Hope this is true

Funniest comment following:

I'm not sure how I feel about this!

Hmmm:

Reddit strikes $60M deal allowing Google to train AI models on its posts

On a related matter, for some reason as I walking between my car and my office this morning, I had an idle thought about how fear of a smarter-than-any- human Artificial General Intelligence that will destroy humanity might have an analogue with the start of fear of God at the very beginning of theism?   If so, are we going to develop an idea of sacrifices to keep AGI on side?   What type of sacrifice might we now perceive a silicon AGI to desire?

[Really, this is a very "thoughts in the shower" line of thinking - but I was fully clothed at the time.]

Update:  It has since occurred to me that it would be funny if the AGI demands that Elon Musk be thrown in a volcano as an act of appeasement.  Can't say I would be too upset.

I can only imagine how irritating this would be...

A somewhat amusing account about what it was like for one audience member at a Taylor Swift concert in Sydney:

The sound of the 80,000-strong crowd were deafening as Swift finally took to the stage for our show. It was adulation bordering on hysteria: Phones held aloft (to capture stunning footage of … the phones held up in front of them), young fans crying, thunderous applause.

But, as Swift began her opening song, the moody ballad Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince, one voice in our area rose above the masses.

A fan in the row behind me, screaming every. single. lyric in a voice that could only be described as heavily indebted to the vocal stylings of Cannibal Corpse singer George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher.

And on it went, for the full three-and-a-half hour show. Our own personal death metal concert (Taylor’s Version). And before you come for me for yucking some poor fan’s yum, I implore you to watch the video at the top of this story. That was the sound we were dealing with for the whole show.

What was weirdest was that these demonic screams were the loudest not during the show’s bigger, singalong production numbers – undeniable bangers like Shake It Off or Ready for It that had every man woman and child singing the lyrics back at Taylor– but during the quiet, sparse piano ballads like My Tears Ricochet or the ironically named Tolerate It.

Nothing but the sound of Taylor, her piano, and a deranged gremlin.

For one brief, beautiful song, death metal banshee took a short break, perhaps to use the bathroom or have emergency vocal chord surgery.

It was then that I could enjoy the concert as it was intended: Cheering fans, singalongs, but also a clearly audible Taylor Swift.

Hearing Taylor Swift sing a Taylor Swift concert – imagine that!

And it seems the fans exhibiting this behaviour are well aware of just how irritating – if not concert-ruining – their screams are to those around them.

Rather than being filmed by other annoyed fans, these concert caterwaulers are posting their efforts on social media themselves, usually with captions joking that they sure feel sorry for anyone unlucky enough to be sat near them. Indeed – if only there was a solution to this seemingly unfixable problem!

 How did he manage to not tell her to shut up, at least after the first 30 minutes....

British decline, illustrated

I really was put off that Bald and Bankrupt guy on Youtube when he did a trip through Vietnam, and seemed to act quite obnoxiously to the locals.   (I figure that he is OK with interacting with locals when he knows some of the language - but when he knows none of it, he's a wisecracking "ugly" tourist.)   He has also always been too much on the "lads being lads" side of things, and I forget who did an explanation about his seedy side. 

However, he has lately taken to putting some videos about visits to some decrepit towns of Britain, and I'm there for that kind of content!   They really, really make the country look like a lost cause.  (Actually, there is another British vlogger who has been putting similar content, visiting "high streets" in many British towns, and decrepit residential areas, and showing how depressing they look.)   

Also, I sometimes watch videos where British migrants (or even tourists) talk about Australia and what it's like to live or visit here, and I have noticed that the great majority of the comments from British viewers are along the lines of "oh my God, it makes Britain look like a third world country".     

So, if you want to see some very awful parts of Britain (which, incidentally, seem extremely easy to find) have a look at this video:

 

To be fair, although I don't want to be, some people in comments after the video point out that you can find decrepit areas in many European cities (and someone said even in Vancouver!)     But there are aspects to the British decline that  are very self-inflicted, and I think that's what makes it "special" (in a bad way).   And also, make me feel how very lucky Australia is to never have developed quite the same level of urban decay, virtually anywhere (except for some smaller outback towns, I guess).

