Lurking around

I have my doubts I should have been there, but the creaky old stairway that looked not very safe was no longer blocked off (probably due to some work being done on the weekday, by the looks), and there was no one around.   So I had a look in this roof space area that I'm not sure has ever been open to the public.  (Maybe it was when it used to be used for something else.   And I do have childhood memories of its former use.  But now that I think of it, the handrail you can see in one photo looks fancy enough that it used to be for public access.   And why put a nice big stained glass window in if it couldn't be seen by the public?  So yes, I think it probably was formerly open, but hasn't been for a long time.)

The very observant reader of this blog may know which Brisbane building I refer to.

Good Lord - Donald Trump sounding not unreasonable

Donald Trump was asked about anti-transgender bathroom bills. His answer was … correct. - Vox

No, this is not the start of any turn around in his credibility.

It's just that it's near impossible for any person to be completely wrong on every single political/cultural issue.

Not grokked

Prince Defied Conventional Notions of Race and Gender - The New York Times

He did?

Not meaning to sound mean spirited; and not meaning to detract from the sadness felt by his fans; and perhaps showing my musical and cultural ignorance to an embarrassing degree:  but I "grokked" Prince to an even lesser degree than Bowie.

Bowie in interviews could come across as a knowing performance artist who was witty and pretty normal beneath it all:  I'm not sure that Prince ever seemed to be more than an embodied performance.  (Not that there is anything necessarily wrong with that, people.  You could say that about quite a few eccentric but talented artists. And, of course, it is not as if I - or many people, it seems - knows what he was like in private.)

I should stop writing now, as it's generally not wise to be going against the popular flow so soon after an artist's death.

Good to know

Need to remember something? Better draw it, study finds

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have found that drawing pictures of information that needs to be remembered is a strong and reliable strategy to enhance memory.

We pitted drawing against a number of other known encoding strategies, but drawing always
came out on top," said the study's lead author, Jeffrey Wammes, PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology. "We believe that the benefit arises because drawing helps to create a more cohesive memory trace that better integrates visual, motor and semantic information."

Extraordinary video

China dust devil lifts boy into air - BBC News

(Note:  boy not seen lifted into the air in video, but seeing the effect on the ground, the picture showing him in the air is entirely plausible.)

Canned fish, re-visited

Last year, I wrote of my search for the nicest canned sardines (and referred readers to a much more extensive taste guide than I could manage.)  (By the way, I recently found that, oddly, the deli style shop sitting in the middle of the spanking new Pacific Fair extension on the Gold Coast had a really extensive range - including my favoured Portuguese brand - at very cheap prices.   Haven't tried the Croatian ones yet - not sure if I should.)

Since I'm trying to shed a few kg again (I now know I definitely have to do what Michael Mosley said he does - move from a 2/5 diet to a 1/7 diet if I want any hope of maintaining my lower weight,)  I'm back on the sardines for lunch kick, but I've also been trying the range of canned herring which seems to have become popular.

And I must say, I am enjoying them.  King Oscar's are fine, and even the attractively packaged Brunswick brand (which I quite disliked for sardines) has a  canned kipper in water which was quite acceptable.  I haven't tried the Aldi brand yet - I think they are from Poland, but in a can which is a bit inconveniently too much for one person.

The canned fish I never care for is the "flavoured" tuna (or salmon).   They're never terribly nice, and it just seems a way to minimise the amount of tuna in the can with cheaper filling.  But a good quality tuna in olive oil is always nice:  and it forms the basis of my daughter's favourite meal - salad nicoise, as prepared by me.  (It is one of the few dishes - very few dishes - which my children acknowledge as being better when made by their father instead of their mother.  I did win the Great Chicken Cook off last Christmas too, with my Italian baked chicken versus teriyaki baked chicken, even though my wife did not realise it was a competition.  But I digress...)

Although I haven't had it for a while, there are some cans of broiled fish in soy sauce sold in Asian supermarkets which make for a nice enough light meal on rice.  Just as with the old cans of braised steak and onions, you can heat it up by boiling the can before you open it, and just tip onto a bowl of rice.  Here it is, this brand:

Next up:  it's about time I put pen to paper about my observations of precipitation (and shovels) when I visited Yorkshire.  :)

Speaking of people who annoy me...

...I'm so glad that we now have the IPA view on Britain exiting the European Union getting an airing in our Senate via its conservative fop James Paterson.

Next up:  I expect a decent lecture on the righteous adventures of Milton Friedman in Chile. 

[All /sarc, of course.]

Irritation noted

Beyondblue anxiety mental health campaign worthless: Helen Razer

I've recently noted how annoying I find Razer's whole writing oeuvre,  which I find difficult to describe clearly.  "Tendentious anti-tendentiousness" seems to summarise this column which I don't recommend.  She has something of the quality of perpetual irritant Brendan O'Neill: writes a 100 words when 20 would do, always seems to be wanting to find something to complain about.

Little reported drought

India drought: '330 million people affected' - BBC News

Some more detail on the fairly dire sounding conditions in India at the moment to be found at this report in the Times of India.

The long term issue, is, of course, what effect climate change will have on the variability of monsoon seasons.   What's pretty certain is that India would have to be one of the most sensitive countries to climate change, and building coal powered electricity plants is not going to much help them deal with drought or floods.

Update:  here's a story about the continuing drought in parts of Africa, too.

Have the anti-circ obsessives responded yet?

Circumcision Does Not Reduce Penile Sensitivity Or Affect Sexual Pleasure Later In Life

I presume they have, but a quick Google hasn't shown up where.

Update:  haven't located the outrage yet, but I'm not looking very hard.  In the meantime, I see that Village Voice ran a story late last year on the "wacky world" (their words, but I agree with them) of foreskin restoration. 

Good question...

How on God’s Green Earth Is the B-52 Still in Service? | WIRED

From the article:

Even with the modernization, the currently flying B-52s are all about 55 years old, about the age humans start getting calls from the AARP. This is where the over-engineering comes in. “The airframe itself remains structurally sound and has many useful flying years ahead of it,” the directorate official says. “Most of the B-52 airframes are original and their longevity is a testimony to the original design engineers.” In other words, they did a killer job making a durable airplane. 
Even the flight controls—the yokes in the cockpit, the seats, the control surfaces on the wings and tail assembly, the cable linkages between them—are largely the same as they were when they were built in 1960 and 1961. Of course, inspections are frequent, and the airplanes undergo heavy maintenance inspections every 4 years, during which mechanical and structural elements may be replaced as needed, along with possible replacements of any of each sample’s eight Pratt & Whitney jet engines. But for the most part, the crews in charge today have got their hands on the same BUFFs that crews touched decades ago. In some cases, recent crew members have been sons and grandsons of previous-generation B-52 crew members.

Yep, that's the biggest surprise:  that the airframes are still good.  I presume though that they don't pull G, and I would guess that is pretty much the reason you can't expect a fighter airframe to last anything like that age.  (AFAIK).

For those who haven't experienced it

What does depression feel like? Trust me – you really don’t want to know | Tim Lott | Opinion | The Guardian

I feel that this is an important thing for people who haven't suffered very deep depression (like me) to understand.

Speaking of people with depression, or at least the serious blues:  it seems to me as someone who follows Bernard Keane's twitter feed that he's not been in a great way for some months now.  He mentioned around Valentines Day that he was single at this time  for the first time in years, so I am assuming a marriage/relationship break up? (or, I suppose, a death of a partner?); he's complained frequently about insomnia; and a tweet today sounds something like depression.  Are people who know him personally talking to him about this?   It really tends to read like a public cry for help, in many respects, so I hope someone is answering it...

