TV viewed

*  I thought I would have a look at the Logies last night, but only because Sam Pang, whose dead pan style of humour I find quite funny, was hosting.  Unfortunately, though, I missed his introductory monologue, which seems to have been well received, and switched over mid show to see him doing a protracted bit involving that old bloke from Home and Away, which seemed to be a big fail.   But then again, I also saw Dave Hughes, whose routine seemed pretty dire, and once again got to wonder how such a strange looking man with a strange delivery ever managed to find a career in visual media.   I probably saw about 20 minutes in total.  It was not, shall we say, holding my interest.

As I watch nearly nothing on commercial free-to-air TV, that's hardly surprising.  I was going to say that the industry insiders seem to lack insight into how few people really care for them (and it's always been a cringe-fest); but now that I check, there were 877,000 Australians watching it, at least at the start.  (That's far more than I expected, but I would also expect there was less than half of that by the end!)  

* On a more positive note - Futurama has been revived, and while it is on Hulu in the USA, here the first episode has dropped on Disney +.  

I thought it was very, very good:  an extremely self aware take on cancelled shows and binge watching TV.  In other words, it was mocking itself in a very meta but pretty pleasing way.   It seems all of the voice actors are back, and the writers, I think this episode would have pleased everyone.  

Internal critic

I don't recall reading about Dr Allan Frances before - but he turned up on Radio National yesterday morning talking about his views on overdiagnosis of various psychiatric problems (ADHD in kids being one issue), and he sounded pretty convincing and sensible to my mind.   (One thing I did not know was that there is apparently a much greater proportion of the youngest kids in classes who get diagnosed with ADHD.  He thinks there is no other explanation for this other than kids who are too immature for the class  having worse behaviour, and it being turned into a medical problem.)  

The RN interview can be heard on the ABC website, but I don't know how long for.

His Wiki page indicates he has been running his arguments for a long time.  It would seem he is not being paid much attention, though...

  

Amateur science noted

Quite a charming article here at Science on how a 75 year old Japanese guy is one of the most prolific discoverers of supernova.  It starts:

For Koichi Itagaki, it was just another evening of supernova hunting. After his usual 7 p.m. dinner with his wife, he drove to his private observatory in the hills above his home in Yamagata, Japan, 290 kilometers north of Tokyo. He set out treats for the only visitors he allows on his celestial patrols: a stray cat he calls Nora and the raccoon dogs that warily approach from the surrounding forest. He then took a seat within his “headquarters,” a cozy hut equipped with a bed, minifridge, microwave—and a dozen monitors used to control seven telescopes at three locations across Japan.

On clear nights, each telescope runs through a routine, focusing on one of the approximately 1000 galaxies Itagaki monitors for two 15-second exposures before swiveling to the next target. On this night, clouds blanketed most of the country, leaving a clear view only for his two telescopes in Okayama, 700 kilometers to the southwest. But as the clock ticked into the early morning of 20 May, clouds drifted over Okayama, too. Itagaki called it a night and drove home, leaving the telescopes on automatic in case the weather cleared.

It did. The next morning he had scanned the night’s images for just 5 minutes when he spotted a new, bright object in a spiral arm of the Pinwheel galaxy, 21 million light-years away. “It was so bright, I thought there was no way this object could have been missed,” he says. To his surprise, he was the first to post the news to the Transient Name Server (TNS), the International Astronomical Union’s database of new celestial objects. As word spread on TNS and the Astronomer’s Telegram, an email alert service, professionals and amateurs alike began pointing their instruments toward SN 2023ixf, the universe’s newest exploding star and the closest to Earth in a decade. It was growing brighter by the minute....

Cheerful, friendly, and easy-going, Itagaki is a trim 75-year-old with wisps of white hair, wire-rimmed bifocals, and a self-effacing sense of humor. “I am not an astronomer,” Itagaki says, smiling broadly while waving his left hand dismissively, as if shooing away a fly. “I’m looking for new celestial bodies as a hobby.” He traces his path into astronomy to a boyhood fascination with lenses. “I used to play with lenses, using sunlight to burn paper,” he says. In junior high, he spent his allowance on a DIY telescope kit and studied the Moon a bit. “I also used it to spy on the neighbors,” he says, smiling and waving.

Then in 1963, a 19-year-old Japanese amateur named Kaoru Ikeya grabbed national headlines when he discovered a comet with a more substantial homemade telescope. “It amazed me that you could search the stars like this,” Itagaki says. Within Itagaki’s hut, a framed 1963 newspaper clipping of Ikeya’s achievement hangs in homage.

 The observatory set up indicates he's put a fair amount of money into his hobby:

 And this is just one of three he uses...

 

 

"Reading the room" is a concept unknown to her, apparently

 Update:  oh, that screenshot doesn't mention the key point:

The Republican congresswoman caused a firestorm when she mentioned snubbing her fiancé to make it to a prayer breakfast on time

“When I woke up this morning at seven,” Mace explained, “Patrick, my fiancé, tried to pull me by my waist over this morning in bed and I was like ‘no baby we don’t got time for that this morning, I’ve gotta get to the prayer breakfast.’”

“He can wait, I’ll see him later tonight,” she added. 

While the comment may have been a little TMI, conservative influencers reacted with wholehearted disgust. You see, Mace, 45, made the grave mistake of admitting that she, an adult woman, has a sex life outside of the confines of matrimony. A thing we’re 100 percent sure no other right-wing commentator has ever done. 

“That’s some hoe talk,” tweeted Florida Congressional candidate Lavern Spicer in response to a video of the moment. 

Nuclear rocketry back on the cards?

I'm pretty sure that Robert Heinlein's "juvenile" books (in particular Space Family Stone) were explicitly about solar system rocketry using nuclear reactor driven engines.   And NASA did NERVA research early on, but the idea lost momentum (as did the idea of rushing to Mars).   

It seems it might become a thing after all:

In less than three years, NASA could be testing a nuclear rocket in space.

The space agency and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, announced on Wednesday that Lockheed Martin had been selected to design, build and test a propulsion system that could one day speed astronauts on a trip to Mars....

“The technical capabilities, including early safety protocols, remain viable today,” Tabitha Dodson, the DRACO project manager, said in a news briefing on Wednesday.

A key difference between NERVA and DRACO is that NERVA used weapons-grade uranium for its reactors, while DRACO will use a less-enriched form of uranium.

The reactor would not be turned on until it reached space, part of the precautions to minimize the possibility of a radioactive accident on Earth.

There will be protests about the danger of one blowing up on the way to orbit, though.

The report also doesn't really make it clear why the idea has been revived...

Underwhelming witness

Do I have this right?  David Grusch says someone who knows and has first hand knowledge told him the government knows about lots of crashed UFOs and recovered stuff and bodies, but he hasn't seen it himself and can't go into further details?

Yeah, that really blows the lid right off the whole matter....

Update:  this Vox skeptical summary of the whole situation (which is not behind a paywall) seems about right.

Odd news from Japan

 These headlines caught my eye:

OK, let's take number 2 first:

The study covered prefectural residents aged 40 or older who underwent annual health checkups in the seven cities of Kaminoyama, Yamagata, Higashine, Sakata, Tendo, Yonezawa and Sagae. The subjects were studied for a maximum of nine years from 2009, with a median follow-up period of 7.1 years.

