Tweets by @StuartDNeilson

Wed 09 Jul: Daniel Finkelstein (@Dannythefink) has a strange attitude to child sexual abuse, the experience of which he is wildly dismissive. He defended the innocence of both Cyril Smith and Jimmy Savile, with statements that are liable to offend people who have been sexually abused. In 2012 (Wild, dangerous paranoia has no place here, 14/11/2012) he dismissed child sexual abuse with "The story of the child abuse allegations currently sweeping the nation properly begins, I think, in a pumpkin on a patch in a farm in Maryland." and concluded "This is wild, unprovable, paranoid, irresponsible stuff." A month and presumably many complaints later (The dead can't enter a plea of guilty, 11/12/2012) he claimed "Cyril Smith may have been a monster. But until we have reliable evidence we must not rush to judgment." And on Savile, when the facts were readily available, "How do you know, really know, that Jimmy Savile is guilty of child abuse?", with the conclusion that child abusers should be allowed to "die in peace, without being taken to court in their coffin." He is back at it, dismissing child sex abuse as "hysteria" (How hysteria can cheat us all out of justice, 9/7/2014).

Tue 18 Jun: Mr Justice John McMenamin is concerned about removal from Ireland of a girl within a marriage to which she could not have consented http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0618/457280-judge-concerned-over-marriage-age-exemptions/ - a long-standing anomaly in law. The Marriages Act, 1972 http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1972/en/act/pub/0030/print.html says 1. (1) A marriage solemnised between persons either of whom is under the age of sixteen shall, subject to the next subsection, not be valid in law. (2) Subsection (1) of this section shall not apply where exemption from it has been obtained before the marriage from the President of the High Court (or a Judge at that Court nominated by the President thereof). (3) (d) it shall not be granted unless the applicant shows that its grant is justified by serious reasons and is in the interests of the parties to the intended marriage "Serious reasons" (such as premarital sex or pregnancy) permit Catholic marriage at fourteen: Canon 1083 A man cannot validly enter marriage before the completion of his sixteenth year of age, nor a woman before the completion of her fourteenth year. http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0017/_P3X.HTM

Tue 14 May: In-service training at its best: Dislocation. Sir, are those proposing to evict the skateboarders from the undercroft of the South Bank Centre aware of the medical consequences (Opinion, May 13)? It has for a long time been the custom of local orthopaedic surgeons to stroll down and inspect the acrobatics on display, while taking bets among themselves on what injuries will result, before returning to base to deal with those injuries when the perpetrators are delivered to A&E at St Thomas'. Loss of this priceless example of before-and-after will have a deleterious effect on their professional development. Elizabeth Manners, King's College London School of Medicine.

Fri 05 Apr: The Irish Medical Organisation has decided it is in need of "urgent internal probes", luckily they have some doctors on hand - http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=21871 - Meanwhile in Lala Land, Irish doctors have claimed that legislation for abortion reminds them of Nazi wartime experiments (Dublin GP Dr Cyril Daly) and that providing abortion to women following incest or rape, or in the event of a non-viable foetus, would lead to "abortion on demand" (Dr Dr Eleanor Corcoran).

Fri 15 Mar: Simon Coveney - who once claimed that nobody need worry about a minuscule molecule of DNA in their burger - now complains that sloppy and fraudulent practices at meat processing plants have risked the reputation of the Irish food industry - http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0314/376702-horse-meat/ - and wants procedures to stop them slaughtering horses and pretending they were cows - http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0315/376791-icsa-meat-coveney/

Thu 14 Feb: Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has said he believes that the horse meat scandal has been caused by more than just one rogue trader. Minister Coveney reiterated that consumers needed to be reassured about what they are eating. http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0214/367705-meat-random-tests/ The same Simon Coveny, with a BSc in Agriculture and Land Management, who said this: Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív: "Could the Minister reassure people as to how minuscule that was?" Deputy Simon Coveney: "In most cases they were minuscule. In one case they comprised 15%, but it subsequently emerged that the label on that product stated that it contained pigmeat. The meat processor concerned contacted us to complain that it was being lumped in unfairly with the other products. The vast majority of products contained less than 1% and in most cases the amount was closer to 0.1%. This quantity of pigmeat can be explained by the way in which we produce and transport food. A refrigerated lorry that carried pigmeat a few weeks ago may still contain a tiny molecule of pig DNA even after it has been power-hosed and cleaned. It is important that we put this matter into context. However, that does not explain the presence of horse meat, which is a serious issue deserving full investigation." http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/Debates%20Authoring/DebatesWebPack.nsf/takes/dail2013011600042?opendocument

