A long time ago we had a president who was doing a chubby intern.
And some Americans got uptight about it.
And we were told by Europeans everywhere ‘Relax, it’s just sex. He’s the leader of the country, they have mistresses, it happens get over it you uptight prudes.’
So now with Silvio Berlusconi having sex with underage prostitutes and orgies and I don’t know what-all I guess that makes Europe — and Italy in particular — about eighteen times more sophisticated [1] than us hicks in the United States and so-on and so-forth.
Y’all must be so proud.
[1] Sarcasm.
Brian Dunbar, “Sophisticated Europe”, Space for Commerce, by Brian Dunbar, 2011-04-07
April 8, 2011
QotD: the international double standard
Monty’s daily dose of DOOM!
People suffering from over-cheerful attitudes about the future of the European Union could just read Monty’s chock-full-of-DOOM postings at Ace of Spades HQ for a quick depressant:
Let’s begin abroad by explaining why Spain is boned. Spain suffers from the same disease as the rest of the continent generally — socialism, postmodernism, an ossified job market, an unsustainable welfare state — but in more concentrated form. Spain is so boned that their main export these days is young ‘uns (h/t Andy).
If you look at the countries currently in the midst of insolvency in Europe — Ireland, Greece, Portugal, and (shortly) Spain — it’s obvious that they are different entities altogether from their more prosperous European peers. For one, most of them are recent entrants onto the first-world stage. Spain languished under Franco until the mid 1970’s; Ireland only emerged from decades of civil strife (both amongst themselves and against England) in the early 1990’s; and Portugal was (and still is) a third-world nation glued to the continenet almost as an afterthought. Portugal is more properly thought of as a North African developing country than a first-world European country, whatever the maps say (h/t rdbrewer).
The Euro project hid those problems…for a while. Cheap credit allowed the dysfunctional European countries to borrow enough money to pretend to a first-world standard of living for more than a decade. There was real growth in the various economies — particularly in Ireland — but much of the “growth” was mainly borrowed money with little attendant economic or social reform.
The Great Downturn of 2008 did not cause the problem; it simply exposed what a sham the whole thing had been all along.
England is watching the drama play out on the Continent, and thanking $DEITY that they never signed on to the Euro. England still has serious problems, but they also have options that the other European nations do not have because they control their own currency.
As usual, the original post has lots of links to follow to increase the dosage of DOOM. Adjust intake to adequately suppress your optimism.
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British study finds wind power even less economical than hoped
The assumption was that wind farms would produce 30% of their theoretical maximum over time (the wind doesn’t blow all the time, so no wind farm will ever produce 100% for more than a short period of time). This number now appears to be too optimistic:
A new analysis of wind energy supplied to the UK National Grid in recent years has shown that wind farms produce significantly less electricity than had been thought, and that they cause more problems for the Grid than had been believed.
The report [. . .] was commissioned by conservation charity the John Muir Trust and carried out by consulting engineer Stuart Young. It measured electricity actually metered as being delivered to the National Grid.
[. . .]
In general, then, one should assume that a wind farm will generate no more than 25 per cent of maximum capacity over time (and indeed this seems set to get worse as new super-large turbines come into service). Even over a year this will be up or down by a few per cent, making planning more difficult.
It gets worse, too, as wind power frequently drops to almost nothing. It tends to do this quite often just when demand is at its early-evening peak:
At each of the four highest peak demands of 2010 wind output was low being respectively 4.72%, 5.51%, 2.59% and 2.51% of capacity at peak demand.
And unfortunately the average capacity over time is pulled up significantly by brief windy periods. Wind output is actually below 20 per cent of maximum most of the time; it is below 10 per cent fully one-third of the time. Wind power needs a lot of thermal backup running most of the time to keep the lights on, but it also needs that backup to go away rapidly whenever the wind blows hard, or it won’t deliver even 25 per cent of capacity.
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Swearing in soccer? Gasp! Shock! Horror!
Duleep Allirajah wonders how the Football Association has managed to avoid hearing what soccer players say on the pitch until now:
Rooney swore? So f***ing what
Those fretting over the footballer’s anglo-saxon turn of phrase have clearly never been to a match before.
Wayne Rooney’s angry outburst was curious. What did it mean? Who was he addressing? In appearing to pick a fight with a TV camera, it immediately struck me as an homage to Robert De Niro’s famous ‘You talking to me?’ scene in Taxi Driver. But maybe I’m reading too much into it.
