Proposed end of the world update

Also while I was away, Rainer Plaga made his response to the criticisms of his original paper suggesting that the Large Hadron Collider could create a dangerous, earth threatening, mini black hole.

He added an appendix to his paper on arXiv, here, saying that Giddings and Mangano's criticism that he used an equation incorrectly is just wrong. For the earlier explanation of the background, see my posts here, here and here.

I'm in no position to judge the accuracy of Rainer's rejoinder, just as I had trouble understanding Giddings and Mangano's criticism. And no physicist on the Web seems to have commented on Rainer's response.

So: who knows? Some informed comment on this would be welcome, but I guess money worries are more important that the end of the world...

UPDATE: the accident that shut the LHC down appears to require more work to fix than first thought. Nature is reporting it won't be turned on again til June 2009, but even then some seem to think that is optimistic.

Australian supermarkets note

Supermarkets slash prices to keep fearful customers | The Japan Times Online

Some very strong supermarket competition in Japan:

Major supermarkets are engaging in price cuts to keep customers as a sagging stock market and worsening corporate earnings pressure consumers to tighten their purse strings.

Aeon Co. began its biggest discount campaign ever Saturday at about 2,000 stores run by group companies, slashing prices on about 1,000 items by an average 20 percent until the end of February.

Maher miss

I see that while I was on holiday, a Bill Maher documentary on religion was released in the States.

Although Rotten Tomatoes indicates it was generally well received by the critics, it seems when you read the reviewers' key comments at RT that many of those who liked it still had reservations about it being basically one big cheap shot. (It is a curious thing, sometimes, as to how RT decides whether a particular review is, overall, positive or negative.) Kenneth Turan of the LA Times explains well the reasons he and others didn't like it.

Anyhow, the main reason this is mentioned here is because I thought David Wolpe wrote a good rebuttal to this type of criticism of religion.

Surprisingly, I see that the movie has made $9,000,000 in the States, in 3 weeks. (The production budget is said to be $2.5 million.) I take it that counts as a success. Athiests with a liking for a grating liberal comedian are willing to pay for it, then. Unfortunately, more completely one sided liberal docos are probably on the way.

The Madonna divorce post

Catherine Bennett: Now's the time for Guy to rise above Madge's material world The Observer

Catherine Bennett doesn't have much time for Madonna. Writing of her children's books:

....in The English Roses Madonna commands young readers not to judge people by appearances. Just because a person might seem to be, say, meretricious, materialistic, foul-mouthed and youth-obsessed, with disturbing musculature and a habit of waggling her venerable crotch in front of hundreds of thousands of complete strangers, doesn't mean she might not, in reality, inhabit a rarified spiritual plane from which - to the great good fortune to those around her - she occasionally returns with important messages about the sacred side of life.

Heh.

PS: I had somehow missed the fact that Madonna has directed a movie just released in the States. (Her soon-to-be-ex-hubbie Guy has one out too.) Anthony Lane therefore has a lot of fun reviewing both films, neither of which he likes. Here's his take on Ritchie's film (noting that he has just rubbished Madonna's movie - "Filth and Wisdom" (!) - for being incompetent on every level):

“RocknRolla,” by contrast, has competence on its side. Whole scenes go by in which one shot actually matches the next. In place of the bleak fuzz that veils half the setups in “Filth and Wisdom,” the images here are crisply defined, even if Ritchie has proved unable to shed the fondness for muted mud-tones that graced “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.” Why, there are even proper actors! Giving reasonable performances! This film’s got everything, although purists might quibble that it lacks any sliver of plausibility or dramatic interest.

As for the title of Madonna's movie, apparently the narrator says: "Without filth, there can be no wisdom." Deep, Madonna, very deep.

Psychoanalysing Obama

David Brooks: Thinking about Obama - International Herald Tribune

David Brooks' column on the unexpected (in terms of what a psychologist might predict given his childhood) and somewhat un-nerving coolness and unflappability of Obama makes some good points. (Although it is always dangerous to make too much out of just the public persona.)

Of course, Brooks fails to mention the obvious explanations: it could be he's either a robot (has he ever lived near the place where Disney builds their animatronics?) or the Terminal Man (with a mood controlling chip in his brain). Investigative journalists should be looking for unexplained hospital admissions. (Good thing I read Michael Crichton and can see what is going on.)

Bubble waiting to be burst

Dubai prices rising as fast as buildings - International Herald Tribune:

Richard Waryn has lived in Dubai for only two months but he already is certain that the glitz capital of the Mideast lives up to its go-go reputation. What he is not so sure about is whether to sink his money into the sleek apartment towers springing up everywhere.

With property prices up 40 percent this year - and critics warning that a slide is coming - other potential buyers are asking themselves the same question.

By the way, Richard is not your average investor. On page 2 of the article, we read this:

In the end, Waryn and his wife, Liz, a lawyer, opted to rent a 550-square-meter duplex penthouse with private pool and terraces overlooking the sea. The $100,000 annual rent seemed a better deal than buying an equivalent property for about $4 million, although he said they still may buy an investment property.

He's got a bit of loose change lying around, it seems.

Tuna must be in trouble...

BBC NEWS | Closure call for tuna 'disgrace'

If even Japan is calling for a moratorium on fishing Mediterranean tuna, then you know the stocks must be very low indeed:

In 2006, Iccat scientists recommended catches be limited to about 15,000 tonnes per year.

But the government appointees that make the decisions chose to allow quotas twice as big, and it is estimated that a further 20,000 tonnes are landed illegally each year.

As a result, the number of fish has fallen to about one-third of its level in the 1970s.

Indeed, the Messiah cometh

A Don's Life by Mary Beard - Times Online - WBLG: My Dad, John McCain

If you thought conservatives were exaggerating in their complaint that Obama was being treated as the Messiah, have a read of Mary Beard's blog, where she looks at the kid's books written about both McCain and Obama.

She starts off complaining about the giant airbrush waved over McCain in the "young readers" book about him, but then notes that the Obama books are significantly worse.

Of "Barack Obama, Son of Promise, Child of Hope", Mary notes:

Never mind maverick patriotism, here god him/herself appears to have a direct line to young Barack. One Sunday in church he (that’s god) says, “Look around you. Now look at me. There is hope enough here to last a lifetime.” And somewhere along the line, Obama seems to turn into Moses.

On two other books:

Religion is less in your face in Jonah Winter’s Barack, also aimed at under 10s. But you still have to put up with him being born on a “moonlit night” (really?) to a Mom “white as whipped cream”. And no less puke-making is Garen Thomas's, Yes, we can, aimed at slightly older kids. How about this, quoted by the New York Times reviewer: “There has emerged a new leader who seems to be granting Americans a renewed license to dream. . . . People believe he understands them, because by some measure he is them. . . . He manages, through what appears to be genuine concern, to uplift those who have fallen and bring hope anew to both the cynic and the idealist.”

Surprisingly, Mary says the books are selling well, and she assumes it can't all be to adults wanting a laugh.

When exactly did publishers realise there was a market for such guff?

Pretty moving picture time

There's been too many words here lately, so here's a bit of video of the Tokyo Disney light parade taken by me a couple of weeks ago. More commentary on the Japanese and Disney is to come, but just pretty pictures for the moment:




And hey, I've just learnt how to rotate an AVI file with the freeware VirtualDub. (Makes for a small image here, though):

Prediction: Ellen will weep for days

In California, the presidential race is taking a back seat to gay marriage. - Slate Magazine

Fascinating article here about the unexpected twists and turns in the proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage that Californians will be voting on when they go to the Presidential polls.

The proposition initially looked doomed to fail, but a case of over-reach by some gay marriage supporters - a school taking its first graders on a field trip to their teacher's lesbian wedding (!) - has been a gift to their opposition.

Can you imagine how much Ellen DeGeneres will carry on about this if the ban gets up (as many think now will happen)?

Use it or lose it

BBC NEWS | Health | Internet use 'good for the brain'

So, using the internet might help older folk hold off dementia.

Good news for my 85 year old Mum, then. She took up the internet about 4 years ago (good), but spends about 90% of her time on line checking the latest on the Colin Firth fansites (embarrassing). She even wrote to his fan club and got a "signed" photo sent back to her. She likes to believe he signed it personally.

