Monthly Archives: September 2016

Gilda (1946) is a tense, dialog-driven film illustrating at least two woes – soured love and greed – and how they can ruin the lives of those whose decisions lead to such woes. Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, and George Macready lead a great cast, sometimes luxuriating in lines with a double meaning, sometimes spitting them out in frustration and rage, as Ballin (Macready) rescues Johnny (Ford) from a hold-up in Buenos Aires, and offers him a job on the spot at his casino. Johnny works his way up the ladder to right-hand man, until one day Ballin goes away and returns with a wife, Gilda (Hayworth).

Johnny becomes a little sour, but nothing like Gilda, who’s a spitfire with poison for bullets. Ballin stands in the background, taking it all in, while juggling the management of the (illegal) casino which is actually a cover for another, vastly more important, operation. As events force characters to choose allegiances, both they and the audience entertain paranoid interpretations. Revenge on soured love leads our anti-heroes down paths better never trodden, until a climax which surprises us with its force and choice.

It’s difficult to fault any facet of the movie. Perhaps Johnny could have been more complex, and yet Ford’s few hints at just a character that I wonder if I just missed more hints. Hayworth, on the other hand, glories in her part, until my Arts Editor muttered, “She’s what we call poison!” Macready is more than adequate, concealing important clues until just the right moment to drop them. Even so, the mysteries of his backstory tantalize and leave the audience wanting more.

Strongly recommended.

Surely Professor Carl Jones, a conservation biologist who often clashes with fellow environmentalists, felt at least a twinge of the old schadenfreude as he describes some of his conservation work on Mauritius:

Aldabra Giant Tortoise

The original grazers had been giant tortoises, until they went extinct. So I figured we should introduce Aldabra giant tortoises. They were a different species, but it seemed to me they would do the same job. When I talked to my friends about this, they all thought I was mad. “How do you know they will be an exact fit?” they asked. Botanists were literally purple with rage, saying the tortoises would eat critically endangered plants. I said: “Sure, that’s the idea. Your plants won’t survive unless tortoises graze on them.”

We conducted some studies that showed tortoises would do far more good than harm. It turned out that the seeds of endemic plants that passed through a tortoise’s gut germinated far better than if they hadn’t. After the [Mauritian Wildlife Foundation] restored the tortoises, the native plants started to come back.

“Kestrel manoeuvres in the dark,” NewScientist (3 September 2016)

Perhaps viewing Godzilla’s Revenge (1969, aka All Monsters Attack, aka Gojira-Minira-Gabara: Ōru Kaijū Daishingeki, which translates to Godzilla, Minilla, and Gabara: All Monsters Attack) is the cause of my current gastrointestinal distress. Aimed at children, a little boy, Ishiro, is menaced by the local gang of slightly older children, and he retreats to fantasies about an island where monsters such as Godzilla, Gabara, and others appear to be in constant fighting practice, including Godzilla’s son, Minilla, who has his own fears inhibiting his attempts to live up to his father’s expectations. Reality then ups the ante as two bank robbers, apparently the inspiration for the burglars in the comedy Home Alone (1990), kidnap him as he stumbles across one of their driver license cards. Eventually, Minilla inspires Ishiro to escape, leading the robbers on a bumbling chase while the cops close in and finally capture them.

From horrid special effects to a drearily predictable story, monsters with no purpose but to inspire a little boy, and dubious acting, I can only think fast-forwarding through the more dreadful parts of this movie has upset my equilibrium; or, I didn’t use the fast forward feature enough, allowing myself to be overcome by pursuing bad taste.

In either case, this cannot be recommended, even to Godzilla completists.

NewScientist‘s Anil Ananthaswamy covers the broad topic of consciousness (3 September 2016, paywall). This caught my eye:

But how [does the brain give rise to consciousness]? That is a raging debate. At its heart is what philosopher David Chalmers at New York University termed the “hard problem” of consciousness: how can physical networks of neurons produce experiences that appear to fall outside the material world? As Thomas Nagel, also at New York University, put it in the 1970s: you could know every detail of the physical workings of a bat’s brain, but still not know what it is like to be a bat.

Broadly speaking, those trying to solve the hard problem fall into two camps, according to psychologist and philosopher Nicholas Humphrey. There are those who think that consciousness is something real and those who say it’s a mirage, and so dismiss the problem entirely. …

Those [in the latter camp] say the hard problem creates one where there is none. “It’s an unsolvable mystery, because the problem is ill posed,” says neuroscientist Michael Graziano of Princeton University. He argues that consciousness is nothing but a trick of the mind. What’s more, the brain doesn’t just create the illusion of consciousness but also the feeling that there is a separate, immaterial “I” having a conscious experience. In other words: there is no need to explain strange interactions between material and immaterial things because the immaterial things don’t really exist.

