Lower the jury duty age

Psychologists say babies know right from wrong even at six months

How do you tell that a baby knows right from wrong? It's pretty entertaining research:

In one experiment babies between six and ten months old were repeatedly shown a puppet show featuring wooden shapes with eyes. A red ball attempts to climb a hill and is aided at times by a yellow triangle that helps it up the hill by getting behind it and pushing. At other times the red ball is forced back down the hill by a blue square. After watching the puppet show at least six times the babies were asked to choose a character. An overwhelming majority (over 80%) chose the helpful figure. Prof. Bloom said it was not a subtle statistical trend as “just about all the babies reached for the good guy.”

In another experiment the babies were shown a toy dog puppet attempting to open a box, with a friendly teddy bear helping the dog, and an unfriendly teddy thwarting his efforts by sitting on him. After watching at least half a dozen times the babies were given the opportunity to choose one of the teddy bears. The majority chose the helpful teddy.

And at 21 months, most will even "punish" the bad toy:

A third experiment used a puppet cat playing with a ball with a helpful rabbit puppet on one side and an unhelpful rabbit on the other. The helpful rabbit returned the ball if the cat lost it, while the unhelpful rabbit stole the ball and ran off with it. In this test five-month-old babies were allowed to choose one of the rabbits, and most chose the helpful one. When the test was repeated with 21-month-old babies they were asked to take a treat from one of the rabbits. Most took the treat from the unhelpful rabbit, and one even gave the rabbit a smack on the head as well.

Maybe I should have been a psychologist. A day at the office could be quite fun.

Severe danger avoided

gulfnews : Joggers furious as Sharjah shuts parks in the morning

I am not quite sure where the municipality of Sharjah is in the Gulf region, but you can't accuse them of not taking action on serious matters:

Sharjah Municipality has just passed a law that keeps all parks closed to the public until 4pm.

They will stay open until 10pm.

The law includes free-entrance neighbourhood parks and those which have an entrance fee.

A Sharjah Municipality official told Gulf News the new rule aimed to prevent gardeners from staring at female visitors.

"The municipality cannot accept the responsibility of having its employees staring at women and making them feel uncomfortable," said Sharjah Municipality Agricultural Department head Yaseen Mohammad.

What a mad place.

Still singing (sort of)

Julie Andrews: She's climbed every mountain - Profiles, People - The Independent

Julie Andrews surely doesn't need the money, but is starting a (sort of) singing tour in England again. (She's warning that her voice is not what it was. Maybe Whitney Houston could have considered the same tactic!)

Anyhow, this potted history of her life, which I have read about elsewhere, claims as follows:

Like her fellow musical star Judy Garland, Andrews became both a gay icon and a family favourite.

Really? I thought her screen and private lives both lacked the strange melodramatic style which seems to be the key characteristic that marks actresses as gay icons.

In any event, she seems to enjoy a broad reputation as a very decent person.

That time of year again

It's more likely to be rats in the belfry, possums

The Age reports on how the onset of winter means rats start moving into the roofs of Melbourne houses.

It's exactly the same in Brisbane. Sitting at the computer the other night, I heard what sounded like slight roof tile scrapping. I suspect it was my first visitor of the season squeezing its way in between tiles.

Time to bait the ceiling space again. Pity this causes them to die and decompose there too...

Could be interesting

The LA Times gives top marks to Laura Bush's memoir. The New York Times quite liked it too. It must be pretty good.

Took them a while to work this one out

Mice pull pained expressions : Nature News

Humans are not the only ones to grimace when they are in pain, scientists have found. Mice show their discomfort in the same way.

When you look at the photos in the article, it seems a little odd they didn't know this before.

Nuclear in the earthquake zone

Monju fast-breeder reaches criticality | The Japan Times Online

I see that Japan has just restarted a prototype fast-breeder reactor, which was halted some years ago after a sodium leak.

It's odd, isn't it, that one of the most earthquake prone countries in the world should also be the one forging ahead with developing a new type of nuclear reactor plant that has one good feature, and one somewhat scary one (molten sodium.)

As such, I am a bit unsure about whether to be impressed or worried.

