tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225185252024-03-07T14:43:42.945+11:00From the notebook of.Unicorns and cannonballs, palaces and piers, trumpets towers and tenements, wide oceans full of tears...S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.comBlogger868125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-84510206495923742552024-01-13T20:13:00.004+11:002024-01-13T20:14:47.206+11:00The Isle Of Dogs affair of Jonson and Nashe The Isle Of Dogs by Ben Jonson and Thomas Nashe is the most successfully anathematised Elizabethan play: no copies remained and the writers and actors swore off it, theatres were all closed down temporarily and almost destroyed. To supplement the Wikipedia entry on this lost play is the entry in the Cambridge Edition Of The Works Of Ben Jonson Online. It adds much detail, although not S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-29000888021829132092021-01-12T19:33:00.002+11:002021-01-12T19:57:23.070+11:00The Most admired people in 2020 In two polls reported for the most admired people, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama were the most consistently regarded.
To be precise, Barack Obama came first worldwide, and first or second in the US, depending on the poll. In Australia and the UK, he was beaten by David Attenborough.
Michelle Obama was the most admired woman worldwide, and in both US polls. In the UK, Queen S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-28028230891009899662020-09-16T10:37:00.005+10:002020-09-16T10:42:00.336+10:00Spring wisteria: early I'm recording here 2020's spring flowerings, the wisteria and jasmine in particular.This year, the jasmine started coming out mid-August. This is roughly what I would hope for in a normal season: it was initially a late winter blossoming. In the recent climate-disrupted past, it had been coming out early to mid July at the earliest.The wisteria started appearing last week - S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-48506544413267541212020-07-27T13:28:00.003+10:002020-07-27T13:28:43.224+10:00Trump's final strategy: discord and divisivenessTrump's poll numbers have drifted down to dangerous levels, due in no small part to his lack of leadership on COVID-19. In fact, from mid-April he had deliberately pushed full responsibility to the States (see this report from the Guardian and this timeline).
With his hallmark rally plans in tatters due to COVID and spoilers, I estimate his ultimate strategy to win re-election is to fall S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-41785353312131953082020-07-25T09:27:00.002+10:002020-07-25T09:33:25.674+10:00COVID: NSW spreads inside (Shape of an emerging outbreak, part 2)The original outbreaks in Sydney eventually died down, as specific public warnings, testing, tracing, monitoring, restrictions and quarantining incoming travellers slowly did the job.
But Sydney remains on the cusp of a renewed outbreak due to infection leakage from Melbourne, and it's still too hard for me to get a sense of whether new infections will settle down or not. The recent S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-86814389868826467722020-07-23T17:26:00.001+10:002020-07-28T14:27:35.993+10:00COVID: The shape of an emerging outbreak?
The current situation:
Australia nearly had the virus fully under control, with little to no community spreading left. Until.
Unfortunately, returning travellers were isolated for 14 days in hotels. Not a problem in itself, but in Melbourne hotel-based enforcement was contracted out to major security companies, who subcontracted it to subcontractors, etc, resulting in S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-61871347918056291202020-07-21T15:35:00.000+10:002020-07-27T13:29:15.295+10:00COVID: for too many people, it's too hardFrom the ABC today:
"Biosecurity expert Professor Raina MacIntyre said she was still noticing a worrying level of complacency in NSW despite the recent increase in cases."I have noticed it myself that nobody's keeping a physical distance, nobody's wearing a mask, and unless we do things, we may lose the freedoms that we have at the moment in Sydney," she said.
"I think people should think about S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-78558888609977455682020-04-13T15:07:00.001+10:002020-07-27T13:29:37.825+10:00COVID-19: Australia turning the cornerAustralia's new COVID cases are plummeting:
... and the cumulative number of cases is flattening, per this logarithmic scale:
These charts and others are courtesy of the state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation; they are updated daily.
