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AReaderAndAMiller

Listed below are comments made by AReaderAndAMiller between Wednesday, 10th December 2008 and Wednesday, 10th June 2009.

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A call for debate 12:28pm on 10 Jun 2009 Reforming the voting system would be meaningless without a move to multi-member constituencies. It is the winner-takes-all logic of the single-member constituency that distorts the will of the people, perpetuates the two-party state and has enabled successive minority governments - none of them had the support of a majority of voters - to smash workers' rights, inflict the poll tax, go repeatedly to war and sign away our democratic and social rights to EU bureaucrats and big business.

I live in a safe seat, and I'm sick and tired of having my MP chosen by the local Conservative party. I want my MP to be democratically accountable, and I want to choose who represents me in Parliament. That won't happen until we have multi-member constituencies where the voting system allows voters real choice over which parties get the seats, and which candidates are elected. (Actually I wouldn't mind at all if my current MP was re-elected as he does a very good job, as long as I could also be represented by someone else whose political views are more in line with mine.)

STV is one way to achieve this; another would be the system they use in Denmark where you can vote for either a party or a specific candidate. The seats are allocated proportionally to parties (with personal votes counting implicitly for the candidate's party), but which candidates get a party's seats is determined by how many personal votes they get. I think this is better than STV because it is simpler for the voter but still gives real choice.
Evolution vs creationism 12:09pm on 17 Feb 2009 #66, bere54:

As a practising Christian (and a preacher) I agree with your sentiment when you say that "those who claim to take the Bible literally, and live their lives by it, can't have actually read it, but are merely listening to their preachers' version of it."

I would go further and say that a disturbingly large number of Christians (and Muslims, Jews and adherents of other faiths, for that matter) make the mistake of thinking that you can't take the word of God seriously unless you interpret the scriptures literally. In fact, I think the two things are mutually exclusive: either you treat them seriously, or you treat them literally. You can't do both.

I do believe that the Bible is the word of God, and try to live my life by its overarching commands to live life thankfully and lovingly. That would be impossible if I believed that every word in the Bible was literally true. But the important thing is to get behind the words and meet the God of love and compassion, who is at the origin of all creative processes (including evolution), and who believes in me - and you - much more than we can ever believe in him.
Ask Bearders #185 10:19am on 20 Jan 2009 #96 again: and if you mean career aggregate (most runs made in all Ashes Tests) the record is once again Bradman's, with 5028. Second overall, and the best Englishman, is Jack Hobbs with 3636. The best current player is Ricky Ponting, who has 1978 Ashes runs.
Ask Bearders #185 10:11am on 20 Jan 2009 #70: surely the answer is zero (or as close to zero as makes no difference) because nobody would be so ill-mannered as to eat a sandwich before lunch!
Ask Bearders #185 10:06am on 20 Jan 2009 #96: if you mean the highest single-innings score see #98, but if you mean series aggregate the record does indeed belong to Bradman, with 974 in England in 1930. That was the series in which he scored his 334, and it is also the record for any Test series ever.

Second in the all-time list is England's Ashes record - Wally Hammond, with 905 in Australia in 1928/29.

Interestingly, the third highest-ever series aggregate is also by an away batsman in an Ashes series - Mark Taylor 839 in 1989. The highest Ashes aggregate made at home is Bradman's 810 in 1936/37. Highest for England at home is David Gower's 732 in 1985.
Ask Bearders #185 09:51am on 20 Jan 2009 Re #76: who's Adam Ealham? (You mean Alan.)
Should there be a winter break? 1:23pm on 08 Jan 2009 #45: "After all, I've never heard of a break in the cricket season because it's too hot."

No, but sun stops play a few times every year at Derbyshire's ground.
Ask Bearders #183 4:03pm on 10 Dec 2008 Correction to my own #95: the Excel formula should more efficiently be INT(OVERS)*6+MOD(OVERS,1)*10. What I gave you before would work, but dividing OVERS by 1 is pointless.
I could also have mentioned that this formula works perfectly well if OVERS is a whole number.
Ask Bearders #183 3:46pm on 10 Dec 2008 Re #93 (working out economy rate): as you have realised, dividing runs by overs is fine as long as you have a round number of overs, but if you have a number such as 10.3 (ten overs and three balls) it doesn't work as .3 represents half an over.
You need to convert that number to a number of balls - split it into its whole number part and its decimal part, multiply the whole number part by 6 and the decimal part by 10, and add the results together. An Excel formula that will do that is INT(OVERS/1)*6+MOD(OVERS,1)*10.
Once you have converted it to a number of balls, divide that into six times the number of runs to give you the average number of runs per over.
Ask Bearders #183 3:36pm on 10 Dec 2008 Re #10 (four wickets for no runs in any form): I am the fixture secretary, webmaster and statistician for the South-East Hampshire indoor cricket league, and just this happened in our league a few weeks ago. In an Under-13 match between Hambledon and Waterlooville, Spencer Le Clercq of Hambledon bowled two overs and took 4 for 0, including a hat-trick. His figures were the best ever recorded in a Colts (junior) game in the league.

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