I see via Washington Post that Michael Jackson's former home, Neverland Ranch, is for sale for $31 million. (Used to be on the market for $100 million.)
It's..kinda ugly in parts:
And doesn't do much for me in others (that ceiling looks so heavy and oppressive):
But, it is on a pretty nice looking piece of land:
You would think that if it wasn't for the icky associations, it could be made into some high class accommodation. But good luck with that, buyers.
Thursday, July 11, 2019
The jokes write themselves
From Dezeen, the jokes one can make from this are just too easy:
Pratt Institute graduate Garrett Benisch has proposed using biosolids, the organic matter derived from treated sewage, to produce a compostable ballpoint pen and its ink.
Benisch, who just graduated from New York's Pratt Institute with a degree in industrial design, created the Sum Waste pen for his thesis project.
The curvy, translucent writing instrument made from biosolids was featured in the university's year-end design show and won first place in a national competition organised by research group Healthy Materials Lab.
Populist governments and their disregard for expertise
Just as the Trump government has a solid reputation for disdain of expert advice on topics ranging from environmental issues to trade and international treaties, it seems that the populist government in India likes to tell its followers what it wants to hear. See this (pretty angry) article at Foreign Policy, mainly about India's terrible air pollution, but also other topics:
Speaking from the headquarters of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on May 9, the cabinet member Nitin Gadkari promised a rapid elimination of air pollution. “Delhi will be free of air and water pollution in the next three years,” he said. Gadkari is now the minister of road transport and highways now, but in the years before Modi first became prime minister in 2014, Gadkari was president of the BJP. He said he expected that the air would clear because of the achievements of his political party, which “has done 100 percent corruption-free, transparent, time-bound, result-oriented, and quality work.”And more about the general attitude of "we know better than experts":
Bringing air pollution down to acceptable levels—not just in New Delhi, but also throughout north India—would indeed be a tremendous accomplishment. But promising to do so within three years is absurd. China, for example, has successfully directed policymaking efforts toward reducing particle pollution, after decades of catastrophic pollution in the north and public pressure once air quality data became easily available online To do so has taken China several years (more than three), has certainly not eliminated pollution altogether, and has required facing unpleasant facts. Central Chinese officials held local governments to account for improving pollution—and moved to address the problem when statistical analysis showed that local bureaucrats were manipulating the numbers. But Gadkari’s unbelievable numbers are coming from the top.
Such absurdities have become commonplace. Gadkari’s promise echoes Modi’s claim the government could eliminate open defecation from rural India by 2019. (Open defecation rates improved, but it remains dangerously common, as independent demographic data shows.) Both numerical deadlines combine wild ambition and a good cause with needless quantitative precession and the absence of any plan that could achieve the result.
Unfortunately, the pattern extends beyond the environment. Increasingly, many of India’s leading economists and statisticians have spoken out about the dismantling of India’s systems of official statistics and expertise. Respected statisticians—including an economist whom I know personally from my time at the Delhi School of Economics—resigned from the National Statistical Commission in January, in protest of the government’s refusal to release credible unemployment data.
The government’s top economic advisors and policymakers report being as surprised as everyone else when in 2016 the prime minister, in a move remembered as “demonetization,” suddenly declared that a large fraction of India’s notes no longer counted as currency. In my own field of child health, the Economist reported that UNICEF suppressed data on child stunting because the prime minister’s home state scored poorly. I do not think any of my colleagues in sanitation research seriously believe the government’s response to a December 2018 parliamentary question, which was to insist that sanitation coverage in rural Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh is 100 percent.
Nice of them...
Searching that Samuel Gregg who Helen Dale re-tweeted (he's one of those irritating conservative Catholics who like small government because God wants people to suffer - see how easy it is to argue like him!) led me to a conservative Catholic site which had this news item of some interest:
The Russian Orthodox Church is debating an end to the practice of blessing large scale weapons, including nuclear missiles.
Last month, a committee on ecclesial law met in Moscow and recommended ending the practice of blessing missiles and warheads, and suggested that priests should instead bless only individual soldiers and their personal weapons.
According to a report by Religion News Service, Bishop Savva Tutunov of the Moscow Patriarchate said that it would be more appropriate to bless only the warrior who is defending their country, and their own personal weapon–instead of bombs.
“One can talk about the blessing of a warrior on military duty in defense of the fatherland,” said Tutunov.
“At the end of the corresponding ritual, the personal weapon is also blessed — precisely because it is connected to the individual person who is receiving the blessing. By the same reasoning, weapons of mass destruction should not be sanctified,” he said.
The proposal to end the blessings for larger weapons has yet to be approved by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Weapons systems, including Topol-class intercontinental ballistic missiles, are frequently blessed by members of the Russian Orthodox clergy during military parades and other events. These blessings are seen as a way of spiritually protecting the country.
The ridiculous technique
What's the name for this type of bad faith, nonsensical style of argument, whereby your opponent says X and you claim that this must mean they want Y, while surely knowing Y is a wild exaggeration and caricature of their point?
Ironically, those on the Right rally against SJW's for using it when talking about gender and sexuality (for example), but they deploy it themselves when it suits.
Drives me nuts, whoever uses it.
Gives me mixed feelings
I mean, who wouldn't want to see the IPA staff, membership, 98% of commenters at Catallaxy, and all hosts on Sky News at Night rounded up and forced into re-education schools in which they are all taught to dance, paint and give up all radical ideas (as defined by me.) Of course, it would have to be conducted in what would look more like an aged care facility than a young person's school, but still, it's a pleasant dream:
A short history of the "we didn't go to the Moon" conspiracy
This article at The Guardian isn't bad, and reminded me that Fox News - that unique source of the dumbing down of America - revived it with a "documentary" in 2001.
Stand proud, Rupert Murdoch, and all who support him.
Stand proud, Rupert Murdoch, and all who support him.
Yet more "as I have been saying"...
I recently noted how I have been posting for a while about how solar power expansion should be looking at not replacing otherwise useful uses of land (like agriculture), but working within it. (Including being deployed on water storage dams and reservoirs.)
Today I read of some paper that says the same thing:
Today I read of some paper that says the same thing:
A study released today provides the most complete list yet of the advantages of solar energy—from carbon sequestration to improvements for pollinator habitat. The paper offers a new framework for analyzing solar projects to better understand the full suite of benefits.And more:
The study, published in Nature Sustainability, was conducted by researchers from the University of California, Davis; Lancaster University in the United Kingdom; the Center for Biological Diversity and 10 other organizations.
It suggests a framework for understanding more completely, and ultimately quantifying, the benefits of solar energy, identifying 20 frequently overlooked advantages. For example, solar panels paired with native plant restoration can add habitat while also increasing panel efficiency.
In the report, the authors:I'm glad my common sense suggestions eventually get taken up in universities, eventually...
- Suggest a model for engineering solar energy systems that maximizes both technological and ecological benefits.
- Create a framework for characterizing 20 benefits of installations on different spaces, including rooftop solar; solar on contaminated land; solar over functional bodies of water like reservoirs, water treatment areas and irrigation canals; and solar co-located with agriculture and grazing.
- Make the case for understanding that as renewable energy development is ramped up to address the climate crisis, it shouldn't create unnecessary negative impacts, especially when technology and resources are available to maximize positive effects.
- Suggest how this framework might be useful in policy and regulatory decision-making in order to ensure a sustainable energy transition.
A very stupid idea
I'm pretty sure that gender reveal parties started in the USA, although I see they have now spread to Australia too, if this story is anything to go by.
I think they are just the silliest idea, objectionable from both liberal and conservative perspectives, and I do not understand at all why people would want to have them.
Just be thankful if you're getting a healthy baby of any gender, even intersex for that matter, for goodness sake.
I think they are just the silliest idea, objectionable from both liberal and conservative perspectives, and I do not understand at all why people would want to have them.
Just be thankful if you're getting a healthy baby of any gender, even intersex for that matter, for goodness sake.
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Gunshot wedding noted
From Gulf News, about an unfortunate incident in India:
What's more, this is a recurrent problem in that part of the country, apparently:
Patna: A groom was killed in celebratory gunfire during a wedding in Bihar moments after the exchange of vows....
