All Mixed Up -Tuesday, March 02, 2004 -6:25 am-
You're all invited to bring music over because I am finally happy (at least for the moment) with my stereo. Last night I built speaker stand-ish things that have made a world of difference. Basically, all they are is a open-topped, open-bottomed box with 50lbs of sand inside. The speaker sets directly on the sand and the sand sets directly on the floor. All the box does is keep the bag of sand from bursting. They're only prototypes, of course. The next revision is going to be twice as tall (you have to set on the floor to get in the sweet spot right now) and a little more than twice as heavy. For a seven dollar investment in parts, it certainly blows away $1000 spend on electronics. Come listen!
I was thinking about some things today with the intent of blogging, only to find that Kuro5hin had beat me to it. I'm going to blather anyway. I'm sure it surprises none of you to learn that I oppose the possibility of a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage to be just one man with just one woman. What will likely surprise many of you is why. In the specific, limited context of a Constitutional Amendment, I don't find the my beliefs about the rights of gays to marry relevant. To clarify, I don't care that the amendment would do something immoral. What upsets me is the direction? polarity? of the proposed amendment. Looking at the words and actions of the Framers, Constitutional Amendments are meant for two things only. The must either fix a problem with the operation of the government (see Amendments XII, XVI, XVII, XXII, etc) or secure to the People a right (see Amendments I through IX [with the exception of III, cause III is dumb], XIII, XV, XIX, etc.). The one time the country broke this ideal (e.g. Amendment XVIII), organized crime thrived, the economy suffered, and most of the People were criminals. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a plague of frogs in there too. This oversight was corrected swiftly (on a governmental timeline). To me, the fact that the proposed amendment would deny rights to a group of people is the key point. It doesn't matter who is being excluded, or why, or from what. Words obstructing the rights of the people have no place in our Constitution. Laws, however, are a different matter. I strongly oppose any and all laws defining marriage as only one man and only one woman on moral grounds. To deny to others rights you yourself enjoy (with the noted exception of the criminal justice system) is immoral. Interestingly, there are some conservative Republicans starting to make oppositional statements based on this same logic (well, the don't want gay's to marry, but the agree with me about the Amendment).
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gothicsquish wrote
Wed, 03 Mar 2004
Scaring the Danes -Wednesday, March 03, 2004 -5:15 am-
I fenced tonight for the first time in quite a while. That was seven hours ago and I've almost got the feeling in my thumb back. Obviously, all the equipment I was using was borrowed. The jacket wouldn't zip, the glove wouldn't go most of the way on, and the grip was several sizes too small. The end result was the grip pressing on a nerve bundle in my hand somewhere and my thumb going numb. Only the tip of it is tingly now, but the space bar is still interesting. It was kind of odd to be playing at combat in the Lane Lounge in the Ohio Union. We drew lots of odd looks. I saw sabre for the first time tonight. God damn, that's a weird thing to do. It amounts to two people rushing at each other, swinging their swords, creating a thunking sound, and a Director claiming only on of them really hit the other. Definitely not for me. I think epee is the only form I'll ever bother with, because the rest of them have rules about where you can hit, and when you can hit, and other random, insufferably French ideas. Considering it's origin, I'm surprised there isn't a procedure for surrendering in fencing.
When I got home, I started scanning negatives, as I do almost every night. Tonight, I started to scan my first large format negative. Oi. 4x5 inches of film is a lot to scan! The file starts at 568MB. Think about that for a second. That means I can write one file per CD! For the black and white ones, the mode can be changed to grayscale, resulting in a filesize of 158MB. The scanner takes about 35 minutes to get the data off the film and put it into the computer. The computer then takes another 5 minutes to assimilate the data and display it to the screen. Writing out the file to disk takes about 3 minutes. Setting levels takes however long it takes, and then about 2 minutes to preform the calculations on the data. Then another 3 minutes to write out the modified file. Then comes the removal of dust and scratches. The time taken for that obviously varies greatly depending on how clean the negative is. I scanned a negative tonight that was in excellent minus or excellent condition. I worked for 90 minutes on it before my eyes gave up. I'm about half way done with it. I'm thinking I'm going to get one of these (if that) done a day. I have more than twenty of them to do.
Stay tuned tomorrow. If I remember to get my ass out the door before sunset, I'm going to take picture of something that will hurt all your heads or make you laugh or maybe both.
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Chaos wrote
whacking people with swords
What's so weird about rushing at people while waving a sword? I enjoy sabre immensly. Ruins my point control, but it's a lot of fun. Target area's limited because it a stylization of horseback fighting, so leg whacking is... just not what you tend to do. It's sport fencing, not anything meant to really be practical. I do agree that the directing is rather silly, though. Maybe, just maybe, it would make more sense with a better director, but I'm not even sure about that. And there's no claim that one person didn't hit (as you can tell by the screams), it's just a matter of who was more agressive about it and if the other person did anything useful to try to stop them. It's almost more like using a big stick than a sword. Well, maybe more like a big heavy sword used against people with armor than a light little rapier.
Your Taxdollars at Work -Wednesday, March 03, 2004 -4:54 pm-
Several months ago, the goverment decided to annoy the living crap out of us by installing a bunch of speedbumps and odd little platform thingies in the middle of intersections. A week or two later, they came back to texture and pain the little platforms to look like brickwork. Yesterday, they came back. Apparrently, someone, somewhere, decided that small changes in elevation confuse the hell out of drivers and cause them to get lost. Their solution? Arrows!
You know, just in case that double yellow line doesn't mean anything, there's arrows now to help.
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gothicsquish wrote
fiona wrote
Fri, 05 Mar 2004
No Title -Friday, March 05, 2004 -4:41 am-
Today was fun. As soon as I got up, I had an IM from Mary saying she was done with school several hours early. I boldly made my way through amazingly bad traffic (took me almost an hour to get there) and met Mich at Mary's place. The three of us headed off to Polaris mall for no real reason. We walked around for a good while, just wasting time. Eventually we wondered into Hot Topic. When did Hot Topic go goth? Hell, when did goth go mainstream? Last time I was in a Hot Topic (admittedly about a decade ago), it was a lot like a Claire's. Not anymore. Anyway, they were playing some great music. So good, in fact, that I bought the CD. You all must check out Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine. You won't believe it. After Polaris, we went to Westerville to Pasqualie's to eat. I think the girl's beat up on me throughout the entire meal. After dinner, we tried to go to Barnes and Noble at the Lennox. On the way there, one of Michelle and my friends from Junior year called me absolutely frantic because he computer was cracked out and she was going to have to reinstall Windows and had things due the next day. I tried to work it out with her over the phone, but it was going nowhere fast because her install of ME was so fucked that it wouldn't fileshare. I dropped the girls at Mary's house and went over to back up her data to my laptop so she could wipe the drive. By the time I got over there, they had figured out they could use AIM to backup her HDD (pretty clever, actually). Once the backup was done, I walked her through getting XP installed. She was in the never-ending hell of Windows Update when I left. Amazingly, while XP was installing, she asked me if there were anything better than Internet Explorer. I smiled, much like the cat that ate the canary, and told her about Firefox. Yay. Oh, and when I came out, I was parked in. Took me 30 minutes to get free. Guess how happy I was after fucking with Windows and then getting trapped. I rejoined the girls and we hung out at Mary's for several hours.
The Windowsness leads me to the conclusion that I am following Aaron and dropping support for all versions of Windows. I will spend whatever time it takes to work with you to get a fully functional Linux or BSD system on your existing hardware, or help you come up with a Mac to run OS X on. Don't bother me with Windows. Of course I'll still answer a quick question or help you migrate away from IE or whatnot. But no more reinstalls or severe troubleshooting! If you want my help, don't make my job harder!
My appreciation for Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine andMe First and the Gimme Gimmes, as well as many of the other things of that sort, make me wonder about my sense of humor. It seems I find most funny that which contains the antithesis to itself, or at least a surprising twist. I think this is why I find puns so amusing, the tweak the English language. I dunno, random early morning musing. Speaking of early morning, Owen was writing about sunrises for several weeks. I always found it amusing that the sunrises he was getting up to see were the same ones I went to be just after. A Jackie Chan movie I had never seen was just on. It was called Thunderbolt. While it ended with some of the most comically bad racing sequences I have ever seen, the main fight sequence was out of this world. Jackie fights a large number of men in a casino/pachinko palace. There's bits with trampoline-like decorations and tens of thousands of little silver balls that just astound me.
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Unexpected Downtime -Friday, March 05, 2004 -1:30 pm-
Well, it's been more than an hour since I've had electricity, and still no AEP truck in sight. I'm assuming that means I will not outlast the outage. I expect to be going down sometime within the next 30 minutes. See you all when power is restored.
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Sun, 07 Mar 2004
Damn, Yo -Sunday, March 07, 2004 -2:35 am-
I caught my first episode of Tripping the Rift tonight. The word Michelle and I came up with for a summation was "Wow". It's... special. On the surface, it is crass and sexual, slightly deeper, it is crass and sexual in twisted ways, even lower than that, it is witty, scathing, and sarcastic. It was funny over all, carried along by moments of disbelief at delivered lines. I don't know, she's probably off doing something religious, like bombing an abortion clinic.
The major premise of the episode was the nature of the creation of the universe and the necessity of god. I'm not sure if the writers wanted god to be necessary or not. Throughout the majority of the show, they seemed to be adamant that god was the universal source of strife. In the end, they decided they needed to go back in time and not kill god because he was the source of morality. However, they were so sarcastic about the whole thing, that I'm not sure what they actually believe. It definitely earned itself another watching. The android's breasts scare me. Think NASA footage of water blobs in zero-g. /me shudders.
Go on, watch it.
In other news, the Michell?es, Mary, and I went to see Mona Lisa Smile. It was an interesting movie. Sort of a Dead Poet's Society or The Emperor's Club for girls. It was moderately good, not stunning, but worth the price of admission. I was, however, disappointed by Julia Robert's performance. Normally, I quite lover her acting. Tonight I was left a bit cold. Eh.
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tiggerbone wrote
Mon, 08 Mar 2004
Inta-Stella Blogga -Monday, March 08, 2004 -2:58 pm-
So this blogging thing thing is WAY out of control. Go read Spirit and Oppertunity.
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Tue, 09 Mar 2004
We Will Fight for our Bovine Freedom! -Tuesday, March 09, 2004 -1:44 am-
I found this today. I thought it was merely funny. However, someone very smart (Mary) told me it's actually a political commentary piece on Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Avian Influenza (H5N1), both of which have recently been found in America. Avian Influenza can be transmitted to humans and is fatal in about 33% of cases. It is not known if BSE can directly infect humans, though it is possible that the recently discovered Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease is potentially caused by exposure to BSE.
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Thu, 11 Mar 2004
More Quizzes -Thursday, March 11, 2004 -1:10 am-
Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
| Enneagram Test Results | |||
| Type 1 | Perfectionism | |||||||||||| | 44% |
| Type 2 | Helpfulness | |||||||||||||||||| | 73% |
| Type 3 | Image Focus | |||||||||||||| | 54% |
| Type 4 | Hypersensitivity | |||||||||| | 38% |
| Type 5 | Detachment | |||||||||| | 37% |
| Type 6 | Anxiety | |||||||||||||||| | 69% |
| Type 7 | Adventurousness | |||||||||||||||||| | 75% |
| Type 8 | Aggressiveness | |||||||||||||||||| | 76% |
| Type 9 | Calmness | |||||||||||| | 46% |
Your Conscious-Surface type is 8w7
Your Unconscious-Overall type is 8w7
Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
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Sat, 13 Mar 2004
It's All Happening -Saturday, March 13, 2004 -2:26 am-
Well, all sorts of goings on in the last few days. It started Wednesday with my COMP217 class. The class is supposed to be Introduction to the UNIX Operating System and C++ Programming. It's being taught on Windows. This seems to be because Microsoft provides free software to DeVry and it's students. Part of the contract for this software apparently decrees that DeVry students can't have direct access to a computer running anything other than Windows. So we're learning UNIX through Windows. Right. This is being facilitated through the most excellent PuTTY, otherwise known as the best program for Windows ever. We log into Windows, fire up PuTTY, and ssh into the Sun box on campus. Right. In bigger and better news, the Sun box can't be sshed into from off campus because Open ports are a security risk.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but OSU's IT department is SOOOO much better than the one at DeVry. Anyway, 2 hours of lecture drip by. It's amazingly painful to sit through. I spend most of my time chatting with other people online. Then there was lab... Imagine you trained a large, but finite, number of monkeys to drive elephants. But you only trained them to turn left. And the elephants were cranky and would only move at full stampede. And then you let them loose in downtown London during lunch hour. That would be a mere shadow of the charlie foxtrot that was lab. There are 45 students in my class. A lab section gets 2 FAs (Faculty Assistants, DeVry's name for TAs) and there was also the prof. Out of all of those people, precisely 2 of us had ever touched UNIX before. Me and the professor. Most of it was tragic. People dropping like flies, giving up left and right, banging things around, but the was one shining moment of wonderfulness. There was a boy who noticed my laptop when I first came in to lecture and started making fun me for owning an Apple. All throughout lecture, he asked stupid, pointless questions just to prove that he knew more than the rest of us. In lab, I made him wait for my help. He didn't know how to quit out of the text editor we were using (VI). My response? Oh, just hit
Actually, he did look quite like a Script Kiddie and I suspect he is. Two hours of carnage later, it was all over except for the crying. I had high hopes for this class, but now I'm not so sure. The worst part is that it's one of those New Wave 80's labs where the terminals are set down into the tables, so you constantly staring at you feet to see the screen.Esc : w q. Wait, I thought you said you knew how to use computers? Is this your first time using a real OS? Huh, you don't look like a Script Kiddie
Thursday, I woke up sick. Blah. I missed all my classes, which is bad, because for two of them it was the first meeting. I spent the day wondering what I had done to deserve the way I was feeling. Eventually, I tried to install FreeBSD on the textbook of a laptop I recovered from my parents. It's an old HP OmniBook 5700CT. It barely runs Win98SE and 2k is out of the question. Owing to how slow it is with 98SE and the fact that I wanted something more secure, FreeBSD seemed like a great choice. Until it kernel panicked while the kernel was still trying to load. Then I tried Mandrake 10.0, which doesn't have the driver for my CD-ROM drive on it's boot floppy. It asked for the Additional Drivers Floppy. This is confusing, because there is no Additional Drivers Floppy in the distribution and there's no mention of this disk anywhere that Google knows about. Grr on the dumbassed laptop. I want a real OS damn it!
Today, I missed all my classes again because I could not breathe well enough to sleep for most of the night. This means there are two classes of which I have missed the entire first week and two classes of which I have missed half the first week. Shit, shit, shit, this term I was supposed to do better. Sigh. On a positive note, my calibration hardware and software arrived. Michelle got me a ColorVision SpyderPRO with OptiCAL and ProfilerPLUS. The Spyder and its software allow me to properly calibrate LCDs and CRTs. This means the colors the monitor is showing are really the ones the computer thinks it's showing. ProfilerPLUS allows me to calibrate output devices like printers. This means the colors showing up on the print match exactly what's on the screen. Ah, joyfulness. The major disaster turned out to be the main monitor on my server. It's maximum luminance is only 53cd/m^2. The minimum acceptable for graphics work is 80cd/m^2. Most new monitors reach as high as 120cd/m^2. The fact that my monitor is 34% bellow spec is a big problem. Making matters even worse is the fact that the blue and green phosphors or guns have shifted their black point way up. This would only be annoying if red had come along with them. The net result is that the red channel is doing all the work to get the blackpoint luminance to 0.30cd/m^2. In other words, the blacks are very, very red. Dropping the black point until all channels can be matched results in all of the shadow tones falling out to black. The monitor looks and works great until you need that last little degree out of it for graphics work, so if there's anyone out there who'd be willing to trade for their monitor, please let me know. Oh, it's a Sony CPD-200GS 19" Short Neck Cylindrical Tube.
On the human front, there are two interesting developments. First, a friend on mine from long, long ago IMed me today. Sarah was my best friend in high school. She was very, very important to me. She was the person with whom I went through most everything that didn't involve Amelia. We went off to our separate colleges and things started not going so well. We started to loose contact with each other. The last few times I saw her, she made me very angry. She seemed mean, judgmental, and bitchy. I had written her off as a total loss over the last few years. Today, she seems to be a much changed person. For one, she's renounced religion, which is shocking because she was Super Christian Girl. She seems much more open minded and liberal. I look forward to re-establishing a relationship with her.
Second, Michelle's sister Jenny is moving back to town. She's coming down to attend a 12 month school on massage therapy. I'm really excited about her coming back to Columbus. For one, Michelle is much happier when Jenny is around. I, also, am quite fond of her. Another great thing is that we do a lot more when Jenny is here. She's not much of a stay at home sort of person, and she drags us with her. As a bonus, she's an absolutely fabulous model, potentially the best with which I've ever worked. She starts classes on the 29th and is arriving tomorrow to look for a place to live. Yay, yay, yay.
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red wrote
buttercup102280 wrote
it's an odd experience...
Mon, 15 Mar 2004
Here Quizzy, Quizzy, Quizzy -Monday, March 15, 2004 -9:25 pm-
You are an enzyme. You are powerful, dark, variable, and can change many things at your whim...even when they're not supposed to be changed. Bad you. You can be dangerous or wonderful; it's your choice.
Which Biological Molecule Are You?
Threat rating: Medium. Your total lack of decent family values makes you dangerous, but we can count on some right wing nutter blowing you up if you become too high profile.
What threat to the Bush administration are you?
You are a total fashion whore! Gothic lolita, Harujuku, and Visual Kei run in your blood! Cosplay ahoy!
What kind of Anime Whore are you?
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Mon, 22 Mar 2004
And Yet More Quizzes -Monday, March 22, 2004 -8:24 pm-
You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator.
Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend.
You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines!
Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals!
You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.
Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com
You are the troubled ghost of wings. You wonder around looking for freinds and being beautiful. You are graceful and full of untapped love and talent. Open yourself up.
What kind of element fey are you?
You are a white dragon, pure and noble, you would help humans if they desprately need you. You are kind and wise with a heart of gold.
Which Dragon resides in your soul?
You are Homer! An epic poet circa 800 B.C., Homer is the expression of the ancient Greek ideal. His characters embark upon long and wordy quests and engage in battles of heroic length. Monsters are slain and cities are razed. Fun and glory all around!
Which famous poet are you?
You are a human shadow. If a loved one needs you, you are always right at his or her heels! Your deep social connection with human beings produces your qualities of genuine caring and charisma. However, at times you are naive to the true nature of your loved ones. Remember that humans' gift of free will does not always lead them in wise directions. But your essence of love and friendship represent the other precious gifts of humanity. Overall you are a strikingly valuable and innocent being who has a lot to give.
What Kind of Shadow Are You?
You are Michael the fast-fingered hacker genius! Seemingly glued to your screen, you have the world digitally at your fingertips and provide unexpected knowledge to others
Which Witch Hunter Robin Character Are You?
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Audio Reviewers Have a Hard Job -Monday, March 22, 2004 -10:49 pm-
Saturday, I was wandering around CompUSA while Mary and Michelle wandered around World Market. In the discount pile, I stumbled onto a Pioneer DV-563A. The DV-563A plays Red Book (CD), Orange Book (CD-R/RW), White Book (VideoCD), Blue Book (Enhanced CD), Beige Book (Kodak/Fuji PhotoCD, Digital Versatile Disc - Video (DVD-V), Digital Versatile Disc Minus Recordable (DVD-R), Digital Versatile Disc Plus Recordable (DVD+R), Digital Versatile Minus Rewritable (DVD-RW), Digital Versatile Disc Plus Rewritable (DVD+RW), Super Video CD (SVCD), Digital Versatile Disc - Audio (DVD-A), and Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD). It contains an onboard PAL->NTSC converter. With a single chip, it can be rendered region-free. It originally listed as a $300 player, then was marked down to $150. The floor model was there in front of me, selling for a lowly $100. I called home and begged for money. I'm now the proud owner of a universal disc player. My only question is do I want to keep it.?
The player has been singing to itself somewhat quietly for two days now and I installed it for evaluation tonight. The trouble is, I only own two SACDs and no DVD-As. I have Norah Jones - Come Away With Me and Ralph Vaughn Williams - Symphony No. 1 (A Sea Symphony) on SACD. Obviously, this isn't a big sample on which to make a rational decision. However, I plunge ahead regardless. My initial impression is that the SACDs are superior to the Red Book CDs but not Earth-shatteringly so. I think I could probably identify the SACD version of both albums in a blind comparison. The muddying factor is the Red Book playback. I don't have enough inputs to have both the Pioneer and my reference Sony (which only plays DVD-V, Red Book, and Orange Book) plugged in all the time. In other words, what ever player I settle on will be primarily a Red Book player regardless of what else it does. I'm not so sure the Pioneer can hold it's own with Red Book. The bass is sloppy and uncontrolled. The upper end is not as extended. There might not be as much clarity. It is, however, slightly more lively than the Sony. At the end of the night, I'm left confused. Tomorrow and over the next several days, I 'm bringing in some hired ears to help me confirm or deny the things that I heard. If you fancy a listen, stop by, but be warned that you'll have to give an opinion!
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Tue, 23 Mar 2004
Solitude Equals Trouble -Tuesday, March 23, 2004 -2:14 am-
Saturday night, a bunch of people were sitting around at Michele's place talking. The discussion eventually became an argument about atheism versus faith. Michele was adamant that atheism was a more logically and scientifically defendable position than faith. At first, I was going to agree with her because, after all, I do tend to lean towards science not faith myself. After thinking about it for a while, I have decided that I disagree with her. I think both are equally valid because they are both, at heart, hanging on the same issue. For the purposes of typing less, by faith I mean the belief in a god or gods and by meeting god, I mean actually meeting god or obtaining concrete proof of the existence of same (whatever that may constitute).
Consider the position of atheism. The major premise, hypothesis, of atheism would be God does not exist. The null hypothesis of atheism would be God exists. If one were to meet god, the null hypothesis would be proven, thereby disproving the hypothesis. If god were never to be met, neither the hypothesis not the null hypothesis would be confirmed or denied. Seeing an infinite number of white sheep does not disprove the existence of black sheep.
Considering the position of faith, one finds the hypothesis to be God exists, making the null hypothesis God does not exist. Meeting god would disprove the null hypothesis and prove the hypothesis. Never meeting god would neither prove nor disprove the hypothesis or null hypothesis.
Both views are waiting on the same data. For either one to be proven or disproven, god must be met. Both views have a either a hypothesis or null hypothesis that is testable. Neither is more more rational than the other.
In other dangerous thinking, I have arrived at the conclusion that both faith and science are belief-based systems. Faith, largely, comes down to taking someone else's word for it. The overwhelming majority of humanity will never meet god. Almost all people will learn of god through the words of others. It is possible, however, that any one person or group of people might meet god. Science is much the same. It is possible for any one person or group of people to preform experiments that confirm a particular theory or concept. However, it is not possible for any one person or group to preform all experiments to confirm every theory and concept. At some point, knowledge of scientific concepts comes from believing what someone else has to say about the nature of our universe. You just have to have faith that quarks exist.
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Onyx wrote
Aaron wrote
No! When we talk about science we are talked about evidence. If some one tells relates to you a piece of scientific data there is or should be evidence to back that up. Ok, you may argue that you have faith that this evidence exists, but since the existance of the evidence can be proven it is /not/ a matter of faith. Faith relates to things that cannot by definition be proven.
Conversly if someone tells you about a god, there is no evidence to support or refute that claim, you take it on faith that this god exists. This is the difference.
The existance/nonexistance of a god cannot be proven, except by the event that an apretiable number of credible sources have met this god. Scientific ideas gain weight by the existance of events showing them to be likly.
Chaos wrote
Science doesn't technicaly claim truth. Science, even science that is well supported by experiment, can still be proven, later, to have been incomplete. Scientific truth shouldn't claim absolute truth. Science gets closer and closer to the truth with time, but science never arives at truth. The last time scientists thought they were about to have the universe figured out, blackbody radiation came along, and quantum was discovered. Science can claim that as far as it is aware that God does not exist, and thus as a "truth" claim that God does not exist. Um, I'm not quite sure what the proper terminology is, but science cannot claim the absolute truth of the non-existence of God. This is why I would consider science to be a matter of faith; not that the experiments are open to question, but that the breath of their applicability is more of a matter of faith. I hope I managed to make some sense there.
wrote
buttercup102280 wrote
tiggerbone wrote
I have wanted to respond to this for a while but it is a big issue and I can tell that you put thought into it so as such I could not give a half assed response.
First of all, on the issue of atheism being more or less scientifically defendable than theism, I completely agree. Science does not say whether there is or is not a god or gods. Technically, science cannot "say" anything. Only people who use science as a tool to learn more about the world can say anything. Science is a tool. A very useful tool, but a tool nonetheless. Theism and its subset atheism is a philosophy.
Yes, I said that atheism is a subset of theism. Theism is the set of philosophies which describe, remark upon and otherwise define a god or gods. By stating that there are no deities, atheism falls within that set.
People often seem to act as if refuation of statements made within a particular religious text or by a particular religious figure constitutes refutation of the religion itself and even more, refutation of the existence of a diety or dieties. This is not the case. Just because a person follows a religion which mentions the ideas that the sun goes round the earth, that slavery is an acceptable practice, and that women should not be allowed to wear hats does not mean that the person believes these statements. Nor does it mean that religion itself is bogus. It certainly does not mean that there can be no gods. It simply means that those ideas have been shown through changing societal ideals, the gradual amelioration of human conditions, and our growing knowledge (through the use of among other things, science) these statements have been shown to be of questionable merit.
Now, to the real meat of your post, science as a faith based system.
Aaron and Chaos were already kind enough to point out some problems with this ideal, but I hope that they do not mind if I rehash some of their statements in my own words and with my own style.
You are correct, Ty, on two points. First of all, the majority of the world's population would find it impossible to check every scientific finding put forth on a daily basis. Second, theism comes down in the end to faith, accepting ideas without the possibility of testing them. After that however, you make an error. The question is not whether science can be accepted without testing but whether the postulates brought forth can be tested by those who desire to do so.
Most people have little to no desire to test things. They want to trust that someone else will do the testing. People who are capable. People who have an interest in that sort of thing. It is enough for the general populace to know that there are clergy and philosophers to tell them morality, scientists to discover new facts, and politicians to run their country. Most people only have a vague interest in science and as such the majority of new postulates never find a general audience. The people who do learn of these new findings are exactly the ones who do the testing.
This is not an elitist clergy at work trying to hide their knowledge from the world. At least, not for the most part. I will admit that there are some literati who enjoy what they consider to be an exclusive club. These type of people are found in every subsection of humanity however and should not be considered to be prime representatives of any particular division. No, the truth is that most scientists would be ecstatic if the general populace showed more interest in science. Scientists often attempt to train more scientists, thus increasing the number of people willing and able to test and question the findings of the past, present, and future. No matter what though, scientific findings are meant to be questioned and it is a flaw of societal pressure and human nature which prevents more widespread attempts of this nature, not a flaw in science itself.
There is a great deal more which could be said on this subject. I could discuss the beginnings of the rift between science and theism and possible ways to mend them. I could write about the importance of religion and the humanities in conjugation with science. However, I am neither the only nor the best proponent of such matters. There are many, but my favorite treatments of such matters have been by Stephen Jay Gould. Check out Rock of Ages and The Hedgehog, The Fox, and the Magister's Pox. I hope that I made all of my points but to be honest, I have a lot of work that I need to get back to, so if I missed anything, feel free to continue this discussion at a later time. ^_^
Mon, 29 Mar 2004
Knights and Days -Monday, March 29, 2004 -5:39 pm-
I am stranded at Tire Kingdom. This is the nth time this year that one of our cars has gotten a flat in our parking lot. I was sitting here looking for something, anything, to do when I noticed a blog entry from late Thursday night that I hadn't posted. The first part of this entry is the misplaced stuff and then I'll see if I have anything else to say.
I spent the evening with Mary, He'er, Tom, Aaron, Betsy, and Melissa. Well, I spent the most time with Mary, then we joined He'er. Tom showed up with all the wrong food and left again. Melissa eventually arrived back from Cinci and then Betsy got home from work. Aaron was forced to come over in order to render tech support for He'er. Melissa was only interested in communicating with people via NWN. Tom soon left. To recap the main cast of characters: Sleepy Aaron, Horny He'er, Knitting Betsy, Bored Mary, and Mischievous Ty. With those players, you can guess where the conversation soon turned. Yes, you're right. I'm not sure why every conversation with Aaron, He'er, and I will turn to her boobs, but there it is. It's a basic quality of the universe. Turns out Aaron is a terrible visual judge of cup size. Of course, when contention arose, both he and I gallantly volunteered to check manually. Now, mind you, this isn't what we were supposed to be doing. We were supposed to be watching the director's commentary for A Knights Tale. About the only watching that went on was He'er and I lusting after the female lead. Aaron also introduced us all to iSketch". It is an amusing game. Go try it. Eventually I got sleepy and took Mary home. On the way, the boob discussion got re-started. I don't know how. I told her that whilst big boobs are fun toys, they're no fun in the long run. I revealed to her the Truth of Boobs. There are only two questions a guy needs to ask to rate boobs. A positive answer to the first question makes them good boobs. A positive answer to the second question makes them great boobs. The first question is: Can I play with them?
The second question is: Are they sensitive in a good way?
That's all you need to know. Everything else is irrelevant. Size, shape, coefficient of elastic rebound, all of that's just eye candy. What really matters is interaction. Mary, and later Michelle, thought that was hilarious.
Both coming to and going from the girl's house, I reproved that I am, in fact, the kiss of death to my fellow drivers. For the last week or so every time I travel along I-70, on on the cars immediately next to me is pulled over by the police. Even though I'm in no danger of getting ticketed myself, this is not doing good things for my heart rate. I guess just take this as warning that you shouldn't drive anywhere near me.
I have also, over the last week, proved that I am very much still a bachelor. I have A) glued a bowel to the kitchen table with milk and B)Turned a substantial fraction of my laundry pink. The bowl thing was quite surprising. I expected to pick the bowl up with very little effort. Instead, it was ripped violently from my hand by an obstinate table. Grrr. I did approximately 6.02x10^23 loads of laundry this past week. Into one load of darks, I placed an old maroon towel. I thought this would be a safe behavior. I was grievously in error. I now have many pink-gray shirts that were intended by god to be merely gray. Oops.
Which brings us up to today. So far, I have 1)Been very ill, 2)Paid rent, 3)Discovered a bolt (that's not a typo) shot through my tire, and 4)Sat in Tire KIngdom for an hour. Can you guess how fun of a day I'm... wait, just got little better. The manager said he thought I looked like a college student and my money would be better spent on parties than tires. Yay! Free patch!
writebacks...
http://livejournal.com/~gothicsquish wrote
tiggerbone wrote
Intestinal fortitude
You "glued a bowel to the kitchen table with milk?" EWW!
Oh, wait. Bowl! Never mind. ^_~
btw, I completely agree about the two questions about boobs.
You lusted after the femal lead of A Knight's Tale? I thought the blacksmith was much hotter!
williaty wrote
A Blacksmith Courted Me
...nine months and better. Er.. no, wait. Yeah, we talked about the blacksmith too. There was discussion of a threeway with the blacksmith, princess, and He'er. Alternatly, Mary, Heath Ledger, and the princess was posited. It was an orgy-tastic mess, basically.
Alstaria wrote
cool points
gothicsquish wrote
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