* 12 year old boy carries sawn off shot gun to school and shoots two students. Yeah, Heinlein, an armed society is a polite society, is it? (I thought about that yesterday too about the story where an argument in a cinema turned into a fatal shooting by at 71 year old.)
* Neo nazis try to take over a town.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Evil Twins
BBC News - Twin DNA test: Why identical criminals may no longer be safe
I didn't realise there have been a number of cases around the world where prosecutions have been thwarted by the police being unable to be sure which identical twin committed the offence.
I didn't realise there have been a number of cases around the world where prosecutions have been thwarted by the police being unable to be sure which identical twin committed the offence.
Evil president sounds pretty normal to me
What Happens When the President Sits Down Next to You at a Cafe - Robinson Meyer - The Atlantic
Nothing special about this report about what's its like to be in a cafe when Obama turns up for a staged media event, except that it makes the President sound rather normal.
I suspect Rush Limbaugh will still find something sinister about it. (Limbaugh is the subject of another Atlantic article today, which notes his recent explanation that he intuitively knows true Conservatives are right about everything, and never sexually harass people. Republicans who have strayed from the "true Conservative" line on anything - such as Chritie - don't get the same treatment though.)
Nothing special about this report about what's its like to be in a cafe when Obama turns up for a staged media event, except that it makes the President sound rather normal.
I suspect Rush Limbaugh will still find something sinister about it. (Limbaugh is the subject of another Atlantic article today, which notes his recent explanation that he intuitively knows true Conservatives are right about everything, and never sexually harass people. Republicans who have strayed from the "true Conservative" line on anything - such as Chritie - don't get the same treatment though.)
Surprising coral
Coral reefs in Palau surprisingly resistant to naturally acidified waters
Scientists have found corals in one place with surprisingly highly "acidified" water which are doing surprisingly well. They hasten to point out this goes against a lot of other examples in the world, but the reason why this bunch are fine remains very unclear.
Biology is very complicated...
Scientists have found corals in one place with surprisingly highly "acidified" water which are doing surprisingly well. They hasten to point out this goes against a lot of other examples in the world, but the reason why this bunch are fine remains very unclear.
Biology is very complicated...
Fun research
Reflections in the eye contain identifiable faces
Has this already been used in a crime or science fiction show? I feel pretty sure it has, but can't remember where.
Has this already been used in a crime or science fiction show? I feel pretty sure it has, but can't remember where.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Proof that Second Amendment nutters are vindictive nutters
Target: Me - Dick Metcalf - POLITICO Magazine
Read what happens when a gun loving, life long, career shooter and journalist makes a legal observation deemed to be heresy amongst his kin:
Read what happens when a gun loving, life long, career shooter and journalist makes a legal observation deemed to be heresy amongst his kin:
“Way too many gun owners seem to believe any regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement,” I wrote. “The fact is, all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.”
It's a miracle...sorta
Miracle fruit brings a change in taste › Dr Karl's Great Moments In Science (ABC Science)
While in Canberra on holiday we went to Questacon, the gigantic kids' science centre, and in its shop I found "miracle fruit" tablets. We gave them a try last night at home.
This red berry fruit has featured on some TV programs in the last few years, and an interesting account of what they do (make sour acid things like a lemon taste sweet) is at the link above. The thing you buy at the shop is a biggish tablet made from the dried pulp of the fruit.
The effect really is interesting to experience, not just because it makes lemon taste entirely palatable (to the detriment of your tooth enamel no doubt), but because (as Karl says) it makes it taste really intensely sweet, rather as if you have popped a few saccharine tablets on your tongue at once. And the effect seemed to last quite a long time. Normal sweet things aren't much changed in flavour.
I was interested to read in Karl's account that in the early 1970's, it was hoped that it may be used as an artificial sweetener of sorts:
While in Canberra on holiday we went to Questacon, the gigantic kids' science centre, and in its shop I found "miracle fruit" tablets. We gave them a try last night at home.
This red berry fruit has featured on some TV programs in the last few years, and an interesting account of what they do (make sour acid things like a lemon taste sweet) is at the link above. The thing you buy at the shop is a biggish tablet made from the dried pulp of the fruit.
The effect really is interesting to experience, not just because it makes lemon taste entirely palatable (to the detriment of your tooth enamel no doubt), but because (as Karl says) it makes it taste really intensely sweet, rather as if you have popped a few saccharine tablets on your tongue at once. And the effect seemed to last quite a long time. Normal sweet things aren't much changed in flavour.
I was interested to read in Karl's account that in the early 1970's, it was hoped that it may be used as an artificial sweetener of sorts:
It took until 1968 for two separate groups of scientists to isolate the active ingredient. It turned out to be a chemical that was mostly protein with about 191 amino acids, and about 14 per cent carbohydrate (sugars such as mannose, galactose and fucose). The active ingredient was given the name 'miraculin'.All rather interesting...
Soon after miraculin was isolated, Robert Harvey, an American biomedical postgraduate student, became aware of its wonderful property.
At the time, the artificial sweeteners (which have sweetness, and virtually zero kilojoules) had a slightly noticeable after-taste.
But Robert Harvey realised that miraculin did not. He tried mightily to market it as an alternative sweetener, one that was based entirely upon a natural product.
But in 1974, just as he was about to launch it, the US Food and Drugs Administration refused to classify it as 'generally recognised as safe', despite the West Africans having eaten miraculin for centuries with no problems.
Robert Harvey could not afford the several years of testing needed, so miraculin never made it into the marketplace.
Just get Bolt on board and be done with
Ha! The intellectual, um, bogan-isation? of the Catallaxy blog is nearly complete, with "come back and fight, you Lefties, there's still a culture war I want to win" Nick Cater now becoming a regular poster there, apparently.
The blog has gone into a tail spin of intellectual credibility over the last couple of years - for any post that actually contains something useful in terms of economic analysis (it happens about once every three or four months now) there will be scores of posts of the kind where Judith Sloan tosses her hair and complains about all the tosh from teachers and Greenies she had to put up with over the years; Steve Kates doing his excruciatingly simplistic Tea Party/Fox News analysis of US politics (when he's not explaining again how he's the only economist who really understands Say's Law); and Sinclair Davidson hyperventilating about how anyone (including Jews) who dares question the wisdom of repealing s18 of the Racial Discrimination Act is an enemy of All Things Good. (The IPA campaign on freedom of speech has been the most hyperbolic think tank campaign I can ever recall.)
What I don't understand is how these people do not see that the way they talk on this blog harms their credibility generally. The blog is certainly, to my mind, a thriving advertisement against any economics student even contemplating going to RMIT.
The blog has gone into a tail spin of intellectual credibility over the last couple of years - for any post that actually contains something useful in terms of economic analysis (it happens about once every three or four months now) there will be scores of posts of the kind where Judith Sloan tosses her hair and complains about all the tosh from teachers and Greenies she had to put up with over the years; Steve Kates doing his excruciatingly simplistic Tea Party/Fox News analysis of US politics (when he's not explaining again how he's the only economist who really understands Say's Law); and Sinclair Davidson hyperventilating about how anyone (including Jews) who dares question the wisdom of repealing s18 of the Racial Discrimination Act is an enemy of All Things Good. (The IPA campaign on freedom of speech has been the most hyperbolic think tank campaign I can ever recall.)
What I don't understand is how these people do not see that the way they talk on this blog harms their credibility generally. The blog is certainly, to my mind, a thriving advertisement against any economics student even contemplating going to RMIT.
Libertarians think a society where this can happen is a good idea
Man shot dead at movies after texting | World news | theguardian.com
A retired Florida policeman has been charged with murder after allegedly shooting a man who texted during a film.
Authorities said Curtis Reeves, 71, and Chad Oulson, 43, got into an argument before the screening of the film Lone Survivor when Reeves asked Oulson to stop texting.
“Somebody throws popcorn. I’m not sure who threw the popcorn,” said witness Charles Cummings. “And then bang, he was shot.”
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Who knows until they are visited
BBC News - Few asteroids are worth mining, suggests Harvard study
There's an enormous amount of uncertainty, it seems, as to the number of asteroids which may be of the metallic iron-nickel variety which is presumably the main type worth mining.
