Are there any engineers in The House?

The BBC reports that

The Italian government’s credit rating has been slashed by Moody’s from Aa2 to A2 with a negative outlook.

The ratings agency blamed a “material increase in long-term funding risks for the euro area”, due to lost confidence in eurozone government debts.

To anyone with any sort of engineering background this is as clear example as it is possible to have of a positive feedback loop leading to hunting oscillation. And the answer in this case is equally clear – break the loop and then, if it is certain that controlled feedback has some value, remake it with some appropriate hysteresis in place.

Breaking the loop means simply shutting down the ratings agencies – any useful purpose they may once have served is now vastly outweighed by the damage they are doing through providing this feedback mechanism. I would suggest also simply banning short selling for a period – this too is clearly a major contributor to hunting oscillation. Once the markets have reached a more stable state, and after a period of careful thought, then some elements of positive feedback could be reintroduced, with appropriate regulatory controls.

Sadly, with governments staffed by lawyers and under the sway of the gambling bankers I fear this is unlikely to happen. It’s a great shame that there aren’t sufficient people of a rational scientific or engineering background in government.

Beware…

Not the Hong Kong Sign-Writing Department’s best effort…

I think they just did!

Racism in the SCMP

I was surprised, and not a little saddened, to read the racist views of Alvin Sallay in the SCMP on Sunday when writing about the Hong Kong ladies cricket team:

Godiva is one of nine Chinese girls in the 15-strong women’s squad. The rest are non-Chinese, but all are united in the fact that they qualify for the games by being born in Hong Kong and holding SAR passports.

This is a quite outrageous sentiment. People who are born in Hong Kong and are citizens of China holding Hong Kong passports must be “Chinese”. What else could they be?

Sex

It’s been a bit quiet here – sorry about that: I’ve been spending a lot of time leading groups of people around the hiking trails of Hong Kong, and just haven’t been inspired to write.

Some sanity on the question of risk

From the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk at my alma mater comes this post from David Spiegelhalter highlighting an excellent new report in the UK about the risks and benefits of kids undertaking outdoor adventure programmes.

Government by Fear (again)

With thanks to Bruce Schneier for highlighting it in his blog, I must recommend this essay by Tom Engelhardt for getting to the essence of the US Government’s “management by fear” approach to terrorism. Sadly, many other governments seem to follow their lead.

They just don’t get it, do they?

On viewing the plans for the new Legco accommodation (in part of what used to be the beautiful Victoria Harbour) Emily Lau commented “I think it’s better sound-proofing the room because it will be disturbing if there are protests outside”.

Oh dear. Democracy? Who needs it, eh?

Spike gets the hump

I don’t normally indulge in meta-blogging (blogging about bloggers) on the grounds that it could easily lead to disappearing up my own (rather sizeable) fundament. But I’ll make an exception this once,

Med Stars, Gold Coast – just don’t!

We made a rare mistake in choice of post-hike refreshment this week having walked up the Yuen Tun Country Trail to the point where it intersects the Maclehose, then 10km of the old Maclehose trail along the banks of the Tai Lam Chung reservoir, and finally down to the Gold Coast. Here we had a number of choices, from Ebenezer’s and McDonald’s through Med Stars, Chili’n'Spice up to Le Bristol. We decided we were a bit grubby for Le Bristol but then were tempted into Med Stars by the fact that bottled beer was $25 and 500ml of draft Carlsberg $27.

The Globe – it’s back, at last

The Globe finally got its new liquor licence for the new premises today, so this afternoon quite a crowd descended on the place. It’s in the space that used to be Le Tire Bouchon in Graham Street, just a few steps up from Hollywood Road and only 100 yards or so from where it used to be.

Profiting from fear

This is utterly outrageous – one Jim McCormick in the UK has managed to sell useless pieces of metal to the Iraqi government for US$85M. They can’t have cost him more than a tiny fraction of that to make.

One of the really sad things about the mess in various bits of the Middle East is how snake oil salesmen can talk their way into making millions of dollars at the expense of western and local governments.

And while we’re on the subject, look at this for how useless the imminent “full body scanners” are and how many more people are therefore profiting from the politics of fear.

