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Suzy McHale’s Journal: 2008

January

Tuesday 1/1: Into the 40s; 2007 lookback; comet impact documentary

Yesterday reached 41°C and overnight and into this afternoon were also hot. My computer’s CPU overheated yesterday so I had to turn it off (I don’t have air conditioning in my bedroom – only a fan – so the temperature in here was 34°C or so). The computer started acting up and rebooted a few times with a BSOD, so I ended up reinstalling the OS, and it didn’t occur to me at first that the cause could be the overheating CPU! So I will have to keep it turned off when the weather gets this hot.

A cool change (wind only, no rain or clouds) is somewhat reluctantly edging its way through, but it will be only a brief respite. The weather across the continent currently goes from one extreme to the other (heatwaves in the south, cyclones in the north).

2007 was another nothing year for me. The only minor changes were negative: I got my first tooth filling (and may get another next week; an unwelcome expense) and I gained more weight! Also a few other physical things which I don’t want to mention. So I am not very happy; I feel bloated, unattractive and uncomfortable.

For a “cheerful” end to 2007, on SBS there was a two-part TV series called “The Super Comet” (a review here), a docu-drama about a large comet that impacts in the Yucatan Peninsula (same place the “dinosaur-killer” asteroid hit) and the effect this has on the Earth’s ecosystem and human civilization: it effectively destroys both. A few humans manage to survive (though they are reduced to pre-medieval conditions) and the Earth will eventually recover, but nearly all of the knowledge attained by our modern civilization is gone. It demonstrated how fragile this is.

An asteroid hits the earth in the Mexican province of Yucatan in 2007. The impact causes the entire planet to burst into flames. Humankind is catapulted into a very dark age and this re-enacted doco-drama describes what happens 5, 10, 30, 60 and 80 days and lastly 4 months after the impact. Most life is extinguished within hundreds of kilometres of the crater. The entire Earth sinks into darkness. Paris, New York, Hawaii are all in complete darkness and all plant life dies out as a result of the lack of sunlight. Temperatures fall much below anything ever experienced before. Many survivors are left absolutely alone and must fend for themselves.

– From Germany, in German and English, English subtitles

The FPSpace mailing list at last put up a brief message explaining their offline status:

Friends and Partners returning soon … The Friends and Partners server is returning late December 31, 2007 or early January 1, 2008. We apologize for the absence. The server recently moved and we’ve taken the last three weeks to improve software and services.

Friday 4/1: Russians as bad guys in Indiana Jones movie; deluded business warriors

The weather is heating up again; there has been no rain since the deluge 2 weeks ago.

Via this post at Uplink.com comes the news that the next Indiana Jones movie will feature the Russians as bad guys; it is set in the Cold War era. Somewhat amusingly, Australian actress Cate Blanchett (who was Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings films) is playing the main female villain:

Cate Blanchett’s role in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Staff writers, January 04, 2008 12:00 a.m.

Her rise to success may have begun with a Tim Tam commercial, but there is nothing sweet about Cate Blanchett’s latest role.

The Oscar-winning actor unleashes her inner sexpot as a cold-blooded Russian dominatrix in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which hits our screens in May.

With a short, sharp hairdo, sleek military suit and a glint of hatred in her eyes, she looks every inch the enemy as Agent Spalko in the fourth installment of the George Lucas and Steven Spielberg billion-dollar franchise.

While the plot is a closely guarded secret, film writer Erin McWhirter reports Lucas revealed to Vanity Fair magazine that the film is set in 1957 and pits Indy against Russian Cold War Warriors.

Blanchett said working with Spielberg and Harrison Ford was “a riot”.

“It was like revisiting my childhood. I ate that series of films alive,” she said.

See articles “‘Bad Russians’ are back in fashion” and “The Perpetual Bad Guys” for pertinent comments …

A thought I wrote today:

One trend that disgusts me is for corporate executives and business types to equate themselves with warriors in a metaphorical sense. Business executives read books like Management and Genghis Khan: Lessons for Multinational Business Enterprises; there is even a website called CorporateWarriors.com (found after some random Googling), which “offers the nation’s finest career services to corporate warriors … If you are a courageous corporate warrior, we invite you to select from our extraordinary battle weapons and join us in the arena for the corporate challenge.” If businessmen think they are in any sense emulating the profession of warrior, they are sadly deluded; there is nothing honorable about the grubby process of making money, and a real warrior would regard them in disgust.

“Today we think of war as carnage. But war then was the primary profession; there was no such thing as business, the title of ‘tradesman’ or ‘merchant’ was despised, only war had any honor for a man, especially for a prince or king, allowing him to acquire wealth, advance his station, make a name for himself.”

– Stephen Pressfield

Saturday 5/1: Cosmonaut short story

38°C and I am hot and bothered. No change until tomorrow, and it will only be a dry one, so there has been no rain for 2 weeks here. In contrast, northern NSW and Queensland are being deluged with heavy rain and flooding – wish some of that could be diverted down here!

A story called “A parachute landing in Siberia” won the annual The Age short story competition. In typical Asperger’s Syndrome style, though, I somewhat irritably focus on his inaccuracies about the cosmonauts’ experiences which he uses as a metaphor:

The cosmonauts would know what this situation is like for us. It would be just as big a shock for them after they parachute into the Siberian Desert and have to leave each other.

Cosmonauts do not land in Siberia! Well, not unless they are very off-course (and I don’t know if the orbital trajectory would take them in that direction, anyway). Also Siberia does not have a desert, to my knowledge; it has taiga (coniferous forests) and tundra (grasslands) – something recalled from long-ago geography lessons!.

The crew had set a new space endurance record, 438 days together. Their conversations must overlap like crosswords. Mir had been launched by the USSR and its last crew would land in a new country, Russia, 13 years later, two great journeys over.

Valerii Polyakov spent 437d 17h 59m consecutive days on Mir, going up with one crew (Soyuz TM-18) and down with another (Soyuz TM-20). He is the only person to spend so much time in space in one mission. Mir spent 15 years in orbit.

I told you about Sergei Avdeyev who had been up there for 742 days. I told you how; because of weightlessness he had suffered severe muscle wasting and a drop in bone density. He was now quite ill. Gravity might snap him in half.

According to his Spacefacts page, Sergei was up there for 747d 14h 14m, but it’s near enough for story purposes.

We are like cosmonauts my wife and I. Side-by-side we warm this bed. Up there, they lie together, strapped in with catheters and wires for heart-rate monitors, while myopic control-room technicians and two-tonne computers program their course for re-entry. There is nothing much else either of them can do now, watch the strange red flame of a blue Mongolian sky blast over windows; perhaps they can check some of the buttons and lights if that would make them feel better.

Cosmonauts don’t wear catheters during descent! One would hope the technicians wear glasses and they have upgraded to modern computers these days … And the landing trajectory doesn’t go anywhere near Mongolia (that I know of!).

Yes, it’s only a metaphor for the story but you can find information on the Internet about cosmonauts without too much effort!

The story is an example of the type of fiction that seems to win such literary prizes, and of what is fashionable in modern literature – what is regarded as “sophisticated”. It focuses on small and somewhat mundane topics and ordinary people, and is told in the present tense (see 24/11/2007 entry as to why I dislike the present tense in stories). I do not find this type of literature appealing, and could not write it anyway. My own writings reflect my interests and certainly would not be called “sophisticated,” but it is for myself, so such criticism does not matter.

Sunday 6/1: Hero movie; assertive Russia

Last week a movie was screened on SBS called Hero, a Chinese historical epic with fantasy elements. I found the plot with the assassins a bit hard to follow, but the scenery, sets and colors were spectacular to look at, especially with the massed armies (all real people – no CGI used!). There is some tedious controversy about the film promoting authoritarianism/autocracy. (I just roll my eyes with exasperation and mutter, “So what?” – this is where I get irritated with certain liberal viewpoints. Sometimes a leader has to be ruthless in order to Get Things Done. And order is preferable to chaos.) More facetiously, I thought that the Emperor in the film was nice-looking!

I get so exasperated with chronically-dysfunctional countries (such as the recent chaos in Kenya). I would like to see the United Nations become much more assertive, a sort of World Government, with the power to go in and take over the governments of such countries if the latter can’t sort themselves out, and restore order. (See 19/10/2007 entry for my previous thoughts on this, and an explanation on why the current U.N. appears to be so ineffectual.)

Oh, while mentioning that entry, I went to a local bookstore to see if the novel Nano was available, but it is apparently out-of-print, annoyingly! So I’ll just have to borrow it from the library now and then. I just love the novel’s ending that I quoted there.

“From Russia With No Love Left,” JRL, 27/12/2007. The Russian government became much more assertive in 2007 and won’t tolerate the country being humiliated.

At this point, many Russians no longer care about not getting love from the West. They feel humiliated by the situation when Russia was ignored and had to swallow the war in the Balkans, two rounds of NATO expansion, the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty, U.S. military presence in Central Asia, the invasion of Iraq, plans to deploy elements of nuclear missile defense in Eastern Europe, as well as constant attempts by the media to implicate Russia as a potential enemy. […] By now, it should be well understood that Russians are prepared to go far to change the situation of humiliation. For the third time during the last fifteen years, they feel betrayed by the West – first due to the broken promise given to Mikhail Gorbachev not to expand NATO, second being denied a greater integration into Western institutions under Boris Yeltsin, and now in response to breakup of the post-9/11 coalition. […] As Max Weber said, “A nation forgives injury to its interests, but not injury to its honor.”

Monday 7/1: Dentist dread; Charlie Wilson’s War

Dentist appointment tomorrow. I have spent the last 2 weeks dreading it!

Cranky Conservative Mark Whittington (of the Curmudgeon’s Corner blog – previously mentioned a long time ago in my 21/8/2005 entry) reviews a film called Charlie Wilson’s War, about a U.S. senator who helped get funding started to the Afghan Mujahideen after the Soviet intervention there (see 28/12/2007 entry for previous comments on that).

Actually there is quite a bit of history that has been left out of Charlie Wilson’s War. The name of the one man who actually did win the Cold War is never mentioned in the film. That man was, of course, President Ronald Reagan. While Charlie Wilson did his part, the actual driving force behind the fall of the Soviet Empire was President Reagan. Support of the Afghan Mujahidin was just one part of a grand strategy, which included supporting other anti-Communist freedom fighters in Central America, South East Asia, and Africa, and attacks on the Soviet economy.

Mr. Whittington is a Reagan worshipper, if it isn’t obvious from the above extract.

It is, however, refreshing to have a film come out of Hollywood that actually depicts the Soviets as bad guys, Cold War hawks as good guys, and suggests that actually fighting evil doers in foreign lands is a good thing. Charlie Wilson’s War even lets slip a message relevant for our time, one which one suspects the film makers did not intend. If abandoning Afghanistan after the war was over was a bad thing, since it led to the rise of the Taliban, is not abandoning Iraq to its fate also a bad thing since something equally as horrible as a Shiite state dominated by Iran is likely to transpire? In this light, Charlie Wilson’s War could be seen as-well-neocon in its sentiments.

If the U.S. hadn’t intervened, and let the Soviets take over Afghanistan (or whatever the latter’s ultimate plans were then), I doubt the country would have been any worse off than it is now! (“Retired general says Soviet incursion of Afghanistan justified”.)

Anatoly Zak has a new article on his website: “Russian space program: a decade review (2000-2010)”. After the near-catastrophic social turmoil in the 1990s, Russia’s space program is slowly being reinvigorated, but it is dangerously dependent upon continued high oil prices for most of its funding

The latest issue of Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine, № 1 2008, has an article about the recent Mars-500 experiment on its site: «В ИМБП стартовал проект «Марс-500»», “IMBP began the Mars-500 project,” including an interview with cosmonaut Sergei Ryazanskii (use Babelfish for a rough translation).

Tuesday 8/1: Dentist visit

My dentist visit was not as bad (or as expensive) as I had feared, in that I didn’t have to get another filling, so that was a relief! He placed a “surface adhesive restoration posterior” on the side of the tooth that had been troubling me (right mandibular first molar); the gum was a bit receded from it or something, and the black on the top was just some discoloration. He also removed the usual calculus buildup on my bottom front teeth, which was rather painful! He said my saliva is very alkaline, which is why I get the buildup. Other than that my teeth were reasonably healthy and that my oral hygiene was good.

There will be another onslaught of hellish hot weather this week, with both Thursday and Friday due to reach 40°C. Still no rain forecast.

“Ah, l’amour … but the French aren’t so sure,” The Age, 6/1. Even if his right-wing politics suck, the new French President’s romantic life is proving to be rather … interesting!

Friday 11/1: Dead and forgotten; Hummer hubris; aggressive strollers

41°C yesterday, 30°C last night and into this morning … hell. I can’t function in such heat. The weather is cooler now, but still no rain.

An elderly man in Sydney was found dead in his apartment after lying there for maybe a year or more; his neighbors had not noticed that anything was wrong as he kept to himself. There have been a few cases like this in the last few years. In March 2003 an elderly woman, Elsie Brown, was found in an apartment in McKinnon (a suburb near mine) who had been deceased for nearly 2 years; she was a recluse. I had the depressed thought that I could end up like that.

“It’s huge, it’s aggressive, it’s American and it’s over here,” The Age, 9/1. The writer regards Hummers the same as I do: “there is no vehicle as aggressive, as ostentatious or as conceited as the Hummer.” I have sighted the abominations previously (see 1/10/2007 entry). They are the “McMansions” of cars, i.e. big, arrogant, in-your-face and ugly.

And, while on this topic, another vehicle that really irritates me are the huge “SUV strollers” that a lot of mothers use in place of normal-sized prams. I hate the blasted things and can barely restrain myself from glaring at the (usually) pushy arrogant women who shove them along expecting pedestrians to scurry out of the way. They (strollers and attendant mothers) are a public menace and should be banned!

The bigger-is-better culture that has overtaken our society may be to blame. Sometimes referred to as “SUV strollers,” these prams share many features with their namesakes: They have multiple drink holders, massive cargo space, vast headroom and satellite radio. But unlike SUVs that guzzle only gas, these are omnivores, with a particular taste for human flesh. Their parent-drivers plow through crowds and mow down unfortunate bystanders with the zeal of Lizzie Grubman. They bust through doorways crying, “EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!” in tones both bloodthirsty and desperate. These cries – the words deceptively polite – are a signal to duck and cover or just run like hell. As in a head-on collision between a scooter and a Mack truck, there will be a winner and a loser. It’s clear in the stroller-pedestrian wars just which is which.

They then have the impudence to complain that the aisles of shops are not wide enough to fit the monstrosities! Well, buy a normal-sized pram and this won’t be a problem!

“It is certainly possible that checkout lanes in older style stores might not be able to accommodate the modern, wider-than-average prams and pushchairs that are prevalent these days,” she said.

“Why Socialism?,” Monthly Review, by Albert Einstein (in 1949) surprisingly! (Via this blog entry)

“Russia claims to be ahead in race to put man on Mars,” Space Daily, 8/1. The sort of statement that will attract the usual sarcastic comments. Be nice if they could surprise everyone and do it by 2015!

Tuesday 15/1: Eragon; teenage fiction prodigies; life-supporting planets; Mercury flyby

I was looking for my site updates pages that I had archived, but found I had deleted them, to my annoyance! I don’t know whether it is worth having an updates page or not. My Russian spaceflight and Sergei Krikalyov sites have been rather stagnant for the last year as I haven’t felt inclined to add any more pages for the first, and have no new information for the second. I wish I could rekindle the initial enthusiasm I had for them, but it seems to have evaporated.

I was rather annoyed last year at the news the next novel in the Eragon series would not be released until September 2008! Yes, I have to confess I have both books (Eragon and Eldest) out of some curious fascination. The novels have both rabid fans and detractors. They books aren’t the equivalent of the Lord of the Rings, but are a reasonably good read. I could not have written anything like that during my teens/early 20s; perhaps not even now.

I have the children’s editions with the color-co-ordinated covers; there are adult editions but the covers are drab and ugly. (See rant about boring minimalist book covers in my 20/12/2007 entry.)

There seems to be a peculiar fascination with teenage authors at the moment. One is an Australian, Alexandra Adornetto (“Author, 14, lands publishing deal”). I had a glance through her novel but it seems like she is chaneling Charles Dickens if the silly names of the characters (Millipop Klompet??) are anything to go by, and the fantasy world in her story is of no interest to me. I find her somewhat irritatingly precocious (see her diary in this article), but maybe that is just me (or perhaps I am just envious – she is attractive, well-spoken, privileged and everything I wasn’t at that age – and will no doubt be successful in her life).

Another is Flavia Bujor (articles here and here); I read her book but found it execrable; very “girly” and I struggled to get through it.

I browse through the Young Adult section in bookstores sometimes. Popular topics for novels currently seem to be either real-world teenage angst, or fantasy/magic/witchcraft. There is dismayingly little science-fiction. One thing that irritates me is that most books seem to have a somewhat-predictable Moral (i.e. preach a certain mindset). Otherwise, they can occasionally provide some relief from the tedious “grown-up” issues in adults’ novels.

One thing that both amuses and annoys me is reading teenagers’ opinions on various topics; at that age you think you know everything (I certainly did then!), but when you get older you realize you don’t.

“Udankhatola Redux,” Tehelka Magazine, 8/12/2007. On the state of Indian science fiction. It is interesting to read how other cultures write about sci-fi as the predominant fiction sold in Australia tends to come from the USA, then Britain and a little from Australia, so the cultural mindset tends to be the same in the stories.

“Earth: A Borderline Planet for Life?,” Physorg.com, 9/1. An interesting article with relevance for worldbuilders is that a planet needs to be at least as large as Earth to have geological activity which helps the formation of life.

“Plate tectonics are essential to life as we know it,” said Diana Valencia of Harvard University. “Our calculations show that bigger is better when it comes to the habitability of rocky planets.”

The NASA MESSENGER spacecraft made its first flyby of the planet Mercury today, the first ship to visit since the Mariner 10 mission over 30 years ago. Various countries (NASA, ESA, Japan, China) are sending unmanned ships all over the solar system, but Russia is dismayingly absent.

“Russian rockets Circa 2008 Part One,” 14/1 (RIAN/Space Daily). The «Восточный», Eastern space center looks set to be developed, but the Angara rocket that is to launch from it has not been developed.

Thursday 17/1: Disappearing gardens; triplet nightmare; Mars-500 updates

The third book in the Inheritance series has been named.

“Paradises lost to developers and modern fads,” The Age, 17/1. A lament on the loss of traditional rambling suburban gardens to development (huge McMansions or cramped townhouses) and the fad for so-called low-maintenance gardens, which consist of a lot of paving and a few pathetic shrubs. The older-style gardens, with dense bushes and trees, are also a haven for birds and other creatures (not to mention people), but these are disappearing as so-called landscapers seem determined to convert gardens into something resembling a desert.

We were not relaxed some weeks later when, in a single day, the dozers moved in and all those precious things were erased. One gardener’s entire life. Some of the specimens she had had for 70 years or more. Some had come from her mother’s garden. All removed, we were told, because the new owners wanted to update. They like rose gardens, English-style, lavender and box hedges of French formality, skinny cypresses, Italianate. The worldwide garden design. “Design” being the focus. […]

Clear? Fifty year’s growing and four hour’s annihilation? The birds? The insects? The beetles? That hidden and intricate little world that had hummed along so contentedly all those years? Cleared.

A post at Childfree Hardcore links to a photo showing the progression of a pregnancy of triplets. I have the same horrified reaction as the other responders – it is not pretty! Her body is ruined – I would not have thought an abdomen could expand that much without bursting! The skin doesn’t recover from that ordeal, either! Ugh, ugh, ugh! Human females did not evolve to give birth to litters!

In this nicely symbolic photo by Seiji Yoshimoto at the NPO Intercos site, the red planet Mars is visible over the red star of the Kremlin! (Full photo page of Moscow scenes here – there are a lot of high-resolution photos on the one page.) Let’s hope that is a good omen! (As in landing there one day.)

From Novosti Kosmonavtiki news № 677:

10/01/2008/00:02 – The cost of the Mars flight simulation experiment will exceed 15 million dollars

The total cost of the Russian project on the “Mars-500” flight simulation to the Red Planet, which will take place at the site of the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IMBP, Moscow), will exceed 15 million dollars, reported the project leader, the first deputy director of IMBP Victor Baranov. “If some additional expenditures appear, then general expenditures will be increased,” he added.

Among the first unplanned expenditures V. Baranov named was the elimination of some deficiencies and observations, that were revealed in the activities of the experimental complex during the daily technical experiment carried out during November. He also reported that the material reward of volunteers for the participation in the “Mars-500” experiment will compose 50 thousand Euros. This number was announced by the European space agency, which participates in the experiment. “We have an understanding with ESA that the payment for the Russian and European participants must not differ,” said V. Baranov.

He also did not exclude that the basic material reward of the highly professional participants will be above average. According to V. Baranov, there was also discussed the question of encouragement by rewarding those participants who carry out the experiment more honestly. “But this question will be linked with the personal contracts with each of the testers,” the Russian scientist specified.

The Mars flight simulation experiment will be prolonged more than 520 days – precisely this many days will be required in order to fly so far to the planet, to spend 30 days on its surface and then to return. All this time the six testers will be located in the isolated modules, fulfilling the functional duties of participants in the Martian expedition. Two participants in the experiment will be selected from ESA, which signed with the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IMBP) of RAN (Russian Academy of Science) an agreement on participating in the project. Four more will be selected by the IMBP specialists.

“Russia set to develop new launch vehicle despite problems,” RIAN, 11/1. The Angara rocket is supposed to launch from the «Восточный», Eastern space center, but the rocket has yet to be developed.

FP Space is back online at last.

Saturday 19/1: Overpopulation and overdevelopment articles

Somewhat humid today and just a little rain – the first rain since the deluge on 21/12/2007! There has literally been none since then in Melbourne, in nearly a month.

Some rants about articles that promote overpopulation and overdevelopment – two of my main concerns:

“Children the wellspring of hope that nourishes a country,” Sydney Morning Herald, 19/1. The sort of article that makes me gag … The author waffling on about how children “enrich” society, how we’ll run out of future workers because there are no kids to replace them (I guess he is unaware of automation), how the oldies will have to be euthanized because there is no one to look after them … the usual alarmist nonsense. It might be notable that the author is a Catholic and has inflicted 9 children on his wife.

“Housing drought hits Victoria,” Herald-Sun, 19/1. The growing population is causing a housing shortage and various groups want more land to be released. I guess they won’t be satisfied until the whole state is smothered in urban development? “Opposition planning spokesman Matthew Guy said people would be discouraged from moving to Victoria. ‘If we can’t house people, they won’t come here,’ he said.” Well, good – please do everything possible to discourage more people from coming here! A growing population is not a good thing as it leads to pressure on resources and social dysfunction from overcrowding.

Coping with this change will doubtless create challenges, but there will also be benefits. Whereas in a developing nation with high birth rates as many as half its citizens may be under the age of 15, in industrialised societies there are typically fewer than 20 per cent. Commentators raising alarms about aging populations neglect to mention that with fewer children, far less of their society’s resources will be needed to support and educate them. In addition, fewer young people means lower crime rates, because crimes – including terrorist acts – are overwhelmingly committed by people aged between 15 and 30. In the US, crime rates fell markedly from about 1990 on – 18 years after a big drop in the birth rate. We don’t think this is a coincidence.

Other advantages of a non-growing population include less pressure to expand national infrastructure – roads, buildings, housing, schools, hospitals and the like – or to keep creating more jobs.

– “Enough already”

I agree with this letter written to The Age last year:

Personally, I preferred Australia with a small population, plenty of water to go around, no economic growth, and high interest rates.

– Madeleine Love, Benalla, 5/2/2007

Some letters in response to the opinion piece about the loss of suburban gardens (17/1 entry):

New houses ignore health and environment

January 18, 2008

Helen Elliott’s experience of the real estate version of “out with the old, in with the new” is familiar (Opinion, 17/1). In our street, three houses have been bulldozed and the sites completely cleared. The first thing to go in was the pool in the back corner, then the “footprint” of the house appeared, stretching over the whole site. No space at the back except for the pool surrounds and only enough room at the front for a small, token “designer” garden.

The process has been identical in each case: three sites cleared, three pools built, three double-storeyed “maxi-dwellings” constructed.

The issues go beyond thoughtless destruction of rare and beloved plants. Why are people in this urban environment allowed to build new pools while people in regional and rural places are not allowed to water their gardens at all? This inequity lends weight to rural protests about the purpose of the new pipeline.

Why, when children’s health is such a concern, are houses being built with no space for them to play outside? Children living in these circumstances are forced into indoor sedentary activities. Is this where we want to be heading? If not, what can we do about it?

– Judy McKinty, Glen Iris

Charm gives way to fads

Like Helen Elliott, I came home one day to find that my neighbours had bulldozed their old garden, big trees and all. It has been replaced with “designer” pencil pines, little hedges and paving to match the ubiquitous super-sized home renovation. I just don’t get it. Older trees and plants are proven survivors, more sustainable than new ones, and are part of the common wealth of an area. Urban consolidation and obese houses would be easier to live with if established trees and gardens were valued and kept. Instead, our suburban charm is being lost because old gardens don’t fit the fad for pretending we all live in Tuscan villas.

– Helen Wells, Ivanhoe

It goes back to planning

Clearly it is easier and more economic for the builders not to have to worry about those annoying trees, shrubs and smaller plants as they go about their construction work. Each of these gardens is a mini ecosystem, not existing on its own but in partnership with the surrounding properties as well as forming a part of the whole visual streetscape.

Some of the blame needs to be laid at the feet of the planning authorities that allow houses that occupy large parts of the block. Also at fault are the “lifestyle” programs that promote the idea of the instant garden that can be created in a few days rather than one that can take years of love and hard work.

– Tony Healy, North Balwyn

Plant loss aids warming

In my neighbourhood the agents of this kind of destruction are often anonymous and uncontactable, because demolition operators and builders have not been providing the on-site notification required before the commencement of work. Tree loss, in particular, has been substantial in recent years. It seems that the loss of urban amenity because of this activity is a matter of indifference to local and state agencies. As for tackling global warming, vegetation loss in urban residential areas is a key item that is missing from the government agenda.

– Ian Hundley, North Balwyn

Tuesday 22/1: Eye test; personality revelation; China and USA in space

Yesterday I went to get my eyes tested (which, unlike a dental exam, is on Medicare, so it’s free). They are quite healthy, and, curiously, my sight has again improved slightly (−4.00 diopters, up from −4.25 on my last visit on 16/1/2006), though not enough to require a new prescription.

Mum dug up a psychologist’s letter from 1993 from when I was seeing one, so I put it (slightly edited) on my “Personality” page in the main section of my site; it is a little disturbing! It does confirm my odd behavior, though. I had an eating disorder at the time, which only exacerbated my irrational behavior. But reading it only confirms that my life seems rather pointless and hopeless.

A film coming out midyear is The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the third in The Mummy series. It features China’s first Emperor (Qin Shi Huang) and his terracotta army being resurrected! And, of course, he wants to dominate the world, though you can safely predict his ambition will be thwarted (damn!). Jet Li plays the Emperor – he was in the movie Hero (6/1 entry) which also featured the Emperor.

“The China gambit,” The Space Review, 21/1. Article by Dwayne Day on how the USA could involve China in its space program (mainly the ISS) and use such involvement as leverage against Russia should the latter country become hostile and deny astronauts access to space via Soyuz flights once the Shuttle program is shut down. A pragmatic plan I guess, though it comes across as somewhat patronizing; of the dominant country “managing” others. Equally, Russia and China could team up to “manage” the USA! So it’s a 3-way game.

Manber’s proposal is clever and thought-provoking. He has not simply proposed cooperation with China for its own sake, or even for the benefit of improving relations with China, but to use such cooperation as a lever against the Russians. This is not the first time that someone has proposed that encouraging China in space could have strategic benefits for the United States–four years ago I wrote about the benefits of a cooperative/competitive space race with China (see “The benefits of a new space race,” The Space Review, April 26, 2004), suggesting that we encourage them to spend money on human spacecraft instead of missiles. But Manber is apparently the first to suggest that we use China to moderate the Russians, something that Nixon gained as a side benefit of his China rapprochement nearly four decades ago.

“The dark side of space disaster theories,” The Space Review, 21/1. James Oberg on conspiracy theories about space disasters; he focuses on the Dark Mission book. The book’s blog authors have been criticising him at intervals (mentioned in my 27/11/2007 entry).

Thursday 24/1: Local development dread; website changes

Two houses in my street have gone up for auction, so I am dreading what their fate will be (likely demolition and redevelopment). That also motivated me to add a page to the main section of my site, “Crimes against architecture,” on the ugly overdevelopment of the suburbs.

I have been dithering over whether to change my “Kosmonavtka” site to “RuSpace” (Russian Spaceflight) (and consequently the file URL from /kosmonavtka/ to /ruspace/). The latter change would break any external links to the site (there are a few) and Google would have to reindex all the pages, but I have gone off the original name as it makes no sense to most people and sounds a bit odd (it is awkward to pronounce and I feel embarrassed saying it).

Astronaut (retired) Leroy Chiao has a blog. He’s using the same Blogger template as me but he evidently is not an expert at formatting it! His website is still the same annoying Flash-animated one – he might be an intimidatingly-qualified spaceman but he can’t do his own website! (Well, I have to find some pathetic way to feel superior – my website is all hand-coded by me! So there! Not that website coding is equivalent to rocket science …)

In this entry he is featured in a USA Weekend article, and there is a quote: “I was 8 when I knew what I wanted to do with my life.” I envy him; I never knew what I wanted to do, which is why my life is the dismal nothingness it is now.

