Culture, News, Politics

Open wide, let me put this in you

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Given that the UK Government is considering switching to open source formats and software, and that several municipalities (or entire government departments) within and without the EU have decided to ditch proprietary software in favour of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) alternatives, it’s worth us having a look at the pros and cons of such a move, if only to better understand (or object to) the decisions being made at this level.

Firstly, a quick explanation of the terms are in order:

Open Source Software: See here for the official Open source Definition

Open source is a development model based upon the “four software freedoms” elucidated by Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation as: the freedom to run [the] software for any purpose; the freedom to study how the program works and change it to suit your needs; the freedom to redistribute the code; the freedom to distribute your modified software so others may benefit from your changes.
The free in Free Software refers to liberty, not price. In practice, this means that using software with an open source license gives developers, engineers and end-users the ability to share their ideas and make contributions (fix errors or bugs, add new features etc) that benefit anybody using said software. It also means that the code is available for constant review, giving rise to the argument that FOSS deals easily and promptly with, for example, security issues.

Proprietary Software:

Software licensed under the exclusive terms supplied by the copyright holder. Generally speaking, proprietary licenses give the right only to use the software under certain conditions, in practice meaning that one is restricted from modifying, sharing, studying, distributing or reverse engineering the code.
Only the provider of the software has access to the source code, and therefore only they can modify, release updates or add new functionality to the software.

Licensing:

It’s worth noting that both proprietary and open source (or free) licensing uses the same legal basis (usually copyrights) to construct agreements. Proprietary licensing (most often in the form of an End User License Agreement) will state precisely what you can and cannot do with your purchased license, whereas open source licenses can vary from completely free, i.e. no restrictions at all, to the requirement that published code must be released using the same or equivalent licensing.

So how would it benefit government departments?

1. Switching formats (for example from Microsoft’s proprietary .doc Word document format to the open standard .odt format) could mean that all government departments regardless of operating system or software in use will be able to read and write to the same target and expect the same results. Of course, I suspect this happens now with office documents, but is burdened by an EULA with an annual fee.
As the format has new features added, no additional cost is applied outside the manpower required to roll out the updates. This would also make it easier for the various departments to deploy a variety of operating systems depending on their needs without the burden of having to re-format documents for particular users.

2. Overall costs of deployment are reduced (not paying for licenses or new iterations of the software, for example). This is a disputed one, as a counter argument exists. The cost of retraining staff for using new software, and the cost of training or employment of new IT staff with a new system has been said to vacuum up any savings made by switching.
As it currently stands, much of the UK Government is still using versions of Windows and other related software created well over a decade ago, so I believe the retraining costs of switching would amount to much the same were they to update to more modern versions, with the added benefit of lower future spending.

3. Updates, bug fixes, plugins and tweaks etc can be created in-house without additional licensing or approval. Most IT departments, whether government or business, have employees who write and deploy software for front- or back-end offices. An easily understood example might be an intranet where employees have access to FAQs, forums, customer databases and the like. As has been my experience, certain parts of an intranet may make use of bespoke Internet Explorer (Microsoft’s default browser) features, such as ActiveX plugins. Only IE supports ActiveX, and only Microsoft decides whether a plugin is still useful or will be deprecated.
This is a problem because the choices are often either to use an outdated browser (not secure when used outside the intranet) or rewrite from scratch to whichever iteration they update to. This is a vicious circle, and would be ameliorated by using an open standard such as HTML5 to code the intranet and open source software to maintain legacy features (for example by using a browser’s plugin architecture or altering its code) while keeping up-to-date with regards to general internet security.

4. Writing your own software. Libraries and back-end services written for one open source program can often be used in other programs without express permission (depending on the license), lessening the burden of writing new ones from scratch.

What are the downsides to switching?

1. With regards to format-switching, Microsoft Office now supports open document formats, so only some brief training informing staff to save in .odt would be required. Switching entire platforms may require further training due to the variety of options available outside the proprietary software pool, however, given that various departments may be required to give training for new versions of proprietary OS deployments, I believe the costs are comparable.

2. Long term viability. An issue that comes up within the Open Source communities is what to do with a project when its creators or maintainers decide to no longer support the software. This could add to the overall costs if a department depends on some code that is no longer supported, as it may require a switch to an alternative or for the IT chaps to maintain it themselves.

