Best Of

I’m delighted to have triggered a multi-hour PB thread derailment with my posting of the Paul Johnson article on birth rates.

Now we’ve lost the SeanTs the rest of us need to step up and do more thread derailing.

We've had a few conversations on the topic which have never really got properly going.

My take is its not down to one specific thing, its a multitude, but doesn't have much to do with religion or uni professors. Saying that, the TFR among my friends who went to uni is way lower than those who didn't.

There is no quick fix, some people just don't want kids

My recollection is that the survey evidence shows that women, on average, want one more child than they have.

So we don't have to worry about the people who don't want kids. We have to worry about the people who want kids, and then don't, or don't have as many as they want.

Many years back, an eminent specialist in maternity published an article saying that the medical profession was, in effect, lying to women. That by not making clear the effects of age to the wider public, they were led to believe that having children at… advanced ages was risk free and easy.

Most of us cannot even go for a jog as easily in our 30s and 40s as in our 20s, seems pretty common sense that many things come with more physical and other risks.

I was just musing to myself the other day, is there anything, anything at all, physical or otherwise, that I'm getting better at? The answer is no (unless you count musing to myself, which I don't think you can).

You could take up something new, then you'll be better over time.
A new language for instance.
I've taken up bouldering as the kids got into it and in the future, when snowboarding is looking less sensible, I intend to be much better at skiing than I am currently

Ah yes, that's true, and I plan to. A craft, I think. I've been watching Bronowski's Ascent Of Man for the first time, what a beautifully written and presented work, and it made me feel downright unworthy. Need to get these hands working. Owe it to my species.

Me, I'd like to take up Ancient Greek. My school performance wasn't good enough to get to grips with the middle pluperfect or the stylistic issues of the [edit] men/de dichotomy.

I did 2 or 3 weeks ancient Greek at the end of 5th year at school. I was supposed to be studying it the following year but I didn't go back and went to University instead. I can remember thalssa meant sea and that's about it. I regret not getting a better education before I focused on law.

Sometimes I feel that education is wasted on the young and we should do more of it later in life when we can appreciate why we're doing it.

When I went from being a solicitor to an advocate I had to pass exams in European law, Roman Law and Procedure. I had been a solicitor for nearly 20 years by then.

I really enjoyed going back to studying and got far more out of it than I had the fist time around, partly because I had a much clearer idea of how a legal system worked in the real world. I had some excellent debates with a Roman law tutor as to what the phrase "iudex qui litem suam facit " meant (basically a judge who makes a case his own by becoming partisan in it for one side or the other). It was an interesting intellectual problem for an academic but a practical reality for someone who had been dealing with a highly variable quality of judges, sheriffs and Tribunal chairman for more than 15 years. It is the key to understanding judicial immunity and how essential that is for our legal system to work (as I am sure Sandy Kemp will appreciate). My perspective was very different and I found it genuinely enjoyable after spending most of my undergraduate degree bored and poorly motivated.

I’m delighted to have triggered a multi-hour PB thread derailment with my posting of the Paul Johnson article on birth rates.

Now we’ve lost the SeanTs the rest of us need to step up and do more thread derailing.

We've had a few conversations on the topic which have never really got properly going.

My take is its not down to one specific thing, its a multitude, but doesn't have much to do with religion or uni professors. Saying that, the TFR among my friends who went to uni is way lower than those who didn't.

There is no quick fix, some people just don't want kids

My recollection is that the survey evidence shows that women, on average, want one more child than they have.

So we don't have to worry about the people who don't want kids. We have to worry about the people who want kids, and then don't, or don't have as many as they want.

Many years back, an eminent specialist in maternity published an article saying that the medical profession was, in effect, lying to women. That by not making clear the effects of age to the wider public, they were led to believe that having children at… advanced ages was risk free and easy.

Most of us cannot even go for a jog as easily in our 30s and 40s as in our 20s, seems pretty common sense that many things come with more physical and other risks.

I was just musing to myself the other day, is there anything, anything at all, physical or otherwise, that I'm getting better at? The answer is no (unless you count musing to myself, which I don't think you can).

You could take up something new, then you'll be better over time.
A new language for instance.
I've taken up bouldering as the kids got into it and in the future, when snowboarding is looking less sensible, I intend to be much better at skiing than I am currently

Ah yes, that's true, and I plan to. A craft, I think. I've been watching Bronowski's Ascent Of Man for the first time, what a beautifully written and presented work, and it made me feel downright unworthy. Need to get these hands working. Owe it to my species.

Me, I'd like to take up Ancient Greek. My school performance wasn't good enough to get to grips with the middle pluperfect or the stylistic issues of the [edit] men/de dichotomy.

I did 2 or 3 weeks ancient Greek at the end of 5th year at school. I was supposed to be studying it the following year but I didn't go back and went to University instead. I can remember thalssa meant sea and that's about it. I regret not getting a better education before I focused on law.

Sometimes I feel that education is wasted on the young and we should do more of it later in life when we can appreciate why we're doing it.

Some people do.

