Eat Less Meat

Here's an early New Year's resolution: eat less meat. Actually, I've been largely vegetarian for a while, but why not use the new year to declare it? My policy: don't choose to buy meat, but don't inconvenience or offend others I'm with.

There are many reasons for going vegetarian, but mine is mainly a matter of ecological footprint. I don't have many moral qualms about killing animals for food, but I am concerned about the many different costs associated with producing meat - costs which I'm not sure are adequately reflected in the dollar price at your butcher.

Everyone's concerned about greenhouse gas emissions - we ride bicycles to work, we buy energy efficient lightglobes, we offset our flights and concert tickets. But those cuts pale in comparison to the emissions from raising livestock. Raising livestock accounts for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide - more than all forms of transport combined.
The main problem is a type of gut microorganisms called methanogens in ruminants that convert hydrogen and carbon dioxide - byproducts of digestion - into methane, a gas with 25 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide.
In general, red meat emits 2.5 times as much greenhouse gas as chicken or fish. But if you want red meat, try kangaroo - thanks to different gut flora, kangaroos produce hardly any methane. Kangaroo is also lean, causes less environmental degradation from grazing, and - equally importantly - it really does taste good!
Research is under way to produce anti-methanogen vaccines, optimise livestock diets, or introduce alternative, harmless microorganisms that can outcompete the methanogens. Ultimately, though, these approaches seem to me like carbon sequestration for coal-fired power-plants - useful technology if we must burn coal or eat meat (which, realistically, we will continue to do) but far better to minimise the need for it in the first place!

Greenhouse emissions aside, meat - in particular red meat - is simply a frighteningly inefficient way of feeding yourself.
Only 5 to 25 per cent of the nutrients fed to an animal are converted into edible meat. It takes 2.3 kg of grain to produce 1kg of chicken; 5.9 kg of grain for pork; and 13 kg of grain plus 30 kg of forage for beef!
For the past eight years, global demand for grain has been increasing faster than supply, and that's largely due to rising demand for meat in increasingly prosperous countries like India and China. Rising populations and incomes are expected to double the global demand for meat and milk by 2050.
Then there's water use, an issue becoming increasingly sensitive here in Australia and around the world. It takes 1000 litres of water to grow 1 kg of wheat, 2000 litres per kg of rice... and 96,000 litres per kg of beef.

Of course, not many people are willing to go entirely vegetarian - truthfully, I'm not either. The good news - to put a positive spin on it - is that the cost of red meat is so great that any cuts you're prepared to live with will likely be the largest lifestyle contribution you can make to going green: A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home.

Information shamelessly taken from New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13741
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526134.500
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826601.600-what-price-more-food.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925401.500-earth-the-parched-planet.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926731.700-what-is-your-dinner-doing-to-the-climate.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026873.100-how-kangaroo-burgers-could-save-the-planet.html

Jenolan Caves

Only just got around to uploading these photos from earlier this year. Sarah and I spent a few days out at the Jenolan Caves, staying in a beautiful cabin in the surrounding Blue Mountains.

We went on an adventure caving tour, which was awesome, but to avoid being encumbered I didn't take any camera on that. These photos are from ordinary guided tours of the show caves.

GetUp!

I joined GetUp!, an independent grass-roots political organisation - just as a donor and a name on a petition. Initially I signed up in response to the Government's Internet censorship plans - I'm not convinced that any petition, let alone an internet-based petition, carries much weight, but what harm could it do?
Then GetUp! started a TV advertising campaign in response to Rudd's 5% emissions target, and I thought that here was something that could actually reach people and make a difference, and was worth donating for.
The ad was meant to be shown during the test cricket, but I don't watch TV... Did anyone see it - and more importantly, notice it? I hope so.

Taronga Zoo

Went to Taronga Zoo again. What do you go to the zoo to see? I think that the most interesting animals at the zoo are humans - either actual humans, who are sometimes just as much on display as the peacocks that wander the grounds; or the aspects of ourselves that we glimpse in - or project onto - other animals.

Here are some of my favourite photos from this visit! Sadly, there are none of baby pygmy hippos... I waited and waited at the scheduled time for Monifa to emerge, but she didn't make an appearance for us that day...



(previous visit)

Coming Home

There are few pleasures that can compare with getting on a bike and riding off alone into the country. It's something that unites so many sparkling facets into a single shining experience: the rugged beauty of the land; the friendliness of the people you encounter; the excitement of exploration; the visceral satisfaction of sweeping your bike cleanly through a turn as though it were stuck on rails and could not be anywhere in the world other than where it is - the sense that you're meant to be right here and now.


