8·11·09
It seems that we have emotions with no good use. Jealousy seems to be the most obvious; what could possibly be the benefit of being envious? Or resentful? Why must our brains (bodies?) adhere to such useless, counterproductive, unhappy rules?
It is taboo to notice this.
Invitations to hesitate too.
8·12·09
I just realized, much better than a box fan trying to exchange air in your home/apartment, would be to convert your entire home into a pump, which would be relatively easy. First, put "one-way-valves" on both the place you want an inlet and outlet (e.g. a window in the room you want to cool and a window in the attic, respectively). These one way valves could be very simple, just a big flap that hinges to allow air in but not out, or out but not in. Then, somewhere else in the home, we place a large bladder, that "breathes". Really a big balloon would work well, anything that can displace a large volume of air repeatedly. When the balloon/bladder inflates, the (attic) valve allows the air to be forced out, while (say bedroom) valve prevents air from escaping, when the balloon deflates, the volume of air in the home decreases, sucking the attic valve shut and the bedroom valve open. This is only real useful when it is cooler outside than inside, but I'll bet it'd be far more effective & efficient than box fans. I suspect that box fans experience a great deal of something akin to cavitation.
Reasons are contagious.
Transcend your content.
Our paths crossed. Thats about it.
8·13·09
As far as information collection and retention is concerned, sometimes I feel morbidly obese.
Panting appetite.
"Now if you'll excuse me South Carolina, I've got to go see a man about a horse... that he's been fucking."
"Keep it stupid, simple"
8·17·09
http://photosynth.net/
8·18·09
How can one fear that government run healthcare would be
too competitive for the private sector, and yet simultaneously believe that free markets are optimal solutions? (Obviously we can just constrain the government plan to require that it pays for itself, to prevent the unfair advantage of operating on a deficit.)
Everything happens. Thats sort of a good way to view QM.
8·19·09
Heres a calculation I ought to do, for my own curiosity. Take the most powerful laser we have. Or better yet, the total amount of power available to humankind, and convert it all into a brief laser pulse. How much would it disperse by the time it reached the nearest star? Can we aim it accurately enough to expect to hit the nearest star? How intense would it be a that distance? (I would imagine "not very".)
8·22·09
"Everything about you is a menace."
"Remember when it was new."
8·24·09
This page has an audio clip of an Arizona pastor giving a wholly vile, despicable sermon, about both president Obama and the homosexual community, and I think the hypothesis that "gays are recruiting" is actually really funny, because it sort of says something about this mans understanding of his own sexuality. Does he think that he could be convinced (through whatever evil he imagines) to like men? I would estimate that I have been smitten with women for about 20 years now, I'm pretty sure no force in the universe could possibly change that (though I suppose chemicals could probably do a lot more than I'd care to know). Certainly no human is going to convince me.
This is exactly why Isaac Asimov said, "Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
How is it that he both hates Obama and yet wouldn't salt a slug because "he loves all gods creatures?" Why is it that the most righteous humans are always the most damnable, hateful, evil humans. How is it that this book remains so potent after so long? Why aren't we praying to Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, or James Clerk Maxwell's A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, or Albert Einstein's On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, or Euclid's Elements, or Euler's complete works, or Gauss's work, or Riemann's paper On the Number of Primes Less Than a Given Magnitude, or Russell & Whitehead's Principia Mathematica, or Archimedes legacy, or Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species, or any of the uncountable other humans that helped us all so much. I've only include mathematicians and physicists (for the most part), when you include all the other scientists, all the other discoveries, all the other work that has pulled us up out of the mud, afforded us the comforts of modern life, removed the toil of disease and weather and the host of other struggles that we've all forgotten so quickly. Did you know that more than twice as many people died of smallpox in the 20th century than in all of the wars of the 20th century combined? And what was it that ultimately eliminated that suffering? A bible verse? The torah or qur'an or new testament? Was it the pope or a preacher or mother Teresa? No. NO! It was science. And why is it that I, as an atheist, seem to have more compassion than this all mighty, all wonderful god that the majority of the developed world (apparently) believe in? I wouldn't wish hell on my worst enemy. Or on anyone. Prison I suppose, but not torture. What is wrong with everyone!
8·27·09
If You Repeat it, I Will Deny.
Unbelievable.
The NonStampCollector has some good questions. And some good points. And some funny analogies.
"...there's something very special about the scientific mindset which is that it is prepared to live with open-endedness."
-A.C. Grayling (Why is Science Important?)
Joe Scarborough is an idiot.
Constant forms.
Wow, Robert Wright mentions in this video that the thoughts that someone is judging him still hangs over his conscious. "I have not lost, I never lost the sense, that I'm being judged, by, a being."
Could we artificially generate rings for a planet (probably a bad idea for our own planet, or any planet we want to land on), that could increase the visibility of the planet outside the solar system? (That is, for other ET civilizations to detect us more easily.) I suppose it probably wouldn't increase the visibility any more than Earth's intrinsic visibility (and life signature based on the atmospheric composition).
I just want the most clever, intelligent, irrational girl I can find.
I really want to put the effort into memorizing this poem:
"P is right when it's wrong and is false when it's true!"
I feel like there are a lot more notes to put here, but I don't know where they would be if they exist.
8/27/2009
8/11/2009
Nothing = Everything
Wow, I went a whole month with no post. Though, in my defense (who am I arguing with?), I didn't have internet access this last week or two or so. Anyway, on with the pasting!
Wait, that isn't true. Okay, sort of. Why does the last post say "6·27·09", but include notes from July? I suppose I must have started it in June?
No matter:
7·13·09
I'm happy to be the root of the problem, but it would be awfully nice to be the flower of the problem too.
"How's your wife?" — "Compared to what?"
My computer, it's not learning from it's mistakes. ...yet.
Scoundrel, I like the sound of that too.
7·22·09
one more such victory would utterly undo him
Denis Diderot said "the god of the christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children", in 1746, and I would like to modernize it with some recent events. Like, the pope of the catholics is a psychotic delusional who makes much of his crackers and very little of his fellow humankind.
On the Unscientific America matter, I'd like to make two points. First, is the large degree of intolerance in our society, much of which can be attributed to religious dogma (intolerance for gays in america, intolerance for science in america, intolerance for any violation of orthodox belief in israel, as we've heard lately, intolerance for anything non-orthdox in many more orthodox islamic societies), and the immense pain and suffering this intolerance has caused throughout time, and continues to cause. Now, you might be thinking, "but the New Atheists are just intolerant of the religiously devout!" And that is true, but as the philosopher of science Karl Popper pointed out, an open society must reserve the right to be intolerant of the intolerant. In his words, from volume 1 of The Open Society and Its Enemies:
"Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off."
7·24·09
"Also, I'm given to understand your mother is overweight."
Ha ha ha ha ha:
Secret secretion.
7·25·09
Something less personal.
"Your uncle Floyd died." "What happened?!" "His heart stopped beating."
"Your unwillingness to accept empirical evidence suggests an attempt at flattery."
Caught between a rock and a crazy place.
When I, as a New Atheist, describe religions as viruses, I am not referring so much to the parasitic nature of a virus but more the pattern of propagation throughout a population, and the detrimental effects it has on the infected, and the aftereffects. Like many viruses that run their course without killing the inflicted, those who recover from religious infection often bear scars of the struggle, scars which they will typically carry for the rest of their lives.
7·26·09
Deftly daft.
Is this my weakness? I need someone there?
"Come on baby, don't say maybe. I gotta know if you're sweet love is gonna save me."
(Should I have attempted to replicate the duration?)
7·27·09
Honestly, just getting "christians" discussing their beliefs with one another would go a long way to dismantling the institution(s).
Who the hell hit the chicken switch?
Between the click of the light, and the start of the dream.
Wait a minute, is the water mark of Benjamin Franklin on a one hundred dollar bill supposed to be grinning? Is it normally showing teeth?
Objective: to understand the relationship between the physical world & computability, with emphasis on the physical world.
7·28·09
"I wanna give you the world if you stay with me tonight.
I wanna give you the world if you just hold me tight."
You know, if I were god, I'd make the world a lot less shitty for a lot of people. And maybe slightly more shitty for a few people too.
Why is it that some people find strength in hardship, while others find only despair? And how dependent on the type of hardship is the type of emotion invoked?
"I like you so much better when you're naked. I like me so much better when you're naked."
"And my career came down to operating this impossible device, while people were judging me."
Living in infamy.
7·30·09
On my drive home from work on Wednesday, I got very tired, and so I pulled over and took a nap, shortly before reaching route 2. This is fairly normal for me, I've stopped many times over the last few weeks, both on my way to and from work (in fact, one day this week on the way to work I was woken up and told by a young woman that I could not take a nap in that parking space, I think she worked at a cafe or something nearby). A few weeks ago while napping on the way home with my windows completely down, I got bitten a lot by mosquitos, so on Wednesday, I was sure to not leave my windows very far down (it was also drizzling kind of, and a very wooded area). So since it was very humid outside, it was even more humid in the parked car, and sleeping was fairly uncomfortable, I probably got 20 or 30 minutes of rest, (oddly, twice I started to snore and woke myself, as it was uncomfortable). Oh, another note, someone called me while I was falling asleep, but I answered too late, calling back I got a busy signal (later that night I called back again and it turned out to be Movie Scene in Derry! Which I do not have an account with! So apparently it was just a random misdial? Because they looked my number up and didn't find anything (I was a little worried that for whatever reason there was an account for my number, and expecting fees to dispute!) Also, I think the day before I locked myself out of my car I got stung by a bee on the way home, and just a few seconds after pulling over an unmarked state trooper was pulled over behind me, which is weird cause I speed a lot on route 2, and so do the cops, but I didn't see him at all, so I'm not sure if he was catching up to me or just behind me or what. Anyway, after telling him I'd been stung he asked if I wanted an ambulance or if I were allergic, and I said no, I'd be fine, "it'll just suck", and he said okay and left.
I do not understand people's fears of enemy nations getting nuclear weapons. Notice, for instance, that America is not... I should finish this, but instead, do your own damn research! America isn't on the list of countries with a no first strike policy, apparently because we openly reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in retaliation for certain offensives against us (and maybe even our allies?). Which is pretty ridiculous, when you consider that China has specified that they will not use them unless as an equal response.
Dammit! John Bolton, while on The Daily Show, said, "there's not that much difference between me and the people who want a world where no government has nuclear weapons. There's not much difference, I only want one government to have nuclear weapons." ...WHAT?!?! Does he not understand there is an ENORMOUS difference between someone who wants the governments of the world to interact as a global democracy, and someone who wants the governments of the world to interact as a global monarchy? He is endorsing a holier-than-thou position for the United States? Who the fuck are we? Seeing as how we are the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons against an enemy (and we did it twice), on what authority do we claim to deserve such a unique position of responsibility? And on what evidence do we justify denying everyone else such a responsibility? And if you want to defend our actions, I need an acceptable answer to why we couldn't have demonstrated the weapon to the Japanese in a non-populated area, such as the ocean, instead of killing more than 220,000 people (mostly citizens, including 3,200 Japanese American citizens). Sorry, that was a bit of a rant. Bill Kristol was on two nights before, and Stewart got him in quite a bind, when Kristol affirmed that the government provides the best healthcare money can buy to our troops, and yet (along normal conservative lines) remain steadfast in his opinion that government should not be involved in health care because it cannot be efficient. Granted, I am not certain that the military healthcare plan is really what Kristol seems to think it is, and more generally, I think healthcare is far too complicated to... eh, I never finish these thoughts. Maybe if I thought anyone were reading, or more cared, or if these things seemed important in the least bit, I would, but otherwise no.
(as if reiterating his support for Sarah Palin wasn't enough)
What?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Let%27s_Put_the_Future_Behind_Us.jpg
Not even a little.
You cannot stop what you did not start.
You'd have to be completely out of your mind to give either america or russia any excuse to use nuclear weapons. You'd have to be far more crazy than a typical suicidal person, or even a suicide bomber; such little regard for your citizens' well being would run opposed to most public service motivations for political power, and suicidal tendencies would run opposite to those seeking power (since it would rapidly quench any power, by killing large numbers of citizens and government officials).
8·3·09
Antitheism, anti-dogmatism, post-theism, maltheism, misotheism; wait, is Richard Dawkins intolerant of religious people? Am I? Is the fact that I am willing to criticize other's belief vocally, is that intolerance?
8·4·09
If you're suggesting that the type of pencil I practice doing the work with has no influence whatsoever on my ability to use the prescribed pencil during the actual test, you're absolutely right. But are you also suggesting I risk it?
"If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, your tiny little heart, would you consider a scientific collaboration?"
8·5·09
With the invention of the equals sign it was realized that everything was equal to nothing.
8·6·09
"If there's one thing Nixon is known for, it's class. Let's cut this turd loose!" —President Richard Nixon
8·7·09
I just watched an episode of 30 days, in which Morgan Spurlock (host) lives on a Navajo reservation for a month, and I can't help but think that their extreme poverty is in part due to their strong respect for tradition. In fact, they even mention in the show that Americans in general do not have much in the way of traditions, and I can't help but wonder if America's success is in part due to our more progressive nature, which was the direct result of being a country almost entirely of immigrants, which certainly destroyed much of the tradition that would exist in a culture that remains in one place over a very long period of time. I'm not saying people can't or shouldn't have a strong sense of culture or preserve tradition, but it might just be that you cannot simultaneously preserve your traditions and succeed in an ever more rapidly evolving world of technology and information.
"If someone figures out what you're up to they can sacrifice, and hold onto a heart." — "And then you lose."
Wow, in India, night shifts at call centers are considered better than day shifts, since night shifts correspond to American daytime, and they've begun taking christmas break, since their demographic (Americans)
8·8·09
You can read my mind if you'd like. (It isn't that hard really.)
Besides, isn't it more exciting when you don't have permission?
8·9·09
"Genocidal stupidity", is how Sam Harris described the effect of the vatican AIDS riddled villages in sub-Saharan African. When the atheist-agnostic community, such as the National Academy of Science, takes an apologist point of view and says something equivalent to "science and religion study different things", they are viewing religion in a much more reasonable way than many people do, or, they are assuming that most people will eventually buy the spirituality view of religion and trash the ridiculous, inane ancient dogmas.
Sam Harris says it is possible for someone to be so well educated that they can build a nuclear bomb, and yet still believe they will get the 72 virgins in paradise, which I have in the past assumed to be not possible. In fact, for many years I've thought specifically that those intelligent enough to create a nuclear weapon are not crazy enough to do so in a rogue manner, and those crazy enough to do so are not intelligent enough to do it. It is a somewhat scary thought that he may be correct.
So needlessly horrible.
Harris mentioned that scientists tend to say "I don't know", and can be hard pressed to give an answer on something they are not expert about. I can identify with that to a degree, and I know many people will say, "but cody, you tend to act like a know-it-all", and I can agree with that statement wholeheartedly, but on the other hand, those who know me well will recall I am very fond of saying, "I don't know", "I'm not sure", and most recognizably, "it's mixed", all of which are simple methods of avoiding actual answers, on my part. Though I wonder if my language is too subtle for most people to realize I am simply dodging their questions.
All so sweet.
Also sweet.
I need to find a new problem.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/cond-mat/papers/0310/0310317.pdf
There are a group of people who hypothesize that the human brain has a functional foundation in quantum processes, and it seems to me that the only reason for claiming so is the mysteriousness generally attributed to consciousness, and a corresponding mysteriousness (as well as a very specific increase in computational power) of quantum mechanics. This appears very unnecessary to me, in part because I do not find consciousness to be very mysterious, and in part because the brain is an incomprehensibly complex structure, our largest super computers only recently rivaling the vast complexity of the structure that every developed human carries atop their head. There also seem to be many objections regarding free will and determinism, suggesting that the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics could resolve the dilemma between a strictly mechanistic (classical computer) model of our brain and the seemingly "free" will we all (or most) would like to believe we have. But an obvious resolution to the problem requires nothing more than noting that reality is a very large, complex set of data, and that the human brain, no matter how mechanistic, has extremely limited access to that data set. Furthermore, the software (and likely much of the hardware) is in constant development; none of it was created out of infallible theory (or intelligence), it was all developed through approximation techniques, heuristics, and "good enough" solutions can certainly be more valuable than global optimums if they can be calculated in shorter time. For a concrete example, a brain capable of calculating the most efficient path through rough and uneven terrain while fleeing a predator (or pursuing prey), is useless if it takes a few hundredths of a second longer to do so than a brain that accepts an approximate solution and begins fleeing a few hundredths of a second later. I've ranted often enough about consciousness that I probably needn't bother doing so again now. I should probably split this into separate criticisms of the quantum mechanics-abled brains and determinism/free will arguments.
8·10·09
Dammit, I took a few hundred photos of the sky tonight, each 5 seconds long, with ~7 seconds between them, and yet only two or three even have lightning lighting up the clouds, not a single one has an actual bolt in it. Such a disappointment. I ought to move west where I can see summer lightning for months. Though I suppose I could just visit instead probably...
