It's kind of incredible that Brisbane, and Queensland, have avoided extensive COVID outbreaks this long into the pandemic.
Given our charmed run, I wonder if this will break it, or if we will continue to have a semi-mysterious ability to avoid it, despite relatively slow vaccination rates...
As regular readers (all 4 of you!) know, I recommend people look at videos on China's propaganda news network CGTN to get an idea of what the nation is thinking - or perhaps more accurately, what the government wants the nation to think. (Or is it what the government wants other governments to think the nation is thinking? Who knows?)
Anyway, the advent of the recent semi-built space station is being used for what looks to Western eyes like some extremely corny and old fashioned manufactured patriotism. Have a look at all the saluting and reverence at this press event where the latest three taikonauts were introduced:
And then the send off ceremony when the blasted off a few days ago:
The thing is, it's hard to know whether the Chinese public is also cynically aware of how intensely media manufactured this looks, or are they genuinely swept up in this space based patriotism.
I also am always amused at how they are obviously pretty good at this space stuff now, except for an apparent inability to design sleek and futuristic uniforms and spacesuits. These always look to me to pretty baggy and daggy to me - like they are still being designed with a left over Mao era vibe.
If ever they have a death on a mission (and surely they are bound to eventually), I hate to imagine the media dramatics that would be around the funerals.
I agree with the sentiment of this tweet by a science fiction author (who I don't particularly care for, but his tweet account is OK.)
I'm not entirely sure why this is important to physics, but still, here's the abstract of a study trying to estimate all of the information capacity of the visible universe:
The information capacity of the universe has been a topic of great debate since the 1970s and continues to stimulate multiple branches of physics research. Here, we used Shannon’s information theory to estimate the amount of encoded information in all the visible matter in the universe. We achieved this by deriving a detailed formula estimating the total number of particles in the observable universe, known as the Eddington number, and by estimating the amount of information stored by each particle about itself. We determined that each particle in the observable universe contains 1.509 bits of information and there are ∼6 × 1080 bits of information stored in all the matter particles of the observable universe.
I find it hard to fault the arguments in Greg Jericho's recent piece about why nuclear power is not the saviour for Australia.
I do tend to wish, however, that governments everywhere were trying to come up with very specific and concrete proposals as to how they are going to swap to all renewable energy in a relatively short space of time. Making targets alone is not really enough.
This is about Trump's classless (to put it mildly) press release on the death of Colin Powell.
It’s gratuitous since he wasn’t obliged to say anything about Powell’s passing. It’s narcissistic, turning Powell’s death into a complaint about Trump’s critics. It’s petty in that it’s unwilling to honor Powell’s accomplishments, of which there were many. It’s obsessed with media coverage, particularly how other figures are covered relative to how Trump himself is. And it’s dishonest inasmuch as Trump doesn’t actually care about the Iraq WMD debacle or Powell’s role in it. That was the low point of Powell’s public service and so it’s cited here opportunistically, to bolster Trump’s case against Powell to the reader. To 45, there’s only one test of a man’s value: Was he pro-Trump or anti-Trump?
If Powell had supported him, Iraq would have been forgotten and Trump would have celebrated his career.
There was an article at Forbes recently that summarised a study which argued that the world could make significant inroads in clean energy by vastly expanding the amount of roof top solar panels - particularly in the densely populated parts of India and China, they argue.
I still say it should be a compulsory part of the building code in most of Australia, along with a minimum amount of home battery storage. An extra $20,000 or so on your average build (which is around $300,000) isn't going to kill anyone, especially when you get the savings on electricity and gas costs.
Here's the video you always knew you wanted to see - explaining the loose Japanese zoning laws that allow for a very highly mixed use of land in very small spaces:
This guy's videos are always good and interesting. He does make the interesting point at the end that the Japanese system seems both very capitalistic (allowing lots of freedom within a certain moderate set of restraints) but also sort of socialistic in the living spaces it develops (cars are not king; shops and facilities within walking distance - and neighbours living very close by - giving a sense of community).
I think the key thing he perhaps misses here is that Japanese communitarian cultural values came first; its not as if the zoning laws created them. And the Japanese are perhaps also inclined to just put up with certain inconveniences because of those values - such as people in apartments and houses living with loud talking drunks coming out of the pub or restaurant downstairs at 11.30pm every night to catch the last train.
So, it's probably a mistake to think that such zoning would work as well in Western countries.
I like using laundry detergent in pod form. They are convenient and not at all messy to use (well, subject to what I am about to say); it's easy to take a couple if you are going away for a few days and might need to wash clothes during the break; and they don't run any risk of gunking up pipes in the way the usual method of getting the detergent into a front load washing machine apparently can. They're also very clear in terms of working out value, as there is a simple and direct cost per wash on the price ticket on the supermarket, given they have to show unit price. (And by the way, they are a product on which supermarkets do this rotating specials thing continually - there always seems to be one brand which is on special for about 32 cent per pod, whereas the full price of the more expensive brands is close to $1. I only buy them on the cheaper pricing.)
But, I have found with the new front loading washer in my house that they can sometimes get squished against the window/door and fall into the rubber seal crease at the bottom, and take too long to get properly dissolved. This is because the way to use them in a front loader is said to be to put them in the drum and then load clothes on top of them. But, front loaders add water slowly, so they can be stuck spinning around for a while before everything gets wet enough for it to burst, and in the meantime can they move into the worst location for water contact.
My life hint, after trying worse methods (such as cutting them with scissors, or squeezing them with a cloth in the machine 'til they burst) is to briefly rinse the pod you are about to use under cold water and then put it in the machine. This seems to give the dissolving process a head start, and I have noticed that the detergent seems to be released quite quickly this way.
I do actually like watching the start of the cycle in our front loading machine to tell when the detergent seems to be released. Family members do think it rather odd when I do this, but we all have our special interests. :)
You can thank me for this important life advice, and I look forward to being the new Jordan Peterson.
Update: it didn't work this morning. :(
Further investigation required.
I only noticed this commentator because someone I more or less trust (I forget who now!) linked to one of his tweets, which sounded sensible. But man, I don't think I follow anyone else who swings so wildly between sounding more or less sensible, to just ridiculous.
He is, I gather, a small government libertarian type, and as such takes a "a pox upon both your houses" attitude towards the political parties in the US. But (I am reminded very much of Jason Soon) the thing that really seems to agitate him the most is Left wing identity politics. Which, as I have been saying for years, is a bit nuts in terms of how to prioritise serious problems.
Anyway, to illustrate my point of how wildly he swings, have a look at these examples. Is he always serious? I think so, but it's hard to tell. I would pretty much bet a $1,000 that he is single, though!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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"?
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.