Fri 21 Dec: The New Phrenology - rather than discuss the devastating weaponry available to American kids, medical examiners will be prying genetic samples from Adam Lanza's cold, dead body. These samples "might help piece together a picture of the young man's underlying mental state". So we can add anyone with a matching genetic profile to the blacklist, along with the usual suspects - http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-adam-lanza-genetics-20121219,0,1509739.story

Sat 24 Nov: Another one for the "all things that start with 'ps'": the British Minister for Welfare Reform (Lord David Freud, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Freud,_Baron_Freud) believes "people who are poorer should be prepared to take the biggest risks, they’ve got least to lose". When asked if he understood life where ten pounds makes a difference, he said "I think you don’t have to be the corpse to go to a funeral, which is the implied criticism there." http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/66408/freudian_analysis.html

Tue 28 Aug: An Indian company has launched what it claims is the country's first vagina tightening cream, with a Bollywood-style music video. The makers of 18 Again, the Mumbai-based pharmaceutical company Ultratech, say it is the first of its kind in India (similar creams are already available in other parts of the world such as the USA), and fills a gap in the market. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-19353039 The advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPayFrCOiZM Is it as good as "This thing for that thing, with a ding"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft4MfHG3zgo

Thu 23 Aug: The legal profession reaches for a new low (!) with German firm Urmann saying it will begin publishing the personal details of IP addresses associated with downloads of their clients' copyright hardcore porn films - starting with IP addresses registered to churches, police stations and the embassies of Arab countries. http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-law-firm-will-publicly-humiliate-the-clergy-police-arabs-120823/

Mon 06 Aug: "American white supremacists expressed concern on web forums on Sunday that the mass killing at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin might hurt their cause." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9454685/Sikh-temple-massacre-an-act-of-domestic-terrorism.html

Mon 27 Feb: The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) is now requesting tenders for a system to filter and block websites, URLs and filetype. This follows the disastrous and suspended attempt to block SMS phone messages using a list of words that have been banned by the US Football League - words almost entirely unknown in Pakistan (until the PTA decided to educate the public) - http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9224612/Pakistan_plans_system_to_filter_and_block_websites

Tue 18 Oct: Statistical idiocy: The BBC has a hysterical article healined "Nearly half abuse claims against teachers 'malicious'" - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15319933 - which continues "Nearly half the allegations made against teachers in England are malicious, unsubstantiated or unfounded, a government study suggests." "Unsubstantiated" and "unfounded" are rather different from "malicious". It also says "only 3% of investigations resulted in a criminal caution or conviction", yet the data refers to complaints from April 1 2009 to March 31 2010, many of which will not have completed judicicial hearing. Worst of all, "Of 12,086 allegations referred, 2,827 (23%) were against school teachers, and 1,709 were against non-teaching staff in schools", leaving 7,550 (62.4%) out of the analysis entirely. "It found that 47% of all allegations made against teachers, and 41% against non-teaching staff members were found to be unsubstantiated, malicious or unfounded" - so, presumably, 53% of cases against teachers were well-founded, while 2,029 out of 12,086 cases in total (16.8%) were unsubstantiated, malicious or unfounded. Rather different from the screaming headline.

Fri 29 Jul: Cherry-picking your facts 101 - Forbes magazine reports a single new scientific report as "real world facts" that complete denounce decades of "alarmist models" reported in hundreds, or thousands, of earlier scientific reports: "When objective NASA satellite data, reported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, show a "huge discrepancy" between alarmist climate models and real-world facts, climate scientists, the media and our elected officials would be wise to take notice. Whether or not they do so will tell us a great deal about how honest the purveyors of global warming alarmism truly are."http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

Mon 25 Apr: Some seriously cool animated GIF images at http://gawker.com/#!5795002/the-art-of-the-animated-gif - these are animated photorealism, not stick-figure loops.