Further comments on New Zealand

Some observations from the recent short New Zealand (south island only) holiday:

Things I liked a lot:

* the mussels. These featured in maybe 3 meals while I was there, and although I have been wary of their chewiness when trying them in Australia, the New Zealand meals did them well and I quite enjoyed them. The black mussels which are farmed in Australia can be very hit or miss in terms of the amount of mussel meat you'll get: at some times of the year, the common kilo pack really is barely enough for a meal for two. That never seems to be a problem with green lipped mussels, which always seem to be very substantial. I also liked the large "scoop your own" vats of live mussels in every New World supermarket we went to.

* the scenery. Well, naturally.

* good service: they do seem to be doing a pretty good job at customer service for tourists in that country. There was one grumpy person we came across twice (at the rest stop on one of the main highways.) But her unhappy demeanour perhaps stood out all the more because everyone else seemed very cheery.

* the wine: of course, we stuck to New Zealand wines, and not just the sauvignon blancs. (While the later are no doubt very good, am I the only person who sometimes finds some of New Zealand examples have too much of that famous "herbaceous" character?) However, the sauvignon blanc we did try were great, but we also really liked the other whites (and a pinot noir) too. They were all very modestly priced (nothing more than $15 per bottle) and seemed high quality for the price. (It seems to me, in fact, that New Zealand wine should be cheaper in Australia, considering its price over there, and the advantageous currency exchange.) Clearly, it's a country that is doing wine well.

* smoked food. Colder places seem much more interested in smoked food. Last year, for example, while visiting Adelaide, I was happy with the wide variety of smoked fish available at the central markets. The best smoked thing we ate in New Zealand was smoked venison. In fact, it seemed to be a pretty common entree in restaurants: smoked venison served with a bit of blue cheese. Very tasty.

Things we were slightly disappointed with:

* soft cheese. We tried a couple from the supermarket, and tasted one at a small cheese maker's, but neither of them were really good examples of (I think) brie. The country seems to do your regular hard cheeses very well, but soft cheeses, for some reason, they don't seem to have mastered as comprehensively as in Australia.

* beer. Tried a few, found all of them pretty unremarkable. No doubt this may just be bad luck (as may the soft cheese too.)

Things it's lucky you have a bit of cash left over for:

* The $25 per adult airport departure tax. Fortunately, I was told, it will soon be added to airline ticket prices, which is clearly the more sensible way to go.

Waiting for Nietzsche

There's no doubt that intellectual interests in life can change over time. An unappealing topic in your youth can gradually change to one which you do want to read up on in your later adulthood.

So knowing that, and given the number of people who seem to like to debate the merits of Nietzsche, I have suspected for some years now that, someday, I will probably get the urge to read him (or even about him).

Yet it is also entirely possible that this day may never come, if this review (by Francis Fukyama, no less) of a new book on him is any guide.

This is the final paragraph:

Young appropriately underlines the notion that postmodernism, with its embrace of diversity in values, is no different from the 19th-century modernism that Nie­tzsche hated. He would not have cele­brated alternative lifestyles, non-­Western cultures or the right of every fourth grader to be his or her own value-creator. Acknowledgment of the death of God is a bomb that blows up many things, not just oppressive traditionalism, but also values like compassion and the equality of human dignity on which support for a tolerant liberal political order is based. This then is the Nie­tzschean dead end from which Western philosophy has still not emerged.

I suspect there'll be people out there debating the accuracy of this representation of Nietzsche (there always is: has there ever been a philosopher more frequently defended as having been misunderstood?) But I think this Fukyama quote does help explain my lack of interest in Nietzsche: I guess I have also always thought of him as an exponent of "dead end" philosophy, and that's something about which I just feel doesn't deserve a lot of effort to learn about in detail.

But as I say, who knows? In 20 years time, maybe I'll be reading him.

Bovine construction method

Dezeen » Blog Archive » Trufa by Anton García-Abril

From the above post at Dezeen:

Photographer Roland Halbe has sent us his photographs of a holiday home in Spain by Anton García-Abril of Ensamble Studio, cast in the earth and hollowed out by a cow.

It's actually kind of interesting...for a small house built by a cow.

That's interesting...

BBC News - Incredibles' Bird to direct fourth Mission: Impossible

Brad Bird, who has directed three terrific animated films (Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille) is to make Mission Impossible IV as his first live action film. I suspect he'll do a much better job with the action than John Woo or JJ Abrims did on the last two.

