Holt returns

Back in 2006 and 2007, I recommended articles by Jim Holt.  In fact, I see that my enjoyment of his science eriting (usually looking at the big, big questions of life, the universe, and everything) extends at least back to articles in Slate in 2004.  

So it's good to see he has a book out on the basic question Why Does the World Exist? and it's getting some very good reviews.  I like this extract from that last link:

... the very intractability of the problem turns out to have a salutary (and fun) side effect: All the ordinary kinds of answers being impossible, one begins to think in earnest about the extraordinary ones. This is a book that gets us to take seriously, at least for a few pages, the proposition that the universe was brought into being by the abstract idea of Goodness. (Hey, Plato thought so.) Elsewhere, we get a probabilistic, Bayesian case for the existence of God. We hear Heidegger speculate that nothingness is an agent, that noth-ing is a verb (“Das Nichts nichtet,” or “Nothing noths”: shades of Hopkins, for whom the self “selves”); perhaps, then, nothing nothed itself, thereby creating Being. We contemplate panpsychism, the theory that consciousness is a fundamental property, irreducible to physical components and pervasive throughout the universe: that, in the words of the astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington, “the stuff of the world is mind-stuff.”

The weirdness goes on. We learn—and I am quoting here because my powers to intelligently paraphrase this are limited—that “a tiny bit of energy-filled vacuum could spontaneously ‘tunnel’ into existence,” and then, bang, expand to become the universe. We learn that a hundred-thousandth of a gram of matter would suffice to generate a universe like ours, which means it’s conceivable that we were created by some extraterrestrial nerd in an extra-universal lab. We entertain the possibility, favored by some physicists, that “nothingness is unstable,” which means something was bound to happen. And we entertain the possibility that everything was bound to happen. That is the principle of fecundity: the idea that all possible worlds are real. Muse on the implications of that one for your personal life—or lives—on your next subway ride home.

Big (-ish) brother in your pocket

Android 4.1 ‘Jelly Bean’ Review | | Independent Editor's choice Blogs

From this review of the new Android operating system (made by Google), we get this description of the very futuristic sounding (and privacy damaging, I assume) Google Now:

With Android 4.1 Google have introduced a major new feature called “Google Now’. It is a kind of self aware personal organiser/assistant, designed to serve up useful information based on your location and behaviour. It sounds pretty ominous, but it’s actually quite brilliant. By analysing your search terms and cross-referencing them with your calendar and current location, Google Now provides an array of useful information without any effort on your part.

It provides public transport information when you’re near a bus stop or train station, it suggests places to eat and visit when you’re away travelling, as well as up-to-date weather, sports results for your favourite teams and routes back to your home when you’re out and about. It even takes real-time traffic data into consideration when suggesting your route home, then estimates your arrival time accordingly.

All of this is achieved without the user entering in any information. It intelligently guesses where you live and work, what teams you support, even which flights you might be taking, all with surprising accuracy. This is all thanks to the insight it gains from the location and use of your smartphone within the Google ecosystem. The results are elegantly displayed in a series of informative and well-designed cards, which you can simply swipe away with your finger if they are no longer needed.

This might sound a little ‘Big Brother-esque’ on paper, but Google Now manages to present the information it interprets in a very user-friendly and unobtrusive way. Rather than feeling like an invasion of privacy, it feels more like an essential addition to the modern mobile experience.

Nice house

It's been a while since I've looked through Dezeen for some nice architecture, but I do like this Japanese house, especially the bathroom on the top that has an unusual outlook.  (I would be nervous using it during a summer storm though.)  Here it is:

Banks discussed

The LIBOR scandal: The rotten heart of finance | The Economist

The Economist considers that that LIBOR scandal is a very serious matter, with international implications.

A libertarian inclined free market economist from Melbourne, who repeatedly at his blog notes that he doesn't watch the ABC and spends all of his time lately promoting political stuff (and cherry picked graphs with inadequate explanation) of benefit to the Coalition, taking his cue from one bit of Wall Street Journal commentary says (my paraphrase) "oh pooh, this is all boring and about nothing important."   I wonder if he has read another piece from the WSJ which seems to me to argue "of course the banks may have been manipulating this for profit, and we need to fix the system and move on because we just can't afford massive litigation about this."

Who to believe...?

NASA gets dramatic

The New York Times mentioned this NASA video as being slick and popular on Youtube, and a cut above their usual bland stuff.   All quite true.  And it does seems a very optimistic way to try to land a rover on Mars next month:

Tube problem

Getting your tubes tied: Why do young women have a hard time getting sterilized? - Slate Magazine

I would be pretty sure the same thing happens in Australia:  doctors being very, very reluctant to do tubal ligation at the request of young-ish women who simply say they never want to have children.

