Let's ask ourselves perhaps the most pertinent question in Intelligent Design theory; one that nobody seems to be able to answer: What is the scientific theory of Intelligent Design, and how may it be empirically tested?
Not one person yet has been able to answer this one simple question, and I openly challenge anyone who is within the sound of my electronic voice to provide an answer.
Evolution has been tested time and time again. It has been the prevaliling scientific theory to explain the diversity of life on earth for over 150 years; ever since Darwin was tromping around the Galapogos Islands. The fossil record supports it; modern genetics supports it... In fact, to date, not one study has been performed which contradicts evolution.
But let's suppose, hypothetically, that one had. One day a scientist stumbles upon irrefutable evidence that evolution simply cannot be the mechanism by which life on earth arose and diversified. Let's presume, just for the sake of argument, that tomorrow, we find out that the theory of evolution is wrong.
Guess what? The theory of Intelligent Design still wouldn't be a scientific theory.
See, according to the IDiots out there (although they don't explicitly say so, their strategy so far makes it quite clear) hacking holes (whether real or perceived) in the theory of evolution equates to proving Intelligent Design.
This is, of course, bullshit. No scientific theory is accepted until they at least have a solid falsifiable hypthesis and have either supported or disproven it. Frankly, where Intelligent design is concerned, it is very possibly impossible to falsify an act of God; and since She isn't coming forward to tell us how She dun it, Intelligent design will have to be viewed as it is by the scientific community: pseudo-intellectual crap.
Now, I know that the tone of this posting is a little harsher than I usually use, and I apologize, but the simple truth is that I see Intelligent Design as a slap in the face to everything I've decided to dedicate my professional life to. To take religion, specifically the book of Genesis, cloak it in pseudoscience, then try to force-feed it to high school students as if it were an accepted scientific theory; that is something I simply cannot accept. As a scientist, I simply cannot look upon Intelligent design with anything less than utmost contempt.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
More On Wei Ch'i.
Granted it's been a while since I've played, and I'm fairly certain that I'm not as good as I once was, but I still pick up a chess board every so often just to keep myself sharp. I'm still pretty good. I've played at the national level, and did quite well; I finished in 143rd place out of over 3000 competitors.
So when I tell you that Go makes chess seem like the strategic equivalent of tiddlywinks by comparison, I want you to understand my full meaning.
Let's take your average chess game of, say, 120 moves (60 per player). On any one move, the largest possible number of available configurations is 121, broken down as follows; not counting the squares the pieces are sitting on at this moment:
pawns: 2 possible squares each (a total of 16 new possible configurations, at the absolute most).
King: 8 possible squares (eight new possible configurations)
Queen: 27
Bishops: 13 each (for a total of 26)
Rooks: 14 each (for a total of 28)
Knights: 8 each (for a total of 16)
Add 'em together and you should come up with 121. And the vast majority of the time, you will have far fewer than 121 available. For the first move, for example, there are only twenty possible moves, period. Not twenty-one, not nineteen. Twenty, exactly.
But since this is all very rough, that means that in a 120-move chess game, the configuration of the board is approximately 121^120; which gives you something on the order of 8.6x10^249.
On the first move playing Go on a 19x19 board, black has 361 possible moves; white, 360, and so on. Now, this is all approximate, but since I was generous enough to use the absolute best-case scenario for Chess, I'll do the same for Go. Your average Go game on a 19x19 board lasts about 300 moves. So the number of possible board configurations that are available looks something like this:
N=361!/61!; which gives you something on the order of 2.82x10^684 possible board configurations.
That's a really big number:
2820000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Give or take a zero or two
How many of these are actual legal board configurations is anyone's guess. I've seen estimates between 5 and 20%. Which, when you're talking about numbers this big, doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of difference.
So I'm beginning to understand why nobody's ever written a computer program that plays a decent game of Go. The numbers are just too big.
So when I tell you that Go makes chess seem like the strategic equivalent of tiddlywinks by comparison, I want you to understand my full meaning.
Let's take your average chess game of, say, 120 moves (60 per player). On any one move, the largest possible number of available configurations is 121, broken down as follows; not counting the squares the pieces are sitting on at this moment:
pawns: 2 possible squares each (a total of 16 new possible configurations, at the absolute most).
King: 8 possible squares (eight new possible configurations)
Queen: 27
Bishops: 13 each (for a total of 26)
Rooks: 14 each (for a total of 28)
Knights: 8 each (for a total of 16)
Add 'em together and you should come up with 121. And the vast majority of the time, you will have far fewer than 121 available. For the first move, for example, there are only twenty possible moves, period. Not twenty-one, not nineteen. Twenty, exactly.
But since this is all very rough, that means that in a 120-move chess game, the configuration of the board is approximately 121^120; which gives you something on the order of 8.6x10^249.
On the first move playing Go on a 19x19 board, black has 361 possible moves; white, 360, and so on. Now, this is all approximate, but since I was generous enough to use the absolute best-case scenario for Chess, I'll do the same for Go. Your average Go game on a 19x19 board lasts about 300 moves. So the number of possible board configurations that are available looks something like this:
N=361!/61!; which gives you something on the order of 2.82x10^684 possible board configurations.
