Old skulls

Update:  I've been trying to post to the blog from various Android browsers with not much success. So this post with the following link:

http://theconversation.com/of-heads-and-headlines-can-a-skull-doom-14-human-species-19227

should perhaps be expanded.

The story, which I will now turn into a proper link,  is a pretty good summary of the strangely imprecise and (shall we say) excitable world of  evolutionary anthropology.

It's a subject I have trouble holding much interest in, to be honest, because it has always seemed to be an academic field in which there are particularly strong differences of opinion, yet they are all based on such limited evidence.  

I therefore like this story because it feels like a justification for not being interested in the subject.

And while on the topic of old skulls - I liked the documentary on SBS tonight about the surprisingly successful dig to turn up the skeleton of Richard III.   

Another Wes movie

It's very pleasing that, despite his (what seems) limited commercial success, Wes Anderson's eccentric films still manage to get funded and made.   Here's the amusing trailer for his next one.  (With the talented Ralph Fiennes in the lead, too.   As a good rule of thumb, any movie he is in, of any genre, is worth watching.)

Stress test

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at work at the moment.   Back soon-ish.

Here we go...

There is a feeling of doom approaching politics, when an eccentric rich man with no clear political or social philosophy and some hair-brained, half baked economic ideas is going to have considerable negotiating power in the Senate from next year:

CLIVE Palmer is demanding Tony Abbott repeal the carbon tax retrospectively and refund billions in revenue in exchange for his party's crucial Senate support in a move that would enable the businessman to escape a $6.2 million disputed charge for emissions.

The Palmer United Party has formed an alliance with the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party's Ricky Muir, giving the bloc four of the six crossbench votes needed to pass legislation in the Senate without Labor or Greens support from July, subject to a recount in Western Australian.

PUP's official policy is to scrap Labor's carbon pricing regime but the party wants the repeal backdated to start of the carbon tax on July 1, 2012, so companies and households can be refunded.

The Coalition's election promise to scrap the tax is not retrospective, and Mr Palmer's push would force the government to refund the $3.6 billion raised last financial year and $6.5bn in receipts forecast this year.

"In relation to the carbon tax, we've said that we want it abolished from the day it was introduced because if it's a bad tax, it's always been a bad tax," Mr Palmer told the Ten Network.

Making problems disappear

Scott Morrison imposes information blackout on self-harm in detention | World news | theguardian.com

There is something really pretty appalling going on here in terms of political gamesmanship and media co-operation with it.

It suited the Coalition when it was in Opposition to have maximum media exposure of all problem associated with boat arrivals from Indonesia.

The media was happy to co-operate.

Now, it suits the Coalition to minimise media exposure of all problems associated with boats arrivals, and the involve the military in a weekly PR exercise in which limited information is feed out once a week.

Sure, the media can ask questions at these, and the response is increasingly "we won't talk about that for operational reasons."

If the media is not taking an active role in circumventing this attempted and cynical government control of the issue, I want to know why. 

Why is this approach not being the subject of criticism from commentators?   I really find it offensive.

And here's your weekly photo of the Tony Putin quasi military government in action:

Smacking Niall

Niall Ferguson names and shames me.

Amusing come back from Matthew Yglesias, who Niall Ferguson chose to drag into his feud with Paul Krugman:

The historian Niall Ferguson has decided for some reason to drag your humble blogger into his feud with Paul Krugman:

For too long, Paul Krugman has exploited his authority as an award-winning economist and his power as a New York Times columnist to heap opprobrium on anyone who ventures to disagree with him. Along the way, he has acquired a claque of like-minded bloggers who play a sinister game of tag with him, endorsing his attacks and adding vitriol of their own. I would like to name and shame in this context Dean Baker, Josh Barro, Brad DeLong, Matthew O'Brien, Noah Smith, Matthew Yglesias and Justin Wolfers. Krugman and his acolytes evidently relish the viciousness of their attacks, priding themselves on the crassness of their language.

In my case I'm genuinely unaware of a situation in which I employed crass language to amplify a Paul Krugman attack on Ferguson, though I certainly have had occasion to disagree with Ferguson when he misstates Mitt Romney's educational credentials or blames Barack Obama for rapid Chinese economic growth or says J.M. Keynes was a bad economist because he was gay. Ferguson might want to consider a meta-rational approach in which he wonders if the range of people who disagree with him about such matters doesn't possibly reflect Ferguson's own wrongness rather than the vast reach of the Krugman conspiracy.

