amusements

Auction Amusements

Here are a few of the amusements from our local auction house’s recent sales. Some are from last December and some are recent, although I don’t seem to have kept any from the February sale (I was probably too drugged up following my knee op to notice!). Anyway enjoy the different ways in which the toot people sell can amuse.
A large red Russian flag, two small Russian pendants, four Russian medals, a silver and red enamel army cap badge, Russian lead toy soldiers, a large ship medallion 1917-1987, etc.
An old sailing boat in a bottle, Tri-Ang [sic] model ships including HMS Vanguard, RMS Caronia, HMS Centaur, also a Tri-Ang M885 floating dock, and a breakwater straight M827, and two miniature boats HMS Virago and HMS Tenby, also a brass wirework photograph frame and a miniature antique ivory sewing table with implements.
A collection of first-day covers with accompanying commemorative coins of various denominations, featuring royalty, sport … including 1948 and 2012 London Olympics, mint presentation commemorative coins, football and other medals, 3 books on coin collecting and a pair of gloves; also a pair of musket shot recovered from the ‘Invincible’ (1744-1758), with certificate of authenticity
A John Lewis nativity set, a decorative Christmas tree made from pipe cleaners and an advent light
A pair of mounted oryx horns
A large quantity of carved wooden figurines mainly from Africa, taxidermy deer head, vintage telephone, cat figurines, pipes, brass car horn in the form of a serpent etc.
A stuffed and mounted antelope head with twisted horns
Two large vintage commercial projectors by Ross of London … a commercial-use Hitachi SK91 camera, a stirrup pump, and an Elf transformer
What do the elves get transformed into, one has to wonder?
A shelf of interesting decanters including musical and 1950’s poodle plus a musical bird cage automation and another modelled as a light
Two cartons of tools, wires, etc.
And that was a pretty good description too.
An unusual early 20th century mahogany chair cum trouser press by VG Bond of London …


An amazing bangle, spray brooch and matching necklet by Sonia Rykiel of flower buds and stalks [above]
Two teeth filled with dental gold, and a 9 ct gold cufflink
For use as spares, presumably [below]


A suitcase containing a small quantity of postcards and a large quantity of empty plastic sleeves
Two tribal skin shields and an ornate wooden knife rack, a doll with crying action and pink cloths
A fascinating collection of American Civil War lead bullets displayed in two wooden cases, with documentation
A stuffed and mounted pike in glazed wooden case [below]


A black Dunn & Co bowler hat and four Venetian masks, two with bells and two for wall-hanging
As so often I’m struggling to see what these have to do with each other.
A pine trunk containing vintage Christmas decorations plus another mental [sic] bound storage box
A WW2 USN portable bomb hoist MkVII marked Manley MFG Div York PA … serviced in 1965 and 1985
An essential garden ornament [below]


A Hoover Nextra Reverse Action 6kg dryer, an old cabinet radio by Blaupunkt, an old-fashioned style radio, a Sony mini hi-fi, two gentlemen’s grooming kits and a large filled fabric dog

beliefs, people, ramblings

Most Important People

I came across the attached article from the Naples Daily News (Florida) at the beginning of the year.
I don’t know I 100% agree with the author – well it is American! – as I think he has tilted the balance too far from the current norm and I think there is a balance to be struck. However from what I see around me the best adjusted children are those where the family apparently adheres, more or less, to his tenets.
Here’s an image of the article, and in case you can’t read it easily I reproduce the text below.

[ Image Removed ]

Naples Daily News, Sunday 1 January 2017
Your kids should not be the most important in the family
John Rosemond, Family Psychologist
I recently asked a married couple who have three kids, none of whom are yet teens, “Who are the most important people in your family?”
Like all good moms and dads of this brave new millennium, they answered, “Our kids!”
“Why?” I then asked. “What is it about your kids that gives them that status?” And like all good moms and dads of this brave new millennium, they couldn’t answer the question other than to fumble with appeals to emotion.
So, I answered the question for them: “There is no reasonable thing that gives your children that status.”
I went on to point out that many if not most of the problems they’re having with their kids – typical stuff, these days – are the result of treating their children as if they, their marriage, and their family exist because of the kids when it is, in fact, the other way around. Their kids exist because of them and their marriage and thrive because they have created a stable family.
Furthermore, without them. their kids wouldn’t eat well, have the nice clothing they wear, live in the nice home in which they live, enjoy the great vacations they enjoy, and so on. Instead of lives that are relatively carefree (despite the drama to the contrary that they occasionally manufacture), their children would be living lives full of worry and want.
This issue is really the heart of the matter. People my age know it’s the heart of the matter because when we were kids it was clear to us that our parents were the most important people in our families. And that, right there, is why we respected our parents and that, right there, is why we looked up to adults in general. Yes, Virginia, once upon a time in the United States of America, children were second-class citizens, to their advantage.
It was also clear to us – I speak, of course, in general terms, albeit accurate – that our parents marriages were more important to them than their relationships with us. Therefore, we did not sleep in their beds or interrupt their conversations. The family meal, at home, was regarded as more important than after-school activities. Mom and Dad talked more – a lot more – with one another than they talked with you. For lack of pedestals, we emancipated earlier and much more successfully than have children since.
The most important person in an army is the general. The most important person in a corporation is the CEO. The most important person in a classroom is the teacher. And the most important person in a family are the parents.
The most important thing about children is the need to prepare them properly for responsible citizenship. The primary objective should not be raising a straight-A student who excels at three sports, earns a spot on the Olympic swim team, goes to an A-list university and becomes a prominent brain surgeon. The primary objective is to raise a child such that community and culture are strengthened.
“Our child is the most important person in our family” is the first step toward raising a child who feels entitled.
You don’t want that. Unbeknownst to your child he doesn’t need that. And neither does America.

amusements

XKCD Phone

I’ve been amused over the years by the curious, and ever more imaginative, evolution of the XKCD Phone – all the way from a “clear screen” via a screen that “goes all the way through” to a “stained-glass display”! There are just so many brilliant innovations I think we should view the whole range. Enjoy!
XKCD Phone 1 (May 2014)
Features I especially like: side-facing camera


XKCD Phone 2 (December 2014)
Features I especially like: dog noticer; coin slot; bug drawer

XKCD Phone 3 (July 2015)
Features I especially like: magnetic stripe; fingerprint randomiser; licensed to perform wedding ceremonies and does so at random

XKCD Phone 4 (July 2016)
Features I especially like: voice intergration Siri, Cortana, Google Now and Alexa respond simultataneously; new BrightGlo™ display incorporates genetically spliced jellyfish protein; Gregorian/Julian calendar switch; exposed ductwork

XKCD Phone 5 (March 2017)
Features I especially like: Supercuts partnership: trims hair fed into charging port; stained-glass display; background task automatically catches and eats Pokémon

I reckon we should expect the XKCD Phone 6 somewhere around the end of this year, maybe even in time for Christmas, and with innovations we can’t even begin to guess!
The XKCD webcomic is the creation, and copyright, of Randall Munroe.

environment, science

Fukushima Latest

Thursday’s Guardian ran another article on the clean-up of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear site following the tsunami six years ago today. They point out, quite correctly, that two robots have now failed in trying to investigate the inside of the Reactor 2 containment vessel. I don’t see why this is such a surprise to everyone, or why quite so much recrimination continues.


Let’s be clear, again, once and for all. The containment at Fukushima did its job. It contained the reactor cores (admittedly only just) under stresses (earthquake and tsunami) way beyond its design specification.
What failed were the cooling systems. And they failed because of major shortcomings in the risk analysis, and therefore the placement and design, of the plant.
Yes, there was a radiation leak – small in comparison to Chernobyl – as a result of fractures in the buildings surrounding the containment vessels. And yes, this is a disaster for the 160,000 people who were evacuated – the disaster is their displacement and, medically, the psychological effects, rather than the risks due to the actual radiation encountered in the time between the leaks and their evacuation.
The tsunami killed around 19,000 people. The radiation, as far as I am aware, has caused zero direct deaths (although a handful have died in accidents during the clean-up operation).
Of course the clean-up is going to take a very long time and be hugely expensive. The radiation level inside the containment vessels is going to be incredibly high – high enough to kill a human within minutes. So without robots there is no way to find out what actually is happening inside; and they will succumb to high radiation levels and blocks in their access routes. And yes there is a huge quantity of contaminated groundwater to contend with. Why would we expect otherwise?
The current estimate is that the clean-up will take 30-40 years and cost $189bn, although many believe this a significant underestimate in both time and money. On that basis one has to ask whether the clean-up should continue, or whether the whole plant should be permanently encased as has been done recently at Chernobyl – but I’ve seen no-one even mentioning this as a possibility. I’d be interested to see some analysis of the possibilities.

amusements, personal

Ten Things

2 Comments

A slightly eccentric mix for this month’s Ten Things …
Ten Desert Island Discs
[Yes, I know the radio programme Desert Island Discs asks only for eight records, but this is Ten Things, OK?]

  1. Monteverdi, 1610 Vespers
  2. Bach, Christmas Oratorio
  3. Yes, Close to the Edge
  4. Pink Floyd, Wish You were Here
  5. Beatles, Let It Be
  6. Handel, Messiah
  7. Granados, Piano Works
  8. William Byrd, The Battle
  9. Caravan, In the Land of Grey and Pink
  10. Moody Blues, Octave
words

Word: Quidnunc

Quidnunc
A person who constantly asks ‘What now?’.
An inquisitive or nosy person.
A gossipmonger.
As one might expect the word is derived from the Latin quid nunc, what now (quid = what, nunc = now).
The OED gives the first English usage in 1709.

environment, science

Better Nuclear Power

A week ago IFLScience published a very long, and fully referenced, article on a forgotten nuclear power technology which is much more efficient and robust than the current Light Water Reactors (LWR). It is actually a breeder reactor (but one which doesn’t produce weaponable products) called a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR).


As usual what follows is a few extracts by way of the TL;DR summary.
According to the article MSR are not just a better nuclear technology but also beat most other power sources (including most renewables) into a cocked hat.

Today’s cheap, bountiful supplies make it hard to see humanity’s looming energy crisis … Fossil fuels could quench the planet’s deep thirst for energy, but they’d be a temporary fix at best … renewable energy sources like wind and solar, though key parts of a solution, are not silver bullets … Nuclear reactors, on the other hand, fit the bill: They’re dense, reliable, emit no carbon, and – contrary to bitter popular sentiment – are among the safest energy sources on earth. Today, they supply about 20% of America’s energy.
The good news is that a proven solution is at hand – if we want it badly enough.
Called a molten-salt reactor [it] forgoes solid nuclear fuel for a liquid one … in theory, molten-salt reactors can never melt down … It’s reliable, it’s clean, it basically does everything fossil fuel does today … [and produces] energy without emitting carbon … What’s more, feeding a molten-salt reactor a radioactive waste from mining, called thorium (which is three to four times more abundant than uranium), can “breed” as much nuclear fuel as it burns up.

MSR were developed in the early days of the Cold War and the technology was proven in pilot production. However they were never pursued because (a) they didn’t produce weapons grade materials and (b) “not invented here”.
The article follows with a brief analysis of the safety of nuclear energy compared with traditional power generation, and a very brief summary of how nuclear physics works. Followed by an explanation of how MSRs using thorium can “breed” and then use uranium 233 but not weaponable plutonium.

The concept of the breeder reactor was fairly straightforward. It would dramatically increase the chances for fission, boost the flow of neutrons, and breed more fissile fuel from a “fertile” material than the reactor burned up. Breeding U-238 into Pu-239 created an excess of plutonium. Meanwhile, breeding thorium into U-233 broke even, burning up just as much fuel as it made. The choice of fuel makes all the difference. The plutonium fuel cycle is a great way to make weapons. Meanwhile, the thorium fuel cycle can produce almost limitless energy. A fluid-fuelled design [would] eliminate the considerable difficulty of fabricating solid fuelled elements … Liquid fuel also made it easy to remove both useful fission products – for example, for medical procedures, and those that poison nuclear chain reactions.

OK, so what’s the downside? Basically, apart from the proof-of-concept pilot, the technology hasn’t been developed fully. But it could be developed, and probably relatively easily, probably as the Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). And the article lists (some of) the advantages of LFTR:

  • Fuel burn-up is extraordinarily high. LFTRs could fission about 99% of their U-233 liquid fuel, compared to a few percent for solid fuel.
  • It’s easy to clean up. Solid fuels build up fission products, or new elements generated by the splitting of atoms, which poison fission reactions and often end up being treated as waste. Liquid fuels, meanwhile, can be processed “online” – and the fission products continuously removed, refined, and sold.
  • There’s less waste and it’s shorter-lived. For the above reasons, hundreds of times less radioactive waste is left over from LFTR operation compared to LWRs. And what remains requires burial for about 300 years, as opposed to 10,000 years.
  • LFTRs operate under safe, normal pressure. All commercial reactors compress water coolant to extreme pressures – upwards of 150 times that found at Earth’s surface. One small breach can lead to a catastrophic explosion. If a LFTR pipe breaks, however, molten salt will only spill on the ground and freeze.
  • Environmental contamination is far less likely. LWRs can release gases, fuel, and fission products into the air and water. Molten salt freezes and traps most contaminants.
  • LFTRs can be made small and modular. LWRs require giant, reinforced-concrete containment vessels that scale with their operating pressure. LFTRs require small containment structures, so they could be made small – possibly to a size that’d fit [on a truck].
  • They should be much cheaper and faster to build. LFTRs don’t require many of the expensive safeguards that LWRs do. Their potential to be modular could also lead to mass manufacture of parts and reduced cost.
  • LFTR is immune to meltdowns. Molten salt that overheats will expand, slowing down fission.
  • The design is “walk-away safe.” No nuclear power plant today can claim this. LWRs require backup power systems to cool solid fuel at all times. If power is knocked out to a LFTR, a freeze plug melts and lets the molten salt fall into underground containment units, where it freezes and stops fission.
  • Electricity output is better. LFTRs are so hot, operating at roughly [1000°C] they can use more advanced heat-to-electricity conversion technologies.
  • The excess heat is very useful. It could boil and desalinate ocean water into drinking water, help generate hydrogen for fuel cells, break down organic waste into biofuels, and power industrial processes.
  • The “kindling” to start a LFTR is flexible. Burning up old nuclear weapons material is possible, since fissile U-233, U-235, or Pu-239 can be used to start the reactor.

So if thorium reactors are so great, what’s the holdup?

It basically boils down to … The science is easy. The engineering is hard … [which] is true in many, many advanced systems, nuclear and nonnuclear for that matter, where the scientists’ proof of concept is everything to them … To the engineer, getting it to the commercial-viability stage is their goal. And those are two very different hills to climb.

So there is still a long road ahead, but given the apparent advantages isn’t this a technology we should be pursuing? Yes, India and China are already doing so.

books, history, links, science, sexuality, words

Your Monthly Links

They’re off! … On the quest for this month’s links to items you really didn’t want to miss the first time.
Science & Medicine
Many statistics are lies compounded by misleading graphics. Here’s a quick guide to spotting lies in visuals.


Queueing is quite complex, both psychologically and mathematically, so no wonder there are old wives tales about how to queue. But many are wrong, and the right answers are non-intuitive. The Guardian gives us some clues.
We don’t normally think of Winston Churchill as a scientist, but he certainly had a passionate interest in, and knowledge of, the science of his day, even down to writing with great foresight about astrobiology and extra-terrestrial life.
Black chickens. Not just black feathers, but black all the way through: meat, bones and organs. No wonder they’re a special, and expensive, breed. It just seems wrong that so many are bred purely for divination.
Social Sciences & Business
In 1944 the CIA wrote a manual on how dissidents can surreptitiously sabotage an organisation’s productivity and gradually undermine it. Now it has been declassified and released.
Language
So who was Gordon Bennett? The BBC looks at a few of the people behind famous phrases.
Writers, improve your text. Here are a number of filler words and phrases which are superfluous and serve only to bulk out your word count.
Polari is a British slang dating back to at least the 19th century. Used by a number of tightly knit cultures it is perhaps best known for its use by sex workers and the gay subculture. As you might guess the Bible in Polari is quite a hoot; here’s my blog post about it.
Art & Literature
Book blogger Karen Langley has rediscovered Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy. Here’s her blog post about it.
History
Construction of London’s Crossrail has unearthed a vast amount of archaeology. Here are two very different reports on the same Clerkenwell site which includes a completely lost river and a curious pair of plague victims: the first report is from IanVisits and the second from the Guardian.
London
Apart from the above item on Crossrail archaeology there is only one snippet on London this month …
Canals are well known for carrying water not electricity, but IanVisits, again, brings the story of how the Regent’s Canal ended up safely carrying both.
Lifestyle
Life is stressful. Things are continually conspiring against us. We all know that if we get too stressed we get sick. So it’s useful to have a list of major life stressors, with their relative values, so you can work out your likelihood of a stress-related illness.
Unsurprisingly the second most highly-rated stress is divorce. Here are four behaviours which appear to be the most reliable predictors of divorce.
Finally in this section is our favourite zen master talking about immigration and tribalism. It’s a perspective worth reading.
Food & Drink

And finally, finally … Garlic. Whether you love it or hate it trying to supress the resulting odour is far from obvious.
Be good until next month!