A mind blowing animation showing the relative size of planets and stars in our universe.
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Shown as part of the VW Superior Sequels season.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb the author of the brilliant The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
presents in the Financial Times Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world. [via]
Also very worth reading is his essay The Fourth Quadrant: A map of the limits of statistics.
Taleb, looking at the cataclysmic situation facing financial institutions today, points out that “the banking system, betting against Black Swans, has lost over 1 Trillion dollars (so far), more than was ever made in the history of banking”.
But, as he points out, there is also good news.
“We can identify where the danger zone is located, which I call the fourth quadrant, and show it on a map with more or less clear boundaries. A map is a useful thing because you know where you are safe and where your knowledge is questionable.”
I’m not sure that those with the power to change things and those that caused the financial chaos have learnt the lesson and will likely ignore the advice of Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
The reason they got us into this mess and were allowed to get away with it for so long was because they were making money hand over fist using financial instruments that nobody really understood. However they were clearly operating off the map and the system became prone to be hit by a Black Swan event.
Their narrative didn’t tie with the reality of the situation at the time and in the future they will restructure the narrative of these current events to suit their own purposes. It will be the fault of the sub-prime house buyers and the poor management at the companies that collapsed and not faults inherent in the system and the lack of proper regulation.
Lots of answers but with them come more questions. Like where did Charles Widmore get a horse on the island?
Ben is lying about knowing that Locke would be resurrected by the island as he was truly very shocked to see Locke welcoming him back to the land of the living. What is in Illana’s crate?
Ben and Ethan are carrying out Widmore’s orders to kill Rousseau but Ben steals Alex instead. this is pre-purge so the two of them must still be living amongst the Dharma initiative and not yet fully members of the Others.
Michael Emerson and Terry O’Quinn are really great in this episode as Ben and Locke and I love that their roles are now somewhat reversed with Locke knowing more than Ben about what is going on and what to do next. Is Caesar dead? That was fairly short lived for what I thought would have been a new major character. He’s dead before he’s made barely any impact.
Who are Illana’s gang protecting the island from and what purpose are they protecting it for. Why didn’t Ben recognise later that the Oceanic Six had been members of the Dharma Initiative. What about Sawyer, Jin, Juliet and Miles whom he has lived with for three of his most formative years and during a period of time that major events happened including getting shot by an escaped prisoner.
Because what is about to come out of that jungle is something I can’t control. Then Locke emerges. Big clue to suggest that Locke is in fact just a manifestation of the smoke monster.
What lies in the shadow of the statue?
Hieroglyphs depicting Anubis communing with the smoke monster.
Did it let Ben live because he’s taken responsibility for the death of Alex. Presumably Alex was not really there and so Ben was talking to an aspect of the monster and then talks to Locke who is I think yet another aspect of the monster.
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We’re paying rent to tax dodgers”
“We’re paying rent to tax dodgers” – Mark Thomas
Excellent post over at the Free Range Kids blog which draws a great analogy for stranger danger with a possible treatment for peanut allergies.
By administering first a dust-size speck of peanuts to an allergic child, and then a slightly larger speck and so on and so on, you can sometimes train the child’s immunological system to stop violently overreacting. It is wonderful to think that for some people, this may be a cure at last. But it’s also wonderful to think of the peanut story as an analogy to, of all things, stranger danger.
If a child is allowed to explore the world – a little at first, under loving surveillance, but more and more as the years go by — that child’s chances of overreacting to small, everyday risks diminishes. The child is gradually developing street smarts.
They go on to talk about the overreaction by a mother in a waiting room when her son approached an old lady to see what she was doing with her magnifying glass she had to help her read the paper. Swooping in to carry her child away from the old lady the mother said “He’s got to learn early NOT to talk to strangers.”
Security guru Bruce Schneier has a great essay along similar lines title The Kindness of Strangers
When I was growing up, children were commonly taught: “don’t talk to strangers.” Strangers might be bad, we were told, so it’s prudent to steer clear of them.
And yet most people are honest, kind, and generous, especially when someone asks them for help. If a small child is in trouble, the smartest thing he can do is find a nice-looking stranger and talk to him.
These two pieces of advice may seem to contradict each other, but they don’t. The difference is that in the second instance, the child is choosing which stranger to talk to. Given that the overwhelming majority of people will help, the child is likely to get help if he chooses a random stranger. But if a stranger comes up to a child and talks to him or her, it’s not a random choice. It’s more likely, although still unlikely, that the stranger is up to no good.
By exposing children to strangers in a safe way you can teach them to recognise the difference to put it simply between the behaviours of good strangers and bad strangers. Teaching them to fear everybody will only hinder them in the future and could lead them to worse danger should they ever get lost or separated from their parents.
Season 2 is coming to an end with one hell of a spate of excellent episodes and with each one John loses someone significant. This week it was the turn of Derek whose death was one of the most brutally short and unsympathetic deaths of a major character on television (outside of HBO dramas anyway). It was however very fitting for the show as the very premise of the show is the brutal struggle to prevent or ensure the virtual annihilation of the human race by the machines.
Weaver seems to confirm that which has been suspected for a while that John Henry is in fact not destined to become Skynet but that humanity’s survival depends on his survival. The third faction that we saw in the future may be established here and now through Weaver and John Henry, working against Skynet but not with the humans. It may be that humanity’s survival is too important to be left in the hands of human beings (they will disappoint you).
The little girl that plays Savannah is wonderful, she has a great rapport with Garrett Dillahunt as John Henry. Donald, where’s your trousers? has never been so haunting as it was here.
Derek’s death and Sarah’s subsequent arrest might just be the final push needed to transform John into the John Connor that is capable of saving the human race and leading the resistance against Skynet.
I knew what was coming but I was still quite shocked by this advert. Very powerful stuff that should work well at raising awareness and eliciting donations to Women’s Aid.
Sorry, we didn’t agree to that. That wasn’t in the script.
I think that the dialogue is pretty clever as it is working on two levels there victims of domestic violence never signed up for that when they started the relationship, it wasn’t in their script.
A friend of mine commented on it.
The ad is disturbing, but does it actually work as a message against domestic violence? I suspect a few will see it as wish fulfilment porn, while the rest of us will just be upset by it. Does it do anything more than temporarily draw attention?
I couldn’t imagine anyone who might dislike Keira Knightley would actually get off on it once they saw it.
But yes after a little searching I was unfortunately proved wrong as shown in this bunch of comments at The Onion’s AV Club which usually is pretty good source of intelligent commentary.
Some better discussions are going on at Feministing and Metafilter.
I think that a number of people are missing the point of the purpose of the advert though. I think it has primarily been designed to temporarily draw attention, start discussion and get people to donate to Women’s Aid. It was not designed to give the message that “it is never too soon to leave an abusive relationship. There are places for you to go”. Tackling domestic violence needs a multi-pronged approach and hopefully this advert will raise awareness and funds to enable another longer term low key campaign that will give practical advice to help women in these situations get out of them.