Archive for the 'Thoughts' Category
I usually have no desire to read YouTube comments whatsoever, but recently realised this means I have been oblivious to those on my own uploads. Today, out of curiosity, I sorted them by “most discussed” and was genuinely astounded to find a flame war to the tune of 157 comments has been raging on Dawkins’ interview with Deepak Chopra.
So of course I couldn’t help myself but to read a few. And this very quickly snowballed into me skimming through the whole lot. Now, I know there is a stigma out there about YouTube comments, but reading them all was actually pretty interesting.
No, really. Stay with me here…
Interesting in the “I am observing the humans demonstrate their primal instinct of fear” kind of way. Quite poignantly, the comments reflect what we see in the video itself: while discussions questioning people’s beliefs have the potential to be rigorous intellectual debate, they inevitably degrade into insults and defensive remarks. This observation is what prompted me to upload the clip in the first place.
The behaviour of irrationally defending one’s beliefs is entirely understandable as an instinctive response to protect the safeguards one has erected to protect against fear, but this doesn’t make it justified. We suppress our instincts on a daily basis, so should have the ability to transcend them for the purposes of objective analysis.
Some of my favourite comments:
“Science may be a little ‘arrogant’ but time will prove that science has every right to be arrogant.”
“Dawkins isn’t a fundamentalist because he knows what it would take to change his mind.”
“Science will be the end of humanity if anything will be”
“Why should we ‘atheists’ find evidence of a god? We are not the ones making the claim that there is a god.”
“Their brains are so closed, it’s unbelievable. Eat Dawkins’ shit.”
“I would liken Dawkins to a dung beetle not an ant.”
One final point worth considering. Chopra’s exploits and abuse of scientific terms aside, aren’t his spiritual ideals simply reflecting what humans have been doing throughout all of history? Back when our scientific knowledge was much more limited, we developed supernatural or spiritual explanations for phenomena we couldn’t adequately explain through science.
I’m starting to think this is not as simplistic as “Chopra is a nutjob and science is infallible.”
…Nah, I still think he’s a nutjob.
I read an article in The Age about employees committing suicide then their family saying GPS trackers in work vehicles were a contributing factor.
Employers are fitting out their fleets of company cars with invasive GPS tracking systems despite claims the technology unnecessarily invades staff privacy and contributed to the suicide of a Telstra linesman last year.
What the?
I know there are companies putting trackers in their fleet vehicles. Some even do it without telling their employees, and that I have a problem with. But when the employees know a tracker is there, what’s the problem?
Personally, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I have been wanting trackers in our work cars for ages. For one, it would mean an end to filling out that stupid log book. And to people forgetting to fill it out, and filling it out incorrectly, etc. And secondly, I know there are people that do abuse the resource, and this would put a stop to that.
The fuss seems to be about invasion of privacy and lack of employer’s trust for employees. But there need to be allowances for this resource to be used with flexibility. How flexible is the employer willing to be with their vehicles, and how they allow their employees to use them? The problems arise when you get draconian employers using minute details in the data in unfair ways.
An employer that respected their employees would develop some simple software to examine the data collected and find obvious patterns of abuse, then take appropriate action against the abusers. They would also clearly state their policies on vehicle use, and any thresholds that would constitute abuse. These policies would be developed in consultation with employee representatives, aiming towards a fair balance between flexibility and efficient use of company resources. For example, employees could be allowed to stop and pick up milk on the way home, etc.
Our company’s policy states that stops of less than 30 minutes during a journey do not need to be recorded in the log book. So an employer’s policies would need to reflect those they had before trackers were introduced. When employers learn to respect their employees and reflect this in their policies, devices like GPS trackers would not cause as much upset and may even be welcomed.
Update 16/8: Added quote from article.
A while ago I came across Phojoe, a site offering age progression photos. Some of them are pretty darn spectacular. They admit on the site that the process is really more of an art form, rather than a strict science in the forensic sense. With this in mind, one of the testimonials caught my eye.
My son wanted to be a Professional Baseball Player…Phojoe, I am so pleased with the photo, please go ahead and send them. I can’t express to you what an amazing gift your service is, especially to a grieving parent. You’ve helped to answer one of the many “what if’s” I’ve had since I lost my son. Thank You again, so very much. Gratefully,
Allison P - Jamestown, SC
This quote almost got me a bit choked up. Try reading it when it’s sitting right under the photo of her son, who looks about 5 years old. Now I’ll try and say this next bit without sounding too heartless…
The age progression is basically a fantasy; an artist’s impression of what could have been. While it looks convincing at first glance, if you look closer, the eyes have changed from brown to blue and the nose looks quite different. It’s not a stretch to imagine this as a stock photo, or a composite of stock features. So it puzzles me how such a fabrication has the power to bring relief to a grieving mother. Maybe I don’t get it because I don’t have kids of my own.
In addition to the traditional website, many news and blog publishers offer their articles in content-only formats called “feeds”, and more people are using feed readers to view this content. This means users are visiting the actual websites less and less. Has the rise of feeds had the effect of devaluing web design? Have we become so obsessed with instant access, no-nonsense content that we’d prefer to read our news in the blandest of surroundings, caring little for the actual presentation? Or have we just shifted our focus towards the content, rather than away from design? Would that be so tragic? Is web design really that important?
Continue reading ‘The Web’s feeding frenzy’
As I watch John Howard concede defeat but not without inserting a good swag of sentimentality, I realise that we’re headed for a change of government in Australia. I’ve been watching ABC’s coverage on and off tonight and one broad attitude seems to be prevailing as the chief cause of the swing toward Labor, and that’s the “it’s time” factor. For a while towards the end of the election campaign, I was starting to worry that Aussies would get the last minute jitters and give in to the Coalition’s “strong economy” fear campaign. But they didn’t, and for that I’m thankful.