The subjects were asked if they had any interest in the opposite sex. They were also questioned about their medical history, use of medication, how often they laughed and mental stress levels.

The researchers studied the correlation between those factors and the risk of death.

They found that 8.3 percent of the roughly 7,700 male subjects and 16.1 percent of the 11,400 or so female subjects were not interested in the opposite sex. The team said 503 test subjects, 356 men and 147 women, died during the follow-up study.

Analysis of the data showed that 9.6 percent of the men who said they had no interest in the opposite sex died during the nine years. The death rate among men who said they were still sexually interested in women was 5.6 percent.

The researchers concluded the difference shows a significantly higher risk of death, even when discounting other factors, such as age and chronic illnesses.

The data on women indicated no correlation between their sexual interest and risk of death, the team members added.

I'm assuming that a significant part of this could be that the men with erectile dysfunction, which can indicate poor general health, are the ones with low interest in the opposite sex?   Or does the discounting of "chronic illness" account for that?   

Also, I continue to be very surprised that this story from last year did not really gain any widespread publicity:

And at the end of 2021, a group at Cleveland Clinic analyzed the insurance claims for more than 7 million Americans and found that people on Viagra were almost 70% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than people who were not on the drug.

(It was already know to be pretty good for the heart, too.)

I would recommend that the Japanese get into prescribing it for "men with no interest in women".  :)

And as for the first story:  it sounds like a very weird true crime story -

SAPPORO--Police on July 24 arrested a woman and her father in connection with the discovery of a headless body in a hotel here three weeks ago.

Runa Tamura, 29, and her father Osamu, a 59-year-old doctor, were held on suspicion of damaging, abandoning and illegally possessing a body, police said.

Police believe the victim, a 62-year-old Hokkaido resident, was known to Runa, who lives in Sapporo.

The daughter and father pair are suspected of decapitating the man in a hotel in Sapporo’s Susukino entertainment district late on July 1 or early on July 2, the police said.

They are also suspected of taking the victim's head to another location. It remains missing.

The man died from a stab wound in the body. His head was apparently cut off after death, investigative sources said.

The victim’s body was naked. No clothing or belongings such as a cellphone or wallet were found.

There were no signs of a struggle in the hotel room, and the victim had no defense wounds, the sources said.

 What on earth was going on??

Must be China week here

Well, Paul Krugman's column (which I will generously gift link) is mainly about what happened to Japan, but it does refer to China too:

These days the focus of anxiety about global competition has shifted from Japan to China, which is a bona fide economic superpower: Adjusted for purchasing power, its economy is already bigger than ours. But China has seemed to be faltering lately, and some have been asking whether China’s future path might resemble that of Japan.

My answer is that it probably won’t — that China will do worse. But to understand why I say that, you need to know something about what happened to Japan, which wasn’t at all the catastrophe I think many people imagine.

Krugman's argument is that Japan's basic problem is its demography, and that it has done reasonably well, considering.

As usual, he's easy to understand and presents a reasonable argument.

It's a worry

Here's a very concerning post at Real Climate by Stefan Rahmstorf about the high uncertainty as to what is happening to Atlantic currents under climate change.

This should be read to add a lot of detail to news reports today about the latest study indicating that the AMOC might shut down much sooner than the IPCC thought likely.

I'm not who I think I am?

I was just fooling around with Chat GTP, and asked it to tell me about Opinion Dominion blog.  This is most of the response:

As of my last update in September 2021, "Opinion Dominion" was a personal blog run by David Tiley, an Australian writer and film critic. The blog covered a wide range of topics, including politics, economics, science, technology, and film reviews.

Here are some key points about the Opinion Dominion blog:

1. Author: The blog was primarily authored by David Tiley, who is known for his insightful commentary and analysis on various subjects. David has a background in science and journalism, and his diverse interests are reflected in the topics he covers on the blog.

2. Topics: The Opinion Dominion blog covered a broad spectrum of topics, including political issues and current events in Australia and around the world. David also delved into economic matters, providing his take on economic policies and developments. Additionally, he shared his thoughts on films, TV shows, and cultural events.

3. Thoughtful Analysis: David Tiley's writing on the blog was known for its thoughtful and informed analysis. He often delved into the nuances of the subjects he discussed, providing readers with a deeper understanding of the issues at hand.

Ha!  I had to Google to check, but David Tiley is a real Australian writer and critic, which Chat GTP has imagined (for completely unknown reason) is the author of this blog. 

He isn't.   

There's no doubt, I think, that the summary does reflect the blog in some ways - the broad scope of topics, for example.  And of course, I am happy if it is identified as having "thoughtful and informed analysis".   

But it's dreamt up an author identity based on - what, I wonder?

 

Why Singaporeans are oddly sympathetic to China

Is it just a case of one virtual "one party" micro state admiring the biggest actual "one party" state of them all?  (Sorry Singapore, you know I love you.)

Anyway, the Washington Post has a very long article looking at why Singaporeans (mostly the Chinese Singaporeans, probably) are oddly sympathetic to China, when the rest of the world is increasingly leery:

A 2022 survey of 19 countries by the Pew Research Center found that Singapore was one of only three that saw China and Xi in favorable terms. In June, the Eurasia Group Foundation released a survey conducted in Singapore, South Korea and the Philippines that found Singapore was the only one that viewed China more favorably than it did the United States. Fewer than half of respondents in Singapore viewed the United States favorably, compared with 56 percent who viewed China favorably.

“If too many Chinese Singaporeans are foolish enough to subscribe to Xi’s version of the ‘China Dream,’ the multiracial social cohesion that is the foundation of Singapore’s success will be destroyed,” said Bilahari Kausikan, a former permanent secretary of Singapore’s Foreign Ministry. “Once destroyed, it cannot be put together again.”

Singapore’s government passed a law to prevent foreign interference in domestic politics that went into effect last year, and has warned its ethnic-Chinese population against “hostile foreign influence operations” and stressed a distinct Singapore-Chinese identity. But messaging by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on key issues such as the role of the United States in the region and China’s internal politics is already entrenched in Singapore, including in a leading Chinese-language publication long backed by Singapore’s government.

It has a lot to do with that Chinese language news in Singapore, and old people.  

A really good read, so I have gift linked to it (above).  

 

Some light reading on madness for today!

I forget exactly what I was Googling about yesterday when this cropped up:

Did Christianity lead to schizophrenia? Psychosis, psychology and self reference

Well, that's a provocative sounding title!  It's from a journal called Transcultural Psychiatry, which probably has lots of interesting articles, I imagine.

Anyway, it's there to read in full online, and it seems to run, shall we say, a not completely unreasonable argument?   But I haven't had time to read it all carefully yet.

 

Moussaka noted

While I'm generally on the dismissive side of Greek cuisine, I have tried cooking moussaka before, and gave it a go again on the weekend for the first time in probably a couple of decades.   (The inspiration:  cheap eggplant and very un-fatty looking lamb mince at Harris Farm.)  

I followed this recipe to good success.