My wife decided to change careers and has started at University this year to qualify for the job she wants. She's absolutely loving it.

Says there's no way she'd have chosen this path at 18 but it suits her now and will still get a good couple of decades of career after graduation.

She'll also graduate about the same time as our eldest is starting her GCSEs and looking forwards to what she wants to do after school, which will hopefully be inspirational.

She is not the oldest on her course.

I am seriosly considering going back to University in my retirement. Something completely different this time, perhaps film studies or African history. No purpose to it at all, just fun.

I do wonder if I would have an unfair advantage over the youngsters as I have watched more films and lived more history.

Labour tells councils not to adopt 4 day week working

Sounds like common sense in this economy

Hmm. Depends if it’s about clockwatchers or getting the job done. My contracted week is 36.5 h, over 5 days. But realistically, as an academic, (a) no one is checking and (b) I do more than that most of the time and fail to take all my leave, plus working weekends for recruitment events.

I genuinely think if you set someone their tasks and they have achieved it in four days, then that’s fine.

I know I've said this before, but I work 24-7.

That's 24 minutes an hour, 7 hours a day.

I may jest, but I don't think that is too far off the mark for many of us, once you factor in coffee breaks, loo breaks, chats to colleagues, the odd domestic chore when wfh, and of course dipping in to an online discussion site every so often.

It depends. When I have a complex case I can step up the work rate remarkably and get prodigious amounts done in very little time. But it is exhausting and for short bursts only. I could not possibly work at that rate most of the time. Most of the time we potter along, doing enough to keep the emails answered, the engagements met, the routines followed. It's dull and I can't deny I feel more alive when genuinely pushed. I would just make myself ill if I kept it up for too long.

I suspect that we are not well suited to a steady "7 or 8 hours a day at a steady pace, week in week out, for years". My mental image of a hunter gatherer lifestyle seems much more to have ups and downs at multiple timescales: seasons where there's lots to do and off seasons where life is slower paced, weeks when you're busy and weeks with less exhausting chores, and intense hours and hours spent idling.

When I first got involved in software development many years ago I was told by a wise old programmer that most coders can't write good quality code for more than 2 hours per day. Their brains just get tired and start making mistakes or get distracted by time wasting activities.

I've found this to be broadly true, but flexible depending on the difficulty of the task. These days I write hardware description language, which is much harder than writing software, and I struggle to do one hour of useful work. The rest of the day is spent on less demanding things like writing documentation or arguing with people on the internet.

I’m delighted to have triggered a multi-hour PB thread derailment with my posting of the Paul Johnson article on birth rates.

Now we’ve lost the SeanTs the rest of us need to step up and do more thread derailing.

We've had a few conversations on the topic which have never really got properly going.

My take is its not down to one specific thing, its a multitude, but doesn't have much to do with religion or uni professors. Saying that, the TFR among my friends who went to uni is way lower than those who didn't.

There is no quick fix, some people just don't want kids

My recollection is that the survey evidence shows that women, on average, want one more child than they have.

So we don't have to worry about the people who don't want kids. We have to worry about the people who want kids, and then don't, or don't have as many as they want.

Many years back, an eminent specialist in maternity published an article saying that the medical profession was, in effect, lying to women. That by not making clear the effects of age to the wider public, they were led to believe that having children at… advanced ages was risk free and easy.

Most of us cannot even go for a jog as easily in our 30s and 40s as in our 20s, seems pretty common sense that many things come with more physical and other risks.

I was just musing to myself the other day, is there anything, anything at all, physical or otherwise, that I'm getting better at? The answer is no (unless you count musing to myself, which I don't think you can).

You could take up something new, then you'll be better over time.
A new language for instance.
I've taken up bouldering as the kids got into it and in the future, when snowboarding is looking less sensible, I intend to be much better at skiing than I am currently

Ah yes, that's true, and I plan to. A craft, I think. I've been watching Bronowski's Ascent Of Man for the first time, what a beautifully written and presented work, and it made me feel downright unworthy. Need to get these hands working. Owe it to my species.

Beautifully written, but surely somewhat dated now?

It's a history of science. The invention of the wheel and Newton's discoveries haven't changed much in fifty years. I guess you might revise a couple of the later episodes and add a couple to accommodate recent discoveries but the rest holds up fine. What you get with Ascent of Man, which you are much less likely to get today, is a serious imparting of knowledge to viewers who are expected to be intelligent and curious but not to be knowledgeable on the topics, all delivered with a strong moral purpose.

I’m delighted to have triggered a multi-hour PB thread derailment with my posting of the Paul Johnson article on birth rates.

Now we’ve lost the SeanTs the rest of us need to step up and do more thread derailing.

We've had a few conversations on the topic which have never really got properly going.

My take is its not down to one specific thing, its a multitude, but doesn't have much to do with religion or uni professors. Saying that, the TFR among my friends who went to uni is way lower than those who didn't.

There is no quick fix, some people just don't want kids

My recollection is that the survey evidence shows that women, on average, want one more child than they have.

So we don't have to worry about the people who don't want kids. We have to worry about the people who want kids, and then don't, or don't have as many as they want.

Many years back, an eminent specialist in maternity published an article saying that the medical profession was, in effect, lying to women. That by not making clear the effects of age to the wider public, they were led to believe that having children at… advanced ages was risk free and easy.

Most of us cannot even go for a jog as easily in our 30s and 40s as in our 20s, seems pretty common sense that many things come with more physical and other risks.

I was just musing to myself the other day, is there anything, anything at all, physical or otherwise, that I'm getting better at? The answer is no (unless you count musing to myself, which I don't think you can).

You could take up something new, then you'll be better over time.
A new language for instance.
I've taken up bouldering as the kids got into it and in the future, when snowboarding is looking less sensible, I intend to be much better at skiing than I am currently

Ah yes, that's true, and I plan to. A craft, I think. I've been watching Bronowski's Ascent Of Man for the first time, what a beautifully written and presented work, and it made me feel downright unworthy. Need to get these hands working. Owe it to my species.

Me, I'd like to take up Ancient Greek. My school performance wasn't good enough to get to grips with the middle pluperfect or the stylistic issues of the [edit] men/de dichotomy.

I did 2 or 3 weeks ancient Greek at the end of 5th year at school. I was supposed to be studying it the following year but I didn't go back and went to University instead. I can remember thalssa meant sea and that's about it. I regret not getting a better education before I focused on law.

If you know 'thalassa' you know something worth knowing. One of the most famous of all Greek quotations is 'θάλασσα θάλασσα' from Xenophon's Anabasis, which is an extraordinary, and first hand, account of the journey out, battle and return of a bunch of Greek soldiers to help out in an internal Persian conflict.

They shout 'the sea the sea' on sighting the Black Sea, after an extraordinary arduous return from the desert. It's a great story from a totally forgotten bit of Greek/Persian history of about 400 BC. There's a decent Penguin Classics edition.

Xenophon knew Socrates, which makes you think.

It also gives Iris Murdoch a book title.

Labour tells councils not to adopt 4 day week working

Sounds like common sense in this economy

Hmm. Depends if it’s about clockwatchers or getting the job done. My contracted week is 36.5 h, over 5 days. But realistically, as an academic, (a) no one is checking and (b) I do more than that most of the time and fail to take all my leave, plus working weekends for recruitment events.

I genuinely think if you set someone their tasks and they have achieved it in four days, then that’s fine.

I know I've said this before, but I work 24-7.

That's 24 minutes an hour, 7 hours a day.

I may jest, but I don't think that is too far off the mark for many of us, once you factor in coffee breaks, loo breaks, chats to colleagues, the odd domestic chore when wfh, and of course dipping in to an online discussion site every so often.

It depends. When I have a complex case I can step up the work rate remarkably and get prodigious amounts done in very little time. But it is exhausting and for short bursts only. I could not possibly work at that rate most of the time. Most of the time we potter along, doing enough to keep the emails answered, the engagements met, the routines followed. It's dull and I can't deny I feel more alive when genuinely pushed. I would just make myself ill if I kept it up for too long.

Today's lesson.

,I>How did solar get cheap?

Phase 1: 1950-1990s - NASA
Solar was invented in the US by Bell labs and pretty much only used by NASA who needed something very lightweight to power their space assets.

Phase 2: 2000 - Energiewind
The German government passed a law where it guaranteed that if you put solar panels on your roof the German government would pay you a high feed in tariff. Demand exploded.

Phase 3: 2005 - 2015 - China
In Europe German manufacturers could not meet their demand at home and Chinese entrepreneurs saw this fixed arbitrage opportunity and went all in. Chinese companies like Suntech took on huge government loans and built vast factories. Spain and Italy joined Germany with solar subsidies. Because of the price fixing in Europe the market arbitrage held as the solar cell manufacturing output in China exploded.

Phase 4 2015-2025 - Swanson’s Law
Once the big Chinese gigafactories were built, Swanson’s Law kicked in. This is the learning curve where manufacturers compound marginal gains and accumulate 1,000s of solutions to solved problems.

1. Ingots, originally they grew small Si crystals this was a slow batch process. Later they used continuous Czochralski pulling where you refill the crucible whilst the machine is still running. Saving hours of cooldown per batch. They also learnt how to grow huge single crystals that were 2-3 meters long.

2. Wafers, originally they sliced the crystals into wafers using saws. This was slow and turned 40% of the Si crystal into sawdust (kerf loss). The fix was diamond wire cutting, the wire was razor sharp, fast, much thinner than the saw, easier to keep clean and far less wasteful (4% kerf loss). Wafer costs plummeted.

3. Cells, you have to print silver lines on the back of the wafer to collect electricity. Over 15 years silver printing resolution improved and silver use was reduced by 70% whilst also blocking less sunlight. The mirror backing used to be aluminium which captured some solar energy as heat and was lost, so they added a dielectric passivation layer that captured more photons and improved cell conversion efficiency without changing materials...