Update:  Krugman refers us to a couple of other "acolytes" who have responded.  The one where Josh Barro reviews some of the things he has said about Ferguson is pretty funny.  

They seem to be pretty keen on Ferguson at Catallaxy threads.   I should have known that would mean that he has indeed said many stupid things about economics in the last few years, apart from the "Keynes was gay and therefore a crap economist" theory.

Tony responds

 Carbon price a necessity, says OECD

The head of the OECD has challenged world leaders to put a price on carbon, arguing that fossil fuel emissions must become more expensive if they're to be phased out over the second half of the century.

In a clarion call to industrialised nations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned that climate change poses a very real risk that doesn't come with a ''bailout option'' like financial crises.

Outlining a new climate agenda from the Paris-based economic club, OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria said there was ''strong consensus'' that carbon pricing - either through a tax or emissions trading scheme (ETS) - should be at the cornerstone of all global efforts to tackle climate change....

The Climate Institute's John Connor said the OECD report was significant given the heads of two other major economic bodies - the IMF and World Bank - had called for similar action just one day earlier.

A sensitive viewer

Gravity: I love you George Clooney but you make me sick | Film | theguardian.com

A poor woman explains how she gets very ill during certain movies; and Gravity sent her stomach into freefall.

Watch this tongue

Niki Savva's column today was quite explicit on unhappiness in the Abbott camp at the role of Peta Credlin, who I saw on TV tonight, stuck by Tony's side during some meeting in Asia:

Behind the scenes his chief of staff Peta Credlin has unfettered licence to roar at the most senior of his colleagues, an entitlement that they resent greatly and which could backfire spectacularly at some point down the track when he, or she who must be obeyed, becomes vulnerable.

People elected to office don't take kindly to being tongue-lashed by unelected staff. Abbott has already been told by at least one senior cabinet minister he will not tolerate it.

While Abbott's decision to tone down is so far working well publicly, it has not won universal applause. Four times in the past few days, four keen observers and participants I spoke to in preparation for this column, one Labor and three Liberal, referred to the rigid staff selection orchestrated by the chief of staff, media restrictions imposed by central command, the seemingly languid responses, and then all mentioned one former leader: Ted Baillieu in Victoria.

None of them meant it as a compliment. Even though no one seriously believes Abbott is another Baillieu, these early markers have sent ripples through the executive corridors and those who watch them closely.

Trouble brewing, by the sounds...

Some personal information from a female physicist

Backreaction: Women in Science. Again.

Bee's Backreaction blog is always a good read, and it's interesting to see this explanation as to why she is in science.   Seems that girl geeks are very much like boy geeks, and both have trouble "getting" people:

I’ve never been a girly girl; quite possibly having three brothers played a role in that. My teachers constantly complained that I was too quiet, not social enough, did not speak up often enough, did not play with the other kids and was generally awkward around people. I spent a lot of time with books. I never had problems at school, unless you count that I was about as unsporty as you can be. As a teenager I was very into science fiction. And since I wanted to tell the science from the fiction, I piled up popular science books alongside this. You can extrapolate from here.

I studied math and physics primarily because I don’t understand people. People are complicated. They don’t make sense to me and I don’t know what to do with them. Which is probably why I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about whether or not my male colleagues behave appropriately. They don’t make sense either way. And the women, they make even less sense. Take in contrast a problem like black hole information loss or the recent firewall controversy. Clean, neat, intriguing. So much easier.

Yes, there’ve been some guys who’ve tried to pick me up on conferences but for what I understand of human mating rituals it’s the natural thing to happen among adults and I just say no thanks (the yes-thanks days are over, sorry). Indeed, there’ve been sexist jokes and I try to stay away from people who make them because such jokes come from brains preoccupied with differences between the male and female anatomy rather than the actual subject matter of the discussion. There have been the elderly guys who called me “little girl” and others who pat my shoulders. And yes, that’s probably the reason why I’m sometimes acting more aggressive than I actually am and why my voice drops by an octave when I’m trying to be heard by my male colleagues.

But by and large the men I work with are decent and nice guys and I get along with them just fine.

Absolutely realistic, except for...

We went off to see Gravity yesterday, and it's true, it's a truly awesome ride of a movie that is a crowd pleaser and technically amazing, and you should watch it in 3D.  I do not want to discourage anyone from seeing such a spectacle of a movie.

But:  I had did have a problem with its physics.  And with a couple of other things.  On the other hand, one thing which David Stratton had a problem with that I think he is absolutely wrong about.

SPOILERS FOLLOW, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I suppose I could just refer people to Phil Plait's column on the science in the movie, which I deliberately did not read before I saw it.  He loved the movie, but (like me) can't help thinking about how it shows science.

