It’s just over a year since my Mam passed away after several years of struggle with dementia. It seems like a century since I flew back to Newcastle to attend her funeral, so much has happened in the world since then. I got through the sad anniversary reasonably well until this morning I came across this video, which had me in pieces. It’s of a lady by the name of Marta C Gonzalez, a former ballet dancer, who passed away last year; the film was made at her care home in Valencia. A care worker plays her music from Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake and briefly she is a prima ballerina once more; the film is intercut with footage of herself dancing on stage in New York in the 1960s. It’s unbearably moving, bringing together the awful tragedy of dementia with the power of music if not to heal but at least to provide some measure of respite. Even when almost all is gone, music seems to remain in the deepest part of our being alongside our most cherished memories which it can bring back to life, if only briefly, before the darkness comes.
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A Prima Ballerina
Posted in Biographical, Music with tags Alzheimer's, Dementia, Marta C Gonzalez on November 10, 2020 by telescoperA New President
Posted in Biographical, Politics with tags Donald Trump, Jo Jorgensen, Joe Biden, Pennsylvania, Presidential Election on November 7, 2020 by telescoper
Well it took a while to get there, but less than an hour ago all the major media networks in the USA “called” the result of the 2020 Presidential Election. It looks as if they were all waiting for Joe Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania to exceed the 0.5% threshold needed to rule out a mandatory recount. Once that happened, they all (CNN, CBS, Associated Press, et al – even Fox News) projected that Joe Biden had won. It had been looking that way for some time, but the press agencies wanted to be sure of their ground. Moments after the Pennsylvania result, AP and others also called Nevada in favour of Biden. The remaining tight race, in Georgia, can still go either way, but Biden now has enough electoral votes to be President Elect.
I’ve never felt happier to have lost a bet.
Congratulations to Joe Biden, and to everyone who helped his campaign. A special vote of thanks is due to Jo Jorgensen, the “Libertarian” candidate who polled considerably more votes in the key Swing States than Biden’s margin of victory…
The result is, among many other things, very good news for Ireland. Joe Biden is an Irish-American and we can be confident that he will not allow the Belfast Agreement to be sabotaged by Johnson & Gove. It’s not so good news for Boris Johnson but at least we’ll have the pleasure of seeing him twist in the wind until he resigns in a few months’ time.
Nobody expects Donald Trump to go quietly, however, and there’s no sign that he is going to concede. I think he’d be quite happy to watch his country burn rather than admit being a loser. Some patriot. I think the USA is now entering a very dangerous period in its history. It’s really a question of whether Trump’s entourage can persuade him to accept reality. I’m not sure they will be able to do that. Instead there’s a real possibility that Trump will try to encourage his followers to violent protest. At the very least we can expect him to issue a string of executive orders intend the sabotage the new President. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m more anxious about the next few weeks than I was about the election.
PS Can this evening’s TV schedule on RTÉ 2 really be a coincidence?
PPS. I watched “The Death of Stalin” last night and thought it was very good!
Follow @telescoperCalculations, Calculations…
Posted in Biographical, mathematics, Politics on November 6, 2020 by telescoperSo it’s past 1pm GMT on Friday 6th November and the USA is still trying to work out who will be its next President after the elections that took place on Tuesday. The process is taking so long I wonder if Americans might be starting to appreciate the nature of Test Match cricket?
In the meantime I’ve been occupying myself with some simpler calculations for my second-year vector calculus module:
US Election Night and Day
Posted in Bad Statistics, Biographical, Politics on November 4, 2020 by telescoperBefore you ask, no I didn’t stay up all night for the US presidential election results. I went to bed at 11pm and woke up as usual at 7am when my radio came on. I had a good night’s sleep. It’s not that I was confident of the outcome – I didn’t share the optimism of many of my friends that a Democrat landslide was imminent – it’s just that I’ve learnt not to get stressed by things that are out of my control.
On the other hand, my mood on waking to discover that the election was favouring the incumbent Orange Buffoon is accurately summed up by this image:
Regardless of who wins, I find it shocking that so many are prepared to vote for Trump a second time. There might have been an excuse first time around that they didn’t know quite how bad he was. Now they do, and there are still 65 million people (and counting) willing to vote for him. That’s frightening.
As I write (at 4pm on November 3rd) it still isn’t clear who will be the next President, but the odds have shortened dramatically on Joe Biden (currently around 1/5) having been short on Donald Trump when the early results came in; Trump’s odds have now drifted out between 3/1 and 4/1. Biden is now clearly favourite, but favourites don’t always win.
What has changed dramatically during the course of the day has been the enormous impact of mail-in and early voting results in key states. In Wisconsin these votes turned around a losing count for Biden into an almost certain victory by being >70% in his favour. A similar thing looks likely to happen in Michigan too. Assuming he wins Wisconsin, Joe Biden needs just two of Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia to reach the minimum of 270 electoral college votes needed to win the election. He is ahead in two – Michigan and Nevada.
This is by no means certain – the vote in each of these states is very close and they could even all go to Trump. What does seem likely is that Biden will win the popular vote quite comfortably and may even get over 50%. That raises the issue again of why America doesn’t just count the votes and decide on the basis of a simple majority, rather than on the silly electoral college system, but that’s been an open question for years. Trump won on a minority vote last time, against Hillary Clinton, as did Bush in 2000.
It’s also notable that this election has once again seeing the pollsters confounded. Most were predicted a comfortable Biden victory. Part of the problem is the national polls lack sufficient numbers in the swing states to be useful, but even the overall voting tally seems set to be much closer than the ~8% margin in many polls.
Obviously there is a systematic problem of some sort. Perhaps it’s to do with sample selection. Perhaps it’s because Trump supporters are less likely to answer opinion poll questions honestly. Perhaps its due to systematic suppression of the vote in pro-Democrat areas. There are potentially many more explanations, but the main point is that when polls have a systematic bias like this, you can’t treat the polling error statistically as a quantity that varies from positive to negative independently from one state to another, as some of the pundits do, because it is replicated across all States.
As I mentioned in a post last week, I placed a comfort bet on Trump of €50 at 9/5. He might still win but if he doesn’t this is one occasion on which I’d be happy to lose money.
P.S. The US elections often make me think about how many of the States I have actually visited. The answer is (mostly not for very long): Kansas, South Dakota, Colorado, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, California, Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Pennsylvania. That’s way less than a majority. I’ve also been to Washington DC but that’s not a State..
Domestic Post
Posted in Biographical, Maynooth, Politics with tags Bord na Móna, DEASP, ireland, Local Property Tax on November 1, 2020 by telescoperO wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being.
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.
Those lines from Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley came to my mind this morning not only because it’s blowing a gale outside but also because it is just after Halloween Samhain which was a noisy night because of all the fireworks, but at least I wasn’t disturbed by trick-or-treaters. I guess none of them made it past the barbed wire and electric fence…
Anyway, being confined to quarters for the day has allowed me to catch up on some domestic matters, including dealing with my first ever demand for payment of Local Property Tax (LPT) which arrived on Friday: before I bought my own home, my landlord paid the LPT on the flat I was living in. Coincidentally, along with the bill for the Local Property Tax came a letter from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP) confirming that they had changed my address on their records. I told them two months ago.
The Local Property Tax plays a similar role in Ireland to that of the Council Tax in the United Kingdom, and is also based on some notional estimate of the value of your home, but it’s quite a lot lower than in the UK. Although my house in Maynooth is worth considerably more than my Pontcanna residence the property tax is less than a third here than it is in Cardiff. You might think that’s a good thing, but the consequence is that there is a much poorer provision of local services here. In fact Local Government as a whole is a much lesser thing here than it is on the other side of the Irish Sea. Although there are elections to the local councils (in my case Kildare County Council) as there are in the UK, the ability of the councils to do anything useful is very limited.
One particular aspect of this is that householders in Ireland have to arrange their own refuse collection via a private company; in Cardiff the refuse collection service was provided by the Council. When I took over the house I asked the previous owner about refuse collections and, since I had no experience of any of the companies listed as offering this service, I simply carried on with the company she had used.
And so it came to pass that my weekly refuse and recycling collection is carried out by Bord na Móna (literally “The Turf Board”), a company set up in 1946 to supply peat as a form of fuel. Although you can still buy peat around these parts to burn on the fire, it is a very dirty fuel and harvesting it causes damage to the peat bogs in the Irish Midlands that provide a unique habitat for wildlife and plants of various kinds. Bord na Móna has therefore been diversifying into more sustainable lines of business with the intention of withdrawing entirely from peat production in the next decade or so. Among these new activities are renewable energy generation and recycling, the latter being relevant to this post.