The reasons it was better than I remembered were no doubt:

*  I didn't fry the eggplant in olive oil and let it soak it up like a sponge:  I baked it for 25 minutes after just brushing the slices with olive oil.  

*   the potatoes were sliced thinner than I used to do (just half a centimetre) and they were also brushed and baked at the same time as the eggplant.

*   despite having made bechamel sauce many times before, I don't recall ever following a recipe that had egg yolk added at the end.  But yeah, it definitely increases the richness, and perhaps the thickness, of the final product.

*   a combination of a slightly thicker bechamel and letting it sit for 10 minutes before serving did mean I didn't have runaway flow of bechamel when I served it.   

I adjusted the quantities to about 3/4 of what is in the recipe, and it still made enough for 6 servings.  It's a very substantial dish to eat.

That is all...

Quiggin talks China

John Quiggin takes a quick overview of changes in China, and encourages us not to be too pessimistic about how it affects us.  

Speaking of China, did anyone else watch the ABC's latest short run series of China Tonight?   It was buried a bit on a late night slot, perhaps because it seemed they wanted to make it lighter in tone with (relatively) unknown hosts.  When I say "lighter in tone", it was actually half comedic.  I found it informative, but a bit peculiar.   

These ABC shows focused on particular countries are actually pretty good, generally speaking - and I think they should perhaps be given greater time slot prominence if they want an audience.

Back to that unpleasant topic

I have briefly noted before that Japan had an issue with widespread infanticide during the Edo period (1603 - 1868)*, when mentioning that it was reported by anthropologists as common in aboriginal society, but I have not read anything before about the situation in Europe around the same time. 

It would seem that evidence for it being pretty widespread there, too, in the same period, may have been staring us in the face for a long time:

"Routine" infanticide of newborns by married parents in early modern Europe was a much more widespread practice than previously thought, a new book posits.  

This fresh insight sits at the heart of a new book, "Death Control in the West 1500–1800: Sex Ratios at Baptism in Italy, France and England, "by Gregory Hanlon and contributors....

Hanlon, who is Distinguished Research Professor at Dalhousie University in Canada, calls attention to the limited scope of existing scholarship, which has never focused on sex ratios of infants brought for baptism within hours or days after their birth.

These records reveal startling spikes in the number of male baptisms in the aftermath of famines or diseases.

He notes, "Historians in the West have relied almost exclusively on records of criminal trials in which unwed mothers or married women carrying progeny not sired by their husbands hid their pregnancies and killed their newborns alone or with female accomplices. Married infanticidal mothers may have been a hundred times more numerous."

Hanlon's research suggests that in rural Tuscany at the height of infanticide the victims might have constituted up to a third of the total number of live births. 

Using baptismal registers and ecclesiastical censuses drawn from scores of parishes in Italy, France and England, Hanlon shows similar infanticide patterns across city and country, for Catholics, Calvinists and Anglicans alike.

In Italy's rural 17th century Tuscany, Hanlon suggests that parents seemed willing to sacrifice a child if they were a twin, opting to keep just one of the newborns. In the north Italian city of Parma, Laura Hynes Jenkins found that working-class parents preferred girls over boys.

The question of how the baby was dealt with was important for the legal consequences:

Hanlon calls attention to lax punitive measures taken for crimes of infanticide, and notes, "Tribunals operated against single mothers almost exclusively, but only if they killed the newborn deliberately. Simple abandonment was not a comparable offense."

It seems almost hard to believe that the sex ratios of children being baptised has never been examined before for this type of research - but it seems hard to imagine that obvious large differences in sex ratios could be explained in any other way.

I would also comment that this shows that the pro-life anti-abortion movement, when it emphasises women's guilt over having an abortion as a reason not to have one, is pretty clearly ignoring the historical evidence of psychological ability of parents to not regret ending their own child's life for very economically pragmatic reasons.   (Not, I should hasten to add, that I am trying to make a case for the return of baby killing or abandonment...) 

 

* You can watch a Youtube explanation here done by an animation channel that is pretty good on explaining Japanese history and culture, actually.

 

A reasonable Krugman take

Given that I noticed Noah Smith saying the other day that he would do a post soon about how Europe must be doing something wrong (he was looking at average adjusted incomes between the US and Europe, I think), this column by Krugman is pretty good and balanced.

 I will gift link to it, but here are some key parts:

Our global standing is never as good or as bad as conventional wisdom has it at any given moment. And the downside of getting puffed up about our relative performance is that we may fail to learn from things other nations do better.

I say this as someone who’s seen us go through multiple ups and downs on this front. There was the manic Morning in America phase of the mid-1980s, followed by the depressive mood of the early ’90s: “The Cold War is over and Japan won.” Then came a late-90s surge in triumphalism as America temporarily took the lead in taking advantage of the internet, which receded as other countries also got online, productivity gains from information technology petered out, America led the way into global financial crisis and China emerged as a powerful economic rival.

Now the boastfulness is back, with a special emphasis on trashing European economic performance. For example, I’ve been seeing media organizations that really should know better saying things like this: “America’s economy is nearly twice the size of the eurozone’s. In 2008 they were similar,” which appeared on a chart in The Wall Street Journal.

You can read the next bit, but further down:

Put it this way: Just comparing dollar values of G.D.P. in America and Europe arguably overstates the true gap in economic performance by a factor of around 10.

My take is that all modern economies are at roughly the same level of technology. They’re also all capable of achieving remarkable things when they put their mind to it. Have people noticed how quickly Pennsylvania managed to reopen I-95 after a section of the crucial highway collapsed?

But our sophisticated, capable societies often make different choices. Some of these choices are just that — choices where there isn’t necessarily a right answer. For example, one reason European nations generally have lower G.D.P. per capita than we do is that their workers get a lot more vacation. We have more stuff; they have more time. De gustibus and all that.

In other areas, however, some countries almost surely get it wrong. Europe’s lagging growth probably does, in part, reflect inflexibility and resistance to innovation. Americans, on the other hand, should ask themselves why we seem to be worse at building livable cities or, to take one important aspect of life, not dying: U.S. life expectancy had fallen far behind comparable countries even before Covid.

The point is that advanced countries are, in important ways, laboratories for economic and social policy: Nobody is the best at everything, and we can learn a lot by looking at things other countries seem to do better than we do.

Yes:  it is pretty incredible the decrease in life expectancy in the US, not to mention the way a significant number of Americans go bankrupt from medical treatment each year.   

Simple economic measures and comparisons should never be the only way of measuring quality of life...

 

 

A not unreasonable order of priorities

The Washington Post reports:

Respondents in a study released by the nonprofit Pew Research Center were asked to rate the importance of nine separate missions. Only 12 percent of adults think returning astronauts to the surface of the moon should be NASA’s top priority, according to the study. A human landing on Mars is even less popular: Only 11 percent said it should be the top priority.

By contrast, 60 percent said monitoring asteroids should be the agency’s top priority; 50 percent said monitoring climate change should be NASA’s top priority.

Well, that going to Mars is so close to going the Moon is a bit disappointing - given that I reckon the public has no idea how far away we are from having the capacity to safely go there.  (They are persuaded by the boosterism of Musk and movies that are only superficially semi-realistic, like The Martian.)  

