My Weekend Temptation

Got Kafka settled into my brother's new apartment. Had some decent chats, finished God Delusion and FINALLY beat that one level in Patapon, moving to finish the game and see IT. Of course, IT wasn't anything compared to what I saw at Wimberly Glassworks:






They had leftovers from their annual "slightly irregular" sale. I got the big cylinder and the little horn as a bonus. Parents then got a (regular) $200 bowl and some earrings, so the lady at the checkout was authorized to give us a bonus irregular, and I picked out the smaller cylinder we all liked. Those stripes in the middle turn a dark blood red when you shine a light through them. We're going to fight over it.

The task I give you, dear readers, is to come up with some ideas for what I can do with the big cylinder. I'm thinking of making it a hanging ceiling light, or seeing if I can find a floor lamp that will curve around so it'll hang. The other end (not shown) is wide open. The big concern I have is that the thing's heavy: 6.4 pounds (~2.9 kg).

Dimensions:
Height: 14 1/4 inches
Diameter: 6 inches.
Top hole diameter: 1 3/4 inches.
Interior diameter: 5 3/4 inches

Relativism of Faith

Workin' through The God Delusion while I'm up in Austin, helping my brother's cat settle in. Seems he also picked up that Facebook virus. Anyway, in chapter 10, Dawkins makes a good point about the cultural relativism many want us to take about faith. One of the examples given was a student who had been in school longer than his Amish upbringing allowed. His parents argued that he should be taken out of school. Even got a court ruling 7-1 in their favor. One of the positive opinions in the case said it maintained the religious diversity of our nation. Uh, what about the student's choice?

When cultural relativism covers topics like which fork you use at the dinner table, that's fine. Using slightly longer or shorter tines usually doesn't hurt anyone. When faith "diversity" is used as an excuse to hurt people or deprive them of freedoms, that's wrong. Many people don't seem to understand that.

Religion shouldn't give exemptions you couldn't obtain other ways. Believing with all your heart that your stone idol wants you to sacrifice babies on spikes shouldn't let you get away with murder. Ask anyone today, and I think they'll agree with that extreme case. But all of a sudden, many will change that when it comes to things like vaccinations, educational standards, and so forth. People have a habit of giving special privileges based on faith.

Sorry, I prefer living in a place where there is rule of law: Everyone is treated equally, unless there's a good, solid reason to do otherwise. Wishy-washy faith relativism doesn't qualify.

The Magic Middle Man

Deities really don't solve much, do they?

What's the basis of morality?

Moral philosopher: Well, that's a complicated question. Arguably, it stems from an agreement between the members of society... [writes a detailed book]

IDiot: Some magic man in the sky randomly made it up!

Where did the universe come from?

Cosmologist: We aren't sure, yet. We've been working on the math with M-theory, and think our universe might have come from some strange events in a bigger universe that's hard to understand in our concept of time. This is, of course, just a hypothesis at this point, and we'll have a better idea when we slam some particles together harder than we've ever slammed particles together before.

IDiot: A magic man randomly popped in from nothing and did it all!

How did the complexity of life arise?

Molecular biologist: Here's a lot of complicated chemical interactions that obey the laws of thermodynamics.

IDiot: A magic man of infinite complexity just happened to fall together in a human-like manner and create a less complex universe!

See what I mean?

Yay! Recent Comments are Working!

Figures they'd fix it right after I did a search to find out it's their fault and making a post on it.

Those Stupid Stickers

PZ posted about another school trying to slap disclaimers on science textbooks. This is insane. You might as well say it about all of science, history, and heck, knowledge. You've probably heard rants similar to the one I'm about to go on, but I'll keep typing below the fold.

Seriously, fundies, why single out evolution? There are lots of things we know contradict what your religion says. Germ theory of disease, for example, contradicts the evil spirit "theory" of disease. Thermodynamics also contradicts Creationism: You can't create something from nothing, which is exactly what Creationism posits.

By the way, any of your redneck sector finish building a perpetual motion machine in their back yard? Any of your priests get your stone idol to create complex life by chanting an invocation and waving goat testicles over your head?

Seriously, that's the sort of thing evolution is up against. A complex theory with many successful predictions, zero contradicting evidence, and amazing explanatory power is up against people who believe and attempt to practice what is essentially witchcraft. Really. It's just that crazy when I try to wrap my head around it. We've sent people to the moon, stopped many diseases dead in their tracks, slam particles together at near light speed to figure out what everything's made of, and send encoded messages around the world with little plastic fold-up boxes like the one in front of me...

...And yet, we still have people in funny hats and robes speaking in dead languages to perform alleged metaphysical transmutations of bread products where they forgot the yeast to turn it into little pieces of a magic man who allegedly participated in a blood sacrifice to another thunderbolt wielding magic man in the sky. There's something fundamentally wrong with this picture.

That Frikkin Recent Comments Thing

I've slogged through some help forums, and it seems there are a LOT of people who are having this problem. The Blogger crew have apparently been working on it since December 18th.

Digging Up Something D&D

A while back, I asked for some tips on making a D&D campaign, mostly with worldbuilding, and I got some helpful responses with good resources. Now, I'm trying to think of a way to expand it. Originally, I was thinking of the players deposing the local Big Bad around level of 7 or 8, and they'd be at the island setting because of shipwreck. Now I'm thinking of changing things up a little to give players some choices in the matter, since some players/characters resist Closed Circle scenarios (and I don't blame them). I'm trying to think of a way to get some level 1 characters steadily built up until plot hooks lead 'em to the island. Also got some miscellaneous stuff I could use some help in brainstorming.

