food+drink, memes, music, personal, quotes, science

Ten Things – November

Number 11 in my monthly series of “Ten Things” for 2011. Each month I list one thing from each of ten categories which will remain the same for each month of 2011. So at the end of the year you have ten lists of twelve things about me.

  1. Something I Like: Beaujolais Nouveau (This year’s is supposed to be even better than last year’s which was superb; and it’ll be here in a few days time!)
  2. Something I Won’t Do: Plumbing
  3. Something I Want To Do: Visit Norway & Sweden
  4. A Blog I Like: Cocktail Party Physics
  5. A Book I Like: Douglas Adams, Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
  6. Some Music I Like: Handel, Messiah
  7. A Food I Like: Pizza
  8. A Food or Drink I Dislike: Sweet Potatoes
  9. A Word I Like: Mendicant
  10. A Quote I Like: The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. [JBS Haldane]
environment, science, topographical

Fukushima Revisited

I’ve not written recently about the nuclear disaster in Japan following March’s earthquake and tsunami. This is largely because there has been little in the way of new news. However a few days ago an IEEE Spectrum report was released which looks at the first 24 hours at the nuclear facility following the earthquake and highlights some of the design and procedural errors which exacerbated the disaster.

Although the situation in the reactors was clearly far worse than we had been led to believe, I’ll not extract the report here: you can read a summary on-line. And it is worth reading: it’s clear, lucid, gives a flavour of just how complex these situations really are, how much wasn’t know (or wasn’t told) and how people react under extreme pressure.

What I will do is mention the six major lessons which have been highlighted by the report, with the inevitable handful of comments. This should be sufficient to show where there were errors in the design of plant and procedure. Before that there’s one important thing to note:

[The] report is based on interviews with officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the International Atomic Energy Agency, local governments, and with other experts in nuclear engineering, as well as a review of hundreds of pages of official reports.

So it isn’t just make-believe; it should be good stuff. Anyway here are those lessons:

Lesson 1. Emergency generators should be installed at high elevations or in watertight chambers.
Sounds obvious, doesn’t it. But it all comes down to good risk analysis. If you aren’t expecting significant flooding it makes great sense to put plant, especially emergency generators etc., on the ground: they’re excessively heavy and when operating generate huge amounts of noise and vibration.

LESSON 2. If a cooling system is intended to operate without power, make sure all of its parts can be manipulated without power.
Again sounds obvious when stated like that, but far too easy to overlook, although good design reviews should have picked this up.

LESSON 3. Keep power trucks [mobile emergency generators] on or very close to the power plant site.
Why would we do that? Isn’t a central facility more cost effective? In this case no, it may not be!

LESSON 4. Install independent and secure battery systems to power crucial instruments during emergencies.
Same comment as for Lesson 2.

LESSON 5. Ensure that catalytic hydrogen recombiners (power-free devices that turn dangerous hydrogen gas back into steam) are positioned at the tops of reactor buildings where gas would most likely collect.
You’re never going to get a big build-up of hydrogen inside a containment building are you. Wait: isn’t that what a containment building is for? But be honest, how many of us would have thought of this?

LESSON 6. Install power-free filters on vent lines to remove radio-active materials and allow for venting that won’t harm nearby residents.
Again, see Lesson 2.

What remains clear to me is that the plant, the systems and the procedures worked correctly, and were implemented correctly, as they were designed. What failed is the 40-year-old design and the procedures which didn’t go far enough in their disaster scenario planning.

We would (and do) do much better now and will do even better as a result of this disaster. Because of its safety critical nature, the nuclear industry is like the aviation industry: every accident (and near-accident) is analysed for the underlying root cause(s) and there is a culture of incremental improvements and (where necessary/possible) of retro-fitting improvements. Notwithstanding the fact that Fukushima was (and is) a disaster, exacerbated by continuing failures in transparency and communication, I see this as a positive experience which should make nuclear power safer and more acceptable — not the reverse.

The biggest disaster is the effect on the displaced and frightened people which is largely psychological and social rather than medical; and that’s in large part down to the obfuscation and half-truths of the TEPCO and Japanese government communications. One day governments will learn that total transparency is the only safe course of action.

beliefs, current affairs, history

Poppy Off

So FIFA have decreed that the England football team may not wear poppies on their shirts during their friendly match against Spain this coming Saturday. This is on the grounds that:

Fifa decrees that shirts should not carry political, religious or commercial messages. “Such initiatives would open the door to similar initiatives from all over the world, jeopardising the neutrality of football,” [FIFA] said.

