intepid

Respect?

mark — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:56:59 GMT

From coverage of the already insanely over-covered paid appearance of Sarah Palin in front of 600 tea-bagging rubes.

[Truck driver Gail] Dorody's main concern is that the rest of the world no longer has respect for America.
"We have a president that goes around apologising for us. For what? If it wasn't for us most of the countries out there would be destroyed," she says.

If Ms Dorody would pull her head out of her ass and read or watch something other than Fox News she might realize that the only reason the rest of the world respects America in the slightest right now is because of Obama. Seriously, we all hated Bush and by extension the people who elected him. Under Bush the US took the unprecedented international solidarity that followed the 9/11 attacks and squandered it all in less than 8 years.

The problem with dealing with political opportunists like Palin is that while you can fight fire with fire, you can't fight blinkered reactionary stupidity with anything. You just have to hope it burns itself out.

Last Minute Apple Tablet Predictions

mark — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:37:56 GMT

It will support stylus [pressure sensitive] input as well as multitouch

It will be OLED all the way, even though rumors have been saying that supply isn't available

It will cost a small fortune (see previous point)

It will support multi-tasking, unlike current iPhone OS 3 (possibly it will be running iPhone OS 4)

I will spend a significant amount of time this year attempting to develop for whatever the hell this thing is, since I missed the first wave of iPhone development where people made millions selling apps they couldn't give away on any other platform, and I will stupidly assume that history will repeat itself

It will be round, and the edges will be sharp enough to cut cheese

Something about this keynote will make me mad that I only just bought an iPhone 3GS

This will be Steve Jobs' final product intro, and fictional agent Jack Bauer will storm the stage to deliver the device into his hands at the last possible moment

It will be called the Newton, just to fuck with everyone

But seriously, maybe this will be the first Apple product in ages to have neither an i nor a Mac prefix in the name

__________

UPDATE: specs are published, and I am sadly underwhelmed (although yet to watch the keynote so maybe Steve can spin it spectacularly well). Why I feel deflated:

It looks exactly like a giant iPod Touch, right down to the home screen, so all the unimaginative mock ups were actually dead accurate.

1024 x 768? WTF. That means only 130 DPI, which means you'll be able to see the damn pixels as your holding it in your hands! How the hell is this going to revolutionize publishing when it can't come close to the resolution of paper and e-ink displays?

LCD display (LED backlit woooo), which also means will not compete well with print and e-ink in readability and comfort (OLED would have at least put it in the ballpark)

4:3 screen aspect? So the stupid thing isn't even going to look sexy watching movies, with unwanted bars or cropping.

No stylus input (I know there are special "pretend finger" stylii out there, but I am talking about a pen)

No multitasking!

Dongles? For USB? For freakin' SD??? You've got to be kidding.

No camera, but who really cares at this point.

*Sigh* at least I don't have to rush out and buy one, and can focus on iPhone development instead of a fundamentally different platform.

Why Everyone will want an Apple Tablet

mark — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:24:31 GMT

Because this is what it's like trying to browse using the currently available ultra-portable computers (with 10" screen):

The area in white is the "active" area of Google Reader, ie the bit that actually contains the content and scrolls— at 248 pixels high it comprises less than half the total screen, which is only 600 pixels to begin with. This is just ridiculous. It's a total fucking waste of pixels.

Apple's tablet (which I doubt will be called the iSlate because it sounds crummy and a bit like "isolate"... and at some point they're bound to drop the "i" from their product line) will probably be used mostly in portrait orientation, immediately addressing the problem of the unreadable short and wide page. It will probably be higher resolution so text will be crisper (I'm guessing 1440 x 960, which would be lovely and would keep the 3:2 aspect of the iPod Touch and iPhone with dimensions scaled by a factor of 3). It will have a clean and unobtrusive UI minimizing the amount of unnecessary junk onscreen and reclaiming at least half of the real estate that standard desktop GUIs currently waste.

Even though I bought this junkbook (HP mini 110-1197TU) today*, I can't wait for it to be rendered useless by a soon-to-be-announced reorientable multi-touch expensive thingamabob. As a friend pointed out recently, the greatest feature on a netbook is the "stand" — ie the fact that the keyboard part acts as a stable base. If Apple can solve this too, eg with an unobtrusive foldout for standing the thing up on its own (like a picture frame) then they will truly deserve their success.

__________

* for traveling with... I just wanted something small I can type and watch movies on, and the iPod Touch is a little too small and proprietary about its media support.

Deepak Chopra happily claims "King of Woo" title

mark — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:39:47 GMT

From Chopra's column in the execrable Huffington Post*:

I realized that I would much rather expound woo woo than the kind of bad science Shermer** stands behind. He has made skepticism his personal brand, more or less, sitting by the side of the road to denigrate "those people who believe in spirituality, ghosts, and so on," as he says on a YouTube video. No matter that this broad brush would tar not just the Pope, Mahatma Gandhi, St. Teresa of Avila, Buddha, and countless scientists who happen to recognize a reality that transcends space and time. All are deemed irrational by the skeptical crowd. You would think that skeptics as a class have made significant contributions to science or the quality of life in their own right. Uh oh. No, they haven't. Their principal job is to reinforce the great ideas of yesterday while suppressing the great ideas of tomorrow.