Battery news

Seemingly good news on the fuel cell/battery research front:

*  urine powered fuel cells seem to be moving ahead.  One day, people may have a better reason to take their smart phone into the toilet with them (heh):

The research team from the University's Department of Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemistry and the Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies (CSCT), have worked with Queen Mary University of London and the Bristol Bioenergy Centre, to devise this new kind of microbial fuel cell that is smaller, more powerful and cheaper than other similar devices.

This novel fuel cell developed by the researchers, measures one inch squared in size and uses a carbon catalyst at the cathode which is derived from glucose and ovalbumin, a protein found in egg white. This biomass-derived catalyst is a renewable and much cheaper alternative to platinum, commonly used in other microbial fuel cells.

The researchers worked on the cell's design to maximize the power that could be generated. By increasing the cell's electrodes from 4mm to 8mm, the power output was increased tenfold. Furthermore, by stacking multiple units together, the power was proportionally increased.
Currently, a single microbial fuel cell can generate 2 Watts per cubic metre, enough to power a device such as a mobile phone. Whilst this value is not comparable with other alternative technologies such as hydrogen or solar fuel cells and other methods of bioenergy digesters, the significant advantage of this technology is its extremely cheap production cost and its use of waste as a fuel, a fuel that will never run out and does not produce harmful gasses.

The research team is now looking at ways of improving the power output of the microbial fuel cell and is confident that by optimising the design of the cell, they will be able to increase the cell's performance.

 Mind you, this type of story always seems to end up with "more research and improvements are expected", but we rarely hear of such innovative products coming onto the market.

*   New, cheap but better chemical batteries may be on the way too:

An unexpected discovery has led to a rechargeable battery that's as inexpensive as conventional car batteries, but has a much higher energy density. The new battery could become a cost-effective, environmentally friendly alternative for storing renewable energy and supporting the power grid.

Don't put your child in the pool, Mrs Worthington

What with poor old Grant Hackett being a goose again, it's really hard to imagine why parents would encourage their children to get into the world of competitive swimming, given all the turmoil that Australian ex-swimmers seem to get themselves into.  Terrible hours for the parents, too.

Road transport safety, and other complaints

OK, I'll accept that the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal's ruling about minimum rates of pay for contractor drivers may have been flawed, given that even Labor was arguing for a delay in its implementation.

However, did the Liberals really have to deny a connection between remuneration and road safety?   As this report notes, the report they relied upon was dubious at best.

The other thing that irks me about this:  libertarian, free market types who hate the idea of government imposed minimum standards on contractors' remuneration are supposed to be big on privacy and dubious of government surveillance.   Yet when it comes to ensuring contractors don't have to drive ridiculous hours because of the low charges big customers can extract from them, the only alternative they have to offer (presumably) is complete technological recording (and someone checking) the details of every single trip.   It reminds me of their attitude to street violence and alcohol:  they'd prefer to have police standing on every street corner to catch every single bit of bad public behaviour, instead of winding back licencing hours as the indirect method of achieving the same result.    They have a distinct tendency to prefer quasi authoritarian oversight of behaviour rather than a more"meta" interference with the way a business can trade.   Because:  business; we love business. 

They also tend to love the "sharing economy" apps like Uber and Airbnb.   Yet, there is concern that Uber results in drivers getting screwed, too.  And Airbnb can be a nightmare for residents in apartment blocks that have suddenly become more like apartment hotels, but without the reception area and staff to police behaviour.   And the regulatory response seems slow and inadequate.

But, hey, Business.  Money.  

Update:  clearly, I'm in a Lefty mood today, so I'll post part of First Dog on the Moon's funny cartoon today about the strange surge of Marxism panic that is appearing in the Australian Right:

Arachnophobes: do not click on the link

Hidden housemates: Australia's huge and hairy huntsman spiders

I'm no big fan of large spiders, so sorry, I'm not about to try to catch a huntman spider and put it outside as the writer suggests.  (Besides, how hard would that be?)

She also seems to have selected photos for this article which are especially guaranteed to freak out any arachnophobe who clicks on the link.

The gay fascist architect

Famed Architect Philip Johnson’s Hidden Nazi Past | Vanity Fair

It's a little hard these days imaging a gay rich American of the 1930's getting enamoured of Hitlerian fascism via Nietzsche, but as this rather fascinating article explains, it did indeed happen.  (I suppose a similar thing can be said of upper class gay English academics and communism.)  

Can't say I knew anything of the anti-Semitic conspiracy mongering of one Father Charles Edward Coughlin before I read this article, either.

This delivery of religion via media pop star has been a big thing in a America for a long time, hasn't it?  (I wrote about it in my discussion of "Anything Goes", too.)

Worrying diseases

Deadly animal prion disease appears in Europe : Nature News & Comment

So, there's been a prion disease (similar to "Mad Cow" disease) floating around part of the world's deer, elk and moose population, and now it has spread (via unknown route) to Norway.

The most worrying thing I find about the report is that the disease is spread between animals via prions in saliva, urine and faeces.  It also seems possible that the disease can arise spontaneously.

If ever a human variant got going, and it was so easily spread, it would be a truly dire problem to deal with.  Especially if prions could be spread through treated sewerage into drinking water. 

I'm going with "daughter of Luke Skywalker"

J.J. Abrams Says Rey's Parents Not In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Then Clarifies Comments | E! Online

Re-watching Force Awakens this weekend, I'm more convinced than ever that Rey is Luke's daughter.   I would think it likely that Luke inadvertently put mother and child in danger; perhaps the mother was killed, and he decided the only way to protect his daughter was to hide.  I presume he left her in someone's care, but they got killed too?  I have to re-watch the "flashback" scene of Rey again, though...

Free advice to Malcolm

There's much talk about the polling drop in popularity of Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition, and it seems people are suspecting that Labor might scrape in with a hung parliament.  (That seems to be as optimistic as people allow themselves to be when it's a matter of whether a first term Federal parliament can lose outright.)

It seems it's far too late for Malcolm to be able to do any of this, but here's my take on matters which clearly could have helped him, if only he would listen to me:

a.  the gay marriage plebiscite:  polling has shown that a substantial majority favour gay marriage, but quite a majority like the idea of a plebiscite too.   And I understand that - regardless of what the young and hip say,  it is a big cultural and social change, and those on the "pro" side are being panic merchants about how divisive and worrying campaign material on the "no" side could be.   The truth is, the more over-the-top any advertising against it is, the more it is likely to be counterproductive.   And the win the "pro" side is likely to get is likely to be emphatic and end any doubt about the wisdom of the government's acting on it.  The only stupid thing (and it is stupid) that Malcolm has done is talk about it being a separate plebiscite from an election.  He should just have announced it would be at the next election, whenever that would be.   Too late now, I guess. 

b. polling indicates a banking royal commission would also be popular.   It's a peculiar thing, isn't it, that the Coalition gave us two enquiries that I think didn't go over all that well with the public, because they were too obviously politically motivated.  Now the one people would accept, and they don't want to give it.   It's not likely to happen, but Malcolm would be wise to agree to a banking enquiry of somewhat limited scope.

c.  what is going on with tertiary education policy?  The disastrous surprise of the 2014 budget is going to hang over your head during an election campaign, and would have to be neutralised early.

d.  bite the bullet, Malcolm.  A modest carbon tax should be sell-able in the context of  record global warmth and climate change skepticism on its last legs, and raise revenue too.  Impossible, I know, 'til you clean out the skeptic rubbish in the party; but oddly, for unrelated reasons, it seems the skeptics (Jensen, Bronwyn) are getting the dump anyway.   Oh that's right, but countering that you have got the IPA infiltration continuing apace.  You need to attack them, to make a positive headway with the public...

