At the cinema today, there was an ad for the Chromecast. I'm not sure how well it has sold, but I suspect it is really going to put more billions into Google's pockets. It works well, even if it takes a bit of fiddling to get it to work with sites other than Youtube at the moment.
Tonight, I got Vimeo to work on it (using Chrome with Vidcast added - look it up), and it worked very well indeed. All Vimeo content seems to be of very clear quality.
Back on Youtube, the recently viral video of a drone flying through fireworks does look great on a a big LCD TV. Or you can watch it here:
Sunday, July 06, 2014
At last - the problems of surrogacy noted
I'm not alone in being against surrogacy after all. The cultural soft left dominance of the media means that problems and ethical doubts about surrogacy are rarely discussed in detail (quite the opposite in fact - surrogacy by rich pop singers and movie or TV stars is positively celebrated with not a doubt in sight), so it is indeed refreshing to see that the New York Times has a lengthy and detailed article which gives some detailed examples of how it can and has gone wrong.
It's well worth reading.
It's also surprising to see that quite a few comments are against it generally - it seems like a lot of people have been waiting to read something like this. Here's one comment as an example:
As someone who is both gay and adopted I find it absolutely abhorrent the amount of couples I know who seem to think nothing of raising a child completely separated from one of its biological parents.
The rallying cry seems to be the outdated notion that only the people who raised you are your parents and the resulting children should remain grateful and naive about the process. Anyone who has been in a similar situation will tell you life is more complicated than that. Simply loving someone doesn't trump their basic biological drive to understand their identity.
This is much more complex than smiling pictures of babies and happy families implies. And it's an issue I feel like the media and public is largely ignoring because they don't want to trample on anyone's notion of 'gay rights.'
The future of Hollywood
Further to my recent post about the importance of the Chinese market to the future of Hollywood, this article in the Atlantic says that this is already the reason Hollywood has given up on comedies. (Or, at least, non animated comedy.) In fact, this chart from the story shows that animation has a strong, strong future:
Speaking of animation, the kids and I saw How to Train Your Dragon 2 today. It's pretty good, for a sequel, and is really remarkable for the over the top complexity of some of the settings, let alone the quality of the foreground animation. (It reminded me a little of a souped up version of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 in this respect.) In a way, I think animation can overdo that aspect now - the level of detail can be a bit overwhelming. Still, the movie does slow down a bit when it needs to, and hits emotional marks, so I forgave the over-busyness of many sequences.
Speaking of animation, the kids and I saw How to Train Your Dragon 2 today. It's pretty good, for a sequel, and is really remarkable for the over the top complexity of some of the settings, let alone the quality of the foreground animation. (It reminded me a little of a souped up version of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 in this respect.) In a way, I think animation can overdo that aspect now - the level of detail can be a bit overwhelming. Still, the movie does slow down a bit when it needs to, and hits emotional marks, so I forgave the over-busyness of many sequences.
Saturday, July 05, 2014
For my future reference: spicy osso bucco recipe
Before I forget, tonight's successful osso bucco cooking must be recorded:
For 4:
About 1kg osso bucco
large carrot, diced
large onion, or a few small ones, diced fine
1 teaspoon each fennel seeds and cumin seeds
3 largish tomatoes
about half a small can of tomato paste
1 cup beef stock
1 cup red wine
Trim osso bucco pieces, season well with salt and pepper, and coat generously with flour. In pressure cooker, fry for few minutes each side in olive oil to brown. Puree the tomatoes in a blender. Add onion, carrot and fennel and cumin seeds to the pressure cooker, stir with meat and fry off for a few minutes.
Add pureed tomatoes, beef stock and wine, and tomato paste. Stir, and seal up pressure cooker (higher pressure setting.) Cook for 40 - 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, get some mashed potatoes going, and beans or other green veges.
The meat will probably fall off the bone when serving, but doesn't matter. I think it is the presence of the marrow dissolved in the sauce that gives it a rich taste.
Recipe is my version of one by Gabriel Gate, except he used white wine and water instead of red wine and stock, and he also stirs in fresh spinach at the end (which is nice). Celery or fennel could be added to the pressure cooker too, if handy, but just this basic version works very well for a good sauce of the right thickness.
For 4:
About 1kg osso bucco
large carrot, diced
large onion, or a few small ones, diced fine
1 teaspoon each fennel seeds and cumin seeds
3 largish tomatoes
about half a small can of tomato paste
1 cup beef stock
1 cup red wine
Trim osso bucco pieces, season well with salt and pepper, and coat generously with flour. In pressure cooker, fry for few minutes each side in olive oil to brown. Puree the tomatoes in a blender. Add onion, carrot and fennel and cumin seeds to the pressure cooker, stir with meat and fry off for a few minutes.