I was telling my kids exactly what he explains as the main problem with the movie's physics:  you don't move around any substantial distance in orbit by pointing at something and firing rockets.   Anyone who has read anything about astronautics knows that orbits have to be adjusted up or down to play catch up (or slow down) with with another object in orbit.  There is no reference to this at all in the movie, and in fact, "point and fire" is really explicitly shown.   Thinking out loud here - if you did have something ahead of you in the same orbit by scores of kilometres (and, hey, the fanciful notion that space stations work in the same orbit is another key thing anyone who knows anything about space knows does not happen) "point and fire" would result in a vector that puts you in a bit of a higher orbit and make you start slipping further behind.  I think.

That was my main problem with the physics, and I had not noticed the other problem that Plait notes.  (To do with George Clooney letting go.)

But remember, as Plait says, there is so much that is right with the way it shows movement in space, it's easy to forgive it for its problems.

And quite frankly, when I saw the shorts showing Bullock being flung off into space, I could not work out how it could be made into a movie at all, because I just could not imagine anything short of a newly launched rocket rescuing stranded astronauts in space.   The movie is only possible, really, because it pretends things that are not real (in particular, the bit about space stations all being in identical orbits.)

My other comments are about the screenplay:

a.   it's much, much more realistic than many other space movies, but I still don't think astronauts on EVA in orbit get to ramble on with anecdotes in quite the way George Clooney does in this one.

b.  George seems to be unusually ignorant of the personal life of someone who is on his crew.   I would assume shuttle pilots and mission specialists get to know each other really well before they get into space.   (Hey, I know, how else do you explain a key bit of character background?)

c.   David Stratton in his review evidentally had a problem with a really key scene, which he thinks "corny" and out of place in the movie.   I think, in truth, he objects to it due to a possible supernatural interpretation.    But he seems to be ignorant of the Third Man factor, and the use of this in the movie seemed entirely appropriate to me.  It is entirely conceivable that an isolated person in space would have this type of experience;  it has been reported by many people before.  You don't have to interpret it supernaturally at all - it is ambiguous, as are most of the real life stories like it.  There was also absolutely no laugh or snicker in the cinema in the packed one I saw it in, as Stratton claimed there was in the cinema in which he saw it.  He must move in different circles.

Anyhow, as I say, you should still see it.   It's the nearest 99.999999999 per cent (that's not an accurate calculation) of the population will get to the sensation of being in orbit.

Update:  Slate is trying to get clicks by running a ridiculous article: Gravity Is Going to Be a Camp Classic.

Rubbish.  Bullock does very well in the role, I reckon; and what faults there are in the screenplay cannot be described as "camp" by any stretch.

Went for a drive yesterday....

A Musical Interlude

I've pretty much always paid pretty low attention to pop music.  I might hear a song on the radio or somewhere else and it can half register as good, but won't bother looking up anything about who sings it or how popular it is with anyone else; then years later, I might hear it again in a different context and finally I think "hey, that's really good, let's find out more about it."  And with all people, I expect, this process has become even more pronounced both as I age, but also, as pop music has fractured severely and no one sits around any more watching TV just to see music videos.  If it weren't for X Factor (go Dami, by the way) giving me an annual summation of what's been popular over the last year, it would be even worse.

Speaking of  music videos, I am always a bit surprised to see that they are still made, and many look  quite expensive.   But given that the only place they are shown now in this country seems to be an overnight show which I assume barely rates (Rage), and MTV is said to only be a channel for trash youth shows, why do they still sink money into them?   This is a mystery that I have never seen explained anywhere.

In any event, it was because of an X Factor cover that I heard this song recently, then yesterday I heard it on the radio, and last night I looked it up and realised the band had done another popular song of the last couple of years, and are from Utah and at least the lead singer is apparently a practising Mormon.  And the song has one of these videos that looks quite expensive, but I've never seen it before.   I like it:

There they go, walking down the street...

The Monkees prove their staying power with latest tour | Las Vegas Review-Journal

It was hearing in the car today the recent-ish (well, it's years old now, I think, but in comparison to the original...) version of "I'm a Believer" that reminded me that, after the death of Davy Jones in 2012, Mike Nesmith had agreed to tour as The Monkees with the two surviving members.  Scary.  (He had declined to tour with the others while Jones was alive - perhaps it was him that he didn't care spending time with?)

