I’ve spoken about Uncanny Valley before. Here’s a little write-up from Wired Science on some related brain research.
Monthly Archives: July 2011
Al Franken, Tearer Of Orifices, Tears One
I am so happy Al is my Senator.
Continue reading Al Franken, Tearer Of Orifices, Tears One
Updates on Rebeccapocalypse, and Otter Matters
People are screaming at me over on ERV blog about not making a formal announcement that Richard Dawkins is god-like because he’s donated a bunch of foundation money to a child care project. That’s wonderful that he did that, but I’m not a member of JREF, was not at TAM, do not get newsletters from any of these people and the last time I had a conversation with Dawkins it was at a memorial service of a shared fallen colleague which had nothing to do with atheism or skepticism. So, I was never sent anything about this, didn’t hear about it anywhere except from ERV, and officially I don’t know nothin’ about this but you are welcome to read about it here.
Speaking of there, John C. Welch, IT tech who claims to be a writer and analyst, a boy who likes his toys, hates me. Vitriolically. I haven’t seen this level of hate since Salty Crackergate or the Brian Pesta Follies. This guy has one serious bug up his back side. But his vitriol will not stop me from awarding him the coveted Best Worst Comment of the Day Award, usually provided on my facebook feed but in this case double posted:
“…”correct” feminist compatriots, Greg-Fucking-Laden” … “
The rest was inarticulate. Sorry.
John C. Welch is looking for a job, by the way. Here’s his web site. I hope he gets a position at a place with either no elevators or no women, or both. Because he reserves his right to follow women onto elevators and make them uncomfortable and gets VERY mad at anyone who disagrees with him. I also hope his prospective employers don’t check the internet to get a bead on what kind of guy he is. Hell, I’m thinking of taking out a bloggy restraining order on him myself if necessary.
(John C. Welch is also famous for an ill fated botched attempt at a primitive sort of denial of service attack (not to be confused with a DDOS attack) on my blog, which is funny because as an IT professional that makes him bot unethical and incompetent. Oh and his book
I already pointed to Rebecca Watson’s interview on Point of Inquiry. Here I just want to remind you that there is a “comment section” for that podcast in the form of a forum.
And finally … watch your back:
Continue reading Updates on Rebeccapocalypse, and Otter Matters
ERV
Scienceblogs Abbie Smith (ERV) will be the guest on this weeks Skeptically Speaking:
Skeptically Speaking #122 HIV and AIDS
This week, we’re joined by graduate student and Scienceblogs writer Abbie Smith, to learn about the latest research on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. How does HIV cause AIDS? What are the latest treatments? How close are we to a cure? What strategies are most effective at stopping the spread of infection ? And what are the arguments that denialists make for alternate causes of the disease? Tune in and find out!
We record live with Abbie Smith on Sunday, July 24 at 6 pm MT. The podcast will be available to download at 9 pm MT on Friday, July 29.
Marc Hauser has resigned
Marc Hauser, whom I’ve discussed before a few times, has resigned from his position at Harvard. This was somewhat unexpected.
Continue reading Marc Hauser has resigned
Several items for your careful consideration …
I’ve only got random stuff for you now, but it is all good stuff. Well, not really all good, but it is most definitively all stuff.
First, we have Chris Mooney interviewing Rebecca Watson in a Point of Inquiry Podcast. Give it a listen.
I’m happy to be one of the men who supports Rebecca. Those of you who are mad at me for that please continue to comment here, because Imma write a book about WTF is going on in your heads. Along the lines of a Stephen King novel, I think.
On a more mundane and immediate note, we just received word of a four year old girl drowned in Clearwater Park. Nobody I know or anything but it reminds me, now that this is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, to remind you to be safe about water! Did you know that the typical drowning person drowns silently? Did you know that the fast majority of kinds who drown do so in sight of adults who are supposedly supervising them, but who never saw it happen? Obviously someone is doing something wrong. Don’t do that.
UPDATE: A 6-year-old Duluth boy was found unresponsive in a Cloquet swimming pond and later died at a hospital. … Cloquet City Administrator Brian Fritsinger says there were four life guards on duty at the time.
We also have an interesting phenomenon going on in the Twin Cities. The Twin Cities (but mainly Minneapolis?) and Minnesota is on the top of the list for all sorts of good things: Bike use, theater attendance, adopting people, volunteerism, and bad-ass hot dish. But we are also on the top of the list for NOT HAVING ANY REAL PUBLIC TRANSIT. We have an OK bus system, but until recently not a singe inch of rail transit! Not one!