That's a really big number:
2820000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Give or take a zero or two
How many of these are actual legal board configurations is anyone's guess. I've seen estimates between 5 and 20%. Which, when you're talking about numbers this big, doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of difference.
So I'm beginning to understand why nobody's ever written a computer program that plays a decent game of Go. The numbers are just too big.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Here we Wei Ch'i
So I'm teaching myself to play Wei Ch'i. Well, that's the Chinese name. Around here, it's called Go. It's described as the most difficult game ever devised; a title it's held for somewhere between three and four thousand years, it's also a contender for the title of oldest game still played in its original form. The only possible exception to the latter is backgammon (although it's arguable that the romans played it in the same way that it's played today).
The game is played on a 7x7, 13x13 or 19x19 board, depending on how long you want the game to last and how good you are. Supposedly the masters can play games on a 19x19 board that can last for days before anyone wins.
I'm not that good.
The rules of the game are actually remarkably simple, the strategy is exceedingly complex. It makes Chess look like Tic-Tac-Toe. Legend has it that the Chinese emperors would make their generals learn to play to improve their strategies. I can see why.
But I gotta say, it's a lot of fun.
The game is played on a 7x7, 13x13 or 19x19 board, depending on how long you want the game to last and how good you are. Supposedly the masters can play games on a 19x19 board that can last for days before anyone wins.
I'm not that good.
The rules of the game are actually remarkably simple, the strategy is exceedingly complex. It makes Chess look like Tic-Tac-Toe. Legend has it that the Chinese emperors would make their generals learn to play to improve their strategies. I can see why.
But I gotta say, it's a lot of fun.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
On Evolution, and God.
So I was chatting with a fundamentalist Christian friend of mine about evolution. It should be mentioned, critically, that my friend, while strongly Christian, does not ascribe to the dogma of the Intelligent Design proponents. He accepts evolution as having occurred; however, in his words, "that doesn't necessarily mean that God wasn't in there somewhere." He sees the book of Genesis as, and this is too good a quote for me not to use directly: "God simplifying natural history down to a level that a bunch of illiterate goatherds standing on a hill could understand and remember," which is basically what I've been saying since I found out about the whole Evolution/Intelligent Design debate; albeit somewhat more eloquently.
The thing, he said, that bothered him was the fact that Evolution required you to start with the assumption that God doesn't exist.
That was the epiphany moment for me. Ever since I learned about this so-called Intelligent Design theory, it confused the hell out of me why some people, many of whom are actually relatively intelligent, would deny the findings of just about every single branch of the natural sciences just to maintain that the Earth is only a few thousand years old; and that all animals in existence were magically created in their current form. At that moment, I finally understood: here's a perception that Evolution somehow denies the existence of God; and God's a really tough chick to argue with.
Okay, first off, I don't want this to be an essay on the existence/non-existence of God. That's a question best left to philosophers, theologeans, and people who are a lot smarter than me.
What I do want to get into is whether or not evolution theory actually denies the existence of God.
The short answer is "no."
Evolution theory, in all the forms it has taken since Darwin, and its application as far as abiogenesis and the origins of life on earth says nothing whatsoever about whether or not God exists. It says notning about the existence or functioning of any god or gods. It's basically orthogonal to the question; roughtly as orthogonal to the question as how your microwave oven works.
Is it possible that radioactive decay rates spontaneously change as soon as we're not looking at them? Maybe; but until we have some observable data to support that premise, the scientific approach demands that we avoid speculation and work from solid data. Is it possible that God made the world to "look" old to every experiment we could possibly perform? Again, yes, it's possible, but following that logic through to its natural conclusion, it could be argued that we have no solid proof that all five of our senses are not illusory, so therefore, we know absolutely nothing about the world around us.
The point is that if no observations exist, and no observations can be expected to be made, speculation is pointless, from a scientific standpoint. Sure, speculation can be fun, and it can also draw you in new and interesting directions that you may not have previously considered; but as far as actually understanding a phenomenon, it often reflects far more upon the experimentor's personal baises than it does upon the actual nature of things.
The point is that science works upon what can be observed. Practically by definition, God is an unobservable entity; whether She exists or not. So science simply ignores the question. It's irrelevant to whether or not the theory of evolution is correct or not. We can speculate all we want as to whether God exists, and whether or not She was involved in the creation of life on earth, but all this would be beside the point. Evolution is possibly the single most-supported theory in the biological sciences. While I object to the term "unifying theory" on principle (largely because a lot of people think that it sounds too much like "God"), if the biological sciences have a unifying theory, then evolution would be it. From the gross anatomy of complex animals, to the smallest molecular pathway in our individual cells, there's a certain elegance about the system; and the only scientific explanation which simultaneously explains the magnificent diversity as well as the shocking similarities between the various organisms is Evolution.
Whether or not God was involved is a separate issue.
The thing, he said, that bothered him was the fact that Evolution required you to start with the assumption that God doesn't exist.
That was the epiphany moment for me. Ever since I learned about this so-called Intelligent Design theory, it confused the hell out of me why some people, many of whom are actually relatively intelligent, would deny the findings of just about every single branch of the natural sciences just to maintain that the Earth is only a few thousand years old; and that all animals in existence were magically created in their current form. At that moment, I finally understood: here's a perception that Evolution somehow denies the existence of God; and God's a really tough chick to argue with.
Okay, first off, I don't want this to be an essay on the existence/non-existence of God. That's a question best left to philosophers, theologeans, and people who are a lot smarter than me.
What I do want to get into is whether or not evolution theory actually denies the existence of God.
The short answer is "no."
Evolution theory, in all the forms it has taken since Darwin, and its application as far as abiogenesis and the origins of life on earth says nothing whatsoever about whether or not God exists. It says notning about the existence or functioning of any god or gods. It's basically orthogonal to the question; roughtly as orthogonal to the question as how your microwave oven works.
Is it possible that radioactive decay rates spontaneously change as soon as we're not looking at them? Maybe; but until we have some observable data to support that premise, the scientific approach demands that we avoid speculation and work from solid data. Is it possible that God made the world to "look" old to every experiment we could possibly perform? Again, yes, it's possible, but following that logic through to its natural conclusion, it could be argued that we have no solid proof that all five of our senses are not illusory, so therefore, we know absolutely nothing about the world around us.
The point is that if no observations exist, and no observations can be expected to be made, speculation is pointless, from a scientific standpoint. Sure, speculation can be fun, and it can also draw you in new and interesting directions that you may not have previously considered; but as far as actually understanding a phenomenon, it often reflects far more upon the experimentor's personal baises than it does upon the actual nature of things.
The point is that science works upon what can be observed. Practically by definition, God is an unobservable entity; whether She exists or not. So science simply ignores the question. It's irrelevant to whether or not the theory of evolution is correct or not. We can speculate all we want as to whether God exists, and whether or not She was involved in the creation of life on earth, but all this would be beside the point. Evolution is possibly the single most-supported theory in the biological sciences. While I object to the term "unifying theory" on principle (largely because a lot of people think that it sounds too much like "God"), if the biological sciences have a unifying theory, then evolution would be it. From the gross anatomy of complex animals, to the smallest molecular pathway in our individual cells, there's a certain elegance about the system; and the only scientific explanation which simultaneously explains the magnificent diversity as well as the shocking similarities between the various organisms is Evolution.
Whether or not God was involved is a separate issue.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Knock, Knock; Who's there?
So, I've created a new blog to collect stories of people who have knocked on our doors, phoned us in the middle of dinner, or otherwise harrassed us to sell us something, convert us to some strange religion, or get us to donate to some cause that we've never heard of.
To find out more, please go to http://knockingatmydoor.blogspot.com.
This is a community project, and will only work by word of mouth, so if you have any friends, family or loved ones who have a story to tell, please send them my way.
Tell your friends. Have them tell their friends. Have them tell their friends' friends.
To find out more, please go to http://knockingatmydoor.blogspot.com.
This is a community project, and will only work by word of mouth, so if you have any friends, family or loved ones who have a story to tell, please send them my way.
Tell your friends. Have them tell their friends. Have them tell their friends' friends.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Something which, for some reason didn't occur to me before
So I was thinking about the recent presidential election and I recalled one particular interview that was held just outside one of the polling stations on CNN. The woman who was about to vote announced, proudly, that she was going to vote for Bush.
When asked why, she immediately responded: "because I believe that the lord wants him to be President."
For the sake of argument, let's assume that the Lord, in fact, wants a smirking alcoholic, C-student, chimpanzee cheerleader to be president. Has anybody considered the possibility that maybe this wasn't a blessing?
Reading your bible, you'll find that the Old Testament God was pretty keen on the whole concept of smiting. He comes off a little nicer in the New Testament and the Koran, but my point stands. The Flood; the plagues of Egypt; the Tsunami; Bush.
If we postulate for the sake of argument that the Lord, in fact, wants Bush to be president; doesn't it make far more sense that this is much more a punishment than it is a blessing?
Maybe that's just me.
When asked why, she immediately responded: "because I believe that the lord wants him to be President."
For the sake of argument, let's assume that the Lord, in fact, wants a smirking alcoholic, C-student, chimpanzee cheerleader to be president. Has anybody considered the possibility that maybe this wasn't a blessing?
Reading your bible, you'll find that the Old Testament God was pretty keen on the whole concept of smiting. He comes off a little nicer in the New Testament and the Koran, but my point stands. The Flood; the plagues of Egypt; the Tsunami; Bush.
If we postulate for the sake of argument that the Lord, in fact, wants Bush to be president; doesn't it make far more sense that this is much more a punishment than it is a blessing?
Maybe that's just me.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Make it STOP!
So, Terri Schiavo.
I know, this all happened months ago, but for some reason there are people out there who just don't want to let it end.
Why is it that this one case got so many people in an uproar? Why, even to this day, do we have people invoking her name to rise against (gasp)... Actually, what, exactly, are these people against? Seriously, let's think about this long and hard. What, exactly, went on in the case of Terri Schiavo? This wasn't an abortion (in most states, including Florida, abortion is illegal in the 174th trimester), this wasn't a case of euthanasia. This was merely a case where the doctors, and the next of kin decided that the best course of action was to terminate all life-continuing measures.
Something which has gone interestingly unmentioned in this particular case is that every doctor who attended to Ms. Shiavo agreed that removal of the feeding tube was the best course of action. The doctors, clearly, were willing to end treatment if the patient if the next-of-kin decided to do so (he did not, incidentally, decide to do so until about eight years after she went into a persistent vegitative state); and it's the assessment of every court-appointed physician who saw her that she was in an irrecoverable state. Granted, the Schiavo's parents hired their own physician who announced that with proper therapy, she could recover; a finding which is directly contradicted by the post-mortem; so I frankly question the doctor in question's qualifications.
Moreover, something which was curiously unmentioned either in the media circus which surrounded this unfortunate woman, or in the aftermath, was the fact that every single judge agreed that Michael Shiavo, her husband, had established conclusively that his wife would not wish to be kept alive under these circumstances. Instead, what did they focus on as Mr. Schiavo fought to let his wife die? The fact that he had a new girlfriend (a huge deal was made of the fact that it was out of wedlock) and a couple of kids.
Give the man a fricking break! His wife had been in a coma for fifteen years!
The question nobody seemed to bother asking was why Michael Schiavo didn't just divorce his wife and walk away from the whole situation, in spite of not one, but two multi-million dollar offers to do so. When they found that he couldn't be bought off, they suddenly started playing the PR game; going to enormous lengths to make it seem as if he was a horrible, abusive, borderline murderous human being who would have taken immense pleasure from the idea of torturing his wife to death. And no, I'm not exaggerating in the least.
So why, in spite of offers totaling over eleven million dollars, media pressure, and outright slander from the far-right wing did Mr. Schiavo not just walk away and let it end? Why didn't he just let her family decide what was best for their daughter? Hell, in his position, I gotta admit that's probably what I would have done; and I would have been wrong.
Well, I think we can probably pretty much reject the idea that he's an evil, abusive, murderous human being who wants to torture his wife to death; as the far right wing contends. And, after fifteen years, I don't think anybody would likely hold it against him if he decided to divorce his wife and walk away. So what stopped him? Why did he fight so hard and for so long to let his wife die?
The only answer that makes any sense at all is that he truly felt that he was doing the right thing. In spite of the, shall we say, uncharitable image that was painted of him on the news, he held steadfastly to his belief that he was doing the right thing. It would have been easy for him to respond to slander with slander; to descend to their level; but he didn't. Instead he fought the only way he knew how; he worked his way through the courts. In fact, of all the people involved in this; from the family, to the doctors, to the special interest groups to the president; he's the one person involved who actually acted with any human decency whatsoever. I truly believe that for the level of slander he experienced in the final months of his wife's life, Mr. Schiavo deserves a formal apology. I don't, however, expect that he'll get one. The far (extreme) right is kinda funky that way. They don't like to admit that they're wrong... ever.
The real tragedy of this is that an event which should have been private; the death of a loved one, became so brutally public. One man's reputation was dragged through the mud, congress got involved; for naught, really, since when they decided that federal courts could rule in this one particular case, the federal court promptly decided that they wouldn't. Kudos. And realistically, this was all over a woman whose life was, by any reasonable measure, over. I'm sorry, this is truly a tragedy for her family, but it's true. So while the media announced that congress was "acting to save Terri Shiavo's life" (and as an aside, I ask you: what liberal media?), congress was really acting against what no fewer than three court judges in various courts had decided were Terri Schiavo's wishes.
This has been a tragedy, not only for the Schiavo and her family, but for America as a whole. I wish for both sides of this dispute comfort and peace now that this is all over. As for those now trying to invoke her name to paint a new face on "compassionate conservativism;" well, I'm not sure whether I believe in heaven and hell or not, but if I did, I do believe that this level of false compassion exhibited by the far right in the United States would be enough to determine which direction they're headed.
I know, this all happened months ago, but for some reason there are people out there who just don't want to let it end.
Why is it that this one case got so many people in an uproar? Why, even to this day, do we have people invoking her name to rise against (gasp)... Actually, what, exactly, are these people against? Seriously, let's think about this long and hard. What, exactly, went on in the case of Terri Schiavo? This wasn't an abortion (in most states, including Florida, abortion is illegal in the 174th trimester), this wasn't a case of euthanasia. This was merely a case where the doctors, and the next of kin decided that the best course of action was to terminate all life-continuing measures.
Something which has gone interestingly unmentioned in this particular case is that every doctor who attended to Ms. Shiavo agreed that removal of the feeding tube was the best course of action. The doctors, clearly, were willing to end treatment if the patient if the next-of-kin decided to do so (he did not, incidentally, decide to do so until about eight years after she went into a persistent vegitative state); and it's the assessment of every court-appointed physician who saw her that she was in an irrecoverable state. Granted, the Schiavo's parents hired their own physician who announced that with proper therapy, she could recover; a finding which is directly contradicted by the post-mortem; so I frankly question the doctor in question's qualifications.
Moreover, something which was curiously unmentioned either in the media circus which surrounded this unfortunate woman, or in the aftermath, was the fact that every single judge agreed that Michael Shiavo, her husband, had established conclusively that his wife would not wish to be kept alive under these circumstances. Instead, what did they focus on as Mr. Schiavo fought to let his wife die? The fact that he had a new girlfriend (a huge deal was made of the fact that it was out of wedlock) and a couple of kids.
Give the man a fricking break! His wife had been in a coma for fifteen years!
The question nobody seemed to bother asking was why Michael Schiavo didn't just divorce his wife and walk away from the whole situation, in spite of not one, but two multi-million dollar offers to do so. When they found that he couldn't be bought off, they suddenly started playing the PR game; going to enormous lengths to make it seem as if he was a horrible, abusive, borderline murderous human being who would have taken immense pleasure from the idea of torturing his wife to death. And no, I'm not exaggerating in the least.
So why, in spite of offers totaling over eleven million dollars, media pressure, and outright slander from the far-right wing did Mr. Schiavo not just walk away and let it end? Why didn't he just let her family decide what was best for their daughter? Hell, in his position, I gotta admit that's probably what I would have done; and I would have been wrong.
Well, I think we can probably pretty much reject the idea that he's an evil, abusive, murderous human being who wants to torture his wife to death; as the far right wing contends. And, after fifteen years, I don't think anybody would likely hold it against him if he decided to divorce his wife and walk away. So what stopped him? Why did he fight so hard and for so long to let his wife die?
The only answer that makes any sense at all is that he truly felt that he was doing the right thing. In spite of the, shall we say, uncharitable image that was painted of him on the news, he held steadfastly to his belief that he was doing the right thing. It would have been easy for him to respond to slander with slander; to descend to their level; but he didn't. Instead he fought the only way he knew how; he worked his way through the courts. In fact, of all the people involved in this; from the family, to the doctors, to the special interest groups to the president; he's the one person involved who actually acted with any human decency whatsoever. I truly believe that for the level of slander he experienced in the final months of his wife's life, Mr. Schiavo deserves a formal apology. I don't, however, expect that he'll get one. The far (extreme) right is kinda funky that way. They don't like to admit that they're wrong... ever.
The real tragedy of this is that an event which should have been private; the death of a loved one, became so brutally public. One man's reputation was dragged through the mud, congress got involved; for naught, really, since when they decided that federal courts could rule in this one particular case, the federal court promptly decided that they wouldn't. Kudos. And realistically, this was all over a woman whose life was, by any reasonable measure, over. I'm sorry, this is truly a tragedy for her family, but it's true. So while the media announced that congress was "acting to save Terri Shiavo's life" (and as an aside, I ask you: what liberal media?), congress was really acting against what no fewer than three court judges in various courts had decided were Terri Schiavo's wishes.
This has been a tragedy, not only for the Schiavo and her family, but for America as a whole. I wish for both sides of this dispute comfort and peace now that this is all over. As for those now trying to invoke her name to paint a new face on "compassionate conservativism;" well, I'm not sure whether I believe in heaven and hell or not, but if I did, I do believe that this level of false compassion exhibited by the far right in the United States would be enough to determine which direction they're headed.
Friday, October 21, 2005
New Baby.
So I spent the last couple of days building myself a new computer; a skill I acquired whilst working for my former mentor at UBish. I was long overdue for a new machine, and finally decided to get one when my ex-computer started literally screaming for mercy when I tried to run this program I've written on it. My now-ex machine harkens from the days when 128 Mb was a gargantuan quantity of RAM, and a 4 Gb hard drive was huge.
So, since I was lucky enough to get a rather large tax refund this year, I decided to spend a chunk of it on this new beast of a computer.
This computer is basically a symbolic representation of the sum of all of my bad expriences with computers in the past and my attempts to remedy them. I've been plagued by hard drives that suffer complete failure for no discernible reason, and end up being unrecoverable (oddly enough, this always seems to occur within days of my next planned backup; so I usually end up losing at least a week's worth of data; something which, believe me, can be rather annoying). To prevent this, I've taken two steps: 1) the two hard drives I have installed in this computer are within two inches of four (count 'em, four) 80 mm fans, since I'm fairly certain that it's overheating that caused my previous hard drives to fail (in hindsight, putting the hard drives right next to a very hot power source may not have been the wisest decision on my part); and 2) the hard drives are RAIDed. RAID, for the non-computer savvy among you stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (or Independent, depending on who you ask) Disks. I have the two drives I've installed are set for RAID1; mirroring. In other words, everything that goes onto one hard drive get's "mirrored" onto the other. So you end up with two disk drives which are completely identical. So in order to actually lose the data on my hard drive, both of these hard drives would have to fail simultaneously. Something which, I hope, is not likely to occur. Among my other bad experiences, I lost my first processor in my old computer because it overheated. It wasn't that the fan died or that the heat sink wasn't flush with the processor, or any of the common causes. It just wasn't effective. To remedy this particular fault, I now have a heat sink the approximate size and shape of a dinner plate dominating the motherboard of my computer; and by fortuitous circumstances, the only case I could find that has the power source I need has a huge honking window on the side, so I can actually just look inside to make sure that it's working. I've also gone to a lot of trouble to make sure I have as much airflow through the case as possible. I have a total of seven fans at various locations around this computer case. According to my rough back-of-the-envelope calculations, the air in the case is replaced approximately once every three seconds.
Let's take a minute to talk about the case. Why is it that just about every computer case on the market requires lights and windows and all these funky doohickies hanging off of it? I'd frankly much rather have just the old fashioned beige computer case which holds everything I need. This one comes with all sorts of funky-ass lights all over it; which is rather annoying, frankly, but what can you do? Although, I confess, this does have the previously-mentioned benefit that I can take a look through the big-ass window on the side to make sure that the CPU cooler is working properly; so it's not all bad, I guess.
There were some parts I was able to salvage from my old computer; my CD burner, a floppy drive (which I needed to get the RAID drivers onto the computer, then decided, "what the hell, I might as well keep it"), my network card... My brother wants to get his hands on my old machine (what's left of it) to turn it into a file server. I told him that would be just fine. I'll even give him a heavily-used 13 Gb hard drive, absolutely free.
So, since I was lucky enough to get a rather large tax refund this year, I decided to spend a chunk of it on this new beast of a computer.
This computer is basically a symbolic representation of the sum of all of my bad expriences with computers in the past and my attempts to remedy them. I've been plagued by hard drives that suffer complete failure for no discernible reason, and end up being unrecoverable (oddly enough, this always seems to occur within days of my next planned backup; so I usually end up losing at least a week's worth of data; something which, believe me, can be rather annoying). To prevent this, I've taken two steps: 1) the two hard drives I have installed in this computer are within two inches of four (count 'em, four) 80 mm fans, since I'm fairly certain that it's overheating that caused my previous hard drives to fail (in hindsight, putting the hard drives right next to a very hot power source may not have been the wisest decision on my part); and 2) the hard drives are RAIDed. RAID, for the non-computer savvy among you stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (or Independent, depending on who you ask) Disks. I have the two drives I've installed are set for RAID1; mirroring. In other words, everything that goes onto one hard drive get's "mirrored" onto the other. So you end up with two disk drives which are completely identical. So in order to actually lose the data on my hard drive, both of these hard drives would have to fail simultaneously. Something which, I hope, is not likely to occur. Among my other bad experiences, I lost my first processor in my old computer because it overheated. It wasn't that the fan died or that the heat sink wasn't flush with the processor, or any of the common causes. It just wasn't effective. To remedy this particular fault, I now have a heat sink the approximate size and shape of a dinner plate dominating the motherboard of my computer; and by fortuitous circumstances, the only case I could find that has the power source I need has a huge honking window on the side, so I can actually just look inside to make sure that it's working. I've also gone to a lot of trouble to make sure I have as much airflow through the case as possible. I have a total of seven fans at various locations around this computer case. According to my rough back-of-the-envelope calculations, the air in the case is replaced approximately once every three seconds.
Let's take a minute to talk about the case. Why is it that just about every computer case on the market requires lights and windows and all these funky doohickies hanging off of it? I'd frankly much rather have just the old fashioned beige computer case which holds everything I need. This one comes with all sorts of funky-ass lights all over it; which is rather annoying, frankly, but what can you do? Although, I confess, this does have the previously-mentioned benefit that I can take a look through the big-ass window on the side to make sure that the CPU cooler is working properly; so it's not all bad, I guess.
There were some parts I was able to salvage from my old computer; my CD burner, a floppy drive (which I needed to get the RAID drivers onto the computer, then decided, "what the hell, I might as well keep it"), my network card... My brother wants to get his hands on my old machine (what's left of it) to turn it into a file server. I told him that would be just fine. I'll even give him a heavily-used 13 Gb hard drive, absolutely free.
Monday, October 17, 2005
When did "liberal" become a dirty word?
Before I begin, want to make very clear that I don't consider myself to be a liberal. I don't consider myself to be conservative. I do, however, consider myself to be a free thinker. The simplest way I can think of to put my beliefs is that I don't believe that "because it's always been done this way" is a good enough reason to keep doing it. Which, I suppose, makes me nonconservative, by definition. On the other hand, I also believe in smaller, responsible government; I believe in spending what we have, not what we want to have; all of which are traditionally conservative views. I believe that we need to be careful with our funds, but progressive in the social arena. I believe in a woman's right to choose; but that the husband should be allowed some say in the matter. I believe that government should be small, but not so small that it can fit into its citizen's bedrooms. As I understand it, that puts me pretty much smack-dab in the middle of the political spectrum.
Next, I want to point out that I personally reject the whole concept of labels. I'm Drew MacCannell; I'm not "Straight, White, Male, Biophysicist." Although all those things apply to me, they aren't who I am.
But a lot of people in the political arena, particularly in the US, have been demonizing their opponents by slapping the label "Liberal" on them; but for some reason that I cannot fully ascertain, slapping the exact opposite label carries no such stigma.
One of the worst things that can happen in any political campaign is to be painted as an extremist at either end of the political spectrum; and with good reason: extremists of all political slants are kinda scary. What worries me, is what, exactly, is labeled as "extremist."
The US is currently in the midst of a political quagmire as they try to decide who will step into Sandra Day-O'conner's seat on the Supreme court. Bush has nominated Harriet Miers; which is actually a far more reasonable choice than I'd dared to expect from our illustrious president; her lack of judicial experience notwithstanding. Her political views seem to be largely middle-groundish. She's in favor of gay rights (although she hasn't voiced any opinion on same-sex marriage yet); she's danced around the issue of abortion; she seems to favor separation of church and state. Although, I hasten to add, she's got no judicial experience; ergo it is nearly impossible to determine her views on many issues simply because we have no rulings to base such an assessment upon.
Far more interesting that Miers' actual views on the issues is the reaction of Bush's conservative base. Somewhat surprisingly, a number of Conservative groups; not the least of which being Focus on the Family, have been absolutely adamant that Miers is not what they're looking for. They went on to invoke current sitting justice Antonin Scalia by name, announcing that they wanted another justice with his views installed.
Now, I'm scared.
Antonin Scalia is quite possibly the single most terrifying Supreme Court Justice currently sitting on America's highest court. To describe him as conservative is a massive understatement of his actual views. He has repeatedly voted against Roe v. Wade, and has risen several times against the separation of church and state, the rights of minorities (including gay and lesbian couples). He was one of only two who voted against the supreme court decision that a gay man could not be arrested for sexual activity within his own home.
And what really scares me is that asking for another Scalia on the supreme court seems to strike much of the political clout in the US as perfectly reasonable.
How did it happen that being even marginally liberal somehow meant that you hated everything that America stands for; but being radically conservative didn't? How did it happen that being slapped with the label "liberal" was the ultimate kiss of death for your political future, but being slapped with the label "conservative" wasn't?
As previously mentioned; my political views sit, as I understand them, pretty much in the middle; but in the US, I may as well be a radical left-winger. There's a view which is becoming scarily prevalent, that you're either conservative or you're not. It seems as if it's suddenly becoming acceptable to shift to the extreme right wing, to the level of extreme protectionism, homophobia, and barely-veiled racism, but if you shift to the left of Alan Keyes, you're a radical leftist.
Suffice it to say, my trip down to the states this christmas will be interesting.
Next, I want to point out that I personally reject the whole concept of labels. I'm Drew MacCannell; I'm not "Straight, White, Male, Biophysicist." Although all those things apply to me, they aren't who I am.
But a lot of people in the political arena, particularly in the US, have been demonizing their opponents by slapping the label "Liberal" on them; but for some reason that I cannot fully ascertain, slapping the exact opposite label carries no such stigma.
One of the worst things that can happen in any political campaign is to be painted as an extremist at either end of the political spectrum; and with good reason: extremists of all political slants are kinda scary. What worries me, is what, exactly, is labeled as "extremist."
The US is currently in the midst of a political quagmire as they try to decide who will step into Sandra Day-O'conner's seat on the Supreme court. Bush has nominated Harriet Miers; which is actually a far more reasonable choice than I'd dared to expect from our illustrious president; her lack of judicial experience notwithstanding. Her political views seem to be largely middle-groundish. She's in favor of gay rights (although she hasn't voiced any opinion on same-sex marriage yet); she's danced around the issue of abortion; she seems to favor separation of church and state. Although, I hasten to add, she's got no judicial experience; ergo it is nearly impossible to determine her views on many issues simply because we have no rulings to base such an assessment upon.
Far more interesting that Miers' actual views on the issues is the reaction of Bush's conservative base. Somewhat surprisingly, a number of Conservative groups; not the least of which being Focus on the Family, have been absolutely adamant that Miers is not what they're looking for. They went on to invoke current sitting justice Antonin Scalia by name, announcing that they wanted another justice with his views installed.
Now, I'm scared.
Antonin Scalia is quite possibly the single most terrifying Supreme Court Justice currently sitting on America's highest court. To describe him as conservative is a massive understatement of his actual views. He has repeatedly voted against Roe v. Wade, and has risen several times against the separation of church and state, the rights of minorities (including gay and lesbian couples). He was one of only two who voted against the supreme court decision that a gay man could not be arrested for sexual activity within his own home.
And what really scares me is that asking for another Scalia on the supreme court seems to strike much of the political clout in the US as perfectly reasonable.
How did it happen that being even marginally liberal somehow meant that you hated everything that America stands for; but being radically conservative didn't? How did it happen that being slapped with the label "liberal" was the ultimate kiss of death for your political future, but being slapped with the label "conservative" wasn't?
As previously mentioned; my political views sit, as I understand them, pretty much in the middle; but in the US, I may as well be a radical left-winger. There's a view which is becoming scarily prevalent, that you're either conservative or you're not. It seems as if it's suddenly becoming acceptable to shift to the extreme right wing, to the level of extreme protectionism, homophobia, and barely-veiled racism, but if you shift to the left of Alan Keyes, you're a radical leftist.
Suffice it to say, my trip down to the states this christmas will be interesting.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
On Serenity
I can't, by any definition of the term, be described as a science fiction or fantasy nut. I'm one of a very select few people (apparently) who didn't care much for the Lord of the Rings (the books or the movie). I didn't care much for any of the three Star Wars prequels (although I did watch them; who didn't?). I never cared much for any one of the Star Trek franchises. What can I say? None of them really captivated my imagination. I figure that there are enough stories to tell about human nature without bringing aliens, elves, dwarves, and what-have-yous into the equation.
It was Christmas of last year when my little brother, being the slightly neurotic kid that he is, bought me the box set of Firefly for chritmas. My automatic first reaction, it pains me to admit, was "Don, I'm not a Trekkie."
