"Claptrap"

Greg Easterbrook reviews Lee Smolin's book on what's wrong with String Theory.

The Upfront:
Lee Smolin is a brilliant theoretical physicist who has worked for many years in the bowels of string theory. His book and Peter Woit's Not Even Wrong are interesting and important, and the point they make is quite possibly correct.

I've read a lot on strings, worked through the math at about a graduate (but not professional) level, understand the main concepts, (at least from the period between the 1920's and the early 1990's) and have tried to form an intelligent, well reasoned opinion on it. I've kind of failed in this. There is a point in string theory past which it is simply black to me. If someone like Smolin, Hawking or Page sketches out a proof for me in some of the really abstract stuff, I might get a glimmer of how this fits in, but I'm incapable of doing this on my own from scratch.

The parts of string theory I understand make sense. I can easily show a unification of gravity and EM in a few as 5-dimensions (hint: Einstein and Kaluza did this in the '30s. It's not rocket science by today's standards). I have no clue if it's right, but I do understand that we're missing something fundamental in physics, much like we missed photon quantization in the 19th century.

The Gripe:
This review is awful.

C'mon who uses the "claptrap"? String theory may be off the rails, it may be overly complex, it might even be wrong, but it's not useless claptrap. It's a fairly useful theoretical framework for understanding the otherwise totally inexplicable.

Then there is this interesting paragraph:
And consider this. Today if a professor at Princeton claims there are 11 unobservable dimensions about which he can speak with great confidence despite an utter lack of supporting evidence, that professor is praised for incredible sophistication. If another person in the same place asserted there exists one unobservable dimension, the plane of the spirit, he would be hooted down as a superstitious crank.

There is so much wrong with this collection of words, so many confabulations of things which don't go together, so many little straw men standing in a wheat field, I don't even know where to begin. He's brought together religion, science, some math he clearly doesn't understand and (seemingly) a general grudge against science into a one entangled knot of ego-satisfying word-salad. How can an editor let this through?

Then there is a whole 'graph on the word "theory" and for the second time a comparison to Darwin and creationists:
Really, string theory isn't a theory at all. Creationists who oppose the teaching of Darwin have taken to deriding natural selection as "just a theory," and Darwin's defenders have rightly replied that in science, "theory" does not mean idle speculation. Rather, it is an honored term for an idea that has been elaborately analyzed, has not been falsified, and has made testable predictions that have later proven to be true. The ordering of scientific notions is: conjecture, hypothesis, theory. Pope John Paul II chose his words carefully when in 1996 he called evolution "more than a hypothesis." Yet the very sorts of elite-institution academics who snigger at creationists for revealing their ignorance of scientific terminology by calling evolution "just a theory" nonetheless uniformly say "string theory." Since what they're talking about is strictly a thought experiment (just try proving there are no other dimensions), from now on, "string conjecture," please.

String Theory is a theory. some of it's aspects are testable, but not yet tested. It's not that people don't want to test them, or are arguing that they shouldn't be tested. I freely grant that the whole of the theory is not testable or for that matter expressible as a simple set of axioms accessible to the general public). It's disingenuous for Easterbrook to suggest that they are unprovable.

Ugh. String theory can be criticized on a lot of points and may quite well be wrong, however Easterbrook doesn't use any of them instead settling for some gratuitous science bashing and equating science and religion.


His review is a piece of shit.

Aspartame

Wow.

So, a concerned and intelligent friend of mine send me an article on the side effects of Aspartame, which include a host of fuzzy neurological symptoms, many of which I sometimes seem to display. I read the article, decided I didn't really know much about the chemical other than the fact that it pops up from time to time as having caused "health problems"

Turns out, the note she sent me was already listed as an Urban Legend.
Okay, not a promising start, but also not really evidence either way.
Turns out it's surprisingly hard to get a decent review of Aspartame that isn't sponsored by someone with a clear interest in it being safe/unsafe. Even the wiki entry is surprisingly unscientific claiming:

"Some point to the rapid breakdown of aspartame causing spikes of phenylalanine and aspartic acid which can upset chemical balances and cross the blood-brain barrier, as well as unnatural spikes in levels of methanol in places the body does not normally encounter it (like within metabolic processes), raising concerns as to its safe containment and elimination."

There are victim groups, lawsuit groups, consipracy groups etc. etc. Jesus Christ folks! It's not like the want to put floride in your water!

After digging through a couple of dozen sites, I finally found a decent one with some science in it.

Bottom line: You're at more risk from fruit juice than aspartame.

Ripped From the Headlines: Woman pleads guilty in fake penis case

Here

MCKEESPORT, Pa. --A woman pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in connection with a bizarre incident in February that resulted in a fake penis being microwaved at a convenience store.

Leslye Creighton, 41, of Wilkinsburg, entered the plea Wednesday, and authorities dropped the same charge against Vincent Bostic, 31, of Pittsburgh, who has agreed to help pay $425 to replace the store's microwave, police and the couple's defense attorney said.
Police in McKeesport, about 10 miles east of Pittsburgh, said the Feb. 23 incident began when Bostic filled a fake penis with his urine that they said Creighton planned to use to pass a drug test to get a job.

The two stopped at a GetGo! convenience store and, after wrapping the device in a paper towel, asked a store clerk to heat it up in a microwave, police said. Authorities said they believe Creighton wanted the device heated so the urine inside would be at body temperature during the drug test.

The clerk, however, believing the lifelike device to be a severed penis, called police.

Defense attorney William Difenderfer said Creighton faces a maximum punishment of $300 and 90 days in jail when she is sentenced Nov. 15 by McKeesport District Judge Doug Reed. Difenderfer called it "a humorous, but weird, case."

Embarassing Disclaimer: I went to high school not far from there.

Hail Eris!

The new name for the dwarf planet 2003 UB313 brought a smile to my Discordian face.

Government Information for You!!

Things We Want to Become True

An interesting debate between Mitchell Kapor and Ray Kurzweil on whether or not the statement "By 2029 no computer - or "machine intelligence" - will have passed the Turing Test. " is true. Obviously I am on Kapor's side, althought I admit a) I'd like to lose and b) it's at least theoretically possible I will.

What I think is interesting is their styles of arguement. Ray is arguing like a SciFi fan, glossing over the hard truths to get to the visionary statement, then turning around and saying that, becuase the vision is so compelling, it *must* be true. Kapor is arguing more about the science involved, and one statement in particular has been key in my own arguments:

Additionally, part of the burden of proof for supporters of intelligent machines is to develop an adequate account of how a computer would acquire the knowledge it would be required to have to pass the test. Ray Kurzweil's approach relies on an automated process of knowledge acquisition via input of scanned books and other printed matter. However, I assert that the fundamental mode of learning of human beings is experiential. Book learning is a layer on top of that. Most knowledge, especially that having to do with physical, perceptual, and emotional experience is not explicit, never written down. It is tacit. We cannot say all we know in words or how we know it. But if human knowledge, especially knowledge about human experience, is largely tacit, i.e., never directly and explicitly expressed, it will not be found in books, and the Kurzweil approach to knowledge acquisition will fail.

In one of his books, Charlies Stross has the ship AI of a starship crossing space reach a critical point and transcend. It figures out enough physics to build an instantaneous network and cuts it's journey short. This has always struck me as the fundemental problem with how AI is protrayed and seems to be the strength of Ray's arguement. It will just happen. OTOH, those of us who have done scientific research know it's a messy business. Lots of mistakes, lots of errors and, most importantly, lots and lots of experiments. This is what Kapor is arguing, and it seems far more grounded in reality.

Will we have computers as fast or faster than the human brain by 2029? Possibly. Will they have human intellect? Well, it takes a human brain, interacting with the world many years to get to concrete operational thinking (indeed, many never do. There is much less difference between your brain and a person with an IQ of 50 than there is between your brain and chimps). It seems very unlikely that we'll have the ablity to do the soft skills, the reasoning by that point.

Much as I want it to be true, I have to put my money with Kapor.

Also, in Theme with Creating a Lighter Mood

Here's an interestign link to an article on Breast Physics.

One of my cohorts in grad school at UMass, James Case, left the astronomy department, went over to physics and did a successful Ph.D. thesis on the physics of high energy radiative transfer in human female breasts.

Who knew how ahead of the game he was at the time??

True That

This is completely true.

9/11 Rememberance

Frankly, I'm disgusted. Rather than a day of sober reflection, rememberance and thought, 9/11 has become a campaign event/holiday.
This note, posted on The Big Picture, a Capital Markets blog I read, summerizes it best for me.

