A self explanatory link

https://digg.com/2021/this-reddit-thread-of-the-most-useful-websites-that-you-might-not-know-about-will-enhance-your-internet-browsing-experience

Update:  ok, here's a click-able link.  

Very naughty

Remember the early, quite funny, "Uncle Roger" video in which he took orders at a well regarded Singaporean food takeaway cafe at a market in London run by a young, blond, part Asian woman?   I didn't remember her name, but it's Elizabeth Haigh, and her reputation has just taken a serious nosedive after a cookbook she published has some pretty extensive plagiarism from another Asian woman's cookbook from 2012.

A long post giving examples is here.

It really does appear very blatant - and I would guess that the only way she could retain some credibility would be if it turns out it was largely ghost written, and the ghost writer is the one who did the copying.  I mean, that's not good, when you claim to telling personal anecdote;  but it's still a bit better than being the person doing the cutting and pasting with full knowledge.

Dog detective problem

I hadn't heard about this before:  the important role cadaver smell detecting dogs (and one dog in particular) have played in some American murder convictions - yet based on some very dubious science.

Modern parents and violence

A Sydney primary school has asked parents to make sure their children do not watch the popular Netflix series Squid Game, which depicts “extreme violence and gore”, because students are mimicking the games in the playground.

On what should I blame the modern parental de-sensitisation to violence being viewed by kids?   The parents themselves being de-sensitised by ever increasing violence in movies, TV and video games, I expect.

As someone who remembers as a child in the 1960's seeing some relatively B grade movie in the cinema (I forget what it was now) which featured a guy getting shot with a harpoon in his stomach, and feeling that was really kind of disturbingly violent, it is completely surprising to me that parents do not think that kids can imagine the effect of violence to a more visceral degree than adults.      

I haven't watched Squid Games.   I saw some of the violent first game while my daughter was watching it and thought it didn't look like my sort of thing.   I have seen commentary saying that it is worth watching even if it makes you uncomfortable, but I am not so sure.  I have never been one for the dystopia "games played to the death" scenarios.  Always seemed a bit silly to me.   Unless we're talking gladiator era stories, I guess.  

Billionaire has worries

 I do hope Gina is feeling isolated though.  I would expect she's been on the phone to Barnaby a lot lately.  He is giving the impression of feeling under pressure - and as I said in my last post, is this just because the government is being told bluntly by its top public servants that it just has to start being credible on the issue?   

Sounds plausible

I also assume, though, that part of the government's problem may be that there are absolutely no public servant heads prepared to advise them there is any plausible way to deny climate change is real and that Australia can go it alone in ignoring it.   Mind you, that has probably been the gist of the advice for years, but are they at the point of saying "Look, pretending to do something effective has become untenable"?
 

Some good guys winning news

Clive Palmer has lost his High Court battle with Western Australia in a challenge to a law which prevents him suing the state for up to $30 billion.

...

It was a colourful and unusual High Court hearing involving the mining magnate, running over several days instead of the usual one.

Mr Palmer's companies were represented by senior barristers but he represented himself, breaking down as he told the court he'd been personally targeted as a Queenslander.

The case harks back to decisions made by an earlier Liberal government about Mr Palmers's Pilbara Balmoral South iron ore project.

The project has never gained the necessary approvals, despite mediation.

And in news sure to cause claims of woe at the IPA and the assorted, sordid Catallaxy blogs, "contrarian" reef scientist remains sacked and uncompensated for his sacking:

Controversial Queensland academic Peter Ridd has lost a High Court battle over his sacking for disparaging remarks about colleagues working on the impact of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef. 

Apart from anything else...

...why isn't anyone commenting on how the comic book artwork in that panel looks...bad:

I mean, what's with that jawline and cheek on the left?  Looks like it's made of metal instead of flesh.  

Anyway, Allahpundit explains that Josh Mandel, who sees the End of America because of a comic book only a handful of adult fanboys will read, is a Republican Ohio Senate primary candidate.  

