By which I mean, "go away, Brendan". Brendan Nelson's success tomorrow in the Liberal leadership would just ensure another year of tension with the Coalition continuing to poll badly against a Prime Minister who is already widely acknowledged as (at least) being a disappointment. Everyone knows he is unelectable. It's just that Brendan hasn't got the message yet.
Stand up Liberals: re-read the polls tonight and don't bother with another "fair go" for Nelson.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Roger knows Whoopi
Roger L. Simon: Whoopi’s not dumb - she’s just a fake
Roger Simon has an interesting post up about Whoopi Goldberg and her recent "return to slavery" comment on The View.
Roger Simon has an interesting post up about Whoopi Goldberg and her recent "return to slavery" comment on The View.
Old time sex
The love lives of the ancient Romans - Times Online
This is an extract from Mary Beard's just published book on what Pompeii tells us about the lifestyle of ancient Romans. It's pretty interesting. She writes:
Beard also writes:
The Roman baths are discussed as well, and this part shows the old guys could see still cause and effect:
UPDATE: here's a way in which the position of women in the Roman empire wasn't bad, at least for the ancient world:
This is an extract from Mary Beard's just published book on what Pompeii tells us about the lifestyle of ancient Romans. It's pretty interesting. She writes:
Power, status and good fortune were expressed in terms of the phallus. Hence the presence of phallic imagery in almost unimaginable varieties all round the town. This is one of the most puzzling, if not disconcerting, aspects of Pompeii for modern visitors. There are phalluses greeting you in doorways, phalluses above bread ovens, phalluses carved into the surface of the street and plenty more phalluses with bells on and wings.Yes, I recall years ago seeing a ring in the British Museum with a little erect penis diagram on it. I wonder what passed for pornography in those days? Did teenage boys sneak into the kitchen to look at the ribald drawings on the pottery? Or were human copulation and erections of such common knowledge that there was no sense of it being inappropriate for young children's eyes?
Beard also writes:
For elite men, the basic message was that sexual penetration correlated with pleasure and power. Sexual partners might be of either sex. There was plenty of male-with-male sexual activity in the Roman world, but only the very faintest hints that “homosexuality” was seen as an exclusive sexual preference, let alone lifestyle choice.It's odd to think that the Romans would find Oxford Street in Sydney hard to understand. And it's also probably fair to say that they would find the concept of "gay marriage" ludicrous, and not because of religion.
The Roman baths are discussed as well, and this part shows the old guys could see still cause and effect:
And it is not only the modern visitor who is drawn to reflect on quite how hygienic it all was. There was no chlorination to mitigate the effects of the urine and other less sterile bodily detritus. Nor was the water in the various pools constantly replaced, even if there was sometimes an attempt to introduce a steady flow of new water into them.
The Roman medical writer Celsus offers the sensible advice not to go to the baths with a fresh wound (“it normally leads to gangrene”) . The baths, in other words, may have been a place of wonder, pleasure and beauty for the humble Pompeian bather. They might also have killed him.
UPDATE: here's a way in which the position of women in the Roman empire wasn't bad, at least for the ancient world:
As the responsibilities of women became more significant to their husbands' prestige and political clout, so education for women became increasingly more common. Unlike Athens, it became acceptable in Rome for girls as well as boys to receive elemental education, to have read "improving" Roman and Greek authors and to be able to discuss political affairs. Boys then went on to higher studies, including rhetoric, the passport to political careers, while women married in their mid-teens. Throughout the Empire, however, a woman cherished her ability to read and write both as a mark of excellence and as a sign of her status.Sounds as if the women of Rome may have had more independence than many in present day Afghanistan or (arguably) Saudi Arabia. Nothing like progress, hey?
The separation of women enforced by the Greeks had never been the Roman way; women were permitted to go out in public, attend lectures and meetings, dine with guests, and conduct their own affairs with some initiative. At the same time, as moral guardians of the health and virtue of Rome itself, their behavior was severely scrutinized for signs of intemperance, sexual laxity, or extravagant (and dangerous) display.
Unimportant information continuing
While I'm on a science fiction roll here, have I ever mentioned before that I quite like the movie version of Lost in Space? I watched it again over the weekend for the first time since I saw it at the cinema, and my original impressions are not revised: quite faithful in an updated way to the original opening episode of the TV show, impressive special effects (yes, OK, with the exception of the monkey, but it wasn't in shot all that often), huge expensive sets, and acting that was actually significantly better than that in many science fiction films. Besides which, I've always liked Mimi Rogers, William Hurt and Heather Graham. I even think Matt LeBlanc wasn't bad in his role. It was aimed more at a teen/young adult audience than the kiddie show that the TV series devolved into, but that didn't particularly bother me.