This is more or less true. Although around about twelve, I did watch the Next Generation incarnation of Star Trek relatively faithfully. Not from any particular love of the series, mind you, but because it was what was on. Even at the naive age of 12, I found something rather annoying about Star Trek: everyone was just too damn happy. Don't get me wrong, I admire Gene Roddenberry's utopian vision of the future; but frankly, it was just a little bit too utopian. You had a crew of people of different races, different ethnicities, hell, from different planets, all working side by side. Hell, I can't live with my brother for any extended period of time without wanting to kill him. Basically, it was a LSD-laced vision of what human beings could do if given the absolute best of all possibilities.
Frankly, it just seemed unlikely to me. Just once, I wanted to see one of the captains of one of the series of this franchise go on a completely inappropriate, totally undeserved, and vulgarly profanity-laden rant about the incompetence of his or her crew.
Just once, I wanted to hear this dialogue on the bridge:
Captain: Set course heading 214 mark six and engage at warp eight.
Crewman: But, sir...
Captain: Move your ass, you fucking, douchelapping dickslatherer! Goddammit, how many fucking times do I have to get you tired assholes to do what I ask? You shitbrained apebuggering asspluggers! I'm the fucking Captain! Jesus Christ, you are fucking pathetic! My whole goddamn crew is made up of goddamned motherfucking rimjobbing anusmonkeys!
Believe it or not, it's actually funnier if you imagine it being said by William Shatner; as if.... EVERY. WORD. Is ITS. Own. SenTENCE.
Now, admittedly, this kind of thing wasn't likely to happen on Firefly either; but at least with Firefly, you got the impression that the only reason it wasn't going to happen was because that kind of dialogue wouldn't get past the network censors; not because it was completely out of character for any one of the characters. In short, what Firefly brought to the science fiction genre, that had been lacking pretty much since the original Star Wars trilogy was characters who actually aren't perfect. You have characters in this series who don't have a fricking clue what they're going to do, or even if what they're going to do is right or moral. You have a captain who won't hesitate to deck one of his crewmembers if he wants to. You have genuine personality conflicts.
Which brings me to Serenity. I want to take a moment to comment on something you don't see many people commenting on with this movie: the script. This was, in my humble opinion, one of the most intelligently-written films I have seen in a long time. The dialogue was clever, the plot was intricately thought out. Unlike so much of Science Fiction and Fantasy making it to the big screen these days, I didn't actually feel dumber walking out of the movie theatre.
In short, this was one of the better movies I've seen this year.
If you haven't seen it, see it now.
If you have seen it, see it again.
And that's my input for today.
It was Christmas of last year when my little brother, being the slightly neurotic kid that he is, bought me the box set of Firefly for chritmas. My automatic first reaction, it pains me to admit, was "Don, I'm not a Trekkie."
This is more or less true. Although around about twelve, I did watch the Next Generation incarnation of Star Trek relatively faithfully. Not from any particular love of the series, mind you, but because it was what was on. Even at the naive age of 12, I found something rather annoying about Star Trek: everyone was just too damn happy. Don't get me wrong, I admire Gene Roddenberry's utopian vision of the future; but frankly, it was just a little bit too utopian. You had a crew of people of different races, different ethnicities, hell, from different planets, all working side by side. Hell, I can't live with my brother for any extended period of time without wanting to kill him. Basically, it was a LSD-laced vision of what human beings could do if given the absolute best of all possibilities.
Frankly, it just seemed unlikely to me. Just once, I wanted to see one of the captains of one of the series of this franchise go on a completely inappropriate, totally undeserved, and vulgarly profanity-laden rant about the incompetence of his or her crew.
Just once, I wanted to hear this dialogue on the bridge:
Captain: Set course heading 214 mark six and engage at warp eight.
Crewman: But, sir...
Captain: Move your ass, you fucking, douchelapping dickslatherer! Goddammit, how many fucking times do I have to get you tired assholes to do what I ask? You shitbrained apebuggering asspluggers! I'm the fucking Captain! Jesus Christ, you are fucking pathetic! My whole goddamn crew is made up of goddamned motherfucking rimjobbing anusmonkeys!
Believe it or not, it's actually funnier if you imagine it being said by William Shatner; as if.... EVERY. WORD. Is ITS. Own. SenTENCE.
Now, admittedly, this kind of thing wasn't likely to happen on Firefly either; but at least with Firefly, you got the impression that the only reason it wasn't going to happen was because that kind of dialogue wouldn't get past the network censors; not because it was completely out of character for any one of the characters. In short, what Firefly brought to the science fiction genre, that had been lacking pretty much since the original Star Wars trilogy was characters who actually aren't perfect. You have characters in this series who don't have a fricking clue what they're going to do, or even if what they're going to do is right or moral. You have a captain who won't hesitate to deck one of his crewmembers if he wants to. You have genuine personality conflicts.
Which brings me to Serenity. I want to take a moment to comment on something you don't see many people commenting on with this movie: the script. This was, in my humble opinion, one of the most intelligently-written films I have seen in a long time. The dialogue was clever, the plot was intricately thought out. Unlike so much of Science Fiction and Fantasy making it to the big screen these days, I didn't actually feel dumber walking out of the movie theatre.
In short, this was one of the better movies I've seen this year.
If you haven't seen it, see it now.
If you have seen it, see it again.
And that's my input for today.
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