Real cinema verite

Japundit - Camera on Conveyor

Go to the link for an oddly pleasing video taken from the sushi's point of view. It looks like a nice trick that a clever director might use in a movie.

A tyrant in the making

Fine young criminal | Books | Arts | Telegraph

This review of a new book "Young Stalin" gives a short taste of some key events in Stalin's early life.

It seems to me that the lead up to the Russian revolution was so full of drama and bad characters that it could work as source material for many, many movies. It has the benefit of not being overly familiar to Western audiences, and now that Russia is not communist, just how many people there would still be horrified to see an accurate portrayal of Stalin as a criminal thug?

Oh wait a minute: another review in The Telegraph makes a similar point:

In succeeding years he [Stalin] graduated from extortion to murder and armed robbery, using some 39 aliases, ranging from 'Joe Pox' to 'Oddball Osip', and employing several psychopathic associates, notably the baroquely vicious Simon 'Kamo' Ter-Petrossian.

Sebag Montefiore gives a brilliant account of the great 1907 Tiflis heist, when Stalin's gang held up a convoy delivering roubles: the resulting scenes of mayhem were worthy of the De Niro and Pacino film Heat, although here the bullets and bombs flew amidst armoured wagons and mounted Cossack guards. These robberies were essential to the funding of Lenin's exiled Bolshevik Party.

Over to you, screenwriters.

Market players: get in quick!

A simple algorithm based on fluctuations to play the market

I am not sure how seriously to take the above paper found on arxiv.org. This is its conclusion:

By analogy with the way motor enzymes trap favourable brownian fluctuations, we have built an algorithm which is able to make the best from out of equilibrium price fluctuations and to play the market. Testing its efficiency with genuine historical data, positive cumulative returns have been measured even in presence of a 0:1% transaction cost. Especially stupendous are the results dealing with the application of the algorithm to EMS currencies or with the Cac40 components.

The results of using the algorithm with Cac40:

Fig.(14) displays the stupendous results of the application of the MD3 algorithm to the components of the Cac40 between 2000/01/01 and 2006/05/12 ( 6:5 years). First, the optimal value of m does not depend on the time interval (out of sample). Second this optimal value is found to be close to 25 days, so to say one month since only workdays are taken into account. Finally but not the least, average yearly return up to 60% are obtained!

There is a catch, however:

The money which is captured by our algorithms comes from the irrational behavior of uninformed noisy traders. Therefore we really expect the present algorithms will become unprofitable as soon as our paper will be published, either because irrational traders will be taught a lesson or because the profitability of the algorithms will vanish with the number of users.

The thing is, this paper has only just been published, and maybe there aren't that many people who sit at home on a Saturday night reading arxiv.org papers. If I have alerted any market player to a way to make a killing in a short time, please sent me a cut of your profit!

Conflict on the high seas

It was surprising today to read a New Scientist article that says the Southern Oceans may not be absorbing much CO2 because they have become too windy:

Global warming has caused the Southern Ocean to become windier, churning up the waters so that they are unable to absorb CO₂ at the rate we produce it, the researchers say.

This is because only in March did I hear on The Science Show another researcher saying the exact opposite:

Around the poles, and particularly Antarctica, the winds are causing more mixing between water and atmosphere. The Antarctic polar current brings water from 3,000m depth to the surface. This water is low in CO2 and takes up the gas from the atmosphere.

More research needed to get to the bottom of this, evidently.

Come here, geekdom

I have noticed recently that my already low readership is usually even lower on Fridays. I figure it may have something to do with longer lunches and drinks after work. I also noticed that when I mentioned X Files actress Gillian Anderson in a previous post, several hits came here via several guys (well, I assume guys) who evidently search blogs for the very mention of her name.

So, in the interests of increasing a Friday's figures:

There is talk of a second X Files movie. Talk about a case of Rocky-itis. I didn't even like the first movie, although I loved the series for the first few years. I can't remember by which season the rot had set in.

Gillian has her own website/blog type thingee, which she seems to make an entry about once every 6 months.

She does take a good photo, though.

So crazy it might just work...nah!

Gizmodo UK : Windscraper Buildings Generate Power

From the article (which has a Youtube link too):

Architect, David Fisher, has envisioned a new tower that is one part wind turbine and one part skyscraper. The tower is based around a concrete center core, with each floor spinning like an individual wind turbine. When all of the turbines are harnessed together the tower will not only be able to power itself, but up to ten other similarly sized buildings, too.

Allergy testing

ScienceDaily: Peanut Allergies Overstated, Study Finds

This story reports how some kids, who eat peanuts with no problem, can still show an allergic reaction with a skin test.

I thought I had heard somewhere, years ago, that the skin tests for allergens was always a pretty haphazard exercise, with many false positives. It's not something I know much about, but the results of this particular study do seem pretty surprising.

Pirates, special effects, etc

Last weekend I saw the shorts for the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which looks very spectacular indeed.

I liked the first one (although yes, it could have been shorter) but had missed the second.

