tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-290986532024-03-07T16:36:32.971+11:00Northern PlanetsBecause lots of planets have a north.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.comBlogger858125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-45548747242552696192014-08-31T19:46:00.000+10:002014-09-04T00:33:08.962+10:00Review: Deep BreathSpoilers ahead. You have been warned.<br />
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<i>Deep Breath</i>, the first episode of series 8 of new Doctor Who, starts off with a bad case of Did Not Do The Research by writer Steven Moffat. The story begins in Victorian London, with a ludicrously big <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosaurus">Tyrannosaurus Rex</a> having been accidentally transported there after getting the TARDIS caught in its throat like some sort of time-travelling toffee. This ridiculously large dinosaur is shown close to the height of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ben">Big Ben</a>, or 315 feet (nearly 16 stories). In reality, T Rex was large, but not anywhere near that size: 13 feet tall, not that much bigger than the TARDIS itself.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbKcnaHIbsAwNT6iDuYbK_M6nXa0DzYQreyVqDZIA-j5leIFaaAJYRtQATDCaAW1yJuKYT6DouCrxaBek8jcuiGNwV8se0kwFcJLFRrw5TjWK_fCgBsT6Xjb4zg-KaYXs_vCp2Nw/s1600/tardis-t-rex.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbKcnaHIbsAwNT6iDuYbK_M6nXa0DzYQreyVqDZIA-j5leIFaaAJYRtQATDCaAW1yJuKYT6DouCrxaBek8jcuiGNwV8se0kwFcJLFRrw5TjWK_fCgBsT6Xjb4zg-KaYXs_vCp2Nw/s1600/tardis-t-rex.png" /></a></div><br />
The opening credits have been reworked. Gone is the wormhole through space, in its place we now have clockwork gears and a spiral marked with Latin numerals like the face of an old-fashioned clock, rather suggestive of H.G. Wells' Time Machine. I thought that the look of it was quite good, although I haven't made up my mind about the theme music. If this is an indication that the Doctor is going to return to his old-fashioned <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Doctor">Hartnell</a>-esque roots (only, you know, better), I look forward to it. Unfortunately there is no sign of it in this episode. The newly-regenerated Doctor, played by the talented <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Capaldi">Peter Capaldi</a>, spends most of the episode behaving erratically. He's unsure of who or what he is, uncertain why he has the face he has, and confused beyond measure. Even when he recovers he's not quite the Doctor. He's just some guy. Although he does have possibly the best line in the show: <br />
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<blockquote>It's spreading! You all sound all...English. No, you've all developed a fault!"</blockquote><br />
I'm not familiar with Capaldi as an actor, but Mrs Impala has followed his work for many years and thinks very highly of him, which made this performance all the more disappointing. She tells me that this is the first time that a new Doctor has failed to "sell" the role in the opening episode, and considering what the BBC made Colin Baker do, that's saying something. I have to say I agree: whoever Capaldi was playing in <i>Deep Breath</i>, we haven't yet seen him play the Doctor.<br />
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It's always fun to watch the Paternoster Gang, Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax, and it would be awesome if they got their own spin-off. Strax in particular is always good for a few laughs, although I really hope that the writers don't continue to make him nothing but a buffoon. He is, after all, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sontaran">Sontaran</a> officer, smart, strong and dedicated, and if he's acting like a clown it's almost certainly to lull his foes (i.e. everyone who isn't a Sontaran) into a sense of false security.<br />
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Despite the impressive visuals of the opening, the T-Rex plays no real part in the story, existing only to show off Team Who's rather large budget for special effects. There are a few wise-cracks about the dinosaur, and a complete failure to consider what a cranky and hungry tyrannosaur is likely to do in the middle of London (all you can eat buffet comes to mind). There's a brief interlude where the Doctor (who apparently "talks dinosaur") makes a moving translation of the Rex's roars, and for all of five seconds I can <i>almost</i> believe the T Rex is a sentient being. And then it spontaneously combusts, thus neatly providing the hook for the Doctor to begin investigation and solve the problem of what to do with such an unfeasibly large carnivore. Ultimately, the Rex was nothing more than ridiculously implausible and unnecessary plot device.<br />
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The main plot of the episode was a weak re-hash of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_in_the_Fireplace">The Girl In The Fireplace</a>, right down to the Doctor rushing off on horseback (although not by crashing through a mirror). Clockwork robots seeking to return to "the Promised Land" rebuild themselves with human body parts. <i>The Girl In The Fireplace</i> was charming and beautifully made, but in <i>Deep Breath</i> Moffat displays one of his major weaknesses: returning to the well after it's dry. He has a real talent for ideas which drip style and imagination, but don't stand up to a second look (e.g. the Weeping Angels), and then returning to them for a second or third look. And so it is here: clockwork robots stealing body parts are cool <i>once</i> but the concept is not strong enough to survive a second look. We're expected to believe that these robots have the knowledge and dexterity to somehow plug human body parts into their clockwork mechanisms and keep them alive and working indefinitely, but that they aren't able to make replacement gears. Oh rly?<br />
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There were a few genuinely suspenseful moments, like the restaurant scene, but I felt that the rest of the episode fell flat. The fight scene between the Paternosta Gang was disappointing, Vastra and Jenny seemed stilted and clumsy, as if they hadn't rehearsed their action scenes. The Doctor makes a big production over the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus">axe of my grandfather</a>" paradox, insisting that it is not the same axe (or in this case, broom). I hope that Moffat intended it as an ironic counterpoint to the episode's theme that this is still the same old Doctor even though he no longer looks like, acts like, or sounds like the previous Doctor, but the cynic in me fears that the writing team simply failed to notice that the Doctor's remarks apply to himself. Or, for that matter, everybody else.<br />
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And then we come to the epilogue. In it, we are introduced to "Missy", a mysterious and obnoxiously saccharine Mary Poppins like character. <a href="http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Missy_%28Deep_Breath%29">Missy</a> claims to be in heaven, and describes the Doctor as her boyfriend. Presumably she will be the Big Bad antagonist of the series, or at least the red herring to distract us while Moffat sneaks in a completely different Big Bad. Some fans have speculated that Missy is short for Mistress, and she is a new, female, regeneration of the Master. I fear that she will turn out to be some sort of lame-duck character like the <a href="http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Celestial_Toymaker_%28TV_story%29">Celestial Toymaker</a> or the <a href="http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mind_Robber">Master of the Land Of Fiction</a>. Either way, it gives a dark hint that the series 8 story arc is going to be even more cringe-worthy than the "silence will fall" arc turned out to be. I hope to be proven wrong, but the epilogue feels like fan-fic of the worst kind. Overall, despite a few good moments, I think the episode was a failure, and can only give it a single star.<br />
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<i>Deep Breath</i>, series 8 episode 1: <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVQPlbFsS_8f1cN9YoXxrbc289EaMSPWObfHCtkDzDNCm7-84Z2U0N25pz6IKb2hFI91TbxAbUYo0NmmgfCxkBFkp_pC_phpWBzhyphenhyphen_f_Rijh8MMr9vAasC6M-P9unIuGMW5Nil9Q/s1600/stars1.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVQPlbFsS_8f1cN9YoXxrbc289EaMSPWObfHCtkDzDNCm7-84Z2U0N25pz6IKb2hFI91TbxAbUYo0NmmgfCxkBFkp_pC_phpWBzhyphenhyphen_f_Rijh8MMr9vAasC6M-P9unIuGMW5Nil9Q/s1600/stars1.png" /></a>Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-70103539573742949172014-08-30T16:04:00.000+10:002014-09-04T00:32:22.100+10:00Review: PlayersI was late to discover Doctor Who: there was no hiding behind the sofa at age 10 for me, I didn't even know Doctor Who existed until I was 14 or so, but once I did, for the next three or four years I devoured all the novelisations I could get my hands on. I remember coming home from the library with my schoolbag jam-packed with as many books as the library would allow me to check out at one time, eight or ten I think, and given that they were hard covers my bag was overflowing. A few years ago, I tried re-reading a few of my favourites, and found them almost unreadably bad. I also borrowed a more recent Expanded Universe novel from a friend, and simply couldn't get into it. So two weeks ago when Mrs Impala spotted <i>Players</i> by Terrance Dicks at the local library and suggested we borrow it, my expectations weren't terribly high. I'm very glad to say that the novel blew those low expectations away.<br />
