A short film; A sad memory

Doll Face
fraser.typepad.com/ frolix_8/ 2006/ 12/ doll_face.html
(via Pharyngula)

Sorry for long gaps in posting, for anyone who cares. A combination of not feeling too good, and having to use times when I am for catching up on a lot of stuff in Real Life. Plus some being distracted by the "ooh, shiny!" web factor and not getting around to blogging it. Some sad memories tonight; sometimes it seems time flies, and other times memories can be so real and strong and present.

In midst of life is death, and life goes on
And that's the hardest thing, for those who stay
For love and spring and work get in the way
Are consolation, balm, but still you're gone.
We live life day by day, and days accrete
To bury you in stratigraphic time
Remembered in a place, a new-found rhyme,
Caught in the finished past, enclosed, complete.
We rage in helplessness at time and death
But onwards is the one direction left
The hope of future joy, although bereft,
For we must dare to live, while we have breath.
(On Easter morning, roll away the stone
Behold the empty tomb: but still alone.)
   — Jo Walton

Go your own sweet way

There's a New South Wales State Election on this Saturday (24th March, 2007 — last day of Daylight Saving). I get quite frustrated by all the discussion of 'preference deals' and people saying they "won't vote for X because they have preferenced Y" and they don't want to vote for Y.

One of the good parts of the Australian voting system is that YOU choose your preferences (especially in the Lower House (Assembly)), no matter what the different parties say on their How to Vote cards. [This applies to the Federal elections too, with some details being different between different States and between Federal and State electoral law.]

YOU CAN NUMBER ABOVE THE LINE NOW for the Upper House (Council). This is a welcome recent change, where before 'preference deals' did actually determine flows of votes in the Council election where — as most did because of the large number of candidates — you were only allowed to put a "1" 'above the line', in the box for your first-preferred group, and no more, or you had to number all the candidates separately 'below the line'. (This model was brought in after an election where the ballot paper was described as 'a table cloth'. I think there were 168 candidates that year; a big jump from previous ones.)

You *don't* need to fill in all the 362 boxes without error, despite the satisfaction of putting certain persons #362. [NOTE: To get listed together as a 'Group' with your own column you need at least 15 candidates. I think this has helped cause the even greater number of people. Perhaps we can persuade a change, so a group of 5 or 10 candidates can get their own listing.]

OTOH, in the last few elections, trying to decide between the despicable which I despised most was quite difficult. Who to give the final place to?

Also, if you want to put several 'independent' Upper House parties before the major two, find their names out at the elections.nsw.gov.ausite and search out both their listed preferences there, and whatever you can find of their own online presence to see if you think they're a good-sounding front for possibly the exact opposite of their name, like some of the 'parties' produced for the previous election seem to have been.

Good Media: 100 Centre Street

Something reminded me how much I really regret there not being a substantial set of DVD, or even VHS episodes of 100 Centre Street (the address of the central criminal courts in New York City). I remember it dealing with some of the reasons why things work out as they tend to do in the US courts, and other related parts of the system. If it had got beyond 2 seasons, maybe there'd be more chance of it getting repeated. even tho' the Sidney Lumet sympathies have been unfashionable for some years.

[Note, if anyone, anywhere sees it on a TV schedule, spread the word wide, and for goshsakes, start recording it ASAP, before it disappears. Bugger the legalities. It would be sad to have another 'O! What a Lovely War' situation.]

Ready for St Valentine's Day?

Order your own 'personalised' romance novel - free sample on this page - I suspect you could do some creative work on the system to get rather amusing results.
http://www.bookbyyou.com/lovesnextdoor/demo.asp

These could be useful in the case of painful Customs inspections (www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/05/immigration_search/)
The Yugoslav lexicon of swear words --
http://www.ce-review.org/00/41/nezmah41.html
"At the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, people working on a dictionary of the literary language threw all of the notes they had containing swear words into a special box. There was actually a directive which read: 'If you come across a swear word, throw it into the yellow box.' Linguists of course are on the hunt for this mysterious yellow box."

Similarly, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French_profanity

Some possible uses for melaleuca paperbark, as done by older Russian cultures with birchbark.
http://gramoty.ru/

List of birchbark documents, translation from Cyrillic to English by Google.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2tukh6 ( or http://tinyurl.com/2tukh6)

Original list
http://gramoty.ru/index.php?key=bb&date%5B%5D=all&city%5B%5D=all&excav%5B%5D=all&safety%5B%5D=all&cath%5B%5D=all (OR http://tinyurl.com/3d9dq8)

Richard Sweeny and his Paper Sculptures

American Inventor Spot Inventive Art: Richard Sweeny and his Paper Sculptures
Some very nice photos of some fascinating objects, and explanations.

Scary Mary

A trailer for 'Mary Poppins' that brings out the darker side. The books are rather scarier than the film, so this redresses the balance.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic
This is the original version, made by Chris Rule, with assistance by Nick Eckert.

Women in Science - a study in progress

Found elsewhere. Just spreading the news for the moment.

there's an author writing a book with a tentative title of Where the Girls Aren't: What's Holding Women Back from Careers in Science? who is looking for interview subjects: both women who have left science-related disciplines and those who are still there.

More details at www.nasw.org/users/lhall/wtga.html

Happy New Year!

2007 - The year with a licence to kill!
In Sydney, perhaps we were referring to "Diamonds Are Forever"?

(Photo by James Bridgewood)

New Years Eve Photo galleries at SMH
World celebrations; Sydney midnight; Sydney early fireworks

Wired for Sound (is the cliche headline)

Music of the Hemispheres
By CLIVE THOMPSON
Published: December 31, 2006
www.nytimes.com/ 2006/ 12/ 31/ arts/ music/ 31thom.html

Why are we so good at recognizing music?”
... Dr. Daniel Levitin has devoted his career to exploring this question. He is a cognitive psychologist who runs the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University in Montreal, perhaps the world’s leading lab in probing why music has such an intense effect on us.

“By the age of 5 we are all musical experts, so this stuff is clearly wired really deeply into us,” said Dr. Levitin, ... surrounded by the pianos, guitars and enormous 16-track mixers that make his lab look more like a recording studio.

Dr. Levitin is an unusually deft interpreter, he recently published a layperson’s guide to the emerging neuroscience of music,“This Is Your Brain on Music” (Dutton).

Christmas and Nostalgia on YouTube

Several clips of one ad (sung by Ben Robinson). It's apparently a parody of a classic UK Christmas show. We aren't at all familiar with it here, though I recognise the tune from BriTV references to it, and many of the scenes they fly past. I'm informed one I scene don't know is the Falkirk Wheel (photos & some info at www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/ falkirk/ falkirkwheel/), a modern rotating boat wheel.

www.youtube.com/ watch?v=bVjWiT-zmvs
www.youtube.com/ watch?v=tLZBfU5H1yM — This one has the lyrics to the advertisement
www.youtube.com/ watch?v=GM5eMnj2Pkw
www.youtube.com/ watch?v=AbNoPiROsS8

John Lennon's Beautiful Boy, set to video filmed at Lennon's house at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island in April of 1980.
www.youtube.com/ watch?v=l_imwld_WzI&NR

Sarah's Sister — a Christmas story, written to make people cry
www.scalzi.com/ pastlives/ archives/ 2005/ 11/ sarahs_sister.html

Tenth Anniversary: Carl Sagan Memorial

http://nicksagan.blogs.com/ nick_sagan_online/ 2006/ 12/ dad.html

Though he worried about the state of the world from time to time, it never stopped him. And when we'd talk about what things might be like in twenty-five, fifty or a hundred years, he said he knew there would be difficult challenges ahead, but he believed we were up to the task. He believed in human ingenuity and compassion, in thinking long-term instead of short, in putting our many differences and superstitions aside. He believed in a better tomorrow. He believed in us.

www.donaldedavis.com/ PARTS/ SAGAN.html

Carl Sagan died on December 20th, 1996 at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, with wife Ann Druyan and other family members at his side.
To many of the space artists Carl Sagan was known as among the greatest patrons of our art.
He crossed the substantial gulf between scientist and public educator. His career spanned the transformation of the solar System from tiny telescopic objects to places seen and understood from human and mechanical experience. Unveiling this reality of our cosmic situation was part of his life, and spreading the appreciation of these truths and their implications was another aspect of his life.

Giant Blog-o-thon Memorial Meta-Post by Joel Schlosberg
Links to many places that have posted something about Carl Sagan on this anniversary.
joelschlosberg.blogspot.com/ 2006/ 12/ carl-sagan-blog-thon-meta-post.html

Shadow on the Morning

This morning on the way to work I was attacked by a large umbrella out on the footpath, very like this one. It was a cool, windy morning and the people had just put it up and left it without anything holding it down. Maybe they were inside getting weights. Thankfully I say that a passerby ran in to help, then the people from the shop dashed out and dragged it away.

Let me urge you to first put the weights on an umbrella before opening it.

IMG_3366 - night umbrella
Originally uploaded by Mezza.
Sydney by Night - a restaurant umbrella on East Circular Quay

Next, the Rumpole Version? Pigeons; Paris & ... ? hmmm

Another history archive online from the UK (see 'Standing on Shoulders' 25-Nov-2006, below)
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London 1674 - 1834
www.oldbaileyonline.org

A fully searchable online edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing accounts of over 100,000 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.

Contains 101,102 trials, from April 1674 to October 1834
[1834 to 1913 Proceedings Digitisation Project Underway]

Additional Eighteenth-Century Sources to be Digitised in New Project
We have received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council to digitise a wide range of related printed and manuscript sources to create a comprehensive electronic edition of primary sources on criminal justice and the provision of poor relief and medical care in eighteenth-century London. This project, 'Plebeian Lives and the Making of Modern London, 1690-1800', will make it possible for the first time to reconstruct how 'ordinary' Londoners interacted with various government and charitable institutions in the course of their daily lives.

(It's planned to be completed in 2010.)

A place to stay in Paris :) ... in my dreams, in my dreams ...
The Hotel Lutetia: www.lutetia-paris.com/anglais/index_f.html

Pigeons of Kingston (Surrey, UK) Under the Gun
An online forum/comment thread to a local story that shows ... well, it's cold and dark outside in the UK this time of year -- www.surreycomet.co.uk/ mostpopular.var.1039169.mostviewed. marksman_called_in_to_kill_kingstons_pigeons.php


Suck it and see: www.chrononhotonthologos.com

Bleak

Bleak
Originally uploaded by kerch.

. . . or glorious. Something approaching the experience of the Sublime, perhaps — something that Lessons of Darkness (Lektionen in Finsternis) most definitely touches.
The summary includes "What must have been like hell itself is presented to the viewer in such beautiful sights and beautiful music that one has to be fascinated by it." which is a very good summary.

Standing on the Shoulders: A Wonderful Resource

The Royal Society Digital Journal Archive, dating back to 1665 and containing more than 60,000 articles, is now available online at www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk and is FREE to access until the end of December 2006. Following this it will continue to be free as part of any of the Royal Society's new journal subscription packages.

The Royal Society Digital Archive is easily the most comprehensive archive in science and contains some of the most significant scientific papers ever published. The development of the digital archive means that the Society's online collection now contains every paper ever published in the Royal Society's journals, including the entire back catalogue of Philosophical Transactions since 1665, the longest-running international science journal in the world.

It provides a record of some key scientific discoveries from the last 340 years — some examples:

Robert Hooke, preserving animals by blowing through their lungs with bellows - 1667
Isaac Newton's reflecting telescope - 1672
Benjamin Franklin’s legendary kite experiment, drawing down lightning and showing its electrical nature - 1752
Edmund Stone’s observations on Willow bark, leading to the discovery of Aspirin - 1763
Daines Barrington’s account of a very remarkable young musician (Mozart) - 1770
Joseph Priestley's discovery of oxygen - 1775
The Method Taken for Preserving the Health of the Crew of His Majesty's Ship the Resolution during Her Late Voyage Round the World. By Captain James Cook, F. R. S. Addressed to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P. R. S.
William Hershel's discovery of Uranus - 1783
William Henry Fox Talbot’s first account of photography - 1839
Richard Owen's discovery of Archeopteryx, the earliest and most primitive known bird fossil - 1863
Thomas (TH) Huxley's Remarks upon Archaopteryx lithographica, correcting Owen & making his early reputation - 1864
Arthur Eddington’s solar eclipse observations, confirming Einstein’s general theory of relativity - 1919
Fleming's report of discovering the effect of penicillin - 1922
Crick and Watson's report of the structure of DNA - 1954

The Panglossian paradigm (via)

Digital Archive FAQs


Subscription Packages
The Physical Sciences Journal Archive
The Biological Sciences Journal Archive
The Notes and Records Journal Archive
The Biographical Memoirs Archive (formerly Obituaries)

Tentacles of the communications octopus

Ahh, people ... AdVerbatims (adverbatims.blogspot.com), described as " a hooting good collection of design-related overheards" by India, Ink (indiamos.wordpress.com). She saw it at Graphic Design Bar (www.graphicdesignbar.com), who got it from Veer (blog.veer.com).]

Creek dries

On October 30th, 2006 Chris Clarke put Creek Running North into a posting hiatus. It's sad, but looking the final Gone fishin', and at other recent posts & comments you can see good reasons. More happily, at least for now it's staying online to read. So go & do that while you can.

Tibet: A photo from Flickr

TIBET
Originally uploaded by PEDRO SARAIVA.

Such lovely colours and rhythmn in the accoutrements, and a nice little by-play in the humanity. (from the threeheadedblog)

NZ News: Hide your insulin

Airline's medicine ban leaves passenger in coma
www.nzherald.co.nz/section/print.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=1040860
New Zealand Herald - National News
Wednesday November 1, 2006
By James Ihaka

A diabetic man fell into a coma because airport staff refused to let him take his insulin on board a flight from Auckland to Christchurch.

Qantas yesterday apologised to Tui Peter Russell, who had a severe attack on the plane and was in hospital for two weeks.

Mr Russell said check-in staff at Auckland Airport told him he could not take his medication on board because it was dangerous...

... or maybe not
No hospital records for 'comatose' airline passenger
www.nzherald.co.nz/ section/ story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10408778
Thursday November 2, 2006
By James Ihaka

Doubts have emerged about the coma a diabetic said he suffered on a flight from Auckland to Christchurch...

Halloween special on Astronomy Picture of the Day
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061031.html

Not a good Vegemite substitute

A new fast food is making its debut at U.S. fairs this fall: fried Coke. Abel Gonzales, 36, a computer analyst from Dallas, tried about 15 different varieties before coming up with his perfect recipe — a batter mix made with Coca-Cola syrup, a drizzle of strawberry syrup, and some strawberries.

Balls of the batter are then deep-fried, ending up like ping-pong ball sized doughnuts which are then served in a cup, topped with Coca-Cola syrup, whipped cream, cinnamon sugar and a cherry on the top.

Gonzales said the success of his fried Coke had inspired him. Next year's fair-goers can look forward to fried Sprite or — for those watching their weight — fried diet Coke.

"We are trying to cut a lot of the sugar out of it. It has less calories but it's still very, very sweet," he said. – (Reuters)

Free Trade Agreement?

America bans Vegemite
October 21, 2006, from The Sunday Times
www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20623973-2,00.html
www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,20623014-948,00.html

THE US has banned Vegemite, even to the point of searching Australians for jars of the spread when they enter the country.
... Vegemite has been deemed illegal under US food laws. [It] contains folate, which ... America allows to be added only to breads and cereals.

Evanescence & Solidity (again)

"Bleigiessen", a seven-storey high sculpture by Thomas Heatherwick at the Wellcome Trust, Gibbs Building, 215 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE
some pictures
www.flickr.com/photos/electricsprout/255666808/
www.flickr.com/photos/loplop/245495378/in/photostream/
www.tom-carden.co.uk/2006/01/28/bleigiessen/

Fluffy, White, not necessarily harmless

Clouding the Mind ...
pic1.funtigo.com/ valuca?g=25544746&cr=1
Many beautiful & fascinating photos here. A few of them are from a World War I German 'Cloud Atlas' produced for pilots, others are from sites around the world. Many of the lenticular clouds look extraordinarily artificial.

... One Way or Another
"one step closer to that marshmallow-armed society we all dream of" [Ed - of which we all dream?]
www.stupid.com/ stat/ MLLW.html

Loss: John M Ford

The writer of the poem below died suddenly, shortly after the equinox, a quarter of the year before Christmas Day at the age of 49. He left a sad gap in my online life, and a much bigger, painful, rent in others' lives. I mourn his passing, condole his family & friends, and cherish the works he left us.

Obituary: tinyurl.com/oeouj — This is a free Usenet posting (groups.google.com/ group/ alt.obituaries/ msg/ 0a7495d51f3af0de) of John Clute's obituary in The Independent (news.independent.co.uk/ people/ obituaries/ article1772294.ece)

Sestina, from a main centre of information and remembrances (nielsenhayden.com/ makinglight/ archives/ 008033.html).

The Turning Year Comes Round Again: Five

110 Stories — some pieces

...
There's dust, and metal. Nothing else at all.
it's airless and it's absolutely black.
I found a wallet. I'm afraid to call.
I'll stay until my little girl comes back.
...
I can't do that for fifty times the fare.
A coronary. Other things went on.
It goes, like, something mighty, and despair.
All those not now accounted for are gone.
...
A taller building? Maybe. I can wait.
I hugged the stranger sitting next to me.
So this is what you call a second chance.
One turn aside, into eternity.
This is New York. We'll find a place to dance.

Multimedia version of John M Ford's 110 Stories
Link 2: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=UrMo3TaI8mo
Link 1: 110stories.malibulist.com/ 110Stories.mov

Saline Project's 110 Stories
www.youtube.com/ watch?v=JmhaD6iQZes

The Old Spagetti Factory on the Williamette River

The Old Spagetti Factory on the Williamette River
Originally uploaded by novascotiagal65.

Spot the difference (No 2)

The Old Spagetti Factory

The Old Spagetti Factory
Originally uploaded by Jordon.

spot the difference (No 1)

Another New Word: Planemo

Update: Excellent page listing extrasolar planets exoplanet.eu/ catalog.php, brought up in discussion by Pete Erwin

Strange 'twin' new worlds found
Thursday, 3 August 2006, 20:50 GMT 21:50 UK
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5241774.stm?ls

A pair of strange new worlds that blur the boundaries between planets and stars have been discovered beyond our Solar System ...
The pair belongs to what some astronomers believe is a new class of planet-like objects floating through space; so-called planetary mass objects, or "planemos" (an unofficial term), which are not bound to stars ... they circle each other rather than orbiting a star.

"This is a truly remarkable pair of twins - each having only about 1% the mass of our Sun," said Ray Jayawardhana of the University of Toronto, co-author of the Science paper ... "We are resisting the temptation to call it a 'double planet' because this pair probably didn't form the way that planets in our Solar System did," said co-researcher Valentin Ivanov of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Santiago, Chile ...

They ... can be found in the Ophiuchus star-forming region some 400 light years away. They go under the official name Oph 162225-240515, or Oph 1622 for short.

Mini-planet system seen in growth
Tuesday, 8 February, 2005, 11:07 GMT
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4246023.stm

Mini-planet systems get stranger
Tuesday, 6 June 2006, 13:34 GMT 14:34 UK
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5051706.stm

Professor Jayawardhana, who also worked on the study, added: "The diversity of worlds out there is truly remarkable. Nature often seems more prolific than our imagination."

Planet hunters target nearby star
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3237575.stm
By Helen Briggs
Friday, 7 November, 2003, 14:48 GMT

Telescope pierces space dust: Photo Gallery (7 Images)
Thursday, 18 December, 2003, 22:04 GMT
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/photo_gallery/3332537.stm

Nasa's new infra-red telescope — now named the Spitzer Telescope — can see through clouds of dust that visible light can't penetrate

Another Online Library/Reference Resource

Digital Domesday
'From parchment to pixels as book hits web'
news.bbc.co.uk/ nolavconsole/ ifs_news/ hi/ newsid_5240000/ newsid_5244300/ nb_wm_5244332.stm

Apostate! Defiler! Prevert!

Such words may have been used to describe someone who installs Windoze on an Apple Mac. Below is a no-holds-barred description of just such a boldly transgressive process.
windows.ittoolbox.com/ news/ display.asp?i=145986

Not sure if everyone can see these, or just the newsletter subscribers — if you're not necessarily interested in the main premise, you might be able to skim the article for a side-issue that links into one of your interests.

BTW, one heading on the 'community content' forums in a sidebar/breakout box is "RE: Linux File server for widows workstations". Sigh, there goes the apostrophe again ... or do you think that could be a typographical error? [/cheektongue]