3. Interoperability. An issue that plagues the modern world as a whole, really, but one that should concern a government considering deployment of FOSS. An example might be using Microsoft’s Exchange for email. Support for ActiveSync et al outside the Windows environment is choppy, if not appalling.

4. Regulations. There may be legal requirements upon software deployment, such as using particular encryption methods or in fact using software with specific licensing restrictions, exemptions, or requirements. I believe this would be the issue most necessary to adhere to, and the most difficult to overcome.

All cards on the table, I am an advocate of FOSS, so my opinions should be regarded accordingly.

That said, these are only a few of the pros and cons we should consider (the ones that came to mind when writing this post…). Can you think of any other issues governments could run into from a switch? Or perhaps you’ve noticed a benefit not noted above? How about a mistake I’ve made? Comments and suggestions very welcome through the comments link below.

Further reading:

List of Open Source Licenses
Legal Issues and Best Practices around procuring or deploying open source software

Education, Science

Science writing: Tools

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I’ve not given up on my other posts, I’m just not in the mood for them at the moment. Politics is generally pissing me off because we have such a shitty government and I don’t want to write about schools at the moment, just because. 😉

OK, now on to what’s currently happening. I’m in the middle of writing a paper for a journal, I’m writing a mock-paper for a seminar and I’m writing my Bachelor’s Thesis. Naturally, my mind is preoccupied with academic writing.

I’ve found a few wonderful papers on how to read a paper (Inception, isn’t it?) and I will try to put a list together soon. (So anywhere between 6 and 12 years.) For the moment however, I want to focus on a few tools I use to organize my papers, find sources, put everything together and just generally make my academic life easier.

 

First up, my computer. I own a crappy, 4-year old laptop. It’s loud, it’s slow and dang, does it heat up. So for those times I want to read/write in my bed, I bought a cooling pad. You can have them for 5$ a piece, I bought mine in Sweden and it’s of slightly superior quality so I had to put down 30$.

The laptop itself has 4Gig Ram, 2.1GH and a Radeon HD 5145. That means I can use most graphics programs out there, including Adobe Photoshop and Video programs. I don’t need those, but I do occasionally put together pictures/graphics, for that I use photoshop.

Another thing you absolutely need is an external hard drive. I got my 500GB (more than enough for working purposes) for a little under 80$ and that was ages ago. You can now get 1TB for the same price. (Don’t forget the 1. If you just get TB, that’s money badly spent!) On that HDD, you want to store your papers and make backups of your computer. I’ve had a colleague in who lost his BA’s Thesis and damn, was he fucked.

Also essential: A few (2-3 minimum) USB-drives. I’ve got one with 2GB, 4GB and 8GB each, plus a few others. One of them is a second backup for my library, the others I use for current writing. Also essential: Create a dropbox or mediafire account and upload your work. My complete library of papers, books and University-related stuff currently runs at just over 2GB, plus another 1GB of video-lectures. Mediafire gives you 50GB, Dropbox 5GB, so that’ll easily fit.

 

Now that you’ve got the potential of storing your files, you need some stuff to organize them, find files and write them.

Most importantly: A browser.
I personally use Chrome, but have used Firefox before. Both are good, depending on what you need. I prefer Chrome because of the layout and usability, but again I wouldn’t mind using Firefox. I haven’t used Mobile, I would discourage you from using Safari and IE and I’d probably not use Opera, though I have in the past.

 

So assuming you’re running Chrome, I’ll run you through my extensions. Because I’m a cruel computer user and leave about 10-15 tabs open at any given time, I use Xmarks to synchronize my tabs and bookmarks. If ever I lose them or my browser crashes and Chrome’s inbuilt safe-system fails, I just click on Xmarks and re-open my tabs. Handy, but not essential.

Next up, Lazarus Form Recovery. Have you ever written a perfect post, your browser died and your post was gone? Well, Lazarus has (so far) saved me from re-writing about 10k words. That’s quite a bit.

I’ve already written about Unsourced and Rebutr before, so I’m not going to repeat myself. Problematic: I’m not using them any more, they’re just not updated quickly enough.