The promising blue pill

I remain a bit puzzled about why the first stories about this, which appeared at the end of 2021 (as a result of a different study), did not seem to result in a plethora of jokes on talk shows or elsewhere.   But here's a detailed article in the Washington Post about a new study with similar results:

Why Viagra has been linked with better brain health

One bit:

The findings are based on a massive study of nearly 270,000 middle-aged men in Britain. Researchers at University College London used electronic medical records to track the health of the men, who were all 40 or older and had been diagnosed with erectile dysfunction between 2000 and 2017. Each man’s health and prescriptions were tracked for at least a year, although the median follow-up time was 5.1 years.

During the study, 1,119 men in the cohort were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

The researchers noticed a distinctive pattern. The men who were prescribed Viagra or a similar drug had an 18 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, compared with men who weren’t given the medication.

The researchers also found an even larger difference in men who appeared to use Viagra more often. Among the highest users, based on total prescriptions, the risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s was 44 percent lower. (Men with erectile dysfunction are instructed to only take Viagra before sex, and no more than once a day.)

And yeah, there is a question of causation or correlation, but as the article notes, there is reason to suspect its more than mere correlation.

Update:  well, in more oddball viagra news I just noticed -

A priest in Spain has been arrested for allegedly running a Viagra trafficking operation from his home.

The unnamed clergyman was detained alongside another man on suspicion of selling the medication, as well as "other powerful aphrodisiac substances", according to El Pais.

He was arrested in Spain's western Extremadura region and has appeared in court charged with a criminal offence.

The priest's lawyer told local media the allegations were unfounded.

More "but he's old"

 

Here's a bit of context from the WAPO.

Trust Americans to come up with a new thing to overdose on

I hadn't even heard of the pain relief herb kratom before, but it's causing deaths in Americans:

A Washington Post review of federal and state statistics shows that medical examiners and coroners are increasingly blaming deaths on kratom — it was listed as contributing to or causing at least 4,100 deaths in 44 states and D.C. between 2020 and 2022. The vast majority of those cases involved other drugs in addition to kratom, which is made from the leaves of tropical trees. Still, the kratom-involved deaths account for a small fraction of the more than 300,000 U.S. overdose deaths recorded in those three years.

Dozens of wrongful death lawsuits involving kratom have been filed nationwide — including by Geers’s mother, who in February sued a Nevada retailer. The suits illustrate increased scrutiny of deaths involving products made from kratom, which is banned in six states but remains widely available online and in vape and convenience stores despite health warnings from federal authorities.

Here's a gift link to the Washington Post story.

A bad review noted

You don't often seem to see really bad reviews in The Guardian of theatre that comes from (what might be called) lefty source material, but this is quite a savage one of the musical Rent being staged in Melbourne.

I am not surprised that it sounds like I would really dislike it as a musical, as I was very underwhelmed by the same writer's Tick Tick...Boom which was made into a movie on Netflix.   Yeah, it's sad that he died young and before he could develop more, but still...

They seek it here, they seek it there...

From PhysOrg:

A study recently submitted to The Astronomical Journal continues to search for the elusive Planet Nine (also called Planet X), which is a hypothetical planet that potentially orbits in the outer reaches of the solar system and well beyond the orbit of the dwarf planet, Pluto.

The goal of this study, which is available on the pre-print server arXiv, was to narrow down the possible locations of Planet Nine and holds the potential to help researchers better understand the makeup of our solar system, along with its formation and evolutionary processes....

Dr. Brown tells Universe Today, "This would be the 5th largest planet of our solar system and the only one with a mass between Earth and Uranus. Such planets are common around other stars, and we would suddenly have a chance to study one in our own solar system."

Scientists began hypothesizing the existence of Planet Nine shortly after the discovery of Neptune in 1846, including an 1880 memoir authored by D. Kirkwood and later a 1946 paper authored by American astronomer, Clyde Tombaugh, who was responsible for discovering Pluto in 1930.

More recent studies include studies from 2016 and 2017 presenting evidence for the existence of Planet Nine, the former of which was co-authored by Dr. Brown.

