10 - 2004 | ***Dave Does the Blog

A true Election 2004 story

As I left this office this afternoon, I realized that I’d decided who I was going to vote for president. It wasn’t a decision I was happy with, obviously, but…

As I left this office this afternoon, I realized that I’d decided who I was going to vote for president. It wasn’t a decision I was happy with, obviously, but I’d hit a tipping point over the course of the day’s reading, believing that the consequences of the lesser of two evils’ shortcomings outweighed those of the somewhat-less-lesser of two evils. It just sort of came to me, and I didn’t feel the immediate shrinking back from the conclusion that I’ve felt every other time I’ve made a tentative move toward that decision over the last month or two.

I actually felt slightly tranquil, as though I’d found a position that, though not fully comfortable in, I could live with.

Then I turned on the afternoon news, heard campaign statements made today by the candidate in question, and literally shouted at the radio, “HOW THE FUCK CAN I VOTE FOR A MAN WHO SAYS CRAP LIKE THAT?!”

Oh, well. It was nice while it lasted. Maybe I should just flip a coin, send in an absentee ballot, and go camp out in a cave for the next few weeks.

H-E-double-hockey-sticks

Richard Muller, a believer in and cautionary on global warming, points out new analysis that calls into question one of the major statistical studies that has pointed to rising temperatures…

Richard Muller, a believer in and cautionary on global warming, points out new analysis that calls into question one of the major statistical studies that has pointed to rising temperatures since the coal era began. That study shows a “hockey stick” of steady temps since medieval times, then rising temps over the last century.

But now a shock: Canadian scientists Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick have uncovered a fundamental mathematical flaw in the computer program that was used to produce the hockey stick. In his original publications of the stick, Mann purported to use a standard method known as principal component analysis, or PCA, to find the dominant features in a set of more than 70 different climate records.

But it wasn’t so. McIntyre and McKitrick obtained part of the program that Mann used, and they found serious problems. Not only does the program not do conventional PCA, but it handles data normalization in a way that can only be described as mistaken.

Even if random data is entered into the model, as calculated, it will show an increase in temps.

Muller remains convinced that global warming should be of concern — but is more interested, at this point, in making sure that bad analysis (which can mask as well as exaggerate climatic change) doesn’t pollute the pool of evidence.

f you are concerned about global warming (as I am) and think that human-created carbon dioxide may contribute (as I do), then you still should agree that we are much better off having broken the hockey stick. Misinformation can do real harm, because it distorts predictions. Suppose, for example, that future measurements in the years 2005-2015 show a clear and distinct global cooling trend. (It could happen.) If we mistakenly took the hockey stick seriously–that is, if we believed that natural fluctuations in climate are small–then we might conclude (mistakenly) that the cooling could not be just a random fluctuation on top of a long-term warming trend, since according to the hockey stick, such fluctuations are negligible. And that might lead in turn to the mistaken conclusion that global warming predictions are a lot of hooey. If, on the other hand, we reject the hockey stick, and recognize that natural fluctuations can be large, then we will not be misled by a few years of random cooling.

A phony hockey stick is more dangerous than a broken one–if we know it is broken. It is our responsibility as scientists to look at the data in an unbiased way, and draw whatever conclusions follow. When we discover a mistake, we admit it, learn from it, and perhaps discover once again the value of caution.

How … scientific.

(via GeekPress)

Phone biz

Traveling over to the UK, I need to do something about my phone. My Nokia 8265 is TDMA, which standard is not supported in Europe. I need to convert over…

Traveling over to the UK, I need to do something about my phone. My Nokia 8265 is TDMA, which standard is not supported in Europe. I need to convert over to GSM, which is expanding in coverage here in the US, too.

Which raises what sort of phone to get. I really like the Nokias, but that selection is limited further by what is offered through our company contracts. I’m thinking the Nokia 3120, at this point — I’d like to get one with an integrated camera, but I’m a scosh concerned over some of the security concerns that folks have (and whether I might then, paradoxically, not be able to take it to some places where I need to travel on business). The 3120 is actually smaller than the 8265, with longer battery life.

The more advanced model I’m looking at is the 3200, which has an integrated camera, which would be keen — assuming I didn’t find I was shut out from going places on business because of security concerns. Still, it would be keen, and the dimensions are comparable to what I have right now.

Of course, I’d like to keep my current phone number, but that may not be possible. Stay tuned.