Friday 25/1: Brain oddity; Progress anniversary; Russian Moon experiments; new Russian space center

I think I’ll stay with the “Kosmonavtka” name for my space site; it would cause too much hassle to change it.

Warm and humid weather for the next few days; hopefully with some rain.

I found out how to rip (copy) a DVD – or at least the film part of it – using the free VLC Player. Not that I am planning on doing anything nefarious with it! Update 26/1/2008: I found the 1024 bitrate setting too low-quality so I used the next one up – 2048 – though the file size expands to 2 GB.

I was watching a TV science series called Sleek Geeks and last night they mentioned an experiment called the Libet Experiment which demonstrated the weird fact that a decision is apparently made by the unconscious mind before the conscious mind becomes aware of it (shown in the form of brainwave readouts). I wonder if this has something to do with how I sometimes hear a sound in a dream just before I awaken and hear it in the real world (e.g. the sound of an ambulance going past) – the sound does not become audible until a few moments after I awake.

Energiya press release: 20 January 2008 marked 30 years since the launch of the first Progress cargo ship. The Progress ships have served the Russian space program reliably (and mostly been ignored in the media). ESA’s Automated Transfer Vehicle cargo ship uses Russian propellant and tanks in its design, and the first launch is currently set for 22 February. It will dock to the aft of the Zvezda Service Module.

From Novosti Kosmonavtiki news № 679:

20/01/2008/08:35 – Russian scientists will conduct a series of experiments to investigate the Moon, including the use of Japanese instruments

The project “Luna-Glob” (Luna-Globe) is planned to solve complex research tasks for the Study of Earth satellite, said Lev Zelenyi, the director of the Institute for Space Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The project “was broadened. It includes several phases, including the dumping on the surface of the Moon of so-called penetrators to study our satellite,” said Lev Zelenyi.

He explained that penetratory (impact penetrating probes) are planned to be fired from the automatic spacecraft, which will be placed in the Moon’s orbit. The probes under the action of lunar gravity will drive away also at a high speed and enter into the soil of the Moon at the depth of several meters. The on-board sensors, which operate from autonomous power supplies, can transmit information about the composition and the properties of lunar soil, and the seismic characteristics of Earth’s natural satellite. “It was decided to use penetrators of Japanese production, since the Russian technologies in this region can be considered lost,” reported L. Zelenyi.

Besides the use of impact probes, the “Luna -Glob” project provides for the launch of lunar orbital apparatuses, and over the long term and the creation of a rover landing station, which will travel across the lunar surface.

The equipment installed on the orbital devices, in the words of L. Zelenyi, in particular, will have to investigate the exosphere of the Moon, the space around it, and also magnetic and gravity anomalies whose nature is not yet clear.

Furthermore, on the orbital lunar apparatus will be established the instrument “LORD,” designed to study ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. The device would capture elementary particles with enormous speed and energy. Under normal circumstances, such a particle can not be caught by any devices, since they can easily pass through layers of any substance. The “LORD” instrument will recover those particles of superhigh energies, which “after piercing” the Moon, will be slowed down, said L. Zelenyi.

“Russia To Raise Space Funding, Build New Space Center,” 22/1, RIAN/Space Daily. Space funding is to be raised by 13% (doesn’t say the actual amount).

“Russian space center to launch boosters,” Space Daily, 23/1. The new Vostochnii space center will be built near Uglegorsk in the Amur region of eastern Russia. Manned flights are expected to begin by 2018.

“Ivanov Says Russia Must Not Turn Into Space Cabman,” Space Daily, 24/1. Russia shouldn’t rely on revenue from launches of foreign satellites for most of its space funding, and should focus on creating the new space center, Vostochnii, to ensure the country’s access to space (rather than risk being blackmailed by Kazakhstan, which leases out Baikonur to Russia).

Wednesday 30/1: Planet conjunction; Soyuz rough landing results; new Russian spacecraft proposal

Venus and Jupiter were close together in the eastern sky this morning; the Moon will join them on 4 February.

Via José (and also reported at MSNBC.com):

The reason for the rough landing of Soyuz TMA-10 has been determined

29/1/2008, Lenta.ru

The reason for the ballistic descent of the descent vehicle Soyuz TMA-10 with the ISS crew members onboard during 21 October 2007, was caused by damage to a cable in the spacecraft’s control panel, said RKK Energiya leader Vitalii Lopota.

“The Commission of Inquiry for the reasons for the contingency situation finished its work and established that the reason for ballistic descent was the cable fault, which connected the control panel with the Soyuz descent equipment,” said Lopota. According to him, RKK Energiya will take all measures to avoid a repetition of this situation.

On 21 October 2007 the descending ship capsule Soyuz TMA-10, on which was being returned the members of the 15th ISS Expedition – Russians Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov (more half a year in orbit) and the first cosmonaut of Malaysia, Sheik Muzafar Shukor (11 days in orbit) – passed from the controlled regime to ballistic. The capsule landed 70 kilometers from the planned landing place and the cosmonauts endured overloads up to nine gravities/units.

According to the chief ballistician of Mission Control Center (TSUP), Nikolai Ivanov, the overload was short-term and did not threaten the health and life of the cosmonauts. “The ballistic descent – into the regime of which the day before, the descent vehicle with the cosmonauts of the 15th Expedition and the first cosmonaut of Malaysia, the control system transferred in the section of descent into the Earth’s atmosphere – is not a nonstandard regime, and the overload to nine units, tested by the crew and which was being continued of approximately ten seconds, did not threaten their life and health,” said Ivanov. “There was a failure, but the Soyuz control system not only did not refuse, but, that – of principal importance – successfully transferred the descent vehicle into the more reliable regime of descent into the Earth’s atmosphere. If this happened, God forbid, with the American shuttle, in which a regime of ballistic descent is not provided, then it would be necessary to go with a funeral procession to meet the astronauts inside it.”

The difference between the ballistic and controlled descent is that the controlled automation constantly orients the descent vehicle by its flat lower part to the Earth, which ensures lift due to the incidental airflow, and it ensures minimum overloads for the crew up to four gravities/units, Ivanov explained. “The descent along the ballistic trajectory without the participation of lift is comparable with a falling stone, but if we permitted it to fall like a stone, then the overload would reach a limit incompatible with human life. Therefore we constantly rotated the descent vehicle around its axis, it achieved approximately one revolution after half a minute, what contributed (to transfer) the life-threatening ‘foot-head’ overload into the more acceptable ‘chest-spin’ overload due to the centrifugal force,” said the ballistics chief.

According to the 15th Expedition commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, “The rotation of the descent vehicle was sharp, rigid, with strong vestibular irritation, which I could feel from the left seat of the capsule in which I sat. The overload increased gradually, up to a tolerable 8.56 g’s. After overload at seven g’s we ceased to report to Earth about our health in order to concentrate on maintaining our respiration. But the crew members did not experience loss of sight and consciousness, and we understood that we just had to endure the ordeal.”

“Russia may build new shuttle spacecraft by 2015,” RIA Novosti, 29/1. Energiya’s spacecraft proposal (it has 6 projects, 2 of which it will submit to the Russian Space Agency in the near future) would likely have a lifting-body design and carry a crew of 6. More via Novosti Kosmonavtiki news № 682: Sergei Krikalyov, Energiya’s deputy design project leader, is convinced that several different spacecraft designs will be required to realize Russia’s space projects. “It is not possible to create a ship which would equally be suitable for flights the Moon, Mars, and for the flights to near-Earth orbit. Therefore I do not exclude that not one manned ship will be built, but several,” emphasized the cosmonaut. He said the new ship will be constructed at the new spaceport.

Energiya chief Valerii Lopota said at the 31st Academic Readings in Cosmonautics conference that the Soyuz and Progress ships would be transferred over to digital technologies in the 2008-2009 period which would increase their reliability.

Thursday 31/1: Russia hysteria; Yugoslavia intervention criticism; ISS spacewalk

“The Kremlin Wises Up,” Newsweek, 4/2. I thought this article notable for the emotive language used, portraying Russia as an international bully: “Kremlin-backed thugs […] Behind Moscow's position is an implicit threat […] use the threat of separatism as a strategic tool […] disgruntled former superpower.” Also I don’t think Kosovo should become independent, one simple reason being that there’s too many countries already! (See letter in my 2/6/2006 entry.)

Incidentally, there is a lengthy essay at the Monthly Review, “The Dismantling of Yugoslavia: A Study in Inhumanitarian Intervention (and a Western Liberal-Left Intellectual and Moral Collapse)” that is critical of Western intervention in the region in the 1990s, and Leftist support for this.

The standard narrative also fails egregiously in claiming the Western interventions humanitarian in purpose and result. In that narrative those interventions came late but did their work well. We will show on the contrary that they came early, encouraged divisions and ethnic wars, and in the end had extremely damaging effects on the freedom, independence, and welfare of the inhabitants, although they served well the ends of Croatian, Bosnian Muslim, and Kosovo Albanian nationalists, as well as those of the United States and NATO.

Expedition 16 – the U.S. crewmembers, Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani – did yet another spacewalk yesterday (their 4th together for this mission). Poor Yurii Malenchenko was stuck inside again and he won’t get another spacewalk for his stay up there, so he must be feeling a bit ignored. He has only done 3 spacewalks in his career (2 on Mir in 1994 and 1 during this mission). Russia has fallen far behind in space achievements (NASA gets all the attention in the ISS program).

February

Friday 1/2: Touching planets; redoing my website; Brumby wants growth; Genghis Khan movie

Venus and Jupiter were very close together in the eastern sky this morning; almost touching. The Moon will join them in a day or two.

I spent most of the day recoding bits of my website, which is a tedious and rather mentally-tiring chore!

I have come to intensely dislike Victorian Premier John Brumby – he is as bad in his own way as the former Premier Jeff Kennett. He is obsessed with economic and population growth, no matter how unliveable this will make the state become in the future. It is already becoming unbearable. His latest gaffe is to say Melbourne will become a “backwater” like Adelaide (the South Australian capital has a smaller population) if the channel deepening project doesn’t go ahead (a project that many see as unnecessary and devastating to the marine environment here, myself included). Well, if it meant a smaller population I would be happy for Melbourne to be a backwater. Even moving to Adelaide looks appealing (Melbourne’s population boom is making life here increasingly stressful), though they were having water shortages last summer and the weather also gets over 40°C in summer.

There is a film about Genghis Khan called Mongol, a Russian-Kazakhstan-Mongolian-German project with a Russian director, that came out in July last year. I don’t think it’s been released in Australia. The image for the film site looks cool!

Saturday 2/2: Still recoding my site; teenage male aggression; make UN relevant

Another “fun” day of website recoding! Just obscure behind-the-scenes things.

Two articles from today’s The Age:

“Containing the rage of the teenaged”: on managing aggressive teenage boys. I wonder if there were such troubles in earlier societies? I think a lot of anger comes from boredom and unchanneled energy (and easy access to alcohol doesn’t help) – and the type of society that exists today (one that I see as sick and confused).

His own clinical work throws up some sociological triggers for the anger of today’s adolescents. “Aggression as a problem is expressing itself differently now,” Currie says. He thinks consumerism and a growing culture of entitlement may be fuelling adolescent frustration. “I wonder if there’s been a lot of ‘you can have this, you can have this’, but not a lot of talk about what you have to do to get this. There are a lot of adolescents whose dreams have been brutally crushed and who find there are no glittering riches at their feet. If a boy has dreams that are not within his orbit or not able to be realised, then they think, ‘Well, why not lash out – what do I have to lose?’”

“Weight of the world”: a veteran diplomat’s view of the role of the United Nations (a positive one) and how Australia (under the new government) might be able to help.

But Urquhart says nations such as Australia, what he calls the “sensible countries,” are desperately needed to show that the U.N. has a role in the modern age. He is optimistic the change in Australian attitudes might make the Labor Government the first in a new generation of governments to focus on multilateralism.

Monday 4/2: Aligning planets; new Russian military uniforms

Moon, Venus and Jupiter close together

The Moon was above Venus and Jupiter this morning; the blurry image below is the best I could do (I don’t have a camera tripod) – I was resting my elbows on a table but it still didn’t help much! It does approximate how blurry my shortsightedness is though!

Some better images are linked from here.

RIA Novosti photo gallery 29/1: New Russian military uniforms.

The Progress M-63 cargo ship is due to launch tomorrow to the ISS.

Thursday 7/2: Plastic plague; another big tree gone

There was a book released called The World Without Us, about how the Earth would adapt if humans were to vanish overnight. (A review in The Age.) A chapter excerpt shows the alarming impact that the huge amount of plastics humans manufacture have upon the environment. A bit of trivia I came across is that a plastic container might not decompose for as long as 50,000 years! Imagine the millions of tonnes of plastic items that end up in the world’s landfills and oceans, and the long-term implications are alarming, as the book extract points out.

What did this mean for the ocean, the ecosystem, the future? All this plastic had appeared in barely more than 50 years. Would its chemical constituents or additives – for instance, colorants such as metallic copper – concentrate as they ascended the food chain, and alter evolution? Would it last long enough to enter the fossil record? Would geologists millions of years hence find Barbie doll parts embedded in conglomerates formed in seabed depositions? Would they be intact enough to be pieced together like dinosaur bones? Or would they decompose first, expelling hydrocarbons that would seep out of a vast plastic Neptune’s graveyard for eons to come, leaving fossilized imprints of Barbie and Ken hardened in stone for eons beyond? […]

“Plastic is still plastic. The material still remains a polymer. Polyethylene is not biodegraded in any practical time scale. There is no mechanism in the marine environment to biodegrade that long a molecule.” Even if photodegradable nets helped marine mammals live, he concluded, their powdery residue remains in the sea, where the filter feeders will find it.

“Except for a small amount that’s been incinerated,” says Tony Andrady the oracle, “every bit of plastic manufactured in the world for the last 50 years or so still remains. It’s somewhere in the environment.”

That half-century’s total production now surpasses 1 billion tons. It includes hundreds of different plastics, with untold permutations involving added plasticizers, opacifiers, colors, fillers, strengtheners, and light stabilizers. The longevity of each can vary enormously. Thus far, none has disappeared. Researchers have attempted to find out how long it will take polyethylene to biodegrade by incubating a sample in a live bacteria culture. A year later, less than 1 percent was gone.

“The Fate of the Ocean,” Mother Jones, March 2006. This was linked from a Wikipedia page about the ocean; it’s an alarming read about how human activity is damaging the world’s oceans on which all life depends, and the damage might be irreversible. Reading all this makes me feverently wish that someone would genetically-engineer a virus to sterilize most of humanity.

Site of felled tree

A large liquidambar tree was felled in the neighborhood, over the hill down the road where there is a grove of them in several front yards (Google Maps image, the line of trees in the center going downwards). Another nice shady large tree gone (see 21/7/2006 entry). They are probably a bit too large for suburban front yards (they were planted decades ago; perhaps the owners didn’t realize they would get so big!), but I hate seeing them go nonetheless as they provide a lovely cool microclimate around them in the hot weather.

Friday 8/2: LHC time travelers; ISS busy with traffic

“Time travellers from the future ‘could be here in weeks’,” Telegraph, 6/2. Two Russian physicists, Prof. Irina Aref’eva and Dr. Igor Volovich, suggested a fascinating theoretical side-effect of switching on the Large Hadron Collider later this year is that it could enable time-travelers from the future to come back here! (The 9/2 edition of New Scientist featured this as a main article, so if I get hold of it at the library I’ll scan it in here.)

Update 3/6/2008: New Scientist article: “Welcome to Year Zero.”

Two Russian mathematicians have suggested that the giant atom-smasher being built at the European centre for nuclear research, Cern, near Geneva, could create the conditions where it might be possible to travel backwards or forwards in time. In essence, Irina Aref’eva and Igor Volovich believe that the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, which is due to be switched on this year for the first time, might create tiny “wormholes” in space which could allow some form of limited time travel.

If true, this would mark the first time in human history that a time machine has been created. If travelling back in time is possible at all, it should in theory be only possible to travel back to the point when the first time machine was created and so this would mean that time travellers from the future would be able to visit us. As an article in this week’s New Scientist suggests, this year – 2008 – could become “year zero” for time travel.

Although there is one problem: “The snag is that the kind of accidental ‘time tunnel’ that could be produced by the LHC in Geneva would be a tiny wormhole far smaller than an atom, so nothing would be able to go through it.”

Incidentally, the design of the LHC website is disappointingly ugly and old-fashioned!

“Orbital Traffic Jam Looms for Space Station,” Space.com, 31/1. It’s a busy time at the ISS as Progress M-63 just docked, the Space Shuttle STS-122 Atlantis just launched with a new module, ESA’s Columbus lab (after being delayed for 2 months), and ESA’s first Automated Transfer Vehicle, Jules Verne, is to launch on 22/2 and – if a 2-week automated testing flight goes well – dock at the ISS on 15/3, or after the mission of STS-123 Endeavour (which carries the Japanese Kibo module; originally it was to launch in December 2007).

Saturday 9/2: Stupid Young Male

I was on an afternoon walk today, minding my own business as usual, when some Stupid Young Male pulled out from a sidestreet in front of me and did some skids and wheelies in the middle of the road before driving off. There was no one else around so he was evidently doing this to get my attention for some reason. The only reason I can figure out was that it was to either intimidate or impress me; the stupid stunt had neither effect. (See 21/6/2005 for previous incidents.) I continued home fantasizing about the unpleasant and painful things I would like to do to him, and other SYMs like him (and would love to see them culled, as feral and nuisance animals are). I’ve experienced various incidents like this over the years and get very tired of it, and frustrated that I can never retaliate, and thus have developed a murderous hatred of SYMs. Unfortunately they never stop to get out to confront me. I have a lot of suppressed anger (years’ worth!) inside me looking for a chance to erupt.

Monday 11/2: Suicide threat; Weapon Zero online; Internet upgrade

A MetaFilter post links to a blog of a woman who claims she is going to kill herself in 90 days. As she is anonymous it is impossible to ascertain if she is genuine or if it is an attention-getting hoax. This sort of thing seems to bring out the worst in many commenters, though, who come across as immature retards.

In my 15/8/2007 entry I mentioned the Weapon Zero comicbooks I had liked in the early 1990s (and stupidly got rid of). I found a website where I could download scans of them! Not exactly legal so I won’t link to it, but the comics are years out of print so I have no other way of getting them.

Dad upgraded his ISP account to a faster download speed (an 80 MB file now downloads in 10 minutes or so, compared to nearly an hour at the former speed), but the monthly download limit is reduced to 10 GB, so I will have to monitor it – 13% has been used already, most of it by me! Just have to restrain myself until the end of the month. (Thankfully the ISP doesn’t charge for uploads – of which I do a lot to my website – unlike some!) Unfortunately fast and unlimited accounts are very expensive in this so-called developed country – internet access here is primitive compared to what people in places such as South Korea enjoy. A letter from today’s The Age:

The net on the cheap

I have just returned from two weeks in Taiwan. Even though I often stayed at modestly priced hotels, I found free broadband everywhere. Taipei airport offered free wireless internet spots dotted around all the gates. In the mountain district of Alishan, I still got broadband at reasonable speeds. I understand it is the same in Hong Kong and Korea.

These are countries that mean business. In Australia, I have been expected to use dial-up at a four-star establishment. Broadband, when available, is always expensive. Are we for real about communication?

The most spread-out nation in the world needs the best or we collapse as an industrialised exporter. When we were arguing about who should own Telstra, we should have been building up a modern service with new technology, not falling way behind our competitors.

We now have a big catch-up to enter the modern world at a time when our manufacturing exports are falling. Australians wake up. You are being outrun.

– Peter Cohen, Ormond

Tuesday 12/2: More houses to go; enjoyed Batman Begins

I was walking to the local library and stopped to take some photos of a group of 3 houses that will be demolished to make way for a group of 15 expensive 2-storey townhouses. An older woman walking past with her dog asked me what I was doing and I said I was taking photos before the houses disappeared. We then got into a conversation (well, she did most of the talking!) about the development which the local residents had strongly objected to as it would erode the amenity of the street and cause horrendous traffic problems. There is a tall oak tree that will inevitably be felled, and all the vegetation will be cleared too.

Bolinda St. townhouses site

The local council made an amendment to put the properties “within the Bentleigh Urban Village area, namely within a new ‘Higher-Density Residential’ Precinct, east of Arthur Street which essentially encourages higher-density residential development.” The residents’ objections were overridden by the ogres at VCAT. So there is someone else who feels the same way I do about all the overdevelopment in my suburb. As she remarked, the suburb will become a slum in the future with all this overcrowding.

The root cause of all this is population growth, but State and Federal governments are obsessed with promoting this because it’s “good for the economy,” never mind the impact it has on living conditions.

I have been taking a few photos of my local area for posterity. I do feel uncomfortable taking photos in public places – I feel that I will be arrested on suspicion of being a terrorist or something!

I borrowed the DVD Batman Begins from the library and it was surprisingly good. I am generally not much into superhero “men in tights” films, but this was quite engaging and the characters were likeable. Batman in this incarnation looked cool, too! Most of the previous Batman films screened occasionally on TV did not appeal to me (especially the one with Arnold Schwazenegger in it!), though I would watch them if I was desperate (i.e. if there was nothing else worth watching)!

Wednesday 13/2: Oligarches behaving badly; guns in space

This site has all the Baen Books CDs available for download (legally!), so there are a huge amount of sci-fi and fantasy books to enjoy!

“Battle of the oligarchs,” Daily Mail, 6/10/2007. I was looking up oligarches at Wikipedia and came across this rather amusing article about two who nearly got into a punch-up in London last year (Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovskii). I liked this tart comment:

People like this should be shipped back to Russia to face the charges laid against them but the UK grants asylum to anyone but ridiculously insists others deport criminals back to us!

– Gary, Manchester

I am baffled why the UK offers “asylum” to lowlife gangsters like these?! They seem to have infested London. I hope the FSB kidnaps them and returns them to Russia for much-deserved punishment!

“Russia has the corner on guns in space,” James Oberg, MSNBC, 12/2. An overview of the gun carried on board the Soyuz spaceship that the relevant authorities don’t want to acknowledge!

Perhaps a year or so ago, nobody would have raised an eyebrow over “trained spacefarers” being able to grab a gun at will, for whatever reason they felt like. But in the wake of the past year’s tragic violence involving professional astronauts and space center veterans, and in light of stories now surfacing over psychological crises on past missions (including one threatened suicide that the mission commander took very seriously), the open access to such lethal hardware needs reappraisal.

At the very least, the survival kit needs to be locked, with the key (or combination) in the possession of the capsule commander. The very presence of the gun probably also needs to be reviewed again, to determine if it is a critical piece of safety gear or a space disaster just waiting to go off.

I can just imagine the headline: “Psychotic astronaut slaughters crewmates on Space Station!”

“German astronaut mum mute on what ailed him,” MSNBC, 12/2. German astronaut Hans Schlegel had to delay his spacewalk from the Space Shuttle because he was ill. What illness he had (most likely space sickness) is not public knowledge as NASA is so paranoid about “medical privacy” that they (and he) refused to specify it! This sort of paranoia just looks silly – if the illness is not some embarrassing ailment, what is the problem with saying what it was? In his place I would be gleefully providing all the details (“There was spew floating around everywhere!”).

Friday 15/2: Pretentious literature

“A Reader’s Manifesto,” TheAtlantic.com, July 2001 (via The Unrepentant Marxist). In my 5/1 entry I mentioned that I disliked a lot of modern literature because it seems so obtuse and pretentious.

Everything written in self-conscious, writerly prose, on the other hand, is now considered to be “literary fiction” – not necessarily good literary fiction, mind you, but always worthier of respectful attention than even the best-written thriller or romance. It is these works that receive full-page critiques, often one in the Sunday book-review section and another in the same newspaper during the week. It is these works, and these works only, that make the annual short lists of award committees.

I have to admit that I haven’t actually read any such literature (or any that I can recall recently); just read about it! So I am generalizing a bit; there might be some I like.

A writer called Drew Karpyshyn wrote on the same topic in a blog entry:

They talk a little about my novel Revelation, as well. I find it interesting that the two hosts who read the book seemed to enjoy it (based on how much they remembered and their general reactions), yet when asked directly whether it was “good” one of them dismisses the writing style. It’s almost like he’s afraid to admit he enjoyed it. (And maybe he didn’t … but based on his comments in the piece he sure seemed to “get into” it.)

It’s funny – the main criticism I hear about my work has to do with my “writing style”. Now, I don’t expect everyone to like my work, but I think I see a bit of an interesting bias common to most of the criticisms. There seems to be a school of thought (more prevalent among critics than fans) that plain, easy to read writing is somehow inferior to a more obvious “literary” style.

This always seemed a bit backwards to me. While there are examples of excellent literary science fiction and fantasy, I do find that many writers let their writing get in the way of telling a story or entertaining their readers. Too many times a novel gets bogged down in overlong descriptions, or writing that screams out “look at me – I’m ART!”.

I’ve always believed that if a reader notices the writing during the story, then the author is trying too hard. I prefer to use a style that doesn’t draw attention to itself and moves the story along quickly. You could say that’s my video game background showing through … except that I was writing this way long before I ever went to work at BioWare.

If anything, my style emulates the classic “pulp fiction” feel – and I consider that a good thing. I doubt I’ll ever win any prestigious literary awards for my work, but I’m okay with that. As I’ve said many times, I’m not in this for awards or recognition … I’m all about the cold, hard cash.

The last sentence I am dubious about though – if a person really wants to write they will, whether they make a living from it or not. It’s a creative urge!

Saturday 16/2: Overpopulation articles

Some collected letters and quotes. A letter from the local newspaper regarding overdevelopment:

Lethal mix

Regarding “Our green-wedge blues” (the Leader, January 30), I think that for an estate agent and an Opposition spokesperson who do not live in this area to criticise the decision of State Government who has some foresight to leave some breathing space for our city is a negative approach to our quality of living.

I enjoy our low-density living, I enjoy our open spaces – something that in the future we will be most thankful for. Remember the schools that Mr. Kennett sold? The developers worked every square centimetre with narrow roads, large houses on very small blocks, no open space and perhaps the slums of the future.

Put an estate agent with a developer and we have the lethal mix of medium and high density living in an instant. And will it make housing cheaper? How can it? All we will get is more of the expensive housing we have now, without our open space – our breathing space.

Thank you Mr. Estate Agent and Mr. Opposition Planning Spokesman. We can do without the unbroken suburb-to-suburb housing sprawl. Let some of us have a quality lifestyle please and not feel crowded out.

– John Spragg, Dingley Village

Overpopulation: some comments that infuriated me (bolded), from an article in the Good Weekend magazine, an interview with some woman radio personality, Shannon Lush:

We retire to an outdoor table where she can smoke, and the conversation turns to the low national birth rate – another subject on which she has strong opinions. “This business with people not having kids – I’m sorry, I don’t understand it,” she says. “People are supposed to have children. It’s a biological directive.”

I make the point that being childless is not always a calculated decision. Sometimes the circumstances just aren’t right.

“I think it’s laziness, really,” says Lush, who has a daughter from each of her two marriages. “Laziness and greed.” Too many individuals simply have the wrong priorities: “‘I want money before I have children. I want this and I want that before I have children.’” She laughs. “What a lot of codswallop.”

She seems to be an Australian equivalent to Martha Stewart, though it’s the first I’ve heard of her! I wouldn’t be buying any of her products out of sheer disgust at those remarks. (Posted to Childfree Hardcore.)

A letter in today’s The Age about a little-publicized problem in East Timor: the lack of women’s rights, including access to abortion and contraception, as it is a predominantly Roman Catholic country.

Aid, not grenades

Instead of sending soldiers to East Timor we should give money for social welfare. East Timor is the poorest country in the world, and many of its people can barely feed themselves. The country’s biggest problem is its high rate of population growth.

At eight births per woman, East Timor has the highest birth rate in the world, and 42% of the population is under 15 years of age. With such statistics, and when everyday life is a struggle, civil conflict is likely to continue. The best way the Australian Government can help the people of East Timor is to provide family planning aid.

– Anna Payne, Boronia

Tuesday 19/2: More humans, less livability; reorganizing the world

Hot weather again, so I’m feeling rather snarky. :-(

Another house on my street is to be demolished, and replaced with two 2-storey units. The desecration continues.

From yesterday’s Herald-Sun: just what Australia doesn’t need – more people!

Skilled migration scheme expands

February 18, 2008 12:00 a.m.

The Federal Government is to expand the skilled migration program.

Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Evans said the government aimed to increase the program by 6000 places in 2007-08, bringing the total number of visas to 108,500.

“Employer-sponsored visas are the highest priority because they put a migrant worker directly into a skilled job,” Senator Evans said.

The minister yesterday unveiled a package of measures designed to address the nation’s skills and labour shortages.

The government will also work to expand the working holiday visa program for young people.

Senator Evans said the package had the potential to provide thousands of additional workers in the short term and would help address inflationary pressures.

This while every month, it seems, some company closes down leaving hundreds of workers unemployed (recent examples being a steel mill and a car manufacturer).

Much fuss about Kosovo declaring independence. I’m willing to predict that the new nation will end up as hopelessly dysfunctional as East Timor is. (At least the media might cease using the phrase “World’s youngest nation” ad nauseum when mentioning E.T.) The U.N. should call a halt to any more independence movements; nationalism has reached ridiculous levels in the world! Couple of comments from an article:

Remember how the US sponsored Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and provided weapons for them to fight the Russians? The U.S. did exactly the same thing with the UCK/KLA/NLA otherwise known as Albanian Islamic terrorists and gave them weapons to fight the Serbs & Macedonians. This was a strategic decision as the US has since cut a deal with the Albanians in Kosovo to build Camp Bondsteel which runs along the Caspian oil pipeline the most significant and largest pipeline going through Europe. This is 100% about the oil, people, and the USA/NATO building a strategic position in the Balkans and nothing to do with independence.

– Posted by: John Doe, 10:17 a.m. today

This is how you reward bad behaviour? “Albanian Princess,” the KLA WAS a terrorist organisation no matter how you twist it. Anyone who takes up arms against a legitimate government for their own agendas is a terrorist. The only reason they now have their own nation is because the Serbs reacted worse and everyone saw mass graves on CNN. It sets a dangerous precedent. Already here in Europe the seperatists are around the region are calling for new states. It’s going to get worse. The people of Kosovo are Serbian. If they want to be Albanian they should move back to Albania. If the Vietnamese of Springvale Australia want to be independent because they have a majority, are we going to give away our country? No. No disrepect intended. But it’s the same situation. The world needs to wake up and look at the wider issues.

– Posted by: Steve of Romania, 5:41 p.m. today

An idea I had for organizing countries (as part of my world domination plot! :-D And out of exasperation) was to divide the continents up into Zones, with each nation part of a Zone – similar to how states in a nation operate, or the European Union. Each nation would still keep its cultural identity and borders, but would politically be subservient to the Zone it is in. Looking at this political world map (bigger world maps can be downloaded from this page at the CIA World Factbook site), the continents can roughly be divided into:

North American Zone
USA, Canada, Alaska, Greenland.
South American Zone
Every country from Mexico southwards.
African Zone
Egypt westwards (i.e. the African continent).
Middle Eastern Zone
Saudi Arabia to Iran and Turkey.
European Zone
All European countries.
Russian Zone
Russia plus Ukraine and Belarus (countries westward are part of the European zone).
Central Asian Zone
Central Asian countries plus India.
South-East Asian Zone
China, Mongolia, plus other remaining Asian countries on the continent (including Japan) and Indonesia.
Asia-Pacific Zone
Australia, New Zealand, plus all the island countries.
Antarctic Zone
Antarctica. A neutral environmental Zone; only scientific research activities allowed. Access strictly limited. The territorial divisions are to be abolished.

That makes 10 Zones; much simpler! And if countries don’t like it, too bad! This assumes the United Nations is a sort of World Government with real powers. The divisions are deliberately not too dissimilar to how the world tends to be informally divided anyway, so most countries in each Zone have some cultural similarities. There would also be no colonies, and no nation or Zone is permitted to have military bases in others (*cough* USA *cough*).

I added a new page, “If I ruled the world … New World Order” (mentioned in my 19/10/2007 entry) in the “Miscellaneous” section of my main site; I hastily typed some ideas earlier so it’s as yet unfinished.

Wednesday 20/2: Clouds in the north; another country

A cool change came early this morning and there has been light rain all day; the first for a few weeks! Most of the rain seems to be containing itself to the north of the country, where there has been much flooding in Queensland and the NT.

Watched a documentary called Thunderheads, about a group scientist and pilots who meet in Darwin – in the Northern Territory – to gather data from a regular yearly thunderstorm there nicknamed “Hector”. The pilots had to fly over and under the huge storms, and there was some spectacular footage of the thunderclouds, which take on a 3-dimensional appearance in the air. It would be awesome to be able to go inside the core of the storm and experience the forces there! I wonder if unmanned aircraft could be sent in (though they would likely be destroyed). An interesting tidbit was that when a thundercloud collapses it creates gravity waves.

“Australia’s north one of ‘last great natural areas’,” ABC News, 14/8/2007. An article from last year. The northern areas of Australia are one of the few mostly-unspoilt wilderness areas on Earth. I have never visited any parts of Australia outside of Victoria, so I have only seen these regions in documentaries: vast flat landscapes stretching from one horizon to another under an azure sky, almost seeming to be on another planet (the soil is as red as Mars). It is a different world from the crowded south of the continent. The only disagreeable aspects are the humid climate in summer and harsh sunlight! The documentary did mention that “eccentric types” were attracted to the north.

I was looking at a satellite map of Australia for my “Overpopulation” page; it visually demonstrates how much of the continent is infertile desert! The soil is notably ochre-red. The coastlines have green vegetation and is where much of the population lives. It is evident in the south-east how much forest has been cleared (Victoria used to be covered with forests until European settlement). There is no way Australia can support a large population, and its ecology is already damaged from the people who live here.

I think I’ll have to add a site page about Australia sometime! Not a tourist guide; just a personal view of the country.

Friday 22/2: Random articles

The Uplink forum at Space.com is offline. The site’s forum software was to be changed and upgraded (the one they were using is no longer supported). The reopening date is given as 29 February at the earliest. Unfortunately it looks as if the links to all my posts will be changed (if the posts are still preserved) and everyone will have to reregister.

Some random articles:

“An interview with Richard Garriott,” The Space Review, 18/2. He is also updating his journal more regularly. He seems to be missing the greater variety of foods back home!

The United Nations flag is to be taken onboard the next Soyuz flight in April with Korean guest cosmonaut Ko San.

“The end is near … well, in 7.6 billion years,” Space Daily, 21/2. The end of the Earth is calculated to be 7.6 billion years away, but the beginning of this process is only about 1 billion years ahead. Not that far away!

“‘Standard’ downing of spy satellite,” RIA Novosti, 21/2. The U.S. military successfully shot down a defunct satellite with a missile from a Navy ship, ostensibly because its hydrazine fuel tank posed a contamination danger if it landed on Earth. Many scoffed at that, believing the real purpose was to demonstrate U.S. space defence abilities (particularly to China, who shot down a satellite last year). Now it’s Russia’s turn … but they don’t seem to have a similar capability.

“Hobbyists track secret orbits of spy satellites,” Space Daily, 20/2. Secret U.S. spy satellites are not so! The Satobs.org site comes up with an “Access forbidden” page when I tried to open it, though, so maybe it is members-only.

“Their Deepest, Darkest Discovery – Scientists Create a Black That Erases Virtually All Light,” Washington Post, 20/2 (via MetaFilter). A black that reflects just 0.045 percent of visible light was created using carbon nanotubes. Unfortunately there seems to be no photos of it!

“Affairs of the Lips: Why We Kiss,” Scientific American, 31/1. Mouth-to-mouth kissing (especially the exaggerated sort practised in the movies) is something that makes me go “Ewww!” in disgust and this tidbit confirms my reaction:

In the 1960s British zoologist and author Desmond Morris first proposed that kissing might have evolved from the practice in which primate mothers chewed food for their young and then fed them mouth-to-mouth, lips puckered.

Kissing is not practised in all cultures though:

That said, kissing is probably not strictly necessary from an evolutionary point of view. Most other animals do not neck and still manage to produce plenty of offspring. Not even all humans kiss. At the turn of the 20th century Danish scientist Kristoffer Nyrop described Finnish tribes whose members bathed together but considered kissing indecent. In 1897 French anthropologist Paul d’Enjoy reported that the Chinese regard mouth-to-mouth kissing to be as horrifying as many people deem cannibalism to be. In Mongolia some fathers do not kiss their sons. (They smell their heads instead.)

Oh, I found the Batman Begins DVD (2-disk set) for $13! (See 12/2 entry.) Shows how much DVDs are overpriced (2-disk sets can be $30-$40 for new releases).

Saturday 23/2: Overpopulation letter; The Last Mimzy

A letter on overpopulation from today’s The Age – somewhat unusually it got highlighted!

Time to tackle a troubling taboo: population control

Now that the severity, urgency and gravity of the climate change situation has been revealed by Professor Garnaut, and the consequential extreme cuts required, it surely makes no sense in politicians encouraging Australian population growth to upwards of 50 million by 2050. More importantly, a world population of 9.5 billion by the same time is flirting with calamity.

Even if climate change were contained to a global temperature rise of two degrees by 2050, it isn’t going to restore rainfall patterns as they were. It isn’t going to address excessive land clearing. It isn’t going to address over-utilisation of replenishable resources. Climate change discussions have no scope to address or take into account sustainability, and while civilisation is predicated on more and more consumption based on an ever larger population, then the future is pretty bleak.

Climate change is the tip of the iceberg, as replenishable resources, food, housing and energy become less able to service an ever increasing global population. Our political leaders must wake up to themselves and stop treating population control and reduction as a taboo as time is running out. We have one earth and all innocent bystanders will pay the price of the greedy minority.

– Tony Smith, Burwood

I watched a DVD film borrowed from the library called The Last Mimzy. I found it to be quite involving and moving with lots of interesting ideas. The child actors were also appealing (without being irritatingly precocious). Two siblings find a box containing mysterious magical – actually high technology – items that have been sent from the far future. The humans in the future have badly-damaged DNA from pollutants and are trying to retrieve samples from the past so they can repair themselves. Previous boxes that were sent had not been returned, so the children were the last hope. The technology – various nanotechnologies including a stuffed rabbit, and some objects that enabled a wormhole between times to be formed – enhanced the children’s intelligence and abilities. Eventually the adults found out, as did the FBI, and the children were taken into custody, but managed to escape and send the objects, in the form of the rabbit, into the future with a DNA sample (a tear from the girl soaked into its fur), thus saving the future humans. Mandalas were also featured, Hindu/Buddhist patterns that represent the cosmos; a particular one in the movie symbolized looking into the past and future. (Mandalas also somewhat resemble fractals, patterns that repeat into infinity.)

The two children seemed most accepting of the objects (the girl more so than her older brother), in contrast to the adults who rushed around in fear and panic when confronted with the strange and unknown (though the woman who was into New Age mysticism was also more open). It would be so cool to discover some magical or alien object; this would give life some meaning.

(A minor irritation was the product placement of a soft drink.)

One aspect of time travel – assuming it was attainable – was, how does the technology get the co-ordinates and dates of the times to travel between, in the past and future; what information would it use for these? Perhaps there is some sort of Universal Clock existing in another dimension, or somewhere in the subatomic framework of the Universe, that keeps a record of where all the atoms in the Universe are at any given moment in time, and a time machine could use this as a guide. Just a thought I had after the movie!

Seattle looks a nice place to live, aside from the danger of earthquakes! There are lots of conifer forests and mountains in the region.

While mentioning fractals, this photo from the New York Times shows a mouse neuron on the left, and a model of galaxy clusters in the Universe on the right. There is almost no difference between them!

I also re-watched The Interpreter (see 20/9/2007 entry), on DVD this time, and it was much better (no interruptions from ads which made the TV screening so disjointed), so it’s another movie I enjoyed.

Tuesday 26/2: Halo finds; Species movie; Slave Harvest novel; Sergei news

I have managed to find and download nearly all of the Halo books (The Art of Halo, Halo Graphic Novel, the first 2 episodes of the Halo Uprising comic and the first 4 novels), much to my delight! I won’t say where for obvious reasons. They are ridiculously overpriced here ($55 each for the illustrated books) and are not worth buying for that price. I am not particularly interested in playing the Halo game but like looking at the design, artwork and alien technology. Note, 14/11/2017: I ended up buying them eventually.

I watched the DVD Species (the Definitive Edition, with a digitally-remastered film). I remember reading the novel when it came out in 1995 but can’t recall seeing the movie. I liked the first 15 minutes or so with the girl escaping, though more explanation was needed as to what she was – the movie opened with shots of a galaxy and some radio telescopes, then abruptly jumped to a young girl in a laboratory being gassed. Her origins were explained later on, but if you don’t know the story the opening scenes are baffling. The rest of the movie featured the grown-up Sil running amuk with plenty of shots featuring Natasha Henstridge’s, uh, assets. Which I’m sure kept the guys in the audience happy :-S. I love H.R. Giger’s design for the alien Sil (I bought a discounted copy of the Species Design book a few months ago).

Saw a moderately interesting young adult novel called Slave Harvest by Andrew Butcher (the 2nd in a series of 3). A review. The first sees all adults over 18 years wiped out by a mysterious virus, leaving the teenagers to fend for themselves; it is unrelentingly grim. The teenagers are the usual tediously angst-filled characters and I wasn’t particularly interested in them but in the alien invasion that follows (the aliens genetically-engineered the virus as things turn out).

The Sickness that ravaged the world, attacking only adults, is complete and the children are now left to fend for themselves. Travis and his friends have failed to resist the Scytharene alien attack that followed and are beamed on board spaceships, along with many other children, where they are to become slaves. One of the aliens, Darion, helps Travis and his friends escape. They join forces with scientists who are hiding below ground, the only adults left, using their military weapons against the aliens. Unfortunately the aliens’ defences are too strong and the heroes are driven back. Having been found to be a traitor, Darion sacrifices himself by blowing up the main ship but this is by no means the end of the Scytharene …

A tidbit of information about Sergei Krikalyov from his page at Space Encyclopedia ASTROnote is that “in December 2007 he was a candidate for the Deputies of the State Duma 5th convocation on the list of the All Russia political party ‘United Russia’, the regional group № 81 (St. Petersburg). Despite the fact that the party overcame the 5% barrier, being the 16th in the list of regional groups in the allocation of seats, in the number of deputies has not shown up.” Is he getting involved in politics?

March

Saturday 1/3: Population growth needs housing; wishing for collapse

First day of Autumn! :-) Some warm weather still to come, but the worst of it (40°C days) is hopefully over. Update 22/3/2008: Famous last words …!

“State urged to release land to ease crisis,” The Age, 1/3. The Housing Industry Association is urging the Victorian Government to release more land for housing – not surprising as the greedy bastards stand to make money out of constructing more and more houses. I guess they won’t be content until Victoria is smothered in housing estates? Missing in all the agonizing over rising house prices is that a major cause of this is the growing population – something which the Government is deliberately encouraging and which is eroding the livability of Melbourne. (Posted this at the Public Population Forum.)

I also sent off a slightly more civil version (removed the “greedy bastards” phrase) to The Age letters – I don’t know if it will get published; it is my first attempt at writing a letter there. The topic is of great concern to me though, and I have to vent somewhere.

A house 2 doors down from us was auctioned today; I am dreading its fate (i.e. likely demolition and replacing with ugly townhouses). I am so sick of this constant overdevelopment and degradation of a once-pleasant suburb.

A short article in the Herald-Sun last week mentioned this site, Australia’s Emergency Pantry List, on how to prepare for possible emergency situations where essential services might be cut off for days or weeks. My own area is usually fairly stable and not prone to natural or manmade disasters; the nearest we had was the statewide cutoff of the gas supply on 15 September 1998 after the Longford gas explosion.

I sometimes half-hope for a disaster of some sort that would cause the current insane economic system to collapse. Such fantasies come out of frustration and desperation from issues such as overdevelopment.

Monday 3/3: Another published letter; British invation

My letter got published in The Age! :-) (See 1/3 entry.) I’ll buy a copy and keep the page. The letter was retitled but otherwise wasn’t edited (I kept it short and to the point).

“23,000 Brits head to Australia,” Herald-Sun 3/3. Article on the high rate of British immigration to Australia. I found this comment by one new arrival significant:

“Britain is a difficult place to live in at the moment – it’s overcrowded, congested, difficult to get around,” he said. “The economy is not doing that brilliantly, there’s a lot of red tape. What we’ve got down here is space, it’s a great country to explore.”

If our high rates of immigration continue, Australia will end up in the same situation as Britain! Much of Australia is infertile desert and thus uninhabitable (not to mention the ongoing drought), so we can’t support a large population – something politicians don’t seem to understand (or want to). (Posted at Public Population Forum.)

Tuesday 4/3: Population growth demands more housing; Serenity thoughts

Another overpopulation rant coming as I wake up to the news today: “90,000 new housing blocks for Victoria” (The Age) and “Brumby fast-tracks land for housing” (Herald-Sun). The State Government’s so-called solution to the housing crisis is to build more houses – and thus encroach on yet more valuable open land and wilderness. And if that’s not bad enough, the PM is considering importing foreign workers to build these houses!

The blindingly obvious solution of restricting population growth so that demand for housing is reduced seems not to occur to PM John Brumby (whom I am coming to detest as much as I did Jeff Kennett - both are obsessed with “growth” no matter what the environmental cost). In the same edition is another article saying that water restrictions will stay because of the ongoing drought. Something of a contradiction here! I am so disgusted and furious at seeing what made Melbourne a liveable city – its open spaces and low urban density – destroyed.

“An inconvenient truth about rising immigration,” Sydney Morning Herald, 3/3. Those who criticise high immigration rates risk being accused of “racism” (see “Conspiracy of silence and exclusion: the Shunning of Immigration Critics by the BBC, ABC and CBC”), but such criticism has nothing to do with that issue; just the simple fact that you can’t keep importing huge numbers of people without putting a tremendous strain on resources, and creating stress from overcrowding.

The wonder of it is that, despite the deterioration in affordability, house prices are continuing to rise strongly almost everywhere except Sydney’s western suburbs. Why is this happening? Probably because immigrants are adding to the demand for housing, particularly in the capital cities, where they tend to end up. They need somewhere to live and, whether they buy or rent, they’re helping to tighten demand relative to supply. It’s likely that the greater emphasis on skilled immigrants means more of them are capable of outbidding younger locals. In other words, winding back the immigration program would be an easy way to reduce the upward pressure on house prices.

Finally, there’s the effect on climate change. Emissions of greenhouse gases are caused by economic activity, but the bigger your population, the more activity. So the faster your population is growing the faster your emissions grow.

I got the Serenity DVD from the library and tried watching some of it (first 30 minutes) but the movie didn’t interest me much so far. Some snarky observations to annoy the rabid fans:

I also got Slave Harvest at the library (see 26/2 entry), which I have been anticipating reading if only to snark at. An observation is that the aliens made a mistake in killing everyone over 18 – they should have lowered the age to 12 years so they wouldn’t have to contend with a group of recalcitrant teenagers! Children are more malleable. And my fictional aliens are superior!

Thursday 6/3: Melbourne choked by growth; yet another published letter; Putin’s proxy elected; new NASA blog; generations; one way to Mars

“Population boom to choke city, says Monash experts,” The Age, 6/3. PM John Brumby’s plans for Melbourne’s expansion get well-deserved criticism from university experts – but the focus is still on coping with population growth rather than restricting it in the first place.

My second letter to a newspaper this week got published! In today’s Herald-Sun (they don’t have an online letters page, unfortunately). The letter was titled by the editor:

Reduce the population

Reducing population growth and thus the demand for housing is an obvious solution that politicians such as Mr. Brumby seem reluctant to acknowledge.

They are obsessed with “growth,” no matter what the environmental cost.

I am dismayed at seeing what has made Melbourne a liveable city – its open spaces and low urban density – relentlessly destroyed.

Forgot to mention that the new Russian President was elected on 2 March: Dmitrii Medvedev (Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев) – to no-one’s surprise! (I just looked at his birthyear, 1965 – he is only 5 years older than me! And he is my height – 163 cm/5′4″.) Vladimir Putin looks set to become Prime Minister.

Putin’s mission is not to win over the West. It is to restore to Russians a sense of their nation’s greatness, something they have not known for years. This is not idle dreaming. When historians talk about Putin’s place in Russian history, they draw parallels with Stalin or the Tsars. Putin, one can’t stress enough, is not a Stalin. There are no mass purges in Russia today, no broad climate of terror. But Putin is reconstituting a strong state, and anyone who stands in his way will pay for it. “Putin has returned to the mechanism of one-man rule,” says Talbott of the Brookings Institution. “Yet it’s a new kind of state, with elements that are contemporary and elements from the past.”

– “A Tsar Is Born”

“The Biggest Bully,” Newsweek.com, 1/3. Russia the bully – the usual negative portrayal.

“Fifty-five years on, Stalin remains iconic figure,” RIA Novosti, 5/3. 5 March was 55 years since Stalin’s death. I don’t think he was all that bad, though as he is one of those historical figures who is either worshipped or reviled, it is difficult to find an objective view of him. He wasn’t bad-looking when he was younger!

Some of the younger people working at NASA have started a blog, Open NASA, as mentioned at NASA Watch. Some responses are supportive, others not so much. Their enthusiasm is obvious (I lost mine a long time ago, if I ever had any), but they do have a tendency to use corporate-speak such as “empowered” and statements such as:

In the 1960s we were called on to lead the world towards freedom and democracy. Today we are called on again, this time to demonstrate that the world yearns for even more – the hope and inspiration that we can provide through such a noble and challenging task as the quest for knowledge and exploration.

“Freedom” is the new f-word! It is repeated so much that it becomes a meaningless cliché. (I get irritated now whenever I hear or see it.)

A commenter in one of the blog posts provided a summary of the generations:

Silent Generation: (Born 1919-45)
Grew up in hard but stable times with the Great Depression and WW2 shaping their lives. Key influences were the rise of labor unions, the New Deal and the silver screen. First exposed to technology in the workplace.
Baby Boomers: (Born 1946-64)
Grew up during the radical changes of the 60’s and 70’s and is the first generation to have real choices in retirement. Influencers include television, women and civil rights movements. Like the Silent Generation, they were also first introduced to technology at work.
Generation X: (Born 1965-77)
Grew up as the first generation of kids in single or two-working-parent households. Ideals were shaped by MTV and the Challenger disaster. First generation to be exposed to computers in school. Millennials, aka
Generation Y: (Born 1978-99)
First generation of workers who grew up fully connected to technology such as email, cell phones, instant messaging, MySpace.com and YouTube.com. This proliferation of technology contributed to greater exposure to global diversity.

“A One-Way, One-Person Mission to Mars,” Universe Today, 4/3. A type of mission I might volunteer for, but a different and shorter mission instead – a suicide mission – as I would not want to spend years there. My life is going nowhere anyway, so at least such a mission would ensure one was remembered in history forever.

Saturday 8/3: ESA ATV launch; space loos

The European Space Agency’s unmanned ATV cargo spacecraft, Jules Verne, is due to launch tomorrow! At 04:03 UTC (3:03 p.m. in Melbourne). It will be the first new spacecraft (for the human space program) to enter orbit since China’s Shenzhou launch in 2003. The Space Shuttle, STS-123 Endeavour, is also to launch on 11 March at 6:28 UTC; the main components to be installed are the Japanese Experiment Module (Kibo), and the Canadian Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) Dextre robotics system. A busy week in orbit, assuming both launch on time! (Russia is getting overshadowed a bit; it has not launched a module since Pirs in 2001 – though the ATV has some Russian components and will dock to the end of Zvezda – “ Our Russian colleagues look at the ATV as though it were also their own vehicle”.)

“NASA wary of relying on Russia,” MSNBC, 7/3. With the imminent retirement of the Space Shuttle, Russian Soyuz spaceships will be the only way for NASA to get its astronauts into space until the Orion spaceship is developed.

I spent most of the afternoon doing 2 pages for my “Kosmonavtka” site about Russian space toilets! (For the ISS and Soyuz.)

“Put A Nuclear Reactor In Your Basement,” io9, 6/3. It’s about 7 by 2 meters so it isn’t exactly “micro,” but one could perhaps power a neighborhood collective and it will last for around 40 years. No more extortion by power companies!

Someone called William Barton made a post at NASASpaceflight.com and mentioned he’d written some novels, so I looked him up and found that When Heaven Fell is one (though out of print). It seems different from the usual alien invasion novel and there are a few similarities to my story (though I had not heard of the novel before now). The explicit sex scenes mentioned (which seem to be a feature of his novels) would not be to my taste though. I don’t hold much hope of finding the novel anywhere.

Sunday 9/3: ESA ATV launched; Ukraine famine; China one-child no more?

The ATV Jules Verne launched successfully today, a flawless launch and orbit so far. It has to perform several tests in orbit then dock on 3 April. More references: SpaceFlightNow Mission Status Center and BBC Mission Guide: Jules Verne.

The weather is warming up again unfortunately; it will be in the mid-30s for most of this week. No rain forecast either.

“Ukraine’s harvest of sorrow,” The Age, 8/3. In contradiction, “The Ukrainian famine-genocide myth,” the Stalin Society; “In Search of a Soviet Holocaust”. What actually happened? There was also a drought in the region a year or two previously, and a typhoid epidemic.

China is considering removing its one-child limit; as its population is 1.3 billion and climbing, this is an alarming development! The main reason given is that there aren’t enough young people to care for old ones, or pay taxes – the aging population furphy. As described in an article I previously mentioned, “Enough already,” this is a demographic change countries will face sooner or later, and the population can’t keep growing forever without serious environmental consequences. So countries just have to deal with it.

Tuesday 11/3: Hot; Korean droped from Soyuz mission; fate of last Buran

Adelaide is enduring its longest-ever heatwave and Melbourne is due for more unpleasant hot weather over the next week – the next 7 days are forecast to be at least 30°C. :-(

In a somewhat surprising announcement, the South Korean astronaut Ko San was dropped from the upcoming Soyuz TMA-12 mission because he apparently removed some training manuals from Star City without authorization. The manuals are Soyuz flight manuals – not exactly state secret material – so they seem to have been making more of a statement about his doing things he wasn’t supposed to do:

“The Russian space agency has stressed that a minor mistake and disobedience can cause serious consequences,” Lee told reporters. Lee said he believed the materials in question were not classified.

It seems a bit harsh, though. His backup is a woman, Yi So-yeon, so she will get to go up instead. (James Oberg comments at FP Space.)

There were several comments at FP Space regarding the article “NASA wary of relying on Russia,” starting with Kirill Simon and replies following.

As reported at the Buran-Energiya site, the experimental space shuttle Buran OK-GLI will be shipped to the Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum in Germany from Bahrain where it has been languishing for over 4 years during a dispute over its ownership. The model was exhibited in Sydney in 2000 but the organization that owned it then went bankrupt. It will at last be properly looked-after, though it’s a pity it could not be returned to Russia and exhibited.(CollectSPACE thread: Buran found, sold to German museum.)

The ATV Jules Verne ran into a technical problem after its successful launch on Sunday 9/3: one of the four “electronics chains” controlling its propulsion system detected an anamoly and shut down. It is only a glitch so far; it’s unclear if the fault is with the electronics or the propulsion system.

STS-123 Endeavour also launched today; it carries the Kibo Logistics Module and the Dextre Robotics System.

Wednesday 12/3: Blocked ear

I am not very happy at the moment as my stupid right ear is clogged up; it has been bothering me for a few months (fluid sloshing around somewhere inside) and completely blocked up last night. I went to the doctor to get it syringed but she couldn’t get the hardened wax out, so now I have to try ear drops for a few days to soften it up. So I am currently deaf in that ear and rather uncomfortable. I had to get the same ear syringed in 1997, when I also got the flu, and it has never been quite right since.

Thursday 13/3: Blocked ear still; hot; Large Hadron Collider

My right ear is still blocked and uncomfortable (see 12/3 entry).

From today the weather will be hot (over 30°C) the next few days (until Wednesday at least); an unwelcome early-Autumn heatwave. The unfortunate residents of Adelaide have now endured the same heatwave for 11 days, and no relief in sight until Wednesday (maybe). Tomorrow is to reach 40°C. :-(

Some LHC tidbits. “The God Particle,” National Geographic, March 2008. An overview of the Large Hadron Collider (last mentioned in my 8/2 entry), to begin operation in May 2008. A main goal is to find evidence of the Higgs boson particle. When I was doing science at school (only basic topics) the only particles we learned about were the protons, neutrons and electrons that made up an atom. Now there seems to be a whole horde of particles with whimsical names!

“Protecting the LHC from itself,” Symmetry Magazine, December 2007. I wonder what would happen to a person if they walked into the path of one of the proton beams? There is a mention of “that energy – so concentrated that it could drill a hole in any material,” so I guess it wouldn’t be pleasant!

US/LHC – Large Hadron Collider is the U.S. site.

A new novel with particle physics as a subject is Blasphemy by Douglas Preston which features a supercollider built by a somewhat mad genius to ultimately communicate with God (or whatever deity masquerades as him). The Amazon reviews are somewhat mixed but I will probably read it if I can get it at the library (it is currently on order). The supercollider seems to be based on the canceled Superconducting Super Collider. It was scrapped in favor of the International Space Station (maintaining both was considered too expensive – though perhaps not so much when compared to the immense and ongoing expenses of the unnecessary Iraq war – $501 billion as of this month!!).

There’s also this Ray Hammond novel extract that describes a military-created black hole which nearly gets out of control. I haven’t seen mention of this novel anywhere else, though.

Saturday 15/3: Ear still blocked; hot; no end to baby bonus; Saudi executioner; are humans unique?

My right ear is still blocked. I am returning to the doctor on Monday for another try at syringing it.

The temperature got up to 39°C yesterday before a weak cool change (no rain) came through in the early evening. It’s only a brief respite before the heatwave continues until Wednesday or so. I have never been so tired of the sight of a blue sky!

“‘Stop paying the well-off to breed’,” Herald-Sun, 14/3. The Government is to keep paying the baby bonus, unfortunately. I sent a letter to the Herald-Sun; don’t know if it will be published update 21/3/2008: it wasn’t:

The Government’s hypocrisy in continuing the extravagant baby bonus (“Stop paying the well-off to breed,” 14/3) in the same week it considered cutting bonus payments to vulnerable carers and pensioners is dismaying. In an already-overpopulated world, paying people to reproduce is irresponsible and the scheme should be scrapped.

“An execution is an execution,” MetaFilter, 14/3. Links to transcripts (1, 2) of an interview with one of Saudi Arabia’s official executioners, Abdullah Bin Said al-Bishi. A morbidly fascinating topic! (I don’t agree with the cutting off of limbs, though, which cripples a person for life – a jail sentence or some sort of reparation would be more appropriate.) More links from the page: “High noon at Chop Chop Square,” “Saudi executioner tells all”. Perhaps the public executions could be promoted as a tourist attraction! Which would appeal to a certain ghoulish type of person (like me).

As is pointed out, beheading – if done properly, in one blow – is probably quicker and more humane than the methods used in the USA (gassing or electrocution). It is obviously a lot more gruesome though! There’s some moralistic pontifications from some posters, but I don’t have a problem with the death penalty being used on people too dangerous to ever be let out of prison, such as serial killers or rapists.