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<i>Players</i> is a Sixth Doctor Expanded Universe novel first published in 1999. In 2013, it was re-published as one of the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collection, and it's the first full Doctor Who story I've read since those glory days in my teens. Back in the 1980s, my interest in Doctor Who was already tottering on a knife edge due to the ridiculous stories and obnoxious personality of the early sixth Doctor, and then killed dead by the mess that was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial_of_a_Time_Lord">The Trial Of A Time Lord</a>. But after seeing Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and the delightfully tipsy Katy Manning (Jo Grant) reminisce live on stage about their time on Doctor Who, I've been a fan of Baker. Both he and McCoy are consummate showmen and raconteurs, and it broke my heart to think of what they could have done as the Doctor had the BBC given them some quality material to work with, instead of <a href="http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Kandyman">childishly bad rubbish</a>. It was a true pleasure to see Dicks take the sixth Doctor out of the ridiculous clown suit and give him some dignity, and <i>Players</i> demonstrates that Dicks can actually write well when he is freed from the shackles of the TV novelisations.<br />
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The novel tells of the Doctor meeting Winston Churchill and saving him from an assassination attempt. Not the Churchill of "blood, toil, tears and sweat", but his younger self, during the Boer War. We briefly revisit Patrick Troughton's Doctor, post <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Games">The War Games</a>, shows us another side of King Edward (Dave to his friends) and Mrs Simpson, and introduces a mysterious group of ageless, jaded time travellers calling themselves "the Players", who meddle in human history as part of some great game. In the latest round of their never-ending Game, the Players have decided to see what will happen with Churchill dead and a pro-Nazi king on the British throne. <i>Players</i> is not great literature, but it is well-written, with Dicks doing justice to both the Sixth Doctor and Peri. He captures their voices perfectly, although the Second Doctor perhaps not quite as well. The characters are engaging, the story interesting, and the villains are believable (if not quite chilling). I don't hesitate to recommend <i>Players</i> and give it a solid, workman-like three stars.<br />
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<i>Players</i> by Terrence Dicks: <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRUdJ4FaLv14f757fsNp4racx3THbq8siWJAvQCtqnboT1NU-csW8z7vWJbBVo-VX_c7M2bw2rSySsxO2stVYiyWn5ZiMNM0b8s6qYpbHbUQwg0gnuGGhKVt-RaeHK8GEQ-f6uAw/s1600/stars3.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRUdJ4FaLv14f757fsNp4racx3THbq8siWJAvQCtqnboT1NU-csW8z7vWJbBVo-VX_c7M2bw2rSySsxO2stVYiyWn5ZiMNM0b8s6qYpbHbUQwg0gnuGGhKVt-RaeHK8GEQ-f6uAw/s1600/stars3.png" /></a>Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-11654317350240382542014-08-24T12:25:00.000+10:002014-09-01T02:18:30.782+10:00Unforgiveable sinsWhat's the worst thing a person can do? The utterly worst, most despicable, abominable, loathsome, unforgiveable thing? Murder? Rape? Raping a baby? Genocide? Torturing an innocent to death, slowly, over many days?<br />
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How about swearing an oath in the name of something or someone other than god?<br />
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In Islam, the only unforgiveable sins are "kufr" (disbelief) and "shirk" (ascribing a partner to Allah). Disbelief is obvious: <i>you better believe</i> or you're in trouble. (One wonders why a supposedly all-powerful deity who created the entire universe <i>cares so much</i> about being worshipped by beings who are like ants compared to him.) <a href="http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?80717-Is-there-any-unforgivable-sin-in-Islam">Shirk</a> is a little more complicated: it encompasses a variety of sins, such as the belief that some other being is an equal or a peer of Allah. There is major shirk, such heinous sins like making fun of religion, belief in other gods, loving anyone as much as you love Allah, or creating laws that take priority over Allah's laws.<br />
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There is also minor shirk, such as superstition, or swearing an oath in the name of something other than Allah (although Allah himself is <a href="http://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/17099/does-allah-commit-shirk">permitted to do such a thing</a>, since he makes the rules and the rules don't apply to him). Unlike major shirk, minor shirk alone doesn't quite put the transgressor beyond the pale, but it's a near thing. It is a major sin to swear a false oath by Allah, a terrible sin, but it is <b>worse</b> by far to <a href="http://islamqa.info/en/34817">swear an honest oath by something else</a>.<br />
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This tells us the priorities of the (supposed) all-good, all-loving, all-knowing god (or rather, the priorities of the people who made this stuff up): you can spend a lifetime stealing, murdering, raping little babies and torturing people to death, polluting the world, ruining the lives of all those around you, and still be forgiven. You can be a totally immoral, lying, cheating, despicable monster, and still be forgiven. You can be a blight on the lives of everyone around you, and still be forgiven. But entertain the merest thought that god has a rival or peer? Unforgiveable.<br />
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Christians should not feel too superior here. Have you read your <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments">Ten Commandments</a>? They too make it obvious that the number one ethical principle of god is the jealous insistence on being worshipped.<br />
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Numbering the so-called Ten Commandments is not simple: they are listed three times in the Bible, twice in Exodus and once in Deuteronomy, where they are worded differently, unnumbered, and in no simple or obvious set of ten. Consequently, the major religious groups disagree on what the Ten actually are: Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish and Samaritan sects do not agree on either the wording, numbering or even what the Commandments are. One Mormon sect, the Strangites, includes as one of the Ten something which no other group includes: Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbour As Thyself. The second set from Exodus 34 are especially problematic: although they are stated by god to be the same words as those written on the stone tablets smashed by Moses, they are radically, and obviously, different.<br />
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But however you divide them, it is clear that a high priority is not good, ethical behaviour, but protecting Yahwah's monopoly on worship. There is no prohibition on rape, the molestation of children, torture, or despoiling the earth, and especially not genocide (beloved by the god of the Old Testament -- god warns the Israelites that if they aren't successful in his ordered genocide of the Caananites, he will change sides and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+33%3A55-56&version=KJ21">do to them what he was originally planning to do to the Caananites</a>). There's no nothing about respecting human dignity, justice or mercy, or prohibiting slavery. (There is a minority view among some biblical scholars that Thou Shalt Not Steal refers not to mere theft of property, but to theft of people, that is kidnapping and slavery, but that seems unlikely given that the Israelites were enthusiastic slave holders.) Except for the Strangite Mormon addition, there's nothing even close to the Golden Rule of ethical behaviour, to treat others as you would hope to be treated in their shoes.<br />
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Depending on how you count them, Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 might contain as few as 3 out of 10 or as many as 5 out of 11 commandments about protecting Yahweh's monopoly: Thou shalt have no other gods before me, remembering the sabbath, and variations on the same theme. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2034&version=KJ21">Exodus 34</a> is even more extreme: <b>all</b> of the commandments relate to worshipping Yahweh, making sacrifices to Yahweh, keeping the sabbath, avoiding worshipping other gods, and then right at the end, almost like an afterthought, a strange comment about not cooking lambs in the milk of their mother. And these are supposed to be the great moral and ethical principles that Christianity rests on.<br />
Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-29750800366378291092014-08-20T19:37:00.000+10:002014-09-01T13:14:01.626+10:00What have the mining companies done for us?There's a wonderful scene in Monty Python's "The Life Of Brian" where Reg, the leader of the People's Front of Judea (not to be confused with the Judean People's Front) asks "What have the Romans ever done for us?". To his annoyance, his fellow rebels answer, eventually leading to Reg having to reword his rhetorical question:<br />
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<blockquote>All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?</blockquote><br />