Last night I watched the second one (Dead Man's Chest) on DVD and plasma. Again, a bit too long, but really hard to dislike. The scripts are quite witty and imaginative, the acting is all pitched at just the right level for this kind of film, and the central character of Jack Sparrow is a great creation. (I would agree, though, that the plots are a bit too complicated for their own good.)

But the thing that keeps impressing most about the films is their absolutely exquisite look. They're expensive movies to make, but all the money is up there on the screen, with ravishing locales and extremely photogenic pirate ships, and some amazing costumes and creatures.

The second instalment is particularly big on the special effects, and while I was watching, it struck me how I have become underwhelmed by computer generated stuff in some movies, but not others. For example, I agreed wholeheartedly with the Village Voice's critic when he called George Lucas' style in the last 3 Star Wars movies "baroque nerdism". I also never feel impressed by any movie where armies of thousands are shown swarming likes ants across a field (think Lord of the Rings, but also "Troy".)

It's actually kind of difficult to explain why some special effects leave me cold, and other's don't. I mean, it's clearly the case that a giant Kraken attacking a pirate ship is not real; yet to me it looked cool and convincing. But a shot were a hundred people are made to look like 10,000, or hundreds of little spaceships are zooming around big ones: well that just looks too easy now.

I think it just has something to do with an effect blending in with an already spectacular background, rather than it being clear that all of the background has been created in a computer. (Maybe that still doesn't explain why I don't like the ant armies of LOTR.) Also, in the shorts for the last Pirate instalment, there are many shots of ships swirling around a giant whirlpool of water which looked cool to me, but it may be that the entire thing is fake; I don't know, and (more importantly) I don't care.

For whatever reason, I get much pleasure from watching the Pirates movies effects, which truly are very seamless and natural looking, and will probably go see "At World's End" at the cinema.

Boys overboard

More on Bastard Boys...

So that explains it. I had briefly noticed the report somewhere yesterday quoting Corrigan saying "John Howard personally signed off" on the Patrick's strategy, and thought "What!!???" I didn't have time to check its authenticity.

Now turns out it was all a big mistake: Combet said it, not Corrigan. Well, that explains why Rudd & Co were not giving media conferences yesterday.

And today, we get a full critique of the show from Chris Corrigan. I think it did seem that Combet was the one who received best treatment in the show, and Chris's criticisms seem pretty fair to me.

Like Corrigan, I disliked the soft-peddling with which the union threats were portrayed. In the second episode (which is the one I saw more of), we saw Mrs Corrigan vomit after taking a phone call at home, then stoically not telling her husband about it. Well, that's nice of her, but why not let the audience in on how bad the threat was to make her puke?

I also wondered about why the heavy connection between unionism and sex. I suppose capitalists are just too busy improving the world to have much time for it.

Lovelock lite

FT.com / Arts & Weekend - Lunch with the FT: James Lovelock

This recent article about a lunch with James Lovelock is a pleasant read; he sounds a jolly fellow despite his predictions of likely global calamity through climate change.

The most interesting section of this article, though, is his take on how it felt to be young during WWII, and the fact that he is pragmatic about procreation:

Part of Lovelock’s optimism springs from having experienced the second world war as a young man. ”Every man and woman in the street knew something nasty was up ahead. But the politicians just had their Munichs. Peace in our time. Many of us were sceptical, we thought something pretty awful was going to happen, but when it did happen, everybody suddenly grew happier, they found that instead of life being somewhat aimless, as it is now, they all had very positive things to do. It was very exciting. If you were young, it didn’t seem all that bad.”

But most people would regard the war as a terrible event. ”Not those who were in it,” he says. ”I think that’s the natural way to look at it from outside, with hindsight.” In Lovelock’s view, climate change ought to be treated as a new war.

Should people carry on having children, if the world that awaits them is so full of horrors? ”Oh, yes. Dash it all, if our ancestors long back faced with similar things hadn’t had children, we wouldn’t be here at all. That’s why I’m not a pessimist.”

He also hates wind power for its aesthetics, and is pro-nuclear. What a sensible man.

Pick someone else for your defence

Legislating against lies is a half-baked idea

I was surprised to see from a Laurie Oakes column that high profile barrister (and continual Howard government critic) Julian Burnside had said something as stupid as this:

Prominent barrister Julian Burnside will have a lot of people cheering his latest idea. "I suggest we introduce a law that makes it an offence for politicians to lie," he told the Future Conference in Melbourne...

As Laurie says:

A major problem with this is defining just what constitutes a lie.

Burnside, for example, says: "The big turnaround on climate change in the past six months is just the best demonstration that they (the government) have been lying up to now."

Patent nonsense. The government's changed attitude may simply demonstrate that politicians are capable of being persuaded to change their minds by logical argument and an accumulation of evidence.

Burnside's slipshod use of the word "lie" is just typical of the Left in the last 10 years, especially when it comes to the question of the justification for the invasion of Iraq.

The rockets keep coming

Hamas threatens to fire more Kassams | Jerusalem Post

18 Israelis are injured (one seriously) as a result of more rockets coming from Gaza onto Sderot. One theory for the attack is revenge for a Palestinian killed near the security fence. Another theory:

Defense officials, however, said the attack was most likely connected to the ongoing internal clashes between Fatah and Hamas inside Gaza that killed at least 15 Palestinians Tuesday.

