Target Mars

An interesting post over at Bad Astronomy notes that it looks like Mars is still getting a regular pounding from small meteors:

The MGS team also mentioned that if you lived on Mars for about 20 years, on average you’d be close enough to one impact to actually hear it. Given that NASA plans on sending humans to Mars, this is a matter of real concern! It’s a tough problem– these are rocks that are maybe a few meters across, and so there is almost way to detect them. I have no idea how you could reliably find a large enough number of these potential impactors to do anything about them, and you really don’t want one touching down near a settlement.

I think that radiation on the surface is likely to be a problem too, given the thin atmosphere and (I think) not much of a magnetic field. It all sounds like living half underground is probably the only choice for long term settlements there. (At least until they or smash in a few comets and get a real atmosphere going.)

As I have said before, if there is some water ice on the Moon, the only big benefit of living on Mars is going to be a higher gravity, which (for permanent settlement) is probably mainly an issue for any babies conceived and raised there. We need to know the biological effect of animal gestation on the Moon before really worrying about whether Mars is worth the effort.

Julia doesn't love Kevin?

Labor insider Michael Costello says this about Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard:

I'm not sure, however, that things will quieten down this time. Gillard has disliked Rudd for years. Crean hates him. Crean's ambition, like hers, was first to do in Beazley and a close second was to get Gillard up as leader.

Crean hasn't given up on this second ambition and neither has Gillard. Those seeking support for Beazley found that a common reaction from known Gillard supporters and Rudd haters was that their support for Rudd was to get rid of Beazley, but that would not be the end of the matter. When Rudd stumbles, as all leaders do at some point, he will need to watch his back very carefully.

Given what we know of Mark Latham's personality now, it seems hard to believe that Julia ever genuinely liked him much either. (In fact, it is hard to imagine why any woman liked him.) I take it that her ambition can overcome such reservations, though.

Back to Adams

Maybe I am referring to The Dilbert Blog too often lately, but here's a link to another post that struck me as particularly funny. (By rights, I shouldn't like him, but he proves the point that liberal atheists who have a pretty low opinion of most of humanity can still be very funny as humorists. Not that many of them are, however.)

Speaking of humour and the Left, in the last few months the Comedy Channel here has started showing The Daily Show with Jon Stewart every weeknight. Previously, I had only seen the once a week "Global Edition", and thought the show looked pretty good, despite its politics. On seeing it regularly, though, I have been disappointed. Generally, I reckon they could cut it down to about a one hour weekly show, and every segment might be good. There are an awful lot of misses over the 2 1/2 hours of a full week. A consistent weakness I notice is when he interviews someone that he knows very well. They just spend a lot of time congratulating each other and giggling.

The madness of cats

It is now believed that old cats can get pretty much the exact equivalent of Alzheimer's Disease. Not being a cat person, I am curious to know how anyone could tell that a mostly inanimate object (we are talking old cats, after all) had dementia.

The article notes that's what's good for cats is good for humans (or perhaps it's the other way around):

Experts suggest that good diet, mental stimulation and companionship can reduce the risk of dementia in both humans and cats. Dr Gunn Moore explained: "If humans and their cats live in a poor environment with little company and stimulation, they are both at higher risk of dementia. However, if the owner plays with the cat, it is good for both human and cat. A good diet enriched with antioxidants is also helpful in warding off dementia, so a cat owner sharing healthy meals like chicken and fish with their pet will benefit them both."

Sounds just a little too close to his cat, for my liking.

The killer is in the detail

This is a list of the "diplomacy" recommendations of the Iraq Study Group:

The United States should:

1. Begin a new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region. The effort should include every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq, including all of Iraq’s neighbors.
   
2. Try to engage Iran and Syria constructively, using incentives and disincentives.
   
3. Renew commitment to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace process, including President Bush’s commitment to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.

Iran should:

1. Stem the flow of arms and training to Iraq.
   
2. Respect Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
   
3. Use its influence over Iraqi Shiite groups to encourage national reconciliation.

Syria should:

1. Control its border with Iraq to stem the flow of funding, insurgents and terrorists in and out of Iraq.

International efforts:

1. The issue of Iran’s nuclear arms should be dealt with by the five members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany.
   