What makes this even more brilliant is that the benefits of Roman civilization on conquored people have very likely been enormously exaggerated. Ex-Python Terry Jones' book (and television series) <a href="http://www.booktopia.com.au/terry-jones-barbarians-terry-jones/prod9780563539162.html">Barbarians</a> makes a very strong case that, whatever benefits Roman conquest had (if any!), they were enormously outweighed by the harm done. The Romans were not benevolent conquorers bringing civilization to the benighted savages, they were rapacious looters who drained the wealth from half of Europe and the Middle East and left the conquered people vastly poorer.<br />
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Which brings us to Australia in the 21st century. In the same way that the conventional story of Europe is that the Romans brought civilization to the barbarians, Australia's conventional story is that in the late 20th and early 21st century (that is, <i>right now</i>) the mining boom brought wealth and prosperity to our land. But, like the story of Rome's civilizing influence, the story starts to fall apart when you look a little more closely at it. Australia's mining boom has come with enormous costs, not just environmental and political but economic as well, and the wealth generated has mostly gone to a relatively small number of people.<br />
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Compared to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse">resource curse</a> suffered by many developing nations, Australia has escaped relatively unscathed. We don't have warlords and private armies fighting for control over our gold and coal mines. But our all-but-unshakable belief that we are The Lucky Country blessed with natural resources, together with our cultural cringe that nothing we do is as good as what the Pommy Bastards and Damn Yanks can do (even though we're the best bloody country on earth bar none), has made us complacent. With a tiny handful of exceptions, the national character is not just uninnovative but <i>anti-innovation</i>. We give lip-service to loving our inventors and innovators, but except for medical research we just don't want to know. We celebrate the Aussie inventor who builds a better mousetrap, but won't buy it until it's been sold to the Americans for a fraction of what it's worth, then sold back to us at an enormous profit margin.<br />
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We have the scientific know-how and the popular support to lead the world in green energy. If <i>Germany</i> can now generate <a href="http://www.thelocal.de/20140619/germany-produces-half-of-electricity-needs-with-solar-power">fifty percent</a> of its peak daytime electrical power from solar and wind, we could surely be doing eighty or ninety percent without even raising a sweat. But we lack the political will. Of our two main political parties, the nominally left-wing (but actually middle-of-the-road centre) ALP is lukewarm about green energy, while the right-wing (and getting more extreme every day) Liberal Party is now actively hostile to it. It's not hard to see why: mining companies are <a href="http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/the-abbott-election-legend-robin-hood-in-reverse/695/">big, big supporters of the Libs</a>. Since 2007, for every dollar the mining companies have given the ALP, they have given $25.75 to the Liberals. No wonder Joe "poor people don't drive cars" Hockey thinks that wind power is <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/hope-green-energy-hockey-says-turbines-utterly-offensive-72824">utterly offensive</a>. In Queensland, Australia's "Deep North", the even more right-wing National Party are trying desperately to <a href="http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/5/27/solar-energy/queenslands-disguised-200-hit-solar-owners">destroy the solar power industry</a> because it is <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/energy-prices-crash-as-queensland-solar-takes-hold-21256">too effective</a>.<br />
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So <a href="http://theaimn.com/2013/12/13/so-what-have-the-mining-companies-ever-done-for-us/">what have the mining companies done for Australia</a>? Apart from making us complacent and corrupting our political process?<br />
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<ul><li>Not jobs. Mining provides about 1% of Australia's jobs, compared to about 9% employed by the manufacturing sector.</li>
<li>They're quick to shed jobs too. If the rest of the country sacked people as quickly as the mining companies did, our unemployment rate would have reached 19.5% during the global financial crisis instead of 5.9%.</li>
<li>Not taxes either. Despite record profits, they pay only around 2/3rds the tax rate of other companies: the average company tax rate in Australia is 21% but the mining companies pay only 14%.</li>
<li>Not only don't they pay their fair share of taxes, they're quick to demand handouts. Despite all their profits, they receive $500 million in direct subsidies each year, plus another $4000 million in indirect subsidies, freebies, discounts and other handouts.</li>
<li>The diesel fuel subsidy alone <a href="http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/features/coal-curse-the-black-side-of-the-subsidised-resour">costs every Australian</a> (at least those who <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/budget-pain-not-for-millionaires-who-pay-no-tax-20140512-zr9o3.html">paid taxes</a>) $87 a year.</li>
<li>They're not <i>Aussie</i> miners either. 83% of Australia's mining industry is foreign owned, which means that up to 83% of the profits are going overseas.</li>
<li>Let's not forget the <a href="http://huntervalleyprotectionalliance.com/">environmental destruction</a> caused by mining.</li>
</ul><br />
All right, but apart from the pollution, the corruption, the lies, the destroyed industries, the sense of entitlement, and the lost opportunities, what have the miners ever done for us?<br />
Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-5071184661383938712009-07-20T07:16:00.003+10:002009-07-20T07:16:00.392+10:00Forty years agoForty years ago today, the Apollo 11 Luna Lander touched down on the surface of the Moon. NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first two people to walk on another astronomical body.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYembgGeYWtM_5nTi6VSVlsU9fJuGsOTXdzjl2oA6M60G8N2v3wSBMOh-qTh9wkRduGm3uDVt8S620aACnZvuofQhnGpGwtMtLjgnv2PMg9pD-8GqDLAzWDn9Qwwy7z283ooR6CQ/s1600-h/Earth-From-The-Moon.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYembgGeYWtM_5nTi6VSVlsU9fJuGsOTXdzjl2oA6M60G8N2v3wSBMOh-qTh9wkRduGm3uDVt8S620aACnZvuofQhnGpGwtMtLjgnv2PMg9pD-8GqDLAzWDn9Qwwy7z283ooR6CQ/s320/Earth-From-The-Moon.jpg" border="0" alt="View of the Earth from the Moon" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311502978033521394" /></a><br /><br />We could do this forty years ago. Today, would we have the passion or the technology?Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-80087201987465145452009-04-08T23:52:00.002+10:002009-04-09T08:04:30.939+10:00Ankh-Morpork in the JungleThere are some amazing parallels between Terry Pratchett's <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Ankh-Morpork">Ankh-Morpork</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_New_Guinea">Papua New Guinea</a>. Jim Austin's tales of being <a href="http://www.pngbd.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9799">an active member of the Royal Papua New Guinea Police Force</a> in the 1980s attests to that.<br /><br />We have the old, pre-'Guards Guards' Night Watch in action:<br /><br /><blockquote>To call their procedures non-confrontational was an understatement. Both cops stood on the road and began hurling gravel on the roof. <br /> <br />The roofs were all corrugated iron in our neighborhood so the racket was deafening. The idea was to alert the criminals to the presence of the police and then leave them a convenient escape route. In this case they could run out the back door, scamper over the fence and be gone. It worked. After ten minutes of rock throwing the police entered the house in a tentative manner and sure enough, no criminals. Now was my chance to join this cadre of crime fighting professionals.</blockquote><br />And a touch of the <span style="font-style:italic;">old</span> Night Watch, when it was run by street monsters:<br /><br /><blockquote>When I finally climbed up the bank I saw Andy with his shotgun about halfway up the nose of the evil driver's passenger. The driver himself was in a fetal position on the road where four of PNG's finest were vigorously putting the boots to him. <br /> <br />It was sort of like a Rodney King deal without the caring gentility of the LAPD. Eventually the cops tired of stomping our suspect and tossed him and his pal into a waiting paddy wagon. On the way home I advised Andy to have an ambulance waiting for us at the station as I was sure our man was severely injured if not dead.</blockquote><br />PNG highlanders still retained a strong element of traditional dwarfish <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Grabpot_Thundergust">clang</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>[I] returned to see Andy in heated discussion with the head man. He was demanding that all of the men leave their spears behind before they entered the town. <br /> <br />The head man argued that the spears were merely ceremonial and were necessary to complete their tribal dress.</blockquote><br />Traditional Ankh-Morpork activities are a big part of life in the PNG highlands:<br /><br /><blockquote>The road was blocked with oil drums, logs and boulders. On the other side of this barrier were about 1000 screaming people and two flatbed trucks whose beds were crammed with so many people that the tire were virtually flat and going nowhere. We all stepped out and Appelis, our regular force member parlayed with some of the more prominent members of the mob. <br /> <br />The problem was that everyone wanted to board a PMV to get to town to see the dead politician and take part in the traditional rioting and sacking of the town. By the time the PMV's got to their part of the highway they were already full and just sped by the growing crowd.</blockquote><br />And my favourite line in the story?<br /><br /><blockquote>Most PNG mechanics know that six lug nuts on a rim is a waste of four</blockquote><br /><br />If you like that story, there are more by the author <a href="http://www.putney.net/jstories/index.cfm">here</a>.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-3399046427288738682009-04-02T22:30:00.002+11:002009-04-08T23:21:24.082+10:00Looks like April Fools but aren'tWikipedia's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:April_Fool's_Main_Page/2009_(1)">"In The News" for April 1st</a> looks like it's nothing but April Fools pranks, but in fact all the stories are true -- despite <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,512050,00.html">Faux News'</a> usual quality reporting:<br /><br /><blockquote>Every item on the home page of the user-generated site Wikipedia is fake. The featured article is about the "Museum of Bad Art" in Boston. The headlines include such stories as NASA monitoring diamonds falling from the sky and the Irish prime minister streaking in public — both of which barely stretch real recent news events.</blockquote><br /><br />In fact every one of those is a legitimate, real news story. The April's Fools prank was to fool people into thinking the stories were pranks:<br /><br /><blockquote><ul><li>Ireland's Taoiseach [President], Brian Cowen... is seen publicly naked in Dublin, following months of economic uncertainty.</li><br /><li>NASA reports a shower of diamonds from the sky.</li><br /><li>German scientists unearth a row of suckers belonging to an ancient order.</li><br /><li>A revolutionary new online tanning service receives one million hits within two months of being established.</li><br /><li>Henry Allingham of the United Kingdom credits cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women for his seemingly impossible longevity.</li><br /><li>A newspaper discovers that pay-per-view porn is amongst a number of unusual things being purchased by British MPs on their claimed expenses.</li><br /><li>The merging of Hartford and New Orleans is found to have severe environmental consequences.</li></ul></blockquote><br />For those who don't know their US geography, Hartford, Connecticut is about 1424 miles away from New Orleans, Louisiana.<br /><br />The real stories:<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cowen_nude_portraits_controversy">The nekkid Taoiseach</a>: an artist snuck <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5971027.ece">naked portraits</a> of Brian Cowen into two of Ireland's most prestigious art galleries.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_TC3">The NASA shower of diamonds</a>: a meteor that exploded over the Sudan included nano-diamonds in the fragments remaining.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_extinct_fossil_octopus_discoveries">Row of suckers</a>: the discoveries of three ancient extinct octopus species.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_tan_hoax">Online tanning service</a>: a viral PR campaign to alert people of the dangerous of tanning salons.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Allingham">Cigarettes 'n' whisky</a>: Britain's oldest man, and the oldest surviving World War One veteran, really did credit his longevity on cigarettes, whiskey, wild women... and a good sense of humour.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqui_Smith">Politician claiming pr0n expenses</a>: Come on now, are you really surprised?<br /><br />And <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hartford_and_USS_New_Orleans_collision">the merger of Hartford and New Orleans</a> actually refers to the collision of two ships.<br /><br />Wikipedia's "On this day" for 1st of April are amusing too. Go check them out <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Selected_anniversaries/April_1">here</a>.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-18546301644907882762009-03-30T23:30:00.000+11:002009-03-31T10:33:24.403+11:00Conan versus the Copyright LawyersCopyright was invented to encourage the production of works of art and literature (not necessarily fine literature -- even pulp novels have their place in a society). Well, technically the original copyright law was intended as a form of censorship: it was a bribe from the British government to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worshipful_Company_of_Stationers_and_Newspaper_Makers">book publishers guild</a>, giving them a monopoly on books so long as they didn't publish anything that the government and church didn't like, and were vigorous in stomping hard on anybody who did. But putting that aside, modern copyright law was created with the motive to promote the useful arts and sciences. The intention is that since the creation of a work of art is of doubtful profitability, since an author could spend months or years creating a work only to have some other publisher copy it and make the profit, society as a whole is better off if we grant that author a limited monopoly on the publishing of said work. The good to society (more works of arts and sciences) was the intention, the author's profit, if any, merely the mechanism to get that good.<br /><br />An admirable intention, but over the centuries, it has become corrupted by the involvement of corporate interests. Copyright law is now, de facto, treated as a method for the promotion of profit. The emphasis is on the copyright owner's profit, rather than the benefit to society. The historical record is unclear on whether copyright ever really did lead to more works being produced, but it seems clear to me that today copyright is <a href="http://northernplanets.blogspot.com/2006/06/battling-copyright-monster.html">a barrier to be overcome</a> rather than a tool for the promotion of useful arts.<br /><br />From New Zealand comes an example of how copyright law is used to <span style="font-style:italic;">reduce</span> rather than increase the amount of useful arts available to society. Copyright law in New Zealand lasts for fifty years after the death of the author, and consequently Robert E. Howard's <span style="font-style:italic;">Conan The Barbarian</span> stories are in the public domain. The New Zealand non-profit, all-volunteer website <a href="http://brokensea.com/">BrokenSea Audio</a> produces audio dramas based on Howard's work.<br /><br />Alas, the Conan stories are not in the public domain in the US, where the monopoly on Howard's work is owned by a corporation, and they see New Zealand's volunteer, non-profit Howard fan as a threat to their bottom line:<br /><br /><blockquote>All Conan audio dramas and audio books produced by its volunteers have been removed from the website, and a major project — a production of Howard's only full length Conan novel, Hour Of The Dragon, which Mannering had adapted into a full cast audio drama script — has been cancelled.</blockquote><br />We see this over and over again: copyright law being used to <span style="font-style:italic;">reduce</span> the amount of useful arts produced, instead of increasing it.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-10062904747865849982009-03-30T21:04:00.003+11:002009-03-30T23:24:12.403+11:00The inhuman Flash vulnerabilityA reliable security exploit for Flash is big news, or at least it <span style="font-style:italic;">should be</span> big news, because Flash is on nearly every graphical browser on nearly every operating system, and there's only one supplier. (Sure, there's <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">Gnash</a>, but that's not yet ready for prime-time, and may never be.) A good exploit against Flash could allow Bad People to p0wn nearly every desktop everywhere. So even though this is a year old, this is still important.<br /><br />Cyberdyne Systems, er, sorry, IBM researcher Mark Dowd demonstrated <a href="http://www.matasano.com/log/1032/this-new-vulnerability-dowds-inhuman-flash-exploit/">an incredible vulnerability</a> that allows a single Trojan to exploit Flash in either IE or Firefox while leaving the Flash runtime operating normally. And it can bypass Vista security. Although Dowd doesn't explicitly mention other OSes, I see no reason to believe the same technique wouldn't work on Linux as well.<br /><br /><blockquote>Start with the vulnerability.<br /><br />It’s an integer overflow, but not a simple one.<br />...<br />The net result of this silliness is that it’s hard to do what attackers normally do with a write32 vulnerability, which is to clobber a function’s address with a pointer back to their buffer, so that their shellcode is called when the clobbered function is called. So Dowd’s exploit takes things in a different direction, and manipulates the ActionScript bytecode state.<br />...<br />Clobber the right value in the length table, and you can make an unused bytecode instruction that the verifier ignores seem much longer than it is. The “extra” bytes slip past the verifier. But they don’t slip past the executive, which has no idea that the unused bytecode has trailing bytes. If those trailing bytes are themselves valid bytecode, Flash will run them. Unverified. Giving them access to the whole system stack. Game over.</blockquote><br />Security is <span style="font-style:italic;">hard</span>.