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My ratings (R) are from 1 to 9. My Dates are also permalinks. Click on the column headers to sort Jots. Feel free to use the address bar like a command line interface by setting the optional query string parameters: Dtm1 (10, 20, 30, YYYYMMDDhhmmss), Dtm2 (YYYYMMDDhhmmss), IsJot (Jot or Not), Tag (zero+ times), NotTag (zero+ times), OrderBy (PostForDate, PostTitle, PostLink, PostText, PostSource, PostRating, PostSize) & Desc(Desc), and Limit(integer).

1. The Eight Irresistable Principles Of Fun TAGS: Chill. Faith. Inspiring. Mind. Self Improvement.
2. The Web Way to Learn a Language TAGS: Cyber Life. Education. Language. Self Improvement. World.
3. Apple iPad TAGS: Apple. Audio. Books. Cyber Life. Gadget. Hardware. Software. TECH. Videos.
4. Three Key Factors to Help Children Avoid Social Rejection Identified TAGS: Introversion. Mind. My Stuff. Psychology. Relations. Self Improvement.
5. Old News: Limbaugh and Robertson are Dicks TAGS: Faith. News. Sad. Text. USA. Videos. World.
6. iPods and Knives TAGS: Chicago. Fighting. News. Security. Self Defense. Violence.
7. Save the World TAGS: Art. Beauty. Books. Chemistry. History. Legal. Money. My Stuff. Philosophy. Ramblings. Reading. Science. Sustainability. War. World.
8. 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species TAGS: Chill. Comics. Evolution. Images. Inspiring. Life. Maroon. My Stuff. Orange. Philosophy. Politics. Quotations. Ramblings. Science. Space. USA. Videos. World.
9. The Wrong Side of History TAGS: Health. News. Politics. USA.
10. Video: Douglas Crockford - The State and Future of JavaScript TAGS: Cyber Tech. IBM. JavaScript. Microsoft. Programming. TECH. Yahoo!.
11. Reviewing "Ext JS 3.0 Cookbook" soon TAGS: Books. Images. JavaScript. Programming. Reading. TECH.
12. Success in 'space elevator' competition TAGS: Engineering. Science. Space. TECH.
13. PUSSYCAT TAGS: Animation. Chill. Crude. NSFW. Quirky. Saucy. Videos. Violence.
14. SVG TAGS: Animation. Cyber Life. Flash. Images. JavaScript. Open Source. Photos. Programming. Standards. SVG. TECH. Videos.
15. Obama to GOP: "Grab a Mop." This is political gold (and we need to use it) (UPDATED w Videos) TAGS: Barack Obama. Politics. Quote. USA.
16. Cherrypicking Illustrated TAGS: Atheism. Faith. Images. Photos.
17. God is not the Creator, claims academic TAGS: Atheism. Books. Faith. Language. Literature. Text.
18. War of the Gargantuas TAGS: Books. History. Language. Literature. Movies. Text. Videos.
19. Macaroni Chicken Salad TAGS: Family. Food.
20. Algorithm and Blues TAGS: Comics. Math. Philosophy. Science. TECH.

