This journal is semi-locked. Any entries of a personal nature or that are work-related are locked, and viewable only by LJ friends or specific filters.

I spent the last couple of months re-reading Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" series, books 1 through 11, plus the prequel, "New Spring". Now, I've read the whole series before, and I've read the earlier books in the series multiple times, and found parts somewhat long and complex; this time, I decided not to skim, but to pay attention to events more than I have done in previous readings. It made a difference; being able to keep track of the many events and characters made the story easier to follow.

( Cut for length, ironically )

Robert Jordan wrote the books in a plain style; it's not as colourful as the writing of Robert E. Howard, as beautifully classic as that of Tolkien, nor as ornately descriptive as Jack Vance's; it's more than competent though, and given the elaborate detail of the setting itself, probably for the best. I know there are a lot of readers who aren't keen on the series, but as for me: I read them, and just want to read more. I don't want the series to end.

I took a day off from work on Friday, and we went off to the ICON 2009 games convention. We hung around a bit, bought some rather pretty dice, coffee mugs and stuff from some of the stands there, and munched on curry and hotdogs. It was nice to chat to magependragon, who had flown up from Cape Town to be there, and to meet phaezen. We were hoping to find ourselves a game to play, but the convention rules (more about that below) were not conducive to casual games.

On Sunday we went again, because the afternoon games are apparently meant to be re-runs of modules from previous years. We met up with ticktock_za, and looked for games, but at 14:30 it seemed the morning sessions were still running, and time-wise, that was definitely going to be an issue.

Some comments about the convention, from the point of view of someone not involved, and someone who is a casual gamer (at least from the point of view of those who belong to the gaming societies):

• Bad hair abounded - far too many people (especially males) with long, lank, unwashed hair, and with scruffy facial hair. Also, it seemed that far too many people thought wearing goth outfits made them look cool.


• The stalls there didn't have much of interest (well, to me, at least). I suppose if you're interested in overpriced 6" figurines and comics, it must be paradise, but there were no novels, and a rather so-so (and very overpriced) selection of game books.


• There's no place there for the casual gamer who wants to drop in with his/her gaming group and play one of the modules for fun. From Friday morning till Sunday morning, all the modules are either competitive or semi-competitive, and according to the rules (which are not mentioned on the brochure), groups are split up so that the don't sit at the same gaming tables. This is because the scoring for the modules is apparently done by peer voting (I say apparently because the brochure does not state how scoring is done), and the assumption is that teams will vote each other higher scores. This means there's no way for a group of friends to play together, or for casual groups. Since that's the major reason I'd want to play in the convention, it's a bit of a downer. The Sunday afternoon session (if it even took place) was too disorganised.


• Organisation seemed somewhat iffy. I can see a bunch of people went to a heap of effort, especially with things like catering, but the gaming side of it wasn't too good. Registration tables weren't clearly labelled, were usually unmanned, and games seemed to be starting hours late (and I gather this is an issue every single year).


• The convention is not at all inviting to casual players or new players.

I can think of a few things I suspect would improve aspects of the convention:

• Provide free shampoo samples. (OK, seriously now...)


• Encourage the stall resellers to bring along science-fiction & fantasy novels, and to provide show discounts.


• How about a stall from one of the music/movie stores, like Phase 2 or Look & Listen, selling a selection of science-fiction & fantasy DVDs?


• Make the brochures clearer and more detailed. If it's a problem for printing, at least make a link to a web page with the details.


• Stick to the schedules. If a module is scheduled to start at 9AM, start at 9AM, and let latecomers be penalised.


• In the module descriptions, detail how scoring is done, and detail rules like how groups are split up. I also wouldn't mind the odd module that's scored the old way - by the group reaching objectives or defeating obstacles.


• Make some effort to cater for new/casual gamers. This could be things like "demo" tables where volunteer GMs run newbie players through simple adventures (the boardgames people had something like this), and allowing gaming groups to play the modules as groups, but unscored, so they don't get rated and ranked against competitive players.

Of course, all this is my opinion. I've only been playing role-playing games regularly for 26 years or so; more experienced people may have better ideas, and no doubt some of this has been considered by the organisers before

This was amusing. Some seem so silly...

10 Worst Automotive Fads

This article was interesting. Of course, I don't see why women shouldn't possess these skills either (except for cooking a perfect steak - that's a man's domain).

14 Basic Skills All Men Should Possess

So, which of those can't you manage?

The pictures of these were just a little scary...

20 Scary Old School Surgical Tools

This was an interesting read...

Top 10 Reasons Why The BMI Is Bogus

by Keith Devlin

BMI = weight in pounds/(height in inches x height in inches) x 703
The 703 is to convert the index from the original metric version of the formula.

CDC Recommendations:

Below 18.5 = Underweight
18.5 to 24.9 = Ideal
25.0 to 29.9 = Overweight
30.0 and above = Obese

Weekend Edition Saturday, July 4, 2009 · Americans keep putting on the pounds — at least according to a report released this week from the Trust for America's Health. The study found that nearly two-thirds of states now have adult obesity rates above 25 percent.

But you may want to take those findings — and your next meal — with a grain of salt, because they're based on a calculation called the body mass index, or BMI.

As the Weekend Edition math guy, I spoke to Scott Simon and told him the body mass index fails on 10 grounds:

1. The person who dreamed up the BMI said explicitly that it could not and should not be used to indicate the level of fatness in an individual.

The BMI was introduced in the early 19th century by a Belgian named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. He was a mathematician, not a physician. He produced the formula to give a quick and easy way to measure the degree of obesity of the general population to assist the government in allocating resources. In other words, it is a 200-year-old hack.

2. It is scientifically nonsensical.

There is no physiological reason to square a person's height (Quetelet had to square the height to get a formula that matched the overall data. If you can't fix the data, rig the formula!). Moreover, it ignores waist size, which is a clear indicator of obesity level.

3. It is physiologically wrong.

It makes no allowance for the relative proportions of bone, muscle and fat in the body. But bone is denser than muscle and twice as dense as fat, so a person with strong bones, good muscle tone and low fat will have a high BMI. Thus, athletes and fit, health-conscious movie stars who work out a lot tend to find themselves classified as overweight or even obese.

4. It gets the logic wrong.

The CDC says on its Web site that "the BMI is a reliable indicator of body fatness for people." This is a fundamental error of logic. For example, if I tell you my birthday present is a bicycle, you can conclude that my present has wheels. That's correct logic. But it does not work the other way round. If I tell you my birthday present has wheels, you cannot conclude I got a bicycle. I could have received a car. Because of how Quetelet came up with it, if a person is fat or obese, he or she will have a high BMI. But as with my birthday present, it doesn't work the other way round. A high BMI does not mean an individual is even overweight, let alone obese. It could mean the person is fit and healthy, with very little fat.

5. It's bad statistics.

Because the majority of people today (and in Quetelet's time) lead fairly sedentary lives and are not particularly active, the formula tacitly assumes low muscle mass and high relative fat content. It applies moderately well when applied to such people because it was formulated by focusing on them. But it gives exactly the wrong answer for a large and significant section of the population, namely the lean, fit and healthy. Quetelet is also the person who came up with the idea of "the average man." That's a useful concept, but if you try to apply it to any one person, you come up with the absurdity of a person with 2.4 children. Averages measure entire populations and often don't apply to individuals.

6. It is lying by scientific authority.

Because the BMI is a single number between 1 and 100 (like a percentage) that comes from a mathematical formula, it carries an air of scientific authority. But it is mathematical snake oil.

7. It suggests there are distinct categories of underweight, ideal, overweight and obese, with sharp boundaries that hinge on a decimal place.

That's total nonsense.

8. It makes the more cynical members of society suspect that the medical insurance industry lobbies for the continued use of the BMI to keep their profits high.

Insurance companies sometimes charge higher premiums for people with a high BMI. Among such people are all those fit individuals with good bone and muscle and little fat, who will live long, healthy lives during which they will have to pay those greater premiums.

9. Continued reliance on the BMI means doctors don't feel the need to use one of the more scientifically sound methods that are available to measure obesity levels.

Those alternatives cost a little bit more, but they give far more reliable results.

10. It embarrasses the U.S.

It is embarrassing for one of the most scientifically, technologically and medicinally advanced nations in the world to base advice on how to prevent one of the leading causes of poor health and premature death (obesity) on a 200-year-old numerical hack developed by a mathematician who was not even an expert in what little was known about the human body back then.

Source: NPR

This was amusing:

10 Business Lessons I Learned from Playing Dungeons & Dragons
Submitted by Esther Schindler on Sun, 07/05/2009 - 12:26.

Throughout my 20s and 30s, I played D&D and other fantasy role playing games at least once a week. Doing so did more than teach me the rules of combat or proper behavior in a dragon's lair. I gained several skills that truly did help me in my career.

Note that by "Dungeons & Dragons," I don't mean necessarily the very structured fantasy world made famous by Gary Gygax. I played in standard D&D and other created-worlds (such as Harn), but mainly I played in independently-created universes, at the whim of a particular dungeonmaster (DM).

I got real jobs as a result of playing D&D, one of them directly. One DM hired both my husband and me after we'd played in his universe for five months, because D&D is a great way to find out how someone solves problems and copes with stress. However, in this post I'm not talking about people-networking but rather gaming skills that map to real life. After coming up with a short list on my own, I asked the three primary DMs in my life for their suggestions. I'm grateful to Bill, Ivan, and (especially) Steve for their help. Which probably is an outgrowth of the first lesson....

1. Feed the DM. Gamers laugh as they say this (and slide the veggie tray in the DM's direction), but it's important to treat those in power with extra kindness. The DM is busy rolling dice for your battle with the monster, while simultaneously responding to a scribbled private note from another player ("My character Rumin Bard is stealing gold from the cleric's saddlebag") and preparing for an interaction at an upcoming crossroad your party hasn't reached. If you take care of the DM (or your manager), perhaps he'll be kind to you. Or to your character. (Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.) Or he'll answer silly questions sent to him by e-mail, 25 years later, because he continues to be your friend. (In feeding the DM, it helps if you can cook.)


2. One spell, used well, can be more powerful than an entire book full of spells. I first met Ivan when he showed up for a game in Steve's standard D&D world. Ivan drew up a first-level wizard character who had almost no hit-points and only one wimpy spell: cast an illusion. Whereupon Ivan's character cast an illusion of a 5th-level illusionist... and proceeded to run that powerful "5th level illusionist" through the rest of the game. Years later, Ivan played in a play-by-mail dungeon (yes, children, we did those things before e-mail) in which the DM permitted custom spells. Ivan's "swap" spell seemed Mostly Harmless: Transpose a 1" cube of anything with another 1" cube of anything. Whereupon Ivan set up a magical FedEx business (for very short messages) and a sideline of an assassin-business (swap a square inch of heart muscle with anything else; who could tell that murder was done?). This taught me to get everything possible out of the tools at my disposal. It also taught me to expand my notion of "What do I have, and what can I do with it?"


3. It's better to out-smart an orc than to fight one. Young D&D players get into the game because they want an endless repetition of "Find a monster. Kill it. Get its treasure." But your character (and career) can get hurt that way. If instead you set up a situation in which the orcs think that they were attacked by the goblins, the orcs will blow up the goblin castle in retaliation. That leaves your party to walk through afterward, picking up the spoils (and the experience points). "Let's you and him fight" is a very effective business strategy... or it's far safer for you, anyway.


4. "I'm the DM. I'm not there." D&D players often turn to the DM to ask for information about the universe. ("Is the person offering me this three-headed dog trustworthy?") The DM often doesn't know, or he isn't telling; just because he puts something in your path doesn't mean you need to trust it, accept it, fight it, or buy it. Experimentation without investigation can be very painful; learn to ask questions. Steve didn't ask a single clarifying question about the beautiful fairy-fly before he decided to catch it... and it burned a hole straight through his character's hand. Don't rely on assumptions, particularly in a world (or an office) you don't know. It's the wrong assumptions that kill you. (Particularly in computer consulting contracts.)


5. The best quests require a mixture of skills in the party. Find new friends and cultivate ancillary skills. That pesky little hobbit thief may eat you out of house and home, yet sometimes he comes in pretty handy. This is the point of all those tedious "diversity training" exercises from your HR department; perhaps the message would get across better if they talked about the apparently-weak wizard and the bard with those amazing negotiation skills.


6. Simple and internally consistent is more fun than random. My dungeonmasters assure me that, while all players are "chaotic neutral" no matter what their characters' allegiance might be, the fastest way to upset the game is to be completely erratic. (Well, next to running out of food.) I like to think that most software developers understand this point, and then I see evidence to the contrary.


7. You create your own traps. If you fall into a habit, the universe will bite you. One player had a "standard door-opening procedure" that rarely was effective, but John did the same thing every time. Another player regularly became "party leader" by bullying in the name of leadership; based on Ron's longtime behavior, the DM set up an irresistible scenario that Ron fell for... and his character barely escaped. (Ron never realized it was his own human weakness that inspired the trap.)


8. Treasure is not always what you expect it to be. Both a rock and an egg hold hidden treasures if you know how to craft or care for them. Thought and creativity tend to win out over immediate return.


9. You don't have to read all the books, but a modest description of the beast you are about to face is better than facing a daemon and trying six dozen spells before finding the right one. (If you live that long.) Do not eschew documentation. Learn from others' mistakes — or from your own. Draw a map as you go. It is easier to avoid the pitfalls and to find that hidden room the next time through.


10. When selecting a weapon or tool, bigger is not always better. Unique weapons tend to identify the heroes in the room.

So what did I miss? Add your own D&D-to-life lessons in the comments.

Source: Javaworld

...but I preferred this list, found on Slashdot:

• The little people are expendable. If you have to kill or lose a few thousand orcs or zombies, no prob. It's the major characters that matter.


• When in doubt, kill it. There are no noncombatants.


• The purpose of life is to acquire power. Self-explanatory.


• Having a thief around to steal from the little people is a useful asset. Grinding is for losers.


• The most aggressive player runs things. Just like high school.

I took Morgan along to see Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 3D on Sunday. It was a competent movie - not funny in the same way as Toy Story or Chicken Run, but heart-warming, with some amusing moments. The baby T-Rexes were terribly cute. The 3D effect was not too "in your face", and the animation was generally good, though I thought the frame-rate on some of the fast-moving scenes wasn't quite smooth enough. There was one scene, of Diego chasing an antelope, that was really well done; it was perfectly obvious that the animators had seem clips of cheetahs or lions chasing antelope.

After the recent articles saying that the UK has a higher violent crime rate than any other country in Europe, and higher than even South Africa (it was ranked UK, then Austria, then South Africa), Hayibo came out with this:

'Britain more violent than SA' stat vindicates burning of dockets

JOHANNESBURG. South African police authorities say recent claims that Britain is a more violent society than South Africa are evidence that the new official policy of burning dockets is working. "All the teens carry knives in the UK," said a spokesman. "Thank God our teens only carry assault rifles." He said that incidents of fatal stabbings with AK-47s were exceptionally rare.

"Some of the more conscientious officers at our stations have been expressing concern about burning the dockets," explained South African Police Service spokesman Whatmeworry Ndebele.

"We told them to shut up and keep pouring the paraffin or we'd send them to London to get knifed."

He added that it had also been easy to keep the SAPS's conscientious, competent and non-corrupt officers in line as there were only nine of them, and they could easily by monitored by colleagues.

"This report from the UK proves that we are winning the war on crime," said Ndebele. "Or at least the war on dockets."

Asked how it was possible that Britain was more violent than South Africa given the latter's staggering murder- and rape rates, Ndebele explained that murder and rape were not considered violent crimes in South Africa.

"Yes, the UK has 900 murders a year while we have about 19,000.

"And yes, the UK has 50,000 rapes a year while we have 600,000.

"But if you read our operating manual you will discover that so-called "murder" is in fact considered an interpersonal disturbance featuring a non-planned assisted cardiac arrest.

"It's really more a medical accident than a violent crime. Malpractice by laypeople, if you will.

"And rape, well, if you're asking us to classify rape as violent crime then you're also asking us to consider women to be people, and that's a bit of a stretch."

He said that every morning he thanked God that he lived in South Africa with its extremely low rates of assault-rifle stabbing-related crime, and that he was proud to be able to walk down any street in the country knowing that his Kevlar body armour would probably stop most of what was being fired at him, as long as they aimed at his chest and not his head.

Meanwhile British police have conceded that the new statistics have come as a shock and that they will have to start emulating their South African counterparts by burning dockets if they are to improve their country's reputation.

However, they asked the British public to remember that the numbers had been affected by the different definitions of "violent crime" in Britain and South Africa.

They pointed out that the Labour Party under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had reclassified flying the Union Jack as criminal assault, while anyone eating pork products in front of any religion at all, including Jedis, and using the word "patriotism" in any context other than sneering self-loathing, was liable to be charged with assault with intent to do grievous multicultural harm.

Source: Hayibo

The scary thing is that it almost doesn't sound like satire at all...

I took the kids to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on Sunday. They enjoyed it, I think, but then, they're the target market.

Personally, I thought it was a jumbled, dull, mish-mash of plot holes, poor acting, and so-so special effects. There was no script to speak of - the "plot" seemed to be whatever connected the explosions. Most of the transformers were indistinguishable from each other. There were things in the so-called plot that made absolutely no sense at all (like planting a decepticon disguised as a female human at a college that Sam is going to before the decepticons know they need something he has). Worst, it got boring seeing explosion after explosion interspersed with unfunny bodily function gags that looked like they came out of a straight-to-video college teen film.

These reviews and comments, I think, are quite on-the-mark:
Topless Robot Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Topless Robot Bonus! Rob's Transformers 2 F.A.Q.s!
Ten Things About Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen That Didn't Make Any Sense

This article on how Lehman Brothers collapsed due to their use of credit derivative swaps was interesting, and easy to understand:

How maths killed Lehman Brothers
by Horatio Boedihardjo

This article is the winner in the university category of the Plus new writers award 2009.

On a sunny morning in 2001, a piece of investment plan landed on the desk of Dick Fuld, the then Chief Executive of Lehman Brothers. The document, compiled by a team of maths and physics PhDs, included a calculation to show how the bank will always end up with a profit if they invest on the real estate markets. Fuld was impressed. The next five years saw the bank borrowing billions of dollars to invest in the housing market. It worked. The housing market boom had turned Lehman Brothers from a modest firm into the world's fourth largest investment bank.

But as the housing market started to shrink, the assumptions that the PhDs made began to break down one by one. The investment now became a mistake, resulting in a stunning loss of $613 billion. On September 15 2008 Lehman Brothers collapsed — "The largest bankruptcy in the US history," as described by Wikipedia.

The money making model

Imagine that you are working for Lehman Brothers and one morning you receive a phone call from HSBC.

"Hi! A hundred customers have each borrowed $1 million from us for a year. We would like to buy an insurance from you which will cover us in the case of any of them defaulting. From their application forms we reckon they each have a 3% chance of default. How much will the insurance cost?"

You can in fact calculate it, easily. The 100 customers each have a 3% chance of defaulting, so you expect three customers to default next year. That is, you will need to pay $3 million next year. Assuming the interest rate is about 3% each year, next year's $3 million would be worth 3/(3/100+1)=3/1.03=2.91 million now.

Therefore HSBC will have to pay you at least $2.91 million for the insurance. Obviously Lehman Brothers wasn't a charity and so, to make money, they would double the price to $5.82 million and expect to make $2.91 million out of each of these deals on average. This kind of insurance is called a credit derivative swap (CDS).

