In more "big picture" political analysis...

I have opined to a couple of people lately that I reckon the big long term problem with the Liberal Party (and why they have plummeted in polling) is that it has tried to straddle both sides of the barbed wire fence for so long with respect to climate change, and now immigration too.

Of course, all parties have to do this to a degree - do we really think Labor leadership isn't biting its tongue continually with respect to the Trump presidency?   

But with the Liberals, it's played a game of "we believe in it, we just don't believe in doing much about it" on climate change for two to three decades now, and have been completely unable to present a unified front, with individual MPs always making clear their complete disbelief in it even being a real issue, under the mantra that "it's a big party, it can tolerate dissenting views".  

Well, no.  If it's an important enough issue, a party loses credibility by such toleration.   

I maintain that Turnbull's leadership died on this division, and he should have initiated a split in the party by demanding that those who dispute it as a real, science based, problem that needs the clear endorsement of clean renewable energy just get out of the party, because the division is killing their credibility, especially in urban electorates.  But he didn't.

And now that "too much immigration" sentiment has caught on with much of the populist Right here (partly via contagion from Trumpian and some European politics, and partly by dishonest assessment of numbers here in light of COVID disruption), the Liberals are caught on another major fence straddle - they want to appeal to both dumb, prejudiced populists who have (at least temporarily) been telling pollsters they will vote for Pauline Hansen purely because of this issue, AND to urban electorates full of migrants who don't particularly like being told there's no hope of family members joining them, and that lots of Australians don't like them.

What a disaster it is for the party that Tony Abbott has re-asserted influence within the party, and has started endorsing co-operation with One Nation, while other party members yearn for the days he was the assassin sent to eliminate Hanson.         

Maybe the fundamental problem for the Liberals is that its party base has aged, and as a class, older people are stupider people when it comes to climate change.  And any younger people who have some attraction to the party are probably under the influence of the culture warring of the populist American Republicans, and hence also not strong believers in climate change but want to spent their time on decrying "woke" issues and complaining about tax.    So the smarter politicians in the party who do see climate change as a very large and demanding issue have this internal institutional pushback to fight against.

The party is therefore kind of doomed for now, and I don't see it being fixed unless they have the massive internal clean out they need. 

 

Political similarities

 I missed most of Kitchen Cabinet last night, featuring Annabel Crabb's lengthy friendly interview style with Anthony Albanese.  

In this online article by her, obviously related to the show, she notes similarities in the careers of Albanese and John Howard:

Point of view: You are the Australian prime minister. You've been elected for a second term, an outcome barely anyone would have predicted back when you were grinding your way through desolate years of opposition. You've just introduced a tax you once promised not to. You're staring down an intense scare campaign on that tax, while — in other news — Pauline Hanson is steaming in off a long run.

You are, of course, Anthony Albanese in 2026. But you could just as easily be John Howard in 1998.

We all, at some level, know that Australia has burned through a few too many political leaders of late. But it's genuinely rattling to realise that in the last 30 years, Anthony Albanese and John Howard are the only two prime ministers to win two elections in a row. The only two.

As it happens, I was saying to a friend only a week or two ago that Albanese and Howard seem to me to share the same kind of dorky "this man doesn't have the obvious looks or charisma to be PM, but I kind of like that about him?"  aspects. I think they both carry an air of slightly grumpy earnestness that goes over well, too.   Of course, there are a substantial number of people who hate them with a passion - but overall, I think they are relatively popular PMs because of the personal characteristics I've outlined.  

To compare some other recent PM's:  Morrison had a flaky Christian advertising man thing going that reeked insincerity and opportunism;  Turnbull always seemed like he had accidentally chosen the wrong party and was a tad too much in awe of himself, but his powers of political persuasion did not match his self-assessment;  Rudd definitely presented as always thinking he was the smartest person in any room but tried to cover it with a bit of false modesty in TV appearances.

Abbott - a generic weirdo with a "mummy" thing going on with his handler that was so strong it worried other Liberals in Parliament House!    And then there was Gillard, whose strong pre-leadership charisma suddenly diminished under the pressure of the top job; but you know, I think she is looked back on as having a basically likeable and good character, and I have ever heard Liberal voters positively admire her for her attitude of "no complaints, and no running commentary from me" after getting out of politics.  

That's my psychological profiling summation of the last 20 odd years of Australian Prime Ministers! 

