Hiding in plain sight

Yeah, this a very appealing idea because it's both cool and kind of funny. (Not that the post mentions AI in particular, but I mean the idea that an AI could be hiding within a computer network used for other purposes.)

Made me laugh

Maybe this has been around for a while?  (Hope I haven't actually posted it before!)  But I think I only notice today:

 

Everyone likes a tidying mouse

House-proud Welsh mouse may be ‘tidying’ for fun, say scientists

The rodent was filmed repeatedly gathering objects and placing them in a tray in a shed in Builth Wells

And in more pro-rodent discussion, this is on the ABC:

Why author James Mackinnon says our perception of rats and their role in the Black Death is wrong

No one thinks this was a good idea

This is not exactly the world's most important story, but it is interesting how the New York Times running a 5,000 word opinion piece by a "queer" staffer explaining why they are sure - positive! - that Taylor Swift has always been queer and has been sending cryptic messages along those lines in her lyrics since forever has been hit with near uniform criticism from both the Right and Left.   I mean, even in the comments following the article, the great majority were saying "Really?  Why is the NYT running this fangirl speculation at such length and with no thought to how annoying it could be to the person whose privacy has always been invaded?"

 

El Nino and dry weather

I'm getting a bit sick of the media coverage about "why is this summer so wet across Australia when the weather bureau said it should be dry because of El Nino?"

I mean, I was sure that I had read often in the past that El Nino does not necessarily guarantee a dry summer, and it took all of one Google search to find a BOM page from 2016 that confirms this:

El Niño is often, but not always, associated with drought in Australia. But the drying influence of the 2015–16 El Niño was initially tempered somewhat by very warm temperatures in the Indian Ocean. From April to August, above-average rainfall fell over parts of inland Western Australia, New South Wales and eastern Victoria.

But by spring, the Indian Ocean was helping El Niño, resulting in Australia's third-driest spring on record, limiting growth at the end of the cropping season. A record early heatwave in October further reduced crop production in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Yes, I get that the BOM late last year did give a seasonal forecast of dry conditions because of El Nino, but I have always assumed seasonal forecasts are "rubbery" because they fall into the "bumps along the way" gap between short term weather forecast (pretty accurate, but only up to about 7 - 8 days) and long term predictions of certain climate changes, like increasing global average temperature (also pretty accurate because it's based on physics and the bumps along the way are averaged out).  

I thought this was pretty obvious, but media with its "BOM got it wrong - why?" style headlines are not helping much.

 

I think this article came out the day before the "hole in the plane"

 Boeing is asking federal regulators to exempt a new model of its 737 Max airliner from a safety standard designed to prevent part of the engine housing from overheating and breaking off during flight.

The story ends:

The 737 Max went into service in May 2017. Two of the planes crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. All Max jets were grounded worldwide for nearly two years while the company made changes to an automated flight-control system that pushed the nose down based on faulty sensor readings.

More recently, Max deliveries have been interrupted to fix manufacturing flaws, and last month the company told airlines to inspect the planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder-control system.

 

 

Guardian, don't give me false hope

Are tattoos about to become uncool?

On the upside:  the writer claims that tattoo parlours are facing tough times, with reduced demand for their services.   (Seems just anecdotal, though.)

On the downside:  one just opened within about 800 m of my house, whereas before that I would guess the nearest would have been good 3 or 5 km away.

On the upside:  it's a bit like suicide prevention, it seems (sorry for the OTT comparison) - if you can delay the first urge, it reduces the risk:

Even a short delay in your first tattoo can set a person on a path of no tattoos.

Just over 50% of Australians get their first tattoo aged 18-25. And tattoos beget tattoos – most Aussies who have a tattoo have more than one. So if you make it to 25 without your first ink, you’re far more likely to keep your skin as is forever.

On the downside:  people in their 50's or older getting one under the influence of the younger cohort's fashion ideas seems to be a thing.    

