Goodness, look at the days.

[silveradept]

One class in the books. Two more to go.

According to Tom Tomorrow, the President's not too interested in the Iraq War, but he is interested in the torture techniques. To an unhealthy degree, one might think. He’s also not entirely off of suspicion that he might compound the Iraq error and still attack Iran. We’re hoping that the failures going on in Afghanistan and Iraq will beat it into his head that he needs to fix the problems he already has, rather than causing more. But with people like John McCain suggesting invading Iran is a good idea, Bush may choose to be selective about whom he listens to. During all this, though, Iran pledges $250 million to help Palestine. For things like giving Hamas funds to governm effectively since their election, and to pay the salaries of government workers. The really pessimistic thing, though, is that the Washington Post says we'll be back in the MIddle East, even if we do leave soon. Perhaps it’s the growing fear of everyone that the Apocalypse is going to happen soon that brings about these changes. Or perhaps some desire to speed the process of Apocalypse along. While England is not necessarily following in our paths of zealots in power, they are upping their defence spending for what appear to be offensive purposes, a Guardian writer reports. One batshit-insane nation that spends too much on trying to police the world is enough, thank you.

In other governmental stupidity, Senator Inhofe releases a Sketpic's Guide To Debunking Global Warming Alarmism. Because it’s still a defensible position, apparently, and worthy of government spending, to say that global warming is natural and that the media is engaging in scare tactics, (Edit for addition, due to debate in comments. Very engaging - go read.) and then using that to justify doing nothing at all about the possibility of global warming having ill effects. (End edit.) Stepping up in insanity from there, all in the name of protecting children from child porn, McCain wants stiff penalties for people hosting obscene images and to have anything posted by a registered sex offender mandatorily deleted. So a registered sex offender probably couldn’t put out a resume on Monster. Plus, much like the registered sex offender databases already in existence, a convicted offender would have to provide their names, e-mail addresses, and the like so that any web page they put up can be summarily deleted, and hosters of pages or services subjected to fines if they don’t immediately comply. It’s a pretty loose definition of what constitutes “illegal images”. And it extends out to everybody. This, coupled with data-retention legislation to be introduced, will make it very difficult for anyone to do anything on the Internet without someone retaining a copy that will likely have to be turned over to the government on a whim. But it’s all in the name of protecting our children, so it must be good! Yeesh. Please stop using children as an excuse to push your own agendas, okay? That goes for everybody. “Zomg! Think of the children!” is not a valid reason 99 times out of 100.

A DVD-size medium, coupled with a new optical technique, could store 1 TB of data. Single-disc backups of your hard drive. Or of several of your hard drives. Wouldn’t that be neat? (Also, significant archives available on one disc.) The possibilities for data transference and archiving are really neat.

More holiday material - A Seattle airport removes all its Christmas trees because a rabbi objected to a lack of Jewish symbols. Equal treatment of all religions and all that. The airport probably made the right decision. Now, if we could just get all the radio stations that play nothing but Christmas music, some as early as October to shut up or at least delay their binges on the music until much later, that would be fantastic.

Here in the U.S., the priests are being accused of paedophilia. Across the pond, however, it's drunkenness that might cost a bishop his job. This is probably why the sacramental wine is weak and watered down, and probably has a bad taste, too. The Telegraph offers its opinion on the matter.

Bats may navigate according to the magnetic field of the planet, according to the BBC. An internal lodestone for the bat population to complement the echolocation ability. Navigating by compass and a sort of radar. So maybe we’re borrowing from the animals in more ways than one when it comes to flying.

I can't help but think they're missing the point here. This particular post claims that The Nation believes Hilter was framed, when to my eyes, The Nation is only saying that the Bush Administration profited from 9/11 in the same way that Hitler profited from the Reichstag fire, regardless of whose fault it may be. They might be able to claim “We didn’t start the fire”, but they still used it to push through all their ridiculous, repressive, freedom-destroying legislation and rules. Of course, since I’m probably one of those leftist intellectuals, all that they’d see was that I just tried to justify all of what Hitler did as acceptable. So, since I’ve probably already incurred the wrath of Godwin’s Law, I think I’ll let this paragraph end right here.

Five Myths of Consumer Behavior - apparently one of the core arguments of a book, but useful things to be listed here, namely:

Myth 1: Consumers behave the same in all markets.
Myth 2: The more consumers see it, the more successful it will be.
Myth 3: If I use it, my users will.
Myth 4: Consumers will find a product’s value.
Myth 5: Consumers want more features.

That last one is especially true - once you achieve the right number of features, adding more is disaster.

In something that’s probably cute but ultimately useless - here's a flsah of somoene that's hacked their Roomba to move according to the tilt of their Macbook. You can probably file this one away with the Wiimote Half-Life 2 bit. Or maybe you can out the two ideas together and fine a way to use the Wiimote to control your Roomba?

Something shiny, though - Firely episodes available to be watching. Of course, there may be some copyright infringement involved there, so the best thing is to get the DVDs and watch with commentary. Or to watch - Firefly is a great series and should be watched by sci-fi fans, western fans, and people who like well-written stories.

Perhaps another Teletubbies incident, but an Ariel doll may tell little girls they're sluts if listened to just right. It’s more likely, though, that phrases get muddled together and there’s a good does of imagination that puts everything else together. Still, this could be useful in catapaulting the toy to collectors.

Anyway, time for me to go to bed. I present tomorrow. After that, smooth sailing. To which I will probably get things thrown at me by those that still have examinations left.

Comments

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Wow, entirely over your head again.

Let's try again.

You're balancing two things, one where it does have dire consequences and one where it doesn't. It doesn't matter what the truth is, it matters that there's the POTENTIAL for a massive crisis that we have the POTENTIAL to avert with minimal cost now. I don't care how many scientists, historians or whatnot you drag up, sufficent scientists, historians and statisticians have presented the dire outcome as a very real possibility that it should be considered and not ignored.

Let's try another analogy. You are diagnosed with a POTENTIALLY devestating precancer, which will lead to agonizing lesions, slow mental degeneration, constant pain, totally untreatable if allowed to progress. Of course, not all precancers progress and many simply fade away. Now you can take a vitamin that has no negative side effects (and possibly some beneficial side effects) but that could PROBABLY stop the progression of the precancer. Should you take the vitamin and know that you're doing something about the disease, or pretend that the cancer cells aren't there (after all, there're lots of healthy cells in your body and many of them are replicating just fine) and risk this agonizing outcome? What if the outcome influenced not just you but also everyone else you know and love. If you don't take the supplement, everyone has a similar chance of having a the same fate. Would you subject your wife and kids to this potentially preventable risk, even if you personally could take it?

[shenalia.livejournal.com]

That's all fine and well. I see how some people see the "potential" disaster involved. The problem I face is the priorities, and keeping the situation realistic. The precancer analogy you put forth is a bad one, IMO. I'd rather compare it to something far more similar:

A giant meteor once struck the planet, wiping out another set of species - the dinosaurs. With the concept of a meteor striking and wiping out our civilization - a dire consequence far worse than the greatest Warming scares - are we going to freak out and build a laser defense network to try to destroy every meteor that comes close to the planet out of that fear - out of that grave consequence of potentially not trying to shoot that meteor down? Do we know that lasers could destroy the potential meteor? Are we going to analyze the situation further and find ways to detect the meteors out further... or find better ways to destroy them...

Or do we not have enough time, because one could strike tomorrow without us knowing about it?! Would you subject your wife and kids to this potentially preventable risk?

That is the alarmism I have a problem with.

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

Except, of course, that we do regularly look for meteors that have trajectories that potential intersect the planet. And there have been various contingency plans discussed for what we would do if such a meteor were detected.

Now, of course, your analogy is flawed slightly because you're comparing the risk associated with a very-low-probability, high damage scenario (the meteor strike) with the risk associated with a moderate-to-high-probability, moderate damage scenario (the Global warming issue, assuming you accept that a) there is evidence of warming, which you don't have to assume is anthropogenic, and that b) you accept that warming can have bad effects, if nothing else than by dumping energy into climate systems).

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Would you subject your wife and kids to this potentially preventable risk? was not intended at a reference to alarmism (although I admit it sounds alarmist now that you mention it). It's to show that while some risks are acceptable to you personally, in some situations actions affect more than the individual. While you may be willing to take the risk of global warming, you're also imposing that risk on others.