I suppose if she ever does get dementia, me and my brothers could keep her happy by just introducing ourselves as Colin when we visit her. (Don't worry, I think she would laugh at that suggestion if I told her.)

On target?

I said a few posts back that I expected there would be some criticism of the targeting of the Rudd's sudden spend. It took a couple of days, but it's finally here, via Mike Steketee in The Australian:

Less clear is the justification for making the same payments to all those on part-pensions, including couples who can earn private incomes of up to $66,000 a year and own assets of up to $857,000, not counting their home. Some of them will exercise the discretion to put the money into savings rather than spend it. Weaker still are the grounds for extending the payments to all those with a seniors health card, available to self-funded single retirees with incomes of up to $50,000 and couples up to $80,000. They already benefit from the superannuation tax concessions that become more generous as income rises.

If the Government thinks these people should receive payments, then why not those on much lower incomes who would relish the opportunity for some additional spending power? There still may be the odd bludger among those on Newstart, but they do not have the option of keeping their benefit while they earn $66,000 a year and hold substantial assets.

It's this sort of stuff that Labor always criticised Howard for.

As for the First Home Owners Grant, people tend to forget that the thing is not means tested at all, and is paid whether you are buying a $200,000 fibro house in Cunnamulla, or a $2,000,000 apartment with harbour views. As Steketee (jeez I wish he would change his name by Deed Poll) says:

If the aim was truly to maximise the spending bang for the government buck, at least some of the money could have been better used to expand the new and promising scheme to subsidise the building of low-rent housing. As well, the Government could have taken the opportunity of slack in the building industry to increase public housing, which, after taking account of population growth, has fallen 100,000 homes below the level of 10years ago.

I am still waiting to see more criticism of the short fuse of this spending too. If blown too quickly, I don't see how it will do much more than delay a big slow down by more than a quarter or two.

Putin's tactics still around

Toxic pellets found in car of Russian lawyer - International Herald Tribune

The French police are investigating how toxic mercury pellets ended up in the car of a human rights lawyer who fell ill in Strasbourg on Tuesday, a day before pretrial hearings in Moscow into the killing of one of her best-known clients, the journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya.

Always some good news somewhere

Flat-panel TV prices set to dive, analysts say

It's nice to know that while the world's finances dash themselves upon the rocks of ... hmm, I've started a metaphor I don't know how to finish... at least we will be all able to watch it on our new cheap flat screen TVs.

Maths, mind and God

Here's a couple of odd recent papers of interest to be found on arXiv:

* the first has the intriguing title: Modeling the creative process of the mind by prime numbers and a simple proof of the Riemann Hypothesis. Here's a bit from the abstract:

The creative process of the mind is lawfully determined but the outcome is unpredictable. The mathematical equivalent or model of this process is the creation of primes. Primes have the inherent property of unpredictability but can be generated by the creation algorithm of the mind, termed the Prime Law, via a fully deterministic lawful process. This new understanding of the essence of primes can deduce some of the best-known properties of primes, including the Riemann Hypothesis (RH).

I was not familiar with the Riemann Hypothesis, and the discussion of it in the paper is pretty interesting. The author perhaps gets a bit too much ying & yang-y, but overall it's worth a look.

* The significance of maths overall gets a run in a paper by a few mathematicians/philosophers (who one would at least have to suspect as being Catholic) entitled In whose mind is Mathematics an "a priori cognition"?

The argument, if I understand it correctly, is that if Kant's view of mathematics is correct ("an 'a priori' cognition"), then modern maths with its proof that there are some unsolvable questions for the human mind means that mathematics must exist in a mind greater than humans, which "can contain the whole of mathematics at once". Ergo, maths proves God.

I'm not entirely sure how original this argument is. Godel thought he had come up with a proof of God, but his argument was (I think) more esoteric.

The view that mathematics leads its own Platonic existence while waiting to be discovered by human minds can easily lead to theistic thoughts. I suppose you can avoid the issue of whether maths has to exist within any mind at all by arguing like cosmologist Max Tegmark, who goes as far as to say that the Universe is actually made of mathematics. However, I am not entirely sure that anyone can fully understand what that means.

Anyway, with my soft spot for Kant, I like the idea that he and modern mathematicians may have together proved an omniscient Mind exists throughout the universe.

If Fred Flintstone ran Ikea ....

Dezeen - Max Lamb at Johnson Trading Gallery

Oh come on. Even just as art it hardly takes much effort to do this. Surely.

Archi-talk

Dezeen - 102 Dwellings by Dosmasuno Arquitectos

Architects (or their PR firms?) can really talk crap when they put their minds to it. From the above link, about a blocky bunch of apartments in Madrid:

Despite the guidelines drawn on the plots, places need to express their own personality, to arise naturally, to construct themselves. And concretely this one is aligned against a green area, against the concatenation of public spaces that link the old Carabanchel district with its forest through the new neighbourhood. In response to these conditions, the dwellings are compressed onto one edge, onto a single linear piece, in search for the genus loci of the place, views and an optimal orientation in which east and west share the south, generating the limit of the activity, soothing the interior and defining the exterior.

Yeah.

It's a pretty weird building that looks half interesting from some angles, but (as many commenters note) it also will likely be a graffiti magnet. And what is in those bits sticking out?

Fearing for krill (and penguins, whales, etc)

The krilling fields: study fears catastrophe in Antarctic food chain | theage.com.au

From the report:

Captive-bred krill at the Australian Antarctic Division developed deformities and lost energy when they were exposed to the greenhouse gas at levels predicted globally for the year 2100.

The damage meant that the krill were unlikely ever to breed, a University of Tasmania investigator, Lilli Hale, said yesterday.

Polar life, from tiny seabirds through penguins and seals to whales, depend for food on Antarctic krill, Euphasia superba.

I see that Tim Blair today has a short post up linking to a different ocean acidification story, pretty much as if it is the first time he has heard of the issue. I have said it before, but I don't understand why it is a topic that attracts very intermittent coverage, as it will happen whether or not the planet heats or cools. Tim's commenters all appear to be dismissive experts on the topic without actually having read much about it.

On the (perhaps slim) chance that Tim or his readers will follow my advice to look at it harder before pooh-poohing the idea, I link to this article again. Then they can get back to me when they find an actual ocean scientist who has looked at the issue and come up saying "nah, it's nothing to worry about." (Seafriends website does not count, as I have explained before.)

Reading Lewis letters

Letter-writing professor reluctantly hounded by heaven - On Line Opinion - 14/10/2008

Greg Clarke dips his toe into a huge volume of published CS Lewis letters and finds it pretty fascinating.

Tim Train will be pleased: 3,900 pages to read! (Over 3 volumes, it seems.)

Simple idea

Technology Review: Better Solar for Big Buildings

What a neat, simple way of improving solar cells. (Thin film ones, at least.)

Australia stuffs up whaling gain

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Whale deal falls at last minute

It seems Kevin Rudd's push to be tough on a whaling issue is widely considered to have backfired. It's an interesting story, about how we nearly got Japan and Norway to agree to a resolution:

"there is inadequate scientific information to support an assertion that controlling great whale populations can increase fisheries yields".

This was seen as a way of getting Japan to stop running the argument that whales were eating their fish (a very populist argument with no solid science behind it). Instead:

The amendment tabled by Australia asked delegations instead to acknowledge "that the great whales play no significant role in the current crisis affecting global fisheries".

Twenty-nine nations, Japan among them, could not accept the wording or the manner of its introduction. Although it passed with a majority of about three governments in favour to every one against, the anti-whaling bloc will not be able to say that Japan accepted it.

Kevin (or at least his delegates), does not play whale politics well, judging by this reported reaction:

Japanese officials who had participated in an intensive series of consensus-building discussions during the week - at which Australia was also represented - were furious at the last-ditch attempt to introduce stronger wording than had been agreed.

"Australian bad behaviour has put the spirit of co-operation in jeopardy," said Hideki Moronuki, a senior official with Japan's fisheries agency.

"Australia had participated in the [consensus-building] process, they were in the room all the time - this is back-handed."

Officials from other anti-whaling nations agreed, one calling the last-minute intervention "despicable".

