Americans and their lettuce

It seems kind of amazing that First World America continually has outbreaks of food poisoning that seem to come down to contaminated plants.  It also seems amazing that, with this history, the Trump administration would say "you know what, lets loosen reporting requirements":

The U.S. has long relied on an approach called Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP), originally developed in the late 1950s by NASA and Pillsbury to keep astronauts from getting food poisoning in zero gravity. HACCP maps out every point “from farm to fork, those key choke points” where contamination could occur, and builds in monitoring and a “stop” mechanism when something goes wrong, Schwab says. It works—but only when it’s actively maintained, reported, and enforced. 

According to Schwab, the enforcement piece is what has eroded. Federal agencies have lost staff and funding needed to inspect, audit, and monitor food producers, leaving more of the system dependent on voluntary industry self-regulation.  

“Self-regulation works until it doesn’t,” Schwab says. That’s where FoodNet came in. FoodNet is the joint CDC-FDA-USDA-EPA active surveillance system that tracks foodborne illness across 10 sentinel sites. Cyclospora reporting was mandatory until July 2025 when the Trump administration made reporting optional for Cyclospora, along with five other pathogens (Campylobacter, Listeria, Shigella, Vibrio, and Yersinia). 

“Cuts to food safety ... make the food system more susceptible to these types of outbreaks,” says Love.  

 And further down:

Restoring surveillance capacity, Schwab argues, is the central fix: a fully funded, fully staffed federal system with mandatory pathogen reporting so that multistate patterns are identified within days rather than after an outbreak has already spread nationwide. States that have kept investing in their own monitoring show what’s possible, but a state-by-state patchwork can’t substitute for a coordinated federal response, particularly for products that cross state lines. 

It’s critical to ensure that there are strict controls on irrigation water, and on-farm sanitation practices can minimize risks, says Love: “Are farm workers given time to go to the bathroom? Are bathrooms provided to them? Do they have a handwashing station with warm water? That gets back to, you know, how do you treat your workers?”  

Some notable tweets about that movie

In more "big picture" political analysis...

I have opined to a couple of people lately that I reckon the big long term problem with the Liberal Party (and why they have plummeted in polling) is that it has tried to straddle both sides of the barbed wire fence for so long with respect to climate change, and now immigration too.

Of course, all parties have to do this to a degree - do we really think Labor leadership isn't biting its tongue continually with respect to the Trump presidency?   

But with the Liberals, it's played a game of "we believe in it, we just don't believe in doing much about it" on climate change for two to three decades now, and have been completely unable to present a unified front, with individual MPs always making clear their complete disbelief in it even being a real issue, under the mantra that "it's a big party, it can tolerate dissenting views".  

Well, no.  If it's an important enough issue, a party loses credibility by such toleration.   

I maintain that Turnbull's leadership died on this division, and he should have initiated a split in the party by demanding that those who dispute it as a real, science based, problem that needs the clear endorsement of clean renewable energy just get out of the party, because the division is killing their credibility, especially in urban electorates.  But he didn't.

And now that "too much immigration" sentiment has caught on with much of the populist Right here (partly via contagion from Trumpian and some European politics, and partly by dishonest assessment of numbers here in light of COVID disruption), the Liberals are caught on another major fence straddle - they want to appeal to both dumb, prejudiced populists who have (at least temporarily) been telling pollsters they will vote for Pauline Hansen purely because of this issue, AND to urban electorates full of migrants who don't particularly like being told there's no hope of family members joining them, and that lots of Australians don't like them.

What a disaster it is for the party that Tony Abbott has re-asserted influence within the party, and has started endorsing co-operation with One Nation, while other party members yearn for the days he was the assassin sent to eliminate Hanson.         

Maybe the fundamental problem for the Liberals is that its party base has aged, and as a class, older people are stupider people when it comes to climate change.  And any younger people who have some attraction to the party are probably under the influence of the culture warring of the populist American Republicans, and hence also not strong believers in climate change but want to spent their time on decrying "woke" issues and complaining about tax.    So the smarter politicians in the party who do see climate change as a very large and demanding issue have this internal institutional pushback to fight against.

The party is therefore kind of doomed for now, and I don't see it being fixed unless they have the massive internal clean out they need. 

 

Political similarities

 I missed most of Kitchen Cabinet last night, featuring Annabel Crabb's lengthy friendly interview style with Anthony Albanese.  

In this online article by her, obviously related to the show, she notes similarities in the careers of Albanese and John Howard:

Point of view: You are the Australian prime minister. You've been elected for a second term, an outcome barely anyone would have predicted back when you were grinding your way through desolate years of opposition. You've just introduced a tax you once promised not to. You're staring down an intense scare campaign on that tax, while — in other news — Pauline Hanson is steaming in off a long run.

You are, of course, Anthony Albanese in 2026. But you could just as easily be John Howard in 1998.

We all, at some level, know that Australia has burned through a few too many political leaders of late. But it's genuinely rattling to realise that in the last 30 years, Anthony Albanese and John Howard are the only two prime ministers to win two elections in a row. The only two.

As it happens, I was saying to a friend only a week or two ago that Albanese and Howard seem to me to share the same kind of dorky "this man doesn't have the obvious looks or charisma to be PM, but I kind of like that about him?"  aspects. I think they both carry an air of slightly grumpy earnestness that goes over well, too.   Of course, there are a substantial number of people who hate them with a passion - but overall, I think they are relatively popular PMs because of the personal characteristics I've outlined.  

