Bjorn again, again

Bryan Appleyard meets Bjorn Lomborg - Times Online

This is an interview (well, more of profile really) with Bjorn Lomborg. He sounds an interesting character. (Turns out he is gay, which makes the way he upsets Greenies even more satisfying.)

A tale of the young and stupid

The ex files: Andrew Cottam, 27, and Hannah Claydon, 21

I don't know why people volunteer such disclosure about their unhappy past relationships, especially when it is a story like this one.

Andrew tells the story of how, as a 21 year old, he dated a 15 year old. He met her down at the local (underage drinking?) and describes her as:

...an opinionated, self-assured teenager with lots to say. I offered to walk her home and we shared our first kiss on the doorstep. I didn't have any reservations about the age gap because she seemed so mature.

It would seem that a sexual relationship started quickly, with the mature, self-assured 15 year old climbing up to his bedroom and leaving early the next morning. (His parents, having common sense, did not approve of the age difference, or perhaps it was also the fact that what he was doing was probably illegal.)

Of course, it all turned into a nightmare pretty soon when said self-assured girl, after 6 months, couldn't see her boyfriend every night because of work. She became "sulky and argumentative" and insanely jealous. Andrew finally had enough after this incident:

One night, I sneaked out when Hannah was asleep. I chatted to a group of lads in the bar, with no intention of meeting girls. Hannah woke up, realised I'd escaped and went mad. She stormed into the bar, pouring a drink over my head and slapping me in the face.

Relationship ends. How sad.

Of course, I am posting about it because it the blackly funny "told you so" aspect of it all. However, appearing as it does in the women's section of the Observer, I don't know that it will reach the audience to which it might serve as some sort of warning.

Strange science time

I mentioned recently that it seems that the creation of "naked singularities" (without the cloak of a black hole event horizon) at the Large Hadron Collider is considered a possibility. It seems that their creation via the same astrophysical process of gravitational collapse that leads to black holes is still being considered too.

This recent paper looks at the possibility that may account for some of the most powerfully energetic events in the universe. Here's some extracts:

Impulsive cosmic events combine two main puzzling features, namely an extremely short time of emission (order of a second) and a very high energy fluence. The main challenge therefore is to find a unique mechanism which allows at once for both properties.

The most impressive examples of the above type of events are the Gamma Ray Bursts. The total energy emitted can be as high as 1054 ergs, mostly concentrated in a pulse as short as a second. This amount of energy appears much more stunning if we think to it as being the energy emitted in a second-long pulse by 1010 galaxies each made of 1011 Sun-like stars, each emitting at a rate of ∼ 1033 ergs/sec., concentrated in a region probably smaller than a galactic core!

OK, I knew Gamma Ray Bursts were powerful, but that just sounds ridiculous. I wonder how far away from one you have to be in order to stand any chance of survival?

The paper goes on to explain that naked singularities comprise a Cosmic Time Machine, which, if I understand it correctly, can beam out huge amounts of energy from the the past and future. The author believes that these may account for some (all?) Gamma Ray Bursts.

Still, there seems to be a limit on how long the burst can last (luckily!):

Evidently the longer a naked singularity lasts as such the more luminous will be the burst because longer is the future development which will be ”compressed” by the time inversion and therefore more are the photons which will contribute to the prompt emission. This mechanism may lead to undesirable bursts of infinite intensity! Naked singularities however appear to prevent this circumstance. It is well established that a naked singularity decays to a black hole.

For the possibility of naked singularities being created right here on Earth, maybe late next year at the LHC, go see the paper extracted at my previous post here.

I presume that astrophysical naked singularities may be very, very different from the ones formed at the LHC, but as I said in my last post, it would be nice to see the possible consequences of having then in Europe clearly addressed.

The X ray bag

Found over at Red Ferret Journal, try taking this bag on board your next flight, especially if it's to the USA:


As the witty guy who writes for RFJ says:

The X-Ray Bag is guaranteed to raise a chuckle at the airport security line, oh yes. They’ll be laughing and smiling and pointing you out as a really interesting and funny person. Heck, they may even invite you home to meet the family when you get back from your trip. Or you’ve paid the bail money. Either way, it’s a wonderful way to meet people and make new friends.

A very unlucky person

Paintball Accident Made Him a Widower, and Then a Crusader - New York Times

In 2004, a husband and wife took their 10 year old son to a paintball park, but then this happened:

A 14-year-old player inadvertently detached a valve, launching his gun’s carbon-dioxide-filled cylinder as an unguided missile. It struck Ms. Contois, who was watching from a picnic area off the field, in the back of the head. She never regained consciousness, and died at the scene.