According to the officials, the Hamas attack was an attempt to draw attention away from their slaying of eight Fatah security officers earlier in the day and was meant to provoke Israel into invading Gaza, a move that would end the internal fighting and unite Fatah and Hamas against their common Israeli enemy.

Sound plausible, and if true would confirm that Palestinians are the neighbours from hell. (So to speak - not speaking literally, you know.)

And I thought real estate agents were bad here

Los Angeles Times: LA Land Blog

It would appear from the above article that real estates agents in the US usually make a 6% commission.

That seems extraordinarily high compared to Queensland - where there is a statutory limit of 5% for the first $18,000, and 2.5% of the balance purchase price. In theory it is supposed to be negotiable, but in reality very few agents will do it for less.

A successful agent in the US must have quite an income. Good agents here don't do so bad.

Intriguing idea

A Two-Time Universe? Physicist Explores How Second Dimension of Time Could Unify Physics Laws

Hey, I don't understand what it really means, but this is the first time I have ever heard that anyone is working on the unification of the laws of physics by proposing an additional (hidden) dimension of time. (Unseen extra dimensions of space are part and parcel of string theory, but it works on one dimension of time.)

I will have to wait for some popular science journal to give a more detailed explanation.

Green mush not so good

Research says boiling broccoli ruins its anti-cancer properties

In this study, the scientist types bought a bunch of vegetables:

...(broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cauliflower and green cabbage) from a local store and transported them to the laboratory within 30 minutes of purchasing. The effect of cooking on the glucosinolate content of vegetables was then studied by investigating the effects of cooking by boiling, steaming, microwave cooking and stir-fry.

Boiling appeared to have a serious impact on the retention of those important glucosinolate within the vegetables. The loss of total glucosinolate content after boiling for 30 minutes was: broccoli 77%, Brussel sprouts 58%, cauliflower 75% and green cabbage 65%.

I think I have spotted a flaw in the research: who boils broccoli for 30 minutes anyway? Only people who don't have teeth to eat their dinner, I suspect.

Anyway, the other methods of cooking investigated resulted in a much more of the anti-cancer compounds being left in. No surprises there.

Good news or not - you decide

Global Warming - North Atlantic Current - Scientists Back Off Theory of a Colder Europe in a Warming World - New York Times

The headline there says it all - but here's more detail from the article:

Mainstream climatologists who have feared that global warming could have the paradoxical effect of cooling northwestern Europe or even plunging it into a small ice age have stopped worrying about that particular disaster, although it retains a vivid hold on the public imagination...

Not only is northern Europe warming, but every major climate model produced by scientists worldwide in recent years has also shown that the warming will almost certainly continue.

“The concern had previously been that we were close to a threshold where the Atlantic circulation system would stop,” said Susan Solomon, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “We now believe we are much farther from that threshold, thanks to improved modeling and ocean measurements. The Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Current are more stable than previously thought.”

I sort of liked the irony of global warming causing Europe to turn to ice. But now I will just have to settle for wine production in Scotland and Norway, or some such.

Hitchens profiled

Profiles: He Knew He Was Right: The New Yorker

I don't know if it was available on their website before now, but for whatever reason I had not previously read this very lengthy profile of Christopher Hitchens from the New Yorker last year. It's a fascinating read.

He turned up talking to Phillip Adams on Late Night Live last week, and they appear to still be friends, which surprised me somewhat. Maybe a mutual dislike of the concept of God is enough to paper over the differences.

About Geoengineering

Climate Feedback: Sunshades

Nature has a blog about climate change now; I must add it to my blogroll.

The link above is to an entry about geoengineering, and its politics. It also has a link to a full Nature feature on the topic. I don't know how long that will be available: News@Nature stories disappear really quickly.

Magnetic field leaving?

Space weather | Look down, look up, look out! | Economist.com

It's a little worrying that the earth seems to be on the way to losing its magnetic protection from solar and other radiation for an unknown period of time:

Just when the magnetic field will flip is impossible to predict from what is known at the moment; the best guess is that there are still several centuries to go. Nor is it clear how long its protective shield will be down. (The record in the rocks is little help, since a geological eyeblink represents many human lifetimes.)

As it has happened many times since life evolved, it's not as if it is going to sterilise the planet. But the possible effects of it on human life seem not to be well understood.

Reason to worry

Atomic Agency Concludes Iran Is Stepping Up Nuclear Work - New York Times

From the article:

Inspectors are concerned that Iran has declined to answer a series of questions, posed more than a year ago, about information the agency received from a Pakistani nuclear engineer, Abdul Qadeer Khan. Of particular interest is a document that shows how to design the collision of two nuclear spheres — something suitable only for producing a weapon....

“They are at the stage where they are doing one cascade a week,” said one diplomat familiar with the analysis of Iran’s activities, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information. A “cascade” has 164 centrifuges, and experts say that at this pace, Iran could have 3,000 centrifuges operating by June — enough to make one bomb’s worth of material every year. Tehran may, the diplomat said, be able to build an additional 5,000 centrifuges by the end of the year, for a total of 8,000.