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-65040126667967179742009-03-25T08:35:00.003+11:002009-03-25T10:02:04.352+11:00Early morning walkI'm normally a night-owl, but once in a blue moon I wake up unassisted at a very early time. Today was such a day: I woke before daylight, read my email, and just after first light decided to go for an early morning stroll around the neighbourhood.<br /><br />It had been raining just before I went out, so everything was damp, the air was clean and moist, the temperature was just perfect -- not too hot, not too cold. To the west, the sky was completely covered by the sort of grey rain clouds that I love, with a double rainbow appearing over the houses: a broad but short rainbow with clear pastel colours, and a second, fainter, narrow rainbow by its side. To the south I could see three hot air balloons serenely floating off in the distance. To the east, the sun was barely peeking out from behind the clouds, just enough for there to be patches of blue and yellow visible against a backdrop of grey-and-white clouds. Flocks of random birds wheeled across the sky, and right nearby a half-dozen or so brilliantly coloured wild parrots of some kind feasted on a fig tree. If only I could have reached the figs myself :(<br /><br />The only downside is that it was the start of peak-hour traffic, so the main roads were busy busy busy, and even the side-streets had traffic going by. Can't you people telecommute or something? But apart from that, it was glorious.<br /><br />I must do it again next year.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-50023896492597110852009-03-24T22:03:00.000+11:002009-03-25T09:19:58.102+11:00Fashion advertsOne of Melbourne's biggest (or at least most pretentious) department stores, David Jones, has started running a massive advertising campaign for something call "Industrie". I can't find a copy of the advertisements I see on the backs of buses everywhere, but this will give you an idea of what they look like:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhfQqptrA4cELyGOt7be_CYRh5Hb67bm6v56tRyfAs_XDBZsfbnI8-7nKkpcKLcnzgVq2bg8VNa2v7w8VR7zzGO8Y0farzT5va0FVlp028JpBK-xEvpgix6LEUxyAmcokqx0vKw/s1600-h/david_jones_ad_mockup.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 283px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhfQqptrA4cELyGOt7be_CYRh5Hb67bm6v56tRyfAs_XDBZsfbnI8-7nKkpcKLcnzgVq2bg8VNa2v7w8VR7zzGO8Y0farzT5va0FVlp028JpBK-xEvpgix6LEUxyAmcokqx0vKw/s320/david_jones_ad_mockup.jpg" border="0" alt="David Jones Industrie photo" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5316879383332338450" /></a><br />In the adverts, the female model is standing behind the shirtless male model and quite obscured, the background is black instead of light grey, and the words "David Jones" and "Industrie" are written in the appropriate corporate fonts. That's about it.<br /><br />Pop quiz: what are they selling? Has David Jones perhaps started their own chain of tattoo parlours?<br /><br />Answer: what they're <span style="font-style:italic;">actually</span> selling is dreams and illusions, but the <span style="font-style:italic;">product</span> they're selling is menswear. To be precise, Industrie is a "youth-oriented menswear fashion brand". Yes, that's right, the way they are promoting men's clothing is to show a male model not wearing any of the clothing they're selling.<br /><br />If your brain hasn't just shut down in self-defence, then you've drunk the fashion Kool-aid (in a nice raspberry flavour, peach being <span style="font-style:italic;">so</span> last year) and there's no hope for you.<br /><br />Another question: given that David Jones has presumably sunk millions into the promotion, why can't I find anything about it on <a href="http://www.davidjones.com.au/home.jsp">their website</a>? Why can't I find copies of their advertisement campaign on the net?<br /><br />(For more photos, see <a href="http://justjared.buzznet.com/2009/02/04/miranda-kerr-david-jones-fashion-ambassador-2/">here</a> .)Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-4414697417791729742009-03-22T17:17:00.005+11:002009-03-31T03:16:48.023+11:00Ex-Bush official confirms innocents at GitmoIf it wasn't obvious by now, it should be: most of the people rounded up and jailed without charge at Guantanamo Bay were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.<br /><br />Retired Army colonel and former chief of staff to the then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence B. Wilkerson, told The Associated Press last Thursday that many of the detainees were innocent men, and that there was no meaningful attempt by US forces to distinguish actual terrorists from civilians. <br /><br />Not only were they unable to separate civilians from fighters, but they had no desire to. Wilkerson revealed that he learned from military commanders that they had determined early on that the men were innocent, but decided to keep them imprisoned regardless: "It did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was captured on or near the battle area, he <b>must</b> know something of importance." [Emphasis added.]<br /><br />Wilkerson wrote, "U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released." Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney prevented the situation from being addressed, because "to have admitted this reality would have been a black mark on their leadership."<br /><br />Wilkerson also confirmed that many detainees had no connection to either the Taliban or to al-Qaida, and had been turned in for the $5,000 per head reward money.<br /><br />Of the 800-odd prisoners at Guantanamo, of which 240 remain, Wilkerson claimed that two dozen are actual terrorists. (That's a ratio of over 32 innocents per terrorist.) He also revealed that the US government couldn't try them even if they wanted to, "because we tortured them and didn't keep an evidence trail."<br /><br />More <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ie2Gewi7L3__bSzBds095stmE88QD971FBSO1">here</a>.<br /><br />This is a good time to remember that while President Obama has promised to close Guantanamo Bay, he has so far refused to do the same for the even more secret <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175042/karen_greenberg_the_missing_prison">Bagram Air Base</a> in Afghanistan. Not only has Obama refused to close Bagram, or open it to oversight, or at least to trials, but there are plans to increase the number of people disappeared into the secret prison.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-63618343734189602382009-03-22T11:29:00.001+11:002009-03-22T17:11:18.969+11:00Holy hand grenade!From <span style="font-style:italic;">the Department of You Can't Be Too Careful</span>, a British pub was evacuated after workmen came across a prop from the 1975 movie "Monty Python And The Holy Grail". Bomb disposal experts were called in to inspect the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Hand_Grenade_of_Antioch">Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch</a>", and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5018294/Pub-evacuated-after-Monty-Python-prop-mistaken-for-grenade.html">declared it safe</a> after nearly an hour.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMhyTozUFlYHGbtLYex0KrLxdv8n1Y4pVAUvzdhlBLFEpffbpVJ0tQtMHnUwiUyK47qWJiozq-AlxQqREaTz_7A5V_YRZKQbrYyVus1rPu18i0dPYec9CZR17SO70vJ4B_APoEVw/s1600-h/holy_hand_grenade.jpg"><img style="vertical-align: middle; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 125px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMhyTozUFlYHGbtLYex0KrLxdv8n1Y4pVAUvzdhlBLFEpffbpVJ0tQtMHnUwiUyK47qWJiozq-AlxQqREaTz_7A5V_YRZKQbrYyVus1rPu18i0dPYec9CZR17SO70vJ4B_APoEVw/s200/holy_hand_grenade.jpg" border="0" alt="Holy Hand Grenade" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315888140048913170" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnH9Swlt0_dzomh5a14UqtVrZeH5wXlLA0JNZSV52NCuLxuwS6QHZYKJ1El75HYH2bVqvihW9A9gEXDGU03-hsnneX15vEgNGF2wpuTo_D5p6WaF3lscOXwKufG3n08FoI528V3A/s1600-h/hhg-whoopy_cushion.jpg"><img style="vertical-align: middle; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnH9Swlt0_dzomh5a14UqtVrZeH5wXlLA0JNZSV52NCuLxuwS6QHZYKJ1El75HYH2bVqvihW9A9gEXDGU03-hsnneX15vEgNGF2wpuTo_D5p6WaF3lscOXwKufG3n08FoI528V3A/s200/hhg-whoopy_cushion.jpg" border="0" alt="Holy Hand Grenade whoopee cushion" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315888142909648082" /></a> <br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Left: the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch; Right: the Holy Hand Grenade Whoopee Cushion.</span></div>Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-45615399591010576232009-03-18T23:42:00.000+11:002009-03-19T02:56:00.473+11:00Another earthquakeAustralia is usually one of the most geologically stable continents, and yet less than two weeks after <a href="http://northernplanets.blogspot.com/2009/03/did-earth-move-for-you-too.html">the last earthquake</a>, Melbourne experienced <a href="http://livenews.com.au/Articles/2009/03/18/Another_earthquake_shakes_Melbourne">another one</a>.<br /><br />According to Professor Malcolm Wallace from the earth sciences department at Melbourne University, today's earthquake was likely an aftershock from the one twelve days ago, and the chances are that there will be a few more aftershocks. However, Professor Wallace does not believe that we're at any greater risk of a large earthquake.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-68643266288349607022009-03-17T01:16:00.001+11:002009-03-17T04:52:24.012+11:00Where has all the money gone?The CEO of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone_Group">Blackstone Group</a>, Stephen Schwarzman, has claimed that over the last eighteen months 40-45% of the wealth in the world <a href="http://agonist.org/20090311/45_percent_of_worlds_wealth_destroyed_blackstone_ceo">has been lost</a>.