Now for the jewels in my collection. First up, I own a Kindle as of last week. It’s not only 40$ and it really makes your life easier, so don’t be a snob, buy one. Install sendtoKindle and it will give you an excellent little extension on your browser. You see a document you might want to read, you click on the extension and send it to your Kindle. The size is adapted so you can easily read it and the format is great. With this extension, I’ve already sent about 20 science-y articles to my Kindle, so now I can ride the metro and catch up on my reading. (My only problem: PDFs are huge! My Kindle should be able to fit 1400 books, but after about 50 PDFs it’s about halfway full.)

The second extension may be even better: Evernote Web Clipper, in addition to the Desktop-version of Evernote. With it, you can save articles (or pictures) from the web. Just search them in your browser, click the extension and save the article, save it as a PDF, take a screenshot… etc. In the desktop-version, they synchronize automatically, you can then organize them using folders or tags, depending on what you like. It saves the URL, you can read the complete article (depending on how you saved it without comments (eg. blogs) and without ads) and you can write in the article. Holy shit this thing is awesome! You can also export them as PDFs (for use on your Kindle) and you can sync it with your smartphone.
Obviously you can also use it the way it was intended to: As a digital scrap book.
Additionally, you can network with people. I’m currently exchanging information with my Professors at University. Any article they deem worthy of my interest, they send me with one click. And vice versa. Networking bitches, it’s fun!

 

Furthermore, I run a few programs on my computer that are not attached to my browser. I’ve got the usual anti-spyware/anti-virus software (AVG in my case), I’ve got some pc-performance programs (DLL-Files Fixer at 15$ and TuneUp Utilities 2014 for 25$) and a few programs for keeping in touch. (E-Mail organizers for my 3 different E-Mail accounts, Skype, Teamspeak, etc.)

One of the programs I use is Light Image Resizer. Sometimes I need to send in a JPG in a different format, make it smaller, make it bigger, etc. I’m sure there are better programs out there but this one does the trick for me.

I use Audacity to analyse any interviews I did and I use Pamela to record Skype calls.

 

And now come the great heroes of my desktop. I am now going to reward you for reading through this post.

One of my most important and most used tools: Clipmate. Anything you Ctrl+C, you can find again in Clipmate. You can also take screenshots of exactly the area you want, no fudging around with Windows screenshot and then manipulating it in paint.

My newest addition and already one of my most important ones: Mendeley. It has three main uses:

1) Organizing a library of any papers you have digitally stored. I download masses of papers as PDF files and they all get weird names when you DL them. For example, I downloaded an article from the journal “Advances in Teacher Education” and got a PDF called “01626620%2E2013%2E846148”. That’s not really helpful if you’re trying to find it on your PC. You could of course rename it to “Author (Year) Paper Name” but let’s be honest, you’re not. With the roughly 600 papers I have on my PC, it’d take me a month just to get through them.

So what do you do? You drag them into Mendeley and hey, presto! all your articles (well, most, some bugs apply) are organized by Author/Year/Paper name/etc. All relevant info is extracted and now you can easily browse them.

2) Finding papers. On the Mendeley website, you’re able to browse citations, take a look at what your colleagues are browsing and so on. Searching for the most popular article in earth science? Click! Searching for most viewed article last month? Click. Really easy.

3) Networking. There are loads of groups, thousands of people are using Mendeley, most of them researchers. Add contacts, add groups, share documents.

Finally, my two smaller programs. I use PDF Architect and PDF Creator in tandem. Both have their down- and upsides. You just need some kind of PDF manipulating program.

Also, I don’t present on PPT any more, I only use Prezi. Interestingly, not many people know about it so they’ll be totally freaked by your rotating presentations. Just make sure you don’t make it too flashy, otherwise content gets lost.

 

So there, those are my programs and extensions. I use a few other programs for my teacher-related work (like HotPotatoes to create worksheets), but those are my main working programs. If you’ve got any other splendid programs/extensions for making life easier, do share them. Also, I’m getting my first smartphone in the summer (yes, I still have a phone that doesn’t have a camera), so I’d also be glad if people shared apps. I know of only two: Macmillan’s phonetic transcription app and dict.cc’s downloadable dictionary. (Satisfactory for classroom work, but not for anything else.)