In a statement issued by his club, the player said: ‘Emotions were running high, and on reflection my heat-of-the-moment reaction was inappropriate. It was not aimed at anyone in particular.’ Maybe he was railing against his inner demons. Maybe there is no deeper meaning. Maybe it was a release of pent-up frustration after months of domestic strife and poor goal-scoring form.
But enough of my speculative interpretation, it’s the Football Association’s response that we should really be bothered about. The FA has banned Rooney for two matches for using ‘offensive, insulting and/or abusive language’. You don’t need to be a lipreader to work out that footballers swear quite a lot; every Saturday you’ll find them effing and blinding like proverbial troopers. But while disciplinary action for abusing match officials is nothing new, a ban for swearing per se is quite unprecedented.
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April 7, 2011
Briefly noted – The Crimean War by Orlando Figes
I just picked this up last night at the “World’s Biggest Bookstore” in Toronto. I’m quite enjoying it, as it discusses much more than just the war itself: about 50 pages in, I think I’ve learned far more about middle eastern history and Russia’s geostrategic problems.
The various books and articles I’ve read on this conflict have pretty uniformly concentrated on the purely military aspects, and generally just on the battles involving British and French troops. One reason for the relative obscurity of such a major conflict is that the background is essential to understand just why Britain and France were fighting Russia on the Black Sea coast. Without that background, the war appears totally senseless and this is heightened by the well-worn tales of military incompetence (the Charge of the Light Brigade), brief moments of heroism (the “Thin Red Line”), and criminally awful medical and sanitary situation (Florence Nightingale).
If the remaining 450 pages are as good as the first 50, this will be one of my candidates for book of the year.
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April 6, 2011
A good example of what not to crowdsource
The Guardian tried to enlist the brainpower of the crowd to solve the problems at Fukushima. As innovative as some of these solutions might be, it does demonstrate that there are things that cannot be crowdsourced:
Todd: “Build the worlds biggest tank over the whole site with pre-fab tilt slab concrete. […] I have done similar projects on a smaller scale but not with nuclear waste.”
Weston, Nuclear Radiologist: “repair the reacters befor any thing else bad happiens”
Andrew, Inventor: “water problem is un-fixable. Stop trying. Let it run off into the Pacific.”
Hugh, Geology Student: “I would use explosive materials to detach the Fukushima plant from the main land, use air-bags to float it 50km out into the pacific and then sink the whole lot 7000m down to the bottom of the Japan Trench.”
Max: “I suggest removing radioactive contamination there by using a small controlled explosion of a specially engineered nuclear device at the site of the stricken Fukushima plant”
OmegaSector: “IN FUTURE, ALL NEW NUCLEAR REACTOR MUST BE BUILT OVER A 1.2 km hole. Any out of control reactor, one press of a buttom and boom, the reactor will fail down 1.2 km and then seal up with soil.”
Denny, Assistant to Dr Strangelove: “Small scale nuclear strike.”
Kevin: “Japan has over 30,000 suicides per year — that’s over 80 per day. Since these people are planning to kill themselves anyway, how about the government asking for volunteers to go in, fix piping, visually inspect the damage, etc..?”
Not Einstein: “friendly radiation… to probably cancel out its effects. Its more like injecting good cholesterols to fight off bad ones in your body. I am not versed in these nuclear technicalities but I do understand philosophy of things, and sometimes you just need to fight fire with fire.”
Oscar. Mike. Golf.
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April 5, 2011
Top Gear‘s Mexican jokes ruled not in breach of broadcasting regulations
In a surprisingly robust defence of free speech, Ofcom (the British broadcasting regulator) will not apply sanctions against BBC’s popular motoring show Top Gear for their anti-Mexican jokes during a review of the Mastretta MXT:
The watchdog noted that Top Gear is “well-known for its irreverent style and sometimes outspoken humour” and that it “frequently uses national stereotypes as a comedic trope and that there were few, if any, nationalities that had not at some point been the subject of the presenters’ mockery”.
Given the audience’s likely familiarity with the presenters’ “mocking, playground-style humour”, Ofcom suggested the majority of viewers “would therefore be likely to have understood that the comments were being made for comic effect”.
The ruling concludes: “Ofcom is not an arbiter of good taste, but rather it must judge whether a broadcaster has applied generally accepted standards by ensuring that members of the public were given adequate protection from offensive material. Humour can frequently cause offence. However, Ofcom considers that to restrict humour only to material which does not cause offence would be an unnecessary restriction of freedom of expression.”
