Cute video of the reactions of people in a Swedish subway station when “musical stairs” were installed. Anyone who has been to the Museum of Science in Cambridge over the last 20 years or so has undoubtedly walked up and down their musical staircase at least once, although that staircase has more of a random layout of musical sounds rather than the direct analogue of a piano keyboard. Last time we were at the museum, the staircase had been disabled temporarily (well, musically, at least), but this video reminded me of it instantly.

See Also

• March 4, 2010 -- Hail To Purple, Hail To White
• February 26, 2010 -- The Agony Of Defeat
• February 24, 2010 -- Oh Four Tuna!
• February 12, 2010 -- That Was The Week That Wasn’t
• January 13, 2010 -- Most Days Are Just Like This

Papa Ratzi has been keeping a pretty low profile for a while, but he’s back in dutch once again over a couple of problems: first, one of his personal attendants was discovered to be buying services from a gay prostitution ring inside the Vatican being run by a Vatican choir singer. The attendant, who is also a prominent construction contractor in Rome, was being investigated for corrupt business practices, when investigators discovered him “ordering for delivery”.

And while that’s embarrassing, it’s the second item that puts those red-soled feet on the fire: the Pope’s own brother admits beating young boys in his church in Germany over a period of 30 years, and it appears that the Pope himself (during his tenure as Archbishop) played an important role in covering up the abuse along with a number of incidents of sexual assaults on boys by German priests.

You know things have gotten pretty bad, because the Vatican’s “Chief Exorcist” has publicly stated that “the Devil lives in the Vatican”. Of course, he also says that Harry Potter is the work of the devil, so he *might* be given to hyperbole, you never know.

Christopher Hitchens, always on the lookout for new ways to badmouth the Catholics, weighed in today with this fine screed at Slate. Money quote follows:

Very much more serious is the role of Joseph Ratzinger, before the church decided to make him supreme leader, in obstructing justice on a global scale. After his promotion to cardinal, he was put in charge of the so-called “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (formerly known as the Inquisition). In 2001, Pope John Paul II placed this department in charge of the investigation of child rape and torture by Catholic priests. In May of that year, Ratzinger issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In it, he reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime. But that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church’s own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated “in the most secretive way … restrained by a perpetual silence … and everyone … is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office … under the penalty of excommunication.” (My italics). Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children, but exposing the offense could get you into serious trouble. And this is the church that warns us against moral relativism!

ADDENDUM: Here is a less charged, more thoughtful, yet nevertheless very critical piece about this Pope from the British newspaper The Independent which I came across after writing this post. I think it puts Ratzinger into the broader context of the struggle with modernity that the RCC has faced since the mid-20th century, and even in the big picture finds him wanting.

See Also

• February 18, 2009 -- Heckuva Job, Ratzi!
• January 27, 2009 -- And Now A Few Words From The Pontiff
• January 9, 2009 -- Number Eleven With A Bullet
• December 2, 2008 -- Time For Another Episode Of “That Darn Ratzi!”
• February 18, 2010 -- The Seven Assholes Of The World

…as long as the only ass I need to manage is my own. Because I am PERFECT at that.

See Also

• March 2, 2010 -- Maybe THIS Is Why The Russians Didn’t Do So Well At The Olympics
• March 1, 2010 -- I Had No Idea “The Lion King” Was A Documentary
• February 12, 2010 -- That Was The Week That Wasn’t
• January 27, 2010 -- Because Road Runners Live In The Desert, Silly
• January 25, 2010 -- As Seen On Facebook

See Also

• Sorry, No Related Posts

I think this guy would highly approve.

See Also

• June 1, 2009 -- Almoast Purrfeck
• October 21, 2008 -- Engineering 101 – For Men Only

See Also

• Sorry, No Related Posts

“Spray To Forget” is an art project-cum-product from designer/artist Reed Seifer; he’s blended some aromatic oils that are used for stress relief aromatherapy, with the idea that you can “edit your consciousness” to overwrite bad or unwanted memories.

