tonygoodson

Bobby Fischer, Kevin Keegan, and Sarah Green!

I'm getting powerful vibes from the 70s.  First Bobby Fischer.  Died on Thursday.  Kevin Keegan back at Newcastle United, and now my old school has a teacher suspended for making a raunchy advert, before she became a teacher!

I'm getting strong early 70s vibes from the Time Lords!  I grew up on chess.  My Dad taught me, and then I progressed, to a fairly good level.  So Bobby Fischer is a part of my psyche, he's a part of my pre and early teens.  So is Kevin Keegan, but not as someone I worshipped, in fact he was the enemy, unless playing for England!  I don't know Sarah Green, but she's what my school wasn't about then!!

It's funny, but when Bobby Fischer dies or Kevin Keegan walks back to Newcastle it takes up more of my thinking and emotional time, than it really should.  It's my curiosity that sends me on to the internet, to Wikipedia and beyond, but then again, in the late 60s and early 70s, I had my encyclopedias, football, and chess books to lurk in.

Cycling - The Good

I'm passionate about cycling right now.  Good weather, so I'm doing more and more, even whizzing into the city for meetings, where I don't need to wear a suit.  And I've found the bike path that goes unbroken from Port Melbourne into Melbourne, which means I'll tend to ride along the bay from Brighton to Port Melbourne, and then cut into the city.  Nice.

Also did Amy's Ride with Daryl Cook on Sunday, 65km circuit from Geelong along to Ocean Grove and then back round.  Absolutely beautiful view along the sea, and the ride was easier on the legs than I thought it would be, except at about 50km the cyclists from the 120km circuit overtook us, which meant they were 60km ahead of us!!  We had stopped for a coffee earlier, so that's our excuse.  In fact, I'd cycled 20km at sunrise to meet Daryl at Westgate Bridge, and of course I forced him to drop me off at Westgate Bridge after Amy's Ride, so I could cycle back and brag about the 100km I cycled in the day.  If it's not windy, I can cycle most things, but the final 20km were murder, into a strong wind.

Of course all this cycling enthusiasm means I've put the bags on the back of my bike to carry my laptop, so I don't get so hot, and uncomfortable carrying my stuff on a rucksack. It doesn't look as cool though!!

And just to keep the obsession up, I've got a bike computer to track my speed and distance, as well as my cadence, which is the beat rate at which I'm cycling.  A year ago, I dropped down to a lower front gear so that I'd increase my cadence.  The higher level cyclists tend to have a higher cadence.  You tend to be able to go further with less injuries on a high cadence.  This has been all the rage for a few years, because Lance Armstrong is known for having a high cadence average of 120 per minute.  To my joy, my cadence seems to be at about 100 on the whole, but let me tell you something, you can push it to 110 in short bursts, but you try even to get 120 per minute.  How the hell did he keep that up!!

And the bad news.  I'm sitting in a cafe in Middle Park.  Yes, you guessed it, another puncture!!  The count is now, no punctures in 10 years, and 6 punctures in less than a year.   What the hell is going on.  It might just be that the tyres that were replaced after 10 years were better at resisting punctures, or I'm cycling more, but I just don't get it.  I'm paranoid now, and perhaps it's time to learn to repair my own punctures.  I haven't needed to learn, until the last year, but just for peace of mind.

And finally, more good news.  Cycled 20km yesterday back to the doctors, and my blood pressure is down, so that's good. Oh, and I've cycled so much recently, I've run out of podcasts to listen to!!  I've caught up with my backlog, and I'm now wondering what the hell to listen to.

My 2008 New Year's Resolutions

1. Simplicity!

The Spirit and Fun of Dance

I saw the most amazing thing today.

I was at my 6 year old daughter's dance concert in Melbourne City today, her group were on second, very cute.  But watching the other 12 groups come on stage, with varying ages up to mid teens, there was something missing.  They're not professional they're not perfect, but it wasn't that, I couldn't work out what it was, and then Something Happened!

This guy came on the side of the stage with a mic, and started talking to the audience about the next session, and then a group of people walked on stage varying from a very little kid, mostly children, teenagers, and a few adults, and they started to tap dance.  But with spirit, and fun, and freedom.  I can't explain the contrast but something special was happening in the way they were learning from each other, dancing with Grant Swift, dancing against Grant Swift, and dancing with us.

Where the previous groups were stiff and "on stage" these tap dancers had freedom.  I don't want to be too judgemental but it has the sprit of Improv, or what you see in most snowboarders, but few skiers.  A freedom of movement.

