Friday, December 16, 2005

Why MySpace?! Also Kids dumber than Chimps...

There has been a serious swelling of people involved in the social networking site myspace.com, and I am seriously perplexed as to why. I have been involved in a social networking site for about 2.5 years now (Friendster) but all of a sudden everyone and there mothers are on myspace. I've asked people "but what about Friendster, they were around for awhile before any of these other sites (myspace, facebook) were out and now they get no love". Most answer I see center around myspace more mature themed site, although I don't know how that's possible since the site and service is nothing more than the members that make it up, somehow I guess more "adults" have gotten on myspace making it the more adult networking site. Bah I say, friendster was and is still awesome. At the behest of my friends however I jumped onto myspace and created a profile and have not been back since. To create my profile I simply cut and pasted my friendster profile over to the appropriate myspace categories. I think I am just bitter because it was hard enough wasting time on Friendster but now there is another site that I should, in theory, keep up to date and checking. These sites are great things to fill some dead time at work or at home when one is bored, but my plate is full of such sites and it seems I cannot possibly keep up with all of them. I see why people who just report on goings on in the "blogosphere" even have a job.

In other news, I just finished an article about
Children versus Chimps with regards to learning and imitation. RTA for more details. The short story, Kids imitate to learn while chimps look at the end goal and do what it takes to get to the solution. The article tries to explain why learning by imitation is not only better or at least not worse than the chimp method, but also what makes us uniquely human. I really don't have much background in child psych or psych in general, but at face value I can't see how this experiment demonstrated learning by imitation to be a superior method. After you read the article, leave a comment and tell me what you think. This just seems like humans are hard wired to do what they see all the time and not look at what their actions are actually achieving.

Its funny that I should read this
article only a few days after I saw the movie "S1MONE" which had oodles of potential but ultimately was not that great of a movie (it might have had something to do with the contrast between the idea of a digital actor and 42" LCD screens and the computer the sim was on still having and using a 5 1/4" floppy drive). Apparently we are not so far off of a S1mone-esque reality where digital actors can actually be used. This article is total fiction but it is done well, and with the pace of technology these days, I guess this is not so far off.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Isn't It Random?!

First, check this thing out.

Yes it is for real. It's an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) reader that prints on your toilet paper. I think this is a little much. I mean I love tech, Most things that could be teched out should be, but Toilet paper. The best is apparently you can get a seat cover that can identify you by your weight and ass print and print out your feeds specifically. Out of control. Well now you can wipe your ass with the latest CNN Bush Poll Numbers, literally.

In the latest news about how the Army of Crazed Christians have been offended, they have picked their overlord GW Bush as their next target. Bush in an effort to not offend anyone has been sending out Christmas Cards that use the phrase "Happy Holidays" versus "Merry Christmas". I get what GW is trying to do, its actually pretty noble. It's difficult to keep track of everyone various religious affiliations so he sends out a message that works for all holidays. You would think that the people who are lambasting him for his caving in to liberal notions would applaud him for trying to be so understanding and tolerant of others, as is the Christian way as I understand it. Nope, they are just pissed that they and the holiday that they celebrate is not singled out as better than everyone else's. I mean its not good enough that the entire nation takes off to honor a holiday that is very non-secular and that the entire country goes into a totally different mode to celebrate it, they must have all the cards they get point to it and no other holiday that maybe happening at the same time and that other people might be celebrating. Isn't this just a bit selfish. To take a step back and look at the big picture and realize that some people might be offended by a "Merry Christmas" card is too much for them. Personally I celebrate Christmas and am not Christian and would not be offended by a Merry Christmas card, but some people would and I commend GW (take note, this is one of the few time this is going to happen) for trying to be all inclusive here.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad and all the other good stuff out there. And remember folks, Chris died for your sins... (you really have to see that Show "Weeds" to appreciate that one)

Thursday, December 01, 2005

The Teenager Whistle...

Greetings from beyond everyone, it has been a few weeks since my last entry but I have returned. Blogs are really funny things, you can be all about them and write in them all the time, but skip a week and its just as easy to skip four more, I honestly don't know what it is. I also don't get paid for this or anything so the only thing compelling me to write is my willingness to have the public eye on my words, perhaps to get some feedback, mayhaps not. Anyway, on with the show...

I read something today that really shocked me, more because someone actually had the idea rather than it actually working. This article comes from CNet, but takes place in Wales where teenage loitering is SO rampant that this guy has come up with a High Frequency Teenager whistle that emits a high frequency sound people under 20 can here, but people over 30 find inaudible, supposedly. This is not an exact science here, even though its proven that you lose your ability to hear high frequency sounds as you grow older, the change is pretty slow going so its not like one day you wake up and your immune to high frequency sounds. The idea is innovative though and supposedly works. RTFA, there are some pretty choice quotes in there.

And another update in the battle that is Intelligent Design. In this story a couple is suing UC Berkeley because they believe a website that seeks to explain envolutionary theory to students favors one religion (The religion of evolution??) over others (I did not know evolution was a religion). This couples says that the web site which speaks about other religions and there ability to co-exist with the theory of evolution is improperly swaying students to accept evolution as true when it most certainly has many flaws. I love this shit, this has now gotten to a point where a couple is calling evolution itself a sort of religion and bashing it because it is promoting itself over other religions. If you read this I am sure you will be confused because the whole notion makes no sense.

I recently read an article in Harpers magazine that talks about how ID proponents are using persuasive and definitive left wing arguments to support the idea of ID. Using phrases like knowledge and understanding is never ever set or steadfast and that it must always be challenged, they say the argument for ID CANNOT be thrown out because of the necessity to have differing viewpoints in the academic circle. This is a very compelling argument, but it is really knocked on its head when the author of the article points out that when scholars and men made these statements it was implicit that the arguments brought to challenge whatever theory it was going to challenge would have validation from the peers that were in discussion of the theory in question. Basically if you want to refute a theory by putting it up against another one, the theory that you bring with you cannot be seen as ludicrous and a waste of time by the people that are involved in the debate. This would seem obvious to most rational people without an agenda.

I wrote in a post a long time ago that I also had a theory of evolution that involved us coming from a super intelligent race of sea monkeys. If I raised this as a real theory opposing evolution I would be laughed at, things might even be thrown. Before you say that my theory and ID are vastly different, take a close look at both of them. Neither have any substantial proof and are based on speculation and fantasy. I am not trying to knock any religion or its story of creation, but once you put things into the context of scientific theory you open yourself up to a whole lot of examination that many semi valid theories cannot withstand, much less the theory of ID or Seamonkeyism.