Thu 14 Apr: How not to apologise 101: "I'm sorry if what I am trying to do hasn't communicated itself ... I want to enable the NHS to be stronger and protect its principles ... I would join you voting against myself if I thought was wrong", says Andrew Lansley (UK Health Minister) to the Royal College of Nursing, winning the Arsehole of the Day Award. http://www.practicebusiness.co.uk/news/1255/lansley-apologises-to-nurses-after-vote-of-no-confidence/

Thu 31 Mar: Letters to the Editor in The Times, 31 March 2011:- Sir, as a census enumerator in the 1981 Census we received in my area this response to Q12 - Occupation? The reply was "I am a sculptor of lions". To the next question: Please describe the nature of the work done, the respondent wrote "I chip away all the bits of stone that are not lion". Roderick Hunt, Abingdon, Oxon.

Sun 27 Mar: I wondered, when Joe O'Reilly was convicted of the murder of his wife Rachel O'Reilly, whether the use of an external data consultancy to present cellphone evidence was for the purpose of plausible deniability. German Green party politician Malte Spitz appears to have answered this question, with a court-ordered release of data from Deutsche Telekom - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/business/media/26privacy.html?_r=1 DT stored a variety of data, including Spitz's estimated latitude and longitude 35,000 times during the six months from 31 Aug 2009 to 28 Feb 2010 - i.e. once every 7 minutes. Spitz provided the data for analysis and publication http://www.zeit.de/digital/datenschutz/2011-03/data-protection-malte-spitz including the most astoundingly detailed of his minutest movements on an interactive map - http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-vorratsdaten - just slide the timeline to view his movements.

Thu 03 Mar: Hillary Clinton says Al Jazeera is 'Real News' and the U.S. is losing the “information war” abroad. China and Russia have started English-language networks that push their message overseas and even the Taliban controls the airwaves in Afghanistan. In the Arab world Al Jazeera is king - “Al Jazeera has been the leader in that are literally changing people’s minds and attitudes. And like it or hate it, it is really effective. In fact viewership of al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news. You may not agree with it, but you feel like you’re getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news which, you know, is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners.” - China Daily http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/ - Russia Today http://rt.com/ - Al Jazeera http://english.aljazeera.net/ - BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

Wed 02 Mar: Ice cream made from (human) breast milk has been removed from a central London restaurant on health grounds following complaints by members of the public. Icecreamists in Covent Garden introduced an ice cream churned with donations from a London mother, and served with a rusk and an optional shot of Calpol or Bonjela. Each serving costs £14. Icecreamist founder Matt O'Connor said: "We have had an amazing response - many women have come forward and offer to give us milk. "You can buy alcohol and tobacco but not breast milk in Westminster." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12615353

Fri 25 Feb: I guess that referring to Chuck Lorre's Jewishness is likely to limit Charlie Sheen's future employment in Hollywood - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12575190 Apparently his post-rehab rant was triggered by a postcard displayed in the credits to the pre-rehab final episode of Two-and-a-half Men that said Chuck Lorre would be sad to die before Charlie Sheen. Sheen went on to call women "turds" and to call Lorre "Chaim", a clown, a contaminated little maggot and a Lisa Ting (?) - http://www.tvguide.com/News/Charlie-Sheen-Radio-1029820.aspx Charlie Sheen also claimed to have cured his addictions "with his brain" - http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2011/02/24/2011-02-24_charlie_sheen_blasts_two_and_a_half_men_producer_chuck_lorre_says_he_can_beat_ad.html?r=entertainment

Thu 24 Feb: A weasily-worded piece in Bloomberg News today about how Good King Abdullah is so popular, spending well-managed oil wealth on his people's education - including the undeserving Shi'ite. In 1,800 words on the subject, they deftly avoid mentioning that most of the world's seriously bad-arse terrorists are Saudis. Just one slip that hints at repressive dictatorship: “Odds are the Saudis would hold on because they have much better social control in the form of policing powers, and they are better able to insulate the minority group that might like to see a change from events in the outside world”. No application of the American values of freedom and democracy that are being bombed into Iraq and Aghanistan. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-24/saudi-arabia-s-social-programs-popular-king-may-hold-off-mideast-tumult.html

Wed 23 Feb: Aisha Gaddafi was sacked by the UN from the post of Goodwill ambassador today. Appointed 11 July 2009 "in recognition of her work raising awareness of womens' rights, poverty and HIV. She does, however, have her own unique views on who in the world is deserving of goodwill. In 2000, during a trip to London organised as part of Tony Blair's charm offensive to Tripoli, she infuriated British diplomats by giving a talk at Speakers' Corner in support of the IRA. And in 2004, a year after Blair finally persuaded Gaddafi to scrap his WMD programme, she joined the defence team for the trial of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, 'an elected president who was wrongly hung'." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8053181/Meet-Gaddafis-girl-a-chip-off-the-old-block.html

