Technical Problems

Sorry for the hiatus from posting folks. Blogger seems to be having some technical difficulties with uploading images, and I've been chiefly trying to share some recent images with you all. Since I've yet to receive any word back from blogger's support team, I'm sending those of you who might be interested to the Flickr page for updates on what we've been up to. Just follow the link to Andrew's Flickr page on the sidebar.

The headlines are:

Last weekend we entertained Laura's dad Mike. Laura and Mike went off for a nice walk round Burbage valley on the Saturday morning, while I was stuck at home having a rather awkward house chat with one of our housemates. The chat was aimed at resolving some difficulties we've been having with him not pulling his weight on the cleaning/cooking/generally contributing front. We all decided, without nearly as much awkwardness as I was expecting, that it was best if he moved out. So come August it should just be Jane & Steve, Laura & me, and occasionally Professor Bob Hale. Hooray for our cosy little den!

After this I joined Laura and Mike for a home-made picnic at Grindleford Station, followed by a saunter around Chatsworth, including some award-winning ice cream. After this we took afternoon tea in Bakewell then later an evening of Sushi with our friend Jules.

The one and only picture I got around to taking all weekend (the housemate situation had me flustered and I kept forgetting to take my camera with me) is of Laura and Mike at lunch on Sunday afternoon at a great pub called The Cricket out in Totley. The food is scrumptious there, and for anyone in the area I thoroughly recommend a visit.

Laura has been adding that proverbial 'woman's touch' to our room with some nice plants, pictures of which you will find on Flickr. I was hoping to upload pictures of both the citrus tree and the Orchid, but it turns out I've run out of space for the month, so all you are getting is the Citrus tree.

Yesterday and today are departmental 'research away days', meaning we're both holed up in a conference room with a bunch of philosophers learning about having a career in academia. It's not nearly as tedious as it sounds, especially because everything, including food is laid on free by the department. I presented a ten minute summary of my thesis yesterday, which seemed to go down reasonably well, and we enjoyed several other such summaries, right up until my back started to give in and we decided to take a break. We returned later for free Indian food however, and had a lively evening of socialising and free wine. Today Brad Hooker will be talking to us about current developments in moral philosophy and how to get published.

Pandora's Box

Three pieces of (vaguely) music-related news.

First, I've been taking some photos this morning for the monthly competition on myfuji.com, which I try to enter as regularly as I can. The competitions are useful for the very large number of comments one typically receives. The theme is 'straight lines' and my chosen subject was my acoustic guitar (a Takamine TD-32 for anyone who might care). Two of the batch, done in black and white came out quite nicely, so I've stuck them on my Flickr page. Comments/suggestions are gratefully received.

Second, I've discovered this great new web-radio thing called Pandora, an offshoot of the 'music genome project'. The project is a massive database of music organised and interrelated based on its musical characteristics, i.e. things like its tonality, rhythmic pattern, style of arrangement, use of vocal harmony and so on. Pandora is a web-radio station that you can customise by entering bands or artists you like: Pandora will then use the genome database to select other music with the same musical 'genes'. This means it's a great way to discover new music, though not by any means an infallible one, since there is plenty of very bad music out there with the same musical characteristics as what we consider to be good music. Still, Pandora 'learns' as you listen - you give each tune that plays a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and Pandora will change its future selections accordingly. You can also add multiple artists to one radio station to skew its choice in a certain direction. Its dead easy to use and you can find it here.

Finally, I've recently created a MySpace page for one of my many music side projects 'Best Boy Electric'. It's electronic music, made on my Mac when I need a creative outlet but can't be bothered with guitars and microphones, so it's probably not something most of you would enjoy, but if any of you are curious about what keeps me sane while writing this thesis (besides Laura) please visit and (if possible) enjoy.

The Compassionate Omnivore

I've been considering eating meat again lately. It's not that I crave the stuff, I'm not actually that fond of most kinds of meat. It's also not for nutritional reasons, though admittedly meat makes getting complete protein a lot easier (many people don't realise we vegetarians have to combine foods quite carefully to ensure we get enough protein - either that or eat Quinoa every day). It was a colleague of mine who recently pointed out that there might be good ethical reason - at least for someone like me who doesn't object to eating animals in principle - for buying meat occasionally, thereby supporting what's known as the 'compassionate omnivore' movement. This just means buying high-welfare organic meat, thereby ensuring that the relatively few farmers out there who treat their animals well can make a decent living. I was also spurred on by this piece on a philosophy blog I read. Here's an excerpt from the conclusion.

I suspect that most non-compassionate omnivores are simply unaware of what happens to the animals whose meat they eat. Luckily, I have just given the readers of this blog the means of disabusing themselves of any misconceptions they might understandably have about how modern farm animals are often raised. As a result, ignorance will not suffice as a justification. Moreover, neither will simply pointing out how delicious meat is. After all, I have not suggested that people should not eat meat at all. I have only suggested that certain forms of meat eating are morally suspect. Indeed, if anything, the meat produced by small family farms that treat their animals well and do not pump them full of hormones and antibiotics should taste better than meat produced by confinement agriculture--plus, it's better for you. This leaves cost as perhaps the main justification for eating factory farmed meat. But I am skeptical that enough moral mileage can be gotten out of cost alone to justify the practice under consideration. Would the people in this country really be that worse off if they ate meat a little less often? The statistics concerning obesity suggest we could all stand to eat a little less of nearly everything (except perhaps fruits and vegetables!). So, what (if anything) justifies non-compassionate omnivorism?

Gregor's Day

Can this really be the first time we've posted since Laura got here? Scandalous isn't it? We have some sort of excuse, in that I've been snowed under with work, as usual and we spent this past weekend in Livingston with my parents. This visit was in honour of my nephew Gregor, for whom Ruth and Dean decided to hold a little ceremony to welcome him into the family and into the world. It wasn't a fancy or formal affair, just a few nice poetic readings, the planting of a lovely little tree, and a lot of eating and drinking. Nevertheless, there was sunshine aplenty, much enjoyable and raucous banter and even an impromptu boules tournament on the lawn. I've posted a selection of photos from the event on my Flickr page, a link for which you'll find on the sidebar on the right of this page.