information. And the child can’t be expected to sort out good and useful traditional information, like the words of a language, from bad or silly traditional information, like believing in witches and devils and ever-living virgins.

It’s a pity, but it can’t help being the case, that because children have to be suckers for traditional information, they are likely to believe anything the grown-ups tell them, whether true or false, right or wrong. Lots of what grown-ups tell them is true and based on evidence or at least sensible. But if some of it is false, silly or even wicked, there is nothing to stop the children believing that too. Now, when the children grow up, what do they do? Well, of course, they tell it to the next generation of children. So, once something gets itself strongly believed – even if its completely untrue and there never was any reason to believe it in the first place – it can go on forever.

Could this be what happened with religions? Belief that there is a god or gods, belief in Heaven, belief that Mary never died, belief that Jesus never had a human father, belief that prayers are answered, belief that wine turns into blood – not one of these beliefs is backed up by any good evidence. Yet millions of people believe them. Perhaps this is because they were told to believe them when they were young enough to believe anything.

Millions of other people believe quite different things, because they were told different things when they were children. Muslim children are told different things from Christian children, and both grow up utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. Even within Christians, Roman Catholics believe different things from Church of England people or Episcopalians, Shakers or Quakers, Mormons or Holy Rollers, and all are utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. They believe different things for exactly the same kind of reason as you speak English and someone speaks German.

Both languages are, in their own country, the right language to speak. But it can’t be true that different religions are right in their own countries, because different religions claim that opposite things are true. Mary can’t be alive in the Catholic Republic but dead in Protestant Northern Ireland.

What can we do about all this? It is not easy for you to do anything, because you are only ten. But you could try this. Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: ‘Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?’ And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: ‘What kind of evidence is there for that?’ And if they can’t give you a good answer, I hope you’ll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.

Your loving,

Daddy


RICHARD DAWKINS is an evolutionary biologist; reader in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University; fellow of New College. He began his research career in the 1960s as a research student with Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nico Tinbergen, and ever since then, his work has largely been concerned with the evolution of behaviour. Since 1976, when his first book, The Selfish Gene, encapsulated both the substance and the spirit of what is now called the socio-biological revolution, he has become widely known, both for the originality of his ideas and for the clarity and elegance with which he expounds them. A subsequent book, The Extended Phenotype, and a number of television programs, have extended the notion of the gene as the unit of selection, and have applied it to biological examples as various as the relationship between hosts and parasites and the evolution of cooperation. His following book, The Blind Watchmaker, is widely read, widely quoted, and one of the truly influential intellectual works of our time. He is also author of the recently published River Out of Eden.

Craig

Gaelic lyrics galore

http://www.celticlyricscorner.net/

Gaelic lyrics galore (galore = gu leòr, Gaelic for plenty!)

Includes lyrics from one of my favourite singers, Art Cormack.

Happy new year/ Bliadhna Mhath Ur everyone.

Craig

Web project manager available

Senior iT project manager with extensive web, e-commerce public and private sector experience, immediately available for contract work UK wide. PRINCE2 practitioner, MSP, Agile, Security clearance.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/siliconglen

Craig Cockburn

Web accessibility guidelines updated - WCAG 2.0 comes into force

The de facto standard for web accessibility was updated for the first time since 1999 today. Version two of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG 2.0, has been published following several years of development and debate.

One wonders when all the website owners who didn't think WCAG 1.0 applied to them or pretended the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (affected websites from 1999) didn't apply to them either might start paying attention.

Craig

Folk music in London

Another long journey on the Internet comes to a conclusion - over 17 years ago I posted a note on the Internet (back then using a UUCP and Arpanet address in the pre-Internet days) about the English Folk Dance and Song Society at Cecil Sharp House in Camden, North London. I didn't go in those days as I was too busy with the choir I sang with in Covent Garden but last night had the chance to drop into Cecil Sharp House and a very worthwhile experience it was too - great music, atmosphere and singers and hopefully I'll be making a return trip soon - preferably long before another 17 years have passed!

Craig

St Andrew's Day, Scotland

Please see the official site for information about what's on for St Andrew's day, and looking forward to HomecomingScotland2009.

We are of course the unofficial gateway, and the first - having launched an on-line guide to Scotland 14 years ago on the Internet and an on-line guide to Scotland open to 100,000+ readers back in the 1980s. That guide has been updated for St Andrews day, the 15th annual update, and is available at the soc.culture.scottish FAQ page on Silicon Glen. Additions and corrections to the FAQ always welcome.

Happy St Andrews Day to one and all, including the half million plus visitors so far this year to siliconglen.com

Craig