The walk is a train lover’s dream. The walk runs parallel to the train line for about 1.5km, and the views of the Georges River make for a very idyllic setting.

Below are some photos of the walk that I took this morning, I even scored a wave from the driver of a coal train.

The video describes the search for sub-atomic particles in a non-technical manner and is very engaging. I loved it.

The Higgs Boson Explained from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

One of the last chapters of the book focuses on language from the time of the Space Race. In particular, the following excerpt about words from the 1970s is just as true today:

In  1959, in one of those delving into the future that magazines found so satisfying at the time, Newsweek presented this confident scenario for the lucky housewife of 1979: ‘Waking to cool 1970-style music from a tiny phonograph built into her pillow, the housewife yawned, flicked a bedside switch to turn on the electronic recipe-maker, then rose and stepped into her ultrasonic shower.’

Among the many things Newsweek’s soothsayer failed to foresee was that by 1979 the housewife would be an endangered species. What the world got instead were words like workaholic, drive-by shootings, crack cocaine, AIDS, repetitive stress injury, gridlock and serial killer. We’re still waiting for the ultrasonic shower.

Personally, I am still waiting for my jetpack.

Overall the book is an easy read and does well to outline the various techniques used in convincing people of arguments such as only counting up successes as evidence and ignoring failures, people claiming to have hidden knowledge and ways in which smoke screens are created to convince people of mysteries.

My biggest criticism of the book is Law’s treatment of religious belief. In the introduction he states:

True, I illustrate how even core mainstream religious beliefs are sometimes promoted and defended by means of strategies covered in this book. But that’s not meant to show that beliefs in question are false, or that they couldn’t be given a proper, robust defence. Just because some religious people chose to defend what they believe by dubious means doesn’t entail that no one can reasonably hold those same beliefs.

However, he then goes on throughout the book to continually misrepresent, attack, and deconstruct religious beliefs – especially Christianity. In many of the techniques discussed Law shows how people who hold particular religious views use the techniques. However, in many of these examples he has highlighted an extreme minority view and presented it as mainstream – for example confusing Christian Science with mainstream Christianity. Or in order to validate his own point sourced random blog, forum, and chatroom postings online.

For a book coming for someone within the academic community I expected more solid references and arguments. This is disappointing as the issues discussed in the book are valid but are let down through poor examples.

In summary, Believing Bullshit is a worthwhile read and one can get a better understanding of how not to get fooled by creative arguments, but don’t get sucked into its own misrepresentation of extremist Christian viewpoints as mainstream Christian beliefs.

Technically “Dunbar’s number,” a theoretical limit that pegs the number of social relationships one can maintain at somewhere between 100 and 230, applied to everyone, but I couldn’t help but take it personally.

Fast forward to late 2011. I had more than 2,000 Facebook friends. I’d singlehandedly disproved the Brit’s sociological theorem. Did I interact with every one of those 2,000 people? No. But they showed up in my News Feed. And wasn’t that enough?

Not for Dunbar, apparently. He was looking for individual interactions. Well, I thought, if that’s all it takes to disprove Dunbar’s number, then that’s what I’ll do: I’ll write personal letters to every one of my 2,000 Facebook friends.

His conclusions are:

My experiment’s outcome was crystal clear: Dunbar’s number kicked my ass.

In trying to disprove Dunbar’s number, I actually proved it. I proved that even if you’re aware of Dunbar’s number, and even if you set aside a chunk of your life specifically to broaden your social capital, you can only maintain so many friendships. And “so many” is fewer than 200.

Writing my Facebook “friends” had taken over my time. I was breaking plans with real friends to send meaningless messages to strangers. Some of the strangers didn’t respond, and many of those who did respond only confirmed Dunbar’s theory.

…

I walk away from this experiment with a newfound respect for 1) British anthropology and 2) My real friends. There aren’t too many of them, I now see. So I better treat them well.

For around a year now I have been trying to cut down my friend list on Facebook.

When I fist joined Facebook, Bebo and MySpace in 2006/2007 bragging rights were to be had about who had the highest friend totals. By mid 2010 I had 500 friends. However, the more friends I had, as the author of the Wired article also experienced, the less time I spent with friends in real life. I also noted that the general mood of many posts on Facebook is negative and this brought down my own mood.