And what to do about the head tattoo and employability?  Yesterday, I saw a guy, perhaps in 20's or early 30's, with hair trimmed on his head so short so that you could see that his skull was covered in tattoos, extending around to his face.   (Not to mention heavily tattooed arms and legs.)   He was Caucasian, and the tatts were not of any "tribal" design anyway, so that excuse didn't apply.   Is this a "don't bother employing me" tactic taken by men who want to live on welfare all their life? 

Another recent example of one of my big objections to tattooing - the kitch nature of so many tattoos as art - an attractive enough looking young woman, a bit overweight but not too much, with a prominent tattoo on (I forget where exactly) her upper arm or leg of the famous The Shining twin ghost girls - but with no face.  Seriously, what's the point of that as a permanent feature of your body?

 

More on that Catholic problem

At the New York Times (gift link):

Blessing of Same-Sex Couples Rankles Africa’s Catholics

It is out of step with the continent’s values, many bishops say, and threatens to derail expansion in the church’s fastest growing region in the world.

Also, as noted in a CNA report:

Catholic bishops in some countries, particularly in Africa, have expressed various degrees of dissent over the Dec 18 declaration, known by its Latin title Fiducia Supplicans (Supplicating Trust), which was approved by Pope Francis.

The fact that the Vatican needed to issue a five-page clarification of an eight-page declaration - little more than two weeks after it was issued - appeared to underscore the extent of the confusion it caused in many countries.

Further down:

Last week, Burundi's President Evariste Ndayishimiye called on citizens to stone gay people.

Uganda passed a law last May that carries the death sentence for certain categories of same-sex offences and lengthy jail sentences for others - a move that was widely condemned by Western governments and human rights activists.

On a side note:   do the "anti-colonial" academics - many of whom seem to be LGBT activists (if not LGBT themselves) really expect us to believe that it is the past colonialism that has caused a persistent culture of harsh anti-gay attitudes in much of Africa?

Airplane issues

Feels hard not agree with the sentiment expressed here:

This latest accident seems particularly ill timed for Boeing given that the whole world, virtually, just watched an Airbus deal successfully (from a passenger safety point of view, at least) with being drenched in fuel and lit alight.  (Admittedly, though, I didn't realise carbon fibre could burn away so thoroughly.). 

Whenever Airbus vs Boeing comes up, I am also reminded how some of the "rah-rah American free enterprise/European socialism stinks" crowd at the old Catallaxy blog used to dismiss Airbus because of their "how can you trust Europeans working together to get anything right?" attitude.

A long term concern for Singapore

Singapore's mean sea level may rise by up to 1.15m by 2100, exceeding previous estimates

According to updated projections from Singapore's third National Climate Change Study released on Friday (Jan 5), the mean sea level around Singapore will rise even higher than previously expected.

The study is based on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) sixth assessment report.

Previous projections forecast a mean sea level rise of up to 1m by the end of the century, but this third version of the study has revised the figure to 1.15m.  

The study has also gone beyond the end of the century, projecting a mean sea level rise of up to 2m by 2150 under a high carbon emissions scenario. The projected figures are relative to the baseline period of 1995 to 2014. 

Even though it will take decades to happen, this is still a major issue.  But if ever there was a country that I would trust to make some good long term planning decisions to try to mitigate this, it would be Singapore.

Genes and sexual behaviour, yet again

A news story at Science about a new study, which is summarised adequately in the title:

Bisexual behavior genetically tied to risk-taking, controversial DNA analysis finds

Study also finds different genes drive bisexuality versus other same-sex sexual behavior, but scientists split over data and potential for stigma

The first couple of paragraphs:

Politically and ethically fraught, research into what leads to bisexual behavior or exclusive homosexuality typically sparks controversy. The latest study, published today in Science Advances, is no exception. By mining a DNA database of some 450,000 people in the United Kingdom, a research team has concluded that the genes underlying bisexual behavior are distinct from those driving exclusive same-sex behavior, and may be intertwined with a propensity for taking risks. This connection to risk-taking, the authors suggest, may also explain why men with a history of bisexual behavior still have a reasonably high number of offspring, albeit fewer than heterosexual men, possibly explaining why the genes driving such sexual behavior have persisted.