From my limited perspective, I begin to wonder if the terms of the debate are ill-defined. I wonder if the question, What attributes typify consciousness, would elicit very different answers from the two camps?

panpsychism:

Is this aware?

… panpsychism, the view that all matter – even inanimate objects like rocks – is imbued with some degree of consciousness.

– Anil Ananthaswamy in “Metaphysics special: What is consciousness?”, NewScientist (3 September 2016, paywall)

We can see the success of the invaders here.

Stealthily coming over the garage roof

Leaving soldiers wherever it goes.

A hapless victim.

A reader wanders off-topic concerning long distance suits:

Are they going to allow the American airline companies that trained some of these terrorists how to fly the airliners and allow the families to sue them too? Seems to me that is what I had read shortly after 9/11. That may be next?

I have not heard of such a step. I’m nothing near a lawyer, but it seems to me that if gun shops cannot be sued for selling guns used in mass shootings, it seems unlikely that a flight training school could be sued for offering flight training.

Profiting from software bugs continues:

Right. I think the current legal definition of insider trading involves only people inside a company whose stock is being traded, or maybe it includes people in a company about to buy another company or similar deal. But to me, an insider is someone who knows something the general public does not. Making book, er, stock trades on that knowledge, especially when it is harmful and vital knowledge, and you’ve taken steps to keep it that way until you profit, seems like it ought to be illegal. It’s at least heinous in this case.

So how to compensate a hacker who finds a bug? I think I agree that this particular effort seems unethical, although I’m a little concerned that I’m applying an engineering ethical system to a private sector transaction, but it seems proper to do so since we’re basically talking about engineering, even if it’s enabled by the private sector’s funding.

And if it gets valid results, that’s not bad. The latest subject, which I ran across a month ago and forgot about, is the identification of new species via iNaturalist, as reported by npr.org:

Sam Kieschnick, an urban biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife, says an individual photo might not be groundbreaking — and true, you’re not getting any PokéCoins or other rewards — but each observation adds to our understanding of biodiversity, like a mosaic or pointillist painting.

“It’s just a single dot if you look up close, but when you start to take a step back, you can get to see these patterns that start to develop,” Kieschnick says.

There have been major discoveries as a result of photo sharing on iNaturalist.

In 2013, for example, a man in Colombia uploaded a photo of a bright red and black frog. A poison frog expert in Washington, D.C., spotted it and eventually determined it was a brand-new species. The pair co-authored the results in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa.

One of the developers behind iNaturalist is Scott Loarie. He says when he partnered with naturalist Ken-ichi Ueda, the initial idea was to use it as a tool to get people engaged with nature, and later, as a tool for science.

Making things fun seems to be the way, at least in Western culture. It’d be interesting to know how well this approach works in other cultures.

Oscar Brown….

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dheVr7Wdrro

Sally Adee reports in NewScientist (3 September 2016) on the surprising lack of support for the idea of using fake babies to discourage teenage pregnancy – and what happened when the idea was tested:

Now a study of more than 2800 girls at 57 schools has found that those who cared for a doll may have higher rates of pregnancy and abortion than those who didn’t. Behind the alluring narrative of the off-putting doll was a more complex reality. Giving these girls a cute, fun doll to take home for a weekend is not an accurate reflection of parenthood. Then there was the positive attention that the dolls create. The study isn’t without its flaws, but no one disputes its main finding – that the dolls didn’t work.

This cautionary tale is not an unusual one. Many common-sense interventions crumble under the slightest probing, especially in medicine. The baby simulator is just the most recent example of how social policy can go unexpectedly wrong.

For Sally this is a story with wider applicability – simple solutions are often not solutions. But I’m left wondering about the analysis of why this didn’t work – and what it would take to make it work? Give the girls a fake baby for a month? A year? It seems like this is merely a visceral discouragement, which, as noted, also had its advantages. How do you teach the girls that, once burdened with a baby, higher education becomes much harder for both parents – if the guy even hangs around?