Guardian cannabis comments frenzy

Cannabis: scientists call for action amid mental health concerns | Society | The Guardian

Perhaps I was wrong the other day when I noted that The Guardian readership would be torn up in a "perfect storm" of confused allegiances when it comes to Germaine Greer and her (now) politically incorrect comments on transexualism.  Because if any article is going to drive its readers nuts, it's one like this one at the link - a  long article where experts talk about potential adverse effects of increased use of cannabis.

The comments fury does raise one interesting point, though - quite a few cannabis using readers of some age do come out in strong agreement that increased use of  "skunk" is a bad idea; lamenting that it "does their head in" with its high THC content, compared to the relatively weak levels of the cannabis they smoked in their youth.  And this is an important point that is made in the article:

The reasons for the upward trend [for teenagers getting clinical help for cannabis use] are unclear. As hard drugs fall in popularity, clinical services may simply pull in more cannabis users. But the rise in young people in treatment may be linked to skunk, a potent form of cannabis that has taken over the market and edged out the traditional, weaker resins.

Skunk and other strong forms of cannabis now dominate the illicit drugs markets in many countries. From 1999-2008, the cannabis market in England transformed from 15%-81% skunk. In 2008, skunk confiscated from the street contained on average 15% of the high-inducing substance THC (delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol), three times the level found in resin seized that year. The Home Office has not recorded cannabis potency since.

“There is no doubt that high-potency cannabis, such as skunk, causes more problems than traditional cannabis, or hash,” Murray told the Guardian. “This is the case for dependence, but especially for psychosis.”

Ian Hamilton, a mental health lecturer at the University of York, said more detailed monitoring of cannabis use is crucial to ensure that information given out is credible and useful. Most research on cannabis, particularly the major studies that have informed policy, are based on
older low-potency cannabis resin, he points out. “In effect, we have a mass population experiment going on where people are exposed to higher potency forms of cannabis, but we don’t fully understand what the short- or long-term risks are,” he said.

In Australia, it would seem we might be a bit behind the increase in THC trend, but we're close:

In Australia, a 2013 study found nearly half of the cannabis confiscated on the streets contained more than 15% THC. Prof Wayne Hall, director of the Centre for Youth Substance Abuse
Research at the University of Queensland, said that while most people can use cannabis without putting themselves at risk of psychosis, there is still a need for public education. 

 Of course, some people argue that the answer would be a legalised product, but with lower THC content.


Which raises the question: what did Colorado do about THC strength?  Not much, really.  A recent report from a pro-cannabis website notes:

A proposed ballot initiative and an amendment to a bill in the state House would cap the THC potency of recreational cannabis and marijuana products at a percentage below most of those
products’ current averages.

The initiative would limit the potency of “marijuana and marijuana products” to 15 percent or 16 percent THC.


The average potency of Colorado pot products is already higher — 17.1 percent for cannabis flower and 62.1 percent for marijuana extracts, according to a state study.

But part of the problem is that a lot of the legal cannabis market is not in leaf, but in infused products, and candy and such like.  Perhaps it was a mistake to ever allow that as part of the legal range allowed?  At least Oregon is taking that issue seriously:

Oregon public health officials are moving ahead with rules that would cap THC in marijuana edibles at half of Washington and Colorado limits, saying such a restriction is key to protecting novice consumers and children.A rules advisory committee of the Oregon Health Authority met for the last time Thursday to discuss the proposed rules, which call for limits of 5 milligrams of THC in a single serving of an edible, such as a cookie or chocolate. A package of marijuana-infused edibles may contain no more than 50 milligrams.

Anyway, it's certainly surprising to read that the legalisation process seems to have paid scant regard to this:

“All the studies that have been done on THC levels have  been done on THC levels between 2 and 8 percent,” said Conti, whose  district encompasses parts of Greenwood Village and Littleton. “Most of  the marijuana coming in now, the flowers are being rated at a THC count
of about 17 percent on average, so this is dramatically over, and we  really don’t know that we’ve gotten the true feel on the health risks  associated with that marijuana.”

All good information for other countries contemplating a legalisation path, I reckon.

Even though my preference is simply not to do it. 

I don't mean to be rude, but you're making this up as you go along

A 10-point guide to not offending transgender people - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Look, deliberate rudeness to transgender people is nothing to endorse or encourage, and I had a post recently criticising conservative "panic" about transgender men going into women's toilets.  (Change rooms for pre-op men - well, that's a different issue.)

But this guide to "not offending" transgender people has a few points which shows just how, um, arbitrary some of the political correctness on this issue is.

 For example:

"The best way to ask [a trans person what pronoun they use] is to say
something like, 'I'd really like to be respectful and clarify which
pronouns you use'.

"Don't say 'preferred' pronoun because then it almost sounds like a choice."

Well, if you're asking a 50 year old father of 5 who has just decided he needs to live as a woman, he has made a "choice" - to do it now.

"It's important to remember that a trans person realising or coming to
terms with their gender identity can happen at any age, at any time, in
any place," Fink says. 

 Uh huh.  The "trans community" are, I assume, big fans of transhumanism.  Their ideal world of the future will involve transferring their mind (downloaded onto a USB)  into whatever gender body suits them for any period.  They can just keep two robot bodies in the cupboard.  Or, what about the future as Arthur C Clarke saw it in one of his novels, with male and females looking similar "downstairs", as genetic modification will relocate neatly inside all the male bits which are currently too exposed for safety?


But I digress.

A common expression used in stories about trans and gender diverse people is that they were born in the wrong body.

But this is a stereotype that should be avoided, says Goldner, because not all trans people relate to that experience.

"It's not really accurate and puts an emphasis on the body when gender is
about a sense of innate self, and about a soul," Goldner says. "Unless
someone says they feel OK with [that expression], don't use it."

Grrr.  This is really testing the limits of "why should I even be polite to people who are so precious about everyone agreeing that they are the ones who set the limits as to what you can say to them."


This is starting to get a bit ridiculous, if you ask me.

Bopp and the future

[1604.04231] Time Symmetric Quantum Mechanics and Causal Classical Physics

Fritz Bopp, who I have never heard of,  from a university in a city or town I don't know, has nonetheless got a paper on arXiv that seems to have some interesting ideas (about causal structure and quantum physics); but I don't full understand them...

Update:  seems he is a physics professor, and Siegen is in Germany. (He is the son of Fritz Bopp, who also worked on quantum physics, but died in 1987.  I assume that father and son had some complicated discussions over dinner.)

Probably click bait, but still

Texting in movie theaters? Bring it on | Amber Jamieson | Opinion | The Guardian

Only last weekend, I was telling my kids as we waited for Zootopia to start that, apart from the perennial problem of people who manage to make 15 seconds of loud plastic crinkling to reach just one bit of candy (and take an hour to eat one bag thereof), my latest noticed cinema going anti-social obscenity is the person who decides to light up their mobile screen and text in the middle of a film.

And many readers of the Guardian agree.  Some funny/sarcastic responses to this column:

I hope the theaters who allow/encourage phone/other gizmo use during
film showings are confiscating all weapons at the door, cause this kind
of thing is really going to bring out that kind of thing.

and

Great idea!
Also I miss the drive in experience, so can I bring my truck into the theater as well? Oh, and I never want to see a movie without my howler monkey(s), who love to sit in the back of the pick up and "sing" during a film - people love it!
Amber you are so smart and revolutionary!

Adam has a dream

Land tax: now that really would be reform worthy of the name

A peculiar column by Adam Creighton - he has a dream, a mighty dream - that land tax reform could replace a huge slab of income tax.   Then he ends up by noting that it would be impossible to sell this to land owners.