It is hard to credit just how unlucky she would have to be to die that way.

The Eddie Elephant in the Room (a TV rant)

So, Channel 9's new TV boss David Gyngell thinks that putting back Eddie McGuire into a super rich, super long, version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire is a good idea?

Funny, I seem to recall that when the show used to offer a paltry million bucks, it was dragged out from 60 to about 80 minutes most nights. A $5 million prize will likely mean a purported 80 minutes ends in 120 minutes. Why not just say it will be three hours then let it run right through to Today?

Although "Millionaire" maybe used to rate well enough, I have a general theory that Channel 9's problems really began when Eddie started appearing more on screen (not just when he tried his hand at management.)

I have always found him an unappealing screen personality who gives me the strong impression that he is likely a jerk in real life too. The impression was reinforced when I read in a review of "Who Killed Channel 9" that his sophisticated sense of humour included this:

When the producers walked into McGuire's office, according to Cress' diary, "Eddie is standing with his back to us, feet splayed apart and his hands firmly on the desk. 'From what I've heard about you guys, I guess I'm going to have to assume the position' ".

Cress comments: "I always suspect that someone who begins a business meeting trying to put you at ease with a man-joke is probably leading up to something less funny."

Anyway, everyone knows how Gyngell could revive Channel 9. Everyone.

Here's the new promo: Channel 9: The One that Won't Stuff You Around

Yes indeed, absolutely everyone knows that the crucial problem with most commercial television in Australia for the last, I don't know, 5 or more years, is that they decided to STUFF EVERYONE AROUND.

Do I need to spell it out? How many series are now run from episode 1 to even episode 10 without a 2, 3 or 4 week hiatus (possibly more than one,) during which there may or may not be old episodes from the same series 3 years ago, as well as at least one a change in the time-slot. (And that may be from sometime vaguely reasonable to something completely unreasonable.)

And how about this for another radical idea: programming will follow age appropriate times. I'm not talking MA shows after 8.30 pm either. No, the most astoundingly puzzling programming I have seen for years is the two English antique shows (Bargain Hunt and Antiques Roadshow) being shown on Nine between 5 and 6pm. What the hell? This doesn't count as a show with any conceivable general family interest: certainly it would send children running screaming from the room. Has Nine decided that it must help parents by running these moribund shows so as to convince primary schoolers they can then do their homework before dinner at 6? And the people in retirement villages who may want to watch it are probably in the dining room eating at 5.30 anyway.

All Gyngell has to do, apart from "boning" McGuire permanently, is to announce that, of all the commercial TV in Australia, Channel 9 will be the only one now to show series for a full, continuous season, with no weeks of interrupting repeats, and a guarantee of (at most, and only if it is truly deserved) one timeslot change per show per year.

(And Antiques Roadshow will not be shown, but a special DVD set will be send to the half dozen people who have been watching it.)

Car park terrorist

New Scientist Technology Blog: Hybrid cars: Too damned quiet?

The post above is about the issue of the potential danger of silent hybrid cars (well, at least until their petrol motor kicks in.) Should they make some sound when in electric mode?

I don't think this commenter was joking when she wrote this:

Personally, I find it great fun to drive around underground car parks in 'stealth' (electric only) mode, creeping up behind people with laden shopping trolleys and gaggles of screaming kiddies, and scaring them out of their wits.

On the open road I haven't hit any pedestrians - blind or otherwise - yet, but have nearly collected a couple of cyclists who didn't look, or signal, before changing lanes.

But seriously, I think education is the answer. Everyone, from littlies learning to cross the road, up has to learn to rely on their eyes and not just their ears. As for the blind - they should be able to feel the vibrations and hear the slight 'crunching' sound the tyres make on most paved surfaces. I've had to learn that pedestrians and cyclists aren't necessarily aware of my presence and are likely to try and throw themselves under my wheels.

Hitchens and a death in Iraq

A Death in the Family: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com

Christopher Hitchens writes very well about his dealings with the family of a young man killed in Iraq who had cited Hitchens as inspiring him to enlist.

Model

Recognize this?

The Japanese cartoon ran in Australia in the 70's. It's Space Cruiser Yamato, and this model was one of the fiddliest I've ever taken glue to. The boy is impressed, though.

