I’m on the road, first stop Toowoomba (unless you count brief stops at Blanchetown, Renmark, Mildura, Balranald, Neranderra, Parkes, Narrabri and Goondiwindi along the way). My second visit to Queensland, but given that the first was about 25 years ago I don’t remember it so well. Plenty more travelling to go in the next few weeks, I’ll post about it when I can.
John Baez has an excellent post on the journal Chaos, Solitons and Fractals. In particular he is interested in the curious fact that one of the editors has had an amazing 322 papers published in the journal. On closer examination Baez suggests that a number of these papers are essentially numerology hiding behind a bit of genuine maths and physics. Anyone with an interest in maths &/or physics should follow the link to read the details, but it is also of more general interest for anyone who has followed the controversy over the big scientific publishers, particularly the much criticised Elsevier.
Baez writes
Now, I get crud like this in my email every day. I delete it without comment. What makes this case different is that El Naschie gets to publish these papers in a superficially respectable journal that he actually edits.
The fact that Elsevier would let Naschie edit this journal and publish large numbers of papers like this in it shows that their system for monitoring the quality of their journals is broken.
The fact that this journal costs $4520 per year would be hilarious, except that libraries are actually buying it — at a reduced rate, bundled in with other Elsevier journals, but still!
It is worth following the long comments thread at the n-Category Café as various readers find unusual things in Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, including two near identical papers, a number of sockpuppets come to El Naschie’s defence, and readers puzzle over the details of his background and current affiliation. No doubt there is more to this story which is still to emerge.
See also Backreaction, The Quantum Pontiff and Ars Technica.
Tonight Pimmon played a great set of abstract electronics at the Big Star Basement. That’s him below, with support Mourgos Grund second.
Pimmon plays again tomorrow at De La Catessen (just off Waymouth St near FAD) together with Richard Francis (NZ) plus locals Scott O’Hara & Kynan Lawlor, and Daniel Varicchio. Highly recommended.
In other gig news, the 2009 Womadelaide lineup has been annouced. Looks good for Afrobeat fans with both Tony Allen and Seun Kuti & Egypt 80. I don’t know too much else there but it’s always a good event (even when it’s in the middle of a ridiculous March heatwave as it was this year).
Unfortunately The Bug & Warrior Queen won’t be making it to Adelaide on their upcoming tour, they’re only playing Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. The Melbourne show is on Jan 25, so an Aus day long weekend could be on the cards for fans from Adelaide though.
The Bug & Warrior Queen – Poison Dart
Also missing Adelaide is Dubstep producer Plastician who is only playing Sydney & Melbourne in mid December (he’s actually playing more NZ dates than Aus ones).
In February El-P is touring. No word yet on whether any other Def Jux artists will be joining him or if there’ll be an Adelaide show, all I know so far is Feb 26 at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne.
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
On the Stereo
Land What Land (with Cameron from Ninetynine on drums)
Ninetynine‘s Laura MacFarlane
Ninetynine
Woke up this morning to hear ABC radio playing an interview John Howard did on Fox News. Can’t find a link for it right now (Update: footage and commentary at Larvatus Prodeo), but the gist of it was that we shouldn’t respond to the current financial crisis by putting constraints on capitalism because it was caused by government regulation in the first place. Sounds like he’s pushing the CRA talking-point – i.e. the attempt by market fundamentalists to cope with current events by blaiming it all on the Community Reinvestment Act. There is a great analysis of why this is a load of rubbish by Daniel Gross at Slate, who sums it up with
Lending money to poor people doesn’t make you poor. Lending money poorly to rich people does.
He also links to this post about it by Barry L. Ritholtz at The Big Picture which is well worth reading
There are too many people who are trying to duck responsibility for the current mess, and seeking to place blame elsewhere. I find this to be terribly important, as we seek to repair the damage amidst an economic crisis. Rather than objectively evaluate the present crisis in an attempt to craft an appropriate response, the partisan hacks are trying to obscure the causes of the current situation. Like burglars trying to destroy the surveillance tape, they are all too aware of their role in the present debacle.
Shame on them for their foolishness or cowardice.
So where is John Howard getting these ideas from? Perhaps this quote from the Slate article can tell us
These arguments are generally made by people who read the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and ignore the rest of the paper—economic know-nothings whose opinions are informed mostly by ideology and, occasionally, by prejudice.
Not the first time I’ve heard something like this about the WSJ. This is what Tim Lambert at Deltoid had to say about them after knocking down one of their regular pieces of stupidity on global warming
Why does the Wall Street Journal combine superb news coverage with absurd nonsense on its editorial pages? My theory is that the editorial pages are just p0rn for right wingers. The readers need accurate information on the news pages for business decisions, but the editorial pages aren’t used that way, so are filled with fantasies to make the readers feel good.
They’re also into the DDT myth and denialism over the “Lancet Study”.
Just a quick update on upcoming gigs. Sydney electronic artist Pimmon is playing a couple of shows this month. On the 23rd of November he’s at the Exeter Big Star records (6pm, $5, all ages), and on the 24th he’ll be at Gallery De La Catessen. The second show is with Richard Francis from NZ, who also plays at the Exeter on the 26th.
Apparently Pimmon shows are pretty rare (I’ve never seen him before despite being interested in his music for many years).
You can read an interview with him here, or listen to some music on his myspace page.
Lots of stuff out there about the U.S. election – Americablog and Crooks & Liars have been two of my main sources of election reading – but I’ll just point out one specific story that caught my attention: The Washington Post reports on spontaneous celebrations in Washington DC.
I have also...