If the Virtual Reality can add time compression to their contraptions then they might have a solution.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956) is a vastly silly name for a movie that is only half-silly. Raymond Burr stars as an American journalist who happens to stop in Japan just after the United States test fires the first hydrogen bomb. Ships begin to disappear near one of the Japanese islands, survivors are burned and don’t survive very long – and then one night, a big something comes ashore and knocks over some residences.

Burr lends a certain gravitas to the movie as he calmly reports on the monster so large that it brings its own storm systems with it. The next night the monster is known to be in Tokyo Bay, and preparations are made to defend the city. However, despite the best efforts, a terrible rampage begins and only random chance spares a few.

And this is where we might best understand the movie, for we see not only soldiers, but women with children suffer and die from the fury that is Godzilla. Even those who survive the initial attack may be dead before the next night: many register positive for lethal doses of radiation. This is the serious core of the movie, as this incomprehensible monster destroys all in its path, virtually salts the earth behind it, making land, the most precious resource in Japan, unusable in its wake. This is what nuclear weapons will do, it says, making even those who come afterwards into monsters – if they’re not monsters already. So would be the bomb-droppers, who by creating and using the most powerful and indiscriminate destructive man-made power in history, not only ruin those in the moment of its dropping, ruin many others with nothing more than casual malice – blighting the virtuous simple workers, the good-hearted women, all who’s greatest sin was being too close.

Eventually, a Japanese scientist reveals and uses a new weapon, as horrible in its own way as the hydrogen bomb (think of instant-piranha), but he does not reveal the secret – and deliberately kills himself as Godzilla dies, thus ensuring no one will be able to discover this horrid weapon through him. Through this sacrifice, he becomes the role model, the martyr to peace, and by contrast the message that the powers we now command will lead to our destruction if we use them for war.

Crude, by turns serious and almost factory-like, it can be interesting if you can stand the rough spots.

OK, all that said, Wikipedia notes this is actually an example of Americanization:

The film is a heavily re-edited American adaptation, commonly referred to as an “Americanization”,^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]} of the Japanese film Godzilla, originally produced by Toho in 1954, which had previously been shown subtitled in the United States in Japanese community theaters only, and was not known in Europe.

For this version of Godzilla, some of the original Japanese dialogue was dubbed into English and some of the political, social, and anti-nuclear themes and overtones were removed completely, resulting in 16 minutes of footage cut from the original Japanese version and replaced with new footage shot exclusively for the film’s North American release, featuring Canadian actor Raymond Burr playing the lead role of American journalist Steve Martin, from whose perspective the film is told, mainly through flashbacks and narration. The new footage featured Burr interacting with Japanese-American actors and look-alikes to make it seem like he was part of the original Japanese production.

To tell the truth, it’s not done too badly. In some ways, those scenes with Burr are better than those without. It might be interesting to see the original and compare it to this.

For me science is the art of understanding truth and beauty; there is no more noble pursuit.

– Chris Packham (NewScientist, 3 September 2016)

Back in July, Michael Madden on 38 North noted the transition of Kim Jong-il loyalists out of the power structure:

Four senior DPRK officials with longstanding ties to late leader Kim Jong Il have been transferred to “other posts” or retired from office. Two of the retirees were Vice Marshal Ri Yong Mu[33] and General O Kuk Ryol, two former NDC senior vice chairmen who had been removed from the WPK Political Bureau during the 7th Party Congress. Now, their state positions at the top of the NDC seemingly have been abolished.[34]

Also cycled out from the DPRK leadership was Tae Jong Su,[35] a technocrat and DPRK Cabinet Vice Premier who served as the party’s boss in South Hamgyong Province since 2012. Tae was removed from the SPA Presidium and replaced with three senior officials tied to Kim Jong Un.[36] Pak Myong Chol was removed as head of the DPRK Central Court,[37] an office that for two years had made him head of the DPRK court system.[38]He was replaced by Kang Yun Sok, a DPRK attorney who has served for several years as Director-General of the SPA Legislation Department and was Chairman of the DPRK Coordinating Committee for the Implementation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.[39]

All four of these DPRK leadership elders remain members of the WPK Central Committee. There is a good chance that the regime is keeping them around because Kim Jong Un, and other members of their core leadership, may need their extensive career experience and advice going forward.[40]

In case you were wondering if sharia law would ever have any influence on US or US state law, Eugene Volokh of The Volokh Conspiracy reports that a Minnesota appellate court rebuffed just such a possibility. Here’s his summary after discussing the particulars:

Sometimes American law does allow the implementation of foreign legal rules, or religious legal rules. A contract might, for instance, call for applying the law of Sudan, or a will might specify that the property be distributed one-fourth to the widow, one-sixth to the parents, one-sixth each to the three brothers, and one-twelfth to the one sister (whether or not that’s the sharia-mandated split). A court may well enforce such provisions, subject to any constraints imposed by American public policy. (For instance, a contract calling for the cutting off of a person’s hand would be unenforceable; a will calling for a court to apply a legal rule that requires the court to distinguish males from females might be unenforceable, though a will calling for a court to distribute property to named parties would be enforceable.)

