Tell him he's dreaming

Abbott makes play for Greens preferences

I've made the point elsewhere, but I'll repeat it here: Abbott is not showing a firm grip on reality if he thinks he can credibly convince Green supporters to preference the Coalition when he:

a. showed all the policy conviction of a windsock on the issue of climate change over the last 6 months;
b. called climate change "crap" only a couple of months ago;
c. gave arch skeptic Minchin Resources and Energy, and put Joyce on the front bench.

It doesn't matter how big his Green Army will be, if you aren't convincing on climate change, you aren't going to get a Green vote within coo-ee of you.

Yet another possible early test

Seeing a diagnosis: How an eye test could aid Alzheimer's detection

It's about how spotting the death of cells on the retina may be able to used as an early Alzheimer's test. This quote at the end is of particular interest:

"Few people realise that the retina is a direct, albeit thin, extension of the brain. It is entirely possible that in the future a visit to a high-street optician to check on your eyesight will also be a check on the state of your brain."

Innovative uses for radioactivity in the 19th century

What Were They Drinking? Researchers Investigate Radioactive Crock Pots

The article is about a particular water jar, but the introduction is generally of interest:

Radioactive toothpaste, suppositories, makeup: Would-be inventors seeking to capitalize on the discovery of radioactivity in the late 19th century produced a plethora of questionable medical devices and treatments. Among the most famous of these was the Revigator, an earthenware vessel that, according to an advertisement, would infuse drinking water with "the lost element of original freshness -- radioactivity."

Radioactive suppositories? For that inner glow of health, I suppose. Here's more detail from an article at MSNBC:

And a truly amazing advertisement sells Vita Radium Suppositories (High Strength): radioactive suppositories intended for daily use that “are absorbed by the walls of the colon” so that “every tissue, every organ of the body is bombarded by its health-giving electric atoms.”

Ah, I knew it would be on the net somewhere. Here's a link to an original advertisement for them. I see that they are recommended for "sexually weak men" and are "also splendid for piles and rectal sores".

So concerns about sexual performance led to men using radioactive suppositories. Maybe someone accidentally cured their prostate cancer that way.

Handy to know

Blood pressure drugs can halve risk of dementia, say researchers | Society | The Guardian

Apart from the good news at the start of this article, I hadn't heard this before:

...the loss of ability to smell could be an early warning sign of Alzheimer's and prompt earlier diagnosis, separate research suggests. It is known that Alzheimer's can lead to the loss of a sense of smell, although why that happens is unclear. A study in the Journal of Neuroscience, by American scientists working on mice, links the failing ability to smell to the buildup of amyloid, a toxic protein that is an indicator of the disease. Experts said the findings suggested loss of smell could be used as an early indicator of the condition and thus ultimately improve medical care.

Longer lived mini black holes

Production of tidal-charged black holes at the Large Hadron Collider

I see from the above paper that physicists are still looking at certain theorised types of black holes that the LHC might produce, and which might "live" long enough to leave the detector. (I presume instead of instantaneously turning into a spray of decay particles.)

This guy reckons that they are unlikely to be produced in the lifetime of the LHC. (I see that he mentions Plaga's paper - predicting one possible form of black hole disaster - in his footnotes too, even though he makes no comment on it.)

I should be encouraged by the result, but I am still struck by how little they know about what may really happen there.

Reading ramble

The news and my favourite websites are strangely un-engaging at the moment, so I'll talk about what I've read over the last 6 months or so. It's not much, and few are probably interested, but what the hey.

* Graham Greene: I have mentioned here before that I was starting to get into Graham Greene. Since then, I have finished "A Burnt Out Case" (a fairly late novel in his career) and liked it quite a lot. It's sort of dark, well and truly within what I understand to be "Greeneland," but with a tragic redemption at the end, which I think reflects Greene's own complicated views on life and religion. I can recommend it, especially for people with a Catholic background.

But then, I read his early popular novel, "Brighton Rock". It has a great opening, but later I thought some of it was really tortured and outright bad writing. For me, it doesn't really ring psychologically true at all, and I am very puzzled as to why it apparently made his name as a novelist. He clearly developed his prose into a cleaner, more direct and psychologically subtle style later in his career, and I would strongly advise anyone interested in him not to start with this book.

I think I will go on to read some of his most famous novels, such as The End of the Affair, and The Heart of the Matter. But there is no doubt he is a bit of a depressing read overall, and it's not like I want to spend all that much time getting to know his world.

* Young adult time. Australian writer John Marsden is famous for his "Tomorrow" novels, featuring Australian teenage protagonists responding to a (very improbable) Asian invasion of the country. I therefore tried the first one in the series (Tomorrow, When the War Began) when I found it in a second hand book shop. (I saw from the name written inside that it probably was a prescribed read for a grade 9 student.)

