TUTORIAL IT

An Open Letter to Manchester Cathedral and the CoE about secular digital guidelines

Dear Very Reverend Rogers Govender,

This open letter is in response to the article located here in the Times, which details four "sacred digital guidelines" youve created for games developers to sign up to. For completeness these rules are:

1. Respect our sacred spaces as places of prayer, worship, peace, learning and heritage.

2. Do not assume that sacred space interiors are copyright free.

3. Get permission from the faith leaders who are responsible for the building interiors you want to clone.

4. Support the work of those engaged in resisting the culture of gun crime and those involved in promoting the work of conflict resolution.

Whilst I agree entirely with number 4, I, and many others, have concerns with the first 3 guidelines. As is often the case with freedom of speech and censorship you have to defend works of little value to protect the rights of those which are of worth. As in defending the puerile and offensive Danish Mohammad cartoons in order that intellectually stimulating works like "Jerry Springer the Opera" and "The Satanic Verses" are also defended. I feel this is the case with the mediocre "Resistance: Fall of Man." Whilst R:FoM did not itseld critique the Church of England, your response would curtail that ability.

As such, I feel it is necessary to reply with this open letter (which will be located on http://skeptobot.blogspot.com) with the following "secular digital guidelines" that I wish the CoE to sign up to when interacting with "new digital media" which includes, but is not limited too, games, blogs, social networks, MMOGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Games), online video and podcasts.

These "Secular digital guidelines" are:

1. Respect our right to criticise and ridicule elements of a faith we find offensive or untrue.

To do so is an attempt to close down dialogue that can improve both the secular and religious world views. No one likes being offended by something, but thankfully "not being offended" is not a human right.

2. Do not assume that you own the copyright of your sacred spaces and other historical religious imagery.

Manchester Cathedral (which began being built in 1215) is like most religious buildings in the UK, in that it was constructed during a Feudal system of government and church that exploited and tithed the populace to build such buildings. As such the general public has as much right to the image of the church as any member of the faith. Let alone the idea of copyright lasting 800 years. And this is before any consideration of fair use.

3. Do not assume that people must get permission to recreate and image these religious spaces and works.

Whilst clearly, any considerate artist, composer, writer, blogger, podcaster or designer, should inform you of their intentions, do not presume they require your permission. For example politically critical television shows would fall apart if they had to get permissions for all their satirical works. To require permission from such people effectively acts as a form of censorship.

4. Support the attempts to reduce the conflict, violence, wars and terrorism caused by differing religious beliefs.

Whilst adults playing violent video games may indeed concern you, many secular and religous people, who can distinguish between reality and fantasy, would rather you focus your efforts on the real world violence caused by religion.

This is not meant to be critical of your faith, and in no way ignores the countless good works of the CoE but is just encourage proper interaction in this new electronic landscape of communication, debate and dialogue - where everyone owns a printing press.

I you support this proposal I include a form for you to print, sign and return, as well as a hard copy that will be posted today. If you do not support it, then I politely request an explanation why, that can be included on the site.

Best Regards,

Skeptobot

Available link for download

An 8 Letter Word for the Ultimate Sport

For you who wasted the winter by not studying such stuff, the answers are below. The rest of you probably are SABRmetricians. Tim Kurkjian of ESPN (do you know that more than 10 American children have been named Espn?) recalls a convention of the Society for American Baseball Research:

"Who from SABR might know where I can find the all-time list of pinch-hit, extra-inning grand slams? I asked the very first man I saw at the convention. The man smiled and -- I am not making this up -- pulled the list from his breast pocket. I have it right here, he said."

Available link for download

An Open Letter To IPCC Chairman Rajendra K Pachauri

Available link for download

Alphabet Gems Letter Matching Game

Available link for download

An open letter to Lord Drayson

A brief email Ive just sent to Lord Paul Drayson on a minor comment he just made during the excellent debate he had with Ben Goldacre earlier this evening at the Ri. Whilst this topic is funny, the genuine fear Ive seen in people means that I must mention it.

Dear Lord Drayson,

Firstly, congratulations with the debate. I think you raised some very valid points. Furthermore, I commend you for reaching out via such debates and twitter.

However, I feel I must quickly raise an issue I had with a comment you made at the end of the debate. Just minutes ago, you declared that the medias coverage over whether the LHC could pull the Earth into a black hole was a GOOD thing. You suggest that it got people interested and thinking and that this sensationalism was good for science.

I must strongly disagree. I have a PhD in Physics and as a result, during the course of my work (and in the course of my blog) I have had to explain, comfort and reassure numerous members of the public that they were not under threat from Physicists stepping on the toes of the gods. People have come to me explaining that their children were in tears and couldnt sleep with fear. Whilst we all found it funny, It was not a joke to them.

I might even go further and suggest that you believe that these outrageous statements are justified because deep down no one really took the medias story seriously. In doing so, you are relying on the very same mistrust of the media that you earlier claimed did not exist.

Whilst I do not wish to inflate the importance of this issue, I do feel you should know the pain it caused a small minority of people and the issue this presents for mainstream media. The coverage of the LHC was lacking. I shall be posting this email as an open message on my blog tomorrow.

Best Regards,
Bill

Just a comment about the blog, its NOT dead. My excuse is that I have been suffering from severe 2nd degree burns on my leg and foot and so have been in and out of hospital for FAR TOO LONG now. As I get better the site should come back to life.

Available link for download