It was truly a miracle of community, and the word wasn't teaching, it was something else.  Maybe tap is easier than other dance, but most of the other dancers seemed confined, most of the tap dancer's weren't confined and you could see the joy and rhythm in their whole body.

And I am a dance expert because I watched almost all of So You Think You Can Dance 3 !

An alternative approach to Evolution

So whilst I don't have broadband access I've been loafing in my hotel room on the bed like an Orangutan, flicking through the channels and catching up on 6 years worth of TV in 5 weeks.  One program caught my eye.

A documentary on Professor Fred Steele, who for over 20 years has been trying to prove Lamarckian Evolution.  This differs from Darwinism, in that it proposes that "an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring".  This is a major difference to Darwinism, which occurs through genetic mutation which causes an advantage over several generations.

Fred Steele has to prove that say, disease immunity passes from a person's body into their DNA, and into the next generation's DNA, so it's an immediate effect on the next generation.

Now I'll bet that most of the public believe that that's how evolution works, but it's not, and it's been dismissed for over a century.  However, it makes more sense to believe somehow that it works and I think in the end Fred Steele will be proven right.  Good to watch him try!

What's fascinating, is that anyone who goes radically against accepted scientific wisdom, often can't get funding, and further, is ridiculed by the establishment with no way to further new scientific findings.  It's a paradox of science, that until you prove something, it doesn't exist, but you might not be able to get the funding or peer support, if it's too radical.

Lifestyle Buying Decisions

We're moving house for the first time since we arrived in Australia 6 years ago, and it's a good time to re-assess our lifestyle and our purchasing decisions.

I say that, because it was fascinating to arrive in a country with a clean slate and work out what purchasing decisions we made and why.

Firstly, we spent a high proportion of our savings on buying two used cars, which we still have, however, I haven't used my car for over a year!  It's remained on the drive, a combination of cost of repair and cost to put back on the road, but also moving towards a Greener lifestyle.  You do sometimes need the flexibility of two cars with two young kids now at school, but what we save on money and the environment by not having a second car can sometimes be spent on hiring a car, or taxis, and it certainly has encouraged me to use public transport and cycle.  When I arrived, I drove everywhere, now I cycle or take public transport for most of the time.

Next....I've just signed up for Skype Pro.  I have a Skype-In 03 Melbourne number, Skype Pro gives me free calls to anywhere in Australia with the exception of mobiles, with a 6 cent connection charge per call, and a monthly $3 fee.  WoW!  So far so good.  I've been conferencing on Skype both to Skype users and several landlines all at the same time, for over an hour!

What it does mean is I need stable Broadband, so bizarrely I've come a full circle and would like to stick with Telstra Cable!!  In fact, I might pay more for an upgraded service to a higher speed.  I'd move to ADSL if it's reliable.  Is it?  Can you guarantee that, now I'm using VoIP even more?  We'll still keep a landline, and of course there are our mobiles which have evolved to low cost Nokias and Vodafone Pre-Paid.

I'm just looking at all the other bills.  I guess we'll take whatever utilities are already at the new place.  Foxtel?  I've given up on TV and cable.  Annie my wife, still has some TV addictions.  Let's see on that one.

A Nintendo Gamecube has recently entered our lives, Mario Kart and Sonic.  Three of us are happy with that!  Wi-Fi to keep the kids off my laptop.

We're looking to go out less and entertain more at home, now having a bigger place.  I'd love for both kids to be within walking distance of school, but that's not quite there yet.

And the junk and old toys in the garage?  Mmmmmm.  We've just put the main baby things up for sale via an agent who handles eBay sales.  Maybe next time we'll sell direct on eBay.

I've written all this, because I'm excitedly looking forward to the new place, and at the same time looking back to how things have changed and what I'd have done differently starting 6 years ago. 

What is a Great Father?

I'd like my epitaph to be.

"He Was a Great Father"

Even before I had kids, I knew that's what I wanted to be remembered for.  It would have been difficult but not impossible to achieve, without my own kids.  And now I have kids, I've been wondering what is a Great Father.  Funny, but a friend pointed out, that only I can see myself as a Great Father, realising I've done my very best, but my kids may not notice or appreciate it!!

I was looking back recently at my parents.  What did they do well, and what could have been better.