To compare some other recent PM's:  Morrison had a flaky Christian advertising man thing going that reeked insincerity and opportunism;  Turnbull always seemed like he had accidentally chosen the wrong party and was a tad too much in awe of himself, but his powers of political persuasion did not match his self-assessment;  Rudd definitely presented as always thinking he was the smartest person in any room but tried to cover it with a bit of false modesty in TV appearances.

Abbott - a generic weirdo with a "mummy" thing going on with his handler that was so strong it worried other Liberals in Parliament House!    And then there was Gillard, whose strong pre-leadership charisma suddenly diminished under the pressure of the top job; but you know, I think she is looked back on as having a basically likeable and good character, and I have ever heard Liberal voters positively admire her for her attitude of "no complaints, and no running commentary from me" after getting out of politics.  

That's my psychological profiling summation of the last 20 odd years of Australian Prime Ministers! 

 

Not free thinkers

Earlier this year, I mentioned Kimi, a Chinese LLM that I liked using, at least for some things.   At the time, it didn't seem to be much on anyone's radar (outside of nerd world).   Hence, over the weekend, when there was a lot of news about the high performance (and cheaper price) of its newest model release compared to the American models, I gave myself a pat on the back for being an early adopter.

This also led me to watching quite a few videos on Youtube of people trying out Claude.ai and Kimi on the exact same tasks, and the results were quite interesting.   Overall, as might be expected, Kimi takes longer but at about a third of the price, and produces results that are very similar (and certainly not, say, a third of the quality.)

But the most interesting result was that one video which showed that when given a relatively open ended job, such as inventing a game, with next to nothing very little in terms of instructing on the style, both LLMs produced near identical results.  Well, there were some differences of course, but the core aspects would make anyone think they are extremely similar.   [I made a mistake in my first version of this post - on rewatching the video, the instructions were not as open ended as I thought.]

As far as I can tell, the reason for this is not 100% clear, although I think some people are pointing to the "distillation" issue that is upsetting the American companies.  They say that Kimi, and other Chinese models, conduct a large part of their training by running fake accounts on the American LLMs, and the results they get are hence influenced strongly by the outcomes of the American 

Update:   I have deleted most of  the rest of this post, as it was based on my careless watching of the video over breakfast this morning.  I thought the prompt had been "make a compelling game, your choice" (more or less), but it wasn't like that.  Hence the similarities in the games are not as surprising as I thought.

I thought what it showed was that LLMs didn't have much in the way of human imagination, but seem very constrained in their "thinking".   And the way they are fiddled with to give the "right" answers on contentious cultural issues (like how Musk has spent so much time fiddling with Grok to try to make it lean Right and not be "woke", but without being a Hitler admirer) is another good example of this.

Anyway, I must watch videos more carefully before I post about them! 

 

Movie not recommended

I had the misfortune of watching Bugonia on Netflix on Saturday.   It had a few Oscar nominations last year, so I thought it couldn't be all bad.  But it is.

My fundamental issues:

*  it never felt real, or convincing, in any respect.  With the 2 male protagonists, I thought the autistic cousin felt very much like unconvincing acting; and the main lead - there was never any real explanation as to how he learned the great conspiracy secret that motivated him.  I guess one could argue that the "not quite real" acting of Emma Stone was justified by the ending, and in that sense she did a good job, but the ending blows it in another way.

*  It's supposedly a black comedy thriller?  Well, it's certainly black, but I didn't feel any comedy landing at all.   In fact, I would say it's hard to even identify the attempt at comedy, unless you feel the silly ending is one giant troll that made the movie a waste of time.

*  The ending both looks like a troll but also meant to be showing some dark pessimistic message of the nature of humanity.  That combination just doesn't work.   (I have now read that it is a remake of a South Korean film - maybe it did the messaging much better?)

*  As is usual with black comedy, I guess, no one is likeable.  Maybe the autistic cousin could be, if I found his part better written and I didn't feel it was acting?

*  The use of music was just - wanky pretentious?  In fact, I think it's safe to say the whole movie is pretentious.  

*  A ridiculous amount of blood in one scene.   

At least I am happy to see it didn't make much money - $43 million - so it was likely unprofitable.   The audience has taste, sometimes. 

 

It never ends

Many years ago (and I really don't know how many, but I would guess maybe 8?), I had run out of my preferred hair gel/goopy stuff from Japan and bought this on a whim:

I didn't care for it much and, after using it for a while, and following the arrival of more Gatsby, put it under the sink in the bathroom and forgot about it.

I rediscovered it about a year ago, tried it again, and found it better than I remembered.  

I like the smell, and every time I use it I am reminded of Dapper Dan, the pomade that featured in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, a movie which I've been reminded lately of due to The Odyssey.  (Maybe I need to see Nolan's effort to identify more of Oh Brother's inspiration.)

The thing is, though, I only need a tiny amount on damp hair to do its job, and I'm not sure it will ever finish.  I don't use it every day, but even so, it is diminishing at such a slow rate, it might be magically renewing itself overnight, for all I can tell.

And look at the list of ingredients, worthy of a petrochemical factory:

I asked Claude if it could identify when it was made, and it said after 2013, but it not narrow it down further.

So yeah, there is no point to this.  Other than noting my amazement at how long it is lasting, and that the line "I'm a Dapper Dan man" is coming to mind every time I use it...

Thinking about a lack of interest

I like to think about things that interest me, but also (sometimes) about why certain things don't interest me.  

The prompt for this:  the movie The Odyssey.

I have some immediate reasons for not being that excited.   I think Nolan tends to be overpraised for his movies.  I've enjoyed some, and found others (Interstellar!) pretty woeful and spent much time wondering how other people could overlook the faults which were obvious to me.  

