My own conspiracy theory

An article at the BBC talks about the rapid rise in Chinese manufactured electric vehicles:

With China accused of selling electric cars at artificially low prices, the European Union is widely expected to hit them with tariffs this week.

The BYD Seagull is a tiny, cheap, neatly styled electric vehicle (EV). An urban runabout that won’t break any speed records, but nor will it break the bank.

In China, it has a starting price of 69,800 yuan ($9,600; £7,500). If it comes to Europe, it is expected to cost at least double that figure due to safety regulations. But that would still be, by electric car standards, very cheap.

For European manufacturers that is a worrying prospect. They fear the little Seagull will become an invasive species, one of a number of Chinese-built models poised to colonise their own markets at the expense of indigenous vehicles.

China’s domestic auto industry has grown rapidly over the past two decades. Its development, along with that of the battery sector, was a major component of the “Made In China 2025” strategy, a 10-year industrial policy launched by the Communist Party in Beijing in 2015.

The result has been the breakneck development of companies like BYD, now vying with Tesla for the title of the world’s biggest manufacturer of electric vehicles. Established giants such as SAIC, the owner of the MG brand, and Volvo’s owner Geely, have also become big players in the EV market.

Last year, more than eight million electric vehicles were sold in China – about 60% of the global total, according to the International Energy Agency’s annual Global EV Outlook.

Here's a conspiracy theory I have been thinking about for months:   maybe the Chinese government requires all electric vehicles made there (and especially those destined for foreign markets) to have a software kill switch - so that once they have flooded the Western market with reasonably priced electric vehicles and they want to do something controversial (*cough* invade Taiwan), they can punish the West (if it fights back) by remotely killing all electric vehicles in a software update.   (And they will be clever - the update won't be an immediate kill - otherwise those who first lose their vehicle could warn others not to update.  No, it could just be set so that they all stop working on a certain date.   Perhaps an anniversary important to the Chinese.)   Or, now that I think of it - could the update make the explode-y batteries actually explode?  

So, if they have (say) 20% of the total American vehicle market, that's potentially an awful lot of disruption for a country so reliant on vehicles.   

I wouldn't be surprised if someone else has come up with this idea, but I haven't read it elsewhere - yet.   So, for now, I'm claiming it as a original conspiracy theory.

Romanticising the avoidance of reality

I think it was last week that 7.30 on the ABC ran a story about a 68 year old woman who, while obviously having had a hard life, was also pretty patently nuts on the matter of thinking she could ignore legal actions and (well) reality.

The story is set out at length here, but to cut it short, she had lived in a low cost social housing house in Melbourne for many years when it was part of a managing co-op on which she was a member.  After it got transferred to a different co-op, a move which she didn't agree with, she stopped paying rent to the new owner (claims she kept paying it to the old co-op?), got into arrears for nearly $10,000, got evicted, lost on appeal, got evicted a second time.  After the new co-op sold off the house to a private owner, the house was half demolished, and she still returned to an obviously dangerous house with no utilities and slept in it.  When it was being fully demolished, she was running into the yard and putting herself in danger in front of the machinery until the police intervened.

She had a hard life by the sounds, but it was also clear that she had been given alternative social housing to live in (a one bedroom unit), although it was shown as so crammed full of her furnishings and stuff from the old house that she has made it virtually unliveable.   "Downsizing" is a concept she apparently is unfamiliar with - or rather, which she has obviously avoided "on principle".  

Look, I find this type of journalism that tries to play on heartstrings when it's a person with obvious  "issues" quite irritating, especially when they paint it from one side only.  (There was not a single attempt to have anyone talk about the institutional perspective of running a social housing system when someone refuses to pay the reduced rent, even after losing repeatedly in court, because of "feels", or something.)   It is an example of (dare I say it) the type of Left-ist idealism that is so extreme it becomes divorced from reality - like the posters you will see at any indigenous rally that talk about "Australia" as an invalid concept and suggest you can just hand the country over to the indigenous.  

Let's try to keep it real, hey?

 

Now I'm definitely not going to the Greek Islands

The death of Michael Moseley, who always came across on TV as very likeable and reasonable, was sadly premature.   

But one other thing that came out of that coverage:  am I the only person to think that Greek island didn't look the least bit attractive?  And I have to say that, apart from the startlingly geography of the likes of Santorini, whenever I've watched travel vloggers in the Greek Islands I'm rarely impressed.  Rocky, dry islands with so-so beaches and some scrubby bushes here and there (OK, and the occasional olive tree), just don't do much for me.   

And the food - it's ok once in a while, but it's basically too dull.  I joked to someone recently that it has about 5 national dishes and that's it.    (And they are basically all the same at every cafe or restaurant that makes them.)

The most repulsive billionaire?

So the very week that Fauci testifies about real and continual death threats against him and his family, the ketamine addled brain of a top contender for "most repulsive billionaire" decided to throw his support publically behind the MAGA idiots.  

 

Still here

I had a couple of days off this week, in celebration of a wedding anniversary, and used points to pay for the fanciest hotel at Noosa (now the Sofitel - it used to be the Sheraton) which is right on Hastings Street.

I've never stayed there before, and I was suitably impressed.  (Mind you, if we were paying cash for it, it would want to be good for the very high price for a night with breakfast - about $600.)   The hotel is in good condition - it's been there a long time, but I would say its had an upgrade no so long ago.  The room was huge, and we chose the one facing the Noosa River at the rear.  (I don't think you can see the beach from the other side anyway, due to the rows of apartments across the road.)   It's a nice view at the back:

 

And a late sunset shot:

And the beach itself was in fine form, with a couple of fantastic 21 degree sunny Queensland days:

 

I honestly think this is probably the best beach in the world - facing north, the headland to the East means it's rarely too rough or windy, yet there are usually at least some worthwhile waves to make a swim more interesting than still water.  Nor is it prone to erosion, and the water is nearly always clear.  (Occasionally it will have a temporary issue with some seaweed/algae that blooms naturally, but excessively - but it is very infrequent.)  Dolphins are often to be seen - and koalas in the nearby national park.   And the water temperature isn't too warm in summer, like it can be a bit further north.  It's in the sweet spot of water temperatures off the Queensland coast - not too warm, not too cold.  (I think it was 21 or 22 degrees the other day - which still feels cools when the air is the same temperature, but is way better than typical Sydney beach temperatures.  A few degrees makes a lot of difference.)

