Monthly Archives: October 2017

Yeah, he does look hot, doesn’t he? I recommend no tongue, though.

I don’t know if the makers of the misnamed City of Fear (1959) had more than one theme in mind, but I think the most understated theme in this movie is the most important. The movie opens with the aftermath of a successful escape attempt from San Quentin by Vince Ryker and his buddy, who listen to the radio report of dead and wounded guards and an APB on them. The buddy then dies of his wounds, begging to be taken to the hospital, a request denied by Vince, because that would endanger the most profitable part of their escape.

A container of pure heroin that will set them, now only himself, up for life.

Except it’s not. The “heroin,” which was being used to experiment on volunteer prisoners, is actually granulated Cobalt-60, a deadly radioactive substance, which, in this granulated form, could kill thousands if the container is unsealed.

When your room mirrors your health.

The plot then turns on the desperate police search for the quickly sickening Vince, who is busy trying to arrange to sell the heroin through a dealer. The story, except for the Cobalt-60 element, is a familiar and competent story of how the competing ambitions of criminals makes for poor and even deadly collaboration between criminals. As Vince’s associates die, he grows both more sick and desperate, slowly losing his mind, although whether’s it to the empty promise of riches and prestige, or the effects of radiation (yeah, that container isn’t lead) is hard to tell. He’s heading for a dark ending, but whether that makes this noir is hard to tell.

Technically, it’s a good, if not great, movie. Every character without a spear has at least a bit of personality. The plot, while it had a few problematic ticks to it (really, this violent guy has such a respectable looking girlfriend? And why is the Cobalt-60 ever in a container not made of lead?!), was acceptable, although I prefer to see information dispensed in a more miserly fashion. The dialog was undistinguished but competent, and the actors were also mostly competent in a workmanlike way. I actually admired the work of the actors in the final scene, in the little dive, as every single one had some shabby story to tell, if only they could.

However, the work of the lead, Vince Edwards (yes, his character is Vince, also), was a little bit one note, and I flat out didn’t believe him when he was becoming ill from the radiation poisoning. I think the problem lay in his pacing, as all of his work seemed to move to the same drum beat, even as he was gasping his life out on the street. Compare to Marlon Brando’s stumble from where he is nearly beaten to death on the pier to the warehouse where the union men are needed to begin loading a ship in On The Waterfront (1954). Brando’s sense of pacing is radically altered compared to the rest of the movie in order to emphasize this change to his life and the great effort his character is putting forth in the service of his fellow union members. Granted, Vince is fighting only for himself, and it’s a fight he cannot win, but his internal struggle for the object of projected wealth vs his failing health needed better emphasis.

Thematically, this is obviously another commentary on how crime doesn’t pay. However, the very briefly mentioned fact that the Cobalt-60 is used in experiments on prisoners leads to another theme: Crime doesn’t pay for anyone. The act of performing experimentation on prisoners, without their permission (they thought it was heroin), constitutes a crime in and of itself, and in the story they transform this crime’s victims, the prisoners who are being poisoned, into, in the person of Vince, avenging angels, rebounding those crimes onto the backs of the innocents inhabiting the city into which Vince drives. The story becomes a cautionary tale, not of assuming a life of crime is a profitable and enviable occupation, but the abuse of anyone, even violent prisoners with bad attitudes, is an acceptable way to treat the cast-offs of society. This mistake’s consequences are illustrated in this story, but because the initial mention is so brief as to be almost missed, the theme is unfortunately muted.

It’s an interesting movie, somewhat predictable, but worth a watch after an evening spent shoveling snow.

And, no, most of the inhabitants of the city are not living in fear. I have no idea why they wasted the title slot of this piece with such a meaningless phrase.

Just a few weeks ago we were talking about the alarming decreasing nutrient content in crops, and up pops a tool to measure same in real time. Via NewScientist (23 September 2017):

FARMERS can now zap their crops with a handheld scanner to instantly determine nutritional content, which could prove crucial in mitigating the effects of climate change on food quality. It also brings similar consumer gadgets a step closer – so we can find out what is in our food for ourselves.

