Well according to the newspaper that supported it, Earth Hour was a success. The figures they are citing are:

EnergyAustralia last night reported a drop between seven and 12 per cent in energy consumption in Sydney’s CBD during Earth Hour. On a typical Saturday night the city would use 231.8 megawatts of electricity. Last night’s figure was 212.4 megawatts.

Which sounds like an amazing feat but there’s more to it than meets the eye. My first doubts come from when I saw the following graph here after last year’s event.

Notice the massive peak before the actual hour. I’m assuming people went and used all their appliances ahead of time so they could turn them off during the actual hour and then actually ended up using more power in total than on previous Saturdays.

Now let me start on one of the caveats of using this publicly available data. Firstly, the above graph is for the state of NSW as a whole. It doesn’t isolate the CBD’s power consumption (something which energy utilities are obviously in a much better position to do). What it does show is how, despite looking pretty, the CBD’s contribution to Earth Hour doesn’t have much of an effect on the power usage of the whole state.

I have prepared graphs for the 2008 event showing a state-by-state breakdown and a total figure.

NSW:

QLD:

SA:

VIC:

Total:

There does seem to be a creeping up of power usage in preparation for the hour, just as the 2007 data suggests. This isn’t a strong statistical correlation because we only have two Earth Hours worth of data, but by the same token I find it hard to believe people can be so sure that it succeeded when there are simply so many variables to power usage.

Here’s some more notes (and caveats).

* I’ve added comparisons to previous Saturdays in March of this year. In my mind there is absolutely no point in comparing energy usage to the previous days in the week (as some people are doing) due to them being weekdays.

* The data is sourced from NEMMCO, the National Electricity Market Management Company. You can find the data I used here, although if you’re reading this more than two months after Earth Hour then you’ll find the data here.

* There isn’t much information with the NEMMCO data so I have no idea what the unit is on the demand figure. I’m guessing Megawatt-hours but I could be wrong.

* If you look at the raw data they quote ‘periods’ not time of the day. The discrete points on my graphs are the average demand for the previous 30 minutes.

* Due to NSW/VIC, QLD and SA all being in three different timezones I’ve normalised all of them to local time (thanks for pointing that out Berry/Dana). This is why the x-axis of the total curve is shorter than for the other graphs (because there’s fewer time periods when I have data for all states).

* I haven’t started the y-axes at zero to exaggerate the fluctuations during the day (i.e. I’m trying to make the fluctuations look larger than they actually are, which inflates the opposite point of view to mine. Hey, they need some help!).

* The vast differences in the SA figures between the first two and last two weeks is due to the maximum temperature in Adelaide being 40 an 38 degrees for the 8th and 15th, compared with 23 and 18 degrees on the following two Saturdays. It just goes to show that having a hot (or really cold) day has far more effect on power consumption than people intentionally minimising their power usage.

* I have no idea what happened in NSW and VIC on the 15th of March to cause usage to be so much higher than the other three Saturdays.

* I can’t do WA because I don’t have the data. I didn’t do Tasmania out of choice.

* The spreadsheet I used can be found here.

* I’ve probably missed something else. Please tell me (catchwa[at]gmail[dot]com) if I have.

There are reports of swarms of people driving their cars (which of course burn fossil fuels) to the city in order to see the spectacle of a lack of light. Ironic (or rather, moronic)? People who light candles during Earth Hour are quite likely just as misguided, judging by this back of the envelope calculation. Finally, even if we reduced the demand for electricity to zero for a whole hour the power stations would still burn oil/coal/gas/unicorns because you can’t simply shut down a power station for an hour and kick it back up again at 8:59.

So if there isn’t any positive environmental impact from Earth Hour what does it achieve? Publicity for the environment? Was a Nobel Prize and and every other news story from the past few years not enough? Can we give it a rest, please?

There’s some more severely anti-Earth Hour articles here and here.