There's at least one other promising precedent for an animation director turning to live action: Andrew Adamson did Shrek I & II, then did a great job on the two Narnia films.

Speaking of babies...

This documentary is attracting some good reviews:



UPDATE: Salon has an insightful bit of commentary about the film, and documentaries generally.

Times are changing

Study: 1 in 7 U.S. Babies Born to Moms 35+ - CBS News

What's more surprising is this figure:

While most women giving birth are doing it within the context of marriage, researchers said a record 41 percent of births were to unmarried women in 2008. That's up from 28 percent in 1990, according to the study, "The New Demography of American Motherhood." The trend crossed major racial and ethnic groups.

This is not a good thing, if you ask me.

A service to the community

As I have observed previously, one of the benefits of having a small blog readership is that it is easy to check via Sitemeter where my referrals have come from. Therefore I know, for example, that, years after I posted about it, nearly every day I still have at least a couple of visitors who have arrived via Googling "Julie Gillard's ears". There are many more fans of big ear lobes out there than you might expect.

But I see today I had a visitor via Google with a particularly specialised interest in the Catholic Church, as this was the search term:

"naughty nuns stories dvds videos ets etc how to jion via catholic chuerch"

I am glad to see that this blog is indeed performing a vital community service.

Three unusual weather stories

It's a risky business drawing connections between particular examples of unusually bad weather and climate change. Half the time anyone does this, someone will come up with an example from the last 100 years which was in fact worse. Still, I am getting the impression lately that there is something a little peculiar going on. My, very cautiously offered, evidence:

1. The Tennessee floods. Record breaking rain, and a meteorological explanation given for it in the CSM.

2. Rain in the Arctic in April. This is, it seems, very, very unusual at this time of year.

3. This morning: a deadly tornado and storm in China, which is, according to the BBC, pretty unusual.

Greece explained

Greek lesson in the perils of overspending

Tim Colebatch does a good job at giving a concise summary of what's been going on in Greece. 

Happy blog-a-versary

My last post reminded me, by virtue of my searching for an old post here, that this blog has just turned 5 years old. Yay.

That's some sort of achievement, I think, given that it's all written by yours truly with only the occasional short break while on holidays.

Keep those cards and donations coming*. (I don't even bother putting a Paypal button on here any more, but if anyone wants permission to send me money, just send me an email and that can be rectified!)

Which also reminds me: no comment yet on any of my lake, mountain, water and/or duck photos of New Zealand. That's it, I'm bringing out the sheep photos now:



* As if, you cheap bastards. :-)

Smelly ape sightings

In search of the skunk ape » Big Story » Valdosta Daily Times

A skunk ape seems to be a skinny relative of Bigfoot, and some people think they have seen one in South Georgia, USA, recently.

As I noted here way back in 2006, I did once know someone who was scared mightily by a strong, foul smell and some crashing around the bush sounds while he was camping  in some State forest near Brisbane.  The association of strong smells with sightings of odd creatures has interested me ever since.

No good will come of this

Steven Spielberg is to direct War Horse - Telegraph

Spielberg is apparently to direct a boy and his horse novel set in World War 1. But the bad news:

For fans of Morpurgo, it is also good news that the screen adaptation is being written by Richard Curtis and Lee Hall, both past masters at bringing a tear to the eye.

Richard Curtis! I hate all his post-Blackadder work.

Need a stiff drink?

African moonshine: Kill me quick | The Economist

In a Kenyan slum:

The equivalent of $1 is enough to buy four glasses of illegally brewed chang’aa—and oblivion. Some drink the local special, jet-five, so called because the fermentation of maize and sorghum is sped up with pilfered jet fuel. It can damage the brain. Elsewhere in Nairobi, chang’aa is spiked with embalming fluid from mortuaries. The name, meaning literally “kill me quick”, is well chosen.

And Uganda may have this distinction:

The UN’s World Health Organisation reckons that half of all alcohol drunk in Africa is illegal. Neighbouring Uganda may consume more alcohol per person than any country in the world. Much of this is waragi, a banana gin. Some 100 Ugandans died from toxic waragi in April alone.