Tyson Adams's Blog

Stephen King Bangs Out ‘The Winds of Winter’ on a Tuesday for Shits and Giggles

Stephen King Bangs Out ‘The Winds of Winter’ on a Tuesday for Shits and Giggles

From Hard Drive: Stephen King helps George R. R. Martin finish the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Mythtaken: Bees and CCD

I love honey.
Actually, that’s a lie, I’m ambivalent toward honey, I could take it or leave it.
Anyway, bees: kinda important. But not as important as recent internet and media talk would have us believe.

Here’s the problem summed up by the Penn State entomology group (dated August 2013):

At an international pollinator conference held at Penn State last week, the general consensus was that Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) of honey bees is caused by multiple factors including: a) viruses and diseases; b) two species of mites; c) poor nutrition caused by foraging in sugar poor crops like cucurbits; d) the stress of interstate travel and e) pesticide exposure.  Despite this, however, most of the research presented at the conference concentrated on pesticide exposure with a general call for banning a group of insecticides known as the neonicotinoids.  This of course seems to be an easy fix to a complex problem that is still not completely understood, but of course is popular with the public and many ecologists that have never worked with pesticides or IPM.  This stance does not take into account the reason these products were developed in the first place which was to replace human toxic OP pesticides and replace them with something safer as mandated by the Food Quality Protection Act.  Neonicotinoid insecticides have also proven to be safer to most beneficial insects other than bees and promote the biological control of pests such as San Jose Scale, Woolly Apple Aphid, European Red Mite, leafminers, and leafhoppers to name a few.  A general ban of neonicotinoid insecticides would cause a reversion back to OP, carbamate and pyrethroid insecticides which would totally destroy current IPM programs and cause growers an additional $50 to $100+ per acre in secondary pest sprays.

But here’s the other point that a lot of scares about pesticides miss:

Moreover, the authors do not account for the fact the France still observes CCD each year, even though they banned neonicotinoids 5 years ago. Nor do they note that beekeepers in Canada and Australia and parts of Europe use neonicotinoids, but do not observe CCD. Finally, they do not note that CCD has been taking place regularly for hundreds of years. We reviewed this in an article last year.

Update and aside:

There’s an important point in this piece that wasn’t covered. The discussion here is completely focused on European Honey Bees that are used in agriculture. They’re domesticated bees. We have plenty. But native bees are suffering the same issues that all animals and plants are faced with: a severe case of humans.

This explainer video from Vox is very good at covering that part of the issue.

Back to the article on honey bees.

Crops aren’t really affected: http://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2011/jun/images/graph-0611-3-02.gif

Beehives aren’t exactly going extinct either: http://faostat3.fao.org/faostat-gateway/go/to/search/bee/E  http://www.daff.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0011/1942481/graph1.gif

About 30% of our food, mainly fruit and nuts is pollinated by bees, but almonds are the only common crop that relies almost exclusively on bees. Of course not that it’s at all plausible that we will lose bees, as I hope I’ve already demonstrated.The headline of that article; “Scientists discover what’s killing the bees and it’s worse than you thought” is not supported by the text at all.

CCD or events that meet the description have been happening since at least the 19th century, but it’s entirely possible that there are modern reasons for it occurring now, and I’d say that seems especially likely on account of the very stark geography involved – where places like the USA and some European countries are badly hit, while other regions are completely unaffected.

The explanation that’s been favoured by actual scientists for a long time is that it’s a consequence of many factors. People, dare I say with confirming ideologies, are quick to point the finger at various “chemicals” but we know that it’s not just those chemicals, because other places that use them have no CCD.

But I go back to my earlier point, which is that it’s important to remember that this is no threat to the existence of bees, or plants that rely on bees. It’s very easy to breed bees and create new colonies. We could easily make the global bee population 100 times larger than it is now within this year if we really wanted to. CCD increases the costs to bee keepers, increases the costs of honey, and very marginally increases the costs of some fruits and nuts, within particular regions. It doesn’t threaten food security and it doesn’t threaten the existence of bees.

The European honey bee contributes directly to the Australian economy through the honey industry and to a lesser extent the packaged bee, bees’ wax and propolis sectors. Honey bees also contribute to the productivity of many horticultural crops, by providing essential pollination services that improve crop yield and quality. The Australian honey and bee products industry is valued at approximately $90 million per year.

It is estimated that bees contribute directly to between $100 million and $1.7 billion of agricultural production, mostly from unpaid sources such as feral bee colonies, but also from a small paid pollination industry of about $3.3 million, per year.1

This estimate refers to 35 of the most responsive crops to honeybee pollination. If all agriculture is included the estimates have run as high as $4-$6 billion2.