Wed 16 Feb:

Tue 15 Feb: Valentine's Day for Geeks http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/ROSE-Blog-Rikki-s-Open-Source-Exchange/Geeky-Valentine-s-Day-Roundup

Mon 14 Feb: JC Penney demonstrates how NOT to get your website to the top of the Google rankings by creating thousands of fake sites linking shopping words to their site - and then getting clobbered by Google when they were caught - http://www.thespec.com/news/world/article/484704--the-dirty-little-secrets-of-search

Sun 06 Feb: OMFG! Exposé presenter Karen Koster said "OMFG" at 10 past 6 in the evening! Good job we have the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland to protect our innocent ears - "Mr. Symmons' complaint is submitted under the Broadcasting Act 2009, section 48(1)(b)(harm & offence, the Code of Programme Standards: - sections 2.2 due care and 3.3.1 coarse and offensive language). The complainant states that the presenter, Karen Koster, used the term 'OMFG' to try to emphasise a point. Mr. Symmons was shocked and disgusted at the use of this term at 6.10 p.m. in the evening. His four year old daughter asked him the meaning of the term." - UPHELD http://www.bai.ie/broadcasting_complaints_decisions.html

Thu 03 Jun: British Airways staff magazine LHR News carries a photo of frequent flyer Osama Bin Laden's checkin ticket http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1283036/BA-advert-lists-Osama-Bin-Laden-frequent-flyer-boards-flight-class-seat.html

Tue 04 May: Holy Shit! The War on Islam has stooped to new depths. According to http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8658017.stm the littlest fascist state of Novara, with littlest fascist Northern League city government, no longer tolerates muslim women. I guess fining them 500 euro for "failing to integrate" is just the start: 'Not tolerated' Novara Mayor Massimo Giordano said the by-law was meant to deter women from covering themselves with the veil in public. "But unfortunately it is apparently not yet clear to everyone that clothes preventing the wearer's identification can be tolerated at home but not in public places, in schools, on buses or in post offices," he said, according to the Italian state news agency Ansa. "There are still some people that refuse to understand that our community in Novara does not accept and does not want people going around wearing the burka." He said the by-law was "the only tool at our disposal to stop behaviour that makes the already difficult process of integration even harder".

Fri 30 Apr: World Pinhole Day http://www.pinholeday.org/ celebrates lensless pinhole camera photography. From April 25, 2010, Stuart Neilson, "Cork City Harbour (Odlums Flour building), Ireland" Cork, Ireland http://www.pinholeday.org/gallery/2010/index.php?id=385 And Chryssa Dislis, "Parade" Cork, Ireland http://www.pinholeday.org/gallery/2010/index.php?id=441

Wed 07 Apr: Apparently, according to http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/015944.html , adding &btnI=745 to the end of a Google search URL will force the "I'm Feeling Lucky" query to kick in and redirect to the first search result. It does not always work in practice, for instance http://www.google.com/search?q=bbc&btnI=745 does work but http://www.google.com/search?q=stuart%20neilson&btnI=745 does not.

Thu 18 Mar: This is the best disgruntled employee story I have heard. More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/hacker-bricks-cars/

Sun 07 Mar: Popular Science has made its 137-year magazine archive available for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. http://www.popsci.com/announcements/article/2010-03/new-browse-137-years-popsci-archive-free

Thu 04 Mar: "Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks - and the Acropolis too!" says the headline in the Bild newspaper. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8549793.stm Josef Schlarmann and Frank Schaeffler told Germany's Bild daily that the Greek state should sell stakes in all its assets to raise more cash. Mr Schlarmann is a senior member of Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats and Mr Schaeffler is an MP for the Free Democrats - the junior partner in the centre-right coalition.