But that was partly (and I emphasize partly) over the last few years with the opening of two rail systems: The Hiawatha Line (from downtown Minneapolis to the Airport and the Mall of America) and the North Star Line (from my house and points north to Downtown Minneapolis).
And that’s nice, but one always worries about new transit projects. All it takes is one study showing that it was underutilized or something for all the anti-good bunny-crushing yahoo to come down on public transit and stuff.
And something did happen here just now, but not that. What happened was a bad thing but with a good message. A train (carrying mainly corn) was going over a bridge over Rice Creek (a former segment of the late Pleistocene Mississippi River) and the bridge, under heavy stress from some mondo rainstorms we’ve been having, collapsed.
That was the track the North Star rail (mine) runs on. So, when Amanda went to work yesterday via car, she got stuck in the worst traffic jam she’d ever seen, and this is with the State Workers off the highway. And it has been discussed in the news. Apparently, enough people were using the North Star Light Rail Line to matter! Yay public transit! I just hope they fix that bridge soon.
And, I am thankful that it did not collapse under the commuter train…..
They may need a crane to fix that bridge. Oh, and speaking of cranes, Why Not Allow Crane Hunting? Indeed.
OK, next item: I have this question for you: What’s the diffrence between “what you said was racist” and “what you said could have been interepated as possilby sounding racist to someone who doesn’t know you in all due respect.” In my experience either one gets you “I’M NOT RACIST YOU A-HOE!!!11!!” And they are structurally the same thing. They are not “You are a racist swine, a-hole!!!11!!”
Jason Thibeault has been slogging it out with some commenters elsewhere on this very blog about the meaning of “Ad hominem” and was thus inspired to write a blog post about this in which he provides this video which I hereby rob:
Continue reading Several items for your careful consideration …
Communicating Atheism
I want you to watch this from beginning to end. Report back.
Continue reading Communicating Atheism
Pulling in to STFU Station
So, I push you.
Then, you push me.
Then, I push you.
Then, you push me.
Then, I push you.
Then, you push me.
And I go “Hey, no pushing! Unfair!!!!”
Continue reading Pulling in to STFU Station
The first crane and the last crane
The first crane I ever saw is a bird burned permanently in my memory. It came out of nowhere and flew close by, staying in view lit by a nearly setting sun for about five wing beats. A gun was raised to shoot it but the trigger was not pulled.
Continue reading The first crane and the last crane
Hurricane Season Start Up
Technically, hurricane season has been going for a while now but I’ve not found any reason to start discussing disturbing weather until now. And, we have two items of interest. First, a storm is blowing up off the east coast of Florida. This is a tropical storm forming in the western Atlantic. That is not particularly strange. Most years, however, storms form by the time the associated wave has reached the middle of the Atlantic, or at least, are far enough along that you can think of tropical storm formation in the Atlantic as a phenomenon directly linked to West Africa and the eastern Atlantic. I haven’t yet verified this, but it seems to me that in a given year either zero or a fair number of storms form in the gulf or the western Atlantic. Maybe we are having one of those years. Anyway, this storm is called 98L and there will possibly be something going on there by mid week.
Meanwhile, in the western Pacific, there is a full-on typhoon heading towards Japan. Ma-on is a Cat Three storm and it will graze the east coas of Honshu in two days. It may cycle through Cat Four size and then back to Cat Three size by that time. The storm is huge. It may in fact have little impact on Japan as Japan will be on the trailing wing; Anything far asea to the east of Japan, on the right side of the storm’s eye, will be hit with a fairly high surge and strong winds, most likely. While the storm is at its strongest, this means basically nothing because there are no islands in that region, but after the storm turns east-northeast on Tuesday, it will cross a line of islands.
Info on Ma-on is here.
Japan Nuclear Disaster Update 31: Radioactive stuff spreads, questions multiply
The International Atomic Energy Association issued its last report on Fukushima on June 2nd and appears to not be keeping their web site up to date any more. This is the last time I’ll be checking with them unless I hear otherwise. The email scandal reported last time continues “Analysts say the scandal reflects panic in Japan’s atomic power industry, long coddled by political, corporate and regulatory interests dubbed the “nuclear village” but now facing growing anti-nuclear sentiment as workers battle to end the Fukushima crisis.? (from Ana’s Feed, below). The magnitude of the tsunami wave that hit the plant (and vicinity) has been re-estimated, and it was quite a bit larger than previously thought. Radiation in sea-living organisms continues to be a concern.
UPDATE: On sundau, Goshi Hosono, the Japanese Government minister in charge of the accident, officially stated that “Step 1” of the recovery process was completed (as scheduled). This involves bringing cooling of the reactors to a stable level, and eliminating the risk of a hydrogen explosion.
The Step 1 plan also required “Prevention of release of contaminated water with high radiation level outside of the site boundary… Actions will be taken against accumulated water to (1) secure several storage places and (2) install facilities to process the contaminated water and reduce the radiation dose, among others.”
These steps seem to have been only partially achieved, so it is a little premature to announce that “Step 1” has been completed. In any event, as of Sunday, July 17th, it is claimed that cooling is totally under control and there is zero possibility of a hydrogen explosion at Fukushima.
Ana’s feed has several items regarding tracking radiation both near Fukushima and around the world.
Questions: Would a newer reactor design have done better? Were poor decisions made when this and other reactors were built? For instance, one of the original options for siting Fukushima was above the level of the tsunami. Siting the plant within range of tsunamis was a conscious decision. Why was it made?
More questions: Are US plants, now being re-evaluated with the sudden realization that nuclear power can be dangerous, in need of safety re-evaluations, upgrades, or decommissioning?
It turns out that while the Fukushima reactors were busy melting down, a depleted uranium storage facility in Chiba caught fire when the adjoining oil refinery blew up. Other industrial facilities including other nuclear power plants are now understood to have suffered important damage that has not been discussed publicly.
The situation with Fukushima’s cattle herd has continued to develop since our last report on July 7th. Initially, 11 cattle were found to have 2,300 becquerels/kilo of radioactive cesium, which exceeds the allowable limit of 500. The beef from that herd of 11 was never sent to market. However, in a separate development reported four days ago, the meat of six cows form Fukushima was distributed widely in Japan, and at least some of it was consumed by unsuspecting patrons. The six cattle were from the same farm as the 11. Eventually, a total of more than 80 cattle were shipped out from farms with high-cesium feed.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan visited Fukushima on Saturday
Read all about these issues and much, much more in Ana’s Feed:
Continue reading Japan Nuclear Disaster Update 31: Radioactive stuff spreads, questions multiply
They’ll be killing cranes in Kentucky
This from Julie at 10,000 Birds:
Kentucky’s Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources unanimously passed its sandhill crane hunting proposal. All eight hunters on the commission think it’s a good idea to shoot cranes in Kentucky. The proposal now goes to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for final approval or denial. The public comment period on the Kentucky sandhill crane hunting proposal ends AUGUST 1 2011.
Read the details here, including information on what you need to do to help stop this. Take action and spread the word. Julie’s post has the address for submitting written comments.
(She also outlines why the sandhill cranes should not be hunted, but you already knew that, right?)
Why are you sitting there reading this? CLICK HERE and get to work on this.
Seriously. Go. GO.
Kobou
When I first arrived in the Ituri Forest I was shown a camp a group of Efe Pygmies all typically lived in, and told “everyone lives here but the old man and his wife … he’s a bit contentious and there was an argument.” Having read all the literature written in English about Pygmies, I was aware of the fact that these foraging people, who moved frequently — perhaps ten times a year or more — would often change the composition of their residence groups to reflect forming and breaking alliances among people who often, but not always, lived together. After hanging out in the camp, which was empty, long enough for the ethnoarchaeologist I had come to Zaire to “replace,” we went back to the road via a different path and passed Kobou and his wife (pronounced “Ko-bo-oo”) in a small clearing in a freshly cut garden. “Strange,” I thought, “They live in a square hut. Everyone else lives in a dome-shaped hut. I guess some Efe live in square huts.”
But no. Kobou is the only Efe we know of to always build square huts. Maybe somewhere else in the Central African Rain Forest, but not around these parts.
Continue reading Kobou
Which Googleois Do I Put In What Google+ Circles?
People on Google+ are discussing what to do with their circles. Here, I’m not going to explain what circles are; I wish merely to record for the moment what I’m doing with them on my account for others to consider and criticize. If you don’t know what circles are, join Google+ and find out, and don’t forget to put me in one of your circles! (Put me in a good one!)
Continue reading Which Googleois Do I Put In What Google+ Circles?
The View on Michele Bachmann
If you are annoyed with Michele Bachmann’s racism and anti-gayism please donate to a candidate that opposes her. She is using the video you watched to raise money. Good idea.
Do spread this video around, please.
Below the fold: Michele Bachmann’s gay step sister and her friend in DC supporting Obama.