I’m with FIFA. For once they’re absolutely right. If an exception is made in this instance it’ll be made for every other instance. The words “wedge”, “thin” and “end” come to mind.

Moreover someone has to stand up to this sycophantic poppy nonsense. As I wrote last year, I’m not saying we should forget all about the wars for the liberation of Europe, the bravery, the fallen, etc. But the whole thing is so totally out of hand one dare not do anything but go along with it. It’s dictatorial; it’s sycophantic; and it’s backward looking. We need to turn round and be going forward in happiness, thanks and peace; not looking backward in a sugar-coated, maudlin, pseudo-Christian, glorification of war. Yeuch!

I don’t expect other people to agree with me — although I can hope that some will. But it is only if dissident voices are heard that opinions (on anything) will ever change and progress will be made.

memes, natural history, words

Word of the Week : Amaranth

Amaranth

1. An imaginary flower reputed never to fade; a fadeless flower (as a poetic conception).
2. A genus of ornamental plants (Amarantus, family Amarantaceæ) with coloured foliage, of which the Prince’s Feather and Love-lies-bleeding are species.
3. A purple colour, being that of the foliage of Amarantus.
4. A yellow amaranth: A composite plant (Helichrysum Stœchas).

memes, personal, pleasures, topographical

[44/52] Vintage Speed

[44/52] Vintage Speed
Week 44 entry for 52 weeks challenge.

There were a a few vintage cars wandering around the Mayfair/Bayswater area of London this afternoon, presumably having been on display/parade in Regent Street ahead of tomorrow’s London to Brighton run. They’re a real challenge to photograph in amongst all the other traffic especially as many are so small they tend to hide. In the end I managed to take this from the passenger seat of our car as we overtook one on the Bayswater Road near Lancaster Gate tube station.

beliefs, quotes, thoughts

Joseph Campbell

From time to time I dip into all manner of curious authors, often returning to them at protracted intervals. One such is the late Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) the American mythologist and author who is best known for his work in comparative mythology and religion. He was one of those early/mid-20th century polymaths who managed to see deeply into everything and extract paradigm shifting ideas and ways of explaining things. His words invariably make one think long, hard and deep — even when they at the same time contain a certain throwaway humour.

So I thought I’d share with you a few I picked, some while ago, from an anthology of his work compiled posthumously. In no particular order …

Our Purpose
When we talk about settling the world’s problems, we’re barking up the wrong tree. The world is perfect. It’s a mess. It has always been a mess. We are not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives.

Marriage
If you go into marriage with a program, you will find that it won’t work. Successful marriage is leading innovative lives together, being open, non-programmed. It’s a free fall: how you handle each new thing as it comes along. As a drop of oil on the sea, you must float, using intellect and compassion to ride the waves.

Spiritual Need
If what you are following, however, is your own true adventure, if it is something appropriate to your deep spiritual need or readiness, then magical guides will appear to help you.

Rituals
People ask me, “What can we have for rituals?” Well, what do you want to have a ritual for? You should have a ritual for your life. All a ritual does is concentrate your mind on the implications of what you are doing. For instance, the marriage ritual is a meditation on the step you are taking in learning to become a member of a duad, instead of one individual all alone. The ritual enables you to make the transit.
Ritual introduces you to the meaning of what’s going on. Saying grace before meals lets you know that you’re about to eat something that once was alive. When eating a meal, realize what you are doing. Hunting peoples thank the animal for having given itself. They feel real gratitude.

Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism is the first turning away from life, because life lives on lives. Vegetarians are just eating something that can’t run away.

Truth
When we talk about scientific truth — just as when we talk about God — we are in trouble, because truth has different meanings. William James said, and it’s valid, “Truth is what works”.
The idea of Truth with a capital “T” — that there is something called Truth that’s beyond the range of the relativity of the human mind trying to think — is what I call “the error of the found truth”. The trouble with all of these damned preachers is the error of the found truth. When they get that tremolo in the voice and tell you what God has said, you know you’ve got a faker. When people think that they, or their guru, have The Truth — “This is It!” — they are what Nietzsche calls “epileptics of the concept”: people who have gotten an idea that’s driven them crazy.

Burqas
Those women were going around in tents! Even their eyes were covered with cheesecloth, so you did not know if it was an old hag or a glorious goddess walking around. And you can’t respond to a tent.

Awareness
“Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the incorruptible eon of the gods”. That is James Joyce. The statement is quoted in Ulysses by Buck Mulligan. The situation is that Leopold Bloom, thinking of his home problem, is looking intently at a red triangle on the label of a bottle of Bass ale. When someone starts to disturb Bloom, Mulligan stops him, saying “preserve a druid silence. His soul is far away. It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born. Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access” and so on.

Religion
There is a wonderful line in the Portrait [of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce], where Stephen’s friend, who’s been hearing all this heretical stuff, asks if he intends to become a Protestant. “I said that I had lost the faith,” Stephen replies, “but not that I had lost my self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?”

Life
The obvious lesson … is that the first step to the knowledge of the highest divine symbol of the wonder and mystery of life is in the recognition of the monstrous nature of life and its glory in that character: the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think — and their name is legion — that they know how the universe could have been better than it is, how it would have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without life, are unfit for illumination. Or those who think — as do many — “Let me first correct society, then get around to myself” are barred from even the outer gate of the mansion of God’s peace. All societies are evil, sorrowful, inequitable; and so they will always be. So if you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who has not himself learned how to live in it in the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is.

Advice
A bit of advice given to a young Native American at the time of his initiation: “As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think”.

I’m currently dipping into The Power of Myth, so expect some more of the above in due course.

beliefs, history, links, science, sexuality, thoughts

Links of the Week

This weeks collection of the curious and interesting you may have missed …

Lord Norwich makes some sly remarks about Popes. But how does he know what Pope Nicholas V was like?

Now apparently out gut bacteria may be causing obesity. And you thought it was because I ate too much.

Scientists also think they’ve discovered why some of us hate Brussels Sprouts. Yes it’s all in the genetics, and our taste buds.

In other news, speculation is rife that Palaeolithic man went in for piercing his penis. It all sounds pretty tenuous to me, but then there’s nothing new under the foreskin sun.

And finally … And finally someone in “authority” has come to realise that what we’ve been saying all these years might just be helpful: prostitution could be solved by decriminalising brothels. Government: smell the coffee … it ain’t going to go away and if you licence it you can tax it!

beliefs, books, quotes, science

Quotes of the Week: Sublime & Ridiculous

The Tuesday scowls, the Wednesday growls, the Thursday curses, the Friday howls, the Saturday snores, the Sunday yawns, the Monday morns, the Monday morns. The whacks, the moans, the cracks, the groans, the welts, the squeaks, the belts, the shrieks, the pricks, the prayers, the kicks, the tears, the skelps, and the yelps.
[Samuel Beckett, Watt]

The moon lives twenty-eight days and this is our month. Each of these days represents something sacred to us: two of the days represent the Great Spirit; two are for Mother Earth; four are for the four winds; one is for the Spotted Eagle; one for the sun; and one for the moon; one is for the Morning Star; and four are for the four ages; seven for our seven great rites; one is for the buffalo; one for the fire; one for the water; one for the rock; and finally, one is for the two-legged people. If you add all these days up you will see that they come to twenty-eight. You should know also that the buffalo has twenty-eight ribs, and that in our war bonnets we usually wear twenty-eight feathers. You see, there is a signif­icance for everything, and these are things that are good for men to know and to remember.
[Black Elk, quoted somewhere I now forget by Joseph Campbell]

Moyers: What happens when a society no longer embraces a powerful mythology?
Campbell: What we’ve got on our hands. If you want to find out what it means to have a society without any rituals, read the New York Times.
Moyers: And you’d find?
Campbell: The news of the day, including destructive and violent acts by young people who don’t know how to behave in a civilized society.
Moyers: Society has provided them no rituals by which they become members of the tribe, of the community. All children need to be twice born, to learn to function rationally in the present world, leaving childhood behind …
Campbell: That’s exactly it. That’s the significance of the puberty rites. In primal societies, there are teeth knocked out, there are scarifications, there are circumcisions, there are all kinds of things done. So you don’t have your little baby body any more, you’re something else entirely.
When I was a kid, we wore short trousers, you know, knee pants. And then there was a great moment when you put on long pants. Boys now don’t get that. I see even five-year-olds walking around with long trousers. When are they going to know that they’re now men and must put aside childish things?
Moyers: Where do the kids growing up in the city — on 125th and Broadway, for example — where do these kids get their myths today?
Campbell: They make them up themselves. This is why we have graffiti all over the city. These kids have their own gangs and their own initiations and their own morality, and they’re doing the best they can … they have not been initiated into our society.
[Joseph Campbell; The Power of Myth]

Out of this scrimmage Thomas Drury emerges as something of an orchestrator, an impresario of knaveries …
[Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, 2nd edition, 2002]

A fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta.
[Shakespeare, I Henry IV, I ii]