I don't have any problem with reading "young adult" books; my natural inclination to be bothered/uninterested in lots of swearing and sex in fiction actually makes it something I should incline towards. (And I'll take Heinlein's "juveniles" over Stranger in a Strange Land any day.) But I doubt that much of it now is written as outright entertainment.

Anyway, as for this book: it's not bad, but I did find it peculiar that Marsden should chose to write from the perspective of a teenage girl, even if she is a pragmatic and strong character. There were some sections involving relationship talk which, while I imagine were probably realistic for a modern teen, I could still imagine teenage boys being completely bored with. This relationship stuff seemed to me to be too clearly didactic, in that they seemed an attempt to get teenage boys to understand things from the female perspective.

I was not impressed enough to be bothered continuing with the series, but it wasn't a complete loss.

* Will I ever find an active science fiction writer I like? I gave modern science fiction another go with John Scalzi's "Old Man's War". The reviews (and the man in the bookshop who recommended it to me) noted that it is similar in style to Robert Heinlein; and it's true, especially in the first third or so where there is a lot of wise-cracking, lively character exchanges, and I was initially impressed.

It has an excellent sequence in which our main character gets his mind swapped into a new, cloned, tweaked and improved version of his body.

Yet, by half way through, the improbability of the setup was starting to bother me, as was the idea that in two hundred years time, military training would still use exactly the same psychological approach that has been in the 20th century.

Then back to a good point: the inter-stellar drive was clever in concept.

Then back to the bad: it sort of peters out a bit, and ultimately left me uninterested in reading the sequel.

The extremely patchy appeal of the novel reminded me of my reaction to Peter Hamilton's "The Reality Dysfunction". I really liked some of its passages, found some other parts a bit slow and irrelevant, and in the last substantial section it seemed to change tone completely to a visceral fight which was very unappealing. Basically, he badly needs more severe editing.

Why do I find it impossible to find a current science fiction writer whose novel I like from start to end??

* More Truman Capote: I'm currently reading "In Cold Blood", after earlier enjoying "Breakfast at Tiffanys." I really like his writing style, and am quite enjoying it, despite knowing that it may not be the most accurate account of the event possible. (I haven't seen the popular "Capote" movie about the process of his writing it yet, and I'll save that until I have finished the book.)

Capote himself certainly did not lead the happiest of lives. I like to use the fact that I have had a relatively happy and stable life as the reason why I will probably always be incapable of creating great art!

Make your own bad pun for this one

Astronauts' urine clogs space station water recycler - Telegraph

Late nights

Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno Bash NBC In Monologues

For an Australian, the most amazing thing about the late night TV scene in America is that it exists at all. 10 to 11 pm (Jay Leno's short lived slot) is considered prime time, and the reason he is being moved is because of the poor lead in ratings he is giving to the local news.

The late show slots start at 11.35, yet you get all this drama around who will do them when the incumbent is due to go.

Is Australia the only country in the world in which it seems no one expects there to be a significant TV audience after about 10.30? It's virtually impossible to imagine Australians being greatly concerned about what starts at 11.30 pm, especially on a weeknight.

The only reason I see these shows now is because cable TV here shows them from around 8.30 to 10.30.

And, incidentally, I remain puzzled as to why O'Brien has rated so poorly in his new slot. I thought he had toned down his sometimes irritating act to just the right degree, and Andy Richter and him are a likeable pairing, as far as these things go. He does remain a seriously strange looking guy though, if you ask me.

I've sort of given up on Letterman over the last couple of years, when it seemed clear to me that he was getting too serious about politics.

I know that the American TV schedule has been like that for decades (it was one of the things that really surprised me about it when I first visited), but I remain puzzled as to how the importance of such late night viewing evolved there.

Near miss

Asteroid or Space Junk? Object Makes Close Pass by Earth Wednesday | Universe Today

It's only 10 - 15 meters across, but it would at least make for a very big flash in the sky.

More details on the mixed up temperatures

Where did global warming go? Here's where...

Yet another excellent post at Skeptical Science showing with illustrations how the Northern Hemisphere cold snap is distributed, and the unusually warm areas that are accompanying it.

In which I get amusement at other people's embarrassment

Publicly Sleeping Salarymen | loneleeplanet

If you read Japanese blogs, you'll know from time to time people publish photos of drunk Japanese men who fall asleep on the train (or elsewhere) in embarrassing positions. I don't usually link to them, as it does feel somewhat unfair to the poor guy who obviously was in no position to consent to the photo, let alone its publication on the internet.

But, with this collection of the "10 of the best" examples of this genre, I'll give up my scrupples for today, especially as some of them are really very funny. (I think the entry on "The Backbender" may be best.)

Persistent and pantless

Cover up or face life in jail, naked rambler is warned - Crime, UK - The Independent

Naked rambler Stephen Gough has been warned he faces spending the rest of his life in prison if he continues to refuse to wear clothes in public.