<br /><br />Lost? How can people lose trillions of dollars? Did they check behind the sofa or in their spare pants? Did some <a href="http://drhorrible.com/">super-villain</a> break into Fort Knox and teleport all the gold away? Perhaps they put it in a Swiss bank vault and lost the key and now can't get it back.<br /><br />No, the reality is that most of the money lost never really existed -- it was all in our heads, and by "our" I actually mean mostly the jokers on Wall Street and bankers and crooks like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoff_investment_scandal">Bernie Madoff</a>. These guys fooled themselves that they were producing value when all they were doing was shuffling electrons in computers: a shell game, a confidence trick, where so long as everybody stays confident we don't notice the trick. Money is, when you get right down to it, a shared illusion, and often based on some really weird ideas too. Gold, too soft to make into either swords or plowshares, is considered valuable, while good clean air, without which we sicken and die in as little as minutes, is valueless. <br /><br />Another example of the illusion of money is the diamond trade. Diamonds never wear out, they don't rot or break down. Almost without exception, virtually every gem-quality diamond every found still exists. Every year, the total pool of diamonds available in the market continues to increase. In truth, diamonds are not really that rare, and getting less rare every year. By the accepted laws of economics (to say nothing of common sense), diamonds should depreciate in value. But they don't. Under the cunning marketing of De Beers, diamonds are massively over-valued relative to the number of diamonds potentially available. De Beers' genius was to convince people for the last half century to buy diamonds, but not sell them. And now, with a Depression looming, they fear that this <a href="http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/Diamondoverhang.htm">massive stockpile of diamonds</a> may suddenly re-enter the market, flooding the market for diamonds and causing the price to crash drastically.<br /><br />This is what happens when you value something under the assumption that it is far rarer and more precious than it really is. Sound familiar? Tulip mania, the South Seas bubble, the dot-com boom, the various housing bubbles, Worldcom, Enron... the list goes on and on. <br /><br />By the way... what's wrong with Forbes? How can a magazine with their reputation write something as ridiculously stupid as <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/12/madoff-ponzi-hedge-pf-ii-in_rl_1212croesus_inl.html">this</a>?<br /><br /><blockquote>In 1920, Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant, began advertising that he could make a 50% return for investors in only 45 days. Incredibly, Ponzi began taking in money from all over New England and New Jersey. By July of 1920, he was making millions as people mortgaged their homes and invested their life savings. <span style="font-weight:bold;">As with all frauds,</span> he was discovered to have a jail record and was indicted on 86 counts of fraud. Some tens of millions of dollars were invested with him.</blockquote>(Emphasis added.)<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">All</span> frauds have a jail record? How can they make this claim in an article about a fraud with no previous jail record?<br /><br />(I was also interested to see that Wikipedia seems to suggest that all financial <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_contract">futures</a> are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(probability_theory)">martingales</a>. If this is the case, and I haven't misunderstood something, then futures are mathematically guaranteed to lose money in the long term.)Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-13374395822110098862009-03-16T22:07:00.002+11:002009-03-17T03:04:19.311+11:00Schultz CityThanks to <a href="http://ninjaink.deviantart.com/art/Schulz-City-That-Yellow-S-1-115191442">ninjaink</a> at DeviantArt, what if <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Miller_(comics)">Frank Miller</a> wrote <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanuts">Peanuts</a>?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmkkapU64hQQWBJIrTMXiMYUmoCzrWxRX4JAgyvM7Q96DgM7oH7tIEl4dGDpKauKNvxdH5-B6YCKe5QaAPrE6PGcT0-0FO9rxcQJXtnfd3w2fYr7CpLwOZYD4_R-08jy2Kykh9A/s1600-h/schultz_city-thumb.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 163px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmkkapU64hQQWBJIrTMXiMYUmoCzrWxRX4JAgyvM7Q96DgM7oH7tIEl4dGDpKauKNvxdH5-B6YCKe5QaAPrE6PGcT0-0FO9rxcQJXtnfd3w2fYr7CpLwOZYD4_R-08jy2Kykh9A/s320/schultz_city-thumb.jpg" border="0" alt="Schultz City thumb" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313815627190291906" /></a><br /><br />You can see the whole image <a href="http://fc24.deviantart.com/fs45/f/2009/066/1/f/1f461a2c6a6ec919e4be8860e12db9c4.jpg" target="_blank">here</a>, or visit ninjaink's page <a href="http://ninjaink.deviantart.com/art/Schulz-City-That-Yellow-S-1-115191442">here</a>.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-36051439889267931432009-03-11T01:05:00.004+11:002009-03-11T01:25:30.400+11:00WikiLeaks cracks secret Pentagon documentsNews from <a href="https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/N1">Wikileaks</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>Wikileaks has cracked the encryption to a key document relating to the war in Afghanistan. The document, titled "NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative", details the "story" NATO representatives are to give to, and to avoid giving to, journalists.</blockquote><br />The news doesn't seem hugely interesting: NATO lies, the Pentagon lies, they try to manage journalists to spread the message they want spread rather than the truth. Well duh. After eight years of Dubyah and his propaganda, anyone surprised by this is terminally stupid.<br /><br />There are two bits of interest though: the password cracked by Wikinews was... "progress". Yes, that's right, the best and brightest NATO and the Pentagon can hire are utterly clueless about choosing passwords. Ain't it grand?<br /><br />The other bit of interest is that the documents reveal that Jordan is secretly part of the US occupation forces, the ISAF. I'm sure that won't go down well in the Middle East.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-77548156057172812862009-03-10T22:42:00.005+11:002009-03-11T00:41:37.420+11:00Why loony leftists matter<a name="loontop"></a>The consequences of giving power to the far-left -- whether the loonies in the London city council, Politically-Correct socialists in the ivory tower of macademia<a href="#loonfootnote">[1]</a> or the genocidal criminals in Soviet Russia and <a href="http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/projects/genocides/cambodia/CambodiaHistoryLavinia.htm">Cambodia</a> -- has been baneful and calamitous. As James Wimberley of the Reality Based Community <a href="http://www.samefacts.com/archives/politics_and_leadership_/2009/02/lefties.php">says</a>: <br /><br /><blockquote>The record of these people in power is so disastrous that it would be tempting to wish them gone, as has more or less happened in the USA. Tempting but wrong. Like the gene for sickle-cell anaemia, the far left plays a useful irritating and balancing role, so long as it stays in a permanent minority.</blockquote><br />I'm a great believer in the value, no, the necessity, of a few irritating trouble-makers, malcontents and <span style="font-style:italic;">enfants terrible</span> who can stop us from becoming complacent, arrogant and self-satisfied. In the late 1800s and first few decades of the 1900s, capitalism was scared of communist revolution. Marxism was still a vigorous intellectual paradigm. The workers were flexing their muscles and demanding improved working conditions, better conditions and a measure of justice. Consequently, those hard-hearted and selfish capitalist leaders feared for their profits and their lives, and (eventually, reluctantly) modified their behaviour, and so the 20th century saw massive improvements in quality of life for those who weren't at the top of the social pyramid: pensions, universal health insurance and education, the 40 (or even 38) hour week, holiday pay, unfair dismissal laws and much more.<br /><br />But in countries like the USA, where the masses turned their backs on unions and swallowed the lie that <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040105/krugman">class warfare</a> is by definition the lazy and envious poor against the deserving rich, things are very different. It seems like at least half the country -- even many of those going hungry because of medical expenses -- believes that having the government use its massive purchasing power to buy medicine at a discount is one tiny step away from outlawing private property and sending everyone to the gulag. Far-right wingers pose as centrists and moderate right-wingers are vilified as communists. Consequently, the fat cats in the capitalist classes have been behaving like the fox in the henhouse for decades now, with crisis following bubble every couple of years. Every crisis is followed by an even bigger one, and those perpetrating the disasters get rewarded each time. After losing inconceivably large amounts of money, the banks have gone to the US government begging for bailouts. No social safety net for the tellers, but the CEOs and executives get to give themselves <a href="http://moneyning.com/money-news/why-is-our-bailout-money-going-towards-paying-for-executive-bonuses/">massive</a> <a href="http://www.themodernleft.com/2009/02/goldman-sachs-burger-king-and-bailout.html">pay</a> <a href="http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/category/industryarticle.aspx?feed=MY&Date=20090226&ID=9648317&industry=IND_AUTOMOTIVE&isub=">rises</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja155KxPKDJPguEDBUoP5Of1JhmN7ZDjyuYgbi0DIC105bZFNCukT7uqUAyJzF8ev-5rZOBvsGfvsvLON0Wyt5ZNHdTCvUSCJDqdUMEmpAU_jJxfhI2rcsi6EF8w74cbzy1bE9GQ/s1600-h/pig_bonus.