The legendary CDO

After putting down the phone, you might be quite worried about what would happen if ten of the borrowers defaulted, because then you would have to pay $10 million back! In this case, consider this deal: how about paying me a certain premium, and if more than ten defaults occur, you will only need to pay for ten of them and I will pay for the rest. If less than ten defaults occur, you will have to pay for all the defaults and I won't pay anything. The type of deal that I am offering is called the senior tranche of a collateral debt obligation (CDO) contract, while the one you are getting is called the junior tranche of the CDO.

The attractiveness of the senior tranche is that almost all of the time I don't have to pay anything, just pocketing my premium. Imagine how unlikely it is to have more than ten borrowers defaulting together! Senior tranches were generally considered to be almost as safe as borrowing money from the government. Since the senior tranche offers a better return than, but seems to be just as safe as, putting the money in the bank, the investors just loved it. In 2004 there were only $157.4 billion of CDO being issued, but by 2007 the amount grew to $481.6 billion.

But don't you find it a bit unfair that you can have something as safe as bank deposits, that offers a higher return?

The pitfalls

Yes, it is unfair! In fact, CDO is a lot riskier than bank deposits, but Lehman Brothers, like many investors, didn't seem to know that. Let's go back to our original model. The first source of error is that we have assumed that each investor has a 3% chance of defaulting. How do we know that? It must be from historical data. The problem is, there hasn't been a national drop of housing price since the great depression in the 1920s, so the chance that a borrower defaults was calculated on the basis of a good period when the housing prices surged. However, the housing market crashed in 2007. Many borrowers' properties are now worth even less than the loan they have to pay in the future, so many of them refuse to pay. To worsen the situation, 22% of these borrowers are the so-called subprime borrowers — those who had little income and had little hope of returning money. Banks were not afraid of lending money to them because even if they defaulted, the insurance would pay them back. The participation of the subprime borrowers makes lending much riskier than before.

In fact, the default probability in the US has quadrupled from the 3% as assumed in the model to 12% since 2007, making it four times riskier. This means that investors like Lehman Brothers will be hit four times harder than they have anticipated.

Actually it is worse than that. The profitability, or lack of it, of complicated financial products may depend on the square of the default probability, rather than the probability itself. Now as the default probability rises from 0.03 to 0.12, the square of the probability increased from 0.0009 to 0.0144 — that's an increase by a factor of 16!

There is also a second and more subtle source of error. Whether you can make money from selling the CDO insurance for the bank depends on whether the borrowers return the money, which in turns depends on the economy. So if the economy goes down, you are a lot more likely to lose money. If you are an active investor, then you probably have invested in the stock market as well. Now if the market crashes you lose both the money invested in the stock market and in the CDO. Suppose, on the other hand, that instead of spending the money on CDO, you bet on whether Manchester United will win the European Champion League. This time in order to lose all your money you need both the market to go down and Manchester United to lose their match — this is less likely than just having the market go down. Therefore, investing on CDO is a riskier choice than betting for Manchester United. The error in our model is that we have not taken into account this extra risk due to its dependence of CDO on the market.

These two errors were sufficient to mask the risk in CDO. In fact, the errors are so serious that 27 out of 30 of the CDOs issued by Merril Lynch were downgraded from AAA (the safest investment) to "junk" when the errors were spotted.

The fall of Lehman Brothers

Lehman Brothers, unaware of the hidden risks, decided to invest big on CDO. It even had a 35 to 1 debt to equity ratio, that is, it only owned $1 out of every $36 in its bank account — the other $35 were borrowed from somewhere. This meant that a loss of just 3% of the money on its balance sheet, would have meant the loss of all the money it owned. After suffering heavy losses (more than 3% of the money in its balance) from CDO, borrowers began to lose confidence and called back the loans. As Lehman had always relied on short-term loans, its lenders were able to pull their cash back quickly. Now the bank was in trouble. It borrowed much more than it was able to return and soon found itself unable to pay back. On 15th September 2008, the world's fourth biggest investment bank was gone, forever.

Source: Plus Magazine

Last night we went off to see The Reader at Rosebank Mall. I must say, I was somewhat disappointed. Kate Winslet (nude) was hot (at least in the early parts of the movie), but I found the film rather lacking in emotion, character or pace. Ralph Fiennes pretty much snoozed through his scenes; a more boring and emotionless character one cannot imagine (except for me, but then, I'm not a character in a movie). The actor who played the boy who read to Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet's character), David Kross, did pretty well. The story had no decent tale of repentance or change or love, and the characters did what seemed like strangely uncharacteristic things. I really wanted to like the movie, but it was far too long and pointless.

On the positive side, I think the movie captured the sense of Germany from the 1950s to the 1990s very well; it felt authentic and gritty in the right ways. It may be worth watching purely for that.



Now, for the World War 2 buffs, seeing as we're on the topic, take a look at this: World War II in Colour. It's an interesting collection of photographs taken during the war, of people, places and equipment.