There are some material things which were great as kids.  Great holidays, the excitement and smell of new cars, a newly hired TV, Dad's new gadgets, eating out in Manchester, Big Birthday presents.  Letting friends come round to wreck the house.  My parents not being too mad at smashed windows from the football!

Some things didn't count for much, or we didn't notice it.  A big house, financial security, new clothes, schools (as long as it wasn't boarding school or too rough).

It would have been nice for my parents to be world experts in anything I suddenly took an interest in.  That may have been too much to ask!!

A few other things to consider, which I'm learning about now as a parent and things I appreciate my parents for. Being available not just present.  Not arguing in front of us.  No shouting.  Physically playing with us.  Joining in games.  Giving space and privacy.  The fine line between forcing musical practice and letting it go. The same with homework.  Big birthday presents carefully thought out.  Dropping off and picking up from school.  Being there on the sideline and understanding my sport.  Talking Football.  Letting us watch grown up programmes. Almost no censorship. Protecting us from bullying kids or parents or teachers. Lots of chocolate! Lots of pocket money.

I don't know if you can ever achieve Great Fatherhood.  Who knows how my kids will change in personality and what they want, if anything, as they grow older.

On the other hand a few high doses of Ritalin may sort it all out. I found this film The Drugging of Our Children, completely shocking.

Teenager Scoots to Shop

Yippee!  Scott Adams (Dilbert) recently asked What's Your Permanent Age? What age do you think of yourself as, or like to be?  Without hesitation, my age is 15!!  All my musical references are about that time, my strong football (Man United) memories are based at that time.  My greatest sporting achievement was at that age, and of course my girl obsessions were at that age.

So it's gratifying to explain to the guy on checkout at Dick Smith today, why I'm walking around with a scooter in my hand.  "Are you riding that?"  Yep!!  I bought it for the kids (ME!) to keep up with them when they're cycling.  So I thought I'd give it a real go and scooter to Dick Smith in Carnegie, which is about a 3km round trip.

Fun Fun Fun!

God and String and Gravitons

Blogger's Block.  Either not enough to write about, or too many links to write about, or something on my mind too big to write about.

It's the latter.  And it seems that quite a few people are in the same space right now, but coming from different angles.  Even Scott Adams has written about the very same things.

Gravity is equally freaky. It influences things at an infinite distance without having any contact that we can see or, again, insulate against. Physicists postulate that maybe a massless particle called a graviton is at work, but none have ever been detected. Others think gravity has something to do with the state of a string, in unproven string theory, which is another way of saying we have no idea.

And that's where I've been recently, God, Science, String Theory, Gravitons, Photons, Zohar, Kabbalah, Big Bang, Steady State, Entanglement, Spirituality.

It's that middle ground between Creationists and Rationalists that I'm looking at, the thing Daryl Cook refers to as Integral Thought, but neither of us wants to commit to something developed by people we don't know anything about! Especially someone who calls themselves The Mother!! It could be inhabited by weird freaky people, just like Creationists and Rationalists!!

So I'm holding back, doing a bit of reading and research before I shoot down a few people who need shooting down!!  My starter is ordering Paul Feyerabend's autobiography Killing Time. 

I love science and I respect religion, but they both need to be held accountable for the bad that people have done in the name of science and religion.  My greatest fear is that "Science" becomes the New Religion, and no-one will notice the difference, and we'll have to have a Bill of Rights to protect kids from science!

It's an Entangled world we live in!

All this stuff about God and Science and Creationists and Rationalists, has set me thinking for a while.  Science does not have all the answers.  In fact it looks a bit foolish in the eyes of some of these things from Wired, What We Don't Know.

 

My favourite is Entanglement, - How do entangled particles communicate?

In 1997, scientists separated a pair of entangled photons by shooting them through fiber-optic cables to two villages 6 miles apart. Tipping one into a particular quantum state forced the other into the opposite state less than five-trillionths of a second later, or nearly 7 million times faster than light could travel between the two. Of course, according to relativity, nothing travels faster than the speed of light - not even information between particles.

Even the best theories to explain how entanglement gets around this problem seem preposterous. One, for example, speculates that signals are shot back through time. Ultimately, the answer is bound to be unnerving.

Eh!! Two particles can communicate with each other at faster than the speed of light, over considerable distance!!  The first thing I would question is the experiment.  Is what was measured and observed accurate!!  If it is then how the hell do we explain entanglement.

And where does God come into this. Well for me, I'd rather place this stuff which is way out, in the realms of spirituality for the time being, rather than science, which looks to be struggling like a cornered Creationist, on this one.