Give up, Adam.  There are equity arguments for and against it, as with all taxes, but it just isn't going to happen.  (Well, not on the scale you want.)   And I reckon some of your predictions as to the long term effects are really just guesswork.

I can imagine him in retirement like a later day Jim Cairns, sitting in a street market corner selling his esoteric book about how everything will be fixed, if only we could have land tax replace income taxes.

Greenland's record

Scientists: Greenland ice sheet is melting freakishly early

When an April high temperature record is broken this early in the month, by this amount, (even in Fahrenheit), it is remarkable:

Greenland's capital, Nuuk, reached 62 degrees (16.6 degrees Celsius) on Monday, smashing the April record high temperature by 6.5 degrees. Inland at Kangerlussuaq, it was 64 degrees (17.8 degrees Celsius), warmer than St. Louis and San Francisco.

Langen and other scientists said this is part of a natural weather system, but man-made climate change has worsened this. Tom Mote of the University of Georgia said had this natural event happened 20 or 30 years ago it wouldn't have been as bad as it is now because the air is
warmer overall and carries more rain that melts the ice faster.

"Things are getting more extreme and they're getting more common," said NASA ice scientist Walt Meier. "We're seeing that with Greenland and this is an indication of that."

Caravaggio considered

Not sure that I would have put it in the attic,  but it surely would be hard to find the right spot in the house to hang the gruesome work that everyone's talking about.  I mean, look how big it is:

Perhaps in the guest's bedroom, when you really don't enjoy having guests stay over?

Anyhoo, as they say in the classics, I can't remember much about the artist, so went on a quick Google, only to find that the matter of whether he was gay or not has been a popular topic of debate since, well, since he was painting naked or semi naked youth of the male variety.  As an article at The Guardian notes:

A key figure in resurrecting Caravaggio from oblivion was the Italian art historian Roberto Longhi, whose university students included none other than the gay Marxist writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. The curly hair and lingering eyes of Caravaggio's painted youths haunt Pasolini's cinema – a beautiful angel in his film The Gospel According to Saint Matthew seems to have stepped straight out of a Caravaggio painting. His films helped to establish Caravaggio as a modern gay icon, a process completed in the 1980s by Derek Jarman's biopic Caravaggio and the Caravaggio-quoting photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe.

Recently there has been a backlash. The critic Andrew Graham-Dixon argues in his biography, Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane, that no real evidence exists to prove Caravaggio was homosexual and that his apparently sensual paintings of young men are, in reality, religious allegories. For instance, Caravaggio's painting Boy with a Basket of Fruit, from which a youth looks at us woozily, his shirt artfully fallen to reveal a muscular shoulder, offering a luscious array of fruits for us to taste, is interpreted as an image of Christ's love whose apparent eroticism refers to the sacred love expressed by the Song of Solomon.

A lengthier article from 1998 goes into the debate in more academic detail, noting that these paintings are taken as evidence of his homoerotic interests:

(Actually, I'm no Robert Hughes, but is that even a good painting when it comes to the neck and shoulder area?  Doesn't seem quite right, that bone and musculature.  The fruit, on the other hand, yeah they look good.)

OK, apparently one critic takes this one as clinching the deal:

The title is Boy Bitten by a Lizard, and, I have to say, it's a pretty odd bit of art.  Apart from the bare shoulder (again), I get a bit of an unfortunate feminised Rowan Atkinson-ish vibe from that face.  The article I last linked to noted one Donald Posner wrote this:

In this painting, homosexuality is pointed to by the fact that the boy's "hands do not tense with masculine vigor in response to the attack; they remain limp in a languid show of helplessness. His facial expression suggests a womanish whimper rather than a virile shout."

Gee.  I might have just gone with the flower in the girl-ish hair.

What about his Love Conquers All, though, which modesty prevents me posting here?   Well, yes, through modern eyes, that would be one that I would think gave his inclinations away.  Yet Wikipedia urges caution:

Inevitably, much scholarly and non-scholarly ink has been spilled over the alleged eroticism of the painting. Yet the homoerotic content was perhaps not so apparent to Giustiniani’s generation as it has become today. Naked boys could be seen on any riverbank or seashore, and the eroticisation of children is very much a cultural artefact of the present-day rather than Caravaggio's. Certainly neither Giustiniani, who was not a homosexual, nor his visitors, appear to have been concerned by the question of modesty – or to have even raised it – and the story that the Marchese kept Amor hidden behind a curtain relates to his reported wish that it should be kept as a final pièce de résistance for visitors, to be seen only when the rest of the collection had been viewed – in other words, the curtain was to reveal the painting, not to hide it. (According to the historian Joachim von Sandrart, who catalogued the Giustiniani collection in the 1630s, the curtain was only installed at his urging at that time). The challenge is to see the Amor Vincit through 17th century eyes. 

Yes, I guess so.  But one has one's suspicions...

   

Hardly a priority

Can an $100 Million Investment Launch Laser-Based Space Travel?

Oh, it's all very fun, I suppose, doing research into pie in the sky stuff that has a rather useless goal.  (I haven't seen the explanation as to how a bunch of micro chip ships getting to Alpha Centuri are supposed to send back useful information, anyway.)

But really, isn't there a whole bunch of more useful local space activities as a goal?   An off planet repository for Earth life on the nearby Moon, for example?  Working out once and for all if there is useful underground water anywhere there?   A space based swarm of micro satellites that could work as an adjustable shield for global warming?   Lunar based manufacturing and launch via innovative methods (lunar elevator, mass driver?)

(I have my doubts space based solar being beamed to Earth is ever going to be practical on a large scale, so pass on that one.)

But year, why not research space stuff that's more directly useful?

An observation

It's been quite a while (4 or 5 years?) since there's been any news of interesting research results in parapsychology studies done by proper researchers.  It would seem the field has diminished in effort over the last decade or so, and regrettably, it probably suffers reputational damage from the crappy and unwatchable "ghost investigators" shows made for American cable TV.

But someone, somewhere, is still doing useful work on it, I trust? 

The cost of rapid economic growth

Counting the cost of China’s left-behind children - BBC News

Here's a problem that doesn't get much publicity - the huge number of Chinese kids who are growing up without one or both parents due to work.  

Warming on the plateau

From the abstract of an article looking at the changing climate on the Tibetan Plateau (TP):

The TP is overall getting warmer and wetter during the past decades. Temperature is significantly increased, especially since the 1980s. The overall warming rate ranges from 0.16 to 0.67 °C decade^–1 since the 1950s during different periods. The TP shows a uniform warming trend with the most significant warming in the northern part.

Sure sounds like a rapid warming rate for some parts of Tibet, then...

The Handel (sort of) scandal

Inspired by a radio announcer (ABC, of course) informing me today that it is the 275th (I think) anniversary of the first performance of Handel's "Messiah" in Dublin, I decided to Google "Handel scandal" and see what popped up.

Indeed there was a bit of associated scandal around this production.  A short summary is given in this NYT review in 2000 of a (apparently, not very good) play about the oratorio:

In 1741, Handel, then 56, was in debt and in crisis. His royal patron and ardent admirer, Queen Caroline, the wife of King George II of the House of Hanover, had died in 1737. His Italian operas were losing popularity. He was suffering from the aftermath of a partial stroke. In the summer of 1741, Charles Jennens, a wealthy squire and music connoisseur, who had written the libretto for Handel's oratorio ''Saul,'' sent him a new script. It had no characters; it simply told the story of the Messiah using biblical scripture compiled by Jennens. At first Handel was baffled by it. But when a performance opportunity arose in Dublin, he composed a score in three weeks.