2. A possible regional conference on Iraq or broader Middle East peace issues.

The most interesting part is what "incentives and disincentives" could be used with Iran and Syria? I am assuming the Study Group would not consider Bush threatening military strikes a good idea, even though you get the feeling that such threats are the only kind that might make Iran and Syria act more cautiously.

Many, many commentators will make a similar point, I am sure. See this article in Slate for one.

Then this other article in Slate (which I only read after starting this post) does give more detail:

On Page 51, the authors acknowledge that the United States should offer Iran and Syria incentives, "much as it did successfully with Libya." But the Libyans had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, when they agreed to give up their nascent (and still very primitive) nuclear program. The Iranians, by contrast, have great wealth and enormous leverage, not only in the Middle East but with European and Asian countries that depend on their oil.

The authors do take a bold step here. They list a few "possible incentives" that Bush might offer Iran, among them "the prospect of a U.S. policy that emphasizes political and economic reforms instead of … regime change."

Well, I suspect that Iran feels pretty secure that a policy that wants regime chance can be resisted indefinitely. I mean, look at Iraq!

Meanwhile, I have said for some time that common sense indicates there is no hope of governing a country split along religious sectarian lines when the government allows either or both sides to maintain their own militia. I would have thought that little progress is going to be made until the government decides to disarm everyone, and in particular the "Mahdi army", either by negotiation or force.

In the (Cheney) family way

Wow. VP Cheney's gay daughter is pregnant. Although not explained, one assumes it is through some donor's sperm. (I wonder if the donor is gay.)

Talk about doing whatever she can to alienate the religious conservatives who support the Republican Party! (Although I guess Cheney is more or less out of politics with the next election anyway.)

A new form of terror

It would have to be the best flatuence story for a long time:

Flatulence brought 99 passengers on an American Airlines flight to an unscheduled visit to Nashville early Monday morning.

American Flight 1053, from Washington Reagan National Airport and bound for Dallas/Fort Worth, made an emergency landing here after passengers reported smelling struck matches, said Lynne Lowrance, a spokeswoman for the Nashville International Airport Authority....

The passengers and five crew members were brought off the plane, together with all the luggage, to go through security checks again. Bomb-sniffing dogs found spent matches.

The FBI questioned a passenger who admitted she struck the matches in an attempt to conceal body odor, Lowrance said. The woman lives near Dallas and has a medical condition.

Found via Boing Boing.

Better title needed

New Roads Act as a Highway for Diarrhea

It's from Scientific American and not all that interesting. Just a funny sort of title, I thought.

Strange matter indeed

My interest in whether the Large Hadron Collider at Cern will accidentally cause the end of the earth continues, but there hasn't been much new at arxiv for a while that seems relevant to my previous focus (the creation of mini black holes).

However, I have recently found some stuff regarding "strangelets," which might also be created in the LHC and are another possible way disaster could happen. (Its risk has been dismissed because cosmic rays in the atmosphere should already have caused it to happen, and seeing the earth is still here, they can't be dangerous. Maybe, but it has been some time since that paper was written, and the problem is you don't get much of a sense that they review new theoretical scenarios on a risk basis all that often.)

I know little about strangelets, and had not previously realised that some scientists think that they may already occasionally pass through the earth, and be detectable as causing earthquakes! The Wired story from 2003 about this is here. As it says:

It's remarkable that some strange guest should sweep through Earth like a hot wire through wax, and that no one would notice as it did so. But though the visitor was very fast and fairly heavy, it was also extremely small: a mass of as much as

10 tons squeezed into something about the size of a red blood cell. If a 10-ton asteroid fell to Earth at 400 kilometers per second, people would notice; something the size of a small car hitting the unyielding Earth at that speed would give up its kinetic energy in an explosion to rival that of a 200-kiloton nuclear weapon. But condensed to the size of a small amoeba, the same mass wouldn't cause anywhere near as much fuss. The fearsome momentum of the microscopic visitor would shatter the bonds between molecules directly in its path and push the bystanders aside. It would do this vigorously enough to melt a small tunnel as it passed, slicing through the rocky earth almost as easily as it passed through air and water....

