WELLINGTON (2 October 2011) - There has been widespread rioting and looting in New Zealand following an injury to rugby player Daniel Carter putting him out of the Rugby World Cup. Following the announcement that the influential number ten was injured at training on Saturday, the country descended immediately into an orgy of destruction with all but seventeeen of the four million members of the population out on the streets venting their anger and disgust on any animate or inanimate object in their path.
The largest city, Auckland, now resembles Dresden after World War 2 and the provincial cities of Napier, New Plymouth, Nelson and Invercargill have already been reclaimed by the sea. The only city with apparently no ill effects is Palmerston North which was already such a dump that no amount of rioting has any noticeable effect.
Sheep molestations trebled over night, well up from the baseline level of 120,000 cases per hour; while several unfortunate individuals have been pressganged into All Blacks service including 23 year old Colin Slade, a man with no previous rugby experience. Overnight former All Blacks first-five, Stephen Donald, declared himself "King of the Caliphate of Hamilton" and has begun rounding up and summarily executing any dissenters to his potentially disastrous plan to be reinstated to the team.
All Blacks coach Graham Henry, who will be executed under New Zealand law if he fails to secure the world championship title on his second attempt, commented "Oh woe is me, woe is me. We're doomed, absolutely f**ked" when asked what New Zealand's chances were. He was last seen carrying a large suitcase and attempting to board a Vietnamese cargo ship.
Primeminister and world's-most-photographed man, John Key, who previously stated his country will declare war on any nation who win a tighthead against the All Black scrum, has now indicated that New Zealand will cede sovereignty and beome the seventh state of Australia should the William Webb-Ellis cup not be secured. "If Australia doesn't want us, we're also prepared to fall under the protection of Fiji or to become a kabupaten of Indonesia" said the normally inanely smiling Key, looking very worried indeed.
Monday, 3 October 2011
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Homage to Dan
hom·age/ˈ(h)ämij/Noun
Dan's a guy a went through ATC college with. He's more than 10 years younger than me (and thus hasn't wasted decade of his life not earning money being an ATC) and I sat by him in all our ATC theory classes. Pretty soon I'd managed to convince him that I was a weird and perverted freak (it wasn't hard, I just acted normally).
One day Dan ate fish 'n chips for every meal. Another day he ate a whole roast chicken for lunch.
This is a homage to Dan, which probably only amuses me, but it's my blog so I can do whatever I like.
EXHIBIT ONE: Dan likes Beiber (or someone hacks his facebook account: respect!)
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I'll add to this blog as I collate more evidence.
1. Special honor or respect shown publicly.
2. Formal public acknowledgment of feudal allegiance
Dan's a guy a went through ATC college with. He's more than 10 years younger than me (and thus hasn't wasted decade of his life not earning money being an ATC) and I sat by him in all our ATC theory classes. Pretty soon I'd managed to convince him that I was a weird and perverted freak (it wasn't hard, I just acted normally).
One day Dan ate fish 'n chips for every meal. Another day he ate a whole roast chicken for lunch.
This is a homage to Dan, which probably only amuses me, but it's my blog so I can do whatever I like.
EXHIBIT ONE: Dan likes Beiber (or someone hacks his facebook account: respect!)
Sunday, 12 June 2011
More on Impending Doom
A while back I wrote a couple of articles on energy, with a particular emphasis on transportation, so it’s probably time for me to follow up on those. The question remains: what will the world look like when fossil fuels become prohibitively expensive if no alternative is found? I’ve had a lot of feedback contesting the central thesis of my previous articles which was it is highly unlikely that there is any foreseeable alternative which can replace the system cheap oil allows us to operate. Like hydrogen, I think the viability of biofuel/solar electric etc economics will fade with continued system analysis (with biofuel the first to die, methinks). Don’t get me wrong, biofuels/electrics etc almost certainly will play a part in the future world, but they cannot replace the current oil-based system. I still think I’m right and the correspondents I mentioned are wrong, so we’ve agreed to wait ten years and see what happens!
