What beer ads say about men.

It makes a lot of good points and does help highlight the harm that patriarchy does to men too. Also, seriously? What's wrong with beer ads they are almost all exclusively terrible.

Joss Whedon's Equality Now Speech

Some of the things I post on this blog are things that I think are awesome and want to find again in a pinch. I'm pretty much the only person here so that sounds like a great way to use my blog. That said, Joss Whedon's speech is insanely awesome.

Autotune the News still exists...

Hm.






It's pretty interesting and was when they existed a good while back, it's good to find that they still do what they do.

En Passant Chess Puzzle.

What an interesting little puzzle.

White to move and moves his bishop (lower right) up and to the right for checkmate. But, black has a response of double pushing his pawn still in its starting position up two to interpose, allowing a discovered checkmate by his bishop. At which point white takes blacks double pushed pawn "en passant" or 'in passing'. Now, interestingly enough, that would mean that black never actually got out of checkmate. The reason why you can double push your pawns is to speed up the game. The en passant move is so that people cannot abuse it to avoid being attacked by the other players pawns. So really the double pressed move is suppose to be two moves with only the opportunity by the other player to capture on the very next move or rather in the middle of the move that was just made. But, it's treated like a single move. So who really wins? Can black interpose if black can't reach the needed square? Because the whites response sets back the clock so to speak? Or does black win because the interposing allows for a discovered mate? Should you be allowed to capture the king in passing?

(via TYWKIWDBI)

RL moved, also burnt my computer to death.

I somehow thought it was okay to leave my computer in direct sunlight for a while. Admittedly it might have been the jiggling drive across town and the very large heat sink on my system, or that I left the black case in 100 degree F (38C) heat in direct sunlight. In any event my system refuses to turn on when I press the power button though it gets lights on the motherboard when there's power to be had, but it kind of sits there like I didn't just press the power button when I press the power button.

In any event, that's likely why I have very few blog entries in the last week or so.

Stupid Clown Posse... Seriously?

Maybe they are wicked insanely smart geniuses who just pretend to be the dumbest people ever, but seriously, nobody can pretend to be that stupid without being that stupid.

You need to watch and roll your eyes at the first video before watching the SNL parody. I'm glad that most people realize how extremely stupid it is rather than me just sitting there alone and pointing out that there are scientific explanations for things.

In case you wonder. HowStuffWorks has a pretty good explanation of how magnets work.

I see miracles all around me
Stop and look around, it’s all astounding
Water, fire, air and dirt
Fucking magnets, how do they work?
And I don’t wanna talk to a scientist
Y’all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed

Ninja Ropes...

http://www.sarkscape.com/games/iphone/ninja-ropes-extreme/

It's fun.

Fun things you might not know: Gollum's Acceptance Speech.

Gollum's acceptance speech for the 2003 MTV Best Animated Character Award won the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.

Dr. Horrible Commentary.

I swear I should be docked a lot of geek cred for barely finding this now. There's a musical commentary for Dr. Horrible.








There's like 14 of them and they apparently sync with the video, but I'm not sure on that last part.

Are species intelligent?

There's a somewhat interesting paper written some 20 years ago about the question of intelligence and evolution qua whether evolving species can be seen to fit the definition of intelligence (Schull 1990). Which was referenced in a paper about the real flaws in the argument from design (Sharlow 2009). Schull in his paper notes that:

It may eventually turn out that there is something about nervous systems that is uniquely suited for the mediation of intelligence (Searle 1980), but until that “something” is identified, the objection seems both vitalistic and anthropocentric. Meanwhile, my bet is that some suite of information-processing, adaptation-developing, and adaptation- implementing features will prove necessary and sufficient for the implementation of intelligence, regardless of the material which instantiates them. The extent to which that suite includes the features I have attributed to species remains to be seen.

Which does seem to explicitly exclude the idea that intelligence actually is evolution and that they are really two sides of the same coin, while in other ways arguing that we can see some deep homologies between species evolution and organism intelligence.

It all turns out to be a pretty dry read although Sharlow's paper is great and certainly does explain the real flaw in design. Which is actually the explanation I agree with. There is real design in nature, and nature is entirely sufficient to result in said design. The primary flaw is the implicit assumption that if a system is designed then it cannot be self-designed. To wit, he gives a notable example of a self-designing system: the human brain. As it is entirely possible to without external input, derive a new splendid mathematical proof or other insight due to the functioning of the brain. So the brain must, in some ways, be seen to be able to redesign itself to be more designed. That self-design is possible is the principle flaw in the argument from design. When we conclude that the designs of nature are like the designs of human ingenuity, we should rather conclude that these designs are created by the system themselves (probably through a form of evolution) rather than subjected to an infinite regress of skyhooks.

There is real design in nature. Design requires a designer. That designer is nature through the self-designing process of evolution.

Most evolutionary attacks on the argument from design suppose that because it's possible for evolution to produce results that seem like design then therefore there must not be any real design in nature. But, that really does narrow the use of design rather strongly. After all, Venter recently designed a lifeform is that life form designed? Well yes. But, he cheated and used all well evolved genes. It really is a pretty silly line and if humans invented squirrels they would be considered designed.

There's a lot of philosophical arguments kicking around but they just don't go far enough in my mind.

Intelligence, Evolution, and a thought experiement.

Intelligence n. 1: capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.

If you had a biosphere that lived on prediction where, rather than getting energy from the sun or from other organisms, the energy was gleaned by way of making accurate predictions about some unknown external world. Where there exists some way of confirming or denying these predictions (senses) and survival was predicated on accuracy of predictions. We would have, in our though experiment, a mind.

The capacity for learning new things for making a new species of predictions would be evolution. The capacity for understanding for being capable of making accurate predictions (this is largely what we mean by "understand", "I know why, how, and what it'll do in various situations") would be evolution. The aptitude for grasping things, for finding relationships, facts, meanings, and truths about the world would be, in this hypothetical biosphere, the process by which these organisms adapt to filling these new niches or better filling the niches than other species would be evolution.

* We can map the process of biological evolution on to a hypothetical world of predictions and find something that fits our given understanding of what we mean by intelligence.

* We can further understand that because of fundamental differences between this hypothetical and AI and the like, why such enterprises routinely fail miserably. It's a bit like designing squirrels by hand that could adapt to any situation. That even the best set of expert systems isn't really going to be remotely as powerful as this. And if we need something this powerful then AI in many of it's facets is an attempt to create a Creator God able to make new sets of predictions as they are needed (without really knowing predictions are needed).

*  We can also see that there are underlying evolutionary properties to the way brains grow and work. We can also see that prediction is what the brain actually does. That we constantly make predictions about the world and about what we should see next.

* This would also be able to do many of the amazing things the brain does like getting fooled by optical illusions to hallucinating away our blind spots. We don't predict there's nothing there... rather we predict what we think should be there.

If we take this thought experiment to its logical limits and to the potential complexity and usefulness of the world of nature we see around us thriving on various abstractions of sunlight. We should have little doubt that such a world, taken as a whole, should properly be seen as a mind by simply replacing light with enlightenment as the ultimate food source.

In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation.

-- Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 1859, p. 449.

Pocket watches, rocks, and trees.

No - that just tells you about the difference between a pocket watch and a rock. It doesn't tell you about the complexity or the simplicity of the processes that caused/created them.

I'm not saying evolution is complex or simple or that the particular geophysics required for the production of some particular rock is complex or simple. I'm saying that there seems to be something fundamentally different about the two products (rocks and pocket watches) and something fundamentally similar about (pocket watches and trees). That there is something fundamental about the productions which is could allow dumb and ignorant processes to create rocks but seems to require what we typically see as intelligence to create pocket watches and trees.

The useful complexity of things in nature which exceeds all other non-evolutionary processes by several orders of magnitude fails to exceed similarly some of the products of man. That works of intelligent engineered products and results of evolutionary processes are in some ways similar and thus in some ways does imply something fundamentally similar about the processes which created them. I simply differ with creationists, cdesign proponentsists, and design proponents that this implies that intelligence explains the works of evolution; evolution explains itself. Rather, I think that the universal acid of evolution flows the other direction, that evolution, perhaps, explains intelligence. 

Design with/without a designer.

I guess we can talk about design without the existence of a designer, but I must confess it still strikes me as a bit odd.

Well, it shouldn't. I'm okay with a bit of personification of evolution. Evolution is the designer for lack of better words. The standoffishness of the keeping away from any sort of intentional stance or subtle hints that the products of nature are akin to intelligently designed products is largely an overreaction to Creationists. It's a pretty required overreaction because if you give Creationists a finch, they'll take an isle. But, I'm perfectly fine with that. I'm actually okay with saying that nature is intelligently designed, it's designed by evolution and evolution is synonymous at its core with intelligence. If you want to worship the "Intelligent Designer" then you're your own bizarre characterization of somebody foolish enough to worship evolution. I'm actually okay with it because I think it's absolutely damning to creationism as well as being true. I think there's some very core connections between the well understood idea of evolution and the more vague not really explained and pseudo-skyhook of intelligence.

The Internet is smarter than us all...

It's just the nature of things. If the internet were a person it would be smarter than anybody.

Math Class Makeover?

I've always been of the opinion that math classes are way too much into learning the "steps" rather than treating mathematical operations like tools. But there's certainly a lot more to be had in teaching children the relationships of mathematical problems to reality.

Giving creationism a fair shake... *shiver*

Fox News Fail.

How about you pitch a few less softballs failtown?



I've seen Dan Barker do a lot worse, but hitting on all cylinders and being given time to respond. You fail Fox News.

QI and religion

QI is a fantastic show that I absolutely love. It doesn't air in the US but it's still absolutely great. Being British, they have a bit more freedom when it comes to religion. I wish anything like this would show up on US television.

Apparently we do have some Neanderthal DNA.

I wasn't convinced that we didn't. Apparently we do. But what's more is the gene flow only seems to go into the human population and not the other way around. My previous speculation on this topic was largely concerning the fact that it would be human women rather than neandertal women who would be having sex with the other group. If that were the case then all the mitochondrial DNA would track to human populations in Africa. Allow me to offer a novel theory as to what happened to the Neanderthals... human girls were prettier.

A poem for the Oklahoma legislature

I'll never be remotely that good at poetry or even conveying emotion.

(via Pharyngula (though the idea of somehow giving the Pharyngula more traffic is amusing))