Friday, September 26, 2014
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Disturbing in its own way
OK, it's not disturbing in a "Nutjob IS followers beheading innocent victims and attempting the local eradication of people of other faiths - including those with the wrong brand of Islam" sort of way, but I still can't watch this without feeling very uneasy about the mix of pretty simplistic religiosity and the US Marines. (And besides, it looks like worship more suited to a primary school camp than for adult men.)
Interesting details on the potential for cheap, flexible solar cells
Cheap solar cells tempt businesses
I know: it seems that a flexible and cheap version of solar cells has been just around the corner for a long time now, but this article goes into details that does indeed make them sound likely to be commercially available soon. (Or soon-ish.)
These perovskite ones sound different to what the CSIRO hopes to commercialise.
Sounds like quite a race may be on to get some form of cheap, flexible cell on the market.
Needed next: a breakthrough in cheaper storage batteries.
I know: it seems that a flexible and cheap version of solar cells has been just around the corner for a long time now, but this article goes into details that does indeed make them sound likely to be commercially available soon. (Or soon-ish.)
These perovskite ones sound different to what the CSIRO hopes to commercialise.
Sounds like quite a race may be on to get some form of cheap, flexible cell on the market.
Needed next: a breakthrough in cheaper storage batteries.
I take this very seriously...
Is Exercise Bad for Your Teeth? - NYTimes.com
Yay! An unexpected harm from exercise - maybe. If you're an athlete who does heavy training.
I don't care - any anti-exercise news is welcome in this neck of the woods.
Yay! An unexpected harm from exercise - maybe. If you're an athlete who does heavy training.
I don't care - any anti-exercise news is welcome in this neck of the woods.
Yet another reason not to trust them...
The grim story of the Snowy Mountains' cannibal horses.
Gee. Jonathan Green (whose twitter feed indicates when he's not in the studio, he's on a horse*) needs to watch his back...
* quite possibly, he's tried training his horse to operate the panel
Gee. Jonathan Green (whose twitter feed indicates when he's not in the studio, he's on a horse*) needs to watch his back...
* quite possibly, he's tried training his horse to operate the panel
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Spy stuff
A Private Tour of the CIA's Incredible Museum | History | Smithsonian
Quite a lengthy article here showing more than a dozen, rather interesting, items held in the CIA museum.
Quite a lengthy article here showing more than a dozen, rather interesting, items held in the CIA museum.
About Julia
I only saw about the last 15 minutes of the Julia Gillard interview last night with Ray Martin.
A few observations:
* it seemed to be lit in a strange, harsh looking way. It certainly highlighted a bit of bagginess under the eyes of Gillard, but it did no favours for a well wrinkled Martin as well. I wonder why it was done that way?
* Gillard herself remains a cool, calm and very likeable character. She readily admits to mistakes, but regrets little and (to use that pop psychology term that has fallen out of favour) just seems a very "centred" person. Despite half of the public's nutty obsession with attacking her for carbon pricing, her general reliability for sound policy approaches runs rings around the ever flaky, unreliable, current PM we have.
* I was particularly impressed by her encouragement of women to enter into politics despite the troubles she had been through herself. (And her dismissal of the idea that anyone should get into politics because they like the attention it will bring them.)
* There is no doubt that Labor made a disastrous decision to go with Rudd - and as I have said before, the only good thing that a Coalition win has achieved so far is ridding the political scene of that menace.
A few observations:
* it seemed to be lit in a strange, harsh looking way. It certainly highlighted a bit of bagginess under the eyes of Gillard, but it did no favours for a well wrinkled Martin as well. I wonder why it was done that way?
* Gillard herself remains a cool, calm and very likeable character. She readily admits to mistakes, but regrets little and (to use that pop psychology term that has fallen out of favour) just seems a very "centred" person. Despite half of the public's nutty obsession with attacking her for carbon pricing, her general reliability for sound policy approaches runs rings around the ever flaky, unreliable, current PM we have.
* I was particularly impressed by her encouragement of women to enter into politics despite the troubles she had been through herself. (And her dismissal of the idea that anyone should get into politics because they like the attention it will bring them.)
* There is no doubt that Labor made a disastrous decision to go with Rudd - and as I have said before, the only good thing that a Coalition win has achieved so far is ridding the political scene of that menace.
Perhaps they can build a toilet on Mars?
BBC News - Mangalyaan: Will India's Mars mission reach the orbit?
