Archive for April, 2008
BBC Radio Sheffield
As part of the Debating Matters publicity drive, we were asked to go and be part of Radio Sheffield’s daily Rony’s Forum with Rony Robinson, a seasoned presenter. So the Friday after the competition (I know, it’s taken me ages to get this post written) we headed down to the central studio with the head. Entering, the four of us split into two pairs and we went on for blocks of half and hour and fourty five minutes per pair; I was in the first. The show is a phone-in discussion idea so after I explained the competition we had won, we were involved in discussions over animal cruelty with regard to horse racing, new words that have appeared based on the Internet (embarrassingly I knew only a few of them). I wasn’t as eloquent as I wanted due to being shocked somewhat by hearing my own voice at a very loud volume in the headphones I was wearing, and the other pair (Tom and Andrew, I was with Orowa) were far more philosophical and thoughtful than I was. But it was a very interesting experience and I think we put on a good show. The programme says they may try and get young people in more often because their show, given its time of twelve until three and given its content is very much aimed at the middle-aged and they would like to encourage wider listenership.
However what was probably more interesting was observing the producer get to work behind the scenes while my comrades were on the air. What a fantastic job. With one touch screen managing the eight phone lines, switches allowing messages to be spoken into the presenter’s earphones, texts and e-mails coming in on another screen, sending instant messages to the presenter, checking that he has his volume sliders in the right place with another display… and then when things are quiet for a bit when Rony was talking away to one of us, they popped over to facebook. The producers were very happy to explain what they were doing and answer our questions: the main one had newsread and presented on Radio 4 so we were with good company! I learnt a lot about a very interesting job. One thing that stands out in my mind is how just before the news Rony gestured frantically as he was going through ‘this is BBC Radio Sheffield, now time for the news with…’ but after a quick grab of the ‘talkback’ microphone from the producer he was supplied and integrated flawlessly the newsreader’s name.
Repairing Zephyr
In the brightness of a Cyrodiil dawn, Xyrael the Elite Spellsword charged upon the besieged Battlehorn Castle. With his sword Umbra drawn he hurled fireballs in to disrupt the attacking marauders, and… everything went black: my computer Zephyr entirely overheated. Turning it back on I immeadiately went to the system monitor and observed a processor temperature of ~96C which after a second of shock from me caused the computer to turn itself off. Allowing it to cool and turning on again confirmed the situation: something was going seriously wrong with my CPU cooling and I was in danger of literally melting the CPU.
A little explanation is perhaps in order here. CPUs, that is the brains of computers, get incredibly hot for reasons beyond my pathetic knowledge of hardware. Thus they need to be cooled in order to work effectively. When I built my computer I used the standard cooling method of thermal paste transferring heat to a bronze (or some bronze-looking metal) heatsink which was then cooled by a reasonably powerful fan. When I told my hardware friend Phil about what was happening, he told me to clean the CPU with the common household item of ‘rubbing alcohol‘ and redo the thermal paste. So I set about getting hold of this so-called rubbing alcohol. For starters, I can’t buy it as it is 70% alcohol so I got my mother to pop into Wickes on the way home from the gym. Thus, I ordered a large bottle off eBay, spending around £10 in total including delivery. The costs of building your own computer add up…
After cleaning the CPU and heatsink carefully, and after spending a great deal of time trying to find my tiny tube of thermal grease, I fired up the computer again, and unfortunately the same overheating occurred – albeit a little slower than before. I was at a loss. By this point I hadn’t had my normal computer working for roughly a week and that was limiting things that I needed to do. In despair, I tried again but this time kept the tower of my computer on its side in order to ensure that gravity wasn’t perhaps pulling the fan less than a millimeter from where it should be, preventing effective cooling. This time, I was more careful in my securing of the fan’s pins to try and stop it from popping back again. By fastening a slightly dodgy corner down first it seems I managed to keep the fan where it should be and now the computer is working fine again. Hopefully this won’t happen again.
Debating (really) Matters
Today was the regional final of the Debating Matters competition, which I have written about before. I was pulled in to join a team that was rapidly disintegrating due to a history exam taking out a third of it, and babysitting removing one of the initial replacements. The day opened in high spirits, Owen and myself taking on the task of defending, from the opposition bench, the BBC’s continued public funding. I wasn’t too happy with my opening three minute speech; for me the short speeches followed by collecting questions at once to be answered from judges, the other team and the audience isn’t ideal as I prefer the sustained oratory of the Mace. But we got stuck in to the debate and succesfully took it. The big issue though from the judge’s feedback was the way that they wanted us to give specific examples and give some detailed research. Other judges in this and other competitions have told us entirely the opposite! We always aim to look at the bigger picture, get to the heart of the matter (there are only actually about six debates around), and be ideological about things as motions are generally ideological affairs. But this competition seems to be more focussed on responding to the current and historical context of the motion rather than taking a philosophical, abstract, theoretical standpoint as we are proudly used to doing.
In the second debate our way of working really became obvious in the sense that it differed from the competition’s expectations. The motion was that ‘happiness should be a key goal of government policy’ and our side proposed this using the concept of eudaimonia, which we thought was a strong case that could provide a good debate. However, the judges attacked the lack of specific policies intended to bring about happiness – surely the motion was not about this! We tried to debate the motion, it seemed we were meant to be politicians. This meant that despite a poor case from the opposition we lost that round. However, due to the extremely complicated streaming system this still put us through to the final and the debaters for the second debate, Tom M-W and Andrew, went forward to oppose the motion that ‘excessive bureaucracy is keeping drugs from patients who need them’. The proposition read a prepared speech and kept repeating themselves, and Tom and Andrew managed to take it by providing and arguing with specific examples, and keeping to a team line. Thus we are through to the London final, with the intention of bringing along the whole squad of competative debaters for a valuable experience. MP3 players all round was another part of our victory (plus subscriptions to Britannica, brrr).
The issue with the focus of this competition was a problem for us, even if the format wasn’t. In fact, the format really did favour the intellectually very strong but less debating-experienced Tom, where the questioning suited his highly destructive style perfectly. For me, the speeches are too short and there is no chance to build up much of a case. But the competition’s focus on research was a problem for most of us. At the end of the first debate the chair told me (nicely!) that he thought I had given three minutes of virtually no actual material and that my speech had been a bit of a waste of time, in a sense. It may not have been perfect, but I believe I clearly laid out the case that the BBC’s quality and diversity could not remain if it were not publicly funded. Giving examples of programs and naming examples of controversies is not part of what debating should be about.
Whatever my criticisms of the competition, it is a great initiative for spreading debating to those who are less interested in oratory and rhetoric, so I really do salute the organisers (I signed up for the possible volunteers database for regional rounds). On to London, and to the battle there.