Spring is certainly trying to be sprung, as these daffs testify, but the Winter blasts keep coming back…
Daffodils In St Johns Church Glastonbury
Archive for March, 2010
Spring Tries Its Level Best
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010Wholefood shop’s new location: bad move?
Friday, March 26th, 2010What a mistake to move the wholefood shop to the defunct Woolworths premises.
The place is just plain ugly. And in comparison to the charming building that used to house the business, it’s positively hideous. Lost and naked, caught with its trousers down, it looks even worse than Woolworths used to look.
It used to be that I might wander into the wholefood shop, just because it looked so nice. Like as not, I would usually end up buying some of the goodies, despite the fact that they were overpriced. The environment was good. You felt healthier the moment you walked in. At the entrance, with its multifarious notices, you felt part of the local community. It was what you’d expect a Glastonbury whole food shop to look like.
Now I don’t really want to walk on the same side of the street.
What were they thinking? Was this to increase profits? If so then I wonder if people will think twice before legging it further up the High Street, to buy expensive whole foods from this new location, wrapped in its brutalist lineaments behind those ghastly plate glass windows.
From this ...
... to this
The Impossible Opinion Poll
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
If there was a survey which asked people “whether or not they told the truth to opinion polls”, and if the overwhelming majority said that they did not, what would we make of it?
If the response was true, then it would be false, and if the response was false, then it would be true.
Imagine a man makes a response, saying, “No, I don’t tell the truth to opinion polls.”
This response cannot be false. But also, it cannot be true.
The response can’t be false, because, if false, it would entail that he does tell the truth to opinion polls, in which case he wouldn’t have given that response.
But, if the response is true, then he must be lying (if it’s true that he doesn’t tell the truth to opinion polls, then he wouldn’t admit to it). Therefore, he must be lying in this instance, which means he really does tell the truth to opinion polls. But then, if he really does tell the truth, then his response was true, which means he does not lie to opinion polls – in which case his answer must be true, and so the analysis of the response as true begins again, and the whole thing goes on, ad infinitum.
An habitual liar therefore cannot sensibly answer the question in the negative, because, if the response is true, then it is false; and if it is false, then it is true. The liar must therefore always respond by saying, “Yes, I tell the truth.”
And a person who does always tell the truth to opinion polls would also say, “Yes, I tell the truth.”
Therefore the only answer you can ever get from anyone regarding this question, regardless of whether they lie or not, is, “Yes, I tell the truth.”
So in this case we know the answers we should get, even before we ask the question (even if we don’t know the actual distribution of truth-tellers and fibbers).
Today’s Tor Pic
Saturday, March 6th, 2010Actually this is yesterday’s – Friday. Still freezing here in Glastonbury. When will this Winter go?!?
Today’s Tor Pic
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
Personal Astrological Birth Charts Coded
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010Personal astrological birth charts are now available in the astro section. It was indeed an interesting exercise in coding with web services, parsing xml, and what-have-you. The place search seems quite responsive to ordinary requests, such as ‘Glastonbury UK’ or ‘Glastonbury USA’. The time zone and daylight savings are from the Olson tz data, and they seem pretty accurate, though I haven’t tested them that much. Core astrological data is powered by Walter Pullen’s Astrolog. If anyone spots any glaring blunders, do let me know! Maybe I’ll try to include PDF downloads of charts and interpretations if I get round to it…