The jokes and the Mexican government’s response were discussed in February.
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April 4, 2011
For a change, this isn’t about an uptight, prudish American mayor
This time, passing all belief, it’s a French mayor having the vapours over the exposed breasts of a patriotic statue:
The good burghers of the French town Neuville-en-Ferrain will no longer be able to enjoy the ample charms of a “patriotic female statue” after the mayor ordered its removal from the town hall on the grounds of excessive chesticles.
Gerard Cordon took exception to the bust of Marianne, the “traditional female embodiment of the French Republic”, the Telegraph explains. He “persuaded” councillors that a €900 replacement based on Laetitia Casta would put an end to unfavourable comments about Marianne’s assets.
A town hall employee explained: “It was making people gossip. Remarks were made, during weddings for example.”
[. . .]
An old boy in Neuville-en-Ferrain expressed his support for Lamacque in a France 3 TV report last week, summarising: “People are stupid. Better nice breasts than none at all.”
April 3, 2011
King Edward II restored
. . . to the rails, not the throne:
The King Edward II steam engine was first used by Great Western Railway in the 1930s, pulling trains between London Paddington and the west of England.
However, it had been left to rot in a scrapyard in Barry, Wales, until it was saved for preservation by the Great Western Society.
No 6023 King Edward II is one of only three surviving locomotives of its class, built by GWR in 1930 for taking express trains over the steep banks of South Devon.
It’s always nice to see successful restoration efforts by private groups and individuals, although this particular one drew this comment from “jackcade”:
King Edward II? The fireman better make sure he doesn’t let his poker get too hot or someone might get hurt.
Photo from the restoration website, showing the engine right after repainting:
H/T to Elizabeth for the link.
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March 31, 2011
Manga translator convicted under Swedish child-porn law
It’s a telling result that someone who is paid to translate Japanese manga can fall afoul of child porn laws:
Last year, Lundström was convicted of possession of pornographic material after 50-odd Manga images stored on his hard drive were classified as child porn. The Swedish court of appeal later agreed that 39 of the illustrated images, none of which has been banned in Japan and none of which shows real people, fitted the definition of child porn. Lundström was fined 5,000 Swedish Crowns (£500). Meanwhile, his main employer, publisher Bonnier Carlsen, has stopped giving him translating commissions, and Lundström has been burdened with a reputation of traversing the biggest taboo of our time: getting off on kids. The case has now been appealed to the Supreme Court.
Cultural commentator Ulrika Knutson did not exaggerate when, earlier this week, she described the case as a ‘Swedish censorship scandal, perhaps the worst one in modern times’. As she points out, it should not simply be left to ‘other young cartoon nerds and Manga fans’ to defend Lundström against the legal and moral trials he has been subjected to since a note informing him that he was suspected of child pornography crimes was slipped through his home mailbox last summer. Instead, anyone who values freedom of speech must also defend the renowned Manga expert.
Whether you like or dislike Manga, it’s one of Japan’s biggest cultural exports. It may not be mainstream entertainment, but there are lots of fans in all western countries. If Sweden and other countries are going to retroactively decide that they are considered child porn, the courts are going to be very, very busy:
In other words, Swedes are not allowed to own or intentionally look at drawn images of non-real characters that a court could determine might to some people resemble child-like figures in situations that for some could be sexually arousing.
It’s an absurd situation: judges deliberating over the artistic merits of images, trying to determine what stage of puberty illustrated characters might be at and speculating over what kind of thoughts they might stimulate among adults. As for Lundström’s images, apparently the judges who convicted him felt that Manga comics, which are read and loved by millions around the world, violate children.
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March 30, 2011
At least they got his name right, maybe
A very detailed apology from Britain’s The Sun newspaper:
IN an article published on The Sun website on January 27 under the headline ‘Gollum joker killed in live rail horror’ we incorrectly stated that Julian Brooker, 23, of Brighton, was blown 15ft into the air after accidentally touching a live railway line.
His parents have asked us to make clear he was not turned into a fireball, was not obsessed with the number 23 and didn’t go drinking on that date every month.
Julian’s mother did not say, during or after the inquest, her son often got on all fours creeping around their house pretending to be Gollum.
Also, quotes from a witness should have been attributed to Gemma Costin not Eva Natasha. We apologise for the distress this has caused Julian’s family and friends.
Bold in the original post.
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March 29, 2011
RAF has only 69 qualified pilots for Typhoon fighters?
I’m not sure how an organization which recently performed brilliantly in their bureaucratic and political struggle against their arch-enemies in the Royal Navy can also be this stupid:
Since the conflict began, a squadron of 18 RAF Typhoon pilots has enforced the Libya no-fly zone from an air base in southern Italy. However, a shortage of qualified fighter pilots means the RAF may not have enough to replace all of them when the squadron has to rotate in a few weeks.
The situation is so serious that the RAF has halted the teaching of trainee Typhoon pilots so instructors can be drafted on to the front line, according to air force sources. The handful of pilots used for air shows will also be withdrawn from displays this summer.
The RAF put in a merciless performance in the recent defence review negotiations, eliminating three two aircraft carriers and downing all of the remaining Harrier jets. Perhaps their emphasis on bureaucratic and political in-fighting meant they had no time or energy to train pilots for their shiny new aircraft?
The Government’s decision to decommission HMS Ark Royal, Harrier jump jets and the Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft — all of which could have played a role in the Libya conflict — has exacerbated the problem. Serving RAF pilots contacted The Daily Telegraph to warn of the risks to the Libya operation. “We have a declining pool of pilots,” one said. “There’s less people to do twice as much work. If we are not training any more we are going to run out of personnel very soon.”
[. . .]
Out of 69 qualified RAF Typhoon pilots, including instructors, 18 are in southern Italy flying missions over Libya. Of the rest, 24 are committed to the Quick Reaction Alert protecting Britain’s air space and six are in the Falklands in a similar role. A further six are being used to train Saudi Arabian air force pilots. That leaves only 15 to replace those currently based in Italy.
Because of the intensity of flying on operations, pilots deploy for a maximum of two months at a time and the replacements for those currently enforcing the no-fly zone in Libya will be expected to deploy at the end of next month.
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March 28, 2011
QotD: Even heroes wear out their welcome eventually
Fraternization between soldiers and civilian women in the weeks following libertion was intense, and inhibitions in the traditionally prudish Dutch society fell away. The fighting was over, but a new battlefront now loomed. By the summer of 1945, a medical officer in General Hoffmeister’s Fifth Division was confirming a sharp rise in VD rates among the troops. This was despite an efficient campaign to hand out contraceptives and warn the troops about the dangers of unprotected sex. “Perhaps,” noted the officer, “it was because the Dutch and Canadians get along well together.” There were no reports of rape in the area.
However, as the summer passed, popular resentment about the behavior of Canadian soldiers and Dutch girls began to rise, and the sight of their women arm in arm with their occupiers started to grate. “Dutch men were beaten militarily in 1940, sexually in 1945,” observed one Dutch journalist. Popular songs and doggerel reflected a new mood about the Canadians.
[. . .]
A joke hinting at the number of girls who were “getting into trouble” also began to circulate. “In twenty years, when another world war breaks out, it will not be necessary to send a Canadian expeditionary force to the Netherlands. A few ships loaded with uniforms will be enough.”
David Stafford, Endgame, 1945: The missing final chapter of World War II, Little, Brown 2007. pp 451-452.
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March 27, 2011
Over-analyzing the Bayeux Tapestry
Chris Mellor looks at the Bayeux Tapestry from a data storage perspective:
The Bayeux Tapestry, the victor’s view of the events, was finished in 1077, ten years after it was begun, making it 934 years old. At 224.3ft long and 1.6ft wide the total surface area is 358.88sq ft.
Our understanding is that the Tapestry features 45 to 48 threads per inch which gives us a resolution approximating 47dpi with a colour depth of 8, ignoring later repairs. Thus, in information terms, the tapestry contains 2.429MB of information, assuming 1-bit per colour, 47dpi, and a 51,678.72 square inch surface area.
From the writing point of view it took ten years for English (Saxon) seamsters, seamstresses or embroiderers to write this 2.429MB of data, which must be some kind of record. Assuming an eight-hour, 350-day working period for these ten years, that implies a write bandwidth of 10.84 bytes/hour; a spectacularly slow data rate in information transfer terms.
What makes it worse is that there were multiple parallel write heads — seamsters or seamstresses — and we could envisage a team of five on average, meaning each write head in this theoretical Bayeux Tapestry archiving model wrote at a rate of 2.168 bytes/per hour (17.344 bits/min). A truly amazingly poor information write bandwidth from our IT viewpoint, but a blur of flickering needles and fingers seen from the embroiderers’ seat.
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