The industry is composed of about 10,000 registered beekeepers. Around 1,700 of these are considered to be commercial apiarists, each with more than 50 hives, and there are thousands of part-time and hobbyist apiarists, with total honey production around 16,000 tonnes of honey each year. http://www.daff.gov.au/animal-plant-health/pests-diseases-weeds/bee

A lot of people like to pretend that there is also a link between GMOs and CCD. This is utter nonsense. Firstly it is a poisoning the well logical fallacy, secondly there is nothing wrong with GMOs (check this list of +600 safety studies, and this list of articles on how good GMOs are, and this series on the Food Wars), and thirdly there is no actual link between GMOs and the supposed chemicals pressuring bee populations. This last point is very important, as it shows a confounding of issues, either deliberately or accidentally, that actually shows a lack of reading/understanding of the science of both GMO and CCD.

http://io9.com/ask-an-entomologist-anything-you-want-about-the-disappe-1616898038

Anyway, the real cause of CCD is the South Carolina divorce rate: http://tylervigen.com/view_correlatio...

http://extension.psu.edu/plants/tree-fruit/news/2013/the-role-of-pollen-bees-in-fruit-tree-pollination-and-some-new-cautions-on-pesticide-use

http://www.examiner.com/article/bees-are-found-to-die-from-insecticide-insignificant-new-paper

More on GMO: Scientific American come out in favour of GMO:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/labels-for-gmo-foods-are-a-bad-idea/
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/09/06/scientific-american-comes-out-in-favor-of-gmos/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2013/10/14/2000-reasons-why-gmos-are-safe-to-eat-and-environmentally-sustainable/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2013/04/11/science-collapse-disorder-the-real-story-behind-neonics-and-mass-bee-deaths/

http://beta.cosmosmagazine.com/society/how-we-perceive-risk-gmos

http://beta.cosmosmagazine.com/society/seeds-deception

http://beta.cosmosmagazine.com/society/environmentalists%E2-double-standards

Book vs Movie: Stardust – What’s the Difference

Before Daredevil was kicking butt he was trying to bring a fallen star to his girlfriend. Let’s have a look at Stardust.

For me, Stardust was one of those films that someone else had decided to watch in the house. Sure, it didn’t contain Scott Adkins or a single-car chase, but it was enjoyable enough to not find something else to do.

As for the book, I think it is easiest to say that the younger me only successfully finished one Neil Gaiman book. The one he co-wrote. You know which one. The greatest book ever written.

I don’t know how many Gaiman books and adaptations I’ve tried over the years, but I tend to have a similar reaction to them. Aside from Good Omens, I’m always left feeling Gaiman’s work has promise but doesn’t grab me.

Is it just me?

Book vs Movie: Starship Troopers – What’s the Difference?

It’s time to discuss Starship Troopers. Again.

Video: Starship Troopers – Lost in Adaptation – Dominic Noble.

The first time I watched Starship Troopers all I saw was a cheesy B-grade action movie. This was also what many movie reviewers thought at the time. Many years later I finally read the book and it clicked.

Verhoeven’s film only made sense to me after I’d read the book as it is as much a critique of the material as it is an adaptation.

“I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring,” says Verhoeven of his attempts to read Heinlein’s opus. “It is really quite a bad book. I asked Ed Neumeier to tell me the story because I just couldn’t read the thing. It’s a very right-wing book. And with the movie we tried, and I think at least partially succeeded, in commenting on that at the same time. It would be eat your cake and have it. All the way through we were fighting with the fascism, the ultra-militarism. All the way through I wanted the audience to be asking, ‘Are these people crazy?’ Source

The cheesy propaganda segments riff on the heavy-handed philosophical lecturing Heinlein does. The proud militarism is given consequence by utilising Heinlein’s own references to disabled veterans and by showing horrible training injuries and battlefield scenes. The fascist elements are played up for farce in the uniforms and sequences mirroring actual Nazi propaganda films.

Michael Ironside asked, “Why are you doing a right-wing fascist movie?”
Verhoeven replied, “If I tell the world that a right-wing, fascist way of doing things doesn’t work, no one will listen to me. So I’m going to make a perfect fascist world: everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships, but it’s only good for killing fucking Bugs!” Source

Now, I did actually enjoy the book. It is very interesting and many of the ideas were challengingly different. The portrayal of future warfare was, at the time, as imaginative as I’d come across. So Verhoeven’s reaction to satirise the book – one that Heinlein dashed out as an angry response to the US stopping nuclear tests – was probably overwrought by his childhood in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. But if the movie adaptation had been faithful we’d probably have seen the worst elements of Heinlein’s ideas paraded around like something produced by the Ministry of Enlightenment.

Well, either that or a schlocky B-grade action movie about the military killing alien bugs.

I’ve covered this book previously when other Youtube channels have discussed Starship Troopers. The first was What’s the Difference by Cinefix, which breaks down the differences. The second was from Wisecrack on how the movie makes fascism look good, despite Verhoeven’s intentions.

Video: Starship Troopers – What’s the Difference?Video: Starship Troopers – how to make fascism sexy – Wisecrack.

Book vs Movie: Pinocchio – What’s the Difference?

Let’s talk about Pinocchio and its many adaptations.

Video: Pinocchio adaptations and humanity – What’s the Difference?

Which is your favourite movie adaptation of the book you’ve never read? Is it Disney Classic? Disney Cashgrab? Or cinema auteur?

We have a number of the Disney Classic animated films. Without fail, the movies are ruined by a scene that casually drops in enough racism, sexism, or other general dickishness to have you fumbling for the remote. “Well, you see kids, back then people thought it was okay to mock people based on their skin colour or nationality. How is that different from today? Oh… Well, that’s a good question.”

Ironically, Pinocchio is relatively free of this problem but didn’t interest our kids as much as the ones starring animals. Which also means we weren’t forced to watch the Disney Cashgrab version, unlike the Lion King. Apparently, the soulless modernisation that was the Lion King was something of a high point in Disney Cashgrabs compared to their Pinocchio.

The adaptation that did interest me was Guillermo Del Toro’s effort. For starters, it isn’t a Disney thing – Yay public domain! The other was the idea of doing stop-motion animation for the storytelling suggested a level of care and commitment to the storytelling that has been lacking in many new adaptations of classics.

I suppose at some stage I’ll finish watching it. Potentially when the kids stop interrupting my movie-watching to get me to make snacks.

Book vs Movie: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – What’s the Difference?

Let’s dive into the book and movie that made Sean Connery give up acting and Alan Moore give Hollywood the finger.

This is one of those rare instances where I can say I didn’t like the book or the movie.

Back when I was graduating from junior to adult fiction, I went through a phase of reading all of the classic adventure novels. Everything from Tom Sawyer to Dracula. As such, I was familiar with every character Alan Moore put into his comic and none of them sat well with me. They were all slightly facile and nastier versions of the characters and stories I’d appreciated – love is far too strong a word.

When it came to the movie I was blown away by how terribly hamfisted it all was. Nothing in the movie really worked, despite there clearly being some talent involved.

For me, the worst part of the movie was Dorian Grey. I’d actually only gotten to that novel shortly before The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie came out so the character was fresh in my mind. To say that the character portrayed and the one from the novel were nothing alike is an understatement. Even the comic version is taking only the cliff notes version of the character.

It makes you wonder why either book or movie versions decided to use these public domain characters rather than make their own?

Oh look, Moore has commented on that, saying:

“The planet of the imagination is as old as we are. It has been humanity’s constant companion with all of its fictional locations, like Mount Olympus and the gods, and since we first came down from the trees, basically. It seems very important, otherwise, we wouldn’t have it.“

And:

“…it could be said that the theme of using popular fictional characters to comment on cultural and political mores has been carried over to “The Black Dossier” and the next volume of “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.” Source.

Or in other words, he thought it would be a cool narrative technique that might attract some readers. Not sure what the movie makers were thinking other than “franchise, franchise, franchise” while dancing in a conga line.

Book vs Movie: How the Grinch Stole Christmas – What’s the Difference?

If this post has a point, I’m not sure what it is, but rest assured that I can’t find a word to rhyme with is.

Video: How the Grinch Stole Christmas – Lost in Adaptation.

I know that Dr Seuss is regarded as something of a big deal, particularly in the USA, but I was never really taken in by his books. Aside from Green Eggs and Ham, none of them has really stuck with me as stories.

And then we have the adaptations, the above-mentioned How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat. Both of these films came at a time when I’d had enough of Jim Carey and Mike Meyers. It’s really hard to enjoy a film that feels like more of that actor’s shtick rather than bringing a character to life.

So why am I discussing this Lost in Adaptation episode then?

Gif: Shrug.

Look, it was an interesting video, okay! I can find insights into artistic endeavour interesting without having to find that art to my taste!

Gif: Don’t Judge Me!

Book vs Movie: Matilda – What’s the Difference?

Let’s have a look at one of the adaptations of Matilda by Roald Dahl in this What’s the Difference?

Video: Matilda by Roald Dahl – Lost in Adaptation.

Recently our youngest has been on something of a Roald Dahl and Dick King-Smith read-a-thon. She is very much looking forward to the new Matilda film coming out soon and very much enjoyed the book.

Part of the reason for her enjoyment was that, unlike The Water Horse by Dick King-Smith, the movie protagonist is a girl just like in the book.

“Why would they make the girl into a boy for the film?”

Yes, Hollywood, why indeed.

I can vaguely remember watching the 90s film of Matilda and enjoying it. Our youngest loved it. And we’ll inevitably sit down as a family to watch the new version. And this is in no small part due to the lack of kids books and adaptations featuring a female protagonist. You have to make the most of the handful of female-lead books and movies aimed at the middle-grade audience (YA is better served, but comes with slightly more stabbings and blood-drinking than we’re comfortable exposing a kid to).

As with many of Dahl’s children’s books, the treatment of kids comes from a different era. Matilda was published in 1988, yet much of the way schools were run had already begun to change by then. In many ways, the mistreatment of students by teachers would probably feel more familiar to my parent’s generation than is does to me, and feels odd to our kids. Yet it still manages to be entertaining to kids, if our children are any baramoter of what kids these days like.

Book vs Movie: I Robot – What’s the Difference?

For this Book vs Movie post, I’m hitting up a different sort of comparison video as my starting point. Sage from Just Write is not a fan of the I Robot movie and dives into Asimov’s books, adaptations, and the Will Smith movie.

Video: I Hate I Robot from Just Write.

So, I’m actually quite a fan of the I Robot movie and didn’t really enjoy the book. This puts the movie in the rare position of being better (in my humble opinion). Now, in my defence, it is a Will Smith action film and Asimov is a dry author who had busy hands – of course all sci-fi authors of that generation need to be graded from sexist to loving YA just a bit too much.

I haven’t read the detective novels in the I Robot series, which could actually be as good as discussed in the above video. But aside from an interesting series of ideas exploring how robots might come to understand/interpret the “three laws of robotics”, the Asimov novel was pretty bland.

Meanwhile, I Robot the movie is a Will Smith movie. You know, back before the late 2000s when he lost his mojo. Sure, it has all the depth of a Will Smith movie and has the dialogue of a Will Smith movie, but that’s also what you watch it for.

Although, Sage’s insights into the original script make me want to see that film made. I understand that movie studios love keeping hold of the IP they license by slapping it on any script they happen to find lying around, but it’s clear that some of those scripts could be interesting movies all on their own.

Maybe there’s a chance now to get both. Asimov’s The Foundation series TV adaptation – which I felt spent most of its time screaming “This is Sci-Fi” at the audience rather than just getting on with the job of being sci-fi – is getting a second season and seems to have been mostly well received. And remakes, reboots, prequels, sequels, and reimaginings are all the rage at the moment. So maybe someone will dust off that original script and get halfway through making it when they tack I Robot back onto it with (insert major star who hasn’t assaulted anyone at the Oscars lately here) starring.

Book vs Movie: Children of Men – What’s the Difference?

Let’s talk about depressing sci-fi with Children of Men, book versus movie.

Video: Children of men – what’s the difference?

The first time I watched Children of Men I wasn’t a fan. It was bleak, cold, and there was a feeling of pointless hopelessness. Even when I rewatched it, I can’t say I enjoyed the film. But I did become something of a fan of the film.

That’s something I often find with sci-fi movies. They may not be films I enjoy watching but they are rewarding, engrossing, and poignant experiences.

While this isn’t unique to sci-fi, it seems to attract filmmakers to the genre – when they’re not busy getting a hardon for pew pew noises. But I’d say sci-fi novels don’t have this same effect on me. With a few notable exceptions, like 1984, most sci-fi novels I’ve read are enjoyable while being rewarding, engrossing, and poignant.

The question then arises is why novels and movies differ in this way. I’d assert that the reason the books tend to be enjoyable is that I’d have given up on them otherwise. A 90-120 minute film is something you can tolerate a bit of bleakness in to come away rewarded. A book takes a lot longer to read, particularly in the sci-fi genre which is yet to produce a novel under 600 pages in a 6-volume series. You’d better believe the reader needs to be engrossed for the book version, which will require a bit less bleakness than movies can get away with.