We're in lockdown, with non-essential business closed, and people working from home where possible. But in so many ways, the whole word is S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-87595203315063461232020-04-12T13:31:00.000+10:002020-04-12T13:31:03.989+10:00A few insights into Blog comments spamPeople have been spamming blog comments for years. From manual beginnings, people developed spambots to automate the process, which understandably resulted in a huge increase in spam traffic. In earlier days, the intention was a mixture of attempts to build traffic to legitimate sites (for both manual traffic and search engine optimisation), and various scams including pump and S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-76525496727087831122019-08-17T08:42:00.001+10:002019-09-03T19:16:55.494+10:00The Spammer collectionEver wonder what all the spam comments look like? Is it worth doing an analysis?
If your answer to both questions is "No!!", then you're a fairly normal person, and not a spambot.
But hey, it's my blog. So I'm going to gather up a mass of spammer comments below, and maybe someday I'll analyse them, perhaps even find a tool to track down and aggregate the information they give meS Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com56tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-51029231870844538372019-01-16T07:33:00.001+11:002019-01-16T07:40:23.496+11:00Brexit parliamentary vote resoundingly NOT a betrayal of democracyTheresa May had been banging on for weeks about how voting against her brexit plan would be a betrayal of democracy. And she was clearly wrong, wrong, wrong.
UK MPs voted against her plan - with no time left for a new plan - by a whopping 432 to 202.
May's concept of democracy is fundamentally flawed. Yours is too, probably.
It is most clearly not democracy to implement brexit whenS Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-39886161264602989822018-08-17T07:51:00.001+10:002018-08-17T07:51:36.908+10:00Vale Aretha (1942 - 2018)Aretha Franklin's singing was so special, so spiritual, because she grew up singing in her father's church. She soars, she touches the soul.
Most of the tributes that will pour in on her death will focus on her well-known songs (the BBC overnight was endlessly rehashing extracts of I Say A Little Prayer, Respect, and Natural Woman). Few will demonstrate why they think she was S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-28076432269908877882018-04-13T07:51:00.000+10:002018-04-18T07:05:38.929+10:00Sydney Climate Change report: We're a full season out of whack35 degrees today. That's truly awful.
This is the middle of autumn. Sydney is seeing a week's worth of temperatures hovering in the 30s - temperatures that should be gone by the beginning of February; today's peak should sit squarely in the middle of a bad, hot summer.
Autumn leaves are blowing around while elsewhere spring flowers are confused into coming out for a second season.
S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-11577557567696410132018-01-30T07:42:00.000+11:002018-01-31T11:30:13.826+11:00Mark E Smith: No More Mr CrankyMark E Smith is dead. I was quite taken aback.
Thus The Fall is no more. A band whose only constant was Smith, over a period of 40 years there were, at last count, 66 other members, a third of whom lasted less than a year. Smith famously said "if it's me and your granny on bongos, it's The Fall". Or, as a recent reviewer said, it's "Mark E Smith and whoever he's barking S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-49500376010012552502018-01-24T20:52:00.000+11:002018-01-26T12:04:18.628+11:00American Football: Nick Foles is Carson Wentz? Super Bowl here we come.The NFC Conference Championship was the last playoff game before the Super Bowl. It was exciting, but it was also strange and totally unexpected. The underdogs came through in a big way, and the only people who were happy with the result were the bookies and the denizens of Philadelphia - oh and anyone who loves a great game of gridiron.
The Philadelphia Eagles were the best team S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-52000389092953288072017-03-03T08:12:00.001+11:002017-03-03T08:12:25.607+11:00Music Trivia: death of a Very Select Cohort
We should note the passing of a whole cohort in just the
small end of this year.
Is your name Peter?
Did you release a single called You’re A Lady in 1972? You wrote the song? Well, the year’s not far out yet, but you’re
already dead.
Peter Skellern? His
song was big at the time. Slow, gentle,
loads of sugary choir brass. Died 17th
of February, 2017.