Add pureed tomatoes, beef stock and wine, and tomato paste. Stir, and seal up pressure cooker (higher pressure setting.) Cook for 40 - 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, get some mashed potatoes going, and beans or other green veges.
The meat will probably fall off the bone when serving, but doesn't matter. I think it is the presence of the marrow dissolved in the sauce that gives it a rich taste.
Recipe is my version of one by Gabriel Gate, except he used white wine and water instead of red wine and stock, and he also stirs in fresh spinach at the end (which is nice). Celery or fennel could be added to the pressure cooker too, if handy, but just this basic version works very well for a good sauce of the right thickness.
Friday, July 04, 2014
An enjoyable blast
Austrian Economists, 9/11 Truthers and Brain Worms - Bloomberg View
I don't really follow what the "Austrians" claim and know which economist I may have heard of is in that group, but from this enjoyable blast against them, they obviously hold many of the views that turn up in the posts of the libertarian/conservative economists of Catallaxy. I wonder if obsession with Say's Law is an Austrian thang?
I don't really follow what the "Austrians" claim and know which economist I may have heard of is in that group, but from this enjoyable blast against them, they obviously hold many of the views that turn up in the posts of the libertarian/conservative economists of Catallaxy. I wonder if obsession with Say's Law is an Austrian thang?
An appalling "doctor"
Euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke criticised over support for 45-year-old who committed suicide - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
There's no way this guy should continue to be allowed to be a doctor. His attitude has always been to presume that everyone who wants to commit suicide, no matter what the age, and the reason why, is acting rationally and reasonably and who is he to stop them? In fact, he'll tell them how to do it the easiest way possible.
He came over as a complete and utter jerk on the ABC interview last night. The interviewer was calm and forensic; the only question I would have liked to hear was "when was the last time - if you ever have - you declined to advise someone who has asked you how best to commit suicide, or recommended they get properly assessed and treated for possible depression?"
There's no way this guy should continue to be allowed to be a doctor. His attitude has always been to presume that everyone who wants to commit suicide, no matter what the age, and the reason why, is acting rationally and reasonably and who is he to stop them? In fact, he'll tell them how to do it the easiest way possible.
He came over as a complete and utter jerk on the ABC interview last night. The interviewer was calm and forensic; the only question I would have liked to hear was "when was the last time - if you ever have - you declined to advise someone who has asked you how best to commit suicide, or recommended they get properly assessed and treated for possible depression?"
The very dubious Bentham
The last time I mentioned Bentham, it was about his underpants.
It's not a stretch from there to note his libertine views on sex, which get a description in this recent review of a book on the subject.
Jeremy, I take it from the (sometimes) reliable source of Horrible Histories*, was very eccentric in his personal conduct (and not just because of what he had done to his body after death,) but the review does point out that the permanent bachelor did fall in love with women, and seemingly slept with them. But he does come across as something of a naive Jim Cairns "free love" type:
But I was more intrigued by this part of the article, showing that Jeremy was a radical in other ways which should cause people hesitation, at the least, about his judgement generally, and utilitarianism:
Update: I see that the topic of Bentham and his justification of infanticide was dealt with at First Things last year. It's a good article that concludes:
* as confirmed with this paper, which notes he was extremely eccentric, and concludes he probably had Asperger's. Bentham as Sheldon: it does make sense.
It's not a stretch from there to note his libertine views on sex, which get a description in this recent review of a book on the subject.
Jeremy, I take it from the (sometimes) reliable source of Horrible Histories*, was very eccentric in his personal conduct (and not just because of what he had done to his body after death,) but the review does point out that the permanent bachelor did fall in love with women, and seemingly slept with them. But he does come across as something of a naive Jim Cairns "free love" type:
Of all enjoyments, Bentham reasoned, sex was the most universal, the most easily accessible, the most intense, and the most copious – nothing was more conducive to happiness. An "all-comprehensive liberty for all modes of sexual gratification" would therefore be a huge, permanent benefit to humankind: if consenting adults were freed to do whatever they liked with their own bodies, "what calculation shall compute the aggregate mass of pleasure that may be brought into existence?"As someone says in comments following the review:
The article criticises Mill but actually supports his idea that Bentham did not really understand human feelings. Anyone who thinks sex=pleasure, pleasure=happiness and therefore more sex = more happiness doesn't understand human emotion.On Bentham more generally, while Googling around I found this article from earlier this year, and I was somewhat surprised to read that Jeremy was an early proponent of the "Jesus had male lovers" idea which would re-appear again in 1970's gay rights activism. (I remember some gay rights guy on the old Mike Walsh Midday show, probably in that decade, causing gasps in the largely female audience by making that claim. I don't know if it was widely rumoured at the time, or later, that Walsh himself was gay.)