Date	Text	Link	Source	Tags	Note
20100208 005639 Z	Abstraction	img12.abload … d043d7dacw9q.jpg	www.reddit.c … abstraction_wtf/	Art, Comics, Images, Japan, NSFW, Saucy	At first you think "O no, it's some awful Japanese sex comic", but then it gets interesting. The Reddit thread has some interesting comments too.
20100205 165411 Z	Laying out SQL Code	www.simple-t … utm_campaign=SQL		Programming, SQL, TECH, Writing	Some good points, but it seems like he's having too much fun!
20100205 012043 Z	Physicist Discovers How to Teleport Energy	www.technolo … log/arxiv/24759/		Cool, Science, TECH	If they're already using entanglement to teleport matter, then the obvious next step is to teleport energy! D'oh!
20100203 170836 Z				Nanotechnology, TECH	The word is out, but I'd like more testing before they go big time.
20100203 165946 Z	New Hearing Aid Uses Your Tooth To Transmit Sound	singularityh … -transmit-sound/	science.slas … Sound?art_pos=43	Gadget, Hardware, SSD, TECH	A non-surgical, non-visibile hearing aid. It's also nice to see them mention Single sided deafness (SSD), or what some call Unilateral Hearing Loss (UHL).
20100201 190158 Z	Analysis of HTML5 Canvas Javascript performance in various browsers for Freeciv.net	code.google. … BenchmarkResults	developers.s … mance?art_pos=72	Browser, JavaScript, TECH, Video Games	So they confirmed what everyone sort of already knew. The fastest browser is Chrome, Safaris is 2nd, Firefox is 3rd, and Internet Explorer 8 is 4th. They're still working to test it on Opera. FYI: I'm still primarily using Firefox because of TreeStyle tabs. I must resist playing FreeCiv.net, lest I lose hours of time!
20100131 042254 Z	The Known Universe by AMNH	www.youtube. … ch?v=17jymDn0W6U		Animation, Beauty, Cool, Space, Videos	A variation of the powers of 10 videos.
20100131 041351 Z	Who says birds don't have feelings?	www.binscorn … ve-feelings.html		Fauna, Images, Inspiring, Nature, Photos, Sad
20100131 035937 Z	Spirit	http://xkcd.com/695/	digg.com/com … tion/xkcd_Spirit	Comics, Engineering, Funny, Sad, Space, TECH	You have to love something that performs well past expectations. Great job Spirit! Great job NASA!
20100131 035727 Z	President Obama Full Q&A	www.youtube. … ch?v=oBuG2TdgMn0	digg.com/pol … e_at_GOP_retreat	Barack Obama, Live Action, News, Politics, USA, Videos	Republican congressmen drilling a Democratic President in public. Whee!
20100130 043515 Z	Richard Dawkins interviews creationist Wendy Wright (Part 1/7)	www.youtube. … ch?v=US8f1w1cYvs	Julia	Atheism, Evolution, Live Action, Politics, Science, USA, Videos	I watched all 7 painful videos. It seems that they agree on the virtue of examination of evidence. They also seem to agree on the humane treatment of people. The difference seems to be that Wright thinks a person's religious belief must influence the certainty of the theory, while Dawkins does not. Knowledge of chemistry, physics, evolution, etc. is objective, testable, open, and separate from ones religious, political, subjective, or ethical point of view. Such objective knowledge can, of course, be used for good or evil, i.e. subjectively applied and interpreted, but that does not change the knowledge itself. Even so, the emotional and spiritual feelings that people have must be dealt with. The woman is clearly pained.
20100129 183342 Z	Tiny Philippine Island is Center of a Crazy-But-True Natural Wonder	www.treehugg … onder.php?page=1	www.boingboi … 28Boing+Boing%29	Cool, Geography, Geology, Philippines	The Philippines has Luzon Island, which has the Taal Volcano which contains Taal Lake, which contains Crater Island, which contains Crater Lake, which has an island called Vulan Point.
20100129 175859 Z	The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures	blog.okcupid … rofile-pictures/	www.reddit.c … re_attracted_to/	Cyber Life, Images, Photos, Psychology	Interesting stats and all, but whether you smile or show off your body or whatever is simply a personal decision.
20100129 175317 Z	On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton	http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.0785	science.slas … Force?art_pos=43	Philosophy, Physics, Science, TECH	This can be quite big. A lot more things may be emergent than I had thought.
20100129 173512 Z	Man in the Dark	http://www.maninthedark.com/		Activity, Animation, Chill, Flash, Kids	The dude follows your mouse! The kids love this one.
20100129 170731 Z	EchoSign	http://www.echosign.com/		Cyber Life, TECH, Work	Interesting mix of physical and digital.
20100129 165650 Z	W3school.com's Historical Browser Statistics	www.michaelv … erVisualization/	www.reddit.c … r_visualization/	Browser, Chart, Cyber Life, Flash	I like the data and I like the presentation.
20100127 175215 Z	Apple announcement 2010-01-27			Apple, Cyber Life	I can't eat lunch until I find out what Apple is up to.
20100127 025430 Z	www.adme.ru - AIDES GRAFFITI	www.youtube. … ch?v=9WPNhlzGoM0	www.reddit.c … ive_advertising/	Ad, Animation, Funny, Live Action, NSFW, Saucy, Sex, Videos	Well done.
20100127 024614 Z	I Don't Even Want To Be Alive Anymore By Rush Limbaugh	www.theonion … want_to_be_alive	digg.com/com … By_Rush_Limbaugh	Funny, Radio, Sad, USA	Rush Limbaugh and Jon Stewart are both infotainers but only the latter is informative and entertaining.