Hello muddah, hello faddah, hello muddah …

In this era of divorce and remarriage and the like, the idea of functionally having multiple parents is not all that new. The idea of biologically having multiple parents, though,…

In this era of divorce and remarriage and the like, the idea of functionally having multiple parents is not all that new. The idea of biologically having multiple parents, though, is a bit more novel …

The technology – which is being developed by a team at Newcastle University – will involve the implanting of the nucleus of an embryo from an affected mother into an egg taken from a donor that has been stripped of its nucleus.

Human eggs carry small spherical or rod-like bodies called mitochondria, which supply energy for the growing foetus. These have their own genes, inherited separately from the child’s main chromosomal genes. Crucially, some mitochondrial DNA is defective and can pass on one of around 50 degenerative diseases. It is thought more than 1,000 children in Britain suffer from diseases caused by defective mitochondria, some ending up with chronic brain disease.

Neurologist Professor Doug Turnbull and embryologist Dr Mary Herbert believe that by implanting the nucleus of an embryo of a mother with defective mitochondria into the egg of a woman with healthy mitochondria, the resultant foetus will be free of the destructive genetic diseases.

Various folk, though, are up in arms over the idea.

But campaigners say it could lead to significant increases in elderly women having children. They also claim it represents an unacceptable step towards the creation of designer babies. ‘By creating a child with three genetic parents, these scientists are taking the first step towards genetic engineering of human beings. That is not a direction in which we should be going,’ said Dr David King, director of Human Genetics Alert.

Patrick Cusworth, of the charity Life, condemned the work, saying it would raise questions as to who would be the real mother. ‘We would also be concerned about the safety of any embryo or child born from this method and worried that the technology could be abused by other scientists for different purposes.’

Certainly there are concerns to be had here — potential risks to children, social issues, and, yes, the ethical questions raised by coming closer to genetic engineering. But the genie never goes back in the bottle, folks. If it can be done, it probably will be done. Address and debate those issues and concerns, yes, but don’t think that they’re going to long stand in the way of the technology. The question is not whether we will face these issues, but how we will face them.

(via BoingBoing)

Earning my pay for the week

One of my two UK employees has decided that he and his wife would like to move to Spain. Indeed, he’d mentioned this as a “where I’d like to be…

One of my two UK employees has decided that he and his wife would like to move to Spain. Indeed, he’d mentioned this as a “where I’d like to be in 3-4 years” kind of thing a little while back, but decided to move up the timetable. Indeed, he’s actually bought a house there, sold his house in Reading, and is getting ready to move.

Which only came out because of my planned trip over to visit him and my other UK staffer.

He’s going to be a couple of hours by rail south of Madrid, which is our only Spanish office, and word from on high is that this is Not Going To Work. So …

I’ll need to pin down when exactly he’s leaving, and determine how that impacts my UK trip. (Does it mean I skip London, does it mean I spend time with the folks he’s been doing some work for, does it mean I scrap the trip altogether?)

I’ll need to figure out how to transition the systems he’s been supporting over to someone else, and how to replace him. (Someone in Reading, to support previous clients? Do an international hire? Or over here? And, if so, in this office, which would be nice, or in another office which might have some other synergies?)

Feh. Not what I needed right now, esp. since I already have a position open elsewhere that I’m having limited luck in filling.

Angst Watch 2004

And make it a triple….

And make it a triple.

Older things in moderation

I’m turning on the “older comment moderation” functionality that MT-Blacklist gives me, in an effort to further thwart comment spammers. For older posts which have not been recently commented upon, any new comments will go into a moderation queue for me to review before they are displayed here.

So there.

Don’t even ask about the naked mole rat …

Katherine loves Kim Possible. Heck, I do, too. Though not quite this way … (Coughs, blows coffee out nose, gasps for breath …)…

Katherine loves Kim Possible.

Heck, I do, too. Though not quite this way …

(Coughs, blows coffee out nose, gasps for breath …)

Anglican disunion

An internal conference of the Anglican Communion has reported to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Lambeth Commission’s Windsor Report is the next distinct escalation in the war of words over…

An internal conference of the Anglican Communion has reported to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Lambeth Commission’s Windsor Report is the next distinct escalation in the war of words over church policy and gays.

The report, published today, called on those in the US Episcopal Church who took part in a “deeply offensive” consecration of a gay bishop to apologise for their actions or withdraw from the Anglican Communion.