So, what would it mean for Earth if the dark matter that astronomers believe envelops our galaxy was made of strange matter? Strange nuggets up to a billion or so times the mass of a normal atom would fall to Earth and just sit there, chemically inert and hard to find. Larger nuggets would penetrate the planet's interior before stopping. And nuggets weighing more than a tenth of a gram would pass right through. A large nugget, elbowing its way through Earth at high speed, might be detectable by seismologists.

Most scientists don't think this really was the explanation, but I think that is to do with the timing of the earthquakes, not due to any loopiness about the general idea.

For a more general paper, see this paper from May 2006 (with the intriguing title "Strangelets: Who is Looking and How".) It turns out that there are lots of ways scientists can look for it, in the atmosphere, as well as in lunar and earth soil.

The issue with creating them in the LHC is that maybe it is possible to have strangelets that just don't sit there inert, but can change other normal matter to strange matter too. (I think this is scenario, I haven't re-read it for a while.) "Normal" stable strange matter being created in the LHC would not be much of a problem, as it would have very small mass. But I must look around on the internet for any recent stuff on the dangerous strange matter scenario.

It's an odd thought that, if you are really, really unlucky, you might be killed by a high speed super- massive thing from space the size of a red blood cell.

Bad signs

1. Iran introduces more Internet censorship (from The Guardian, via Tigerhawk):

Iran yesterday shut down access to some of the world's most popular websites. Users were unable to open popular sites including Amazon.com and YouTube following instructions to service providers to filter them.

Similar edicts have been issued against Wikipedia, the internet encyclopaedia, IMDB.com, an online film database, and the New York Times site. Attempts to open the sites are met with a page reading: "The requested page is forbidden."...Some news sites, such as the BBC's Farsi service, are also blocked.

2. John Bolton resigns as US ambassador. Tough straight talk no longer to be heard at the UN.

3. The Jerusalem Post reports that a new security assessment by (I think) its own defence force is that the US will not take any pre-emptive strike against Iran:

Predicting Iran will obtain nuclear weapons by the end of the decade, the defense establishment's new and updated assessment for 2007 does not foresee the United States undertaking a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear installations, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The chances of an American strike are deemed "low," according to assessments by the security establishment. Israel also believes that international diplomatic efforts to stop Iran will fail, security sources said.

The article goes on to explain that there is little hope of very effective sanctions due to Russia's role.

I guess we all knew this before, but the bad aspect is that such reports confirm to Iran that they appear to be in the clear, except perhaps if Israel decides to take matters into its own hands. But I think there is still considerable doubt about how Israel could conduct such an attack without America's direct involvement.

A lengthy article in the Jerusalem Post notes all the problems with the various possible approaches, and comes up with this variation on a diplomatic solution:

Nuclear Defusing might help the parties back off from the brink by changing their expectations so as to dispose them to take measures that would be otherwise inconceivable. It includes making Israel - Iran's avowed nuclear target - a member of NATO and the quid pro quo agreement of Israel to move rapidly to a permanent two-state solution, more or less along the Clinton Plan, and to a peace treaty with Syria in return for the Golan Heights.

Placing Israel under NATO's nuclear umbrella would go a long way toward deterring Iran from threatening or attacking Israel with nuclear weapons. But will NATO, in particular its European members, accept Israel?...

With an increasing Muslim population, sounds kind of unlikely, doesn't it? I reckon if France indicated it was taking this proposal seriously, it would be romantic walks by car fire in Paris for a few months at least.

The end game is meant to be this:

Once Israel is embedded in NATO, and Israelis and Palestinians have embarked on a long-term truce and adopted peaceful coexistence, the international community will promote regional arms control involving NATO, Iran, and other Middle East countries.

In one or two generations the Middle East could become a nuclear weapons free zone.

I'm not going to hold my breath hoping for this approach to get off the ground.

(Readers who have not been here before are also referred to my previous musings about attack by Electronic bomb. That's assuming they exist and work..)

HMAS Labor sails off into unchartered waters

Why do I make the nautical metaphor? New Labor leader Kevin Rudd did it first in an interview with Geraldine Doogue:

Geraldine Doogue:
Some might say Kevin Rudd’s using religion himself for his own advantage, to advance himself up the greasy poll of politics.

Kevin Rudd:
If you know anything about HMAS Labor Party let me tell you that doesn’t really work that way. Doing this interview with you Geraldine has got more hazards for me internally than anything that you may calculate may be advantageous for me beyond the party. I just think I’ve got a responsibility to start talking about these things.

Kevin's really got to try to find a way of sounding less pretentious.

I am sure many conservatives like me must have mixed feelings about Rudd. He has experience outside of politics and unionism, which is a big plus. His life achievements do make for a good story, and he could have done well even if he had never entered politics. (Unlike someone like Latham, who also had brains, but only ever tried to make a living via politics, and even then relied to a significant degree on patronage.)

On the downside, this background does make him an outsider within his own party, and he doesn't come across as being sufficiently ruthless as to be able to deal with internal dissent. While having someone who is a sincere Christian in politics always appeals to me, by Rudd's own admission it doesn't exactly endear him to many Labor supporters.

As a political performer, to my mind he also shares quite a lot of the insincerity of Beazley. Kim, who also strikes me as a likeable enough person, often seemed to be only affecting outrage over various government policies. The decision to have all Labor politicians only ever use the phrase "extreme Industrial Relations legislation" as some sort of Trade Mark phrase has not exactly helped in the sincerity stakes. (Also, for how long will all those billboards across the nation showing Beazley tearing up the legislation be a reminder of instability within the ALP?)

At least at the State level we know that brainiac swotty types with no obvious appeal to the general public can lead Labor to considerable success (Bob Carr, and to a lesser extent, Wayne Goss.) Federal leadership in the last 50 years doesn't bring to mind any obvious comparison. I am not sure how to account for this; perhaps it is because the leader's political performance in State Parliament does not have the same type of high media exposure that it does at the Federal level.

I also predict that Julia Gillard will be net loser of votes. As she and Rudd played up the "dream team" image to the extent they almost looked like courting lovers, I reckon he'll live to regret it.

It would be premature to write Rudd off immediately, but my impression is that the omens are not good.

The local "arc of instability"

It's remarkable how the regions close to Australia seem to have all decided to have an outbreak of political and social instability in the last year or two. East Timor, West Papua, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and now Fiji. I am half expecting a popular Maori uprising to storm New Zealand's Parliament House just to round things out.

This article from Quadrant (by Michael O'Connor) last month talks about many of these countries' problems, and makes some interesting points:

As is the case with virtually every serious conflict in Melanesia, the root cause lies in the attempts to rationalise the demand for land and the traditional land rights of the people. It is not enough to assert, as some have, that traditional rights are out of date in a modern society, if only because Melanesia is not a collection of modern societies. Collapse is rooted in the clash between traditional land rights and the pressures on land imposed by a rapidly growing population, the failure—or inability—to modernise traditional agricultural practices, and a failure by the political, administrative and legal systems to resolve disputes. Land troubles cannot be legislated out of existence or ignored; they are real and, in the minds of the traditional owners, of fundamental importance.

And elsewhere:

As with all the other failed or failing states in the region, media reporting focused on the restoration of internal security by the military and police, but the administrative assistance will be much more important. The success of the overall mission will depend more upon this element than on any other. It is not, however, a task for a handful of more or less senior experts with their own bureaucratic culture, but for a corps of administrative and technical personnel at all levels working with their indigenous colleagues, because the challenge is to show that government is for the benefit of the whole community and not just the population of the capital. If the job is to be done properly, Australia is unmistakably launching a new form of colonialism, the nature of which is not yet fully understood or developed but which is none the less real.

If we are to understand this reality—and support the commitment as it deserves—it may be first necessary to abandon the shibboleth that colonialism is irredeemably bad. Likewise, we need to abandon the populist blame game pursued, among others, by the same cheer squads that would consign the former metropolitan power to perdition for failing to provide the new nations with the necessary resources and skills to go it alone. It’s a fun game—blame the colonial master for getting out too early, too late; for failing to provide enough aid, for providing too much aid; for attaching too many strings to the aid, or not enough strings—but it’s not very helpful.

Interesting.

Other Australians of my age can remember, I am sure, how New Guinea used to feature as a tourist destination on Australian TV quite often in the late 1960's and early 70's. Now, I suspect most people would put it close to the bottom of preferred international destinations, despite its proximity. (It did feature on "Getaway" recently, but on a tour conducted by luxury mid-sized cruise ship that was the base for brief excursions into remote coastal villages.)

Lessons of a new husband

Scott Adams (of Dilbert Blog, which I have only recently started following) got married in July this year to a woman namely Shelly. It would appear from Wikipedia that this might be his first marriage. I suppose that it is possible that he has lived with a de facto partner before, but then again this story from his blog makes that seem a little unlikely. (It also made me laugh out loud):

Last night we were having some quality time alone at home and I made the mistake of writing myself a note while Shelly was still talking. She asked me what the note was about. I proudly told her it was about Vladimir Putin and how two of his critics were recently poisoned. It would make a great blog topic. I was quite pleased with myself, until Shelly asked, “Is that what you were thinking about while I was talking?”

Now let me explain something to the single men out there. If you think there’s an easy way to explain to your wife why you were thinking of Vladimir Putin while she is telling you about her feelings, you would be totally wrong. And I hadn’t practiced that conversation so I was caught unprepared. I think I said something along the lines of “I only think of Russian politics during the gaps between your words.” But apparently I’m supposed to be using that time just waiting around.

On a more philosophical note, Adams insists that he does not believe in free will, and in a recent post gave an example to try and help bolster his argument. This attracted 845 comments in response, which just goes to show the odd places where serious discussion of such an issue can take place.

Linked at last

Well, that only took 18 months! Tim Blair evidently moves in mysterious ways, taking my not so subtle hint of a few posts back that a link on his blog roll was long overdue. Thanks TB.

Just to be perverse I should now announce my retirement from blogging.

My history of being linked is fairly tragic. Currency Lad was an early one, but he's has wandered off into semi-retirement without, as far as I know, any explanation. Evil Pundit gave me a kind recommendation but now has disappeared completely (after talking about serious health issues). Does anyone know if he is OK? Catallaxy had a link earlier, then had a massive crash and I haven't re-appeared. Maybe my appearance on Blair's site means he'll soon have a tragic accident ironically connected to global warming and also have to retire. (Cruise ship to Hawaii hits iceberg, leaving Tim stranded on tiny 1 m high island in the South Pacific slowly being inundated by rising sea levels?)

Speaking of which, I think I may have found the perfect Tim Blair Christmas gift:


It's the Global Warming Mug:

Each mug is covered with a map of the world. When you pour in a hot beverage, the mug shows what happens when the world heats up and the oceans begin to rise... Land mass disappears before your very eyes!

Quite handy for choosing where one's long term real estate investments ought to be.

Let me be the first to say...

1. Alan Ramsay is probably in hospital today with severe finger cramps after typing every single word of his SMH column today (as opposed to usual cut and pasting of 70% of it.)

2. I really hope Kevin Rudd is the new leader so that I can see him looking extremely uncomfortable in one of those required "having a beer in his local pub" photos that are deemed essential in every election campaign.

3. What was going on with Julia Gillard's hair yesterday? Did she pick a bad week to get a new style, or did the leadership challenge come on so fast that she had to do the press conference straight out of the shower? (I know that I should either be female or gay for that joke, but what the heck.)

4. Just how long is some of the Left commentary going to be about how this is all a Murdoch plot? It's funny, but I didn't know that Murdoch had much control over Phillip Adams (who came out strongly for Rudd a couple of weeks ago), or the Fairfax press or the ABC. What is Tim Dunlop going to say about this?

5. The best line from Matt Price's piece today:

Logic dictates Coalition disunity should be monopolising the headlines, except logic and federal Labor caucus go together like foie gras and tomato sauce.

