In hard times, White House replica goes up for sale
Heh.
Friday, January 09, 2009
We'll see
'Big Bang' machine to be ready by summer - The Independent
(Well, OK, if you insist, I did not actually send out a specific call that led to the first breakdown, but I like to think they read my blog.)
The £4bn "Big Bang" machine, which suffered a catastrophic malfunction soon after being switched on last September, is expected to be restarted in June.Not if my call to time travelling agents from the future to intervene works again.
(Well, OK, if you insist, I did not actually send out a specific call that led to the first breakdown, but I like to think they read my blog.)
More big statues needed
Rio's famous Christ statue faces bigger rival
So, a Brazilian town wants to build a bigger statue than Rio's famous one.
Everyone likes giant statues, don't they? Yet not many people seem to know about the giant white Kannon statue in Sendai, Japan. There is a series of photos of it here. (My own date from pre-digital days, but if I can find them in a drawer somewhere, I'll scan one.)
The statue is hollow and you can walk up ramps looking at various vignettes about Buddhist thoughts. All quite impressive.
Yes, the world needs more giant statues. The UN should designate "Giant Statue Day" to raise awareness of this important issue.
Update: here are photos of the 9 biggest statues in the world. There are a few in there that I didn't know about before. See - there is clearly a need for increased giant statue awareness.
Some further thoughts: in this era of every city having a giant ferris wheel observation platform thingee (I predict they will go out of fashion overnight,) I would much prefer that each city have their own giant statue. Much community interest, and probably shed blood, could be generated by competitions for the preferred theme of the statue, which must incorporate a human shape. Sydney clearly is the perfect place for a new equivalent to the Collosus of Rhodes, straddling the Harbour Bridge. I can see Paul Keating offering to be a face model for it.
So, a Brazilian town wants to build a bigger statue than Rio's famous one.
Everyone likes giant statues, don't they? Yet not many people seem to know about the giant white Kannon statue in Sendai, Japan. There is a series of photos of it here. (My own date from pre-digital days, but if I can find them in a drawer somewhere, I'll scan one.)
The statue is hollow and you can walk up ramps looking at various vignettes about Buddhist thoughts. All quite impressive.
Yes, the world needs more giant statues. The UN should designate "Giant Statue Day" to raise awareness of this important issue.
Update: here are photos of the 9 biggest statues in the world. There are a few in there that I didn't know about before. See - there is clearly a need for increased giant statue awareness.
Some further thoughts: in this era of every city having a giant ferris wheel observation platform thingee (I predict they will go out of fashion overnight,) I would much prefer that each city have their own giant statue. Much community interest, and probably shed blood, could be generated by competitions for the preferred theme of the statue, which must incorporate a human shape. Sydney clearly is the perfect place for a new equivalent to the Collosus of Rhodes, straddling the Harbour Bridge. I can see Paul Keating offering to be a face model for it.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
A cool Japanese house
It's been a while since I linked to a nice bit of archi-porn, but this one is well worth the "click". (Although, it is reminding me of some other building I can't quite recall. It could even be something from a Gerry Anderson show I am thinking of.)
Oh. It's just occurred to me that 1960's puppet shows have been a significant influence on my taste in architecture.
Oh. It's just occurred to me that 1960's puppet shows have been a significant influence on my taste in architecture.
Furry love
Here's a pretty remarkable video of interspecies fondness:
I found it via this post at one of the Scienceblogs, where the writer wonders whether the rat loves the cat because it has toxoplasmosis (a favourite topic here at OD). I tend to agree with one commenter, though, that it seems much more likely a case of animals that were socialised together while young. If toxoplasmosis were the explanation, wouldn't it mean that every house cat on the street would be being chased by adoring wild rats?
I found it via this post at one of the Scienceblogs, where the writer wonders whether the rat loves the cat because it has toxoplasmosis (a favourite topic here at OD). I tend to agree with one commenter, though, that it seems much more likely a case of animals that were socialised together while young. If toxoplasmosis were the explanation, wouldn't it mean that every house cat on the street would be being chased by adoring wild rats?