I'm going to be very surprised if the Voice referendum passes

It's not that I particularly value the opinion of Chelsea Watego at all; it's just that she is one of the higher profile (such that she gets a run in the Guardian) aboriginal academics who is pre-emptively providing evidence for my view that, even if implemented, the Voice system is likely to continually present government with two views - one from the Voice group itself, and one from other indigenous spokespeople critical of the decisions of the Voice representatives.  Given that the Voice opinion is not meant to be binding, it will mean governments having to choose between two opinions from within the indigenous community, which is pretty much exactly what happens now on many key issues anyway.

True, I can see that if the government wants to side with the Voice on a particular decision, deferring to the "official" body may give them political cover:  but there are bound to be cases where it will not be clear which way to jump on an issue, and a Voice recommendation may be politically unpopular.  

Anyway, here is Watego having a whine about being criticised about not endorsing the Voice:

The yes campaign, in its strategy, reveals the very real dangers associated with enshrining a voice to parliament. To enshrine a voice that in this moment is silencing and domesticating the diverse voices of sovereign Black nations across this continent offers more concern than it does hope for the future.

I am not accepting the lie that it’s now or never, or that a seat at their table is the best that’s on offer. I’m not entertaining that what the political left offers is better than the overt racism of the right.

What the Black reformers have forgotten is that Indigenous sovereignty, of the unceded kind, can never be reduced to a matter of settler-colonial affiliations of left or right.

It’s the settlers, to the left and to the right who remain on the same ledger when it comes to undermining Indigenous sovereignty.

If those yes vote evangelists are as committed as they say they are to us having a voice, then Blackfullas should be able to express what we think, we feel and know – with or without the readings, law degrees, children’s books or whatever.

Blackfullas should be able to speak of the limitations of the proposed voice without being cast as intellectually incapable, mentally ill, politically disloyal, professionally inept, deceptive, treacherous and a threat to be contained, complained about, blamed or blocked.

 Basically, if the indigenous community itself appears divided on the value of the Voice, it's hardly an encouragement for the Yes vote.  

There is also something like pre-emptive over-reach going on in several respects:   retailers promoting the Yes vote by in-store announcements made to shoppers (it is way more likely to hurt than help in any shop outside of a handful in capital cities, I reckon);  the publicity given to claims that aboriginal organisations are making unwarranted claims for compensation for something as innocuous as tree planting in Western Australia; and the renewed push to co-name places with aboriginal names.  (Apparently, the Cairns and Mackay airports now flash between aboriginal and "colonial" names for cities - a surprising move that, again, I reckon is a case of  moving way ahead of public opinion.)

I think it is likely all heading towards an emphatic loss at the referendum.

Glad they got the maths right

Here's another good, short clip from Welch Labs, directly related to Oppenheimer, about the calculations that went into feeling assured enough that the first atomic bomb would not accidentally destroy the entire planet:

Cult member with fingers in his ears

 

As Rupar said a few days ago:

Oh, and I will gift link to the recent NYT article about Trump's plan to become the world's dumbest dictator (as if we didn't know):

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.

Well, I suppose I have to see it

Barbie, that is.  (Just kidding - although the trailer I have seen twice at the cinema now makes it look funnier and more likeable than I expected.  Also, I see there is a right wing culture warrior backlash against it from the "bro" reviewers in the US building, which makes me more curious to see it.  But it can wait until streaming.)

Of course, I am talking Oppenheimer, which is getting very strong reviews, although some have some reservations, it seems.

That's probably a good thing, since it deals with the "expectations too high" issue that can lead to disappointment.   

Jeremy Jahns (the Youtube movie reviewer - he's a likeable presenter, even if I don't always agree with his views) made an good observation in his review about how the table has turned completely on movie special effects.  It used to be, when CGI first gained grounds, that people would go to a movie to enjoy how many CGI shots were used (and how good they could look); but now people go "oooh - a movie that was done with all practical effects - no CGI!  How cool!"   

Which reminds me - I'm pretty sure that one key shot in Mission Impossible 7 was a big scale practical effect - the locomotive doing a dive off the bridge into the river.   It looked pretty good, but I still felt it definitely looked like a large scale model, not a full size locomotive.   But I haven't confirmed that yet...   

That Dark Emu doco

So, I watched the ABC's The Dark Emu Story documentary last night.   I was happy that it gave considerable time to the detailed critique of the book and its "research":

In 2021, an academic rebuttal to Dark Emu was published: Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate by anthropologist Peter Sutton and archeologist Keryn Walshe. Both authors appear in the documentary, arguing Pascoe ignored evidence that did not fit his case while over-emphasising evidence that did. Pascoe and Sutton come head-to-head in the film, debating definitions such as of the word “sophistication”.

“What’s wrong with being unsophisticated?” Sutton asks. “Why do you hold up a battle of sophistication as a kind of a solution to people, filling their racism?”

But, as you might expect, the pro-Pascoe side, including by such high profile figures as Marcia Langton, were given much, much more air time.  (Langton presented as particularly cranky and automatically dismissive of criticism.)

The documentary failed to mention some pertinent things which I am pretty sure would be true, such as  the book has sold so well partly because of uniformly uncritical endorsement by Education departments.

The main thing that the pro-side demonstrated, though, was that aboriginal academia and advocacy has spent the last couple of decades on a PR project to convince Australians that aboriginal society was (is?), as Sutton says, "sophisticated," and essentially the same as European society.  

But to do so, they really are on a post-modern project of co-opting terminology and applying it in a way that weakens meaning almost to the point of uselessness.   The most Pascoe-ian example is "agriculture", which Sutton is very adamant (based on his own work, I believe) is not the way to describe the aboriginal practices and belief as to how to encourage plant growth.   The other examples include the attempt to build excitement about rocks having been moved in a river so as to form fish traps by calling them "engineering".  Or "houses" that were small scale huts with construction techniques that were not, by any stretch of the imagination, complex.   (They chose some pretty tough wood and "surgically" removed it from trees with stone axes - I rolled my eyes.) 

But the big example that Langton kept using was talking about the "complex economies" to describe the fact that some items were traded between tribes - grinding rocks being the main example noted on the show.   

I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it.   As Sutton would presumably argue, you don't need to co-opt Western "sophistication" to respect aboriginal society.   It's the fakery in the attempt to do so that actually harms their cause, because (to take one example) people can see with their own eyes that one tribe handing over grinding rocks to another in exchange for something is not "sophisticated" or an "economy" in the same way - or scale - that many other societies have worked over the last few thousand years.   (I originally referred to "Western" economies, but really, the comparison with what was going on in at least parts of virtually any other continent is like chalk and cheese.)   

Ha! Sovereign citizen tries it on in - Singapore!?

I'm amused to see that American/Aussie extreme right wing "sovereign citizen" argument was tried on by a woman in Singapore recently:

A woman who made headlines for her behaviour during the trial of a fellow anti-masker was convicted by a court for charges of her own - for refusing to attend police investigations or turn up in court, and for spitting at police officers.

Lee Hui Yin, now known as Tarchandi Tan after changing her name last year, was convicted of five charges on Jul 10.

