Summer

It's about 38°C (100°F) now, at 12.40 pm; we're well on the way to the predicted high of 43°C (109.4°F). Sydney has been very fortunate in dodging the hot weather from which the rest of the state (and the ACT) has been suffering. But not today!

The morning was surprisingly cool, and the House of Sticks is unexpectedly bearable. According to the BOM the apparent temperature is about four degrees lower, I guess because of the quite low humidity.

Tim has been sacked out in an empty pizza box for much of the day.

ETA: 40°C at 2 pm. Tim has removed to the floor of reasonable comfort.

Links Roundup 1-8 January 2013

Aceh drafts law to ban women from straddling motorbikes. Oh those wacky Indonesians! In not quite so headline-worthy news, apparently: they also plan to flog gays and stone adulterers.

Cut payments put 80,000 Australian single parents below the poverty line. Plus we have a serious homelessness problem which federal and state governments seem less than enthusiastic about addressing. We're one of the twenty richest countries in the world - what the heck are we spending the money on?!

... oh yeah, that's right. Protecting our borders by sending children to wooden huts in fifty-degree heat with no air-conditioning and rampant malaria and, at one point, no clean water. (No wonder the government are, as always, doing everything possible to prevent the media reporting on conditions.)

From 2004, the remarkable story of the rapist who terrorised an Indian slum, and how his victims finally obtained justice with their own hands: The Day of the Furies | In India, One Woman's Stand Says 'Enough' | 'Arrest us all'. (The resulting murder trial has only recently begun.)

Science! Planet's oldest fossils found in Pilbara | Woman's missing digits grow back in phantom form: evidence suggests we're born with a brain-map of our body - and sometimes it doesn't match our actual physical form. There are obvious implications for transgender folks.

A review of Chicks Dig Time Lords which is most kind about my contribution therein.

Via bodlon: Amanda Palmer talks about Internet hatred - by which she basically means cyberbullying. She's asking people to share their coping strategies.