Small things amusing my small mind

VF Daily: vanityfair.com

See, I can't be the only middle aged man who, in idle moments in the shower, thinks about what could be a good "Macguffin" for one final outing for Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones.

Vanity Fair had a competition for suggestions back in June, and their winner was quite triumphantly silly. You can also see all of the most popular suggestions in handy tabular form.

I'll have to find my old "Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World" books to see if I can come up with something else.

More reason to worry about birds

Crows never seem to forget a face - International Herald Tribune

Great. Those noisy, raucous crows that chase other birds out of the neighbourhood are surprisingly smart too. Let's hope they never decide to gang up on us.

Mum, stop vacuuming, you have to die now

Diary of terminally ill woman who chose euthanasia | Life and style | The Guardian

The Dutch really are different. This account of the last days of a terminally ill woman in the Netherlands who chooses voluntary euthanasia is amazing to read. This is how the day she dies begins:

Mum leaves and comes back again three times. After the last visit, I can hear she is hoisting the vacuum cleaner up to the attic. It is just after 6am.

It is the start of an increasingly mad day, during which Mum hoovers the whole house and does six loads of washing (one of which consists of a single white shirt). She scrapes all the woodwork on the outside of the house clear of moss and cleans the windows.

After breakfast, I find Dad fuming after Mum has given him grief for not ironing fast enough.

Martin, the kindly suicide doctor, comes around that evening and this is how it goes:

6.15pm: The doctor arrives shortly after the scene with the toilets. Mum greets him, then disappears upstairs, saying, "Best let me potter for a bit." Nobody sees her for another 20 minutes.

"Does it happen at all that people pull out at the last minute?" I ask.

"Yes," Martin says. "Quite often I go home again and a new appointment is made. But in many cases the patient passes away between visits."

When Mum comes back, listing things she has put in bags and boxes, Martin gently interrupts her: "Can I just ask you something? Is there still a lot you feel you need to do?"

"Yes," she says, "I mean no. I'm just nervous."

"I can always come back later if you are not ready," says the doctor.

Mum sits down and listens to the doctor. Then she takes a deep breath and says, "OK. I am ready."

At 7pm, with my father, brother and me around her bed as well as Martin, who has given her the injection, Mum goes to sleep.

If this doesn't make you feel at least a little uneasy about how euthanasia can work in practice, then you're probably Philip Nitschke.

In Futurama, the ubiquitous Suicide Booth features in more than one episode. I am sure there is a Dutch engineer working on developing one right now.

Arctic ice melt update

Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis

The NSIDC updates the current state of the summer ice melt up near the North Pole. As the graph shows, this year is not so far off 2007's record melt.

Bad news

Ahmadinejad appears to get a key nod - Los Angeles Times

Dangerous meats

Tainted deli meats in Canada kill 12

The pathogen: listeria monocytogenes. Pregnant women are warned against getting it, but I didn't realise it could kill so many of the general public.

It's effective enough to be a bio-terrorist agent, by the sounds.

Watch out for the falling flying foxes

Wind turbines make bat lungs explode - earth - 25 August 2008 - New Scientist Environment

I hate to think how many flying foxes might be taken out by a big wind farm anywhere near their habitat in Australia. (And they seem to be all down the east coast from North Queensland to at least Sydney.)

Cats will destroy the world

Pets eating into fish stocks�(ScienceAlert)

From the article:

Dr Giovanni Turchini, with colleague Professor Sena De Silva, has found that an estimated 2.48 million tonnes of forage fish—an increasingly limited biological resource—is used by the global cat food industry each year.

"That such a large amount of fish is used for the pet food industry is real eye opener," Dr Turchini said.

"What is also interesting is that, in Australia, pet cats are eating an estimated 13.7 kilograms of fish a year which far exceeds the Australian average per capita fish and seafood consumption of around 11 kilograms. Our pets seem to be eating better than their owners."

And they will look like this as the ocean's food chain collapses:


via videosift.com

Bob Carter - sensitive soul

Over at Real Climate, arch Australian AGW skeptic Bob Carter made this comment:

One of the reasons that RealClimate is discounted by some as a source of serious scientific comment is because of your continual allowance of unproductive ad hominem abuse.

We learn further down (comment 119) that what he was objecting to in the earlier comment (which RC later edited so we now can't see it) was the word "denialist". The bulk of comments to the thread are extremely moderate in tone, while making it clear that many challenge Dr Carter's views.

At Online Opinion earlier this year, in an article with the surly title "The IPCC: on the run at last", Bob wrote:

Given the occurrence also of record low winter temperatures and massive snowfalls across both hemispheres this year, IPCC members have now entered panic mode, the whites of their eyes being clearly visible as they seek to defend their now unsustainable hypothesis of dangerous, human-caused global warming.

He also uses the word "alarmists" many times, and says of the use of climate models:

Well, obviously, turn to virtual reality rather than real reality: PlayStation 4 here we come.

Yes, way to conduct a debate without ad hominem, Dr Carter.

Why pilots fly into the sea

Air and Space Magazine has an article about how pilots can get disoriented. All interesting, and relevant to the old Mackleman crash of 1986, I expect.

Hmm

Analyst warns of looming global climate wars - ABC News

My idea (the Carbon Wars, [TM]) is a little different, in that it's about warfare on other nation's greenhouse producing infrastructure. How come I never get interviewed?

Why would it help?

After glow of Games, what next for China? - International Herald Tribune

To continue my anti-Olympic theme, I just don't understand why anyone would think these Olympics ever had any hope of encouraging political change in China. Everyone already knew China could build modern looking stuff; you just have to see pictures of Shanghai's skyline to know that.

