New York at the local level

I very much enjoyed the episode last night (on SBS) of Michael Portillo's Great American Railroad Journeys, (episode 3, I see - dang it, I have missed the first two!) as it wasn't about any lengthy trip at all, but all about the very local rail of New York and (in particular) Long Island.
Here on the other side of the world, we read a bit about Brooklyn and Long Island as areas where a lot of people who work on Manhattan live, and the Hamptons as a place where the uber rich buy mansions and party (I believe even Spielberg has a house there), but any tourist type TV show rarely goes out of its way to show these places. 
Well, Portillo's show did, and it was very good to finally see them, and get some of their historical background. 
It'll be on SBS on demand for a while, and it seems some people are putting up slabs of the series on Youtube, too.

The "bad passenger" problem

BBC - Autos - Driverless taxis' human problem

So yeah, they are starting to think about how to stop driverless taxis being used for things you don't want passengers using them for:

The presence of a taxi driver also dissuades a variety of illicit
passenger behavior, including vandalism, drug use, and, of course,
self-expression of a sexual nature. During NuTonomy's Singapore taxi
test, says the company, an engineer will ride along "to observe system
performance and assume control if needed to ensure passenger comfort and
safety." Eventually, though, it will be just car and passenger. Are the
cars ready for responsibility?

"None of these problems require
particularly high-tech solutions", says Dr Richard Alan Peters, a
professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Vanderbilt
University in the US. Peters, who serves as the chief technical officer
for the artificial intelligence software company Universal Robotics,
suggests that driverless taxicabs could use features like automatic
door closers and cabin sensors to ensure seatbelt use or tattle on
smokers who light up in the car. And some tasks formerly undertaken by a
human driver — discovering a forgotten parcel or a pool of vomitus, for
instance — could fall to customers, "who would then alert the car",
says Peters. The question, therefore, may not be whether the cars are
ready for the responsibility, but whether passengers are ready for it.

How do Queensland's top judges come up with such decisions?

High court reinstates Gerard Baden-Clay's murder conviction | Australia news | The Guardian

I didn't post about it at the time, as I wanted to:  the Queensland Court of Appeal's decision on the Baden-Clay murder conviction just didn't make any sense to me.   It seemed that if you took its view, you could virtually never get a murder (as opposed to a manslaughter) conviction in cases where there was no witness to the death, especially if the defendant gave evidence that it was an accident.  But it seemed particularly risible in a case where the accused himself had given evidence that there had been no fight of any kind, the jury had clearly rejected it as being untruthful, but then the defence argued effectively on appeal "so he lied, but you still can't find anything more than if he did cause her death, it might have been an accident".

The report of the High Court decision indicates that my instincts on this were right:

It noted that Baden-Clay at trial denied fighting with his wife, killing
her and then dumping her body, which was found under a bridge at Kholo
creek 11 days after she went missing.

“His evidence, being the evidence of the only person who could give
evidence on the issue, was inconsistent with that hypothesis [of
manslaughter].

“Further, the jury were entitled to regard the whole of the evidence
as satisfying them beyond reasonable doubt that the respondent acted
with intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm when he killed his
wife.”

Yes:  if a jury considers a defendant is lying through his teeth, they are under no obligation to then give him or her the "benefit of the doubt" as to the next most innocent explanation, at least (or especially) where there is clear evidence of motive for intentional killing. 

Ever since the Pauline Hanson conviction was overturned by the High Court Court of Appeal, I have wondered how it is that Queensland's judges manage to make such wrong decisions.  (I'm pretty sure that in that case, the appeals court  was again unanimous that the trial judge were just obviously wrong.)

How do we manage to get judges here that seem so capable of poor decisions? 

Hi Tech car thieves

Savvy car thieves harnessing new technology ‹ Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

I've wondered sometimes about whether, with the right electronics, modern cars can still be stolen.  Seems the answer is "yes":

Even models that utilize electronic keys can be stolen by use of a
so-called key programmer, which can be easily made by modifying easily
available materials.

Earlier this year, police in Ibaraki Prefecture arrested a gang of
car thieves using such a device, which is small enough to fit in the
palm of one’s hand.

