Max Hammond Photography: blog » The Devil’s Advocate

Petition to: Immediately ban NHS funding of homoeopathy and redirect the resources to proven medicine.

Max Hammond — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:47:17 +0000

Writing about:Petition to: Immediately ban NHS funding of homoeopathy and redirect the resources to proven medicine.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Immediately ban NHS funding of homoeopathy and redirect the resources to proven medicine.

Go on, sign up

A Thought

Max Hammond — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 10:34:03 +0000

I just thought how ironic it is that although the USA is the only western country where evolution vs. creationism is still a topic of debate, the USA is also the world’s greatest proponent of genetic engineering.

Go figure.

Unions target Peugeot salesrooms

Max Hammond — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 09:53:20 +0000

Writing About:BBC NEWS | England | Coventry/Warwickshire | Unions target Peugeot salesrooms

Union activists are protesting at Peugeot salesrooms across the UK as part of a campaign to stop the firm closing its factory near Coventry.
[...]
Unions have begun a £1m advertising campaign and on Saturday, staff plan to picket car dealerships.

One might have thought that that £1m would better be spent supporting the workers, helping re-train, providing support and advice, rather than trying to persuade a company to do something senseless.

Wired News: The Wikipedia FAQK

Max Hammond — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 10:22:05 +0000

Writing about: Wired News: The Wikipedia FAQK

Well, Wikipedia exists in a state of quantum significance flux. It’s simultaneously a shining, flawless collection of incontrovertible information, and a debased pile of meaningless words thrown together by uneducated lemurs with political agendas. It simply cannot exist in any state between these two extremes. You can test this yourself by expressing a reasonable opinion about the site in any public space. Whatever words you type, they will be interpreted by readers as supporting one of these two opposing views.

I like the idea of wikipedia. Really. But this piece by Lore Sjöberg really sums it up well…

Pandemic

Max Hammond — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 10:43:08 +0000

Exactly a year ago (randomly), I was sitting at home feeling rubbish, after catching Freshers’ Flu. I wrote a blog entry about how inconsiderate it was to come in to work whilst infectious, etc etc, and wrapped up with a note that we were overdue for Something Nasty™ to be coming our way.

Something Nasty™ is on the way.

The H5N1 strain of influenza is now widespread throughout the avian populations of Asia, and is moving westward; most recently it has been detected in Romania. H5N1 is “bird flu” – it infects and spreads amongst birds, but what makes it special is that it can also infect humans. And of those it infects, fully 30% do not survive, even with modern medical support. Currently, H5N1 strains can not be transmitted between humans, but it’s only a matter of time before this, or any one of the myriad other avian viruses becomes easily transmissible, and then all hell will break loose.

We are extremely poorly prepared for any pandemic disease. We have enough trouble with epidemics of less transmissible diseases such as SARS. The last flu pandemic was Hong Kong Flu, in 1968. This was caused by mixing of human and avian flu, and 750,000 people died. The last time an avian flu became capable of spreading amongst people directly was 1918, when somewhere between 50 and 100 million people died.

Today, with the increased global mobility afforded by cheap air travel, it is believed that the disease would spread from city to city twice as rapidly as it did in ‘68. It takes approximately 250 days to develop and produce a vaccine, but the prediction is that a new pandemic would be global within 180 days today. We would have only a few weeks’ warning of the impending disaster, and perhaps less if it originates somewhere with less-than-transparent reporting (China and Vietnam are particularly reluctant to share information). It’s not even clear if we could create a vaccine – the H5N1 virus is so deadly to chickens that it creates major problems: influenza vaccines are made using chicken eggs, and the virus kills them.

Antiviral therapy such as Tamiflu is only effective within the first 48 h of infection, and even then is far from a cure; it might increase your chances of survival, but its effectivity against such a potent killer is hard to judge.

So what would happen, if a new, transmissible influenza virus begins spreading through Vietnam or China?

It is likely to be a number of days between infection and the onset of symptoms. Carriers are probably infectious for at least some of this time.
The virus can probably be expected to reach a major city within a week or two. Depending on the country of origin, the health services may or may not be aware of the outbreak already.
The local government is likely to deny the problem, and then deny the scale of the problem. The true scale of the problem doesn’t become evident for some weeks, as the number of cases gradually rises, reaching a peak several weeks after the first infection.
Almost immediately, the virus is spread from this first city to regional hubs, and probably (depending on the city) internationally.
By this point, the international community should be aware of the situation. Large supplies of antivirals will be delivered rapidly to the initial city of infection, hopefully helping to bring the situation in that area under control. The West will begin urgently developing a vaccine for this strain.
Some initial restrictions on travel will probably be enforced at this point; refusing entry to travellers from the centre of infection, screening for symptoms on arrival. These will be essentially ineffective.

Outbreaks will become clear in the regional hubs; Sydney, Bangkok etc. Response to these outbreaks varies by country; some will be effective, some will not.
And here we reach the critial point. Are the local responses strong enough to contain the virus? Or does it spread far enough that health services are overwhelmed? Already, isolates of H5N1 which are resistant to Tamiflu have been found – and much of the response to H5N1 depends on being able to contain the spread with Tamiflu.