All the characters in Mr. Slover's play are based on historical people, and they are quite a gallery. Susannah Cibber (performed by Mary Miller), was a singer and actress who had married the co-manager of the Drury Lane Theater to assist the flagging career of her brother, the composer Thomas Arne. She was ruined by her part in an adultery scandal, the salacious details of which were circulated in a best-selling book at the time, the Starr report of its day, as Mr. Slover has called it. The play includes quotes from the book and the trial transcript. The Dublin and London premieres of the ''Messiah'' were Cibber's comeback.

Wait a minute: three weeks?    He composed it in 3 weeks?  They don't make composers like they used to.  Let's look more into that (at Wikipedia):

The music for Messiah was completed in 24 days of swift composition. Having received Jennens's text some time after 10 July 1741, Handel began work on it on 22 August. His records show that he had completed Part I in outline by 28 August, Part II by 6 September and Part III by 12 September, followed by two days of "filling up" to produce the finished work on 14 September. The autograph score's 259 pages show some signs of haste such as blots, scratchings-out, unfilled bars and other uncorrected errors, but according to the music scholar Richard Luckett the number of errors is remarkably small in a document of this length.^[26] The original manuscript for Messiah is now one of the chief highlights from the British Library's music collection.

At the end of his manuscript Handel wrote the letters "SDG"—Soli Deo Gloria, "To God alone the glory". This inscription, taken with the speed of composition, has encouraged belief in the apocryphal story that Handel wrote the music in a fervour of divine inspiration in which, as he wrote the "Hallelujah" chorus, "he saw all heaven before him".^[26] Burrows points out that many of Handel's operas, of comparable length and structure to Messiah, were composed within similar timescales between theatrical seasons. The effort of writing so much music in so short a time was not unusual for Handel and his contemporaries; Handel commenced his next oratorio, Samson, within a week of finishing Messiah, and completed his draft of this new work in a month.

 I really like The Messiah, but have never read much about Handel.  There's a short but entertaining account of him and, the music scene in London in which he worked, to be found at Smithsonian.com.   Here are some of my favourite parts:

Increasingly elaborate opera productions led to rising costs due, in part, to hiring musicians and singers from Italy. "It was generally agreed Italian singers were better trained and more talented than local products," notes Christopher Hogwood, a Handel biographer and founder of the Academy of Ancient Music, the London period-instrument orchestra he directs. But beautiful voices were often accompanied by mercurial temperaments. At a 1727 opera performance, Handel's leading sopranos, Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, actually came to blows onstage, with their partisans cheering them on. "Shame that two such well-bred ladies should call [each other] Bitch and Whore, should scold and fight," John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), the mathematician and satirist, wrote in a pamphlet describing the increasing hysteria of London's opera world.

As for Handel himself, it sounds like he was a mix of physical greed and generosity:

Despite his fame, Handel's inner life remains enigmatic. "We know far more about the environment in which he lived and the sort of people he knew than about his private life," Keates adds. Part of the explanation lies in the dearth of personal letters. We must rely on contradictory descriptions of Handel by admirers and detractors, whose opinions were colored by the musical rivalries of 1700s London.

Although he neither married nor was known to have had a long-lasting romantic relationship, Handel was pursued by various young women and a leading Italian soprano, Vittoria Tarquini, according to accounts by his contemporaries. Intensely loyal to friends and colleagues, he was capable of appalling temper outbursts. Because of a dispute over seating in an orchestra pit, he fought a near-fatal duel with a fellow composer and musician, Johann Mattheson, whose sword thrust was blunted by a metal button on Handel's coat. Yet the two remained close friends for years afterward. During rehearsals at a London opera house with Francesca Cuzzoni, Handel grew so infuriated by her refusal to follow his every instruction that he grabbed her by the waist and threatened to hurl her out an open window. "I know well that you are a real she-devil, but I will have you know that I am Beelzebub!" he screamed at the terrified soprano.

Handel, who grew increasingly obese over the years, certainly had an intimidating physique. "He paid more attention to [food] than is becoming to any man," wrote Handel's earliest biographer, John Mainwaring, in 1760. Artist Joseph Goupy, who designed scenery for Handel operas, complained that he was served a meager dinner at the composer's home in 1745; only afterward did he discover his host in the next room, secretly gorging on "claret and French dishes." The irate Goupy produced a caricature of Handel at an organ keyboard, his face contorted into a pig snout, surrounded by fowl, wine bottles and oysters strewn at his feet.
"He may have been mean with food, but not with money," says Keates. Amassing a fortune through his music and shrewd investments in London's burgeoning stock market, Handel donated munificently to orphans, retired musicians and the ill. (He gave his portion of his Messiah debut proceeds to a debtors' prison and hospital in Dublin.)

The picture painted of the turbulent world of opera at the time sounds like it would make a good movie or play.  Pity the one attempt the NYTimes reviewed was not good...

Someone else who only likes superhero comedies

‘Deadpool’ Isn’t the Only Solution. But ‘Batman v Superman’ Is the Problem. - The New York Times

This take on the matter of superhero movies sounds pretty right to me - except that I assume I would dislike the violence and poor language in Deadpool.

Because you weren't?

I didn’t I know I was transgender.

Reading this article of a former butch lesbian who has decided she is transgender after all does little to encourage sympathy; but that may just be me (and my new best friend Germaine - ha).

I think what really grates with me is the use of medical effort to endorse something which (in this woman's case) sounds more like a curious exercise in what it will feel like to be more manly in appearance than she already is.  

Not a good look

News Corp journalists reject domestic violence views of Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair | Media | The Guardian

Actually, I had read Tim Blair's post about the ABC adding "domestic violence leave" to its work conditions, and didn't take much offence.  (It does seem to stretch the imagination that the ABC employs people who would be in violent relationships - we like to imagine that smart people don't get themselves into that situation, but then again, we all know of examples where it has happened.)

Still, it's a very embarrassing look for Tim to be taking this line when it turns out his own company is doing the same:

A constant critic of the ABC, Blair ridiculed the ABC staff for asking
for domestic violence leave but appeared ignorant that his own
colleagues had logged a similar claim in the current bargaining round.

Honestly, his constant ridiculing of the ABC has long since spilled over from ridicule of pretentiousness to what reads like sour grapes and an unhealthy obsession with every single person who works there (and makes a good quid out of it.)   The same can be said of Andrew Bolt, of course, although with Blair it feels more, I don't know, personal.   (He did have a brief attempt at a radio show there, didn't he?)

Maglev, if you must

High speed rail: wrong train, right track?

Michael Pascoe argues that if you must have high speed rail in Australia, use maglev.  

He might be right...

The perfect Guardian storm

Heh.  I don't think I can imagine a more perfect storm for Guardian readers' response than an opinion piece criticising Germanine Greer for her, um, less-than-entirely-endorsing-transexuals opinions. 

Large scale measurement issues

Measurement of Universe's expansion rate creates cosmological puzzle : Nature News & Comment

Scratching the high speed itch

As much as I like taking the Shinkansen when in Japan, count me as skeptical about the prospects of a successful very fast train that runs any distance in Australia.   But if we have to build one, instead of doing all this tunnelling (I heard someone on the radio saying that the Melbourne to Sydney one requires sixty something kilometres of tunnels) I'd like to see this design:

How cool was that?   Avoids the 'roo on the track issue, too (unless you catch a very unlucky one mid-bound.)  And instead of having just one leave the station every 2 hours or so, you could have one small one leave every ten minutes.   Sort of like Musk's Hyperloop, without the claustrophobia.

Clearly, this desire to try for something like a Shinkansen in Australia will not go away from the public's mind.  But like some itches that need to be scratched, it's probably best to try small scale before committing to large.   Buy just a couple of handweights before putting that home gym machine on the credit card; or a set of rubber cuffs before the deluxe ceiling swing.  (I have no idea what I am talking about in either case.)