Allahpundit goes onto explain that the conservative performative uproar is due to Superman being the ideal American (or alien identifying as American), and:

He’s great because he’s good, the personification of our idealized past. It’s no wonder then that Mandel and other nationalists would take special offense to the character now displaying a trait that was forbidden in the era when Superman became an icon. It’s a cultural affront insofar as it signals that the America of today is fundamentally different from the America of the “glory days” of the mid-20th century. That core grievance is the whole reason Trump and Trumpism became a thing, notwithstanding Trump’s own tolerant views of gays.

True, except its overlooking somewhat that the character is Superman's son, not Superman himself.  

Having a normal one in Aussie wingnut land (climate change and energy edition)

This comment appears at one of the offspring blogs of dead Catallaxy after a fairly ordinary (that is, by Rafe standards) post whinging about renewable energy:

Meanwhile, the rest of us are agog at how the Murdoch press has turned on a dime, no doubt confusing/dismaying its rusted on readers:

 

I haven't seen much on Twitter about how Sky News is covering this, only this, also from Kevin:

So, Murdoch is trying the tactic of populist anti-climate change advocacy on Sky News, while trying to convince readers in the most populist titles of print that its real and the government just has to act.  

How's that meant to make sense?   When can we expect the Sky News hosts to start attacking the editorial line taken by their companies print editors?    

And as for the government line, Katherine Murphy was nice and scathing on the weekend:

Keith Pitt, the resources minister, made headlines this week when he opened the boondoggle bidding on net zero. Pitt told Phil Coorey at the Australian Financial Review if Scott Morrison wanted agreement from the Nationals on a net zero target ahead of the Glasgow climate conference, he should put $250bn on the table.

Yes, that’s “b” for billion.

According to Pitt, if this transition was actually on, Australians taxpayers should bear the risks. Pitt floated a cartoonishly bad idea where taxpayers would underwrite the financing and insurance of fossil fuels – including for overseas-owned companies – all because naughty Australian banks weren’t inclined to make bad bets.

If you’ve missed Pitt’s parable of the bad banks, let’s recap that quickly: bad banks are now more interested in virtue signalling to their obnoxiously woke inner-city clientele than backing salt-of-the-earth fossil fuel projects in the regions.....

But before anyone could say Venezuela, Pitt’s Queensland Nationals colleague Matt Canavan – a former Productivity Commission economist now apparently estranged from capitalism – was out and about with a different parable.

Canavan told a mildly startled Kieran Gilbert on Sky News that Australians should be prepared to pay higher interest rates in order to stare down international financiers managing carbon risk in global markets. Canavan’s Big Idea™ was actually wilder than Pitt’s, but it attracted significantly less attention.

A political observation

I don't know how people find the time to consider themselves thoroughly expert in their opinions on matters of interstate politics.  I find I can barely know enough about the politics of my own state, let alone others. 

Having said that, and speaking with only fleeing glimpses of his performance on the news:  that Dominic Perrottet strikes me as physically and vocally uncharismatic.  He keeps reminding me a bit of an aged version of how David Byrne looked in his old Once in a Lifetime video, and with a similar awkwardness.

Weekend update - curry edition

I tried making lamb rogan josh (a recipe name that keeps making me wonder if I mixing it up with Rogan the broadcaster), and it was considered successful.

Given the variation in recipes on line, I will note that it was this one I followed, although in somewhat simplified form (I couldn't find the cloves in the cupboard for example).  I also didn't bother blitzing the onion to a paste, and just used jar ginger and garlic, which makes for a much quicker prep.   Also - some passata instead of tomato paste plus a tomato.   And just a bit of sunflower oil instead of ghee - that's probably much healthier, too.  [Oh, wait a minute: it was some other recipe that insisted on it being ghee, not this one.]

But - this spice mix worked well for 600 g of lamb:

• 1tsp fennel seeds
• 1tsp cumin seeds
• 3 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp red chili powder 

(The seeds were toasted and ground.)   It's not a hot curry, just one with lots of flavour.  Cardamom is important - I like the burst of flavour when you bite into a cardamom pod.   Use more than 4...