Famous last words

Wild Thing: Books: The New Yorker

The oddest thing I learned from the above article about the (generally dislikeable) ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev was that his last words were "Moby Dick". Not quite in the "Rosebud" league, is it?

Mark that one down for your next trivia competition.

Sounds interesting

How I faked it for the Nazis - Times Online

There's a movie on the way about a large scale Nazi counterfeiting operation. Sounds an interesting story, even if changed somewhat for the film.

He's right

Guardian Unlimited: God knows where all the religious novels went

Being quite the fan of Evelyn Waugh and CS Lewis, I agree.

As it happens, I have never tried Graham Greene, but will get around to him one day.

Yes, novels informed by a Catholic or quasi-Catholic sensibility are hard to come by these days.

Getting better

Sony Unveils Second Edition of Reader Digital Book

I don't think the first one was even released in Australia.

In any case, the features of this second version sound considerably improved.

Katz on Gillard (or so he wishes)

Rudd's right-hand woman is one foxy lady - Opinion - theage.com.au

I haven't recommended a Danny Katz column for a while, but this one is quite funny.

Update: I have noticed that, whenever I recommend a Danny Katz column, I seem to get quite a few visits from someone in Melbourne who is Googling his name. Does Mr Katz spend every Thursday searching for comments on his latest column? Not that there would be anything wrong with that, but if it's you, D Katz, just make a comment here, or send me a carton of wine as a reward for saying nice things about your writing. I probably increase your readership by at least 2 or 3!

A good point...

This link is to a post by Bryan Appleyard, which leads to his review of a book which claims to take a scientific approach to showing that something like a "soul" exists.

The book may be of interest, but I liked this first comment to the post, as it seems to me quite true:

One thing that intrigues and baffles me as a non-scientist observing this latest fad in materialist determinism is how enthusiastic, sanguine and comfortable modern "brights" have become with this stuff. Not so long ago, when guys like Sartre ruled the roost, atheistic materialism was supposed to be terrifying and only for the stalwart--remember all that stuff about having the near superhuman courage to stare into the abyss of nothingness? Now everybody seems to be having a big party scorning that scary old free will, and religion is positively terrifying.

More things I didn't know

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Volcano erupts on Red Sea island

Hey, it's quite an extensive list really (the things I don't know), but the fact that there are any volcanoes in the Red Sea could have been included until this story broke.

Having heard the report, I wondered whether anyone had ever speculated that volcanoes in that area might have something to do with some Old Testament stories.

And, of course, Google quickly reveals that someone has suggested it already. (Jeez, don't you hate how it's getting harder and harder to even imagine that you have had an original thought since the internet came along.)

Anyhow, Colin Humphreys has suggested that Mt Sinai was an active volcano at the time Moses was hanging around there. Go have a read of his few pages from Google books (at the last link) and see if it sounds credible. (I suppose we should be asking geologists too, but they might ruin an otherwise plausible idea.)

Hitchens on China

Burma's foul regime depends on Beijing.

Christopher Hitchens points out the number of bad regimes that China supports, and it's very many indeed:

Is there an initiative to save the un-massacred remains of the people of Darfur? It will be met by a Chinese veto. Does anyone care about Robert Mugabe treating his desperate population as if it belonged to him personally? China is always ready to help him out. Are the North Koreans starved and isolated so that a demented playboy can posture with nuclear weapons? Beijing will give the demented playboy a guarantee. How long can Southeast Asia bear the shame and misery of the Burmese junta? As long as the embrace of China persists. The identity of Tibet is being obliterated by the deliberate importation of Chinese settlers. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man who claims even to know and determine the sex lives of his serfs (by the way, the very essence of totalitarianism), is armed and financed by China.

A fantasy economy

It's amusing to watch the catfight going on at Larvatus Prodeo about whether it is fair enough or not to say something so obvious to common sense like "ideally, it is better for children to have two parents rather than one."

That's "too sweeping" for Mark Bahnisch, who one suspects has never had children. (I would post that over at LP itself, but because I am questioning motivations and his personal experience of life, I suspect I would be in breach of its "be nice, unless it's conservatives" comments policy.)

Mark's problem is he doesn't like marriage as an institution at all, and (despite the thousands of studies showing the better life outcomes for children with two parents, and the fact that marriages last longer than de facto relationships), to start sounding like you might even be heading towards the suggestion that the old fuddy duddy idea of marriage is generally the best way to raise children is just too conservative in principle to contemplate.

