Archive for March, 2008
Human-Aided Search Dies
ChaCha, a human-guided search engine closed its doors on the human end today in favor of their newer mobile search product.
Judging from the image to the right (snagged from TechCrunch), they made a good decision, though not near soon enough.
Apparently this company hasn’t been doing so well in the eyes of the great anonymous internets. In all honesty, I just wanted to post that image.
Via: TechCrunch.
Pamelia Kurstin’s TED Performance
Could she be any cuter?
All crushing aside… that’s really impressive control over a very difficult instrument. I’ve attempted to play a theremin a couple of times and can tell you she makes it look easier than it is by many orders of magnitude. I couldn’t imagine playing music that emotional and keeping that still at the same time. There’s no way I could do it. I move too much just playing single hand melodies.
Via: TED.
Slow Lizard. Fast Evolution.
Experts say New Zealand’s “living dinosaur,” the Tuatara, is evolving faster than any animal studied to date.
New Zealand’s “living dinosaur,” the tuatara, hasn’t changed its look in millions of years. But the reptile is actually evolving faster than any other animal studied so far, new DNA analysis reveals.
Via: National Geographic News
Carl Sagan Saw The Stars
He asked what they were and they said, “They’re lights in the sky, kid.” But that wasn’t what he wanted to know. Carl Sagan saw the stars. He found out what they were and then he showed them to me. And my life was never the same again.
If You Say Something Positive
You see, if you say something positive like the whole of life – all living things- is descended from a single common ancestor which lived about 4,000 million years ago and that we are all cousins, well that is an exceedingly important and true thing to say and that is what I want to say. Somebody who is religious sees that as threatening and so I am represented as attacking religion, and I am forced into responding to their reaction. But you do not have to see my main purpose as attacking religion. Certainly I see the scientific view of the world as incompatible with religion, but that is not what is interesting about it. It is also incompatible with magic, but that also is not worth stressing. What is interesting about the scientific world view is that it is true, inspiring, remarkable and that it unites a whole lot of phenomena under a single heading. And that is what is so exciting for me. – Richard Dawkins
I prefer to savour the mystery
“I’m not going to so my maths homework. Look at these unsolved problems. Here’s a number in mortal combat with another. One of them is going to get subtracted. But why? What will be left of him? If I answered these, it would kill the suspense. It would resolve the conflict and turn intriguing possibilities into boring old facts.”
“I never really thought about the literary possibilities of maths.”
“I prefer to savour the mystery.” – Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes
Man’s Quest To Get De-Baptised
At first glance this seemed quirky and worth a snicker. But then I thought about it. Doesn’t the act of a de-baptism give some form of validation of belief in the baptism itself? As if the act of water-boarding babies does anything at all aside from being a traumatic experience and costing them in therapy bills later in life.
I don’t know why they wouldn’t do it though. I’m actually surprised the church wasn’t willing to … for a fee or donation, that is.
I’m sure this will be seen as an inspiration to others as well as good publicity for us. A man divorcing his religion. I’m just all too aware of how the creationists and other looneys like to spin stories in their favor.
I don’t know… maybe we should all request de-baptisms… Start a movement.
Fitna Removed Following Threats To LiveLeak Staff
Looks like Fitna, that short film I posted about Sat. has been pulled from LiveLeak due to a claimed “barrage of threats”.
In place of the video, LiveLeak has posted a brief message:
Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature … LiveLeak has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.
This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support.
I understand these people can be horrid and violently threatening, but there must come a time when we stop being cowards and start standing up to them. A time when we all band together and start threatening them ourselves to take down their socially-poisoning religious videos with our superior science and technology. ”Take em’ down or we’ll start making black holes in your offices.”
Hebes Chasma in 3D
This amazing 3D image of the Hebes Chasma, a mountainous area inside the deepest canyon on Mars, has been generated using high definition images taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express orbiter.
I’m constantly in awe over images like this. Truly breathtaking. That’s science for you.
Via: Universe Today
Death By Particles?
Most likely not… however, Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, reports
Two men are suing to stop the LHC from being switched on, saying it may be dangerous and might even destroy the Earth
As Phil states in more detail than I care to take here, there are two threatening possibilities regarding the work to be done by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). One, it creates a black hole that.. well you know what black holes do. And two, it generates what’s called a quantum strangelet, a little quantum doo-dad that does nothing but convert normal matter into more strangelets. The fear is that they’ll start up a massive chain reaction of matter-to-strangelet conversions, eventually converting the entire universe.
First, relax. The chances of a black hole are minimal due to Hawking radiation effect, that says they would just evaporate instantly. And as far as the strangelets, a study a few years ago by physicists at MIT, Yale, and Princeton points out that..
… higher energy particles hit the Moon all the time. If strangelets could be created in this way, the Moon would have converted to a big ball o’ strangelets billions of years ago.
So, no worries. But if you want a little more info, check out Phil’s evaluation of the situation.
Via: Bad Astronomy.
Some Are Just Disgusting
PZ Myers pointed out this little documentary on Islam’s attempted domination of the world. I tend to agree with PZ regarding the general comparative religion education in schools but I disagree with leaving some out (if that’s what was implied). Scenes like this add vital fuel to the fire against such disgusting acts and 1st century ideas.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3369102968312745410
Via: Pharyngula
Richard Dawkins – Beware The Believers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaGgpGLxLQw
No, I did not create this video (as someone posted in the Pharyngula comments) … It was created by RandomSlice Michael Edmondson on behalf of the Expelled filmmakers.
UPDATE: Simon Owens has a brief interview with Edmondson on the artist’s intentions behind the short viral video and its sequel.
Clifford Stoll’s TED Talk
We’re All Expelled
We’re all Expelled Here you are… your 83rd Skeptic’s Circle. Brought to you by cdesign proponentist Ben Stein!
Expelled… Exposed.
If you haven’t heard about the bundle of idiocy that is the creationist propaganda documentary Expelled or the debacle that resulted from a public screening, then I direct you here, here and here. And when you’re done shaking your head at the fact that junk like this actually makes it onto theater screens, head on over to the fabulous Dr. Eugenie Scott’s web site, Expelled Exposed, completely devoted to dispelling myths from the movie. Me thinks we need to print up some brochures with that URL and hand them out to folks leaving the theaters.