So yes, it was a great time.   I could happily retire there, I think; although I do know from living around the corner at Sunshine Beach for a couple of years in my thirties  that you do get too used to beautiful views too quickly.  Anyway, winning the lottery would be required first...

PS - I forgot to mention the lorikeets that were nesting in the planter box on our room balcony.  Very charming.

A movie review, with no swearing

I watched the movie Fall on Netflix on the weekend, and was somewhat impressed.   (I only knew of it because I remembered that Critical Drinker reviewer really liked it - despite it being based around two female leads.)   

I would describe it as generally well made, B Grade melodrama with a massive hook - fear of heights - that keeps you in until the end.   A bit like how I enjoyed that first mega shark movie  as B or C grade material but with fantastic production design and imagery.   (What was it called?  oh yeah - The Meg.)

For those who don't know - two young women, both into "free" climbing (or whatever they call going up sheer cliffs with minimal ropes) - decide (for melodramatic-ish reasons I won't go into here) to do a climb up a needle-thin abandoned TV tower in the middle of the desert, and manage to get stuck on top on the tiniest of platforms. The rest of the movie is about their efforts to be rescued. 

It's one of those movies where you can be pedantic and pick apart many, many details; but I think for most people, the details don't  matter much because of the near constant queasy feeling that comes from so many shots that look convincing (or convincing enough) with respect to height and danger.  (And I say this as a person with an "average" fear of heights:  my personal fear of most note is around claustrophobia in caves.  I actually can't watch films or documentaries which spend any more than a very short time showing cavers crawling through spaces so tiny that they might get stuck.)

Now, it's clear, given the state of movie magic, that the actors would never have needed to be on top of a real 2,000 foot tower to make the movie.   But I was keen to see a "making of" video about it, and there is indeed one on Youtube.

You can skip through the first 10 or 15 minutes of the director and writer talking of their inspiration, etc, until you get to the part where they show how they made it, using a tower that was (I think they said) a hundred feet high, rather than 2,000 feet.   Quite amazing how well it is all spliced together in the movie.

But the other thing that amused me from the "making of" video is that the original script had a lot of swearing in it, and after seeing the rough cut of the movie, the studio told the director they had to change that, because the film would lose too much potential audience with the restrictive rating it would get with the amount of swearing.

(I actually had notice the unusual lack of swearing in the film - it felt like it was a film deliberately aiming for an age range of around 12 to 22.  As it turns out - it definitely was!)   

So, how did they solve the problem of removing so many swear words from a film often shot in relatively tight close ups?   They used "deepfake" style computer graphics to change the speaking mouth shapes to convincingly remove the excessive use of F's and M-F's, and change them to something milder!

That's pretty funny - and just goes to show that they could have saved themselves a lot of effort if they just knew from the start that the studio would not be happy with too much swearing.

Anyway, if you watch the movie, be aware that I know there is a lot you can have issues with - I don't consider it an A grade screenplay by any means.   And there is one technical aspect that I thought was laughably silly - wait til you see the lightbulb at the top of the tower.    But the actors do well enough with the material, and did face a challenging shoot outdoors stuck on a 100 foot tower for most of it.  And it made me feel very queasy, so it's worth watching!

I'm more convinced by the "jail him"! side

A gift link to the NYT:  Should Trump Be Sentenced to Prison? Two Opposing Views.

Rupert likes to live dangerously, apparently

I didn't know these details of Rupert's new wife:

Rupert Murdoch tied the knot for a fifth time Saturday, marrying Elena Zhukova, a retired scientist from Russia.

The couple got engaged in March after they reportedly met at a family event hosted by one of Murdoch’s ex-wives in summer 2023, according to the Guardian. Photos of Murdoch and Zhukova on a yacht soon followed, adding more fuel to the relationship rumors.

There are few details about Zhukova’s history, though multiple reports suggest that she is the mother of Dasha Zhukova, the ex-wife of former Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, who has been described as a well-connected Russian oligarch.

Whaaat?

Did we ever establish whether Wendi Deng was actually a Chinese spy?   Not satisfied with that possibility, sounds like he decided to go to bed with a possible Russian spy.   I would love to know her views of Donald Trump.

Update:  Lulz -  

 

Tweets of note

 

Reactionary conservatives have become too stupid to bother engaging with (Part 10,000)

They literally have circled around far enough to the Right to shake hands with Communists and fascist murdering leaders (both with territorial expansionary plans) because, hey, any enemy of my domestic political opponent is a friend of mine.

When have we seen such cynical and deadly politics before?  Gee, I don't know.  (The main historical difference being you can't trust the current nutball Right to renege on the peace deal with dictators.)

Amusing technological story

 You have to read the whole, long, story by that Josh Whiton to see why it's funny.   (Turns out that in poorer countries where they buy wired headphones for an Apple, they all know that they only work if Bluetooth is on, and seemingly assume that is normal.) 

The coming disappointment?

Following Trump's conviction, which I was watching live on breakfast TV this morning, I saw two American lawyer commentators saying that Trump may well avoid incarceration in a jail, and have home detention or some other non custodial punishment.