Update:  I'll just add the rest here too, because link cancer may mean I lose it:

Onion Paste:

• 1 large red or brown onion, roughly chopped
• Water

Ginger Garlic Paste:

• 4cm piece ginger, peeled and chopped
• 5 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
• Water
  

• 4 tbsp oil
• 4 green cardamom pods
• 5 cloves
• 2 dried bay leaves
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tbsp canned diced tomatoes or 1 tomato, diced
• 600g lamb, cut into small bite sized pieces
• 1 1/2 tbsp natural yogurt
• Salt to taste
  

To cook:  

1. Heat oil in a large casserole over medium-high heat. Stir fry cardamom, cloves and bay leaves for 1-2 minutes.
2. Add onion paste. Cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes or until the raw smell disappears. Add ginger garlic paste. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until fragrant.
3. Stir in spice mix. Cook for 1 minute or until aromatic. Add tomato paste and canned tomatoes. Cook, stirring often, for 1-2 minutes.
4. Add lamb. Season with salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Stir yogurt into the curry. Cover lamb with 250 ml hot water. Bring to the boil.
5. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer, covered and stirring occasionally, for 30-40 minutes or until lamb is cooked through.
   

Odd doctor

One of the few advantages of the anonymous chat room participation on the net is that it can alert you to the fact there are people in certain fields who you would not want to be dealing with.   Given this comment at one of the new Catallaxies...:

 ...if I were a patient in the SA hospital system, I would take it as a warning to ask for reassurance that the anaesthetist or surgeon is COVID vaccinated. 

An old question considered

I missed watching this video put out by Sabine Hossenfelder some months ago:

It deals with, although too briefly, the question of whether it is possible to consider the 4 dimensional spacetime universe as being embedded in a higher dimensional universe.   I mean, the idea of extra dimensional objects (or beings) being able to pass through our lowly 3 (spatial dimension) universe was very popular for a while in 20th century science fiction, but I don't think it ever got a mention much in real physics, and I never understood why.   (And yes, I know that string theory was about compacted extra dimensions, but that's different.)

She said (with no further explanation, and starting at about the 6 min 30 second mark) that yes, you could consider our universe to be embedded in higher dimensions and to be expanding into them, but it (generally) takes 10 dimensions to make this work, and as they are understood (or "constructed"?) to be non observable, it is not scientific to think they are real.

Well, now I need to know why it takes 10 dimensions... 

Update:   OK, so according to this explanation in AEON, the 10 dimensions that Sabine mentions is about the extra compacted dimensions that are relevant to string theory - but as I said before, I didn't think compacted dimensions were relevant to the idea of our universe being embedded in extra dimensions that it can expand into.    Anyhow, here is the explanation:

If moving into four dimensions helps to explain gravity, then might thinking in five dimensions have any scientific advantage? Why not give it a go? a young Polish mathematician named Theodor Kaluza asked in 1919, thinking that if Einstein had absorbed gravity into spacetime, then perhaps a further dimension might similarly account for the force of electromagnetism as an artifact of spacetime’s geometry. So Kaluza added another dimension to Einstein’s equations, and to his delight found that in five dimensions both forces fell out nicely as artifacts of the geometric model.

The mathematics fit like magic, but the problem in this case was that the additional dimension didn’t seem to correlate with any particular physical quality. In general relativity, the fourth dimension was time; in Kaluza’s theory, it wasn’t anything you could point to, see, or feel: it was just there in the mathematics. Even Einstein balked at such an ethereal innovation. What is it? he asked. Where is it?

In 1926, the Swedish physicist Oskar Klein answered this question in a way that reads like something straight out of Wonderland. Imagine, he said, you are an ant living on a long, very thin length of hose. You could run along the hose backward and forward without ever being aware of the tiny circle-dimension under your feet. Only your ant-physicists with their powerful ant-microscopes can see this tiny dimension. According to Klein, every point in our four-dimensional spacetime has a little extra circle of space like this that’s too tiny for us to see. Since it is many orders of magnitude smaller than an atom, it’s no wonder we’ve missed it so far. Only physicists with super-powerful particle accelerators can hope to see down to such a minuscule scale.