Culture, Literature, Philosophy

Philosophy for life

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In his book modernising the ancient Greek philosophy of Stoicism (A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy), William Irvine proposes two criteria for a coherent philosophy of life. The first is to have an ultimate goal in living. Of the things that can be pursued in life, the ultimate goal is the one you find most valuable. It is a grand goal that sits at the top of a hierarchy and is something you would be unwilling to sacrifice in the pursuit of other ends. Without an ultimate goal, a philosophy of life is incoherent.

According to Irvine, the second component in a coherent philosophy of life is a strategy for achieving your ultimate goal. The strategy tells you how to go about your daily routine in a way that enhances your ability to achieve the thing in life that you define as the most valuable. Without an effective strategy you will likely fail to achieve your grand goal and so a coherent philosophy of life needs both an ultimate goal and the means to achieve it.

Everybody has a philosophy of life, it’s just that most people don’t think about it. For such an important topic, philosophy of life isn’t discussed at school, universities don’t offer courses, and treatment of these topics in popular culture is next to zero. Without proper consideration of this issue, the life philosophy foisted upon most people is enlightened hedonism. The ultimate goal in hedonism is pleasure and the ‘enlightened’ part refers to the strategy. An enlightened hedonist takes time to consider which pleasures they will pursue, at what time they would like to enjoy those pleasures, and the best method for obtaining them. Another thoughtless source of a semi-coherent life philosophy is an inherited religion. In a typical religion the goal is to obtain a good second life and the rules and precepts lay down the way to achieve that goal. Since everybody has a life philosophy the only difference between people is whether they have thought about their ultimate life goal or have just accepted it.

The biggest danger with having the wrong life philosophy is the chance that you will mislive. Despite all the things you did at the end of your life you will look back only to realise you did not live it the way you wanted to. Either you chased the wrong goal or, if you had the correct goal identified, you were unable to live up to it. As Irvine puts it “Instead of spending your life pursuing something genuinely valuable, you squandered it because you allowed yourself to be distracted by the various baubles life has to offer.” An enlightened hedonist may realise the pursued pleasures did not really bring what was most desired and the religionist may come to the understanding that their strategy will not bring eternal life after all. Without a suitable philosophy of life you will waste the one and only life you know you are going to get.

Some alternative answers to the philosophy of life question are: virtue, tranquility, happiness, connection, service, exploration, and usefulness. My suggestion to you is to find your own answer to the question “what do I want out of life?” Ultimately, your grand goal in living is the most important thing for you to discover. Understanding it will change your life – for the better.

Education, Geology, Paleontology, Science

Know Your Bones: January 2014

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Last month’s challenge was very easy. It was so easy that duclicsic posted a correct answer within minutes of the blog going up. However, later in the month Aught3 posted an even more correct answer:

 

Dimetrodon limbatus

Reason: Google-fu

 

This is a specimen of Dimetrodon and Aught3 is even more correct in that it is specifically Dimetrodon limbatus.

 

 (Taken at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science)

Dimetrodons inhabited the earth 295 – 272 million years ago, during the Permian. Dimetrodons were most likely the top predator on earth during that time. The most prominent feature of Dimetrodon is the sail on its back. The sail was most likely used as a heat regulator, but some scientists have suggested that it might be an example of sexual selection, similar to the Peacock’s tail. Either way, the sail on its back and four-legged posture makes Dimetrodon one of the easiest prehistoric critters to identify.

 

There is confusion about Dimetrodon, in that several people believe that it was a dinosaur, I think this is because Dimetrodons are always found in Prehistoric Play Sets and most people believe dinosaurs were just big lizards. Dimetrodon does resemble a large lizard with a sail on its back. However, there are three main reasons Dimetrodon was not a dinosaur; the first most obvious one is that it is much older than any dinosaur. The second is the sprawling, lizard-like stance of its legs. Dinosaurs’ legs, unlike lizards, are directly under their bodies and not protruding from the side of the body like modern lizards. The third is that Dimetrodon is actually more closely related to modern mammals than it is to reptiles such as dinosaurs.

 

Dimetrodon belongs to the synapsid clade along with all mammals. This means that behind the eye, there is only one hole for muscle attachments. Dinosaurs belong to the diapsid clade, meaning they have two holes behind the eye for muscle attachments.

 

Moving on to this months challenge:

 

 (Taken at the Dinosaur Museum and Natural Science Laboratory)

Good luck and happy 2014.

History, Politics, Reason, Research

“What about this document?” Holocaust deniers make me sick!

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So, in the space of less than a week, I have caught out twice two different Neo-Nazi holocaust deniers on Twitter trying to use (or rather abuse) this ITS B.A.D Arolsen file against me (at the bottom of the post) in their mad claims that the true total of Jewish deaths is lower than the approx 6 million figure that I and every other scholar who is not a Nazi or a racist accepts as the truth (on a range of various sources; see Lucy Dawidowicz, “The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945”; Raul Hilberg, “The Destruction of the European Jews”; Peter Longerich, “Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews”; and Arno J Mayer, “Why did the Heavens not Darken?” among many many other excellent titles).

For those who do not know, the ITS B.A.D Arolsen is, as it says on its website, “a centre for documentation, information and research on Nazi persecution, forced labour and the Holocaust.” It’s an excellent service and I would recommend in the same vain “The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names” by the Yad Vesham Center which has painstakingly compiled “the biographical details of two thirds of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices.” For those who do not know too much about the Holocaust, I would highly consider you visit both websites together and fully digest them, so that one may begin to get an understanding of the actual vast scale of the tragedy of the Holocaust, for both document it. Unsurprisingly, no Neo-Nazi I have ever had the unfortunate luck to to run into has ever admitted to liking full documentation. It proves too much truth. Take for example the following written by General Commissioner Wilhelm Kube on 31 July 1942, which is arguably one of the most explicit documents about the Nazi mass extermination. No denier has ever managed to explain this one away to me, and I don’t expect any to. Thus far I have quoted it in all debates I have ever had with Neo-nazis, even on this very forum.

“In every encounter with partisans in White Ruthenia, it has been established that in the former Soviet part of the district general as well as in the former Polish part the Jews together with the Polish Resistance Movement in the East and the Red Army men of Moscow are the mainstay of the partisan movement. As a result of this, and in view of the danger to the whole economy, the treatment of the Jews in White Ruthenia is a predominantly political matter which, therefore, should not be solved according to economic but political angles. During detailed consultations with the SS Brigadefuehrer Zenner and the extremely capable Chief of the SD, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Dr. jur. Strauch, we found that we had liquidated approximately 55,000 Jews in White Ruthenia during the last 10 weeks. In the Minsk-Land area, the Jewry was completely exterminated, without endangering the allocation of labor in any way. In the prevailing Polish Lida area, 16,000 Jews, in Slonim 8,000 Jews, etc., were liquidated. The preparations for the liquidation of the Jews in the Glebokie area were completely disrupted by the arbitrary action by the rear army area, which has already been reported to your office. In the rear army area , I was not contacted , 10,000 Jews were liquidated who were scheduled for extermination by us anyway. In the city of Minsk about 10,000 Jews were liquidated on 28 and 29 July, 6,500 of whom were Russian Jews , mainly old people, women, and children , the remainder consisted of Jews unfit for work, most of whom had been sent to Minsk from Vienna, Brno, Bremen, and Berlin in November of the previous year at the Fuehrer’s orders.

The Slutsk area was also ridded of several thousand Jews. The same applies to Novogrudok and Vileika. Radical measures still remain to be taken for Baranovichi and Hanzevichi. In Baranovichi, about 10,000 Jews are still living in the town alone, 9,000 of whom will be liquidated next month. In the town of Minsk, 2,600 Jews from Germany have been left over. Besides, all the 6,000 Jews and Jewesses are still alive who have been working, during the action, with the units who had employed them previously. Even in the future the largest Jewish labor force will be in Minsk, since the centralization of armament industries and the burden on the railways makes this necessary for the time being. In all other areas the number of Jews utilized for labor by the SD and myself will be fixed at 800 at the outside but at 500 if possible so that after the completion of the action 8,600 Jews will remain in Minsk and approximately 7,000 in the 10 remaining territories, including the territory Minsk-Land, which is already free from Jews. The danger that the partisans will, in future, derive any important support from the Jews will then have ceased to exist. I myself and the SD would certainly much prefer that the Jewish population in the district general of White Ruthenia should be eliminated once and for all when the economic requirements of the Wehrmacht have fallen off. For the time being, the necessary requirements of the Wehrmacht who is the main employer of the Jewish population are still being considered. The clear anti-Jewish attitude of the SD and the difficult task of the units in White Ruthenia to deliver again and again new Jewish transports from the Reich to their destination, both put an undue strain on the physical and spiritual strength of men of the SD and diverts them from their real purpose, which lies in the White Ruthenian region itself.

I should therefore be grateful if the Reich Commissioner could see his way to stop further Jewish transports until the partisan threat has finally been overcome. I must make 100 percent use of the SD against partisans and against the Polish Resistance Movement, both of which demand the use of the full strength of the SD units, which are none too strong as it is.

After the conclusion of the anti-Jewish action in Minsk, Dr. Strauch, SS Lieutenant Colonel, reported to me tonight, with justifiable wrath, that without any order from the Reich Leader SS and without notification of the commissioner, a transport of 1,000 Jews has suddenly arrived from Warsaw for use in this air fleet area.

I should like to ask the Reich Commissioner (who has already been advised by teletype), in his capacity as the highest authority in the Ostland, to stop such transports. The Polish Jew is, exactly like the Russian Jew, an enemy of all that is German. He represents a politically dangerous factor, the political danger of which exceeds by far his value as a specialized worker. Under no conditions must Wehrmacht agencies of the army or the Luftwaffe, be allowed to import, without the approval of the Reich Commissioner, into an area under civil administration, Jews from the General Government who might endanger the entire political work and security of the district general. I am in full agreement with the commander of the SD in White Ruthenia, that we are to liquidate every Jewish transport which has not been ordered or announced by our superior officers, so as to avoid further unrest in White Ruthenia.” – Source

so they always turn to tidbits, lunatics and distortions to make their case, tactics that are of course very familar to the Creationists on this forum and they easily belong in the same category of stupid (even if somewhat more offensive perhaps). This is what brings me to the following document you see now:

What do we have here? Although I will not say I am 100% sure on this namely because actually up until this week i hadn’t seen it, but I’ll take my cue from this which is another excellent website on Holocaust education and specialises in refuting denier arguments. From that I am inclined to believe we have a 1979 document taken out of context by the deniers that, in actuality, represents figures for applications to death certificates made by family members and relatives of the victims. Of course, if an entire family had died in the holocaust, there would be no one around left to make an application. Remember, this document comes from 1979, so it’s one thing the figures seen would be incomplete even in that department anyway by modern standards, families since would have made claims. It’s entirely something else that the figures within cannot describe final numbers of Holocaust dead like in the way the deniers are spinning this document.

In short Holocaust deniers makes me sick!

Culture, Education, Politics

Austria – A period of doom or boon?

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It’s been quite some time since Austria’s general elections. In fact, it’s been so long that we’re almost decided on a new government.

 

You see, when I last talked about Austrian politics, we weren’t sure who would win. Now we know: The moderate left party (SPÖ) won, the ÖVP came second.

General elections in Austria, results with comparisons to 2008 elections.

 

Since then, I’ve had headaches every day.

First of all, the right wing party gained 3%, putting them in third place. It was really close, they already had 22.5% and only the mail votes (basically you vote by mail, preferred by Greens and ÖVP) put them down. In a surprising turn of events, the public realized that the NEOS are a viable alternative and that FRANK is full of shit.

Be that as it may, the two largest parties gained a majority vote, so they can form a coalition without any problems. Well, if they’d agree on anything, that is. Sadly, they’ve been bickering since the elections took place (late September) and haven’t really made up their mind on anything.

That is, until now. Just yesterday (12.12.2013) it was announced that all talks had succeeded and that a new government would be formed. I’ll come back to that in just a second, but I need to deal with something first.

This SPÖVP coalition (SPÖ + ÖVP, but we simply can’t think of them as separate. They’re like an old, married couple) tried to get one particular law through since 2001: A new public service law (I think that’s what they’re called?) for teachers. It’s all about how much money we’d make and how much we’d work, that sort of thing.

Now you might think that’s an easy thing to do. But then you read “trying since 2001” and you realize: Something’s not right.
Congratulations, you’ve just taken your first step to understanding Austrian politics: If something can easily be done, Austrian politicians will choose the hard and completely crazy way.