Great value in Tai Mei Tuk – Portofino

Hiking yesterday consisted of the Plover Cove Reservoir Country Trail. Previously I have found the AFCD’s ratings on trails to be a bit conservative so I was expecting a moderate hike with a couple of climbs. But I was wrong, and the AFCD is spot on when it says “the trail is a challenge for all hikers”. In particular there are a number of long descents on somewhat eroded slopes with loose scree which are quite nerve-racking, and would be very hard indeed for anyone with dodgy knees.

So when we finally made it back to Tai Mei Tuk we were very ready for a sit down and some refreshment.

“Procurement by false pretences” – the HK legal system makes an ass of itself

There are so many issues raised by the case brought against a self-proclaimed Taoist practitioner accused of duping a young model into having sex, and by the verdict and judgement delivered against him, that it is difficult to know where to start. But there is no doubt in my mind that the Hong Kong legal system (normally so sound) has made a complete ass of itself in this case.

Yet another Sai Kung lunch – Hebe101

Despite knowing several other places we like in Sai Kung, after today’s hike (Maclehose Stage 3 – only 10.5km, but 600m of ascent and descent) we decided to try Hebe101 which I had read good things about. And again it was an excellent (extended) lunch. I don’t know if we’re just lucky or if the Sai Kung area is unusually blessed with very reasonable western style restaurants, but we haven’t found a bad one there yet!

Panevino – a mid-levels survivor

I’ve been a resident of the Robinson Road area of the mid-levels for about ten years now, and it’s never had a surfeit of places to eat or drink, but one that has survived the whole decade is Panevino. Until a year or so ago it was in a small space on Mosque Junction, but then it moved to the corner premises 100 metres away which has, in the course of the last decade, housed Animals Bar, Brown (much missed), a kindergarten, and an estate agency. Although I always rated the food, the cramped old environment always put me off a bit in the days when people could smoke in restaurants. It’s taken me a while to get round to going to the new location but Mrs smog and I popped in for dinner this evening.

Sai Kung beef

After hiking MacLehose Stage 1, part of Stage 2 and then the Luk Wu Country Trail on Thursday, we decided to try something different from Grande, which had been our regular place for the post-hike late lunch in Sai Kung. And after about 21km (yes, I know, nothing compared to the whole trail that the serious people were doing the next day, but plenty for someone as unfit as me) we were in the mood for some meat, so decided to try Anthony’s Ranch. And it turned out to be a good call.

A toady comes visiting

Hemlock, in an excellent post yesterday, highlighted that the people cosying up to and riding on the coat tails of the property cartel tycoons include a fair few gweilos, one such being Mr Rory O’Grady, on whose toadying and self-interested letter to the SCMP Hemlock commented.

Real ale, or the lack thereof

It is a great shame that so few people in Hong Kong seem to appreciate good beer. Mrs smog and I had an excellent evening yesterday with a couple of friends at Trafalgar where the ladies enjoyed Green Goblin cider and the guys had a thoroughly enjoyable ale tasting, but only managed to sample about half of the list. Green Goblin is real cider – not the artificially sweetened crap like Blackthorn or Strongbow, and without the nasty aftertaste as well; the ladies enjoyed it very much, although Mrs smog does have a bit of a sore head this morning!

Meyado / Meretec / MITL / Martin Young – A Cautionary Tale

One of the banes of one’s life as an expat is the frequent calls from often very persistent “Financial Advisers” who claim to be able to offer all sorts of ways of enhancing one’s wealth. Unfortunately, bitter experience has taught me that the only people’s wealth they tend to enhance is their own – and the best example of this for me is the “Meyado Private Wealth Management Group“, a UK-based group who were active in Hong Kong in 2001 to 2003 and succeeded in extracting quite a bit of wealth from me before they were run out of town by the Securities and Futures Commission. It is clear that I was far from alone in this, and there are various sites on the internet where others have expressed their displeasure over the years with Meyado (there were more, but apparently Meyado has resorted to legal action to get some taken down). The latest such attempt to get a critical mass of people together to go after Martin Young (the CEO and owner of Meyado) and his cronies has now appeared at http://www.forespoke.com and I wish it every success.

Some short book reviews

It’s been a bit quiet here on the blog, not least because life has been like that too. Apart from the odd bit of hiking (with crappy visibility, so no pictures) I’ve been trying to make inroads in to the pile of books beside the bed, so here are a few quick reviews.