Life can really suck sometimes. It can also be equally awesome. I like to think of life kinda like a sine wave: peaks and troughs – we all just have different frequencies of motion. Usually the good cancels out the bad but I know for me that the bad takes far longer to fade away than the good does. When you’re bottoming out life can really get you down so it’s always nice to have something to look forward to doing that can take your mind off the problems of the world. A show I had fallen in love with over the past few months is Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It was engrossing – an adjective I would use about pretty much no other TV show apart from maybe The Sopranos (which too, will be finishing soon). You know the kinds of shows I’m talking about – where you could roll episode after episode and you wouldn’t bat an eyelid. The kind where if you rolled two or three episodes into one you’d have a better movie than 90% of the crap that is on at the movies at the moment. Studio 60 made you think. Studio 60 gave your heartstrings one hell of a tug on more than one occasion.

But all of that doesn’t matter. NBC in their infinite wisdom have decided to end Studio 60’s run of one season. Judging from the episode that just aired I’d suggest that the mentioning of ratings in the last episode (about the show-within-a-show) were self-referential (in a similar vein to one of my favourite episodes of Arrested Development).

And not that what I or anyone writes about it will have any bearing on the final outcome – I just find it sad that NBC can justify another season of Biggest Loser but not of Studio 60. After the Sopranos finishes in a fortnight and Studio 60 finishing soon also I’ll have to rely on Entourage to kick me back up the other side of the sine curve.

Up and down, up and down.
(No more emo posts about feelings for the rest of the month, I promise!)

So I see that Time are running an online Most Influential People online poll. In theory this is great, in practice it’s horrible. Take a look at the poll or see the screenshot below, it’s been rigged something chronic.

Whilst I’m sure that Bhumibol Adulyadej is incredibly influential in Thailand is he really the most influential person in the world (or even, as Time’s awards seem to be really about, in America)? No, of course not – a group of people have obviously spammed the poll. Just like they would have done for Korean pop singer Rain who has little or no influence in the US.

How easy is it to rig a poll like this? In the days of online social networks, the answer is incredibly easy. One post to Digg took Nintendo guru Shigeru Miyamoto from #153 to #5 on the list in five minutes.

How easy is it to prevent polls from being rigged? Well there’s one thing the person hosting the poll can do that is pretty easy – raise the barriers to entry. Just like from economic theory, if the cost to the person voting is high (where we define cost as money, time, etc. but in terms of the internet you’d have to say time is the big factor) then most people won’t bother. If it took more than say five seconds to go and vote for someone then people would obviously be less inclined to do so. For example, if you had to register first and then wait a week after registering before voting (and you had to remember yourself that you had to go back to the website in a week) then you would get a more representative sample and not a group of flashmobbers deciding the outcome of your poll.

What the marketers inside the companies that run these polls see though is the total number of pollsters. If they can get a million people voting then they’ll be much more satisfied than if they get 10,000 – even if the latter sample is far more representative of the population.

Oh well….if Colbert can make it to number one then not all is lost…

On why Dawkins can’t influence people, in defence of religion and why it doesn’t really matter either way.

I used to be a fan of Richard Dawkins. It has now, however, recently dawned upon me that now I’m not. The God Delusion has been getting plenty of press – no doubt in part due to it’s publicity-driven provocative title. But what does it actually achieve and does that match up with what Dawkins was hoping to achieve?

Firstly, Dawkins isn’t stupid – he’s not hoping that The God Delusion is going to become the scientific equivalent of the Bible (Some would argue that that book has already been written by Dawkin’s hero, Darwin. I would add that perhaps a more interesting piece of scientific literature came from Newton – someone who showed that religion and science were not mutually exclusive). He is trying to ‘de-convert’ people, though – to convince people that religious faith is a delusion. He’s also trying to push the God debate into the public eye.

But what is he actually achieving? He comes across to me as anti-religion as opposed to pro-science. Isn’t he the Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford? Does he actually promote the public understanding of science or rather, does he use his position to lob grenades at the other side. I’ve read some (not all) of his work, I’ve seen him speak, I’ve seen The Root of All Evil?, but I don’t think I understand science any better. Something Dawkins needs to get into his head is that, just because someone believes something that you don’t, it doesn’t make you a better person and, if you’re going to equate religious belief with insanity, then you’re not going to get anywhere. The ‘holier than thou’ aura he coverts doesn’t make him any better than the very people he’s attacking in the first place. On the one hand Dawkins argues that either Christians should accept that the whole bible is true or none of it is, and on the other he is more than happy to pick and choose from the Old Testament to show the ‘fire and brimstone’ God to support his arguments.