As per the itinerary, a wedding procession reached the house of the bride on the scheduled day and this was followed by the garland exchange ritual.
While the groom was walking towards the wedding venue after the garland exchange ritual, his elder brother whipped out a pistol and started firing in celebration.Wow. An idiot brother-in-law kills the groom, and the worry is that the bride will wear the long time consequences?
Witnesses said the brother fired thrice but the gun got stuck. As he tried to clear the bullets, they fired one by one, hitting him as well as the groom. Both sustained seriously injuries in the incident and were immediately rushed to a nearby hospital. The groom succumbed to his injuries on Monday afternoon while his brother is battling for his life.
“Who will marry my daughter now? Now everyone will call her doomed,” said Kumari’s father Bhuletan Rai, sobbing inconsolably.
What's more, this is a recurrent problem in that part of the country, apparently:
Celebratory gunfire go on unchecked in Bihar despite the authorities putting a ban on them. It has claimed many lives during the wedding season over the years. According to a report, 15 people have been killed or wounded in celebratory gunfire in the past six months.
A wild actor
To be honest, I thought that Rip Torn had stopped appearing in Men in Black movies because he had already died!
But now that he really has, I see that he had a "colourful" life, continuing into old age:
But now that he really has, I see that he had a "colourful" life, continuing into old age:
In 2010 he was arrested after breaking into a bank branch in Connecticut and was charged with carrying an unlicensed firearm, burglary, trespass and carrying a firearm while intoxicated. Police said Torn had broken into the bank thinking it was his home.I have a feeling I probably read about the 2010 incident at the time, but it sure didn't stick in my memory.
After pleading guilty to a number of charges surrounding his possession of a loaded weapon while drunk, he was given a two-and-a-half-year suspended jail sentence in 2010.
Torn also infamously fought director Norman Mailer during the filming of counterculture film Maidstone. In an improvised on-camera scene, Torn — playing Mailer's brother — attacked Mailer with a hammer and attempted to strangle him. Mailer bit Torn's ear in response.
The scene made it into Maidstone's final cut and was apparently planned, but the blood shed by both actors was very real. Torn was reportedly angered by Mailer's direction.
All about palm oil
At the Jakarta Post, a couple of lengthy, detailed articles about growing palm oil, and whether EU attempts to influence its production are counterproductive, or not.
As I've been saying...
The New York Times writes, after this week's flash flooding in Washington:
WASHINGTON — When almost a month’s worth of rain deluged this city on Monday morning, turning streets into rivers and basements into wading pools, it showed just how vulnerable cities with aging water systems can be in the era of climate change.The rainfall overwhelmed the capital’s storm-water system, much of it built almost a century ago to handle a smaller population, far less pavement and not nearly as much water.“We’re still approaching this 21st-century problem with 20th-century infrastructure, and it’s completely inadequate,” said Constantine Samaras, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. “And it’s only going to get worse.”Updating that infrastructure will be enormously expensive, experts warn, not just in Washington but around the country. That’s not only because upgrades are required. In many cases, cities are facing huge backlogs in general maintenance.
Spiderman viewed
Went to see Spiderman: Far From Home last night. It's very enjoyable. Tom Holland remains ridiculously charming; the special effects featuring destruction in locations we don't normally see destroyed were a bit different from the standard Marvel look*; and it is very funny. (Actually I was laughing a bit more than other members of the audience at some of the silly romance bits between Ned and what's-her-name.)
I keep telling my son that I am glad Tony Stark is dead - Marvel is lighter and funnier and better off without him.
* Sort of a spoiler comment here: when first watching Mysterio flying around trailing a lot of green smoke I thought of the witch in Wizard of Oz, but I was pleased that later in the movie the theatricality of the look made sense. Some of his stuff also looking a bit "Dr Strange", who I am very keen see return.
I keep telling my son that I am glad Tony Stark is dead - Marvel is lighter and funnier and better off without him.
* Sort of a spoiler comment here: when first watching Mysterio flying around trailing a lot of green smoke I thought of the witch in Wizard of Oz, but I was pleased that later in the movie the theatricality of the look made sense. Some of his stuff also looking a bit "Dr Strange", who I am very keen see return.
