Disturbing in its own way

OK, it's not disturbing in a "Nutjob IS followers beheading innocent victims and attempting the local eradication of people of other faiths - including those with the wrong brand of Islam" sort of way, but I still can't watch this without feeling very uneasy about the mix of pretty simplistic religiosity and the US Marines.  (And besides, it looks like worship more suited to a primary school camp than for adult men.)

 

Interesting details on the potential for cheap, flexible solar cells

Cheap solar cells tempt businesses

I know:  it seems that a flexible and cheap version of solar cells has been just around the corner for a long time now, but this article goes into details that does indeed make them sound likely to be commercially available soon.  (Or soon-ish.)

These perovskite ones sound different to what the CSIRO hopes to commercialise.

Sounds like quite a race may be on to get some form of cheap, flexible cell on the market. 

Needed next:  a breakthrough in cheaper storage batteries.

I take this very seriously...

Is Exercise Bad for Your Teeth? - NYTimes.com

Yay!  An unexpected harm from exercise - maybe.  If you're an athlete who does heavy training.


I don't care - any anti-exercise news is welcome in this neck of the woods.   

Yet another reason not to trust them...

The grim story of the Snowy Mountains' cannibal horses. 

Gee.   Jonathan Green (whose twitter feed indicates when he's not in the studio, he's on a horse*) needs to watch his back...

*  quite possibly, he's tried training his horse to operate the panel

Spy stuff

A Private Tour of the CIA's Incredible Museum | History | Smithsonian

Quite a lengthy article here showing more than a dozen, rather interesting, items held in the CIA museum.

About Julia

I only saw about the last 15 minutes of the Julia Gillard interview last night with Ray Martin.

A few observations:

* it seemed to be lit in a strange, harsh looking way.  It certainly highlighted a bit of bagginess under the eyes of Gillard, but it did no favours for a well wrinkled Martin as well.  I wonder why it was done that way?

*  Gillard herself remains a cool, calm and very likeable character.  She readily admits to mistakes, but regrets little and (to use that pop psychology term that has fallen out of favour) just seems a very "centred" person.   Despite half of the public's nutty obsession with attacking her for carbon pricing, her general reliability for sound policy approaches runs rings around the ever flaky, unreliable, current PM we have.

*  I was particularly impressed by her encouragement of women to enter into politics despite the troubles she had been through herself.   (And her dismissal of the idea that anyone should get into politics because they like the attention it will bring them.)

*  There is no doubt that Labor made a disastrous decision to go with Rudd - and as I have said before, the only good thing that a Coalition win has achieved so far is ridding the political scene of that menace.

Perhaps they can build a toilet on Mars?

BBC News - Mangalyaan: Will India's Mars mission reach the orbit?

Look, I'm not one who would argue that you never have a space program until you eliminate your own country's (or the world's) poverty.  (I heard a lot of that type of talk at the time of the Apollo program - but I think that virtually all idealists of the 60's have since realised that solving poverty is not simply a matter of the rich West sending its  money overseas.)

However, India, a country where the WHO says  more than 600 million people are without access to adequate sanitation (read - toilets of any variety) perhaps does deserve a bit of a re-organisation of priorities.

Senators having a lend

The fact that there are almost certainly some seriously disturbed nutters in some Australian cities who are thinking that videoing beheadings is a good Islamic State PR move is leading to some very silly claims by the Senators who got into Parliament by accident.

First, Senator Lambie claiming on Insiders on the weekend that she didn't post a photo of a (now deceased, rather heroic) burka clad policewoman with the intention of showing burka clad people as being a danger for carrying concealed weapons.   We can safely assume that there would be no one in this wide brown land, short of a Tasmanian meth head with formication issues, who would believe her.

Secondly, because the United States is so chock full of examples of how gun carrying citizens have thwarted terrorist attacks [/extreme sarc], the gun loving libertarians of both Catallaxy and Senator "I liked to pat my guns" Leyonhjelm are both now talking about how it's such a shame our gun laws have left the good, beheading fearing, citizens of Australia defenceless.*  Here is Senator L in the Daily Tele, making some very odd claims in the process:

Australia’s prohibition on practical self-defence is relatively recent, emanating from the 1996 changes in firearms laws that followed the Port Arthur massacre. Not only were many types of firearm prohibited, but Australia embraced an international push to prohibit civilian ownership of firearms for self-defence.

This was driven by several factors. One was a desire to avoid America’s so-called ‘gun culture’. However, this seems to have broadened to include all means of self-defence. Another was a type of religious pacifism, of ‘turning the other cheek’. There was also a type of precautionary approach — average citizens may one day be struck with murderous tendencies. And then there were the perennial claims that resistance is futile and weapons will inevitably be turned against those using them.