But I was more intrigued by this part of the article, showing that Jeremy was a radical in other ways which should cause people hesitation, at the least, about his judgement generally, and utilitarianism:
Bentham also took up the theme of infanticide. He had considerable sympathy for unmarried mothers who, because of social attitudes, were ostracized and had little choice but to become prostitutes, with the inevitable descent into drink, disease, and premature death. It would be far better, argued Bentham, to destroy the child, rather than the woman. Moreover, it was kinder to kill an infant at birth than allow it to live a life of pain and suffering.Well, we don't hear about that view of his so often, do we?
Update: I see that the topic of Bentham and his justification of infanticide was dealt with at First Things last year. It's a good article that concludes:
Bentham has here laid out, quite clearly, a fundamental dispute of the modern age: the good life understood as the satisfaction of preferences and unfoiled desires on the one hand and the Platonic idea that justice is found only through the kind of self-restraint that looks beyond pleasure and pain on the other. There is, as Bentham was well aware, no middle ground. Not Paul, but Jesus excels in making this crystal clear.
* as confirmed with this paper, which notes he was extremely eccentric, and concludes he probably had Asperger's. Bentham as Sheldon: it does make sense.
This is getting confusing
Saudi Arabia sends 30,000 troops to Iraq border | GulfNews.com
Seems to be a case of Saudi Arabia getting ready to fight a monster of its (or its citizen's money) own creation.
Seems to be a case of Saudi Arabia getting ready to fight a monster of its (or its citizen's money) own creation.
Well, that's depressing...
BBC News - Decline in trials for Alzheimer's disease
There is an urgent need to increase the number of potential therapies being investigated, say US scientists.
Only one new medicine has been approved since 2004, they report in the journal Alzheimer's Research & Therapy.
The drug failure rate is troubling and higher than for other diseases such as cancer, says Alzheimer's Research UK.
Dr Jeffrey Cummings, of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, in Las Vegas, and colleagues, examined a public website that records clinical trials.
Between 2002 and 2012, they found 99.6% of trials of drugs aimed at preventing, curing or improving the symptoms of Alzheimer's had failed or been discontinued. This compares with a failure rate of 81% for cancer drugs.
The failure rate was "especially troubling" given the rising numbers of people with dementia, said Dr Simon Ridley, of Alzheimer's Research UK.
"The authors of the study highlight a worrying decline in the number of clinical trials for Alzheimer's treatments in more recent years," he said.
"There is a danger that the high failure rates of trials in the past will discourage pharmaceutical companies from investing in dementia research.
A sure way to increase teenage use
Maureen Dowd's Marijuana Edibles Problem -- And Mine
This article in Forbes goes into a lot of detail about the "edibles" containing cannabis in Colorado, and my conclusion is: why did they legalise this form at all if they have any interest in limiting teenage use and experimentation?
It's just nuts - no teen need ever worry about being found out via smell or smoking paraphernalia - there appear to be hundreds of candies and chocolates (often containing multiple doses) on sale. And you have gooses like libertarian Gary Johnson praising them as even better than smoking!
I can't imagine a surer way to make it easier for a teenager to try it, and keep using it, as long as an adult friend goes and buys multiple dose candy bars for them.
My prediction remains - give this a couple of years, maybe three. See what has happened to education and rates of teenage use in the State and in nearby States. Look at the rate of adult use, and the effect on the economy. Then tell us whether it has been a success or not. I expect that there will be at least some degree of walking back from this experiment.
This article in Forbes goes into a lot of detail about the "edibles" containing cannabis in Colorado, and my conclusion is: why did they legalise this form at all if they have any interest in limiting teenage use and experimentation?
It's just nuts - no teen need ever worry about being found out via smell or smoking paraphernalia - there appear to be hundreds of candies and chocolates (often containing multiple doses) on sale. And you have gooses like libertarian Gary Johnson praising them as even better than smoking!
I can't imagine a surer way to make it easier for a teenager to try it, and keep using it, as long as an adult friend goes and buys multiple dose candy bars for them.
My prediction remains - give this a couple of years, maybe three. See what has happened to education and rates of teenage use in the State and in nearby States. Look at the rate of adult use, and the effect on the economy. Then tell us whether it has been a success or not. I expect that there will be at least some degree of walking back from this experiment.
