There's a line you don't often read in a paper

UTS gives pees a chance with urine-diverting toilet trial | The Saturday Paper

From this somewhat interesting article about urine collecting toilets, which I have blogged about in the past:

I found it exhilarating to wee in that toilet, contributing in a tiny way to solving a huge problem.

Getting real on new dams

Dam hard: water storage is a historic headache for Australia

I see John Quiggin is a co-author of this article that puts some perspective on the the familiar (and always dubious) right wing claim that goes "If only it weren't for those damned environmentalists - we'd have double the dams and development everywhere in Australia." 

The future seems to be here

Hard not to feel that you were looking at something from science fiction when watching the beating "heart in a box" video this week, when the news was about how they can now revive for transplant hearts that have stopped:

What can I say? Just very watchable

I think this must be the third year that we've watched X Factor (which ended last Sunday), and while it didn't have quite the same excitement as watching Dami Im last year knock songs completely out of the ballpark each week, it was better than the year before that.

For the record:  like probably half of Australia, I reckon Marlisa was too young to be a winner, even though she is obviously a strong singer for her age.  Whether she is a success will all depend on the songwriters and producers who latch onto her - speaking of which, I have been pretty unimpressed thus far with Dami's song choice so far, but I think she said that she does actually write or co-write them.  That's a worry.   Dami, there is no shame in powerful singers using other writer's songs.  Please do so...

I take it from conversations at my office that everyone warmed to Dean once he stopped doing the silly "I'm a very serious rock star" act that was notable for his early appearances.  Or was it the X Factor producers who told him to exaggerate his seriousness early on.  There's a fair chance of that - it is "reality" TV show after all.  I would have been more comfortable with him winning, though, seeing he's already got an idea of a show biz life.

I tend to agree with those who say that he version of Budapest is better than the original:



The show does tend to do staging of songs very, very well, doesn't it?  And the most watchable of all this season was probably that by a certain young guest whose work I am only vaguely familiar with (being over 50 and all).  She's kinda skinny, but very hard to look away from:



I will now resume normal transmission....

Update:  Gee, even The Guardian gets excited about the new Taylor Swift album.  It must therefore be respectable for me to post about her...

Ocean acidification worries noted, yet again

This BBC report paints a worrying picture of some recent research on ocean acidification.  First the UK's chief scientist:

“If we carry on emitting CO2 at the same rate, ocean acidification will create substantial risks to complex marine food webs and ecosystems.”

He said the current rate of acidification is believed to be unprecedented within the last 65 million years – and may threaten fisheries in future.

The consequences of acidification are likely to be made worse by the warming of the ocean expected with climate change, a process which is also driven by CO2.

Sir Mark’s comments come as recent British research suggests the effects of acidification may be even more pervasive than previously estimated.

Until now studies have identified species with calcium-based shells as most in danger from changing chemistry.

But researchers in Exeter have found that other creatures will also be affected because as acidity increases it creates conditions for animals to take up more coastal pollutants like copper.

The angler’s favourite bait – the humble lugworm – suffers DNA damage as a result of the extra copper. The pollutant harms their sperm, and their offspring don’t develop properly.

“It’s a bit of a shock, frankly,” said biologist Ceri Lewis from Exeter University, one of the report’s authors. “It means the effects of ocean acidification may be even more serious than we previously thought. We need to look with new eyes at things which we thought were not vulnerable.”

The lugworm study was published in Environmental Science and Technology. Another study from Dr Lewis not yet peer-reviewed suggests that sea urchins are also harmed by uptake of copper. This adds to the damage they will suffer from increasing acidity as it takes them more and more energy to calcify their shells and spines.

This is significant because sea urchins, which can live up to 100 years, are a keystone species - grazing algae off rocks that would otherwise be covered in green slime.

The article does go on to make this comment, too, but I think it is actually too optimistic a take on some recent, but still very limited, studies:

At the bottom end of the marine animal chain, tiny creatures like plankton and coccolithophores reproduce so fast that their future offspring are likely to evolve to cope with lower pH.

