New Website Content

The website continues to add new content. I don't mind copying things if they are sufficiently obscure and helpful.

There is a particularly well laid out argument and evidence regarding Max Weber's claim that Calvinism had a significant effect on the outbreak of capitalism - its Calvinist ethic for thrift, work and detecting one's election and the spirit behind the engine of capitalism, that of saving and investment. As shown, the original proposition is just not so simple as it can be made out to be. When I think of the Calvinist chap who kicked off the trust that houses me, he was too early for capitalism and instead set things up for a later capitalism. It was people like the Greggs, say, at Styal, Cheshire, who knew how to be capitalist - children placed under bondage, where even the punishments added to the factory's output. That came later, and they were Unitarian - where a better housed and fed workforce were under lifelong pressure to deliver results. Some youngsters even fled to go to the workhouse whilst adults feared they'd lose their accommodation, admittedly better than the Manchester slums. This is in Learning and Social Sciences.

A less sociological piece is incredibly silly, but it shows what happens when you take sociological outcomes and mistake them for natural characteristics. Because women started 1% of religions, even if they fill them with followers, they demonstrate they are less capable in yet another field of endeavour. This is pre Annie Bessant but the writing is useful for its naivity. This is in Learning and Religion and Faiths.

Meanwhile, I have been doing a project to test a device called an Oxypod. Although limited in isolation and operation comparison conditions, it was tested by its absence in December 2013 and its presence in December 2014. It was launched in Hull with a great fanfare, and with a projection to lose 30% from heating bills. Although I collected a lot of data, the essential data is gas used per hour and what I call 'the insulation effect' - the extent to which heat generated is not lost to the outside world. If the house had paper walls it would need a gas central heating system going like the clappers (a bit like a caravan) with rapid losses. In fact a system loses heat quickly at first and then retains it more as the temperature drops - it cannot go below the outside temperature. Equally, radiators come on and it takes some time to get the first effect of a switch on, but the last degree raised to the regulator is quite quick. The insulation effect matters then too - the starting level and some of the gradient of warming up. These are in the data. We should expect, then, a 30% reduction in gas bills. In fact the Oxypod used more but there was a greater insulation effect (overall its work was more efficient) in December 2014 - well more gas used but say, at least, that December 2014 was colder - and the overall impact is zero. There's a spreadsheet of data and arguments turned into formulas available and this is in the Localities area.