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
The Artistic life
Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites by Franny Moyle review
It's hard to resist reading about the erratic and convoluted sex lives of famous artists or writers. From the review above:
It's hard to resist reading about the erratic and convoluted sex lives of famous artists or writers. From the review above:
I always have the impression that the number of famous artists who married once, were faithful to their spouse, raised a happy family, and died financially secure at home must be very small. Instead, their private lives usually seem to be a walking disaster zone for themselves or those around them.Desperate Romantics opens in 1848 with the ambitious art students Hunt, Millais and Rossetti founding the mysteriously named PRB in order to represent poetic, religious and mythical stories in a bold, realistic style. They joked that the sign on the studio door would be interpreted by the uninitiated as “Please ring the bell”, but for the raffish associate member Walter Deverell, PRB stood for “Penis rather better”. A moot point perhaps, as far as the priapic Rossetti was concerned, but the same could not be said of Ruskin. In the year that the Pre-Raphaelites formed, the critic who would do more than anyone else to champion the Brotherhood married 19-year-old Effie Gray. Their honeymoon night, as Moyle puts it, “did not go well”.
What happened when Effie removed her nightgown has kept biographers occupied for decades, and Moyle suggests that the groom was overcome by innocence as much as horror. Either way, Ruskin's inability, or refusal, to consummate his marriage runs parallel to the inability, or refusal, of Rossetti to resist seducing everyone he met.
It is hard to tell which was the more lethal, Ruskin's fear of the female form or Rossetti's fetishistic obsession with it. Ruskin told Effie that he would make her “his wife” when she was 25, at which point he housed her with Millais in a cottage in the Highlands and placed himself in a hotel on the other side of a bog. Within a year, the breakdown of the Ruskin marriage was discussed more than the Crimean war and Effie had become Mrs Millais. Ruskin's next infatuation was with the 10-year-old Rose La Touche. After being besieged by Ruskin for 17 years, Rose starved herself to death.
Tipler and crackpottery
The Varieties of Crackpot Experience | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine
Oh dear. My favourite physicist Frank Tipler has come out as a global warming sceptic. (Well, just remember I don't pin the need for CO2 reductions on global warming anyway.)
This post about him is not very fair, but it's by Sean Carroll, a physicist who (despite his group blog moving to Discover magazine) keeps bringing up politics, religion and gay rights in a typical leftie atheist scientist fashion in a blog that is ostensibly about science and physics. The paraphrase of Tipler's comments on global warming make his comments sound much worse than they are.
Still, part of the reason I like Tipler is because it is never 100% clear whether (or at what point) he has truly fallen into crackpottery. (He also answered a couple of my emails years ago.) Certainly, it would seem he was stretching the credibility way too thin with his last book in which the miracles of Christ were given quasi-scientific explanation. He gets up atheist's noses by talking about the Omega Point God as a scientific fact.
Still, I suspect that his science work is more important than is usually acknowledged.
But there is no reason in particular to expect that a moderately famous physicist who has made his name in work on relativity and cosmology should have any special expertise in atmospheric physics and climate studies, so I don't think anyone skeptic should be too heartened by his views.
Maybe I should email him with some of the anti-Skeptic blogs that are around...
Oh dear. My favourite physicist Frank Tipler has come out as a global warming sceptic. (Well, just remember I don't pin the need for CO2 reductions on global warming anyway.)
This post about him is not very fair, but it's by Sean Carroll, a physicist who (despite his group blog moving to Discover magazine) keeps bringing up politics, religion and gay rights in a typical leftie atheist scientist fashion in a blog that is ostensibly about science and physics. The paraphrase of Tipler's comments on global warming make his comments sound much worse than they are.
Still, part of the reason I like Tipler is because it is never 100% clear whether (or at what point) he has truly fallen into crackpottery. (He also answered a couple of my emails years ago.) Certainly, it would seem he was stretching the credibility way too thin with his last book in which the miracles of Christ were given quasi-scientific explanation. He gets up atheist's noses by talking about the Omega Point God as a scientific fact.
Still, I suspect that his science work is more important than is usually acknowledged.
But there is no reason in particular to expect that a moderately famous physicist who has made his name in work on relativity and cosmology should have any special expertise in atmospheric physics and climate studies, so I don't think anyone skeptic should be too heartened by his views.
Maybe I should email him with some of the anti-Skeptic blogs that are around...
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
More about small nuclear
Backyard reactors? Firms shrink the nukes. | csmonitor.com
I see the idea is to bury them about 100 feet underground. I assume earthquake survivability is factored in, then.
The comments following the article are interesting too.
I see the idea is to bury them about 100 feet underground. I assume earthquake survivability is factored in, then.
The comments following the article are interesting too.
The English are strange
Icy four-day queues for beach huts - This Britain, UK - The Independent
Around 50 people queued in sub-zero temperatures for up to four days to get their hands on a beach hut lease today.
Lets on the wooden huts on Avon Beach, Mudeford in Dorset come up annually on a first-come, first-served basis for the summer period.
They have no electricity, running water and it is forbidden to sleep in them ....
But that did not stop two families setting up camp four days ago and queuing in shifts for the leases which went on sale today.
Kinda hard to fit into the taxi, though
Guide horses for the blind? - International Herald Tribune
(Great cartooning opportunity here for someone).
(Great cartooning opportunity here for someone).
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Back to the serious stuff
AIMS Media Release January 2, 2009
But I shouldn't make light of him: it sounds as if his work is a pretty significant milestone for showing that the Great Barrier Reef really is in serious trouble. (And as for the ocean acidification component, it will happen regardless of air temperature.)
By the way, Tim Blair and his readers seem to take profound pleasure in their ignorance lately, when it comes to ridiculing any and all geoengineering concepts for dealing with CO2. For example, iron fertilization of the oceans as an idea has been around for a long time, and has often been discussed in popular science magazines like Discover or New Scientist. Sure, many scientists are sceptical of it being a good idea, but it has been tried on a small scale, and calling it the equivalent of a madman's idea is just displaying ignorance. It also shows an attitude more appropriate for a certain class of annoying self centred teenager, where ridicule is the easier option than actually trying to understand something. (Overly idealist teenagers who think they will change the world overnight are also annoying in their own way, as Blair knows.)
As with Andrew Bolt, Tim shows no sign of even a vague attempt at informing himself as to the real issues of climate change and ocean acidification, and just accepts any skeptical opinion with open arms. (He recently provided a link to "electric plasma" fan Louis Hissink, a well known climate skeptic at Jennifer Marohasy's. His fondness for Velikovsky's eccentric - although admittedly fun to contemplate - ideas puts him well outside the geologists' mainstream. )
I've said it before and will say it again: taking shots at exaggerations and media reporting on the "warminist" side is one thing, as is scepticism that carbon trading is going to work, or that the answer lies in a few million windmills.
But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
And here I was thinking that the Americans had cornered the market in really strange surnames.It’s official: the biggest and most robust corals on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have slowed their growth by more than 14 per cent since the "tipping point" year of 1990. Evidence is strong that the decline has been caused by a synergistic combination of rising sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification.
A paper* published today (Friday 2 January 2009) in the prestigious international journal Science and written by AIMS scientists Dr Glenn De’ath, Dr Janice Lough and Dr Katharina Fabricius is the most comprehensive study to date on calcification rates of GBR corals...
On current trends, the corals would stop growing altogether by 2050.
"The data suggest that this severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented in at least 400 years," said AIMS scientist and principal author Dr Glenn De’ath.
But I shouldn't make light of him: it sounds as if his work is a pretty significant milestone for showing that the Great Barrier Reef really is in serious trouble. (And as for the ocean acidification component, it will happen regardless of air temperature.)
By the way, Tim Blair and his readers seem to take profound pleasure in their ignorance lately, when it comes to ridiculing any and all geoengineering concepts for dealing with CO2. For example, iron fertilization of the oceans as an idea has been around for a long time, and has often been discussed in popular science magazines like Discover or New Scientist. Sure, many scientists are sceptical of it being a good idea, but it has been tried on a small scale, and calling it the equivalent of a madman's idea is just displaying ignorance. It also shows an attitude more appropriate for a certain class of annoying self centred teenager, where ridicule is the easier option than actually trying to understand something. (Overly idealist teenagers who think they will change the world overnight are also annoying in their own way, as Blair knows.)