Ha ha ha, I just saw a cab crash into the newspaper stands. It wasn't all out, like you'd seen in a movie, just a slight brushing, but still entertaining for 12·41 am.
Ooo, and now the moon is peaking out between the clouds. Maybe I should download all these wasted photos so I can capture that, though it doesn't look like it will last.
When patience ferments (stagnates? no, that'd be incorrect), the virtue sours into complacency.
Wait, that isn't true. Okay, sort of. Why does the last post say "6·27·09", but include notes from July? I suppose I must have started it in June?
No matter:
7·13·09
I'm happy to be the root of the problem, but it would be awfully nice to be the flower of the problem too.
"How's your wife?" — "Compared to what?"
My computer, it's not learning from it's mistakes. ...yet.
Scoundrel, I like the sound of that too.
7·22·09
one more such victory would utterly undo him
Denis Diderot said "the god of the christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children", in 1746, and I would like to modernize it with some recent events. Like, the pope of the catholics is a psychotic delusional who makes much of his crackers and very little of his fellow humankind.
On the Unscientific America matter, I'd like to make two points. First, is the large degree of intolerance in our society, much of which can be attributed to religious dogma (intolerance for gays in america, intolerance for science in america, intolerance for any violation of orthodox belief in israel, as we've heard lately, intolerance for anything non-orthdox in many more orthodox islamic societies), and the immense pain and suffering this intolerance has caused throughout time, and continues to cause. Now, you might be thinking, "but the New Atheists are just intolerant of the religiously devout!" And that is true, but as the philosopher of science Karl Popper pointed out, an open society must reserve the right to be intolerant of the intolerant. In his words, from volume 1 of The Open Society and Its Enemies:
The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.[Notes to the Chapters: Ch.7, Note 4]
Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
"Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off."
7·24·09
"Also, I'm given to understand your mother is overweight."
Ha ha ha ha ha:
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 15, 2009 1:24 PM
Brilliant Stu.
Do you reckon M & K have to buy cucumbers pre-sliced ? Only if they saw a whole they might be reminded of male genitalia and go all faint and giddy. And if they both did it, who would be around to loosen their corsets ?
Secret secretion.
7·25·09
Something less personal.
"Your uncle Floyd died." "What happened?!" "His heart stopped beating."
"Your unwillingness to accept empirical evidence suggests an attempt at flattery."
Caught between a rock and a crazy place.
When I, as a New Atheist, describe religions as viruses, I am not referring so much to the parasitic nature of a virus but more the pattern of propagation throughout a population, and the detrimental effects it has on the infected, and the aftereffects. Like many viruses that run their course without killing the inflicted, those who recover from religious infection often bear scars of the struggle, scars which they will typically carry for the rest of their lives.
7·26·09
Deftly daft.
Is this my weakness? I need someone there?
"Come on baby, don't say maybe. I gotta know if you're sweet love is gonna save me."
(Should I have attempted to replicate the duration?)
7·27·09
Honestly, just getting "christians" discussing their beliefs with one another would go a long way to dismantling the institution(s).
Who the hell hit the chicken switch?
Between the click of the light, and the start of the dream.
Wait a minute, is the water mark of Benjamin Franklin on a one hundred dollar bill supposed to be grinning? Is it normally showing teeth?
Objective: to understand the relationship between the physical world & computability, with emphasis on the physical world.
7·28·09
"I wanna give you the world if you stay with me tonight.
I wanna give you the world if you just hold me tight."
You know, if I were god, I'd make the world a lot less shitty for a lot of people. And maybe slightly more shitty for a few people too.
Why is it that some people find strength in hardship, while others find only despair? And how dependent on the type of hardship is the type of emotion invoked?
"I like you so much better when you're naked. I like me so much better when you're naked."
"And my career came down to operating this impossible device, while people were judging me."
Living in infamy.
7·30·09
On my drive home from work on Wednesday, I got very tired, and so I pulled over and took a nap, shortly before reaching route 2. This is fairly normal for me, I've stopped many times over the last few weeks, both on my way to and from work (in fact, one day this week on the way to work I was woken up and told by a young woman that I could not take a nap in that parking space, I think she worked at a cafe or something nearby). A few weeks ago while napping on the way home with my windows completely down, I got bitten a lot by mosquitos, so on Wednesday, I was sure to not leave my windows very far down (it was also drizzling kind of, and a very wooded area). So since it was very humid outside, it was even more humid in the parked car, and sleeping was fairly uncomfortable, I probably got 20 or 30 minutes of rest, (oddly, twice I started to snore and woke myself, as it was uncomfortable). Oh, another note, someone called me while I was falling asleep, but I answered too late, calling back I got a busy signal (later that night I called back again and it turned out to be Movie Scene in Derry! Which I do not have an account with! So apparently it was just a random misdial? Because they looked my number up and didn't find anything (I was a little worried that for whatever reason there was an account for my number, and expecting fees to dispute!) Also, I think the day before I locked myself out of my car I got stung by a bee on the way home, and just a few seconds after pulling over an unmarked state trooper was pulled over behind me, which is weird cause I speed a lot on route 2, and so do the cops, but I didn't see him at all, so I'm not sure if he was catching up to me or just behind me or what. Anyway, after telling him I'd been stung he asked if I wanted an ambulance or if I were allergic, and I said no, I'd be fine, "it'll just suck", and he said okay and left.
I do not understand people's fears of enemy nations getting nuclear weapons. Notice, for instance, that America is not... I should finish this, but instead, do your own damn research! America isn't on the list of countries with a no first strike policy, apparently because we openly reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in retaliation for certain offensives against us (and maybe even our allies?). Which is pretty ridiculous, when you consider that China has specified that they will not use them unless as an equal response.
Dammit! John Bolton, while on The Daily Show, said, "there's not that much difference between me and the people who want a world where no government has nuclear weapons. There's not much difference, I only want one government to have nuclear weapons." ...WHAT?!?! Does he not understand there is an ENORMOUS difference between someone who wants the governments of the world to interact as a global democracy, and someone who wants the governments of the world to interact as a global monarchy? He is endorsing a holier-than-thou position for the United States? Who the fuck are we? Seeing as how we are the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons against an enemy (and we did it twice), on what authority do we claim to deserve such a unique position of responsibility? And on what evidence do we justify denying everyone else such a responsibility? And if you want to defend our actions, I need an acceptable answer to why we couldn't have demonstrated the weapon to the Japanese in a non-populated area, such as the ocean, instead of killing more than 220,000 people (mostly citizens, including 3,200 Japanese American citizens). Sorry, that was a bit of a rant. Bill Kristol was on two nights before, and Stewart got him in quite a bind, when Kristol affirmed that the government provides the best healthcare money can buy to our troops, and yet (along normal conservative lines) remain steadfast in his opinion that government should not be involved in health care because it cannot be efficient. Granted, I am not certain that the military healthcare plan is really what Kristol seems to think it is, and more generally, I think healthcare is far too complicated to... eh, I never finish these thoughts. Maybe if I thought anyone were reading, or more cared, or if these things seemed important in the least bit, I would, but otherwise no.
(as if reiterating his support for Sarah Palin wasn't enough)
What?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Let%27s_Put_the_Future_Behind_Us.jpg
Not even a little.
You cannot stop what you did not start.
You'd have to be completely out of your mind to give either america or russia any excuse to use nuclear weapons. You'd have to be far more crazy than a typical suicidal person, or even a suicide bomber; such little regard for your citizens' well being would run opposed to most public service motivations for political power, and suicidal tendencies would run opposite to those seeking power (since it would rapidly quench any power, by killing large numbers of citizens and government officials).
8·3·09
Antitheism, anti-dogmatism, post-theism, maltheism, misotheism; wait, is Richard Dawkins intolerant of religious people? Am I? Is the fact that I am willing to criticize other's belief vocally, is that intolerance?
8·4·09
If you're suggesting that the type of pencil I practice doing the work with has no influence whatsoever on my ability to use the prescribed pencil during the actual test, you're absolutely right. But are you also suggesting I risk it?
"If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, your tiny little heart, would you consider a scientific collaboration?"
8·5·09
With the invention of the equals sign it was realized that everything was equal to nothing.