I don't understand why it got so many strongly hostile reviews.
It's well worth the dollar or two it would cost to hire at your local video store. Or just go buy it for $7 at Kmart.
I don't understand why it got so many strongly hostile reviews.
It's well worth the dollar or two it would cost to hire at your local video store. Or just go buy it for $7 at Kmart.
It's not just you
Continuing with a run of trivial posts, on last night's episode of Dr Who, Rose finally was able to talk, instead of just turning up mysteriously and fading out again. Problem was, it seemed to me that she had a very distinct and somewhat distracting lisp, which I didn't recall from her full time appearances in previous series.
The good thing about the internet is that there is no trivia small enough not to have been noticed, especially when it comes to science fiction fandom. Yes, the lisp was definitely noticed around the world, and the explanation seems something of a mystery.
The good thing about the internet is that there is no trivia small enough not to have been noticed, especially when it comes to science fiction fandom. Yes, the lisp was definitely noticed around the world, and the explanation seems something of a mystery.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Idle, science fiction-y thoughts
Thinking about the LHC and world-wide catastrophe this week, as many people did, got me wondering about what really unexpected stuff might one look out for as a result of an experiment like this. The sort of thing that might use as a plot device in a Doctor Who episode, for example.
Obviously (well, from a Doctor Who story point of view), the LHC itself could vanish into an alternative dimension, leaving a large crater behind. The arrival of time travellers from the future could be quite on the cards, as it has been suggested in real life. How they arrive could be the novel factor (giant UFO over the facility; taking over the computer system; mind possession of the staff.)
Or it may be that a swap between alternative universe earths takes place. (Perhaps the physicists inside don't realise the swap, until they turn on the TV and notice something like President Gore.)
But here's an idea: the operation of the LHC has an effect on the other side of the world - at its antipodal point. This thought led me to look for resources on the 'net to easily find each antipodal point for anywhere on earth. Wikipedia lists several sites for this, and I quite like this one.
As you will see (assuming I am still holding anyone's interest here), the antipodal point for the LHC is in the Southern Ocean east of the south island of New Zealand. If there are any reports of underwater earthquakes, disappearing ships or UFOs in that areas, you read about it here first. (Possibly.)
Just talking about antipodes generally, it's disappointing to see that there are not all that many "land to land" points. China and parts of South East Asia joins up with various parts of South America, which is not something I would have expected by looking at a Mercator projection. A bullet through New Zealand would end up in Spain. So there: if ever masses of sheep start emerging out of mines in Spain, you know from where they are escaping.
Obviously (well, from a Doctor Who story point of view), the LHC itself could vanish into an alternative dimension, leaving a large crater behind. The arrival of time travellers from the future could be quite on the cards, as it has been suggested in real life. How they arrive could be the novel factor (giant UFO over the facility; taking over the computer system; mind possession of the staff.)
Or it may be that a swap between alternative universe earths takes place. (Perhaps the physicists inside don't realise the swap, until they turn on the TV and notice something like President Gore.)
But here's an idea: the operation of the LHC has an effect on the other side of the world - at its antipodal point. This thought led me to look for resources on the 'net to easily find each antipodal point for anywhere on earth. Wikipedia lists several sites for this, and I quite like this one.
As you will see (assuming I am still holding anyone's interest here), the antipodal point for the LHC is in the Southern Ocean east of the south island of New Zealand. If there are any reports of underwater earthquakes, disappearing ships or UFOs in that areas, you read about it here first. (Possibly.)
Just talking about antipodes generally, it's disappointing to see that there are not all that many "land to land" points. China and parts of South East Asia joins up with various parts of South America, which is not something I would have expected by looking at a Mercator projection. A bullet through New Zealand would end up in Spain. So there: if ever masses of sheep start emerging out of mines in Spain, you know from where they are escaping.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Launch attack! ....Sorry General, I meant "lunch "
Biden living up to his gaffe-prone reputation - International Herald Tribune
A handy list of Biden's gaffes is contained above.
A handy list of Biden's gaffes is contained above.
Nukes for the moon
NASA Developing Fission Surface Power Technology
It makes sense, and one wonders if any advances in this field will eventually have earth bound applications:
It makes sense, and one wonders if any advances in this field will eventually have earth bound applications:
A nuclear reactor used in space is much different than Earth-based systems. There are no large concrete cooling towers, and the reactor is about the size of an office trash can.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Somewhere I might be popular...