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 155px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja155KxPKDJPguEDBUoP5Of1JhmN7ZDjyuYgbi0DIC105bZFNCukT7uqUAyJzF8ev-5rZOBvsGfvsvLON0Wyt5ZNHdTCvUSCJDqdUMEmpAU_jJxfhI2rcsi6EF8w74cbzy1bE9GQ/s200/pig_bonus.jpg" border="0" alt="Pigs at the trough" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311553392514441778" /></a><br />And why not? What have they got to be scared of? The working class in the US is convinced that all they need is a couple of lucky breaks and they too will be as rich as Bill Gates, or at least comfortably middle-class, when the reality is that <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12699486/paul_krugman_on_the_great_wealth_transfer/print">income inequality</a> has exploded over the last thirty years. It's not clear whether the current economic crisis will level things out again, or simply punish those who work for a living while allowing the mega-rich even more opportunity to buy up assets. A lot will depend on moral outrage, and very few people do moral outrage over pigs-at-the-trough like old-school leftists. So let's give three cheers for the Loyal Opposition of Loony Leftists, may they prosper, but not too much, just enough to keep the bastards honest.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a name="loonfootnote"></a>[1] Caution: May Contain Nuts. <a href="#loontop">Back</a></span>Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-79056424326961527552009-03-10T20:43:00.000+11:002009-03-10T22:38:52.272+11:00Perverse incentivesBruce Schneier has written an article on <a href="http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/03/perverse_securi.html">perverse security incentives</a>. The concept of a perverse incentive comes from economics, where it refers to an incentive that, deliberately or accidentally, rewards inefficient or bad behaviour.<br /><br />Such "perversely" inefficient behaviour isn't <span style="font-style:italic;">necessarily</span> bad. It's an economic term focusing on a single aspect of the human condition: a rather narrow view of economic efficiency. Spending money on taking Granny to the doctor instead of selling her to the glue factory would, according to some definitions, count as inefficient, and therefore love, loyalty, affection and kindness might be counted as "perverse incentives". This isn't a bad thing -- we'd all be a lot happier if we admitted that we're all pervs in one way or another, and besides it's not the job of economists to make value judgements. Their job is to tell us how efficiently we're spending, or making, money, and it's our job to make the value judgements that, all things considered, Gran's got a few more years left in the old bird, and besides one day we'll be that old too.<br /><br />So remember that while perverse incentives are often harmful as well as inefficient, this isn't necessarily the case. Schneier discusses the case of a store who fired an employee for stopping a shop-lifter escaping with hundreds of dollars of stolen food. Sounds ridiculously stupid, yes? But not if you look at the big picture: a few hundred dollars worth of food is nothing compared to the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars the store could be liable for if the staff member tackled and injured an innocent customer, or if the thief pulled out a weapon and killed somebody. As Schneier explains (and so many of the commenters on the blog fail to grasp), "You Will Not Attack Shop-Lifters" <span style="font-style:italic;">is</span> a security measure: it protects the store against worse consequences than a backpack full of groceries being stolen.<br /><br /><a name="sectop"></a>For the same reason, banks typically have a strict No Heroics rule. It's not worth the life of a teller to save the insurance company from suffering a slightly lower profit in one quarter. This sort of economic reasoning comes hard to most people. It comes hard to <span style="font-style:italic;">me</span> -- even knowing all the reasons why it would be stupid to put yourself in danger for somebody else's profit, the very thought that thieves are getting something for nothing offends every fibre of my being<a href="#secfootnote">[1]</a>. As a species, we have a deep hatred of cheaters who break the social contract (unless it is Us breaking the contract against Them -- we're a moral species, but also a hypocritical species).<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a name="secfootnote"></a>[1] As a 19 year old, when I was young and invincible, one of my fellow uni students and I almost walked into a bank robbery in progress at a bank on Melbourne University campus. We saw these two masked gunmen, and came *this close* to deciding to tackle them when they came out of the bank. Fortunately, we decided to walk around the building once first, and if the robbers were still there, then we would tackle them. They weren't. <a href="#sectop">Back</a></span>Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-78568937510751270972009-03-09T23:53:00.007+11:002009-03-10T02:26:22.012+11:00Whatever happened to bin Laden's Super-Fortress?In the lead-up to the US invasion of Afghanistan, there was a lot of press about Osama bin Laden's super-fortress buried deep under the mountain of Tora Bora. The British press told us that bin Laden was holed up in a vast redoubt, a fortress buried as deep under the mountain as the World Trade Centre was high, powered with its own hydroelectric generators, housing 2,000 fanatical fighters and equipped with at least one Russian tank in perfect working order.<br /><br />This story caught the imagination of the press corps, especially when the basic claims were repeated by American officials such as Donald Rumsfeld.<br /><br />In December 2001 Afghan mujahadeen forces <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tora_Bora">attacked</a> the "impenetrable" fortress, assisted by American and British air-strikes and a small number of American, British and German special forces. According to Time Magazine, the battle cost the lives of one mujahadeen and seven Taliban fighters. Afterwards, American troops combed the mountain for bin Laden. <a href="http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/nether_fictoid3.htm">No fortress was discovered</a>, no hydroelectric generators, no massive hotel housing thousands of fighters, and no Russian tank.<br /><br />They did however find a tube of <a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,188029,00.html">deodorant</a>.<br /><br />(On a related note: Edward Jay Epstein also casts serious doubt on the <a href="http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/nether_fictoid9.htm">box-cutter</a> story from 9/11.)Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-21828179703783034252009-03-06T21:17:00.003+11:002009-03-10T02:42:55.104+11:00Did the earth move for you too?(Update, Monday 9th March: I seem to have forgotten to actually publish this post. Oops.)<br /><br />Just before 9pm tonight <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/07/2509958.htm?section=justin">Melbourne experienced an earthquake</a> measuring 4.6 on the Richter Scale. There was no serious damage reported.<br /><br />Mrs Impala and I were home when the entire house <span style="font-style:italic;">wobbled</span> -- it was a fascinating and exciting experience to have a solid brick house built on a concrete slab wobble like jelly on a plate for two or three seconds. I'm glad it was only a minor earthquake, almost one hundred kilometres away from my house, and apparently 8km deep under ground. It certainly puts you in awe at the power of moving tectonic plates -- and Australia is an ancient, quiet continent, far from active. I can't imagine the forces involved in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ring_of_Fire">Ring of Fire</a>.<br /><br />My cat came into the house just moments before, and sat calmly in the middle of the living room during the quake. My chickens slept through the whole thing, and the next door neighbours' hell-hounds were quiet. My mum's dog and cat were also surprised by it. Talk about mysterious animal senses...Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-38526341931158596982009-02-12T21:05:00.004+11:002009-02-13T12:01:01.825+11:00Happy Darwin DayHello to all. After a seven month absence I have returned. I'd like to explain my absence with a tale of derring-do, of frontiers crossed and mountains scaled and disasters averted, of femmes fatale and gangsters and wild ambulance rides and desperate last stands, but the honest truth is that I've just been busy with ordinary life. Sigh.<br /><br />Today is the <a href="http://www.darwin200.org/">bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth</a>. Happy 200th birthday to him! (It's also Abraham Lincoln's 200th.)