By one reckoning, my trip began when I came back to Rockhampton to collect my bike from Sarah's shed, where its battery had slowly flattened and carbeuretors had slowly flooded. Even with a new battery it wouldn't start, and I exhausted myself trying to push-start it on the dirt roads around Sarah's property: wet with recent rain, there wan't enough traction; the rear wheel would simply lock and slide. Eventually I had to push it to the nearest sealed road, where a combination of starter motor and pushing finally got it running!
The ride from Rockhampton to Bundaberg that evening was the coldest, most miserable, and most dangerous I'd done. Darkness came early, brought on by a storm that drenched and buffeted me for the whole 4 hours. I dearly wanted to speed to get to Bundy as soon as possible; I forced myself to slow down lest I kill myself: poor traction, shivering with cold and wet, blinded by oncoming headlights. Oddly, though most of me was utterly miserable, there was a small part of my mind that said: hey, in a way this is exciting! It's an experience worth having, for experience's sake, and afterwards you'll be glad of it. I took refuge in that corner of my mind, and I made it, and eventually I and everything in my backpack dried out in front of a heater in the family home in Bundaberg. It rained without break for three days afterwards.


Weeks later, I started out again, this time for Sydney: a trip of over 1300km. It was raining when I left Bundaberg, and I feared the worst, but as soon as I got out of town the skies opened up and I had the best possible riding weather for the entire journey. I left after lunch, and planned to take the inland route to Sydney: through Toowoomba, Armidale, and Tamworth. From previous trips driving a car I knew the roads were well maintained and sparsely occupied, gently sweeping turns with a few diversions along the way.


The first night I got as far as Nanango - not very far, but by the time I got there it was dark and cold and I didn't want to risk any riding any further and So You Think You Can Dance was about to start. These factors all weighed roughly equally on my mind. (Kerrington was voted off, I couldn't believe it!)
The second night I stopped in Armidale, a small university and cathedral town on the New England Northern Tablelands, around 1000m above sea level, and it was freezing - literally, temperature dropped below 0 that night. I was intending to visit Annette, a family friend, but she was away. She introduced me instead, over the phone, to her mother Thelma who I stayed with at her beautiful farmhouse in the hills overlooking the town. Thelma is an amazing woman, deeply rooted in Armidale and a member of the Order of Australia for her community work. But arguably, the thing I appreciated most that night was the electric blanket!
Thelma suggested I take an alternative route through the Hunter Valley to the coast, for which I thank her dearly: Thunderbolts Way, between Walcha and Gloucester, is the best ride I've ever done. The road swept through rolling hills, soft with wind-ruffled grass, clung to rocky switchbacks replete with just enough potholes to keep you on your toes, and dived into dark and ancient forests. Gloucester, at a crossroads, seems to be a popular resting place for bikers and I met a friendly couple who were coincidentally from Rockhampton and Newtown! They told me that early that morning there had been snow around Armidale. I was glad I had slept in.
From Gloucester it was an easy, pleasant ride along Bucketts Way through the national parks to the Pacific Highway, and along the Pacific Highway it was an easy, boring ride through three-lane traffic to Sydney.

Now I, and all of my belongings - including my hideous sofa suite! - are in Sydney. I'd intended to have them sent down a long time ago, when I first got my apartment here, but I never had the time to go up to Bundaberg to organise it. Well, at least on this last stay in Bundaberg I had that time, so I sent everything ahead by truck before I rode down. So, coincidentally but, in a way, appropriately after Mum's passing, the journey back to Sydney felt like a transition from one stage of my life to the next, leaving nothing behind and everything ahead. When I finally got back to my apartment in Newtown, it finally felt like coming home.

Abrasion Resistance

We have the most awful chihuahua. He's gotten his ears infected somehow, and we need to get ear drops inside, but he's rather uncooperative. He knows when you're going to pick him up to apply the ear drops - presumably the same way he knows when you're going to bathe him - and if you do manage to grab him, he'll twist and scratch and bite and defy all attempts to get the drops down his ears.

But I've found a way to subdue him: CE-armoured, 1.4mm fullgrain leather jacket, kevlar-padded leather gauntlet gloves, and full-face helmet. I haven't crashed yet, but I'm now confident that this gear will keep me safe if I do!