I liked this quite a bit. Here are the principles but they do need some explanation:

• Get Focused: Stop hiding who you really are.
• Get Focused: Start being intensely selfish.
• Be Creative: Stop following the rules.
• Be Creative: Start scaring yourself.
• Use your Wisdom: Stop taking it all so damn seriously.
• Use your Wisdom: Start getting rid of the crap.
• Take Action: Stop being busy.
• Take Action: Start something.

The sites they mention:

• rosettastone.com. Pay.
• tellmemore.com. Pay.
• livemocha.com. Pay later.
• babbel.com. Pay later.
• bbc.com/languages. Free.
• http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,2547,00.html. Free.
• japanese-online.com. Free.
• learn-korean.net. Free.

The /. thread mentions learning via foreign videos (esp. comedies), sites that that interest you, and DVDs with subtitles.

Beautiful, powerful, and well priced. I noticed was that its browser had problems with Flash but they're probably working that out. There's no camera or video camera, but that's minor to my concerns about multitasking and openness. Minimal ports as expected but no USB? I may wait for USB 3. I haven't seen how it works as a plain old computer, as in say directory management. With a $499-$829 price and a 10 hour battery life (with 1 month standby), this should beat most of the eBook readers. While eInk is good for hi-light situations, I find that I often read in lo-light situations. I assume that Amazon and the other eBook sellers will compete with the new iBook Store, and probably make apps for reading their eBooks on the iPhone --one eBook reader to read all the eBook formats. A data plan at $15-$30 per month is reasonable. Now I just want to be able to use it as a phone too so I can ditch my phone (maybe use a Bluetooth wireless headset). It's 9.56" x 7.47" x 0.5", with a 9.7" screen of 1024 x 768 @ 132 ppi, and 1.5#; i.e. it's 242.8 mm x 189.7 mm x 13.4 mm, with a 246 mm screen and 0.68 Kg. I don't think people appreciate intuitive multi-touch enough. No comment on iWorks, other than I don't want another file format. Available in 60-90 days. I assume that they chose to have "Star Trek" as a sample video on purpose.

The studies indicate that some children have difficulty picking up on non-verbal or social cues. ... A second major factor is that some children may pick up on non-verbal or social cues, but lack the ability to attach meaning to them. The third factor is the ability to reason about social problems.

Fascinating. I probably manifest all 3 problems to some degree:

1. I sometimes don't pick up on non-verbal or social cues.
2. If I pick up a potential cue, I have a large margin for epistemological doubt, as in "I can't know for sure".
3. As far as reasoning about social problems, many times the response is "leave them be because they're figuring it out".

It's not that those of us with social problems and introversion are anti-social, but socially handicapped. It's like being stuck in a wheelchair while other people are running around. Exploring this topic should be a high priority for me.

In a time of great human suffering in Haiti, Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson continue to show us what dicks they are.

• Limbaugh, Robertson and Maddow Make Hay of Haiti [http://www.indecisionforever.com/2010/01/15/limbaugh-robertson-and-maddow-make-hay-of-haiti/]. By Jon Stewart.
• Keith Olbermann's Quick Comment about Haiti, Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-PEaWUduCM]
• A Letter to Rush Limbaugh [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100114/OPINION/100119985]. By Roger Ebert.