As with Andrew Bolt, Tim shows no sign of even a vague attempt at informing himself as to the real issues of climate change and ocean acidification, and just accepts any skeptical opinion with open arms. (He recently provided a link to "electric plasma" fan Louis Hissink, a well known climate skeptic at Jennifer Marohasy's. His fondness for Velikovsky's eccentric - although admittedly fun to contemplate - ideas puts him well outside the geologists' mainstream. )
I've said it before and will say it again: taking shots at exaggerations and media reporting on the "warminist" side is one thing, as is scepticism that carbon trading is going to work, or that the answer lies in a few million windmills.
But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The holiday photos post
The Christmas break was surprisingly enjoyable this year, considering some of it was spent in a dome tent in a camping ground which was both teeth-rattlingly close to the Pacific Highway, and under the flightpath to the Gold Coast Airport. (It was the best that could be arranged at short notice, but fortunately I like watching planes on approach.)
[By the way, has there ever been a more annoyingly complicated tent design devised than the now strangely popular dome style? To fully secure the thing in all its variations seems to take an extraordinary number of pegs. At least it didn't leak. Much.]
Anyhow, apart from time at the local beach and in the shopping centres to escape the midday heat, we had a nice day trip from our just-over-the-border location to view Byron Bay: a first time for me, despite it only being a couple of hundred km from Brisbane.
It was a beautiful day, and the views from the cape are great. Here's the view south:
And north:
The lighthouse itself:
A view showing the lighthouse keeper's quarters (part of which you can actually stay overnight in, although I was told you have to book a long way ahead):
However, be warned. Normal holiday traffic in Byron Bay is every bit as bad as they say. The one road into town slowed down to about 10 - 20 kph from about 8km out. Nice place to visit for a day: not sure I want to stay longer.
On another day, we made a short trip up to Springbrook in the Gold Coast hinterland. Purling Brook Falls is an under-appreciated, easy to access waterfall (the photo is not great, but you get the idea. If you squint, you might be able to make out the viewing platform up and to the left of the top of the falls. They are pretty high.):
Here's my favourite shot: an unusual looking bug (a type of dragonfly perhaps?) found on the path near the falls:
Lovely.
Another first: eating at a Nepalese restaurant, the Kathmandu Kitchen at Kingscliff. It is just the right kind of restaurant- a BYO with main meals in a very acceptable price range, friendly family service, and delicious food. Very highly recommended.
Must spend some more time on the far north coast of New South Wales, even though I still say that as soon as you cross the border, the ocean feels colder. (I know a former Novocastrian who agrees with me.)
[By the way, has there ever been a more annoyingly complicated tent design devised than the now strangely popular dome style? To fully secure the thing in all its variations seems to take an extraordinary number of pegs. At least it didn't leak. Much.]
Anyhow, apart from time at the local beach and in the shopping centres to escape the midday heat, we had a nice day trip from our just-over-the-border location to view Byron Bay: a first time for me, despite it only being a couple of hundred km from Brisbane.
It was a beautiful day, and the views from the cape are great. Here's the view south:
And north:
The lighthouse itself:
A view showing the lighthouse keeper's quarters (part of which you can actually stay overnight in, although I was told you have to book a long way ahead):
However, be warned. Normal holiday traffic in Byron Bay is every bit as bad as they say. The one road into town slowed down to about 10 - 20 kph from about 8km out. Nice place to visit for a day: not sure I want to stay longer.On another day, we made a short trip up to Springbrook in the Gold Coast hinterland. Purling Brook Falls is an under-appreciated, easy to access waterfall (the photo is not great, but you get the idea. If you squint, you might be able to make out the viewing platform up and to the left of the top of the falls. They are pretty high.):
Here's my favourite shot: an unusual looking bug (a type of dragonfly perhaps?) found on the path near the falls:
Lovely.
Another first: eating at a Nepalese restaurant, the Kathmandu Kitchen at Kingscliff. It is just the right kind of restaurant- a BYO with main meals in a very acceptable price range, friendly family service, and delicious food. Very highly recommended.
