The Art of Restraint: Why the Paris Olympics Fell Short
I did not like the Paris Olympics Opening Broadcast. I was disappointed because I was expecting much better from the French.
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Organisers of Paris Olympics wanted to have an opening session different from the past. Instead of restricting the opening event to a stadium, they made the whole city the venue with the national teams arriving in boats. Exhibits and stageshows scattered along the Seine River provided the theatrical entertainment, in replacement of the in-stadium shows in previous olympics.
There were beautiful moments in the Paris Olympics opening ceremony like, for example, the olympic torch lighting fuel for the hot air balloon. However, as a whole, I was unimpressed.
Why did I not like it? At first, I thought I did not like it because they dropped all pretense that this is a sports event and converted it fully to TV entertainment. I know all past Olympics designed their opening ceremonies to provide a broadcastable spectacle but they still had it in a sports venue. The venue provides the anchor that this is related to the Olympics, which is essentially a sports competition. This anchor was lost in Paris Olympics.
But having thought about it for a couple of days I decided that my dislike was more than a purist aversion to corruption of a sports event. I did not like it because it was a messy muddle and I think the reason for the mess can be traced to the decision on the venue choice (i.e. no venue).
Having a single venue not only maintained the reference to the sports but also constrained and concentrated the creative minds of the event designers. If your entire event is occurring in a stadium, you have to be more clever to deliver a spectacle within the physical limits imposed by the venue. When the city is your venue, then there are almost no limits and you can put anything into your program. An unlimited canvas may be promoting unbounded variety but I am afraid, in this instance at least, resulted in a product that rapidly became boring to watch.
It is not unusual for constraints to foster creativity. There are good examples in arts where artists deliberately impose constraints in the expression of their work to emphasise the creative elegance of their work without dilution. A well-known example is Japanese Haiku poetry. A haiku is a three-line poem with a syllable count of 5, 7, and 5 or a total of 17. The constraint forces the poets to concentrate the meaning and emotion in this very limited form. Another example is Picasso’s blue period when the artist limited his palette to shades of blue and blue-green. He thought he could explore the depths of his mood and emotions more deeply within these constraints.
In engineering design, which is a domain I am more comfortable with, the starting point is always a set of specifications based on the needs and expectations of the user. The designer concentrates his or her creativity within the framework of these specifications. I believe the existence of these system specifications also help the designer become more creative. A good example is the Tiny Homes movement. This is an architectural trend that started in late 20th century designing homes of floor areas around 40-50 square meters. The limited space I believe pushes the architects and engineers to maximise functionality and aesthetic appeal using creative multifunctional furniture and constructional features.
I can list more examples that show how appropriately limiting formats lead to more creative products but I want to address another point before I close the mention of Olympics.
Olympics and Politics
It is difficult for me to justify the IOC (International Olympics Committee) decision to ban Russian and Belarussian athletes from competing under their national flags.
For the record, I think the indiscriminate Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities is abhorrent. I know that many people think like me (although there may also be others who think differently). Nevertheless, abhorrent practices are carried out by other nations competing in Paris. For example, Israel is being tried at the International Court of Justice for war crimes akin to genocide. It is not for the International Olympics Committee (IOC) to decide one series of killings is justified and can be allowed while the other is not and there should be banned.
Again for the record, and for the zealots keen to label any criticism of the deeds of the Israeli government as anti-semitism, I declare here again that October 7 and Hamas murders were an horrific and dastardly example of terrorism. Regular readers of this blog will remember what I wrote at that time and the post that followed it after Israel decided to attack Gazza.
The IOC should not punish athletes for the actions of their governments. They cannot be the judge and the jury on such matters. All athletes, Russians, Belarussians, Israelis should be allowed to participate under their national flags in Olympics.
Short Takes
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China’s Green Boom
Semafor, 23 July 2024
The use of renewable energy is rapidly growing in China. As the above chart shows, in 2023, China made up 63% of the new global renewable energy capacity. Growth is much slower in Africa and other parts of Asia, which are still heavily relying on fossil fuels. The rich countries remain committed to renewables but their electricity demand is flat and therefore their investment rate is low. This is clearly seen in the following chart that shows the change in the source of electricity in EU in the first six months of 2024 compared to 2023:
There is a bit more solar, wind and hydro and a bit less coal and gas but this is small change against the total annual power demand in EU, which is about 2800 TWh. The total EU demand increased by only 9 TWh or 0.3% in the first six months of 2024.
I should also note that renewable energy investments for China is not only part of the fight against the climate change but also an industry policy. Industry policy is favouring a particular type of industry against others through tax incentives or other government subsidies. The driver for the Chinese economic growth used to be the construction industry until it collapsed. The Chinese government wants to substitute renewable energy investments in that role.
In Australia, having an industry policy is pejoratively called as government picking winners. Australian governments, which are traditionally dominated by lawyers and accountants, are incapable of picking winners and therefore do not.
I have always thought that a categorical objection against having industry policies is irresponsible and wrong. Therefore, I am very interested in the outcome of this Chinese experiment in replacing the investment in housing construction with investment in renewable industries.
The relevance to the rest of the world is that while investing in its capacity to build renewable wind and solar plants, China is learning how to build more efficient renewable generators at lower costs. This can only be good for the rest of the world as long as we let them share their experience with us.
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Health: The biggest spender achieves the least
US spends the highest per capita on health. The following chart shows the per capita health spending for selected nations plotted against their per capita GDP. US is clearly an outlier spending twice compared to nations at the same income level:
Yet the health outcomes for US citizens are the worst amongst its peers. I plot below the life expectancy at birth as an example:
US per capita health spending is more than twice that for Australia yet the average Australian baby born in 1921 expects to live 84.5 years or seven years longer than an American baby born in the same year.
I had never understood the reasons for this until I saw the following graph:
This figure explains it all. Half of the US population receives only 3% of the total health spending and the 1% with the highest incomes receives 24%. The life expectancy for that top 1% is probably 100 years but the poor health of the bottom 50% who gets almost no paid health care takes the country average down. Having seen the above graph, I am surprised that the average US life expectancy at birth is still as high as 77.2 years.
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Another sad story
I used to work for Labtam in 1985, an Australian manufacturer (now defunct) of computers and scientific instrumentation. A senior IT specialist, let’s call him Senor Alvarez, came to see me and asked if we had a job for him. Senor Alvarez had recently immigrated to Australia from Venezuela. At that time Labtam was not in the best position financially and I told him that we would not be able to hire new people. I asked why he left Venezuela. He blamed the Venezuelan economy as the reason. He said that his lifetime savings had lost 50% of their value in a couple of years due to rapid devaluation of the Venezuelan money and he had lost all confidence in the future of the country. As he predicted, Venezuela has not been doing well since then. There was a brief period of relative improvement under Chavez but it has been a quick dive after he died.
Venezuela has rich petroleum resource and this has been its curse. But I do not think it had to be this bad. Being located in the US backyard and with little leverage against the American oil sharks, it always would be difficult to manage this wealth. But no one could predict the country’s elite to be this incompetent. We cannot explain the problems of Venezuela purely by the American influence. The American companies of course have an interest in Venezuelan oil. But different countries have developed different mechanisms of protection against the rapacity of US companies. The sad situation in Venezuela is that the American chikanery neither managed to bring a collaborative regime into power nor caused formation of a coherent national response. The thugs took over instead. The Venezuelan elites either chose to leave the country or they became part of the thuggery.
Robo Dentist can do crowns
Popular Science, 31 July 2024
Would you trust it? It has not received formal government approval yet but probably will in the near future.
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Diary
The Time Paradox: Routine Versus Adventure
It has been two months since we came back from Istanbul. My subjective clock runs faster in Brisbane. This is because our time is well-structured here. I wake up at 6am every morning and go to sleep at around 11pm. Tuesdays and and Fridays we look after Eleanor. Thursdays I go to the university. I do weekly grocery shopping on Saturday morning and go to the Farmers Markets Sunday mornings. Tuesday nights we have dinner with Taylan and Yi. I even went back to the routine of my nightly Wim Hof breathing exercises1. There are other regular things we do on other days and times but I am not going to bore you, you get the picture. My point is that the days follow each other and one does not realise how quickly the invariant time flows.
In contrast, when on holidays, every day is a different day and the daily variability subjectively slows down the time. In one week on holidays, we experience more variance than in one week at home. I do not know how you feel but to me a week with more experience squeezed into it feels longer than an ordinary week.
Paradoxically, the holiday still feels short when it ends2.
On the downside, all this rich experience made me gain two kilograms during my two-month stay in Istanbul. It took another two months in Brisbane to lose them. While I enjoy a high density of experiences and variability, it may appear that routine and structure benefit my health. But I think it would be wrong to draw this conclusion from this limited sample of one person-trip. The weight gain was more likely caused by increased food and alcohol intake rather than lack of routine.
There may be an opportunity here for the travel industry: A non-repetitive travel package with a variety of experiences squeezed into successive days yet going easy on food and drinks. This could be a winner product for at least some elderly.
Perfect Roast Beef Dinner
For our weekly dinner with Taylan and Yi, last Tuesday I made roast beef . Over the years, I tried different recipes and I have found that the following always delivers a good succulent roast:
I buy either rib roast (called rib eye in US; antrikot in Turkiye) or eye fillet roast (tenderloin in US; bonfile in Turkiye). I put the meat into a shallow oven tray.
Sometimes the meat may have deep gashes left by the butcher on the side that open up and cause deformation during cooking. Therefore, I tie the meat with Butchers Twine if I feel it is necessary. It is easy to cut it off when cooked.
We have a Miele electric oven with a fan. I select the “Fan Plus” mode and set the temperature 230 C.
While the oven is heating up, I rub generous quantities of olive oil onto the meat. Use a disposable glove to gently try to squeeze the oil into the meat.
Do not cover the tray. When the oven reaches 230 C, put it onto the mid rack. Cook at 230C for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, I reduce the oven temperature to 180C and continue cooking for
20 mins/500g for rare,
25 mins/500g for medium
If I have several pieces, I weigh them and set the timer using the above formula for the smallest piece.
When the timer beeps, take the tray out, check the internal temperatures of the large pieces using a meat thermometer. Make sure you measure the temperature in the middle not near the edges. You want
60-65 C for medium rare
65-70 C for medium
The small pieces are always at 70C or higher at this point. This probably means that my cooking times could be shorter.
I remove the cooked pieces and put the rest back into the oven. The oven is still at 180C. Heat 1 minute for every deg C you are below the target temperature, e.g. another 7 mins if you measured a meat temperature of 58 but want to get to 65.
Turn the oven off, remove the tray, cover with Aluminum foil and put it back into the warm oven. Let it rest for 15 minutes before carving.
I must admit that in a roast beef dinner, doing the beef is easy. Preparing the sides is much more involved and thankfully this is up to Meliz. Last week she roasted vegetables (zuchini and red capsicum) and potato (sweet and normal potato mixed). Here is what they looked like:
Meliz also prepared black pepper sauce. She prepares it from fresh ingredients and it always tastes much better than the restaurant version.
It was a good dinner. The best part was that Eleanor is now old enough to enjoy the food and the company. She loved the meat and the vegetables. She had the meat with Satay sauce Meliz made separately for her thinking black pepper sauce might be too spicy.
You Tube
Every now and then I get lower back pain. I tried different “treatments” for it like free hanging down from a bar or trying to curve my back while lying facedown on the floor. I have always thought it was caused by the weakness of the muscles in the region where the pan was felt. I was wrong.
I experienced lower back pain recently and I did the exercise suggested in this YouTube video. It helped. I also learned that the lower back pain is not caused by muscles in my lower back but the hip muscles, a.k.a. the glutes. I share this video just in case if some are as ignorant as I was about the causes and cures for lower back pain:
When I told Taylan about this, he gave me an elastic band. I lie on the floor on my side, put my ankles through the loop and try to open my legs scissor-like againt the resistance of the band.
Pascal Hagi
Pascal and Hagi usually get into the sleep mode on their own. When the night comes, after nibbling on their lettuce leaves, first Hagi goes into the cage and Pascal follows it after a few minutes. This photo is just before that time:
On some days though, they are restless or just do not want to go to sleep. Then, I sing them a lullaby and this always sets them in the right mood:
What I read
Carpathians, Paul Dixon
This book was published in 2023. I did not know of Paul Dixon until Amazon’s algorithm recommended this book. According to his biography, Dr. Paul A. Dixon holds a Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography. He works professionally in Climate Technology at Singularity Energy, a Boston-based startup.
The period is eleven centuries into the future. The nation states seem to have disappeared and replaced by corporations. There are three major corporations, Magellanix, TransGlactic, and InterTech, and a number of small ones. Faster-Than-Light travel has been discovered and these corporations are exploring the nearby universe to locate new planets and new resources not unlike the 15th century European explorers who went sailing around Earth to discover new lands. Dixon’s explorers find that the human experience is not unique but the human survival may be. Life existed in some planets but always ended in self-destruction through nuclear war. All that was found in tens of so-called “holocaust” worlds was radioactive ruins. In such a holocaust world, Ragnarok, recently visited by Magellanix, an intact artificial sphere is discovered. Other than ruins, this is the first alien artifact found by humanity. It looks like it was placed on Ragnarok at least a million years after the Ragnarok natives killed each other in a planetwide nuclear war. I will let you read the book to discover what happens afterwards.
There are interesting observations in the book. The corporatism does not produce the same kind of loyalty as nationalism does. Therefore, the corporations invent ingenious methods to control their employees and the HR offices implementing these methods become the scariest part of each company. I found this increasing importance of HR interesting because I predict the same thing albeit in our near future and for different reasons. I anticipate the effect of the LLMs (and the more sophisticated AI tools that may or may not follow) to cause a levelling of technical talent except for a very few spikes of excellence. I think the HR officers will acquire more power when most of the employees will be readily interchangeable.
This is Paul Dixon’s first adult book (he wrote a two-book young-adult adventure earlier). I think he is an inventive author but I found the story development uneven and his prose clumsy. This is OK for the first book. If he persists in writing fiction, I am sure he will polish his craft along the way and may become a new Alastair Reynolds or Peter Hamilton.
They do it with mirrors, Agatha Christie
This is Agatha Christie’s sixth Miss Marple book, written in 1952. Part of the interest of the Agatha Christie books for me is the description of a Britain that is lost forever. After reading the book, I like watching it on Amazon Prime before going to sleep. Joan Hickson plays Miss Marple:
AT Index
Based on my basket of goods, Australia is twice as expensive this week compared to Istanbul. Below are the prices in Turkish liras for the items in the basket on 4 August 2024. The conversion rate is 1AUD=21.54TRY.
The following is the plot of AT index. Australia this week is 215% more expensive than Turkey.
The code to create the above tables and the plot is in my github repository and can be downloaded if you are interested.
No reason I could not do them in Istanbul but it was difficult after too many fish-raki dinners and I let go.
I must however admit that this was not the case in our last holiday. We wanted to return to Brisbane this time because we missed our granddaughter.