So, if I am right, is it just going to cost more to drop the kids at school in 2020? Well, no… the end of cheap oil threatens the entire global economic system. Conventional economics determines that unless we have continuous economic growth things are very grim indeed. For this to occur more people have to consume more (of something) and since the industrial revolution this buy more/breed more has continued pretty much unchecked. A lot of this growth has been on the back of cheap supplies of energy which is used in producing/growing goods and moving them around. Oil allows economic growth, but it also can retard it as well. As the economy heats up more oil is consumed and the price rises and this price rise eventually chokes off the economic growth. Oil then falls in price (but never to the original level you might have noticed) and the economy picks up again. And so proceed ad infinitum.
As oil continues to rise in price, eventually we’ll need to take a serious look at the doctrine of continuous economic growth because it is, by definition, unsustainable (I hate to use that word because it is thrown around cheaply a lot these days, mainly by marketers trying to get you to consume something. Nothing is really sustainable - entropy gets added every time for every thing). We need to adjust the system we live in to make our resources last longer and as long as economic growth is the bottom line, I can’t see that happening.
In the future you’ll definitely travel around less (no more long weekends in Sydney) and you’ll live more locally. Much of what you consume (especially food) will be produced more locally also. There will be less of a marketing drive (no pun intended) to get you to buy the latest gadget which only makes you want the next gadget more. There is no reason to fear this future, in fact I think it could be quite pleasant.
There is an alternative which my father favours: he calls it the elephant in the green house. It goes like this: we live in a green house with an elephant which feeds relentlessly on the diminishing vegetation therein. The elephant eats, and shits, and the shit just keeps on piling up in the greenhouse. There is nothing we can do to control the elephant. Our own efforts to preserve the vegetation by not eating as much ourselves make a small difference, but not much. The elephant's ringpiece continues to produce copious quantities of foul muck. I’ll get flayed for this, but perhaps we should just gorge ourselves and hope we get fat enough to be floating relatively highly on the sea of shit when the elephant eventually drowns…
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Taiwan: The Right to Choose
Before I decided it would be a good idea to watch aeroplanes all day, I spent a couple of years working in Taiwan. It's an absolutely fascinating place and full of the friendliest people I've come across on my travels. If you are anything like I was before I went, Taiwan is probably a place you've heard of, but don't actually know terribly much about. If you were bought up in the 80s, you probably associate the word "Taiwan" with the phrase "Made In" and a cheap plastic dinosaur toy. If you're slightly more up with the play, you probably are picturing LCD monitors and laptops.
What you may not know about Taiwan is that only a very small number of countries recognise Taiwan as an independent state including, amongst other superpowers, Swaziland, Haiti, Kiribati and (oddly) the Vatican City. Every other country on earth, including New Zealand, refuses recognition mainly because they are afraid of being shat on by the People's Republic of China who maintain that Taiwan is merely a rebellious province in the PRC's sovereign territory. They back up their claim with a large number of ballistic missiles on constant readiness to atomise Taiwan's 23 million (closely-packed!) residents and various other tactics befitting their bullying nature. And why do they want Taiwan? Well, not for natural resources which have been used up and concreted over. Possibly for some limited strategic value and the value of the island's human/manufacturing resources. I suspect it's mostly about "face".
My question is this: how come we are prepared to be bullied by a totalitarian state with an appalling human rights record into not recognising a state which has been fully democratic since the late 1980s? How come that we jump up and down about Tibet, but turn a blind eye to a small island whose streets China has vowed will run red with blood if it dares declare full independence? I guess its because Tibet has charismatic holy men, spectacular scenery and a lovely colourful flag...
The way I see it, is that the Taiwanese people have the right to choose their own destiny and other nations (particularly western democratic ones) should support this right. NZ has a history of standing up to powerful nations (French nuclear testing, Japanese whaling, U.S nuclear powered ships...) and we should have the balls to do it again if we think it is the right thing to do.
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
The McMs
When I was a child we knew a family called the McMs and they were AWESOME! I was a "good" child, as were my siblings, but when we were combined with the McMs all hell would break loose (I'm pretty sure the McMs were "good" children too, but together we went loco). My sister would usually hang out with the older McM sister who seemed terribly sophisticated to us, and my brother and I would run around like demented lunatics. My parents reckoned it sounded like a pack of greater crested colobus monkeys on speed.