Look, I'm not one who would argue that you never have a space program until you eliminate your own country's (or the world's) poverty. (I heard a lot of that type of talk at the time of the Apollo program - but I think that virtually all idealists of the 60's have since realised that solving poverty is not simply a matter of the rich West sending its money overseas.)
However, India, a country where the WHO says more than 600 million people are without access to adequate sanitation (read - toilets of any variety) perhaps does deserve a bit of a re-organisation of priorities.
Look, I'm not one who would argue that you never have a space program until you eliminate your own country's (or the world's) poverty. (I heard a lot of that type of talk at the time of the Apollo program - but I think that virtually all idealists of the 60's have since realised that solving poverty is not simply a matter of the rich West sending its money overseas.)
However, India, a country where the WHO says more than 600 million people are without access to adequate sanitation (read - toilets of any variety) perhaps does deserve a bit of a re-organisation of priorities.
Senators having a lend
The fact that there are almost certainly some seriously disturbed nutters in some Australian cities who are thinking that videoing beheadings is a good Islamic State PR move is leading to some very silly claims by the Senators who got into Parliament by accident.
First, Senator Lambie claiming on Insiders on the weekend that she didn't post a photo of a (now deceased, rather heroic) burka clad policewoman with the intention of showing burka clad people as being a danger for carrying concealed weapons. We can safely assume that there would be no one in this wide brown land, short of a Tasmanian meth head with formication issues, who would believe her.
Secondly, because the United States is so chock full of examples of how gun carrying citizens have thwarted terrorist attacks [/extreme sarc], the gun loving libertarians of both Catallaxy and Senator "I liked to pat my guns" Leyonhjelm are both now talking about how it's such a shame our gun laws have left the good, beheading fearing, citizens of Australia defenceless.* Here is Senator L in the Daily Tele, making some very odd claims in the process:
a. there is nothing "so-called" about American gun culture.
b. who has ever heard of the claim that "religious pacificism" or "turning the other cheek" was even a partial motivation behind the Howard led revamp of gun laws? The fact that there had been a series of armed nutters shooting up random strangers for the previous decade did not, from my recollection, lead to anyone, anywhere, suggesting that there was a need for a "turn the other cheek" approach to gun laws. Let us recall:
c. [Engage /extreme sarc again]: who has ever heard of "average citizens" one day being "struck with murderous tendancies?" I mean, a grandfather shooting his daughter and six grandchildren (after apparently accidentally shooting his son a decade ago?) As if that could happen. OK, maybe Dads in Australia are different. Yeah, sure.
* I certainly hope we don't soon have an example of a random beheading here any time soon, but even if we did, as this post goes on to show, there would have to be about 100 of them to match the danger that nutters with guns on rampages represented to the public before the gun laws here were tightened.
** and economics, I should add...
First, Senator Lambie claiming on Insiders on the weekend that she didn't post a photo of a (now deceased, rather heroic) burka clad policewoman with the intention of showing burka clad people as being a danger for carrying concealed weapons. We can safely assume that there would be no one in this wide brown land, short of a Tasmanian meth head with formication issues, who would believe her.
Secondly, because the United States is so chock full of examples of how gun carrying citizens have thwarted terrorist attacks [/extreme sarc], the gun loving libertarians of both Catallaxy and Senator "I liked to pat my guns" Leyonhjelm are both now talking about how it's such a shame our gun laws have left the good, beheading fearing, citizens of Australia defenceless.* Here is Senator L in the Daily Tele, making some very odd claims in the process:
Australia’s prohibition on practical self-defence is relatively recent, emanating from the 1996 changes in firearms laws that followed the Port Arthur massacre. Not only were many types of firearm prohibited, but Australia embraced an international push to prohibit civilian ownership of firearms for self-defence.A few points:
This was driven by several factors. One was a desire to avoid America’s so-called ‘gun culture’. However, this seems to have broadened to include all means of self-defence. Another was a type of religious pacifism, of ‘turning the other cheek’. There was also a type of precautionary approach — average citizens may one day be struck with murderous tendencies. And then there were the perennial claims that resistance is futile and weapons will inevitably be turned against those using them.
a. there is nothing "so-called" about American gun culture.