The device, called GrainSense, analyses wheat, oats, rye and barley by scanning a sample with various frequencies of near-infrared light. The amount of each type of light that is absorbed allows it to precisely determine the levels of protein, moisture, oil and carbohydrate in the grain.

This technique has been used for decades in the lab, but this is the first time it has been available instantly on a handheld device. …

GrainSense will be launched at the Agritechnica fair in Hanover, Germany, in November. And Krogius and his team are already thinking about adding corn and rice to its repertoire. But the technology could be adapted to assess the protein content of any organic material, including meat.

Other companies are developing similar gadgets for consumers, and sensors that can be fitted onto a smartphone. Whether we all start making healthier food choices is another matter.

I haven’t heard anything about nutrition level decrease deniers, but I shouldn’t be surprised to hear of them. This might put a stake right through the heart of such a movement.

And this might be the one kooky kitchen gadget I will have to get. Although it might induce a sense of foreboding as the years pass.

apokrone, perikrone:

More particles are ejected from Enceladus when it is at its most distant point from Saturn (apokrone) than at the closest point in its elliptical orbit (perikrone), by about a factor of three. [“The Source of Saturn’s E Ring,” Candice Hansen-Koharcheck, The Planetary Report (September Equinox 2017, paywall)]

Try dropping these in casual conversation.

While this video doesn’t have the impact of the classic Wolves in Yellowstone video, it’s still worth watching for the information on how whales inadvertently generate their own food.

And it uses the word “poonami.”

From Jason Zengerle in The New York Times:

Jonah Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Free Beacon, wants to once again bury the mainstream media in accusations of slimy liberality and mendacity, but appears to be suffering from a certain biased view of the facts himself. This is from the National Review’s copy of his original article:

For years, reporters were content to obscure their ideological dogmas and partisan goals behind the pretense of objectivity and detachment. Though the Washington Post, New York Times, and CNN practiced combat journalism against conservatives and Republicans, they did so while aspiring to professional standards of facticity and fairness, and applying, every now and then, scrutiny to liberals and Democrats worthy of investigation.

Donald Trump changed that, of course. He is so unusual a figure, and his behavior so outlandish, that his rise precipitated a crisis in a profession already decimated by the collapse of print circulation and advertising dollars. The forces that brought Trump to power are alien to the experience of the men and women who populate newsrooms, his supporters unlike their colleagues, friends, and neighbors, his agenda anathema to the catechism of social liberalism, his career and business empire complex and murky and sensational. Little surprise that journalists reacted to his election with a combination of panic, fear, disgust, fascination, exhilaration, and the self-affirming belief that they remain the last line of defense against an emerging American autocracy. Who has time for dispassionate analysis, for methodical research and reporting, when the president’s very being is an assault on one’s conception of self, when nothing less than the future of the country is at stake?

So all that fact checking that revealed Trump as a liar doesn’t count? The analysis, which certainly counted as the most conservative possible, indicating that lying liars are among the most unreliable and incompetent people in the world? Those analyses of proposed budget numbers never happened, and those results don’t count?

Nor was I stunned when a major report from the Pew Research Center found that “about six-in-ten news stories about Trump’s first 60 days (62 percent) carried an overall negative assessment of his words and actions. That is about three times more negative than for Obama (20 percent) and roughly twice that of Bush and Clinton (28 percent each).” This, at a time when the stock market is at record highs, the economy is at full employment, and Americans are upbeat about the recovery. The president’s inability to register majority approval in opinion polls may be unprecedented, but so is the amount of negative coverage he has received. Perhaps there’s a connection.

From Maddowblog.