Once physicists got over their initial shock, they became enchanted by Klein’s idea, and during the 1940s the theory was elaborated in great mathematical detail and set into a quantum context. Unfortunately, the infinitesimal scale of the new dimension made it impossible to imagine how it could be experimentally verified...

It goes on to explain that the idea got revived in the 1960's to help explain the weak and strong nuclear forces:

Kaluza’s and Klein’s ideas bubbled back into awareness, and theorists gradually began to wonder if the two subatomic forces could also be described in terms of spacetime geometry.

It turns out that in order to encompass both of these two forces, we have to add another five dimensions to our mathematical description. There’s no a priori reason it should be five; and, again, none of these additional dimensions relates directly to our sensory experience. They are just there in the mathematics. So this gets us to the 10 dimensions of string theory. Here there are the four large-scale dimensions of spacetime (described by general relativity), plus an extra six ‘compact’ dimensions (one for electromagnetism and five for the nuclear forces), all curled up in some fiendishly complex, scrunched-up, geometric structure.

And there's more explanation that Witten came up with 11 dimensions:

There are many versions of string-theory equations describing 10-dimensional space, but in the 1990s the mathematician Edward Witten, at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (Einstein’s old haunt), showed that things could be somewhat simplified if we took an 11-dimensional perspective. He called his new theory M-Theory, and enigmatically declined to say what the ‘M’ stood for. Usually it is said to be ‘membrane’, but ‘matrix’, ‘master’, ‘mystery’ and ‘monster’ have also been proposed.

So, what about the type of extra "large" dimensions that was the subject of Flatland and science fiction?   Well, it might be there, as AEON explains:

In 1999, Lisa Randall (the first woman to get tenure at Harvard as a theoretical physicist) and Raman Sundrum (an Indian-American particle theorist) proposed that there might be an additional dimension on the cosmological scale, the scale described by general relativity. According to their ‘brane’ theory – ‘brane’ being short for ‘membrane’ – what we normally call our Universe might be embedded in a vastly bigger five-dimensional space, a kind of super-universe. Within this super-space, ours might be just one of a whole array of co-existing universes, each a separate 4D bubble within a wider arena of 5D space.

OK, that's more like it.

Update:   I realised on the weekend (because Youtube pointed it out to me) that Sabine Hossenfelder had done earlier videos on the extra dimensions idea, explaining the stuff that appeared in the AEON article above.   I didn't previously realise that the idea of compacted extra dimension had been around for so long, with string theory really just reviving it.

A funny comment on DH Lawrence

I really have little interest in DH Lawrence, but that doesn't stop me from reading a short review of a new biography about him.   I found this bit amusing:

Wilson points out that having rejected traditional religion, Lawrence more or less designed his own, though his understanding of just what this meant never seemed entirely clear. “For all his claims to prophetic vision,” Wilson writes, “Lawrence had little idea what was going on in the room let alone in the world,” she observes.

The Dreher chronicles

I've never especially followed what Rod Dreher might be saying:  he's quite popular with people at Catallaxy, which is a good sign he is a wrong headed and probably offensive conservative.  But I had noticed that he had become one of the Right's fanboys of Hungary and Orban - and this marks him as "conservative willing to discard democracy if it means propping up his losing side in the culture wars" and therefore not worthy of serious consideration.  

However, I can't resist noting the well deserved ridicule he has received on Twitter and elsewhere for his lack of a self filter when discussing circumcision.   It's also hard to believe he couldn't see the reaction he would get.  Is he just dumb, or did he run with "let's just see how much Twitter chatter I can provoke"?

Update:   One of the ideas of Dreher's that is lately often mentioned favourably at Catallaxy is his "Benedict Option":

There was a time when Christian thinkers like Dreher, who writes for The American Conservative, might have prepared to fight for cultural and political control. Dreher, however, sees this as futile. “Could it be that the best way to fight the flood is to … stop fighting the flood?” he asks. “Rather than wasting energy and resources fighting unwinnable political battles, we should instead work on building communities, institutions, and networks of resistance that can outwit, outlast, and eventually overcome the occupation.” This strategic withdrawal from public life is what he calls the Benedict option.

I find it a pretty laughable idea, but here's Melbourne's sometime depression sufferer Arky speculating on the same thing, more or less:

Human’s require each other for economic, social and procreation reasons. In order to enjoy all the benefits of human society you have to move in proximity to other people. However, as these times of raving covidity prove that more and more of our fellow humans are complete douche nozzles of the lowest order, the question sneaks into our consciousness: Is it really worth hanging around with these complete penises?

If in order to work you need an, at this point, open ended series of jabs with weird concoctions; if schooling means sending your child to a progressive indoctrination centre where they might also require an open ended series of those weird concoction stabs for zero net benefit to themselves; when socializing means being harangued by cultists; if being entertained requires also to be lectured; if indeed, the entire structure of the society you live within is riddled with that which you find repugnant; is the warmth worth the pain anymore?

Mind you, here he is in comments in a different thread:

I have said in other places that it feels mean to criticise a guy who writes posts explaining that he has suffered depression, but he now spends all his time catastrophising about how Australian government response to COVID has all been about e-vil control over the population, and despairing that people were not rebelling against it.  He is, of course, against COVID vaccination.  

I am sorry, but I have little sympathy for a person, whether prone to depression or not, if he does not have enough sense to contemplate that he might be the one who is wrong and being led up the garden path by bad faith, blind culture war warriors.   He also sounds like he has serious anger issues.

Anyway - my message to all the Benedict Option fans at Catallaxy (and libertarians anywhere longing to set up their new utopia in the middle of no-where):  please, go ahead and do it.  You're a danger to the rest of us.
 

 

Record dangerous rainfall, again

At Axios:

Northwestern Italy has been hit by record rainfall from a complex of thunderstorms, triggering flooding and mudslides, per AP.

By the numbers: 29.2 inches of rain fell in 12 hours on Monday in Rossiglione, Genoa province, just south of Milan. That's a new, all-time European record, meteorologists noted Tuesday.

 

Backup to GPS

I forgot to post about this when I saw it recently.   Given my view that satellite based global positioning is  an incredible thing that is greatly under-appreciated,  I just thought this was interesting:

SpaceX's Starlink satellites may be used for navigation and global positioning in addition to their core function of broadband Internet, a new research study suggests.

Engineering researchers external to SpaceX found a way to use the Starlink constellation signals for navigation similar to the capabilities provided by global positioning satellites (GPS), which are used in the United States and several other countries. The study represents the first time Starlink was used for navigation by researchers outside of SpaceX, the team members stated.

Researchers triangulated the signals from six Starlink satellites to fix upon a location on Earth with less than 27 feet (eight meters) of accuracy, the team reported in a statement. That's pretty comparable to the typical GPS capabilities of a smartphone, which typically pinpoints your spot on Earth to within 16 feet (4.9 m), depending on the conditions....

Kassas noted that Starlink's accuracy, using this methodology, will increase as more satellites in the fleet fly to orbit. SpaceX has about 1,700 working satellites today, the team stated, but the company hopes to launch more than 40,000 into orbit. (Recent launches have been delayed due to a liquid oxygen shortage induced by higher medical needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.)

The researchers suggested this method of using Starlink navigation could supplement traditional GPS navigation, the latter of which has vulnerabilities. Since GPS has been around for a generation (more than 30 years) and has a well-known signal, it is easy to use on smartphones or vehicles — but also more "vulnerable to attacks", the team stated.

 

Economists, big coins, and the theory of money

I'm just thinking out loud here, so don't shoot me anyone who has studied economics and thinks I don't know what I'm talking about:   it seems to me a serious problem for the field of economic theory if economists cannot agree on the effects of something as big as the Trillion Dollar Coin gambit if it were actually used in the USA. 

Here's a Washington Post article about it, explaining some points succinctly:

What’s the downside to the $1 trillion coin?

Experts are not entirely sure, mostly because the idea is entirely theoretical.

A major concern for economists is hyperinflation. Minting the $1 trillion coin would be like creating money out of thin air. When all that new money poofs into existence, the other currency in circulation becomes less valuable. That could hurt consumers, who are already dealing with price inflation.