Must spend some more time on the far north coast of New South Wales, even though I still say that as soon as you cross the border, the ocean feels colder. (I know a former Novocastrian who agrees with me.)
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Death by mochi - 2009 edition: now with additional death statistics!
Time for the annual Opinion Dominion New Year's post about the number of Japanese folk who have started the year in the most unfortunate way:
If you are relatively new to this blog, you can read the reason why so many people choke on it in my earlier post here.
Actually, while Googling around the topic, I turned up this surprising figure from an article in October 2008:
Update: sorry, but I see that the links to the Japan Today source for the 2009 stories do not work anymore, and only take you to the current day's page. Not sure I can fix that.
Tokyo Fire Department officials said Thursday that five elderly people had died and at least eight others had been hospitalized after choking on mochi rice cakes in the metropolitan area on Tuesday and Wednesday.Is posting on this every year starting to test the limits of oddball funny? Oh well. I figure if it's good enough for the national Japanese press to report it, it's good enough to be repeated here. (It's not like I keep a chart on the wall, you know.) Other people do this too: here you can read of deaths reported from other parts of Japan.
If you are relatively new to this blog, you can read the reason why so many people choke on it in my earlier post here.
Actually, while Googling around the topic, I turned up this surprising figure from an article in October 2008:
And you thought that fugu was the most dangerous thing to eat in Japan. (According to Wikipedia, it now only causes a handful of deaths per year, although many more hospitalizations than that.)The choking death last week of a schoolboy in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, has spotlighted a little-known fact in Japan: More than 4,000 people choke to death on food every year....
According to data compiled by the health ministry, 4,407 people died by choking in 2006. By age, about 85 percent were over 65. Only one that year was in the 10-to-14 age group.
By type of food, "mochi" pounded rice was the top culprit, followed by rice, bread and "okayu" rice porridge.
Update: sorry, but I see that the links to the Japan Today source for the 2009 stories do not work anymore, and only take you to the current day's page. Not sure I can fix that.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
10 odd things about this blog
1. It's persistently unpopular. (Well, I think that's odd.*)
2. In any event, the fact that I still blog and Tim Dunlop doesn't gives me uncharitable pleasure. (He was a bore, yet got paid for it!**)
3. Low visitor numbers let me see where regular readers are from. Maybe this has been mentioned before, but there is a very regular repeat visitor who seems to come from or via Bowral in New South Wales. This person is perhaps the most faithful daily visitor, although Tim from Melbourne might drop in more often in any one day. More exotically, there is another visitor - less frequent lately, but still here sometimes - from South Africa. I have still no idea who either of these people are. There are very, very few visitors from the continent of South America. This is obviously the great untapped potential for readership there. Hola! (and Ola!) ¡Tendré una cera brasileña masculina en su honor!***
4. It is remarkable the number of people who come here via the search "Julia Gillard's ear lobes". There are many more ear lobe observers in the nation than I would have suspected.
5. "Old time sex" also seems to be a perennial favourite search term. Is it old time people who search for old time sex?
6. There's also a search or two per week for "A lonely cow weeps at dawn" since it was mentioned here. Listing the title of porn movies is obviously a way to increase hits.
7. I realised, when Club Troppo invited people to nominate their own posts for consideration as "Best Blog Posts" of 2008, I don't do essays. The entry I nearly self nominated was only about 600 words long. Funny, it feels to me like I am writing more than I do.
8. Why wasn't this horsey post from 2007 nominated for an award? It's a personal favourite.
9. I like my travelogue-ish posts, and am often pleased with the photos accompanying them, but (almost) no one ever comments. (Well, I did get one comment earlier this year, but it was deleted for containing the word "schlong".)
10. No one has ever donated a cent. I am thinking of announcing that I am in fact transgender and in need of the operation, as that worked for at least one other blogger. Don't tell the Pope, though.
* Too eclectic for its own good, is my theory. It also manages to have a broadband annoyance factor: those on the right who are climate skeptics (ie, about 95% of them, it seems) no doubt tire of posts on CO2 and ocean acidification; and those on the left probably don't enjoy semi-regular bagging of Islam, China, and gay rights.