Over the last year I have halved my Facebook friend list. I have essentially created a rule for myself for deciding friendships. If I have not interacted with someone in the last two years then they are not really a friend. I have also removed and/or unsubscribed from people who post excessive amounts on Facebook.

Personally, I used to be one of those annoying people who always posted multiple times a day. One of my goals this year is to cut down on that and at the moment I am being rather successful in limiting myself to one post per day. I am also rather regularly spending evenings offline and doing stuff in the real world.

I would not say that these changes have been the magic bullet in making me feel happier. I still struggle with loneliness living so far away from many of my best friends and family – and Facebook is a vital tool in maintaining long distance friendships. However, the actions that I have taken have made me value and spend more time building deeper friendships with the people who are really worth it.

What I have also found fascinating over the last year is that I am not the only geek who is feeling these things and heading in the switch off social media direction. Geeks have this great stereotype of hiding away in dark corners and keeping to themselves. However, it seems there is a limit to how much virtual interaction we can engage in before we need to experience some real world friendship too.

The event was really fun and there was a carnival like atmosphere there. The game itself was great, despite India being very much off form. Below are a few photos from the night.

The quality of the concert was exceptional. There were a number of violin and saxophone solos and the orchestra overall sounded superb.

Most of the music performed was not very well known. But the rendition of The Blue Danube Waltz was brilliant, and the traditional final piece Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture rounded out a very good evening.

Below is a video of the last three minutes of the 1812 Overture with the full fireworks and cannon display.

“…America as a nation produces twice the goods and services per person that it produced in 1948. Everyone in the country could, in principal at least, work a four-hour day or a six-month year and still maintain a standard of living equivalent to that enjoyed [back then]… [however,] America took none of its productivity gains in additional leisure. It bought consumer items instead.”

Bill Bryson, Made in America.

The above quote comes from a book first published in 1994. By now I would imagine the productivity rate would be even higher. Yet somehow we find ourselves working even harder and longer with that desire for more, more, and more.

Over the past few days I have been pondering my own productivity. Like many people over the last few weeks I have been on leave. A time when people should take a break from their daily grind to relax. Instead I have found myself doing all those things that I have let pile up over the past few months and the more things I have done the more things I remember I have to do and the more burnt out I feel.

Some of these things are personal, like cleaning up around the house, reading, and shopping. However, many other things on my list of things to do are items I would still consider work such as editing websites for friends or even attending social functions.

Now some of this non-primary work is good, it allows us to develop other skills through hobbies and the like. But it also means that we are never getting rest. We are always go, go, go.

A lot of course has been written about work/life balance and my desire isn’t to rehash all that.

Instead I just wonder if in a world of instant everything if we can ever truly get a break?

I would love to spend a few days with no cellphone, no social media, absolutely nothing instant. Not for the torture of it, but instead for the benefit of my mind and body to release.

The problem is in the past I have turned off my cellphone for only a few hours and people have started to panic because I haven’t replied to text-messages.

Yesterday I found myself with a desire to avoid the internet most of the day, until ironically, I found myself tweeting that I wanted a cave to hide in. Even in my desire to escape the system I found myself expressing myself through it – in a way a lot like this blog when published will.

I wonder what people would think if we started to say no a lot more. Not out of spite, but out of control. No I am not going to do that extra work, no it is fine as it is, no I need time to myself. But instead perfectionism has become a curse to our modern existence. Instead of accepting things for how they are I am constantly thinking what others will think and if only I had more time!

How much improved would life be if one really did only work a four hour, or even a true eight hour day? Not eight hours plus working on that portfolio, researching new techniques, and freelancing at night. But eight hours of work and eight of leisure, true leisure, relaxing leisure, real escapism.

Maybe one day I will get a chance to experience this utopia but right now as I am “escaping” through the writing of this post I am also glancing at twitter, checking cellphones, and thinking about where I need to be in the next hour, what I need to do tonight, my plans for the next week, and how I can make this post more perfect.

Maybe the first step to escaping is to create an off button for the mind.

It’s just a thought.