Thursday, July 03, 2014
Good writing
American Summer: Before Air-Conditioning : The New Yorker
This article by Arthur Miller, apparently from 1998, paints an evocative picture of hot New York summers of the depression era in particular. He also reflects on hard work in those days:
This article by Arthur Miller, apparently from 1998, paints an evocative picture of hot New York summers of the depression era in particular. He also reflects on hard work in those days:
Given the heat, people smelled, of course, but some smelled a lot worseWow.
than others. One cutter in my father’s shop was a horse in this respect,
and my father, who normally had no sense of smell—no one understood
why—claimed that he could smell this man and would address him only from
a distance. In order to make as much money as possible, this fellow
would start work at half past five in the morning and continue until
midnight. He owned Bronx apartment houses and land in Florida and
Jersey, and seemed half mad with greed. He had a powerful physique, a
very straight spine, a tangle of hair, and a black shadow on his cheeks.
He snorted like a horse as he pushed the cutting machine, following his
patterns through some eighteen layers of winter-coat material. One late
afternoon, he blinked his eyes hard against the burning sweat as he
held down the material with his left hand and pressed the vertical,
razor-sharp reciprocating blade with his right. The blade sliced through
his index finger at the second joint. Angrily refusing to go to the
hospital, he ran tap water over the stump, wrapped his hand in a towel,
and went right on cutting, snorting, and stinking. When the blood began
to show through the towel’s bunched layers, my father pulled the plug on
the machine and ordered him to the hospital. But he was back at work
the next morning, and worked right through the day and into the evening,
as usual, piling up his apartment houses.
Moore missed
There's much Monty Python talk in the British media due to the remaining team members doing their "last reunion" shows to massive crowds in London, but to rather mixed reviews.
The Guardian had a column in which various famous-ish people nominated their favourite sketches. I don't believe anyone mentioned good old Dennis Moore.
I have posted before about this very silly series of sketches, and re-watching it, I have to say it is undeservedly overlooked and, unusually, sort of subtly funny for Python. (The way Dennis digresses continuously, in particular.)
My previous post was of pretty poor video quality, though. I have found these versions, with czech subtitles, are much clearer:
The Guardian had a column in which various famous-ish people nominated their favourite sketches. I don't believe anyone mentioned good old Dennis Moore.
I have posted before about this very silly series of sketches, and re-watching it, I have to say it is undeservedly overlooked and, unusually, sort of subtly funny for Python. (The way Dennis digresses continuously, in particular.)
My previous post was of pretty poor video quality, though. I have found these versions, with czech subtitles, are much clearer:
Another surprising dog story
Man's best friend linked to lower diabetes risk in infants
Update: * and a big brie with a box of water crackers, of course.
The study from Finland investigated whether microbial exposures from animal contact during infancy are associated with the development of diabetes. The researchers studied 3,143 children at two Finnish hospitals between 1996 and 2004.
Of nine early microbial exposures studied – including farm animals, day care and exposure to antibiotics – only indoor dog exposure was inversely associated with subsequent development of preclinical type 1 diabetes.
“Dog contact may affect the human immune system in many ways”, the researchers wrote.In the benevolent dictatorship of Steveworld, all prospective parents have to have a puppy first. [But parents found with marijuana will have their houses bulldozed, Israeli style. A yurt will be supplied in compensation.] Birth will be celebrated with a government supplied gift basket including a $10 bottle of Australian chardonnay pinot noir, several parsnips, and a chorizo*.
Update: * and a big brie with a box of water crackers, of course.
Comedy improvement
I opined a few weeks ago that, after viewing a couple of recent-ish episodes of Big Bang Theory, it appeared to have improved considerably from a previous season in which I thought it showed signs of being in terminal decline.
After seeing a few more episodes since then, I think I was right: it has definitely improved.
The episode watched last night in which Sheldon gets accused of workplace sexual harassment was, I thought, very funny; and showed sharp writing all around.
A sitcom that recovers like this is a rarity.
However, reading elsewhere, it would appear that the episodes I have seen recently are perhaps all season 6 (last night's episode definitely was), and season 7 has just finished in the US, with at least one person on the net thinking it's bad again Also, it has been renewed for 3 seasons! That's stretching the abilities of the writers to breaking point, I'm sure.
After seeing a few more episodes since then, I think I was right: it has definitely improved.
The episode watched last night in which Sheldon gets accused of workplace sexual harassment was, I thought, very funny; and showed sharp writing all around.
A sitcom that recovers like this is a rarity.
However, reading elsewhere, it would appear that the episodes I have seen recently are perhaps all season 6 (last night's episode definitely was), and season 7 has just finished in the US, with at least one person on the net thinking it's bad again Also, it has been renewed for 3 seasons! That's stretching the abilities of the writers to breaking point, I'm sure.
Hippy libertarians with guns
Ha. Via Jason Soon, I see an entertaining article that reports on the anti-social, nutty, self-absorbed wankerdom of (at least one part of) the American libertarian movement.
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