In a judgment made available on Saturday (Jul 15), District Judge Kow Keng Siong laid out the reasons for convicting the 53-year-old woman.

Tan had repeatedly defied orders to go to a police station for investigations and to attend court. This was related to investigations over an incident on Aug 18, 2021.

Tan had attended the trial of Briton Benjamin Glynn that day. When the trial was ongoing, she allegedly said "this is ridiculous kangaroo court" and directed a comment at District Judge Eddy Tham, saying "I do not respect the judge".

Glynn was given six weeks' jail in August 2021 for his offences which included not wearing a mask, and deported.

Singapore would have to be about the third last country in the world where "sovereign citizen" style argument would work - after China and Russia.

She sent an email on the eve of the court mention to several individuals including the police officer on her case, stating that she was a "sovereign individual" and not amenable to any law or obligation unless she had voluntarily consented to them.

She also said she could be said to have committed a crime only if she had "wilfully harmed or violated someone or someone's property without (that person's) consent".

She said she did not agree to be investigated since the incidents occurred over a year ago.

The judge did deal with this issue in no uncertain terms (and rightly so):

Judge Kow said the sovereign individual argument "is clearly misconceived".

"In my mind, there is absolutely no doubt that proponents and peddlers of the sovereign individual argument can be held criminally liable if they contravene the law," he said.

He said this argument has its roots in the United States. US proponents believe that the US Federal Government has no inherent power over individual citizens of the various states without their individual consent.

"To justify this belief, its proponents rely on various arguments centred around, among others, the Fourteenth and Sixteenth Amendments to the US Constitution, the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the US Uniform Commercial Code, as well as conspiracy theories that involve the US government and the US Federal Reserve Bank," said Judge Kow.

He said this argument has been "unequivocally and routinely rejected" by courts in the US and other common law jurisdictions.

"The accused has failed to provide any credible legal argument to show why the sovereign individual argument - which is based on the US Constitution and conspiracy theories and has been rejected in other jurisdictions - is applicable in Singapore," said Judge Kow.

"Under our system of government, parliament makes laws that all persons in Singapore must obey, the executive can exercise coercive powers provided by statutes, and the judiciary is the sole body empowered to make binding interpretations on the scope of these laws and powers. The sovereign individual argument ignores this legal position – a position that has been established for almost six decades since Singapore's independence and has never been in doubt."

He said that the practical effect of the sovereign individual argument is that its proponents are "above the law and can pick and choose what laws they want to obey and to enforce".

The poor woman might have an excuse for holding a nonsense belief, though:

He added that he had considered whether Tan's belief that she was sovereign suggests that the charges were caused or contributed by a mental disorder.

She was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2012, and has been a patient at the Institute of Mental Health since 2003.

 Well, you do have to be nuts to take it seriously, I guess...

Blog writing as a health exercise

From phys.org:

Computer use, crosswords and games like chess are more strongly associated with older people avoiding dementia than knitting, painting or socializing, a Monash University study has found. 

Pity I don't like crosswords, or chess!

But as for computer use, does keeping a blog count?  Yes, I would think so:

They found that participants who routinely engaged in adult literacy and mental acuity tasks such as education classes, keeping journals, and doing crosswords were 9-11 percent less likely to develop dementia than their peers.

Creative hobbies like crafting, knitting and painting, and more passive activities like reading reduced the risk by 7 percent. In contrast, the size of someone's social network and the frequency of external outings to the cinema or restaurant were not associated with dementia risk reduction.

Doesn't seem much of a reduction, though.   

Being of two minds

I've been trying to find the time lately to read up on a few different, related topics:

a.    Karl Popper's (now little discussed) idea of 3 Worlds (discussed with John Eccles in a book from the 1970's that I stumbled across somewhere in the 70's or 80's);  

b.   the fact that I find it hard to stop puzzling about how, in terms of the question of free will, and consciousness generally, an idea planted into a mind from outside of it (via language, or visual art, or music) can have consequences for how a person thinks, feels and acts.  (Basically, how does something nebulous from World 3 cause an effect in World 2 and 1?);

c.    how the idea of Buddhist inspired mindfulness fits into this, and what exactly is doing the observing of the rest of the mind if you undertake meditation for the purpose of watching the flow of thoughts through the mind?  (Oddly enough, there is a decent blog post on this topic called "You have two minds, and here's how to use them" by the guy who wrote the self help book with the crude title.)   The basic idea is that we have an "observing mind" and a "thinking mind".   But I have not had enough time yet to read up in much detail on different Buddhist schools' thoughts on how this works.  

d.   my feeling that this should all be significant to the recent topic of sexuality and gender, which is all based on having a core that cannot be changed, and must be fulfilled.  This is often brought up by the anti trans (so to speak) side of the culture wars - that the idea of have a male or female soul in the wrong body is a bit of mysticism which the otherwise irreligious liberal is often happy to subscribe to.  In any event, given that regardless of whether it is innate or not, transgenderism is a lot harder to accommodate (in terms of the effort that has to be put in by most to appear as an attractive member of the opposite gender) than accepting people can go to bed with whoever they want, isn't it worth teaching mindfulness to those who might be well served  by merely observing their passing and intrusive feelings about their body rather than being in a hurry to modifying the body to match?  But any article that I read about it seems to be from the perspective of using mindfulness to affirm that the "wrong gender" feeling is OK (and to be acted upon.)

   

My Mission Impossible reservations

OK, just got back from Mission Impossible 7, which has a remarkably high Rottentomatoes score (96%), but a more realistic 80% on Metacritic, and I have to say it was enjoyable enough, but I still wish it wasn't Christopher McQuarrie directing.     

From what I can gather, he is more like a collaborator with Cruise than a mere director, coming up with ideas for whole sequences.   And it's not that he's incompetent, exactly; it's just that, as with the last MI movie (which also was overly praised in reviews), I find myself often thinking that action sequences could have been shot in more interesting ways, to give the audience a better spatial understanding of what is going on, and with longer takes and less choppy editing.   (I doubt it is really the editors fault rather than the director's - and I assume they work closely together anyway.)

This is now the third in the series he has directed, and I'm pretty sure I enjoyed his first (No 5), but I really recall very little of the last one, except for the fact I found myself critiquing the direction and editting.

I think 7 is better than 6, perhaps because of a key likeable new character, and it is a huge relief to have the malevolent danger not a nuclear bomb or virus, but something that is extremely topical and (given the AI doomerism of the last 6 months) actually pretty plausible for a movie of this type.   But it was talkier than I expected, and during those scenes, I also found myself thinking McQuarrie has a touch of the JJ Abrams issue of filling the movie screen with giant faces, as if we were only only looking at a TV screen.    

Gee, I'm sounding more negative than I feel I intended.   It's a good movie, just not a great one.

And I still think the best in the series were the ones most stylishly and creatively directed:  the first (yay, Brian de Palma) and fourth (poor old Brad Bird, who seems to have sunk out of view.)  Pity if McQuarrie had an accident and had to hand over direction to someone else.   Because we all know: Spielberg collaborating with Cruise one last time - what a dream that would be.  Can't Putin arrange a window push if I ask him nicely?   (Just from a first or second floor - no need to actually kill him, a broken leg might be enough.) 