I've been assembling this weekend's linkfest -- and I started to feel a little quesy. I couldn't figure out what it was, and then it dawned on me: 9/11 overdose.
We are in for a total excess of "celebrations" -- is that the right word? -- of the 5th anniversary of 9/11.
That would be Wood, for you married couples. Instead of wood, we get tasteless Mini-series, crass comedic novels, fictionlized dramatizations, front page columns, magazine stories galore: The U.S. media, following the ugly lead of politicians, is about to engage in a full on festival of September 11th commericalization.
Its already cloying; 9/11 is now at risk for becoming another holiday, like Halloween or Columbus day. Macy*s will have a white sale, halftime at football games will do a video montage (aftr the 9/11tailgate party in the parking lot), speeches will be given, barbecues consumed. Take what has been already been done to Christmas: Sterilize, mass produce, fictionalize, and repackage it into one giant opportunistic shopping orgy.
Thanks, but no thanks.
I don't want to see any of these things -- don't want to buy the book, see the mini-series, read the column. Shit, I don't even want write about it. I already told my own personal recollection from a day of horror. That's more than enough.
What asshole thought up making a commerative 9/11 coin? -- and would they please choke on their own vomit in their sleep? (Thanks). A fictionlized version of events? Fictionlized? Are you shitting me? Can't we have a more dignified way to honor our dead?
The greatest tragedy of the post-9/11 period has been the failure of our nation's leaders to bring the country nation together. There was an enormous opportunity to take advantage of the crisis to unify the population and work together. That moment was lost. When the history of this period gets written 50 years from now, and blame gets apportioned for that, it will be none too flattering the collection of buffooons and incompetents (of both parties).

Video

I made a video this morning for my SG. This is about 4 mins edited down from 25. The group attacked a giant cephalopod that was attacking part of the city.
I'm holding the camera, so I am not in the shots.

This was modestly complicated to produce, although having done this once, I see how it works.

A Million People Can Call the Mountains a Fiction

I think this sets the perfect tone.

A Lesson Wherein The Protagonist Learns Why 4 = 3

I have 4GB of memory for my computer. 4 Gleaming, shiny artistically designed, deep green, heat sink enshrouded memory chips. This is cool. However, A mystery appears.

When I power up the computer, it does a physical memory check and says it sees 4GB. Good. When it's up and running however, I look ask taskmon and clearly see only 3GB allocated. Nost so good. My page file is 3145196K and my total Limit is 6126444K. Very nice, but not 4GB.

Assuming a hardware problem, I dicked around a while in the case and convinced myself I figured out that one of the chips was bad. [Red Flag: it seemed to be the last oneI tested]. I ordered a new chip. It came yesterday, and I installed it this morning. I was excited because, well, I paided for 4GB and damn it, I want 4GB (despite teh fact I'll never use it all). Closed the case, powered up, BIOS check saw 4GB, started windows, and...... 3GB

Jesus McFuck

It's got to be the OS. Googgle, google, sure enough:
The range of an address space is defined by the native word size of the operating system. For Windows NT based systems, this value has a size of 32 bits, which corresponds to an address space of 2^32 bytes or approximately 4 gigabytes of memory. Thus, all processes on Windows NT platforms are limited to having access to only 4 gigabytes of memory (This limit will be expanded to a range of 2^64, with the introduction of Win64 platforms in the future).This is not the only limitation placed on processes on Windows platforms, though. System addresses are mapped into this address space, so the available address space is further reduced. The amount of address space is utilized by the system is dependent on the version of Windows NT being used. For Windows NT and 2000 Workstation and some versions of Windows NT Server, the upper 2 gigabytes of the address space is reserved for the system. This leaves only 2 gigabytes available to the process for use. For certain Windows Server-class systems (including versions of NT/2000/2003 Server and also Windows XP Professional), the system can be configured such that only the upper 1 gigabyte of the address space is reserved for the system, leaving 3 gigabytes of address space available for use by the process. These limitations are summarized in the following table. (Please consult your system administrator, system documentation or Microsoft for information about configuring your system to use more than 2 GB of memory for process use.)
Operating System
Available Address Space
Windows NT Workstation and Windows Server-class systems
2 Gigabytes
Certain Windows Server-class systems (including NT/2000/2003 Server and XP Professional)
3 GigabytesTo the best of our knowledge, Windows XP also has these same limits. As you will read below, IDL, as a window-based application, does not have access to this full 2 - 3 GB in one contiguous block.SolutionThe only solution for this type of limitation is for the operating system to change. For Windows, a user could move to Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition (or other systems mentioned above) or a 64 bit version of Windows. Of course, a user could also try another platform such as Linux (32-bit) or Solaris (64-bit).

I'll be dead in the cold, cold ground before I go back to Solaris. There *must* be some tweak I can pull to get the memory count up.
Technically, I have 4GB available, but 1GB is reserved for the OS. It does explain why the system is so damn fast, but ... I want my memory!

Damn those facist Redmond bastards aand their, "I know what's best for you mentaility"!

Know Your Demographic: Males 16-35

Clever

Weeds
To advertise comedy "Weeds", there was created a billboard that had attached three 6-foot high bags filled with giant sandwiches and massive prop marijuana. This latter billboard had a security camera trained upon it and when inevitably the marijuana was stolen, the footage was released as a viral video which received 50,000 views and wide-spread press coverage.
Video 1, Video 2.

Political Science Thesis

with references!
Check this out

1. Eco and textual materialism

“Consciousness is part of the stasis of art,” says Debord. In a sense, in The Name of the Rose, Eco reiterates the subcultural paradigm of discourse; in Foucault’s Pendulum, however, he analyses Sontagist camp.
The characteristic theme of Drucker’s[1] analysis of the subcultural paradigm of discourse is the paradigm, and eventually the economy, of textual sexuality. Derrida uses the term ‘the precapitalist paradigm of reality’ to denote the common ground between class and art. Thus, the example of postcultural narrative depicted in Eco’s The Island of the Day Before emerges again in The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, although in a more textual sense.
Lacan promotes the use of the precapitalist paradigm of reality to read and modify sexual identity. It could be said that Wilson[2] suggests that we have to choose between Sontagist camp and constructivist desituationism.
Derrida uses the term ‘the precapitalist paradigm of reality’ to denote the fatal flaw, and subsequent genre, of postcultural consciousness. However, the subject is interpolated into a Sontagist camp that includes culture as a totality.
Several theories concerning patriarchial feminism exist. Therefore, Baudrillard suggests the use of the precapitalist paradigm of reality to deconstruct capitalism.

Battle of the Pointless Views!

Yup, this is what it looks like to me.

Oldie, but Goodie

Last year Geoff and I filled out half of a scientologist's survey. It's actually pretty amusing.

Geoff, when are we going to finish this?

Something I Didn't Know

This is kind of interesting:

Scientists are trying to stop fetal sharks from eating each other in the womb. A mother gray nurse shark carries 40 or so embryos in her two wombs. But once an embryo develops jaws, it starts eating its siblings. Results: 1) Only one embryo survives in each womb. 2) The species is endangered. Solution: Scientists are developing "artificial uteruses" so each embryo can grow without being eaten by others. Crunchy spin: We're saving another of nature's creatures. Extra crunchy spin: This shark's been around for 70 million years. Don't you think nature knows what it's doing? Anti-crunchy spin: This is even dumber than paroling repeat felons.

#include STD_Yuppie_Bashing_Joke.h

New Art

It's been awhile, but I finally finished a piece I've been working on for a few months now. Actually, it turned out to be 2 pieces and may eventually wind up as four.

This one is done, and is in a different mode than I usually use. More "artsy" but I really like it.

Seattle One

This one is a late draft, but not yet complete. It's what I imagine *should* happen every time I see the space needle.

Seattle Two

Constructive criticism is alway welcome.

No Really, I Thought this Was a Joke

They are kidding, right?

Welcome to the ``Flat Daddy" and ``Flat Mommy" phenomenon, in which life-size cutouts of deployed service members are given by the Maine National Guard to spouses, children, and relatives back home.
The Flat Daddies ride in cars, sit at the dinner table, visit the dentist, and even are brought to confession, according to their significant others on the home front.
``I prop him up in a chair, or sometimes put him on the couch and cover him up with a blanket," said Kay Judkins of Caribou, whose husband, Jim, is a minesweeper mechanic in Afghanistan. ``The cat will curl up on the blanket, and it looks kind of weird. I've tricked several people by that. They think he's home again."