Then there’s the question of what a $1 trillion coin would mean for U.S. monetary and fiscal policy. Monetary policy means making decisions about the money in the economy. That’s mostly left up to the Federal Reserve, which is somewhat insulated from political tinkering. Fiscal policy means making decisions about what the government spends money on. That’s an entirely political process left up to Congress and the president.

The $1 trillion coin would completely mix the two. It would have the president use monetary policy (creating new money) to solve a fiscal problem (the government is running out of borrowing capacity). Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said Tuesday that such a move “compromises the independence of the Fed.”....

“This is equivalent — the platinum coin is equivalent to asking the Federal Reserve to print money to cover deficits that Congress is unwilling to cover by issuing debt. It compromises the independence of the Fed, conflating monetary and fiscal policy,” she said. “And instead of showing that Congress and the administration can be trusted to pay the country’s bills, it really does the opposite.”

On the inflation side, we get these competing views:

 And this end one might have a point:

Is that at the heart of this, really?   That economics still has no good theory of what creates money and how it "works"?   I had a post about an article that argued this in 2019 - but I think Noah Smith, whose opinion seems pretty well informed, was not impressed. 

 

 

Yep, no change

So how's the Murdoch greenwashing announcement going?:

I do have to say, though, regarding the European and Chinese energy shortages:   I have never really understood how cold climate countries can show that they are really serious about zero carbon emissions (without nuclear) until they come up with the plan for dealing with their freezing winters with renewable energy.   I mean, years ago, I was saying that it seemed odd for a cloudy winter country like Germany to be putting too much reliance on home solar.   Sure, it might work well enough for half the year, but be of pretty limited utility for the part of the year where energy is really needed just to keep warm.

As I too am still not keen on nuclear, I suspect that, apart from extra wind power (which does not always work in winters), the only path forward for these countries to be a combination of long distance transmission of solar power (turn a few arid countries in North Africa into giant solar farms with cables running into Europe - it's not like they're doing anything very useful with the land anyway), plus utility scale storage.  I think - just a hunch - that flow batteries may be the way to go there - maybe some in the African countries itself, and some in Europe.

As for Australia - we can do the same, but on smaller scale, since not that much of the country gets that cold.   Still, we have the natural advantage of a northern part of the country enjoying dry, sunny winters,  which could supply winter power to the colder, cloudy winter parts of the country.   And, to a degree, vice versa in summer.

I think there is also much greater scope in Australia for domestic scale batteries - really, I don't see why the government just doesn't mandate home scale storage in all new house builds.  Economy of scale, you know.

Yes, we need to talk about..nurses

Nurses - (mostly) lovely people, doing a job that we all deeply appreciate when we need their services, and in many cases working under trying conditions: but gee it's disturbing how many of them are nonetheless capable of holding deeply unscientific views even on matters of medicine.  

I think this has always been the case - certainly I remember from my 20's (when for a time I used to socialise with nurses who I met through work and our communal living arrangements) that they could come out with some wacky stuff at times.  I have seen more than one doctor with a somewhat strained relationship with nurses too, for pretty much the same reason.

So I know that we can usually get by with ignoring some dubious beliefs they may express (and God knows we also need to ignore males in certain professions [*cough* engineers] when they get particularly prone to idiosyncratic and unwarranted certainty about matters outside of their expertise), but my toleration level for nurses who are against COVID vaccine mandates is non-existant.

Sack them, sack them, sack them.   

And I find it really outrageous that there are opportunistic Right wing aligned "workers associations", masquerading as "unions", which are trying to make political mileage out of pandering to them:

A set of “fake unions” with links to current and former Liberal and National party figures are capitalising on anti-vaccination fears to recruit doctors, teachers and nurses and exploit dissent within the labour movement about mandatory vaccinations.

Queensland-based Red Union claims nurses from Victoria and NSW are flocking to join its associations, which it says are adding more than 200 members a day amid fears of vaccination orders. In NSW, Liberal Party member John Larter is setting up three workers’ associations to compete with established unions for allied health, policing and paramedics.

Not much more to say about this, as no one is going to convince me I am wrong.   But I do note this, from the Onion, as a particularly wry take on it: