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Royal Institute Christmas Lectures
category9 writes "One of the best xmas tv highlights for us chaps in the UK is the RI Christmas Letures. Once broadcast by the BBC, Channel4 now have the helm. Past lecturers include the world renowed cybernetics engineer, Prof. Kevin Warwick. This year Sir John Sulston, of Human Genome Project fame, will be talking about genetics and the building blocks of life over 5 lectures. This is a must see for anyone interested in artificial intelligence. The lectures are presented in a format which allows technical detail, but in a way very accessible to those outside the particilar scientific fields. The website has transcripts for anyone not able to receive Channel4, perhaps with streams coming at a later date (lobby Channel4 if you must)."
It seemed a bit bland this year, I saw some of Adam-hart Davis' program on BBC2 by accident, which seemed more interesting even though it lacked depth, before switching over to C4. Maybe some of the other lectures will be more entertaining.
We have a Dish at work (I work at a cell store) and we get the BBC but I don't know if it was on. Not to mention the fact that I wasn't here.
I have to agree. The Discovery channel doesn't cover anything like this. They always have some dumbed down version of everything "science" that pre-schoolers can understand. I have yet to find a discovery program that confuses me or makes me look up words on the 'Net or a dictionary. The Discovery channel IMHO is good to get people interest but not to go in depth into anything.
Discovery Science and Discovery Wings is pretty good, alot more technical than just plain Discovery. No show on tv is going to start throwing out equations at you
I don't think you can get a hell of a lot more dumbed down than "Professor" Kevin Warwick.
"This year Sir John Sulston, of Human Genome Project fame, will be talking about genetics and the building blocks of life over 5 lectures. This is a must see for anyone interested in artificial intelligence. " The only way I can see him tieing this into AI is by describing the parallels between neural nets and low order organisms Kick ass website
Help pay for my wedding! Go to my kickass website
Does this mean that UK's Boxing Day is over and everybody can surf the *.uk sites again? :)
Zodiac Survey
There should be. I would watch a show/channel that actually made me think, even a little. But for the most part they don't. Once in a blue moon a decent program comes on that makes you think about the topic that they are talking about, but they are all for entertainment. Um... isn't that what TV is for? Nevermind, my fire on this just went out.
You clearly don't read The Register. Warwick is a joke in the Artificial Intelligence community, regarded by most as little more than a publicity hound. He used to go around saying that we would all be human slaves in a robot nation by the year 2000. At the time he came to my university to debate some of the professors in our Artificial Intelligence department, and they mopped the floor with him.
Having milked the world of Artificial Intelligence for all the publicity it was worth, he then installed one of those chips they use for tracking dogs in his arm and started claiming that he was the first Cyborg...
Do a search for "Captain Cyborg" at The Register to learn more about this guy, he gives science a bad name.
Of course TV is for entertainment. Who the hell is entertained by "Royal Institute Christmas Lectures"?? If I wanted to learn anything I'd go to college but TV is for keeping me entertained. Preferably shows with big breasted blonde women and comedies.. both if possible. Maybe football.
I went to these as a kid, very cool lectures covering some suprisingly difficult stuff with the usual obfuscating crap removed. It was also the only time I got to see TV crews and the amount of hassle it takes to make television, so a learning process on two fronts. If you can get to see one or two of these lectures, do.
Downside: Eventually you get to university and get taught exactly the same thing with the obfuscating crap put back in again. By the same people.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
"Using television receiving equipment to receive or record broadcast television programmes without the correct license is a criminal offense."
:-) Do the secret police beat down your door and arrest you if you don't have your license up to date? Please, someone tell me this is a joke. A license to watch a TV. hahahaha.
This site has got to be a joke. I can't believe even the socialist Brits would do anything this nuts. Check out their roaming "detector vans".
That would be nice if it was up today. What's up with that? It's been down all day today. I need my daily dose of The Register like I need my dose of Slashdot.
Zodiac Survey
I have been reading it all morning.
Until the majority of people in the country have an interest in science beyond 'press the button, the box in the corner soothes my confused little mind,' the BBC will remain the only station in this country that's purely committed to public service broadcasting. Can you see ITV broadcasting the RI lectures, or 'What the Romans did for us'? Can you even see UK Horizons, a supposed science channel, broadcasting anything more advanced than Robot Wars or Scrapheap Challenge? Of course not. The mongo on the street doesn't give a shit about cybernetics or astrophysics, he just wants to know whether Charlene is shagging Mandy Dingle. And sadly, by demographic, the mongos have more spending power, by dint of greater numbers, than the people who would be interested in true science. That's what the BBC is there to safeguard.
The 'enforced taxation' troll you dangle so enticingly is the same mechanism that's allowing the BBC to test Ogg streaming, provide one of the world's best news websites, and provide programming for minorities in this country - whether they be minorities by race, age, religion or intellect. If you want a (nearly) pure commercial entertainment look at digital TV - wave after wave of Temptation Island and When Animals Attack. Can you see Sky One dedicating an evening to science more serious than Voyager?
Frankly the only problem with the BBC is BBC1's strategy of chasing ratings. That's what should be left to ITV and the commercial operators. Leave public service broadcasting to the public.
And anyway, aren't the Christmas Lectures supposed to be to introduce children to science?
Oh, and Kevin Warwick is an attention grabbing buffon. Ithankyou.
If a tree falls in the forest, and it falls on a mime, does anyone care?
Yes, but then we don't have crap tv.. so it kinda pays off. you pay for cable/sat/digital? its the same principle, except they managed to get in early. Even with paying for cable and such, you guys still get adverts every five minutes. Even commercial (sic) channels over here only have them every 10-15, and none of those stupid info-mercials (again, spelling?) saying "praise the lord, and give him $50, because the lord is almighty.. but he needs $50 dollers (we take all major credit cards except discover)"
There are so many other things that you pay for with out realising, where the fuck do you think your taxes go? (oh yeah, i forgot, they go into bush's pocket lol)
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Yes, just over 100 pounds for a few good channels, compared to over $480 a year (~$40 a month) for a hundred crap ones here in the US. As far as paying for television goes I'd much rather have the UK system over the US system anyday.
It's this fee that has enabled the BBC to produce great television and not have to have any adverts. Thats right a quality TV station that doesn't have any adverts (apart from ones for BBC properties). It's the license fee that pays for http://news.bbc.co.uk. I think the license fee is great value for money.
No they don't beat down your door, in fact if they just show up at your door they can't come in without a warrant, unless they can see a television. Even if you don't have a license they just ask you to get one, if you don't they take you to court and you are ordered to get one, if you still don't you get a bigger fine and eventually jail.
And yet, per thousand head of population, our murder rates are far below those of the US. Odd, that.
If a tree falls in the forest, and it falls on a mime, does anyone care?
On a related note, at a recent C. elegans seminar I attended, the speaker made mention of Sir John, saying (to paraphrase) "Only Sulston is interested in these long boring projects, like serial EM reconstructions and the human genome project". Said in jest, of course :)
NO CARRIER
Most Britons would gladly pay a TV license rather than watch adverts every 5 minutes. It's certainly worth it for that (the license pays for the BBC, whose channels have no adverts on).
RI is a quaint, somewhat ruritanian institution. Most of the membership are rather stuffy and insist on wearing formal evening dress to the discourses, and there is a tradition that no questions are taken from the floor (you have to buttonhole the speaker afterwards). The staff and the Director, on the other hand. are very unfussy and very helpful. The Director is Susan Greenfield, who is known as a broadcaster on neurology. They do have a lovely old building in Albemarle Street, however, with an absolutely excellent Faraday museum. Research into inorganic chemistry is still carried out in the basement where Faraday had his original labs.
The BBC didn't dumb-down anything. These are the Royal Institute Christmas lectures which just so happened to be broadcast by the BBC. (Initially on radio and more recently on TV)
Why don't the BBC broadcast these anymore? Who knows. Someone obviously thought it was a good ideas to stop a hugely popular braodcast. Luckily C4 have some sense. The only problem is the annoying commercials that the BBC is free of.
my damn dog has one of these chips, and he's definitely more entertaining (and prbably smarter) than warwick
--Stupidity is Self Curing!
perhaps there was a slight hint at sarcasm in my reference to kevin warwick, but we all love him really. he even offered me a place on his course at Reading uni. i decided against.
when i said AI, i kind of meant neural nets, alife, and such things. i admit i could have worded it better. oh well, its a first article for me, better luck next time.
You pay for the device capable of receiving radio signals within a certain range. So if all you wanted was to watch dvd's, buy a 'puter with a big screen (Apple's 22" flat screen, YUM!).
You use to have to pay for Radio (as in audio) but that was a long time ago.
I'll let you argue over which way is best (Tax TV, pay-for (sky and the like), or completely advert-based TV (Americans have that I believe?). Personal I don't mine paying when you get stuff like Lost World (on last night VERY good) and the like, but it sure is a lot of pennies.
mlk
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
If it's anything like the normal discovery channel, it will be unwatchable due to all the FUCKING ADVERTS. You can barely watch it without 15 minute advert breaks cropping up every 5 minutes. It's almost painful to watch.
Just from reading the story posted above it seems that in-fact, Channel 4, ITV's cousin, is now broadcasting these lectures...
No, you don't get a few good channels. You get two channels (unless you have digital or sky), and if you think they're any better than the other channels you're dellusional. It's just ITV and Channel 4 but without the adverts.
I wouldn't mind, but you have to pay for it even if you don't watch it! I mean, what the fuck?
If you think the BBC is any better than ITV or Channel 4 you're delusional. The only decent programs are on in the middle of the night, and even then most of the time you get teletext with crap music, or the testcard.
If you think it's worth paying over a hundred quid a year for endless gardening programs, cookery programs, soaps, repeats and fly-on-the-wall documentaries, you're wrong in the head.
If you're only watching BBC1, I quite agree - that's why I said it shouldn't be chasing ratings. What about Radios 1-5, BBCi, Local Radio, BBC2, the non-commercial digital channels, DAB tests, the Open University, BBC Publications, etc etc etc.