So, I thought I would have a look at how this improbably sounding tour has gone down.  From the above link, dated August, it would seem that they haven't been embarrassing themselves after all.  Rolling Stone seems to agree. (And look at the set list.  It's not a short show.)

And now I read that Nesmith is doing a solo tour!  If I lived in the States, I'd be there.

Another day, another happy military briefing...

Derren Brown and free will

SBS 2 has been showing some Derren Brown stage shows, which I think are a few years old now, but have not been on TV here before. (Not that I've noticed, anyway.)

Last week's one was "Something Wicked This Way Comes", and while parts were impressive, other parts weren't.

But tonight was "Evening of Wonders", and it's very good, especially in the second half.   It turns out the whole show is on Youtube.

I had read a bit about it before, and knew that he did a demonstration of the old Spiritualist table turning act.   It was good to finally see it.   But the "Oracle" act, and the ending of the show, are just so puzzling as to how they are done.  Do yourself a favour, as they say, and watch it....

Going back to Something Wicked:  Brown's over-arching career misdirection, so to speak (and this is not a novel suggestion) seems to be to claim that he is a master of psychological influence.  This is a large part of the Something Wicked show, which is also on Youtube.  (You have to watch right to the end to understand.)   He is also interested in hypnotism, and some of his "experiment" TV shows have been all about that; sometimes in ways that have appeared to me to be ethically dubious. 

What occurred to me from watching Something Wicked, and thinking back on his hypnotism shows, is that Brown's career seems virtually designed to try to convince some people that they have no free will.  Yet he must know that some audience members won't be convinced and see it all as part of the act.  But surely some won't.

I am not entirely sure of the ethics of this.  There is some evidence  recently that suggesting to people they have no free will can affect their subsequent behaviour.  I would bet that Brown, given his background, would be somewhat interested in that.  He also claims, at times, to be all about people empowering themselves with self belief and confidence.  But this seems to sit uncomfortably with a stage act in which he probably convinces some that they had no choice but to pick a certain word on a page, because he had primed them to do so.

In any event, this is what I have enjoyed about discovering his work over the last year or so since he has turned up on SBS:  there is something very "meta" about trying to understand where he is coming from and what he is trying to achieve.  And yes, I know he's an ex Christian who has come out as gay and is now very keen to promote rationalism.  (Surprisingly, there is a pretty good profile of him here from the Daily Mail.)  I know all that, but as I say, I still find him and his oeuvre a bit puzzling.

What a country....

Belgian euthanised due to sex change distress

A 44-year-old Belgian in distress after a failed sex change was euthanised this week after doctors agreed to the mercy-killing on psychological grounds, national media said Tuesday.

Nathan Verhelst died Monday in a Brussels hospital surrounded by friends after requesting assistance to die in a case that has been highly publicised in Belgium, which became only the second country in the world after the Netherlands to legalise euthanasia in 2002.

"He died in all serenity," said doctor Wim Distlemans, who told the daily Het Laatste Nieuws that he won permission to be euthanised because "we could clearly say he was in unbearable psychological distress."

What is even more surprising is the number of "psychological grounds" cases, and how they have been increasing:

While there were only six cases of euthanasia recorded on psychological grounds in 2004, there were 33 in 2011 and 52 last year.

I'm not sure why they don't go full on Futurama suicide booth and be done with:

Regarding SBY

Indonesia’s 2014 elections: Let the games begin | The Economist

According to The Economist, Tony Abbott's meeting was with a pretty lame president:

THESE days few Indonesians pay much attention to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The president cuts a forlorn figure: he still has just over a year left in office, but steady underachievement during his two terms has so diminished him that politicians long ago turned to the more exciting matter of his successor. Next year the presidential election takes place in July, after parliamentary elections in April. After months of shadow-boxing, the contest to succeed Mr Yudhoyono is set to become more lively.

I wonder what the new year will bring...

What an appalling hypocrite

Grow up, Gillard. No victim ever becomes Prime Minister | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

Andrew Bolt has the appalling gall to criticise Julia Gillard for sometimes getting upset with her demeaning treatment at the hands of  certain parts of the internet.   Yet the most personal and appalling site for attacks was clearly Larry Pickering's - both his own columns (claiming to be outing details of her personal life which were utterly irrelevant and which Bolt would know cause offence to any politician) and the comments which would follow them.  Did this stop Bolt from referring his readers to his site?  Nope.

Bolt has become an incredible and morally bankrupt hypocrite, full of self pity over legal problems caused by his own mistakes, who thinks he has a grasp on science better than thousands of scientists, and reinforced in his beliefs by the likes of the IPA. 

The wartime government continues...