Given Trump's utter contempt for the judge and legal system throughout the trial and after it, it is hard to see why he should be treated with any form of kid gloves.   But the Washington Post confirms the coming (possible) disappointment for all of us who would love to see him in jail:

The charges against Trump are nonviolent Class E felonies, the lowest level in New York, and they are punishable by 16 months to four years in state prison. Legal experts said it is unlikely that Trump, 77, would be incarcerated, given that he had not previously been convicted of a crime.

Other options for Merchan include sentencing Trump to probation, which would mean he would need approval from a parole officer to travel outside the state. Trump also could be fined or granted a conditional discharge pegged to the requirement that he stay out of further legal trouble, legal experts said.

Also - how utterly appalling are the Trump suck ups (Mike Johnson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, etc etc) rushing to condemn the verdict by parrotting their cult leader's line?   Not a spine - or sense of decency and civic responsibility - amongst them.  It's the most dangerous and corrupt party the country has ever seen.

Update:   The New York Times commentary on this seems to treat the possibility of a custodial sentence more seriously:

A pre-sentencing report makes recommendations based on the defendant’s criminal record — Mr. Trump had none before this case — as well as his personal history and the crime itself. The former president was found guilty of falsifying business records in relation to a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, a porn star who says she had a brief sexual tryst with Mr. Trump in 2006, in order to buy her silence.

At the presentence interview, a psychologist or social worker working for the probation department may also talk to Mr. Trump, during which time the defendant can “try to make a good impression and explain why he or she deserves a lighter punishment,” according to the New York State Unified Court System.

The pre-sentencing report can also include submissions from the defense, and may describe whether “the defendant is in a counseling program or has a steady job.”

In Mr. Trump’s case, of course, he is applying — as it were — for a steady job as president of the United States, a campaign that may be complicated by his new status as a felon. Mr. Trump will likely be required to regularly report to a probation officer, and rules on travel could be imposed.

Mr. Trump was convicted of 34 Class E felonies, New York’s lowest level, each of which carry a potential penalty of up to four years in prison. Probation or home confinement are other possibilities that Justice Merchan can consider.

That said, Justice Merchan has indicated in the past that he takes white-collar crime seriously. If he did impose prison time, he would likely impose the punishment concurrently, meaning that Mr. Trump would serve time on each of the counts he was convicted of simultaneously.

Can you imagine how Trump would be in a chat with a psychologist doing a pre-sentence report??

Can you imagine how un-seriously he would take probation visits?   

The more you think about it, the more obvious it is that anything less than a custodial sentence is wildly unlikely to have significant effect or influence on him - and surely that's one of the points of punishment?

Perchance to dream

A BBC story about the (very common) exam anxiety dream:

We may have lots going on in our lives, so why is it that exams can stand out in our dreams?

"It's a common theme to dream about anything that is threatening," says Prof Espie. Just because something is threatening it doesn't mean it's bad, he says, but it can mean it's challenging - and exams are, almost by definition, challenging.

"For most people, they don't look forward to their exams, right?"

"It's on your mind during the day, and it shouldn't surprise us that it's on our mind during the night."

Exam dreams are quite common, according to Prof Espie. "Pretty much" everyone has dreams even if they do not remember them.

"For a proportion of people those [exam dreams] are not breaking into consciousness, so you're not aware of them at all," he says.

"For some people it will be breaking through a little bit more and it will be occasional, and for some people it will be an every night problem."

I do find it somewhat surprising that, even after 40 years since my last significant exams, I can still have the occasional exam dream of the typical "but I haven't prepared for this" scenario.

Lately, I seem to be having a fair few dreams in which the problem is that I can't remember whether or not I have done something important I had to do.  I hate it when you get that type of dream and you half awake, try to think "wait, that's only a dream, isn't it?" and them fall back into semi-sleep where the anxiety feeling of not having done something resumes.

There was also an article recently in the Washington Post about what the elderly tend to dream about:

It’s one of the mysteries that sleep scientists still ponder. Do dreams change as we age? If so, how and why?

Research suggests that they do, and experts say it’s probably because of changes that occur over the life span, including in jobs, relationships, trauma, even death. Dreams often reflect these changes in ways that can be disturbing as well as pleasant. They also can include old memories that the elderly relive while sleeping, such as dreaming you are back at an old job long after leaving it.....

As we age, the frequency of erotic dreams and sports dreams declines, said Michael Schredl, research director of the Sleep Laboratory at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany. While students are more likely to dream about friends, the elderly more often dream about relatives, he said. Older people also have nightmares less often, he said. But dreams about people who have died increase.

Older people also report dreams of being lost in a strange environment, or of searching for their car in a foreign city, Schredl said. “And there are a substantial number of work-related dreams in retired persons, often negatively toned — being back in the old job — if the job was stressful.”

Well yes, I still have dreams about my former job relatively often.   

The comments following the article are interesting too:

As a retired English professor, I often dream about being in class and teaching a topic that I have not prepared. For years, I had dreams about having a thirty page research paper due, and it is the night before the due date, and I have not started writing. Fun stuff. 

And:

I retired at age 81. My dreams since retiring are so real that I have to remember upon awakening that it was a dream. I also dream of trying to get home from a downtown area without a way to get home. I was really wondering why my dreams of work were so real and if something was going wrong with my brain. Loved reading that it is common for retirees.

More:

I’m a 77 year old man. Certainly have way fewer erotic or even pleasant dreams. And, consistent with your article, my dreams consist mainly of work related (I’ve been retired quite awhile) and travel. I’m often lost,can’t find my car, missed trains and the like.  

And the answer to this seems to be "no":

Will the "Oh My GOD I forgot to attend class all year now I have a final and I will fail and never graduate" dreams ever end?

Never had them in college. Started after I graduated

A few people miss having flying dreams.  (I'm not alone in enjoying them, then):

At 84 sadly I never dream of flying ! I loved those dreams ! ....

I used to have flying dreams once in a while. Where are those dreams? They were great.