A pro space mining source also claims this in the article, and count me as surprised:
There's an enormous amount of uncertainty, it seems, as to the number of asteroids which may be of the metallic iron-nickel variety which is presumably the main type worth mining.
A pro space mining source also claims this in the article, and count me as surprised:
"We have only discovered 1% of the asteroids in the Solar System - and we are discovering them at a larger and larger rate. We discover two or three asteroids a day. If we get from 1% to 10%, then the 650,000 asteroids we have discovered jumps to 6.5 million."
Some startling figures
Quark Soup by David Appell: Climate Change: The Next 10,000 Years
David Appell has been reading up on how long human induced climate change is likely to last. The answer seems to be - at least 10,000 years. (!)
Time to look at fertilizing the oceans again, perhaps, as the only large-ish scale means of reducing CO2 that seems vaguely possible.
David Appell has been reading up on how long human induced climate change is likely to last. The answer seems to be - at least 10,000 years. (!)
Time to look at fertilizing the oceans again, perhaps, as the only large-ish scale means of reducing CO2 that seems vaguely possible.
Bad news for gym owners
Do fast workouts really work?
The article is light on detail, but it does seem that the idea of short, sharp workouts being as good as long, tedious exercise has really caught on in the US.
Good news for people like me, who have always found lengthy exercise a boring waste of time. Harry Clarke recently linked to this article, from which I have cut the example set of exercises:
Interesting. Perhaps I should now spend two years evaluating which set of exercises is best for me.
The article is light on detail, but it does seem that the idea of short, sharp workouts being as good as long, tedious exercise has really caught on in the US.
Good news for people like me, who have always found lengthy exercise a boring waste of time. Harry Clarke recently linked to this article, from which I have cut the example set of exercises:
Interesting. Perhaps I should now spend two years evaluating which set of exercises is best for me.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Guardian goodness
Two good columns in the Guardian recently:
* Greg Jericho on the pitfalls of privatisation (why is it he sounds so much more convincing than "just privatise everything" message of Julie Novak I heard on Radio National last week - perhaps it's because he actually suggests an evidence based approach, rather than a pure ideological one?)
* Lenore Taylor on the culture war approach of this Abbott government. Donnelly leading a review of curriculum is a bit of a joke; in my view, he's become a perpetual whinger who doesn't acknowledge improvements towards the centre that education has made over the last decade or so.
I'm waiting for Abbott to announce a Rupert Murdoch led enquiry into media ownership and regulation in Australia. It would make as much sense.
* Greg Jericho on the pitfalls of privatisation (why is it he sounds so much more convincing than "just privatise everything" message of Julie Novak I heard on Radio National last week - perhaps it's because he actually suggests an evidence based approach, rather than a pure ideological one?)
* Lenore Taylor on the culture war approach of this Abbott government. Donnelly leading a review of curriculum is a bit of a joke; in my view, he's become a perpetual whinger who doesn't acknowledge improvements towards the centre that education has made over the last decade or so.
I'm waiting for Abbott to announce a Rupert Murdoch led enquiry into media ownership and regulation in Australia. It would make as much sense.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
No, he didn't like it
We went off to see Frozen yesterday, and I for one came away completely underwhelmed.
The last couple of the so-called Disney "princess"movies - The Princess and the Frog and Tangled - were great in all respects. In Tangled in particular, the combination of the beauty of the animation and music in a key scene nearly brought me to tears; but both movies made a real effort in the slapstick-y style of the humour to appeal to boys as well as girls.
Frozen is a fizzle is any way you care to compare it. The music is a mess in all respects - it starts off sounding awfully like something from the Lion King (for no discernible reason), then has an all male chorus song with lyrics I couldn't decipher, and the "hit"tune is of the pretty generic Broadway pop-ish style that is quite forgettable (it reminded me of the style of a couple of the songs I have heard from Wicked.)
