A few weeks I saw the band Flipper, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect since the only album of theirs that I know came out almost 30 years ago, but as it turns out they were absolutely awesome, easily one of the gigs of the year. Here’s some highlights of what I can find on youtube:
A video for Ever
a live performance of Way of the World from 1983
Sex Bomb from the same show
(I Saw You) Shine with visual effects
Last night the Sea Thieves played at the Grace (just Zac for this show), here is a taste care of Spoz who does an amazing job of documenting the Adelaide music scene
and as a bonus here is No Through Road from the Leader Cheetah cd launch at Jive that I couldn’t get into because it was sold out.
The second series of Phoenix is out today (at least in my local ABC shop). I used to sometimes complain about Phoenix not being available until the first series finally turned up a while back, I was worried that it might not have had enough promotion to get anough sales for the second series to be released as well, but looks like it was OK. I don’t remember too much about series 2 but from what I recall it follows a similar format with a single police investigation being followed across the course of the whole season, a sort of approach that has been a big hit with many people in recent years with The Wire. Now it’s time to cross fingers and hope for a dvd release of the follow up series, Janus, which was also excellent.
I’ve done a bit of a clearing out of some dead links, also added a few new ones, in particular I’d like to draw your attention to The Michael Duffy Files (aka Loon Pond) which does a great job of keeping track of some of the strange things written by (mostly conservative) columnists in the Australian press. It’s a bit like an Australian version of Sadly, No! but the posts go into much more depth than the quick take downs of U.S. conservatives there. Some examples:
Also I’d particularly recommend the hilarious spEak You’re bRanes where they take the piss out of comments left on the BBC’s Have Your Say site. As well as the posts, the comments are well worth reading through as well. A couple of favourites:
The following post has been sitting around in draft form for a while and was delayed by my computer problems, so it’s a bit outdated and there isn’t so much discussion on this book now. However, since Steve Fielding appears to be a fan of Plimer’s book I guess it’s still worth posting. I’ve added a few updates to the original post here and there, most notably excerpts of, and links to, reviews from ABC radio at the end.
Both Barry Brook and Tim Lambert have posts which go into the details of what’s in Ian Plimer’s new book which is getting quite a bit of attention in the press. There is also more from Ian Enting. Having previously seen Plimer’s arguments for the non-existence of anthropogenic global warming in interviews and not been terribly impressed by them (see here and here) I was not expecting much from the book, but it seems that it’s much worse than what I might have expected. Both of the links above outline many problems, and it’s important to realise that these are not just nitpicking minor errors. For example, citing the work of EG Beck. This is a graph which shows that before 1957 atmospheric C02 jumped around wildly, with huge amounts of carbon dioxide entering and leaving the atmosphere on a yearly basis to an extent which appears to be far beyond what is physically possible. And after 1957 that behaviour stopped, remarkably right at the time that measurements began from Mauna Loa, a site remote enough to remove local effects and give a true representation of the atmospheric level. It is stunning that Plimer could cite this. We are left with the conclusion that either he believes that huge fluctuations in C02 actually happened until right at the moment we started measuring it more accurately, or he doesn’t and he threw it in there anyway. Neither option reflects well on him, especially as he seems to always be claiming the scientific high ground on the issue of AGW.
This isn’t an isolated example. The paper referred to above was published in Energy and Environment, a journal renowned for publishing anything that questions AGW, no matter how bad it is. For example Khilyuk and Chilingar, which, believe it or not, argues that human C02 emissions are negligible since they are tiny compared with natural degassing over the entire history of the planet. Actually not so surprising that Plimer should cite this, it’s not so different from the sort of arguments he’s been making based on geological timescales.
There’s more from E&E such that the famous Shulte paper, which even they were initially reluctant to publish. There is quite a story behind this one, details here.
And it goes on, Plimer actually uses Martin “You’re a big daft cock” Durkin’s dodgy graph from The Great Global Warming Swindle. Both Brook and Lambert give the details … and many more. Much more on this in one of Peter Sinclair’s excellent youtube videos as well.
The coverage in the mainstream media has been pathetic (or at least was at the original time of writing, their were subsequently a few articles that improved things slightly). Can’t they find anyone who is at least a bit scientifically literate to evaluate the claims that Plimer makes? Instead it has been wall to wall puff pieces which amount to little more than advertising for the book and its central claim that AGW is not a problem. As well as the SMH article I wrote about earlier there’s one in the Independent which is full of irrelevant details of change in the distant past and pushes Plimer’s conspiracy theory about climate scientists. Of course the coverage in the Australian has been a continuation of their usual war on science. The press coverage is full of journalists who are terribly impressed by all those sciency looking footnotes in Plimer’s book but haven’t bothered to see if any of it makes sense. They have missed that many of the references are to such an un-scientific source as Energy & Environment, that old data is used, that bold claims are made without evidence being cited, that flawed and misleading graphs have been included. Just because it’s a book written by a scientist about a scientific topic and it has lots of footnotes and refences it doesn’t make it science. Lambert and Brook have documented in detail (linked above) why it’s not science.
Update: Since writing this there have been a number of reviews on the ABC’s Science Show and Ockham’s Razor, all rather negative (which is either evidence of left-wing bias at the ABC or just indicative of what actual experts think depending on your point of view)
Given the errors, the non-science, and the nonsense in this book, it should be classified as science fiction in any library that wastes its funds buying it. The book can then be placed on the shelves alongside Michael Crichton’s State of Fear, another science fiction book about climate change with many footnotes. The only difference is that there are fewer scientific errors in State of Fear.
I think Plimer is entirely sincere in his efforts to argue against anthropogenic climate change. But he is misguided, and his interpretation of the literature is confused. Why do I have any credibility on this issue? Like Plimer I am a geologist, with a very long experience in basic fieldwork. I have particular experience in working on the evidence for severe glaciations in the past, and on understanding the early history of the Earth. I am also a planetary scientist with an interest in other planets in the solar system, including their climates.
Reviewing this book has been an unpleasant experience for me. I have been a friendly colleague of Plimer’s for 25 years or more. I admired his support for innovative geological research during his early career as a mineral explorer in industry. I cheered him on when he took on the so-called creation scientists and their bogus nonsense, a crusade that cost him dearly in the end. I have enjoyed his always lively and entertaining lectures. But this time, in my opinion, he has done a disservice to science and to the community at large.
If this had been written by an honours student, I would have failed it with the comment: You have obviously trawled through a lot of material but the critical analysis is missing. Supporting arguments and unsupported arguments in the literature are not distinguished or properly referenced, and you have left the impression that you have not developed an understanding of the processes involved. Rewrite!
The Now Show is back on BBC Radio 4. It is a comedy show which looks at the week’s news stories and is well worth listening to. Each episode is available for download for a week after the Friday night broadcast. Details here.
JUNE
JULY
AUGUST
In July I’ll be in Sydney & Canberra, so I’ll list some gigs there that I may attend:
SYDNEY & CANBERRA JULY GIGS
Tours Missing Adelaide
One of the greatest bands around when I was going to gigs in Sydney in the 90’s was Crow, they’re back together and are playing at the Northcote Social club in Melbourne on July 25.
The Flaming Lips play in Sydney on July 28th (after I’ve left though).
In early August NZ pop legends the Bats launch their latest album The Guilty Office in Sydney & Melbourne. I was fortunate to be in Christchurch for the launch there back in December and it was fantastic, definitely recommend the gig and the cd.
Also coming up GZA is touring the east coast in September playing Liquid Swords. There are rumours that fellow Wu Tang Clan member Raekwon might tour later in the year as well.
Animal Collective play the Meredith Music Festival plus shows in Sydney, Brisbane & Perth in December.