Instead, the staging of these Olympics has just confirmed to most Western eyes the repressive and heavy-handed nature of the Chinese form of government, but to many Chinese eyes it probably has encouraged a degree of pride that would hardly be an inducement to be more politically open.

Some disaster may have lead to hope of political reform, but games deemed to be even a moderate success were never going to have that result.

The smell of fear

Mammals Have a Nose for Danger (Literally) Discover Magazine

Kinda interesting, but has human research on this been done?

Is feeding your food poo really a good idea?

Green Central - Times Online - WBLG: Turning pigeon poo into food

Any bacteriologist is welcome to comment.

How to scare your 8 year old...

...have him (or her) watch Dr Who episodes written by Steven Moffat. (Last night's episode, the first part of "Silence in the Library" was by him, and was bound to creep out any child, as well as a fair few adults.)

Complicated climate

New Climate Record Shows Century-long Droughts In Eastern North America

A study of stalagmites in West Virginia apparently boosts the idea that solar variation has caused long droughts (century-long, even) in North America

The researchers, however, don't appear to be CO2 skeptics:

The climate record suggests that North America could face a major drought event again in 500 to 1,000 years, though Springer said that manmade global warming could offset the cycle.

“Global warming will leave things like this in the dust. The natural oscillations here are nothing like what we would expect to see with global warming,” he said.

Actually, I am not sure whether he necessarily means that the global warming offset will be a bad thing. Anyhow, it's all more evidence that nature was cruel even before civilisation came along, but that's still far from reason for humans to go about risking inducing their own climate problems.

Anti - Olympics wrap up

There's a certain "anything goes" attitude about Olympics closing ceremonies. From what I saw of last nights approach, there were a lot of glowing suits and people running around, a bit like Tron being re-enacted by a North Korean choreographed ant colony.

I didn't realise our Olympic diving gold medallist was gay until I heard him speak afterwards, which reminded me of the puzzle as to why gay men (often) sound gay. This issue was also brought up last week on the 7.30 Report by that gay American humorist who apparently is very famous, but who has managed to slip beneath my radar forever. I still can't remember his name. I have a vague recollection of reading of some research into this topic some years ago, but I forget what it said. I seem to be suffering gay amnesia today.

On the heterosexual side, The Times continued its tabloid descent by running an article that gave a first hand account about how lots of athletes have lots of sex after their events. Yes, sports and sex have always had a close affinity, which makes me rather cynical of the high minded "Olympic spirit" guff about it all being about peace and goodwill between nations.

I definitely have a "glass half empty" approach to watching sport: especially when some highly rated competitor fails spectacularly, I can't help but think "just how many years of your life did you spend wasting on practice for this event? Don't you feel a complete goose?" (Of course, they may be cheered up by knowing they have an orgy lined up later that night; but then again, according to The Times, it's mainly the winners who get to do that.)

To go further, if selflessness is considered something of an ideal by the major religions, isn't all this striving for personal bests and intensive observation of their bodies' performance pretty much the antithesis of that idea? There's a good argument to be made for the Pope to condemn the Olympics, and not just because of the free condoms.

I feel particularly sorry for child gymnasts, who seem to go through torture via adults seeking to achieve vicarious fame and fortune.

Kevin Rudd on Radio National this morning hinted that there could be more government funding for sport. This seems odd, given that there seems to have been quite a lot of commentary around this time about the ridiculous cost per medal of our efforts. One can only hope for some sort of scaling down of Olympic grandiosity, but it seems destined never to happen.

Keating's ramble

Template for peace is inclusion - Opinion - smh.com.au

Paul Keating has a ramble about international power politics. It appears very Fisk-able, but someone else will have to do it.

I note, though, that in all this talk of the future, there is no mention of environmental or energy problems as a major source of future conflict. Obviously, he hasn't heard about the forthcoming Carbon Wars (TM) yet. Hopelessly out of touch, he is.

Corrections not noted

A couple of weeks ago, Andrew Bolt and Jennifer Marohasy were quite happy to point readers towards an article by one Steven Goddard in which he questioned the accuracy of a graph put out by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre on the current extent of this year's Arctic ice melt. (The NSIDC says that this year's ice cover is only 10% more than 2007's melt, and as such is the second lowest on record; Goddard used some dubious methods to guess it was more like 30% greater than last year.)

I see now, via Real Climate, that Mr Goddard has had a chat with the NSIDC and has revised his opinion. To its credit, the original article now ends with this quote from Goddard:

"it is clear that the NSIDC graph is correct, and that 2008 Arctic ice is barely 10% above last year - just as NSIDC had stated."

I could go and add a comment at Jennifer and Andrew's blogs about this, but few people would realise it was there. Somehow, I doubt they will be noting the correction themselves any time soon. But of course, I would be more than happy to be surprised.

Impressive

Electric bikes charge the market�| The Japan Times Online

According to the Japan Times:

...Panasonic has also achieved what electric bike boffins thought was impossible — its Lithium ViVi RX-10S, due out in late September, will feature regenerative braking. If it sounds technical, that's because it is. But put simply, regenerative braking means every time you brake, you recharge the battery. Tests by Panasonic have shown the range can be extended to an astounding 182 km. And like Yamaha's PAS, it features a solar-powered rear light.

Actually, I am not sure that there are many people who really need a range of 182 km between overnight re-charges. (Which, according to the article, takes only about 2 hours for some lithium models now.) Still, if they could work out how I could stop being soaked (or struck by lightning) in summer storms, I could be tempted to use one of these to get to work.