The computer animation has received lots of praise, but I have to say that when you get to this level of photo realism, the characters start to look at bit distractingly like actual toys: it's as if you were watching Ken and Barbie come to life, which is OK in a Toy Story movie, but not so much in one where they are meant to be people. I have noticed this a bit before in other computer animated movies, but it bothered me particularly in this one for some reason.
The biggest problem is with the story and characters - the title character is pretty resolutely annoying throughout the whole thing; the sympathetic male lead is underwritten; and it really is (to my mind) the most relentlessly girl oriented Disney film since (probably) the Little Mermaid, but without the fantastically catchy hit song. And, it's just not very funny or witty.
So why has it been a substantially bigger box office success than Tangled? (Box Office Mojo shows US box office of $300 million already; Tangled had only $200 million.) I have absolutely no idea.
Both movies seem to have the same high scores on Rotten Tomatoes, and I was surprised to see that Anthony Lane from the New Yorker was listed as liking Frozen. But this is an example of the sometimes dubious tallying of Rotten Tomatoes, as when you go read his actual review he hardly gave it a strong endorsement:
My negative reaction to the movie caused some interesting family revelations - both my wife and daughter rated it as better than Tangled or Princess and the Frog - my wife saying she particularly didn't like the latter. I only recalled her saying she quite liked the music from it, and in fact I bought her the CD. (My daughter and son both like the Randy Newman jazzy style of the music, actually.) I kept wanting to explain last night why I thought this movie was crook - the family kept telling me to stop going on about it, but fortunately there is always this outlet, which I can always imagine someone has read to this point, even if no one actually got past the first line.
The other big, intensely girl orientated animation by Disney/Pixar, Brave, was also a dud. It seems to me someone at Disney has suddenly forgotten how to make them.
The last couple of the so-called Disney "princess"movies - The Princess and the Frog and Tangled - were great in all respects. In Tangled in particular, the combination of the beauty of the animation and music in a key scene nearly brought me to tears; but both movies made a real effort in the slapstick-y style of the humour to appeal to boys as well as girls.
Frozen is a fizzle is any way you care to compare it. The music is a mess in all respects - it starts off sounding awfully like something from the Lion King (for no discernible reason), then has an all male chorus song with lyrics I couldn't decipher, and the "hit"tune is of the pretty generic Broadway pop-ish style that is quite forgettable (it reminded me of the style of a couple of the songs I have heard from Wicked.)
The computer animation has received lots of praise, but I have to say that when you get to this level of photo realism, the characters start to look at bit distractingly like actual toys: it's as if you were watching Ken and Barbie come to life, which is OK in a Toy Story movie, but not so much in one where they are meant to be people. I have noticed this a bit before in other computer animated movies, but it bothered me particularly in this one for some reason.
The biggest problem is with the story and characters - the title character is pretty resolutely annoying throughout the whole thing; the sympathetic male lead is underwritten; and it really is (to my mind) the most relentlessly girl oriented Disney film since (probably) the Little Mermaid, but without the fantastically catchy hit song. And, it's just not very funny or witty.
So why has it been a substantially bigger box office success than Tangled? (Box Office Mojo shows US box office of $300 million already; Tangled had only $200 million.) I have absolutely no idea.
Both movies seem to have the same high scores on Rotten Tomatoes, and I was surprised to see that Anthony Lane from the New Yorker was listed as liking Frozen. But this is an example of the sometimes dubious tallying of Rotten Tomatoes, as when you go read his actual review he hardly gave it a strong endorsement:
In short, where is our villain? Idina Menzel, who voices Elsa, played the green-faced lead in “Wicked,” on Broadway, so everything is set for vengeance and spite, but nothing happens. True, Elsa starts waltzing around in a long skirt slashed to the thigh, which is hot stuff for Disney, but, still, Cruella de Vil would skin her alive.He's still the wittiest reviewer around (and that also explains the reminder of Wicked from the songs.)
