jonathan.rawle.org

It’s nearly four years since I bought my digital camera. I chose the Canon Powershot A40, and at the time it was pretty much at the top of the consumer range of digital cameras, with two million pixels. The more “standard” model was the A30, with 1.2 million pixels, so two million seemed a huge number.

Today I had a request from someone who wants to use some of my photos. He asked if I could send high-resolution versions for publication. In my reply, I said I could “only” supply versions that were 1600×1200 pixels. Similarly Emporis, for whom I take photos, now say “4-8 mega-pixels recommended”.

So it seems I’ll eventually need to get a new camera.

I’ve always thought the term “megapixel” sounds quite strange. It’s true that we physicists like our SI prefixes. But in this context “pixel” isn’t a unit of measurement. We are simply counting the number of pixels that the device contains. No-one would say the world’s population is 6.5 gigapeople, or that there are 1.7 kilosteps to the top of the Eiffel Tower! I expect the marketers feel that a camera will sell better if it contains mega pixels.

According to BBC News, the Scottish National Party (SNP) have drawn up a blueprint for the first 100 days of an SNP government, should they win a majority in the next elections to the Scottish parliament. Amongst the generally left-of-centre policies is, unsurprisingly, a plan to hold a referendum on Scottish independence.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4892814.stm

They say the ballot paper in such a referendum would read:

The Scottish Parliament (led by executive ministers) should negotiate a new settlement with the British Government so that Scotland becomes a sovereign and independent state.

Presumably voters would then indicate whether or not they agree with the statement.

Why choose such a roundabout way of asking? It could be worse – at least they mention the word “independent”. But why leave that until right at the end of a long sentence? And why use the word “state”? What’s wrong with asking, “Should Scotland become an independent country? Yes or No.”

Would it be cynical to suggest that they are hoping to win over some extra “yes” voters by dressing up the question in such a manner? “It’s right at the end of the sentence, so that must mean that perhaps sometime in the future, Scotland might be independent. At the moment, we’ll just be negotiating… So it won’t hurt to vote Yes…”

What do they mean by “state” anyway? Nation state? Why not use the words nation or country? Another issue here is that the SNP are strongly pro-European – a sentiment perhaps not shared by the average Scottish voter. So it’s clear why they don’t say, “independent state within the European Union.” After all, “member state” is Euro-speak.

Last time there were referendums, on the question of devolved assemblies for Wales and Scotland, the government indulged in what could be described as temporal gerrymandering by scheduling the Welsh referendum for the week after the Scottish one, instead of holding them on the same day as would have been logical. Seeing the rejoicing Scots celebrating their “yes” vote inevitably spurred more people in Wales on to vote “yes” – or perhaps more significantly, to turn out and vote when they might not have done.

The ballot paper layouts proved to be confusing too, with two statements, “I agree that there should be a Scottish Parliament” and “I do not agree that there should be a Scottish Parliament.” Some people decided to voice their opposition by writing “No” next to the first statement. Was this counted as a “Yes”, a “No” or a spoilt paper?

Often referendums seem a good idea for resolving all sorts of political issues. But perhaps the few attempts we’ve had at holding them in the UK have shown that sometimes, in a parliamentary democracy, decisions are best left to elected representatives. Otherwise they’ll make sure they get the answer they wanted anyway.

Recently it occurred to me that when I’m writing my name or introducing myself, I never include a title: I’m simply Jonathan Rawle. The question of titles is particularly significant for me at the moment, as people who know me might understand… Anyway, my preference is not to use a title, and when I’m addressing an envelope to someone I know, I tend to write their name without a title too. I must admit, however, that if I’m writing a formal letter, particularly to an older person, I do tend to use a title and surname.

Unfortunately, when filling in a form, either on paper or on the web, they tend to have fields labelled “Title”, “Forename(s)” and “Surname”, forcing a title to be used. On the web, the Title field is often in the form of a drop-down box with a selection of titles. It seems that I’m not the only person who is annoyed by this (or, even, who thinks about this) as I found this excellent page discussing the issue:
http://www.siliconglen.com/usability/courtesytitles.html
Here, Amazon.com are praised for providing a single field in which a name can be entered in any form the customer so desires. However, I don’t agree with the article where it suggests that a suitable way to form salutation is to prefix this name with “Dear” – if I receive an e-mail that begins “Dear Jonathan Rawle”, I just think, “There’s an automated e-mail generated by a computer.”

I’d previously looked out for for the longest drop-down list of alternate titles. The best I came up with was the Institute of Physics’s membership details page, with 29 titles. However, the page above points to British Airways, who offer no fewer than 203 to choose from! (Click “Sign up” or “Register” to see it.)

Unfortunately, even BA’s list is far from perfect. Unlike the IoP, BA won’t let you be both a Eur Ing and a Dr. And funnily enough, I’d always thought “Barones” ended with double-S. That’s not to mention that, despite what some news sources would have you believe, to mention no names (and it is one of my pet hates), “Lord” or “Baroness” are a part of real titles, not mere prefixes – something else BA’s form doesn’t allow for. But that’s an issue I’ll leave until another day.

Today finally sees the launch of my new website, which has been several months in the making. Most of the old features are still here, perhaps in new locations, so please have a careful look around if you followed a broken link in.

Of couse, the major new feature is the tab labelled “Weblog”. I’m not yet sure exactly what I’m going to write here – maybe it’ll be updated reguarly, or perhaps it’ll end up just carrying news of updates to the site. Let’s wait and see!