On the Stereo
Things have been a bit quiet here for a while due to computer issues, should be back to normal now. Next time someone tells you that Macs don’t crash, don’t believe them!
Winnerfest was fantastic on the weekend, here is No Through Road (care of Spoz)
Other highlights include local supergroup (with members of Hit the Jackpot, Roo Shooter, The Moonies and many more Adelaide bands) the Avant Gardeners who played their best gig yet, here’s one of their tracks. Apparently they are playing again fairly soon, not sure of the details though
It was also great to see the return of a number of the members of Little Ice Age in a new band called Bye Bye Mountain. Here they are at an earlier appearance at the Grace
Other newer bands worth looking out for based on impressive Winnerfest appearances are post-rock types Steering By Stars and Billy Bishop Goes to War.
It was great to see favourites The Sea Thieves and Guy Blackman sgain, though the front bar wasn’t always the best for the quieter acts. Henry Wagons fit in well there though, he’ll be returning to Adelaide in July with the full band.
The big news this week is another gig coming up at the Metro which is of interest to fans of The Silvermine Tapes or Flat Stanley. I’ll cut’n'paste straight from the Delicates’ myspace page:
Ladies, gentlemen:
In their live debut, please be upstanding for The Delicates. The band contain some familiar faces to those sniffing around Adelaide’s indie rock venues in the 90s: Max Mackinnon and Paul Champion on guitars, Stuart Symons on drums. The band will be kicking out in their first show to celebrate their debut album The Thunderous Sound of The Delicates.
http://www.myspace.com/delicatesThey will be ably assisted by:
Melbourne free-rock 3-piece Battlesnake. These boys hold down 100% improvised thundering hip-shaking rock, have never played the same song twice, and sound like the joyous hollering child of The Necks, James Brown, The Breeders, and an old Ninja Tunes compilation. (Yes, it was a group marriage. Well, common-law marriage anyway.)
Battlesnake are Michael Pulsford and Angus Kemp, who you may know from The Silvermine Tapes, and Adam Smith, who doesn’t want his past dragged into this.
http://www.myspace.com/battlesnakemusicFading Fires – a Melbourne duo featuring Mat Watson (Mountains In The Sky) on drums and Chris Rainer on guitars: half lap-steel psychedelia, half shivery Krautrock, all class.
http://www.myspace.com/thefadingfiresFrontiers In Photography – Sydney’s Scott Gillespie (ex Silvermine Tapes) presenting his hazy, folk-inflected portals to other dimensions.
http://www.myspace.com/myfrontiersinphotographyThe astute among you will notice that half the Silvermine Tapes will be on stage that night. Who knows where that might lead?
I was planning on going to the Screamfeeder/NTR gig but as a huge Silvermine Tapes fan I don’t think I could miss this.
MAY
JUNE
JULY
On the Stereo
I’ve only just noticed this week that Adelaide now has Google Transit. When you look at Adelaide on google maps you can select “transit” on the “more” menu. All public transit routes are then shown, for example see here for an example. Note that bus stops are shown, if you click on a bus stop it will open a window showing all the buses that stop there, as well as when the next ones are due. You can click a link to more timetable information. Also, you can search for directions by public transport. Here’s an example to get from the airport to norwood
View Larger Map
I’ve tried out a few things, and as is usual with these sorts of automated route planners it doesn’t always choose the best one, especially when bus trips are combined for walking. For example, while it did a good job of identifying options for bus trips from near my house, it did a terrible job of telling me how to get to one of the nearest bus stops since the best way involves crossing a park (the directions given turned a 5-10 walk to a 30min one!), but overall I think it’s an impressive tool. In particular it is nice being able to combine with street view if you need to get off the bus at an unfamiliar stop and want to know what it looks like.
So far it is only available in Adelaide & Perth in Australia, though it is available in many more cities overseas. Presumably more Australian cities will be added in the future.