A few points:

a.  there is nothing "so-called" about American gun culture.

b.  who has ever heard of the claim that "religious pacificism" or "turning the other cheek" was even a partial motivation behind the Howard led  revamp of gun laws?   The fact that there had been a series of armed nutters shooting up random strangers for the previous decade did not, from my recollection, lead to anyone, anywhere, suggesting that there was a need for a "turn the other cheek" approach to gun laws.  Let us recall:

In the decade up to and including Port Arthur, Australia experienced 11 mass shootings. In these 11 events alone, 100 people were shot dead and another 52 wounded.

 Leyonhjelm is prone to creative fantasy when it comes to guns** - I can see no other explanation.

c. [Engage /extreme sarc again]:  who has ever heard of "average citizens" one day being "struck with murderous tendancies?"  I mean, a grandfather shooting his daughter and six grandchildren (after apparently accidentally shooting his son a decade ago?)  As if that could happen.  OK, maybe Dads in Australia are different.   Yeah, sure.


*  I certainly hope we don't soon have an example of a random beheading here any time soon, but even if we did, as this post goes on to show, there would have to be about 100 of them to match the danger that nutters with guns on rampages represented to the public before the gun laws here were tightened. 

** and economics, I should add...

Two bits of writing that cheered me up, a bit

In the New Yorker: 

A climate-change march that organizers claim was the largest on record is nevertheless unlikely to change the minds of idiots, a survey of America’s idiots reveals.

Charlie Brooker in The Guardian, writing about Apple:

As part of the iPhone 6 publicity blitz, Tim Cook also announced every iTunes user in the world would be getting U2’s new album free of charge. It was downloaded automatically on to millions of users’ phones, like a sinister virus. Music is meant to be catchy – but not until you’ve heard it. The album, which I haven’t listened to yet, is terrible: even worse than their last one, which I didn’t listen to either. I don’t want to listen to any U2 albums in case I discover I like them, and have to violently reassess my own self-image. For the past five years, it’s been delightfully easy to ignore U2. Then Apple comes along and slings them under your nose like a bowl of bum soup you didn’t order. What do we have to do? Start lobbying Google for U2’s right to be forgotten?

Disconcerting times

Looking globally, there are such a huge number of things to be intensely irritated about, interspersed with the occasional grounds for optimism on that little thing called the liveability of the planet in 100 years time, that my head is spinning and I don't know where to start.  What's more, I think I have an eyeball that is starting to fall apart, which is a condition I was previously unaware of.   Retina is still attached, though, so that's something.

More posts later...

This is an outrage

A letter from Ms Credlin to Mr Pyne's office approving the trip also notes that the attendance of Mrs Pyne was expected to cost the Commonwealth no more than a business class airfare for the minister. As a minister, Mr Pyne is entitled to fly business class on official overseas travel.

Mr Pyne flew business class from Adelaide to Sydney but switched to economy for the rest of the journey to London.

That's from the Fairfax story this morning, explaining how Pyne, who (by the way) has done the completely un-Catholic thing of using IVF to have kids yet wanted to be at the canonisation of one of the most conservative Popes, managed to take his wife along for the ride.

All good people of Australia, like me, who only ever fly economy, should be outraged that in doing so there is a risk that they may have to sit for 20 hours beside the whiniest voiced, biggest pillock of a lying Minister this country has seen in 50 years just so his wife can hold his hand.

I'm thinking of contacting GetUp about this....

More about the recent optimism on de-carbonising the world

John Quiggin � From derp to denialism

JQ has always been an optimist on this topic, but here he is, looking the recent burst of reports I was noting last week, all suggesting that decarbonising the world is indeed do-able, and won't kill the globe economically in the process.

Douthat sounding surprisingly sensible about the Middle East

Grand Illusion in Syria - NYTimes.com

Sunday drugs education

A few days back, I mentioned the delusion that there are bugs under the skin, which is commonly noted as one of the mental problems ice addicts can develop.

Just thought I would look up more about it, and learned that it has a specific name "formication".  

This article from Psychology Today gives a good summary.   I'm surprised to see that it can occur with drugs with a lot less of an image problem than meth:

Drugs that have been reported to cause formication are Adderall, cocaine, crystal meth, methamphetamine, Ecstacy, MDMA, Keppra, Lunesta, Ritalin, Tridyl, Wellbutrin, and Zyban.

You may now resume your normal Sunday activities.

More reason to be optimistic?

Within 10 years, every SolarCity system will come with batteries from Tesla's Gigafactory : TreeHugger

It would appear that the Musk family is confident that, once they get a mega battery plant going, in 10 years, home solar power systems will come with storage and the electricity will be cheap.

As I wrote earlier in the week, there seems to be a sudden wave of optimism around that the world might be able to move to lower CO2 quicker than previously felt possible.

Squeezy spacesuits still under investigation

Spacesuits of the future may resemble a streamlined second skin

Interesting report here on MIT research still ongoing as to how to make a practical, skin tight spacesuit.  (Jerry Pournelle used to feature these in his science fiction from decades ago, so the idea has been around a long time, but a practical version seems yet to be realised.)