In this case, the Teacher’s Union rebelled against the law, complaining that we’d get more work for less pay. You know, work 50 hours instead of 40, yet lose about 200k€ over a lifespan. I’m not joking, those are the official figures.

So yeah, no service law change in the last 12 years. Now this new government absolutely has to pass this law, a law I’ve been rebelling against for the past few months, if they’re to be taken seriously. (Well, nobody takes them seriously any more, if there were to be a new vote, they’d lose by a landslide.)

Now in the past few months, I’ve been politically active (the first time in my life) in trying to stop this new law dead in its tracks and instead get an expert commission on the case. I’ve invested a lot of time and energy into this and the final vote passes on Tuesday (17.12.2013), so I’m extra busy in organizing a demonstration (protest) and generally getting the info out there.

At our last protest, we were able to gather about 450 of us, on Monday we’re expecting a bit over 1.000 with about 20.000 protesting in all of Austria. We weren’t able in mobilizing the masses of Teachers because our Union did not approve.

In any case, that’s what I’m currently involved with.

 

 

Now, I said that I’d talk about this formation of government thing. Basically, they’re supposed to cut spending, increase revenues, the usual. One way to cut spending inside the government was to get rid of ministries. The two parties decided on two ministries.

If, by now, you know anything about Austria, you’ll know that they didn’t uphold the deal. All ministries will remain. Well, that’s not exactly true: They will change, but they will still be there. For example, a new ministry for “Youth and Family” will be created, but to keep the balance, another one has to be integrated into an existing ministry.

It makes absolute sense to merge the ministry for education (BM:UKK) with the ministry for science (BM:WF) (in charge of Universities). The BM:WF creates teachers training and generally handles tertiary education, the BM:UKK deals with pre-tertiary education. The two fit perfectly.

If you vote “answer two, they did not do that” then you receive 100 internets. Of course, the simple, logical solution did not sit well with Austrian politicians, so they decided to merge the BM:WF with a different ministry and they kicked out the minister (currently the most liked minister we have) as they did so.

Now here’s the question: Which ministry would they merge the BM:WF with? Possibly the ministry for transport, innovation and technology (BM:VIT). Then again, that would be too obvious. It could be merged with the ministry for health (BM:G), responsible for hospitals and doctors training. No, still too obvious. It could be merged with the ministry for agriculture, forests, ecology and water management (BM:LFUW), but even that is too logical still.

Instead, it will be merged with the ministry for economy, formerly (formerly as of yesterday) the ministry for economy, family and youth (BM:WFJ). (Remember that the latter two are being split off to form their own ministry… Why? No idea. Because, change.)

This obviously makes no sense, if only because it will lead to further marginalization of universities and will probably lead to increased economic incentives to join a university.

 

So there you have it, folks: My current life laid out in front of you, with all the political ups and downs we’re currently experiencing in Austria. With any luck, we’ll successfully thwart the new law, but we’re most assuredly entering a period of troubles in Austria.

Or is this really just a ploy by the government? They want us to think we’re going down the drain so they can then jump out as our saviours. I wouldn’t put it past them, but I doubt they’re intelligent enough to pull off such a scheme.

Education, Geology, Paleontology, Science

Know Your Bones: December 2013

15 Comments

Last month’s challenge was a tad bit hard. I chose a creature from the forgotten period of mammal evolution. Isotelus came the closes with:

 

Entelodont. I can’t identify the species, though.

 

Isotelus is correct that this critter belongs to the clade Entelodontidae (Entelodont) A.K.A. hell pig. However, this skull specifically belongs to the species Daeodon.

 

(Taken at the Denver Museum of Natural History and Science)

 

This handsome critter lived during the Miocene in North America. It belongs to the artiodactyls (even toed ungulates [hoofed]) and Daeodon was the largest species of entelodonts ever discovered in the fossil record. Entelodonts also possess my favorite mammalian skull; it is a wonder to behold.

 

There is some controversy over what is the closes living relative to the entelodonts. It was long believed that they were closely related to pigs, thus the nick name hell pig, but some studies have placed them closer to hippos and whales. However, much like pigs, they were omnivores and perhaps were active predators when it came to obtaining meat. The entelodonts and Daeodon specifically were amazing creatures that I wish were still alive today.