The refuse collection, carried out through a subsidiary called AES, is quite a sophisticated operation. I have four wheelie bins (one for recycling, one for organic & food waste, one for glass, and one for general waste). Each of these bins is microchipped and the amount of general waste collected recorded at each collection. I am of frugal habits and don’t usually produce very much waste, especially general waste, though I have had a number of things delivered to the house since I moved in which always requires disposal of a considerable amount of packaging. Happily they also send a free SMS reminder of what bin to put out when.
Anyway to return to the opening theme of this post, I’ve discovered a “feature” of my new house. Being situated at the end of a row of similar properties with a wall to one side to mark the end of the row, it seems that leaves which have been blown along the road collect in great heaps on the path leading to my front door. I have to go out quite regularly with a shovel to clear them away. At present I put them in the organic refuse bin, but I’m thinking of getting a compost bin for the garden. It seems I am becoming quite domesticated in my old age.
Postscript: no sooner did I finish this post than all the power went off in the house.
Postscript to the postscript. It came on again after about 2½ hours in my area, but as I write it is still off in parts of Maynooth.
Stormy Samhain Super Saturday
Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Irish Language, Maynooth, Rugby with tags Guinness Six Nations, Halloween, Samhain on October 31, 2020 by telescoperSo we have arrived at October 31st, Hallowe’en or, in pagan terms, Samhain. This, a cross-quarter day – roughly halfway between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice represents the start of winter (“the dark half of the year“) in the Celtic calendar.
Incidentally, Samhain is pronounced something like “sawin”. The h after the m denotes lenition of the consonant (which in older forms of Irish would have been denoted by a dot on top of the m) so when followed by a broad vowel the m is pronounced like the English “w”; when followed by a slender vowel or none “mh” is pronounced “v” or in other words like the German “w” (which makes it easier to remember). I only mention this because I hope to be starting Irish language lessons soon, something I always wish I’d done with Welsh when I lived in Cardiff.
Anyway, it’s a wild blustery day with the wind howling down the chimney of my house in Maynooth sounding like a ghost. At least thanks to the present Level 5 restrictions I won’t have to endure trick-or-treaters this evening. Or will I? Should I sit quietly at home with the lights off again?
Today’s schedule will revolve around the final round of matches in this year’s Six Nations championship. The settled order of nature having been disturbed by Covid-19 back in March it has only just become possible to finish the competition with three games today. Ireland travel to France for the last game this evening, after England play Italy and Wales play Scotland. Ireland currently head the table, but they have a difficult task in Paris: they need not only to win to secure the Championship but to do so by a bonus point because England will almost certainly get a bonus point against a poor Italian side. The Irish press are talking up the national team’s chances of winning handsomely, but it seems to me rather unlikely especially because France too have a chance of the title if they beat Ireland and get a bonus point. Both sides clearly have to attack, which should make for a good contest.
For what it’s worth, my predictions are: Wales to beat Scotland, England to beat Italy (with a bonus point) and France to beat Ireland (but no bonus point). That combination would make England the champions, with France second and Ireland third.
Update: 16.05. Wales 10 Scotland 14. My predictions are not off to a good start. Scrappy, error-strewn game with Scotland’s try from a maul that shredded the Welsh defence the highlight of the game. Bad result for Wales but it is good to see Scotland back as a force to be reckoned with.
Update: 18.45. England improved dramatically after a poor first half, and eventually ran out winners by 34 points to 5. That means their points difference is +44 compared to Ireland’s +38. Ireland need a win by 7 or more points (or with a bonus point) to win the Championship.
Update: 21.00. Half-time France 17 Ireland 13. France leading without having played particularly well, thanks to two big Irish errors. Ireland need to score 10 points more than France in the 2nd half.
Update 22.00. Final score France 35 Ireland 27. France won with a bonus point but not by a sufficient margin to win the Championship, which goes to England, with France second and Ireland third. It didn’t go exactly as I predicted but I wasn’t far off!
El Espectro
Posted in Biographical with tags anagrams, DC Comics, El Espectro on October 30, 2020 by telescoperI have quite a friendly name for anagrams, with mixture of fairly common vowels and consonants that can give not only `telescoper’, but such gems as ‘closet peer’, `elect prose’, ‘poles erect’ and ‘tesco leper’. It is only recently however that I have discovered that this also extends to foreign languages, specifically Spanish. The character `El Espectro‘ (un Antihéroe ficticio publicado por la editorial estadounidense DC Comics) is a seasonal example:
It is a shame that Mr Espectro does not look much like me. Admittedly we do have similar physiques but he alas has no beard.