A new quantum interpretation - Hurrah

An appealing idea is being worked on that may make for a whole new understanding of what is going on with quantum phenomena:

Theorists have tried to explain quantum behaviour through various mathematical frameworks. One of the older interpretations envisages the classical world as stemming from the existence of many simultaneous quantum ones. But that ‘many worlds’ approach, pioneered by the US theorist Hugh Everett III in the 1950s, relies on the worlds branching out independently from one another, and not interacting at all (see 'Many worlds: See me here, see me there').

By contrast, Wiseman’s team envisages many worlds bumping into one another, calling it the 'many interacting worlds' approach. On its own, each world is ruled by classical Newtonian physics. But together, the interacting motion of these worlds gives rise to phenomena that physicists typically ascribe to the quantum world.

Read more explanation via Howard Wiseman himself at The Conversation.

But the weirdest idea is that a dramatic breakthrough in understanding the universe could come via Griffith University.  [Heh].

Read it for the Tol bashing, if nothing else

The 2 degree threshold | …and Then There's Physics

Richard Tol appears in the thread, and cops a bit of a pasting from the others for his disingenuous approach.

Awesome engineering of Tokyo

Speaking of Japan, if you like to see large scale engineering, you really must watch this story from last night's Catalyst, regarding the jaw dropping flood mitigation system that runs under Tokyo.

Sounds dull?   No, it's stunning - and not something you are ever likely to have heard of before.

Catalyst has had (with few exceptions) a brilliant run of fascinating stories this year.

But back to Tokyo - here's hoping their drainage system is going to survive the next big earthquake.   If it collapsed, I imagine it could affect a lot of what's on the surface above it.

Still not encouraged

Colossal volcanic eruption could destroy Japan, study says

"It is not an overstatement to say that a colossal volcanic eruption would leave Japan extinct as a country," Kobe University earth sciences professor Yoshiyuki Tatsumi and associate professor Keiko Suzuki said in a study publicly released on Wednesday.

The experts said they analysed the scale and frequency of volcanic eruptions in the archipelago nation over the past 120,000 years and calculated that the odds of a devastating eruption at about one percent over the next 100 years.

Spurred on

Wow.  An extraordinarily effusive piece by a former female Chinese student from Sydney University appears in The Australian today defending Professor Spurr.  In fact, it is so enamoured of the Professor, and so full of the same defences that the Right immediately tried on (before we read the fuller extracts of the emails) that the first thing that comes to mind is whether it was actually written within hours of the first report by one of his "abo" trashing friends.

Look. Lily, I hate to break it to you, but if a professor engaged to do a curriculum review, when said curriculum has been controversial because of the extent to which it attempts to incorporate indigenous issues, turns out to refer in private to the PM as an "abo lover", it's pretty damn clear to (I would say) 95% of Australians that he is not an appropriate person for the job.   As such, New Matilda does have public interest on its side. 

I was interested to note in Lily's article, though, that he is apparently supportive of, or active in, some religious group.   I thought one comment in his emails indicated he might be Catholic, but it is not clear.

I would not be surprised if he turned out to be a conservative, latin loving, Catholic of the kind who turn up at Catallaxy, with their ugly lack of charity.  

And by the way, doesn't The Australian ever get tired of defending jerks?

Update:  on the matter of the way New Matilda got the emails, I thought it was interesting to note this from a recent post there:

One more time, for the record. The information technology policy of the University of Sydney – of which all staff are explicitly warned – is that their university emails are not private. It is a public institution.

Generally speaking, New Matilda does not comment on issues related to sources and leaked documents. However, Ms Markson’s story – and the allegations leveled within it - are demonstrably false, and the public record requires correction.

The first error is a suggestion that Professor Spurr’s email account was ‘hacked’. This is false. It did not occur. Neither New Matilda nor the source in the story hacked Professor Spurr’s account.

The second error relates to a suggestion in Ms Markson’s article that the source was motivated by “payback” for Professor Spurr’s involvement in the National School Curriculum review. This is also false.

While the source was broadly aware of Professor Spurr’s involvement in the review, the source was unaware of the contents of Professor Spurr’s submissions. What motivated the source to come forward was two specific email exchanges.

One of those exchanges relates to Professor Spurr’s views about a matter of substantial public importance. At this stage, New Matilda has decided not to divulge the contents of this email. The comments, however, are extreme and reinforced the view of the source that Professor Spurr’s involvement in the National Curriculum Review was a matter of substantial public interest.

The second email, which also reinforced this view related to Professor Spurr’s comments in relation to the sexual assault of a woman.

The email exchange regarding the apparent sexual assault of the woman is, in my view, the worst by far of what is in the emails.  It presents an extraordinary challenge for the University as to how to respond.

Update 2:   even Andrew Bolt concedes the seriousness of the matter, although he does not discuss the sexual assault email:

But those emails are now public, like it or not, and the racist abuse is deeply unpleasant. I do think this badly damages Spurr’s credibility when pontificating on how the curriculum deals with Indigenous issues, and could damage the credibility of his teaching at university, too, depending on the subjects taught and, indeed, the ethnic and religious background of his students. 

I actually think that, despite what a female Chinese fan may say, the matter is probably going to be resolved by enough students (especially female ones) saying that they cannot in good conscience engage with the Professor given his disclosed private commentary.

Update 3:  just thought I should mention the last para in Lily's article:

He should not be made a scapegoat for an ideology of which he is not an advocate. He is not the parody the media presents. The university should not lose a jewel in its crown. If I, a small, sensitive, feminist, patriotic Chinese girl, am not offended by these leaked emails, why should anyone else be?

A laughably strange feminist if she is not bothered by the email exchange regarding a sexual assault story.

Update 4:   I see an interesting Comment is Free piece on the Professor appeared at The Guardian a few days ago, too.

Update 5:  a bit of Googling indicates he is Anglican, perhaps of the Anglo-Catholic variety.  He has published (quite some time ago) an entire book on "Anglican and Catholic Reactions to Liturgical Reform".  As well as a book on TS Elliott and Christianity. 

Wow.  Further confirms my view, expressed here before, that liturgical worriers are often the worst representatives for their faith.

Update 6:  Ben Pobjie's column on this today is right.  It appears a near certainty that Barry Humphries did not know of the detail of the emails before his defence, and I suspect Lily has not gone through them so carefully either.

Update 7:  Well, thank God for that - I can stop being embarrassed by having Bolt on my side, because he's been swayed by Lily's testimony (or something) and now has seemingly reversed position!   Read what Bolt was saying before (update 2 above) and what he says now:

This country is going mad. A gifted professor is publicly vilified by people claiming to be outraged by rude words said in private.

Ahahahaha.  What an inconsistent moron you've become, Andrew.  I don't need to use an email to express that...

Update 8:  Jonathan Holmes agrees:

It seems to me a lay-down case of a breach of privacy justified by the public interest. 

Update 9:   professional hyperventilating contrarian loudmouth, Brendan O'Neill, does his stock standard double standards/moral hypocrisy shtick in a laughably unconvincing column that starts of with criticism  for those who think hacking naked photos of a celebrity is wrong, but think there is an obvious public interest element in knowing the contents of some work account emails of Spurr.  The article is so full of bad argument, it's hardly worth the effort, but I'll put a minimal amount in:

a.  Brendan seems to have not noticed that there is no attempted justification by anyone, anywhere, on the grounds of public interest for the breach of privacy of a celebrity's nude photos held in the celebrity's iCloud account.  

b.  He ignores the basic point in this post - would anyone in their right mind, knowing the contents of these emails (at least those with racial comments) beforehand, think that they could avoid the perception of bias (if not actual bias) in appointing Spurr to review a curriculum that was notable for the amount of indigenous issues raised? 

I also see that, as with Lily, O'Neill mounts a vigorous de facto defence of Spurr but does not go near the "rape" email.  Gee, I wonder why they won't there, and explain the "linguistic game" in that exchange?

Update 10:  quite a reasonable column in Fairfax about it all by Rick Feneley, including this paragraph:

"I think there is an irony in all this," says Catharine Lumby, a former acting head of school at Sydney University, now professor of media at Macquarie University. "Both Professor Spurr and Kevin Donnelly [heading the National Curriculum Review] are on the record strongly advocating the western literary canon on the basis it has a civilising influence on us. That may be the case. However, I don't see the evidence of that in Professor Spurr's emails."