Tuesday, July 09, 2019
The gripping hand
A somewhat interesting article at Nautilus about how much we should (or shouldn't) read into studies showing that grip strength is weakening pretty rapidly in us modern humans. (Well, Americans in particular.)
I liked this bit of history:
I liked this bit of history:
Pound per pound, babies are remarkably strong. The parent learns this the first time they proffer their finger. In a famous series of experiments in the late 19th century—of the sort one can scarcely imagine today—Louis Robinson, a surgeon at a children’s hospital in England, tested some 60 infants—many within an hour of birth—by having them hang from a suspended “walking stick.” With only two exceptions, according to one report, the infants were able to hang on, sustaining “the weight of their body for at least ten seconds.”9 Many could do it for upward of a minute. In a later-published photograph, Robinson swapped out the bar for a tree branch, to bring home his whole point: Our “arboreal ancestry.”Going back further:
As the evolutionary biologist Mary Marzke argues, our hands today were literally shaped around millions of years of using and making tools (our cerebral hemispheres, notes John Napier, author of the classic study Hands, expanded as our tool making did). The human hand became an almost perfect gripping machine. That long opposable thumb, enabling what has been termed the “power grip” and the “precision grip,” looms most obvious. But consider also the Papillary ridges, those tougher, thicker parts of the skin, found on the human heel, but also on the human palm—a vestigial souvenir from our time as quadrupeds. Their placement, as Napier writes in Hands, “corresponds with the principal areas of gripping and weight bearing, where they serve very much the same function as the treads on an automobile tire.” Eccrine glands perfectly line the papillary ridge, Napier notes, providing a grip-enhancing “lubrication system.” This sort of “frictional adaptation” does not kick in until we are around 2, writes Frank Wilson in The Hand (before then, we just grip harder).I would have guessed that men not sexually partnering much in countries like Japan or China might have activity which compensates for gripping strength loss from automation, if you get my drift. But perhaps I am wrong...
Gripping, then, is a deep part of our biology and evolution as a species. It’s also part of a long story in which we have been getting weaker for millions of years, largely because of a decline in physical activity. The human skeleton, for example, is “relatively gracile” (weak) compared to hominoids.12 Those infants tested by Robinson, stout hangers-on though they may have been, can hardly compete with infant monkeys, who can hang on for upward of a half hour. Why? Because they need to. “Modern infants,” as one researcher notes, “as well as their fairly recent human antecedents, do not need to hang on with their hands and feet from the moment of birth.”13
Zuck watches
From Gizmodo, I like the understated humour of the last line:
Indicating that the ways Facebook can continue to erode trust in its products are evidently limitless, Bloomberg reported Monday that the social media network has used specialized toolkits to monitor and shepherd the public’s opinion of the company and its top brass. This reportedly involved the use of two programs: one titled Stormchaser and another dubbed Night’s Watch, evidently a Game of Thrones reference.
Citing former employees and internal documents, Bloomberg reported that Stormchaser has been used by Facebook employees since 2016 to track viral content involving everything from “Delete Facebook” campaigns to claims that Zuckerberg is an alien (big if true).
Rainfall intensification noted
There's been a lot of flash flooding in Washington DC area:
Let's throw the dice and see what its like under 2 degrees, hey my stoopid reader JC?
Update: for anyone who wants to argue about attribution to climate change, as I have recently said in comments, intensification of rainfall is being widely studied and the connection with climate change is clear - it was predicted to increase and it is increasing. If a place breaks a previous rainfall intensity record by a very high margin, then I don't think there is much to argue about in terms of attribution. Have a look at this, for example:
Reagan National Airport, an official observing site, saw 2.79 inches of rain in just one hour, beating a 1945 record of 2.05 inches, The Washington Post reported.That's climate change for you, after 1 degree globally.
Let's throw the dice and see what its like under 2 degrees, hey my stoopid reader JC?