8·6·09
"If there's one thing Nixon is known for, it's class. Let's cut this turd loose!" —President Richard Nixon
8·7·09
I just watched an episode of 30 days, in which Morgan Spurlock (host) lives on a Navajo reservation for a month, and I can't help but think that their extreme poverty is in part due to their strong respect for tradition. In fact, they even mention in the show that Americans in general do not have much in the way of traditions, and I can't help but wonder if America's success is in part due to our more progressive nature, which was the direct result of being a country almost entirely of immigrants, which certainly destroyed much of the tradition that would exist in a culture that remains in one place over a very long period of time. I'm not saying people can't or shouldn't have a strong sense of culture or preserve tradition, but it might just be that you cannot simultaneously preserve your traditions and succeed in an ever more rapidly evolving world of technology and information.
"If someone figures out what you're up to they can sacrifice, and hold onto a heart." — "And then you lose."
Wow, in India, night shifts at call centers are considered better than day shifts, since night shifts correspond to American daytime, and they've begun taking christmas break, since their demographic (Americans)
8·8·09
You can read my mind if you'd like. (It isn't that hard really.)
Besides, isn't it more exciting when you don't have permission?
8·9·09
"Genocidal stupidity", is how Sam Harris described the effect of the vatican AIDS riddled villages in sub-Saharan African. When the atheist-agnostic community, such as the National Academy of Science, takes an apologist point of view and says something equivalent to "science and religion study different things", they are viewing religion in a much more reasonable way than many people do, or, they are assuming that most people will eventually buy the spirituality view of religion and trash the ridiculous, inane ancient dogmas.
Sam Harris says it is possible for someone to be so well educated that they can build a nuclear bomb, and yet still believe they will get the 72 virgins in paradise, which I have in the past assumed to be not possible. In fact, for many years I've thought specifically that those intelligent enough to create a nuclear weapon are not crazy enough to do so in a rogue manner, and those crazy enough to do so are not intelligent enough to do it. It is a somewhat scary thought that he may be correct.
So needlessly horrible.
Harris mentioned that scientists tend to say "I don't know", and can be hard pressed to give an answer on something they are not expert about. I can identify with that to a degree, and I know many people will say, "but cody, you tend to act like a know-it-all", and I can agree with that statement wholeheartedly, but on the other hand, those who know me well will recall I am very fond of saying, "I don't know", "I'm not sure", and most recognizably, "it's mixed", all of which are simple methods of avoiding actual answers, on my part. Though I wonder if my language is too subtle for most people to realize I am simply dodging their questions.
All so sweet.
Also sweet.
I need to find a new problem.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/cond-mat/papers/0310/0310317.pdf
There are a group of people who hypothesize that the human brain has a functional foundation in quantum processes, and it seems to me that the only reason for claiming so is the mysteriousness generally attributed to consciousness, and a corresponding mysteriousness (as well as a very specific increase in computational power) of quantum mechanics. This appears very unnecessary to me, in part because I do not find consciousness to be very mysterious, and in part because the brain is an incomprehensibly complex structure, our largest super computers only recently rivaling the vast complexity of the structure that every developed human carries atop their head. There also seem to be many objections regarding free will and determinism, suggesting that the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics could resolve the dilemma between a strictly mechanistic (classical computer) model of our brain and the seemingly "free" will we all (or most) would like to believe we have. But an obvious resolution to the problem requires nothing more than noting that reality is a very large, complex set of data, and that the human brain, no matter how mechanistic, has extremely limited access to that data set. Furthermore, the software (and likely much of the hardware) is in constant development; none of it was created out of infallible theory (or intelligence), it was all developed through approximation techniques, heuristics, and "good enough" solutions can certainly be more valuable than global optimums if they can be calculated in shorter time. For a concrete example, a brain capable of calculating the most efficient path through rough and uneven terrain while fleeing a predator (or pursuing prey), is useless if it takes a few hundredths of a second longer to do so than a brain that accepts an approximate solution and begins fleeing a few hundredths of a second later. I've ranted often enough about consciousness that I probably needn't bother doing so again now. I should probably split this into separate criticisms of the quantum mechanics-abled brains and determinism/free will arguments.
8·10·09
Dammit, I took a few hundred photos of the sky tonight, each 5 seconds long, with ~7 seconds between them, and yet only two or three even have lightning lighting up the clouds, not a single one has an actual bolt in it. Such a disappointment. I ought to move west where I can see summer lightning for months. Though I suppose I could just visit instead probably...
Ha ha ha, I just saw a cab crash into the newspaper stands. It wasn't all out, like you'd seen in a movie, just a slight brushing, but still entertaining for 12·41 am.
Ooo, and now the moon is peaking out between the clouds. Maybe I should download all these wasted photos so I can capture that, though it doesn't look like it will last.
When patience ferments (stagnates? no, that'd be incorrect), the virtue sours into complacency.
6/27/2009
Casually Causal
6·21·09
Because you said so.
Make a face.
There's always tomorrow.
With a heart much more lovely.
``This is why it is so heartbreaking to see what is being done to mathematics in school.''
I'm wrong! About the one thing I really thought I was good at, and maybe I once was, but I can see I have not been for quite some time (at least since tutoring physics in college). Teaching is much more about presenting mysteries in a captivating and comprehensible way, at the appropriate difficulty to challenge the student. I need to learn that if I hope to be a good teacher one day.
Stars of the Lid and their Refinement of the Decline
Perform the reduction!
Mike Huckabee repeatedly implies that the main reasons for abortions are that the mother is concerned that the child will be an economic burden. What if they are afraid the child will not be loved? Or not provided for? What if they fear that cannot take care of or support a child, or give the child the life that the mother thinks every child deserves? What if the mother can see her own fate, and knows that will most likely result in absolute isolation? What if the mother fears any number of these? How many people were scared by their own upbringing, and may fear (for whatever reason), unavoidable scarring of their offspring in the same manner? (I've heard people raised in foster homes wouldn't wish it on anyone, though I imagine some people were fine with it.) If you could know with absolute certainty that if you conceived, your child would eventually take their own life, would you hesitate? Would you feel guilty if you were aware of such an outcome, and yet conceived the child anyway? This sounds far-fetched, but what it's not far fetched to imagine two people with detectable but recessive genetic disorders that result in a high likelihood of their offspring having severe chronic illness, or even having a high likelihood of childhood death. Given an adult couple aware of this, is the "miracle" of an accidental pregnancy worth the risk?
Death by excessive sunshine.
Ha ha ha ha, this is one of the most disturbing phrases I've ever heard.
Whatever's clever.
How about a good drug story for once?
P.I.C.
6·22·09
You know, I hear a lot of people complain about movies having generic plots, or being formulaic, or all that jazz. And I just watched Role Models, and it definitely succumbs to that. But I enjoyed it a lot, and I don't really care if it is loosely fit onto a cookie-cutter plot. There are definitely things in the world I find much more problematic than Hollywood's unwillingness to take a risk, or whatever other way you'd like to phrase similar criticism.
I believe we are witnessing the death throes of religion.
These are creative folk you are dealing with.
It's a good thing there isn't a god, because there is no way it would ever forgive us for this.
6·23·09
Look, it's just an all around shitty situation. You know what would have been an acceptable method of interrogation? Lie detectors, solid evidence, decent, humane treatment, some basic concepts of respect even. These methods would also have the benefit of not increasing the resentment, and potentially creating terrorists out of mistaken identities, and misunderstandings.
I've always been very trusting of people, and therefore gullible. Fortunately, I've also always had a very hard time understanding people, both in what people say, and what they mean, so I've tended to just interpret what I think they say, and what I think they mean, on my own. This works very well in science, where you have context from causal relationships from which you may infer meaning, but not so well with humans, where human nature (rather than reason), tends to be the dominant force for meaning.
Oooo, PZ Myers posted some advice for new commenters (my spellcheck says that isn't a real word), including this:
I find this interesting due to the last two words. I am highly opinionated, it is where my severe arrogance originates.
Get on the anchored ship. Get on the shore-bound boat. Bring on a blade to cut the rope.
Iron aged tribalism.
No homosexual should accept any form of christianity, islam or judaism. No woman should accept these religions. The god of the old testament, which is included in all three abrahamic religions, is a homophobic misogynist, and this is on top of the whole thing being completely ridiculous. In Richard Dawkin's words, "the god of the old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." And if you don't agree, go read the bible, read the old testament, and PAY ATTENTION. If you find yourself pausing to explain stories in terms of your own understanding of god, tally it up. When you're done, count your tally marks, and ask yourself if maybe your understanding of right and wrong is more advanced than the people who wrote those stories 2500+ years ago.