The work has drawn a mix of strong reactions. Some scientists called the findings valuable, whereas others found fault with the underlying data. Still others argued the research could potentially stigmatize sexual minorities. The result that bisexuality is tied with risky behavior, some scientists say, could be used by others to discriminate against, and further perpetuate false narratives about, bisexual people.

I would have thought that part of the problem may be the way "risky behaviour" is used.  Here further down there is a line:

These DNA patterns were linked to taking risks in life and being open to new experiences.

Well, seems almost a given that you could describe a key aspect of bisexuality as "being open to new experiences".  If that was the extent of the DNA influence, it would surely count as "unsurprising".

There are some other parts of the article which are of interest, though:

From one stark evolutionary perspective, sex without the prospect of producing children could be seen as waste of time and energy—behavior that might be selected against. Yet population surveys have consistently found that about 2% to 10% of people engage in sex with others of the same sex. Studies of twins have suggested such sexual activity is at least partly heritable, and therefore has a genetic component. And scientists have proposed several evolutionary theories explaining why same-sex sexual behavior may persist.

In 2019, a research team used data from the UK Biobank, a large genetic and health database of half a million people of European ancestry in the United Kingdom, combined with data from the consumer DNA testing service 23andMe to pinpoint gene variants linked to sexual behavior. In what is still the largest genome-wide association study (GWAS) on this topic, the researchers found that having certain genetic variants could explain up to 25% of same-sex sexual behavior.

The 25% figure sounds surprisingly low?   I suppose the issue of exposure to hormones in utero could take up a lot of the slack?  

Anyway, the article notes that there is a lot of criticism of the study, and yeah, that issue of the use of the term "risk taking" is one of them:

Steven Reilly, a geneticist at Yale School of Medicine, and others note the use of the UK Biobank’s data itself is problematic. Most of the people in it are more than 50 years old and grew up during a time when same-sex sexual encounters were illegal in the U.K. and homosexuality was considered by many a mental disorder. That history of stigma could have affected how they responded to questions about their sexual history, he notes. He adds that because the risk-taking behavior trait used in the study comes from the answer to a single question, it’s not clear, scientifically, what “risk-taking” entails.

So, overall, sounds more than a tad dubious, but it is interesting if it does provide reason to definitely accept bisexuality as a "genuine" thing. They have complained forever that both straight and gay people get up their nose (not literally!) when they label them as just "gay in denial".   And this is blackly funny:

Important formative work has been conducted that aims to understand the concept of bisexuality in the consciousness of the general population. One study, using a feeling thermometer technique, found that bisexual men and women were viewed less favorably than all other comparison populations provided (including religious, racial, political and sexuality groups), save for injection drug users.31

I've always found this modern "disbelief" in bisexuality hard to understand - I would have thought that the ancient world of Greece and Rome, not to mention China and Japan, and various other societies at various stages of history, (not to mention more modern high profile individuals like Oscar Wilde), provide plenty of evidence that some men, in particular, were open to sexual activity with both genders, and didn't get hung up on categorising their behaviour.   

Don't bother, it won't...

The New York Times:

What if Dance Could Save the World? 

Mind you, I think poetry has an even smaller chance.  :)

An odd detail

Of course, drug taking at raves is not something which marks anyone as a deserving target of an appalling terrorist attack.   But I still don't like the drug taking aspect of raves.  From The Guardian, an Israeli (I think) talking about the attack on 7 October:

Nadav Hanan was at the smaller of the dance stages at the Nova dance festival in southern Israel when Hamas attacked.

It was the beginning of an extended nightmare for the 27-year-old that saw him zigzag more than 15 miles of rough ground barefoot, surviving seven ambushes by Hamas attackers along the route to safety.