 

Moving on to this months challenge:

 

(Taken at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science)

 

Since last month was a bit hard, I decided to stick with something simple. Good luck.

Website

The League of Reason – Now Available On Tapatalk

6 Comments

Greetings, friends.

I have a small announcement to make…

Dun-dun-duuuuuh!

The League of Reason is now available to users of Tapatalk, the forum browser for mobile phones and tablets.

Our reasons for using this plugin for the site are simple: unfortunately, we don’t have the time to create a mobile theme currently, and Tapatalk offers another way for new users to find us.

Tapatalk is available on both the Android and i-thingies stores, so go forth and download!

Anthropology, Archaeology, Education, Geology, Paleontology, Science

Know Your Bones: November 2013

8 Comments

Last month I decided to start my new blog series with something that I thought would be very easy for everyone. I am glad to see that within one day the answer was given by Inferno.

 

 I was surprised to see I too knew it at once.
Laughably, unknowledgeable creationists yank our collective chains with their nonsense on this…

 

Did you get that? I know I missed it the first time I saw it, so let me see if I can help highlight it.

 

Laughably
unknowledgeable
creationists
yank

 

Inferno is correct in that this set of bones is commonly known as Lucy. As the story goes when it was first discovered in 1974, Dr. Donald Johanson and his colleagues celebrated with drinks and music. However, the only song they had was Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, thus the name stuck to the skeleton they found.

 

 

(Taken at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology)

 

Lucy is an Australopithecus afarensis from eastern Africa and is designated AL 288-1. The reason Lucy is so famous is not that it was the first Australopith found (that belongs to the Taung Child), nor was it the first A. afarensis discovered (that belongs to Al 129-1 a year earlier). No, Lucy is famous because it was the most complete A. afarensis specimen found for nearly half a century, providing nearly 40% of the skeleton, mostly the post-cranial remains. A. afarensis is also famous for being the oldest hominin species for nearly half a century; however, newer finds have taken that place. A. afarensis lived 3.9 – 2.9 million years ago, which places A. afarensis in the Pliocene.

 

A. afarensis appears to be a perfect transitional species between modern humans and our last common ancestor with chimpanzees. It was bipedal, yet still had long arms for climbing around in trees. Lucy’s skeleton, because it was so complete, enabled scientist to definitively determine that the Australopiths were bipedal because of traits found on Lucy’s legs and pelvis. Later specimens have shown bipedal traits in the skull and foot of A. afarensis.

 

Moving on to this months challenge:

 

 

(Taken at the Denver Museum of Natural History)

 

This month and every month after, I will stay out of the comment section. That way you can discuss amongst yourself what critter use to own this skull.

Culture, News, Politics

Another ridiculous poll from the Daily Express.

6 Comments

According to probably the UK’s most hyperbolic newspaper on a front page published on November 1 2013, “98%” of respondents to its survey agreed with a motion that there should be a “crusade” against migrants, particularly Bulgarian and Romanian ones. A classic argumentum ad populum.   Of course what the daily express did in setting the question was to contextually load it by embedding it within a stream of highly negative information about the subject matter. The previous day, for example, the Express ran a story suggesting within it that 28 Million (emphasis on that number) Romanians and Bulgarians could be coming to our shores. Any astute observer of population statistics would immediately pick up that “28 Million” is a cumulative figure representing both the approximate populations of Romania (appx 22 Million rounded) and Bulgaria (appx 7 Million rounded) [So actually appx 29 Million, using 2012 statistics]. To suggest that all 28 or 29 Million would indeed be coming here is evidently absurd, for it would mean that there would be absolutely no Romanians and Bulgarians in, erm, Romania and Bulgaria. So why the such large number? 1) Again, tabloid sensationalism 2) Again, negative information. So that figure of 98% agreeing with the loaded question is to be sadly expected, plus the fact that only Express readers were polled anyway. If there should be a campaign against anything, it would be against conducting ridiculously biased polls like this. Of course, not that this is new to the Express anyway. Also, why the image on the front page of what appears to be an Islamic headscarf seeing that Bulgarians and Romanians are overwhelmingly Christian?