For example, here are a couple of thumbnails:

Metric:
Here's an interesting article on the lack of metrication at NASA:
NASA criticised for sticking to imperial units

The whole issue of Metrication in the United States is pretty interesting; I wasn't aware the US used such a mish-mash of systems. The one that surprises me is the construction industry: managing conversions between different Imperial units and handling of areas and volumes must be nightmarish compared to metric.

Here's a map from Wikipedia showing the countries not using the metric system (they're in red):



Scientific Controversies:
And on an unrelated note, quite an interesting article on the collagen found in a fossilised Tyrannosaurus Rex femur, and the controversies it engendered:
Origin of Species: How a T. Rex Femur Sparked a Scientific Smackdown

Last week we saw Milk. Milk is about how Harvey Milk went from being an insurance worker to the first gay elected to public office in the US - district supervisor in San Francisco - and his murder by a disgruntled ex-supervisor (the one, in fact, who became known for the notorious "Twinkie defence"). I found the movie interesting (from a historical point of view), but it was too long, and rather tedious.

There were some good points though. One was that the cast were pretty well chose in terms of looks - comparing the real people with the actors, one could see quite uncanny similarities. Another good point was the movie colour: in the first part, set in the early 1970s, the movie was tinged slightly yellow, giving it the same sort of hue that was characteristic of 1970s films. The 1970s setting felt really authentic too.

And, of course, if you like men kissing each other, there was plenty of that!





Yesterday Morgan and I went off to see Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. It wasn't a great movie, by any means, and it wasn't as fresh as Night at the Museum was, but it wasn't boring. I enjoyed some of the characters from the first movie again - one of Robin Williams's nicer roles, I think - and there were a few new ones. Hank Azaria chewed through tons of scenery as Kahmunrah, but the best part of this movie, bar none, was Amy Adams playing Amelia Earheart. Not only was she amusing, but she was totally worth watching, thanks to a pair of slacks that surely was too tight to have been legal in the 1930s! Very, very, hot!

And just provide some visuals:

I really thought some of these recipes looked tasty:
Mythical creature dishes

Some of my favourites:

• Unicorn Shish Kabob


• Pan-seared Mermaid with California Trolls


• Yeti Spaghetti with Pegasauce


• Bacon-wrapped Mummy


• Minotaur Tartare


• Cheese and Krakens

So, here are the results of a 10year, $2.5 billion study on the efficacy of alternative medicines:
They don't work.

To wit:

"Ten years ago the government set out to test herbal and other alternative health remedies to find the ones that work. After spending $2.5 billion, the disappointing answer seems to be that almost none of them do.

Echinacea for colds. Ginkgo biloba for memory. Glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis. Black cohosh for menopausal hot flashes. Saw palmetto for prostate problems. Shark cartilage for cancer. All proved no better than dummy pills in big studies funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The lone exception: ginger capsules may help chemotherapy nausea.

As for therapies, acupuncture has been shown to help certain conditions, and yoga, massage, meditation and other relaxation methods may relieve symptoms like pain, anxiety and fatigue.

However, the government also is funding studies of purported energy fields, distance healing and other approaches that have little if any biological plausibility or scientific evidence.

Taxpayers are bankrolling studies of whether pressing various spots on your head can help with weight loss, whether brain waves emitted from a special "master" can help break cocaine addiction, and whether wearing magnets can help the painful wrist problem, carpal tunnel syndrome."

Source: USAToday, Associated Press

The whole article is a pretty interesting read.

The world's last airworthy Avro Vulcan is flying again!



I always found the Vulcan fascinating; not exactly classically beautiful, it radiates power. I walked around one in the Hendon museum, and it feels absolutely enormous.

Nicked from all over the place. David Eddings is cool. Hell, imagine if I'd got Orson Scott Card!

Your result for Which fantasy writer are you?...

David Eddings (1931 - 2009)

-3 High-Brow, 15 Violent, -11 Experimental and 17 Cynical!

Take Which fantasy writer are you? at HelloQuizzy

I read an interesting article this morning on the topic of female SOE operatives deployed to occupied Europe during World War 2. Waiting for D-Day details two in particular, Violette Szabo and Princess Noor Inayat Khan, both of whom were captured on missions, interrogated, and eventually executed.

Also mentioned was the work of cryptographer, screenwriter and playwright, Leo Marks. While working at the SOE, he was responsible for the use of original poems in poem ciphers, including this poignant poem, written after the death of Leo's girlfriend in a plane crash, used by Violette Szabo:

The Life That I Have
The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause

For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours
And yours

This was a pretty interesting and insightful article:

( Boost for alternative medicine )

Some interesting points raised:

• "Dietary supplements do not have to be proved safe or effective before they can be sold. Some contain natural things you might not want, such as lead and arsenic. Some interfere with other things you may be taking, such as birth control pills." "Fifteen years ago, Congress decided to allow dietary and herbal supplements to be sold without federal Food and Drug Administration approval."
  

  In other words, alternative medicine does not have to be demonstrated to be safe, never mind proven to work. I remember passing a "health shop" in Sandton City a few years ago, and they were asking people to sign a petition to have herbal remedies excluded from pending legislation that would have required all such medicines and remedies to undergo testing for safety. I couldn't figure out why anyone would want something like that able to be sold with no safety testing at all.