This most recent study marks the most complete investigation of narrowing down the location of Planet Nine, which Dr. Brown has long-believed exists, telling Universe Today, "There are too many separate signs that Planet Nine is there. The solar system is very difficult to understand without Planet Nine."

He continues by telling Universe Today that "…Planet Nine explains many things about orbits of objects in the outer solar system that would be otherwise unexplainable and would each need some sort of separate explanation."

 

Some very random stuff

*   Hollywood's Edward Zwick (director/producer - and writer?) teased us with tweets about the movie making business for a couple of years, it seemed, while he was writing a book about it.  The book is now released and is getting good reviews.  He also has this interview at the NYT.   He seems a likeable guide to when Hollywood made better movies than it does now.  

You know, one thing that puzzles me a bit about Hollywood is that movies or shows that feature heavily story lines about how awful the acting/production business is - the most recent example that brought this to mind is the series Barry - always seem very convincing, yet the shows are made by Hollywood producers. Every decade we do have movies or TV shows which say "this business is awful and full of awful people", but it doesn't seem to change much regardless.   Isn't that a little odd?

*  I'm old enough to remember when shave gels first came on the market - I would guess the early 1980's? - and I have always liked them for the way they transform.   But I have been using shave soaps for quite a while - they are fun in their own way.  (And a tube of the cheapo Palmolive Lather Shave and a shaving brush is the best for travel shaving.)   

But a certain laziness meant that I have recently starting using gels again, and can now say for sure - Shick's Hydro Gel is better to use than Gillette's equivalent.  

*  Are modern sausages made much saltier than they used to be?  We don't eat a lot at our home, but that is often the impression I get - and I don't buy the cheapest, either.

Generally speaking, buying German style sausages is the best way to go - the brand at Aldi is especially good.  It's the only thing worth preserving about German cuisine, I reckon.

*  I take it as a sign that Elon is having a lot of trouble selling advertising on X/Twitter that my feed has been chock full of advertisements for "toe mushrooms" - nails with fungal infections - for a week or more now.   And it's not just me, I saw someone else say "why am I seeing 50 pics a day of gross toe nails?"

* There's a long, magazine style article from the Washington Post about the losses of Catholicism to Evangelical churches in Brazil - in particular, the isolated parts of the Amazon, where sometimes a priest would only turn up once a year.   All pretty interesting, although I didn't get to the end yet.

Tuck's incredibly shrinking credibility

Well, it was already in the negative range, but now it's in freefall:

 Update:  one of the Right-iest writers at Hot Air attacks Tucker hard.

Powerline calls him "stupid".

PJ Media says he is "wrong".

It's hard to find any right wing outlet that doesn't criticise this pathetic exercise...

Frankenrice

 Well, this is interesting:

Rice has been used as a scaffold to grow beef muscle and fat cells, resulting in an edible, “nutty” rice–beef combo that can be prepared in the same way as normal rice.

The study, published today in Matter¹, uses manufacturing methods similar to those for other cultured meat products, in which animal cells are grown on a scaffold in a laboratory, bathed in a growth medium. Using rice as the scaffold has the benefit of adding nutrition to the rice, with the beef–rice having a slightly higher fat and protein content than standard rice.

The team of South Korean researchers behind the project hopes that the beef–rice will find use as a supplement for food-insecure communities or to feed troops, and will reduce the environmental impact of rearing cattle for beef. “Finding alternative protein sources or making conventional livestock production more efficient is critical,” says Jon Oatley, an animal biotechnologist at Washington State University in Pullman. “It’s probably one of the most important things facing the future of the human race.”

I guess it gets over the "how do we make the texture like real meat" issue with growing a bunch of meat cells in a lab, but it still sounds like an expensive way to increase protein and fats.  And if the rice is sitting in liquid for a week, while cells grow on it, what sort of texture does it end up with?  Mush?  No, according to this, it's harder?   How does that work?

...the researchers found that coating the rice in fish gelatin and the widely used food additive microbial transglutaminase improved cell attachment and growth. After glazing uncooked rice grains with the gelatin–additive mix, the team seeded the grains with bovine muscle and fat cells. Then, the cells sat in the growth medium for around a week.

After the culturing period, Park washed and steamed the beef-infused rice as she would conventional rice. “It was definitely different from regular rice,” she says. “It was more nutty and harder.”

And I'm sceptical about the cost claim:

The team estimates that 1 kilogram of the rice as it’s made now would cost US$2.23, comparable with normal rice ($2.20/kg) and far less than beef ($14.88/kg). And the study estimates that hybrid rice will have a lower emissions footprint than farmed beef.

We will see if this goes anywhere, but I have my doubts!

Too smart to recognise the damage he's causing?

I happened to see that Jon Stewart's reappearance as a (once a week) host of the Daily Show was on YouTube last night, and he put in a disappointing performance.  I agree with most of the takes here:

Yes, he really lost me, and struck me as kinda stupid, when he mocked the answer Biden gave on Gaza at his press conference:  the very answer I praised the other day!  It was in fact another case of editting to hide the big picture - he showed Biden's caution at the start of the answer, while he was clearly thinking how to diplomatically express himself, and painted it as a sign of Biden feebleness.  

Really, that's pretty disgraceful, and Stewart deserves to be attacked for it.

I don't doubt he's smart, but seemingly not smart enough to see the harm he is doing in encouraging cynicism among voters who don't get their preference to see a younger candidate.

Time for some light relief

I thought that this sketch from last week, which was a "cold opener" for an interview Colbert did with director Christopher Nolan, was very witty.  He has pretty great writers:

Why let a lie be repeated so often?

We are at the anniversary of my post saying this, after watching much of Biden's State of the Union address (in which he painted an optimist picture for the USA, and which, economically at least, has been proved correct since then):

But the thing that struck me most is, once again, how utterly stupid the Right wing commentariat looks for their years of claiming Biden is virtually a demented nursing home candidate, all based on brief video edits of no consequence.

As I have complained many times, anyone who has first hand experience of actual dementia decline in a parent, if they are honest, knows that someone with serious issues cannot handle themselves in public speaking in the manner that Biden does. 

But the mainstream media has let the nutjob Right repeat it to itself a million times, and rarely comments how this is pure, offensive, propaganda that, by rights, should remove all credibility on every issue.

And here we are again, with the media frothing about his mental abilities.

AGAIN, so much of this is due to people not watching more than propaganda edits, or mindless media (even mainstream media) repeating of what Right wing propaganda says we should be thinking.   (And then they have the hide to do subsequent reports on "polling indicates voters very worried about Biden's mental health.)

The actual press conference is here, and what is remarkable is:

a.    the screeching, undignified, harassing nature of the press behaviour - by rights he should have walked out until they agreed to ask questions in an orderly fashion;

b.    more importantly, for the purposes of this post, is that  it's from about the 9 minute mark where he takes a completely off the cuff question about the Gaza situation, comes back to the podium, and speaks (off the cuff) in a completely cogent and compassionate and careful manner about what he has been doing and trying to achieve.   This has been completely overwhelmed by the misnaming of a leader - a mistake he been making for decades, according to some tweets I have seen, and which Trump has been doing himself repeatedly, and recently.

It is literally absurd for Right wing pundits to claim this is proof of dementia.   

His answer, as a whole, shows the exact opposite of how it is being portrayed, and it is an appalling failure of the main stream media to be aiding this propaganda rather than attacking it, as the New York Times has been particularly inclined to do (the promotion of propaganda, I mean).  As with "but her emails" and "Hilary is on her death bed" propaganda of 2016, the Right has become so enamoured of telling itself lies and twisting truth into pretzels they just can't stop now.   And MSM helps by not attacking it.

Here's the video: 

 

 

And here are some tweets of note on this:

The reviews are in...

....and they don't sound too good for the Tucker/Putin interview.

That's the impression I get from this summary from Hot Air.    

Of course, lots of MAGA types are still trying to hit their erections with a cold spoon about how brilliant Putin is (compared to Biden) in giving a 30 minute (or was it one hour?) lecture on his version of Russian history.   

But the e-vil Leftists think it wasn't a good look for Tucker:

And this:

 

 

The conspiracy nutters weigh in:

More:

 

Here's the nuance on classified documents

Gee, the Washington Post does some good "explainer" articles on political stories.  Here's one on the investigation into classified documents found in Biden's house, and why it is very, very different from what Trump did.  (It's a gift link, btw.)