So, just build the thing for a relatively short, relatively useful distance, like Sydney to Canberra, and see how that goes before spending money on expanding it beyond that.  In fact, given how long both projects will seemingly take, build it from the new airport site at Badgerys Creek to Canberra, maybe?    Put a relatively fast train from Central to Badgerys, perhaps - with an automatic luggage transfer to the really fast train?   (I am assuming that might cut costs a fair bit.)

You can thank me later, Australia, for my useful suggestions....

The history of a denier meme

The Volcano Gambit � RealClimate

I'm not sure why Gavin Schmidt is re-visiting this right now, but it's still good to read of the origin of the mistaken meme on the matter of volcanoes and their greenhouse gas contributions.

More "in praise of higher taxes"

I'm an American living in Sweden. Here's why I came to embrace the higher taxes. - Vox

There was a very similar article to this in one of the other American sites I visit earlier this year, and I think I posted about it, too.

I feel I should point out something, in light of how often I post about this:  it's not that I'm an ideologue when it comes to taxes and the role of government,  and I don't think every country should (or can) be like Scandinavia.   For one thing, the physical size of countries surely helps determine what governments can reasonably be expected to provide, and all European nations benefit from the small geography and high density of living.  Singapore does, too.

There is also the cultural element that affects the way a government can succeed (or not), so that (for example) a country like Japan can expect societal co-operation in some policies (ease of access to alcohol, little societal interest in illicit drugs) that others can't.

My attitude is more that the international examples of how countries and economies work show us the many ways different tax and government spending regimes can work, so that it is clear that low tax, limited government is not the only way to success and a happy society.

It's more a case that I am interested in showing that the libertarian/small government/low tax position that is powerful in the US and parts of the Australian Right is more pure ideology and belief system than something that is inherently the best way to approach economics and how we should run Australia.

Human misbehaviour less than expected

Fathered by the Mailman? It’s Mostly an Urban Legend - The New York Times

Yeah, I think I have read this before:  the old estimates of how many children are fathered by someone other than their assumed father are way over the top, and many scientists think the true figure is closer to a relatively modest 1%.

Zootopia viewed

Got around to seeing Zootopia today.

Utterly charming, constantly witty but often hilarious; visually pleasing, inventive in concept, not heavy handed in "messaging"; great fun for adults, and intense cuteness in character design bound to please the younger viewer as well.  It's terrific.

The Disney brand on animated movies has, without doubt, replaced that of Pixar as the one to look out for.

Transgender politics

How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired

A truly startling article here from February 2016 about transgender identity politics in the matter of how to deal with children who think they are transgender.   (Added to put some justification into my "cynical" positioning on the current state of our  culture's understanding of transgender issues.)  

Piketty sounding reasonable

Panama Papers: Act now. Don't wait for another crisis | Thomas Piketty | Opinion | The Guardian

Who do I believe, the trader or the libertarian?

Well, this is kinda weird.

Sinclair Davidson writes this morning indicating that he's distinctly ambiguous when it comes to the question of what's wrong with Westpac rate rigging.  (OK, he mentions "poor banking behaviour" in one sentence, then in the next he puts "scandal" in inverted commas, and indicates that he thinks no one can really explain why it's a problem.)   This is even when the trader in question has been widely quoted in the media saying:

"I knew it was completely wrong but f--- it I might as well, I thought f--- it. We've just got so much money on it, we just had to do it, right ...", court documents allege Mr Roden said.

I think when it comes to matters of ethics, and their potential to interfere with making money, don't let a libertarian, or anyone associated with the IPA, anywhere near policy influence.

Update:  perhaps Sinclair should read this post at The Conversation for some ethical enlightenment.

Transgender comment

Readers would know that I am certainly somewhere on the "cynical" end of the scale on acceptance of the current understanding of what transgender identity is all about.   Especially when it comes to the matter of children and the way some parents respond to it.

On the other hand, what is this American conservative panic about transgenders using the toilets they want to use?   I would have thought that a man who wants to be a woman wants to identify with them - not use their existing equipment to present a danger to them.   I mean, I could be wrong, but I would have thought a transgender man (pre-op or not) is about the safest person a woman could find in their toilet - more wanting to exchange make up tips than have raise any issue about sex.

Is the concern that men could pretend to be transgender so as to get their way into a toilet that might give them access to a woman alone?    I suppose...but really, any heterosexual potential rapist could already sneak into a women's toilet if he wants to.

If a woman is concerned by any man who does not appear to be non transgender in the toilet alone, does the law change prevent her raising a concern?

A tale of two business/economics commentators

In the Australian today, I was able to Google through to two columns about the Arrium steel crisis in Whyalla.

First:  Judith Sloan has a piece with all the analytical depth of Nelson Muntz going "ha ha".  Seems she can't actually find a way to blame the union (noting that they have made wage cut concessions), but that doesn't stop her with an implied "AWU.  Phff.  What do you expect..."    And same with the electricity prices increases which haven't actually happened yet.  

So it's to John Durrie to get some actual detail as to what has gone wrong with the company, and he ends with a pretty compelling sounding:

To suggest the company’s failure is anything more than failed business strategy compounded by cyclical markets is a nonsense and that is where the argument starts and finishes.

As for the political responses:  I thought Christopher Pyne came across pretty well on 7.30 last night.  It's remarkable how working for Turnbull has made him sound a much more reasonable politician.

On the Labor side and the suggestion of (I think) some protectionist motivated unionists that cheap steel from China is potentially dangerous:   that does raise a good point - what sort of quality control is there for imported steel?   Obviously, the company overseas manufacturing it would say it meets a set of specifications or standards, but do nations importing it have any systems for quality testing to see whether it does meet them?   Or is it up to private enterprise to do that?   How much of each shipload would you have to test to be confident that a batch is fine?

That's something I have no idea about, but I would hope there is some system of quality testing.

A nervous stop

Shinkansen makes emergency stop in Hokkaido's subsea tunnel | The Japan Times

I see that the underground tunnel that runs between the islands of Hokkaido and Honshu has been opened for decades (since 1988), but the Shinkansen service using it is new.

I don't know:  being in a tunnel 54 km long and under the ocean in that earthquake prone part of the world - it would certainly make me nervous to undergo an emergency stop.

Update:  the Wikipedia entry on the tunnel explains that it is well below the ocean floor - about 100 m or so.   But with the massive shift in the ocean bed during that last earthquake, it may not get wet, but I really wonder if it would withstand the worst.

Also interesting to read that 34 people died in its construction.

If I ruled the world...

....there would be an immediate and permanent ban on "relationship" "reality" TV shows.   Australian night time television is being absolutely overrun by this woeful category of "entertainment" at the moment, which I strongly suspect is primarily watched by women (and the occasional boyfriend or young husband trying to feign interest.) 

And while I'm at it:  the producers of Gogglebox would be jailed, and anyone who had agreed to be part of the show deported.

You know it makes sense...

In Catallaxy watch

I am amused to note how, presumably under the onslaught of Steven Kates's frequent endorsements of (far from libertarian) Donald Trump, the subtitle of Catallaxy has removed all reference to libertarianism and is now merely "Diverse and Independent Media is here".  Poor Sinclair has well and truly lost all control of the place, with the great majority of commenters continually deriding his endorsement of Malcolm Turnbull.  The conservative Boltians (well, when they aren't criticising Bolt for being too soft on the gays) have well and truly taken over.  The only meeting of minds is when SD makes a comment that is at the intersection of libertarianism and nutty conservatism, such as deriding Australian gun control,  tobacco plain packaging, or sex education (of any kind, apparently.)

It would be incredible if it maintains any political influence at all.   But I guess until the Coalition is purged of its ratbag Right elements, it might...

Update:   oh, I see that the change in the subtitle is meant to be a mocking joke about Fairfax.  I don't know that anyone who reads the site got it, though.

The WSJ does not talk for all of business?

Fox Business Pushes 3 Minimum Wage Myths In Just 90 Seconds | Blog | Media Matters for America

I was pleasantly surprised to read this:

Right-wing media have repeatedly pushed the myth that businesses are opposed to raising the minimum wage while spreading debunked claims  that raising the minimum wage leads to job losses. Contrary to Fox Business' claims that business oppose raising the minimum wage, The Washington Post reported on April 4 that a leaked poll conducted by Republican pollster Frank Luntz found "80 percent of respondents [business executives] said they supported raising their state's minimum wage, while only eight percent opposed it." The advocacy organization Small Business Majority found that 60 percent of small-business owners supported raising the minimum wage to at least $12 per hour.

Ant attack

Folklore has it that a surge in ants coming into a house is a sign of rain.   If that's right, and our house is a fair indicator of what in store for Brisbane, I should have been expecting a deluge of Biblical proportions for the last 3 months, at least.

We've had an extraordinarily persistent attempt at permanent settlement inside our house by slow moving, small black ants recently.   They've also seemingly taken a permanent interest in a couple of citrus trees, which is a pest because of the disease they bring with them to the fruit.  (Well, think they farm them, don't they?)

Now, they're even staging a serious attack on my work office (which is not at home) desk.   I rarely eat at this desk - I don't know what they hope for.

I'm off to get a can of spray...

Dark matter experimental mystery

Controversial dark-matter claim faces ultimate test : Nature News & Comment

Good article here about some experimental results which may - or may not - have already found dark matter.

Here's part of it:

Scientists have substantial evidence that dark matter exists and is at least five times as abundant as ordinary matter. But its nature remains a mystery. The leading hypothesis is that at least some of its mass is composed of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which on Earth should occasionally bump into an atomic nucleus.

DAMA’s sodium iodide crystals should produce a flash of light if this happens in the detector. And although natural radioactivity also produces such flashes, DAMA’s claim to have detected WIMPs, first made in 1998, rests on the fact that the number of flashes produced per day has varied with the seasons.

This, they say, is exactly whatis expected if the signal is produced by WIMPs that rain down on Earth as the Solar System moves through the Milky Way’s dark-matter halo². In this scenario, the number of particles crossing Earth should peak when the planet’s orbital motion lines up with that of the Sun, in early June, and should hit a low when its motion works against the Sun’s, in early December.

There is one big problem. “If it’s really dark matter, many other experiments should have seen it
already,” says Thomas Schwetz-Mangold, a theoretical physicist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany — and none has. But at the same time, all attempts to find weaknesses in the DAMA experiment, such as environmental effects that the researchers had not taken into
account, have failed. “The modulation signal is there,” says Kaixuan Ni at the University of California, San Diego, who works on a dark-matter experiment called XENON1T. “But how to interpret that signal — whether it’s from dark matter or something else — is not clear.”

The key to working this out is a number of other detectors that are about to go on line - one in Australia, too, apparently, "t the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory, which is being built in a gold mine in Victoria, Australia."

Gee.  Hope that survives the science unfriendly Coalition government.*

If these experiments do confirm dark matter as WIMPS, I reckon this will be a more momentous discovery than the detection of gravity waves.  I still think that the excitement about that was a tad overblown...

* Updated:  I see that, while being skeptical of global warming, the last Abbott budget at least funded this research.  

Movie biz talk

It seems to me that Disney is probably in for a great year with its movies, both critically and financially.

Item 1:  Zootopia (which I haven't seen yet) has already made $800 million internationally (with $231 million of that from China!)   This movie seemed to come with not much publicity build up, but I guess its uniformly strong reviews (except from the Nutty Economist - now there's a movie title for you - Steve Kates) means there has also been strong word of mouth and it's just taken off.

Item 2:  to my surprise, as I wasn't very impressed with any trailer I saw, and the source material also holds no interest,The Jungle Book is also getting strong reviews.   Not sure that I would see it, but presumably it will make money.

Item 3:  a new trailer for The BFG is out and gaining a lot of attention (deservedly - it does look like a very visually pleasing film).  Spielberg doesn't always have great outcomes with kids films (see Hook, which was barely passable), but I reckon everyone will be getting a very good feeling about this one.

[And for the adults reading who want to watch something from overseas, I will remind them to check out the extensive list of movies that SBS's on line service seems to make permanently available.   The quality of their free streaming video always seems good to me on mere ADSL; why can't the ABC on line service meet the same standards?  I watched a Dutch WW2 movie last weekend on the SBS service - Winter in Wartime - and it's pretty good.   The eccentric Big Man Japan, on the other hand - not so great, despite the rottentomato reviews.]

The Northern Hemisphere weather see-saw

Record Cold Temperatures Sweep Into Northeast; Another Arctic Blast on the Way (FORECAST) | The Weather Channel

I see that the Arctic jet stream has taken one of its southern wanders over North America leading to some record April cold temperatures.  This after the Arctic was exceptionally warm recently.

Seems a fair chance of a connection, I would guess.

Sloanian economics

Now, I'll admit I know next to nothing about the Australian trucking industry, but I would have thought it obvious that there is a distinct possibility that the large supermarket chains (amongst other corporate customers) could easily squeeze down remuneration for owner drivers to the point that they have the incentive to work dangerous hours just to make ends meet.

Labor's response was to set up an industry specific remuneration tribunal that has come up with something like an award which sees owner drivers get higher remuneration.  According to the government, (and even at least some owner driver bodies*) this is causing anguish amongst owner drivers, who say they won't get work at those rates.  (And who might be telling them that, I wonder?   Their corporate customers, no doubt.)

Riding into the midst of this is Judith Sloan, whose column in the Australian this morning is worth parsing::

But here’s the rub: the highly paid members of the RSRT contracted out the work of determining these rates to KPMG, which used a one-size-fits-all model to work out the hourly rate based on an assumption of annual hours.

But as this hired-gun outfit notes: “The annual hours worked assumption is used to convert annual fixed cost estimates into an hourly payment. Note, the use of this assumption means if a road transport contractor driver works more hours than assumed, they will be overcompensated for fixed costs incurred. Conversely, if the driver works fewer hours than assumed, they will be under-compensated for fixed costs.”

First:  I like the way KPMG becomes a "hired gun" when it comes to making a determination she doesn't like.   I wouldn't mind betting she's more sympathetic to their findings when they've commissioned by someone she's politically on side with.

Second:  does the dismissal of a "one size fits all" approach seems mean she's arguing for remuneration to more accurately reflect worker's needs?  I sure hope so, because that would indicate the rich can afford to have their tax rate increased.  Who knew Judith would be philosophically onside with John Quiggin on that point?

Third, and here's the funniest bit, from her next paragraph:

In other words, KPMG is not making any claim that minimum hourly payments will influence hours and, by inference, road safety. Indeed, there is an argument that if owner-drivers can get higher payments by dint of regulation, they may actually drive longer hours to make more money. (Economics 101: income and substitution effects.)  

Obviously, then, you just can't trust people who might be motivated to make more money than they need to cover their minimum needs.  Seems to me that this suggests companies should cap director remunerations they're prepared to offer:  pay too much and you just attract the greedy and untalented. I didn't realise that was her position.

This seems to be from the Sloanian "heads I win, tails you lose" school of minimal restraint, free market economics.  Minimum wages that no person could survive on (as per the US):  they're great for workers, who should just appreciate that they have a job.  Pay them too much and there'll be businesses sacking workers all over the place.  Pay owner drivers enough that they don't have to work dangerous hours to merely pay their truck loan:  but they'll get greedy.  Can't have that.