That Spurr was prepared to send them to his colleagues, Lumby says, raises questions about his judgment, an important consideration given his role on the curriculum review. 

I'm not encouraged...

The last ten years have been a remarkable time for great earthquakes. Since December 2004 there have been no less than 18 quakes of Mw8.0 or greater – a rate of more than twice that seen from 1900 to mid-2004.

Don't think I had heard that before.  Source here.

Whitlam spending went where?

While it seems that everyone from Ken Henry to the IPA says that the Whitlam increased Federal government spending to levels to which it has roughly stayed the same since, I was interested to see where the increased spending went.  This series of graphs from a 2007 paper is perhaps the best summary I can find:

 

It's curious how the second chart shows the Whitlam "real spending" was far from exceptional when you look at the long term trend.   The first chart indicates how closely government spending since then has bounced around 24% - 25% of GDP.   (And no, Rudd/Gillard spending did not significantly deviate from the range, either.)

And the last two charts show Whitlam spikes on spending as a proportion of total spend did show up mainly in education, health and social security.   However, the country did get Medicare and much broader access to higher education, money which many would say was deservedly spent compared to the pre-1972 situation.

International comparisons indicate that the 25% range for spending is well within mid range of what other countries have been doing for a while now, with some economically successful countries spending far higher (see Germany, Scandinavia.)    In fact, it's probably true to say that with very few exceptions, spending below 20% of GDP indicates the sort of poorer country most Australians would not care to emulate in terms of services.  

Of the exceptions, I think we can pretty much ignore Singapore, as a case of a city state which only has to deal with providing services to a dense population on a tiny area.  

Canada seems truly exceptional, though, as a country of similar size to ours that has been spending considerably under our rate.  I wonder what's going on there...

Update:  Stephen Koukoulas made much the same point today, but without the graphs.   I think my post was up first!

Some straight talking from a physicist

Remember Garrett Lisi, who had a brief period of high publicity some years ago for his novel work on finding a Theory of Everything?  He's still working on it, as this interesting interview shows, and thinks he is making some progress.

But the most amusing part is here, where he talks about string theory hold-out Ed Witten:

Horgan: Edward Witten, when I asked him in a recent Q&A if string theory had any serious rivals for a unified theory, replied, “There are not any interesting competing suggestions.” Comment?

Lisi: That stings a little. I don’t imagine other physicists working on fundamental non-string theories appreciate it either. Ed Witten has done incredibly impressive work, opening new doors with his insights in mathematics and physics. His papers are things of beauty. He, his students, and his colleagues have dominated the high-energy theoretical physics community with string models for decades now. However, even the most enlightened foresight from the most brilliant mind can be wrong, so it would be better if he wasn’t a dick about it.

Labor Prime Ministers and their ego

I was watching Annabel Crabb's very entertaining show with Bob Hawke last night, and it left me wondering about the string of Labor Prime Ministers we've had with very big egos.

Whitlam, Hawke, Keating and Rudd - all big ego men, and none of whom I found especially likeable personalities.  Julia Gillard genuinely broke the ego mould, and this has a lot to do with my regard for her.   But Beazley was also OK in this respect, and it helps explain why he never made it to PM.

Of other Labor Opposition Leaders who didn't make it:   not sure how I would categorise Simon Crean, and Mark Latham is just rather generally oddball. 

The Liberals don't seem to suffer from this to the same extent, with the exception of Turnbull, perhaps.  Yet for me he manages the trick of having a very high self regard but retaining likeability.  His eulogy yesterday in Parliament for Gough was a fantastic example of his very endearing ability to engagingly speak off the cuff with great charity towards everyone:



As for Howard, his modest demeanour was always his most endearing feature.

But going back to Fraser, I remember being told by someone who was a former Liberal staffer in Canberra that at the time he acquired the leadership he was shaking like a leaf.   So it appears he gave off an arrogant air, but covering a modest ego.

Technology and poverty

What Role Does Technology Play in Record Levels of Income Inequality?

Here's a lengthy article looking at the debate over the role of technology in rising income inequality.   Even the opening, scene setting, part is interesting, talking about inequality in Silicon Valley.