Thu 04 Mar: A Swedish pilot without a valid licence to fly has been arrested at Amsterdam as he was about to fly a jet with 101 passengers to Turkey, Dutch police say. The 41-year-old man said he had been flying for European airlines for 13 years and had logged 10,000 hours. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8549954.stm

Wed 03 Mar: In another exchange, the child says: "MS 4-0-3, contact departure," and then adds: "Adios, amigo." The pilot responds: "Adios, amigo." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8547875.stm

Wed 03 Mar: 'I could have sworn I saw a man riding a lawn mower,' the co-pilot is reported as saying. http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0303/pilots.html

Thu 25 Feb: The International Intellectual Property Alliance, an umbrella group for organisations including the MPAA and RIAA, is lobbying the US government for sanctions against countries that promote open source software http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/feb/23/opensource-intellectual-property because it undermines the software industry and respect for intellectual property rights.

Sat 13 Feb: Introducing Computer Engineer Barbie! Mattel unveiled Barbie’s latest careers based on votes and Barbie unleashed a surprise – Barbie’s 126th career is Computer Engineer Barbie following viral voting amongst female engineers and other women in the tech industry. http://www.chipchick.com/2010/02/computer-engineer-barbie.html BUT DOES SHE USE LINUX ?!?!?! http://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/286108:does-computer-engineer-barbie-use-linux

Thu 11 Feb: Thrilliant Binking 101: The Australian Government Information Management Office can not consider open source replacements for expensively licensed software because 'If the cost of assessing it [open source] was greater than the cost of the software, you would have to think twice.' http://www.itnews.com.au/News/166884,open-source-not-free-senate-hears.aspx

2010-02-09:11:08:- Google kounye a gen yon Haitian sèvis tradiksyon kreyòl http://translate.google.ie/?hl=en&tab=wT#ht|en|Google%20kounye%20a%20gen%20yon%20Haitian%20s%C3%A8vis%20tradiksyon%20krey%C3%B2l

Mon Feb 8 12:49:28 GMT 2010:- There is an article in Inkscape http://www.inklingmagazine.com/articles/crescat-graffiti-vita-excolatur/ with a statistical analysis of graffiti in the University of Chicago library

2010-02-07: New Web Site Design. I have redesigned the layout of this web site.

About Stuart Neilson

A Brief Biography of Stuart Neilson

Books and Reports by Stuart Neilson

In The Press - newspaper and magazine articles by, or about, Stuart Neilson

Motor Nerurone Disease, The At Your Fingertips Guide by Dr Stuart Neilson and Dr Frank Clifford Rose

Multiple Sclerosis, The At Your Fingertips Guide by Ian Robinson, Dr Stuart Neilson and Dr Frank Clifford Rose

Papers in academic journals

Presentations at conferences

Services on Offer

Where in the World?

Articles

Administrivia

New Web Site Design

I have redesigned the layout of this web site.

Linux

Using a phone with Linux and Bluetooth

gnome-user-share should already be installed, if not then sudo apt-get install gnome-user-share

Greek language files

A collection of links to resources for online and computer-based learning Greek, ancient and modern. Included below are some Parley files translated from other sources, with links to the original sources.

Reading Greek ePub books on the Sony Reader

I downloaded a number of Greek ePub books from Project Gutenberg and discovered on opening them that the Greek text fails to display correctly because the internal fonts on my Sony Reader PRS600 do not contain the glyphs for accented Greek characters or substitution tables. It is possible to reflash the Reader with firmware containing fonts with a greater unicode coverage, but here is an alternative method.

Photography

Gallery

Digital-images

Photo Galleries

I have uploaded some photograph galleries.

Insects

Spiders

Sexual_Abuse

Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales

This article attempts to provide estimates of the prevalence of child sexual abuse in England and Wales - the number of offences, the number of children affected and the number of child sexual abusers, both convicted and unreported. These figures provide a context for individual press reports or personal experience of abuse.

The scale of sexual offending in Ireland

This article attempts to provide estimates of the prevalence of sexual offences against children and adults in Ireland — the number of offences, the number of people affected and the number of sexual offenders, both convicted and unreported. These figures provide a context for individual press reports or personal experience of sexual abuse and assault.

Sevenoaks School

Allegations of child sexual abuse have been made against a number of teachers at Sevenoaks School, notably Gerd Sommerhoff (who has been linked with the Paedophile Information Exchange). A court case was settled against Sevenoaks School in 2013 for damages to XY resulting from sexual abuse by Gerd Sommerhoff. The school chaplain through many of these years of abuse was Peter Hullah, formerly a Bishop in the Chruch of England, head of Chetham School of Music at the time of sexual abuse there.

Stuart Neilson

About Stuart Neilson

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