The article notes that there are figures on the number of women who actually go on to regret having this done:

According to analyses of the CREST data, there is a cumulative 12.7 percent probability that any woman would express regret within 14 years of sterilization. But for women under the age of 30 at the time of the procedure, there is a 20.3 percent cumulative probability that they would eventually want to take it all back (compared to only 5.9 percent in the older cohort). Of course, there are other factors that may predict regret, including partner/doctor pressure and disagreement among partners about the procedure. However, the CREST research shows that sterilization at a young age is the strongest predictor of regret. (Incidentally, this trend holds true with young men getting vasectomies.)

I was also surprised at the failure rate for the operation:

 According to the Collaborative Review of Sterilization (CREST) study, the 10-year probability of pregnancy following a ligation is 18.5 per 1,000 procedures, about seven of which could be ectopic, depending on surgical method and age.

 I guess I just assumed it could be done in such a way as to virtually assure success.   (I know vasectomies can also fail - let me check the rate - around 1 in a 1000 according to this site.  I guess that makes sense.)

Anyway, I fully understand doctors' reluctance to use tubal ligation on young women.  

Rain and the jet stream

BBC News - Why, oh why, does it keep raining?

Here's an article noting that the change in the jet stream position is the main reason for Britain's wet summer.  The possible relationship between this and climate change is not discussed much.

The oxtail noted (or ox tail, if you prefer)

Before I forget, and primarily for my own future reference, I followed this recipe for oxtail cooked in the pressure cooker on Saturday night.   Quite successful, although I did just use a can of tomatoes instead of fresh ones, added some celery and bits of left over fennel, and next time I would drain off some of the oil before frying the vegetables.  Still, the sauce was tasty and rich, and the cooking time was right.

I see now that the guy (Steffen) who put up this recipe is (or was in 2007) ""a Ph.D physicist, primarily working on data acquisition and computing at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory." !

I'm even more impressed now.

I love a good oxtail stew.  What the heck: just in case his website goes down, I'll copy the recipe here:
.

Doing my bit

Because I am fan of Wordperfect, I will now embed their (kinda dull) promo for version X6, which was released earlier this year:



It's not just me who likes it.   And here's another person.  In fact, given that it probably picks up virtually no new users, it may be a fair assumption that nearly all Wordperfect users have been dedicated to it for years and years and love it in a way that is a tad unnatural in the scheme of how people should feel about  word processing software.   

As for the X6 version I like the idea of the eBook publisher.  I would probably never use it, but take comfort in knowing it was there. 

Hunting down the museum

Well, this is slightly amusing.   In last night's post, I noted a reference in The Japan Times to a "Museum of Perverts" in Kagurazaka.   Oddly, Googling this place is drawing a blank, as far as I can see.   (Well, there is no obvious link, anyway.)   So I'm a bit puzzled about this.

But looking at my Sitemeter tonight, I see that it was not only me, but someone from UNESCO in Paris was Googling for it too:

Good to see a UN body putting in the effort to list all culturally significant museums of the world...

I'm sure the answer is "no"

Is crude Ted really a family film?

I won't be seeing "Ted":  I don't even care much for Family Guy, so I can hardly be called a Seth MacFarlane fan.  I don't appreciate much in the way of crude humour - but it seems the world can't get enough of it.   I sort of thought that most limits had been reached with the big bodily fluid joke in Something About Mary (which didn't even make sense, really) but how wrong I was.  (Apparently, because I don't go to see the movies which are reviewed as being adult raunchy movies anyway.)

What was formerly humour that was mainly between men in a private setting is now up on the screen for women and young teenagers to see as well.   The moviemakers who specialise in this might argue that it is really just being open about a level of humour that was always there, but I'm far from convinced that universalizing such stuff is a good thing.

And people really are pretty stupid when it comes to what they will take their kids to see.  That's a given.

A wetter world?

Of course, it may only be an impression given by better reporting, but I can't help but think that the world still seems to be a wetter place in the last 6 to 12 months, despite the easing of the la nina.

Locally, Brisbane has had an unusually grey and damp winter, and it seems that all of Queensland is affected, even as we are being warned that a el nino seems to be developing:

Unseasonable downpours have hit north and central west Queensland, sparking flood warnings, as the Townsville region recorded its wettest July day in more than 60 years. SINCE 9am (AEST) on Monday, the region has had between 80 and 100 millimetres of rain - well beyond the previous July record of 51mm in a day set in 1950, the ABC reported.

There has been lots of news of the wet summer in England:

Speaking in Yealmpton, Richard Cresswell from the Environment Agency says the "fifth flood event" of the 2012 summer is "unprecedented".

 and floods in Russia have killed scores.  Now that I Google the topic, I see that there have been floods in India, although the article notes that the total monsoon rainfall is currently "running at 31% below annual average."   As the monsoon season can last til September, I wonder what the figure will end up at. 

It may end up bolstering my hunch, developed over the last couple of years, that increased intensity of flooding may be the first really problematic aspect of global warming that is widely recognised.

Should I be surprised? - I can't decide

From phys.org:

“We present a novel twist present in quantum mechanics, absent in its classical counterpart: We are able to show that very natural, reasonable questions about quantum measurement are, intriguingly, undecidable,” Eisert told Phys.org. “At the same time, the corresponding classical problem is decidable.”