“There is life out there but it’s probably stupid,” News.com.au, 15/3. Charley Lineweaver, an astronomer, is of the opinion that human intelligence is unique and ETs are unlikely to either share our type of intelligence, or be intelligent at all. Hopefully he will be proven wrong! Intelligence could be defined as self-awareness and sentience. I think life with such attributes (as opposed to lower lifeforms) will be rare, but not improbable.

“Starry, starry night, paint your palette a Milky Way,” The Age, 15/3. Increasing light pollution means that fewer and fewer stars are visible in Melbourne’s night sky – a theft that gets little attention. I haven’t been outside Melbourne in many years – not since the 1990s – so have forgotten what a dark night sky looks like. A lot of humans seem to be obsessed with obscuring the night with as much lighting as possible. I kind of wish the city’s power supply could be switched off for a period each night! Maybe 11 p.m. to 5 a.m.

“Ten things you don’t know about the Milky Way Galaxy,” Bad Astronomy Blog, 12/3.

Monday 17/3: Ear unblocked; McMansion slums

I went to the doctor to have my right ear syringed today and it is clear again! It did begin to clear up last night and the irrigating got rid of the remaining hardened wax. Ewww! I had been deaf in that ear for 5 days or so, which was very uncomfortable.

Yesterday was hot (39°C) and today is hot, with a change due tomorrow (hopefully).

“The Next Slum?,” The Atlantic.com, March 2008. How the suburbs of “McMansions” are gradually decaying into slums. This is in the USA, but this fate has also been predicted for the similar housing estates being build around Melbourne (“New housing ‘failing future generations’,” The Age, 21/10/2006). I would love to see these blights on the landscape razed and returned to bushland.

Friday 21/3: Power outage; immigration scams; Russophobia

A cool change came through on Tuesday and the weather is tolerable again. There was a power cut on Monday night for 1 hour, between 7 and 8 p.m. (I had my computer on, but the unexpected cut off didn’t seem to damage it), presumably to reduce the load on the power grid as other regions weren’t affected.

The Australian Government is obsessed with increasing immigration (“Migration plan to ease skills crisis,” The Age, 20/3; “Record migration but more needed,” 21/3). I have doubts about the so-called “skills shortage” that is given as a reason for this; it seems more that employers want cheap labor:

The 457 visas have been controversial, with Labor claiming in opposition that unscrupulous employers were using foreign workers to undercut local wages. Unions also claim that temporary skilled migration is a form of indentured servitude, which is used to keep a lid on wages. […]

Meanwhile, Australia’s population is growing at its fastest rate in almost 20 years, with imports of skilled workers lifting net migration to a record 179,122 people in the year to September, and population growing by 318,500 to 21,097,148. But the arrival of new workers has exacerbated the housing shortage.

So, reduce population growth – restrict immigration – and the housing shortage won’t be so acute! The obvious solution that governments don’t want to see. I am so sick of this idiocy; increasing overpopulation is eroding the livability of this city.

South Australia’s Premier has pledged that “the state will not run out of water” despite its ongoing drought and allocation from the Murray River at a mere 10%. So where is this extra water going to magically come from? There are plans for a desalination plant (as there is in Melbourne), but it is years away, and won’t address the problem of living sustainably. The self-delusion of politicians is dismaying.

The Da Russophile blog posted about which of the 3 main U.S. Presidential candidates was the most Russian-friendly; “none of them really,” seems to be the conclusion, with Hilary Clinton being the least hostile. He also included a quote about one of Barak Obama’s advisors being rabid Russophobe Zbigniew Brzezinski (mentioned previously, such as in my 6/4/2005 entry):

So, who are Obama’s advisors? This is where it gets a little scary. Obama has surrounded himself with a combination of the cream of Bill Clinton’s foreign policy team, a few gold-medal liberal hawk fanatics, and, worst of all, the obsessively Russophobic Zbigniew Brzezinski plus Zbig’s power-lawyer son, Mark.

Brzezniski pere is a Polish refugee who like so many East European immigrants brought his Old World bigotries to the New World as a guiding principle. That bigotry is a hatred of Russia and a desire to see it destroyed, no matter what the consequences. Indeed Brzezinski recently revealed his Dr. Evil plot from the late 1970s: as Carter’s National Security Advisor, he had personally overseen an operation to incite the Soviet-Afghanistan war, to draw Russia into invading in order to bleed his nemesis dry. Considering that the policy eventually led to the Taliban and 9/11, it’s a rather odd bragging right to claim. Unless you don’t give a shit about biting your host America’s nose off to spite your old enemy Russia’s face … in the 1990s, he led the charge for rapid NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, stood for pulling Ukraine into NATO as a way of weakening Russia, and pushed for control of Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea oil even at the cost of ignoring Azerbaijan’s anti-democratic regime. (Meanwhile Brzezinski worked for a consortium that allowed him to personally profited from Azeri oil). Most sinister of all, Brzezinski is a charter member of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, a creepy NGO featuring an A-List of Islam-bashing neocons like Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney and James Woolsey, who found a ray of Islamic pity in their Clash of Civilization hearts for just one Muslim people – the Chechens, who just happened, by coincidence, to conveniently be at war with Russia.

This leads to Brzezinski’s greatest livelong obsession: the idea (and the policy) of breaking up the Soviet Union along ethnic lines, an obsession going back to his college Master’s Thesis. It was an idea first trumpeted by Poland’s fascist intra-war dictator Jozef Pilsudski, and it fulfills every Polish nationalist’s dream of seeing Russia’s permanently confined to a wheelchair.

Brzezinski’s agenda should jibe perfectly with another all-star on Obama’s foreign policy team, Samantha Power, who is cut from the same liberal hawk cloth as all the Michael Ignatieffs, David Rieffs and Thomas Friedmans, not to mention the Anthony Lakes and other Clinton A-listers on Obama’s staff.

I think of ZB as Wormtongue (after the slimy chief advisor character from The Lord of the Rings); looking at their photos there is a certain resemblance!

Sunday 23/3: Arthur C. Clarke passing; growth ruining Vancouver; gamma-ray burst

On my bicycle ride this morning I rode past the aftermath of a car accident on South Road: a 2-car collision; one had its front smashed in, with oil on the road beneath it. Two police cars were there.

I did not previously mention, but did of course note Arthur C. Clarke’s passing this week; he was buried today. He lived to a good age (90 years). His epitaph: “Here lies Arthur C Clarke. He never grew up and did not stop growing.” Meaning that he never lost the sense of wonder that children have and which many lose as adults. Regarding his novels, I do remember that for a school class project I did a book presentation and chose 2001: A Space Odyssey to talk about, and also made a small clay model of the spaceship (which, predictably, vanished long ago). I am not sure what grade I was in; perhaps Year 8 or 9. I can’t recall why I chose that novel, but it must have made an impression on me!

“The naked truth about a world class city: Letter to a friend”. This is from an anti-overpopulation/growth site and is a letter from a former Vancouver (Canada) resident about how his city is being ruined by growth and development. I found these observations meaningful:

The other incident took place the very first time I came into Vancouver. I hit a wall of freeway traffic, arrived at the clinic, sat down. Then along comes this woman in her late twenties. She’s wearing high-heels and those sickly long painted finger-nails. Yep. This must be Vancouver alright. These women by their dress and their cosmetics betray the fact that they are totally cut off from nature. Quadra women garden, hike, kayak and chop wood. Their clothes are functional and they have little time for fashion statements. Vancouver is a space ship. A bubble with its own environment. And the woman who sat across from me at the clinic is typical of the millions who are feeding the consumer economy with their addictive shopaholicism.

My sad impression of this growing cancerous necropolis is that it will not be stopped until its host – the environment – dies. The people who live there are sleep-deprived, workaholic, zombies fuelled on a caffeine-overdose fully committed to their artificial lifestyle because they can’t foresee its provisional nature or imagine alternatives. We can lobby, we can educate, we can polemicize – but the great masses of Canadians we are trying to reach live in these urban fantasy worlds. What we mean by quality of life – what we know to be an authentic meaningful quality of life – has no meaning to them. When we tell them that a Canada of 40 or 50 million people would not be a pleasant place, that farmland and habitat would be lost to housing, how can that have meaning to people who don’t mind living like sardines in a sardine can, as a tenant in 12 story highrise in a forest of highrises in a city of two million? Quality of life for them is not wildlife habitat – it’s access to a Big Box store.

This description applies to virtually all cities; horrid, polluted, overcrowded, stressful environments cut off from the natural world but still dependent upon it for – and draining it of – vital resources (food, water, etc.).

“Water and Energy Demands are on a Collision Course,” European Tribune. Fresh water supplies are under threat in regions of the USA and other countries (the writer doesn’t mention Australia). What water supplies there are, are often polluted also. There’s also this curious tidbit:

Canada is “a freshwater-rich country”. Each year, “Canadian rivers discharge close to 9% of the world’s renewable water supply, while Canada has less than 1% of the world’s population.” Being rich with oil and water makes Canada well-positioned for the challenges of energy and water in the 21st century. But, sitting atop of all that oil and freshwater could be why some Canadians are concerned that the U.S. and Canada signed an agreement that allows troops to cross over the U.S.-Canadian border in case of “an emergency”.

“Stellar explosion shatters record,” MSNBC, 21/3. Gamma-ray bursts are huge explosions of big stars far away in the Universe, and this one (GRB 080319B) was the largest yet detected, its light reaching Earth after a 7.5-billion-year journey (which means it happened before our solar system was formed!). If a gamma-ray burst were to hit Earth it would wipe out most life on the surface. The Bad Astronomer has two blog posts about it.

Tuesday 25/3: School reunion; a disturbing murder

I got an email from my school saying the reunion for my year group (1988) would take place on Friday 25 July. I am unlikely to attend as I did not complete Year 12 (dropped out early in the year due to a nervous breakdown) and have achieved nothing since then. The girls (women, I should say!) would be strangers to me now. I did accidently encounter a few over the years, the last being Lee-Anne Henry, who was living in Canada and was married and had a young child.

This MetaFilter post from 29 February is about the conviction of Kevin Ray Underwood (26 at the time; born in 1979) who murdered a 10-year-old child in 2006 apparently on a whim. I did read the interview transcript, which is compellingly awful. His blog is still online. He was a frustrated, socially-isolated loner trapped in a dead-end job (doesn’t that sound familiar?); he describes some of this in this entry (some of which could apply to myself).

He was having disturbing and violent fantasies for a long time before he committed the murder. There’s a huge gap between thinking and actually doing, but for whatever reason he crossed that when the girl was in his apartment and he whacked her on the head with a wooden cutting board. This did not kill her so he had to hit her several times but she got up and tried to run, so he grabbed her and suffocated her with his hand over her mouth and nose. Even then she still struggled, but after a few minutes succumbed. He was planning to do a few things to the body which I won’t describe, but he didn’t. He did try to saw her head off but this proved too hard, and there was a lot of blood and mess. He then put her in some sort of box until the discovery a couple of days later.

I thought this MetaFilter comment is particularly insightful:

This isn’t some guy that just “snapped”. This was bubbling below the surface for a long, long time and it erupted when the timing was right and when the fantasy got too good to keep at bay.

What does that make this guy? I think it makes him more like a monster than a human being, if only because his sexual fantasies involve murder and human-flesh consumption. I accept that fantasies are fantasies, but fantasies like that are IMHO pointing at some serious, serious problems and a serious disconnect between the fantasizer and the rest of the human race. It’s also troubling that it had little to do with this particular little girl (who reminded him of his baby sister)… he would have taken anyone. 5 year old boys, 10 year old girls, attractive 20-somethings. It’s like it didn’t really matter who it was – identity of the victim wasn’t important. It’s almost like he put “humans” into one big group and he’d take whoever he could get. I find that more chilling than someone with a pre-pubescent girl fetish (or something similarly specific).

I’m sorry, I just find it ridiculous to say that someone who clearly exhibited sociopathic behaviors for a period of time is a “normal guy” who “snapped”. This is not a killing of passion. There are plenty of cases of normal people snapping – women who run over their adulterous husbands, abusive boyfriends who beat their girlfriends to death. This guy does not belong in this group.

His blog is a bit crude in places, but he is evidently intelligent and self-aware. A few commenters note how much he seems like them: “but I can actually relate to a lot of what he wrote. I feel some empathy for him. Freaky.” One remark he made: “But no one ever touches me, and I don’t touch them. Even the simplest touch is the hardest thing for me. I dream of being hugged.” I think that his inner darkness overwhelmed and consumed him when he acted on that impulse to kill: “he trapped himself in a hell of his own creation.”

Wednesday 26/3: Alien alarmism

On Monday night there was a thunderstorm and heavy rain; something not experienced here for months. Today is cold and showery – a stark contrast to last week!

I was reading this page, “Shouting at the cosmos,” Lifeboat Foundation, where various people are concerned about the implications of others broadcasting Earth’s presence in the Universe through efforts such as SETI. (I last mentioned this topic in my 14/12/2007 entry.) Sci-fi author David Brin is one of those concerned. These concerns tend to evoke exasperated reactions from me (snorting, rolling of eyes, etc.). My feeling is that humanity is already destroying itself though overpopulation, environmental devastation, etc., so a potential alien invasion would make little difference (maybe a “hostile takeover” with Earth “under new management” would be an improvement!).

The io9 blog mentioned a computer game based on a trilogy of novels by Russian author Alexander Zorich (actually two authors writing under the pseudonym); they write science fiction and fantasy novels, only available in Russia though (and not translated into English). The game is an alternative history where Russia has expanded into outer space and has contact (and conflict) with 4 alien races. I don’t know if I would like the novels or not if I were able to read them, but I would be curious to see how they would compare with the usual (and predictable) U.S./British sci-fi that dominates the novels available in Australia. (The sci-fi I like is of the “aliens and spaceships” sort.)

April

Wednesday 2/4: Windstorm

Gale-force winds caused havoc and damage across Victoria this afternoon. Two people were killed from collapsing buildings and many trees blown down. The up-to-130 km/h winds were the remnant of Cyclone Pancho off the coast off Western Australia. There were dust clouds in the sky from topsoil blown up. The winds have moderated a bit now (6 p.m.), and we haven’t had any power cuts so far.

Thursday 3/4: Lights out

The clean-up continues after yesterday’s winds – which were more like a mini-hurricane – and thousands of homes are still without power. One power worker got electrocuted when making repairs. It was the worst wind storm in a few years.

My parents turned out the lights for Earth Hour last Saturday evening – but the neighbors didn’t! Shame on them. I went outside to look at the sky but the light pollution did not seem reduced.

“Response to a reporter of a Russian periodical: Upper stages Block DM built by S.P.Korolev RSC Energia are of highest reliability” on the Energiya site; apparently even some Russian reporters can’t get the facts accurate on their own country’s space program! The name of the publication isn’t given.

The ESA ATV has been cleared for a docking attempt at 14:41 UTC (1:41 a.m. Melbourne time, 4/3) after a successful test rehearsal.

Saturday 5/4: Power outage continues; against privatization

Daylight Savings ends at long last tomorrow. It was extended by another week from last year for some reason; it is too long already as the mornings get dark from early March. DS should end at the beginning of March (and ideally be abolished altogether).

“Anger rises as dark goes on,” Herald-Sun, 5/4. Regions of Melbourne are still without power after Wednesday’s storm; it might not be restored until Monday at least. The 1990s privatization of the power companies (along with gas, water and public transport) are being blamed for the delayed response. Of course the State Government denies this. Privatization of essential services and utilities was the worst mistake the Government ever made in the name of so-called “efficiency” – services have degraded ever since while prices continue to rise. I miss the SEC (and MMBW and GFC).

Electrical Trades Union state secretary Dean Mighell criticised the delay in reconnection, questioning if privatisation of the power industry was to blame.

Mr. Mighell said the power companies had cut staff and maintenance, and were now ill-equipped to handle a crisis.

“It’s times like this we are totally unprepared, totally undermanned,” he said.

“The pressure on the guys out there is immense at the moment and the last couple of days it’s huge, and they just haven’t got the workforce to help get them there.”

Energy Minister Peter Batchelor said Mr. Mighell’s claims were ill-founded. […]

But corporate governance expert Ken Coghill, of Monash University, said the situation was a result of privatisation.

“One of the effects was to largely abandon the huge role which the electricity industry used to have in training electricians as apprentices,” Dr Coghill said.

“So now we have a shortage of electricians who would otherwise be available to help in an emergency such as this.

“Clearly, they power companies are ill-equipped.

“It’s certainly very hard to turn back the clock once you have got yourself into the situation that Victoria is now in.”

Many of the commentators also agree that privatization has been deleterious.

Thank you to the line workers who restored our power after 56 hours. I know there are a lot more out there waiting as we were. I am not satisfied that this was done in a reasonable time but don’t put any blame upon the line workers. It was a relatively minor fix to restore hundreds of houses. The private power companies however have a lot to answer for, no doubt there will be a post-mortem. As a power industry worker trained by a government enterprise (which private industry now reaps the rewards) I can see the massive difference between a state-owned power utility and a privately-owned one. I and my colleagues went through at a time when we received the highest education and the safest working environment, well before WorkCare stepped in on private industry to provide safer work environments. Service for a profit is a big risk. In the good times with no major outages, it’s cheap to run, and as someone said recently, we don’t want power workers sitting around waiting for a severe problem every 20 years. Well we pay firefighters to do just that. A power worker did a lot more than a fire fighter. In a normal day’s work, Power workers maintained lines, poles, substations, transformers, cleared trees, cleared hazards and so on. Nowadays nothing like this is done. Power companies now wait for it to break, and when you have all of these breakages at one time, they can’t cope. I wonder how much money has gone overseas since privatisation? This money would have paid those extra linesmen we didn’t have this week. As for affordable power, if we owned the power infrastructure and we still all paid the same bills we would have those extra workers paid for out of the profits which go overseas. We would also no doubt still have the odd strike. Well 3 lights on and your heating still working is a small price to pay instead of privatising an essential service and having NOTHING when you need it. I hope your power comes back on soon and the elation of it doing so is tremendous. Don’t let this cloud your thinking though as to why this happened because this REPAIR problem, not the wind, was avoidable. (Former Power Industry Worker.)

– Posted by: Hell Hath No Fury 12:11 p.m. today

The disaster also emphasizes how reliant – perhaps dangerously so – people are on centralized power sources. Ideally everyone would be able to generate their own individual power with solar panels, windmills, etc. – self-sufficiency (or something close to it) is an advantage. You would also be freed from electricity bills!

I rarely visit (or post at) the Uplink forum since the new forum software was installed (some brand called “Pluck”). The new forum has had many complaints about its usability (or lack thereof) and is slow to load (it depends on Javascript to display, which is possibly one reason). The old forum software was old but better in many ways than the new one. The URLs generated for each thread are also hideously long (an unfortunately typical feature for many content-management systems) as the following example demonstrates: http://www.space.com/common/community/forums/?plckForumPage=Forum&plckForumId=Cat%3ade0cf096-e86b-4bd6-8678-f7b2013f74ceForum%3ac53bc08b-72d2-4c18-bf37-ed57adf5c337&plckNumPerPage=200&plckCategoryCurrentPage=0

The ATV successfully docked to the ISS on 4/4. The NASA Human Spaceflight Gallery has some nice photos from its earlier test run for the docking on 31/3.

Monday 7/4: Incest unpleasantness; alien plant colors

I bought a 2 GB USB flash drive for $16 and found to my annoyance that it had some program called U3 on it that I initially couldn’t delete. A quick Google took me to “Disable, Remove and Uninstall U3 Launchpad”; there is a program on the U3 site to remove it. I get annoyed when manufacturers put programs on such devices, assuming the user might want them (this includes the crappy programs that clutter up store-bought computers). I usually delete them as I have no need for them. If I want portable programs I would got somewhere like PortableApps, which has various open-source programs.

Daylight Savings ended yesterday, so I got to “sleep in”. How nice it feels to get up at the normal time! (Well, still before 5 a.m. for me, but the real 5 a.m.) It also feels like Autumn now (some warm weather this week, but not like the awful 40°C heatwave of 3 weeks ago).

“Incest couple ‘had another child’,” The Age, 7/4 (and Herald-Sun; featured on 60 Minutes). This case is just … eww (grimace of disgust). A father-and-daughter incest case (the father is 61, the daughter 39). As if that isn’t bad enough, they had one daughter who died of a heart defect, and a later one.

Mr. Deaves admitted that he “initially” thought having sex with his daughter was wrong. “Emotions take over, as people no doubt realise. There are times during your life where emotions do rule the heart, it rules the head,” he said. “I knew it was illegal. Of course, I knew it was illegal but you know, so what.”

Illegal because it’s simply morally wrong (Incest taboo), and children born from such a relationship are likely to have genetic defects (not to mention psychological problems when they learn of their origins!). It also confuses family relationships:

The second reason for the incest taboo is that the family itself could not function without it, for the statuses of family members would be utterly and hopelessly confused. As Kingsley Davis points out: “The incestuous child of a father-daughter union would be a brother of his own mother, i.e. the son of his own sister; a stepson of his own grandmother; possibly a brother of his uncle; and certainly a grandson of his own father.” The third reason is that without an incest taboo, sexual rivalry among family members would disrupt the normal roles and attitudes of the various relatives. The father, for example, might experience role conflict as both the disciplinarian and the lover of his daughter; the mother might be jealous of both; and the child, of course, would be caught in the middle. Faced with constant conflict and tension, the family institution might simply disintegrate. The incest taboo has developed over time because it is vital to the survival of the family and thus of society itself.

“The Color of Plants on Other Worlds,” Scientific American, April 2008. Depending upon the spectrum of light emitted by a planet’s star, its vegetation’s color will vary. From other articles I read (see 2/10/2007 entry), a cooler star than Earth (Type K or M) will emit redder life and its plants will be blueish; a Type-F star, hotter than Earth, will emit more blue/ultraviolet light so its plants will be green-yellow-red. Astrobiology is a fascinating topic (more so as I am doing my own worldbuilding).

Light of any color from deep violet through the near-infrared could power photosynthesis. Around stars hotter and bluer than our sun, plants would tend to absorb blue light and could look green to yellow to red. Around cooler stars such as red dwarfs, planets receive less visible light, so plants might try to absorb as much of it as possible, making them look black.

Wednesday 9/4: Soyuz launch

Soyuz TMA-12 launched yesterday at 11:16:39 UTC with Expedition 17 and Visiting Crew-14 (South Korean astronaut Yi So-yeon). Somewhat surprisingly there are Koreans living in Baikonur and Kazakhstan (courtesy of Joseph Stalin).

Yi So-yeon (I think Yi is her surname, if last names are presented first in Chinese fashion) has the usual intimidating array of qualifications (a biosystems engineer) and is a tae-kwon-do expert. She seems very enthusiastic. I haven’t seen any mention of a blog or website about her mission, though.

Sergei Volkov is the son of a cosmonaut, Aleksandr Volkov, and is the first second-generation cosmonaut to go into space.

“Three Rocketeers For Shenzhou,” Space Daily, 9/4. Three Chinese astronauts are to go into space and one will make China’s first spacewalk later this year (at the time of the Olympics), but there is annoyingly little information about them or the mission!

TsUP (Moscow Mission Control) has redesigned its website, so it looks a bit better, but the same annoying Javascript menu is required to navigate – if you don’t have Javascript enabled, or are using a text browser, the site is inaccessible.

Thursday 10/4: Borders books shrinkage

I am very dismayed by Borders bookstore’s new strategy of facing books cover-outwards on shelves (rather than spine-outwards) – it means the variety of books will be reduced as there is less room. Borders at Chadstone have started reshelving this way and I do not like it. They used to have a huge variety of books when they first opened here in the early 2000s, but this has been reduced since them, and the face-out display will make things worse. Whoever thought this marketing strategy up should be shot! Online bookstores have a great variety, but not everyone has a credit card they can shop online with (myself included). Most chain bookstores have the same narrow selection of crappy generic bestsellers, which makes them boring to browse through.

For me, book browsing has always been about taking the time to really search through the shelves of fiction. It’s a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, thumbing through book after book, reading pages here and there. Simply, that’s what’s magical about browsing for books. Anything designed to make the process faster and more about what’s on top than what’s inside would be anathema to that. (Source)

Saturday 12/4: Alien life rare; Russian ISS delayed

“Intelligence: A Rare Cosmic Commodity,” Space.com, 10/4. Professor Andrew Watson of the University of East Anglia is of the opinion that intelligent life as we define it is likely to be rare in the Universe. This is a similar view to another (see 15/3/2008 entry). I believe that life will be common, but intelligent life rare (though not impossible) as it is so difficult to evolve to an intelligent level.

New Scientist magazine for 5 April has an article (subscription-only) on “Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable”. I’ll have to wait until I find it at the library (if the annoying people or person will stop borrowing all the 2008 editions!). Modern society is so complex and internconnected that it is particularly vulnerable to disasters. “It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile.”

Hysteria over the upcoming activation of the Large Hadron Collider has resulted in actions such as filing a lawsuit last month over the possibility that the LHC might initiate some sort of Earth-destroying disaster, as described at Cosmic Log. (See 13/3 entry for previous comments.)

“Russian ISS segment construction delayed for 5 years,” RIA Novosti, 10/4. Insufficient funding means the completion of the ISS RS might be pushed back from 2010 to 2015, requiring Russia to request of the other partners that the ISS lifetime be extended to 2020. Energiya said it would need $5 billion to complete the RS.

“Will Russia give space industry a boost?,” MSNBC.com, 11/4. Some items discussed at a conference dedicated to Cosmonautics Day:

The next Progress cargo ship to be launched, M-64 on 14 May, will have digital flight controls rather than analog.

The Buran test-analog OK-GLI arrived in Germany, transported by barge to the Speyer museum (description on their site). It is still described in some news articles as the orbiter that flew in space! It was an atmospheric model only, with two jet engines attached. Some photos of the journey along the river are at NASASpaceflight.com.

I was very enthusiastic about the Buran orbiter for a while, up to the hangar collapse in May 2002. After that I became disheartened and lost much interest (the Buran-Energiya program was unlikely to be resurrected again).

Wednesday 16/4: Feeding the many

“UN calls for farming revolution,” BBC, 15/4. There has been much media attention recently on increasing food prices in some (mainly poorer) countries due to various factors. Yet little mention of one major factor: population growth! A letter in today’s The Age:

Population is the crisis

The world’s population has increased threefold during my lifetime, and you are surprised that there is a food shortage? As long ago as 1798, Thomas Malthus warned of the danger of the population increasing faster than the food supply.

Since then the world’s population has increased from 1 billion to 6.5 billion. The projected world population figure for 2050 is more than 10 billion. The crisis isn’t food supply, the crisis is population growth, and sustainability.

– Gordon Cheyne, Armadale

Perhaps food or other aid should come with a caveat that population control methods also be implemented (family planning, providing contraceptives to women).

“Space Research Can Improve Life On Earth,” RIA Novosti, 11/4.

“Scrap unlucky 13th mission: Russian space chief,” Space Daily, 14/4. Anatolii Perminov suggests renaming Soyuz TMA-13 to -14 out of superstition! Maybe he is joking! Though remember what happened to Apollo-13 …

“Russia continues flight simulation experiments for Mars-500,” RIA Novosti, 15/4. Four volunteers will spend ten days in a compression chamber with a reduced oxygen level as preparation for Mars-500; this will provide information on the physiological impact of a flight to Mars and back. No date for the experiment given in the article.

Saturday 19/4: Looking for shoes

My walking/jogging sneakers are nearly worn through, so the time has come to hunt for another pair, a process I hate as much as going to the dentist. I have had so many bad experiences with ill-fitting shoes over the years that I utterly dread going into shoe shops! The only options available seem to be cheap but badly-fitting shoes, or better but expensive/unaffordable ones from specialist shops. I tend to wear sneakers until the insides of the heels wear through; I can keep them going a while longer with use of silver duct tape, though I still have bloody-heeled socks when I take the shoes off! Perfectly-fitting shoes that never wear out are my dream (perhaps nanotechnology will enable this)!

“Sole Survivor – One man’s quest to find the best shoes ever made”. This was an article in Good Weekend magazine in 2005 (taken from one originally published in the New Yorker), about a Hungarian shoemaker’s quest to create the ideal shoe. He found the prehistoric shoes worn by Otzi the Ice Man to be close to the ideal! Though somewhat stinky.

Ideally people would go around barefoot most of the time (many tribal people seem to manage quite well without shoes), but that obviously isn’t practical in a modern society (especially in urban areas!).

Hlavacek is a professor of shoe technology at Tomas Bata University, in the Czech city of Zlin. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis on stitching – specifically, on the effect of high needle temperatures on thread quality in the making of leather uppers – and has mounted shoe research expeditions to Mongolia, Turkey, China, and Vietnam. He has measured the feet of twenty thousand Czech children and cross-indexed their growth patterns and deformities, and he has concluded that our feet are in trouble. “The number of incorrect and dangerous shoes is high. It is higher and higher!” he told me one afternoon in Zlin, over a bowl of garlic soup. Czech shoes were once the best-made in Europe, he said, but in recent years his country, like the United States, has been flooded with cheap, poorly designed Asian shoes, and the effects are showing. “The Czech Republic is nature’s laboratory,” he said. “You can give them Far Asia shoes and see what happens. And we have found that the number of complications is three times higher than twenty years ago. Half of all women have deformed feet!” […]

Hoffmann’s anti-footwear feelings had been stirred by a visit to the 1904 World’s Fair, in St. Louis. A group of African Pygmies and Philippine tribesmen, barefoot all their lives, had been put on display for the edification of shoe-wearing peoples. Hoffmann took a look at their feet. In a hundred and eighty-six pairs, he reported, he didn’t find a single deformity or ailment. There were no broken arches, no hyperextended joints – none of the weaknesses “so characteristic and common in adult shoe-wearing feet.” In the pictures published with the article, the tribesmen’s feet look almost alarmingly healthy. They’re leathery, thick-knuckled, full of character. Their toes are so widely splayed they look prehensile, like a gecko’s. With the right training, you imagine, they could play Jelly Roll Morton. By comparison, our own feet are pale, spindly, useless things. They’ve devolved, as Hoffmann put it, into “mere pedestals.”

Monday 21/4: Sneakers found; favorite songs; unlucky space women

I found some comfortable sneakers (Reebok Princess) (19/4 entry) though I have to go a size up (8 rather than 7) as they don’t make wide shoes, annoyingly! (A common problem.) I’ve had the style before.

Two more songs I like from years ago that I found on YouTube: “Red Rain” by Peter Gabriel and “The Eyes of Truth” by Enigma. The images I get in my head from the songs are quite different to the videos: of a blood-soaked battlefield for “Red Rain,” and of a desert, a burning city (possibly of the Iraq War) and nuclear explosions for “The Eyes of Truth” (I especially like the section from 3:43 onwards for “The Eyes of Truth”). Some of “Eyes” was sampled from an album with the rather wonderful title Songs from the Victorious City.

Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson, Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko and South Korean guest cosmonaut So-Yeon Yi undocked in Soyuz TMA-11 and landed safely on 19/4, but it was another ballistic re-entry and they were 475 km short of the landing zone! The previous Soyuz flight, TMA-10, had the same problem, as did Expedition 6 in TMA-1. The crew endured up to 10.5 G’s briefly, though they were generally unharmed. There was about a half-hour delay between landing and re-establishment of communications, which also caused some worry! (The Expedition 16 thread from landing onwards at NASASpaceflight.com covers the landing.)

Also, Russian Federal Space Agency chief Anatolii Perminov made some rather tactless remarks about women on board being bad luck:

Later, Perminov was asked about the presence of two women on the Soyuz, and referred to a naval superstition that having women aboard a ship was bad luck. “You know in Russia, there are certain bad omens about this sort of thing, but thank God that everything worked out successfully,” he said. “Of course in the future, we will work somehow to ensure that the number of women will not surpass” the number of men. Challenged by a reporter, Perminov responded: “This isn’t discrimination. I’m just saying that when a majority of the crew is female, sometimes certain kinds of unsanctioned behavior or something else occurs, that’s what I’m talking about.”

– “Astronauts rescued as capsule lands off-target,” MSNBC.com, 19/4.

Maybe he was joking (and the superstition is an old one), but Peggy Whitson probably won’t be impressed! I ranted about archaic attitudes to women in my 16/10/2007 entry.

Wednesday 23/4: Another ugly house; rough Soyuz landing

We’ve had the nice mild sunny Autumn weather that I like, with cold mornings and clear days.

The house near us that was knocked down (see 3/9/2007 entry) is to be a 2-storey duplex monstrosity, which is dismaying to say the least. Another patch of sky will vanish. I would personally like to eviscerate the sorry excuses for architects who “design” these abominations – not to mention the owner who chose the design. I am not sure yet how intrusive it will be.

Another house was knocked down somewhere in the neighborhood yesterday. I think of the process as “The Scouring of the Suburbs” – after the chapter title in The Lord of the Rings.

It was after nightfall when, wet and tired, the travellers came at last to the Brandywine, and they found the way barred. At either end of the Bridge there was a great spiked gate; and on the further side of the river they could see that some new houses had been built: two-storeyed with narrow straight-sided windows, bare and dimly lit, all very gloomy and un-Shire-like. […]

The travelers trotted on, and as the sun began to sink towards the White Downs far away on the western horizon they came to Bywater by its wide pool; and there they had their first really painful shock. This was Frodo and Sam’s own country, and they found out now that they cared about it more than any other place in the world. Many of the houses that they had known were missing. Some seemed to have been burned down. The pleasant row of old hobbit-holes in the bank on the north side of the Pool were deserted, and their little gardens that used to run down bright to the water’s edge were rank with weeds. Worse, there was a whole line of the ugly new houses all along Pool Side, where the Hobbiton Road ran close to the bank. An avenue of trees had stood there. They were all gone. And looking with dismay up the road towards Bag End they saw a tall chimney of brick in the distance. It was pouring out black smoke into the evening air.

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

The rough ballistic landing of Soyuz TMA-11 is still getting media attention (most somewhat sensationalist, with reports of the crew being “lucky to survive”). One of the staff at Novosti Kosmonavtiki is critical of this sensationalism in News № 699:

23/04/2008/00:33 – Soyuz TMA-11 crew alive, not because of accident, but through technology reliability

On Tuesday evening the Interfax news agency has filed a report with “details” on the ballistic descent trajectory of the spacecraft Soyuz TMA-11 which took place on April 19. The information is citing “a source close to a commission to investigate the causes of what happened."

The essence of the message is reflected in its title: “Soyuz crew nearly died". A message is contained in the “evidence” as to why this could happen.

I do not want to even refer to the “technical details of the incident” - until the findings are published commission giving the reasons why the Soyuz TMA-11 deorbited in a ballistic descent mode, they are all just assumptions, not facts. And, very controversial and unambiguous.

But about the title I want to say a few words.

No one will disagree that any flight into space is full of dangers and no one will give a 100% guarantee that it will end successfully. Especially when unexpected contingencies happen. But…

But the normal mode of ballistic descent is intended precisely for this. Yes, it causes cosmonauts certain inconveniences, but saves their lives. And this is most important. That means you must not dramatize what happened with the Soyuz TMA-11.

As early as 1960 the writer Gennadii Semennikhin wrote a poem (of course, this is not Pushkin, but for this situation it reflects the gist of what happened):

Everything does not always go smoothly,
They do not always return in time,
But the orbit will be in order,
If there is a flame of courage.

Не всегда всё свершается гладко,
Не всегда возвращаются в срок,
Но орбита будет в порядке,
Если мужества есть огонёк.

Close to midnight Roscosmos responded to Interfax’s report that by that time had been republished in many electronic publications.

“The reports about the threat to the life of astronauts who returned on Saturday from the ISS – based on unaudited data – do not stand up to scrutiny from the technical point of view and generally harm the Russian space industry,” said the head of Roscosmos press service Aleksander Vorobyov. “The information published with reference to the unnamed and very incompetent source, is nothing more than negative PR. Publications of this kind are directed against the implementation of the Russian-American agreement on the purchase by NASA from Russia of Soyuz and Progress spacecraft after the cessation of shuttle flights to the ISS,” Vorobyov said.

It is probably quite close to the truth. One should always remember the old truth: “Look for who benefits.”

“Space crew’s hard landing raises hard questions,” James Oberg, MSNBC.com, 21/4.

“Superstitions run rife after Soyuz mishap,” Yahoo News/ABC News, 22/4. I would have doubts about the veracity of Australian Sky and Space Magazine editor Dave Reneke’s remarks – he seems a bit biased (and being an astronomer does not make one a manned spaceflight expert!).

Thursday 24/4: Bad feet; UV vision

“How Shoes Are Ruining the Human Foot,” MetaFilter post, 22/4. Relevant to my 19/4 entry. The only shoes I find comfortable are sheepskin moccasins! Can’t wear them all the time though, sadly. And women’s high-heeled shoes should be classified by the United Nations as instruments of torture! I would, seriously, like to see them banned.

My feet

My feet are not particularly good despite never having worn high heels. My big toes are bent in, and my little toes are bent under. I wonder if wearing sneakers could contribute to this. (See my 22/9/2005 entry for an earlier photo of my poor abused feet!)

I was doing some Googling for information about ultraviolet vision and found a couple of articles about people who can see ultraviolet light (because they’ve had operations to remove their eye’s corneas, which filter out UV): “Let the light shine in” and “Bird’s-eye view”.

One thing Alan Bradley loves about it is the way forests now sometimes look to him. In 2003 a fire scorched parts of nearby Okanagan Mountain Park. Last spring, as the vegetation started to recover, he was beguiled by what he saw. Regaling him were newly grown mosses in brilliant greens, sometimes with a metallic appearance, spectral enhancements due to UV light reflecting into his left eye. “It was absolutely unearthly and wonderful,” he says, adding that he now routinely sees many more subtle gradations of blue and green.

The eye represents a compromise between clear focus and breadth of spectrum. What does ultraviolet look like? Prof. Bill Stark possesses UV vision because he is aphakic in one eye and, with Professor Karel Tan, has published research on the nearest visible equivalent. His conclusion is that it looks whitish-blue or, for some wavelengths, a whitish-violet.

Human color vision is limited compared to that of many animals; the one with the most remarkable is the Mantis shrimp.

Monday 28/4: Nocturnal creatures; Soyuz landing update

Having possums thundering around on the roof in the early morning can be rather unnerving! They were rather noisy this morning (only one or two, but they sound like a herd of elephants running overhead). They have become a bit of a pest around Melbourne, though with all the gardens being lost to overdevelopment, their habitat is diminishing.

Fruit bats are other creatures I see in the early morning on my walk (flying startled out of a tree when I go past) or in the evening (I counted 10 or so going overhead when outside a few weeks ago). They are black with large leathery wings and fly silently, like small stealth fighters.

I came across this recent (2007) short story by Stephen Baxter, “Last Contact,” featuring a possible ending of the Universe called the Big Rip, which I haven’t heard of before! Another Universe-scale disaster I read about a few years ago is similar to a phase transition but one that affects the fabric of the Universe itself; I can’t recall the name for it, though the Vacuum metastability event in a Wikipedia article sounds like it. (More fun reading: How to destroy the Earth)

Someone at the NASASpaceflight.com forum mentioned this site, Postcards From The Future, a documentary based on NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration. The graphics are nice-looking, though there seems to be no other nations involved (so it’s just the “usual suspects” of clichéd astronauts).

More on the Soyuz TMA-11 rough landing:

Tuesday 29/4: Newsreader suicide; Armageddon novel

I found the New Scientist issue at the library with the article on the collapse of civilization that I mentioned in my 12/4 entry, so I have scanned it in.

I watched a documentary on Australian Story about Charmaine Dragun, a popular newsreader who killed herself in November last year by jumping off a cliff at The Gap in Sydney, a notorious suicide spot. She was successful and attractive with a boyfriend, and seemingly had a bright future. But she also had personal demons which led to her suicide; she was a perfectionist who was never happy with herself. She had been anorexic when younger, a disorder that those with such personalites can be prone to, and also suffered depression.

It’s a little over a year since two teenage girls disappeared and were found to have killed themselves by hanging (see 23/4/2007 entry).

More selfishly, I have to confess to feeling a little angry with popular people who kill themselves thus: You are successful and haven’t messed up your life like me! You have everything! Why are you throwing this away?

To less depressing things. Out of a sort of masochism (and boredom) I borrowed one of the Left Behind books – being rather impatient I got the last one (#11), Glorious Appearing, where a very annoyed Jesus finally makes his (sorry, His) appearance. I have tried to read previous novels but they are about as interesting as watching grass grow (even less so). Nicolae Carparthia, the Antichrist (possibly the only interesting character in the series), is a bit outclassed. A lot of people get slaughtered (there are oceans of blood), and Jesus makes speeches – a lot of long tedious speeches. He clearly doesn’t have any self-esteem issues. The New York Times has two reviews of the book from 2004.

The Slacktivist blog has had an ongoing analysis of the series since 2003, but he’s still only on Book 1! At this pace he probably won’t reach Book 11 until maybe 2058 or so!

I did read the Bible a few times in my pre-teen years. My favorite section was the Old Testament (which had quite a lot of action, blood and battles, though I did feel embarrassed at the rude bits!) and Revelations; the rest of the NT was a bit boring so I skipped it. God in the OT is like a rather capricious fantasy-king who slaughters people when they have annoyed him or he’s in a bad mood (which seems to be quite often).

May

Thursday 1/5: To a specialist

I went to my local doctor/GP today about a chronic condition that has been bothering me for a few years, but was initially too embarrassed to do anything about – I don’t want to describe it, but it’s uncomfortable, though not life-threatening. Unfortunately she said it wasn’t treatable with topical creams and such, so I needed to visit a specialist or hospital for possible surgery! As I can’t afford a specialist (no health insurance, unemployed), I had to opt for a public hospital, so she said she would send a fax to them and they would ring me. I don’t know how long I will have to wait to get into hospital (the public system is chronically underfunded and some people can wait years for elective surgery).

To say I am not happy is an understatement! From what I’ve read the operation and recovery can be painful, and it’s not something I particularly want to endure if it can be avoided! I am going to be fretting about this until something is done, one way or the other. I am glad I went to the doctor about it, though – I should have gone years ago, but embarrassment prevented me.

I get so furious at the Government (State and Federal) for not making public health funding a priority. They are happy to spend millions on frivolities like sports stadiums – “Taxpayers to foot bill as stadium scores $50m blowout” – and have hefty budget surpluses; yet when it comes to essential services, they turn into misers.

Monday 5/5: Surgery consultation; suicide; parrots documentary; snaring an oligarch; space schedule

I have an initial consultation for this Friday. Reading articles such as “Surgery waiting lists up by 3000” isn’t exactly encouraging! And this is for a “First-World” country.

I found this article on “How not to commit suicide”. Somewhat gruesome reading! I guess the moral is: do it properly or don’t try at all, otherwise you might end up permanently damaged and worse off than before!

The blog of the woman who said she was going to kill herself in 90 days in February (11/2 entry) also turned out to be a hoax – a “personal art piece” (according to this comment on the MeFi page). Not impressed! It’s not unlike the infamous Kaycee Nicole case in 2001, where a woman pretended to be a younger girl with terminal cancer and kept an online diary, generating a huge outpouring of sympathy. These hoaxes prey on people’s goodwill, making them less likely to help should the real thing happen to someone.

I watched a documentary last night: “Australia: Land Of Parrots” (and an article), featuring many of the spectacularly-colored parrots who live here, including the Eclectus Parrot, the turquoise Golden-shouldered Parrot, and the black Palm Cockatoo, which lives as long as humans and mates for life. Rainbow Lorikeets live in my area (see 8/1/2006 entry). (Incidentally, a few months ago I found this article, “Parrots and People … a Relationship of Conflict” on why parrots are ill-suited to be domestic pets.)

“The art of snaring a Russian oligarch,” The Age, 5/5. Somewhere between amusing and disgusted. (When contemplating oligarches, I tend to get thoughts of the French Revolution and guillotines.) And, ladies, as soon as you start to show signs of aging, the oligarch will dump you for a younger model (as happened to Irina Abramovich).

The reason for the sharp-elbowed approach, according to one former oligarch hunter, is that decent men in Russia are generally thin on the ground, especially those who are both solvent and sober. “Take 100 Russian men,” explained Oksana Grussova, who spent 15 years hunting rich men, and was married to a wealthy construction magnate. “Ten of them will be gay, 30% alcoholics, 10% drug addicts, 20% impotent, leaving a paltry 30 men. “Now take 100 Russian women, 90 of whom will be beautiful – the race simply isn’t fair.”

Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-124) is due to lift-off on 31 May.

Not much more information on the cause of the Soyuz TMA-11 rough landing. Russian Space Web notes that the TMA-12 relocation from one port to another (Pirs to Zarya) is canceled (there is a remote possibility that the crew would have to abandon the ISS if anything went wrong, and they don’t want to risk another ballistic landing). A contingency spacewalk might be undertaken to inspect one of the pyrotechnic locks that separate the modules before descent. Yi So-yeon also suffered unspecified back injuries from the landing as she was on the side that hit the ground hardest (FPSpace May 2008).

Tuesday 6/5: My published letter

I got another letter published in The Age today! Much the same topic as my previous one (3/3 entry). (The other letter is from a lady who also posts on the Public Population Forum.) The newspaper is doing a series on planning for Melbourne’s future, but it is focused on how to accommodate more people rather than a more fundamental solution of containing population growth. I would like to see a Government with the courage to say, “We’re full up, you’ll have to go somewhere else”.

Not just supply and demand

Housing Industry Association Victorian acting executive director Robert Harding (“City’s house prices among cheapest,” The Age, 5/5) warns that “we” need to be conscious of housing prices moving towards the “dearer markets if we are going to have the population growth and attract industry and development”. Healso says that increasing housing supply would cap property prices. Obviously, if the supply of housing is increased so that it exceeds demand, then property prices will stabilise and might even fall.This is also true of increasing the supply of pumpkins in a marketplace.

Mr. Harding’s thoughts have no more ultimate direction than the proverbial dog chasing its tail. Housing prices are obviously subject to the vicissitudes of supply and demand, and population growth will certainly increase one kind of industry – housing. There is not, however, in what Mr. Harding says an explanation or argument extolling the actual benefits to Melbourne residents of striving for an ever-increasing population.

– Jill Quirk, East Malvern

No winners in this contest

Those interviewed in “City’s house prices among cheapest” seem to regard population growth as a competition in which the city that can cram in the most people is the “winner”. They appear oblivious to the negative social or environmental consequences of such overcrowding. Reducing population growth would reduce demand for housing and help lower prices.

– Suzanne McHale

I also saw that the group of houses mentioned in my 12/2 entry was to be demolished today, so the tall oak tree will be felled, and the vegetation around it cleared. A lot of birds and other creatures will lose their homes.

An angry opinion piece on the health care system from last year: “All Australians deserve free health care,” The Age, 8/8/2007.

“Suits For Shenzhou,” Space Daily, 5/5. The spacesuits that will be used for the Chinese spacewalk are derived from the Russian Orlan spacesuit. It’s not clear whether these are Chinese-made, or purchased from Russia.

In this week’s edition of The Space Review, there are two articles about available space magazines: “Dead trees and the final frontier” and “A quick guide to space news publications in print”. The only spaceflight-specific magazine available in Australia that I know of is Spaceflight – I quit buying it a few years ago because it got too expensive (now over $10), and most articles tend not to be of interest to me. Novosti Kosmonavtiki seems to be the best one, but it is not available in an English translation.

Thursday 8/5: Islamic sci-fi; rough Soyuz landing

The io9 blog had an entry about a website, Islam and Science Fiction, which is a collection of “information about the depiction of Islam and Islamic themes in Science Fiction literature and science fiction written by Muslims.” These are mainly works in English (Western authors mentioning Islamic/Middle Eastern characters), though some Arabic authors are mentioned. There’s also a film in development called Alliance: The Movie. As I mentioned in my 15/1 entry, I am interested to read how other non-Western cultures write about sci-fi as the predominant fiction sold in Australia tends to come from the USA, then Britain and a little from Australia (the countries generally referred to as “the West,” i.e. those with a British cultural heritage). The cultural mindset thus tends to be the same in the stories (to a tedious extent!).

There are some really nice photos at the NPO Intercos site (a Japanese site about co-operating with the Russian space program). The Kyoto page has lots of spectacular (but high-resolution – the page size is nearly 15 MB!) photos of historical buildings and Japanese Maple trees in Autumn or Spring foliage. The Maples and Cherry Blossoms are among my favorite trees. I like many aspects of Japanese culture (Samurai!), though the language is much more difficult than Russian and it looks a daunting place to visit!

“Internal NASA Documents Give Clues to Scary Soyuz Return Flight,” James Oberg, IEEE Spectrum, May 2008. James Oberg gives a measured account of the events of the off-nominal Soyuz TMA-11 landing; what is known to date. There are also some diagrams from a NASA document. Novosti Kosmonavtiki news № 702 also mentioned the article, saying that it is interesting material with a calmer tone in contrast to reports in the Russian media. “Oberg writes that the events on 19 April were very unpleasant, but they again demonstrated the reliability of the Soyuz spacecraft, which has accumulated nearly 100 manned missions. A flattering estimation, but it reflects reality.” Comments at the relevant thread at NASASpaceflight.com. There are some at the NK forum (in Russian, try Babelfish to translate), though they seem a little more dismissive (as much as I can make out from the translator).

Friday 9/5: Surgery shock

I went to the specialist at the public hospital today concerning my ailment; he was quite good but the news he gave me wasn’t: the condition is worse than what I thought it was (not life-threatening but still unpleasant), and I need an operation to repair it! And in the worst place possible on my body. I also need to get 2 tests done before so he can decide on what type of operation to do. As I have to go through the overcrowded public system this will likely drag on for months, so I have no idea when the operation will take place. I have never been to hospital before so I am dreading this.

Monday 12/5: The Fall film; From Yesterday music video; new Russian president

I learned of this film called The Fall, by the same director, Tarsem Singh, who created the visuals for The Cell (see my 9/6/2006 entry). The Fall has the same dreamlike imagery and looks to be worth seeing; it is from 2006 but is only being released this year (don’t know if it will be in Australia). There is a trailer at YouTube, and some still photos at its IMBD page.

I found this music video I liked, “From Yesterday,” by some group called 30 Seconds to Mars.

Just though I would note that I am bored, bored, bored with the U.S. election campaign! I don’t think any other country’s drags on for so long.

“The Russians have a parade,” The Swamp, 9/5. Features a somewhat pointedly symbolic photo of new President Medvedev with now-Prime Minister Putin standing behind him, with some Grumpy Old Generals behind the PM. According to his Wikipedia bio, Medvedev does like to keep fit (swimming, jogging, weight-training and yoga), so that is a positive (though whether he is a teetotaler like Putin isn’t mentioned – hopefully he isn’t an alcoholic like Boris Yeltsin!). He is a Cat Person (Putin owned dogs).

Wednesday 14/5: Public hospital waiting list; too many people

I got a form from the public hospital in the mail today to fill out information for one of the 2 tests I need to get before the operation. I sent it back in, then I have to wait for them to schedule an appointment (which may be postponed prior to or on the day I am scheduled, owing to unpredictable demand for emergency services). I have no idea when the appointment will be; could be months away.

With the ongoing drought and declining water storages, barely-coping infrastructure, ever-longer hospital waiting lists and so on, what does the Government decide to do with some of its Budget money? Increase the immigration intake to address the so-called “skills shortage”! I can't adequately express my disgust. From the Herald-Sun:

Add 31,000 to skilled

AN extra 31,000 skilled migrants will be accepted in 2008-09 to help tackle the worsening labour shortage, Immigration Minister Chris Evans said yesterday.

All up 133,500 will be let in.

Senator Evans said the scheme had not grown sufficiently in the past to respond to the skills shortages.

Australia will accept 190,300 migrants in 2008-09, including 56,500 for family reunions.

The increase in skilled migrants will cost the Federal Government $1.4 billion over four years through the cost of settlement, health, education and employment services.

More than 100,000 migrants are expected under the uncapped temporary skilled worker scheme.

The money spent on supporting immigrants is money that should be spent on services for the people who are citizens here! Especially with headlines such as “Patients needing treatment being forced to wait longer” – “More than 200,000 sick Victorians were left waiting unacceptably long times for treatment as the public health system buckled under increased pressure late last year.”

I was looking up Jugular vein on Wikipedia and followed some links through to this article about a hockey player whose throat was slashed by a skate during a game, but he lived (this seems to be an occupational hazard as several players have had similar injuries, the latest being in February of this year). There’s also a photo of him bleeding onto the ice! (I found the disclaimer to one side rather amusing: “The images below are from the portfolio of Craig Melvin. They are presented here for your viewing pleasure.”) Cutting one’s throat is a reasonably quick method of death or suicide, if it is done in the right place, as you lose consciousness rapidly, so it isn’t too painful. It is rather messy though!

Tuesday 20/5: Neighborhood destruction; XP SP3; alien plant colors

The group of houses I mentioned in my 12/2 entry was demolished and all the vegetation removed, including the large oak tree, so the site is now razed and barren. Depressing and upsetting to look at.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 was released at long last earlier this month. A stand-alone download is here. I prefer this as I can burn it to a CD – I never use the Windows Update feature as I would have to download updates again everytime I reinstalled Windows (several times a year), which is annoying. As usual there are some issues as this blog entry notes (my computer has an AMD CPU, so I might delay downloading the update).

I thought it worth buying the Scientific American magazine with the article on the colors of plants on alien worlds (see 7/4 entry). (I rarely buy magazines now – that one was $10!) There is one aspect of the article that is contradictory: that of the plant colors for worlds with F-type stars (hotter than the Sun, with light more toward the blue end of the spectrum):

Light of any color from deep violet through the near-infrared could power photosynthesis. Around stars hotter and bluer than our sun, plants would tend to absorb blue light and could look green to yellow to red. Around cooler stars such as red dwarfs, planets receive less visible light, so plants might try to absorb as much of it as possible, making them look black. […]

Thus, plants on both F- and K-star planets could have colors just like those on Earth but with subtle variations. For F stars, the flood of energetic blue photons is so intense that plants might need to reflect it using a screening pigment similar to anthocyanin, giving them a blue tint. Alternatively, plants might need to harvest only the blue, discarding the lower-quality green through red light. That would produce a distinctive blue edge in the spectrum of reflected light, which would stand out to telescope observers.

Those two extracts somewhat contradict each other! So I’m a bit confused. An illustration from the article shows plants on an F-star world with both colors.

Sunday 25/5: Indiana Jones vs Communists; Mars Phoenix Lander; ISS events

“Indiana angers Russian Communists,” BBC, 24/5. The latest Indiana Jones movie has not surprisingly incited the ire of some in Russia, seeing as the Soviets are the villains in the movie (the main one being in the unlikely form of Australian actress Cate Blanchett as a KGB dominatrix!).

After reading the Wikipedia movie description I saw that there is a character with my surname! “When Jones attempts to escape, he is foiled by his old partner, George ‘Mac’ McHale (Ray Winstone), who reveals that he is working with the Soviets.” Hah! Not inappropriate.

A French skydiver called Michel Fournier is to make an attempt at diving from 130,000 feet (40 kilometers, nearly 25 miles) above the plains of Saskatchewan, Canada, this month. He may break the sound barrier on his descent! He will ascend in a pressurized capsule attached to a balloon. The main problem is finding a suitable day for launching (without strong winds). Falling from that height would be the most awesome dreamlike experience.

I found this statement interesting on the Human value page on his site:

The intrinsic values in such an exceptional adventure should not be overlooked. Sociologists have confirmed the growing loss of autonomy by both individuals and social groups faced with both the difficulties of existence and the loss of their traditional points of reference on the social, moral, civic and religious levels. People are fleeing to “deviant places of refuge”: religious cults, hard drugs … and apathy, mediocrity and delinquency.

Mental and physical health professionals are among the first to be concerned with these problems, and the first to be pleased with the promotion and advertising of this “Great Adventure.”

The values of this “Adventure” deserve to be exploited in the education of the public and especially of the young (a theme for a future convention of “Médecine et Aventure” in France).

Above and beyond the achievements which his preparations have entailed, Michel Fournier has become an archetype of the “Happy Man That Lives Out His Dream,” despite all the difficulties, physical ordeals, and renunciation of material and personal interests involved. Among other things, Fournier sold virtually ALL his possessions to finance the launch of this project … a model to ponder

The Mars Phoenix Lander is due to land today at 23:53 UTC – tomorrow Melbourne time at 9:53 a.m. It was launched on 4 August last year, so that is over 9 months to travel to Mars. Russia has no involvement in the mission – their unmanned space exploration program has been dismally absent since the failed 1996 Mars 96 mission.

Expedition 17 has been having some trouble with the toilet (ASU) in the Zvezda Service Module malfunctioning! It’s been fairly reliable for many years (as far as I know), but has developed some mechanical problems (noted in this NASASpaceflight.com thread):

Russian ASU malfunction: While using the ASU toilet system in the SM, the crew heard a loud noise and the fan stopped working. After some troubleshooting the crew reported that the air/water Separator (MNR-RS) was not working. The crew then replaced the separator with a spare unit but reported afterwards that the ASU lacked suction. The crew next replaced the F-V filter insert, which provided good suction for a while but again exhibited weak suction. TsUP/Moscow instructed the crew to deactivate the ASU and use the toilet facility in the Soyuz spacecraft. (21 May ISS Daily Report)

The Soyuz toilet provides some backup and if all else fails:

Yes, the toilet is working again – but we are holding our breath. There were some spare parts but I do not think they came on the ATV. When this breaks down there is a toilet in the Soyuz but it has limited functionality and is not popular among the crew. There are also Apollo bags (developed on Apollo, just a basic bag). Not very pleasant.

They got the ASU partially working but then it stopped again, so I don’t have any more updates yet.

There was also a spill of Freon coolant:

The Freon spill (~600 g) occurred on 29/4 after the replacement of the SKV-2 air conditioner compressor. To clean up quickly, the Russian BMP (Russian Harmful Impurities Removal System) was moded to regenerate its absorbent beds every 5 days instead of the regular 20 days. Freon-218 (Octafluoropropane/C3F8, Russian: Khladon) is safe (low toxicity, perhaps some irritation) and noncorrosive if not heated above ~600°C. Primary hazard is oxygen displacement, as witness the Ozone Layer, but there is not enough C3F8 on board the ISS to significantly deplete any atmospheric oxygen.

Replacement parts were sent up on the recent Progress M-64:

Part of its cargo complement includes replacement freon and parts to hopefully allow repair of the Service Module thermal system. If successful, the Russian segment can once again collect condensate and process water to use in the Elektron to provide O2.

Monday 26/5: Phoenix Mars landing

The Mars Phoenix spacecraft landed successfully at 23:38:44 UTC, or 23:53:44 UTC as recorded on Earth – it takes 15 minutes for signals to travel from Mars to Earth at their current distance (30 minutes there and back). The main official sites for the lander are at NASA and the University of Arizona. Some images have been sent back but rather disappointingly they are black-and-white. I wonder why a true-color camera that would record colors as humans would see them has not been included on any mission? There is a color-calibration tool which gives an approximation of the colors.

No updates yet on whether the French skydiver Michel Fournier has made his 40 km jump.

The NASASpaceflight.com forum just changed over to new updated forum software. They managed it much better than the botched Space.com changeover in February – the awful unusability of the latter’s forum software is beyond belief! It is slow, needs Javascript to display at all and the URLs of pages are hideously long; the complaints from users have been endless. I rarely post or visit there now.

Tuesday 27/5: Insomnia; wasted talent; Russian Mars plans

I had one of those annoying nights where my brain refused to “switch off” and I just could not get to sleep. I didn’t start to drift off until around 2:30 a.m., and then I got up at my usual time of after 4:30 a.m., so I’ve had little sleep at all! I had a lot of thoughts going through my head and felt restless and uncomfortable. Curiously, time seems to go very fast when I get like that at night – an hour seems like a few minutes.

“Have you ever known someone with so much artistic potential, who does nothing with it?” Post at MetaFilter. I remember various people saying to me at school that I should be an artist, or art teacher (!), or whatever, but being a contrary teenager I was never interested (art was the only talent that got me some admiration at school, which seems aeons ago now – in the 1980s). I doubt if I would want to anything creative as a living, as for me this would turn it from an enjoyable hobby into a chore.

I still haven’t heard anything from the two places where I will have to undergo tests before my operation is scheduled. I might mention that I have a real phobia about using the telephone – something I’ve had since childhood!

One of the Mars probes in orbit – NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter – managed to take a photo of the Phoenix Lander under its parachute during descent.

“Another visit to Mars. It’s the Americans again,” RIA Novosti, 26/5. Opinion piece by Andrei Kislyakov on what Russia’s Mars plans are (none for the near-future, unfortunately).

The Russian Space Agency does not have a clearly articulated Martian program. There is a reason for that. Russia at present is implementing the Federal Space Program for 2006-2015, which does not envisage large-scale Martian projects.

At the same time Roscosmos has repeatedly said that manned missions to Mars are certain to take place after 2030-2035. Next year will see the start of the much-touted Mars-500 project, when a group of volunteers will spend 520 days in a special module simulating the conditions of a prolonged space flight. As part of that project the Russian Medical-Biological Research Institute in late May completed experiments to assess the capacity of the human body to spend prolonged periods in a confined space with low oxygen content.

In addition, a detailed plan of a manned expedition to Mars has long been developed, as many Russian space officials have declared. The head of RKK Energia corporation, Vitaly Lopota, has been speaking about the Martian project developed by his corporation.

“The complex includes an interplanetary orbital vehicle, the power tug, and the take-off and landing complex. The interplanetary expedition complex should be assembled and tested in the near-Earth orbit as a reusable vehicle with a mass of up to 500 tons and a life span of 15 years. It would have a crew of four to six people. The mission to Mars would last up to 900 days, including a one-month stay on Mars of a crew of two to three people,” Lopota said in a interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta in early February of this year.

If Russia did manage to put the first humans on Mars, this would more than compensate for past disappointments!

“Pyrobolt failure caused Soyuz bumpy re-entry – Roscosmos,” RIA Novosti, 24/5. The main cause of the Soyuz TMA-11 ballistic re-entry was the failure of one of five pyrobolts to separate the Descent Module from the Instrumentation/Propulsion Module, so the separation occured later in the descent.

Vassili Petrovitch has a section on his Buran site recounting his group tour of Star City and Baikonur in Russia, attending the recent launch of TMA-12.

Thursday 29/5: Tests for surgery; spaceflight news

I had the first (and least unpleasant!) series of tests done for my operation at a private clinic today (they rang last night and made the appointment for today). Aside from the condition, the relevant area is OK. (I would like to give more detail, but am wary of putting personal medical details on a public site!) Now I am waiting to be notified when the next examination will take place (at a public hospital). After that, I see the specialist to discuss and organize the operation (which could be months away *sigh*).

The French high-altitude skydive by Michel Fournier was unfortunately thwarted by the helium balloon breaking away from the capsule before launch! Very frustrating. He says he will try again, but when this will happen is unknown yet.

“Space station struggles with balky toilet,” James Oberg, MSNBC.com, 27/5. An overview of the ISS ASU malfunction. Despite attempted fixes it is still not working properly, so some spare parts will be flown up on the next Shuttle flight.

“The losing hand: tradition and superstition in spaceflight,” The Space Review, 27/5. An overview of various spaceflight superstitions.

“Mars500 – European candidates selected,” ESA news, 27/5. 32 candidates were selected out of the thousands of applicants, and the final selection (two ESA candidates) for the experiment will be taken from these 32. (I do wish the IMBP would redesign their awful website!)

“NASA puts rush order on space toilet fix,” MSNBC.com, 28/5. Spare parts for the troubled ISS toilet will be delivered by the Shuttle STS-124 Discovery when it launches on 31/5 at 21:02 UTC.

Saturday 31/5: Feminization of men; Russian mortality

“Where have all the real men gone?,” The Age, 31/5. A somewhat fatuous article about the supposed feminization of men. Makes a lot of generalizations that only apply to a certain narrow social group in some (mainly Western) societies. I haven’t encountered any males like these (though admittedly I encounter very few males in my limited real life!). The article provides another stupid made-up word: “metro-warrior” :-P. The end paragraphs indicate the writer is not enthusiastic about this feminization trend, though (I certainly aren’t).

“More loss than gain in encroaching urban sprawl on threatened open plains,” The Age, 31/5. The grassy plains surrounding Melbourne are under threat from overdevelopment; they are important to the environment but get overlooked.

Two Russia-doom-and-gloom articles:

“Russia’s ‘hypermortality’,” Space Daily, 27/5.

In precise and formal scientific language, the report suggests that Russia is suffering the kind of hypermortality that is normally only associated with the effects of a major war. In wars, young men die. That is also happening in Russia. The report says: “Without factoring the impact of AIDS, the number of males age 15-24 could decline by nearly half over the next 20 years.”

But factor in the effect of AIDS and the picture is even more grim. “Russia has experienced a dramatic spread of HIV in just over a decade. In 1997-2007, there was a 370-fold increase from less than 1090 to 405,427 officially registered cases,” the report says. It adds that this represents the minimum of those in contact with the HIV reporting system.

“Russia army suicides cause alarm,” BBC news, 29/5.

Conditions of military service – compulsory for one year for Russian men – are so harsh that many parents and young men offer bribes to avoid getting conscripted. Yet Mr. Fridinsky said that about half of the suicides were among professional, contract-based soldiers, who would not face this kind of bullying. He suggested that Russia use the experience of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan to help their troops deal with the psychological trauma of combat.

According to Sean’s Russia Blog, the Communists protesting against the new Indiana Jones film were only a small eccentric sect, not the official Party. That being said, people in Peru are not enthusiastic about their own depiction in the film, either!

Dad emmigrated from England in the 1960s and it is not a place he would want to return to now. According to one report the country is more dangerous than the Balkans in terms of crime! As politically-incorrect as it is to say it, England’s huge growing population (mainly through excessive immigration) would be a contributing factor – crowding millions of people together on a relatively small island is asking for trouble, especially when they come from disparate cultures. (The Optimum Population Trust focuses on overpopulation in the UK.)

June

Sunday 1/6: Starstrike review; no UK for Sergei

I read a somewhat silly science fiction/Space Marines novel called Starstrike: Operation Orion (the second in a series; I have yet to read the first as it wasn’t available at the bookshop then). Sometimes (actually a lot of the time) I am in the mood for a book where you don’t have to think too much, and I get a perverse enjoyment at getting irritated at such stories as in the novel. (The Amazon.com reviews are mostly negative, too! The cover art is nice, though.) The main annoyance (aside from the clichéd Space Marines) is that the three “alien” races in the novel look just like humans! (Aside from odd eye colors – see the extract below.) An amazing (and unlikely) evolutionary coincidence, unless there is some explanation that has yet to be given (such as DNA seeding by another real alien race long ago).

The distinctive physical difference between the races of the three galactic empires, of course, lay in the color of the pupils irises? of the eyes: the Shamaini tended toward shades of red, from bright crimson to pale pink; the Eluoi covered the same range in the green spectrum; and Assarn eyes were cobalt blue. However, hair color was another telltale sign. The Shamani he had met all had hair as black as the typical Asian’s. The hair of the Eluoi varied between coarse dark brown and black, and the few Assarn he had encountered – including Olin Parvik and his crew – were Viking blond or redheaded.

Most of the novel consists of the Space Marines going to various planets and shooting the hapless (and curiously incompetent) “aliens” (whom I felt a bit sorry for after a while). I guess I could use the battle scenes for reference if I ever wanted to write that sort of thing, but these got really tedious after a few pages!

Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov was to attend the Autographica 11 in England in April but had to cancel because (according to this forum post) he and Valerii Tokarev were unable to get a Visa granted by the British Government! Don’t know why (one speculation here); possibly something to do with rather strained relations between the Russian and British governments. Stupid politicians (on both sides). He has been to England before so the Visa denial is curious.

STS-124 Discovery launched on 31/5 at 21:02 UTC (7:02 a.m. on 1/6, Melbourne time) with no delays; its most important cargo is probably the much-needed ASU toilet pump!

Monday 2/6: Headline dread; culling the herd; City of Pearl

I dread reading the newspaper headlines these days as they seem gloomier than ever: petrol is increasing in price, thus groceries and the cost of living generally will go up; water and food food shortages in parts of the world, and so on. Yet governments are still fixated on economic growth despite the toll on society and the environment, promoting population growth as a Good Thing despite its negative consequences, while corporations and advertisers exhort people to buy more and more stuff.

A relevant article: “Waking from the dream,” ABC News, 28/5. Our wastefully extravagant lifestyles are becoming unsustainable.

“The Family Way,” Time magazine, 29/5. The recent Chinese earthquake has given some in the media an excuse to once again attack its one-child policy, as some families lost their only child when shoddily-built schools collapsed. But the issue is with the corruption that resulted in the buildings collapsing – if a family had 2 or more children and lost all at the school, it is still the same result (if that makes sense). The article does note that “couples whose only child was killed or disabled will be permitted to have another one,” which is fair enough. But China can’t afford to otherwise relax this policy – its already-huge population is having a worldwide environmental impact as they become more affluent (the hunt for mineral resources in other nations being one consequence of this).

Clearly, a rising birth rate would place an enormous burden on China’s social and medical infrastructure, which is far less developed than physical infrastructure like roads and rail. A change in emphasis will be essential. Hospitals will need vast new infusions of money and other resources. The weak system of homes for the elderly, child-care providers and other social services will have to be greatly expanded.

Where will the money and resources come from to provide for a massive population?

China also faces one of the most skewed sex ratios in the world: men outnumber women 1.2 to 1. The male surplus, which means many Chinese men will never be able to have a family, creates an ominous future; already, an underclass of young male thugs is proliferating in Chinese cities, a group easily recruited for crime. In Beijing’s worst nightmare, these angry young men could turn against the state. As scholars Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer wrote in a 2004 book, in the mid-19th century unequal sex ratios, which left men idle, contributed to armed rebellion in the Chinese countryside.

A radical solution might be to cull (as in kill) the surplus young males (wars already tend to do this, in a somewhat uncontrolled manner). In fact, that is something that could be done in any society with a surplus of single, young, unemployed males between 12-25 years (who tend to be the most troublesome elements – just consult any statistics for violent crime). As a female, I would feel a lot safer if there were fewer aggressive young males around. How would you identify the aggressive ones, as, of course, not all males fit this description? One way is to catch those who roam the streets at night in groups or gangs – I see the results in my neighborhood the next morning (graffiti, vandalism). Another is to target those convicted of violent crimes. Note that humans don’t hesitate to cull other species (some being elephants and kangaroos) – species that are seen as being in competition with humans for land and resources.

In contrast to the science fiction novel mentioned in yesterday’s entry (1/6), I read a novel I did like (first of a 6-part series): City of Pearl by Karen Traviss. I like it for the same reason that those who gave negative reviews at Amazon.com didn’t: the “strong ecological agenda” and the main female character sympathizing with the aliens. It’s also much more morally complex. There is an interesting interview with her at Strange Horizons.

I found another particle accelerator story, “Gravity’s Angel” by Tom Maddox, in which the Superconducting Synchrotron Collider was funded rather than canceled, and the end result is the creation of a singularity!

Tuesday 3/6: Foggy mornings; sleep is uncool?

Mornings the last few days have been still and cold with heavy fog, which means Melbourne Airport has canceled flights, as happened last year (see 10/7/2007 entry). Very frustrating for passengers! I wonder why the jets aren’t fitted with some radar technology to see through fog?

“Locking out modern life is not the answer,” The Age, 3/6. Apparently people who think night is for sleeping are lazy and wowsers, according to this article’s writer! Humans didn’t evolve as nocturnal creatures, and the current 24-hour modern lifestyle she espouses contributes toward sleep disorders. There is this curious attitude among many that people who go to bed and arise early (as I do!) are somehow odd, while staying up late, or up all night, is seen as trendy and cool. And I liked Melbourne when it was a “dreary, unexciting provincial city” with “an empty, useless city centre” – it wasn’t plagued by the drunken violence that is endemic now.

I am usually in bed around 10:30-11:00 p.m., and arise around 4:30 a.m. or so; I guess that makes me really odd :-). And I have been keeping this schedule since the early 1990s!

Thursday 5/6: My published letter; nanotech hopes

Another letter of mine published in The Age today, on the topic of my last entry (3/6), slightly edited:

Dreariness or drunkenness?

So, according to Larissa Dubecki (Comment & Debate, 3/6) people who like to get a good night’s sleep are wowsers! Humans didn’t evolve as nocturnal creatures, and the 24-hour modern lifestyle she espouses contributes towards sleep disorders. And I, for one, liked Melbourne when it was a “dreary, unexciting provincial city” with an “empty, useless city centre” – at least it wasn’t plagued by the drunken violence that is endemic now.

Original letter:

So, according to Larissa Dubecki (“Locking out modern life is not the answer,” The Age, 3/6) people who like to get a good night’s sleep are lazy and wowsers! Humans didn’t evolve as nocturnal creatures, and the 24-hour modern lifestyle she espouses contributes toward sleep disorders. And I, for one, liked Melbourne when it was a “dreary, unexciting provincial city” with “an empty, useless city centre” – at least it wasn’t plagued by the drunken violence that is endemic now.

I added a page of my published letters to the “Miscellaneous” section of my main site, so they are all in the one place. Seeing a letter of mine in print is oddly disconcerting somehow, as if it were written by another person!

The theme of IEEE Spectrum magazine’s June edition is on the “Singularity” – a postulated technological ascension or Rapture where humans evolve to a new level, aided by fantastical technology (as much as I can understand the definition). The article “Rupturing The Nanotech Rapture” somewhat disappointingly asserts that nano-machines won’t be able to function at the atomic scale because of physical constraints. He instead suggests that some form of nanotech will be achieved by working with biology – re-engineering DNA, microorganisms and the like. Some of the commenters disagree with him. I really hope nanotech becomes reality – I see it as a miracle technology that will save humanity from itself. The novel Nano (mentioned in my 19/10/2007 entry) demonstrates some of these near-magical concepts.

STS-124 Discovery docked to the ISS and the next elements of the Kibo module (Kibo Pressurized Module) were installed. The new pump was installed in the ASU and appears to be working normally so far! From the 4/6 Daily Report:

FE-1 Kononenko had two hours set aside for working a major IFM (In-flight Maintenance) on the Russian ASU toilet facility in the SM (Service Module), removing the failed MNR-NS gas/liquid separator pump of the facility and replacing it with a new unit delivered on STS-124. As of now, the IFM appears to have been successful: the ASU is working nominally, so far.

The STS-124 Flight Day 3 images show how big and gangly the ISS looks now; the ESA ATV can be seen docked to the end of Zvezda.

Soyuz TMA-11 landing photos are up at the Novosti Kosmonavtiki website.

Sunday 8/6: Skydiving dream; alien paranoia

I had one of my infrequent recurring dreams about skydiving last night; I was in freefall at a high altitude with a cloud layer far below me. Probably influenced by that French skydiver, Michel Fournier. I have never done skydiving in my life, though it is one activity I would like to try (too expensive, though).

While on that topic, I can’t resist quoting this scene from Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff about what happens when a parachute doesn’t open:

Down on the field they all had their faces turned up to the sky. They saw Whelan pop out of the cockpit. With his Martin-Baker seat-parachute rig strapped on, he looked like a little black geometric lump a mile and a half up in the blue. They watched him as he started dropping. Everyone waited for the parachute to open. They waited a few more seconds, and then they waited some more. The little shape was getting bigger and bigger and picking up tremendous speed. Then there came an unspeakable instant at which everyone on the field who knew anything about parachute jumps knew what was going to happen. Yet even for them it was an unearthly feeling, for no one had ever seen any such thing happen so close up, from start to finish, from what amounted to a grandstand seat. Now the shape was going so fast and coming so close it began to play tricks on the eyes. It seemed to stretch out. It became much bigger and hurtled toward them at a terrific speed, until they couldn’t make out its actual outlines at all. Finally there was just a streaking black blur before their eyes, followed by what seemed like an explosion. Except that it was not an explosion; it was the tremendous crack of Ted Whelan, his helmet, his pressure suit, and his seat-parachute rig smashing into the center of the runway, precisely on target, right in front of the crowd; an absolute bull’s-eye. Ted Whelan had no doubt been alive until the instant of impact. He had had about thirty seconds to watch the Pax River base and the peninsula and Baltimore County and continental America and the entire comprehensible world rise up to smash him. When they lifted his body up off the concrete, it was like a sack of fertilizer.

Petrol keeps going up and up – in Australia it is $1.60 a liter (U.S. equivalent: $5.8 dollars a gallon, using the Google calculator thus: 1.60 Australian dollars/liter in U.S. dollars/gallon).

“Star wars: who are we inviting in from the cold?,” The Age, 8/6. Article about whether we should be sending signals into outer space in case hostile aliens might detect them. As I have said several times before in earlier entries (26/3), because humanity is destroying itself anyway, an alien invasion could not be any worse than what humans already inflict upon ourselves! Also my life is going nowhere so an alien invasion wouldn’t make much difference to me (assuming they didn’t plan to eat us, which would be unlikely as life on other worlds would not find us biologically-compatible).

I think that I will put most spaceflight-related entries in my RuSpace blog rather than here; I have been updating it more often recently, and doing two sets of entries is tedious!

Monday 16/6: My published letter

Another letter published, in the Herald-Sun today! Highlighted in a box with 2 others on the same topic. I actually emailed the letter on 6/6, so they must have put it aside.

Melbourne’s population is expected to increase by approximately one million within the next 20 years. This is a frightening prospect.

Already, with the impact of global warming and the rising cost of fuel, our city is struggling to provide essential services.

Our transport system is woefully inadequate, hospitals and public schools need additional funding, and each summer and winter we are warned of possible blackouts.

Worst of all, our reservoirs are running dry. Melbourne’s population is already roughly equivalent to that of major cities such as Madrid and Berlin, and greater than that of San Francisco, Copenhagen, and Birmingham. Isn’t it time that city planners developed strategies based on a population status quo?

This would allow for consolidation and improvement of existing infrastructure and would ensure that the city has the capacity to provide essential services to all its citizens.

– Maureen Kutner, Glen Waverley

Considering our current environmental, infrastructure, cultural, and cost of living problems, the thought of another million people in Victoria within 12 years seems idiotic.

The State Government can’t responsibly manage the population it has got without burdening us with more people to compete for resources.

Governments need to drop this “populate or perish” mentality.

They should look beyond their own lifetimes and set ways in motion for a society that can economically survive without devouring our way of life and environment.

– D. Spooner, Bruthen

News that Australia’s population is booming is dismaying.

Water and housing shortages and overstretched public services mean an increasing population (and competition for resources) should be a cause for alarm, not celebration.

The Brumby Government seems to be in denial of these negative effects of growth.

– Suzanne McHale

“Best review of worst book ever,” MetaFilter, 15/6. Poking fun at some really awful novels that somehow got published, the main one being this guy (whose website is equally hideous, in the compelling sort of way a car crash is). He also got mercilessly mocked at Digg.com. I do feel a bit sorry for him, but he did bring it on himself!

Q: You have a fascination with serial killers. Why?

A: Because I understand them. If my future wasn’t intact, I’d be one. I go to sleep most nights thinking of unique ways to kill. What can I say? It thrills me.

Possibly not the wisest thing to say on a public website!

Thursday 19/6: Teeth twingings

My stupid teeth are bothering me again (vague twingings and achings somewhere in my lower right molars) so I will have some x-rays done then go to the dentist. It’s in the same region I had trouble with previously, but I can’t ascertain which tooth it is. If it turns out I need anything more elaborate than a filling I don’t know what I’ll do.

The TV program Insight featured a report, “Pulling teeth,” on the dire situation of oral health in Australia – as dentistry is not covered by Medicare, people have to either go into debt for treatment or wait for years in the public health system. One man resorted to pulling out his own tooth! Australia is supposed to be a developed country! Bad teeth don’t get better if you have to wait, they just get worse. (See newspaper article in my 2/10/2006 entry.)

Sunday 22/6: Intrusive house

I am still fretting over my stupid tooth or teeth, so I haven’t had any inclination to do much else.

I wish the technology to regenerate teeth was available, but it seems to be a long way from becoming reality.

Ugly house dividing wall

The photo below shows the progress of the Ugly House diagonally behind us; the dividing wall has been built and looms menacingly. I want to eviscerate the person who designed it, and those who gave it a building permit.

Monday 23/6: Fretting over teeth

After looking at the Toothache article at Wikipedia today, I wonder if the vague aches are atypical odontalgia, a sort of phantom pain not related to decay. I do (almost) fit the age and gender group (females in their 40s and over), and the twinges are in the region where I’ve had some dental work (1 filling in my right molar), but not in one specific spot. There are no painful spots on the surface of my teeth that indicate further decay, as far as I can feel. I hope that is the explanation, as I spent an awful night unable to sleep (and physically upset) from fretting over it! I can’t afford a root canal or other procedure. I’ll have to wait for the x-ray results (can’t get an appointment earlier than 2 weeks away).

Tuesday 24/6: Dentist visit

I had my teeth x-ray done this morning, which only took 10 minutes or so, then brought them to the dentist in the nearby shopping center, who looked at them and my teeth. He couldn’t see anything wrong, thankfully, so it is likely sensitivity; he suggested I use a toothpaste for sensitive teeth. So that is that worry assuaged! My right bottom molar with the filling can be seen in the x-ray below (furthest right). My lower wisdom teeth (3rd molars) were removed in the early 1990s; I still have my top wisdom teeth. My upper jaw is probably a bit crowded, but the teeth are otherwise healthy.

Teeth x-ray

Thursday 26/6: Sworn men

“Man pulls tooth after years on waiting list,” Herald-Sun, 25/6. Another indictment of our underresourced public dental system (see 19/6 entry). The man has spent 7 years waiting for treatment with his teeth rotting in his mouth! He will probably need them all extracted if he ever gets treatment.

“Albanian women who live as men,” The Age/NYT, 26/6, and also at MetaFilter. I linked to another article on this interesting if endangered custom in my 30/10/2007 entry. I find it oddly appealing (though not the cutting of one’s hair!) and feel an admiration for them. It is something completely alien to Western culture and the tediously predicable labels that would normally be given are not applicable (as this MF poster points out).

I’m from that part of the world, and have known and read about the “sworn men” for twenty years or so. Met a few, too. The issue of sworn men has little to do with sexual identification. All the Albanians (including the sworn men themselves) understand that these people are, biologically and sexually (at least in as much as can be determined in a general sense) “women,” not people who “identify” as men in a psychological or sexual way. In short, any attempt to perceive them as essentially transgendered or possibly homosexual in the American sense is just wrong.

Monday 30/6: Moving my website; 20-year school reunion

I had my website moved to another server, so a few things needed sorting out. PHP is also enabled on this server! Don’t know if I will do anything with this as there seems to be security issues with anything that enables user input (forms, guestbooks, comments, etc.), but it’s nice to have if I want it.

I received the mailed invitation for my school year group 20-year reunion on 25 July, but I doubt I will go – what would I say to anyone? My life so far has been dismally wasted. The other girls – women – have careers and families and lives. I would still be an outsider.

This overly patriotic comment (which I usually respond to with exasperated eye-rolling, so I made a silly reply) was posted at the NASASpaceflight.com forum:

The nations that lead on the frontier, dictate the course of human history. I would prefer that free peoples dictate that course.

The thread was for the article, “Buzz Aldrin: Invest in Nasa to beat the Chinese to Mars,” 29/6. Does anyone outside of the insular space community really care, though?

July

Thursday 3/7: My (edited) published letter; still awaiting medical test

Another letter published! In today’s Herald-Sun. The letter was edited and most content cut out, presumably to fit in the “50/50” section.

The obvious solution to the housing shortage would be to reduce the absurdly high immigration rates.

Original letter:

The obvious solution to the HIA’s scaremongering regarding the housing shortage (“Crisis in home building,” Herald-Sun, 1/7) would be to reduce the absurdly-high immigration rates to ease this pressure – but then the HIA would not profit from this.

I am still waiting for the Alfred Hospital to schedule the test I need so the specialist can plan my operation. 7 weeks waiting so far! The main complaint of the public health system. At this rate I won’t get my operation before year’s end.

Tuesday 8/7: Stubbed toe; hospital waiting lists; Wess’har wars novels

Stubbed toe

I stubbed the little toe of my right foot quite badly on the edge of my bed last night, and now it is swollen and purple-red! I have stubbed toes before but this is the worst yet! I though I had broken it but I can still move it. It’s similar to that enormous bruise I got last year (26/7/2007 entry). It doesn’t show very well in the photo:

“Cardiac surgery: 30-plus-day wait,” The Age, 8/7. If someone who needs urgent surgery has to wait this long, how much longer will I have to, for elective surgery? I’ll be lucky to get my operation by year’s end. While public hospitals struggle to cope with increasing demand, the Victorian Government magically finds millions of dollars to continue hosting the useless frivolity that is the Grand Prix (“Green light for dusk Formula One Grand Prix at Albert Park,” Herald-Sun, 4/7).

The Astronomy Picture of the Day for 28 June shows a Fireball at Ayers Rock. I don’t know if the photo has been enhanced by computer software, but the view of the Milky Way is spectacular! In the light-polluted suburbs where I am, it is a pallid shadow of this.

I slogged my way through books 2 to 5 of Karen Traviss’s Wess’har series (see 2/6 entry). After the first book, City of Pearl, which was quite good, I got increasingly weary of the main character, Shan Frankland, who was becoming perilously close to a Mary Sue-type character (a self-insert whom all the book’s characters like, and who can do no wrong). I also tend to react to aggressive female characters with hostility (and dislike female characters generally – the characters I create are usually solitary males). One reason for this dislike would be the memory of some unpleasant girls whom I encountered when at school. Girls – particularly teenage girls – can be extremely bitchy and vicious towards each other in a non-physical way that boys aren’t.

Wednesday 9/7: Mystery star

There has been a bright star visible high in the south-western sky in the early morning for a few weeks; after looking here I think it is the star Arcturus, a type K1.5 IIIpe red giant star; it has an orange-white color and is 37 light-years away.

“What makes Earth so special?,” MSNBC.com, 8/7. On what makes the Earth favorable for supporting life.

Saturday 12/7: Persisting plastic; bored with real spaceflight

“The Truth About Plastic,” Time, 10/7. Plastic, derived from petroleum, is alarmingly ubiquitous in modern society, and it does not degrade easily. It’s a challenge trying to find any product not made from plastic! In my 7/2 entry I linked to a chapter excerpt, “Polymers are Forever,” from a book called The World Without Us – it is quite disturbing reading! A lot of plastic (and other rubbish) ends up in the ocean and is hidden from us, but it is messing up the ecology there.

“Blame sci-fi for lack of interest in real space?,” CollectSpace.com thread. Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin is blaming science fiction films for the lack of interest in the real-world space program. He is right in part – my comment:

I’ve become increasingly disillusioned/frustrated/bored with the real-world program (which remains stuck in low-Earth orbit, not doing much in particular), and reading or watching sci-fi really spoils things for me! It’s frustrating to see the disparity between sci-fi (which makes traveling around the Universe look as effortless as going for a drive around one’s neighborhood) and real spaceflight (can’t even get humans into LEO without a lot of money and effort). At least unmanned/robotic spacecraft are going places!

But he seems to have forgotten that he wrote a science fiction novel himself (Encounter with Tiber)! Also, people just need to escape reality sometimes.

Sunday 13/7: My surname

It just occurred to me to look up my surname – McHale – at Wikipedia. There’s quite a few notable people, mainly in the U.K. or USA, one Canadian and one Australian. It’s not that common a surname. My father’s paternal grandfather (John McHale) came from Ireland. I am the last one in my family to bear the surname after my sister married. I wonder if any of those on the list could be very remote relatives?

Tuesday 15/7: Alien paranoia

“Should we be phoning E.T.?,” Cosmic Log, 14/7. An entry devoted to the topic of worrying about possible alien invasions from them detecting radio signals sent out from Earth. A topic I’ve commented on several times before (see 8/6 entry). Science fiction author David Brin seems to be inordinately worried about this remote possibility! If I had the radio equipment I’d be broadcasting and damn the consequences!

Found another song by Enigma that I liked: “Beyond the Invisible”.

Wednesday 16/7: My published letter

Another letter published! This one in the local newspaper, concerning overdevelopment.

Ugly suburb

Bentleigh used to be a pleasant suburb to live in, but it is dismaying to see this eroded by continuing overdevelopment.

No thanks to the liberal planning laws and an apparently-indifferent council, some selfish developers and residents are able to build the most intrusive, ugliest houses possible.

These enormous houses fill a whole block, loom over smaller houses and leave no room for a garden.

The modest houses and gardens that made the streets pleasant to walk along are being erased, and Bentleigh, like many other suburbs, will eventually become a concrete wasteland of high-density apartments.

Is this the environment that residents really want to live in, or does no one care anymore?

Friday 18/7: Earth and Moon

Earth viewed by Deep Impact

“NASA’s Deep Impact Films Earth As An Alien World,” MSNBC.com/Space Daily, 17/7. A short video compilation of Earth as seen from 31 million miles/nearly 50 million kilometers away by the probe that sent an impactor into a comet in 2005. Two stills below show the brownish Moon moving in front of the Earth (and its size relative to Earth):

The Earth looks rather lonely and vulnerable! This would be the view an alien spacecraft would see from far away.

Sunday 20/7: Corpses for space; space marines novel; Twilight hysteria

“Using Cadavers To Test Orion,” NASA Watch, 18/7. A gruesome bit of trivia is that corpses were used for “impact tolerance tests” for the Orion spacecraft in development. I can see the rationale, but – eww! Where do they get all the bodies? Also the “Phantom Torso” radiation experiment on the ISS contained a real skeleton! (Or a skeleton simulation – the wording is a bit unclear.) And a few Space Shuttle missions carried a real skull into orbit. Which brings to mind some short story I read years ago about a man who has a skull and keeps it in a box; one night it comes to life, rolls along the floor, and pulls itself up his bed by its teeth. He feels it making its way along his bed and it kills him somehow (grabs him by the throat). Much to my annoyance, I can’t recall the story’s title or author!

“Space invaders,” The Age, 20/7. Article about the USA’s superiority in space “slipping away” as other countries develop their own space programs. The original article is in the Washington Post which explains the alarmism.

I am now reading Starstrike: Task Force Mars (see 1/6 entry), and it’s as silly as the second in the series. The Space Marines are walking clichés, the “aliens” look exactly like humans but with oddly-colored eyes and the bad aliens are just cannon fodder. The Space Marines go from one battle to another and almost never meet a really challenging enemy. It’s the sort of novel to read when you don’t want to think too much (I tend to read those sorts of books these days!).

The latest sensation in novels seems to be Stephenie Meyer and her “Twilight” series about a vampire romance. (Some articles here, here and here.) The books have a huge following of hysterical teenage girls (and a few older women!), as well as others who dislike the books with equal intensity. I am plodding through the first one, but I don’t feel one way or the other about it. The writing style is mushy and overly emotional. I am not into vampires (or supernatural fantasy generally) – they are another tedious cliché. I wonder if I would have liked it more if I were a teenage girl (how long ago that was now!), but I read anything then. I do have her new novel The Host, of some interest as it involves aliens, though it is still somewhat mushy (I have yet to read most of it).

(I have to shamefully confess that as a teenager in the 1980s I was reading both the Sweet Valley High and Mack Bolan series! Which I guess covered both ends of the spectrum!)

I am not an obsessive fan of any books, films or TV series; I tend to prefer to use elements from the ones I like to create my own fantasies.

Monday 21/7: John C. Wright dislike

I found a science fiction writer whom I find irritating: a John C. Wright, whose Livejournal I came across somehow. He is an Objectivist/Conservative/Libertarian/Catholic, all of whose ideologies I generally find disagreeable, but Mr. Wright has a writing style which can only be described as pompously condescending, and which I find exceedingly irritating after reading several of his journal entries. He doesn’t take well to criticism, either. I would be tempted to post some, but I could not write or argue at his intellectual level (I tend to write somewhat simplistically) – this entry is an example of how he tears apart a reader. He’s also got a group of rabidly loyal fans who would mercilessly descend upon and attack any critics (a trend I have noticed with some other writers). The local library has a few of his novels, so I might try them if I can be bothered to.

Saturday 26/7: Childfree community crossposting

I made this post at the ChildFree Hardcore LJ community (reproduced below) and it seems to have turned into a sniping war! The original point of my posting was that sending rude emails makes other people who share your views look bad.

How to make other childfree people look bad … is to send rude emails to the non-childfree! As mentioned in an entry in author John Scalzi’s blog (extract below):

This comes in the wake of having received a ten or twelve paragraph e-mail by one of those nutbag childfree folks. As most of you know, I enjoy getting hateful mail from psychotic people, because usually nothing perks up the day like invective hurled at you by someone you don’t know. But this time around, I just wasn’t into it. The first paragraph just wasn’t there, you know? It was clear that this woman was yet another of those people incensed that the world would not give her love and chocolates just because she’s decided to make her inchoate loathing of children a cornerstone of her life. And really, I’ve been down this aisle and I’ve checked out all the specials. The prospect of wading through yet another of these formless rants just to be polite filled my brain with a lassitude the consistency of heavy molasses prior to a February thaw.

Someone went and (perhaps ill-advisedly) posted a snarky reply on John Scalzi’s original post and things got quite heated from there (and there is a follow-up post today). Some of Mr. Scalzi’s more rabid fans are quite irritating (slavishly defending everything he says – but rabid fans are irritating generally, as I noted in my previous 21/7 entry), and he can overuse the sarcasm/irony a bit (this also carries through to his novels). Wonder if I should comment any further, or see if anyone eventually clicks through my LJ username and to my website!

There is still no word from the Alfred Hospital as to when my examination will be – I have been waiting 10 weeks now! And my operation can’t be scheduled until that procedure is done.

Sunday 27/7: School reunion noshow

The reunion for the 1988 Kilvington Year 12 class took place on Friday 25; I forgot about it! There are no photos on the Kilvington Alumni site yet. From the few personal updates (well, 3) some posted, most are in respectable-but-not-spectacular careers, and some are married with children. For obvious reasons I have not given any information about myself there.

Michelle Sainsbury: Would you please pass on my warmest regards to those who attend the Reunion. Below is a summary, in case you are preparing updates for past students and I’ve attached a recent photo. Currently working as National Microfinance Manager with Good Shepherd Youth and Family Service. Will complete a Master in Social Science (Policy and Human Services) at the end of 2008, with a Grad Dip in Adult Education and undergrad in Business. Enjoy travel and learning about new cultures. Thanks. Michelle

Angela Town (Coote): I did my year 12 at the Victorian College of the Arts majoring in singing and went on to study opera singing interstate and overseas in England and on scholarship to Germany. It was a wonderful experience but I became lonely after almost 4 years away from my family … I came back to Melbourne, got married, had 2 kids (girl/boy) and have never been happier. I haven’t worked as an opera singer since having kids and am currently teaching singing at Melbourne Girls Grammar. I also taught singing at Kilvington a couple of years ago when Mrs Venn was there (I really struggled to call her Patsy!) I am now pregnant with my third. (Last updated: Wed Jun 18 2008)

Samantha Scott: I moved to Canberra about 10 years ago, I simply love it here. My work is challenging and gives me plenty of opportunties to travel around Australia, to meet people and learn new things. I have completed a Graduate Certificate in Business through Deakin Uni; and am currently completing an Executive Masters in Public Policy through ANU and ANZSOG (Aust. and New Zealand School of Government). I love bush walking, particularly in Tassie and New Zealand, Canberra is a great training ground to get my fitness up (apart from the freezing cold mornings and lack of daylight in winter). I see kangaroos most days on my morning walks. I’m not married, and have no kids, but love being an aunt. (Last updated: Wed Aug 24 2005)

Melissa Flintoft: After VCE I lived overseas in Europe and Canada and travelled for several years working in hospitality. Since 1997 I have worked in IT as a General Manager, and have travelled O/S a lot with work, and I now run my own consulting company. I married Rory (Fitzpatrick) in 2001, went back to Uni at night school to complete a Grad Dip in Human Resources, and a Masters of Business. We now have a daughter, “Ruby” who was born in Jan 07. I don’t find as much time for music any more but it is still a passion and I’m currently enjoying playing piano for Ruby. (Last updated: Mon Jun 09 2008)

Monday 28/7: Victoria state growing pains

“Premier John Brumby warns of dangers in growing too fast,” Herald-Sun, 28/7. The Victorian Premier actually admitted that the state’s population growth is causing problems! Perhaps he read the letters I and others have had published this year! But will he do anything to reduce this unwanted growth? Probably not.

John Brumby has conceded Victoria’s population growth is pushing its limits, thanks to the baby boom and immigration. The Premier said pressures on the transport and health systems showed the need for caution. In his strongest comments yet on the state’s booming population, he said: “I think we are probably at the limits of growth.”

In an interview marking his first year as premier, Mr. Brumby told the Herald Sun that Victoria needed to keep an eye on its aging population and plan for the future. And he questioned the sustainability of high growth. While stressing the strength of the state’s multiculturalism and its value, he said immigration had doubled over five years and Victoria had attracted a quarter to a third of that intake.

“Plus, fertility rates are high. More women are having babies – that’s a good thing. I think it’s a sign that people are more comfortable about the future," he said. “But I think we’re at the limits; we’ve got pressures on our public transport system, we’ve got pressures, obviously, on our health system.”

His comments are the first sign the Government may be forced to put the brakes on population growth as Victoria struggles to keep up with providing transport, health and police services.

August

Monday 4/8: Flat tyre; bus beheading; salty Solzhenitsyn

Got another flat bicycle tyre on my ride yesterday (rear tyre), my third or fourth this year! Very annoying. It had a nail in it. There is a lot of debris on the roads – broken glass beer bottles from drunken idiots and gravel and such from careless builders. The street cleaner trucks don’t seem to be very effective (or frequent). If I could catch all the people who create such litter, I would give them brooms and make them sweep up the debris by hand!

“Bus beheading suspect in court,” BBC News, 1/8. The most gruesome crime of the year so far! A compelling reason not to sleep on public transport. The suspect is a Chinese person, or of Chinese descent, who previously seemed normal. The crime is like something out of a horror movie: for no apparent reason he got up, stabbed the passenger many times in the neck with a hunting knife, then cut his head off, and ate a few bits of him. WTF?!!

“Nobel winner Solzhenitsyn Александр Солженицын dies at 89,” MSNBC.com, 3/8. He was cranky and opinionated, but critical of both the corruption in the USSR and Western decadence (in that I would agree with him!).

During the 1990s, his stalwart nationalist views, his devout Orthodoxy, his disdain for capitalism and disgust with the tycoons who bought Russian industries and resources cheaply following the Soviet collapse, were unfashionable. He faded from public view.

But under Vladimir Putin’s 2000-2008 presidency, Solzhenitsyn’s vision of Russia as a bastion of Orthodox Christianity, as a place with a unique culture and destiny, gained renewed prominence.

Putin now argues, as Solzhenitsyn did in a speech at Harvard University in 1978, that Russia has a separate civilization from the West, one that can’t be reconciled either to Communism or western-style liberal democracy, but requires a system adapted to its history and traditions. […]

Although free from repression, Solzhenitsyn longed for his native land. Neither was he enchanted by Western democracy, with its emphasis on individual freedom.

To the dismay of his supporters, in his Harvard speech he rejected the West’s faith “Western pluralistic democracy” as the model for all other nations. It was a mistake, he warned, for Western societies to regard the failure of the rest of the world to adopt the democratic model as a product of “wicked governments or by heavy crises or by their own barbarity or incomprehension.” […]

He was contemptuous of President Boris Yeltsin, blaming Yeltsin for the collapse of Russia’s economy, his dependence on bailouts by the International Monetary Fund, his inability to stop the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders, his tolerance of the rising influence of a handful of Russian billionaires – who were nicknamed “oligarchs” by an American diplomat.

Yeltsin’s reign, Solzhenitsyn said, marked one of three “times of troubles” in Russian history – which included the 17th century crises that led to the rise of the Romanovs and the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. When Yeltsin awarded Solzhenitsyn Russia’s highest honor, the Order of St. Andrew, the writer refused to accept it. When Yeltsin left office in 2000, Solzhenitsyn wanted him prosecuted.

Like Putin, Solzhenitsyn argued that Russia was following its own path to its own form of democratic society. In a June 2005 interview with state television, he said Russia had lost 15 years following the collapse of the Soviet Union by moving too quickly in the rush to build a more liberal society. “We need to be better, so we need to go more slowly,” he said.

RIA Novosti has a photo essay on Russian paratrooper girls! Women performed well in World War 2 (History of women in the military – Russia), though the modern role seems to have degenerated into idiotic beauty contests (see end of paragraph in the Wikipedia entry linked to). Women can fight as well and courageously as men, though some people still need convincing of that!

Tuesday 5/8: Ancient Persia; modern Russia

Two articles from the August National Geographic (which will be taken offline after a while):

“Persia: Ancient Soul of Iran”. Iran has a long and rich history, which tends to be forgotten amidst the current fundamentalist religious nonsense. I love the style of the ancient Persian murals. Modern art compares poorly with that of the ancient world.

“Moscow at Night”. A rather depressing (in my opinion) look at modern Moscow’s nightlife. The same decadence, decay and despair to be found in most modern cities in the world – what is usually described as “vibrant”.

Yegor kept asking a question I finally understood over the din, “Are you happy? Did you get what you came for?” I didn’t know. Was this what millions of Russians died for in wars and prison camps? Had they faced down a KGB coup and dismantled an empire so a few gluttons could party through the night? Gogol had likened Russia to a troika of speeding horses, not a Bentley in a ditch.

Saturday 9/8: Olympic boredom; watched AVP: Requiem

Two TV channels (out of 5 free-to-air) are screening the Olympics almost continuously for the next 2 weeks, so for those (like me) who are thoroughly bored with them already (and sport in general), there isn’t much else on to watch! I really don’t care how many medals Australia gets, and rather unpatriotically I wouldn’t care if we didn’t get any at all (which seems unlikely).

I watched Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (got a discounted DVD – one-disc edition; the only one available, annoyingly). It wasn’t too bad if you don’t have high expectations of such movies. I definitely agree with the criticism of it being too visually dark – I was squinting at my screen trying to see what was happening in some scenes! And for some reason it started raining about half-way through and didn’t stop, so everyone was running around soaked and looking quite miserable. There was also the obligatory “woman removing her clothes” scene (though at least she kept her bra on!). The movie was also gory as promised, not that that bothers me :-D. Also not recommended if you are pregnant! (AVP:R photo galleries at the AVP Galaxy site.)

Monday 11/8: Silly Saakashvilli

So the latest “Big Bad Russia” story is their invasion of South Ossetia after a deliberately provocative invasion by Georgian President Saakashvili, who can only be described as a f*ckwit. Naturally the Western media are presenting Russia as the bad guy (example articles: “The West cannot afford to be indifferent to Georgia’s fate,” The Age; “Georgia move fails to halt raids,” BBC News) – noted in “Russia points to media bias in coverage of S.Ossetia conflict,” RIA Novosti. Saakashvilli is a suck-up to the Americans, who are supporting him. (Wikipedia: 2008 South Ossetia war.) The Da Russophile blog also has commentary, starting from this entry.

Tuesday 12/8: Bear men

Last night I watched a documentary, “The Man Who Lives With Bears,” about Charlie Vandergaw, a retired teacher who lives in a cabin in Alaska for several months a year and interacts with bears, including hand-feeding them. A rather risky activity, to put it mildly! The bears, especially the big grizzly bears, are unpredictable and he was clawed by one – they have claws as long as my fingers. I kept thinking through the documentary that he might have the same fate as Timothy Treadwell (and a few scenes in the documentary were rather tense!). The bears were referred to as his “friends,” but they more likely regarded him as a food source. I found a detailed article, “Retiree welcomes neighborhood bears”.

It’s easy to forget in our cloistered urban lives that Nature is utterly indifferent to the self-importance that humanity ascribes itself. To predatory animals like bears and tigers, we are just two-legged animals who are potential threats or food sources.

Thursday 14/8: Russia-bashing

Bored with the Olympics, especially swimming. Russia isn’t doing very well at all.

Various spaceflight forums and interest groups are all in a tizz about the Russia/Georgia squabble. The lengthy thread at NSF, “Russian bombing of Georgia, US and West angry, fallout on NASA Soyuz deal?” is an example of the hysteria (the theme being that Russia will hold the USA to ransom in regard to space access). People (like me) who want to make snarky remarks about the biased reporting of the war get scolded for going off-topic. Presidential hopeful John McCain is in Cold Warrior mode (he really doesn’t like Russia at all), so one hopes he doesn’t become the next U.S. President!

Some Russia-bashing articles for amusement purposes:

President Saakashvili is a pea-brained hothead and deserves no respect.

Best summary of the situation from the NSF forum:

Please note that President Clueless is now threatening Prime Minister Ruthless by inserting US military “hardware,” while President Hothead is attempting to spit in Ruthless’s eye saying Clueless will defend Hothead’s ports.

In my view the real threat is from other elements – religious terrorists, organized crime and so on – rather than this political posturing.

Sunday 17/8: Head cold

I have a head cold (sore throat, stuffy sinuses), so I am feeling miserable; I think it’s my first for this year.

Am somewhat annoyed as one of my comments got deleted from the NSF forum on the Russia-Georgia conflict. The forum really needs an “off-topic” section (as I have seen on others)! Also Senator McCain has come out as one of the grumpy old farts wanting to reignite the Cold War (as evidenced by his comments – “At a town-hall meeting on Aug. 12, McCain said he had called Saakashvili to tell him, ‘Today we are all Georgians.’” [source]), so I sincerely hope he doesn’t become the next President!

Monday 18/8: Still have head cold; third-world dentistry

I had a miserable night because of my cold; I could not get to sleep until around 3 a.m.! As I get up before 5 a.m. (which I am fanatical about) I am feeling rather jetlagged *yawn*.

“Doctors Within Borders,” Newsweek, 5/8. This is something that you don’t expect to read about in a wealthy country like the USA! A lot of people’s troubles are dental-related, and Australia isn’t much better in that regard (see 19/6 entry). It only asserts my belief that a government should provide its citizens with at least a basic level of free health care.

Tuesday 19/8: Street view explorations

I got some sleep last night but I still have an uncomfortably stuffy nose and now a cough.

Google Maps now has Street View for Australia (which has caused some consternation), so I have been looking around my neighborhood and some places from my childhood, such as my old school and where my grandmother’s home was (replaced by 4 ugly townhouses in 1997). It is dismaying to see how much has altered, and not for the better. I really wish I could time-travel to revisit the places as they were!

I think I saw one of the mapping vans three weeks ago when walking home; it kept stopping every few meters while a globe on the top rotated. Co-incidently, Dad was walking home too. So maybe we will appear in the next updated Street View! The current one is from last year.

I happened to watch the men’s gymnastics vaulting last night. Russia has not done very well in gymnastics, with only 2 bronze medals from Anton Golotsutskov overall; it used to dominate the sport.

Tuesday 26/8: Still awaiting medical test; Cold Warrior politician; watched Transformers; Sergei turns 50

My head cold is slowly dissipating, and my sense of smell is returning (eating is very dull without it!). Still no notification of the medical procedure I need done so my operation can be scheduled – I have been waiting nearly 4 months now! Am annoyed and depressed.

“Warning to Obama on the New Cold War,” The Nation, 21/8. Or why John McCain should not be elected President (though I have a unpleasant feeling he will be). His thinking is still mired in the Cold War (and old age is ossifying his brain – there’s a reason there is a retirement age! He’s only 3 years younger than Dad), and he has nasty neoconservatives advising him. It’s time my generation took over ruling the world!

In a nutshell, here is what should be said: the same Republican neocons who fabricated the reasons for going to war in Iraq are back, and now they have been paid to trigger a new cold war with Russia that benefits John McCain. These are dangerous, expensive unwinnable games being played with American lives to benefit Republican politicians and their oil company friends.

These are not words you are going to hear from Barack Obama or anyone in the Democratic hierarchy. Looking back, they agree that the Iraq invasion was a colossal misjudgment. Privately, most of them feel that Georgia’s adventurism provoked the current conflict. But politically, they are pledged to be positioned as tough against terrorism and communism, tougher than the Republicans.

I watched the Transformers movie (borrowed from the library). I wasn’t into Transformers in the 1980s (too old then!) so I don’t have much memory of them. The special effects were impressive, but I agree with the negative reviewers that there was too much focus on the human characters, who were all tedious stereotypes (not to mention racist ones for the Afro-Americans). Some scenes had me cringing in embarrassment. And the film was just too long – 2 hours 17 minutes!

Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov turns 50 tomorrow! Unfortunately I have no way of wishing him a happy birthday. Coincidently, Madonna (16/8) and Michael Jackson (29/8), both turn 50 this month also! A scary thought as both singer-celebrities were popular when I was a teenager! Sergei, though, is not a celebrity and is almost unknown outside the spaceflight community.

Wednesday 27/8: Moorabbin airport crash

“One dead in mid-air collision,” ABC News, 27/8. There was a light airplane crash near Moorabbin Airport this afternoon; two planes collided and one crashed into the garage near a house, killing the student-pilot (the other airplane landed safely). Moorabbin Airport is not far away from my suburb. Unfortunately incidents like these are inevitable as the airport has become surrounded by housing developments (it was originally built when the region was only open fields). There should be maybe a 1 km buffer zone around airports where no development would be allowed, but land is at a premium. More reports at The Age and Herald-Sun. If Dad were still in his job as an Airworthiness Inspector he might have attended the crash.

September

Friday 5/9: Second exam scheduled

At long last – after 4 months! – I recieved a date for the second procedure/examination I need to have before my operation (the latter still unscheduled): Tuesday 16/9 (assuming it isn’t canceled). I only got in because I rang up earlier this week and the woman said there happened to be a cancellation for another operation (the waiting list is quite long). I am not looking forward to it, though, as it is rather torturous! A 2-day “low-residue” diet followed by a purging on the day before the procedure. (Incidently, President George W. Bush also underwent the procedure in 2007!)

Monday 8/9: Insomnia; Large Hadron Collider startup

I haven’t felt like writing much, or doing much. I had another night of insomnia on Saturday (see 18/8 entry for last).

“The kindness of strangers,” Guardian, 7/4. I was reading this woman’s account of low-level depression and it sounds a lot like mine – a long-term condition called Dysthymia. I get no enjoyment out of life and feel nothing much at all; the months and years flow by alarmingly quickly. Another article I found there, “It's not just boys who are autistic,” 4/6, is of how girls with Asperger’s Syndrome get little publicity in contrast to boys.

“High-Powered Treatment,” Newsweek, 6/8. Shock therapy is touted as a cure for depression, but the side-effects include short-term memory loss and long-term cognitive damage (effectively “brain damage” as the article notes) and I do not like the idea of the therapy at all – getting electricity zapped through your brain just seems a dubious procedure!

“Subatomic safety revisited,” Cosmic Log, 5/9. The Large Hadron Collider is officially started up this week, on 10 September! Despite the silly doomsday hysteria and attempts to halt the project by alarmists. (Creating a black hole would be so cool, though! And as the article “Welcome to Year Zero” speculated, perhaps it could enable time-travel!) But it won’t be operated at full power (14 TeV) until 2009 at least. An overview of the LHC project is “What We’ll Find Inside The Atom,” Newsweek, 6/9. The U.S. LHC site has a blog of the project, and there is a LHC First Beam blog. There’s a 1500-page manual online for operating the LHC link broken; this is similar. The “Large Hadron Collider nearly ready” page has a photo gallery of the project (be warned, the page has nearly 8 MB of high-resolution photos!). These show what an impressive engineering feat the LHC is. The computer processing power required is correspondingly massive – this photo shows a room full of servers! (Some previous comments in my 13/3 entry.)

“Market romanticism and the outlook for private space development,” The Space Review, 2/9. A reality check for those who think the private space industry will achieve what government programs haven’t – namely, with current technologies, launching into space is heinously expensive with little return for investors.

Thursday 11/9: LHC underway; my published letter

The beam test for the Large Hadron Collider was successful. There were no collisions yet (they will take place from October); just a one-way beam. The project seems to have captured the public’s imagination (positively or negatively!).

Got a letter published in today’s Herald-Sun (only slightly edited):

Earth calling Mr. Thwaites

John Thwaites must be living in an alternative reality if he can’t see the negative effects population growth is having on Melbourne (“John Thwaites backs population growth in Victoria,” September 10).

Overcrowding and overdevelopment will make Melbourne increasingly unliveable.

Do we really want to emulate the dreadful megacities that blight other countries?

Wednesday 17/9: Exam misery

The second test/examination for my eventual operation was completed yesterday, at long last! (I had a miserable 3 days preparing for it though, and didn’t sleep at all the night before the appointment.) I spent 5 hours or so at the Alfred Hospital (had to arrive there at 1 p.m.; the examination didn’t take place until 3:20 p.m., and I didn’t get home until after 6 p.m. – my parents drove me there and back). And being under an anaesthetic is quite pleasant! I had a needle infusion through a vein in my hand, then at some point I lost consciousness, had some odd but nice dreams which I can’t recall, then woke up feeling rather euphoric. I could get addicted to that :-).

My stupid teeth are bothering me again, this time on my lower left side; looks like the gums are receding there as 2 or 3 teeth are very sensitive around their bases. Update 20/9/2008: Actually it is several teeth on both sides.

Thursday 18/9: Writer suicide

An American writer whom I had never previously heard of, David Foster Wallace, hung himself on 14 September after enduring many years of depression. The (very long) MetaFilter page noting his suicide has a huge number of heartfelt tributes – mostly free of the usual snark – so he obviously made an impression on many people. A notable quote from a speech linked to in the initial announcement:

It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.

To me it seems that he saw too clearly how ultimately meaningless life was, and he wanted to escape from this, and from his tormented thoughts about this. That is the danger of thinking too much. I sometimes believe such self-awareness can be a curse. The only way to escape from the “terrible master” – our minds which can produce such self-torture – is death.

Monday 22/9: Teeth woes again; LHC leak; misguided bailout

I made an appointment with the dentist, though I couldn’t get in until the 14/10 (busy due to school holidays). I think I have developed receding gums as there are sensitive spots under several teeth, which will likely be too expensive to repair. So now I have another health-related issue to fret about. I used to have such good teeth, but they seem to be slowly deteriorating now (even though I don’t smoke, don’t drink soft drinks, I brush them regularly, and have fluoridated water).

“Hadron Collider halted for months,” BBC News, 20/9. Rather disappointingly, the LHC got a magnet failure then a helium leak, so it will have to be warmed up, repaired then cooled down again which could take months. So no black holes yet!

I am not impressed with the U.S. government bailout – using taxpayers’ money – of the financial institutions whose greed led to the current stockmarket insanity. The selfish parasitical speculators with their hedge funds deserve to be stripped of all their assets and jailed, but are getting rescued instead because the world’s economy has become so intertwined with the vagaries of the stockmarket. A sarcastic letter from the 17/9 Herald-Sun:

Yet another huge finance corporation bailed out by U.S. taxpayers. Isn’t it wonderful how the great capitalist system works? The profits are privatized and the losses are socialized.

– John Boyle, Valencia Creek

This blogger has a more strongly-worded opinion.

I am definitely not impressed with Sarah Palin either – she is the antithesis of feminism and women’s rights, and the prospect of her being Vice-President (should John McCain win the U.S. election) is dismaying!

Wednesday 24/9; Finland school shooting; sci-fi stellerator; LHC out of order

There was another school shooting in Finland, less than a year after the first (November 2007). Another disaffected young man. Finland is not a country one would normally associate with such violence, though there is a high level of gun ownership. The article “Violent male culture may be at root of Finnish school massacre” (Guardian, 23/9) speculates on cultural reasons – repressed emotions is a reason given, though this trait is not unique to there.

Fusion toruses

The cool images above I found on a Dutch site about nuclear fusion – there are much larger versions in the gallery. The top image is the interior of the Large Helical Device in Japan, a fusion of the stellerator type; the bottom is a JET torus and a JET plasma torus in action (plasma is a rather pretty violet in color). They resemble futuristic abstract metal sculptures.

“Collider halted until next year,” BBC News, 23/9. Unfortunately the LHC is now unlikely to resume operation until next year! Autumn 2009 in Australia. It’s a highly-complex and thus temperamental device, so these sorts of incidents are not unexpected. Very frustrating for those working with it though!

October

Thursday 2/10: Hard drive failure

My computer’s main hard drive (with the operating system on it) somehow got corrupted and would not boot yesterday – fortunately my personal documents are kept on a separate hard drive. So I spent a tedious day (with Dad) trying to figure out what was wrong and swapping drives around. I eventually deleted the drive’s partition and reformatted it, and now it seems to be OK (it is now a second drive). I put the OS on another drive, so I have been reinstalling all my programs (of which there seems to be a lot!). The offending drive is a 160 GB SATA drive, so I wanted to save it, if possible. I am still baffled as to what went wrong with it, though.

Daylight Savings begins this weekend in Victoria – it previously began in the last week of October. Too early! The move is supposedly to bring us in line with other states, but it is making this form of sleep deprivation even longer. If I had my way I would abolish DS forever! I get up early enough as it is.

Friday 3/10: Surgeon visit; sick of stockmarket; DVD gone astray; orbital mechanics help

I saw the surgeon specialist today for details about my operation. I will have laproscopic surgery through my abdomen. Which sounds rather drastic, but the procedure is apparently more effective than an alternative version. I will spend 5-6 days in hospital. As I am going through the public system, I have no idea how long I will have to wait! News reports such as “Long wait for urgent cases of Victorian patients” (Herald-Sun, 3/10) aren’t exactly encouraging.

The remains of Steve Fossett’s missing aircraft appear to have been found, along with some personal items. There are reports of body parts in the plane but they aren’t yet confirmed as his.

Tuesday 7/10

If stockmarkets all over the world were to vanish tomorrow, I would be happy. I am bored with the stockmarket, with hearing about it, with the idiotic hysteria over its rise or fall. The stockmarket is an insiduous cult to which people who should know better are in thrall to.