But there, too, the principle is simple: American courts apply American law, including when an American law principle calls on American courts to enforce a foreign judgment, to apply foreign law or to follow terms in a contract or a will that deliberately track foreign or religious law. But there has to be an American law principle calling for such application of foreign law. And in this case, there was no such principle.

In other words, the secular law of the United States trumps is supreme to all religious laws. This is really the only way to keep the peace.

It’s election season for everyone it seems, a chance to choose which way to go next. Ben Caspit writes in AL Monitor to suggest that Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing a serious challenger this time around – Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapi, who came out on top of a recent poll that left Netanyahu’s Likud Party in the dust.

How did he do it? The answer is quite simple: Lapid is the new Netanyahu. He doesn’t attack Netanyahu from the left. Instead, he tries to outflank him from the right and criticize him from the center.

CNN is reporting the passage of a bill permitting 9/11 survivors to sue … Saudi Arabia.

I saw these trees in brilliant illumination for about 2 minutes last night – and then they disappeared into the dusk.

In light of today’s North Korean nuclear test, 38 North‘s report on renewed activity at all three portals of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site is jonny-on-the-spot:

Recent commercial satellite imagery from August 27 shows new activity at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site. Notably, a small number of mining carts are visible on or near the tailings piles at both the North and West Portals; the tailings pile at the West Portal has expanded and new tracks for mining carts have been laid; and a small building has been erected to the southwest of the South Portal. Overall, this activity indicates that maintenance and minor excavation operations have resumed at Punggye-ri. However, it is unclear if this activity is directly related to preparations for a fifth nuclear test.

Meanwhile, CNN speculates as to the purpose of the test:

Rather than a bargaining chip used to gain more foreign aid or access to the world stage, it appears that the country’s nuclear weapons program boils down to a matter of dignity and national pride.

But I wonder if one of the aspects of this test is manipulation of the American election. As noted here, North Korea applauds the candidacy of Donald Trump. A menacing act, such as firing a nuclear weapon, could be an attempt to discredit the Obama Administration and, by extension, Hillary’s campaign, leaving Donald as the only viable candidate in many American voters’ minds. Adding a dash of irony, the American public would expect Donald to be the tough guy, forgetting (or never knowing) that Donald has mused on removing American troops from South Korea if Seoul doesn’t carry more of the financial burden. This would fulfill North Korea’s dream, as they themselves admit.

Knock-on effects would include the recession following Trump’s election, as predicted by most economists, for if it were occur it would throw a shadow over the entire liberal democracy government model for which Kim Jong-un has such antipathy.

/lsEver wonder about the reach of American law outside of the United States? Yishai Schwartz reports on the appeal of the Sokolow v Palestine Liberation Organization on Lawfare, beginning with a recap:

… a case that has its origins in the bloody years of the Palestinian “intifada.” The case centers on seven terror attacks perpetrated between 2001 and 2004. In one attack, a seventeen-year-old blew himself up at a crowded bus stop in the French Hill neighborhood of Jerusalem; in another, Hamas operatives detonated a bomb in a Hebrew University cafe; and in a third, a Palestinian security officer opened fire in a crowded Jaffa mall. Together, these and the other attacks killed dozens of civilians and wounded scores more, including a number of American citizens.

So the families of some of the American victims sued – in the Southern District of New York. The initial trial was a success for the plaintiffs, but then came the appeal:

In the ruling, the panel noted that the vast majority of PA/PLO’s activities take place in the West Bank, where the PA governs. As the court explained:

The overwhelming evidence shows that the defendants are “at home” in Palestine, where they govern. Palestine is the central seat of government for the PA and PLO…. All PA governmental ministries, the Palestinian president, the Parliament, and the Palestinian security services reside in Palestine.

By contrast, these organizations’ lobbying and diplomacy activities in the United States appear relatively insignificant. And the simple fact the territories on which defendants conduct the bulk of their activities “are not within a sovereign nation” does not affect the determination of where it properly understood as “at home.” The West Bank, not the United States, is the place in which the Palestinian Authority and PLO are “amenable to suit.”