The problem in question involves a measurement device that generates any one of multiple outputs depending on the outcome of the measurement. The output state is then fed back into the device as the input, leading to a new output, and the process repeats. The question is whether there exist any finite sequences of measurement outcomes that never occur.

“The problem as such is simple - merely asking whether certain outcomes can occur in quantum measurements,” Eisert said.

When using a classical measurement device, the physicists show that they can always find an algorithm that can answer whether or not any outputs with zero probability exist. So in a classical context, the problem is decidable.

However, when using a quantum measurement device, the physicists show that there cannot be an algorithm that always provides the correct answer, and so the problem becomes undecidable. The scientists explain that the undecidability arises from interference in the quantum device, implying that, at least in this scenario, undecidability appears to be a genuine quantum property.

 An early thought:  assuming quantum involvement in brain cells, does this have relevance to the question of free will?

Japan for the better, or worse?

Youth of the ice age - FT.com

Speaking of Japan, this long Financial Times Magazine article looks at the question of whether Japan's increased casualisation of its workforce, and general increase in concern for the quality of life amongst its younger generation, is actually a good thing.

It's very detailed and looks at all of the contradictory evidence, including decreasing interest in relationships and a high suicide rate, yet quite high levels of life satisfaction found in a government survey.  

There were a couple of points made in passing that I hadn't realised:

Japan’s economy has not performed as wretchedly as is sometimes believed, especially when measured in per capita terms. The unemployment rate, now 4.6 per cent, has never scaled the dreadful heights of the US or Britain, let alone Spain.

and:

Although it has risen slightly in recent years, Japan’s fertility rate has fallen to 1.4, well below 2, which is the rate needed to maintain a population. That is higher than South Korea’s 1.23 or Singapore’s 0.78, though – unlike Japan – Singapore supplements its dwindling native population with a steady inflow of immigrants.

 What the heck is going on with Singapore's birthrate?

From the Japan Times

Three articles of interest from the Japan Times:

*  Japan is the sort of place where dislike of tattoos is out and proud, so to speak:

The weekly magazine Aera recently discussed tattoos, which became a contentious issue in Osaka after Mayor Toru Hashimoto not only prohibited city employees from gettting them but suggested that any who already had tattoos resign. Hashimoto believes that Osaka citizens are offended by tattoos, which tend to be associated with gangsters and other lowlifes. Many young people get tattoos for reasons having to do with fashion, but the majority of citizens don’t make such a distinction. Public baths and onsen (hot springs) tend to prohibit patrons with tattoos, even if it’s just a tiny reproduction of a butterfly.

I'd vote for him...

* Can't say I've heard much before about a couple of oddball religions that arose in postwar Japan, but they are the subject of new book being reviewed:

Jikoson (nee Nagako Nagaoka) of Jiu ruled her small band of followers through divine oracles, while calling for a renewal of Japan and, by extension, the world, under the leadership of the emperor (who would presumably receive his marching orders from her). Cloistered from the public eye, Jikoson might have remained yet another in the long procession of obscure postwar religious cranks if her teachings had not been taken up by go master Go Seigen and sumo grand champion Futabayama.

When the latter physically defended Jikosan from a police raid of her Kanazawa headquarters in January of 1947 (a photo of him grappling with an arresting officer is thoughtfully included in the book), the media uproar was enormous and the resulting fallout, which included Futabayama's hasty departure from the group, was fatally damaging to Jiu.

Sayo Kitamura, the feisty farmer's wife who became the leader of Tensho Kotai Jingu Kyo, proved to be a savvier manipulator of the authorities and the media, though she repeatedly clashed with both, as well as with representatives of established religions, which she derided as empty vessels.

Though tirelessly denouncing what she called the "maggot world" in her sermons, Kitamura had a magnetic personality that attracted the very "maggots" she was attacking, bolstered by her claims to faith healing powers, as well as by the singing and dancing featured in her services.

"Maggot world" has a certain ring to it, I think.

Googling "Jikoson" produces few leads on her story.   Tensho Kotai Jingu Kyo seems to be more famous, and I have a feeling I have heard about the "dancing religion" before.  Encylopedia Britannica has an entry that explains:

She had a revelation in 1945 that she was possessed by a Shintō deity, Tenshō-Kōtaijin (another name for the Shintō sun goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami). She traveled widely and won followers in Europe and the Americas. Her eccentric behaviour and forthright condemnation of organized institutions of religion and government, whom she characteristically referred to as “maggot beggars,” won her an enthusiastic following, estimated at about 300,000 a few years after her death.

 They appear to still operate in Seattle, as well as other places, yet Googling for video for the dancing doesn't come up with anything.

*  Another review of a  book about the effect of defeat on Japan sexual politics and practices contains this curious line:

 Mark McClelland's excellent and intriguing appraisal of how Japanese responded to a new climate of sexuality under the American occupation draws on several years of research that began auspiciously enough at the Museum of Perverts in Kagurazaka.

 Is this the world's only Museum of Perverts, I wonder?