Beautiful but mad

Dezeen - 55 Blair Road by Ong & Ong

It's been a while since we've looked at a fancy bit of house architecture at Dezeen, but here we go.

The re-design of a Singaporean house shop looks beautiful in a blue/white sort of way (even the books on the shelf have been given white covers so as not to ruin the purity of the look.)

But, as is often the case with sexy architect designed interiors, when you look at the layout of the place, there is something just wildly impractical. (In Japan, it will usually be a disastrously steep staircase with no rails and sharp edges.) In this case, it seems to be that every walk from the living area to the kitchen involves going across 'stepping platforms' over the pool, and appears to be open to the sky. This in a country which, if my short visits are a guide, seems to have a thunderstorm about every second day.

Children, or even the ever so slightly tipsy, need not apply. But it's pretty, there's no denying it.

A director of literature writes...

Books will survive, but not on paper - On Line Opinion - 15/9/2009

This section caught my eye from the above article:

For a number of years, the Australia Council has funded online journals and we are viewing with particular interest the rise of the well-written blog. Canadian blogger Christian Lander's Stuff White People Like was picked up by Random House for print publication and subsequently optioned for film. Our own Marieke Hardy was the key speaker at this year's NSW Premier's Book Awards.

A blog was optioned for a film?

Marieke Hardy gets to speak at book awards? Her blog was unreadable.

Big in Japan

Regurgitator hope to savor big-in-Japan feeling again

I didn't even know they were still around. Hoodoo Gurus are doing what sounds like a birthday party gig with them in Japan. Odd.

Gropers beware

Tokyo police launch weeklong anti-groping campaign on trains

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department launched an anti-groping campaign on Monday, with some 200 high school girls handing out fliers and tissues at Ikebukuro station and plain-clothed officers being posted aboard trains on lines which run through Tokyo.

Just in case you are wondering, the handing out of tissues has nothing to do with the private habits of the gropers. Free pocket tissues, for advertising anything from mobile phone deals to English language schools, are commonly handed out in Japanese cities.

Harassing for respect

Gee, people sometimes have the hide to complain about how Australia treats visitors and residents from Asia. Have they read the Jakarta Post recently?:

Dozens of NGO activists dubbing themselves Relawan Ganyang Malaysia (Anti-Malaysia Activists) Tuesday conducted a raid on a street in Central Jakarta in a hunt for Malaysian nationals until the police halted their activities.

Starting from 10 a.m., about 40 activists, sporting red-and-white attire and paraphernalia, stopped pedestrians, motorcyclists and cars in front of their office on Jl. Diponegoro in the plush area of Menteng.

They asked them to show their ID cards or passports to prove they were not Malaysian citizens.

No Malaysian citizens were caught in the raid.

And from another report last week, perhaps referring to the same incident:

Dozens of activists from the Ganyang Malaysia (Crush Malaysia) Volunteers conducted a street sweep against the neighboring country’s citizens on Jl. Diponegoro, in Central Jakarta, on Tuesday...

One of the volunteers, Aji Kusuma, said the group initiated the sweep as they were disappointed with the government's slow response to Malaysia’s repeated claims on Indonesian cultural heritage.

Last Saturday, and the idea is spreading:

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s call for an end to excessive reactions against Malaysian nationals has fallen on deaf ears as a Betawi (Jakarta native ethnic) group reportedly plans to harass citizens of the neighboring country.

Barisan Muda Betawi (BMB) activists said they would conduct an ID check targeting Malaysians in a show of protest against the government’s failure to take tough measures against Malaysia’s disrespect for Indonesia.

And the cause of all this:

The harsh reaction against Malaysia was triggered by last month’s Discovery Channel’s TV advertorial program Enigmatic Malaysia that featured Balinese Pendet dance as a Malaysian art form.

Both the Discovery Channel and the Malaysian Tourism Ministry have apologized over the polemics.

The world is sinking beneath the waves

Credit crunch signals end of The World for Dubai’s multi-billion dollar property deal -Times Online

It's about Dubai; it's about failure. Of course I'll blog about it.

The showerhead of doom

Daily bathroom showers may deliver face full of pathogens, says study

It's not surprising to find pathogens in municipal waters, said Pace. But the CU-Boulder researchers found that some M. avium and related pathogens were clumped together in slimy "biofilms" that clung to the inside of showerheads at more than 100 times the "background" levels of municipal water. "If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy," he said.