Probably the two families would have spent more time together, but my parents were genuinely afraid of mixing us with the McMs so visits usually only happened on a couple of days per year, usually after a substantial dose of tranquilisers which were administered via my mother's famous (and detested) "curry-in-a-hurry" (with raisins and dessicated coconut). I only found out last year that mother McM also specialised in this satanic dish, and I'm still trying to figure out which family had it first.
My mother was mighty impressed with the McM's musical ability which she would expound upon at some length. She didn't ever describe us as "grossly inferior children", but it was strongly implied. I was assigned to rectify the inadequate musicality situation, and spent the 7 years getting through 1.5 years of trombone lessons. After faking my way through numerous school pantomines (it's very easy to fake playing a trombone in an orchestra: just move the slide in an out, and drool down the mouthpiece), I finally managed to convince my mother during School Certificate year that I would be too busy studying to practice it.
Recently I caught up with the second oldest McM boy and the oldest McM via her awesome blog (http://theendisnaenae.blogspot.com/) which is well worth a read. It turns out that they're still awesome and still crack me up.
Probably the two families would have spent more time together, but my parents were genuinely afraid of mixing us with the McMs so visits usually only happened on a couple of days per year, usually after a substantial dose of tranquilisers which were administered via my mother's famous (and detested) "curry-in-a-hurry" (with raisins and dessicated coconut). I only found out last year that mother McM also specialised in this satanic dish, and I'm still trying to figure out which family had it first.
My mother was mighty impressed with the McM's musical ability which she would expound upon at some length. She didn't ever describe us as "grossly inferior children", but it was strongly implied. I was assigned to rectify the inadequate musicality situation, and spent the 7 years getting through 1.5 years of trombone lessons. After faking my way through numerous school pantomines (it's very easy to fake playing a trombone in an orchestra: just move the slide in an out, and drool down the mouthpiece), I finally managed to convince my mother during School Certificate year that I would be too busy studying to practice it.
Recently I caught up with the second oldest McM boy and the oldest McM via her awesome blog (http://theendisnaenae.blogspot.com/) which is well worth a read. It turns out that they're still awesome and still crack me up.
Man from the Future Discovered!
My friend Sarah sent me this spoof article today about a man claiming to be from the future (http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/man-arrested-at-large-hadron-collider-claims-hes-from-the-future-49305387/#ixzz1McOQ6GFz) and I really thought I'd share it. Getting into the past isn't really a problem as there are good two options: a) locate and travel through a wormhole in the space-time continuum or b) go to Palmerston North. The first option is probably a better one.
It's easy to see into the distant past. Looking at the stars reveals event that happened years ago (even with the sun you're looking back 7 minutes, but you need to look closely preferably with some high powered binoculars), and to get there all you have to do is travel at the over the speed of light. This requires infinite energy, but Thor confidently predicts that shouldn't be a problem (just kidding Thor ;o) )
It's easy to see into the distant past. Looking at the stars reveals event that happened years ago (even with the sun you're looking back 7 minutes, but you need to look closely preferably with some high powered binoculars), and to get there all you have to do is travel at the over the speed of light. This requires infinite energy, but Thor confidently predicts that shouldn't be a problem (just kidding Thor ;o) )
Being a Nerd
I recently learned about an intriguing consequence of quantum theory called the Bremermann Limit which states "no data processing system, whether artificial or living, can process more than 2 x 10^47 bits per second per gram of its mass". In other words, a computer the size of the earth, working since the earth first existed, can have processed an absolute maximum of 2.56 x 20^92 bits.
If you haven’t fallen asleep already, bear with me here. The limit means there are problems involving large numbers which are simply beyond the ability of anything to solve. This fascinated me so much that I’ve spent the majority of my waking hours for the past week thinking about it, and I have at last come to a spectacular conclusion: I am a nerd.
I remember having a similar experience when I was maybe 11 years old after reading an article on very large numbers in a collection of works by Isaac Asimov. I still remember very clearly the feeling I got reading the article and spent many nerdy hours pondering its various factoids. Sometimes when I visit my parents, I re-read the article and it gives me a lot of pleasure and reminds me of a simpler time when the joy of knowing stuff was not dulled by adult life.