b. who has ever heard of the claim that "religious pacificism" or "turning the other cheek" was even a partial motivation behind the Howard led revamp of gun laws? The fact that there had been a series of armed nutters shooting up random strangers for the previous decade did not, from my recollection, lead to anyone, anywhere, suggesting that there was a need for a "turn the other cheek" approach to gun laws. Let us recall:
In the decade up to and including Port Arthur, Australia experienced 11 mass shootings. In these 11 events alone, 100 people were shot dead and another 52 wounded.Leyonhjelm is prone to creative fantasy when it comes to guns** - I can see no other explanation.
c. [Engage /extreme sarc again]: who has ever heard of "average citizens" one day being "struck with murderous tendancies?" I mean, a grandfather shooting his daughter and six grandchildren (after apparently accidentally shooting his son a decade ago?) As if that could happen. OK, maybe Dads in Australia are different. Yeah, sure.
* I certainly hope we don't soon have an example of a random beheading here any time soon, but even if we did, as this post goes on to show, there would have to be about 100 of them to match the danger that nutters with guns on rampages represented to the public before the gun laws here were tightened.
** and economics, I should add...
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Two bits of writing that cheered me up, a bit
In the New Yorker:
A climate-change march that organizers claim was the largest on record is nevertheless unlikely to change the minds of idiots, a survey of America’s idiots reveals.Charlie Brooker in The Guardian, writing about Apple:
As part of the iPhone 6 publicity blitz, Tim Cook also announced every iTunes user in the world would be getting U2’s new album free of charge. It was downloaded automatically on to millions of users’ phones, like a sinister virus. Music is meant to be catchy – but not until you’ve heard it. The album, which I haven’t listened to yet, is terrible: even worse than their last one, which I didn’t listen to either. I don’t want to listen to any U2 albums in case I discover I like them, and have to violently reassess my own self-image. For the past five years, it’s been delightfully easy to ignore U2. Then Apple comes along and slings them under your nose like a bowl of bum soup you didn’t order. What do we have to do? Start lobbying Google for U2’s right to be forgotten?
Disconcerting times
Looking globally, there are such a huge number of things to be intensely irritated about, interspersed with the occasional grounds for optimism on that little thing called the liveability of the planet in 100 years time, that my head is spinning and I don't know where to start. What's more, I think I have an eyeball that is starting to fall apart, which is a condition I was previously unaware of. Retina is still attached, though, so that's something.
More posts later...
More posts later...
This is an outrage
A letter from Ms Credlin to Mr Pyne's office approving the trip also notes that the attendance of Mrs Pyne was expected to cost the Commonwealth no more than a business class airfare for the minister. As a minister, Mr Pyne is entitled to fly business class on official overseas travel.
Mr Pyne flew business class from Adelaide to Sydney but switched to economy for the rest of the journey to London.
That's from the Fairfax story this morning, explaining how Pyne, who (by the way) has done the completely un-Catholic thing of using IVF to have kids yet wanted to be at the canonisation of one of the most conservative Popes, managed to take his wife along for the ride.
All good people of Australia, like me, who only ever fly economy, should be outraged that in doing so there is a risk that they may have to sit for 20 hours beside the whiniest voiced, biggest pillock of a lying Minister this country has seen in 50 years just so his wife can hold his hand.
I'm thinking of contacting GetUp about this....
Monday, September 22, 2014
More about the recent optimism on de-carbonising the world
John Quiggin � From derp to denialism
JQ has always been an optimist on this topic, but here he is, looking the recent burst of reports I was noting last week, all suggesting that decarbonising the world is indeed do-able, and won't kill the globe economically in the process.
JQ has always been an optimist on this topic, but here he is, looking the recent burst of reports I was noting last week, all suggesting that decarbonising the world is indeed do-able, and won't kill the globe economically in the process.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Sunday drugs education
A few days back, I mentioned the delusion that there are bugs under the skin, which is commonly noted as one of the mental problems ice addicts can develop.
Just thought I would look up more about it, and learned that it has a specific name "formication".
This article from Psychology Today gives a good summary. I'm surprised to see that it can occur with drugs with a lot less of an image problem than meth:
Just thought I would look up more about it, and learned that it has a specific name "formication".
This article from Psychology Today gives a good summary. I'm surprised to see that it can occur with drugs with a lot less of an image problem than meth:
Drugs that have been reported to cause formication are Adderall, cocaine, crystal meth, methamphetamine, Ecstacy, MDMA, Keppra, Lunesta, Ritalin, Tridyl, Wellbutrin, and Zyban.You may now resume your normal Sunday activities.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)