Lá Saoire i mí Dheireadh Fómhair
Posted in Beards, Biographical, Covid-19, Irish Language, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags October Bank Holiday on October 26, 2020 by telescoperToday being the last Monday of October, it’s a Bank Holiday here in Ireland so I’m having the day off (well, at least the morning: I have a telecon this afternoon). This week is Study Week too so there are no lectures or tutorials – real or virtual – until next Monday. Now that I have a broadband connection at home I’ll be working from here much more as the Level 5 restrictions require me to. It won’t be ideal because a lot of my work stuff is still in the office on campus, but at least I’ll be more comfortable than first time round, when I was in the flat.
Normally, most students go home for some or all of Study Week and return to campus the following week. This year I suppose most will stay where they are, although some might go home and stay there until the end of term since virtually all their teaching is online this term. They won’t even have to come back for the examinations after Christmas as these will be online too. It’s anyone’s guess whether we will have teaching on campus next Semester.
Coincidentally, the first campus closure started just before a Bank Holiday too. That was St Patrick’s Day. It seems like an eternity ago. The news of my award of the St Patrick’s Day Beard of Ireland would surely have made front pages across the Republic had it not been for the Covid-19 Pandemic. I think I’ll refrain from trimming my beard for the duration of the new restrictions like I did during the original lockdown.
Incidentally, the Irish word for beard is Féasóg. Also incidentally, I’ve signed up to have Irish language lessons this term; they start in November.
As I’ve mentioned before, this Bank Holiday (as others of its type in Ireland) has a sort of astronomical connection. In the Northern hemisphere, from an astronomical point of view, the solar year is defined by the two solstices (summer, around June 21st, and winter around December 21st) and the equinoxes (spring, around March 21st, and Autumn, around September 21st). These four events divide the year into four roughly equal parts each of about 13 week. If you divide each of these intervals in two you divide the year into eight pieces of six and a bit weeks each. The dates midway between the astronomical events mentioned above are (roughly) :
1st February: Imbolc (Candlemas)
1st May: Beltane (Mayday)
1st August: Lughnasadh (Lammas)
1st November: Samhain (All Saints Day)
The names I’ve added are taken from the Celtic/neo-Pagan (and Christian) terms for these cross-quarter days. These timings are rough because the dates of the equinoxes and solstices vary from year to year. Imbolc is often taken to be the 2nd of February (Groundhog Day) and Samhain is sometimes taken to be October 31st, Halloween.
Another name for the present Bank Holiday is Lá Saoire Oíche Shamhna (Halloween Holiday), although Halloween itself does not occur until next Saturday. Bank Holidays are always on Mondays here so they’re often a few days away from the dates above.
Level 5 Holiday Weekend
Posted in Biographical, Covid-19 with tags Covid-19, Level 5, Nightline on October 24, 2020 by telescoperThe last Monday of October (Lá Saoire i mí Dheireadh Fómhair), aka the Halloween Holiday (Lá Saoire Oíche Shamhna), is a national holiday in Ireland so I’m currently in Bank Holiday weekend mode.
Tougher (Level 5) Covid-19 restrictions came into play at Midnight on Thursday so I guess I’ll be spending most of this weekend time at home, but that’s OK. It will be a chance to recharge the old batteries.
I’ll also have time to read the big booklet that arrived in yesterday’s mail.
This new regime is not at all like the first lockdown in March but my main worry is about compliance. The vast majority of people have behaved sensibly throughout the pandemic but enough haven’t to create a very worrying situation. I’m concerned that those people who flouted the Level Three restrictions will flout Level Five too, but we’ll see.
Last night we resumed the “virtual pub” night on Zoom with former colleagues from Cardiff, which went into abeyance when actual pubs reopened there. Wales has now gone into a stricter lockdown too, for at least 17 days. I think England will probably follow soon.
Anyway today’s tasks are: (i) to activate my home internet and (ii) to avoid reading work emails using it.
I arranged to have the router box etc delivered yesterday. The courier texted me in the morning to say they would deliver between 2pm and 4pm. I had a lecture scheduled from 12 to 1 so I went on campus, did the webcast from my office, and returned home by about 1.30. I waited there until almost 6pm and then gave up and went to buy beer and pizza.
When was coming back with the goods my next door neighbour saw me and came around with the package. The courier had arrived at my house at 11am and discovering that I was not in, had left it with her. No note at my house. No text or phone call to my mobile to say they’d been.
Nightline is the name of the courier company. They wasted a whole afternoon of my time. The driver also forged my signature in the process, surely a criminal offence?
In the Dark 