Governments will have to make some severe choices about the degree to which they are willing to restrict liberties, to protect their population. All the debate recently about the restrictions imposed in London following the July 7 bombs will pale into insignificance when we are confronted with a ban on international and interregional travel, and on congregations of more than a few people. The damage to the economy will be staggering.

The current predictions for the number of deaths from a disease on the order of the 1918 Spanish Flu range from a conservative 7.5 million, to the order of 180-360 million if it progresses similarly to the 1918 flu. “Pandemic” doesn’t go far enough, “apocalypse” is closer to the result of that kind of mortality on human society.

Campus inflation

Max Hammond — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 18:20:09 +0000

Writing About: Campus inflation rate, 02/10/05, Shards

Here’s a further piece of information – how the rent for some of the campus accommodation has varied over the last few years. Rents are all per week, and if a year’s data was unavailable, the “inflation” is averaged over two years.

For comparison, the last table is the inflation rate, as measured by the RPI. Its notable that the rent on campus has gone up by 30-50%, whereas the RPI has gone up 18% since 98. I don’t have data on how average rent in Coventry (say) has varied over the same period, which would be a more appropriate comparison.

Cryfield

Year	Rent	p.a. Increase	Increase over 1998
98/99	£41.20
99/00
00/01	£47.10	7.2%	14.3%
01/02	£52.00	10.4%	26.2%
02/03	£49.50	-4.8%	20.1%
03/04	£50.00	1.0%	21.4%
04/05	£52.00	4.0%	26.2%
05/06	£54.00	3.8%	31.1%

Claycroft

Year	Rent	p.a. Increase	Increase over 1998
98/99	£51.70
99/00	£55.00	6.4%	6.4%
00/01
01/02	£65.00	9.1%	25.7%
02/03	£70.00	7.7%	35.4%
03/04	£74.00	5.7%	43.1%
04/05	£76.00	2.7%	47.0%
05/06	£79.00	3.9%	52.8%

Whitefields

Year	Rent	p.a. Increase	Increase over 1998
98/99	£38.55
99/00	£41.45	7.5%	7.5%
00/01
01/02	£49.50	9.7%	28.4%
02/03	£49.50	0.0%	28.4%
03/04	£50.00	1.0%	29.7%
04/05	£52.00	4.0%	34.9%
05/06	£54.00	3.8%	40.1%

Inflation (RPI)

Year	p.a	Accumulated over 1998
99/00	2.2%	2.2%
00/01	2.3%	4.6%
01/02	2.6%	7.3%
02/03	1.2%	8.6%
03/04	3.0%	11.8%
04/05	2.6%	14.7%
05/06	3.2%	18.4%

The Problem with Sabbs

Max Hammond — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:35:12 +0000

... Is that they have a distorted view of “achievement”. Take this display, in the union at the moment:

“Union Achievements in our 40th Year”

Mmm very impressive. But hang on, is a picture of one of the sabbs on a ski tour really an achievement?

Let’s colour in – Red for “wtf do you think you’ve achieved here?”, Blue for “OK, you’ve tried to do something, but achieved nothing”. Clear are honest advances.

Are you really pleased with your year’s work?

Interview with The Guardian

Max Hammond — Thu, 05 May 2005 09:26:52 +0000

Writing about: Blogs in the guardian, 05/05/05, every nightmare begins as a dream

Well, I’m in the Guardian today – hello to anyone who’s come here from reading the article there.

Here’s the full detail of the questions I answered for Jim. I stand by what I say here, although in reflection my tone is more negative than I’d intended. You can see my posts discussing these ideas in more detail here and here

As you’ll probably discover, I’ve sent the same basic questions to Dan Lawrence and Helen Ryan.
You know they’re a couple, right?

By the way, are you part of the staff at Warwick? Or part of the student body? Or a bit of both?
PhD student. We’re in a kind of limbo. We’re full students, NUS cards and all, but we’re paid to be here, rather than the other way round. Most do a bit of teaching, although in Chemistry, we generally only do lab demonstrating. Anyway, here they are…

1. When did you start your blog? Had you been blogging before?
I started about a year ago, and no, I’d never had a blog before.

2. What did you expect from blogging when you started your Warwick blog? Have your expectations met? What’s surprised you most?
I was interested to see if any productive work was done with them. I thought it was a strange thing for the university to invest so much resource into. I came to it feeling rather cynical, but decided to throw myself into it anyway. I saw the potential for group interaction very strongly – I’d never seen anything quite like that before.
I’m not really surprised by the way that the project has gone – more on that later.

3. Has the blog helped with your academic work? Or is it more of a social thing?
I try to use it for my academic work where possible, when there’s a need for reflection or record. I’ve taken to writing to-do-lists on it, although that’s just for convenience. It’s definitely a social space, and although cliques do form, they’re not exclusive – it’s very easy for newcomers to get involved.

4. Have Warwick Blogs affected the wider real world culture of the university?
No, I don’t think so. The number of people who have interacted in the real world due to some event on blogs would qualify blogs as one of the smaller student societies here.