Sure. Did Obama, Bush, or Clinton indulge in such amateurish stunts as talking to the President of Taiwan in the first weeks of their Presidencies? Of threatening, and then collapsing to, the Communist Chinese? Meanwhile, Goldberg can only speak of Obama’s accomplishments as if they were Trump’s; it may be wise for Goldberg to not follow this path further, given recent job number results, as seen to the right. The last data entry indicates a loss of jobs in the last month; Steve Benen also notes that the jobs numbers for two previous months were revised downwards. Obama’s actions may have resurrected the stock market, but even though I appreciate and benefit from his actions, I would not take the stock market as the bellwether of the economic health of the nation.

Like many such articles, it’s a mix of truth and misleading statements. I take his point regarding the FEMA response to the disaster in Puerto Rico, as I earlier noted here, but he ignores the fact that experts with experience with Hurricane Katrina and other such incidents have also criticized the Administration response. Eliding certain facts may make his article seem stronger, but in the end those facts can easily turn around and bite the writer. Winning some rhetorical points can be dwarfed by the reality elephant sitting on you. Then you can only hope your readers have short memories.

But, perhaps most interesting, was the tone of the article. It has a strain of moral superiority, of knowing better than those who he’s chosen to criticize. I’ve noticed this as a common thread running through current conservative writing^[1], and it seems to be the caulk used to cement over the cracks in their arguments. I suspect it appeals to his regular readers, but for those of us who rarely read him and see the holes in his assertions, it grates on the nerves. I would suggest that considering all the facts, an assertion he makes against the “liberal” media, may be a lesson he can, himself, benefit from.

¹Come to think of it, I was seeing some of the same tone in the early 90s from a conservative or two I knew.

PLP/Architecture is hoping to build a timber tower in London. Here’s part of their research proposal:

The use of timber as a structural material in tall buildings is an area of emerging interest for its variety of potential benefits; the most obvious being that it is a renewable resource, unlike prevailing construction methods which use concrete and steel.  The research is also investigating other potential benefits, such as reduced costs and improved construction timescales, increased fire resistance, and significant reduction in the overall weight of buildings. The conceptual proposals currently being developed would create over 1,000 new residential units in a 1 million sq ft mixed-use tower and mid-rise terraces in central London, integrated within the Barbican.

The tall timber buildings research also looks towards creating new design potentials with timber buildings, rather than simply copying the forms of steel and concrete construction. The transition to timber construction may have a wider positive impact on urban environments and built form, and offers opportunities not only to rethink the aesthetics of buildings, but also the structural methodologies informing their design as well.Just as major innovations in steel, glass, concrete revolutionised buildings in the 19th and 20th centuries, creating new typologies such as Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace and the Parisian arcades described by Walter Benjamin, innovations in timber construction could lead to entirely new experiences of the city in the 21st century

While they don’t state the height of the proposed building, they do mention 93,000 sqm 1000 units. Here’s a picture of the proposed tower:

See the project page for more pics. Lloyd Alter of Treehugger.com attended the Green Building Festival and reports:

[Kevin Flanagan of PLP] also noted another reason why he loves wood buildings so much:

We have an affinity for nature and wood. We are calmer and more sociable when nature is in sight. Heart rate goes down and we became more sociable when surrounded by wood; it even promotes healing.

There are many issues that still have to be resolved here. Architects like Waugh Thistleton in London or Acton Ostry in Vancouver cover up the wood with drywall for fire protection, whereas PLP exposes wood inside and exposes the wood structure outside, which is problematic because of moisture. But it is beautiful and provocative imagery.

Reading and writing about timber high rises can afflict you with a certain new sensibility. For instance, on a recent vacation trip, our host’s home is located next to a building under construction, and I could not help but notice how much concrete was being used in the six story edifice. I wondered how the use of cross-laminated timber might have affected and even enhanced the final product. I hope PLP gets to build this London structure and can provide comparative data to a more conventional approach to the project.

From J M Samudosky:

I prefer to think of this as just another tourist in the Pacific Northwest. More here.

Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare reflects on the work of the House Judiciary Committee:

Source: Winners Edge Trading. All about using fractals to enhance your Technical Trading skills. I did not read it because I was chortling too much.

