Small nuclear update

Miniature Nuclear Plants Seek Approval to Work in U.S (Update1) - BusinessWeek

Maybe not too much new in this story, except for the fact that development of small scale nuclear power is proceeding, but with government certification of them not even started yet.

His "sustaining fantasy" is that he is worth reading

ABC The Drum Unleashed - Sustaining fantasy

Bob Ellis, who always now gives me the impression of writing under the influence of a bottle of red, writes of the "sustaining fantasies" that people use to get through life. It contains pearls such as this:

We are told a priest who buggers choir boys can eat Christ's flesh on our behalf and save us a billion years of fiery torture thereby, though he himself will suffer a trillion of fiery torture for buggering choir boys against God's will though God, who is all powerful, neglected to prevent him from doing this, a God who loves us all. And some of us believe that too.

I'm fairly certain it's been quite a while since he looked into Catholic theology.

And there is a distinct sense of self justification for past behaviour in this section:

We are told there are faithful husbands who spend months each year travelling the world. Who are they? I would like to see a list of ten names. Yet we base our notion of civilised society on this premise and sack our politicians if they don't live up to it. What a fantastical premise it is and how useless it is to believe it.

Adultery has been frequent since the invention of the bicycle and very, very frequent since the invention of the Pill and the universal availability of cheap interstate air travel and we should probably work out how to cope with it, in rules that won't be easy to construct. But denying it happens or saying it won't happen in particular cases is ludicrous fantasy.

It's easier to give up smoking. The wife-swapping parties of the 1950s and '60s (so well evoked in The Ice Storm) seem wiser now than they did then and the destructive, child-smashing divorces of today a moronic alternative.

Yes Bob, but I wonder what your past partners think about this.

Wacky hotel

Dezeen » Blog Archive » Inntel hotel by WAM Architecten

This is a supremely wacky looking hotel from the Netherlands.  (Maybe it's all the drugs in the coffee shops.)  Go on, have a look and tell me I'm wrong.  I can't stop looking at it.

For more information, I see the Guardian had an article about it about 6 weeks ago.

Ocean temperature rising

Robust warming of the global upper ocean : Nature

No doubt this will be a much discussed paper. The abstract above needs some interpretation, which can be found in the Physicsworld report:

After gaining an understanding of the sources of uncertainty in each OHCA curve, the team was able to combine the data to obtain a curve that is more representative of global ocean temperature than its constituents. It reveals that the oceans have warmed at a rate of about 0.64 ± 0.11 W/m² over the past 16 years. According to Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, this is "reasonably consistent with expectations from other indications of global warming".

However, the re-analysis sheds little light on why ocean temperatures appear to have remained steady since about 2004. This is at odds with satellite measurements, which suggest the Earth has continued to heat up over the past six years, leading to questions over where the "missing heat" has gone.

Indeed, Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at Potsdam University near Berlin, says that the new study does solve this problem. "The accuracy of measurements is still not sufficient to close the energy budget particularly for short-term variations, in other words, over a few years, as associated with El Niño".

Team member Doug Smith of the Hadley Centre in the UK points out that this stalling seems to occur just when the Argo floats became the primary data source. This could mean that further work is needed on how to interpret Argo results and how to integrate them into temperature records.

Well, that's still a little confusing, but I'm sure the major climate change blogs will be onto this soon.

Understatement of the month

Good news! Kentucky Fried Chicken doubles-down on the KFC Double Down

It has featured at this blog before in a very funny Colbert clip.  But the "sandwich" has turned out to be popular:

KFC says Americans are gobbling down so many Double Down sandwiches that the fast-food chain will offer the bunless, meaty sandwich longer than it had planned.

Originally the sandwich — bacon and cheese surrounded by chicken filets — was to have been available through Sunday.

But KFC said Wednesday that the sandwich will be available now for as long as customer demand remains high.

What I really like about this story, though, is this fine bit of understatement at the end:

Some have questioned the sandwiches' nutritional value.