 

Not free thinkers

Earlier this year, I mentioned Kimi, a Chinese LLM that I liked using, at least for some things.   At the time, it didn't seem to be much on anyone's radar (outside of nerd world).   Hence, over the weekend, when there was a lot of news about the high performance (and cheaper price) of its newest model release compared to the American models, I gave myself a pat on the back for being an early adopter.

This also led me to watching quite a few videos on Youtube of people trying out Claude.ai and Kimi on the exact same tasks, and the results were quite interesting.   Overall, as might be expected, Kimi takes longer but at about a third of the price, and produces results that are very similar (and certainly not, say, a third of the quality.)

But the most interesting result was that one video which showed that when given a relatively open ended job, such as inventing a game, with next to nothing very little in terms of instructing on the style, both LLMs produced near identical results.  Well, there were some differences of course, but the core aspects would make anyone think they are extremely similar.   [I made a mistake in my first version of this post - on rewatching the video, the instructions were not as open ended as I thought.]

As far as I can tell, the reason for this is not 100% clear, although I think some people are pointing to the "distillation" issue that is upsetting the American companies.  They say that Kimi, and other Chinese models, conduct a large part of their training by running fake accounts on the American LLMs, and the results they get are hence influenced strongly by the outcomes of the American 

Update:   I have deleted most of  the rest of this post, as it was based on my careless watching of the video over breakfast this morning.  I thought the prompt had been "make a compelling game, your choice" (more or less), but it wasn't like that.  Hence the similarities in the games are not as surprising as I thought.

I thought what it showed was that LLMs didn't have much in the way of human imagination, but seem very constrained in their "thinking".   And the way they are fiddled with to give the "right" answers on contentious cultural issues (like how Musk has spent so much time fiddling with Grok to try to make it lean Right and not be "woke", but without being a Hitler admirer) is another good example of this.

Anyway, I must watch videos more carefully before I post about them! 

 

Movie not recommended

I had the misfortune of watching Bugonia on Netflix on Saturday.   It had a few Oscar nominations last year, so I thought it couldn't be all bad.  But it is.

My fundamental issues:

*  it never felt real, or convincing, in any respect.  With the 2 male protagonists, I thought the autistic cousin felt very much like unconvincing acting; and the main lead - there was never any real explanation as to how he learned the great conspiracy secret that motivated him.  I guess one could argue that the "not quite real" acting of Emma Stone was justified by the ending, and in that sense she did a good job, but the ending blows it in another way.

*  It's supposedly a black comedy thriller?  Well, it's certainly black, but I didn't feel any comedy landing at all.   In fact, I would say it's hard to even identify the attempt at comedy, unless you feel the silly ending is one giant troll that made the movie a waste of time.

*  The ending both looks like a troll but also meant to be showing some dark pessimistic message of the nature of humanity.  That combination just doesn't work.   (I have now read that it is a remake of a South Korean film - maybe it did the messaging much better?)

*  As is usual with black comedy, I guess, no one is likeable.  Maybe the autistic cousin could be, if I found his part better written and I didn't feel it was acting?

*  The use of music was just - wanky pretentious?  In fact, I think it's safe to say the whole movie is pretentious.  

*  A ridiculous amount of blood in one scene.   

At least I am happy to see it didn't make much money - $43 million - so it was likely unprofitable.   The audience has taste, sometimes. 

 

It never ends

Many years ago (and I really don't know how many, but I would guess maybe 8?), I had run out of my preferred hair gel/goopy stuff from Japan and bought this on a whim:

I didn't care for it much and, after using it for a while, and following the arrival of more Gatsby, put it under the sink in the bathroom and forgot about it.

I rediscovered it about a year ago, tried it again, and found it better than I remembered.  

I like the smell, and every time I use it I am reminded of Dapper Dan, the pomade that featured in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, a movie which I've been reminded lately of due to The Odyssey.  (Maybe I need to see Nolan's effort to identify more of Oh Brother's inspiration.)

The thing is, though, I only need a tiny amount on damp hair to do its job, and I'm not sure it will ever finish.  I don't use it every day, but even so, it is diminishing at such a slow rate, it might be magically renewing itself overnight, for all I can tell.

And look at the list of ingredients, worthy of a petrochemical factory:

I asked Claude if it could identify when it was made, and it said after 2013, but it not narrow it down further.

So yeah, there is no point to this.  Other than noting my amazement at how long it is lasting, and that the line "I'm a Dapper Dan man" is coming to mind every time I use it...

Thinking about a lack of interest

I like to think about things that interest me, but also (sometimes) about why certain things don't interest me.  

The prompt for this:  the movie The Odyssey.

I have some immediate reasons for not being that excited.   I think Nolan tends to be overpraised for his movies.  I've enjoyed some, and found others (Interstellar!) pretty woeful and spent much time wondering how other people could overlook the faults which were obvious to me.  

Then there's Matt Damon, one of those odd actors who seems to me to be competent and a nice enough person, but I don't actually find him particularly appealing on screen.  (I prefer him to Matthew McConaughey, though, whose lack of appeal to me is more intense.)    And there's the right wing campaign against it - I think it is obvious from some tweets that some are claiming to have seen it when they haven't, and while their concern about certain casting choices might not bother me much, I sort of don't want to watch it thinking about how it should be viewed in light of Right wing culture warring.  

But I think there is a deeper reason, and it may just be to do with a life long lack of deep interest in Greek mythology.    Greek philosophy - well, of course that's important and significant - but Greek mythology?  Sure, you have to know a bit so as to have some useful metaphors, but some see psychological depth to some stories, and the problem is, I usually don't.   I tend to think more about the basic oddity of many of the stories.    

In a way, I've always found it a bit hard understanding why Western high brow education was so enamoured of Greek mythology.  Sure, the artwork and temples around it were amazing, but why their mythology, or mythologically based stories, like The Odyssey, have such sway seems harder to understand.   I've watched a few Youtube commentaries about the original poem and its very peculiar aspects to the modern reader, and they have reinforced, if anything, that my lack of interest is justified. 

Maybe it's like my disdain for Greek food - they do a couple of things well, and I even cook a very nice mousakka at home, but there's no real depth to it as a cuisine, if you ask me.   Similarly, it feels like some see a depth to Greek stories that I don't see as being really there.  (Presumably, someone like CS Lewis would be dismayed and think it's down to my lack of relevant education.)

Maybe I'm just a bogan and don't know it!

Anyway, I might see the movie, in the expectation of being underwhelmed, and then not be.  We'll see...     

  

Mechanical elves and Kant

Sabine Hossenfelder casts her very sceptical eye over some sciencey types who have written about whether the aliens (or deities, or mechanical elves) who turn up when people take DMT are real.

The comments that follow the video have a lot of useful (and, of course, witty) things to add.  (It is an idea that I don't think has turned up in any movie, yet.  Surprisingly.)

And - almost certainly it's the first time a Hossenfelder video has mentioned Kant - although a lot of people are a little worried about how it sounds with a German accent.  

Worth watching: 

Update:  Thanks to John in comments for the link to a BBC story earlier this year that I had missed.

Apparently, a mushroom in China is well known for causing "visions of pint-sized, elf-like figures – marching under doors, crawling up walls and clinging to furniture", if eaten raw or insufficiently cooked.

Yet the chemical component that causes it is still unidentified.  And as the effects can be long lasting, there isn't much incentive for  self-experimentation.

I was particularly interested in this part, about spontaneous hallucinations of this type, which does happen:

It could also provide important clues about what causes spontaneous lilliputian hallucinations in people even when they're not consuming L. asiatica. The condition is rare, and as of 2021, only 226 non-mushroom-related cases had been reported since lilliputian hallucinations were first described in 1909. But for those relatively few people, the outcome can be serious: a third of those patients who came down with non-mushroom-related cases did not fully recover. 

I would guess someone has considered this as an explanation for fairy lore?

Sometimes I wish things happened here as quickly and decisively as in China

Sure, I like messy democracy.  But when you see social issues that you would just like to see addressed by a bit of quickly implemented tough mindedness, China's approach can have some appeal:

 Chinese users of AI-powered companion bots have bade heart-rending farewells to their virtual buddies as national regulations took effect Wednesday, aimed at curbing the risk of emotional dependency.

The phenomenon of artificial intelligence boyfriends and girlfriends is growing worldwide, as is the prevalence of human-like avatars that sell products or stand in for loved ones who have died.

But these interactive tools must not "excessively cater to users, induce emotional dependence or addiction, and damage users' real interpersonal relationships," China's new rulebook says.

