the corner office

A busy few weeks it's been:

• we've moved into our new home. We'll take a few more months to actually unpack. Nice place, even closer to the station, room to move, awesome big kitchen. We have wooden counters, and paranoidly go around wiping up after ourselves in case we leave water stains. This is progress.

• we've only just gotten our interwebs and phone and telly hooked up. 60 channels of crap, if you ask me. But the missus is way happy, which is what matters.

• I've been rather productive study-wise without the interwebs to distract me. I'm still in a heap of doodoo though.

• winter in the UK is awesome. Bleak and rainy and grey. If it snows over Christmas, as is tantalisingly hinted at by weather people who should never be trusted, that would be really awesome.

• all politicians can sod right off, especially the ones in charge.

Reading the comments sections of online articles is a dangerously slippery slope, but sometimes I indulge myself, and sometimes it's worth it. In response to the BBC poll "Should the Queen's Speech be cancelled?" (poor Nick Clegg's precious few moments of media attention this month), comes this beauty:

The Queen and Monarchy is about the only vestige of democracy left in this poor country of ours - leave it alone!

Another BBC article on the effects of certain types of plastics on babies. What's interesting is how the article (and the study it cites) says

Boys exposed to high levels of these in the womb were less likely than other boys to play with cars, trains and guns or engage in "rougher" games like playfighting

The article takes it for granted that this is typical 'masculine' play. Something of an un-PC view for the BBC to espouse, you'd think. I don't have a strong opinion either way, but it does go counter to some modern opinions on where the nature/nurture line is. If such 'masculine' behaviour is mostly nurture then it would suggest the study is flawed, if it's nature, then, well, perhaps some of our 'enlightened' views about gender differences are flawed.

I cycled to work this week, for the first time since we went on holiday. "Now Colin," you might ask, "isn't it a bit cold and miserable to go out cycling?" - to which I'd answer "Yup."

However, I'd seen that the bike stands at work were still filling up, and I thought that if my indomitable colleagues could face the cold and dark and rain, then I could, too. So I did. And it wasn't too bad, to be honest. I think the temperature could drop a few more degrees before I decide to give up for the winter. I skipped the ride today though, and given how especially wet and windy it's been, I think it's a good thing I did.

It's fascinating to see the strange ways in which humans' social nature is manifested.

Sixty 18-month-old infants were shown eight photos of household objects, such as teapots, books or shoes. Crucially, infants were divided into four groups, with each group shown one of four versions of these photos. One "affiliated" version featured in the background two dolls standing together side by side; another version featured a doll in the background on its own; the third version featured two dolls facing away from each other; and the final version merely had toy bricks in the background.

After they'd been shown these photos, another experimenter walked over to the infants and dropped a bunch of pens on route. Amazingly, the infants who'd seen the photos with the companionable dolls in the background were three times as likely as the other infants to help the experimenter by spontaneously picking up one or more sticks and handing it to the experimenter.

How to increase altruism in toddlers (via).

Hehehe. I read an article on the BBC site earlier today that had the line:

Why did it happen? Did a young woman in her teens get pregnant? The social morays at the time looked down on unmarried mothers

Checking back tonight, 'morays' has now been corrected. Pity.

Anyhoo, that got me to thinking about moray eels, which led me to the Wikipedia page, which led me to learn that morays have an extra set of jaws, called pharyngeal jaws, which, well, just take a look at the picture:

Pleasant dreams!

Here's something interesting: tucked away at the end of this article about witch burning is a piece which refutes the commonly held view that witch burning was orchestrated and encouraged by the Church:

In her paper, Recent Developments in the Study of the Great European Witch Hunt, Jenny Gibbons notes that most witch-hunts took place where central authority had broken down, often in border areas "where rival Christian sects fought to impose their religious views on each other". It was partly for this reason that local secular courts meted out the harshest judgements.

In countries like Spain, Italy and Russia, where a strong, unified Church existed, there were few witch trials.

On the other hand, Hallowe'en is the devil's work, Catholic church warns parents. Ah well.

"the brief respite this night off would bring." Jeez!

Done. Tomorrow morning after Ronwen's done a final proof-read, I can priority post my project paper off to the university and mail the soft copy to the lecturer, accompanied by a grovelling apology for it being late. I hope she'll accept it, else my rather shite October will have been both shite and in vain.

Heavy going, all this academic writing. Two months ago I couldn't even spell heteroskedasticity, and now, well, now I can spell it. I even got to throw in a ceteris paribus. Utterly contrived, I must concede, but between all the we-note-thats and clearlys and it-follows-thats and thuses and givens and what have you, a little self-indulgence is earned.

I sit here now, and even though I'm done, and have so desperately being looking forward to the brief respite this night off would bring, I still feel terribly guilty because I'm not working, or something.

Being slightly more serious about environmental issues, this is sobering stuff:

A picture is emerging of ubiquitous chemical contamination driving down sperm counts and feminising male children all over the developed world. And anti-pollution measures and regulations are falling far short of getting to grips with it.

I'm not saying climate change isn't a problem, but this strikes me as no less of a problem. I remember seeing a documentary about the effects of our exposure to increased oestrogen-like chemicals (largely from plastics) many years ago (as far back as in the 90s, perhaps?), and society didn't seem to be too fussed back then, and society doesn't seem too fussed right now.

The thing is, you wouldn't expect it to be difficult to market this as a problem: at the risk of resorting to trite stereotypes, you'd think that faced with the likelihood that their sons would end up with smaller tooties, look more like girls and be far less likely to provide grandchildren one day, most fathers (and mothers) would be seeing this problem as Environmental Public Enemy #1.