The lay of the world: There are two major continents involved. The eastern one's essentially Europe, and the western one is Africa-like. They're technologically on par with each other, mostly. The islands in the original scope are in the middle between them, slightly north of the equator. They used to be used as a stopping point for inter-continental travel, but unusual incidents have gotten them a reputation for being cursed. Sailing technology developed enough that they could be safely passed by.

The islands themselves: Concept is a vague mix of Japan and Hawaii. They're very backwater, and still working on a way to produce reliable steel. When they did have contact, they tended to gather steel by gift exchanges with sailors. Magically, they're distinct from the rest of the world. Instead of arcane magic (genetic mental block), divine magic (no deities they worship), or psionics (means of developing it tightly controlled), they have magic with the elemental "power source" from animistic elemental spirits. When I was working in 3.5, I was using the Shugenja class. I'm retooling other classes appropriately.

Hook concept 1: One of the islanders barely manages to make it to the eastern continent and tries to find some adventurers to help him out. He ends up having to perform in a circus for the sake of room and board, showing off his brand of magic and performing some fake fortunetelling. The ringleader doesn't want to let him go.

Post-adventure: The islanders will be pretty much willing to let the PCs take over ruling the islands, expecting them to do a kinder job than the tyrant. I suppose his underlings could potentially survive to cause problems. There's economic opportunity as a tourist location as well as the pearls the islanders have gotten good at farming for magic and currency purposes (they sometimes use 'tile' seeded pearls as currency). Of course, if the PCs aren't the type to take over, they'll settle for showering them with gifts, which will include three giant sacred pearls I haven't settled on properties for, yet.

Suggestions for handling aquatic combat: The islanders have a natural swim speed, so some of the evil ones will try to claim that as a terrain advantage.

General suggestions for the build up will be appreciated. I have limited DM experience, and level 1 would probably be simpler to start from.

Just kind of throwing this out, so any random ideas would be appreciated.

Doggerel #174: "Not Everything is as It Seems!"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

Woos like to speak this line without thinking about its implications. This skeptic's response to the assertion: Well, duh!

Right now, we are in a torrential rain of tiny, invisible particles called neutrinos. Right now, we are in a sea of light we can't see: Radio waves, microwaves, infrared, ultraviolet, and even some x-rays and gamma rays (hopefully at low, safe levels where you are). There's all sorts of such invisible things going on right now. We know our senses are limited.

But even with all our detection equipment designed to help us sense those otherwise invisible forces, skeptics know that our perceptions are flawed. Our minds naturally try to find order, patterns, and explanations. The trouble is, we're often too good at it for our own good. Some patterns we perceive don't exist. Some relationships are forced when we unknowningly bias towards confirming data points and ignore those that don't fit with perceptions.

That's why we push for scientific rigor. All the methods we push exist to minimize or eliminate biases we have as mortals. We don't just blindly trust that the world is as it seems to our initial impressions. If anyone does, it's typically the woos who spout this doggerel.

I Need Bluetooth

I'm in the market for a bluetooth headset, but I'm not sure what I need to look for. I heard a fair number of staticky ones during my brief, boring foray into Playstation@Home, though some Shadow guy apparently had one that worked well. Came with a game, I presume Warhawk.

I suppose one thing I should ask about is numbers to look for to assure good reception. I won't be taking it far from my PS3, of course. As for price, I'm hoping to find something cheap enough but still of decent quality. I'm not going to be singing operas into it, but if I'm going to be playing with people online, I'd like very clear communications.

Oh, and if you've got a PS3, go ahead and friend me or something. My PSN ID is BronzeDog.

Co-op Request & General Game Ramble

I know a lot of you aren't PS3 fans, and probably not Armored Core fans, but I thought I'd see who among my readers have a PS3 and Armored Core: For Answer. (Why didn't the localization team make it 'For an Answer' or something to de-Engrish it?)

For Answer has, according the the back of the case, more than 30 co-op missions, which seems to indicate that From Software is finally putting some effort into multiplayer enjoyment. And I'd like to try going through all of them with someone here.

My PSN ID is, appropriately, BronzeDog. My favorite AC right now is one I made named Aria, a light-midweight with emphasis on long and mid range combat. I'm going to be making a lot more designs, now that I've unlocked almost everything. So far:

Aria (Orange): Light-mid weight sniper.
Waltz (White): Light dual laser blader. (I still need blade practice)
Duet (Green): Generalized, mission oriented midweight. Might use this instead of Aria.
Overture (Red): Missile boat on a light tank frame.
Static (Gray): Heavy tank with dual chain guns.

Still in conception:

Dirge (Black): Kojima weapon emphasis. (Environmentally unfriendly)
Rondo (Brown): Bazooka/Grenade-wielding heavy.
Jitterbug (Cyan): Ultralight with shotguns or machine guns.
Nocturne (Purple): Test model for ECM and other supposedly sneaky stuff.

More suggestions will be appreciated, especially if you can tie it to a song type to name it after.

Now, you've heard me ramble about what I'd like to do with the game, I guess I should put in a quick review of Armored Core: For Answer (PS3 version). I don't know if the Lexapro might be doing some of the talking, but I've been loving this game with a passion I haven't had for Armored Core for a while. The game starts out a bit frustrating because you spend the beginning of the game without anything in the shop. You have to complete a fair number of missions before the store variety builds up enough. I had to cheese my way out of some missions, but things were going quite well in variety by the time I beat the game with the Collared ending. When I started over (with parts and such intact) and started on the ORCA path, it just got better.

Aside from the early frustration of being stuck on my choice of starter AC, my only other notable complaints at this point are:

1) The stupidity of the AI. A few too many opponents are willing to waste their ammo (especially missiles) at long range. But since online play is available, you can probably find some smart humans. Which, in AC's way, is pretty much what the game is about. Usually, missions and AIs amount to training for the bigger game.

2) The lock on can be annoying on missions. It's tighter than usual, and if you're a long range person like me, sometimes you can get occasionally get stuck on something off in the distance.

On less notable complaints, I feel like complaining about reverse joint legs getting shafted, possibly by 1.20 regulations. They've got low turning speed in general, and in AC tradition, RJs are supposed to have high turning speeds. Oh well. Fiona Jarnefeldt has a sexy pair of legs... Er, on her partner's AC. So I'm using them myself.

Real Horror

Watching the Twilight Zone New Year's Marathon. One of my favorite episodes is on right now: Nick of Time. I think it's an excellent story about the fear woo can bring into a person's life. William Shatner plays a business man named Don Carter, traveling with his wife, Pat. Their car broke down in a small town and they have lunch at a diner with novelty penny fortunetelling machines.

Don asks a few questions in jest, asking if he got his promotion, which it answers in the affirmative "It has already been decided in your favor." After a bit of celebration after getting confirmation over the phone, he asks a few questions that lead him to think it'll be dangerous to leave the diner. After nearly getting run over at 3 o'clock, when the machine 'warned' him to stay in the diner.

He grows obsessed with the machine after a couple more strange coincidences, asking it where they'll live. His wife, however manages to break him out of it by telling him that he's letting the machine run his life. They leave as another couple arrive to ask the machine questions, if they can leave the town today. Rod Serling closes.

I like this episode because you don't know if the supernatural is really involved. The responses were vague enough that you could expect to receive similar, vaguely threatening suggestions out of such a machine. And I can truly imagine someone getting roped in by it. The "villain" isn't the machine, it's fear and uncertainty, and our cognitive biases grasping for answers and explanations, no matter the source. Our minds can betray us in so many ways, and that, I find, is one of the truest sources of horror.

Frikkin' Annoyances

Well, I spent my moment of New Year's playing Armored Core, and I'm finding my groove again. Unlocked some Bernard Felix Foundation parts, and they're a corporation that does my absolute favorite thing in giant robots: Sniping. New Fire Control System with longer sighting, new arms with higher precision, new sniper rifle with faster ballistic velocity, and a new head with better lock-on cameras. So, I'm feeling quite happy.

And then I run into a walking spasm named Cube.

For those not familiar with the series, you've got missions (and now, apparently, online multiplayer co-op missions, which I'm looking forward to when I find a partner) and the arena, where you face off against an AI piloted robot built under the same rules as yours (almost). My opponent of the post was some guy named "Cube" whose backstory says it's a cyborg, and has taken down many Lynxes with his inhuman piloting abilities. Well, they're certainly inhuman.

Now, this guy wasn't really hard. His AC (er, NEXT, to use the unnecessarily updated terminology) was apparently spec'd to be an ultralight. I hate ultralights. What came in handy was his poor choice of weapon use: He used some shotgun or machine gun... to tickle me at long range. Those weapons can be very nasty at close range, but over long range, the projectiles spread out and don't do much. That's why he wasn't really hard.

But what made him frikkin' annoying was that he wouldn't stay still for an instant! The generally best evasive maneuver in the game is the quick boost. Burst of speed that costs a fair bit of energy. Apparently, Cube had energy to spare, since he'd QB side to side like crazy, zipping across my screen at close and mid range, and enough to throw off my sniper rifle's lock at long range. I was so glad I equipped a standard rifle in my other arm with a deep magazine. Without it, I would have gotten to see what happens when both players run out of ammo. (Probably settled by who has the most AP -armor points- left.) The match lasted twenty minutes and thirty-one seconds. I am so glad his armor was paper thin, too.

So, anyway, now that you've read my rant about a frikkin' annoying scene in a videogame, here's your chance: Leave your stories in the comments.

Pointless Fun Zero

Found a nice little game thanks to Scott Roomisair of VG Cats: Eversion.

You play as the cute glove critter thing, jumping through the cheerful land, collecting gems. You also have the power of 'eversion' in certain locations to change the terrain. For example, one change will make clouds solid so you can jump on them and reach gems you couldn't before.
Behind you!
It's a short game with 7 worlds, but it's worth a quick play through. I got all 240 gems, but didn't see any change in the ending, so you can probably just blaze on through. There's an eversion point at the start of World 7 that'll let you reach world 8 if you've got all the gems.
It's full of stars!
Do have some complaint of frequent game crashes, but it saves regularly, and you can select the world from the starting screen, so it's not too bad.

A Old Memory

Working my way through God Delusion. I just read the section in chapter 9 about the kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara the Catholic church did because someone baptized him without anyone's consent. I'm remembering one of my first negative experiences with fundies of the "born again" variety. I think it was something like "Family Faith Church" or something like that. They rented/bought a spot that would have been more fitting for a grocery store. Not sure what to call those sorts of places: They're usually a line of small businesses with a large collective parking lot. Anyway, over the years, the church section kept growing additions like an enormous tumor. This story takes place before the tumor grew and became malignant to the surrounding businesses. I was about 12.