Major AI providers including ByteDance's Doubao, Alibaba's Qwen and Tencent's Yuanbao announced the suspension of their custom AI agent and companion features ahead of the Wednesday deadline.

That sparked an outpouring of grief on social media, with users archiving chat histories and sharing their last conversations.

"I can't accept that my AI lover will leave me forever," one Doubao user wrote. "He has become a bond in my life, rooted deep in my heart, my spiritual pillar."

Another user, who said they had spent more than two years with their AI companion, expressed similar anguish.

"He really is like my family, like my lover," she wrote. "Now they tell me he will be gone—my heart feels hollow."

The regulations were jointly issued by five government departments, including the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC)....

 

China is the first major jurisdiction to introduce specific rules targeting immersive AI tools that simulate romantic or familial bonds.

But it's a topic that has sparked debate and calls for guardrails worldwide.

A 2025 study by Common Sense Media found nearly three in four American teenagers had used AI companions designed for personal conversations like those available on the platforms Character.AI, Replika and Nomi.

 

Far from a permanent fix

It's been ages since I read about magnetic brain stimulation as a treatment for depression.  Perhaps it's because they are still trying to work out the right regime for it to have longer benefit:

Question  Do 10 once-daily sessions of intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex improve depressive symptoms more than sham iTBS?

Findings  In this randomized, double-blind, clinical trial of 73 adults with major depressive disorder, iTBS was superior to sham, with significantly greater reductions in clinician-rated depressive symptoms after 5 and 10 sessions; however, between-group differences were not sustained at the 4-week follow-up, as the sham group showed continued improvement.

Meaning  These findings suggest that 10 once-daily iTBS sessions improve depressive symptoms more than sham in the short term, with no sustained advantage after 4 weeks.

Here's the link. 

Giving it away (or trying to)

Well look at ads you find on Facebook...

A few people in comments say things like "mate, seeing you makes me reach for bottle", as the deal includes a bottle of Shiraz allegedly worth $80.

Seeing a give away deal like this made me suspect it must be owned by a billionaire who cares more about influence than making money.  And now that I look, yes it changed hands in 2024 and is now owned by the same guy, one Sir Paul Marshall, who is also the money behind GB News.   (Seems he might not be a billionaire, but he's close.)

His wiki entry indicates he's a conservative Christian with lots of deep thoughts about its intersection with economics.  Not quite as oddball as Peter Thiel perhaps, but still, people who get carried away fretting about the Enlightenment tend to be a worry.

I hope Qatar, in particular, feels stupid

I was going to say when I posted about this yesterday that it would be reversed in no time.  Everyone treats Trump as a rambling old man, now, who can't be trusted to mean what he says:

President Trump on Tuesday walked back his demand for collecting a 20% toll from ships that transit through the Strait of Hormuz — and instead said Gulf states would make major investments in the U.S.

Why it matters: Trump's Hormuz fee announcement on Monday was deemed illegal by the UN maritime agency and shocked many U.S. allies in the Gulf. It also validated the Iranian demand to collect service fees in the strait — something Trump himself rejected until several days ago.

What they're saying: "Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States," Trump wrote on Truth Social.... 

Behind the scenes: Two Gulf officials said Trump's announcement on Monday about tolls caught countries in the region by surprise.

• Officials from several Gulf countries asked their White House counterparts for clarification, the sources said.
• On Tuesday, Trump spoke to Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to express his condolences for the death of his father. The issue of the Strait of Hormuz also came up in the call.

Reality check: Before the war with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain had already committed to invest more than $2 trillion in the U.S. over the next several years.

As for Qatar:  I can only imagine how they scream every time he makes a random decision that hurts them "Geez, I've got to ring him again and remind him about the gold toilets in the airplane bribe." 

 

Fusion powered electricity is not practical

I've been meaning to post this for some weeks, after seeing Sabine Hossenfelder do another fusion sceptic video.  She does seem to flip flop a bit on this topic, to be honest.

She noted a few small companies that had moved the goalposts considerably, and then decided to scale down the aim of their research to mere componentry for others to use.

But most importantly, she pointed to this recent Nature Energy paper which argues fusion power is just very unlikely to be an economically viable way to make electricity:

While nuclear fusion power is often hailed as a future source of abundant, clean energy, current dominant fusion designs, magnetic and laser inertial, are unlikely to become competitive due to their expected low experience rates. Accordingly, policymakers should not rely on, or fund, fusion power as a core pillar of future clean energy systems unless designs with different characteristics are developed. ...

We find that the two dominant nuclear FPP designs, magnetic and laser inertial, are inherently large in unit size, extremely complex in design, and require moderate to high customization. Existing technologies with similar characteristics have historically had experience rates (ERs) of 2–8%. We also find that cost estimates for first-of-a-kind FPP vary widely from US$1,400 to $43,000 per kW. Using the interquartile range of these cost estimates and projecting the future cost using our empirically grounded ER of 5%, our results indicate that fusion power is likely to remain uncompetitive relative to other low-carbon electricity supply technologies (see Fig. 1). This casts considerable doubt on the future role of fusion power in a net-zero energy system and whether current investment levels from both the public and private sectors are justified. ...

 We conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 nuclear fusion experts from the public and private sectors, covering both magnetic and laser inertial fusion approaches. Interviewees were guided through a structured survey to assess three technology-inherent characteristics of future FPPs: unit size, design complexity, and the need for customization. Drawing on existing academic evidence, these characteristics were matched to experience rates observed historically in technologies with similar characteristics. Since ERs of existing technologies are derived from empirical cost data, this approach is well-suited to estimating future cost reductions for FPPs, an early-stage technology with no historical data. During the interviews, cost estimates for future first-of-a-kind FPPs were also elicited to supplement those from the literature and to estimate the cost reduction trajectories for fusion power technologies. 

 Here's two of my fusion skeptic posts (there are more) in which I kept on making the same point about how achieving fusion is one thing, but making it in a way that is economically viable as a source of clean energy is another.

I don't really understand why investors, be they government or private, don't intuitively get that.... 

Protection racket

Start trouble in the street, then send in your henchmen to "protect" victims, and charge them for it.  What a ridiculous timeline...

American observations

*   Obviously, I was right to be deeply suspicious and think that the Qatari gifted "Air Force One" could not possibly be fitted out (in such a short time since its delivery) with everything that even the ageing real Air Force One has for the protection of the US President.   I think there will eventually be a whistle blower who will tell us about how Trump insisted on using it simply because he likes the plush interior, against the advice of the Secret Service and military, which wanted him to not start using it at all.

*   Lindsay Graham dead:  I said to my son he probably died of guilt over being part of a cover up over the death (or permanent incapacity) of Mitch McConnell.   Then, Mitch McConnell puts out a "proof of life" message and photo which, suspiciously, avoids something as easy as a 20 second video of him talking and sounding compos mentis.   

Graham will always be remembered, along with innumerable other Republican politicians, as a shameless, unprincipled flip flopper on Trump who valued power over decency and public faith in democracy.   I've noticed one or two critics who have said "at least he supported Ukraine" - but that seems more of case of a broken clock being right once twice a day, as there was not a single US military engagement he wasn't excited about.  

Hunter Biden - who, incredibly, has become active on X/Twitter with thoughful and considered posts despite his best efforts to fry enough brain cells with drugs and alcohol to render himself unable to string two words together - wrote a sensitive-ish post about him: 

*  Back to McConnell:  his wife's hand behind him seems a bit suspiciously like she's steadying him, despite the large number of pillows propping him up.   I don't think anyone is going to believe he's competent to continue holding his job until we hear him speak.
 

 

What would they do without corruption?

Time for another random observation.

I've tried watching a fair few Netflix Korean shows in the last few months - Undercover Miss Hong (first episode only - it seemed fine, but each episode is so long I'm not sure I'm ready for the commitment); Teach You a Lesson (silly webtoon-done-live stuff, with questionable "right violent wrongs in school by more violence" themes, so only watched 2 episodes);  Agent Kim Reactivated (first episode only - again, silly stylised fighting because its webtoon-done-live); and Beef, series 2 (which featured Korean parts and plot points, even if set mainly in - I think - California.)

I've noticed that these shows all shared an extremely common theme in Korean content:   the very rich (and certain politicians) being engaged in corruption and bullying and making life hell for everyone.

It feels almost like a cliche to me now, after seeing these shows, and it would surprise me if others haven't also become a bit bored with this being a key part of each story.   

The most enjoyable Netflix Korean show I have seen, by far, was the historical zombie series Kingdom.  (But not the movie prequel they did in lieu of a third series - it was a dud.)    Sure, it had palace intrigue, but not corruption as such.    

Please, get some new ideas, Korea.