I don’t have a huge problem with the Howard government, but one obvious factor stands out as indicative of an underlying agenda with mildly malicious undertones. It reared it’s head like a dormant serpent in 2006 after the 2004 election saw the Howard government win the balance of power in the senate. It’s as if Work Choices had always been lurking there in the back of Howard’s mind, just waiting for an opportunity to force industrial relations reform completely unopposed. Is it just me, or does that just seem a bit tyrannical? As the full “potential” of Work Choices became apparent, it seemed obvious it was designed to take away worker’s rights rather than achieve anything else.
I’d like to think the swinging Aussies felt this too, and didn’t like it. I’m sure there are other factors, but I’m willing to call this election lost on the basis of Work Choices alone. That is to say that if it hadn’t been introduced, the Coalition would have retained government. That aside, I personally feel the current government has been in power for too long, and that Labor has finally got its act together, found a decent leader and deserves the victory.
I had no idea there was such an anti-mouse following out there. But it makes sense really. I blame excessive and probably improper use of the mouse for screwing my whole right side, especially my shoulder and back. I had a theory that it was just due to overall right-hand dominance but I’m not sure that’s the cause. Lately, as soon as I assume the “mouse position” it only takes about 5 minutes for things to get uncomfortable. I’m starting to realise like some others out there, that the mouse is far from being the most ergonomically designed peripheral out there.
I recently switched to a Laser Mouse 6000 but I think it’s actually less ergonomic than my old IntelliMouse which was the best mouse I’ve ever used, but had the unfortunate time induced flaw of spontaneously double clicking when you just single click. I don’t like the Laser Mouse as much because they shrunk the back and forward buttons and moved them away from where my thumb actually is. I used to be able to instantly click the back button and it was greatl mapped to undo in some apps, and to reload in FPS games. But those extra milliseconds of “seek time” have made the smaller back button useless now. OK, so I’m not a hardcore gamer or anything, but it feels easier to reach for the backspace key in Firefox rather than use the puny mouse buttons for “Back”.
A while back, to try and ease my mouse woes, I swapped mouse hands and tried to use the keyboard as much as possible. It was OK for a while, but my productivity is not great left-handed, and I would instinctively switch back to the right hand without even realising it. But there’s another problem with the right handed mouse.
I’ve always thought the standard keyboard is a bit ridiculous for a right-mouse-handed person. I look at it and just think “does not compute.” I know the numpad is on the right because it speeds up numerical data entry if you’re right handed. I much prefer to type numbers on the numpad, especially things like IP addresses. But you want the main alphabet section directly in front of you, but if you do, the numpad and arrows etc. that eat up all your right hand space where the mouse should go. A solution would be a keyboard with a numpad on the left or a detachable numpad that you could put back on the right for extended number crunching.
But alas, the problem of the unergonomic mouse remains. There are some new ones out there, even some sideways ones which might be better. But I don’t really want to shell out $100 or more for a mouse that might be just as crap or worse than my current one. Maybe I should just use the Wiimote, although accuracy could be a problem. (Link note: Cool, but wouldn’t connecting via Bluetooth be simpler?)
Sorry to disappoint, but it’s not evil bunnies making Andrew Hansen burst into controversial song. Instead, I hypothesise a more plausible explanation for the recent Chaser shenanigans.
The Chaser have again made the headlines, this time for Taylor’s Eulogy Song, which criticises how we forgive celebrities’ indiscretions after their deaths. Calling Princess Diana a slut seemed to cross the line. My knee-jerk reaction was similar to the reactions of the tabloid media. For the past few days I’ve been frustrated trying to understand what could possibly motivate such distaste. It seems like it’s just been done for shock value. Or possibly to just see how much they can push the boundaries without getting kicked off the ABC.
But last night, another theory came to me. Recently, The Chaser team have seen an increase in popularity, mostly due to their recent APEC stunt which received widespread media coverage. They pride themselves on satirising mainstream media. But what would happen if The Chaser themselves became mainstream? We certainly couldn’t have that. So every now and then, they come out with a tasteless sketch as a correctional measure. This alienates a portion of their audience, thus restoring the equilibrium.
Despite this revelation, I was still pretty angsty about the whole affair, until I read the News Ltd articles linked above, immediately followed by an article from a real newspaper which begins:
“When the ABC’s most popular television program, The Chaser, declared war on some of Australia’s most revered dead people on Wednesday, the national broadcaster received only six calls, three for, three against.
I felt immediately enlightened. Certain media outlets have a powerful ability to blow events out of all proportion, feeding off the self-perpetuated sensationalism. Then there are others, that report the facts in an unbiased way. It has renewed my boycott of News Ltd and restored my faith in quality journalism - it’s still out there.
This week I’ve had a few random thoughts. Observe, as I now proceed to dump them ungracefully into a single post.
- Achievement: I got my full licence. Yay! Ritualistic destruction of P plates successfully completed.
- Annoyance: Drivers who overtake when you’re travelling at the speed limit and then leave a 0.5 second following gap. If you’re gonna overtake, get away from my car! Don’t force me to slow down and create the safe following gap.
- Theory: David Duchovny is only doing that show to make himself appear less old. And possibly to offset Mulder’s extreme sexlessness.
- Suggestion: Tony Robinson should start a new show called “Passion 101.” I wouldn’t say I’m hugely fascinated by history but his pure unrestrained zeal could turn anyone into an anthropoligist.
- Ambition: To sell several random bits of junk on eBay before the end of the year.
- Hope: So there are still some creative computing projects out there.
- Desire: This and this (still) and one of these.
- Procurement: This and one of these.
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