My New Apartment

Karratha aside, Sydney has to be the worst place to rent or buy in Australia, and probably one of the worst in the world.
I've been looking for a place to rent ever since I moved here, over a year ago - not assiduously to begin with, but for many months I've been going to rental property inspections every Saturday - I've lost count of the number of Saturdays I've lost to Sydney's rental market - and I've made over a dozen applications.
Admittedly, I've probably been picky. If I were prepared to live further out of town, or if I were prepared to share with others, I would likely have found a place long ago. But I'm stubborn; I hate the thought of compromising when I feel that things are not right - and Sydney housing is just not right! I did have to compromise - and it rankles - but I chose to compromise on cost. Every property is expensive, there's no avoiding it. If I weren't prepared to pay more than what I feel a property is worth, I would never find a place.
But I finally have found a place. It's small (a studio) and expensive (although, at $300/wk it's cheaper than most here), but it's modern, has a nice kitchen (with gas stove), a private courtyard (where I'll try to grow some herbs), secure parking (so I can bring my motorcycle down!), and it's in trendy Newtown, just outside the city proper and abundant in cool cafes, shops, and theatres.
I'll move in this weekend. I won't have much to begin with - I can have all of my things sent from Bundaberg now - but it'll be a fantastic change!

Thesis Corrections

My thesis is once more out of my hands. I've made the corrections and sent it back to the University for approval and subsequent printing!
When my thesis finally came back to me and I found that the examiners requested only minor corrections, I intended to simply comply with all requests and be done with it; avoid any complications.
In the end, though, I couldn't agree with a number of the recommendations. I fixed any actual errors, of course, and there were good suggestions which I implemented, but where I thought that an examiner had misunderstood (and that the text was clear), I made no change. In some cases I felt that the recommendation was misguided; in other cases the recommendation was not directly relevant and, whilst it was not in contradiction with anything, it would distract from the focus without contributing much.
So I hope that my corrections and reply to examiners will be accepted. I'm confident that in each case I made the best decision for the thesis' integrity; I just hope the University will see it that way. I think it'll be fine though.
Now I wait some more!

Rock Band

I'm not entirely clear on the story, but apparently EA liked something they saw in L.A. Noire, and made us a pre-release gift of Rock Band (pre-release only in Australia; it's been out for ages in the U.S.). Drumkit and guitars now take pride-of-place in front of the big screen in the lunch room, and people gather to play during lunch and after work every day. The batteries in the guitars were flat by the end of the second day, and one guitar has already been glued back together!

Rock Band is just awesome fun. Its real value comes, of course, from playing in a band. The independent difficulty levels means anyone can join in and have a go and contribute something, even singing (if you're brave enough :) ), and it rivals or surpasses the Wii for sociability - imagine a crowd of people gathered around after work with beers, watching and talking and taking turns playing. I wonder how long the novelty will last, but it's great so far.

I'm hooked on guitar. I'm not even any good - only played Guitar Hero once 'round at Brett's place before - but I love it. I know it seems silly, but the game is fantastic at making you feel like a god when you get a good solo, even though you know it's a plastic toy guitar with five fret-buttons (well, ten if you count the high frets at the base of the neck, used for crazy solos at the end of a song!). It's especially satisfying if you know and love the song and shiver in anticipation as your favourite chord progression comes up :)
I know I don't have the motivation to learn a musical instrument properly; Rock Band provides instant, gratuitous gratification :D

The Return Of The Thesis

Almost a year after I submitted my PhD thesis for examination (in February last year), it has been returned to me, and the end is truly in sight.

When I submitted my thesis I acknowledged the possibility that the examiners might request major revisions, and as the months passed by this was always in my mind: what if my thesis came back and I needed to rework it, would I have time to do it? Over the last couple of months, as work has become more and more demanding, I realised that I simply wouldn't have the time or mental concentration to do it until after L.A. Noire is shipped. And with this growing realisation, perversely, I became resigned to the certainty that the examiners would request a resubmission. The long delay seemed to stretch inevitably toward this conclusion.

The examiners' reports arrived along with a copy of my thesis. I knew Russel had sent my thesis to world-leading researchers in my field - throughout my PhD Russel had what I couldn't help believing to be greatly misplaced faith in my ability - and he wouldn't consider anything less. I knew what these exalted examiners would say: they would tear my thesis apart. I took comfort in the thought that at least it would be someone important crushing my hopes of a future in research.

So when I opened the examiners' reports and began to read, it was with pounding heart and trembling hand and terrible anticipation. Actually, I couldn't bring myself to read the written reports at first, so I carefully peeked at the front page of each report form, where there were tickboxes for "no ammendments", "textual ammendments", "revise passages", "substantial revisions", or "fail". First report... textual ammendments. Second report... textual ammendments. Third report... no ammendments! I could hardly believe it: somehow I'd made it through.

