Take in moderation

Death by caffeine really is a thing, if you're susceptible

A good explanation of death by caffeine here.

Questionable link

Are California's giant dead oarfish a sign of an impending earthquake disaster? | News.com.au

I don't recall reading before that oarfish had been caught off Japan in large numbers before its Tohoku earthquake.   But it was reported in the Japan Times in March 2010, so the fish being caught in unusual numbers, and the folklore part, is true.  But then again, the earthquake was March 2011, so these oarfish are pretty extraordinary if they can forecast earthquakes a full year ahead. 

As I was saying a week or two ago....

A deafening silence: the media's response to asylum secrecy

It is remarkable how complacent Australia’s media has been in response to the federal government’s brazenly cynical suppression of information about asylum seeker boat arrivals. There were a few indignant editorials and then the circus moved on.

Read the whole thing...

Kubrick's aliens

2001italia: 2001: The aliens that almost were

Here's a good article talking about all the trouble Stanley Kubrick (and Arthur C Clarke) went to in trying to come up with a credible cinematic alien for the climax of 2001.  

Of course, by not showing them at all, the movie suggests God-like mystery and power, which even goes beyond Clarke's so-called third law:  any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

It's just lucky that none of experimental aliens worked.

The return of mother possum....

She's been gone for many months, and the last possum visitor we had was a shy youngster who didn't hang around for long.  But today, the mother possum, easily recognized by the notch in one ear, was back.   Whether or not there is another baby in the pouch is not yet established.

Rubbing it in

A Push to Sell Testosterone Gels Troubles Doctors - NYTimes.com

The story starts:

The barrage of advertisements targets older men. “Have you noticed a recent deterioration of your ability to play sports?” “Do you have a decrease in sex drive?” “Do you have a lack of energy?”  

If so, the ads warn, you should “talk to your doctor about whether you have low testosterone” — “Low T,” as they put it. 

In the view of many physicians, that is in large part an invented condition. Last year, drug makers in the United States spent $3.47 billion on advertising directly to consumers, according to FiercePharma.com. And while ever-present ads like those from AbbVie Pharmaceuticals have buoyed sales of testosterone gels, that may be bad for patients as well as the United States’ $2.7 trillion annual health care bill, experts say.

Sales of prescription testosterone gels that are absorbed through the skin generated over $2 billion in American sales last year, a number that is expected to more than double by 2017. Abbott Laboratories — which owned AbbVie until Jan. 1 — spent $80 million advertising its version, AndroGel, last year.

Can anyone explain to me why Americans are so silly as to even allow such direct advertising of prescription drugs directly to the public?   Surely drug companies still make adequate monies from their products which are genuinely needed in those countries which do not permit such open advertising.

Old actor

Christopher Lee is 91.   Here he is receiving an award from an unrecognisable Johnny Depp.   (Depp must be one actor who can walk down the street with little fear of immediate recognition, his looks are so changeable from film to film.)  

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: