July 28th, 2008, 12 Comments »
Last night I had to change propane tanks on the fly, and noticed that the empty tank had some ice formed near its base. This is despite the fact that it was connected to a hot barbecue on a warm summer evening. Here’s what it looked like:
Why does this occur? There’s a vague and incomplete answer referencing the Ideal Gas Law on WikiAnswers:
As you use the tank, the pressure inside goes down. As the pressure drops, the temperature also drops because of something called the Ideal Gas Law. Ice forms on the tank because water moisture in the atmosphere is condensed on the cold tank and then frozen.
Would anybody care to elaborate?
12 Comments »
August 28th, 2007, 16 Comments »
ZDNet reports that YouTube faces criticism and possible legal action for hosting anti-semitic videos:
The videos hosted on YouTube include clips of a 1940 anti-Semitic propaganda film Jud Suess and two music videos of outlawed German far-right rock band Landser, which show footage from World War II depicting Nazi military operations.
Report Mainz, which is due to air the program, said in a statement that Social Democrat (SPD) parliamentarian Dieter Wiefelspuetz said airing the clips on YouTube in Germany was scandalous. Report Mainz quoted him as saying: “Publishing these films amounts to aiding and abetting incitement of the people.”
You know, the older I get, the less sure I am about dealing with hate speech, particularly in a context like YouTube. After all, the web has increasingly sophisticated filtering mechanisms which enable the truth to bubble to the top. Nothing lives in isolation online, and so people who comment on and link to a hateful video can dilute much of its power. Is metadata a reasonable replacement for anti-hate speech laws?
Being a Caucasian, male, straight Westerner, I’m pretty much in every majority group you’d care to identify, and so I’m not really the target of any such speech. I’d probably feel differently if my grandparents died at Auschwitz.
I couldn’t figure out how to tastefully work in a reference to JewTube in this post, but it’s just staring us in the face, isn’t it?
16 Comments »
August 2nd, 2007, No Comments »
The Times of Malta is a cornucopia of amusing stories, both domestic and international. It’s by no means a tabloid, but instead willfully mixes legitimate news with, uh, bizarre News of the World.
My favourite recent local story discusses a decision in a sexual harassment case:
A woman was awarded Lm2,000 in compensation after a tribunal found she was forced to leave her job due to sexual harassment…
The tribunal heard that, after getting soaked in the rain, the company owner once spent the day at the office in his underwear even though there were employees present.
To be clear, there were additional reasons why the complainant sued. This one, however, was the only entertaining one. There’s no indication of the company involved, but I can’t think of an industry where this might be defensible (besides, maybe, monastery electrician?) What was the guy thinking? That’s a plot line straight out of The Office, isn’t it?
I guess Malta treats sexual harassment like sexual assault, protecting the complainant’s identity. That makes a lot of sense for both parties, I think, though it may not further the cause of equality in the workplace the full disclosure might.
The headline for this story is hilariously illustrative of the rampant sexism in Malta. It reads “Firm owner spends day at the office in underwear after getting wet”. That clause “after getting wet” is so tacked on to try to mitigate the idiotic boss.
An alternative title for this piece: “Boss’s Birthday Suit Begets Lawsuit”.
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July 7th, 2007, 4 Comments »
Like divorce and abortion, possession of pornography is illegal in Malta. I learned this through a brief, grisly article in The Malta Times:
The brothers, aged 41 and 43, pleaded not guilty to defiling their relative, holding her against her will and causing her to fear them on and before July this year. They were also charged with the possession of pornographic material and offending public morals. They were denied bail at this stage.
Ruling Out Foul Play
I first read the article because the headline made use of an unusual term: “Brothers charged with defiling niece”. I’ve noticed that Maltese newspapers tread carefully around subjects like sex and suicide.
Another example is this article, “Man killed by single gunshot - autopsy“. The article reports that “police have ruled out foul play”. Huh? A guy gets shot and there’s no foul play. It took me a little while to figure it out.
There’s no mention of it, but this is the apparently meant to imply that the man committed suicide. Malta is the most Catholic country in the world, so I suppose you’d expect that sex and suicide would be fairly taboo.
To return to illegal activities, for some reason the fact that porn is illegal is weirder than divorce or abortion. Abortion is naturally contentious across the globe. Divorce isn’t that strange to me because, when I lived in Dublin, I learned that divorce had only been legalized there 11 years ago. I do recall that they had nudie magazines in the local SPAR, though.
Anyone With a Libido
After all, I come from a continent where the porn industry is a (estimates seem to vary widely) at least a US $5 billion industry, and where pornography is marketed not only to young men, but to women, senior citizens and everybody else with a libido. And I recently happened to visit Budapest, the reputed European capital of the porn industry. It was just a two-hour flight away.
Here’s how the laws on the books read:
For the purpose of sub-article (3) of article 208 of the Criminal Code, an article shall be deemed to be pornographic or obscene if -
(a) its dominant characteristic is the exploitation of, or undue emphasis on, sex, or any one of the following subjects, namely, crime, horror, cruelty and violence; or
(b) it directly or indirectly advertises or gives information on any article considered to be pornographic or obscene under these Regulations:
Provided that an article shall not be considered to be pornographic or obscene to the extent that it serves the public good on the ground that it is in the interests of science, literature, art or
learning or other objects of general concern.
That’s a pretty broad definition of pornography. I’m surprised that I can buy Stephen King books in the local bookstores.
Ah well, I don’t think I’ll write a letter to the paper about that. I’m better off railing against the shameful hunting of birds into extinction, instead.
4 Comments »