It's obvious (but I don't bother calling it Economics 101) that big businesses can use private contractors to screw down costs way beyond what is reasonable - we see it in the courier business too, and (in a similar vein) we get entire business models more or less based on it (Google "7-11 Franchises".)  Whether this approach is the only way to tackle that may be a moot point, but I'm not convinced that this Labor approach is entirely wrong because "unions!"

Having said that,  I guess I have to allow the possibility that the remuneration rates KPMG came up with are unrealistic - but if the corporate customers won't use owner drivers any more because they can do it more cheaply, I would hope that at least some of the owner drivers could off load their truck and get regular employment as a paid employee drivers (and dob in their boss if they are forced to drive for dangerous hours.)

In any event, I still find the arguments put up by Sloan to be self serving and hypocritical.

* although I note that the union guy on the radio this morning said they represent (I think) 20,000 owner drivers.  Seems a lot, and I assume many of them are on side with the union position on this.

Warm water summer

This summer's sea temperatures were the hottest on record for Australia: here’s why

Seems no one's entirely sure what this may mean for the weather for the next year.  (Usually means wetter weather, but the North did just have a weak Monsoon season, apparently.)   It seems unusual because the high water temperatures were behind the Brisbane (and Australian) widespread floods of 2011, but that was a La Nina year.   Anyway, luckily, Brisbane doesn't flood in winter.

An important, overlooked role of the Moon in evolution?

The Moon may play a major role in maintaining Earth's magnetic field -- ScienceDaily

The article doesn't talk about this aspect of the research, but, presumably life could have evolved very differently if there was no Moon, and the Earth's magnetic field had dwindled faster than it has.

Perhaps this is also reason to be pessimist about advance life on other planets?

People were more suspicious than I realised

I spend a very small amount of time thinking about comic book superheroes, especially on the silly matter of how "gay" the relationship between Batman and Robin seemed to be;  but I admit that there is a rather amusing article at Slate all about this particular topic.

I used to assume that it was only through our present sensibilities, and obsessions with gay identity, that people would be seeing any gay "subtext" to the Batman and Robin relationship.  So, sure, by the 1970's when gay rights were starting to become a mainstream issue people were probably sniggering about it, but back in the 1950's?    I wouldn't have thought so.

But I was very wrong.

In particular, the guy behind the comic books moral panic of the 50's (an episode that I was really only made aware of from watching the best of the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis movies , "Artists and Models") was specifically offended by it:

People noticed. One person, in particular: Dr. Fredric Wertham, a psychiatrist convinced that comic books were directly responsible for the scourge of juvenile delinquency, led a nationwide anti-comics crusade that proved hugely effective. He published his “research” (read: testimonials from his juvenile psychiatric patients strung together with anti-comics rhetoric) in a book called Seduction of the Innocent in the spring of 1954, just as he testified before Sen. Estes Kefauver’s Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency.

Wertham devoted a scant four pages of his book to Batman and Robin; he had bigger fish to fry, attacking the luridly violent, sexist, and racist imagery found in many crime comics of the day. (About which: Dude had a point.) He did call Superman out as a fascist, and he noted that Wonder Woman’s whole shtick seemed unapologetically Sapphic. When it came to the Dynamic Duo, he seemed to relish drawing the reader’s attention to Wayne Manor’s “beautiful flowers in large vases” and the fact that Bruce was given to swanning about the estate in a dressing gown.

“It is like a wish-dream,” he famously wrote, “of two homosexuals living together.”

 Dr Wertham strikes me as the Cory Bernardi of his day, then!

Into the 60's, and the writers were more aware of the issue than ever:

The shadow of Wertham lingered long into the ’60s, and Batman editors resolved to do what they could to dispel it, even if doing so came with a body count: When asked why Alfred the butler was killed off—briefly—in 1964 to be replaced by the dithering Aunt Harriet, editor Julius Schwartz averred, “There was a lot of discussion in those days about three males living in Wayne Manor.”

 The writer makes it clear that he doesn't think the "gay subtext" readings is a particularly valid exercise:

This is the issue with gay readings. Any given bond between males can be homosocial without being homoerotic, and even the most explicitly homoerotic bond can exist without ever rubbing up against homosexual desire. To willfully and sneeringly misinterpret what was clearly intended as a familial connection as a romantic one—as Wertham did in 1954 and as so many Tumblr feeds do today— seems ungenerous at best and snide at worst, no?

And that seems right to me, too.  He's also right about the "camp yet [perhaps oddly, in retrospect] not gay" reading of the 60's TV show:

 Although the show became inextricably associated with the notion of camp, its pop-art sensibility never came off as particularly gay despite the presence of guest villains played by such fierce divas as Tallulah Bankhead and Liberace.

So, there you go.  The "gay subtext in comics" issue has been around a long time, then.

It also presents a challenge.  I had been thinking of making a joke post about what it could possibly take to make Jason Soon dislike a Batman/Superman story, given that he appears to be amongst the rather small proportion of viewers of the current movie who would call it "fantastic".   Turning it into a superhero version of Brokeback Mountain?  (And don't ask what happens when Lois meets Wonder Woman, either.)

But, as I say, these gay worries about the superheros are old news now.

No, I think it may take something more dire.  Let me try:  Batman finally gets the grief management therapy he's so badly needed for years.  Newly invigorated with a love for all of life, and while taking the Batmobile on a run to have a picnic in the country, he accidentally runs over a chicken which he discovers has escaped from a cruelly overpopulated farm run by a mad, bald ex-politician who wears a cat for a toupee.  Batman commits his future energies into releasing farm animals into the wild under cover of dark.  Meanwhile, Superman makes a mistake and discovers that a bound man at an S&M club (revealed as Alfred) is not actually wanting rescue.  Embarrassed, Alfred scams Superman into blowing up a truck trailer full of chickens which Batman was actually driving towards asylum in Canada.   CGI mayhem follows....

The article with a heading that possibly has never been said before...

BBC - Future - Why we need a better way to measure farts

Actually, it's interesting, but sadly doesn't have a photo of the prototype internal sniffer that may be swallowed by unfortunate patients in future.

Don't tell your calculator about this surprising result - it'll get depressed

How many digits of pi do we really need? Eh, not that many, says NASA. - Vox

Marc Rayman, the director and chief engineer for NASA's Dawn mission, recently made this clear  in response to a question on Facebook. NASA, he explained, certainly doesn't need trillions of digits for itscalculations. In fact, they get by with using just fifteen — 3.141592653589793. It's not perfect, but it's close enough:

The most distant spacecraft from Earth is Voyager 1. It is about 12.5 billion miles away. Let's say we have a circle with a radius of exactly that size (or 25 billion miles in diameter) and we want to calculate the circumference, which is pi times the radius times 2. Using pi rounded to the 15th decimal, as I gave above, that comes out to a little more than 78 billion miles.

We don't need to be concerned here with exactly what the value is (you can multiply it out if you like) but rather what the error in the value is by not using more digits of pi. In other words, by cutting pi off at the 15th decimal point, we would calculate a circumference for that circle that is very slightly off. It turns out that our calculated circumference of the 25 billion mile diameter circle would be wrong by
1.5 inches.

Think about that. We have a circle more than 78 billion miles around, and our calculation of that distance would be off by perhaps  less than the length of your little finger.

Going further, if you used 40 digits of pi, Rayman says, you could calculate the circumference of the entire visible universe — an area with the radius of about 46 billion light years — "to an
accuracy equal to the diameter of a hydrogen atom." That'll do!