This is actually the second letter the committee Republicans have written demanding a special prosecutor to examine what they describe as “unaddressed matters, some connected to the 2016 election and others, including many actions taken by Obama Administration officials like former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.” The first one, sent in July to the attorney general and deputy attorney general, listed 14 subjects for a special counsel investigation. Like the resolution they reported around the same time, this letter includes “Any and all potential leaks originated by Mr. Comey and provide [sic] to author Michael Schmidt dating back to 1993.”

It would all be merely comical, except that this is the committee responsible for serious constitutional matters, including the contemplation of impeachment. Instead of doing anything that a serious person would recognize as even related to its job, it is busy sending typographically challenged, factually ludicrous letters to the Justice Department demanding investigations of irrelevancies. In its own microcosmic way, it is as vivid a portrait of congressional dysfunction as the failure to pass major legislation in health care or anything else.

Suggestive of a party that, from top to bottom, is full of second- and third-raters.

Nope, it’s algae. From Inhabitat:

Lighting design has come a long way. Julian Melchiorri, a London-based designer and engineer, created this extraordinary living chandelier that not only lights up the room, but also actively purifies the air around it. Currently on display at the V&A Museum for London Design Week, the Exhale Chandelier features glass leaves filled with green algae that absorb CO2 and release oxygen.

I dunno. Gotta like this pic, though.

Cockles:

1. any bivalve mollusk of the genus Cardium, having somewhat heart-shaped, radially ribbed valves, especially C. edule, the common edible species of Europe.
2. any of various allied or similar mollusks.
3. cockleshell (defs 1, 2).
4. a wrinkle; pucker:a cockle in fabric.
5. a small, crisp candy of sugar and flour, bearing a motto. [Dictionary.com]

Noted in The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O’Connor:

“It was sass he had got from them,” the old man said. “Just parrot-mouthing all they had ever said about how I was a crazy man. The truth was even if they told him not to believe what I had taught him, he couldn’t forget it. He never could forget that there was a chance that that simpleton was not his only father. I planted the seed in him and it was there for good. Whether anybody liked it or not.”

“It fell amongst cockles,” Tarwater said. “Say the sass.”

“It fell in deep,” the old man said, “or else after that crash he wouldn’t have come out here hunting me.”

And, no, I didn’t pick up on any humor or Catholic themes in this grim novel concerning runaway Godliness. And what was that rape scene about anyways?

Retraction Watch interviewed Willem Halffman and Serge Horbach, who conducted a study of scientific researchers regarding their reuse of their own papers as they write new papers. I thought this part interesting:

RW: In another surprise, you thought junior, less experienced researchers would recycle more text, but again, the results found it was more common among senior scientists. Why do you think that was? 

WH and SH: Questionable research practices are often presented as a problem of inadequate socialization: of young researchers who have not yet fully absorbed the conventions of academic work. Hence commentators suggest integrity training as a solution. Some suggest young researchers have grown up in a cut-and-paste internet culture, or have a harder time writing. But if this were the full story, then you would not find more text recycling among the most productive, established researchers. An alternative interpretation is that some individuals go off the tracks during their research careers, which then needs to be addressed with clear rules and some policing. However, text recycling clearly is not only a matter of just individuals. We now suspect some degree of cynicism might be at work too, as more jaded researchers respond more quickly to publication opportunities. Rules and information about rules can only be part of the answer.

And senior researchers simply have more of their own papers to steal from, of course. Add in the publish or perish culture, and it’s not surprising that productivity is pumped up in many ways. RW also asked whether reuse is appropriate:

RW: You mention the debate over text recycling, and how many researchers disagree over how much is okay —something we’ve explored, as well. What’s your personal opinion? Is text recycling ever okay, and if so, how much and in what circumstances?