Skepticism's wheels get wobbly

It's a peculiar thing, but just at the time when a significant part of the public seems to be thinking that "climategate" meant that global warming science has become somewhat tarnished and deserves to be taken less seriously, there has evidence gathering at skeptic blogs themselves that AGW skepticism is looking distinctly wobbly. For example:

1. Raw temperature / adjusted temperature not so different after all? Lucia's Blackboard is a well know "soft" skeptic site, but she has been running posts lately about individual bloggers attempts (if I read this right) to chart "raw" land temperature records to see how the results looks compared to the adjusted "official" temperature records. (Remembering that many a post at Watts Up With That and elsewhere loves to find examples of adjustments to individual station records that they think shows something untoward going on with the "official" adjustments.)

Well, guess what? These amateur attempts at charting raw data are not giving any reason to doubt that the official temperature charts are far off the mark. Have a look at Lucia's latest post about this.

She doesn't seem to be exactly making a clear point about this, but unless I am misunderstanding something here, this is a pretty damning indictment of the irrelevance of much of AGW skepticism when it comes to questioning the temperature record.

2. Widget fails. I have been wondering whether skeptics are starting to be a little embarrassed about the Watts Up With That's widget. It was meant to help encourage the view that there was not much of a relationship between CO2 increase and temperatures. But look at it now:

I wouldn't be surprised if some people think the purple CO2 line is just the mean of the temperature anomaly graph - which is far from the impression Anthony Watts intended.

3. Stepping out of his knowledge zone. Speaking of Watts Up With That, regular contributor Steven Goddard recently got inspired to start his own reappraisal of planetary physics, by posting that he had worked out all on his own that NASA and many, many scientists were completely wrong about CO2's role in creating a greenhouse effect on Venus.

He convinced no one, apart perhaps from some the old Velikovsky faithful (Australia's very own Louis Hissink amongst them.)

I reckon this foray into a topic he is ill prepared to fully understand has substantially harmed Goddard's (and Watt's) credibility.

4. Ice issues. While skeptics were heartened by the extent of North Pole ice cover over winter appearing to be back to being very close to average in April, barely a month later and it's virtually back to the 2007 low. (And this does not take into account the question of how much ice is "old" ice, a topic skeptics don't seem to discuss much.)

If Arctic ice this (northern) summer drops well below 2007, skeptics are going to have to start making excuses again. In fact, there's a touch of pre-emption in Goddard's recent post about it here.

Skeptical Science also had a post recently criticising WUWT's claims that sea ice is nearly "back to normal", and in particular Goddard's understanding of Antarctic ice. Goddard did not take the criticism well.

Learn about papyrology

The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology - RN Book Show - 14 May 2010

Last week I happened to hear this long interview on Radio National with an expert on Eygptian papyrology (basically, reading and studying the thousands of old bits of papyrus scrolls still being found in Egypt.)   It was very interesting, but it's only available as an audio.  Worth a listen, though.

Further doubts about Nietzsche

Gosh I'm happy that Bryan Appleyard is back blogging. He's come out and helped confirm my hunch that I don't have to bother having to read Nietzsche.

Warm weather

NOAA has announced that April was warm - warmest on record in fact:

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for both April and for the period from January-April, according to NOAA. Additionally, last month’s average ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for any April, and the global land surface temperature was the third warmest on record.

Go look at their map with all the dots to see where the heat anomalies were highest. (Hint: think of toy making elves wearing galoshes.)

Gospel truth

Searching for Jesus in the Gospels : The New Yorker

This is a long essay by Adam Gopnik, covering some of the latest books considering the question of the historical Jesus, and adding some of Gopnik's own thoughts, particularly in relation to the Gospel of Mark. He writes very well on the topic.

And this reminds me - I never got around to mentioning a post at First Things which led to a good article in Christianity Today by a New Testament scholar (Scot McKnight) explaining how he now believes the quest for the historical Jesus has failed. He quotes another scholar who makes some revealing points:

Allison admits this about one of his own books on Jesus: "I opened my eyes to the obvious: I had created a Jesus in my own image, after my own likeness." He's not done: "Professional historians are not bloodless templates passively registering the facts: we actively and imaginatively project. Our rationality cannot be extricated from our sentiments and feelings, our hopes and fears, our hunches and ambitions." So, he ponders, "Maybe we have unthinkingly reduced biography [of Jesus] to autobiography."