And this is why Dawkins is the wrong person to lead this side of the debate. He is combative, he is polarising, he is anti-Them instead of pro-Us. He thinks religion is some clear-cut yes/no decision people make. It isn’t. It’s an intensely personal thing, with many shades of grey, that people have to decide for themselves. You can’t push or pull people one way or the other – let them make up their own minds (which is why I’m not a big fan of doorknocking religious types) – just be there when people come to you to find out what your own message is.

So is religion bad? Dawkins would say yes (no surprises there). However, I do think he’s full of it. There are some religious people that the world can do without. There are also some non-religious people the world can do without. What I’m getting at is that people do bad things because some people are just plain bad. You can’t hope to explain it any further. It often has very little to do with religion. If people can be convinced that God wants them to blow themselves up then chances are they could also be convinced that Elmo wants them to do the same. Charismatic leaders with incredible pulling power have, over history, made people do some incredibly evil things without championing any kind of deity. Science shouldn’t be impervious from criticism. Just as there are good and bad religious leaders there have been good and bad scientific leaders because, quite simply, there are (morally) good and bad people. If everyone was perfect then what’s the point? If we didn’t have people to boo and people to applaude then from a morality perspective how can we possibly define a good and a bad?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that religion is sacred (pun unintended) and can’t be touched. However, if you’re trying to get your point about something, why not spend some more of your time promoting your own views as opposed to simply lambasting the other side? It just doesn’t strike me as a very good way to convince people of something. Understanding and tolerance (a good thing!) will come about from two sides sharing their ideas, not from two sides being at each others throats all the time.

So what of Dawkin’s latest effort? I wouldn’t blame people for writing it off as an incredibly one-sided street-corner rant. Most people familiar with Dawkin’s work are going to know what they’re getting into before they open the front cover – an attack on religion, not a defence of science. Are there going to be religiously devout people who pick up the book, read it from cover to cover and then miraculously renounce religion? I don’t think so. Not by a long shot.

So does this really matter? As I’ve already said, religious belief (or lack thereof) is an intensely personal thing. I’d seriously doubt that anyone is going to read or listen to some Dawkins and ‘free themselves’ of religion. I think it’s great that religion exists. Our world is so much more diverse because of it. How boring would the world be if we approached everything from the scientific side of things? Some of the greatest works of art, of music, of literature have only come about because of these diverse beliefs. Listen, embrace and accept – don’t attack, lambast and belittle.

On why Bindi Irwin creeps me out, why she makes me cringe and why she should get a real life.

Look at any youtube clip of her. No kid talks like that naturally. Sure, she has had a really weird father (let’s call a spade a spade here – he was incredibly weird) but come on. Look at how she was at his funeral. Did she cry? What is going on? Is she a robot? Most of the people that didn’t even know her father outside of tv were crying yet she doesn’t even blink. Her euology reading was more akin to someone reading something out of a kid’s picture book. So either she is devoid of any real emotion, has been so heavily coached that it just isn’t funny or she doesn’t actually really understand the events of the past few months.

This isn’t her fault, of course – she’s only eight, for heavens sake. However, I really do get a sense that she’s a ticking timebomb. The thing about child ’stars’ is that often they don’t know that they can choose just to be normal. When you’re so young you can’t really comprehend your future life direction, so therefore it’s the job of the parents to make that judgement for them. Is it really going to matter if she tried to be normal for the next 10 years? Is the world going to fall apart – are all the crocs going to roll over and die? I thought not. How about seeing her with kids her own age instead of those incredibly lame Crocmen? And go to a real school – homeschooling just doesn’t cut it when you spend the rest of your time around adults. If your social skills don’t develop now it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever be able to relate to people your own age. It’s not hard to think of precedents for this – pretty much every generation has had at least one child star go off the rails (or in some cases a smattering of them) in one way or another (Britney was a Mouseketeer if you didn’t know).

And finally, if she ‘went normal’ for 10 years at least I wouldn’t have to cringe everytime I saw her on tv – there’s enough misconceptions about Aussies without her adding fuel to the fire, too.