WH and SH: In principle, academics should have intellectual ownership of what they write and should be able to re-use the fruits of their labor as they see fit, as long as they add a simple reference to the original. The problem arises when recycling starts to affect research resources: when recycling burdens peer review with previously checked material, or when recycled text is used to claim funds and rewards. If we stopped our over-reliance on mechanistic performance indicators, a major driver for text recycling would simply disappear. Why would any scientist invest time in copy/pasting text that was published earlier, if that time could also be invested in the excitement of new research? Therefore more, and more specific, rules about what researchers are allowed to do can only be part of the solution. We really need to consider also how reward and publication institutions provoke problematic behavior.

Not having a single such paper to my name, no doubt it’s brash of me to suggest properly referenced is OK, but not referenced is not. And to ask whether such recycling is damaging to science research in general?

Really? Him? Or is it just a delicious self-parody?

A commentary on how the neuroatypical and the elderly can contribute to society,the Swedish The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared (2013) follows the farcical adventures of Allan, from birth to being 100 years old. As a boy, he is more than fascinated with explosives.

He’s obsessed.

Consigned to a mental hospital, he becomes one of the victims of the eugenics movement, thereby telling the historically knowledgeable audience that he will ever be on the margins of society. But there’s a small problem with that message: knowing about explosives is a useful skill for a century wracked with war. Participating the Spanish Civil War and witnessing the first nuclear blast put him at the center of the events of the century.

If only he knew. His dying mother implored him not to think too much, and he’s followed this axiom, never overthinking his decisions, simply putting forth his opinion or taking advantage of opportunities. He may reach his 100th birthday not a rich man, but comfortable.

Until a fox kills his cat.

Perhaps taking revenge on the fox is not truly useful to society, but as his usual series of decisions unfolds, well, let’s just say whoever gets in his way do not fare well as they try to out think a man who doesn’t put too much effort into thinking himself.

In the end, this is a paean to the autonomous citizen, bumbling along, and whether he stays more or less within the pale of civilized society on purpose or by accident, at 100 years old, he’s still contributing.

And watch out for Sonja.

Recommended.

Self-gravity wakes:

The critical distance of roughly 2.5 planetary radii is called the Roche limit. Within the Roche limit, tidal forces make it impossible for two like-sized bodies orbiting Saturn to collide and merge to form a larger body. Short-lived aggregates of ring particles called self-gravity wakes can form within the Roche limit, but they last for only about the time they take to complete one orbit around Saturn (less than an Earth day). [“Saturn’s Rings,” Dr. Luke Dones, The Planetary Report (September Equinox 2017, paywall).]

Typos mine. And since I am referencing Saturn, here’s a gratuitous picture.

This stunning false-color view of Saturn’s moon Hyperion reveals crisp details across the strange, tumbling moon’s surface. Differences in color could represent differences in the composition of surface materials. The view was obtained during Cassini’s close flyby on Sept. 26, 2005.
[NASA/JPL]

But, afterwards, wonder. From an old advertising poster:

Actually, going down, entering the showroom, and purchasing the COBRA, was sort of a quaint ceremony that might faintly be described as his reaffirmation of a renewed belief in life and things beautiful, with a signature on the dotted line!

Via Alexis Harrison and not authoritatively sourced. The context is the day following the election, by the House Of Representatives, of John Quincy Adams, from a field of four finalists, to the Presidency of the United States. This quote is from a zealous Jackson supporter who had threatened insurrection if their candidate was not elected:

We will second Adams with the same zeal as if we had supported him; but at the same time we will hold a candle near his administration, and according to whether it will be good or bad, we will defend it or attack it.

The GOP falls short of the standard, based on their behavior during the Obama Administration. Or you can go read Alexis’ ruminations on the subject.

Not what you think, though. James Whitaker of Whitaker Studios in the UK has an amusing little story:

Intolerably bad joke deleted.

Amateurish. Confused. Clownish. Exploitative. These are the most accurate adjectives for Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1971), an appalling mess set on the beaches of California. There’s the vengeful descendant of Dr. Frankenstein. There’s his Monster, who we called ‘Oatmeal Face’ and, in his demise, appears to have been assembled Lego-style. There’s Dracula, who seemed to be suffering from mercury poisoning, but was too ashamed to admit to it. There’s this pair of breasts, forever searching for their sister and for some guy to, well, I’m not sure what. And that guy? Fried to a crisp by Dracula’s ring.

So many died through …. sigh … clumsiness, not malice.

And those drawn out irrelevant sequences, replete with bad 1970-era music.

Don’t >choke< watch this one. Your soul might flee you all on its own if you do.

As we’ve been watching a tape of Trump reading a press release that stated that Iran has not lived up to the “spirit” of the JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal), my Arts Editor commented,

Great! Now we’re going to treat Iran like we treated the American Indian nations!

Ouch. One of the greatest sources of shame in American history, bringing this action, which does not appear to have any evidence to justify it, into sharper focus.

Sophia Brill on Lawfare has a good test for the courts concerning the new version of the travel ban, the changes to which some commentators have suggested is a bit nonsensical:

Given all this, the government should be put to the test of its arguments: The officials most directly responsible for this new order should have to swear under oath that they had no instructions as to which countries their review ultimately needed to find were “inadequate” and that they never had any other type of instruction as to particular countries that needed to end up on an exclusion list. It won’t be enough for the Justice Department—through the Office of the Solicitor General or, if the challenge is heard first by lower courts, through DOJ’s Civil Division—to make these types of representations. After all, these components of the Justice Department do not engage in counterterrorism policymaking. The most they will say is that the executive branch is entitled to complete deference and that these internal decision-making processes should be afforded a presumption of regularity.  Indeed, there will probably be a good deal of indignant pearl-clutching if and when the challengers to the order suggest that its underlying findings are pretextual.

Yet the history of these travel bans has proceeded in anything but a “regular” fashion. If the administration wants the benefit of deference to its purported national security decisions, then it should be willing to have the people responsible for those decisions swear under oath that their assessments resulted from a legitimate policy process that was free from any predetermined outcomes. The highest-level officials  most likely to be able to speak to these issues authoritatively are White House Chief of Staff John Kelly (who was secretary of homeland security until the end of July); Elaine Duke, acting secretary of homeland security; and Tom Bossert, the president’s homeland security adviser. Others could include Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Dana Boente, the acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

Given Trump’s modus operandi of always looking to appearances and never the important content, we can tentatively conclude that this executive order, an explicit promise to Trump’s base, will be revealed as just another attempt to get around the Court’s finding of the basic illegality of the order.

And the sad part is that if Trump Administration had followed standard procedure, the executive order might have been successfully implemented, regardless of the protests of the liberal and civil libertarians.

But the basic incompetency of Trump as a leader betrayed his own goals and base.

Exfiltrated:

Withdraw (troops or spies) surreptitiously, especially from a dangerous situation.
‘US special forces agents have all been exfiltrated from Iran’ [Oxford Dictionaries]

Noted in “The Equifax Breach: Getting From Talk to Organized Response,” Rebekah Lewis, Lawfare, in a quote from a letter written by Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee:

3. Why were the Equifax network operations and security staff unaware that volumes of data involving 143 million U.S. consumers had been exfiltrated from the Equifax network for so long? Does Equifax regularly monitor for intrusions into its network? Was it conducting regular monitoring during the time of the breach?

I selected a Gemini Observatory camera view at random and was struck by the dynamic light pollution above, and the dignified march of the heavens above. That part of the show starts at about 2:30.

While researching the gerrymandering suit currently under consideration by SCOTUS, reading an amicus curiae, I misread

42 JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL SOFTWARE 1 (2011)

as

42 JOURNAL OF SKEPTICAL SOFTWARE 1 (2011)

Which caused me some distress.

For if I were, then I have one that would be captioned:

Godzilla likes to play with the minds of lighthouse keepers by licking their lighthouses’ windows.