On top of this genuine problem is the problem of method. Allison: "The fragmentary and imperfect nature of the evidence as well as the limitations of our historical-critical abilities should move us to confess, if we are conscientious, how hard it is to recover the past." With one ringing line, Allison pronounces death: "We wield our criteria to get what we want."

There is, in other words, no value-or theology-free method that will enable us to get back to Jesus. Allison is not a total skeptic; he thinks that we can get behind the Gospels to find some genuine impressions. But his book led me to conclude, "The era is over."

Earlier in his essay, McKnight writes this:

Most historical Jesus scholars assume that the Gospels have overcooked their portrait of Jesus, and that the church's Trinitarian theology wildly exceeds anything Jesus thought about himself and anything the evangelists believed. These scholars pursue a Jesus who is less than or different from or more primitive than what the Gospels teach and the church believes. There is no reason to do historical Jesus studies—to probe "what Jesus was really like"—if the Gospels are accurate and the church's beliefs are justified. There are only two reasons to engage in historical Jesus studies: first, to see if the church got him right; and second, if the church did not, to find the Jesus who is more authentic than the church's Jesus.

This leads to a fundamental observation about all genuine historical Jesus studies: Historical Jesus scholars construct what is in effect a fifth gospel. The reconstructed Jesus is not identical to the canonical Jesus or the orthodox Jesus. He is the reconstructed Jesus, which means he is a "new" Jesus.

Sounds about right to me.

UPDATE: I didn't realise I had a couple of bad links there. Been fixed now.

I'll wait for the opera version

Doctor Who: coming live to a stage near you

The Doctor – plus assorted adversaries and creatures including Daleks, Cybermen and Oods – is to tour the UK this autumn with Doctor Who Live....

The new Doctor, Matt Smith, and assistant Karen Gillan, will not appear in the stage show, which is being developed by Doctor Who's head writer Steven Moffat and will feature in "on-stage battles, pyrotechnics and special effects".

The show, produced by the BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, will open in wartime London and conclude with "an epic onstage battle". There will also be a live soundtrack, performed by a 16-piece orchestra, by Doctor Who composer Murray Gold, responsible for the programme's controversial new theme tune.

Yeah, I'm not so keen on the re-arranged title music either.

Colebatch worth reading again

Swan's budget numbers hide ugly reality

Lately, it seems to be Tim Colebatch's columns which are the most readable, straight forward explanations of economic issues.  I think he does a good job again today, where (amongst other things) he covers the new mining "super profit" tax.

Who cares?

For some reason I am finding it hard to be very engaged by the new series of Dr Who.

The problem is not the cast: Matt Smith, although having a distinctively strange looking head, seems to do eccentric quite well, and I think Amy Pond was instantly likeable as the new sidekick.

The problem to me seems more with the storylines, which just don't seem to be containing any real emotional pull at the moment, as did the best episodes of the first couple of seasons of David Tenant's reign. Part of the problem may be the direction, but I think it is more to do with the scripts, which seem in most episodes to be too rushed (although one could also say that many Russell T Davies episodes were not exactly sedate, either.)

And while this may sound like a silly complaint about a show in which science was never important, it seems to me that that the quasi-scientific ramblings are becoming less credible than ever. Last night, for example, the Doctor realises that "time can be re-written", and that this explains why no one recalls the giant Victorian robot that stalked London (from one of the episodes a year or so ago.) Russell Davies ended up playing with multiple universes more in his scripts, and this offers a more credible line in why things happen that can't be remembered.

Certainly, my kids are still enjoying it enough (with Amy's sudden throwing of herself at the Doctor getting the typical 10 year old boy groans of disapproval from my son last night), and it may engage me again sometime soon. But so far, I do feel a bit let down by the current series.

Akaroa - a final New Zealand post

During the recent holiday to New Zealand, our last night was spent at Akaroa, a small town on a pretty harbour just outside of Christchurch. Here's a stitched together panorama shot I've made, which would look much better if you click on it:


Neither my wife nor I had heard of this place before, but as it was close to Christchurch, and boasts a French influence, we thought it would be interesting.

Indeed it was. As Wikipedia explains, the French and British both turned up here in 1840 within days of each other. Germans were in the area as well, with Wikipedia noting that they set up "dairy, sheep and cocksfoot farms", which leads in turn to the question "what the hell is 'cocksfoot'?" Turns out it's grass.

Anyhow, the town has retained a French influence in both its buildings and food. Here's one of the houses, used as a Bed & Breakfast, although how old it is I have no idea:

(I'm no expert, so maybe this bears no resemblance to a French style at all, but you have to admit it's cute anyway.) We stayed at the Akaroa Village Inn, which is on the waterfront and has a good range of apartments and rooms from which to choose. The view from the one stayed in was pleasing:


We didn't have time to do much other than look around the waterfront, where "swim with the dolphin" tours seem to be the popular thing to do, and have a quick lunch at the local winery:

Ok, so it's a not-so-old imitation French style building, but it's still set up with roses and grapes vines everywhere, and is a nice place to see.





I didn't partake of the wine, because the road in and out of this area, which is formed from old volcanoes, is car-sick inducing windy. You can see the volcanic looking origins of the local geography from the Google map:



As I checked out of the accommodation, and in one of the shops, I commented that I had never heard of this charming location before. They were both surprised, and said that Australians make up more than half of the tourists staying there in the peak summer season. I guess I must have missed that episode of Getaway.

In any event, it looks like an ideal spot for an extended, relaxed stay. I think it's time Australia simply annexed the NZ and granted all Australian born citizens the right to commandeer any house we like there for 3 weeks holiday a year. I mean, the owners are probably going to be living in Australia anyway, and what other country is going to stop us?

Not strictly necessary

MYER Head Office

Myers have a new head office, and seem to have spent an inordinate amount of money to make the walls, well, different.

I'm not convinced it's worth the effort.

Tights

Great moment in British TV

This turned up on the New York Times humour section, and it amused me more that it deserves:

Blogging notes

Well here's one reason to be cheerful: Bryan Appleyard has started blogging again, after disappearing (without explanation) for a couple of months. I've fixed the link to his new site over in the blogroll.

It seems to me that blogging has passed its peak of popularity and now in decline. More and and more blogs that I previously read seem to have moved permanently into cyberspace doldrums in the last year or so, and it certainly seems hard to find new blogs (especially sole author ones) that are active and engaging to replace those which have slowly died.

For people of a certain age, a move into social networking is almost certainly to blame. But a lot of adult bloggers presumably haven't become obsessed by the ephemeral Twitter.

Part of the reason for the blogging decline, I think, is that the Bush and Howard administrations were periods of considerable political and social controversy, and the whole question of the appropriate response to a terrorist threat is something about which it is "easy" to have a strong opinion. This encouraged people to voice their opinions in any forum, including their own blogs. Current world events, being dominated by economic crises, are so complicated in the details it is hard for your average person-in-the-street blogger to contribute very much about them.

So blogging is not what it used to be, but it might be something that is a bit cyclical. We'll see.

Pro soccer

Prostitutes flock to South Africa ahead of World Cup 2010

I didn't realise the World Cup and prostitution were so much entwined:

The event is no stranger to the sex trade. The 2006 World Cup in Germany, where brothels and prostitution is legalized, brought on an additional influx of an estimated 40,000 sex workers – plus a lot of criticism from rights groups. South Africa's Central Drug Central Authority has also estimated that 40,000 sex workers will come to Johannesburg for the 2010 World Cup, though the agency gives no reasoning for this figure.

Great. A further feather to my bow in arguing against the "sport is good for character" meme. Repent, you sports fans!

Shake it up

Zap testes with ultrasound for temporary 'vasectomy'- New Scientist

Apparently, it works on rats. They don't know how exactly. I wonder it any man has yet volunteered for the process:

Armed with their new funding, the researchers now intend to find out the mechanism by which sperm are destroyed - thought to be a combination of heating and shaking. "We also need to know the minimum effective dose and track how long the effect persists," says Tsuruta.

"The idea in people is that the testes would be in a little cup of water, or another liquid that ultrasound can be transmitted through," Tsuruta says.