How is it that people can think that ancient tribes, who knew almost nothing about reality, were speaking to god, rather than just under superstitious delusions? Why can we all agree the Salem witch trials were fabrication, but most of us can believe that god spoke to moses as a burning bush? I'm very sorry how offensive I come across to my christian friends, assuming any of them read these things, or ever hear me rant about it in person, but please, trust me that I truly believe organized religion to be the single most harmful set of institutions in the world, and that I am only so vocal as to do as much as I can to lessen that harm. If there were an accessible way for me to lessen the production of AK-47s, or feed hungry children the world over, or teach war-torn poverty stricken parts of Africa about effective STD prevention, or teach most of the 3rd world peoples about basic sanitation, or a host of other things, I would. But I don't know how to do that. And I do know that if I can just convince you to be a little less devout, to question a little, to pass it on to the next generation in a weaker form than you received it, then we will all be much better off. Religion really does poison everything. If you've ever second guessed your religious authorities, have you ever continued it on, and asked what made them religious authorities in the first place? What sort of problems did they have to resolve, and what where the methods used to resolve them? And whether those methods were even supposed to be accessible or inaccessible to you? Did years of seminary really teach them how to solve a sort of problem that you cannot solve? I can say that years of physics classes did that for me, and that probably a decent chemist, biologist, geologist, engineer (of all sorts), or many other professions, can say the same. Is it odd that I spend as much time researching and discussing and writing about anti-religion as many dedicated religious folk spend in pro-religious thinking? Am I any less motivated? I would expect that I would be less concerned about people's future, given that I don't fear they will be punished in some hell after life. But then what motivates me? Is it just that I care for people? Do I just care for some people, and strongly believe that the rest of the people can have negative effects on the smaller fraction of people I care about? Maybe. I probably should reserve self-judgement. You can decide. And do you really think I've overlooked the grand truths that other people have allegedly received? Is it possible I have not fully considered my opponents views? No. You can claim that on a number of advanced physics topics, but not on religion. It is obvious. It is clear as the day.
Casually causal?
Kate Capshaw had to be taught how to scream.
"Wear your jewels to bed, princess?" "Yeah. And nothing else. Shocking?" "Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." "So as a scientist you do a lot of research?" "Always." "And what sort of research would you do on me?"
"Nocturnal activities." "You mean like what sort of cream I put on my face at night. What position I like to sleep in." "Mating customs." "Love rituals?" "Primitive sexual practices" "So you're an authority in that area?" "Years of field work." "I don't blame you for being sore at me. I can be hard to handle." "I've had worse." "But you'll never have better." "I don't know. As a scientist I don't want to prejudice my experiment I'll let you know in the morning."
Win for the scientists! (I'll selectively omit the rest of the dialogue.)
It's a little unpleasant to say, but science is really about separating your human biases from the evidence about how the world is, and although I've been pretty high up on the science rankings among my peers, for my entire life, it still seems that any time I get comfortable in my position I experience great suffering due to my biases creeping in and clouding my objectivity.
I don't understand conservatism. If any archetypical conservatives come across this statement, could you, to the best of your abilities, answer this question: why can't you trust the government with industries like health care, banking, or basic manufacturing (car industry), but you can trust the government with nuclear stockpiles and munitions up the wazoo? Typically I'd rather hand anyone in society (pariah, asylum inmate, nobel-prize winning physicist, doctor, banker, NRA president, world-class marksmen, etc.) my money, my vehicle (for repair) or my hospital care, before I'd hand them a firearm. Especially if I demanded that they use the firearm in my best interest while simultaneously insisting that I pay them as little as possible for their efforts. (Seriously! Conservatives, how does this work?! Though I suppose republicans typically have no problem with large military spending, which I would consider a significant deviation from conservative values.) And if I were a pure capitalist (maybe I am?), I'd further wonder why we can't just think of government as a competing company among other car manufactures, banks and healthcare plans. Why not just consider the government to be a company that our society allows to operate at a loss in industries we deem non-profitable (i.e., unable to turn a net profit). Obviously there are other good reasons to invoke a government run industry—it could be that the industry involves large rewards for unfair behavior (or maybe just an industry in which getting away with cheating is easy), in which case we would tend to prefer a regulatory group, independent of profit (and ideally independent of motive beyond our interests), to monitor, discourage, investigate, prevent and punish companies treading in the unfair area of behavior that are detrimental to our society. I would typically put insurance, and healthcare, near the top of the list, along with education and other well-being related industries. There are two reasons, first, like stated above, that these are industries without much profit, with great benefits from cheating, and for which the main focus is not mutual improvement of the provider and the customer, but rather solely improvement of the customer (yes, we'd all like better doctors and better teachers and better insurers, but we don't tend to think that these industries should exist for profit, so much as they should exist for human benefit). Second, because the products of these industries are all beneficial to the entire society—we all benefit when the average child is better educated, we all benefit when less of us suffer disease less often and/or less severely (insurance follows directly from that). How about this for government-run health care: consider that health insurance is basically a bet between two parties, the insurance company, betting you will be fine, and you, betting you will not. Now just like any other betting scheme, there are three possible distributions of the odds: either the bet is in your favor, the bet is perfectly equal, or the bet is not in your favor. In the case of insurance companies, if it was anything other than "not in your favor", they wouldn't be profitable! That doesn't necessarily mean the true odds of the basic concept of health (or life) insurance aren't in your favor, it just means that the overall odds of the company's strategy, providing insurance to you and many other people, is in their favor. It's exactly like a casino: if the odds weren't in their favor they wouldn't be a business. Stake limits and rules are all designed to ensure that the casino remains profitable, and insurance companies must be the exact same way. The only alternative reminds me of an SNL sketch for "the change bank", where you can exchange coins and cash and any combination of the two. And when asked how they make money the man replies confidently: volume. Back to seriousness, the insurance companies are obviously making money (any NPO insurance companies out there?), which means the bet is obviously balanced in their favor, which means that the industry is no longer centered on our well-being! Help me! Show me the way! Please! (And I'm serious, I really must know how these conclusions are arrived at.)
100 questions, 170 minutes. And these are hard physics questions, so 1.7 minutes might be only 0.7 minutes after you have comprehended the question. (Thetopics list is very intimidating!) Though if I can answer ~45-50 of them correctly, and not answer many incorrectly, then I will have done very well. So I should really give myself more like 3, or maybe 4 minutes per question. Maybe I should train myself to "feel" 3 minutes pass. On an episode of The Office I watched with Corey the other day, Jim trained Dwight to want altoids whenever his (Jim's) computer rebooted (like Pavlov's dogs). It made me wonder if I've trained myself to react to me alarm (on my phone) in a specific way in the morning (hit snooze a bunch). Though I suppose thats very typical and maybe I was just feeling like that was an important idea because I was half-asleep this morning while doing that and thinking all this (a good time to be wrong about the profoundness, or even the basic coherence of an idea).
What sort of original grammatical errors do you think persist in the bible? Seriously, how many books that long do you think could have not a single grammatical error? Especially considering the retranslations and more than a millenia of hand written and word of mouth passing along. Assuming any of that stuff was real in the first place (which I have no reason to think anyway), it seems extremely unlikely that whatever survived 2000-3500 (or maybe only 2500) years of the game telephone by people who couldn't figure out Maxwell's law of induction, Newton's universal law of gravitation, Darwin's theory of the Origin of the Species, Copernicus's theory of the Heliocentric Solar system, condoms reduce risk of HIV, and so on. Honestly, we're better off just outright betting against the statements of religious authority, based on simple probability.
This is maybe an interesting thought. Regarding relationships, I think I have been right about when a girl likes me, and wrong about when a girl likes me, as well as right about when a girl does not like me. But I don't think I'm ever really wrong about when a girl does not like me. That is, I don't think I've ever assumed a girl didn't like me that actually did. Or at least not since 7th grade. Though obviously I have no real clue. And worse, I think I might be wrong myself.
6·25·09
"Unlike humans, chromosomes can't betray, deceive, or willfully lie. The truth is all they state."
Though, knowing just a little bit too much about biology completely ruins this moment. What if he was a chimera? Then both the test could be correct and yet the conclusion could be wrong. Is it unlikely? Sure. Is it impossible? Far from it. Impossible, like infinity, is very, very far away. But the doctor, if he had known, should have stated this possibility, however unlikely it may be. Of course there are other physically realizable situations as well. I find it interesting that many of the bible's statements about jesus aren't really physically impossible. Immaculate conception, though highly unlikely, is not entirely impossible in humans (though I suppose to produce none-genetically identical offspring may be even more unlikely; that is, typically asexual reproduction would result in a clone, which would be female.) Though can we conceive of a physically possible situation which could result in this? Sure! We could just invoke chimerism again, in combination with asexual reproduction, we could chalk it up to the miscommunications, it could be a variety of additional genetic disorders that resulted in the mother carrying a Y chromosome as well, or in the offspring expressing male phenotypes, and probably a large number of things we don't yet know!
I can't pick fights with strangers. I need someone who I think actually deserves getting beat up. I'm comfortable with the idea that I deserve getting beat up, but not whoever it is that will mostly beat me up.
"Where did you come from, angel? How did you know, I'd be the one?"
Today on my way home from work, I wondered, why do humans have emotions? I've always assumed emotions are a natural mechanism to instill responsibility to care for young, or for various other reproductive reasons (as is ultimately true about everything). But suddenly it really strikes me hard—is there a good reason that humans couldn't have evolved from our less intelligent ancestors completely devoid of emotion? My first thought was: isn't it reasonable to imagine an intelligent species caring for it's young and making parenting bonds (and whatever else is required for successful reproduction and rearing of young), where they care for their young out of purely logical reasons? And I thought that was reasonable, but maybe I was very tired (after all, I did take an hour long nap on my way home). Now that I reconsider it, that is not very reasonable; it requires logic, it requires a lot of insight into the future, it involves cognitive processes far beyond the capabilities of even our more human ancestors (let alone the apes we came from). Many of the emotional artifacts we possess are implemented in much less sophisticated life forms as well. If I recall correctly, voles even have complex relationships, with monogamy and cheating and all sorts of the complex relationship issues humans typically experience as well.
"find your own hole to crawl into. Mine's full."
The process: god will punish you if you break his rules —> god loves you and will forgive you for you mistakes/guilts/deviations —> god might not intervene/interfere with our lives, but he created us and loves us and is good/just/right —> god must exist because without him we wouldn't know right from wrong —> god is obviously inherent in everything, from the beauty of our bodies to the unbelievable intricacy we observe in all living things —> god might not be a person but it must have created the universe (cause what else could?), and he must have tuned it just right so that we would come into existence —> god = the mysterious and fundamental rules of the universe (deism & pantheism, rather than some human-like entity) —> god might not exist at all, and maybe isn't needed to be moral or good, but at least the belief in god has led to good stuff (fear of punishment leading to good behavior, comfort of a grand forgiver resting your nerves over other's guilt, etc. for each subsequent step) —> god does not exist, it is not needed for acceptable moral structure, and he has not done good. To the contrary, at every step of our intellectual evolution it has stood in the way of progress. Unnecessary guilt, escape from responsibility, inadequate answers to exciting, important and productive questions, unnecessary conflict, certainty where there should be none, destruction on nearly every scale ever experienced; it is time we inoculate our species from this grand disease.
Where does the word god come from? Does it predate english? (Because english isn't that old.) Oh, thank you wiktionary:
Etymology
From Middle English, from Old English god (“supreme being, deity”), Old High German got (a rank of deity) originally neuter, then changed to masculine to reflect the change in religion to Christianity, both from the Proto-Germanic *ǥuđa-, *ǥuđan, from the Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰuto- (“that which is invoked”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵhau- (“to call, to invoke”) or * *ǵheu- (“to pour”). Not related to the word good.
Ha ha, not too surprising that the word god is not related to the word good—after all, how could it be, with all the horrible shit that god was associated with until recently? (And in my opinion, as much now as ever.)
But how did YHWH of the ancient Israelites (allegedly) come to be god? I once objected to our money using the word god, when many religions don't call it that, and since I'm an atheist, I find it somewhat excluding of me... the response I got was that `god' is referring to the same thing for all those people; regardless of what they call it, it's the same thing. (Of course, this still excludes atheists, who outright deny, or highly doubt the existence of such a thing, though I still maintain even overlooking us non-believers, it is a highly biased statement, and should be removed, LET ALONE my own perspective on the matter.)
Let alone.
It appears I have been experiencing hypographia lately. At least to a minor degree.
``Wrecking ball outside the door.''
``You'll have to shout even louder.''
``Send my cinders home to mother.''
We train ourselves. I've trained myself to watch movies while eating. Or put on a movie while going to sleep. In both cases I am well aware that the movie does nothing of value. They don't help me.
I want Roger Fenton's waggon
Dan sent me this. It's pretty funny.
6·27·09
I say, let it.
6·28·09
You know who you are, even if nobody else does.
6·29·09
The only argument I've heard against allowing openly homosexual people in the military is that it may drive out hundreds or even thousands of excellent service men and women (presumably for reasons ranging from an acceptable discomfort they may experience to flat out homophobia), but I would contend that anyone who would leave the military based on the military's policies, is not a good service person anyway. The military is entirely dependent on the command structure and the strict obedience of the person at the bottom. This is precisely the mechanism required for military personal to carry out enormously destructive acts, such as participating in a nuclear exchange.
At what point in our culture's history did marriage proposals become surprises? Didn't ancient cultures all have prearranged marriages? Isn't that the opposite of a surprise? Or maybe it originates from even before prearranged marriages, when we were more animalistic and men just overpowered women? (Did that ever even happen?)
6·30·09
Well, first of all, there clearly are no such thing as universal morals. Pick anything you think everyone believes to be wrong, and you are guaranteed to find a person somewhere who has completely disobeyed it without the slightest internal conflict or guilt. From eating people to molesting children to molesting old people to sex with dead people and I'm sure far more things that I've GLADLY never even heard of.
According to Oliver Sacks on The Daily Show, "you never lose rhythm, rhythm is deep deep in the brain... and thats a purely human thing, chimpanzees can't dance."
NOVA's Musical Minds, I'll have to make sure I watch that at some point.
And it's still unknown. Just how much distance means we're on our own? And can we be happy alone?
7·1·09
Your skin's so fair it's not fair. You remind me.
Vortex rings in microgravity.
Neat house.
I need to find some cober, cause she seems real cool.
And others.
Faint young sun paradox
CBO budget outlook ...and not the largest tax increase in history. LIARS.
7·7·09
"Permit me to be infantile by myself."
"If I said no could you ever be sure?"
7·11·09
"I'm different than other women Ted. And by different, I mean better."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U-cgn3cEGA
It's probably a problem. Problemably.
I guess I don't have so much a problem with praise, it's just undeserved praised.
Friend: it's funny, you instilled this sense in me that if an action were detrimental to my hard drive, it shouldn't be allowed to do it, and that makes a lot of sense. Except that as things get more complicated (which computers and drives certainly are), it becomes increasingly difficult to determine what is and is not safe. I really don't know if this is true or not, but it is not inconceivable that the system is so complex that it is intractable to determine what actions are safe and what actions are not. If this is the case, then there could in fact be things you can do which are terrible for a drive.
Shouldn't a news organization that gets so much wrong so quickly lose it's right to be journalism? Can't we take them to court or something? Fuck you, Fox.
Completely ridiculous.
"Sports is to war as pornography is to sex"
Myocardial infarction.
You're giving me the spins.
Even at the risk of chaos.
Now hiring partners in crime.
Because you said so.
Make a face.
There's always tomorrow.
With a heart much more lovely.
``This is why it is so heartbreaking to see what is being done to mathematics in school.''
I'm wrong! About the one thing I really thought I was good at, and maybe I once was, but I can see I have not been for quite some time (at least since tutoring physics in college). Teaching is much more about presenting mysteries in a captivating and comprehensible way, at the appropriate difficulty to challenge the student. I need to learn that if I hope to be a good teacher one day.
Stars of the Lid and their Refinement of the Decline
Perform the reduction!
Mike Huckabee repeatedly implies that the main reasons for abortions are that the mother is concerned that the child will be an economic burden. What if they are afraid the child will not be loved? Or not provided for? What if they fear that cannot take care of or support a child, or give the child the life that the mother thinks every child deserves? What if the mother can see her own fate, and knows that will most likely result in absolute isolation? What if the mother fears any number of these? How many people were scared by their own upbringing, and may fear (for whatever reason), unavoidable scarring of their offspring in the same manner? (I've heard people raised in foster homes wouldn't wish it on anyone, though I imagine some people were fine with it.) If you could know with absolute certainty that if you conceived, your child would eventually take their own life, would you hesitate? Would you feel guilty if you were aware of such an outcome, and yet conceived the child anyway? This sounds far-fetched, but what it's not far fetched to imagine two people with detectable but recessive genetic disorders that result in a high likelihood of their offspring having severe chronic illness, or even having a high likelihood of childhood death. Given an adult couple aware of this, is the "miracle" of an accidental pregnancy worth the risk?
Death by excessive sunshine.
Ha ha ha ha, this is one of the most disturbing phrases I've ever heard.
Whatever's clever.
How about a good drug story for once?
P.I.C.
6·22·09
You know, I hear a lot of people complain about movies having generic plots, or being formulaic, or all that jazz. And I just watched Role Models, and it definitely succumbs to that. But I enjoyed it a lot, and I don't really care if it is loosely fit onto a cookie-cutter plot. There are definitely things in the world I find much more problematic than Hollywood's unwillingness to take a risk, or whatever other way you'd like to phrase similar criticism.
I believe we are witnessing the death throes of religion.
These are creative folk you are dealing with.
It's a good thing there isn't a god, because there is no way it would ever forgive us for this.
6·23·09
Look, it's just an all around shitty situation. You know what would have been an acceptable method of interrogation? Lie detectors, solid evidence, decent, humane treatment, some basic concepts of respect even. These methods would also have the benefit of not increasing the resentment, and potentially creating terrorists out of mistaken identities, and misunderstandings.
I've always been very trusting of people, and therefore gullible. Fortunately, I've also always had a very hard time understanding people, both in what people say, and what they mean, so I've tended to just interpret what I think they say, and what I think they mean, on my own. This works very well in science, where you have context from causal relationships from which you may infer meaning, but not so well with humans, where human nature (rather than reason), tends to be the dominant force for meaning.
Oooo, PZ Myers posted some advice for new commenters (my spellcheck says that isn't a real word), including this:
As this is a science blog, a greater proportion of the readers and commenters here well- educated, and, if not scientists, are reasonably well-versed in logic, observation, empiricism, debate, and rationality. As such, their responses will likely be pointed, eloquent, articulate, and highly opinionated.
I find this interesting due to the last two words. I am highly opinionated, it is where my severe arrogance originates.
Get on the anchored ship. Get on the shore-bound boat. Bring on a blade to cut the rope.
Iron aged tribalism.
No homosexual should accept any form of christianity, islam or judaism. No woman should accept these religions. The god of the old testament, which is included in all three abrahamic religions, is a homophobic misogynist, and this is on top of the whole thing being completely ridiculous. In Richard Dawkin's words, "the god of the old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." And if you don't agree, go read the bible, read the old testament, and PAY ATTENTION. If you find yourself pausing to explain stories in terms of your own understanding of god, tally it up. When you're done, count your tally marks, and ask yourself if maybe your understanding of right and wrong is more advanced than the people who wrote those stories 2500+ years ago.
How is it that people can think that ancient tribes, who knew almost nothing about reality, were speaking to god, rather than just under superstitious delusions? Why can we all agree the Salem witch trials were fabrication, but most of us can believe that god spoke to moses as a burning bush? I'm very sorry how offensive I come across to my christian friends, assuming any of them read these things, or ever hear me rant about it in person, but please, trust me that I truly believe organized religion to be the single most harmful set of institutions in the world, and that I am only so vocal as to do as much as I can to lessen that harm. If there were an accessible way for me to lessen the production of AK-47s, or feed hungry children the world over, or teach war-torn poverty stricken parts of Africa about effective STD prevention, or teach most of the 3rd world peoples about basic sanitation, or a host of other things, I would. But I don't know how to do that. And I do know that if I can just convince you to be a little less devout, to question a little, to pass it on to the next generation in a weaker form than you received it, then we will all be much better off. Religion really does poison everything. If you've ever second guessed your religious authorities, have you ever continued it on, and asked what made them religious authorities in the first place? What sort of problems did they have to resolve, and what where the methods used to resolve them? And whether those methods were even supposed to be accessible or inaccessible to you? Did years of seminary really teach them how to solve a sort of problem that you cannot solve? I can say that years of physics classes did that for me, and that probably a decent chemist, biologist, geologist, engineer (of all sorts), or many other professions, can say the same. Is it odd that I spend as much time researching and discussing and writing about anti-religion as many dedicated religious folk spend in pro-religious thinking? Am I any less motivated? I would expect that I would be less concerned about people's future, given that I don't fear they will be punished in some hell after life. But then what motivates me? Is it just that I care for people? Do I just care for some people, and strongly believe that the rest of the people can have negative effects on the smaller fraction of people I care about? Maybe. I probably should reserve self-judgement. You can decide. And do you really think I've overlooked the grand truths that other people have allegedly received? Is it possible I have not fully considered my opponents views? No. You can claim that on a number of advanced physics topics, but not on religion. It is obvious. It is clear as the day.
Casually causal?
Kate Capshaw had to be taught how to scream.
"Wear your jewels to bed, princess?" "Yeah. And nothing else. Shocking?" "Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." "So as a scientist you do a lot of research?" "Always." "And what sort of research would you do on me?"
"Nocturnal activities." "You mean like what sort of cream I put on my face at night. What position I like to sleep in." "Mating customs." "Love rituals?" "Primitive sexual practices" "So you're an authority in that area?" "Years of field work." "I don't blame you for being sore at me. I can be hard to handle." "I've had worse." "But you'll never have better." "I don't know. As a scientist I don't want to prejudice my experiment I'll let you know in the morning."
Win for the scientists! (I'll selectively omit the rest of the dialogue.)
It's a little unpleasant to say, but science is really about separating your human biases from the evidence about how the world is, and although I've been pretty high up on the science rankings among my peers, for my entire life, it still seems that any time I get comfortable in my position I experience great suffering due to my biases creeping in and clouding my objectivity.
I don't understand conservatism. If any archetypical conservatives come across this statement, could you, to the best of your abilities, answer this question: why can't you trust the government with industries like health care, banking, or basic manufacturing (car industry), but you can trust the government with nuclear stockpiles and munitions up the wazoo? Typically I'd rather hand anyone in society (pariah, asylum inmate, nobel-prize winning physicist, doctor, banker, NRA president, world-class marksmen, etc.) my money, my vehicle (for repair) or my hospital care, before I'd hand them a firearm. Especially if I demanded that they use the firearm in my best interest while simultaneously insisting that I pay them as little as possible for their efforts. (Seriously! Conservatives, how does this work?! Though I suppose republicans typically have no problem with large military spending, which I would consider a significant deviation from conservative values.) And if I were a pure capitalist (maybe I am?), I'd further wonder why we can't just think of government as a competing company among other car manufactures, banks and healthcare plans. Why not just consider the government to be a company that our society allows to operate at a loss in industries we deem non-profitable (i.e., unable to turn a net profit). Obviously there are other good reasons to invoke a government run industry—it could be that the industry involves large rewards for unfair behavior (or maybe just an industry in which getting away with cheating is easy), in which case we would tend to prefer a regulatory group, independent of profit (and ideally independent of motive beyond our interests), to monitor, discourage, investigate, prevent and punish companies treading in the unfair area of behavior that are detrimental to our society. I would typically put insurance, and healthcare, near the top of the list, along with education and other well-being related industries. There are two reasons, first, like stated above, that these are industries without much profit, with great benefits from cheating, and for which the main focus is not mutual improvement of the provider and the customer, but rather solely improvement of the customer (yes, we'd all like better doctors and better teachers and better insurers, but we don't tend to think that these industries should exist for profit, so much as they should exist for human benefit). Second, because the products of these industries are all beneficial to the entire society—we all benefit when the average child is better educated, we all benefit when less of us suffer disease less often and/or less severely (insurance follows directly from that). How about this for government-run health care: consider that health insurance is basically a bet between two parties, the insurance company, betting you will be fine, and you, betting you will not. Now just like any other betting scheme, there are three possible distributions of the odds: either the bet is in your favor, the bet is perfectly equal, or the bet is not in your favor. In the case of insurance companies, if it was anything other than "not in your favor", they wouldn't be profitable! That doesn't necessarily mean the true odds of the basic concept of health (or life) insurance aren't in your favor, it just means that the overall odds of the company's strategy, providing insurance to you and many other people, is in their favor. It's exactly like a casino: if the odds weren't in their favor they wouldn't be a business. Stake limits and rules are all designed to ensure that the casino remains profitable, and insurance companies must be the exact same way. The only alternative reminds me of an SNL sketch for "the change bank", where you can exchange coins and cash and any combination of the two. And when asked how they make money the man replies confidently: volume. Back to seriousness, the insurance companies are obviously making money (any NPO insurance companies out there?), which means the bet is obviously balanced in their favor, which means that the industry is no longer centered on our well-being! Help me! Show me the way! Please! (And I'm serious, I really must know how these conclusions are arrived at.)