I went there with my then-designated best friend who I've heard has grown more and more religious. The event was these American Gladiator-looking guys calling themselves the "Power Team." They broke bricks, ripped phone books, and performed a number of similar acts that involve being tough and/or having a decent grasp of some physics tricks. It was actually pretty good.

Then the host came up and asked how many of us were baptized as children. His response, "You got wet" and went on to say the symbolic act of welcoming a child into the world was meaningless if the child hadn't made the conscious decision to convert. He goes on about Satan appearing as an angel of light saying "you don't need to rush, there's time" and offering "real" baptisms, implying that we'd go to Hell if we didn't get one. My friend was convinced, but I complained about how petty that speech implied God to be: That he's perfectly content to torture a person for not having some appointed witchdoctor sprinkle water on him and make a few invocations. I didn't use those exact words, but it didn't get through to him how small and primitive that host was making a supposedly wise, compassionate, and powerful being.

Needless to say, I never went to that place again and grew steadily more disgusted as the tumor grew.

Suggested Meme For 2009

"Why does Bill O'Reilly hate Christmas?"

I'm getting rather sick of the Grinch trying to steal Christmas from the people. For a couple years, his efforts to attach theocratic bigotry to what's supposed to be a sincere holiday greeting discouraged me from saying "Merry Christmas" for fear of being misunderstood.

So, ideas for spreading the meme: When the 2009 season comes around, put up a post or something with the title, "Why does Bill O'Reilly hate Christmas?" and have something about how Bill tries to put a ceiling on your holiday feeling. One thing I recommend is a cartoon of an atheist and a Christian enjoying the holiday with Bill trying to ruin it.

Just what the hell is wrong with that guy?

Pointless Question #46

Why does Bill O'Reilly hate Christmas?

Outside the Woos' Ivory Tower OR Bronze Dog's Being Anvilicious

SETTING: Just outside an enormous tower of ivory surrounded by elephant bones and a crowd of people all wearing dull gray robes.

DRONES: (marching in place, slowly rotating) Lock. Step. Lock. Step.

ENTER BRONZE DOG, STAGE LEFT, dancing.

DRONES: No dancing! So sayeth The Authorities! Lock. Step.

BRONZE DOG: What? Some doctors did a study and found that this dance exercises nearly every muscle in the body and, when done regularly, increases cardiopulminary efficiency. And I think it looks cool.

DRONES: The Authorities dictated a thousand years ago that dancing is bad for you. Lock. Step.

BD: You're relying on the word of some people who lived before the scientific method took off? People who didn't have access to the technology or data we do today?

DRONES: Well, you're just going on the word of the DDR Pad and Wii Fit manufacturers! Lock. Step.

BD: Hardly. These studies were overseen and replicated by an international community of people with competing interests and biases under numerous countermeasures designed to enforce objectivity.

DRONES: They're all working together in a global money-making conspiracy! Lock. Step.

BD: You seriously believe that? Talk about cynical. They don't even make that much money off this stuff. Certainly not enough to bribe or silence the potential whistle blowers and fake all the tests.

DRONES: The DDR Pad and Wii Fit manufacturers say that all people are alike.

BD: Pfft. No they don't. This dance has to be varied in some manners for the people involved. My height, weight, and medical history had to be considered to calibrate it to match me. Not recommended if you are nursing or pregnant, or if you have a heart condition. That's why doctors maintain medical histories both for me and my family, while alties don't care about keeping records.

A BABY is heard crying from somewhere in the crowd.

DRONES: Number 7155477 has given birth. Her baby is unhealthy because of your dance. You cannot question her perceptions of this correlation because you are not a parent. Parents are ascended to the top of the ivory tower, where they are set above questioning. You will not criticize her observations. Lock. Step.

BD: Uh, I don't see her ascending the tower. She's still on the same ground as the rest of us. Having a baby doesn't raise someone into godhood. We're all mere, fallible mortals with observational biases. We need science to filter out our biases and reach objective knowledge.

DRONES: No we do not. We have common sense. We should trust our ancient biases instead of rigorously testing them. Lock. Step.

BD: Is that why you've been marching in small circles for all this time while science has been moving us forward in ways we couldn't even imagine a few generations ago?

[No conclusion.]

---

Some anvils need to be dropped.

Epistemological Relativism Shot Down

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal gets it:

Awesome Poetry

Hat tip to PZ for showing me this:



Storm sure repeats a lot of doggerel. This Tim Minchin guy did a wonderful job, but I feel like typing up some of my thoughts on Storm's thought-stopping cliches:

"Knowledge is merely opinion."

Last I checked, opinion was stuff that you couldn't prove or disprove. Science may not get up to mathematics in certainty, but we can gather a lot of evidence and get extremely high confidence values.

"But the human body is a mystery..."

And getting less and less so, thanks to continual medical advances.

"Science just falls into a hole when it tries to explain the soul."

And it's been steadily filling the holes these woos call souls. Just like any anti-materialist screed, gaps are used to fill a petty need. (Great, now I'm doing it.)

"Pharmaceutical companies are the enemy..."

Far less than the alties. Real medicine has to go through a battery of tests before it's accepted and marketed. That's how it should be. Yes, they've got a profit motive to encourage them to cut corners, but that's why the FDA and similar organizations exist to police them. Alties are just complaining about their competition and generally turn to rants against the FDA because they want deregulation so they can sell anything without worrying about consumer protection measures.

"...They promote drug dependency..."