So they think what? Human children are like baby birds? That they can't tell the difference? This seems shallow, stupid and little mean.

And what happens when the parent comes home? It could freak the kids out! It could break down their sense of reality!

Besides, it will make Wire Mommy very angry.

More Pluto

I keep getting email about Pluto and planets. Let me clear this up. As an example, lets compare 3 objects against the IAU criteria and see how they classify: The International Space Station, Earth and Pluto

1) does it orbit the Sun?

ISS: orbits NASA funding source
Earth: Orbits Sun
Pluto: Orbits Sun most of the time, stops by Neptune for chinese take-out every now and then

2) Does it clear it's neighborhood of debies?

ISS: Cans and newspapers in yard, rusted '76 firebird in driveway
Earth: Has large Moon, many satellites, Counter-Earth on opposite side of Sun but otherwise free of debris
Pluto: Neptune constantly sweeping up Pluto poop and storing in sanitary bag

3) Does it have sufficient mass to overcome rigid body forces and become sphereical?
ISS: Good god, lets hope not! There are people in there!
Earth: Round, firm, fully-packed
Pluto: Round but with limited parking

4) Would Galactus eat it?

ISS: No, ISS would get caught under front bridgework and under crowns
Earth: Packed with donut-stuffed americans and germans! Yum!
Pluto: Yes, but it's 30K above absolute zero and would stick to his tounge like a popscile from a cold freezer. Not so good.

Conclusion: ISS: Not a planet, Earth: Planet, Pluto: frozen taste treat for world-devouring cosmic force.

“…My kidney belongs to Christ. It will never be Pagan.”

Amazing.
“TUPELO — Aleta Smith, who donated her kidney to a 20-year-old college student last year, wants it back now that the student has changed religions.Smith, a self-described “on-fire Christian,” gave her kidney to Hannah Felks, a Lutheran and regular Christian camp counselor, last year after seeing Felks on the local news.“She was going to die unless she got a kidney,” Smith says, sitting on the porch at her home. “They portrayed her as this nice Christian girl who works with kids. I saw it as a great opportunity to help a sister in the Lord.”The surgery grabbed headlines and Smith was lauded for her selflessness. But shortly after the surgery, Felks embarked on a “spiritual journey” to try out other religions, and settled on a blend of Pagan and Hindu beliefs.“I wanted to get away from the belief system I was raised in and find the truth for myself,” she says. She took a semester off to travel the world visiting spiritualists on three continents.Smith was aghast when she heard of the conversion, and she quickly wrote a letter asking Felks to re-convert to Christianity or return the organ, saying it was donated under false pretenses.“I feel helpless,” she says. “Part of my body, my DNA, is stuck inside a person who’s going to hell.”Smith suffers nightmares of her former organ filtering “strange Asian teas, pig blood and witch doctor brews in Africa,” she says. She wonders if the Lord really wanted her to donate the kidney, or if she acted on a “triple-espresso high” she had that morning. She is also concerned that when her body is resurrected, it might be incomplete.Felks frets that Smith is an “Indian giver,” and says religious affiliation was never an issue.“The kidney’s working fine,” Felks said by phone from Thailand. “I feel bad for Aleta. She did something wonderful for me, but that doesn’t mean she gets to control my life.”In the meantime, Smith has alerted several dozen prayer chains, and her women’s Bible study group is praying 12 hours a day for the re-conversion of Felks — and Smith’s former kidney.“I’m all for spiritual curiosity,” she says, “but you’ve got to settle these things beforehand…”

As with most Christian religions, it all about control. I also find it interesting that the person in question can happily and without dissonance believe her actions were either inspired "by God" or by a "triple espresso". In neither case does she believe her actions are her own.
(via)

OctoParrot

This is very, very amusing. I wish I were this good at PhotoShop, or at genetics.

Square Orbits

Why do some galaxies have barred centers?

Because the stars at the center are in an orbit which closely approximates a square. It a not-all-that-uncommon solution to the restricted three body problem.

Edit: I started to do some drawing for how this works but, of course, the web knows all. Here is a treatment done much better than mine of some of the complicated shapes an orbit can assume in the 3-body problem. One bar producing solution is the Ice Cream Spoon orbit

Unfortunately, the orbits themselves aren't all that stable. What you see in a galatic bar is a statisitical sample of a large number of stars, most of which spend some of their time in a bar-like orbit, but none permanently so.

The best analogy in every day life for square orbits is the Tilt-A-Whirl. There is a central point point around which the arms orbit, and a second point further out around which the cars rotate.
If the central rotation were off, but the roation of the cars was on, you'd just spin in circles. Add it the central roation though, and you get a little circle, swinging around the end of a great big circle. The result is a pattern that, for large parts of the motion, is a nearly straight line followed by corners of high curvature (and high g-forces!). The pattern of this motion strongly resembles the orbits of galactic bar stars.


Which, all in all, is pretty cool. And, these kinds of orbits are not limited to squares. In general almost any polyhedreon can be simulated with the right set of masses and forces, although orbital stability in the general case is not assured.

Except Yours Of Course

From the viewpoint of the outsider, every religion looks pretty silly or awful:


A little heavy handed. I dont see this as persuasive so much as in the category of "feeling good about a decision you have already made, not adding anything new, and making fun of the people you disagree with"

This must be what it feels like for those people who read Instapundit. Except with more words.

(Heh! Watch the whole thing)

Pluto

I'd find it hard to care any less than I already do that Pluto got moved to "dwarf Planet" status. It's had the same impact on my life as say, finding out that owners of Walt Disney's Cryotube have switched from regular liquid nitrogen coolant to decaf.

What kind of Training? Army Training, Sir!

I have avoided posting this, in part because I thought I might be able to change things, and in part because I wanted to avoid dealing with it.

Geoff has finally managed to cajole his way into the Army. He is canceling his co-op work and starting ROTC next semester, joining for 2 more years after he graduates in June 2008. Short of poisoning him and causing him to have a massive asthma attack, there is little I can do to change this course of events.

I’m happy for him in that he’s found a way to do what he wants to do in a way which will make him happy. I am… somewhat less than thrilled that he’s risking his life in a war started for the sole purpose of expanding presidential authority, but it’s his choice.

My advice to him was this, “Negotiate your position up front. Tell them you’ll join but you want to come in as a Major. Now, in the back of your head, be prepared to take Captain or something. Do they still have Sergeant Major?”

“Dad…They..”

“I’m just saying! It much harder to negotiate after you’ve signed a contract. Do the work up front. You wont regret it it”

“No Dad. I will be a second Lieutenant. That’s how it works”

“Screw that! That how it works for other folks. Negotiate now!”

“No. It’s non-negotiable”

“Really?”

“Yes”

“Oh. Then we’ll go with plan B. I’ll get the paper work started”

“No! What’s plan B? What paper work? No! No!”

“You can’t say ‘No’ before you hear the plan!”

“I can with your plans Dad”

“I’m not sacrificing my only son to presidential power-grabs…”

“Fine! Fine! Not again with this! What’s your plan?”
“It’s simple! We’re going to change your name!”

“No!”

“ You’ll like it, it’s very clever!”

“No!”

“Very clever…!!”

”Change it to what?”

“Colonel Powers”

“I told you I can’t be a Colonel! I’ll be a lieutenant.”

“Yes!, but yout first name will be Colonel! They will call you Lieutenant Colonel Powers! Then later, Major Colonel Powers, then Colonel Colonel…”

“Dad! No!”

"Why not? That one guy chnages his name to Optimus Prime for Christ's sake!"

"... you have a valid point but ..."

“Oh! Wait! Forget that! I have a better idea! We’ll change it to General Relativity! That works even better!”

We debated this pros and cons’ of this a while longer. The name change will not be occurring immediately, but I am still hopeful.

It Brings All the Boys to the Yard

And they're like, it's better than yours.



Damn right! It's better than yours!

Rolling My Own

My current computer is almost 4 years old (which nearly 106 in human years!). Moore’s Law seems to have broken down, so there hasn’t been the usual pressure to buy a new machine. My current server is a 3GHz Powerspec box with a lot of trimmings, 1GB mem, 600GB storage, Nvidia 7300 graphics card etc. Not bad at all by current standards, but not the powerhouse it was in 2003. Given the processor speeds are “supposed” to double every 18 months, I expected to be at 10-12 Ghz now. Instead processor speeds are still hovering between 3-5Ghz for single core systems. There are many reasons for this, but from a physics point of view, I suspect the pseudo-optic limit has finally reared it’s head and quashed further progress . The limit occurs when the frequency of electronic signals (usually in the 10s of GHz) implies a wavelength which starts to be of scale with electronics themselves, i.e. the point where things are fast enough that you need to switch from wires to wavesguides.

Intel came out with their new Duo technology which effectively skirts the issue by adding a multiple processors linked together through a high speed bus. This has a number of architectural advantages for multiapplication systems, although 2 3Ghz chips put together is not the same performance as a single 6Ghz chip. There are volumes of reasons for this, but the new technology is pretty good.

In my usual way, I designed up a state of the art system with new process, lots of memory plenty of disk space, a top-of-the-line graphics card etc.
Net cost for the system (via Dell, Gateway and HP) ~$5000

My reaction: “hmm… that’s kind of higher than I wanted to pay”
Geoff’s reaction, “No way! You’re out of your fucking mind! I *need* that money!”

So I challenged Geoff to come up with a spec that met all my criteria for less.
And… he did!
The catch: I have to assemble it myself. From scratch.
Now I haven’t actually done this since …. 1998. A while.
Can I? Probably? Should I? Definitely!
Cost of Geoff’s spec (with 2 day shipping) ~$2500

So, I am going to build a PC sometime in the next few weeks.
Spec below: I’m looking for comments or (god forbid) mistakes of commission/omission

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128017

Processor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115002

Processor Cooling:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835186134

Memory:
2x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146118

Power:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817163109

Harddrives:
3x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144423

Case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811133138

Video Card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143066

Sound Card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102190

DVD:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827152058

How Big is the Earth?

Delightful illustration from a co-worker:

The Armor of God

This is eventually going to cost you or your children (or more likely Blue Cross/Blue Shield) quite a bit at $100/hour as they explain to the therapist, "yeah, my parents dressed me up in felt armor every night to make me feel better. Why do you ask Doc? Do you think that has anything to do with me being a Furry?"

World's Rarest Pez Dispenser

Up to $25,200.00

Isn't the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville TN the home of the famous Wigsphere?

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Lemma 2) Every action will have some effect you were not expecting.

Warning: political post

The Lieberman debacle, which in my mind was a pretty transparent attempt by Lieberman to put himself ahead of his party and keep his perqs, seems to have had an unintended consequence: Other candidate are beginning to say, "to hell with a party affiliation, I don't need one to run"

Today's example come from Mr. Tom DeLay's Houston district.

At least three GOPers have thrown their hats in the ring, and the local Republican leadership is scheduled to meet Thursday to make the call. One, perceived frontrunner David Wallace -- also mayor of DeLay's (former?) hometown of Sugar Land -- says he's running no matter what party says.

This is, in my mind, an untrammeled Good Thing. The two parties have tried everything imaginable short of a constitutional amendment to entrench themselves as the only way to power. And they have had tremendous success. This has led to more than a century of kleptocratic bad government. I'd really like to see more candidates eschew party and run as independents. Who know? It might lead to better policy and a saner nation.

Naaahhhhh.....

Your Superpowers and You!

Meet Jimmy

The David Stone

Here's an interesting idea for keeping the Earth as an "Asteroid Impact-Free Zone" , keep a sizable stone in orbit and then swing it around to hit an incoming object.

Such an asteroid could then be moved as needed to absorb the impact of any collision that would otherwise hit the Earth. The work of Didier Massonnet and Benoît Meyssignac (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, France), the paper argues that an asteroid between 20 and 40 meters in diameter, which the two nickname ‘David’s stone,’ could destroy a much larger incoming object under proper targeting conditions. The problem becomes finding the right asteroid.

...

Another benefit is that with the installation of proper equipment, a nearby asteroid could be exploited to produce propellants for manned exploratory missions. Producing fuel like liquid oxygen in such a location would dramatically alter the lifting requirements for long-range flights and could be practical even factoring in travel requirements to retrieve the fuel.

Very cool. I leave it to the communists and libertarians to tell us how to set up utopian governments on such objects.

Second to Last

Yes, the United States is second to last in public acceptance of the theory of evolution. OTOH the graph doesn't show african nations, so I am sure we are not seond to last in the whole wide world. PZ Myers has the full story.

The total effect of fundamentalist religious beliefs on attitude toward evolution (using a standardized metric) was nearly twice as much in the United States as in the nine European countries (path coefficients of -0.42 and -0.24, respectively), which indicates that individuals who hold a strong belief in a personal God and who pray frequently were significantly less likely to view evolution as probably or definitely true than adults with less conservative religious views.

...
Second, the evolution issue has been politicized and incorporated into the current partisan division in the United States in a manner never seen in Europe or Japan. In the second half of the 20th century, the conservative wing of the Republican Party has adopted creationism as a part of a platform designed to consolidate their support in southern and Midwestern states—the "red" states. In the 1990s, the state Republican platforms in seven states included explicit demands for the teaching of "creation science". There is no major political party in Europe or Japan that uses opposition to evolution as a part of its political platform.

Are Americans really this dumb? Do they really just beleive whatever they are told at church?? I have had more confidence in my fellow americans until now, but this kind of data is pretty depresing.

Son, Can You Honestly Deny This?

Son,

I imagine you read the headline and said some form of "Good God! What's he done now!". In fact, I'd be willing to bet good money that you didn't want to read this post at all, much less this far into it. Congratulations on your courage and fortitude. I know it could not have been easy. It would have been simpler to ignore this whole post and get on with your life...

Well, simpler perhaps, but not easier. You would have been curious as to what I had done. Dreading perhaps the humiliation that could spring upon you unawares as you became a reluctant internet celebrity, or worse, having to explain to the Mormons on a bright Tuesday morning that while yes they are very nice, no you are not interested in finding out more about the Lord (as promised to them in that nice latter your father sent), and yes, he really does have some kind of brain problem about to be solved by you, your friend Remington Model 600 Magnum and the second amendment. Or perhaps it was simple curiosity to see just what the old man thinks normal adult behavior looks like these days. Certainly that discussion he had with the judge was illuminating if not, ultimately, productive.

Well, enough about that, you know how I go on. Now to the heart, as they say, of the matter.

Son, can you, in all honesty say to me that you've never done this???

Can you?

I thought not.

Ignore Me!

My New Motto

Thanks PZ

Blogging the Bible

When I was a Freshman in college, I decided to read the Bible for myself. As a newly minted atheist, I was partly convinced that it was actually quite tolerable and it was the priesthood that screwed everything up by trying to monopolize power. In other words, I was willing to give agnosticism another go if there was some hint that god might really, objectively exist and it was religion's fault the worked was so messed.

The experiment ended a few months later with me firmly and irrevocably in the atheist camp, Having read the Bible, it seem completely unarguable that it was written by humans trying to justify their rule over other humans by playing on their fears and prejudices. Yeah, Jesus had some good ideas waaaaay ahead of his time, but he was really the first Homo Sapiens among the Cro-Magnon.

This is an interesting passage in Slate’s Blogging the Bible series that illustrates the point perfectly.

This may be the first recorded example of what has become the fundamental conflict in all religions: religious elite vs. the people. (See, for example, the pope vs. Martin Luther.) Korah asks an essential question: Why should the few priests and prophets monopolize God? What's so great about them that they control access to the divine? In the 3,500 years since, many religions have come down on Korah's side of this question, deciding that God belongs to the masses, not an anointed elite. But the Bible doesn't. It rules emphatically—smitingly—for Moses and Aaron, for the few rather than the many.

Moses challenges the rebels to a divine duel. Korah and his 250 followers are to show up (at dawn, of course) with their firepans. Then, Moses says, the Lord will choose who is holy. The next morning, they all gather outside the Tabernacle—not just the 250 rebels, but also the entire Israelite community, which now supports them. This is a very bad mistake on the Israelites' part. Again, the Chosen People face the prospect of being seriously Un-Chosen. The Lord cautions Moses and Aaron, "Stand back from the community that I may annihilate them in an instant." But Moses once more steps in to save them, rebuking God exactly as Abraham did about Sodom: "When one man sins, will You be wrathful to the whole community?" God agrees not to kill everyone but orders the Israelites to stand back from the tents of Korah and two other rebel leaders.

No question about it. Humans writing for other humans. Nothing divinely inspired here. It reminds me of a version of the crypto adage, “Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by simple stupidity”, in this case, “Never ascribe to the Divine what can be explained by the Corrupt”

The Cult of Skaro

Perfect.

If you don't get it, dont worry. It just means you're normal.

Pushing the Reset Button

This is a very cool animation of what would happen if the Earth were struck by a large asteroid. If anything, I think it underestimates the damage, although just about the time I thought, "hey! there won't be any liquid water left!", the seas dried up. I'm also not sure the post-collision shape of the planet is correct. The relaxation time for the collision should be a few thousand years I think.

Anyway, enjoy!

Bleaaaauuurrrrrrgh!

Here's what you should do:
1) Click the link below
2) Look at the picture
3) Study the picture to figure out why it's so familiar and notice the lacy bra on the statue
4) Realize who this is and what it means (perferably while reading the text)
5) Bleaaaauuurrrrrrgh!

6) Laugh

Ready?
Go!




You're still here. You dont trust me, do you?
Wise.

Also, if you get the Dr. Manhatten reference without clicking the link to wiki, take 2 points from my "hold them in higher esteem" jar.

Lesbian Ann Coulter

and this time I dont' mean my son's roommate*. Remember folks, you heard it here first almost 2 years ago!

Tammy Bruce — conservative writer, former president of NOW in Los Angeles, former KFI-AM radio talk show host — is said to be a lover of Ann Coulter. Bruce has always disclosed on her radio show that she is a full-on lesbian. It’s said that Coulter and Bruce were seen at a women’s bar on “little Santa Monica Blvd” called Palms just west of La Cienega in West Hollywood. For her to trash Bill Clinton about him being gay seems strange, unless you recall Newt Gingrich pushing “family values” when he has had three wives and was dating his third wife while married to his first wife.

I guess the fact that I'm quoting Wonkette isn't really a plus here, is it?

*as part of a long standing joke, I refer to my son's straight, male roommate as "Lesbian Ann Coulter". The roommate is, as far as I know, completely unaware of this name and really has nothing to do with the joke. Further proof that's it's harder than it looks to be my child.

Artifical Life: Breve

This simulator is very cool. I got a walker up and running on my 2proc, 2.8Ghz, Win2K3 machine in about 10 minutes. I'm waiting for it to start running.

A Joke

From a six-year-old named Clint, passed to me by his Uncle Bill

(FTR, I have not edited this in anyway)

The Joke:What did one seagull say to the other seagull???
The Answer: In the comments

City of Heroes Scrapbook

My current time-wasting hobby, City of Heroes, allows me to take instant, in-game photos. I've been doing it for a few months now and finally got around to making a scrapbook.

It's unsorted, except by date. I may go in at some point and add text to a number of photos. My main 'toon, BluShield, hit the top of the game on 3/4/06. Captain Physics hit 50 on 7/5/06.

My Extremely Generous Contributions at Work

As you know if you read this blog, I give a lot of money to the ACLU. There are two benefits to this; 1) the protect my freedom and 2) it annoys the boy to know the money that would otherwise go to X-box stuff is going to a "liberal" group.

You also know, if you read this, I'm no fan of Fred Phelps.

And now, my hard earned sheckles are going to defend him. Ugh.

ACLU Backs Funeral Picketers:
The ACLU has filed suit on behalf of a religious group that pickets military funerals with anti-gay messages. The suit challenges the state of Missouri's law barring picketing near military funerals. An equivalent federal measure was signed into law earlier this year.

I dont agree, but I really am fighting (at least by proxy) for his right to be a jerk.

Going to Pucking Fluto!

errr... sorry. I just got a little overwrought.

While deep in the internal politics of Microsoft and the external politics of Paragon City, I completely missed the fact that we've launched a probe to Pluto.

Pluto!

You can track its progress here.

Holy Sharking Fit!

The Art of the Insult

New Street Taunts


F R O M T H E A R C H I V E S
MY NEW STREETTAUNTS, VOL. I:THE THINGS WHICH IWILL DO TO YOU,IF YOU CROSS ME.
BY AMIE BARRODALE
- - - -
I will sedate you with a drug used for sedation, then I will remove your eyes, and insert two small sparrows into the house that is your skull. Then I will replace your eyeballs, careful to see that each eye is returned into its proper respective hole. You will awake thinking nothing has happened. You will feel right as rain.

Speaking of rain, friend, spring approaches, and the songbird sets about her singing, to attract mates. The male bird finds the female bird, and then the two birds make love, many times. The female lays her eggs and sits on them, to keep them warm. When the chicks hatch, it will get weird for you.

The Thinglonger

I'm not saying I beleive this, it seems a little hokey, and I haven't read the actual paper this is based on.
However, I did notice a few years ago that my index and ring fingers are almost exactly the same length (my index finger is just a hair longer than my ring finger), and that this is unusual.

Now, there may be an explaination.
I will also point out that both of my siblings are a little dyslexic. Actually, my brother quite a bit more than my sister.

The study drew on work in the last few years which established that the levels of estrogen and testosterone a person has can be seen in the relative length of their index (second) and ring (fourth) fingers. The ratio of the lengths is set before birth and remains the same throughout life.
The length of fingers is genetically linked to the sex hormones, and a person with an index finger shorter than the ring finger will have had more testosterone while in the womb, and a person with an index finger longer than the ring finger will have had more estrogen. The difference in the lengths can be small – as little as two or three per cent – but important.

A survey of the finger lengths of over 100 male and female academics at the University by senior Psychology lecturer Dr Mark Brosnan has found that those men teaching hard science like mathematics and physics tend to have index fingers as long as their ring fingers, a marker for unusually high estrogen levels for males.
...
(via)

Billys Ballon

Interesting, funny and ...well... a little disturbing. Try not to think about this the next time you go to the circus...

Origami

Not many people would think to make a statue of Cthulhu out of a sheet of paper, and yet .... there it is!

The FSM makes an appearence as well.

Department of Buried Puns

On new, ultra-modern chemical weapons to be used against the "enemy".

Most bizarre among the plans was one for the development of an "aphrodisiac" chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. Provoking widespread homosexual behaviour among troops would cause a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale, the proposal says.

blow to morale... hahaha

So my take is... what? we have to wait for a *war* for this????? Get this on the market *NOW*! I can make a fortune at the White Party!

Or the SuperBowl!

Battlefield 2: (Very) Special Forces

This, btw, was my Father's Day present this year. I had no idea the uses it could find, video game, time waster, congressional evidence of terrorist activity...

Was an elite congressional intelligence committee shown video footage from an off-the-shelf retail game and told by the Pentagon and a highly-paid defense contractor that it was a jihadist creation designed to recruit and indoctrinate terrorists?It's looking more and more like that is the case.

The bizarre story began to unfold last week when Reuters reported that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was shown video footage of combat action which was represented as a user-modified version (or "mod") of Electronic Art's best-selling Battlefield 2, a modern-day military simulation which features combat between U.S. forces and those of the fictitious Middle East Coalition (MEC) as well as the People's Republic of China.

Reuters quoted a Pentagon official, Dan Devlin, as saying, "What we have seen is that any video game that comes out... (al Qaeda will) modify it and change the game for their needs."

...

According to Reuters, the U.S. government is paying SAIC $7 million to monitor Islamist web sites, which is where they apparently discovered a copy of the footage. However, the video can also readily be accessed via links found in the user forums of the popular Planet Battlefield site, operated by IGN Entertainment of Brisbane, California.

Frogger

This from Andrew Sullivan. Watch the right-hand side of the video.

The End of Dark Matter

To be blunt, I've always thought dark matter was a kludge. As it has grown from a weird theory in the 80s to a part of the Standard Model, I have watched with dismay. Why?
1) There is no evidence
2) The theory is ad-hoc
3) The theory has no real mathematical or physical basis (hence the constant spate of press releases about how the newest model in particle physics is dark matter
4) It is... inelegant

I have been a proponent of an alternate theory, that space is discrete not continuous and leads to a non-uniform Newtonian gravity field for mass, i.e. gravity gets weaker at long (and oddly very short) distances. This has it's own flaws of course
1) There is little evidence, and what there is is open to other explanations
2) It seems, again, ad hoc
3) it doesn't have a mathematical formalism

Until now...

This seems to be excellent progress toward turning this into actual science.

We have made the theory complete, connected the loose pieces of theory by one nice formula, and we think this formula has deep physics behind it. This theory is now fully specified so we can check it now."
This is the crucial part of any scientific theory: if it is capable of being tested and therefore falsified, it can be taken seriously. If scientists fail to knock it down, the theory gains credibility.
The new formula will be debated at a meeting at Edinburgh's Royal Observatory in April, when Dr Zhao and Dr Famaey, of the Free University of Brussels, will demonstrate their new formula on dark matter and gravity to an audience of experts from ten countries. They can expect a stormy ride.
"When people say 96 per cent of the universe is dark, that's an assumption," Dr Zhao said. "We don't need to introduce huge amounts of dark matter to explain the astronomical phenomena.

German Snark

This is pretty funny, and it explains a lot!

"Must Have More"

Turn your speakers on

Digital bubble wrap.

use Maniac Mode, it saves time!

(via)

As They Sow, So Shall They Reap

When you make it a point to try and remove and facility for incrudulity from your followers, it isn't surprising that they think everything is true.

To be honest, I'm not sure this isn't some kind of meta-parody.

I mean, *everyone* knows the Onion is a joke. Right???

here

Best comment in the comment section so far:

I'm pro life, but sweet Jesus you're an idiot. For your next post, how about a passionate speech on the need to immediately free Prince Albert from the can?

The Four Most Dangerous Words in the English Language

Good advice on investing from the Cassandra class:

"The best investing advice is simple, timeless, paradoxical -- and often ignored. Yes, ignored, because so many investors cannot make decisions. Lacking self-confidence, they rely on the random flow of breaking news. That overwhelming rush of new information, all of it short-term, drowns out the investment advice to which we should be adhering. Those timeless principles demand that we ignore breaking news and take personal responsibility, a very scary idea for investors who have lost their self-confidence.
This message has been summarized by the Chinese master Lao Tzu: "Those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know." He offered this investment advice three thousand years ago in the Tao Te Ching. Test it on any guru: Gross, Siegel, Bogle, Cramer, Bernanke, Paulson, and yes, even me. Of course, if investors took Lao Tzu's advice, Wall Street would be out of business. You'd be in command!"

Those words? This time it's different.

The Comics Curmudgeon

This is pretty good.

Business Cards

An interesting view of business cards:

6) Break the rules, particularly corporate ones (but don’t get fired). I had two cards that weren’t approved by the corporate branding department. They always got conversations started (one had a drawing done by Hugh Macleod — I made those specifically for speaking at Google’s Zeitgeist conference. The cards matched my slides I used at that talk. The business cards were so popular that people came and asked for them cause someone else showed them mine).
7) Be different. One of my favorite cards? Matt Mullenweg’s. It says simply “1. Go to google.com. 2. Type in “Matt.” 3. Press “I’m feeling lucky.” (It also has his phone number on it). Or, Kelly Goto’s card looks like a BART ticket (subway in San Francisco).

(via)

I have found this to be completely true. When I got to Microsoft, I had a number of "controversal" cards made up (until the facists in corporate stopped me). One said "Rocket Scientist" and another said "Evil Genius". All in good fun. Then, HR got a hold of me and gave me the following rules:

Allowed:
Name
Standard Microsoft Title as listed in the GAL (Global Address List)
Prefix Dr. or suffix Ph.D. (but not both)
Phone Number
Cell Phone Number
Corporate FAX Number
Corporate Address as listed in the GAL
I am allowed to have cards made in Braille

Not Allowed:
Anything with the words CEO, CFO, Gates, Ballmer, Mad, Evil, Chief, Love, McLove, Mc Sassy, Pope, Sieg Heil, President, Nastiest, Horse, Savage, Bottom, Top, Go-Go-Gaget, Super, Super Science, Super Duper, Father, Reverend, King, Queen, Czar, Master, Commander or Most Brutal

Me, I still think this leaves a *lot* of room. Unfortunately, all my cards orders need to be co-signed by my HR representative.

Sigh....

Blogger Graphics

This is pretty cool, a real time connection mapper for your website.

Here

Here is my art site, TirionGFX

and here is this site

TirionGFX blog

Very cool and useful in webs site design

Rupert Murdoch's MySpace Page

heehee

Time Cube!

Back in graduate school, I was the department librarian. It was a mildly boring chore, but I also got to be the recipient of a lot of "self-published" papers folks felt needed to be seen by the scientific community. Most of these were harmless, a handful wacky and one or two... well... one or two your really had to think about for an hour or two to find the crackpottery. Or at least I did.

PZ Meyers, Science blogger extraordinaire, is getting some interesting mail in the crackpot range:
EVOLUTION IS ENTIRELY FALLACIOUS.
MEIOSIS CASTRATES EVOLUTION.KARYOTYPES DISPROVE EVOLUTION.THE BASIC MECHANISMS SAID TO BE DRIVING EVOLUTION ARE ENTIRELY INADEQUATE,UTTERLY INCAPABLE OF PRODUCING NOVEL KARYOTYPES,NOVEL FEATURES,NOVEL FUNCTIONS.
1)EVOLUTION'S PHYLOGENIES ARE TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH KARYOTYPES;
2)THERE IS NO MECHANISM TO GENERATE NOVEL KARYOTYPES THAT ARE FERTILE(meiosis,homology,synapsis,centromeres etc.);MEIOSIS CASTRATES EVOLUTION BY FAILING TO PROCEED IF ANY CHROMOSOMES FAIL TO PAIR UP WITH HOMOLOGOUS PARTNERS.SEXUALLY REPRODUCIBLE KARYOTYPES THEREBY FIXED!EVOLUTIONARY PROGRESSION OF CHROMOSOME NUMBERS IS TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE MECHANISMS OF MEIOSIS.
ORIGIN OF KARYOTYPES WILL NEVER BE EXPLAINED BY EVOLUTION.
3)KARYOTYPES CANNOT TOLERATE ADDITION OR REMOVAL OF NOVEL OR NATIVE CHROMOSOMES;KARYOTYPES ARE TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH EVOLUTION.
4)FULLY INTEGRATED,EXQUISITELY ORCHESTRATED,INTRICATELY INTERLINKED FUNCTIONS OF CHROMOSOMES REQUIRE INHERITANCE OF COMPLETE AND ORIGINAL KARYOTYPES-TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH EVOLUTION;
5)SHEER SIZES OF CHROMOSOMES DEFY EVOLUTIONARY CONJECTURE
6)EVOLUTION CANNOT PRODUCE NOVEL FEATURES OR FUNCTIONS(too many separate but simultaneous and synergistic mutations would be required-see below)
meiosis renders evolution infertile
meiosis will not reproduce unmatched chromosomes etc.etc.etc.

If follows the standard format for eyecharts, big text getting smaller and smaller as it goes down (with some interesting color variations I've never seen before). You know, just like the papers in PhysRevD. Full text here


One of the readers points out the similarity to a famous piece of internet foolishness:


Judging by his formatting and typographical preferences, I'm surprised he didn't claim that evolution is also impossible because of Time Cube.
Posted by: Sean Foley July 4, 2006 02:57 PM

Okay, so here's what I am thinking: I should start a blog catalog of these type of obscuria nonsensica. Categorized them not by subject matter, but by insanity style:

Category 1: logical conclusion reached by ignoring incontinent facts

Category 2: illogical conclusion reached by false assumptions

Category 3: logical conclusion reached with a pure state of self consistent but wrong assumptions
Category 3a: Must propose new physics/laws of nature/mathematics
Category 3b: 3a + must also be rejected by journals/PhD committee

Category 4: illogical conclusion reached through dogma
Category 4a: Must have interesting fonts/capitalization
Category 4b: Cat 4a + Must contain supervillian-esque rant about the scientific community
Category4c: Cat 4b + Must contain "why won't you respond are you too afraid/stupid/closeminded/offyour meds" rant

Category 5: illogical conclusion reached by setting an epileptic chimp in front of a keyboard and posting the result as "proof"


So, on the Horvath scale, FoxNews weighs in at a mere Cat2 , PZs writer scores a full 4C, and the current administration's war policy comes in at ... well... I think that's kind of obvious.

TIME CUBE!

Two Words

The following is a chain of thought from this morning

Headline:Did They FindNoah's Ark?
Archaeologists Are 'Amazed'
Mark: There's no such thing as Noah's ark. Why would this be news? No sane archaeologist would claim such a stupid thing.
[clicks on article] (June 29) - Texas archaeologists ...
Mark: Oh! *Texas* archaelogists! That explains it.

A Week Late for Father's Day

Still, I know what I want for my birthday...

Brotron

Spiderman 3

The trailer is out, looks pretty good. For those of you who are comicy, it seems like they are doing the excellent Venom story.

For those of you who are not, the Venom story is about ... well...

Maybe you should just see the movie, it should be good. :)

Logorrhea

A kind of amusing take down of bloggers who take themselves way too seriously. In this case, InstaPundit

But what would we-dia actually look like? This is a question that can be easily answered by InstaPundit. Reynolds's blog consists largely of links to news or opinion articles and other blogs followed by comments consisting of such profound observations as "Heh," or "Read the whole thing," or "Indeed." (These are recurring tropes whose centrality can't be exaggerated.) What Reynolds lacks in analysis, he makes up for in abundance of content. On any given day, he'll provide his readers nearly 20 entries--or, if you can stomach it, more.

The blogosphere doesn't universally suffer from this extreme case of logorrhea or vacuity. (Nor are newspaper columnists immune from the latter syndrome.) It contains plenty of experts and thoughtful analysts who excel at precisely the analysis that is hardly the forte of newspaper reporters and eludes old-fashioned pundits. But Reynolds exposes how the blogosphere, at its worst, values timeliness over thought. After linking to an article on congressional earmarks, he'll add, "Well, that's encouraging. Sheesh." Quod erat demonstrandum. Or he'll carp, "Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, is just dumb"--a point that may be perfectly true but probably requires some explanation or proof beyond the simple assertion. In the end, this method provides the intellectual horsepower of, say, an Andy Rooney commentary. To wit, he wrote in December, "A battery recall on the XM portables. Is it just me, or are we seeing more battery recalls lately." Well, no need for The New York Times, then.

A Terrifying Message from Al Gore

"Yes, I play a streetwise pimp. With a hybrid pimpmobile"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BjrOi4vF24

(kudos to Geoff for this)

A Masterpiece of Sloppy Thinking

[This is my once every few week non-humorous posts]

From Pharyngula:

What else can I think, when reading Echidne of the Snakes, I run across this astonishing gem of self-loathing femininity.
If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt and politics, what would you do? Hoo-boy, this is where I get in trouble, and that starts with "T" and that rhymes with "P" and that stands for "pool." I'd like to jump in a pool right now. Some may tell me to jump in a river for this one: I would remove women's suffrage, and I might even consider making voting rights tied to property ownership.
Well, actually, she doesn't get in trouble: read the comments and everyone is quite supportive, and think that disenfranchising the majority of Americans is simply a wonderful idea. It would clear the roles of all those worthless welfare queens who always vote for Democrats, dontcha know. Women aren't supposed to vote or run for office or do anything other than serve their families.
And they're very, very happy about it all.

Happy indeed. Positively jubulent.
A sample:
I completely agree with both removing women’s suffrage and coupling voting rights with property ownership. I am always hesitant to admit my views on the suffrage movement, but I strongly feel that our nation made a grievous error when we allowed women many of the same “rights” as men. First off, I think that voting should be a family affair with the wife putting in her input, but the man ultimately deciding on which candidate he votes for. I think women are too emotional and often vote for the “bleeding heart liberal” cause because it feels right to them. When I tell folks my view on this they always ask if I vote. Yes, I do because my husband wants me to.

My solution is the same as the solution to the abortion question: if you don't think women should vote, and you are a woman, don't vote.

I'm a little shocked that almost a century after woman's sufferage anyone, anyone at all, can still think like this.

Quote of the Day

"There is nothing that has a greater hold on the minds of people than ignorance fraught with technicalities."

Trying to find who said this, but it's great.
From here

Up Your Funk and Wagnalls

A new word dawns:

: What is “blogofascism”?
A: Blogofascism is a violent online political philosophy and movement. It is characterized by:
A cult of personality built around dangerously charismatic 2002 US Spelling Bee quaterfinalist and apple-cheek’ed nerd despot Markos “Kos” Moulitsas;
A reactionary rejection of all standards of human decency and/or invitations to subscribe to The New Republic;
Many other terrible qualities, TBD.
Q: Is blogofascism real?
A: Realer than anything you could possibly imagine.
Q: Is there any evidence for this?
A: The evidence is right there on your home computer. Open up Miscrosoft Word, and type “blogofascism”. Note that “blogofascism” - the most dangerous political movement in America, bar none - is not even in the Word dictionary! An oversight? Recall now that Bill Gates announced his intention to step down as head of Microsoft - the world’s most powerful computer company - just as blogofascism - the world’s most dangerous computer cult - has come into its own. Is Gates planning on turning Miscrosoft over to “Khairman Kos”, as part of a dastardly scheme to bundle “Halloween III”-style exploding novelty masks with every install of the long-anticipated “Longhorn” operating system? Connect the dots, people! We went through the looking glass a long time ago. We went through the looking glass, walked around the looking glass world for a while, and then went through a couple of looking glass looking glasses we found in there, and we’ve all been flipped inside out and upside down so many times we don’t know if we can believe anything anymore. What does it all mean? Fucked if we know, but if a chronically tardy bunny in a gold-button’ed waistcoat starts waving weird pills at you, for God’s sake, just say no!
Also, we are in the process of forging some really incriminating emails.

The Kind of Thing You'll Like if You Like That Kinda Thing

New episodes of Original Series Star Trek, made by fans with digital rendering.
(here)

I downloaded the first teaser and the first episode. It's not all that bad. Certainly watchable. I was quietly impressed.

One interesting thing (at least for me) is that all the scenes with the ship are rendered digitally with models that are publically available and fan made.

(Update: Fixed link)

The Venture Brothers

are back! Saw Episode 2x01 yesterday and it was pretty good.

Hooray!

(what's he talking about?)

Personality Tests I am Forced to Question

This one:

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

From Doctor Nick

9 Years to the Singularity

So says no less a publication than the Economist:

So what does the future hold? With only five data-points, it is hard to be sure exactly which mathematical curve is being followed. If it is what is known as a power law, then the 14-bladed razor should arrive in 2100. The spate of recent innovation, however, suggests it may be a hyperbola. In that case, blade hyperdrive will be reached in the next few years and those who choose not to sport beards might be advised to start exercising their shaving arms now.



Who knows? After the Rapture/Singualrity, I might finally get a perfect shave!

Touched by an Atheist

George Carlin is still funny.

I need to start volunteering down at the clinic.

Maybe I Should Tune Into Fox Once in Awhile

This is ... well many things. Terrible, unprofessional, unexpected from Fox and... hilarious!

Behold the power of a well shaken can of Whoop-Ass.

Backstory: For those of you who are unaware, the Rev. Phelps and his church became famous in the '90s for disrupting the funerals of AIDs victims with signs, loud speakers and protesters. Really, just-not-done kind of stuff. It made them famous, doubtless got them lots of backing from rich crazy folks and really showed how little compassion some Christians have.

However, the thrill is gone form that. There are, unfortunately, too many AIDs funerals now and, fortunately, most respectable media outlets refuse to give them air time. So they did what any brand-savy media organization does when the market moves, they followed it. Consequently, they rarely picked funerals of AIDs victims anymore.

Now they picket the funerals of Iraq war dead.

Yeah.

Theoretically, that's what Mrs. Phelps is there to discuss.

That Sounds About Right

I don't remember this, but it sounds exactly like what I would do. My mother responds to the sparkler incident:

Hi Mark: was reading your blog never knew about the sparkler incident but I do remember when you about 3 years old we were at grandma's and you decided to see if toilet paper would burn in a circle. so you locked the door and lit the toilet paper then you got scared and wouldn't unlock the door I climbed through the window and got you out you were so scared and looked so sad I didn't even punish you.

Actually, I very vaugely remember my mother climbing in the window of the bathroom to rescue me from something gone wrong. This could be the same incident or it could be after I moved from fire to water as a hobby...

Pinkerton Nails It (again)

This is an excellent guide, although I dont agree with all his choices.

The opening minute of Last Action Hero casts Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hamlet. Arnold Schwarzenegger. As Hamlet.

Okay, that's worth seeing, at least once.

Fractal Foolishness

This is *way* cool. Better even than the Hasselhoff Recursion

Winner: The Egg!

Finally! Closure!

"Therefore, the first living thing which we could say unequivocally was a member of the species would be this first egg," he added. "So, I would conclude that the egg came first."

The same conclusion was reached by his fellow "eggsperts" Professor David Papineau, of King's College London, and poultry farmer Charles Bourns.

Mr Papineau, an expert in the philosophy of science, agreed that the first chicken came from an egg and that proves there were chicken eggs before chickens.

The Central Conceit

Brian Dunbar at Liftport send me over a copy of a book they're working for review, and I, for my part, am going to blog my comments. Liftport is a private company working to build a Space Elevator as a cheap, high tech access to space.