100 questions, 170 minutes. And these are hard physics questions, so 1.7 minutes might be only 0.7 minutes after you have comprehended the question. (The
What sort of original grammatical errors do you think persist in the bible? Seriously, how many books that long do you think could have not a single grammatical error? Especially considering the retranslations and more than a millenia of hand written and word of mouth passing along. Assuming any of that stuff was real in the first place (which I have no reason to think anyway), it seems extremely unlikely that whatever survived 2000-3500 (or maybe only 2500) years of the game telephone by people who couldn't figure out Maxwell's law of induction, Newton's universal law of gravitation, Darwin's theory of the Origin of the Species, Copernicus's theory of the Heliocentric Solar system, condoms reduce risk of HIV, and so on. Honestly, we're better off just outright betting against the statements of religious authority, based on simple probability.
This is maybe an interesting thought. Regarding relationships, I think I have been right about when a girl likes me, and wrong about when a girl likes me, as well as right about when a girl does not like me. But I don't think I'm ever really wrong about when a girl does not like me. That is, I don't think I've ever assumed a girl didn't like me that actually did. Or at least not since 7th grade. Though obviously I have no real clue. And worse, I think I might be wrong myself.
6·25·09
"Unlike humans, chromosomes can't betray, deceive, or willfully lie. The truth is all they state."
Though, knowing just a little bit too much about biology completely ruins this moment. What if he was a chimera? Then both the test could be correct and yet the conclusion could be wrong. Is it unlikely? Sure. Is it impossible? Far from it. Impossible, like infinity, is very, very far away. But the doctor, if he had known, should have stated this possibility, however unlikely it may be. Of course there are other physically realizable situations as well. I find it interesting that many of the bible's statements about jesus aren't really physically impossible. Immaculate conception, though highly unlikely, is not entirely impossible in humans (though I suppose to produce none-genetically identical offspring may be even more unlikely; that is, typically asexual reproduction would result in a clone, which would be female.) Though can we conceive of a physically possible situation which could result in this? Sure! We could just invoke chimerism again, in combination with asexual reproduction, we could chalk it up to the miscommunications, it could be a variety of additional genetic disorders that resulted in the mother carrying a Y chromosome as well, or in the offspring expressing male phenotypes, and probably a large number of things we don't yet know!
I can't pick fights with strangers. I need someone who I think actually deserves getting beat up. I'm comfortable with the idea that I deserve getting beat up, but not whoever it is that will mostly beat me up.
"Where did you come from, angel? How did you know, I'd be the one?"
Today on my way home from work, I wondered, why do humans have emotions? I've always assumed emotions are a natural mechanism to instill responsibility to care for young, or for various other reproductive reasons (as is ultimately true about everything). But suddenly it really strikes me hard—is there a good reason that humans couldn't have evolved from our less intelligent ancestors completely devoid of emotion? My first thought was: isn't it reasonable to imagine an intelligent species caring for it's young and making parenting bonds (and whatever else is required for successful reproduction and rearing of young), where they care for their young out of purely logical reasons? And I thought that was reasonable, but maybe I was very tired (after all, I did take an hour long nap on my way home). Now that I reconsider it, that is not very reasonable; it requires logic, it requires a lot of insight into the future, it involves cognitive processes far beyond the capabilities of even our more human ancestors (let alone the apes we came from). Many of the emotional artifacts we possess are implemented in much less sophisticated life forms as well. If I recall correctly, voles even have complex relationships, with monogamy and cheating and all sorts of the complex relationship issues humans typically experience as well.
"find your own hole to crawl into. Mine's full."
The process: god will punish you if you break his rules —> god loves you and will forgive you for you mistakes/guilts/deviations —> god might not intervene/interfere with our lives, but he created us and loves us and is good/just/right —> god must exist because without him we wouldn't know right from wrong —> god is obviously inherent in everything, from the beauty of our bodies to the unbelievable intricacy we observe in all living things —> god might not be a person but it must have created the universe (cause what else could?), and he must have tuned it just right so that we would come into existence —> god = the mysterious and fundamental rules of the universe (deism & pantheism, rather than some human-like entity) —> god might not exist at all, and maybe isn't needed to be moral or good, but at least the belief in god has led to good stuff (fear of punishment leading to good behavior, comfort of a grand forgiver resting your nerves over other's guilt, etc. for each subsequent step) —> god does not exist, it is not needed for acceptable moral structure, and he has not done good. To the contrary, at every step of our intellectual evolution it has stood in the way of progress. Unnecessary guilt, escape from responsibility, inadequate answers to exciting, important and productive questions, unnecessary conflict, certainty where there should be none, destruction on nearly every scale ever experienced; it is time we inoculate our species from this grand disease.
Where does the word god come from? Does it predate english? (Because english isn't that old.) Oh, thank you wiktionary:
Etymology
From Middle English, from Old English god (“supreme being, deity”), Old High German got (a rank of deity) originally neuter, then changed to masculine to reflect the change in religion to Christianity, both from the Proto-Germanic *ǥuđa-, *ǥuđan, from the Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰuto- (“that which is invoked”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵhau- (“to call, to invoke”) or * *ǵheu- (“to pour”). Not related to the word good.
Ha ha, not too surprising that the word god is not related to the word good—after all, how could it be, with all the horrible shit that god was associated with until recently? (And in my opinion, as much now as ever.)
But how did YHWH of the ancient Israelites (allegedly) come to be god? I once objected to our money using the word god, when many religions don't call it that, and since I'm an atheist, I find it somewhat excluding of me... the response I got was that `god' is referring to the same thing for all those people; regardless of what they call it, it's the same thing. (Of course, this still excludes atheists, who outright deny, or highly doubt the existence of such a thing, though I still maintain even overlooking us non-believers, it is a highly biased statement, and should be removed, LET ALONE my own perspective on the matter.)
Let alone.
It appears I have been experiencing hypographia lately. At least to a minor degree.
``Wrecking ball outside the door.''
``You'll have to shout even louder.''
``Send my cinders home to mother.''
We train ourselves. I've trained myself to watch movies while eating. Or put on a movie while going to sleep. In both cases I am well aware that the movie does nothing of value. They don't help me.
I want Roger Fenton's waggon
Dan sent me this. It's pretty funny.
6·27·09
I say, let it.
6·28·09
You know who you are, even if nobody else does.
6·29·09
The only argument I've heard against allowing openly homosexual people in the military is that it may drive out hundreds or even thousands of excellent service men and women (presumably for reasons ranging from an acceptable discomfort they may experience to flat out homophobia), but I would contend that anyone who would leave the military based on the military's policies, is not a good service person anyway. The military is entirely dependent on the command structure and the strict obedience of the person at the bottom. This is precisely the mechanism required for military personal to carry out enormously destructive acts, such as participating in a nuclear exchange.
At what point in our culture's history did marriage proposals become surprises? Didn't ancient cultures all have prearranged marriages? Isn't that the opposite of a surprise? Or maybe it originates from even before prearranged marriages, when we were more animalistic and men just overpowered women? (Did that ever even happen?)
6·30·09
Well, first of all, there clearly are no such thing as universal morals. Pick anything you think everyone believes to be wrong, and you are guaranteed to find a person somewhere who has completely disobeyed it without the slightest internal conflict or guilt. From eating people to molesting children to molesting old people to sex with dead people and I'm sure far more things that I've GLADLY never even heard of.
According to Oliver Sacks on The Daily Show, "you never lose rhythm, rhythm is deep deep in the brain... and thats a purely human thing, chimpanzees can't dance."
NOVA's Musical Minds, I'll have to make sure I watch that at some point.
And it's still unknown. Just how much distance means we're on our own? And can we be happy alone?
7·1·09
Your skin's so fair it's not fair. You remind me.
Vortex rings in microgravity.
Neat house.
I need to find some cober, cause she seems real cool.
And others.
Faint young sun paradox
CBO budget outlook ...and not the largest tax increase in history. LIARS.
7·7·09
"Permit me to be infantile by myself."
"If I said no could you ever be sure?"
7·11·09
"I'm different than other women Ted. And by different, I mean better."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U-cgn3cEGA
It's probably a problem. Problemably.
I guess I don't have so much a problem with praise, it's just undeserved praised.
Friend: it's funny, you instilled this sense in me that if an action were detrimental to my hard drive, it shouldn't be allowed to do it, and that makes a lot of sense. Except that as things get more complicated (which computers and drives certainly are), it becomes increasingly difficult to determine what is and is not safe. I really don't know if this is true or not, but it is not inconceivable that the system is so complex that it is intractable to determine what actions are safe and what actions are not. If this is the case, then there could in fact be things you can do which are terrible for a drive.
Shouldn't a news organization that gets so much wrong so quickly lose it's right to be journalism? Can't we take them to court or something? Fuck you, Fox.
Completely ridiculous.
"Sports is to war as pornography is to sex"
Myocardial infarction.
You're giving me the spins.
Even at the risk of chaos.
Now hiring partners in crime.
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