• "But more than $2.5bn of tax-financed research has not found any cures or major treatment advances, aside from certain uses for acupuncture and ginger for chemotherapy-related nausea. If anything, evidence has mounted that many of these pills and therapies lack value."
  

  Well, yes, no surprise there. Something I've often seen from alternative medicine fans is that the big money-grubbing pharmaceutical companies are trying to shut down the little herbal/homoeopathic suppliers; of course, it should be obvious that if any of the remedies did actually work, the money-grubbing pharmaceutical companies would have got hold of the remedies, patented them, and would be trying to sell them.



• "Even when the ingredients aren't risky, spending money for a product with no proven benefit is no small harm when the economy is bad and people can't afford health insurance or healthy food. But sometimes the cost is far greater. Cancer patients can lose their only chance of beating the disease by gambling on unproven treatments. People with clogged arteries can suffer a heart attack. Children can be harmed by unproven therapies forced on them by parents who distrust conventional medicine."
  

  There have been some cases recently of people dying or being at great risk of dying because they (or their parents) resorted to alternative remedies instead of medicine. (Let's not even get started on Jenny McCarthy, whose anti-vaccination campaign has led to several deaths from things like measles).

Last night we went to movies.

First we had dinner at Sitar, in Cresta. As usual, the food was excellent, and the service really good (the owners take a personal interest, and are always around). I had a Lamb Rogan Josh, with Mango Gateau dessert; the drinks I had, the Mango Lassi and Sweet Lassi are terribly addictive.



Then we saw Termination Salvation. I must admit, I'm in two minds about the movie. I couldn't shake the feeling that we already knew what was going to happen; one of the hazards of a time-travelling storyline, I guess. I liked some parts of it, notably the whole plotline involving Marcus. Unfortunately, the parts I didn't like were just about anything involving John Connor. Sadly, I think Christian Bale has gone and typecast himself; I had no real interest in seeing another terribly intense Batman. The machinery was generally nice, and it was really great to see some A-10 Warthogs in action. Digital Arnie was really well done, but some of the special effects were a little iffy.

I didn't regret seeing it, but it wasn't a great movie.

There's this commercial on the radio that is advertising emergency medical rescue by helicopter for the low, low fee of R90 per month.

How incredibly rare is is to be in a situation where you survived an accident or something, but you're hurt badly enough that the small time advantage (if there is one) of getting a helicopter medivac will save your life? Pretty rare, I'd say.

I wonder how many customers that company has...

I found this news article really heart-wrenching. The bit about the boy's teddy bears and tractor moved me almost to tears.

I've been lucky enough to never be in the sort of situation those parents were in, and I hope never to be, but I can understand exactly why they did it.

Boy's meningitis death sparked family suicide pact at Beachy Head

Stolen from jtggodqos:

1. You can ONLY answer 'Yes' or 'No'.

2. You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone messages or comments you and asks—and, believe me, the temptation to explain some of these will be overwhelming. Nothing is exactly as it seems.

Copy and paste this into your notes, delete my answers, type in your answers, and tag as many of your friends as you'd like to. ________________________________

( Yes-No meme )

Here's one for the fencing folks who still read LJ:

Which well-known musical artist went to university on a fencing scholarship, specialising in épée?

This was an interesting article; nice to see a point of view on really influential software. Personally, I'm not sure I agree with some of their choices; I'd go with Solitaire in place of Minesweeper, and I'm not sure PGP should be there. Many of the others, I remember when they came out and changed the industry.

( Top 10 industry-changing applications )

So, readers, what applications do you think changed the computing world?

Edit:
I can think of one or two. How about WordStar or WordPerfect? Both changed the world of word processing pretty extensively.

Seeing as I'm bored, and it seems everyone enjoyed my last poll, here's another:

Would you support legalised polygamy? Polygamy has been accepted in well over half of human cultures, though it's not in use much in the western world. Obviously, if it were legal, it would require a lot of changes to things like tax laws, medical insurance, and suchlike. Comments? Ideas? What sort of social effects would it have? What would be the issues in such a relationship?

Poll #1407104 Polygamous marriages
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: Friends

What sort of marriages do you or would you support?

Would you like to be in a marriage with more than two participants?

I do think my user icon in this post is rather appropriate. :)

Here are a couple of interesting links.

Military vehicles:
The Ten Coolest American Military Land Vehicles

Trains:
There's a guy on a forum I'm on who has the most spectacular train set. He has an amazing eye for detail, and great skill:
Monsterville

Here's a sample pic:
( Cut for size )

So, the mother who killed her diabetic daughter by not taking her for medical treatment has been found guilty. Good.

( Mother found guilty in Wausau prayer death case )

I was shocked by this, though:

Leilani Neumann's stepfather, Brian Gordon of San Diego, said he was disappointed by the verdict and the jury was mistaken. He said his stepdaughter did nothing wrong in trusting in God to heal her daughter.

"We should have that right in this country," he said.

No, people should not have the right to kill their children.

This article on the question of legalising prostitution in South Africa was interesting, especially with reference to the moral views of the head of the National Prosecuting Authority possibly overriding rational decisions.

( Sex workers slam Mpshe )

Now, from my point of view, I would welcome the legalisation of sex work. It would make things safer for sex workers (due to regulations, medical tests, etc.), reduce the effect of organised crime in the industry (pimps), and it would widen the tax base to include people who are not currently paying taxes. I think adults should have the right to sell their services, sexual or otherwise, if that's what they want.

Poll #1403353 Legalising sex work
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Would you support the legalising of sex work?

What do you think?

This sort of thing really pisses me off.

Here we have a deluded mother who essentially killed her child because of her own religious beliefs.

( Mom expected divine healing )

And then, we have the Daniel Hauser case, where Daniels parents stopped cancer treatment in favour of vitamins. Now, I'm all in favour of people making their own life decisions, but Daniel is 13, and his parents' version of home schooling has left him illiterate (he apparently cannot recognise the word "the"). He simply is not capable of making such a life-changing decision; his parents are effectively letting him die. Now, there's obviously no guarantee that chemo will actually save his life - but vitamins definitely won't.

( Mother, son missing in forced chemotherapy case )

How can parents be so deluded as to do this to their children? I truly don't understand it.

So I'm back to Opera as my primary web browser. For some reason, after I upgraded my work machine to Windows 7, Maxthon's screen no longer refreshed properly; I couldn't find a solution. Next best option is Opera. I found a workaround for Maxthon's most missed feature, the "Open all links as background tabs", by mapping mouse middle-button to one of the side buttons; now I can click on the side button to open a link in the background.

I do miss some of Maxthon's other features, like the Ctrl-Click to instantly save an image, and IE compatibility, but Opera is a lot quicker, and I love the instant "back" reload. Still, it's good to be using a totally rock-solid browser.

I got a chance to see Star Trek and X-Men Origins: Wolverine over the weekend.

Wolverine, sadly, was quite a let-down; it was a relatively tedious story, with little sparkle to it. The first few minutes were the best; I wish that had been stretched to an hour or so. It wasn't a waste of money, but it could have been so much better.

By contrast, Star Trek was wonderful; certainly the best Star Trek movie to date. Lots of excellent imagery (I particularly loved the scene where Enterprise rose up from Titan's clouds), good acting from virtually all concerned, and a neat explanation for veering off canon. Leonard Nimoy's role added a touch of nostalgia. The score was really good too; it had a good theme of its own, and the original series score was incorporated beautifully at the end. The choice of the actors was inspired; they looked right, but (in my humble opinion) were less hammy than some of the original actors.

Nicked from redqueenmeg.

Your results:
You are Data

Data 66% Jean-Luc Picard 60% Geordi LaForge 60% Beverly Crusher 50% Uhura 40% Worf 40% Spock 37% Mr. Scott 35% Chekov 35% Mr. Sulu 35% Will Riker 35% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 30% James T. Kirk (Captain) 25% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 20% Deanna Troi 10%

Even though you are a genius you are always striving to be better.

Click here to take the "Which Star Trek character are you?" quiz...

I got Windows 7 Release Candidate last week, and I've been trying it out a bit. I've now got it installed on 5 machines: our 3 machines at home (including the kids' PC), my work PC, and my work laptop. It's working well on all of them. Generally, a very pleasing experience: somewhat better performance than Vista (especially on my laptop, which is underpowered: Windows 7 is much, much faster than Vista). Plenty of new shiny bits.

On my work PC I upgraded from Vista, and that was an easy, but lengthy process. My home PC and the kids' PC were upgraded from Windows 7 Beta2, with the help of a change in a config file (otherwise Win 7 RC won't allow an upgrade from earlier Win 7 releases). The others were clean installs that went quite quickly.

I really like the hardware driver support: Win7 just goes out and gets the right drivers for virtually everything. Most impressive.

I bought a bag of cat food on Monday, and put it on top of the cat food container so that I could open it and fill the container later. A few minutes later, I investigated some odd noises only to find that Pyre had dragged the packet off the container, and was pulling it off to her lair. She managed to tear the plastic packet open, and was desperately trying to eat the food direct from the packet, growling at us the whole time.

I encountered a beautiful praying mantis on the stairs last night, a good 12cm long, I reckon; it had a lovely gold iridescent appearance.

( Pictures cut for those not keen on insects )

For 20-odd years I've missed the taste of Fanta Naartjie, a Fanta flavour I'd grown to love at school, but which was discontinued in the '80s.

Now, that flavour is back - as alternative to Lemon Twist: Naartjie Twist. Tried some today - it's the right stuff. Yum.

I see herne_kzn mentioned that Dave Arneson, co-creator (with Gary Gygax) of Dungeons & Dragons, died at 11PM last night. His and Gary's creation changed my life immeasurably, and I'm sad to see him go. :(