[…] In consecrating Bishop Robinson, the report said, the Episcopal bishops ?caused deep offence to many faithful
Anglican Christians.”

“[They] acted in the full knowledge that very many people in the Anglican Communion could neither recognise nor receive the ministry as a bishop in the church of God of a person in an openly acknowledged same-gender union.” The report called for the withdrawal from the communion of those who took part in the consecration if an apology was not forthcoming.

It also invited the Episcopal Church to call a moratorium on promoting any other person living in a same-gender union to the bishopric “until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges.”

“Pending such expression of regret, those who took part as consecrators of Gene Robinson should be invited to consider in all conscience whether they should withdraw themselves from representative functions in the Anglican Communion,” the report said.

I can certainly see, from my own perspective, offering an apology. There is no doubt that the consecration of Bp. Robinson, even if in keeping with the canons of the Episcopal Church (fill in that debate here), was and could have been known to be something that many Anglican Communion leaders and laity would be offended by. The hurt caused by such an action is certainly something to be regretted, and such regrets can be offered without touching on the righteousness of the action involved.

Of course, that won’t satisfy folks who oppose the action, but …

The question, of course, is what this all means. The report can ask for all the apologies and moratoriums and so forth all it wants, but it’s not clear that the Episcopal Church can officially respond as a body until the next General Convention (Summer 2006), though the individuals involved can respond to it. Though Episcopal primate Bp. Frank Griswold has responded to some degree:

Griswold previously expressed regret for the turmoil and withdrew as co-chairman of an Anglican ecumenical body. “We regret how difficult and painful actions of our church have been in many provinces of our communion, and the negative repercussions that have been felt by brother and sister Anglicans,” he said Monday.

He did go on to note:

Griswold said his church was seeking to live the gospel “in a society where homosexuality is openly discussed and increasingly acknowledged.”

“Other provinces are also blessed by the lives and ministry of homosexual persons. I regret that there are places within our communion where it is unsafe for them to speak out of the truth of who they are,” Griswold said.

The report does cover a couple of other bases worth noting:

The Windsor Report also went on to criticise the demonising of homosexuality. It said: “Any demonising of homosexual persons, or their ill-treatment, is totally against Christian charity and basic principles of pastoral care.”

[…] The report also called on conservative bishops who have threatened a breakaway faction to apologise and to affirm their desire to remain within the communion.

The latter is also reported by AP as:

The report also called on conservative bishops — including some from Africa — who have offered to forge relationships with disaffected Episcopal congregations to desist from such activities, apologize and affirm their desire to remain within the Anglican Communion.

It further urged those archbishops and bishops who have intervened with Episcopal churches to seek an accommodation with the Episcopal bishop or bishops involved.

We’ll see how much play that gets in various coverage of the report.

Trifles make perfection

Amazing how something as trivial as, oh, installing a couple of gravity switches upside-down can lead to a $260MM multi-year space probe being smashed to flinders in the Utah desert….

Amazing how something as trivial as, oh, installing a couple of gravity switches upside-down can lead to a $260MM multi-year space probe being smashed to flinders in the Utah desert.

(via Zak)

Spooky

While I certainly defend the right of certain conservative Christians to eschew Halloween this year because it’s on a Sunday, I also defend the right of some folks to call…

While I certainly defend the right of certain conservative Christians to eschew Halloween this year because it’s on a Sunday, I also defend the right of some folks to call it goofy — especially since I agree with the latter more than the former.

“It’s a day for the good Lord, not for the devil,” said Barbara Braswell, who plans to send her 4-year-old granddaughter Maliyah out trick-or-treating in a princess costume on Saturday instead.

Some towns around the country are decreeing that Halloween be celebrated on Saturday to avoid complaints from those who might be offended by the sight of demons and witches ringing their doorbell on the Sabbath.

“You just don’t do it on Sunday,” said Sandra Hulsey of Greenville, Georgia. “That’s Christ’s day. You go to church on Sunday, you don’t go out and celebrate the devil. That’ll confuse a child.”

In Newnan, a suburb south of Atlanta, the City Council decided to go ahead with trick-or-treating on Sunday. In 1999, the last time October 31 fell on a Sunday, the city moved up trick-or-treating to Saturday, which brought howls of protest.

Of course, there is some good news in this:

The patchwork of trick-or-treat zones could work to children’s advantage: Some might go out on both nights to get all the treats they can.