The other sister is Anna (Kristen Bell), who follows on from Belle, in “Beauty and the Beast,” and Rapunzel, in “Tangled,” being spunky and reckless, with a hint of tomboy, though retaining her capacity to swoon if anything princely shows up. Most of the men, by contrast, look milky and mild, with a hint of tomgirl, and, once a chatting snowman is introduced, presumably to keep your toddlers satisfied, much of the movie turns to slush. Disney has thus arrived at a mirror image of its earlier self: the seriously bad guys and the top-grade sidekicks—the Shere Khans and the Baloos—are now a melting memory, while the chronic simperers, like Cinderella, have been superseded by tough dames. As Anna sings, “For years I’ve roamed these empty halls, / Why have a ballroom with no balls?” Go get ’em, sister.
My negative reaction to the movie caused some interesting family revelations - both my wife and daughter rated it as better than Tangled or Princess and the Frog - my wife saying she particularly didn't like the latter. I only recalled her saying she quite liked the music from it, and in fact I bought her the CD. (My daughter and son both like the Randy Newman jazzy style of the music, actually.) I kept wanting to explain last night why I thought this movie was crook - the family kept telling me to stop going on about it, but fortunately there is always this outlet, which I can always imagine someone has read to this point, even if no one actually got past the first line.
The other big, intensely girl orientated animation by Disney/Pixar, Brave, was also a dud. It seems to me someone at Disney has suddenly forgotten how to make them.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Cold weather
I suppose I should put a link or two here about how the cold American winter is not that cold for the country, polar vortex or not.
I thought this post at Wonkblog dealt with the whole climate change denying mocking response of the Right very well. Except that, of course, most of them are too stupid to read it.
Truly, the Right is currently intellectually bankrupt, but when will this finally pass? We really have to wait for the next global heatwave (to get past 1998 on Roy Spencer's chart) before they'll reconsider? (Funnily enough, Spencer's figure for the month of December 2013 does not even show it as a particularly cool month, globally. Yet Roy himself has joined in the "ha ha!" mood, showing what an ideologically driven tosser he is. Judith Curry did the same on her blog about the ship stuck in ice in Antarctica - quoting serious papers discussing why Antarctic sea ice is lately increasing, none of which doubt AGW - but then going "ha ha, isn't it hilarious how this is a PR disaster for AGW.")
They are not to be taken seriously.
I thought this post at Wonkblog dealt with the whole climate change denying mocking response of the Right very well. Except that, of course, most of them are too stupid to read it.
Truly, the Right is currently intellectually bankrupt, but when will this finally pass? We really have to wait for the next global heatwave (to get past 1998 on Roy Spencer's chart) before they'll reconsider? (Funnily enough, Spencer's figure for the month of December 2013 does not even show it as a particularly cool month, globally. Yet Roy himself has joined in the "ha ha!" mood, showing what an ideologically driven tosser he is. Judith Curry did the same on her blog about the ship stuck in ice in Antarctica - quoting serious papers discussing why Antarctic sea ice is lately increasing, none of which doubt AGW - but then going "ha ha, isn't it hilarious how this is a PR disaster for AGW.")
They are not to be taken seriously.
It might be important, or it might not
Cloning quantum information from the past | KurzweilAI
If I could understand the explanation better, I might be able to tell if this is of significance to the issue of an understandable means for a future resurrection.
If I could understand the explanation better, I might be able to tell if this is of significance to the issue of an understandable means for a future resurrection.
Wednesday, January 08, 2014
An odd thing to be wrong about
N-test legacy in stratosphere bigger than thought
It was previously thought that plutonium radionuclides—radioactive atoms which can take decades or thousands of years to degrade—were present in the stratosphere only at negligible levels.
It was also believed that levels of these pollutants were higher in the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere that is closest to the ground, than in the stratosphere. Both ideas turn out to be wrong, according to the new study, whose authors also found no likelihood of a hazard to health.
Radiation levels in the stratosphere are "more than three orders of magnitude higher than previously thought," study co-author Jose Corcho of the Swiss Federal Office for Civil Protection told AFP.Somehow, I expected scientists to have a better grip on this topic than they appear to have had.
A look at US income inequality
Is income inequality as bad as Obama says? In many ways, yes. - CSMonitor.com
This seemed to me to be a pretty fair and dispassionate look at the topic. Yes, they do have a problem.
This seemed to me to be a pretty fair and dispassionate look at the topic. Yes, they do have a problem.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)