Arthur Beale (1) Pricey camera accessories (nil)

One slight disadvantage of a very small camera like a Ricoh GR Digital is that it is very tricky to get a neck trap to fit (the strap eyelets are, well, small). Most shops stock wrist straps, but I have never found these much use.

One can get an ‘official’ Ricoh neck strap for ca. £20, and a two-week wait.

I found this a less-than-enticing proposition, so I turned to Arthur Beale, the most central yacht chandler in London. They sorted me out on the spot with a metre of quality 2mm black cord. They even heat sealed the ends and advised me on the best knots to tie, for the princely sum of 21p!

Those who like their accessories ‘just so’ might not take this option, but I am delighted with it. 99% of the result for 1% of the cost!

Even if you are not in the market for a super-cheap camera strap, Arthur Beale is worth a visit. They are something of an Aladdin’s cave, and even add up bills by scribbling on the brown paper which is over their counter.

Daily photo (4) dear neighbours

dear neighbours, originally uploaded by rachelandjohn.

Friendly and happy neighbours have a bit of banter with us over breakfast

Daily photo (3b) St Pancras New Church

St Pancras Old Church, originally uploaded by rachelandjohn.

A dead heat with the previous post, I’ve often wanted to photograph these ladies and today the light was ideal! [Thanks to PD for the edit]

Daily photo (3a) table stripe

table stripe, originally uploaded by rachelandjohn.

A dead heat today, between this and the next post…

Nice shop

Many cyclists have a fraught relationship with their local bikeshop. It feels like the place you should go for gear, but sometimes prices can be high and staff unhelpful.

I’m lucky enough to have Bikefix of Lamb’s Conduit Street on my daily commute. They stock a great range of stuff (including the mighty Farrhad).

Bikefix are also helpful with fiddly repairs- today helping me fix something, so that I didn’t have to order a complete replacement 🙂

Voting and the expense of scandal

I’ll be voting later today, and I’ve been thinking about the current political scandal at Westminster. I suspect it’ll hit the bigger parties hard in the Euro elections, and possibly give seats to smaller parties (some of whom you would never want to see in office).

It’s true that some aspects of the expenses scandal have been capitalised on by the Conservatives- the Daily Telegraph broke the story, after all.

However, all politicians claim that they’re specially equipped to represent people and work hard on their behalf. In my view, cynical and/or dodgy expense claims send something of a danger signal about politician’s attitude.

I think I’ll vote for Jean Lambert, the Green MEP. She seems very hardworking and has an impressively empty declaration of interests! Kudos to the European Parliament for making the information so easy to find.

My ten favourite pieces of product design #5: bicycle

I think this is perhaps my favourite ever piece of product design. The bicycle as we know it emerged at the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century, looking something like this:

And it hasn’t changed very much since then…

I love the bike’s simplicity, efficiency and elegance. It gets me where I need to be in a reasonable time with no more faff or hassle than needed. I currently ride a Farrhad Manufaktur, like this one:

Obviously, my isn’t nearly as clean as this 😉

It’s a little on the heavy side, but is very low maintenance and the mudguards mean I don’t get splattered en route to work, even if it’s raining.

The only downside of owning a bike in London is that they can get stolen every once in a while, which is very annoying indeed.

Panopticon

Many journalists claim that “if we’re not careful, we’ll end up in a ‘Big Brother’-type society”. They’re too late. Here are two perspectives on this:

First, from Simon Jenkins

When the council can bug you for fly-tipping, when prisons can record conversations with defence lawyers, when any potentially criminal act can justify electronic intrusion – and when ministers resort to the dictator’s excuse, “The innocent need not fear” – warning bells should sound.

And a lighter, but equally powerful video

The title of this post, ‘panopticon’, refers to a prison designed by Jeremy Bentham, where all inmates can be watched from a single location, and don’t know whether they are being watched or not. The idea is that this will make them behave all the time, for fear that they could be under surveillance.

I think one of the saddest things about the ‘Big Brother state’ is that its main premise is flawed- people who are motivated to break the law aren’t really discouraged by the ‘threat’ of surveillance. So the huge price we’ve paid (selling up a massive chunk of our civil liberties) buys nothing.

Knowing and Gettier’s gotcha

In a philosophy class last night, I was reminded of why I enjoy philosophy so much. In 1963, an American philosopher called Edmund Gettier wrote a three-page paper that upset thousands of years worth of consensus on the definition of knowledge.

I was amazed at the thought of such a short piece of thought having such a big impact, but also the simplicity of the form of his ‘counter-examples’. So simple, in fact, that I can give one in this blog post!

The historic definition of knowledge had three parts. To say you have ‘knowledge’ of something, you need:

• Truth (the thing you claim to know must be true)
• Justification (you must have reasonable grounds for your claim to knowledge)
• Belief (you must genuinely believe something to say you ‘know’ it)

This would seem a fairly comprehensive definition of knowledge, but Gettier found a gaping hole in it. Take the following example:

You are walking through London, at two minutes to noon. You’re not wearing a watch, and so look at Big Ben to check the time. It shows the time as 11.58. So, you have justification for believing something which is also true. But is your claim to know the time watertight?

Imagine the following condition applies to the scenario:

Unknown to you (and those around you), Big Ben stopped working at 11.58pm the night before. In this case, your ‘knowledge’ about the time is mere coincidence. Does it still seem right to claim that you ‘know’ the correct time?

(This ‘counter-example’ is not one that Gettier used in his paper, but it has exactly the same form. You can probably think of other ‘counter-examples’ pretty easily)

Philosophers have responded to Gettier in a number of ways. One approach is to add an extra condition to the definition of knowledge- that the match between the way the world is and your knowledge is non-accidental. Other philosophers have argued for a narrower definition of justification, which would exclude Gettier’s counter-examples. However, there doesn’t seem to be a neat answer to Gettier’s challenge yet (see this Princeton lecture).

Cycling

Many people think cycling in London is risky. They’re probably right!

I seem to have a fairly safe commute, despite the fact that I pass through some of the busiest bits of London. I wonder why this is? I don’t think it’s luck, or Divine Providence. Perhaps I’ve just honed my awareness (golden rule- expect the unexpected!) so that I’m always able to stay out of trouble…

Let’s hope that circumstances don’t make this a smug post!