The withered middle-aged guy becomes a hot item in Japan's dating market
The Japan Times makes me feel better about my mid-middle age:
The Japan Times makes me feel better about my mid-middle age:
If you happen to be an over-45 male, looking a little tired, inclined to decline party invitations because you can't stand the hassle, comfortable in your own company and not really caring what other people think — so, the news is ALL good, at least in urban Japan. You are, or are extremely close to, what is known as a kareta oyaji (枯れたオヤジ, withered middle-age guy) — currently the underground popular label on the dating market. These days, young women have shifted their preference from the wakai (若い, young), kakkoii (格好いい, good-looking) and okanemochi (お金持ち, rich) — extremely rare for all these traits to co-exist in one man anyway — to the genki nai ojisan (元気無いおじさん, middle-age guy with no energy).Woo-hoo, I'm hot in Japan!
Truth spectacularly stranger than fiction
Sex offender, 30, posed as schoolboy | NEWS.com.au
From the report:
From the report:
They at least gets top marks for bizarre determination in pursuing a perversion. Hopefully, they'll get a top sentence as a reward too. (By the way, if I understand the report correctly, the school kids were not the ones in the pornography he had, so I am not making light of anything that happened to them.)A 30-YEAR-old sex offender who posed as a 12-year-old boy to enrol at schools in the US for two years has pleaded guilty to child porn and other charges....
He shaved and wore pancake makeup to help him appear younger, convincing teachers, students and administrators that he was a young boy named Casey.
He was caught in January 2007 after spending a day in the seventh grade at a school after school officials became suspicious about his paperwork.
Rodreick was arrested with three other men, who were posing as his cousin, uncle and grandfather.
Painting to save the planet
The Great Beyond: Whiter roofs for a cooler planet
The idea has been around for some years, yet seems slow to take off. I didn't know this:
The idea has been around for some years, yet seems slow to take off. I didn't know this:
California has required flat-topped, commercial buildings to go white since 2005, and will require new and retrofitted buildings to use cool-color roofing starting in 2009. These shingles and coatings look like their high-absorbing counterparts, but reflect more of the sun’s rays.
Higgs history
They're about to turn on the Large Hadron Collider. Don't expect the Higgs boson to show up.
This Slate article is an interesting review of how the idea of the Higgs boson came about. Whether or not the LHC will find it is the big question. (Assuming, of course, it doesn't blow up first.)
This Slate article is an interesting review of how the idea of the Higgs boson came about. Whether or not the LHC will find it is the big question. (Assuming, of course, it doesn't blow up first.)
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Silly Obama
The Associated Press: McCain camp angry over Obama's 'lipstick' comment
I bet his minders smiled through gritted teeth as soon as they heard Obama wing it with this:
I bet his minders smiled through gritted teeth as soon as they heard Obama wing it with this:
"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said to an outbreak of laughter, shouts and raucous applause from his audience, clearly drawing a connection to Palin's joke. "It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still going to stink after eight years."
Not feeling entirely relaxed yet: LHC issues update
Well, what do you know. Rainer Plaga, who (unknown to most journalists) has given reasons as to why he thinks the CERN safety review was flawed, has answered my email.
I didn't ask for permission to reprint it, but he says he is preparing a response to the Giddings/Mangano rebuttal of his concerns. He says he "needs time" to finish this. Let's hope he doesn't take too long.
He also thinks they are ignoring another important point he made in his paper, but I have go back and re-read it before I can explain.
I have read criticism at Cosmic Variance and elsewhere that Plaga is definitely not an expert in the field of black hole radiance and we don't need to take him too seriously. Certainly, his "home page" has little detail, and it seems he is not actively working in astrophysics. Still, I am interested in independent physicists reviewing safety issues.
I didn't ask for permission to reprint it, but he says he is preparing a response to the Giddings/Mangano rebuttal of his concerns. He says he "needs time" to finish this. Let's hope he doesn't take too long.
He also thinks they are ignoring another important point he made in his paper, but I have go back and re-read it before I can explain.
I have read criticism at Cosmic Variance and elsewhere that Plaga is definitely not an expert in the field of black hole radiance and we don't need to take him too seriously. Certainly, his "home page" has little detail, and it seems he is not actively working in astrophysics. Still, I am interested in independent physicists reviewing safety issues.
Good news from North Korea?
No-show at anniversary parade raises questions over Kim Jong-Il's health | World news | guardian.co.uk
I wonder if anyone has any idea who will follow him?
I wonder if anyone has any idea who will follow him?
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
When smears go wrong
FactCheck.org: Sliming Palin
The very handy FactCheck website says there have been massive emailings spreading rumours about Sarah Palin. One which tries to make her appear particularly hypocritical says that she dramatically reduced the funding for "special needs" children in Alaska.
