For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls

I was catching up on Dr. Nick's blog and ran across a posting from TJIC that he links to about the subject of race and IQ. I've long known that TJIC's opinions were pretty far to the right on this subject, but wow. Read the post here.

To be honest I was pretty shocked.

We all have a tendency to read books and articles which confirm our inner biases and self-image, espeically when that self-image sets us apart from the rest of the population. That's understandable. OTOH, this is a question of science, and science, when it's done correctly, is a model of an objective reality. After the inital shock of reading TJIC's post I had to think through the question, "Shocking, but is it true?" I had read the Bell Curve when it came out and as some of you know, I spent a lot of time in college training as a teacher to work with gifted kids. I ultimately chose not to follow that career, but it involved a lot of training around human intelligence, it's measurement and it's manifestation. Also, as some readers know, I had a full bore neuropsych evaluation last year, so my own inteligence has been measure as best as can be done with current technology and some of the results surprised me (and the testers). Given this, after a few hours of thinking, I came to the conclusion that the Bell Curve, even after almost 15 years, is still a bad piece of science. Here's why:

There are a bunch of cumulative assumptions the authors of the Bell Curve (Herrnstein and Murray) make which lead to their results, any one of which if not true results collapses their hypothesis:

Intelligence may be depicted as a single number. This is based on Spearman's hypothesis that "g", a measure of general intelligence that synthesizes multiple aspects of exists and is dominant. While a useful concept, psychometrics moved way beyond the concept of g in the 80s (early critiques of this date back to the '30s). Howard Gardner and Bob Sternberg both have proposed different, measurable models of multiple intelligences (Sternbergs theory is actually very useful from a practical point of view). The use of multiple tests to catalog mental processing in different areas is pretty well established at this point in time, and is certainly the norm moving forward. Online IQ tests are fun and sometimes (if you score well) can make you feel good about yourself, but they really don't have a lot of value as a tool of science. The Bell Curve is based almost exclusively on the approach that g is the central measure of intelligence and is reflective of a more complicated reality. It is however, too simple a measure for them to deconvolve their entire theory. Kind of like judging your entire physical health based on your bowling score. Bowling requires coordination, speed, strength, good vision, fast reflexes and mental discipline, all factors measured in physical exam. It is reflective of those aspects, but loses a lot of information in the integration. A better, more accurate approach would involve designing an intelligence test which controlled for multiple environmental and cognitive module biases. However, that would be work and the authors of the Bell Curve are economists, not psychometricians. Simply put, a single number IQ score is too coarse a measure on which to base these kinds of sweeping conclusions.

Intelligence is primarily genetic. While there is absolutely a genetic component to intelligence, the degree to which your potential intelligence as dictated by your genes' control of your brain structure is translated into your functional intelligence which you use every day is determined by lots of factors in your environment many of which no one has any control over. To draw the conclusions Herrnstein and Murray have come to, i.e. that one group of people has a overall lower genetic potential for intelligence than another, they would have to de-convolve all the relevent environmental factors. They don't do this, in part because no one could do this with the data they are using. One possible explanation for the Flynn Effect is the improving environmental and educational environment is allowing people to realize more of their genetic potential (another is that improved access to education is making a larger number of people better readers and they are doing better with the cultural bias of the test).

Intelligence is a fixed, unchangable value after a certain age. I don't even know where to begin. The general effect of the physical environment (disease, pollution, trauma, etc.) is to lower functional intelligence over time for populations exposed to these hazards. In the absence of external factors, IQ scores do tend to be stable, however the Herrnstein and Murray do not control for these factors to any significant degree in their data. I think that have cooked into the data the very effect they are looking for.

Testing Bias. A lot of the data they use is old, and while they attempt to correct somewhat for this, it's lipstick on a pig. I dont think you can meaningfully compare data in the 60s with data from the 80s. The tests are different, built with different assumptions and testing for different effects. It's simply not possible to integrate results in the way they do, not without adding apples and oranges.

Correlation and Causation: All that said, there is one more beef I have with the Bell Curve, at least as work of science, they bury the regression analysis in the back of their book. Their entire premise is based on an R2 value of 0.4. While interesting statistically, no one in a physical science would publish a result like that, much less base a public policy on it. Further, that is their *best* result. Read Appendix 4 of their book, then read this analysis.

Race: Finally, they define a "race" fairly loosely. Their functional definition is, basically, dark people with lots of ancestors from Africa. Unfortunately for them, modern genetics doesn't actually bear out on this, although it turns out there *are* distinct races within the human family. It's a very complex (and very interesting) subject, but again the Bell Curve simply integrates over this complexity. For a researcher to really support the Bell Curve's conclusions, they would need to deconvolve intelligence scores along genetically important racial lines. Obviously this was not possible to do in 1994, so I don't fault the authors, however in science all conclusions are tenative and need to be re-evaluated in the light of new evidence and new models. Depending on the Bell Curve's definition of race too much is unsupportable at this late date.

And that's why I disagree with the Bell Curve. :)

Well Said on Masculinity

A version of the same advice I've given to my son on many occasions. It didn't occur to me at the time to view it through this lens, but it's quite apt.

The basic good code of a certain brand of masculinity, as opposed to macho, is that you don't pick fights, and that you never tolerate the strong bullying the weak. Bullying, in fact, is seen as a declaration of weakness - if you were strong, you wouldn't be picking fights with weaklings, now would you? And if you were confident, you wouldn't need to prove anything, would you? Certainly you don't back down from a fight - but you don't go looking for it either.

It also summarizes my early, instinctive opposition to war, i.e. we were picking a fight, not finishing one.

You Had me at "Opportunist"

God is not Great

If the followers of the prophet Muhammad hoped to put an end to any future "revelations" after the immaculate conception of the Koran, they reckoned without the founder of what is now one of the world's fastest-growing faiths. And they did not foresee (how could they, mammals as they were?) that the prophet of this ridiculous cult would model himself on theirs. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—hereafter known as the Mormons—was founded by a gifted opportunist who, despite couching his text in openly plagiarized Christian terms, announced that "I shall be to this generation a new Muhammad" and adopted as his fighting slogan the words, which he thought he had learned from Islam, "Either the Al-Koran or the sword." He was too ignorant to know that if you use the word al you do not need another definite article, but then he did resemble Muhammad in being able only to make a borrowing out of other people's bibles.

Better Dead than Red

From Cryptogram:

Announcing: Second Annual Movie-Plot Threat Contest
The first Movie-Plot Threat Contest asked you to invent a horrific and completely ridiculous, but plausible, terrorist plot. All the entries were worth reading, but Tom Grant won with his idea to crash an explosive-filled plane into the Grand Coulee Dam.
This year the contest is a little different. We all know that a good plot to blow up an airplane will cause the banning, or at least screening, of something innocuous. If you stop and think about it, it's a stupid response. We screened for guns and bombs, so the terrorists used box cutters. We took away box cutters and small knives, so they hid explosives in their shoes. We started screening shoes, so they planned to use liquids. We now confiscate liquids (even though experts agree the plot was implausible)...and they're going to do something else. We can't win this game, so why are we playing?
Well, we are playing. And now you can, too. Your goal: invent a terrorist plot to hijack or blow up an airplane with a commonly carried item as a key component. The component should be so critical to the plot that the TSA will have no choice but to ban the item once the plot is uncovered. I want to see a plot horrific and ridiculous, but just plausible enough to take seriously.

I spent an inordinate amount of time in security lines, usually 2 a week but sometimes more. It irks me to no end to watch people give up their small amounts of hair jell, baby formula and toothpaste for no constructive purpose what-so-ever. While waiting, I have often wondered what the TSA could try to ban that would clearly be ridiculous and would point out to everyone just how foolish the banning business is.

I decided on the color Red.

I think I have worked out a way that the color Red could be critical to hijacking plot so that the TSA would no longer allow red objects though security. No red soda cans, no red lipstick, no red childrens' toys, no red sneakers, maybe even no red hair. I think it would take something of that catastrophically stupidity to wake folks up to the security theatre of the TSA. I'm going to winkle out the last details and enter Bruce's contest. Obviously I'll post here too

Open Mouth, Insert ... garlic?

I was talking to a colleague a few motnhs ago about the various, unusual foods I have eaten in my travel career and how, oddly, I have taken a liking to some of the spicy ones, kimchi being a prime example. This is odd becuase I don't really care for spicy Tex-Mex food, but like a lot og garlic and exotic spice.

"You know, I bet you would like pickled garlic", he said.
"!!! They make that?"
"Hahaha, oh yes! I'll bring you some"

Today, on my desk when I came back from Vegas, I found a jar of Mother's Garlic Pickle (South Indian Style) with a note reading, "Hot Style! Go Easy on this!!!"

Time to put up or shut up....

Book-Learned Liberals Destroy the World

Damned elites with their book-learning! They're the ones causing global warming....

As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they?
Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.

From PZ (with some skepticism)

The Aladdin Hotel

I'm currently in Las Vegas, giving a security speech at Computer Associates World. When I booked the trip, I decided to stay at the Aladdin Hotel. It's one of the new mega-properties that have gone up in the last few years, so it;s built arcology style, i.e. it's a self-contained hotel/mall/entertainment complex. These things cost about $5B to build, and I've been making it a habit to staying in as many as I can before the bubble breaks.

I noticed something odd on the way in... the cabbie took me to the Planet Hollywood arco, not the Aladdin arco. The PH arco seemed odd. Clearly finished, the entire outside of the complex was an shambles of recladding and brickface... this isn't right...

"I'm sorry", I said, "I wanted to go to the Aladdin"
"This is it!"
"Really? I hadn't realized they changed the name. When I booked it said Aladdin"
"Oh, they changed it and ... re-educating? it."

So I asked at the front desk...

"Why did you change the name?"
"Well, we didn't think it was very good business to be catering to .... that crowd... with the war and all"

that crowd? Yes, I am sure all middle eastern terrorists heading to Las-Fucking-Vegas, would stay at the Aladdin hotel, to remind them of the comforts of home... Clearly all things middle eastern are now verboden. They are attempting to remove every single scrap of middle eastern myth from the hotel (which, btw, is owned by the multinational Hilton corportation). It looks like a cheap rip-off of Mandaley Bay now, with a crapier mall.

utter foolishness.

One wonders what the hotel's fortune would have been if everything in Iraq had worked out.

Essential Child Rearing advice

here

I wish I had had this when my son was 8. It will be helpful for nieces and nephews...

As I Suspected...

The Strawberry Woman writes in with a quick field report:

The Boston Phoenix has compiled a list of the 100 unsexiest men of 2007, which, yes, it would get yelled at for if it had ranked the other gender. Speaking of which (spoiler alert), No. 1 is Donald Trump, No. 54 is Dr. Phil and No. 80 is Ann Coulter.

My son once thought Ann Coulter was the sexiest woman alive, which I thought was odd because she's older than I am. I found a shot of her from a few years ago, before she was famous and, if you knew it was her, you could tell, otherwise not so much. I sent a link of the photo to Geoff with the question, "Could this drag queen pass as a woman? I think the hands are a give away."
His reposnse, "No Dad, she can't pass"
Then I told him who she was. Problem solved!

Hooray for push polling!

Poorly Constructed Logic

While I have no strong feelings on the second Amendment (I support sensible gun control regulations in the same way I support sensible prescription drug regulations, both help make society a better place and impove the quality of life without unduely restricting freedoms, when they are done correctly), the torrent of calls for more gun control is illogical. More exactly, it's based on creating a universal rule based on the reasoning derived from a single (or handful of) example(s). This is very poor reasoning.

Salon resurrects the idea of prohibition, but that almost never works except to make the mob wealthy.

Yes it's a tragedy. Thats not a reason to change everything.

Best Avatar Ever

I love this little movie. One of the guys over on the Victory Forums uses it.

A New Use for Beans

I got this from one of my SuperGroup mates. The first one is the best.

Moving Closer to a Draft

I have said since shortly after the "Mission Accomplished" sign went up that we need a national draft to get us to focus on the War. This idea has a lot of pluses, not the least of which would be a sense of involvement, sacrifice and participation by the vast majority of the American public. It would also, I think, put some scrutiny on the government's handling of the war.

That said, a friend of mine sent me this today: McCaffrey

Read it, especially past the "Facts" section, it's surprisingly hopeful.

Some Interesting bits:

Waivers in US Army recruiting standards for: moral turpitude, drug use, medical issues, criminal justice records, and non-high school graduation have gone up significantly. We now are enlisting 42 year old first term soldiers*. Our promotion rates for officers and NCOs have skyrocketed to replace departing leaders. There is no longer a national or a theater US Army strategic reserve. (Fortunately, powerful US Naval, Air Force, and nuclear capabilities command huge deterrence credibility.)We are at the “knee of the curve.” Two million+ troops of the smallest active Army force since WWII have served in the war zone. Some active units have served three, four, or even five combat deployments. We are now routinely extending nearly all combat units in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These combat units are being returned to action in some cases with only 7-12 months of stateside time to re-train and re-equip. The current deployment requirement of 20+ brigades to Iraq and 2+ brigades in Afghanistan is not sustainable.We will be forced to call up as many as nine National Guard combat brigades for an involuntary second combat tour this coming year. (Dr Chu at DOD has termed this as “no big deal.”) Many believe that this second round of involuntary call-ups will topple the weakened National Guard structure— which is so central to US domestic security. The National Guard Bureau has argued for a call up of only 12 months instead of 18 months. This misses the point—DOD will without fail be forced to also extend these National Guard brigades in combat at the last minute given the continuation of the current emergency situation.


We are rapidly getting to the point where a Draft is going to be the only option to get this cleaned up, especially if it will take another 36-48 months to do so. When that day comes, the whole game will change. The administration has been selling this as a WW-II-like war, but without the sacrifice (except when it comes to personal liberty). Once we start drafting kids, you're going to see the American public get behind this and get it done, and you're going to see full engagement around what to do with the architects of this fiasco. If you wondered what the "Surge" is really about, it's about stalling the draft until the culprits are out of office.

IMHO

also, I don't want this to get buried, it's critical:

The US Tier One special operations capability is simply magic. They are deadly in getting their target—with normally zero collateral damage—and with minimal friendly losses or injuries. Some of these assault elements have done 200-300 takedown operations at platoon level. The comprehensive intelligence system is phenomenal. We need to re-think how we view these forces. They are a national strategic system akin to a B1 bomber. We need to understand that the required investment level in the creation of these forces demands substantial dedicated UAV systems, intelligence, and communications resources. These special operations formations cannot by themselves win the nation’s wars. However, with them we have a tool of enormous and decisive strategic significance which has crucial importance in the global war on terrorists.

*It's not too late for all you hawks out there to get your pizza-fattened asses over to Iraq and show us what you're made of.

The Sun is Green

Literally!
The Sun is a pretty good blackbody at 5500K and, via the Wein Displacement Law, peaks around 5000 Angstroms, just about the color green. This has 2 consequences in your normal life:

1) your eye has evolved to take advantage of this. You are twice as sensitive to green photons as red and are most sensitive to the peak of the Sun's light, well into the green.*

2) its why plants are green.

When I was teaching Astronomy or doing shows at Buhl Planetarium in Pittsburgh, I used to do a show called "Life under Other Stars" exploring this phenomenon and speculating what the world would look like of the Sun were hotter (bluer) or cooler (redder).

I used colored lights and a metric shitload of speculation (not being trained as an astrobiologist).

Here, it's done right!

(via)

*so why doesn't the sun look green? You eye is a fairly narrow band, integration bolometer. While there is a peak in the BB radiation curve at the solar peak, compared to your eye's narrow bandwidth, that peak seems relatively flat, e.g. there are 1000 red photons, 1500 green photons and 1000 blue photons at the peak within your bandwidth (approximately). You eye and brain integrate across the whole bandwidth and make the sun look white.

Czars

It is reasonable to say that my son has been a solid supporter of the President and is policies, especially as relates to the Ieaq War and the Global War on Terror. That said, the first tiem I have seen him strongly disagree with him was around the War Czar,
"He already has someone to do that, it's the SecDef!"

Slate has a breakdown of other presidental czars and why "that trick never works"

1974

The title says it all

I wonder if they get virtual votes too?

From Wonkette:

This picture — by TechPresident writer Ruby Sinreich — pretty much sums up the Second Life political experience: It’s a half-naked furry, obviously, with a very tight John Edwards’ shirt stretched over its engorged cartoon breasts, standing in front of an empty yet luxurious beach cabana, which is obviously the new campaign headquarters for the shiny-haired candidate.

I Just Can't Tell Anymore!

Parody? I thought so at first, but the more I see of it, the more I think they are serious. The message of Jesus in the 21st Century.

So it goes...

Said better than I could say:

We all have a request from Kurt Vonnegut.

I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, "Isaac is up in heaven now." It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke.

Kurt is up in heaven now.

I think it is also only fair to give him Kilgore Trout's epitaph: "We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane."

As many of you know, I have standing instructions for my funeral that anyone speaking in any eulogy-like capacity *MUST* take a hit of helium before speaking. I defy you to be depressed at such an event...

Flame On!

Something guaranteed to generate some controversy, the increasing understanding of the sexual wiring of the human brain.

Such experiments do not show the same clear divide with women. Whether women describe themselves as straight or lesbian, “Their sexual arousal seems to be relatively indiscriminate — they get aroused by both male and female images,” Dr. Bailey said. “I’m not even sure females have a sexual orientation. But they have sexual preferences. Women are very picky, and most choose to have sex with men.”

...

It so happens that an unusually large number of brain-related genes are situated on the X chromosome. The sudden emergence of the X and Y chromosomes in brain function has caught the attention of evolutionary biologists. Since men have only one X chromosome, natural selection can speedily promote any advantageous mutation that arises in one of the X’s genes. So if those picky women should be looking for smartness in prospective male partners, that might explain why so many brain-related genes ended up on the X.


Seems like what we've been hearing for decades might be true, gay men are just born that way.

I'm Guessing You Don't Do this...

...but I do. It's fun!

Maps!

As some of you know, I love maps! Don't know what to get me for my Christmas? Get me a map! Especially an interesting, data rich affair with lots of interesting bits to think about.

PZ has found a site that caters to this and I pronounce it delightful!

News You Can Use

This is actually pretty funny, although I'm not sure I *quite* get the tie-dye on the bear. Capital Markets humor at it's finest!

Reincarnation Explained

Guess what? It's explained by brain function! Surprising I know.

here

People who believe they have lived past lives as, say, Indian princesses or battlefield commanders are more likely to make certain types of memory errors, according to a new study.

Subjects were asked to read aloud a list of 40 non-famous names, and then, after a two-hour wait, told that they were going to see a list consisting of three types of names: non-famous names they had already seen (from the earlier list), famous names, and names of non-famous people that they had not previously seen. Their task was to identify which names were famous.

The researchers found that, compared to control subjects who dismissed the idea of reincarnation, past-life believers were almost twice as likely to misidentify names. In particular, their tendency was to wrongly identify as famous the non-famous names they had seen in the first task. This kind of error, called a source-monitoring error, indicates that a person has difficulty recognizing where a memory came from.

Another religious myth bites the dust.

Because that's what Christmas is all about!

It would be uncivil to use the word bribe, so I will refrain.

Fortunately the gifts that atheism bring keep giving all year round.

The Spanish Prisoner

Interesting run down of the history of the Nigirian EMail Scam.

Some truly terrifying tid-bits:

This swindle is commonly known as "419 fraud," after the section of the Nigerian penal code covering cons. According to the anti-spam software vendor Brightmail, 419 come-ons are the Web's second-most common form of junk mail, ranking behind only those incessant "herbal Viagra" ads. Though most people merely laugh at the pleas' awful grammar and all-caps style ("I WILL LIKE YOU CONTACT MY LAWYER ..."), about 1 percent of recipients actually respond. Of that number, enough people fork over enough cash to sustain an industry that ranks in Nigeria's top five, right up there with palm oil and tin. The U.S. Secret Service has estimated—conservatively, by its own admission—that the scammers net $100 million per year.

...

Although last year only 16 Americans claimed financial losses, totaling $345,000, that's probably a fraction of the full amount. Most victims are too embarrassed by their own stupidity to ever come forward.

16????!!!!???

Blog Back Up

The blog was down for awhile this afternoon, but it seems like it's back up. Let me know if there is trouble.

Little Known Easter Facts

From Jay!

Had the Gregorian calendar not been introduced in 1582 to correct increasing inaccuracies in the earlier Julian calendar, within a century, Christians would have found themselves in the confusing situation of commemorating Jesus Christ's rebirth on Easter Sunday three days before his death on Good Friday, rather than the other way around. In addition, the fast of Lent would have extended almost year-round, leading to widespread malnutrition, while the holiday of Pentacost would have been bloated into Hexacost.

Sunshades and Global Warming

Could a cloud of two-foot wide sunshades 60,000 miles long save the Earth from a global warming emergency? Roger Angel (Steward Observatory, University of Arizona) has been studying the idea of making the spacecraft out of micron-thick glass weighing one gram per sunshade. That’s the weight of a butterfly for each unit, but we’re talking about trillions of them out at the L1 Lagrangian point, an almost fixed zone in relation to Earth whose mild orbital instability can be overcome by onboard intelligence. Total sunshade mass: 20 million tons.

here

the Jesus Nut

Saturn's Hexagon gets a name:

The judges very nearly went for the Jesus Nut, which was suggested by the novelist Christopher Buckley. That’s what soldiers call the hexagonal nut on top of a helicopter that that keeps the main rotor from falling off. According to Wikipedia, the term was coined by soldiers in the Vietnam War who figured that if the nut came loose, you would spend your final seconds praying to the Lord.

My Secret: Revealed!

Yes, it's true. I've been deliberately wasting the time of doctors and neurologists the last two years. My real strategy has been revealed!

Meetings I Don't Get Invited to

So I was walking down the hall to get some lunch, glanced into a room where a meeting was gathering and had the following internal conversation:

hmmm thats a big meeting...
... wait! Is that woman showning her naked ass???
It is! ... are her jeans cut away just to show her ass? like that movie with Ryan O'Neal?
... ohhh it's a plastic ass
on the outside of her jeans...
...and it's covered with ... candy?? yes candy!

(door closes)

How come I never get to go to meetings like that?

5 Stages of GOP Grief

Humorous, with a point:

We seem to have discovered a new stage in the traditional Kübler-Ross process:
1. Denial: “The media doesn’t show the good news in Iraq.”
2. Anger: “The treasonous far-left-liberals and their media lapdogs are making us lose in Iraq.”
3. Bargaining: “If we send x-thousand more troops to Iraq, victory will be ours.”
4. Depression: “Did you catch 300 yet? [munch-munch-burp] God, it made me hate liberals even more. [channels flipping] They wouldn’t last a day in ancient Sparta.”
5. Advanced Literary Theory: “The hegemonic binary of ’success’ and ‘failure’ traumatizes the (re)interpretive possibilities of an ethos of jouissance regarding the War in Iraq.”

on point 1, which has been in the comments, I still have trouble with the "unreported Good News" thesis for the following reasons:

"embedded reporters", the practice of putting reporters in with combat units, and having them report from there for months at a time was the Bush Administration's way of getting in front of the news and getting a pro-Administration message out. This has worked very, very well, to the point that the journalists themselves identify more with the troops than with their audience at home. Much of the news, good and bad, is being viewed through this, the Administration’s hand crafted lens. If I were to have to do a bias correction on a piece of news, it would have to be the "other" way. Regardless of bias correction though, I think the administration has a fairly straight channel to the airwaves.

Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch, and the latest kerfuffle with John McCain's stroll through Baghdad are all telling examples of the Administrations willingness to lie, bold-faced lie, to the American people when they think no one can check on them. Add to this any number of credibility ruining press-releases from the AG, NASA, and the Department of Labor, and I find I simply have to be extremely skeptical of any news from the administration, good or bad. I'm not even suggesting this is a quality solely of the current administration (see my description at the right for my stance on this).

Finally, while it's assumed there is a left-bias in the news, studies generally show this is untrue for news and true in the other direction for analysis and opinion.

I think there are spots of good news, yes. I think we win battles, I think the troops are brave and I think some the Iraqis genuinely want a western style democracy. But I think these are bright stars in a dark sky, and the long term, structural changes required to turn this around are missing. Why is the place still such a shithole after 4 years? This is the question the american people are asking now. If, as they say, it isn't, then I will be happily wrong, I will apologize and I'll even start watching Fox (as they will have been the only news organization to get it right).
But until the country has nationwide power, water and economic niceties like a central bank again, I will continue to be skeptical of "unreported good news" there.

A Charlie Brown Kwanza

Wow.

I have to say, I would never have thought of this. On the bright side, I'm now all hooked up on my hip-talk refresh of the English language...

KITT for Sale

(AP) KITT, the flame-throwing, river-jumping, talking muscle car from the American '80s TV show "Knight Rider" starring David Hasselhoff is up for sale. Restored to its debut-season glory, the modified black 1982 Pontiac Trans Am is offered at $149,995 at a California auto dealership. Johnny "Vette" Verhoek of Kassabian Motors has had the car, officially called Knight Industries Two Thousand, on display for about a month.

via

Not mentioned is the upgrade from KITT's orginal 8088 to Pentium CoreDuo

Visualization of US Housing Data

done as a roller coaster. Very clever (and scary!)