More depressing Islam news

Blasphemy row professor killed in Pakistan | GulfNews.com: Unidentified gunmen on Thursday shot dead a professor of Islamic studies in Pakistan who had faced accusations of blasphemy and threats from colleagues over his moderate views, police said.

Blasphemy is a crime carrying death sentence in the mainly Sunni Muslim nation of 180 million people.

The south Asian country is experiencing a spike in the number of cases of blasphemy, which activists attribute to its growing use as a tactic to settle grudges or extort money.

Dr Mohammad Shakil Auj, the dean of the faculty of Islamic Studies at the university in the southern port city of Karachi, had received threats following complaints that his teaching was too liberal, a colleague said.

How liberal, you might wonder?:

Among the articles the 54-year-old had written was one arguing that Muslim women should be allowed to marry non-Muslim men, the colleague said.

Even worse is this description of how blasphemy works there:

The crime is not defined by law, so anyone can file a case saying their religious feelings have been hurt. Frequently, those accused of the crime who are not lynched on the spot can find themselves jailed indefinitely.

Judges and lawyers are often too afraid to show up in court to try the cases, as mere description of the offense can itself often be viewed as a fresh offence.

Where we're heading?

World population unlikely to stop growing this century : Nature News & Comment: The authors calculate an 80% probability that the world population in 2100 will be between 9.6 billion and 12.3 billion, and a 95% probability that it will be between 9 billion and 13.2 billion (see chart above). They also predict that the odds are 70% that the population will keep growing throughout the century.

I wonder if climate change will be having an effect on African fertility (which is where the study says growth will be coming) by the second half of the century?  I mean, this sounds incredible:

Raftery and his colleagues project that Africa’s population will at
least triple by 2100, reaching 3.1 billion and possibly as high as 5.7
billion (see chart below). The population of Nigeria, currently 160
million people, could rise to 1.5 billion and overtake China as the
world’s most populous nation, says Raftery.

Those gut bugs messing with our plans, again

Sugar substitutes linked to obesity

A team led by Eran Elinav of the Weizmann Institute of Science in
Rehovot, Israel, fed mice various sweeteners — saccharin, sucralose and
aspartame — and found that after 11 weeks, the animals displayed glucose
intolerance, a marker of propensity for metabolic disorders.

To simulate the real-world situation of people with varying risks of these
diseases, the team fed some mice a normal diet, and some a high-fat
diet, and spiked their water either with glucose alone, or with glucose
and one of the sweeteners, saccharin. The mice fed saccharin developed a
marked glucose intolerance compared to those fed only glucose. But when
the animals were given antibiotics to kill their gut bacteria, glucose
intolerance was prevented. And when the researchers transplanted faeces
from the glucose-intolerant saccharin-fed mice into the guts of mice
bred to have sterile intestines, those mice also became glucose
intolerant, indicating that saccharin was causing the microbiome to
become unhealthy.

Wages of sin, continued

Yet more talk about the increasing rate of STD's in Australia, with syphilis in particular increasing, apparently largely in gay men.  The SMH even has an interactive map for looking at each State's rate over the last decade or so.  (One of more unusual uses of an interactive map you're likely to see.)

I am also surprised at the apparent popularity of ice amongst the gay community.   The Age had an article the other day:

Gay men are openly trading ice on dating apps such as Grindr as soaring use of the drug raises fears it is fuelling a 20-year high in Australia's HIV diagnoses.

Grindr, which has more than 63,000 active monthly users in Melbourne, connects men for casual  sex but is increasingly becoming an online playground for ice dealers.

The drug is popular with some gay men during sex as it causes a surge of the "happy" chemical dopamine, boosts libido and strips  away inhibitions.

Another article I linked to before said that ice was, in England, seen as only a rich, urban gay drug.

Like I say, I find it rather hard to credit that any people use the drug at all, when there is a very real risk of addiction and long lasting psychosis.  I also find it a little hard to credit that some gay men, living in an environment where free casual sex has become easier than ever to arrange, don't remain satisfied with the mere availability of sex, but want to actually artificially enhance the feeling of orgasm more and more.  (I suppose you could say that is part of what is behind ecstasy and cocaine use for straight rich people - although I see from some sites the latter can impair orgasm.  It at least won't end with making you feel you've got bugs permanently under your skin.  Bizarrely, I also see at a Reddit site that someone claims LSD can be great for sex.   I would be very surprised if that were consistently the case; I would have thought there is a fair chance it could involve your partner turning into a giant spider at an inconvenient time.)

I don't know - I just keep getting the feeling that being non judgemental about these things isn't working out great.   Isn't it time some people in drug and STD education started saying something obvious like:  "look guys, sex and orgasms are fantastic, but if you're doing it right, you don't need drugs to make it feel better.  Seriously.   We've got thousands of years of collective human experience to back that up.   Oh, and a chancre sore on your penis or mouth is a really bad look, and you kinda deserve to feel bad if you've spread it around to some stranger you met on Grindr."