Funnily enough, the exact opposite is the case:
The very handy FactCheck website says there have been massive emailings spreading rumours about Sarah Palin. One which tries to make her appear particularly hypocritical says that she dramatically reduced the funding for "special needs" children in Alaska.
Funnily enough, the exact opposite is the case:
According to an April 2008 article in Education Week, Palin signed legislation in March 2008 that would increase public school funding considerably, including special needs funding. It would increase spending on what Alaska calls "intensive needs" students (students with high-cost special requirements) from $26,900 per student in 2008 to $73,840 per student in 2011. That almost triples the per-student spending in three fiscal years.I suspect someone at Daily Kos will say she only did that because she knew her own baby had special needs. But as Factcheck points out:
According to Eddy Jeans at the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, funding for special needs and intensive needs students has increased every year since Palin entered office, from a total of $203 million in 2006 to a projected $276 million in 2009.Try again Democrats. You probably just helped give her more good publicity.
This is why Truthers are dangerous
9/11 rumors that harden into conventional wisdom - International Herald Tribune
In short, they encourage conspiracy belief in the Middle East, and that cannot possibly help achieve peace there.
I've said before, there should be greater attention given to taking the fight to the truthers.
In short, they encourage conspiracy belief in the Middle East, and that cannot possibly help achieve peace there.
I've said before, there should be greater attention given to taking the fight to the truthers.
End of the world delayed (an LHC update)
US LHC Blog - Turning Back Time
I have already pointed this out last weekend, but it is worth repeating, as I am getting quite a few extra visitors who are Googling for information about the LHC and black holes.
The activity at the LHC tomorrow is only to try to get a single beam right around the ring for the first time. There will be no collisions with other particles (well, unless the beam goes off course and smashes into something by accident. That would be big news, due to the delays it would cause in repairs.)
As LHC physicist Peter Steinberg explains above, even when the LHC gets two counter-rotating beams colliding (within a month or two) the first collisions will be at the lower energies that older particle colliders have already dealt with.
According to Peter, it will be a few months before it is cranked up to the higher levels of energy that are novel and could possibly create micro black holes or other particles. As he says, the death threats can be put on ice for a few months at least.
So: the world is definitely not ending tomorrow. You still have to pay your taxes.
As to my earlier post about the Rainer Plaga paper, I still have not received an email response from Dr Plaga. Given the heightened level of interest at the moment, it would give many people relief if he did acknowledge an error. If he doesn't accept that he made an error, then having some more independent physicists weigh in would help.
And here's something new to read about what the LHC might find: maybe not micro black holes, but "string balls", which may evaporate in a similar way to black holes anyway. The paper is about how to tell the difference.
I am curious as to whether there is any potential safety issue for them, if they don't behave quite as predicted. (Yes, I know, the same argument about stars and planets surviving cosmic rays would apply, but the same counter argument about the LHC creating slow moving objects would need to be considered.)
I also see there is a paper from August called "On the stability of black holes at LHC". It's a little hard to follow, but it would seem that they are arguing that it certain possibilities as to higher dimensions are true, the "behaviour" of the black holes created there may be "stable". I assume they mean that they won't disappear in a flash of Hawking Radiation, which has always been the main assumption of those doing the safety assessments on the LHC.
It's good that the LHC is not getting up to high energies just yet: it may allow sufficient time to get answers to these last minute concerns.
UPDATE: I have got a physicist to put into plain english the point that Mangano/Giddings were making in their rebuttal of Plaga:
Now, if we can also deal with the LHC and naked singularities, string balls, and time loops, I would be feeling better.
I have already pointed this out last weekend, but it is worth repeating, as I am getting quite a few extra visitors who are Googling for information about the LHC and black holes.
The activity at the LHC tomorrow is only to try to get a single beam right around the ring for the first time. There will be no collisions with other particles (well, unless the beam goes off course and smashes into something by accident. That would be big news, due to the delays it would cause in repairs.)
As LHC physicist Peter Steinberg explains above, even when the LHC gets two counter-rotating beams colliding (within a month or two) the first collisions will be at the lower energies that older particle colliders have already dealt with.
According to Peter, it will be a few months before it is cranked up to the higher levels of energy that are novel and could possibly create micro black holes or other particles. As he says, the death threats can be put on ice for a few months at least.
So: the world is definitely not ending tomorrow. You still have to pay your taxes.
As to my earlier post about the Rainer Plaga paper, I still have not received an email response from Dr Plaga. Given the heightened level of interest at the moment, it would give many people relief if he did acknowledge an error. If he doesn't accept that he made an error, then having some more independent physicists weigh in would help.