Link

Train Sets New French Speed Record

ABOARD TRAIN V150, France (April 3) - A French train with a 25,000-horsepower engine and special wheels broke the world speed record Tuesday for conventional rail trains, reaching 357.2 mph as it zipped through the countryside to the applause of spectators.

the secret? It's powered by fear of the Germans.

Rolling WIth The Big Boys

I had to calculate the amount of revenue pull-through for a stack of products for some Capital Markets solutions I am proposing we build. It's important to the sales teams for them to know how much of their quota they will satisfy by selling the solution, and important to the product teams as they want to make sure that their products are being correctly untilized. E.g. a sale of one product results in 16 Windows server licences, 10 copies of office, 10 copies of MSDN, 16 copies of MOM/SMS etc. As a result, it's a fairly complex calculation with a surprisingly high number of opinionated stakeholders, and I have to do it for 4 products.

Below is the exact email I sent to the person who is in charge of coordinating this exercise:

Took a look at the product pull through and talked a bit with the product teams to get an idea of the pull through. There has been much lively debate about how to count CCE revenue in the taxonomy but that’s really just change compared to everything else. I also looked at how Digipede and some of our other partners count this, but that seems to over count a number of products not listed here and undercounted some of the server revenue.

So I just rolled 3d6+3.

Claw, Claw, Bite FTW!

I finished days ahead of the others :)

Kites and Pakistan

Yeah, the Pakistanis *really* know how to Par-Tey!


"At least 11 people have died and more than 100 injured at an annual kite flying festival in eastern Pakistan…. The deaths and injuries were caused by stray bullets, sharpened kite-strings, electrocution and people falling off rooftops

The festival is regularly marred by casualties caused by sharp kite strings or celebratory gunshots fired into the air…Kite flyers often use strings made of wire or coated with ground glass to try to cross and cut a rival's string or damage the other kite, often after betting on the outcome…. He also said that a 16-year-old girl and a school boy, 12, died after their throats were slashed by metal kite strings in separate incidents.

A 13-year-old boy fell to his death from the roof of his home as he tried to catch a stray kite, and a 35-year-old woman fell off the roof of her home trying to stop her son from running after a stray kite."


The goons , of course, are on the case!

Maybe It's a Good Thing the 70s are gone after all

Shatner vs. Borgnine!

Key scenes: Early in the film, Shatner challenges Borgnine to an epic faith-off in which Shatner prays to his god and Borgnine worships his satanic majesty. God totally gets served.


Plot: Back in old-timey days, Satanic minister Ernest Borgnine swears vengeance when the wife of his disciple William Shatner rats Borgnine out to the town holy man. Three centuries later, Shatner's descendents are bedeviled by a Borgnine-led cabal of Satan worshippers out to retrieve a book pledging various souls to Satan. Shatner travels to a spooky ghost town to confront Borgnine, but ends up among the hooded, chanting, pentagram-happy damned. Shatner's brother (Tom Skerritt), an ESP expert, investigates his brother's mysterious disappearance by going undercover as one of Satan's minions. He seemingly succeeds in smashing Borgnine's ring of satanic evil, but Borgnine gets the last laugh when he uses his dark powers to possess Skerritt's wife.

Actually, I remember this movie. It was during the whole series of "Omen" rip-offs.





also, somehow I missed this movie in my formative years:

Plot: Mother Goose (played by Hal Smith, a.k.a. Otis from The Andy Griffith Show) gets put on trial for obscenity. When she takes the stand, she says, "I guess I'd better start at the fucking beginning. Um, I mean, 'Once upon a time…'" Then she proceeds to tell the real stories of Jack and the beanstalk, Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood, in X-rated detail, aided by a group of Disney animators moonlighting from their day jobs.

Key scenes: The movie shoots most of its figurative load in the first segment, which has a breast-obsessed Jack trading his cow to a flasher in a trenchcoat for a sack of beans, which he later ejaculates on, causing an enormous phallic beanstalk to erupt out of the ground. He climbs the stalk to an erotic fairyland in the clouds, where plates of food have sex with each other while a magic harp plays. Inspired by the music, Jack attempts to get it on with the giant's wife, but when her husband comes home, he has to hide inside her vagina, and avoid the thrusting of the giant's penis. Um… trippy?

Otis played Mother Goose? Holy Dr. Girlfriend!

Damned with Faint Priase

At work yesterday I was talking to a colleague about an assignment which was coming in a little late. He assured me that, while late, I was actually way ahead because the other folks workng on this had even started yet, leading me to exclaim, "Woohoo! I am in last place in the race to the bottom!"

...

Well *I* thought it was funny!

Wikisky

Neat!

iPod, iBook, iMicrowave...

iRack!

Curses! I Didn't Count on Them Having a Teleporter!

Tetsubo takes Marvel's Civil War art and re-writes the dialog. It's pretty funny!

Opposite Day

In early 2001, at the start of the Bush Administration, there was a policy in place to distinguish itself from teh Clinton Administration, "Whatever they did, do the opposite". I'm being more than comic here, it really was phrased that way by Bush himself (as reported by Colin Powell). The problem with it was, of course, not *everything* Clinton did was wrong and there are not always 2 polar choices.

I didn't realize until today though that this policy actually had a name: The Costanza Doctrine.

Liftport Newsletter

Interesting(as always) news from the folks trying to build the first skyhook.

Support the Troops!

Fighting in an unpopular war, in a coalition lead by a country without a clear strategy, a soldier is captured and an Armchair General who has never seen the business end of an enemy rifle or served a single active duty hour, offers aid and comfort:


http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q…
I think the Iranians gravely miscalculated by making that female British soldier appear on TV dressed in a Shiite black headscarf and white robe to deliver an apology that was obviously dictated and almost certainly coerced. The British are going to go ballistic over this.

I’m not saying that I could never be coerced into denouncing the US on a foreign state’s TV broadcast (I’m absolutely sure that there are levels of torture that would make it happen), but I sure as hell would be pretty bruised and bloodied before I turned traitor.
Do the British not have a Creed of the Fighting Man, like we do?


I am, frankly, nauseated by this sentiment.

The 11 Least Interesting Words in the English Language

Let me tell you about the dream I had last night…

Unless you’re House MD..

Results of a Typical Phone Conversation Between my Son and I

From today's call, a letter to the programming deparment of the SciFi channel:

Dear Scifi:
I have a suggestion for a possible spinoff of both Stargate SG-1 or Atlantis, and Battlestar: Galactica. Once Season 4 ends, many have speculated that the series will as well. My suggestion takes the setting of the Battlestar armada at Earth and merges it with the universe of Stargate. The series could be tentatively called BattleStargate and be set in either the Atlantis Pegasus galaxy or the Milky Way galaxy of SG-1. The SG teams could be merged with the Viper pilots with Lee and that guy from Farscape both heading a SG team. A third spinoff is possible with President Rosalyn running for President of the United States (with some help from SG-1). That spinoff could be called A Caprican in the White House. Starring Karl Rove as Giaus Baltar...

What think?

Hilarious!

Why peanut butter is the atheists nightmare!

Wow. Let's just say the authors don't have a really strong grasp of how big and old the universe appears to be. Most of the other errors come out from there.

To it's credit, it's short, punchy and memorable in a way that cosmology almost never is.

Thanks Brian!

Hexagonal Structure on Saturn

Saturn's north pole is sporting a strange hexagonal structure.

I've never seen anything quite like it. I could imagine (and this would be going out on a limb) that there are six deep convection structures surrounding it, producing a stable area at the pole, but that would be a wild-assed guess.

Pretty cool though!

2nd Amendment

So my son Geoff often criticizes me for defending the Bill of Rights "except for the second amendment". You know, the one about keeping the King of England out of your face. I freely admit my support for it hasn't been as strong as for the First, but having read the Federalist 8, I believe I have a better feeling for the whole purpose and structure of it than I think most folks do.

That said, like nuclear power, I learned to support it when I took away the irrational emotion and looked at it logically. I disagree with TJIC's extreme "Might makes Right" position, but I do believe that people can responsibly use guns in society. I also believe people should be free not to use them and that both sets should enjoy the same freedom from fear and crime provided by concentrating the source of sanctioned violence with the police. The police force also can and should be a source of good in society.

Why the preamble? Because I was surprised (and more than a little disappointed) at the Republican reaction to Jim Webb's aid carrying a gun. Far more so than the democrats, the GOP has supported people's right to carry a gun, so I was shocked at their eagerness to jump on this guy simply because he's a democrat with a gun. I know I shouldn't have been, there is seemingly no principle at all underlying the modern republicans except the quest for power, but this was one of the few things I thought they had right.

A Group of Rational Decision Makers

From this:

Our ability to duck that which is not yet coming is one of the brain's most stunning innovations, and we wouldn't have dental floss or 401(k) plans without it. But this innovation is in the early stages of development. The application that allows us to respond to visible baseballs is ancient and reliable, but the add-on utility that allows us to respond to threats that loom in an unseen future is still in beta testing. [8]

A lot of what I write in the following sections are examples of these newer parts of the brain getting things wrong.

And it's not just risks. People are not computers. We don't evaluate security trade-offs mathematically, by examining the relative probabilities of different events. Instead, we have shortcuts, rules of thumb, stereotypes, and biases -- generally known as "heuristics." These heuristics affect how we think about risks, how we evaluate the probability of future events, how we consider costs, and how we make trade-offs. We have ways of generating close-to-optimal answers quickly with limited cognitive capabilities. Don Norman's wonderful essay, "Being Analog," provides a great background for all this.[9]


This is a pretty good analysis of the neuropsychology that goes into making security (and to a greater degree economic) decisions. Worth a read.

I'm blogging a lot today for some reason. I must be a little bored.
And I haven't even gotten to the analysis of the polyamoury problems in tjicistan!

Bomb or Not a Bomb?

This is pretty good! Not sure how I'd have classified the One Ring, or a bowl of Chili...

Also, from Cryptogram this month:
Is everything a bomb these days? In New Mexico, a bomb squad blew up two CD players, duct-taped to the bottoms of church pews, that played pornographic messages during Mass. This is a pretty funny high school prank and I hope the kids that did it get suitably punished. But they're not terrorists. And I have a hard time believing that the police actually thought CD players were bombs. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/22/... Meanwhile, the British Police Force blew up a tape dispenser left outside a police station in Northern Ireland. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6387857.stm
And not to be outdone, the Dutch police mistook one of their own transmitters for a bomb. At least they didn't blow anything up. http://www.playfuls.com/... Okay, everyone. We need some ideas, here. If we're going to think everything weird is a bomb, then the false alarms are going to kill any hope of security. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/...
If you're having trouble identifying bombs, this quiz should help. http://www.bombornot.com And here's a relevant cartoon. http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/...
The Boston police blew up a traffic counter. I'm beginning to think that something is seriously wrong with the police chain of command in Boston. Boston PD: Putting the "error" in "terror." http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/28/...http://wbztv.com/local/local_story_059122735.html http://www3.whdh.com:80/news/articles/local/BO44642/http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/03/...

A Map of Science

Neat!

Big map here

The Pattern

It usually goes:
Denial
Clinton did it
Silence/Change the Subject
Talk the White House Story of the Day

The Cunning Realist tells us where we stand today.
I can't help but notice the silence from the people who, 10 years ago, seemed to think that Lying to Congress was an offense and required loads of special prosecutors.

I, Roomba

I bought a Roomba yesterday. It seems to work pretty well and actually seems to make a big difference in the overall about of cat hair and cat sand on the carpets. Very clever little robot.

Dr. Nick works at iRobot, although he's in their weapons division, not in housekeeping.

A History of Man

Odd. From PZ Meyers, it's got some weird themes going on in there with some quite explicit pornography, both the sexual and violent kinds. There are themes in there, but oddball ones.

Not work safe.

Student Complaints

Geoff was having some trouble in a class recently, so I advised him to go to his professor's office hours. It's generally a good move as a) the professor (or TA) can often help and b) almost no one ever goes and its very tough to fail someone who shows up and asks for help.

OTOH, some students seem too intimidated when instructors use their words and avoid this.

Another story from an aspiring writer.

Mind Fields

Another step forward for technotelepathy.

Hinode’s first images of our violent Sun

Lifted from the comments section. Very cool stuff

American Atheists Convention

Week after next, in Seattle. I had no idea this was coming, but now that I know, I might as well go.
This talk seems like it would be interesting:

Dr. Henry Jones is a physician and psychiatrist. He recently retired from his career in clinical psychiatry. During his years in psychiatry he had the opportunity to evaluate serial murderers, serial rapists and pedophiles. He also evaluated seriously ill psychotic patients, and of course less disturbed neurotic patients. He recently completed a book in which he outlines what he learned in 40 years evaluating over 2,000 mentally ill patients. He will discuss the psychological destructiveness of religious belief.
The Title of Dr. Jones’ talk is “The Manufacture of Mental Illness”.

Friedman on Nuclear Power

David Friedman finally says something I can agree with: Ideas: Nuclear Power and Global Warming

Nuclear power is completely within human control to do correctly, causes no damage to the atmosphere and could be done completely safely. There is no good scientific reason not to go nuclear. From an environmental perspective, the damage done by a handful of power plants going up (the worst possible scenario), is trivial compared to the possible damage to the atmosphere of using fossil fuels for the next five or six centuries.I'm not generally a fan of David's, I think his posts tend to simplify complex things and in doing so, remove most of the problems. It generally doesn't mean the problems aren't there, but it's a lot more work than I would want to go through to add them back in. (BTW, he does this later in his thread on global warming on sea temperatures, conflating the minor energy going to mechanical movement of winds with the huge energy transport to the poles, which he ignores. There's a great example on Jupiter of why this is not the right way to look at this where storms get trapped at the poles and mechanical dispersion is the major energy-loss mode so the storms last for centuries).

That said, I agree with him here.

While I think the evidence for human caused global warming is indicative but not conclusive, I can see why people jump to that conclusion. If global warming is human caused, goes the logic, then it must be within our grasp to stop it. Not likely, but it gives folks a sense of control over the environment, and the ability to "do something". Understandable, but probably wrong.

Now You're Thinking With Portals

This seems like an interesting game.



There is a quick 10 second scene where two portals are next to each other on the floor and an object is bouncing up and down between them at a certain frequency. It turns out that's also the exact same mathematical model for how the sun moves in the galaxy.

Weird.

Cats

From PZ Meyers. My jaw dropped. Some info about Jehovah's Witnesses views of cats...

Indeed, modern studies of classification of cats, while not necessarily being reliable as they may be based on the discredited 'theory' of evolution, strongly associate felines with serpents (despite some external differences in physiology and morphology, which confuse those who do not study these matters deeply).

also, echoing Dr. Nick's "you can't prove it's not true" logic:

The Bible does not say that cats were not present at Herod's birthday party when John the Baptist was beheaded. History shows that cats were most likely present at this tragic party that Jehovah did not approve of.

Something I don't get

... and would appreciate an explanation, if one is available. The justice department reports to the executive branch, which is separate from the legislative and judicial branches. Legislative makes the laws, executive enforces them and judicial adjucates them.
Got that.
Congress can subpoena testimony and charge people with contempt and lying to congress. We had a valuable lesson in that 10 years ago.
However,
isn't it up to the justice department to charge and prosecute the people congress charges? If members of the president's administration get charged for lying to congress or refusing a subpoena, isn't it ultimately up to the president himself to have those charges enforced? Given that this whole thing is centered around the charge that the justice department was making political decisions, it seems likely the president would refuse to press charges against his administration.
I know Congress can chose to hold it's own trial on charges, but again, other than impeachment, is there anything they can do assuming a guilty verdict? Is there a congressional prison somewhere?(If so, I expected it is lavishly appointed and comes with franking privileges...)

Seems like the president holds the trump cards.

Edit: Some info from the heads at Volohk:
Congress has independent standing to seek a judicial order enforcing its subpoenas. They simply have a committee staff lawyer draft up a motion for an order to show cause and file it with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Court will issue an order setting out a briefing and argument schedule, and it will go forward like any other case. Subpoena enforcement is not that hard, either in concept or execution.

But... How Will I Open Jars?

LOL!

Horse Humor

Ted and Ed were racehorses, but more than that, they were best friends. They would spend long hours strolling through sunlit glades with the stable dog bouncing happily through the dandelions at their hooves. As best friends, they would talk about past races or maybe about the latest stable gossip. Sometimes they would stand quietly for long hours, enjoying the shade and eating the tall grasses in the meadows.One day, the stable boy rushed in to the stable with exciting news.

“Ted! Ed! You guys are going to race!”

Ed cast a sidelong glace at Ted and snickered, “Imagine that – the two fastest racehorses… racing.”

Ted whinnied and shook his head.“No, no,” said the stable boy, “You don’t understand! You’re racing against each other in three races this week!”

Ted and Ed looked at each other. In all their long years of friendship, the two had never once raced against each other. Ted was the first to speak, “This is interesting. Let’s go for a walk and figure this out.”

“Good idea,” said Ed.

They walked in silence for a long time, both secretly wondering if their friendship could hold up against the competition. Maybe they were only friends because they had never raced. Maybe two racehorses could never really be friends. Ed broke the silence that had settled in the pastoral glade, “Ted, this could tear us apart. I really treasure your friendship, and I never want anything to get in the way of that.”

“Oh God,” said Ted, “That’s exactly what I was thinking. No stupid race should ever come between us. I mean, we're best friends!”

Ed spoke slowly and sadly, “So what do we do?”

Again silence set into the meadow. At last Ted let out a blow, and said “I got it! You said it yourself; we’re the two fastest racehorses, right? So no matter what, we’re going to take first and second place. Why don’t we just agree to let you win the first race, I’ll win the second race, and we’ll figure out the third when we get to it!”

“Well,” said Ed, “I’ve never given anything less than a hundred percent out there on the track, but if this is what it takes to keep my best friend, I’ll do it!”

Soon it was the big day of the first race. Ted and Ed were lined up at the gate, and gave each other little winks. The gates flew open and out charged the horses. Ed was right, they were the two fastest horses, and they easily sprinted out ahead of the other horses. In the lead, Ed raced hard, but he knew his best friend wouldn’t challenge him, so he fell into his stride and charged ahead for the finish. As he came to the home stretch, he turned to give Ted a wink, but something was wrong. Ted’s eyes had glossed over and gone fiery red. The gentle horse Ed knew was gone. Ted charged forward, speeding up behind Ed and then passing him right before the finish. Ted had won the race.

Back at the stable, Ted shyly approached his best friend. “Ed?”

“So that’s your plan? Convince me I won’t have to fight for it then beat me before I can do anything about it? Some friend you are.”

“No Ed,” Ted pleaded, “It’s not like that at all. I feel awful. You’re my best friend, and I would never lie to you or mislead you. I can’t explain it. When I got close to the finish, it was like… I don’t know. I couldn’t control myself. It was like I was possessed. I really feel horrible.” Tears were streaming down Ted’s long face. “Won’t you please accept my apology? Please? You can win both of the next races, I promise. I don’t want to lose my best friend.” Ed couldn’t stand to see his best friend crying, and he felt tears on his own face.

“Okay, Ted. I still feel betrayed, but we can work through this.”

The next day they were back at the starting gates. Ed looked over at Ted, but Ted was so guilt-ridden he couldn’t look his friend in the eye. The gates flew open.None of the other horses compared to Ed and Ted, and soon enough they led the rest by a dozen lengths. As they raced, Ted yelled over the roar of the crowds, “All right, Ed, this one is all yours. I really am sorry about that last race.”

Ed spoke back to his friend, “I know, Ted. You got caught up in the moment or something. We’re racehorses after all.” They were on the home stretch, and Ed raced for the finish with ease.

“No racehorse likes to lose, right Ted? Ted? Ted!”

Ted’s eyes once again had gone fiery red, and his nostrils flared as he charged past Ed and crossed the finish line in first place. Later, Ted slowly walked to Ed’s stall in the stable, his head hanging low. When he looked up he saw that Ed wasn’t there. Feeling horrible, Ted walked around the other stalls, dragging his hooves and asking the other horses if they’d seen Ed. He finally found Ed behind the stable, alone and crying.Ted called out softly, “Ed. I feel so bad for what…”

“Shut up!” said Ed. “What kind of a friend are you?”

“Look, Ed, I know there’s no excuse for what I did. And I can’t stand that I’ve betrayed your trust twice now.” They were both sobbing uncontrollably now. Ted went on, “What kind of monster am I that I could do that to my best friend? I’ve never felt so bad in my entire life. I want to go back in time and do it all over, and do it right. There’s no excuse. I can’t even trust myself now, so there’s no way I could expect you to trust me.”

“You're damn right I can’t trust you,” said Ed. “I thought we were best friends!”
Ted sniffled and blinked away some tears. “We were. I mean, we ARE. I am so, so sorry for everything. At tomorrow’s race, I’m going to come in last place. I’m going to be so far back that I won’t even have a chance of losing control.”

“You’d do that for me?” sobbed Ed. “You'd come in last place?”

“Of course I would, Ed, You’re my best friend and I intend to keep it that way.”

“Oh Ted, I just don’t understand. I knew this would be tough, but I never thought it would be this tough.”

“And it’s all my fault, Ed. I understand if you don’t want to be my friend any more.”

Ed sniffled and shook his head. “I have to forgive you. You’re my best friend.”

The next day Ted and Ed were at the gate for the last race. Ted looked over at Ed and bowed solemnly. He was going to throw the race and put his entire career in jeopardy for his friend. When the gates flew open, Ed charged out ahead of the other horses, and Ted slowly followed behind them all. Ed looked back to see if he could trust his friend, and sure enough Ted was far behind the other horses. Though Ed couldn’t be sure, it looked as if Ted was crying.As Ed made his final sprint for the finish, he heard the crowd roar to life. Was this for him? Ed had always been a crowd favorite, but the love he felt in those cheers was… No! Ted was charging up from behind, spitting and wild. Ted’s eyes glowed like a furnace as he dashed past the other horses.

“Not this time,” said Ed. As Ted approached, Ed gave it everything he had and sped like a demon for the finish. But Ted was wild-eyed and unstoppable, and charged past him to win by a nose.

Walking back to the stable, Ted knew he had lost the best friend he could ever have. In the past few days, he had grown accustomed to feeling guilt and shame, but this was an entirely new low. He had to apologize, even though he understood that Ed probably wouldn’t ever forgive him. Ed’s stall was empty and he wasn’t behind the stables either. Ted found the stable boy and asked him if he’d seen Ed.

“I saw him, all right,” said the stable boy. “Just a few minutes ago I saw him heading up the path to the cliffs.”

The cliffs! A new wave of guilt hit Ted as he dashed for the path. Never in all his years of racing did he run as fast as he did up that path. Nothing from the last three races even compared to the fury with which he charged to his friend. As he reached the top of the cliffs, he found Ed with one hoof over the edge, about to take the final step.

“Noooo!” screamed Ted. “This is all my fault. You can’t do this because I’m such a horrible friend! It should be me jumping off the cliff!”

“Great. Just great! If it isn’t the worst friend a horse could ever have.”

“I don’t know much,” said Ted, “but I do know that I can’t live with myself for what I’ve done to you, my best friend.”Ed was crying hysterically.

“Its bad enough getting beat in the races where I thought you’d let me win, but I also got beat when I was trying my hardest. And all along you just kept lying to me! My mind is made up. I’m going to jump and end it all.”

“Then I’m jumping too,” said Ted. “I won’t let my best friend die alone.”

“Yeah right!” said Ed.Ted was crying uncontrollably now too.

“I’m serious. If you’re going to go, I’m going with you. Whether you like it or not, you’re my best friend, and I’ll do whatever it takes to be there for you always.”

“Well you’re not stopping me,” said Ed.

“Then we’ll go together.”

Ted walked up beside Ed and the two horses looked over the edge. Both were crying as they lifted their hooves up and prepared to take that first, and last, step off the cliff.“

Wait! Don’t do it!” cried the stable dog, running up the path toward them. “You can’t do this! You’re best friends!” Ted and Ed paused as the dog ran up to the edge. “Don’t you see? There’s nothing worse then losing friendship, and if you two jump, you’ll never have a chance to be friends again! Don’t you remember the long hours you’d spend with each other in the meadows? All the good times you’ve had? All the happiness you two once shared? Doesn’t that count for anything?”

Ed looked up from the dog, turned to his friend, and said...

“Hey look, a talking dog.”

Lightning Produces Gamma Rays

Weird huh? I read this as an aside in a book and chased it down this morning. My first thought was that this was either a) some kind of synchotron radiation produced by a variation of the Tademaru Effect or b) pair production (!)!

Their report suggested that runaway breakdown at a much lower altitude, created within "strong fields in or just above the thundercloud," could have triggered the TGFs instead. "It still almost certainly has to be runaway breakdown that's creating these," Cummer said. "The only real possibility is that it's much closer to the cloud top, and linked to something else happening inside the cloud." The detailed Duke-led analysis also disclosed that, on average, TGFs occurred 1.24 milliseconds before their associated lightning strokes. "That was something we absolutely were not expecting," Cummer said. "But the coincidence between the lightning and the TGFs we found is too good to be random. So, even if the TGFs precede the lightning, they are in some way connected." Their paper suggests one possibility for such a negative cause-and-effect relationship. Perhaps "TGFs are produced by a process associated with the development of the observed lightning stroke, but that actually occurs about 1 millisecond before the stroke itself," the authors wrote.

I'm wondering if there is a spectrum of low-frequency microwaves near (but not necessarily colocated with )the source before the gamma burst. The Tademaru Effect could explain it, i.e. the microwaves could produce a few relativistic electrons which then crash and dump their energy in the form of gamma. There would be a characteristic gamma spectrum if this were true, so it's testable.

Fermi Condensate

For me, Statistical Mechanics was the hardest class in physics in grad school. It's difficult, complicated and the math is nearly impenetrable. To date, there are really only 2 major things I remember out of StatMech, 1) how the equations differ from bosons and fermions, and b) the mathematics of Bose Condensates. I remember this as "Bosons are gregarious", i.e. you can get an arbitrary number of bosons into the same state, as opposed to fermions (of which all the matter you're familiar with is composed) which is subject to the Pauli Exclusion principle.

What does this mean? It means you can walk through a beam of light, but you cannot walk through a wall.

Via Dr. Nick, and interesting bit of news:
Ice Created In Nanoseconds By Sandia’s Z MachineScience Daily — Sandia’s huge Z machine, which generates temperatures hotter than the sun, has turned water to ice in nanoseconds. However, don’t expect anything commercial just yet: the ice is hotter than the boiling point of water. “The three phases of water as we know them — cold ice, room temperature liquid, and hot vapor — are actually only a small part of water’s repertory of states,” says Sandia researcher Daniel Dolan. “Compressing water customarily heats it. But under extreme compression, it is easier for dense water to enter its solid phase [ice] than maintain the more energetic liquid phase [water].”

The physical properties of fermi condensates are very complicated and water especially so. Hot ice, rubber that shrinks when you heat it ... those crazy fermions!

While I don't beleive in god, if I did, I'd be convinced that the water molecule was her signature on the universe.

Metaphysicist

Looks like mind reading machines will be a reality sooner rather than later.
Where will the soul hide once we have the brain mapped?

Until this experiment, which was reported last month in Current Biology, nobody had ever tried to take a picture of free will. One reason is that fMRI is too crude to distinguish one abstract choice from another. It can only show which parts of the brain are demanding blood oxygen. That's too coarse to distinguish the configuration of cells that signifies addition from the configuration that signifies subtraction. So, Haynes used software to help the computer recognize complex patterns in the data. To dissect human thought, the computer had to emulate it.

I once had a telling argument with TJIC about neurobiology and the soul. He’s a firm believer in the latter, so I kept pushing his understanding of the boundary between which decisions were based on neurology and which were "free will" and therefore subject to "sin". It’s completely demonstrable that you can injure a brain and affect behavior, even predictably. If the brain, an analog computer subject to bugginess, can adversely affect consciousness, where does the soul and free will begin and end?

It was an interesting argument and he created a model which was neither biblical nor scientific but he used to highlight the difference. He analogized the brain as a radio and the soul a broadcast station in heaven which sent signals to the brain about decisions. In this model, neurological damage detuned the radio so the reception was imperfect and the brain did things the "soul" didn't intend. It's an elaborate, fascinating model without a shred of doctrinal or scientific evidence to support it, but I suspect if mind-reading machines come into widespread use you'll see some version of this to explain the soul, continuing to tuck the mystery away in the gaps. I did have an opportunity to ask a (non-catholic)priest about this particular model, he pointed out that it causes all sorts of problems around redemption and sin and isn’t a “remotely defensible position”. His position was along the lines that “God knows what’s actually going on” and makes the right decisions about the disposition of souls.

Personally, I think Occum’s Razor still holds.

Something Familiar About That Ship

Saw the first panel of this and thought... could it be....??? !!!!

The greatest video game ever made! Really!

I am *dancing* with the *sauce*!

The Mullah at Home

Andrew Sullivan does a good job on unpacking Dinesh D'Souza's new book, The Enemy at Home:The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11. It is terrifying, at least to those of us who believe that America is about invidualism and the freedom of the marketplace of ideas.

Read the full review, it seems pretty damning and, unfortunately, consistent with other reviews from the Right I have read on the same book. I was kind of hoping AS was being hysterical, but it seems he's on the money.

What is that path? At its core is a deepening rejection of cultural and philosophical modernity. D'Souza believes that the defining new distinction in American politics is no longer between the economic right and the economic left. The size of government and its role as a guardian of the public welfare are increasingly dead issues, or issues where no vital energy crackles. D'Souza rightly holds that the real divide in the new century is between authority and autonomy, between faith-based politics and individual freedom. And in this struggle at the level of first principles, D'Souza chooses his own side. He is at war with the modern West. If forced to choose between a theocratic order that upheld traditional morality and a secular order that saw such morality marginalized, D'Souza is with the former. He puts it more graphically himself: "Yes, I would rather go to a baseball game or have a drink with Michael Moore than with the grand mufti of Egypt. But when it comes to core beliefs, I'd have to confess that I'm closer to the dignified fellow in the long robe and prayer beads than to the slovenly fellow with the baseball cap."

Micheal Moore is the Right's boogy man in the same way that Ann Coulter is the Left's, so double props to DD for this construction.

Also,
One has to admire at least the frankness with which this secessionist strategy for conservatism is laid out. "How can we use the war on terror to win the culture war?" D'Souza asks in a final chapter called "Battle Plan for the Right." Notice here that defeating the forces of Islamist terror is merely instrumental to the deeper struggle to defeat modern individualism and autonomy. The idea of a common American commitment to the Constitution's guarantees of individual freedom and autonomy is secondary to the global battle for the "external moral order." Loyalty is not to country, but to a worldwide theoconservative ideology. Like the Marxists of old, the theoconservatives see their movement increasingly as global, resting on eternal truths, and not compatible with the "liberal morality" of their autonomous bourgeois fellow Westerners.

No wonder the libertarians on the Right are upset with their party. I certainly am.

"We Can't Assume What We Don't Believe"

This is well worth a read and a think

Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years

(via) and News Blog and PZ Meyers
The thing to do here is bold the ones you've read and italicize the one's you started but never finished. Green are, IMHO, extra awesome.

It can't be a very good list though, where's Eragon?

The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Dune, Frank Herbert
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
Cities in Flight, James Blish
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Little, Big, John Crowley
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld, Larry Niven
Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Timescape, Gregory Benford
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

Seems I have some reading to do...

Get This Message to Obi Wan! Hurry!

The USPS is rolling out a line of R2D2 mailboxes in honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars -- these are really amazingly cool, they just work really well. It's the Anthony Trollope/George Lucas mashup I've been waiting for all my life! Link (via OhGizmo)

(via)

True, that

about cats.

Actaully, It Could Be Any One of the Three

You'll die from a Heart Attack during Sex.

Your a lover not a fighter but sadly, in the act of making love your heart will stop. But what a way to go.

'How will you die?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Seems like I am at a Triple Point, but I'll take what I can get.

"The Secret"

The latest in New Age religious scams, the Secret!


When I discovered 'The Secret' I made a decision that I would not watch the news or read newspapers anymore, because it did not make me feel good," and, "How does it work? Nobody knows. Just like nobody knows how electricity works. I don't, do you?"

Why Gods Exist for Some, but Not Others

I have, like many folks, often wondered about the evolutionary basis for a belief in gods. Human brains seem to have coded for this rather strongly, overwriting all kinds of higher reasoning and leading to kinds of logic that, while tolerated for god arguments, would never be tolerated for any other kind, e.g. prove god doesn't exist.

Also:
Religion seemed to use up physical and mental resources without an obvious benefit for survival. Why, he wondered, was religion so pervasive, when it was something that seemed so costly from an evolutionary point of view?

In short, are we hard-wired to believe in God? And if we are, how and why did that happen?

Long article in the NYT, worth a read.

Department of If You Keep Making Faces, It Will Stick That Way

From the Wiki entry on Yahoo Serious:

Prior to making "Young Einstein," Yahoo Serious officially changed his name to garner publicity for the film. After the success of the movie, he attempted to change his name back to his given name, however, Australian law only allows one name change in a person's lifetime. As a result, Yahoo Serious is stuck with this name for life.

Science porn!

I had seen the photo last year, but of course PZ has *all* the salacious details!

Imaging was first done in a 1.5 Tesla Philips magnet system (Gyroscan S15) and later in a 1.5 Tesla magnet system from Siemens Vision. To increase the space in the tube, the table was removed: the internal diameter of the tube is then 50 cm. The participants were asked to lie with pelvises near the marked centre of the tube and not to move during imaging. After a preview, 10 mm thick sagittal images were taken with a half-Fourier acquisition single shot turbo SE T2 weighted pulse sequence (HASTE). The echo time was 64 ms, with a repetition time of 4.4 ms. With this fast acquisition technique, 11 slices of relatively good quality were obtained within 14 seconds.

I.. I may need a moment..

Something Said Well

There is a kernal of truth in this, and it makes at least one point I tried to make recently in a debate with a reader in my comments section:
(via)

I would suggest that it is not the philosophy of Christ's teachings that is the source of the friction, it is the institutional practices of the religion He never wished to found. One can indeed be a Christian and at the same time not be a Christian in the formal, institutionalized sense (and certainly not a "Christianist", a term I have great fondness for). One can follow the teachings of Christ in the everyday routine and still believe that there was no Resurrection. His teachings are universal. It is far more important to me that I attempt in my own fallible way to follow His (and I capitalize out of respect for others, a most Christian attitude) teachings than it is to believe in His divinity.

I truly believe, and of course I may be completely wrong, wouldn't be the first time and won't be the last, that daily interaction with others, whether they be individuals or nations, in accordance with Christ's teachings, has a more positive and reaching effect. The debate should not be science vs. religion; it should be science vs. philosophy, and in that there should be no discord. Religion as philosophy, science and rational thought can always live comfortably together. One must simply decide whether the teachings or the institutions are more important.

I agree with parts of this, i.e. while I don't believe in god or in the divinity of christ, I do think the philosophical message underpinning the stories about Jesus are generally worthwhile and quite revolutionary. It has always surprised me that his followers are quick to "yeah, yeah" the message and then tear right into rational thought.

Surprise is the wrong word. Disappoint is closer to the mark.

All that said, there was one comment in the Harris/Sullivan debate that rang true and I keep rethinking it. One of them (SH I think) said that the difference between believers and non-believers was that non-believers were more comfortable with uncertainty. This is I think mostly true, or at least embeds a true concept. I'm trying to decide if it's completely true, or if non-believers simply couch their uncertainties in the process of science while believers hedge theirs with the authority of their clerics and holy books. It would explain, for example, while religionists constantly attack folks like Darwin, Copernicus etc. without really coping to the fact that science admits its knowledge is incomplete. Religious knowledge, in this model is complete and handed down through authority or revealed by the gods. it does explain why the extremists get so worried and why their attacks are seemingly so off target (at least to non-believers). I'm comfortable not knowing how the universe and reality got started in part because I know that eventually, if the process of science goes on long enough, the answer will pop out. I may be unfortunate in that I live in a time when the answer is not known, but that's just my bad luck. I throw my little portion of science on the pile and hope it helps.

I need to think about this more, but I think it's essentially correct for a large segment of the religious population. I have to think of a way to test this.

Supreme Court Gives Gore’s Oscar to Bush

Stunning Reversal for Former Veep

Just days after former Vice President Al Gore received an Academy Award for his global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” the United States Supreme Court handed Mr. Gore a stunning reversal, stripping him of his Oscar and awarding it to President George W. Bush instead. For Mr. Gore, who basked in the adulation of his Hollywood audience Sunday night, the high court’s decision to give his Oscar to President Bush was a cruel twist of fate, to say the least. But in a 5-4 decision handed down Tuesday morning, the justices made it clear that they had taken the unprecedented step of stripping Mr. Gore of his Oscar because President Bush deserved it more. “It is true that Al Gore has done a lot of talking about global warming,” wrote Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority. “But President Bush has actually helped create global warming.”

In another setback for the former vice president, a group of scientists meeting in Oslo, Norway today said that Mr. Gore was growing at an unsustainable rate. “The polar ice caps may be shrinking, but Al Gore is clearly expanding,” said Dr. Hiroshi Kyosuke of the University of Tokyo. The scientists concluded that if Mr. Gore continues to expand at his current rate, he could cause the earth to spin off its axis by 2010, sending it hurtling into the sun. “Here’s an inconvenient truth,” Dr. Kyosuke added. “Al’s got to stay away from those carbs.” Elsewhere, after foreigners received a record number of Academy Award nominations, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs proposed building a 12-foot high fence around the Kodak Theater.

via

If One Hand is on the Cell Phone...

Catholics taking the fun out of everything(via Slate):

North America's first cell-phone porn service surrendered to a Catholic boycott. Last month, Canada's second-biggest telecom firm, Telus, began offering downloadable nude photos and videos. A week ago, the archbishop of Vancouver urged Catholics to boycott the company; three days later, Telus gave up and said it would offer porn only through cable TV. Company's spins: 1) The porn was only soft-core. 2) We imposed an age limit. 3) We offered it as a public service, to help porn seekers avoid malware. Archbishop's spin: The spread of porn technology preys on addicts and their victims. Cynical view: Thank God we're keeping porn off 1-inch screens so people will have to keep watching it on 30-inch screens. Twist: The archbishop issued his boycott call through a podcast ($). (For a previous update on pay-per-view porn, click here. For porn HDTV, click here. For virtual-sex technology, click here. For live, on-demand sex, click here. For Human Nature's take on prosecuting cybersex, click here.)

And the Jews are into it as well

Almost Made it Past the First Sentence

before I burst out laughing at the "scare quotes"

What strikes you as being some thoughts that people would have if--in the short space of a few weeks--the universally held conviction that the Earth rotates on an "axis" daily and orbits the sun annually was exposed as an unscientific deception?

These folks are totally serious. Damn Copernicus for the money-grubbing, anti-religious corporate shill he is!

Actually, there are a few gems in here:
That bottom line is that the negative results of the Michelson-Morley interferometer experiments conducted in Europe and the U.S. in the 1880’s consistently showed no orbital motion of the Earth around the sun. No motion. Period

Moreover, by threatening the Copernican Paradigm, i.e., the very foundation--the raison d' etre--of this successful transmutation, these experiments contained the deadly potential of thwarting the rooting process of Darwinism, Marxism, Freudianism, Einsteinism, and (later) Saganism.

"Saganism" Oh Uncle Carl! How could you!

Let's see...
Scare quotes? Check!
Quotes bible passages as facts? Check!
Claims Grand Conspiracy(tm) to hide the truth? Check!
Colorful fonts and psuedo-random size changes? Check!

Geocentrism could spring from the same fertile imagination as ... Time Cube!

Edit: This was also pretty good:
As physicist Wal Thornhill (et al) agree: “Electromagnetic forces are infinitely more powerful than gravity…” (HERE, p. 4). As we know, a child can test this statement with a plain magnet or an electromagnet and a coin on the ground. Gravity holds the coin on the ground, but pass the magnet over it at some appropriate height and….

nothing happens! Coins are non-magnetic. Well, technically, the ones with silver in them are slightly paramagnetic.

I shouldn't do this, i.e. make fun of a person with sincerely held beliefs and deeply embedded emotional problems. I shouldn't but, as my friends will tell you, I am evil and it comes with the territory. And it's interesting!

Conservapedia: I Still Cant Tell!

I was drifting into the camp that Conservapedia was a parody site until I read this entry:

Some have criticized gravity, reminding us that it is only a theory, and that no scientist has ever seen a graviton or a space curve. Furthermore, experiments done by NASA prove that the Moon is receding (moving further away) from the Earth at a rate of 3.8cm per year, directly contradicting the theory that masses attract one another[1]. Indeed, astronomers can observe that all stars in the universe are moving away from one another. The considerable disagreement between scientists about the theory of gravity suggests that, like evolution, the theory will eventually be replaced with a model which acknowledges God as the source of all things, the Prime Mover, and the only real fundamental force in the universe.

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEhelp/ApolloLaser.html

The moon is, in fact, moving away from the earth, but it's entirely due to the redistribution of angular momentum in the earth-moon system due to tidal fricition. Quite provable from first principles.
This is a sad entry, it makes baby Newton cry.