5.Whose Warwick blogs do you read – is it people who were already friends? Or have you become friends with people after getting to know them via their blogs?
I’ve met a small percentage of the people whose blogs I read. There are occasional “blog socials” arranged, although I haven’t made it to any yet. I also read the blogs of my co-workers.

6. What’s the general feeling about the blogging project? Browsing around, I ‘ve noticed some unease about how useful they are, or rather some irritation/upset over abuses of the system (e.g. anonymous comments etc) – is this just a phase that will pass, or does it indicate some larger problems with the project?
It is early days for WB, but there seems to be little interest on the part of the university in assessing how the thing is going. They’ve started this thing, but seem to have lost focus on what the original idea behind it was. That’s the impression that I get anyway. The freedom of speech of the bloggers is being compromised by the university’s Acceptable Usage Policy for WB, which is (compared to most blog sites) draconian. The blogs admin appears to suspend student’s blogs on some very shaky reasons, and they are essentially untouchable. There is no information regarding the admin is, how they reach their decision, and who to appeal to if you disagree.

7. Does you blog help at all with PDP? I know you’ve raised some concerns that early hopes that the blogs would allow for ‘guerilla PDP’ haven’t really been met yet… do you think blogs are just very different from the whole PDP idea or might they be able to work with it in some way?
A vanishingly small proportion of the people who blog write anything reflective at all. If the idea was “that if we get students to start blogging, they will gradually start to do PDP” (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/elearning/workshops/presentations/blogs/) then it has so far not happened, a year in.
I have never seen an answer to the question “Why on earth should I publish my private reflections?”. I don’t think that a public forum is really the place to be as honest with yourself as you need to be to gain from the kind of reflection required for useful PDP. There are “private” entries on blogs (restricted to just the author), but I’ve never written one. If I wanted to do that, I’d use a diary.

8. Will you continue blogging once you leave Warwick?
Probably. I’m undecided at this stage. I’m extremely unlikely to carry on using Warwick Blogs, anyway.

Simon Lucas’ Subtle Style (again)

Max Hammond — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 11:43:46 +0000

Writing about:John Cross is innocent, 16/04/05, Tim Retout’s blog

Yet again, our esteemed president is alledgedly riding roughshod over procedure and protocol, and trying to force the proles to just let him get on with running the union the way he wants.

I’ve had discussions with him before about this kind of behaviour, and it’s sad to see people having the same kinds of problems now.

In my first year here, one of the sabbs was removed by a vote of no confidence. I wonder if there’s sufficient support to force a vote about Simon?

The Future of Warwick Blogs

Max Hammond — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 15:22:25 +0000

... Seems bleak. People are leaving, left right and centre, for various reasons but it seems primarily due to issues with moderation and ownership ( link , link , link ).
The amount of PDP going on here is trivial.

The amount of directed academic work seems to be similarly low (only one response to a question about who uses blogs for academic work – there are examples, but I’m sorry Submitting essays via blogs is a bizarre use of the medium).

We may have 3192 blogs, and lots of entries (~150/day) but probably less than 15% of those blogs are really being used (link). The presupmtion seems to have been “make the tool, advertise it, and it’ll be a success”. Has WB been a success? Really? for a few people (such as myself) who don’t really write anything close to the edge, the issues with moderation are lessened, but I don’t like being so strongly tied to the university. In common with most bloggers here, almost nothing that I post is directly relevent to my uni life.

Rob O’Toole recently presented at a conference some of the ‘key characteristics of the “blog phenomena”’ (all emphasis mine):

A blog is a personal website, it has an ‘owner’;

But it is much more – the extension of the owners mind and life onto the web – journaling;

An extension of their personal identity;

But also a way of trying out different identities;

A sandbox or demilitarized zone;

A place for reporting experiences;

A place for making sense of experiences, or not as is sometimes the case;

A place for just recording experience (a “bucket”);

A place for defining what is important;

A place for combining disparate experiences;

A place for expressing ideas and opinions about the world;

A place for testing out theories;

Develops ideas and themes over time;

A way of developing writing and communication skills;

Not necessarily serious or authoritative;

Sometimes quite scurrilous, close to the edge of the acceptable;

Dynamic and changing;

Snapshots of points in time;

Ephemeral (but archived);

Public and private;

Networking – a means for advertising oneself and seeking like-minded friends;

A place for developing or criticising each other’s ideas;

Democratic;
A simple but powerful tool that anyone can master.

My emphasis is on those statements that may be true of blogs in general (and I don’t agree with all of them), but are not true for WB. And these are some of the most important concepts of blogging, on the net in general.

I like WB. I like the way that everyone here is from the same environment. But I’m not sure it’s either fulfilling the role that “normal” blogs fulful, nor is it fulfilling the lofty goals in terms of helping with PDP (link). In fact, it seems necessary to persuade people of the value of PDP fullstop. The question has never been answered as to why someone should want to use a blog to do personal reflection.

So I don’t know what the future for WB is. I shall continue along here for the time being, but I’ve got my own separate site with duplicate posts on it. I’m going to start linking to each post there from here, to help with the google rating.