And here's something new to read about what the LHC might find: maybe not micro black holes, but "string balls", which may evaporate in a similar way to black holes anyway. The paper is about how to tell the difference.
I am curious as to whether there is any potential safety issue for them, if they don't behave quite as predicted. (Yes, I know, the same argument about stars and planets surviving cosmic rays would apply, but the same counter argument about the LHC creating slow moving objects would need to be considered.)
I also see there is a paper from August called "On the stability of black holes at LHC". It's a little hard to follow, but it would seem that they are arguing that it certain possibilities as to higher dimensions are true, the "behaviour" of the black holes created there may be "stable". I assume they mean that they won't disappear in a flash of Hawking Radiation, which has always been the main assumption of those doing the safety assessments on the LHC.
It's good that the LHC is not getting up to high energies just yet: it may allow sufficient time to get answers to these last minute concerns.
UPDATE: I have got a physicist to put into plain english the point that Mangano/Giddings were making in their rebuttal of Plaga:
Plaga is considering a warped extra dimensional scenario. In such models, there is a regime in which one is allowed to use the four dimensional quantities and laws, and a regime in which the phenomenology is described by the five dimensional laws (I describe this a little, in a simpler model, here). In their rebuttal, Giddings and Mangano point out that Plaga is applying four-dimensional formulae where they don’t apply, obtaining an incorrectly high result. This is perhaps the main clear problem.Mind you, Mark Trodden likes to call all people who raise safety issues "crackpots", which gets up my nose for reasons I have explained before, but he has performed a useful service here.
Now, if we can also deal with the LHC and naked singularities, string balls, and time loops, I would be feeling better.
Truthers: what evidence?
BBC NEWS | Programmes | Conspiracy Files | The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 - The Third Tower
Four Corners last night did their bit to annoy Australian Troofers (I rarely deliberately misspell for ridicule, but they deserve it) by showing this BBC documentary about the collapse of WTC 7. Unfortunately, it would seem only the preview is available, and (if it is like the first section of the whole show) it may give the impression that the makers think the conspiracists have some good points.
Overall, though, the show did a pretty good debunking job. If anything, they were too soft on the obviously problematic psychology of truthers. They have incredibly little evidence (well, none actually) to support their ideas, yet having decided that there is a hidden truth, absolutely anything is taken as confirmation of the secret.
I find the slightly premature reporting (by the BBC, following Reuters, who followed someone else) of the collapse a particularly odd piece of "evidence" for them to latch onto. Assuming a conspiracy for a moment, why on earth would the people running it need to announce the collapse to the media at all? It's not as if they were not going to notice. Many witnesses say the building was creaking and deteriorating before their eyes: it's not as if a collapse was actually unexpected at the time the BBC ran the story. It is far from surprising that someone standing near a reporter somewhere in the city (who may not have been actually been within sight of the building) may have used the word "collapse" before it happened, and that reporter passed it on believing the building had already collapsed. Didn't troofers ever play "chinese whispers" at a party when they were kids?
So the BBC reporter's explanation makes complete sense. But the psychology of the troofers means they just can't accept that a mistake is the obvious explanation.
Four Corners last night did their bit to annoy Australian Troofers (I rarely deliberately misspell for ridicule, but they deserve it) by showing this BBC documentary about the collapse of WTC 7. Unfortunately, it would seem only the preview is available, and (if it is like the first section of the whole show) it may give the impression that the makers think the conspiracists have some good points.
Overall, though, the show did a pretty good debunking job. If anything, they were too soft on the obviously problematic psychology of truthers. They have incredibly little evidence (well, none actually) to support their ideas, yet having decided that there is a hidden truth, absolutely anything is taken as confirmation of the secret.
I find the slightly premature reporting (by the BBC, following Reuters, who followed someone else) of the collapse a particularly odd piece of "evidence" for them to latch onto. Assuming a conspiracy for a moment, why on earth would the people running it need to announce the collapse to the media at all? It's not as if they were not going to notice. Many witnesses say the building was creaking and deteriorating before their eyes: it's not as if a collapse was actually unexpected at the time the BBC ran the story. It is far from surprising that someone standing near a reporter somewhere in the city (who may not have been actually been within sight of the building) may have used the word "collapse" before it happened, and that reporter passed it on believing the building had already collapsed. Didn't troofers ever play "chinese whispers" at a party when they were kids?
So the BBC reporter's explanation makes complete sense. But the psychology of the troofers means they just can't accept that a mistake is the obvious explanation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)