Amy Motlagh, The veil in Iran has been an enduring symbol of patriarchal norms – but its use has changed depending on who is in power, ' Indeed, oftentimes outside of Iran, wearing a veil is seen as oppression – and its removal as emancipation and freedom. This understanding, however, fails to take into account the veil’s broader symbolism and ignores the complex history of mandatory veiling and unveiling in Iran in the 20th and 21st centuries. . . . The veil that is being removed is therefore not an insistence only on the right to personal freedom and expression – though it may be that for some who are removing it – but also a rejection of patriarchal norms that have animated both the pre-revolutionary regime and the Islamic Republic.' back

Andrw Maynard, Elon Musk’s Tesla Bot raises serious concerns – but probably not the ones you think, ' But if consumers, investors and others are bedazzled by the glitz of new tech or dismissive of the hype and fail to see the bigger picture, society risks handing the future to wealthy innovators whose vision exceeds their understanding. If their visions of the future don’t align with what most people aspire to, or are catastrophically flawed, they are in danger of standing in the way of building a just and equitable future. Maybe this is the abiding lesson from dystopian robot-future sci-fi movies that people should be taking away as the Tesla Bot moves from idea to reality — not the more obvious concerns of creating humanoid robots that run amok, but the far larger challenge of deciding who gets to imagine the future and be a part of building it.' back

Chemistry - Wikipedia, Chemistry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, back

Chris Fleming, The End of History: Francis Fukuyama’s controversial idea explained, ' His argument was that the unfolding of history had revealed – albeit in fits and starts – the ideal form of political organisation: liberal democratic states tied to market economies. (Or to put it in Churchillian language, the least-worst form.). . . . For him, a liberal democratic state requires three things. First, it is democratic, not only in the sense of allowing elections, but in the outcomes of these elections resulting in the implementation of the will of the citizenry. Secondly, the state possesses sufficient strength and authority to enforce its laws and administer services. Thirdly, the state – and its highest representatives – is itself constrained by law. Its leaders are not above the law. Fasting: Is what we are witnessing “temporary counterwaves,” to quote Samuel Huntington, or are they fundamental reversals that belie the optimism before the millennium? Fukuyama: I don’t think you can answer that at this point. Nobody can, of course. As a science, political futurology has proved itself even more dismal than economics.' back

Colette (2018 film) - Wikipedia, Colette (2018 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Colette is a 2018 biographical drama film directed by Wash Westmoreland, from a screenplay by Westmoreland, Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Richard Glatzer, based upon the life of the French novelist Colette. It stars Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Eleanor Tomlinson, and Denise Gough. back

De Croon et al, Accommodating unobservability to control flight attitude with optic flow, ' Attitude control is an essential flight capability. Whereas flying robots commonly rely on accelerometers1 for estimating attitude, flying insects lack an unambiguous sense of gravity2,3. Despite the established role of several sense organs in attitude stabilization3,4,5, the dependence of flying insects on an internal gravity direction estimate remains unclear. Here we show how attitude can be extracted from optic flow when combined with a motion model that relates attitude to acceleration direction.' back

Elizabeth Dias, U.S. Catholic Bishops Elect Leaders for Anti-Abortion Fight, ' BALTIMORE — A week after bruising losses for anti-abortion forces in the midterm elections, America’s Roman Catholic bishops rededicated themselves to ending abortion and elected a slate of new leaders to support that goal during their annual meeting on Tuesday. . . . The bishops chose Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, who leads the Archdiocese for the Military Services, as their new president. Archbishop Lori, the runner-up for the presidency, will serve as vice president. Both men have taken strong positions against abortion and are expected to continue the conservative leanings of the hierarchy on an array of social issues. . . . He has previously suggested that homosexuality was to blame for the church’s sexual abuse crisis, though studies have found no connection between homosexuality and child abuse. Asked on Tuesday about those comments, Archbishop Broglio replied, “I think it would be naïve to suggest that there is no relationship between the two".' back

Feynman, Leighton and Sands FLP II_02, Chapter 2: Differential Calculus of Vector Fields, ' What it means really to understand an equation—that is, in more than a strictly mathematical sense—was described by Dirac. He said: “I understand what an equation means if I have a way of figuring out the characteristics of its solution without actually solving it.” So if we have a way of knowing what should happen in given circumstances without actually solving the equations, then we “understand” the equations, as applied to these circumstances. A physical understanding is a completely unmathematical, imprecise, and inexact thing, but absolutely necessary for a physicist. ' back

Gorbachev Heaven, BBCStoryville, back

Governance Institute of Australia, Ethics Index 2022 reveals a fall in nation’s trust for second year in a row, back

Hilbert space - Wikipedia, Hilbert space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The mathematical concept of a Hilbert space, named after David Hilbert, generalizes the notion of Euclidean space. It extends the methods of vector algebra and calculus from the two-dimensional Euclidean plane and three-dimensional space to spaces with any finite or infinite number of dimensions. A Hilbert space is a vector space equipped with an inner product, an operation that allows defining lengths and angles. Furthermore, Hilbert spaces are complete, which means that there are enough limits in the space to allow the techniques of calculus to be used.' back

Linear form - Wikipedia, Linear form - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In mathematics, a linear form (also known as a linear functional, a one-form, or a covector) is a linear map from a vector space to its field of scalars (often, the real numbers or the complex numbers). If V is a vector space over a field k, the set of all linear functionals from V to k is itself a vector space over k with addition and scalar multiplication defined pointwise. This space is called the dual space of V, or sometimes the algebraic dual space, when a topological dual space is also considered. . . . When vectors are represented by column vectors (as is common when a basis is fixed), then linear functionals are represented as row vectors, and their values on specific vectors are given by matrix products (with the row vector on the left).' back

Robertson, Finn & Jones, ‘Toxic cover-up’: 6 lessons Australia can draw from the UN’s scathing report on greenwashing, ' The United Nations this week slammed corporate “greenwashing” and said organisations cannot claim to be net-zero while supporting fossil fuel projects. The report, released at the global COP27 climate conference in Egypt, called for new rules to ensure emissions pledges were credible and transparent. UN Secretary-General António Guterres appointed the expert group in March. Releasing its report this week, Guterres had strong words for companies that use “bogus” net-zero pledges to cover up massive fossil fuel expansion: It is rank deception. This toxic cover-up could push our world over the climate cliff. The sham must end. . . . Concerningly, there’s often a big gap between promises and action. For example, one-third of firms on the Forbes Global 2000 list of publicly traded companies have net zero emissions targets. However, two-thirds of them have not outlined how they will achieve the goal, analysis shows,' back

Ruth Graham, Maryland Finds That for Hundreds of Clergy Abuse Victims, ‘No Parish Was Safe’, ' The attorney general of Maryland has identified more than 600 young victims of clergy sexual abuse over the course of 80 years in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, according to a court document filed Thursday. The filing, which broadly outlines the attorney general’s findings, requests that a judge allow the release of the full report: a 456-page document detailing decades of clergy sex abuse in Maryland.. . . . The scale of the abuse outlined is on par with other large abuse cases uncovered in lawsuits and other investigations in dioceses in Boston, Los Angeles, Pennsylvania and Illinois. . . . The sexual abuse scandal has vexed the Catholic Church for 20 years, since The Boston Globe documented the cover-up of widespread sexual abuse in Catholic settings in 2002.' back

She Said (film) - Wikipedia, She Said (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' She Said is a 2022 American biographical drama film directed by Maria Schrader from a screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz. It is based on the New York Times investigation that exposed Harvey Weinstein's history of abuse and sexual misconduct against women by Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey, and Rebecca Corbett, and the 2019 book of the same name chronicling the investigation by Kantor and Twohey. The film stars Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as Twohey and Kantor, respectively, alongside Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Jennifer Ehle, and Samantha Morton in supporting roles, and Ashley Judd appearing as herself. ' back

Shield of the Trinity - Wikipedia, Shield of the Trinity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Shield of the Trinity or Scutum Fidei is a traditional Christian visual symbol which expresses many aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity, summarizing the first part of the Athanasian Creed in a compact diagram. In late medieval England and France, this emblem was considered to be the heraldic arms of God (and of the Trinity).' back

Si Goldman, The committee of clerics lording it over Defence, ' Few Australians – even members of the Defence Force – would have heard of the Religious Advisory Committee to the Services (RACS). Many, no doubt, would be surprised to learn of the privileged place this committee holds in Defence and the influence it wields. . . . Yet the future of RACS, with its increasingly irrelevant religious clerics lording it over an institution marked by decreasing numbers of religious adherents, appears assured without external intervention from the federal government. Within Defence, it is claimed, there is an unwillingness to start a ‘religious war’ with RACS.' back

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, I am the Belarusian president-elect, and together we will prevail , ' Lukashenko is building a North Korea in the heart of Europe. The KGB publishes daily videos of forced confessions, and journalists now publish their materials anonymously. Since all independent NGOs have been liquidated, activists are joining “partisans,” regularly conducting sabotage or distributing illegal samizdat — homemade news bulletins. But one has to be careful, as a network of moles snitch on any sign of disloyalty or dissent, and simply having the wrong photo on a phone can have a high price — as much as 15 years in prison. . . . I beat Lukashenko in the general election of 2020 before he stole it back with the help of the KGB, the siloviki security forces and Putin. . . . I am the Belarusian president-elect. I am fighting for my country in exile. But I continue to support our people. And together, we will prevail.' back

Washington Post: Editorial Board, Opinion: The Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal continues, ' On his plane back to Rome from a Middle East trip recently, Pope Francis acknowledged that the Vatican faces pushback in its efforts to overhaul the Catholic Church’s habits of denial, secrecy and coverup surrounding clerical sexual abuse. “There are people within the church who still do not see clearly,” he said, adding that “not everyone has courage.” The pontiff’s delicate phrasing, and his timing, underscored the compounding damage the scandal has inflicted on the church’s moral authority and prestige. Days after Pope Francis shared those thoughts with journalists, new revelations of high-level sexual misconduct and coverup in France shattered illusions of progress by the church toward establishing a culture of transparency and accountability in its hierarchy.' back