Flying geeks denied

Journey's end for Flight Simulator

Here's an amusing take on Microsoft's announcement that they are (apparently) no longer going to be developing Flight Simulator beyond its present incarnation. I like this part:

Of course, what every simmer dreams about is being called on to land an actual plane in an emergency. A trembling stewardess announces over the public address that both flyers upfront are suffering debilitating convulsions from the in-flight catering and has anyone flown an Airbus before?

"Er, not really but ….." you splutter.

You are the last hope and with increasing confidence and cool, you inform ground-control that the myriad of dials and gauges you face, once the ailing captain has been hauled from his seat, are second-nature. Eventually, you plop the aircraft on the runway with a couple of harmless bounces, just for dramatic effect, and applause from the passenger-cabin rings in your ears.

I wonder: was the product used by the 9/11 hijackers in addition to their "real"training?

Is he a priest in any meaningful sense?

There was a remarkable article on Father Peter Kennedy, the sacked parish priest of St Mary's South Brisbane, in the Courier Mail Q Magazine on Saturday. (It looks like the website does not put up weekend articles until much later than they appear in print, so I will keep a look out for it. UPDATE: you should be able to read the article as a .pdf here.)

Essentially, Peter Kennedy appears to have been doubting his faith and/or the value of priesthood for much of the time he has been ordained, and in many respects sounds like a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Another interesting profile of both Kennedy and the Archbishop was in The Australian over the weekend. (This one, however, does not delve into Kennedy's history so much, and argues that he mainly became radicalised as a result of some controversy while he was a prison chaplain in the 1980's. I think his disenchantment with the Church and priesthood comes well before that, however.) The article does make a good point, though:

Kennedy insists that St Mary’s is a community church that is acting in the spirit of Vatican II in being driven by the congregation. He parts company with Bathersby in that he believes the role of the priest is to help guide the congregation, not dictate to it.

Yet here’s a contradiction: Kennedy insists that while St Mary’s is about the community rather than him, his presence there is vital. “This community will die when I leave,” he says. “After that, they will either appoint a priest who’ll toe the line and deliver exactly the Mass they want, which will mean a lot of people will leave, or it will be absorbed into another parish.”

I have come to the view that he is incredibly disingenuous in nearly everything he says. His talk this weekend was that he would not enter into negotiation with the Archbishop because it was up to his parish "community" to negotiate about it, and anyway he already knows his community wants him. (Never mind that his idea of "community" for St Marys obviously does not extend to the "community" of the entire Roman Catholic Church.)

It is also ridiculous to be taking such an attitude while at the same time threatening legal proceedings (in his own name, I presume) about unfair dismissal.

The Archbishop and Father Ken Howell are, I believe, being too kind in their response to this man who should have given up the priesthood as soon as he realised he was not really cut out for it in the 1960's or 70's. He would have been much happier being a social worker directly on the streets all of those years since then. I think it would be a serious mistake to let him co-celebrate mass with the new priest, even if "the community" were to allow it.

I am inclined to think (as Mild Colonial Boy suggested to my last post) that this will only be solved by physically closing the Church. Presumably, Kennedy and his mob will follow him to another premises, they can continue to think they are Catholic for all I care, and after 12 months the old building can be re-opened with another priest. The dispersal of much of the Kennedy emotionalism might ensure it can then be run without the current group staging a scene.

Why defend emissions trading?

An argument for emissions trading at John Quiggin

I don't understand why an economist on the left of politics like John Quiggin is still arguing for an emissions trading scheme as being preferable to a carbon tax.

Surely, the recent experience of financial markets ought to make anyone very cautious about a proposed new scheme which is welcomed by those who can see that there is money to be made in a potential novel market. I expected it would make Labor types especially skeptical.

In the post linked above, Professor Quiggin argues boldly that the recent collapse in the price of the European emissions permits is not a warning against using ETS:

Most commentators have seen this as a strike against emissions trading, but actually it’s a positive. The big concern about price uncertainty arises when we are very uncertain about the cost of reducing emissions. Under cost uncertainty, setting the emissions target too low could impose unexpectedly high costs on the economy.

What’s happening here is that we are uncertain about the rate of growth of the economy. An emissions target is countercyclical since it imposes a relatively high cost when the economy is strong, and a much smaller cost when the economy is weak. This is a Good Thing.