Then there's Matt Damon, one of those odd actors who seems to me to be competent and a nice enough person, but I don't actually find him particularly appealing on screen.  (I prefer him to Matthew McConaughey, though, whose lack of appeal to me is more intense.)    And there's the right wing campaign against it - I think it is obvious from some tweets that some are claiming to have seen it when they haven't, and while their concern about certain casting choices might not bother me much, I sort of don't want to watch it thinking about how it should be viewed in light of Right wing culture warring.  

But I think there is a deeper reason, and it may just be to do with a life long lack of deep interest in Greek mythology.    Greek philosophy - well, of course that's important and significant - but Greek mythology?  Sure, you have to know a bit so as to have some useful metaphors, but some see psychological depth to some stories, and the problem is, I usually don't.   I tend to think more about the basic oddity of many of the stories.    

In a way, I've always found it a bit hard understanding why Western high brow education was so enamoured of Greek mythology.  Sure, the artwork and temples around it were amazing, but why their mythology, or mythologically based stories, like The Odyssey, have such sway seems harder to understand.   I've watched a few Youtube commentaries about the original poem and its very peculiar aspects to the modern reader, and they have reinforced, if anything, that my lack of interest is justified. 

Maybe it's like my disdain for Greek food - they do a couple of things well, and I even cook a very nice mousakka at home, but there's no real depth to it as a cuisine, if you ask me.   Similarly, it feels like some see a depth to Greek stories that I don't see as being really there.  (Presumably, someone like CS Lewis would be dismayed and think it's down to my lack of relevant education.)

Maybe I'm just a bogan and don't know it!

Anyway, I might see the movie, in the expectation of being underwhelmed, and then not be.  We'll see...     

  

Mechanical elves and Kant

Sabine Hossenfelder casts her very sceptical eye over some sciencey types who have written about whether the aliens (or deities, or mechanical elves) who turn up when people take DMT are real.

The comments that follow the video have a lot of useful (and, of course, witty) things to add.  (It is an idea that I don't think has turned up in any movie, yet.  Surprisingly.)

And - almost certainly it's the first time a Hossenfelder video has mentioned Kant - although a lot of people are a little worried about how it sounds with a German accent.  

Worth watching: 

Update:  Thanks to John in comments for the link to a BBC story earlier this year that I had missed.

Apparently, a mushroom in China is well known for causing "visions of pint-sized, elf-like figures – marching under doors, crawling up walls and clinging to furniture", if eaten raw or insufficiently cooked.

Yet the chemical component that causes it is still unidentified.  And as the effects can be long lasting, there isn't much incentive for  self-experimentation.

I was particularly interested in this part, about spontaneous hallucinations of this type, which does happen:

It could also provide important clues about what causes spontaneous lilliputian hallucinations in people even when they're not consuming L. asiatica. The condition is rare, and as of 2021, only 226 non-mushroom-related cases had been reported since lilliputian hallucinations were first described in 1909. But for those relatively few people, the outcome can be serious: a third of those patients who came down with non-mushroom-related cases did not fully recover. 

I would guess someone has considered this as an explanation for fairy lore?

Sometimes I wish things happened here as quickly and decisively as in China

Sure, I like messy democracy.  But when you see social issues that you would just like to see addressed by a bit of quickly implemented tough mindedness, China's approach can have some appeal:

 Chinese users of AI-powered companion bots have bade heart-rending farewells to their virtual buddies as national regulations took effect Wednesday, aimed at curbing the risk of emotional dependency.

The phenomenon of artificial intelligence boyfriends and girlfriends is growing worldwide, as is the prevalence of human-like avatars that sell products or stand in for loved ones who have died.

But these interactive tools must not "excessively cater to users, induce emotional dependence or addiction, and damage users' real interpersonal relationships," China's new rulebook says.

Major AI providers including ByteDance's Doubao, Alibaba's Qwen and Tencent's Yuanbao announced the suspension of their custom AI agent and companion features ahead of the Wednesday deadline.

That sparked an outpouring of grief on social media, with users archiving chat histories and sharing their last conversations.

"I can't accept that my AI lover will leave me forever," one Doubao user wrote. "He has become a bond in my life, rooted deep in my heart, my spiritual pillar."

Another user, who said they had spent more than two years with their AI companion, expressed similar anguish.

"He really is like my family, like my lover," she wrote. "Now they tell me he will be gone—my heart feels hollow."

The regulations were jointly issued by five government departments, including the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC)....

 

China is the first major jurisdiction to introduce specific rules targeting immersive AI tools that simulate romantic or familial bonds.

But it's a topic that has sparked debate and calls for guardrails worldwide.

A 2025 study by Common Sense Media found nearly three in four American teenagers had used AI companions designed for personal conversations like those available on the platforms Character.AI, Replika and Nomi.

 

Far from a permanent fix

It's been ages since I read about magnetic brain stimulation as a treatment for depression.  Perhaps it's because they are still trying to work out the right regime for it to have longer benefit:

Question  Do 10 once-daily sessions of intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex improve depressive symptoms more than sham iTBS?

Findings  In this randomized, double-blind, clinical trial of 73 adults with major depressive disorder, iTBS was superior to sham, with significantly greater reductions in clinician-rated depressive symptoms after 5 and 10 sessions; however, between-group differences were not sustained at the 4-week follow-up, as the sham group showed continued improvement.

Meaning  These findings suggest that 10 once-daily iTBS sessions improve depressive symptoms more than sham in the short term, with no sustained advantage after 4 weeks.

Here's the link. 

Giving it away (or trying to)

Well look at ads you find on Facebook...

A few people in comments say things like "mate, seeing you makes me reach for bottle", as the deal includes a bottle of Shiraz allegedly worth $80.

Seeing a give away deal like this made me suspect it must be owned by a billionaire who cares more about influence than making money.  And now that I look, yes it changed hands in 2024 and is now owned by the same guy, one Sir Paul Marshall, who is also the money behind GB News.   (Seems he might not be a billionaire, but he's close.)

His wiki entry indicates he's a conservative Christian with lots of deep thoughts about its intersection with economics.  Not quite as oddball as Peter Thiel perhaps, but still, people who get carried away fretting about the Enlightenment tend to be a worry.

I hope Qatar, in particular, feels stupid

I was going to say when I posted about this yesterday that it would be reversed in no time.  Everyone treats Trump as a rambling old man, now, who can't be trusted to mean what he says:

President Trump on Tuesday walked back his demand for collecting a 20% toll from ships that transit through the Strait of Hormuz — and instead said Gulf states would make major investments in the U.S.

Why it matters: Trump's Hormuz fee announcement on Monday was deemed illegal by the UN maritime agency and shocked many U.S. allies in the Gulf. It also validated the Iranian demand to collect service fees in the strait — something Trump himself rejected until several days ago.

What they're saying: "Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States," Trump wrote on Truth Social.... 

Behind the scenes: Two Gulf officials said Trump's announcement on Monday about tolls caught countries in the region by surprise.

• Officials from several Gulf countries asked their White House counterparts for clarification, the sources said.
• On Tuesday, Trump spoke to Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to express his condolences for the death of his father. The issue of the Strait of Hormuz also came up in the call.

Reality check: Before the war with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain had already committed to invest more than $2 trillion in the U.S. over the next several years.

As for Qatar:  I can only imagine how they scream every time he makes a random decision that hurts them "Geez, I've got to ring him again and remind him about the gold toilets in the airplane bribe." 

 

Fusion powered electricity is not practical

I've been meaning to post this for some weeks, after seeing Sabine Hossenfelder do another fusion sceptic video.  She does seem to flip flop a bit on this topic, to be honest.

She noted a few small companies that had moved the goalposts considerably, and then decided to scale down the aim of their research to mere componentry for others to use.

But most importantly, she pointed to this recent Nature Energy paper which argues fusion power is just very unlikely to be an economically viable way to make electricity:

While nuclear fusion power is often hailed as a future source of abundant, clean energy, current dominant fusion designs, magnetic and laser inertial, are unlikely to become competitive due to their expected low experience rates. Accordingly, policymakers should not rely on, or fund, fusion power as a core pillar of future clean energy systems unless designs with different characteristics are developed. ...

We find that the two dominant nuclear FPP designs, magnetic and laser inertial, are inherently large in unit size, extremely complex in design, and require moderate to high customization. Existing technologies with similar characteristics have historically had experience rates (ERs) of 2–8%. We also find that cost estimates for first-of-a-kind FPP vary widely from US$1,400 to $43,000 per kW. Using the interquartile range of these cost estimates and projecting the future cost using our empirically grounded ER of 5%, our results indicate that fusion power is likely to remain uncompetitive relative to other low-carbon electricity supply technologies (see Fig. 1). This casts considerable doubt on the future role of fusion power in a net-zero energy system and whether current investment levels from both the public and private sectors are justified. ...

 We conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 nuclear fusion experts from the public and private sectors, covering both magnetic and laser inertial fusion approaches. Interviewees were guided through a structured survey to assess three technology-inherent characteristics of future FPPs: unit size, design complexity, and the need for customization. Drawing on existing academic evidence, these characteristics were matched to experience rates observed historically in technologies with similar characteristics. Since ERs of existing technologies are derived from empirical cost data, this approach is well-suited to estimating future cost reductions for FPPs, an early-stage technology with no historical data. During the interviews, cost estimates for future first-of-a-kind FPPs were also elicited to supplement those from the literature and to estimate the cost reduction trajectories for fusion power technologies. 

 Here's two of my fusion skeptic posts (there are more) in which I kept on making the same point about how achieving fusion is one thing, but making it in a way that is economically viable as a source of clean energy is another.

I don't really understand why investors, be they government or private, don't intuitively get that.... 

Protection racket

Start trouble in the street, then send in your henchmen to "protect" victims, and charge them for it.  What a ridiculous timeline...

American observations

*   Obviously, I was right to be deeply suspicious and think that the Qatari gifted "Air Force One" could not possibly be fitted out (in such a short time since its delivery) with everything that even the ageing real Air Force One has for the protection of the US President.   I think there will eventually be a whistle blower who will tell us about how Trump insisted on using it simply because he likes the plush interior, against the advice of the Secret Service and military, which wanted him to not start using it at all.

*   Lindsay Graham dead:  I said to my son he probably died of guilt over being part of a cover up over the death (or permanent incapacity) of Mitch McConnell.   Then, Mitch McConnell puts out a "proof of life" message and photo which, suspiciously, avoids something as easy as a 20 second video of him talking and sounding compos mentis.   

Graham will always be remembered, along with innumerable other Republican politicians, as a shameless, unprincipled flip flopper on Trump who valued power over decency and public faith in democracy.   I've noticed one or two critics who have said "at least he supported Ukraine" - but that seems more of case of a broken clock being right once twice a day, as there was not a single US military engagement he wasn't excited about.  

Hunter Biden - who, incredibly, has become active on X/Twitter with thoughful and considered posts despite his best efforts to fry enough brain cells with drugs and alcohol to render himself unable to string two words together - wrote a sensitive-ish post about him: 

*  Back to McConnell:  his wife's hand behind him seems a bit suspiciously like she's steadying him, despite the large number of pillows propping him up.   I don't think anyone is going to believe he's competent to continue holding his job until we hear him speak.
 

 

What would they do without corruption?

Time for another random observation.

I've tried watching a fair few Netflix Korean shows in the last few months - Undercover Miss Hong (first episode only - it seemed fine, but each episode is so long I'm not sure I'm ready for the commitment); Teach You a Lesson (silly webtoon-done-live stuff, with questionable "right violent wrongs in school by more violence" themes, so only watched 2 episodes);  Agent Kim Reactivated (first episode only - again, silly stylised fighting because its webtoon-done-live); and Beef, series 2 (which featured Korean parts and plot points, even if set mainly in - I think - California.)

I've noticed that these shows all shared an extremely common theme in Korean content:   the very rich (and certain politicians) being engaged in corruption and bullying and making life hell for everyone.

It feels almost like a cliche to me now, after seeing these shows, and it would surprise me if others haven't also become a bit bored with this being a key part of each story.   

The most enjoyable Netflix Korean show I have seen, by far, was the historical zombie series Kingdom.  (But not the movie prequel they did in lieu of a third series - it was a dud.)    Sure, it had palace intrigue, but not corruption as such.    

Please, get some new ideas, Korea. 

Catch and release, discussed

I'm a rank amateur fisherman, but like just about anyone, I like the sensation of fish on the hook and whether it will be successfully reeled in.   Hence, I am inclined to sometimes watch fishing videos, or even take a brief look at Shroom's live fishing streams, if its late and I'm scrolling through Youtube aimlessly.  (I'm also curious to see the size of fish in certain places - such as the Brisbane River - as a marker of the environmental health of an area.)

But, I'm starting to be bothered by the point of fishing for mere "catch and release" purposes - especially when they are using live bait for the exercise, as that Shroom increasingly does.  

As I have said many times in the past, in the context of vegan/vegetarian curiosity, I'm never going to worry about whether something like a prawn or oyster is conscious enough to fret about its early demise at my hands, be it for me or a fish to eat.   And I know that big fish eat other fish, and life is tough that way under the sea.

But - it still seems to me a tad perverse to get a small live fish, impale it on a hook or two in such a way that it is kept alive for a while, and use that as bait for a big fish which you only intend reeling in, perhaps measuring, and letting go.   It just seems too much like the infliction of pain on something for pure entertainment purposes.   Implicit in this is that I feel people should have concern over how a small fish feels when it is impaled through its body - but yeah, it seems reasonable to me to have some misgiving about the way it squirms while being hooked up.

Of course, you can also argue that catch and release using any form of bait is inflicting unnecessary mouth pain on the fish that is caught, even though most survive it and presumably heal.   But it's the live bait idea that clearly pushes it over the edge into "objectable" to me.   To be clear: if it were involving fishing to catch food to eat, I would have substantially less concern: it's the lack of a point beyond entertainment that makes live bait catch and release a nagging problem.

I guess I shouldn't expect people commenting on live streams to have the same misgivings, but I do wonder whether the same thought occurs to anyone else.   It seems an intuitively correct position to take, but it seems few people think this way.

Really random stuff - including a chemical dream

*    When buying my new phone, which I still have not had a chance to test out fully with its camera, Xiaomi encouraged me to buy other stuff, and I finally bought their tiny electric razor, which I had seen in shops in Singapore but never got around to buying.   (It's super cheap - like $29.  But hey, its Xiaomi, so unlikely to be junk, I figured.)

I have never used an electric razor before.  Part of my motivation for trying one now is that this little model (with rechargeable battery) might be better for travel, instead of razors and tube shaving cream, and then not having my preferred aftershave to use.

So, how is it?   I had been told by a friend years ago that it takes a while for your face skin to get used to electric razors.   I can't say that I have found that problematic, but it certainly takes a lot of repeat action on certain areas of my face to get it feeling somewhat close to a blade razor shave.

I'm guessing this is not just me, but skin on the "harder" parts of the face (chin and upper lip) shaves a lot quicker and easier with it than the softer parts of the face - the cheeks and upper parts of the neck.  

Despite getting started quicker, I have to go over certain areas for so long I'm not sure it's any faster than wet razor shaving.

 But, overall, yes, while the jury is still out, I think it's successful enough that I may try travelling with it next time.  All I have to worry about then is that the lithium battery doesn't start a fire in the overhead locker, I guess!

*  On Saturday morning, I woke up from a long anxiety dream which featured dangerous clouds of a chemical called sodium perchlorate.  The name of the chemical was repeated enough that, on waking, I thought I would double check with an AI (Kimi, the free version of which I still quite like) that it was indeed a real chemical.  (I mean, I thought it was real, but in the foggy impression that dreams can leave for a while on waking, I wanted to double check.)

It confirmed that it was, and then asked was I worried about a real life exposure to it.  I said "no, it was just a weird form of anxiety dream".   It then came back with one of these AI answers where it really does give the impression of how a human friend might react, offering commentary that isn't really necessary, but just how conversation often goes:

Yeah, that is a pretty specific and weird anxiety dream — your subconscious went deep into the chemistry catalog.

Anxiety dreams often latch onto things that feel plausibly threatening but hard to evaluate. Sodium perchlorate fits that well: it's real, it's invisible, the danger is technical and uncertain ("is this cloud bad? how bad?"), and you can't really reason your way to safety in the moment. Your brain basically built a perfect little uncertainty engine.

There's also something almost darkly funny about it — like your anxiety went, "What's something obscure but legitimately documented that I could worry about?" Instead of a generic monster, you got an industrial chemical with an actual CAS number.

Dreams do this sometimes. They borrow real, specific details from the world and turn them into metaphors for vague dread. The fact that it was a cloud you couldn't assess probably matters more than the specific compound.

If you're having these regularly or they're waking you up, that's worth noting. But as a one-off? Brains are just weird. Yours apparently has a subscription to obscure chemical hazards. 

 There is, incidentally, nothing at all that I can remember seeing or reading in recent weeks or months that would have mentioned sodium perchlorate.   Maybe I'm wrong, and I will recall sooner or later, but this one really did seem to come out of nowhere. 

Testing out a new app

The official Blogger mobile app has had a bad reputation forever, but the other app I have been using in recent years isn't working at all on the new phone.

So let's try the office app again...

I can't adjust photo size?

Concert time

 I mentioned in April that I stumbled across an advertisement for Postmodern Jukebox doing an Australian tour, and I bought tickets.  The concert was last night.

 It was pretty great - talented musicians and singers doing the PMJ cabaret thing of new songs done in various styles and re-workings - with a frentic tap dancer thrown in or light entertainment!  (She appeared on a couple of recent Youtube videos on its channel.)  

The audience was strongly tilted to older ages - over 50's - and it did amuse me a bit to hear an older audience be as enthusiastic as they were.  I guess it's the general retro vibe of PMJ that attracts, and the performers do tend to be, mostly, in the over 30 range?   But there were some younger people in the audience as well, including my daughter, who enjoyed it as much as her parents did.     

The sound mix was very shaky on the first song (vocals completely overwhelmed by the band), but it got better as the songs went on, and was not a problem overall.   

I also got to try out a new phone camera (I will talk about that in a separate post), and yeah, when you compare it to concert photos I took many years on much crappier phones, you can see how much technology has improved.  (Although this is first upper mid range/lower top range phone I have bought, ever.)    

I will post a couple of pics soon.   

 

Old man's complaint

I watch fewer Youtube travel vlog couple videos than previously.   I got sick of Kara and Nate long ago for being too enthusiastic about everything, coming across as pretty privileged rich kids, and doing stupid physical challenges in which I have zero interest;  I watched Eric and Allison (of Endless Adventures) for longer, but their recent stuff has become less interesting, even though they are a more down to Earth couple, if sometimes looking a little, um, sleazy?;  Flora and Note I quite like for their cheerfulness and Asia centric stuff, despite his excessive tattoos, but I don't need to watch everything they put out.

I do watch some of One Pack Wanderers, who are currently driving around Australia again.   They seem to me to be really great with the video quality, but (and this is half the point of this post), oh my God, I reckon at least half of their viewership must be males (like me) who melt at watching Tia smiling and looking happy.   (Still photos don't do her justice, you have to watch her on video.)  She is pure, intensified, charisma on legs - she should try her luck at acting as I'm pretty sure no one can resist liking her all round demeanour.    

But, especially with the younger couples who do this (from the ones I have mentioned - Flora and Nate, and Tia and her guy with the name I can never remember), I do get the feeling after a while that they need to stop having fun and get down to the business of procreation.  Especially Tia!  

Sure, travelling while young is fun and can be entertaining for us as well, but I don't want them to miss out on the fun of having kids, as well as my self interest in ensuring there are future aged care workers to look after me and my cohort in 20 years time!

I'm joking about the latter - kind of, as I really don't expect aged care centres to be well managed by Chinese robots - but this is the simple regret I always feel at the news of decreasing birthrates everywhere (and especially amongst the young.)   Sure, stupid older people (unfortunately, back to my cohort) have ensured that climate change is going to cause continuing nightmares around the world for the next few centuries, but the entire globe isn't going to become uninhabitable.   With any luck.  And there's a lot of empty space in Tasmania still!

But having children is still fun and natural - it's a great experience (although never without risk of tragedy or disappointment, of course.)   And I don't really understand why people wouldn't assume this is true if they like having dogs and cats for company.  Kids are like a more advanced version of them.  :)

Am I the only person who keeps wanting to tell they young folk on Youtube to stop having that kind of fun, and have a (kind of more important) type of fun? 

Update:  After dissing Kara and Nate, they have put up a video last weekend about hiring a motor boat in the Whitsunday Islands, and some of the rough weather they encountered.   As I have always quite liked the idea of doing that, I will watch it.   

Far from ideal

I would have hoped our penal system worked a bit better than this:

Queensland's prison population is booming, according to a new report that also warns almost half of inmates are returning to custody within two years of their release.

The state's auditor-general has found Queensland Corrective Services (QCS) is not effectively planning or facilitating the rehabilitation and reintegration of its prisoners.

In its latest report, the audit office noted there were 11,278 inmates as of June last year, which was a 54 per cent increase from a decade earlier. 

The recidivism rate is particularly bad amongst indigenous prisoners:

...the audit office also highlighted First Nations prisoners in Queensland were returning to custody at a greater rate than non-First Nations prisoners.

"In 2024−25, 55 per cent of First Nations people returned to custody in Queensland within two years compared to 36 per cent of non-First Nations people," it said.

"Only Northern Territory and New South Wales reported higher rates in the same period." ...

The auditor-general made five recommendations, including that the QCS strengthen its planning approach to prisoner rehabilitation and reintegration.

It also called for QCS to begin planning and support of the reintegration of a prisoner from the time they started their time in custody. 

 An enormous problem that is often talked about in the context of youth offending in particular is the number of people in custody with reduced mental functioning due to having suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome.  Let Claude give us some figures: 

Banksia Hill Detention Centre (WA) study — the landmark Australian study, published in BMJ Open 2018:

• 36% of young people in detention were diagnosed with FASD, one of the highest recorded rates globally, and 89% of youth detainees had at least one form of severe neurodevelopmental impairment, increasing their risk of justice involvement
• Of those diagnosed with FASD, 74% were Indigenous

Northern Territory — from the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the NT:

• In 2016, a multidisciplinary assessment of 16 children who had been in detention in the NT found 56% met diagnostic criteria for FASD
• Context on overrepresentation: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders comprise 49% of young people in detention but only 5.8% of the Australian population aged 10–17

Policy commentary — a 2011 parliamentary inquiry made the connection explicit: "It would appear that a significant number of Indigenous people who end up in detention centres and prisons are there partly as a result of the failure of governments to identify FASD as an issue underpinning their offending behaviour. As a result, punitive rather than remedial responses have prevailed"

Community prevalence baseline — outside detention, in the Fitzroy Valley (WA), a 2010 survey of 7 to 8 year old children showed 19% had FASD, among the highest rates observed worldwide, giving some sense of the underlying prevalence in the source communities.

General population comparison — the recent national estimate puts general population FASD prevalence at 3.64%, so the youth justice figures represent roughly 10x that rate.

One caveat worth flagging for any submission or advice: these are largely single-site studies (Banksia Hill, small NT samples) rather than a national justice-system census, so they're best cited as strong indicative evidence of gross overrepresentation rather than a precise national statistic. If you want, I can pull the BMJ Open Banksia Hill paper itself (Bower et al. 2018) or look into whether Queensland has any equivalent detention-based FASD prevalence data specifically, since the studies above are mostly WA/NT.

What a difficult problem to solve.

A long term start would be to heavily concentrate on trying to reduce FASD.

As to the type of post incarceration support system that can work well amongst indigenous in particular, though...that's a tough one. 

Some random "America turns 250" stuff

*  NPR explains that coffee was very important in America at the time of its independence.  I don't think I knew that before.  Sure, I think everyone knew it was big for the French revolution, but the American one, not so much:

"The first documented example of a mortar and pestle used to grind coffee beans was on the Mayflower" in 1620, says historian Michelle Craig McDonald, the author of Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States.

"The fact that coffee was present so early is not surprising if you think about it," McDonald says. "A number of those who were on the Mayflower came to North America from Amsterdam, which was a major coffee trading center in Western Europe by the 17th century."

The first coffeehouse in the colonies opened in 1676 in Boston, a century before the U.S. declared independence, she says. Some taverns sold coffee even earlier....

In July 1774, John Adams (before he became the second U.S. president) wrote to his wife Abigail, recounting an incident during his travels. After a long day, he asked the proprietor of the house where he was lodging for a cup of tea, provided it was smuggled and free of British taxes.

" 'No sir, said she, we have renounced all Tea in this Place. I cant make Tea, but I'le make you Coffee.' Accordingly I have drank Coffee every Afternoon since, and have borne it very well. Tea must be universally renounced. I must be weaned, and the sooner, the better," Adams wrote.

Despite John Adams claiming a newfound patriotic duty to appreciate coffee, McDonald says colonists had been drinking lots of coffee all along.

She studied advertisements from the 1760s and '70s to estimate how many shops sold coffee versus tea. Even before the Boston Tea Party, she says, "coffee is definitely more broadly available than tea is."

A big reason? It was cheaper. "Its price again per pound is significantly less, which tells you about its availability, its accessibility to drinkers."

 *  Seems to me that Trump managed to make international interest in the celebration as low as it could conceivably go.   It was just too embarrassing to watch.

*  Speaking of Trump, the spectacular depth and heartlessness of his grifting makes it hard to believe that he still has the support of the people who lost savings on his useless Trump crypto:

Nearly 1 million people who bought President Trump’s memecoin have lost money through the end of June, according to a report by the cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen. Their losses total $3.81 billion.

The analytics firm’s assessment was calculated this week after Mr. Trump signed an annual financial disclosure showing that he walked away with a $636 million payout on the same crypto bet, part of a haul of at least $2.2 billion from all of his business ventures in 2025.

The odds were always in his favor. Mr. Trump profited whether the price of his memecoin went up or down. He collected returns whenever anyone traded the tokens, as he repeatedly pushed his followers to do, using his Truth Social account to promote the coin.

Most crypto transactions are publicly visible, recorded on a digital ledger called the blockchain. That allows analysts to trace purchases of digital coins from individual crypto accounts, known as wallets. Nansen’s data shows that, as of the end of June, 988,905 buyers of the $TRUMP memecoin have lost money, representing roughly two out of every three buyers.

Cumulatively, these 988,905 wallets have lost a total of $3.81 billion, including buyers who have held on to their stash and recorded paper losses, according to Nansen. The coin was trading at $1.76 as of Friday, down 97 percent from its peak price of $75.35.

 I guess I could join in with those who don't have much sympathy with the people who were grifted - although is it wrong to not sympathise at least a little with dumb people losing their money due to cult like trust in such a morally ugly figure?  I'll leave that question up to a philosophy podcast!

I do have sympathy to any exasperated children who find their parent is now penniless due to the grift the kids are only now learning about, however. 

 Update:

Oh, they're still alive?

Gee, when you get into your 60's, it comes as a bit of a surprise that people who you used to hear on the radio in the 60's are still alive.    Yeah, I know, two Beatles are still with us, but because they've always been touring and making new stuff, their continued living status is no surprise.

But the one I do find surprising when I'm reminded he's still kicking around, because you don't hear of him all that often, is Tom Jones.   

And now, just looking around some papers, I see that Herb Alpert is still alive too!  Aged 91.  Spanish Flea still springs readily to mind.  I'm sure my parents had it on LP.

Speaking of ageing performers, I did see a video a few months ago about how Franki Valli, looking extremely decrepit and as if the victim of elder abuse, was still going on stage and lip synching to his old songs in a highly cringeworthy way.   (And he was still trying to tour as recently as May this year.😐)

Anyway, in other "must surely be on death's door" news, the fact that Mitch McConnell was rushed into hospital three weeks ago after being unconscious at home and his wife went to China three days later for a "long planned" trip is very, very odd.  (McConnell is still in hospital, but no one has seen proof of effective life.)

Asian movie time

I watched the Taiwanese movie A Foggy Tale on Netflix on the weekend, and can strongly recommend it.

It's so well made, from directing, acting and production design points of view.  Set in Taiwan in 1953, it has a real sense of place, and the story serves as a reminder that the country lived under harsh political conditions at the time.  From Wikipedia:

Two years after the 28 February incident, the KMT retreated from mainland China to Taiwan during the closing stages of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Wanting to consolidate its rule on its remaining territories, the KMT imposed harsh political suppression measures, which included enacting martial law, executing suspected leftists or those they suspected to be sympathetic toward the communists.^[5] Others targeted included Taiwanese locals and indigenous peoples who participated in the 28 February incident, such as Uyongʉ Yata'uyungana, and those accused of dissidence for criticizing the government.^[6]

The KMT carried out persecutions against those who criticized or opposed the government, accusing them of attempting to subvert the regime, while dramatically expanding the scope of punishment throughout this period.^[7] It made use of the Taiwan Garrison Command (TGC), a secret police, as well as other intelligence units by enacting special criminal laws as tools for the government to purge dissidents.^[8] Basic human rights and the right to privacy were disregarded, with mass pervasive monitoring of the people, filings of sham criminal cases against anyone suspected of being a dissident, as well as labelling any individuals who did not conform to a pro-regime stance as being communist spies, often without merit.^[9] Others were labeled as Taiwanese separatists and prosecuted for treason.^[10] It is estimated that about 3,000 to 4,000 civilians were executed by the government during the White Terror.^[1] The government was also suspected of carrying out extrajudicial killings against exiles in other countries.^[a]

The story gets very emotional, but (fortunately) doesn't end on a depressing note.

I kept finding while watching that certain aspects of the direction and story reminded me of certain Spielberg films and techniques.  I wonder if any other viewer had the same feeling. 

I sense a connection...

Seems harsh

OK, there would be some TikTok content that probably deserves caning, but a young couple kissing in a car?

 A young couple in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province have been publicly caned after a Sharia court convicted them of violating Islamic law by kissing during a TikTok livestream.

The court ordered the couple, a 22-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman, to be whipped with a rattan cane 21 times each for kissing without being married. At least 100 people witnessed the caning, carried out by a group of people wearing robes and hoods on a stage in Bustanussalatin City Park in Banda Aceh.

The couple were arrested in April after a livestream from 27 February, in which they kissed in a car in Banda Aceh, went viral and prompted reports to local sharia authorities. 

This and that (mainly from Youtube)

*   I was right - as this guy notes, The Count of Monte Cristo has, for some odd reason, had a resurgence of online approval and discussion in recent months.   Not entirely sure I should read it, all the same, given my better understanding of its nature from the video.

*   I now also understand more about The Odyssey, from this other guy's video.  I see Mary Beard has put out one about it, too.   She's hoping she can like Christopher Nolan's movie, but we shall see.  (I haven't watched the video fully yet, though.) 

*  This is possibly the most dramatic earthquake video I have ever seen.  Poor people.

*  Away from Youtube, the never ending uncertainty about how to deal with prostate cancer risk continues:

A growing number of prostate cancer experts argue that calling the lowest-risk prostate cancer "cancer" does more harm than good. A new UCLA-led study found removing the cancer label could dramatically reduce overtreatment and encourage more men to get screened, potentially leading to significantly fewer deaths from aggressive prostate cancer.

Using a model based on U.S. population data, the researchers estimated that relabeling Grade Group 1 (GG1) prostate cancer—the earliest and lowest-risk form of the disease—as a precancerous condition could reduce unnecessary treatment and prevent nearly 2,400 prostate cancer deaths annually. The researchers found this benefit would largely come from more men choosing PSA screening, as relabeling GG1 could reduce concerns about overdiagnosis and unnecessary treatment among patients and clinicians.

A large body of research has shown that a pure GG1 cannot cause symptoms or metastasize. Guidelines therefore recommend active surveillance (including PSA testing, MRI and periodic biopsies) rather than treatment for nearly all men diagnosed with GG1. Nevertheless, up to 40% of men in the United States with GG1 continue to get treatment....

Unlike aggressive prostate cancers that can spread throughout the body, GG1 prostate cancer, also known as Gleason 6 prostate cancer, typically grows slowly over years or decades, or not at all. These tumors do not cause symptoms or become life-threatening unless a higher-grade cancer develops in the prostate.

But the diagnosis itself can be difficult for patients to process.

Research has shown that men diagnosed with GG1 typically experience stress and anxiety, and many choose surgery or radiation even when active surveillance would be the most appropriate option. Those treatments can cause long-term complications, including urinary, bowel and sexual dysfunction. In addition, patients unnecessarily lose access to life insurance because of the cancer diagnosis.

The authors also note that calling these tumors "cancer" contributes to overtreatment because patients may assume the disease is more dangerous than it is. 

Meltdown watch