Update: for anyone who wants to argue about attribution to climate change, as I have recently said in comments, intensification of rainfall is being widely studied and the connection with climate change is clear - it was predicted to increase and it is increasing. If a place breaks a previous rainfall intensity record by a very high margin, then I don't think there is much to argue about in terms of attribution. Have a look at this, for example:
Extreme precipitation has been proposed to scale with the water vapor content in the atmosphere. The Clausius‐Clapeyron (CC) relation describes the rate of change of saturated water vapor pressure with temperature as approximately 7% °C−1 and sets a scale for change in precipitation extremes in the absence of large changes to circulation patterns [Trenberth et al., 2003; Pall et al., 2007]. Analysis of observed annual maximum daily precipitation over land areas with sufficient data samples indicates an increase with global mean temperature of about 6%–8% °C−1 [Westra et al., 2013]. However, observational relations between precipitation extremes and temperature (or dew point temperature) show that subdaily precipitation extremes may intensify more than is anticipated based upon currently available modeling and theory [e.g., Lenderink and van Meijgaard, 2008; Hardwick‐Jones et al., 2010]. This seems to be a property of convective precipitation and may be explained by the latent heat released within storms invigorating vertical motion. This mechanism is thought to generate greater increases in hourly rainfall intensities [Lenderink and van Meijgaard, 2008; Berg et al., 2009; Hardwick‐Jones et al., 2010; Westra et al., 2014; Blenkinsop et al., 2015; Lepore et al., 2015], with a stronger response in convective systems than in stratiform systems [Berg et al., 2013]. This suggests that hourly extremes will probably intensify more with global warming than daily extremes [e.g., Utsumi et al., 2011; Westra et al., 2014].
Which is why I would ban music festivals, if I were benevolent dictator
Inspired by this report in the SMH:
Look, concerts that are done and dusted within 3 hours of an evening, and finish by midnight - that is fine.
Music festivals that last for 24 or more hours, involving crushing masses of people, in the sun, with poor sanitation and leaving huge piles of rubbish: should be stopped and people sent away to just hang around having fun in smaller groups, like in my day.
Drug flooded music festivals, gay parades that involve celebration of clear fetishes, and people who want all drugs liberalised are examples of the liberalism's tolerance of hedonism gone to excess.
I don't want any argument from any libertarian reader - I bet Putin doesn't care for music festivals in Russia, and you've got the hots for Putin, so let's agree that he is right on something for once.
Almost all patrons at music festivals take illicit substances, with MDMA the "drug of choice", an inquest into the deaths of six young people was told yesterday.
The coronial inquest heard that NSW Ministry of Health data indicated up to 90 cent of young festival patrons used drugs.
Look, concerts that are done and dusted within 3 hours of an evening, and finish by midnight - that is fine.
Music festivals that last for 24 or more hours, involving crushing masses of people, in the sun, with poor sanitation and leaving huge piles of rubbish: should be stopped and people sent away to just hang around having fun in smaller groups, like in my day.
Drug flooded music festivals, gay parades that involve celebration of clear fetishes, and people who want all drugs liberalised are examples of the liberalism's tolerance of hedonism gone to excess.
I don't want any argument from any libertarian reader - I bet Putin doesn't care for music festivals in Russia, and you've got the hots for Putin, so let's agree that he is right on something for once.
Samuelson on Putin
Robert J Samuelson's column in the Washington Post on Putin's "liberalism is dead" comments seems pretty fair to me.
First, he says post WW2 liberalism is strapped for cash, due to slowing economic growth, an ageing population and uncertainty as to how far budget deficits can stretch. (He probably could have added things like the revival of Lafferism, the race to the bottom in terms of international competition to reduce tax takes, and gigantic companies that play the "hide the pea" shell game to avoid paying tax.)
Secondly, he writes this, which is worth quoting in full (with my emphasis):
It's hard to "cure" continued conflict in the Middle East and within Islam, which has remarkably wide-reaching effects. But I find it hard to believe that the swing to conservatism in parts of Islam will continue to have long term wins. And the irony is that increased isolationism internationally of one type (economic) can worsen internal conflict and encourage the unwanted immigration. It's all very tricky to balance, but I don't see that the retreat into all forms of isolationism can do anything other than hurt.