Just lucky this research wasn't done while Howard Hughes was around to hear it.

Engineers and terrorism

September 11 Reflections: Terror and Technology - Edward Tenner

Edward Tenner reminds us that engineering has figured pretty prominently as the career of choice of several Islamic terrorists.

Well, anyone who has worked with engineers knows that they are often, shall we say, a bit of a worry.

Unintended consequences

Elton John wants to adopt Ukrainian orphan who 'has stolen his heart' - Times Online

The international children’s charity EveryChild yesterday condemned Sir Elton’s plans, claiming that they could result in more youngsters being abandoned. Anna Feuchtwang, its chief executive, said research showed that news of adoptions by wealthy foreigners encouraged mothers to place their children in care in the hope that they would get a better life. “The actions of celebrities such as Madonna, and now possibly Elton John, could be actually increasing the number of children in children’s homes in countries like Ukraine,” she said.

Mind you, any international adoption from countries with serious levels of poverty, even by run-of-the-mill Western parents, runs the risk of initiating abandonment of children. Foreign Correspondent has a story tomorrow night about this happening in Ethiopia , and it goes on in India too.

I'm not sure the answer is clear, although not giving aging pop stars publicity about their adoption intentions would be a good place to start.

Germany gets the "no-nuclear" wobbles

Germany's energy debate: Nuclear power? Yes, maybe | The Economist

As the Greens think Germany is an outstanding example of a nuclear nation vowing to go non-nuclear, it's good to see that its plans look likely to fall into disarray.

How true

Hey, I do believe xkcd is satirising Ender's Game, which I only read a few years ago and came away utterly puzzled as to why it is held in high regard by many science fiction fans. It was, in my view, just awful.

All the popular topics

Sex in space could be the key to the survival of humans | The Japan Times Online

Here's an article made for this blog: it features rats, sex, space flight, and the future of humanity.

I didn't know this:

In 1979, the Cosmos 1129 space mission, also known as Bion 5, was a joint collaboration between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was primarily a biomedical program, and on this particular mission male and female rats were sent into space and allowed to do what comes naturally.

Whatever problems there might be with having sex in microgravity, floating in space, the rats managed it. I'm not surprised really. If you've ever dissected a male rat in biology class you'll have noted the size of their testicles: I'm sure that given a sniff of a female, even a rat floating in orbit round our planet would try to get it on.

Two other species were on board Bion 5, by the way: the Japanese quail, and some carrots. But my concern here is with the rats. When they returned to Earth, the female rats were examined. Two had become pregnant, but they did not give birth. Apparently the space-embryos were reabsorbed.

The concern is that humans may not reproduce well under less than 1 G.

Observations

Currently reading: A Wrinkle in Time (last read in primary school - it's even more Christian than I remember), Julian Barne's quasi-memoir Nothing to be Frightened Of, and that book about Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome (it can be picked up and put down with gaps of weeks at a time without losing track.)

Currently sick of: politics. I find nothing of interest really going on in Australian Federal politics at the moment. I feel much better about it whenever Kevin Rudd is missing from the TV screens for any length of time. (If he disappeared entirely for 3 months, I am sure his approval ratings would be even higher.) I find Lindsay Tanner the most likeable Labor politician. Tony Abbott has a strange sense of public decency for a serious catholic: the more "s*it" he speaks, the less likeable a significant section of the community will find him.

Current movie viewing plans: see Up. Probably next weekend.

Current problems: work. Too busy, yet I want to check this blog and the internet about 12 times a day.

Something currently feeling vindicated about: my brother who is a semi-regular visitor at St Mary's in Exile in South Brisbane acknowledged it seems to be "losing its way," and attendances are probably down. (The last few sermons I have watched on the internet certainly indicate the place is still in intense navel gazing mode, and is just as dull in its own way as any "traditional" parish with an old priest who re-reads sermons from 30 years ago.)

Learn something

'Inside of a Dog - What Dogs See, Smell, and Know,' by Alexandra Horowitz - Review - NYTimes.com

You will probably learn something you didn't know about dogs if you read this book review.

A late cartoon