All the discussion about intelligent design versus evolution misses one important point in my opinion. That is, if there were a designer, then IMHO, whoever it is, clearly isn’t very intelligent.
– Speed limit of 3X10^8
– Only one planet viable for life among trillions in the known universe.
– No switches for hearing, vision, smell etc…
– No modular body parts instead of being stuck with one design which is very difficult to interoperate.
– Strictly monotonic evolution.
– Murderous creatures like cats and humans who don’t appear to give a damn about the suffering of a large number of their fellow creatures.
– Design blue-prints not available for review.
– A mortal fear of death for creatures who are all going to die.
– Bad weather.
– Multiple (1000’s of) languages with the same semantics
And the list goes on….
So in the vein of the spaghetti monster argument, I’d like to suggest that we should teach SD in US schools. The pseudo-science of how the universe was created by a stupid designer, and how to do it better next time.
Some techie stuff
I found this stuff about the meaning of URIs interesting
this about identity of objects referred to by URIs – an article by Tim Berners Lee very interesting.
And this about the reference of uris (is it the page or is it the subject of the page)
I’ve always found the use of URI’s to refer to things which aren’t documents deeply disturbing. This seems to confirm my fears.
Also a new photo management tool by google is very cool (I know that google is the new microsoft, but I don’t care).
Chat bots
I’ve been doing a little survey and a bit of thinking about chat bots to see if anyone’s come up with anything startling.
100% pure x
I’ve noticed some products say things like “pure fruit” when they clearly are not. For example some jams say pure fruit but then they say sugar in the ingredients. What they seem to mean is that what fruit they have in them is pure fruit, which is really silly.
As another example, I recently came across this packet of crackers which says “100% wholewheat”
FAQ FAQ
Have you made some FAQ’s
Yes
Where are they?
Just below here:
Is this just a way of stopping people from asking the same questions over and over again – ad nauseam?
Not really – I don’t remind repeating things – every interaction is different. It’s more for the questions people seem to be most interested in so that they can get the answers even when I’m not around. But I suppose it might leave room for more questions, having answered the main ones…
Climate change
Following a number of rather alarming articles in the New Scientist. The UK isn’t figuring high on the list. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.
Here is a good selection of tasty climate-alarmist facts.
1. 20% of arctic ice has melted since 1978. This creates a feedback effect because water reflects less sunlight than ice.
2. The permafrost in the west-Sibrian peatlands, covering an area the size of France and Germany combined, are starting to melt. This is a tipping point climate-wise because it will release billions of tonnes of trapped methane into the atmosphere. Methane (CH4) is 20 times more effective a greenhouse gas than CO2.
3. The speed of the global ocean circulation system known as the conveyor belt was found to be faltering in 2005 as evidenced by a 30 percent reduction in the norhtward flow of warm water from the Gulf Stream over the past decade. It switches off completely quite often even without our help (e.g. once for 300 years about 8000 years ago) at this point the UK will become a big sheet of ice instead of a big carpark.
Living on a boat FAQ
Is it cold in the winter?
As long as the heating is on, no.
More to come…
C1 FAQ
What’s that funny thing that looks like a microphone?
That’s the stand. You just pull down the lever and it sits on its stand.
Sudoku why bother
A computer can solve all possible puzzles in no time at all so why waste your time? See a javascript algorithm at http://www.scanraid.com/sudoku.js
General FAQ
Who are you?
I’m not sure.
Where are you from?
I’m not sure – I just had this feeling I was here one day.
Where do you want to be in 5 years?
No idea. If you’d asked me that qn 5 years ago, I’d have got it completely and utterly wrong (if I’d attempted to answer it) so what’s the point in a question like that?
Are you crazy?
It is my firm belief that I am. With Douglas Adams, it’s a central part of my life philosophy that so called “normal” people, myself included, lead lives of subconscious paranoia and neurosis, without of course being aware of it. I think that becoming conscious of this is the first step to becoming sane.
Do you believe in consistency?
Usually yes but today no.
More to come…