Computers
Blog, Rebooted
After years of dragging my feet, I have finally designed a new theme for my blog, using the Foundation CSS package. Along with the new theme, I have updated the information on all of the static pages and moved it to GitHub pages. Perhaps most importantly, I have renamed and rebranded in order to reflect my evolving identity, both personally and politically; my blog is now called The Political Physicist.
FORD: FORtran Documentation
Over Christmas break I’ve been working on this project to produce documentation for Fortran programs. I’ve (just) managed to finish it before school starts again! Here is the README for it, containing the documentation which I wrote. You can find the code on Github.
A (Not as Brief as I’d Hoped) Fortran Tutorial
Fortran, which stands for FORmula TRANslator, is the oldest high level programming language and remains, albeit with significant improvements, one of the main languages used by physicists. Most computational physics is done using Fortran and this is the language typically used in SMU’s Computational Methods for Physicists class. This introduction will show you how to use various useful features of the language in its modern form. It will do this by defining a problem which we wish a program to solve and then showing how to write such a program.
Politics
Beyond Local Energy: Delivering Public Power
Rhetorically, Labour has fully committed itself to fighting climate change and recognises that public ownership of energy will be vital in doing so. However, as yet they do not have a practical plan for achieving this. As I have explained previously, Labour’s policy proposals on green energy and climate ...
Beyond Slogans: Sketching a Green New Deal
The last few months have seen an impressive shift in public discussion on how to address climate change. Thanks in large part to newly-elected democratic socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the concept of a “Green New Deal” has come to the fore. This marks a significant move away from previous policy ...
Labour’s Energy Plans: Technically Questionable, Politically Vacuous
During last year’s conference, the Labour Party made headlines with its seemingly bold promises on energy and climate change. These included a massive build-out of wind turbines, solar panels, and a housing retrofit programme. We were promised that these pledges would be elaborated on in a report to be ...
Science
The Mathematics of Protest
I read a very interesting article in New Scientist magazine the other day which gave a mathematical and statistical examination of protest, in particular the recent protests in Brazil. It discussed how this sort of unrest spreads in much the same way as diseases and forest fires.
Thoughts
Inequality is in the Air
It’s been the time of year for flying. There have been some many advances in the last few years. However, by and large, only those people who inexplicably manage to end up in business class are able to experience them. But what could flying under socialism be like?
Tsipras, go to Hell
Once the initial disappointment was over, I was able to step back and appreciate that this was a rather infantile post. While I stand by my comments that Tsipras was naive and feel that, if they weren’t going to use it to fight back against the EU, calling the referendum was ultimately harmful because of the ensuing economic turmoil, name calling such as this is not very helpful. On the other hand, I don’t wish to erase history, so I have decided to leave the post up, but with this disclaimer.
The Rights and Wrongs of Remembrance
Well, it’s that time of year again. 95 years and 362 days ago we saw the Armistice that ended World War I. This marked the end of the first case technological war, which caused the world to realize the horrors that could be inflicted by industrial-scale killing. It was a horrible, pointless event in which some 16 million people lost their lives. I tend to identify as a moderate pacifist. My relative pacifism results in me having rather ambivalent feelings towards Remembrance Day. These are difficult to put into words, but I’m going to try my best here.