<br /><br />It's astounding that, in the year 2009, more than one in two people in the USA <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/02/alert_edward_tufte.php">don't accept the reality of biological evolution</a>. This is the cause of, and is caused by, the politicisation of biology by religious fundamentalists: evolution has been, for well over half a century, a convenient whipping boy to rally the troops. Opposition to a scientific theory has become a good defining characteristic of a certain type of fundamentalist. It's relatively safe and easy too: it doesn't require you give up your DVD player or plasma TV, like the Amish do, or avoid medical treatment like followers of so-called "Christian Science" do.<br /><br />While Darwin's contributions to biology are eminently worthy of respect and even celebration, I don't think the plans for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Day">Darwin Day</a> are entirely innocent. After all, there's little or no serious movement towards celebrating Sir Isaac Newton's birthday (25th December), or Maxwell's, or Einstein's, or any other noted scientist. I think that there is a little bit of <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cocked+a+snook">cocking a snook</a> at the Fundamentalists here. They've spent decades demonising Darwin, and I'm sure a lot of people (myself included) wouldn't be too unhappy to see the fundies squirm over Darwin Day. But I think it is important to remember that Darwin never sought controversy, and although he became an atheist himself, he wasn't a militant one. He never begrudged his wife Emma's faith, and he deliberately held off publishing his theory as long as possible because of his concerns that it would upset people.<br /><br />So, for Darwin Day, some links on why Darwin is important.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/09/charles-darwin-anniversary">From the Guardian</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>There can be no such equivocation in the week of a survey which showed that only around half of all Britons accept that Darwin's theory of evolution is either true or probably true. In a democracy, citizens should respect each other's beliefs; and citizens have a right to express their beliefs. But in a democracy, a newspaper has an obligation to what is right. The truth is that Darwin's reasoning has in the last 150 years been supported overwhelmingly by discoveries in biology, geology, medicine and space science. The details will keep scientists arguing for another 200 years, but the big picture has not changed. All life is linked by common ancestry, including human life. The shameful lesson of this 200th anniversary of his birth is that Darwin's contemporaries understood more clearly than many modern Britons.</blockquote><br />Jerry Coyne on <a href="http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/darwinism-must-die/">why Darwin is still important</a>, 150 years after <span style="font-style:italic;">Origin Of Species</span>:<br /><br /><blockquote>Darwin had far more influence on modern evolutionary research than Newton has on work in modern physics. In fact, in no other area of science has a research program suggested by one person lasted for a century and a half. ... <br /><br />But some biologists, chafing in their Darwinian straitjacket, periodically announce new worldviews that, they claim, will overturn our view of evolution, or at least force its drastic revision. During my career I have heard this said about punctuated equilibrium, molecular drive, the idea of symbiosis as an evolutionary force, evo-devo, and the notion that evolution is driven by the self-organization of molecules. Some of these ideas are worthwhile, others simply silly; but none do more than add a room or two to the Darwinian manse. Often declared dead, Darwinism still refuses to lie down.</blockquote><br />(A small aside: Richard Dawkins has <a href="http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,3594,Heat-the-Hornet,Richard-Dawkins">a glowing review</a> of Coyne's book <span style="font-style:italic;">Why Evolution Is True</span>. One for the shopping list, methinks.)<br /><br />And Darwin fan-grrl Soupytwist has written a short, sweet and kick-arse post about <a href="http://soupytwist.livejournal.com/404240.html">her attitude to Darwin and his theory</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>It's about seeing the world for what it is, not for what we might percieve it to be, and seeing the actual underlying processes underneath: processes at once so simple and so far-reaching that they boggle the mind.<br /><br />I mean, "things that survive are the ones who get to pass on attributes to the next generation" seems pretty obvious, really. But as simple as that idea is, it really wasn't obvious, not in the face of a world where basically everybody thought species were created immutable, and absolutely not before we knew there was definitely such a thing as DNA which might provide the actual mechanics of the whole thing.</blockquote><br />On a related note, if anybody tries to tell you that Darwin recanted his theory on his deathbed and returned to Christianity, don't be fooled. <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/02/they_are_as_stupid_as_you_thin.php">It simply isn't true</a>.<br /><br /><br />UPDATE: thanks to Mrs Impala for her l33t editing and proof-reading skills, and the link to Soupytwist.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-87901540681263789272008-06-28T00:05:00.003+10:002008-06-29T15:45:25.937+10:00Electricity from footstepsI like this idea -- it's thinking outside the box. British engineers are working on a plan to use the footsteps of pedestrians to generate electricity.<br /><br /><a name="footsteps-top"></a>The Times reports that the technology has already been successfully trialled and the firm behind it is in talks with supermarkets and railway stations. It works by using the footfall of pedestrians to compress pads under the floor, pushing fluid through turbines to generate electricity. Copy and paste this URL into your browser to see more:<br /><br />http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4087518.ece <a href="#footsteps-footnote">[1]</a><br /><br />According to the report, calculations suggest that the 34,000 train-travellers passing through London's Victoria Underground station every hour could generate enough electricity to power 6,500 lightbulbs.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a name="footsteps-footnote"></a>[1] The Times' Terms and Conditions prohibit giving the newspaper free advertising by linking to pages on their website. Links are prohibited, but merely providing the URL is allowed. Stupid, isn't it? <a href="#footsteps-top">Back</a></span>Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-39956971829302782512008-06-27T22:47:00.000+10:002008-06-29T13:03:27.696+10:00Whatever happened to Osama bin Laden?Osama bin Laden seems to have gone from Most Wanted Man Alive to Care Factor Zero. President Bush, after swearing to bring bin Laden to justice, admitted some years ago that bin Laden was not a priority. But this interview with the late Benazir Bhutto is very interesting... <br /><br />On 2nd November 2007, less than two months before <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Benazir_Bhutto">she was assassinated</a>, Benito gave an interview with David Frost where she talked about the people wanting to stop the democratic process in Pakistan, and her fear that they were involved in the previous assassination attempt against her and would try again. Six minutes into the video, Bhutto claims that bin Laden has been murdered. Frost didn't bother to question her about this: either he considers the murder of bin Laden old news, unimportant, or he's simply losing his mojo as an interviewer.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oIO8B6fpFSQ&hl=en"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oIO8B6fpFSQ&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Bhutto clearly felt that she was at risk of assassination from Pakistani government forces. It's not clear why al Qaeda would have assassinated the opposition leader, if indeed it was al Qaeda: arguably they could have been motivated by pure misogamy, or perhaps they prefer having an anti-democratic military strong man in power.<br /><br />Of course, this assumes that al Qaeda really was behind her assassination. It's not clear that al Qaeda is anything more than a convenient bogey-man for the US and Pakistani governments. It wouldn't be the first or the last time that a supposed revolutionary or terrorist group had been infiltrated by so many government agents that in fact there were no revolutionaries left in it. Once a government, or even part of a government, starts defining itself in terms of opposition to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Goldstein">shadowy criminal figures</a>, the temptation is very large to create such convenient scapegoats.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29098653.post-78156759210766613422008-06-27T22:17:00.000+10:002008-12-12T17:41:25.774+11:00Big Brother is WatchingHow very apt...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEEYJcxEFdbnWBFlUradrkDDi1PVnggVjeinZbwljHsRxK6X3P5wqhTe5gEcp0u3fn280JYkq_J-H_I04-FZ7-Obf0M1caGtdUwCrddKIGLf1OiUzy_zZQ2PO55fo5lDdTiMEu7Q/s1600-h/bigbrotherwatching.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEEYJcxEFdbnWBFlUradrkDDi1PVnggVjeinZbwljHsRxK6X3P5wqhTe5gEcp0u3fn280JYkq_J-H_I04-FZ7-Obf0M1caGtdUwCrddKIGLf1OiUzy_zZQ2PO55fo5lDdTiMEu7Q/s320/bigbrotherwatching.jpg" border="0" alt="Big Brother is Watching - camera at George Orwell Place" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217121237252637682" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;">(Click image for full sized image.)</span></div><br /><br />At least the Spanish tell you when you're being filmed.Vlad the Impalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581503726912398643noreply@blogger.com0