S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-86789043534510660722016-12-31T12:26:00.000+11:002016-12-31T12:36:19.631+11:00Farewell 2016, Fidel Castro, democracy, and rational polity
Well, it’s been a real car crash of a year. To anyone who ever says “it can’t get any worse”,
this is a wry reminder that it can always get worse.
Electoral outcomes that were all disastrous for the
environment, voted for by people who are angry and disenfranchised, and thus
fodder for any demagogue that promises a solution without having any real
answers, or intention of S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-7834870990738722742016-11-27T22:56:00.001+11:002016-11-28T22:44:20.223+11:00Vale FidelFidel Castro was a more ethical leader than many of the US presidents he survived.
Cuba's healthcare and education were exemplary for a poor country. They had a good record of preventative healthcare, and they exported more doctors and health professionals to other needy countries than many that were far richer.
Vale.
28-Nov-16 Update - some figures from Wikipedia:
Life expectancy: S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-60350003398475649392016-11-09T21:46:00.000+11:002016-11-09T23:21:37.985+11:00Trumped2016 will be remembered by history as a year of inflection and singularity - and not in a good way.
Why did the polls get it wrong on the US election? That was probably the margin of Trump supporters who, when polled, didn't feel obliged to tell the truth. Like their candidate.
Trump has many more outrageous and incorrect things to say, and he'll do it. Much like Ronald ReaganS Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-50960587902811174602016-08-08T22:36:00.001+10:002016-08-08T22:36:52.869+10:00Jasmine spring: 8-Aug-2016The jasmine climbing the arch over the front gate has just started to give a heady spring scent today.
S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-59559526282611630962016-08-07T13:11:00.000+10:002016-08-07T13:11:03.923+10:00Climate variability and garden: Spring 2016The jasmine started coming out properly yesterday morning, Saturday 6th August 2016. A lone sprig had turned up eight days previous. The bees are out and energetic (aggressive) today, whereas they weren't last weekend.
For the last several seasons, the spring flowers started quite early, in mid July. I'm glad they're holding out this year, even though early August is still too S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-33011200672060824772016-07-06T23:56:00.000+10:002016-07-06T23:56:35.200+10:00Film: Goldstone (Australia, 2016) - one of the best of Australian films
One
of the best Australian films I have seen, if not the best, Goldstone is passing through our cinemas
and will quickly vanish. It is
ostensibly about a detective seeking a missing person in an outback mining
community, but this is one of those rare films where an engaging plot turns out to be secondary to the overall filmic experience.
After an unusually deceptive beginning, it S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-70265158500822155122016-06-25T09:55:00.000+10:002016-06-25T10:42:34.458+10:00The failure of democracyIt is ironic that some of the comments about the impending departure of the UK from the EU have lauded the referendum as a successful exercise in democracy. I note the Murdoch media in particular have hailed it thus:
"a triumph of democratic reasoning" - The Australian
"democracy's victory" - Fox News
Okay, I apologise, Murdoch is an easy target. But there have been plenty ofS Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-38878840333264490402016-06-11T13:14:00.000+10:002016-06-11T13:14:15.617+10:00Homo floresiensis redated: the long game
The
new discovery of further Homo floresiensis remains adds to our body of
knowledge while asking as many questions as it answers.
The
most significant new information is that floresienses had been on
that small island from 700,000 to 55,000 years ago (at the minimum range).
Scientific
consensus seems to be that they are a species of Homo. Although their small stature is suggestive S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22518525.post-44281014856115704782016-04-17T20:58:00.001+10:002016-04-17T20:58:48.999+10:00Fear and the devil in natural history Reportage of natural history is sometimes fraught with miscommunication. Maybe the writer doesn't understand the subject or doesn't express themselves properly. At other times, the devil is in the headline and the detail contains the light.
For all their effort to produce items of interest in natural history, The Guardian [Weekly] has something of a tract record for purveying S Simmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13082268725118026028noreply@blogger.com2