Or look at it this way - if you didn't pay your hundred quid a year, ITV would only have to worry about competing with channel 5 (Channel 4 is a minority market that they wouldn't worry about). How good would TV be then?
If a tree falls in the forest, and it falls on a mime, does anyone care?
From KW's 'Achievements' page:
Nice misspelling, there...
In the past I've been quite a fan of the RI Xmas lectures. What a pity that they now involve Warwick. The profiteering, egotistical, megalomaniacal cur.
Life is thus,
Death is thus,
Poem or no poem
What's the fuss?
I got home from work just in time for the Christmas lecture, this morning, only to find that our friends on the BBC had started a similar science programme half an hour beforehand. It was called Come to Your Senses and it was pretty good. Unfortunately, it means I missed most of the damn Lecture.
Maybe it's just my misanthropic nature, but I can't think of any reason for putting on such a similar programme at the same time that doesn't involve fucking over Channel 4.
Offtopic? Perhaps. But I'm bitter, and needed to get it off my chest.
On an unrelated matter, I recently got hold of the book of a series of Christmas Lectures given by Sir William H. Bragg in the 1920s. It's noteable for the fact that it's not afraid of explaining maths to the audience. He also wrote The Universe of Light, a popular science book that contains actual equations!.
1994 Journey to the Centre of the Brain
:)
Dr. Susan Greenfield
That was, IMHO, the best RI Xmas lecture of them all. Since then, Greenfield has been in the media a lot more (but not in the way Kevin Warwick has) and is certainly a revered expert on matters of the brain.
Much of this lecture contained comparisons of brains and computers, and the way in which they may work together in the future. There were also a lot of practicals.
It's when they're about geology, 'how the earth was formed', plant or human biology that they get mega boring. Who wants to see a plant get cut up? The math and tech ones rock
mogorific carpentry experiments
I'll pay 10$ per VHS tape if there isn't ALOT of them to be taped. I live in the states, and I am a scientific computing major interested in genetics and artificial intelligence(no relation in my book). If there aren't alot of tapes, this will rule.
email me:sager@andrew.cmu.edu
God spoke to me
I was looking at the TV license website and they claim they have vans that can pick up the signals of a specific TV component.
Their wording made it seem like they require some sort of locator beacon to be built into every British TV. Is this the case or do their vans just pick up escaped EM radiation from the TV? If there is a beacon, do any of you ever open up your TVs and disable it? Or how about putting your TV inside a Faraday Cage?
I don't know how you guys over there can support this as it seems from some of the other posts, having officers running around in vans and knocking on your door to make sure you don't have something completely harmless in your house without their approval seems way too big brother to me...
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I am a briton and I hate the licensing fee, whenever I watch BBC I get half way through the program, need a pee and am waiting for the adverts, and it takes me bloody twenty minutes to realise there arent any bloody adverts and I have to miss the bloody program to pee! Its soo damn annoying!
I was working in Italy for 6 months this year and I really missed my Channel 4, (if I could only choose one channel that would be it). Does anybody know if it's possible to get Channel 4 in Italy (I'm willing to pay!)?
Shoot some Fish!
Go on, shoot some fish!
Socialist?
from a country that has the dmca and the death penalty? i prefer having my human rights, and a leader who has more to life than just wanting to ride air-force one.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Most Britons would gladly pay a TV license rather than watch adverts every 5 minutes
Your comment is a perfect illustration of unthinking acceptance of collectivist/totalitarian arguments.
The whole point of a free society is that the majority ("Most Britons") should not get to impose their will on everyone else, in matters which are not essential to the preservation of the rule of law etc.
Note that I'm not saying that the US is exemplary in this regard (I'm not an American). But there does seem to be more awareness of the value of personal liberty among Americans than among Brits.
Oh man, these things used to be really good. i remember ones about AI and the Human Brain. but this year its just irritated me, that guy is just annoying. and it feels like A-Level content dressed up for 8yr olds! it doesnt achieve anything
Andy
IIRC, you still do have to pay for a radio license, but only if you don't have a TV license. Radio licenses are about 6 quid or something silly. It's been a while since I read the form, but that was certainly the case only a few years ago.
Other license trivia: there is a discount on a TV license for blind people, but it is only of about £10 [about as scary as the drive-through ATM we used on holiday in Tennessee with Braille-embossed buttons].
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
eak!
/mlk hids his radio under the floor boards.
If you are after free TV in the UK, use a TV which is completely battery powered, and has no option for mains.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
I don't think fighting for funding is going to do anything at all to contribute to quality science programming... BBC (including the radio, which probably has more quality science than TV, and of course *doesn't* need a license) and C4 (both with public service commitments) are the only place for quality science programming in .uk. Don't really see much of that on ITV, Discovery, etc. (In fact, with Discovery you're paying for the channel *on top of* advertising! Wow, isn't that great. And the number of subscribers to satellite/cable tv proves that people are happy to pay to watch channels).
It really *really* sucks that DVD players don't have a 15-pin VGA connector on them though.
Mind you, they could always just buy a radio covering the relevant bands and pay nothing... (Though it would probably be easier to pay to avoid having to convince licensing officials they really don't have a tv - that's probably one of the worst things about the licensing system).