Remarkably enough, some folks have actually figured out a non-confrontational way to deal with this (big duh here):

With so many towns split over when Halloween should be celebrated, many are going with a porch-light compromise: If people do not want trick-or-treaters, they simply turn off their lights, and parents are asked not to have kids knock there. “Most people don’t have a problem with it. It’s a pretty universal compromise, so that’s what we go with,” said Grand Rapids, Michigan, police Lt. Douglas Brinkley.

It’s certainly been universal in every neighborhood I’ve ever lived in. You knock where there’s lights out front, you pass by where there’s not. Some folks don’t do Halloween, others aren’t necessarily at home, others may have run out of treats (never a problem in our household).

I can respect folks who hold the Sabbath (as defined as Sunday) holy, not a day for work or frivolity. It’s not my personal way of following my faith, but it doesn’t harm anyone.

But I guess I really don’t get the “Halloween is the holiday to celebrate the devil” thang. Maybe it was growing up Catholic (a sign of the devil in some of the same quarters, of course), and knowing that 31 October is All Souls Day, hardly a demonic celebration, and that Halloween is itself derived from “All Hallows Eve” (the evening before All Saints Day). Certainly trick or treating never struck me as associated with the devil, just with costumes, candy, and a bit of safe spookiness.

There are those folks who dislike all holidays as frippery, who come from Christian traditions that don’t even “celebrate” Christmas or Easter (or who disagree with the commercialized trappings we’ve layered over them, and thus reject them outright). Again, whatever floats your boat.

But I do long for the day when folks were more worried about razor blades in apples than whether a little girl dressed up like a big purple kitty and going door to door looking for Snickers bars was, in fact, being brainwashed into worshipping Satan. The only likelihood is that she’s going to be brainwashed into worshipping Mars.

Holeee …

We wants it! We wants our RotK Extended Edition! We wants it now!. (via Jack)…

We wants it! We wants our RotK Extended Edition! We wants it now!.

(via Jack)

Weekend (gaming) update

Friday: Ran my IDC game two days early, so that Jackie could be around. All went well, as the group “broke” the module quite nicely and fittingly, and we got…

Friday: Ran my IDC game two days early, so that Jackie could be around. All went well, as the group “broke” the module quite nicely and fittingly, and we got to use a couple of fun FATE mechanics to good effect.

Jackie, alas, did not get an opportunity to blow things up. Though she did a great Leap out of the darkness and take down the guard with a crushing blow to the larynx bit.

Still another session away from finishing this module, though.

Saturday: Ironically, no gaming. Ironic because it was Worldwide 30th Anniversary of D&D Geek-Out Day, or something like that.

Sunday: Generated characters for Doyce’s Dogs in the Vinyard game. This seems like a tremendously fun setting, and the character generation was enjoyable (some great tropes to play with in a “Grimy and gritty paladins of the Old West, or maybe a fictionalized Utah” setting). The conflict resolution mechanic seems sound, but lengthy (some of which will, of course, come more naturally with practice, but I’m concerned it will still dominate roleplay overly much).

I look forward to some actual Walking into town and seein’ what’s what play.

Marital rights

For those who think gay couples want “special rights” — or that they can simply form contracts to simulate marital rights without getting legal marriage recognition — or who think…

For those who think gay couples want “special rights” — or that they can simply form contracts to simulate marital rights without getting legal marriage recognition — or who think it should be just up to the states to decide it because, after all, marriage is a state thing — here’s a sobering review of exactly what being married ensures on a federal level. And what, therefore, is not available to committed, monogamous gay couples who are married in all but legal name.

The GAO in 1997, with the passage of DOMA, identified 1,049 federal laws and regulations related to marital status.

We’re not talking special rights here, folks. We’re talking special lack of rights (and, as well, obligations).

(via kottke)

The Ad Graveyard

An amusing collection of ads that never made it past the client. I particularly like the one with the Cigarette-Smoking Man touting milk. In a number of cases, the “story…

An amusing collection of ads that never made it past the client. I particularly like the one with the Cigarette-Smoking Man touting milk.

In a number of cases, the “story behind the cancellation” is the best part (e.g., the rejected ad for Stephen King’s Langoliers mini-series).

(via BoingBoing)

Team America World Police

I am not a South Park fan, though I enjoyed the movie well enough. Still, I was eager to see TAWP, based on both my love adventure flicks (especially the…

I am not a South Park fan, though I enjoyed the movie well enough. Still, I was eager to see TAWP, based on both my love adventure flicks (especially the old Thunderbirds series) and based on the bits I saw at the San Diego Comic-Con. Margie decided to watch after Katherine, instead, and, so, off I went, meeting Doyce at the theater.