There are many comments following which contest that view, and I find some of them very convincing. TerjeP argues, for example:

If the focus of the carbon emission policy is to reduce carbon emissions by ushering in new energy technology then the key business sector that needs price certainty from a carbon tax is the renewable base load energy sector. They are after all the ones in need of new capital and who must persuade investors and bankers that things will work out as planned.....

However dealing with the volatile carbon price that an ETS would deliver makes investment in such unproven high risk commercialisation a far less certain venture.

And besides which: doesn't a hell of a lot depend on whether the US goes down the ETS path as well? If Obama actually goes for a carbon tax, wouldn't it be wise to follow?

UPDATE: How convenient. Penny Wong has column space in the Australian this morning in which she explains why an ETS is preferable to a carbon tax. Her key point:

Arguments around the merits of emissions reductions policies can be complex, but the core explanation for why emissions trading is superior to a carbon tax is simple. A carbon tax does not guarantee emissions reductions. A cap-and-trade scheme does.

Delivering a target is a key part of domestic and international efforts to reduce carbon pollution.

Cap and trade gives us certainty that targeted reductions will occur, whereas a carbon tax gives no guarantee over the quantity of reductions. Under a cap-and-trade scheme, the government issues permits for each tonne of carbon up to the total cap. Under a carbon tax, the government needs to estimate how emissions levels would respond to a carbon tax rate, introducing uncertainty about whether the target would be reached.

But Penny: that assumes that the ETS actually works. She claims:

Emissions trading gives businesses and the community more certainty.....While the carbon price will fluctuate under a cap-and-trade model, there is a capacity for firms to use market instruments to help manage movement in the carbon price.

Yes, market instruments have been working so well, lately. (Disengage sarcasm mode.)

More Wong claims:

Emissions trading opens up the prospect of sharing the burden of reducing emissions with other countries through linking the CPRS to schemes overseas. A carbon tax would take Australia out of this emerging international market.

But problems with the credibility of credits claimed for reductions in other countries has been one of the major issues of the European ETS, hasn't it? And wouldn't common sense suggest that there is always going to be an incentive for businesses engaged in quantifying the effects of overseas mitigation to be biased towards overstating the benefits of schemes? I mean, that keeps all potential customers happy.

I would have thought that one of the benefits of a carbon tax is that you can cut out that part of an ETS and just worry about accurately assessing what is going on in your own country.

Penny doesn't want to wait, though, and that's a worry:

Now is the time for getting on with the job not kicking around theories.

It's not the theories we want discussed, Penny; we're saying it's the practicalities that need to win out over theory.

Investigating methane

Bubbles of warming, beneath the ice - Los Angeles Times

The potential for trouble from methane and other carbon being released from thawing Arctic regions is given a bit of an overview in this article. Some disturbing thoughts:

The upper 3 meters -- about 10 feet -- of permafrost stores 1.9 trillion tons of carbon, more than double the amount in the atmosphere today, according to a recent study in the journal Bioscience.

"We are seeing thawing down to 5 meters," says geophysicist Vladimir Romanovsky of the University of Alaska. "A third to a half of permafrost is already within a degree to a degree and a half [Celsius] of thawing."

If only 1% of permafrost carbon were to be released each year, that could double the globe's annual carbon emissions, Romanovsky notes. "We are at a tipping point for positive feedback," he warns, referring to a process in which warming spurs emissions, which in turn generate more heat, in an uncontrollable cycle.

Re-appraising Lewis - again

Film - Hey, Laaaady! Jerry Lewis, the King of Comedy, Finally Gets Recognition From Oscar - NYTimes.com

Here's another article (this time from the other side of the Atlantic) re-appraising Jerry Lewis' career in light of his receiving an award for humanitarian work at this year's Oscars.

I am very curious as to how his acceptance speech will go.

UPDATE: I'm not the only one speculating how badly a Jerry Lewis acceptance speech may go at the Oscars. Will update further once I have seen the real thing.

UPDATE II: Lewis managed to be brief and sincerely appreciative. Congratulations.

Teaching sex

There's a fairly sensible article in The Times, written by a teacher with first hand experience, about the state of sex education in England today. (A certain babyfaced 13 year old father has caused a degree of national reflection on the topic.)

The writer does not sound all that intrinsically conservative, but she notes this oft-repeated concern that conservatives have about sex education:

The non-statutory curriculum for PSHE says, of the sex and relationship component, that “it helps [students] to understand human sexuality and the significance of marriage and stable relationships as key building blocks of community and society”.

Yet so much of PSHE ignores the latter half and focuses instead on how not to fall pregnant or catch a sexually transmitted infection. As one girl said to me recently: “Miss, they’ve been showing us how to put condoms on penises for years, but they never talk to us about relationships or how we choose.” Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.

The danger is that so much information is being blasted at these children on how not to conceive, where to go for help, the dangers of chlamydia, that the implied subtext is that it is all right to experiment with sex whenever you want. The curriculum does say that learning the advantages of delaying sexual activity should form part of the content, but how often is that touched upon?

Her experience when she does try to get a lesson taught in the school emphasising marriage or "stable relationships" is instructive:

I seized on the second part of the general statement about sex and relationships education (“to understand . . . the significance of marriage and stable relationships as key building blocks of community and society”) and designed a lesson on marriage. It was a good lesson. I taught it myself and it generated thoughtful conversation about responsibility and parenthood and such like. But one of the PSHE teachers came to me and refused to teach it.

She said it made her “uncomfortable” and was “not relevant”. I pointed out that “stable relationships” were to be emphasised as much as marriage; no one was to feel uncomfortable, that is the whole point of good PSHE. Still she refused. If parents don’t, and teachers won’t, teach children the basic tenets of moral responsibility, what chance do those children have?

The problem is, I suppose, that it is extremely difficult to teach the benefits of "stable relationships" (or, God forbid, "marriage") without experiencing it directly. How can teachers show kids that there is something better than the patterns of dysfunctional adult relationships they may be watching at home?

Meanwhile, in a report in the same newspaper, the government is issuing a leaflet which will do its whimpy best to discourage young parenthood"

The leaflet suggests that parents should start the “big talk” with children as young as possible, before they pick up “misinformation” from their peers in adolescence. The best way to raise the topic may be while performing mundane tasks such as “washing the car . . . washing up, watching TV, etc”, it says.

The main controversy about the leaflet is that it suggests parents should back off on the 'right and wrong' aspects of the discussion. This is justified by a psychologist as follows:

Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist, said educating older children and teenagers about sex had to be a process of negotiation. “We do not know what is right and wrong; right and wrong is relative, although your child does need clear guidelines,” she said.

Like that's going to help.

Add that one to the list of movies I just didn't get

So, I finally caught up with The Last Picture Show.

What a dreary, pointless story. As with much European cinema, the story is told competently, but at the end of it I think "why did they think this story was worth telling?"

It's also a severely underpopulated film, similar to most Australian movies, where there just doesn't seem to be enough people on the screen. I know it was meant to be a dying, dead end town, but really, art direction that made the streets look like an absolute ghost town just made it look unrealistic to my eye.

Critics love to hail the American movies of the early 1970's as some sort of artistic highlight of cinema: I reckon they were just mostly depressing, dark movies with few redeeming features.

UPDATE: just thought that is an appropriate place to list some other movies that I "just don't get". (This means I am forever puzzled by their critical and/or commercial success):

1. Forest Gump. Not offended by it; I would rate it as "harmless". But why was such a downer of a silly fairy tale a critical and box office success?

2. Rocky Horror Picture Show. Proof that one catchy song can sway hundreds of millions that they have had a good time during an entire 90 minutes. At least the sequel was a gold plated dud.

3. Pretty Woman. Proof that two attractive stars can make people forget that they are being sold a wildly improbable fairy tale which seems designed to make people feel better about prostitution as an industry or temporary career choice. Offensive.

A viewing recommendation

For a long time, SBS seems to have reserved Friday nights at 8.30 for World War II documentaries, and currently it is running a lengthy series called "Churchill's Bodyguard".

I haven't seen all of it, but what I have seen has been very interesting, and stuffed full of footage that I have either never seen, or only seen briefly, before.

As the title suggests, the series is based on the memoirs of Churchill's long serving bodyguard, so you get a very detailed and intimate view of Churchill's activities and character. (It seems virtually everyone who was close to Churchill has written about it: at a holiday unit some years ago I found an old book by his personal physician who followed him around during WWII as well.)

Last night's episode featured the long and dangerous trip Churchill made in secret to first visit Roosevelt on board a ship in Newfoundland.

It occurred to me while watching it that one of the things that makes WWII so fascinating is that the technology was just at the right level of development for providing drama. It allowed the sort of secret operations and trips that would be impossible today between the major powers. But the rush to develop and perfect new technologies also gave this war a large part of its dramatic character too. You just can't imagine such a scenario ever happening again.

It was also noted in last night's episode that Churchill appeared to believe that supernatural protection was being provided to him to "complete the mission".

(On the other hand, Hitler was lucky to survive as long as he did. Maybe he had infernal protection, and it was all a proxy war. Could be a movie in that!)

Circus denied

Rebel priest defies deadline

What the hell? I get no media circus to watch on the Sunday night news after all.

Father Howell has given up on the idea of trying to get into St Mary's church this weekend, and he and Archbishop Bathersby are going to let ousted priest Peter Kennedy run the show as always.

Howell is quoted as follows:

"I have been a priest for 25 years, and I will not engage in a situation whereby the celebration of the Mass becomes a place of conflict and division.

"I don't believe that anyone would attend this weekend's services with the intention of behaving violently. However, tensions are high, people are upset, and Father Kennedy has urged as many people as possible to attend the service in a spirit of protest."

Father Howell said he remained committed to taking up his position as administrator of St Mary's.

Catholic Archbishop John Bathesby has conceded to enter a mediation with the maverick cleric.

"I believe a sensible next step would be to have an experienced, independent and eminent mediator meet with the archdiocese and Father Kennedy to attempt to achieve a peaceful and dignified outcome to the current impasse. I would strongly urge Father Kennedy to participate in this process," Archbishop Bathersby said.

Hmpff. Kennedy has shown no inclination of budging in his (or "his community's") practices. As far as I can see, mediation will involve him telling the Archbishop that he is wrong.

A physical confrontation at the church is delayed, but I doubt it can be avoided indefinitely.

Next he should look up the meaning of "disingenuous"

As noted a few posts back, "rebel" priest Father Peter Kennedy, now finally officially relieved of his duties, went as far a calling the temporary replacement "a religious scab."

Kennedy is quoted today:

Fr Kennedy said he regretted calling Father Ken Howell, whom Archbishop Bathersby has appointed to take over St Mary's, a "religious scab".

"I looked up the word scab in the dictionary and certainly Ken doesn't fit that , so I apologise for that," he said.

LOL!

Father Ken Howell, meantime, is trying to shame the parish into letting him in by being very, very nice:

Fr Howell, who has invited Fr Kennedy to jointly celebrate all the masses at St Mary's this weekend, said he was disappointed by the remark.

However, he said he thought it was the comment of a man under pressure.

This is on top of comments that he doesn't see that there is a problem with the Gay and Lesbian Choir continuing to use the church.

It's an interesting tactic, but I doubt it is going to work.

Complicated

Carbon Capture Firm Could Use the Ocean to Combat Global Warming

I guess if money and energy are no object, there are lots of ways you can fiddle with the environment:

The study, "Electrochemical Acceleration of Chemical Weathering as an Energetically Feasible Approach to Mitigating Anthropogenic Climate Change," lays out a means of making the ocean more alkaline by reducing its acid content, in a process "equivalent to the electrochemical acceleration of the Earth's natural chemical weathering process."

In essence, the study proposes using electrolysis to convert weaker carbonic acid in the oceans into hydrochloric acid - "the engineered process accelerates the weathering kinetics to industrial rates," the study states. That could speed the rate at which silicate rocks –basalt, granite and other minerals that make up most of the Earth's crust – absorb the acid from the ocean.

"The increase in ocean alkalinity resulting from the removal of HCl causes atmospheric CO2 to dissolve into the ocean where it will be stored primarily as HCO3 without further acidifying the ocean," the study states. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is being absorbed by the ocean already, causing it to become more acidic - and that is leading to problems for coral reefs, giant squid and other ocean life, scientists say.

I think I have heard of this before, but not posted about it. Probably because of this:

Undertaking such a vast engineering project would be daunting, to be sure. It's the equivalent of building about 100 plants the size of major sewage treatment facilities to capture about 3.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year, the study states.

"Our current estimates indicate that running the process described here at scales sufficiently large to impact the earth's climate is unlikely to be commercially viable in the near future," the study says.

The redundant blogger

Jennifer Marohasy - Gone Fishing

It's hard not be bemused by what happens at Jennifer Marohasy's blog when she disappears for a break. (It's been nearly three weeks now.) The raucous, rarely enlightening, debate by the band of regular commenters just continues unabated.

I can't quite work out whether, as a blogger, Jennifer should feel proud or embarrassed that her blog is almost as active without her as when she is posting.

What a surprise

The Hindu News Update Service notes that:

The Asia Pacific Sexual Health and Overall Wellness (AP SHOW) survey found that men with "suboptimal erections" are less satisfied with sex and other aspects of the sexual experience.

Love that terminology. It makes me want to use at least part of it every day. For example: "Kevin Rudd, our suboptimal PM".

The Taliban concept of "truce"

Pakistani reporter is killed after celebration of truce

A rally to celebrate a day-old peace deal between the government and a hard-line Islamic cleric in the Swat Valley ended ominously Wednesday when a Pakistani television journalist was shot and killed after covering the march.

Fast work

Short works of genius that cheer up the writing profession | The Spectator

A good column from Paul Johnson about the speed with which some famous novels (or plays) have been written.

A bit rich

Why men can't apologise - Times Online

A female "relationships expert" says (citing one example) that men have trouble saying "sorry".

The comments are already flowing in the other direction:

What a stupefyingly assumed, breathtaking generalisation of an entire gender based solely on one person's own prejudices and the singularly thin example of one incident! How do I know this? My girlfiend would rather lose an arm than say sorry!

And it is true that, in my vast range of relationship experience (hahahaha,) one important lesson learnt is that women do not generally feel a need to apologise for things said or done when feeling even slightly hormonally grumpy. Men, on the other hand, are expected to pretty much apologise for everything.

I doubt I am unique in this finding.

Aiming for the easy target

A headline in The Independent today:

Coming to Britain, church with a mission to demonise homosexuals

(It's about the crackpot Westboro Baptist Church, about which even uber gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell says "They are such an absurd, fringe, fanatical group that it’s probably best to just ignore them.”)

I could suggest an alternative, more important headline for The Independent:

Already in Britain -Religious leaders who wants homosexuals killed !

Pass the popcorn

Currency Lad has a wry post noting the UFO cult support of soon-to-be-departed St Mary's parish priest Peter Kennedy.

Kennedy's latest rhetoric indicates he truly comes from the ACTU school of diplomacy:

"I intend to have our liturgy at 9am as normal on Sunday morning and there'll be a thousand people there, I'd say.

The people are not going to receive Father Howell. He's naive enough to think he can walk in there on Sunday and the people will welcome him.

Well, they won't. I know the people, I've been there 28 years - the people want me there and I've helped build that community into what it is today.

And then this guy comes in, like a religious scab."

How classy. It would appear that his parish has always been close to the trade unions, and indeed the Trades and Labor Council has offered nearby premises from which to conduct services. (That last linked story indicates that, as of January, Kennedy did not seem overly troubled by the fact that "our community" would seem simply re-locate down the road. Why the change of heart, then?) Peter Kennedy also appears to be getting free advice from union lawyers, as he has apparently mentioned potential "unfair dismissal" action in the industrial courts. What next - legal action about the procedural unfairness in the election of the next Pope?

Speaking of oddball support for the church, I have previously noted the support pledged by perpetual aboriginal activist Sam Watson, following the parish joining the "Sacred Treaty Circle" last November. Problem is, no one seems to know what the "treaty" means.

According to Watson:

...we’ve more or less declared St Mary’s to be a very sacred site to Aboriginal people from right around this area, and we will now defend that.

According to activist Bejam Denis Walker:

Well the treaty is a recognition of our sovereignty under God in country. Something that the Australian government hasn’t realised or recognised, and it fulfils law. Without it, I maintain, people are behaving unlawfully. Essentially it creates a oneness between the Indigenous peoples and the non-indigenous peoples.

Clear? Um, not exactly. At the St Mary's parish blog, there's a link to a new, long open letter to the parish from a West End aboriginal figure Sean a.k.a. John Tracey, complaining that Peter Kennedy had been quoted as saying that the Aboriginal sovereignty asserted in the treaty was a matter of symbolism. Not so, claims Sean:

It seems that perhaps Peter may not have fully understood the treaty he has signed if he considers Aboriginal sovereignty to be legally uncertain and symbolic.

To describe assertions of sovereignty as symbolic directly undermines those assertions.

Bejam has served on the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane a proclamation of Sovereignty and a Notice of Want of Jurisdiction. In international law, Common law, commercial law and Aboriginal customary law these are legitimate and legal statements that can underpin a range of very real court actions relevant to St. Mary’s and beyond. They are not a symbolic ambit claim but a real instrument of law.

Hmm. The (very lengthy) proclamation mentioned above can be read here. The respondents are the Archbishop of Brisbane and Queen Elisabeth II of Australia, basically telling them to both shove off. As for the Church in particular:

...the Roman Catholic Church, and indeed the State and Federal governments and all establishments that uphold and sustain the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, are operating in our Indigenous lands, illegally, and have no jurisdiction to make any decisions regarding the use of our lands/law/culture.

Yet the same letter complains about the lack of apparent support for the treaty process at St Mary's:

In the last month I have attended two meetings at St. Mary’s, called by Bejam to begin the process of assisting “the agenda”. In both cases the meeting was cancelled because nobody from St. Mary’s turned up.

If St. Mary’s remains so busy fighting the Catholic hierarchy or doing business as usual that it does not have the time or headspace to properly deal with the treaty and customary law then it cannot make any claim to being a part of the treaty or customary law process with any integrity, even if they do appropriate the symbols of these things into their own liturgical self identity and their fight with the Catholic hierarchy.

Well well. As I had suspected, aboriginal activists would claim this "treaty" gave them some say as to the future of the parish, or at the very least, the right to occupy the car park in perpetuity. (There has been talk of a tent embassy being established: "a fantastic idea" according to Peter Kennedy.) Yet the parishioners seem to have been too distracted to keep all activists on side.

In another odd aspect of all of this, the new priest being parachuted in from the Cathedral, Father Ken Howell, is quoted today as follows:

Father Howell told The Courier-Mail his propulsion into the spotlight by being appointed to take over St Mary's was "a little daunting".

He looked forward to working with Fr Kennedy and the church community so St Mary's outreach work could continue and to plan liturgies.

He could see no reason why the gay and lesbian choir could not continue to use the church, he said.

Now that's not exactly going to keep conservatives happy. But what will the choir members do? As I expect that many of them may have had their relationships "blessed" by Peter Kennedy, one suspects that most of them will follow him to his new Union home.

This weekend will be a circus at St Mary's, especially on Sunday morning when it appears it will be a case of duelling priests to see which of them is going to conduct Mass, while Sam Watson pitches a tent in the car park, the Raelians spot invisible flying saucers above the Church, and (possibly) fights break out between some of the lesbians. The drama may also be heightened by another fainting spell from Father Kennedy.

Although it is fundamentally a serious issue, I can't help but be entertained as well.

Stop it, Frank

What The Caine Mutiny Can Teach Us about Global Warming Scientists

Ack! Another anti global warming piece by Frank Tipler. (A very lightweight one too, it must be said.)

Have they peaked yet?

Hit & Run: Tattoos - so in they're out - Hit & Run, People - The Independent

Good to see someone in The Independent taking a cynical view of the ubiquity of the tattoo. Bryan Appleyard will be pleased.

Out of curiosity, I saw a brief part of London Ink on some cable channel recently. (God knows what entertainment there is to be found in watching an entire series about a few tattoo artists ruining perfectly good skin.) Anyhow, the bit I saw featured a woman getting a tattoo of a pair of ballerina shoes and a ribbon on her neck. It was so high, the lower part of her hair had to be shaved.

At the end, observing the shoes in the mirror, she expressed delight at how good they looked. She noted that "they will always remind me of ..." I forget what. Her former ballet days maybe.

"What the hell?" I thought. The tattoo is on your neck, woman. It will soon have hair over at least the top part of it, unless you are going to go all Sinaed O'Connor permanently.

Unless you live in a house of mirrors, is it not self evidently dumb to have a tattoo intended to act as an aide-memoire on your back?