The former Royal Marine, a veteran of two “boots-only” hikes from Land’s End to John O’Groats, has spent most of the last four years in solitary confinement in Scottish jails after stripping off on a flight to Edinburgh. Since then he has declined to wear prison uniform or to appear clothed in court resulting in further custodial sentences for contempt.

This week he was found guilty of causing a breach of the peace following his arrest as he left Perth prison in December where he had just finished serving a 12-month sentence for the same offence. On that and a previous occasion police have been waiting to re-arrest him at the prison gates.

This all started from his attempts to walk nude across England:

Mr Gough completed his first naked ramble across Britain in 2003 during which he was arrested 15 times and spent 140 nights in jail, mainly in Scotland where the authorities hold a dimmer view of public nudity than in England and Wales. He finished his second hike with his then girlfriend Melanie Roberts three years later.

I don't know. If his problem is just that he wants to walk nude in the countryside, and his actions are all a protest about that, is it worth the effort to imprison him? If, however, he also was dropping into the corner shop nude to buy a bottle of milk, well I can see how that's a problem people shouldn't have to live with.

Sounds reasonable

From Rio to Copenhagen the model was wrong | The Australian

Geoff Carmody summaries the whole problem with the UN approach to climate change and the principles that should be adopted to start from scratch. (They point towards a carbon tax, basically.)

All sounds very reasonable to me.

Jerks and safety on public transport

Club Troppo - Vigilance against violence

Club Troppo has an interesting post about an incident of racial harassment and assault (in terms of someone fearing for their safety) on a Melbourne train.

Amongst all the discussion, I see that no one mentions the obvious point: people felt much safer from such incidents in the days when there used to be a railway "guard" on the train (who could be contacted if there was a real problem on board) and there was also the knowledge that every station would be manned and the behaviour could be immediately reported to that person.

Saving costs by removing people as far as possible from the transport system has undoubtedly made it feel less safe, yet it seems that re-populating railway stations for this reason is just never considered seriously because of the cost. But even a moderate step towards this would, I am betting, be greatly welcome by the public.

It is a feature of modern Australian cities which has gone backwards over the last 30 years.

Get that woman out of there!

Dezeen - Axial Symphony by Design Systems

I think I quite like this apartment refurbishment by a Hong Kong company, although I am curious about how hard it will be to maintain the mini mountain range on the terrace. You can't exactly run of mower over it, although I suppose a whipper snipper may do. (Kids would love it as an area to play with toy cars, soldiers or whatever.)

But what's this? There's a woman in shot in one of the interior photos. And she's slouching on the sofa! This is not allowed in architectural photography. All interiors must look unsullied by any evidence of actual humanity (including magazines, old newspapers, the mail, food, crumbs, the dog, and of course, people.) Big mistake.

Real estate bubble or not?

In China, fear of a real estate bubble - washingtonpost.com

There seems to be a fair amount of different opinion expressed in the article as to whether China has a real estate bubble that is about to burst, or whether it will hold for many years yet.

Of course, they already know about yurts, so it may be a bit redundant for me to mention again my favourite solution to all housing problems.

Lindzen criticism mounts

Lindzen & Choi's "feedback is nothing to worry about" paper from last year is facing more criticism.

Given that even Roy Spencer thinks Lindzen got this wrong, it would seem a fair bet that he did.

More money from dead bodies

Now you can be mummified just like the Egyptians - Science, News - The Independent

We haven't heard much about the plasticised skinned body exhibits lately, so it must be time to come up with some other ghoulish use of dead bodies for public entertainment. Cue England, that new bastion of inappropriate and degrading entertainment on TV:

We've had the first televised real autopsy and the first on-screen assisted suicide. The latest wheeze to challenge the British public’s attitudes to dying comes from Channel 4, which is appealing to the terminally ill to find someone to donate their body to be mummified for a reality television show – then displayed in a museum for two years.

Way to run a country

Chavez's snap devaluation sparks panic in the aisles - Americas, World - The Independent

The Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez promised to send soldiers into shops to seize businesses from owners who raise prices in the wake of the country's steep currency devaluation.

People had crowded into shops over the weekend to snap up imported televisions and electrical appliances, fearing that the devaluation of the bolivar was about to send inflation soaring.

"Right now, there is absolutely no reason for anybody to be raising prices of absolutely anything," Mr Chavez said on his weekly TV show. "I want the National Guard on the streets with the people to fight against speculation. Publicly denounce the speculator and we will intervene in any business of any size." To audience applause, the president added that the government would take over shops and give them to their workers if price rises were discovered.

Options, none of them good

Israel and Iran: The gathering storm | The Economist

Here's a very good article on the current situation and the limited options available in dealing with Iran's nuclear program.