Chopra is a quack, a hack, and a giant turd floating in the punchbowl of human knowledge. Nearly every improvement in the human condition over the last few millenia has been due to the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the natural world. Supernatural thinking has given us nothing of value, and in many cases causes outright harm— it is at best useless, at worst dangerously insane.

We have reached the state where Shermer's tired, out-of-date, utterly mediocre science is far in arrears of the best, most open scientific thinkers -- actually, we reached that point 60 years ago when eminent physicists like Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger applied quantum theory to deep spiritual questions. The arrogance of skeptics is both high-handed and rusty. It is high-handed because they lump brilliant speculative thinkers into one black box known as woo woo.

In classic style, after shitting all over the science which has given us a world in which Chopra gets to live far longer than his ancestors and preach his shtick electronically to every corner of the globe, he then goes on to misrepresent the ideas of some of the greatest scientists of the last 100 years with a gall that would cause them to spit-take were they still around to hear it.

Speculative thinking is not believing whatever you want to believe. It has to start somewhere, and ultimately to be of value it has to lead somewhere. Speculating on something without having the slightest interest in discovering your idea might be a stupid one is a trap that everyone falls into at some point, but most people don't label this character flaw as "brilliance". Chopra wants to turn his intellectual laziness into a virtue; he doesn't know the first thing about relativity or quantum theory but he will happily throw the words about if it makes his rather woolly and unoriginal ideas sound more cutting edge.

He just can't accept that sometimes it's better to just accept you don't know something (eg "what is consciousness") than to pointlessly hypothesize a transcendental quantum cosmic mind that makes a flower beautiful so that it might be appreciated by Deepak Chopra. What's really sad is that he's not just shit at science, he's shit at speculation too.

Update: Speaking at the Indian Astrology Conference, Chopra said:

"Western science is still frozen in an obsolete, Newtonian worldview that is based literally on superstition — and we can call it the superstition of materialism — which says you and I are physical entities of the physical universe."

Ah yes, tough crowd those Astrologers. And now, a quiz from way back:

1) Which of the following was most responsible for dragging western civilization out of the dark ages?

a) Astrology
b) Religion
c) Politics
d) Science

2) Which of the following is the most self-critical/self-correcting?

a) Astrology
b) Religion
c) Politics
d) Science

2a) Which of the following eagerly anticipates revolutionary reform?

a) Astrology
b) Religion
c) Politics
d) Science

3) Which of the following exploits people’s fears and insecurities the least?

a) Astrology
b) Religion
c) Politics
d) Science

__________

* The Huffington Post is a bothersome place that reinforces the rather frustrating link between liberalism and new-ageism. It stands as a great exemplar of the old aphorism: "Be open minded, but not so much so that your brain falls out"

** I personally find Michael Shermer to be a bit of a dick, but not because of his skepticism, rather his free-market libertarian politics. Skeptics and scientists alike would be well advised to try to keep their politics out of it when advocating critical thinking.

Creation, a movie about Darwin

mark — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 02:13:19 GMT

Well worth seeing if you want to see a portrait of Darwin the man, as opposed to the naturalist and explorer, since most of the movie covers him wrestling with his conscience over the logically imminent demise of God as the creator of all living things, as well as his grief over the loss of his precociously smart (but slightly creepy) oldest child, Annie.

And look, here's what some hilarious Christians had to say about Darwin recently (note the Godwin-troll in the middle):

The Darwin Anniversary

November 24, 2009, is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species. How should we respond?

Joshua McLoughlin

by standing strong

Angela Posey-Arnold

maybe we should not respond at all.

Paul Askin
Perhaps watch "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"?

Ross Nixon

I tweeted, perhaps unwisely, "Darwin sucks more than Hitler".

Mitchell Robert Kriss

Why dont we celebrate jean lemark while we're at it? Both theories are just as false as each other.

Rhonda Blunt

yeah Mitchell Lemarks therory that a a species will change one a period of time is stupid. I always look at those African people who over a couple of centuries have lengthened their necks with large rings. None of their offspring have ever been born with long necks, just the ones God gave them!

Darrell Yip

@Rhonda: all too true!!

Patricia Flynn

Rhonda, that is the best comment - wish I had thought of it!

I honestly don't see how pointing out the inadequacy of Lamarckian theory is supposed to support their opposition to the Darwinian model, but then I guess this is Christian logic, which by definition transcends regular logic ;)

Merry Exmas!

mark — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:05:44 GMT

How Atheists Celebrate the Holidays

mark — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:59:25 GMT

(click for original)

Words from an evolutionary biologist

mark — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:51:51 GMT

PZ Myers is not known for his lyrical prose, but I really liked this paragraph in response to a creationist dunderhead who was lecturing him on the foolishness of supporting Darwinian theory.

I've split half-billion year old stones to expose the shells of trilobites, I've seen the bones of Tiktaalik, I've held in my hands the skull of Neanderthal. I've compared the genes of mice and flies, I've studied the embryos of grasshoppers and fish, I've read thousands of papers produced by a scientific community that values curiosity over money. I've also read dozens of books by creationists, and I can say with complete confidence that they, and you, Mr Michael Aprile, are full of shit.

It called to mind Roy's final words from Blade Runner:

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

(well obviously the last part is a little different, but I imagine PZ would have something pretty eloquent to say should a priest ever try a deathbed conversion on him)