“A modified key programmer is used to enter the car’s internal
computer, and then rewrite the program, making it possible to start the
engine,” a police investigator was quoted as saying. “In the past this
required 30 minutes or longer to accomplish, but the newer types can do
it in about 10 minutes. The thieves are able to obtain key programmers
made in China for around 100,000 yen.”

The modified key programmers are unable to open a car’s door, and up
to now the thieves had to break a window to get access to the vehicle’s
interior. More recently, however, new techniques for popping open care
doors have become widespread.

“Using the technique of ‘dempa-jack’ (electronic hijacking), they can
release the door locks from a distance,” a staff member of Protector, a
firm that specializes in car security, tells the tabloid. “They do this
by intercepting electronic signals emitted by the car and copying them,
then transmitting them back. This method is common overseas and
recently has started to be used in Japan.”

Dealing with the plebiscite

John Quiggin - An offer he can’t accept

JQ's suggestion as to how Shorten could best deal with the attempted wedge on Labor about the plebiscite (really, by a reverse wedge - but one which makes sense) sounds like a good political move to me.  I wonder if Shorten will take it up?

Interesting despite one glaring error

The Multiverse Idea Is Rotting Culture - The Atlantic

Well, I suppose magazine editors don't have to know much about science, but I'm still surprised that this article was let through with a paragraph that talks about a laser shooting electrons.

Nonetheless, it's worth a read. 

[I'm not saying it's particularly well written, by the way, but it eventually raises some interesting issues.  It's getting a drubbing in comments, where I am also surprised to not yet see anyone grinding their teeth on the laser/electron thing.]

Seem like good questions to me

Some questions for those who are cheering Gawker's demise / Boing Boing

All at sea - The Conspiracy

I strongly recommend this recently published account in Popular Mechanics of a reporter (and her photographer) going on a cruise with a bunch of conspiracy nutters.  It turns into a real problem when they become the victims of paranoia.

Most surprisingly - Andrew Wakefield (he of the discredited autism/vaccine link) was one of the speakers, and while he is only a bit player in the article, he really does not come out looking good.

Reading this reminded me of something I perhaps didn't say here before - the absolute worst aspect of the new series of X Files was its incorporation of a secret government vaccine conspiracy (not Scully's unflattering hairstyle.)   Yes, even worse that its having a conspiracy broadcaster who actually was onto something, I reckon it's a disgrace to give any encouragement at all, even in fiction, to any dimwit watching  (and they are out there) to the belief that vaccines are evil and to be avoided.

"What - me worry?" Ridley

The prominent lukewarmer Matt Ridley is given a run in The Australian today (reprinting an article from The Times) in which he argues that a completely melted Arctic ice cap each summer wouldn't matter much anyway.  Quite benign, in fact.

The article quotes some research I haven't read about, so I'll wait for actual scientists to address that.  But clearly, the article relies heavily on reasoning that goes over well with the silly and gullible:  that a large climatic change like (relatively?) ice free summers in the Arctic in previous millennia were not bad for the wildlife (and humanity) then, so why would it be so bad for them now?    I feel the flaws in such reasoning are so obvious, it is hardly worthwhile putting them down on paper.   But someone will, I have no doubt, and I'll link to them instead when I notice it...

Trump and the Catholics

I always thought that US Catholics would have trouble with Trump, and I'm pleased to see that they emphatically do:

Back in 2012, GOP nominee Mitt Romney lost the Catholic vote by just 2 points, 50 percent to 48 percent. And the GOP has actually won the Catholic vote as recently as 2004 and in 5 of the last 10 11 presidential elections.

But Trump trails among Catholics by a huge margin. A new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute released this week shows him down 23 points, 55-32.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll released earlier this month painted an even worse picture for Trump’s Catholic support. He was down by 27 points, 61-34.

It's only conservative Catholics who like to engage in the culture wars they've already, by and large, lost who would vote for him for tribal, anti-Clinton reasons alone.   (See the conservative Catholics of Catallaxy, for example.)  There is nothing Catholic friendly, in terms of consistency with Catholic social teaching, in Trump's threats-which-pass-for-half-baked policy.

About as evil as you can get

Father identifies British boy 'killer' seen executing a captured prisoner in Syria � | Daily Mail Online

Of all the atrocities of Islamic State, I think I find myself most appalled by the ones like this - where they get boys to do executions of what the rest of the world would call prisoners of war.  Absolutely shocking and appalling.  The links shows photos, but of course, I would not watch the video. 

The Vox alt-right explainer

The alt-right is more than warmed-over white supremacy. It’s that, but way way weirder. - Vox

One thing I have wanted to say about Milo Y:  I've only read a couple of things apparently written by him on Breitbart, and I thought they were, from a stylistic point of view, very poorly written.   (I see it is claimed that he has minions who do much of his writing for him, and perhaps that explains it.) 

I didn't watch his Andrew Bolt interviews, but why anyone would be impressed by him is beyond me...

Monday disease

41 cases of locally transmitted Zika confirmed in Aljunied Crescent cluster, 34 fully recovered, Health News & Top Stories - The Straits Times

I wonder if Singaporeans themselves are surprised, given its general super clean image, that the island state has reported scores of cases of locally transmitted zika disease.   It can't be great news for their tourism sector.

See the story above from the local paper, showing great clouds of insecticide being deployed.   I would bet there is a lot of that going on over the next few weeks.

A trilogy of diseases

Time for 3 stories of unpleasant diseases I noticed this week:

*  a terribly depressing situation with tuberculosis in Papua New Guinea.  Drug resistant TB there continues to spread, and a quarter of cases are in children who, if they survive (it kills one in 10, apparently) may well have life long disabilities in a country with next to no services for them.

*  The Guardian reports that doctors are starting to worry about treatment resistant fungal infections.  And the resistance may be coming from a surprising source:

More than a million people die of fungal infections every year, including about 7,000 in the UK, and deaths are likely to increase as resistance continues to rise.

Researchers say the widespread use of fungicides on crops is one of the main causes of the rise in fungal resistance, which mirrors the rise of resistance to antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections in humans.

As for medicines available: there aren't many:

“There are more than 20 different classes of antibacterial agents. By contrast, there are only four classes of anti-fungal agents. Our armoury for dealing with deadly fungi is much smaller than the one we have for dealing with bacteria.

“We cannot afford to lose the few drugs we have – particularly as very little funding is being made available for research into fungi and fungal infections.”

 The article also mentions the case of an apparently fungal lung infection that killed a bagpipe player.

*  And for this final round of unpleasant thoughts:  I guess I had heard before that people can get a gonorrhoea infection in their throat or mouth, but I'm not sure I had realised that it could be carried there, without symptom, for weeks or months, and be transmitted on via that common bedroom activity that's not intercourse.   A doctor thinks, based on some early tests, that gargling with ordinary commercial mouthwash might be helpful in preventing its spread, although I don't think he thinks it will kill off entirely.

Gee, I wonder how the Listerine company might cope with that information in advertisements. 

The French and toast

My wife made French toast for a Sunday morning treat today (and she makes it very well - using a French stick cut thickly, and the bread soaked in the milk and eggs overnight.)

We eat it with maple syrup, which led to the question - do the French eat French toast, 'cos the syrup makes it seem more like an American meal.

So off to Wikipedia it is, where the French toast entry is not as detailed as I feel it deserves, but it at least tells us the recipe pre-dates France quite considerably.  (Basically, it goes back to Roman days, and has been seen in many countries as a good way to make stale bread palatable.)

This entry on the history of the dish at "Today I Found Out" (a site which has a very appealing name for someone like me) is much more readable.  The site says this:

Indeed, the name for French toast in France itself is “pain perdu”, which literally means “lost bread” (it is also called this in Belgium, New Orleans, Acadiana, Newfoundland, and the Congo, among other places). It’s interesting to note, for the naysayers who like to cling to the belief that it came from France, that before the French called it pain perdu, they called it “pain a la Romaine” (Roman bread).

And this: 

In France itself, French toast is highly sweetened and is served as a dessert item, rather than served for breakfast, as in America and many other places.

So, now we know. 

The French and swimwear

I can't be bothered working out a position to take on the French attempting to enforce smaller swimwear on women, except to remind people that the country has a history of being very prescriptive about swimwear in a way that leads to foreign men, at least in  public pools, also being forced to wear less than they otherwise might in their own country.   And, as I noted not so long ago, up until about the 1960's, many boys and teenage guys in many parts of the US were forced by their State school system -or if they were learning at a YMCA - to take swimming lessons nude.  Go back further, and England had to ban men bathing nude - at the beach - in the 1860's, and this coincided with bans on mixed bathing, as well.

Yes, I know, both of the first two examples are about alleged hygiene concerns in pools, not the ocean.   But just wanted to note that the history of regulation of bathing suits has taken many peculiar turns, in many countries, one way or the other over the years...

Paging Dr Nick

One of the more amusing things to come out of the Trump/alt right conspiracy mongering about Hillary's health is a re-examination of the Trumpian sounding letter from Trump's doctor.

As I said in comments recently, the letter put me in mind of Dr Nick from the Simpsons (and I bet I'm not the first to think that), and as it turns out, the doctor does at least look a little unconventional.  (See story at the link.)   The funniest suggestion in the WAPO story is that a "positive" medical test often means something bad..was Trump's doctor trying to tell us something?   It's logic worthy of the alt right itself, but pretty funny. 

Sensitive Tim and gay marriage

Oh, so newly elected walking selfie Tim "Send in the water cannon" Wilson is now taking to re-tweeting rude tweets from lefties?   To show up the intolerant Left?  Seems a bit rich...

As to the whole same sex marriage plebiscite - what a mess this issue is.  While I think a plebiscite is actually not a bad idea for everyone for a major social and legal change, I would expect it to be conducted conveniently (and economically) with an election day vote.  But this seemed to have been beyond Turnbull's ken to get going in time for the last election.  Do we blame deals with his conservative Coalition base for that?  I'm not sure.

Now with the Greens going all "principled" again (they manage to delay a lot of useful things to their side of politics by doing this) it seems there won't be one for years.  Actually, I wonder if it's more likely now that we won't have one at all, and gay marriage will just come in via a new Labor government.  But I could be wrong.

It's one of those issues where everyone's annoying - gay activists by carrying on too much about how dire it will be for gay teens to hear rhetoric against it;  conservatives for going on about how it will be a cultural disaster that will see people locked up for refusing to marry same sex couples.  And Tim Wilson for criticising the Greens, when members of his own party are interested in delaying the inevitable, including undertaking not to be bound by the result anyway.  

And for the record, again:  I would favour civil unions over gay marriage.  If the plebiscite had been held at the last election, I would have likely have voted "no", but with the expectation that the "yes" vote would win, and without any great concern that it would end Western civilisation.  (Or perhaps, I would just have voted informal on this - that's probably the better line for someone like me to take, given my preferred option is not on the table.)   Give it another couple of years of listening to argument about it, though, I might be persuaded to vote "yes" for gay marriage, just so I can stop hearing about it....

A funny line about Coulter

The Great Ann Coulter Immigration Bamboozle

From The Federalist, of all places:

“I don’t care if @realDonaldTrump wants to perform abortions in the White House after this immigration policy paper,” Coulter tweeted last August, calling Trump’s immigration plan “the greatest political document since the Magna Carta.” At the time, due to my longtime understanding that Coulter is 85 percent ratings-and-book-sales-related shtick and 15
percent the amalgamated ghosts of old cigarettes, I shrugged and rolled my eyes.

Robot babies

I see that an evaluation of one of those "here, look after this demanding, crying, robot baby and see what a pain baby care is, so you'll know not to get pregnant" programs with teenagers in WA actually ended up with more of the robot carers getting pregnant.

I'm a little puzzled by this.  Haven't these programs been tried in the US for many, many years?  They've featured in some sitcoms for a long time, I'm sure.  Were those programs properly evaluated?  Or does it depend on the location of the teenage population (with, for example, teenagers in remote towns with little to do finding that even caring for a robot or real baby is better than being bored?)