blogging new ideas in science, business, learning
A great big thank you to alex markovitch art of Russia, who have noted our little blog. It is thrilling to have readers in other lands-especially the land of Tolstoy, Dostoievsky , Shostakovitch and Yuri Gagarin.
We cannot forget, on this 8th May, how older people told us of the enormous sacrifices which the people of Russia made to defeat Hitler. A fact well testified by objective historians.
Friends of LSS, it’s so easy to be gloomy about things nowadays, as our last three rather sombre blogs demonstrate. And so it’s time to find a corner of your life, and home, for a little cocktail cheer. This week, another summery one: Planter’s Punch.
What you will need: Shaker, six ice cubes, tall glasses, dark rum, Galliano, orange juice, apricot brandy
How to do it : In the shaker add one measure dark rum, 0.5 measure apricot brandy, 3 measures of fresh orange juice, 1 measure Galliano. Shake over ice.
Decorate: to keep that yellow tropical look, slices of things like lemon and orange, even apricot if you can manage it without cutting your fingers off.
#cocktail #planterspunch
The growing debate about whether, and when, to start letting people back to work, reveals an agonising dilemma for the Government. How do you save lives without causing a total economic collapse? We at LSS will listen to both sides with the utmost empathy, as is our Duty on this blog.
For a look at the awful economic problems which confront the Government, you could do worse than go to the writings of Larry Elliott of the Guardian. He has always been one of the most fair-minded and independent economics journalists whom we have come across. Once again, we shall link his article below, and precis the main points for those rushing off to the office. (who they?-ed)
He advises:
-To all intents and purposes, the economy has collapsed
-Past recessions have tended to concentrate on one section of the economy; this collapse is system-wide
-There is little sign that bounce back will be rapid; the damage is already too deep, and health restrictions will have to continue in some form
-Falls in wages and employment levels will make consumers exceedingly cautious as we move into the autumn
He concludes “The aim now is to avoid a great depression”
#LarryElliott #GuardianBusiness #RishiSunak #depression #covid19
Today we have the honour to air the views of our first Guest Contributor, Mr Lindsay Charlton. Although we do not necessarily agree with his views, nor those of any of our future guests (and boy, have we got some lined up for you), Mr Charlton has had a successful career as a journalist, broadcaster, Managing Director and successful high tech entrepreneur. A man with a CV like that has to be taken seriously. This is what he says
It would be easy to point a finger solely at Johnson and Hancock for the tragic toll of life in care homes but I suspect history will conclude that our scientists were slow off the mark too. Thirty years as a journalist taught me two things about experts. The first is that they constantly disagree with each other, the second that they hedge their bets. Or am I being harsh?
To get Lindsay’s full thoughts on this and many issues, go to the following link.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsay-charlton-02b1506/
#BorisJohnson #MattHancock #lockdown #coronavirus #LindsayCharlton
A recent posting in Nature Briefings gives us some idea just how tough the Sars-CoV-2 virus is going to be. We post the link below, and urge you to take a little time to read it, whether as a citizen, taxpayer, family member, or as befits a reader of LSS, a good old fashioned rationalist who is curious about the world around them. We will not spoil it for you, but note these telling points as you read
This virus has an array of adaptations which make it more lethal than previous coronaviruses which we have encountered
It attacks human cells at multiple points, unlike previous corona viruses
It has a dangerous mutation mechanism called recombination
There is also a very clear discussion of the origins and evolution of this virus.
Here is a precis, from Nature Briefings, which we hope can give you a link by other means
The new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has an array of adaptations that make it much more lethal than the coronaviruses humanity has met so far. Unlike close relatives, SARS-CoV-2 can readily attack human cells at multiple points, with the lungs and the throat being the main targets. Once inside the body, the virus makes use of a diverse arsenal of dangerous molecules. And genetic evidence suggests that it has been hiding in nature possibly for decades. But there are many crucial unknowns about this virus, including how exactly it kills, whether it will evolve into something more — or less — lethal and what it can reveal about the next outbreak from the coronavirus family.
#NatureBriefings #Sars-CoV-2 #Coronavirus #Covid19 #Bats
Ralph Vaughn Williams (1872-1958) was a formidable composer of symphonies, orchestral pieces. ballets and songs. General readers will best recall his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Greensleeves; fans, his Lark Ascending and songs such as Silent Noon. Coming from a well- to- do and high-minded family, his life and ethos are somehow typical of that mid-century, BBC -and- Rations Britain which fought the second world war and went on to create things like the NHS, Welfare State and jet engines.
In 1941 that war was going very badly indeed. Having scraped through the Fall of France and the Battle of Britain, convoy losses were mounting. More worryingly for insiders, the last of Britain’s gold reserves were about to be gobbled up by the United States. in return for some distinctly vintage destroyers. It was the moment at which Britain had finally stepped down from its status as an independent power. Yet it still fought on for its democracy, its only important ally being Canada.
Hoping to out- propaganda Goebbels in the then neutral United States, the government commissioned filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger to make a wartime action film with some of Britain’s then leading stars, including Laurence Olivier and Leslie Howard. It concerns the adventures of a U -Boat crew trying to flee across Canada to the United States, the people they meet, and their ideas. It was a successful defence of the ideals of democracy free speech and tolerance, as opposed to falling under the rule of a single all powerful dictator. That film was 49th Parallel -and it can still be watched today.
Asanother of the Best Of British, Vaughn Williams was asked to score the film, and succeeds triumphantly. The phrasing and orchestration capture his style perfectly; newcomers will find no better introduction to his works. The version I link below is the one for original film titles, with Muir Mathieson and the London Symphony Orchestra. Modern conductors are inclined to take it faster. Listen to what audiences of the time would have recalled on VE Day!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Vaughan_Williams
#49thparallel #VEDay #vaughnwilliams
We are indebted to Mr Peter Seymour of Hertfordshire for bringing our attention to an article published in CNN news by Harry Enten (How Trump has broken the polls 4 May 2020)*
Enten draws an important distinction between what people want to happen, and what they believe will happen. Example: when you tell a pollster “I will vote for Biden”, you want Biden to win. When you tell the same pollster in the next question “I think Trump will win”, that is your belief about what will happen. Unless you have changed your mind.
Enten points out that between 1988 and 2012, voters’ predictions of who they believed would win were a more powerful predictor of electoral success than voters’ declared intentions (“I will vote for Dole,Romney, Dukakis…etc”) However he points out that in recent times this pattern has broken. In 2018, voters called the US House race for the Republicans, but the Democrats won it-as the opinion polls had been correctly predicting.
So what is happening? We at LSS have always been fascinated by the gap between when people say what they think you want to hear, and their true intentions. Especially when these intentions are not certain, and they may be havering between choices that they would really rather not make. As in quantum mechanics, the very act of measuring the system changes it. This may explain odd election results such as that of Britain in 1992, Readers may recall that after large poll leads, Labour was soundly beaten, a fact attributed to “shy Tories“, who told the pollsters one thing, then did another.
Yet we believe this explanation is at once too facile, and misses an opportunity to delve deeper into a fascinating subject-Games Theory. The observation that as one member of a group changes its behaviour, other members react, in turn change theirs is well known. A classic example is the game of Poker, played by some very intelligent people, where the change in tactics by one player will be mirrored by all the others around the table. Michael Karnjanaprakorn posts an interesting guide to poker decision pathways in his beginner’s guide to game theory, which we have linked below.*
Games theory attempts to put mathematical models onto complex systems where the actions of every player modify the actions of all the others. The pioneering work was started by John van Neuman and Oskar Morgenstern in 1944. It is widely applied in biology, information and economics. In our present context it would attempt to answer the fiendish intricacies of a situation where voters declare for Biden, making Trump supporters try harder, leading Biden voters to fear they have caused a Trump win, so they react by…… etc etc ad nauseam)
Before we go mad, or lose ourselves in a whole day in games theory (see excellent Wiki article below) it is worth remembering two things. Firstly, most voters’ attachments are deeply formed, and they will not change their minds. Most elections are decided by a relative handful of swing voters in a few constituencies (we think that’s Districts in the US). Secondly, all attempts to apply over elaborate theories to human behaviour have so far failed. It was always the Communist boast that Marxist analysis was so perfect that the victory of the proletariat was inevitable. So you had better get on the winning side, or look out. Obviously the more people who did that, the more chance there was that the Communists would win.
They didn’t.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/03/politics/trump-polling/index.html *
https://hackernoon.com/beginners-guide-to-game-theory-31e3e6adcec9 *
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
#enten #DonaldTrump #Biden #gamestheory #opinionpolls
“Never forget that war is about destroying things and killing people.” So said Squadron Leader Teddy Haslam to the historian Peter Hennessy in 1978.* It is right to celebrate the downfall of one particularly odious dictator. But there were many more; and more no doubt to come.
The experience of war has been depicted so many times in films books, and comic strips, that it has become hard for us who have never experienced a war to know what it is like. This week, many will be selecting their favourite World War Two movie (why does that make us feel ever so slightly uncomfortable?) And so, for that alone , we will at least nominate one, by a master director. And we will try to be as brief as possible. I hereby nominate Cross Of Iron (1977) Director; Sam Peckinpah
Wars start because one side gambles that it can win. if you want to see the reasons why Hitler gambled, and how he lost, you can do worse than look at the credit titles of this film, which are all taken from Nazi newsreels of the time, that slowly merge into the action , which takes place during the German retreat in Russia in the autumn of 1943. Wars are hell, not only because of the killing and bad food, but also because they are fought by people. Which means that all the petty rivalries, jealousies and hatreds of office politics are simply transferred to the battlefield. You can never escape your adversaries whether they are the Other Side or your own Commanding Officer. And boy is Captain Stransky ( Maximillian Schell) a difficult boss! Aside from being backstabbing, authoritarian, homophobic, vicious and mean, he can attempt the same attempts at faux charm as a moray eel gently welcoming a school of angel fish into its lair for lunch. You will have seen the type. The only time that his rival, Sergeant Steiner (James Coburn) can really get out on his own is when Stransky betrays his own men, leaving them far behind enemy lines. Steiner has his own ideas about 360 degree performance appraisals, but we will not spoil the ending. Which, instead of being a happy one, dissolves into an unhappy anti idyll of the horrors of war, and this famous quote from Bertold Brecht:
Don’t rejoice in his defeat, you men.
For though the world stood up and beat the bastard back
The bitch that bore him is in heat again
*Peter Hennessy Never Again Vintage 1994 The author now is of course Lord Hennessy
#veday #hitler #crossof iron
We are indebted to the noted educationalist and raconteur Mr David Foley, of Greenford, for the following story, which apparently is true.
One day a German physicist was driving home from his laboratory. Suddenly a Police motorcyclist came alongside and asked him to pull over. He did so, and wound down the window of his car* to ask what the problem was.
“You have a cat in the boot of your car, sir.” said the Police Officer.
” So, what is the problem?” he asked of the Officer.
“The problem is, that it is dead, sir.” said the Officer
“How do you know it’s dead? It was alright when I put it in there”
“Well, it is now, Professor Schrodinger”
*We know that this is a true story because of the authentic detail about winding the window down. If it had been faked later, the creator would have mentioned electric windows. Schrodinger lived long before electric windows
#schrodingerscat #cat #police #quantum physics
Before the Covid19 pandemic, many of us were worried about the possibility of at least one, perhaps more, superbacteria that were resistant to all known antibiotics. Far from going away, this possibility has actually been brought nearer. Because as patients who suffer from Covid19 develop secondary infections, we burn through our stock of effective antibiotics even more quickly. One of the prime aims of LSS is to get out of the way, and let people who know take over. One such group is Antibiotics Research UK, a charity, which was founded by Professor Colin Garner.
And so we link to their website. It is packed with information, including special features on coronaviruses. And it shows how you can help. If you have a family, or know someone who needs surgery, or has cancer, antibiotics protect all of them. Please consider them very seriously indeed
https://www.antibioticresearch.org.uk/latest-news
#antibiotics #coronavirus #covid19 #antibioticresearchuk