But this comment by Mark really caught my eye:

Btw, personally, I support a guarenteed minimum income and I’m not in the slightest bit troubled by whether people choose to work, or surf, or bring up babies. In a society where the incentives are as strong as they are for most people, most will choose to work. But it doesn’t worry me in the slightest if people don’t, and how they choose to spend their lives.

Well, if anyone can ever find better evidence to show why we don't let sociologists run economies and countries, let me know!

UPDATE: more explanation from a later comment by Mark:

....the proposal is not for the minimal levels of benefits grudgingly payed now and hedged around with nasty conditions (= “responsibilities”) but rather either through direct income transfer or through a negative income tax for a generous level of income to go to all adults in society as of right. Interestingly, there’s more support for this among libertarians than social democrats these days, though it’s a classic social democratic policy - both in providing equality of opportunity with a big kick along and in refusing the notion that work is a good in and of itself and to be valued no matter what its nature.

In fact, because the entire bureaucracy of surveillance and punishment would be abolished, you could probably have lower taxes and still give everyone 20k a year or whatever. Just imagine - no centrelink, no dole diaries, no… this stuff is inordinately expensive.

Colour me skeptical, as maybe the libertarians at Catallaxy think this is a serious idea, but it still sounds very silly to me. It might be able to sold on novelty value to someone like Pauline Hanson, though. I'll email her straight away.

More delegation

Rudd vows to charge Iran leader | The Australian

From the report:

In a dramatic lift in diplomatic pressure on a bellicose and defiant Iran, Kevin Rudd has committed a Labor government to take "legal proceedings against President Ahmadinejad on a charge of incitement to genocide".

The Leader of the Opposition said the charge of incitement to genocide "could occur through the International Court of Justice on reference by the UN Security Council" because of Mr Ahmadinejad's public statements.

Oh yes, I can see Ahmadinejad being terrified of this prospect.

Really Kevin, this just makes you sound all the more committed to sending problems off to someone else to solve.

Corrigan's robots take over Brisbane (Port)

Yesterday I took the day off to do something vaguely entertaining with the family for the school holidays. This turned out to be a trip to the Port of Brisbane and the bayside suburbs. The end result: increased admiration for Chris Corrigan.

More astute readers with an interest in wharf productivity may already know this, but I had missed the fact that since the end of 2005, Patrick's Brisbane container terminal has been operating a "world first" automated system. You have to take the Port of Brisbane guided bus tour to understand what is going on ($27 for a family ticket, complete with rather laconic guide) but you can see a bit of how it works and it's pretty fascinating.

Most of the wharf area is fenced off, leaving it alone to 20 or so of the straddle carriers that formerly need people to drive them. The ones at Brisbane instead operate all on their own. Here's a photo to see what I mean (the red things are the straddle carriers):


From the bus, you can see trucks park inside a few bays to collect containers. The driver gets out and the autostrad (for this last little section of its task) comes under the control of a wharfie with a remote control. The container is lowered on the truck, which drives off, while the straddle carrier goes back onto the wharf area and finds its own way back to pick up another container.

Here's some more information about it from Patrick's website:

The automated 10-metre high, 65-tonne straddle carriers are fitted with sophisticated motion control and navigation systems which allow them to operate unmanned - moving and stacking containers from the quay, into holding yards, onto vehicles, and back to quay cranes with pin-point accuracy.

Unlike other automated systems, the AutoStrad moves freely on a 'virtual' computer-generated grid which can be applied to most existing terminal facilities and does not expensive capital works to install in-ground nodes or wires to operate.

Speaking at the official opening, Patrick Managing Director at the time Mr Chris Corrigan said when it was decided to set about trying to automate a fleet of massive 65-tonnes machines - even some involved in the project suspected it was an impossible task.

"Almost a decade later, the result is far beyond our expectations and represents an entirely new approach to terminal design," Mr Corrigan said.

According to Forkliftaction.com (a website I am only likely to visit once in my life!):

The AutoStrad system was developed by Patrick Technology & Services (PTS), a joint venture between Patrick and Kalmar Industries. PTS claims the AutoStrad system is a world first.

Research on the automated straddle project began in 1996 and, in 2001, Kalmar joined PTS as an equity partner. Patrick, as majority shareholder, owns intellectual property rights for most of the on-board technology and all the essential real-time control systems.

So, right from 1996, when the wharfies were fighting to keep their privileges in place, Patrick (and, I assume, Corrigan) were preparing the true way of the future.

Ah, you lefties can have your Combets and Julian Burnsides as your heroes. Instead, I'll take someone who had the vision to create a field of giant roaming cargo robots.