This is something I find really odd coming from an altie. I've often run into woos who try to convince me that I'm really sick, bombarded with vague toxins, dangerous electric fields from powerlines, miasmas, that I'm dehydrated from not drinking 8 glasses of pure water, or that I'm malnourished because I cook my food. So they try to get me to buy their juices, pills, and waves of their hands. And they want me to get regular sessions.

"...At the cost of natural remedies."

Someone doesn't know their medical history. Many medicines are derived from natural sources. Pharmaceutical companies just refine them to get rid of unnecessary (or even dangerous) other ingredients.

"...They're immoral and driven by greed..."

More reason to maintain consumer protection groups and not give in to altie propaganda. You know, I wonder just how big the profit margin on sCAM typically is. Probably much larger, especially for stuff like homeopathy.

"Why take drugs when herbs can solve it?"

If an herb can solve it, that pretty much makes it a drug. And many drugs are just the concentrated active ingredient of some herbs.

"Why do chemicals when homeopathic solvents can resolve it?"

Homeopathy is absolutely pure bunk.

"Shakespeare said it first: There are more things in Heaven and earth than exist in your philosophy."

Of course there are. Science is about finding them. When we find something new, our philosophy is designed to expand. We've been dreaming up and finding stuff for a long time. Unfortunately for the woos, they never dreamt of any of it at any time. All they have is bald assertion that it's something else.

"Science is just how we're trained to look at reality..."

Said by someone obviously not trained in science. Most people aren't. Besides, even if everyone got trained in scientific thought, what's wrong with that? Science is an inherently expansive, adaptive way of thought. Woo is reactionary.

"...It doesn't explain love or spirituality..."

Someone doesn't pay much attention to the world.

"How does science explain psychics..."

Trickery, confirmation bias, various other observation fallacies. Turns out there's always a simpler explanation than psychic powers. Which haven't contributed anything to our knowledge of the universe.

"auras"

Same set as psychics.

"the afterlife"

What afterlife? Evidence, please.

"or the power of prayer"

Prayer doesn't work.

"But you're just closed-minded, I think your FAITH in science and tests is just as blind as faith of any fundamentalist."

Projection, thy name is woo. Science is designed to accomodate change and expansion. Anything can be challenged.

So, that's the last we hear of Storm in the thing. One of my favorite bits from Tim as a metaphor for this bizarre craving for the supernatural:

To gild refined gold,
To paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet,
Is just fucking silly.

New Year's Resolutions

Well, I'm not one for long lists, but here goes mine:

1. Don't let my blogs go through long absences. Had a couple months there that were sparse, and I've been posting more often in an effort to get it to average out to once a day.

2. I resolve to get some kind of start on my Untitled Platformer beyond plotting and worldbuilding. I'll see who I can get to help me develop the basic engine.

3. Start on a new game franchise. My standard series aren't paying off as much as they used to. Any suggestions?

4. Read more. I've got books to catch up on.

Civ Tips, Anyone?

Just thought I'd ask some advice from people with more experience at Civ4. Anyone know how to get a good running start at cultural victories? Advice on going military? Advice on keeping my finances in order? (So far, it's largely me and my bro versus AIs.)

Lately, I've ended up rushing Alphabet so that I can tech trade early.

Pointless Question #45

Why is it that allegedly super-smart, super-logical aliens have dizzyingly complex languages? Isn't "Hi!" more efficient than a paragraph-long greeting that has to be said at just the right tempo?

Pointless Question #44

Every year, it seems like someone has it in for Santa. Why doesn't he get better security?

Some Reading

Well, I've got some new stuff to read. Brother got me Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things and The Last Hero Discworld book.

My brother enjoyed his red Swingline stapler and matching T-shirt.

Austin Weirdness

My brother caught this in Austin last week:

Conversions

Well, it seems the Raving Atheist has converted to Christianity of some sort. I never read any of his stuff, but hearing about the sorts of arguments he was presenting for "pro-life," I doubt he was anything like me or my skeptical friends. I not really surprised about the "conversion."

Overall, I'm not really impressed by conversion stories. Many seem completely fictional: Either they never were an atheist, or they were the stereotypical emo kid who labeled himself such to look controversial or rebellious. And don't get me started on all the alleged deathbed conversions described by people who were never there.

Aside from all that, there's a much better underlying reason for being underwhelmed: They never give good reasons for their conversions. It's always about emotional crutches, subjective experiences, and arguments from ignorance. I'm a scientifically minded person. Show me empirical data. Show me the evidence. Commence destroying a phone booth like in that movie.

New scientific theories can spread like wildfire across the scientific community when the evidence moves in its favor. Evidence leads to consensus far quicker than any religion. Of course, anything's faster than 'roughly never.' Religion has schisms that spreads it all over the place. There's no empirical evidence everyone can agree on. Simply put, religion diverges, science converges. If there's ever scientific evidence for the supernatural, you might see me convert, but you'd probably see a mass conversion in the scientific community first.

Fantasy Rants

Bumped into this over on TV Tropes. If you're doing some fantasy writing of any kind, it looks like generally good advice.

Minor Redirect

Seems a woo author's stopped by Doggerel #89: "I'm Going to Show You... In My Book!" Don't know if he'll stick around for replies. Just posting this so you can know, since my Recent Comments feed is on the fritz.

---Yup, he's replying.

Analogy Attempt

Wes apparently liked my use of "random" in my description of Creationism, and I got to thinking in the shower. Imagine you roll a die several times and it consistently comes up six. Three conjectures come to mind:

1) The die is heavily loaded so that it comes up six all the time.
2) The die just randomly came up six all those times.
3) The unknowable magic man in the sky wanted it to be six all those times.

The first idea is a testable hypothesis. It predicts that you'll find the die to be unbalanced if you examine it carefully. It predicts that the most likely result of further rolls will be more sixes.

The second idea is a null hypothesis. It predicts that there's a 5/6 chance you won't roll a six again. Technically, this one can explain any result, but each roll of a six makes it less and less likely to be true.

The third idea is unfalsifiable, since we can't make predictions from it. If you roll a six, you can say the magic man's in the same mood. If you roll a five, you could just as easily say he changed into a five-ish mood for that moment. Same with the other numbers.

I guess it shouldn't be hard to guess that #1 is pretty much every scientific theory ever and #3 is what Creationism boils down to: It's actually less predictive than randomness.

Bloggin' From Bed, Once More (Minus Gusto)

Since I'm not at 100%, here's Blake Stacy covering something in my state.

Settled on My Meds

I'm on Lexapro, third day. Experiencing a very mild bit of the nausea and drowsiness, well within my tolerances. First counseling session went well, too. Anyone know something I don't about the stuff?

---

It's either the Lexapro or I went to bed wearing medium or heavy armor. 'Cuz I woke up fatigued today (Saturday). Little surprised at how hard this bit hit me.

An Inversion of an Argument

One of the great strengths of the theory of evolution is its explanatory power. Heredity with variation explains the distribution of similarities between different species over time. It explains the results of many, many experiments. Of course, Creationism, with an unfalsifiable, unknowable, all powerful magic man can explain it as that deity's random whims. That is, of course, one of many fatal weaknesses of Creationism, because it has a lot of things it can't explain. It boils down to this:

Why is the world NOT something else? Evolution explains quite well why we have nested hierarchies indicative of branching processes. Anything else would be a violation of heredity or require a new phenomenon to explain. Creationism, thanks to the unknowability and omnipotence of the deity, seems to suggest anything was possible and it was just random chance that he happened to be in the mood for making a universe that looked like it produced a diversity of life through evolution. As they would probably say, humans and chimps have common ERV sequences, not because they had a common ancestor with them, but because their deity randomly decided to give them the same sequences in the same locations. They'd probably leave off the "randomly" part, though.

Move the topic to cosmology. The Big Bang theory explains why we see the expansion of the universe and predicted things like the microwave background radiation of the universe. Creationism essentially "explains" this by random chance again with the unknowable whims. It could have made the universe any other way, but randomly chose to make it look like a Big Bang universe.

Pointless Question #43

Why is it that so many aliens have resolved enough issues to have planetwide governments but are still ruled by hereditary monarchies?

102nd Skeptics' Circle

It's up at Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes.

Open thread as usual, but WATCH YOUR [%^*&]ING LANGUAGE!

YouTube Propaganda Concept

I'm thinking about making a YouTube video that reverses a lot of Creationist/Fundie accusations about us scientifically minded people. Think I might do it as a piece of propaganda in the form of one of those educational slide projectors with the beeps to signal slide changes. Anyway, some of the accusations I'm thinking of reversing:

1. Moral relativism. Some of you may have noticed this is a favorite of mine. I'd probably use the "saved by faith, not works" sort of thing as the basis: Morality, in that view, is just a mortal pastime. You can do whatever you want, so long as you luck out in believing in the right stone idol.

2. Epistemological relativism/instability/whatever. The truth is one thing one day, and then another thing the next. Whichever is convenient. One example that comes to mind is the archaeopteryx: Some Creationists say it's all bird, and others say it's all reptile with faked feathers.

3. Newage Retro Hippies. Do everything I can to associate them with "modern" forms of woo, like alternative medicine, psychics, flying saucer cults, etcetera and suggest Creationism is a gateway to these things. Might compare belief in Reiki to faith healing, for example.

4. Godwin like crazy. Quote Hitler:

"The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. xi

Include a bit on Sarah Palin mocking fruit fly research and compare it to Trofim Lysenko's description of biologists as "fly-lovers and people-haters."

Any other ideas I could use? Sound clips and captured images would be nice, too.

Halifax! Wiki, Wiki!

Well, I've signed onto Akusai's starting up wiki, about foundational assumptions behind different sorts of woo. One foundational assumption I'm thinking about (and Tom's got a somewhat relevant post on that): "The perfect conspiracy," which is the idea that million-man conspiracies where no one tattles or slips up are possible.

(Link removed, since Akusai's not going public, yet. Still got details to work out.)

My Blogaversary!

Well, it's been three years. That's 21 in dog years, if you buy that system that doesn't account for the much shortened childhood of canines. It's been a lot of fun. Imagine in 2009, I'll break 200 with the Doggerel entries. It's getting trickier since I've covered so much, but let's not underestimate the variety of woo cliches.

GDL Activity

Just mentioning that I'm getting more active at GDL, again. MWChase and KoF have been at it as well.

Just a Fun Video

Iraqi journalist throws his shoes at Bush. Nicely done.

Doggerel #173: "You Think We're All Just Molecules!"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

One metaphor I've chosen to describe my attitude about this bit of doggerel: "Do rainbows cease to be pretty once you find out they're cased by light refracting through water droplets?"

Yes, everything we know so far suggests people could be described as a very complicated set of particles interacting in a sophisticated manner. Love, joy, aesthetics, and so forth are a bunch of unpronounceable chemicals bouncing around in our heads. But how exactly does that make those things valueless? They still make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. A person is a person, regardless of what processes add up to giving them those characteristics we value.

I recently met a commenter on YouTube who tried to say us skeptics dehumanize people that way. Quite frankly, I fear the opposite if we ever end up with genuinely intelligent AIs (unlikely in my lifetime) or aliens (far more unlikely): Those who assign personhood by alleged supernatural characteristics, rather than actual characteristics could easily de"human"ize whoever they feel like. We know fundies have done it to humans with different pigmentation. Nothing stopping them from doing it again except secular efforts at shaming anyone who does.

Playstation@Home

They finally got something out. Beta version. You might see me dinking about today on that Saucer Pop game, though not terribly often. Not much to do on there yet, but if you feel like chatting, I can do that.

...And at 12:28, I've already heard my first racist comment from someone's Bluetooth. Just noticed some chess tables in the mall, and someone commented, "Why them n-----s playing chess? To make 'em feel smarter?" Ick.

What Decemberween Means to Me

Well, there's been a lot of crap slung about on the topic of the season, mostly thanks to wingnuts like Bill O'Reilly. Personally, I think there's better things to celebrate than the birth of a magic zombie who tortures people for not loving him more than their family and friends.

First, one thing I hope to enjoy is my brother's laughter when I give him a pop culture reference as a present. We started out our interests in very different directions, but we've found a lot more in common as we grew up. He's not so much a geek, but we do have crossover and nostalgia.

Second, it's nice to have the family under one roof. I get to socialize with my brother as we play games, and we get to share some stories. Family dynamics change with him around, and we have an excuse to have dinner at nice restaurants.

Third, when Bill O'Reilly shuts up, I can enjoy TV shows about the togetherness and love (when they don't get too saccharine) and a fat guy who just wants to give out gifts, if not for some greedy or just plain mean guy trying to ruin the whole thing... Oh, wait, that'd be Bill.

Anyway, Decemberween's just a nice secular holiday for me.

Drama Bomb Alert!

You can just skip this post if you don't feel like learning about some of my neuroses.

I think I need to get on Paxil. For those of you in my section of the blogosphere, you're about the only people I don't feel anxious about socializing with right now. I've been on accutane to knock out my acne, which is supposed to have side effects with depression, but if it did anything at all, I imagine it might have amplified some problems.

Been working on a master's degree, and I've been getting more more and more nervous about talking with professors, and declined going to a party without my dad, who has some similarities in his background and could help cover me in conversations. It's a mix of knowing enough to know that I still have a lot to learn, as well as a bit of being in the self esteem craze where everyone praised their kids for being smart. I don't like to people to watch me work because working implies that I didn't just naturally figure everything out in my head or know it already.

Was taking it light this semester, since I'm nearing the end, with only one course to cover some background. I'm a big ball of nerves about my grade right now, though thankfully spilling all this out to my mother at midnight helped. Especially since she stated her commitment to us all having a nice Decemberween, regardless of grades. I haven't been doing much, since my job's out of work for me, and I haven't had a regular schedule for a while.

Anyway, going to meet with a counselor of ours who's been doing some useful stuff with medication. Pretty much my turn to have a crisis and resolve it.

So anyway, I figure I've got some readers who might know a thing or two about good science about these sorts of medications, as opposed to woos who seem to like saying all pills are evil. Anything I should know about Paxil and other social anxiety medications?

Upcoming Attraction

Been dueling a YEC by the name of answerme33 on YouTube, and he's gotten around to sending a personal message. There's a fair chance I might post the exchange here if it happens.

Jon Stewart is Awesome

Versus Mike Huckabee:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Gaming Thread: Remake-o-Rama

One thing that I sometimes find disconcerting is that a lot of the games I've been buying are remakes of old games. Now, there's nothing wrong with resurrecting great games so that the next generation can enjoy them, or to fix old problems brought on by old system limitations. It just makes me feel like I should find some way of expanding into new material without relying on old franchises to continue forever. But for now, I can feel nostalgic.

So, any remakes you enjoy? Here's a list of some of mine:

Final Fantasy IV DS: It had been a long time since I played FF4 when I decided it was time to try it again, with better script writers. I was not disappointed, and they had some good voice acting for the dramatic scenes. I was glad they decided to consistently pronounce the lead character's name "Seh-sul" instead of "See-sill." I probably would have had a harder time taking it seriously otherwise.

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (PSP): Another well-done remake with a much improved translation. I love how they handled the movie scenes with the faux-drawn effect. My primary complaint, however, is the slowdown for a number of attack animations. It doesn't help that it can cause the sound to go out of sync. But for the sake of being able to follow the plot better, it's worth the minor annoyance.

Mega Man Maverick Hunter X (PSP): Not a completely straight remake, which adds a bit of variety. One thing I found that changes the nature of the game is that your X-buster doesn't penetrate walls. That little detail makes the obstacles feel much more solid than before. Being able to play as Vile is a nice touch for replay value. He gets a larger variety of weapons, but he can only equip one of each type (Hand, Shoulder cannon, Knee) for a level. Do like the added story scenes.

Mega Man 9 (Wii/PS3/Xbox360): Not a remake, but a new old school Mega Man game. Eight robot masters, no charged shots, no sliding. Back to the fundamentals and what made the game great. One minor complaint is the variety of gimmick platforms. It ends up making the levels feel a bit more MM4-5-6ish, which contrasts the MM1-2 control feel. I like that they have accomplishments you can work for. I've gotten the basic speed runs covered.

I Get Email

Nope, not incoherent hate mail like PZ so often gets and posts with that title. It's a Washington Post article on quackery someone was kind enough to send me.

It starts off with bad news:

More than one-third of U.S. adults and nearly 12 percent of children use alternatives to traditional medicine, according to a large federal survey released today that documents how entrenched acupuncture, herbal remedies and other once-exotic therapies have become.

I warned you.

"It's clear that millions of American every year are turning to complementary and alternative medicine," said Richard L. Nahin of the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which released the survey. "The use of complementary and alternative medicine seems to have stabilized in the United States."

I'd like to hear more about NCCAM testing the remedies, rather than surveying their popularity. That's what they're supposed to be there for, right? ...I don't recall ever hearing much of that, though, aside from some negative studies that don't ever do anything for policy.

The most commonly used are dietary supplements and herbal products such as echinacea, flax seed oil and ginseng, followed by deep breathing exercises, meditation, chiropractors, massage and yoga. While fewer Americans were using certain diets and trying herbal remedies such as echinacea to cure colds, the popularity of acupuncture, meditation, yoga and massage all grew.

Those of you who watched my second YouTube video may have seen a little image of mine:

"I think it's fair to say we can conclude that this is part of the steady state of medical care in the United States," said David Eisenberg, director of the Harvard Medical School division for research and education in complementary and integrative medical therapies. "I think the news is complementary and alternative medicine use by the U.S. public is here to stay."

NOOOOO!

Others said the findings were disturbing because most alternative treatments have not been scientifically validated and those that have been rigorously tested have been overwhelmingly been found to be ineffective.

"They are either unproven or disproven," said Wallace Sampson, founding editor of the journal the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine. "Acupuncture is a placebo. Homeopathy is one step above fraud. It goes on and on. The fact that they are so widely used is evidence for how gullible large segments of our society are."

Now we get to sensible people. That one step homeopathy is above fraud: The practitioners are often just as gullible about it as the people they sell to.

Some went further, noting that some studies have found some dietary supplements might increase that risk of some serious health problems, including cancer. Parents could be putting their children at risk if they deny them proven mainstream treatments, they said.

If I recall correctly, vitamin B12 is carcinogenic in megadoses. And of course, many parents are indeed putting their children at risk.

"In addition to the fact that these things are unproven and potentially dangerous, they also feed the mentality that you can forgo proven treatments in favor of these magic potions," said Seth Asser, a pediatrician and consultant to Children's Health Care is a Legal Duty (CHILD), a non-profit group that opposes faith healing and other non-traditional medical practices.

Sounds like a group I should look into.

The survey comes soon after a flurry of large studies failed to validate the suspected benefits of many "antioxidants" widely used to try to stave off cancer and other diseases. Just this week, two large studies found no evidence taking vitamins E and C and selenium reduces the risk of prostate and other cancers.

I hope those get some people thinking. But I doubt it.

Adults were most likely to use alternative therapies for pain, including back pain, neck pain or joint pain. Women were more likely than men to use them, as were those who are more educated and more affluent.

I know us atheists like to brag that statistically, we tend to cover much of the educated sector, but this goes to show that having degrees doesn't necessarily prevent someone from being stupid at times.

"There are hundreds if not thousands of therapies that the public is using. The National Institutes of Health is slowly going through that cornucopia to study them and provide information to the public," Nahin said.

Critics charged that the survey was being used to justify continued government spending on research into such treatments.

I'm torn on the issue, sometimes. You don't want tax money wasted on stuff the promoters won't even try to research properly, but having a supposedly independent institution debunk them would be nice.

"There's a tremendous amount of money being wasted on this," said Stephen Barrett, who runs quackwatch.org, which monitors false medical claims. "That money could be used to do research on something that has been waiting in line to get money."

Nahin acknowledged there are legitimate concerns about many alternative therapies. Dietary supplements are not regulated as closely as standard medication, leaving them more likely to be contaminated, for example. And some products can also interfere with prescription drugs.

But Nahin said government-funded research into such therapies was useful, citing a federal study that concluded that St. John's Wort was ineffective. After the results were released, use the herbal remedy dropped sharply, he said.

"The research is working," he said. "It's doing what it's supposed to do, which is provide reliable information to the public so they can make decisions."

So, I guess that's why I haven't been seeing as many ads for St. John's Wort. Maybe there's some worth in this.

What the Hell's Up With Nisbet?

Well, you know this guy stirs up a lot of commentary when he's mentioned. I generally don't bother to follow his blog, so no recent complaints beyond that bit on "denialism." What annoys me about the guy is that for all his talk of framing, he's doing what looks like a damn poor job of it. One fundamental error I remember someone mentioning that summed it up well: Not everyone responds to the same frame well.

In Nisbet threads, I usually get a compulsion to mention that I was deconverted by the fire breathers. The inoffensive types didn't really do anything to shake me out of generic spirituality. It was harsh-worded skeptics who relentlessly and unapologetically pointed out fallacies, contradictions, and mundane explanations in the face of eternally evasive woos who got me on their side. In my eyes, they succeeded in claiming the moral high ground, and as defenders of spiritualism continued to fail at explaining and answering honest questions, I eventually figured they didn't have any.

Yeah, there's probably a fair number of people out there who need a more gentle approach, but that doesn't mean people who need a firm verbal slap once in a while don't exist. All too often, I find the real target of skeptical talk are not the thin-skinned woos, but the apathetic shruggies. They're people who need to be awoken out of complacency so that they can know woo really is harmful, or that big questions can be answered, not just contemplated in a shallow manner.