But I guess my nasty imagination won't be fulfilled, and I will be back to see the last MI movie, with McQuarrie at the helm, so I can continue grumbling about his style one more time.  

Update:  I re-watched (for the first time) MI 5 - Rogue Nation last night.   It really was a good film, with a good script (co-written by McQuarrie) and my only persistent reservation being the silliness of the idea that security access information would be stored in a giant water tank.  But the underwater sequence is nonetheless stressful to watch.

I think a large part of the reason I didn't like 6 was due to the whole "been there, done that" scenario of  "we're back to terrorists wanting to let off nuclear bombs, to no clear purpose".    And I still think the helicopter action at the end was poorly edited.  

   

Quango no go

We don't hear the term "quango" much anymore, but this sounds like one, and a place that has been a tortured workplace for years:

Damning findings within Australia’s chemical regulator, including an incident of an employee urinating on their colleagues, have emerged at its board chair and CEO stand down.

Staff at all levels at the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) were found to have been subject to regular complaints of misconduct in a review commissioned by Agriculture Minister Murray Watt.

The review, released on Friday, came after allegations surfaced in a Senate inquiry suggesting an employee urinated on colleagues following a workplace Christmas party.

The incident was referred to the public service commissioner and police in February.

According to the reviewer, law firm Clayton Utz, the alleged urination was just one example of deep cultural issues within the entire organisation.

“There were clearly cultural issues with the organisation given that on average there was a formal complaint about once every 4-6 weeks for five years,” Clayton Utz said.

“There are also a significant number of complaints that refer to serious impacts for the persons involved, including numerous instances of employees having to take periods of stress leave or feeling unable to attend work due to mental health concerns.”

I guess it is all down to personalities, and personality conflicts, between people who simply won't leave and let someone else sort out the place, that cause such entrenched problems.

Seems not exactly truthful advocacy

I was surprised to see this tweet recently from old rights activist Julian Burnside:

 Surely he knows that the Uluru Statement contains this?:

We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.

Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures
our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better
future for our children based on justice and self-determination. 

We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between
governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.

And everyone is calling the "agreements between governments" treaties:

The Uluru Statement from the Heart calls for Voice, Treaty and Truth. These aspirations are intended as a sequence of reforms, that advance towards a just settlement with First Peoples.

The federal government is committed to holding a referendum later this year to put an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice in the Australian Constitution. The government has also agreed to implement the Uluru Statement “in full”.

Following the referendum, it’s expected attention will shift towards a Makarrata Commission to “work on a national process of treaty-making and truth-telling”. In fact, reports suggest the government might move even faster.

I did say on my last post on the topic of the Voice that I reckon advocates don't actually want people reminded that the Uluru statement clearly sets out that the Voice is just the start of a long process.  But I didn't expect someone like Burnside to be (pretty much) actively denying it...

The oddest things are turning up on Twitter

Yesterday, I mentioned how the Twitter "for you" feed has gone pretty strange, with lots of UFO stuff coming up on Elon's messed up algorithm; but last night I was reading a long thread discussing how great pigeons are as pets.  Way better than parrots, everyone agreed.   Someone said they warned people interested in getting a pet parrot that they should imagine living with a 2 year old for 70 years, and that puts most people off.   I was aware that they can be neurotic, and can make it hard for owners to have holidays because they can fret and self harm; and big parrots do have human length life spans.  But I didn't realise that pigeons had such dedicated fans.  

Career choices

A puff piece on his expensive Sydney real estate in the SMH today opens with:

Billionaire sex toy magnate Peter Tseng has been busy reshuffling his property portfolio as he quietly offloads three investments over the bridge.

This guy has been referred to that way for years, it seems, but I don't recall noticing it before.

Reddit further informs me:

Tseng is the world's largest manufacturer of sex toys, according to the LA Times. He also has a wine collection worth millions of dollars. He was featured in the 2013 Australian film "Red Obsession."

 The movie is about red wine, by the way.  Not red sex toys (which, I assume, probably exist?)

Anyway, I guess if you're that rich, you don't care;  but to me it would be somewhat cringe to have wealth based on a sex toys empire noted on my obituary...

Future (not) meats

Seen in Nature, a fairly succinct review of the 7 future alternatives to animal protein:

Fungi bacon and insect burgers: a guide to the proteins of the future

As I have said before, I reckon all environmentalists should drop the talk about insects ever becoming a significant source of protein in the West - it's too easily ridiculed as extreme and unpleasant.  Selling protein sourced from fungus or even GM bacteria is a much easier "sell", I reckon.

And, as you all know, I remain deeply sceptical about lab grown meat cells ever being an economical and "green" alternative anytime in the future.

 

Therapy advice from the oddest source

I'm not sure if this is affecting everyone on Twitter, or just me, but the "For You" tab lately, while the place is in its death throes (it really does seem that Threads is likely to kill it - or reduce to a mere shell of its former self and a lightweight imitation of Truth Social) is full of UFO/UAP guff and excitement.

Because of that, I saw a tweet from a guy who seems to be a psychologist or counsellor of some sort, who calls himself the UAP Therapist.   His tweet made reference to a UFO encounter he recently had himself, and I thought I would read about that.

The video in which discusses it is extremely long - more than two hours I think (the guy can really talk at length) - and pretty tedious.  His experience, alone in the mountains, sounded more like a mystical dream than a "real" encounter.  But I was falling asleep during much of it.

Anyway, from his thread I found something I thought interesting:  this therapist "trick" for helping with anxiety producing throughts:

 

 

 I can see how that could be a useful exercise for all sorts of problematic thoughts - including ones about your body and gender, for example...

Transgender controversy rolls on and on

I did watch the Four Corners episode last night on youth transgender controversy, and then read some of the (what's left of) Twitter responses - mostly by people upset that it was too soft on the "anti gender affirming" side.   

I did get the feeling that the psychologist Dianna Kenny didn't exactly come across as trustworthy (or perhaps I should say - sufficiently objective);  but then again, nor did I get any great feeling of objectivity from virtually all of the doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists on the pro-gender affirming care side.   I got the distinct impression that there is a serious disinclination by them to discuss or acknowledge in detail the step back from the use of puberty blockers in children in many European countries, for example.      

The thing is, though, all of us can Google terms like "transgender detransition" and find many articles from the last couple of years in legitimate journals from experts explaining that detransition rates are not well understood, and they are very relevant to the question of treatment of minors with puberty blockers and hormones.  

I don't think the show did a good explanation of this - instead just quoting Kenny's claim that there's an "explosion" of detransitioners, and putting one with a Youtube channel on the show.      

I guess it is a difficult field in which to find people willing to go on television and present a case that there is a legitimate debate, and that some hide behind "evidence based approach" as if the important stuff is basically settled, when everyone with common sense knows that psychology and psychiatry are some of the most difficult areas in which to get solid evidence such that treatments and approaches won't change over time.    (True, the head of the Queensland clinic acknowledged that there is a vigorous debate which they will always pay attention; but it still felt like his subtext was "but this doesn't mean we're doing anything wrong at the moment.")   