“It was after 6am. It was the peak of the party,” Hanan recalled in a bar in the Israeli city of Rehovot last month. “A lot of people time their drugs to kick in for sunrise at these parties. It should be one of the best moments.

“The people at the main stage couldn’t see what was happening but we had a clear view of Gaza. We could see Iron Dome [the Israeli anti-missile defence system] working. I knew the party was over.”

 

An unusual hotel problem in Singapore

I'm thinking of having a quick trip to Singapore soon, and have been checking out the cost of budget hotels.  I've learnt to avoid Hotel 81, as it seems that many Singaporeans treat it effectively as their "love hotel" chain, where rooms can be hired for a couple of hours.  (While that may make little difference to me in my room, at least if the walls are soundproof enough, it would indicate a lot of housecleaning goes on all day, which can make the corridors untidy.)  

There are many Ibis budget hotels, though, and one is a bit out of the way but close to the big Vivo shopping centre which I visited last time.  (It's just across from Sentosa Island, too - which I have yet to actually visit.)

Anyway, two reviews of this particular hotel make complaint about the wild chickens of Singapore waking them up!:

Rooms are tiny, overpriced, and the chickens wake you up every morning at 3 am. Staff is friendly, but that is the only thing good.

And:

Dont stay here if you want to sleep. There are dozens of wild chickens and at least 6 roosters that start around 4am every day, they will drive you crazy.  

The hotel replies to the last comment with this:

 Many of our guests have found the fowls to be interesting as our natural surroundings provide a very different vibe away from city. This is the first time we have received a feedback from our guests that they found them to be noisy.

I have posted before about my surprise at seeing attractive wild chickens even around the very built up Tanjong Pagar area.  They are pretty, but yeah, I would prefer not to be woken up by them...

Depressing but interesting

That's how I would describe this lengthy New York Times Magazine article about the controversial topic of how ethical it is to let treatment resistant anorexia patients go onto to "palliative care" instead of forcing treatment.

But one aspect of the disease surprised me:

And the sickest of patients can still get better — even after decades of failed treatment. One study of adult patients with anorexia, published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in 2017, found that nine years after the start of their illness, only 31.4 percent had recovered — but that by 22 years, the recovery rate had doubled to 62.8 percent. “These findings,” the study’s authors wrote, “should give patients and clinicians hope that recovery is possible, even after long-term illness, suggesting that even brief periods of weight restoration and symptom remission from anorexia nervosa are meaningful and may be the harbingers of more durable gains to be made ahead.”

I didn't know that...

And people mock me for my fear of lightning

I really dislike being outside if there is any lightning happening, and close house windows too during storms even if the rain is not coming in.  I've always said though that my precautions are just sensible, and it's likely that more people are hurt by lightning than is commonly realised.  (News stories of people hurt by lightning often get little attention, compared to roofs blown away or trees on houses that makes for more visual news stories arising out of storms.)   Here's some evidence to back me up:

Over the weekend, Queensland Ambulance Service transported two patients to hospital after being struck by lightning within hours of each other, one while inside a car at Burpengary on the Bruce Highway and one in Eudlo while on an excavator.

In late December, two patients were taken to Mareeba Hospital in a serious condition after being hit while at a private residence.

In mid-December, a 10-year-old girl was taken to Sunshine Coast University Hospital in a critical condition after being struck — the following day a man was taken to Gold Coast University Hospital after he was struck in Biggera Waters....

Mr Kirkby — who has worked in lightning protection services for more than 20 years — said while it was rare for people to be struck directly, there was still a significant risk of injury and death.

"This is one of the biggest fallacies out there, only three to five per cent of all statistics are people that are struck directly," he said.

"The majority of the injury and fatality statistics are from people that have been exposed to indirect strikes [when] the ground becomes highly electrified from a nearby lightning strike or if you're touching something which has been electrified."

My grandmother got a shock via her landline telephone, in fact, although as far as I know it led to no long term injury.   (One good thing about mobile phones replacing landlines is that this must happen much, much less often now.)

Conservative Catholic culture wars

It was remiss of me to not post about two recent events of note:

1.    That crank, the (former) former gay, self-promoting, conservative (Trad?) US Catholic Michael Voris has resigned/been sacked from his own organisation for some unspecified moral impropriety which remains undisclosed, but if you want a fast way to lose money, put it on "nothing to do with gay sex".  Here's my 2013 post in which I criticised him and his ilk - it reminded me that I hadn't looked up that Father Z character for a long time too.  He's still blogging, I see.  (I think he's not allowed to do much within the church, so he has a lot of time on his hands?)   

Look, the state of the American Catholic church with its willingness to play footsy with Trump is still dire.  Pew reported in 2021:

White Catholics, meanwhile, follow yet another pattern. About six-in-ten White Catholics who attend Mass monthly or more often (63%) supported Trump in the 2020 election, while 36% supported Biden. Less frequent Mass attenders expressed less support for Trump (53%) and more support for Biden (47%).

 But at least there is now some pushback from the Pope himself.

I could be wrong, but my impression overall is that the Trad/conservative Catholic Right has peaked in influence in the US and the West generally.  That's a good thing, in my opinion.  

However:

2.    The recent kerfuffle about "blessing gay couples" shows that it's not as if the rest of the Church really has any idea where it is going, and continues to get tied up on not knowing how to handle the issue of sex and sexuality.   Pope Francis does seem to delight in making statements that sound as if they are sympathetic to a change in attitude, while issuing instructions that don't really make any technical difference at all.   Look at the convoluted explanation given at the Vatican News website about the thinking behind allowing priests to give a spontaneous blessing to a gay couple:

The third part of the Declaration (paragraphs 31-41) opens then to the possibility of these blessings that represent a sign for those who “recognizing themselves to be destitute and in need of his help—do not claim a legitimation of their own status, but who beg that all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit” (par. 31).

These blessings should not necessarily become the norm, the Statement notes, but entrusted to “a practical discernment in particular circumstances” (par. 37).

Although the couple is blessed but not the union, the Declaration notes that what is blessed is the legitimate relationship between the two people: in “a brief prayer preceding this spontaneous blessing, the ordained minister could ask that the individuals have peace, health, a spirit of patience, dialogue, and mutual assistance—but also God’s light and strength to be able to fulfill his will completely” (par. 38).

So - it's OK to bless the "legitimate" aspects of the relationship, while always bearing in mind that there is no way the relationship status can be "legitimised" per se.   Rather, it needs to be healed.

I think it fair to say that gay couples asking for a blessing are not wanting it to be one which conveys the message that their relationship is fundamentally flawed and against God's will - yet really, that is what is still what the Pope is at pains to retain.   

Anyway,  the Church will continue to be full of contradiction and tension on this, and teachings which  most laity won't follow, and I don't really know the way to resolve it all, short of something which would cause a permanent structural fracturing. 

Ghostly interest returns, and what is their significance?

Good thing I read The Guardian, otherwise I would have no idea that (according to one person, at least), discussion of ghostly experiences is in vogue again, probably due to a podcast series.   (In fact I had been meaning to comment here in recent months that I really miss reading about any good, spooky, real life stories of ghosts or similar experiences.  It seemed to me that interest in the supernatural was in fact at a particular low point, perhaps crowded out by some pretty stupid and gullible stuff on UFOs that has been dominating Twitter/X.)

From The Guardian article in question:

Everybody seems to be talking about ghosts right now. I turn up to dinners with friends, we’re talking about ghosts. I sit in the office, the conversation is dominated by ghosts again. I’m scrolling through Facebook groups and reading ghost stories that I then try to tell my boyfriend about (he ignores me). It feels as if ghosts are suddenly having a moment, a strange little resurgence into the mainstream. I think ghosts may be in vogue.

As for how and why ghosts have started to creep into polite conversation, there is a clear culprit. A few months ago the Amazon-owned podcast network Wondery published Ghost Story, a seven-part series hosted by the journalist Tristan Redman. Ghost Story focuses on a murder that occurred two generations ago in Redman’s wife’s family and, by absolute coincidence, took place in the house next door to where Redman grew up.

Redman details unnerving and inexplicable experiences that he had in his childhood bedroom and explains that his investigation into his wife’s family story was launched by news that two families who had lived successively in the house after his own family moved out had also experienced similar – seemingly paranormal – activity.

Apparently Redman tries to take a rational approach to it all and is all the more convincing because of that.   Certainly sounds like something that I should listen to.

The article writer then considers generally why ghosts have appeal:

Stress can increase our awareness of the little bumps and quirks of life that we may have previously walked past without a second thought. And of course it is entirely possible that talking about ghosts with friends primes us to pay attention to the dark corners of our apartments that previously felt perfectly comfortable and didn’t have to contain malevolent spirits or anything. This could be a rather self-perpetuating cycle.

But it’s also fair to say that telling ghost stories can be a simple comfort and form of escapism that we shouldn’t completely denounce. After all, many of us grew up in cultures where ghosts were part of the spiritual landscape and, in the vast universe of bizarre things to believe in, ghosts have to be among the most benign and least politically bothersome. They don’t lend themselves particularly well to the construction of conspiracy theories, they don’t have any troubling racist undertones and they’re not going to lead people to attempt an insurrection at the Capitol Building any time soon.

We should always remain vigilant about the emergence of pseudoscience and perhaps Carl Sagan would argue that even humouring ghost stories is a slippery slope towards a total collapse of scientific knowledge. But I think we can all agree that people can be much more discerning than that and, in the troubling year of 2023, maybe we all deserve a few ghost stories, as a treat.

Fair enough, I guess.

But I think it underplays the actual significance that any proof of a supernatural realm would entail.

I mean, I have always felt that given the way the scientific materialist view of the world has no explanatory framework at all for the existence of supernatural events, whether they be ESP, psychokinesis, reincarnation or an un-embodied entity (be it poltergeist or someone's soul), this makes any credible evidence that anything paranormal or supernatural exists incredibly significant.  It would blow a gigantic hole in the current scientific (and psychological?) way of understanding the universe.

I mean, the absolute most that science can try to squeeze into its current framework is retro-causation and the weird nature of time as possible explanation of what might otherwise be considered ghostly events.   (See the movie Interstellar - that aspect was the only thing I thought somewhat interesting and  novel in that grossly over-rated film.)

Because it (scientific materialism) has no framework at all for explaining how a personality could survive death and live in an invisible world and sometimes appear within ours (the multiverse ideas really don't allow it either - given their absolute quarantining of the different universes), this is actually a great incentive to pay attention to any evidence of ghosts.   And while an Occam's Razor approach to personal anecdotes (to conclude that a ghost story is more likely an invention or mistake than something "real") is generally very wise, I hate the way that it means (for many people) that they simply refuse to believe that there could ever be anything to personal experiences that seem inexplicable without something supernatural.  

I did try explaining this in a conversation with an old (atheist) girlfriend decades ago, and her response was "well, if ever there was proof of life after death, it still wouldn't be supernatural - it would just mean that there is a part of nature that we didn't realise was there.  So it still doesn't mean that there's a God or anything."    While this is technically true, especially on the point of God (see Buddhism), this still struck me as a massive attempt at "cope" for how mindblowing proof disembodied personalities should be for the scientific materialist.

I have the feeling I may have made a similar explanation to this before, but perhaps in not as much detail.   But it is why any credible sounding story of a paranormal or supernatural event gives me a bit of a thrill to this day, and why I feel somewhat disappointed when it seems there that parapsychology had hit a dead end in terms of convincing proof of anything that can't fit into the current paradigms.

Now, to find that podcast....

 

Various thoughts, sacred and profane, I guess you could say

*   I've finally gotten used to reading at length on a tablet - specifically my cheapo Lenovo 10.6 inch model that I've had for a year - and I see now that you can pick one up for $80 less than when I bought it.  (Now costs $247.)   The thing that has made a small but significant difference was downloading books in .epub format and reading them on the Google Play Books app.  (I've previously only tried reading .pdf format books on various .pdf reader apps - it was OK, but the Play Books app with an .epub book just works so well, especially if reading a book full of footnotes.)   And a 10.6 inch screen tablet is just the right weight and size for single page reading.  I've never been interested in a Kindle due to the inadequate screen size.  

*  So, what have I been reading?   I finished the (admittedly short) book on Pure Land Buddhism;  had a quick scan through "No Self - No Problem" (about neuroscience "confirming" Buddhist ideas of "no self") but it felt a bit dated, even though it is only from 2018;  and have been reading large slabs of "Nietzsche and Buddhist Philosophy" - which was found via a question to an AI search engine which took me to a forum on Buddhism and someone who recommended it.   It is pretty interesting, to be honest, despite my long term scepticism of paying much attention to Nietzsche's ramblings.  

*  There are various threads from this recent reading (and Youtube viewing) swirling around my brain, and I feel the need to try to "pin down" some of it by compiling a long essay/post for it to fit together.   But there's always a distraction around the corner.  This sense of stumbling around towards an important key insight has only been going on for about 40 years, though, so obviously I don't believe in hurrying such things!  (It also reminds me a bit about reading Philip K Dick's VALIS trilogy back in the 1980's - was some insight that all made sense of Life, the Universe and Everything about to be revealed?  Not really, as it turned out, but the possibility of it was part of the fun...)

*  As for other things I did over the Christmas/New Year break - nothing much, as the weather here was storms (mostly) only interrupted by a couple of days of debilitating heatwave (37 or 38 degrees with high humidity.)   Fortunately, my part of Brisbane didn't get significant damage, although some suburbs not too far away did (from storm wind, mainly.)   I feel very sorry for the residents of Mount Tamborine, which is a very pretty part of the world but has suffered the worst destruction from which it looks likely to take many months to recover.  

*  The most enjoyable thing I watched on Netflix over the break - don't laugh, but it was the Puss in Boots - The Last Wish.   This entry in the Shrek universe, so to speak, got very good reviews at the time, and it really is well written and surprisingly mature in theme.   (I see someone called it a "meditation on the inevitability of death" - which I suppose it is, as told by fairy tale characters who end up feeling more "real" than most recent superhero characters!)  

*  Summer breaks are about the only time I watch any bits of quiz shows on TV, and I have to say that I don't understand how The Chase has lasted this long.  It certainly must be cheap to make, given that the impression from my occasional viewing is that they must only have to pay anything to a contestant once every year (or two?)    I don't understand the appeal of a show in which the chances of winning seem so remote.    

And as for the other puzzling quiz show - I have been meaning to say ever since it began last year that the advertisements for "The 1% Club" on channel 7 are pretty remarkable because of the way the host (a comedian, apparently) comes across as an old fashioned jerk with dated material.  (A lot about bad marriages, and general put downs that feel like slightly warmed over insult comedy of the Don Rickles variety.)   Surely this won't work, I thought.  Yet to my great surprise, I see from the latest advertisements that the show is a ratings hit, and it seems they aren't lying.   Now that I look into it more, I see that in fact the Daily Mail ran a story when the show first started about the host being derided on social media as having no charisma.  (For once I agree with that august journal.)  Yet people are watching it.

Maybe it's me - I've never enjoyed "serious" quiz shows, really (the ones with contestants playing for money);  but it still seems to me that they have become worse as the decades progress.   (I last derided one in 2016 - the truly pointless and dull Pointless.) 

And now when I Google the recent shows, I see a common theme - they are all Australia versions of shows originating in England.   Ah well, that fits in with the general degradation of all cultural content coming out of that country over the last 30 or 40 years.

      

 

 

New Year amusement

Andrew Mark Henry is the guy who makes great YouTube videos at Religion for Breakfast.