Saturday 15 September 2018

from the annals of improbable research

Ludicrous as some of the entrants may be, none of the laureates of the Ig Noble prize (previously here and here)—a competition started back in 1991, meant to engage and to “first make people laugh and then make them think”—are without scientific merit and this year’s winners have recently been announced.
All of them have something innovative and thought-provoking behind their mad scientist persona but we particularly liked the winner in the category of chemistry, who undertook a serious trial to better understand the efficacy of human saliva as a cleaning agent (or indeed as a styling product) and discovered that the intuition and resourcefulness of mothers and conservators was correct and may even lead to isolating the responsible compound and creating a synthetic version.

evil red janet

We’re fortunate enough to have an old sort variety of apple tree growing in our backyard called der Schöner aus Boskoop (the nice one from Boskoop) or just Boskop for short—in reference to its nineteenth century pedigree from the orchards (in Boskoop, the Netherlands) of noted Dutch pomologist Kornelis Johannes Wilhelm Ottolander, who was responsible for many other fruit types as well—and waiting for the right time to harvest these winter apples (I think they’re keeping ripe), we were quite impressed with some of the names for heirloom apples as suggested by a neural network (previously). The Lady Fallstone, Spitzenborn, Bramboney, Winesour and Galler’s Baldwilling seemed like especially plausible names but do check out all of them and other taxonomical projects at the links above.

Friday 14 September 2018

18 u.s.c. § 371

Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort pled guilty on counts of conspiracy against the United States for failing to register his work on behalf of a foreign agent and obstruction of justice insofar as he tried to convince potential witnesses to not take part in ongoing investigations into wrongdoing and agrees to participate in the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Manafort entered his disposition ahead of a second trial that was scheduled for Monday and curries leniency for his decision and willingness to accept responsibility for what he’s enabled in exchange for full, truthful, complete and forthright cooperation though his sentence may mean ten years in prison. Pretending to be pre-occupied with other matters, Trump has so far been silent on the developments.

new style

This day for those subjects of the British Empire in 1752 was proceeded by the second of September due to the calendar reforms of the Chesterfield Act, ratified by Parliament two years prior.
The law synchronised the empire with most of the rest of the Western Europe that had adopted the Gregorian calendar in the late sixteenth century and also decreed that the new year began on the first of January instead of on Lady Day (the Feast of the Annunciation). Possibly exaggerated accounts of rioting with angry mobs demanding, “Give us our eleven days!” inspired cartoonist William Hogarth to satirise the partisan process with the lengthy and heated dispute between Whig and Tory members that prefaced passage.

liner notes

Can our government be competent? Jimmy Carter says yes! More here.

game of domes

The Russian armed forces are soliciting donations to build (in record time—to be completed by the 2020 seventy-fifth anniversary of the end of World War II) a massive cathedral in Patriot Park. Meant to unite and inspire the Russian people, this planned symbol of the role of the Orthodox Church in the army reminds some of the establishing shots of Westeros in the Game of Thrones or an anti-flak battery. Learn more and find more reporting from foreign bureaus at the BBC’s News from Elsewhere at the link above.

cone of uncertainty

As another potentially deadly and destructive hurricane is poised to ravage the eastern seaboard, Trump is expressing doubts about the death toll in Puerto Rico from last year’s Hurricane Maria, saying that Democrats have inflated numbers in order to make him look bad. We don’t want to draw more attention to this unslaking narcissist and his unabashed departures from reality but this particular lie especially insulting and emblematic of his revolting behaviour in that Trump is only willing to recognise and honour only one victim: himself.