So I got a copy, opened it and immediately looked for the section I care the most about: does the physics of this work? Every story I've ever read on this technology (and there is lots, all well documented in the book) has as it's central conceit, some kind of fudge about the strength of materials involved, i.e. diamond hyper- filament, electrosupported nanocarbon tubes, carbon re-enforced Unobtainium etc. Without some really solid physics backing the engineering, this falls into the bin of Things-I'd-Like-to-See-But-Can't-Happen, like a moonbase or a secular government.

But wait, your saying to yourself, wouldn't most people say, "they are a funded company. Surely smarter, better people than you, say actual, factual certified engineers, have worked this out already. Isn't this just your usual physicist-arrogance. If they have raised money, surely the market has validated the approach. What’s wrong with you that you don’t believe anything?"

Most people would say that, but then, most people didn't work for CertCo.

I raised $35M for CertCo in the last year of the company, and now I've been on the other side of funding decisions. While I don't know what Due Diligence was done for the Liftport folks(likely lots), my experiences have me questioning business plan central conceits. Most people *want* these things to work badly enough to … overlook some of the red flags. Maybe they are really yellow. Maybe some breakthrough will happen etc. Don’t know that this happened here (and given this is hardware not software I suspect the level of DD is an order of magnitude higher), but that’s my concern since I also want this to work. The chapter is very well written and comes with it’s own fairly skeptical caveats as well. Very well done.

So this weekend I find myself re-learning some of the stuff I failed to learn around materials science (I got a C+ at Penn State) and, not having access to Mathematica, I am looking things up in The Russians.

In other words, I'm having the best time I've had in months. Thank you very much Brian! I'm rooting for this to work out.

A History of This Kind of Thing

Promoted from the comments section of yesterday's post involving sticking birthday candles in the toaster:

Actually, I was using the toaster because I was 4 and had already been punished for playing with matches. The way I figured it though, the toaster was acceptable and a source of much needed fire for the candles on my bear's birthday cake.

Later, when this proved also to unacceptable to my parents, I figured the cigarette lighter in the car would also work. I out clevered myself there though and tried to light a sparkler in the front seat of my fathers 65 Thunderbird. I remember thinking it would be fun to light the sparkler, that the car lighter would work (having been chased off matches and the toaster), I remember pushing the lighter in, watching it heat, touching it when it popped out with the heating element a wonderful cherry-red, touching the sparkler to the element, waiting, waiting, waiting and being totally and completely surprised by the unexpected thing which happened next.
The sparkler lit.
I have no idea why this surprised me since it was the goal of the experiment, but I was so shocked when the front seat of the car being filled with white-hot thermite sparks I screamed and .... dropped the sparkler onto the floor of the car! It immediately went under the passengers seat, hissing and burning the whole time. I was about 4 or 5 and had seen enough tv to know what was going to happen next. The car was going to explode. I ran out of the car, locked the doors and shut them (thinking maybe that the explosion couldn’t get out of a locked car??? I don’t’ remember what I was thinking other than “aahaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!”) and ran behind a nearby tree with my fingers in my ears waiting for the car to explode and trying to figure out what I would tell my father. Fortunately the T-Bird was made of sterner stuff and failed to explode. Days went by while I worried they would figure out what I did (and while I waited for the car to explode ‘cause that sparkler didn’t go immediately and maybe there was a similar delayed reaction with the car). Eventually I got back into the car and found the sparkler melted into the (plastic-based) fabric under the front seat. I fished it out and threw it away and never, ever touched the cigarette lighter again.

Because that was the week my father, the welder, brought home his oxy-acetylene torch…

His Own Man

I rarely get inspried by other people's stories, but this one hit me just right. Worth a read.

The Cell Processor

Excellent article in Wiki on the next generation of computer processors. It uses an interesting, multi-node design quite unlike the current generation of RISC processors. It's better at single precision calculation than double (where it takes an order of magnitude hit in performace), so dont expect to see it on your desktop any time soon, but in the world of computational finance, this technology could make huge strides.

Update: In a conversation with a non-technical MSFT person on why this is Bad News for Microsoft.
Mark: "It's like this, Microsoft makes ovens. Ovens are general purpose heating units used for a wide variety of tasks and you dont really know in advance what you're going to ask the oven to do day-to-day. You could heat water, you could broil a roast, you could bake cookies, you could melt pennies on the burners when your Mom isn't home, just about anything."
Dennis: "Okay. Wait... you did what with pennies..."
Mark:"But, you don't make toast with your oven. You could, but you dont"
Dennis: "No, of course not"
Mark:"But you could!"
Dennis: "Yes, but..."
Mark"But you us a toaster!"
Dennis:"Of course"
Mark: "A toaster is a specific purpose machine for making toast and toast-related products. You can't make roasts or cookies or melt anything larger than birthday candles in them."
Dennis, "Why would you put birthday candles in a toaster?"
Mark:"It was an experiement. Thats not important right now. Microsoft makes ovens, but IBM in exploring the Cell design powered by one-off specific implimentations of Linux are making toasters. and microwave ovens."
Dennis:"becuase they are good at a specific function rather than a general one"
Mark:'Exactly."
Dennis: "Oh! I get it! Oh! Oh! This is not good."
Mark: "No, not for Microsoft in Financial Services, no"
Dennis: "Okay, I get it. "


Cell is a microprocessor architecture jointly developed by a Sony, Toshiba, and IBM alliance known as STI over a four year period beginning March 2001 on a design budget informally reported by IBM as being in the range of $400 million. Cell is a shorthand for Cell Broadband Engine Architecture, commonly abbreviated CBEA in full or Cell BE in part. Cell combines a general purpose POWER-architecture core of modest performance with streamlined coprocessing elements which greatly accelerate multimedia and vector processing applications, as well as many other forms of dedicated computation.
The major commercial application of Cell is in Sony's upcoming PlayStation 3 game console which is slated to launch in November 2006. It will also become available in a blade configuration from Mercury Computer Systems. Toshiba has announced plans to incorporate Cell in high definition television sets. Exotic features such as the XDR memory subsystem and coherent EIB interconnect appear to position Cell for future applications in the supercomputing space to exploit the Cell processor's prowess in floating point kernels.
The Cell architecture breaks ground in combining a light-weight general-purpose processor with multiple GPU-like coprocessors into a coordinated whole, a feat which involves a novel memory coherence architecture for which IBM received many patents. The resulting architecture emphasizes efficiency/watt and prioritizes bandwidth over latency, and peak computational throughput over simplicity of program code. For these reasons, Cell is widely regarded as a challenging environment for software development. IBM provides a comprehensive Linux-based Cell development platform to assist developers in confronting these challenges. Software adoption remains a key issue in whether Cell ultimately delivers on its performance potential.

Volcano

This is a cool shot from over at the Astronomy Picture of the Day of the Cleveland Volcano, taken from orbit by astronaut Jeff Williams on the International Space Station.

It's interesting how even the clouds and fog upwind are rolled back by the pyroclastic force.

The Number of the Beast

Today is, obviously, 06/06/06, the number of the Beast. And, not by coincidence, the Beast is publishing a new book today!


Though liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, it bears all the attributes of a religion itself. In Godless, Ann Coulter throws open the doors of the Church of Liberalism, showing us:
Its sacraments (abortion)
Its holy writ (Roe v. Wade)
Its martyrs (from Soviet spy Alger Hiss to cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal)
Its clergy (public school teachers)
Its churches (government schools, where prayer is prohibited but condoms are free)
Its doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the "absolute moral authority" of spokesmen from Cindy Sheehan to Max Cleland)
And its cosmology (in which mankind is an inconsequential accident)
Then, of course, there's the liberal creation myth: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
For liberals, evolution is the touchstone that separates the enlightened from the benighted. But Coulter neatly refutes the charade that liberals are rationalists guided by the ideals of free inquiry and the scientific method. She exposes the essential truth about Darwinian evolution that liberals refuse to confront: it is bogus science.

Mentos + Diet Coke

Now this is how you do science!

http://eepybird.com/dcm1.html

The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments:

What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints? It's amazing and completely insane.The first part of this video demonstrates a simple geyser, and the second part shows just how extreme it can get. Over one hundred jets of soda fly into the air in less than three minutes.It's a hysterical and spectacular mint-powered version of the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas, brought to you by the mad scientists at EepyBird.com.

Like I need Another Hobby...

This place is right around the corner and offers both a studio and classes at a reasonable price. I've always wanted to learn to do this (this and metal sculpture). Seems pretty cool...

Seattle Glassblowing Studio