Weren't they! I'm the same age as you and flying used to be a recurring lovely dream that I too haven't had for over 20 years. I could levitate and soar through the air just by stretching my arms out and making gentle movements like one does treading water. People would watch in amazement, but it was so easy for me! 

 That sounds just like my flying dreams! I would soar about 10 or 15 feet above the ground ( never higher which is good as I am afraid of heights) and be moving slowly and gently, more like floating. But the sensation was so strongly felt in my body that when I awoke I would be thinking I really ought to be able to do this during the day. Loved those dreams and also haven’t had them for about a decade.

I haven't read of anyone who has had my recurrent "proof of flying" dreams - which I described way back in 2006.    Haven't had one of those for some time, though.

Feeling sorry for the subcontinent (again)

In India:

Temperatures in Delhi have hit a record high of 52.9C (127.2F), as authorities warned of water shortages in India’s capital.

A heatwave alert has been in place for large parts of India since last week, but on Wednesday the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the temperature in the suburb of Mungeshpur had passed 50C for the first time in the city.

The temperature was more than 9C higher than expected, the IMD said, and came on the second day of record-breaking heat. On Tuesday a high of 49.9C was hit in Mungeshpur and Narela, breaking the 2002 record of 49.2C....

Many blame the soaring temperatures on scorching winds from Rajasthan state, where temperatures on Tuesday reached 50.5C.

At the SMS hospital in Rajasthan’s capital, Jaipur, so many bodies of casualties of the heat have arrived at the mortuary that its capacity has been exceeded. Police in the city say many of the victims are poor labourers, who have no choice but to work outside, and homeless people.

(As I have said in previous years, it's always hard to believe that the death toll from heat in India during heatwaves is not higher than what is reported.)

Meanwhile, recently in Pakistan:

Temperatures rose above 52 degrees Celsius (125.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh, the highest reading of the summer and close to the country’s record high amid an ongoing heat wave, the met office said on Monday.  

Yes, as hellish as that sounds, the top temperature a few years ago was even worse:

The highest temperature recorded in Pakistan was in 2017 when temperatures rose to 54 C (129.2 F) in the city of Turbat, located in the Southwestern province of Balochistan. This was the second hottest in Asia and fourth highest in the world, said Sardar Sarfaraz, Chief Meteorologist at the Pakistan Meteorological Department

 

In which I get to gloat a bit about commercial failure

So, that Furiosa movie which I was happy to criticise sight unseen (honestly, the chances of my liking it after I panned Fury Road were so infinitesimally small they can be ignored)  has more-or-less already been declared a box office failure because of its opening weekend take.

Really, we shouldn't be surprised.   There are lots of signs that the public is, generally, pretty much over sequels:  see the increasingly bad take of Marvel movies, the worse than expected performance of the last Mission Impossible despite good reviews, and the really bad performance of the last Indiana Jones (although many poor reviews - based more on an unfair allegation that it was too "woke" - did likely affect it.)    Yet the high brow Oppenheimer and the lightweight, but at least novel, movie Barbie did spectacularly well.

What's more, as at least one "bro" reviewer (The Critical Drinker - who didn't mind Furiosa and loved Fury Road) remembered to note:  the fans seem to think that Fury Road was a much bigger commercial success than it really was.   As someone in Forbes writes:

At baseline, Mad Max: Fury Road is not some extremely massive blockbuster superhit. The film earned $380 million worldwide on a $150 million budget and even more in marketing. Solid, but nothing too insane.   

People also seem to forget how long ago Fury Road came out - 2015!    I do agree with most people that it is doesn't feel like it was 9 years ago, but maybe the Covid years have warped our sense of time.   I guess the Star Wars prequels show that you can still make money from a long gap in the series, but they are probably the exception more than the rule.

Anyhoo - if I were in control of Hollywood at the moment, I would be throwing money at anything that is novel in both story and vision, not based on comics, and is good for charismatic new actors under 30.   (There seems to be a significant gap in the acting market in that age range.)

And yeah, the "remake old stuff but with a powerful female lead instead of a male" as a concept has finished its run, too.   

I'm busy (and I have a new phone)

 I would have bought another Vivo if only they hadn't abandoned the Australian market, so instead I went with a Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro - a model that seems to have had reasonably good reviews.   I paid $629 (and an extra $70 for the fast charger - which is a tad annoying, since unboxing videos on Youtube show that in some countries, they include the charger in the box.)

This is the most expensive phone I have ever bought - I'm probably really in the "mid" range now (maybe "lower mid"?), rather than "upper budget". 

Of course, being Android, with a company overlay, it takes some getting used to learning how exactly the settings are named and hidden.   My initial impressions are that this phone does not like sticking permanently to options I tell it to use - but it is also quite likely that this is due to my lack of understanding the settings yet.   I said to someone that the trickiness of changing Android phones might be useful for helping stave off dementia - we should make the elderly swap Android phones every 12 months for this reason, as a public health measure.

Anyway, I like the screen, but it seems to keep giving me notifications on the lock screen that I don't find easily when I unlock the phone.  Odd.

This phone is also supposed to have an eSim option, but it's not obvious from the settings.  I will be annoyed if that is not really there.  More investigation needed.

So yeah, these initial comments are sounding pretty cautious - hopefully it's just teething issues. 

Update:  Am feeling pretty sure that there is in fact no eSim capability, despite the advertising on the JB Hi Fi website, and the specific enquiry about that when I was buying it.  Further discussion with the store is taking place.

Update 2:  Now, I'm not so sure.  Optus App says my phone is compatible to buy eSim here.  Yet in settings, there is no reference to eSim at all.   I almost feel forced to try buying a cheap eSim plan and try loading it to make sure it's real...

Update 3:  Well, that took another couple of hours of investigation and fiddling, and even then the answer was only found via a Reddit search!  To get the phone to show the "Use eSim" option in network settings, you have to change the region from Australia to another country - UK, Singapore, or Malaysia all work, but other countries are like Australia and don't show it at all.   (By which I mean - the slide button to "Use eSim" simply does not appear.  Change region, and it's there.)