I’m pretty sure I’ve always been a nerd. Apparently shortly after acquiring the power of speech, I became fascinated by electricity pylons and spent hours asking my mother innumerable questions concerning their function and construction, quickly exhausting her limited knowledge on the subject. I was dubbed "the Professor" in my first year of primary school (although I still remember leaving the crayons on the heater and them all melting... how humiliating), and a nerd for every subsequent year of my schooling.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a human of extremely modest intellectual talents. During my PhD and post-doctoral study I met a number of people who left me dazzled in the magnificent glare of their brilliance. But a nerd I am, and a nerd I remain, for there is nothing I like doing better than sitting and thinking. In fact, I think one of the reasons I gave up my academic "career" was so I could have more time to think about the things I wanted to, without the clutter of Boltzmann’s equation, numerical viscosity and the constant sceptre of having one day to deal with simulating turbulent flow.
There are plenty of nerds out there: computer nerds, aviation nerds (of which I know an alarming number), tech-nerds, cross-stitch nerds, comic nerds, even eating whole roast chicken nerds… the list is pretty much endless. I’m a nerd’s nerd: the sitting on my arse and thinking nerd, the type of nerd with no purpose other than the addition of entropy to the universe.
I’ve been surprised to learn as I’ve grown older, that not only do a significant proportion of the population not engage in much thought, they don’t actually like thinking. (I almost succumbed to a temptation to rip into religion here, but I’d better not). I get an intense feeling of disquiet every time I come across someone who finds reading boring. Boring?! If I had the chance, I’d spend pretty much all my time reading and contemplating.
Being able to ponder stuff, any stuff, is what makes life worth living to me but it can be a burden and I suspect it can be tough on some of those closest to me. It occurs to me that having someone around with his nose constantly in a book or gazing apparently vacuously into space is not always the best company, and for those who put up with me: I thank you.
If you haven’t fallen asleep already, bear with me here. The limit means there are problems involving large numbers which are simply beyond the ability of anything to solve. This fascinated me so much that I’ve spent the majority of my waking hours for the past week thinking about it, and I have at last come to a spectacular conclusion: I am a nerd.
I remember having a similar experience when I was maybe 11 years old after reading an article on very large numbers in a collection of works by Isaac Asimov. I still remember very clearly the feeling I got reading the article and spent many nerdy hours pondering its various factoids. Sometimes when I visit my parents, I re-read the article and it gives me a lot of pleasure and reminds me of a simpler time when the joy of knowing stuff was not dulled by adult life.
I’m pretty sure I’ve always been a nerd. Apparently shortly after acquiring the power of speech, I became fascinated by electricity pylons and spent hours asking my mother innumerable questions concerning their function and construction, quickly exhausting her limited knowledge on the subject. I was dubbed "the Professor" in my first year of primary school (although I still remember leaving the crayons on the heater and them all melting... how humiliating), and a nerd for every subsequent year of my schooling.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a human of extremely modest intellectual talents. During my PhD and post-doctoral study I met a number of people who left me dazzled in the magnificent glare of their brilliance. But a nerd I am, and a nerd I remain, for there is nothing I like doing better than sitting and thinking. In fact, I think one of the reasons I gave up my academic "career" was so I could have more time to think about the things I wanted to, without the clutter of Boltzmann’s equation, numerical viscosity and the constant sceptre of having one day to deal with simulating turbulent flow.
There are plenty of nerds out there: computer nerds, aviation nerds (of which I know an alarming number), tech-nerds, cross-stitch nerds, comic nerds, even eating whole roast chicken nerds… the list is pretty much endless. I’m a nerd’s nerd: the sitting on my arse and thinking nerd, the type of nerd with no purpose other than the addition of entropy to the universe.
I’ve been surprised to learn as I’ve grown older, that not only do a significant proportion of the population not engage in much thought, they don’t actually like thinking. (I almost succumbed to a temptation to rip into religion here, but I’d better not). I get an intense feeling of disquiet every time I come across someone who finds reading boring. Boring?! If I had the chance, I’d spend pretty much all my time reading and contemplating.
Being able to ponder stuff, any stuff, is what makes life worth living to me but it can be a burden and I suspect it can be tough on some of those closest to me. It occurs to me that having someone around with his nose constantly in a book or gazing apparently vacuously into space is not always the best company, and for those who put up with me: I thank you.
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