“An Onymous Lefty” has a nicely sarcastic post on the $700 billion handout to the “corporate gangsters”.

I ordered a DVD from a company in South Australia and they mailed it 3 weeks ago – but they got my address wrong, misspelling two letters in my street’s name. I haven’t received the parcel, I contacted the Post Office but there isn’t much they can do to trace it as the parcel wasn’t registered, and the company can’t do much as I have no real way of proving I haven’t received it (I did email them). So it will hopefully be returned to sender so they can mail it out again. The DVD wasn’t expensive, but the mistake is still annoying, as it wasn’t my fault.

I spent yesterday afternoon looking for some site or program that would help me with orbital mechanics – one which could work out the route a spacecraft would take from or to an orbital height around a planet, and how long it would take. The ulterior motive is so I could describe it accurately in a story – e.g. if an alien spaceship descends from Mars areostationary orbit (17,000 km height) to the surface at 600 km/second (it has nuclear fusion engines, and that’s a slow speed), or if a human-built spacecraft did so (at a much slower speed). As I am rather maths-challenged, orbital mechanics is beyond me, and the few sites I found did not allow for such calculations. I seem to have an aptitude for coming up with similar obscure questions that I can’t find answers for, rather frustratingly! The Orbiter program is not much help in that regard, from what I can read of it (I don’t think I have the patience to learn it – I want/need answers immediately!).

Friday 10/10: Corporate criminals

The weather is warming up (28°C on Sunday) and summer is not far away. I hate, hate, HATE summer.

Apparently I am not the only one who feels the corporate gangsters responsible for the current financial mess deserved to be guillotined – a letter from today’s The Age:

Off with their heads

Watching the global financial system meltdown is bad enough but no one is admitting that it’s because of the rampant free-market philosophy of Western democracies and the policy of “greed is good”. Is anyone advocating a return to regulated financial markets? Do the major political parties anywhere in the world intend to govern for the people that elected them rather than corporations? Will the perpetrators of this disaster be punished or will toadying politicians just smile and hand them more money – our money?

Before the French Revolution, France was brought to the verge of bankruptcy and a popular uprising saw the ruling class guillotined. It would be too much to hope that the idiots that caused this mess should suffer the same consequence but we need to chop the head off the current financial regulatory system and bring back common sense. I see no signs that it will happen.

– Paul Worden, Portland

700 billion! Nearly a trillion U.S. dollars! There are so many good and useful things that could be done with that huge amount of taxpayers’ money (it would easily cover health care, education and a manned Mars mission), yet it is being used to bail out greedy corporate executives.

I received an email from the company I ordered the DVD from (7/10 entry) saying it had been returned to sender, so hopefully it will reach the right address this time!

Sunday 12/10: Dentist ahead

I see the dentist this week, so much fretting about my teeth.

“Valley of the kings hits new heights,” The Age, 11/10. A 101 meter/331 feet-high eucalyptus regnans tree was discovered in Tasmania, the tallest hardwood so far.

Tuesday 14/10: Another filling

Saw the dentist today. I did have decay in my molar, the tooth that got a side filling/patch in my last visit (see 8/1 entry); I had not been able to sleep very well the last two nights because the aching had got rather bad and I was having grim thoughts of root canals or extractions. The decay was a bit deeper so I had to have an injection of anesthetic. My teeth seem increasingly fragile and I wonder if I will manage to keep them all into old age. Maybe by then tooth regeneration will be viable?

Friday 17/10: Fretting over teeth; DVD arrived

My tooth troubles are not over yet as now I seem to have ominous signs of decay in a molar or two on the other side of my mouth. I am going back on Monday to have a small rough edge on the filling smoothed out, so I will have the teeth checked then. I am feeling depressed and annoyed as my teeth seem to be deteriorating all of a sudden and this should surely have been detected during my last visit in February. I really don’t need this on top of my upcoming operation (whenever that will be). I wonder if I will have any teeth left by the time I am 50! I brush and floss everyday, and don’t drink soft drinks, so I don’t understand why they are becoming like this.

My DVD arrived in the mail at last on Wednesday.

Tuesday 21/10: Phantom tooth pain; burial wishes

I went to the dentist again yesterday but he didn’t really check my other teeth at all and seemed to think it was something to do with tension in my jaw, but now my other molars, or somewhere around them, are aching a bit and the cracks look greyish, though these have been like that for some time. I am tired of the subject, but I have been fretting so much (on Monday night I literally got no sleep); I don’t know what else to do. If I needed a root canal I would not be able to afford it. I will also now have to worry about my fillings eventually deteriorating, as they will not last forever.

On another somewhat gloomy topic, I was pondering where I would like to be buried (body or ashes), and the place is the Clarendon Cemetery (Google Maps location), where several ancestors (my maternal grandmother’s parents) and some distant relatives are buried. It’s a nice area out in the countryside, familiar from my childhood.

Friday 24/10: Back to dentist; light pollution

I went back briefly to the dentist this morning and he gave me a prescription for a short course of antibiotics as the aching might be an infection (I am aching intermittently on both sides of my lower jaw and it is worse when I lie down on either side, so I have not been sleeping well).

The November issue of National Geographic magazine has a feature on the scourge of light pollution, “Our Vanishing Night”. It is deleterious to both humans and other animals, and many people will have never seen the full brilliance of a dark starry sky (I haven’t). I was thinking that in the unlikely event of my going into space as a space tourist, one reason I would give for wanting to go was to see the stars and Universe properly.

In most cities the sky looks as though it has been emptied of stars, leaving behind a vacant haze that mirrors our fear of the dark and resembles the urban glow of dystopian science fiction. We’ve grown so used to this pervasive orange haze that the original glory of an unlit night – dark enough for the planet Venus to throw shadows on Earth – is wholly beyond our experience, beyond memory almost. And yet above the city’s pale ceiling lies the rest of the universe, utterly undiminished by the light we waste – a bright shoal of stars and planets and galaxies, shining in seemingly infinite darkness.

Author John C. Wright (mentioned in my 21/7 entry) has a Livejournal entry on city lights seen from orbit, with some estatic comments from his fans, but a more negative comment from me.

Saturday 25/10: Post-filling pain

Tooth still hurts. It’s been aching for nearly 2 weeks and I am tired and cranky. I read this page about Tooth pain after filling and don’t feel very reassured that the problem will be solved easily; I have a nasty feeling it is infected. Update 21/6/2013: it wasn’t. I don’t feel confident with my dentist anymore, but I don’t know where else to go. The site linked to is helpful; unfortunately it is in the USA! I had no issues with the previous filling I had last year (25/1/2007 entry – the filling was, however, only a shallow one) so I had no reason to think this one would be problematic.

I have a Facebook page (which one needs to sign up/log in to see), but I am not really into the social networking scene so I make little use of my page. I happened to find the Kilvo Girls group and have discovered quite a few of my classmates are on there (as well as a relative who attended Kilvington). I have not friended any as I am too embarrassed about my situation to.

Friday 31/10: Soft science fiction; reading Neon Genesis Evangelion

My teeth aren’t much better, but I am reluctant to go back to the dentist. I wish I could get the troublesome ones extracted and new ones regrown/regenerated (one of my favorite daydreams at the moment!) but that technology seems to be years or decades away, frustratingly.

Some teenaged thugs bashed an elderly flamingo yesterday at Adelaide Zoo (it is recovering). The flamingo is in its late 70s (as old as my parents!). I hope the nasty little sh*ts get the maximum punishment (judging by the comments, the youths would get a public lynching).

There are posts on the topic of whether science fiction helps or hinders real-world spaceflight at NASA Watch and SFSignal. This is in response to Buzz Aldrin’s comments (see 12/7 entry), mentioned at CollectSPACE.

From one poster’s comment:

Nowadays, they have very little in the way of the hard sci-fi books that many of us grew up with. Now what passes for sci-fi, is vampires, witches, ghosts and dragons. Even if you find one that is “hard sci-fi,” it’s not the same. Now there is little science even in the hard sci-fi books. They spend most of the book making political and social statements.

That’s another of my gripes – the proliferation of paranormal fantasy/romance! Usually involving some irritatingly feisty human female battling vampires, werewolves and other clichés. I find the genre utterly boring and limited, but there are now whole bookshelves dedicated to such novels. I also detest romance novels generally. I have read a few (very few) out of curiosity but quickly get bored!

I have been reading the manga (graphic novels) of a TV series called Neon Genesis Evangelion, which screened on SBS in the 1990s. I could not make much sense of what it was about then, but found the anime curiously compelling. The local library brought in a manga section, so I found the NGE there. Naturally I am more interested in the EVAs than the human characters!

November

Friday 7/11: TMJ diagnosis; neighbor annoyances

I haven’t been feeling like writing much.

Teeth x-ray detail

Went back to the dentist and now he reckons I might have developed Temporomandibular joint disorder! He pointed out on the x-ray I had done in June (see 24/6 entry) that my left mandible joint was slightly separated and out of alignment (barely visible in the x-ray detail below), which perhaps explains all the odd aches and pains I have had this year. I also tend to tense my jaw and clench my teeth a bit, sometimes at night, as I have been under much stress from various things, some of which I can do nothing to remedy. I think having to open my mouth wide for the filling I got 3 weeks ago might have exacerbated it. Unfortunately the only solution he suggested was a rather expensive mouthguard! So I don’t know what I will do, yet.

I am feeling rather annoyed at the next-door neighbors as the man there decided last Saturday to cut down most of the vegetation around his house, including some that provided some privacy for us. Now they can see into our backyard (and vice-versa), which makes one feel unpleasantly exposed. If I feel like this with separate houses, then I would really hate apartment living, being crammed into a box with others in boxes above, below and around me like caged battery hens.

Monday 10/11: Now 38; new US President

As of yesterday I am 38! Getting alarmingly close to middle-age. I still don’t feel “grown-up” yet (whatever that is supposed to be).

My website was offline over the weekend because the server suffered a memory chip failure.

I haven’t got any insightful comments about the U.S. election results. That has to have been the most tortuous campaign ever! The worldwide reaction to Barack Obama’s ascendancy is amusingly akin to the Second Coming. The obsessive focus on his race/color is a little irritating – he is of mixed heritage so I guess he could be regarded as representing both black and white.

“Twenty die on Russian submarine,” BBC News, 9/11. There now seems to be a trend that with the election of a new Russian president a submarine disaster will happen (if President Putin and the Kursk disaster in 2000 is anything to go by). In this one some crew were suffocated by Freon gas when the fire-fighting system went off unsanctioned.

Thursday 13/11: Hot; against fake lawns

Yesterday and today were hot (over 30°C), a portent of yet another hot and dry summer to endure. I get so weary of this awful dry barren land that saps energy and life – the lush green landscapes of Europe seem an unreal dream.

“The Art of Onfim: Medieval Novgorod Through the Eyes of a Child” (via MetaFilter): some rather delightful preserved birch bark drawings of a child in the 12th century. “Onfim was being taught to write, but he was obviously restless with his lessons and when he could get away with it, he intermixed his assignments with doodlings.” Novgorod seemed to be a reasonably civilized place, until the Mongols came along and trashed it.

“In praise of frugality: no to credit cards,” The Age, 13/11. People (such as me!) who don’t have a credit card and who live within their means are regarded as a rare oddity.

“Is the (fake) grass greener?” A gardening journal at The Age has an entry on artificial lawns, one of the gardening fads I loathe. I left a comment update 18/11/2008: not yet published:

Fake grass is an abomination!! Another stupid “designer garden” fad. It’s bad for the environment (smothers the soil under it), reflects heat like paving does rather than absorb it as real grass would, and there is nowhere for birds to hop around and dig up insects as they like to do. Real lawns absorb carbon dioxide and are much better for the environment (even when dried out).

Friday 14/11: Exoplanet imagery

A cold front came across yesterday evening then there were some thunderstorms, including one this morning which caused some havoc.

“Hubble Directly Observes a Planet Orbiting Another Star,” NASA; “Exoplanets finally come into view,” BBC News, 13/11. The first-ever image of a planet orbiting another star, Fomalhaut. The planet is 3 times the mass of Jupiter and only 200 million years old – the star is hotter than the Sun and won’t live as long, so it’s unlikely to support any life. Three planets were also discovered orbiting another star, HR 8799.

Monday 17/11: Brisbane superstorm

“Brisbane storms like a ‘great big bomb’,” ABC News, 17/7. South-east Queensland got hit yesterday by violent thunderstorms (supercell; almost like tornadoes) that caused much damage. My sister and her family live in The Gap, one of the affected areas; their house was not damaged (they are without power, so no emails from her yet, though she has rung my parents). Some of the thunderclouds were described as having a greenish tinge; according to the Wikipedia cloud entry, “A cumulonimbus cloud which shows green is an imminent sign of heavy rain, hail, strong winds and possible tornadoes.”

Tuesday 18/11: A dumb way to die; grumpy old spacemen

“Cyclist dies after train fall at North Melbourne station,” Herald-Sun, 18/11. A 47-year-old man found out the hard way why there are notices at train stations saying not to ride bicycles along the platform. He bumped into a pedestrian and fell onto the tracks, then his legs were run over by a train. A horribly painful ordeal.

November 18, 2008 12:00am: A CYCLIST has died after a marathon rescue effort to free him from under a train at a suburban station yesterday. Police said the Keilor Downs man, aged 47, was riding his bicycle along platform five at North Melbourne station when he collided with a commuter and lost balance, falling on to the track about 5.10pm. The man was run over by a city-bound V/Line train, and was trapped for more than 90 minutes until he was freed by emergency crews. Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman Liana Cross said the man was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital, where he underwent surgery for severe leg injuries. Late last night, a police spokesman said the man died during surgery just after 9pm.

Earlier, hundreds of peak-hour commuters watched as emergency crews worked to free the man. Constable Luke Donoghue was one of the first on the scene and held the cyclist’s hand as he lay trapped under the train. “He was conscious, but he’s in a bad way,” Constable Donoghue said, before the man was freed. Crowds were directed away from the platform by Connex staff. Ms Cross said rescue crews disconnected power lines and had to lift the train to free the man. An emergency surgical team was on standby at the scene.

Witness Nicholas Parsons was at the station when the cyclist fell. “He got bumped off on to the tracks and the train went over him and stopped,” he said. Mr Parsons said he heard the cyclist yell out. “People were in shock pretty much. They didn’t know what was going on,” he added.

Ambulance Victoria paramedic team manager John Crossman said the man was put into an induced coma when freed. He was moved to an ambulance where his heart stopped beating for a time and paramedics commenced resuscitation, Mr Crossman said. He described the rescue as “probably one of the most complicated cases that any of us would have seen in our 12, 13, 15 years”. He said safety concerns included electrical hazards.

Connex spokeswoman Kate De Clerq said last night that train services were re-routed off the line and there were no lengthy delays for commuters. Police said there were no suspicious circumstances, and they would be preparing a report for the coroner.

Grumpy Old Moonwalker: as reported at NASA Watch, former Moonwalker Harrison “Jack” Schmitt resigned from the Planetary Society, apparently miffed over the direction their goals have taken (as stated in this press release): namely, focus on a manned mission to Mars first (rather than the Moon) as a goal, and strive for international co-operation. These are laudable goals in my opinion (the Moon has been landed on and is rather boring anyway – unless there happen to be mysterious alien monoliths to be discovered!), but it’s brought out the Cranky Conservatives in the comments, who are paranoid and insular, and are horrified at the prospect of co-operating with “them foreigners”. I posted a somewhat irate comment:

He’s a cranky old conservative with outdated, insular views (like some of the posters above :-P). I’d love to see an INTERNATIONAL Mars mission!! [From an exasperated 38-year-old female :-D]

He also thinks global warming a hoax, which doesn’t say much for his scientific credibility.

One would think that the humbling experience of seeing the Earth from the Moon would have broadened his views, but apparently not.

I would, in fact, rather have seen an international Mars mission launched, rather than the ISS project, but too late for that now.

(I posted the above to my RuSpace blog also.)

Wednesday 19/11: On surgery waiting list; overcrowded China

My sister and her family in Queensland got her house’s power back on at 3 a.m. this morning (after being out since Sunday’s violent storm). Her house in the area was not damaged.

Received a letter from Sandringham Hospital telling me I was on the waiting list for my elective surgery (Category 2 – supposed to be a wait of no longer than 90 days, though the woman in “Hospitals in crisis,” Herald-Sun, 16/11, has been waiting nearly 2 years!). Had a medical questionaire to fill out and return by post, then back to waiting.

November 16, 2008 12:00am: A CRIPPLED woman – supposed to be treated within 90 days under State Government targets – is still on a hospital waiting list more than 90 weeks after being told she needed surgery. Despite being diagnosed as a category two patient in need of an operation within 90 days under the Brumby Government's health guidelines, Connie Santostefano, 69, has been waiting in agony for 655 days. The grandmother of 20, who is waiting for a knee replacement at the Austin Hospital, is among thousands of patients who have not been treated within target times at Victorian hospitals this year. “I don’t think it’s fair for anyone to go through this – a dog would be treated better,” she said. “It’s inhumane. Every time I go to the letter box my heart drops because I think I might get a letter from the Austin, but it just never comes.” Suffering severe arthritis, she can not stand for more than five minutes because of intense pain. Mrs Santostefano, who worked in her family fruit shop for 32 years, said she felt abandoned. “I’ve worked hard my whole life and I’m not going to lay down and die,” she said.

An Austin Health spokeswoman said the hospital was “sympathetic” to Mrs Santostefano’s plight, but was under pressure after treating an extra 900 patients since opening a dedicated elective surgery centre in August.

Opposition health spokeswoman Helen Shardey said the Austin had failed five of nine Government performance targets and operated on only 39 per cent of category two patients within 90 days in the past year. She said the Brumby Government continued to ignore the problem. “It’s cruel and heartless,” she said.

A spokesman for Health Minister Daniel Andrews said delays were disappointing and frustrating.

“Murder At the Drum Tower,” Newsweek, 24/11. A case study of an ordinary Chinese citizen who went mad with despair over his dire situation, and committed murder then suicide. The main and simple cause of China’s problems is its huge population. It needs to keep its economy growing to provide jobs for all these people, and thus must scour the world for more and more resources. But there are only so many products it can make, only so many jobs it can provide, and the process of production is hugely damaging to the environment – consider the millions of plastic toys “Made in China” which will eventually end up in landfill, polluting the environment for centuries. It shares the world with other countries competing for dwindling resources. This is all going to end in catastrophe before the end of the century. To avoid this China must focus on reducing its huge population – the one-child policy has been implemented for 2 decades or so, but it is only limited in effectiveness (and many circumvent it). An extremely radical solution would involve culling its surplus young males – see my 2/6 entry – though this would obviously be seen as abhorrent.

Friday 21/11: Eastern states storms; homeless future

South-east Queensland is still being battered by storms, while Victoria is expecting heavy rain this weekend (especially Gippsland in the east, which had flooding last year).

“Report predicts rise in homeless, single women,” ABC News, 19/11. Of relevance to me as I am over 35 and do not have financial security. Vocational training courses are far too expensive (hundreds or thousands of dollars). My age group tend to be ignored by the media and lobby groups.

A new report out today predicts that homelessness among single women aged over 35 is set to escalate in the next 20 years. […]

“For the older group, the over 45s who typically didn’t finish high school because it wasn’t required in their day,” she said. “If the economy’s changed, and the jobs have changed and suddenly they were finding themselves without work and that was a big issue and when they went to retrain, they found that it was expensive. They were quoted at $8000 to retrain. So they were fighting barriers which they could not overcome so they were getting really, really stuck in the situations that they were in.”

[…]

She says the report also makes recommendations about the employment and education opportunities available to women over 35. “There has to be attention to the fact that these women are seeking to retrain, but are finding that there's a barrier there,” she said. “So the current labour market programs clearly don't quite pick these women up and they need to be picked up otherwise they're going to end up on the streets.”

Friday 28/11: Surgery date set; end of the world speculation

I got a letter from Sandringham Hospital with the date for my operation: Tuesday 9 December, less than 2 weeks away! Of course, being in the public system it could get rescheduled for a later date, but that’s the initial date (sooner than I expected!). I have to go to a Pre-Admission Clinic next Wednesday. For the operation I need to be at the hospital by 7 a.m.! So in 2 weeks, if all goes well, I will be recovering.

A documentary called Life After People was screened on TV last night, based on the book The World Without Us (see 7/2 entry), about how Nature would recover and take over if humanity were to vanish abruptly for some reason. The program was very fragmented as it was broken up by ads and shortened.

Domestic animals – those made and bred to be dependent upon us (especially deliberately-deformed pedigree breeds such as bulldogs) – would fare badly, but otherwise our disappearing would mostly be beneficial for the rest of Earth’s lifeforms. Power would go out after only a day or so, and buildings would start to deteriorate and crumble.

Little of our modern recorded knowledge would survive as the media it is stored on is not long-lasting: paper, CDs, DVDs and so on, which deteriorate after a few decades. A lot of data is now stored electronically, but without electricity it is inaccessible. Ironically the techniques the ancient peoples such as the Egyptians used – mainly carving in stone – are far longer-lasting. Perhaps in the future, backup copies of all human knowledge could be stored on other airless worlds such as the Moon or Pluto.

A peculiarly gloomy daydream that’s been in my head for a few months is how would I cope if I woke up one day to find myself the only person left alive (either in my region, or in the world). Not very well, as once power and running water had stopped I would be in a real struggle for survival. I could live for a while by taking canned and preserved food from supermarkets, but finding ways to keep warm would be a challenge (winters here are fairly mild). Waste disposal would also be a problem (no garbage collection or sewer flow). If I had a serious accident (such as breaking a bone), illness or needed dental treatment, I would be in trouble. I envision I would not survive beyond a year or so.

Thinking about scenarios like this makes one realize how interdependent modern civilization is – dangerously so – and how easily this can be disrupted. Most people in developed countries who live in cities possess few survival skills and would be lost if civilization were to collapse.

December

Tuesday 2/12: Teeth troubles; suicide bridge

The Pre-Admission Clinic for my operation is tomorrow, and this time next week, if all goes well (and it’s not rescheduled) I’ll be in surgery (I am not sure what time it will be).

My jaw aches and my teeth are still bothering me; the lower ones are awfully sensitive and I can’t eat or drink anything cold without discomfort. This time last year they were fine. I think I am clenching them a bit at night sometimes, the consequences of which I try not to dwell upon too much.

Found this “First three haunting minutes from The Bridge documentary” – wait till it gets to the grey-haired man wearing the green T-shirt and red baseball cap. There’s a messageboard on the topic at the Dr. Phil site, and there are so many tales of woe here – there’s a lot of unhappy people in the world. Update 4/3/2009: Incidentally, Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge seems to be the equivalent of the Golden Gate Bridge in terms of suicides

“Melbourne’s boundaries to be extended for booming population,” Herald-Sun, The Age, 2/12. Very unwelcome news, and another thing to get stressed about. Melbourne is going to be an unliveable city in a few years.

The latest Halo novel, The Cole Protocol, was released last week, so I am impatiently awaiting its appearance on bookshelves here (I want it for reading in hospital). No sightings so far! I did buy Contact Harvest earlier (discount voucher) and Ghosts of Onyx (for $5!). There is an online extract here. The author, Tobias Buckell, is having his own health woes (heart-related). He has internet access in his hospital – lucky him! I’ll be deprived of my computer for a few days :-(.

Friday 5/12: Pre-Admission Clinic

The Pre-Admission Clinic took 2½ hours, with a lot of detailed explanations, measurements, pokings and probings. I haven’t met the anesthetist yet, so I guess that will happen when I go in on Tuesday. Reading about General anaesthesia on the Wikipedia page, it looks a very complicated procedure! I almost hope I won’t wake up from it, as dying while unconscious would be a pleasant way to go. At least I can escape from my mind and thoughts for a little while, in a way that sleep doesn’t provide.

It’s rather scary to contemplate that I am entrusting my life and health to other sometimes-fallible humans! One has to trust that everyone knows what they’re doing. It’s a responsibility I would find daunting!

I couldn’t find a copy of Halo: The Cole Protocol in the bookstores I visited yesterday, much to my annoyance!

Tuesday 16/12: After surgery

I just got out of hospital today – a bit sooner than the doctors wanted (I am still not functioning too well in the area I was operated on), but I was really impatient to get home. Having to either be confined to a bed all day or wander around the hospital corridors for exercise was frustrating, not to mention sharing a room and bathroom with strangers! The ward was also very noisy and busy with not much privacy save for a pull-around curtain, so I found sleeping difficult, and I was bereft of my computer and other diversions so I was very bored! Noisy visitors for the woman next to me (including an overindulged screeching young boy whom I seriously wanted to throttle) were another source of stress (they were of a culture which traditionally tends to have big noisy families). The nurses and staff were quite nice.

The operation on Tuesday took 4 hours! Going under the anasthetic was weird in that I can’t recall doing so! I have a vague memory of waking up after and groaning a lot. I was in bed for most of the 2 days after, with an IV drip and catheter, though I was got out of bed twice on Wednesday to walk around a bit, and more so the next few days. I only had a liquid diet to Saturday, which I hated as the fluids made me nauseous (too sweet or salty), and began solid food from Saturday. By then I was walking around normally and feeling much better, though now that I was awake and active I was getting increasingly bored!

The night before the operation I had to do an awful liquid purge (3 liters of a salty drink in 3 hours) which was torture and I couldn’t finish all of it, and threw it up twice. I feel nauseous just thinking about that ordeal.

Wednesday 17/12: Surgery not successful

I am now fearing the operation wasn’t so successful as the condition seems to have maybe already returned, as far as I can tell. I see the specialist on 21 January, so will have to wait and fret until then (which I have done a lot of this year!). If that is correct, my ordeal was a waste of time and I am worse off than before.

Update 21/1/2009: As things turned out, I was – unfortunately – right! I have to go in for another operation, but not as severe as the first one.

A small positive is that I managed to lose 3 or 4 kilograms after surgery without any effort!

“There’s much that’s right about the NHS but little things let it down – so what went wrong?,” Daily Mail, 16/12. This article is on the British National Health Service, but quite a lot of it is relevant to Australian public hospitals too (see my gripes in my 16/12 entry), particularly concerning visitors!

Cranky Conservative John C. Wright (first mentioned in my 21/7 entry) is griping about the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (I haven’t seen the original version), and links to another Conservative blog entry about the film. The commentators apparently find offensive the film’s environmental message. Well, with attitudes like theirs, it’s no wonder the Earth is in such a mess! I really wish aliens would come along to save humanity from itself (as I’ve said many times before). Also, on a side-note, I like Keanu Reeves as he’s nice-looking :-).

Sunday 21/12: Recovering

The hot weather unfortunately started today, after a cooler-than-usual December (with some rain at last!). Christmas Day is supposed to be warm, but not hot (we hope!).

It’s 12 days since my operation. I almost feel normal, but my wounds are still tender and I get a muscle cramp if I try to walk too fast, so I have to keep reminding myself not to overexert. The largest laparoscopy scar is a ~6 cm-long one on the left side of my abdomen where the muscle was cut through horizontally. Some gory details: part of the operation involved pulling out some of my bowel/large intestine through that cut, removing a section (I don’t know how much) and sewing the rest back up! So I was temporarily disembowled! (I just hope the stuck-together parts don’t separate!)

I was rather dismayed to learn that President-elect Obama smokes!!! He has tried to quit – a few times. He is otherwise very fit. Given all the knowledge of the harm that smoking does, I am surprised people still maintain the habit.

I still feel almost no enthusiasm for the space program at all, so my relevant websites are rarely updated. I feel bored with the forums I visit regularly and haven’t posted anything for some time. I get frustrated and angry when I look at world news headlines, as they mostly consist of human stupidity – repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

Tuesday 30/12: Depressed; obesity epidemic; more people than food

Haven’t felt like writing at all – nothing much to say – and am having thoughts of deleting this journal (which I do have now and then). The year has been dreary and tedious, mostly focused on health issues, and I still don’t feel any better than I did before the operation. The only comfort I get is from working on my story-project.

Observing the swarming hordes during the post-Christmas sales last week (I didn’t buy anything as the so-called sales were worthless), I noticed there certainly are a lot of overweight people around! Not a little, but a lot overweight – including quite a few children, rather dismayingly. There have been many news articles about an “obesity crisis” in Australia, but that is something I had not really noticed until recently.

One of my favorite phrases at the moment is “Nuke ’em from orbit,” update 1/3/2009: and I did find a site :-D which is the exasperated thought I get when reading about whatever countries are blowing each other up again (the latest being Israel and Palestine – so what else is new). I don’t care any more, I just don’t – blast all the dysfunctional countries into their component atoms. Though it wouldn’t be very good for the environment as nukes are unpleasantly messy. (Yes, I do have major compassion fatigue.)

Another source of exasperation is articles like “Food needs ‘fundamental rethink’,” on how current food production methods will be inadequate to feed the excessive numbers of humans in the future.

“The level of growth in food production per capita is dropping off, even dropping, and we have got huge problems ahead with an explosion in human population.” […]

Professor Lang said that in order to feed a projected nine billion people by 2050, policymakers and scientists face a fundamental challenge: how can food systems work with the planet and biodiversity, rather than raiding and pillaging it?

Well, maybe governments should be looking at reducing population growth instead! The environment can’t cope with 7 billion, let alone 9. Nature will force population reduction sooner or later in unpleasant ways (such as millions killed from natural disasters), and it’s not something I can feel too upset about (as long as it doesn’t involve anyone I know).

I am still waiting impatiently for the novel Halo: The Cole Protocol to come out here – I asked at 2 bookshops and they won’t get it in until February! *Grumbles*