I then could load a cheap local eSim for data service only (bought online for US$4.50), and it worked!  I don't know if I had to, but I switched the region back to Australia and it still worked.    This is secret knowledge that was not easy to track down.  Ordinary Google searches did not turn it up.

This is excellent:   I can now pre purchase an eSim and be ready to go without finding a sim card at the airport on arrival.  

The game-ification of violence [an old(er) man complaint]

There was very little chance that I would like any series based on a video game that begins with a warning of "strong blood and violence", but I gave the first episode of Fallout a go.   

I found it very un-engaging and dull:  as I said to my son (who didn't exactly give it a rave review, either) nothing about it feels real.   By which I meant:  "of course a story based on a post apocalyptic video game is not going to 'feel real' in a literal sense, but in the shallow way the characters feel drawn, the emphasis on visual effects, and the over-the-top violence and blood, its video game origins are far too obvious."

And the frequent ironic use of 50's music just played like a tiresome gimmick we've seen before that was trying too hard.   Hey, I've found a review that complains about it feeling shallow, too:

Startlingly glib, one-note, and yet self-assured in its vacant design, the series reveals its shallow hand very early. “Fallout” endlessly reprises the wholesome quaintness vs. the grotesque or freakishly ruthlessness mode of apposition and fails to do anything remotely interesting with it, reinforcing what swiftly becomes a long, tiresome pattern and slog....

...the game’s milieu was one of atompunk retrofuturism, juxtaposing 1950s post-war idealism—the naïve promise of space-age technology and nuclear war anxieties— against the framework of a ravaged and dangerous apocalypse. While “Fallout,” the series, presents the concepts and throwback aesthetics faithfully, that’s unfortunately all it’s got in its trivial toolkit. What it does with it beyond that devoted presentation is just banal, insipidly trying to make a big meal out of a thin idea that is barely sustainable nourishment. 

Finally, let me slip into my oft-repeated complaint:  the "game-ification" of, and desensitisation to, ultra violence that both modern movies and video games have brought is shameful and a bad thing for society.   (And my follow up for even-handedness - I know, past generations might have thought nothing of a day out to view a real execution, or of kids watching a cow or pig being slaughtered.   I don't think watching human executions is ever a sign of a good society, either.)    But the way we have gone from at least some adults thinking that young kids playing with toy guns was an unfortunate endorsement of violence, to now barely a parent being concerned that their 10 year old is splattering characters and watching them explode in a gallon of blood is, well, really something. 

Anyway, I think it likely that the really enthusiastic reviews will mainly come from people under 40 who have played the game.  As Rolling Stone wrote:

...like the soundtrack, there are pieces of so many other movies and shows — Apple’s Silo beat it to market by a year with its own (albeit more dramatic) portrait of post-apocalyptic underground life — that much of it plays as ripping off other material, even though the games have been around in various forms since the late Nineties. 

...even if Last of Us didn’t exist, Fallout would still feel like an arch and overly-familiar series, with enough interesting performances and background details to keep it from being a waste of time, but not enough spark of its own to be fully satisfying. Though maybe fans of the game will feel differently.

 

Turbulence worry

I'm pleased to see that the nearly all reporting on the terrible Singapore Airlines turbulence injury story has included reference to studies that said climate change has already increased turbulence and it will get worse.   I had wondered if this might be overlooked, but no:

Here's a Nature article about it. 

What a surprise - Republican shameful cowardice on full display

From the Washington Post, the predictable but still appalling retreat:

Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who suspended her run for the Republican nomination for president in early March, announced she will vote for Donald Trump but reiterated that he should not assume that her supporters will back him.

“I will be voting for Trump. Having said that, I stand by what I said in my suspension speech,” Haley said Wednesday. “Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me and not assume that they’re just going to be with him. And I genuinely hope he does.”

From the comments that follow:

If the bootlickers had any sense they would realize that they could stop having to lick boots if they simply joined forces. But they don’t.

And:

Odd history I did not know

There's a lot of history about, so can I forgiven for not knowing this until it turned up in a Twitter thread recently?:

Stetson Kennedy, a folklorist and social crusader who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s and wrote a lurid exposé of its activities, “I Rode With the Ku Klux Klan,” died on Saturday in St. Augustine, Fla. He was 94.

The cause was complications of bleeding of the brain, said his wife, Sandra Parks.

Mr. Kennedy developed his sense of racial injustice early. A native of Jacksonville, Fla., he saw the hardships of black Floridians when he knocked on doors collecting payments for his father’s furniture store. His social concerns developed further when he began collecting folklore data for the Federal Writers’ Project in Key West, Tampa and camps for turpentine workers in north Florida, where conditions were close to slavery.

After being rejected by the Army because of a bad back, he threw himself into unmasking the Ku Klux Klan as well as the Columbians, a Georgia neo-Nazi group. He was inspired in part by a tale told by an interview subject whose friend had been the victim of a racial murder in Key West.

As an agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Kennedy, by his own account, infiltrated the Klavern in Stone Mountain and worked as a Klavalier, or Klan strong-arm man. He leaked his findings to, among others, the Washington Post columnist Drew Pearson, the Anti-Defamation League and the producers of the radio show “Superman,” who used information about the Klan’s rituals and code words in a multi-episode story titled “Clan of the Fiery Cross.”

That's from his New York Times obituary, and it goes on to note some controversy over his claims, and this is explained in lengthy detail at Wikipedia. 

The main reason I am inclined to post about it is because I didn't know the KKK was mocked in the Superman radio show.  According to this site's account, the show really was influential in the decline of the outfit:

The Superman writers created a thinly disguised version of the Ku Klux Klan for "The Clan of the Fiery Cross". A newly revived Klan had emerged in the aftermath of WWII and was making plans to expand recruitment into the Industrial Belt and the West. Folklorist Stetson Kennedy had infiltrated the Florida branch of the revised Klan to learn their secrets and became understandably frightened by what he had learned. Even more frightening, when Kennedy presented his discoveries to local authorities, the police were either frightened to move against the Klan or were already under Klan control. However, Kennedy was able to share his information with the Superman writers.

"The Clan of the Fiery Cross" story arc was developed and broadcast in June of 1946. The story begins with Jimmy Olsen managing the Unity House baseball club and excited over their prospects with new pitcher Tommy Lee whose family recently moved to the neighborhood. Naturally, this upsets the team's former pitcher, Chuck Riggs, who crowds the plate during batting practice and accidentally gets beaned. Riggs' uncle Matt, the Grand Scorpion of the Clan of the Fiery Cross, decides that Tommy Lee and his family are not "real Americans" (it is not revealed until the third episode that Lee's family are Chinese and his father was appointed to the city medical department over one of Riggs' friends).

Through most of the sixteen episodes of the "Fiery Cross" story arc, the Clan and its Grand Scorpion manage to stay one step ahead of the Man of Steel until they try to execute Jimmy Olsen and Daily Planet editor Perry White. Superman steps in with seconds to spare, but the Grand Scorpion escapes to confer with the Clan's national leader, the Grand Imperial Mogul. The Mogul berates the Grand Scorpion for actually believing the Clan's racist propaganda, stating that it was simply a device to get new members and that the Clan's hierarchy was taking a cut on the sale of robes. The real KKK found nothing amusing about the story arc and tried to start a boycott against the sponsor, Kellogg's PEP Cereal. By this point, the Klan had been made to look foolish, the boycott went nowhere, and Mutual reported an increase in Superman's ratings.

Interestingly, the Fiery Cross story arc kept the actual Ku Klux Klan thinly disguised, but the real damage to the Klan came in the fourteenth episode when Matt Riggs visits the national leader, The Grand Imperial Mogul of the Fiery Cross. The Mogul cannot believe that Riggs believes the hatred hokum the group uses to attract "the suckers". Had the Klan simply ignored Superman's accusations, the revelations of their ceremonies and codes probably would have dismissed or forgotten. Instead, the Klan began calling for a boycott against the program's sponsor, Kellogg's PEP Cereal. To Kellogg's credit, the folks in Battle Creek stood by the Man of Steel. The Klan's reputation and power depended upon their mystique. With their ceremonies and secrets revealed and made to look ridiculous, the Klan's mystique and power evaporated. Recruitment dried up in the months after "The Clan of the Fiery Cross". The Klan resurfaced briefly in the late 50's and early 60's, but they were recognized as being little more than a white supremacist terrorist group with little or no political power. The most important lesson of The Clan of the Fiery Cross is that the power of hate groups evaporates when the light is shone on them and their tactics. 

Yay for Superman, I guess...

Who put a curse on the Olympics?

The Tokyo Olympics should have been a fun time in what is now a wildly popular international tourist destination.  But instead, Covid meant it was an empty audience affair that was pretty much devoid of memorable highlights.

Now, Paris is getting close to its hosting role, and could the international climate possibly get any worse for the expectation of violent, possibly murderous, protest, especially given the city's high Muslim population?   The gendarmes heading into New Caledonia will probably end up killing a few Kanaks too, and I can imagine South Pacific Islanders wanting to protest colonialism.  I also wouldn't be entirely comfortable if I were a Russian competitor or supporter either - even though they are attending under a neutral flag. 

It all puts the case for locating the games permanently in Greece all the stronger.  Maybe Brisbane should offer to help fund a relocation of its Olympics to Athens, too.  Would save a lot of the hassle and indecision we're seeing here...

AI stuff, again

Here's an article suggesting that artificial superintelligences going rogue is what prevents civilisations ever spreading beyond their home planet:

 I believe the emergence of ASI could be such a filter. AI’s rapid advancement, potentially leading to ASI, may intersect with a critical phase in a civilization’s development – the transition from a single-planet species to a multi-planetary one.

This is where many civilizations could falter, with AI making much more rapid progress than our ability either to control it or sustainably explore and populate our Solar System.

The challenge with AI, and specifically ASI, lies in its autonomous, self-amplifying and improving nature. It possesses the potential to enhance its own capabilities at a speed that outpaces our own evolutionary timelines without AI.

The potential for something to go badly wrong is enormous, leading to the downfall of both biological and AI civilizations before they ever get the chance to become multi-planetary. For example, if nations increasingly rely on and cede power to autonomous AI systems that compete against each other, military capabilities could be used to kill and destroy on an unprecedented scale. This could potentially lead to the destruction of our entire civilization, including the AI systems themselves.

In this scenario, I estimate the typical longevity of a technological civilization might be less than 100 years. That’s roughly the time between being able to receive and broadcast signals between the stars (1960) and the estimated emergence of ASI (2040) on Earth. This is alarmingly short when set against the cosmic timescale of billions of years.

Interesting bit of speculation.  

And here, at the New York Times, an article explaining that it seems we are getting a better understanding of how Large Language Models "think", which is a good thing if you want to be able to control them:

The team summarized its findings in a blog post called “Mapping the Mind of a Large Language Model.”

The researchers looked inside one of Anthropic’s A.I. models — Claude 3 Sonnet, a version of the company’s Claude 3 language model — and used a technique known as “dictionary learning” to uncover patterns in how combinations of neurons, the mathematical units inside the A.I. model, were activated when Claude was prompted to talk about certain topics. They identified roughly 10 million of these patterns, which they call “features.”

They found that one feature, for example, was active whenever Claude was asked to talk about San Francisco. Other features were active whenever topics like immunology or specific scientific terms, such as the chemical element lithium, were mentioned. And some features were linked to more abstract concepts, like deception or gender bias.

They also found that manually turning certain features on or off could change how the A.I. system behaved, or could get the system to even break its own rules.

For example, they discovered that if they forced a feature linked to the concept of sycophancy to activate more strongly, Claude would respond with flowery, over-the-top praise for the user, including in situations where flattery was inappropriate.

Chris Olah, who led the Anthropic interpretability research team, said in an interview that these findings could allow A.I. companies to control their models more effectively.

Neat.  I mean, if Dr Smith managed to reprogram the Jupiter 2's robot so easily, LLM's should be equally susceptible to controlling manipulation! 

 

Maybe the last photo from the Vivo

The light coming in from the window yesterday morning was striking just this camillia flower in a vase on the dining table.  So, a photo was attempted, and I think it looks pretty nice:

The phone has stopped restarting long enough for me to post this. Good.

Oh!  Now that I recognise the pepper mill on the left, maybe re-cropping is in order.  Here we go...

Now it seems the vase is slightly crooked. A tiny straightening is called for...

Ok, still not happy.  I'm going to start again, and object erase out the pepper grinder, and straighten the vase.

That'll do.

Time for a new phone

Oh dear.  I had been thinking it was time for a phone upgrade, even though the almost completely unknown Vivo model I bought in 2020 was still showing great battery life and had been very reliable (as I said to my daughter only last week, prompting her warning "Don't say that - it will stop working now!").  Yes, it has today developed a troublesome major problem.    My daughter, the soothsayer.  (I did drop it on a hard floor recently - but I've done that before, so I don't know if there is any connection with its current problem.)

Sadly Vivo, a brand name which festoons many a shop in Singapore and Malaysia, has apparently abandoned the Australian market, and the only models to be found here seem to be the very cheap ones probably left over from bulk buys a couple of years ago.

In fact, I like the look of a new Vivo model (mid range - I am still unconvinced of the benefits of expensive models) just released in Asia. But short of buying it from an Ebay seller based in Malaysia, or another trip to Singapore, I am unable to get it here.

I am very unsure of what to buy in its place.  I am been tempted to go with Xiaomi - I like to keep with Chinese brands as I figure they will help me when forced to welcome My New Asia Overlords on the streets sometime in the next decade. "Look!" I will exclaim while waving my phone at them "I've been using your nation's phones for years!  And I have the CGTN app." 

But the mid range Google Pixels get very strong reviews.  They just look a little bland to me.   

I know Oppo is made by the same company that does Vivo, but when I see their screens in the stores, they just don't seem as good as on my lovely, apparently dying, Vivo.

I was pretty happy with my Motorola cheapo - in fact, I can't remember why I stopped using it.  I think it was just the battery?   Motorola has kept strong in the market and has a good range of phones now, but I'm just not sure how they are in the camera game, which really has become the important thing for me.

I've even considered going back to a Samsung mid ranger - quite a lot of people seem to like the A55 which is pretty new, but gee, you don't even get a charger in a Samsung box now.

I see that the Xiaomi Redmi phones have eSim - something I think will save a lot of fuss when travelling overseas.  That and a camera with a whopping 200MP sensor probably means it's a done deal.

We'll see....

 

Not an age thing: it's a Hollywood thing?

I finally caught up with the 2020 science fiction movie on Amazon "The Vast of Night" on the weekend.   As it got good reviews, and I'm generally a sucker for a decent UFO movie (not that there are that many around), I had reasonably high hopes.

Unfortunately, they weren't exactly met.   Sure, the film looks good and is technically accomplished (with its long tracking shots, primarily) and is very atmospheric in its 1950's remote small town America at night setting; but there are a couple of choices by the writer/director that are very odd and just jarring:

a.  the whole framing devise as if we are watching a remade Twilight Zone style show.  Why??  This made no sense to me.  I had the feeling it was going to be explained by the end in some meta context, but no.

b.  the pace of dialogue - I'm not sure who can most be blamed amongst modern directors for thinking it makes a film realistic if you have the characters always talking at (and often over) each other at a furious rate, but this film certainly has it to excess.   It just did not feel authentic to the way people you would expect small town Americans in that era to interact.  

On a more depressing note, this film did make me realise - gee, it seems a good few years now since I felt really blown away by a film - or even just "pleasantly surprised that this is so much better than I was expecting."   I mean, I've seen films which were OK, or enjoyable enough, or interesting in their way, but I would have to search to find the last one I just really thought blew me away and that I had no issues with.    

And this also made me think - weren't my parents, in their 50's and early 60's, similarly dismissive of films coming out at that time?   Am I just suffering the age related "films/music/culture generally? was/ were so much better back when I was younger" effect.

Somehow, I don't think it's a case of age related disappointment - there seems to be enough general unhappiness with the state of Hollywood to soothe my concerns.

But gee, it's hard to feel certain...

Sounds pretty appalling

Who would want to live there?:

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas issued a full pardon on Thursday to a former US army sergeant convicted of murder for fatally shooting an armed demonstrator in 2020 during nationwide protests against police violence and racial injustice.

Abbott announced the pardon just minutes after the Texas board of pardons and paroles disclosed it had made a unanimous recommendation that Daniel Perry be pardoned and have his firearms rights restored. Perry has been held in state prison on a 25-year sentence since his conviction in 2023....

Court records released in April showed that in the weeks leading up to the murder, Perry sent racist messages about protesters, shared white supremacist memes and talked about how he “might have to kill a few people” who were demonstrating outside his house. In a 76-page filing containing Perry’s private and public communications, he compared the Black Lives Matter movement to “a zoo full of monkeys that are freaking out flinging their shit”.

Abbott’s demand for a review of Perry’s case followed pressure from the far-right former Fox News star Tucker Carlson, who on national television had urged the Republican governor to intervene after the former sergeant was convicted at trial in April 2022. While Carlson was still a top-rated host at the network, he dedicated a segment to directly challenging Abbott to appear on the show and discuss pardoning Perry – calling the case a “legal atrocity” that he blamed on progressive prosecutors. Abbott announced he was directing a review of Perry’s conviction the next day.

It would seem that the jury thought the guy was not acting in self defence, but the board of pardons just decided "we don't care what the jury thought":

Prosecutors argued at trial that Perry could have driven away without opening fire and witnesses testified that they never saw Foster raise his gun. The sergeant’s defense attorneys argued Foster, who was white, did raise the rifle and that Perry had no choice but to shoot. Perry, who is also white, did not take the witness stand and jurors deliberated for two days before finding him guilty.

More appalling Republican stuff:

 

 

Max leaves me cold (and puzzled)

I can't for the life of me understand the critical approval George Miller gets for movies set in a dystopian world with (as far as I know) no particular explanation as to how it got that way, characters for whom there is nothing to emotional invest in, and no real thematic coherence:  just an excuse for car chases combined with circus acts and a general heavy metal vibe.   I mean, if the only approval it got was from recreational drug taking revheads and heavy metal freaks, I could understand it - they might think it a kind of world they would enjoy living in.  But no, lots and lots of otherwise credible, mature age critics thought Fury Road was the bee's knees, including Peter Bradshaw from the Guardian, whose byline photo makes him look like the last person on Earth who would be caught owning a V8.

I mean, I don't "get" Tolkien either - but I can kind of see why some might take enjoyment from him.  I just put it down to "a difference in genre tastes".   But with Mad Max, I am at a complete loss as to understand why it doesn't have the smallest audience, and (perhaps more importantly) why more proper critics don't agree with me!

Anyway, that's by way of background to noting that (thank God) the new Mad Max film which is soon in cinemas is getting "not quite as good as Fury Road" reviews, but still reviews that are (no doubt) far too good.  (Again, see Peter Bradshaw).   

I hope it is a box office disappointment, but it will probably be me who is upset. 

Update:  I just went back and re-read my 2016 opinion of Fury Road.  It was even more savage than I remembered.:)

 

 

   

Just when you think you couldn't think any less of Scotty from Marketing

 Also - it seems like Trump's makeup was applied with a boot brush.

Update:  This is funny, but the reason why will be forgotten for the casual reader in 30 years time:

A depressing story

The underfunding of psychiatric care in virtually all Western countries seems just standard practice nowadays, but it's depressing to read about its effects in your own locality:

Three people have taken their own lives inside a locked mental health unit at The Prince Charles Hospital in the past 16 months, triggering an independent review.

Two other patients were able to severely self-harm inside the 60-bed unit during the same period, the last one being in April.

Families of the patients and unit staff have this week been advised of the review, which will begin later this month and is expected to be finished by late July.

Mental health support organisation SANE said families "have an expectation" that their loved ones were "going to be safe" when they were in hospital.

"Families and carers often express significant relief having gotten someone to hospital, that's often a very difficult thing to do to actually get someone admitted," chief executive Rachel Green said.

Further down, look at these figures:

Data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare showed 18 people died by suicide in an acute psychiatric unit in 2020-21, up from 15 the year before. 

Adjunct Professor Hancock said the five incidents inside The Prince Charles Hospital mental health unit involved both men and women across different age ranges and under the care of different psychiatrists.

Incidents had occurred inside both wards of the mental health unit....

Professor Emmerson, a member of the Queensland Mental Health Commission advisory council, said the state was about 3000 mental health staff and 370 beds short of what was needed in the public sector.

"Our mental health units are full all the time," Professor Emmerson said.

"Psychiatrists are faced every day with having to make decisions of discharging people early who should be in hospital, but because you've got sicker people, and riskier people, sitting in the emergency department, we're forced to discharge people from hospital prematurely.

"We don't yet have the capacity in the community mental health teams to provide the follow up these people need."

 

This decade's high colonic, I guess

"High colonics" must have started as an American, middle-class-to-rich person's health fad in the late 1980's, I would say, given that it was well known enough to feature as a joke in Steve Martin's amusing 1991 movie LA Story.

You don't hear much about them anymore, and I see from this article in the New York Times that the new thing for the person with too much money is IV drip therapy.   (Maybe its been around for a while and it's just me who hasn't noticed.)   From the article:

IV drip therapy was first popularized about a decade ago as a novelty reserved for vacations and bachelorette parties, but it has since become embedded in the wellness sphere. The 30-to-45-minute treatments cost anywhere from $100 to $1,000, depending on the concoction and provider, and have been embraced by the Hollywood elite — Gwyneth Paltrow, Chrissy Teigen and Harry Styles have all partaken. Today, IV drip therapy is a staple at medical spas, resort hotels and strip malls. Some companies even make house calls.

And over the last several months, a handful of high-end residential buildings in Los Angeles, Miami and Manhattan began offering the treatments in house, allowing tenants to make them a core feature of their personal wellness routine.

At the Park, which started offering the service at the end of 2023, tenants can schedule an IV drip in their apartment or in a treatment room where they can also book massages, Botox or fillers.

“If you are a healthy person, you really can’t do it too often, unless you’re doing it three or four times a day,” said Danielle Remington, director of events and partnerships at Drip Hydration, the service provider for the Park.

Drip Hydration and other providers market their formulas as elixirs that can improve sleep and mental clarity, brighten your skin and boost your athletic performance. However, there is scant scientific research to bolster these claims. Critics argue that at best, IV drips are a wildly overpriced alternative to drinking a glass of water, and at worst, they could harm people with underlying health conditions like kidney disease or hypertension. In 2018, Kendall Jenner was hospitalized after a bad reaction to an IV drip. And last year, a woman died after receiving IV drip therapy at Luxe Med Spa in Wortham, Texas; its medical director’s license was later temporarily restricted by the state’s medical board.

Not good.