Mr. Schwartz goes on to note that, despite recent lawmaking that seems to invite US Courts to apply US Law to foreign incidents, US courts seem shy to do so.

My takeaway is much simpler – leaving the country means changing jurisdictions. Even if the US is the lone remaining superpower, that doesn’t make the rest of the world our little colonial empire. If someone takes a shot at you in a foreign city, the legal remedy lies there, not here in the US.

And that seems intuitively correct, as Mr. Schwartz also concludes.

As a side thought, and with a status vis a vis the legal system that I don’t even qualify as an amateur, I have to wonder how much frustration jurists have with legislators. Given the background in this particular article, it seems that the jurists try very hard to come up with a logically consistent system of arguments and procedures – while the legislature is a sort of stochastic process that sows chaos throughout every time it burps up a new law. I know at least one CPA who shakes his head over current tax law. I wonder if judges shake in their boots every time Congress comes into session.

And then there’s the whole confirming Federal judges debacle…

A reader remarks on profitable bugs:

This sounds patently illegal to me, both market manipulation and “insider” trading (although the legal definition of this latter point may actually preclude this kind of trick.)

Preclude the trick? Or do you mean the definition of insider trading doesn’t include this particular approach? I don’t see how it could, since the insider must be an employee of the company, I think.

Another reader corrects me:

Nope. “Insider” is defined as anyone who is acting on information not available to the general public. So, if you heard two strangers in an elevator talking about how Company Z was going to get hostilly taken over tomorrow by Megabusiness Y, and because of the overheard info you sell your shares of Company Z before the price tanks, you’ve just committed insider trading.

I wonder how company-private blogs that might carry important material information are viewed by the SEC.

Sometimes the Arts Editor’s enthusiasm knows no bounds when it comes to zucchini.

Sono Motors plans a natural filtration system (named breSono) for the Sion, its upcoming production car – moss:

Not the moss used in the car.
(Credit: The Frustrated Gardener)

In the interior of the Sion, a unique moss is integrated into the dashboard and used as a natural air filter. A special lichen (moss) is used, which is known for its appealing look and excellent air filtration. In spite of the naturalness of the moss, it actually requires no care, since the plant draws its water from the air. So breSono regulates humidity in the interior of Sion all by itself. In short, it’s a natural air conditioner.

But it has other advantages: The microstructures of moss binds fine dust particles from the air, so even in a big city, you can breathe fresh air. The moss also has sound-absorbing properties, so you have a smooth ride. Moreover it also acts fire repellent and is thus assigned to the fire protection class B1.

Can’t wait to have the local auto shop work on a problem with that system.

(h/t Derek Markham @ Treehugger.com)

A new stock market tactic, but is it legal? Paul Rosenzweig talks about a new way to manage a software bug on Lawfare:

Now we have a new paradigm—one that attempts to monetize the bug and establish its fair market value.  Andrea Peterson reports on a new use of the stock market.  A security research firm called MedSec recently found a flaw in the implantable heart device manufactured by St. Jude Medical.  Rather than alerting St. Jude so they could fix it, or trying to sell it to them, MedSec took a different tack.  It gave knowledge of the flaw to Muddy Waters Research, a hedge fund.  Muddy Waters, in turn, took a short position on St. Jude stock (betting it would go down) and then released a report, based on MedSec research, that publicly disclosed the alleged flaws.  The stock duly dropped, Muddy made a profit (nobody is saying how much) and gave a cut of the profit to MedSec.

While people who put in the time to discover real software bugs should receive some sort of compensation, this still makes me a little ill. Worse yet, Paul notes that no one has been able to reproduce the reported problem, and if this remains true, the SEC should come down hard on both the MedSec and Muddy Waters for market manipulation.

I see this as part and parcel of the necessary confusion of the private and technology sectors. In this case, the urge to profit from a technology mistake is permitted, probably unethically if not legally, to come to fruition.

But, since we’re talking about medical technology, what is the special ethical responsibility of MedSec to report the problem? What if a patient dies because someone delayed reporting a bug until they had arranged to profit from the predicted stock market behavior? Is that on the hacker, on the investment firm taking the position, or on some other party?

Can merely forbidding this actually or legally work? Or is it really on the medical device firms to get their shit together and create working hardware and software? Or is the technology just too damn hard? Or do they not care because the stock price doesn’t affect the company that has issued the stock all that much?