The movie appropriate has the dual tag lines, “Putting the ‘F’ Back in Freedom” and “Freedom Hangs by a Thread!” If you’re looking for ostensibly adult dialog coming from technically proficient but (intetionally) poorly handled marionettes, this is your movie. There are, in fact, a lot of funny bits in TAWP. The better ones send up one or another trope of action flicks and the Anderson Supermarionation shows, or lampoon some of the blind attitudes that characterize the “dicks,” “pussies,” and “assholes” of the world regarding the War on Terror (as explicated in a marvelously amusing speech near the end.)

A goodly percentage of the humor, though, and not surprising in a Trey Parker production, relies on simple shock value, “I can’t believe they’d say/do that” sorts of moments. It’s a form of humor with limited utility, and by the time this film winds down, I found my own outrage circuits more than numbed — which meant some of those bits had gone from shockily humorous to simply nasty or gross or pointless. You can only go over the top so long before it gets it gets passé. And judging from the scattering of laughter and groans in the movie audience, I wasn’t the only one feeling that way.

Which isn’t to say that I particularly regret having invested the time to watch this Trey Parker/Matt Stone flick. There is a lot of seriously funny stuff here, some of it remarkably subtle, much of it set to music (the “Montage” tune is alone worth the price of admission). And they are able to get away with a lot because of their willingness to lampoon and offend anyone (I can easily think of a dozen interest groups, including the Screen Actors Guild, which will not be offering the film makers any awards this year, and I strongly advise them to not travel to or near North Korea any time soon). But it all gets to be a bit much (I mean, you can poke fun at Tim Robbins and Alex Baldwin only so long, even if you do a great job of it). Indeed, I suspect the film would have been better about half an hour shorter, edited a bit more rigorously for the bits (even the outrageous and grotesque ones) that were really funny, and not just exercises in sniggering self-indulgence.

This is probably one for the rental bin (and with some friends with you and some beers in you), though I suspect it will get plenty of quotation action in the coming years.

Graphic

Hey, kids! Comics! Or, at least, graphic novels of lated added to the collection….

Hey, kids! Comics! Or, at least, graphic novels of lated added to the collection.

Continue reading “Graphic”

I’d hoped this would help

It’s the President Match game. I dislike the “No Opinion” (vs “Conflicted Opinion” or “The question oversimplifies the issue into a simple statement”) phrasing. I like that you could then…

It’s the President Match game.

I dislike the “No Opinion” (vs “Conflicted Opinion” or “The question oversimplifies the issue into a simple statement”) phrasing. I like that you could then weight the different types of questions/policy areas — but I discovered that the weighting really didn’t make that much difference in my final analysis, which seemed odd (indeed, ratcheting up the “Security/Foreign Policy” slider to either extreme only affected things a percent or two, which is very odd given my responses and the two candidates).

For what it’s worth, I came up Kerry meeting 53% of my criteria, Bush 36%.

Hrm.

Jäger, meister!

My RSS (etc.) aggregator, BlogMatrix Jäger, has issued a new release, which includes the much-clamored-for features of Podcast reception and synchronization with Bloglines. Well, no, I hadn’t clamored for either…

Ask Mr. Unsolicited Advice about Home Tech Support!

Mr. Unsolicited Advice is a new feature here at Dave Does the Blog, even though Dave will eventually retcon some previous entries to use him. We hope you enjoy this…

Mr. Unsolicited Advice is a new feature here at Dave Does the Blog, even though Dave will eventually retcon some previous entries to use him. We hope you enjoy this new feature, and don’t forget to tip your waiters.

Dear Mr. Unsolicited Advice,

What’s the best way to really impress my wife with my L33T HAXX0R tech support skills?

Sincerely, Oafish in Ohio

Be sure, when upgrading software on your wife’s PC, to ignore any open documents she has in other windows, and let them be lost when you inevitably reboot the system. Not only will this devil-may-care attitude really catch her attention afterward, but it will remove any distractions from your L33T HAXX0R preening.

Oh, if you can time it so that it happens when she’s had a really crappy day after a stressful week at the office, and make sure that one or more of the documents that’s open is something work-related that she’d spent substantial time earlier in the evening working on, you can rest assured that she will have many well-deserved words to express just how she feels about your efforts!