A surprise for Michael Crichton

The quality of Michael Crichton's books has always been pretty uneven. Without going back and checking, it seems he follows some sort of 6 year cycle between pretty good and pretty ridiculous.

As a fiction stylist he usually leaves a lot to be desired. But even then, some of his books read much better than others.

I therefore don't read everything he publishes, but of his recent books I liked "Prey" (about nanotechnology) and quite enjoyed the plotting of "Timeline", even though the reason for corporate time travel was very disappointing. I did not bother reading "State of Fear" because the basic idea (evil environmentalists creating weather manipulating machines) sounded like something no writer could make me believe. (Besides, some climate scientists he consulted expressed dismay that he either misunderstood or deliberately ignored them.)

Anyway, it is a little surprising to read that his latest book ("Next", about biotechnology) has received good reviews in the States. Maybe a Christmas gift for me?

Personal flying concepts

Found via New Scientist technology blog, a great article reviewing personal flying concepts developed for a time by the US armed forces. Many of these I have seen before, but had half forgotten. But I don't recall the first one with the pilot standing above chopper blades. Looks very disconcerting.

Murder by magnet

Here's an article that the script writers for CSI or House could use inspiration for a story next season:

Researchers found that while common magnets for home and office use with low magnetic strength posed little risk, stronger magnets made from neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) may cause interference with cardiac devices and pose potential hazards to patients. NdFeB magnets are increasingly being used in homes and office products, toys, jewelry and even clothing....

Two spherical magnets of eight and 10 millimeters in diameter and one necklace made of 45 spherical magnets were tested on 70 patients, 41 with pacemakers and 29 with ICDs. Magnetic interference was observed in all patients. The cardiac devices resumed normal function after the magnets were removed.

I like to think that it must be a very fun job being a researcher for (say) House, as I assume they spend most of their time reading weird case studies in the medical journals that can be varied a little to form the basis of the difficult diagnosis of each episode. Of course, being a doctor might help too.

Silly hats and academia in Japan

An interesting article from the Japan Times about Japan and overfishing. It starts off talking about a famous TV fish expert:

In September, the TV personality known as Sakana-kun was appointed to the position of guest assistant professor by the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology.

Famous for his childish demeanor and blowfish-shaped headgear, Sakana-kun certainly knows his fish, and his lack of a college degree doesn't detract from his reliability as a marine expert. Having turned a childhood obsession with octopi into a lifelong study of sea life and all it entails, he first gained attention on the TV Tokyo contest show "TV Champion" when he beat out other piscine otaku with the depth and breadth of his knowledge: the contestants also had to have an understanding of fish cuisine, which is more important on TV than the zoology stuff.

Sakana-kun's motto is "Take a look, take a bite (Mite miyo, tabete miyo)," which makes him the perfect fish expert for TV even beyond his big smile and ingratiating manner.

Hmm, I want to see what a self-educated, childish, blowfish-headgear-wearing fish expert looks like. Here he is:


He just looks...annoying. Remember, he has been appointed an assistant professor at a Toyko University.

Anyway, the rest of the article gets more serious in talking about how the Japanese need to start eating less tuna (they account for 40% of world consumption of bluefin tuna, and 25% of all tuna!)

Kim must be very annoyed

I reckon the thing annoying Kim Beazley most about the leadership challenge would be that did all that dieting and workouts in the gym for no political purpose. Oh well, if he loses he can always console himself by forgetting about the diet completely over Christmas.

On Insiders last week, Kim made it clear he was very happy to have his weight loss noticed:

BARRIE CASSIDY: It comes up periodically, too, questions are being raised about your health. Physically, clearly, you haven't been in a shape as good as this for a long, long time. But you did have that recent illness?

KIM BEAZLEY: The illness is fine. My physical shape very kind of you to say that. I've been working very hard on the subject of my physical structure and on the whole I'm being successful with it.

Actually, the way he skipped over the illness question so quickly seemed just a little suspicious to me. Of course this is pure speculation, but I wonder whether part of the reason for the leadership challenge (which all commentators agree is unusual in that it does not appear to have been instituted by any contender) is due to lingering concern by close colleagues about his memory or ability to concentrate.