AronRa's Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism
For a thorough treatment of the assumptions, presumptions and myths underlying creationism, you can hardly do better than to take in the scruffy-but-erudite AronRa's series on the Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism.
His expositions on transitional fossils, scientific hoaxes popular with creationists and beneficial mutations are top notch. The series is informative even if you are otherwise "in the know" on this topic.
You will also marvel at the pace and how long a sentence he can speak on a single breath. I envy the ability to roll this off the tongue (from #10 in the series):
For example, “Primates” are collectively defined as any gill-less, organic RNA/DNA protein-based, metabolic, metazoic, nucleic, diploid, bilaterally-symmetrical, endothermic, digestive, tryploblast, opisthokont, deuterostome coelemate with a spinal chord and 12 cranial nerves connecting to a limbic system in an enlarged cerebral cortex with a reduced olfactory region inside a jawed-skull with specialized teeth including canines and premolars, forward-oriented fully-enclosed optical orbits, and a single temporal fenestra, -attached to a vertebrate hind-leg dominant tetrapoidal skeleton with a sacral pelvis, clavical, and wrist & ankle bones; and having lungs, tear ducts, body-wide hair follicles, lactal mammaries, opposable thumbs, and keratinized dermis with chitinous nails on all five digits on all four extremities, in addition to an embryonic development in amniotic fluid, leading to a placental birth and highly social lifestyle.
My only complaints: a little too much in the way of Willy Wonka interludes and #13 in the series is of a lower volume than the rest.
Apart from that, highly recommended.
Favourite quote:
Demanding an “ape-man” is actually just as silly as asking to see a mammal-man, or a half-human, half-vertebrate. How about a half dachshund, half dog? It’s the same thing. One may as well insist on seeing a town half way between Los Angeles and California. Because the problem with bridging the gap between humans and apes is that there is no gap because humans ARE apes –definitely and definitively...
...So where is the proof that humans descend from apes? How about the fact that we’re still apes right now!
You want your money? You're going to have to pay for it
A few months ago I decided to get a new credit card due to, well, greed really. Anyway, I kept the old one for emergencies such as when I left the new one at a Houston restaurant like Pappadeaux (most excellent crab cakes by the way) shortly before flying home.
A bit after I moved to the new card, I cancelled an online order due to the vendor being unable to deliver. Since I'd paid using the original credit card, that was the one it was credited back to. As I wasn't using the card, this credit has sat on it, unused, for months. Eventually I figured I'd just use the online banking to transfer the balance to the new card. Well, you can't do that; y'know, not allowed to use one credit card to pay off another. It makes sense when it's credit (i.e. money you owe being used to pay off other money you owe) but a bit less when it's money owed to you. Still, rules are rules so I transferred the balance back to a savings account.
Today I found the $2.50 cash advance fee on the credit card. Yup. Bringing my balance on that card to $0 counts as a cash advance, and that they charge for.
All I can say is that I am stunned the financial industry can lose billions because they clearly have billing their loyal customers down pat.
Interesting requirements for selling used CDs
Link: http://www.thelegality.com/archives/93
This is not a law you want to see coming north of the border:
In Florida, for example, anyone attempting to sell used CDs to a retailer must present identification and be fingerprinted, and any retailer looking to sell those same CDs must apply for a permit and submit a $10,000 bond with the Department of Agriculture and Human Services.
While the article states that online and personal sales aren't included in that rather interesting piece of legislation, it's a pretty good wedge when it comes to restricting resale of audio material.
Wired on telecommuting
Link: http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-10/st_essay
Wired has an interesting article on the advantages of telecommuting rather than centralized offices.
I partially agree: there are many excellent reasons to work from home. However, the article has clearly been written for a US audience and there are certain assumptions built into the article like 2500 square foot houses and $1200 commuting bills which simply aren't true up here in Calgary; well, not unless you work in a senior role for an oil company. On top of that, personal experience has been that I'm still more productive in the office than at home due to much easier access to those I work with: think outsourcing to India but just make the roundtrip a bit shorter. Beyond issues like that, you run into problems with non-centralized network infrastructure (e.g. reliance on residential internet connection and personal computers, servers still need a co-location facility with the additional difficulty of access and maintenance), a number of costs are pushed onto the worker (extra electricity consumption due higher heating during the day and usage of work machines, telephone bills that need to be reclaimed from the employer),and the somewhat significant fact that this concept still only works for white collar employees.
I do like working at home, but I prefer working at the office where I can leave my work concerns quite separate from my life when I go home in the evening. That lack of separation is something that's rarely raised in pro-telecommuting articles and it does significantly add stress levels to one's home life if it becomes the norm, rather than the periodic.
Yeah, that's slow
Recently I had a need to access a remote machine over the internet to pull down some files. Alas, that machine was an Windows box running under Parallels on a 1.83 GHz MacBook access via VNC from a gateway machine itself accessed via Remote Desktop.
If that sounds slow, just try using it.
Background updating tasks
Link: http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000001048,39419834,00.htm
ZDNet has a brief article on how a good idea can become an excessively annoying one. In this case, it's applications that run in the background in order to check to see that the version of software one has is the most recent one. On your average computer, it doesn't take long until boot time is doubled and memory is consumed by large numbers of applications that do nothing but increase the footprint. Disable them as you will, you just know they'll be back next time there's an update.
To me the answer seems simple but neither Apple nor Microsoft have done it: create a central registry program that does this. The program -- just the one -- checks through a list of programs and associated URLs looking for updated. When it finds one, the user is prompted, much as the Apple software update works right now. New installs can be added to the list and old ones removed. Make it a standard API and you're done.
So, industry standard operating system providers, why not?
The incompetent hand of the marketplace
Link: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2008/10/10/loonie.html
Truly I don't understand what drives financial markets and currency fluctuations:
Canada's dollar broke southward through 85 cents US in morning trading, slipping to 84.87 cents, down 2.41 cents from Thursday's close of 87.28.
[...]
Other currencies have been hammered as well as investors buy American dollars despite the weak economic indicators coming out of the United States.
Why would people seek refuge in the US dollar given that it's the US economy causing the financial instability in the first place? Shouldn't they be looking at the Euro instead?
It's not as if the Canadian economy is collapsing: employment is good, the banks are stable, there are no dramatic changes to the business world other than those directly caused by the financial shenannigans in the US in the first place.
Maybe IT security blowhards have a point
Recently at work we found that one of our workstations had been compromised and was acting as a spam server. The primary user of that machine swore blind that he hadn't done anything wrong like visiting iffy websites and installing dicey software. As no other machines in the office -- that we've located at least -- have had a similar problem I'm rather not inclined to believe him.
For a long time, I've held it as a fundamental requirement that users (at least in a development environment) should be able to administer their machines in order to be as productive and capable as possible. I'm now beginning to change my mind on that, at least in this specific case...
Cardboard duvet
Link: http://www.snurkbeddengoed.nl/
There's something strangely appealing about this duvet and pillow set silkscreened to look like cardboard boxes.
(Via BoingBoing)
"Hamlet" through the prism that is Facebook
Link: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2008/7/30schmelling.html
Another fine McSweeney's outing. Oh, here's the New Facebook graphical representation of the same.
(Via Ezra Klein)
Redecorating a basement with a Sharpie
Link: http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/532854.html
This has to be the ultimate in graffiti.
(Via ihb)
Escape from reality
Link: http://www.motivatedphotos.com/?id=431&d=1
World Of Warcraft:
Nothing eases the tension after a long day of putting up with other people's bullshit while running around completing repetitive tasks like logging on to Warcraft to put up with other people's bullshit while running around completing repetitive tasks!"
Yet somehow it does...
Somehow, it's still going...
Link: http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/amigaos41-ars.ars
Link is to a nice review on the latest iteration of the Amiga operating system. It sounds as if the developers have put a lot of work into making it current and useful but I doubt that I'll ever move back to it.
OSX's "Safety Net"
Link: http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/09/17/mac-virtualization-software-sales-skyrocket
For a lot of people, changing operating systems is a significant step. You lose all of your applications, most of your data and a large amount of proficiency (and time!) while you relearn the basics. It's mostly true even within generations of the same operating system (like Windows 3.1 to '95 to '98 to ME to XP to Vista.)
When I moved to the Mac, it was due to a few issues. First, I was frustrated with Microsoft's licensing for Windows. I run multiple machines and buying non-transferrable $200 OEM licenses for each one was getting quite pricey. Secondly, I'd had a chance to play with OSX on a 12" Titanium Powerbook and had liked both parts. Third, BootCamp. Fourth, my current desktop was futzing out and needed to be replaced, preferably with a decently specced and priced laptop.
The third item was really the clincher as far as the choice of laptop was concerned. I didn't want to abandon all the Windows apps I'd paid for and liked so the ability to continue to use them was a big selling point. While I did like OSX based on my brief use, that was with it not being my primary operating system and I wasn't certain the good feeling would last; I had liked BeOS when that was current but it never managed to displace the host Windows system. BootCamp was in essence going to become my default way of using the Mac with OSX being booted into as a diversion and as a way of learning how to support family members who used Macintoshes already. The important thing to note was that OSX was going to be the backup OS on the laptop, not the primary. I wasn't worried about trying OSX on for size as the Windows support acted as my safety net for when it didn't work out.
It didn't really turn out that way. I liked OSX and soon after I bought the computer, the massive discounted software bundles like MacUpdate, MacZOT and MacHeist began, leading me to develop a decent collection of useful applications native to OSX. Those, plus the excellent integration of the native Apple software and the presence of cross-platform programs like SplashWallet and the Palm Desktop, meant I stuck to OSX and really didn't use Windows much any more at home.
If Apple hadn't released BootCamp, I probably wouldn't have migrated; the comfort level just wouldn't have been there. This brings me back to the Ars Technica report linked above:
That's an interesting thought, but perhaps it's not so much wanting to experiment with Windows as an insurance policy for Mac OS X—Windows as a last resort, if you will.
I think they have it exactly right. The Windows support is perceived as essential, even if it's never used. Apple got that with BootCamp. Hosted virtual machines like Parallels and Fusion simply make it an even easier sell.
60's oilfield technology
Link: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/09/16/bow-turns-flame-thrower-for-oilmen/
In the 1960's, the cutting edge of technology in Alberta's gas and oil sector included bows and flaming arrows. Seriously.
(Via BoingBoing)