As for the economic problem - the cure for that is probably more "liberalism" in economics policy, not less - with inequality being addressed by better tax targetting, and (to be honest) reduced expectations of unending growth. As many on the Right like to point out, most of the poor being poor in the West is not the same thing as it was 100 years ago. That shouldn't be used as an excuse for not caring about inequality, but it is relevant to the questions of expectations of growth. (Yes, I know, growth lifts all boats; but ageing and then declining populations change the picture somewhat.)
First, he says post WW2 liberalism is strapped for cash, due to slowing economic growth, an ageing population and uncertainty as to how far budget deficits can stretch. (He probably could have added things like the revival of Lafferism, the race to the bottom in terms of international competition to reduce tax takes, and gigantic companies that play the "hide the pea" shell game to avoid paying tax.)
Secondly, he writes this, which is worth quoting in full (with my emphasis):
We’ve long governed by hope: a better life. In its loftiest state, postwar liberalism was expected to have a cleansing effect on countries’ social climate, liberating people from prejudice and small-mindedness. The liberal appeal spanned the ideological spectrum. In the United States and Europe, centrist governments of the left and right ruled.I tend to think that this is too pessimistic. I reckon that the West has had a fright over two things - immigration surges from war torn and economically savaged regions, ironically sometimes contributed to by interventions from the West; and the unevenness in global economic growth (also, somewhat ironically, caused by the globalisation as promoted by Western economists as a good thing overall - which it is.)
It is this promise of a morally elevated electorate that Putin panned. The trouble, professor Putin lectured to the Financial Times, is that many people have lost faith in the liberal idea. They have moved on. Now, Putin and his fellow travelers, including President Trump and others, propose that we govern by fear: a dread of outsiders.No one should suppose that Putin’s nationalistic substitute for lapsed liberalism will make the world a kinder, gentler or more stable place. The liberal ideal presumed, perhaps naively, that people could be brought together by common interests and common values. The nationalistic alternative takes as its starting point the view that there will be winners and losers.People feel threatened. Liberal high-mindedness has created a backlash by justifying policies and practices that are unpopular with large swaths of the population — open borders, unwanted immigration, globalization and multiculturalism. Liberal policies “come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population,” Putin said.People value their national identities. They generally fear policies and practices that would erode these identities. One question in a 2016 Pew study asked whether increases in the number of ethnic groups, races and nationalities made their countries “a worse place to live.” Large shares of Greeks (63 percent), Italians (53 percent) and Germans (31 percent) said “yes.”We are straddled between two systems. The daunting task is to salvage the best of postwar liberalism while, at the same time, acknowledging the importance of national identities and sovereignty. It may be a mission impossible.
It's hard to "cure" continued conflict in the Middle East and within Islam, which has remarkably wide-reaching effects. But I find it hard to believe that the swing to conservatism in parts of Islam will continue to have long term wins. And the irony is that increased isolationism internationally of one type (economic) can worsen internal conflict and encourage the unwanted immigration. It's all very tricky to balance, but I don't see that the retreat into all forms of isolationism can do anything other than hurt.
As for the economic problem - the cure for that is probably more "liberalism" in economics policy, not less - with inequality being addressed by better tax targetting, and (to be honest) reduced expectations of unending growth. As many on the Right like to point out, most of the poor being poor in the West is not the same thing as it was 100 years ago. That shouldn't be used as an excuse for not caring about inequality, but it is relevant to the questions of expectations of growth. (Yes, I know, growth lifts all boats; but ageing and then declining populations change the picture somewhat.)
Monday, July 08, 2019
Desert capital
Another Youtube I saw on the weekend: I had missed the news that Egypt was building a new capital city outside of Cairo. I thought the country was economically in the dumps, but the government is spending a lot of money on this, and the army is apparently in charge of building this place. Quite interesting:
An article at The Conversation talked about it last year:
An article at The Conversation talked about it last year:
Built on a site located 45 kilometres east of Greater Cairo, the city will feature a new presidential palace, a new parliament, a central bank and business district, an airport and a massive theme park, alongside housing for 6.5m people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)