Over the next couple of days I worked up the courage to actually read the reports, and found that on the whole they are very positive. The reviewers each suggested a few minor editorial-type changes, which I agree with.
Moreover, two reviewers listed my thesis in the top 10% they'd examined! One reviewer wrote that I have "made a good contribution to the scientific knowledge, and the volume of work produced is more than enough for a Ph.D. degree in the field".
Another wrote that my thesis "makes significant contribution towards a better understanding ... has all the good ingredients for it to be popularly used in the near future," and "is an example of an impressive and scientific piece of work".
And the last wrote that "the thesis encompasses several big topics that are very rich in information... nevertheless, the author does a very good job describing each of these topics in great detail... and making contributions in all of them."
I'm particularly chuffed at mention of being "scientific", which I value very highly!

So I've gone from nearly despairing to being quite proud :) I'm currently reading through it again, a bit at a time on the train ride between home and work, marking out corrections in the margins as I go. Soon I'll get it all loaded onto my computer and make the changes, and then figure out how to get it printed and sent back to the research office, and then... done!

Grammar and Love Triangles

I love The Beatles, but what's wrong with these lyrics:

From "Anna (Go To Him)":
"You say he loves you more than me, so I will set you free; go with him."

and from "If I Fell":
"If I give my heart to you, I must be sure, from the very start, that you will love me more than her."

Colloquial grammar is ok as long as it's unambiguous, and I have nothing against bisexuality, but the grammatical interpretation here just isn't Beatles!

Remember, when in doubt over a comparative sentence, write it out fully and then chop off the unnecessary bits:
"You say he loves you more than I love you"
"You say he loves you more than he loves me"

Sydney Festival and Pink Martini

Sydney Festival runs throughout January, on stages and parks and streets around Sydney's centre. It's an eclectic mix of cultural events; theatre, music, dance, performance art, loosely collected under the Sydney Festival banner. It's also practically sold out, or at least it was on the afternoon of its second day, last Sunday. All of the shows I was interested in were sold out then. It might be entirely sold out now, for all I know.
The organisers did give fair warning that tickets would sell out quickly, but I didn't expect it to be quite so fast. You can queue up at a booth for a limited number of tickets sold on the day of each performance, but the booth is only open during work hours so I'm just simply out of luck.

However, I didn't write this blog post to complain about not getting tickets. Fortunately for me, there was a massive public "Festival First Night" on Saturday night, where a large number of the artists taking part in Sydney Festival gave free performances at open-air venues across the city centre. It was a fantastic night, wandering from stage to stage taking in the diversity of entertainment.
Martin Place, a pedestrian mall, and the alleys around it was turned into an open-air dance party, with DJs and bands playing throughout the evening.
Hyde Park had a stage and dancefloor set up around it's main fountain, and played host to a succession of Swing-themed events - first a massive dance class, followed by live music and dancing. Various restaurants had set up kitchen tents in an area set aside for dining.
Macquarie St was closed to traffic and had live Latin-American and Celtic music, followed by three couples being married in weird and wacky ways (I didn't bother staying for the ceremonies though, seemed too much like reality TV to me).
The Domain, an expansive park and the communal cultural heart of Sydney, had a massive stage. I stayed here for a great concert by Paul Kelly, but skipped out on Brian Wilson, the lead singer and songwriter of The Beachboys. I was more interested in heading back to Hyde Park for its finale...

A couple of weeks back I read an interview with a band - more of an ensemble - called Pink Martini (wiki) that sounded really interesting, drawing upon and blending diverse genres, and I thought to myself that I should try to find some of their music. So, when I learned that they were performing on Saturday night, I made certain of seeing them.
I was not in the least disappointed, in fact I was quite amazed. Pink Martini effortlessly glided through many styles of world music, a lot of Latin-American and Spanish Salsa, but with good amounts of continental Europe (especially French ) and even Japanese and Middle-Eastern songs interleaved with contemporary jazz.
Pink Martini had a lot of already established fans there. I was amongst a group of them that knew every song from its opening bars, and were almost as impressive as the lead singer for knowing every word in every language! To top it off, the Festival fireworks went off during the final song, exploding in beautifully restrained gold over St Mary's Cathedral.
You might have gathered that I'm now a firm Pink Martini fan. I've managed to find two of their studio albums, but I'll have to order in the third. As great as the studio albums are, however, I'm afraid I've been quite spoiled by hearing the band live first, and the recordings only make me wistfully recall that fantastic concert.