De Rerum Congegnites

A lavish two page advertisment in the colour supplement to my weekend paper, paid for by Virgin TV, has introduced me to a brand new giant on the massive-brainbox scene. Never mind intense speculations about the cause of the Universe, the meaning of truth and the underlying rules of mathematics, this is a philosopher for the twenty-first century with a logic that defys all criticism. The towering intellect in question is one Ella Williamson, hitherto unknown to me, possibly because she appears to ply her trade on morning television at a time when some of us are still in bed. And this is the nub of her interpetration of the world.

My philosophy is that gadgets should be easy to use, make life better or, in some instances, save you money or keep track of your usage

I think it was Descartes who established the fundamental principle of things

 There are two types of things. Everything divides naturally into one of these two types. Things that are nice but too expensive and things that are not so nice ¹

and Bertrand Russell, in a technically ferocious appendix to the Principia went further

If x, being the quotient of desirability, is less than y, the perceived value of the device or gizmo in question, then, if z is the propensity to waste one's hard-earned cash and k the likeliehood of being arsed to do anything about it, it follows, trivially, that should x/y>{k...k0}.log z/(x^y)=z!!k, that the object will be purchased but remain unused in its box until the wife throws it out in the next round of spring-cleaning. ²

However, Williamson's tenet, or axiom, that gadgets should be easy to use or make life better is revolutionary. Who knew? I always thought that a gadget should come with an undecipherable manual (albeit in twenty languages), that the cardboard box it comes in should break no matter how carefully you try to open it, that the power button should be as close as physically possible to the operating buttons (so that you turn it off instead of doing what it was you wanted to do), that any cables and power supplies should be unique to the gadget, forcing the accumulation of drawer-fulls of such stuff and that the manufacturer will in any case produce an updated version that makes your recent purchase obsolete shortly after you finally understand to use it. And therefore my philosphy was one of resignation and despair at the sheer alien nature of the universe.

I was wrong. Hitherto I shall be a loyal follower of the Williamson Thesis. I shall expect gadgets to be easy and life-enhancing. It is a tough faith to keep. I hope I can prove myself worthy.

Footnotes
1. Les choses qui sont jolies, Paris, 1678
2. pp832-3 (I have cut out the lengthy digression about the best colour for a fitness watch strap)
3. Pedants may quibble about the word 'congegnites' that adorns the title of this piece. I tasked the Editor to find a Latin word for gadget; he claims there isn't one but there is an Italian word 'Congegno'. OK?

Election 2017: 4 - After the bomb

Out on the campaign trail the Manchester bombing is forcing a change of agendas. Jeremy Corbyn's speech suggesting that British involvement in foreign wars makes us a target of terrorism is both superficially true and yet entirely misses the point. The UK would be a target anyway because we have a free media which will report all such actions, giving the terrorists the publicity they are desperate to have. Our values are fundamentally opposed to theirs, especially on the equal treatment of women and men, freedom of religion and the creation of laws and Government through democratic participation. This is why terrorist attacks are indiscriminate and why they will have no significant effect - everyone who lives in this country is potentially a target and therefore everyone, bar the deranged, will continue to defy them.

On a different note, a single sheet of paper from the Green party informs me austerity will be ended, all cuts reversed and loads of money will be available for everything, apart from HS2. This last promise has a genuine local appeal although the accompanying illustration - of Frays Fields in Uxbridge - may or may not represent an area under threat if the proposal to put the railway in a tunnel up to the Colne goes ahead.

As with the Labour leaflet received yesterday, there is nothing to make me sympathetic to the candidate himself because it doesn't tell me why he wishes to become an MP.

Election 2017: 3 - Labour strikes first

The title of this piece may be a trifle misleading. It merely refers to the arrival of the first electioneering flyer. Vincent Lo has invited our support in exchange for a few bland promises that everything will be all right. The leader of the party, Mr Corbyn, is not mentioned or pictured. Mr Lo himself, though pictured several times, keeps a very low profile [Oh dear: Ed]. I have no idea of his background, interests or even if he lives in the constituency. There is barely a mention of Brexit and nothing to explain how Labour would, in Mr Lo's words "give the NHS the money it needs". The assertion that real wages have fallen by 10% since 2007 and that this can be remedied by raising the minimum wage does not appear to address the position of the huge number of people who earn more than that but nonetheless are finding things hard going.

Labour has no chance of winning here. The Tories got 50% of the vote last time and have a very high profile candidate in the shape of the Foreign Secretary, Mr Johnson, perhaps the only British politician in recent history whose appointment to high office caused titters in diplomatic circles all round the world. Whether he will continue to hold office in a few weeks remains to be seen but it is certain that Vincent will not come anywhere near him when the votes are cast. Still, he can always go back to being a bit-part player in Shakespeare:

"Lo, what light from yonder window breaks?"
"Well, I didn't see anything."  

Manchester

On Monday night I saw a brief note on some news websites about an explosion in Manchester. There was a lot more on Twitter from eye-witnesses but it was not until waking up the next day that I realised the extent of the atrocity. A bomb, detonated by a young man, killed 22 and wounded some 60; mainly young people leaving the Arena after a pop concert.

There is no point in knee-jerk reactions to such an event. Deranged people like to to hurt others. It might take the form of someone thinking that violence will benefit a cause of which they approve or it might simply feed a personal gratification.  Describing the Manchester bomber as an 'Islamic terrorist' is false - he obliterated himself without a message, and (as the newly elected Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham said on BBC radio this morning) he represents nobody but himself, no matter which other groups of deranged individuals claim responsibility.

There will be more police, perhaps reinforced by troops, on the streets, just as we saw in London in 2005. It was not very clear then how they would prevent another such attack and no doubt, if there is no repetition and the threat level can be reduced, the numbers currently being deployed will return to normal.

There are no adequate words to comfort those who are suffering; all we can do is express support and solidarity, with defiance and contempt for those who celebrate the perpertration of such violence.

Windows 10 - is it me or are they just having a laugh?

A little shield icon popped up at the bottom of my screen that I did not recognise so I clicked on it and the following message was displayed:

Useful huh? I wondered which device driver was the cause of concern. In my ignorance I thought that if I clicked on the button marked, helpfully, 'learn more' then I would indeed learn more. But no. The aforesaid click opened up a standard Microsoft web page with a search bar. A blank bar. It did not even have 'device driver problem' or similar pre-inserted. Having told me I could learn more, it did the equivalent of a taxi driver picking up someone at Heathrow who asks for "central London, please driver" and dropping them off in Slough near the station.

So I have no idea which device has incurred the wrath of the backroom boffins  and if they want to play the game of alarming me for no obvious reason, I'm damned if I'm going to play along.


Techie note:
I had just done a backup to my USB 3.0 flash drive, which appears to be working perfectly well, but presumably Windows is capable of identifying it more intelligently than by the useless word "device". Or is it?