While Seifer’s project is a bit wishful, there are real efforts to understand how to manipulate or mitigate memories using pharmaceuticals like the beta-blocker propranolol (which is normally prescribed as a blood pressure medication). As this Wired interview with Anders Sandberg points out, the ethical complications are enormous, and we as a society are probably not ready to engage in them constructively enough, but that doesn’t mean there won’t continue to be efforts to bring memory-altering drugs to the marketplace.

My open question for your consideration is whether you’d consider using something like “Spray To Forget” as a way to deal with traumatic experiences that are difficult to process. To my own surprise, I am a little uncertain; once upon a time I would have vehemently said “no”, but now I sometimes find myself wishing I could simply wipe away painful memories that even the passage of time hasn’t fully managed.

See Also

• January 7, 2009 -- More Proof That Tetris Is Better Than Crack

Well, at least NOW I can sing along thanks to this captioned version on YouTube. I’d hate to think I was singing “trolololololo” when I was supposed to be singing “ya ya ya ya yeh aaaaaaaaaaaaaaiieeeeeeeeee!”

See Also

• February 23, 2010 -- A Boid’s Gotta Get To Woik, Knowhutimean?
• February 10, 2010 -- Today’s Moment of WTF
• January 27, 2010 -- The Militant Atheist
• January 18, 2010 -- Oh, Rochester, Start The Maxwell!
• January 13, 2010 -- Most Days Are Just Like This

Noted British chef Rose Gray passed away a few days ago. Gray and Ruth Rogers were the chef-owners of London’s famed River Cafe, which spearheaded the revival of world-class restaurants in London in the 1980s. Americans will probably remember Gray and Rogers best from their beautifully-filmed food-porn cooking show that ran on PBS back in the 1990s; it was one of the first cooking shows to break away from the Julia Child-style 3-camera video format and feature drop-dead gorgeous photography of the food rather than the efforts of the cook. River Cafe became a spawning ground for many of the best-known chefs in Britain today, like Jamie Oliver. Rose Gray was 71.

I enjoyed this pair of posts on The Atlantic’s food “channel” from local chef Chris Parsons about competing in the Bocuse d’Or USA cooking competition. Cooking competitions are not just Food Network reality show fodder; the Bocuse d’Or competition has been around since 1987, and last year the Bocuse d’Or USA Foundation was set up by some of the best chefs in the United States to encourage young American chefs to participate. Chris Parsons had toyed with the idea of competing for years before finally giving it a serious go last year. Parson’s own restaurant recently transformed itself from a fine-dine seafood place to a more casual “comfort food” theme (though he plans to re-open Catch somewhere in Boston or Cambridge at a later date).

See Also

• July 27, 2009 -- Comestible
• March 3, 2010 -- Tell ‘Em “Julia Sent Me”
• February 24, 2010 -- I Would Like Some BruSKETta With My Fuh, Please
• December 17, 2008 -- Ciao, Franco
• December 2, 2008 -- Linkapalooza – Food And Other Delights

The human body is, to some extent, just a luxury cruise liner for microbes.

Science writer Carl Zimmer has a post at Discover’s science blogs about the increasing understanding among scientists about the symbiosis of the human organism and its assorted microscopic passengers. Indeed, there is a growing belief that the symbiosis might actually be under the control of the micro-organisms rather than ourselves. This Scientific American article reviews some of the same research as Zimmer’s piece and includes a variety of additional links to plumb through.

On a slightly different, but related, topic: this article in Slate considers whether or not hand sanitizers like Purell have any real effect in preventing the spread of diseases like colds and flu, then goes on to consider the weightier question of whether it’s really a good idea at all to be trying to de-germify every surface in sight.

See Also

• October 20, 2009 -- More Sciency Goodness
• May 1, 2009 -- Swine Flu Scorecard
• February 5, 2009 -- Linkapalooza – Food

Yes, for the next 6-8 months you are going to have to deal with me periodically going all fanboi and frothing at the mouth about the upcoming release of Civilization V. Once it does hit the shelves, you will then have to deal with me complaining about all the bugs and poor gameplay issues until the first few patches and mods finally shape it into something playable, whereupon you will hear next to nothing from me while I spend countless hours playing One More Turn.

Here is the first of what will undoubtedly be many previews of the game as the developers start feeding the gaming websites with sneak peeks and propaganda designed to whet the appetites of the fanbase. While some of the changes in the game that are discussed in the article sound fascinating, I am a little concerned that the focus seems to be pushing the game further and further along the path of being a war simulation game and less into the multi-faceted “many ways to win” model that Civ IV pursued. But it’s clear from the article that the developers are still addressing gameplay issues and aren’t committed to the final form of the game yet.

True personal story: I began playing Civilization in 1996, when the Mac version of Civ II first hit the market. The day I brought the game home was also the very first full day we had Maynard, when he was a tinky-winky li’l kitten only a few weeks old. He was so little that we had to feed him kitten formula from a dropper, and I wasn’t entirely sure that he would survive, but he turned out to be a very tenacious little kitten. The first weekend I had the game, I stayed up all night playing it on my Mac Performa, checking in on the kitten, who needed to be fed every four hours. Mister Maynard is now a senior citizen kitteh of almost 14 years of age, and I am not sure that he will be with us by the time Civ V hits the shelf, but I was wrong about his chances as a baby, so maybe I’m being too pessimistic again now.

See Also

• January 9, 2009 -- Adorable Jones
• March 4, 2010 -- Invasion Of The Burger Snatchers
• February 23, 2010 -- I Just Have Two Words To Share
• January 29, 2010 -- Truth Or Dare
• January 20, 2010 -- When Life Hands You Lemons, Make Lemonade

Via Fast Company

I know old habits die hard, but at what point are we going to give it up, kids? A twelve-billion-dollar spending deficit for the month of January alone?? And Christmas spending (which this mostly reflects) was actually down 3% from 2008. It just makes me wonder exactly what it’s going to take to make people stop the madness.

See Also

• November 26, 2008 -- Bail! Bail! Bail!
• November 18, 2008 -- We’re Not Even Number Two
• November 11, 2008 -- Capitalism Destroys Everything, Chapter #3549
• October 22, 2008 -- Random Bits Of InfoTrivia
• October 14, 2008 -- Good News

See Also

• March 16, 2010 -- I’m Surprised Nobody Did “Heart And Soul”
• February 26, 2010 -- The Agony Of Defeat
• February 24, 2010 -- Oh Four Tuna!
• February 12, 2010 -- That Was The Week That Wasn’t
• January 13, 2010 -- Most Days Are Just Like This

The Labour Party of Britain was born in 1900 as the confederation of three labor-oriented political parties, and stood as the bastion of the establishment left in British politics for most of the 20th century. Though Labour led the government a number of times, the ascendancy of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives in the 1980s diminished the party’s political strength and popularity. The leader of Labour in the early 1980s was Michael Foot, who passed away this week at the age of 96. The disastrous election loss in 1983 shook up Labour, forced out Foot, and led to the rise of Tony Blair and what is called “New Labour” — a more centrist, if not outright conservative, platform that has held the government since the mid-1990s (although it is widely expected that the Conservatives are likely to return to power in the next general election).

In reading the several obituaries and blog posts I ran across, I was most impressed by this quote from Foot that reminded me very of why there was, and still is, a need for social democratic politics and political parties, not just in the U.K. but all over the world:

“We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. The is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer, to hell with them. the top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.”

British and American liberal politicians alike need to be shaken from their from their cozy alliances with “the top” and restored to their roots as the champions of the working man. The passing of Foot, like the passing of Ted Kennedy, reminds us that there are too few people like them left.

See Also

• February 5, 2010 -- Soapbox Hero
• January 29, 2010 -- Somewhere, Our Hero Laments
• November 20, 2009 -- Somewhere In East Germany, The Former Head Of The Stasi Weeps
• June 2, 2009 -- Honest Politicians? Perish The Thought!
• May 14, 2009 -- We’re All Socialists Now