** Add "unnecessary catty comments" to the list of reasons why people don't visit.
*** I will have a men's brazilian wax in your honour!
2. In any event, the fact that I still blog and Tim Dunlop doesn't gives me uncharitable pleasure. (He was a bore, yet got paid for it!**)
3. Low visitor numbers let me see where regular readers are from. Maybe this has been mentioned before, but there is a very regular repeat visitor who seems to come from or via Bowral in New South Wales. This person is perhaps the most faithful daily visitor, although Tim from Melbourne might drop in more often in any one day. More exotically, there is another visitor - less frequent lately, but still here sometimes - from South Africa. I have still no idea who either of these people are. There are very, very few visitors from the continent of South America. This is obviously the great untapped potential for readership there. Hola! (and Ola!) ¡Tendré una cera brasileña masculina en su honor!***
4. It is remarkable the number of people who come here via the search "Julia Gillard's ear lobes". There are many more ear lobe observers in the nation than I would have suspected.
5. "Old time sex" also seems to be a perennial favourite search term. Is it old time people who search for old time sex?
6. There's also a search or two per week for "A lonely cow weeps at dawn" since it was mentioned here. Listing the title of porn movies is obviously a way to increase hits.
7. I realised, when Club Troppo invited people to nominate their own posts for consideration as "Best Blog Posts" of 2008, I don't do essays. The entry I nearly self nominated was only about 600 words long. Funny, it feels to me like I am writing more than I do.
8. Why wasn't this horsey post from 2007 nominated for an award? It's a personal favourite.
9. I like my travelogue-ish posts, and am often pleased with the photos accompanying them, but (almost) no one ever comments. (Well, I did get one comment earlier this year, but it was deleted for containing the word "schlong".)
10. No one has ever donated a cent. I am thinking of announcing that I am in fact transgender and in need of the operation, as that worked for at least one other blogger. Don't tell the Pope, though.
* Too eclectic for its own good, is my theory. It also manages to have a broadband annoyance factor: those on the right who are climate skeptics (ie, about 95% of them, it seems) no doubt tire of posts on CO2 and ocean acidification; and those on the left probably don't enjoy semi-regular bagging of Islam, China, and gay rights.
** Add "unnecessary catty comments" to the list of reasons why people don't visit.
*** I will have a men's brazilian wax in your honour!
Colebatch criticism continues
One little word undoes the PM's claims on greenhouse gases | theage.com.au
Tim Colebatch argues that the major faults of the current European ETS are repeated in Kevin Rudd's proposed scheme.
Worth reading.
Tim Colebatch argues that the major faults of the current European ETS are repeated in Kevin Rudd's proposed scheme.
Worth reading.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Ghosts of Everest
Voices in the air -- Windsor 337: a2667 -- BMJ
Here's a an interesting first hand account from the British Medical Journal of spectral assistance being provided to a an exhausted climber on Mt Everest. It's not an unusual story, apparently.
As with my recent post about bereavement "ghosts", the author of the article knows that the scientific explanation is the brain playing tricks because of the unusual stress it is under. (Indeed, the deprivation of oxygen aspect of the Everest stories can be seen as being the same explanation for death bed visions - where a person close to death starts chatting to an unseen, deceased, relative in the room. These are at their most suggestive of the supernatural when the "visitor" is of a relative who has recently died, yet the dying person had not been told.)
All very inconclusive, of course, but interesting nonetheless.
Here's a an interesting first hand account from the British Medical Journal of spectral assistance being provided to a an exhausted climber on Mt Everest. It's not an unusual story, apparently.
As with my recent post about bereavement "ghosts", the author of the article knows that the scientific explanation is the brain playing tricks because of the unusual stress it is under. (Indeed, the deprivation of oxygen aspect of the Everest stories can be seen as being the same explanation for death bed visions - where a person close to death starts chatting to an unseen, deceased, relative in the room. These are at their most suggestive of the supernatural when the "visitor" is of a relative who has recently died, yet the dying person had not been told.)
All very inconclusive, of course, but interesting nonetheless.
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