Compromise and Conceit

Infernal adventuring…

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An Australian statistician and role-player living in Japan, interested in the theory and practice of role-playing…

Category: Meat Life

  • A German Hiatus

    I am taking a much-needed 10 day break in Germany, to attend an old player’s wedding and do some comparative research on German hot springs. I’m in Konstanz for five days, enjoying the Bodensee (where Zeppelins were invented), Europe’s largest freshwater reservoir, and then I’m off to Baden-Baden to enjoy the spas, and Tubingen for…

  • Is the Blogosphere Really Responsible for Hysteria in Modern Debate?

    A couple of days ago Australia’s prime minister (PM) Julia Gillard found herself in the unprecedented position of having to host an extended news conference to hose down allegations of corruption from 17 years ago. A slightly abridged version of the news conference is available here, and it’s a barn-storming performance by Ms. Gillard that…

  • Visions of the Apocalypse: U-Store Auctions

    The Washington Post (which I’ve started reading since I was interviewed for it) has a four page feature on storage unit auctions out today. It’s obviously written from a light-hearted perspective, overlaid with a touch of cynicism and fatalism about consumer culture and the current economic climate, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was…

  • Medical Journal Damns Romney with Faint Praise!

    Today’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine has an interesting editorial on cost containment mechanisms in the Massachusetts health system. It gives some interesting facts about the context of rising costs and the mechanisms put in place recently to try and contain them, and paints rather an alarming picture of the situation in…

  • Low Levels of Radiation Exposure in Fukushima Residents

    I have been collaborating on some research to assess levels of internal exposure to Cesium in residents of Minamisoma, Fukushima prefecture, and today the results have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (paywalled), along with news reports in the Washington Post amongst other media outlets. Minamisoma is a small town located…

  • What’s So Special About Sprinting?

    The Olympic athletics are mostly done and dusted, and Usain Bolt, having won 100m and 200m gold, has proclaimed himself “the greatest athlete to live.” This status can’t have been earned through sheer numerical power, since on numbers alone Bolt would be well down the medal list – five gold medals at two Olympics is…

  • What’s Wrong with Judo?

    UPDATE 2 (31/7/2024): This post is getting hits again, which means the Olympics are on and people are again asking themselves “WTF?” about this sport. I just watched a few bouts and three bouts in a row were decided by the referee (two bouts by direct disqualification, one by the number of warnings). Boring! I…

  • Should the Media Ban Reporting on Mass Killings?

    As I understand it most Australian media organizations have an agreement with the various health departments not to report teen suicide, on the principle that copycat suicide is a real risk among teenagers and the benefits that accrue from reporting on any child’s suicide don’t outweigh the risk that it might trigger another. Furthermore, whenever…

  • Your Inequality Challenge

    I’m doing some research work at the moment on a certain country, and have identified a negative relationship between inequality (measured using the Gini index) and all-cause mortality. I’m not at liberty to identify the country, or the details, of course. This negative relationship means, in essence, that the more unequal a small area becomes,…

  • Why Poor Kids Don’t Go to University

    In today’s Guardian there is a very simple and cute opinion piece that summarizes very nicely the reasons that poor children don’t go to uni. Coming from a poor background myself, I feel I have some insight into the social and cultural factors that bear down on children from poor families to stop them from…