gregladen | February 28, 2010Somebody is RIGHT on the Internet!!!!11!!
...I would like to start by apologising for our handling of this situation. We have not communicated well with our forum volunteers and users (for example in my insensitive 'Outrage' post, which was written in the heat of the moment). In the process we have caused unintended hurt and offence, and I am very sorry about that. In a classic case of a vicious circle, some of the responses to our announcement also caused considerable hurt and distress to us, and in the atmosphere of heightened emotion that followed, some of our subsequent actions went too…
gregladen | February 27, 2010I admit up front that I'm going all paternalistic on the Dawkins Forum people, and Imma gonna let you finish your imminent self destruction and all, but first I wanted to use this moment in time as an object lesson in communication.
A letter was recently posted somewhere by the RDF forum staff to Richard, and most of this letter was reposted in a comment on this thread by Peter.
When I read it, I laughed and cried and hacked up my coffee all over the keyboard, which is a problem because we are almost totally out of espresso here and that coffee was needed. So, I sent my family on a…
gregladen | February 26, 2010One of the reasons I blog is to put out stuff to see how others react to it. This is to ultimately modify and improve .... the stuff. I was rather amused a while back when we were discussing racist science, and I was accused of intentionally putting stuff out there to see what reactions it would get, with the long term idea of modifying and improving my stuff.
Apparently, this is called "Trolling one's own blog."
Well, I'm in good company.
It turns out that René Descartes trolled his own community of letters, which is what they did back in the 17th century instead of blogging. One of his…
gregladen | February 26, 2010According to The Internet, the Canadian females, many under drinking age by several days, partied on the ice after beating the American Team in Vancouver yesterday. They had champaign, beers, smoked cigars, and they got silly, attempting at one point to drive the Zamboni machine around on the ice!!!!
Outrage!!!!
gregladen | February 26, 2010... In other words, the next version of the Linux Kernel, versoin 2.6.33, is hereby released.
gregladen | February 25, 2010And not just because PZ Myers gets t00n'd.
... but because it doesn't really make anyone saying anything sound like they're singing. Sometimes it makes them sound like .... they are being Autotuned.
gregladen | February 24, 2010Imagine that you, as a greatly liked and respected person, found yourself overnight subjected to personal vilification on an unprecedented scale, from anonymous commenters on a website. Suppose you found yourself described as an "utter twat" a "suppurating rectum. A suppurating rat's rectum. A suppurating rat's rectum inside a dead skunk that's been shoved up a week-old dead rhino's twat." ...
The discussion continues ...
gregladen | February 24, 2010From the NCSE:
OAKLAND, CA February 23, 2010
They came from Texas. Big, brawny men, with big, brawny brains. They had a mission: To make evolution education safe for kids throughout the Republic of Texas.
These three men--David Hillis, Gerald Skoog and Ron Wetherington---stood tall for evolution!
In recognition of their decades of defending and promoting evolution, the National Center for Science Education has bestowed the 2010 "Friend of Darwin" award on three Texans who have fought the good fight for science. (To get a taste of what they've faced, go to http://ncse.com/news/texas.)
The…
gregladen | February 24, 2010A half century of struggle has resulted in more than a little change, which we hope is still ongoing.
I was moderately disturbed to see, while watching a brand new documentary on human evolution, credit for the "discovery" of a particular fossil given to a man who had not in fact discovered the fossil. What was interesting about this mis-attribution is that a DIFFERENT guy who is also not the discoverer usually gets the credit. So, my first thought was "What were these two arguing about that led to this outcome, where the more powerful person got the credit?" and my second thought was "…
gregladen | February 23, 2010Don't click on this or you will be distracted for the rest of the evening!
gregladen | February 23, 2010.... do NOT click on this link and play with this thing.
Hat Tip: Emma D.
gregladen | February 21, 2010Skaters performing in "Black Face" in 2010?
Here, I'm mainly responding to commentary I heard run prior to this appalling performance... you know, the back story on the athletes.
This is not hard. The word "aboriginal" means native. The Mohawk Indians are aboriginal to parts of New York State. The word "aborigine" is a noun that refers to a person who is aboriginal. The Mohawk Indians are the aborigines of a certain region of New York State. The word "Aborigine" means a native of Australia. An aboriginal person of Australia or Tasmania is an Aborigine. Things that have to do with…
gregladen | February 21, 2010Many people give credit to Ronald Reagan, when he climbed up on the Berlin Wall and personally kicked it down brick by brick while under fire from the East German Stasi.
Many people give credit to Team USA, the Hockey Team that beat the USSR team at the Lake Placid Olympics.
Still others credit various movies , books, or political revelations.
But I tend to agree with what my father always said about this.
In 1987, teenager Mathias Rust flew a tiny, unarmed rented Cessna from Helsinki to Moscow, landing very near to Red Square. The soviets never detected the aircraft. This demonstrated…
gregladen | February 21, 2010... well, not really, but they should!!!
Following two simple guidelines would help: 1) Don't ever change the function of installed software unless the user has requested it (don't even suggest it. Just sit there quietly until told othewise) and 2) Don't evern install new software. Ever. That is the user's job, not Google's or anyone else's.
I now know that Google's philosophy allows for the flagrant violation of these important guidelines, without impunity or regret. This makes Google Evil.
The relationship between software and function should not change on your computer unless you…
gregladen | February 20, 2010... especially for those I left behind.
"Oh... you're back. I see."
"Huh. Thought you might be staying in the hospital longer than that."
"Oh hai. I suppose you want your good chair back."
But seriously, this is where we find out what the true limitations of modern medicine are. Lying in the hospital bed, I wondered how I would manage taking a shower without getting the site of the surgery wet. They told me "Do not get the site of the surgery wet, or you will die!!!!" ... So I, over time, I asked a couple of nurses and doctors their opinion on how to do this. It was a little like asking…
gregladen | February 18, 2010Yes, I fell and busted my knee on the ice. I don't want to go on and on about it, but here are the more important details:
It made a loud noise. I might have preferred a minor contusion, hairline fracture of the ulna, a cracked rib, and a minorly damaged knee rather than all 200 plus knee-pounds of force bearing down on that one little poorly designed bone. The patella is severed into two parts: A part consisting of one part and a part consisting of a tablespoon of oatmeal.
There are already conspiracy theories developing. A student who didn't want to take the exam I was carrying at…