I caught this in this morning's edition of the Chicago Red Eye paper:

Theft victim stabs robbers on Green Line; 5 charged

Five people face charges related to an attack and robbery of a Forest Park man early Saturday that started as he watched a movie on his IPod while riding on a CTA Green Line train on the West Side, authorities said.

The 26-year-old Forest Park man was robbed 12:55 a.m. Saturday, Police said.

Charged with robbery in the incident were Tommie Bates, Robert Moore, Jaylin Tiggs and Kendalll A. Harris; charged with misdemeanor obstruction of a police officer was Tyeisha Underwood, of the 4400 block of West Congress Parkway, police said.

Bates, of the 5900 block of West Iowa Street, and Moore, of the 5100 block of West Iowa Street, both were hospitalized at West Suburban Medical Center with stab wounds suffered in the attack.

One of the four punched the victim in the face after he was robbed, according to Assistant State's Attorney Angel Essig. The victim then pulled a knife and stabbed at least two of the alleged would-be robbers, she said.

Given that there have been a number of iPod snatchings lately:

Expensive, hip, and small devices that take the victim's attention are perfect for thieves. Please be aware of your surroundings before you get involved in anything that takes your attention. Limit your activity to things that take less of your attention, e.g. a quick text is safer than a gripping story or a long text. Something that involve your eyes (e.g. texting, video, reading) is more dangerous than things that involve your ears (e.g. listening to music). Some folks go so far as to enclose their iPods in the shell of a bulky old walkman.

The victim in this case had a knife, but I think he successfully pulled it off legally because he used it AFTER he was robbed and punched. If he had used his knife before or during the robbery, then the robbers would have had a better chance of legally playing the "victim".

I am often embarrassed to write. The concept of wabi sabi (imperfect, impermanent, incomplete) helps, but feeling or knowing that I could write/think/process better tends to make me not write at all. I have to constantly remind myself that it's better to try and fail, than to never try at all. There are thoughts buzzing around in my head connecting science and morality and global/personal actions, but these thoughts haven't gelled together and they may never gel --especially if I don't write about it. So here goes another one of my free association scribbling sessions.

I'll start with throwing in some of the parts:

• The current United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 [W] (2009-12-07/18) and the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident [W] which I already wrote about briefly.
• Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997) by Jared Diamond.
• Karl Popper [W]
• Charles Darwin, especially The Descent of Man (1871), the source of this quote:

  As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is, before we look at them as our fellow-creatures. Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is, humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. It is apparently unfelt by savages, except towards their pets. How little the old Romans knew of it is shewn by their abhorrent gladiatorial exhibitions. The very idea of humanity, as far as I could observe, was new to most of the Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually becomes incorporated in public opinion.

• Technological singularity [W]
• The loss of our polar ice caps, polar bears, and the great apes.
• The isolation of Cuba: The political, economic, social, and environmental effects.
• Robert Greene with his Machiavellian books on power, seduction, and war.
• My "List" that I started in my post called 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species. I'm going to quickly copy that list here and quickly tack on a few things:
  • Health
  • Education. Wikipedia.
  • Wealth. Trade.
  • Sustainable and Robust. Solar.
  • Maximize Signal-to-Noise Ratio
  • Global. Personal.
  • Tech and Science. Nanotech. Space Elevators.
  • Epistemology
  • Beauty
  • Orange
  • Save history. Build future.
  • Introversion
  • Standards. Metric System.
  • Martial Arts. Fun.
  • Freedom. Tolerance for all but the intolerant.
  • Non-fixation
  • Maximize power as in more work in less time.
  • Math. Statistics.

Acck! Too many lists! I have problems with too many lists, too many quotes, too many qualifications, etc. There are times when I need to just jump to the meat.

One of the things is that while things like morality and sympathy seem warm (as opposed to cold), spiritual (instead of material), etc., such things are actually both. I have always maintained that it is statistically advantageous to be "good" instead of "evil". If you are good, then the society supports you, but if you are bad, then society is against you. Clearly you can do more as an agent of good. The scientists and economists have been working on all sorts of studies and models and tests that seem to support this. This story Social Scientists Build Case for 'Survival of the Kindest' is a recent one that supports that idea too.

There are various related ideas swirling around here:

• There is power in numbers, and vice versa.
• There is power in morality and sympathy, and vice versa.
• There is power in sustainability, and vice versa.
• There is power in luck, and vice versa.
• There is power in variety, and vice versa.

In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond showed that luck (the right mix of geography and local species) allowed some societies to grow in numbers and have variety and laws and technology and art, which translated into powerful civilizations. Volume of numbers is powerful, but so is the genius and uniqueness that can be found at the tail ends of the bell curve. When there is a crisis or a catastrophe, a majority of the populations suffers and sometimes the only salvation is found in the minority, the oddballs, the mutations.

Right now fossil fuels are the cheapest and most accessible source of power. That is an economic fact that is not in doubt. In contrast, what some folks (like Republicans) seem to disagree upon is the degree of danger presented by a fossil fuels. In any case, whether or not you believe that fossil fuels are poisonous and existence-threatening in nature, the fact is that fossil fuels will remain in wide use until something cheaper and more accessible comes along. Given the near-sightedness of people, the issue is one of presentation, non-free market economics and politics. It would be much simpler if it were simply a matter of science, technology, logistics, and free market economics.

In one sense the environmental problem is similar to the Cold War: There is the threat of genocide, but the problem is more political than technological. The difference is that masses believed in the extreme danger of nuclear weapons, but the masses do not believe in the extreme danger of human induced climatic change. Human technological cleverness unlocked the utility found in both nuclear and fossil fuels, but in order to survive the dangers found from both, it's not a matter of human technological cleverness, but a matter of consciousness raising. Saving the planet is not up to scientists and engineers, but up to those who can influence the people: parents, teachers, politicians, artists, and so on.

In case there was any doubt, I want to explicitly state that I do believe that we are indeed in great danger in fossil fuels. Why? Well, although I am a programmer now, my college degree was in Chemical Engineering. We studied chemical reactions yes, but the real thing we studied is simply the bathtub model: Stuff goes in, stuff goes out. Simply put:

• We're putting more carbon dioxide in, than is taken out: The level in the bathtub is rising!
• We're putting catalysts in the system: Catalysts tend to stay and their effect is magnified!

As far as the accuracy and details of the models, the degree of danger, the time frame of the danger, the possible actions, and so on, that's what these scientists who are studying the issue in an open, peer-reviewed manner are doing.

I believe in the fossil fuel danger, but it's not as terrible as nuclear annihilation. We can lose coastlines and ecosystems will change, we can lose species, artifacts, and human lives, but it won't be nuclear winter. Fossil fuels took millions of years to make and accumulate. We've only really started using it for around 150 years and yet we're nearly running out. But we'll adapt to life without natural fossil fuels. The issue is mitigating this stuff, as in coming down soft instead of hard. If I want to "save the world", I'll need to think some more.

Now and then I fall into this laissez-faire attitude. Just let it be; It'll be fine. The numbers will work things out. Morality will be encoded in laws. The concept of tolerance for all (except for the intolerant) will become mainstream. We'll have the trial-and-error of the masses and the geniuses in the tail ends of the bell curve. It will all work itself out. Eventually our artificial intelligence will self-improve and we'll hit The Technological Singularity, so all that's left will be for us to play.

If this is the case, then why wait for the future? Make a living. Interact and care for your family, friends, and planet to whatever degree you're comfortable with. Seek the beautiful. Don't worry. Be happy. All the science, art, technology, philosophy, and so on will advance whether you do anything or not. It won't matter to the rest of us if you're powerful, popular, successful, introverted, extroverted, talented, etc.

Is this all good? Is there anything truly interesting anymore? Is it just a matter of being and then dying? I don't know. I don't care. I may just be too hungry for lunch right now. If you don't eat, then you don't live (or write).

It's been a while since I've done one of my litte free association scribble sessions, so here goes.