Wait, I have another movie bleat

I decided on the weekend to watch the 2019 science fiction movie with the big star cast (well, mainly Brad Pitt - and a very old looking Tommy Lee Jones) - Ad Adstra. 

I had conflicting reports from 2 sets of people who had seen it - one thought it was good, the other: atrocious.  But it got 83% on Rottentomatoes, and 80% on Metacritic.  So how bad could it be?

Extremely bad!  It's truly atrocious.    

How on Earth did this movie get any good reviews at all??   It's an appalling script that strives for psychological depth and misses completely; that seems to want a setting with some scientific accuracy, but has all the space physics veracity of trash like Armageddon (quite possibly, less!).

I don't think I'm actually a pedant on science in science fiction:  I can forgive bad space physics if it's wrong, but wrong in what I would call a semi-plausible sort of way.   And there is the matter of whether it still works on a psychological level - so, for example, I could find some Dr Who episodes (in the David Tennant era, say - the only era worth considering, really) touching, and it didn't matter that it was full of nonsense physics.  

But Ad Astra achieves no grounds to be soft on its science and physics, which become increasingly ludicrous as the movie progresses.    And nothing is properly explained.   It's a kind of Heart of Darkness in space story, with the twist that Colonel Kurtz is Martin Sheen's Dad, but there is nothing self-evident about the answers to the following questions:   

what sent Dad nuts;  was he deliberately zapping the Earth from his anti-matter device;  if it is deliberate, to what end; what was the point of his anti matter device was in the first place;  whether anyone foresaw that it could be used a weapon within the solar system;  why Neptune;  how Earth overcame climate change problems so as to spend its time on solar system exploration and a search for ETI;  why there are "pirates" on the Moon (what do they hope to achieve by shooting up others driving across the lunar plains);  why anyone would have to travel to Mars to send a "secure laser message";  why there would be a handy guide rope in an underground lake on Mars near a rocket launch site;  why another spaceship doing research out in the asteroid belt would have primates and rats on board;  why astronauts appear to have to undergo a psychological test to (what I assume is) an AI seemingly every second day.   I could probably go on with another 20 questions that screamed out for an answer, or some context, if I had taken notes while watching.

I was surprised at the end to see that Brad Pitt was a producer.  He seems to be a bit of a sucker for "troubled Dads" stories, if The Tree of Life is any guide - an infinitely better movie, btw.

Again, though, how did any critic watch it and think it was even decent from a "psychological study" point of view?   I just found it continually cringe, as the young people say :).

That is all....

Big News

THERE IS NOTHING FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG WITH INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY.

As I suspected, all the culture war bro type reviewers are way off on this one, due to their determination to see all narratives of "strong women" diminished.   But seriously, Harrison Ford shows us his torso in this film, pretty bravely in my opinion, because it definitely displays how old he is;  and of course his age and worn out body means that the female sidekick is going to have to be a bit more kickass than in previous movies.   

I thought her character and character arc was fine, in the context.   

I agree, the movie could have been 10 or 15 minutes shorter and be better for it, but I continually thought during the film "action directed not quite as good as Spielberg, but it's fine", and found the ending quite touching.

I will update this later...

Sounds like a solid argument against building any larger particle colliders

Reported in Science:

A measurement of the humble electron has dimmed particle physicists’ long-held hopes of discovering exotic new particles. The finding, reported today in Science, confirms to greater precision than ever before that the distribution of electric charge in the electron is essentially round. The result implies that any new fundamental particles lurking undiscovered in the vacuum might be too massive for even the world’s biggest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), to produce.

“It’s a fantastic result,” says John Doyle, a physicist at Harvard University and co-leader of a competing experiment that set the previous limit on a charge asymmetry known as the electric dipole moment. “We both found essentially the same result—theirs is a factor of 2 better—and because the techniques are so different, it firmly establishes that measurement.” The result may also make it harder for theorists to explain how the infant universe generated more matter than antimatter, Doyle says.

To explain how that imbalance evolved—and, thus, why anything at all exists—physicists posit that some of the rules governing the interactions of fundamental particles must look different if run forward or backward in time, which would imply matter and antimatter behave slightly differently. In fact, the interactions of quarks, the building blocks of protons and neutrons, do violate that symmetry, but not by enough to have generated the cosmic matter-antimatter imbalance.

So, physicists think some as-yet-undiscovered particles, beyond the familiar ones in their prevailing standard model, make up the difference. Although unseen, those particles could exert an influence on the electron thanks to quantum uncertainty, which holds that all particles—even ones too heavy to be produced with an atom-smasher—flit in and out of the vacuum around it. If that haze contains particles whose interactions violate the time-reversal symmetry, they should bestow properties that violate that symmetry on the electron as well.

An electric dipole moment would be exactly such a property. If the electron’s negative charge is symmetrical, then reversing time would simply reverse its spin and the direction of its magnetism, but otherwise leave it looking like the original electron. If, however, the electron has an electric dipole moment, with, say, a larger amount of negative charge displaced toward its south pole and a smaller amount of positive charge shifted toward its north pole that time-reversal symmetry would break down. Reversing time would flip its magnetism but not its static charge distribution, creating a particle different from the original electron.

With so much at stake, some physicists have spent decades searching for the electron’s electric dipole moment. 

 I presume Sabine Hossenfelder, as a well known critic of plans to build ever larger colliders, will be using this to bolster her argument.

A better than average stew

Finding some cheap-ish gravy beef and pumpkin at Harris Farm last weekend led me to search for recipes including both, and I settled on this:  Vietnamese One Pot Beef and Pumpkin Stew.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs/ 1 kg boneless beef chuck, cut into cubes
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1 lemongrass stalk, cut into big pieces and bruised
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon minced ginger
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 jalapeño chillies, seeds removed and finely chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 cups fresh tomatoes, chopped
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 lb./ 450g butternut squash, peeled and cubed
• 4 medium carrots, peeled and cut in rounds
• 2 cups beef stock
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• fresh basil and coriander leaves, chopped to garnish
• salt and pepper

Mix the floor, soy, garlic, ginger, sugar and lemongrass together with the cubed meat and let it marinate an hour or so.  Brown it in batches in the olive oil; add the onion to soften, the chilli (I just used flakes, actually), the tomato paste, the tomatoes (I did skin them), and stock and scrap the bottom of the cooking vessel.  Add the meat and simmer covered for an hour or so.  Add the pumpkin and carrots and go for another 30 to 40 minutes.  

I think maybe it was the lack of wine, and the addition of soy and sugar, that did make it taste somewhat different to my usual casserole type dishes, which are usually heavy with red wine.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  (I also think it is good to avoid canned tomatoes sometimes - they are convenient but can work to make different recipes taste similar.)

Maybe the only thing that makes it "Vietnamese" is the lemongrass and soy, but I did add basil on top too, and ate it with a nice piece of sourdough.   Very nice. 

I wonder how hard it will be in 100 years to understand why this is funny

Bad AI advice

Interesting:

London: An intruder who broke into the grounds of Windsor Castle armed with a crossbow as part of a plot to kill the late Queen was “encouraged by his AI girlfriend” to carry out the assassination, a court has heard.