The Australian delegation here declined to comment.

Pokies expect a good Christmas

Rudd pumps in $10b - National - smh.com.au

There's some pretty surprising generosity from Kevin Rudd in his stimulus package. The part of it for pensioners and parents comes as a lump sum just before Christmas. The argument against that: they'll blow it all at once on holiday fun, and still can't afford groceries before or after. The argument for it (un-stated, but I would guess someone in Treasury has said it): we want them to spend it quickly, and not just on groceries.

It seems an odd choice to be using pensioners as the people you want to encourage to spend and stimulate the economy.

The new home buyers increases are good for builders and real estate agents, but is this the area of the economy that is in most need of stimulus?

I suspect there will be criticism from both left and right that this should have been better targeted.

Lesbian monkey killers

Loving bonobos have a carnivorous dark side

Fruit makes up much of their diet, but the primates aren't herbivores. Small ungulates called forest antelopes, or duikers, often fall prey to bonobos.

These hunts tend to be fairly simple, with a single bonobo cornering a duiker then quickly feasting on the still-living animal as more apes hurried to the scene. Hohmann says he has witnessed a duiker "still vocally blurting as the bonobos opened the stomach and intestines."

The lesson I take from this: evolutionary psychology tells me not to trust lesbians.

UPDATE: How odd. The New Scientist version quoted above (through some poor editing, I think) does not make it clear, as does the Phys.Org version, that in fact they hunt and eat other primates too:

The researchers have now seen three instances of successful hunts in which bonobos captured and ate their primate prey. In two other cases, the bonobo hunting attempts failed. The data from LuiKotale showed that both bonobo sexes play active roles in pursuing and hunting monkeys. The involvement of adult females in the hunts (which is not seen in chimps) may reflect social patterns such as alliance formation and cooperation among adult females, they said.

Overall, the discovery challenges the theory that male dominance and aggression must be causally linked to hunting behavior, an idea held by earlier models of the evolution of aggression in human and non-human primates.

Well, the former poster girls and boys of International Gay and Lesbian Review don't look so hot as role models anymore. Unless, of course, you happen to be a lesbian vampire killer.

Yay for whites!

Break out the bubbly: White wine may be good for you - health - 13 October 2008 - New Scientist

EU freebie makes Tim swoon

Best elements of left and right make Danes great | theage.com.au

Looks like the European Union hosted Tim Colebatch in Denmark, and he came back swooning over how well it's odd combination of right-ish and left-ish (but mainly left-ish) policies work.

I see the population of that country is 5.5 million, it has an area about 2/3 the size of Tasmania, and is within spitting distance of most its major trading partners.

Governing that country is perhaps just a little different from managing Australia. More like running Sydney as a country.

Weird economics

Step right up for the $20b red-spot special - Annabel Crabb - Opinion

Annabel Crabb sums up my feelings about the current economic circumstances pretty well:

COULD this crisis get any stranger? We're now in a state of confirmed international fiscal panic, but there's money everywhere.

And so much for my suggestion that every government guaranteeing their banks is not really a guarantee at all. Couldn't they have held off the rally for just one more day of losses so that I could feel clever?

UPDATE: a Salon writer suggests caution on yesterday's surge:

Monday’s irrational exuberance does not mean that the underlying problems are anywhere near fixed, however. Far from it — all that can be said for sure is that for a few hours today market participants believed that a truly serious effort to grapple with the financial crisis was underway — a promise by world leaders to engage in the largest globally coordinated government intervention in the economy in human history....

It’s quite possible that a worldwide bank rescue could succeed, and we’d still be facing a serious recession.

The Oregon Way

Katharine Whitehorn on assisted suicides in Oregon | World news | The Guardian

See above for an interesting report on how Oregon's assisted suicide laws have panned out.

Basically, the laws there seem to be much more tightly written than in some other places, and they presumably would not go far enough for many people. Although the doctor has to say that the patient has limited time left to live (not even necessary in Holland), in Oregon it need only be 6 months. Surely there would be a lot of rubbery estimates being made for those who are not clearly going to go within a week or two.

Even though it does not change my mind about euthanasia, it at least sounds to be a system which has worked in a less objectionable way than in other jurisdictions.

Interestingly, it is claimed that there is one unforeseen consequence:

A survey of Oregon doctors also showed that, since PAS, they have actually taken more care with areas such as pain relief - presumably in the hope of making their patients content to stay alive.

UPDATE: Our very own unhealthily-obsessed-with-suicide Dr Nitschke meanwhile evidently believes that information on easy suicide should be available over the internet to any person, whether terminally ill, neurotic, or just a teenager fed up with not being able to get a date on Saturday nights. He continues to be a disgrace to his profession and his cause's own worst advocate.

On guaranteeing banks

I heard Lindsay Tanner on Radio National this morning talking about the government's sudden decision to guarantee all bank deposits, as well as the banks' borrowings from overseas.

If I am not mistaken, he indicated the bank's borrowings side of it adds another potential $700 billion or so to the $700 billion the deposits guarantee could incur, in theory.

That "in theory" part was, of course, continually stressed by Tanner. But surely the danger of making it clear that "we are only saying this because other governments have done it, not because we will ever have to pay out on it" is that it makes it pretty clear that it's not a real guarantee in the sense that the government could not actually live up to its promise anyway, if the worldwide financial system does collapse. (Well, maybe they could if they simply legislate to nationalise all banks?)

Maybe someone in the media or on a blog has already made the observation, but it seems to me that if too many governments make the same guarantee, it in fact makes the exercise pretty worthless in terms of restoring confidence.

Am back...am tired

I'm back in the land of wide open spaces, big houses, and annoyingly long drives to get takeaway.

It's not just Japan; I guess any couple of weeks in an Asian city full of apartment dwellers and high population densities lead to a bit of culture shock on return. Things seem to be spaced so far apart here.

Anyway, more on my ever-so-slightly interesting personal experiences in Japan in some future posts.

Meanwhile, this article in the Japan Times gives some good background (in a short space) on the very peculiar role of the Yakuza in Japanese society:

1,500 fed-up Kyushu citizens sue to evict yakuza HQ

This section in particular is of surprise:

In March, Suruga Corp., a once listed company, was revealed to have paid over ¥15 billion to Koyo Jitsugyo, an Osaka firm linked to a Yamaguchi-gumi affiliate. In return, from 2003 to 2007, Koyo gangsters removed tenants from five properties Suruga wished to acquire, taking on average 12 to 18 months to empty a building.

"We cannot make profits unless we sell land quickly," Takeo Okawa, director of Suruga's general affairs department, told the Asahi newspaper. "Speed is our lifeline. Koyo proved that it had the speed." Suruga reportedly made ¥27 billion in profit by selling the property.

And you thought New South Wales property development was corrupt!

It's also funny to think that when organised crime is in a society which just generally doesn't "do" illegal drugs, they will nonetheless get into business, just the more legitimate ones. In fact, according to the Japan Times feature:

A new police white paper warns that the yakuza have moved into securities trading and infected hundreds of Japan's listed companies, a "disease that will shake the foundations of the economy." Experts say Yamaguchi-gumi in particular has become a behemoth with resources to rival Japan's larger corporations.

Maybe it's a coin toss as to what's worse for a society.

There was a somewhat interesting documentary on SBS earlier this year called "Young Yakuza". It was actually a bit slow moving, and I left it half way through, but from what I saw I agree with this blog's comments about it. One of the most notable things was how vain the local Yakuza boss appeared to be. You certainly would not want to be sitting anywhere near him at a dinner party.

Pearlstein`s comments

This column by Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post is a useful commentary on the various arguments surrounding the financial rescue package.

Misc advise for travel to Japan

I don`t think these have been mentioned here before:

# If you are prone to get indigestion, even only occasionally, make sure you bring your own antacid tablets. Although the Japanese are prone to worry about their digestive tract (with Yakult and other gut friendly products very common,) when it comes to simple antacids as found in every corner store in Australia, the Japanese just don`t seem to carry them. What products they do have seem to be heavily influenced still be Chinese herbal medicine. They do not provide immediate relief.

# If you are prone to getting the occasional cold sore, take your own tube of Zovirax, the only medicine which actually works against them. Trying to explain cold sores to a chemist, even when there is an obvious one sitting on your lip, will probably involve use of the term `herpes virus` and likely have the staff just thinking about genital herpes and how you are another foreigner bringing filthy disease into Japan. As far as I can tell, Zovirax is not available here (maybe it is by doctor`s prescription?) and the very concept of facial cold sores seems pretty unknown to them. I suspect few people get them here because parents don`t kiss children or babies, which is almost certainly how I got my lifetime infection.

# Never try shaving with a hotel razor. They seem particularly poor quality in this country.

Naked Japan

If you didn`t already guess from my reference to eating unusual seafood, I`m posting from Japan.

I continue to be working on an old laptop and an old version of Internet Explorer, so posting with links is still too much trouble at the moment.

I see that in April 2006 I had a travelogue post up about my last trip to Japan. (It`s a nice little post with decent photos, if I do say so myself. Now that I think about it, I get so little postive feedback to this blog I should take to making comments on my old posts praising how good they still are in retrospect.) Anyhow, if you want to see that old post yourself, just use the blog search above for `ryokan`.

I just spent a couple of nights at another onsen hotel, which Japanese people do to enjoy the hot baths and food. I have been to Japan often enough now that the nudity aspect of it (they are sex segregated anyway) is very passe, but it is hard to lose the capacity for surprise when a middle aged staff woman turns up while I am standing nude beside the bath, as happened last night. It was quiet, and me and my son were the only ones at this particular pool, and she suddenly was there, checking the termperature or something. She said sorry while I discretely dangled the washclothe in front of my, well, dangly bits. It was the least I could do.

Part of the problem with this surprise visit was that I knew that this particular bath was, at a certain hour, going to change over and become a female bath for the rest of the night. I had to trust that I had been informed of the change over hour correctly, as I did not have the skill to double check by asking the unannounced staff women such a question. Being caught in the baths after the changeover would presumably be quite a faux pas. But then again, women walk behind men at the urinal in mixed sex toilets here all the time; I am sure Japanese women can take a nude, pink bodied, embarrassed Westerner in their stride.

Anyway, I soon found Japanese men in the other parts of the baths which I couldn`t see from where I was when the staff women turned up, so it was all OK.

One other feature of the Japanese attidude to nudity which Westerns may find surprising is that it is quite OK for girls up to the age of 8 or so to go into the men`s baths with their father. Also, on TV you will see much more young child nudity than you would in Australia. (A general interest show about a family will show the kids all having a bath together, with nothing hidden, for example.) By Hetty Johnson`s standards, Japan would count as a pedophile`s paradise, yet (as far as I can tell) there is little of that problem here at all, at least until the kids have reached puberty. When they do, then yes, I suppose Japan is a pedophiles gift, as young teenage girls are definitely the open target of lurid interest. It`s very easy to stumble across DVDs and magazines in Akihabara shops showing very young girls in provocactive poses, and these are not sleazy X rated porno shops of the Australian variety. It`s been a while since I have read about it, but every now and then the media will run stories about the problem of teenage school girls who make pocket money by having sex with mature age men. The market for such services is much stronger than in the West, it would seem.

I am told that there was some move to legislate about the exploitation of such youth、but it hasn`t happened yet.

By the way, I wonder if it is possible for the financial system of the West to collapse enough that I am stuck here forever?

UPDATE: just today,　I read in the Japan Times about a man prosecuted for posting naked kid photos on a paedophile network. So the problem is clearly here, but still it seems that generally there is no sense of panic about it when most people think of child nudity as unremarkable and innocent.

UPDATE 2: it appears that this was reported at Boing Boing before, but I had missed it til now. Since I was last here a couple of years ago, men in Tokyo's famous Akihabara district can also get an ear picking service (done by young women dressed in yukarta while the men lay their heads on their lap.) The general idea is shown in the photo in this article here. I am told by a man who has actually done this that it is on a strictly "no touch" basis, and can also include shoulder massage and a cup of tea. As well as conversation. At 2000 or so Yen an hour (about $20), it's pretty cheap.

It is, I suppose, a not unreasonable thing for a lonely man to pay for conversation with an attractive and relatively intelligent young woman (they are often university students, apparently.) The thing that just makes it weird to a Western mind is the ear cleaning. I am told that there is a maternal love aspect to this, as it is the way mothers may clean their kid's ears. But that just adds another layer of Freudian ickiness to the whole thing, doesn't it?

Absence explained

This post is being made from a Windows 98 computer which rarely is used for English, so the formatting might be out.

I'm off drinking new and interesting forms of alcohol, munching on some pretty strange seafood, taking photos of curious signs, and occasionally talking to the children more often than I do at home. Yes, it's a holiday, and that awful Madonna song just came into my mind. (Gaa. Is there some sort of award for being an embarrassment in every decade of your life?)

One curious thing I have learnt so far is that not having deep REM sleep for 40 hours does not send me insane. I was expecting at least an hallucination,　but nothing. Just bleary eyes. Then again, I did have a dream last night about Kevin Rudd having a scandalous affair with a prostitute. That is so unreal I don't expect that even the shamanic loco juice drinkers of the Amazon go that far.

Posting will be irregular for quite a while yet.
　　　

Asparagus report 2008

Almost exactly a year ago, I commented on the tasteless quality of imported asparagus. Just buy Australian asparagus in season, I suggested.

Well, I don't know what's going on, but I just ate some (apparently) Queensland grown spring asparagus, and what a disappointment. Very tasteless (although the famous toilet after effects still comes through.)

What have they done? Developed a particularly fast growing but tasteless variety for farmers? I'm going to have to look at growing my own soon.

Teh complaint

Over at teh blog with the teh crook name, teh use of teh "teh", formerly teh speciality of teh blogger Kim, has now become increasingly popular with teh academic. Teh repetition is so annoying that teh magistrate would acquit anyone who slapped teh culprits in teh street and told them "for God's sake, give up teh wankily lefty pretentious habit. It makes teh writing look as sophisticated as that in a high school newspaper."

To keep you going

Readers are free to chose one of the following explanations for a lack of posts here for a few days:

a. my secret mission involving leading a crack team of French commando rabbits was a success;
b. Friday night's proof of toilet-cubicle-sex-and-"no that wasn't me, er, yes it was"-karma meant I became a Buddhist for a weekend;
c. have been at the beach trying to convince Andrew Bolt of the error of his global warming ways.
d. just been busy with, well, stuff.

Busyness is likely to continue, perhaps for this week.

In the meantime, here's some worthwhile reading:

* a Guardian opinion piece (surprise) reminds us in an amusing fashion just how often communists have been predicting the end of capitalism. This naturally upsets a lot of Guardian readers in the comments that follow.

* someone at The Times gives a list of 10 books just not worth reading. As it includes Lord of the Rings, I think he's onto something. (The reasons given for each book are pretty funny.)

* Bill Shorten evidently thinks that the fastest way to depose Kevin Rudd is to marry into the monarchy.

The double edged sword of the internet

Obama mobilizes rapid response on Web -- chicagotribune.com

Found via Instapundit, this is just a little bit creepy:

Much of Barack Obama's political success can be traced to a database listing contact information for millions of people, a tool that has proved invaluable in raising record sums of money and organizing a national volunteer network.

Now Obama's presidential campaign is increasingly using the list to beat back media messages it does not like, calling on supporters to flood radio and television stations when those opposed to him run anti-Obama ads or appear on talk shows.

It did so as recently as Monday night, when it orchestrated a massive stream of complaints on the phone lines of Tribune Co.-owned WGN-AM in Chicago when the radio station hosted author David Freddoso, who has written a controversial book about the Illinois Democrat.

Some posts about the Crash

Just for my benefit as well as yours, here are some useful pieces on the current financial crash:

Roger Altman in the Financial Times

John Gapper in the Financial Times (who believes AIG should not have been bailed out)

A New York Times column here.

What I want to know is this: if Australia's financial position is so much better, how come our dollar is dropping so much against the US dollar (and Japanese yen?)

Of interest

'Calm before storm' may foreshadow climatic tipping point

This study sounds very interesting, but it is still not at all clear what they think could constitute a sign of the climate "slowing down". (I would have thought that temperatures not rising as expected might have been an example, but that is not mentioned, so maybe it isn't?)

Backfire again

Palin's Yahoo! Account Hacked | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

I like this comment that follows the story:

"Now, American People, don't worry, us democrats will not invade YOUR privacy, just our enemies!"

Top threat down

Colbert Report's Threat Down this week was particularly good:

Anything but less sex

HIV rates climbing: new figures - Yahoo!7 News

The story covers not just HIV, but an increase in all STDs across Australia.

Most surprising is this:

Plans are afoot to introduce a radical plan to control syphilis by mass treating the highest-risk gay men regardless of whether they have contracted the infection.

"We think that's the best chance we have of taking the wind out of the outbreak," Prof Donovan said.

So, just give up on any concept of responsible sexual behaviour, and just treat any gay man who is having a new partner every week with antibiotics?

The report also notes this:

He said he was also concerned by a new trend of HIV infections arising among heterosexual businessmen and miners from WA, Queensland and the Northern Territory who travel to Papua New Guinea for work.

"Gay tourists also need to be more vigilant than ever as it has recently become very clear that in most Asian cities HIV epidemics among gay and bisexual men are now raging virtually unchecked," Mr Baxter said.

Most Asian cities, I note, are not Catholic, yet the condom message is not working so well. The magic power of the condom has been greatly exaggerated, it would seem.

Conspiracy of the day

Can icy fuel bring down an airliner? - tech - 16 September 2008 - New Scientist Tech

New Scientist seems to have opened up every story to comments. This'll be an interesting experiment.

Anyhow, see the link above for their short story on the reason for that odd malfunction of a B777 at Heathrow earlier this year. The investigation is blaming ice build up in the fuel system, but the circumstances still seem rather odd.

Of most interest is a comment that follows that suggests that Prime Minister Gordon Brown may be to blame (well, indirectly.) The idea that a PM could be so hapless as to cause a plane crash has such appeal that I sort of hope it is true.

PDS worse than BDS

Anne Lamott on grief, despair, and the 2008 presidential election | Salon Life

Gosh. So you thought during the election campaign of 2004 that the prospect of George W winning a second term was driving progressives crazy? It's really shaping up as nothing compared to the tearing of garments and wearing of sackcloth being threatened if McCain/Palin win. (I am not sure if a string of celebrities have started threatening to leave the country yet, but it will be bound to come if McCain continues to poll well.)

Also, as this attempt at humour linked above makes pretty clear, it's mainly because of the Palin element.

Enough with the "lies"

Outrage at McCain--a loser strategy. - By Mickey Kaus - Slate Magazine

Kaus' argument (about how Democrats who cry "liar liar" are pursuing a losing strategy) makes a lot of sense.

Ever since 9/11, many liberals (especially those like the Daily Kos crowd, but older politicians will also seize on it when it suits them) have started acting as if political discourse has never involved ambiguity, exaggeration and half truths. For them to label every statement of their opponent that is not shown to be 100% "true" as an outright "lie" just makes them look immature, naive, and (at least in the case of politicians who know better), insincere. Yet it is a tactic that they are finding very hard to abandon, despite the harm it is causing to their side.

Go Brendan...

By which I mean, "go away, Brendan". Brendan Nelson's success tomorrow in the Liberal leadership would just ensure another year of tension with the Coalition continuing to poll badly against a Prime Minister who is already widely acknowledged as (at least) being a disappointment. Everyone knows he is unelectable. It's just that Brendan hasn't got the message yet.

Stand up Liberals: re-read the polls tonight and don't bother with another "fair go" for Nelson.

Roger knows Whoopi

Roger L. Simon: Whoopi’s not dumb - she’s just a fake

Roger Simon has an interesting post up about Whoopi Goldberg and her recent "return to slavery" comment on The View.

Old time sex

The love lives of the ancient Romans - Times Online

This is an extract from Mary Beard's just published book on what Pompeii tells us about the lifestyle of ancient Romans. It's pretty interesting. She writes:

Power, status and good fortune were expressed in terms of the phallus. Hence the presence of phallic imagery in almost unimaginable varieties all round the town. This is one of the most puzzling, if not disconcerting, aspects of Pompeii for modern visitors. There are phalluses greeting you in doorways, phalluses above bread ovens, phalluses carved into the surface of the street and plenty more phalluses with bells on and wings.

Yes, I recall years ago seeing a ring in the British Museum with a little erect penis diagram on it. I wonder what passed for pornography in those days? Did teenage boys sneak into the kitchen to look at the ribald drawings on the pottery? Or were human copulation and erections of such common knowledge that there was no sense of it being inappropriate for young children's eyes?

Beard also writes:

For elite men, the basic message was that sexual penetration correlated with pleasure and power. Sexual partners might be of either sex. There was plenty of male-with-male sexual activity in the Roman world, but only the very faintest hints that “homosexuality” was seen as an exclusive sexual preference, let alone lifestyle choice.

It's odd to think that the Romans would find Oxford Street in Sydney hard to understand. And it's also probably fair to say that they would find the concept of "gay marriage" ludicrous, and not because of religion.

The Roman baths are discussed as well, and this part shows the old guys could see still cause and effect:

And it is not only the modern visitor who is drawn to reflect on quite how hygienic it all was. There was no chlorination to mitigate the effects of the urine and other less sterile bodily detritus. Nor was the water in the various pools constantly replaced, even if there was sometimes an attempt to introduce a steady flow of new water into them.

The Roman medical writer Celsus offers the sensible advice not to go to the baths with a fresh wound (“it normally leads to gangrene”) . The baths, in other words, may have been a place of wonder, pleasure and beauty for the humble Pompeian bather. They might also have killed him.

UPDATE: here's a way in which the position of women in the Roman empire wasn't bad, at least for the ancient world:

As the responsibilities of women became more significant to their husbands' prestige and political clout, so education for women became increasingly more common. Unlike Athens, it became acceptable in Rome for girls as well as boys to receive elemental education, to have read "improving" Roman and Greek authors and to be able to discuss political affairs. Boys then went on to higher studies, including rhetoric, the passport to political careers, while women married in their mid-teens. Throughout the Empire, however, a woman cherished her ability to read and write both as a mark of excellence and as a sign of her status.

The separation of women enforced by the Greeks had never been the Roman way; women were permitted to go out in public, attend lectures and meetings, dine with guests, and conduct their own affairs with some initiative. At the same time, as moral guardians of the health and virtue of Rome itself, their behavior was severely scrutinized for signs of intemperance, sexual laxity, or extravagant (and dangerous) display.

Sounds as if the women of Rome may have had more independence than many in present day Afghanistan or (arguably) Saudi Arabia. Nothing like progress, hey?

Unimportant information continuing

While I'm on a science fiction roll here, have I ever mentioned before that I quite like the movie version of Lost in Space? I watched it again over the weekend for the first time since I saw it at the cinema, and my original impressions are not revised: quite faithful in an updated way to the original opening episode of the TV show, impressive special effects (yes, OK, with the exception of the monkey, but it wasn't in shot all that often), huge expensive sets, and acting that was actually significantly better than that in many science fiction films. Besides which, I've always liked Mimi Rogers, William Hurt and Heather Graham. I even think Matt LeBlanc wasn't bad in his role. It was aimed more at a teen/young adult audience than the kiddie show that the TV series devolved into, but that didn't particularly bother me.

I don't understand why it got so many strongly hostile reviews.

It's well worth the dollar or two it would cost to hire at your local video store. Or just go buy it for $7 at Kmart.

It's not just you

Continuing with a run of trivial posts, on last night's episode of Dr Who, Rose finally was able to talk, instead of just turning up mysteriously and fading out again. Problem was, it seemed to me that she had a very distinct and somewhat distracting lisp, which I didn't recall from her full time appearances in previous series.

The good thing about the internet is that there is no trivia small enough not to have been noticed, especially when it comes to science fiction fandom. Yes, the lisp was definitely noticed around the world, and the explanation seems something of a mystery.

Idle, science fiction-y thoughts

Thinking about the LHC and world-wide catastrophe this week, as many people did, got me wondering about what really unexpected stuff might one look out for as a result of an experiment like this. The sort of thing that might use as a plot device in a Doctor Who episode, for example.

Obviously (well, from a Doctor Who story point of view), the LHC itself could vanish into an alternative dimension, leaving a large crater behind. The arrival of time travellers from the future could be quite on the cards, as it has been suggested in real life. How they arrive could be the novel factor (giant UFO over the facility; taking over the computer system; mind possession of the staff.)

Or it may be that a swap between alternative universe earths takes place. (Perhaps the physicists inside don't realise the swap, until they turn on the TV and notice something like President Gore.)

But here's an idea: the operation of the LHC has an effect on the other side of the world - at its antipodal point. This thought led me to look for resources on the 'net to easily find each antipodal point for anywhere on earth. Wikipedia lists several sites for this, and I quite like this one.

As you will see (assuming I am still holding anyone's interest here), the antipodal point for the LHC is in the Southern Ocean east of the south island of New Zealand. If there are any reports of underwater earthquakes, disappearing ships or UFOs in that areas, you read about it here first. (Possibly.)

Just talking about antipodes generally, it's disappointing to see that there are not all that many "land to land" points. China and parts of South East Asia joins up with various parts of South America, which is not something I would have expected by looking at a Mercator projection. A bullet through New Zealand would end up in Spain. So there: if ever masses of sheep start emerging out of mines in Spain, you know from where they are escaping.

Gun owning lesbian vote sewn up

The Corner on National Review Online

(by Palin, by the way.)

Launch attack! ....Sorry General, I meant "lunch "

Biden living up to his gaffe-prone reputation - International Herald Tribune

A handy list of Biden's gaffes is contained above.

Nukes for the moon

NASA Developing Fission Surface Power Technology

It makes sense, and one wonders if any advances in this field will eventually have earth bound applications:

A nuclear reactor used in space is much different than Earth-based systems. There are no large concrete cooling towers, and the reactor is about the size of an office trash can.

Somewhere I might be popular...

The withered middle-aged guy becomes a hot item in Japan's dating market

The Japan Times makes me feel better about my mid-middle age:

If you happen to be an over-45 male, looking a little tired, inclined to decline party invitations because you can't stand the hassle, comfortable in your own company and not really caring what other people think — so, the news is ALL good, at least in urban Japan. You are, or are extremely close to, what is known as a kareta oyaji (枯れたオヤジ, withered middle-age guy) — currently the underground popular label on the dating market. These days, young women have shifted their preference from the wakai (若い, young), kakkoii (格好いい, good-looking) and okanemochi (お金持ち, rich) — extremely rare for all these traits to co-exist in one man anyway — to the genki nai ojisan (元気無いおじさん, middle-age guy with no energy).

Woo-hoo, I'm hot in Japan!

Truth spectacularly stranger than fiction

Sex offender, 30, posed as schoolboy | NEWS.com.au

From the report:

A 30-YEAR-old sex offender who posed as a 12-year-old boy to enrol at schools in the US for two years has pleaded guilty to child porn and other charges....

He shaved and wore pancake makeup to help him appear younger, convincing teachers, students and administrators that he was a young boy named Casey.

He was caught in January 2007 after spending a day in the seventh grade at a school after school officials became suspicious about his paperwork.

Rodreick was arrested with three other men, who were posing as his cousin, uncle and grandfather.

They at least gets top marks for bizarre determination in pursuing a perversion. Hopefully, they'll get a top sentence as a reward too. (By the way, if I understand the report correctly, the school kids were not the ones in the pornography he had, so I am not making light of anything that happened to them.)

Painting to save the planet

The Great Beyond: Whiter roofs for a cooler planet

The idea has been around for some years, yet seems slow to take off. I didn't know this:

California has required flat-topped, commercial buildings to go white since 2005, and will require new and retrofitted buildings to use cool-color roofing starting in 2009. These shingles and coatings look like their high-absorbing counterparts, but reflect more of the sun’s rays.

Higgs history

They're about to turn on the Large Hadron Collider. Don't expect the Higgs boson to show up.

This Slate article is an interesting review of how the idea of the Higgs boson came about. Whether or not the LHC will find it is the big question. (Assuming, of course, it doesn't blow up first.)

Silly Obama

The Associated Press: McCain camp angry over Obama's 'lipstick' comment

I bet his minders smiled through gritted teeth as soon as they heard Obama wing it with this:

"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said to an outbreak of laughter, shouts and raucous applause from his audience, clearly drawing a connection to Palin's joke. "It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still going to stink after eight years."

Not feeling entirely relaxed yet: LHC issues update

Well, what do you know. Rainer Plaga, who (unknown to most journalists) has given reasons as to why he thinks the CERN safety review was flawed, has answered my email.

I didn't ask for permission to reprint it, but he says he is preparing a response to the Giddings/Mangano rebuttal of his concerns. He says he "needs time" to finish this. Let's hope he doesn't take too long.

He also thinks they are ignoring another important point he made in his paper, but I have go back and re-read it before I can explain.

I have read criticism at Cosmic Variance and elsewhere that Plaga is definitely not an expert in the field of black hole radiance and we don't need to take him too seriously. Certainly, his "home page" has little detail, and it seems he is not actively working in astrophysics. Still, I am interested in independent physicists reviewing safety issues.

Good news from North Korea?

No-show at anniversary parade raises questions over Kim Jong-Il's health | World news | guardian.co.uk

I wonder if anyone has any idea who will follow him?

When smears go wrong

FactCheck.org: Sliming Palin

The very handy FactCheck website says there have been massive emailings spreading rumours about Sarah Palin. One which tries to make her appear particularly hypocritical says that she dramatically reduced the funding for "special needs" children in Alaska.

Funnily enough, the exact opposite is the case:

According to an April 2008 article in Education Week, Palin signed legislation in March 2008 that would increase public school funding considerably, including special needs funding. It would increase spending on what Alaska calls "intensive needs" students (students with high-cost special requirements) from $26,900 per student in 2008 to $73,840 per student in 2011. That almost triples the per-student spending in three fiscal years.

I suspect someone at Daily Kos will say she only did that because she knew her own baby had special needs. But as Factcheck points out:

According to Eddy Jeans at the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, funding for special needs and intensive needs students has increased every year since Palin entered office, from a total of $203 million in 2006 to a projected $276 million in 2009.

Try again Democrats. You probably just helped give her more good publicity.

This is why Truthers are dangerous

9/11 rumors that harden into conventional wisdom - International Herald Tribune

In short, they encourage conspiracy belief in the Middle East, and that cannot possibly help achieve peace there.

I've said before, there should be greater attention given to taking the fight to the truthers.

End of the world delayed (an LHC update)

US LHC Blog - Turning Back Time

I have already pointed this out last weekend, but it is worth repeating, as I am getting quite a few extra visitors who are Googling for information about the LHC and black holes.

The activity at the LHC tomorrow is only to try to get a single beam right around the ring for the first time. There will be no collisions with other particles (well, unless the beam goes off course and smashes into something by accident. That would be big news, due to the delays it would cause in repairs.)

As LHC physicist Peter Steinberg explains above, even when the LHC gets two counter-rotating beams colliding (within a month or two) the first collisions will be at the lower energies that older particle colliders have already dealt with.

According to Peter, it will be a few months before it is cranked up to the higher levels of energy that are novel and could possibly create micro black holes or other particles. As he says, the death threats can be put on ice for a few months at least.

So: the world is definitely not ending tomorrow. You still have to pay your taxes.

As to my earlier post about the Rainer Plaga paper, I still have not received an email response from Dr Plaga. Given the heightened level of interest at the moment, it would give many people relief if he did acknowledge an error. If he doesn't accept that he made an error, then having some more independent physicists weigh in would help.

And here's something new to read about what the LHC might find: maybe not micro black holes, but "string balls", which may evaporate in a similar way to black holes anyway. The paper is about how to tell the difference.

I am curious as to whether there is any potential safety issue for them, if they don't behave quite as predicted. (Yes, I know, the same argument about stars and planets surviving cosmic rays would apply, but the same counter argument about the LHC creating slow moving objects would need to be considered.)

I also see there is a paper from August called "On the stability of black holes at LHC". It's a little hard to follow, but it would seem that they are arguing that it certain possibilities as to higher dimensions are true, the "behaviour" of the black holes created there may be "stable". I assume they mean that they won't disappear in a flash of Hawking Radiation, which has always been the main assumption of those doing the safety assessments on the LHC.

It's good that the LHC is not getting up to high energies just yet: it may allow sufficient time to get answers to these last minute concerns.

UPDATE: I have got a physicist to put into plain english the point that Mangano/Giddings were making in their rebuttal of Plaga:

Plaga is considering a warped extra dimensional scenario. In such models, there is a regime in which one is allowed to use the four dimensional quantities and laws, and a regime in which the phenomenology is described by the five dimensional laws (I describe this a little, in a simpler model, here). In their rebuttal, Giddings and Mangano point out that Plaga is applying four-dimensional formulae where they don’t apply, obtaining an incorrectly high result. This is perhaps the main clear problem.

Mind you, Mark Trodden likes to call all people who raise safety issues "crackpots", which gets up my nose for reasons I have explained before, but he has performed a useful service here.

Now, if we can also deal with the LHC and naked singularities, string balls, and time loops, I would be feeling better.

Truthers: what evidence?

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Conspiracy Files | The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 - The Third Tower

Four Corners last night did their bit to annoy Australian Troofers (I rarely deliberately misspell for ridicule, but they deserve it) by showing this BBC documentary about the collapse of WTC 7. Unfortunately, it would seem only the preview is available, and (if it is like the first section of the whole show) it may give the impression that the makers think the conspiracists have some good points.

Overall, though, the show did a pretty good debunking job. If anything, they were too soft on the obviously problematic psychology of truthers. They have incredibly little evidence (well, none actually) to support their ideas, yet having decided that there is a hidden truth, absolutely anything is taken as confirmation of the secret.

I find the slightly premature reporting (by the BBC, following Reuters, who followed someone else) of the collapse a particularly odd piece of "evidence" for them to latch onto. Assuming a conspiracy for a moment, why on earth would the people running it need to announce the collapse to the media at all? It's not as if they were not going to notice. Many witnesses say the building was creaking and deteriorating before their eyes: it's not as if a collapse was actually unexpected at the time the BBC ran the story. It is far from surprising that someone standing near a reporter somewhere in the city (who may not have been actually been within sight of the building) may have used the word "collapse" before it happened, and that reporter passed it on believing the building had already collapsed. Didn't troofers ever play "chinese whispers" at a party when they were kids?

So the BBC reporter's explanation makes complete sense. But the psychology of the troofers means they just can't accept that a mistake is the obvious explanation.

The literary life

High-pitched buzzing from the booksy girls and boys | The Spectator

Paul Johnson talks about the literary scene in London in the 1950's and beyond, and it makes for an entertaining column.

Meanwhile, on the demonic front

Something clever?: Is your computer possessed by a demon?

An evangelical from the US apparently put forward these propositions in a book in 2000:

• Demons can possess anything with a brain, including a chicken, a human being, or a computer.

That would account for some evil chickens I have encountered in my life.

• "Any PC built after 1985 has the storage capacity to house an evil spirit."

I suppose that means they can live in USB keys too.

Fascinating.

When wind turbines fail

Spinning to destruction: Michael Connellan on the dangers of unreliable wind turbines | Technology | The Guardian

Here's a good read on the engineering challenge of building wind turbines that don't fall apart, and how that challenge has sometimes not been met.

Novel writing all washed up

First Things - Revisiting the Novel

The post above, from the very readable First Things blog, is a complaint by someone about how he has lost interest in novels, and is finding it hard to get back into them. (He's doing that by reading Jane Austen, though, which certainly wouldn't be the approach I would try.) My weekend thoughts on To Kill a Mockingbird has also inspired me to get around to posting on this topic.

I too have developed something of a problem with finding engaging fiction in the last few years. I used to read a lot of science fiction up to about the end of the 1980's when, despite the apparent good news of the end of the Cold War in the real world, it seemed that science fiction went pretty deeply pessimistic and ugly. Old optimistic authors I used to like (Niven and Pournelle, for example) stopped producing really good work. Arthur C Clarke's prose style (never a strong point of his books anyway) became ever worse, and as for Heinlien's last rambling novels of the 1980's, the less said the better.

I still get a hankering to read science fiction from time to time, and not being aware of any current American authors to my taste, in the last couple of years I have tried a few British science fiction writers who seem to be well reviewed. Peter Hamilton can be good in parts, and I quite like his future technology ideas, but I feel he often badly needs more editing. Ken McLeod's underlying socialist politics is just too obvious. "Blindsight" by Peter Watts was another go at the "first contact"sub-genre that I felt pretty much went no where. (For some bizarre reason, he thought it a good idea to have a main character who is literally a vampire, which the novel treats as a real human sub-species.)

I am presently reading the first novel by Charles Stross (The Atrocity Archives), and while it is passable so far, it immediately struck me as being like a novel length treatment of ideas found in Heinlein's novella "Magic Inc". This is, I suppose, the fundamental problem for new science fiction: all the major themes were done by great novels within the first 50 or so years of the genre. It surely is a challenge to re-visit the sub-genres in a way that is fresh and worthwhile.

The thing I find common in these authors is the lack of readily likeable characters. Perhaps Peter Hamilton comes closest in this regard, but as I say, I think he has other faults.

Away from science fiction, I find the themes of most recent novels don't appeal. Probably due to my interest in religion generally, examinations of characters' lives from a purely secular point of view just seem somewhat lacking in significance to me. (This is a major fault in Australian film too: religion as something important to the characters is rarely present, or if it is, it is only ever portrayed in a negative light.) That there would be consideration of the "bigger picture" could be expected of the famous Catholic authors of the 20th century, but as First Things commented in June, those days seem long gone. I tried Shirley Hazzard recently, who seemed to be reviewed as if she had many of the qualities of older, mid 20th century fiction, but (as I have posted before) I actually found her style woeful, despite the high praise she generally receives.

As for the famous Catholic writers, by the 1990's I had read all of Waugh. However, I have only recently just read my first Graham Greene novel. (The Bomb Party, a short, less well regarded work.) It was pretty good, and I liked his style. I think I will be trying more. But it is kind of depressing that I have to be dipping back 60 years to find fiction that appeals.

So the point of this ramble is that it has occurred to me that, just as nearly everyone in their 40's starts thinking that popular music has peaked and is in decline, it seems to me that almost no good fiction has been written since around 1990.

Pity really.

Target probably too low then?

Firms hint at accepting 10pc Garnaut emission reductions | The Australian

A great movie

"To Kill a Mockingbird" was on TV today, being played as part of a Father's Day themed set of movies.

Its semi-melancholic remembrance of parental love still gets to me emotionally. (This is the first time I have re-watched it since having children, but it has always moved me.) Its effectiveness is all the more remarkable in light of the simplicity and the economy with which it was made: black and white film; a studio backlot set; direction and storytelling that is measured in pace but never flashy. I have always thought the score is particularly effective. (It was by Elmer Bernstein, who had a ridiculously long career in movie music.)

It is, of course, also an excellent example of the discretion with which older movies (and books) could deal with adult themes. If the film were being made today, in the "need to see everything" modern style of most movie storytelling, there would likely be flashbacks to illustrate the rape /seduction scene, rather than a simple reliance on the trial testimony.

Watching it made me check again whether Harper Lee is still alive. She is, and the Wikipedia entry for the book shows a photo of her receiving 2007 Presidential Medal of Freedom less than a year ago. She has always sounded very modest, but she deserves to be extremely proud of the legacy of her one novel.

Geo-engineering re-visited

Global warming | A changing climate of opinion? | Economist.com

What I didn't get for father's day

The Eclipse 400 - zoom zoom ZOOM - The Red Ferret Journal

...a very cool looking private jet.

End of the world, or not, post

I'm getting mightily annoyed with the way the media, and particularly science journalists, are reporting the "end of the world" stories regarding the LHC. Not because they are being sensationalist (though a small fraction are), but because they are, more often than not, being overly dismissive while at the same time clearly ignorant of the detail of the debate.

For example, the science editor at The Times is Mark Henderson, who himself has no science background, and certainly looks very young. He wrote in The Times that:

Once again the cry has gone up that the accelerator could create a black hole that would devour the planet. Legal challenges have sought to halt it, and these have been more widely reported this week than the project itself.

Yet the claim is utterly ridiculous. ...

This isn't a story that's worthy of serious discussion, even as kooky fun. It might sound harmless, but it feeds stereotypes of crazy and reckless boffins who know everything about nothing and nothing about everything, and encourages the contemptible but widespread view that scientists are not to be trusted.

"Utterly ridiculous" ideas generally don't get responded to by detailed safety studies, Mark.

Henderson and his ilk seem to have missed this comment by Mangano, the physicist most credited with this year's safety review, reported earlier this year:

"If it were just crackpots, we could wave them away," the physicist said in an interview at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French acronym, CERN. "But some are real physicists."

Mark and most other science journalists writing reassuring articles this week also seem to have missed the issue raised only in August by astrophysicist Rainer Plaga that there might be another mechanism (other than the earth being eaten by a black hole) by which micro black holes might be dangerous. Yes, Mangano and Giddings have responded to this claim, but isn't this a newsworthy addition to the current reporting?

Plaga's concerns are particularly newsworthy because, as I noted a few posts back, he seems well and truly within the mainstream of astrophysicists. He writes:

The luminosity of a mBH accreting at the Eddington limit with the parameters assumed above corresponds to 12 Mt TNT equivalent/sec[11], or the energy released in a major thermonuclear explosion per second. If such a mBH would accrete near the surface of Earth the damage they create would be much larger than deep in its interior. With the very small accretion timescale (≪ 1 second) that was found with the parameters in section 3, a mBH created with very small (thermal or subthermal) velocities in a collider would appear like a major nuclear explosion in the immediate vicinity of the collider.

I have asked nice physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, who has discussed the LHC safety issues before at length at her Backreaction blog, about this. Unfortunately, she has not seen Plaga's paper or Mangano's reaction, and is showing little interest in reading them any time soon. (I think she doesn't really believe any micro black holes are likely to be created, and that may well explain her lack of concern.)

Therefore I don't know who else to ask in the physics world as to whether the Mangano response is conclusive.

Well, in the interests of citizen science journalist, I have sent a short email to Plaga himself, asking if the Mangano/Giddings comments on his paper has caused him to change his mind.

I will let you know if I get a response.

UPDATE: No response yet, but I just wanted to clarify that, as explained here, on 10 September the LHC is only planning on getting the first beam circulating in one direction. There won't be any no particle collisions until they get another beam, going in the opposite direction, up and running. According to the Guardian:

"If the beam goes all the way round on the first go, that would be quite amazing. It's never happened in the history of particle colliders," said Cern's James Gillies. If the test is successful, scientists may try to send the beam around in the opposite direction, though first collisions are not expected until next month.

They expect to spend a few months getting to grips with the machine before putting it to work in earnest.

So, even in the worst case scenario, we all have at least another few weekends ahead of us. Drink up, be merry, ask questions, etc.

Colbert and Palin

One of the interesting things about watching Colbert Report is trying to work out at what point he (the person, not the character) might genuinely be agreeing with, or at least sympathetic to, a conservative position. I really get the feeling it happens from time to time, but it is just fleeting impressions, and it's hard to know the truth. (I certainly believe he is more mature about politics than Jon Stewart, and is capable of actually liking conservative figures.)

On the other hand, I do think that his episodes this week have been showing a liberal narkiness that is so strong, he is too clearly breaking out of character with too many of his jokes.

This makes today's forthcoming episode especially interesting, to see how he handles the extremely well received Palin speech. Colbert the character should be absolutely swooning. But just how much attack will Colbert the person manage to fit in, and will it come across as sour?

UPDATE: So, how did Colbert go? It's a bit of a mix really, with some jokes working well, and others failing. The first couple of minutes of the following clip are good, then the section about Guiliani fall flat. But, if nothing else, you should watch for the last section, featuring a 21 year old college blogger who had been promoting Sarah Palin. There's a very big laugh to be had there, but not from Stephen:

Dolphin wars

New Scientist Environment Blog: Dolphin serial killers?

It's being suggested that some dolphins are killing other dolphins as a culturally learned behaviour. Not so cute after all...

Wow

I caught nearly all of the Sarah Palin speech when it was replayed on CNN tonight. Whether or not she can survive the rough and tumble of live interviews and debates is yet to be seen, but (a little to my surprise) my reaction to her RNC speech was that it did feel like I was watching the historically important birth of a political star.

She is a political natural if ever there was one, yet at the same time has a very authentic feel about her whole personae, which is what I find just seems to be lacking in the Obama family, and in Hillary Clinton too. (Not to mention hair-do boy John Edwards.)

Reaction all over the place has been strong, with the notable and very, very bitchy exception of Andrew Sullivan, whose over-the-top pursuit of Palin from the start has caused him to lose any credibility he may have once had as a reasonable pundit.

Not a good look

Arctic Ice Shelf Breaks Away in Canada - Science - redOrbit

For other Arctic melt news, Brian at LP had a good post this week that is worth looking at, as it pulls in images from a few different sources to show the extent of ice melt, and the decreasing depth of what remains. (But note that some headlines of the last couple of days about the ice cap now being an island have been exaggerating.)

As for other bad news from the north, there was a short, but worrying, report earlier this week about methane release from the seabed near Siberia. I think we'll be hearing more about this soon.

Meanwhile, the sceptics at Marohasy are getting worked up about the revised "Hockey stick" graph of Mann. Most skeptical commenters there are well beyond any possibility of being convinced that they may be wrong. It's denialism as a matter of faith. Personally, I've never worried too much about the hockey stick controversy, after I decided that it's not a good idea for the sake of the oceans to let CO2 increase to heights unseen for thousands or millions of years, regardless of the air temperature outside.

I note that Marohasy skeptics rely a lot on information sourced at CO2 Science. I am not sure how much more the guys who run that site could do in website design to make their motive obvious. (It features a hummingbird at a flower which has flourished with all that yummy CO2.) Their brief is clearly is to make everyone embrace CO2 as the "feel good" gas.

It has quite the opposite effect on me: it makes it very hard to take them seriously, right from the first glance.

This'll be interesting

Mohammed novel to be published: author | theage.com.au

Another world

The Forbidden World: Books: The New Yorker

If you have an interest in stories about ex-priest heretics burned at the stake in Italy in 1600 (and who doesn't?) this book looks promising.

Black hole danger not gone??!!

0808.1415v1.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Bloody hell - I was curious as to why there had been another sudden burst of publicity against there being any danger from micro black holes potentially being created at the Large Hadron Collider.

Here's my guess: it's to counter this paper (linked above) called "On the potential catastrophic risk from metastable quantum-black holes produced at particle colliders" which it appeared at Arxiv on 10 August.

The author - R Plaga - is a mainstream, well published, astrophysicist, as far as I can tell.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on this recent controversy, which I had missed until today. Giddings and Mangano, who gave the LHC the "all clear" earlier this year, have responded to Plaga's paper.

I have no time to read up on this right now, but sheesh, I wish this was all sorted with more time before they flick the switch on the LHC.

It is also further vindication of my long held position that physicists at CERN had never previously done a really thorough consideration of all the possible dangers from the operation of the LHC.

UPDATE: this is really hard for a non-scientist to follow, but it would seem that Mangano point to what is almost a mathematical mistake in Plaga's paper. Not at all sure that I have understood the point, though, and I would like to know if Plaga acknowledges a mistake.

His argument is that, if certain models are right (which of itself is probably a very big "if,") micro black holes could represent a planetary danger even if stars clearly have survived naturally created ones over the millennia.

You know, one of the underlying concerns that worriers have had about the LHC is whether danger from such experiments is a plausible explanation for the Fermi Paradox. That's why I still do not feel relaxed and comfortable, when safety issues are still being proposed by credible figures just a month before the machine is switched on.

Bet he didn't see this coming

Bristol Palin's Boyfriend Going to GOP Convention - Republican National Convention

Get your high school girlfriend pregnant, and then have to appear at international media event. Nothing like pressure, hey.

Maybe this should be added to sex education classes under the category of possible consequences of unprotected sex.