Today is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species [W]. It's a good and grand occassion for celebration. I don't mind that Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort are giving away copies of the book with an anti-evolution introduction --the book, the evidence, the testing, and the ideas are simply blow away the stuff that Kirk and Mr. Banana come up with.

I have loved science and the philosophy of science for most of my life. Last month I saw David Deutsch: A new way to explain explanation [http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation.html], a video of David Deutsch talking science philosophy. Good stuff espencially its tie ins to Karl Popper [W].

By coincidence, I've been having an email exchange with my Conservative/Republican/Right-leaning friends. They were trying to slam Hawaiiaan health care with this article: Remember Hawaii's Health Care Lessons [http://sweetness-light.com/archive/lessons-from-hawaiis-health-care-system]. I countered with this email (which has been edited for privacy and formatting):

As is in the lowest costs per beneficiary in the country?

The attached chart is from last month's article: In Hawaii's Health System, Lessons for Lawmakers [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/health/policy/17hawaii.html].

"Hawaii's health care system insures over 95% of residents. Under the state's plan, businesses are required to provide employees who work more than twenty hours per week with health care. Heavy regulation of insurance companies helps keep the cost to employers down. Due in part to the system's emphasis on preventive care, Hawaiians require hospital treatment less frequently than the rest of the United States, while total health care expenses (measured as a percentage of state GDP) are substantially lower. Given these achievements, proponents of universal health care elsewhere in the U.S. sometimes use Hawaii as a model for proposed federal and state health care plans. Critics, however, claim that Hawaii's success is due at least in part to its mild climate and to its status as a chain of islands whose economy is heavily based on tourism: features that make it more difficult for businesses unhappy with paying the plan's premiums to relocate elsewhere."

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii#Health

My brother lives in Hawaii and so does Linda. We can ask them.

Epistemology [W] because there's more than Fox and Rush.

From the responses, at first I thought I went over with the thing about epistemology, so I wrote this:

Sorry if talking about epistemology sound pretentious, but I've been reading about Karl Popper [W] and the philosophy of science, which all ties in to epistemology, as in what distinguishes common knowledge from scientific knowledge? What makes knowledge objective or subjective? How do we know? I think people like stuff that's very objective (science) or very subjective (art), but when things get in between (politics), it gets very muddy. Another important aspect is that somethings that "should" be objective may actually be quite subjective and vice versa. Certainly scientific/objective knowledge isn't everything, but knowing the distinctions between approximating the weight of a thing versus whether you like your weight are interesting to me.

Popper says some interesting stuff about freedom too, which BTW supports fighting: "The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato. Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."

It's all good considering that today is the anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species". It's a theory right? What makes it "better" than say a theory that claims that we were created by Zeus? Knowledge are theories and conjectures, but scientific knowledge is testable and falsifiable.

However, further discussion seemed to indicate that it was actually my quip against Fox and Rush that totally sidetracked what I thought was going to be a discussion about health care. So later on in the email thread I said this:

My exact words: "Epistemology because there's more than Fox and Rush"

My words insult Fox and Rush and those who listen predominantly to them. If you have more sources than Fox and Rush, then you shouldn't be insulted.

You could take the same phrase and replace "Fox and Rush" with a comparable pair of terribly left-leaning sources. Would I be insulted? I don't think so. I for example, don't follow any specific blogs these day.

Hmm. I'm having deja vu. This sounds similar to the race discussion we had a little while ago. Am I really so brusque in my communications? My wife gives me a similar attitude sometimes too. I think we're just talking --and then all of the sudden I'm in trouble. Am I becoming some sort of Archie Bunker?

Ewww. Sorry: I'm over-quoting. Anyhow, it seems that as a species, we can be very good at objective/scientific/mathematical thinking as well as subjective/creative/artistic/magical thinking. We can make great science and great art. What gets me is when they clash poorly or maliciously or both. Religion and politics are the primary examples. Religion and politics can be so inspiring, creative, and constructive for society, but they are often abused, dogmatic, and destructive. It seems to me that the problem is largely political (in the sense of people promoting and protecting their own interests). People squibble about power, resources, time, love, ideas, popularity, money, justice, attention, and so on, but if we could all be less trivial, we could do some really great stuff.

I'm tired of being trivial, of being morose and maroon. I want to do great things, feel great love, think great thoughts, share great wealth, be patient, be "orange", foster the good. It's time to maximize that signal-to-noise ratio. Big bold words, idealistic words. I know, I know. But it's hard to not be so when you watch Hans Rosling: Asia's rise -- how and when [http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_asia_s_rise_how_and_when.html], and you clapping and really believe that India and China and other lagging countries will become first-world countries by 2048! OK, so maybe we'll lose our polar caps and polar bears by then as well, and maybe we'll run out of oil too, but still, there's a lot of good we can do.

Is it such terrible hubris to believe? I love science, but I'm a believer. I believe that we want what's best for our kids, for all the kids, for our race, for our species, for our planet. We may indeed be a flash in time, an effervescent moment, a fleeting arrangement of legos [http://xkcd.com/659/], but oh how we dazzle, oh how bright are those shinging eyes [http://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html].

Pffftt! I can almost hear those Republican friends of mine tell me about drinking the tree-hugging kool-aid. You know what I say?!? FFFFFFUUUUUUUU!!!! Yeah baby! I'm living large! I'm breathing fire! I'm eager for my next CrossFit workout! I'm ready to cross swords! I'm watching too much TED and South Park and Heroes!

Phew. Slow down, slow down. Take it easy. I can breath fire calmly. I have the hubris to save the world. I'll do it Kill Bill style: I'll make a list.

• Health
• Education. Wikipedia.
• Wealth
• Sustainable and Robust. Solar.
• Maximize Signal-to-Noise Ratio
• Global
• Tech and Science. Nanotech. Space Elevators.
• Epistemology
• Beauty
• Orange
• Save history. Build future.

Gaah! It's a crappy list, but it's a start. Time's up: Spell check and post. GO DARWIN!

I liked this part:

Why is it broadly accepted that the elderly should have universal health care, while it's immensely controversial to seek universal coverage for children? What's the difference -- except that health care for children is far cheaper?

An hour long speech by Douglas Crockford of Yahoo, but you can also just read the transcript too. Some very nice stuff in there:

• The floating point battle especially IBM's 754r and Douglas' DEC64 is interesting.
• "Everybody thought that the Java VM was going to be the VM of the internet, but it turns out that JavaScript language is the VM of the internet. People are writing in Java, and Python, and lots of other languages, and then translating it into JavaScript because JavaScript, for all of its security problems, actually has a much better security model than everybody else. The CLR has a terrible security policy, Java has a terrible security policy — JavaScript is better than everybody else."
• The thing about possibly fixing the block scope problem with let and const sounds promising.
• "If you have a great idea, don't tell it to a standards body. They are the last people in the world who should hear about it. What you should do instead is implement it and show it to the world, and if the world likes it then the world will say yeah, that should be a standard. I've seen too many cases where people try to do this in the reverse order, and you don't want to do it that way. Prove it first, prove the need, and then we should put it in the standard."
• "Another thing about standards is getting a lot of people to agree on anything- particularly something good — is a wonderful and valuable thing, and that's a great thing to be a part of."

There's a new book Ext JS 3.0 Cookbook by Jorge Ramon. There are several cool things about this: One is that now there are more than 2 books on Ext JS out there (I already have "Learning Ext JS"). The other cool thing is that the publisher, Packt Publishing [packtpub.com], is sending me a complimentary copy of it so I can review it!

Whoot! The space elevator along with nano and sustainable techs are my fave techs.

LaserMotive has achieved the first step towards the creation of a working space elevator by qualifying for the $900,000 prize in a contest sponsored by NASA.

I know that folks are working on nano cables, but delivering power by laser is really cool too.

The contest will continue for another two days with at least two other teams challenging for the prize. To win the Power Beaming competition, the LaserMotive system uses a high-power laser array to shine ultra-intense infrared light onto high-efficiency solar cells, converting the light into electric power which then drives a motor.

Initially it looks like some Japanese sexed up thing, but really it's zombie/Tarantino type of gore. More stuff like this will probably be posted as Halloween nears. The Reddit thread leads to other similar youtube goodies including the following:

• CHAINSAW MAID
• Bloody Date (version2)
• Green Jello "Little Pig, Little Pig". This one is clamation, but more Western.
• Crazy Clay Wrestling (version2). Not too gory, just more like regular fake wrestling.
• WTF MANCYCLE!!. Weird, gayish, CGI.

It's annoying and vexing that although Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) [W] has been around for 10 years now, it's not implemented in browsers in a standard fashion, especially Internet Explorer. See:

• http://www.carto.net/papers/svg/samples/svg_html.shtml
• http://pms.colonpee.com/svg/ways_to_include_SVG_in_a_web_page.html
• http://www.w3schools.com/svg/svg_inhtml.asp

Until properly implemented, we have to use cheats like embed, object, and iframe in non-IE browsers. IE can show SVG by using stuff like svgweb [http://code.google.com/p/svgweb/] which converts the SVG into Flash. I love Inkscape for SVG images, and there should be more tools for SVG videos, charts, etc.

Ha ha ha! I love it when President Barack Obama hits back. He usually does it in an intelligent and respectful manner too.

What I reject is when some folks say we should go back to the past policies when it was those very same policies that got us into this mess in the first place. (Applause.) Another way of putting it is when, you know, I'm busy and Nancy's busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else's mess --- we don't want somebody sitting back saying, you're not holding the mop the right way. (Applause.) Why don't you grab a mop, why don't you help clean up. (Applause.) You're not mopping fast enough. (Laughter.) That's a socialist mop. (Laughter and applause.) Grab a mop -- let's get to work.

Grab a mop!

You can't tell from the context whether the person with the tatoo knows about the latter verse.

It's a tattoo reading “[Thou] shall not lie with a male as one does with a woman. It is an abomination. Leviticus 18:22″. Who else sees the problem here? Leviticus also forbids tattooing. In the very next chapter.

“Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD. Leviticus 19:28″

I also like the fellow mentioned in the Reddit thread:

Someone at my university has a tattoo that is just a chapter and verse number -- when you look it up, it's the leviticus prohibition on tattooing. Clever.

This makes sense:

Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia. She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate". The first sentence should now read "in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth".

Last night we watched "War of the Gargantuas" (1960) [W], a Japanese giant monster movie that Julia Hernandez saw when she was a kid. It was released in Japan as "Frankenstein's Monsters: Sanda versus Gaira". Interestingly someone in the chain of naming the English version must have been aware of "La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel" [W], which Wikipedia describes as "a connected series of five novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It is the story of two giants, a father (Gargantua) and his son (Pantagruel) and their adventures". Apparently Rabelais invented hundreds of words, some of which entered the French language.

Here's my approximation of the so-called "Chicken Salad" that my mom has made for years. Good for lots of people.

Macaroni Chicken Salad

6 cooked chicken thighs
2 C raisins
3 20 oz cans of pineapple tidbits, drained
1 # boiled potatoes, cubed
2 C mayonnaise
1.5 # macaroni

Piece apart the chicken by hand into bits (diced chicken doesn't cut it). Prepare the other ingredients while the macaroni is cooking. Rinse the macaraoni with cold water. Gently toss all the ingredients together into huge bowls.

A cool comic book. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou

a comic book about the quest for logical certainty in mathematics. The story spans the decades from the late 19th century to World War II, a period when the nature of mathematical truth was being furiously debated. The stellar cast, headed up by Bertrand Russell, includes the greatest philosophers, logicians and mathematicians of the era, along with sundry wives and mistresses, plus a couple of homicidal maniacs, an apocryphal barber and Adolf Hitler.

The Slashdot thread includes a bunch of other good ones too.

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