Hardly surprising that idiots don't recognise a useful idiot

I should have taken a screenshot of a tweet last night which summed up the wingnut, wetting-their-pants-with-excitement, reaction to Tucker Carlson doing an interview as Lord Haw Haw/Tokyo Rose with Putin:   the Deep State/Left is going berserk over it because they know that if normal people watch Putin being interviewed at length, they will realise what a decent human being he is, only interested in saving the world with decent Christian values (and against the LGTB takeover of the West.)   This wasn't the tweet, but it's similar:

There were several tweets following along the lines of "yes, I have made a study of Putin speeches given over the last few years, and people just don't understand how reasonable and likeable he is."

But I find it hilarious that MAGA, culture war, "save us Putin!" types live in a world where they constantly imagine their culture war enemies as being in a permanent state of terror that The Truth is About to be Revealed and We Must Stop That; instead of the reality that we are simply appalled that so many have gone down a conspiracy rabbit hole and are too stupid to recognise their own manipulation by a murderous autocrat with no interest in democracy or stability in the West.

As has been obvious for years, the reason many of the MAGA Right is in love with Putin is purely due to culture war issues, especially on sexuality and gender, on which the Right has (to a large extent) already lost the war.  (Sure, they are making some ground on trans issues, but there's no way you could say that the recognition of gay relationships is at risk of going backwards in those parts of the world where they have made ground.)     

There are other reasons involved too, of course, as noted in greater length in previous posts like this one, but the depth of oblivious idiocy on Musk's madhouse (Twitter) has become bottomless, all aided and abetted by Musk himself.   

Trump and immunity

I thought this analysis piece in the Washington Post about the appeals court decision that Trump didn't have immunity was pretty good, so I'll gift link it.

You can thank me later. 

Apparently, about the only (formerly) significant lawyer disagreeing is Alan Dershowitz, who has long joined the ranks of "old fools for Trump".  

The giant expanding Liberal/National melon heads

I missed the first episode of the ABC's political doco Nemesis, but caught most of the second instalment last night.  

It was kind of depressing, being reminded of the rapidly increasing lack of charm, intelligence and competence that became the hallmark of the Liberal/National Parties over the last decade.  (I should watch the first episode, to see what was said about the universally acknowledged - except by them - deeply weird relationship of Abbott and Credlin.)

Of course, I still have something of a soft spot for the intelligence and frequent charm of Turnbull, while accepting that his high regard for himself was never likely to inspire a lot of loyalty amongst his fellow parliamentarians.   (Somewhat like Kevin Rudd in that regard, really.)    But the inevitability of his unpopularity with many on his own side just makes it all the easier for me to condemn him for cowardice for not  inciting an actual split in the party between those who deny the reality and seriousness of climate change, and those who, you know, have always accepted science and been vindicated year after year.   (It seems that instead of the conservative side having an actual split over the issue, we just have to wait until the gullible losers within it who backed the wrong horse 15 or 20 years ago die off gradually.  It's a pathetic way to ensure policy paralysis for an entire generation.)   

But one other thing I noticed was that (whether it was the camera lens used, the lighting, or just my imagination, I'm not sure),  the show made it seem that ageing conservative politicians in Australia often suffer from expanding melonhead-itis.  Look at George Brandis, whose head was always large, but now seems close to Moon size, and with flaky skin that makes him look in dire need of not only a diet, but a dermatologist.  (Actually, I think his skin has always looked bad, and it could be a condition hard to treat, so I feel a bit guilty for pointing it out.)  

But Barnaby Joyce - what an unhealthy looking specimen with a huge head and an utterly unapologetic approach to adultery with staff.   (He's just upset that he was the one caught out, is what it comes down to).   Warren Entsch was made to look big headed.   And John Howard's head seems to be expanding sideways.   

There are others I have probably forgotten.  Malcolm Turnbull seems to have escaped the fate, but there is something pretty typical about the physical way a lot of Liberal politicians seem to age (see also Peter Costello) that is pretty unattractive.  Too many dinners on corporate boards probably accounts for much of it.