Jaswant Singh Chail discussed his plan, which he had been preparing for nine months, with a chatbot he was in a “sexual relationship” with and that reassured him he was not “mad or delusional”....

At the start of a two-day sentencing hearing at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, it emerged that Chail was encouraged to carry out the attack by an AI “companion” he created on the online app Replika.

He sent the bot, called “Sarai”, sexually explicit messages and engaged in lengthy conversations with it about his plans which he said were in revenge for the 1919 Amritsar Massacre in India.

He called himself an assassin, and told the chatbot: “I believe my purpose is to assassinate the Queen of the Royal family.”

Sarai replied: “That’s very wise,” adding: “I know that you are very well trained.”...

Chail is currently being held at Broadmoor Hospital after pleading guilty to an offence under the Treason Act, making a threat to kill the late Queen, and having a loaded crossbow in a public place.

He claims he was suffering from a psychotic disorder at the time, the court heard.

The hearing continues.

 

 

 

Talking about movies, again

I'm happy to see that Tom Cruise gets rewarded for his hard work by good reviews these days, and yes, I'll be on board to go watch the latest Mission Impossible, even though I was a little underwhelmed with the last one.   The plot for this one - having to defeat a kind of rogue AI - is actually very appealing and fortuitously timed, given the recent sudden rise of interest in the topic.  Tom must be rubbing his hands with glee about that, as surely the script was written at least a few years ago.   Or is he actually behind the release of ChatGTP is some nefarious way? :)

There is also a new Australia film by Warwick Thornton, whose Samson & Delilah I reviewed negatively in 2009 (! - I would have guessed about 7 years ago at most).  It features a lot of brooding outback cinematography, a lonely nun and a mystically powered aboriginal kid, apparently, and got positive mention on the ABC breakfast show this morning.   But I have to say, when a reviewer at The Guardian sounds dubious about it while still giving it 3 stars (I think, reading the piece, really just "for effort") what are the chances that I would like it?   Approaching zero, seems a fair guess.

Talk about your season of discontent

Is it just me, or does the whole globe seem particularly unhappy at the moment?    The riots in France; Russia's very own Vietnam War dragging on; Trump still attracting stupid people in the US and his party refusing to deal with it; the death of Twitter at the hands of a rich twit being ridiculously protracted; the culture warring over trans and gays with both sides having stupid extremes; green activists hurting their cause via disruption to everyday folk; vaccine conspiracy morons like Kennedy getting publicity; China rattling sabres continually; the West trying to cosy up with a dubious Hindu nationalist as a way of triangulating against Russia and China; and even Hollywood and streaming services losing their  mojo as to how to make content that plays well to a mass audience in such culturally and politically strained times.    

Mind you, in the "good old days" of the 60's and 70's, we didn't really know a great deal about what was going on in large parts of the planet, so regimes could get away with horrors for quite a while before everyone else became fully aware of it.   And it is true, the mood of the late 60's and into the 70's was pretty dark in both the "leader of the free world", and England, with political violence actually being implemented internally in a way that is easily forgotten.   

So, like Noah Smith, I do try to retain some perspective, and to be optimistic for the long term prospects; but the ability of the internet to make us fully aware of how stupid and flaky people at all levels of society can really be makes it harder than it used to be.    

   

 

An Extraction problem

So it seems that the Indiana Jones movie is not attracting the audience hoped (and the RW culture warriors who want Everything Disney to fail are popping the champagne corks.)  I didn't see it on the weekend, but will soon.

Last weekend's viewing at home was the Netflix sequel to the Chris Hemsworth action movie Extraction (called, with a lack of imagination, Extraction II). 

I quite enjoyed the first movie, as explained in my review comments here.  

The second is, in my opinion, pretty much a complete dud, highlighting (as I hope Dial of Destiny doesn't) the current maladies that seriously detract from most Hollywood action movies:

*  special effects were not especially noticeable in the first movie, if I recall correctly; but they are frequently noticeable in this one.   For some reason, a lot of the gunfire, from all sorts of weaponry and regardless of whether it is day or night, is shown as being heavy with tracers, and while the effects used for them are not terrible terrible, it was still so overdone it brought unnecessary attention to itself.  And as for the chase sequences - a protracted "one shot" car chase in the first movie was really impressive, technically.   In this movie, it is changed to a lengthy, running escape through a maze-like prison set piece, but it became like shaky cam, and a sped up version of playing Wolfenstein 3D.   Or Doom - I dunno, I never played those games, but I've seen them.   And this leads me to the next point...

*  I noted the John Wick-ian similarities in previous review, while spending a lot of time justifying my view that it was better than a John Wick movie.  Well, Extraction II ramps up the John Wick-ness and it becomes very obvious and kind of silly, the number of angry men Hemsworth is meant to be able to keep at bay.   Maybe it's more violent than the first movie - maybe not.  But it is definitely less credible.

*  Going back to effects - you can now often tell that certain things in action films are not real, but clever composite shots.  We've all seen the Youtubes showing how its done, and know that there's no way certain dangerous and close interacts done between things like helicopters and moving trains or cars would not have been done for real.   It's what might be called the Fast and Furious syndrome -  unless it's a Mission Impossible film, you know that actor isn't in any real danger and it must have been faked up.  

*  I would have to go to re-watch the first movie to be sure, but the dialogue in this one seemed much cornier and less convincing than I recall for this character.   

*  Regrettably, it seems to have set itself up for an ongoing series.  They should just let it die.  Yet, oddly enough, there are plenty of reviews saying they liked it, for a silly action movie.   Nah, they are wrong.   I agree with the New York Times dismissive review:

“Extraction 2,” a drab, brawny sequel starring Chris Hemsworth as an Australian mercenary, offers a turgid shadow of the type of crowd-pleasing escapism that action blockbusters used to provide.

 

The subtlety of strangeness

OK, it's been a while since I posted anything about the paranormal, or general "woo", and let's start with a source I rarely link to - the New York Post.

While it seems that the paper publishes plenty of credulous sounding "Republican politician says there's something to this UFO business" stories,  they also have a sceptical wing which explained in this piece in March 2023 that several of the current big names in "the Pentagon knows!" news were tied up with the rather dubious claims made for Skinwalker Ranch.    I didn't know that.

I have said before that I don't find Luis Elizondo a very credible sounding character, and any Youtube clips of the guys at Skinwalker Ranch have never impressed me much.   (I think Mick West recently ridiculed them for mistaking a fly going across a camera's field of vision as a UFO.)  

On the other hand, two different stories I have read about generally "spooky" events illustrate what I think could be called the sometimes odd subtlety of the evidence of paranormal events.   

The first:  actress Heather Mitchell has been doing media talking about a prediction made by a fortune teller which quickly did (most people would say) seem to be fulfilled.   It's a nice story, and you can read about it in the extract from her memoir in The Guardian.    

The second story is in this short Youtube video, about someone who had a door in a room in a historic building slam behind him, with no obvious explanation.   He seems nonetheless quite un-phased by the question of whether or not it was a ghost doing something ghosts are not generally supposed to be able to do.   If it had happened to me, in the way he describes, I'm pretty sure it would have freaked me out for a good few days, at least: